World of Hordecraft, Rogue/Lock/Druid Strategy Guide Part 1

When Forgotten Heroes, one of the best American PVE guilds faction changed to horde side, it triggered a mass exodus of alliance players going horde.  On a medium sized server with not a lot of talents to begin with, the hokage had to faction change himself.  It is quite refreshing to play the game on the other side, and Estel actually thought the male Undead model, as cookie cutter as it may be for a rogue hero, is the best looking model in the game.



And I have to agree.  After playing my Undead character for a hour, I can see why the biggest PVP movie stars, Laintime, Vurtne, and of course, 90% of the rogue heroes from Stuck of classic to Neilyo of TBC to Reckful of WOTLK, have been Undead.  Will of the Forsaken is the best racial in the game by a long shot.  I am still new to it and sometimes don't pop it fast enough or worse, use the PVP trinket when I get feared.  But even more importantly, if the male Night Elf model screams "scrub", the male Undead model is loaded with style.  From stealth movement to vanish animation to mutilate attacks, you simply look better on camera when you play Undead.

Blizzard seriously needs to provide some strong incentives for people to play alliance and stay alliance.  I personally don't really care for racial advantages all that much, as I feel we can do well without it.  However, no one want to be on a dead server and that is exactly what alliance side felt like on my server.  As horde you get much higher quality PUGs, whether it is TOC25 or Warsong, and you feel like you are on the winning side at all times.

After they milk the hell out of the $30 faction changes, can we please nerf Will of the Forsaken, buff Alliance racials so we can get some degree of faction balance?  Faction imbalance is a serious problem if Blizzard wants to push the alliance vs horde concept in Cataclysm.  I really hope they can make the necessary adjustments even if it means I just wasted $30. 

Will of the Forsaken: -15% fear/sleep duration, the counterpart to Orc hardiness.  That will do the trick.  Although given Blizzard's decision to make all racials powerful in Cataclysm, this probably won't happen.  Balanced factions is key to WOW's long term health, Blizzard needs to buff alliance right now before long term damage is dealt.

Rogue/Lock/Druid: Strategy Guide By Salamanderx: Part 1

I read this incredible strategy guide on NGACN and I was amazed by the level of detail Salamanderx, aka Fruitsalad put into his guide.  For those of you who are not familiar with Fruitsalad, he has a gladiator title with every healer in the game over the past a few seasons, and played a large variety of comps on European servers.  The reason I decided to translate his strategy guide is because while there may be better players than him, very few can write a great strategy guide like he does.

A good strategy guide needs to feature easy to use pre-canned strategies that gives you instant results, and more importantly, makes you want to try out the comp.  A GREAT strategy guide takes it a step further, it should help you correct your teammate's mistakes if you don't play their class, and it should benefit people who don't even run the same comp.

This guide does just that.  Fruitsalad never had the biggest names to work with.  He picked up a rogue with tier 1 S6 daggers, a lock without a lot of experience, bam, a 2400+ team with a comp not on SK-100 (although it was one of world's first 3000 comps).  Individual skills aside, you need to be a good teacher and he is very, very specific about what you need to do to win a fight.  Reminds me of my dueling guides where I had everything down to a science.  Will pre-canned strategies beat the best of the best players?  No, but it is the fastest way for newer players to learn, it is instant satisfaction.

Gear/Spec Setup

Like Azael mentioned in his interview with Complexity, he is already playing affliction a lot more than destruction as RLS and find it better against a larger set of teams. With destruction nerfs coming in 3.3, haste affecting DOTs/HOTs, affliction will probably be the dominant warlock spec again.  Rogue/lock/druid is a much more defensive comp than RLS so Fruitsalad's warlock plays affliction. 

Rogue plays the standard 44/2/25 spec for master poisoner vs other rogues, deadly/envenom vs heavy armor and wears over 1000 resilience as he is the primary target for most enemy teams.  He also uses mutilate/cloak/prep glyphs for maximum defensive power.  Druid is the standard 13/0/58 spec.

Against RMP

After watching HON's performance against X6 as alliance we can safely conclude no alliance RMP will beat a top affliction warlock team.  So the guide is about vs tri-UD RMP.

1) If your rogue gets the opener on the enemy rogue.  Cheap shot + kidney + fairy fire + rupture and start pressuring him right away.  You are on the offense here so felhunter spell lock should be used for sheeps.  Because the enemy rogue won't be able to put out a lot of damage yet, you can leave the enemy mage to cast frost bolts. 

