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  1. - Top - End - #241
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Seerow View Post
    I cruised from Diamond 10 to Diamond 3 without losing a game to anything other than the mirror match. If I had more stamina I probably could have pushed it to Legend, but I can only take so many games in a day. Every Libram Paladin, Spell Mage, Tempo/Clone Priest, were basically free wins. I don't think I even saw any of the other classes (actually I did see a couple Druids, they were too slow and I never really saw them play much).

    Demon Hunter really is that good. In the Diamond to legend ranks, it is the only class that has a positive win rate. In Wild, it is over 55% win rate, toppling even Secret Mage which has been the meta definer there for a long time. In Arena, it came close to 60% win rate, and is the only class with positive win rate.

    We aren't looking at a case of "Everyone's playing the fun new toy and that's inflating representation", that may be a part of it, but if that was all, it would not be so completely dominant statistically. The class is very overtuned, and nobody has found a way to effectively counter it, even when trying old standbys like Res Priest and double Sac Pact Handlock.
    I don't think these numbers really mean too much 2 days into the expansion though. Remember when Descent dropped and Face Hunter was crushing everyone at something in the ballpark of a 62% winrate for the first week after the Shaman nerfs?

    Then people adjusted and it swiftly dropped to Tier 2.

    The Arena numbers make sense, largely because Demon Hunter doesn't really have any bad cards; their pool isn't diluted by a bunch of pack filler like every other class is (well, save for the Neutral options). If a DH gets offered a class card in Arena, it's guaranteed better than the average Arena card. But I don't see DH being "uncounterable" in Standard for very long.
    Last edited by Rynjin; 2020-04-08 at 09:30 PM.

  2. - Top - End - #242
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    First nerf to Demon Hunter is live XD.

    That is an absolute record. Because it's a server-side change, all the cards will show modified red numbers until the data patch in a week.

    Skull of Gul’dan – Mana cost increased from 5 to 6.
    Imprisoned Antaen – Mana cost increased from 5 to 6.
    Eye Beam – Outcast Mana cost increased from 0 to 1.
    Aldrachi Warblades – Durability decreased from 3 to 2.

  3. - Top - End - #243
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    I don't think these numbers really mean too much 2 days into the expansion though. Remember when Descent dropped and Face Hunter was crushing everyone at something in the ballpark of a 62% winrate for the first week after the Shaman nerfs?

    Then people adjusted and it swiftly dropped to Tier 2.

    The Arena numbers make sense, largely because Demon Hunter doesn't really have any bad cards; their pool isn't diluted by a bunch of pack filler like every other class is (well, save for the Neutral options). If a DH gets offered a class card in Arena, it's guaranteed better than the average Arena card. But I don't see DH being "uncounterable" in Standard for very long.
    Well it's a big enough problem that Blizzard already nerfed Demon Hunter:

    Skull of Gul’dan – Mana cost increased from 5 to 6.

    Imprisoned Antaen – Mana cost increased from 5 to 6.

    Eye Beam – Outcast Mana cost increased from 0 to 1.

    Aldrachi Warblades – Durability decreased from 3 to 2.

    (Changes are server side, so they still look 'normal' in collections but have Red numbers while playing. Skull of Gul'dan and Imprisoned Antaen can be dusted for full value.)

    Of the changes, Skull of Gul'dan was very much deserved; it was at worse pre-nerfed Nourish draw, but more often than not it's almost two copies of Wondrous Wands that you didn't need to go through the hoops of Rogue's Galakrond or Togwaggle.

    Antaen strikes me a bit odd, though I guess it's to stagger the sheer amount of damage it and Priestess of Fury does when played on curve. Even big and tall boards will have trouble against surprise 16 damage at random. I would've nerfed Priestess of Fury though, she's a slightly smaller Ragnaros that can still attack.

    Eye Beam and Warblades are 100% trying to pull the healing back a bit. Warblades especially might as well had been 3/3 before with the hero power.

