The nature of the ability lends itself to Aggro DH, but that deck wants to play its 3 cost cards on turn 3 and there are better options to do that. Manafeeder Panthara comes to mind if you want to draw a card on turn 3 and push a little bit of chip damage in.
The issue with Acrobatics is that it sort of works against itself. The nature of the ability lends itself to aggressive strategies as having a low cost deck allows for the bonus effect to occur more often. However, aggressive DH decks want to play cards on curve, meaning Acrobatics is a bad on-curve play and competes with Skull of Gul'dan for mid-to-late game draw. I think Aggro DH already has efficient card draw with Voracious Reader and Skull that they don't need to include this.
I have two main issues with Insatiable Felhound. First, no competitive DH archetype is currently playing and/or looking for taunt minions to play and I don't think any new DH archetypes are going to be created this expansion. Second, if you play this corrupted on turn 5, it's basically Fen Creeper with lifesteal. At that point, why not just play Ashtongue Battlelord instead? It's a more consistent draw and doesn't demand another card for its full effect unlike Felhound.
As I've said with other corrupt cards, stat benefits with corrupt cards fall off quick in terms of relevance if you can't play it corrupted as early as possible. This is the same case for Fairground Fool, as I think you'd rather have a card like Convincing Infiltrator for a taunt on turn 5 instead as Infiltrator doesn't demand another card to be played, and is a more consistent top deck.
Probably the best Elemental target for N'Zoth, God of the Deep, but the rest of Big Druid is lacking in the current meta. Perhaps, with Lunar Eclipse, Big Druid will be better against aggressive decks. But even then, Guardian Druid is the frontrunner of the class and I don't see how Big Druid gets better than Guardian Druid.
Shaman got pulled in a lot of directions this expac. Murlocs, totems, attacking. That said the attacking portion is quite strong. I'm assuming the rest sets up for the futre.
Also A+ on Eyes'ore naming, art, theme ect. Perfect. I laughed way to hard at that card and it does look powerful in the right deck. Just not sure we have all the pieces yet.
As for Yrel and Lothraxion, I'm assuming Blizzard just didn't see a place to add them in the future. So they put them here as the heroes. Paladin in the Old Gods set didn't get corrupted and where the heroes. I assume the same is going on here. They were sent to stop the corruption that got reported.
I do agree Moonfang would be cool or the other band Blightboar getting a card. There are many characters in WoW though and not all can get a spotlight. With the mini set. as Goliath said, it should add more. So who knows what shows up. I'm just glad they included G'huun and Il'gynoth, two of my favorite Old God minions. Maybe they'll bring in Mythrax next. I love the theme and flavor of most of their expansions. They hit a lot of cool characters and even make up some good ones too (Finley).
What he forgets to say is there will be miniexpansion in two months and Blizzard provides us no extra resources for it (in fact, less). It’s ridiculous.
This is true and I imagine some players will be caught out by this - spending all their resources on day 1 and wasting packs on duplicate rares, then struggling to get all the rares from the mini expansion. More details need to be provided on the mini expansion and soon.
Before I start, I'm going to make it clear that I'm not for or against the new system because I don't know how my net gold or rewards will look at the end of this expansion cycle.
- I am currently level 18 (with the XP boost from purchasing) while only playing ~1-2 hours a day so that means, according to this table found here, that I have earned at least 23,400 experience in three days by doing dailies, weeklies, and random achievement bonuses. That being said, an expansion cycle is (typically) 4 months/~120 days. So if we do the math; 23,400 divided by 3 is 7,800. Now multiply that by 120 and we get 936,000, which according to the graph table listed above puts me at maxing out the rewards track. If my math is wrong please correct me, and I'm not making a case for the rewards track, I'm just putting out what I (super capitalized) have gotten to and what I might get to by the end of this cycle.
When the new track was released they filled out our quest bar with 3 normal quests and 3 weeklies (I think that includes the duels quest which awards scholomance packs). So technically you're counting the xp gained in the last 3 days using a metric where you've fully completed 5 dailies and 3 weeklies. Wouldn't be representative
Disclude the achievements xp. Its one time only and its a pain in the arse to complete. I wouldn't use it as a metric anyway.
To properly calculate it, just imagine a week's worth of quest plus a decent amount of playtime xp. The math is readily available in reddit if you're interested. Just add in your 10% boost.
