Rant warning - personal opinion ahead. Approach with caution.
United in Stormwind brought a bunch of Questlines as one of the main mechanic, and the initial skepticism of their potential viability quickly vanished when the true power level of the cards became apparent. We've now enjoyed their presence for about a month and the opinions on those Legendaries, as well as the meta in general, are currently very split. I, for one, think that while fun to play for some time the Questlines are unhealthy for the game in the long run and I will spend too many words on discussing why and making suggestions to make them more fair. So try to hang on.
An Issue?
In case you happen to be one of the naysayers enjoying the current meta, I may have to explain why exactly I think the Questlines should be changed. While I don't hate the current Standard meta, I still think Control (as all other archetypes) should have room in it. Right now the strength of the Questline rewards makes it very difficult for them to exist and it's basically the combo-ish Questlines vs aggressive decks that have the ability to rush them down.
The real issue becomes very apparent in Wild. By taking a look at HSReplay's stats (arguably from low ranks, but regardless) we can see that:
- Questline Warrior: Several lists at 80-85 % winrate.
- Questline Warlock: Same.
- Questline Hunter: Several lists at 75-80 %.
Why is it, when someone wins in Wild, it is always you three?
I know that Blizzard intends Wild to be the crazy, near-broken place of madness and combos but these numbers don't seem fine. While the winrates of these decks do go down on higher ranks (possibly due to increasing number of matches against each other), they still keep dominating the meta. These three biggest offenders also share the solitaire-like nature: while they do interact with the board to some extent, their quest completion is unstoppable. You just have to try and rush them before they get you and as the numbers suggest, you usually fail at that.
The General Problems
Let's dive straight into the issue - plenty of Questlines offer game-winning rewards which, as it stands, can be obtained either on curve or not long after. This, for me and many others, is way too fast. Not only that, playing a 7/7 around turn five will cause problems to many decks in itself even if we ignore the Battlecries altogether. Although winning games before hitting double-digit turns is nothing new as aggro has existed since the dawn of Hearthstone, the usual aggro tends to be much more interactive. Remove their board and heal the damage they've made and their progress on their gameplan is thwarted. The questlines' counters merely move on towards the inevitable final reward and what happens along the way doesn't matter that much for them.
As one of the main issues is that Questlines in general are too fast, a simple change knocking them all back a bit would be to make all Mercenary rewards 7-mana. That would not only justify the 7/7 body (I really don't get the current "overstatted with massive upside"-approach, I like to assume that the devs didn't intend the rewards to be obtained this fast) but also delay the power spike turns of many of these decks, and possibly force a different deckbuilding approach for some as you suddenly have to survive a couple of turns longer. However, I do not think it would solve all the issues so I will address the Questlines individually as well.
No Further Changes Needed(?)
There are some Questlines which do not dish out insta-wins after completion, so I would be willing to let them be after the 7-mana reward nerf and see if any problems still linger.
Demon Hunter
You still need to have something to discount, and potential issues are more likely to arise from that something being too powerful rather than the Questline effect being too powerful, in my opinion. Making the reward 7-mana would make it very clunky to play in e.g. Il'gynoth decks, I feel.
Rogue
Caught in the crossfire. I think the deck makes quite fair things as it stands, and I do think Control could easily outvalue the reward if given the chance. For the sake of consistency I'd still make the 7-mana 7/7 treatment for Rogue too.
Priest
This is a weird one for me. Many Mercenaries feel like they win the game when played and this one quite literally creates a card saying "win the game", yet it's inherently so slow to complete that it's not an issue at all (especially in the current meta). I think it'd be just fine although insta-win cards always bug me.
Additionally, I'm tempted to give a pass to a couple of more even if I'm not entirely convinced they're fine with just this:
Druid
I'm half-tempted at suggesting further nerfs because I just hate when the arrows start pointing at your face, you have next to no healing potential and you need to try and rush them down while their armor total just keeps growing. I'm still hopeful that making the reward 7-mana would help with the Mark of the Spikeshell combo, which quite often really decides the game. I might still remove the card draw from the second Quest's reward.
Paladin
It doesn't see much play as is. Hard to say if that would change should the meta get slower, but I think this would be another questline I'd be prepared to wait and see. I think the Hero Power reward would be hard to change without killing the entire point of the deck.
More Changes
Now to the good part - let's smack some cards even more!
