So my friend and I just hit 70 on our horde toons. He plays a shaman and I play a warrior.
This isn't my first 70 warrior, so I'm pretty comfortable trying to gear up and do some MS action.
However, this is his first 70 shaman. We are not sure what spec would be best to make a good 2v2 for him. If he goes resto he isn't quite as good as a Holy Paly or Resto Druid, if he goes elemental we wouldn't have any healing. Enhance is lol...
If he goes resto we can do the whole... I'm kill bot, he heals thing. If he goes Ele we can try to just wtfburn people?
I dunno, what do you guys think wold be best for a 2v2? Should he gear up for Ele or Resto?
I'm playing with my shaman friend i 2v2 atm, he's resto ofc and we're doing okey considering my gear.
Been palying since saturday and were at 2060 rating, me beeing gimped in 4/5 s1 gear while he's full venge.
As he said healer and something else is what you want to face. Druid warrior is not a big problem since you got WF which really is insane :p Dps the warrior and when he's at 50-60% druid will come out of bear to heal, Pop pl that second and intercept with deathwish and you can kill him in a matter of seconds.
Warlock/Druid is not too hard to beat either, pretty much the same thing. But what you need to do is change target often, and spread the DPS while still mainly DPS the lock(and his pet) so you force the druid to focus on the
lock. The druid will be at around 60% a couple of times during the game, this is when you pop BL DWISH and intercept him. With WF a kill is really no problem.
Same thing goes for most of the healers really, exept priest which is as squishy as you can get. Purge'ing his spells
and having a warr with WF on him, lal.
We did the mistake trying to take out a hunterpet(scorpid of course) when face'ing priest hunter.
Of course we lost big time. Next game we met them again, changing tactic killing priest first and guess who won ?
Man, I wish I (resto-schaman) was doing as well as you. Because I lose most of the 2vs2 games I play. Many teams I faced were just way better geared. Me partially S1 and blues, them full S2/S3, even with my low rating of 1492. And there's not much I can do against big bad warriors hammering with their big bad weapons on me. I can "tank" warriors with the same level of my gear but against S3 warriors ... Maybe things will get better when I break 300+ resilience, I don't know. Warrior/Priest teams gives us (resto-schaman/hunter) a lot of trouble as well. Man do I hate Mana Burn and dispell ;-)
Resto is the only viable choice with a warrior in 2s. Warrior+Resto shaman is actually extremely strong against most healer+X lineups, more than people give it credit for, especially after water shield got buffed. However, the flip side is that it gets wrecked by most competent 2 dps teams because they can CC one of you while killing the other very easily, so climbing up the ratings can be rather grueling depending on what types of teams you get. Warrior+Ele shaman is useless because it loses to 2 dps for the same reasons as warrior+Resto shaman, but also loses to healer+X because ele shamans are not built to play any outlasting games. If gearing specifically for 2v2 with a warrior is the only concern, then go resto.
Ok, this is kidna what we were leaning towards, but we wanted to do a bit of research and see what other people thought as well. Thanks for the input
I've been doing 3's for the longest of time now... Was told to do 2's with my eldest brother. This is a Pally/Warrior Combo. Been hearing more and more that this team is currently obsolete because of hunters and their ability to be a warrior/mage/warlock at once... (IE -- Viper Sting + Arcane Shot + Mortal ((Whatever that MS shot is)) ) Not to mention the ability to rob me of mana almost immediately...
So our first one was a Hunter/Priest group and immediately Mana Burn and Viper Sting on me; Even with LOS I couldnt shake it all off and was soon out of mana... Next one was Hunter/Druid; same story different running techniques. Even whilst keeping the druid CC'd we still couldnt take down the pet.
Personally aggravating; but we cannot seem to take down any team where a hunter is involved (no deadzone = lame) I mean come on you don't see an archer who's about to be cut down by a soldier keep shooting....
We OWN almost every duo melee class (ie... Rogue/Rogue; Druid/Rogue; Warrior/Warrior; Fire Mage/Warrior) etc. But the most common team we face is a Hunter (Insert Class)... Really getting annoying and I was wondering if there is really anyway to counteract that hunter (insert class) team.
Last edited by Valanthropos : 02/14/08 at 1:06 AM.
I was wondering if there's anything my Warlock/Druid team can do to combat the Discipline Priest/Rogue combination. Even if the priest is a dispel machine, we still end up losing the mana battle and if he just bounces mending and goes for mana-burns, we just get crushed, I either die or my druid goes OOM very quickly. The matchup seems possible with letter perfect play on our part against mutilate or combat builds, but I'm absolutely at a loss as to what to do with a shadow-step rogue. The improved mobility and consistent damage, combined with cheat death to counter-act any burn we could possibly pull off and we get annihilated.
I know Tongues on the Priest is critical, as well as spell locking every mana burn I can get on cooldown, but I feel like Sisyphus at times.
Need pointers at the elesham-rogue combo, i need pointers on where to stand, what to do and what my mate should do ( im the rogue ).
