I remember people being horrified when Galakrond, the Unspeakable was revealed because its hero power generates infinite value. However, as everyone is already aware off, Priest is in a terrible spot. The meta is highly focused on tempo and aggression and there's a certain very unhealthy deck out there that can kill you pretty quickly with good draws. Decks that attempt to drag the game to fatigue are just not viable.
But that's not the main issue. The real problem is Galakrond's Hero Power (Galakrond's Wit). It just adds random minions to your hand. What sucks about it is the high inconsistency. While certain minions can be good in any given situation (Mindflayer Kaahrj, for example, is pretty flexible), most of them are extremely situational or require the deck to be built around them to be worth anything (looking at you Test Subject). This means you can get some good stuff here and there, but most of the time you will be filling your hand with junk. This makes the invoke cards pretty terrible as they are meant to be low power level on their own but become strengthened by the hero power value. But that's not the case for Galakrond Priest. You are forced to add weak cards to your deck and the payoff may not even be worth anything.
What is even worse about this is that if the hero power was "Discover a Priest Minion" it probably would be just too good. It would pretty much always generate something worthwhile and give a ton of flexibility in your decision making. There's no balance here. With Discover it would be way too good. With no discover, it just sucks. Unfortunately, i don't see how this can become better. Priest got the worst Galakrond, the worst invoke effect and even its invoke payoff card is in a bad position (despite having one of the most broken battlecries out there).
So i wanted to ask you people: what would you do to make Priest's Galakrond better? What hero power would suit it most without breaking the game? Would you change something about the invoke cards?
I believe they could have given him something like: "Lifesteal: Deal 2 damage to a minion". That way it would provide board control and sustain without moving it away from a more control oriented playstyle.
Yeah, Priest-Minions rn just suck, but I think if they would have better Invokes it would at least compensate for the Tempo-loss. Disciple of Galakrond is pretty good but that's about it for good Priest-Invokes. Shield of Galakrond and Time Rip are mediocre at best and Devoted Maniac is just terribly bad in Control-Priest.
I think instead of attaching Invoke to a below average Removal-Spell, they should have gone with HEALING. You know, the Thing that Priest is supposed to be good at.
I believe they could have given him something like: "Lifesteal: Deal 2 damage to a minion". That way it would provide board control and sustain without moving it away from a more control oriented playstyle.
Galakrond's hero power can't be targeted since Invoke can't be a targeted effect (otherwise it gets weird with Time Rip).
A man is lying on the street, some punks chopped off his head
I believe they could have given him something like: "Lifesteal: Deal 2 damage to a minion". That way it would provide board control and sustain without moving it away from a more control oriented playstyle.
Galakrond's hero power can't be targeted since Invoke can't be a targeted effect (otherwise it gets weird with Time Rip).
Yeah, i suppose. Then i really don't have many ideas. It just sucks that they went something as bad as "Add random stuff to your hand"
What about simply changing it to "Add a random Priest minion to your hand. Give it +2 Attack". This would make some of the worse outcomes a lot better, Test Subject, for example, becomes a 2/2. If +2 Attack seems like too much +1 Attack could be fine, but I think that buffing the random minion could make it much better and more consistently good
What about simply changing it to "Add a random Priest minion to your hand. Give it +2 Attack". This would make some of the worse outcomes a lot better, Test Subject, for example, becomes a 2/2. If +2 Attack seems like too much +1 Attack could be fine, but I think that buffing the random minion could make it much better and more consistently good
It certainly makes things slightly better, but it doesn't solve the inconsistency issue. The problem with random minions is not just synergy with the deck. Timing matters as well. You don't want to be spending 2 mana in the late game to get 1 drops even if they come with a buff. A 1 mana 2/2 doesn't provide any real value at that point in the game. Some 1 drops you don't want at all. Northshire Cleric's card drawing ability becomes troublesome against classes that can heal because they can force you into fatigue by healing your stuff. Your suggestion isn't bad, but the randomness of the hero power is too much of an issue.
Blizzard won't change it for sure but I can think about many solutios: change it to "add a random dragon to your hand" that way you can easily use dragon synergies and get better cards.. You lose tempo anyway so the payoff better be.. Better.
