Keywarden Quick Reference, Fast Gem Leveling Guide
Balance Patch This Week, Dustin Tweets Round-Up, Rotation for Feb. 9, 2016, Weekly Sales
Legion - Resto Druid Artifact Intro, Achievement Search, Tweets, Setup of the Month
Ben Brode on Druid Basic Cards, Balancing, New Heroes
Shacknews and PC Gamer had a chance to speak with Ben Brode about the new formats, balance, and new heroes. Check out our recap below.
Quote from Ben Brode
- No plans on buffing any cards during the balance pass.
- The number of card changes will be more than 2 cards but less than 20.
- They're looking at Druid basic cards as Druids use more basic cards than any other class.
- Ideally they will change as little as possible with the nerfs so old cards stay recognizable.
- The bulk of balance efforts will be dedicated to Standard.
- Wild balance will likely be reactive.
- They will still take a conservative approach to balance.
- Wild will "have interesting new combinations of cards that should be pretty fun and more powerful than baseline Hearthstone feels right now".
- New heroes have not been given up on - they just haven't made any new ones yet.
- Ben thinks we'll "hear about new heroes in the not-too-distant future".
- They're aware of what tools we'll lose when sets drop from standard and can plan accordingly to give us new tools that we want.
- They were "very wrong" about Undertaker back in the day.
- They've been talking internally about how they can make dailies better - it's been a while since they've touched it.
Top 10 Regret Cards from Naxx & GvG
Noxious posted a video on his favourite cards that never really saw the light of day from Naxxramas and Goblins vs Gnomes.
What lesser played cards will you be missing from these expansions?
Overwatch Beta Returns Today!
After being down for almost two months, the Overwatch Beta is returning! Our friends at OverPwn have compiled a rundown of all the awesome stuff you'll want to know for when the beta returns later today. Check it out here or click on the banner below to head on over to OverPwn.
Do you think a change in daily quests could be a good move for us?
I fear we'll get less gold... :/
as all new daily quests we've seen are at least 50 gold, i don't think they'll make some new 40s
Assuming you don't simply expand Enrage by saying "X. Enrage: lose X." I'd suggest a name that emphasises that the minion has been untouched by battle.
Not many of those sound like good keywords to me though. Just my opinion. I prefer the negative Enrage effects.
Let's at least hope that the new cards make up for the Druid nerfs. Especially the cards that will be nerfed outside of Savage/Nature.
Otherwise, I hope they at least have the mindset to possibly undo/redo some of those nerfs if it turns out they end up making Druid not viable anymore.
Druid is going to feel the pain, finally. Yes other classes use basic cards but none as potently as druid. They don't need to be bad but a bad matchup would be refreshing now and then.
Yes and no. There will be a new expansion to provide class power lost from GvG cards including Muster for Battle and Tinker's Sharpsword Oil. In terms of the base set, lowering Druid means they can get cool new toys as well instead of new expansion cards having to be bad because the base is too good.
No buffs?
Well, time to dust my Millhouse Manastorm since Blizzard won't actually BALANCE dead cards
No buffs, so just nerfs then? What a fucking letdown, they announce a balance pass at basic and classic cards which have some of the worst cards they've ever printed and they opt just to nerf a few things? Very disappointing, for example the removal of antique healbot for standard made this a perfect time to rework Priestess of Elune to be viable.
New heroes :)
Since Classic is going to be the baseline foundation for Standard play, they don't want Classic cards to be better than cards from Expansions and Adventures. And they don't want to set a precident of buffing underplayed cards because then they'll be expected to buff every card that isn't viable (in turn pushing power creep into new cards).
Not to say I completely agree with their policy to only ever nerf cards. Warlock for example has a lot of mediocre basic and classic cards, with no real spot removal and a lot of minions that are virtually unplayable (moreso without Voidcaller).
ROTFL instead of buffing other class cards, so they r used more, they will nerf druid class cards, cause they r used too much? What an amazing way of thinking :DDD
Force Savage combo has needed a nerf since the game came out. It's so strong that it limits the design space for all Druid deck archetypes, since every new druid card has to be balanced around the fact that any druid can Innervate out a 2-card 14+ damage combo on turn 6+.
Yes, but the thing is, he is saying, that a lot more class cards is being used in druid then in other classes. If they r gonna nerf like Druid of the Claw, Keeper of the Grove, Ancient of Lore etc etc. that will be pretty stupid. Sure nerf SR, but dont nerf other perfectly good cards just so they aint played that much lol ...
I used to be an adventurer like you.. Then my adventure took an arrow in the knee.