Like a lot of you, I saw the "announcement of the announcement" trailer for the upcoming expansion today and I was floored at how quickly the time flew by. At first I thought for sure the July 1st date Blizzard teased was abnormal, that they usually don't properly announce the next expansion that early. But sure enough, the past two years' Summer expansions were all revealed within the first week or so of July. We're right at the part where a lot of people, myself included, would normally be itching for the next set announcement to break up the mid-expansion boredom.
But this time, the boredom never came. Rise of Shadows has become probably the first ever Hearthstone expansion to never get truly stale, to live almost-perpetually in the "experimental, fun, and not perfectly optimized" state, and it's all thanks to the mid-meta content additions. Between the extensive Dalaran Heist adventure, the obligatory nerf patch, the Rise of Mechs buffs, the Arena rotation, and the new Classic + Basic card replacements, the Rise of Shadows season always made me feel like there was something on the horizon to look forward to, and some new thing already out to try and have fun with. Rise of Mechs especially felt like a treat, practically a mini-expansion within the expansion thanks to the power level of the improved cards, and it has me genuinely excited at the prospect of future card buffs. Blizzard might be bad at nerfing Big Priest or explaining what the hell a class identity is, but they still deserve an enormous helping of praise and thanks for going this route. If this is how Hearthstone expansions are going to work in the future, I'd say the future is looking bright.
They definitely did a good job staggering nerfs/buffs/content. First time I remember not being burnt out by the time we were nearing announcement time. Hopefuy it will be a continuing trend for each expansion.
Absolutely agreed. It has been quite a fluid expansion for a change, and as Murloc says, I am pleasently surprised not to have experienced the fatigue / boredom that has often hit before the new expansion is announced.
Snip Snap has helped make mech decks even more oppressive. Some of the card buffs were totally unnecessary. Did warrior really need 2 of it's less good mechs buffed and the ability to discover snip snaps? It was a already an oppressive deck. It's now totally busted and needs several nerfs.
Did mage need another win condition in luna's pocket galaxy?
Did hunter need it's double deathrattle card buffed and snip snap?
Did paladin need it's already great and played 2 mana draw 2 reduced to 1 mana?
A lot of the changes buffed the already broken top tier classes.
This meta is terrible imo and is not going to get better without another round of nerfs.
While I think that this expansion was great, three cards really made me hate it. Archmage Vargoth, darkest hour and Snip Snap. In standard even when there were less cards because of the rotation, some really good decks were brought up and it was really interesting while also having more room to grow with future expansions so I quite enjoyed it, but in the wild side of things big priest wich is one of the most hated decks was really improved with vargoth, another really high roll deck was created and then snip snap brought the annoying otk (or close to it) for warlock (and other classes but mostly warlock) that can happen as soon as turn 5 or 4 with the coin. I mean common. Wild is almost always ignored and those kind of things make the wild experience kind of suck.
I think that the staggered nerf /buffs have done a good job keeping the meta fairly fresh. Even if it hasnt solved all the problems. But it has definitely been quite quick to get to the next exp. i think the solo adventure also helped too.
Quality wise this expansion is terrible. That they nerfed and buffed cards and weren't afraid to do so was a good thing but overall the game is not doing well. The next expansion has to change things around., meta wise.
I wanna give the first short moment just to enjoy the optimism and focus on positice aspects of a innovative collecitve... ahh, nice.. good job.
And for the semantic aspect, agreee! Well, I gues I won't ever be able to fully seperate from my instinctive hatefuly side, which is convined of all people are stuipid except of myself, but your words are one of my competences making that voice more&more quiet^^
And one short edit, simply not to miss the point I was up to, maybe easy to missunderstand caused of my bad english: ... Pretty serious with my comment, most of ppl are just able for subjective bad critizism, and totally focusing bad points of view, which leads to an outcoming of -Zero-, or even Minus, for both, the Source and the User...
Like a lot of you, I saw the "announcement of the announcement" trailer for the upcoming expansion today and I was floored at how quickly the time flew by. At first I thought for sure the July 1st date Blizzard teased was abnormal, that they usually don't properly announce the next expansion that early. But sure enough, the past two years' Summer expansions were all revealed within the first week or so of July. We're right at the part where a lot of people, myself included, would normally be itching for the next set announcement to break up the mid-expansion boredom.
