IIRC the community has been asking for more and quicker nerfs and Blizz has seemingly answered. But have they gone overboard in the other direction?
Since I came back a little over two months ago Nitroboost Poison has been nerfed which pretty much sent rogues into T2. Then Barrens came and the Watchposts which seemed both interesting and viable have been nerfed into irrelevancy, I virtually don't see them any more. It was a great shame. Pen Flinger was nerfed which messed up a few decks. It and Deck of Lunacy were more nerfed because they were annoying I feel than good cards. Which highlights another issue with nerfing by popular demand, the mob always calls for nerfs (of the deck they don't play), it hits cards that don't deserve it but instead are just flashy and noticable, it is bad policy. And ofc the calls for nerfs will never end, making players feel they can affect card balancing by being vocal, well, we've seen the effects of that on this very forum. The only cards I feel deserved their nerf were Sword of the Fallen and Jandice Barov and even there I could be wrong. Because I base that on the fact that the cards are still payed post-nerf which to me is a sign of being quite overpowered before, but sheer power is not the only criteria for inclusion in a deck so... Anyway that is a lot of nerfs in just two months, too many arguably, and already new nerfs are announced.
Hopefully you can see where my concern is coming from now. And call me cynical but while many may think this is a pro-player move and Blizz should be thanked I can't help but consider how much dust goes down the drain when a deck is nerfed. I just recently crafted a meta deck, the cheapest one I could, and still it cost me something like 3200-4000 dust (1 leg and 4-6 epics not sure anymore). If it is hit with a nerf then I can at best expect to recoup 1600 dust, more realistically 800. Meanwhile that deck is probably T3 now or there abouts, most of the other cards I crafted are useless now, a lot of dust is sunk in failed investments. This hits F2P guys like me especially hard, you only have so much dust to play around with so you craft 1-2 good decks for ladder and those ofc are the most likely ones to be hit. And then you craft something that is good in the post nerf world and two weeks later, surprise surprise. In this sense frequent nerfs are very anti-player, at least anti-those who don't have all the cards and can adapt to nerfs on the fly. And to be extra cynical when you look at the list of cards that were nerfed there most go into cheap decks, the kinds F2P people tend to go for, very few "wallet" builds were hit like Rez Priest, Rush Warrior and so on.
That said not all is doom and gloom. I did like how they unnerfed some cards. Even though it was only after they were to be sent to the gravey... I mean Wild. If Blizz sees a card was wrongly nerfed or its nerf is no longer relevant then they should have the courage to reverse course, even while the card is in Standard. And indeed just straight up buff some cards that were always weak, just as some cards are deserving of a nerf some who saw little to no play deserve a buff, especially if they are fun and interesting cards. Always consider buffing over nerfing if possible imo. So yeah a quick and attentive balancing policy is not necessarily bad, it all ofc depends on how you execute it. I am not yet raising the alarm but I think us players should keep our eyes open.
Ultimately I think there is cause for early concerns about this overzealous nerfing policy every two weeks even though not all is bad.
I would say if you averaged out nerfs over the last 6 expansions it’s more like nerfs every 6 weeks / 2 months (ive not done the math so might be wrong.)
I’d say the problem is more why aren’t blizzard spotting problematic cards before they’re even printed. Are you telling me no one saw Crabrider with 4 hp at 2 mana being a problem at any point? Or none of their testers were big brain enough to work out lunacy could get you all the best spells from other classes on turn 2?
From bronze 10 to legend all you see is the most efficient T1 decks so even after nerfs it’s of no consequence really, and as blizzard don’t seem to be able get a balance where more than 3 decks are playable you’ll just be queueing into the same decks within a week of nerfs landing
Voted just right since it is the closest to my opinion. I don’t think nerfs come too rarely, often people complain about some cards that are clearly not overpowered. Also they can never please everybody, if they nerf pally and tickatus today, tomorrow we will see threads about overpowered and annoying priest control.
