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I think it's quite staggering how far off the mark Blizzard were when they released Demon Hunter, how many nerfs in a row is this? Standard will feel it for sure but Odd DH in wild is pretty much over, it cannot survive without glaives. I wanted odd DH turned down but not removed.

Seem mostly reasonable, good thing I have stacks of the rares. Will sadly nerf two out of my 3 playable decks.

Kayne is the only one I wouldn't have predicted. But hopefully these nerfs will shake up the meta. Still hoping for Libram Paladin to become a thing :p

Poor [Hearthstone Card (Dragonqueen Alexstraza) Not Found]. So many decks are already leaving her out because she was too slow in them. This will be another hard hit for her, possibly making her Standard only.

Edit: lmao someone went on a downvote spree

but where is the yeti nerf? 5 health is way too much

No.

I've been playing a lot less constructed the past few weeks, but I hit Legend in May with Quest Warrior. And it was a grind. The Corsair Cache nerf makes me sad even though I know its power level is higher in better archetypes.

Dragonqueen needed a nerf, but I also worry it's veered into unplayability. Being unable to heal/taunt on turn 9 has a lot of consequences. Or you just need to drop tons of stats to put your opponent on a clock 1 tick faster than yours. That's not going to happen with just an 8/8 even if your next turn is very powerful. The Rogue Galakrond change still feels balanced and powerful because it affects 4 cards you've chosen to put in your deck. With Dragonqueen's RNG, the 1-mana nerf is a ton worse.

All the other changes lower the power-level of the game in a decent way. I don't have strong feelings on them.

Blizz seems to have something against nerfing 5 HP
EVIL Miscreant & Shadowjeweler Hanar are both casualties of this :P

Quote From PainlessSteel

The Warglaives of Azzinoth nerf seems good, but, unfortunately, still not enough to stop Wild Odd DHs. 

Well not so sure... Pirate warrior might become aggro deck of choice now... Corsair cache doesn't hit that deck as bad as Odd DH got hit..

The [Hearthstone Card (Warglaives of Azzinoth) Not Found] nerf seems good, but, unfortunately, still not enough to stop Wild Odd DHs. 

It's interesting.  They definitely overstated the "cards based around the champions you picked", however--its just random cards from those regions.  My first game, I drew/kept Nautilus + Malokai expecting to get a bunch of sea monsters and toss cards, but actually both champions got no support and were unplayable.  Meanwhile "always good" champions like Zed, Draven, Katarina, and Hecarim just clean house.

Hopefully they do a better job "bucketing" in the future--probably leverage all their work from Expeditions here.

Nice! I'm loving these small, but constant nerfs/buffs! Always shaking up the meta a little bit!

Hi, I just wanted to make this thread to discuss how HS could potentially learn from the innovations that LoR introduced and make the game better. Of course, HS is very unlikely to change any of its core gameplay even if it would be an improvement (due to it confusing new and returning players) but I think it could be an interesting thought experiment. Alternatively, this could be a new game mode!

1. Spell Mana: In LoR up to 3 of your unspent Mana can be kept as Spell Mana, which you can only spend on spells. HS could just directly implement Spell Mana, but I think it'd be more fitting for how HS works to make it so that any unspent Mana you have at the end of the turn reduces the cost of your next Hero Power by that much. This would allow players to play off-curve more often and might occasionally lead people to purposefully not spend Mana to save it for their next Hero Power. Additionally, it would make Inspire cards more interesting and viable.

2. Rounds instead of turns: In LoR, players also gain Mana at the start of their opponent's turn, and whenever a player plays a card the other player may play a card in response. One player has all the odd Mana turns and the other player has all the even Mana turns. HS could have a similar version of this, where whenever a player plays a minion their opponent gets initiative. Spells and minions would still resolve immediately, but with initiative swapping the opponent would still have the chance to react. For example, if your opponent plays a charge minion you could play a Taunt minion in response, or destroy the charge minion with a spell. Attacking would still work like normal and not swap initiative, which would encourage players to attack at the start of their turn. The advantage of this system is that it allows for counterplay and is a lot more engaging. It also eliminates the advantage for the first player.

