Warlock Rogue 2v2 Guide | Burning Crusade (by Pretender)
Disclaimer
We do not encourage scripted gameplay. This is not the aim of such guides. We do not claim to have the most efficient tactic available, nor is it possible to devise one given the nature of Classic TBC and random variables involved such as RNG. But much like a musician needs to practise other composers’ work before improvising, we believe that there are certain strategies which you can follow if you are not confident about various match ups. Once you acquire the experience necessary, you will be able to play off-script and on the fly, having developed a keen eye for situations and how to make the most out of them to win.
Quick intro
Hey guys! My in game name is Pretender, I am a rogue player and the comp I am the most experienced with is Rogue/Warlock. Together with my teammate Voidax, aka Yanukovich, we used to play as double undead on most of the popular TBC servers, at high rating. As for the most popular private server these days Endless.gg our highest rating was around 2300, season 2. During season 1, on BC Classic, we got R1 in 2v2 at 2901 rating.
I was always more interested in playing double DPS comps since you don’t have those kinds of boring ~40min games, and your gameplay becomes way faster than what you can get from heal/DPS.
In this guide, I will talk about later seasons (end of Season 2 and further), since early Season 1, and season 1 itself, is just another game, things are very “random” and everything is a mess.
Strengths/Weaknesses of R/L
Like every double DPS team composition, RL can’t be called consistent, because sometimes you can get RNG’d and there’s nothing you can do about that (e.g Blind miss or heartbeat / Stun resist / Fear resist / Spell Lock resist).
Although it’s double DPS, you still don’t have actual burst damage (unless you get lucky with Shadowbolt procs), which means you have to tunnel a target to make something happen, and Warlock is not any mobile so it relies a lot on his positioning.
Last but not least, Rogue/Lock is heavily dependent on the opener. If you don’t get the proper opener, you might just not be able to push cooldowns on your enemy or just eat too much damage yourself and lose because of that.
Despite the downsides, this composition has one of the biggest strengths: being able to win long games (which happens very rarely). Since the Warlock is quite tanky itself, it helps sometimes to pull off those kinds of situations where either you got bad RNG or made a misplay.
What also helps for this comp to be viable, is having a lot of controls that are on different DR, so you are able to set up long CC chains.
And the last but not least benefit of playing it, both Warlock and Rogue are really good in 1v1 situations, so you can win a lot of games if cross kill happens.
Warlock/Rogue counters?
The biggest issue for RL is Discipline Priest/Rogue since the comp has a huge amount of defensive cooldowns and the ability to dispel DoTs. On top of that, it is one of the most popular TBC comps so you face those quite often. I can’t say there’s nothing you can do against it when you face good players, but still, they got way more chances to beat you.
Some matchups are quite tricky, they are not as hard if people are not playing dwarfs (e.g dwarf Discipline Priest/Warlock probably even worse than Priest Rogue, but less popular) and they become a big-time struggle if they do (will explain all of those in the tactics section).
Talents for Warlock/Rogue
Rogue
Build: Hemo/Shs with Imp. Expose
This is the spec I’m using most of the time.
Since BC Classic is running with 2.4.3 patch since the launch, spells are working the same way through all seasons.
These days the only viable spec for TBC Rogue is Shadowstep, but back in the days, I had a lot of fun playing HARP specialization with double mace. However, by today’s standards, it’s very easy to kite and not worth it, also Shadowstep has most survivability IMO and you have to tank damage sometimes.
Warlock
Build: SL/SL Spec
Rogue Gear for Warlock/Rogue
Gearing a rogue is a major problem unless you have a good PvE guild (as you know, most of the guilds prefer not having a rogue in their party/raid).
Nonetheless, it benefits a lot from having PvE parts, probably even more than other classes, so doing PvE is mandatory.
This is my gearing strategy for S1:
- I’m getting PvP gloves for the Deadly Throw interrupt ability, Medallion of the Horde, and off parts (belt, boots, bracers) and that’s pretty much all I’m using for s1 that requires honor points. Gearing 4/5 or 5/5 honor set is not worth, because the set bonus is useless and having heroics/kara gear gives you better stats in terms of attack power and crit.
Early season 1, games are a huge mess so you don’t benefit from resilience a lot as a rogue, and games are very fast. - The last PvP item I’m usually trying to get is Band of the Exorcist (you get it from farming shards on Auchindoun normals/heroics).
