10-man raid night, TotC.
We left off with the Northrend Beasts down and ready to smack Jaraxxus around. We had a slightly different group composition, so Hrist went over the strategy again for the benefit of the new people, including the every perky Cocky Mage:
After a few learning attempt to get the hang of Jaraxxus, we pretty much had him. In fact, Blizz was kind enough to let us beat him twice in one night! Once we had things under control and were finishing him off at 5% when the server crashed, booting us and resetting.
And in an effort to boost our confidance, Cocky Mage DC’d on the next attempt and couldn’t get past the login screen. So we had to take him down the 2nd time with nine people. And, similar to the Beasts, Jaraxxus dropped not one, but two pieces of shammy loot. Damn we need to get a shammy in our group.
Then on to the Faction Champions.
I Think I Hate the Faction Champions
Now let’s be clear here – I am perfectly fine with spending an entire evening wiping. So it’s not the fact that the faction champions smacked us around like a red-headed gnome that I hate them. I just don’t really approve of the whole pvp design philosophy.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen it – that was back in vanilla in BRD, and again in BC in Magister’s Terrace. But those were both 5-mans – hell, you could just not do them… this is an actually endgame raid. And blizzard does an okay job of programming the PVP AI. It is in fact nothing at all like raiding… and therein lies my problem.
I mean, are we going to see arena teams sometimes matched up against an elaborate raid boss? How well you think they’d do?
I’ve done my share of pvp, even did arenas pretty regularly for a while. I knew we’d be hitting the Faction Champions last night and I respecced my offspec over to a SV pvp spec, got some pvp glyphs (didn’t have time to level a pvp pet, alas). I’m familiar with pvp strats and reactions.
But you know what, the vast majority of my raid is not. And damnit, they shouldn’t need to be. They’re raiders, we’re all raiders. We have an option to pvp and we choose not to pursue it – it is an entirely different skillset that – as a group – we don’t have. And now we can’t progress through the endgame raid content without doing it.
So yeah, I hate the Faction Champions.
jaraxxus
both of those screenshots are freaking hilarious!
If you don’t mind having a spider as a pvp pet, you can find lvl 80s in Icecrown. No leveling required.
http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=31747
Well, actually you can. It is PvP-ish, and not PvP. They can be freezed, stunned, etc without having them trinkets to get out. So kind of like a tripple Shattered Halls. There you have 4 mobs for 5, now 10 for 10. In the early days you had to CC two of those 4. Well, after a long year of WotLK vacation, CC is back. Get the spells back from deep in your spellbook onto on your main spellbars.
No serious, the CC is back. Kind of funy how I was yesterday complaining we as hunters were degraded to cannons. Well, I was not 100% right it seems
But we hunters are not the only class that forgot about some of the CC spells. After people remember how to use them you’ll see it goes a lot bettter.
Gameplay became too much already of tanks graps all, hold agro and rest dps them down while healers does group heal. Boring …
Second, is mr interrupt. Instead of just spamming our sillencing shot as bonus-dps, we should hold it until an actual interrupt needs to be done. Especially the healers. OK, perhaps that is also PvP-ish, but there are quite some 5-mans where interrupts are potentially used as well. (Its just they were too easy so people could do them by just tank ad spank.) And of course other classes have often forgotten about interrupt as well. I mean during BC, this was the cream-shot of MM, it ought to become important again!
In case one needs practise, go to the vikings north of the tournament (forgot their name). They do some wave-blast thing. One can practise there on interrupt. The mobs are wimps, so no risk, but act like you wipe if you get hit by the wave. If you can kill 10 without any blast hitting you, you’re ready.
Third – as you of course know, but just for other readers – don’t bother going with resillience on your gear. It won’t help in this fight, as they are not players. It is not real PvP. But stamina helps though. Many classes – especially hunters – just went all out for dps when speccing and gearing, knowing they have a kick ass healer that will keep em up. Now, using that dual spec to get stamina higher at the expense of dps is a good thing as your healer will be very busy
I mean, if people go into dual spec just for different shot-rotations for progression on some ulduar bosses, here you can go for stamina if you think you die too often. It is mostly about surviving, not dps in this raid. (No need to pick up real PvP talents though!)
So overall, change tactics: less focus on burst dps but more on health and lots of CC/interrupt. Then take out the healers first.
The only real PvP is that healers should switch to spam-healing … And that can be annoying.
We tried the whole CC (mage/shammy/hunter) route on that fight and ended up just focus firing the healers (druid, then pally), then concentrating on the damage dealers. Because it’s a PVP-style encounter the sheeps/hexes didn’t last long enough to be effective and much DPS was lost re-applying.
