Hearthpwn

Shaman, cuz the class is completely hopeless and we're basically playing with 9 instead of 10 classes for two expansions in a row now. Seriously, if you're unable to balance it get rid of the class.

Quote from DickDraggin >>

4 legendaries in 89 regular packs +5 golden packs.

Vectus, Shan'do Wildclaw, Headmaster Kel'Thazud and  Lorekeeper Pokelt. 

Several duplicated Epics.

One golden epic, zero golden legendaries. 

Meh

 

89 packs as well plus the five golden packs got me:

• Mozaki, Master Duelist (login freebie)
• Infiltrator Lilian (preorder freebie)
• Mindrender Illucia
• Forest Warden Omu
• Instructor Fireheart
• Vectus

which equals to a rate of ~1/22 (slightly below average) yet feels pretty underwhelming. Also, the golden packs were ALL 4c/1r...

• [  ] browse Blizzard forums
• [  ] look for official information on the HS Twitter acc
• [x] proceed to rage about it on Hearthpwn

Yeah, I guess the choice was on your end, pal.

The Brawl is fun until you reach the point where most people are playing cheese decks such as Mill Druid or Mech Hunter/Warlock to farm their daily 100 gold.

• Ancient Watcher
• Dalaran Librarian
• Sunfury Protector
• Arcane Watcher

or

• Flame Imp/Fiendish Servant
• Voidwalker
• Imprisoned Scrap Imp
• Jumbo Imp

or

• Helboar
• Fresh Scent
• Scavenger's Ingenuity
• Zixor, Apex Predator

Notable decks my opponents played so far:

1. Blackjack Stunner
2. Ambush
3. Bamboozle
4. Shadowjeweler Hanar

1. Twin Slice
2. Battlefiend
3. Crimson Sigil Runner
4. Altruis the Outcast/Kayn Sunfury

1. Tunnel Trogg
2. Jade Claws
3. Totem Golem
4. Jade Lightning

1. High Priest Thekal
2. Holy Wrath
3. Molten Giant
4. Shirvallah, the Tiger

1. Soulfire
2. The Soularium
3. Silverware Golem
4. Fist of Jaraxxus/Hand of Gul'dan

Shaman: Ancestral Healing, Frost Shock, Windfury + Windspeaker are without doubt trash (please don't come up with bullshit Ancestor's Call Maly Shaman or similar memes). The nerfed forms of Flametongue Totem, Rockbiter Weapon and Hex require specific shells in order to be functional, similar to Totemic Might and Bloodlust. Oh, and about Fire Elemental... well, check Glaivebound Adept.

Paladin: Hand of Protection, Humility, Light's Justice, Holy Light and Guardian of Kings are unplayable, unless randomly generated. Blessing of Might as well as Hammer of Wrath only saw play in specific decks, Consecration is still (see Lightning Storm) Paladins primary board clear but simply outdated nowadays. Blessing of Kings and Truesilver Champion are at least decent if the rest of deck is viable.

Coupled with the fact that both classes have poor to no card draw, bad tempo options and no win conditions it's not that surprising that they will continue to suck unless team 5 a) releases broken xpac support or b) reworks their core sets. Unfortunately, a) is more likely to happen.

Warrior: Currently Enrage/Egg Warrior is the only real deck and due to it being synergetic just a single nerf could result in the deck collapsing. Remove Corsair Cache? Nerf Risky Skipper? Boom, it's gone. Therefore we should be careful when it comes to balancing Garrosh (see how well e.g. Galakrond Warrior did a few weeks ago, now it's just dead)

Druid: The same old Token shell is the only thing keeping the class alive, similar to Zoo when it comes to Warlock. Big Druid? Too much of a highroll. Galakrond Warlock? Meh. Other archetypes such as Handlock? There is support, but Midrange decks have no future in meta dominated by Tempo (DH, Rogue, Warrior) and decks trying to outlast you with infinite value or big swing turns (Highlander, Priest in general)

Let's be honest, DH is still overpowered and even worse, it's been done on purpose. I mean, did you expect them to release a new class which could (which their very limited card pool in mind) barely compete with the others? It HAD TO BE overpowered, otherwise it wouldn't spark any interest. Yet, the issue is that, in order to release powerful DH expansion cards they're forced to tone down the power level of the current cards. Otherwise the future cards are going to be either weak or just outright broken, even more so than e.g. pre-nerf Skull of Gul'dan. Or could you imagine something more impactful than e.g. Warglaives of Azzinoth or Altruis the Outcast with the latter ones remaining intact? Surely that would result in the most overpowered deck ever, even more so than the first iteration of Tempo Demon Hunter.

