Hearthstone Game Designer, Alec Dawson, responded to a thread on Twitter on the weekend and commented about everyone's favourite Hearthstone class, Paladin.
According to Alec, Paladins are still a bit stronger than they'd like but the rest of the balance patch has been hitting their intentions. Consistency in how Blizzard has been balancing over the last "year or so" with lighter touches to cards instead of outright killing decks is the goal and they seem to be going a solid job at it - if you're asking me.
He goes on to mention that the buffs were there to fix some cards to proper costs for their power and that some of the buffs were to set up classes for the future. This could mean that some of the buffs we saw are going to see some synergies within the upcoming Forged in the Barrens miniset, or that Blizzard is looking even further at that which would be the next expansion that should be releasing around the end of July or beginning of August.
Further, on the subject of Blizzard's communication and how there was some disappointment when Alec stated the changes were going to be "spicy", he does believe they can do a better job at communicating. Alec continues by saying that although balance changes can help with shifts, we should be looking forward to the minisets and expansions for larger changeups.
Meta Changes via HSReplay
The whole discussion was brought on by HSReplay's Director of Business, Tiago Taparelli. Inside his chain of tweets, he stated he believes the patch was reasonably successful in addressing the meta with a nudge rather than significant changes, which was confirmed by Alec. Here's what Tiago had to say when looking at the data.
- Paladin and Mage’s popularity decreased substantially.
- Druid and Demon Hunter had a significant uplift in winrate & popularity.
- Matchup polarization improved overall.
Though, he goes on to mention that Hearthstone still needs to see some improvements.
- Shaman remains unplayable at most (if not all) ranks.
- Paladin is still way too strong and consistent across the board.
- Many of the new archetypes failed to gain a significant foothold in the meta..
Quote From Alec Dawson I’m seeing a lot of discussion about the impact of the recent nerfs and buffs (or lack thereof) in the meta. As usual a lot of it revolves around @HSReplayNet’s data, so I’d like to share some of my thoughts and additional data on the matter. 1/6 https://t.co/d0HaEvnBYY
I think @WickedGood hit the nail on the head as far as mismatched expectations being behind a lot of player’s frustration. I believe this patch was meant to nudge the meta in the right direction, not significantly change it. This is what the mini-set will be here for. 2/6 https://t.co/A7irZumLCy
If that was the intended goal, I’d say the patch was reasonably successful. Looking at Legend-only data: - Paladin and Mage’s popularity decreased substantially - Druid and Demon Hunter had a significant uplift in winrate & popularity - Matchup polarization improved overall 3/6 https://t.co/1pyF0I4BFd
That doesn’t mean there aren’t things that need to be improved: - Shaman remains unplayable at most (if not all) ranks - Paladin is still way too strong and consistent across the board - Many of the new archetypes failed to gain a significant foothold in the meta 4/6
With all that said I’d love to hear from the HS team if that was truly their goal with this patch, and whether they believe that goal was achieved. @Celestalon @IksarHS @GW_Alec 5/6
Paladin a little stronger than we’d like but everything else is hitting on the intentions. Most of the buffs were to set up classes for the future or do some cost correction. Player expectations surrounding patch can be hard to manage (people have different spice tolerance 😅). (Source)
But we can see that and adjust how some of the communication goes out. We’ve been fairly consistent in the way we balance over the last year or so (lighter touches, usually don’t kill decks) and can do a better job of getting that message out. (Source)
In the end though our expansions and mini sets will act as opportunities for bigger landscape shifts. Less likely to see that in our frequent balance changes unless something is very off. (Source)
To be fair your tweet indicating it would be "spicy" heightened expectations a lot and could partially be attributed to why people feel let down. Not trying to hate on you just putting that out there.
No hate detected ❤️ (Source)
Did the team not anticipate the resurgence of Secret Libram Paladin by the nerfs? Arguably First Day wasn't a nerf for that deck, and it seems the only thing depressing it was Aggro/Secret Paladin. It was already a deck with a high win rate, just waiting to be unleashed.
We did, reason we touched First Day of School instead of something like Conviction. Things are still early so we'll see how that particular change ends up over time. (Source)
How do you feel about the current meta in Hearthstone? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Literally Paladin when it heard about the nerfs: "Oh no....Anyways"
Paladin schmaladin. The real issue is Cariel's goofy mallet and her goofy mallet grip. I've never really looked at that card close, because they just drop two of them and kill me, but it's a little goofy.
Off to battle. Wooden mallet? Check, just wrestled it out of the carny's filthy grip. Prayer book? Yup, it's right there on its purse strap. I'm all set.
In addition to the various Paladin decks, the thing I'd really like them to address is decks that don't interact with the board. Burn mage, OTK Demon Hunter and Weapon Rogue the prime culprits. I was watching some Grandmasters and dear God... games with almost zero interaction between the players beyond sending burn straight to face.