Myself and the other hunter were the only ones doing CC and that was only to put a frost trap in front of ourselves for whoever ran by and the occasional wyvern sting on a mob that was apart from the other targets, but still doing damage (s-priest).
Zerg the healers then stick to the kill order and the fight is simple.
And mass dispess is nice too…
Howdy all! Yea factions can be a bit tricky, especially if you haven’t PVP’d in awhile, but a few simple trick make things a whole lot easier. (They work in both 10 and 25 man) Kill order is very important and we found that the old arena stand-by of healer>melee plate>other melee>casters w9orks fine, but one thing to remember about CC is it’s on diminishing returns now, which means for example, your freeze trap will freeze for 6 sec, then 4 then 2 then no more. (time might be different, this is just a demo). When the encounter actually starts, your mage/druid/lock should be on CC, but as hunters we should be throwing out frost and snake traps every time the cool down is up. Slow down everything and use concussive shot whenever possible, scatter shot if talented. Leave the actual immobilization to the clothies. Interrupts should be thrown by anyone on anything that can be interrupted. One more thing, if the healer group has a shaman, bring him down first! Otherwise the priest is the thing. We’ve defeated the faction champs every time we get the healers first in both 10 and 25, and pvp skill is nice, but not necessary. After you defeat the faction though, the Twins seem like a walk in the park. Happy hunting and most of all, have fun!
Not only do you have pvp rules to the cc (12 sec max, diminishing returns) but they will also break your cc in various ways. In addition, the ai is great about dispelling your effects and interrupting you. They do more damage than players, and tend to all gang up on one person.
It is much more like pvp than pve — heck, it ignores the central mechanics of pve: threat and aggro.
I suspect the right strat is to do some mass fears, CC the heck out of one healer, and burn the other healer as hard as possible. Just like pvp, you need focused burst dps in addition to your CCs. Even more so, since these guys have 300k-400k health.
We found that offing the fellhound ASAP was also critical. The AI that runs him has him interrupt ridiculously often… including most attempts at Banish or similar CC.
ive down faction champs 10 and 25 both weeks its been out, and the strat we use is put interrupters on the healers and burn them down. otherwise, cc is very minimum. ive done in both raid MM and SV spec, and all i worry abotu is nuking target and occasionall frost arrow (cuz it doesnt break my target or rotation). maybe druid roots or cyclone, fear or occasional hex (i cant remember full set up), i just know cc was lowest on priority. nuking and interrupting was our highest. granted weve been lucky with getting the “squishy” priest healer so im sure that helps.
i also hate this fight (aimed shot, dispelled in 1-2 seconds. pfft), and will not be surprised if its nerfed (their health in 25m anyway). not to say i think it should be, but i wont be surprised if it is. our first attempts were frustrating, but once we hit the golden strat, its been success in both 10 and 25.
good luck tho
Screw the Faction Champions. If I wasn’t completely clueless about PvP, maybe I wouldn’t mind (I do have some resilience gear, at least). But I am clueless, so I wasn’t much help. I ended up bringing my Devilsaur out for it though, because he seemed FAR more acclimated to the fight than I was.
Heck yeah…a nerf on this fight would be met with much rejoicing!
I agree about a PVP fight even if its PVPish not belonging in a Raid, To me Blizz has always tried to mix them too much be it nerfing PVE skills for PVP purposes and fights like in MrT this is just the next step in that trend. Blizz needs to realize not everyone likes or does PVP I personaly hate it thats why I don’t do BGs so I shouldn’t have to do it to contuine on our progression I think.
@Arthemystia Devilsaurs are used to trying to eat folks that look like them and us! Your dino was probably homesick for it’s stomping and gulping days back in Un’Goro.
Well, that and trying to figure out why he could no longer swallow people in one bite.
I feel you on the Faction Champions fight. Managed to down all 4 bosses on my first run through yesterday and we wiped on the Faction Champions the most by far. We ended up just focus firing while haphazardly CCing the others. Best strategy ended up being for us to burn the 2 healers down and once we got them the rest were easy.
Also I have to say the Twin Valkyrs fight is really disappointing, I expected the whole light/dark thing to be more complicated and “you screw up you wipe everyone” ish, but its really one of the easiest fights in the Trial of the Crusader.
So yeah, with a rather inexperienced raid team we downed all 4 bosses in our first time through, I’m hoping Anub will be more difficult.
