Shadow Priest/Rogue 2v2 Guide

[Lilic]

Any other guide for this setup I've seen so far seems to be outdated, so I thought I'd make my own. I'm not especially amazing or anything but do play this setup in the 2200-2300s bracket, which hopefully qualifies me to offer advice. I try to explain each matchup as clear as I can, but some require more explanation than others, and a lot of the time it's more about reacting to the situation than following a strict timeline. Remember that this guide is mostly from personal experience; what works for us may not work for everyone else. This is somewhat in the priest's perspective but not entirely.

Specs and Gear:

Spriest

Spec: 20/0/41: Definitely the most popular and probably effective spec out there for shadow priests, at least when playing with a rogue. The 41 points in shadow are pretty standard, whereas the 20 in disc has some variation. Absolution is extremely important, many matchups dispel will be the number one most used spell and the mana cost reduction is amazing. Personally I like having Meditation for the extra MP5, just for those long matches against warlock/healer.
Anyways, this is my preferred spec: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=bxLMuhMZZVMGdMtRhtVo

Gear: I try to stack around 450 resilience. 400 just doesn't seem to be enough anymore from the season 3 armor penetration additions for melee classes. After 450, just stack damage. For trinkets, I use medallion and a spell damage booster trinket like Icon of the Silver Cresent. I don't find Battlemasters to be all that useful for this setup; the extra hp usually won't save you from a loss.

Rogue

Spec: 0/33/28 or 0/31/30: Despite blizzard destroying AR/hemo, it is still generally the best spec for this particular setup. It is the only spec with mace stuns, AR, prep, and useful support talents in the subtlety tree. ShS is workable, but it is significantly less effective in many matchups. If you are undead, go with 0/31/30 since you don't really need the fear resist. If you're anything else, 0/33/28 is probably better.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=fZhfV0rVt0M0RZxMjoMGRob

Gear: My rogue uses full S3 + vindicators, but he's RARELY focused in any matchup so I recommend using post-SSC/TK raid gear if you have access to it. The rogue really only needs about 300 resilience, so fill the other slots with the best PvE pieces. As mace spec ar/hemo you'll want maces for weapons, and S3 maces are probably the best choice hands down.

Matchups:

Like many double dps teams in 2v2, SPriest/Rogue is a fast paced combo with a strict set of CC and follows a somewhat linear strategy which branches off in many directions depending on the situation and the opponents' plays. By the way, by Resto Druid I mean both the traditional heavy resto specs like 11/13/37 and 11/11/39, as well as the Dreamstate healing spec 34/0/27.

Things to remember:

-Against almost every matchup (exception of warlock/healer), always use fear instead of blind if both are up and can be successfully used. For short fights, blind is pretty much a one-time deal, whereas fear should be used at least twice, so using it as early as possible gives you time for it to cool down for more usages.
-Blade flurry breaks CCs currently (2.3.3) so be careful if you're going to use it, especially if there is a CC'ed target nearby.
-Priest should remember to keep Weakened Soul, as well as Inner Fire up at all times if he is targeted


Warrior/Resto Druid

One of the most popular 2v2 setups out there due to the current status of druids in small-scale arena and how well they sync with warriors. SPriest/Rogue is probably one of the biggest counters to Druid/Warrior, but like any other, a well played team will give you a run for the money.

Our strategy is to CC the druid maximally and kill the warrior. The SPriest should rush the warrior off the bat and fully dot him up, while the rogue remains stealthed to look for the druid. Our rogue must not be discovered by the warrior, so be careful about human warriors with perception. Soon the druid will pop up and start throwing up hots on his warrior. Our rogue should now pop sprint and open on the druid with CS -> Gouge -> KS while the priest makes his way over to the druid and rogue. The rogue's job here is to keep the druid locked up so our priest can fear the druid, even with hamstring on him. If the druid trinkets at any point during the rogue's lockdown, our rogue should blind the druid, switch to dpsing the warrior. Follow the blind with either a sap, a fear, or both, and the match is won.

