If this was way cheaper, this might probably see play in weapon-oriented classes like DH and Warrior. At 7 mana, it's just pack filler imo. Really cool effect to cheat out a weapon though.
Solid card, but will only really see play in Elemental Shaman. This can snowball into a monster if left unchecked, so it's pretty good. The question is, will this be enough to make Elemental Shaman semi-viable? Because even with Primal Dungeoneer, I don't think so. It'll remain a sub-.500 deck, but let's see.
I hit level 90 today, went up 5 levels. I finally got the Kazakus coin! Nice.
My play rate has seriously dwindled. I'm mostly playing on weekends now, though I play sporadically on weekdays when I feel like it. I've found a new deck that I like though: Corrupt Priest. I went the greed route and put C'Thun, the Shattered, Y'Shaarj, the Defiler, and Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate (mostly to corrupt the numerous corrupt cards in the deck; the 5-mana C'thun spells really help). I was one win away from legend with the deck until I tumbled down to Diamond 2 again thanks to a wave of Paladins.
Can't wait for the mini-set. I'm planning on reaching level 100 by the time it releases, so I'll play a lot in the upcoming week.
Nothing change much with facing either Paladin/Hunter or Ticklock. I still love to play Control Warrior (sometime Control Shaman), but once I face Tickatus, all that extra fun is all gone.
I've been playing some Control Warrior too, and I don't have problems with the Tickatus Warlock matchups, which I'd say is 60-40. I just mulligan hard for Rattlegore and try to pressure the Warlock with as much damage as I could before I drop it. Of course, there's always the chance that Rattlegore ends up on the bottom of your deck, or your opponent plays Jaraxxus first, but most of the time I find the matchup winnable.
And I agree with you on the stale meta. I can't bring myself to play every day anymore, or even every other day. The prevalence of the same meta decks since the expansion released has been very tiring, and I just find myself not wanting to deal with them that much anymore. Not a good thing since I resolved to complete the entire Tavern Pass this time around...
I agree, Shaman has a number of very good cards. It needs another Cagematch Custodian-like card to bring all its potential archetypes to life, such as Burn or Murloc decks. We'll see if that card (or card draw at least) emerges from the mini-set.
Paladin, meanwhile, has so many overtuned cards that piddling nerfs just won't fix. Conviction (Rank 1), Hammer of the Naaru (such an insane weapon, they really should scale this back), Oh My Yogg!, and the entire Libram package are just too strong and efficient. The devs were clearly trying to revitalize Paladin with all these cards, but they went way too far with it, imo. Now the class is a monster that's almost on par with Demon Hunter in AoO, in that it needs several nerfs to balance them.
I worry the same thing will happen with Shaman in the future, wherein the devs try to make up for the class being in the bottom tier for so long that they shower it with OP cards and synergies.
I'm at Level 81, been ranking up with Primordial Clown Druid which almost took me to legend. It just stomped all over everything in the first few days after the nerfs, but it's an instant loss to any aggro deck if you can't ramp up to your top-end cards by turn 5. I fooled around with a Frenzy Control Warrior so I could give my Overlord Saurfang a spin, it's a lot of fun but it's not very competitive.
I just got the second Xyrella skin at level 80, and it's so lackluster. There's not even that much animation in it. Blizzard really needs to make more of these portraits worthwhile, I feel like I didn't get my money's worth with the Tavern pass since half of the locked portraits are very subpar (the only good ones are the first two Kurtrus skins, the 1st and last Xyrella skins, and the Firefang Rexxar). The Rokara ones are absolutely horrible, and my gripe is that her artwork has been very inconsistent in everything she's on. Her face looks different in all three skins, in the legendary card, and even in Rancor and Conditioning (Rank 1). They really did this cool character dirty with inconsistent, uninspired art.
A few days after the nerfs and buffs, it's safe to say that the meta is mostly the same. Paladins, Hunters, Warriors, and Mages are still running rampant, with the most noticeable change being an uptick in Demon Hunters, though with Paladin still strong it's unlikely they'll dominate. In the first two days after the patch, I had a lot of success with a Primordial Clown Druid that I took from Diamond 10 to as high as Diamond 2, feasting on Priests, Warlocks, and DHs. That is, until the meta began to settle and I faced lots of Paladins and Mages again.
Shaman and Warlock still suck as expected, with Priest being a minor annoyance with their hard-removal, reactive game plan and nothing else.
