We now have details on the upcoming December 19 card nerfs. This will be the fastest balance update in Hearthstone's history, beating Rastakhan's Rumble's nerfs by a week.
- (Discuss Nerf) Corrupt Elementalist cost is now 6 (up from 5).
- (Discuss Nerf) Sludge Slurper attack is now 1 (down from 2).
- (Discuss Nerf) Faceless Corruptor attack is now 4 (down from 5).
- (Discuss Nerf) Mogu Fleshshaper cost is now 9 (up from 7).
Official Patch Notes
Quote From Blizzard Hey everyone!
The 16.0.5 balance update for Hearthstone will be going live tomorrow. Below are the included changes, and as always, we’ll be evaluating the results of these changes over the coming weeks and look forward to your feedback!
Corrupt Elementalist
- Now costs 6 Mana (up from 5).
Sludge Slurper
- Now has 1 Attack (down from 2).
Faceless Corruptor
- Now has 4 Attack (down from 5).
Mogu Fleshshaper
- Now costs 9 Mana (up from 7).
Once these changes are live, players will be able to disenchant the adjusted cards for their full Arcane Dust value for two weeks.*
Battlegrounds:
- The Boogeymonster
- Moved from Tavern Tier 5 to Tavern Tier 4.
- Mechano-egg
- Moved from Tavern Tier 5 to Tavern Tier 4.
- The Beast
- Moved from Tavern Tier 4 to Tavern Tier 3.
- Coldlight Seer
- Moved from Tavern Tier 2 to Tavern Tier 3.
- Primalfin Lookout (changed last week)
- Moved from Tavern Tier 4 to Tavern Tier 5.
- Nightmare Amalgam
- Has been removed from the pool of available minions.
- Brann Bronzebeard
- Has been removed from the pool of available heroes.
- Bartendotron
- Has been added to the pool of available heroes.
Comments
C'mon guys, it is something within one week. They can do another one soon if it is still bad. You can't expect them just to murder shaman one week after expansion release. And I'm not a shaman fanboy. I hate that class with my entire soul right now.
These nerfs are so weak and one-dimensional, you'd think shaman had dirt on Team 5 or somethin
We're gonna have a 2nd nerf patch in a month...
Why, oh why, do all updates always happen to me on days I travel and find myself having to rely on weak wifi... Sigh. Same with my phone.
Most pathetic group of "balance changes" I've ever seen. Better than nothing, barely. Priests needed help, and other cards needed to be adjusted. Sigh.
Didn't expect the Sludge Slurper Change, but I guess it makes Sense. It has been in almost every Shaman-Deck since it was printed, so I guess they want to decrease the overall playrate of it (and maybe the strenght of Quest?).
Corrupt Elementalist Change should also be strong enough to hit Dragon's Pack. Way more easy to handle when you have 7 or 8 Mana.
I think that Faceless Corruptor is still very strong and should have also lost 1 Health.
R.I.P. Mogu Fleshshaper (Fingers crossed).
I think these nerfs are not enough to move Shaman away from his dominant position. The change to Sludge Slurper was a little surprising but i think i get what they are trying to accomplish with it. With its attack down to 1, the murloc doesn't really trade well with anything in the early game. That makes Quest Shaman a little bit more vulnerable to aggression in the early game. They are really gonna need those Kobold and Goblin Lackeys to fend off the hordes of 2 health minions (Skyraider, Parachute Brigand, Blazing Battlemage and more) and they will need to mulligan hard for Sandstorm Elemental. There's not much they can do about those 1/3 minions though. It's not an insignificant nerf. Was it what we really needed though? Probably not.
Maybe their hopes are on Pirate Warrior to threaten shamans. This nerf to Sludge Slurper could help a little there
I can't help but agree with everyone here: these nerfs don't go far enough. Dragon's Pack is still broken, and the other three invoke cards (1 shaman and 2 neutral) are severely under-costed compared to other classes.
I would have nerfed Mogu Fleshshaper 1 more mana just to be safe, but I do hope it's dead. I agree with this change.
On the other hand, Faceless Corrupter is still obviously, undeniably overpowered. I simply don't get how the card was printed as is, and how little this nerf does to address it.
I hope they are just being cautious of going overboard.
Hoping more nerfs coming in the future. These are too mild IMO.
I'm particularly disappointed that Dragon's Pack was left untouched.
Overall, I'm alright with these changes. I don't think Blizzard wanted Galakrond Shaman to be unplayable (I mean, they gave Galakrond, the Tempest for free for everyone, so new and budget players should at least be able to play with something that can win), so they made changes to weaken it's early game to make it more vulnerable against aggressive decks.
I think they will definitely cut Mogu Fleshshaper and Mutate because that combo can't come out as early as turn 3 or 4 anymore and at that point why don't you just run Sea Giant instead?
The Corrupt Elementalist nerf breaks the curve of the deck a little as it will delay Dragon's Pack by a turn in general and prevents curving into Kronx Dragonhoof into Galakrond, the Tempest.
The Sludge Slurper nerf is interesting and reminds me of the EVIL Miscreant nerf: not too impactful, but also keeps the early game of their class in check. Still a powerful card as you can just still curve into the lackey while you are overloaded on turn 2.
I think the Faceless Corruptor nerf is not enough. 8/8 in stats on turn 5 or 6 is still really good and the fact that they still have rush is insanely tempo driven. It's still like a neutral Multi-Shot but with 1 or 2 4 attack bodies and not random. No decks that are running the card will cut it.
