EDIT: That's not a dig at the OP - but the idea that all the above nerfs are reasonable, when they clearly aren't. Some are dubious, but ok, I guess. (CB and ES). But the other 3? And Equality? Really? I hate the card as much as anyone, but when there is a 5-mana version that also sets the attack to 1 as well, then you know there's a bit of a mistake making it 4 mana.
Lol. The clown fiesta continueth...
You can laugh and say they aren't reasonable, but you didn't say why? All you provided was snark. And 4 mana is cheaper than 5 mana, so the 5 mana card is better. Not sure what the point was.
You claim I didn't say why, followed by repeating the exact reason I gave, albeit with a nonsensical argument about 5 being greater than 4. Wait, are you the Quick Maffs guy? .... o.O #famous
Anyway, the whole point is that Shrinking Ray is now a hugely better option than Equality due to the value offered by both. Rather simple - didn't realise that it would need explaining to anyone, to be honest.
I strongly disagree with the HUGELY BETTER statement.
I'd rather play Equality at 4 mana than Skrinking Ray at 5 mana all the time as a pally. Btw Consacration without Equality is almost NEVER played, guess why?
I think that all these nerfs sound very reasonable to me, but I side in with those calling for a nerf on Barnes as well.
Equality at 2 mana has always been too strong for such a crazy effect on the board.
I love all of these idiots crying about how these nerfs are to force people to buy packs. Did you people forget that Whizbang is a thing? That they give away free legendaries and packs every expansion. If all of this was about greed those things wouldn't happen. We don't have the numbers that they have access to all we can do is either accept the changes and adapt to them. If that bothers you then just leave because you're clearly just salty about the nerfs. Well news flash, we've all had our favorite classes hit by nerfs. It sucks but it happens. Deal with it.
Also, if they wanted people to buy packs, the best way to do that is to increase the power level of new cards, not decrease the power level of old cards. They obviously haven’t done that with Year of the Raven (arguably to their detriment, from a business perspective) and never buff cards post release.
It seems clear to me that even if some players think the nerfs are misguided (and I do think the nerfs to Equality and Hunters Mark were unnecessary), the devs are doing this because they care about the game and making it feel fresh.
I love all of these idiots crying about how these nerfs are to force people to buy packs. Did you people forget that Whizbang is a thing? That they give away free legendaries and packs every expansion. If all of this was about greed those things wouldn't happen. We don't have the numbers that they have access to all we can do is either accept the changes and adapt to them. If that bothers you then just leave because you're clearly just salty about the nerfs. Well news flash, we've all had our favorite classes hit by nerfs. It sucks but it happens. Deal with it.
Also, if they wanted people to buy packs, the best way to do that is to increase the power level of new cards, not decrease the power level of old cards. They obviously haven’t done that with Year of the Raven (arguably to their detriment, from a business perspective) and never buff cards post release.
It seems clear to me that even if some players think the nerfs are misguided (and I do think the nerfs to Equality and Hunters Mark were unnecessary), the devs are doing this because they care about the game and making it feel fresh.
You also have to understand the new player experience and no game survives if it cannot add AND maintain new players. If new players are playing with classic and basic cards against others who have 'better' cards, then they will not maintain these new players.
Without new players, Blizzard does not make money. If they don't make money, this game will not be able to sustain itself and everyone here, who wants the game to keep going and enjoy it, will not be able to.
The nerfs are clearly going to hurt the new players AND force everyone to buy the new expansions. Who is going to play with Hunter's Mark now? It's such a terrible card at 2 mana. New players will not have a choice though and be stuck with these classic and basic cards that simply cannot compete with expansion cards.
Holy Nova is ok. Mass Hysteria is obviously better at controlling the board. Holy Nova is good if you are playing a basic Priest deck against other basic decks. You heal your board and hurt the opponents board. Control decks cannot use Holy Nova as a control tool as 2 damage on turn 5 is not going to do anything. I am ok with Holy Nova serving this purpose, but clearly, classic and basic cards are not competitive for the most part.
