There are 2 mercs I really want to pull from packs and leveling them ASAP.
1. Lord Jaraxxus
The demon comp seems really strong and fun for me. Tamsin and Rathorian are rares so I will get them 100%, and the bench is less important but I want Mannoroth, Gul'dan and Diablo there.
2. Malfurion Stormrage
The key to nature comps. Guff and Bru'kan are rares and Brightwing is epic, so Malfurion is the only one that will be hard to get. I also want Anacondra and Morgl in the team but they are also rare.
And I also want to play with orcs but that will require multiple legendaries. There is also a fire comp I want to check out, and maybe Diablo and the epics will be good enough for that.
In my opinion nature comp will be the most tanky, grindy team, and they will have success in both PVE in PVP. What do we need?
1. Malfurion Stormrage. His equipment can heal the party for 18. Everyone, every turn, passively. He can also speed up the party, root the opponent, or provide further aoe heal or aoe damage.
2. Guff the caster-tank. Taunt and +12/+32 every second turn? Yes please. He can also buff the whole party including the bench. His Living Brambles says: "nature combo: repeat this", and I wonder if it works with Malf's equip, providing another heal. Maybe not, but Guff is still broken. Speaking of bro'ken:
3. Bru'kan the bro'ken disruptor. Muddy footing at speed 4 that deals nature damage and slows the opponent by 10? Without cooldown? Yes please. He can also give the team +nature damage which is nice. I think he is the 3rd best, but I also think that there is someone else who is more worthy in the starting 3. Who else, than:
4. Brightwing, the swapper. This little shit is just so good in any comp, and she is even better in a nature comp. Buffing the bench is nice. Healing the whole party is something we already have, but thats what makes the party super tanky/grindy, the fact that we have more sources of heal. And lastly the best ability: swapping (with healing of course). Especially good in PVE, but it could be good in PVP aswell.
5. Lady Anacondra, who makes the cut. Serpent's bite gets double bonus from +nature damage which is nice. She can also heal, which works with our strategy.
6. Thrall Morgl the Oracle, aka the better Thrall (I mean in nature comps). I mean what would Thrall do? He has an orc-buff, a mediocre aoe, and another skill which is good with attack focused heroes. Meanwhile with the right equipment Morgl can deal damage and heal the whole party (grindy strategy, remember?) without cooldown and he can heal for 30 every second turn.
So I think that the nature comp will be pretty strong, very tanky, very grindy, but Thrall doesnt make the cut for the best 6.
Xyrella is very versatile, she is a pretty good starting hero. The debuff works very well with mercs that attack a lot like Garrosh.
Atonement is an interesting skill, and I wonder if it starts counting the heals even if Xyrella is on the bench. It its the case then I could see her ability as a nuke in nature comps.
Diablo 2: Resurrected is pretty popular right now. If you understand its mechanics, you know that decreasing your opponents resistances is usually much better than increasing your own damage by the same amount. Why am I talking about this? Because in Hearthstone Mercenaries its the exact opposite.
If you gain +x [spell school] damage, it works for all of your mercs until the source of it is killed. (Maybe even longer? Im note sure about that.) Vol'jin's shadow weakness on the other hand, its unique and it sounds cool, but it only lasts for 1 turn.
Ring of Haste is no joke, but what are the best payoffs for using shadow spells? Tamsin's summon gets buffed for every shadow spell, which is nice, but if you use the Ring, your shadow spells will be faster than the summon, so its actually counter-productive.
Right now, I dont think that a shadow comp is good enough, but if they introduce more synergies, then Vol'jin and his overpowered ring will be a part of it for sure.
Super good in a vacuum, and if you think about combos, he is even better.
Any merc who likes attack buffs will love Tirion (like Samuro, King Krush or Illidan) and his debuff is also a game-changer especially when you use it with Garrosh's Mak'Gora.
Ashbringer's deathrattle is something you dont want in PVE, but its really good in PVP. BTW, in PVP Tirion is the number 1 hard-counter to Sylvanas.
Probably the best epic, and one of the best mercenaries overall.
