Ok, so in Warcraft I understood being very defensive about your class. You had to invest a lot of time and effort into a character to get it to level up and raid ready.
However in HS (especially during card reveals) you see a lot of people getting super obsessed with one particular class. You see things like, "I exclusively play priest" or "I dust everything except paladin cards and neutrals."
If there's anyone here who's like this, why? The ability to try out so many classes cheaply is one of HS's biggest draws. I have my favorites, but I play all the classes. People just seem to get so salty because class X received a better legendary than class Y.
The Class Purist concept was probably a lot more prevalent in the early days of Hearthstone than it is today. it was an off-shoot of both gameplay from WoW bleeding into HS, and where some folks had come from WoW TCG and MtG backgrounds where tribalism was a bit more commonplace in terms of deck ancestry / class, etc.
However, it didn't take hold in HS as fervently for possibly 2 main reasons:
1. It became quickly apparent that some classes were heavily outmatched. In early HS, Priest was considered a bit of a joke class, truth be told. It was very underpowered - so of course, you had some kids who claimed to only play priest because they thought this meant others would be impressed that they managed to get any kind of win from it.
2. The classes really struggle for diversity of decks back then (as they do to a much lesser degree now) - which meant you had a choice of maybe 2, possibly 3 decks (if that) to play with any degree of viability. This got old really fast. And those players who had gleefully told others that they dusted all but X class cards, quickly came to horribly regret their decision and realised they had made a huge mistake. Many quit. Some had to rebuild their collections from scratch.
I definitely fall in the budget bin that others have mentioned - prioritizing Hunter and neutral cards let's me fully enjoy that class without buying pre-order bundles.
I also fall in the group saying that certain play styles really don't appeal to them (card stealing, mill, etc.), but I keep legendaries from other classes that seem fun for when I have daily quests.
And I agree that you miss out on some cool mechanics by specializing (e.g. I build Pogo Rogue decks when I have a quest and you can't do that with Hunter), but I disagree that you're missing out on 8/9 of the experience unless you restrict yourself to playing competitive and prioritize win percentage above all else. I currently have 17 Hunter decks that include attempts at making Staraligner, Mecha'thun, Hench-Clan Thug, and other mechanics work in a non-optimal class, and I personally find that challenge really enjoyable. And this is why I don't play a lot of Ranked - the formulaic and predictable builds you need to play and will play against aren't as fun for me. For example, I sympathise with people who don't like playing Spell Hunter because there's not a lot of build freedom and the play style is straightforward, so mine includes Rummaging Kobold and a few other alterations that change the strategy from going face to controlling the board so I can use most of my deck and get double Rhok'delar.
It's definitely not easy or cheap to play any classes. I think many people here are in a bubble and think all of us are pros or streamers who can play 8+ hours per day and grind a lot.
Majority of Hearthstone players are more casual than that, they have jobs / other hobbies and HS is just something they play 2-3hours every couple of days.
These players don't have collections robust enough to be able to build competitive decks of any class and they also don't want to spend too much money on packs because they are just casual players (so they buy 10-15 packs each expansion let's say).
This means that it makes sense to concentrate on 1-2 classes and slowly build robust card portfolio for your favourite class or two. And that's what they end up playing.
For example, I would love to be able to pick any class I currently fancy and put together some currently strong deck and go play it on ladder (I am quite competitive). But my collection is limited and I play casually so I concentrate on 1-2 classes, and mostly dust everything else and just make sure I have all cards of my main class (once I have that I move to my secondary class) so I can have 1-2 reasonably competitive decks to pick up and play at any time.
Also, as additional bonus, if you concentrate on playing 1-2 classes most of the time, you became a real expert in those and learn all sorts of possible corner case plays and most optimal tactics for different situation. It might seems like a small thing, but if you truly master one class and all its ins and outs, it gives you an extra 1-2% edge imho, and often you will eek out a win in situations where you shouldn't.
After you've played rogue, all other classes feel so meh ...
