Do any other Rogue/Druid teams experience severe difficulty in beating Priest/X teams?
My Druid partner and I have had zero difficulty beating most of the typical combinations (Rogue/Mage, Druid/Warrior, Ret/Rogue, Shaman/Warrior) but when it comes to any team with a Priest, we tend to lose around ~80% of the time.

Priest/Rogue has given us quite a lot of hassle; as I can't seem to take the Priest down before my Druid healer dies - or we just get our HoT's dispelled frequently (despite the resistance).

Another particular case is Priest/Warlock... this one is almost impossible for us. Each of these games go for at least 20 minutes and more often than not, we end up losing. No matter which target I go for, the other one ends up fearing me away. The only way we ever win this one by spending 10 minutes draining the Priest, waiting until all my cooldowns are up, hoping that my Druid can bait the Warlock into becoming isolated from the Priest and leaving me to take him down with a huge burst of Cheap Shot -> Blind -> Cheap Shot -> Vanish -> Garrote. (Stun Resist tends ruin me quite often in this regard.)

We've even lost to Priest/Hunter, and spent 25 minutes struggling to barely win against a Priest/Enhancement Shaman team.

If it helps at all, I'm Shadowstep, Gnome.

Thanks in advance for any tips or suggestions.

Priest rogue is a very very good match up for you. The priest has to heal with a full mortal strike on his rogue while you should have it fall off very often.

There are several different scenarios - their rogue is human, opens on your druid after sapping you. This is very very bad - if the priest is any good, he will wait for you to rush over to the druid to peel the other rogue off, and fear both of you off. Going aggressive on the druid at the start is very effective. Basically, if you get sapped, make sure your druid hides until the other rogue opens.

The best situation is for you to stick on their rogue and lock him down as hard as you can. AFter he burns his sprints, 30 second ShS is not sufficient for sticking on a druid and at that point the rogue is forced to go one on one against you. Play very defensively and just keep pressure up on the rogue, lifebloom + abolish owns priest healing efficiency.

Use cloak of shadows intelligently. If you see their priest try to go for a fear on your druid, you can shs up to him and shiv crippling on him.

Again, another very very slow match up that you will eventually win. Sit on the warlock - you will end up feared a lot of the time, but as long as your druid uses pillars intelligently you cannot really lose. Once the warlock gets low on health, have the druid feral charge the next big heal, cyclone the priest, and the priest will fall even further behind on healing.

Remember that you do not have to necessarily win through flashy CC. Lifebloom will allow you to outlast almost any non-warrior team.

Priest/warlock is very easy for rogue/restokin : sit on the warlock , keep energy to kick fear , your drood have to run and kill warlock's pet , keep Cos when the drood is too far , don't let the priest regen. A drood has many more mana regen than a priest if the combat is slow.

Spec full resto. Dreamstate might seem better, but the game's over once your priest is oom, so there's not a huge advantage to having that longevity.

You shouldn't die with 2 melee on you as long as your druid doesn't get CCed. Dispel everything and save your PS for if he gets something he can't get out of. Even against a purge train shaman rogue warrior, your priest shouldn't die while you still have mana.

Out of interest, what's your strat for pmr? We find going on anything works, but it depends a lot on their strat against us. Next patch mages will be much less attractive and rogues will be moreso.

That might work on stupid Warlocks but most of them call their pet back when its about to die. Try to keep near the priest, have your shadowstep ready and wait for the priest to drink, then vansih + shs sap the priest. Your druid can lengthen the CC time by cyclone+ blind. After the CC chain the warlock will be low (or dead) and the priest will attempt to cast a greater Heal. Try to reach him fast (shs or sprint) and kick. And then pray that the warlock will die.

I was wondering on some Average stats for Rogues. Right now, I have some PvE gear mixed with mostly PvP gear (waiting on the arena ratings to upgrade some stuff, so please overlook my green gems in my chestpiece). As I sit now, I'm at 31.45% crit and 1446 AP unbuffed, playing Mut (49/0/12). My AP seem more than a little low though, which is my problem. Any ideas as to why/how I can fix this? Any and all help always appreciated.

Purely speculation, but has anyone tried the Riftmaker (w\ Crip peeling to a Rogue\Warrior\Enh\Ret) or The Night Blade (Wound-stacking on cloth\leather focus targets) as swap-in Shiv weapons? I haven't used one to see the proc rate since pre-nerf ages ago (which I remember hearing was extreme), and it's probably not a viable\good idea, but just a curiousity I had last night after seeing TNB for sale in the trade channel.