BG and quivering, that is interesting. We used the same tacts as Backspace: nuking healers and CC’ing others. Not having to use CC is something we didn’t try. Perhaps it is also which enemies you get, as they are random?
I do find it disapointing if you can – again – get away by ignoring else but aggro and nuking. I mean, just downing first healer and then going on one by one, without having to do much is kind of boring for a T9-level raid. It is supposed to be hard and supposed to challenge players to do thing which are new (or things they forgot).
And yeah, I like PvP, so I like the PvP tacts here. I can imagine PvP is not your thing, you don’t like it, but let us PvP’ers have one raid boss too
For me, most raids are getting boring: too much re-use of the same tacts there too. Many raid fight and 5 man bosses are the same items and just remixed.
But then again, playing against 10 ‘players’ isn’t new either … Old Kingdom has it too as end-boss. Tacts the same also: CC, interrupt and nuke down healer, then others. So in a way, even PvE should know (unless they never did 5 mans
).
Ya my guild is stuck on them too… we’re PVE not PVP >.>
By the way a rogue is endlessly helpful in this encounter, having him stunlock the healers you are nuking along with other classes’ interrupts basically negates all of the healing coming out of the focused target.
I feel your pain guys. 60 straight wipes. 12 different grp makeups. and we still stuck on them.. my KB is stuck in the wall my monitor is in the ceiling, and my mouse is somewhere between Brisbane and Sydney. on the back of a passing truck.
I don’t often criticise you guys, but It really is not a PvP fight, it lacks the co-ordination that real PvP opponents have i.e. they don’t focus burn one person (a healer most likely).
Anyways, we had some trouble getting them down until we realised we had a Shaman and a Rogue in our makeup (and everyone knows the lesser classes only exist to help Hunters do the real work right?). We set the Rogue onto one healer (Priest or Paladin is perfect, shaman/druid less so) with the instructions to lock them down 100% of the time, we CC’d the melee (our prot warrior onto their warrior, mage poly’d the rogue, fear on the DK) and bloodlust-zerged the second healer, then killed the healer the Rogue was on. We let their ranged freecast/shoot and our healers/paladins/X dispelled as possible. Make sure there’s a Mortal Strike effect up on the zerg target.
Once the two healers are dead the fight becomes about damage mitigation, they can’t heal any further and we can.
It’s easier in 25 man IMO because the raid is more likely to contain the necessary dispellers/rogues and MQoSRDS
Alright, we one shotted 10 man and are stuck on 25man. On 10 man, we did early CC’s and frost traps and just drilled the healers dead and then focus fired the clothies etc etc
What I haven’t seen mentioned here…
Tranqualizing Shot – Uber important, add it to your shot rotation. Peel those HoT’s off, combine that with our Aimed shot bonus (reduces healing by 50%) and you’ll have a much greater chance of dropping the clothies that much faster.
Speed! Its of the essence for the first two mobs in this fight. Hunters are gods in this fight, enjoy it
Stick to the classic pvp team “Kill the healers” tactic but be prepared for a change when they go down, the AI isn’t totally lame.
Spread OUT! Its the only way to defeat the AI that relies on AOE effects and targeting. No aggro table on this fight – True. But the AI has a couple limits, it will not pursue someone unduly and it will be more likely to target a player who is CC/interupting most often. The more time the mobs spend traveling means less time they attack you. Melee are bad off for this fight because they all get stuck around their main target and can’t run far and still do their job (it typically means “don’t expect your rogue to live long”).
After the faction healers go down (2/3 on 25man), the AI changes tactics: It goes after top dps. Typically, that means hunters. Prepare to use all your “Oh shit” buttons and spread out further from the groups. As with Ulduar, upper content fights are all about self survival, MM hunters need to use “Readiness” for staying alive and not just dps.
Macros! Speed is of the essence in this fight, if you have Wyvern Sting or Scatter shot, macro it to your target and be sure to include /targetlasttarget or you’ll break your own CC by accident. This tactic is essential for all classes who sheep/hex or otherwise one button CC. Without it, the machine will win because its just so much faster/goal oriented; Really, its all the AI has going for it but the ridiculous health the NPS have, lol.
Organization: It should go without say but… Everybody should have their own specific CC/interrupt target and stay with it. Switching carelessly just wastes time/CD’s and makes the Faction team that much more immune to our attempts to tie them up. Certain classes are good against others but don’t get tied up CCing but not dpsing.