We've gotten up to 1720 Rating, but that's just with "I NUKE U!!!"-things, Ill sap one and they're usually down before the sap ends if we're lucky enough.
But i would like some pointers on where the shaman should stand, who to nuke in certain typical matches etc.
For instance, lock & druid.
I play at Cyclone battlegroup so its a bitch to learn new combos at a high rating.
Advice greatly appriciated.
I play rogue-resto shammy and we had no problem reaching 1800, the shammy doesn't even use a windfury totem. He just runs around healing, intterupting cc's and helping with my burst. I was suprised by the usefullness of this combo and the ability of the shaman to tank damage. When I was the target the shammy put the earth shield on me, he didn't have much trouble keeping me up and drinking from time to time (I can tank quite some damage due to ghostly strike+evasion = 70% dodge).
As warlock/druid, our strat vs rogue/priest essentially involves trying to lock down the rogue as much as possible with fears, CoEx and cyclone, avoiding roots or any dots where possible. Thorns usually gets dispelled asap but we click it off if not. Basically we try and do everything possible to stop mending bouncing, lock down the rogue as much as possible, and then focus on draining the priest. Even forcing him to spam dispel will bring his mana down faster than ours. Don't wait until you'r almost oom to use your innervate either, coordinate with your warlock and when you can get a full duration fear or three off on the priest then use that opportunity to innervate yourself without worrying about dispels. If the priest is pulling some crazy pillar kiting then simply come at him from 2 sides and root / CoEx him.
I can't actually remember the last time we faced dpriest/rogue though, so I'm probably forgetting a whole bunch of stuff.
Any advice for a newly starting mage/moonkin team (specs, basics)? I know it's not that great of a setup, but we're gonna mess around with it for some gear and to see how far we can get, but some starting tips would be great. Thanks!
Use roots, pet nova and your own frost nova to keep your target in line of sight.
Use poly, CS, cyclone to land a long lockout chain on one target while you kill the other. Between all that you should be able to lock down a healer for a very very long time. Also might be viable for your moonkin to go 11 into feral for feral charge that can be used in conjunction with feral bash to stun a target while you finish him off with a shatter combo. Although I guess that would make you forgo getting treants. Honestly not sure what is better for pvp, treants or feral charge as boomkin. Maybe someone more versed in boomkin pvp would know here.
Edit: Just looked over AJ. Looks like most moonkin pvp'ers spec as 48/0/13. So no feral charge.
I play the standard 2v2 setup as Warrior/Druid and I have been having a lot of trouble. I was hoping this composition would easily lead me to the 1900+ bracket as it works so well against many setups. We can't seem to break the 1700 rating, which is getting very frustrating for me as I see so many successful teams as Warrior/Druid.
The problem I have in general is my druid dies fast. I can't tunnel vision on a target and hope for a victory, I need to keep my druid free from the DPS that is focusing him. From watching top players play this combo, it seems that the warrior wrecks havoc and the druid just fends for himself. We haven't been successful doing this.
I've included two short videos showing the two teams that have recently given us trouble. The videos are of low quality and low resolution to keep the file size down and download times short, but I feel they give an accurate display of my game play and the match. If you feel otherwise, I can try and get a better quality for you to view.
The first video is against a Warrior and a Paladin. We find that they both play aggressively and DPS my druid hard, with stuns, and freedom we can't keep them off my druid. I typically DPS the Holy Paladin while keeping a hamstring up on both targets when available and saving my intercept to stun the target with freedom.
The second video is against a Rogue and Mage setup. Out of all the double DPS combos this one is our most troubling. I get removed from the battle by being CC'd into oblivion while I watch helplessly as they destroy my druid. In this video they make a clever target switch taring me apart, with little time for my druid to react. I didn't record our other matches against this team, but they all resulted in my druid dying while I was polymorphed/blinded.
Another combo that we have trouble with is double DPS teams that consist of Rogue/War, and Rogue/Rogue, but I feel if we can correct our mistakes from the other situations that I posted, I will have an easier time in these other troubling match ups.
Thanks for your time!
Edit: It appears the video files don't play well from the stream on file front. To view the video I suggest downloading the file. It is small so it shouldn't take long.
I play the standard 2v2 setup as Warrior/Druid and I have been having a lot of trouble. I was hoping this composition would easily lead me to the 1900+ bracket as it works so well against many setups. We can't seem to break the 1700 rating, which is getting very frustrating for me as I see so many successful teams as Warrior/Druid.
The problem I have in general is my druid dies fast. I can't tunnel vision on a target and hope for a victory, I need to keep my druid free from the DPS that is focusing him. From watching top players play this combo, it seems that the warrior wrecks havoc and the druid just fends for himself. We haven't been successful doing this.
I've included two short videos showing the two teams that have recently given us trouble. The videos are of low quality and low resolution to keep the file size down and download times short, but I feel they give an accurate display of my game play and the match. If you feel otherwise, I can try and get a better quality for you to view.
