They only use for her way always going to be highrolling on turn 4 and winning the game from there, it just happens that Tip the Scales was the most consistent way to highroll. It's not like Libram Paladin was any more fair with a turn 4 8/8 with taunt and divine shield (it just wasn't guaranteed to happen).
I'm assuming Cheese Pally just fades away now and Libram Pally just cuts her entirely (or she's just used for draw)
If you don't mind me asking, given that I started playing again today and managed to get to level 14 on the pass so far (mainly through quests and a few random achievements), do you think it is possible to still get to at least lvl 50 before the next expansion (without accounting for any potential events that would make it easier)?
I think it's possible, but it'll be tight.
All the levels from 36 - 50 take 5000 XP a piece. That's the bottleneck. The average daily quest is 1000 XP, while every batch of weeklies is exactly 6000 XP. So, you can make about 11,000 XP a week on quests alone. You have maybe nine weeks until the next expansion if it's on the usual schedule. You need about 144,200 XP to make it. If you have the Tavern Pass, you get more XP, so it might be just barely obtainable.
If the expansion comes out a month early like Darkmoon did, there's literally no way.
that sucks I guess. Do we know if the lvl 50 free hero portraits will be the same for the next pass or are these a one time thing? Because that's the only thing I really thought about anyways.
Either way, if they haven't done an event yet then I might still have a chance anyways.
I did some quick maths after the last changes to the Tavern Pass and concluded that, in a 19 week time span (assuming each month was around 4,5 weeks and giving an extra week because the expansion released earlier than usual), I reached a total of 11300G for the expansion, which is a bit of an upgrade to your "personal highscore being over 10k gold saved up".
However, the Tavern Pass is not perfect. As stated before, the first 50 levels are insanely grindy (even when considering suddenly having +300G does feel good, the grind doesn't [they did reduce the XP amount on later levels, though]). Achievements are a nice bonus, but they're not amazing. Sure, some of them are mostly a puzzle that can be solved in few games, but some others are brutally hard and boring to complete (looking at you, summon 200 Greyboughs and play 500 Corrupted cards). There's also the fact that you can't complete those achievements in casual (which Dean Ayala believes is the right approach, for some reason), which is very frustrating because some achievements involve bringing terrible decks to ranked and know you'll have an abysmal winrate for a while.
Also, there have been a couple of posts in which the devs made about events that include XP for catching up, but we've seen none so far (though those should just arrive closer to the end of the expansion cycle, as they're being treated as a catch-up mechanic rather than extra XP for us).
Thanks for the info, this is much more encouraging now.
If you don't mind me asking, given that I started playing again today and managed to get to level 14 on the pass so far (mainly through quests and a few random achievements), do you think it is possible to still get to at least lvl 50 before the next expansion (without accounting for any potential events that would make it easier)?
The Tavern Pass has been working out for me so far. Throughout an expansion cycle, I usually open somewhere between 50-60 packs (about 20-30 of them at the start), with about 2k saved up for the next one as my goal. Up to this point, I opened about 80 packs (starting with 25) and i already have 1k gold with almost 1 month till the next expansion.
I spent most of my time playing the new format, Duels. That mode still needs some work, but you can get a fairly high winrate very consistently.
I've taken a firsrt stab at Duels for a quest by now, and I kinda like it even though I just miss too many Wild card to really play it competitively and I can't afford to just waste my dust now that I have some catching up to do.
Either way, from what I've seen so far the pass seems relatively fair so that won't be an issue.
I guess I'm just gonna play casually for now and see how the core set turns out. After all, I can always just leave again (and then come back for the next gimmick because I can't be bothered to be consistent in my choices)
Generally speaking, people are pretty happy with the rewards track these days. Some people find the approach to level 50 quite slow, but it is a lot faster after that and at the early levels.
In fact, if you have truly not been on HS since it was introduced, you will benefit quite a bit from doing a very small amount of stuff before the next set comes out. Just by doing the daily and weekly quests you'll be given when you first log back on you get ~9000XP, getting you to level 13 on the rewards track. That alone will net you 1 Legendary card, 1 Epic, 6 card packs and 500 gold.
Wow that does sound pretty rewarding.
Are achievements necessary for the grind or are they just a nice thing to do along the way?
The XP-giving achievements are a nice bonus, but not necessary. Most of them are worth 200XP, which equates to about 30 minutes of normal gameplay in ranked. If you get the cards related to them then you might as well do them, and you'll find guides for most of the achievements in OoC threads, but there's no need to worry much about them.
