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.

This is indeed a new hot combo, one that my discpriest/rogue team has run up against multiple times, only beating once (my rogue is undergeared, though). The combo of silence, fear, and blind all in a row can allow the team to wafflestomp my rogue while I'm shut down. If my rogue partner ever hits 60% health, it's over. I'm still training him to save that CoS/Vanish for the CC string instead of blowing it earlier.

One of the things that a really quality rogue/shadowpriest team will use is positioning (of course, positioning is always what separates gladiator teams from runner-ups), forcing me to come in close to heal my partner. This opens me up to the fears and blinds, blind especially being the game-breaker now that Stoneform can't get me out of it.

I just remember fighting a bunch of these teams and thinking "hey, these guys might actually be able to beat the ez-mode ultracheese of warrior/druid." God I hate Druids.

"Huh huh huh huh hey Beavis, watch my Cyclone/Cyclone/Cyclone/Feral Charge/Warstomp lock down this Priest for literally 20 entire seconds. Isn't that fair? Hoo boy!"

-Bolty

You have to be a Tauren for that. I hate Tauren sometimes. +5% health for PvE tanking, Warstomp for PvP... I hope Blizzard faces how overpowered that race is sometime.

I love how the grass is always greener. It's the Night Elves that piss me off. "They have 2 people guarding the mine", "That you can see, that is", "Oh yeah. *sigh*"

Toss out Pain Supression while silenced by the shadow priest. It feels a bit unintended but can be lifesaving if they silence early and you find yourself in a jam.

The grass is definately always greener. Many a time I've wished I could drink and shadowmeld.

But still, warstomp and 5% HP definately rocks.

Because Rogues that are immune to all forms of dots and Warriors that can break roots and snares on their own is perfectly balanced.

Or how about Hunters and Warriors that will almost invariably get the first shot due to stealth, or Priests who can chill in stealth mode, waiting for the right moment to pop out to either heal or DPS?

I thought they fixed this already (they admitted it was a bug).

-Bolty

I don't even have Shadowmeld on my bar. I don't PvP, so I have absolutely zero use for it.

Warstomp annoys me, but it's the +5% health for tanks in PvE that is the real imbalance.

Quick note on that, this is what allows Tauren tanks to shoot for uncrushable without losing significant health. They're pretty much the only race that can hit uncrushable without sacrificing a good deal of health.

1000hp hardly seems gamebreaking.

Eh. Any race can shoot for passive uncrushability. That's not where the +5% health bonus becomes a problem.

And Delc, it's not gamebreaking. It is however a completely massive advantage -- and one that makes absolutely no sense.

Well, before the fear ward and pally/shaman fixes, it was one of the few advantages to raiding on horde. Prior to that, alliance had raid-wide pally buffs and unfearable tanks, and horde had tauren tanks and party-limited totems. It didn't really feel like a fair trade. As it is now, it's definitely a horde-side advantage. Of course, alliance shadow priests got an extra free dot, which kind of ticks me off. *shrug*

Shadowmeld is admittedly more-or-less useless for PVE, but massively destructive in PVP.

Wait. You're saying a big beefy man-cow (or woman-cow) with 5% more health than other races makes no sense?

When it comes to racial abilities folks get their knickers bound up around the funniest things.

Bloodelves and their arcane torrent
Draenai +1% to hit (spell/melee)
Dwarves and their stoneform (and oddly enough at beta end treasure finding)
Gnomes and escape artist
Humans with perception and diplomacy
Nightelves with shadowmeld and dodge
Orcs with bloodfury and stun resistance
Tauren with 5% to stamina and warstomp
Trolls with...well...uh...I guess someone might complain about berserking but I haven't seen it yet...
Undead with will of the forsaken

Thing is that none of them give a completely massive advantage in any area of the game. You have a tank with a bit more life than the others or one who can throw off fear. Big deal - very few bosses hit SO hard that 1k life is going to make or break an encounter totally.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Druids can't become uncrushable (at least not easily). Warriors get uncrushable without any worry about gear (+75% block means they only need 27.4% combined miss/dodge/parry/block to be uncrushable). Taurens can't be paladins (which would actually make very good use of the extra life).