Those stats make me fear for Hunter. Noone talks about it but it's quietly very solid, getting even this scrub a twelve game win streak (I'm playing my own version of Aggro, not the full on Face net deck from HSR). Damned if I know what card I'd change though.
I wish they'd undo the buff on Aldor Attendant. It's such an insane card right now. A three health one drop that curves perfectly into Hand of A'dal and has a permanent positive effect. It's been a problem since Scholomance.
"We have done barely anything and nothing has changed, where did we go wrong?"
Ya dont say
I feel like there wasn't a patch, I play at diamond 5 to legend for the majority of the month and I get that I don't matter as they balance around the top 1% of players but it feels exactly the same.
Probably because the Patch wasn't meant to change the meta.
I feel they are holding back on buffing shaman because of the upcoming mini set or the next expansion.
Some shaman cards just needs some glue card to bring them together. They have strong cards like Bru'kanand Novice Zapper but no nature spells or they have good tempo murlocs like Spawnpool Forager, South Coast Chieftain, Firemancer Flurgl but has no access to card draw. For other archetypes, card draw in general is lacking in shaman which makes a deck hard to use.
In the history of HS, from what I recall, Team 5 seems to have difficulty in balancing Shaman, it is either bonkers broken (like Gala Shaman, Evolve Shaman) or weak to the point of unplayability.
Shaman has always struggled purely coz of the overload mechanic and how punishing it is
I agree, Shaman has a number of very good cards. It needs another Cagematch Custodian-like card to bring all its potential archetypes to life, such as Burn or Murloc decks. We'll see if that card (or card draw at least) emerges from the mini-set.
Paladin, meanwhile, has so many overtuned cards that piddling nerfs just won't fix. Conviction (Rank 1), Hammer of the Naaru (such an insane weapon, they really should scale this back), Oh My Yogg!, and the entire Libram package are just too strong and efficient. The devs were clearly trying to revitalize Paladin with all these cards, but they went way too far with it, imo. Now the class is a monster that's almost on par with Demon Hunter in AoO, in that it needs several nerfs to balance them.
I worry the same thing will happen with Shaman in the future, wherein the devs try to make up for the class being in the bottom tier for so long that they shower it with OP cards and synergies.
Hammer of the Naaru would be 6 Mana and "Overload: 2" in Shaman ;)
What do you guys think about nerfing Oh My Yogg so that it refunds the mana you used for the spell? Because a 1 mana Counter Spell is just way too good right now.
id rather see it cast a spell thats more epensive by like 2 or 3mana. So is a greater Risk to it.
And aso in wild would stop any chance of loosing all your mana if you cast coin or other 0cost spell due the forbidden spells from old gods
Maybe it could increase the cost of the spell that is changed? So if you play a 2 cost spell Yogg makes it a random 3 cost spell instead.
That's basically giving your opponent value, and will kill the card.
Somehow someway someone will figure out some stats that will immediately make the card completely unplayable. One easy example would be playing any 9 mana spell automatically gifts your opponent a free Libram of Hope.
There aren't many cases where you would want your 9 mana spell (which is presumably very powerful in its own right else you wouldn't run it) to turn into a Libram of Hope which heals a random target.
I'm not advocating the change suggested above, but I'm not sure it giving the opponent value would be a bad thing. If Oh My Yogg! was a simple Counterspell with a 2 mana discount, then you'd expect the opponent to gain some advantage to balance things out. That's what every under-costed/over-statted minion does, and likewise with the Boomsday 'project' spells.
It feels fair to say OMY! would cost 2 if it were a fair card, and probably ought to have been a rogue secret instead (taking the place of Shadow Clone). If we were to take that view, then giving the opponent a 1 mana boost to compensate for your 1 mana discount would make sense.
However, I think it would never happen because that presents issues with transforming the most expensive spells (10 mana). It would have to add the 'up to 10 mana' line that a few cards have, but there isn't enough space left to write that.
I saw on reddit someone suggested that OMY should be 'counter the spell and give your opponent a random spell of the same cost. It costs 0." I think that's how this card should be changed to. Basically removes the rng away and sometimes allow your opponent to get a spell that may matter later on. That way it will still do what its supposed to do i.e. counter a spell, but make it less frustrating for the opponent.
It will remove the flavor of the card. But hell, I think this is one time I'm willing to overlook it. Mostly because I can't think of another way to nerf this card without doing yet another warsong commander out of it.
That would be a good solution, though I would refine it further by making it say "It costs 0 this turn." I think it truly would kill the card if it permanently cost 0, especially as restricting it to this turn still keeps the instances where OMY! backfires.
While I like cards to be flavourful, I generally think it is fine to lose some flavour upon a nerf if the flavour is a serious barrier to balance. The ability to change mana costs normally removes that barrier, but that's not an option for secrets (unless they do the unthinkable and move cards around classes).
Paladin has been tierS for 1.5 month and now they are saying we could have done better and we should be looking forward to miniset? I got sick to paladin since scholomance...