A lot of people underestimate this setup, but it's quite viable and incredibly powerful against certain top comps such as Warlock/healer and Priest/Rogue. What Blowi and myself will try to achieve in this guide is to simply give you insight into the more subtle aspects of playing Rogue/Shaman as well as giving you strategies and neat tricks.

What we would like to say first, is that this is an unusual setup, and isn't even remotely similar to any other setup we can think of. It has a completely unique play style and will therefore offer you something new in this World of Mainstreamcraft. Before you read any further please note that Rogue/Shaman is a comp with a high skillcap. This is because of the fact that you have no easy ways out and little to no crowd control you are stuck with having to improvise and position carefully. Mess up once and you can lose the game to less skillful teams.

Secondly, we play Shadowstep/Resto for a good reason. I wouldn't bother trying to play this comp as combat unless you have War Glaives and full Tier 6. Most people who read this guide will be limited to PVP gear like the rest of us mortals. Cheat Death and the survivability you gain by Shadowstep kiting a Warrior is ridiculous. With this setup, PVE gear is good for both members of the team.

The first section you will read are general tips against the different team compositions overall, after that we'll go into the viewpoint of the Rogue and the Shaman. It'll first be Shadebane who describes what he's doing, and after that you'll hear it from Blowi's side.

General Tips:

• Water breathing is good when you don't want Heroism or Earth Shield to get removed by a Pet or Arcane Shot.
• Place totems behind pillars so you force the enemy to stop DPS to kill them
• If you realize that a Priest for an example is running around and killing totems 24/7, try place a Stoneclaw totem
• Use Rank 1 Earth Shock
• If you're fighting in Blade's Edge Arena, try to place you totems below at the start, since there are a higher chance that they'll last.
• In Ruins or Nagrand you're able to kite the pet away from the Hunter/Lock if they don't pay attention and it'll disappear
• Placing your Grounding totem away from Rogue, so you're the only in range of it makes you guaranteed to avoid a Felhunter Silence or CS.
• When fighting other Shamans it can be rather good to spam Purge them when they get pressured. I've ended up Purge a lot of NS, even from the good Shamans.
• You can buff Earth Shield with trinkets at start to get a stronger Earth Shield.
• Place totems behind pillars, so you're able to have them up in longer time
• Whenever a Hunter uses Scatter Shot, use Grounding Totem
• Gift of the Naaru (for Draenei) is very good to trick CS/Kick.
• When you're kiting a Rogue, it's very good to use Magma Totem close to a pillar so he gets in combat or goes out of stealth combined with Earthbind Totem.

General Strategies

VS. DPS/Healer teams:
First off, I'd like to say that Rogue/Shaman inherently has no CC other than Blind. Therefore it has to be played differently than say Discipline Priest/Rogue or Druid/Rogue which relies on opening windows of CC to burst down the other target. I'd say one of the main strategies of Rogue/Shaman is to Blind early - force the trinket and then wait for 1.5 minutes for the second round of Blind+Vanish/Sap(if applicable). During this Blind you most likely pop Heroism and both of you (Resto Shamans have great dps, it just costs a lot of Mana) DPS down the unblinded target. This may sound incredibly brutish, but fear not - there is a lot of finesse involved!

The thing is, you have to prepare with positioning. I cannot stress this enough, you have to be positioned properly for you to be able to burst down your target. Communication is absolutely vital in the preparation phase. Since you only have a 30 second window to Blind before the trinket is back up again, ideally you should have them in position right before the Blind is off cooldown. Blind and Sap together lasts 19 seconds, so you have a window of 11 seconds from when the Blind is off cooldown. The Rogue has to inform the Shaman 15 seconds prior to when the Blind is off cooldown that it's almost complete. Then start the countdown - 10 seconds 5 second. Save up a full energy bar right before the Blind because a lot of classes have option to turtle and will take tons of pressure to kill, so you want to be ready.

I can't stress it enough, you must get the right positioning. For this burst down to work, it is imperative that you pull your kill target into the open so you are in line of sight of the Blinded target. The reason for this is that if your kill target plays smart or gets lucky he will try to pull you out of line of sight of the healer for a couple of badly timed seconds and you'll miss your Sap. Get him into the middle of a field or bridge, Blind and DPS like crazy but watch your energy bar in relation to your Blind's duration timer. Make sure you have at least 45 energy at the end of the Blind timer, because optimally you should Vanish->Shadowstep->Sap. You will feel rather stupid at the end of your Shadowstep not getting the Sap of because you lacked the energy. Additionally if I can, I try to save my Preparation for the burst phase. The simple reason for this is that you can Vanish, Shadowstep, Sap, Prep, Shadowstep back to your target. This gives you about 2-3 seconds of extra DPS.