And when they ARE competitive and they ARE in every single deck, they nerf the card. Why? For balance? No, that's naive. It's not about balance. If a card has existed for 5 years as is, balance was not part of their decision. They nerf these cards because new players can play competitive games on the cheap with Hunter and Paladin without spending money.
If they wanted balance, they had plenty of time to address these issues with all the patches and nerfs they did numerous times before.
More nerfs are coming. Not for balance reasons. But because they need to make sure this game forces players into the pay to win mindset. If you look at the dust cost of decks like Hunter and Zoolock, they are often very cheap to craft. This gives a new player the ability to do fairly well at lower ranks, while never having to spend money. Or simply craft the MUST have card of the set, like the Hunter Spellstone.
Now the Spellstone at 6 mana might be fair, but it is no longer a must craft card. If you could not deal with a 4 3/3 beasts on turn 5, you usually lost even if the game went on for another 5 turns.
So fine, nerf the cards, but this is not going to bode well for the future of the game. This has nothing to do with money, it has to do with maintaining a healthy player base for the game to continue.
The nerf was necessary. Not only because of Wild Even Shaman, BUT because Flametongue-Totem always was a big issue: see Old Gods Expansion where Aggro-Shaman took the reigns over. Flametongue was mostly the fault of it. Since then. Blizzard can't create strong 1-2 drops for shaman, since Flametongue-totem buffs them and make them able to destroy minions that cost 1-2 mana more.
More nerfs are coming. Not for balance reasons. But because they need to make sure this game forces players into the pay to win mindset.
The main reason they are nerfing/banning cards is because they decided to make Basic/Classic evergreen. However, Basic/Classic wasn't designed to be evergreen. It was designed to be a complete, self-contained set. As such, it's power level is way too high to be evergreen in most respects.
When the game outgrew it's initial design, they had to make some hard decisions. While hindsight shows that they probably made the wrong choice in keeping Basic/Classic "evergreen," I can understand why that decision was made.
But because they decided to go that route, they are left having to course correct with a number of patchwork responses. That's what these nerfs/bans are.
Don't get me wrong, Paladin has options to clear the board but they mostly revolve around Equality and that's getting the cost doubled. Keep in mind Equality also hits your own minions and if you use it with Pyromancer, your own board is destroyed as well.
Equality + Pyromancer was a 2 card, clear the board combo. Have to draw both for it to work. This is like Light bomb or other board clears in other classes. Priests can do it by spamming spells and healing the Pyromancer.
A 4 mana, 2 card combo board clear is not overpowered. If you want to draw it every game, you need 4 slots of your decks to dedicated to this. Then you throw in Consecration and now you have 6 cards. 6 out of 30 cards dedicated to board clears, but required that you draw 2 specific pieces on the turn you need them is not a high percentage or over powered.
If they have a problem with 'evergreen' cards, and a non rotating set, then change the metagame by removing cards and putting them in the Wild format and taking cards from Wild and put them back into Standard.
It is the easiest no brainer solution that requires NO balance changes, keeps the flavor of the cards and no one gets dust refunds, gets upset that their decks are ruined (can't play control Paladin as easily now).
Hunters Mark is a 2 mana kill spell, essentially. But it needs a weapon, spell or minion on board to finish the job. Once again, a 2 card combo to kill a minion is not that powerful. Now at 2 mana, its terrible. It allowed you to squeeze it into a turn with playing a minion. The hunter power is terrible to use early game because it does not impact the board. The hunter power works best when you have threats on the board and you force your opponent to clear the board while smashing the 2 damage a turn.
Either way, the changes now and in the recent past have really hurt some classes, but mostly new players.
Funny how all those who argue or talk about this decide to ignore that fact or don't care. If you don't have a constant flow of new and dedicated players, the game will die off. I would prefer we give the new players a good experience and have them work towards liking the game. If they do, they will pay money to get packs and cards they see others playing with.
Don't force the issue by nerfing good basic and classic cards. It's a terrible idea.
