There's so much Pandaria stuff lately. Real sus.
We've got a big update coming out next week for Hearthstone Mercenaries which includes new Mercs, Bounties, and an all important limited-time event, arriving a bit later, the first of its kind for Mercenaries.
Quote From Blizzard Starting on February 22, Mercenaries will be hosting its first-ever limited time event! Complete a chain of 10 exciting event Tasks to harness the power of Chi-Ji, and strengthen all the August Celestials. Two new Tasks will be available on each of the first 5 days of the event, but you have until March 8 to complete all 10 Tasks. Complete all 10 Tasks to earn the Chi-Ji Epic Mercenary Card, a Chi-Ji Mercenary Portrait, and over 1000 total Mercenary Coins for the new Mercenaries! As you prepare for this event to begin, make your way through all the Alterac Valley Bounties and take special care to strengthen your Beasts and Dragons, which will be essential for some of these Tasks.
NEW MERCENARIES
Long’xin (Legendary Caster)
- Dragon
- 6/86 Maxed Stats
- Abilities:
- Celestial Breath 5 (Arcane): (Speed 7) Deal 19 damage to an enemy. Any excess damage continues right or left.
- Starfire Blessing 5 (Arcane): (Speed 2, Cooldown 1) For two turns, gain +3 Arcane Damage and “After this Merc is damaged, deal 14 damage to a random enemy.”
- Among the Stars 5 (Arcane): (Speed 1, Cooldown 1) Give an ally +13 Health and swap places with it. Enemy abilities targeting the Mercs swap targets (if possible).
- Equipment:
- Bottle of Infinite Stars 4: Among the Stars gives +4 more Health and also grants Health to your Dragons.
- Kun-Lai Crystal 4: Among the Stars starts off Cooldown. Passive: +8 Nature Resistance.
- Band of Bursting Novas 4: Battlecry: Gain +3 Arcane Damage for each of your Beasts and Dragons that has died this game.
Xuen (Epic Fighter)
- Beast
- 9/76 Maxed Stats
- Abilities:
- Equalizing Stike 5: (Speed 7) Choose an enemy. Set this Merc’s Attack to 5 higher than the target and Attack them.
- Pounce 5: (Speed 4) Borrow 5 Attack from all friendly characters for 2 turns. Attack an enemy.
- Tiger Lightning 5 (Nature): Deal this Merc’s Attack damage to a random enemy. Deathblow: Gain +5 Attack and repeat this.
- Equipment:
- Spear of Xuen 4: Equalizing Stike sets this Merc’s Attack to an addition 4 higher than the target.
- Celestial Chestplate 4: Pounce also steals 5 Attack from a random enemy.
- Charged Gauntlets 4: Tiger Lightning gives an additional +4 Attack.
Niuzao (Rare Protector)
- Beast
- 10/80 Maxed Stats
- Abilities:
- Headbutt 5: (Speed 7) Attack an enemy. If it has higher Attack than this Merc, deal 16 damage to it instead.
- Bullish Fortitude 5: (Speed 2, Cooldown 1) Gain Taunt and your other characters take 5 less damage for 2 turns.
- Blessing of the Ox 5 (Arcane): (Speed 3, Cooldown 1) Each time a friendly character is damaged this turn, give them Divine Shield.
- Equipment:
- Bullish Belt 4: Bullish Fortitude reduces damage taken by 5 more, but has +1 Cooldown.
- Helm of Niuzao 4: Passive: -2/+16. After an enemy Attack this Merc, deal 5 damage to them.
- Talisman of the Ox 4: Passive: After a friendly character loses Divine Shield, this Merc gains +6 Health.
Yu’lon (Rare Protector)
- Dragon
- 8/85 Maxed Stats
- Abilities:
- Jade Gust 5 (Nature): (Speed 10) Deal 20 damage to an enemy. If they Attacked this turn, deal 40 damage instead.
- Jadeflame Buffet 5 (Fire): (Speed 1, Cooldown 1) Block Taunt and Stealth on all other characters for 2 turns. Give your characters +10 Health.
- Enveloping Mist 5 (Nature): (Speed 2, Cooldown 1) Gain Taunt and +3 Nature Damage. Repeat for each other friendly Dragon.