On the other hand, they definitely could try to nerf things faster, sometimes it feels like they just leave things be for weeks. Especially since it feels like they don’t really test those changes. Either go like last weapon nerf for pally that didn’t do anything or straight up murder.(RIP starving buzzard)
I would say if you averaged out nerfs over the last 6 expansions it’s more like nerfs every 6 weeks / 2 months (ive not done the math so might be wrong.)
I’d say the problem is more why aren’t blizzard spotting problematic cards before they’re even printed. Are you telling me no one saw Crabrider with 4 hp at 2 mana being a problem at any point? Or none of their testers were big brain enough to work out lunacy could get you all the best spells from other classes on turn 2?
From bronze 10 to legend all you see is the most efficient T1 decks so even after nerfs it’s of no consequence really, and as blizzard don’t seem to be able get a balance where more than 3 decks are playable you’ll just be queueing into the same decks within a week of nerfs landing
1. Is six expansions ago when this supposed quicker moderation policy came to be? I feel it is a more recent thing but not sure, as i've said I've just come back. And it seems that way to me, since now nerfs seem to come about every two weeks, maybe three.
2. I agree that too often cards that are obviously broken get printed. But perhaps that is by design, since such cards get the juices flowing and make people rush to buy packs. Perhaps exactly because they know those will get the nerf and want to have fun/the advantage.
3. Not sure what you mean by this. If you have one good deck and it gets nerfed you either craft another good one or you drop out for the time being. Either way the outcome is the same, only the most cookie cutter decks can succeed at higher ranks. It doesn't say anything about the nerf policy except maybe that it sucks at promoting many decks. Regardless you will always have the strongest decks dominate the meta since people want to climb, not lose.
Nerfs are like recalls, much better if we never need them and things are right from the start but if something is broken and only be know after release better than doing nothing.
I would say if you averaged out nerfs over the last 6 expansions it’s more like nerfs every 6 weeks / 2 months (ive not done the math so might be wrong.)
I’d say the problem is more why aren’t blizzard spotting problematic cards before they’re even printed. Are you telling me no one saw Crabrider with 4 hp at 2 mana being a problem at any point? Or none of their testers were big brain enough to work out lunacy could get you all the best spells from other classes on turn 2?
From bronze 10 to legend all you see is the most efficient T1 decks so even after nerfs it’s of no consequence really, and as blizzard don’t seem to be able get a balance where more than 3 decks are playable you’ll just be queueing into the same decks within a week of nerfs landing
1. Is six expansions ago when this supposed quicker moderation policy came to be? I feel it is a more recent thing but not sure, as i've said I've just come back. And it seems that way to me, since now nerfs seem to come about every two weeks, maybe three.
2. I agree that too often cards that are obviously broken get printed. But perhaps that is by design, since such cards get the juices flowing and make people rush to buy packs. Perhaps exactly because they know those will get the nerf and want to have fun/the advantage.
3. Not sure what you mean by this. If you have one good deck and it gets nerfed you either craft another good one or you drop out for the time being. Either way the outcome is the same, only the most cookie cutter decks can succeed at higher ranks. It doesn't say anything about the nerf policy except maybe that it sucks at promoting many decks. Regardless you will always have the strongest decks dominate the meta since people want to climb, not lose.
I just meant that if anyone is expecting nerfs to make the game fresh and add more variation they’ll be disappointed because within a week it will just be net decks at every tier of play. I guess what I was trying to say is Nerfs are pointless when there is no incentive to play anything but the strongest decks.
More nerfs = more grinding, what’s people’s obsession with nerfs?
don’t get me wrong sometimes they are needed to balance things out but people seem to think that a nerf will make them win all the time, not realising that the whole point is to bring average win rates closer to 50%, resulting in endless grinding
In no way, shape or form was lunacy just "an annoying card". Its wr% and consistency made it absurdly powerful, the nerf was very much needed. Pen flinger on the other hand didn't really need nerfing but I for one won't complain about that.
