Mike Donais' recent comments about Mind Blast led to some discussion over whether direct face damage is actually part of the priest class identity. This seems to have changed over time so I thought I would look back through the original cards (i.e. the Basic and Classic sets) to see what has been dropped from each class' identity, and hence identify possible candidates for future changes.
Edit: to be clear, what follows is an analysis of how the approach to card design from a purely mechanical perspective has changed since Classic. The thematic identity of cards and classes is a separate, albeit related, issue, and I am not saying whether I think cards should be changed; in fact I am not sure I think any of them should.
Before going into this one needs to be conscious of what class identity actually is, and I categorise it into 3 different groups for each class:
The core mechanics: what the class does and does well. Generally this is where you find overpowered cards because they are the ones giving you a reason to play this class.
The support mechanics: what the class can do but not especially well compared to some other classes. This includes fairly generic things like taunt, which most classes have some of but don't have any direct synergies related to it.
The absent mechanics: what the class cannot do without using neutrals or badly sub-par class cards. These are perhaps the most important as they really separate the classes from each other.
Even with these, how do we know where each mechanic lies for each class? It is not always as obvious as taunt in rogue (the class has never once had a taunt card). Generally if the class hasn't been given anything for a mechanic in a few years it is pretty safe to say it is no longer part of the class identity, UNLESS it was and still is a core mechanic in Standard in the sense that no other class does it as well. An example includes Sap, Vanish and Kidnapper, which have never been added to but equally haven't been lost to Wild or given to anyone other class.
Anyway, below is a list of Basic and Classic mechanics that were support mechanics initially but seem to have been dropped.
Damage in paladin
A particularly clean example is that of damage dealing spells in paladin. These are pretty central to most classes but paladin replaces them with de-buffs and minions or weapons to kill things. To date all spells that do damage in paladin were part of the Basic and Classic sets. All of them!
None of them are close to oppressive enough to be candidates for changes any time soon, but don't be too surprised if Consecration gets targeted one day for not being part of pally class identity.
AoE in druid and rogue
Area of effect damage is in a similar spot in druid and rogue. They have been given some extra tools (Dark Iron Skulker for rogue and Poison Seeds for druid) but they are only partial solutions and were added years ago with no sight of replacements since.
I would imagine only Vanish would have to worry much here.
Edit: The original Blade Flurry was a very powerful card that also happened to be an AoE in rogue. The change to a very weak card (at least until Kingsbane came along) a few years back, helped cement the class identity of having sub-par AoE.
Healing in druid
Nothing is in danger of being changed here, but it is interesting that the side of druid that restored health has been all but replaced by armour gain. For now it seems Healing Touch isn't even teaching new players about what it means to be a druid.
Hard removal in druid and shaman
(Wow, druid again. I suppose it did start out as the Jack of all trades.)
Here's the list of all destroy effects druid has ever had: Naturalize, Mulch, Poison Seeds. So yes, the devs were right that hard removal isn't a druid thing and were giving a valid reason for moving it to the Hall of Fame. There might be some hope for hard removal in the class though as poisonous seems to be a (minor) part of its identity these days.
The story for shaman is even more stark, with the only destroy effect you would use on opponents being attached to Ice Breaker. The reason for bringing shaman into this though is Hex, which aside from Ice Breaker is the only thing that effectively counts as a destroy effect. This goes some way to explaining the mana nerf it received a while back, in line with the explanation the devs gave.
Face damage in priest
Finally we come to the one that started the discussion: is Mind Blast part of priest identity? Certainly it was never a core mechanic so there is no chance of using the Sap argument to let it stay regardless of whether new cards add to it or not. It stands to reason that it could then fall out of the class' identity.
First, we have to acknowledge the mechanic of turning healing into damage, which was added to as recently as Rastakan's Rumble, is mechanically distinct from pure damage. That leaves Holy Smite, Holy Nova, Edit: Holy Fire, Shadowform, Shadowbomber, Spawn of Shadows and Shadowreaper Anduin (so many shadows...) as the cards with effects that can damage the opponent's face. The first 4 can be set aside since they were in Basic and Classic, while the next 2 were released more than 3 years ago. Only the DK is recent enough to argue Mind Blast's case, and had it been in any other recent set I would be happy to do so. The problem is KotFT, and the DKs in particular, was notorious for breaking class identity on the basis that they are death knights now, not warrior/rogue/priest/etc. So I cannot reasonably let the DK count.