- Best possible weapons you can get before Kara/S1 are: Vindicator’s Brand (Aldor exalted) for main hand and Latro’s Shifting Sword (Black Morass) for off-hand, as for shiving wounds i’m using w/e I can get that has around 1.5 / 1.4 attack speed.
You can find a Pre-BiS and BiS Gear list on Silent Shadows and use some of those items for arenas as well (that’s basically what I’m doing myself).
At the end you want to have a minimum of 5% hit (the melee PvP Hit Cap) or more, and as many stats, as you can get from quests and Normal/Heroic drops.
The good thing in s1 is getting a Badge of Justice trinket (Bloodlust Brooch), cloak (most likely gonna swap for Karazhan), and neck. You gonna use them till the end of S1.
Unlike honor set, arena 4 set bonus is a huge deal, that +10 energy bonus is a must-have, so you want to get them asap. At the end of Season 1, I prefer having 4/5 arena set and 1 PvE piece (for example Skulker’s Greaves, Netherspite legs).
Enchants are pretty standard for all rogues no matter what comp they are playing, and for the gems, I prefer playing agility ones in combo with Relentless Earthstorm Diamond. (More info about enchants and gems here)
Endgame rogue gear
Pretty much depends on what PvE items you can get, I prefer playing with around 300 resilience and either Berserker’s Call (Zul’Aman) trinket, or Battlemaster’s Determination (better against certain comps that have a heavy burst e.g Rogue Mage).
Warlock Gear
As for the Warlock’s gear, in S1 the only PvE item he needs is Icon of the Silver Crescent.
Other items are honor/arena points rewards. As a Warlock you can’t use PvE because you have to tank up the damage a lot. So make sure that he’s stacking resilience!
So basically, the only PvE item that a Warlock needs is a trinket, you can use either Hex Shrunken Head (drops from Zul’Aman) or something like Skull of Gul’dan.
Openers
Since your opener is pretty much 50% of your win condition, you must be very precise with your positioning. As a Rogue you always want to be in Paranoia’s range against rogue comps, because it gives you higher chances to land a sap (For more Info, check this In-depth TBC Stealth Guide). So you have to run a nice circle with your Warlock until he has a Voidwalker sacrifice shield. If you weren’t able to find anything, the Warlock just moves to the pillar, and you “catch” Paranoia range yourself, while trying to find someone. It works against all Rogue/Healer teams (unless there’s a Human Rogue)
Against Human Rogues I prefer either to hide somewhere to avoid his Perception, or stay in Warlock’s LoS far behind him. Since pre-Vanish is a thing, going/standing right on top of your Warlock is a bad thing to do as well, so it’s just enough to be in Paranoia range, and Warlocks line of sight, so you can open a guy as fast as possible if he decides to go Warlock.
The killing target that you are sitting at should always be slowed unless it is a Druid (spamming Shiv/Crippling on Druids is not very useful because they can powershift, so it’s just a waste of energy), and you have to insta-slow opponents after they Trinket (e.g Priest) so your Warlock doesn’t fall behind them and can sit their line of sight for as long as possible if it’s needed.
Poisons
A thing you should always be aware of is having 5 stacks of Wound Poison on a target you are trying to kill (won’t mention it again, because it’s just a must vs any heal/dps comp and some double dps e.g Shadow Priest Rogue), Mind-Numbing Poison is useful on rare occasions e.g pre-Shiving it on Tauren’s War Stomp to avoid getting cloned or when you have to interrupt Fel Domination etc.
Macros
As for the macros, i’m not using too many of those and you can find them below.
– Sap macro i’m using is :
| #showtooltip Sap /console targetNearestDistance 10.000000 /targetenemy [noharm][dead] /console targetNearestDistance 41.000000 /cast [harm,nodead] Sap |
– Basic macro for replacing your offhand weapon whenever you need to apply a poison. (E.g you’re switching your weapon for Wound/Mind Numbing/Crippling poison.)
| /equipslot 17 %Offhand weapon name /cast shiv |
– Macros modifier, so you don’t have to switch targets to do an ability on your /focus
|
/cast [nomod] Gouge /cast [nomod] Blind /cast [nomod] Kick |
– Focus macros
| /cast [target=focus] Shiv(Rank 1)
/cast [target=focus] Sap /cast [target=focus] Shadowstep /cast [target=focus] Shadowstep |
And that’s pretty much it.