In preparation for the burst, it's important that the Shaman has a decent amount of Mana left as to be able to effectively DPS the target. So you have to plan ahead and the Rogue should create windows of opportunity for drinking by utilizing Gouge and pillar humping.

I have so far in this guide just taken it for granted that the Rogue is the main target of a DPS'ers affection. Let me explain the reasoning behind this: A well played and geared Restoration Shaman is basically immortal to a single DPSer. Especially with a Rogue there to help him peel targets off. This was true before the Toughness and Ghost Wolf changes and it is certainly true now. The match is basically free rating if they decide to focus the Shaman. In addition to this, you can't even hope to run a Shaman out of Mana if you attack him. Even if you Drain him with everything at your disposal, Water Shield will keep him topped at all times.

Details VS Healer/Warrior teams:
Against Healer/Warrior teams you just rough up the Warrior while Blinding the healer. Once he trinkets you swap to the healer for the duration of the Blind cooldown. This serves two purposes:

• You occasionally make the healer waste his emergency cooldowns such as Nature's Swiftness.
• You ensure that there are no HoTs or other defensive measures on the Warrior in the burst down phase.
• You often take them by surprise by suddenly swapping targets.
• You don't feed the Warrior Rage while you turtle and wait for your Blind.

Warriors are for the most part VERY predictable. You can intentionally let him get off an Intercept, then Shadowstep to his healer. This is called Shadowstep kiting and prevents the Warrior from hitting you for about 5 seconds. Once he Intervene's his healer, you can Gouge him for a full duration Gouge since he's not going to be in Berserker stance and has 95% of the time, not popped Berserker Rage. Just remember to have enough energy to get off a Shadowstep->Shiv on the healer followed by a Gouge on the Warrior. If you have to wait for an energy tick before Gouging he will already be in Berserker Stance and it will be useless.

Once your burst of the Warrior begins, try to lock him in Berserker or Battle Stance with a Kidney Shot. If he's able to jump into Defensive Stance and put a Shield on very early, you can kiss killing him goodbye. If you can make him waste his trinket before the burst by throwing him random Kidneys it will be very beneficial.

In the end, Blinding/sapping the healer and killing the Warrior can be very tricky. If that fails, it is very possible to kill the healer if your Shaman assists when you have a full duration Kidney on him. If you get a Druid in a very bad position, blow that heroism and nuke him down. You will have to take opportunities as they rise against this setup and you have to have that mentality to be able to play it well.

The hardest team you meet is Paladin/Warrior, but thankfully there are very few of these teams.

Details VS Healer/Warlock
While less coordinated teams will go down extremely quickly, very coordinated and skilled Warlock/Healers will not (with the exception of Paladin/Warlock - it's just plain easy).

Against any of these teams, your Rogue will nuke the Warlock. A skilled Warlock's ability to CC when left alone is phenomenal when he keeps track of his Diminishing Returns. In addition, you can't rely on Tremor Totem at all because of the pet totem killing macro which is very common. Against this setup (in contrast to the Warrior/Healer comp), you play super offensively against the Lock. Your combo point use should go in this priority; Expose Armor, Slice and Dice, and Kidney Shot. However the tactics differ a bit between the various Healer/Warlock setups. Try to anticipate the Fear and beware of using global cooldowns and eating a Fear because you were unable to get a Kick off. Your Shaman can help you out here though with Earth Shocks. Also remember that Kicking Mana Drains serves the same purpose as Kicking Fear because it locks his Shadow school.

Details VS Hunter/Healer
Hunter/Healer has a very high skillcap, but was thankfully nerfed a lot in v2.4. The Poison Cleansing totem buff, Ghostwolf buff, Drain nerf, drinking nerf all hit Hunter/Healer teams harder than any other setup. We'd say you won't have problems with these teams assuming equal skill levels and gear. The point here is to avoid having to trinket a trap by just stopping and disarming it when applicable or just running over it with Cloak of Shadows. Other than that, stick to the pet like glue except against Priest/Hunter teams.

VS Double DPS
The best advice we can give you against these types of teams, is to blow Heroism early. Don't save it for a rainy day, because the rain might start pouring when you're stunned or otherwise unable to use it. Most double DPS teams consist of Rogue/Caster and this can be quite hard depending on your positioning and random things like Blackout procs, Frostbites, stun resists, Crippling Poison resists (a Crippling Shiv resist on a Mage can ruin your day, trust me) and so forth.