The card changes that were announced last night are now live. Shamans are the primary target with today's balance patch.
Mobile users, your update will take some additional time before it is available, as is always the case.
The Card Changes
- (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).
Remember, these cards are all disenchantable for full value for the next two weeks.
More Changes in the New Year?
Frodan and Dean Ayala has a short discussion on Twitter about the balance patch.
- They wanted to patch before everyone went on vacation.
- The team is back around January 5th. Another patch will arrive after that if needed.
Quote From Dean Ayala @Frodan: Not touching Necrium Apothecary is disappointing. That card almost warrants an immediate hotfix imo. We already learned several times over the years that game-deciding swings as early as turn 4 (i.e. Barnes) makes gameplay feel lopsided and high-rolly, even if stats say otherwise
@Frodan: Maybe they legit need more time to evaluate everything instead of shipping a patch. Still possible that yet another undiscovered OP interaction exists in this set. Might be worth evaluating the release cycle entirely because we're soon stuck with this as the holiday creeps up.
We wanted to get out a patch before holiday break. We get back around the 5th of January and will patch again soon after that time if necessary. More time to collect data. Deathrattle rogue is fairly low population and dwindling win rate. (Dean Ayala)
@Frodan: Yeah still lots of goodies here – shipping a patch in 1 week is unprecedented, BG got a good shakeup, and the other known problematic cards got targeted. I don't think we expect you to nail it on the first try so don't take the heated criticism to heart :P Have a great break
@musicalcolin: …or maybe the heated criticism is wrong because Blizzard has a lot of data and players are reacting poorly to a patch based on guess work.
People will agree/disagree with any decision. It’s fun to critique decisions, fans have been doing it in sports for centuries. We don’t get too worked up over it, you just have to try and make the best decision you can and learn from it each time. (Dean Ayala)
You mentioned win rate doesn’t matter that much, which is true. Only perception matters. I mention win rate because dwindling win rates usually follow with dwindling population. When things are very low pop there usually isn’t a perception issue. It’s really early though. (Dean Ayala)
We’ll evaluate again when we get back from holiday with friends and families. (Dean Ayala)
Comments
Running at 60% against face hunter with a slower tempo warrior build atm.
Then again, I also had a 65% winrate against Shaman, and that was allegedly OP, so what do I know...
I'm convinced that the only reason they even managed to fit this patch in is because they were going to do a small Battlegrounds update to coincide with the release of Dame Hazelbark to the store.
They just added in these nerfs to that patch, which is why they're so tentative - they can't go screwing around too much, because if they fuck up badly they're literally not working over the holidays and won't be able to fix it.
maybe, but also, since they won't work over the holidays we'd be stuck with yet another week of Shamanstone, which people are already tired of, so they just decided to throw out what they could.
im really scare about the mogu "nerf", it's price will still be reduced and it just means that now they can evolve into a 10 mana minion
For those claiming we won't see big Mogu evolves, I've already seen Turn 5 Deathwing from a shaman in wild. And I think he played standard cards to that point.
Are you sped?
Theres a reason why shaman doesn't run both Mogu Fleshshaper and Sea Giant in the same deck, and that's because you can get mogu out on usually turn 3-4, rush a minion then evolve it. With this nerf, expect mogu to either fade from existence, or come out two turn later. Its very much less scary then.
Also, no more surprise al-akir and grommash. And that's a major plus.
I was at first too, until someone pointed out that its basically just 1 less than Sea Giant now, and that's never really taken off in Shaman decks. So yes, pretty much everything in the 10 pool is scary, but coming out ~1-2 turns slower is pretty significant too.
but now you wont be able to play so early anymore and more likely your opponent will have a way to answer it
to play it for 0 you will need 9 minions on the board and then there is still 50/50 you will get some crap 10 mana minion
I think this nerf will turn out better than people are predicting
A 10 mana minion that comes out a few turns later, if at all. The new mogu is basically a Sea Giant and shaman has never considered running those.
Weird, I'm pretty sure Sea Giant has been run in Shaman several times. It just might not have been absolutely broken as old Mogu was.
It was run in Even Shaman, but not for the same reason as Mogu. It was just played as a Zoo card, whereas Mogu was essentially a disgusting board control + highroll potential.
Yeah as I pressed post I realized I was wrong as both aggro and even shaman have run that card. The current Mogu compares extremely poorly to it, though.