How to 2v2 SL Lock w/ Rogue

[nemesiah]

I'm starting in a new 2's team with a well geared rogue but am having issues. It seems that we can't burn one down fast enough to win. Since we got no heals, we're just trying to smash one while CC'ing/spell locking/fearing the other but it often doesn't work.

Anyone have any advice on how to succeed running SL/SL Lock w/ Rogue? Or is it hopeless?

[Yothga]

cant tell you any tactics sadly but i can tell you the setup is succesfull as a lot of the top teams are running it :)

[Bustuarii]

Maybe the problem lies on the fact that you play with a mutilate rogue. I play w/ a mutilate rogue, but I'm affliction, so we manage.

I'm sure my rogue ally will tell you that mutilate is the best thing since sliced bread, but I'm not so convinced.

[Dimachaeri]

Maybe the problem lies on the fact that you play with a mutilate rogue. I play w/ a mutilate rogue, but I'm affliction, so we manage.

I'm sure my rogue ally will tell you that mutilate is the best thing since sliced bread, but I'm not so convinced.

Considering the top rogue in BG9 played mutilate with a SL warlock, I fail to see how you'll manage to substantiate that conclusion of yours.

Anyone have any advice on how to succeed running SL/SL Lock w/ Rogue? Or is it hopeless?

It's not hopeless, but just like there are warrior/druids at below 1400, not every rogue/warlock will automatically catapult to the top ranks. It takes time, practice, and a lot of patience to pull off a double DPS team. You really didn't provide any specifics of your current strategies or hurdles, so there isn't much more I can say to help.

[Bustuarii]

Considering the top rogue in BG9 played mutilate with a SL warlock, I fail to see how you'll manage to substantiate that conclusion of yours.


I substantiate it by looking a the big picture, and not just one rogue.

[Critickle]

I substantiate it by looking a the big picture, and not just one rogue.

if one rogue can pull it off it's obviously possible =p

but to the main point-

I started rogue warlock with a combat rogue (not mutilate) this week and we are 2223 now. we can burn people like a joke sometimes. but it's tough, half our losses are him being caught in stealth due to paranoia and eventually losing because of that.

[Bustuarii]

if one rogue can pull it off it's obviously possible =p


It's not about what's possible; it's about what is the best and most effective strategy. I'm pretty sure that they don't play together anymore, and it might have been due to their opponents figuring out effective strategies verse them. I watched a video of one of their battles, and it was very different from the type of battles that we have. Instead of doing a burn strategy, it seems that they rely more on surviving for a very long time. This might be why the OP is having issues w/ the standard "burn one & control one" strategy.

[koroshi]

Maces is for teh warlocks, mutilate is for teh mages. Don't play mut unless your team is burst.

[Abira]

Maces is for teh warlocks, mutilate is for teh mages. Don't play mut unless your team is burst.

is this the basic strat?

the rogue locks down the warrior while I put UA and stuff on both targets, eventually and very quickly forcing the pally to bubble, I can't do stuff during this bubble, but basically we win after that with a chain fear + blind am I correct?


this is vs healer/dps teams


vs 2 dps teams? I dont think you will lose, imo this is the best possible 2 dps team you can have, and I play UA/spriest, with spriest/lock coming in VERY VERY close behind it.



i have never played with a rogue but is this the basic strat? I would think it is..

[Bustuarii]

the rogue locks down the warrior while I put UA and stuff on both targets
No, you do not DoT up the healer, since damage has a chance to break fear, and you want fear to last as long as possible. Just CoT, fear, and spell-lock the healer.

[Scorch]

I'm running a warlock/rogue atm

I'm SL/SL, the rogue is Mace specced, AR/Prep to QUICKLY burn the enemy down while i try to CC the Healer. I like his spec because 1. AR is great for quick burns and 2. Maces helps when the enemy tries to attack me instead of the rogue, because random stuns keeps him from hurting me too much.

