I think the hero power will stay the same but they will balance it out by giving other classes more "midrange" card draw option.
In the current meta "mid-range" card draw option are weak for most of the classes except Mage, Rogue (Prep + Sprint) and one could say Warrior with the Patron Warrior style which can really make effective use of Battle Rage. Other classes struggle with card draw. Shaman has none apart form a fragile totem that rarely survive a turn. Hunter have 0 card draw since the Buzzard nerf. Paladin and druid have very late card draw option with Lay on Hand and Ancient of Lore. Priest has some strong options but those options need a specific set up with Cleric.
When we'll see some "arcane of intellect" type class cards I think it will really balance things out with Warlock
All hero powers will actually GET WORSE as time goes on because more efficient plays will exist at all points of the mana curve, meaning that increasingly it will be better to play something vs using your power.
I think people are still comparing the warlock hero power to what it would be like in Magic: The Gathering. In that game, it would indeed be crazy, but in hearthstone, tempo is way way more important and as such spending 2 mana to just draw a card is not really good until relatively late into the game. Arena is a good illustration of this. Warlock is generally weak there even though in theory it's in that format that drawing extra cards for free should be the most insane. But as it turns out, classes that deal 1 damage are way better because killing an X/1 is way better than drawing a random card in most instances.
All hero powers will actually GET WORSE as time goes on because more efficient plays will exist at all points of the mana curve, meaning that increasingly it will be better to play something vs using your power.
I think people are still comparing the warlock hero power to what it would be like in Magic: The Gathering. In that game, it would indeed be crazy, but in hearthstone, tempo is way way more important and as such spending 2 mana to just draw a card is not really good until relatively late into the game. Arena is a good illustration of this. Warlock is generally weak there even though in theory it's in that format that drawing extra cards for free should be the most insane. But as it turns out, classes that deal 1 damage are way better because killing an X/1 is way better than drawing a random card in most instances.
I agree with this to an extent. however with random draw, you could have your mana curve completely filled out with combos and end up getting none of them in context to what you have to play to stay alive; Warlock varies in this way as yes, it is harder to stay alive, but you also are running like.. Zero inefficient minions that you NEED in other decks for your draw; spells are even worse as they do draw for you, but provide no board presence AND, bringing the point full circle, the other classes may not 'draw' their card draw until its basically time to top deck and by that time, having card draw minion is, well, inefficient.
I think warlock having to run zero card draw in each deck is a massive advantage that Blizzard has overlooked, in context to how the other classes will just kind of randomly obtain their card draw and put a limit on their own decks, where as Warlock has the full 30 cards to work with outside the context of card draw, which brings me to the point i made in the last post of this thread; Voidcaller. Warlocks already have discounted card draw, now they have discounted demons too? What? And the voidcaller itself isn't a bad body? What is this horse shit? So, basically if i run voidcaller, mal'ganis and sense demons, using sense demons, i will always have this combo? So, i have a chance to draw this combo through hero power draw, if im running 2x sense demons i will also have 2x more chances to draw this combo.. Ok now this is getting stupid.
Edit: And no, sense demons is not a draw card; it does not function in the way that draw cards in function draw, it is guaranteeing you to draw 2 minions, which is completely outside of "Draw 1 random ass card"
I think warlock having to run zero card draw in each deck is a massive advantage that Blizzard has overlooked,
As time goes by, card draw cards will just become so much better than just a warlock hero power that it will eclipse it. For instance, mad scientist provides a draw of a secret and 1-3 free mana. That's just unfair compared to the warlock's hero power. There's many similar cards currently in use such as divine favor, acolyte of pain and battle rage.
I really don't see warlock abusing its hero power a whole lot right now. Just to give an example of how fragile is it, zoo completely died when undertaker was nerfed. Didn't matter how many cards warlocks could draw in the mid and late game, other decks were just better at dominating the board and card advantage was irrelevant.
Hearthstone is not moving towards a more control-oriented game either, which might provide warlocks with a long-term advantage. The faster the game gets, the more useless the warlock power becomes. Lastly, the other heroes also provide card advantage anyway. Mages don't need to use a card to kill an X/1 creature, and hunter basically gets to draw a direct damage spell every turn.
If anything they should buff warrior's hero power because it doesn't do anything. It works with one card: Shield slam. That's about all it does. Pretty terrible. But warrior is still dominating which is a clue that hero powers are not that relevant in ranked.
If anything they should buff warrior's hero power because it doesn't do anything.
Warriors with 80hp (50 armor + 30hp) say hello. No other class in the game can increase their health pool the way a warrior can. Their hero power is fine--more than fine, in fact.