All in all, it seems plausible Donais was being perfectly honest by saying face damage (and hence Mind Blast) is not part of priest identity.
On the blizz fan-boy side: the devs are not lying when they cite class identity as a reason to change cards, even if the card has been part of the class' arsenal from the very start.
On the cynic's side: the devs have never said much about what their picture of each class' identity actually is or communicated when or why it has changed. Sets like KofFT only confuse matters and then give players reason to doubt justifications based on class identity.
I think just like Gromash + inner rage for warrior, there is Velen + mindblast for priest. Because evere class somewhat needs to have a easy to understand finisher.
And lets not forget that people do only complain about mindblast because of shadow visions, Anduin and the resurrection spells. It was never a problem before, and will not be after the rotation.
From what I understand, cards which violate identity are usually sent to the HoF, while cards that are simply too powerful are nerfed - but, uncontroversially, there's a lot of overlap between the two, and the devs have never suggested that their approach to nerfing vs HoFing is meant to be something that ought to be strictly adhered to, since there are some pretty obvious reasons why you might want to do one, rather than the other, in any given case. The devs don't have to write an essay every time they change a card.
As a result, I think some of the OP's discussion is a little misleading, and he also makes a few factual claims that seem to be simply false - Blade Flurry, for example, wasn't changed for "being out of Rogue's class identity a few years back." This was the justification they gave -
"Blade Flurry is a problem because it enables both board clear and heavy burst damage, and it’s also an obstacle to adding better cards for Rogues. To address these issues, the cost of Blade Flurry is moving from 2 to 4 mana, and it will now only affect minions, so that Rogues have to choose between removing threats or damaging the enemy Hero."
No mention of class identity - the card was nerfed, rather than HoFed, because flurrying blades is something that Rogues do, but the card was simply too good. Also, it's two sentences. They could have written twenty more, explaining their decision in fine detail, elaborating on other reasons that they didn't bother mentioning. But what's the point? Presumably, everything that they could have said would boil down to "it was too powerful."
I think just like Gromash + inner rage for warrior, there is Velen + mindblast for priest. Because evere class somewhat needs to have a easy to understand finisher.
And lets not forget that people do only complain about mindblast because of shadow visions, Anduin and the resurrection spells. It was never a problem before, and will not be after the rotation.
I am with you that Mind Blast will probably be fine again after rotation, which is why I avoided saying anything about how strong it is.
As for whether each class needs a simple finisher I am not so sure, but fairly indifferent to it. We have 9 classes for a reason; they don't all need to be able to do the same sort of things. In the end it will be decided by where the devs stand on it, since ultimately they set class identity.
From what I understand, cards which violate identity are usually sent to the HoF, while cards that are simply too powerful are nerfed - but, uncontroversially, there's a lot of overlap between the two, and the devs have never suggested that their approach to nerfing vs HoFing is meant to be something that ought to be strictly adhered to, since there are some pretty obvious reasons why you might want to do one, rather than the other, in any given case. The devs don't have to write an essay every time they change a card.
As a result, I think some of the OP's discussion is a little misleading, and he also makes a few factual claims that seem to be simply false - Blade Flurry, for example, wasn't changed for "being out of Rogue's class identity a few years back." This was the justification they gave -
"Blade Flurry is a problem because it enables both board clear and heavy burst damage, and it’s also an obstacle to adding better cards for Rogues. To address these issues, the cost of Blade Flurry is moving from 2 to 4 mana, and it will now only affect minions, so that Rogues have to choose between removing threats or damaging the enemy Hero."
No mention of class identity - the card was nerfed, rather than HoFed, because flurrying blades is something that Rogues do, but the card was simply too good. Also, it's two sentences. They could have written twenty more, explaining their decision in fine detail, elaborating on other reasons that they didn't bother mentioning. But what's the point? Presumably, everything that they could have said would boil down to "it was too powerful."
The HoF vs nerf line is unclear, though it looks like they won't send any basic cards to the HoF (probably because that would hurt new players?).
Regarding the reasons for the blade flurry nerf (thanks for digging this up by the way), you are right they did not mention class identity and I will reword what I said to reflect this. It is nevertheless true that strong AoE is outside of the class' identity so I have little doubt they would bring class identity into it if they did it today.
