[2v2] Warrior/Priest

[shyst]

Has anyone had any success running Warrior/Priest? I ran this all S1 and for the first part of S2 but me and my priest has pretty much given up since we never seem to be able to go past 2100. There are a few top tier combos we do decently against but it just seems like there are too many unfavorable matchups.

[Eve]

It's doable, but a bitch. I honestly don't like running with a warrior but I grit my teeth and do it anways sometimes (I 2v2 hop to help others get points).

[Plaga]

I imagine it works, maybe just not as effectively as a pally/warrior though. Just make sure the priest has a decent amount of health/resil so they don't get eaten by melee.

[Troggie]

from my experience on only double dps teams in 2v2, i have noticed that i have the easiest time CCing paladins, and nuking thier teammates....but it is more dificult if their healer has instant heals and HoT's, because even durring the CC their HoT's or shields are still blocking damage. i dont see why pallys would be the best choice healer

[Molp]

from my experience on only double dps teams in 2v2, i have noticed that i have the easiest time CCing paladins, and nuking thier teammates....but it is more dificult if their healer has instant heals and HoT's, because even durring the CC their HoT's or shields are still blocking damage. i dont see why pallys would be the best choice healer

I agree. Warrior/pally is extremely vulnerable to warlock teams. Because of that at least on my BG I don't think there are many highly rated warrior/pally teams left. I haven't played against one since the 1800s.

[Rhaegyn]

Priest/Warrior can do really well, but other warrior teams will probably beat you.

[adra]

It has alot of advantages over war/pal, the warrior just has to play more defensively than he might with a druid/shaman/pal partner

[Ayas]

I got to like 2200 at S1 with a priest, and went like 60-1 S2 before my priest quit.

Basically we can beat any team besides warrior pally.

Playing against warrior pally is hard because for the most part my priest will die before the pally even has to bubble (hamstring me and BoF pally runs away)

Priest rogue teams were somewhat difficult but we could win by having my priest run to their priest with the rogue on him, and I would use AoE attacks while dpsing as my priest spams dispels, or we would do well timed fears to get both of them. If we can catch the rogue out of steath at the start, we auto win. My priest will never get touched after that.

Warlock teams are pretty easy. UA locks die easily and I don't let UA get off so dispel is for the most part possible, and their pet is priest fearable so we can drink from time to time. SL locks are easy since all their damage is dispellable. We win the mana fight since all I have to do is hamstring the lock and my priest plays pillars and I kill their healer.

Hunter teams are really easy too, my priest pillars while I work the hunter, my traps are dispelled, or I spellreflect to couter ice traps, frost traps are normally intercepted out of. Or we both just hug the hunter and hes useless. or atleast has to spend a whole lot more mana trying to get us out of the deadzone.

Mage teams are pretty easy too, as long as I have dispel spammed on me, the mage does almost no damage. Prayer of mending and renew is enough to prevent almost all the damage since I'm out of roots before i can even get icelanced. SWD stops polys, and so does spell reflect.

SP+Lock is a toss up. I can normally burn one down before we get into any serious trouble. Instant heal spam + dispel keeps me up for a long time while I'm killing someone. I'm pretty good at spell reflecting key spells too. At one point I reflected deathcoil + shadowbolt + shadow burn and a mindblast + swd all in 1 spell reflect and both people killed themselves. (running in with sweeping strikes pretty much screws them over.)

The hardest teams by far though, are druid teams. No matter what partner, a resto druid would destroy our team.

I tend to think of a warrior priest team as a somewhat gimp warrior pally team, but with mana burn and mass dispel for a slight offensive edge. I found that it only works if I'm mace spec though. Early/mid S1 with a mooncleaver was a no go. DPS race to kill their healer before mines is normally a loss against the majority of the match ups. With mace stun I slow their dps down a lot more giving us a wider window. DT 4 sec stun = mana burn time.