First of all, new cards can be alternative instead of upgrades. Secondly, cards can synergize with other hero powers. Thirdly, classes also have class cards that determine their overall strength and synergies.
I agree with the OP, I'm curious to see how Blizzard will handle Warlock in the future. I don't think the hero power is OP, and I think that changing hero powers is out of the question. But I think that Warlock's hero power puts design constraints on future Warlock class cards.
Not long ago Zoo was THE class to whine about, before the rise of Face Hunter. It would only take 1 or 2 more strong aggressive Warlock minions to push Zoo over the edge. This is also the reason that I doubt we'll ever see any more aggressive neutral Murlocs. (I think that's why Blizzard has started pushing Murlocs towards Shaman instead of keeping them neutral.)
Since it's all but impossible to change the hero power, I think we'll continue to see Warlock's aggressive class cards being under-powered relative to the other classes. I think Blizzard is forced to push Warlock towards mid-range and control strategies instead.
Won't this just create MORE viable decks for warlock? I mean right now Warlock has Zoo (many different iterations), Handlock (a few competitive iterations), and Demon (gimmicky, but still viable for ladder). Add in the new Malygos Warlock and then any future decks and they'll have 4+ viable ladder decks all with different stages of deck design. You have Super Control, Control, "rush", Tempo, etc.
The main problem I have, since I won't attempt to speak for others, is that Zoo never has to draft card draw in their decks, and they have many viable ladder decks where other classes are lucky if they have just ONE viable ladder/competitive deck.
I agree with the OP, I'm curious to see how Blizzard will handle Warlock in the future. I don't think the hero power is OP, and I think that changing hero powers is out of the question. But I think that Warlock's hero power puts design constraints on future Warlock class cards.
Not long ago Zoo was THE class to whine about, before the rise of Face Hunter. It would only take 1 or 2 more strong aggressive Warlock minions to push Zoo over the edge. This is also the reason that I doubt we'll ever see any more aggressive neutral Murlocs. (I think that's why Blizzard has started pushing Murlocs towards Shaman instead of keeping them neutral.)
Since it's all but impossible to change the hero power, I think we'll continue to see Warlock's aggressive class cards being under-powered relative to the other classes. I think Blizzard is forced to push Warlock towards mid-range and control strategies instead.
I think the problem is that they try to balance the warlock hero power with under-powered class cards, but it also means they face a limit on what they can do with neutral cards. One of the strongest lock decks right now abuses this very concept by using a majority of neutral cards in conjunction with their hero power.
Agreed. I think that's why Druid Murlocs etc will never be viable. A lot of decks are indirectly suffering because Life Tap is limiting Blizzard's ability to make aggressive neutral cards.
Sorry to double respond to you here Asuryan, but Blizzard game devs are smart people. Surely they must realize they can't keep ignoring the Warlock Hero power. If it's causing such a limiting factor they'll eventually have to deal with it or other classes start to suffer for the reasons you stated.
To put it another way, let's talk about another similar topic briefly: Patron Warrior. The issue with Patron Warrior isn't the fact he's high value in Warrior decks. It's Warsong Commander, and Warsong Commander has ALWAYS been problematic since the days of "Charging Giants" deck. Eventually my guess is that Blizzard is going to rework Warsong Commander. And if your line of thinking about Warlock constraining neutral aggressive card is spot on, then Blizzard surely realizes this as well and will hopefully take action at some point in the future.
I agree with the OP, I'm curious to see how Blizzard will handle Warlock in the future. I don't think the hero power is OP, and I think that changing hero powers is out of the question. But I think that Warlock's hero power puts design constraints on future Warlock class cards.
Since it's all but impossible to change the hero power, I think we'll continue to see Warlock's aggressive class cards being under-powered relative to the other classes. I think Blizzard is forced to push Warlock towards mid-range and control strategies instead.
Won't this just create MORE viable decks for warlock?
Yes, agreed. And it's a good thing, of course. As I said, I don't think Warlock is OP, I just think Life Tap limits future design options.
Agreed. I think that's why Druid Murlocs etc will never be viable. A lot of decks are indirectly suffering because Life Tap is limiting Blizzard's ability to make aggressive neutral cards.
Sorry to double respond to you here Asuryan, but Blizzard game devs are smart people. Surely they must realize they can't keep ignoring the Warlock Hero power. If it's causing such a limiting factor they'll eventually have to deal with it or other classes start to suffer for the reasons you stated.