Lastly, I'm very scared that Necrium Apothecary didn't get looked at. The card creates early game high rolls pretty consistently that feels like you can only win against the Rogue is if they don't draw it. We might want to start teching weapon removal and silence into our decks if Rogue becomes the top class, which I think might be the case.
Of course, these are just my thoughts. Just giving people a perspective to think on.
Wow. The thing that amazes me isn't just the weak nerfs, but the lack of communication that came with them. It would go a long way if the blog post just spared a few more sentences to say "we hear your frustration, and this is why we think these changes are best."
I recently started playing Clash Royale, and they just had an issue where some card changes upset their player base. The company responded with a detailed, respectful blog post that was multiple pages long. It covered the development team's philosophy and reasons for the change, discussed the ways they think the change succeeded and failed, enumerated the complaints that they were hearing from the players, and then explained how they thought their new changes would address this. The post ended, of course, with a deep apology and a hope that they could win back their players' trust. And it was posted in the app, so even casual players like me would learn all about their mistake. I'm used to reading Blizzard's communications instead, and that post was eye-opening to me.
Whether it's true or not, today's response from Blizzard gives us the impression that they don't hear the frustration of their playerbase or understand the root issues. Do they realize that this is three metas in a row with progressively more broken Shaman decks? That people felt betrayed even before DoD was released last week? That this is a game of subtle interactions, and raising the cost of cards isn't a universal fix? Do they really think that Sludge Slurper is a bigger issue than Dragon's Pack, or do they just prefer a broken game to giving people dust for Epic and Legendary cards? How carefully have they considered their decision to raise the cost of a card that gives value because of its cost?
Blizzard has a lot of skilled people, and access to a lot of data that we don't see. Maybe they have good answers to all of those questions. But if they won't share those answers with us, a lot of people are going to assume the worst. They are running out of chances to restore our trust.
These nerfs do seem pretty weak, and it would have been nice to hear more from Blizzard about why these are the changes they're making, what (if anything) they're still monitoring, etc.. But I think there's enough here to make some guesses as to what they're thinking:
The only thing to do now is wait a week and see if things correct themselves.
They usually do. Maybe when the patch rolls out there would be another statement that informs players on their justifications. These are usually short statements, so if you're expecting a shakespherean writeup on why a card is bumped one mana up then I'm afraid you're up for some disappointment.
I think we need to give this set of nerfs a chance until after the holidays. The nerfs are not to the expectation of the community (including mine) but I think the intention is so Galakrond shaman wouldn't be at 60% win rate anymore.
Really seems almost like the devs are more concerned with Battlegrounds now than the problems in the main game. I honestly expected heavier needs to more cards. Frankly, Shaman still has an absolute insane amount of value from a handful of cards. The double Invoke from Corrupt Elementalist should simply have been dropped to a single Invoke. A 3/3 and a 2/1 rush for 5 Mana is plenty fair. Invocation of Frost was one I honestly expected to see hit. One Mana to freeze a minion and generate a 2/1 rush minion is pretty strong. Two of these early is more than enough to trigger Dragon's Pack and provide even more crazy value. Faceless Corruptor while definitely overpowered and still incredibly strong at 4/4 is at least available to all classes, so I hate this card a little less. And Mogu Fleshshaper is still busted. There needs to be a couple more minions on the board, and they get a random 10-drop instead. That really doesn't solve the issue with the card at all, and may potentially make it worse depending on what it evolves into. Hopefully, taken together, there's enough tools in competing decks to slow Shaman down a bit, but I still think we're in for a lot of Shaman everywhere for a while. There's just absolutely too much value in the class right now. Unless they're draw is just garbage they can easily control the board in almost any matchup.
Honestly with this small Shaman nerfs (Sludge Slurper, seriously?) I was expecting some buffs to the weakest classes like Priest to compensate (Galakrond Priest 36% winrate). I'm sure Galakrond Shaman can drop from the current 59% winrate close to his brothers Quest and Overload at 54%. Still a really Shaman-y Tier 1 environment.
My vote is on a new set of nerfs after Holidays.
Corrupt Elementalist remains a double invoke, meanwhile Devoted Maniac is so awful in Galakrond Priest (due to nature of the Priest invoke) that Priest effectively has two fewer invoke activators than all the other classes.
Why does invoke need a Battlecry? It’s a keyword right? It’s bold so I assume so. Why can’t the Invoke mechanic just be triggered like a Battlecry, but not require a Battlecry to be triggered. Is there really a card I’m missing that Invoke without Battlecry doesn’t work?
just remove the Battlecry part and shaman is fair and still full of flavor
I agree, but Galvadon for example has similar battlecry with adapt mechanic. I still think they should remove the battlecry part, with it's cost 6 as it is now, it would be perfect.
As long as they don't rework some mechanics, real balance isn't possible.
Having access to a double invoker is just straight down unfair.
The galakrond hero power is way too strong, the battle cry is insane and has extrem synergy with one of the strongest late game cards a class ever got (shwock).
That faceless nerf isn't hard enough. Making it a 3/3 with rush and the same copy text as saronite with the same cost like now (basically a 6/6 with rush on a split body) would still be decent, but not oppressive.
Man... I'm so disappointed... Hopefully rogue doesn't dominate with those pesky otk deathrattle decks. It's just the opposite of being interactive.