Its not possible to max out without playing at least 5 hours a day. Even with the boost I'm sure its impossible to achieve without committing like full time to it.
While this is a powerful effect akin to a stronger Dark Iron Dwarf, I see a couple of limitations for Man'ari Mosher. First, Zoolock isn't in a great spot in the meta right now and I'm not sure that the cards the archetype is getting this expansion help it much. Second, there isn't a standout turn 2 demon for Mosher to be the follow up for, and I'm including Midway Maniac. Overall, while I think Mosher is powerful, I think it lacks the meta context for it to see significant competitive play.
This is basically the taunt version of Druid of the Swarm, which did see play in Token Druid back in the day. The main advantage the Druid has over Midway Maniac is that Druid as a class had buffs to better take advantage of the stat line. However, Warlock is getting Man'ari Mosher, which curves out well with Maniac. I think Maniac is the best 2 cost demon for mosher, but does that in of itself constitute a great play? I'd say no, as after you play the Mosher you're still left with a 1 attack minion that did nothing else but provide stats and is going to take terrible trades.
Power creep on Scarlet Crusader, but I think the 3 rush damage isn't going to be as effective by the time turn 5 rolls around. This only gets worse as the game goes on as it doesn't have rush at a base, which makes for a terrible top deck. I'd just run Fleethoof Pearltusk if I wasn't already if I wanted corrupt cards from Y'Shaarj, the Defiler.
This doubles the damage that Aldrachi Warblades do and you don't even need to be damaged to trigger the effect. Easy addition into Soul DH for that use alone.
Before I start, I'm going to make it clear that I'm not for or against the new system because I don't know how my net gold or rewards will look at the end of this expansion cycle.
- I am currently level 18 (with the XP boost from purchasing) while only playing ~1-2 hours a day so that means, according to this table found here, that I have earned at least 23,400 experience in three days by doing dailies, weeklies, and random achievement bonuses. That being said, an expansion cycle is (typically) 4 months/~120 days. So if we do the math; 23,400 divided by 3 is 7,800. Now multiply that by 120 and we get 936,000, which according to the graph table listed above puts me at maxing out the rewards track. If my math is wrong please correct me, and I'm not making a case for the rewards track, I'm just putting out what I (super capitalized) have gotten to and what I might get to by the end of this cycle.
- I hop between Ranked Wild (with trash decks because Rez Priest infests Casual Wild) and BG's most of the time and haven't really touched Duels all that much. One common complaint among players and myself is that most of the achievements are only obtainable by playing Ladder. Meaning no matter what tribe you run, strategy you use, or keyword you're working with is not being tracked in the achievement system which is a big no-no. Hearthstone attracted a lot of players with the new FREE mode and making a system that requires them to step into unfamiliar territory unwillingly is likely to drive a few players away since they'll max out the BG achievements in no time.
- The urge to win is still there, 500/1000 win portraits are still a thing and many players haven't achieved that amount of ranked wins, myself being an example even though I've played since Naxx (out). You've also missed a HUGE point. It would be a slap in the face (and another 50 r/hearthstone forum posts) to not reward players somehow for playing. Imagine playing a ~20 minute control game to lose and not get XP, #feelsbadman.
- I like the Rewards Track, it gives me more goals other than "Play X games as X", or the 500/1000 win goals mentioned earlier. However, looking at the paid track VS the free track, it's not good. They could've sprinkled a little more gold here and there rather than only get a paid reward every 5 levels.
- Is Hearthstone getting more expensive? Yes. Did Hearthstone ever get cheaper in the past? Yes, in theory. Back when they implemented duplicate protection across all rarities earlier this year I thought to myself, "They'll make up for the loss somehow". Because of that now we have (objectively) less gold at the end of the rewards track unless you play an unhealthy amount of Hearthstone. Additionally now we have the mini sets, which is something LOATHED because I knew the set wouldn't be free, yet people won't look beyond a stale meta to figure that out. So because of people shouting ideas at Team 5 without thinking of the possible ramifications we get 35 extra cards that aren't going to be free.
- As a paying player, the Rewards Track felt fucking awful to pay for. That's $150 US dollars for one expansion, the Mega-Bundle, the standard pre-order bundle, and the rewards track is what I've paid for this cycle. I cannot fathom why the Rewards Tack wasn't included in the Mega-Bundle, I cannot understand why I can't trade my 30+ Arena Tickets in for the Track. So all that means for me is that I'm not buying both bundles anymore. Wild has become my Format of choice and it's incredibly cheaper in the long run.