Unfortunately, most smart druids won't trinket so early. Hopefully our priest will have made his way over to the druid by the time the rogue uses all of his lockdown tactics, and should now fear the druid. As soon as the priest goes off, the rogue and priest should pop all of their cooldowns and switch to the warrior in attempt to burn him down. If the druid trinkets the fear, our rogue needs to immediately follow it with a blind, and then either a sap or a silence afterwards. If the druid eats the entire fear, follow the fear with a sap or silence and finish off the warrior.

If somehow the warrior is still alive after fear and silence, and the druid still hasn't used his trinket, our priest should notify our rogue about 3 seconds before his fear finishes cooling down. Our rogue should then blind the druid while the priest gets next to the druid in preparation to fear. Depending on the distance of our priest to the druid, our rogue may want to stay close to the druid in case he trinkets the blind before our priest is within range of him for the fear, and gouge to make sure he sits still. Once the priest gets next to the druid, the game is pretty much won. If the druid trinkets the blind, he will have to eat the fear that follows. In either case, the warrior will probably die before the druid can heal him up.

Overall difficulty: 2/10


Warrior/Holy Paladin

A pretty popular comp in the previous arena seasons, but not seen as much anymore. Like any warrior setup, we are killing the warrior and CCing his healer. A paladin can be harder to deal with than a druid, as he has two trinkets and both fear and silence resist, but is much easier to interrupt and LOS than a druid. There are many possibilities for this matchup which all revolve around when and how the paladin decides to use his trinket and bubble, but your ultimate goal is to get the paladin feared or blinded after he has used both.

The fight starts off with our rogue sapping the paladin. Our priest should be hiding and LOSing the warrior until this happens. Watch out for perception, our rogue really shouldn't get spotted. Check if there is blessing of sacrifice up on the warrior. If it's up, dispel it, and if it's not, the rogue is free to open on the warrior after the sap on the paladin. Our priest should dot up the warrior while running next to the paladin. About 1-2 seconds left on sap, our priest should fear the paladin, which he will be forced to trinket. Follow the trinket with a silence. If the paladin doesn't bubble out of the silence, the warrior will most likely die. If the warrior somehow lives through the silence without the pally bubbling, our rogue needs to blind the paladin. The paladin will be forced to bubble, but before he even does it our priest should be casting a mass dispel on him, so the bubble is gone as soon as it goes up. After that, it's just a matter of getting the paladin feared for the warrior kill.

Most of the time though, the paladin will bubble out of the silence. As soon as you see the paladin bubble, our priest should begin casting mind control on the warrior. The warrior will probably pummel this, and when he does, our priest should immediately cast a mass dispel on the paladin (which the warrior cannot pummel). If the warrior doesn't pummel the mind control, he can't get healed until he either trinkets or gets cleansed. Our rogue should then just stun the warrior for the priest to get off his mass dispel. Again, after both bubble and trinket have been used up, CCing the pally and killing the warrior shouldn't be too hard.

Overall difficulty: 3/10


Warrior/Disc or Holy Priest

About 80% of the time, we are killing the warrior here. It really depends on how they choose to open. If the priest rides spamming dispels on our priest to avoid a sap while the warrior is a long way back hiding, we usually get on the priest. Vice versa, if the warrior charges in with the priest hanging back, we will kill the warrior. If they’re close to each other we’ll sap the priest and kill the warrior.

If we’re killing the warrior (most of the time) our rogue should try to get a sap off on the priest. The warrior will probably be on our priest, who should still be mounted and LOSing the warrior until the sap goes off. Our priest should then ride in and on top of the opposing priest, and proceed to remove fear ward off of him while he is stilled sapped. Our priest should then begin dotting up the warrior and stripping off his buffs while our rogue locks him down. Before sap ends, our priest should fear the enemy priest, either causing a WotF or a trinket. This fight has a ridiculous amount of possibilities depending on racials and when the priest decides to use PS. Basically just follow the usual routine; blind the priest if he trinkets and silence him if he WotFs. The silence is to give you a bigger window at gibbing the warrior, but also to put him behind on healing so he’s forced to use PS early and stand still to spam heals instead of shady stuff like manaburning, dpsing, spamming dispels, etc. The point is to catch the priest with a blind when his trinket is down, and follow it with a vanish sap if possible, while dpsing the hell out of the warrior. Our priest needs to spam dispel whenever possible to get rid of shield and renew (ProM is usually used up before it gets dispelled).

