Hearthpwn

Sure it is arbitrary to begin with, I never said otherwise. However, that does not mean the mechanics have been allotted randomly and in some cases it is clear where your statement "My point is that the same X could equally be given to 4, 5, 6 instead, and nobody would notice anything wrong (given a proper theme)" does not hold.

Consider healing->damage in priest and weapon buffs in rogue. You cannot swap the classes these are in without it making no sense anymore. Some mechanics have pre-requisites before they can be given to a class, and regardless of theme, mechanics feed off other mechanics. Now you could argue you could equally well swap healing and weapons while you are at it, but it still shows the class identities are more carefully put together than simply dishing mechanics out arbitrarily.

The direct face damage mechanic is less clear cut, certainly. But again that was the point from the start: can we discern whether it lies in priest's current identity based on how the devs have chosen to design priest cards in the last few years? Evidence suggests it has been dropped, but that doesn't force the devs to ret-con anything unless they present a problem for the game's health.

Final thing: I would reword your last statement to "In other words, while mechanics contribute to Class Identity ingame, part of that Class Identity exists before mechanics." I believe that is what you meant anyway but it wasn't clear on the first read.

I don't think you are wrong to think along these lines; I have never played WoW but years of HS led me to looking deep into its lore. Its not quite the connection actual WoW players have but it does make me really appreciate the links and the translations of WoW characters/abilities into cards. In any case I am not suggesting Mind Blast or any of the other cards actually be changed, but simply identifying where the identity argument could be legitimately applied.

Also, fairness to the devs on this: they have not changed Mind Blast but chose to sit it out and see what happens after all the resurrection cards rotate out. My interpretation of their actions and non-actions is that they would rather not change any of the cards unless the long term health of the game is at stake. And that is an approach I can get behind (even if the precise details can and should be scrutinised!). Keep the ties to WoW unless they are actually damaging, then the fact HS is its own game should be prioritised.

OK, so when I have been talking about Mind Blast, I have really been talking about "a 2 mana priest spell that deals 5 damage to the opponent's hero" (i.e. the card in a purely mechanical sense). As for mind blast as "a priest spell with a shadow priest theme", abstracted from what it actually does, then that is absolutely part of the priest identity.

But I would argue a card is only within a class' identity if both its theme and mechanics are simultaneously. Only satisfying one or the other still leaves you outside. That could be because you have put pirate artwork on a priest card, or because you have given priest a medic with a battlecry that increases your weapon's attack. Neither fit.

So IF direct face damage does fall outside of priest identity, then that is sufficient to say the Mind Blast as a whole does.

I don't know that the card needs a change, but it could be brought in line with priest identity by changing the mechanics only.

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Coming to your statement "And that 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."

In this instance, by 'face damage' I am talking about face damage directly from the hand, particularly through spells and battlecries. Sloppy use of the term on my end, I know. The key point is that there are many different routes to do the 30 damage, not all are part of all class' identities and they cannot all be lumped into a single bucket in this context.

Quote from RavenSunHP >>

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...

 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).

Quote from Rynmon >>

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.

Quote from MezariOz >>

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).

Quote from ManThighs >>

You forgot Devolve in shaman.

 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.

Quote from DoubleSummon >>

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.

When I remember to I pick a card back that thematically suits each deck, which is pretty much always possible since I've been playing since beta and have all the season card backs to choose from. The one set as favourite varies from time to time and I will definitely set it to random is soon as I can. Currently it's this beauty:

Quote from user-21172633 >>

Its limited due Death man's hand infinity which means games would never end, that's why they decided to limit it

 It's older than that. It has been possible to have infinite games since at least GvG (because of Mal'Ganis), but I think the 90 turn limit was present since the very start.

Quote from Haussenfuss >>

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.

Quote from Setesh >>

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. 

 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.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

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Tl;dr: 

• 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.

Agreed, changes have not been properly communicated, but I believe they have still happened. The reason they get called on a lot these days as reasons to nerf/HoF is after Shaman-stone (aka Year of the Kraken) and Druid-stone (aka Frozen Throne) where the dominant classes almost lost any class identity because they could do pretty much anything they liked. Since then the devs seem to have been more conscious of the need to narrow down on what classes should and should not be able to do.

In a couple of hours I will be writing a forum post designed to highlight what I think each class' identity is. As a spoiler, the list of mechanics for each class is actually very long and no class is in danger of being a 1-trick pony. I'll point you to it when it is written so we can continue discussing there.

After replying to a comment below I thought I'd go through each of the classes and try to identify exactly what their identities are, have been, and definitely are not. Perhaps later I'll post my thoughts on this. For now though keep in mind Mind Blast is not being HoF'd (this time).

Maybe, though I very much doubt the devs would want to require an epic rarity card to use a basic one. For now Mind Blast isn't going anywhere and with Shadow Visions rotating out we might not see it often in standard anyway.

I would also not want the devs to feel too constrained by WoW mechanics. They were useful to guide things early on but HS is its own game and its main interest should be to made HS as good as it can be, not to shoehorn in WoW mechanics. If it is in the game's interest to have the shadow priest theme surrounded by mechanics that don't mirror a DPS spec, then so be it.

While I agree with you regarding past cards fitting the face damage identity, I would draw some distinctions. Shadow priest cards generally, e.g. SW:Death and Shadowform, are mechanically different to Mind Blast. They all represent shadow priests in a WoW sense, but their mechanics in HS are different. What Mike Donais specified is face damage, not the broader shadow priest identity.

Okay, so narrowing things down then, what about face damage by healing? That is again distinct. It can be part of a class' identity to swap healing for damage without including something that is face damage and nothing but face damage. The easiest way to reveal the subtlety here is to view it in reverse: If a hunter gets a direct damage card people will say "yeah, that makes sense for hunter". If instead hunter is given a 'healing does damage' card it would make no sense for the class' identity.

More relevant are Shadowbomber and Spawn of Shadows. These are undoubtedly in the same identity space as Mind Blast, so surely there is no identity problem? Well, yes and no. If this had been said way back in TGT I would agree it is part of what makes up priest, but absolutely nothing along these lines has been printed since. Somewhere along the way the devs clearly decided that actually direct face damage shouldn't be part of the priest identity, and that Mind Blast only exists because it was designed very early on when they were still testing what should and should not be part of each class.

Ultimately your assessment of the cards is, in a vacuum, completely correct. What you have not allowed for is for class identity to evolve. Maybe it should be static and never change, maybe not. But as the game has matured it is not surprising that it is the original cards, designed at a time when the class identities were not so well established, are often the ones that are mechanical misfits today. That includes Mind Blast, but also Cold Blood, Naturalize and Divine Favor, which just goes to show how the community's perception of class identity can be warped by single out of place cards just because they are very powerful and have been around since the start.

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Tl;dr: Donais knows what he's saying, but they have never done a very good job of explaining changes in class identity, especially when classes lose some of their original identity.

Yep. All golden transform cards make things golden. In this case you even gift your opponent a golden demon.

Generally, if a golden card creates anything (including transforming since the final state was not what it started as), it will be golden. The only things that behave disappointingly are golden deathrattle buffs (e.g. Spikeridged Steed) since in the end the minion creates whatever comes out, not the spell.