Hearthstone
Okay, this is getting ridiculous
Like, I get that when a game after x years 'finally' gets a new, 10th class you want it to be a succesful one. And yes, giving it some overtuned cards to make up for its small collection in order to successfully compete with the other classes I can understand too.
But after nerfing the same deck of that class three times and to still have it be the best deck in standard (source) truly boggles my mind.
Quest rogue was considered a cockroach after it had to be nerfed twice (and that deck didn't practically dominate the meta for months on end by itself).
Why then, does everyone seem more okay with this deck? I see very little complaints this time around, unless I'm looking in the wrong places.
I hope the next expansion is a lot better balance-wise because if you ask me, this expansion was one of the worst in that regard. I still had fun, mind you, but the balance was extremely lacking.
Apologies for the salty flavored thread. I'm just genuinely curious if my perception is off, or if people really do tolerate the dominance of this deck more than they did with past 'oppressive' decks.
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Like, I get that when a game after x years 'finally' gets a new, 10th class you want it to be a succesful one. And yes, giving it some overtuned cards to make up for its small collection in order to successfully compete with the other classes I can understand too.
But after nerfing the same deck of that class three times and to still have it be the best deck in standard (source) truly boggles my mind.
Quest rogue was considered a cockroach after it had to be nerfed twice (and that deck didn't practically dominate the meta for months on end by itself).
Why then, does everyone seem more okay with this deck? I see very little complaints this time around, unless I'm looking in the wrong places.
I hope the next expansion is a lot better balance-wise because if you ask me, this expansion was one of the worst in that regard. I still had fun, mind you, but the balance was extremely lacking.
Apologies for the salty flavored thread. I'm just genuinely curious if my perception is off, or if people really do tolerate the dominance of this deck more than they did with past 'oppressive' decks.
Balance isn't the sole problem, but the fact several classical archetypes are shot down - not for now, but forever!!! Because of 15 completely broken DH "do all" cards which are breaking several fundamental rules of the game! Add to all that Druid and Priest rng / high-roll cards to make the game even more clown fiesta. ...I forgot to mention Mage and Hunter who can only win by high-rolling (by playing 2-3 pay-off cards). Decks are played by themselves. Other classes are non-existent (in every exp. this and last year).
We had even worse metas, but this is far more serious, because current situation seems unfixable! They should nerf 15 DH cards to the ground ! Delete half of "created by", 0 mana cards; and delete majority of "win on the spot" cards (or at least distribute them evenly). It's very hard to believe they will do all that. Are they even aware... of not knowing what they are doing.
Wild is superior, rn, which isn't saying much. LoR was worse, but it's better than HS in the current state. HS doesn't look like HS anymore. Things have gone too far. Sad.
This is what happens with most card games. In order to keep you buying packs, they'll just powercreep the cards into oblivion. It's happened with Yu-Gi-Oh, it's more than likely happened to MtG, and now it's happened to Hearthstone. It's a sad cycle: you either die a fun card game, or live long enough to become an FTK fiesta.
You don't ever want to nerf something to where it is absolutely unplayable. In your first paragraph you acknowledge that the Demon Hunter cards have to be overtuned for the class to be viable, unfortunately this does come with a cost and the same cost will be paid any other time a new class is introduced into Hearthstone. Additionally you have to think about the time and resources put into the new class to get new/returning players to start playing (again) so they can enjoy the game so much so that they invest money into it. On top of that, Hearthstone now has REAL competitors, MTGA being the biggest one in terms of card games. If Demon Hunter came out under performing it would have looked bad on Team 5 and players would just be like "OMG class is so bad, should have spent more time on giving me more free stuff" which wouldn't have peaked interest.
If I remember correctly, Quest Rogue was a problem for months on end. It was stifled by Hadronox druid, but once Spreading Plague was nerfed it creeped back into the meta, if I'm remembering this correctly of course. I could be wrong, I can't remember all too well because I had life events happening around that time.
I've never wanted a deck/card nerfed, I choose instead to either play that deck or find workarounds (but to be honest I mostly play whatever class/deck people are complaining about the most). The only deck that I have been okay with nerfing was Galakrond Shaman. Everyone (Even me) swarmed to it on release week for easy wins to the point to where not enough players were trying to counter to form the meta. That's just the natural order of a game like Hearthstone, and online games in general, people don't like losing. But to answer your question, I think Demon Hunter is in a fair spot right now, Galakrond Rogue (Fuck this deck), Pirate Warrior, Spell Druid, and Tempo Demon Hunter are all competent decks with strengths and weaknesses.
If you go onto the reddit (which is a bad idea due to the hivemind mentality) or the official Blizzard Hearthstone forums (which is just as bad if not a worse idea) you'll see that like every hour there're several posts complaining about Demon Hunter and "Blizz Evil", "Blizz Greedy", "Blizz don't know balance" shit flooding the forums (and players wonder why Team 5 rarely communicates with it's playerbase).