What i usually do is put CoT on a healer (leave it dotless because sometimes your rogue can pop a blind on him if needed) and set him as my focus target+put felpup on him (i have NaturCastbars so that when the healer casts a heal i can see it and use my /silence focus target macro to stop him while still burning the dps). After that i chain fear the healer (lasts about 18 secs if it doesnt break early). But you don't need to use the fears immediately, you can wait a few seconds and also use them to Interrupt a heal. Paladins are the easiest classes to CC, because all their heals are casting and easy to silence/interrupt. Druids are the hardest. Druid/Warr is a difficult combination. Warrs will wreck both you AND your rogue, but he will usually get on the rogue. He will spam Hamstring on the rogue (Hamstring is now getting a Diminishing Return put on it so they cant do that :P) And the druid will run away. You can't really stop any of the druid heals (unless you silence RIGHT when they come out of travel form...) because they don't cast any of them. Very difficult to kill the druid too. The other class that screws us are Frosty mages. They usually cast Ice Nova (or whatever it's called) and Sheep the rogue. To prevent this, you can put your devour magic OFF of auto, and dispell sheep/freeze off of the rogue. It's a bit easier with AR/Prep for the rogue not to be kited with sprint x2 and vanish x2, though. On 2 dps teams, just choose the squishiest target, or the target that you're afraid will CC more, so that your rogue can kick all the attempted silences. I know there's probably some stuff I'm forgetting, but GL. It's a pretty fun combo.

[Critickle]

No, you do not DoT up the healer, since damage has a chance to break fear, and you want fear to last as long as possible. Just CoT, fear, and spell-lock the healer.

mine typically kills the healer. mace rogue + lock and we go for healer unless pally. even if not going for healer though (in certain situations), i still dot up my fear target because after a few fears they are at 60% from dots and the target we killing is going to fast. then we can switch to healer quick to prevent heals more easily, and now he has 2 targets at like 30% both dotted and going down fast. then 1 eventually dies because he can't heal both.

although, a lot of the time we just open on a healer and kill em before they can heal or say oh shi....

[Bustuarii]

mine typically kills the healer. mace rogue + lock and we go for healer unless pally. even if not going for healer though (in certain situations), i still dot up my fear target because after a few fears they are at 60% from dots and the target we killing is going to fast. then we can switch to healer quick to prevent heals more easily, and now he has 2 targets at like 30% both dotted and going down fast. then 1 eventually dies because he can't heal both.

although, a lot of the time we just open on a healer and kill em before they can heal or say oh shi....

You're SL/SL, though, so you're games are different from ours. Since I'm affliction, I won't survive for very long, and thus any amount of healing the primary target receives hurts me severely. On the other hand, it's pretty easy to drop the primary target during the initial fear & spell-lock, so our games tend to be very quick.

[shyst]

i play drain tank spec with a mutilate rogue. The lock is an alt so my gear was pretty horrible (still is kind imho :P). The strategy is pretty much CC the healer and burn the dps. Between fear, DC, blind, spell lock it's not too hard to keep the healer offline long enough to kill the dps.

however, good druids are a problem cause they will throw HOTs and los your fears

against the dreaded pld/war teams we DON'T force the bubble with fears. We burn the warrior..the pld will chain cast flash of light but eventually he will be forced to do a holy light..at that point you hit him with a spell lock and down the warrior. The smart teams will bubble first before casting holy light in which case you DC/fear/blind the warrior and both of you run the hell away and bandage. Once bubble is down you chain fear the pld.

basically if you can force a 1v1 with the lock then it's GG...cause lets be honest no one can solo a warlock...cept another warlock

[Dodorian]

I run sl sl mutilate rogue for my 2v2. its a pretty good setup. but can really depend on what team your facing.. for 1 dps 1 healer good rule of thumb is

If its a shammy kill the shammy
If its a druid. kill the druid
If its a priest without a warrior. kill the priest ( if with warrior kill warrior)
if its a pally Kill the dpser. counterspell / tongues / fear the pally... one thing you also want to make sure your doign is keep shivs on the dpser at all times so both your rogue and lock can kite.. this is also a pretty gear dependant setup

[Bustuarii]

The smart teams will bubble first before casting holy light in which case you DC/fear/blind the warrior and both of you run the hell away and bandage.

Yes, and the paladin won't just dispel fear/blind right away? And the warrior won't use his trinket or abilities to break it either, right?
Also, any decent paladin will start a holy light early enough that you won't just be able to spell-lock and down the warrior that fast. I don't remember the last time I saw a paladin that dumb.
Also, I don't know why you say "the dreaded warrior/paladin team." Paladins are cake to lock down once you have enough survivability to live through the DS.
What rating is your warlock/rogue team?

