Hey ! Hero Powers are hard to design but it's quite fun to do, so here I go. These are meant to be Hero Powers for potential custom classes, not card effects. Flavor might be off since their is no class attached to them yet but since the HP is often the hard part when designing a class, I find it interesting to design them by themselves.
Here are the rules and guideline I (mostly) follow. (These are self-imposed rules, you are free to use all, some or none pf them when makinjg your own Hero Powers.)
2 mana cost (or less if it enables synergies in the class)
No keywords (more of a style thing)
Nothing strictly better or worst than one of the 9 existing HP (for obvious balance reasons)
Easy to understand (any player should be able to predict it's effect, even the first time they use it)
Same power level as a 0 mana spell (once again, balance)
I obviously don't own any of these ideas, especially considering the low number of potential HPs following my set of rules. Feel free to give feedback and add your own ideas !
Hero Powers are probably one of the hardest parts of creating a set. Every single deck from the class will be using that power, regardless of its deck archetype. Unlike FortyDust, I think most, if not all the hero powers you've listed are feasible, given the right class card support.
The Good
Cristal Ball - Excluding the typo (Crystal, not cristal), I think this is a decent hero power that encourages further card draw, so long as the class features little to no face damage.
Shield of Faith - Once again, the name is a tad awkward, but it really depends on the class this is linked to. I think the Archeologist class by Pircival uses this same hero power, and its one of the most intricate and successful custom classes to date.
The Bad
Animated Armor - This heavily narrows class card design. It relies on the class having support for the 0/3 tokens rather than your hero power supporting your cards. Furthermore, a good hero power should be able to offer benefit regardless of the aclass or archetype you're playing. This simple fails to follow that rule.
Trusty Gun - This might be personal, but I believe that there should be little to no RNG involved in Hero Powers. No hero power should have the offchance of simply doing nothing upon activation.
Surprise Attack - The main problem with this is that it is much too powerful. Note that the mage hero power generally pings minions anyway. This allows you to do it, but at double the damage. The sheer power just doesn't match the slight decrease in versatility.
Thank you for your feedback @FortyDust and @Pheonixfeather
I agree with you on Sword Sparring and Animated Armor. I find it very hard to create a good Summon HP, specificaly because of Paladin's HP. I wonder if it would be ok to have something like "Summon a 1/1 Beast" since Argent Squire is basically a tribe but maybe that kind of HP would limit the class' deckbuilding options. Maybe adding a drawback could work, something like "Summon a 2/2 and deal 2 damage to your hero".
Also hear you on "Trusty" Gun, RNG is not a great factor for HPs. Maybe it would be better as "Deal 0-2" damage. This way it would still be unpredictable but less polarized. I think it could work in a class with the right synergies.
Surprise Attack is too strong, I should have seen that... Maybe with a drawback it could work. Either way, I don't really like this one because it's not very flexible.
I don't think Fight for the Light and To Arms! Are strictly better that the Druid HP. The former is different from Druid in the same way that Priest is different from Warrior and the later as anti-synergy with weapons so I think they're fine.
I might try some drawback HPs, do you have any ideas on drawbacks that are not "deal 2 damage to your hero" ?
It seems like Paladin and Shaman have the ground pretty well covered where summons are concerned. If you create something that's very far outside that power level, it's going to get too swingy. Maybe something like Serpent Ward, except it deals 1 damage to a random enemy? Having 2 Health is an improvement over the 1/1 summons of Paladin and Shaman, but that's offset by the random aim.
As for the gun, if there is any chance at all that the power will do exactly nothing but waste my 2 mana, there's no way I will ever push that button unless I have absolutely nothing else to do.
I would also add one restriction to your list of Hero Power difficulties: Creating a unique one. With Hearthstone and the fan creations community having lasted so long, most of the "usual" Hero Power concepts (a number of which you have touched on here) have already been used such as Restore 1 Health, gain 1 Armor, or gain +2 Attack until the end of your turn. The bright side is, if you haven't seen these concepts before but made them on your own, this means you have a fairly good grasp on how to balance Hero Powers.
Now, for the ones I have *not* seen before:
Surprise Attack: Deal 2 damage to a minion. This should strike you right away as Fireblast Rank 2. No go.
