So, hunter is dominating the ladder again. As somebody who plays this class extensively, I will agree that it has some very powerful cards and combos. Hunter is a frightening deck to play against, and requires a lot of thinking to defeat. Now that eaglehorn bow has been weakened, and unleash the hounds costs 3 mana, do you think that blizzard will resort to editing the class again? Or would it be a bit unfair to nerf it ?
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Lost access to my internet for over a year - glad to be back :3
To be honest, it's not the hunter class specifically thats over powered or in need of a nerf, its the act of a miracle. In card games, a miracle is when you draw a lot of cards and cycle through other ones to get your powerful cards in your hand for easy set-up to victory, and often this strategy is done within one or two turns which doesn't allow counterplay. You see this with miracle rogue (obviously) and with the unleash buzzard, plus all the other 1 and 2 drops that hunter has used for card draw, as well as with Priest circle of healing with cleric. Another consideration is divine favor. They are strategies that require certain conditions (less so for rogues) and completely turn games in their favor by a large margin.
To nerf/ control this insanity of miracle which is insanely powerful in hearthstone which has very little cycling as opposed to other card games (playing cards from deck, graveyard, etc.) Blizzard would have to put either: A) limit on card draw per turn, around 5 would be appropriate to prevent those massive miracles which flip games around and give the miracle-ist a less powerful advantage or- B) nerf those cards in particular.
I don't think so. From my experience playing the class, Hunter can be annoying, but it relies on card combos in order to deal with threats efficiently, as well it tends to have some really terrible starts. Some games depend completely on you drawing UTH or you insta loose. There's also been quite a few games where I draw my whole deck and I'll still have no answer to my opponents board. So no, I don't think it will be nerfed.
I think a large part of the popularity is that it's a super cheap deck to build. With Kolento's mid-range build having no epics or legendaries it has a very low cost of ownership which makes it a very attractive choice, which is probably driving it's popularity way more than how good it is. If it represented the majority of say the top 20 legendary players maybe there would be a problem but being popular on most of the ladder doesn't mean much about it's overall power.
Your concerns are most considerable. I have been having the same thoughts/concerns as well, specially that Hunter is the class with most class specific cards got nerfed, which causes anxiety to its lovers to keep on weakening the class they enjoy playing above all else. However, the current relative dominance isn't as bad as it used to be with face Hunter (the season it caused UTH to be nerfed), rather, it's more midrangy in its presence which is very fair and acceptable.
Luckily, there are more classes with powerful decks seem to be on the list -of players' thoughts- to nerf-slammed, Zoolock and Miracle Rogue, which makes any further Hunter class specific card nerf be completely unfair and unreasonable. In other words, doing away with the class that it becomes almost unplayable (since it's a heavy combo class that its minions and spells are mostly useless by themselves).
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You can't harass members who play Face Hunter, nor are they compelled to make preemptive apologies or justifications for playing it. They don't hack or crack their opponents' game, they simply play existing cards that form a specific deck. If you suck at countering Face Hunter, you should blame the designers, not the community.
1: UTH+Buzzard; but the only real way to nerf this would be to make Buzzard 3 mana or a 1/1.
2: Savanna Highmane which is stupidly powerful.
I think a Highmane nerf is far more likly. 6/5 for 6 which summons two 2/2's after it dies is too good. It's even better than Fire Elemental; which is a 6/5 for 6 which deals 3 damage; and Shaman needs efficient cards due to a lack of card-draw; which Hunter dosen't have,
Either Highmane goes to 7; becomes a 5/5 or summons 1/2's or even 1/1's.
1: UTH+Buzzard; but the only real way to nerf this would be to make Buzzard 3 mana or a 1/1.
2: Savanna Highmane which is stupidly powerful.
I think a Highmane nerf is far more likly. 6/5 for 6 which summons two 2/2's after it dies is too good. It's even better than Fire Elemental; which is a 6/5 for 6 which deals 3 damage; and Shaman needs efficient cards due to a lack of card-draw; which Hunter dosen't have,
Either Highmane goes to 7; becomes a 5/5 or summons 1/2's or even 1/1's.
But yep, personally I always feel weird against Hunter, you try to control in early game but you know it will burst you at something like 15 HP. If you're not able to do a comeback then you're dead with that Hero Power. Still a tough match-up for me.
I played 30 games at rank 5-3 last night 22 of them were Rexxar and 22 of them had the exact same deck and I'm so freaking sick of it. Not fun to play, not fun to play against, all the Reynard deck copy cats should be thrown in their own little ladder and have fun winning every game based on whoever plays Leeroy first... oh wait that's basically what the ladder already is except those few people who actually have good and interesting decks who still lose to noob hunters anyway. For starters the hero power is too strong, it should cost 1 more mana every time you use it or cost 3, probably wouldn't make a difference. I don't know screw this game!
The current Hunter deck is overused; it's definitely the bandwagon deck of the week. The tendency of such a large portion of the player to pile on to flavour of month decks is annoying and does make the ladder dull (all zoo one week, all Hunter the next, so on), but that just seems to be how it is.
