Locks fearing lowbies into mobs?  Getting them down to 10% then letting mobs finish them off so they get a repair bill to boot? 

Oh, the joys of having a rogue.  You get to gank people when they are low on health, already engaged in combat with another, or simply low levels you can one-shot.  SCRATCHHHH, the record stops, woah, wait a minute, that is just plain boring.  I would have no shame admitting to such chicanery, and whimpiness, but I generally do not do that.  All of my 70’s play on a pvp server, so it is always a distinct possibility.  When I grind lowbie instances, I generally will gank those at the meeting stone, etc.  I guess I am a bastard.  So, I decided to get creative in my ganking.  What did I do?  Well here is a little story of how I did it last night.

I went to STV, yeah, that evil place where low levels get ganked left and right.  I never go there to gank, no really, I don’t.  But I was feeling particularly hornery after a long day at work.  I saw a group of 30 somethings, and decided to help them out.  I Shadowstepped, HEMO and that little level 34 gorilla went down in one hit. 

Surprised, they thought they were next.  I /wave ‘d, and /bow’d and continued to help them for about five or ten minutes.  They were getting really comfortable with a scary, bony undead presence with huge glowing maces. 

So I killed a lot of gorillas for them, then without a word, and without further ado, I turned on the Nelf hunter, HEMO, he is down, the Nelf priest is next, the Gnome warlock goes down next, then a gouge, and a gank on the Nelf druid and then the lowly Human rogue finally realizes I am going to kill them all, albeit a bit too late, and tries to vanish and run…poor guys.  Then to rub salt in the wounds, I cannibalized the Nelf hunter, spit on the gnome lock, and went on my way.

I had a good chuckle after that.  That is pure rogue there, get their trust, deceive them, and then gank them.  Fun times!

Do you have any creative ways to gank lowbies?  I know you have all done it if you play on a pvp server. 

So, I just wanted to write up a quicky here before I head on home to light up some allies in Arathi.  I came across this website which has soundbytes from a plethora of movies, and some are just awesome.  You can even download them free as cell phone ringer tones, and they come in WAV and MP3 format.  Definitely a good way to blow a couple of hours of time!  They have all the classics, like “Badges?!  we don’t need no stinking badges!”, or “So lonnng, losers!” pretty much everything you could possibly want from all the popular films. 

MovieWavs

 I am a bit concerned about the direction in which Blizzard, and namely the lead developer Kalgan are taking this game right now. 

To start off, I believe Arena was the worst thing to happen to WoW.  I know the majority of people probably disagree with me, but here is why I think it has ruined the game.

1. Blizzard is balancing the whole game around 5v5 PvP Arenas and that is really just a very small aspect of this PVE designed game.
2. The balancing done to Arenas affects PvE with seemingly no forethought as to the consequences for the large number of PVE clients who don’t give a hoot about pvp.  Case in point, the Life Tap nerf to warlocks.
3. 2v2 and 3v3 are continuously ignored and are the most imbalanced in the game, almost unplayable for certain classes.
4. Balancing is done for 5v5 and yet they have a $25,000.- tournament for 3v3.  Do they have one for 5v5?
5. There are too many cheaters, team sellers, and 150-0 teams who only play their alt teams between 2 AM and 5 AM, who ironically are 0-150.  Blizz continually ignores these problems and thus they continue to get worse and worse.
6. The rating system is totally broken, and at 1400 you can meet full S3 geared players, and you often do.  See point 5.

Battlegrounds have been ignored since the beginninig of Arenas.  We PvP’ers have been begging for new BG’s for ages now and we don’t mean some lumped-up bastard of a BG like EoTS.  We want new content, new mounts, new honor for EoTS, new maps, new epics. 

We have been begging for World PvP for ages.  WE and YOU Blizz, should know by now that since both Silithus Sands and EPL towers failed miserably what it is world pvp’ers want.  We don’t want some stupid territory buff, we want epics.  We want honor, we want reputation, we want to be able to get something besides blue level 66 crap items.

World PvP does NOT MEAN KILLING NPC’s.  Let me just wait until that sinks in Blizzard.  NPC means NON PLAYER Character, yes, NON player.  So, thus PvP and NPC do not belong in the same equation.    

