Warlock/rogue - Strategies, Specs, Suggestions

Fruit · 10/04/07, 2:35 AM

A rogue friend and I decided a couple of days ago to make a new 2's team and push for gladiator. We'd played it briefly before and had done moderately well, but there's still a bit of confusion between us as to how exactly it should be played. Currently I am UA and he is combat maces.

The first issue is my spec. I've tried sl/sl and I've tried UA. As sl/sl I obviously have much more survivability, but my dps is drastically reduced. I thought of speccing a way I hadn't really considered before - 15/35/11 - which gives me good survivability and better burst.

Against most healer/melee teams we seem to do very well, especially any warrior teams that don't pull out a shield. With fear and blind, it's not usually a problem to take a warrior down, unless they go for the rogue and he gets smashed through evasion. As sl/sl I really can't see us having the dps to take a warrior down in time.

One makeup we are confused about is hunter/priest, especially if either are dwarf. We get on the hunter, he pops BM...we've tried both LoS until it fades or switching to the priest, neither of which really worked beause we simply can't outlast it. We open on the priest, and he just prances through entrapment and the hunter giggles whilst plugging away at us.

Another problem setup is a frost mage paired with a tanky class, eg. paladin or soul link warlock.

Is there ever a time for drain mana?

Druid/warlock strategies would not go astray either. At the moment we're just sticking to the warlock like glue and trying to outlast, since I know from personal experience that you can be pretty neutered as an SL lock with a rogue on you.

Any random advice that you think might be helpful would be great too. I believe we are both individually skilled enough to take it to just above 2k without many problems, but the final push to 2150 ish will require some solid strats and excellent coordination.

Sumie · 10/04/07, 5:18 AM

1) Go with SL/SL. Your rogue partner should be providing the brunt of the DPS. All you need to do is assist with DoT's and drains, while keeping the other player CC'd. Even w/out UA, most healers are too pressured by a double DPS group to reliably waste their global cooldowns on a cleanse.

2) Warrior/Healer teams will normally rape this combo. Unless that healer is a priest, giving your rogue an easy focus fire target. The only way to beat a Warrior/Paladin or Warrior/Druid really is if the healer doesn't preemptively heal, and waits till the warrior is already at 50%. At which point you can try and burst him down while fearing/spell-locking the healer. Generally will not work against higher rated teams. Best thing to do here is simply have a shadowpriest as a sub in your 2v2 team. Both shadowpriest/lock and shadowpriest/rogue can melt a warrior before a healer can react.

3) For BM Hunter/priest, try having your rogue jump on the BM Hunter first and get Crippling on him. Once he uses Bestial Wrath, if the rogue falls out of melee range because of frost traps or wing clips, have him use cloak and vanish, and wait till BW ends. You yourself should just pillar dance. Once BW ends, switch to the priest and blind/fear the hunter. On the bright side, you really won't see this combo much.

4) Frost mage/SL lock. Rule of thumb: if there's a warlock on the enemy team, always go for the lock first. Even if he's SL. A combat mace-specced rogue + a warlock that can banish a pet is a SL lock's worst nightmare. The only dangerous thing is if you get your shadow-school locked out by either the mage or felhunter. So generally, just get your DoT's up first on all the targets and banish/fear when you feel it's safe. As long as you can kill the SL lock, it's okay if your rogue eventually runs out of cooldowns and dies, since you shouldn't lose to a frost mage as a SL lock.

5)

Is there ever a time for drain mana?

No, you're a double DPS team, not an outlast team.

6)

Druid/warlock strategies would not go astray either. At the moment we're just sticking to the warlock like glue and trying to outlast, since I know from personal experience that you can be pretty neutered as an SL lock with a rogue on you.

As much as other teams complain about Resto Druid/SL lock, a lock/rogue is the rock to their scissors. Again, always go for the lock.

Against other rogue/lock teams, always go for their lock as well. It'll end up being a gear and skill check, but if the opposing team makes the strategic mishap of going for your rogue first, you can freely fear (trinketed) then blind the opposing rogue while unloading on a helpless lock.

HansHerbert · 10/04/07, 6:37 AM

Very informative. Thanks alot for that post.

Reubarb · 10/04/07, 10:09 AM

I wouldn't spec UA. As a rogue, if you're UA and don't have a healer, my druid will CC the rogue and then I'll blind him after and you'll go down so fast it won't even be fair. A dead warlock with great DPS doesn't help much :P

Tower · 10/04/07, 11:27 AM

Also playing 2dps, never put yourself in a position to be kited by both classes. You basically have to play in a constant target switching environment. If you can open on a Druid, by all means beat him down, but you should be dotting the warrior too. If the druid gets away and goes out of LOS like most do, immediately switch your focus and burn the warrior, that is your biggest strength, using your offense to make the other team commit to defensive mistakes.

I play spriest/mace rogue and it's pretty much the same thing, except after we kill someone we can go defensive and heal.

Frost mages are the bane of the 2dps rogue teams that aren't paired with mages themselves, because you just cannot do anything to them, particularly focus them. You've only got fear and blind, and he has 2 iceblocks and a trinket.