My partner Voidax made a VOD compilation that is pretty representative of how the comp is played against good teams.
Matchups developed in this guide
Healer/DPS comps
|||||||||| – DPriest/Rogue
|||||||||| – DS/Rogue
|||||||||| – Druid/Hunter
|||||||||| – Druid/Lock
|||||||||| – Druid/Warr
|||||||||| – Hpala/Warr
|||||||||| – Rsham/Warr
|||||||||| – DPriest/Mage
|||||||||| – DPriest/Lock
|||||||||| – DPriest/Warr
|||||||||| – Rsham/Ret
Double DPS comps
|||||||||| – Mage/Rogue
|||||||||| – Spriest/Rogue
|||||||||| – Rogue/Rogue
|||||||||| – Lock/Rogue
|||||||||| – Feral/Rogue
|||||||||| – Warrior/Warlock
|||||||||| – Spriest/Mage
|||||||||| – Spriest/Warlock
Strategies
Healer/DPS comps
Difficulty
9/10
Goal:
Force défensive cooldowns they have, kill rogue / All-in push on the priest.
Opener/Strategy
Best possible opener you can get against this comp is: sap priest + go on rogue same time or vice versa.
For me it feels like going rogue is a more solid way to beat them, since going priest requires catching him at a bad spot. It’s pretty easy to save the priest around the pillar with just slowing the Warlock, so he can’t reach the Priest to refresh his DoTs (and they’re gonna be dispelled all the time). So going on the priest is only possible if you sap him far from pillar, otherwise, it’s pretty hard (or requires Blind miss/Kidney Shot dodge on you).
Going for Rogue is not an easy thing to do as well, you can’t rely on Fears because Priest can just LoS them, apart from using Fear Ward/Will of the Forsaken (if the priest is not undead, landing a Fear is pretty much win if you had good opener before that happened), and he can even resist them! …So you’d just waste your time on trying too much. The good thing is shiving (crippling) on a priest whenever you have an opportunity for it, so it actually becomes possible to land a Fear. If you pushed the priest’s trinket with a Fear or if he did trinket anything else (for whatever reason), then Blind into resap is a game-winning thing to do (don’t forget to bleed a rogue before you do that so he doesn’t vanish away to escape your 2v1).
The general idea on going rogue consist of forcing the following conditions:
– pain suppression used,
– cloak of shadows used,
– rogue’s trinket used.
When you got all of those, Blind the rogue, re-sap him, and make your opener again. It might take a lot of time to force those, since Priest is dispelling dots, and shielding his rogue, so you have to kite after your Kidney ends most of the time (so your gameplay is all about going for rogue while he’s stunned, and kite him while kidney is on cooldown) unless you doing enough damage to score the kill or force something, then you brute force it.
The main thing you have to do is to split rogues’ damage between both of you, so you must find a time for using bandages, and try to use healthstone when there are no wound poisons on you (pretty much basic thing to do vs all classes that can reduce the healing received), unless the situation is critical.
A good thing is coiling rogue after a kidney, by doing that you have extra seconds to DPS if they were greedy with cooldowns, or your damage was enough to push through pain suppression and you can get something else e.g PVP trinket.
This is a very hard matchup vs good players, so it requires a lot of efforts to win.
Difficulty:
8/10
Goal:
Kill rogue on CC / kill druid on the opener.
Opener/Strategy
(1) Sap Rogue + Open Druid: Best possible opener against this comp is sapping the Rogue and opening Druid Cat Form right after. If you manage to do that, there are very high chances for you to kill the Druid by chaining Death Coil into pet silence after stunlock (if he decides to save a trinket) or force his trinket and NS same time (and then you either kill druid on second KS – always try to stun Restoration/Dreamstate Druids off the form, for maximum damage output), or switch Rogue and kill him on Blind/Sap/Fear on Druid). Since this is a very rare situation to happen, most of the time you’re gonna either only Sap the Rogue, or just wait for him to open the Warlock.
(2) Druid not detected + Sapping/Opening Rogue: So let’s talk about the most common situation. The first thing you have to do once you Sapped/Cheap Shotted Rogue off the Warlock is, to Fear him (if it’s an Undead, you gonna get his WoTF, and if it’s another race you will get the position you want and wait for Cheap Shot DR). If you go Rogue there’s pretty much the same things to do as against DPR: you have to force defensive CDs: trinkets, cloak, and NS.