Discover a minion wouldn't be too broken I think.. It's currently beyond terrible so..
Another option would be a card from opponen't deck at least it would be a good card..
Priest's invoke was probably balanced with Dr. Boom in mind, not to mention the fact that the class has Princess Talanji. That said, it's the least scary Galakrond invoke by a wide margin because it rarely has any impact on early/midgame tempo, which is really when most Galakrond decks want a leg up from their invokes.
I like the idea of stealing cards from the opponent's (starting) deck, but I feel it'd probably still be way too gimmicky to be playable. Generating dragons instead of priest minions would also be a slight improvement, but again too slow. The only way I see the HP be playable at the moment is if it discounts the minions it generates by 1-2 mana so the invokes actually generate some tempo, not just value. In all probability that'd still mean the discounted card comes down a turn later, but at least it'd be overperforming compared to what you paid for it.
The problem is not with Galakrond's hero power, its just that priest's invoke cards aren't up to snuff against aggro and there's not many ways priest can heal a ton right now. The tempo loss from playing invoke cards currently for priest is similar to rogue, except rogue has more tempo cards in its arsenal so it plays much better than priest.
Also, its meta dependent. We are currently facing a surge of face hunters now and it would probably take a while before warrior or druid comes back into force to balance it out and maybe that's where priest can shine a little brighter.
There's probably not many ways you can change the hero power so priest becomes too weak or too OP. By design priest cards are very situational, so unless this is drastically changed I just can't see team5 doing anything about it.
Well there is a mini expansion next month (35 new card) maybe there will be another talanji like card that can make use oof random priest cards.. Or maybe just a win condition..
Well there is a mini expansion next month (35 new card) maybe there will be another talanji like card that can make use oof random priest cards.. Or maybe just a win condition..
honestly I'd prefer some non-NOrthshire Draw engine, because right now the real problem is that I can't run all the cool stuff that Fate Weaver enables because I need to make space for a package that actually gets me there.
On the other hand that would enable some degenerate OTKs...so I don't think it'S really an option (You can currently do some pretty crazy stuff with Grave Rune and Wretched Reclaimer.
Hopefully the mini expansions gives them something to do with that doesn't result in a brainded cycle deck once again.
I’d say one of the bigger problems Priest has is the fact that so many of their healing cards can’t match up to what other classes have in terms of healing/armor. If you want to play a control deck you’d often have better survivability just by choosing another class.
I’d argue that it’s Auchenai that’s causing a lot of Priest’s problems these days, since it means Priest’s healing cards are always being made with that in mind. If Auchenai didn’t exist, then Priest probably would’ve gotten Forbidden Healing and a bunch of other nice healing cards. Priest’s thing is supposed to be healing, but you almost never really see that
Galakrond not helping the class just shows another case of Priest having problems rooted deeply into the class itself.
Sadly the problem relies on the class. Priest is the hardest class to balance. Even the devs have admitted to it in the past. Its either op as shit or dumpster tier
I’d say one of the bigger problems Priest has is the fact that so many of their healing cards can’t match up to what other classes have in terms of healing/armor. If you want to play a control deck you’d often have better survivability just by choosing another class.
I’d argue that it’s Auchenai that’s causing a lot of Priest’s problems these days, since it means Priest’s healing cards are always being made with that in mind. If Auchenai didn’t exist, then Priest probably would’ve gotten Forbidden Healing and a bunch of other nice healing cards. Priest’s thing is supposed to be healing, but you almost never really see that
Galakrond not helping the class just shows another case of Priest having problems rooted deeply into the class itself.
I see where you're coming from WRT Auchenai being a constant design constraint, but regarding self-heals we've already seen numerous cards that can only heal friendly characters in priest specifically so they could print bigger heals that can't be used to kill an enemy with Auchenai. CF: Greater Healing Potion, Radiance & Divine Hymn. Priest can heal itself for a ton if it wants, but a lot of the newer healing cards don't play nice with the Soulpriest, which leads to the question why she's even in classic.
To be clear, I can definitely see the argument for HOFing Auchenai, but it's a bit more complicated than that they can't print powerful healing effects.
