Faction Champs - how I hate you

So this is the 2nd (3rd?) week that Heroic TOC has been available - and I still hate the Faction Champions fight more than anything else in the game. I don't just hate it on Hard Mode either - because Hard Modes are hard after all. I hate it because it's random and unpredictable.

Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with random damage or events that aren't published in a raid warning of come kind - but this is silly. Our shamans spend 90% of their time purging HoTs if we get the tree druid (no warlock to banish him), our only priest in mass dispelling his tail off, and I'm speccing Holy just to take up the slack.

It doesn't help that we are a PvE guild, with PvE players.

I'm looking at changing my healing spec to something like this so I have all the PvP oriented talents, while still having my instant FoLs and Beacon. I figure if I can just prevent 1/10 of the curses that go out because of the increased resistance, that's a win. I also toss out Hands like they are going out of style, trying to keep our rogue running loose with BoF, and a timely BoP when needed.

I've noticed some mana issues on this fight, somewhat due to the fact that I'm running Seal of Light and Glyph of Light. When I'm only getting off every other spell due to lockouts and such, I need to make sure they're big ones. I've been tempted to go back to my PvE gear, just for the 4pc Tier 8 bonus - but having over 1k resilience seems better to me.

How to beat them senseless

We typically focus on killing a DPS first in regular mode, and a healer first in Heroic. This might have to change this week, as we're having a bear of a time taking down the DPS after we kill the priest. Too many folks dead.

They have all the damage avoiding methods players do, and will occasionally focus fire someone. Healers have to be be quick to save someone when this happens. Spreading out a lot helps reduce the chance of being focused, as they seem to have an attention span of about 8 seconds. After that they seem to shift focus and head somewhere else.

Here's hoping we get past them tonight, and start making better progress next week. The flawless tribute run is still out there for us to nab.