The effects of cards are developed independent of the theme. Even if demon hunters are replaced with monk, theres no guarantee that the card effects would change. After all, warriors are currently the control class in hearthstone. Like, the term 'warrior' doesnt exactly spell tank.
Besides which, we can more or less deduce that the plan was to make dhunters OP so it'll generate more interest, so we can assume the same for any new class to follow. I much rather have an OP aggro class than a control one. Those wasted hours of inevitability versus res priest is more than enough as reference.
I'd love to see new classes every now and then, but to be perfectly honest, I dont think we'll be seeing one for the next few years.
The 1 mana 2/2 that grows is more oppressive than all of these in my opinion(granted it was really close with eye beam) and that wasnt touched at all. It's basically a "gain 1 attack at the beginning of your turn" effect since you can attack so easily with the hero. Played against only demon hunter and rogue yesterday and the demon hunters always had both of these on board before turn 3. I have no idea why this wasnt touched.
We've been dealing with flame imp for the last 6 years. I personally dont think Battlefiend is any trouble at all. If you miss out on your Umberwing, you'd have to spend 1 mana on turn 2 to buff the guy.
Thanks to 0 mana Eye Beam however, you'd not be permitted to develop any minions until turn 4. That's why Battlefiend is a problem. But eye beam got nerfed so we'll see what develops from that.
The nerf to Skull of Gul'dan is probably the most painful, but I suspect dhunters will just move on to relying on Spectral Sight if skull is too expensive.
Eye Beam nerf sorely needed. I'd still argue that along with a 1 mana hero power this is still the best early tempo tool in the game currently
Imprisoned Antaen nerf might be a little weak. But making so that it doesnt go along with Priestess of Fury on curve is perhaps the intention.
If galakrond shaman can be taken as a guide, then we can expect more nerfs later to different cards.
Ok, how can anyone call these cards unfair? Literally EVERYONE has them and literally EVERYONE is using them! Sounds fair to me!
Ok, but seriously, this makes sense. The Skull and the Antaen are pretty OP. Not sure I see the problem with Eye Beam or the Warblades though.
Eye Beam is probably the worst of the lot in my opinion. At 0 mana you can develop any minion and destroy your opponents tempo without additional cost. Add this along with a 1 mana hp means you dominate the first 2 turns bar none. Turn 3-4 pratically yours with minimal mana cost.
Aldrachi Warblades allows obscene amounts of healing to a class that needs to clear minions with his face. So if you think you can race dhunters, this thing says otherwise. At 2/2, I still think its a problem, but it makes it so your first swing isn't free and actually requires more thought.
Isn't it just premature?The cards are just out one day. It's a while new class shouldn't we let it be for a little while and see how everyone reacts? There has to be a way for most classes to beat it but they just haven't found the right deck yet.
Hsreplay showing dhunters total domination on both standard and arena, how much longer should we wait?
Longer than a day. It's a brand new class so a lot of people are playing it. Just chill out and let things settle. Everyone will play it a little less and be decks for other classes will be played.
Normally I'd agree with you, but having played this class myself, and having seen the statistics, I think team5 acted correctly in addressing this immediately.
I agree with that Twin Slice is a bit of a problem. But I expect this to be one of many nerfs to be decided later, if we were to take galakrond shaman as a case example.
Still, let's hope this does not end dhunters as a class prematurely. I wanna have fun with the class too, just not at the present OP levels.
Isn't it just premature?The cards are just out one day. It's a while new class shouldn't we let it be for a little while and see how everyone reacts? There has to be a way for most classes to beat it but they just haven't found the right deck yet.
Hsreplay showing dhunters total domination on both standard and arena, how much longer should we wait?
I know we have had our differences, but I don't want to see dhunters get nerfed to the ground. Just toned down so the class actually has a semblance of a weakness.
But team5 has got to stop printing cards for week 1 nerfs. Glad they are addressing it, but this should have been theoretically dealt with before its even shown to us.
- This one should be a no brainer. Not every class can clear a 10/6 that destroys your board and a 6/7 that snowballs when not removed.
This is the second point you've made on the basis of "not every class can do that." The fact is, not every class has to. A metagame is built on the kinds of rock-paper-scissors relationships that different classes have as a result of their specific strengths and weaknesses. We only need a couple decent control decks to keep Demon Hunter in check, and then some other class can come in and prey on those control decks.
Now, even when you're playing the paper to Demon Hunter's scissors in that set up, you'll want to have access to some ways to try and mitigate those losses. Waste Warden and Doomsayer are probably decent AoE tools for a class that lacks it's own AoE and needs to clean up a board of small demons, and Big Game Hunter is around for clearing those pesky large minions. And if you're struggling against the combo version or their powerful outcast cards, run Unseen Saboteur. This is fundamentally what these various tech cards are for - to shore up your class weaknesses against the metagame.