"Trusty Gun": A little too RNG reliant for my taste, as others have said.
Combat Ready: While I have seen this idea before, I do want to point out that you ought to be careful when creating, say, a custom class around his hero power as it was deemed to be too powerful in Rogue and was changed the equip a 1/2. It can work, you just need to be a bit careful as being able to "store" 2 damage whenever you want is quite powerful.
To Arms!: Believe it or not, I don't see this one too often. This is probably the safest, and best, Hero Power of the lot here. You could change the flavour of this one in all sorts of ways and can easily be used in a custom class.
These are all very interesting. Me and McF have been at this for going on five-six years now (most our old hero powers were so imbalanced and/or not fitting for the class) so I’m gonna give you two more rule suggestions;
6. All hero powers must fit three lines with the Hero Power line
7. Hero Powers shouldn’t have multiple dead zones.
the first one’s a style thing, and don’t worry, I never notice either. The second is Game Design. All current ingame HPs can be either be flatcast turn 2 (even Priest), and therefore it’s clearly part of design ethos. That being said, I’m kicking myself that To Arms! never occurred to me.
Thanks again to everyone for your feedback ! I'm happy to see most people like To Arms!, I like it to an I might even make a whole class around it (maybe Knight ?).
Here are some more. I tried made them with drawbacks, I think it opens up a lot more design space.
If you are going to make a custom class... I would wait. *ahem* We're probably going to organize a large custom class contest eventually
I forgot to mention. You need to put "Hero Power" bolded onto each of these. Just look at the in-game Hero Powers for reference.
Recycling isn't bad. Specify whether you get to choose or if its random. If it's choose, that's really strong. Hmmm. Blood Construct is the same as Tekahn's The Pact. I think it's a little too strong to see play, in all honesty. 1/2, maybe. Frozen Champion, I'm very against using keywords in a class Hero Power. Fire on Sight is a pretty interesting one. I honestly think it is fairly difficult to evaluate this one but it *seems* ok. You're basically giving your opponent a Stonetusk Boar in exchange for a 2/2 weapon.
If you are going to make a custom class... I would wait. *ahem* We're probably going to organize a large custom class contest eventually
I forgot to mention. You need to put "Hero Power" bolded onto each of these. Just look at the in-game Hero Powers for reference.
Recycling isn't bad. Specify whether you get to choose or if its random. If it's choose, that's really strong. Hmmm. Blood Construct is the same as Tekahn's The Pact. I think it's a little too strong to see play, in all honesty. 1/2, maybe. Frozen Champion, I'm very against using keywords in a class Hero Power. Fire on Sight is a pretty interesting one. I honestly think it is fairly difficult to evaluate this one but it *seems* ok. You're basically giving your opponent a Stonetusk Boar in exchange for a 2/2 weapon.
I know there's gonna be a big competition eventually but I don't know if I want to wait to long before trying some things out. Maybe I'll keep doing Hero Powers until there is a competition so that I have a few good ones to choose from.
Also I know I should put Hero Power on them but since I'm doing a lot of them in a brainstormy way I skip that part. Don' worry tho it will be on the final ones.
Recycling is intended be random (kinda like a softer discard) but maybe "right-most" or "left-most" would be interesting.
For Blood Construct, I'll admit I didn't know about Takhan's HP. I tend to overlook dungeon run HPs since they don't really follow the core HP design. Maybe "take 1 damage and summon a 1/2" then.
Frozen Champion is meh, I agree.
Drawbacks are hard... I'll try finding new ones. Giving stuff to your opponent sounds good, maybe Armor. Also 1 damage to your hero is interesting, I'll try finding balanced upsides.
but maybe "right-most" or "left-most" would be interesting.
Now there's a really nice idea. What I find works best is to have a "normal" Hero Power with a twist just like that added to it. Draw a card, normal. But now you've added the element of planning ahead.
I did something similar with my custom class' hero power. Gain Attack, normal. But then easy-to-refresh adds a 2nd element of interaction to it:
Hey so I've been working on 8 new hero powers through the week and I would love to share it. If you see something that looks familiar, I'm sorry I hade the same idea as someone else, I promise you it's not intentional on my part.