Respec Shadowstep.

In all seriousness, that's probably about average for where your gear is at right now. As the above poster mentioned, just make sure you have everything enchanted, kitted, glyphed, and gemmed properly with at least rares. Mutilate is going to have significantly lower AP and base crit, and you can't really afford to throw in a ton of PvE gear when you don't have the survivability of Subtlety.

So i recently have decided to switch over from PvE to PvP because my raiding guild split up. As I haven't really PvPed seriously since s2 I have a few questions:

1) As far as gear goes, I have been told that for my gems and enchants i should be going offensive and relying on PvP gear for the resi i need. As far as gemming goes, should i be going for agi or crit or what? ( i have specced ShS because after a bit of research this looks to be most viable)

2) I recently got t6 gloves and considering the obnoxious stats on them i was wondering if it would be beneficial for me to use them as opposed to s2 gloves? I do love my ranged interrupt but is it worth keeping in light of crazy t6 stats?

3) Lastly, atm i have Vanir's fists that i was using for PvE. I'm still using them but was wondering if it is worth downgrading DPSwise to my s2 MH sword and s1 OH dagger for the resi and stam on them.


Any answers or insight on these questions would be greatly appreciated.


PS if i wanted to do a 2v2 what classes would be ideal with a ShS rogue?

1) Gemming for AP is very nice, as it obviously gets boosted by Deadliness. S4 armor has enough hit to get you capped, so you shouldn't have to worry about that. As far as defensive stats, Rogues don't really get focused enough to make gemming for Stamina and Resilience worthwhile. In my PvP gear I gem raw AP for most gem slots, a couple hit/agility gems in the gear I also use for PvE, with just enough blue gems to cover my meta requirement (I use an RED, since I use my S3 helm for both PvE and PvP).

2) No. The Deadly Throw interrupt is very strong when used properly. I whore it against Shamans a ton. They'll be casting more LHWs than you can interrupt, so prepare to jump back and Deadly Throw to nab any interrupts that are timed poorly enough that you have Kick and Kidney Shot both on cooldown.

3) I used Vanir's fists up until I got my S3 swords (last week of S3). See above, defensive stats aren't really key for Rogues to look out for. Also, the Hit rating on them will help keep you hit capped until you get mostly full S4.

PS most classes go well with Rogues. You can go with Resto Druids, Dreamstate Druids, Warlocks, Ret Paladins, Disc Priests, Shadow Priests, Mages, pretty much anything. I'm playing with a Druid, he switches between Dreamstate 34/0/27 and traditional PvP Resto 11/11/39 often, and we do well with both specs. (EDIT: As Towelette said, Rogue/Rogue is very strong as well. It takes 50% gear and 50% coordinated CC, and is very rewarding.)

This is generally true. If you're going to have to "tank" a little more in your composition, then you may need a bit more on the defensive end of things. As for DPS stats, 2AP\1AGI > 1hit > 1crit. Basically, you're going to have a lot of red gems. I'm personally planning on putting a crit\stam gem into the chest and shoulders for the socket bonuses and to fulfill both the yellow and blue requirements of the RED meta, and putting 8\10agi into everything else.

The Deadly Throw bonus is too valuable to give up in my opinion. S4 gloves are cheap and require no rating, so that's a solid first piece to pick up with your Arena points.

If surviving becomes a problem you can switch back to the PvP weapons, but just keep in mind how much offensive capability you'll lose in doing so. Keeping multiple OH weapons in your inventory is a great help, as you can poison each one differently and swap them in and out depending on what poison you want to Shiv onto your target.

Off the top of my head: ShS Rogue, Priest, Warlock, Frost Mage, Balance\Resto Druid... Rogues are pretty strong right now, you can make many compositions work if you learn and play them right.

So people tend to ask alot of questions about 2vs and 3vs, but I'd like to discuss 5vs for rogues a bit. Recently my rogue received 3 pieces of brutal, all the guardian's gear, and is perfectly gemmed and enchanted with the best stuff out there. While rolling with a shs rogue / retadin / warrior / resto shaman / frost mage comp, two of the players decided that of three melee dps, the rogue (me) wasn't providing enough synergy as maybe an enhancement shaman might bring. I figured that with dropping an expose armor, that would provide more synergy and dps increase than anyone else could bring to the group, especially if we were wrecking clothie dps.

Where's the flaw in this makeup? Is it the retadin or the rogue?