I’d say one of the bigger problems Priest has is the fact that so many of their healing cards can’t match up to what other classes have in terms of healing/armor. If you want to play a control deck you’d often have better survivability just by choosing another class.
I’d argue that it’s Auchenai that’s causing a lot of Priest’s problems these days, since it means Priest’s healing cards are always being made with that in mind. If Auchenai didn’t exist, then Priest probably would’ve gotten Forbidden Healing and a bunch of other nice healing cards. Priest’s thing is supposed to be healing, but you almost never really see that
Galakrond not helping the class just shows another case of Priest having problems rooted deeply into the class itself.
I see where you're coming from WRT Auchenai being a constant design constraint, but regarding self-heals we've already seen numerous cards that can only heal friendly characters in priest specifically so they could print bigger heals that can't be used to kill an enemy with Auchenai. CF: Greater Healing Potion, Radiance & Divine Hymn. Priest can heal itself for a ton if it wants, but a lot of the newer healing cards don't play nice with the Soulpriest, which leads to the question why she's even in classic.
To be clear, I can definitely see the argument for HOFing Auchenai, but it's a bit more complicated than that they can't print powerful healing effects.
Unfortunately, as long as Auchenai exists in its current state, there's no way to prevent it from restricting the design of new targeted healing cards. Even a HoF doesn't do much because they can't ignore balance in wild. Priest is a real mess of a class. They need to rework its basic and classic set to prevent stuff like this from happening (and to stop the need for printing insane cards for the class every expansion).
I’d say one of the bigger problems Priest has is the fact that so many of their healing cards can’t match up to what other classes have in terms of healing/armor. If you want to play a control deck you’d often have better survivability just by choosing another class.
I’d argue that it’s Auchenai that’s causing a lot of Priest’s problems these days, since it means Priest’s healing cards are always being made with that in mind. If Auchenai didn’t exist, then Priest probably would’ve gotten Forbidden Healing and a bunch of other nice healing cards. Priest’s thing is supposed to be healing, but you almost never really see that
Galakrond not helping the class just shows another case of Priest having problems rooted deeply into the class itself.
I see where you're coming from WRT Auchenai being a constant design constraint, but regarding self-heals we've already seen numerous cards that can only heal friendly characters in priest specifically so they could print bigger heals that can't be used to kill an enemy with Auchenai. CF: Greater Healing Potion, Radiance & Divine Hymn. Priest can heal itself for a ton if it wants, but a lot of the newer healing cards don't play nice with the Soulpriest, which leads to the question why she's even in classic.
To be clear, I can definitely see the argument for HOFing Auchenai, but it's a bit more complicated than that they can't print powerful healing effects.
Unfortunately, as long as Auchenai exists in its current state, there's no way to prevent it from restricting the design of new targeted healing cards. Even a HoF doesn't do much because they can't ignore balance in wild. Priest is a real mess of a class. They need to rework its basic and classic set to prevent stuff like this from happening (and to stop the need for printing insane cards for the class every expansion).
Just make the healing only affect your own minions and yourself. We already had that card in Greater Healing Potion in the past and that saw play in the raza priest of old precisely for the same reason why priest is struggling now.
Theres no need for a nerf or HoF to Auchenai Soulpriest, so long as the heal effects cant affect the opponent's face. Besides, its the last vestige of direct damage for priest and with the classic cards for priest being as shit as it is, I don't think this will do any good to the class as a whole.
The HP is in a really tricky spot, but one way to make it better is to introduce impactful Priest minions in the next year of expansions, ones that are not deck build-dependent like Test Subject and not oppresive like Raza the Chained, but are flexible like Mindflayer Kaahrj and even Chameleos. But it also depends on the meta; Zerek, Master Cloner was only played for a little bit with the introduction of Clone Priest on Boomsday, and is now seeing experimentation again with the addition of Wretched Reclaimer and Grave Rune.
I remember people being horrified when Galakrond, the Unspeakable was revealed because its hero power generates infinite value. However, as everyone is already aware off, Priest is in a terrible spot. The meta is highly focused on tempo and aggression and there's a certain very unhealthy deck out there that can kill you pretty quickly with good draws. Decks that attempt to drag the game to fatigue are just not viable.
