Quest Hate
Is it too early to already want a separate, no-quest ladder? I can't believe how fast I have come to hate this expansion, due to every single game I play involving a quest, and the fact that these quests essentially complete themselves with plain draw RNG. All you do is watch your warrior/hunter/warlock/mage opponent throw their crap down every turn, and hope your bullshit RNG is better than their bullshit RNG, and that's the game. This is, to me, going to be the least interactive, least interesting meta that has ever existed in this game, and I'm already getting sick of it, and I actually feel ashamed when I play that stupid pirate warrior. Please give me hope that the team will step in quickly and make some of these slightly more challenging to complete.
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Is it too early to already want a separate, no-quest ladder? I can't believe how fast I have come to hate this expansion, due to every single game I play involving a quest, and the fact that these quests essentially complete themselves with plain draw RNG. All you do is watch your warrior/hunter/warlock/mage opponent throw their crap down every turn, and hope your bullshit RNG is better than their bullshit RNG, and that's the game. This is, to me, going to be the least interactive, least interesting meta that has ever existed in this game, and I'm already getting sick of it, and I actually feel ashamed when I play that stupid pirate warrior. Please give me hope that the team will step in quickly and make some of these slightly more challenging to complete.
It's funny how grossly the community under-rated these. Before the expansion the overall sentiment was that quests would be ridiculously slow and that by the time they were completed the game would be over. But as it turns out, the majority of these can be completed before turn 7-8 fairly consistently.
In terms of the meta, things are still being figured out and new decks will still have to be tested and refined, but mages do seem to be over powered and should probably be nerfed soon. I'm guessing they'll hit Incanter's Flow since it isn't a new card and has been shown to be borderline broken in the past.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
Hitting just Flow won't do shit.
They have to get rid of Flow, then make it so the Quest steps need to be completed in one turn (there is no other way, the quest will always get completed on turn 6 or 7 otherwise) and finally reduce the Spell Damage to +2 because +3 is retarded in a world where Cram Session exists.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
They will definitely need to hit more than a single card, I'm just not sure exactly what the other cards might be.
At this point Incanter's Flow feels obvious, especially with the new shaman elemental doing the same thing for double the cost. If they nerf the quest I believe the most likely thing would be reducing the spell damage to +2. Changing it to make all 3 spells have to be cast in a single turn is less likely. I would rather see mages nerfed to reduce their capacity to cast lots of spells in a single turn rather then force them to cast lots of spells in a single turn. If they wanted to slow mages down I think they would target cards like Ray of Frost, Hot Streak, or First Flame. Another option would be to simply reduce mages draw by hitting Cram Session or Font of Power.
My personal nerf list is: 1) Incanter's Flow nerfed to 4 mana. 2) Ray of Frost and First Flame each have their second version nerfed to 2 mana. 3) Cram Session nerfed to 3 mana.
I don't really want to nerf the quest since it is legendary and blizzard would rather avoid nerfing legendaries if possible, but also because there are a lot of factors that go into whether or not a quest is viable, and I would like to see how it plays out when mages don't have access to tons of other over powered spells.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
I was wondering when someone would start a post like this.
Its the start of the expansion, and people are still playing around with quests because its the new thing in town. But like all things pretty and new its only a matter of time before no one gives a shit and starts playing to win.
Quest are currently viable because the meta is slow enough to allow it, thanks in no small part because everyone else is playing quest decks as well. You'll be lucky to see a minion drop before turn 3. Once everything is cleared up Im sure the meta would be more diverse than what it looks now.
In a separate note, is everyone sleeping on quest shaman? I havent seen a single hate directed at it so far, and after playing it for 3 hours I think its even more powerful than mage.
No no no, we're not doing the Barrens nerf again where the obvious issue (Incanter's Flow) gets ignored and another card becomes collateral which ruins every other Mage deck that might have used it. The Quest is very obviously the issue here and Flow is part of the problem. Cram Session is a perfectly fine card as long as spell damage comes with an actual cost and counterplay. The same goes for all the other new cards including Ignite. They're literally balanced around not having permanent +3 damage so get rid of that part. Just nuke it like the Priest Quest. It's not a playstyle that should exist, the old Freeze Mage got yeeted for this exact reason.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
That's fair. I would still like to see Incanter's Flow nerfed just to reduce mages capacity to cheat out stupid amounts of spells in a single turn, but you are probably right that the quest should be nerfed. There are two avenues that can be taken, either embrace the fact that the quest is super easy to complete and reduce the spell damage to make the quest more reliable but less powerful. Or embrace the fact that the reward is crazy powerful and make the quest significantly harder to complete to make the deck more combo oriented.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
Oh don't worry, I'M with you on Flow, that thing is independently overpowered, i'm just saying that nerfing it won't actually fix the Quest problem. Technically they could get away with leaving Flow untouched if the Quest gets nerfed into the ground, but Flow will break the game again sooner or later (unless the next expansion only prints minions for Mage)
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
Well so far im realy enjoying the Decks the Stormwind Expansion brought us - and also enjoy the new Quests - sureley some are stronger than expected but right now i'm having so much fun i cannot see the hate some of the cards get - maybe except Incanter's Flow because that could or even should have been nerfed before.
