Hearthpwn

I think Lava shock is biggest design mistake from blizzard, it is something that can really fix overload thing, but they somehow got scared and stated that 2 dmg is enough.Just imagine with 3 dmg, it really makes a big difference but its not OP.

I know what they wanted to tell people by releasing Lava shock, its utility spell, thats why it is 2 dmg.Well yeah I agree on that part, but shaman mostly needs a fix for overload, not utility in general.

If you can remove something with lava shock, and play this, then its worth, even more worth if you have an unbound elemental out.

Off-topic rant:

As someone who currently plays Lava Shock, can we please stop looking at that card as "a way to fix other cards?"

Lava Shock is a 2 damage spell with the upside of costing less mana in rough situations. It's a flexible way to kill Knife Jugglers, not a way to make bad cards good.

You can't count on being under Arcane Knowledge or any other 2-overload card when you play Lava Shock, or that it'll fix your curve. You can't count on having Lava Shock, or a good reason to use it, when you play an Overload card. After playing a Neptulon, for example, you don't want to shoot face just for the sake of clearing up one mana. After a Feral Spirit if you use your Lava Shock, you had 2 mana before, and after playing it you still have 2 mana. If you didn't have anything to play before, you won't after Lava Shocking, either.

Stop it.

This is arguably the worst card in the game.

4 mana Arcane Intellect. Lol.

Quote from TazdingoFTW jump

Quote from LobsterFrogMan jump

Off-topic rant:

As someone who currently plays Lava Shock, can we please stop looking at that card as "a way to fix other cards?"

Lava Shock is a 2 damage spell with the upside of costing less mana in rough situations. It's a flexible way to kill Knife Jugglers, not a way to make bad cards good.

You can't count on being under Arcane Knowledge or any other 2-overload card when you play Lava Shock, or that it'll fix your curve. You can't count on having Lava Shock, or a good reason to use it, when you play an Overload card. After playing a Neptulon, for example, you don't want to shoot face just for the sake of clearing up one mana. After a Feral Spirit if you use your Lava Shock, you had 2 mana before, and after playing it you still have 2 mana. If you didn't have anything to play before, you won't after Lava Shocking, either.

Stop it.

As someone who uses Savage Roar in druid consistently, I have no idea why you would try to fix bad cards like Force of Nature, a 6 mana 6 dmg spell.

Please stop looking at Auchenai Soulpriest as a way to fix Circle of Healing, a card that doesn't do anything on its own.

Please stop looking at Warsong Commander as a way to fix cards like Grim Patron or Frothing Berserker, they are so mediocre if you don't give them charge and you can't count on having them in your hand.

 

It seriously souinds like Overload cards are unplayable if you don't draw into Lava Shock, but that is not the case. I look at Lava Shock as a tempo card that wins you the game if you use it correctly but not as a win condition on its own that you have to draw in order to win the game. If the game offers me opportunities like using Lava Shock with Ancestral Knowledge, a card that is already usable in specific decks, then I don't say "I can't play that combo because I may not draw into it".

 

expect all thhose classes have pretty damn good card draw, while shaman has to combo JUST to have a decent draw...

Quote from Sare jump

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Quote from LobsterFrogMan jump

Off-topic rant:

As someone who currently plays Lava Shock, can we please stop looking at that card as "a way to fix other cards?"

Lava Shock is a 2 damage spell with the upside of costing less mana in rough situations. It's a flexible way to kill Knife Jugglers, not a way to make bad cards good.

You can't count on being under Arcane Knowledge or any other 2-overload card when you play Lava Shock, or that it'll fix your curve. You can't count on having Lava Shock, or a good reason to use it, when you play an Overload card. After playing a Neptulon, for example, you don't want to shoot face just for the sake of clearing up one mana. After a Feral Spirit if you use your Lava Shock, you had 2 mana before, and after playing it you still have 2 mana. If you didn't have anything to play before, you won't after Lava Shocking, either.

Stop it.

As someone who uses Savage Roar in druid consistently, I have no idea why you would try to fix bad cards like Force of Nature, a 6 mana 6 dmg spell.

Please stop looking at Auchenai Soulpriest as a way to fix Circle of Healing, a card that doesn't do anything on its own.

Please stop looking at Warsong Commander as a way to fix cards like Grim Patron or Frothing Berserker, they are so mediocre if you don't give them charge and you can't count on having them in your hand.

 

It seriously souinds like Overload cards are unplayable if you don't draw into Lava Shock, but that is not the case. I look at Lava Shock as a tempo card that wins you the game if you use it correctly but not as a win condition on its own that you have to draw in order to win the game. If the game offers me opportunities like using Lava Shock with Ancestral Knowledge, a card that is already usable in specific decks, then I don't say "I can't play that combo because I may not draw into it".

 

expect all thhose classes have pretty damn good card draw, while shaman has to combo JUST to have a decent draw...

Honestly my main complaint is that Shaman is just getting screwed having to deal with overpriced cards, as they have in the past. It's only now that the class is getting stuff that overload makes sense on (see Elemental Destruction, although even then it's just a start mainly due to it hitting ALL minions, not just opponent's).

Looking at the other classes' card draw...Mages have Intellect but technically pay more for it, mainly because at least in Shaman you can Ancestral Knowledge and Rockbiter to clear a 2 drop on turn 3 or follow up with a 1-drop or coin 2-drop, and still have some followup next turn (even if it is barebones Totem Up).

Obviously Druid outmatches most classes' card draw because theirs' gives them a 5/5 AND added utility for healing for 5 AND can sometimes come out turn 5 w/ Innervate. Nothing's touching that to be honest, so it's safe to say to not even compare it to Ancestral Knowledge because it's that much better.

