Brawliseum is back. While I really want to hype its return, its going to be back to facing netdecks all day everyday again. Better start training now for it anyway.
Darkglare officially dead. Funny how it went from being completely ignored to nerf in less than a month after literally 1 year of being on the sidelines. (Thanks to Knivesout for pointing it out that its only been like 4 months)
Archwitch Willow buff was not only necessary, its basically only fair now at 8 mana. How this ever became 9 mana during dev testing is beyond me.
True that. I don't play WoW so it was kinda a shock to me how Jaina transformed from being linked romantically to Thrall in warcraft 3 to full Horde-hating, rabid foaming in the mouth boss, complete with white hair to boot.
Funny how she doesn't have a unique line for garrosh or arthas in hearthstone.
Changes to Darkglare is brutal. Literally destroyed the card. They might as well have just change it to a 2 mana 2/3, your Flame Imp and Tour Guides cost 0. In standard there's literally no more use for this card, which is kinda a shame since pain warlock is perhaps the most challenging meta deck to play Ive encountered in quite some time.
Secret Passage nerf is a little weak. I guess the idea is that they didn't want this to completely be unusable since its literally the only card keeping all rogue players from yet another galakrond build. Its still decent I guess.
Cabal Acolyte nerf is unexpected. I didn't particularly find this card oppressive in any way, but evidently team5 thought priest was getting a little out of hand, what with Wave of Apathy being literally everywhere.
Now for buffs (of which we won't get any dust from, sigh*)
Totem Goliath slight buff wont change much of anything. Totem shaman matches are decided early game, not late game. If anything I'd say that buffing Runic Carvings would be more impactful.
That willow buff was timely. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that it should've been 8 mana from the start. What the hell does team5 think a 9 mana card should be like? Maybe, just maybe at 8 mana this card will be playable in some meme deck. Its still not very good at the moment since there's only literally one demon card warlock would want off this but its going to be here for another 2 years so maybe at some point this card will take prominence.
The non-dupe rule only applies to non golden cards. So if you happen to only have one golden + 1 normal, you are guaranteed to open that 1 normal card in your packs. Another way of saying it; if you only have golden copies of a rare card, you are guaranteed to open normal copies of them in your packs.
Noticed that in the last expansion, not sure if its explicitly stated. I dont dust goldens unless I really need the dust (my dust bank is so full I dont need to anyway), so its more noticeable to me I guess.
That's not entirely true... Golden cards do count for the non-dupe rule until you collect all cards of that rarity. Only then, the non golden gaps fill up. I wasn't sure this was a set rule since i've never read something about it but i kept noticing this to happen.
The fact that other players noticed the same thing is proving this rule for me. Actually a pretty nice feature for all the people who disenchant all their golden cards.
But now that we're on the topic: How does the non-dupe rule handles crafted cards? Will it prioritize those card once you have a full collection? Or do crafted cards simply count as "opened"?
I can't prove it since I don't keep a detailed history of my pack openings. But I'm pretty sure I've encountered situations where I got a golden and a normal of a certain card, then got the other normal before I got the whole collection of that tier.
But this is one of those things that needs a dev to confirm, so I'll just leave it at that.
The non-dupe rule only applies to non golden cards. So if you happen to only have one golden + 1 normal, you are guaranteed to open that 1 normal card in your packs. Another way of saying it; if you only have golden copies of a rare card, you are guaranteed to open normal copies of them in your packs.
Noticed that in the last expansion, not sure if its explicitly stated. I dont dust goldens unless I really need the dust (my dust bank is so full I dont need to anyway), so its more noticeable to me I guess.
I've been trying my way up the ladder with out of meta decks and I still don't find anything wrong with the cards you listed for nerfs.
Voracious Reader is hardly a problem. Its been a while since I saw someone play this for a draw more than 1, a testament to how difficult it is to get value out of this card, especially in the early game.
Secret Passage is probably the most deserving in your list, but even then it doesn't really seem like a problem card. The real problem at the moment is how rogue abuses the many stealth minions they have, and the lack of a good healing card in standard right now. That's why most hunter decks just bulldozes aggro rogue with Explosive Trap. I like how secret passage allows rogue to play stuff that until now never saw the light of day, and if nerfing it means its all back to galakrond rogue, then I'm okay with secret passage staying unnerfed until the next expansion.