Yeah :D
I dislike Priest, I've had a talk with a friend of mine who suggested playin it because of it's powerlevel... I told him my opinion on priest-playstyle also on the resurrect-mechanic which is broken and not good for a game like HS... If a 1/1 minion dies you should resurrect a 1/1 minion not 8/8...
My greatest fun-wish is to counterplay every priest I face on ladder with a trip to his house with a full loaded shotgun and force him to remove the deck and all class-cards.... Still hoping every expansion that one announcement will be: We remove the priest-class from the game...
Playin since Naxx and have 55w with this "class" but I am hating it with passion.
Being a F2P player is a decision made by the player him/herself, based on his/her capabilities. I don't really can catch the mentality, to play Hearthstone with ony one class, but I do know some people who made this choice. I play since closed beta, with all the nine heroes, but I do have my preferred classes. These are (in order of golden hero acqusition): warrior, warlock, priest, druid, hunter. I never really considered playing only one class, because I realized it is not in harmony with the way Hearthstone is designed. The developers said (I think many times) that they are focusing to balance the game as a whole. This is the reason why some classes don't have specific tools (druids are weak to single target removal, rogue has limited AoE and healing), this is why the quests, the spellstones, the legendary weapons and spell, and most notably death knights/hero cards are not on the same power level. The devs dont try to make every class the same toolbox, so scenarios where "if you want to counter the meta, you have to pick/change to a specific class" really often occurs. What the devs are trying to do is make all nine classes roughly on the same power level, with exact weaknesses. I think the only problem with the "class fanboy mentality" come forward, when the fanboy say he does not like any options for his class, and jealous for other classes options. For example: if you prefer to play rogue only, and prefer to play the control game, then you are not happy with the game. But this approach (only rogue, and only control in combination, AND I WANT TO WIN OF COURSE) is a not so healthy restrictions. But this is a decision as well.
If you love the game, play it, and search for your options, do not limit yourself. I was F2P player until Witchwood. I did not spend any money on the game, had all the adventures and the meta decks of the expansion cards earlier. But since WW I realized buying HS expansions is the same money like having an acitve WOW account, I switched to preordering. And it's fine, until I enjoy the game. :)
Is it wrong to have a personal favorite? No, it's healthy. The unhealty thing is to demand your favorite is be as good as the other 8 together. Which way every class will lose it's identity.
The devs dont try to make every class the same toolbox,
It happened, it happens atm, and it will happen in the future
Now hunter will get the resurrect mechanic
rogue and priest are already mixed up with thief-cards
shaman gets the mage-thing target 3 minions (avalance + new legendary) also a prep for 3 mana + discover-mechanic compared to rogue I could cry again, why Valeera, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
new-druid-card = double the health of one beast... is basically divine spirit
... and many other cards are just copies of other classes or older cards (Paladin spell with Loatheb-effect)
IMO they fucked up on class-identity already and it's getting less creative exp by exp
the lack of creativity @blizz is shown in the link below tststs
You mixing and matching the wrong things here, pal. Yes, hunter has a resurrect mechanic, but I talked about the way, that every class get hard removal, silence, AoE, and so on...
Yes, there will be some similiar stuff, but thats not the end of the world. The end of the world will be, when every class has “flame strike” at the same time. I think the way they do it, is pretty ok.
I like how anything seems to look odd in this community. Anyone has a capability of doing anything they want and why would they be judged for it? Does it really bother you guys that much to someone to have a hype class / main class? I'm a wild guy and also a mage main and when I saw the new Loa for mage, I got super hyped because that class hasn't seen any exciting legendaries for a long time. Let people enjoy things. Please.
Personally I have somewhat this mentality, but in reverse. I like playing all classes except druid. Druid is by far my least favorite class. I've tried, it, hated the game style. I hate how polarizing its cards feel
I agree 100%. Playing Druid just feels like easy mode with little to no decision making. Literally a meme deck for Druid would be viabel in ladder cause of the absurd armor gain and card draw they have.