Hunter
I mean, this has to see some changes for Wild's sake, in Standard it doesn't seem that strong right now though. I can tell you from experience that playing against Odd Questline Hunter is an absolutely horrible feeling - you just basically have to hope their draws don't allow them to get there in time. However, too many changes to the Questline can easily kill the whole gimmick. The quest reward cost nerf would certainly help, but I'd still be ready to either increase the total required damage spells with 1-2 or make it so that (at least) the final form of the Hero Power is the base form of it with 2 damage. Might be just personal bias though, I really despise the matches against it.
Mage
Mage is in a curious spot as it's a non-issue in Wild but usually somewhat unfun to play against in Standard. Again, the reward nerf would help, possibly incentivizing using higher-Cost spells to complete the quest instead of aiming to puke out your hand for turn 5 reward. However, having played a version with no Ignites (as I somehow got both Mage legendaries but not a single epic) I can say that the deck can indeed run out of damage if spells like Runed Orb and Fireball are used too liberally in the early turns. Even though the infinite copies are the entire reason of Ignite, I still think any further nerfs should be aimed at it rather than the Questline itself. That could even cause Mages to include spell-creating minions more often, which in turn would soft-nerf Incanter's Flow even further.
Shaman
Now this is a hard one. When you take a downside and turn it into an upside, things can get weird. Most of the truly broken stuff arises from outside the Questline itself, I feel. Overdraft just needs to lose the damage part, no question about it; it's a massive power creep on Lava Shock and it can create insane amounts of burst damage, especially in Wild. Charged Call is another card that seems a tad too efficient at the moment. A simple mana cost increase or capping the mana cost of the created minions should suffice though, otherwise we're approaching the "my opponent isn't allowed to have a win condition"-territory.
Warrior
Sorry for triggering your OCD but I'm going to ditch the alphabetical order here and save "the best" for last. The Warrior questline is another interesting one for me, and I daresay most of the issues arise from the fact that even if you removed the Questline you'd still have a decent aggro deck in your hands. This is especially true in Wild where Cap'n Rokara merely adds to the power of the deck and allows a more long-term gameplans instead of "win before turn X or bust". Unlike in previous cases, I would probably change the questline itself here to require more Pirates (possibly 3+3+3) and consider also changing the first reward as it allows a consistent tutor effect for Ancharrr, which is often important for guaranteed Pirate refill. Removing one of the effect of The Juggernaut would be next in line if the deck was still too powerful, or possibly even making the three effects rotate instead of all happening every turn.
Warlock
The elephant has entered the room. The deck has so many powerful things going for it that I don't even know where to start. I'm just going to toss around a ton of ideas and see if any will stick:
Removing the heals for Quest rewards is probably a no go; even though it would slow down Flesh Giants it would likely just offer the deck for aggro as lunch on a silver platter. Same is likely true for raising the required amount of self-damage as well. A more interesting change (in my opinion): instead of taking damage, I would make the quests require Health changes just like Flesh Giants. Warlocks could no longer just slam down armor gain whenever but actually plan ahead with their self damage. It would also help with one of the biggest Wild offenders, Crystallizer.
Another interesting suggestion I've heard is to make the reward ignore Fatigue damage. Right now (mostly in Standard, I guess) Warlocks can just draw draw draw and get the final points of damage through fatigue, but what if the fatigue still damaged them. By changing the wording to "take damage from your cards or Hero Power", you could still tap to damage your opponent but would have to calculate if you can afford the fatigue yourself. It would also give a much needed win condition for Control against the extremely unfavorable matchup that it currently is.
Those were my questline suggestions, but the deck is filled with other offenders:
Yesterday's news by now as the recent nerfs have toned it down, but I kinda hoped for a change in its effect instead - make it become once per turn or similar. That kind of change could have had drastic consequences to the card's playability, but so did the mana cost change they went with. At least I don't have to watch my opponent drawing and playing half a deck in a turn anymore, even though it undeniably required some skill to navigate correctly.
Another infinite mana generator. Arguably slowed down a bit since the first round of nerfs but still hard to deal with on curve and still generates big swings in Wild where it wasn't the most popular card even before Questlines. I'd smack the Health, possibly hard, to make it easier to deal with as the effect itself is hard to nerf any further (without making it once per turn, which would make the card relatively useless).
Remember when Control Priest was an actually good Standard deck with tons of annoying card generation, I do. Renew got smacked (I'm not saying wrongly) but I really hoped this card would also see changes but it wasn't good in Warlock at that point. Oh how the times have changed. How about now, Blizzard? Again, the situation is even worse in Wild with Crystallizer & co being a thing. I'd bring out the big bonker for this one and smack it to two mana, just outside the grasp of Wandmaker. Another option would be to only bring back one minion for 2 damage. It's just way too efficient right now.