I think the way the team does it (in standard at least) is just fine. One or two nerfs between exp and miniset and probably another dose of nerfs between miniset and new exp seems about right. As always, the rotation (massive this year, with the introduction of the core set) brought far more balancing problems than literally anyone could have predicted (undoubtedly some will chime in to say that they knew all along mage and paladin would make 75% of the meta, you go lad, you sure did predict that). Just watching Trump's video on the new expansion when he says almost every class will have a tier 1 deck makes me chuckle an awful lot (love the mayor and he's been plenty accurate since witchwood in particular).
As for nerfing decks and costing dust...yeah, well, either you get a crap experience on ladder by playing against the same busted decks or you lose dust in case you crafted one of those busted decks. As a mostly f2p player I'd rather the current way of doing things than the olden days, when problem cards/decks went literally more than half a year without even smelling the hint of a nerf. If you want that experience you can come play wild and have fun queueing into secret mages tho.
I don't think people mind closer to 50% win rates when the games they are losing feel fair. Obviously RNG can still make games feel unfair, but at least it doesn't usually feel like you have NO chance like it does when the pally throws has a 4/7 with windfury by turn 3, or mages coining into Nagrand Slam on turn 5.
I think the problem is not how many nerfs, but picking the right things to nerf. They missed that mark by a lot this time.
For example I agree that watch posts did not need to be nerfed, but all the other changes were needed. They obviously missed something in Paladin, though, and that something is Oh My Yogg! It's a 1-mana spell whose mere existence forces your opponent to test with a throwaway spell every time you cast a secret. That's way, way, way too disruptive and powerful for a Paladin secret.
And the biggest problem is that it disrupts the game even when it's never drawn or played, so there is no way to judge the card by metrics.
It doesn't matter that there's a small chance it could actually help instead of hurting. It doesn't matter that players can't think of a good way to nerf it. What matters is that it makes every game against Paladin a lot harder than it should be, even when you are correctly playing around it. (Especially because of what you must do to play around it.)
So back to the main point -- it's not a question of the number of nerfs. They need to do a better job of nerfing the right things. They need to recognize that looking primarily at the numbers is a lazy approach that cannot always give an accurate picture of what a card is actually doing.
I would say if you averaged out nerfs over the last 6 expansions it’s more like nerfs every 6 weeks / 2 months (ive not done the math so might be wrong.)
I’d say the problem is more why aren’t blizzard spotting problematic cards before they’re even printed. Are you telling me no one saw Crabrider with 4 hp at 2 mana being a problem at any point? Or none of their testers were big brain enough to work out lunacy could get you all the best spells from other classes on turn 2?
From bronze 10 to legend all you see is the most efficient T1 decks so even after nerfs it’s of no consequence really, and as blizzard don’t seem to be able get a balance where more than 3 decks are playable you’ll just be queueing into the same decks within a week of nerfs landing
1. Is six expansions ago when this supposed quicker moderation policy came to be? I feel it is a more recent thing but not sure, as i've said I've just come back. And it seems that way to me, since now nerfs seem to come about every two weeks, maybe three.
2. I agree that too often cards that are obviously broken get printed. But perhaps that is by design, since such cards get the juices flowing and make people rush to buy packs. Perhaps exactly because they know those will get the nerf and want to have fun/the advantage.
3. Not sure what you mean by this. If you have one good deck and it gets nerfed you either craft another good one or you drop out for the time being. Either way the outcome is the same, only the most cookie cutter decks can succeed at higher ranks. It doesn't say anything about the nerf policy except maybe that it sucks at promoting many decks. Regardless you will always have the strongest decks dominate the meta since people want to climb, not lose.
I just meant that if anyone is expecting nerfs to make the game fresh and add more variation they’ll be disappointed because within a week it will just be net decks at every tier of play. I guess what I was trying to say is Nerfs are pointless when there is no incentive to play anything but the strongest decks.