[Greenquark]

I'm with a combat swords rogue(can't convince him to go maces since he uses arena weapons as pve weapons :( ) and though we struggle with warrior druid paladins are cake. CoT the paladin and chain fear him. If he bubbles early just start chain casting your bolt or drain at the warrior to keep pressure up, the paladin won't be able to cleanse wound in this time. Soon as the bubble drops you can silence his next heal and then fear him, warrior will die shortly thereafter.

Against any warlock/healer team you should open on the lock and test if he is SL or UA. If UA have your rogue hop on him as well, if SL with anything outside a paladin get on the healer.

One team we have had mixed results with is priest/rogue. A lot of it has to do with the gear, some days we burn the priest sometimes the rogue. UD and dwarf priests are pretty much always burned due to the difficulty in CCing em.

Against warrior druid as a UA spec I've found it easier to burn the warrior with full dps cooldowns from the rogue as I spell lock and then coil and then fear the druid, followed by a sprint+blind if needed. As SL/SL I lacked the burst to kill warriors through the druid hots etc. I would recommend checking my thread on warrior/druid as ballpoint gave a very detailed strategy for a SL lock/rogue team to take out warrior/druid, which failed to work for us sadly(my rogue plays from ireland and the lag makes it VERY hard to chase down druids and keep shivving them, we find its best to play to our strengths and dps the warrior.)

Warlock/spriest have your rogue get on the warlock, you get on the shadow priest alternating fears between them when DRs are up. Get dots on everything, keep your felhunter ready to interupt if the priest tries to drop and heal. Your rogue should keep the warlock locked down to the point he is doing nothing outside instant dots.

Shadow priest/rogue: burn the heck out of the shadow priest while fearing/blinding the rogue seems to work best for us.

[shyst]

Yes, and the paladin won't just dispel fear/blind right away? And the warrior won't use his trinket or abilities to break it either, right?
Also, any decent paladin will start a holy light early enough that you won't just be able to spell-lock and down the warrior that fast. I don't remember the last time I saw a paladin that dumb.
Also, I don't know why you say "the dreaded warrior/paladin team." Paladins are cake to lock down once you have enough survivability to live through the DS.
What rating is your warlock/rogue team?

this week...2006 i think. Keep in mind i don't read up strats for this combo i just call them like i see them.

[Bustuarii]

this week...2006 i think. Keep in mind i don't read up strats for this combo i just call them like i see them.

I don't think there is a guide out there for lock/rogues; it's really a trial & error type of learning. That said, your strategies would not work on BG9, since even our low-rated paladins know how to dispel fear & blind.

[Hips]

I don't think there is a guide out there for lock/rogues; it's really a trial & error type of learning.

Very true, if there was a guide it would have to be different for all the different racials you can have and for every different spec aswell.

[shyst]

I don't think there is a guide out there for lock/rogues; it's really a trial & error type of learning. That said, your strategies would not work on BG9, since even our low-rated paladins know how to dispel fear & blind.

i don't actually understand what you are saying cause you said survive through the bubble and win...i basically said the same thing. Having a CC potentially dispelled is a given...does that mean you should never do it? If your rogue is getting killed by the warrior and you can't burst him down through the free bubble healing shouldn't you try to CC the warrior so the rogue can run away?

[Bustuarii]

i don't actually understand what you are saying cause you said survive through the bubble and win...i basically said the same thing.
You said you don't force the bubble, though. Instead, you rely on these factors:
1) The paladin will start by spamming flash of light.
Verse a double-dps team, not many paladins will bother with the slow-healing FoL. It's not a mana war for them; it's about surviving through the burst.
2) The paladin will wait for the last second to cast holy light so that you can kill the warrior during the spell-lock
I haven't seen this beyond the 1600 rating on BG9. Competent paladins will always DS with more than enough time to send a Holy Light. If they are a bit worried that they didn't DS fast enough, they will BoP the warrior just to be safe.
3) The warrior won't kill one of you while you'll letting him get flash of light heals followed by a DS & holy light
The primary reason I force a DS ASAP is since we are forced to survive the warrior's brute force for 12 second while his paladin is behind a DS. This can be tough w/ a competent warrior. If you were to let the paladin heal for a while before you forced the DS, you would have to survive a great deal longer verse a warrior.

