I'm always surprised people don't downvote me when I complain about cosmetic inequity, so I'm sure there's enough interest in the topic to warrant an article.
The focus is usually on new characters (hence why Kael'thas gets more attention than the other skins added this patch), but there's something to be said for the numbers of re-skins too. Somehow rogue still manages to have the fewest skins, despite having more unique characters than DH, priest and hunter now :P I'm complaining there (it helps out my rogue-biased wallet), it's just a curious observation.
It's cute she has the same statline as her husband's angry mode (Mankrik, Consumed by Hatred). Someone should let him know she's still going strong... albeit dead.
Since this article mentions hero portraits, here's a decent place to say this: they finally added artist credits for the portraits! It was always so weird that wasn't said when we had it for cards.
No such info for mercs portraits, though they did add 4th skins for Tyrande, Millhouse and Xyrella for some reason. (They are just using skins that already existed outside Mercs, so probably just reasoned 'why not?')
Mercenaries uses only existing art. Like the Cookie fish.
The mercs themselves don't. Most of them have skins that aren't used anywhere else, and quite often they make no sense lore-wise (e.g. lots of baby versions of the characters, such as Deathwing, N'Zoth and Azshara).
I'd have to play it again, but I think you could interpret it as Rafaam dying in the LoE version of GA, though it was left ambiguous.
Of the other characters, I'm guessing the blue guy is Pelagos.
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I guess this happens before he becomes the arbiter? Or, you know, just some weird alternate timeline for HS as often happens.
The orc female might be Draka (Thrall's mum), who could easily be the rogue legendary if so (see Maldraxxus cinematic).
The others we haven't accounted for look like typical Shadowlands folk, though I have no idea what to make of the person in the top hat. I'm sure someone who plays WoW could enlighten us.
No penalty? It's established wisdom that you want the smallest possible deck in card games to improve consistency. For most decks, adding 10 cards just means you are less likely to have the best 30 when you want them.
She may be on an exploration mission like Finley. I don't know how she could fit there though, but the background of one of her Mercenaries portraits ("Baroness Elise") is a strong hint
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Hmm, the Baroness art is a good point, though that would require her to have died and been sent there, and not just exploring. Unless Revendreth is appointing living mortals as Barons now, which would be very weird, especially as it would have had to have happened while Denathrius was in charge. That all seems very contrived. It also wouldn't be the first Mercs artwork to put a character in a position disconnected from any existing stories.
Elise Staarseeker will be a legendary in the upcoming expansion.
Show Spoiler
Elise?! She's a complete dweeb and a do-gooder. She's the last person I'd expect to find in Revendreth (the place where sinners are sent to repent), even after death.
A member or two of the League of EVIL would be more plausible, though it doesn't feel like the right time for them since they have no link to the place and there's plenty of dead WoW villains to use instead.
That would be neat, though I suspect it would be easier and more effective to take the conventional approach and split the Covenants up across the classes that best fit them thematically. In practice, only a few of classes ever use set mechanics available to everyone (ignoring super broad things like keywords), so they might as well commit them to specific classes and have better control over power and theme as a result.
Don't get me wrong, I'm down with the idea of making a weird Bastion-rogue deck, but I can't help feeling I'd prefer the class focusing fully on Maldraxxus' Houses of Eyes and Plagues.
Doesn't Rastakhan summon totems in his fight in BfA? As with many NPCs he doesn't fit neatly into any one playable class, but there is some shaman-ness in him.
As for whether Sire Denathrius is a good fit in DH, the class did get the Ember Court Illidan skin which was basically Denathrius. So clearly the devs think DH is a good fit. Hopefully they don't count that skin already existing as a reason to hand him to someone else.
Where does any of that conflict with what I said? I only mentioned races, characters and mechanics linked with the zone, and said nothing about the theme itself.
My understanding is that the Shadowlands themselves are pretty interesting, but poor storytelling and spending too much time in the Maw ruined it. If you want players to enjoy the game, you don't keep sending them back to the place designed specifically to be hateful. You should use it once or twice to convey the horror, then move on. Just imagine how much less people would like Halo: CE if it kept sending you through the Library, for example.
Anyway, there's plenty of good stuff for HS to use in the Shadowlands, especially as it isn't anchored to the gameplay and story issues WoW had.
So I guess we should expect lots of dreadlords, vampires and lifesteal. Probably also a collection of WoW's villains to diversify the legendary lineup.
If rogue still doesn't get its own deathrattle minion when going to the Shadowlands, then we will truly have exhausted all hope for it.
Let's give them a few years to mature. Whether they are a troll or a bigot, they're not going to listen to rational arguments unless they align with their existing beliefs. If humans actually were superior to the rest of the animal kingdom, we might actually have a shot at getting through to them, but alas.