As a final note, I don't see Questlines as the worst thing ever. They're an interesting mechanic that just came out too strong and should be adjusted accordingly. They too should have a chance to thrive in the meta but not at the expense of everything else, especially Control.
What do you think? Did you just waste your time reading useless ramblings or is there wisdom in these words? What would you change first and why, if anything?
Comments
Honestly, I'd rather just take them out of the game. If you change them enough to make them reasonable, the people who used to like them are going to be upset anyway. Just scrap the whole thing like Genn and Baku and let Wild deal with it.
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I might suspect this whole meta is just a sneaky way to drive people over to Mercenaries. If so, it's working in my case. I'm looking forward to a game where I can largely ignore PvP and metas and developers who decide to change the texture of the entire game on a whim.
You mentioned the mercenaries coming out as 5-mana 7/7s, and I wonder if that points to them using super unoptimised decks during playtesting. Design-wise, it does seem like they expected these to come out Turn 7 upwards, so they buffed the stats to compensate.
I've been under the assumption that they wanted the meta this way - short games, but huge power turns. But maybe they were genuinely surprised by the deck construction that happened?
I think in general when you take a look at Blizzard underestimating the power of decks before launch, their lists are usually unoptimized. Which is understandable, they can't do nearly as much testing as the entire playerbase. But we've seen many cases where the speed that a deck can pop off is drastically underrated by the design team, e.g. old quest rogue, corridor creeper, etc
Great article and many great posts. These questlines are simply too quick to complete, making them incredibly consistent and reliable. The Dr. 7 suggestion in the article is a very reasonable start. Those 80+% stats in wild make UTHunter look soft.
Thoughts on a few of the quests if the rewards go to 7:
Final Showdown:
The third stage could be completely removed and not impact the card at all, if anything gets directly nerfed in the deck it's probably going to be a different combo piece
Defend the Dwarven District:
Putting the reward to 7 severely limits it's power, given that Hunter is usually low on resources already by turn 5, if it's still an issue maybe increase the requirement for the second stage to 3 spells
Sorcerer's Gambit:
Just reduce the spell damage to 2
Seek Guidance:
Your guess on how to make this playable without making it broken or completely redesigning it is as good as mine, either it's unplayable or it's incredibly irritating, honestly wouldn't be opposed to just scrapping it and making a completely new questline with any relation to the things priest does
Find the Imposter:
This seems fine with the reward at 5, Spymaster Scabbs could possibly even be buffed to add a random gizmo to your hand at the start of the turn for the rest of the game as well as adding one of each on battlecry if he went to 7
The Demon Seed:
Don't even know where to start with this, as for the quest itself either make it 7/8/8 or reduce the rewards to 2 damage, make Blightborn Tamsin not redirect fatigue, make Crystallizer deal and gain 3, and drop Darkglare a health at bare minimum, possibly make Kobold Librarian a 2 mana 2/2 as well to reduce the massive cycling ability the deck has, would love to see Raise Dead hit, but doubt that will ever happen given that it hasn't already
dont nerf crystalizer, just change it convert. thats all that needs to happen to it.
and if make it less dmg and less armor its still just free quets progress with 0 donwside
The challenge here is that it's very clear how a lot of these questlines can support a variety of archetypes. I think we've seen several archetypes for The Demon Seed already, and it will fit nicely into a more traditional Control Warlock deck after rotation because it will lose a lot of the cards it uses for its faster combo decks. Command the Elements can make for a lot of burst potential, but with spells like Tidal Surge and Tidal Wave it could also be a strong tool in a Control deck. Same deal with Mage - the spell damage boost could make for a powerful addition to any control deck, not just the infinite burn Ignite decks we've seen. Defend the Dwarven District can create a "Razakus" style combo endgame, but it also opens up targeting minions, and the spell synergies in Standard (e.g. Kolkar Pack Runner, Krolusk Barkstripper, and Lock and Load) support a more board-centric/value-oriented Hunter. Pirate Warrior will probably never be a Control deck, but I think Raid the Docks at least supports Aggro and Midrange nicely thanks to support like Shiver Their Timbers! and Cargo Guard.
The reality is that the quests that have mostly failed (e.g. Seek Guidance and Find the Imposter) have failed because they fit a very narrow set of archetypes (Quest Priest has to be control, Quest Rogue's SI:7 support forces a Tempo archetype) and those archetypes just haven't had success. I think Blizzard has been smart not to touch the questlines at all, but rather focus on the key cards (like Flesh Giant) that have made certain archetype/quest pairs too powerful and too popular*. There may yet be more work to be done, but the flexibility of these questlines is something to be lauded, and any adjustments need to be made with extreme care.