The first video is against a Warrior and a Paladin. We find that they both play aggressively and DPS my druid hard, with stuns, and freedom we can't keep them off my druid. I typically DPS the Holy Paladin while keeping a hamstring up on both targets when available and saving my intercept to stun the target with freedom.
The second video is against a Rogue and Mage setup. Out of all the double DPS combos this one is our most troubling. I get removed from the battle by being CC'd into oblivion while I watch helplessly as they destroy my druid. In this video they make a clever target switch taring me apart, with little time for my druid to react. I didn't record our other matches against this team, but they all resulted in my druid dying while I was polymorphed/blinded.
Another combo that we have trouble with is double DPS teams that consist of Rogue/War, and Rogue/Rogue, but I feel if we can correct our mistakes from the other situations that I posted, I will have an easier time in these other troubling match ups.
Thanks for your time!
Edit: It appears the video files don't play well from the stream on file front. To view the video I suggest downloading the file. It is small so it shouldn't take long.
Your druid needs to be pretty well geared to survive in general. What's his res and sta? Against war, pally teams you need to be aggressive on the pally and do not allow him to judge justice (?the move speed one) on the druid. Keep him away from 10 yards and he won't be able to. Other than that, your druid needs to make good use of roots and cyclone to keep any melee off.
Warrior/pally can be very nasty for druid teams on RoL due to the centralised LoS obstacle. Both of you need to perfect your opener here. You need to immediately get both targets hamstrung (this can be a real pain if pally stays mounted). Druid then shifts out of stealth at max range and starts cycloning the warrior while you beat on the pally. If the pally freedoms himself to get closer to the druid, travel form away and root the warrior while freedom's on cooldown. If the warrior intercepts the druid, then intercept the pally. The druid will be able to get away once intercept stun wears off, but not with JoJ on him. Remember that if the pally's moving towards the druid he can't heal himself, so the best thing you can do in that situation is maintain hamstring while he's not freedomed, and do as much damage to him as you can. Eventually you'll force him to stop and start healing himself. Once you've gotten to that point, the druid just has to avoid / CC the warrior while you wear the pally down.
When they get JoJ on your druid (and there's a good chance that they will), don't ever bother having him go travel form unless JoJ's about to drop off. Travel form's only advantage over caster is the speed, which is completely nullified (oh and immunity to sap/sheep/MC/etc which aren't really relevant here!). Have your druid bear up and use nature's grasp, feral charge, bash etc to survive for as long as possible. When he needs a heal, have him call for you to disarm the warrior, then he can shift, spam a round of hots onto himself, and either shift back or try to re-establish CC on the warrior with cyclone. Druid should save his trinket for a HoJ in caster form, don't bother trinketting JoJ unless you KNOW it'll let you avoid it for the rest of the game.
Mage/rogue is made a lot easier if you can deny the rogue his opener. Try to catch him with a demo shout next to your druid once he pops out of stealth. Or, have your druid pop out, throw some hots on you, and then bear form and demo roar. Disrupt the rogue. Have the druid kite him over to you so you can intercept / hamstring him, instead of trying to solo the frost mage. Once the mage has used his second water ele he'll be a lot less dangerous, and you should be able to start turning the match around and doing some damage. Before that your priorities are staying alive, hamstring/disarming the rogue, and trying to reflect polymorph.
I have a question concerning the new feral 2.4 change:
Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form
In PvP gear I have 500 agi / 3000 ap. This is a big change since it increase my healing and also the healing I receive. So my question is which partner do you think is better for a feral druid considering this change ?
I have a question concerning the new feral 2.4 change:
Nurturing Instinct increases your healing spells by up to 50/100% of your Agility, and increases healing done to you by 10/20% of your Attack Power while in Cat form
In PvP gear I have 500 agi / 3000 ap. This is a big change since it increase my healing and also the healing I receive. So my question is which partner do you think is better for a feral druid considering this change ?
Thank you
First off, which you probably already know about, it's a 10/20% flat increase on healing and no effects from attack power at the moment. Interesting enough it seems it works out (bugged?) like 10/20% increase on all forms but Dire Bear.
Awesome talent change for my new found interest in arena gaming as feral, going S3x3 and 2t5 with decent resilience, great burst and instant regrowth. My team is brand new and future will tell what it will work out like.
I would recommend either a BM hunter or any kind of rogue (maybe preferably a shadowstep one) for short, action-filled
and intense games. The synergy with other physical dps is great and in particular rogues who can keep a burn target from escaping while you as feral Shred them to pieces.
Hey guys... long-time reader here, first-time poster. I've read this entire thread and just wanted to thank everyone for building such a great community and resource for serious players to utilize.
To get down to business...