- Equipment:
- Jadefire Spear 4: Jadeflame Buffet gives an additional +5 Health.
- Serpent Pendant 4: Enveloping Mist gives an additional +3 Nature Damage.
- Pearl of Yu’lon 4: Passive: Your other Dragons take 4 less damage.
Chi-Ji (Epic Caster)
- Beast
- 7/79 Maxed Stats
- Abilities:
- Blazing Song 5 (Fire): (Speed 3) Deal 10 damage to an enemy. Gain +3 Heal Power.
- Inspiring Song 5 (Fire): (Speed 4) Restore 10 Health to all friendly characters.
- Firestorm 5 (Fire): (Speed 5, Cooldown 1) Deal 5 damage to all enemies, and restore 5 Health to all allies. (Increased by Healing Power.)
- Equipment:
- Blazing Band 4: Blazing Song deals 4 more damage and gives an additional +2 Heal Power.
- Staff of Chi-Ji 4: Inspiring Song restores 10 more Health.
- Flameheart Crystal 4: Passive: After a friendly Beast is healed, give them +5 Health.
Long’xin, Xuen, Niuzao, and Yu-lon will all be available through all normal ways of acquiring a Mercenary, starting on February 15. Chi-Ji will be earned exclusively through the Chi-Ji event until it is made available through the normal means of acquiring Mercenaries in the next major patch after the event is over.
NEW BOUNTIES
Six new Bounties will also be added to the Alterac Valley Zone:
- Rotimer
- Ichman
- Balinda Stonehearth
- Ivus
- Vanndar Stormpike
- Kazakus
The Vanndar Stormpike and Kazakus Bounties will be added to the game after the conclusion of the Chi-Ji event. All other Bounties will be added on February 15, with the launch of the patch.
Comments
Sad the event is gated.
It should be accessable for everyone
If there's gonna be 11 classes in the future, I can''t stop thinking how they gonna fit the 11th classes into the platform. Especially on Mobile, where everything is small and compact already. And, I don't wanna start imagining the bugs that comes with it.
Nope. Best guess is they're out of things to sell. They need something fresh, and they picked something that most people would see, in order to get the most of profits. I mean, honestly, looking at recent chart (somewhere), Mercenary mode is a failure mode and keeps descending.
The notes say to make your way through all the Alterac Valley Bounties to prepare, so it looks like to complete the Tasks need to finish the all the PvE content.
I've been playing lots of Mercenaries recently, and my biggest issue is the coins. Duplicate protection exists for cards in the traditional game, so why not for coins? It's incredibly frustrating to keep earning coins for maxed out mercs while I am desperately trying to upgrade new mercs but don't have the coins to do so.
I'm gonna be honest here, I don't think Mercs is ever going to improve. Their approach to balance seems to be "release broken stuff then release more broken stuff to counter previously released broken stuff". It's not even been out for a year and the powercreep already rivals that of Traditional HS. Excess coins still haven'T been addressed in any way, grinding is still a repetitive chore. PVP is just not interesting due to lack of actual strategy beyond "netdeck a popular team and hope you don't queue into things that hardcounter you"
Honestly at this point they're better off just selling the merc portraits as actual skins since they're clearly the best part of the entire thing.
YourPrivateNightmare could not agree more, like with everything you said.
especially the "they're better off just selling the merc portraits as actual skins since they're clearly the best part of the entire thing." part :D
I think it really sucks to see a mode with so much great potential getting wrecked by devs. (well thats just the blizz I guess, like the overwatch lol)
I honestly don't think that the powercreep is as bad as you make it out to be. Yes, there are some power outliers in the post-launch mercs, but those also existed within the release mercs. There also is the opposite with mercs that are fun for pve, but not strong enough for pvp like Wrathion, Balinda, Galvangar, Trigore, Vanessa etc.
The current top-meta comp also mainly contains release mercs and all of them are perfectly usable in pve. I'd even go as far as to claim that Lokholar isn't even that strong in itself, but was just a direct counter to the previous Valeera that will loose its relevance once the meta focuses on slower abilities.
The problem about PvE is that thee's 0 incentive to ever use anything outside of the most efficient comps because the grind sucks and the only thing that makes it bearable is making it faster. Why should I spend two turns to wipe a fight with Demons when I can do it in one with Fire?
