Adding another one to the Rogue and Holy Priest series, we start with the juicy strategies on how to win against some of the hardest match ups.

Starting off with Soul-linked Warlock and Druid, this 2v2 combo brings fear to many teams. First of all it is nearly impossible to outlast them. With the Warlock being the only spell caster with unlimited mana, and Druid the most mobile of the healers, they definitely benefit from many aspects of the arena game. With a pet on Warlock’s side, they can easily prevent most healers from going out of combat and drinking. To make things simple, we can summarize the goal of this 2v2 lineup is to outlasting their opponents to victory. It would seem as all odds are stacked in their favorite.

While this is not the hardest fight, a well played Warlock & Druid can definitely take ton of your precious points away. Their goal is to let the Warlock kite the Rogue with Curse of Exhaustion. Although Crippling Poison is much stronger than Curse of Exhaustion, with the help of Abolish Poison, Entangle and Cyclone, the tables can turn very fast. Their plan will be to mix Entangle, Cyclone and other magic debuffs on the Rogue and Mana Drain the Priest while Rogue is locked down.

Some might suggest going after the Druid at the beginning. Although this is a valid strategy for Rogue and Shadow Priest line up, a lone Rogue simply can not drop a good Druid fast enough. Killing Warlock’s pet is another strategy that is commonly brought up. With a Warrior team this works quite fine, however Rogue being much easier to kite and unable to store as much burst, this strategy is very risky considering you have to kill the pet twice in most cases. A good Warlock can also easily distance themselves from the Rogue when they see this attempt and summon another Felhunter main while.

Now with those two popular mistakes taken care of, we get down to what actually works. With the pet and Druid out of question, we’re left with Warlock as our Rogue’s main focus. There are many benefits in sticking on the Warlock, first of all, he will no longer be able to cast non-instant spells or get more than a tick off any Drain spells. On top of that, you will control the pace of the fight by greatly hinder the Warlock’s ability to travel and damage output will be reduced to minimum. Of course the other team will not just give up once this happens. Their Druid will try everything he can to keep you off their Warlock, with the best Poison removal spell in the game, your Rogue will be forced to stay on top of the game with Shivs and know exactly how to deal with each Cyclones effectively.

A typical match will start off with Rogue opening on Warlock, make sure your Priest is also near by. After the Cheap Shot, immediately Shiv on Crippling Poison followed by Slice and Dice to increase the poison application rate. You want to have enough stack of Wound Poison on at all times to ensure Abolish Poison isn’t removing your Crippling Poison constantly. Some Druids will follow their Warlock in stealth and Pounce on you as you open on the Warlock. Followed by their finisher move, they can keep you off the Warlock for up to 8 second. This is where the Priest comes in and Fear the Druid before the finisher. If the Druid trinkets, he will be setup for the next Fear, and if he doesn’t, then you will have the jump on poison stacks on the Warlock. Either way, Priest should now Dispel Magic spam on the Warlock to get rid of all buffs, especially Fel Armor. After the initial contact, you want to setup Exposed Armor on the Warlock and keep up the sustained damage while waiting patiently for the next move.

From this point on, there are two ways to win this fight. First choice: have your Rogue lockdown the Warlock as much as possible. While this is happening your Priest will be freed up to fully harass their Druid with Manaburn and Fears. If focusing on this, you can attempt to run their Druid out of mana with a few good Manaburns and have your Priest chase the Druid to prevent drinking and Dispel Innervate. Eventually the Druid will still be able to escape from your Priest, but if you saved your cooldowns for when the Druid is running away to recharge, there should be no problem in dropping the Warlock during this time.

Another way to win this fight is to just keep up the pressure. Your Rogue will focus on doing damage over stunlocks. Your Priest will focus on offensively dispelling the Warlock none stop and try to land Fears on the Druid. After the Druid trinket a Fear, the next Fear will combo into a Sprint > Blind and followed by Mind Control if needed. While this is happening, your Rogue will unload all cooldowns and also have the Priest assist with Mind Blast > Shadow Word: Death. With this method your Priest will run out of mana very quickly from dispel spamming the Warlock. However there is a way to conserve mana. While uncomfortable at start, leave both Rogue and Priest between 40%-70% health. The mana you save from not having to top off your team’s health can easily add up to 2k or more which converts to around half a dozen Dispels. This method is also more reliable because the first method can be counter by very good Druids with clever Cyclones on Priest, Shapeshifting, Feral Charge, and distancing. If the Druid doesn’t trinket the first Fear, you can simply Manaburn instead and switch to first method if you manage to get a big jump on the mana war.

