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Quote from Dog_with_a_beer »

 

That being said the two are different. The odds of Rag killing that pesky Ironbark Protector for you are greater than the odds that the boombots will remove it and Rag can kill it the turn he's played before it can do any damage... but then the boombots have greater odds of removing two smaller minions than Rag does. There's also the fact that Rag can be used as a kill shot (or bring them within lethal for next turn even if they remove him) if your opponent has an empty board, whereas in a similar situation Boom does 2 damage to their face via boombot attacks if they remove the good Doctor their next turn.

Uh huh... but the odds that a 7/7 and a 1/1 will be able to remove a pesky 8/8 are pretty darn good compared to Rag... and you'll probably get to take out something else out as well and still have a boom bot left over.

Quote from Dog_with_a_beer »

But you guys are acting like Rag had no impact whatsoever past you removing him with BGH or a removal spell... he already had an impact you can't undo by removing him with one card... he did 8 damage to something. Whether it was a minion, or your face, he already created an impact with immediate value... how is Boom that much different? You remove Boom with BGH or removal and you're left with the immediate impact he created via two 1/1 tokens. They're just splitting Rag's fireball into two bombs...

And I don't see how you can argue my RNG comments with Boom aren't relevant but RNG with Rag is... Boom's RNG contains far more variables than Rag's does, thus the number of favorable or unfavorable outcomes available for Boom is far greater... so you're asking more from Boom's RNG than you are from Rag's to get a specific outcome.

That being said the two are different. The odds of Rag killing that pesky Ironbark Protector for you are greater than the odds that the boombots will remove it and Rag can kill it the turn he's played before it can do any damage... but then the boombots have greater odds of removing two smaller minions than Rag does. There's also the fact that Rag can be used as a kill shot (or bring them within lethal for next turn even if they remove him) if your opponent has an empty board, whereas in a similar situation Boom does 2 damage to their face via boombot attacks if they remove the good Doctor their next turn.

I don't know, they seem in line with the mana curve and they each have strengths and weaknesses that give them variance from one another. They each shine more in certain situations than others and I think the reason Boom costs 1 less is you're asking RNG to be kind to you multiple times while Rag only asks RNG to help you once. Maybe it's because Rag is more strategic to play whereas Boom is straight forward? I will say there are times when it would be bad to drop Rag depending on the state of the board while there usually aren't too many times when it would be bad to drop Boom.

You are right in that Dr. Boom does not necessarily do more than Ragnaros the Firelord, however that is not the point.
What you don't seem to get from all this discussion is that a neutral 7-drop should simply not be comparable to a neutral 8-drop. Especially when that 8-drop is widely considered to actually be a strong card, then that means that said 7-drop is undercosted, hence overpowered.

Quote from Triskaidekaphilia »

Uh huh... but the odds that a 7/7 and a 1/1 will be able to remove a pesky 8/8 are pretty darn good compared to Rag... and you'll probably get to take out something else out as well and still have a boom bot left over.

I believe the scenario was based on the assumption that your opponent would be using removal at the start of their turn to remove Rag or Boom in both instances since the bulk of people's complaints seem to be centered around the fact you can't remove Boom and his board impact with one card. My point was you can't really do so with Rag either since he's going to throw that 8 damage at something before you remove him, thus there is an impact on the board he made that cannot be undone with one card. The difference between Rag and Boom is Rag's impact happens instantly while Boom Bots have to be triggered before their value is applied.

I'm pointing out that there are various scenarios where Boom has more value than Rag and various scenarios where Rag has more value than Boom. Also worth pointing out that in your scenario you're forced to trade Boom into the 8/8 while Rag can kill it the turn he's played without taking any damage... so if you're playing Boom the turn AFTER your opponent drops their 8/8 the 8/8 will get to hit face for 8 and then you're still forced to give up most of your board to remove him your next play. In the Rag scenario you don't take 8 damage to the face nor do you lose your board to remove theirs... and if Rag misses the 8/8 and goes face odds are your opponent will trade the 8/8 into Rag because leaving him alone is far more dangerous than leaving Boom alone. Boom will have to attack the taunt (and die) if it's still up while Rag doesn't really care, leaving him able to remove it at the leisure of RNGesus without harming himself.

Quote from Baldassar »

 

What you don't seem to get from all this discussion is that a neutral 7-drop should simply not be comparable to a neutral 8-drop. Especially when that 8-drop is widely considered to actually be a strong card, then that means that said 7-drop is undercosted, hence overpowered.

