We're getting a new balance patch for Hearthstone early next week and its going to be hitting 10 different cards including many changes to Demon Hunter.
Within these 10 card changes, 9 of the changes are nerfs and 1 is a buff to Libram of Justice. We don't yet know what the changes will be, but this is the hardest a single class has ever been hit upon the release of the new expansion. We can give Blizzard a pass on that though, it's good to see them quickly reacting to their new class.
Quote From No Author Specified The second Ashes of Outland balance patch is planned for early next week. Looking to make changes to Battlefiend, Altruis the Outcast, Glaivebound Adept, Kael'thas Sunstrider, Bad Luck Albatross, Frenzied Felwing, Open the Waygate, Bloodbloom, and Sacrificial Pact. Details will come later on official channels.
This update will also include a buff to Libram of Justice and a nerf to Millhouse in BG. We'll continue to monitor live game data and player feedback and make any further changes as necessary.
Upcoming Card Nerfs
How do you think these cards will be changed?
Upcoming Card Buffs
Could we see a cost reduction on Libram of Justice?
Comments
Had to copy over this from out neighbours at Hearthpwn:
That would be too strong, that effect is class only in warrior.
Hows this then:
After playing 3 spells this turn, your Charge minions get +1 attack
It's good that they don't immediately resort to double standards the moment they introduce a new class and want it to be powerful. Battlefiend is way out of line in terms of powerlevel, especially when they've been consistently nerfing snowballing early minions, particularly one drops. About the only one left is Northshire and Tunnel Trogg. Glaivebound Adept is also ludicrously powercreeped and way too aggressive and efficient when compared to pretty much anything else around its cost. Hell, it straight up outshines Fire Elemental which costs one mana more. It's not like DH is short on weapons to avoid having to hero power on the same turn.
That said, I'd say there are still outliers in the form of Priestess of Fury and Kayn. Kayn in particular seems like just bad design honestly, as ignoring a fundamental mechanic of the game should not be something you just slap onto an efficient charge minion and call it a day. Now it may look like if they nerfed these, DH would have pretty much nothing going for it anymore but I don't think that's true. The key difference would be, DH decks would not actually just be 30-ish DH cards anymore. When you look at DH builds in Wild right now, there's maybe 4 cards total in these decks that are not class specific (stuff like Hench-Clan Thug, Leeroy and Felwing, depending on the type of deck). Which is ridiculous. Considering the breadth of options in Wild, there's no way DH, after its first expansion, should have such a suite of powerful cards that almost nothing in the neutral collection even bears considering. That's a pretty clear sign that they have too much power in there still. I'd say it is way better for the health of the game if DH takes maybe two or three expansions to become competitive in Wild so that the power is introduced gradually. DH immediately rocketing to a very competitive level in Wild means some serious mistakes have been made.
I don't have a problem with Kayn, I just think he's a bit too cheap (or just overstatted). demon Hunter absolutely struggles when it comes to dealing with taunts (which is intended) so Kayn is necessary or else the class would just have to adopt a full face build with as much direct damage as possible because a single taunt just ruins their day.
If anything the problem is how hard it is to get Kayn off the board once he's there. Often times he isn't even used as a finisher but rather just a tempo play or for pressure. dealing 5 damage isn't easy if you're also trying to stay alive at the same time.
They could just nerf his stats (3/3 would be fine) and the problem solves itself.
I disagree. I'd say his finisher potential is what takes him over the top. It means that if you're playing anything even remotely controlly, which will naturally rely on taunts around midgame to bar enemy progress, Kayn comes in and straight up kills you. Imagine you're under pressure, the opponent just slung down a Glaivebound Adept to your face and is now threatening another 7. You put a Khartut Defender or Sludge Belcher or Convincing Infiltrator down to slow down the pain. If they get to bypass that with Kayn...eh, it's ok, it's pretty much the same as if they silenced your taunt, it's to be expected that this defense won't hold. But when you get into a situation where you've a Sylvanas on board, with Taunt from a lackey, a Khartut Defender, a Draconic Lackey, again with taunt, and the opponent gets to have their Glaivebound Adept and Kayn face you for 10 the next turn past 3 taunts, that's some solid bullshit (happened to me yesterday).
Kayn's design essentially screws any deck that relies on taunts to buy time to get the gameplan going. Just to list a few from what I play: Hadronox Druid, Taunt Quest Warrior, Highlander Quest (Awaken the Makers) Priest, Galakrond Deathrattle Rogue (shuffling N'Zoths with Togwaggle's Scheme), Libram Buff Paladin (taunts from Spikeridge Steed and Libram of Hope). All of these decks, which are otherwise quite effective, get almost entirely neutralised by the ability to ignore multiple taunts at the same time. The moment you fall behind and are forced to leave anything on their board because you don't have the attack numbers to trade into it is the moment you die to Kayn against these DH decks. And it's really easy to fall behind when they get to burn 2 mana off you on key turns.
I'm worried that DH might be too week after this round of nerfs. Not because I play the class (infact, I find it extremely boring and I have only played something like 10 games with it), but because is my best matchup by far with highlander Rogue (8-4 at legend). Yes, Altruis must be addressed as it is way too strong, but that on top of the battlefield, the glaive guy and felwing might completely kill the deck. After all they easily run out of resources, if you manage to keep your health high not falling behind in the first turns is a cakewalk
The question, would it be enough? :) Perhaps yes, but still sad there is no nerf of Skull of Gul'dan, 3 mana discount on 3 card is serious cheating. With 2 mana even discount the card will be still pretty good.
They already nerfed Skull of Guldan once.
I think Skull of Gul'dan will be fine as is, since these 2nd round of nerfs will wreck DH into oblivion anyway. We'll have to see.
