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
I dont think they will change the effect. I think the deathrattle is balanced, they just need to reduce the stats or increase the mana cost.
Predictions/Wishlist:
Battlefiend to a 1/2. Anything else will make the poor thing unplayable.
Altruis the Outcast no longer hits face. I actually have no problems with this card personally, but the face damage is unnecessary to its power level. (Hell, I would even nominate this to be the Classic DH Legendary without face damage).
Glaivebound Adept to 3 damage or 3 health. The first makes it less bursty, the second more susceptible to board clears. I don't have any problems with this card right now, but hey. I guess they don't want a pushed Basic card?
Kael'thas Sunstrider, the spell costs 1 instead of 0. That limits the number of spells that can be cast in a turn, so Druids can't draw their whole deck in one turn in Wild. Changing Kael's cost is unimpactful, and changing the effect would murder the card.
Bad Luck Albatross to 4 mana. No need to over-complicate things with stat changes. And seriously, screw this card.
Frenzied Felwing to a 3/2. That's more in line with how Corridor Creeper was nerfed. At one less health, it's much easier for classes to clear it and the rest of the board.
Open the Waygate to require 50,000 spells. I dunno. Nuke this trash from orbit and launch the ashes into space. (More realistically, 10 is my prediction. It's still pretty good at 10 spells, though).
Bloodbloom to 4 mana.
Sacrificial Pact honestly should just be sent to the Hall of Fame. They're gonna murder this card completely, though. My prediction is it can only target friendly targets and it will be useless.
By the way, how are Priestess of Fury and Twin Slice dodging nerfs again? Those are actual problem cards, not Glaivebound Adept. Twin Slice is 75% of the reason Altruis is so OP.
Priestess of Fury dodged because it gets hard countered by Sac PAct which is why people don't play her anymore. If Pact gets the axe she'll come back and get hit in the next nerf patch.
Twin Slice is basically necessary for most of DHs attack activators to not be mediocre.
Sacrificial Pact can still do things even if it only targets friendly minions. Its played unironically in galakrond control warlock in DoD. Healing 5 health for 0 mana is nothing to be snuffed at.
If there's a deathrattle demon like a 1/1 for 3 mana that spawns a 5/5 on death, I'd play sac pact just for that.
If they're nerfing Kael'thas Sunstrider and Altruis the Outcast, then I think Twin Slice fits in just nice. Priestess of Fury is strong, but hardly a problem card. Since dhunter's gonna get their early game slowed down a notch I think its fine to leave it as it is.
There's no chance you'd play SacPact for just 5 health. It's not like Radiance sees any play. You're better off running Earthen Ring and not killing your own tokens. It only sees play now because it's flexible as either a really strong hard removal card or a small heal in matchups without demons. That's why I'd prefer it going to the Hall of Fame and being replaced with something more consistently useful. Or just something less "all or nothing".
Also, I don't think a 0 mana spell that generates a 0 mana spell that has both incredible synergy with the class and just a good effect by itself is a healthy design. Even if Altruis isn't broken anymore and the Kael combo is dead (which it kinda already is in DH), something else will pop up that Twin Slice is too good with. I'd rather hit the card at the source.
Of course SacPact will still see play even then, because it was played in defensive Warlocks in Wild even before DH existed, because you can cheat out Void Lords on turn 4 with Void Caller + SacPact. This combo is used for a long time.
That's because it's Voidcaller, and I seriously doubt we'll see a Warlock card like Voidcaller ever again. I'm talking about Standard, where the card would be largely useless.
I honestly wish that the team would improve their design philosophy rather than designing a class like Demon Hunter so crucially over the top that they have to nerf half of it to put it into line. Don't get me wrong, I despise DH in its current itteration and I am happy that borken cards like Battlefiend and Altruis the Outcast get nerfed but this wouldn't be necessary with a little more foresight.
You can print strong early aggro tools like Battlefiend but then you should also release early counters to those exact cards. You can design snowball cards as long as you also release cards that punish that playstyle. Something like Dragonmaw Poacher is a good example of this. Doing this future proofs the meta to be able to balance itself. If murloc decks start running rampant, people start running a Hungry Crab. I am confused about why in a set that introduces an insane amount of powerful demons no anti-demon tech was thought of.
and how would they do that? How would they honestly introduce a completely new class into a completely new meta and accurately predict how it's going to fare?
