Here's what happens when you bring a knife to a gunfight
click to view
TDC had been cruising through ToC with little to challenge us. Northrend Beasts? Meat's curing in the smokehouse. Lord Jaraxxas? The only inferno he's seeing is his red behind after we administered a healthy spanking. Then came the Faction Champions. Suffice it to say this is what we'd been waiting for!
The Faction Champion encounter is, essentially, a PvP arena match. The raid faced off against 10 of the greatest Horde heroes chosen by Garrosh Hellscream to uphold the honor of the Horde. As you might imagine, the nature of this encounter is unlike anything else seen in WotLK raiding. It demanded phenomenal situational awareness, outstanding crowd control, clear threat assessment, and above all, a focus on survival from the raid. The Faction Champions proved a very tough fight for TDC. We went up against them many times, constantly looking for ways to improve our tactics and control the fight more effectively. Once we identified a successful method to draw the Horde melee dps'ers out of the scrum, and focus fire enemy healers first, we made steady progress toward our ultimate victory. Rarely has a raid kill felt as good as when, for the first time, we watched that last Horde Faction Champion and his damn Fel Hunter eat dirt. Vent erupted in cheers, and we truly felt like this is what raiding in WotLK should be.
This is a fantastic encounter, and a great break from the normal static fight you see when raiding. It required TDC really up our game, pay attention to abilities and skills we don't often use, and play to our best ability in order to advance past this encounter. Great job folks, and on to the Twins!