The next expansion will, like every other expansion, have some sort of OP strategy on release day. It will either be countered or nerfed depending on what Team 5 see in their statistics/data. Then the actual decks of the meta will rise after other balance changes and people will complain about them until the next expansion.
But to pretty much answer your entire post, there will always be one or two classes/decks on top no matter what, and you will always feel salty about them. It has to be Demon Hunter this expansion cycle for PR purposes and to "justify" their effort into the class for the lay person. I expect more nerfs coming to Demon Hunter during the next expansion to bring it even more in line if not remove it from the meta entirely for an expansion cycle.
If I'm coming off as an ass I apologize, people can't put someone's personality and mannerisms to text but I'm speaking from an objective point of view.
Twitch for those of you who care.
One can't attack Reddit guys for telling the truth. What we should expect from them to say? 'Congrats on your blunders, keep doing it...'? The blunders are not new, they are doing the same mistakes again and again. If you hit a wall with your head once or twice, ok, but if you do that for the 10th time, it's safe to say something is wrong with you.
People hated toxic and snowball cards & decks, guess what, we got those again, after like 10 similar in the past. Zero mana cards break every single expansion, yet they keep printing them. First, remove ramp (because it badly correlates with common HS strategies), then print ramp again to encourage more high-roll gameplay (if you draw, you win, if not you lose, nothing else there). Everybody wanted Keleseth to go, then they printed the new one.
(not only) Priests play 30-60 cards that don't start in their decks. In which card game universe is that normal? Write an article about class identity, then disregard it after two days, starting with Zephrys. Rogue plays like Priest and vice versa. Rogue can't kill anybody anymore, lol.
Half the classes worthless for 2 years, because you don't have testers (we are beta) or talent to be aware what's needed for the classes to be viable and balanced with other nuts you are printing. That certain classes will be worthless is so obvious to community even before card releases. Metas have 2 decks. Warped and dull.
Before, every 5th or 10th game was a clown fiesta, now... now, it's EVERY single game. I can't remember a single game recently that ended normally, within reasonable outcomes. Every game is fiesta, unbelievable things are happening, without any sense. What's currently happening in HS games simply doesn't have any sense. We can only watch how the game auto-plays everything.
....Believe it or not, after several nerfs, 15 Demon Hunter cards are still plain broken (just ask and I will list & argue each one)! Every DH card does 3X what other cards do. The class is prominent in everything (remember, DH weakness is single target removal). They spent all this time to give us a version of Pirate Warrior as a class? Greymane deported, so we can get a permanent one? Nobody will ever, until the end of the time, play 1hp 1 drop. Hardly any early game deck will be able to beat consistency of DH.
All that minion combat (the fundamental rule of the game) is no more, only blowout turns. Because of the same badly designed, toxic and rng cards printed again and again. I say - the same. It's not that moderate and controllable rng like before, but complete nonsense. Every other card is random; it's impossible to play around anything anymore ("created by"). Some classes can't win a single game without e.g. Box, Alex and payoff cards. Are people even playing those decks, when it's all about drawing one card, triggering it and hoping for the best!?! (...) (...) (...)
Now, it can be they do all this purposely; they sell the game to twitch chat looking for chaos, to casuals looking for easier time... then woe to us all the more so.
Constant bitching ≠ Actual constructive criticism, especially when the community complains about any deck/class at the top of any meta. If I were in Team 5, I wouldn't listen either.
"People hated toxic and snowball cards & decks" and they'll always exist, if the fact that those types of decks/cards have existed since Naxx doesn't reinforce that, nothing will. Barnes wasn't touched until 26AUG2019, not even a year ago. That should telegraph to all players that Team 5 likes swingy cards/decks that are OP. It doesn't matter how toxic they are to the game, Team 5 will allow it.
Playing cards that didn't start in your hand, deck, opponent's hand, opponent's deck has been normal from day 1, the amount has just increased. Is it fair? Nope. Can I do anything about it? Nope.
Class identity, not something that really exists in Hearthstone unfortunately, especially in Wild. Class identity is fluid since Standard rotation exists, if not all the expansions would feel the same. We had Frost Lich Jaina which depended on an Elemental minion type deck. Now we have (with no current success) no minion Mage, shit changes. We had a Dragon Hunter a few months ago and a few years ago we had a DK Rexxar deck which ran no minions either. So class identity is fluid. Honestly Team 5 should throw the idea out the window.
No one is a master at balance and predictability. Make no mistake that I acknowledge that the power level of Demon Hunter was, and still is, the intention of Team 5. Asking a bunch of people, who work on Hearthstone all day, to go and play it as much as possible to find all the OP strategies and bring them in line in a timely manner is just not feasible. Most of the balance issues are revealed when an expansion goes live, because there's a far greater number of players trying things out. Take Galakrond Shaman for example, Team 5 may have overlooked it because they were worried about work-related stuff and BAM. Fastest nerf in the West.