But that's not the main issue. The real problem is Galakrond's Hero Power (Galakrond's Wit). It just adds random minions to your hand. What sucks about it is the high inconsistency. While certain minions can be good in any given situation (Mindflayer Kaahrj, for example, is pretty flexible), most of them are extremely situational or require the deck to be built around them to be worth anything (looking at you Test Subject). This means you can get some good stuff here and there, but most of the time you will be filling your hand with junk. This makes the invoke cards pretty terrible as they are meant to be low power level on their own but become strengthened by the hero power value. But that's not the case for Galakrond Priest. You are forced to add weak cards to your deck and the payoff may not even be worth anything.
What is even worse about this is that if the hero power was "Discover a Priest Minion" it probably would be just too good. It would pretty much always generate something worthwhile and give a ton of flexibility in your decision making. There's no balance here. With Discover it would be way too good. With no discover, it just sucks. Unfortunately, i don't see how this can become better. Priest got the worst Galakrond, the worst invoke effect and even its invoke payoff card is in a bad position (despite having one of the most broken battlecries out there).
So i wanted to ask you people: what would you do to make Priest's Galakrond better? What hero power would suit it most without breaking the game? Would you change something about the invoke cards?
I believe they could have given him something like: "Lifesteal: Deal 2 damage to a minion". That way it would provide board control and sustain without moving it away from a more control oriented playstyle.
"True mastery takes dedication."
Yeah, Priest-Minions rn just suck, but I think if they would have better Invokes it would at least compensate for the Tempo-loss. Disciple of Galakrond is pretty good but that's about it for good Priest-Invokes. Shield of Galakrond and Time Rip are mediocre at best and Devoted Maniac is just terribly bad in Control-Priest.
I think instead of attaching Invoke to a below average Removal-Spell, they should have gone with HEALING. You know, the Thing that Priest is supposed to be good at.
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Galakrond's hero power can't be targeted since Invoke can't be a targeted effect (otherwise it gets weird with Time Rip).
A man is lying on the street, some punks chopped off his head
I'm the only one who stops to see if he's dead.
Hmm. Turns out he's dead.
Yeah, i suppose. Then i really don't have many ideas. It just sucks that they went something as bad as "Add random stuff to your hand"
"True mastery takes dedication."
Restore 2 health to all friendly characters
I think this would have fit the Priest class identity better and have enabled some priest tempo deck.
What about simply changing it to "Add a random Priest minion to your hand. Give it +2 Attack". This would make some of the worse outcomes a lot better, Test Subject, for example, becomes a 2/2. If +2 Attack seems like too much +1 Attack could be fine, but I think that buffing the random minion could make it much better and more consistently good
It certainly makes things slightly better, but it doesn't solve the inconsistency issue. The problem with random minions is not just synergy with the deck. Timing matters as well. You don't want to be spending 2 mana in the late game to get 1 drops even if they come with a buff. A 1 mana 2/2 doesn't provide any real value at that point in the game. Some 1 drops you don't want at all. Northshire Cleric's card drawing ability becomes troublesome against classes that can heal because they can force you into fatigue by healing your stuff. Your suggestion isn't bad, but the randomness of the hero power is too much of an issue.
"True mastery takes dedication."
Blizzard won't change it for sure but I can think about many solutios: change it to "add a random dragon to your hand" that way you can easily use dragon synergies and get better cards.. You lose tempo anyway so the payoff better be.. Better.
Discover a minion wouldn't be too broken I think.. It's currently beyond terrible so..
Another option would be a card from opponen't deck at least it would be a good card..
Priest's invoke was probably balanced with Dr. Boom in mind, not to mention the fact that the class has Princess Talanji. That said, it's the least scary Galakrond invoke by a wide margin because it rarely has any impact on early/midgame tempo, which is really when most Galakrond decks want a leg up from their invokes.
