The third encounter in the Trial of the Crusader is referred to as the Faction Champion fight.  This fight is much more like a PvP fight than a raid encounter.  This is due to the fact that the group makeup is random each time and that your opponents do not have agro tables. Due to these items the fight is always different and generally very difficult to maintain any set strategy, you just have to go with the flow.  There are some general strategies that work though, which will be discussed here.

Health

10 Person Raid: Either 320,000 or 400,000 depending on the Champion
25 Person Raid: Either 1,900,000 or 2,400,000 depending on the Champion

Abilities

Rather than describe each ability for each possible Champion, it is better to just assume that each one has every ability that their player class equivalent has.  While this may not be 100% accurate, they have enough of the main abilities to take this for granted.  Therefore we are just providing a list of possible classes, type, and name.  The names differ from Horde to Alliance but the class and type do not.  Which ones you get appear to be random although there will always be healers mixed in.

Strategy

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The Horde Faction Champions

As mentioned above, the fight is semi-chaotic and there is no way that the Faction Champions can be tanked.  They can be Crowd Controlled (CC’ed) however they are subject to diminishing returns the same as a player in PVP would be. This means that in most cases you will have to deal with most of the enemy Faction Champions most of the time.

When the event starts, the Faction Champions will leap out of the stands and form up ready to attack.  In 25 player raids you get 10 champions and in 10 player raids you face 6 champions.  Once they enter the Coliseum they will not automatically enter combat until you approach them.  This gives raids a good chance to examine which champions they randomly got, raid mark them, and to establish kill priorities.

There are two different strategies that can work here; the first is to ensure you target and kill the healers first, the second is to focus on the most dangerous DPS first.  The correct one for your group really depends on your group itself.  If you have exceptionally high DPS and are able to interrupt, CC, or dispel healing, then burning down DPS may be the way to go.  If you have a fairly standard group, getting rid of the healers first is probably the way to go, and the far more common approach.  An important note here is that you can not group them up and AoE them down.  They all are granted a non-removable buff that lets them ignore 75% of the damage taken from AoE damage.

No matter the strategy you choose the Faction Champions will behave in the same way.  They behave similar to players in a large PVP encounter or arena fight.  They tend to behave as follows:

1. All DPS focus on a single player.
2. All healers heal the target your group attacks
3. Use as much CC as possible and prefer to CC your healers
4. Switch targets semi-randomly attempting to catch healers off guard
5. Use AoE abilities anytime players group up

[protip]Even though this is a PvP style fight, resilience seems to have little effect on the incoming damage.  Using PvP gear also significantly lowers your DPS output and may lower it to the point that you can not burn through targets. Therefore stay equipped in PvE gear.[/protip]

Depending on your strategy, your kill order will vary, but the rest of this guide looks at the standard “kill the healers first” strategy.  While the Faction Champions are in place ensure the healers and AoE DPS capable classes are marked and a kill order is assigned. Generally the Druid and Shaman Healer are the highest on the priority list.  The druid can cast huge HOTs and the Shaman has Heroism / Bloodlust and totems. After that comes  and then any DPS players you feel you are having issues with.  Many times that means the Warrior and Warlock due to AoE effects, but can also mean the Rogue or any other DPS causing issues.

Players should also be assigned CC targets and priorities.  Due to diminishing returns these have little long term effect, but when done in sequence can work very well.  For example: Repentance, Sheep, and then Hexxing the Warrior can keep him out of combat for a while right at the start of a fight.  Depending on the amount of CC that your group has, it may be possible to keep specific opponents tied up for long periods of time, or to just keep random opponents out of the fight throughout the fight.

[protip]It is important to have as much Crowd Control (CC) up as possible at most times early in the fight.  To do this while not losing your main target all classes should create macros for the fight.  The simplest way to do this is to create them based on name.
Example:

/target Velanaa
/cast Polymorph
/targetlasttarget

There and many other fancy macros that you could create that use focus targets and can be reset, however for most players something simple works just as well.[/protip]

The last thing to note before you actually start the fight is that since the Faction Champions do not have threat tables, tanks are not needed.  This means that they can and should switch up to their off-spec either to help DPS or Heal.

Once you do start the fight, try to keep all of the above in mind and work through your target priorities.  The fight is extremely difficult early due to the random nature of what is going on and the pure mayhem of that many enemies on the field at one time.  The best thing to do it use your Heroism / Bloodlust, cooldowns, CC, stuns, interrupts, trinkets and the kitchen sink as fast and as early as you can.  This will help ensure that you burn down your primary target and get them out of the fight quickly.  Each time you drop a Faction Champion the fight becomes less chaotic and easier to manage.

While all of this is going on make sure that you keep the following in mind.

1. Keep up any CC up that you can
2. Avoid clustering up so that AoE is less effective
3. If targeted by the Warrior when he is using whirlwind lead him away from other players
4. Remember Cleanse, Purge, dispel and mass dispel as methods to remove buffs, heals and effects from either enemies or players