Strategies

Shaman/Warlock

Authors

Komaya
Scarlet Crusade
US-Reckoning
Nethaxion
Scarlet Crusade
US-Reckoning

Shaman/Warlock

VS.

Druid/Warrior

Probably the most common comp you'll be fighting - don't worry, though, it's really not that bad for this comp. My partner and I first tried fighting this comp as a drain team, mitigating the Warrior's damage and trying to drain the Druid. However the Druid, without having any pressure on their team, is free to drink often, to combat this, we had a Felhunter out, which is quite easy for their Warrior to tear to shreds. After playing around in the 2050s for about a week and losing constantly to this comp, we decided to adopt a new strategy.

Pressure the Warrior. If the Warrior constantly needs heals the Druid isn't able to run away and drink or the Warrior will die. This allows the use of a Voidwalker, since you're not too worried about the Druid trying to drink if your warlock is doing enough damage. Keep all DoTs up on the Warrior (even Flame Shock, if possible!) and your Warlock needs to spam Searing Pain on the Warrior. Also Fear the Warrior whenever possible. Even if he's going to break it straight away, Fear him anyway. He's going to run out of cooldowns soon enough to break them, once he does, your Warlock needs to Fear him again (once DR is gone, and he can't break it) and then put up Curse of Exhaustion, and switch DPS to the Druid (if he is in range/LoS, if not, don't worry too much about it, just stay on the Warrior) for the duration of the Fear, along with draining his mana. You need to take this opportunity to drink.

Warlock Perspective: This last bit is of extreme importance. One of the biggest mistakes a Warlock can make is not Fearing the Warrior whenever he doesn't have a Fear immunity up. Even if you KNOW he's going to break it a moment later, do it. It's still a GCD he has to use, and a cool down he won't have access to again for 20 seconds/2 minutes. The amount of pressure that a Feared Warrior takes off of your Shaman, even if it's for only 2-3 seconds, is immense and game changing.

The opportunity will soon arise where the Druid is trying to get away to drink, and has left the Warrior low on health, and if you believe you can burst the Warrior down before the Druid comes back, this is when you should use Bloodlust, trinkets, CL/ES, etc. Don't let the Druid get a cyclone though!

Basically the entire idea of this is to pressure the Warrior enough so that the Druid isn't free to drink, and has to stay there and heal constantly. When he goes to drink (because he will need to eventually), or you can get a full duration Fear on him, he can't break it, whatever the situation is, if you think you can burst the Warrior down, take that opportunity and do it.

Don't underestimate the burst capability that a Resto Shaman can do. On a Warrior in Berserker Stance, I can do about 2.5k non crit from a CL/ES combo, followed up with Lightning Bolts. Along with Death Coil/Searing Pain and such from the Warlock, that is quite a lot of burst (or Death Coil/Fear on the Druid, for longer time on the Warrior.)

If you're going for a takedown on the Warrior, you have the Warrior at about <10% health and the Druid is around, you can still take this opportunity to win by having your Warlock continuing DPS on the Warrior, and spamming Purge on the Warrior (to prevent Swiftmends). Though, if it's at this point, you probably can't burst them down. You'll have to get a drink in, and just wait it out until another burst opportunity arises.

Obvious tips:

  • Earth Shield on the warlock.
  • Water Shield on you. If, for some reason, it ran out and you don't have it on you again, you're doing it wrong.
  • They will constantly try to switch to the pet when it's out of LoS. You have two options – call the pet back, save it quickly, put it back on the Druid, OR, get a new pet. New pet is risky if they realize you're doing it, and proceed to interrupt you and then kill the old one. We greatly prefer just saving it.
  • Purge buffs early.
  • Get a Voidwalker out ASAP. If you need to, run into the warrior, and use Rank 1 FS to prevent the Warrior from interrupting your Warlock.
  • Warlock Perspective: If a Warrior knows you're trying to burn them and goes into defensive stance to spell reflect and mitigate, don't forget that howl of terror is an AOE and thus unaffected by spell reflect.
  • Warlock Perspective: When using a Voidwalker, remember that his AoE taunt "Suffering" gained a new bonus on the tooltip after BC that increases the miss chance of anyone affected by it for a base amount of 10% for 15 seconds. Don't underestimate the value of this when you're taking too much damage; a missed mortal strike is a big deal.