Maybe the "increase to 7 mana" suggestion is appropriate, but the risk there is making the rewards so hard to use on the same turn the quest is completed that all Quest decks becomes highly vulnerable to Mutanus the Devourer. I'm not convinced a metagame where every quest deck is easily disrupted by control is a good thing, as that would harm the many non-combo ways to play questlines.
*The popularity here is a particularly important thing to note. If the metagame were 20% Combo quests, 80% Aggro, that would mean there's room for Control to eat into the Aggro success. The metagame just prior to the latest nerfs looked more like 40% Combo/60% Aggro, which is basically an impossible place for Control to thrive without 85%+ winrates against Aggro.
Feels like you just outright kill most of them by increasing the rewards by 2 mana.
This is actually my favorite article on OOC in the past several months. Hopefully hs will take action similar to what is suggested here.
I have the same opinion. Great article!
"Removing the heals for Quest rewards is probably a no go; even though it would slow down Flesh Giants it would likely just offer the deck for aggro as lunch on a silver platter."
So? God forbid the thing that wants to hit itself in the face actually having to pay a price for doing that. That would change nothing about control and combo matchups, but if you give it glaring weakness to the other archetype, then suddenly it's not so ubiquitous that it ruins the ladder.
I personally think removing the Lifesteal would be the best solution. It would nothing about how the deck is played or built - so people can keep their decks if they like to play - but it would still greatly lower its impact on the meta and give it a much-needed weakness.
Agreed with much of this article. Fact remains that quest decks are too easily completed, features 3 tiers of rewards, and finishing it usually means death in 2 turns max. Games end by turn 8 on average now, and we all know that it used to be turn 6.
Im avoiding commenting extensively on wild, but in standard the problem is very similar except quest warrior is not yet a scourge. Let's have a short review of the problem;
- Mage ends games the following turn after Varden is played. Usually turns 7-8, and that's assuming the opponent plays little to no minions. With minions, the quest can be completed by turn 6. In other words, whenever the meta is composed of ordinary hearthstone i.e. curvestone plays, quest mage will always win, barring strong disruption like Cult Neophyte and Far Watch Post.
- Shaman finishes around turn 7, but Brukan only kills on average within 2-3 turns. Its slower than mage, but shaman's clears are preposterously powerful with Perpetual Flame without any downsides and shaman can crucially heal so the usual burn strats don't always work compared to mage. While mage can be killed by aggro, shaman is near immune to it. The quest reward basically allows shaman to outvalue everything. And I simply cannot imagine how team5 will solve this without powercreeping this straight to hell.
- Warlock finishes vary according to deck build. The current most healthiest questlock deck is handlock, where the quest is an after thought, more as a last resort. However, that doesn't change the fact that when tamsin comes down its lights out within 2 turns, via fatigue or otherwise. We've already seen warlock nerfed twice, and I happen to know that wild is such a cesspool of warlock decks that there's no chance we won't get a third nerf. Like really team5, just nerf this quest already.
- Hunter varies in wild and standard. In wild, this can finish as easily as turn 4-5 thanks to Rapid Fire. Needless to say hunter is a major problem in wild. While this has not picked up yet in standard, as shown by rapid fire this can easily change with the introduction of more spells for hunter. Quest hunter in standard is currently too slow for the meta, because hunter cant heal and can't clear as efficiently as the other decks. But does team5 intend to design around the quest for the next 1.5 years? I should think not.
- Quest warrior is shit in standard, but is an absolute monster in wild. This one is up in the air for me. I think its easy to design around this in standard, because there's no mandate for pirates to be printed every expansion. But again, if the meta slows down enough, this can easily be another problem, and warrior have no shortage of clears and heals to make sure it can get there.
- Nothing needs to be changed to priest, but team5 should take from this design philosophy. Powerful things should have weaknesses and should never be easily played, and quest priest is that exactly. The reward will always be vulnerable to mutanus and even the god destroying end reward that literally destroys the opponent when played is only available on turn 10, turn 9 at the very earliest. Is there any reason why team5 isn't designing the other quests like this?
- For the others: quest paladin (too slow, and cant heal), quest dhunter (too difficult to play correctly), quest rogue (powerful but can be played around), quest druid (destroyed by taunts. Like literally)
How to fix it? Just make the conditions more difficult to finish. Strong rewards should also come with difficult conditions, and this is only reflected in a few of the quests like priest. Otherwise, more radically, the quest rewards needs to be bumped up to 6-7 mana. This makes it very difficult to avoid a mutanus, which will balance the quest decks more or less but at a risk of making them unviable. Either way, if team5 leaves this hanging like this, they'd have to design around it for the next 1.5 years and that's a scary thought. We all thought the DKs were too powerful, well this expansion single handedly warped wild around its little finger. How many cards ever made as much a difference?
