Dean Ayala has been a popular guy on Twitter recently as he has announced the team is putting together a new Hearthstone balance patch.
- More information will be shared next week once changes are solidified.
- No date is solidified. It can take them at least a week to get a patch together though.
- Some Galakrond decks are more powerful than needed.
- Changes may be coming to Pirate Warrior.
- Changes may be coming to Deathrattle Rogue.
- Hero balance tweaks are coming to Battlegrounds.
- Expect more Battlegrounds changes over the next few months for cards, heroes, and balance.
Since no exact card changes have been announced, we can only speculate. What cards do you think may get hit with the nerf bat?
Quote From Dean Ayalan Planning another balance patch. Will share some more information next week as we solidify. Some of the Galakrond decks are just a touch more powerful than they need to be to be successful. Also contemplating light changes to non-Galakrond archetypes like Pirate War and DR Rogue.
Also planning on some small hero balance tweaks for Battlegrounds in the same patch. Battlegrounds has a bunch of plans for cards, heroes, and balance over the next 2-3 months.
Will this patch affect Arlington?
Not sure yet. Don't have a date in place. Most of the team isn't even back in the office until [Monday].
How separate is the Battlegrounds team compared to live balance? Two totally different teams now?
They were two separate teams, but we are merging now. @mike_donais and @conorkou are still the battlegrounds champions but the team I work on is going to be helping produce content starting this year.
Thanks for the insight! Where does Arena fit in?
Also under the card design team with major support from a data scientist named Tian.
Comments
I dont think I can continue to put anymore money, or effort into this game the way nerfs keep happening like this. Nothing in the current meta is broken. It seems to me that this is the process: some dweebs go all in on a deck they thought would perform well, it ends up being useless, so they cry and complain like little pansies, and Blizzard caves and nerfs the top performing decks. I don't understand the point of these nerfs.
It's no one else's fault that you crafted a garbage deck, it's no one's fault that you suck at the game, and can't find a way to counter a top tier deck. Stop ruining the game with your incessant crying, and bitching. Just get good, and dont blow all you dust right away on a trashy deck. You whiners are making this game boring as hell. Galakrond Shamen was understandable, now it's just getting ridiculous. I'm going to think long and hard if I'm going to continue to keep supporting this game, or not.
Do you really think these nerfs are happening because someone made a bad deck and then complained about losing so much that blizzard caved? If blizzard were that easy to manipulate than things like buffs would have happened way sooner, and things like autosquelche or tournament mode would be here already.
The decks I fear most atm are Galakrond Warrior, Face Hunter and Res Priest. As mage you can't heal enough for the hunter, the warrior hero attacks are just too much face damage early on and when the big galakrond turns happen its just suddenly an OTK deck where you need a wall of taunts or your dead and the res control priest is just utterly stupid/boring to play against: I play minion you remove it etc. (but winnable given enough Polymorphs).
I really only want priest and druid to see a bit more light of day. The new priest cards are kind of terrible in relation to everything else, and druid is just a bit too slow. I feel like even if they nerf every other galakrond, priest's will still be useless as the current highlander decks will still be much stronger than anything priest can do. I just want to feast on some madness here.
Oh for crying out loud. Absolutely no changes necessary as far as I'm concerned - the only card/deck which is in any way problematic right now is Necrium Apothecary and that can be dealt with through tech cards and correct deck choice. Getting pretty sick of this, honestly - it's impossible for a meta to stabilize if they're going to nerf something every few weeks.
Doesn't everyone complain about a stale meta?
I like, that they are trying to change the game again. Don't know, if it is necessary, though pirate warrior sure had it's time in the light back in MsG...
The last round of nerfs did a lot more than I expected, however I was expecting a second patch after they returned from break.
Here are my predictions:
Galakrond Decks:
Non-Galakrond Decks
can we talk about the lack of info on the new adventure tho
Yeah, are we going to be getting a full adventure every two months in between every expansion? Are we basically going to have 6 sets a month instead of 3? Will these cards be craftable? Will they be necessary? Will the adventure still cost 700 gold per wing?
I am honestly a little worried that we might be getting too many cards dumped on us at once and F2P/Casual players won't be able to keep up unless this adventure is different from past ones.
At least we know its gonna be here in 3 weeks time (according to the notification when you scroll on 'Galakrond's awakening in the solo adventure tab)
In his Twitter post Iksar stated that the team as a whole hasn't come back from holidays yet, but it will starting from Monday (or Tuesday?).
I'm sure we'll receive at least a teaser in a week or so.
