Hey guys, Librarian Husky here. In today’s, we will be looking at how to play Rogue Mage double DPS 2v2 correctly. This guide covers its strengths and weaknesses and gives you a walkthrough of how top players make this unorthodox double DPS composition work out.
Strengths
First up, let’s take a look at the strengths with both Rogue and Mage bringing insane burst damage targets can often die a hundred to zero in stuns without controlling their character.
- This means if you don’t manage to punish the Rogue Mage or interrupt the chain, you’ll be stuck in a very long crowd control chain for a very long time.
- Next up are their defensive capabilities. Mages can slow you, kite you, root you, and make your life a misery trying to connect.
- And with Rogue, also having great defensive cooldowns from cloak and evasion as well as the abilities to escape with vanish makes them hard to focus down.
- Also, if you do finally connect to a Mage, they can block before they take damage.
Every single setup, so get caught once without a trinket, and it’s likely game over with Mage bringing Polymorph counterspell and Dragon’s Breath if they are fire on top of the stuns blind sap Shadowy Jewel, as well as smoke bomb sub-Rogue, provides.
Weaknesses
Now let’s take a look at the weaknesses:
- The most obvious one is that you don’t have a healer.
- This means reducing damage taken is vital, and you need to close out the game fast before you run out of defensive cooldowns.
This brings us to our second weakness.
- And that is that you are often on a timer with no way to reliably gain health back outside of dropping combat and eating Mage food.
- You can often find yourself only having a few setups to secure a kill before you lose.
- Rogue Mage also struggles against teams with an abundance of defensive cooldowns.
Say, for instance, you face a Holy Paladin. Not only do you have his trinket to deal with, but you also have his blessing of protection bubble and hand of sacrifice. Often not having enough time to rotate through them all before you die. Okay, now let’s get into some gameplay and cover what strategy you should be using in games.
Strategy
The baseline strategy you’ll use is crowd-controlling the healer while attempting to kill a DPS. First, let’s look at a perfect Rogue Mage game played by Naj and Zayn. So as I said, the main strat will be here to crowd control the healer, which in this case is a monk. While, in turn, trying to kill the DPS, which in this example is a warrior. Straight from the get-go, they open a kidney onto the monk while rooting the warrior. She followed up with a cheap shot. It is done so Zayu can secure the Polymorph.
Forces the trinket
This instantly forces the trinket out of the warrior and his rallying cry. After this, they don’t stop the damage because, as I’ve mentioned, we’re on a timer, so this opener will have to force a lot of cooldowns from the enemy. Due to Zayu getting off the greater pyro, the monk is also forced to trinket the Polymorph to save his warrior from what would surely be his death.
Naj instantly blinds the monk after his trinket and continues to keep the damage rolling. He uses his evasion also to reduce some of the incoming damage. While Zayn continues to kite. As I mentioned from the strengths and weaknesses, Rogue Mage has a stun blind Polymorph Shadowy Jewel and Smoke Bomb as their crowd controls with blind about to end here.
Naj
Naj does something brilliant. Just take a look at diminishing returns. You can see he would be able to stun him after the blind ends, but check Polymorph, DR; if he Kidney Shots the monk here, he will still be on diminishing returns for sap and Polymorph. They resulted in a desync of their Kidney Shot into a Polymorph crowd control chain. So what Naj does here instead is Shadowy Jewels, the monk. If you don’t know, this puts the monk in a 1v1 with the Rogue.
He cannot target his teammate and thus denies all heels for their duration. He then waits till it ends and uses Kidney Shot as Polymorph DR is about to drop. And then stuns the warrior, so Zayu has no chance of being interrupted on the Polymorph, resulting in the game being secured. Making correct use of your diminishing returns is vital to making this composition work; for instance, check out this game.
Druid DPS
They are up against a Druid here, which will start in stealth. So the standard Kidney healer cheap shot DPS and Polymorph healer opener are not viable here to adapt. They instead open with a Smoke Bomb onto the warlock, and what this does is guarantee them a strong opener.
Druid, the second stealth
They combine this with a blind onto the Druid the second he’s out of stealth. He is then forced to trinket this due to the raw burst that Rogue Mage does inside of the opener. Again bringing us back to one of our strengths, burst damage with the locks still being low, they can rotate through the rest of their diminishing returns to win the game. Do a Kidney Shot into Polymorph to finish off the lock.
What happens if you can’t kill in the opener?
Okay, but what happens if you can’t kill inside the opener and the team recovers? While Rogue Mage still has some decent amount of longevity thanks to their mobility and kiting skills, along with the potential to reset and eat Mage food. Let’s look now at a game from Ziqo’s point of view, where the opener doesn’t quite go in their favor. It’s a resto Druid team, so the plan is again to start with the Shaman with a blind onto the rest of Druid. However, Zico’s stray orb breaks the blind.
Opener
Next, they continue with the opener, trying to at least force a trinket out of the enemy team. They managed to do this with a Kidney Shot into the Ring. Again making sure to have the Rogue cover the Shaman so he cannot interrupt the cast with the opener being, let’s put it, less than optimal, forcing this drinker is still a win.
So after this, they do something that Rogue Mage can do very well, and that’s completely reset. As in the opener, the enemy team is in stuns and unable to deal damage after the stuns run out. You should retreat and aim to reset if you don’t think you can force more cooldowns. This does two things. Firstly it will help reduce the damage you take.
100 to zero target
You’re not just standing there and tanking the damage; you have more than enough damage to easily 100 to zero target if your setup is done correctly. The second thing resetting achieves is that it allows you to get your diminishing returns back. Meaning next time you go for a setup, you can again aim to do the standard Kidney Shot healer into Either Ring Polymorph or sap combined with the cover in the form of a cheap shot onto the DPS.
They managed to force out trinket shear from the Shaman. Acro quickly adapts and instead snaps the Druid three times while they continue to deal damage. Recognizing they won’t kill her, Zico retreats behind the pillar, avoiding damage and waiting for his diminishing returns to return. With no trinkets left, the following setup will certainly be a win. So let’s see how they play this with no triggers on the enemy team. They land the Kidney Polymorph while cheap shot in the Shaman and make quick work of him with a Smoke Bomb.
Summary
Okay, to sum this walkthrough up, let’s take the key points you should be looking to execute if you want to pick up this unique double DPS 2v2 composition. Number one, make your setups count. As mentioned, we’ve been on a timer, and you need to win in the shortest time possible as most of the time, you won’t be able to get away and eat your Mage food to recover reliably. Failing a setup can easily set you behind. Number two, avoid damage, as you have no healer.
All damage you take is going to be impact damage. Reducing it and using defensives early before taking the damage can keep you alive long enough to secure your following setup. If you can’t kill, number three reset most of the time.
DPS through hills
You can’t DPS through hills, so try to reset and prepare for your following setup if you can’t kill. And lastly, number four, the opener, is critical. The opener needs to be strong; a good one can set you up for the rest of the game. Alright, guys, that just about wraps up this 2v2 Rogue Mage walkthrough. Thank you for checking my short but informative guide. Please don’t hesitate to visit our WoW Retail Guides page. My name is Librarian Husky. Cya on the next page.