For the last 2, I'm not certain about the wording. Ogre Smash! is based on ogre minions and is not meant to backfire and hit your side of the board but I'm not sure I worded it correctly. Dragon Nest is just to long and I don't really know what to do about it.
Glimpse: While this Hero Power is balanced, it *does* go against the basic idea that you have to be able to use your Hero Power proactively on turn 2. While Priest sometimes is unable to do that turn 2, this one *always* is useless turn 2, and perhaps even turn 3.
War Howl: Hmmmmm. Being able to give it to any friendly minion, not just yourself... might be too strong.
Dark Enemy: Seems good.
Blow Em Up: This was used in a tavern brawl once. It's balanced.
Bolt of Purity: This is an upgrade of the Mage Hero Power, so it is too strong.
Overwhelming Power: Hmmmm. I think this is ok... maybe a bit on the strong side. If you're playing in a Handlock style, the costs (1) doesn't even matter since you just draw and pass.
Ogre Smash: Now, this one is the one I think actually works the best but *only* in a custom class that centers around 50% chance. You'd need cards that allow the player to ignore the 50% thing.
Dragon Nest: Too complicated. I assume you summon Dragon Egg. It's not a vanilla token, neither is it even in the Basic set. This would be better on an Adventure Boss.
Hey everyone ! I'm sure you're all excited for the new Demon Hunter hero coming to the game. Or course, being the Hero Power enthusiast that I am, I loved the new one we are getting. I think it brings a lot of novelty and design space that I would like to explore. That being said, I want to break it down a bit first.
So this new Hero Power will give your Hero +1 Attack this turn for 1 mana. Obviously it's a big change to the status quo because all basic Hero Powers were 2 mana until now. I think this is a great new addition that opens up the possibility of designing 1 mana Hero Powers. This one in particular is great because give your Hero the ability to attack is a big deal and enables synergies. I think that's what I'll go for in my designs.
New batch of Hero Powers ! This new Demon Hunter class really inspired me. I hope you like them and would love feedback. As always, I'm aware that only 20 to 30% of them are good, that's why I make so many at once.
I think that Hoarding should be 2 Mana. I also wonder if Lead the Legion and Consume! are not a bit too strong. The rest looks fine, and Strong Medicine is awesome.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hey ! Hero Powers are hard to design but it's quite fun to do, so here I go. These are meant to be Hero Powers for potential custom classes, not card effects. Flavor might be off since their is no class attached to them yet but since the HP is often the hard part when designing a class, I find it interesting to design them by themselves.
Here are the rules and guideline I (mostly) follow. (These are self-imposed rules, you are free to use all, some or none pf them when makinjg your own Hero Powers.)
I obviously don't own any of these ideas, especially considering the low number of potential HPs following my set of rules. Feel free to give feedback and add your own ideas !
Shield of Faith -- good design; would be a good replacement for current Priest power
Surprise Attack -- a bit too strong. Board effects are better than face effects (unless it's lethal), so this is better than Hunter power
"Trusty" Gun -- terrible. No one in their right mind would use this.
Fight for the Light -- Like Surprise Attack, too strong because it's strictly better than Druid power.
Fighting Spirit -- basically the same as Combat Ready, but with less flavor and no possibility of weapon interactions.
Sword Sparring -- too snowbally. If the opponent can't answer it, it becomes harder and harder to answer. Crazy OP.
Crystal Ball -- Also crazy OP. End of turn is not enough of a drawback compared to Warlock's loss of Health.
Combat Ready -- good one. I honestly would like to see this replace the current Warrior power.
Animated Armor -- too narrow. It's unusable unless your deck contains buffs. Maybe it soaks some random damage, but that's a corner case.
To Arms! -- strictly better than Druid power because of possible weapon interactions, so slightly OP.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Hero Powers are probably one of the hardest parts of creating a set. Every single deck from the class will be using that power, regardless of its deck archetype. Unlike FortyDust, I think most, if not all the hero powers you've listed are feasible, given the right class card support.
The Good
The Bad
Wished to be pink.
Then did.
Then fired myself.
Then did again.
