One of the strangest design choices they’ve made imo is giving Druid TONS of armor gain. This was warrior’s niche for a long time and then they gave Druid bunches of armor gain for some strange reason.
While it is true that Druids have had the ability to gain armour, it was meant so that you imagined your hero shape-shifting to help their minions on the board.
However I think one of the reasons they may have done this is because they (Blizzard) didn't want just one class to have the armour. If that was the case, in time the warrior class could've have been too powerful because of the amount of armour they would gain over the other classes.
That said however, it's a shame that there hasn't been any good armour synergy cards for Warrior recently. Especially knowing that at this time there is only one good tier Warrior deck (Quest Warrior) and that's mostly based on Taunt minions with some armour gain.
Mage has ways of getting armor too. It makes sense that multiple classes have this — like there’s also multiple weapon classes, multiple healing classes, multiple buff classes.
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Shudderwock means driving a clown car in circles around your opponent while he swings his sword at you. Half the time he chops you and your car to pieces. The other half you park on his legs and 40 clowns come out one by one, trampling him to death.
While it is true that Druids have had the ability to gain armour, it was meant so that you imagined your hero shape-shifting to help their minions on the board.
That'd be a nice animation to add to the game, Malfurion's portrait being shadowed briefly by a bear when he attacks or gain armor (or whatever animal he is associated to in WoW lore).
Healing was more Druid's forte in the early days for Hearthstone, but in WoW (speaking from very little experience) Druids can shapeshift into a cat form that's more about damage or a bear form that's more about tanking.
Imo, Malfurion DK represents this aspect PERFECTLY with the Hero Power; the ability to choose an offensive or defensive shapeshift (it's even the name of the HP).
Anyway, I think the fact that Druids in HS have gotten more of an armor aspect in recent years is due to the fact that the initial design was lacking a bit in translation from WoW. I believe they have better represented the class from WoW with the armor thing.
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Nature is the Day. Man is the Sun. Woman is the Moon. The Stone is the Sky. The Art is the Way.
The tank nature of the druid is something they have just focused on more with the last few expansions. Armor is baked right into the hero power of the druid. The decks that focus on it lose a lot of ability to counter the board and hope to hold out for that combo. It's not out of control right now and the only truly successful version of it relies on Hardonox combos to get a victory. I like where it's at and it makes sense in terms of lore and HS mechanics.
comparing warrior and druid it is insane that druid can create as much armour as warrior - the difference is that druid has no downside
the maximum amount of armourgain in druid is 32 in one turn
warrior can make 35 armour but with a huge downside in one turn giving your opponents minions costing 4 less.
Blizzard - tell us witch class is gaining more armour... of corse warrior uses armour diffrently but let's make another comparison.
Prenerf warlock had more healing than priest haha it's a joke really. Why not give rogue some totemsynergies, shaman some combocards, mage some divineshield minions and paladin some spelldamageminions. Would be awesome right?
jokes aside i hope they learned a lesson. Warrior and priest need a buff but is it needed through expansions? Warrior has the weakest basic set and we all know that priest got some crazy cards in expansions so they can compete with other classes because of their weak classic set.
i ask blizzard to add new cards to the classic basic set that don't see any use. We could disscuss this over and over again but it is no secret that rogue or mage have a bigger basestteangth than shaman, priest, warrior or warlock. Than they make better cards in expansions to que up with the other classes and the wild format suffers from that because all these classes can stock up the great cards they get throughout expansions.
I'm not saying they have to do this tomorrow but it should be known and therefore communicated what they say about this...
this is no salty message - it's a concerne i have for the game
It's cool that they're trying to explore new archetypes and identities for most classes:
1. As you said druid has now become the armor eating class that's designed for the long game and fatigue.
2. Warrior is starting to get more options for recruiting big stuff.
3. Mage is getting nice control tools to not just be either burn or freeze oriented.
4. Priest will always be a combo class as Divine Spirit, Inner Fire and Power Word: Shield are all classic cards (Unless they get HoF of course) and at least for now it looks like blizzard will keep adding at least 1 dragon per expansion that priest can use to keep the dragon master vibe going.
5. Shaman looks like it'll take the Shudder way for the next 2 years, that card is just too powerful to not be the center piece of most shaman decks, if the meta is slow enough Shudder will only get stronger and with some powerful battlecries the deck could just be the absolute leader of the meta. If not then Even will probably be the strongest or maybe aggro shaman will flourish again if blizzard is stupid enough.
6. Until next rotation it looks like all the strong Warlock decks will be control oriented, Voidlord, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Possessed Lackey and Defile are all examples or cards that are way too strong to make any other archetype stronger, there would need to be another insane card for Zoo to rise again or for any other "new" archetype to show up, and I doubt Blizzard would print such card cause warlock is already insanely strong.