[shyst]

yah pld war is a very tough matchup...so is sham war...and druid war... lol.
Pretty much in those situations you just have to go on the warrior. Keep him hamstrung...announce whenever you can intercept stun or if mace procs and have your priest get the hell away. It's not a really good plan but the only other option would be to race them. And no way in hell can you kill a pld/sham/druid before they can kill your priest. Basically just picking the lesser of two evils.

@Ayas

You got 2200 with priest war? Was your priest a dwarf? Cause i can definitely see us getting an extra 100pts if my priest was a dwarf. Overall i think it just depends on the metagame of your BG. war priest is decent to strong against a good number of top tier combos...but the problem is it's not an easy combo to play, when you make that random inevitable mistake you're going to lose big points to some random scrub team.

[Ayas]

Actually he was undead and I am orc.
During season one he was pretty scrub too. He had 2 piece healing 2 piece shadow set. I just kept control of the other people. We've beat a lot of top 20 teams but we get robbed of 20 - even 35 points to some low rated warrior pally or druid warrior/rogue. Good warrior pally teams just keep me hamstringed and BoF the pally. My priest cant get away and when I try to burn my only option (warrior) down, he gets fed rage and my priest dies faster.

Basically what I made my priest do is. Straight up don't even get hamstringed. He stays at max range at almost all times. I just keep up ms and spam hamstring on warriors until they BoF him and he eats a dispel and we both intercept at the same time so he cant hamstring my priest in that time. It was just a kiting game for my priest trying to get as far as possible. When the warrior turns to me to DPS my priest is able to mana burn a couple mana burns before they start playing LoS, then we start abusing drink when I get a full heal shield and renew (priest gets atleast 30% mana back in that duration) We can win mana fights IF my priest doesn't get hamstringed at the start.

For the metagame of my BG, the teams we run against the most are in order:
Warrior/Pally
Lock/Pally
Rogue/Priest
Lock/Spriest
Mage/Lock
then random teams normally consisting of a druid. I did run against an akward team of a hunter warrior and lost though. BM hunter + warrior = no target I can really stick on, and they would drop my priest and I couldn't do anything about it during the BM duration.

During S2, We honestly only lost to warrior pally teams. We found that our strength was in the priests dispel ability rather than anything else. We basically premptively spam dispel and nothing sticks on me. We time intercept -> heal combos and double fear combos. We've also done DT stun -> mind control combos as well. It pretty much relies a lot on both people to play well. Warrior has to always do more damage since you simple cannot outlast the team when it comes to healer burn down matches. Priest has to be able to be very aware of surroundings and what is happening at all times. We call out every minor detail out spanning from when big heals are incomming from the pally, to warrior's rage, to intercept/hoj cooldowns, to how far we are from each other and the other team (I don't look at the pally's positioning because I'm busy watching for when BoF is about to go off). We use everything we have at our disposal. Intervene and intercept are always on CD, priest fear is always on CD, prayer of mending is always out.

I actually enjoy playing warrior priest than just about any combination. Not because it is by any means a good team, but it forces us to step it up. I always play with retarded teams (2x warrior, warrior/rogue, warrior hunter, warrior mage, warrior priest) Playing warrior or warrior shaman isn't quiet as fun. You don't have as many fun things you can do. Those classes work so well together that you don't get to do unique strategies to beat people, not to mention everyone has a strategy to beat those teams. I did want to try warrior druid though, but cheesing arena has never been fun to me. Every bracket I play, I play with a gimp line up.
2v2: Warrior priest/mage
3v3: whoever the hell is on and wants to play, this week is warrior pally hunter which isn't so bad but isnt traditional
5v5: warrior pally resto shaman spriest rogue

Pretty much playing anything cookie cutter takes out a lot of challenge in arena. I never run against mirror matches and it gives me a more unique view at how teams work and how to beat them no matter what my team is (as long as its semi workable -I tried a holy priest, rogue, warrior, hunter, mage for 5v5 for fun and oh my god breaking 1800 was never so hard-)

[shyst]

cool, thanks for the insight.

