all the themes of warlock but how well implemented are they?
For me at least it seems that of all the hero "themes" the warlock seems to be the most lost compared to other heros who rely for synchronized minion spell cards like the hunter and beasts the demons all short arguable 3 of the the demon cards are really average or sub average
the Succubus, Pitlord, Felguard are at best average or sub average while cards like doomguard, void walker the jury is still out on their usefulness.
On top of this; cards like demon fire, sacrificial pact are further crippled as on average most warlock decks are packing at most packing 3 to 4 demon cards.
If you want to expand the "demon" subtype of cards the only other options for cards are the imps from the imp master and Ilididian!
In my opinion about 1/4 of the warlock only cards are relatively useless; I think this needs to change.
The warlock concept is high risk high reward cards but overall most warlock cards are either too high of a cost or two low of an award.
I'd prefer more HP payment and less discard punishment. I'd change every single discard effect for a health cost when that cards are used, with some balance fixes too if that would be too stronk (maybe just keep the discard mechanic on Soul Fire). And I'd like to see some cards with a stronger "affli lock" feeling, maybe a spell castable on both hero or minions that leeches one HP each turn for X turns and Y mana cost (can't think about proper balance right now). I'd like to get a stronger feeling of paying life-leeching life back.
I don't think warlock is VERY weak, but if we talk about STRONG OR WEAK, I think he would be in the weak side (I main warlock, but trying to be objective). I have a quite "expensive" deck, and if I use that luxury cards (Hogger, Ragnaros, Thalnos...) in other decks I feel much stronger than when I play with warlock. I'm talking about constructed, in arenas I don't have a lot of experience, but I think warlock is quite a bad pick too (probably worse than constructed).
About the useless cards, that's real for sure, warlock has a lot of garbage cards which are really hard to put in any deck. Hope we get some changes/little buffs, but not too much!
Just my opinion. Sorry for my English and have a nice day ^^
If English is your second language then I'm impressed; better than some of my fellow college students.
Yeah some overall either I want to see some more better demonic minions or a level of deck to minion synergy at least partially on par with the synergy of the hunter (or at least with the paladin). I concur with you on the cost for the powerful demons I think the discard mechanic is too costly for the output for the minions. Personally I think the dreadlord and the felguard as compared to minions of similar caliber in other decks minion are actually a tad boring with their high input cost (demon pay + low mana cost) does not exactly equal their fairly average stats.
Cards like Flame Imp, Blood Imp and dread Infernal I think are wonderful cards that are creative in play and execution while also fully embracing the conceptual design of warlock play and lore.
I win a LOT of games with my Warlock deck - it's my favourite class! (I just owned a priest and a hunter just now, in fact ;))
Doomguard is awesome! You can often play it when you have no other cards in hand, then it's a charging 5/7 for 5 mana! Nasty!
Blood Imps are really nice too. It really messes with things when you play the likes of Razorfen Hunter or Harvest Golem due to the 1 extra health.
Anyway, the whole point about the "discard" mechanic is that it complements the "Spend health to draw a card" mechanic. Changing that to be based on health loss would really hurt a lot, since you'd be spending health to get cards that you then need to spend health to play. I don't like it.
I'm a Warlock. My main in WoW is a Warlock, and I have a second Warlock on the Horde side. I mod Warlock forums on MMO-Champion. I am pretty much always busy with Warlocks in some way. I am, of course, a Warlock in HS. Tbh though, I HATE the way most of the Warlock cards in HS function. I only play Warlock these days cause they have the most awesome Hero power, and because I found a deck I really, really like.
I think the problem is that the warlock cards are most designed to promote a deck that will have bigger, more dangerous minions out at a lower mana cost, and thus earlier in the game. Through giving up cards and health and manacrystals you are basically choosing to win NOW and not later. The idea is to overpower your opponent with stronger minions then s/he can summon in response and win before they can take advantage of the fact you've been losing cards and health.
I think this leads to the vanilla Warlock deck being about balancing how much trouble you can get yourself into while still beating your opponent. That's not exactly a playstyle I enjoy, personally. I like the demons, and the power hungry nature of the deck, but I feel the drawbacks you place upon yourself do not weigh up against them.
BUT, that's MY view of it, and why I don't like it and has nothing to do with viability of the Hero and it's deck. I think that Warlocks are probably middle of the road, average, win some, lose some. I think Warlocks are probably where Blizzard wants them to be, power wise. All in all I don't think Warlocks need any changes to make them "better". They are just a certain playstyle, and decently balanced for their intention, and not underpowered as such, I feel.