Paladin has card draw in Divine Favor (which is dependent if your opponent's dumping their hand or holding onto cards) and Solemn Vigil (which in at least....I'd say 60% of the time) which, is overpriced and is more of a combo card (both of Paladin's card draw can be said to be more combo oriented).

Warriors have Battle Rage...look at Patron consistency and that's all that has to be said about Battle Rage. I guess Shield Block works as well, but isn't as good of a comparison since it's not pure card draw.

Rogue...well pretty much everything in Rogues draw cards. The closest thing to Ancestral Knowledge is maybe Shiv, and even then it's not astounding but it does its job to cycle.

Warlock...yeah, let's just ignore them too because their hero power is complained to be one of, if not the best in the game.

Hunter's is probably worse than shaman, due to Buzzard nerfs and Tracking just not being that good of a card.

Priest has again, more combo card draw, but it can be argued that it's better because the more damaged minions on board, the better.

So with all of that in mind, Knowledge isn't that bad. It's not great compared to other classes, but it does have some better utility compared to the other card draw more used in the early game (mainly that it doesn't take up your whole turn and maybe with warrior as the exception, you do draw more than 1 card). As shown, while it does seem Shaman has to combo for card draw, so do alot of other classes (I say more prominently Paladin because they either burn an AOE for Vigil value or dump their entire hand and only get your hand size with Favor). But looking at it from the big picture, Shaman definitely could've gotten worse...say a 2 mana, draw 2, overload (3). But also considering that Shaman are getting one of the better (not going to say best because that causes more arguments than meaty conversation) in the same set this is coming in, I'd like to think it's a fair trade off.

Quote from TazdingoFTW jump

Quote from LobsterFrogMan jump

Off-topic rant:

As someone who currently plays Lava Shock, can we please stop looking at that card as "a way to fix other cards?"

Lava Shock is a 2 damage spell with the upside of costing less mana in rough situations. It's a flexible way to kill Knife Jugglers, not a way to make bad cards good.

You can't count on being under Arcane Knowledge or any other 2-overload card when you play Lava Shock, or that it'll fix your curve. You can't count on having Lava Shock, or a good reason to use it, when you play an Overload card. After playing a Neptulon, for example, you don't want to shoot face just for the sake of clearing up one mana. After a Feral Spirit if you use your Lava Shock, you had 2 mana before, and after playing it you still have 2 mana. If you didn't have anything to play before, you won't after Lava Shocking, either.

Stop it.

As someone who uses Savage Roar in druid consistently, I have no idea why you would try to fix bad cards like Force of Nature, a 6 mana 6 dmg spell.

Please stop looking at Auchenai Soulpriest as a way to fix Circle of Healing, a card that doesn't do anything on its own.

Please stop looking at Warsong Commander as a way to fix cards like Grim Patron or Frothing Berserker, they are so mediocre if you don't give them charge and you can't count on having them in your hand.

 

It seriously souinds like Overload cards are unplayable if you don't draw into Lava Shock, but that is not the case. I look at Lava Shock as a tempo card that wins you the game if you use it correctly but not as a win condition on its own that you have to draw in order to win the game. If the game offers me opportunities like using Lava Shock with Ancestral Knowledge, a card that is already usable in specific decks, then I don't say "I can't play that combo because I may not draw into it".

 

Apples to oranges. 

Lets take the example used earlier, Feral Spirit. Running that in Shaman along with Lava Shock already. Lava Shock doesn't "fix" the problem of Feral Spirit's overload. This rant was more aimed at those who say stuff like "if you run Lava Shock you NEVER have to worry about overload again and all these cards are great! Elemental Destruction is fine, I can just play a Lava Shock and have all my mana back, woo!" but if you have a Piloted Shredder in your hand and Lava Shock, if you use the Shock, you can't play the Piloted Shredder since instead of having those 2 mana crystals locked, you used them on a removal spell and will still have the same 2 mana available you did before.

(this is what makes Totem Golem so spectacular btw, if you Lightning Storm and clear a bunch of cancer on turn 3 there's a better chance you can follow it up with a good card on turn 4)

Point is that cards like Feral Spirit and Ancestral Knowledge buff the Lava Shock while the most argue the other way around. If you think Ancestral Knowledge is a good card and are happy with the results, I'm not saying don't run it. That's great! And if you're ever in the situation when you have them both, draw 2 cards and then kill an Apprentice or Flame Imp or Huffer for 0 mana, fantastic!

It's probably on purpose. Blizzard WANTS certain classes to have weaknesses and strengths. It appears shaman's weakness is draw.

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It's probably on purpose. Blizzard WANTS certain classes to have weaknesses and strengths. It appears shaman's weakness is draw.

Nah, Shaman weakness is that the class is too well rounded. The only really good stuff is Hex and Fire Elemental, everything else is just good, with is no longer good enough for constructed, to make  the class viable you either need something that links a deck together really tight, or a really good card.

I believe once the meta stagnate again shaman will go back to being a weak class because  it only got good cards. It didn't get any really  good card, if you remove a good a card for another good card you will stay in the same spot, the really  good ones (like murloc knight, Varian Win and poly boar) are the ones that improve a class. Shaman got none of that.

yup

Quote from TazdingoFTW jump

 

Shaman got Thunderbluff Valiant, that is exactly this type of card. And It's probably 1 of the best in TGT.

no, thunderbluff is slow, unplayable in constructed card. Murloc kinght is like 10 times better

okay Tazdingo I tested this in my Egg Shaman (as a way to deck thin to get to the Flametongues) and... honestly, it's working pretty well. Even on turn 5 (if you don't have Fire Ele) it's become shockingly easy to take the 2 overload and be able to curve out just fine.

I don't have the cajones to run a second, but it's not a bad card at all.