Detailed Disc priest/rogue Strategy

[Mickster]

I see no disc priest rogue strategy up so I figure I’d offer some words of wisdom and give some troubled teams a helpful hand, hopefully.

Intro to priest rogue:

Priest rogue has the ability to compete in any battle group, regardless of the possible abundance of warrior druid or any other setup that you believe "trashes" priest rogue. Obviously some combos have advantages over you, in my opinion, 2v2, is like rock\paper\scissors. However, with coordination, determination to become better, practice and all that other crap you hear on sports movies (it is true though)their is no reason for you to not compete for gladiator. If you lose to a certain combo all the time, ask why and how, try new strategies, spec differently that can beat that setup, do whatever you can to try to beat them, don't yell or scream or whatever and don't get frustrated as it can cause you to lose more. If you only rely on my strategies and you don't try to improve yourself then enjoy losing because this strategy is merely a guideline on how to beat certain teams, chances are your opponents will read this guide and counter the strats I have laid out. So keep your mind open and you will do well.

Specs\Gear:

In my opinion, a priest and a rogue can be whatever spec they want (assuming priest has pain suppression), if you feel that if you had imp inner fire and imp fort you would beat warrior druids better, then get it. I however think that other talents are more viable, considering imp fort is only 300ish hp and it can be dispelled (same with imp inner fire). I have also tried mind flay spec (43\5\13), I lose .5 seconds to greater heal which is big and spell warding as well. Spec is up to you, if you lose to mage\rogue a lot, then spec how you feel will give you advantages

The thing I said above about speccing for how you think is best applies to rogues also, I cannot speak on behalf of rogues since I admit I don't really know anything about them, however I do know that I have succeeded with rogues who were specced combat\mutilate\ss, so spec how you think you should.

Gear should be as best as you can get, obviously it's easy for me to say durrrrrrrr get 5\5 arena and full vindicators durrrrrrr. Priest should have probably at least 300 resil, 100 mp5, and 1300+ healing, to start. Rogue should have 300 resil and weapons that are better then something you can find in the auction house (season 1 at least). The better your gear is the better chance you have at doing well.


Matchups:

Just a few things to keep in mind, always be aggressive on the opposing healer with mana burns and fears (avoid the other priests fears by having your rogue gouge him or stun so you can freely walk up and fear), Make good use of the power infusion change to get mana burns faster if you manage to get a fear on whatever has mana. As well, do not get frustrated if you lose to a certain setup a lot, just improve yourselves and you will hopefully manage to beat them. Also, use poisons to your advantage, if it is a double dps team there is no point in using wounding, switch to mind numbing, it’s good to have 2 OHs so you can just change your weapon instead of wasting time switching poisons, this gives you a huge advantage. Also, be sure to take advantage of blind\vanish\sap, this can be a huge thing as your priest will probably have fear up so if the guy isn't dead by the time the sap is over you can always fear or MC.

Druid(Resto)/Warrior:

Probably one of the toughest combos for priest rogue, also one of the more popular setups you will face. One thing for you to know is that most druid warriors are not good, they just rely on the overpowered setup to win games, I have seem countless teams of this setup that shouldn't be past 1600. A good thing to do is for the rogue to put wounding on his offhand so he can spam it back up with shiv (Doesn't really matter if warrior has crippling, besides it will be applied eventually and you want the warrior to run behind pillars faster so you can LOS) if the druid spam dispels, good, he wastes more mana and risks mana burns. When the game starts, immediately do shadow word death\mindblast\smite(if you can) on the warrior while he was stunned, you want that druid to come out immediately, let the warrior intercept you and bring him as far away as possible from the starting point.

When the druid comes out be aggresive on him, mana burn him whenever he is in caster, time stuns on the warrior so priest can run freely to try and fear (good druids will avoid fear but at least you can make them run away or corner them). Drink whenever possible, LOS the warrior as best as you can and always keep a renew on your rogue to heal whirlwinds and deep wounds and possible times the warrior may switch to him. Dispel hots whenever you think it is good to do so, example, druid is feared or blinded and warrior has hots on, get rid of them asap and do as much damage as you can to him, also dispel abolish and regrowth\rejuv, lifebloom if it’s ok to do so. If the warrior goes shield, drink up, chances are warrior is shielding because he is low so the druid is healing him in combat, if the warrior is on your priest in a shield and is healed up to full and is buying time for druid to drink you cannot allow the druid to do this, which is why you always stay as close as possible and use rank 1 dots. Always do mindblast to the warrior whenever he is stunned, as well as a shadow word death. Key things to remember are, be aggressive on druid, fear\mana burn a lot, avoid warrior while he isn’t stunned and when he is move back in, bring warrior out of LOS from the druid to bring him to you, drink whenever possible. If you think switching to the druid will kill him, do so, but be aware of the warrior hamstringing\piercing howl\fearing your rogue, a good warrior will intervene the druid and help CC the rogue so the druid can run away, so I don’t recommend focusing the druid. This is a really tough fight, do not get mad if you lose, try different specs if you have to as well.