It just seems that Blizzard doesn’t listen in the least bit to their customers and that is usually the last mistake of many a great company.  Shape up Blizz, and fast, WAR is coming, and so is AoC and you can bet that they are stepping in to fill in the niches that you so blatantly ignore.  They won’t kill WoW, that is not their goal, but they will easily step up where Blizz has stepped down, or ignored.

/end rant

 I swore a long time ago I would never set foot in this BG again.  Though the upcoming changes may indeed make it OK to play, namely, the reduced time that the flag carrier is invisible on the map, and the damage buff after five minutes/ ten minutes.  But that still does not justify going and doing a BG for one hour and getting no honor if you lose and about 400 if you win.  In these days of honor farming, WSG has just become a relic of the past. 

I fear that with the advent of instant honor and no reduction for killing the same perp more than once, WSG will just be even MORE of a grudgefest in the middle with no one even bothering to get the flag.  Where is the incentive to get the flag, and or win?  At least in AV you get something for joining, all I get with WSG is headaches and a mad desire to smash my keyboard.

In AV the Horde on my server have pretty much just given up trying to win in AV because why should we defend and turn a game into 45 minutes for the same amount of honor (or much less if some nap taps SH) when we can just gank a few allies, cap a couple towers and get the same amount of honor in ten minutes.  Badges?  We don’t need no stinking badges!  I got over 100 of each BG and absolutely NONE of WSG.  Why?  Because the BG just sucks, and Blizz has ignored it for too long.  The only way to win is with a good premade.

Frankly, I would rather spend the time farming gold than farming that honor.  I work fifty hours a week and can only play a couple hours a day, and so WSG is just not honor per hour friendly enough for me.  Have fun without me in WSG!

The many uses of Shadowstep:

For all you shadowstep rogues out there, which I sometimes spec for ships & googles, here are a few nifty uses for it besides the obvious ones:

1.     Shadowstep behind the bankers in IF(if Horde) and kill them.  Only other ShS rogues can get you back there.

2.     Shadowstep up to the guards in AV bunkers, and if you are Alliance, you can apparently ShS across to the other bunker in the Horde base.

3.     Drop off a bunker wall in AV when being chased, just before your chaser jumps down ShS up to him and if timed right you will land on top and he falls down, you tap the flag.

4.     If a mage is blasting you from the little half tower at the end of the bridge going to Ally base in AV, you can shadowstep up to that bastid and gank him.

5.     Use it as an escape mechanism too, not just for offense.  When you get jumped and are totally outnumbered, ShS to a rat, or a guard or anything far away and bolt. (I never run, but apparently it works )

6.     Do it on a warrior’s intercept, with timing you will really surprise him.

I will add to this as I come across more, but I just wanted to throw that out there and get my daily dose of blog in.

I need only the number 7 then I will at last have my Madness Deck.  Having collected it meself I only spent 400G up to now, I reckon the seven will cost me about 100G on my server.  A nifty card for 500G indeed!

Take a look at these patch notes on the PTR.  Improved Backstab will now give mutilate a 5%/10%/15% crit chance!  That is a very nice buff indeed.  Let the mage tears begin!  This is going to be fun if it goes live.

Part 1

So, here it is, I decided to write up some tips for those who are new to playing rogue and would like a head-start on the learning curve for pvp.  Let me start off by saying that all my experience comes from BG’s and my knowledge of play from other classes comes from all three of my level 70 characters.  I will also say, that I am by no means an expert, but enjoy pvp tremendously.  You will notice my arena ratings pretty much suck, because since S1 I haven’t done it at all.  I am always open for feedback, improvements, corrections, and general comments, etc…  I will start with what I feel are the easiest classes as a rogue to defeat and work down to the downright annoying.  This guide is not necessarily based on my current spec (16/0/45- ShS Ambush Rogue) but should be useful to all rogues who are starting out.   

Warlocks- I have a warlock too, and I rolled a rogue because I just hated fighting rogues with my warlock.  There is, in my opinion, only one warlock build which will give you any kind of problems as a rogue and that is a lock with Felguard and Shadowburn (8/42/11- or any variation thereof).  If played properly, this lock build can take you down, and with impunity.  The good news is, nearly every lock is SL/SL specced for Arenas, and well played locks are almost as rare as well played rogues, so you shouldn’t meet too many of these. 