I should also correct my previous post: one of those card packs was a card back... It's an easy mistake to make!
Generally speaking, people are pretty happy with the rewards track these days. Some people find the approach to level 50 quite slow, but it is a lot faster after that and at the early levels.
In fact, if you have truly not been on HS since it was introduced, you will benefit quite a bit from doing a very small amount of stuff before the next set comes out. Just by doing the daily and weekly quests you'll be given when you first log back on you get ~9000XP, getting you to level 13 on the rewards track. That alone will net you 1 Legendary card, 1 Epic, 6 card packs and 500 gold.
Wow that does sound pretty rewarding.
Are achievements necessary for the grind or are they just a nice thing to do along the way?
It feels good to me. I usually play my dailys and then a bit more, finishing on Diamond 10 or 5 in Wild. I'm currently at around 5.200 gold, but I've bought the mid expansion for 2.000. I guess reaching 10k should be no problem if you play 30-60 minutes each day.
I must say that the grind to level 50 was quite a bad experience though. It feels way more rewarding to level up once you've passed that threshold. Remains to be seen if the changes they announced for this issue really help (if I remember correctly, the new goal is at 100 and the required XP per level got cut in half).
that sounds decent actually. I guess depending on what the core set looks like I might actually check it out.
Some of you might remember me (good), some might not (probably better). About half a year ago I decided to quit the game for good for various reasons (the main one being the unchanging frustration about the meta always being worse than expected. Fuck Demon Hunter, all my homies hate Demon Hunter) and while it was one of the best decisions I had made in a long time, reading about the upcoming Core Set really caught my interest again. Basically I'm too curious to see how that will turn out to not make the smarter decision of just ignoring it.
However, since I quit before thee Tavern Pass was introduced I have literally no idea how the HS f2p economy is nowadays. I know that the Pass was pretty dogshit when it first came out and it resulted in a number of changes. Did these changes actually fix the problems? Or more specifically: Are you still able to accquire the same amount of gold (roughly) in between expansions for the same amount of playtime.
I remember my personal highscore being over 10k gold saved up. Is that possible in the current system without spending absurd amounts of time? Is there an overall gold average that casual players can report?
I really don#t care about catching up with the current expansion since I have at least 2k gold still lying around and more dust than I need, but I really want to know how long it would take to, say, farm 5k gold?
Thanks for the response! I assume that you probably stopped playing during one of the elusives metas before Rising Tides, because since then they have introduced a lot more card draw and removals. On card draw, Bilgewater and Targon both have a considerable amount of it, and more card draw was added to Ionia, PnZ, Freljord, and Shadow Isles (if you include the new cards that tutor specific champions that also includes Noxus). At this point, Glimpse Beyond is a fair and balanced card, that’s how much more card draw there is. In terms of removal, Noxus now has a deal 3 spell, Freljord has the Vulnerable keyword to take out units, Bilgewater also has Vulnerable, and Targon can generate removals with Invoke cards.
that actually sounds much better. Maybe I'll give LoR another go at some point, but right now I'm just burnt out on card games in general
In what ways do you think that LoR is based on swing plays? The only example of that I can think of is “They Who Endure” and maybe “Swain/Leviathan.” I do agree that in general there are relatively few removal options compared to the number of threats, but I think that makes gameplay interesting because your power cards don’t get removed the turn they are played. I’d love to hear your thought process because that problem wasn’t even really on my radar.
perhaps my juddgement is still based on outdated information, but when I played it for a while when it first came out I got into these situations of "my opponent plays a snowballing a threat and I have an answer. They have a counter to that answer. I can never get rid of that threat and will therefore lose. What was I even supposed to do there?" way too often.
Even just simple things like a Garen or a Greenglade Duo. The problem I have with LoR is how easy it is to protect your own stuff vs killing your opponent's stuff. It's what made me return to Hearthstone afterwards, because in Hearthstone there used to be this unspoken rule of "there's always an answer to everything (usually)". Now that's basically gone from HS as well.
Maybe things have changed since I left, but looking at all that Targon stuff I just don't think so. I just don't like playing a game where I rely on one or two cards to answer certain threats, but said cards are easily countered by 3 more cards in my opponent's deck. It also doesn't help tht the nexus total is only 20 so coming back when behind just isn't as likely...not to mention that card draw is sparse in most decks so digging for answers is rarely an option.
