HearthStone Heroes of Warcraft

Kirby

That's a shame. Tinkmaster is beyond useless now. 1600 dust he is in the bank so.

The Nat Pagle nerf is a nerf but he's still usable. Yes, you don't draw a card the moment he comes into play. That's annoying and potentially he gets insta killed or silenced. But that risk was there before if you didn't draw on your first turn. Assuming he survives, he draws at the start of your turn....giving you an option to play whatever he just drew. So it balances out in a way.

nesf

That's a very hard nerf to Tink, which is a bit of a problem as he was the only "transformation removal" (i.e. doesn't activate deathratttles) available to a lot of decks. The Pagle nerf is a straight nerf, people won't see it as a nerf because you're potentially drawing at the start of your turn rather than at the end but but really it doesn't matter (knowing whether your opponent has drawn or not isn't a big advantage compared to losing one potential draw from him as 4 health rapidly stops being hard to remove).

Pagle is still playable though I think. Tink for the dustbin though.

Nody

nesf wrote: »

That's a very hard nerf to Tink, which is a bit of a problem as he was the only "transformation removal" (i.e. doesn't activate deathratttles) available to a lot of decks. The Pagle nerf is a straight nerf, people won't see it as a nerf because you're potentially drawing at the start of your turn rather than at the end but but really it doesn't matter (knowing whether your opponent has drawn or not isn't a big advantage compared to losing one potential draw from him as 4 health rapidly stops being hard to remove).

Pagle is still playable though I think. Tink for the dustbin though.

I was expecting Nagle to drop down to 33 or 25% so this change is not going to change a lot in deck layout I'd say (you're losing 0.5 cards basically as you "lose" one draw).

I fully understand why Pagle was nerfed as he was really on the OP side but I'm not so sure he'll be removed in that many decks. Often there are not that many cards on the table and with a bit of clearing you should end up with a relatively empty table / one creature only that you want to pagle (or same as Hunters with deadly shot or clear table, pally plays a dude, pagle dude at 4 mana leaving you with a 3/3 and a 1/1 or 5/5). Not as easy as previously (and I ran him in every deck) but I can still see a use for him. I expect more silences / sheep / hexes to come in though and less "'lets pagle the frost giant".

Cards I'm expecting to see a slight nerf still are:
Frost giant 4/5 and pretty much every deck runs it (not sure what it could be changed to seeing Iron Dwarf and Booty Bay Bruiser stats)
Harvest golem 2/3 with 2/1 death rattle, I'd expect rattle end up as 1/1
Ysera (same nerf as Pagle)
Defender of Argus (from +1/+1 to 0/+1)
Light Spawn (+1 mana cost)
The 2/7 +3 damage per hit (down to +2 damage per hit)

Kirby

Nody wrote: »

I fully understand why Pagle was nerfed as he was really on the OP side but I'm not so sure he'll be removed in that many decks. Often there are not that many cards on the table and with a bit of clearing you should end up with a relatively empty table / one creature only that you want to pagle (or clear table, pally plays a dude, pagle dude). Not as easy as previously (and I ran him in every deck) but I can still see use for him. I expect more silences / sheep / hexes to come in though and less "'lets pagle the frost giant".

Tink....you mean Tink. Pagle is the fisherman. Tink is the gnome.

nesf

Kirby wrote: »

Tink....you mean Tink. Pagle is the fisherman. Tink is the gnome.

Shush, sleepy, both short anyway. :P

Nody

Kirby wrote: »

Tink....you mean Tink. Pagle is the fisherman. Tink is the gnome.

Not enough morning coffee; that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

nesf

Nody wrote: »

Cards I'm expecting to see a slight nerf still are:
Frost giant 4/5 and pretty much every deck runs it (not sure what it could be changed to seeing Iron Dwarf and Booty Bay Bruiser stats)
Harvest golem 2/3 with 2/1 death rattle, I'd expect rattle end up as 1/1
Ysera (same nerf as Pagle)
Defender of Argus (from +1/+1 to 0/+1)
Light Spawn (+1 mana cost)
The 2/7 +3 damage per hit (down to +2 damage per hit)

Ysera is fine, she's a big enough drop that if you don't have ways to deal with her in your deck you should have killed them by this stage or have them so low that a non-taunt 9 drop is death.

Defender of Argus is fine. Harvest Golem is fine. Both are good value, but the Defender of Argus is somewhat situational and the Harvest Golem at 2/3 isn't overpowered really, you're trading off against playing something more aggressive like a Scarlet Crusader. These are both excellent cards but have slightly different places in a deck and it's good to have competing cards for slots.