You forgot holy fire. Deal 5 heal 5. Considering all the cards that can deal direct face damage for priest total 8 cards out of its core and classic set, its arguable that face damage IS a part of the identity. Added to that the healing to damage possibility of auchenai...
If not healing and face damage, priest has no identity. Rez is not their core, what do u want? Thoughtsteal, mind vision? Velen doubles damage and healing from hero power AND spells... so priest would consider damage dealing spells as part of its identity otherwise why bother?
Paladin does healing better than priest at the moment. Buffing in priest is limited because of IF and DS. So its not the best at that. Where do you go?
Mind Blast is a part of priest identity, since shadow priest is part of the classic set as well (Shadowform), the shadow priest is part of the priest identity, it's also part of anduin's portrait "where is light there is always darkness", Priest finally got his shadowpriest arsenal expanded in KOFT, I think Team 5 forgot about the shadow priest stuff when they said Mind Blast isn't part of priest's identity.
5 dmg for 2 mana. fireball does 6 for twice the cost. #obviouslyastupidcard
The healing turn into dmg thing is more op than people realize but when there is garbage like mind blast and inner fire, people wont bother with.
Eh people have bothered with it and mind blast was a meme card basically until shdowreaper anduin became a thing. It's a shit card most of the time because it's a dead card unless you use it to kill your opponent that turn.
Of course with shadow visions, gallery, 2 different resurrect effects the thing can be broken but once rotation hits without shadow visions and the spellstone i don't think priest will go in that direction.
I can definitely see the class running auchenai circle once again if that's your main concern.
I am more on the cynic side about this, and i am actually baffled Donais explained Mind Blast in terms of class identity, because such an explanation makes no sense to me.
Point is, a bare game mechanic does not mean too much.
I mean: face damage? Why should it belong to any class at all? If we assume magic is part of HS fictional world, then Priest's banishments or curses could harm just as much as an arrow or a fireball.
By the same reason, why should Malygos Druid be a thing at all? It's face damage! Moon does not harm face irl, but Druid's one kills you, i would expect Druids being just fluffy beasts or peaceful plants?
If Hunters had some Survivalist spell for healing, in their basic set (art having Rexxar eating roasted food at a campfire), Hunter's class identity would still be perfect (possibly improved), despite their decision about Hunter being a class with no healing.
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Tl;dr: theme/flavour is what ultimately defines class identity, not bare game mechanics on their own. And they should be aware of this...
In my opinion if we are talking about class identity we have to understand class mechanics from wow. I was playing Pve wow since vanilla till cataclysm and Mind blast was one of the main spells in a shadow priest rotation, i cant imagine shadow priest without mind blast.
Not missunderstand me, i am talking about class identity not about playability.
You forgot holy fire. Deal 5 heal 5. Considering all the cards that can deal direct face damage for priest total 8 cards out of its core and classic set, its arguable that face damage IS a part of the identity. Added to that the healing to damage possibility of auchenai...
If not healing and face damage, priest has no identity. Rez is not their core, what do u want? Thoughtsteal, mind vision? Velen doubles damage and healing from hero power AND spells... so priest would consider damage dealing spells as part of its identity otherwise why bother?
Paladin does healing better than priest at the moment. Buffing in priest is limited because of IF and DS. So its not the best at that. Where do you go?
It seems I did forget Holy Fire, though since it is a Classic card it makes not difference to the discussion: The devs have stopped giving priest ways to damage the opponent from hand unless through swapping healing into damage. I have interpreted this as a change in design direction, and the continued presence of Mind Blast etc as a legacy of the Evergreen sets rather than a continued part of the class' identity.
I don't want anything per se. I was merely pointing out that it is "plausible Donais was being perfectly honest by saying face damage (and hence Mind Blast) is not part of priest identity".
As for what else priest has, here's the list I made when going through the cards for this thread: Buffs, healing , AoE, stat swapping/mirroring, silence, deathrattle, cheap spells (e.g. for Lyra), deck copying, minion stealing, dragons, heal -> damage, resurrection, summoning copies of minions. Some of these are more prominent and recent than others, but the class has enough avenues to not need direct face damage (especially when it has the more flavourful brand by using healing to do it instead).