People can do what they want to do, of course, but if there's anything more ridiculous in life than someone making an all-or-nothing decision about a free game on the internet, and then feeling like they have write out a big lengthy explanation of it for strangers, I can hardly imagine what it is.
If the game isn't to your liking right now, don't play. Then come back if you feel like it. Then stop again if it still sucks for you. None of this requires a Sermon on the Mount, or one last big swing at the people who DO enjoy the game to tell them why they're wrong, and that their game sucks.
Seriously, everyone - rein in the egos. I get that this is a forum, and opinions, and feelings, blah blah, but come on. Get a fucking grip.
sorry but did you actually read the post or did you just look at at the title and go "lol what a <snip>"
I specifically explained that this wasn't supposed to shame or convince people to quit the game, I'm just writing out my thoughts.
take your own advice and don't bother commenting on something that you don't care to hear anyways
So after a long time of contemplating I have decided to actually just quit Hearthstone altogether. I have done this once before back in April but I came back out of boredom (and because the new expansion looked pretty good). HOwever, I can no longer play this game while keeping my sanity and it has become a huge time sink for me.
Basically my reason for leaving once and for all is this: The game has become way too....one sided? Basically over the past year swing turns have become more and more important....and this expansion is by far the worst. Basically every single class in the game has one or more brutal swings that either need an immediate specific answer or else the game is decided on the spot. Classes that don't have this resort to pure aggro (DH and Hunter for instance).
Essentially Hearthstone has turned into what I quit Legends of Runeterra over. A game where answers are sparse and a single play decides the game instead of multiple smaller ones.
To illustrate my point here's the summation of class dynamics right now:
Druid: Ramp to 7, get GA and win from there. If it gets dealt with use one of your many other game ending combos or cards to win. No real actual strategy involved, just play whatever you have in hand that keeps you alive or puts big stuff on the board.
Hunter: Doesn't have crazy swings, so burning your opponent to death is the way to go. Single player game because all you need to do is get as much damage in as possible.
Mage: Cyclone MAge is all about getting Mana Giant out as fast as possible. Highlander Mage is literally just an RNG fiesta at this point.
Warrior: Bomb Warrior is probably the only real control deck left in the game and its gameplan is literally to just spam bombs that your opponent can't interact with. Who thought combining Resident Sleeper Warrior with Face Hunter was a good idea?
Paladin: Between Alura and Argent Braggart they just generally tend to have better plays than everyone else on curve. If you fall behind you're not gonna catch up
Demon Hunter: pretty much just Hunter's mentally deficient brother. Ironically enough, probably the most "interactive" of the bunch and they still win by just going face
Shaman: Even the worst class in the game relies on sticking a totem on turn 2 or 3 and winning from there
Priest: plays a bunch of reactive garbage, but they can steal your stuff for 5-mana now and that's how they win.
Rogue: Their strongest deck revolves around playing minions that most opponents can't reasonably interact with. Any deck that doesn't is much worse by comparison
Warlock: literally got nerfed because all they did was swing the game by turn 3 in Wild. Will probably not even exist anymore in Standard afterwards.
I've tried just memeing and having fun and not taking things too seriously, but you can't have fun with slower decks or play for value if you either die inevitably or get curbstomped by turn 7.
What I used to enjoy about HEarthstone was the constant back and forth. Threat - answer- threat - answer - etc. If one player didn't have an answer they fell behind and had to find a way to deal with the situation which eventually decided the game. Sure, RNG was always a factor that could radically change results but there was always this sense of having an out (at least for most normal decks)
I just don't see the point in playing a game where every match boils down to: "Oh look I had a great mulligan, guess I win" or "Oh look I didn't draw my cards in order, I guess they win instead". And I know, things can always change and balance patches have been more frequent....but I really REALLY don't believe this current meta can even be fixed at this point. They would have to nerf basically every single class in some way and even then all that would do is tip the scales in some classes' favor.
Note that this isn't some sort of attempt to convince anyone to also quit the game. I'm really just trying to write down my own thoughts as a some sort of a final nail in the coffin. If you still enjoy this game then I envy you, but I just can't get the same kind of enjoyment...not anymore.
TL;DR I have made peace with the fact that this game isn't going in a direction I want it to and I'm tired of having to hope every single expansions and rotation that maybe things are going to be different this time around and always being disappointed.