Don't get me wrong, Paladin has options to clear the board but they mostly revolve around Equality and that's getting the cost doubled. Keep in mind Equality also hits your own minions and if you use it with Pyromancer, your own board is destroyed as well.
Some guys just don’t want to see the world burn....
Maybe im playing the wrong format and the wrong ranks. Last season i played between rank 6-15. I cant say once i felt like one of the cards seems unfair during a game. Sure the spellstone can be a pain in the ass depending on the deck one plays.
On the other hand, i had like 10% winrate against OTK Priests...no matter what deck i played. Everything gets removed and then you eat 40k OTK.
Also...the worst games are those where you trade turn for turn for an "exiciting" game and then you lose on turn 10 because someone plays Zuljin or Guldan for free win. And there is no "playing around"...you just know, if your opponent sits on it its gg, except you have a very specific deck against it.
What he said x2!!
It sucks outplaying your opponent, making difficult decisions but the right ones that get you right on the edge of victory (one turn away, usually), then your opponent plays Zuljin or Guldan and... gg. They have an instant restock of minions or spells and there's no way to catch up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to either of these cards... I'd just cap the number of spells/minions they play/revive.
The equality nerf makes no sense. Slower paladin decks are really going to be screwed without removal now. You often need a t4 clear against aggressive decks and that removal required 2 cards and killed your own minionns too. It was fine.
It's not like paladin has many other options. If they are adding some next expansion then the nerf should have been held off until then. The otk pally decks are far from op and have multiple counters.
This is up there with the other bad nerfs, mana wyrm and both of the druid ramps. They did nothing but kill off certain archetypes completely. Ones that were not even tier 2.
I am fine with all of the other nerfs except for maybe flametongue. I never considered it an op card. I've been saying cold blood needed to be nerfed to 2 mana for months. Blessing of might should have got the same treatment though. I also called for hunter spellstone to go to 6 mana. Far too powerful an effect for 5 mana when it's so easily upgrade-able.
My biggest problem with nerfs is Blizz keeps nerfing the cheapest card in a "package". What I mean is cubelock was insane one year ago, Everone crafted guldan DK and skull. Then they nerfed dark pact & possessed lackey. Now everone crafts Zuljin and they nerf the spellstone. Myras unstable element was OP in odd rouge but cold blood got hit.
My biggest problem with nerfs is Blizz keeps nerfing the cheapest card in a "package". What I mean is cubelock was insane one year ago, Everone crafted guldan DK and skull. Then they nerfed dark pact & possessed lackey. Now everone crafts Zuljin and they nerf the spellstone. Myras unstable element was OP in odd rouge but cold blood got hit.
While I won't disagree that Blizzard tend to nerf the cheapest cards, how would you go about nerfing Zuljin though?
And Myra's unstable element isn't what makes odd rogue strong, and nerfing that card wouldn't really damage odd rogues as much as you might think.
What I mean is Blizz keeps giving certain decks a huge boost in the form of an expensive card (usually legendary). I am not saying you have to have that card to play that deck. But If you mean to play that deck competetively, you need to craft it.
More nerfs are coming. Not for balance reasons. But because they need to make sure this game forces players into the pay to win mindset.
The main reason they are nerfing/banning cards is because they decided to make Basic/Classic evergreen. However, Basic/Classic wasn't designed to be evergreen. It was designed to be a complete, self-contained set. As such, it's power level is way too high to be evergreen in most respects.
When the game outgrew it's initial design, they had to make some hard decisions. While hindsight shows that they probably made the wrong choice in keeping Basic/Classic "evergreen," I can understand why that decision was made.
But because they decided to go that route, they are left having to course correct with a number of patchwork responses. That's what these nerfs/bans are.
Rank 50 players. AKA the mobile strategy.
lizzard wants new and returning players to have full decks. But nerfing but not rotating Classic/Basic Joey the Newbie and Johnny Returner can still create Ramp Druid, Midrange Shaman, and Tempo Mage. All the cards are available and no Xs on their decks. And budget decks are available online for them.
