We've got a balance patch coming in hot! Blizzard has detailed all the changes ahead of the patch release today and we've summarized all the details down below.
Patch 25.2.2
Card Nerfs
These cards should be eligible for full dust refunds for 2 weeks after the patch hits.
- Wildpaw Gnoll no longer receives the reduction for dual-class cards.
- Sinstone Graveyard no longer summons a Ghost with Stealth, now it's just a Ghost.
- Final Showdown now requires you to draw 6 cards in one turn (Up from 4).
- Sinful Brand now costs 2 Mana (Up from 1).
- Shockspitter now costs 4 Mana (Up from 3).
- The stats have also increased to a 3/3 (Up from 2/2).
- Glacial Advance now reduces the next spell cast by 1 (Down from 2).
- Astalor Bloodsworn
- Phase 1 is now Manathirst 5 (Up from 4).
- Phase 2 is now Manathird 8 (Up from 7).
- Phase 3 now only deals 7 or 14 Damage (Down from 8 or 16).
Card Buffs
- Battlefield Necromancer now summons a 1/3 (Up from 1/2).
- Boneguard Commandernow summons a 1/3 (Up from 1/2).
- Unholy Frenzy now costs 2 (Down from 3).
- Wither now costs 1 (Down from 2).
- Bonecaller now has 5 Health (Up from 4).
- Haunting Nightmare now has 4 Attack (Up from 3) and summons a 4/3 (Up from 3/3).
- High Cultist Basaleph now costs 4 (Down from 5).
- Dar'Khan Drathir now costs 7 (Down from 8).
- Infantry Reanimator now costs 5 (Down from 6).
- Vengeful Walloper now costs 6 (Down from 7).
- Energy Shaper now costs 3 (Down from 4) but now has 4 Health (Down from 5).
- Vast Wisdom now costs 2 (Down from 3).
- Timewarden now costs 3 (Down from 4) but now has 4 Health (Down from 5).
- Asvedon, the Grandshield now has 4 Health (Up from 3).
- Disruptive Spellbreaker now has 6 Health (Up from 5).
- Last Stand now costs 1 (Down from 4) but "Double its stats" now requires Manathirst 7.
- Nellie, the Great Thresher's Nellie's Pirate Ship Token now reduces the cost by 2 (Up from 1).
- Remornia, Living Blade now has 5 Attack (Up from 4).
Blizzard's Balance Insight
Quote From Blizzard Dev Comment: Dual-class cards that are Rogue and another class will not reduce the cost of Gnoll.
Dev Comment: We recognize that Rogue has been a little too good (for a little too long) at higher ranks. The change to the Gnoll/Maestra interaction is a major change to the class intended to substantially shakeup how it looks and plays, while the Sinstone Graveyard change gives opponents more of a chance to respond to the big Rogue pop-off turns.
Demon Hunters
Dev Comment: Demon Hunter is the other best performing class at high levels of play, so these changes are intended to adjust its power. Sinful Brand was chosen as a card to target because it punishes opponents for simply playing the game, a play pattern that we don't like being too powerful or prevalent.
Dev Comment: Hunter is the top class at most parts of the ladder. When we changed Shockspitter to 3 mana in Patch 25.0.3, we expected that it would remain powerful after that change and debated whether we should just change it to 4 at that time. We decided that we didn't want to hit Hunter too hard all at once. Now that we've seen how the card performs at 3 mana, we think it can use another nudge—especially with the other top performers being adjusted down around it.
Dev Comment: Frost Death Knight is performing well right now, so we wanted to slightly shave some of its power to make sure it stays in line with the rest of the meta after the other changes this patch. This adjustment takes away a little bit of the deck's explosive burst-from-hand capabilities.
Dev Comment: Players seem to really enjoy the power and flexibility of Astalor. At the same time, that power and flexibility has made Astalor a near auto-include in almost every deck in the meta. These changes are designed to bring Astalor's power more in line with what we want from a Neutral, general-purpose utility card like this. We still hope and expect that Astalor remains a powerful option for many decks so that players can continue to enjoy this card.
Death Knights
Dev Comment: Blood and Unholy Death Knight are both still underperforming in Standard. Death Knight is difficult to balance because individual cards within the class tend to be very strong, but we found a couple spots where we felt we could add a little bit of power to individual cards to make them more appealing.
Undead
Dev Comment: Most Undead aggro decks have been underperforming compared to what we were expecting. Our changes here are to encourage exploration of those archetypes. We discussed potential changes to Undead Neutral cards, but opted to target the class cards this patch instead.
Warriors
Dev Comment: Warrior seems to be the class that needs the most help in the current meta, so we're giving them the most buffs here. With Last Stand, we wanted it to feel more impactful and flexible, and we have a great new mechanic in Manathirst that gives us that kind of flexibility. This isn't the type of change that we normally do, but this was a good opportunity for us to make this card a little fresher and more interesting. We're also making a few changes to some older, exciting cards, to provide the class that boost it needs.
Additional Bug Fixes & Improvements
Quote From Blizzard
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug resulting in unintended changes to Magister's Apprentice.
- [Hearthstone] Text fixes to Magister Dawngrasp and Wildheart Guff.
- [Duels] Fixed a bug where Hematology could be used while you have 0 Corpses, resulting in the mana being spent and no effect happening.
Leave a Comment