He is a must-have in orc comps. His skills are versatile. Warchief's command is great with Sylvanas in PVP. The equipment is even more interesting. Getting windfury from Doomhammer is nice especially when you have a Rokara in your team. But Ring of Strength seems even better, a pseudo-heal that works very well with Garrosh and his Mak'Gora.
So I like Thrall a lot and I think that orc comps will be strong, and Thrall will be a huge part of the composition's success.
Must-have in a demon comp. She also has some shadow synergies. I might underestimate the shadow school, because I dont think its top tier right now, but Tamsin makes it better for sure.
BTW, shadow school. If you want to go that way, you want Vol'jin with the equipment that reduces the speed of all Shadow skills by 3. The problem with that, is your Tamsin's summon will be slower than your shadow skills, so you cant buff your demon in the same turn you summon it.
Anyways, IMO the demon comp will be very good, and Tamsin will be a key part to that team.
Reclaimed Souls + Death Volley is a party wipe for the opponent. There are ways to buff Reclaimed Souls without killing your own party, like using summons, or even better, using Samuro.
BUT, I still have 2 concerns about her.
1. She can be countered by Tirion. I know it doesnt sound like a real concern right now, but when we will have an estabilished metagame in Mercenaries PVP, there will be counter-strategies. If Sylvanas will be in every PVP comp, then its safe to assume that Tirion will be also used at the same rate. To be honest, it doesnt make her less good, I just wanted to mention it.
2. You cant kill Sylvanas. I mean, none of her abilities are "attacks", she cant get retaliation damage. Your opponent will decide when to kill her, and you will have no choice about that.
So I have my concerns, but she still seems like the best PVP merc, and I dont think she will be good in PVE.
An orc that can summon orcs? Alright. He is actually very good in orc comps. The AoE orc buff is very strong, but its somewhat complicated to apply it to everyone. I mean there are ways to damage your stuff, but sometimes you can just rely AoE damage from your opponent, and after that a good old fashioned +7/+9 AoE buff without cooldown sounds pretty good.
Must-have in orc builds, kinda useless outside of them.
She is possibly the best starting merc. She is absolutely key in orc comps, but she is more. Offensive Rally works very well with repeated attacks, like King Krush's Apex Predator or Garrosh's Mak'Gora.
In a vacuum, Rokara is slightly above average, but when you consider the synergies, especially the orc ones, you can see that she is actually top tier. Very strong for a rare.
Kill Command seems underpowered, especially its speed. When it comes to equipment, Mama Bear's Claws seems a pretty good one, if you have the team for it (does it work with beast mercs?). So he is good with Anacondra and King Krush.
Overall, Rexxar seems like one of the weaker legendaries.
Raven frost I mean Sulfuras could be nice in some PVE bounties, but if you use Ragnaros, generally you would want the +3 fire damage instead.
So he is obviously good with a fire comp, but there is more! Something I have mentioned at King Krush, repeated damage abilities could be the key to speedfarm PVE content. And Rag is the best when it comes to massacre lower-leveled opponents, or opponents who are weakened by AoE damage. "DIE, INSECTS!" can deal up to 25 damage and its slow speed (10) is actually good, because it will resolve after your other AoE abilities.
So I think that Rag will be the best when I want to farm, and I also see a lot of PVP potential in him, thanks to the strong fire ability users.
There are 2 mercs I really want to pull from packs and leveling them ASAP.
1. Lord Jaraxxus
The demon comp seems really strong and fun for me. Tamsin and Rathorian are rares so I will get them 100%, and the bench is less important but I want Mannoroth, Gul'dan and Diablo there.
2. Malfurion Stormrage
The key to nature comps. Guff and Bru'kan are rares and Brightwing is epic, so Malfurion is the only one that will be hard to get. I also want Anacondra and Morgl in the team but they are also rare.
And I also want to play with orcs but that will require multiple legendaries. There is also a fire comp I want to check out, and maybe Diablo and the epics will be good enough for that.
In my opinion nature comp will be the most tanky, grindy team, and they will have success in both PVE in PVP. What do we need?