I intentionally left devolve out of it because it is not hard removal. You can transform an 8/8 into a 0/1 with Hex. That (almost) kills it. With devolve it becomes something like a 7/7, so it's more a de-buff (occasionally an accidental buff) than hard removal.
Mind Blast is a part of priest identity, since shadow priest is part of the classic set as well (Shadowform), the shadow priest is part of the priest identity, it's also part of anduin's portrait "where is light there is always darkness", Priest finally got his shadowpriest arsenal expanded in KOFT, I think Team 5 forgot about the shadow priest stuff when they said Mind Blast isn't part of priest's identity.
Shadow priest =/= direct damage to face. There is a line between mechanics and thematics, and 'shadow priest' falls in the latter. For evidence, Shadow Word: Death does not hurt the opponent's face but is part of the shadow priest theme. It is certainly true all the direct damage cards have been connected to the shadow priest theme, but that does not mean the devs have not changed what mechanics the theme is tied to over time. And that seems to be the case: shadow priest themed cards continue to be printed, but the direct damage side aspect of them has stopped.
I am more on the cynic side about this, and i am actually baffled Donais explained Mind Blast in terms of class identity, because such an explanation makes no sense to me.
Point is, a bare game mechanic does not mean too much.
I mean: face damage? Why should it belong to any class at all? If we assume magic is part of HS fictional world, then Priest's banishments or curses could harm just as much as an arrow or a fireball.
By the same reason, why should Malygos Druid be a thing at all? It's face damage! Moon does not harm face irl, but Druid's one kills you, i would expect Druids being just fluffy beasts or peaceful plants?
If Hunters had some Survivalist spell for healing, in their basic set (art having Rexxar eating roasted food at a campfire), Hunter's class identity would still be perfect (possibly improved), despite their decision about Hunter being a class with no healing.
___
Tl;dr: theme/flavour is what ultimately defines class identity, not bare game mechanics on their own. And they should be aware of this...
Partly yes, and I intentionally left theme out of my discussion. Class identity is fully comprised of both theme and mechanics, and often the two get associated with one another. However, I disagree that theme matters most. Ultimately the game is a set of mechanics with card art and names layered on top to make it look and feel better. The main functional reason to have 9 classes is for them to be distinct mechanically, so choosing a class has a meaningful impact and not just a choice of skin.
I tried not to cast any actually opinions in the original post because normally I don't mind what is and is not in each class' identity, but what I do hold to strongly is that the 'absent mechanics' must be present. If every class has good healing, face damage, minion buffs, removal etc, then the game would feel much less varied.
If anything the theme of each class has been well done by Blizzard with only a few cards that feel really out of place (e.g. Omega Agent).
In my opinion if we are talking about class identity we have to understand class mechanics from wow. I was playing Pve wow since vanilla till cataclysm and Mind blast was one of the main spells in a shadow priest rotation, i cant imagine shadow priest without mind blast.
Not missunderstand me, i am talking about class identity not about playability.
While I appreciate the links to WoW as much as anyone else, HS is its own game. I do not really know whether it is good or bad that priest has Mind Blast as a direct damage spell, but I do believe that if it were best for the health of the game that it be changed or removed then the devs should do that without worrying too much about whether it severs a connection to WoW.
I do not personally think Mind Blast will be a problem after rotation so it probably won't need any change at all, but if it were changed I don't expect the devs would completely ruin the theme. Even Warsong Commander kept a theme if not its life.
Mike Donais' recent comments about Mind Blast led to some discussion over whether direct face damage is actually part of the priest class identity. This seems to have changed over time so I thought I would look back through the original cards (i.e. the Basic and Classic sets) to see what has been dropped from each class' identity, and hence identify possible candidates for future changes.
Before going into this one needs to be conscious of what class identity actually is, and I categorise it into 3 different groups for each class:
The core mechanics: what the class does and does well. Generally this is where you find overpowered cards because they are the ones giving you a reason to play this class.
The support mechanics: what the class can do but not especially well compared to some other classes. This includes fairly generic things like taunt, which most classes have some of but don't have any direct synergies related to it.
The absent mechanics: what the class cannot do without using neutrals or badly sub-par class cards. These are perhaps the most important as they really separate the classes from each other.
