Bluetracker
Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.
I firmly believe that the current meta would be a lot better if there was a Taunt minion on the power level of Sludge Belcher in Standard
The game as a whole is seriously lacking of good Taunt minions. You'd think that forcing your opponent to trade into your minions would be commonplace - yet Taunt minions are simply too weak because they are almost always understatted, just because they have Taunt.
I think Blizzard, at least in the past, has really overestimated the power of Taunt. Sludge Belcher is the only really good neutral Taunt card the game has ever had I believe - and it never even felt OP. Sludge Belcher is a pretty fair card but all other Taunt minions seem to be lacking.
I think the game could benefit a lot from having stronger Taunt minions. Something to consider, Blizz.
Mike Donais
Wyrmrest Agent has exactly the same text box as Twilight Guardian.
Mike Donais
Not really the point I was trying to explain.
Mike Donais
The problem is that cards like Sludge Belcher hamper deck building creativity. If someone wants a neutral card with Taunt they can play something like Senjin, Bog Creeper, Sunwalker or Psychotron. Those cards are all at a level that if you really want to add taunt you can play them, without just going in every deck like Sludge Belcher did.
Mike Donais
I love the idea of having powerful Taunt minions in the game, but prefer not to have really strong neutral cards that get played in lots of decks in lots of classes.
We made some really strong class specific Taunt in the classes that it makes sense to have Taunts. For example Warrior has Gorilla and Bloodhoof Brave. Shaman has Thing from Below.
Neutral has more narrow taunt minions like Twin Emperor, three different Dragon matters taunts, Curator, and Infested Tauren in some N'Zoth decks.
Something that is important to good game design is for different classes to have different strengths and weaknesses. So some classes should have good taunt and healing, while others shouldn't have good taunts and healing.
Hope that helps clear it up a bit, so you at least see what we are trying for.