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I'm relatively new to HS, but once I saw a Warlock was available I jumped at it and started trying to learn it inside and out for HS. (I mained a lock when I still played WoW)
I'm using a similar set up as the "low mana swarm" build and finding it to be solid. It is pretty risky, but overall if I can keep an early advantage it tends to snowball me a win. However Warlock cards do seem to sacrifice the most for every play we make when using them whereas most other class based cards seem to have less of a trade off. To be fair we get moderate to high damage spells/minions for low to no cost, other than sacrificing a card, or losing some health but in a game where being reduced to 0 means you lose, Warlocks are always gambling when using their own class cards/Hero Power...Which is quite fun, but also frustrating,
I did some ranked today and ended up meeting a warrior, for the most part it was a rather slow game, there was some back and forth but I kept up the pressure by wiping his cards. I made one bad call, the next turn I would have finished him off, but I ended my turn LTing dropping me to 8 HP. He then drew a card, and proceeded to lay the only 2 things in his hand, I believe they were both "Heroic Strike" so he earned +8 attack (laying both of them) and wiped me out (I had no taunts on the field). I made a mistake because I lack experience, and accordingly got punished for it. I guess what I'm getting at, is that it feels like Warlock decks require a forward thinking mind and the ability to properly weigh the risks, that said the risks on some of our cards don't feel worth the reward for their cost. Then again I might be too inexperienced at this time to have a valid opinion on the matter.
I do feel like a "Soul Link" type card would be appropriate either a trap type that sets off and splits the damage amongst your minions, or one that links you to a minion turning their attacks in to health for you (cap it at 2 HP an attack regardless of the attack value of the minion)
Necromancy was never a theme for warlocks in Warcraft. (not in the original RTS, the books or WoW)
Other than that, I would like the discard mechanics of HS to be more like the one in MTG. There, you could choose, in most cases, what to discard instead of randomizing this part. (=more choices =more possible plays =higher skillcap)
My problem is one the random discard mechanic might be too expensive for the doomguard and sucubus and the cost of the pitlord and felguard just does not equal what you get out of those minions. Finally what erks me the most are cards like sacrificial pact in the warlock deck that just have no practical use in most decks. To me I feel like the only thing keeping the warlocks playable is one their hero ability, two their strong early game with blood and flame imp and their cheap cost efficient spells like shadow bolt and hell fire. Icing on the cake for warlocks is the potential of the great jarraxxus come back.
Outside of that the warlock don't have much in card chemistry. There is no warlock element that takes real advantage of warlock play style like mage with sorcerer's apprentice or rogue with preparation and combos or warrior with enrage cards or the hunter with beast card chemistry backed by cards and secrets that support board clear and rush down or the priest with cards that heal each other and gain benefits or how the deck of paladin revolves around the survive-ability of the paladin and his valuable minions support by foder troops and buffs or the druid which relies on sheer flexibility of the druid and his minions or (yes more ORs) even the shaman's overload style is rewarded and supported by cheaper totem units for foder and quality units that are supported by cards that give buffs like windfury or ancestral healing and powerful short term removal. The warlock has almost nothing in card chemistry compared to other classes. Card draw is nice; alot of new warlock strategy is draw out and summons lots of small cheap minions supported by the Blood Imp and the burst down of power overwhelming. By turn 3 most classes have access to card that is relatively on par backed by neutral minions that give card draw the warlock's card draw advantage is almost noticeably. The Warlock low mana rusk can be more or less done by most other classes with a similar level of heavy reliance on neutral cards. The warlock needs some help in flexbility of play and practicality in cards.
I dunno, the random discard mechanic promotes higher risk and by extension, risk management. You'll always want weigh risks by worse-case scenario. It's not really random that has no counter-play, it's the cards in your hand.
Im not really a fan of the 'discard a RANDOM card aspect. Im not sure if it would make warlocks overpowered, but I think you should be able to choose which card to discard.
Question, about how much of the Warlock skillset from WoW, is covered in Hearthstone? Seems like there's a lot left out.