To ensure success, we also must cover how to deal with each high threat spells effectively.

Curse of Exhaustion:

To counter this, simply keep the Warlock snared. Being one of the weakest snares at 30%, the advantage of Curse of Exhaustion is it being an instant cast and spam friendly. Deadly Throw is your friend in this case if the Warlock ever gets away from your Crippling Poison via Trinket or Druid’s Abolish Poison. Try to plan your Deadly Throws carefully so you can gain enough yards on the Warlock to land a Shiv. Sometimes it would be wise to back up a bit in order to execute a Deadly Throw when you’re in the dead zone. Other times you might want to wait 4 seconds before you toss your 2^nd Deadly Throw to ensure a 10 seconds snare if the 2^nd one doesn’t proc another combo point.

Mana Drain, Life Drain, Fear:

Make sure you kick them to stop the spam. When the kick lands it’s 5 second lock out on the school. Try always save 25 energy for a Kick because you do not want to be waiting 4 second to recharge 25 energy should you ever over spend to 0. Alternate in Kidney Shot when Kick is on cooldown and there shouldn’t be any chances for the Warlock to land more than a tick of Drain. On top of that, try to have the Priest stay outside the Drain range and there should be no threat in running out of mana prematurely. Ignore any Fire spells such as Immolate.

Deathcoil:

Although this spell can be dispelled, most of the times it won’t be done fast enough to make a difference. Many times this spell will be followed by a Fear or the Warlock Trinketing your snare and run the opposite direction, or both. To counter this simply make sure your Priest is aware of the situation and Dispel the following Fear. If Trinket is used by the Warlock then it’s wise to use your Sprint at this point because it will be very difficult to catch up under this situation.

Felhunter:

For the most part this little bugger will be harassing your Priest all game. It’s not recommended for you to shift your focus on it at any point of the fight due to the nasty Attack Power debuff when you melee it. Most likely the Warlock will use Devour Magic offensively to keep the puppy healed. However in rare cases when the Warlock plays defensively, it’s possible to save Devour Magic strictly for Fears on the Druid. In this case if you notice a decline in the Felhunter’s health to around 50%, have the Priest bring it next to Rogue for a quick Bladeflurry beating. Once it’s dead, put heavy lockdown pressure and dispel spam on the Warlock to prevent a 2^nd one. If you are lucky enough and manage to catch the Warlock without a pet then it will be a breeze through the rest of the fight. Another small tip is dealing with Devour Magic. If there’s any buffs you don’t want dispelled right away, such as Prayer of Mending, simply use a rank 1 Renew ahead of time.

Entangle, Faerie Fire:

The Druid will attempt to root your Rogue in place with these 2 spells. In most cases simply have your Priest dispel. You can also use Cloak of Shadows in situations where the Rogue has too many magic debuffs, or if the Priest is too far away to Dispel/low on mana. It’s not recommended to use Sprint against Entangle as you would want to save it for moments like Deathcoil > Trinket.

Cyclone:

The dreaded Cyclone has put fears in many teams. As a Rogue there are many ways to counter it when planned correctly. First off make sure your Crippling Poison is always staying above 8 seconds duration. You do not want Crippling Poison to wear off by itself just because the chain Cyclones. A very effective way to counter Cyclone is just save enough energy at all times for a Gouge. With Improved Gouge, it’s a mere 1 second freedom for the Warlock off a full duration Cyclone. If Gouging is not possible, try Shiving the Warlock before the Cyclone and again after. Many Druids will try to Cyclone you first before healing when it comes to the Warlock running low on health. If allowed to, they can easily remove most of the Wound Poison then heal the Warlock to full. It is heavily recommended to save your Trinket for this. Clock the next incoming Cyclone and Vanish the following one. This sets the Druid back a good 8-10 seconds and easily allows your Priest to Manaburn or Fear Druid while you finish off the Warlock.