If we’re killing the priest (only if he charges in and his warrior is far behind him, sorta hiding) our rogue will sap the priest, and not open until our priest strips off all his buffs and begins casting a VT into a SWP and a VE. If we see the warrior charging in right after the priest is sapped, we can switch to the warrior and just follow the above strategy. Most of the time though, the warrior will think we’re going for him, and will actually run even further away or try to LOS our priest. This, of course, is very good. Once the dots queued up, our rogue should open up and immediately pop all of his cooldowns in attempt to burn the opposing priest down. If you see him getting low (below 50%) and he still hasn’t used PS, just silence him and he’ll probably die before he can pop PS. The warrior will be pretty much un-cc-able here, so just ignore him while trying your hardest to burn down the priest. Once the priest is dead, our priest should dot up the warrior and either finish him off or heal up if possible.

Difficulty: 5/10


Warrior/Resto Shaman

Usually we like to kill the shaman here, just because a rogue with AR can practically stop a shaman from casting while it’s active. Going for the warrior is also viable, and this decision will depend on which player seems to be better at surviving. I will talk about both approaches.

If we’re going for the shaman, I will sit back on my mount and LOS the warrior if he rushes, while my rogue engages the shaman. If the warrior is in battle stance, have the rogue sap him, but if he’s in berserker stance it’s not worth risking our rogue getting revealed when the warrior berserker rages out. Anyways, a sap is simply a plus, and not at all necessary. Once our rogue opens on the shaman, our priest should ride in, destroy his tremor totem, then fear the shaman. Fear is a fun CC sometimes – rogue dps only has a chance of breaking it, and you will usually always get about 2-3 seconds of free dps before the shaman comes out of fear. Right after your fear, strip the shaman of his buffs, especially earth shield. You must get earth shield off whenever it’s up. He can keep replacing it but it’ll cost him 900 mana and a gcd each time. After this opening, it’s just a matter of killing the shaman before the warrior kills our priest. Throw a fear on the shaman whenever you can, and make sure you destroy his tremor totems beforehand. Popping other totems such as windfury, poison cleansing, and grounding if they are nearby helps too, but if they are far away don’t bother crawling over to it with hamstring on you. Save your silence for after the shaman pops NS. If you time it well, or your rogue gets stun on the shaman after he pops NS but before he can hit the heal, dispel NS – this is a HUGE plus. If the warrior trinkets at any time of the fight, blind him right after. Most warriors won’t trinket though, so just save your blind for if the shaman somehow gets away and begins kiting our rogue. Once the shaman dies, our priest will probably be low on health and our rogue crippled on cooldowns. Now this next part is important: once the shaman goes down, the priest should NOT pop out to heal himself. He needs to put up his dots on the warrior before doing anything else. This is to ensure that, if our priest dies, our rogue can easily solo the warrior. A SWP and a VT together will tick a warrior from 100% to under 50% at maximum duration.

If we’re going for the warrior, the fight will be much like Warrior/Priest where we are CCing the healer and bursting the warrior. The only difference is tremor totems; our priest must destroy it before attempting to fear, because it will knock the shaman out of the fear right away and the fear will be wasted. Our rogue should start off by sapping the shaman, with our priest riding in on top of the shaman, destroying his tremor totem, then dotting up and dpsing the warrior. Our priest then fears the shaman about 1-2 seconds left on sap. Most of the time the shaman will need to trinket this fear; chain it with a blind immediately, followed by a vanish sap and/or a silence. The warrior should die before our CCs wear off.

Difficulty: 4/10

[Lilic]

Warlock/Resto Druid

When my rogue and I first started playing this setup, we had a ton of trouble with this, and other warlock/healer matchups. Unlike Warriors, SL Warlocks are incredibly formidable to dps casters and will soak up a large amount of the priest's dps. This is where the rogue's dps gear really factors in, as he will be doing most of the damage to the warlock. The priest's plays a support role here, dispelling mostly any buffs and debuffs off the warlock, rogue, and himself, keeping up his dots on the warlock, and contributing burst when needed.