That said, I'm not sure the current Hunter is overpowered. The Buzzard + UTH combo is extremely powerful, but there are lots of powerful combos in the game and it can be played around to some extent. Ultimately a deck very like the current one could have been effective a month ago, it just wasn't fashionable then. It could very easily go out of fashion again when Reynad makes a new deck and the usual suspects all bandwagon over to that. The deck hasn't been popular and strong for a sustained period of time yet, like zoo has. And I don't think it really has fundamentally broken elements like zoo does (although I have my doubts about Hunters Mark for 0...)
I tried a version without buzzards and hounds, don't really want to say what I did, but it was even more OP if you got the right cards in your hand. Winning on turn 5 was very normal.
They already nerfed them. Blizzard did their playtesting and figured out that hunters would be everywhere. Why do you think they changed bow? Hunters are easy to counter, so its up to us to fix the meta. At rank 4 there are not as many of them now. Control WARS like me are fixing it as we speak.
Hunters are insane however. Even with a deck that is really strong against them, I can have a couple bad draws and drop my shield... then its all over. It only happens about 20% of the matches, but when it does, hunters feel uber broken. I am running http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/81605-legend-naxx-control-warrior with Thaddius's crew.
Just play Midrange Hunter or a Control Warrior to counter them, if you are good with the aforementioned decks, you could cash in on all your Hunter matchups and rank up reasonably quick yourself.
1: UTH+Buzzard; but the only real way to nerf this would be to make Buzzard 3 mana or a 1/1.
Really......? They already nerfed UtH... I'm not calling my self a fortune-teller but I already knew it was only a matter of time before all of the QQ'ers moved off of Miracle on to Hunter after watching Reynad and Kolento climb a considerable amount with it on their streams.
Can we just enjoy the game instead of trying to find a deck every season to whine about for nerfs?
1: UTH+Buzzard; but the only real way to nerf this would be to make Buzzard 3 mana or a 1/1.
Really......? They already nerfed UtH... I'm not calling my self a fortune-teller but I already knew it was only a matter of time before all of the QQ'ers moved off of Miracle on to Hunter after watching Reynad and Kolento climb a considerable amount with it on their streams.
Can we just enjoy the game instead of trying to find a deck every season to whine about for nerfs?
Just think what it would be like if seasons were longer than a month.
My hunter doesn't use buzzards or hounds and wins every hunter match up ;) When I'm tired of playing long frustrating games with my control warrior where I still end up getting double Kill Commanded + Leeroy Jenkinsed on turn 10 I use my own hunter to go on a winning spree before going back to my "superior" warrior. I also don't use Leeroy because his little intro song is a depressing, degrading, sorry you just lost the game song.
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So, hunter is dominating the ladder again. As somebody who plays this class extensively, I will agree that it has some very powerful cards and combos. Hunter is a frightening deck to play against, and requires a lot of thinking to defeat. Now that eaglehorn bow has been weakened, and unleash the hounds costs 3 mana, do you think that blizzard will resort to editing the class again? Or would it be a bit unfair to nerf it ?
Lost access to my internet for over a year - glad to be back :3
To be honest, it's not the hunter class specifically thats over powered or in need of a nerf, its the act of a miracle. In card games, a miracle is when you draw a lot of cards and cycle through other ones to get your powerful cards in your hand for easy set-up to victory, and often this strategy is done within one or two turns which doesn't allow counterplay. You see this with miracle rogue (obviously) and with the unleash buzzard, plus all the other 1 and 2 drops that hunter has used for card draw, as well as with Priest circle of healing with cleric. Another consideration is divine favor. They are strategies that require certain conditions (less so for rogues) and completely turn games in their favor by a large margin.
To nerf/ control this insanity of miracle which is insanely powerful in hearthstone which has very little cycling as opposed to other card games (playing cards from deck, graveyard, etc.) Blizzard would have to put either: A) limit on card draw per turn, around 5 would be appropriate to prevent those massive miracles which flip games around and give the miracle-ist a less powerful advantage or- B) nerf those cards in particular.
I don't think so. From my experience playing the class, Hunter can be annoying, but it relies on card combos in order to deal with threats efficiently, as well it tends to have some really terrible starts. Some games depend completely on you drawing UTH or you insta loose. There's also been quite a few games where I draw my whole deck and I'll still have no answer to my opponents board. So no, I don't think it will be nerfed.
I think a large part of the popularity is that it's a super cheap deck to build. With Kolento's mid-range build having no epics or legendaries it has a very low cost of ownership which makes it a very attractive choice, which is probably driving it's popularity way more than how good it is. If it represented the majority of say the top 20 legendary players maybe there would be a problem but being popular on most of the ladder doesn't mean much about it's overall power.
Your concerns are most considerable. I have been having the same thoughts/concerns as well, specially that Hunter is the class with most class specific cards got nerfed, which causes anxiety to its lovers to keep on weakening the class they enjoy playing above all else. However, the current relative dominance isn't as bad as it used to be with face Hunter (the season it caused UTH to be nerfed), rather, it's more midrangy in its presence which is very fair and acceptable.
