In a recent interview Hearthstone Senior Game Designer, Dean "Iksar" Ayala, promised a balance patch before the new expansion.
Well, here we are: 8 different nerfs - some highly requested, others quite unexpected - will land on Hearthstone on July 14th, less than a week from now! Let's break down each change one by one.
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza
Generated Dragons' cost increased from (0) to (1).
Iksar talked about the fact that build-around cards are too good right now and cause such a power spike to make the whole match feel like "I draw the good card: I win; I don't draw the good card: I lose". This nerf (the 2nd one in only 7 months) perfectly symbolizes this design concept. For what concerns the actual gameplay, this balance change is among the biggest ones in the patch: since the Dragons generated will cost (1), it means that Alex on curve will just be an 8/8 vanilla minion and, on turn 10, you'll be able to play just one of the two rewards. The card will be much slower and less impactful, which will hurt Tempo-based Highlander decks (namely Highlander Rogue) more than any other. We doubt this card will maintain high levels of playrate, but we're far from saying that it will totally disappear from the ladder. Sad change but the cards are just too good.
Corsair Cache
Buff decreased from +1/+1 to only +1 in durability.
One of the most generous nerfs on the surface, but it is actually bigger than you might think. With both Ancharrr and Livewire Lance being 3 mana weapons, if your opponent plays Cache on curve you'll likely keep your 2 and 3 drops in hand because you know for sure that they'll become dead meat to a Warrior's proactive play. And now? Now the weapons' reach and damage output are reduced, which means that Garrosh could be forced to make another play on turn 3 more often. The +1 in durability still grants the resource generation aspect, but the fight for the control of the early stages of the game will be fairer. Will this sole change be enough to tone down Warrior? Some say it won't, but only time will tell.
Metamorphosis
Hero Power's damage decreased from 5 to 4.
Another source of damage for Demon Hunter bites the dust. It may appear as just a -1 damage for each use, but this change really hits the card when you use the Hero Power for removing threats rather than bursting down your opponent: most of the the 'good stuff' will be safe from now on, with only a few exceptions like Glaivebound Adept. In the end, less flexibility and less burst - maybe the devs want Demon Hunter to be something more than just early aggression and face damage.
Kayn Sunfury
Health decreased from 5 to 4.
One of the most controversial balance changes. While we see the reasons behind the nerf (less health means less resilience and less resilience means less time on the board for a minion with a really good effect), we've never thought the devs would have targeted Kayn as one of the most problematic cards in the current iteration of Demon Hunter. From now on, this unit will bring to the table only a 3/4 stat line for 4 mana, which won't prevent it from seeing play (ignoring Taunt is never going to be bad), but will tone down the card for sure. Interesting to see is that this nerf is a proactive one, made in order to adjust to the future meta, or just one deemed necessary for the sake of itself.
Warglaives of Azzinoth
Cost increased from 5 to 6.
The community has been asking for this change for weeks, and it's finally here. When Ashes of Outland got released, Warglaives of Azzinoth was not one of the cards that drew everyone's attention - 5 Mana Skull of Gul'dan, 5 mana Imprisoned Antaen and 7-health Priestess of Fury were much flashier. However, after all the rounds of changes we've got in the last months, this weapon found its rightful place under the lights. The increase of the cost will prevent Warglaives to dominate the board in a stage of the game in which both players are still fighting for the early control of the table, while still allowing decent board swings with Twin Slice and whatever the next expansion will bring us. Here's a dev insight.
Quote From Alec Dawson Warglaives was one of the best cards in the class, especially in aggressive decks. In the future, we want to be able to push Demon Hunter into archetypes other than aggro/tempo.
Dragoncaster
Cost increased from 6 to 7.
Dragoncaster was one of the cards Iksar named during the interview he took a few days ago. In particular, what worried the devs was this minion's ability to cheat out big spells (Power of Creation, Deep Freeze and, most of the times, Puzzle Box in a stage of the game in which their impact was game-breaking most of the times. Thus the increase in the mana cost. Our personal opinion is that the card is still good and will still see play, but will be less game-winning than it is right now. Which is totally the point of the change.
Fungal Fortunes
Cost increased from 2 to 3.
Before with Kael'thas Sunstrider and now with Ysera, Unleashed, Spell Druid has constantly evolved throughout each meta and has never really left the top tiers, but Fortunes has always been a staple. Card draw is one of Druid's strengths, but it appears that 2 mana draw 3 with proper rewards on top of it (Glowfly Swarm is pretty damn strong and Ysera, Unleashed's Dream Portals fill the board and mitigate the chances of discarding minions at the same time) is quite the tempo swing. Since the effect remains the same, the card will still accomplish its purpose, but now you'll need to invest a bigger portion of your early game, which means more time to pull off your naughty combos and therefore more vulnerability to aggro.
Galakrond, the Nightmare
Each drawn card (in every form) costs (1) instead of (0).
Here's what Iksar himself stated a week ago.
Quote From Iksar If the cards you drew off Galakrond cost (1), the card would obviously be less powerful but it would also result in a pause between the turn you play Galakrond and the turn you play all the cheap cards from your hand. This is a change we've been talking about making lately so that players have a turn to prepare rather than having to deal with so many resources all at once.