I totally agree with you, people will always meta deck to climb "win" or even "fun" (looking at you Rez priests s******s). But at the same time nerfs open other dead classes for players that like them, at the moment Shaman is 100% dead.
I prefer more nerfs than less nerfs, because nerfs tend to target things that are powerful and thus they shake up the meta. Hearthstone's single biggest problem in my book is how quickly the meta stagnates, because being a digital card game it's much easier to collect data and "solve" the meta, figuring out what the best cards are. After a month into each expansion the top decks are always set in stone until the next one. Even if the most powerful deck of the expansion isn't that broken I'm OK with it being nerfed because it means we get to experience the best part of the game - that brief period of time when ladder is made up of people testing out new things and seeing how they do.
That said, even those considerations apart - the game needs more nerfs. The game has always had the problem of completely overpowered stuff being left alone for far too long. It's better now, but it's not solved. The fact that Paladin has been allowed to be the way it is for as long as it has is completely ridiculous. Paladin right now isn't a "I want the meta to be different" problem, it's a "this class is unhealthy for the game" problem - this coming from a lifelong Paladin main who's never felt the class be this powerful, ever.
Also, while I want more nerfs, I also want better nerfs. There are cards that are powerful but that make for interesting play experiences, and I don't want them touched. I hated the Watchpost nerf, because they were cards that moved the game in a direction I found more interesting (and that were frankly punished because people didn't understand how to play around them) for instance, and there's several Paladin cards that I keep being suggested for nerfs (like Avenge) that are very much not the problem and which are interesting to play with and against. I think this has been Team 5's biggest problem in the recent past, in that the previous batch of nerfs targeted the wrong things, didn't target enough things, or went about it wrong. Watchposts were unwarranted, Jandice helped but wasn't being a problem (Still glad to see her nerfed - the nerf was just never going to solve anything), Lunacy was way too light (that card doesn't belong anywhere near any sort of competitive play - nuke it, don't keep it playable, it should be a meme card only), Sword of the Fallen was obviously nowhere near enough, and some of the biggest offenders like Incanter's Flow, Refreshing Spring Water and Oh My Yogg didn't even get grazed.
So, I suppose TL;DR: More nerfs and better nerfs, please.
Standard is unplayable til they nerf alex, theres no way you can handle a n00b paladin that keeps on hitting your face without a even needing to think their turns just because at turn 9 they have an 8/8 body pyroexplosion
Standard is unplayable til they nerf alex, theres no way you can handle a n00b paladin that keeps on hitting your face without a even needing to think their turns just because at turn 9 they have an 8/8 body pyroexplosion
Paladin has several problems, and none of them are Alex.
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"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
Standard is unplayable til they nerf alex, theres no way you can handle a n00b paladin that keeps on hitting your face without a even needing to think their turns just because at turn 9 they have an 8/8 body pyroexplosion
Paladin has several problems, and none of them are Alex.
Alex only is scary in rogue can reduce the cost and play twice in the same turn, but rogue is almost dead with so insanely OP, out of the charts broken cards for paladin and many hunters out there with little to nothing neutral healing.
Yep, if else, problem is how paladin gets such easily bonkers starts, and turn 5 conviction turns out to be a death sentence on pretty much 90% of situations you find yourself as a paladin.
Don't know how to deal with it, maybee change the Northwatch guy, or the 1/1 spell draw guy, Conviction, or something.
That said, so far my biggest concerns are both Tickatus, who so ar is not that great but any time control tries to rise will slaughter the whole thing, and Spring Water of course. Refresh 1 mana, it's not that hard!
I wish there was a bit more consistency with the nerfs in how Blizz handled them. I feel like when Shaman or Druid is identified as having some potentially unhealthy cards, the nerfs come within days but this expansion the response has been, "yeah, we identified some changes which need to be made......we'll do it in a couple weeks."