Even then killing a pre-hotted target is quite impossible, so you have to land a perfect CC chain on the Druid, to make it happen. DS/rogue is easier than DPR, because you can kite them way more efficiently, but it relies on Warlock’s Fears a lot. Sometimes you can do that till second Blind on a druid, and that’s a win, …most of the time.
(3) Druid detected / Rogue not found: Last possible situation is when you spotted the Druid but the enemy Rogue is not sapped: you can open on the Druid with CS into KS, but the opposing Rogue will get you off the Druid with his own Stunlock… This opener isn’t that good, and it relies on your Warlock capacity to Fear the Rogue off from you (Coil before the Kidney Shot) or not (Fear ain’t work vs UD Rogues, but coiling before a Kidney Shot is a good thing to do if you are going all-in on Druid) because if he doesn’t, you might just end up either losing too much of your health or even die.
At the end, it’s not the easiest comp to beat, but still, it takes less effort, than some other comps you can face while playing rogue/warlock.
Difficulty:
5/10
Goal:
Kill hunter on CC-chain / All-in push on Druid
Opener/Strategy:
Hunter Druid is a relatively easy matchup, especially if the Hunter isn’t a Dwarf and not Beast Mastery.
There are two ways my teammate and I found out (if the Hunter is mm/surv) against this comp: it’s either landing a long CC chain on Druid and go on the Hunter, or all-in push the Druid (works the best on Ruins of Lordaeron because Druid has no pillar to kite you on the Frost Trap).
Let’s talk about mm/surv HD first. Most of the time a Hunter is gonna wait for you near the pillar on top of his Flare and Frost Trap, so I prefer sapping him before my Warlock goes for him. In order to do it I’m using Sprint and Jump into the Flare (avoiding Frost Trap triggering), you’re getting unstealthed but the Warlock has his time to cast his Fear on the Hunter, and DoT both him and his pet. While the Warlock is busy doing his things you are trying to restealth somewhere close enough in case the Druid opt for opening to heal his Hunter without waiting for him to drop too low. If you see the Druid chasing you stealthed and wanna land a Pounce it’s worth Vanishing to CS KS him, so the Warlock switches Fear for the Druid, and you both go on Hunter (or you start your all-in push on the Druid at this time). If the druid opens with HoTs, you have to stunlock him as soon as possible, and then your Warlock will cast Fear on him into the stun (most of the time it’s a Druid’s trinket used, if not, re Fear him or re-Sap after Fear, but save your Blind to use it after his trinket). If you do so it’s pretty much half work done, what’s left to do is Blinding the Druid off the form into re-Sap and Fear, by the time your CC chain ends, the Hunter should be dead.
Facing Beast mastery Hunter Druid is quite a tricky thing, you either trying to execute regular tactics, but it’s very complicated because Hunters damage on Warlock are way higher, or trying to do an all-in push for the Druid.
All-in push on the druid means you have to chain stuns into coil/pet silence and garrote. If Druid manages to survive that using trinket/NS, you should be able either to finish him solo, because he’s still DoTed, or wait till CS KS DR and kill him on second stunlock (spamming damages on him yourself meanwhile in order to keep him low HP). Warlock won’t be able to follow up the Druid most of the time, because he will be busy trying to survive BM.
Difficulty:
6/10
Goal:
Kill Druid on second KS / Kill Warlock after killing first pet, and interrupting Fel domination.
Opener/Strategy:
Lock Druid is a team you have the upper hand against as a RL.
Your perfect opener is sapping the Warlock into Cheap Shot on the Druid’s Cat Form (followed up by going on a Druid), and the regular opener should always be the same no matter what you’re gonna do next. You have to Sap the Warlock without getting spotted, so your Warlock starts with DoTs on both the pet and Warlock, and tries to land a Fear on the guy (to force the WoTF/to win more time before Warlock DoTs him). As soon as you sapped the Warlock you should try to check the closest positions where the Druid can be hiding, if you were not lucky finding the Druid you should be patiently waiting while watching Warlocks dance, up from here there are two options of what can be done.
