I'm not talking about them being currently the worst class in the meta (with the possible exception of Paladins). No, I'm talking about why they are the worst class in the game from a design perspective.
People complain about the top rated decks in the meta for being far too aggressive. Even though it has been nerfed, we've been dealing with Pirate Warrior for the past 2 months now, of which has the capability to kill you by turn 5, even if you have an answer for everything he puts out.
Before that, we had aggro Shaman, whereas not as powerful or aggressive as Pirate Warrior, it still was able to crowd out every other deck in the game by killing you before you could get any sort of reasonable board state.
And so on, and so forth, every meta since the release of this game has had some sort of aggressive deck that simply no other deck can compete with.
So, if you hate aggro in general, then you should just generally hate the class that was specifically designed to be the penultimate aggro class.
Everything about Hunters encourages the player to build an aggro deck. Everything from their spells, to their minions, to even their hero power. Most of their minions have aggressive stats (more attack than health), and generally have effects to keep their opponents on the defense, than making any kind of attempt of aggressive play until they have control of the board (i.e. gaining significant buffs when an allied minion dies, spawning tokens on death, board wide minion buffs, etc.). Their spells are either direct damage to help get that extra bit of damage to kill you (how many times have you died to specifically Kill Command?), or are specifically designed to easily get around problematic minions (like taunts). Their secrets (since secrets are naturally really only defensive or reactive) are specifically designed to protect their minions, and disrupt the tempo of their opponents.
And then their hero power. Unless the opponent is a Priest or Warrior (and to a lesser extent, Druid), puts their opponent on a timer, a timer of which is MUCH shorter than the Fatigue timer, for whenever the Hunter has left over mana, their opponent is taking damage.......period. Even when it's not being used, the Hunter's hero power puts pressure onto their opponent to make sure they stay within a certain health range to simply not die.
Yes, you can make a mid range Hunter, and some people have been brave enough to make a "control" Hunter. But the core of any Hunter deck is meant to put pressure on your opponent until they simply keel over and die, and unless they can either out pressure, or out sustain the pressure, they will do exactly that. This makes Hunters extremely aggravating to play against, and for some of us, make Hunters extremely one dimensional, bland, and boring to play.
Look at how versatile Shamans are (or how Warriors used to be), and look at how much skill and decision making that decks like Miracle Rogue take to play. Mages have a plethora of spells that they can use in several different ways. Priests can keep their own minions alive, and have the unique ability to use their opponents deck against them! Druids can out pace their opponents in either ramp or tokens, Paladins have buffs for days (which can be used either in a controlling or aggressive manner), and Warlocks (specifically Hand or Renolock) always have the unique ability to be able to turn around a game in a single turn (more so than the other classes can).
Hunters have none of this. If Hearthstone had an official easy mode, it would be Hunters! Having an "easy mode" isn't a bad thing, but in a game like Hearthstone, even the "easy mode" aspects should have some way for high ranking players to play mind games, and give ample opportunities to outplay their opponents. They are way too predictable, and don't offer any significant variance in their decks that don't ultimately boil down to "pressure your opponent".
And this is why I am legitimately scared to see what comes out in Un'goro. Most likely, there will be a TON of beasts, all of which Hunters have extreme synergy with (this is really the most unique thing about them). A very large majority hope and pray for the day that the Hearthstone meta will slow down, but if Hunters get a decent set of cards this expansion, most likely, that won't happen.
Simply because of bad matchups and because things like Jade/Shaman Druid is so meta right now. I find that I almost always lose vs these decks unless I get really lucky and they unlucky with what cards they get... but even then it's difficult. Hunter can't kill them fast enough before they start spawning 6/6 - 8/8 Jade Gollums all over the board at which point you have nothing that can contest that.
Hunter needs some sort of healing(feast mechanic maybe?) or better card draw/board clear or so. I think giving more dmg would be really hard to balance.
Hunter class needs to be improved with Un'Goro, but I hope that Blizz's way to fix them is not by giving them early minions and spells to support Hunter's Aggro / Beast decks with Face is the place.... Hunter needs tools to control the early board, AoE that cannot deal dmg to face, and card draw mechanics...
The OP is right about the nature of the hunter class, and how it is an easy class to villianize due to the community's distaste for aggro decks. Even the midrange hunter that was strong following OG was largely disliked because on turn 8, Call of the Wild felt extremely bad to lose to. At this point, I think the community being so thin skinned has been what caused blizzard to take hunter in a different direction, and the result is what you see now.
A factor at play is that aggro needs to exist in the meta in some form. It has to be there to stop decks from being too greedy. I think hunter is a natural fit for this roll, but as with any face/aggro deck, it's bad for the meta if this becomes the BEST deck (see: aggro shaman). This is because the deck tends to be the easiest and quickest to play, as well as the cheapest to make...so if it's also just the best deck in the game, why wouldn't you play it?