No, this is uncrushable without shield block. The main tank for Nilhilim was specifically getting to uncrushable without using shield block and every other non-Tauren warrior that was near them was seeing it as not possible because they would lose too much health where the 5% health advantage was giving Tauren Warriors the ability to pull off what other Warrior could not, uncrushability at all times. Me and Skan got to discussing this and the thought was there were just too much health that would need to be given up by non-Tauren Warriors to achieve this mark due to a variety of special attacks that could net 18k to 19k in a split second. So yes Delc, 1k more health can and does make the difference.

No more AR + Prep in 2.3.2:



It's really too bad you have to give up all the tasty mid-combat talents to get Shadowstep. I'd love to try raiding with it and still be competitive.

This is plain and simply wrong. Passive uncrushability is very valid for any race -- especially with the ZA/badge gear from 2.3.

Passive uncrushable is attainable for anyone in a mix of T5, ZA and badge gear. It is not even hard.


No, what makes no sense is that Horde gets such a massive advantage over Alliance. The health bonus was fine pre-TBC -- it might even have been too little, with BoK -- but afterwards...

I'd have to do some more research but doesn't the racial only apply to raw stamina with gear rather than buffs like Fortitude and Blessing of Kings?

Just the opposite. It's a health bonus, not a stamina bonus. It is applied after everything, and thus scales with even normally non-scaling health buffs (such as Flasks).

It's attainable, but you give up a lot of health in doing so. As I said, Skan and I discussed this a bit and it was only seen as possible with T6 gear (Hyjal/BT) and even then, in order to attain it, non-Tauren Warriors would have to sacrifice a good deal of health (as I seem to remember and Skan can correct me on this, I asked Skan if any of the CM Warriors were trying this and his basic response was no, they'd have to give up too much health). This was talked about several months ago, probably around August or September on the EJ boards and people were discussing how Nihilium's main tank could pull it off and everyone agreed that it was only really possible due to him being Tauren as non-Taurens couldn't give up the necessary stamina to get passive uncrushability. That 5% health difference allowed him to get non-stamina enchants (like the +defense to bracers) and go with Purple and Green (to get some stamina with either defense, parry, dodge, block, str, or agi) gems to try and get socket bonuses (even more avoidance) as well that non-Tauren Warriors were having to look at mostly solids to maximize stamina.

And it's apparently not enough of a difference for Blizzard to worry about it.

If it's really such a huge, massive issue, roll Horde.

I'm still trying to figure out where this becomes a "massive advantage" compared to other racials. Yes it gives a tauren maintank a bit more of a health pool for those oh shi...moments. But we're still talking about on average a thousand or so hit points when the raiding game is filled with bosses that hit for 6 to 10 times that. No one is screaming about the additional 1% dodge that night elven tanks have to completely negate all incoming damage. Nor is anyone talking about a undead tank who can negate fear mechanics in defensive stance - and yes I now that fear no longer drops aggro but if you can't see why being feared and beat on is a bad thing­™ then there isn't much more to discuss. There are other tank racials that I could go into detail about but the bottom line is that in the TBC raid environment an extra 5% health just doesn't seem to be as massive a bonus to me.

Passive uncrushable is attainable and viable even in T5 instances (it revolves around shield block rating). It is not something you use on every fight due to the Effective Health loss, but it is viable -- and for every race.

I spend every day talking about stuff like this, with people who have achieved it -- without ever setting foot in Hyjal or Black Temple.


That's not a solution, that's a punchline.


1% dodge is all well and good, and next after Tauren, it certainly is the most powerful tank racial (especially due to the way it scales). But it's not in the Tauren's league.

Fear is not an issue because every warrior who knows how to stance-dance can negate it -- and that's without considering Fear Ward. In the big scheme of things, when it comes to tanking, Will of the Forsaken is rather lackluster.

Next after Tauren and Night Elves, humans and orcs have the best racials for tanks -- Expertise. It is a quite signficiant threat increase, one which tauren and night elves cannot hope to match -- but threat is not as much of an issue as EH is.

If Norrath had Tauren health bonus, it would basically be equivalent to two Flasks of Fortification when he is fully raid buffed. Without actually using any. No, as I said before, it's not gamebreaking, but it gives Tauren a marked advantage when you talk about progression.... for no good reason at all that I can see.

