We've got some post-expansion launch balance changes arriving in a data-only hotfix today to lower the power level of Death Knights, Demon Hunters, and Paladins.
- Construct Quarter durability is now 2 (Down from 3).
- Vengeful Walloper mana cost is now 7 (Up from 6).
- Lightray mana cost is now 10 (Up from 9).
Additionally, there are some adjustments to the Arena pool and bug fixes for the main game, Duels, and Arena.
Quote From Blizzard ARENA UPDATES
Card appearance rates were adjusted. High power class cards for Death Knight, Hunter, Mage, Paladin, and Shaman will appear less frequently. High power class cards for Demon Hunter and Warrior will appear more frequently. The Countess, Fel’dorei Warband, Deal with a Devil, and Astalor, Bloodsworn are no longer be able to be drafted.
BUG FIXES AND GAME IMPROVEMENTS
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Sketchy Stranger would only offer 2 options if you were playing as a Secret class.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where cards gained by Fight Over Me were not tagged as copied from your opponent.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug causing mouse-over tooltips to sometimes disappear. This bug fix includes a temporary mitigation until the next full client patch.
- [Duels] Fixed a bug where Scourge Strike was sometimes literally unplayable.
- [Arena] Fixed a bug where new Core Set cards were not in the eligible card pool.
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 23 - Day 13 [Finished]](the-great-dark-beyond-day-13.webp)
Comments
Were these nerfs really necessary? Current HSReplay shows only Paladin and DK have positive win rates with Paladin, DK and DH still in the top 3 which means these nerfs really didn't do anything at all.
You kinda forgot to mention all the Battlegrounds changes there.
I expect more Death Knight nerfs. I don't think Construct Quarter was that important for them, but it had no runes and I suspect they are reluctant to nerf the two or three rune cards. Death Knight's biggest crime may be using few cards from Festival of Legends.
All of these just feel really meh in my opinion. I know that DK has had it's bread and butter with 3 uses of Construct Quarter and with their hero power it almost guarantees that they get a fat 4/5 on the board. If they nerfed it to be a 4/4 or a 4/3, it would be a LOT less dominating as well.
Vengeful Walloper and Lightray getting dinged for 1 more mana... that seems like a waste of time honestly. BOth DH and Pally can pop out cards to make those cheap REALLY fast and easy. Maybe that one extra turn will make all the difference, who knows.
Honestly, I thought that they were going to go after cards that cause hell, like Wretched Exile. Hitting this with a higher mana cost would have been like taking the bullets out of the gun that shoots the walloper... but I'm on R&D so ho the hell knows.
I already lost a couple games due to Lightray getting down later. So defo affects the win rate of the deck.
Out of all these I think Vengeful Walloper nerf is probably the most impactful, the rest dont really change how the game plays out in my opinion.
One of those times where buffs would be more welcomed than nerfs because it feels like overall strength of certain classes like DK is way higher than, let's say, warrior.
No mention of a fix for the completely broken Groovy Cat / Warmaster's Frenzy interaction for Drek'Thar in Duels. I guess it's going to take a month like the bugged From Golden Light last month. Sad... another month not bothering with my favorite game mode.
They actually banned Groovy Cat somewhen in the last 4 days... For all classes, which really killed my Druid Build.
Definitely a broken interaction. I encountered 4 Drek'Thars with this comb from 5-9 wins. Although I won 3 of these it seems disputable for a 5-6 win deck to OTK turn 6 and hadn'T I had taunts en masse for a single heropower to do 30 dmg turn 6 :/
I also don't get why the new Beasts (Groovy Cat and the 1/2) read 'Your Hero Power gains+1' as this is not what they do (plus they have different wording albeit their effect being the same). If read by description the effect should be that your HP gives you an additional +1 attack/health.
At least to me it seems, they neither thought through the wording nor the interactions in several formats (as the 1/2 also doesn't give you armor if your HP didn't already. Though it states otherwise...)
Technically its 'working as intended' since those cards read '1 more armor/attack', meaning that its an upgrade not a grant. But these are splitting hairs, the point is that team5 coded it to only work with armor/attack regardless of how unintuitive the wording may be.
But yeah, that combo is pretty much broken and will likely be fixed within the month.
Except they don't read like that ;)
Groovy Cat reads
"Your Hero Power gives your hero 1 more Attack this game."
while Free Spirit reads
"Your Hero Power gains 1 more Armor this game."
which are worded SURPRISINGLY different and neither works as they are stated...
[As 1 more should still account for 0+x]
For anyone that disagrees - I take the hit - DK cards now also work for all the other classes (counting souls).
I skipped 3 seasons of Hearthstone, but this expansions feels like a fresh new breeze with very colourful cards. I like it.
I hope Hearthstone can patch more often during the year to give more cards time to shine. Keep the breeze fresh.
Looking back at the previous year, Brann destroyed a lot of fun to me. Should have left earlier.
Surprise? Aleco said ther migh be nerfs on twitter like 2 days ago...