I literally said that: Introduce counters to what they release. Everybody can predict that a 1 mana 2/2 with upside in an agressive class is going to be nuts so introduce counters to a 1 mana 2/2 on turn 1 in the same expansion.
It's really not that complicated.
you mean counters like Backstab, Sacrificial Pact, Arcane Shot, Holy Smite, Arcane Breath, Unstable Felbolt, Lightning Bolt, Sword and Board, Crystal Power, etc.?
Those only work as immediate response without offering counter pressure. No, I am talking about your resident Golakka Crawler and Hungry Crab. Ones that are not necessarily limited to classes. They have done it before with printing E.M.P. Operative in the mech set (although that one failed because it was less about stats but about mech effects that were an issue and the card itself was much too bad in itself but the sentiment wasn't wrong)
Again, not that hard. But do feel free to list more 1mana anti-aggro class cards because appearantly having a single one is enough to stop aggro DH in its tracks.
DH is going to disappear from wild completely imo.
I don't play it but right now I am almost always crushing it with my Explore Un'Goro Togwaggle Warrior.
Yes, as a meme deck, I am almost always crushing an entire class (albeit a fledgling one). Additional nerfs are going to neuter it in wild.
Agreed that dhunters will probably be too weak for wild, but as a new class introduced a few weeks back and being vastly outnumbered in terms of cards and years I think its only to be expected.
There's plenty of expansions in the future to prop up dhunters in wild. I think the priority should be on standard first.
Or, perhaps team5 will make the bold move of printing dhunter cards for wild only. That's perhaps an appropriate solution, but I doubt it will ever be done.
battlefiend might get the mana wyrm treatment. which will kill the card. maybe put it at a 2\1 or 1\2 and still 1 mana
Open the Waygate needs to be 20 spells minimum to be reasonable. Given how much cheap spell generation mage has now.
The thing is not every variant of quest mage wants to just suddenly chuck almost every rng fiesta generating card in their deck just to make the quest work.
That tanks any form of competitive consistency. You have to remember you still have to have time to spend all of that mana, while surviving, clear threats, cycling, etc, even in control vs control mirrors.
There's reasons why you still don't see bad spell generation cards in Quest Mage player decks.
I think 12 would probably make it slow enough to make the deck mediocre. Considering how early games can finish they’d be entirely relying on cards like evocation for finishing it quickly, which isn’t nearly consistent enough for tier 1. I think in the past they would have gone for something like 18, but they seem to want to have cards still be semi playable, making 20 very unlikely. I hate the deck too, but I don’t think deleting the quest from the game fixes it
I agree given stuff like Evocation can literally complete the quest alone as it is right now. Sure that requires some luck but that isn't unheard of at all.
If they nerf Demon Hunter too hard here, it's going to have serious playability issues in Wild, and potentially Standard, further down the line. If they keep having to nerf DH cards each set, it'll either become unplayably weak due to future cards not being powerful enough, or they'll continue to nerf new cards out of playability. Battlefiend and Altruis the Outcast are pretty crucial cards for most Wild DH decks to function at even a semi-decent winrate, and I'd be concerned if those are the cards they have their sights on.
Bad Luck Albatross is also possibly the only serious neutral answer to Highlander decks, which is crucial in Wild. I think a 4/2 or 3/4 statline would be more appropriate than nerfing its effect, which is a pretty important one to have in the game.
Honestly, if there's problems with the new cards, particularly with DH's, maybe those should be addressed in some way in the next set. Give the classes that struggle most answers that can pose reasonably well against them. Last minute design isn't always a bad thing, especially if it's done with focus, precision, and purpose. This habit of releasing cards and just banning/nerfing them out of the gate is a big problem in MTG right now, with way too many super-powerful cards being made every set. Hearthstone making the same mistakes is far worse though, because it only has two formats, and the original printing of a card being changed due to its power in one format denies it the unique and healthy interactions it could have in the other.