Comments:

EluraMar 18, 2008 - 11:17 AM (HideShow)
Well... we have another tactic and it's so simple...at least workiing at 2k rating. Warrior comes in i purge lock dot. Druid show up. Warrior and me nuking druid so he will use swiftment and don't have it for warrior. when warrior is low and druid too, druid will will HoT warrior and run away to drink and heal himself. Pulling warrior LoS from druid, pop up heroism/ bloodlust, overnuke warrior. Although is a 50%100 win...
EvillynnMay 12, 2008 - 3:12 PM (HideShow)
Played my first full Vengeful Druid + Warrior last night (my Shaman partner is also full veng and I have S1 Weapon and S2 shoulders) and I was astounded by how quickly the sword warrior destroyed my pet and I. It was like fighting an elite mob in heroic MT. It felt like there was literally nothing I could do- stacked instant DoTs tried to fear but I was dead before I could get him off me for more than a second. Not only that, CoA, Corruption, and SL did nothing to him... I swear his life didn't budge. We countered a few of the early cyclones, but if my shaman ate 1, with the damage the warrior was putting out we fell so far behind. Not to mention if I had to summon another pet my mana and health were so low I couldn't life tap and no mana = gg. My hat is off to you guys who easily beat this team. Clearly we have a lot to work on.
ForsaakeMay 16, 2008 - 1:49 PM (HideShow)
I know I have a lot to learn, and its a new team, but I had a horrible time with warrior/druid teams yesterday as well. We were inching towards 1700 until we ran into 7 straight warrior/druid teams. We tried both tactics, to try to nuke the warrior, but it was impossible for me to actually get a fear off with the warrior on my butt the whole time.. that meant we couldn't lock up their druid long enough to burn down the warrior before he was healed back up. probably my fault, but even searing pain seems to take 3-4 full seconds to cast. If I didnt have spell pushback, like all melee, it would be possible. But basically, if we didnt get the warrior down, we had fed him too much rage and given the amount of dmg i was taking, my Shammy couldnt get away to drink more than 1 or 2 ticks, and then he would fall behind given the big heals he had to try to throw out. This was similar against all warrior teams. They just do too much damage to me it seems.

We then tried to "rage starve" warriors - by staying on the druid. But even when fully rage starved, he still did more damage than I did... I think he down 100k dmg without us hitting him once, while i put out like 70k dmg during the fight. I know I need a bump in +dmg, but....

What are we supposed to do against warriors? Thank you.
MysteriumMay 21, 2008 - 4:48 PM (HideShow)
Its not too hard if your shaman has access to some pve healing gear (ZA and T5ish is fine).

Basically pressure the hell out of the warrior, and anticipate when they will go for a pet kill. If you sense a pet kill is coming, pull it back, CoW the war and have your shaman heal spam it. Grounding and spell lock to prevent incoming cyclones while you run behind a pillar to resummon. Its up to your shaman to use frost shock and earthbind to buy you time to resummon.( Full sunders, war is saving rage, war hasn't popped deathwish yet are all good indicators a burst is coming).

After they fail 2-3 pet kill attempts they'll generally say screw this and zerg either you or your shaman. If war is on you, DoT him to full and searing pain spam. DoT the druid if he pops his head out and tries to CC your shaman, rank 1 ES, grounding or LoS the cyclone. Your shaman needs to make sure that grounding is down before he tries to heal in the event the warrior RNGs up sword procs or a crit string. Between heals, your shaman should be slamming lightning bolts into the warrior and purging HoTs. Save spell lock for regrowth, because all the pressure you are putting on the war will force the druid to use bigger heals.