I do not understand why peoply go cry after day 1 about certain decks etc - the meta hasn't even settled yet - and at least on Europe Server I've been seeing a lot of different decks - sure most of them with Questines but that's ok because they are a new thing and sureley enough people wanna try them out and have fun with them.
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
Personally i have been really enjoying the expansion so far, really enjoying The Demon Seed in standard right now. And honestly i rather wait untill the meta settles before begging for nerfs. However i do agree that some quests, like the Mage questline is a bit strong. But it's not just Mage, A lot of quest rewards are good because you can just burst your opponent down from cards in hand. There are not that many minions played, or boards to be fought over. It honestly makes the game feel like it's a game of solitaire.
The game feels very fun to play casually right now (which i like), but if your very competative then i imagine that these kind of non-interactive decks might be very annoying/frustrating to face. Also with all this burst we might as well bury the idea of there being Control decks for once and for all. :(
Oh and about Incanter's Flow: PLEASE. That card keeps breaking stuff, and honestly it will keep doing that unless it gets addressed. Either that or there going to nerf every mage spell in the game by 1 mana, including 10 cost spells to 11 mana. (Which baffling enough wouldnt even surprise me these days.)
But having said that, lets wait until the meta settles before we start complaining and begging for nerfs.
RNG is only fun as long as there is a 50/50 chance of getting something really good or trash level of bad. If RNG always results in something good, then it's not fun.
I think the HS team really screwed up with the entire expansion here. Because if Mage gets nerfed, then Warlock will need to be nerfed as well because that deck is disgustingly strong and only being held back by Mage. And then if it’s not Mage/Warlock it will be Shaman and so on… everything is at way too high of a power level right now,
This ain't no place for a hero
Warlock isn't held up only by Mage. I eat Quest Locks with QDruid/QRogue/Garrote Rogue.
On topic, I played QMage for a day, and novelty wore off pretty quick. It's a super boring deck with a super boring mirror match. Worst thing about it, is that it effectively shuts down pretty much anything minion based.
Not really. Questlock doesn't have the infinite board clears, and if you ooze their mithril rod its really too slow to stop all those minions on board. No doubt the current built is unpolished because mage is practically everywhere, but I wouldn't call questlock OP.
The real problem currently is mage. Interestingly, the current quest mage build actually has minions because everyone is simply not playing minions to stop mage from finishing the quest. You really can't play against mage with minions at all because they cycle so well, so efficiently, and has literally infinite damage. Every deck by default has to have Cult Neophyte or some burst option for the end game because the later you go the more impossible it is to stick minions.
Currently mage beats everything cleanly except for doomhammer shaman and quest druid. No elaborations required.
Hearthstone becomes a crazy uninteractive solitarie mode with that mage/warlock quests, both can end the quest at turn 6-7 and play the reward in the same turn, that doesn't allow to eat it with mutanus or steal it with illucia.
Warlock is broken, but mage becomes god mode with that quest, just put 25 1-3 mana spells in the deck, and some 4-5 mana burst cards like Fireball and... no more is needed.
Balance changes never were so necessary.
By The Holy Light!
It blows my mind that people are complaining about Questlines when there is a reliable turn-6 OTK in the game.
You talking about standard or wild? because in standard i haven't seen a turn 6 OTK yet!
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
You haven’t seen the Warlock Quest OTK, DH quest OTK and Rogue OTK
check out the befinning of this video
-=alfi=-
Oh ok thanks - the Rogue and Warlock ones are new to me - haven't seen those so far!
But the Demon Hunter OTK is not new that was in standard before Stormwind.
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
I tend to think that Mage is actually a big part of what's enabling Quest Warlock decks. Both offer uninteractive win conditions, and both feature tons of card draw, but current incarnations of Quest Warlock are dramatically more vulnerable to aggressive strategies. You can see this a lot in Face Hunter/Quest Warlock matchups - the deck collapses because because by the time they get Stealer of Souls + Draw online, their health is too low to play any of the cards they draw.