And finally Libram of Wisdom. Despite what you read in hsreplay or other stats, paladin is neither oppressive or hard to counter. If anything, its the most fair of all the classes, and any nerf to its core cards will instantly relegate paladin to unplayable for yet another expansion. On the discussion of whether libram of wisdom is broken? The real question would be would you keep this in your mulligan if you don't get to play Aldor Attendant on 1? The answer is no, and that is why it remains fair at 2 mana.
Most people use secret passage to find lethal thats why people don't like it the ability to easily find lethal. Basically zephrys in aggro rogue
On Secret Passage finding lethal. Yes, that's true. But that does not make aggro rogue unbearable or uncounterable. Its mostly the stealth minions that tend to be oppressive, but aside from pain warlock, I don't see this deck terrorizing anything.
On the Libram of Wisdom late game value. I've played around with libram paladin way before this expansion, and a great deal during this expansion. In only a small number of games that I am able to get Lady Liadrin out without dying and even fewer of these games was libram of wisdom ever coming close to being the most valuable card. In many cases if paladin wins at all its usually because of tempo swings from Lightforged Zealot or they simply could not deal with Goody Two-Shields on 3. The late game value you are talking about almost never happens. There's just too many ways to either beat paladin way before they get there, or to completely remove those librams via silences or sap.
The only time libram of wisdom come close to being broken is ironically in pure pally mirrors. In fact, paladin is so fair that a good player can easily beat paladin even in sub optimal matchups which is why none of the grandmasters would even think of bringing paladin (I know in week 1 a couple did, targetting druid and losing nearly every other matchup)
I've been trying my way up the ladder with out of meta decks and I still don't find anything wrong with the cards you listed for nerfs.
Voracious Reader is hardly a problem. Its been a while since I saw someone play this for a draw more than 1, a testament to how difficult it is to get value out of this card, especially in the early game.
Secret Passage is probably the most deserving in your list, but even then it doesn't really seem like a problem card. The real problem at the moment is how rogue abuses the many stealth minions they have, and the lack of a good healing card in standard right now. That's why most hunter decks just bulldozes aggro rogue with Explosive Trap. I like how secret passage allows rogue to play stuff that until now never saw the light of day, and if nerfing it means its all back to galakrond rogue, then I'm okay with secret passage staying unnerfed until the next expansion.
And finally Libram of Wisdom. Despite what you read in hsreplay or other stats, paladin is neither oppressive or hard to counter. If anything, its the most fair of all the classes, and any nerf to its core cards will instantly relegate paladin to unplayable for yet another expansion. On the discussion of whether libram of wisdom is broken? The real question would be would you keep this in your mulligan if you don't get to play Aldor Attendant on 1? The answer is no, and that is why it remains fair at 2 mana.
The usual rule of thumb is to only dust if you really need the dust. There's no way to tell whether a card is truly dust worthy since all it takes is one card to make it broken. Darkglare is a good example of that. Prior to Scholomance no one was playing it and out of nowhere suddenly its a meta card.
You need a fairly robust set of evidence to get noticed by the crowd, never mind blizz itself. Just be mindful that a typical day for customer support involves plenty of duds, and they don't need people screaming in their ear about any form of perceived injustices.
Get a ticket off customer support. If they're not helping then place down all your evidence on reddit and wait for the fireworks. Rest assured there's plenty of people out there who would gladly take blizz up to task on anything even remotely unfair.
Provided you've a good deal (and I do mean really really good) of evidence in your hands. I think you can tell what would happen if you display a round of toss in reddit and scream for justice.
- You basically removed all shaman's draw except for elementary reaction, and yet there's no 1 mana elemental anywhere in classic. So hamstrung from the start. I think manatide totem is a better choice. Plays well with the totem synergy too.
- Bringing back volcano and ditching lightning storm is perhaps one of the better decisions.
- How does tornado even work? 20 coin toss on whether it blows the opponent away or skips your next turn? Its an amusing card I grant you, but its not playable in any way shape and form. Perhaps you can change this to enemies instead of just minions and hits only 10 times, so its strong on its own, and there's less chance of this basically screwing you over.
- A little surprised you didnt bring back crackle, so aggro shaman can live again.