ME: 35/23/3 warrior - 350 resilience, 12.5k unbuffed HP, 1700ish AP, 35.5% crit. 2/5 vengeful, 3/5 merc. Most of the other bells and whistles besides a great weapon (currently Trollbane out of ZA, Axe spec , as that's what I have... I crafted Axes as well back in Season 1... would love to go Swords if I could get the s3 sword. Crafting Stormherald IS an option but not one I am particularly fond of at this point, as it's late in the game and that would be expensive and time-consuming, especially if I'm just going to get something better shortly).
I would love to get some feedback from anyone who is experienced playing the MS Warrior / Resto Shaman combo. I have seen a few posts already pop up on this thread with some good tips, so I'm just looking for a little more.
In general, I'm not sure if we're totally grasping how to play the combo most effectively. I've tried to watch every movie I can find and read every thread I can find with usable feedback. We hover between 1650 and 1750 on rating... we'll often go on a huge win-streak of 10-11 games, followed by some bad matchups and losses of 5 or 6 in a row.
Some examples of how we think in a match:
We try to play aggressively as Shaman/Warrior, since the Shaman is an "offensive" healer. We use our focus and focus macros to chain interrupts on healers' cast-time spells if at all possible. We save WF / Death Wish / Heroism / DPS trinket / Rage for when we get a target in trouble (and the Shaman will NS / Chain Lightning if they're REALLY in trouble and we want to tip him into execute range). I attempt to keep hamstring and MS up as much as possible, as well as pummel important casts. I'll intervene back to the Shaman and we'll duck behind a pillar when I'm getting hammered. I use macros for spell reflect and attempt to use it on polymorph etc. We kill pets when the opportunity presents itself (or always if it's SL Lock / Healer) and then stay on the owner so they can't resummon. The Shaman sometimes switches earth shield to me if I'm getting beaten down by a warrior etc.
I say all these things just to give an indication of where our level of thought is in-game. It seems like we have a decent idea about these kind of tactics, and we aren't terrible players by any means, so I'm wondering what we're doing wrong. Perhaps it's just in our execution. One thing I can say is that, when we lose, we generally don't just get "blown out" (unless it's a super CC heavy team) and we are close to winning even then.
But I see everybody on here talking about how "easy" it is to get to 2K, and we're struggling to stay above 1700 consistently, so we must be doing something wrong.
As far as some specific matchups that give us trouble:
Frost Mage / Rogue: We see this matchup a TON, and we are below .500 on them. It's hard for me to decide who to focus, but I generally go on the rogue. I kill the Water Elemental. Our idea is to survive their two bursts, because they run out of gas after their cooldowns, but the CC is nasty. Even better for them is if they burst ME and sheep / blind / counter-spell the shaman. I try to sword-and-board, spell reflect, and intervene at that point (as well as stoneform) but then my dps goes to nothing and I'm not doing much besides hovering around 1/3 hp and frantically trying to escape.
Frost Mage / Feral Druid: We were beaten down by a good team with this makeup three times in a row last night. They chained frost nova into polymorph into roots into cyclone into pet nova into feral charge etc. The first game they cc'd me and killed the shaman, the other two they cc'd the shaman and killed me. How do we disrupt their cc chain and stop the burst? Does the Shaman just need to earth-shock better, and do I need to LOS better?
Rogue / Disc. Priest: We do alright versus this matchup. I go on the priest, while intercepting back and disarming the rogue at opportune moments to relieve the shaman. If he can, he purges the priest. We faced one nasty team where the PRIEST ran behind a pillar, so I followed him, thinking "ok, I can rock this guy while my shaman survives the rogue". The priest actually DPSed -me- down faster than I killed him with SW:P and a Mind Blast after I pummeled his first. It was strange.
Warrior / Druid: This matchup seems to be about me maximizing "doing stuff" at all times. Obviously the druid tries to cyclone / root / bash / charge me and keep me out of action. The warrior is typically mace spec and going to work on my shaman. I try to intercept the druid and do the spamstring / pummel thing until he eventually does his instant root and gets away. At that point... do I try to chase him around the pillar and stop him from shadowmeld / drinking.. or do I jump back across and work on the warrior to force the druid to come heal? This one seems like it's all about my shaman and I interrupting cyclone or roots enough times to get ahead, right?
I could go on and on but I'm gonna stop now and see if anyone has any feedback that can help me. I am dedicated to at LEAST getting above 1850 and I am not sure why it is so competitive for us even in the 1600's. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Last edited by Vortac : 03/03/08 at 4:31 PM.
Reason: On second thought, this is probably the right place for this after all.
I run a pretty successful 2s with war/shaman and the key as you seem to grasp is pressure. We blow up warriors in war/druid combos that get cocky, we purgespam priests and just tunnelvision them until dead, undergeared druids getting carried by full season 3 warrior? Full pressure from the get go. Many games we don't even need to use bloodlust, people just die so quickly...
...and then there are the double dps teams. Frostmage/rogue is bad, but shadowpriest/warlock is far, far worse. A competent double dps team will kill you or your shaman in under a minute, even if you try your best. Shamans suck versus double cc because of no dispel. This is a fact, it sucks, we deal with it. Grind out your games, try to get above 1700, there are fewer double dps there until you hit 1900, where they reappear with a vengeance.