Think outside the box, its pvp for dummies. Certain classes are great against certain classes for instance – Locks are fantastic against druid healers (Banish works as does fear and both are on seperate diminishing effects timers. Mages are great against casters (sheep, counterspell) etc etc. As a hunter, I run into the area where our melee are dpsing and put down frost traps, then I disengage out.
This fight is gonna be lightening quick or its a slow death for your raid. One or the other typically. Good Luck!
Just to throw my insight we wiped on those guys for a while. 2 melee classes to beat down a rouge and an enhancement shammy we finally got it when we had our fury warrior tank and disarm the rouge and myself kite tank and disarm with the scorrpid sting and chimarea shot when he got close after beating down there healers they got the shammy off me and then it was easy as long as we kept what disarms we could keep up. considering i can only use mine for 10 secs once a min
My 10 man had some trouble on this fight until we realized CC just wasnt all that important. In fact the main thing you learn is that all the squishies have to look out for themselves. Run around, fade, fear ect
We also went with a person in prot spec//ret gear so he could still do his aoe taunts and have more interupts. Although i have to say, the combination of bosses we had was pretty easy. The shamman was enhance and the healers were druid/pally. So we could pretty much just ignore the druid until the pally was down. Just had to inteuprt and mass dispell/purge the pally,
Gratz Blizz on Faction Champ IMO!
During the course of the game, each boss blizzard has presented requires a strategy that we’ve all had to learn. Before my guild raids, guild message states something like..”Attempting so and so and yada yada hard modes….get online and do your homework!.” And it’s my job, as a raider, to go online and watch how-to vids if I’m not familiar with a boss fight. How does this tie into a PVP boss fight Faction Champions? simple. They are NOT players! It is NOT PVP. It is a PVE boss fight made to mirror pvp and that’s ok. It’s just another series of multimob bosses that need to be marked and handled correctly. Easymode.
If a player wants to focus on PVE and not PVP, that’s fine. I’m a raider. I like to raid. I don’t particularly enjoy PVP…probably cuz I’m still a clicker, but Faction Champs is just a normal raid boss encounter! They don’t have players behind their controls. Faction Champs will behave the same way no matter how many times you engage them. It’s the raids job to get a strat down,execute it, and deal with the unforeseen, same as any other boss fight. And yes, it’s more difficult, but hello!…End game raid content. If it weren’t a challenge, I wouldn’t be having fun. Peace out fellow hunters!
Tinson of Ysera. Powa to da Dwarves!
Everybody hates the Faction Champions (or Craption Champions as they’ve now been nicknamed..). You don’t necessarily need PvP specs/gear/glyphs unless it helps with locking down an NPC. PvP in PvE… greatest idea ever >.>
Meh, I had finally counted after I talked to you on the phone and discovered that it was 36 servers that had gone down. Tried to get back in for half an hour and then gave up.
We cleared the FC about a week back on 10 man after wiping 6 times straight. Once I decided to lay down frost every time it was up on the seventh try we cleared it no problem.
was you abused as a huntard? you seem to hate mages in all posts lol
im only ribbing btw, i love this forum and i like to quote off it to other hunters on my server, but i really think its funny all the hate towards mages :p
There’s no hate toward mages. Just that one mage.
One thing I would say…. you say they’d never put a raid boss in PvP content.
I have two words for you: Alterac Valley. Whether it’s stamping on Stormpike’s face, or neading to deal with summoned elementals, PvE-esque encounters do happen in PvP. It’s just one more way of mixing up content.
We’re having what should be our belated first shot at these guys tonight, and I imagine I’ll be joining you in the hate, but felt the need to point out it does go both ways.
Its not hate… Not even from Hrist (well, ok, maybe from Hrist, but thats just general hate he flings around at everyone).
Frost says what he says with love. Its sort of endearing…
Wooot… hit up ToC10 for the first time last night, cleared it just inside our window, despite needing to break to read up on tactics for fights we didn’t think we’d get to!
The Champions were responsible for the majority of our wipes by some margin, but I found the fight to be really good fun after we’d got past the initial feeling of repeatedly smashing one’s face into a wall.
I liked it because it required a fair amount of thinking, and is one of the few PvE fights where you actually need to think about the best way of approaching it each week; most other raid fights are fairly static encounters, and once you’ve learned the strat, it’s just a matter of rinsing and repeating.
Also, it’s an AWESOME fight for relative hunter DPS. My ten-man team has two hunters as standard, and we both did double the damage of our nearest counterparts — our rogue, mage and lock are normally really compettive, but thanks to the nature of the fight (at least with the set-up we got) we hunters seemed to be at something of a significant advantage — FD + Disengage are definitely your friends.