I can accept some of the arguments you're making but let's expand on this one in particular. I reiterate my opinion that every class has to have the tools to deal with the specifics of other classes. That's what we call as a balanced and healthy meta. If Galakrond rogue and highlander mage in the previous meta has absurdly good late games, then classes aiming to match them should target their weakness which is lack of healing and poor early game. Dragon and embiggen decks can be countered with Dragonmaw Poacher, etc.
Against dhunters, however, it is clear that they do have a weakness to board clears but because they reload just as quickly using cards like Skull of Gul'dan, their true weakness is board swings, i.e. clearing their board and developing minions, preferably big ones. We can assume that was the intention when Waste Warden was created, but its clear that their fantastic mid game supplements their early game so well that that weakness to board clear is suitably dealt with by playing big minions like Imprisoned Antaen and Priestess of Fury.
To put a case example, how is hunter supposed to deal with dhunters, like any archetype from dhunters? They can't target the early game, dhunters tempo tools outclasses their minions (0 mana Eye Beam, jesus) not to mention that dhunters have access to the best early minions in the game. They cant race them, dhunters heal too well. They certainly can't match up to dhunter's midgame minions of Imprisoned Antaen and Priestess of Fury. They can try combo, but because they cant draw that's inconsistent at best. They can buff their minions and go for dhunter's weakness to big minions, except this gets absolutely destroyed by an earlier board that they cannot deal with. So the best way to deal with this, is to not deal with it, which is why we're seeing face hunter being the best deck for the class currently according to hsreplay, performing abysmally against dhunters.
The class is ripe for nerfs, its only a matter of time. To close my side of the argument, dhunters are at the top of the hsreplay tier list, dominating tier 1 and taking off nearly half of all tier 2. They are the only class with over 50% win rate, and 20% more than the lowest class. They are too consistent in what they do, and their "weakness" cannot be exploited by all the classes. This was the main problem with the early galakrond shaman, and I expect team5 to deal with dhunters in the same way.
The complaints about Priestess of Fury seem like overreactions to me. She's great at killing boards full of tiny stuff, but is wildly inconsistent when your opponent has one or two bigger minions.
Honestly, Demon Hunter is probably closer to balanced than people here seem to think.
All of its early game minions and many of its midgame minions have aggressive statlines, so they're very vulnerable to board wipes.
For as much card draw as Demon Hunter has, its ability to flood the board is limited, so AoE can be pretty devastating to them.
Their options for burst require assembling combos, or is dealt to random enemies (or both in the case of Wrathscale Naga)
Apart from the crazy Kael'thas Sunstrider Combo Demon Hunter, the class has just about no great way to deal with even just a few medium to large minions (other than to punch through them)
So in theory you can start to see how a control deck easily beats most Demon Hunters by wiping the early minions, dropping a few bigger threats, and then just managing the board and healing into the late game. The big caveat to all of this is Imprisoned Antaen. Against aggro decks his randomly spread 10 damage often kills the board and hits face, and against control decks he's a massive punishment for playing AoE because he's dormant at the critical points of the game when the AoE would come down to swing the game. (I've played midrange mirrors where his damage was spread across enough bodies that he wasn't impactful, but the "don't beat em, join em" win isn't really what we want to see as a counter.)
With that in mind, I think that even a modest nerf to Imprisoned Antaen could be enough to make Warlock and Priest good control counters to Demon Hunter. Both have meaningful board wipes at several key points on the mana curve, and both have decent healing for the matchup (Warlock in the form of Sacrificial Pact and Nether Breath, and Priest in the form of its entire class identity...).
Let's have an argument;
- Your argument of a weakness to big minions is apt. They do have a weakness to them, except they do have some answers to them. Most of their minions have aggressive stat lines. So if you happen to be in a class without board clears, your big minions will likely just die to the board. In a pinch there is cards like Illidari Felblade and the completely insane Eye Beam. And when push comes to shove, they can clear it with their face, which isnt so much a problem since they can heal, like a lot. I've been playing control galakrond, with 2x Abyssal Summoner and 2x Twilight Drakes. He cleared all of them, and an Alexstrasza, no problem.
- Board flooding is what they do, at least unintentionally. Draws are so good, with Skull of Gul'dan for reload. I cleared three boards before I saw a big minion from them, simply because they draw very well. AoE is devastating, except not all classes can do an AoE, hence why hunters cant do anything to them. And unlike token decks, they dont need cards like Savage Roar to be effective.