Even with these, how do we know where each mechanic lies for each class? It is not always as obvious as taunt in rogue (the class has never once had a taunt card). Generally if the class hasn't been given anything for a mechanic in a few years it is pretty safe to say it is no longer part of the class identity, UNLESS it was and still is a core mechanic in Standard in the sense that no other class does it as well. An example includes Sap, Vanish and Kidnapper, which have never been added to but equally haven't been lost to Wild or given to anyone other class.
Anyway, below is a list of Basic and Classic mechanics that were support mechanics initially but seem to have been dropped.
Damage in paladin
A particularly clean example is that of damage dealing spells in paladin. These are pretty central to most classes but paladin replaces them with de-buffs and minions or weapons to kill things. To date all spells that do damage in paladin were part of the Basic and Classic sets. All of them!
None of them are close to oppressive enough to be candidates for changes any time soon, but don't be too surprised if Consecration gets targeted one day for not being part of pally class identity.
AoE in druid and rogue
Area of effect damage is in a similar spot in druid and rogue. They have been given some extra tools (Dark Iron Skulker for rogue and Poison Seeds for druid) but they are only partial solutions and were added years ago with no sight of replacements since.
I would imagine only Vanish would have to worry much here.
Edit: The original Blade Flurry was a very powerful card that also happened to be an AoE in rogue. The change to a very weak card (at least until Kingsbane came along) a few years back, helped cement the class identity of having sub-par AoE.
Healing in druid
Nothing is in danger of being changed here, but it is interesting that the side of druid that restored health has been all but replaced by armour gain. For now it seems Healing Touch isn't even teaching new players about what it means to be a druid.
Hard removal in druid and shaman
(Wow, druid again. I suppose it did start out as the Jack of all trades.)
Here's the list of all destroy effects druid has ever had: Naturalize, Mulch, Poison Seeds. So yes, the devs were right that hard removal isn't a druid thing and were giving a valid reason for moving it to the Hall of Fame. There might be some hope for hard removal in the class though as poisonous seems to be a (minor) part of its identity these days.
The story for shaman is even more stark, with the only destroy effect you would use on opponents being attached to Ice Breaker. The reason for bringing shaman into this though is Hex, which aside from Ice Breaker is the only thing that effectively counts as a destroy effect. This goes some way to explaining the mana nerf it received a while back, in line with the explanation the devs gave.
Face damage in priest
Finally we come to the one that started the discussion: is Mind Blast part of priest identity? Certainly it was never a core mechanic so there is no chance of using the Sap argument to let it stay regardless of whether new cards add to it or not. It stands to reason that it could then fall out of the class' identity.
First, we have to acknowledge the mechanic of turning healing into damage, which was added to as recently as Rastakan's Rumble, is mechanically distinct from pure damage. That leaves Holy Smite, Holy Nova, Shadowform, Shadowbomber, Spawn of Shadows and Shadowreaper Anduin (so many shadows...) as the cards with effects that can damage the opponent's face. The first 3 can be set aside since they were in Basic and Classic, while the next 2 were released more than 3 years ago. Only the DK is recent enough to argue Mind Blast's case, and had it been in any other recent set I would be happy to do so. The problem is KotFT, and the DKs in particular, was notorious for breaking class identity on the basis that they are death knights now, not warrior/rogue/priest/etc. So I cannot reasonably let the DK count.
All in all, it seems plausible Donais was being perfectly honest by saying face damage (and hence Mind Blast) is not part of priest identity.
On the blizz fan-boy side: the devs are not lying when they cite class identity as a reason to change cards, even if the card has been part of the class' arsenal from the very start.
On the cynic's side: the devs have never said much about what their picture of each class' identity actually is or communicated when or why it has changed. Sets like KofFT only confuse matters and then give players reason to doubt justifications based on class identity.
I am not saying mechanics are unimportant towards Class Identity.
I said bare mechanics, without theme, mean nothing. It is a purely subjective decision to give a mechanic to a class.
And thar is particularly true for Face Damage, which is not just a mechanic, but THE main mechanic towards victory between two opponents who fight in a direct encounter.
The opposite for theme ofc: theme needs a mechanic, in order to be part of the game. Otherwise nothing happens. It's pure description.
So i reiterate my point: Mind Blast could or could not be considered part of Priest's Class Identity, but NOT BECAUSE of it being Face Damage as mechanic.
