Blizzard just announced that on Thursday, May 19th, we'll receive a balance patch. We're yet to know what cards will be addressed, but here is all the other available information:
- The patch will go live on May 19 (just confirmed by Alkali Layke).
- Battlegrounds will receive some changes - the freshly released Naga are a bit too good!
- Standard will get the second balance patch for the Voyage to the Sunken City expansion cycle.
- Not only we'll receive nerfs, but buffs are coming too!
Quote From PlayHearthstone Heads up, Adventurers!
Details on our newest patch are coming May 19. Look forward to adjustments to both Battlegrounds and Standard, including nerfs and buffs!
Quote From Alkali Layke We have some confusion about when the next Hearthstone patch is coming out. Sorry about that.
Patch is THIS THURSDAY.
Demons? Demons
The targets of the upcoming balance changes for Constructed are yet to be unveiled, but at least we can brainstorm some ideas:
- Demon Hunter is obviously getting hit: Illidan escaped the last round of nerfs by a very short margin, but its dominance on ladder is a clear indicator that something needs to be done.
- Drek'Thar has a clear target on its back, but many players are also asking for Multi-Strike to be moved to 2 mana.
- Once DH is toned down, Control Warrior may become a bit too good at seizing aggressive initiatives.
- There have been talks about a potential nerf to Shield Shatter to 12 mana.
- Other players suggested to tone down some Nellie, the Great Thresher swings.
- As usual, the most interesting part of the patch is going to be the buff section.
- In his recent AMA, Iksar stated that Warlock and Priest are probably going to receive some love.
- Gul'Dan and Anduin are by far the worst heroes in Standard right now, by a wide margin.
- Other classes, such as Rogue and Hunter, feel very limited in what they can play right now - this buff patch may address this potential issue too.
What are your predictions about the upcoming balance changes? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Priest needs a French kiss
Too much damage over the top, ignoring the board state.
Naga Demon Hunter needs nerfing to oblivion, along with Quest Hunter, they're the main culprits for either ignoring the board or it's irrelevant to them.
Quest Warrior... Quest Warrior has always been a problem as an aggro deck with infinite value. Just remove it.
Mech mage shouldn't be able to discover more sharks from all the discover cards they play.
Paladin Hero card is now super OP and needs toning down along with mech paladin.
Kazakusan needs retiring early.
If you don't agree you play one of these low IQ decks.
To be fair, you listed 2 cheap decks which is all I play in standard.
Honestly, as long as I can finally mass disenchant all my stuff without worrying how much I'll be losing on another nerf is all I want. I can see the power play for the cards that are being discussed, but I just can't stand hardy with any of them.
The buffs on the other hand, as a die hard lock player, I am hoping to get some gnarly stuff out of this. I know it won't be anything crazy enough to bump it to a tier 1-s level for standard, but at least it could be playable
Highly doubt they'll nerf Drek'Thar coz then they'd need to refund players real money to whoever bought the diamond version of the card. And how on earth do you even nerf him? Changing the text to only summoning 1 minion ruins the flavor of the card coz there's 2 frost wolves and we can't change the mana cost either.
Best guess is they nerf cards like Pufferfist, Raj Naz'jan and Treasure Guard to 4 mana and buff the stats. Ofc other top performing DH cards like Multi-Strike will take a hit.
As for buffs, I'd imagine Team 5 will play it safe and buff core set cards so if they do turn out to be too good, they can nerf them again without any dust refunds.
When did they say they would refund real money if they nerfed him ?
They're not going to refund anyone for the diamond portrait, and rightfully so, because you can't craft it with dust. The reason why they refund dust after nerfs is because you may have crafted the card right before it got nerfed and that's a feel bad moment. But if you bought diamond Drek'Thar, it's not because you lacked Drek'Thar, it's purely because of the exclusive cosmetic, which has no value in dust, and therefore can't be refunded.
On dust refund value, I personally like them to avoid nerfing Drek'Thar. Since I don't get any value if they did nerf him.