My deck doesn't have heal, focus on finishing up the quest as quickly as possible. You can use tour guide then hold on to the 0 mana hp, then draw as much as you can. Previous turn tour guide + hp+ pen flinger twice + Lightning bloom into double cumolo = your opponent dead. The ultimate goal is to finish quest quickly, so don't be afraid to spend resources to do so.
What a coincidence that the quest shaman built I had is very similar to his. I personally found Questing Explorer just too unreliable, especially in the late game. Cult Neophyte and Devolving Missiles are better tech cards. That heal option is interesting though.
For anyone curious, this is not a value deck. Its burn. Focus on your opponent's face is the real play.
To be honest, arena rewards are currently still okay, assuming you'd put the work in. Like yourself, I've grinded arena in my early days cause' I have literally no cards or dust to build even a decent aggro deck to go into ranked (I got my first month-end card back around 8 months from my start date. To put things in perspective, all you needed to do then was to reach rank 25).
A simplification of the details; you pay 150 gold, and you get 1 pack no matter what + a random reward of either dust or gold. The rewards scale with the number of wins, and the common ideal is to reach 7 wins, whereupon you get your gold back guaranteed. But this is only half the picture. To get the ticket's worth in gold, the actual number of wins required is 2 (for a chance of 40-50 gold) to 4 (where you are guaranteed 50 gold).
So all that is required to basically get 50 gold + a pack is actually 2-4 wins, very achievable. 3 wins is basically a gold standard in many cases. I won't discuss any higher than that, since most players don't get past 3 wins anyway.
But to go back to your proposal, its just broken. 50 gold to start, and only 1 win is all that is required to get value, 3 wins to get your gold back AND a pack. Let's be honest. If this was the structure back then I would be swimming in gold right now. Arena is grindy, and it should be grindy because the rewards it gives out for those who grind it is always better than it would be if you were grinding up gold via quests.
I left arena once I had a few decks to play with and never looked back. The reason is simple. Arena is only fun for only a small portion of players (and I mean really small). The vast majority of us (who play it at all) grind it for gold. If the idea is to make arena fun, its simple enough to remove all the rewards and allow players to go for it without charge. Hell, I'd play arena every now and then if I can go for it without charge, even without the rewards.
it only pays for itself at 1 win, that's of course if 1 win in constructed is also worth more than 3.33 gold(the current system).. here it's worth 20 gold but you put 50 gold, so the 1 win is fair.. the earlier tiers were more carefully placed in this suggestion, I actually thought about them being fair.
3 wins = higher than 50% win rate already that's where your deck is "Good" kind of the pack + fee is a reward that has value but.. it doesn't feel great at 7 wins which is actually an insane win rate and at least 40 minutes into a run……. if not a hour.. I find arena interesting but requires too much time and grinding for while the rewards are good compared to the entry fee, they are not exciting… at all..
1. Add guaranteed epics to the end
2.make the arena grind for max reward shorter
3. make the arena entry fee more affordable.
of course the arena rewards can increase that way cause the whole economic system is increasing!
also do note that on 6 wins for example you are missing on 20 gold from the 3 wins thing which is also really really grindy..
I think people who grind need to be rewarded more.. that's the point.. and of course as a player I want bigger rewards but something in the middle will be also much better but having a mode for 6 years while having the same rewards.. it's just not scalable.
Arena is supposed to be grindy because its the main method for anyone to get a decent amount of gold off this game, aside from your daily quests. I think getting your money's worth in 2-4 wins is a decent enough compromise.
I absolutely believe, as you do, that grind should be provided with comparable rewards. But this should come with a certain balance, with pros for both consumer and producer. Your reward tier is simply too generous, at least on the gold front.
I would advocate letting the gold/dust rewards stay as it is, but improve the other rewards, like granting guaranteed extra packs for higher milestones. Maybe also remove the useless rewards too like getting random bs cards.
Also, a short comment on your statement "cause' the whole economic system is increasing". It hasn't. Packs still cost 100 gold, dust value is still at 4x the card's worth, and a decent player can expect at least 8k gold per expansion. Unless the battlepass system causes this to crumble, I just can't agree with you on this.
One thing I would like is that CARDS are removed from the early arena rewards. It sucks when you get a bad run and instead of Gold, you are treated with some garbage rare cardwhich you didn’t need.
I second this. And while we're on it, please for the love of god blizz, remove those nasty odd 5 gold/dust rewards. If ever there was a way to thumb up other people's butt it would be to grant them a reward they can neither use nor remove.