In no way, shape or form was lunacy just "an annoying card". Its wr% and consistency made it absurdly powerful, the nerf was very much needed. Pen flinger on the other hand didn't really need nerfing but I for one won't complain about that.
I think the way the team does it (in standard at least) is just fine. One or two nerfs between exp and miniset and probably another dose of nerfs between miniset and new exp seems about right. As always, the rotation (massive this year, with the introduction of the core set) brought far more balancing problems than literally anyone could have predicted (undoubtedly some will chime in to say that they knew all along mage and paladin would make 75% of the meta, you go lad, you sure did predict that). Just watching Trump's video on the new expansion when he says almost every class will have a tier 1 deck makes me chuckle an awful lot (love the mayor and he's been plenty accurate since witchwood in particular).
As for nerfing decks and costing dust...yeah, well, either you get a crap experience on ladder by playing against the same busted decks or you lose dust in case you crafted one of those busted decks. As a mostly f2p player I'd rather the current way of doing things than the olden days, when problem cards/decks went literally more than half a year without even smelling the hint of a nerf. If you want that experience you can come play wild and have fun queueing into secret mages tho.
Well wasn't Lunacy around for months before it became OP? It clearly wasn't broken on its own, it was only with RSW that Spell Mage came to shine. And most crucially still shines. It is still a top tier deck, last I checked in top 5 if not top 3 and it has cut Lunacy. Lunacy was supposedly OP because it gave Nagrand Slam but it did so only 50% of the time the rest of the time it gave that druid buff spell, which lets be real was powerful too but it required a presence on the board. So yeah I still think the nerf was mostly uncalled for, it is just that the spell was flashy, muh RNG and with a chance of a crazy highroll. Pretty much a perfect target for high sodium levels.
And in what world does this benefit F2P players? You admit yourself we hemorrhage dust like crazy. Going from my experience even "cheap" decks for which I have most cards cost 2-4k dust. When the nerf happens you pretty much lose all of that dust since only one card is refunded usually. And in your scenario this would happen 4 times per expansion cycle, maybe more. That would eat all the dust we can hope to earn in that time and more. It only benefits Blizzard and whales who have all the cards and can adapt quickly.
And worst of all it does not "kill busted decks" it just moves that crown to the decks that weren't hit as much. By the very nature of ladder you will virtually always queue into one of the best decks of the hour.
Nerfs are knee-jerk reaction to crying of people are awful. Instead of reacting to every "OMFG THIS CARD IS TOO STRONG!" reaction i would prefer Team 5 to return to more passive approach and let meta develop itself.
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IIRC the community has been asking for more and quicker nerfs and Blizz has seemingly answered. But have they gone overboard in the other direction?
Since I came back a little over two months ago Nitroboost Poison has been nerfed which pretty much sent rogues into T2. Then Barrens came and the Watchposts which seemed both interesting and viable have been nerfed into irrelevancy, I virtually don't see them any more. It was a great shame. Pen Flinger was nerfed which messed up a few decks. It and Deck of Lunacy were more nerfed because they were annoying I feel than good cards. Which highlights another issue with nerfing by popular demand, the mob always calls for nerfs (of the deck they don't play), it hits cards that don't deserve it but instead are just flashy and noticable, it is bad policy. And ofc the calls for nerfs will never end, making players feel they can affect card balancing by being vocal, well, we've seen the effects of that on this very forum. The only cards I feel deserved their nerf were Sword of the Fallen and Jandice Barov and even there I could be wrong. Because I base that on the fact that the cards are still payed post-nerf which to me is a sign of being quite overpowered before, but sheer power is not the only criteria for inclusion in a deck so... Anyway that is a lot of nerfs in just two months, too many arguably, and already new nerfs are announced.