Right now PvP is dictated by Valeera and Lokholar. You either oneshot LOkholar on turn 1 or you get destroyed by him. Those who don't play Lokholar play Valeera and dumpster whatever's left. Tribal archetypes are almost completely unplayable outside of Fire/Nature stuff. When'S the last times you've seen Beasts? Have you ever seen Pirates?
The whole fantasy of Mercs was supposed to be to build your party of synergistic mercs but instead everyone just runs the handful of top mercs that are just independently strong and synergy is largely out of the window. This isn't going to get better unless the rampant abuse of speed manipulation is addressed and the most consistently powerful mercs (like Valeera, Varden and Cairne) are in someway nerfed.
The only thing I ever really wanted from mercs was the ability to build a team focussed around themes I enjoy like Beasts and Pirates and stuff, but those builds aren't just bad they're pretty much unplayable in PvP and entirely impractical in PvE, meaning a large part of the lads that I'm supposed to collect and max are just pointless filler....but I still have to spend time doing their tasks and stuff...that's not fun...and I usually don't mind grinding.
The incentive is enjoyment of the game. If you don't think Mercs is fun in and of itself, you probably shouldn't bother playing. It's just not for you. That doesn't mean it's bad, just that it doesn't match your personal taste.
People who like the game will try different comps against different bounties just for the fun of it, just to see if they can. They know that the pleasure in Mercs is not in having a maxed-out team or in coasting through easy wins because they've outleveled all the challenges. The pleasure is in the challenge itself. If you don't get that by now, you never will, and you might as well move on.
Maybe because you don't have any fire synergy in your comp because it sucks against most bosses. Demons on the other hand have more sustain with the abilitiy to summon minions, gives your whole team extra health and have scaling attack damage.
Or you build a slow team to not trigger his passive like with Orcs or maybe even dragons. Alternatively there are also reliable ways to kill him before his passive can do anything significant, like with Brukan and Guff 2. abilities.
Is that really the case? You already mentioned frost, fire and nature comps who obviously rely on synergy. Then there is also the occasional Anduin holy/heal, shadow and orcs teams I see in pvp. Not to mention the ability synergy, like the famous Endurance Aura/Fire Stomp combo or Primal Power + Apex Predator.
Isn't that exactly what they did with Lokholar? They introduced a merc that is especially effective against speed heavy comps (and valeera in particular), which forces the meta to adapt. There are also a couple more mercs that reward you for going last.
I think major changes require a much longer timespan to implement. A lot of this content was likely already done or close to it when Mercenaries launched - they actually came up with a content plan for a change.
I fully expect to see a lot of the art available in the shop for regular portraits though in the future. Double dipping on art assets is awesome ROI and I know there's a few art pieces I wouldn't mind as a playable hero.
I know that there'S going to be improvements in the future but to me the entire thing just feels doomed...and I've played it a lot, even managed to max all mercs right up until the last update at which point I gave up because the bounties are just so unfun to grind and the meta somehow managed to get even worse in PvP.
TO me there's nothing they can fix in PvP unless the do a massive overhaul of the combat system and dish out multiple nerfs and buffs across the board (which would affect the viablility of certain mercs in PvE too which is why I doubt they ever will do it)
Then there's the obvious excess coin issue which I'm sure they're working on but it's just beyond ridiculous that this wasn't planned for at all on launch. Like...they couuld have at least brainstormed a concept to allude to instead of just saying "we'll figure something out" after people realize the massive diminishing returns from packs.
Monk class for Hearthstone inc
I have my doubts even with all the Pandaria stuff.
And honestly i hope dont get it, atleast for a good while ( a year or 2), HS already has enough trouble with balance and having evry class be relevant as it is, DH aslo didnt really help out with balance in HS.
And a new 11th class would mean either class cards for evryone so even less new stuff to try out and less cards to push stuff, and so if soemthing doesnt work out (like big spell mage or the fell stuff for lock) thats now even worse for the class. Or they add more cards to expansions and make it more expensive and HS is more then expensive enough as it is.
Yeah, this is getting a bit ridiculous.
They said no new class though, so maybe this is them getting Pandaria out of their system a bit, introducing these characters into the game so the non-WoW players get familiar with them, and lining up the new class for next year with established lore and maybe even mechanics.