As with Mage and Rogue (and to a lesser extent, Paladin), gives a way to ping off creatures to weaken or kill them. Having a Hero Power that deals damage means you don't have to rely on draws to get damage.
It gives Armor which increases survivability, and makes up for the Health you lose attacking minions. It's also better than the Mage Hero Power when you attack face.
It can serve two different purposes at the same time, without having to switch your Hero Power with Finley.
Cons:
As with Rogue, it has the drawback that your Hero will take damage when you attack a minion.
As it accomplished two purposes at once, they're both weaker than other Hero Powers based on that one purpose. The Attacking part is worse than the Rogue Hero Power as the attack only lasts one turn and isn't buffable by certain tools (except Bite and Claw, but who uses those?).
Works wonderfully for aggro decks. Dealing 2 damage to the enemy hero puts them on a serious clock. Against Warrior or Priest, they may find themselves having to use their Hero Powers every turn to keep themselves alive.
Better than the Mage's Hero Power when pinging face would be the right move. Unlike Shadowform, doesn't require you to pay 3 mana or use a card in your deck to access. In exchange, you just can't target minions.
Cons:
Only usable aggressively. It can't impact the board in a meaningful way (unless you have Steamwheedle Sniper). It only targets face, meaning it can't help you against large threats. You'll just have to YOLO and hope you can kill your opponent faster with it. The Hero Power is the main reason a real Control Hunter deck hasn't existed.
Compared to Druid and Rogue, you don't hurt yourself using the Hero Power, and compared to Paladin, you get the 1 damage right away. EXTREMELY useful when your opponent has a large threat weakened and you can save yourself a lot of Health.
Can bypass Taunts, and can target friendly characters which can be useful with cards like Acolyte of Pain or Gurubashi Berserker, or for triggering your own Enrage effects.
Cons:
Does not have any Mage synergy unlike the damage dealing Hero Powers of Rogue, Druid or Paladin (even if Druid's is extremely limited).
Summons a minion so it impacts the board immediately and gives you something to attack with on your next turn.
That minion is than buffable by the numerous buff cards Paladin has. Silver Hand Recruits are more than just 1/1's in Paladin and in general can represent a bigger threat than they appear.
Cons:
The Silver Hand Recruit needs to be able to survive your opponent's next turn for you be able to use it the way you want to, and be able to damage exactly what you want. Mage or Druid's Hero Power can obsolete Paladin's, as it's able to deal with them for the same amount of mana without any consequences.
Give's Priest a consistent way of healing their minions keeping them alive. When you have board control, this can be EXTREMELY powerful. Because of the Hero Power, Priest is the only class that can consistently take advantage of effects from cards like Lightwarden. In addition, it's healing and we don't have much of that in the game.
The effect is storable, so you can pay 2 mana now, and use it for when you actually need to use it. With 2 Durability, it also makes it so that you don't have to use your Hero Power every turn if you want to get the maximum value from it.
Allows consistent synergy with weapon-synergistic cards. You don't have to draw a weapon to be able to use them.
Cons:
Attacking minions requires you to deal damage to your own heal, and Rogues have no heal cards of their own so they have to rely on Neutral healing. It's also the worst Hero Power for Inspire because you can't get efficient value when you use it every turn.
Summons a minion so you can always get something on the board (even if it has 0 Attack most of the time).
Allows for consistent Totem synergy. You can always summon a Totem for the purposes of cards like Thing from Below or Primal Fusion. Totems also have more synergy, and more relevant synergy than the Paladin's Silver Hand Recruits.
Cons:
The summoned Totem, although predictable to some degree, is random so you never know what you're going to get. If you're in a pickle and you need to specific Totem to help with that, you'll need to get lucky. Does not allow you to get duplicate totems (though this can also be a good thing because you can make predictions as to what you'll get).
You don't need to put much draw in your deck because you always have a Hero Power which can do it for you. Very strong for drawing specific cards in your deck that you need. It works for just about any Warlock deck: Aggro/Zoo, Combo, or even Control.
You very rarely have to worry about running out of cards as a Warlock thanks to the Hero Power. If you discard a card, you can just tap and get another card to replace it.