If you open: 

Open with Cheap Shot, Shiv him with crippling and spam Hemo or SS until you have five combo points, then hit Kidney Shot.  He will, if he is good, trinket out of your KS.  If he sucks, he will trinket your CS, then you just stun him to death, it is that easy.  The shiv is important here because when he trinkets out of your KS he will most likely DeathCoil you and try to run to range.  Save your WoTF or trinket for the fear that follows.  Trinket (WotF) the fear and then sprint/ShS to the lock and kick his next fear and then just hammer him down.  This is such an easy fight 90% of the time, you do not need to really even try. 

If he opens: 

A good lock will DoT you as soon as he sees you.  Walk to him if possible (or sprint/ShS if you really must) and gouge him to prevent a fear or more dots.  At this point a lot of rogues will CloS/vanish and get the upper hand with an opener as in above.  If that works for you go ahead and do it.  I prefer to just go toe to toe with the lock and shiv him out of gouge, and kick any fears, and get five CP’s up and KS him.  He is as good as dead.  If he opens with Deathcoil, laugh at him and kill him easily.  If he opens with fear you should trinket, CloS, and quickly get a shiv on him and keep him from running away.  Get him stunned as quickly as possible or he will dot you up/fear you again.  

Things to watch out for: 

Felguard—right back at ya with a stun in your face.  Always check where the FG is.  If he is parked about 8M+ away and on passive, the lock is good, and will stun you when you open up on him.  Besides that, the FG does heavy damage and CloS is useless against him.  Basically the only pet you have to fear(no pun intended hehe) from the locks.  Don’t bother killing it though, just nuke the lock down before he nukes you down. 

Drain Life—I gouge it every time. 

DoTs—Duh, CloS.  The damage over time can be surprisingly high.     

Fake Fears—A good lock will fake cast a fear to make you waste your kick.  Not gamebreaking against undeads like me, but as Alliance it could be a big factor.  Make sure it is a real fear before you kick it.  Black glowing hands = fear incoming.  

Death Coil—You run for three seconds, it heals him a bit.  A great defense for locks but is absorbed by CloS. 

Shadowburn—Instant spell, costs a shard, does 800-2500 damage, 15 second CD.  Don’t let him do it twice.

Melee Shamans- As a rogue, you should never really have a problem with these guys.  You can stunlock the majority of them to death if you open up on them. 

If you open: 

Cheap shot, shiv, spam hemo, or SS until you get five CP’s and then KS.  Most won’t live through the Kidney Shot, and if they do, you should be able to burst them down before they can burst you down.  You should need no CD’s to beat the average melee Shaman. 

If he opens: 

He will most likely open with a frost shock to slow you down and then drop his totems.  You need to get to him ASAP and shiv him with crippling so he can’t kite you with his totems.  If he is, take out his totems as you walk by them if he is out of range.  Once you get on him, you have him.  If he can kite you, it COULD be complicated, but probably not. 

Elemental Shamans-   

If you open: 

See above, they should give you no problems if you get the opener. 

If he opens: 

These guys in good gear do huge damage.  If he gets the opener on you and if you don’t get to him quick, he will take you out very quickly.  Basically, just get on him, shiv him, kick him and stun him.  Should be pretty simple once you get to him.  The key here is to get on him ASAP and not let him cast.  If he can’t cast, he is dead. 

Things to watch out for:

Totems-if he is camping in a field of totems, you are better off looking for the mage who is drinking and ambush her.  Take them out if you can with white damage. 

Frost shock- It hurts, and it slows.  Make sure you get your shiv on him first before he can slow you. 

Flame shock-  A good shaman will probably put this on you so you can’t stealth.   

Part 2

MM/Surv Hunter-  You will know pretty much right away if he is BM or MM/Surv.  You will either get a scatter shot, or a big red kitty in your face.   

If you open: 