    The speediness of the nerfs kind of rubs off me wrong though, like this was actually what they had the cards before, but opted to err on the side of making DH overpowered so that people would try it out more, but their metrics all came back with "Uh yeah, so the class is literally the only one with a +50% winrate." And I'm pretty sure even during the heights of Shaman with Tombs of Terror and early Descent of Dragons wasn't depressing the other classes' winrates like this.
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  4. - Top - End - #244
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    While I stand by what I said earlier (people would have adjusted and it would have equalized out to a more reasonable level pretty soon), these nerfs in particular seem well deserved to me (and explains my confusion for why I saw a DH play a 1 mana Eye Beams earlier; I didn't even see my game update!). Skull of Gul'dan is the most ridiculous card they've ever printed by a wide margin IMO.

  5. - Top - End - #245
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Joran View Post
    First nerf to Demon Hunter is live XD.

    That is an absolute record. Because it's a server-side change, all the cards will show modified red numbers until the data patch in a week.

    Skull of Gul’dan – Mana cost increased from 5 to 6.
    Imprisoned Antaen – Mana cost increased from 5 to 6.
    Eye Beam – Outcast Mana cost increased from 0 to 1.
    Aldrachi Warblades – Durability decreased from 3 to 2.
    Those seem fair.

    I didn't have much of an issue with Demon Hunter myself. Like Rynjin said, the deck is powerful but it has huge gaps that you can exploit. My Spell Mage typically beat it if I could stick a Deep Freeze, and Into the Fray Warrior just trashes them unless your deck beats itself by not drawing any of your synergy cards.

    However, the cards that they nerfed were the ones I expected. Skull of Gul'dan in particular allowed far too many shenanigans. That leaves 3 cards "on the list". Priestess of Fury, Altruis the Outcast, and Satyr Overseer. In that order. I'm not saying I think they should be nerfed - I'm saying those are the 3 remaining cards that have had the biggest impact when I've played against them.

  6. - Top - End - #246
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
    Those seem fair.

    I didn't have much of an issue with Demon Hunter myself. Like Rynjin said, the deck is powerful but it has huge gaps that you can exploit. My Spell Mage typically beat it if I could stick a Deep Freeze, and Into the Fray Warrior just trashes them unless your deck beats itself by not drawing any of your synergy cards.

    However, the cards that they nerfed were the ones I expected. Skull of Gul'dan in particular allowed far too many shenanigans. That leaves 3 cards "on the list". Priestess of Fury, Altruis the Outcast, and Satyr Overseer. In that order. I'm not saying I think they should be nerfed - I'm saying those are the 3 remaining cards that have had the biggest impact when I've played against them.
    Altruis as a legendary is fine, especially with the nerf to Eye Beams. Satyr Overseer is strong, but at 3 mana with only 2 health it is reasonable. The one card I still really want to see addressed is Battlefiend. A 1 mana 2/2 is already a premium 1 drop. Giving it an upside in the form of permanent growth that's easy to achieve is the kind of snowball that the devs have been deliberately removing from one drops for years. See: Tunnel Trog, Mana Wyrm, Undertaker, and probably others I'm forgetting. Half of the turn 4/5 kills I've seen from DH have come from dropping 1-2 of these in the first 1-2 turns and the opponent not having an immediate answer. Even if they get dealt with on turn 2-3, by that point they're down to 10 health and DH has the reach to seal that.

    Well that and Priestess. She is basically Ragnaros, but better, with lower mana cost, the ability to attack, and the ability to run two in a deck. I think it'd be fair to make her proc at the start of turn instead of end of turn, so opponents get a chance to either remove or play around her before getting shredded with 6 missiles.
    Last edited by Seerow; 2020-04-08 at 10:57 PM.
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  7. - Top - End - #247
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Amusing interaction I had found with Eyebeam and Skull of Gul'dan now; Eyebeam's Outcast will override the discount when it's active, a quirk I tripped on while playing DH for the event questline.
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  8. - Top - End - #248
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Geno9999 View Post
    Amusing interaction I had found with Eyebeam and Skull of Gul'dan now; Eyebeam's Outcast will override the discount when it's active, a quirk I tripped on while playing DH for the event questline.
    This is intentional(?) probably, I've seen plenty of other cards interact that way (like Scorch).

  9. - Top - End - #249
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Yeah, DH is ridiculous.

    Played some, won every single game except mirror matches.
    Way too much cheap card draw,Skull of Gul'dan is incredible ramp, and those finishers (Antaen and Priestess of Fury) are just bonkers.

