I have been trying to play around with some concepts for a mid-range Beast-Hunter and one of the core problems it has is keeping the hand size consistent in the later game. I've tried seeing if the Starving Buzzard can still be useful, but the overall problem is that it is now (seemingly) horrible value and is pretty inconsistent. The only times it really gets any good value it effectively gives up much of the turn.
Now, prior to the mega-nerf it received a while back, it was certainly a problem (and I think few would dispute that), but I wonder if the nerf was perhaps that little too much? In fairness, it was only 2 mana before (I vaguely recall?) and was desperately in need of modification thanks to the Hounds exploitation, but I think that raising it by a whole 3 mana might have broken it beyond usefulness.
(I originally questioned that severity of the change back when it was done, but there were a lot of people moaning 'Wait and see what happens' back then - so I've waited. And I've seen. And I'm pretty sure my concerns have been well justified now. Heh!)
Effectively, there are a lot better ways to replenish cards at the moment (such as the Acolyte of Pain, etc). I think that Starving Buzzard could use another pass / glance by Blizzard to give it another shot. That's not asking for it to be reverted back to it's previous state, but for it to be reconsidered / balanced.
For example, ideas being to lower the mana cost slightly (4?), or give it slightly better stats to keep it on par with other cards such as the Azure Drake - maybe make it a 3/4 or 2/4 just to give it an edge out of the easy-ping range of 3 health. There were plenty of other suggestions others had at the time of the Face-Hunter crisis, but they didnt really feel wrokable (such as limiting the amaount of card draw, making the draws more specific, etc).
I'm not really sure if buzzard can be properly balanced. The problem is that it combines with 1 mana beasts very easily and turns insane with unleash. Meanwhile, both druid, priest, and shaman's dominance should be warnings of what happens when you take a class' weakness and tone them away. As such we should be VERY careful about 'fixing' hunter's card draw problem given how nasty it gets when it gets the cards it needs.
lowering the mana cost risks it turning into an easier to abuse auctioneer. Increasing the stats risks it becoming a Lyra: a card that, if it stays on the board, wins the game.
The card needs an overhaul, which then creates three other issues:
if you plan to change it into another card entirely, why not just create that card in an expansion instead?
More importantly, given that a key goal is to reduce reliance on classic/basic, do we want to create buzzard into a permanent key card engine? Wouldn't it just mean it becomes an autoinclude and, thus, become another problem that'll need to be HoFed?
To bring back the one touched on earlier, do we really WANT to be giving hunter a major card engine tool? Do they really need it? Will we be regretting it given what hey did the last time they had one?
I suppose the two points that stand out to me as worthy of further thought are : Does Hunter need more card draw? There's no definitive answer, certainly, but I think it could certainly use SOME sort of more feasible class-based draw. Perhaps SB is the wrong card for this and too overly abusable? Maybe so. I guess htis also partly answers the other point about whether we want to bring back a classic card - perhaps it's less about needing to restore this one, but the requirement for another option.
We have stampeded which does a similar thing, but doesn't work with Unleash. Perhaps that's the combo that needs preventing instead? Make it only work for beast cards that are played from the hand (rather than summoned). This is certainly a mechanic that Blizzard has employed elsewhere too, so the precedent is definitely there. (Where it specifically says played, or summoned).
So, creating a new card that helps with card draw is certainly a viable option, yes. :-)
What if you waited until after playing DK Rexxar and then three down buzzard and then crafted cheap minions and then you would get a card every time you played the cheap Zombeast?
Does Blizzard ever buff/adjust cards? I was under the impression they only ever nerf them, in keeping with CCG tradition where most of the time cards are left good/bad (because there are always bad cards), and the ones that get too far out of control get banned from the game completely (and in this case, nerfed). If I'm right and that is their policy, then for better or for worse I doubt they'll ever change Buzzard.
That said I actually like this card. It's nuts if you can combo it with Unleash the Hounds and despite that this card never gets run, it combos inherently with Snake Trap (because your opponent often gives you three cards -- and three sneks -- just by trying to clear your Buzzard), but realistically the best combos with it are the low-cost minions, like Alleycat and Kindly Grandmother, but especially Alleycat. 6 mana for a soft-taunt and 2 cards isn't awful, and there's potential for the Buzzard to survive and get you more value.
I do agree with mortizcor though; 2/3 would be nice.
If they aren't going to rotate the Basic and Classic sets anytime soon, I'd like to see them adjust some of the Basic cards so they don't have to dedicate card slots to reprints (Drain Soul). I think changing Buzzard's draw condition to "play a beast" instead of "summon a beast" to justify giving it higher stats to compensate might still be a problem, because then you have an okay-ish 5 drop that lets your Beasts cycle themselves while it's on the board. That's all the gas something like Midrange Hunter would need to be completely bonkers.