1. Malfurion Stormrage. His equipment can heal the party for 18. Everyone, every turn, passively. He can also speed up the party, root the opponent, or provide further aoe heal or aoe damage.
2. Guff the caster-tank. Taunt and +12/+32 every second turn? Yes please. He can also buff the whole party including the bench. His Living Brambles says: "nature combo: repeat this", and I wonder if it works with Malf's equip, providing another heal. Maybe not, but Guff is still broken. Speaking of bro'ken:
3. Bru'kan the bro'ken disruptor. Muddy footing at speed 4 that deals nature damage and slows the opponent by 10? Without cooldown? Yes please. He can also give the team +nature damage which is nice. I think he is the 3rd best, but I also think that there is someone else who is more worthy in the starting 3. Who else, than:
4. Brightwing, the swapper. This little shit is just so good in any comp, and she is even better in a nature comp. Buffing the bench is nice. Healing the whole party is something we already have, but thats what makes the party super tanky/grindy, the fact that we have more sources of heal. And lastly the best ability: swapping (with healing of course). Especially good in PVE, but it could be good in PVP aswell.
5. Lady Anacondra, who makes the cut. Serpent's bite gets double bonus from +nature damage which is nice. She can also heal, which works with our strategy.
6. Thrall Morgl the Oracle, aka the better Thrall (I mean in nature comps). I mean what would Thrall do? He has an orc-buff, a mediocre aoe, and another skill which is good with attack focused heroes. Meanwhile with the right equipment Morgl can deal damage and heal the whole party (grindy strategy, remember?) without cooldown and he can heal for 30 every second turn.
So I think that the nature comp will be pretty strong, very tanky, very grindy, but Thrall doesnt make the cut for the best 6.
Xyrella is very versatile, she is a pretty good starting hero. The debuff works very well with mercs that attack a lot like Garrosh.
Atonement is an interesting skill, and I wonder if it starts counting the heals even if Xyrella is on the bench. It its the case then I could see her ability as a nuke in nature comps.
Voone is mediocre. If we get more dragons, he could be somewhat better.
Diablo 2: Resurrected is pretty popular right now. If you understand its mechanics, you know that decreasing your opponents resistances is usually much better than increasing your own damage by the same amount. Why am I talking about this? Because in Hearthstone Mercenaries its the exact opposite.
If you gain +x [spell school] damage, it works for all of your mercs until the source of it is killed. (Maybe even longer? Im note sure about that.) Vol'jin's shadow weakness on the other hand, its unique and it sounds cool, but it only lasts for 1 turn.
Ring of Haste is no joke, but what are the best payoffs for using shadow spells? Tamsin's summon gets buffed for every shadow spell, which is nice, but if you use the Ring, your shadow spells will be faster than the summon, so its actually counter-productive.
Right now, I dont think that a shadow comp is good enough, but if they introduce more synergies, then Vol'jin and his overpowered ring will be a part of it for sure.
Heroic leap seems very strong, but the human synergy is not that good right now. At release orcs will be much better.
But, if they introduce more human synergy in the future then Varian could be a key to the compositions success.
Varden is good, but freeze/frost synergy is not that good ATM. Without any synergy, he is just a worse Cairne right now.
Holy synergy is nice but the holy school is not very good at the moment.
Giving taunt to Sylvanas could be good in PVP, but in that case you dont want to heal her.
Kinda lackluster for a legendary.
Arcane damage, arcane damage, arcane damage.
Thats it, basically. Its true that you can use an equipment to boost nature skills, but why would you do that with a full arcane merc?
Tyrande is not bad, but in my opinion arcane school does the same as fire school but its less effective.
"Put your face in the light!"
Super good in a vacuum, and if you think about combos, he is even better.
Any merc who likes attack buffs will love Tirion (like Samuro, King Krush or Illidan) and his debuff is also a game-changer especially when you use it with Garrosh's Mak'Gora.
Ashbringer's deathrattle is something you dont want in PVE, but its really good in PVP. BTW, in PVP Tirion is the number 1 hard-counter to Sylvanas.
