Dean Ayala just tweeted out some rather surprising but very welcome news - Demon Hunter is getting nerfed, and the balance changes are due today!
- Skull of Gul'dan, Imprisoned Antaen, Eye Beam and Aldrachi Warblades are all on the hit list
- Demon Hunter will also receive Arena adjustments
- Expect more balance changes over the next few weeks
What do you think about this announcement? Were you prepared?
Quote From Dean Ayala We're planning on making some balance changes that should go out today. Cards we're looking at are Skull of Gul'dan, Imprisoned Antaen, Eye Beam, and Aldrachi Warblades. We'll send out the final info from our official channels when it's ready.
We're also making some adjustments to Demon Hunter in Arena. We don't have enough data to make large scale micro-adjustments, but we're opting to make balance changes by hand while we wait for the normal full patch to take place.
As for Demon Hunter class balance, we'd like to keep the class-defining pieces more powerful while pulling back on the cards that make DH feel like it's good at everything.
The expectation should be that there will be a lot of balance iteration over the next few weeks. We'll be making changes a little more frequently until we feel that DH is in a fun, unique, and balanced state.
We have another patch planned for late next week that will address any further changes we want to make to Constructed, Battlegrounds, or Arena.
Comments
And I missed out on all this Arena goodness ;)
I think res Priest needs a nerf before anything else. That is a terrible deck to play and even worse to play against. Demon Hunter is only oppressive now because everyone use excited to play the new class. If it's still just as bad in a week or so then start talking about a nerf.
Did you see stat? Where demon hunter was literally more than 7% higher winrate than all other classes?
Announced changes: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/hearthstone/t/an-update-on-demon-hunter/29091
all of it is normal. the skull is still mana cheating at its finest, beam is also decent but the 0 cost becoming 1 cost can kill its tempo thus bringing the balance. the weapon just eliminates the healing that was absurd.
seems balanced but will see
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.
What about twin slice? That card is absurd and enables alone kaelthas otk as early as turn 6.
I forgot... Priestess of fury. Seriously? A better ragnaros that can attack, get discounted and be played on 5 and clearing the board while also hitting face? It's simply disgusting
With DH being a brand new class it’s understandable that the full scope of how well they would perform once introduced wouldn’t be easy to predict. So I can see how these OP cards got printed. They wanted to make sure they were a strong class considering they have a lot less cards to work with than the existing 9.
Im glad the nerf is coming so quickly. On HS Replay the most popular deck is at 69% win rate with over 30,000 games. Completely green matchup spread against all other classes and archetypes. It’s no wonder the nerf is happening in less than 48 hours from release.
https://hsreplay.net/decks/kujqos5EqWpTo6TR57CjIb/#tab=matchups
link to that deck for those curious.
It is surprisingly predictable..!
Those are some great news. Btw I have a question. Shouldn't Battlefiend also get a slight nerf? It really reminds me of pre-nerfed Small-Time Buccaneer, which was considered to be too good for a 1-drop. Even though the 2/2 demon is a class specific card, the fact that it can get buffed so easily should have raised red flags too.
I honestly think that whatever they do, will make the cards they choose unplayable. But here is what I'd like to see to make it more balanced:
Skull of Gul'dan - to 7 mana or the reduction will only be 2
Imprisoned Antaen - to 7 mana or down to deal only 5 damage
Eye Beam - cost reduced to 1
Aldrachi Warblades - 2/2 down from 2/3
We complain that Blizz over nerfs cards, this time it was you instead !
Yeah... we kinda all expected this. I'm a little surprised they hit Aldrachi, but the other 3 are very justified. PREDICTION TIME!
I think they'll either increase the cost of Antean or reduce the awaken effect (maybe like 6?)
Eye Beam will go to Outcast - Costs 1.
Skull Of Guldan will either draw 2 cards or reduce the cost by 2 when Outcasted
And Aldrachi will most likely become a 2/2.
Let's see how accurate I am...
I vote they nerf Kayn Sunfury. This is totally not influenced by my owning a golden version... nope, not at all...
(give me that dust!)
...but the golden one is sooooo pretty...
woooow pretty much 24 hours since the class was launched. i know the hammer was comming, but didn't knew it was a swift axe....
i'm seeing pretty good ideas on nerf, but we all know how blizz adress those...
soooo my guesses are:
Skull of Gul'dan - to 7 mana
Imprisoned Antaen - to 8 mana
Eye Beam - to 4 or 5 mana
Aldrachi Warblades - to be a 2/2
ps: Priestess of Fury needs a nerf asap
[edit]: i'm gonna have fun with all that dust :D
I guess the take they're going for is to intentionally make overpowered cards, and then adjust them accordingly. If so, then that's a very bold idea.
As it's also a new class (and the first in the game's lifespan), there's obviously going to be a lot of fine tuning involved.
Yeah, I said to someone earlier they likely went for strong cards because launching a new class and having it suck would be devastating
I wasn't having too much issue vs DH yesterday with my Spell mage deck. All it is was, the Preconstructed one that I tweaked a bit. Sure once in a while a DH could really get the jump on me early, but that can happen vs any deck. That said, I could see the reason some of these nerfs are going through.