I don't think an Enh shaman is an upgrade in that lineup. You've already got BL and WF with a resto so the benefit to an enh isn't big. Also, you're a lot harder to blow up and/or kite than an Enh shaman. Also, odds are they're CCing/Kiting/Focusing your warrior in some way, so you *really* need another healing debuff.

There's many lineups that work in 5's, and I think the one you're running could work just fine. If you're looking to change it up, it makes most sense to switch out the frost mage for a 2nd healer. I think 4dps isn't as strong as it used to be.

You're running 4dps, with 3 melee. Your only healer has perhaps the worst throughput and needs to also focus on Purging (only offensive dispeller) and focus shocking. You'd do better respeccing the Paladin.

Ret Paladins don't bring enough to the table in 5s over a Holy Paladin and they're too vulnerable to mana burn or a big via Mass Dispell.

Well in all honesty, the couple replies answered it perfectly. It may have been a loaded question, because I partially knew the answer beforehand. Having other people back up your answer provides some of the "answers" I was looking for for backing the argument.

I agree that the paladin is just too easily CCed and you were correct in that the warrior was probably being bursted / CCed so his mortal strike debuff woudl fall off. Overall, I just think that our team poorly executed, but it recently fell apart too, so I can't really be too discouraged by it.

Firstly, thanks to those who offered their comments and advice.
Still struggling to break 1750, due to a few circumstances. Namely:

1) Priests.
We just can't seem to do much. I think we lost to all but two of the Priest teams we matched lastnight. Priest/Hunter, Priest/Rogue, whatever. We even struggled with Priest/Mage...
The Priest is typically OoM within the first 2 minutes of the match, but I just can't seem to finish anyone off before my partner dies. I've experimented with focusing the Priest vs focusing the partner, and tend to find more success with focusing the Priest. Pretty much everytime my Druid partner is Kidney Shotted or Feared; he gets Mana Burned and the match ends for us very quickly. As much as he tries to LoS the Priest; and I try to interrupt the burns, there are just some circumstances which I can't prevent. Any tips in this regard?

2) Mace stun.
Sword Warriors are a free win. Maces, however, are a completely different topic. We had a 40 minute match lastnight against Warrior/Druid on BE Arena. The opponent druid spent the entire time pillar kiting and I couldn't go 3 seconds without a Mace Stun, Mace Specialisation Stun, or Improved Hamstring proc. Aside from the occasional Escape Artist, I spent the entire game Hamstrung. In the event I managed to Stun the Warrior (he was an Orc, so this was particularly rare), and escape, he'd Piercing Howl and/or Intercept and prohibit me from catching the Druid again. Every time I managed to catch the Druid with 5 points and go through the whole Kidney Shot -> DPS -> Vanish -> Cheap Shot -> DPS -> Blind -> Prep -> Vanish -> Cheap Shot -> DPS cycle, the Warrior would intercept stun me and follow up with another barrage of mace stuns. The only time we tend to beat the Skillherald Spamstringers is if the Warrior does a bad job of defending his Druid (poor utility of Intercepts/Fears/Disarms/Intervenes), or the Druid is just bad and allows himself to be caught in Travel form with a 5 point KS. The frustration of getting a Druid to 5% then being stunlocked for 8 seconds is enough to make me want to stop playing for the night. How do people typically counter scenarios like this?

3) Vanish breaking.
I vanished about ~80 times lastnight. At least 60 of them were immediately broken by melee swings. On some occassions, I would blind a Warrior, run behind a pillar, vanish, then suddenly a Mace stun would proc (through the pillar) and break my vanish. Yes, the Warrior was still blinded when this occurred. Note this isn't just me being oblivious to bleeds, dot's or airborne ranged attacks. I'm not breaking my own vanishes with auto-attacks. This is repeated combat log reports of "You gain vanish, you gain stealth, vanish fades from you, stealth fades from you." all in the same timestamp, with no damage, effects or hits in-between. Has anyone else experienced such ludicrous vanish performance lately?

4) Blind Immunity.
Lastnight I blinded a Warrior (Gnome) and discovered that he was immune to it. A guildie of mine says that Blind and Cyclone are on the same DR? Has it always been this way? I've never noticed it before.

[edit: clarity on point #3]

1) Your druid should be able to live a very long time against 1 rogue (if you get on the rogue and have your druid drag him all over it works great too). I stopped going on the priest a long time ago, it's not fun trying to see which healer is better at living. if the priest's rogue wants to play mana war with you then you should really have it in the bag already with a druid healer. Your druid just has to keep abolish on you and watch los while never being in range of a fear that can get you both. I guess that could be a lot but in practice it's pretty straight forward.

