Strategies

Shaman/Warrior

Author

Wid
Hyjal
US-Whirlwind

Shaman/Warrior

VS.

Druid/Rogue

Their are roughly two strategies for Druid/Rogue. The strategy you choose depends on who the Rogue decides to focus. There are some finer variations on these two strategies that deal with shaman specs (0/20/41 vs 0/9/52), rogue specs (Mutilate vs Shadowstep) and druid specs (Balance vs Restoration) but the general idea is as follows.

Strategy 1: Rogue On Shaman

A spec with Toughness makes this go much easier. Put Poison Cleansing Totem down, keep Earth Shield on yourself, make sure the Rogue and Druid are purged clean of Rejuvenation and Regrowth. Have your Warrior DPS the target without Lifebloom if possible, but generally you should be starting on the Rogue. When the Druid gets in range for Cyclones, your Warrior should Intercept the Druid and start DPSing him down. When their Druid shifts forms and moves away the Warrior should get back on the Rogue.

You have to make sure you Earth Shock/Grounding Totem as many of the Cyclones and Roots as you can. Also kite the Rogue around your Poison Cleansing totem. Kiting and healing off Wound Poison are key here but don't become overextend. If you find downtime from the Rogue's DPS you should be drinking.

Strategy 2: Rogue on Warrior

If the Rogue decides to stick on the Warrior, switch your Earth Shield to him and position yourself closer to the Druid to prevent him from drinking and controlling his Cyclones/Roots. Now let the Mana war begin. Make sure your Warrior stays low on Wound Poison stacks by keeping Poison Cleansing totem down or in an emergency manually cleaning him if you want to heal big. As a rule of thumb, if your Warrior is above 60% or so drink whenever you can. Scale your Healing Waves rank to conserve man. If he drops bellow 60% and you need time to clean poisons off, have him put on his sword and Board and top him off.

The aim here is to win the Mana war so as soon as you see Druid going for drinks, refresh Earth Shield on your Warrior, have him put on his sword and board if he is low and Ghost Wolf chase the Druid down to keep him in combat. As before, control the Cyclones as much as you can but the priority here remains on keeping your Mana high. Your Warrior throughout the fight needs to push out as much DPS as he can on the Rogue and possibly the Druid if he gets within Intercept range so, as before, keep both the Druid and Rogue clean of Rejuvs/Regrowths thus forcing the Druid to waste more Mana healing.

Notes: In the case of a Balance druid, you will need to mitigate as much of his damage as possible by using line of sight and interrupt rotations. You might have to blow your trinket on a 5 point Kidney Shot and not a Blind if you get caught out in the open and your Warrior can't assist you with interrupts on the Druid or a Fear.

Mana Tide specs for the Shaman will make any Mana war easier but it will be harder to kite Rogues. Both Toughness and Mana Tide are playable with a personal favorite being toughness since you will always be able to get away and drink no matter who the Rogue decides to stick on. Moonfire Rank 1 spam will be killing your totems so make sure you place them right and refresh them when needed.

I don't think I have to say this but just in case, DON'T use max rank Windfury Totem.

Comments:

KillacupsApr 15, 2008 - 12:11 PM (HideShow)
Is Mace spec almost required vs. this makeup?

Has any warrior out there used both mace and sword and weighed in the pros and cons?

vs. druid/rogue i'd assume mace spec would make a pretty big difference.
XerohApr 15, 2008 - 12:14 PM (HideShow)
As Warr/Sham i run Sword spec for sword procs, it was amazing what my warrior did to a 400resil druid yesterday.... Intercept, Sword proc, WF Sword Proc, Sword proc, Frost shock, Dead.


I shocked his clones and purged his blooms though, /shrug
BeefstickApr 15, 2008 - 3:08 PM (HideShow)
Sword procs on one out of 20 swings...

