12-13-2007, 04:03 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-13-2007, 07:56 AM by NotSoDarklord.)
2v2 is a bracket that most people have long since forsaken due to the dominance of power combos such as warrior druid and warlock druid, carried to success by the tremendous power a druid healer has in smaller bracket pvp. I ran Holy priest (Disc after 2.3) Combat rogue (Hemo after 2.3) for season 2 was driven to the point of quitting time and time again by the manner in which games can be lost before the gates open. Warrior shaman was a tough match, warrior paladin a nightmare, and a well played warrior druid flat out impossible. Having had enough my priest healer decided to go shadow for season 3 in 2v2.
The setup: Hemo rogue + Shadow/Discipline Priest. Extreme offensive pressure combined with coordinated silences and ccs to win games in a matter of seconds. Hemo rogues have amazing utility and great damage that meshes well with shadow priests, who have amazing damage but lack the tools to stay alive for long against teams and also lack the mana pool to sustain a drawn out match. Our team expected immediate success, but it was only after 100 games or so that we finally feel confident and have begun rising top the top page of our battlegroup.
Teams that are directly countered by this setup: Warrior teams in general excluding warrior priest. Nearly all top warriors agree that this setup is the hardest match for a warrior druid to beat.
Teams that directly counter this setup: Double melee dps setups. Rogue rogue or rogue hunter or rogue warrior or hunter warrior games will turn into zergfests. One team having the ability to almost completely lack down one of your dpsers will often make this a losing battle.
Tough teams: Warlock + healer. BM hunter DIsc priest. Warrior disc priest.
Easy teams: Non-undead rogue+ non-rogue teams (more on this in a bit)
General strategy: As an overview the strategy of this team is to have the shadowpriest and rogue attack the same target, generally a dpser. The rogue's job is to avoid taking damage with the use of ghostly strike + evasion + vanish + cloak of shadows whenever necessary while doing as much damage as quickly as possible. Each fight should begin with the rogue attempting to sap the less favorable killing target. Stuns are useful but avoid stunning too much as it cuts into dps a substantial amount. The rogue should toss out blind on the target not being focused to either cut down the damage on the shadow priest in the case of double dps teams or to interrupt/stop healing in the case of dps healer teams. The shadow priest on the other hand must stay alive long enough to kill the target providing dispels and mass dispels when needed, damage when not pressured to dispel, and bursting with shadow word death to kill targets. When the target reaches critically low health (30-40% and below) the shadow priest should silence any healers and the target killled in this window. Focus macros improve general quickness in this case for the silences and blinds.
Specific Strategies
vs Warrior Druid: This is perhaps one of the few matches that can be played differently. Most warriors can simply be blown up from under the druid. If the warrior does not seem to understand how to "D Up" by spell reflecting and using intervene then just apply massive damage to him and he should go down. The rogue should use a focus cast bar set to the druid to vanish and cloak out of cyclones before they actually hit wasting the druid's time and forcing him to fall further and further behind on healing leaving him ultimately open to blind/silence interruption. If the warrior does "D up" and go sword and board from the start have the shadow priest solo the warrior with the rogue waiting to pop on the druid once he comes out to heal. At this point the shadow priest should mindflay to slow the druid even if just for a second. If the rogue successfully catches the druid the game should be over. Use kidney shots cheapshots mind flays and uiltimately shadow priest silence combined with improved kick silence to finish the druid off.
vs Non-Undead rogue + Nonrogue: Rogues are conditioned to attack shadow priests above all else, and if you try running this comp in 2v2 you will notice this immediately. Always try to catch the rogue with a sap but this is not a reliable way to win this fight, instead plan on having your priest take the opening cheapshot and trinket out of the kidney shot while your rogue attacks the other team's partner with all out dps. The shadow priest should dispel fear ward if it is indeed on the rogue and then fear him. At this point nearly all nonundead rogues will trinket rather than rely on any dispeller if they indeed have one. If this happens the fight is over. Blind the rogue and once the blind is nearly broken vanish (cloak if need be to avoid dot ticks, you can simply time this very well but it is much harder) and sap him to cc him for over 10 seconds during which both dpsers will have free reign over the other team's partner. The only exception to this is mage rogue that sometimes base their strategies around killing the rogue while sheeping the priest. If this is the case simply have your rogue save defensive cooldowns such as cloak and vanish for times when the shadow priest is polymorphed and just wait for the polymorphs to break, granting semi-immunity to the shadowpriest in the form of diminishing returns.
vs Warrior Paladin/Warrior Shaman: Straight up dps zerg the warrior with silences/blinds/fears on the healer. Very easy to win but be mindful of divine shielded paladins and attempt to mass dispel immediately.
vs Warlock Healer: This is a hard fight. Paladin warlock teams are very susceptible to fear blind sap rotations once the paladin's bubble is down. Occasionally a game can be won before the paladin has a chance to heal in his bubble through a simple shadow priest silence but I recommend stripping the bubble asap instead of trying to dps through the paladin's heals. Warlock druid teams on the other hand can be won by killing the druid or the warlock, we have had the most success disrupting the druid while putting high dps on the warlock.
