With Wilfred Fizzlebang dead at the hands of his own minion, Lord Jaraxxus, and with the Demon-Lord and the Northrend Beasts safely behind them, the raid can move on to their next challenge, the Faction Champions.
If the raid is Horde, they will fight Alliance champions, and vice versa. In 10 man, six random champions will spawn, and in 25 man it will be ten the raid has to face.
The Faction Champions - A General Overview
The champions can take the form of any of the classes and talent specs than any player in the game can have, and the thing that makes them stand out from other bosses is they act as though they were player characters, rather than NPCs.
This means that they will often "drop aggro" and switch targets to a healer, a particularly high damage dealer, or simply a random raid member, regardless of how much threat the tanks are generating. It can be a frustrating fight, especially since the champions will also use common character abilities such as Bloodlust and also each carry a trinket which allows them to get out of fear or a stunning effect.
Further, any AoEs used on the champions are reduced in effect by 75%. This means that skills like Rain of Fire, Blizzard, or a Magma Totem are a bad choice.
The Champions will also use "crowd control" skills on the raid including Polymorph, Blind, and Fear. It is a good idea for the raid to equip at least a PvP trinket, if not switch to a PvP spec and gear entirely.
While the damage dealers in the raid will need to focus fire on a single target, it is good to use multiple Tanks to taunt and generally annoy different Champions. If the entire raid focuses on one target, the Champions will do the same, and with their greater health and damage, raid members will fall more quickly than Champions.
The Faction Champions - Who to Kill First
The biggest problems with the Champions encounter come from their healers. They are, in order of the most to least dangerous – Resto Druid (tree), Resto Shaman, Holy Paladin and Discipline Priest. If the raid gets a Resto Druid as an opponent, it should always be the first to die.
The only exception to this rule is if the raid has a good warlock who can keep the Druid banished while another target is killed. Bear in mind, however, that Banish is subject to diminishing returns, so after 3 banishes, the Druid will be immune to that skill for 15 seconds. The raid needs to be fast for this to work.
If the raid is simply going to burn the Druid down, several things need to happen. First, the Druid needs to be purged or dispelled continuously,to prevent his HoTs from fully healing him, as rejuvination, for example, heals for 50k per tick. Second, someone needs to be interrupting his spell casting, and third, other raid members need to be interrupting the other Champion healers to prevent the Druid from being healed that way.
Once one Champion is down, the fight becomes much easier. One three of six or five of ten are down, the fight becomes quite simple. After the Druid, the next target has to be the Resto Shaman. He will gain a powerful "Earth Shield" buff which needs to be dispelled, and also drops very powerful totems. These totems need to be killed, but also have to be single targeted by a raid member. They will not die due to AoE, and "tabbing" will not work to find them. A player must see one, click on it, and destroy it or else the Shaman will be a far tougher fight than need be.
Next is the Holy Paladin. Interrupt the heals and if possible, have an Arms Warrior ready with a Heroic or Shattering throw to break the Pally's bubble when it happens. Last of the main healers is the Disc Priest. Interrupt the heals, watch out for fear and this is simple.
Once the healers are dead, the raid can move on to the damage dealers. There is no particular kill order here, but raids often like to burn down ranged damage dealers such as the Mage, Warlock and Hunter, as one of these focusing on a cloth-wearing raid member can spell almost instant death.
Usually the last to die are the Death Knight, Warrior and Rogue, as they can usually be kited, stunned, feared or polymorphed until it is their time to die. Bear in mind, however, that even a Shadow Priest or Enhancement Shaman will still heal themselves periodically – be prepared for anything.
The Faction Champions – Things to Keep in Mind
This encounter is all about focusing fire and having clear objective in mind. It is recommended that the raid be on Vent or Teamspeak, since coordinating this by text is almost impossible.
The targets should all be marked, but in the heat of battle, it can be easy to end up fighting the wrong thing, and the plan may change as the battle progresses. Therefore, it is a good idea to have someone calling out what the raid should be attacking, as well as how close to dead it is. Once it has been killed, the raid needs to be able to transition smoothly to the next target in order to make the fight as easy as possible.
As well, cloth damage-dealers and healers need to live with the fact that they will get aggro. Tanks will do their best to pick up the Champions, but will often be ignored. This can mean a lot of running around, using special skills and generally staying out of the way. No matter how good the raid, DPS, or tanks, this is unavoidable.
With a little bit of luck and good planning, the Faction Champions can be a relatively easy fight. When killed, they drop gear and, as always, 3 emblems of triumph.
Douglas Bonderud - Doug Bonderud is a thirty-something aspiring writer. During the course of his life, Doug has been a waiter, delivery driver, University ...