Mike Donais' recent comments about Mind Blast led to some discussion over whether direct face damage is actually part of the priest class identity. This seems to have changed over time so I thought I would look back through the original cards (i.e. the Basic and Classic sets) to see what has been dropped from each class' identity, and hence identify possible candidates for future changes.
Edit: to be clear, what follows is an analysis of how the approach to card design from a purely mechanical perspective has changed since Classic. The thematic identity of cards and classes is a separate, albeit related, issue, and I am not saying whether I think cards should be changed; in fact I am not sure I think any of them should.
Before going into this one needs to be conscious of what class identity actually is, and I categorise it into 3 different groups for each class:
Even with these, how do we know where each mechanic lies for each class? It is not always as obvious as taunt in rogue (the class has never once had a taunt card). Generally if the class hasn't been given anything for a mechanic in a few years it is pretty safe to say it is no longer part of the class identity, UNLESS it was and still is a core mechanic in Standard in the sense that no other class does it as well. An example includes Sap, Vanish and Kidnapper, which have never been added to but equally haven't been lost to Wild or given to anyone other class.
Anyway, below is a list of Basic and Classic mechanics that were support mechanics initially but seem to have been dropped.
Damage in paladin
A particularly clean example is that of damage dealing spells in paladin. These are pretty central to most classes but paladin replaces them with de-buffs and minions or weapons to kill things. To date all spells that do damage in paladin were part of the Basic and Classic sets. All of them!
None of them are close to oppressive enough to be candidates for changes any time soon, but don't be too surprised if Consecration gets targeted one day for not being part of pally class identity.
AoE in druid and rogue
Area of effect damage is in a similar spot in druid and rogue. They have been given some extra tools (Dark Iron Skulker for rogue and Poison Seeds for druid) but they are only partial solutions and were added years ago with no sight of replacements since.
I would imagine only Vanish would have to worry much here.
Edit: The original Blade Flurry was a very powerful card that also happened to be an AoE in rogue. The change to a very weak card (at least until Kingsbane came along) a few years back, helped cement the class identity of having sub-par AoE.
Healing in druid
Nothing is in danger of being changed here, but it is interesting that the side of druid that restored health has been all but replaced by armour gain. For now it seems Healing Touch isn't even teaching new players about what it means to be a druid.
Hard removal in druid and shaman
(Wow, druid again. I suppose it did start out as the Jack of all trades.)
Here's the list of all destroy effects druid has ever had: Naturalize, Mulch, Poison Seeds. So yes, the devs were right that hard removal isn't a druid thing and were giving a valid reason for moving it to the Hall of Fame. There might be some hope for hard removal in the class though as poisonous seems to be a (minor) part of its identity these days.
The story for shaman is even more stark, with the only destroy effect you would use on opponents being attached to Ice Breaker. The reason for bringing shaman into this though is Hex, which aside from Ice Breaker is the only thing that effectively counts as a destroy effect. This goes some way to explaining the mana nerf it received a while back, in line with the explanation the devs gave.
Face damage in priest
Finally we come to the one that started the discussion: is Mind Blast part of priest identity? Certainly it was never a core mechanic so there is no chance of using the Sap argument to let it stay regardless of whether new cards add to it or not. It stands to reason that it could then fall out of the class' identity.
First, we have to acknowledge the mechanic of turning healing into damage, which was added to as recently as Rastakan's Rumble, is mechanically distinct from pure damage. That leaves Holy Smite, Holy Nova, Edit: Holy Fire, Shadowform, Shadowbomber, Spawn of Shadows and Shadowreaper Anduin (so many shadows...) as the cards with effects that can damage the opponent's face. The first 4 can be set aside since they were in Basic and Classic, while the next 2 were released more than 3 years ago. Only the DK is recent enough to argue Mind Blast's case, and had it been in any other recent set I would be happy to do so. The problem is KotFT, and the DKs in particular, was notorious for breaking class identity on the basis that they are death knights now, not warrior/rogue/priest/etc. So I cannot reasonably let the DK count.
All in all, it seems plausible Donais was being perfectly honest by saying face damage (and hence Mind Blast) is not part of priest identity.
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Tl;dr:
Great text. But I somewhat disagree on mindblast.
I think just like Gromash + inner rage for warrior, there is Velen + mindblast for priest. Because evere class somewhat needs to have a easy to understand finisher.