Light Spawn is fine, it's a combo card and Priests are fairly fecked over the at the moment so, eh. Does Frost Giant mean the Yeti? The Yeti is fine, it's good value but at 4 mana a card without any card text needs to be very good value stat wise as you can have a 3/5 with taunt in there or Defenders of Argus etc. You can't run *that* many 4 drops anyway, so you're not usually able to take everything you want.

Tar.Aldarion

whats frost giant
lightspawn already seems bad enough

Kirby

He means Chillwind Yeti. He's blue and frosty.

Blizzard has stated they don't intend to balance change much from now on but I hope they either change their minds or don't mean it. More changes are needed. A lot more.

As a game maker, balance should be what you strive for. For every card to be viable. The Card game community has forgotten that due to years and years of imbalance in the physical format of the CCG's. Mistakes are always made but the difference being that in expensive physical media, its more difficult to correct them and so you have a community that just accepts imbalance as norm and thinks that this is okay. With digital games, fixing is easier. And this is great.

Some cards are over budget and some are under budget. And that's why everyone uses the over budget ones and nobody uses the others.

Cards like Harvest Golem aren't "fine". Its not okay to have "excellent" cards as you call them when other cards are noticeably weaker. That's not balance. So you either make the terrible cards better or nerf the powerful ones. Cards of the same cost should be different from each other. Not just flat out better. Harvest Golem is simply better. Which is why everyone uses him.

This applies to dozens of cards that are superior to others of their cost. Harvest Golem, Chillwind Yeti, Tazdingo, Cairne, Rag, Tirion, etc. I have them all btw, so i'm not griping. Nerfing these guys would hurt me but I understand its necessary.

nesf

Kirby wrote: »

He means Chillwind Yeti. He's blue and frosty.

Blizzard has stated they don't intend to balance change much from now on but I hope they either change their minds or don't mean it. More changes are needed. A lot more.

As a game maker, balance should be what you strive for. For every card to be viable. The Card game community has forgotten that due to years and years of imbalance in the physical format of the CCG's. Mistakes are always made but the difference being that in expensive physical media, its more difficult to correct them and so you have a community that just accepts imbalance as norm and thinks that this is okay. With digital games, fixing is easier. And this is great.

Some cards are over budget and some are under budget. And that's why everyone uses the over budget ones and nobody uses the others.

Cards like Harvest Golem aren't "fine". Its not okay to have "excellent" cards as you call them when other cards are noticeably weaker. That's not balance. So you either make the terrible cards better or nerf the powerful ones. Cards of the same cost should be different from each other. Not just flat out better. Harvest Golem is simply better. Which is why everyone uses him.

This applies to dozens of cards that are superior to others of their cost. Harvest Golem, Chillwind Yeti, Tazdingo, Cairne, Rag, Tirion, etc. I have them all btw, so i'm not griping. Nerfing these guys would hurt me but I understand its necessary.

I disagree. For example with Chillwind Yeti it's far from a must play. It's very good "for a 4 drop with no card text" but those kinds of cards don't fit in everywhere. All cards shouldn't be close to equal in playability, this would be a very bad thing and lead to a very stale meta. Since I started playing I've seen cards go from "unplayable" to "extremely good" because of meta changes (Shieldbearer for Warlocks) and nothing to do with any balancing efforts by Blizzard, e.g. the Black Knight is either wonderful or **** depending on how common taunt is, there's no middle ground possible for a card like this. It's similar for cards like the Ooze and taunts in general.

Tazdingo is a good example, at 3/5 taunt for 4 it's in the sweet spot for most decks in terms of curve and durability. But the other taunts (expect perhaps some of the really bad 1/1, 2/2 drops) have a place it's just more situational and deck dependent. E.g Shieldwarden in Board Control decks to protect early threats or be buffed later on, Sunwalker for more control-esque decks that don't want a taunt until turn 6 etc. This doesn't mean we need to change the other taunts. Being situational or only useful in certain kinds of decks is fine. It's the cards that have no place anywhere, e.g. Goldshire Footman (1/1 taunt for 1) which are pretty much unplayable because why would you take a 1/1 taunt vulnerable to hero powers when you could take a 0/4 for the same mana?

Seifer

nesf wrote: »

This doesn't mean we need to change the other taunts. Being situational or only useful in certain kinds of decks is fine. It's the cards that have no place anywhere, e.g. Goldshire Footman (1/1 taunt for 1) which are pretty much unplayable because why would you take a 1/1 taunt vulnerable to hero powers when you could take a 0/4 for the same mana?

Goldshire is a 1/2 not a 1/1; so the obvious answer would be that he can trade where as Shieldwarden can't without being buffed.
(Not saying I disagree with your other points but this example doesn't hold up)

Kirby

nesf wrote: »

All cards shouldn't be close to equal in playability, this would be a very bad thing and lead to a very stale meta.