7. Rogue unfortunately will always be the Miracle class, their classic set is way too powerful for blizzard to print a new card for rogue that will enable another archetype, every good class card printed for rogue just comes to support miracle honestly.
8. Paladin looks like it'll be the aggro class for excellence, just vomit your entire hand and smorc, the very few control tools it gets are not strong enough to beat the control monsters we have know like warlock, druid and mage.
9. Finally hunter looks like is going away from the always popular smorc and win on turn 5 strategy, it doesn't have enough tools to make a full control decks but at least now we have some mid-range decks that doesn't rely on playing beast turn 1 to buff beast turn 2 to get huffer turn 3 to buff the beast turn 4 or something like that.
While armor thematically is fine in druid, I worry that the amount of armor gain Druids have in standard rotation is a little high. They just kept getting "one more card" with lots of armor. Almost like Priests and AOE cards...
Branching Paths is insanely good. It can be a far better Greater Healing Potion (gain armor > restore health), a slightly worse Arcane Intellect, and about equivalent to Savage Roar (permanence is better, but two fewer total attack, for one more mana... hard to say would be better without other BP options). Unlike Greater Healing Potion, which could already be strong in some priest decks, was also a very limited card. You can't just slam it because you've got a free 4 mana, you need to be missing health, and have the mana to spare when clearing the board. Should Branching Paths require you to choose two different options? Card/Armor, Armor/Attack, Attack/Card? That might be too weak, though...
Maybe druids need the high armor gain. Board clear and hard removal? Hah. With Jades gone, their long-game tools aren't so much long-game tools, but designed to finish a game before it goes too long, with things like Ultimate Infestation to reload quickly while generating at least "eh, OK" tempo.
Well, they often derive their inspiration from WoW.
In WoW, guardian druids happen to be the most armor-centric of all the tanking specs with their active mitigation abilities being used to give them more armor. To me, the armor theme actually makes more sense than the heal aspects of Hearthstone druid, because WoW druid relies on over time heals and group heals and Hearthstone druid has several large instant targeted/hero heals.
Granted, the healer aspects of Hearthstone have always been a bit wonky with a divine shield mechanic commonly associated with Paladin stuff but no bubble associated with Priest.
One of the strangest design choices they’ve made imo is giving Druid TONS of armor gain. This was warrior’s niche for a long time and then they gave Druid bunches of armor gain for some strange reason.
bear druids in WoW tank, in addition to their high health and armor, thru armor mitigation and health recovery. Its consistent with class identity.
Imo they fit more with healing than armor. I would’ve liked to see things like furious howl and oaken Summons heal instead.
For that matter, that’s what Druid WAS about healing previously in Hearthstone. Moonglade Portal and Healing Touch.
While it is true that Druids have had the ability to gain armour, it was meant so that you imagined your hero shape-shifting to help their minions on the board.
However I think one of the reasons they may have done this is because they (Blizzard) didn't want just one class to have the armour. If that was the case, in time the warrior class could've have been too powerful because of the amount of armour they would gain over the other classes.
That said however, it's a shame that there hasn't been any good armour synergy cards for Warrior recently. Especially knowing that at this time there is only one good tier Warrior deck (Quest Warrior) and that's mostly based on Taunt minions with some armour gain.
My Entry for this week's Card Design Competition - Season 8.16:
Mage has ways of getting armor too. It makes sense that multiple classes have this — like there’s also multiple weapon classes, multiple healing classes, multiple buff classes.
Shudderwock means driving a clown car in circles around your opponent while he swings his sword at you. Half the time he chops you and your car to pieces. The other half you park on his legs and 40 clowns come out one by one, trampling him to death.
Whizbang Strategy Reference -- update complete for Rastakhan's Rumble!
That'd be a nice animation to add to the game, Malfurion's portrait being shadowed briefly by a bear when he attacks or gain armor (or whatever animal he is associated to in WoW lore).
Healing was more Druid's forte in the early days for Hearthstone, but in WoW (speaking from very little experience) Druids can shapeshift into a cat form that's more about damage or a bear form that's more about tanking.
Imo, Malfurion DK represents this aspect PERFECTLY with the Hero Power; the ability to choose an offensive or defensive shapeshift (it's even the name of the HP).
Anyway, I think the fact that Druids in HS have gotten more of an armor aspect in recent years is due to the fact that the initial design was lacking a bit in translation from WoW. I believe they have better represented the class from WoW with the armor thing.
Nature is the Day.
Man is the Sun.
Woman is the Moon.
The Stone is the Sky.
The Art is the Way.
The tank nature of the druid is something they have just focused on more with the last few expansions. Armor is baked right into the hero power of the druid. The decks that focus on it lose a lot of ability to counter the board and hope to hold out for that combo. It's not out of control right now and the only truly successful version of it relies on Hardonox combos to get a victory. I like where it's at and it makes sense in terms of lore and HS mechanics.