The health costs of cards is a big part of it, but there are other weakpoints in Warlock that Mage lacks. School Spirits is okay as AOE, but Mage has Fire Sale when they need to answer wide boards, and for solitaire match-ups they can just trade it away. Warlock can reduce the cost of cards in hand over time with Runed Mithril Rod, but Mage gets to reduce the cost of literally every card in their deck with Incanter's Flow (a fact that would matter less if they had worse card draw). Warlock is fundamentally a combo deck that relies on several key demons to cascade into its win condition, so you can disrupt them with a fair number of cards (e.g. Glide, Star Student Stelina, Mindrender Illucia, Felsoul Jailer, Mutanus the Devourer). Mage, by contrast, just needs to run a bunch of goods spells (as that naturally gives them lots of access to different types) along with burn for the end game, making it pretty easy for them to play around the few counterplay options that are available (e.g. Oh My Yogg! and Counterspell, and to a lesser extent Cult Neophyte and Ogremancer)
Sure it was in standard but usually it was NOT completed by turn 6
-=alfi=-
I am so glad Classic mode exists.
I see you!
2 days in and I'm already out. lol. I keep facing the same 2 decks (QLock & QMage) and they are both completely stupid. Cycle through everything, discount everything, SD for mage and constant heals for lock while doing so. Neither need to reach turn 8, ever.
I suspect they'll see auto-concedes similar to what caused them to nerf priest a month ago.
Now you kids are probably saying to yourselves, "Hey Matt, how can we get back on the right track?"
I'm trying to have some fun and I keep hitting Quest Warlock. I think I'll take a step back until the Warlock Quest has been removed from the game because I can't have fun when all I face is a deck that requires 0 thought.
Could I netdeck something that will beat it? Sure. But then I don't have fun. I like my games to last longer than 3 minutes.
Well, i don't know if it is that different on Europe Server because the last 15 Games i haven't faced one single Warlock. Mostly Paladin , Mage and Hunter. Sometimes a Druid or Demon Hunter. Also faced only 3 Priests since launch and 2 of them were Shadow.
But Warlock , Shaman or Rogue are absolutely abstinent - at least the last 15 Games for me if not more.
Challenge me ... when you're ready to duel a god!
I'm pretty much only facing Quest Warlock (Wild) and nothing else. Guess have to take a break.
English is not my native language, so please excuse occasional mistakes
Are we far enough into the meta that we can agree that Battlegrounds Battlemaster is the most overpowered bullshit ever printed and I have no idea how much black tar heroin they had to inject to think that printing it at 5-mana was an acceptable decision in any part of the known universe? Because holy fuck it is so stupidly abuseable, not even just in Paladin but Warlock too.
Also I get the feeling that WarlockQuest (at least in Standard) might be ever so slightly overrated. A lot of the power in that deck comes from the fact that it's stupidly easy to discount Flesh Giant and if that card was nerfed to 10-mana (or more) it would be far less easy for the deck to just snowball out of control.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
With Darkglare and Stealer of Souls on, is that really surprising? Questlock and zoolock can get those giants out fairly reliably on turns 3-5 now since the gameplan is to hurt yourself anyway. But Im actually thinking the reason why they can get away with it so much is because every deck is teching against combo and an 8/8 early can easily change things, given that most players are running a light and fast deck if they aren't combo themselves.
Battleground battlemaster as a 5/5 on 5 is really too much. But I suspect that it'll be nerfed along with the rest as well. Its power to burst games early is fairly oppressive, but then again, without this thing there's just no other way for most decks (except face hunter) to finish games earlier than combo decks can anyway.
I really wish I could get back all the money I've wasted on this game, and especially this expansion. Thanks Team5, for just straight up killing all of my enjoyment with your lazy, untested garbage quest. I swear, they must have played one game with it against an aggro hunter that drew the nuts and just decided it was too slow to see play. Sigh, fuck this shit, man, I need to learn to like a different game.
Quests shouldn't be win-conditions.
I'm not online it's just your imagination
...then what should cards which you build the majority of your deck around, be?
A way to accelerate or advance your win condition. Making mummies was the paladin quest, yet it can't win on it's own. Was strong, but could be countered. It seems the design goal of this current expansions quest was "passive power boost that can win games" as opposed to previous quest rewards which largely tended to revolve around "drastically change your hero power to be super strong, but still vulnerable to counterplay".
And honestly I don't know how I feel about this current expansions take on quests. Fun? Sure in some instances. Too strong? Perhaps.
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I think what would solve many problems in regard to these questlines is to get the reward at the end of your turn. This way Mages and Warlocks can't complete 1,5 to 2 parts of the questline in a single turn and it gives your opponent a chance to Dirty Rat or Mutanus the final reward. It might kill some of the questlines, but at this point, do we really care?
Arena > Wild > Standard
Fact is, that I rarely meet a deck without quest on the ladder, that strong they are.
Mostly mage, warlock, DH, rogue, warrior, shaman.