There is - as is apparent by how quickly you'll open all the new rares when they come out - but it doesn't apply when coins luckily(?) get replaced by portraits. When this happens for a legendary that you already own it can look like duplicate protection isn't present, but that's a bit misrepresentative since it is using the wrong information. In the (admittedly unofficial) flowchart @NebuchadnezzarHS shared, duplicate protection applies only to the left column, but it is present.
I think the bigger problem in @Pezman's case is that there is no pity timer. So you can go 50+ packs without seeing any legendaries that obey duplicate protection (or any legendaries at all!). And that feels pretty damn awful. Honestly, their removal of the pity timer in Mercs is probably the most concerning aspect of the game's design because there was absolutely no reason to do it other than to make the packs less valuable. And unlike the other concerning aspects of the game, this one was actively made worse than the existing precedent.
Has anyone else noticed that AI characters NEVER make attacks that will kill them unless they have no other option, UNLESS you are working on a task where you need to kill them with a specific ability, then they gleefully commit suicide at every opportunity to deny you your task progress?
I suspect that there are different levels of enemy AI in the game. In barrens 1, the enemies dont tend to be smart, they will always attack where their damage will do the most, and the boss AI is pathetic, the third move is always to attack into the highest damage merc.
But at higher levels, the enemy AI is enhanced seemingly, moving in manners I would not expect them to, almost like they're making moves according to my merc composition. Like how in holy teams, the usual strat from the AI is to target anduin. But sometimes whenever I have the ring equipped they'd go for another merc instead. Its weirdly inconsistent.
I've stopped relying on the AI ages ago. In some cases I would farm at higher levels just so they cant suicide into my mercs.
Maiev's equipment to reduce damage from attacks to your left- and right-most characters has taught me the AI does take equipment into account. With that equipped they'll usually attack my middle merc if they aren't blocked by taunt, even if they would be much better off attacking one of the outer mercs normally.
From my experience, the higher level AI is actually pretty clever all things considered, taking account of all effects active at the start of the turn when assessing how quickly they can bring mercs down. I doubt they know enough to counter potential actions by the player though. Tbh, I don't think they should be that clever in PvE since it is good game design to let players actually enact their plans there. So it's better to increase difficulty in 'dumb' ways (like more health and/or damage) than with super-smart AI.
Which is exactly why he said they'd make some "significant rewards track changes" to increase the rate of gold acquisition if they moved to 4 sets a year.
I don't play Wild at high enough ranks to have really met Pirate Rogue much, but isn't it a pretty conventional aggro/tempo deck? I would have thought you could tech against it reasonably easily if that is your intent. E.g. weapon removal, Golakka Crawler, AoE and healing/armor. Traditional control stuff.
Swordfish is definitely OP, but I imagine this is why they didn't hit the deck while they see if kneecapping Big Shaman opens more space for people to tech against rogue.
I'm always surprised people don't downvote me when I complain about cosmetic inequity, so I'm sure there's enough interest in the topic to warrant an article.
The focus is usually on new characters (hence why Kael'thas gets more attention than the other skins added this patch), but there's something to be said for the numbers of re-skins too. Somehow rogue still manages to have the fewest skins, despite having more unique characters than DH, priest and hunter now :P I'm complaining there (it helps out my rogue-biased wallet), it's just a curious observation.
He's probably in mage, so let's be real, there will be a diamond version of him :P
I think the rewards track always has the neutral diamond card though.
It's cute she has the same statline as her husband's angry mode (Mankrik, Consumed by Hatred). Someone should let him know she's still going strong... albeit dead.
Since this article mentions hero portraits, here's a decent place to say this: they finally added artist credits for the portraits! It was always so weird that wasn't said when we had it for cards.
No such info for mercs portraits, though they did add 4th skins for Tyrande, Millhouse and Xyrella for some reason. (They are just using skins that already existed outside Mercs, so probably just reasoned 'why not?')
The mercs themselves don't. Most of them have skins that aren't used anywhere else, and quite often they make no sense lore-wise (e.g. lots of baby versions of the characters, such as Deathwing, N'Zoth and Azshara).
I'd have to play it again, but I think you could interpret it as Rafaam dying in the LoE version of GA, though it was left ambiguous.
Of the other characters, I'm guessing the blue guy is Pelagos.
The orc female might be Draka (Thrall's mum), who could easily be the rogue legendary if so (see Maldraxxus cinematic).
The others we haven't accounted for look like typical Shadowlands folk, though I have no idea what to make of the person in the top hat. I'm sure someone who plays WoW could enlighten us.