I agree 100%. Playing Druid just feels like easy mode with little to no decision making. Literally a meme deck for Druid would be viabel in ladder cause of the absurd armor gain and card draw they have.
Meme player here
On the contrary, I play druid because it has the most impactful decision making out of all the classes. I hate losing when "there was nothing I could have done". When I play druid, I can often look back on the replay and find the turns where I screwed up and potentially lost the game
The choice made between playing plague, nourishing to prep for UI, nourishing for cards or attempting to clear the board with removal will often determine if you win or not. On the other hand, the choice between playing one pile of stats over another pile of stats rarely does. The fact that you often have more mana, more cards and cards that have variable effects means there's literally more decisions to make each turn. What's more, many of the current druid decks have flexible win conditions which requires the player to be flexible in composing the macro plans whereas most decks have one clear goal and one clear win condition. It's no coincidence that I see druid opponents missplaying more often by far when I queue up some games, even from ranks 5-dumpster legend
I get that the class is quite OP right now, but being OP and being easy/hard to pilot are two different things entirely. If you still don't believe me, you can look up typical druid decks on HSReplay and play with the "new player experience filter". That is, they have statistical proof that new players piloting druid win much less often than players at the top of the ladder. The winrate difference is the highest of all classes. It's also commonly accepted among pro players that Togwaggle druid is currently the most difficult deck to pilot in the entire game
As for memes ... well, I meme more often than not and frankly your statement on memes makes no sense. Isn't the point of meme decks to execute novel and interesting combinations of cards as efficiently as possible? If your combination is neutral, then putting it in a druid shell enables it to go off more consistently than it would otherwise ... which is a good thing, by the way. Druid being OP is a godsend for making weird concepts and decks that otherwise never could have worked instead have reasonable success
Classes have identities so it only makes sense that many people will have preferences. Me personally Mage, Warlock, and Druid are my favorites. The former is functionally dead identity wise, reduced to a crappy murloc deck (I hate murloc decks), the other 2 are really good but their go to decks are incredibly boring to play. I hate paladins and hunters with a passion. They get some really cool and interesting cards and all the classes ever amount to lately is cookie cutter aggro decks. Deathrattle hunter is at least a little different but not different enough to make me play hunter beyond quests.
Then again I'm the kind of player that made a mage deck with 12-15 secrets and went into ranked play for lulz so that tells you the kind of decks I mess around with.
Murloc is not the identity for the mage class. Murloc mage is kind of an abomination, because the burn capability of mage synergizes with the board-flooding flavour of murlocs. The class identity for mage is spellcasting. You want face damage? There is a spell for that. AoE? There is a spell for that too! Manipulating your enemy? No prob, we've got secrets for ya. Want some card draw? There is a spell for that.
I think every class identity is reflected in some form in their respective quests, except shaman. But the murloc-y thing is a part of the shaman lore-wise so it is kinda okey.
Mage: cast spells
Rogue: bounce minions to do combo stuff
Priest: resurrect deathrattle stuff.
Hunter: flood the board with cheap beasts
Warrior: play defensively (taunts)
Warlock: discard some stuff (aka self-hurting is a thing identified with warlocks, in the form of HP-damage or card-discard)
Paladin: buff your minions
Shaman: murlocs (okey, this one is a little wierd...)
Druid: ramp to big stuff
Archetype and identity is not always the same. Its two different concepts which have overlapping examples, sometimes.
Shaman: murlocs (okey, this one is a little wierd...)
Maybe in the current meta it's a bit odd, but Shaman used to have a lot of reliance in flooding the board, giving some minions buffs like extra attack or windfury, drop Bloodlust and win. Murlocs are excellent synergy for that.
But since the evolve mechanic and Shudderwock became a thing, the archetypes changed considerably.
Yes I am aware of it (I remember Neptulon as well), but warlocks and paladins also got associated with murlocs before, especially pallys. So it's not truly a unique identity.
I exclusively play priest.
