Raid Strategy

Healing Crusader’s Coliseum: Faction Champions

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faction-champions

Back from Blizzcon and now well rested. Got some pretty cool announcements coming up. I’m working on a very special project right now that I’ll disclose later.

Anyway, I’ve gotten several requests for tips on Faction Champions.

And it’s just going to be that: Tips. The same day I touched down at Vancouver, it was back to business in the raid machine. After blitzing through Northrend Beasts and Lord Jaraxxus, it’s time to check out Faction Champions from a healer perspective.

Not a traditional fight

This is the key. There is no such thing as aggro management or threat on this encounter. This is an extremely chaotic, fast paced, arena-esque fight. Players that dual spec into PvP may even wish to consider doing so for extra survival or abilities. Your raid group is going to be facing off against 10 champions of the opposing faction (6 on normal). They’re selected from a random pool of NPCs.

  • Death Knight
  • Balance Druid
  • Resto Druid
  • Hunter
  • Mage
  • Holy Paladin
  • Retribution Paladin
  • Healing Priest
  • Shadow Priest
  • Rogue
  • Caster/Healing Shaman
  • Enhancement Shaman
  • Warlock
  • Warrior

Ones in bold are your raid’s targets of interest. Isn’t it rather odd that they’re all healers?

Execution

It’s difficult to provide an exact outline of what your group has to do. The best I can provide is a general guideline. Go ahead and move your group under the Alliance (or Horde) section first before activating the NPC. It’s a good idea to take stock of what class combination you’re group is going to be facing so that crowd control can be used accordingly.

In most cases, our raid group initially crowd controls every NPC as much as possible other than healers. For example, this week we had a healing Priest, the caster Shaman along with the Holy Paladin. We opted to zero in on the Shaman first. Our Warrior tank started working on the Holy Paladin just by keeping him locked down and interrupted. Placing a Rogue or 3 on the Priest is also a nice idea.

Our basic mentality is that if we run down the healers first, then the other NPC’s are a cake walk. The next dangerous Champion after healers is the Rogue based on the speed at which it can kill a target.

This is an endurance fight. Expect to invest around 10 minutes from start to finish. Each NPC has around 2.4 million health (some have 1.9 million).

Communication is extremely important here. If you’re being pursued, say something. Someone might be able to jump in and snare or CC a Champion.

General class tips

  1. Keep the melee NPC’s busy as much as possible.
  2. Death Knights should defensive Death Grip Rogues, Warriors, Ret Paladins, and Death Knights away from the raid and slow them down. Minimize their movement with slows and stuns
  3. Typhoon and Thunderstorm intelligently. Again, use them defensively to keep NPCs away from your healers.
  4. Drop a Fear Bomb if multiple NPCs are closing in on someone.
  5. Crowd control incurs diminishing returns. Example, after casting 3 Polymorphs on one Champion, it’ll become immune to Polymorph. Spread that CC out.
  6. Offensive Dispels are a virtual requirement. Shamans should be Purging, Priests should be Dispelling. Things you want to get rid of are Druid HoTs and Shaman Earth Shields.
  7. If you have a PvP Trinket, consider equipping it for the fight.
  8. Heroism/Bloodlust on the initial pull. The sooner you kill an NPC or 2, the easier it becomes.

For Priests

As a Priest, my limited arena training has taught me two important skills: Running and healing. If you can manage to run and heal at the same time, you’ll be in good condition. I mainly stuck to firing off blind Mass Dispels (targeting an area with a lot of traffic and hoping it connects) and specific single target Dispels. Keep Shields active on players who get focused and are soft. Don’t bother with mana burning or mind controlling.

Use Psychic Scream everytime it’s available. Just run into a crowd and drop the fear bomb.

Your first priority is to keep yourself alive. If you have to run, drop what you’re doing and run. This isn’t exactly a fight where you can sit there and just grind heal your way through.

Use your defensive cooldowns liberally. Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit will save lives. After I see a big spike on someone, I’ll drop a cooldown on them. If I see 3 Champions close in on a player, I’ll drop a cooldown on them. If I get death gripped, I’ll crap my pants then use a cooldown on myself (No joke. That Death Knight is a pain).

