If you tried Hearthstone Mercenaries in its debut patch, you're in luck! As you may recall from last week's "what's next" post, today, Blizzard is distributing 5 free packs to all eligible players who played the new game mode. The exact time they're going to arrive in your account, we don't know for certain as these things can take a while to distribute to everyone. If Blizzard provides an update stating that they have all been distributed, we'll update this post.
Are there any heroes you're hoping to score some new stuff for in your free packs? Let us know what you're hoping to get in your haul in the comments below.
Quote From Blizzard As a big “thank you” to everyone for embracing this mode and making it so popular, we’re giving everyone 5 free Mercenaries packs! If you played Mercenaries in the 21.4 patch cycle, we’ll drop your appreciation gift into your collection on November 9.
Comments
Got my five packs. Not that its going to do alot since I have all the mercs. Probably saving until the next update.
It does seem like up until a certain point there's really no reason to buy anything because grinding up for them is actually a valid option. Though I'd imagine that once youve exhausted all the mercs tasks, grinding up a new legendary/epic is going to take a lot longer than it would now. Given that the last three bosses added were no joke (took somewhere around 15-30 min to complete Blackhand), and each has only a chance to grant like 10-20 legendary coins, the grind can only get worse.
My game just crashed and when I logged back in, I got my 5 merc packs. Go try log out and in again to gain yours. EU region here btw.
The free packs didn't show up, but the new offers and bundles sure did.
How about new expansion anouncement?
Glad I'm not the only one. Maybe the packs are coming later?
Has anyone else got their packs yet? I log in and get a few update messages and see new items/bundles available in the stores, but have not got the 5 free packs.
I can confirm no packs yet, restarted the game, got bombarded with "store offers" but no free packs on sight. This is embarrassing for Blizzard at this point.
Did anyone here got the packs? It's past the usual time, the Book of Mercenaries is live and I still havn't received the packs.
I was wondering when the free packs were arriving, as we're already past the usual time of day for updates.
Thanks for the info!
I'm only missing Edwin Vancleef so I hope to get him in these 5 packs and if not I will get a few more with gold ;D
EDIT: Just got the 5 packs, I think it was on the daily reset (00:00 CET in my case). Got portraits for Sneed, Rathorian, Cookie and Cornelius and then x41 Edwin coins (among others of course).
In 5 minutes, 1 PM Eastern (10 AM Pacific, Blizzard Time), that's the normal Hearthstone time when stuff happens.
So excited, can't wait to get 50 coins for Cariel to add to my other 3000.
And if you're extra lucky, you'll also get a Cariel skin.
I've opened more than 200 packs, and still miss 3 legendaries. Feels like the actual drop rates are much lower than expected.
The pack quality of mercs drops significantly the more you open, because up until a certain point you'll start getting more portraits instead of mercs/coins, and since there's no dust system there can be packs that are just completely duds, unlike regular hearthstone.
I dont think there's a problem with the drop rate, but if you're trying to get everything without grinding, that's going to take quite a lot of packs.
The average is one legendary per 20 packs, just like Hearthstone cards. Counting the free one, you are only slightly behind the curve.
Packs seem to be a bad purchase in general. I went completely F2P and only opened packs I got from tasks and other free means and I am similarly missing only 3 legendaries (2 of which I can craft already but won't because I'd rather save the coins).
Packs seem to only be useful to people who want more portraits. In terms of coin or mercenary value they are awful.
I am F2P in mercs except for the $5 Welcome Bundle and have opened 83 packs so far. I have all the current mercs except one legendary (Edwin). I crafted all the ones I haven't opened (I think I have opened 7-10?) in packs. I am hoarding packs (I have 20 waiting) until the next major content release (that is, when they release new mercs). In the case of the mercs that I have crafted, I am certainly a little ways off maxing them, but you really can get close once you finish their task quest chain.
I have been a big task grinder (617 done so far), and I do 3 wins a day in PVP against the AI to power level my few remaining low-level mercs so I have been able to accumulate lots of coins for crafting mercs that I'm missing.
For someone like me, it doesn't seem like there's ever going to be a need to buy packs in this mode, especially given that the benefits really diminish over time.