Hopefully you can see where my concern is coming from now. And call me cynical but while many may think this is a pro-player move and Blizz should be thanked I can't help but consider how much dust goes down the drain when a deck is nerfed. I just recently crafted a meta deck, the cheapest one I could, and still it cost me something like 3200-4000 dust (1 leg and 4-6 epics not sure anymore). If it is hit with a nerf then I can at best expect to recoup 1600 dust, more realistically 800. Meanwhile that deck is probably T3 now or there abouts, most of the other cards I crafted are useless now, a lot of dust is sunk in failed investments. This hits F2P guys like me especially hard, you only have so much dust to play around with so you craft 1-2 good decks for ladder and those ofc are the most likely ones to be hit. And then you craft something that is good in the post nerf world and two weeks later, surprise surprise. In this sense frequent nerfs are very anti-player, at least anti-those who don't have all the cards and can adapt to nerfs on the fly. And to be extra cynical when you look at the list of cards that were nerfed there most go into cheap decks, the kinds F2P people tend to go for, very few "wallet" builds were hit like Rez Priest, Rush Warrior and so on.
That said not all is doom and gloom. I did like how they unnerfed some cards. Even though it was only after they were to be sent to the gravey... I mean Wild. If Blizz sees a card was wrongly nerfed or its nerf is no longer relevant then they should have the courage to reverse course, even while the card is in Standard. And indeed just straight up buff some cards that were always weak, just as some cards are deserving of a nerf some who saw little to no play deserve a buff, especially if they are fun and interesting cards. Always consider buffing over nerfing if possible imo. So yeah a quick and attentive balancing policy is not necessarily bad, it all ofc depends on how you execute it. I am not yet raising the alarm but I think us players should keep our eyes open.
Ultimately I think there is cause for early concerns about this overzealous nerfing policy every two weeks even though not all is bad.
What do you guys think?
I would say if you averaged out nerfs over the last 6 expansions it’s more like nerfs every 6 weeks / 2 months (ive not done the math so might be wrong.)
I’d say the problem is more why aren’t blizzard spotting problematic cards before they’re even printed. Are you telling me no one saw Crabrider with 4 hp at 2 mana being a problem at any point? Or none of their testers were big brain enough to work out lunacy could get you all the best spells from other classes on turn 2?
From bronze 10 to legend all you see is the most efficient T1 decks so even after nerfs it’s of no consequence really, and as blizzard don’t seem to be able get a balance where more than 3 decks are playable you’ll just be queueing into the same decks within a week of nerfs landing
Voted just right since it is the closest to my opinion. I don’t think nerfs come too rarely, often people complain about some cards that are clearly not overpowered. Also they can never please everybody, if they nerf pally and tickatus today, tomorrow we will see threads about overpowered and annoying priest control.
On the other hand, they definitely could try to nerf things faster, sometimes it feels like they just leave things be for weeks. Especially since it feels like they don’t really test those changes. Either go like last weapon nerf for pally that didn’t do anything or straight up murder.(RIP starving buzzard)
1. Is six expansions ago when this supposed quicker moderation policy came to be? I feel it is a more recent thing but not sure, as i've said I've just come back. And it seems that way to me, since now nerfs seem to come about every two weeks, maybe three.
2. I agree that too often cards that are obviously broken get printed. But perhaps that is by design, since such cards get the juices flowing and make people rush to buy packs. Perhaps exactly because they know those will get the nerf and want to have fun/the advantage.
3. Not sure what you mean by this. If you have one good deck and it gets nerfed you either craft another good one or you drop out for the time being. Either way the outcome is the same, only the most cookie cutter decks can succeed at higher ranks. It doesn't say anything about the nerf policy except maybe that it sucks at promoting many decks. Regardless you will always have the strongest decks dominate the meta since people want to climb, not lose.
Nerfs are like recalls, much better if we never need them and things are right from the start but if something is broken and only be know after release better than doing nothing.