For Druids

This is just from me watching Sydera. Hopefully she’ll chime in here at some point. I’ve seen Druids use their Cyclone in between healing on various NPCs. Reserve Roots for melee NPCs if they’re chasing after people. Go cat form to put distance between you and Champions. If you’re out of tricks, it’s bear form until the Champion gets peeled off you.

For Paladins

Platewearers are usually durable in this one. Have the Hammer stun ready and use it when the cooldown is up. Hand of Sacrifice or Divine Sacrifice and follow it up with a Paladin bubble to help out the raid. The Champions are smart enough to occasionally focus fire on one target.

For Shamans

I reconfigured my totem setup to include Earthbind, Cleansing, and Grounding totem. Every so often, I’d run into a crowd and drop them all down again. Really aware Shamans will know to keep a healer focused and Wind Shear to help with the interrupting process. Bonus points if you can squeeze off Frost Shocks on a Champion who is chasing someone. Do all that while healing, and your raiding group will love you.

Hope this helps! Feel free to comment below with any extra tips or tricks in general or against specific Champions.

Good luck!

Healing Crusader’s Coliseum: Lord Jaraxxus

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jaraxxus

Lord Jaraxxus is the second boss that will be available this week for Coliseum raiders. Take a look at the video below. Be advised that it’s in German. Couldn’t find any other ones around (if you manage to find one, please post it in the comments below). The video shows the Lord Jaraxxus fight from a an off tank perspective. It looks to be a very healing intensive fight.

Breaking down abilities, execution, and healing below.

Abilities

Fel Fireball
Inflicts 18038 to 18962 Fire damage and an additional 7800 to 8200 Fire damage every 1 sec for 5 sec.
Fel Inferno
Periodically inflicts Fire damage to allies within 15 yards for 6 sec.
Fel Lightning
Strikes an enemy with Legion Lightning that arcs to another nearby enemy. The spell affects up to 5 targets.
Fel Streak
Inflicts 8288 to 8712 Fire damage.
Incinerate Flesh
Burns the flesh off your bones! Absorbs the next 70000 healing received and decreases damage dealt by 50% for 15 sec. If Incinerate Flesh is not removed before it expires it will cause a Burning Inferno.
Burning Inferno
Burning Inferno inflicts 3120 to 3280 Fire damage every 1 sec for 5 sec to all friendly targets. The Burning Inferno is caused by Incinerate Flesh not being removed before the duration expires. Incinerate Flesh is removed after absorbing 30000 healing.
Infernal Eruption
Lord Jaraxxus summons an Infernal Volcano which causes Infernals to spawn.
Legion Flame
The Legion Flame inflicts 3900 to 4100 Fire damage every 1 sec, also you are creating a Legion Fire every 1 sec for 6 sec.
Legion Flame
Inflicts 6825 to 7175 Fire damage.
Nether Portal
Lord Jaraxxus summons a Nether Portal.
Nether Power
The Power of the Nether increases magic damage dealt by 20% for 30 sec.
Touch of Jaraxxus
The Touch of Jaraxxus inflicts 3900 to 4100 Shadow damage for 12 sec and causes nearby players to be effected by Curse of the Nether.
Curse of the Nether
Inflicts 4388 to 4612 Shadow damage every 1 sec for 15 sec.

Mistress of Pain

Mistress’ Kiss
Next spell with a cast time interrupts that school for 8 sec and causes 8288 to 8712 Shadow damage.
Shivan Slash
A whirling attack that deals 75% weapon damage and pierces through armor.
Spinning Pain Spike
Leaps towards an enemy, grabbing them and inflicting significant Physical damage.

Execution

You’ll need 2 to 3 tanks for this. Have your main tank set up shop directly in the middle of the arena. The ranged and the healers will need to fan out to help mitigate Touch of Jaraxxus.

Melee DPS will be interrupting Fel Fireball. If it connects, it needs to be dispelled.

It looks to be a fairly simple tank and spank encounter.

But wait! There’s more!

You thought Black Temple was the last time you’d see these lovely ladies. Your off tank needs to keep his eyes open for a portal. A Mistress will emerge from one and it will need to be picked up. The video shows the Mistress being tanked on top of Lord Jaraxxus. Presumably so that melee DPS will be able to add extra damage from AoE hits and the like. The pain strike move appears to be random. Casters (healers especially) need to keep their eye out for Mistress’ Kiss. I’m assuming it will wear off after some time. Don’t cast if you’re hit by one.

