DatModz Updated zDPS Monk, RoS Problems and Future
Upcoming Shop Sales, Epic Plays of the Week #27
Patch 6.2 - Mail PvP Armor, Blue Tweets, GW2 Specializations, Poll, DLC #486
Top Decks of the Week
It's Sunday and that means we're taking a look at the top decks of the past week here on HearthPwn. Quite a healthy bit of class distribution this time around with Shaman being the only class not making the top cut.
| Deck | Author | Cost |
|---|---|---|
 Legend Grim Patron Warrior |
Senfglas | 700 |
 Legendary Druid |
diogochines2s | 8540 |
 Dragon Paladin |
Mill_OrigiN | 11080 |
 Ysera priest |
Rrewem | 5180 |
 Zoo Gang |
thedeadgoldfish | 1320 |
| Brian Kibler's S13 Dragon Paladin |
EvilQoo | 6960 |
 Tempo Mage |
FreiKuk | 5700 |
 Face Hunter |
yell9x | 2640 |
 Midrange Dragon Rogue |
allstar997 | 5860 |
| Midrange Hunter |
TarrokTV | 2980 |
Blackrock Mountain Boss Design
Philip Kollar of Polygon got a chance to sit down with Hearthstone Senior Game Designer, Ben Brode, to discuss the design around bosses in Blackrock Mountain. The interview went over the bosses we saw in Wing #4 - Blackwing Lair. We've recapped their interview below, check out the full interview.
- The team wanted to do Molten Core initially, but there weren't enough bosses.
- They settled on the surrounding area, Blackrock Mountain.
- "What if we mixes it up and did a greatest hits?"
- First part of the design was to go do dungeons in World of Warcraft.
- They wanted to find out what was most memorable and cool about each fight.
- The art team took screenshots of the raids to figure out what to do for the game board.
- The Razorgore fight was the hardest to design.
- An initial version replaced your hero power with one which controlled Razorgore, so you'd fill his side with eggs and win as Razorgore.
- Another version involved playing as both your hero and Razorgore.
- Ben looks at fights from two different ways:
- Top-down Design - Replicate a boss to feel just like the WoW fight.
- Bottom-up Design - Start from scratch with a boss because the WoW version isn't interesting (Drakkisath).
- The best case of design is when you get a top-down fight that feels like bottom-up.
- Vaelastrasz: "You just felt like you were super powerful."
- It is quite similar to the WoW fight, just instead of regaining mana/energy you get cards.
- Ben wanted to do something with cards that triggered when they were in your hand. This fit Chromaggus.
- This design isn't present in Hearthstone, having to choose between spending your mana to "dispel" yourself, or play your own cards.
- The design team is watching community feedback on Chromaggus - should they do it again.
- One version of Chromaggus used cards which gave you debuffs instead of giving him buffs.
- Another version of the fight gave the player the Mutation Hero Power.
- The Nefarian fight had a unique aspect where you might not want to play with a certain class because they had too good of spells.
- Fights in adventures don't have to be 100% exact to WoW lore.
Versus Series - Meta vs Aquablad
Jotto's back with another episode of Versus Series. Today, Meta takes on Aquadblad in a best of three series using the conquest format. Check out the matches below, along with their decklists!
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Was surprised http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/232145-midrange-dragon-rogue made the list. It has cards that won't exist until thursday.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)did they mention what happened to razorgore's claws?
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)The bosses ended up a lot more boring compared to what ideas they said they originally had...
Also, they really need to balance some of them. *cough*Drakkisath*cough*
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Drakkisath was one of the easier ones to be honest. Heroic Chrommaggus was where the difficulty really ramped up. The cards he had access to in his deck are insane. As well as putting us behind with the 3 cost "debuffs". He was the hardest boss I've had to deal with in either Naxxramas or Blackrock Mountain so far.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)That's odd. I found Drakkisath insanely difficult, borderline impossible, without using the Kel'Thuzad bug. Chromaggus, on the other hand, was relatively easy to beat given the right deck and a small dash of RNG. If I were to beat Drakkisath normally though, it would take far more RNG in getting the most perfect draws, I feel.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)chromaggus was HARD, drakkisath was just pure RNG
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)The only way to really successfully beat Drakkisath was to cheese it in one or or another in all honestly. Either with Kel'Thuzad or Majordomo Executus. Doing it any other way is pissing into the wind in my opinion.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)I feel kind of sad they didn't have Chimaeron, my favorite boss of BWD. They could have done something like:
You start with "Bile-o-tron" - 0/5 Stealth, friendly characters above 1 health cannot be reduced below 1 health.
And the boss has a ton of really strong minions, not to mention a 10/2 windfury weapon he can equip.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)I wish there was an indicator to show that decks contain Blackrock/Naxxramas cards so that the dust cost of decks does not actually reflect the true cost of the deck (since the gold/$ cost of each wing required isn't shown). Senfglas's warrior deck (which is a lot of fun, I highly recommend it) may only cost 700 dust for the cards you can craft, but it requires 4 wings of Naxxramas and 1 wing of Blackrock Mountain to actually create the deck. If you are starting from scratch which can be prohibitive to new players. I would suggest maybe using the Naxxramas and Blackrock symbols used in the deckbuilder to show decks that require adventure mode card rewards (when viewing lists of decks).
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Wow. Obviously the Bottom-up Design turned out to be a flop, as Drakkisath design just downright SUCKED.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)I've enjoyed the boss fights so far, except Heroic Chromaggus, that was just torture :/
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Might as well call it Mythic difficulty
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Other than Rend, I've enjoyed the adventure so far. Looking forward to the last wing coming out soon.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Wow So me and Nox have been doing the adventure mode build correct...Hmmmm good to know...Which reminds me we should finish that up.
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Did u mean "mana/energy" ?? :)
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Yep, that's been resolved. Ty
-
View User Profile
-
Send Message
Posted Apr 27, 2015 (Blackrock Launch)Always interesting to see their thought processes in designing the adventures - and interesting to hear about where that Mutation Hero Power disappeared to. Was so confused when that didn't show up at all in the fight.