Cheap Shot, Shiv crippling, spam Hemo or SS until you get five CP’s.  I like to wait here and continue to spam hemo/SS until I know what kind of hunter he is.  If you get a scatter shot, he is MM/Surv and in my opinion, an easy kill if you have a shiv and some CP’s on him.  He will drop a snake trap and wingclip you (if you don’t dodge it) but he will not get far with crippling on him during his scatter shot.  Get on him, and KS him with your saved-up 5 CP’s.  From here, he is pretty much dead.  At this point it is a race of the turtles.  Pop sprint if you need, or if you are ShS just shadowstep and kill him.  If it becomes longer for some reason, make sure you are always in melee range.  Believe me, the S3 axe hurts, but not nearly as much as ranged attacks.  Even though the deadzone was shrunk to 1M from 3M you still have to just get in and stay in his mug.  You could pop evasion here, but honestly, I rarely need it against these hunters if I get the opener. If he opens: This becomes fun.  If he is smart, he will open with a serpent sting and a hunter’s mark.  If he sucks and opens with any other shot, vanish and follow the above steps.  If you have a stinger and a mark on you, this becomes a very difficult fight, and half the battle(surprise) is lost.  Now, I can NEVER condone pussing out and running away, I always fight to the death.  A good MM/Surv hunter should take you out most of the time if he gets the jump.  However, you have options.  Hit evasion immediately, and you will probably have to blind him at this point, sprint and then get in and shiv him.  Once you are inside, and he is shivved, he is an easy kill.  Get a 5CP KS on him and he is toast.  Pretty much a case of who gets the opener here. 

BM Hunter-   

If you open: 

The same as with MM/Surv hunters.  Only difference is, he will hit TBW as soon as you open in most cases.  That is why I hold off on the  KS.  Once he goes big red kitty, vanish, wait until he is normal again and then open up on him.  Do not underestimate a BM hunter with his CD blown though, they can still kite, and intimidate, and do heavy damage.  If you can’t vanish, because he was smart enough to put a mark on you and a stinger, you have to hit evasion ASAP to dodge the wingclip and keep on him, keep him in melee range, and just burst him down with eviscerates and hemo/SS.  This can be a very hard fight, but not as hard as most people make it out to be.  If you are ShS this is much easier to win.  If he intimidates you, and he will, you may want to trinket out of it, so he doesn’t get away from you.  You are a melee class, he is a ranged class, stay in melee range and guess who wins?  Expect a noticeable dent in your health though.  

Things to watch out for: 

Feign Death-  Don’t fall for it, and make sure you can retarget him asap.  If he does this in the middle of snakes, this becomes more difficult to target him of course. 

Flares-  Pretty much the bain of rogues’ existence. 

Snake Trap-  A good hunter will always use snake traps against a rogue.  If he uses freezing trap (the iceblock one), he is a noob and you will take him out easily because he doesn’t know how to play.  The AOE trap is also difficult for rogues, so try not to step through it if at all possible (usually not). 

Wing Clip- This is the same as your crippling poison, only crippling slows him more. 

Scatter Shot-  A great MM talent, and one that gives him the opportunity to get to range and shoot.  This is why Shiv as an opener is so important. 

Intimidation- A stun in the BM hunter tree (big red kitty) that allows him to get to range.  Usually good idea to trinket it.      

Mages-  These come in pretty much only one flavor-Frost.  You do meet the cheap fire mage in BG’s sometimes who CBA to respec for honor weekends or what not but you will 90% of the time come across Frosties.  We were free kills for them for a long time, but thanks to our version of blink, they can be beaten with not too much hassle. 

If you open: 

Here, you always want to open with Garrotte.  Never, ever, ever open with CS on a mage.  Why?  Blink.  Garrotte has a few second silence attached to it which gives you some time to get your CP’s up on him as fast as possible.  I always shiv mages, because let’s face it, they are slippery enough as it is, might as well guarantee they can’t run away from you.  Now, as soon as Garrotte’s silence wears off, one of two things will happen: 

1. They will frost nova AND Blink.  This is the kind of mage we likes, hrhrhr.  They just blew both their defensive CD’s and you haven’t even used any of yours yet.  If they do this, just ShS (imp. Sprint?) to him, CloS, kick his next cast, shiv, then Expose Armor or stunlock him, you should have enough CP’s up to get a stun-lock off.  He is pretty much dead.  For those rogues who don’t have ShS this is still a very hard fight.  Deadly throw is very handy here if you have the Gladiator gloves. 

2. They will Frost nova and Walk.  This is a mage who knows what to do.  At this point, you need to get on him fast.  I usually trinket out of the nova and sprint to him (if you shivved him, this should be ok).  If the shiv was resisted, get him with deadly throw.  Do not, by any means use ShS at this time.  If you do, he will blink and you have no ShS left.  The idea is to get him to waste his blink before you waste your ShS.  When he has about 1-5% life left, he iceblocks, he will have his pet out, kill the pet while he is blocked.  Bandage if you have to, and burst him down when he comes out of his block.  He will usually blink, but if you hit him with a multi-CP eviscerate right when he gets out of the block, he should die.  With lag sometimes you will get a dead-man’s blink and he will land dead.   