Agreed again. I have faith in the dev team. There are ways to deal with it, they're just more difficult than other balance issues. If they want to make more aggressive murlocs (or anything else), they'll need to find ways to stop Warlock from abusing them. For example, they could make a cycle of class-specific murlocs, one for each class, and make the Warlock one more mid-range than the others. That's sort of equivalent to making 1 neutral aggressive murloc with the text "This card can't be played by Warlocks." Or they could make neutral minions that interact badly with Life Tap, such as "If your hero takes damage during your turn, destroy this minion."
It's basically 1 card for 2 mana and 2 life. Mage can spend 3 mana and no life to get the same 1 card and Arcane Intellect is not usually considered overpowered (some mage decks don't even run it). So are people saying that 1 mana is worth a lot more than 2 life? If that's the case then Hunter's hero power is terrible because they have to spend 2 mana to hit 2 life. But if anything people seem to think Hunter's ability is overpowered.
Because you're not counting opportunity costs. Arcane Intellect needs to be in your hand before you can use it, and it also eats a slot in your deck.
Eating up a slot in your deck is actually a positive thing because it means the average quality of your cards that actually do things is higher. Imagine there was a card that cost 0 mana and just said 'draw a card'. All decks, except mill or (maybe) super controlly decks would auto-include 2 of these cards at the expense of the worst card in the deck.
As for it having to be in your hand then that's true, but then that's true of any card. If Arcane Intellect was super good and only limited by the fact that you don't always draw it when you want it then I'm sure all Mage decks would run it and they often don't. I don't know how you would measure this but I don't think Mage players fist-pump when they have Arcane Intellect in their opening hand. Or aggressively mulligan trying to find one.
Hypothetical question, if you could run as many Arcane Intellects in your (let's say Tempo) Mage deck as you liked, how many would you put in?
I think the hero power will stay the same but they will balance it out by giving other classes more "midrange" card draw option.
In the current meta "mid-range" card draw option are weak for most of the classes except Mage, Rogue (Prep + Sprint) and one could say Warrior with the Patron Warrior style which can really make effective use of Battle Rage. Other classes struggle with card draw. Shaman has none apart form a fragile totem that rarely survive a turn. Hunter have 0 card draw since the Buzzard nerf. Paladin and druid have very late card draw option with Lay on Hand and Ancient of Lore. Priest has some strong options but those options need a specific set up with Cleric.
When we'll see some "arcane of intellect" type class cards I think it will really balance things out with Warlock
All hero powers will actually GET WORSE as time goes on because more efficient plays will exist at all points of the mana curve, meaning that increasingly it will be better to play something vs using your power.
I think people are still comparing the warlock hero power to what it would be like in Magic: The Gathering. In that game, it would indeed be crazy, but in hearthstone, tempo is way way more important and as such spending 2 mana to just draw a card is not really good until relatively late into the game.
Arena is a good illustration of this. Warlock is generally weak there even though in theory it's in that format that drawing extra cards for free should be the most insane.
But as it turns out, classes that deal 1 damage are way better because killing an X/1 is way better than drawing a random card in most instances.
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I agree with this to an extent. however with random draw, you could have your mana curve completely filled out with combos and end up getting none of them in context to what you have to play to stay alive; Warlock varies in this way as yes, it is harder to stay alive, but you also are running like.. Zero inefficient minions that you NEED in other decks for your draw; spells are even worse as they do draw for you, but provide no board presence AND, bringing the point full circle, the other classes may not 'draw' their card draw until its basically time to top deck and by that time, having card draw minion is, well, inefficient.
I think warlock having to run zero card draw in each deck is a massive advantage that Blizzard has overlooked, in context to how the other classes will just kind of randomly obtain their card draw and put a limit on their own decks, where as Warlock has the full 30 cards to work with outside the context of card draw, which brings me to the point i made in the last post of this thread; Voidcaller. Warlocks already have discounted card draw, now they have discounted demons too? What? And the voidcaller itself isn't a bad body? What is this horse shit? So, basically if i run voidcaller, mal'ganis and sense demons, using sense demons, i will always have this combo? So, i have a chance to draw this combo through hero power draw, if im running 2x sense demons i will also have 2x more chances to draw this combo.. Ok now this is getting stupid.
Edit: And no, sense demons is not a draw card; it does not function in the way that draw cards in function draw, it is guaranteeing you to draw 2 minions, which is completely outside of "Draw 1 random ass card"
As time goes by, card draw cards will just become so much better than just a warlock hero power that it will eclipse it.
For instance, mad scientist provides a draw of a secret and 1-3 free mana. That's just unfair compared to the warlock's hero power. There's many similar cards currently in use such as divine favor, acolyte of pain and battle rage.