No penalty? It's established wisdom that you want the smallest possible deck in card games to improve consistency. For most decks, adding 10 cards just means you are less likely to have the best 30 when you want them.
Hmm, the Baroness art is a good point, though that would require her to have died and been sent there, and not just exploring. Unless Revendreth is appointing living mortals as Barons now, which would be very weird, especially as it would have had to have happened while Denathrius was in charge. That all seems very contrived. It also wouldn't be the first Mercs artwork to put a character in a position disconnected from any existing stories.
I'm sure we'll find out soon.
A member or two of the League of EVIL would be more plausible, though it doesn't feel like the right time for them since they have no link to the place and there's plenty of dead WoW villains to use instead.
That would be neat, though I suspect it would be easier and more effective to take the conventional approach and split the Covenants up across the classes that best fit them thematically. In practice, only a few of classes ever use set mechanics available to everyone (ignoring super broad things like keywords), so they might as well commit them to specific classes and have better control over power and theme as a result.
Don't get me wrong, I'm down with the idea of making a weird Bastion-rogue deck, but I can't help feeling I'd prefer the class focusing fully on Maldraxxus' Houses of Eyes and Plagues.
Doesn't Rastakhan summon totems in his fight in BfA? As with many NPCs he doesn't fit neatly into any one playable class, but there is some shaman-ness in him.
As for whether Sire Denathrius is a good fit in DH, the class did get the Ember Court Illidan skin which was basically Denathrius. So clearly the devs think DH is a good fit. Hopefully they don't count that skin already existing as a reason to hand him to someone else.
Where does any of that conflict with what I said? I only mentioned races, characters and mechanics linked with the zone, and said nothing about the theme itself.
My understanding is that the Shadowlands themselves are pretty interesting, but poor storytelling and spending too much time in the Maw ruined it. If you want players to enjoy the game, you don't keep sending them back to the place designed specifically to be hateful. You should use it once or twice to convey the horror, then move on. Just imagine how much less people would like Halo: CE if it kept sending you through the Library, for example.
Anyway, there's plenty of good stuff for HS to use in the Shadowlands, especially as it isn't anchored to the gameplay and story issues WoW had.
So I guess we should expect lots of dreadlords, vampires and lifesteal. Probably also a collection of WoW's villains to diversify the legendary lineup.
If rogue still doesn't get its own deathrattle minion when going to the Shadowlands, then we will truly have exhausted all hope for it.
Let's give them a few years to mature. Whether they are a troll or a bigot, they're not going to listen to rational arguments unless they align with their existing beliefs. If humans actually were superior to the rest of the animal kingdom, we might actually have a shot at getting through to them, but alas.
Alright edge-lord. It seems you haven't taken to heart the lessons of Pandaria, and could benefit from listening to the pandaren some time.
There is - as is apparent by how quickly you'll open all the new rares when they come out - but it doesn't apply when coins luckily(?) get replaced by portraits. When this happens for a legendary that you already own it can look like duplicate protection isn't present, but that's a bit misrepresentative since it is using the wrong information. In the (admittedly unofficial) flowchart @NebuchadnezzarHS shared, duplicate protection applies only to the left column, but it is present.
I think the bigger problem in @Pezman's case is that there is no pity timer. So you can go 50+ packs without seeing any legendaries that obey duplicate protection (or any legendaries at all!). And that feels pretty damn awful. Honestly, their removal of the pity timer in Mercs is probably the most concerning aspect of the game's design because there was absolutely no reason to do it other than to make the packs less valuable. And unlike the other concerning aspects of the game, this one was actively made worse than the existing precedent.
Maiev's equipment to reduce damage from attacks to your left- and right-most characters has taught me the AI does take equipment into account. With that equipped they'll usually attack my middle merc if they aren't blocked by taunt, even if they would be much better off attacking one of the outer mercs normally.
From my experience, the higher level AI is actually pretty clever all things considered, taking account of all effects active at the start of the turn when assessing how quickly they can bring mercs down. I doubt they know enough to counter potential actions by the player though. Tbh, I don't think they should be that clever in PvE since it is good game design to let players actually enact their plans there. So it's better to increase difficulty in 'dumb' ways (like more health and/or damage) than with super-smart AI.
Which is exactly why he said they'd make some "significant rewards track changes" to increase the rate of gold acquisition if they moved to 4 sets a year.
I don't play Wild at high enough ranks to have really met Pirate Rogue much, but isn't it a pretty conventional aggro/tempo deck? I would have thought you could tech against it reasonably easily if that is your intent. E.g. weapon removal, Golakka Crawler, AoE and healing/armor. Traditional control stuff.
Swordfish is definitely OP, but I imagine this is why they didn't hit the deck while they see if kneecapping Big Shaman opens more space for people to tech against rogue.