I just meant that if anyone is expecting nerfs to make the game fresh and add more variation they’ll be disappointed because within a week it will just be net decks at every tier of play. I guess what I was trying to say is Nerfs are pointless when there is no incentive to play anything but the strongest decks.
More nerfs = more grinding, what’s people’s obsession with nerfs?
don’t get me wrong sometimes they are needed to balance things out but people seem to think that a nerf will make them win all the time, not realising that the whole point is to bring average win rates closer to 50%, resulting in endless grinding
In no way, shape or form was lunacy just "an annoying card". Its wr% and consistency made it absurdly powerful, the nerf was very much needed. Pen flinger on the other hand didn't really need nerfing but I for one won't complain about that.
I think the way the team does it (in standard at least) is just fine. One or two nerfs between exp and miniset and probably another dose of nerfs between miniset and new exp seems about right. As always, the rotation (massive this year, with the introduction of the core set) brought far more balancing problems than literally anyone could have predicted (undoubtedly some will chime in to say that they knew all along mage and paladin would make 75% of the meta, you go lad, you sure did predict that). Just watching Trump's video on the new expansion when he says almost every class will have a tier 1 deck makes me chuckle an awful lot (love the mayor and he's been plenty accurate since witchwood in particular).
As for nerfing decks and costing dust...yeah, well, either you get a crap experience on ladder by playing against the same busted decks or you lose dust in case you crafted one of those busted decks. As a mostly f2p player I'd rather the current way of doing things than the olden days, when problem cards/decks went literally more than half a year without even smelling the hint of a nerf. If you want that experience you can come play wild and have fun queueing into secret mages tho.
I don't think people mind closer to 50% win rates when the games they are losing feel fair. Obviously RNG can still make games feel unfair, but at least it doesn't usually feel like you have NO chance like it does when the pally throws has a 4/7 with windfury by turn 3, or mages coining into Nagrand Slam on turn 5.
I think the problem is not how many nerfs, but picking the right things to nerf. They missed that mark by a lot this time.
For example I agree that watch posts did not need to be nerfed, but all the other changes were needed. They obviously missed something in Paladin, though, and that something is Oh My Yogg! It's a 1-mana spell whose mere existence forces your opponent to test with a throwaway spell every time you cast a secret. That's way, way, way too disruptive and powerful for a Paladin secret.
And the biggest problem is that it disrupts the game even when it's never drawn or played, so there is no way to judge the card by metrics.
It doesn't matter that there's a small chance it could actually help instead of hurting. It doesn't matter that players can't think of a good way to nerf it. What matters is that it makes every game against Paladin a lot harder than it should be, even when you are correctly playing around it. (Especially because of what you must do to play around it.)
So back to the main point -- it's not a question of the number of nerfs. They need to do a better job of nerfing the right things. They need to recognize that looking primarily at the numbers is a lazy approach that cannot always give an accurate picture of what a card is actually doing.
"Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose nor a body to kick." -- Lady Saba Holland
I totally agree with you, people will always meta deck to climb "win" or even "fun" (looking at you Rez priests s******s). But at the same time nerfs open other dead classes for players that like them, at the moment Shaman is 100% dead.
I prefer more nerfs than less nerfs, because nerfs tend to target things that are powerful and thus they shake up the meta. Hearthstone's single biggest problem in my book is how quickly the meta stagnates, because being a digital card game it's much easier to collect data and "solve" the meta, figuring out what the best cards are. After a month into each expansion the top decks are always set in stone until the next one. Even if the most powerful deck of the expansion isn't that broken I'm OK with it being nerfed because it means we get to experience the best part of the game - that brief period of time when ladder is made up of people testing out new things and seeing how they do.
That said, even those considerations apart - the game needs more nerfs. The game has always had the problem of completely overpowered stuff being left alone for far too long. It's better now, but it's not solved. The fact that Paladin has been allowed to be the way it is for as long as it has is completely ridiculous. Paladin right now isn't a "I want the meta to be different" problem, it's a "this class is unhealthy for the game" problem - this coming from a lifelong Paladin main who's never felt the class be this powerful, ever.