They did say they'd be card rewards that will add to descent of dragons, I'm expecting some more highlander cards, invoke cards, sidequests and some cards to counter galakrond a bit also. There's usually a lot of legendaries in an adventure too
I'm very curious as-to how they would hit Galakrond Warrior, because I use the package for my Fire Plume's Heart deck. It's not even close to the Charge OTK nonsense, but I fear it will be collateral damage :(
As far as I'm concerned it's been the Rogue and Shaman stone for a while now all last year Rogue and shaman stone with a little warrior and mage mixed into it. And if you aren't interested and it finally being nerfed so we can get something new you are the problem.
'little warrior and mage mixed into it'?
warrior was here all year in 2019 and still here in 2020, and mage at least for the full 5 months.
The Problem is when nerfs hit Rouge, Warrior and Sham, Quest Priest is getting stronger. And Quest Priest is the most cancer in my eyes. So how they can balance that problem.
I would glad to see some buffs to dead archetypes like quest mage or galakrond priest
I think one way of making Gala Priest more viable would be making the hero power discover rather than just adding to your hand. Probably still wouldn't be that good, but at least then you wouldn't be getting a hand full of Lightwells and Northshires
oh yes, give me that sweet sweet Apothecary dust.
Pirate Warrior is weird. I guess Ancharr would be the most sensible target. I originally thought Skybarge owuld be massively overpowered, but it'S really not.
Not sure if Shaman needs yet another nerf, but Dragon's pack is definitely a contender
Also, Rivendare needs to be yeeted out of tier 5, same goes for Cobalt Guardian and Spawn of N'zoth. The amount of "lul I go deathrattle mechs and win" games are just too many. Beasts still need some sort of midrange solution that doesn't involve donkeyrolling for Mama Bear.
Also, just add dragons, I'm tired of the same 3 tribes being recycled every game.
My humble two cents on the future Balance Changes
Deathrattle Rogue - there's no excuse: Necrium Apothecary at 4 mana is straight up stupid and allows even more stupid stuff when combined with the whole Deathrattle package which is not, let's be honest, the problem. And I'm saying it as a person that has been playing this deck since the late December Patch. I personally feel that the Mechanical Whelp version (the one I currently play) is much more "fair" and nice to play and play against, since you immediately get your benefits and your opponent can somehow interact with Apothecary (Spellbreaker, Hex, Earth Shock,...), whereas the Anubisath Warbringer version is straight up solitaire with a bunch of "God I hope he doesn't have many chargers in hand" and you can do nothing about it. A bump to 5 mana seems to be necessary and, at the same time, it will even solve the Zephrys the Great issue with Deathrattles (Zeph was ok before Apothecary and it's wrong teaching him how to behave with a single card from a rotating expansion).
On a side note, the mirror is a joke: the first one that is able to drop Necrium Apothecary usually wins, no matter the other cards in the players' hands. Not gonna lie, it kind of reminds me of Barnes...
Galakrond Shaman - imagine nerfing 4 cards in a deck and still not being able to move it from tier 1. That's how busted Galakrond Shaman was, and is.
If I had to change another card, I'd definitely go with Dragon's Pack, and I'd either reduce the buff (from +3/+3 to +2/+2 or +3/+2 in order to get a clear with Kronx Dragonhoof) or add Overload (Electra Stormsurge into Dragon's Pack with no downside at all, since Shaman's Invokes gain tempo instead of losing it and you won't be crippled in the following turns). The card straight up kills most Aggro decks will to play the game and seriously threatens other Midrange archetypes.
Pirate Warrior - I despise Face Hunter a lot more than Pirate Warrior, but I see where the complaints come from. I've read some posts on Reddit and Twitter and other users mostly addressed two cards: Ancharrr and Skybarge, the first one being too much value for an aggro deck (damage + draws, even more with an Upgrade!), the second one showing the same problem of prime EVIL Miscreant (too much health for a really good effect). If these cards were the problem and if I had to change them, I'd either go with Ancharrr being a 4 mana card or a 3 mana 2/2 or Skybarge being a 3 mana 2/4 (I think just one of the two will be enough to keep the deck in check).
Galakrond Warrior - the matchups is generally ok, but it's rather a problem of how it feels to play against the deck: you don't feel safe even if you're at 25 (I'm not saying a random life total: yesterday I got OTKed with that much health lol). I personally don't know how to nerf this deck without making it unplayable (and fortunately I'm not a dev). Some people were talking about changing Scion of Ruin, and to be honest I see why, but that doesn't solve the burst issue. We'll see.
Face Hunter - probably the deck I hate the most since DoD release (only second to prime Galakrond Shaman which, of course, was not a problem only from the point of view of those who played it). 30 cards that deal damage or help you (Phase Stalker and Tracking) to find lethal. Unless you specifically want to play decks like Res Priest that destroy it, the only tech card most decks can run is Zilliax, but I wonder what will happen when it will rotate. It's not super busted, its popularity is declining and there are far worse problems at the moment, so my opinion on this archetype is strongly biased.
Did I miss something? Do you think I got something wrong?