Cons:
You have to damage yourself to use your Hero Power. 2 damage may not be a lot, but the more you use your Hero Power, the closer you get to dying. It's also completely useless if you're in fatigue.
Allows the Warrior to go above 30 Health, increasing their survivability great amounts. Historically, Warrior has always been the best Control class for this purpose. It can also make it harder for your opponent to calculate if they have lethal or not.
The Armor is synergistic with cards like Shield Slam.
Cons:
Worse than the Priest Hero Power if you're in a spot where you have both minions and your hero damaged. In this spot, it's basically just a Lesser Heal that only targets face. It's also fairly anti-synergistic with the "if your hero has less than 12 Health mechanic", where Armor can be useful there but only after you've hit that spot.
I'm not sure wich one is the best, but i think steady shot is worst. Effect itself ain't bad, but only when you are playing full smorc. In my opinion, i would like to see more possible decks for hunter (msg didn't really help with it, lol). Maybe one day, we will see control hunter... Or not, not with that hero power.
Shaman hero power is pretty underrated. Even if totems aren't getting buffed and attacking, they still have to be stomped else be punished by flametongue/valiant/etc, in which case they're they're pretty much a better armor up. Rolling taunt totem is the strongest late game effect a hero power can give. Spell power totems obviously win games when they give you that reach for lethal.
Hearth attack hit the nail on the head. Paladin hero power is the only one (except shaman 1/4 of the time) that is a liability. I play almost exclusively Paladin and often find myself doing nothing instead of hero power because doing so would allow my opponent to activate a cleric or acolyte or beserker. I don't understand how people can say Shaman is worse because of the rng, when the worst part about the rng is that 1/4 of the time you get the Paladin hero power. What I wouldn't give to even have even the chance to add 1 spell damage to consecration through my hero power.
none of the Paladin buff spells are cost effective when used on on recruits. A 4/1 for 3 mana? A 5/5 for 6 mana? The class seems designed to fill your deck with buffs and use the hero power to supply minions, but it's not cost effective so nobody does it.
Paladin has been great once because of one insanely broken card (MC) and good once because of quartermaster but even then, the deck relied more on muster to supply recruits than the hero power.
I think that a good method to understand which Hero power is better is arena cause there are no costructed decks. I would rank those like this.
Best Hero power: warlock (always good no excuses)
Close to always good Hero power: mage (damage without consequeces)
Average Hero powers: priest (if u get a board you win), hunter (if u can play aggressively u can tap to death, otherwhise useless), rogue (best early game, late game suck hard)
Below average: druid (not bad not good, just isn't enough), paladin (1/1 only good if he survives or gets traded, otherwise too slow)
Bad Hero power: shaman (totems need synergies otherwhise they are crap) . Remember how shaman totems were useless pre shamanstone, shaman can sometimes save his ass with a taunt or heal minions but the randomness just isn't worth it.
Worst Hero power: warrior (lots of armour without weapons is completely shit)
You can't compare Hero powers with how good they do in the meta, if you wanna compare them you have to consider the Hero power alone.
Paladin's Hero power is bad only with this super aggro meta but all in all its not that bad. Priests tend to suffer quite a bit from Paladin's hp .
And stop saying that Hero powers define archetypes, tell me how good is amor up for pirate warrior :D
I think that a good method to understand which Hero power is better is arena cause there are no costructed decks. I would rank those like this.
Best Hero power: warlock (always good no excuses)
Close to always good Hero power: mage (damage without consequeces)
Average Hero powers: priest (if u get a board you win), hunter (if u can play aggressively u can tap to death, otherwhise useless), rogue (best early game, late game suck hard)
Below average: druid (not bad not good, just isn't enough), paladin (1/1 only good if he survives or gets traded, otherwise too slow)
Bad Hero power: shaman (totems need synergies otherwhise they are crap) . Remember how shaman totems were useless pre shamanstone, shaman can sometimes save his ass with a taunt or heal minions but the randomness just isn't worth it.
Worst Hero power: warrior (lots of armour without weapons is completely shit)
You can't compare Hero powers with how good they do in the meta, if you wanna compare them you have to consider the Hero power alone.