Basically a Time Out! for Rogue except for the fact that you can till take damage from damaging cards that specify random enemy or enemy hero. I think this has a chance if a C'Thun, the Shattered deck works in Rogue, acting like Time Out! to stall until you achieve your combo. If that deck doesn't work, then I don't see Cloak of Shadows seeing play until a viable Rogue Combo deck exists.
My big question is, is the experience added retroactively. When i play games i like to buy them at the end when i can is see that ill get all the reward i want. if not im not buying.
If it isnt retroactively added im not buying it later since im loosing all the extra value i would have gotten when if i bought it early.
Blizzard is telling me buy it now or NEVER if it isn't retroactively added. it would also be nice to see what exp i would get if its retroactively.
This basically suffers the same weakness as Chopshop Copter in that it encourages trading in aggressive tribal decks that want to hit the face. That being said, this is a Spider Tank statted murloc that might just be useful for playing on turn 3, but Shaman is so in the gutter at the moment that Murloc Shaman is hardly being considered for standard competitive viability.
Well, you could go to school/office on the off chance someone there plays hearthstone as well and rub it in his face on how much more achievement points you have compared to him.
Outside of Lightning Bloom shenanigans, this almost functions like a corrupt card in the fact that the full effect of Deathmatch Pavilion can't be recognized on turn two and requires you to play a card to set up that full effect. Like my opinion with corrupt cards, I think the impact of the stat upside with the bonus effect falls off a cliff past turns 3-4, making it a terrible top deck if you don't draw it early on. Overall, I just don't think this is consistent enough without having a way to get this out on turn two.
New Demon Hunter Minion - Stiltstepper
The nature of the ability lends itself to Aggro DH, but that deck wants to play its 3 cost cards on turn 3 and there are better options to do that. Manafeeder Panthara comes to mind if you want to draw a card on turn 3 and push a little bit of chip damage in.
New Demon Hunter Spell - Acrobatics
The issue with Acrobatics is that it sort of works against itself. The nature of the ability lends itself to aggressive strategies as having a low cost deck allows for the bonus effect to occur more often. However, aggressive DH decks want to play cards on curve, meaning Acrobatics is a bad on-curve play and competes with Skull of Gul'dan for mid-to-late game draw. I think Aggro DH already has efficient card draw with Voracious Reader and Skull that they don't need to include this.
New Demon Hunter Minion - Insatiable Felhound
I have two main issues with Insatiable Felhound. First, no competitive DH archetype is currently playing and/or looking for taunt minions to play and I don't think any new DH archetypes are going to be created this expansion. Second, if you play this corrupted on turn 5, it's basically Fen Creeper with lifesteal. At that point, why not just play Ashtongue Battlelord instead? It's a more consistent draw and doesn't demand another card for its full effect unlike Felhound.
New Priest Minion - Fairground Fool
As I've said with other corrupt cards, stat benefits with corrupt cards fall off quick in terms of relevance if you can't play it corrupted as early as possible. This is the same case for Fairground Fool, as I think you'd rather have a card like Convincing Infiltrator for a taunt on turn 5 instead as Infiltrator doesn't demand another card to be played, and is a more consistent top deck.
New Druid Minion - Fizzy Elemental
Probably the best Elemental target for N'Zoth, God of the Deep, but the rest of Big Druid is lacking in the current meta. Perhaps, with Lunar Eclipse, Big Druid will be better against aggressive decks. But even then, Guardian Druid is the frontrunner of the class and I don't see how Big Druid gets better than Guardian Druid.
Our Thoughts on Hearthstone's Madness at the Darkmoon Faire Shaman Cards
Shaman got pulled in a lot of directions this expac. Murlocs, totems, attacking. That said the attacking portion is quite strong. I'm assuming the rest sets up for the futre.
Also A+ on Eyes'ore naming, art, theme ect. Perfect. I laughed way to hard at that card and it does look powerful in the right deck. Just not sure we have all the pieces yet.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
All the members of your preferred gender will flock around you and revel in your awesomeness!