- First one is waiting for a Druid to open with HoTs on the pet (or just picking up the eye if the guy is still AFK hiding somewhere), as soon as you see him you should be as fast as possible with your CS, if your Warlock is way too far from the Druid, you can Gouge off the CS and wait for him to get closer. Once the Druid is DoTed, and has used his trinket the first KS, you can Death Coil his Trinket into Garrote (if you still have 2 vanishes), and he should be dead on the second one (good thing is kicking Fears if the Warlock is close to you).
- Second one is way more complicated, if the druid is still stealthed, and enemy pet is ~3k health, you can go with cheapshot eviscerate on it. After the pet dies, you either use mind-numbing poison on the warlock or curse of tongues and try to prevent him from getting a second pet. If you were able to interrupt it, your cc chain should start, coil into fear the druid (resap the fear if he saved his trinket), after druid trinkets you have to blind him (be aware of diminishing returns, coz you need full duration sap/blind after that) and follow up with sap/fear. If you fail to interrupt the fel domination, most likely you gonna lose, unless the druid did trinket something. If he did you have to go all-in on him.
Whenever you kill something (let’s say you killed the Druid) but you don’t have any cooldowns left, and most likely you are going to die, you have to go on the Warlock and do as much damage as possible (your first global on him is shiv, in order to slow him) so your warlock has a chance to 1v1.
Difficulty:
7/10
Goal:
Kill war on a cc chain/kill anything while double dotting.
Opener/Strategy:
Rogue Warlock against Warrior Druid is a very close matchup, but as every warrior team, if WD gets some lucky RNG you’re gonna lose it no matter what.
This is the most annoying Warrior comp to face as for me, because a lot of things can be done in different ways, and it just takes your experience to find out what’s a good thing to do at a time. So I will tell you the most common strategies that can be used in order to win.
Best possible opener for you is dotting warrior without getting charged on warlock (or sapping Warrior off Berserker Stance but it almost never happens), and opening Druid Cat Form at the same time. But it’s a very rare occasion to happen, so most of the time you ain’t gonna be able to find the Druid. If you do find the Druid (or you just waited for him to open and wanna execute a double DoT strat), you go with a regular CS KS (or CS into Gouge if the Warlock is far away from him) with DoTs on top of it.
While doing that you need to avoid being disarmed. Use your Evasion and turn your face to the Warrior if he intervenes his Druid in order to disarm you, or, use your Trinket on Intercept on yourself for the same purpose (as long as it goes these days, I even prefer to equip a weapon with the Adamantite weapon chain to reduce the disarm duration and save my Trinket, so I’m avoiding getting NS Cloned by the Druid, but it depends on a situation honestly).
If the Druid trinkets, you do your usual stuff with a stunlock into the Coil followed by a pet counterspell and Garrote (if 2 Vanishes left), and he should be dead on the second Kidney.
So if you were not able to find the druid or just trying to make him open as soon as possible, to reduce the chances of warrior gonna rng crit warlock to death, to do so i prefer cheapshot warrior (garrote can be used as well sot it’s up to you) into the shiv(crippling poison) every time when druid see you opened on a war he will open himself, in order to start hotting war or faerie fire on you. If he does so, you have to stunlock him ASAP so the warlock can fear him (or start double dot strat).
CC beginning is kinda hard to execute, and sometimes a Warrior can just survive it because he gets some extra HoTs due to a gap between CC or before it starts (or Battlemaster and really good kiting with Gnome/Dwarf racial). Anyways to start the CC chain you have to stunlock the Druid out of form, so Warlock fears him, and if he uses his PVP trinket, you can Blind the Druid into re-sap followed up by Fear (if he doesn’t use trinket on Fear you either re-Fear, or Sap off the Fear).
Difficulty:
6/10
Goal:
Kill the Warrior on CC chain
Opener/Strategy:
Warrior HPala comp is one of those where it matters a lot if the Warrior is Dwarf or not. This is quite an easy comp to beat if he isn’t. Warriors race doesn’t change the general strat tho, but Dwarf Warrior has enough defensives to survive initial open on himself and can kill Warlock before he gets into trouble again (Dwarf Warrior/HPala can be considered as a counter if they are playing it correctly).
So, the perfect open is Sap the Paladin, into Devour Blessing of Sacrifice off the Warrior (you may have to use Cheapshot without auto-attack if the Warrior tries to kite your Warlock on his mount), and at this point, you basically tunnel Warrior with Warlock Fearing Sapped Paladin (if Devour is resisted and Warrior still runs with BoS, you just Fear Pala into it and try to Devour it later), and saving your Kidney shot for Blessing of Freedom. After Paladins’s Divin Shield and Trinket, the Warrior may die on the next CC chain (sometimes they even die before the second CC chain starts).