2) Yeah baby, enjoy the impossibility that is a defensive style warrior/druid. Hard to beat with a pure resto druid partner for me at least. I hear it's free points with a restokin whatever though. I've yet to actually figure out a counter for it. Between improved hamstring and a druid who knows how to kite you'll pretty much never get the opening you need. Balance hybrid druids can even do such mean stuff as dragging the warrior out of los and killing them on their own. I've never seen chasing the druid work against a good team and a rogue alone shouldn't be winning toe to toe with a warrior while 2 resto druids back them up. Same reason you beat priest- your ms is removed and his isn't.

3) Old old news. Try and make for as much time as possible out of melee range so you can avoid latency issues. Edit for your edit: No that's a new one.

4) What patch was it that fiddled with/created a new effect category (disorient vs incapacitate)? I really remember blind not working on warriors at one point and hope I'm not insane.

Berserker Rage does not make you immune to Blind.

1) I'll take your advice and stick to the Rogues from now on. Would you advise this against all Priest/X teams? The other problem we face in these circumstances is that I can't always rely on my Druid to stop the Priest from drinking. Very often he's too concerned with staying alive/keeping me alive to keep tabs on the Priest, I guess he just needs to improve.

2) My partner has specced Restokin now. With the Warrior guarding the Druid, and the Druid pillar kiting me, how would you suggest we actually lean on them? If we move away from the pillar, the Druid just drinks and the Warrior stands guard. They refuse to move away from the pillar. I don't really see a solution here with Moonkin spec, as we're going to be spending mana on wasted offense.

3) I've been playing my Rogue since WoW beta and I'm aware of the whole "being melee'd out of stealth" latency issue, but this is new and different. I have a /stopattack bound to my Vanish macro to prevent it as much as possible, and I always try to LoS/range the opponent before vanishing but some of these things that are happening are just bizarre. I'll start combat logging and frapsing a few to provide a video reference.

4) Berserker Rage does nothing to Blind. My apologies but I don't entirely understand the second half of your sentence. Are you confirming that Cyclone and Blind share the same DR? I wonder what else it shares DR with, if anything. That's just frustrating.

Cyclone and Blind DO share DR and have for a patch or three now. It was written in the patch notes. If you're Druid is cycloning freely, don't waste your blind on the same target.

Just to clarify, Blind and Cyclone are the only two spells in that particular diminishing returns category. There is no third spell that shares with these two. Also, Blind began to share DR with Cyclone when it was changed to be a physical effect in patch 2.3 (source).

Disc Priest/Rogue should be an easy win for you - just DPS their Rogue, he won't be able to keep up with your Druid, and thanks to Abolish you will win the mana war. Save Cloak to intelligently remove Wound Poison.

Druid/Warrior should not be an easy win for you, but it should be winnable. Your Druid can keep their Warrior CCed for 80% of the match rotating Roots, Cyclone, and Feral Charge. Meanwhile, their Druid cannot do the same to you thanks to Deadly Throw and Shadowstep.

1) I'd still sit on the lock in priest/lock at any decent rating, druid should still be outlasting priest in that. Priest/War I'd stay on the priest. Focusing a rogue in rog/priest has a lot more to do that in a half mirror or whatever druid is superior to priest so just make that the deciding point. We, as rogues, are carried only as far as our druids can get us after a point :P I've had 1v1s vs resto druids where late match with me having no cds left at all I just lose outright to pure resto due to unstoppable bash cyclone moonfire ff bear kite til root proc etc combos. If I could find a druid capable of lasting that long vs a rogue I'd probably go back to killing the priest. I've noticed that focused priests normally die long before they're oom while their partners only die after they're out of mana.

2) From what I understand restokin/rogue just has to both open up on the warrior. You should be able to force his healer to do more then lifebloom (less able to rely on los and now much more cyclone etc vulnerable) and the mana war is a lot less in their favor if at all anymore. Without NS you just need to fall back on your druids now superior longevity and try to remember you have no oh shit emergency heal so maybe play more conservatively.

4) I'm going to blame that on patch 1.9 when disorients became incapacitates and confusions became disorients. Gouge and Blind have both been disorients at one point or another and gouge fails against Berserker rage :P Anyhoot, ya you got hit by DR. You can still sap after a cyclone though.

edit: more to #2