Also, while I want more nerfs, I also want better nerfs. There are cards that are powerful but that make for interesting play experiences, and I don't want them touched. I hated the Watchpost nerf, because they were cards that moved the game in a direction I found more interesting (and that were frankly punished because people didn't understand how to play around them) for instance, and there's several Paladin cards that I keep being suggested for nerfs (like Avenge) that are very much not the problem and which are interesting to play with and against. I think this has been Team 5's biggest problem in the recent past, in that the previous batch of nerfs targeted the wrong things, didn't target enough things, or went about it wrong. Watchposts were unwarranted, Jandice helped but wasn't being a problem (Still glad to see her nerfed - the nerf was just never going to solve anything), Lunacy was way too light (that card doesn't belong anywhere near any sort of competitive play - nuke it, don't keep it playable, it should be a meme card only), Sword of the Fallen was obviously nowhere near enough, and some of the biggest offenders like Incanter's Flow, Refreshing Spring Water and Oh My Yogg didn't even get grazed.
So, I suppose TL;DR: More nerfs and better nerfs, please.
Imagine them balancing before releasing cards in a broken state.
Standard is unplayable til they nerf alex, theres no way you can handle a n00b paladin that keeps on hitting your face without a even needing to think their turns just because at turn 9 they have an 8/8 body pyroexplosion
Paladin has several problems, and none of them are Alex.
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Alex only is scary in rogue can reduce the cost and play twice in the same turn, but rogue is almost dead with so insanely OP, out of the charts broken cards for paladin and many hunters out there with little to nothing neutral healing.
Yep, if else, problem is how paladin gets such easily bonkers starts, and turn 5 conviction turns out to be a death sentence on pretty much 90% of situations you find yourself as a paladin.
Don't know how to deal with it, maybee change the Northwatch guy, or the 1/1 spell draw guy, Conviction, or something.
That said, so far my biggest concerns are both Tickatus, who so ar is not that great but any time control tries to rise will slaughter the whole thing, and Spring Water of course. Refresh 1 mana, it's not that hard!
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I wish there was a bit more consistency with the nerfs in how Blizz handled them. I feel like when Shaman or Druid is identified as having some potentially unhealthy cards, the nerfs come within days but this expansion the response has been, "yeah, we identified some changes which need to be made......we'll do it in a couple weeks."
Well wasn't Lunacy around for months before it became OP? It clearly wasn't broken on its own, it was only with RSW that Spell Mage came to shine. And most crucially still shines. It is still a top tier deck, last I checked in top 5 if not top 3 and it has cut Lunacy. Lunacy was supposedly OP because it gave Nagrand Slam but it did so only 50% of the time the rest of the time it gave that druid buff spell, which lets be real was powerful too but it required a presence on the board. So yeah I still think the nerf was mostly uncalled for, it is just that the spell was flashy, muh RNG and with a chance of a crazy highroll. Pretty much a perfect target for high sodium levels.
And in what world does this benefit F2P players? You admit yourself we hemorrhage dust like crazy. Going from my experience even "cheap" decks for which I have most cards cost 2-4k dust. When the nerf happens you pretty much lose all of that dust since only one card is refunded usually. And in your scenario this would happen 4 times per expansion cycle, maybe more. That would eat all the dust we can hope to earn in that time and more. It only benefits Blizzard and whales who have all the cards and can adapt quickly.
And worst of all it does not "kill busted decks" it just moves that crown to the decks that weren't hit as much. By the very nature of ladder you will virtually always queue into one of the best decks of the hour.
Way too much.
Nerfs are knee-jerk reaction to crying of people are awful. Instead of reacting to every "OMFG THIS CARD IS TOO STRONG!" reaction i would prefer Team 5 to return to more passive approach and let meta develop itself.