Warlocks in WoW were Affliction, Demonology, or Destruction
As far as I can tell, all three trees have some representation in this card game, but not too all that great of an extent...Most of the stuff that's missing relates directly to the deep down mechanics of each spec. Affliction was about damage over time and sustain. Demonology centered around summoning/sacrificing demons to gain their power and in the end becoming a demon for a duration. Destruction centered around blowing stuff up....quickly. But what we have in HS (as far as I see) is really just a bunch of spells/minions that force us to sacrifice something (health/cards) to rationalize having a 3/2 minion for 1 mana, or a 4/3 minion for 2 mana, stuff like that. Overall I don't mind that bit of risk management, I do mind it though when it handicaps me from making a potentially winning play.
I'm still really new to this though so take what I have to say with a pinch of salt.
I would have no problem removing the random aspect to the discard for warlocks. The warlock's play style s very much a balancing act which is interesting mechanic but throwing random luck facets into that is just a pita.
Well, yes, it would be fine too if you could choose the cards you gonna discard as a payment. I'd like that, plus it would fit well in terms of "lore". A warlock should know (as a recipe) what he got to sacrifice in orden to summon / cast X. In fact, the random aspect fits better in the post-effect (you summon X minion, your spell results on this Y thing, because they are playing with too powerful stuff they can't control, you know e.e).
I think all the lore of the classes should be taken with a grain of salt anyway.. The classes really just are blizzards way of representing the "color wheel" with a homogenized mana system, other than that they're just tie in flavor for wow.
It's just an extra argument to justify how that changes could fit well in that class, not the only reason for the changes. If it was AGAINST lore they wouldn't even think about that possibility, so in fact, it can be important for real gameplay stuff. Just depends on how do you look at it (typical logic problem).
My big problem with warlock is the inflexibility with low pay off and to be honest compared to other classes their "color cards" probably the most useless cards (Who actually plays demonic sacrifice seriously?) thus the least amount of room for variability and thus the most predictability. In every competitive warlock deck its usually safe to say your opponent will be burning health, using minions like blood and flame imp, probably will have a shadow bolt and a jarraxxus etc.
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Necromancy, demonic summoning and blood for power
all the themes of warlock but how well implemented are they?
For me at least it seems that of all the hero "themes" the warlock seems to be the most lost compared to other heros who rely for synchronized minion spell cards like the hunter and beasts the demons all short arguable 3 of the the demon cards are really average or sub average
the Succubus, Pitlord, Felguard are at best average or sub average while cards like doomguard, void walker the jury is still out on their usefulness.
On top of this; cards like demon fire, sacrificial pact are further crippled as on average most warlock decks are packing at most packing 3 to 4 demon cards.
If you want to expand the "demon" subtype of cards the only other options for cards are the imps from the imp master and Ilididian!
In my opinion about 1/4 of the warlock only cards are relatively useless; I think this needs to change.
The warlock concept is high risk high reward cards but overall most warlock cards are either too high of a cost or two low of an award.
thoughts ideas options opinions?
please and thank you
I'd prefer more HP payment and less discard punishment. I'd change every single discard effect for a health cost when that cards are used, with some balance fixes too if that would be too stronk (maybe just keep the discard mechanic on Soul Fire). And I'd like to see some cards with a stronger "affli lock" feeling, maybe a spell castable on both hero or minions that leeches one HP each turn for X turns and Y mana cost (can't think about proper balance right now). I'd like to get a stronger feeling of paying life-leeching life back.
I don't think warlock is VERY weak, but if we talk about STRONG OR WEAK, I think he would be in the weak side (I main warlock, but trying to be objective). I have a quite "expensive" deck, and if I use that luxury cards (Hogger, Ragnaros, Thalnos...) in other decks I feel much stronger than when I play with warlock. I'm talking about constructed, in arenas I don't have a lot of experience, but I think warlock is quite a bad pick too (probably worse than constructed).
About the useless cards, that's real for sure, warlock has a lot of garbage cards which are really hard to put in any deck. Hope we get some changes/little buffs, but not too much!
Just my opinion. Sorry for my English and have a nice day ^^
If English is your second language then I'm impressed; better than some of my fellow college students.
Yeah some overall either I want to see some more better demonic minions or a level of deck to minion synergy at least partially on par with the synergy of the hunter (or at least with the paladin). I concur with you on the cost for the powerful demons I think the discard mechanic is too costly for the output for the minions. Personally I think the dreadlord and the felguard as compared to minions of similar caliber in other decks minion are actually a tad boring with their high input cost (demon pay + low mana cost) does not exactly equal their fairly average stats.
Cards like Flame Imp, Blood Imp and dread Infernal I think are wonderful cards that are creative in play and execution while also fully embracing the conceptual design of warlock play and lore.