Worst part is darkglare getting batted for being too OP in wild, not standard apparently.
As though there aren't better targets in wild cough* Open the Waygate cough*
I actually think its Flesh Giant for making pain warlock playable in the first place. But tour guide undoubtedly helped it along.
lol, I honestly thought it was an uldum card. Oh well.
Brawliseum is back. While I really want to hype its return, its going to be back to facing netdecks all day everyday again. Better start training now for it anyway.
Darkglare officially dead. Funny how it went from being completely ignored to nerf in less than a month after literally 1 year of being on the sidelines. (Thanks to Knivesout for pointing it out that its only been like 4 months)
Archwitch Willow buff was not only necessary, its basically only fair now at 8 mana. How this ever became 9 mana during dev testing is beyond me.
True that. I don't play WoW so it was kinda a shock to me how Jaina transformed from being linked romantically to Thrall in warcraft 3 to full Horde-hating, rabid foaming in the mouth boss, complete with white hair to boot.
Funny how she doesn't have a unique line for garrosh or arthas in hearthstone.
Changes to Darkglare is brutal. Literally destroyed the card. They might as well have just change it to a 2 mana 2/3, your Flame Imp and Tour Guides cost 0. In standard there's literally no more use for this card, which is kinda a shame since pain warlock is perhaps the most challenging meta deck to play Ive encountered in quite some time.
Secret Passage nerf is a little weak. I guess the idea is that they didn't want this to completely be unusable since its literally the only card keeping all rogue players from yet another galakrond build. Its still decent I guess.
Cabal Acolyte nerf is unexpected. I didn't particularly find this card oppressive in any way, but evidently team5 thought priest was getting a little out of hand, what with Wave of Apathy being literally everywhere.
Now for buffs (of which we won't get any dust from, sigh*)
Totem Goliath slight buff wont change much of anything. Totem shaman matches are decided early game, not late game. If anything I'd say that buffing Runic Carvings would be more impactful.
That willow buff was timely. Perhaps the best way to describe it is that it should've been 8 mana from the start. What the hell does team5 think a 9 mana card should be like? Maybe, just maybe at 8 mana this card will be playable in some meme deck. Its still not very good at the moment since there's only literally one demon card warlock would want off this but its going to be here for another 2 years so maybe at some point this card will take prominence.
I can't prove it since I don't keep a detailed history of my pack openings. But I'm pretty sure I've encountered situations where I got a golden and a normal of a certain card, then got the other normal before I got the whole collection of that tier.
But this is one of those things that needs a dev to confirm, so I'll just leave it at that.
The non-dupe rule only applies to non golden cards. So if you happen to only have one golden + 1 normal, you are guaranteed to open that 1 normal card in your packs. Another way of saying it; if you only have golden copies of a rare card, you are guaranteed to open normal copies of them in your packs.
Noticed that in the last expansion, not sure if its explicitly stated. I dont dust goldens unless I really need the dust (my dust bank is so full I dont need to anyway), so its more noticeable to me I guess.
On Secret Passage finding lethal. Yes, that's true. But that does not make aggro rogue unbearable or uncounterable. Its mostly the stealth minions that tend to be oppressive, but aside from pain warlock, I don't see this deck terrorizing anything.
On the Libram of Wisdom late game value. I've played around with libram paladin way before this expansion, and a great deal during this expansion. In only a small number of games that I am able to get Lady Liadrin out without dying and even fewer of these games was libram of wisdom ever coming close to being the most valuable card. In many cases if paladin wins at all its usually because of tempo swings from Lightforged Zealot or they simply could not deal with Goody Two-Shields on 3. The late game value you are talking about almost never happens. There's just too many ways to either beat paladin way before they get there, or to completely remove those librams via silences or sap.
The only time libram of wisdom come close to being broken is ironically in pure pally mirrors. In fact, paladin is so fair that a good player can easily beat paladin even in sub optimal matchups which is why none of the grandmasters would even think of bringing paladin (I know in week 1 a couple did, targetting druid and losing nearly every other matchup)
I've been trying my way up the ladder with out of meta decks and I still don't find anything wrong with the cards you listed for nerfs.
Voracious Reader is hardly a problem. Its been a while since I saw someone play this for a draw more than 1, a testament to how difficult it is to get value out of this card, especially in the early game.