Never or really rarely encountered druid, priest, hunter (after nerfs), paladin
-=alfi=-
I think the best thing I've seen done so far was when I dropped Arcanist Dawngrasp, my opponent did something that hurt... bad. They followed up with Cloak of Shadows then and Vanessa VanCleef to get Arcanist Dawngrasp. I thought, fine. You delayed a turn. GG in the end. NOPE. Next turn they dropped Arcanist Dawngrasp, Preparation into Potion of Illusion, did another Arcanist Dawngrasp with the help of The Coin they got from the Loan Shark they played earlier... Then ANOTHER Preparation into Cloak of Shadows. The next turn they did ONE Garrote and ONE tradeable card and magically drew into a few bleeds that kicked me to death.
Suffice it to say that is a VERY elaborate way to end the game, but it also shows what can happen if you do not draw your needed frost, fire, or arcane spells fast in Mage to get the Quest off quick.
The Demon Seed needs to lose lifesteal. Warlock has too much life gain to make the self-pain matter much.
Either way, the meta doesn't feel good at all. When combo decks are closing out games prior to turn 8 it makes the deck choices binary and that's boring AF.
Now you kids are probably saying to yourselves, "Hey Matt, how can we get back on the right track?"
If Warlock ends up getting nerfed again then i would bet on them weakening several healing options to make the class more vulnerable to aggression. Probably Touch of the Nathrezim going down to 2 healing or something like that. They most likely want to avoid targeting any of the quests directly because they are new. Once some time has passed (like a month or two) then they will start attacking the root of the problem which are the quests. Until then we will have to endure this terrible meta. I'm probably going to spend more time on BGs because of that.
"True mastery takes dedication."
They can't remove the lifesteal from the Questline because that would obliterate the quest forever by forcing you to deal 21 damage to yourself rather than 15 to get the thing online. As is, this quest will lose a ton of power at rotation because most of the key cards in these Questlock decks come from Year of the Phoenix.
Warlock got exactly one healing card in Forged in the Barrens (Blood Shard Bristleback), and one in United in Stormwind (Touch of the Nathrezim). I'm not saying we all ought to wait until rotation in March/April 2022 to see a change in the metagame, but I think if any cards get nerfed, it's way more likely to be the Year of the Phoenix cards that a) are a major part of these decks and b) will be rotating sooner (and are therefore safer to nerf without pissing people off).
I'm out for a while. Aggro vs Quests that are completed and then auto win by turn 6/7 just isn't fun.
The quests are even worse in wild. Hunter/Mage/Warlock over and over and ALL 3 cycle through their entire deck. It feels like a repeat of the busted decks that abused Gadgetzan Auctioneer.
Now you kids are probably saying to yourselves, "Hey Matt, how can we get back on the right track?"
I might be crazy in saying this, but I like the meta. It is very simple. You see your opponents class and you know what to mulligan for. It might just be because I am playing Quest WL.
Your face is already dead
Yes, it is. And that's somewhat a problem, since diversity is supposedly the target. The meta has gotten to such an extent that its linear, and that's never a good thing if you're seeking to have fun other than winning.
We're witnessing a repeat of the pre-nerfed crystal caverns rogue meta again, where there's quest rogue on one side and hyper aggro on the other. Quest decks are too consistent honestly. Even if the meta is fine, I still hope that there's more space for different decks to exist, and that cannot be done if there's a constant air of inevitability while playing.
The Mage quest is on the same toxic level as Warlock, it blocks any minion based strategies. Everything is here what makes gameplay against the deck feeling awful -
I just played a game against Warlock where it felt like I play regular HS against a late level duels deck.
On turn 6 finished quest, on turn 7 played the reward, on turn 8 the mage killed me dealing 27 damage from hand, drawing 12 cards from the deck and playing cards worth 28 mana in total. On turn 8.
-=alfi=-
Yesterday i made a big push from Gold 4 towards Platinum 4 rank without bonus stars using Libram Paladin. Surprisingly, my pocket meta didn't feel as awful as in other days. It seems like people are quite sick of the quests in lower ranks and different decks popped up frequently. I only faced two Quest Warlocks (beat one and lost to the other one) and a few Quest Mages. Mage feels worse to lose against. They deal too much damage from hand and draw a lot faster, usually. But their curve is slightly messed up now which makes them a bit slower. I beat quite a few of them but the ones i lost to managed to kill me from near full health every time.
The other Quest decks are very rare. Quest Shaman pops up here and there and it is very strong. I didn't face any yesterday though. Quest Warrior is too slow even with a lot of pirates and a lower mana curve. Quest Hunter can race quite effectively but they run out of cards every single time. Quest Priest just sucks. Quest DH suffered the most from the latest balance patch and is pretty much dead. Rogue, Druid and Paladin quests disappeared completely.
"True mastery takes dedication."