- This one should be a no brainer. Not every class can clear a 10/6 that destroys your board and a 6/7 that snowballs when not removed.
- Oh and as a bonus, I was drawing like any decent handlock would. And when I did beat them they were ahead of me on cards. That, my friend, is not normal. Especially when dhunters maintaining full tempo while doing so.
I don't think dhunters are invincible, but just really really unfair, so beating them requires very specific builds that usually sucks against other decks. So we have control decks about, with the odd highlander every now and then, all to counter dhunters, and they still manages a 60% and above win rate on most of their decks.
Finally, let's also point out that hsreplay shows dhunters about 16% above the lowest win rate class. Its around 9% above second place hunter. It might be an overreaction. But then again, maybe it isnt, and dhunters are as broken as it appears.
The class is quite simply way too good at everything and what really bugs me is that while every other class keeps getting poorly thought out support for whacky archetypes, FOR SOME REASON they absolutely nailed DH on the first try with sufficient powerlevel on pretty much every card. How does that even happen?
I mean, when stuff like Totemic Reflection gets printed, does it really surprise anyone? Shaman's cards are actually not too bad, except that there's no decent 0 cost spells to, you know, synergize with the stuff printed.
Whereas on dhunters, its just pure tempo plays. Nothing looks conditional. Seems like every card can be played on its own.
But to end on a positive note, I have been doing well with priest and warlock. Handlock in particular is good. Only a matter of time before we start seeing Consume Magic and Big Game Hunters inside dhunters because they absolutely cannot deal with Twilight Drakes and Magtheridon.
About the other classes though, well, its not been great. The curve game from dhunters is absolutely brutal to anything without a board clear
The main issue with Demon Hunters is their ability to maintain a healthy hand size and also a threatening board state all throughout the game until fatigue take them.
I think the correct term for this is 'lacking any serious weaknesses'.
You either race them, or have enough AoE and taunts to last all 10 turns, because that's all it takes for them to draw their entire deck.
Lol, demon hunters win rate surpasses galakrond shaman at launch.
What could be the problem with demon hunters in general? Just look up hsreplay. Skull of Gul'dan - 75.5% win rate MULLIGAN. 5 mana card. Surpassing Battlefiend, a 1 mana card.
Well well, turns out that dhunters are as broken as I once thought.
But that's not to say there's no counter to it. I'm been playing around with priest builds and it has not been a total 100% disaster.
The supreme problem with dhunters in general is not that its impossible to beat, but because it takes only a very specific deck to defeat them. Forget about anything even resembling an aggro or midrange deck that isnt dhunters as the other deck start with a tremendous disadvantage in the early game, let alone the mid game. And you can't starve dhunters out of resources in the same way most aggro decks suffer from, they just draw too fast and too efficiently.
So you end up with a game thats dominated by midrange dhunters, and absurd counters in the form of control decks like res priest, control shaman, and control warrior. What about the others? I don't know. In particular, what is hunter going to do in standard against a dhunter class? Run double unleash and double explosive trap? Chances are they just draw more cards and reload, something hunters cant match up to. That should be good enough a signal on the situation.
I'd expect some nerfs at some point, aiming at Skull of Gul'dan, Eye Beam, and Priestess of Fury. But hitting skull hard is perhaps good enough. The reload is absolutely absurd, and it does very well with Questing Adventurer to a frankly insane degree.
EDIT - I know its day 1. But c'mon. 75% win rate. Maybe a tiny indication? Only the tiniest, I assure you.
Well, as usual, I spend sleepless days thinking up the best decks to play on day 1, and then proceeded to completely miss out on all the cards I needed.
Did 4 more games today, lost all 4. This is in Bronze mind you, the old rank 25-20 range. I used to get rank 5 every single month for the last 6 months (since I started), slowly climbing throughout the month, but I just can't win a single game since all my opponents are Legends with full top tier decks, my halfass decks just can't cope ugh
What deck are you playing, if you dont mind me asking.
If you could get up to rank 5, that's usually a sign that you can match up to lower legend players.
I think if they can get up to diamond, they're pretty good enough to take on lower legend players.
Likewise vice versa. I like to believe that diamond players are good enough to to take on even upper legend players.
(also, just like to point out that you've created a duplicate thread on this topic)
You can dust your cards now, if you guys haven't already done so.
Its such a shame, cause the golden Imprisoned Antaen is pretty sick.
I actually thought the ending would be both sides having no more cards beating each other up with hero power until fatigue takes down one of them.
Pretty good animation as usual from them. Shame they didnt have a card to reveal.