My point is comparable does not mean equal to. Boom is not better than Rag in every scenario and Rag is not better than Boom in every scenario... and what I feel you're gaining on Rag for that 1 mana increase is: Charge and Immune while attacking. Both of those are substantial differences from Boom in my opinion. The downside is he will randomly select his target.

With Boom you're able to pick who he attacks (which is a substantial difference from Rag) but that 1 mana reduction comes at the cost of: Charge, Immune While Attacking, Damage output and value is subject to RNG.

Those don't seem like worthwhile changes on either side to merit a difference of 1 mana? Are they really that out of line with the mana curve both cards display?

Out of curiousity, what happens to your calculus if instead of comparing Dr. Boom to Ragnaros the Firelord, you compare him to Onyxia - one of the other multi-sumon cards?

honestly, I dont see whats the fuss about boom? hes popular right now, so what? rag was popular back in the day, too. yes, he is strong, but thats kinda what I would expect from a 7mana legendary drop. He might be a strong board presence, but he is very slow with an rng layer and hes definitely NOT worth it in every scenario, hes not even that reliable as a comeback card on t7 if you start loosing the board, so what if he gets 2 for 1 if you completely loose tempo in the current fast meta? there are also counters in BGH and MCT... I could see him 7/6 instead of 7/7, but that about as far as I would go with the nerf, there are more cards in need of an immediate attention imo.

lol ^

I think he should be a 7/5.

why not just make it if dr boom is not on the board the boom bots are discarded.

Like not killed but removed from the board that way death rattles do not trigger and bgh takes care of all of DR Boom.

Dr. Nerfed

I don't necessarily think it needs a nerf, that being said:

If they were to nerf his stats, I think it would probably be made a 7/5, That would make him a solid body with a good effect. A big threat that isn't necessarily easy to remove, Still susceptible to BGH, but not incredibly difficult to remove without it. This would put him in line with Baron Geddon.

As an added perk, Starfall may see more play, further curbing aggro.

Quote from budgetplayer »

To be honest Dr Boom shook up the zoo meta a bit by making Big Game Hunter a must in every deck.

So I think the best way to nerf him is making him a 7/4 so he is still in BGH range.

And making the Boom Bot s 1/1 and taunt. 

This way AoE spells are more effective and Dr Boom relies on the boom bots to be useful so he never gets played on an empty board.(Swipe) XD

Wow, so you are saying Dr. Boom needs a buff...?

I wish the officials at heartpwn would make a poll for people to vote:

Do you think Legendaries should be better or comparable to other rarities of the same cost?

(just because I am surprised to see so many that fall in the other catagory to me, I thought it was a general thing that was agreed upon)

Quote from Aruthawhitewolf »

Do you think Legendaries should be better or comparable to other rarities of the same cost?

I'm pretty sure that legendaries should just be more unique than cards with same mana cost, and that's the way Blizz has made it (except for Dr. Boom).

Quote from daan831 »

what about making boom spawn 0/1 bots that deal 0-4 damage?

Nah. Making the Boom Bots 0/1 is a good nerf already. Reducing the Bots' effect to 1-3 damage is also a good idea. But both of these effects together might be too much of a nerf.

0-4 damage is the same average as 1-3 damage, but it's more RNG-based, and the possibility of rolling 0 damage would just be so frustrating, and kinda boring.

Make the warning meaningful, allow boombots to explode on allies as well. 

That would make the Boom Bots' deathrattle completely meaningless on average. So Dr. Boom would basically be 7/7 + 1/1 + 1/1. Which, I guess still might get played; at least it's better than War Golem.

But I don't think Dr. Boom is OP enough to warrant a big nerf. Don't use a hammer to do a scalpel's job ...