No. Hunter is probably one or two good cards away from being broken, and seeing as card draw is the biggest issue in hunter, I'm pretty sure that unnerfing buzzard would make the class obnoxiously overpowered.
Cult master is a good replacement but not as good as the old SB.
Blizzard knee jerk nerfed the card after the OTK hunter became popular. Blizzard said back then they didnt want OTK decks in the game and nerfed hard. Funny thing is better OTK decks are now everyplace(aka mage) and will get worse. Take a look at wild for insight of how standard will play out in a few years.
I'm hoping for good hunter class card draw card(s) in the next expansion. If they get it then hunter can be tier 1 again
The crux of the problem is that it triggers upon summoning a minion. Change the text to play along with re-balancing its cost, and things will be fine.
Hunter's hero power makes it a very dangerous class to tune. It's one of the few hero powers that "scale up" as the game progresses (everyone who has been "put on the clock" by hunter has experienced this), since you tend to damage an increasingly large portion of your opponent's remaining health.
In hunter the distance between being a "bad", "ok" or "overpowered" class is very thin, perhaps thinner than for any other class.
The crux of the problem is that it triggers upon summoning a minion. Change the text to play along with re-balancing its cost, and things will be fine.
But then the bullshit combinations won't work. =P
I think this is a case where they should create a new version with your suggestion so Hunters can still use a more reasonable, less swingy version of the same principle.
Hunter's hero power makes it a very dangerous class to tune. It's one of the few hero powers that "scale up" as the game progresses (everyone who has been "put on the clock" by hunter has experienced this), since you tend to damage an increasingly large portion of your opponent's remaining health.
In hunter the distance between being a "bad", "ok" or "overpowered" class is very thin, perhaps thinner than for any other class.
That's actually a good point. Swingy class by nature then, eh? xP
you leave buzzard as it is and create one that says "whenever a friendly beast takes damage: draw a card. the problem with hunter, because yes even if he was weak during two whole expansions, is that his hero power encourages way too much aggression, give him card draw and we're back to Chiaki's Face hunter era because people will flock to aggro thanks to the hero power+card draw despite the class having amazing control tools already, which is something that's probably even more aggravating than pre-Stb nerf Pirate warrior, so unless they somehow rework the hero power, hunter will never get card draw.
you leave buzzard as it is a nd create one that says "whenever a friendly beast takes damage: draw card. the problem with hunter, becaus eyes even if he was weak during two whole expansions, is that his hero power encourages way too much aggression, give him card draw and we're back to Chiaki's Face hunter era because people will flock to aggro thanks to the hero power+card draw despite the class having amazing control tools already, which is something that's probably even more aggravating than pre-Stb nerf Pirate warrior, so unless they somehow rework the hero power hunter will never get card draw.
In fairness, the Warlock DK Hero Power should have been the one for Hunter instead - it makes so much more sense than giving it to the Warlock (which was hardly underpowered as it is). And the Warlock should have had something based around zombies / combining cards instead. Hunter got really screwed over in the DK roll up. Shame, really.
I have been trying to play around with some concepts for a mid-range Beast-Hunter and one of the core problems it has is keeping the hand size consistent in the later game.
I've tried seeing if the Starving Buzzard can still be useful, but the overall problem is that it is now (seemingly) horrible value and is pretty inconsistent. The only times it really gets any good value it effectively gives up much of the turn.
Now, prior to the mega-nerf it received a while back, it was certainly a problem (and I think few would dispute that), but I wonder if the nerf was perhaps that little too much?
In fairness, it was only 2 mana before (I vaguely recall?) and was desperately in need of modification thanks to the Hounds exploitation, but I think that raising it by a whole 3 mana might have broken it beyond usefulness.
(I originally questioned that severity of the change back when it was done, but there were a lot of people moaning 'Wait and see what happens' back then - so I've waited. And I've seen. And I'm pretty sure my concerns have been well justified now. Heh!)
Effectively, there are a lot better ways to replenish cards at the moment (such as the Acolyte of Pain, etc). I think that Starving Buzzard could use another pass / glance by Blizzard to give it another shot.
That's not asking for it to be reverted back to it's previous state, but for it to be reconsidered / balanced.
For example, ideas being to lower the mana cost slightly (4?), or give it slightly better stats to keep it on par with other cards such as the Azure Drake - maybe make it a 3/4 or 2/4 just to give it an edge out of the easy-ping range of 3 health.
There were plenty of other suggestions others had at the time of the Face-Hunter crisis, but they didnt really feel wrokable (such as limiting the amaount of card draw, making the draws more specific, etc).
Just my thoughts on a grey monday afternoo. :-)
I'm not really sure if buzzard can be properly balanced. The problem is that it combines with 1 mana beasts very easily and turns insane with unleash. Meanwhile, both druid, priest, and shaman's dominance should be warnings of what happens when you take a class' weakness and tone them away. As such we should be VERY careful about 'fixing' hunter's card draw problem given how nasty it gets when it gets the cards it needs.
lowering the mana cost risks it turning into an easier to abuse auctioneer. Increasing the stats risks it becoming a Lyra: a card that, if it stays on the board, wins the game.