So now that we don't want the best deck to be aggro, hunter is scary from a design standpoint, and lately is only being given cards that promote their mid to late game. As a result, there is this lack of identity and it feels like fitting a square peg into a round hole a lot of the time. I do hope that this expansion helps connect some dots, and at least give this class a more sustainable role moving forward.
I would argue hunter is the worst class in the game period in terms of design and also from the perspective of anyone who has to play against it.
The entire win condition of 99% of hunter decks is play minions on curve, stay ahead and pray they don't draw the right removal. It's the exact same reason that pirate warrior is the most boring deck to play against; except at least Warrior has, has had, and always will have multiple archetypes.
Hunter will always be the same; even assuming (god help us) they were given decent AOE and draw. The hero power and cards like kill command will always ensure hunter will never change.
Not all classes should lend themselves to the same play style. Hunter is a great class to play as a player killer, especially now, post-nerf, I have been having good success with it. People have different reasons for playing the game, and I like beating people who were not expecting to lose more that just having a high W/R or rank.
Hunter also has deadly shot and i am confused as to why few hunter deck runs it
Because most strong decks these days flood the board. Think of facing Shaman with a couple of totems and then Thing From Below and a 7/7. Too RNG-y to be reliable.
Because the class has boring cards and no fun combos like other classes
and now that it's weak there no point in playing hunter
Maybe they should un-nerf Starving Buzzard from 5-mana to 3-mana again. At the time, the nerf was needed because Hunter was the only aggro deck and it was too good. But the meta has changed. There are so many viable aggro-decks now, they need more competition and variation.
Aggro decks are a must for the life of the game, but it might be better to have three viable aggro decks instead of two.
I think in an ideal meta there would be three viable aggro decks, three viable midrange decks, and three viable slow/control decks.
I wouldn't call hunter onedimensional, but rather unique, as ArgentumEmperio stated. Meta has never been more polarized, ultra fast aggro decks on one side, and "i'll bore you to death" reno shennanigans on the other. Unfortunately, hunter is now in a midrangey place, but not fast enough to compete with aggro and not controlish enough to compete with jade/reno/dragon decks. Blizz neglected him a bit after the face hunter era (understandably), but he has a lot to offer, i think people didn't experiment enough with him, and i truly rarely see him on the ladder.
I'm not talking about them being currently the worst class in the meta (with the possible exception of Paladins). No, I'm talking about why they are the worst class in the game from a design perspective.
People complain about the top rated decks in the meta for being far too aggressive. Even though it has been nerfed, we've been dealing with Pirate Warrior for the past 2 months now, of which has the capability to kill you by turn 5, even if you have an answer for everything he puts out.
Before that, we had aggro Shaman, whereas not as powerful or aggressive as Pirate Warrior, it still was able to crowd out every other deck in the game by killing you before you could get any sort of reasonable board state.
And so on, and so forth, every meta since the release of this game has had some sort of aggressive deck that simply no other deck can compete with.
So, if you hate aggro in general, then you should just generally hate the class that was specifically designed to be the penultimate aggro class.
Everything about Hunters encourages the player to build an aggro deck. Everything from their spells, to their minions, to even their hero power. Most of their minions have aggressive stats (more attack than health), and generally have effects to keep their opponents on the defense, than making any kind of attempt of aggressive play until they have control of the board (i.e. gaining significant buffs when an allied minion dies, spawning tokens on death, board wide minion buffs, etc.). Their spells are either direct damage to help get that extra bit of damage to kill you (how many times have you died to specifically Kill Command?), or are specifically designed to easily get around problematic minions (like taunts). Their secrets (since secrets are naturally really only defensive or reactive) are specifically designed to protect their minions, and disrupt the tempo of their opponents.
And then their hero power. Unless the opponent is a Priest or Warrior (and to a lesser extent, Druid), puts their opponent on a timer, a timer of which is MUCH shorter than the Fatigue timer, for whenever the Hunter has left over mana, their opponent is taking damage.......period. Even when it's not being used, the Hunter's hero power puts pressure onto their opponent to make sure they stay within a certain health range to simply not die.
Yes, you can make a mid range Hunter, and some people have been brave enough to make a "control" Hunter. But the core of any Hunter deck is meant to put pressure on your opponent until they simply keel over and die, and unless they can either out pressure, or out sustain the pressure, they will do exactly that. This makes Hunters extremely aggravating to play against, and for some of us, make Hunters extremely one dimensional, bland, and boring to play.
Look at how versatile Shamans are (or how Warriors used to be), and look at how much skill and decision making that decks like Miracle Rogue take to play. Mages have a plethora of spells that they can use in several different ways. Priests can keep their own minions alive, and have the unique ability to use their opponents deck against them! Druids can out pace their opponents in either ramp or tokens, Paladins have buffs for days (which can be used either in a controlling or aggressive manner), and Warlocks (specifically Hand or Renolock) always have the unique ability to be able to turn around a game in a single turn (more so than the other classes can).