    You don't necessarily need to hit *all* of these to nerf DH (he needs a class identity after all) but you gotta do something.

    Ladder is unplayable, and apparently Arena is the same, so i guess it's time for some Battlegrounds.

    Reached 7.7k, now i didn't wanna buy the 2500 gold thing so i'm restricted to only 2 heroes. Let's see if I manage to keep climbing.

    Ah, opened 10-15 packs and my legendary was Al'ar. :/
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Pretty sad of them to screwup soooo badly; and so foreseeably. There's no way internal testing shouldn't have noticed problems like this; which means they either really skipped out on testing, or intentionally released something they knew they'd have to nerf.

    irksome that you now need a battlepass for those battlegrounds bonuses, I preferred when getting enough packs got them. especially since pouring a bunch of gold in for something that doesn't give you nearly as many cards back is a pain. It makes me more inclined to just skip battlegrounds entirely; especially since it already has the issue of not helping with quests. I guess they figure they gotta find ways to make money off it though.
    Last edited by zlefin; 2020-04-09 at 09:10 AM.
    A neat custom class for 3.5 system
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94616

    A good set of benchmarks for PF/3.5
    https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2...y-the-numbers/

    An alternate craft point system I made for 3.5
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...t-Point-system

  11. - Top - End - #251
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    I honestly don't think the nerfs were harsh enough, and the fact that Priestess got away unscathed is bonkers. I honestly think the Imprisoned Antaen wake up turn + play Priestess is one of the most oppressive Turn 7s I've seen, if you're not able to kill both of them or get enough health on the board quickly, it's game ending.

    I do think people will adjust and the win % will drop a bit, but if further unchanged the class will still sit in S-tier for a long time, even if it's not horribly broken.

  12. - Top - End - #252
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    I played Trump! And horribly misplayed on stream, but still won because Demon Hunter is dumb.

    So, in my Hearthstone playing time, I've played and beat Reynad, Firebat, and Trump. I'm one Kibler away from hitting all the huge names. Lost to Monsanto.

    Still Diamond 10, got 5 games in for Demon Hunter, but haven't figured out what a good version is. I crafted Metamorphosis since that seems like a safe craft at the moment as long as Demon Hunter is good.

  13. - Top - End - #253
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Joran View Post
    I played Trump! And horribly misplayed on stream, but still won because Demon Hunter is dumb.

    So, in my Hearthstone playing time, I've played and beat Reynad, Firebat, and Trump. I'm one Kibler away from hitting all the huge names. Lost to Monsanto.

    Still Diamond 10, got 5 games in for Demon Hunter, but haven't figured out what a good version is. I crafted Metamorphosis since that seems like a safe craft at the moment as long as Demon Hunter is good.
    Congrats! The only streamer I've played against (that I've noticed, I admittedly don't usually look at the name of who I'm playing) is Hobbs, who is much smaller than any of the big names.

    That said you're also missing Kripp off your list.



    Anyway, I spent the last hour or so trying a few variations on buff/tempo priest... and it just doesn't work. They utterly neutered Priest's card draw, and they don't have the card generation to make up the difference. I can generally get a decent start then just get out valued hard around the time I should be winning the game. Hope someone else cracks the code, because I'd really hate for it to be yet another expansion of Mass res being the only viable priest archetype.
    Last edited by Seerow; 2020-04-09 at 08:31 PM.
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  14. - Top - End - #254
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    I am changing my opinion, having dropped several ranks in Wild against Demon Hunter as Quest Mage. Given that it lacks the decade (?) of eclectic card buildup it has no right to be that strong. Odd Demon Hunter seems nuts, I wish I could afford to make Baku.
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Seerow View Post
    Anyway, I spent the last hour or so trying a few variations on buff/tempo priest... and it just doesn't work. They utterly neutered Priest's card draw, and they don't have the card generation to make up the difference. I can generally get a decent start then just get out valued hard around the time I should be winning the game. Hope someone else cracks the code, because I'd really hate for it to be yet another expansion of Mass res being the only viable priest archetype.
    "Good news everyone! We completely reworked Priest! Look at all the buffed cards they got!"
    [Priest still ends up sucking aside from some niche decks.]

    Yeah, sounds about right.
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    The combination of "an entire rework of priest" and "here's a whole new class" screams to me that they're using the community to beta test. The speediness of that server side nerf just makes it obvious.