Remember that vs. rogue teams you're saving your trinket for full duration blinds.
Just in terms of matchups:
Any discpriest/x team, priest gets trained, purge spammed, throw in an earthshock here or there if possible, your shaman should be able to heal himself if getting attacked, and easily heal you if you're getting attacked. Something that is VERY important vs. rogue/priest if the rogue jumps on you with crippling: Poison cleansing spam so the priest can't kite you.
Double Dps: Bend Over. Unless you play your absolute 290% best, and I really mean you need the favor of the gods here, you lose. Shamans and warriors are too easy to CC, combined, they're the most easily ccable team combo around. Rogue/mage always *seems* like we're literally inches from victory when we lose, and I think if I specced 35/23/3 we could beat them due to instant reflects. Shadowpriest/warlock is a 100% guaranteed loss if they are not drooling retards, there just isn't any way around it.
Druid/hunter. Watershield, don't kill the pet, swap pressure between hunter and druid, shaman eats traps, kites, win when druid's innervate gets purged and he doesn't have mana to natures grasp you or shift-spam.
Druid/warrior. Tough matchup, pressure the warrior early and swap to the druid as soon as he comes out to heal, the flametongue change will make this matchup MUCH easier. Swap between druid and warrior, shaman needs to be focusing the druid for shocks/grounding on cyclones/roots and purging natures grasp/innervates. Run them OOM and kill whoever is lower.
Druid/warlock. Hardest non-double dps matchup in my opinion. Tons of CC, heavy mitigation from the warlocks soullink. Try and keep the warlock and pet hamstringed, kill pet early, try and force a void walker, getting rid of counterspell/dispel is just huge here. Get 5 sunders up, don't worry about MS until then, just sunder/hamstring/reflect cyclowns. Again your shaman shocks cyclones/purges innervates. He also needs to watch the warlock for feldom should you kill the pet. If you kill the pet, be ready with an intercept to stun the warlock IMMEDIATELY when you see feldom come up, this will give the shaman time to purge it, otherwise they just need to be on the ball.
Pally/Warrior. Rotate shocks/pummel rotations on the paladin, purging in between. Keep earthshield on shaman. Force the divine shield and be ready with a purge/shock for any BoP that might go up (if BoP goes up first, you already won, dumb pally). If the paladin gets freedomed DO NOT LET HIM KITE YOU, get it purged ASAP, this is more important than purging BOP. A freedomed pally with you being PHed or Hamstrung is a game loser vs. a good team, they WILL get a drink off and you will lose.
Pally/any other class. Train the X, purge feldom/freedom/whatever, shock heals, easy victory.
In terms of Gear: You're doing fine, your crit is low for axe spec though, you should be close to 37/8% in zerker. More ArPen will help you deal more damage though.
Your shaman needs to finish his S3 kit, the difference in healing between what he has now and the season 3 stuff is, while not enormous, significant(like 225 +healing I want to say, and a decent amount of ac/stam/resil/regen). In the age of druids, shaman need to play outlast too, remember that. He may want to gem for stam/resil/regen, but it'd be best to ask someone like Gurgthock/Ghando/etc. about that as they actually play the shaman in 2s with a warrior.
Other than that, you need to communicate everything with your partner, "I've got next interrupt, pummeled, getting cyclowned, rooted for 9 seconds, purge freedom, get ready to purge BoP" etc. Being vocal and having good interrupt rotations will allow you to make the best use of your shamans offensive abilities. Also remember that you're not playing 2s to just faceroll, you need to be hamstringing EVERYTHING, managing your rage, and stacking sunders on warlocks/priests when you can. Disarming rogues/warriors early rather than late is good too.
The combo being succesful relies on a) communication and skill b) gear and c) relentless pressure on the opposition. Keep playing games, have your shaman watch GClol's videos (and for you, hoodrych's videos. I've watched Hoodrychbang.avi probably 30 times, it's really an INCREDIBLE movie from a warrior perspective, saca and hoodrych are both amazingly talented), and always ask yourself and your partner "what did we do right there" or "what can we do differently/better next time?". Queues for 2s are long everywhere, use the time to hash out strategies and work on setting up rotations with your partner during this time.
*edit* after re-reading your thread a third time, I noticed that from all of your game descriptions, you don't pay attention to your own health. This is bad, work on it. You and your partner need to be, again, communicating everything, macestuns, bunions, baddays at work. Ok just kidding, skip the bunion conversation. But seriously, you're a warrior, not a rogue, you don't have cheat death and cloak of skill.
Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.
Awesome feedback - just the sort of thing I'm looking for.
Further questions from me to you, since you have experience with the combo and we're relatively new to it...
A) On druid/hunter, is the shaman generally going to be alright even if it's a Scorpid pet? We usually win this combo either way, although last night I believe it was Hunter/Paladin and I ended up killing the scorpid after some opportunistic sweeping strikes and then an aoe taunt behind the pillar. However, might it be smarter just to leave it up for water shield?
