We've got a round of Battlegrounds balance changes coming in hot today which bring in three changes, including making Tarecgosa appear later on in the game.
- Elementium Squirrel Bomb is now Tavern Tier 4 (Was 3). (Millificent Manastorm’s Buddy)
- Tarecgosa is now Tavern Tier 4 (Was 3).
- Drakonid Enforcer is now Tavern Tier 3 (Was 4) and now has 2/4 stats (Down from 4/6).
- Although not specified, the triple version should have 4/8 stats.
IMPORTANT: This is not a client-side patch. Because of this, there is no download and the card changes will not appear correctly when you hover over them in the shop, hero select screen, or buddy meter.
Quote From Blizzard We’re in the process of deploying a hotfix that includes some balance changes for Battlegrounds and Duels, and a handful of bug fixes.
Developer’s Note: Because this is a hotfix change, the changes will not show correctly while hovering over the minions in the shop, on the hero select screen, or when hovering over the Buddy Meter. This will be corrected in a future update.
Hero Changes
Elementium Squirrel Bomb (Millificent Manastorm’s Buddy)
- Old: [Tavern Tier 3] → New: [Tavern Tier 4
Minion Changes
Tarecgosa
- Old: [Tavern Tier 3] → New: [Tavern Tier 4]
Drakonid Enforcer
- Old: [Tavern Tier 4] 3 Attack, 6 Health → New: [Tavern Tier 3] 2 Attack, 4 Health
Duels Updates
- All Together Now was moved from Treasure Pool 1 to Treasure Pool 2.
- Battle Totem, Disks of Legend, and Totem of the Dead were are all moved from Treasure Pool 2 to Treasure Pool 2 Ultra Rare.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- Fixed a bug where your opponent playing a Choose One card while holding a Pathmaker would cause a floating card to remain on your screen.
- Fixed a bug where Arfus would sometimes summon Reborn minions, instead of the properly resurrected 1 Health minions, when combined with Khadgar.
- Fixed a bug where certain Buddies’ on-play voicelines would not play in certain circumstances.
- Made progress on a bug where players were locked out of the Mercenaries Training Grounds. While a permanent solution is planned for Patch 22.4, restarting Hearthstone should now allow you to access the Training Grounds again if you were locked out.
- Fixed a bug where Duels achievements were not properly tracking runs.
- Fixed a bug where Duels Health totals did not match the Health totals intended for run progress.
Comments
Cool I got my free Tavish+Tarkecgosa top 1 yesterday :)
This change was much needed, I do hope it will nerf Illidan too although I'm not sure it'll be enough.
Huh, the duels nerf feels odd. I can't remember where the discussion was occurring (maybe here?) but obviously the big issue with treasures in duels is that if they are so strong that they need to be put in the "Pool 2 Ultra Rare" pool, then they probably should be balanced instead. Some builds are gonna have strong "non-rare" treasures, and others are going to effectively rely on those treasures. And it still takes the agency out of the players hands. You could have a mirror match where both players are playing something like....Duels Ping Mage, but the player who gets ultra lucky with Battle Totem is going to most likely have a way easier time than the person who doesn't.
Ultimately this is going to make the person who doesn't find that treasure feel bad when they go up against someone with that treasure. And this leads back to my initial through which is: why not just get rid of Pool 2 Ultra Rare, and just balance the treasures, or split them out so they aren't a problem. Instead of "Your battlecries trigger twice" maybe make it so "Your Battlecries with a cost <4 trigger twice" or something like that.
There's been treasures in the past that only work on the first minion you play, think Rocket Backpacks. So maybe Battle Totem and Totem of the Dead should be: "The first minion you play each turn...
That is already the case with those treasures though. Not having double battlecries or double deathrattles is too big of a difference and with this change it will happen less. I’m fine with some lucky bastard having an easy time if it improves consistency for everybody else
I imagine the Ultra Rare pool exist to add more unpredictability to the runs. It's probably a similar logic to critical hits in RPGs. Whether they have a place in a competitive environment is another discussion (they probably don't)
I suppose you're right, it's just there are ways to make it feel better. A good example is TFT (I know I'm dirty). When you get lucky with a prismatic augment, that means so did everyone else. Everyone else has a choice of a prismatic, so you know that despite you getting 1 out of 3 choices for your prismatic, you picked the "best" one for you. And while it may or may not be better or worse than your opponent's, at least you all got the choice of a prismatic augment.
Duels makes it so that your opponent may have drafted both pieces of quel'delar, and gotten a pool 2 ultra rare, but meanwhile you were only able to draft Small Bags, Blood Moon, and Bag of Coins.
I get that unpredicability can make runs interesting but sometimes it feels like the odds are stacked against you. (Similar to how in Arena, you get no legendary cards drafted, but your 1st opponent managed to draft a deck with 3 legendaries, and tons of discover/removal effects.) Unpredictability to a degree is fine, but too much just makes me (and possibly others) feel like we have no control over the outcome of the match.