We are killing the warlock here, a good druid will easily be able to escape us with the help of a warlock, so going for him is not an option. Our rogue should open on the warlock asap with cs and then put up a 5pt expose armor. Our priest should put up his dots and then begin stripping the warlock of ALL his buffs (including trivial things like water breathing). Soon the druid will pop out, and the priest should begin chasing and trying to fear him, while spamming dispels and keeping up dots on the warlock. If the druid is especially talented at keeping his distance, the rogue can help out by popping sprint to gouge the druid, then going back on the warlock. However, I find that this isn't neccesary since I am usually always able to get my fears off at some time.

Once the fear goes off, this is the time to pop all cooldowns and burn the warlock as hard as possible. If the druid trinkets the fear at any time, you can follow it with a blind straight away, but it's usually better to save it for when the warlock is low on HP. The point is to fear the druid over and over that eventually he'll be forced to trinket, and then you'll have control of the game. You can choose to blind whenever you want, so the druid must keep the warlock topped off constantly, which makes it much easier to CC him. If he screws up and lets the warlock get low, blind and chain it with a fear for the win.

Additional Notes:
-A MAJORITY of the priest's mana should be used on dispels between the warlock, our rogue, and himself
-Dispel fel armor, innervate, drains, and roots. Dispel, dispel, dispel!

Overall difficulty: 5/10


Warlock/Holy Paladin

A very nasty matchup for SPriest/Rogue, from the warlock being a super hard target to kill and the paladin factor with at least 2 CC breaks.

Our rogue should try to sap the paladin if possible, then open on the warlock. Dispel blessing of sacrifice beforehand if it’s up. When our rogue opens, he should stack up full wounding before anything; a paladin is not a druid and cannot cleanse poisons with as much efficiency. Once there is a full stack of wounding on the warlock, our rogue should pop a 5-point expose armor into a 5-point KS, for maximum dps on the warlock. Meanwhile our priest should dot up the warlock and strip off his buffs, and walk next to the paladin to get ready for a fear. A second before sap fades, fear the paladin. Most paladins will trinket this fear, which is exactly what you want. You need the paladin to burn both his CC-breaks as early as possible. After he trinkets, silence him if the warlock is getting low on HP (below 40%), and he’ll probably bubble. If the warlock is still healthy, just save your silence for later.

If the paladin bubbles, try to get rid of it but if it fails more than twice, stop trying – our priest can’t afford the mana. If the paladin doesn’t bubble, lower the dps output for a bit and don’t pop any significant cooldowns. The paladin will be able to keep his warlock at full health until he is CCed. Once fear is back up, fear the paladin and then silence him if we haven’t already, and he’ll probably need to bubble out of one of these. As soon as we get this second fear off, begin casting a mass dispel on the paladin. Chances are he is going to bubble, and a preemptive (and successful) MD is a huge plus. This ensures that the paladin doesn’t start jumping around and LOSing/dodging your MD once he’s bubbled.

After he uses both his trinket and bubble, hopefully we’ll still have blind, so stick that on the paladin and kill the warlock. Follow the blind with whatever CCs we have left; vanish sap if possible, fear, silence, ninja gouge/kick, anything to keep him from healing the warlock. If he heals the warlock back up after blind has been used, it’s probably a loss.

Depending on his gear and when he chooses to bubble, a switch of dps to the paladin is not out of question. If we see the paladin rocking many pieces of PvE gear, AND he chooses to bubble before he trinkets, switching to him can be favorable. Our priest just needs to make sure blessing of freedom is dispelled immediately, while our rogue does his best to prevent the paladin from healing. Throw up any unused CCs on the warlock if we choose to attempt this.

Difficulty: 8/10


Warlock/Disc or Holy Priest

Another matchup that is extremely dependent on racials. Undeads have a huge advantage here, so if we’re not undead, slash cry. My partner and I are both human, and we cry. /EMO

We never really found going for the priest to be very viable especially being human, so I’m not going to go over that possibility. It is viable if we are double undead, but anything else and it’s usually a disaster. Our rogue should start off on the warlock as usual, while sapping the priest if possible. Our priest should dot up the warlock, pick off the enemy priest’s fear ward regardless of how many dispels and dispel resists take place, and then strip the warlock’s buffs. Our priest should then fear the opposing priest when sap is about to end, which will trigger either a WotF or a trinket. If the other priest isn’t undead, cheer because this is an easy matchup. However, if he is undead, it will be much more painful. The difference between a WotF and no WotF is a 23 second gap, which pretty much separates a win from a loss. Bottom line is, we need to get the opposing priest to trinket while blind is up. DPS the warlock hard during the blind, and try for a vanish sap to a silence then another fear. By this time our priest should be very weak and nearly oom, so he should save a bit of mana for a silence and/or fear while our rogue pokes the warlock down.