This article is almost fully focused on Wild. (And what it does have about Standard is inaccurate - for example, Quest Warlock decks only relied on fatigue damage for the first few days after the expansion released.)
In Standard, Quests really don’t seem to be a problem. According to the latest VS report (#205), Quests are found in only 1 of the 4 tier 1 decks 1 of the 7 tier 2 decks! The Quest archetypes are mainly found in T3 and T4. People like to complain, but it’s really not a problem.
As for Wild: I’ve been playing the game for a few years, and I can’t remember a single period when the Wild community wasn’t angry about how broken their meta was. I can believe that Quest Warlock is a problem, but it seems like the fundamental problems go far deeper than that.
They're still a problem in standard, albeit not as much in wild.
Tier 1 right now is basically quest shaman v quest warlock v quest mage. Each with pretty polarizing match-ups.
If you're playing shaman or warlock, you can kind of concede the second you see a mage or rogue. Shaman also immediately folds to warlock.
On the other hand, if you're playing any sort of aggro deck, good luck trying to beat a quest shaman.
This all leads to quite the polarizing and unfun experience. Not to mention the whole "control is dead doomsayer talk".
And while above situation could probably be solved by a few good nerfs, most of these questlines seem like ticking timebombs. Hunter and warrior are just one or two good support cards away from becoming as problematic as their wild counterparts.
According to the Vicious Syndicate report I quoted above, that’s not true at all. The latest HSReplay stats are different, but still don’t put Quest decks at the top. In fact, NO Quest decks are Tier 1 right now. Quest Shaman is the 6th best deck, Quest Warlock is 10th(!), and Warrior/Rogue/Mage are barely reaching 50% at spots 14-16. That tells me that Quests are viable, but not your best options. And my anecdotal experience is that most of my opponents aren’t playing them. It’s nothing like the Uldum Quest or Galakrond days.
You mean vS' report pre-nerfs? Yeah that's not very relevant right now, is it?
Quote from their latest podcast (2 days ago) "However, because top 3 most played decks right now are a combo of Handlock, Quest Shaman, and Quest Mage, its winrate looks okay."
Handlock and Quest shaman are the clear best decks in the game, and definitely tier 1. With the possible exclusion of top legend where both those decks are so popular that people run polarizing hard counter decks in the forms of Garotte rogue and quest mage.
VS is my go-to source, but yes their latest article is out of date. In my last post, I included updated data from HSReplay, which shows Quest decks locked out of T1 completely.
I don’t listen to the VS podcast. I just read a summary, and it does sound like Quest Shaman will be back on top of the pack in the next report. But they also talk up a lot of non-Quest decks.
Since Quests are one of the big features of the new expansion, I’m not surprised that they keep showing up in T1/T2. But the fact that they’re bouncing in and out of these tiers, and rarely making up more than 25% of each tier, tells me that it’s a matter of card balance and meta shifting. Quests are not fundamentally flawed. The first couple days of Quest Mage’s dominance did get boring, but Blizzard has been quick with the balance adjustments, and since then it’s more a more varied, fair meta than we usually get in the initial weeks of a new expansion.
I will admit that much of my experiences come from Wild. In Standard I've only been grinding achievements and my MMR is so low that I can't say too much about the top player meta. As I believe I mentioned, I don't hate the current Standard meta but even there control doesn't really exist due to questlines pushing the meta to another direction. If it was just for this expansion I could accept it, but the questlines are going to stay there for the next 1.5-ish years.
For Wild: certainly, there's always the strongest decks which will always give rise to complaints, but as patinha mentioned this meta is something else. I can't recall a similar shift where the new expansion cards would overtake the entire format with such power. If the same would've happened in Standard, I'm pretty sure things would've been nerfed by now.
I think the real problem is that Blizzard doesn’t design for the long-term viability of Wild. Powerful cards rotate out of Standard, new powerful cards rotate in, and there is no balance of the old and new ones when they mix.
I don’t play Wild, but I did see what Doom in the Tomb did to Standard a couple years ago. A few strong cards from the past were all it took to completely unbalance the whole meta. If Wild is that times 100, then I can understand why Wild players are frustrated so often. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I hope it doesn’t come at the expense of the fun Standard experiences the team creates.
As a Wild player (and some Arena) I can only tell about my experience: never before the meta lacked so much variety as it does now.