But this time, the boredom never came. Rise of Shadows has become probably the first ever Hearthstone expansion to never get truly stale, to live almost-perpetually in the "experimental, fun, and not perfectly optimized" state, and it's all thanks to the mid-meta content additions. Between the extensive Dalaran Heist adventure, the obligatory nerf patch, the Rise of Mechs buffs, the Arena rotation, and the new Classic + Basic card replacements, the Rise of Shadows season always made me feel like there was something on the horizon to look forward to, and some new thing already out to try and have fun with. Rise of Mechs especially felt like a treat, practically a mini-expansion within the expansion thanks to the power level of the improved cards, and it has me genuinely excited at the prospect of future card buffs. Blizzard might be bad at nerfing Big Priest or explaining what the hell a class identity is, but they still deserve an enormous helping of praise and thanks for going this route. If this is how Hearthstone expansions are going to work in the future, I'd say the future is looking bright.
I wholeheartedly agree. And they're building a great amount of hype too!
They definitely did a good job staggering nerfs/buffs/content. First time I remember not being burnt out by the time we were nearing announcement time. Hopefuy it will be a continuing trend for each expansion.
Absolutely agreed. It has been quite a fluid expansion for a change, and as Murloc says, I am pleasently surprised not to have experienced the fatigue / boredom that has often hit before the new expansion is announced.
The concept is good, the execution was poor.
Snip Snap has helped make mech decks even more oppressive. Some of the card buffs were totally unnecessary. Did warrior really need 2 of it's less good mechs buffed and the ability to discover snip snaps? It was a already an oppressive deck. It's now totally busted and needs several nerfs.
Did mage need another win condition in luna's pocket galaxy?
Did hunter need it's double deathrattle card buffed and snip snap?
Did paladin need it's already great and played 2 mana draw 2 reduced to 1 mana?
A lot of the changes buffed the already broken top tier classes.
This meta is terrible imo and is not going to get better without another round of nerfs.
While I think that this expansion was great, three cards really made me hate it. Archmage Vargoth, darkest hour and Snip Snap. In standard even when there were less cards because of the rotation, some really good decks were brought up and it was really interesting while also having more room to grow with future expansions so I quite enjoyed it, but in the wild side of things big priest wich is one of the most hated decks was really improved with vargoth, another really high roll deck was created and then snip snap brought the annoying otk (or close to it) for warlock (and other classes but mostly warlock) that can happen as soon as turn 5 or 4 with the coin. I mean common. Wild is almost always ignored and those kind of things make the wild experience kind of suck.
I'm so happy to see another pepper thread about this ground breaking expansion. After the slew of crap we got in 2018, RoS was SO refreshing.
Wait... did you intentionally just copy the whole of this reddit post, or is this you also?
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/c6f7ua/the_monthly_content_additions_and_balance_changes/
Same crap on reddit. My short version of same comment. Expansion not best when 3 classes see little play.
I think that the staggered nerf /buffs have done a good job keeping the meta fairly fresh. Even if it hasnt solved all the problems. But it has definitely been quite quick to get to the next exp. i think the solo adventure also helped too.
This. And the new tournament format makes things worse. I want to see more classes played, not less.
Dependable loan sharks since 1960. We sink our teeth into every deal we make.
Quality wise this expansion is terrible. That they nerfed and buffed cards and weren't afraid to do so was a good thing but overall the game is not doing well. The next expansion has to change things around., meta wise.
I wanna give the first short moment just to enjoy the optimism and focus on positice aspects of a innovative collecitve... ahh, nice.. good job.
And for the semantic aspect, agreee! Well, I gues I won't ever be able to fully seperate from my instinctive hatefuly side, which is convined of all people are stuipid except of myself, but your words are one of my competences making that voice more&more quiet^^
And one short edit, simply not to miss the point I was up to, maybe easy to missunderstand caused of my bad english: ... Pretty serious with my comment, most of ppl are just able for subjective bad critizism, and totally focusing bad points of view, which leads to an outcoming of -Zero-, or even Minus, for both, the Source and the User...
So, cheers mate, nice post.