Initially I wanted to go for a really melodramatic approach of dusting my entire collection and then spending said dust on crafting all my faavourite cards from the past in golden as sort of a memorial, but I don't even have the motivation for that anymore. I'll just let the account rot.
I do feel kind of sad about the fact that I won't really be interacting with you people anymore, because this site has a pretty neat community and I've always enjoyed posting here. I guess you can take this as my final farewell. Perhaps digital card games just aren't my thing.
Maybe some day the stars align and we're blessed with some sort of meta that recaptures what the old days were like...but right now I can't see that happening until this entire year has rotated.
Anyways, take care guys, I'm gonna miss you at least a little bit. Shitpost on balance patch posts in my stead.
to be fair you can't really nerf LIghtning Bloom without destryoing it (adding more overload changes basically nothing)
Tortollan Pilgrim will probably get gutted (by making it so it also removes the spell from the deck) if Turtle Mage ever becomes more than a tier 3 mildly competitive troll deck
Idk if they can even change Sorc's at this point because Mage relies so much on spell discounting to do anything that isn't Highlander. I guess you could change it to a battlecry effect so Time Warp Mage isn't a thing anymore
Honestly Secret Passage isn't that bad. I would even argue there are other cards in the rogue arsenal right now that deserved more of a nerf (Burrowed Scorpid is actually pretty overtuned for what it does).
Secret Passage is a solid "draw" card that'll make it so they won't have to print new ones for every upcoming archetype and can instead focus on actually substantial cards
I'm gonna reiterate that the Willow change was most likely done with future support in mind.
They framed it as a compensation buff for Darkglare, but that makes no sense because Big Demon Warlock isn't a thing right now, and this certainly won't change that.
What it does change is how much of a powerplay she will become in the future, at which point her being a 7/7 could actually push her over the edge, so they preemptively adjusted her stats for what she's going to do (or at least what they think she's going to do).
Make no mistake, Big Demon Warlock is almost viable. You have Dreadlord as your core big demon, Willow as your lategame tempo play, Kanrethad Prime as your win condition and Felosophy to copy said win condition twice. Additionally you have the Dark Portal to potentially cheese out Willow or any big demon way earlier and secure easy wins.
All the deck needs to succeed is at least one more big demon (that isn't a legendary) as well as some form of healing that's not as inconsistent as Soul Fragments or requires Mo'arg Artificer
go to the southernmost part of a small English town called Glenrock. There you will meet a man who will introduce himself as "Mr. Porter". He will ask you for the time and you have to answer "it is a bit windy today, isn't it?", after which he will give you a suitcase with a picture of a dove engraved on the handle. The combination for the lock is 2805. In it you will find the 5 dollars you need to buy the damn skin.
Pretty sure this is entirely justified.
They only use for her way always going to be highrolling on turn 4 and winning the game from there, it just happens that Tip the Scales was the most consistent way to highroll. It's not like Libram Paladin was any more fair with a turn 4 8/8 with taunt and divine shield (it just wasn't guaranteed to happen).
I'm assuming Cheese Pally just fades away now and Libram Pally just cuts her entirely (or she's just used for draw)
Interior crocodile alligator
The randomness in the game is random.
complete lie, I had RNG screw me over at least twice, this is concrete proof that Dean is specifically targetting me as a person.
Bacon expansion
that sucks I guess. Do we know if the lvl 50 free hero portraits will be the same for the next pass or are these a one time thing? Because that's the only thing I really thought about anyways.
Either way, if they haven't done an event yet then I might still have a chance anyways.
Thanks for the info, this is much more encouraging now.
If you don't mind me asking, given that I started playing again today and managed to get to level 14 on the pass so far (mainly through quests and a few random achievements), do you think it is possible to still get to at least lvl 50 before the next expansion (without accounting for any potential events that would make it easier)?
I've taken a firsrt stab at Duels for a quest by now, and I kinda like it even though I just miss too many Wild card to really play it competitively and I can't afford to just waste my dust now that I have some catching up to do.
Either way, from what I've seen so far the pass seems relatively fair so that won't be an issue.
I guess I'm just gonna play casually for now and see how the core set turns out. After all, I can always just leave again (and then come back for the next gimmick because I can't be bothered to be consistent in my choices)
That's good to know.
Also, your new profile pic is fantastic
Wow that does sound pretty rewarding.
Are achievements necessary for the grind or are they just a nice thing to do along the way?
that sounds decent actually. I guess depending on what the core set looks like I might actually check it out.