From my experience on ladder, Paladin is just too out of control. It's just mind-boggling that the devs didn't nerf Conviction (Rank 1), and the nerfs to First Day of School and Crabrider didn't slow down the class at all, as expected. Shaman's cards aren't *that* bad; it's just that their game plans are too fair compared to the rest of the field, like the class is still stuck in Classic Hearthstone or something.
We'll have to wait for the mini-set to actually shake things up.
I hate Paladin so goddamn much right now. Every deck I want to play still dies to all of its stupid archetypes. Makes me want to kick the devs in their stupid little faces. Why won't the class just die???
Most of these buffs feel useless, but I'll hold off on making any judgements until the meta is set. That said, the nerfs don't really make me hopeful that things will change; Paladin will probably remain strong, might just shift to a more midrange build with the Crabrider and First Day of School nerfs.
The only interesting buffs for me are N'zoth, Deck of Chaos, Lilypad Lurker, and Tidal Surge. The rest feel pointless because the devs just adjusted their stats, which won't really do anything.
The N'zoth buff opens up some interesting possibilities. You can play it and give your minions rush with Animated Broomstick. You can also run this in Demon Hunter with Illidari Inquisitor for a massive late-game bomb that could fill your board AND damage your opponent's face.
I'm feeling good today. I finally managed to crawl past the 1,000-win barrier for that Demonic Illidan portrait, and then an hour later I get a G'huun the Blood God from my tavern brawl pack.
Sorry for necro-ing this thread, but I just have to share this. I finally did it; 1,000 wins with Demon Hunter for that sweet, sweet Demonic Illidan portrait. What a grind these past few months have been for this class, it feels like I've been stuck in 850+ wins forever.
With such a hostile meta for DH (thanks, Paladins!), the grind for 1k wins had me feeling like Germany at the gates of Moscow during WW2; I could see the spires of the Kremlin from where I am, but the harsh winter of a Paladin meta has stopped my advance dead in its tracks. So many battles lost, so many minefields and obstacles harassing me along the way, that I felt like giving up and just hoping for nerfs that would slay my hated foe and clear my path. But no! I said to myself to hell with these Paladins and Warriors, I will forge on with my Deathrattle DH deck and its 38% win rate, fight tooth and nail, by hook or by crook. No waiting for nerfs! And with those rallying words I crashed through that 1,000-win barrier and claimed that portrait in all its demonic glory.
(Did I just compare myself to Nazis? I guess I just did, and besides, that's probably what you're thinking of me for playing such a degenerate class :P)
Anyway, that's another thousand-win portrait for me after Warrior. It took me a little over a year to get this portrait, and I would've gotten it faster had I spammed DH more before Soul DH got nerfed. I haven't been playing a lot these past two months so there's no other progress on other classes, so I've made no significant strides on 500 wins with Priest or Shaman.
Can't wait for the nerfs to come so I can stomp on these Paladins with my Demonic Illidan. Vengeance will be had!
Love to see buffs. I'm guessing 1/3 of those will involve Shaman cards. That class is dead, and it's not entirely because of the meta; most of their cards just don't point to a solid game plan, or just plain suck.
As for the nerfs, Crabrider is a certainty at this point. I just want to see Paladin nerfed and knocked off its perch, that class has made my life a living hell right now since most of the decks I want to play just fail against it.
Good God, can the devs just nuke Paladin to the ground? Raze every single one of its freaking tools. It's been dominant for FAR too long. BURN IT TO THE GROUND
I agree with most of the suggestions, but I have other ideas about how they could be nerfed:
Crabrider - Change it to 3 health, or increase to 3 mana. It's just a ridiculous card that snowballs in certain classes, and it's tough to remove.
Tickatus - Burns 3 cards instead of 5. I think bumping it up to 7 will kill the card entirely, which is a shame because a lot of players still like playing it. Burning 3 instead of 5 might mitigate the damage it causes to control decks.
Any Paladin card - The class's cards are just way too overtuned that it's impossible to list just one, or point to a single problematic card. There are three tier 1 Paladin decks right now, which tells you all you need to know. The devs need to scale back the class's power level seriously.
I hope Apexis Blast gets hit too, for the sole reason that I have two golden copies of it ;)
Oh, and I like what you did with "Flamewanker" and "Barak Kodobama" :))
If this was way cheaper, this might probably see play in weapon-oriented classes like DH and Warrior. At 7 mana, it's just pack filler imo. Really cool effect to cheat out a weapon though.