As soon as your warlock get a spell lock on the sheep, your druid can safely use cyclones.  Your rogue needs to pay attention to enemy priests who will be Undead and try to run up to your druid for a fear.  Your rogue should be blinding him super early to force trinket and vanish CS KS the enemy rogue to dish out further pressure, who by this point should have evasion up.  Warlock should save trinket for full 10 second sheep's when felhunter dispel fails.  Rogue should save trinket for full kidney burst's.  Druid should save trinket for 10 second fear's. 

As a druid you can use cyclone in three situations against a top RMP:

1) Enemy mage already used counter spell
2) Enemy mage is feared
3) Enemy mage is spell locked

Notice in scenario 2, DO NOT wait until the fear is over.  The mage is probably Undead and has trinket/ice block, plus a priest to dispel him.  Cyclone him as soon as he is feared, if you are lucky you can catch his WOTF GCD.  Getting counter spelled on a cyclone can be GG vs a top RMP, but if you do get counter spelled, immediately go bear and bash the closest DPS.  Rogue or mage whoever is closer, try to interrupt the frost bolt.

As a tauren druid, save the war stomp for enemy rogue's evasion if possible, it makes a huge difference for your rogue.  You can also cyclone the priest, war stomp into another cyclone if your team has the momentum.

2) If both rogues are sapped at same time:

As druid you should be spamming fairy fire on the enemy rogue (their priest will dispel it, but you can reapply it) while stacking hots on your own.  Your lock should start dotting the enemy rogue when sap has 3 seconds left.  Play the fear/sheep game like the classic mage/priest vs lock/druid 2v2 fight. 

3) If your rogue gets sapped:

Start putting up partial hots on your rogue but add a hot or two on your lock/druid too, the RMP can open on anyone they want.  Watch the enemy mage to read their intention, spell lock his first sheep or frost bolt, death coil the enemy rogue if necessary to break their momentum.  You have to start the match on defense and it is not easy against a top RMP.

4) If neither rogue can find each other:

Get UA on their priest and DOT him up, try to instant AOE fear him into an open area which opens up your rogue for a CS mutilate CB evis mutilate burst.  Spell lock the sheep followed with a safe cyclone on the mage to keep momentum going.  Your rogue should blind the enemy rogue to force trinket, if your own rogue is stunned or disarmed, lock should blow death coil on the priest to prevent him from healing.

Against a top RMP you will NOT score a kill on the priest, however you should be able to force him to cough up pain suppression and trinket.  From there you should still have your defensive cooldowns, and you can go back to the rogue on rogue strategy from part 1 with cooldown advantage.

Spell lock sheeps when you are on offense, spell lock frost bolts when you are on defense

If it is an even situation, spell lock the sheep for momentum advantage.  And the key to winning this match-up is having a rogue who can manage his cooldowns.  Communication is huge.  You have to save cloak for when your lock can not spell lock an incoming frost bolt, or when your druid is feared/blinded.

Nature swiftness cyclone into death coil on the priest is a guaranteed long CC from long range, use it properly and you will surprise even the best opponents and score a super early rogue kill.

Against TSG Warrior/DK/Paladin

As RLD against any heavy armor cleave, your rogue should swap to a 1.4 dagger for deadly/envenom's.  TSG's strength vs RLD is their ability to dish out a ton of DPS pressure, force the druid into pure healing mode, and lose.

If your rogue can get a sap on their DK, go for a paladin train and blind/cyclone warrior.  Blow all of your cooldowns to force bubble and you have a big advantage rest of the game.  However against a good team, the DK won't get sapped easily. 

Watch for their paladin's position.  Some tend to be aggressive and is out in the front, in that case open on paladin and blind warrior right away to force trinket.  Once warrior trinkets you can either go for a swap on the warrior or continue on the paladin to force a bubble. 

Save both disarms for the warrior and use it when mortal strike is about to fall off which really helps your team to get topped off.  TSG will try to go for lock kills or druid kills in this fight, watch out for fel hunter switches after lock teleports.  If you lose one fel hunter bring out the void for the second pet.

Against top teams you pretty much have to go for warrior kills after blinding him early to force trinket.  Fear/cyclone on the DK to keep him at bay.  Going for cyclones on the paladin is VERY dangerous against intercept/death grip, but if you managed to entangle one of the two cleaves you can go for it.

Pre-hotting is KEY.  Warrior/DK with two 258 weapons can drop a druid in a single death grip.  If the DK already used death grip it is your chance to play offensively, because without it they can not swap to you as effectively.  If you read their swap attempt correctly, your chance of winning goes up dramatically.

It is a battle of cooldowns.  Once TSG coughs up shield wall/bubble/anti-magic zone, deadly/envenom with full DOTs should do the trick. 

To be continued . . .