The Class Purist concept was probably a lot more prevalent in the early days of Hearthstone than it is today. it was an off-shoot of both gameplay from WoW bleeding into HS, and where some folks had come from WoW TCG and MtG backgrounds where tribalism was a bit more commonplace in terms of deck ancestry / class, etc.
However, it didn't take hold in HS as fervently for possibly 2 main reasons:
1. It became quickly apparent that some classes were heavily outmatched. In early HS, Priest was considered a bit of a joke class, truth be told. It was very underpowered - so of course, you had some kids who claimed to only play priest because they thought this meant others would be impressed that they managed to get any kind of win from it.
2. The classes really struggle for diversity of decks back then (as they do to a much lesser degree now) - which meant you had a choice of maybe 2, possibly 3 decks (if that) to play with any degree of viability. This got old really fast. And those players who had gleefully told others that they dusted all but X class cards, quickly came to horribly regret their decision and realised they had made a huge mistake. Many quit. Some had to rebuild their collections from scratch.
Dark times....
I definitely fall in the budget bin that others have mentioned - prioritizing Hunter and neutral cards let's me fully enjoy that class without buying pre-order bundles.
I also fall in the group saying that certain play styles really don't appeal to them (card stealing, mill, etc.), but I keep legendaries from other classes that seem fun for when I have daily quests.
And I agree that you miss out on some cool mechanics by specializing (e.g. I build Pogo Rogue decks when I have a quest and you can't do that with Hunter), but I disagree that you're missing out on 8/9 of the experience unless you restrict yourself to playing competitive and prioritize win percentage above all else. I currently have 17 Hunter decks that include attempts at making Staraligner, Mecha'thun, Hench-Clan Thug, and other mechanics work in a non-optimal class, and I personally find that challenge really enjoyable. And this is why I don't play a lot of Ranked - the formulaic and predictable builds you need to play and will play against aren't as fun for me. For example, I sympathise with people who don't like playing Spell Hunter because there's not a lot of build freedom and the play style is straightforward, so mine includes Rummaging Kobold and a few other alterations that change the strategy from going face to controlling the board so I can use most of my deck and get double Rhok'delar.
Praise Rang.
my main class is mage, but i play with all classes
Favorite Cards: 1. Lord Jaraxxus | 2. Malygos| 3. Edwin VanCleef | 4. Zephrys the Great| 5. Deathwing
I don't want to sell my house to blizzard so i only play one class
Those who are given more in life, must not cling to it, but risk it all at every moment!
It's definitely not easy or cheap to play any classes. I think many people here are in a bubble and think all of us are pros or streamers who can play 8+ hours per day and grind a lot.
Majority of Hearthstone players are more casual than that, they have jobs / other hobbies and HS is just something they play 2-3hours every couple of days.
These players don't have collections robust enough to be able to build competitive decks of any class and they also don't want to spend too much money on packs because they are just casual players (so they buy 10-15 packs each expansion let's say).
This means that it makes sense to concentrate on 1-2 classes and slowly build robust card portfolio for your favourite class or two. And that's what they end up playing.
For example, I would love to be able to pick any class I currently fancy and put together some currently strong deck and go play it on ladder (I am quite competitive). But my collection is limited and I play casually so I concentrate on 1-2 classes, and mostly dust everything else and just make sure I have all cards of my main class (once I have that I move to my secondary class) so I can have 1-2 reasonably competitive decks to pick up and play at any time.
Also, as additional bonus, if you concentrate on playing 1-2 classes most of the time, you became a real expert in those and learn all sorts of possible corner case plays and most optimal tactics for different situation. It might seems like a small thing, but if you truly master one class and all its ins and outs, it gives you an extra 1-2% edge imho, and often you will eek out a win in situations where you shouldn't.
After you've played rogue, all other classes feel so meh ...
Yeah :D
I dislike Priest, I've had a talk with a friend of mine who suggested playin it because of it's powerlevel... I told him my opinion on priest-playstyle also on the resurrect-mechanic which is broken and not good for a game like HS... If a 1/1 minion dies you should resurrect a 1/1 minion not 8/8...