B) Double DPS is terrible for us, I agree. My thought is to basically go balls-to-the-wall from the start and try to do enough damage that, even though one of us are going to die (usually), the other guy can hopefully finish the deal. For instance, vs. double-rogue we usually just park against a wall and I'll go heroism / sweeping strikes / whirlwind or whatever. The shaman is also dropping the fire nova totem every chance he gets. Is that the right track, against double dps? Or should we start thinking of attempting to outlast their cooldowns (i.e. mage/rogue).
C) On the subject of mages... I'm starting to believe we should just pillar-hump the entire time and force him to come around. That way, when I do get rooted I can still be in the vicinity and hopefully able to kill the Water Ele or disarm the rogue etc. Good idea? Anything else so we can at least improve our ratio versus mage/rogue?
D) When else is Sunder Armor something I should be using, besides SL locks and Disc Priests?
E) When you have to "turtle" and go sword/board against double-dps, what's your next move? Usually that means my Shaman is CC'd. Do I try to intervene to him right away and get away for a second? How often does this happen to you?
Our communication is pretty solid, and what you've advised makes sense to me, so I think we're on the right track. I think our drawback so far has just been a lack of confidence in the best tactics by matchup (for instance.. the warrior/pally matchup we already do everything that you mentioned to the letter and thus almost always win), so some matchups we flounder and let them dictate the engagement.
For my personal performance, I need to work on managing my rage instead of just trying to blow everything I have all the time. I find that I miss pummels on druids bc of global cooldowns a lot... and that's probably just from doing so many BGs and wrecking people non-stop, but I need to shed that mentality. I also do try to watch my own health, but the problem is knowing when I need to be defensive and intervene/LOS/spell reflect, and when my shaman's going to be able to push through and I can keep pressuring. We'll continue to work on gear, and, hopefully, I can break 1850 and buy that S3 sword and get rid of crappy axe spec.
A) On druid/hunter, is the shaman generally going to be alright even if it's a Scorpid pet? We usually win this combo either way, although last night I believe it was Hunter/Paladin and I ended up killing the scorpid after some opportunistic sweeping strikes and then an aoe taunt behind the pillar. However, might it be smarter just to leave it up for water shield?
B) Double DPS is terrible for us, I agree. My thought is to basically go balls-to-the-wall from the start and try to do enough damage that, even though one of us are going to die (usually), the other guy can hopefully finish the deal. For instance, vs. double-rogue we usually just park against a wall and I'll go heroism / sweeping strikes / whirlwind or whatever. The shaman is also dropping the fire nova totem every chance he gets. Is that the right track, against double dps? Or should we start thinking of attempting to outlast their cooldowns (i.e. mage/rogue).
C) On the subject of mages... I'm starting to believe we should just pillar-hump the entire time and force him to come around. That way, when I do get rooted I can still be in the vicinity and hopefully able to kill the Water Ele or disarm the rogue etc. Good idea? Anything else so we can at least improve our ratio versus mage/rogue?
D) When else is Sunder Armor something I should be using, besides SL locks and Disc Priests?
E) When you have to "turtle" and go sword/board against double-dps, what's your next move? Usually that means my Shaman is CC'd. Do I try to intervene to him right away and get away for a second? How often does this happen to you?
A) Feel free to kill pets vs. hunter/x where X is NOT a druid. Vs. druid/hunter it's just not worth it. Either way don't spend too much time on it because your rage and damage is better spent pressuring the other players, not a pet that basically acts as 200mp5.
B) You should never really lose to double melee as you can put out a huge amount of pressure on rogues (or feral druids) with windfury. You'll have to be smart and lust early, put tons of pressure on their least geared person and intercept/disarm as often as possible. Coordinate your fear with your shaman's use of trinket (if he hasn't used it to kill a 5pt kidney) to let him scoot behind a pillar and get some heals of and start kiting again. Keep everything hamstringed, kill one player against double melee and you've won. Mage rogue you have to outlast the 2nd elemental to win.
C) If you're 100% about to get sheeped and dont have the rage to reflect, intervene to your partner. Any incoming damage on him will break your sheep and you'll have started DR. Kiting the mage is fine if you can do it, but it's not really viable vs. mage/rogue because of crippling+novas. Assuming the same skill/gear level, you lose this fight without lucky resists. (killing elementals is a good idea if nothing else is in range after a nova, just dont spend too much rage, you need to be able to disarm/reflect/intervene/MS)
D) Sunder warriors, always, but not before MS. Druids and hunters are fine too if you can get the necessary face time with enough rage banked, but it's not a priority like it is for priest/lock.