By the time Blizzard is done messing with one talent trying to fix the deficiencies of an entire tree, Shadowstep in itself will do everything - heal you, make you faster, teleport you, revive your teammates - except actually let you be able to kill someone.

I'm not talking about specific fights, I'm talking about all fights. Only Tauren can achieve uncrushable on every single fight with T6 gear and not give up the health to attain it. For a non-Tauren to achieve uncrushable on every fight, they would have to give up on the order of 1k to 1.5k health, for Tauren, this is a non-issue due to their racial. The difference here is that you're thinking of only specific fights while the main tank of Nilihum was setting up to do it for all fights and this is what the discussion several months back on EJ was all about and what I'm talking about. Non-Tauren Warriors cannot achieve passive uncrushable at all times without sacrificing a lot of health and that is what I've been talking about (and my discussion with Skan a few months back when I saw the thread on EJ).

There is no reason to go uncrushable on all fights. There are bosses that do not crush, for example, and there are other fights where crushes aren't the main factor to watch out for.

No end-game warrior wears the same setup for every single fight in the game. It doesn't happen.

Passive uncrushable is a set of gear you put together and use on fights where it is a benefit, just like a resistance set. You do not wear it all the time, as there's no point.

Yes they can negate it as I said above. Thing is with WotF you can negate it in defensive stance. No worries about mistiming the 'zerker switch and getting stomped. No worries about bossmod timers being off, etc. Just pop and go.



*sigh* I guess given our past interaction on the subject of the viability druid tanks I should have seen that no matter what, gods be damned, you won't see any other side than the one you want to see.

If you think 1k life difference between a Tauren MT and a non-tauren MT is such an advantage I won't dissuade you. I think its a nice racial that fits the lore of the race and chances are if your 20k MT is getting wafflestomped in a raid he'd get wafflestomped at 21k too.

Well, I don't really recall discussing Tauren at all. It's true that neither of our warriors are going for passive uncrushability, partly because of the health drop (~2k) and partly because getting crushed just isn't really a huge deal in T6 content. The last two bosses of Hyjal and the last two out of three bosses in BT can't crush, mostly because they hit so hard that crushes would be on the order of 13k to 15k for a single hit (or in the case of Illidan, because he attacks very, very quickly and you have to save shield block for Shear). What matters when a boss hits really hard but can't crush is making sure you survive and avoid spikes. The best way to do that is stamina to absorb spikes, and expertise to avoid parry-bombs.

A passive-uncrushable set should be useful in T5 content, though, especially with ZA gear. It would probably be better than most alternatives for, say, Al'ar and Karathress, where damage spikes only really occur through crushes. Obviously if someone can pull it off without dipping below 21k hp, I guess you could wear it all the time, but again, if you can do that, you should be able to get even more hp for all those bosses that can't crush.

If I remember the conversation correctly, I made a comment about how Nihilum's main tank was getting uncrushable without shield block and you said something to the effect that because he's Tauren he could achieve that and still maintain a high health which was part of the reason CM's Warriors weren't looking to do the same thing (because of the racial for Taurens allowing them to not need quite as much stamina to achieve the same health level). And as you noted above, it's a lot of health a non-Tauren would loss to pull it off and it looked like Nihilum's MT was trying to effectively wear a single set of gear for all non-resistance fights thus being able to survive the non-crush spike damage, crush spike damage with passive crush protection, and still have a high DR in a single set of T6 armor (which non-Taurens Warriors will require two to three sets of armor to deal with all those situations) gear which wasn't possible in T5 armor.

I didn't say it was useless, I said it was lackluster.


That's entirely unfair. The fact that you haven't come up with an argument that convinces me does not mean I reject arguments out of hand.


1k health is NOT insignificant on any level of content. Feel free to dismiss it if you must, but I consider the fact that Tauren can get what amounts to two additional Flasks to be too much.

Please continue this conversation respectfully and with facts on both sides. That's not an admonishment, it's a interested request. I want to see where this goes as I'm worried that when WotlK shows up that if I don't roll a Tauren DK I'll be gimped again (My MT was a sexy troll) if I spec him Cold/Unholy to tank.

Cheers,
~Frag

Edit: Though perhaps in a different thread? Gogo hijack.