These cards (and class) will remain "Broken" until either Team 5 gets all the other classes to that level, or they decide to pull back Demon Hunter even further. And people will play 1 health 1 drops, if they have a good deathrattle or something.
Secret Mage, (Old) Quest Mage, Decks with Leeroy Jenkins as a finisher, (Wild) Secret Mage, and Shirvallah, the Tiger Paladin are just a few (off the top of my head) decks that have little or no minion combat. So minion combat is not as fundamental as you think. It's something to consider, but OTK decks don't care.
Oh boy, it sounds like you want to play Hearthstone without all the RNG. If only there was a system in place where players could play with custom rule sets.
Twitch Viewership ≠ Actual Playerbase, it's incredibly disingenuous when this comparison is made for any game. And yeah, it's definitely for the viewership, for some odd reason. IDK I just like playing games instead of watching.
Twitch for those of you who care.
My point was that, right now, everything is exaggerated, not slightly, but beyond insane. The meta is ugly, everything feels hopeless and one needs a good stomach to enjoy the game in the current state.
Just a note. In the past two or three months I have noticed a cycle (at least in wild): at the end and the beginning of each season/ month, players will choose more aggressive decks since they want to climb fast.
At these times, you either join the SMORC fiesta (which I don’t do well and don’t enjoy), or play control oriented decks. Combo decks and slow decks are bad for these times.
in the middle of the months, the meta is more combo oriented. This is where you have more freedom in your deck building.
if you are not sensitive to the meta, and just “want todo your own thing”, you will not win much and end up frustrated. This is why it is smart to have more than one deck and strategy.
By the way, this is also true in between ranks. Platinum is much harder on you and less forgiving than diamond 5.
play your style, but be sensitive to what is happening around you in the rank and meta, and than build a deck that fits that.
“Legends never die,
They become a part of you.”
I don't know guys. I've been playing Wild almost exclusively for the last months and at least for that game mode, I don't agree. Sure, if you're as bad at deck building as me, you're hopelessly lost. But praise Yogg there are sites like OoC where you can straight out net deck or at least get some inspiration for your semi home brews.
My point is, a wide variety of decks is viable right now. Pirate Warrior, Quest Mage, Mech and Odd Paladin, Disco and Cube Lock, Raza Priest, Odd Demon Hunter, Big Shaman. There's aggro, there's control, sometimes you meet a Druid who plays some weird kind of combo and Mecha'Thun is still a thing. It's not even rock / paper / scissors, I managed to outvalue Pirate Warriors with Disco Lock often enough while both decks belong to the aggro department. In my eyes, Wild is a healthy place right now. The only issue I have is that playing fun decks at the ranked floors is no longer possible because of the MMR matchmaking. But then, this is a good thing overall and the true problem are people abusing the casual mode.
As I already said, I rarely play standard these days, only for a quest now and then. When I do so, I usually use no minions mage and even that deck nets me a win around 50% of the time.
I understand your arguments about card creation from Dragonqueen Alexstraza and the likes, but it's nowhere as bad as you make it look imho.
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
This is not a new trend. In the past it may not have been as noticeable in Wild though because most of Wild was just Big Priest and fast decks to counter Big Priest. But now you can face off against a wider variety in the format. For example, I just played three games against Warlocks in a row and none of them were the same deck. First it was a Cube Lock, then a Discard Lock, then I was surprised to meet a Reno Dragon Lock! If I had kept playing I probably would have been matched up with a Mechathun Lock next. :)
But yeah, the try-hards definitely come out in both formats at the beginning and end of each month looking for fast wins with aggro decks.
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
The main issue with Demon Hunter is the extremely efficient card draw. It is common when playing against DH that I have 15 cards in my deck and they have 5. Without loosing tempo!
Remove Skull of Gul'dan and the class will be fine.
-=alfi=-
Yeah I understand that they make certain archetypes slightly overtuned if they want to promote it being played or to increase sales or whatever.
While I personally don't agree with it from a moral standpoint, I can understand that Blizzard would use it if it proves effective.
What bothers me most is that their approach to nerfing demon hunter seems largely ineffective.
I get that there's always a meta top dog who is the strongest and considered the 'deck-to-beat'. But when they tried to (re)balance aggro/tempo demon hunter three times and still don't have it in line with the other decks, I start to worry about their balance team's capabilities.
Oh and your post didn't come off as you being an ass at all, don't worry. I appreciate the discussion and your opinion.
In my view DH over power was deliberated to make the class interesting and nerfs were planned in advance ...