The effects of cards are developed independent of the theme. Even if demon hunters are replaced with monk, theres no guarantee that the card effects would change. After all, warriors are currently the control class in hearthstone. Like, the term 'warrior' doesnt exactly spell tank.
Besides which, we can more or less deduce that the plan was to make dhunters OP so it'll generate more interest, so we can assume the same for any new class to follow. I much rather have an OP aggro class than a control one. Those wasted hours of inevitability versus res priest is more than enough as reference.
I'd love to see new classes every now and then, but to be perfectly honest, I dont think we'll be seeing one for the next few years.
This, at least will be the one thing Im fully confident have been thought about thoroughly.
We've been dealing with flame imp for the last 6 years. I personally dont think Battlefiend is any trouble at all. If you miss out on your Umberwing, you'd have to spend 1 mana on turn 2 to buff the guy.
Thanks to 0 mana Eye Beam however, you'd not be permitted to develop any minions until turn 4. That's why Battlefiend is a problem. But eye beam got nerfed so we'll see what develops from that.
The nerf to Skull of Gul'dan is probably the most painful, but I suspect dhunters will just move on to relying on Spectral Sight if skull is too expensive.
Eye Beam nerf sorely needed. I'd still argue that along with a 1 mana hero power this is still the best early tempo tool in the game currently
Imprisoned Antaen nerf might be a little weak. But making so that it doesnt go along with Priestess of Fury on curve is perhaps the intention.
If galakrond shaman can be taken as a guide, then we can expect more nerfs later to different cards.
Eye Beam is probably the worst of the lot in my opinion. At 0 mana you can develop any minion and destroy your opponents tempo without additional cost. Add this along with a 1 mana hp means you dominate the first 2 turns bar none. Turn 3-4 pratically yours with minimal mana cost.
Aldrachi Warblades allows obscene amounts of healing to a class that needs to clear minions with his face. So if you think you can race dhunters, this thing says otherwise. At 2/2, I still think its a problem, but it makes it so your first swing isn't free and actually requires more thought.
Normally I'd agree with you, but having played this class myself, and having seen the statistics, I think team5 acted correctly in addressing this immediately.
I agree with that Twin Slice is a bit of a problem. But I expect this to be one of many nerfs to be decided later, if we were to take galakrond shaman as a case example.
Still, let's hope this does not end dhunters as a class prematurely. I wanna have fun with the class too, just not at the present OP levels.
Hsreplay showing dhunters total domination on both standard and arena, how much longer should we wait?
My guess;
Skull of Gul'dan - Outcast to lower cost by 2 or 1. Either that, or the cost to be increased to 6
Imprisoned Antaen - cost 1 more, or deal only 5 damage on wake. 10/6 stats to be toned to 8/5.
Eye Beam - deal 2 damage or cost 1 with outcast
Aldrachi Warblades - cost 4, or is 2/2 now
I know we have had our differences, but I don't want to see dhunters get nerfed to the ground. Just toned down so the class actually has a semblance of a weakness.
But team5 has got to stop printing cards for week 1 nerfs. Glad they are addressing it, but this should have been theoretically dealt with before its even shown to us.
I can accept some of the arguments you're making but let's expand on this one in particular. I reiterate my opinion that every class has to have the tools to deal with the specifics of other classes. That's what we call as a balanced and healthy meta. If Galakrond rogue and highlander mage in the previous meta has absurdly good late games, then classes aiming to match them should target their weakness which is lack of healing and poor early game. Dragon and embiggen decks can be countered with Dragonmaw Poacher, etc.
Against dhunters, however, it is clear that they do have a weakness to board clears but because they reload just as quickly using cards like Skull of Gul'dan, their true weakness is board swings, i.e. clearing their board and developing minions, preferably big ones. We can assume that was the intention when Waste Warden was created, but its clear that their fantastic mid game supplements their early game so well that that weakness to board clear is suitably dealt with by playing big minions like Imprisoned Antaen and Priestess of Fury.
To put a case example, how is hunter supposed to deal with dhunters, like any archetype from dhunters? They can't target the early game, dhunters tempo tools outclasses their minions (0 mana Eye Beam, jesus) not to mention that dhunters have access to the best early minions in the game. They cant race them, dhunters heal too well. They certainly can't match up to dhunter's midgame minions of Imprisoned Antaen and Priestess of Fury. They can try combo, but because they cant draw that's inconsistent at best. They can buff their minions and go for dhunter's weakness to big minions, except this gets absolutely destroyed by an earlier board that they cannot deal with. So the best way to deal with this, is to not deal with it, which is why we're seeing face hunter being the best deck for the class currently according to hsreplay, performing abysmally against dhunters.