Difficulty: 7/10 if enemy priest is UD, 4/10 if not


Warlock/Rogue

Racials, funny how they sometimes completely predetermine the outcome of a match.

Like any 2dps vs 2dps matchup, it will be fast and very reliant on each of the players’ ability to react quickly. UD, and Humans to a lesser extent have a sizable advantage. If the opposing team has only one UD, we will want to kill the UD and CC the other. If neither or both are UD, we usually go for the rogue.

If we are killing the lock, our SPriest should be mounted, and ready to kite all around the world should our rogue get sapped. Our rogue should open on the warlock ASAP and pop everything. Our priest should then ride in, dismount on top of the warlock, and begin dotting him. Silence the warlock after our rogue's initial stun lock. Once the opposing rogue appears, our priest should fear both of them.

If the opposing rogue isn't UD, he will trinket, at which time our rogue should immediately blind, and the warlock should die before the blind wears off. CloS vanish sap to another scream on the enemy rogue is very possible and will ensure GG.

If the opposing rogue is UD, he will WotF and begin destroying our priest. Our rogue should blind the opposing rogue to force a trinket, and hopefully the priest will stay alive until scream finishes cooling down. During this time, if our priest has dots up on the lock, he should concentrate on staying alive until scream finishes cooling down, because a rogue will kill an spriest much faster than an SL warlock should the priest try fully DPSing. Once scream is up again, fear the rogue but try to get the lock in range as well. Always keep in mind that scream is an AoE CC. By now the lock should be very weak and should die before the scream wears off.

If we are killing the rogue, our priest should be mounted behind a pillar to LOS the lock, and our rogue should be nearby. When the enemy rogue jumps our priest, our rogue should jump the enemy rogue, begin stun locking and popping everything. The priest should try to ride away towards the lock for a scream, then dot up the enemy rogue.

If the enemy lock isn't UD, he will trinket, our rogue should blind him and 2v1 the enemy rogue. Vanish -> sap -> scream -> silence (or just silence -> scream if vanish sap isn't possible) on the lock and finish up the rogue. If he is UD, our priest should silence him right after he WotFs while running out of LOS. When the enemy lock runs over to get into LOS, our rogue should blind him, which he will trinket. This is simply to buy more time for scream to cool down, and once it has, our priest should fear the lock and finish the enemy rogue.

Difficulty: 8/10 vs double undead, 5/10 vs anything else


Warlock/Shadow Priest

A fairly simple (AKA easy, AKA don’t lose) matchup. Most of the time (but less and less it seems) the lock will be affliction, and other times SL/SL. In both cases, we like to kill the lock since this, for the most part, prevents any ranged fears. The SPriest’s fears are unavoidable by our rogue and can be outranged by our priest. It’s not bad to go for the SPriest either, as this lessens his burst and prevents him from healing uninterrupted.

Have our rogue sap one, then open immediately on the other. If one is mounted and the other isn’t, sap the one that is mounted because he will just run away if he sees his partner sapped. It is crucial that our priest contributes in DPSing the target. If you give this team time, full stacks of ticking dots on both of us really really hurts and it should not get to a point where our priest is forced to come out of shadow to heal before one of them is almost dead. Our priest should always use silence on the opposing priest; that’s where most of their burst comes from. Chain fear and blind on the one that isn’t being focused and dps the other one hard. Simple enough.

Once the fight gets to a point where the rogue can finish off the remaining hp on our focus, our priest can hop out of shadow to heal and let prayer of mending go crazy. It’s a very difficult matchup for the opposing team, really.

Difficulty: 1/10


Warlock/Frost Mage

A pretty rare makeup; to be honest I haven’t faced many of these this season, maybe only a couple that were higher rated.