There’s also Infernals that need to be tanked. I’m not sure if it’s possible for Infernals to appear at the same time a Mistress of Pain is up. It’s always a possibility. The 10 man video shows 3 Infernals that spawn. Not sure how the 25 will be like. The Infernals could have more health or there could just simply be more of them.

I suggest melee players divide themselves up in two groups not exceeding 3 players. Put 1 group on each leg of Jaraxxus to help mitigate the Fel Lightning attack (Chain Lightning).

One more mechanic is the Legion Flame. If a player gets it, they will be generating flame patches on their position. Whoever gets it needs to get clear of everyone else and just start doing circles to get the patches away from the rest of the raid. Luckily it only lasts 6 seconds.

Healing

I’d suggest stacking 6-7 healers the first time through.

2 healers on the main tank, 1 on the off tank and have the rest on the raid. Advise even placement of healers across the room: 2 on the left, 2 in the middle, 2 on the right.

I think the melee players are going to need a dedicated healer but I’m confused by the wording of Fel Inferno (damage to Jaraxxus allies or to us?).

There is a lot of raid damage coming in. It looks to be a brute force healing type of encounter.

The biggest threat to the raid is largely going to be from the Incinerate Flesh + Burning Inferno combination. Whoever gets affected by Incinerate Flesh needs to be healed up. 30000 damage. Shields won’t count I don’t think.

Healers, you are going to need to do some think-healing on the go. It’s very difficult to set up healing assignments for a fight like this as there’s so many sources of damage coming in. Play it by ear. Take initiative and don’t be afraid of healing the wrong person. It doesn’t matter what the name of the spell is since they’re taking damage anyway.

Good luck in there! Again, post any observations you see in the comments below (corrections are good too)!

Ulduar Nerfs and Bugs

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Looks like there were some undocumented changes made to Ulduar.

Check out this post on Main Tankadin. (Thanks Honors).

Here’s a quick summary from various sources (Forums, direct observations, things I heard second hand).

Flame Leviathan

  • Seems to be bugged. Doing FL with 2 towers is fine and dandy. But FL still has the 3rd tower buff on him even though there’s only 2 towers up.
  • Vehicle targeting reticule looks really good.
  • Gnomes have been busy. Enhanced the handling of vehicles. They turn much better.
  • Choppers can pick up Pyrite and drop them wherever they like.

XT Deconstructor

  • Deconstructor seems to spawn a bajillion ads. Look at the main tankadin post above for a screenshot.
  • Now throws Light and Gravity bombs during tantrums.

Thorim

  • Chain Lightning only blows up 2 targets.

Freya

  • Iron roots: You can trinket out of them. You can blink out of them. Hand of freedom. Bring a Shaman with Earthen Power and call it a day. Shapeshifting works. Anything that can get you out of snares will work.
  • Sunbeam visual effect seems to be missing. But the debuff on players is still there.

Mimiron

  • Phase 3: Don’t have to place the mines. The player loots it, uses it, and the head will automatically drop down. Mimiron has upgraded to smarter magnets.

General Vezax

  • Vezax’s health reduced by 10 million.
  • Saronite Animus health reduced by 2.5 million.
  • Animus spawns after 6 clouds instead of 8.

Check the comments for other nerfs. I’ll try to update this post with extra information.

Northrend Beasts Notes (Extra)

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Some more information. My guild and I just cleared out the encounter on 10 man.

We brought a standard loadout:

  • 2 tanks
  • 3 healers
  • 5 DPS

Here’s a few extra notes.

Phase 1: Gormok the Impaler

Looks like the Snobolds are the ones dropping fires. The person attacked by the Snobold cannot attack the Snobold himself. That person has to stay on the boss as there’s nothing else they can do. The rest of the raid has to clear out the Snobolds as fast as possible. Looks like they’re the ones that drop fires on the ground.

Our tanks switched between 3-4 Impale debuffs.

Phase 2: Acidmaw and Dreadscale

When you kill one snake, the other will enrage.