Luckily, there are more classes with powerful decks seem to be on the list -of players' thoughts- to nerf-slammed, Zoolock and Miracle Rogue, which makes any further Hunter class specific card nerf be completely unfair and unreasonable. In other words, doing away with the class that it becomes almost unplayable (since it's a heavy combo class that its minions and spells are mostly useless by themselves).
You can't harass members who play Face Hunter, nor are they compelled to make preemptive apologies or justifications for playing it. They don't hack or crack their opponents' game, they simply play existing cards that form a specific deck. If you suck at countering Face Hunter, you should blame the designers, not the community.
Really there's two main issues with Hunter atm:
1: UTH+Buzzard; but the only real way to nerf this would be to make Buzzard 3 mana or a 1/1.
2: Savanna Highmane which is stupidly powerful.
I think a Highmane nerf is far more likly. 6/5 for 6 which summons two 2/2's after it dies is too good. It's even better than Fire Elemental; which is a 6/5 for 6 which deals 3 damage; and Shaman needs efficient cards due to a lack of card-draw; which Hunter dosen't have,
Either Highmane goes to 7; becomes a 5/5 or summons 1/2's or even 1/1's.
Current Deck -http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/240420-army-paladin - Token Paladin
Fantastic insight. This will help put my mind at ease :D
Lost access to my internet for over a year - glad to be back :3
I'd rather have the Hyenas as 1/2's. 2 HP is still in range of a lot of stuff : Lightning Storm (even without the RNG), Explosive Trap, Holy Nova, Cleave, Hellfire ... Almost every AoE in the game.
But yep, personally I always feel weird against Hunter, you try to control in early game but you know it will burst you at something like 15 HP. If you're not able to do a comeback then you're dead with that Hero Power. Still a tough match-up for me.
Huntards don't need a nerf. Players of the class are nerfing it already.
I played 30 games at rank 5-3 last night 22 of them were Rexxar and 22 of them had the exact same deck and I'm so freaking sick of it. Not fun to play, not fun to play against, all the Reynard deck copy cats should be thrown in their own little ladder and have fun winning every game based on whoever plays Leeroy first... oh wait that's basically what the ladder already is except those few people who actually have good and interesting decks who still lose to noob hunters anyway. For starters the hero power is too strong, it should cost 1 more mana every time you use it or cost 3, probably wouldn't make a difference. I don't know screw this game!
If you see too much trap hunter just play midrange hunter... Kolento's midrange hunter with 2 flares has an advantage against trap hunter.
The current Hunter deck is overused; it's definitely the bandwagon deck of the week. The tendency of such a large portion of the player to pile on to flavour of month decks is annoying and does make the ladder dull (all zoo one week, all Hunter the next, so on), but that just seems to be how it is.
That said, I'm not sure the current Hunter is overpowered. The Buzzard + UTH combo is extremely powerful, but there are lots of powerful combos in the game and it can be played around to some extent. Ultimately a deck very like the current one could have been effective a month ago, it just wasn't fashionable then. It could very easily go out of fashion again when Reynad makes a new deck and the usual suspects all bandwagon over to that. The deck hasn't been popular and strong for a sustained period of time yet, like zoo has. And I don't think it really has fundamentally broken elements like zoo does (although I have my doubts about Hunters Mark for 0...)
I tried a version without buzzards and hounds, don't really want to say what I did, but it was even more OP if you got the right cards in your hand. Winning on turn 5 was very normal.
PJSalt
Lost access to my internet for over a year - glad to be back :3
They already nerfed them. Blizzard did their playtesting and figured out that hunters would be everywhere. Why do you think they changed bow? Hunters are easy to counter, so its up to us to fix the meta. At rank 4 there are not as many of them now. Control WARS like me are fixing it as we speak.
Hunters are insane however. Even with a deck that is really strong against them, I can have a couple bad draws and drop my shield... then its all over. It only happens about 20% of the matches, but when it does, hunters feel uber broken. I am running http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/81605-legend-naxx-control-warrior with Thaddius's crew.
Just play Midrange Hunter or a Control Warrior to counter them, if you are good with the aforementioned decks, you could cash in on all your Hunter matchups and rank up reasonably quick yourself.
Really......? They already nerfed UtH... I'm not calling my self a fortune-teller but I already knew it was only a matter of time before all of the QQ'ers moved off of Miracle on to Hunter after watching Reynad and Kolento climb a considerable amount with it on their streams.
Can we just enjoy the game instead of trying to find a deck every season to whine about for nerfs?
Just think what it would be like if seasons were longer than a month.
If it more than likely takes a hunter to counter a hunter... Does that in Itself not clearly state a problem..
My hunter doesn't use buzzards or hounds and wins every hunter match up ;) When I'm tired of playing long frustrating games with my control warrior where I still end up getting double Kill Commanded + Leeroy Jenkinsed on turn 10 I use my own hunter to go on a winning spree before going back to my "superior" warrior. I also don't use Leeroy because his little intro song is a depressing, degrading, sorry you just lost the game song.