How would making every card viable lead to a "stale meta"?!? Making every card viable is the antithesis of stale! Every deck would look different as opposed to every deck looking the same as it is right now.

nesf wrote: »

Tazdingo is a good example, at 3/5 taunt for 4 it's in the sweet spot for most decks in terms of curve and durability.

Tazdingo is a terrible example for your argument and the perfect example for mine. He isn't "at a sweet spot". He's over budget. Other cards are under budget. He's better than the other 4 drops so that's why people take him. So you either nerf him or buff everything else. Over budget cards like Defender of Argus, Dark Iron Dwarf. They were taken in every deck, regardless of its composition because they were simply better than everything else at 4 mana. It's that simple. They needed nerfing and they were. They simply haven't gotten around to Tazdingo yet or wont because they want to buff the other taunts to help stem the aggro/face spam the game has become

It needs to become a choice for the player. And when you have cards superior to their counterparts, there is no choice. Having "Must haves" in a deck is awful, awful game balance. You want diversity.

Nody

Remember their balancing is based on "is this card play a lot" and "mandatory include"; not if it's by definition OP or not in the current meta (I don't think there are any major OP cards out there atm but god damn it remove hex / sheep from play please! ). Hence the above common cards have a strong tendancy to fall into those categories. It's one of the most common complaints that Blizzard nerf cards after the meta has moved on and the nerf is no longer needed and by far those are the cards I keep on seeing accross all classes and most decks (Warlock being the odd one out usually as it's either giant control or Murloc rush decks).

There's always going to be something that's "best" in a meta/deck and I think a lot of this could be offset if we increased card volume (esp. class specific cards for more flavour for each class and allowing more ways to offset).

Tar.Aldarion

the point is not to make every card equal, diversity will come through the hundreds of new cards that will be added.


Got my second legendary finally woo. 75 packs opened.
Got van cleef, but it seems hard to play rogue without a lot of cards?
I don't see me using him for some time.

Seifer

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

the point is not to make every card equal, diversity will come through the hundreds of new cards that will be added.


Got my second legendary finally woo. 75 packs opened.
Got van cleef, but it seems hard to play rogue without a lot of cards?
I don't see me using him for some time.

Quite the opposite; rogue is very playable without a ton of epics and legendaries. You can do very well using a board control deck made up of a lot of the strong commons supported by basic rogue cards. SI:7 agent is a very good rare worth crafting for most rogue decks.

Kirby

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

the point is not to make every card equal

Every card should be equal.....in cost and usability. Equal does not mean making every card the same and this is where people fall down.

We have been talking about 4 mana cards so lets look at some 6 mana ones. The black knight at 6 mana is a good example of what I'm talking about. If your opponent plays with Taunts, he's pretty good. If they don't, hes not so good. So the choice is there to put him in your deck. This is good. What is not good is having other cards at 6 mana who are simply better.

There is no choice to take to take Cairne who is also at 6 mana. You take him, because hes good in every situation. So when you are building a deck and have 29/30 cards and are trying to decide which 6 mana card to take.....there is no decision there. You take Cairne because he is better than Black Knight by virtue of not being as situational.

Now, I love my Golden Cairne.....but he needs a nerf. And he's just one example of this. Tbh I'm amazed I have any resistance with this kind of thinking.

nesf

Kirby wrote: »

How would making every card viable lead to a "stale meta"?!? Making every card viable is the antithesis of stale! Every deck would look different as opposed to every deck looking the same as it is right now.

Because one interesting aspect of CCGs is the discovery of uses for previously overlooked cards. New deck types often spring up from using previously deeply unpopular cards in a new way.

Kirby wrote: »

Tazdingo is a terrible example for your argument and the perfect example for mine. He isn't "at a sweet spot". He's over budget. Other cards are under budget. He's better than the other 4 drops so that's why people take him. So you either nerf him or buff everything else. Over budget cards like Defender of Argus, Dark Iron Dwarf. They were taken in every deck, regardless of its composition because they were simply better than everything else at 4 mana. It's that simple. They needed nerfing and they were. They simply haven't gotten around to Tazdingo yet or wont because they want to buff the other taunts to help stem the aggro/face spam the game has become

It needs to become a choice for the player. And when you have cards superior to their counterparts, there is no choice. Having "Must haves" in a deck is awful, awful game balance. You want diversity.

"Sweet spot" has nothing to do with over or under budget and has everything to do with a 3/5 being an annoying taunt for aggro to deal with on Turn 4 and likely to do 2-1 or better in a trade and 5 health is very resistant to most early game removal cards. This is the same as the Yeti whose 5 health is really the key factor rather than his 4 attack. Removing a 5 health minion is annoying usually. Removing a 4 mana one efficiently is very problematic for many decks.

