A few days ago, famous Hearthstone streamer Jambre (here are his Twitter and Twitch) started an interesting discussion on Twitter regarding the possibility of implementing balance changes in today's Standard meta.
Many notorious voices from the community decided to answer that post and what we got is an interesting picture about how the pros would like some cards to be changed. It is also important to notice that while some classes are clearly over the top right now, what most players (like Casie) suggested is buffing rather than nerfing - something we've been seeing since Ashes of Outland (when Torrent, Shattered Rumbler and The Lurker Below received a power-up) and that we'd love to see again.
Here is a recap together with our personal takes.
Disclaimer: the following cards are the ones that feel problematic in some ways - the fact that more cards from a single class appear in this list doesn't mean that they should all get nerfed. Nerfs should weaken a class, not destroy it.
Twin Slice
Suggested change: Second Slice grants +1 Attack instead of +2.
Twin Slice has been a crazy good card since its release, it doesn’t matter which of its two forms you’re talking about.
When it was 0 mana it allowed crazy turns like Battlefiend The Coin Battlefiend Twin Slice for a turn 1 4/4 with very little chance to get the board back; turn 5 Twin Slice into Glaivebound Adept; or massive Altruis the Outcast swings (mandatory Kibler’s clip from a while ago).
On 1 mana, it grants more damage, the ability to get generated by Wandmaker and high synergy with cards like Aldrachi Warblades, Bladed Lady and Blade Dance (a card we’ll talk about in a second).
This balance change, suggested by Ridiculous Hat, could weaken both Aggro and Soul Demon Hunter, buying the opponents a bit more time to close or stabilize the game.
Blade Dance
Suggested change: Cost increased from 2 to 4 mana.
This change is mainly suggested so that Blade Dance won't be played for free after Skull of Gul'dan anymore. As Blizz stated a long time ago, large minions should be Demon Hunter’s weakness; however, Illidan can easily get a huge amount of face attack and a 2 mana fully charged Cascading Disaster is quite the polarizing move.
My personal suggestion would be that Blade Dance should consider only the equipped weapon's attack (but that would make it a very terrible card) or should consume the player's face swing for that turn.
Shardshatter Mystic
Suggested change: Cost increased from 3 to 4 mana.
Quote From Ridiculous Hat Soul DH needs one board control card […] to move by one mana
3 mana Duskbreaker for Demon Hunter is not bad, huh? Pretty much what the quote up here says: even though Demon Hunter should be about face damage, it has way to efficient board clears for (who would have guessed) too small mana investment. This is probably an aut aut: either Blade Dance bites the dust, or Shardshatter Mystic does.
Overgrowth
Suggested change: Cost increased from 4 to 5 mana.
Quote From Jambre Feels like Druid has been getting more extreme with every set. Would hate to see Malfurion get a set of nerfs, be dumpster for this expansion and then give it a set like Librams/K&C Warlock (obviously not that powerful) to build on for next year.
We've all come to personally experience that when a Druid hits Overgrowth on curve the win chances dramatically shift in their favor: the card is so good that it is able by itself to determine whether Malfurion will be able to make it to the end game and play the big stuff (Survival of the Fittest, Carnival Clown and Ysera, Unleashed) or just succumb to aggro.
The fact that Overgrowth will stay in Standard for more than a year means that it will surely need a rework at some point: even though Guardian Animals just took the bullet in its place, why not now?
Little upside of this change is that Anubisath Defender would become more relevant, Steel Beetle could return to see some play and Bogbeam/Ironbark could be casted in the same turn Overgrowth is played.
Boggspine Knuckles
Suggested change: Cost increased from 5 to 6 mana.
I have to be honest with you: this is a suggestion I didn't see coming. Shaman has been unplayable throughout the entire Year of the Phoenix and now that the Old Gods gave Thrall some decent tools to play with, someone's not okay with it. Jokes apart, the main concern seems to be that the class is able to cheese out early highrolls because of Lightning Bloom, creating gamebreaking curves that can close the match on the spot. Even though the cards are different, this is the same problem Shaman showed around a year ago, during the Doom in the Tomb event: early Evolve highrolls are unstoppable most of the times; even more when your opponent can just bypass taunts thanks to Revolve.
Bladestorm
Suggested change: Cost increased from 3 to 4 mana.
Quote From Ridiculous Hat Bladestorm is going to be around [for more than a year] and both Bomb and Control Warrior need to get worse.”