I like the idea of stealing cards from the opponent's (starting) deck, but I feel it'd probably still be way too gimmicky to be playable. Generating dragons instead of priest minions would also be a slight improvement, but again too slow. The only way I see the HP be playable at the moment is if it discounts the minions it generates by 1-2 mana so the invokes actually generate some tempo, not just value. In all probability that'd still mean the discounted card comes down a turn later, but at least it'd be overperforming compared to what you paid for it.
because we know how fun it is when an infinite value generator is consistent (See Deathstalker Rexxar and Boom, Mad Genius)
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
The problem is not with Galakrond's hero power, its just that priest's invoke cards aren't up to snuff against aggro and there's not many ways priest can heal a ton right now. The tempo loss from playing invoke cards currently for priest is similar to rogue, except rogue has more tempo cards in its arsenal so it plays much better than priest.
Also, its meta dependent. We are currently facing a surge of face hunters now and it would probably take a while before warrior or druid comes back into force to balance it out and maybe that's where priest can shine a little brighter.
There's probably not many ways you can change the hero power so priest becomes too weak or too OP. By design priest cards are very situational, so unless this is drastically changed I just can't see team5 doing anything about it.
Well there is a mini expansion next month (35 new card) maybe there will be another talanji like card that can make use oof random priest cards.. Or maybe just a win condition..
honestly I'd prefer some non-NOrthshire Draw engine, because right now the real problem is that I can't run all the cool stuff that Fate Weaver enables because I need to make space for a package that actually gets me there.
On the other hand that would enable some degenerate OTKs...so I don't think it'S really an option (You can currently do some pretty crazy stuff with Grave Rune and Wretched Reclaimer.
Hopefully the mini expansions gives them something to do with that doesn't result in a brainded cycle deck once again.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
How about "give your minions in play and in hand +2 health"
I’d say one of the bigger problems Priest has is the fact that so many of their healing cards can’t match up to what other classes have in terms of healing/armor. If you want to play a control deck you’d often have better survivability just by choosing another class.
I’d argue that it’s Auchenai that’s causing a lot of Priest’s problems these days, since it means Priest’s healing cards are always being made with that in mind. If Auchenai didn’t exist, then Priest probably would’ve gotten Forbidden Healing and a bunch of other nice healing cards. Priest’s thing is supposed to be healing, but you almost never really see that
Galakrond not helping the class just shows another case of Priest having problems rooted deeply into the class itself.
Who needs consistency when you could have fun?
Sadly the problem relies on the class. Priest is the hardest class to balance. Even the devs have admitted to it in the past. Its either op as shit or dumpster tier
I see where you're coming from WRT Auchenai being a constant design constraint, but regarding self-heals we've already seen numerous cards that can only heal friendly characters in priest specifically so they could print bigger heals that can't be used to kill an enemy with Auchenai. CF: Greater Healing Potion, Radiance & Divine Hymn. Priest can heal itself for a ton if it wants, but a lot of the newer healing cards don't play nice with the Soulpriest, which leads to the question why she's even in classic.
To be clear, I can definitely see the argument for HOFing Auchenai, but it's a bit more complicated than that they can't print powerful healing effects.
Unfortunately, as long as Auchenai exists in its current state, there's no way to prevent it from restricting the design of new targeted healing cards. Even a HoF doesn't do much because they can't ignore balance in wild. Priest is a real mess of a class. They need to rework its basic and classic set to prevent stuff like this from happening (and to stop the need for printing insane cards for the class every expansion).
"True mastery takes dedication."
Just make the healing only affect your own minions and yourself. We already had that card in Greater Healing Potion in the past and that saw play in the raza priest of old precisely for the same reason why priest is struggling now.
Theres no need for a nerf or HoF to Auchenai Soulpriest, so long as the heal effects cant affect the opponent's face. Besides, its the last vestige of direct damage for priest and with the classic cards for priest being as shit as it is, I don't think this will do any good to the class as a whole.
The HP is in a really tricky spot, but one way to make it better is to introduce impactful Priest minions in the next year of expansions, ones that are not deck build-dependent like Test Subject and not oppresive like Raza the Chained, but are flexible like Mindflayer Kaahrj and even Chameleos. But it also depends on the meta; Zerek, Master Cloner was only played for a little bit with the introduction of Clone Priest on Boomsday, and is now seeing experimentation again with the addition of Wretched Reclaimer and Grave Rune.
Well it's over