Furthermore, this change is an indirect nerf to both Questing Adventurer and Edwin VanCleef, two minions which have been able to push those 0-cost cards' benefits to their limits. Valeera still has Heistbaron Togwaggle's Wondrous Wand for some mana-cheat shenanigans, but things look rather grim for the class right now.
What do you think of these balance changes? What are you going to play in these last weeks before the new expansion?
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Comments
Do you know if 100% dust is refounded?
The only non-refunded one is regular Galakrond (Golden Galakrond, on the other hand, is eligible for dust refund).
Most of these are going to have a positive impact on the meta and slow it down a little. For the most part, this current meta is heavy in the aggro. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of control options come about.
I will continue to worship at the alter of RNG. All hail Yogg-Saron!
After Galakrond Shaman and DH I'm curious to see what's the next OP anomaly we'll get served with the next expansion...
More and more convinced that DH starting overpower was deliberate to attract players, with nerfs already planned
I mean yes, that could have easily been the decision and it would also make sense. That being said, they rather nerf cards than buff them, so making a decision to release cards on a higher power level and see what's what with a commitment to adjust when needed was not a terrible one imho. If they went ahead and released some of those cards in their now nerfed state, i think a lot of ppl would not even give them time of day.
Hard to say for sure what went behind the scenes, but it is the first new class added to the game since the launch, so i think it is a learning experience for everyone.
Not sure if they succeded
We're on the same page
as a main mage player i have the heart broken for the Dragoncaster nerf, mostly because she help me to stay alive against dh and hunter, but i totally understand it, the bad designed Puzzle Box of Yogg-Saron on six (or five) is stupid. i hope the next expansion mage gets some consistent spells like Deep Freeze and not random based ones.
It's a shame what they have done to the game (particularly) with this expansion. We're now receiving this patch HS needed 2-3 months ago. Hurrah! It's impossible to trust them anymore. Team 5 is suddenly fixing the game by removing huge tempo swings, but I bet, at the fist opportunity, they'll print some shit that breaks HS fundamentals again. Those mistakes are actually never new, just the same old obvious mistakes again and again - showing us they learned nothing or we are dealing with shady business from Activision. Even now they are leaving a lot of remnants behind (again). DH - 1 mana HP. RNG, 'created by', infested the game beyond repair. I'd rather exchange all these nerfs for current Priest to be deleted from the game. Maybe Warrior will not be able to feed much on DH anymore (?), but Skipper high synergy (swing!) turns will continue to shut down classical archetypes. (...) That they don't know what they are doing is visible from the fact 30-70% (!) of classes are not being competitive throughout the last year metas (usually no win conditions (except chaos), while others have several of those). We get either half-baked metas or _obviously_ broken mess and chaos. Is there anything more dull, tedious, pointless, noncompetitive and unfun than the current meta? Pure masochism. Sorry for spreading negativity, but deep inside you know I'm telling the truth. ...which is leading me to not pre-order for the first time in a long time.
Warrior can still clear DH's early threats, so idk why you're saying that.
Hearthstone has 10 classes now and its not always possible to design cards so all classes have decks that can triumph with pure skill alone. That 1 mana hp in dhunters are pretty broken, but as much as I don't like it I'm having trouble thinking up a suitable replacement for it. At very least they're actively making changes so the OP levels of stupid are being toned down, even if cautiously slow. Dhunters are in a better spot than they ever had, and with the nerf to Warglaives of Azzinoth, nearly everything that was oppressive have been addressed one way or another (not referring to wild, obviously. That's another level of stupid worth its own discussion thread).
Yes, priest is a scourge filled with RNG, along with mage (mostly due to The Amazing Reno). If this continues, it wouldn't surprise me if Thoughtsteal gets nerfed back to 3. But that's the thing, I can look forward to something being done about it. Its easy to forget that just over 1.5 years ago nerfs/changes are pretty much down to once or twice per expansion, and usually the size of nukes.
Team5 have recently come down on the RNG aspect of the game and we are led to believe the next expansion will have less of it, so there's something to look forward to. Take a break, like I had in June when I had the unfortunate bad taste of trying to climb with libram paladin. New expansions' in 3 weeks
Priest gets on my nerves too. I usually just concede and move on when I queue one. And I'm sure the decks I like are the bane of someone else's existence. (mostly midrange or combo) I've always preferred facing aggro than control. I've found that the closer you get to hitting legend, the more the game expects you to play meta decks. And the more frustrating the climb can be. That's why i've mostly ignored grinding that extra 5 levels each month. especially when, once you get to legend, the game expects you to keep grinding or feel terrible as your rank sinks further down. If there was one thing i wish the game did better, it would be to reward you more when you play less conventional decks. Once I've faced a deck a certain amount of times, I want nothing to do with it. But I haven't given up on the game as there's still a lot of fun to be had. I almost never play meta decks and still manage to climb to diamond each month. Some of those days spent climbing can be a struggle and I just move on to BG's or other games altogether. Others, however, can be quite fun and rewarding. I'm sorry you've reached this breaking point. Maybe taking a break isn't the worst idea.
Rez Priest thanks you for these nerfs.