Thank you for your feedback @FortyDust and @Pheonixfeather
I agree with you on Sword Sparring and Animated Armor. I find it very hard to create a good Summon HP, specificaly because of Paladin's HP. I wonder if it would be ok to have something like "Summon a 1/1 Beast" since Argent Squire is basically a tribe but maybe that kind of HP would limit the class' deckbuilding options. Maybe adding a drawback could work, something like "Summon a 2/2 and deal 2 damage to your hero".
Also hear you on "Trusty" Gun, RNG is not a great factor for HPs. Maybe it would be better as "Deal 0-2" damage. This way it would still be unpredictable but less polarized. I think it could work in a class with the right synergies.
Surprise Attack is too strong, I should have seen that... Maybe with a drawback it could work. Either way, I don't really like this one because it's not very flexible.
I don't think Fight for the Light and To Arms! Are strictly better that the Druid HP. The former is different from Druid in the same way that Priest is different from Warrior and the later as anti-synergy with weapons so I think they're fine.
I might try some drawback HPs, do you have any ideas on drawbacks that are not "deal 2 damage to your hero" ?
Maybe "Draw 2 cards, then discard a random card"?
It seems like Paladin and Shaman have the ground pretty well covered where summons are concerned. If you create something that's very far outside that power level, it's going to get too swingy. Maybe something like Serpent Ward, except it deals 1 damage to a random enemy? Having 2 Health is an improvement over the 1/1 summons of Paladin and Shaman, but that's offset by the random aim.
As for the gun, if there is any chance at all that the power will do exactly nothing but waste my 2 mana, there's no way I will ever push that button unless I have absolutely nothing else to do.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
I quite like this.
I would also add one restriction to your list of Hero Power difficulties: Creating a unique one. With Hearthstone and the fan creations community having lasted so long, most of the "usual" Hero Power concepts (a number of which you have touched on here) have already been used such as Restore 1 Health, gain 1 Armor, or gain +2 Attack until the end of your turn. The bright side is, if you haven't seen these concepts before but made them on your own, this means you have a fairly good grasp on how to balance Hero Powers.
Now, for the ones I have *not* seen before:
Surprise Attack: Deal 2 damage to a minion. This should strike you right away as Fireblast Rank 2. No go.
"Trusty Gun": A little too RNG reliant for my taste, as others have said.
Combat Ready: While I have seen this idea before, I do want to point out that you ought to be careful when creating, say, a custom class around his hero power as it was deemed to be too powerful in Rogue and was changed the equip a 1/2. It can work, you just need to be a bit careful as being able to "store" 2 damage whenever you want is quite powerful.
To Arms!: Believe it or not, I don't see this one too often. This is probably the safest, and best, Hero Power of the lot here. You could change the flavour of this one in all sorts of ways and can easily be used in a custom class.
These are all very interesting. Me and McF have been at this for going on five-six years now (most our old hero powers were so imbalanced and/or not fitting for the class) so I’m gonna give you two more rule suggestions;
6. All hero powers must fit three lines with the Hero Power line
7. Hero Powers shouldn’t have multiple dead zones.
the first one’s a style thing, and don’t worry, I never notice either. The second is Game Design. All current ingame HPs can be either be flatcast turn 2 (even Priest), and therefore it’s clearly part of design ethos. That being said, I’m kicking myself that To Arms! never occurred to me.
Thanks again to everyone for your feedback ! I'm happy to see most people like To Arms!, I like it to an I might even make a whole class around it (maybe Knight ?).
Here are some more. I tried made them with drawbacks, I think it opens up a lot more design space.
Let me know what you think !
If you are going to make a custom class... I would wait. *ahem*
We're probably going to organize a large custom class contest eventuallyI forgot to mention. You need to put "Hero Power" bolded onto each of these. Just look at the in-game Hero Powers for reference.
Recycling isn't bad. Specify whether you get to choose or if its random. If it's choose, that's really strong.
Hmmm. Blood Construct is the same as Tekahn's The Pact. I think it's a little too strong to see play, in all honesty. 1/2, maybe.
Frozen Champion, I'm very against using keywords in a class Hero Power.
Fire on Sight is a pretty interesting one. I honestly think it is fairly difficult to evaluate this one but it *seems* ok. You're basically giving your opponent a Stonetusk Boar in exchange for a 2/2 weapon.