UPDATE—Another way to open on a mage which is quite effective if you are a ShS rogue is to use concentrate, and open with cheap shot, and hemo.  This gives you five combo points, and then he blinks, you ShS and Kidney Shot him, he has no more blink and you can just wail on him.  If timed right, he has no chance to escape your pummeling.     

If he opens: 

Pretty much only two things to do, vanish if you can, and open on him.  If not, Blind, Sprint, and shiv him.  Gouge him to interrupt a cast and hope he trinkets it.  If he does, build CP’s until you can get off a KS.  Pretty much as above.  It not so much a case of who opens here as with Hunters.    

Things to watch out for: 

Water Elemental-  This guy hurts, take him out when the mage ice blocks.   

Frost Nova-  Whatever you do, do not stay stuck in one of these, get out before he can cast at you.   

Blink-  Use your CD’s wisely.   

Burst damage-  mages do insane damage these days and it is rarely a long fight.  Either you die fast, or he does.  You have to play your cards right against them or you will pay. 

Bombing- This arcane explosion does decent damage. 

Fire mages-  Do even more insane damage.  Try to time your CloS with his PoM Pyro and just imagine the tears he is crying when you resist his two only real damage dealers. 

Part 3

Warriors-  Again, only one flavor. 

If you open-

you have a huge upper hand.  First of all, always open with garrotte-Shiv-Hemo(SS) on a warrior.  Once you get five CP’s up, Rupture, and with your wounding poison he is bleeding badly at this point.  Now, you can pop evasion here to pretty much ensure a victory, and kite him and stay between melee and intercept range and just go in and hemo (SS) him when you have energy.  Once you get another 5 CP’s up, Expose Armor and he will go down in most cases.  It is usually a bad idea to try to KS a warrior, more often than not it just gets resisted.  If you are losing badly, and against some you will, vanish (watch out for shout) and open with a CS hemo hemo rupture again.  Use your battlemaster trinket to stay out of the execute health range (35% I think?).  Pretty much bleed and kite. 

If he opens- 

You have problems.  I recommend a blind, vanish (if you are not bleeding) and open on him with Garrotte and then follow above advice.  Watch out if he trinkets the blind and shouts, it will pull you out of stealth.  Best to get some range in vanish, then wait a few seconds to see if he trinkets the blind.  Evasion is a must if you can’t vanish.  Then just bleed and kite.  It is a pretty even match up nowadays.  Before we were easy kills for Warriors. 

Things to watch out for- 

Intercept-  avoid being 8+ yards away from any warrior, and don’t let him get to intercept distance during the fight. 

Execute-  When you are low on health, be careful, this is dirty deeds, done dirt cheap. 

Fear- As undead this is moot for me, but the danger is you get feared to intercept range.  Be careful. 

Rogues-  Somehow I missed these guys in the first write up so here is the update with tips vs other rogues. 

The key to fighting other rogues is to get the opener on him.  If he gets the opener on you you are at a serious disadvantage.  That is why subtelty rogues have a huge advantage vs all other rogues because they have better stealth and stealth detection. 

If you open- If you detect him, then use sap to pull him out of stealth right away.  If you suspect a rogue is near you spam the TAB button while tapping your sap hotkey.  Keep in mind that even deep subtelty rogues cannot detect another rogue if he is behind him.  i.e. stealth detection is useless when the other one is behind you, so don’t stand still, spin, turn, and use your mouse to get every angle when you suspect one is there.

So, Sap, wait until your energy is full, then Cheap Shot him, Hemo/SS and before cheap shot ends, hit him with rupture, so that he bleeds.  This will prevent him from vanishing on you.  Some may disagree and use a Kidney shot here, but if he trinkets it, he can gouge you and vanish, and open up on you.  Therefore, I prefer the rupture at this point.  Plus it hurts with 5 CP’s.  If he is not poisoned, use shiv to get a crippling on him.  At this point, he is bleeding and slowed, and you are at full health.  Now, you can either vanish at this point and then reopen with the same combo or just wail on him until he is dead.  It depends on his gear.  If he is still pretty healthy, vanish, wait until he is well bled, and the stun DR is gone(if possible), and rinse and repeat.  If he is near death, just finish him off.  He will use evasion if it is ready, and this makes it hard to hit him, but here is a nifty trick.  SHIV.  It does not miss and it will slow him.  I personally spam shiv on a rogue when he hits evasion, it only does like 500 damage or so, but it hits every time. 

