Updated Early Known Issues and Fixes for Hearthstone's Patch 24.4 - Theotar Bug, Disabled Packs & Max Stats for Mercenaries, One Battlegrounds Quest Too

[Updated on October 3]

The latest Mini-Set is now here with Maw and Disorder taking over the case of Murder at Castle Nathria while instantly going to trial - yet apparently it just couldn't avoid introducing some notable bugs alongside all the new cards and content updates. We've already briefly covered a couple of these urgent topics in our large overview for the newest major patch, as they seemed to fit into the particular 'game-breaking' category. But - this probably won't surprise you - there is still a bit more to spread the word about. 

• Hearthstone's Patch 24.4 Is Now Live - Maw and Disorder Mini-Set, Mercenaries and Battlegrounds Updates, Low Rating AI Opponents, & More

Update:

We've had a small hotfix patch roll out, which should've squashed at least one of the persisting bugs. 

• Hearthstone's New Hotfix Brings Armor Changes to Battlegrounds Heroes, Quest Reward Balance, and a Theotar Crash Fix for Choose One Cards

1. Now Theotar, the Mad Duke should be fully fixed, both for Hero and Choose One cards. 
2. Both the issues with Mercenaries Packs and the missing Maxed Stats on characters should be fixed.
3. There also seems to be a new issue where you can queue into the same opponent multiple times in a row when playing Arena/Duels (still under investigation).
4. Theotar's Parasol (Battlegrounds Quest Reward) isn't currently available in the game. 
5. Certain Mini-Set cards (Contract Conjurer, Defense Attorney Nathanos, Dew Process, and more) not fully working as intended - full details further down.

Quote From DeckTech

Maxed Mercs losing their +1/+5 is/has been rolling out, so you can restart your client and see if yours are fixed, if it's not fixed yet, it should be hitting you soon.

Quote From DeckTech

24.4 Known Issues post got started up right at the start because I wanted to document the Theotar reports:

As you can see, Hearthstone's Team Five has already been working behind the scenes to fix these early problems, while establishing their usual thread on the official Blizzard forums for further communication, and to be able to receive community reports. Even so, not every single known bug might be currently documented over there, as we will undoubtedly uncover more of them while going through this new patch content. 

Luckily, some of the issues listed below have already been resolved without a dedicated hotfix patch even being necessary:

Theotar Effect Not Always Triggering

Update: One hotfix for Theotar has been rolled out, and now the second one should have followed suit. Consider the section below to be a detailed account of what's happened before and how it came about. 

Quote From Blizzard

• [Resolved] In Constructed, the team is investigating reports that Theotar, the Mad Duke’s effect is causing issues.

Mercenaries - Disabled Packs and Missing Maxed Stats 

Update: Garona has been found. Mercenaries Packs now working as intended (and there was compensation). The missing Maxed Stats bonus should now also be back in the game. 

Quote From Blizzard

• [Resolved] In Mercenaries, Garona Halforcen is improperly not appearing in Mercenaries Packs.
  • Update: Players who opened Mercenaries Packs during the time that this was bugged have received two Mercenaries Packs as compensation.
• [Added 9/27] The team is investigating reports that Mercenaries have lost their +1/+5 Maxed Stats bonuses.
  • Update: This fix is rolling out to servers in waves.

We've also seen some reports about various visual issues when using Mercenary abilities and the like.

Battlegrounds - Theotar Strikes Again

Yes, it's not just Constructed where something named (after) Theotar was causing problems. We've just received one missing Quest Reward back, so in order to mantain the balance in the Force, another one apparently had to be temporarily disabled. 

Quote From Blizzard

• In Battlegrounds, the Theotar’s Parasol Quest Reward has been temporarily disabled, as it was found to cause crashes in specific situations.

Also an unfortunate skin bug for the Tavern Pass owners: 

Quote From Blizzard

• [Added 9/28] The team is aware that the Dark Flight Malygos Battlegrounds Skin has become unavailable for players who previously claimed it. The team is investigating the issue and planning a fix.

One more note that isn't even strictly a new issue - as it's been this way ever since the introduction of the separate Rewards Track for Battlegrounds: 

Quote From Blizzard

• The Battlegrounds Rewards Track does not open to the latest page to claim rewards. The fix for this issue is coming in the next major patch (24.6).

Hearthstone Modes - Broken & Repetitive Matchmaking

Beware when playing Arena and Duels! A newly discovered issue is apparently causing Modes players to match against the same opponent multiple times in a row. If you've just queued into somebody who's absolutely destroyed you due to their sheer card quality and great luck (because as we very well know, it's never a skill issue in Hearthstone), best step away for a moment and take a break if you don't want to risk a repeat of such a situation. 

Quote From Blizzard

The team is aware that some players in various modes are matching into the same opponent multiple times in a row. The team is investigating the issue and potential solutions to it.

For PvP Mercenaries it's not really unusual and has been a common occurrence for many months now, due to the way the mode and its matchmaking ratings work. 

New Mini-Set Cards

By now we've seen a number of reports regarding the new Mini-Set cards not exactly behaving as intended, but not all of them have yet received proper explanations or even official confirmations. This detailed video from the Hearth Tech crew shows several of these weird interactions.