A Tour of the Darkmoon Faire: Traversing Azeroth
As for Yrel and Lothraxion, I'm assuming Blizzard just didn't see a place to add them in the future. So they put them here as the heroes. Paladin in the Old Gods set didn't get corrupted and where the heroes. I assume the same is going on here. They were sent to stop the corruption that got reported.
I do agree Moonfang would be cool or the other band Blightboar getting a card. There are many characters in WoW though and not all can get a spotlight. With the mini set. as Goliath said, it should add more. So who knows what shows up. I'm just glad they included G'huun and Il'gynoth, two of my favorite Old God minions. Maybe they'll bring in Mythrax next. I love the theme and flavor of most of their expansions. They hit a lot of cool characters and even make up some good ones too (Finley).
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
This is true and I imagine some players will be caught out by this - spending all their resources on day 1 and wasting packs on duplicate rares, then struggling to get all the rares from the mini expansion. More details need to be provided on the mini expansion and soon.
Rewards Track: Current progress
When the new track was released they filled out our quest bar with 3 normal quests and 3 weeklies (I think that includes the duels quest which awards scholomance packs). So technically you're counting the xp gained in the last 3 days using a metric where you've fully completed 5 dailies and 3 weeklies. Wouldn't be representative
Disclude the achievements xp. Its one time only and its a pain in the arse to complete. I wouldn't use it as a metric anyway.
To properly calculate it, just imagine a week's worth of quest plus a decent amount of playtime xp. The math is readily available in reddit if you're interested. Just add in your 10% boost.
Its not possible to max out without playing at least 5 hours a day. Even with the boost I'm sure its impossible to achieve without committing like full time to it.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
Bragging rights
New Warlock Minion - Man'ari Mosher
While this is a powerful effect akin to a stronger Dark Iron Dwarf, I see a couple of limitations for Man'ari Mosher. First, Zoolock isn't in a great spot in the meta right now and I'm not sure that the cards the archetype is getting this expansion help it much. Second, there isn't a standout turn 2 demon for Mosher to be the follow up for, and I'm including Midway Maniac. Overall, while I think Mosher is powerful, I think it lacks the meta context for it to see significant competitive play.
New Warlock Minion - Midway Maniac
This is basically the taunt version of Druid of the Swarm, which did see play in Token Druid back in the day. The main advantage the Druid has over Midway Maniac is that Druid as a class had buffs to better take advantage of the stat line. However, Warlock is getting Man'ari Mosher, which curves out well with Maniac. I think Maniac is the best 2 cost demon for mosher, but does that in of itself constitute a great play? I'd say no, as after you play the Mosher you're still left with a 1 attack minion that did nothing else but provide stats and is going to take terrible trades.
Rewards Track: Current progress
Don’t even bother, played for like 2-3 hours in ranked and only got like 200 xp... out of like the 2000 I need to progress? Fuck this new system.
New Neutral Minion - Darkmoon Dirigible
Power creep on Scarlet Crusader, but I think the 3 rush damage isn't going to be as effective by the time turn 5 rolls around. This only gets worse as the game goes on as it doesn't have rush at a base, which makes for a terrible top deck. I'd just run Fleethoof Pearltusk if I wasn't already if I wanted corrupt cards from Y'Shaarj, the Defiler.
Holding Out For A Hero - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Good luck to our finalists
New Neutral Minion - Costumed Entertainer
Compared to Tasty Flyfish this looks miserable. Why would any competitive deck run this card?
New Demon Hunter Minion - Il'gynoth
This doubles the damage that Aldrachi Warblades do and you don't even need to be damaged to trigger the effect. Easy addition into Soul DH for that use alone.
Rewards Track: Current progress
Before I start, I'm going to make it clear that I'm not for or against the new system because I don't know how my net gold or rewards will look at the end of this expansion cycle.
- I am currently level 18 (with the XP boost from purchasing) while only playing ~1-2 hours a day so that means, according to this table found here, that I have earned at least 23,400 experience in three days by doing dailies, weeklies, and random achievement bonuses. That being said, an expansion cycle is (typically) 4 months/~120 days. So if we do the math; 23,400 divided by 3 is 7,800. Now multiply that by 120 and we get 936,000, which according to the graph table listed above puts me at maxing out the rewards track. If my math is wrong please correct me, and I'm not making a case for the rewards track, I'm just putting out what I (super capitalized) have gotten to and what I might get to by the end of this cycle.