E) Depends on the situation. Vs. caster dps I'm intervening to LOS and saving rage for reflect. If I'm rooted I'm using reflect. If I'm turtled vs. a rogue, tclap, shield block, demo shout, spam revenge/ms/disarm/shieldblock and intervene to my healer and quickly intercept back to the rogue for clutch stun+2hand MS. I go sword/board vs. druid/warrior a lot, every game vs. mage/rogue is sword/board to reflect the first 2 polymorphs, mage/lock I'm in sword/board until something dies, at which point I go back to 2hand. This is really a playstyle question and it will depend on your own preferences and how your shaman plays as well, like if he's slightly more defensive then you'll spend more time with your shield out so he can LOS CCs better, whereas if you're slightly more aggressive you may be able to gain enough momentum to swap to 2hand for some killing blows early on.
Just keep playing games if you're having fun. If you get discouraged by a particularly bad string of counter-comps or being totally outgeared by a gladiator team rerolling their 2s for some reason, take a break, come back the next day and start out thinking over the previous days games and try to learn from them. If you run into a 2 dps team that really outplays you and takes 17 points from you DONT QUEUE, they'll farm you for another 16/14/12 points almost guaranteed and crush your momentum.
Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.
Hi everyone, I'm having quite a bit of trouble with my partner in 2v2, and I would like some helpful advice if possible.
My gear: 314 resil, 12.3k hp unbuffed, ~30% crit, Deep Thunder, 2/5 vengeful (getting legs today), 3/5 glad.
My paladin partner has around 350 resil, I think he is in 2/5 vengeful and 2/5 merc with the merc being spell dmg set for the extra 35 resil bonus. I've read quite a bit about how paladins are better off using PVE gear since they wear plate, however since my guild doesn't raid much now we don't really have access to T6, so I think arena gear is still the best for him.
I know in these days where druids shine in 2s and 3s bracket paladins are really not as viable anymore but the situation makes it so it is still before for me to pair up with him in every way.
It seems we can never break past 1650 for some reason. Everytime we hit that rating we'll run into a streak of teams that would just farm us back down to 1500s. These teams mainly consists of X + druid, where X is usually hunter/warlock/warrior. I'll describe the team make-ups and the troubles we have with them:
Druid + Warrior: This is probably by far the easiest for us in regards to X + druid combo. I'll start by attacking the warrior to lure out the druid. Once the druid is out both my pally and myself will go for the druid extremely aggressively. The pally would JoJ and I would spam HS/PH when the druid shifts. Usually we would get the druid into bear form, with blessing of freedom on me nature's grasp really isn't a problem, 2 sunders + MS + HoJ followed by intercept stun and a pummeled cyclone would usually result in a dead druid and a win for us. The biggest problem here is if we don't burst down the druid within the first minute or two we would usually lose. I think against this combo the most frustrating thing is when the druid pillar humps and don't have JoJ on him. It's almost impossible for me to catch him, should I just intercept the warrior and dps to try to lure the druid out?
Druid + Hunter: This is the most frustrating team, hands down. I'll usually end up getting chain cycloned, then rooted, then scatter shot, then frost trap kited until cyclone DR timer reset and the whole thing repeats, all the while my Paladin partner is getting viper stinged to hell. I really don't know how to beat this combo, I can't even get near the druid, any advice would be a lot of help.
Druid + Warlock: This is similar to Druid + Warrior except my partner would try to drag the fel hunter as close to me as possible while we both chase the druid around. With SS and constant WW spams we can usually get the fel hunter low enough so that, if by the time it hits 20% and the druid isn't dead we'll just switch targets, kill the fel hunter, then I continue chasing the druid while the pally try to sneak in some drinks. Seeing as how the druid will always try to pillar kite the warlock can't really shadow bolt spam, so it isn't as bad as Druid + Hunter but the constant dots and spell locks may mean an early death for me if we don't coordinate well enough.
Hunter + Disc Priest: The classic drain team. I would usually start by pressuring the priest so he can't mana burn while the pally slowly dps the pet while pillar kiting the hunter. When the pet is low enough I'll intercept back and we'll pillar the pet and kill it. After that I'll agressively go after the hunter so he doesn't summon another one and try to burst him down while the paladin sneaks in drinks. The problem usually occurs when BoF is on CD and the hunter traps me while the priest fears my paladin partner. Then the hunter will just proceed to resummon his pet and we're back to square one again. Should I instead go after the priest after we kill the hunter's pet? Is that a better strategy than going after the hunter?
Double DPS: We usually are ok with this type of teams. 2 rogues is a walk in the park as they can't really dps down either one of us fast enough with their long CC CDs. Spriest warlock is not easy but if we HoJ one of them followed by my AoE fear we can usually disrupt their burst DPS so my pally can top me off during the initial dump. If we can live through the first 30 seconds to a minute it is usually a win for us. Against mage + lock/spriest I would get BoSac and I would go after the lock/spriest with the mage's water elemental being the first priority.