Abolish Poison:

By far the best Poison removal spell in the game. Instead of ticking every 3 seconds like normal spells, this one ticks every 2 seconds. Getting this spell off the Warlock will be what makes or breaks the match in most case. Whenever an Abolish Poison is up it’s very important to dispel it right away. Sure, you might also dispel off Lifebloom but the healing Lifebloom offers can’t compare to the devastating amount of a Swiftmend on a Warlock with Fel Armor up and almost no Poison; not to mention how hard the match gets when you can no longer rely on Crippling Poison.

Next article we will talk about the most known counter to Rogues, Warrior teams.

Tags: Rogue · 2v2 · Articles

17 Responses to “2v2 Arena: Rogue & Holy Priest Explained, Part 3”

1. Gusty Says:
   September 18th, 2007 at 9:01 pm

   Excellent attention to detail!

   This is the reason I check on your site daily:)

2. Laszlo Says:
   September 19th, 2007 at 4:38 am

   Really brilliant. I just found this site, and happy to see usefull information!
   I have a 28/33 (dwarf) priest and partnered with an affl. lock (rating above 1800). But still unsure that would a rouge partner be better or the lock? Any thoughts?
   Keep up the good work!

   Ziss: Locks are usually better paired off with outlasting healers such as Pally or Druid, Lock lacks the ability to protect Priest. A Rogue would definitely do better with a 28/33 Priest than a Warlock imo.

3. Cular Says:
   September 19th, 2007 at 11:44 am

   keep up ur excellent work… enjoyed reading

4. Thorak Says:
   September 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm

   I’m really starting to like this site. The previous articles didn’t really tell a lot (too basic imho), but now it’s picking up. You should maybe get a couple more writers to get the update frequency up a bit, just a thought. Anyway, this was a really excellent article which i enjoyed a lot reading, and it had several points i never would have thought of myself

5. random Says:
   September 19th, 2007 at 5:19 pm

   Great job, enjoyed reading it.

6. Herreth Says:
   September 19th, 2007 at 9:04 pm

   Please keep up your excellent strategy explanations of Rogue+Holy/disc priest, its a extremely well written and helpful, thanks alot!

7. Katheavis Says:
   September 20th, 2007 at 6:44 am

   Good stuff!
   yes, please do increase the frequency of your articles

8. Snitch Says:
   September 20th, 2007 at 7:57 am

   I love the comments on the movies. And with this content, who knows, there might even be money in this shit. So keep it up!

9. Skel Says:
   September 20th, 2007 at 12:40 pm

   Good article but you are assuming the warlock is affliction specced. Half of the locks are demo

   Ziss: Actually this article is against the standard Demo drain spec Warlock. Note how I talked about the pet taking damage without direct hits which would mean the lock is Soul Linked.

10. Sarian Says:
    September 20th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

    Fantastic article. I loved the section where you broke down each of the lock/druids key abilities and then described a solid counter. I hope that the rogue/priest vs. warrior/healer articles are as good as this one! Keep up the good work.

11. Critickle Says:
    September 21st, 2007 at 2:38 pm

    “Some Druids will follow their Warlock in stealth and Pounce on you as you open on the Warlock. Followed by their finisher move, they can keep you off the Warlock for up to 8 second.” I notice that you base multiple things your team can do when a druid makes this mistake.

    Another tip you can add to this is that SOMETIMES it’s possible for the rogue to go and shiv the pet with crippling to allow the priest to outrun it and drink.

    Anyway…My team is a warlock/druid combination(2nd on vengeance), and we don’t have issues fighting rogue/healpriest teams.

    Ziss: Good call, looking forward to go against you guys.

12. Jiga Says:
    October 3rd, 2007 at 7:19 am

    very well written. rogue/resto druid have been giving my 2s a hard time also, make a part for them too! lol.

13. bigpoop Says:
    October 7th, 2007 at 2:26 pm

    sucks

14. Serren Says:
    March 22nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm

    I dont usually comment, but after reading through so much info I had to say thanks

15. GEORGE Says:
    December 28th, 2009 at 7:24 pm

    Such interesting read and information, thanks for sharing this post. I will check back to read your other new posts.

16. Rachele Bolling Says:
    August 12th, 2011 at 12:22 am

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