- I hop between Ranked Wild (with trash decks because Rez Priest infests Casual Wild) and BG's most of the time and haven't really touched Duels all that much. One common complaint among players and myself is that most of the achievements are only obtainable by playing Ladder. Meaning no matter what tribe you run, strategy you use, or keyword you're working with is not being tracked in the achievement system which is a big no-no. Hearthstone attracted a lot of players with the new FREE mode and making a system that requires them to step into unfamiliar territory unwillingly is likely to drive a few players away since they'll max out the BG achievements in no time.
- The urge to win is still there, 500/1000 win portraits are still a thing and many players haven't achieved that amount of ranked wins, myself being an example even though I've played since Naxx (out). You've also missed a HUGE point. It would be a slap in the face (and another 50 r/hearthstone forum posts) to not reward players somehow for playing. Imagine playing a ~20 minute control game to lose and not get XP, #feelsbadman.
- I like the Rewards Track, it gives me more goals other than "Play X games as X", or the 500/1000 win goals mentioned earlier. However, looking at the paid track VS the free track, it's not good. They could've sprinkled a little more gold here and there rather than only get a paid reward every 5 levels.
- Is Hearthstone getting more expensive? Yes. Did Hearthstone ever get cheaper in the past? Yes, in theory. Back when they implemented duplicate protection across all rarities earlier this year I thought to myself, "They'll make up for the loss somehow". Because of that now we have (objectively) less gold at the end of the rewards track unless you play an unhealthy amount of Hearthstone. Additionally now we have the mini sets, which is something LOATHED because I knew the set wouldn't be free, yet people won't look beyond a stale meta to figure that out. So because of people shouting ideas at Team 5 without thinking of the possible ramifications we get 35 extra cards that aren't going to be free.
- As a paying player, the Rewards Track felt fucking awful to pay for. That's $150 US dollars for one expansion, the Mega-Bundle, the standard pre-order bundle, and the rewards track is what I've paid for this cycle. I cannot fathom why the Rewards Tack wasn't included in the Mega-Bundle, I cannot understand why I can't trade my 30+ Arena Tickets in for the Track. So all that means for me is that I'm not buying both bundles anymore. Wild has become my Format of choice and it's incredibly cheaper in the long run.
New Rogue Spell - Cloak of Shadows
Basically a Time Out! for Rogue except for the fact that you can till take damage from damaging cards that specify random enemy or enemy hero. I think this has a chance if a C'Thun, the Shattered deck works in Rogue, acting like Time Out! to stall until you achieve your combo. If that deck doesn't work, then I don't see Cloak of Shadows seeing play until a viable Rogue Combo deck exists.
The Rewards Track - How Long to Get to Level 50, 644000 Experience Required to Get to Level 150
My big question is, is the experience added retroactively. When i play games i like to buy them at the end when i can is see that ill get all the reward i want. if not im not buying.
If it isnt retroactively added im not buying it later since im loosing all the extra value i would have gotten when if i bought it early.
Blizzard is telling me buy it now or NEVER if it isn't retroactively added. it would also be nice to see what exp i would get if its retroactively.
New Shaman Minion - Magicfin
This basically suffers the same weakness as Chopshop Copter in that it encourages trading in aggressive tribal decks that want to hit the face. That being said, this is a Spider Tank statted murloc that might just be useful for playing on turn 3, but Shaman is so in the gutter at the moment that Murloc Shaman is hardly being considered for standard competitive viability.
Blizzard Responds to Hearthstone Battle Pass Experience Concerns
Well, you could go to school/office on the off chance someone there plays hearthstone as well and rub it in his face on how much more achievement points you have compared to him.
New Shaman Spell - Deathmatch Pavilion
Outside of Lightning Bloom shenanigans, this almost functions like a corrupt card in the fact that the full effect of Deathmatch Pavilion can't be recognized on turn two and requires you to play a card to set up that full effect. Like my opinion with corrupt cards, I think the impact of the stat upside with the bonus effect falls off a cliff past turns 3-4, making it a terrible top deck if you don't draw it early on. Overall, I just don't think this is consistent enough without having a way to get this out on turn two.
Completing Your Darkmoon Faire Achievements Before the Madness Arrives as a Free to Play Player
Yeah, I noticed some of my progress bar going up even without having played the class.
A small consolation because damned if I was going to give up an arm or a leg to finish any of these.