Balance isn't just about the points budget, it's about how the card will interact with the board on the turns its playable at. E.g 4 attack creatures are in an odd place since Priest removal spells cannot affect them and Tink transformations being less optimal than with a 5 attack creature (a definite plus point for Caine as being durable). A card can be under budget but still very effective because of this or be over budget and not really as big a problem (e.g. budget is pretty meaningless when it comes to 9 drops and their value is solely based on the card text and/or resistance to various kinds of removal).

nesf

Kirby wrote: »

Now, I love my Golden Cairne.....but he needs a nerf. And he's just one example of this. Tbh I'm amazed I have any resistance with this kind of thinking.

I agree with Cairne. Most of my disagreement comes from the idea that all cards should be viable because it implies that we already know how the game should be played. Cairne wouldn't be near as strong in a Silence heavy meta. We're not in one right now but that may change or it may not (though even if he eats a Silence I still think he's worth 6 mana).

There will always be flux, some cards will appear to not have a use and then someone figures out some new way to a particular victory condition and suddenly they're very interesting. It's like King Krush, I really like the card thematically for Hunters but he's unplayable in any of the viable deck types right now because no one's figured out a late game hunter deck yet. This may change though without any of the cards changing or with just a few cards added in an expansion.

Nody

nesf wrote: »

I agree with Cairne. Most of my disagreement comes from the idea that all cards should be viable because it implies that we already know how the game should be played. Cairne wouldn't be near as strong in a Silence heavy meta. We're not in one right now but that may change or it may not (though even if he eats a Silence I still think he's worth 6 mana).

4/5 for 6 mana and a silence? Not sure I'd buy that...

The problem is there's a noticeable lack of non melee removal (i.e. there's very limited number of silence cards, morph cards, decent taunts or general "control what your oppnents minion does ala blue" cards) to spice things up. This in turn leads towards rush decks as the standard counters (good taunts, aoe, slow playing) are much more rare to have available and small cards tend to get better stats (+effect) vs. big cards (i.e. 8 mana of 1/2 mana cost critters vs. 1 8/8 taunter means the big guy goes down easily).

Tar.Aldarion

Cards should not be equal, who decides if they are equal, how they should be equal? Who decidedes how we should play the game? Certain cards were uinplayable a month ago and are staple now. Common cards are now never used and things will change again. Even cairne is useless if there is predominantly rush decks, it's a dead card in your hand. Is shieldbearer now equal that there is a use for it, what about when the meta changes again do all the cards have to change? The only necessary thing is diversity, that creates real equality. You can't even compare a lot of cards. It's not feasible to change these cards all the time, it's not even near the amount of cards there will be soon either.

To make these changes you need a "solved" game, which hearthstone is not and cannot be.

nesf

Nody wrote: »

4/5 for 6 mana and a silence? Not sure I'd buy that...

Think of it buying one of your opponent's silences for 2 mana. Depending on the deck you're playing this could be quite a good trade.

Nody

Just had a fun arena game against a mage; ended up with 35 armor / 25 health between my two armor smiths and self buffs.

Tar.Aldarion

Seifer wrote: »

Quite the opposite; rogue is very playable without a ton of epics and legendaries. You can do very well using a board control deck made up of a lot of the strong commons supported by basic rogue cards. SI:7 agent is a very good rare worth crafting for most rogue decks.

Been changing it up and rogue has great tempo, also turn 3 8/8 edwin ftw.
Also have mukla thrown in and cheap removal with normal strong neutrals.
Gonna wait til I randomly get those si:7's as I dont want to bother crafting rares.

Gbear

Is it worth chucking out my Tinkmaster and crafting another legendary like Rag?

Link to all the patch notes:
http://imgur.com/a/rwZQB

Tar.Aldarion

Seifer

Best patch ever!

If you disconnect from a game, you now have 60 seconds to try and reconnect and pick up from where you left off.

Nody

Gbear wrote: »

Is it worth chucking out my Tinkmaster and crafting another legendary like Rag?

Link to all the patch notes:
http://imgur.com/a/rwZQB

Yes; Tink is only worth keeping once you're down to the final 10 or legendaries less I'd say.

Tar.Aldarion

Might craft my first card, done none so far.


Maybe leeroy or rag hmm

Mr Bloat

I have dusted my Tink and now must decide will I go for a one off cool legendary or use the dust to craft a few decent utility commons and rares that I am short. Decisions, decisions!

Tar.Aldarion

i tend to just wait for the rares commons because they are added to in every pack, tehre are so many good altermnatives to commons/rares that most aren't necessary at all.

I'm just gonna do legendaries. Still don't know if I'd like leeroy or rag. Rags new intro is amazing!