Having a CC potentially dispelled is a given...does that mean you should never do it? If your rogue is getting killed by the warrior and you can't burst him down through the free bubble healing shouldn't you try to CC the warrior so the rogue can run away?

Actually, we blind rogue even when they have a druid. If we are chasing and attacking the druid, he won't be able to easily turn around and dispel the blind. However, this is only since he is pressured. We do not blind dwarves who will instantly use stone form. In the same sense, we won't blind a warrior while the paladin is in a DS; there is no pressure on the paladin, and he would have to be a retard not to dispel it right away. Of course, this is counting that #1) there is no DoTs on the warrior (unlikely) and #2) he already used his trinket. Now, concerning fear, as a warrior -- particulary an undead one -- you should know the multitude of ways to dispel that.

[Dimachaeri]

The smart teams will bubble first before casting holy light in which case you DC/fear/blind the warrior and both of you run the hell away and bandage.

So let me get this straight, after burning the warrior to the point where a paladin needs to bubble+heal, the rogue is supposed to blind the warrior who obviously still has dots from the warlock ticking on him? And the warlock is supposed to fear the warrior, who will choose not to use deathwish or berserker rage? And after a deathcoil, the only CC that would arguably both work and not get dispelled, you run away and bandage from a class that can intercept you from 25 yards away? Under what magical conditions would this scenario even be plausible? Are we even playing the same game, here?

[shyst]

So let me get this straight, after burning the warrior to the point where a paladin needs to bubble+heal, the rogue is supposed to blind the warrior who obviously still has dots from the warlock ticking on him? And the warlock is supposed to fear the warrior, who will choose not to use deathwish or berserker rage? And after a deathcoil, the only CC that would arguably both work and not get dispelled, you run away and bandage from a class that can intercept you from 25 yards away? Under what magical conditions would this scenario even be plausible? Are we even playing the same game, here?

can't a person make a generalization without getting nit picked to death? :P

i'm saying blind/fear/deathcoil as examples of CCs rogues/warlocks can do....you obviously don't blind if they are dotted and i know full well how useless fear is against a warrior. and like i said i'm just calling them like i see them. Maybe on your uber BG9 where everyone is a pro...this stuff won't work but i'm just explaining the plan that we've been doing well into 1900 and having it work still. Maybe i'm on a scrub battlegroup but regardless. Also, being a warrior i know full well you can intercept someone that tries to run away but we have successfully DC'd a warrior and have the rogue sprint off the bridge on BE and around a pillar in Nagrand to los the intercept. Before you guys keep saying how this doesn't work...i want to reiterate that maybe it doesn't for you but it has for me. Maybe you guys only play against pros and i only play against scrubs but i digress.

@bustuarii
i agree that your plan does sound better from a technical standpoint, and we actually tried doing this in the beginning but failed a couple of times (probably cause my gear was insanely bad at the beginning). But then one day we tried doing the last minute spell lock thing and it worked for the majority of the fights so we just stuck with it. If we decide to pursue the lock/rogue combo i will try this plan again

@all
I'm open to criticism and advice but i thought the whole point of this forum was to promote discussion on high level play? Not to put forth elitist attitude and condescension towards other peoples post o.O

[shyst]

also in case i wasn't clear in my last post i am agreeing with you guys that my plan is flawed but it's been working for us that is why we do it. Maybe now we can get back to the OPs question. I would also be interested in any additional tips on lock/rogue 2s

[Critickle]

also in case i wasn't clear in my last post i am agreeing with you guys that my plan is flawed but it's been working for us that is why we do it. Maybe now we can get back to the OPs question. I would also be interested in any additional tips on lock/rogue 2s

I wouldn't take it personally Shyst, they just don't want the OP to be using a strat that seems flawed. This forum is for discussing strats and sometimes it's hard to give a difference of opinion without seeming at least a tiny bit hostile.

[Durxa]

mace rogue + sl/sl lock = win

my irl friend is the mace rogue, he plays with a sl/sl lock, all v good geared (5/5 merciless 400+ resi even on rogue) and they own. got to 3rd in our bg within a week of transferring there.

basically rogue just stuns one player for the entire match whilst lock dots everything with a pulse up xD