Rogue / Priest 2v2 Arena Strategy Breakdown

Preface: this article is somewhat of a response one of the another article that brought up the point that top arena players don't really care about nurturing new players or developing any sort of a mature community. Maybe this will be a catalyst for other players...in any regard, here it is.

As many of you know (or at least Klynxx, Ykoops, and the 3 other people who regularly read my blog) I recently released my first pvp arena video, Zuggy 1: Revenge of the Troll. The video features myself, Zuggy (combat rogue), and my partner, Engage (disc priest), in 2v2.

The video showcases a variety of top ranking teams on battlegroup 1 (Reckoning) and was initially created for the purpose of entertainment. However, since it's release I've received a ton of questions about the video. Why I fought certain battles a particular way, why I had particular talent over another, you get the idea.

The following is meant to be something of a tutorial and to hopefully explain why I made the decisions I made through the arena matches.

Note: I am spec’d deep combat (16/45/0) throughout the video and Engage is spec’d heavy disc with searing light and reflective shield.

If you haven't seen the video already you can download it here.

Match 1: Warrior / Priest

If you could sum this match up in 2 words, it'd be mana burn. The early portion of the fight is simply the priests attempting to mana burn each other. This type of strategy is one we often employ to get an early lead and get the opposing team on the defensive.

By having me attack the priest it prevents him from getting off nearly as many burns, in addition he's forced to heal why my priest is able to sit back and get the burns off on him. If the warrior had switched to Engage I probably would have needed to switch to the warrior to reduce damage and allow Engage to get away.

After the initial pillar dance and spam mana burning I was forced to switch the warrior after the priest got a good fear off on me. At this point I'm going into somewhat off a defensive play. My main goal is take lock down the warrior as much as possible, IE, try to get behind him to guarantee the kidney shot and keep him directly in front so he can't just lay into my back.

That's pretty much it for this fight, my defensive play allowed my priest to catch up on mana, as soon as he was caught up he came over and finished the mana of the opposing priest while I killed the warrior.

Match 2: Mage / Rogue

With any double dps team I try to play it defensively. My primary objective is to reduce damage and allow my priest to get away so he can heal. Some have asked why I was slow to go in on this particular match. My reasoning? I knew there was a good chance the rogue was going to be subtly spec’d, so staying back to avoid the sap is absolutely crucial. Playing somewhat passively early on allowed me to take the opener and shut the rogue down.

The only other major thing to note in this match up is to be aware of the blind. A blind / sap combo would be absolutely devastating and would without a doubt be the end of my priest. Therefore, I always take care to save my trinket for blinds in double DPS situations.

Match 3: Warrior / Druid

As with any warrior / druid combo it’s going to be tough to do any type of serious burst damage. So my goal for the early part of this match was really to just lock down the warrior as much as possible. Meanwhile my priest was attempting to put pressure on the druid via mana burns.

This is the type of match where we are just biding our time. For most druid / warrior games we try to pull of the blind / sap / fear crowd control combo and we were able to pull it off here. While we’ve got the CC train going you’ll notice that my priest is assisting in damage, this is crucial during the blow up phases to ensure a kill.

Match 4: Warlock / Paladin

Somewhat of an endurance match up here. Obviously it’s going to be difficult to drop any type of serious burst against an SL lock (even though he was somewhat low early on). Our goal vs. this match up was to basically put enough pressure on the lock that paladin has to continually heal, preventing him from line of sight kiting and / or drinking. This type of play allows my priest to get additional mana burns off, putting even more pressure on the paladin to perform.

At one point the warlock just gets more distance than I’m willing to cover, and knowing the paladin is already without a bubble he’s just as good an option. So I let the warlock walk on by, cut back into the paladin who falls over very quickly. A couple of kicks and throwing cloak to prevent any type of crowd control from the lock ensures the kill. Not necessarily our initial plan, but being able to adapt to the opposing team’s positioning was key for us this match.

Match 5: Warrior / Paladin

Awful opener here due to latency when trying to land the cheap shot, though once things get going it settles into me locking down the warrior while he attempts to attack my priest. This match really comes down to a few crowd control moments on the paladin.

In order to assist me with this type of crowd control I use a focus frame for the paladin and various focus macros (kick, gouge, blind). Once we get the warrior to a place where we can bomb him I hit the paladin with a focus gouge then I vanish cheap shot the warrior. Meanwhile, I’m already looking at my focus casting bar (you’ll notice it towards the top of my screen) for the next heal. Before it even goes off I’m moving back towards her to kick.

Quite simply, I land the kick, Engage throw’s a smite / shadow word: death combo and it’s game over.

Match 6: Priest / Rogue

Subtly rogue gets the best of me on the opener, though it turned out not to be a big deal because he cheap shotted me a few seconds later. This match somewhat resembles the druid / warrior match, except much shorter. The rogue makes the wrong decision when he drops target on me to go for my priest. For starters he’s line of sighting his priest and he’s already taken a good chunk of damage.

The priest trinketed a fear early on, so we quite simply went with the blind / sap combo, Engage healed himself through the rogue’s damage and I came over to finish him off while we had the priest crowd controlled for 22 seconds (blind 10 seconds, sap 12 seconds).

Match 7: Mage / Rogue

Very similar to the first mage / rogue team we faced. My objective initially is to avoid a poor opener by getting sapped , therefore I was forced to stay back until the rogue showed himself. Once things get started I basically hit the rogue with everything a mace spec’d AR pumping rogue has to offer.

An early blind on the mage slows his damage / sheep train down long enough for me to get through my AR. Beyond that it just came down to Engage line of sight kiting while I bombed the rogue down. A fight like this can get infinitely more complicated if the opposing team has a very good crowd control rotation.

Match 8: Shaman / Warlock

Not the most popular combo by any stretch of the imagination, in this instance a shaman is more like a nerfed druid. Even so the goal of this match up was to quite simply to stay on the lock. As combat spec nearly 65% of my overall damage output is white attacks, therefore I’m not too concerned with blowing a big energy load to spam sinister strike the warlock.

My 2 primary attacks in this match up were without a doubt kick and shiv. I always saved energy back in the match to kick / gouge / kidney shot a fear, as that’s the only thing that can really screw us over in the match. Even though shaman / warlock isn’t the greatest combo it’s still very capable of becoming problematic if the lock and shaman get significant distance from me. Therefore, objective number one is to simply avoid getting feared and focus on producing a stream of steady damage.

Match 9: Druid / Warrior

We handled this druid / warrior combo like we handle any other, early pressure on the warrior. I do my best to lock him down so Engage can get a bit of distance, meanwhile we’re constantly watching for the trinket. As soon as we saw the druid blow his trinket I through the blind / sap combo and Engage went into complete offensive mod.
The 22 seconds of control is quite simply too much for any warrior to handle.

Match 10: Warlock / Druid

If you remember back to the shaman / warlock combo you’ll see many of the same things present in this match up. My goal above all is to prevent warlock casts and stay with his as much as I can. Obviously my job gets much more difficult with a druid continually cyclone spamming and rooting me.

In this match I used the blind to simply allow my priest a breather. With the druid blinded he was able to heal to full and setup for the next round of mana burning while I locked the warlock down. Ideally we should have setup the blind / sap here, though I blew vanish early to break a crowd control.

This match basically came to an end when Engage finally burned the druid to zero, certainly not our most flawlessly executed match, but then again there are going tough moments against any team that has a half decent druid on it.

ZugGaming
Zuggy's Gold Mastery Guide