I really don't see warlock abusing its hero power a whole lot right now. Just to give an example of how fragile is it, zoo completely died when undertaker was nerfed. Didn't matter how many cards warlocks could draw in the mid and late game, other decks were just better at dominating the board and card advantage was irrelevant.
Hearthstone is not moving towards a more control-oriented game either, which might provide warlocks with a long-term advantage. The faster the game gets, the more useless the warlock power becomes. Lastly, the other heroes also provide card advantage anyway. Mages don't need to use a card to kill an X/1 creature, and hunter basically gets to draw a direct damage spell every turn.
If anything they should buff warrior's hero power because it doesn't do anything. It works with one card: Shield slam. That's about all it does. Pretty terrible. But warrior is still dominating which is a clue that hero powers are not that relevant in ranked.
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Warriors with 80hp (50 armor + 30hp) say hello. No other class in the game can increase their health pool the way a warrior can. Their hero power is fine--more than fine, in fact.
First of all, new cards can be alternative instead of upgrades. Secondly, cards can synergize with other hero powers. Thirdly, classes also have class cards that determine their overall strength and synergies.
So I find your conclusion to be unsound.
Won't this just create MORE viable decks for warlock? I mean right now Warlock has Zoo (many different iterations), Handlock (a few competitive iterations), and Demon (gimmicky, but still viable for ladder). Add in the new Malygos Warlock and then any future decks and they'll have 4+ viable ladder decks all with different stages of deck design. You have Super Control, Control, "rush", Tempo, etc.
The main problem I have, since I won't attempt to speak for others, is that Zoo never has to draft card draw in their decks, and they have many viable ladder decks where other classes are lucky if they have just ONE viable ladder/competitive deck.
Sorry to double respond to you here Asuryan, but Blizzard game devs are smart people. Surely they must realize they can't keep ignoring the Warlock Hero power. If it's causing such a limiting factor they'll eventually have to deal with it or other classes start to suffer for the reasons you stated.
To put it another way, let's talk about another similar topic briefly: Patron Warrior. The issue with Patron Warrior isn't the fact he's high value in Warrior decks. It's Warsong Commander, and Warsong Commander has ALWAYS been problematic since the days of "Charging Giants" deck. Eventually my guess is that Blizzard is going to rework Warsong Commander. And if your line of thinking about Warlock constraining neutral aggressive card is spot on, then Blizzard surely realizes this as well and will hopefully take action at some point in the future.
Yes, agreed. And it's a good thing, of course. As I said, I don't think Warlock is OP, I just think Life Tap limits future design options.
Agreed again. I have faith in the dev team. There are ways to deal with it, they're just more difficult than other balance issues. If they want to make more aggressive murlocs (or anything else), they'll need to find ways to stop Warlock from abusing them. For example, they could make a cycle of class-specific murlocs, one for each class, and make the Warlock one more mid-range than the others. That's sort of equivalent to making 1 neutral aggressive murloc with the text "This card can't be played by Warlocks." Or they could make neutral minions that interact badly with Life Tap, such as "If your hero takes damage during your turn, destroy this minion."
I think warlock has the best hero power but I don't think it's OP
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I'm not really sure about Warlock's hero power.
It's basically 1 card for 2 mana and 2 life. Mage can spend 3 mana and no life to get the same 1 card and Arcane Intellect is not usually considered overpowered (some mage decks don't even run it). So are people saying that 1 mana is worth a lot more than 2 life? If that's the case then Hunter's hero power is terrible because they have to spend 2 mana to hit 2 life. But if anything people seem to think Hunter's ability is overpowered.
So something doesn't really add up here.
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Because you're not counting opportunity costs. Arcane Intellect needs to be in your hand before you can use it, and it also eats a slot in your deck.
Eating up a slot in your deck is actually a positive thing because it means the average quality of your cards that actually do things is higher. Imagine there was a card that cost 0 mana and just said 'draw a card'. All decks, except mill or (maybe) super controlly decks would auto-include 2 of these cards at the expense of the worst card in the deck.
As for it having to be in your hand then that's true, but then that's true of any card. If Arcane Intellect was super good and only limited by the fact that you don't always draw it when you want it then I'm sure all Mage decks would run it and they often don't. I don't know how you would measure this but I don't think Mage players fist-pump when they have Arcane Intellect in their opening hand. Or aggressively mulligan trying to find one.
Hypothetical question, if you could run as many Arcane Intellects in your (let's say Tempo) Mage deck as you liked, how many would you put in?
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