The class is ripe for nerfs, its only a matter of time. To close my side of the argument, dhunters are at the top of the hsreplay tier list, dominating tier 1 and taking off nearly half of all tier 2. They are the only class with over 50% win rate, and 20% more than the lowest class. They are too consistent in what they do, and their "weakness" cannot be exploited by all the classes. This was the main problem with the early galakrond shaman, and I expect team5 to deal with dhunters in the same way.
Let's have an argument;
- Your argument of a weakness to big minions is apt. They do have a weakness to them, except they do have some answers to them. Most of their minions have aggressive stat lines. So if you happen to be in a class without board clears, your big minions will likely just die to the board. In a pinch there is cards like Illidari Felblade and the completely insane Eye Beam. And when push comes to shove, they can clear it with their face, which isnt so much a problem since they can heal, like a lot. I've been playing control galakrond, with 2x Abyssal Summoner and 2x Twilight Drakes. He cleared all of them, and an Alexstrasza, no problem.
- Board flooding is what they do, at least unintentionally. Draws are so good, with Skull of Gul'dan for reload. I cleared three boards before I saw a big minion from them, simply because they draw very well. AoE is devastating, except not all classes can do an AoE, hence why hunters cant do anything to them. And unlike token decks, they dont need cards like Savage Roar to be effective.
- This one should be a no brainer. Not every class can clear a 10/6 that destroys your board and a 6/7 that snowballs when not removed.
- Oh and as a bonus, I was drawing like any decent handlock would. And when I did beat them they were ahead of me on cards. That, my friend, is not normal. Especially when dhunters maintaining full tempo while doing so.
I don't think dhunters are invincible, but just really really unfair, so beating them requires very specific builds that usually sucks against other decks. So we have control decks about, with the odd highlander every now and then, all to counter dhunters, and they still manages a 60% and above win rate on most of their decks.
Finally, let's also point out that hsreplay shows dhunters about 16% above the lowest win rate class. Its around 9% above second place hunter. It might be an overreaction. But then again, maybe it isnt, and dhunters are as broken as it appears.
I mean, when stuff like Totemic Reflection gets printed, does it really surprise anyone? Shaman's cards are actually not too bad, except that there's no decent 0 cost spells to, you know, synergize with the stuff printed.
Whereas on dhunters, its just pure tempo plays. Nothing looks conditional. Seems like every card can be played on its own.
But to end on a positive note, I have been doing well with priest and warlock. Handlock in particular is good. Only a matter of time before we start seeing Consume Magic and Big Game Hunters inside dhunters because they absolutely cannot deal with Twilight Drakes and Magtheridon.
About the other classes though, well, its not been great. The curve game from dhunters is absolutely brutal to anything without a board clear
I think the correct term for this is 'lacking any serious weaknesses'.
You either race them, or have enough AoE and taunts to last all 10 turns, because that's all it takes for them to draw their entire deck.
Lol, demon hunters win rate surpasses galakrond shaman at launch.
What could be the problem with demon hunters in general? Just look up hsreplay. Skull of Gul'dan - 75.5% win rate MULLIGAN. 5 mana card. Surpassing Battlefiend, a 1 mana card.
Well well, turns out that dhunters are as broken as I once thought.
But that's not to say there's no counter to it. I'm been playing around with priest builds and it has not been a total 100% disaster.
The supreme problem with dhunters in general is not that its impossible to beat, but because it takes only a very specific deck to defeat them. Forget about anything even resembling an aggro or midrange deck that isnt dhunters as the other deck start with a tremendous disadvantage in the early game, let alone the mid game. And you can't starve dhunters out of resources in the same way most aggro decks suffer from, they just draw too fast and too efficiently.
So you end up with a game thats dominated by midrange dhunters, and absurd counters in the form of control decks like res priest, control shaman, and control warrior. What about the others? I don't know. In particular, what is hunter going to do in standard against a dhunter class? Run double unleash and double explosive trap? Chances are they just draw more cards and reload, something hunters cant match up to. That should be good enough a signal on the situation.
I'd expect some nerfs at some point, aiming at Skull of Gul'dan, Eye Beam, and Priestess of Fury. But hitting skull hard is perhaps good enough. The reload is absolutely absurd, and it does very well with Questing Adventurer to a frankly insane degree.
EDIT - I know its day 1. But c'mon. 75% win rate. Maybe a tiny indication? Only the tiniest, I assure you.
Well, as usual, I spend sleepless days thinking up the best decks to play on day 1, and then proceeded to completely miss out on all the cards I needed.
What deck are you playing, if you dont mind me asking.
If you could get up to rank 5, that's usually a sign that you can match up to lower legend players.