And lets not forget that people do only complain about mindblast because of shadow visions, Anduin and the resurrection spells. It was never a problem before, and will not be after the rotation.
A really well written article and the answer to it as well. I have a similar mindset about Priest identity in Standard.
Moving into https://outof.cards/members/firepaladinhs/decks
5 dmg for 2 mana. fireball does 6 for twice the cost. #obviouslyastupidcard
The healing turn into dmg thing is more op than people realize but when there is garbage like mind blast and inner fire, people wont bother with.
Fun > Meta
From what I understand, cards which violate identity are usually sent to the HoF, while cards that are simply too powerful are nerfed - but, uncontroversially, there's a lot of overlap between the two, and the devs have never suggested that their approach to nerfing vs HoFing is meant to be something that ought to be strictly adhered to, since there are some pretty obvious reasons why you might want to do one, rather than the other, in any given case. The devs don't have to write an essay every time they change a card.
As a result, I think some of the OP's discussion is a little misleading, and he also makes a few factual claims that seem to be simply false - Blade Flurry, for example, wasn't changed for "being out of Rogue's class identity a few years back." This was the justification they gave -
"Blade Flurry is a problem because it enables both board clear and heavy burst damage, and it’s also an obstacle to adding better cards for Rogues. To address these issues, the cost of Blade Flurry is moving from 2 to 4 mana, and it will now only affect minions, so that Rogues have to choose between removing threats or damaging the enemy Hero."
No mention of class identity - the card was nerfed, rather than HoFed, because flurrying blades is something that Rogues do, but the card was simply too good. Also, it's two sentences. They could have written twenty more, explaining their decision in fine detail, elaborating on other reasons that they didn't bother mentioning. But what's the point? Presumably, everything that they could have said would boil down to "it was too powerful."
I am with you that Mind Blast will probably be fine again after rotation, which is why I avoided saying anything about how strong it is.
As for whether each class needs a simple finisher I am not so sure, but fairly indifferent to it. We have 9 classes for a reason; they don't all need to be able to do the same sort of things. In the end it will be decided by where the devs stand on it, since ultimately they set class identity.
The HoF vs nerf line is unclear, though it looks like they won't send any basic cards to the HoF (probably because that would hurt new players?).
Regarding the reasons for the blade flurry nerf (thanks for digging this up by the way), you are right they did not mention class identity and I will reword what I said to reflect this. It is nevertheless true that strong AoE is outside of the class' identity so I have little doubt they would bring class identity into it if they did it today.
You forgot holy fire. Deal 5 heal 5. Considering all the cards that can deal direct face damage for priest total 8 cards out of its core and classic set, its arguable that face damage IS a part of the identity. Added to that the healing to damage possibility of auchenai...
If not healing and face damage, priest has no identity. Rez is not their core, what do u want? Thoughtsteal, mind vision? Velen doubles damage and healing from hero power AND spells... so priest would consider damage dealing spells as part of its identity otherwise why bother?
Paladin does healing better than priest at the moment. Buffing in priest is limited because of IF and DS. So its not the best at that. Where do you go?
You forgot Devolve in shaman.
Mind Blast is a part of priest identity, since shadow priest is part of the classic set as well (Shadowform), the shadow priest is part of the priest identity, it's also part of anduin's portrait "where is light there is always darkness", Priest finally got his shadowpriest arsenal expanded in KOFT, I think Team 5 forgot about the shadow priest stuff when they said Mind Blast isn't part of priest's identity.
Eh people have bothered with it and mind blast was a meme card basically until shdowreaper anduin became a thing. It's a shit card most of the time because it's a dead card unless you use it to kill your opponent that turn.
Of course with shadow visions, gallery, 2 different resurrect effects the thing can be broken but once rotation hits without shadow visions and the spellstone i don't think priest will go in that direction.
I can definitely see the class running auchenai circle once again if that's your main concern.
I am more on the cynic side about this, and i am actually baffled Donais explained Mind Blast in terms of class identity, because such an explanation makes no sense to me.
Point is, a bare game mechanic does not mean too much.
I mean: face damage? Why should it belong to any class at all? If we assume magic is part of HS fictional world, then Priest's banishments or curses could harm just as much as an arrow or a fireball.