I probably already said this in this thread, but I'd like to see the Boom Bot max damage reduced to 3, and Dr. Boom's Health reduced to 6 or 5. That would be enough of a nerf IMO.

how about "buffing" Dr. Boom to a 6/7, his Boom Bots to 1/2 and give change "enemy" into "friendly" on the boom bots?

that way, he would still be incredible value, but has a little risk factor involved

it happend to may waaaaay too often, that a single Boom Bot took out a 5 health minion -.-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ToqlYxBbTo&feature=youtu.be&t=2m32s


Pax east: about dr. boom nerf

DISCLAIMER: This is not a rant/rage thread. This is not a whining thread. I will not be catering to children on either side of the argument. I'm looking forward to decent arguments on both sides. Don't disappoint me Hearthpwn :)

>"We actually don't have any plans now to change Dr. Boom" -Tyler Wilde

> 

 

As most of us already know, Dr. Boom is widely considered the strongest neutral Legendary released in Blizzard's second Hearthstone expansion, GvG.  Some would go as far as say that it is **the** strongest Legendary released in GvG. As a result, Dr. Boom has become an extremely popular card, being used in a vast majority of top tier competitive [decks](https://tempostorm.com/articles/the-meta-snapshot-9-tempo-storms-gvg-ladder-tier-list-the-beginning-of-gvgs-end).

 

Now, the reasons for Dr. Boom's strength are as varied as the amount of decks he's featured in. Perhaps it is because of his extremely efficient 9/9 stats for 7 mana. Perhaps it is because of his instant board presence with 3 bodies. Perhaps it is because of the power of his Boom Bots. Or perhaps it is because he is simply the best neutral 7-drop available in the game. I doubt that anyone would contest that at least 2 or 3 of these reasons have led to Boom's popularity, the question is if they are too much. Whether Dr. Boom should be nerfed.

 

Let's start off with the basics, Dr. Boom is **not** overpowered because he is too good. That is, he is not overpowered simply because of his strength as a card. Card power is relative, it is dependent on the meta and the state of the game. There is nothing inherently bad about having a card like Dr. Boom. In theory, every single person has equal access to Dr. Boom because he is a neutral card, everyone has the same opportunity to play him as everyone else. But to say that this is justification for the balance of any card is a red herring, it assumes that balance is solely dependent on equality of opportunity. For example, imagine there existed a legendary neutral spell:

 

>OpieOP

> 0 mana

>Win this game when you play this card

 

I doubt most people would argue that this card is balanced even though it theoretically offers an equal opportunity for both players to draw it and therefore win the game. This card is overpowered not because it is "unfair", but because it is unhealthy for the game. What is it that makes this card unhealthy you may ask? There are several reasons:

 

* 1) This card is vastly superior to every card that could be ran in its place. It prevents other cards from being played.

* 2) The elimination of other cards leads to stagnation in the game. This card would be seen in every deck.

* 3) It is plain unfun to play against. There is no satisfaction from playing this card other than that of winning, of depending on the RNG of drawing it first. There is no interaction and there is no counterplay. It is plain frustrating, regardless of how "fair" it is.

 

Now while Dr. Boom is obviously not as strong as this card, there are some parallels between the problems that arise with it and what we can see happening with Dr. Boom. The first has been widely discussed and debated. Dr. Boom is simply the best neutral 7 drop in the game. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, there just aren't any "good" 7 drops, Dr. Boom fills that niche. The solution would simply be to add better 7 drops. But there's a problem, there already exists another neutral Legendary 7-drop, how many of you remember [Troggzor the Earthinator]( http://media-hearth.cursecdn.com/avatars/149/139/12272.png)? Remember how overhyped this card was? It was considered the best Legendary in the GvG expansion, what happened? It's quite simple, it cannot compete with Dr. Boom. The key to making most good decks is to make a curve to fit the archetype you are playing. Aggro decks will have low curves, control decks will have high curves. Most decks simply don't have the room to use more than one card for the higher mana slots, a choice has to be made. This results in a phenomenon known as opportunity cost, there is an invisible cost to running every card and that cost is a deckslot, not being able to run a different card in its place. The opportunity cost of running Troggzor is not running Dr. Boom. This means that Troggzor doesn't get played simply because of the existence of Dr. Boom. Why is that? Troggzor definitely has a powerful effect, why is Boom picked over him 99% of the time? This is something that will be discussed later in the post but for now bear with me.