Hunters have none of this. If Hearthstone had an official easy mode, it would be Hunters! Having an "easy mode" isn't a bad thing, but in a game like Hearthstone, even the "easy mode" aspects should have some way for high ranking players to play mind games, and give ample opportunities to outplay their opponents. They are way too predictable, and don't offer any significant variance in their decks that don't ultimately boil down to "pressure your opponent".
And this is why I am legitimately scared to see what comes out in Un'goro. Most likely, there will be a TON of beasts, all of which Hunters have extreme synergy with (this is really the most unique thing about them). A very large majority hope and pray for the day that the Hearthstone meta will slow down, but if Hunters get a decent set of cards this expansion, most likely, that won't happen.
Hunter isn't an aggro class that is is bad in this meta.
It's a midgame class that lost its early game and card draw and is forced to be extremely aggressive as the replacement cards have failed.
Un'goro needs to give hunter a solid gameplan to change this.
Simply because of bad matchups and because things like Jade/Shaman Druid is so meta right now. I find that I almost always lose vs these decks unless I get really lucky and they unlucky with what cards they get... but even then it's difficult. Hunter can't kill them fast enough before they start spawning 6/6 - 8/8 Jade Gollums all over the board at which point you have nothing that can contest that.
Hunter needs some sort of healing(feast mechanic maybe?) or better card draw/board clear or so. I think giving more dmg would be really hard to balance.
Hunter class needs to be improved with Un'Goro, but I hope that Blizz's way to fix them is not by giving them early minions and spells to support Hunter's Aggro / Beast decks with Face is the place.... Hunter needs tools to control the early board, AoE that cannot deal dmg to face, and card draw mechanics...
Hunter also has deadly shot and i am confused as to why few hunter deck runs it
Kobolds are almost as bad as goblins, they gotta die (⌐■_■)–︻╦╤─
Because the class has boring cards and no fun combos like other classes
and now that it's weak there no point in playing hunter
The OP is right about the nature of the hunter class, and how it is an easy class to villianize due to the community's distaste for aggro decks. Even the midrange hunter that was strong following OG was largely disliked because on turn 8, Call of the Wild felt extremely bad to lose to. At this point, I think the community being so thin skinned has been what caused blizzard to take hunter in a different direction, and the result is what you see now.
A factor at play is that aggro needs to exist in the meta in some form. It has to be there to stop decks from being too greedy. I think hunter is a natural fit for this roll, but as with any face/aggro deck, it's bad for the meta if this becomes the BEST deck (see: aggro shaman). This is because the deck tends to be the easiest and quickest to play, as well as the cheapest to make...so if it's also just the best deck in the game, why wouldn't you play it?
So now that we don't want the best deck to be aggro, hunter is scary from a design standpoint, and lately is only being given cards that promote their mid to late game. As a result, there is this lack of identity and it feels like fitting a square peg into a round hole a lot of the time. I do hope that this expansion helps connect some dots, and at least give this class a more sustainable role moving forward.
I would argue hunter is the worst class in the game period in terms of design and also from the perspective of anyone who has to play against it.
The entire win condition of 99% of hunter decks is play minions on curve, stay ahead and pray they don't draw the right removal. It's the exact same reason that pirate warrior is the most boring deck to play against; except at least Warrior has, has had, and always will have multiple archetypes.
Hunter will always be the same; even assuming (god help us) they were given decent AOE and draw. The hero power and cards like kill command will always ensure hunter will never change.
Not all classes should lend themselves to the same play style. Hunter is a great class to play as a player killer, especially now, post-nerf, I have been having good success with it. People have different reasons for playing the game, and I like beating people who were not expecting to lose more that just having a high W/R or rank.
Free to try and find a game, dealing cards for sorrow, cards for pain.
Hunter has some great control tools, they just lack draw, healing, and quantity of control tools. Deadly Shot, Powershot, Hunter's Mark, Freezing Trap, Explosive Trap, and Misha are all exceptional cards. Hunter just needs more.
One month till Hunter meta. Enjoy it.
1 month till Hunter meta....
Enjoy your domination, Shamans!
funny thing, if it weren't for the hero power Hunter would be one of the sickest control classes.
Hunter is coming :)
Top deck is cheat
They are quite far from becoming OP, they would need some good aggro cards + card draw. They run out of steam extremely quick.
Streaming arena and brawl at: https://www.twitch.tv/bluefootednoobies/
I wouldn't call hunter onedimensional, but rather unique, as ArgentumEmperio stated. Meta has never been more polarized, ultra fast aggro decks on one side, and "i'll bore you to death" reno shennanigans on the other. Unfortunately, hunter is now in a midrangey place, but not fast enough to compete with aggro and not controlish enough to compete with jade/reno/dragon decks. Blizz neglected him a bit after the face hunter era (understandably), but he has a lot to offer, i think people didn't experiment enough with him, and i truly rarely see him on the ladder.