They just won't beat anyone past rank 20. Their decks are too weak. In order to go past rank 20, you will need to buy or grind packs for Better Equality and Hunter's Mark 2.0. It's every collectable monster-evolution mobile game's strategy: You can beat Bronzes F2P. Silvers could be beaten if you are good. But to beat anyone in the Gold or better league you need to grind everyday or play. And you betterhope your deck isn't too good while relying of Classic card or it will be nerfed and you might have to start over.
The main differences between HS and P2W mobile games are that HS still wants people to afford it somewhat and aren't designing the game purely for profits. If cheap decks happen, they are allowed to roam free unless oppressive. That's why Hunter only took a minor nerf.
You used so many words for “look at my tinfoil hat.” You should be a poet.
I'm just going based on the responses from the dev team in interviews.
They want new and returning players use be able to use Classic and Basic but they don't want the meta (Hardcore players) to use a lot of Classic and Basic. That's a 2 tier system. One group of sets for casual and new players and one group of sets for hardcore and pro players
.Hitting 3 Classic/Basic Cards with the nerfbat means they don't want engaged fans to use these cards for anything but duplicate effects. That's litteraly what they said about Equality. It's your 3rd Shrink Ray or your suggested replacement if you don't have it.
You used so many words for “look at my tinfoil hat.” You should be a poet.
I'm just going based on the responses from the dev team in interviews.
They want new and returning players use be able to use Classic and Basic but they don't want the meta (Hardcore players) to use a lot of Classic and Basic. That's a 2 tier system. One group of sets for casual and new players and one group of sets for hardcore and pro players
.Hitting 3 Classic/Basic Cards with the nerfbat means they don't want engaged fans to use these cards for anything but duplicate effects. That's litteraly what they said about Equality. It's your 3rd Shrink Ray or your suggested replacement if you don't have it.
You summed it up pretty well. It's easy to see that nobody likes nerfs, because it's like taking away a kids favorite toy. They will find a way to complain about how it was a bad idea and you could have done it better, but they fail to realize it was for their own good.
After a while it's obvious it was just a stupid toy and other toys that are around are now awesome toys that get lots of use. There are a ton of good cards out there that see no play, because of a few cards that are just stupid. I can't wait to see cards like Griftah or Linecracker.
This game cant die soon enough
Dead game can not die.
I strongly disagree with the HUGELY BETTER statement.
I'd rather play Equality at 4 mana than Skrinking Ray at 5 mana all the time as a pally. Btw Consacration without Equality is almost NEVER played, guess why?
I think that all these nerfs sound very reasonable to me, but I side in with those calling for a nerf on Barnes as well.
Equality at 2 mana has always been too strong for such a crazy effect on the board.
Also, if they wanted people to buy packs, the best way to do that is to increase the power level of new cards, not decrease the power level of old cards. They obviously haven’t done that with Year of the Raven (arguably to their detriment, from a business perspective) and never buff cards post release.
It seems clear to me that even if some players think the nerfs are misguided (and I do think the nerfs to Equality and Hunters Mark were unnecessary), the devs are doing this because they care about the game and making it feel fresh.
You also have to understand the new player experience and no game survives if it cannot add AND maintain new players. If new players are playing with classic and basic cards against others who have 'better' cards, then they will not maintain these new players.
Without new players, Blizzard does not make money. If they don't make money, this game will not be able to sustain itself and everyone here, who wants the game to keep going and enjoy it, will not be able to.
The nerfs are clearly going to hurt the new players AND force everyone to buy the new expansions. Who is going to play with Hunter's Mark now? It's such a terrible card at 2 mana. New players will not have a choice though and be stuck with these classic and basic cards that simply cannot compete with expansion cards.
Holy Nova is ok. Mass Hysteria is obviously better at controlling the board. Holy Nova is good if you are playing a basic Priest deck against other basic decks. You heal your board and hurt the opponents board. Control decks cannot use Holy Nova as a control tool as 2 damage on turn 5 is not going to do anything. I am ok with Holy Nova serving this purpose, but clearly, classic and basic cards are not competitive for the most part.