Paladin's Hero power is bad only with this super aggro meta but all in all its not that bad. Priests tend to suffer quite a bit from Paladin's hp .
And stop saying that Hero powers define archetypes, tell me how good is amor up for pirate warrior :D
Pirate warrior is so fast that you will never use hero power, only if there is nothing else to do it in that turn, armor up is so bad in pirate warrior that you put sir finley to change your hero power for a better one
I think that a good method to understand which Hero power is better is arena cause there are no costructed decks. I would rank those like this.
Best Hero power: warlock (always good no excuses)
Close to always good Hero power: mage (damage without consequeces)
Average Hero powers: priest (if u get a board you win), hunter (if u can play aggressively u can tap to death, otherwhise useless), rogue (best early game, late game suck hard)
Below average: druid (not bad not good, just isn't enough), paladin (1/1 only good if he survives or gets traded, otherwise too slow)
Bad Hero power: shaman (totems need synergies otherwhise they are crap) . Remember how shaman totems were useless pre shamanstone, shaman can sometimes save his ass with a taunt or heal minions but the randomness just isn't worth it.
Worst Hero power: warrior (lots of armour without weapons is completely shit)
You can't compare Hero powers with how good they do in the meta, if you wanna compare them you have to consider the Hero power alone.
Paladin's Hero power is bad only with this super aggro meta but all in all its not that bad. Priests tend to suffer quite a bit from Paladin's hp .
And stop saying that Hero powers define archetypes, tell me how good is amor up for pirate warrior :D
Pirate warrior is so fast that you will never use hero power, only if there is nothing else to do it in that turn, armor up is so bad in pirate warrior that you put sir finley to change your hero power for a better one
So decks don't necessarly rely on hp to be good. If they want to fix paladin they need to focus on strong cards not on Hero power.
I think that a good method to understand which Hero power is better is arena cause there are no costructed decks. I would rank those like this.
Best Hero power: warlock (always good no excuses)
Close to always good Hero power: mage (damage without consequeces)
Average Hero powers: priest (if u get a board you win), hunter (if u can play aggressively u can tap to death, otherwhise useless), rogue (best early game, late game suck hard)
Below average: druid (not bad not good, just isn't enough), paladin (1/1 only good if he survives or gets traded, otherwise too slow)
Bad Hero power: shaman (totems need synergies otherwhise they are crap) . Remember how shaman totems were useless pre shamanstone, shaman can sometimes save his ass with a taunt or heal minions but the randomness just isn't worth it.
Worst Hero power: warrior (lots of armour without weapons is completely shit)
You can't compare Hero powers with how good they do in the meta, if you wanna compare them you have to consider the Hero power alone.
Paladin's Hero power is bad only with this super aggro meta but all in all its not that bad. Priests tend to suffer quite a bit from Paladin's hp .
And stop saying that Hero powers define archetypes, tell me how good is amor up for pirate warrior :D
Pirate warrior is so fast that you will never use hero power, only if there is nothing else to do it in that turn, armor up is so bad in pirate warrior that you put sir finley to change your hero power for a better one
So decks don't necessarly rely on hp to be good. If they want to fix paladin they need to focus on strong cards not on Hero power.
The basic set of paladin is one of the worst one, you are right about focusing on strong cards but the hero power dont help in nothing paladin, you just use hero power if there is nothing else to do.
Judging in a vacuum isn't realistic. We need to go on how it actuallly plays out and what type support the powers have.
1. Warlock. It's the best. Card draw in ANY card game is the most powerful ability. 2. Warrior. People may disagree but it is what it is. It's a stacking heal that counters other hero powers. It also has the most support by far and with Justicar this ability becomes the most obnoxious. Healing 4 a turn. If you try to fatigue this good luck. The warrior has so many tools to keep the board clean and answer boards that you better kill them before they get Armor Up online. All warrior decks play enough weapons and CW which is on a major upswing makes use of it all. 3. Mage. I used to think this one was bad. 2 mana for 1 dmg not good. But it's actually great picking off little minions and finishing off bigger ones. 4. Druid/Rogue. Not much to say here. Both abilities are always useful at picking off minions and of course buffing at will hero attack while adding weapons is. 5. Hunter. Not great. Not horrible. Decent when racing and someone plays a taunt. It's nice to bypass that. 6. Shaman. Usually the worst but right now getting the taunt and spell dmg totem is actually quite good in a lot scenarios. Too bad its all very random and half the time you get the ones you dont want like the 1/1 and healing totem. 7. Paladin. This one has been good before but right now its completely useless. So many classes are running little sweepers that this ability is just not good currently.