Thanks for your input.
Hello
Some of you might remember me (good), some might not (probably better). About half a year ago I decided to quit the game for good for various reasons (the main one being the unchanging frustration about the meta always being worse than expected. Fuck Demon Hunter, all my homies hate Demon Hunter) and while it was one of the best decisions I had made in a long time, reading about the upcoming Core Set really caught my interest again. Basically I'm too curious to see how that will turn out to not make the smarter decision of just ignoring it.
However, since I quit before thee Tavern Pass was introduced I have literally no idea how the HS f2p economy is nowadays. I know that the Pass was pretty dogshit when it first came out and it resulted in a number of changes. Did these changes actually fix the problems? Or more specifically: Are you still able to accquire the same amount of gold (roughly) in between expansions for the same amount of playtime.
I remember my personal highscore being over 10k gold saved up. Is that possible in the current system without spending absurd amounts of time? Is there an overall gold average that casual players can report?
I really don#t care about catching up with the current expansion since I have at least 2k gold still lying around and more dust than I need, but I really want to know how long it would take to, say, farm 5k gold?
Thanks in advance
that actually sounds much better. Maybe I'll give LoR another go at some point, but right now I'm just burnt out on card games in general
perhaps my juddgement is still based on outdated information, but when I played it for a while when it first came out I got into these situations of "my opponent plays a snowballing a threat and I have an answer. They have a counter to that answer. I can never get rid of that threat and will therefore lose. What was I even supposed to do there?" way too often.
Even just simple things like a Garen or a Greenglade Duo. The problem I have with LoR is how easy it is to protect your own stuff vs killing your opponent's stuff. It's what made me return to Hearthstone afterwards, because in Hearthstone there used to be this unspoken rule of "there's always an answer to everything (usually)". Now that's basically gone from HS as well.
Maybe things have changed since I left, but looking at all that Targon stuff I just don't think so. I just don't like playing a game where I rely on one or two cards to answer certain threats, but said cards are easily countered by 3 more cards in my opponent's deck. It also doesn't help tht the nexus total is only 20 so coming back when behind just isn't as likely...not to mention that card draw is sparse in most decks so digging for answers is rarely an option.
sorry but did you actually read the post or did you just look at at the title and go "lol what a <snip>"
I specifically explained that this wasn't supposed to shame or convince people to quit the game, I'm just writing out my thoughts.
take your own advice and don't bother commenting on something that you don't care to hear anyways
So after a long time of contemplating I have decided to actually just quit Hearthstone altogether. I have done this once before back in April but I came back out of boredom (and because the new expansion looked pretty good). HOwever, I can no longer play this game while keeping my sanity and it has become a huge time sink for me.
Basically my reason for leaving once and for all is this: The game has become way too....one sided? Basically over the past year swing turns have become more and more important....and this expansion is by far the worst. Basically every single class in the game has one or more brutal swings that either need an immediate specific answer or else the game is decided on the spot. Classes that don't have this resort to pure aggro (DH and Hunter for instance).
Essentially Hearthstone has turned into what I quit Legends of Runeterra over. A game where answers are sparse and a single play decides the game instead of multiple smaller ones.
To illustrate my point here's the summation of class dynamics right now:
Druid: Ramp to 7, get GA and win from there. If it gets dealt with use one of your many other game ending combos or cards to win. No real actual strategy involved, just play whatever you have in hand that keeps you alive or puts big stuff on the board.
Hunter: Doesn't have crazy swings, so burning your opponent to death is the way to go. Single player game because all you need to do is get as much damage in as possible.
Mage: Cyclone MAge is all about getting Mana Giant out as fast as possible. Highlander Mage is literally just an RNG fiesta at this point.
Warrior: Bomb Warrior is probably the only real control deck left in the game and its gameplan is literally to just spam bombs that your opponent can't interact with. Who thought combining Resident Sleeper Warrior with Face Hunter was a good idea?
Paladin: Between Alura and Argent Braggart they just generally tend to have better plays than everyone else on curve. If you fall behind you're not gonna catch up
Demon Hunter: pretty much just Hunter's mentally deficient brother. Ironically enough, probably the most "interactive" of the bunch and they still win by just going face
Shaman: Even the worst class in the game relies on sticking a totem on turn 2 or 3 and winning from there
Priest: plays a bunch of reactive garbage, but they can steal your stuff for 5-mana now and that's how they win.