To begin with, Contract Conjurer apparently also gets discounted by Quests and Sidequests : 

Quote From Blizzard

• [Added 9/28] The team is aware that Contract Conjurer’s discount does not work as intended in certain circumstances.

Another problem has received a reply from Cora Georgiou (Initial Design Lead), following a tweet from Hearthstone Summer Champion Habugabu. This should be corrected after the most recent hotfix! 

Quote From Cora

Theft Accusation destroys the minion Whenever instead of After the card is played :(

Nah this is definitely a trigger timing fix, not a text fix. We intended for after functionality, so we'll just change the timing to be accurate.

Update: Adjusted in the separate hotfix patch.

Next one was addressed by DeckTech once another known competitive player Furyhunter brought it up. Besides the following, Defense Attorney Nathanos can apparently also maintain poisonous and lifesteal effects. 

Quote From DeckTech

There is a bug with Defense Attorney Nathanos where he doesn't gain the deathrattle of the chosen minion if the minion was silenced prior to death. It also doesn't trigger the deathrattle and I've heard that the discovered card doesn't have a deathrattle. Didn't see this in post

Thanks, yep, known. Don’t have any status on it or anything.

We've also been seeing reports about Dew Process behaving weirdly, not always drawing the expected number of cards and thus resulting in overdrawing (the effect itself might stack). It took a few days before we saw anything official on the subject. 

Quote From Blizzard

• [Added 9/29] The team is aware that Dew Process gains an extra trigger for a player after a hero card is played. The team is investigating the solution to this issue.

And we happen to know that Murder Accusation also triggers when enemy weapon or hero (!) get destroyed, or in strange cases when a spell has been used. Not very picky that one. 

Slow Disenchanting & Wild Reno 

The overeager card disenchanting confirmation that's currently showing up for every single copy (even if you've got dozens of them in your collection) and apparently causing quite some lag, has also been confirmed to be a bug. Many players will be glad to know that. 

Quote From Celestalon

we supposed to get the warning even if we got 9+ copies of a card? This pops up with every card when you disenchant them first time even if you got over 9 extra cards.

Nope, it's a bug. :(

Moving over to Wild - after Zeddy has once again brought up the ongoing game crashing issue related to Reno the Relicologist, we've learned a little something:

Quote From DeckTech

I'm still hearing reports that Reno the Relicoligist is causing crashes in Wild whenever he's played. This has been going on for around a month and still isn't officially acknowledged by Blizzard. Is there a fix on the way?

I'm pretty sure it was acknowledged when it first came out, but anyway it was just a tricky one to reproduce. Got some new faces looking at it a couple days ago and they just told me they have a lead: it appears that the disconnect only happens if you have screen shake disabled.

Try it out with screen shaking enabled, or choose not to if you cannot stand it for some reason. 

Other Bug Fixes and Improvements - 22.4 Patch Notes

A number of other relevant bug fixes and improvements came in with the Mini-Set on Tuesday - in our patch overview, we've already mentioned the long-awaited resolution of the Journal icon's persisting exclamation mark, and went over all relevant Mercenaries and Battlegrounds notes in their own dedicated articles.

• Hearthstone Mercenaries in Patch 24.4 - 14 New Characters and 19 Bounties, Charge Keyword, Mobile UI Fix
• Hearthstone Battlegrounds Updates for Patch 24.4 - Sylvanas Returns With Another Hidden Body, Bug Fixes

Here is all the rest: 

Quote From Blizzard

• [Hearthstone] Necrolord Draka’s Maldraxxus Dagger now caps out at 10 mana.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where players could not play minions onto a full board, even if space was being cleared, until after animations and effects resolved.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where playing Gone Fishin' with an empty deck did not draw a fatigue card.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where The Leviathan would sometimes summon a blank space instead of its appendage.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Deathborne did not summon a Volatile Skeleton if the minion went Dormant when killed.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Bibliomite revealed the card returned to its owner’s deck.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where if a card selected by a “Suspicious” card was transformed, opponents would be offered the new transformed card instead of the original card chosen.
• [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug that resulted in a Flightmaster Dungar copied from an opponent getting extra effect activations.
• [Solo Content] Fixed a bug that prevented players from entering certain solo content if they owned some portion of the solo content, but not all of it.
• [Achievements] Fixed a bug in tracking the Flower Power achievement.
• [Achievements] Fixed a bug causing the Journal notification to persist even if there were no notifications to clear.
• Misc. other bug fixes and game improvements.

And no, the above isn't a stealth nerf to Necrolord Draka. But the line can be confusing if you don't take a mental note of these things. Luckily for us, there is a fairly simple explanation: 

Quote From DeckTech

the daggers have mana cost equal to attack, so rummaging kobold could give you an unplayable dagger

^ yeah, this. It’s a bit of a niche issue, but sometimes the dagger can go into your hand and be unplayable. This is capping it at 10, like generated minions.

Those are the most important topics so far. We'll keep you posted should more issues (and preferably fixes) come up on our radars! 

How about your own experiences with this new Mini-Set and other game mode updates? If you know of anything else that isn't working as it should, do tell!