Priest is not the worst, they need board presence to be usefull, look dragon priest is strong because can put pressure from the start and the hero power help with that. But paladin is worthless
Each Hero Power has pros and cons over others so it's difficult to come to a concrete answer of what the best or worst Hero Power is:
Shapeshift
Pros:
Cons:
Steady Shot
Pros:
Cons:
Fireblast
Pros:
Cons:
Reinforce
Pros:
Cons:
Lesser Heal
Pros:
Cons:
Dagger Mastery
Pros:
Cons:
Totemic Call
Pros:
Cons:
Life Tap
Pros:
Cons:
Armor Up!
Pros:
Cons:
I probably missed some notes, but whatever.
EDIT: Correcting some of the incorrect code.
Click the image to go to my custom Time Traveler class.
There is no best and worst... it's always situational
I'm not sure wich one is the best, but i think steady shot is worst. Effect itself ain't bad, but only when you are playing full smorc. In my opinion, i would like to see more possible decks for hunter (msg didn't really help with it, lol). Maybe one day, we will see control hunter... Or not, not with that hero power.
Shaman hero power is pretty underrated. Even if totems aren't getting buffed and attacking, they still have to be stomped else be punished by flametongue/valiant/etc, in which case they're they're pretty much a better armor up. Rolling taunt totem is the strongest late game effect a hero power can give. Spell power totems obviously win games when they give you that reach for lethal.
Hearth attack hit the nail on the head. Paladin hero power is the only one (except shaman 1/4 of the time) that is a liability. I play almost exclusively Paladin and often find myself doing nothing instead of hero power because doing so would allow my opponent to activate a cleric or acolyte or beserker. I don't understand how people can say Shaman is worse because of the rng, when the worst part about the rng is that 1/4 of the time you get the Paladin hero power. What I wouldn't give to even have even the chance to add 1 spell damage to consecration through my hero power.
none of the Paladin buff spells are cost effective when used on on recruits. A 4/1 for 3 mana? A 5/5 for 6 mana? The class seems designed to fill your deck with buffs and use the hero power to supply minions, but it's not cost effective so nobody does it.
Paladin has been great once because of one insanely broken card (MC) and good once because of quartermaster but even then, the deck relied more on muster to supply recruits than the hero power.
Top deck is cheat
Top deck is cheat
Judging in a vacuum isn't realistic. We need to go on how it actuallly plays out and what type support the powers have.
1. Warlock. It's the best. Card draw in ANY card game is the most powerful ability.
2. Warrior. People may disagree but it is what it is. It's a stacking heal that counters other hero powers. It also has the most support by far and with Justicar this ability becomes the most obnoxious. Healing 4 a turn. If you try to fatigue this good luck. The warrior has so many tools to keep the board clean and answer boards that you better kill them before they get Armor Up online. All warrior decks play enough weapons and CW which is on a major upswing makes use of it all.
3. Mage. I used to think this one was bad. 2 mana for 1 dmg not good. But it's actually great picking off little minions and finishing off bigger ones.
4. Druid/Rogue. Not much to say here. Both abilities are always useful at picking off minions and of course buffing at will hero attack while adding weapons is.
5. Hunter. Not great. Not horrible. Decent when racing and someone plays a taunt. It's nice to bypass that.
6. Shaman. Usually the worst but right now getting the taunt and spell dmg totem is actually quite good in a lot scenarios. Too bad its all very random and half the time you get the ones you dont want like the 1/1 and healing totem.
7. Paladin. This one has been good before but right now its completely useless. So many classes are running little sweepers that this ability is just not good currently.
Priest
Priest is not the worst, they need board presence to be usefull, look dragon priest is strong because can put pressure from the start and the hero power help with that. But paladin is worthless