Full Details on the Balance Updates Coming to Hearthstone Next Week - Demon Hunter Nerfs & More!

Published 5 years, 11 months ago by (Updated 5 years, 11 months ago)

We now have all the details for the nerfs that are coming next week! This is the second balance patch we're getting during Ashes of Outland and the second time Demon Hunters are getting hit with the nerf bat. In addition to the nerfs, here are things of note.

  • Only three of these cards will be eligible for dust refunds - none of which are Outland cards.
  • Millhouse is being changed in Battlegrounds to increase the cost of his Tavern Tiers by 1.
  • The Lurker Below is now properly tagged as a Beast.
  • Zephrys the Great received a bug fix and change (details below).

Quote From Kerfluffle

In our recent Reddit AMA, we spoke on a few balance updates we intend to make soon. We’re now ready to share the full details of these updates, which will be included in the 17.0.2 patch planned for early next week.

Balance Updates*

Neutral –

Kael'thas Sunstrider

  • Old: Cost 6 mana → New: Cost 7 mana.

Bad Luck Albatross

  • Old: Cost 3 mana → New: Cost 4 mana.

Frenzied Felwing

  • Old: 3 Attack / 3 Health → New: 3 Attack / 2 Health.

Demon Hunter –

Altruis the Outcast

  • Old: Cost 3 mana, 3 Attack / 2 Health → New: Cost 4 mana. 4 Attack / 2 Health.

Battlefiend

  • Old: 2 Attack / 2 Health → New: 1 Attack / 2 Health.

Glaivebound Adept

  • Old: 7 Attack / 4 Health → New: 6 Attack / 4 Health.

Warlock –

Sacrificial Pact

  • Old: Destroy a Demon. Restore 5 Health to your hero. → New: Destroy a friendly Demon. Restore 5 Health to your hero.

Bloodbloom

  • Old: Cost 2 mana → New: Cost 4 mana.

Paladin –

Libram of Justice

  • Old: Cost 6 mana → New: Cost 5 mana.

Mage –

Open the Waygate

  • Old: Cast 6 spells that didn’t start in your deck. Reward: Time Warp. → New: Cast 8 spells that didn’t start in your deck. Reward: Time Warp.

*The following cards will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks after the 17.0.2 patch has been released:

  • Golden Altruis the Outcast
  • Golden Battlefiend
  • Golden/Normal Bad Luck Albatross
  • Golden/Normal Frenzied Felwing
  • Golden/Normal Open the Waygate
  • Golden/Normal Bloodbloom

Battlegrounds

Millhouse Manastorm

  • Old: Minions cost 2 Gold. Refresh costs 2 Gold. Start with 3 Gold. → New: Minions cost 2 Gold. Refresh costs 2 Gold. Tavern Tiers cost (1) more. Start with 3 Gold.

Bug Fixes

  • The Lurker Below is now properly tagged as a Beast.

  • Fixed a tracking issue that prevented 500 wins with Demon Hunter from being achieved.

  • Fixed a bug where Zephrys the Great would not offer a lethal option if your hero had a large amount of Attack.

  • Zephrys the Great has been updated to accommodate the Sacrificial Pact and Glaivebound Adept changes.

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Comments

  • Just for info: starting at 18:00 CET tomorrow.

  • The Glaivebound Adept nerf is really incompetent. NOTHING change with the card. It's not like i don't want to take 7 damage to the face but 6 is ok, i'm just gonna ignore it. You HAVE to kill it or you are pretty much dead.
    They could have increase the cost, lower the damage dealt, make it target only minions, decrease it's health to make it more easy to deal with... no, atk decreased by 1.
    Truly, TRULY incompetent.

    • I get the feeling that this isn't so much about the card being actually nerfed, but rather just about bringing it more in-line with similar ones, stat wise.

      Friendly

  • I am going to look forward to hearing

    "You face Jarraxxus, Eredar lord of the burning legion"

    Again. Been too long my old buddy, welcome back to the game

    • I mean. ...he wasn't really played before Zephrys either, so I don't see why he should now.

      Friendly

  • so it's safe to make a gold  Altruis the Outcast right ? cause all get all that dust back ?

    • No, this is not the same as Hall of Fame.

      Yes you get full dust back if you disenchant it. So if you want to try it for fun, then disenchant it later, sure go ahead. It does not mean you get 3200 dust for owning a golden copy though.

    • Only if you DE it, the only time you get dust just for owning a card is when it is hall of famed

  • Hi y'all! Here's my two cents (I mainly play Wild but still playing standard) ps:I do not speak english natively so expect some grammar mistake.

    Kael'thas Sunstrider This is a pointless nerf. Don't bother nerfing if it's only for one mana when the problem is the text lol! I would have written " your third spell this game cost (0)" or something like this.

    Bad Luck Albatross Fair nerf. It's not an auto-include anymore and it still counters reno (zephrys for standard) if you want to.

    Frenzied Felwing It's not bad nerf. More AOE effect can kill this now but it's still (too much?) aggressive. The card itself is probably the mistake tbh :/

    Altruis the Outcast Another pointless nerf. The card should just not hit face!