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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    The combination of "an entire rework of priest" and "here's a whole new class" screams to me that they're using the community to beta test. The speediness of that server side nerf just makes it obvious.
    Well, it is in vogue these days, with all the open betas and early access.
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  18. - Top - End - #258
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Seerow View Post
    Congrats! The only streamer I've played against (that I've noticed, I admittedly don't usually look at the name of who I'm playing) is Hobbs, who is much smaller than any of the big names.

    That said you're also missing Kripp off your list.
    Yup, Kripp is probably the largest of the names in terms of viewers/attention. I'm not at a high enough MMR in Battlegrounds to queue into him though; for Ranked, since there's a reset, I catch the streamers on their way back up to Legend (Trump was Diamond 1, I was Diamond 10).

    Hobbs is cool!

    I see the usernames in Ranked for some reason; occasionally when I queue into the same class twice, I'll check my history to see if I'm playing the same person again and will know their deck list. Battlegrounds less so, not sure if I ever played anyone relatively famous there.

  19. - Top - End - #259
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Pretty sure the only time I ever ran into a streamer while playing was shortly after Battlegrounds released, when I played in a match that included Alliestraza. Or at least, somebody using that name, I can't actually be completely sure it was her, since I think multiple people can have the same user name in Hearthstone? Still, everyone was playing Battlegrounds in those days, so it wouldn't be much of a surprise.

    Beyond that, don't think I've ever seen one. Though of course I also don't often look at my opponents' names anyway, so I could've just missed it.
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Oh good, Blizzard did a server-side patch and broke the mobile client.

    Again.

    I look forward to the next 3 months of crashing 50 times every time I log on and losing games when I crash in the middle of an important turn.

    ----

    With a lack of tempo/midrange Priest decks appearing I finally gave in and created a Rez Priest deck. I did want to at least try and innovate so I went with just the shell and put in a Sethekk Veilweaver package. That's 2 Veilweavers, 2 Holy Smites, 2 Renews, and 2 Penances.

    It's surprisingly effective, and hellish fun if you can get the combo going. Not having to target your own minions makes all the difference, and it's not uncommon to clear the enemies board with all the 1 and 2 mana spells you generate. I tormented a Pure Paladin by stealing his Librams and then repeatedly resurrecting the Veilweavers to set off another chain of buffs. Anyone that doesn't go fast gets ground out by the typical Rez Priest shenanigans.

    The deck doesn't hold up against a proper Rez Priest, but I suspect I have a better winrate against aggro decks thanks to all the early removal.

    My rank climbing has finally hit a wall at Diamond 8. I think that's about rank 5 under the old system (if we calculate 3 stars per rank * 8 = 24 stars vs 25 stars from old rank 5) so that's pretty pleasing. Rank 5 was the best I could ever do anyway.

  21. - Top - End - #261
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    How is non-Priest Control doing in this new age of VENGEANCE? I'm considering putting together an Embiggen Druid or some form of Control Warrior, with my 31,000 dust.

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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    I think warriors in the trash but not sure. There's a couple variants of big druid that do alright. Some are more like old emgiggen with dragons and elusive, others more just straight up giant taunts. Spell druid is also pretty good. But I think the top of the heap right now is galakrond warlock. Might give it a few more days to settle.

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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Thomas Cardew View Post
    I think warriors in the trash but not sure. There's a couple variants of big druid that do alright. Some are more like old emgiggen with dragons and elusive, others more just straight up giant taunts. Spell druid is also pretty good. But I think the top of the heap right now is galakrond warlock. Might give it a few more days to settle.
    I saw on twitter someone talking about doing well in high legend with Egg Aggro warrior of all things. Warrior's in the trash now, but as some of these more obscure decks get refined and gain popularity, it could have a place.
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Just reached Diamond 5 with my libram paladin deck! If Rank 5 was the equivalent of Diamond 10, I'm better this expansion than I've ever been in the past!

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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Embiggen/Big Druid still looks good, there's Spell Druid but that's more of a Token Druid with a Kael'thas swing turn potential.

    Kibler made a Into the Fray deck, though as with any Kibler deck, it requires Kibler IQ to pilot, as HSreplay has it at ~36% winrate and doesn't even list it in the tier list.
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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Currently churning through Platinum with Dragon Murloc Paladin, which is neat.