I win a LOT of games with my Warlock deck - it's my favourite class! (I just owned a priest and a hunter just now, in fact ;))
Doomguard is awesome! You can often play it when you have no other cards in hand, then it's a charging 5/7 for 5 mana! Nasty!
Blood Imps are really nice too. It really messes with things when you play the likes of Razorfen Hunter or Harvest Golem due to the 1 extra health.
Anyway, the whole point about the "discard" mechanic is that it complements the "Spend health to draw a card" mechanic. Changing that to be based on health loss would really hurt a lot, since you'd be spending health to get cards that you then need to spend health to play. I don't like it.
(My deck started out based on http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/7112-low-cost-warlock-rush but it's been modified somewhat since then.. perhaps I should post it on the deck forum some time.)
I'm a Warlock. My main in WoW is a Warlock, and I have a second Warlock on the Horde side. I mod Warlock forums on MMO-Champion. I am pretty much always busy with Warlocks in some way. I am, of course, a Warlock in HS. Tbh though, I HATE the way most of the Warlock cards in HS function. I only play Warlock these days cause they have the most awesome Hero power, and because I found a deck I really, really like.
I think the problem is that the warlock cards are most designed to promote a deck that will have bigger, more dangerous minions out at a lower mana cost, and thus earlier in the game. Through giving up cards and health and manacrystals you are basically choosing to win NOW and not later. The idea is to overpower your opponent with stronger minions then s/he can summon in response and win before they can take advantage of the fact you've been losing cards and health.
I think this leads to the vanilla Warlock deck being about balancing how much trouble you can get yourself into while still beating your opponent. That's not exactly a playstyle I enjoy, personally. I like the demons, and the power hungry nature of the deck, but I feel the drawbacks you place upon yourself do not weigh up against them.
BUT, that's MY view of it, and why I don't like it and has nothing to do with viability of the Hero and it's deck. I think that Warlocks are probably middle of the road, average, win some, lose some. I think Warlocks are probably where Blizzard wants them to be, power wise. All in all I don't think Warlocks need any changes to make them "better". They are just a certain playstyle, and decently balanced for their intention, and not underpowered as such, I feel.
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
I'm relatively new to HS, but once I saw a Warlock was available I jumped at it and started trying to learn it inside and out for HS. (I mained a lock when I still played WoW)
I'm using a similar set up as the "low mana swarm" build and finding it to be solid. It is pretty risky, but overall if I can keep an early advantage it tends to snowball me a win. However Warlock cards do seem to sacrifice the most for every play we make when using them whereas most other class based cards seem to have less of a trade off. To be fair we get moderate to high damage spells/minions for low to no cost, other than sacrificing a card, or losing some health but in a game where being reduced to 0 means you lose, Warlocks are always gambling when using their own class cards/Hero Power...Which is quite fun, but also frustrating,
I did some ranked today and ended up meeting a warrior, for the most part it was a rather slow game, there was some back and forth but I kept up the pressure by wiping his cards. I made one bad call, the next turn I would have finished him off, but I ended my turn LTing dropping me to 8 HP. He then drew a card, and proceeded to lay the only 2 things in his hand, I believe they were both "Heroic Strike" so he earned +8 attack (laying both of them) and wiped me out (I had no taunts on the field). I made a mistake because I lack experience, and accordingly got punished for it. I guess what I'm getting at, is that it feels like Warlock decks require a forward thinking mind and the ability to properly weigh the risks, that said the risks on some of our cards don't feel worth the reward for their cost. Then again I might be too inexperienced at this time to have a valid opinion on the matter.
I do feel like a "Soul Link" type card would be appropriate either a trap type that sets off and splits the damage amongst your minions, or one that links you to a minion turning their attacks in to health for you (cap it at 2 HP an attack regardless of the attack value of the minion)
Question, about how much of the Warlock skillset from WoW, is covered in Hearthstone? Seems like there's a lot left out.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
Necromancy was never a theme for warlocks in Warcraft. (not in the original RTS, the books or WoW)
Other than that, I would like the discard mechanics of HS to be more like the one in MTG. There, you could choose, in most cases, what to discard instead of randomizing this part. (=more choices =more possible plays =higher skillcap)
Probably wishful thinking, but would be awesome.