I know there's gonna be a big competition eventually but I don't know if I want to wait to long before trying some things out. Maybe I'll keep doing Hero Powers until there is a competition so that I have a few good ones to choose from.
Also I know I should put Hero Power on them but since I'm doing a lot of them in a brainstormy way I skip that part. Don' worry tho it will be on the final ones.
Recycling is intended be random (kinda like a softer discard) but maybe "right-most" or "left-most" would be interesting.
For Blood Construct, I'll admit I didn't know about Takhan's HP. I tend to overlook dungeon run HPs since they don't really follow the core HP design. Maybe "take 1 damage and summon a 1/2" then.
Frozen Champion is meh, I agree.
Drawbacks are hard... I'll try finding new ones. Giving stuff to your opponent sounds good, maybe Armor. Also 1 damage to your hero is interesting, I'll try finding balanced upsides.
Now there's a really nice idea. What I find works best is to have a "normal" Hero Power with a twist just like that added to it. Draw a card, normal. But now you've added the element of planning ahead.
I did something similar with my custom class' hero power. Gain Attack, normal. But then easy-to-refresh adds a 2nd element of interaction to it:
None of your hero powers are creative at all. They are just compromises based off of existing ones.
Most of the custom class winners had a relatively simple Hero Power. They seem similar to the existing ones since those are the most well-balanced ones. Just take a look at the most recent one: https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/fan-creations/234336-trials-and-errors-class-creation-competition-5
In fact, the one with the simplest one actually won. (Restore 1 Health, gain 1 Armor)
Hey so I've been working on 8 new hero powers through the week and I would love to share it. If you see something that looks familiar, I'm sorry I hade the same idea as someone else, I promise you it's not intentional on my part.
For the last 2, I'm not certain about the wording. Ogre Smash! is based on ogre minions and is not meant to backfire and hit your side of the board but I'm not sure I worded it correctly. Dragon Nest is just to long and I don't really know what to do about it.
Feedback is welcomed as always !
Glimpse: While this Hero Power is balanced, it *does* go against the basic idea that you have to be able to use your Hero Power proactively on turn 2. While Priest sometimes is unable to do that turn 2, this one *always* is useless turn 2, and perhaps even turn 3.
War Howl: Hmmmmm. Being able to give it to any friendly minion, not just yourself... might be too strong.
Dark Enemy: Seems good.
Blow Em Up: This was used in a tavern brawl once. It's balanced.
Bolt of Purity: This is an upgrade of the Mage Hero Power, so it is too strong.
Overwhelming Power: Hmmmm. I think this is ok... maybe a bit on the strong side. If you're playing in a Handlock style, the costs (1) doesn't even matter since you just draw and pass.
Ogre Smash: Now, this one is the one I think actually works the best but *only* in a custom class that centers around 50% chance. You'd need cards that allow the player to ignore the 50% thing.
Dragon Nest: Too complicated. I assume you summon Dragon Egg. It's not a vanilla token, neither is it even in the Basic set. This would be better on an Adventure Boss.
Hello ! I'm back at it again (while I wait for the next custom class competition). I tried some new mecanics, hope you like it.
Tell me what you think !
Hey everyone ! I'm sure you're all excited for the new Demon Hunter hero coming to the game. Or course, being the Hero Power enthusiast that I am, I loved the new one we are getting. I think it brings a lot of novelty and design space that I would like to explore. That being said, I want to break it down a bit first.
So this new Hero Power will give your Hero +1 Attack this turn for 1 mana. Obviously it's a big change to the status quo because all basic Hero Powers were 2 mana until now. I think this is a great new addition that opens up the possibility of designing 1 mana Hero Powers. This one in particular is great because give your Hero the ability to attack is a big deal and enables synergies. I think that's what I'll go for in my designs.
New batch of Hero Powers ! This new Demon Hunter class really inspired me. I hope you like them and would love feedback. As always, I'm aware that only 20 to 30% of them are good, that's why I make so many at once.
I think that Hoarding should be 2 Mana. I also wonder if Lead the Legion and Consume! are not a bit too strong. The rest looks fine, and Strong Medicine is awesome.