I hope this information proves useful to someone. We entered this season with high hopes only to nearly drive my shadow priest to quit in frustration every time a rogue rendered him useless for an entire match. We came back with a much more strategic mindset and have since found 2v2 to be enjoyable, something few people will ever admit to, we currently sit at around 2050 and have yet to run into a team that truly felt unbeatable. Please, point out any flaws you see in these strategies or reply with your own experiences whether they may be similiar or different.
The setup: Hemo rogue + Shadow/Discipline Priest. Extreme offensive pressure combined with coordinated silences and ccs to win games in a matter of seconds. Hemo rogues have amazing utility and great damage that meshes well with shadow priests, who have amazing damage but lack the tools to stay alive for long against teams and also lack the mana pool to sustain a drawn out match. Our team expected immediate success, but it was only after 100 games or so that we finally feel confident and have begun rising top the top page of our battlegroup.
Teams that are directly countered by this setup: Warrior teams in general excluding warrior priest. Nearly all top warriors agree that this setup is the hardest match for a warrior druid to beat.
Teams that directly counter this setup: Double melee dps setups. Rogue rogue or rogue hunter or rogue warrior or hunter warrior games will turn into zergfests. One team having the ability to almost completely lack down one of your dpsers will often make this a losing battle.
Tough teams: Warlock + healer. BM hunter DIsc priest. Warrior disc priest.
Easy teams: Non-undead rogue+ non-rogue teams (more on this in a bit)
General strategy: As an overview the strategy of this team is to have the shadowpriest and rogue attack the same target, generally a dpser. The rogue's job is to avoid taking damage with the use of ghostly strike + evasion + vanish + cloak of shadows whenever necessary while doing as much damage as quickly as possible. Each fight should begin with the rogue attempting to sap the less favorable killing target. Stuns are useful but avoid stunning too much as it cuts into dps a substantial amount. The rogue should toss out blind on the target not being focused to either cut down the damage on the shadow priest in the case of double dps teams or to interrupt/stop healing in the case of dps healer teams. The shadow priest on the other hand must stay alive long enough to kill the target providing dispels and mass dispels when needed, damage when not pressured to dispel, and bursting with shadow word death to kill targets. When the target reaches critically low health (30-40% and below) the shadow priest should silence any healers and the target killled in this window. Focus macros improve general quickness in this case for the silences and blinds.
Specific Strategies
vs Warrior Druid: This is perhaps one of the few matches that can be played differently. Most warriors can simply be blown up from under the druid. If the warrior does not seem to understand how to "D Up" by spell reflecting and using intervene then just apply massive damage to him and he should go down. The rogue should use a focus cast bar set to the druid to vanish and cloak out of cyclones before they actually hit wasting the druid's time and forcing him to fall further and further behind on healing leaving him ultimately open to blind/silence interruption. If the warrior does "D up" and go sword and board from the start have the shadow priest solo the warrior with the rogue waiting to pop on the druid once he comes out to heal. At this point the shadow priest should mindflay to slow the druid even if just for a second. If the rogue successfully catches the druid the game should be over. Use kidney shots cheapshots mind flays and uiltimately shadow priest silence combined with improved kick silence to finish the druid off.
vs Non-Undead rogue + Nonrogue: Rogues are conditioned to attack shadow priests above all else, and if you try running this comp in 2v2 you will notice this immediately. Always try to catch the rogue with a sap but this is not a reliable way to win this fight, instead plan on having your priest take the opening cheapshot and trinket out of the kidney shot while your rogue attacks the other team's partner with all out dps. The shadow priest should dispel fear ward if it is indeed on the rogue and then fear him. At this point nearly all nonundead rogues will trinket rather than rely on any dispeller if they indeed have one. If this happens the fight is over. Blind the rogue and once the blind is nearly broken vanish (cloak if need be to avoid dot ticks, you can simply time this very well but it is much harder) and sap him to cc him for over 10 seconds during which both dpsers will have free reign over the other team's partner. The only exception to this is mage rogue that sometimes base their strategies around killing the rogue while sheeping the priest. If this is the case simply have your rogue save defensive cooldowns such as cloak and vanish for times when the shadow priest is polymorphed and just wait for the polymorphs to break, granting semi-immunity to the shadowpriest in the form of diminishing returns.
vs Warrior Paladin/Warrior Shaman: Straight up dps zerg the warrior with silences/blinds/fears on the healer. Very easy to win but be mindful of divine shielded paladins and attempt to mass dispel immediately.
vs Warlock Healer: This is a hard fight. Paladin warlock teams are very susceptible to fear blind sap rotations once the paladin's bubble is down. Occasionally a game can be won before the paladin has a chance to heal in his bubble through a simple shadow priest silence but I recommend stripping the bubble asap instead of trying to dps through the paladin's heals. Warlock druid teams on the other hand can be won by killing the druid or the warlock, we have had the most success disrupting the druid while putting high dps on the warlock.
I hope this information proves useful to someone. We entered this season with high hopes only to nearly drive my shadow priest to quit in frustration every time a rogue rendered him useless for an entire match. We came back with a much more strategic mindset and have since found 2v2 to be enjoyable, something few people will ever admit to, we currently sit at around 2050 and have yet to run into a team that truly felt unbeatable. Please, point out any flaws you see in these strategies or reply with your own experiences whether they may be similiar or different.
MaxPower#1485 60 SC Barb/32 HC Witch Doctor/22 HC Wizard/17 HC Demon Hunter