 

As we can see, Dr. Boom has already led to another potentially "good" card not getting played. But having a card not get played in a card game is not inherently bad. Part of a card game is being able to sort out the good cards from the bad cards, it's necessary to create diversity through the lack of uniformity in terms of power level. What is bad is when diversity is systematically killed because of a card. Dr. Boom has lead to this stagnation, there are no signs that Dr. Boom will stop being run given the current or any future meta. Without some sort of change, whether it is an expansion or a patch, Dr. Boom will see play at his current rate indefinitely. What is unique to Dr. Boom is that he has led to a triple stagnation in the game:

* 1) Dr. Boom is in most decks

* 2) In order to deal with Dr. Boom, Big Game Hunter is in most decks

* 3) Because Big Game Hunter is in most decks, cards like Ragnaros the Firelord have been dropped because they cannot afford to die to Big Game Hunter

 

Before GvG, Big Game Hunter did not see nearly the same level of play that it does now. This was most likely due to the fact that it did nothing against the top deck, Miracle Rogue. However, it was used as a tech card in certain match ups especially against Handlock. Big Game Hunter was situationally incorporated into decks in order to gain an advantage over the flavor of the day deck, as are most "healthy" tech cards like The Black Knight or Harisson Jones. What changed is the existence of Dr. Boom. Big Game Hunter offers almost guaranteed valued every game because it is extremely likely to hit, this has made it an auto include in most decks that don't have a more efficient answer to Dr. Boom. What's the problem with having an answer to Dr. Boom every game, you may ask? Simple. While Dr. Boom is still good enough to run even though your opponent is certain to have at least 1 BGH in their deck, other cards like Ragnaros aren't. This BGH interaction has lead to stagnation where there otherwise wouldn't be any. Because of this, decks such as Handlock have fallen extremely low because they often cannot afford the tempo loss that comes after a BGH hit. The same goes for Ragnaros. Only when BGH is no longer an autoinclude will these decks and cards be able to come back, and that will not happen until Dr. Boom's popularity has waned.

 

Now to address the argument that I'm sure has been boiling at the back of your head since my first point, "Why not just introduce new cards that compete with Dr. Boom? Make other good 7-drops that can compete with it. And also make them not susceptible to BGH so other cards like Ragnaros and decks like Handlock can come back." While this may appear like an easy solution, it's simply trying to put a band aid on a mortal wound. This is due to how Legendary cards as a whole are balanced. First and foremost, a clear distinction has to be made, Legendary cards while stronger than other rarity cards, are **NOT** designed to be broken or direct upgrades to cards. They are designed first and foremost to be unique, and their unique effects come with nuances and trade-offs such as:

 

* A Legendary card may have lower stats to make up for a strong effect ie. Black Knight, Harrisson Jones, Sylvannas WIndrunner, Archmage Antonidas etc.

* A Legendary card may have a negative effect to make up for better stats ie. The Beast, Leeroy Jenkins, Millhouse Manastorm etc.

* A Legendary card may depend on factors outside of a player's control such as RNG or an opponent's plays to get value ie. Sneed's Old Shredder, Ragnaros, Tinkmaster Overspark, Vol'jin, Trade Prince Gallywix etc.

* A legendary card may only have value if certain prerequisites are met ie. Edwin VanCleef, Stalagg and Feaugen, Kel'Thuzad etc.

 

The problem with Dr. Boom is that it does not fall into any of those categories. Dr. Boom is a card that is only limited by opportunity cost. There is no trade off to playing Boom. It's a stat efficient body with a positive effect, and even though it is limited by RNG, every outcome is favorable. We all know the jokes about making your own Dr. Boom with War Golem and two Wisps, but the fact is that Boom is literally a direct upgrade. The only two other cards that have been in similar scenarios are Loatheb and 5 mana Sylvannas. They both were efficient bodies that had a positive effect. Sylvannas was nerfed, Loatheb wasn't. What makes Dr. Boom **different** from both of them is that in both cases, a player may hold on to those cards because they are not actually the best play. Holding onto a Sylvannas on turn 6 because the enemy has no minions is not an unusual play. Just like holding Loatheb against a Rogue or against a Druid is not an unusual play. No such holding happens with Dr. Boom, the best way to get value out of him is to play him as soon as possible.

 

That's why Blizzard by no means should design a card that directly challenges or beats Dr. Boom. Dr. Boom is already designed in such a way that it violates Blizzard's design philosophy about the strength of Legendary cards. Designing other situational cards such as Troggzor in an attempt to compete with Boom will simply not be successful, the opportunity cost of not running Dr. Boom is simply too high.  

 

TL;DR Introducing other 7-drops that can compete with Dr. Boom will only lead to a downward spiral of powercreep because Boom is balanced in such a way that it is a direct upgrade to other cards without any consequence or trade-off. This design runs contrary to Blizzard's philosophy and could lead to catastrophic consequences if Blizzard decides to abandon it.