Here we are killing the warlock, because a good frost mage will be able to avoid a lot of our damage, not to mention two iceblocks. This does, however, leave the mage to freely sheep, but our priest should have him focused and just dispel dispel on our rogue whenever the mage begins casting poly. It is crucial that our priest knows how to play defensive and survive for as long as possible against this, as well as any other 2dps setup. The thing about frost mages is, they are so ridiculously hard to CC. If the mage is undead, they have in total FOUR cc-breaks: WotF, two iceblocks, and a trinket. Basically he's not going to remain cc'ed for long, so this fight is more of a dps race than a cc-fest. Start by sapping the mage if possible then opening on the warlock immediately. Our priest should put up his dots, dispel voidwalker sacrifice if it's up, and burst the warlock while the mage is sapped. Once the mage comes out of sap, silence, fear, then blind him. Unfortunately, these ccs will only be a minor annoyance to the mage than a full lockdown. It is crucial that our priest loses shadowform early in this fight and begins healing. Simply LOS both of them and run all over the map spamming instant heals while our rogue finishes the warlock. I wouldn't recommend casting flash or greater heal, because they have both counterspell and spell lock and could stop our priest from healing for a LONG time.

If they go for our rogue, this leaves our priest open to dps hard. Just save SWD for when the mage is about to poly our priest, so the SWD damage knocks him out. A rogue will full cooldowns is very hard to kill for two casters. Just time cloak of shadows when the mage tries to shatter combo. Not a hard fight

Difficulty: 4/10

[Lilic]

Rogue/Resto Druid

We've tried numerous approaches to this fight, and against a good team who know what to expect, the druid will NEVER be in fear range. With fearing the druid out of the picture, there is practically no way to CC the druid for more than 5 seconds (from silence) and that is obviously not enough to burn down a rogue, especially if he's ShS.

The best strategy we've found so far is to start on the rogue then make a switch to the druid. Sit by the sight spawn and when the enemy rogue opens on me (the priest) my rogue will jump him and start locking him down with CS->KS. Do NOT dot the rogue, simply dispel him and run away. Soon the druid will appear and begin healing the rogue, the druid will probably be at max range. If the druid takes too long, I can throw a mindblast and a mindflay. Once the druid is out, my rogue needs to immediately gouge the enemy rogue, pop sprint, pop all cds, and get on the druid. During the gouge we try to dps the druid as hard as possible, silencing him if he gets under 50%. Make sure you are SPAMMING dispels on the druid whenever possible. You must get rid of abolish poison and rejuv. Lifebloom will inevitably bloom, making it bloom faster just puts more pressure on the druid since he will need to re-apply his hots. After the gouge is over, I will fear the rogue which he will either WotF if he's undead, or possibly trinket. This is where the fight stems into several paths.

If the rogue is UD (and it seems like MOST of them are these days) he will WotF the fear, and then my rogue will blind him, which he will trinket. I try to survive until my fear is up again, while dpsing the druid without using SW:D unless he's getting really low. Once my fear is up, I'll fear the rogue which he'll have to eat, and hopefully we'll kill the druid before the rogue gets back and finishes me off.

If the rogue isn't UD, he'll either trinket the fear or eat it. If he trinkets, my rogue will blind him and he'll have to eat that, followed by a sap and another fear, and that's almost 30 seconds you have to kill the druid. In other words, you've pretty much won. If he eats the fear, your rogue must be aware of which direction the rogue is being feared. If the rogue is being feared in the direction of his druid, a vanish sap should be possible. If he's feared far away, don't bother trying to vanish sap because the druid will escape during this time and probably get back to full hp. Either way, this should give you a solid 9-10 seconds of dps on the druid, and if your rogue is good at preventing the druid from escaping and you time your silence and burst well, a non-ridiculously-amazing druid should die before the rogue can get back on you. If the druid lives with a decent amount of hp left after the fear ends, your rogue should blind the other rogue to force a trinket, and you'll have to hope that you live another 13 seconds for another fear on the rogue.