And when they ARE competitive and they ARE in every single deck, they nerf the card. Why? For balance? No, that's naive. It's not about balance. If a card has existed for 5 years as is, balance was not part of their decision. They nerf these cards because new players can play competitive games on the cheap with Hunter and Paladin without spending money.
If they wanted balance, they had plenty of time to address these issues with all the patches and nerfs they did numerous times before.
More nerfs are coming. Not for balance reasons. But because they need to make sure this game forces players into the pay to win mindset. If you look at the dust cost of decks like Hunter and Zoolock, they are often very cheap to craft. This gives a new player the ability to do fairly well at lower ranks, while never having to spend money. Or simply craft the MUST have card of the set, like the Hunter Spellstone.
Now the Spellstone at 6 mana might be fair, but it is no longer a must craft card. If you could not deal with a 4 3/3 beasts on turn 5, you usually lost even if the game went on for another 5 turns.
So fine, nerf the cards, but this is not going to bode well for the future of the game. This has nothing to do with money, it has to do with maintaining a healthy player base for the game to continue.
About Flametongue Totem
The nerf was necessary. Not only because of Wild Even Shaman, BUT because Flametongue-Totem always was a big issue: see Old Gods Expansion where Aggro-Shaman took the reigns over. Flametongue was mostly the fault of it. Since then. Blizzard can't create strong 1-2 drops for shaman, since Flametongue-totem buffs them and make them able to destroy minions that cost 1-2 mana more.
It was far too strong for 2 mana.
The main reason they are nerfing/banning cards is because they decided to make Basic/Classic evergreen. However, Basic/Classic wasn't designed to be evergreen. It was designed to be a complete, self-contained set. As such, it's power level is way too high to be evergreen in most respects.
When the game outgrew it's initial design, they had to make some hard decisions. While hindsight shows that they probably made the wrong choice in keeping Basic/Classic "evergreen," I can understand why that decision was made.
But because they decided to go that route, they are left having to course correct with a number of patchwork responses. That's what these nerfs/bans are.
Equality to 4 AND Wild Pyromancer nerfed? I guess Paladin isn't allowed to clear the board?
Don't get me wrong, Paladin has options to clear the board but they mostly revolve around Equality and that's getting the cost doubled. Keep in mind Equality also hits your own minions and if you use it with Pyromancer, your own board is destroyed as well.
Equality + Pyromancer was a 2 card, clear the board combo. Have to draw both for it to work. This is like Light bomb or other board clears in other classes. Priests can do it by spamming spells and healing the Pyromancer.
A 4 mana, 2 card combo board clear is not overpowered. If you want to draw it every game, you need 4 slots of your decks to dedicated to this. Then you throw in Consecration and now you have 6 cards. 6 out of 30 cards dedicated to board clears, but required that you draw 2 specific pieces on the turn you need them is not a high percentage or over powered.
If they have a problem with 'evergreen' cards, and a non rotating set, then change the metagame by removing cards and putting them in the Wild format and taking cards from Wild and put them back into Standard.
It is the easiest no brainer solution that requires NO balance changes, keeps the flavor of the cards and no one gets dust refunds, gets upset that their decks are ruined (can't play control Paladin as easily now).
Hunters Mark is a 2 mana kill spell, essentially. But it needs a weapon, spell or minion on board to finish the job. Once again, a 2 card combo to kill a minion is not that powerful. Now at 2 mana, its terrible. It allowed you to squeeze it into a turn with playing a minion. The hunter power is terrible to use early game because it does not impact the board. The hunter power works best when you have threats on the board and you force your opponent to clear the board while smashing the 2 damage a turn.
Either way, the changes now and in the recent past have really hurt some classes, but mostly new players.
Funny how all those who argue or talk about this decide to ignore that fact or don't care. If you don't have a constant flow of new and dedicated players, the game will die off. I would prefer we give the new players a good experience and have them work towards liking the game. If they do, they will pay money to get packs and cards they see others playing with.
Don't force the issue by nerfing good basic and classic cards. It's a terrible idea.