If the war is on your shaman, full DoT him with everything + immolate and start winding up incinerates, have your shaman drag the war behind a pillar away from his healer and in a position where you can nuke him. The druid will usually try to cyclone you at this point, spell lock the cyclone and fear + DoT him.

Eventually, the war is going to drop low enough to force him to dstance and intervene to his healer. If the druid is positioned in such a way that you can't CC chain him till the war is dead, park your pet where your shaman can heal it, get a fresh earth shield on and go keep them in combat while your shaman sneaks a drink in.

Repeat the whole process long enough and the druid will eventually have to sneak off to drink, and that is your opportunity to kill the war. Full DoT war and have your shaman nuke him while
MysteriumMay 23, 2008 - 9:21 AM (HideShow)
position yourself so you can fear the druid on his return trip to the warrior. Use coil and preemptive spell locking to stop his heals and get a fear in and you should have a win.
LootiferJun 24, 2008 - 9:50 PM (HideShow)
Yeh wtb updated strats. Got farmed pretty hard by them last night. Sitting on me pillar humping/cyclones = easy win it would seem. Too much dmg incoming, esp if I cant get a VW out before the warrior gets to me..
SetinhoJul 3, 2008 - 9:40 PM (HideShow)
Ye I wtb updated strategies too. Me and my partner lost like 80% of our mathces to warrior/druid... we managed to kill them few times but still they own us pretty bad...
ToiletbreathJul 31, 2008 - 8:45 AM (HideShow)
What we do is fear the druid whenever possible, and pour constant dps into the warrior (even my resto shaman chaincasts lightning bolts when he doesn't need to heal...you'll never outlast this team anyway so don't be stingy with your mana). Between all the dps and the fears, the druid falls behind on heals rather quickly, and he'll likely blow NS. After that, keep up the pressure and wait for the druid to be fearable again. A quick deathcoil--->fear combo on the druid is often all you need to finish the warrior off at this point. Needless to say you'll have to practice faking casts so you can get fears off with a warrior on you. Also, try to position yourself so that you drag the warrior out of his druid's los as often as possible. Do NOT bother chasing the druid if he tries to run and drink...I know its been said before but I felt that it was worth stating again. Keep nuking that warrior instead!
WhillwinzAug 18, 2008 - 3:07 PM (HideShow)
From what I've seen you can not beat a good dru/warr team with this setup. If you use a Felhunter, they can EASILY CC you long enough to kill it very quickly. If you use a Voidwalker, that can be even worse because the druid can cyclone him and remove the warlock's soulink, then when cyclone is on DR, he can cyclone me, or if I'm LOS he can cyclone the warlock to prevent heals.

Basically you're screwed either way, felhunter dies in 3 hits, VW gets CCd and warlock still loses soullink AND druid can drink. Lose/Lose situation.
WhillwinzAug 18, 2008 - 3:11 PM (HideShow)
Although I must say if the warlock had a VST this setup, along with Rogue/priest, would be a lot easier :)
MästarnAug 25, 2008 - 8:38 PM (HideShow)
I find this setup pretty rough to beat. The warrior is kinda ruthless against my warlock with mortal strike and whirlwind and all those spells. My warlock can survive for a while but when the games come longer and longer in, the warrior still keep slamming my warlock down.
Since I aint getting hit, my water shield doesn't proc and if we face good teams they kill my warlocks pet when warr got much rage (often when I'm trying to drink) and then we can't resummon because the druid plays offensive in that stage.
Any help to that?
RaketragnarSep 4, 2008 - 9:29 AM (HideShow)
This setup is really hard, we are about 1900 but we can't increase because the amount of warrior/druid around. We just can't come up with a tactic that works, pressure on the warrior aint that much pressure with lifeblooms rolling together with macestuns and a good amount of pushback on me.

Drain won't work and we can't get a nuke on the warrior either with a pillarhumping druid, purge dont do more than make my shaman go oom.

Void is easily killed by druids aswell since the SL damage is on it also. Call it back -> shadowmeld drink up a couple of thousand mana which is more than enough when my shaman have to heal both me and my void.

Any new suggestions vs this comp?

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