Druid\Warlock:

This can be very tough or easy, depending on the quality of the CC that the druid\warlock team has. I recommend having 3 weapons, the reason for this is to have wounding on your MH, crippling on OH and mind numbing on your 2nd OH so all 3 poisons are up. Save your fear for when the druid bashes or cyclones the rogue so the lock doesn’t get too far, or fear the druid when he is healing and try to sneak in some mana burns while he’s in caster( you will probably have tongues and get silenced but rogue has a while to do damage to the lock). Spam dispel the warlock of his fel armor, call out fears you cannot interupt, and keep mending bouncing between you and your rogue. If the druid and warlock have insane CC, chances are you will lose (unless you are shadowstep and even then its still hard). Just remember to be aggressive on the druid, fear him whenever, dispel the rogue and keep renew on him and conserve your mana!. If you see that the pet is low, fear the druid and then have your rogue switch to the pet, spam dispel on the rogue to get rid of any fears that might come and if you manage to kill the pet spam dispel on the lock so you can have a chance at dispelling fel dom.

Druid\Hunter:

Personally, I feel this setup is the hardest, A hunter with all his CC combined with the druid CC will frustrate your rogue beyond belief, vipersting with a pet constantly hitting you will run you oom. To beat this setup you need to maximize your mana, there is no point in LOSing the hunter while you have viper on you, you might as well make them blow their CCs on you so you can’t mana burn the hunter (which is what you will be doing). As soon as the fight starts have your rogue get on the hunter and try to stun him (flare will probably get the rogue out), get poisons on hunter as fast as you can and have your priest mount up and wait till the druid comes out to fear him, as soon as that hunter gets the first viper on you, sit next to him and spam mana burn, you want him oom as fast as possible, you will probably get bashed, rooted, scatter shotted, silence shot, but you need to get that hunter out of mana. If you do manage to get the hunter out of mana, have your rogue consistently beat on him, now you get behind a pillar, use your shadowfiend on the hunter or the hunters pet and put on Mp5 wand\weapon\oh and conserve mana, if you see a good oppurtunity to kill the pet, do so immediately, that does not mean have your rogue run across the map and make it look obvious, come into LOS, fear the druid and then brust him down with shadow word death mind blast smite shadow word pain, whatever you have in your arsenal use it. Once that pet is dead your life is much easier, renew the rogue and run out of LOS, if the druid is always keeping you in combat that is ok, only come out to dispel the ice trap on the rogue (don’t get caught behind a pillar with it, call out if you see them try to do this). This is a very tough fight, you just need to outlast or get a nice burst on the hunter with a fear\blind and hopefully he dies, if not you have to try to kill the pet, if your priest is out of mana and the situation is looking bad you might as well have your rogue be on the pet as a last desperate attempt to win.

Druid/Rogue:

Endurance match, the druid will abolish his rogue and either CC you and go for your rogue or go after you (most cases they have gone after me), if they go for you(priest), you must keep crippling on the rogue and LOS as best as you can and drink whenever, be aggressive on the druid and try to fear him along with the rogue at the same time (if possible), mana burn the druid whenever you can and keep him running away from you. If they go for your rogue just be sure to keep hots on him and never let him get too low, be aggressive on the druid and drink whenever (try not to let him drink though). This can go either way and once again depends on your coordination compared to thiers.