Another option is to Kidney shot him after the Cheap shot and wait to see if he trinkets it, if he doesn’t, get some CP’s up and THEN rupture him.  At this point he will be in a world of hurt.  The problem with this is he can trinket your KS, and quickly gouge you and then he can vanish and has the upper hand.

Basically, if you open up, you will win 90% of the time.

If he opens-  You will get a Cheap Shot.  Be patient.  At this point, most will go right for the Kidney Shot.  Now you should trinket this and immediately, and I mean, you have to time this right, gouge him.  He won’t trinket this if he is smart.  Vanish.  When you have full energy, and before gouge ends, you open up on him as described before.  Use evasion when possible, and remember when he uses it, either vanish until it runs out, or spam Shiv until it is up.

If he bleeds you like I do, then blind him immediately, if he trinkets it, hit evasion, and gouge him to buy some time, and since you can’t vanish, try to get some CP’s on him as fast as possible, and stun him.  It is hard vs a good rogue if he opens on you, the most you can do is nuke and duke him toe to toe, and get a bleed on him so he can’t vanish (unless he is a dorf)

Shadow Priests-  I am not sure where to put these because most of them don’t give me too many problems, but there are some rare ones who do. 

If you open- 

I always open with garrotte-Shiv-Hemo(SS) on these guys, they have high stun resists so it can be dangerous to open with a CS.  After I get up 5 CPs I like to hit Expose Armor and take him to 0 armor.  Then you just trinket his fear, clos and  pimpslap him down.  Usually an easy fight.  Just don’t let him get two fears off. 

Things to watch out for- 

Dots and burst damage-  they can burst you down extremely quick these days. 

Fear- Trinket the first one and kill him before CD is finished. 

Vampiric Embrace? – Sorry, I don’t know what that channeled spell is called, but it freaking hurts.  Gouge, kick, or do whatever you can to stop it. 

Feral Druids-  Most rogues say this is our hardest class to beat.  I kind of agree, only healers are harder to beat.   

If you open:

 CS-Shiv-hemo-KS- basically stun-lock them, if they are in kitty form, they will suffer hugely from this damage.  If they switch to bear form I bleed them, if they stay in kitty form I nuke them.  If you can catch them in caster form and get a KS on them you can burst them down.  I find if I get the jump I can usually beat them. 

If they open- 

That initial burst from that mean little kitty hurts like hell.  I usually hit evasion, and try to get some stuns on them if they stay in MLK form.  If they go to bear form, bleed, caster, stun.  A hard fight when they get the opener, but not impossible.  

All the rest go under: 

Healers-  As a rogue, or I should say with all three of my 70’s I just hate healers.  Hate them.  In my opinion they all go under the virtually unkillable as melee category.  Call me a noob if you will, but I avoid them in BG’s because I just hate wasting 10 minutes trying to kill a healer.  Some tips for you anyway though. 

Priest healers-  these guys are pretty squishy, they can heal well, but you can generally busrst them down unless they have T6 on.  Blind, Shiv, stun lock, kick and wounding poison are your friends here. 

Resto druids-  Even if you could kill them, they just run away, frankly I CBA.  However, druids at low health are just screaming for a dirty deeds, ShS ambush death, and I am more than happy to deliver.  A resto druid at full health alone is impossible, don’t bother.  In fact I have wailed on one with another full S1 Gladi rogue and we couldn’t get him to half health.  Not a whine, just a whatever, “move along folks, nothing to see here”   

Healadins- Also damn near impossible to kill.  I rarely bother.  Blind, kick, wounding, and stuns are your friends to break his heals.  Get him to bubble up early and then you can kill him.  Bandage when he bubbles. 

Retradins-  Much easier than healadins, they stun pretty well, but honestly I don’t meet too many of these, and when I have they go down pretty easy.  Get your wounding on him before he bubbles, and after the bubble, he will go down.  Bandage when he bubbles.  Edit—I came across a Grand Marshall Retri Paladin yesterday in Arathi and he kicked the living crap out of me multiple times.  He also kicked the crap out of everyone else so I am guessing he was full S3.