Phase 3: Icehowl

When he does his leap knocking players to the wall, everyone will be stunned for a few seconds. He’ll focus a player, and then run towards him. At this time, all players gain some sort of a speed increase to help them get clear.

If he manages to hit a player, he will enrage. But it’s temporary. Looks like it lasts for around 10 or so seconds before it wears off.

All in all, very good fun!

Note: 3 Emblems of Triumph drop from the first encounter

Healing Crusader’s Coliseum: Northrend Beasts Encounter

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Image, abilities courtesy of MMO Champion

The Beasts encounter consists of three separate fights within 1 encounter. Consider the strategies here in beta. The information is pulled from watching various videos and reading further into datamined abilities. Feel free to make any adjustments or corrections in the comments below. Once I knock out the fight myself, I’ll update this with further information.

Watch this video here. I’ll be referencing it.

Phase 1: Gormok the Impaler

25 man health: 8.92 million

Abilities

Staggering Stomp

Deals a staggering stomp that inflicts 9263 to 9737 Physical damage to all enemies within 15 yards and interrupts spellcasting for 8 seconds.

Impale

Inflicts 150% of weapon damage to an enemy and causes it to bleed for 3500 to 4500 damage per application every 2 sec. for 30 sec. (10 second cooldown)

Your tank is going to position Gormok in the middle of the room.

The raid is going to be assaulted by Snobold Vassal. They come from the boss. Various raid members are going to be attacked by them. Seems like they jump onto players individually and prevent them from using abilities or spells. The only way for them to be removed is for your raid members to target them and kill them.

/target Snobold Vassal

I’d suggest adding that to your macro list and having it bound.

Watch out for patches of fire on the ground. Just stay out of them. No idea how much damage players take. No reason to stand in them.

You will need two tanks to handle this. The cooldown on impale is every 10 seconds. Your tanks have to switch and taunt every 30 seconds before the stacking debuff overwhelms them.

Healing Gormok

Start off with 6 healers.

Assign 2 to the tanks who are switching back and forth.

You may need 1-2 healers on the melee as they will be affected by the Staggering Stomp.

Put the last healers on raid to take care of any Vassal or fire damage. They should also help support the tanks if they’re idle.

Once he dies, you have about 15-20 seconds before the twin worms appear.

Phase 2: Acidmaw and Dreadscale

25 man health: ~6.97 million each

Abilities

Acidmaw Dreadscale
Paralytic Bite

Inflicts 12950 to 15050 Nature damage on an enemy and injects them with a paralytic toxin.

 Burning Bite

Inflicts 11100 to 12900 Fire damage to an enemy and coats them with burning bile.

5 yd range, Instant
Paralytic Spray

Sprays acid at an enemy and nearby targets, dealing 8325 to 9675 Nature damage and applying a debilitating paralytic toxin.

 Burning Spray

Sprays fluid at an enemy and nearby targets, dealing 8325 to 9675 Fire damage and coating them with burning bile.

100 yd range, 1.1 sec cast
Acidic Spew

Deals 2775 to 3225 Nature damage per 0.25 sec. to enemies in front of the caster.

100 yd range, Instant

 Fire Spit

Deals 9250 to 10750 Fire damage to an enemy.

100 yd range, 1.1 sec cast
Slime Pool

Inflicts 5088 to 5912 Nature damage to enemy targets within the Poison Cloud.

Molten Spew

Deals 3700 to 4300 Fire damage per 0.25 sec. to enemies in front of the caster.

100 yd range, Instant

You can see the similarities between the 2 snakes. One snake will be grounded at a time while the other will be above ground. They alternative every so often.

First thing you’ll notice is that the tanks immediately face them away from the group. This helps offset Molten Spew and Acidic Spew. Make sure the tanks aren’t near each other either. You want to avoid overlapping spews.

Take note that all DPS is focused on the snake currently above ground. The snake that’s grounded probably has some sort of damage reduction modifier.

Snake above ground

Kite him in a clockwise fashion. He has to be kept moving. Around the 3:25 mark, you can see poison clouds being left. Think of Grobbulus. Have a traditional tank kite whichever snake is up. What we’re seeing is a caster tank (presumable a Warlock) on Acidmaw and holding aggro (or whoever snake is grounded). You can probably keep one healer on it.