Rogue: Their strongest deck revolves around playing minions that most opponents can't reasonably interact with. Any deck that doesn't is much worse by comparison
Warlock: literally got nerfed because all they did was swing the game by turn 3 in Wild. Will probably not even exist anymore in Standard afterwards.
I've tried just memeing and having fun and not taking things too seriously, but you can't have fun with slower decks or play for value if you either die inevitably or get curbstomped by turn 7.
What I used to enjoy about HEarthstone was the constant back and forth. Threat - answer- threat - answer - etc. If one player didn't have an answer they fell behind and had to find a way to deal with the situation which eventually decided the game. Sure, RNG was always a factor that could radically change results but there was always this sense of having an out (at least for most normal decks)
I just don't see the point in playing a game where every match boils down to: "Oh look I had a great mulligan, guess I win" or "Oh look I didn't draw my cards in order, I guess they win instead". And I know, things can always change and balance patches have been more frequent....but I really REALLY don't believe this current meta can even be fixed at this point. They would have to nerf basically every single class in some way and even then all that would do is tip the scales in some classes' favor.
Note that this isn't some sort of attempt to convince anyone to also quit the game. I'm really just trying to write down my own thoughts as a some sort of a final nail in the coffin. If you still enjoy this game then I envy you, but I just can't get the same kind of enjoyment...not anymore.
TL;DR I have made peace with the fact that this game isn't going in a direction I want it to and I'm tired of having to hope every single expansions and rotation that maybe things are going to be different this time around and always being disappointed.
Initially I wanted to go for a really melodramatic approach of dusting my entire collection and then spending said dust on crafting all my faavourite cards from the past in golden as sort of a memorial, but I don't even have the motivation for that anymore. I'll just let the account rot.
I do feel kind of sad about the fact that I won't really be interacting with you people anymore, because this site has a pretty neat community and I've always enjoyed posting here. I guess you can take this as my final farewell. Perhaps digital card games just aren't my thing.
Maybe some day the stars align and we're blessed with some sort of meta that recaptures what the old days were like...but right now I can't see that happening until this entire year has rotated.
Anyways, take care guys, I'm gonna miss you at least a little bit. Shitpost on balance patch posts in my stead.
to be fair you can't really nerf LIghtning Bloom without destryoing it (adding more overload changes basically nothing)
Tortollan Pilgrim will probably get gutted (by making it so it also removes the spell from the deck) if Turtle Mage ever becomes more than a tier 3 mildly competitive troll deck
Idk if they can even change Sorc's at this point because Mage relies so much on spell discounting to do anything that isn't Highlander. I guess you could change it to a battlecry effect so Time Warp Mage isn't a thing anymore
Honestly Secret Passage isn't that bad. I would even argue there are other cards in the rogue arsenal right now that deserved more of a nerf (Burrowed Scorpid is actually pretty overtuned for what it does).
Secret Passage is a solid "draw" card that'll make it so they won't have to print new ones for every upcoming archetype and can instead focus on actually substantial cards
I'm gonna reiterate that the Willow change was most likely done with future support in mind.
They framed it as a compensation buff for Darkglare, but that makes no sense because Big Demon Warlock isn't a thing right now, and this certainly won't change that.
What it does change is how much of a powerplay she will become in the future, at which point her being a 7/7 could actually push her over the edge, so they preemptively adjusted her stats for what she's going to do (or at least what they think she's going to do).
Make no mistake, Big Demon Warlock is almost viable. You have Dreadlord as your core big demon, Willow as your lategame tempo play, Kanrethad Prime as your win condition and Felosophy to copy said win condition twice. Additionally you have the Dark Portal to potentially cheese out Willow or any big demon way earlier and secure easy wins.
All the deck needs to succeed is at least one more big demon (that isn't a legendary) as well as some form of healing that's not as inconsistent as Soul Fragments or requires Mo'arg Artificer
go to the southernmost part of a small English town called Glenrock. There you will meet a man who will introduce himself as "Mr. Porter". He will ask you for the time and you have to answer "it is a bit windy today, isn't it?", after which he will give you a suitcase with a picture of a dove engraved on the handle. The combination for the lock is 2805. In it you will find the 5 dollars you need to buy the damn skin.
Twilight Runner is fine, Guardian Animals at 7 is not.
btw why did they make GA a dual class card, it's literally unplayable in Hunter