Difficulty:
5/10
Goal:
Kill Warrior on CC/Kill Shaman on double DoTs
Opener/Strategy:
Same as Warrior Paladin, it matters if the Warrior is Dwarf or not, because if he is, you’re likely to encounter extra difficulties.
So, for a CC start, your opening consists of stunlocking Shaman and killing Tremor Totem, so your Warlock can Fear him (make sure to have him out of Ghost Wolf Form). After this, you both have to tunnel Warrior with a re-Sap on Fear, if the Shaman does use his PVP Trinket, your next step is Blinding Shaman (when DRs are less than 10 seconds left) and that’s pretty much it.
This strategy works vs both Dwarfs and non-dwarfs, but, sometimes Warrior is getting the best RNG of his life and basically destroys the Warlock with crits/windfury procs, so if he is a dwarf on top of that you gonna have to Deadly Throw his Stone Form, so your Warlock has a chance to kite until its end.
Double DoT strategy is easier to execute, but less safe, because you can’t exclude the RNG factor. Your open is pretty much the same with one difference: Warlock applies DoT on both enemies, and you’re bleeding the Shaman after your stunlock (Garrote and Rapture is good for tunneling pretty much every medium/high armor target) and using Death Coil + pet silence on him. Once you’re done with it, Shaman most likely dies either before the second stunlock or during it. The main problem is that the Warrior can kill the Warlock, but considering he was DoTed as well he will be way below 50% hp by the time Shaman and Warlock dies, but if Warlock dies faster than the Shaman, the game is pretty much lost.
Difficulty/
6/10
Goal:
Kill the Priest avoiding Mage’s damage on yourself
Opener/Strategy:
This matchup is pretty even and depends if the Priest is Dwarf…. yeah, again.
Your open should consist of sapping the Priest, to let your Warlock come closer to him (may have to sap him 2-3 times), after that it’s a pretty standard stunlock into Garrote and Death Coil. If the Priest is not getting lucky with Kidney Shot resist, he should be dead on the second one. If he resists one of your Kidney Shots, most likely you’re gonna lose. Dwarf priest makes it a lot harder, due to stoneform and desperate prayer, but even then going mage is a bad idea, you just have to power through everything and stay on the priest no matter what, avoiding as much mages damage on you as possible, so you can survive until the third Kidney Shot, if he does survives 3rd one you will not have any cd’s left and most likely either gonna die, or won’t be able to reach him coz of mages novas/slows on you.
Difficulty:
5/10
Goal:
Kill the priest / try to kill the Warlock if the Priest is Dwarf
Opener/Strategy:
This matchup also depends on the Priest’s race, if it’s anything apart Dwarf you got the upper hand against them, and should be able to win most of the games, but if he is Dwarf it’s the biggest ingame counter, LOL.
Your open against non Dwarf Disc/Lock is sapping the warlock and going on the priest. As usual, stunlock him into the garrote into the coil, and killing him on second kidney shot(if zero stun resists happened), if he resists the kidney shot, most of the time it means your warlock gonna have to 1v1, so if you can’t survive after priest is dead, you just do as much damage on the warlock as possible.
If you’re facing a Dwarf Priest/Warlock, the only possible way is killing Warlock (and it’s pretty much impossible, most of the time Warlock just gonna survive unless you somehow CC the Priest and every interrupt of yours lands on him without being resisted). You can’t achieve anything by going to the Priest, because of StoneForm, Desperate Prayer, Healthstone and PainSuppression (and Vial of the Sunwell if it’s season 4)…. it’s just too much and heals him zero to full in a matter of a second.
By going Warlock, you have to wait till he’s Voidwalker Sacrifice Shield wears off, and Sap the Priest, it’s pretty much pointless to Kidney the Warlock so just Expose Armor for extra damage, and pray your Warlock gonna be able to Banish his pet and Fear the Priest, if that was done you have a chance for a win.
Difficulty:
4/10
Goal:
Tunnel warrior to death while trying to CC the priest
Opener/Strategy:
And again, the matchup depends on their race, it’s easy to beat unless they are double Dwarfs.