    Battlefiend Nothing to say, it's a perfect nerf.

    Glaivebound Adept It's not the attack the problem, it's the mana cost or the battlecry. I would have personally just nerf the battlecry, something like (Deal 3 damage) or (Deal 4 damage to a minion).

    Sacrificial Pact YOU FACE JARAXXUS! i'm fine with the nerf. Maybe it would have been nice to heal for 6 instead, since it's loosing a lot of uses.

    Bloodbloom It definitely kills darkest hour warlock and greatly nerf Mecha'thun decks. Nice nerf!

    Libram of Justice It's cool to see a buff, but I don't think it will change much, I won't complain tho.

    Open the Waygate What a bad nerf wtf? Sometimes I don't understand Blizzard. Counter to quest mage is being heavily nerf (DH and Darkest hour warlock) and this gets what? A one turn delay nerf? even 10 spells would have not been a big enough nerf. Either make 12 and hope no one want to play the deck anymore like The Caverns Below or change the reward completely. I don't know maybe something like "your next turn you have 14 mana" or something creative like this.

     

    So yeah. I think Blizzard missed the target on this one. In particular the nerf on Kael'thas Sunstrider and Open the Waygate are very bad. For Demon hunter I won't complain too much since they will probably another set of nerf comming soon, I hope. Hope you've enjoyed my little rant ;)

    • Maybe... but hopefully meta shifts around and something new will come out of it... we definetily have seen before seemingly non consequential changes suddenly changing the meta a lot because "Oh this thing comes out 1 turn later, now suddenly deck X is viable instead of being countered by it every time", so hopefully we will have new contenders...

      • Hope you are right my friend.

  • Addition to my previous post: I completely missed the fact that Kael'thas going to 7 mana now makes him a viable pull from Juicy Psychmelon. So the various Aviana Kun combo versions of Druid, such as Togwaggle, might become more consistent now by gaining guaranteed access to Kael for deck thinning.

    • Wouldn't surprise me if the devs have only just been reminded that Juicy Psychmelon existed. Kael'thas might actually break the speed record for the quickest double nerf in hearthstone history.

      Friendly

  • I honestly don't know why people think that axing the Vargoth + Time Warp interaction would change anything. The interaction is an overkill mechanic, emphasis on over. It's not like as a mage I'd suddenly not be able to get lethal with the original 2 turn non-vargoth win using Antonidas or the normal Time Warp giant version.

    If you lost to the 3 turn version, you also lost to the 2 turn version. It makes absolutely no difference.

  • There are 3 strong Champs at the moment and they nerf the two of them guess wgo will Rule now on ladder ... 

  • I thought they would adress Time Warp itself. The cost of the card is off the charts, but that is because of Archmage Vargoth, who has bolstered the deck to new heights and has forced people to tech in cards like Loatheb just to stall for one more turn. Adressing the quest itself is fine tho, but for the love of god remove the Time Warp + Vargoth interaction.

    • You deserve far more upvotes for this :(

      The interaction between Time Warp and Archmage Vargoth is the true problem. Playing two more spells basically makes no difference to the giant version or the waker version. The only version hit by this is the highlander version and that one is slow anyways. 

  • Honestly, the more I look at these nerfs the less I like them. They don't really seem to fix anything.

    Demon HUnter got a bit of a power down (and it's possible I'm seriously underestimating how effective they'll be). Adept change is purely statistical and the card will still be in every DH deck. Same goes for Altruis, but I guess statistically he's gonna perform worse, especially early in the game. Battlefiend doesn'T really solve the problem of not being able to deal with it early if you don't have a spell for it.

    The Warlock nerf is probably going to help out DH more than anything. Both Antean and Priestess are back for consideration now that you won't have to worry about them getting poofed for no cost (also no more easy Zephrys outs).

    This won't be the last nerf to Demon hunter, I can guarantee that.

     

    I also still can'T wrap my head around the Kael'thas nerf? If they wanted to nerf Combo Demon Hunter they would have targetted Twin Slice. This doesn't stop any of the miracle turns in Wild or Standard. Druid literally doesn't even care about the mana cost, they ramp up there anyways. The only thing that this essentially stops is the combo with Kayn for 10-mana, but since Skull of Gul'dan is still around there's a good chance you're gonna end up discounting either Kayn or Kael'thas in a lot of games. Not to mention they run double silence anyways, so even in the best case scenario you need at least 3 taunts to stop the DH combo.

    Friendly

    • I agree except for wild players the nerf to Open the Waygate will really hurt the very popular non-interactive Mage deck that can kill you by turn 5/6.  Will be much much harder to complete the quest now.

      Oh wait.  It won't.  Does very little in fact!

      • Can't really talk about Wild, but I figured that this wouldn't really affect the deck's strategy in any way.

         

        It's really weird to see them be so limp-wristed about this when in the past every nerf patch was basically scorched earth.  If they thought a card was problematic they made sure it wouldn't be any more and few cards ever survived that.

        I get it for Demon Hunter given that the class is new and very dependant on the few cards it has, but Kael'thas and the Wild cards? Noone actually wants those decks to be that powerful because they're not fun to face.

        Friendly