Rogue vs Druid

Difficulty: Easy to Moderate
Poison Choice: Instant + Cripple or Dual Instant
Spec Favored: Combat or CB/Prep/Hemo

One of the more interesting fights. Like Paladin and to a lesser extent shamans, a druid can play different styles as a hybrid class. Generally speaking, a druid will either try to tank you in bear form, or kite you with roots and dots, the good ones will do a mixture of both.

The opener:

The common style of druids is go into bear form, do a demoralizing shout at start, try to avoid if you can and open with CS. Try to always open with CS SS Gouge if at all possible, the reason is many PVP druids have the nature’s grasp talent, which roots you for a brief time. CS SS Gouge followed by KS usually outlast those roots, however in rare occassions it won’t, the druid may get fancy and go into human form to cast entangled root, blind immediately and it is usually GG. Either way, always assume your opponent has nature’s grasp and use a long, extended stunlock to outlast it. You do not want to blow a vanish on nature’s grasp.

Against Bearform:

Expose armor doesn’t really do much against someone with a lot of armor items. A druid can go over 10K armor easily, lowering him to 7500 doesn’t accomplish all that much. This is one of the few matchups I actually use slice and dice. Coupled with instant poison (especially if you have talents for it), lifesteal, and maelstrom, it can be a lot of unmitigated damage. Having said that, expose armor does work wonders against druids that love to shift to human form (catching them in human form with a blind is win), and I only need a 1-2 point slice and dice to keep it going anyway. If there is no nature’s grasp, I generally save the kidney shot for later use and expose armor instead.

With expose armor, slice and dice (blade flurry if you are combat), you will be doing very good damage against the bearform, especially with instant poison. Here is where it gets complex, you want to have at least 40 energy in your bar at all times. Never allow your energy to deplete completely, unable to punish a shape change. You also want 2-3 combo points on him at all times. If a druid has the talent that allows him to cast faire fire in bearform, you simply must save some points for a kidney shot to do any real damage, vanish CS is not an option.

His health is going down, you are taking some damage. There are many things you can do to improve your success against bear form. If he is crippled by offhand poison, step back, let your energy recharge, but keep yourself in blind range, he will feral charge if he has it, be ready to gouge the feral charge, it roots you but doesn’t stun you. Bandage! Gouge->Bandage very early, as soon as you lose 1250 health, gouge, jump away, bandage. Many druids have this tendency to go human form as soon as you are out of melee range, blind and GG. Bait them, if he just hit your bandage while still in bear form, no problem, you got some health back, fight on. Remember to never be more than one tick away from blind / kidney shot, always leave some energy and some combo points if possible.

His health will go down at a faster rate than yours (equal gear of course). And the druid will:

Bash -> Human Form

The most common technique. Now as a rogue you have at least 30% chance to dodge, parry, or he simply miss the bash. This ability is on a 1 minute cooldown. If you dodge/parry it, you are at a huge advantage. Just tank him until he gets low when he has to get to human form without stunning you first, stunlock and it is over.

If you are playing a cb/prep/hemo build, and have points invested into instant poison or expose armor, and your opponent is not wearing specialized feral armor (you can tell by the amount of damage he takes off the opening stunlock) that gives him something like 12K armor, consider double evasion and rush him down. Evasion, hemo for CB evis, prep, evasion again, force him to go into human form without bashing you, blind and it is usually GG. You have to be fast and blind as soon as you see him going human form. Works extremely well if you have the class trinket from BWL and talents in instant poison.

However, with high end gear and frenzied regeneration, it is not always possible to kill a bear druid in 30 seconds worth of evasion. What to do? If the druid you are fighting is trying to play the outlast game, he will wait until his health is at around 50% before bashing and going into human form for a heal. At 50%, turn on evasion, tank him out, right before evasion ends, blind restealth or KS AR, a big combo usually wins it. This is a very common method to fight druids for combat rogues, actually killing the druid in bear form, never allowing him to go caster form.

A Druid in Human Form While You Are Not Stunned

Be quick on a kidney shot if possible and force him to trinket, hopefully before he casts abolish poison. If he is out of 5 yard try a blind. It is completely possible to catch a druid human form -> NS and blind him right before the heal comes out. If he still has expose armor debuff on him it is GG.

A Druid in Human Form While You Are Stunned

This will happen all the times against top players. He bashed you before/after you evasion. If he roots, sprint first, the vanish to break initial root, go for a KS or Blind, if he didn’t fairy fire you, a CS on caster form usually wins it. Always go for a blind, gouge or kidney shot, properly linked you can do a ton of damage to a druid in caster form.

The Druid Survived Your Blind/KS

There are many ways a druid can survive your blind/KS. He abolish poison before you blinded. He trinketed your kidney shot and CS is not an option because you are faire fired. He got off an NS heal with 5% health left from your stunlock. Either way, he is healed and pops back in bear form.

What to do? Play the outlast game. Gouge bandage if you haven’t done so, whenever you are not dotted. Work him down. Save energy and combo points. Things like dual lifesteal and heroism, bloodfang 8 piece, they are fantastic in this fight. He will have to eventually bash again and again, with a high chance to dodge / parry, it is GG if it misses.