Also known as 'Emoeritz'
XaszEmoeritz#1504
My problem is one the random discard mechanic might be too expensive for the doomguard and sucubus and the cost of the pitlord and felguard just does not equal what you get out of those minions. Finally what erks me the most are cards like sacrificial pact in the warlock deck that just have no practical use in most decks. To me I feel like the only thing keeping the warlocks playable is one their hero ability, two their strong early game with blood and flame imp and their cheap cost efficient spells like shadow bolt and hell fire. Icing on the cake for warlocks is the potential of the great jarraxxus come back.
Outside of that the warlock don't have much in card chemistry. There is no warlock element that takes real advantage of warlock play style like mage with sorcerer's apprentice or rogue with preparation and combos or warrior with enrage cards or the hunter with beast card chemistry backed by cards and secrets that support board clear and rush down or the priest with cards that heal each other and gain benefits or how the deck of paladin revolves around the survive-ability of the paladin and his valuable minions support by foder troops and buffs or the druid which relies on sheer flexibility of the druid and his minions or (yes more ORs) even the shaman's overload style is rewarded and supported by cheaper totem units for foder and quality units that are supported by cards that give buffs like windfury or ancestral healing and powerful short term removal. The warlock has almost nothing in card chemistry compared to other classes. Card draw is nice; alot of new warlock strategy is draw out and summons lots of small cheap minions supported by the Blood Imp and the burst down of power overwhelming. By turn 3 most classes have access to card that is relatively on par backed by neutral minions that give card draw the warlock's card draw advantage is almost noticeably. The Warlock low mana rusk can be more or less done by most other classes with a similar level of heavy reliance on neutral cards. The warlock needs some help in flexbility of play and practicality in cards.
I dunno, the random discard mechanic promotes higher risk and by extension, risk management. You'll always want weigh risks by worse-case scenario. It's not really random that has no counter-play, it's the cards in your hand.
http://www.youtube.com/user/vtxaishi
You're not going crazy, I edit 2~3 times each post
I would still favor having a real choice over guessing anytime.
Also known as 'Emoeritz'
XaszEmoeritz#1504
Im not really a fan of the 'discard a RANDOM card aspect. Im not sure if it would make warlocks overpowered, but I think you should be able to choose which card to discard.
My established warlock deck has 87 matches with 12 losses. Definitely Warlocks need buffs.
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Warlocks in WoW were Affliction, Demonology, or Destruction
As far as I can tell, all three trees have some representation in this card game, but not too all that great of an extent...Most of the stuff that's missing relates directly to the deep down mechanics of each spec. Affliction was about damage over time and sustain. Demonology centered around summoning/sacrificing demons to gain their power and in the end becoming a demon for a duration. Destruction centered around blowing stuff up....quickly. But what we have in HS (as far as I see) is really just a bunch of spells/minions that force us to sacrifice something (health/cards) to rationalize having a 3/2 minion for 1 mana, or a 4/3 minion for 2 mana, stuff like that. Overall I don't mind that bit of risk management, I do mind it though when it handicaps me from making a potentially winning play.
I'm still really new to this though so take what I have to say with a pinch of salt.
I would have no problem removing the random aspect to the discard for warlocks. The warlock's play style s very much a balancing act which is interesting mechanic but throwing random luck facets into that is just a pita.
Well, yes, it would be fine too if you could choose the cards you gonna discard as a payment. I'd like that, plus it would fit well in terms of "lore". A warlock should know (as a recipe) what he got to sacrifice in orden to summon / cast X. In fact, the random aspect fits better in the post-effect (you summon X minion, your spell results on this Y thing, because they are playing with too powerful stuff they can't control, you know e.e).
I think all the lore of the classes should be taken with a grain of salt anyway.. The classes really just are blizzards way of representing the "color wheel" with a homogenized mana system, other than that they're just tie in flavor for wow.
It's just an extra argument to justify how that changes could fit well in that class, not the only reason for the changes. If it was AGAINST lore they wouldn't even think about that possibility, so in fact, it can be important for real gameplay stuff. Just depends on how do you look at it (typical logic problem).
I don't disagree. Besides even if the mechanics change wasn't lore based blizzard would just retcon lore like they often do anyway lol.
My big problem with warlock is the inflexibility with low pay off and to be honest compared to other classes their "color cards" probably the most useless cards (Who actually plays demonic sacrifice seriously?) thus the least amount of room for variability and thus the most predictability. In every competitive warlock deck its usually safe to say your opponent will be burning health, using minions like blood and flame imp, probably will have a shadow bolt and a jarraxxus etc.