Rogue / Mage / Priest 3v3 Arena Strategy

The rogue / mage / priest combo has been around since the beginnings of arena. It was always a strong combo, but no one could have anticipated just how amazing it was about to become. Prior to season 3 a series patches added sizable buffs to subtly rouges, discipline priests, and frost mages.

All of these changes combined to quickly catapult RMP to the preferred combo of season 3, even today nearly 19% of high ranked teams (2200+ rating) play with a rogue / mage / priest matrix.

Rogue Arena Strategy
The rogue’s role here is going to be fairly simple. Your job is to basically keep your target (likely your team’s primary target) under control. Prevent any casts and make certain you manage your cooldowns properly in order to stick with the target in the event they attempt to kite you.

While RMP has great burst damage it’s also heavily crowd control based. You and your teammates must be in constant communication and let each other know timers and diminishing returns on fear, polymorph, and blind. Effectively linking these together on a healer will be important if you want to succeed.

Mage Arena Strategy
Personally, I think mage has the most difficult job in this setup. It’s a constant struggle between dealing damage and crowd controlling. Unfortunately I don’t really think there is ever an all inclusive answer as to when to go on the defense and when to blast offensive. This skill will be attained through practice and experience.

Generally speaking, throw your big damage earlier. This really is where RMP shines, you can go out, drop a 6k shatter combo on the primary target while the rogue locks him down. This type of very aggressive play is the bread and butter of the matrix and will immediately put the opposition on the defensive. This scenario allows you to then gain further control via calculated sheeps, blind, and fear…toss a clutch CS on a heal and you can be sure to get the kill.

More Mage arena tips!

Priest Arena Strategy
Let’s face it, disc priests are not really meant to last in arena. However, what they lack in raw healing and mana longevity they more than make up for in overall utility, especially in RMP.

Your primary focus is always going to be keeping your teammates healed up. That said, never allow yourself to slip into a passive role. Link your fear into your teammate’s crowd controls and mana burn when necessary.

Also, remember timing on our power infusion is key. Typically you’ll want to have your mage call out when he’s ready for it, just make certain you are in position to cast it.

Arena Talent Specs
Rogue - For most players I’d suggest just going a standard 20/0/41 shadow step build. It’s got enough cool downs to allow you to stick with even the most difficult classes that can kite you. Some players may prefer going with a mutilate spec, this is fine if you are comfortable playing it. The major downside with mutilate is simply the lack of as many cc breaks on command, but it can be effective due to the incredibly burst damage.
Shadowstep rogue talent specs

Mage - One word, frost. 17/0/44 or 0/5/56 are both ideal talent specs for the matrix. Quite often the mage will be targeted by the opposing team so it’s important you have maximum kite-ability.
Frost mage talent specs

Priest - Pretty self explanatory, 41/20/0 discipline. There’s some room for variation in a few a talent specs to give you a bit more of an offensive, defensive, or well rounded approach, but many of these talents are more of a personal preference.
Discipline priest talent specs

Rogue / Mage / Priest Arena Matchups:
(coming soon!)

Druid / Warrior / Rogue 3v3 Arena Strategy

If there was a team that could sum up the season 3 3v3 bracket it’d be druid / warrior / rogue matrix. Not to say that this is the most popular combo, but it’s a team which really started the ball rolling to break up the endless amount of rogue / mage / priest teams.

Early in S3 RMP was insanely popular (even more than it is now if you can believe it!), and this is one of the combos that led the forefront for other similar double melee gib teams attempting to gain a leg up on RMP teams.

So let’s get down the basics of the strategy. In essence, it’s a gib team. The basics of every game revolve around a few central spheres. First, the druid’s crowd control. Cyclone, cyclone, cyclone, feral charge, bash, root, root, root, rinse repeat. Shutting down the crowd control on your rogue and warrior is of absolute importance.

Typically you shouldn’t have to shut it down for long, because a free rogue and warrior will tear into a target quick. Speaking of which, the rogue and warrior have a fairly easy job. Drop the bombs.

Make sure you choose a target that 1) isn’t going to get away from you, and 2) is squishy (preferably, sometimes “squishy” is relevant, many games we just bomb warriors, IE, mirror matches). You go in, drop the big bombs early and get a quick kill. It keeps the pressure up and forces the other team to play very defensively.

Druid / Warrior / Rogue Arena Strategy:
The druid is going to be a fairly stand restoration build. 8/11/42 is a fine spec or any similar variation will work fine. Check out my arena druid talent specs guide if you need further advice on the approriate spec.

The rogue has a few options. Now, I’ve played the matrix as all 3 talent specs, and I’ve got to say shadowstep just offers the best overall advantage. Since fights don’t last long you can blow cool downs early to avoid being crowd control and maintain constant control and pressure. I’d recommend a 20/0/41 (once again check out my rogue arena talent specs guide for further talent spec break down).

If you are really comfortable with mutilate you could also try that, though you open yourself up to being crowd controlled unnecessarily, which can simply destroy all your chances of winning.

And finally the warrior, MS? haha, but really any variation on 35/23/3 or 33/28/0 will work well for this setup. Hit up my post on warrior arena talent specs guide if you need additional help.

Druid / Warrior / Rogue Arena Matchups:
Rogue / Mage / Priest

Rogue / Prest 2v2 Arena Strategy

The rogue / priest (healer) combo is one of the most dominant setups in 2v2 currently. The combo dominants because of it’s ability to play both incredibly offensively and also turtle down and spam drink for long games. This type of flexibility makes the team a threat vs. all combos.

Let’s start with the basics, the talent specs. We’ll begin with the rogue.
Rogue’s Arena Talent Spec
The big thing on the rogue’s talent spec is having a build which can maintain long duration and high sustainable damage. Fortunately there are a couple of specs which fit this criteria. Basically, you’ve got deep combat (20/41/0) or mutilate (41/20/0). Now there are several variations of each spec, I prefer the 16/45/0, but there are an endless number of possible specs.

Some will try to argue shadowstep for this team setup, but in my experience you just don’t have enough damage to be a big enough threat in longer battles. If you need further advice on specs checkout this page, rogue arena talent specs.

Priest’s Talent Spec
The big thing about the priest’s talent spec is maximizing your offensive capabilities. Even though you are the healer it’s important that you can toss out strong damage against particular combos.

I strongly suggest going with this spec, discipline priest spec. This is the talent spec that my priest uses for 2v2 and it allows him to drop some serious damage burst. As with any talent spec you’ve got some options, but the number one thing to remember is you absolutely must maximize your offensive capabilities with the talent spec.

That’s enough about talent spec, let’s get right into the team vs. team strategies.

Rogue / Priest 2v2 Matchups:

Druid / Hunter
Druid / Warlock
Druid / Warrior
Druid / Rogue
Mage / Rogue
Mage / Warlock
Paladin / Warlock
Paladin / Warrior
Priest / Rogue
Priest / Warlock
Shadow Priest / Rogue
Shadow Priest / Warlock
Shaman / Warrior
Warlock / Rogue

Can’t get enough strategy? Check out the complete rogue / priest 2v2 arena guide.