It's funny
i just wrote about something similar.
comparing warrior and druid it is insane that druid can create as much armour as warrior - the difference is that druid has no downside
the maximum amount of armourgain in druid is 32 in one turn
warrior can make 35 armour but with a huge downside in one turn giving your opponents minions costing 4 less.
Blizzard - tell us witch class is gaining more armour... of corse warrior uses armour diffrently but let's make another comparison.
Prenerf warlock had more healing than priest haha it's a joke really. Why not give rogue some totemsynergies, shaman some combocards, mage some divineshield minions and paladin some spelldamageminions. Would be awesome right?
jokes aside i hope they learned a lesson. Warrior and priest need a buff but is it needed through expansions? Warrior has the weakest basic set and we all know that priest got some crazy cards in expansions so they can compete with other classes because of their weak classic set.
i ask blizzard to add new cards to the classic basic set that don't see any use. We could disscuss this over and over again but it is no secret that rogue or mage have a bigger basestteangth than shaman, priest, warrior or warlock. Than they make better cards in expansions to que up with the other classes and the wild format suffers from that because all these classes can stock up the great cards they get throughout expansions.
I'm not saying they have to do this tomorrow but it should be known and therefore communicated what they say about this...
this is no salty message - it's a concerne i have for the game
It's cool that they're trying to explore new archetypes and identities for most classes:
1. As you said druid has now become the armor eating class that's designed for the long game and fatigue.
2. Warrior is starting to get more options for recruiting big stuff.
3. Mage is getting nice control tools to not just be either burn or freeze oriented.
4. Priest will always be a combo class as Divine Spirit, Inner Fire and Power Word: Shield are all classic cards (Unless they get HoF of course) and at least for now it looks like blizzard will keep adding at least 1 dragon per expansion that priest can use to keep the dragon master vibe going.
5. Shaman looks like it'll take the Shudder way for the next 2 years, that card is just too powerful to not be the center piece of most shaman decks, if the meta is slow enough Shudder will only get stronger and with some powerful battlecries the deck could just be the absolute leader of the meta. If not then Even will probably be the strongest or maybe aggro shaman will flourish again if blizzard is stupid enough.
6. Until next rotation it looks like all the strong Warlock decks will be control oriented, Voidlord, Bloodreaver Gul'dan, Possessed Lackey and Defile are all examples or cards that are way too strong to make any other archetype stronger, there would need to be another insane card for Zoo to rise again or for any other "new" archetype to show up, and I doubt Blizzard would print such card cause warlock is already insanely strong.
7. Rogue unfortunately will always be the Miracle class, their classic set is way too powerful for blizzard to print a new card for rogue that will enable another archetype, every good class card printed for rogue just comes to support miracle honestly.
8. Paladin looks like it'll be the aggro class for excellence, just vomit your entire hand and smorc, the very few control tools it gets are not strong enough to beat the control monsters we have know like warlock, druid and mage.
9. Finally hunter looks like is going away from the always popular smorc and win on turn 5 strategy, it doesn't have enough tools to make a full control decks but at least now we have some mid-range decks that doesn't rely on playing beast turn 1 to buff beast turn 2 to get huffer turn 3 to buff the beast turn 4 or something like that.
While armor thematically is fine in druid, I worry that the amount of armor gain Druids have in standard rotation is a little high. They just kept getting "one more card" with lots of armor. Almost like Priests and AOE cards...
Branching Paths is insanely good. It can be a far better Greater Healing Potion (gain armor > restore health), a slightly worse Arcane Intellect, and about equivalent to Savage Roar (permanence is better, but two fewer total attack, for one more mana... hard to say would be better without other BP options). Unlike Greater Healing Potion, which could already be strong in some priest decks, was also a very limited card. You can't just slam it because you've got a free 4 mana, you need to be missing health, and have the mana to spare when clearing the board. Should Branching Paths require you to choose two different options? Card/Armor, Armor/Attack, Attack/Card? That might be too weak, though...
Maybe druids need the high armor gain. Board clear and hard removal? Hah. With Jades gone, their long-game tools aren't so much long-game tools, but designed to finish a game before it goes too long, with things like Ultimate Infestation to reload quickly while generating at least "eh, OK" tempo.
Well, they often derive their inspiration from WoW.
In WoW, guardian druids happen to be the most armor-centric of all the tanking specs with their active mitigation abilities being used to give them more armor. To me, the armor theme actually makes more sense than the heal aspects of Hearthstone druid, because WoW druid relies on over time heals and group heals and Hearthstone druid has several large instant targeted/hero heals.
Granted, the healer aspects of Hearthstone have always been a bit wonky with a divine shield mechanic commonly associated with Paladin stuff but no bubble associated with Priest.