We pretty much try to do the things you listed but never really focused too much on it since it's just the "for fun" bracket. Maybe when my priest isn't so busy with RL stuff we can try to make a push for gladiator in 2v2.

And i definitely agree with feeling good about winning with a difficult combo

[Molp]

Basically what I made my priest do is. Straight up don't even get hamstringed. He stays at max range at almost all times.

How do you manage that on Blade's Edge or Lordaeron? If their warrior is in the middle of Lordaeron, even if you are at the far end he can always cut you off and get within 25 yard for an intercept.

Maybe I just suck (which might be it, seeing how we dropped from 2100 to 1900 in one session) but even as a druid I cannot keep over 25 yards distance indefinitely on a warrior.

[shyst]

Its hard but not impossible. One scenario would be if they used their intercept to get to your priest. If you intercept and hamstring their warrior and your priest trinkets and runs away he should be safe for at least 15seconds. As long as the priest dispels the bof quickly you can keep their warrior hamstrung while your priest is free to get away. If their warrior intercepts your priest again…as long as you intercept him right away he won’t be able to get a hamstring off due to the GCD. Between intercepts and mace procs your priest usually should be able to get away for a decent amount of time. And seeing as how you're a druid...i don't see how the warrior can every really chase you down

[Molp]

And seeing as how you're a druid...i don't see how the warrior can every really chase you down

Well, sticking with Lordaeron. The warrior is in the middle. I am >25 yards away, so near one of the walls. Now the warrior is moving towards me. If I don't move he will get to me (duh). If I do move I have to run a wide circle to not cut into the 25 yard range. Mathematically, even though I run at 1.6 times the speed he still will get to me because the distance he has to run on the inside of the circle is less than 1/1.6 of what I have to run on the outside of the circle.

I watched movies of top druids on Lordaeron and I never see them doing the outside wall dance. There is a kiting pattern over the tomb in the middle that will keep you out of LoS for almost all the time, but that is something completely different and not suitable for a priest since the hamstring will still land when you are exposed.

I am not saying I cannot kite a warrior I am saying that I would really like to see a video of a priest keeping a warrior at >25 yards indefinitely on Lordaeron.

[Swanlake]

I did a few 2vs2 with a warrior and we have beaten some noob warrior/pala combos at 2100+ rating and a few others but what keeps us at this very rating is 2100-2150 is warlock/spriest combos. Mind you I normally play with a rogue and never with the warrior since he plays with his paladin friend ( they just need 30 % played as they doesn't get points from the other brackets resulting in a negative rating dive :P). Anyway between silience, spelllock, they just burst my warrior down. Granted he isn't the type of warrior that goes shield, spellreflect, intervene me to the los and pummel UA, so after he gets UA on him it's GameOver.

Hmm I guess I just listed the reasons we lose to Spriest/lock but is there any idea nifty tricks as warrior/priest cause im completely relatively new to it.

[Ayas]

Lorderon is the hard one for us. We got caught about 80% or more of the time because of the tomb. Basically what I did there was just blow everything at the start and try and force the warrior to change targets while my priest adjusts his range. Once he moves to another side of the pillar, If I chase my priest won't follow in time and be in LoS, so we're at a loss there. But when you push enough dps on a warrior, he will change targets most of the time and try and beat you head on since his healer is a paladin. If he doesn't he'll just have the paladin waste more mana healing him without him making my priest heal me. Once we get caught, I keep up damage and we wait for mace stun procs to try and get in mana burns. Theres no real escape then, its just hoping to outlast them. I can't even stick a pally since all he needs is a split second of BoF while I'm hamstringed, and I wont ever catch him again.