I'm pretty sure DH will survive this second wave of nerfs in a really good shape. I'm so confident that I dare to say Illidan will still be tier 1 after the patch.
Why? Because that's how broken the whole class is right now. Hell, even Iksar had to admit that they released a beast whose strength (in the respective meta, of course) was matched only by old Undertaker Hunter.
Right now the gap between Illidan and the rest is so huge that there's no way DH will end up like Galakrond Shaman in January. No way.
You are right as it turns out. The nerfs will do absolutely nothing unfortunately.
I mean... Altruis the Outcast sill goes face, Glaivebound Adept -1 attack does not matter at all since you just have to remove it anyway because if it connects face once you are still fucked.
Only reasonable nerf is Battlefiend for the class.
Battlefiend to a 1/2, so that it is effectively the same as the 1-drop from TGT with inspire: +1 attack.
Waygate vargoth was never a real problem because it was so slow to get active, so I'm glad that they aren't killing vargoth for no reason. Slowing the quest down by increasing the requirement to maybe ten would limit the ability of quest decks to play time warp + giants on curve, which is probably enough that aggressive decks can counter effectively.
Glaivebound was one of odd demon hunter's only reach cards, so I really hope they just bring down the statline rather than the damage from the battlecry.
I hope they don't kill felwing. Maybe it was too strong in standard, but it is an important tool for aggro in wild. I would be fine with +1 to cost or -1 to health.
Also, if bloodbloom gets nerfed to 3, even mecha'thun warlock cries. Darkest hour is probably weakened, but it has enough board wipes to carry it to slightly later win turns.
Albatross is a card that I was a big fan of, like a competitive weasel tunneler. Highlander is not an archetype that I enjoy playing or playing against.
Kael'thas amounts to effectively nothing in wild now that the allure of storm druid has worn off. I assume they are targeting demon hunter's double inner demon combo, so maybe mana cost up? The card's ability is not the problem in most cases, and nerfing to every fourth or fifth spell ruins the flavour.
I don't get why they would buff Libram of Justice though? It's a good card, but Paladin as a whole has issues right now, so just lowering its mana cost probably won't make a difference.
The best thing I can think of is them actually reworking it so you can get it off Liadrin as well.
Yeah the one lone buff is a little weird. Libram of justice is already one of paladins very few good cards. Making it better isn't going to fix how bad paladin is everywhere else.
"Change the health of all enemy minions to 1. Target player equips a 1/4 weapon"
I would guess that they are probably changing it in a more drastic way, maybe one sided equality + give a divine shield?
I don't think so, changes are usually quite conservative. Maybe just cost 5.
Id' like it to be "change attack and health of all enemy minions to 1" or maybe the weapon to be a 2/3, probably that's too much, but I can dream...
"target a friendly minion. Set all enemy minions health to 1 and equip a 1/4 weapon"
Lol.
Basically what I expected. I guess Priestess of Fury dodged the nerf for now by virtue of being hardcountered by Sac Pact and too slow in Tempo DH. Might change after the nerfs though.
Battlefiend will probably receive the Small-Time Buccaneer treatment which will somewhat solve the snowballing issue (or they just Mana Wyrm it, but that would effectively kill the card)
Altruis the Outcast could go either way. Most likely the just take away the face damage to make it a boardclear/comeback tool...or they just up its mana cost, although I don'T think that matters all that much.
Glaivebound Adept is a mixed bag. Could easily be upped in mana or lowered in stats. As it stands it's a strictly better Fire Elemental. I assume they'll down the stats a bit...probably in the health department. Even as a 6/3 that thing would still see play.
Kael'thas Sunstrider is a difficult one. It's obviously a huge problem, but the question is whether they want to hamper his combo potential or just tone down his overall usefulness. They can up his mana cost, which will axe Combo Demon Hunter (and presumably a bunch of other combo decks in the future) or they can nerf the mana cheating to (1) mana, which stops infinite cycles....or they just hardcap his effect to a once per turn, in which case they'd probably have to lower his mana cost though, because otherwise it wouldn't be worth it. Honetly I just want him to stop outclassing Ysiel Windsinger in every aspect.
Bad Luck Albatross down to a 3/2 most likely. Really the only problem with the card is how easy it is to fit into basically any deck without requiring anything to combo it with. Like, why does Galakrond Warlock like it so much? Because it can cripple half of the decks on ladder and weaken the others. They won't kill the card, but they'll definitely make sure it only shows up in decks that actually need it.
Frenzied Felwing will probably go up in mana....changing its stats won't make a difference unless you just gut it to a 2/2. At 5-mana it will be much harder to cheat out early (since most decks can't deal 5 damage to face while maxing their early curve)
Open the Waygate, I have no idea how this deck plays because I don't play Wild. I assumed Vargoth would be a bigger issue. Maybe they'll just up the mana cost on the quest reward?
Bloodbloom, Mana increase? Hard cap on the mana you can convert into damage? Maybe they'll have a plan that nerfs Darkest Hour without destroying Mecha'thun?
Sacrificial Pact, I really have no idea how they'ree gonna do this. The obvious change would be friendly demons only, but at the same time they did say in the Reddit AMA that they didn't think that Lord Jaraxxus was underpowered because of Zephrys (I disagree, but whatever). That sort of indicates that they won't change it in a way that benefit the J-raxx, so I assume it might just be a mana increase.
Overall looks like a good set of changes and I look forrward to a meta where Demon hunters and Warlock don't just take turns beating each other up while everyone else is just sort of around.
This is what I'm hoping for/somewhat expecting - I heard they originally designed the card this way (not sure about the mana cost) so reverting it seems like the solution of least resistance/the one with the most prior test data.