Mace stun seems, to me, to be much better, as in the time the person is stunned, you get to attack him again anyway. Even with Windfury, I'd definitely lean towards Mace over Sword.
LivingtentApr 15, 2008 - 5:31 PM (HideShow)
I agree with beefstick for 2 v 2 mace is better.
WtbtoesApr 16, 2008 - 4:44 AM (HideShow)
I think mace spec is preferable vs druid teams, but I'd run swords if i was with a shaman.
WidApr 16, 2008 - 1:36 PM (HideShow)
Usually play with 3 wars, 2 of em prefer swords, 1 has played with both maces and swords and can work either. For druid/war matchups mace does provide some advantages especially when faced with Nagrand games and the imminent pilar abuse. If you though consider the abundance of double melee teams these days and the importance of burst dmg, swords slightly comes on top. Conclusion? Personal taste what you use, overall swords might have an edge if your BG metagame is evolving towards a high number of double melee teams.
InimitableApr 17, 2008 - 2:03 AM (HideShow)
If your warrior has a mace I wouldn't even bother with the druid. Just mitigate roots/cyclones and watch him go into regrowth mode as the rogue melts.
WidApr 17, 2008 - 2:22 PM (HideShow)
My comments concerning sword vs mace are generally about all war/sham matchups. If you read the strat u'll see that for this matchup, again, it falls under personal taste.
CarebearApr 21, 2008 - 6:21 AM (HideShow)
Beefstick, you say you get an extra hit while the target is stunned (with mace specc) and therefore mace specc > sword specc

What you mean is that when a target get stunned he are unable to do anything. What you didn't reconsider was his team-mate. Under these 3 seconds the stunned target's team-mate also got 3 seconds.
With swords you can get yourself another 3-4 seconds (Weapon speed) which is in my opinion a better choice.

Now again, mace specc also gives your team-mate 3 seconds. This could be nice for easier healing or if you are bursting a healer and have an extra dps to help with, 3 seconds are nice.

overall, In my opinion I would like to play with a sword warrior (They are cooler!)
NeokrebsApr 26, 2008 - 10:59 AM (HideShow)
I hate facing this team
DhorikApr 27, 2008 - 2:29 PM (HideShow)
any strats for a druid using full healing gear but is moonkin?
JermApr 28, 2008 - 7:22 AM (HideShow)
Dhorik, I've fought a couple moonkin/rogue comps. The strategy doesn't change much. The druid is easier to stick because he wont be specced into feral charge, so we can play a little more freely with positioning away from the blind. If damage gets to high shock the wraths.
ShimazuApr 30, 2008 - 8:00 PM (HideShow)
In the past I've fought moonkin/rogue and it's pretty nasty. If they go for you it isnt' that big of a problem because you can intervene and get out of line of site if your shaman positions himself well when he is blinded.

If they go for the shaman it all falls on the shaman's shoulders. The warrior can keep the druid busy for the most part, you have to trinket early to make sure they don't drop your shaman fast. otherwise, boomkins are easier to kill imo.
YoungrobMay 11, 2008 - 1:52 AM (HideShow)
We are having trouble vs this setup. At the start I would stick to the druid for as long as possible. I would usually get the druid down pretty low. When the druid is in trouble, the rogue would vanish cheapshot and then kidney. The druid then gets away. Then I'm forced to switch to the rogue but by that time my shaman is low on mana. Any suggestions?
GnogMay 13, 2008 - 4:14 AM (HideShow)
lol at ur post about the Balance druid / rogue and to trinket 5 points kid shot. If this combo know what they are doing the druid will solo ur warrior while the rogue sits on u and waits for 2 things. Natures Swiftness and trinket. If u trinket a 5 point kidshot u just handed them the game on a silver platter. u will be blinded, possibly sapped and for sure cycloned and asking yourself where the hell your warrior went.
NeokrebsMay 18, 2008 - 6:01 PM (HideShow)
sometimes you can get lucky and burst the druid
SmilyMay 26, 2008 - 1:17 AM (HideShow)
I personally use 2 strats, based upon the druids spec

First, if he is Normal resto with SM. In this case, all we do is stick to the rogue, I LoS the druid as much as possible while my warrior just sticks to him, and keep ES on myself, spam PC totem to get poisons off, and spam purge the rogue. Eventually, the hots will NOT be enough, the druid will HAVE to cast, or the rogue will run away to get healed up. Nagrand is the worst arena to try this because you have to pillar hump and it is easier for the druid to get back in LoS of your warrior to CC him. Groundings is what you rely on because getting close enough to shock usually means your warrior is getting CCed anyways. The rogue wont be able to take the damage through purges on hots.