It is funny, because when Bladestorm got released people thought it was a reverse (and much worse) Defile: little did they know, since then it's been an auto-include in every Warrior deck that is not sheer aggro.
Even if it doesn't clear the board, Bladestorm is a better Lightning Storm most of the times (and without Overload: (2)!) and it can remove big threats out of Shield Slam's reach that could otherwise be a headache (Edwin VanCleef is a good example). Unless, of course, a minion manages to get over 30 Health :)
Given its effectiveness, it is easy to see why the community would like to see a change to this spell.
Risky Skipper
Suggested change: Cost increased from 1 to 2 mana or Health decreased from 3 to 2.
People have been asking for ages for a change to Risky Skipper: since its release in Galakrond’s Awakening, it didn’t take much time to pros to exploit its Wild Pyromancer-ish effect and win games. The fact that it can be tutored with Ancharrr makes its swing turns extremely reliable and consistent: even in Wild people tend to play the Skipper-Ancharrr-Armorsmith package just to shut down aggro boards and gain a ton of armor at the same time. Back in July, Skipper likely dodged the nerf because the devs were afraid that it would have killed Warrior, but maybe now that Garrosh has received new cards from Scholomance and Darkmoon Faire the situation might be different.
What do you think of these suggestions? Do you agree with them? Are there any other cards you'd like to see nerfed?
Comments
Well there's the problem with buffs right there huh? All three of those cards still just suck compared to DH's Blade Dance. Honestly, I didn't even remember they got buffed. Nerfing the strongest cards is already inherently a buff to every other card, so it accomplishes more with less, while also helping to relieve meta fatigue by forcing the best cards out.
We don't want to be too obvious that DH is just taking Old Rogue's Identity (Blade Flurry) do we? Hahaha.
as a fully wild player the most problematic card that i find is Animated Broomstick , it gives so much board swings to odd pally and darkglare warlock, and flavor wise it makes no sense, 6 minions riding on a flimsy stick?? how. i suggest to change it's text to "give adjacent minions rush"
Paladin need a few changes, but it's hard to nail down exactly what needs to change. I think First Day of School moving to 1 mana would be a good change so that "buff target generation" is a little more difficult (especially given the hero power throws off an easy target). Paladin's problems stem from excellent synergy with some other cards that are good, but not inherently broken (Pen Flinger, for example). Perhaps increasing Goody Two Shields to 4 mana (or the body to 3/2) given the spellburst is so easy to trigger? I'll admit Paladin is the hardest puzzle because so much strength is driven by the Librams, which is a design I really like.
I was surprised to not see any Priest cards mentioned -- Palm Reading seems like an easy callout (4 mana? Leave at 3 but cap the number of spells affected?). I am very surprised that Blood of G'huun was released "as is", especially in light of the recent Tortollan Mage change -- the design seems to be moving away from "copy from deck" and moving towards a "pull from deck" (Dimensional Ripper, I suppose, violates that, but it doesn't see a lot of play). The interaction with Reborn makes Priest boards almost impossibly sticky (Revolve / Plague of Death notwithstanding). Priests have a lot of "feels bad, man" interactions right now, which is really hard to balance because something can be terribly designed but not overpowered.
WTF are you talking about??? Priest is easily the worst class right now, too slow to deal with aggro, way too fast to deal with any control deck. Priest is literally a Highroll or bust now.
That's cap. Priests are extremely opressive in wild currently, and Res priest (or as I still call it, big priest) is still a massive pain and problem.
I guess I'll just quote myself?
So... it should be nerfed because you feel bad playing against it even tought you win most of the time anyway?
Generally that's how "games" work, yes. Blizzard has struggled immensely with tuning Priests (basically forever), and community feedback of "hey, that class sucks to play and sucks to play against" is generally good to give. They've signalled a willingness to make changes based on "wow, that's straight misery" in the past, why should now be any different?
Furthermore, I don't agree that Priests are "easily the worst class" right now. I'd say based on some meta snapshots (such as here), they're in a better place than Mages/Druids with some competitive archetypes. Cards can be changed without a class being DH-at-release levels of broken, you realize?
I dont see the issue of the powercreep not when like half classes are really bad ,there i 100% think buffs are way better then nerfs.
And the good/best balance INVOLVES NERFS AND BUFFS. And for buffs over nerfs id say for msot people+in general it feels better to ahve stuff buffed (espcialyl that wasnt evry good/good at all before) vs seeing something nerfed.