Some guys just don’t want to see the world burn....
Look, I know it's got problems, but... I'm still haven't lots of fun playing it.
What he said x2!!
It sucks outplaying your opponent, making difficult decisions but the right ones that get you right on the edge of victory (one turn away, usually), then your opponent plays Zuljin or Guldan and... gg. They have an instant restock of minions or spells and there's no way to catch up. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to either of these cards... I'd just cap the number of spells/minions they play/revive.
The equality nerf makes no sense. Slower paladin decks are really going to be screwed without removal now. You often need a t4 clear against aggressive decks and that removal required 2 cards and killed your own minionns too. It was fine.
It's not like paladin has many other options. If they are adding some next expansion then the nerf should have been held off until then. The otk pally decks are far from op and have multiple counters.
This is up there with the other bad nerfs, mana wyrm and both of the druid ramps. They did nothing but kill off certain archetypes completely. Ones that were not even tier 2.
I am fine with all of the other nerfs except for maybe flametongue. I never considered it an op card. I've been saying cold blood needed to be nerfed to 2 mana for months. Blessing of might should have got the same treatment though. I also called for hunter spellstone to go to 6 mana. Far too powerful an effect for 5 mana when it's so easily upgrade-able.
My biggest problem with nerfs is Blizz keeps nerfing the cheapest card in a "package". What I mean is cubelock was insane one year ago, Everone crafted guldan DK and skull. Then they nerfed dark pact & possessed lackey. Now everone crafts Zuljin and they nerf the spellstone. Myras unstable element was OP in odd rouge but cold blood got hit.
While I won't disagree that Blizzard tend to nerf the cheapest cards, how would you go about nerfing Zuljin though?
And Myra's unstable element isn't what makes odd rogue strong, and nerfing that card wouldn't really damage odd rogues as much as you might think.
What I mean is Blizz keeps giving certain decks a huge boost in the form of an expensive card (usually legendary). I am not saying you have to have that card to play that deck. But If you mean to play that deck competetively, you need to craft it.
Rank 50 players. AKA the mobile strategy.
lizzard wants new and returning players to have full decks. But nerfing but not rotating Classic/Basic Joey the Newbie and Johnny Returner can still create Ramp Druid, Midrange Shaman, and Tempo Mage. All the cards are available and no Xs on their decks. And budget decks are available online for them.
They just won't beat anyone past rank 20. Their decks are too weak. In order to go past rank 20, you will need to buy or grind packs for Better Equality and Hunter's Mark 2.0. It's every collectable monster-evolution mobile game's strategy: You can beat Bronzes F2P. Silvers could be beaten if you are good. But to beat anyone in the Gold or better league you need to grind everyday or play. And you betterhope your deck isn't too good while relying of Classic card or it will be nerfed and you might have to start over.
The main differences between HS and P2W mobile games are that HS still wants people to afford it somewhat and aren't designing the game purely for profits. If cheap decks happen, they are allowed to roam free unless oppressive. That's why Hunter only took a minor nerf.
You used so many words for “look at my tinfoil hat.” You should be a poet.
I'm just going based on the responses from the dev team in interviews.
They want new and returning players use be able to use Classic and Basic but they don't want the meta (Hardcore players) to use a lot of Classic and Basic. That's a 2 tier system. One group of sets for casual and new players and one group of sets for hardcore and pro players
.Hitting 3 Classic/Basic Cards with the nerfbat means they don't want engaged fans to use these cards for anything but duplicate effects. That's litteraly what they said about Equality. It's your 3rd Shrink Ray or your suggested replacement if you don't have it.
You summed it up pretty well. It's easy to see that nobody likes nerfs, because it's like taking away a kids favorite toy. They will find a way to complain about how it was a bad idea and you could have done it better, but they fail to realize it was for their own good.
After a while it's obvious it was just a stupid toy and other toys that are around are now awesome toys that get lots of use. There are a ton of good cards out there that see no play, because of a few cards that are just stupid. I can't wait to see cards like Griftah or Linecracker.