Probably the best epic, and one of the best mercenaries overall.
Thrall, the True Warchief.
He is a must-have in orc comps. His skills are versatile. Warchief's command is great with Sylvanas in PVP. The equipment is even more interesting. Getting windfury from Doomhammer is nice especially when you have a Rokara in your team. But Ring of Strength seems even better, a pseudo-heal that works very well with Garrosh and his Mak'Gora.
So I like Thrall a lot and I think that orc comps will be strong, and Thrall will be a huge part of the composition's success.
Good point, I didnt think of that.
Overall, I dont think that Tavish is good, but the combo with Saurfang could make him work.
Must-have in a demon comp. She also has some shadow synergies. I might underestimate the shadow school, because I dont think its top tier right now, but Tamsin makes it better for sure.
BTW, shadow school. If you want to go that way, you want Vol'jin with the equipment that reduces the speed of all Shadow skills by 3. The problem with that, is your Tamsin's summon will be slower than your shadow skills, so you cant buff your demon in the same turn you summon it.
Anyways, IMO the demon comp will be very good, and Tamsin will be a key part to that team.
The Banshee Queen, The PVP Goddess.
Reclaimed Souls + Death Volley is a party wipe for the opponent. There are ways to buff Reclaimed Souls without killing your own party, like using summons, or even better, using Samuro.
BUT, I still have 2 concerns about her.
1. She can be countered by Tirion. I know it doesnt sound like a real concern right now, but when we will have an estabilished metagame in Mercenaries PVP, there will be counter-strategies. If Sylvanas will be in every PVP comp, then its safe to assume that Tirion will be also used at the same rate. To be honest, it doesnt make her less good, I just wanted to mention it.
2. You cant kill Sylvanas. I mean, none of her abilities are "attacks", she cant get retaliation damage. Your opponent will decide when to kill her, and you will have no choice about that.
So I have my concerns, but she still seems like the best PVP merc, and I dont think she will be good in PVE.
Murlocs = bad.
Oh, wait, wrong topic. Or is it? I dont think that Scabbs is any better than any murloc, so I have put him in the same category.
Actually he is worse than the murlocs. He is a gnome, he doesnt use any spell school, he doesnt have any synergy.
Possibly the worst mercenary.
An orc that can summon orcs? Alright. He is actually very good in orc comps. The AoE orc buff is very strong, but its somewhat complicated to apply it to everyone. I mean there are ways to damage your stuff, but sometimes you can just rely AoE damage from your opponent, and after that a good old fashioned +7/+9 AoE buff without cooldown sounds pretty good.
Must-have in orc builds, kinda useless outside of them.
She is possibly the best starting merc. She is absolutely key in orc comps, but she is more. Offensive Rally works very well with repeated attacks, like King Krush's Apex Predator or Garrosh's Mak'Gora.
In a vacuum, Rokara is slightly above average, but when you consider the synergies, especially the orc ones, you can see that she is actually top tier. Very strong for a rare.
Kill Command seems underpowered, especially its speed. When it comes to equipment, Mama Bear's Claws seems a pretty good one, if you have the team for it (does it work with beast mercs?). So he is good with Anacondra and King Krush.
Overall, Rexxar seems like one of the weaker legendaries.
He is a good summoner with some fel synergy and a lot of demon synergy. Must-have in a demon comp, but I wouldnt use him anywhere else.
Raven frost I mean Sulfuras could be nice in some PVE bounties, but if you use Ragnaros, generally you would want the +3 fire damage instead.
So he is obviously good with a fire comp, but there is more! Something I have mentioned at King Krush, repeated damage abilities could be the key to speedfarm PVE content. And Rag is the best when it comes to massacre lower-leveled opponents, or opponents who are weakened by AoE damage. "DIE, INSECTS!" can deal up to 25 damage and its slow speed (10) is actually good, because it will resolve after your other AoE abilities.
So I think that Rag will be the best when I want to farm, and I also see a lot of PVP potential in him, thanks to the strong fire ability users.