Hearthstone Game Designer, Alec Dawson, put out a series of tweets explaining the upcoming December balance changes.
- Blade Dance - Costs 3 (up from 2).
- Shardshatter Mystic - Cost 4 (up from 3).
- Dreadlord's Bite - Has 2 Attack (down from 3).
- Dinotamer Brann - Costs 8 (up from 7).
- Voracious Reader - Costs 3 (up from 2).
- Lorekeeper Polkelt - Costs 5 (up from 4).
He even mentions the lack of nerfs towards Warrior, so if you're upset about this you may want to take a read!
You can see what he has to say down below. The balance changes will be live in a few hours with Hearthstone Patch 19.2.
Quote From Alec Dawson Hello, hello! The nerfs tomorrow are mainly focused on lowering the overall power level of Demon Hunter. Demon Hunter's population in higher levels of play was growing week over week, hitting nearly 35% last week.
Our approach was to look at the two decks (Aggro and Soul Fragment DH) separately as their power cards differed between them. The nerfs to cards like Dreadlord's Bite, Voracious Reader, and Lorekeeper Polkelt are aimed at reducing the refill and reach Aggro DH currently has.
For Soul Fragment DH, our changes to Blade Dance and Shardshatter Mystic are focused on the efficiency of their board-clearing ability. Blade Dance was a card that got significantly more powerful as DH accumulated more ways to gain attack (Twin Slice change, new weapons, etc.) and didn't agree with one of the outlined class weaknesses Demon Hunter is supposed to have: killing big minions.
Our last change is a nerf to Dinotamer Brann. This was a preemptive change as we saw a potentially dominant matchup spread for Hunter after these changes.
Finally, what about warrior? Warrior was the class benefitting the most from a meta centered around Demon Hunter. The current matchup spread for Warrior is quite wide (strong mix of good/bad matchups) and we want to evaluate how it performs with a lower Demon Hunter population.
Looking forward to seeing how these changes play out and thank you again for your feedback!
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Comments
If they wanted to reduce the reach of DH, they should have nerfed Kayn Sunfury, Glaivebound Adept, and/or Inner Demon
Welcome to Highlander Even Hunter, Brann.
If it's even possible.
I wonder why they preemptively nerfed Highlander Hunter but not Evolve Shaman. Shaman already had one of the strongest decks, and it was held in check only by tough matchups against Demon Hunter and Face Hunter. What’s going to stop it from dominating now
Shaman is strong because everyone techs against DH. Every deck with a couple good board clears counters Shaman hard and the meta would shift accordingly when shaman becomes OP.
Evolve Shaman and Miracle Rogue will probably be top decks, but importantly they're new decks. Technically old archetypes but ones we haven't seen in a long time, they also look very different from their past counterparts.
Each deck hit here has been around for at least an expansion, even if Darkmoon made them stronger.
Shaman has sucked for a long time though, and they were pretty heavy-handed with Galakrond Shaman about a year ago. So they probably want to wait and see, though I agree with you - Evolve is going to spread quickly.
I think this is very much the reasoning behind it yeah. They want to give shaman some time in the meta. Considering DH and especially Hunter have been good for so long, I can see that reasoning, but if it is good for the game.. time will tell
Yeah I was also thinking Evolve Shaman will be the next big thing.
I just wonder why couldnt put the reasons in the patchnotes like have done in past.
Yeah, I really don't understand why they feel the need to do this on Twitter.
The only thing I can think of is that it would take too long for them to localize the developer notes in all the different languages they have to write patch notes in which makes it a pain in the ass. This is one of the reasons Blizzard doesn't use their blog as often as they should (I know there's a source online for this somewhere), because they want to put the messaging out on all their platforms.
If a developer opts to post on Twitter or Reddit though, it becomes less of an "official communication" so there isn't a requirement it gets translated.
I still think that's on the lazy side though. If they don't have the people on their localized teams to do the translations they want, they should hire the right people and make more use of their blog to communicate developer insights to make those positions more worth having.
Or you know, just stop requiring that everything be translated since some community site that speaks those other languages will just translate anyway.
I think that most people don't want to see these explanations and that those people believe it clutters the patch notes. Personally I like these but also see the advantage in haven't clean and uncluttered patch notes.
Did someone say even highlander hunter? 3/4 highlander cards in hunter are even, this could be interesting.
It seems that they think it's super fair that DH can do 8+ damage in hero attacks very easily. The functionality of Blade Dance has not changed. It's just slightly worse. But 3 mana to deal 8+ damage to three enemy minions is still incredibly efficient. So, i don't think things are going to change a lot. Also, i can't believe they keep ignoring Skull of Gul'dan. That card fuels every single DH deck. It's actually the main issue. Even the hyper aggro strategies use it. It's that busted. If that thing costed 8 mana, it would still be 10000 times better than Lay on Hands. It can't stay this way for the next year and a half.
You are right about the Skull, the draw engine and cost reduction is too powerful. I’m guessing it will leave standard with the next rotation so Blizzard might be keeping it as/is in the hopes that it might one day enable the fabled “Big Demon Hunter”
unnerfing priestes and makign fel summoner 5 mana(with adjusted stats if needed) woudl do far more to enable big dh then skull though. if they want the deck to be a thing.
Skull is from Ashes of Outland. It's not leaving standard for the next year and a half. The expansions that are leaving in the next rotation are Rise of Shadows, Saviours of Uldum and Descent of Dragons.
And the DH intinate set
I think Blade Dance is a solid card that is reliant on having weapons and/or hero attack values. I think the main issue is that it hits so many targets. If the cost is increased, it's delayed a turn or two to be effective. However, reduce the targets that it can hit and that is a better way to nerf things. DH can attack multiple things in a turn with the right weapon, clearing the way for minions to go face. Having the ability to kill multiple minions that are elusive ANd go face is the real problem.
Instead of increasing the cost, what they needed to do was limit the number of minions it can kill. But that's my opinion.
It should've been hit two targets since the beginning, A Cleave with the potential to be much stronger, provided you put in the attack buffs.
The reasoning is fine but I think Blade Dance is still too strong, they didn't even address the contradiction with the class identity, they just delayed the card for one turn and that does nothing when paired with Skull.