Solid card, but will only really see play in Elemental Shaman. This can snowball into a monster if left unchecked, so it's pretty good. The question is, will this be enough to make Elemental Shaman semi-viable? Because even with Primal Dungeoneer, I don't think so. It'll remain a sub-.500 deck, but let's see.
NEXT:
I hit level 90 today, went up 5 levels. I finally got the Kazakus coin! Nice.
My play rate has seriously dwindled. I'm mostly playing on weekends now, though I play sporadically on weekdays when I feel like it. I've found a new deck that I like though: Corrupt Priest. I went the greed route and put C'Thun, the Shattered, Y'Shaarj, the Defiler, and Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate (mostly to corrupt the numerous corrupt cards in the deck; the 5-mana C'thun spells really help). I was one win away from legend with the deck until I tumbled down to Diamond 2 again thanks to a wave of Paladins.
Can't wait for the mini-set. I'm planning on reaching level 100 by the time it releases, so I'll play a lot in the upcoming week.
That Frostwolf Thrall portrait looks amazing.
I've been playing some Control Warrior too, and I don't have problems with the Tickatus Warlock matchups, which I'd say is 60-40. I just mulligan hard for Rattlegore and try to pressure the Warlock with as much damage as I could before I drop it. Of course, there's always the chance that Rattlegore ends up on the bottom of your deck, or your opponent plays Jaraxxus first, but most of the time I find the matchup winnable.
And I agree with you on the stale meta. I can't bring myself to play every day anymore, or even every other day. The prevalence of the same meta decks since the expansion released has been very tiring, and I just find myself not wanting to deal with them that much anymore. Not a good thing since I resolved to complete the entire Tavern Pass this time around...
I agree, Shaman has a number of very good cards. It needs another Cagematch Custodian-like card to bring all its potential archetypes to life, such as Burn or Murloc decks. We'll see if that card (or card draw at least) emerges from the mini-set.
Paladin, meanwhile, has so many overtuned cards that piddling nerfs just won't fix. Conviction (Rank 1), Hammer of the Naaru (such an insane weapon, they really should scale this back), Oh My Yogg!, and the entire Libram package are just too strong and efficient. The devs were clearly trying to revitalize Paladin with all these cards, but they went way too far with it, imo. Now the class is a monster that's almost on par with Demon Hunter in AoO, in that it needs several nerfs to balance them.
I worry the same thing will happen with Shaman in the future, wherein the devs try to make up for the class being in the bottom tier for so long that they shower it with OP cards and synergies.
I'm at Level 81, been ranking up with Primordial Clown Druid which almost took me to legend. It just stomped all over everything in the first few days after the nerfs, but it's an instant loss to any aggro deck if you can't ramp up to your top-end cards by turn 5. I fooled around with a Frenzy Control Warrior so I could give my Overlord Saurfang a spin, it's a lot of fun but it's not very competitive.
I just got the second Xyrella skin at level 80, and it's so lackluster. There's not even that much animation in it. Blizzard really needs to make more of these portraits worthwhile, I feel like I didn't get my money's worth with the Tavern pass since half of the locked portraits are very subpar (the only good ones are the first two Kurtrus skins, the 1st and last Xyrella skins, and the Firefang Rexxar). The Rokara ones are absolutely horrible, and my gripe is that her artwork has been very inconsistent in everything she's on. Her face looks different in all three skins, in the legendary card, and even in Rancor and Conditioning (Rank 1). They really did this cool character dirty with inconsistent, uninspired art.
A few days after the nerfs and buffs, it's safe to say that the meta is mostly the same. Paladins, Hunters, Warriors, and Mages are still running rampant, with the most noticeable change being an uptick in Demon Hunters, though with Paladin still strong it's unlikely they'll dominate. In the first two days after the patch, I had a lot of success with a Primordial Clown Druid that I took from Diamond 10 to as high as Diamond 2, feasting on Priests, Warlocks, and DHs. That is, until the meta began to settle and I faced lots of Paladins and Mages again.
Shaman and Warlock still suck as expected, with Priest being a minor annoyance with their hard-removal, reactive game plan and nothing else.
From my experience on ladder, Paladin is just too out of control. It's just mind-boggling that the devs didn't nerf Conviction (Rank 1), and the nerfs to First Day of School and Crabrider didn't slow down the class at all, as expected. Shaman's cards aren't *that* bad; it's just that their game plans are too fair compared to the rest of the field, like the class is still stuck in Classic Hearthstone or something.