I still fail to see how my extra HP is vastly, hugely superior to your additional mitigation or Expertise. If I eat a parry bomb because my Expertise wasn't as high as a Human's, I've just lost a hell of a lot more HP than my little ~1k bonus.

Your argument is just a bunch of whining nonsense to my ears; if this was a serious issue, Blizzard would have addressed it long ago: very likely before TBC even arrived.

And it's not my fault you chose the wrong faction

If they keep with lore (haha) DKs will be Humans and Orcs (possible in Human bodies).

A Blue Post and WoWiki page that cites the Blizzcon & Leipzig responses to that question. Plans are for all races to have the option of being tempted to follow the dark path. Due to appearance and/or interest I'd prefer to play a Troll or Orc, leaning towards Orc. I'm jumping ahead and assuming I'm going to be able to do some tanking duties again on him and if that's the case, I'm fretting about being on of the 'gimped' races for tanking Horde-side again.

Cheers,
~Frag

That won't happen often enough to make up for your health bonus.


Blizzard has made mistakes in the past and taken very long to correct them... and this has only become a serious issue with the current health totals.


Like I said -- that's not an argument. That's a punchline. There is no "wrong faction", or at the very least, there should be none.

And as we've told you repeatedly, that "gimp" troll is all in your mind, nooblet.

As an alliance raiding main tank I reject your 1k hp argument.

The only racial I'd like to see modified some is Diplomacy. Since you almost have to grind rep to turn in a circle these days, that additional rep is a big help.

Though, with the overall changes to rep, it's not as bad as it used to be...so, in the end it all washes out anyhow.

Replace "1k Health" with "Fear Ward", swap alliance and horde, and travel back about six months. The quote here would be directed at you, you would not enjoy it, but it would be no less valid (and likely untrue). Saying something is balanced because Blizzard ignored it is... well, silly.

You're not the only raiding tank here.

Fear Ward rarely came into play in PvP, and Pallies could tank Nightbane before Fear Ward and the AI changes just fine.

I don't see anybody really arguing about the Tauren health bonus in PvP... arguably, gnomes, night elves, blood elves and even possibly undead have strong PvP-oriented racials. And dwarf priests

Yes, horde could do all the fear-based encounters before the changes. However, it wouldn't stop them bringing it up at every possible opportunity, with the implication that horde raiders are inherantly superior to alliance raiders, because alliance has it easy.

My point is attempting to turn it around and say yes, alliance can do all the encounters despite not having tauren tanks. Does it mean horde have it easier? Perhaps. But it was OK to constantly bring up fear as an alliance crutch, but point out a horde raiding advantage these days and people, well, quip one-liners saying you rolled the wrong faction.

Yes, alliance can do it without tauren; no, it's probably not balanced. But if things aren't exactly the same, people will always scream about imbalances. And I'm not entirely certain making things perfectly balanced (i.e., exactly the same) is any better than the slight varieties we have now.

Edit: wow, all this in a topic about Shadow Priest + Rogue 2v2; and we're talking about Tauren in PvE. Not sure we could get farther from the OP

We all know how effective Tauren Rogues are

Exactly. When was the last time you actually saw one?

Better start checking those cherry trees.

They're everywhere in Thousand Needles.

This is the same kind of fretting you were doing with your "undergeared" rogue who you thought didn't belong with us in T5 content, yet was consistently very strong on the DPS charts... unwarranted fretting.

Fretting about not being able to perform at 100% of potential and striving to make it there is one of the things I credit with being a respected main tank during my time amongst various guilds and servers.

I'll grant you that my worrying can be somewhat unwarranted at times; but questioning if I should be taking a ilvl103-115 blue geared rogue (with a couple of greens as well) with 6.5k health and ~500ish dps (on lvl 73's) into T5 when nearly all of the SSC/TK bosses have significant aoe's or enrage timers was well within my whinging rights.

To be fair Fragit geared about as fast as Kam did, thus, Touchè Conc.
~Frag

I've never, ever heard of Undead, Orc, and Troll (wait, Troll Warriors? Yeah, right!) tanks ever whining about Taurens' HP advantage. Likewise, I never hear of cows whining about WotF or orc stun resistance (stun resistance being more relevant to PvP than PvE, though.)

I have.