Difficulty: 7/10


Rogue/Disc or Holy Priest

A hard fight if the opponents know what they're doing and what to expect. We kill either the priest or the rogue, depending on their racials. A well played double undead team is one of the hardest matchups for SPriest/Rogue.

Again, we kill the undead and cc the non-undead. If they're both undead, we go for the rogue because an un-ccable, uninterrupted rogue on our shadow priest is absolutely disgusting, and we will lose the dps race.

If we're killing the rogue, start off by sapping the opposing priest and have our priest dispel fear ward if it's on him. The enemy rogue will soon open, as should our rogue on theirs. Smarter rogues usually won't open until the sap wears off of his priest, so our priest should use this time to get close to the enemy priest in preparation for a fear. Once the enemy rogue is revealed, fear the enemy priest, put up dots, and strip the enemy rogue's buffs. Our rogue must keep rupture up on the enemy rogue so if he tries to cloak vanish, it's broken by the bleed.

If the priest is undead, he'll WotF, blow his fear, and begin max-ranging. If our rogue gets feared, he should NOT trinket, because then he eats a full duration blind and a sap and that's game. The fear needs to be dispelled ASAP, or just endured if dispel isn't possible. The hard thing about this fight is our priest timing his trinket. Without trinketing, he'll never get close to the other priest for a fear, and it's impossible to down a shadowstep rogue. Our rogue must stun the enemy rogue before our priest trinkets, so he can get some distance on the rogue and get a second fear off. The enemy priest will hopefully trinket this second fear, and our rogue will follow it with a blind and a sap, followed by a silence if it's still up. This window should be plnety to kill the rogue.

If the priest isn't undead, he'll probably eat this fear. If he trinkets, follow it with a blind, sap, and silence and that's game. If he eats the fear, it's the same fight against an undead priest except he'll be behind on heals and won't be able to LOS, max range, or play offensively as much. The goal, like many other healer fights, is to force a trinket without using blind.

Difficulty: 8/10 vs undeads, 5/10 vs anything else


Rogue/Shadow Priest

There are several ways to play this mirror, but we prefer to CC the rogue and kill the priest. Racials are going to play a HUGE role in this fight, like any other mirror. Undeads should always win if both teams are equally skilled, with humans at a distant second.

Since this fight has so many possibilities due to racials, I will assume our rogue is human. Our rogue should pop sprint and perception right at the start, try to sap the enemy rogue, open on the priest right away. Like many mirrors, the team that gets a stronger opener and plays more offensively will have the advantage. Fear ward will likely be on the enemy rogue, so our priest needs to dispel that before attempting to fear. It's pretty much a race between which team can down the others' priest. Our rogue cannot trinket any priest fears. If he does, he will get blinded then sapped then feared again, and that's an automatic loss. Our priest must dispel the fear, or our rogue needs to sit through it. If the enemy rogue trinkets at any time, blind/sap and finish the priest. Not really much else to add.

Difficulty: 5/10


Rogue/Rogue

A very rare setup seen at high ratings, but I do believe the other team has the advantage especially if they are undead. Two undead rogues are practically unccable given the standard timeline of this matchup, and they will eat our priest alive.

CC one rogue and kill the other. Prioritize our kill order based on racials, then specs, meaning undeads should be focused first, followed by mutilate/combat, followed by shadowstep non-undeads. If they are both undead and both shadowstep... /sigh. Our rogue being human helps a ton in this fight, because he'll almost always get the opener on one of the rogues. If our rogue isn't human, it's going to be tough because the other team is practically given the opener on our priest.

Difficulty: Ranges from 4/10 to 9/10 depending on racials and specs.


Rogue/Frost Mage

This is *the* counter to SPriest/Rogue. If you thought DPriest/Rogue was hard, you will want to headbutt a cockroach after playing a good Mage/Rogue team. Their strategy is simple; CC our rogue and kill our priest. There's very little we can do to really put a cork on their burst.

The mage will either start out invisible or visible (obviously). I prefer mages that are visible, so we don't get caught in some ridiculous predicament with our priest cheapshotted on one side of the map with a shatter combo queued and our rogue on the other side, still stealthed. It's happened before, and it's not pretty. If the mage is visible, we usually go for him. Our rogue will sap the mage and I'll strip his buffs, emphasis on Frost Armor. The enemy rogue will open on me at about the same time, and our priest will fear him. If he's undead, he'll WotF and continue his reign on our priest while our rogue works on the enemy mage. It comes down to a race between which caster dies first, and the mage is a much more formidable target than our priest. Our priest needs hop out and heal when he's at around 30-40%, and hopefully the mage will die soon. He also needs to be very on the ball with preemptive mass dispells.