Second scenario is if the druid is dreamstate. Now in this setup you HAVE to kill the druid, a dreamstate druid has ONLY NS to save himself, once its blown, he will die, no doubt about it. Thats when the skill of the rogue comes into play, if the rogue sits on the warrior in that case, the game can go either way, usually in your favor unless they are really skilled, and you have to try and make it a damage fight instead of a mana war, because usually any good rogue + DS druid can burst your warrior down from ~70% to 0 pretty easily, so drinking is really hard. Bursting down the druid is the best choice, and usually will get you the win vs DS druids.

-The Smily One
JuicebagJun 7, 2008 - 11:47 PM (HideShow)
Looking for response only from shamans 2300+ whom have played an exceptional restokin/rogue; considering rogue is also using full pve with glaives etc.

Any ideas on strategy for beating this particular makeup? Played against a team that basically got a good opening on my war and the druid wrath spammed from max range, carefully being out of intercept all game. The rogue(glaives) focused the war and basically forced him into sword and board because it was really hard for me to keep up with the healing because of the pressure they put on. And even if we do get on the druid, rogue has blind for our warrior if druid gets in too much trouble. They own us in the mana game even when i manage to get drinks and the druid doesn't.

Again only 2300+ rated shaman/war opinions would be helpful here.
GunttJun 16, 2008 - 6:08 AM (HideShow)
@juicebag

No, im not 2300+ war sham but we hit a restokin/glaive rogue for like 7 games this week and they were obviously farming their new glad team. (no it was not Lae and Vladia] They played better than most of the other teams we fought in terms of co-ordination. When it came to staying alive and that was the biggest thing going for them. They are nearly impossible to finish because of cheat death + other CDs and how hard it is to get any real pressure in between them.
We couldn't come up with a way to beat them but we definatly identified that as the problem. For the first games we were just straight outplayed and did very little damage at all. I tried sticking to the druid whenever he wasn't moonkin form and switching as soon as he did to try and force him to heal the rogue.
Our best effort went like 12 minutes with 4 or 5 Death Deaths but we just couldn't get the killing blow off. Every time the Druid got low or Cheat Death proc'd, they'd have Blind, Nature's Grasp or NS Cyclone to peel me off.

I know this probably isn't what you're looking for but maybe it can help you figure out a better strat.
MarlboreJun 23, 2008 - 4:45 AM (HideShow)
I know im still low in rating, but I need your advise:

When we go in a match and see nothing,
I go to zerk stance, and my shaman partner goes wolf,

since we cannot see them, they position themselves very well, and the druid Sleeps my shaman and they both zerg me (warrior) and keep cyclon on my shaman till i am dead.

If Shaman doesnt go wolf , then they sap me and Before I can break the sap with bloodrage and intervene to my shaman, the druid cyclon,roots me and rogues has poisons and stuns all over my shaman and my shaman is dead before I can do anything.

Any suggestions?
StressedJun 28, 2008 - 3:01 AM (HideShow)
When you see a two stealth team have the shaman drop a grounding totem. This way the druid will have to destroy the totem b4 he can get the sleep off and your shaman should be able to shift out in time to avoid the sleep. Also tremor totem breaks sleep if you would prefer to start with the windfury totem.
CompactAug 3, 2008 - 12:34 PM (HideShow)
if your shaman gets slept at the beginning and they decide to go all out and burn you there just throw on your sword and board and start spell reflecting. this will midigate alot and damage and your shaman should be out of the sleep by then
ShocktrooperAug 15, 2008 - 4:18 AM (HideShow)
To juice, if your warrior being nuked down is a problem go into ghostwolf with a grounding tremor and poison cleansing; have your warrior go behind a pillar to LOS druid. It sounds simple but just try to not let the first CC get on war. Oh and wear PVE gear if you have it :(
GcwarriorAug 30, 2008 - 6:15 PM (HideShow)
these guides don't help me :(
InimitableSep 2, 2008 - 2:09 AM (HideShow)
If the druid is moonkin and pressures warrior while the rogue sticks to the shaman (with his bag of lul-interrupts) you'll lose regardless of what you do.

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