Mage\Rogue:

This can be a difficult setup, the main thing in this battle is DO NOT GET SHEEPED, if they are going for your rogue this is extremely vital, if your rogue is not on the mage then be sure to be LOSing, keep hots and shield on the rogue at all times and never let him get low, come out to flash heal and if you get Counter spelled get away, do not come out to heal when the rogue is at 50% and the mage has CS up, make him blow it earlier to avoid this so you can freely heal. To start this fight, the rogue will probably go for a sap, I would advise to stand away from each other but not too far, if the priest gets sapped rogue should be at some distance but ready to pounce on the mage incase they go for the priest. Have your rogue on the mage, be sure to spam dispel the mage of his ice shield and armor, have your rogue use mind numbing and crippling on the mage so the priest can stay in LOS better. Priest should stay mounted so he can fear the rogue\mage as fast as possible, if it’s double undead beware of a quick WOTF\sheep combo. Use shadowword death to get out of sheeps, this helps a lot if you can’t get out of sight fast enough, learn how to properly time it by having a cast bar or just getting used to when to use it. If the rogue trinkets use blind right away on him. Your rogue should be paying close attention as to when he should use his trinket and cloak, I would use cloak when you have 5 wounding and you need to get healed to full or just stop a mage from getting a bunch of frostbolts, vanish, sprint if you have to, use everything you have on this fight. You should be able to win this most of the time but a good mage\rogue will give you a lot of difficulty with the nice CC and good burst that they have.

Warlock\Rogue:

Pretty simple fight, fear the rogue if he goes on you and if he’s on your rogue wait till they are both together then fear them both, spam dispel the lock and the dots, never let yourself or your rogue get low and call out fears to dispel them faster. Use mind numbing\crippling on this fight and everything should go smoothly.

[Mickster]

Disc Priest/Rogue:

This fight can go to either team, however, racials (specifically undead and dwarf) give huge advantages to this fight, so hopefully you don’t fight a double undead team since that, in my opinion, is the hardest. This fight can go the following 3 ways;

You on their priest and rogue is trying to CC your rogue:

Follow your rogue around (priest will try to bring him behind a pillar to fear him so you can’t dispel), avoid fear from their priest and try to get as many mana burns as possible on their priest, spam dispel his hots and stuff so your rogue does more damage. If this is the scenario you should come out the victor, but be aware of a fear from the priest, dispel your rogue if he does get feared and try to fear bomb both the rogue\priest to make the rogue use trinket then you can blind him.

Rogue vs Rogue, Priest vs Priest:

My favorite style, dispel the rogue of his hots and shield, be aggressive on the priest but DO NOT GET FEARED, try to time your rogue to gouge the priest so you can run over and fear him without being in danger, if your opponent is undead and you aren’t, be very conservative, he realizes he has the advantage and goes for you. You should save fear ward for when you run up to the priest and he will fear you when you are in range, cast fear ward right before you are in range and maybe he will blow his fear and waste it, immediately fear him and mana burn, if he is undead back off and mana burn him (shield yourself so the damage of the mana burn doesn’t increase your cast time). Use shadowfiend on the priest and dispel the priest if he shields (if he shadowfiends you, run behind a pillar and then shield yourself, if priest tries to come dispel you get ready to fear him). Fight relies on which priest goes oom first and which rogue does more damage to the other one to make the priest heal more and be more open to mana burns. Obviously whatever I say in this guide the other priest will know, so create your own inventions on how to counter this scenario.

Race to kill the priest:

Dispel the pries whenever you can, fear then go to kite the rogue around the pillar, if he stealths run away from the pillar but not around it since he will catch up to you, do not get the stealth detector, this now makes you take 5% more damage and even though you can see the rogue he eventually will get back on you by mounting up or sprinting, so don’t bother. If the priest is in your sight, spam dispel and do mana burn to make the rogue blow kick on your shadow school. This fight depends on which priest can dispel the rogue of his fear better and which rogue does more damage. If the rogue trinkets after your fear (if the rogue who is on you isn’t undead give yourself a cheer), have your rogue gouge the priest (so he doesn’t run far away), make sure a new crippling is applied, then go blind the rogue. If you did use trinket, and you see the rogue coming to you, use your evasion and maybe you will dodge it, if not tough luck, their priest will get free mana burns on your priest and the rogue will do a ton of damage, so do not trinket fear in my opinion, ever.

Be sure to switch targets to help your priest and coordinate yourselves, mirror matches of this type are really fun, the more creative and coordinated\lucky(stuns resisting and other stuff like that) team will win.