If the mage is invisible, this matchup becomes even harder. We really don't have much of an idea where they are, so the best we can do is sit next to a pillar and wait for their opening. The rogue will soon CS our priest, and the mage will have his elemental out behind us casting a frostbolt into a shatter combo. It is absolutely crucial that our rogue interrupts this shatter combo, because the priest cannot afford to trinket the CS. They will follow this CS with a KS, which our priest will need to trinket. If we survive this opener with decent hp, our priest needs to start LOSing the mage while dotting up the enemy rogue. Our rogue should gouge the enemy mage then go on the enemy rogue as well. Look for an opportunity to fear the mage; he'll be LOS'ed so he'll probably have to get close, so fear him when he does. The mage will need to trinket this, so follow it with a blind, which he will iceblock. During all this, our rogue should have popped all of his cds and tearing the enemy rogue apart. If our priest falls below 30-40%, he needs to drop shadow and start healing. Silence should be used whenever the mage isn't CC'ed. Dispelling our rogue of polymorphs is also crucial. The goal is to spin around a pillar over and over, to screw up the mage's LOS constantly. This prevents most of his dps and CC. Keep up rupture on the rogue so he just vanish and remain stealthed.

Difficulty: 10/10


Hunter/Resto Druid

Not too bad of a fight, definitely much easier than if our priest was disc. We are killing the hunter and CCing the druid. The key thing is knowing when to time our burst to force trinket on the druid. Again, the goal is to get the druid to trinket as soon as possible, so he won't have it up for the CC that will get his hunter killed. A hunter doesn't do very much dps with a rogue on him, so this fight will be similar to Warlock/Druid and could last a long time. Don't give up if things are looking bad; all it takes is one well timed cc and the game is won. Getting this cc off against a good druid is the hard part.

Our priest should start mounted (as always) and our rogue should open on the hunter. Our priest will remain mounted until the druid pops out, then ride over to the druid and fear. This is so our priest doesn't get caught in one of the huge arsenal of hunter snares, like frost trap, snake trap, or wingclip, concussive shot, etc. Once the druid is feared, we need to pop all cds and dps the hunter as hard as we can. Hopefully the druid will trinket to save his hunter, and we just follow that with a blind, silence, and another fear. If the hunter somehow lives through this burst and the druid still has his trinket up, we just try the same tactic again except we won't have cds. The longer this fight lasts, the harder it becomes. Also, like any other druid team, our priest needs to get rid of hunter hots, emphasis on abolish poison. Our rogue getting kited and dealing little dps opens the druid up for free CCs, and lack of healing pressure is often the reason for losing. Priest needs to dispel entrapment and freezing off of the rogue as well.

Difficulty: 5/10


Hunter/Disc or Holy Priest

This is like Hunter/Druid, except a priest is both easier to fear as well as kill than a druid. Just CC one and kill the other, pretty simple. Usually we like going for hunters, especially if the priest is dwarf.

Start with a sap on the priest if possible, and open on the hunter. Our priest should still be mounted, and should ride in to dispel fear ward off of whoever it's on, and then fear the priest (both if possible). This is like any other healer fight where our goal is to force a trinket, then blind/sap/silence to finish off the hunter. It's easier than Hunter/Druid in that it's harder for the hunter to escape our rogue due to the lack of poison dispel, but harder in that an offensively played disc priest along with viper stings can deplete our priest's mana in seconds. Don't give them the chance to play offensive, by keeping the pressure up. Once the priest has trinketed, rogue can time your blind any time, so do it about 14 seconds before our priest's fear is back up, then blind -> silence -> fear and finish the hunter.

Difficulty: 4/10

[Rapture]

This strategy guide can now be found in the Official Strategy Section (http://www.arenajunkies.com/strategy/2v2/SPri_Rog_2/").

Many thanks Lilic!