What do you all think about these changes? Would this work in regular HS, or would it be better as a new mode? 

I agree with most of these nerfs, but Kayn baffles me. Since when was having 5 health the issue? He should cost 5 mana instead.

quest mage just got better in wild. having said that the corsair cache is quite balanced but it still does what the egg warrior in standard and the pirate warrior in wild wants, which is extra charge on the weapon. the wild pirate warrior will suffer a bit due to the less 3 damage if we count all attacks, also making the trades of the weapon on enemy minions worse. i think its balanced overall. the dragon queen seems very hard. like on turn 9 or 10 its normal to hit heavy hitters this way alex will be quite a bad play.

Woah! 

All of them sound great, can't wait to see how they effect the meta

I reallly want the teaser at least to come out this week, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we get another batch of nerfs this week, with the expansion announced next Tuesday

in the mobile application, how can I set the language ?

The moment of truth quickly approaches... Will we get an announcement in 40 minutes (18:00 UTC), the usual time, or will we have to wait another week (or more!) in excruciating silence and crippling boredom?

Edit: God fucking damnit.

Nice job, GoliathTheDwarf. I have two questions I would like to ask: Why didn't this article appear on the front page? I found it by clicking on your forum signature. Where did you find the information about the lore of Reliquary of Souls? I remember trying to read more about that thing in the past, but I only found boss related mechanics and such.

Quote From Majere

Quote From GoliathTheDwarf

It only makes sense that they would wait for the Felfire Festive to end and close out the Outland theme before moving on to announcing the new theme. 

This.

Having said that,  I'd argue that this year's summer festival has been a less effective distraction from a stale meta than previous years, as the solo adventure was a bit underwhelming, there has been no arena reset, and the 3 x legendary quests, while welcome, didn't do as much to create the sense of an ongoing festival vibe as previous years' double gold rewards, or last year's buffing of boomsday cards / addition of sn1p sn4p. Also, the nerfs to primarily demon hunter cards haven't really shaken the meta up very much, meaning that essentially the same decks have been tier 1 since the AoE release settled down.

As a general rule, I feel team 5 did a much better job of pacing meta shakeups in Year of the Dragon than they have so far in Phoenix. Last year the teaser for the August expansion caught me off guard, as the RoS expansion still felt fairly fresh at the time, and the boomsday buffs, wild cards returning to standard for a limited time, and Galakrond's Awakening all seemed like interesting and varied ways to shake things up a bit. Hopefully things will improve as the year goes on.

 

I agree. I am very disappointed in how year of the Phoenix has started off compared to year of the Dragon. The meta's never got stale last year, the content was released at good pacing, where you were still excited to play, while new stuff was being announced. I thought they would keep that momentum going into year of the Phoenix.

Instead, we are sitting in basically the same spot we were in at the beginning of the year. Felfire festival was super boring. I forgot it was happening until I would get my new "legendary" quest. (Bring back double gold god damnit! That was a true festival)

Mid expansion event was a complete lackluster bust, did nothing to change the meta. Adventure was meh. Which is fine since it was free, which was a nice change of pace. But AoO really needed something to shake it up midway through, and despite the record number of nerfs, we just never got it. 

I'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. Adding a 10th class was never going to be a simple task, and is definitely going to take multiple expansions before it feels right. I have high hopes for expansion #2 to start fixing a lot of issues. This is supposed to be the year of "rebirth" and so far, it feels Blizz has taken steps backwards instead of forwards. 

AoO is battling for the #1 spot on my list of worst expansions/metas, and honestly at this point, I think it has surpassed the MSoG Pirate Warrior meta. Really disappointing and worrisome having the first expansion of the year being the worst expansion in the history of the game.

The new game mode they release this year is currently what I'm looking forward to most. Hopefully I don't end up disappointed once that is revealed.