No matter what their race is, your open is always the same: sapping (into Fear) the Priest into Garrote, Shiv (to slow) into Rapture on the Warrior. All you have to do is just tunnel the poor guy till he dies, interrupting his Priest on casts and trying to get a second Fear him to force the Trinket. If the Priest trinkets, you will be Blinding him into a re-Sap. Facing DP/W where a Warrior is Dwarf, you’re gonna have to kite his Stoneform (unless he’s dying) by Deadly Throwing him and running around the pillar until it expires, or using a KS on him (but Warriors are well known for resisting loads of stuns, right?).
Difficulty:
7/10
Goal:
Outlast them by double DoTing and kiting.
Opener/Strategy
Facing good Retri/Shaman is always a pain. You can’t kill anything because of the number of abilities they have, even if you force everything there’s still a problem to kill Paladin that chases the Warlock while spamming Dispel on himself.
Going Shaman is possible, but very unlikely because you have to be really lucky with devouring the Blessing of Protection off him at some point (can swap Shaman while paladin is bubbled for some time, but he will get BoP pretty fast), and by the time you’re gonna be doing that your Warlock will be dead because you can’t CC the Ret due to Blessing of Sacrifice on his Shaman and a Tremor Totem.
Your open should be like this:
Sapping Paladin and waiting for your Warlock to get his position where he can start DoTing him, then you have to CS Paladin and start shiving poisons, you should always save combo points on the Ret and a KS, and use it only on Blessing of Freedom. Meanwhile, Warlock dot’s Shaman and then the kite begins.
Whoever Paladin is going for has to run away from him (you can tank him with Evasion up) while another guy is doing the damage, so basically most of the time your Warlock is gonna be running around and dotting both until Shaman goes oom by healing himself and a paladin. If you drop low, you want to bandage yourself as soon as possible (so debuff fades faster), because it’s gonna be a long game, so you might have to use it a few times. So basically if you were able to successfully kite Paladin, you gonna win, if he gets some RNG on either you or your Warlock it’s a straight up loss.
Double DPS comps
Difficulty:
8/10
Goal:
Go Rogue / Go on Mage if he uses Ice Block early
Opener/Strategy:
Rogue Mage has heavy burst damage and most of the games ends up your Warlock (or yourself) being blown up in a matter of seconds…
Because of that going Mage is rarely a good option for you (due to double Shield and Ice Block so he survives longer than a Warlock) unless you were able to Sap Rogue.
Your perfect open is sapping Rogue and all-in push on him, but most of the time you’re gonna be trying to catch the guy with a CS, it requires reaction because most of the time rogues do Vanish after doing few globals on your Warlock. So in order to kill the Rogue, you have to Cheap Shot him into 5 combo points Rapture, Warlock Coils Rogue by the end of CS so you Garrote him on Death Coil and if Rogue trinkets coil you doing full KS on him and if he decides to sit it, you do Eviscerate. If you were lucky with crits he’s gonna end up either dead or very low HP, so it’s pretty much a win at that point.
If you decide to go Mage (the only reason for you to do so if you Sapped the Rogue and wanna experiment), you have to force his Ice Block as soon as possible, you either Garrote Mage or CS (I prefer doing CS since you avoid Frostbite into Shiv resist on Mage) into Shiv (to slow him), and Eviscerate since using KS on a Mage is just a waste of combo points. If you were able to avoid Rogue’s CC on you, and DoT Mage after the Ice Block that’s a game.
Difficulty:
4/10
Goal:
Tunnel Priest on good opener / Execute DPR strategy on a Rogue
Opener/Strategy:
So basically the same as Disc Priest/Rogue, the best possible opener you can get is Sap Priest go on Rogue same time or vice versa.The only difference is that they don’t have Pain Suppression and Shadow Priest can’t top his Rogue as Discipline does.
Going Rogue is usually a safer strategy against this team composition, because you should be able to force his defensive CD on a good opener every time, and then Blind into Sap into re-open into kill (same as vs Discipline Rogue)
Unlike DP/R, going for SP is a thing because it is pretty squishy, and can’t be that efficient with self-healIing. Going on him can be considered if you sapped the Rogue and caught the Priest in a bad position.
Difficulty
9/10
Goal
Kill one you were able to catch while CCing other
Opener/Strategy
Good double Rogues should be considered as a counter, because they have a lot of CC and defensives abilities, like Cloak of Shadows (WotF if UD), double Evasion, Vanishes, and they do insane damage on Warlock or on yourself.