If a druid stuns you, roots you and run away, shoot him with your bow. Every bit of damage adds up. Remember 400 damage you dealt to caster form takes 800 damage to do to the same to bearform

Racials:

Taurens are extremely good at surviving your blind stunlock. Trinket, warstomp, guaranteed heal. You have to consider outlasting them. Gnome rogues have escape artist which is very useful in this fight.

Tips:

1) Once again, never completely use up your energy. A good druid can pop out to human form as soon as he sees your energy hits zero, remember shape transformation removes all snares, he can be out of melee range, DOT, and change back to bear form. Be ready to sprint and blind if it happens.

2) Gouge bandage is extremely useful. Do what I call a fade away gouge. Jump backward while you gouge, bandage when you are just right outside of his melee range. He has to walk forward to hit you which usually gives you another tick for 250 health, or he can be baited into human form and allow you to unload.

3) Maximize your damage for human form. Save your cooldowns, CB, AR etc for this form unless he is low on health and you want to do a evasion into stunlock thing.

Cat Druids:

A night elf druid with MOD 5 (don’t laugh, it is their equivalent) and the talent to cast faire fire in cat form, it is almost like looking for another rogue, you search for each other in the dark. Faire fire definitely has advantage here over CS being a ranged special. Don’t waste your blind, you have no combo point, you can not restealth or vanish CS, you won’t be able to do any real damage.

A cat druid plays like a rogue and they have their own form of rupture kiting. Root, DOT, nuke run away. You need high stamina to outlast them, bow them whenever they root you if possible go for a blind bandage stunlock when DOT wears off, chase them down with sprint at right times. Remember it is very difficult for a druid to kill you with spells and keep himself alive with a single bar of mana. A blind and bandage at right time usually wins it.

Their margin of error is very slim with cat form. Be patient, use your KS and Blind properly and you will win, be aware of the time left on faire fire and moon fire at all times.

Conclusion:

Proper cooldown management is the key of winning this fight. Combat rogues can choose to overpower the druid and kill it in bear form. Seal fate dagger rogue can often deliver the burst damage neccessary off a blind or kidney shot in human form. Prep rogues have enough cooldowns to play the outlast game or even double evasion, cooldown spam to rush it down.

Rogue vs Warlock

Difficulty: Easy
Poison Choice: Dual Cripple or Cripple + Mind Numbing
Spec favored: Seal Fate Dagger vs Succubus, Combat vs Everyone Else

Death coil now makes warlocks a very difficult opponent . . . if you don’t use PVP trinket. Instead of toying with them like you used to, you actually have to blow your PVP trinket.

Against Imp, Void Walker, & Felhunter Warlocks:

Stunlock. Refer to the combos in rogue vs rogue. This is the only other matchup where stunlock is dominant. Because you have a pet hitting you, you have to blow a vanish->CS instead of restealth, but the actual sequence is the same.

A warlock with felhunter, refer to world of roguecraft 2, stay away, sprint in for your opener. He has very little time to stop your opener, you should still land it especially if you distract him a bit and go from behind.

A full stunlock with blind will kill all but the heaviest staminaed warlocks (remember a Dalrend rogue can do 5000 damage to me with hemo in a single combo, with better gear it really isn’t hard to do it on cloth even if the warlock has 6000 health self buffed).

There is always a chance for him to coil you with 10-20% health left. Just sprint back to him for the kill, trinket if he fears. Without the PVP trinket a fear into DOT is devastating, a warlock’s DPS is extremely high since they shortened the duration but increased the damage per tick of their DOTs.

Against Soul Link warlocks with void walker:

The new soul link is only 30% reduction, and a warlock that deep in demonology lacks damage compared to their counterparts. I prefer to expose armor on those warlocks before applying the full stunlock. This is a DPS fight, AR and Seal Fate Dagger are usually much better choices than subtlety.

Against Succubus warlock:

A classic matchup ruined with PVP trinket and repeated nerf on fear/seduce. Ambush -> Backstab is clearly the opener of choice here, if you don’t have 120 energy ambush->rupture->SS. For a combat spec open with garrote -> SS. You will get seduced , a DOT on him will prevent bandaging. Do not use your trinket on the initial seduce.

He will curse you and soul fire or shadow bolt. Depend on positioning you have many choices.

1) If he is amatuer and doesn’t reinvis his succubus. You can blind warlock, kill succubus, or blind succubus, kill warlock.

2) If he is pro and reinvised his succubus, and he stands very far away from the succubus. Vanish and go for a second opener. A seduce lock won’t DOT you until the end so you can get a second opener safely. Trinket the second seduce and it is GG.

3) His third seduce or coil->fear is heavily diminished. You can blind or gouge him if you anticipate the third seduce. Either way it shouldn’t be a real threat.

Against Major Health Stone:

Depend on your damage output, you may need to thistle tea to counter this. A rogue can do far more damage with a tea than a warlock can heal with health stone.