The idea is nice but the card shown is just bad because of the Overload. Warrior had arguably one of the most powerful 1-drops (Town Crier) so I'd rather see Shaman getting a 1/2 instead of a 1/3 (1) to prevent ruining their curve. Overload in general seems just outdated since there are no payoff cards in the Basic/Classic set and those from expansions such as Likkim or Cumulo-Maximus either moved to Wild or are too clunky to be played. I get they want it to be the special Shaman feature but historically it's been part of broken decks (Old Gods/Karazhan Aggro Shaman) or just useless (see e.g. Earth Elemental in Crusher Shaman years ago or more recently, Snowfury Giant). There has been no middle ground, maybe except for the Year of the Dragon metas but even then, they had to buff a card which was already considered very powerful (Thunderhead) and yet the respective deck turned out to be far from too strong.

Quote from TwistedCardmaster >>

It may seem a bit surprising, but in my opinion, an important factor here is... money. F2P players (who are probably a significant part of all players) cannot play any deck from any class, because they are limited by the amount of dust they have (and as you all know, HS is very restrictive in this regard). This makes them very sensitive to any changes in the meta and if none of "their" decks has positive win ratio against other popular decks at the moment, then their player experience is completely unbearable, causing frustration, boredom and unwillingness to play the game.

It's easy to say: play the deck X from class Y. But what should I do if all "my" classes are T3 or worse at the moment (like it is now)? In such situations, I don't enjoy playing the game AT ALL (because who likes to lose constantly?) and I usually take a break for a few weeks... or months... or years.

In my opinion, that's why many people complain. They have devoted many years of life to this game and would like to enjoy it. Unfortunately they can't because Blizzard doesn't want all classes to be playable and fun at the same meta... of course for profit (and some classes, like Warlock or Paladin, suck more often than they don't, due to weak class  cards and boring, meme archetypes). 

Make all cards free, and I assure you that half the complaints will simply disappear...

Just by making all Classic cards available to everyone for free it would go a long way towards general accessibility. Ye, most new decks consist of various expansion cards which is fine, otherwise the game would become pretty repetitive. But any new player (e.g. all those who started at max a year or two ago) knows how difficult it can be if you're missing most of the Classic set, even with HoF and some nerfs in mind. General rule is that you'll obtain these cards through e.g. Tavern Brawl packs but even nowadays my brothers account (which got created somewhere between the release of Karazhan and Gadgetzan) is still missing a pair of Doomsayers, Brawls and/or certain Legendaries such as Tirion. And that account isn't exactly F2P since he spent a few hundred $ on adventures, expansion pre-orders or bundles since then.

Quote from Geoff >>

Quote from Zangoosed >>

From the Shaman games I've played since this expansion I can say 1 thing has stood out above all others:

Their card draw is awful. They have to rely on Novice Engineer Far Sight and Mana Tide Totem. Three very not so great options in the current meta.

Their top two competitive decks Galakrond Evolve Shaman and Totem Shaman are very very very draw dependent. When I played with them it was either you drew the nuts and went off, or you just drew nothing and got stomped. Very polarizing decks with no consistency.

There is always a weakest class during every meta each expansion, but I think they neglected Shaman a little too much in my opinon. They just don't have the tools to consistently be winning. I don't know if "buffs" to their current cards will help all that much. The next expansion has to show love to Shaman in some way though.

 Well, they had a little bit of shine this expansion, when Totem Shaman was considered "decent". I've never jumped on this hype train, but it worked for short amount of time.

Shaman is bad only this expansion. It's not like with Priest, which was terrible for literally ages. Also Shaman has a long history of being very oppressive. Yes, Shaman is bad now. So what? Let it be. At this point almost every class had a top tier deck and was on the bottom. This is ok. I am totally fine with Shaman being the worst now.