My greatest fun-wish is to counterplay every priest I face on ladder with a trip to his house with a full loaded shotgun and force him to remove the deck and all class-cards.... Still hoping every expansion that one announcement will be: We remove the priest-class from the game...
Playin since Naxx and have 55w with this "class" but I am hating it with passion.
Being a F2P player is a decision made by the player him/herself, based on his/her capabilities. I don't really can catch the mentality, to play Hearthstone with ony one class, but I do know some people who made this choice. I play since closed beta, with all the nine heroes, but I do have my preferred classes. These are (in order of golden hero acqusition): warrior, warlock, priest, druid, hunter. I never really considered playing only one class, because I realized it is not in harmony with the way Hearthstone is designed. The developers said (I think many times) that they are focusing to balance the game as a whole. This is the reason why some classes don't have specific tools (druids are weak to single target removal, rogue has limited AoE and healing), this is why the quests, the spellstones, the legendary weapons and spell, and most notably death knights/hero cards are not on the same power level. The devs dont try to make every class the same toolbox, so scenarios where "if you want to counter the meta, you have to pick/change to a specific class" really often occurs. What the devs are trying to do is make all nine classes roughly on the same power level, with exact weaknesses. I think the only problem with the "class fanboy mentality" come forward, when the fanboy say he does not like any options for his class, and jealous for other classes options. For example: if you prefer to play rogue only, and prefer to play the control game, then you are not happy with the game. But this approach (only rogue, and only control in combination, AND I WANT TO WIN OF COURSE) is a not so healthy restrictions. But this is a decision as well.
If you love the game, play it, and search for your options, do not limit yourself. I was F2P player until Witchwood. I did not spend any money on the game, had all the adventures and the meta decks of the expansion cards earlier. But since WW I realized buying HS expansions is the same money like having an acitve WOW account, I switched to preordering. And it's fine, until I enjoy the game. :)
Is it wrong to have a personal favorite? No, it's healthy. The unhealty thing is to demand your favorite is be as good as the other 8 together. Which way every class will lose it's identity.
i love warlock <3
Creer es poder
It happened, it happens atm, and it will happen in the future
Now hunter will get the resurrect mechanic
rogue and priest are already mixed up with thief-cards
shaman gets the mage-thing target 3 minions (avalance + new legendary)
also a prep for 3 mana + discover-mechanic compared to rogue I could cry again, why Valeera, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?
new-druid-card = double the health of one beast... is basically divine spirit
... and many other cards are just copies of other classes or older cards (Paladin spell with Loatheb-effect)
IMO they fucked up on class-identity already and it's getting less creative exp by exp
the lack of creativity @blizz is shown in the link below tststs
https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/6182-new-rogue-card-reveal-walk-the-plank
Might as well ask 'what's the deal with numbskull threads on hearthpwn?'
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
What's the deal?
The deal is that i do whatever i want to do with my own account.
I want to play only priest for life?
Again, i do whaever i want to do.
Leper Gnome
You mixing and matching the wrong things here, pal. Yes, hunter has a resurrect mechanic, but I talked about the way, that every class get hard removal, silence, AoE, and so on...
Yes, there will be some similiar stuff, but thats not the end of the world. The end of the world will be, when every class has “flame strike” at the same time. I think the way they do it, is pretty ok.
I like how anything seems to look odd in this community. Anyone has a capability of doing anything they want and why would they be judged for it? Does it really bother you guys that much to someone to have a hype class / main class? I'm a wild guy and also a mage main and when I saw the new Loa for mage, I got super hyped because that class hasn't seen any exciting legendaries for a long time. Let people enjoy things. Please.
I agree 100%. Playing Druid just feels like easy mode with little to no decision making. Literally a meme deck for Druid would be viabel in ladder cause of the absurd armor gain and card draw they have.
Meme player here
Me? Gongaga.
