You do realize, that this way you will make it a lot weaker than Anduin's, right? While the Priest DK doesn't offer any heal when using its HP, the card is specialized in making a swing and then squeezing out extra pings on the opponent's board/face. It's a reach, which Priests needed for a very long time. By nerfing Gul'Dan's HP damage to 2, the lifesteal part would feel weak at this point of the game and the price of having to pay 10 mana for a single 2/2 HP won't be worth paying anymore.
Although I'm a warlock player myself, I can't understand why some people hate on the DK. That it's a powerful and a swingy card, I would never deny it, but the pay-off is also fair for its cost. If you survive until turn 10 and if you manage to make the needed set-up, then why shouldn't you be rewarded for your plays? The card functions exactly as N'Zoth, the Corruptor - it has a super powerful battlecry effect, it is considered as a win-condition in some decks, but you can't play it on its own because the naked card has nothing impressive to offer (a 5/7 body; Iron Hide + an upgraded, but uncastable HP on the first turn) and thus most of the time you are obligated to wait until you get your value. And believe it or not, all of this makes it a balanced card.
Let's talk about N'Zoth, the Corruptor very quick and mainly about its inclusion in Un'Goro Control Paladin. The reason why N'Zoth was so great in various control decks, was because how valuable the deathrattle minions were and still are. Some of them summon an extra body (Cairne Bloodhoof) and thus you will get something after a wipe or give you an extra resource (Crystalline Oracle). Paladins back then had a nice win-condition against slower decks, consisting of playing Tirion Fordring, Getaway Kodo/Redemption from Hydrologist and trying to multiply Tirion's aggressive bodies with N'Zoth. And even though some people complained about the legendary drop ratio from Stonehill and how paladins managed to play multiple sticky 6/6 bodies in one game, I actually found this aspect really amazing, because this combo was strong in a fair way and it acknowledged paladin's class identity.
Now back to Warlock - imagine how N'Zoth is the DK and the only valuable minion (Tirion) is the Voidlord. Back in KoFT the good demons you could get from the DK were Voidwalker, Despicable Dreadlord, Abyssal Enforcer and all of which could have been easily dealt with using a single board clear (Brawl, Equality + Consecration, spell damage + Dragonfire Potion etc etc). So what made the warlock deck stronger than the paladin one? I won't disagree, that we warlocks have a nice arsenal of board clears (this is our class identity after all), but the main offender was this f*cker - Possessed Lackey (and maybe the legendary weapon and the Voidcaller in wild). Can you imagine what would have been, if the paladin players could play Tirion on turn 6 and multiply it w/ Carnivorous Cube/Faceless Manipulator? Since they spare a lot of mana this way, I can assure you that some of them would have found ways to copy the aggressive body ASAP and abuse their powerful legendary. In warlock's case playing a 9 mana 3/9 on turn 9+ is more than acceptable. It's slow and it eats warlock's whole turn and thus beatable. Building annoying "unbreakable" walls is also fair, as long it comes in the late game.
However, playing a really cheesy strategy and making super greedy plays, especially against aggro decks and not being punished for it - this is what I couldn't stand seeing from the K&C warlock decks. The mechanic called Recruit and the aspect of cheating out too many stats/tempo early on since Karazhan (Barnes + Y'Shaarj, Patches, Lackeys into...) should be addressed and not be supported ever again. Because right now we have Voidlord, Doomguard, Mal'Ganis. Who knows what kind of interesting demons the lackey/skull could ruin?
So there you have it, OP, this is my opinion regarding all of this. I hope that with this post I attract more people, who are willing to make a constructive discussion than an emotional and based on a bad experience one.
tl;dr - The DK is fine @ 10 mana. It's a slow win-condition as N'Zoth. The problem comes from cheating out big minions early on and making the set-up easier than it should be.
Yeah, like everyone else in this game, right ?
You do realize, that this way you will make it a lot weaker than Anduin's, right? While the Priest DK doesn't offer any heal when using its HP, the card is specialized in making a swing and then squeezing out extra pings on the opponent's board/face. It's a reach, which Priests needed for a very long time. By nerfing Gul'Dan's HP damage to 2, the lifesteal part would feel weak at this point of the game and the price of having to pay 10 mana for a single 2/2 HP won't be worth paying anymore.
Although I'm a warlock player myself, I can't understand why some people hate on the DK. That it's a powerful and a swingy card, I would never deny it, but the pay-off is also fair for its cost. If you survive until turn 10 and if you manage to make the needed set-up, then why shouldn't you be rewarded for your plays? The card functions exactly as N'Zoth, the Corruptor - it has a super powerful battlecry effect, it is considered as a win-condition in some decks, but you can't play it on its own because the naked card has nothing impressive to offer (a 5/7 body; Iron Hide + an upgraded, but uncastable HP on the first turn) and thus most of the time you are obligated to wait until you get your value. And believe it or not, all of this makes it a balanced card.
Let's talk about N'Zoth, the Corruptor very quick and mainly about its inclusion in Un'Goro Control Paladin. The reason why N'Zoth was so great in various control decks, was because how valuable the deathrattle minions were and still are. Some of them summon an extra body (Cairne Bloodhoof) and thus you will get something after a wipe or give you an extra resource (Crystalline Oracle). Paladins back then had a nice win-condition against slower decks, consisting of playing Tirion Fordring, Getaway Kodo/Redemption from Hydrologist and trying to multiply Tirion's aggressive bodies with N'Zoth. And even though some people complained about the legendary drop ratio from Stonehill and how paladins managed to play multiple sticky 6/6 bodies in one game, I actually found this aspect really amazing, because this combo was strong in a fair way and it acknowledged paladin's class identity.
Now back to Warlock - imagine how N'Zoth is the DK and the only valuable minion (Tirion) is the Voidlord. Back in KoFT the good demons you could get from the DK were Voidwalker, Despicable Dreadlord, Abyssal Enforcer and all of which could have been easily dealt with using a single board clear (Brawl, Equality + Consecration, spell damage + Dragonfire Potion etc etc). So what made the warlock deck stronger than the paladin one? I won't disagree, that we warlocks have a nice arsenal of board clears (this is our class identity after all), but the main offender was this f*cker - Possessed Lackey (and maybe the legendary weapon and the Voidcaller in wild). Can you imagine what would have been, if the paladin players could play Tirion on turn 6 and multiply it w/ Carnivorous Cube/Faceless Manipulator? Since they spare a lot of mana this way, I can assure you that some of them would have found ways to copy the aggressive body ASAP and abuse their powerful legendary. In warlock's case playing a 9 mana 3/9 on turn 9+ is more than acceptable. It's slow and it eats warlock's whole turn and thus beatable. Building annoying "unbreakable" walls is also fair, as long it comes in the late game.
However, playing a really cheesy strategy and making super greedy plays, especially against aggro decks and not being punished for it - this is what I couldn't stand seeing from the K&C warlock decks. The mechanic called Recruit and the aspect of cheating out too many stats/tempo early on since Karazhan (Barnes + Y'Shaarj, Patches, Lackeys into...) should be addressed and not be supported ever again. Because right now we have Voidlord, Doomguard, Mal'Ganis. Who knows what kind of interesting demons the lackey/skull could ruin?
So there you have it, OP, this is my opinion regarding all of this. I hope that with this post I attract more people, who are willing to make a constructive discussion than an emotional and based on a bad experience one.
tl;dr - The DK is fine @ 10 mana. It's a slow win-condition as N'Zoth. The problem comes from cheating out big minions early on and making the set-up easier than it should be.
Hearthstone home page, under the "new to hearthstone?" section.
It's always been their own definition of the game. ;)