Shadow priest/rogue:

Get on the shadow priest as soon as possible, if your opponent is alliance, be careful of perception, stay next to your priest at the starting zone and wait out the possible perception. When you feel it is safe, walk out to give a ‘path’ to the priest for him to run out, if your priest does get sapped, get ready to intercept the incoming shadow priest. Once you are on the shadow priest have your priest dispel whoever has fear ward, then continue to go on the shadowpriest, give your fear ward to your rogue, hopefully he doesn’t get sapped so the spriest can easily dispel it. If the rogue is on you (priest), dispel his fear ward and then fear him, if he is undead brace yourself again, at some point you should have been walking to the shadowpriest, spam dispel him and his dots and keep yourself topped off as much as possible, time a stun on the priest so when the rogue has his wotf down you can fear him without fear of it being dispelled and he would have to trinket to continue on you, blind him if he does trinket. If not, PI yourself and get as many mana burns as possible on the spriest while continuing to dispel him, if crippling goes off run away and get as far away from the rogue as possible. A key thing here is to not get feared. If they go for your rogue, avoid fear from the spriest chasing you and help out your rogue by fearing the rogue that’s on him. Save your cloak when you are decently low (40\50%) so wounding is off and you can heal him up decently. This game once again depends on how coordinated you can be and they can be, so be sure to have key timing and think one step ahead of them.

Warlock\Mage:

Pretty simple fight, have your priest charge up and if the warlock dots him that’s an indication they are going to focus him or they are dumb, once the priest is dotted have your rogue move in and get on the warlock, priest should spam dispel the rogue of sheep\fear and if the priest is dotted it should be easy. If you see the priest get sheeped at the beginning just let DR go up, priest should dispel everyone and then fear and mana burn the mage untill they realize the rogue isn’t coming out and start focusing the priest. If they go for your rogue, spam dispel on him, use cloak to not get frostbolted, always keep him above 80%, spam dispel on him from frost nova and always keep heals on him. Shadow word death sheeps, if you let the rogue get low you will get double counterspelled and he will possibly die. Run away if the situation becomes bad by cloak\vanish, don’t blow cloak recklessly.

Paladin/Warrior:

This can go either way, although the paladin warrior have an advantage. Start on the warrior and do mind blast\shadow word death, let the warrior intercept you to bring him LOS of the pally, dispel freedom whenever it is put up. Once again you need to be aggressive on the pally in mana burns and fears, keep hots on your rogue and make sure 5 wounding is always up (either use wounding on your OH or MH, or have 2 OH weapons with wounding so you can put your crippling OH back on when 5 is put up immediately). I think at the beginning you might want to try focusing the pally after freedom is given to the warrior, sprint or SS to the pally and try to stun him so priest can get free mana burns and you aren’t feeding the warrior rage, once the pally uses freedom on himself switch to the warrior again and have your priest LOS to drink and heal up. Continute a cycle of mana burns and fears and use blind on the warrior if you have to. A good paladin warrior team get be really troublesome with the pally being good at LOSing mana burn, if this is the case it would be good to start on the pally. If pally uses bubble\trinket you can even try killing him if you feel you can do enough damage to him.

Disc Priest/Warlock:

You pretty much counter this setup, although a well coordinated priest\warlock can be annoying. Use all 3 poisons again (mainly wounding\crippling). Always keep crippling on the warlock so you are always on him, priest will probably blow fear on your rogue so always have a quick dispel, don’t try to have a mana burn battle with the priest, with Curse of tongues on you + a pet who can silence you will most likely lose this battle, although if the priest is healing you might as well cast mana burn and be aggressive on him. The more the rogue is on the warlock the better it will be, try to fear the priest whenever his fear is down so you aren’t scared of yourself getting feared and the other priest mind controlling your rogue. Speaking of mind control, if you notice the priest casting it on your rogue, start spamming dispel (especially if it’s blade’s edge). As long as your rogue doesn’t get caught with no cooldowns up and is exhausted, this should be an easy fight, just remember to spam dispel the warlock of his hots and fel armor.

Paladin/Warlock:

Same as the druid warlock except a little bit more tricker, depending on how you look at it. Freedom must be dispelled immediately and so does bop, always dispel the locks fel armor as well. Be aggressive on the paladin and mana burn\fear whenever its up, keep mending and renew on and conserve mana. If the paladin has a lot of mp5 this can be difficult, be sure to call out possible fears that the warlock may get on the rogue so it can be dispelled instantly, once again use all 3 poisons but don’t waste to much time re applying mind numbing if the pally is spam dispelling, do it once every little bit. Use blind after bubble\trinket is down and then mind blast\shadow word death the lock, be sure to make good use of PI mana burn combo and try to get the pally oom, once he is oom stick on him so he doesn’t drink. If you go oom and the pally is not oom and the situation isn’t looking good, try to kill the pet. The priest should try to not let the pally heal the pet ever by LOSing the locks pet, if warlock pulls him back try to drink, if you see a good opportunity to kill the pet go for it.