Basically all games depend on the open, if you were able to Sap one and instant open another that’s the best possible scenario for you. Nevertheless, it might end up for you or your Warlock 1v1 because cross kills are quite common.
So since you won’t be able to have a perfect opener all the time, you want to CS into full Rupture on the Rogue you’re gonna go for a kill (basically you want to do it on every kind of open), and stunlock into Blind the guy you wanna CC and apply DoT him as well after he Trinket.
The main thing is about forcing both Cloaks, and DoT them both again after, if you were able to so, that’s almost a win.
Difficulty:
5/10
Goal:
RNG gamble trading Warlocks / Killing Rogue on good opening
Opener/Strategy:
Mirror matches depend completely on your opener, if you have a better opener, there’s nothing they can do to turn the game (whoever gets more pressure wins). Your perfect opener is Sapping Warlock into CS on the Rogue (never happens, literally never).
Most of the time both Warlocks dotting each other up while Rogues sitting stealthed (and it’s very boring), to get the upper hand you might wanna Sap enemy Warlock so you dot him first without being dotted yourself (and that’s a very risky thing to do). Then it depends if both Rogues are mirror opening Warlocks, and trading them (followed by Rogue 1v1 after both Warlocks die), or you were lucky to Sap / Cheap Shot a guy.
If you sapped the enemy Rogue you just go on a Warlock and kill him, if you Cheap Shot the enemy Rogue you do the same exact thing as vs Rogue/Mage: Cheap Shot into full Rupture followed by Death coil and Garrote then KS if he trinkets the Coil or Eviscerate if he doesn’t.
Difficulty:
7/10
Goal:
Kill Feral on opener / Kill Rogue same way as vs Ds/Rogue
Opener/Strategy:
This comp has very heavy damage on the warlock and Feral can oof-heal if they need to (that helps them to survive bad openers) which makes them very hard to beat for RL. Same as against DS/Rog your best possible opener is sapping rogue into straight-up open on feral, if you were able to do so, and zero RNG happened to you, you straight-up win a game.
The most common scenario is the following:
Feral opens warlock with pounce and rogue garrots him at the same time,
Then it depends on your reaction, at this point you want to go for the rogue and CC the feral (coil into fear).
If you were able to catch the rogue with a stunlock, you have to force his trinket and cloak, then you can blind him (if necessary, you can blind feral if he trinkets the fear and bleeds up the rogue so he can’t vanish.
Unlike DS/Rog if you were able to spot only a feral, I don’t think it’s any of a good idea going him (unless you just cheapshot him so warlock fears the guy into dots and vanish after) because you die even faster than your warlock, so if you got opened by a rogue, you just die or, at your best you can make it 1v1 rogue vs warlock and it’s not what you want to achieve.
Difficulty:
5/10
Goal:
Kill warrior
Opener/Strategy:
This comp is very RNG-based. Since it contains a Warrior, you always want a good opener to make it easier, otherwise they have very high chances to kill you.
Going Warlock can be a thing because if a cross kill happens a rogue should beat the warrior most of the time, but still it’s just not worth it.
So your perfect opener is to sap the warlock into a garrote shiv(to slow) warrior followed up by rapture, you don’t want to stun the guy unless he trinkets coil, then you basically tunnel war to death and dot warlock meanwhile. This might sound pretty easy, but it really depends on what they’re gonna do themselves, I’d say RL has higher chances to win it, but lock/war is a scary comp to face.
Difficulty:
5/10
Goal:
Tunnel priest to death avoiding as much damage as possible
Opener/Strategy:
Basically, your strategy is completely the same as against DP/Mage but it’s easier since there’s no pain suppression. Even if the priest is a dwarf, for sure it makes it harder to kill him but still takes less effort than regular DP/Mage.
So you want to spam Sap on the priest until your warlock comes close enough to dot him, once warlock starts dotting the guy you just open on him, and tunnel the guy to death, dodging mage damage. And again sounds pretty easy, but a lot of things might happen so you are not completely countering them but you got the upper hand for sure.
Difficulty:
1/10
Goal:
Kill priest
Opener/Strategy:
These guys were born to suffer, there’s no way (unless some huge RNG or your own misplays happens) they should win a game against you.
All you want to do is Sap the enemy Warlock (Blind after) and go on the Priest. Yes, that’s all it takes for you to beat them.
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