When the snakes switch, keep an eye on the ground. Look for dust particles. Get clear of them as that’s your cue as to the snake positions.

IMPORTANT!

When Acidmaw is grounded, he’s going to be able to hit any player with Paralytic Spray. Targets nearby will be hit with that as well.

Applies a paralytic toxin that inflicts increasing Nature damage every 1 sec. and reduces movement speed over time until the victim is entirely paralyzed.

This is what Burning Bile does:

Coats enemies with burning bile, inflicting periodic Fire damage to them and their nearby allies. The burning bile of a jormungar is known to neutralize paralytic toxins.

So one of these toxins is going to cause your raiders to slowly become paralyzed and take increasing nature damage. The burning bile can clean that crap off. The raiders affected by burning bile have to run towards the toxin affected players. Make it easy and have both players run towards each other to speed it up even more.

If you wish to make it even easier for yourself, just have affected raid members run towards the main tank. It won’t matter who has what buffs as they’ll be able to cancel each other out.

Be sure that you kill Acidmaw first. If you kill Dreadscale first, you won’t have a way of removing the Paralysis.

Acidmaw above ground

The situation is going to be reversed. The main tank is going to be hit with the paralytic poison. Designate a player to run in periodically and stand near the tank to wipe off the poison.

Healing Acidmaw and Dreadscale

2 healers on the main tanks, 1 on the caster tank, and 3 on the rest of the raid. Remember that raiders will take damage from Burning Bile so they have to take care where they stand.

I’m not quite sure when they switch. I don’t know if its time based or percentage based.

Phase 3: Icehowl

25 man health: 13.3 million

Abilities

Ferocious Butt

Delivers a ferocious headbutt to an enemy, inflicting 69375 to 80625 Physical damage and stunning for 3 sec.

8 yd range, Instant

Arctic Breath

An icy breath that freezes targets in a cone in front of the caster, inflicting 20000 Frost damage over 5 sec.

100 yd range, Channeled

Massive Crash

Leaps into the air and crashes down with massive force, dealing 11000 Physical damage to all enemies, stunning them, and knocking them back.

1 sec cast

Whirl

Whirls around, dealing 9250 to 10750 Physical damage to all nearby enemies and knocking them back.

15 yd range, Instant

Frothing Rage

Increases Physical damage and attack speed by 50%.

Instant

No downtime between snakes and Icemaw. He’s tanked near the middle of the room.

Artic Breath doesn’t seem to be controllable. He’ll just turn and spray. Think to those big Sons of Hodir trash mobs in front of Hodir. Have an off tank ready to pick  him up just in case. The Breath is a channelled. As long as hes channeling the spell, players caught in the breath can’t do anything.

Dealing with Ferocious Butt

Okay, fast forward to 7:36. Icehowl leaps in the air and knocks everyone towards the wall (Massive Crash). The boss mod will announce that Icehowl is glaring at a player and lets out a bellowing roar. A quicker way is to see if the boss is facing your direction. If he is, RUN TO THE SIDE AND GET OUT OF THE DAMN WAY. At this point, Icehowl gets stunned for several seconds allowing the raid to get back into position. It seems like he takes extra damage during this stage. Looks like the stun lasts 15 seconds.

After his stun wears off, his Whirl kicks in (spins around and knocks back everyone). Your tank needs to haul ass back in range fast.

Icehowl gains an enrage and it must be dispelled. It’s called Frothing Rage. A Hunter’s Tranquilizing Shot should negate that quite nicely. Look at 8:29 for a better idea. I think this happens if Icehowl manages to connect on a player with Ferocious Butt and kills a guy or manages to hit someone. Note that the Enrage appears to wear off after 10 – 15 seconds if you’re not able to Tranq Shot it.

Healing Icehowl

Same thing as before. 2-3 healers on the main tank (I recommend a Disc Priest). Everyone else is on raid healing.

Keep tanking him centralized. When he nukes the ground, get the heck out of the way. Resume DPS. Rinse, repeat, link loot.

I hope this helps you guys out! Again, any other observations or corrections, please post in the comments. Strategies here were pulled from watching the video and from reading the datamined stuff. I’ll probably end up modifying this later depending on how off I am or if there’s a better idea.