I am 69 years old and still reach Legend
We'll see how it plays out over the coming expansions, but I wouldn't be surprised if DH becomes the cockroachiest cockroach class because it is designed to be good or great at what I consider all the primary mechanics of the game:
All of their weaknesses are secondary mechanics that usually provide less reliable alternatives to primary ones (e.g. card generation instead of card draw, buffs instead of independently strong minions, or stall/freeze instead of removal).
Meanwhile every other class either has major weaknesses in the primary mechanics (e.g. rogue's lack of healing/taunt and AoE), or they are mediocre at most of them (e.g. shaman having tools for most situations, but they're normally worse than the versions in other classes), which is usually what keeps them from becoming too dominant.
That is not to say a particular DH deck has no counters, but that if a counter arises it is relatively easy for them to swap in strong class cards to improve the match-up, whereas other classes have to settle on using weaker neutral cards or decide to just accept it will always be a tough match-up.
Maybe I'm wrong and some of what I call secondary mechanics are more important than I think, so that DH's weaknesses will seriously hinder the class one day. If so then great! Otherwise it is not difficult for Blizzard to change the class identity a bit, especially when the class gets enough cards to branch out into doing other, more janky things.
The majority of the HS players all the years: We want an additional class!
Me all the time: You think you want it, but you don't! Blizz can`t even balance nine clases, one additional class would it make even worse.
Blizz releases DH -> community is crying about the bad balancing.
Me: I was right all along.
I see you!
I always see people talking about how difficult it is to balance a class, but certain cards like Skull of Guldan and Aldrachi Warblades were very clearly too strong in their prenerf versions. 5 Mana draw 3 with a slight upside was already established as quite powerful (like Nourish) so it should have been very easy for Blizzard to make Skull of Guldan reduce the cost of the cards by something like 1 or 2 instead. Literally anyone who looks at Skull of Guldan versus cards like Sprint and Far Sight, even without prior knowledge of HS, can see that the numbers don’t match up.
I think the reason that Blizzard printed cards that were so clearly OP is because they designed the cards when the DH hero power was 2 Mana gain +1 Attack. Then when they changed the Hero Power they didn’t adjust the cards as well. Class cards are balanced around the power level of the Hero Power, that’s why Warlock tends to have worse cards than other classes. DH’s cards are balanced as if they have the worst Hero Power, while at the same time they have one of the best Hero Powers.
I forced myself to play several games of HS after awhile, only to confirm this game is the absolute garbage.
5-4, I even defeated 3 Demon Hunters, but in other games: evolve into Kayn, Restless Mummy, into 0 mana Galakrond... the Box into nuts... Every single game is a circus. When even winning feels terrible and empty, you know something is really screwed up.
This turn-5 Druid game (4 hp left) wasn't even the worst one: https://ibb.co/3TwgcMD
I was stupid not to concede after he played ramp on curve.
Fuck this shit, I'm not gonna be masochist anymore.
One giant issue with DH is simply its class identity: Agressive facetanking, card draw
Warlock also has card draw out the butt but in exchange all of warlock's class cards are weaker than other classes' counterparts. Demon Hunter cards on the other hand are stronger than other class cards. Good cards with an easy way to get them is simply bad design.
Look at priest, a class that has strong (but situational) answers to everything but is completly bereft of any meaningful carddraw, leaving a lot up to random generation.
I dont think dhunters are currently a problem. If nothing else its at least predictable.
Other decks like highlander mage barely win without some rng involved (via The Amazing Reno, in which is probably the single most high rolling card in the game). Still others are even worse like galakrond priest, which effectively have no win condition other than grabbing yours. And druid probably seals the deal with ramp AND swarming cards that more or less means you either remove their board or die the next turn.
Between dhunters and the decks named above, I'd think dhunters are the lesser of the two evils. The number of times I'd just lose my game because of a reno highroll, or thoughtsteal highroll, or just plain destroyed because my opponent has effectively 4 mana ramp over mine, I'd sleep better knowing that dhunters at very least played genuinely good cards rather than rng themselves a win out of nowhere.
Nice one :)
Last night I had three matches against Warlock as well, ALL were ZooLock! This is when I changed my deck a little to be more control oriented and ranked from Diamond 5 to 4 with a 4-0 win rate (before the changes I lost more than I won).
“Legends never die,
They become a part of you.”
I haven't played Yu-Gi-Oh in forever because link summoning took things a step too far for me. But now that your post made me look back on it, and comparing it with the cardgames I play now (HS and LoR), its speed really was absurd.
Games are often decided on turn two because both players will have played half their deck and their entire hand at that point.
Crazy stuff, that was.
For what it's worth Heartstone's mana mechanic and the yearly rotation most likely will never make it devolve into such a state so I feel like them powercreeping cards isn't always necessary. Then again I don't know much about sales, let alone Blizzard's numbers, so it's all assumptions on my part.