My priest came back after a month and a half break so hopefully we can try this again and see how high we can get this season. Only problem is I'll have S2 sword instead of DT, so the whole mace stun factor is out. I'm pretty sure we can still be at 2100+ with just pure DPS rushes and preemptive mass dispels. Pallys only really get good at kiting at 2300 or so.

[Malachim]

Pallys only really get good at kiting at 2300 or so.
False. This happend for us when I helped out my Rogue friend to get his points, with me playing on my resto Druid alt. We had about 1700 rating. :)

Hamstring + BoF = pro skills.

Btw, might have missunderstood a bit, but who's not LoS'ing Mana Burns?

[Mickster]

I've played warrior priest and we tend to do pretty well, warriors are obviously better off with freedom, or a druid who can heal him up to full with 3 hot ticks because druids are awesome.
I liked playing with the warrior since you would need to on the ball in order to win some games and most games we played were fun.

[Shaeleth]

I have played warrior/priest a bit at the beginning of the season now me and a warrior friend some 2s sometimes to help others/our alts get points and pally/warrior seems to be one of the easiest match ups for us. What we do is the warrior on my team attacks the warrior on their team. Paladins only have casted heals so your priest needs to walk the warrior out of los of the pally. Then the warrior either stays on you and dies or runs in los the paladin and the priest sits and drinks. Ruins is a bit harder to pull this off because the only los thing isn't really a pole but your priest just has to be aware of where the pally is and try to get the warrior to los him and normally the pally stands in the middle and you fear him as much as you can.

Difficult match ups for us has been warrior/druid which a ton of teams play on my battlegroup (Ruin) which I have no idea how to win that one if anyone has anything good I would like to hear it. Also double dps caster teams or caster/rogue gives us problems. They normally cc me and dps the warrior I am with. We can normally still come out on top but warrior/druid just seems to rape us every time. Anyone have a good strat for that match up?

[Duljan]

Difficult match ups for us has been warrior/druid which a ton of teams play on my battlegroup (Ruin) which I have no idea how to win that one if anyone has anything good I would like to hear it.

Druid + Warrior is an incredibly difficult team to beat if they know how to play. If anybody has any ideas, let me know as well.

[Earrl]

I think Priest/Warrior is a great combo. IMO, better than Pally/Warrior. As a matter of fact, my warrior and I lost ZERO match-ups to Pally/Warrior on our way to 2158 rating. We are on Ruin ourselves. As a matter of fact, we did pretty decent against straight up everything except 2 DPS teams. There was this hunter and ice mage that gave us a pretty good run for our money with the slow traps and such. Good thing the hunter was BM and didn't have entrapment, so we could still LoS. But they were one of the few noteworthy teams.

Warrior/Druid is quite rough in this setup for sure...but, we haven't played any high rated teams like that yet. We went 50/50 with those games on the way up. I imagined a REALLY good druid would make it impossible. Perhaps we'll employ the same strat we do against Shaman/Warrior or Pally/Warrior Teams. Either way, our win % is 85% thus far, so I dunno.

[Garad]

We managed to claw our way up to rank 5 at one point, roughly 2300 rating with this combo.

While I really enjoy playing with this combo, it isn't what I consider a reliable combo; you mess up even a little, and you're done for, even against an easy opponent. This being said, it's quite a good setup against a lot of the high-rated teams out there, especially druid-warlock. The problem is getting there. A lot of 'odd' combinations are going to destroy you. A druid-hunter will decimate you if they have any clue what they're doing. Good thing we've only met two of these so far. Double DPS teams, such as mage rogue are also quite tricky. Defeating combos like druid-warrior or paladin-warrior just takes practice. Once you get the strategies worked out, it's an even fight. You should even have an edge against paladin-warriors. Blood elf paladins being the exception. Damn them and their extra interrupts.

The one thing that WILL mess up our combo is lordaeron. I've never fought an opponent I'd like to face there while running this combo. The tomb just doesn't give enough room to play the los game.

I'd also like to point out that druids and their AoE effect resistance are dirty, rotten bastards.