On the contrary, I play druid because it has the most impactful decision making out of all the classes. I hate losing when "there was nothing I could have done". When I play druid, I can often look back on the replay and find the turns where I screwed up and potentially lost the game
The choice made between playing plague, nourishing to prep for UI, nourishing for cards or attempting to clear the board with removal will often determine if you win or not. On the other hand, the choice between playing one pile of stats over another pile of stats rarely does. The fact that you often have more mana, more cards and cards that have variable effects means there's literally more decisions to make each turn. What's more, many of the current druid decks have flexible win conditions which requires the player to be flexible in composing the macro plans whereas most decks have one clear goal and one clear win condition. It's no coincidence that I see druid opponents missplaying more often by far when I queue up some games, even from ranks 5-dumpster legend
I get that the class is quite OP right now, but being OP and being easy/hard to pilot are two different things entirely. If you still don't believe me, you can look up typical druid decks on HSReplay and play with the "new player experience filter". That is, they have statistical proof that new players piloting druid win much less often than players at the top of the ladder. The winrate difference is the highest of all classes. It's also commonly accepted among pro players that Togwaggle druid is currently the most difficult deck to pilot in the entire game
As for memes ... well, I meme more often than not and frankly your statement on memes makes no sense. Isn't the point of meme decks to execute novel and interesting combinations of cards as efficiently as possible? If your combination is neutral, then putting it in a druid shell enables it to go off more consistently than it would otherwise ... which is a good thing, by the way. Druid being OP is a godsend for making weird concepts and decks that otherwise never could have worked instead have reasonable success
Legend with : S65 Freeze Mage, S57 Maly Gonk Druid, S57 "Okay" Shaman, S53 Boom-zooka Hunter, S53 Maly Tog Druid, S52 Wild Tog Druid ft.Blingtron, S50 Quest Rogue, S49 Dead Man's Warrior, S41 Wild Clown Fiesta Druid, S41 Hadronox Jade Druid, S40 Wild OTK Dragon Druid, S35 SMOrc Shaman, S33 Jade Druid, S22 Control Priest, S19 Control Priest
Classes have identities so it only makes sense that many people will have preferences. Me personally Mage, Warlock, and Druid are my favorites. The former is functionally dead identity wise, reduced to a crappy murloc deck (I hate murloc decks), the other 2 are really good but their go to decks are incredibly boring to play. I hate paladins and hunters with a passion. They get some really cool and interesting cards and all the classes ever amount to lately is cookie cutter aggro decks. Deathrattle hunter is at least a little different but not different enough to make me play hunter beyond quests.
Then again I'm the kind of player that made a mage deck with 12-15 secrets and went into ranked play for lulz so that tells you the kind of decks I mess around with.
Murloc is not the identity for the mage class. Murloc mage is kind of an abomination, because the burn capability of mage synergizes with the board-flooding flavour of murlocs. The class identity for mage is spellcasting. You want face damage? There is a spell for that. AoE? There is a spell for that too! Manipulating your enemy? No prob, we've got secrets for ya. Want some card draw? There is a spell for that.
I think every class identity is reflected in some form in their respective quests, except shaman. But the murloc-y thing is a part of the shaman lore-wise so it is kinda okey.
Mage: cast spells
Rogue: bounce minions to do combo stuff
Priest: resurrect deathrattle stuff.
Hunter: flood the board with cheap beasts
Warrior: play defensively (taunts)
Warlock: discard some stuff (aka self-hurting is a thing identified with warlocks, in the form of HP-damage or card-discard)
Paladin: buff your minions
Shaman: murlocs (okey, this one is a little wierd...)
Druid: ramp to big stuff
Archetype and identity is not always the same. Its two different concepts which have overlapping examples, sometimes.
Maybe in the current meta it's a bit odd, but Shaman used to have a lot of reliance in flooding the board, giving some minions buffs like extra attack or windfury, drop Bloodlust and win.
Murlocs are excellent synergy for that.
But since the evolve mechanic and Shudderwock became a thing, the archetypes changed considerably.
Yes I am aware of it (I remember Neptulon as well), but warlocks and paladins also got associated with murlocs before, especially pallys. So it's not truly a unique identity.