We'll have to wait for the mini-set to actually shake things up.
I hate Paladin so goddamn much right now. Every deck I want to play still dies to all of its stupid archetypes. Makes me want to kick the devs in their stupid little faces. Why won't the class just die???
So far, through 6 games in this new meta, I've faced 4 Paladins and 1 Mage, and lost all of them. Nothing has changed. I am not happy.
Most of these buffs feel useless, but I'll hold off on making any judgements until the meta is set. That said, the nerfs don't really make me hopeful that things will change; Paladin will probably remain strong, might just shift to a more midrange build with the Crabrider and First Day of School nerfs.
The only interesting buffs for me are N'zoth, Deck of Chaos, Lilypad Lurker, and Tidal Surge. The rest feel pointless because the devs just adjusted their stats, which won't really do anything.
The N'zoth buff opens up some interesting possibilities. You can play it and give your minions rush with Animated Broomstick. You can also run this in Demon Hunter with Illidari Inquisitor for a massive late-game bomb that could fill your board AND damage your opponent's face.
I'm feeling good today. I finally managed to crawl past the 1,000-win barrier for that Demonic Illidan portrait, and then an hour later I get a G'huun the Blood God from my tavern brawl pack.
Sorry for necro-ing this thread, but I just have to share this. I finally did it; 1,000 wins with Demon Hunter for that sweet, sweet Demonic Illidan portrait. What a grind these past few months have been for this class, it feels like I've been stuck in 850+ wins forever.
With such a hostile meta for DH (thanks, Paladins!), the grind for 1k wins had me feeling like Germany at the gates of Moscow during WW2; I could see the spires of the Kremlin from where I am, but the harsh winter of a Paladin meta has stopped my advance dead in its tracks. So many battles lost, so many minefields and obstacles harassing me along the way, that I felt like giving up and just hoping for nerfs that would slay my hated foe and clear my path. But no! I said to myself to hell with these Paladins and Warriors, I will forge on with my Deathrattle DH deck and its 38% win rate, fight tooth and nail, by hook or by crook. No waiting for nerfs! And with those rallying words I crashed through that 1,000-win barrier and claimed that portrait in all its demonic glory.
(Did I just compare myself to Nazis? I guess I just did, and besides, that's probably what you're thinking of me for playing such a degenerate class :P)
Anyway, that's another thousand-win portrait for me after Warrior. It took me a little over a year to get this portrait, and I would've gotten it faster had I spammed DH more before Soul DH got nerfed. I haven't been playing a lot these past two months so there's no other progress on other classes, so I've made no significant strides on 500 wins with Priest or Shaman.
Can't wait for the nerfs to come so I can stomp on these Paladins with my Demonic Illidan. Vengeance will be had!
Love to see buffs. I'm guessing 1/3 of those will involve Shaman cards. That class is dead, and it's not entirely because of the meta; most of their cards just don't point to a solid game plan, or just plain suck.
As for the nerfs, Crabrider is a certainty at this point. I just want to see Paladin nerfed and knocked off its perch, that class has made my life a living hell right now since most of the decks I want to play just fail against it.
But why?
Good God, can the devs just nuke Paladin to the ground? Raze every single one of its freaking tools. It's been dominant for FAR too long. BURN IT TO THE GROUND
I agree with most of the suggestions, but I have other ideas about how they could be nerfed:
Crabrider - Change it to 3 health, or increase to 3 mana. It's just a ridiculous card that snowballs in certain classes, and it's tough to remove.
Tickatus - Burns 3 cards instead of 5. I think bumping it up to 7 will kill the card entirely, which is a shame because a lot of players still like playing it. Burning 3 instead of 5 might mitigate the damage it causes to control decks.
Refreshing Spring Water - Refresh 1 mana crystal instead of 2
Any Paladin card - The class's cards are just way too overtuned that it's impossible to list just one, or point to a single problematic card. There are three tier 1 Paladin decks right now, which tells you all you need to know. The devs need to scale back the class's power level seriously.
I hope Apexis Blast gets hit too, for the sole reason that I have two golden copies of it ;)
Oh, and I like what you did with "Flamewanker" and "Barak Kodobama" :))
Good job! Sometimes you just gotta keep grinding until your luck turns, which it always does ;)
Meh, none of those portraits really grab me except for Shaman, Mage, and Rogue, which look fine.
They did Garrosh dirty though, he looks like a fat ogre in his Tier 2 portrait. It looks so unflattering.