Secret Passage is probably the most deserving in your list, but even then it doesn't really seem like a problem card. The real problem at the moment is how rogue abuses the many stealth minions they have, and the lack of a good healing card in standard right now. That's why most hunter decks just bulldozes aggro rogue with Explosive Trap. I like how secret passage allows rogue to play stuff that until now never saw the light of day, and if nerfing it means its all back to galakrond rogue, then I'm okay with secret passage staying unnerfed until the next expansion.
And finally Libram of Wisdom. Despite what you read in hsreplay or other stats, paladin is neither oppressive or hard to counter. If anything, its the most fair of all the classes, and any nerf to its core cards will instantly relegate paladin to unplayable for yet another expansion. On the discussion of whether libram of wisdom is broken? The real question would be would you keep this in your mulligan if you don't get to play Aldor Attendant on 1? The answer is no, and that is why it remains fair at 2 mana.
The usual rule of thumb is to only dust if you really need the dust. There's no way to tell whether a card is truly dust worthy since all it takes is one card to make it broken. Darkglare is a good example of that. Prior to Scholomance no one was playing it and out of nowhere suddenly its a meta card.
You need a fairly robust set of evidence to get noticed by the crowd, never mind blizz itself. Just be mindful that a typical day for customer support involves plenty of duds, and they don't need people screaming in their ear about any form of perceived injustices.
Get a ticket off customer support. If they're not helping then place down all your evidence on reddit and wait for the fireworks. Rest assured there's plenty of people out there who would gladly take blizz up to task on anything even remotely unfair.
Provided you've a good deal (and I do mean really really good) of evidence in your hands. I think you can tell what would happen if you display a round of toss in reddit and scream for justice.
viper qualified with zoo. So there's at least one warlock
Priest mirrors. Let's hope each of them were sensible enough to bring a win condition somewhere as an alternate.
Lightning Bloom + Ancestral Knowledge + Snowfury Giant
They only delay the inevitable
A few observations:
- You basically removed all shaman's draw except for elementary reaction, and yet there's no 1 mana elemental anywhere in classic. So hamstrung from the start. I think manatide totem is a better choice. Plays well with the totem synergy too.
- Bringing back volcano and ditching lightning storm is perhaps one of the better decisions.
- How does tornado even work? 20 coin toss on whether it blows the opponent away or skips your next turn? Its an amusing card I grant you, but its not playable in any way shape and form. Perhaps you can change this to enemies instead of just minions and hits only 10 times, so its strong on its own, and there's less chance of this basically screwing you over.
- A little surprised you didnt bring back crackle, so aggro shaman can live again.
My deck doesn't have heal, focus on finishing up the quest as quickly as possible. You can use tour guide then hold on to the 0 mana hp, then draw as much as you can. Previous turn tour guide + hp+ pen flinger twice + Lightning bloom into double cumolo = your opponent dead. The ultimate goal is to finish quest quickly, so don't be afraid to spend resources to do so.
What a coincidence that the quest shaman built I had is very similar to his. I personally found Questing Explorer just too unreliable, especially in the late game. Cult Neophyte and Devolving Missiles are better tech cards. That heal option is interesting though.
For anyone curious, this is not a value deck. Its burn. Focus on your opponent's face is the real play.
Arena is supposed to be grindy because its the main method for anyone to get a decent amount of gold off this game, aside from your daily quests. I think getting your money's worth in 2-4 wins is a decent enough compromise.
I absolutely believe, as you do, that grind should be provided with comparable rewards. But this should come with a certain balance, with pros for both consumer and producer. Your reward tier is simply too generous, at least on the gold front.
I would advocate letting the gold/dust rewards stay as it is, but improve the other rewards, like granting guaranteed extra packs for higher milestones. Maybe also remove the useless rewards too like getting random bs cards.
Also, a short comment on your statement "cause' the whole economic system is increasing". It hasn't. Packs still cost 100 gold, dust value is still at 4x the card's worth, and a decent player can expect at least 8k gold per expansion. Unless the battlepass system causes this to crumble, I just can't agree with you on this.
I second this. And while we're on it, please for the love of god blizz, remove those nasty odd 5 gold/dust rewards. If ever there was a way to thumb up other people's butt it would be to grant them a reward they can neither use nor remove.