Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Note:  there's a group arena battle as well called Drowned Caverns: Arena of Heroes.  SS is the solo instance.

This is a very fun little zone which will test your solo abilities to the fullest!

Enter from the Splitpaw Den and buff to full.  Glancing upwards, you'll see Fip Slytail on an overlook.  Close to hailing distance and move the cursor over him until you see a speech bubble to hail (the difficulties targetting / hailing Fip are a bug and scheduled to be fixed in an upcoming hotfix).  He'll offer you a series of battles that go something like this:

1. A giant plague rat
   
2. A famished grotto aranea
3. Old Yellow Tooth(gnoll fighter)
   
4. a dreadsnout ravager (seems to be a crusader)
5. A virulent rock crawler (priest/low hp)
6. Phosm Stonebend (gnoll fighter)
7. Kareth Brawnstrong & another gnoll (both seem to be scouts)
   
8. A dwarven gladiator, a hateful teir'dal slave, and disillusioned gnome(dark elf is priest, dwarf fighter, gnome mage)
9. The Pit Champion
(Thanks Baloen of Antonia Bayle for helping to fill in the blanks!)

1 through 7 shouldn't be much of a problem.  Just exploit your classes strengths and use the soloing tactics you've develop over the 20+ leves of play and you'll be fine.  The Champion. however, is a pickle, especially for non-bard scouts and mages. 

Here's a few tips that I've gathered.

All classes:

• Buff your resistances as much as possible, especially arcane and noxious. 
  
• Debuffs:  I haven't yet heard of someone facing off against a Champ whose class didn't in a lot of ways reflect their own in substantial ways.  What I'm getting at here is, whatever your primary stat is, work to debuff that stat in the Champ throughout the battle to the bitter end.  As a Templar, I fought a mystic / defiler, so I debuffed WIS.  All players would do well to debuff STR and AGI too; this guy is a nasty melee'r.  In reality, you can't debuff him enough to minimize the damage he gives.
  
• Cures: If you can, cure yourself as needed (single cures, not group cures, to save power).  You can't afford casting inefficiency due to debuffs, and you want to make him waste mana on DoTs that don't live out their potential.
• Damage his power as much as possible. His melee skills are superb, you'll have to live with that, but if you break him on power you won't have to deal with his casts too.
• Save your special (15 min. type) abilities for the right time, but don't forget to use them!!
  
• Potions and uber armor / weapons help, but aren't required.  Some folks are theorizing that the Champ is hyper-scaled to you, down to AC, power, offense, defense, etc.  in which case it might help to dress as he's coming on the scene!  If I get brave, I'll try that one out and let you know how it goes!
• HOs are free damage plus a chance for rare casts, use them constantly!  I chose to back my casts down a tier when power started getting low.

Of all the various strategies I've heard or seen regarding the Champ confrontation, they seem to boil down to three different, basic strategies:

1. Offensive - Attacking regardless of power (for melee / mage classes):
• Stifles and roots are invaluable, if he can't get to you or cast he's helpless against your nuke damage / arrows.
• Start with a stealth attack if you're a scout (duh! but its easy in the excitement to forget the basics!).
  
• Kiting is possible if you get your snares to stick.
• If you're a Warrior type, forget taunt-attacks.  You don't need to hold aggro, just conserve power and use pure damage abilities.
2. Defensive - Outlasting his power first, then going on the attack (for priest classes):
• Though usually we can hold our own solo, don't expect an easy time.  The priest's Champ is modeled on a Mystic / Defiler and can ward like crazy while wearing down your power.  As a priest, your link to life is your power, so conserve it!  Let individual heals expire completely before renewing them, and avoid using the inefficient group heals as much as possible.
• The biggie: keep special heals (ward, reactive, HoT) up all the time.  Match them to his damage output and back them down a tier or two towards the end of the fight to conserve mana.
  
• STR / AGI / WIS debuffs are absolutely needed to keep melee / casting damage to a minimum.  Keep these debuffs up at all costs, even when he's down to a bubble of health.  My first time, I got him down to red in health while I had full health (but no power),and he still beat me!
  
• Using DoTs, even piddly ones, against the Champ means he has to keep his ward running and can't devote as much power to damaging you.  Keep them running!
• When Champ's power is gone, start cooking off the HOs.  Use big ones to start, then back down a tier or two as your power dwindles down.
  
• If you're using this strategy, be prepared for a longish fight.  Some folks are reporting 30 minutes or more, though I can't see how you can take damage for that long since invariably you will run out of power.
3. Power-breaking while kiting (for bardic types especially (power damage), but rest of scouts that have solid bow abilities):
• Snare and keep the mob snared.  Otherwise he will likely outrun you.
• Use stifle / interrupt spells and power damage / drain spells (when he stops to cast) to minimize damage to you.
  
• Save your best bow abilities for the end of the fight, when they'll do the most damage.
• Close in for the melee kill when he's down to 20% (one bubble) health.  But not until then... you can't stand toe to toe with the champ at half health and have a good chance of survival.

If your death looks certain, evac if you can.  If you die and are locked out for 45 minutes, grab your shard by clicking the door to the arena before continuing your adventures.

Finally, if you succeed, speak to Fip and tell him you want to collect your winnings. It's very important to speak with Fip again, there's rumors of not being able to go back into the arena if you do not (Thanks Baloen of Antonia Bayle!). He'll summon a treasure chest, though this treasure chest has teeth. Be prepared for an easy fight, and upon defeating it, collect your winnings!