On competitive side, I would suggest nerfing Drek'Thar to either,
summons two 2-cost /lower minions from deck, or
summons two 2/2 stats copy of 3-cost /lower minions from deck.
Either that or, nerfing and buffing the support cards that synergies with Drek'Thar.
You lost me at 'cuz' . Easy nerf if considered how it's best to do so...
Straight from one of Dean's Q&As
I guarantee you that players who bought the diamond version will be unhappy with any solution they come up with, so the best bet they have is to avoid nerfing Drek'Thar.
I'd be very surprised if they refund players' their real money. And what do we even do for the players that bought it with gold?
I'd like to agree but Im really hoping team5 doesn't let this off simply because they sold that skin for an absurd price. The problem with nerfing around Drek'Thar is that its simply unsustainable. It really doesn't matter much what 3 drop it summons out, even a mere two spider tanks along with a 4/4 on 4 is just ridiculous.
The correct thing to do is to nerf him so he only summons one minion instead of two. This might end up killing the card, but this is just only of those situations where its close to impossible to merely lower his powerlevel. They can also opt to nerf him to 5 mana, and change the description to summon 2 minions that costs less than 4, but I doubt they'd consider it.
Or perhaps they'd just nerf him to summon only 2 spirit wolves, which will still be good, but nowhere near as good as it is now.
4 mana, summon 2 spirit wolf which they are 2-3 taunt, so total 4 mana 4-4 + 2-3x2 total worth of stats 8-10 on turn 4 or 3 with coin?
Seems pretty balanced yes.
As a Wild player, I do feel that nerfs to DH for Standard will only butcher the class more. Drek'Thar does need a hit regardless of DH, but I do not advocate for nerfs to Multi-Strike nor Dreadprison Glaive. If anything, some stuff should be nerfed to Odd-Cost so that Odd Demon Hunter gets some new toys to possibly use - my best bet would be to nerf Fel Barrage to 3 Mana. Also MAYBE nerf Lady S'theno to 4 Mana or make her prioritise minions, as Odd DH doesn't really care about using multiple spells for S'Theno, and she can also do some terror in Standard.
If you're nerfing cards to odd cost, an aggressive odd-only deck is not going to use those nerfed cards lol. Unless the card is super broken, which fel barrage is anything but.
A conditional 3 mana deal 4 damage to the enemy hero sounds terrible.
Guys, are you ready for Mage machine gun meta from Friday, the only deck stopping mech mage is DH, so hold your horses, if the meta shark is not nerfed…
Naga mage
Quest hunter
Burn shaman
Control warrior
All counter mech mage, in addition to dh. Probably more decks but there isn't that much data at legend ranks because the deck is barely played. (And high numbers of dh are not the only reason.)
Dude Mech Mage destroys Control Warrior I have played 80 games with Mech Mage and i have around 70% win rate vs Control Warrior.
i agree quest hunter and burn shaman also beat mech mage but againts naga mage i would say its an even match (according to my data)
I don't have access to hsreplay so vicioussyndicate will do.
Mech mage is 46% into control warrior and 44% into naga mage at legend.
https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/drr/matchup-chart-data-reaper-report/
I've beaten mech mage with many decks maybe not as consistently as DH but it's not an unbeatable deck. But i will agree it's the shark making the deck work. I could see it nerfed to 2 pings but probably not. From the depths is a much worse problem that I hope they fix.
Some predictions, if I may! (I'm bad at this)
Multi-Strike: Either to two mana or only granting one attack.
Drek-Thar: Maybe a burf to a three mana 2/2? Though it comes out earlier, the resulting swarm is much easier to deal with.
Dreadprison Glaive: Either to two mana or two durability.
I still think the main balance problem in Standard is the total cards available. Always happened in the first expansion of the year where some classes have superior cards than others, or some classes lacking spesific cards to be played. Not to mention, smaller pools of spells to discover, etc.
The only real solution was to rotate 1 expansion per 4 months, that way, the 3rd expansion of the year got more time to be played (around 8 more months),
OR releasing 2nd expansion faster, probably 2-3 weeks faster.