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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by Geno9999 View Post
    Embiggen/Big Druid still looks good, there's Spell Druid but that's more of a Token Druid with a Kael'thas swing turn potential.

    Kibler made a Into the Fray deck, though as with any Kibler deck, it requires Kibler IQ to pilot, as HSreplay has it at ~36% winrate and doesn't even list it in the tier list.
    Into the Fray Warrior was really good for a little while at the start of the expansion. Everyone was running some form of Demon Hunter and Combo DH hadn't been invented yet. That meant you could just stick up walls of taunts and get a pretty good winrate.

    Once other decks started becoming prevalent it proved too 1-dimensional to work well. I think even Kibler gave up on it.

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    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Quote Originally Posted by LaZodiac View Post
    The combination of "an entire rework of priest" and "here's a whole new class" screams to me that they're using the community to beta test. The speediness of that server side nerf just makes it obvious.
    There's clearly been a change in Hearthstone philosophy in the last couple of years. Previously, the devs were more hands-off, relying on the players to come up with counter-decks to the predominant deck or to rely on new cards/adventures to fix problems in the meta.

    Now that Hearthstone is older, people are more skilled and tools are more advanced with HSReplay and VS Reaper, the meta can get stale really quickly. Additionally, the main competitive format is a weekly league so a really stale meta would be a double hit because it'd hurt both viewership and the playerbase.

    To avoid that the devs are both doing balance changes more often and doing unprecedented changes to the game mid-expansion with mini-events like bringing back Wild Cards, adding new cards like Snip-Snap and the mid-season adventure, and even doing buffs to unplayed cards.

    Dovetailing into this is that the devs are also willing to up the power level of cards and open up design-space. Descent of Dragons and Outlands are really powerful and the cards are doing unprecedented things, so if the devs miss, it could be really overbearing (hi launch Demon Hunter). So, the devs are introducing more risk into the meta by printing things that are powerful and unknown and doing it more often. So, they also have to be willing to step in if they miss.

    So, it's not great that they released Demon Hunter and then immediately had to nerf 24 hours later, but it's good that they acted so quickly. I wonder if they thought DH was a 9/10 and it ended up being a 12/10. Launch day has to have orders of magnitude more games played than any playtests the devs can run and they can use that data to target specific cards.

  29. - Top - End - #269
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Joran's Avatar

    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
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    Male

    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    There's a Reddit AMA on Hearthstone.

    Buried in the replies, looks like nerfs are coming for:

    With the Year of the Phoenix and Demon Hunter especially, we want to make sure we are active with our approach to balance. There will be additional changes coming shortly that is focused on Demon Hunter, Standard, Wild, and Arena.

    For Demon Hunter, we are still monitoring the data as it comes in but expect 1 or 2 cards to see a change. We are thrilled by how players have responded to Demon Hunter, but we want the class to be in a healthy state for years to come. Will be adjusting as we see fit in order to get it into a great spot.

    For other standard cards, we are looking at a number of cards including Sacrificial Pact, Bad Luck Albatross, Frenzied Felwing, and Kael'Thas. Some of these cards present some raw power that is just a little too high (Bad Luck Albatross, Frenzied Felwing), while a card like Kael'Thas can create some crazy swing turns but that's usually only fun for one player. Kael'Thas is a super interesting card though so we don't want to kill off his combo potential entirely.

    When it comes to Sac Pac, we don't believe it is fun if it plays such a large role in the metagame. That says a lot about where the meta is and your ability to play certain cards. Also, it would be awesome to see more Jaraxxus!

    For Wild, we know there has been a lot of very strong reactions to Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock. These decks play in a one-player fashion similar to other decks we've nerfed in the past. There's going to be crazy combos in Wild, but we don't think these two decks in particular are healthy. Expect to see changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom.

    Finally for Arena, we are looking to do a full microadjust patch alongside these changes or shortly after. DH is still a little too strong here and we want to bring up the other classes to close this gap.

  30. - Top - End - #270
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfRogueGirl

    Join Date
    Jun 2018

    Default Re: Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

    Rather funny that Sacrificial pact is suddenly not that niche of a card when more than one class uses demons in their deck.

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