This encounter is much like an arena match between you and 10 (6 at 10-man) quasi-player NPCs. Before even attempting this encounter, your raid will need to assume a PvP mindset. The enemies you will face in this encounter act very much like a good arena team does and some (but not all) PvP mechanics are applied to these NPCs. For example:
* The NPC healers will switch to spam healing your DPS target(s) * The NPC damage dealers will gang up on a single raid member and focus fire him dead * All NPCs, including healers, will use player crowd control abilities like Polymorph, Fear, Hex, and even Banish * NPCs in this counter are affected by the same diminishing return rules for player-cast crowd controls as other players are * Resilience does not reduce damage taken by the NPC enemies * Faction champions do more damage than typical players, have drastically more health (2.4 million on 25 man), and cast enormous heals - the druid champion's rejuvenation, for example, heals for more than 50,000 per tick
As with any arena match, picking a damage target and focusing it down is critical. While one target is picked to be killed, all other enemy combatants should be controlled by whatever mechanics are available, including player CCs and focused distractions (e.g., keeping a warrior on the rogue NPC to disarm, hamstring, intercept, stun etc.). The NPCs appear to indiscriminately pick their own targets and they will gang up on a single raid member - healers do not appear to be disproportionately targeted as they often are in real arena combat. The NPCs generally cannot be tanked.
As a result of the chaotic nature of this fight (especially early on when all 10 NPCs are alive), every raid member needs to be fast on his feet. When one or more of the melee champions targets a soft target, that target needs to run, fear, snare, escape, stay alive. To facilitate these maneuvers, it is best not to clump together. Every second that a champion is traveling to its target is a second that it is not doing damage to any particular target, so the more you can keep them moving the safer your raid will be.
Kill Healer or Healers first: We will typically pick the Non-Pally, Non-Druid for first target, due to the healing ability of the others to prolong their life, CC the two and interrupts to make certain heals do not come off.
The four healers are a restoration druid, a restoration shaman, holy pally and a holy priest.
Healer DPS Priority 1. Shammy - Easy target with a Dispell or Purge of Earth shield, long cast times and just a healing stream totem to handle, all in all easy to down quickly. 2. Priest - Dispel shields, interrupt self casts and purge his HoTs, pretty easy to handle, watch the fear cast and if you can use your trinkets to avoid fear, if you have them. 3. Pally - Dispell the bubble, hard to burn him, he will use Lay on Hands and quick flash heals constantly, purge away any Hots and go to town. 4. Druid - this mother fucker is a biatch, his rejuv ticks for like 50K, has instant casts, full heals and is tree form. So we keep him till last healer, he is easily locked down with Banish, Cyclone and interrupts along with traps etc. Hex nono and sheep nono. So make sure we speak up on what we are doing with him. Purge the shit out of this mother fr when we get to him.
Alternative Strate for Healer DPS: (wowwiki recommendation; we actually tried this about 5 times on the first night and had 0 luck on killing him before too many DPS died. )
The most effective healer is the restoration druid. As with arena combat, they are very difficult to kill by themselves. In this encounter, in addition to the restoration druid healing himself, the other two healers will also focus heal while your raid focuses damage; this is true regardless of the target you pick. However, because the druid casts three very powerful healing-over-time effects that must be dispelled (as opposed to one from the shaman and two from the priest), if you leave the restoration druid up, a small interruption in chain dispelling from another champion's control abilities, such as a fear bomb, can quickly undo a great deal of damage progress. While focussing the restoration druid from the start, use as many stuns and interrupts as possible, use your longest-duration crowd controls on the other two healers, and burn him.
Our Typical DPS Strat: Depending on group makeup, we will kill at least 1 healer, but may choose to do 1 Healer, 1 Max Melee DPS NPC, then the second healer. Then take targets as seens as highest priority by the Raid Leader. Follow his announce on target and keep CCs up at all TIME... yes we all know a target will become Immune, well the just fucking CC a different target you god damn stoners!
After the healers are dead, the next highest priority should be the melee DPS.
DPS Threat Priority: - Warrior: due to his Stun, Fear, WW and other crazy ass DPS abilities. He will take some time due to his Plate and ability to run like the devil, be sure to dispel, purge and tranq his ass to no tomorrow. - Ret Pally: Lots of stuns, judgements, plate, bubble and hell of a hard hitting machine - Rogue: Shadowstep is a biatch, he will basically one-shot a clothie, lots of poisons etc so cleansing always needs to be down from our Shammy buds. Use Disarms on every CD to kill his ass. - DK: Lots of disease, purge this mother fr, self heals and lots of plate - Shammy: Basically a pussy with sticks, but totems are a headach, mail wearing douche, he goes down fast so even though he is last we usually will take him out early.
Two of the most important abilities in this encounter are offensive dispelling and spell interrupts. All of the champions are susceptible to spell interrupts, and offensive dispel is critical to cut through the healers' effects. Another strong ability to remember is mass dispel, which can cut through Divine Shields and Ice Blocks, both of which will be used by enemy champions. Mortal Strike and Wound Poison will also greatly aid you in taking out the healers early on. The death knight and rogue will use disease and poison effects so Cleansing Totems should be down.
The ranged list is pretty basic, Shadow Priest, Lock, Hunter etc, we will usually kill their pets to keep interrupts minimal and they die in about 10 seconds... so no biggy. Space out keep your CC on and KILL THE MOTHERS!