The card needs an overhaul, which then creates three other issues:
if you plan to change it into another card entirely, why not just create that card in an expansion instead?
More importantly, given that a key goal is to reduce reliance on classic/basic, do we want to create buzzard into a permanent key card engine? Wouldn't it just mean it becomes an autoinclude and, thus, become another problem that'll need to be HoFed?
To bring back the one touched on earlier, do we really WANT to be giving hunter a major card engine tool? Do they really need it? Will we be regretting it given what hey did the last time they had one?
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
Good points in all.
I suppose the two points that stand out to me as worthy of further thought are :
Does Hunter need more card draw?
There's no definitive answer, certainly, but I think it could certainly use SOME sort of more feasible class-based draw. Perhaps SB is the wrong card for this and too overly abusable? Maybe so.
I guess htis also partly answers the other point about whether we want to bring back a classic card - perhaps it's less about needing to restore this one, but the requirement for another option.
We have stampeded which does a similar thing, but doesn't work with Unleash. Perhaps that's the combo that needs preventing instead? Make it only work for beast cards that are played from the hand (rather than summoned).
This is certainly a mechanic that Blizzard has employed elsewhere too, so the precedent is definitely there. (Where it specifically says played, or summoned).
So, creating a new card that helps with card draw is certainly a viable option, yes. :-)
What if you waited until after playing DK Rexxar and then three down buzzard and then crafted cheap minions and then you would get a card every time you played the cheap Zombeast?
If I had to make a change to this card, I would make it a 2/3 instead.
Greetings, traveler.
Let's make Hunter great.
Does Blizzard ever buff/adjust cards? I was under the impression they only ever nerf them, in keeping with CCG tradition where most of the time cards are left good/bad (because there are always bad cards), and the ones that get too far out of control get banned from the game completely (and in this case, nerfed). If I'm right and that is their policy, then for better or for worse I doubt they'll ever change Buzzard.
That said I actually like this card. It's nuts if you can combo it with Unleash the Hounds and despite that this card never gets run, it combos inherently with Snake Trap (because your opponent often gives you three cards -- and three sneks -- just by trying to clear your Buzzard), but realistically the best combos with it are the low-cost minions, like Alleycat and Kindly Grandmother, but especially Alleycat. 6 mana for a soft-taunt and 2 cards isn't awful, and there's potential for the Buzzard to survive and get you more value.
I do agree with mortizcor though; 2/3 would be nice.
I don't see problem in a 2/3 for 4 manas.
The problem is the All-Or-Nothing Blizzard choices, or an insanely broken 2 manas draw engine or a garbage unplayable piece of shit for 5 manas...
A buff for a Hearthstone card? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH
Good one mate, tournament mode stands a better chance of seeing any development.
If they aren't going to rotate the Basic and Classic sets anytime soon, I'd like to see them adjust some of the Basic cards so they don't have to dedicate card slots to reprints (Drain Soul). I think changing Buzzard's draw condition to "play a beast" instead of "summon a beast" to justify giving it higher stats to compensate might still be a problem, because then you have an okay-ish 5 drop that lets your Beasts cycle themselves while it's on the board. That's all the gas something like Midrange Hunter would need to be completely bonkers.
No. Hunter is probably one or two good cards away from being broken, and seeing as card draw is the biggest issue in hunter, I'm pretty sure that unnerfing buzzard would make the class obnoxiously overpowered.
Just use cult master.
The crux of the problem is that it triggers upon summoning a minion. Change the text to play along with re-balancing its cost, and things will be fine.
"Nerf Paper," said Rock.
Hunter's hero power makes it a very dangerous class to tune. It's one of the few hero powers that "scale up" as the game progresses (everyone who has been "put on the clock" by hunter has experienced this), since you tend to damage an increasingly large portion of your opponent's remaining health.
In hunter the distance between being a "bad", "ok" or "overpowered" class is very thin, perhaps thinner than for any other class.
*sighs* Guys, just reprint a pre-nerf Innervate as a neutral card... Then people will shut up.
Wished to be pink.
Then did.
Then fired myself.
Then did again.
you leave buzzard as it is and create one that says "whenever a friendly beast takes damage: draw a card. the problem with hunter, because yes even if he was weak during two whole expansions, is that his hero power encourages way too much aggression, give him card draw and we're back to Chiaki's Face hunter era because people will flock to aggro thanks to the hero power+card draw despite the class having amazing control tools already, which is something that's probably even more aggravating than pre-Stb nerf Pirate warrior, so unless they somehow rework the hero power, hunter will never get card draw.
Hunter got really screwed over in the DK roll up. Shame, really.
You all know that a reworking of a Basic card in order to make it playable won't happen, ever.