So yeah, looking at the trouble teams it seems X + druid is the majority of them. It seems they're the most common make up nowadays, and in 10 games about 8 of them will consist of a druid and something else. Is the warrior + paladin really a thing of the past? Is there any way for us to ever get past 1650 and is it even possible to reach 1850 or is that just a dream unless I pair up with a druid now? Any advice and help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Hey guys, first time poster here. Me an my buddy are starting a 2v2 team, myself as a shadow priest with 10k un-buffed hp, about 320 res, 900ish dmg, and my partner as a combat sword ( possibly changing to mace ) rogue with about the same. I was wondering if anyone out there has tried this combo, what kind of potential, if any, it has. So far we have only gone one week, and due to what I think is just poor communication have only broken 1600. It seems to me that with a well executed fear, blind, silence, rogue stun, we have a lot of control over most teams I can think of. So far the one team that has really had us under wraps, was a two mage one arcane arcane/frost, the other straight frost. Any suggestions on this team or others, really anything to get us up and running with this combo would be awesome. Thanks
I play the standard 2v2 setup as Warrior/Druid ...
The second video is against a Rogue and Mage setup. Out of all the double DPS combos this one is our most troubling. I get removed from the battle by being CC'd into oblivion while I watch helplessly as they destroy my druid. In this video they make a clever target switch taring me apart, with little time for my druid to react. I didn't record our other matches against this team, but they all resulted in my druid dying while I was polymorphed/blinded.
Your druid survived long enough imo , the problem should be corrected by yourself.
Start with shield - spell reflect the shatter combo in the last second.
When they sheep you again and start ccing you and dps the druid - Get the two hander out and start pressuring the mage.
This way youll have way more rage to deal with him.
Another note is that you should absolutely fear the mage + his elemental and intercept the rogue.
Hamstring on everyone.
Stick together so you can spamstring everyone and feral charge the polymorphs.
Your druid survived long enough imo , the problem should be corrected by yourself.
Start with shield - spell reflect the shatter combo in the last second.
When they sheep you again and start ccing you and dps the druid - Get the two hander out and start pressuring the mage.
This way youll have way more rage to deal with him.
Another note is that you should absolutely fear the mage + his elemental and intercept the rogue.
Hamstring on everyone.
Stick together so you can spamstring everyone and feral charge the polymorphs.
Borland is right, as druid/warrior you need to be both protecting yourself and your druid. Intervenes, disarms, spellreflects and hamstrings are your main weapons here.
Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.
I was wondering if there's anything my Warlock/Druid team can do to combat the Discipline Priest/Rogue combination. Even if the priest is a dispel machine, we still end up losing the mana battle and if he just bounces mending and goes for mana-burns, we just get crushed, I either die or my druid goes OOM very quickly. The matchup seems possible with letter perfect play on our part against mutilate or combat builds, but I'm absolutely at a loss as to what to do with a shadow-step rogue. The improved mobility and consistent damage, combined with cheat death to counter-act any burn we could possibly pull off and we get annihilated.
I know Tongues on the Priest is critical, as well as spell locking every mana burn I can get on cooldown, but I feel like Sisyphus at times.
Keeping tongues on the priest is a good start.
As a druid whenever I see that the other team has a rogue I wait a few seconds, and move toward the middle of the map (or onto the middle of the bridge) and shift out of prowl and into bear form and start spamming demoralizing roar.
Stay close to your druid and have him do this. More times than not I can drag the rogue out of stealth with demo before he can cheap shot.
If you can avoid that initial cheap shot it will make the match infinitely easier.
Also, when facing a cheat death rogue your druid REALLY needs to be on the ball for you to win that match as a dru/lock combo. He can keep that priest locked down for a fairly long time (even longer if you're using a felhunter and spell locking) but it won't be long enough for you to keep the rogue off you and damage him enough to actually kill him.
Use LoS to your advantage. Whenever you can get free drag that rogue out of LoS of his healer. And it is crucial that your druid Cyclones the rogue when he can longer CC that priest. 9 seconds of cyclone will let you DPS the priest a little bit (staying out of mana burns), it will burn the 3 seconds of cheat death and will allow his feral charge to come off of cooldown all while making the rogue unhealable, all while allowing you to make him burn his trinket by fearing him. If he can feral charge a heal that should take care of the immunity/diminishing returns on the priest and make him cyclonable again after all is said and done. And then the rogue is helpless.
If you concentrate on the priest that rogue is going to light you both up. You guys have a lot of CC, use it on the priest. Not the rogue.
This isn't easy to do but the more you practice the better you become.
I've never won a match against Priest/Rogue in 3 seasons by trying to kill the Rogue. We've always CCed the Rogue while mana draining the Priest, and eventually the Priest goes OOM and DoTs kill him. I rotate between CoX, CoT, and CoA on the Priest depending on what he's doing (CoX if he looks like he's going to try and run at my Druid, CoT if he's doing any healing/burning, CoA otherwise), and channel Drain Mana any time I can. Priests who dispel spam me are certainly annoying, but as long as the Priest doesn't land a fear on the Druid, the Rogue really shouldn't be able to kill you before the Priest runs himself OOM with dispel.
02/12/08, 3:36 AM
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