Shaman/Warrior:

This Can be a difficult setup, the warrior will most likely be focusing the priest while the shaman spam purges the priests HoTs as well, do not allow this to happen, the rogue must do his best to keep the warrior Cced, priest should wand totems so he cannot get intercepted and if he does, drag the warrior out of LOS then stun him, fear the shaman whenever tremor is down and try to mana burn him as best as you can. Get rid of as many totems as you can, when heroism comes up dispel it. Always keep yourself topped off because a warrior can do a lot of damage with windfury and 100 rage. Do your best to run the warrior LOS of the shaman and fear the shaman and mana burn.

Priest/Hunter:

Basically the same strat as the druid/hunter team except, this time at the beginning, have your rogue start on the priest and then your priest should spam mana burn on the hunter, if you had the rogue on the hunter then the priest would be free to mana burn you, so either start on the hunter to get poisons up and switch to the priest or just start on the priest. Once the hunter is oom you can either switch to him and make the priest heal a lot, or you can continue on the priest after the DPS threat is eliminated and you can get free mana burns on the priest. I would try both strategies and see which one works best, both of them are good and switching targets has an advantage (hunter can drink to get mana back as well so be aware of this, especially night elf ones). Kill the pet if you have a good oppurtunity to do so but just make sure to equip your MP5 weapons (if you have any) and go mana burn crazy on both of them. If one of the two classes is dwarf, I’d recommend being on the non dwarf since stoneform with a trap can screw you over. If you do decide to focus the priest, put on mind numbing occasionally.

Spriest/Warlock:

Spam dispel, be on the warlock at all times, avoid fear from the spriest and dispel your rogue if he gets feared, keep mending bouncing and keep yourselves topped off, easy fight if you just spam dispel on everything and mana burn the shadowpriest. Once again make good use of using the 3 poisons. If you let yourself get too low you will die, you can easily get blown up and silenced by this team so be careful of that, have you rogue save his cloak for a desperate situation or if its looking good use it for an exhaust if he can’t get back on the warlock.

Rogue/Rogue:

This can be difficult or easy, depending if you get a sap on an opposing rogue or if they get a sap on your rogue. Stay mounted at all times, if you rogue gets sapped run around and hopefully you can get away, if they get a stun on you, do not spam fear, chances are they will precloak and you will be especially screwed (even if they are double undead). Blow trinket early to get pain suppresion on yourself, at the beginning if you rogue gets sapped close to you, put shield, renew, mending on. Be prepared to blow battle master and pain suppresion early. If it’s not double undead it should be easy considering they will probably use trinket to get out of fear then you can blind one. If it’s double undead you rogue has to off target gouge and stun both of them. Just keep hots on since you probably won’t get a cast and hopefully they don’t dodge or resist stun\gouge or it can be bad for you. The start is the key point, if they get a head start on you you will probably lose.

Quality of the strat: Using these exact strategies, me and my gnome rogue partner managed to achieve a 2404 rating, 93-27 record at the end of season 2. This season I have not played with my partner from season 2 and have not really tried serious priest\rogue 2v2 (although I am currently rated 2200 but that is leveling from 2100 with a warlock), I did manage to achieve #1 at some point but we sold the team because we didn’t know about merciless gladiator, although we wouldn’t have gotten it anyways. I am from arthas-US, BG-Ruin, if you have any questions or comments or something you’d like to discuss I’m always willing to help, unless I’m doing arena.

Enjoy!.

P.S sorry for any grammar\spelling mistakes, spell check is annoying going through WoW terms so I didn't have the patience to do it after typing this huge thing up.

[Sekah]

I'm only part way through, but it might be helpful to explain the all-too-important blind/vanish-sap/fear combo on your cc target after they've used their trinket earlier on in the game. Often it's possible to down one of your opponents in that time if it's lined up well.

Most notably it's useful in warrior/druid and hunter/druid fights, but can be applied to almost any match up.

[Mickster]

thanks i'll add that in, btw sorry its as long as an essay, trying to be as descriptive as I can.

[Arçoth]

good guide.

but yeah the most amazing thing about priest rogue is the huge cc chain that is available if executed right.

Hunter druid should NEVER lose to priest rogue assuming equal skill . if the hunter is dwarf the rogue team should probably just leave =\

[Rapture]

This strategy has been added to the Official Strategy Section (http://www.arenajunkies.com/strategy/2v2/Pri_Rog/).

Thanks Mickster! Great strat!