And for buffs not being something that sees play i think thats not always a bad thing, but like the boomsdays buffs many where just weird chocies on blizzards side to buffs fi theyre done well i think buffs right now and often would be much betetr then nerfs( more in cases where multiple classes are waybheind vs 1 or 2 like 5/10% above a all other 8 that do are farily close)
ANd i just think blizzard buffs and Unnerfs way way way to little and their nerfs still to often are overdone and just forever kill card cause they dont really unnerf, or they nerf the totally wrong thing(at first) and then later nerf correct and firts thing now stays nerfed forever even though wasnt an issue.
I just think the game would just realy benefit from blizzard doing buffs more
But half of the classes are only weak relative to the classes that have seen the most powercreep. They are not inherently weak, and it is equally valid to say the other classes are too strong. The two viewpoints would be equivalent except that powercreep gives us a more fixed reference point. It is still subjective whether it is good or bad, but I personally would like my old cards to remain relevant for as long as possible, and hence would like powercreep minimised.
While I agree it feels good to see some cool but underused cards get buffed, players often have seriously strong feelings of dislike towards OP cards and they are happy to see them nerfed. Also, buffing cards can end up fulfilling the saying "You either die a hero, or live long enough to become the villain." Remember Luna's Pocket Galaxy and now Librams? Both were considered cool while they were weak, but after being buffed a decent chunk of the player-base came to hate them.
Agreed. Again this links into the whole 'becoming a villain' thing. If cards don't become big in the meta, they don't tend to become hated, so you just have a net win of making a cool deck a bit more playable. While this is an absolute win, the fact it doesn't impact the meta means you still have the same problem where players want the meta to change. So you need some buffs to be relevant in the meta
Yeha nto evry bfuf has to make it meta but some is fine.
And librams arent an issue, Pocket galaxy was.
ANd if librams are/do become issue thats on blizz nto for the buff but for hofing spellbreaker and alot of other answers (or being nerfed) in general.
And aslo other classes that are terrible used to have good but that got nerfed into unplayablity many (certainly overtime) and have only made elss decks/classes viable not more.
Like scholo wouldve benefited much more from extra warlock/shaman buffs instead of Most of the nerfs IMO.
Whether Librams are fine or not is up for debate, but my point that there are players who dislike them stands. You'll find a few questions of why Paladin wasn't included on the list in the comments below, for example, and let's face it, Paladin is completely dominated by Librams right now.
The biggest problem at the moment though is Demon Hunter, which needs serious nerfing. It is not going to be clear whether most of the other classes even need a buff until DH has been nerfed, since it is warping the meta so much.
The libram buffs arent at fault for paladi beign just librams even without it still be. the rest of palaldin archetypes are just way lacking in cards AND power.
Like singleton liek finley is incositent and best use is a a vnailla 2mana 2/3murloc that costs 1600 dust.
Murlocs? yea right the weapon is fine but dont have to make ti work.
Dragons the same,mechs most of ti got out with last rotation and only shotbot is a good mech.
And same goes for all other archetypes paladin has lack of support and the support it is usally very wea and doesnt work together with whta ltitle other support it has.
And aslo People will hate anything that sees play/alot of play.
How is Voracious Reader not in this? Nerf it to 3 mana at least.
It is important to understand that we didn't highlight all the cards that might (or might not) need a change, but rather those who were perceived so by a bunch of pros in a Twitter discussion.
Do I personally think VR is a strong card that allows insane cycle for aggro decks? Yes. Do I think it might need some change in the future? Not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it will happen.
No paladin cards?
Which Paladin cards do you think are problematic? How would you like the devs to change them?
First Day of School from 0 to 1 mana cost
Aldor Attendant revert the buff
Argent Braggart form 2 to 3 mana cost
First three that come to my mind. I'm not saying that all of them need to be changed, especially not all at once.
NOPE
NOPE
AND NOPE
Palladin is allowed to have playable 1drops. braggart is strong but its fine if nerf the 5mana 8/8 blessing over braggart if had to choose one.
ANd first day of school purpose is to give you a 1drop can play on turn 1 and something easy to trigegr spellburt with. 1mana would make the card TERRIBLE.
Hard to know where to start with Paladin. They just have been on a mission to put powerful cards into the class so...what do you nerf?