By the same reason, why should Malygos Druid be a thing at all? It's face damage! Moon does not harm face irl, but Druid's one kills you, i would expect Druids being just fluffy beasts or peaceful plants?
If Hunters had some Survivalist spell for healing, in their basic set (art having Rexxar eating roasted food at a campfire), Hunter's class identity would still be perfect (possibly improved), despite their decision about Hunter being a class with no healing.
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Tl;dr: theme/flavour is what ultimately defines class identity, not bare game mechanics on their own. And they should be aware of this...
Except fireball can target whatever it wants and it’s in a class that can abuse it
^this. You cant compare mind blast to fireball ever.
In my opinion if we are talking about class identity we have to understand class mechanics from wow. I was playing Pve wow since vanilla till cataclysm and Mind blast was one of the main spells in a shadow priest rotation, i cant imagine shadow priest without mind blast.
Not missunderstand me, i am talking about class identity not about playability.
It seems I did forget Holy Fire, though since it is a Classic card it makes not difference to the discussion: The devs have stopped giving priest ways to damage the opponent from hand unless through swapping healing into damage. I have interpreted this as a change in design direction, and the continued presence of Mind Blast etc as a legacy of the Evergreen sets rather than a continued part of the class' identity.
I don't want anything per se. I was merely pointing out that it is "plausible Donais was being perfectly honest by saying face damage (and hence Mind Blast) is not part of priest identity".
As for what else priest has, here's the list I made when going through the cards for this thread: Buffs, healing , AoE, stat swapping/mirroring, silence, deathrattle, cheap spells (e.g. for Lyra), deck copying, minion stealing, dragons, heal -> damage, resurrection, summoning copies of minions. Some of these are more prominent and recent than others, but the class has enough avenues to not need direct face damage (especially when it has the more flavourful brand by using healing to do it instead).
I intentionally left devolve out of it because it is not hard removal. You can transform an 8/8 into a 0/1 with Hex. That (almost) kills it. With devolve it becomes something like a 7/7, so it's more a de-buff (occasionally an accidental buff) than hard removal.
Shadow priest =/= direct damage to face. There is a line between mechanics and thematics, and 'shadow priest' falls in the latter. For evidence, Shadow Word: Death does not hurt the opponent's face but is part of the shadow priest theme. It is certainly true all the direct damage cards have been connected to the shadow priest theme, but that does not mean the devs have not changed what mechanics the theme is tied to over time. And that seems to be the case: shadow priest themed cards continue to be printed, but the direct damage side aspect of them has stopped.
Partly yes, and I intentionally left theme out of my discussion. Class identity is fully comprised of both theme and mechanics, and often the two get associated with one another. However, I disagree that theme matters most. Ultimately the game is a set of mechanics with card art and names layered on top to make it look and feel better. The main functional reason to have 9 classes is for them to be distinct mechanically, so choosing a class has a meaningful impact and not just a choice of skin.
I tried not to cast any actually opinions in the original post because normally I don't mind what is and is not in each class' identity, but what I do hold to strongly is that the 'absent mechanics' must be present. If every class has good healing, face damage, minion buffs, removal etc, then the game would feel much less varied.
If anything the theme of each class has been well done by Blizzard with only a few cards that feel really out of place (e.g. Omega Agent).
While I appreciate the links to WoW as much as anyone else, HS is its own game. I do not really know whether it is good or bad that priest has Mind Blast as a direct damage spell, but I do believe that if it were best for the health of the game that it be changed or removed then the devs should do that without worrying too much about whether it severs a connection to WoW.
I do not personally think Mind Blast will be a problem after rotation so it probably won't need any change at all, but if it were changed I don't expect the devs would completely ruin the theme. Even Warsong Commander kept a theme if not its life.
You forgot Holy Fire
I am not saying mechanics are unimportant towards Class Identity.
I said bare mechanics, without theme, mean nothing. It is a purely subjective decision to give a mechanic to a class.
And thar is particularly true for Face Damage, which is not just a mechanic, but THE main mechanic towards victory between two opponents who fight in a direct encounter.
The opposite for theme ofc: theme needs a mechanic, in order to be part of the game. Otherwise nothing happens. It's pure description.
So i reiterate my point: Mind Blast could or could not be considered part of Priest's Class Identity, but NOT BECAUSE of it being Face Damage as mechanic.