Also it's not like Shaman is so bad. The competition is too strong. Buffing Shaman to match the rest would only add to the powercreep, which is already disgusting in Hearthstone. And I am strongly against powercreeping.

I don't know how long you're playing this game but years ago Tempostorm (IIRC) created a special "Shaman tier" only to measure how bad the class was performing. That was long before the days of Aggro and Midrange Shaman during the Karazhan/MSoG metas. Yes, back then Thrall was considered just a meme and there were several periods over the course (*cough* Thrall&Garrosh@VS *cough*) during which he was left far behind the other classes. So please, don't resort to Whataboutism when it's clear that Shaman (and a few other classes such as Paladin to a lesser extent) suffer from serious issues. We should aim for class balance which doesn't either create oppression (pre-nerf DH) or outright unplayable classes. Take Hunter as an example: rarely too good, rarely too bad.

Quote from Xeze >>

Shaman's class identity is occasionally generate fun clips for Trolden with evolve or Bandersmosh highrolls.

Jokes aside, it was kind of expected for the class to be weaker this year because of how busted it was in the Doom of the Tomb event and at the start of Descent of Dragons. The same happened when Shaman was busted during the Karazhan/MsoG and then it was trash during the second half of the Year of the Mammoth (remeber Freeze Shaman?). So either there has to be some balance patches to bring the powerlevel of the top classes down a bit or the next expansion bring some additional tools to refine the current Shaman archetypes.

You've got a point there, but doesn't that tell a lot about the core issue which plagues Shaman (and Priest plus Paladin to a certain degree) ? It suffers from a poor core set of cards, many of which are either unplayable or very situational. Hence the rework of Priest so Anduin doesn't have to rely on good to overwhelmingly powerful support from future expansions anymore. The same has to happen in regards to Thrall unless we want Shaman to remain in the dumpster or witness another era of Shamanstone some day.

Overload Shaman usually succeeds by playing very aggressively but lost most of their synergy cards due to rotation

Murloc Shaman as well as Totem Shaman win by snowballing which is impossible in a meta dominated by Tempo

Galakrond Shaman has been nerfed to oblivion and even VS in their latest report suggest to undo some of the nerfs

Muckmorpher Shaman (similar to Duel Paladin) is just a lesser Big Priest depending on highrolls similar to Evolve

Control Shaman lost both Hagatha and Shudderwock, it cannot compete with the infinite value of Rogue and Priest

Quote from Frankitou >>

Your error was playing shamman in this meta XD

This. I just played Big Shaman vs. an ordinary Tempo DH. Hexed Kayn Sunfury and earth shocked Altruis the Outcast. Played Muckmorpher into Scrapyard Colossus plus coin Ancestral Spirit on turn 6 and still couldn't make it to turn 8 to play Walking Fountain. The reason? He equipped Warglaives of Azzinoth, heropowered only to take a casual 25 face damage to smash through the wall of taunts while killing me with his remaining board.

Conclusion, don't play Shaman. It's just not viable loaded with mediocre to unplayable decks for now.

Totem Shaman is nice unless you face a Tempo deck such as Demon Hunter, then you might as well auto-concede since it has a very hard time to get back on the board/when your opponent is ahead. Some lists play 1-2 Lightning Bolt and/or Lava Burst as finisher but I'm not impressed by those cards since you're often forced to use them as removal which hurts due to the Overload. Also, since the rotation it lacks a good standalone 2-drop (no, Stormforged Axe is no replacement for Likkim) which made me think about Serpent Egg. Yea, we're no Warrior running Inner Rage or Rampage but Flametongue Totem, some of the Lackeys created by EVIL Totem and Storm's Wrath allow it to be traded with. Opinions, anyone?

Also, I'm not sure if Cumulo-Maximus is worth a try to get the necessary reach since the card is somewhat slow.

Quote from Tuscarora87 >>

HS Replays is worthless now. Many streamers and pros are either eccentric or memers, many are good players with any deck, many judge cards by feelings and habits which is biased. And then people netdeck from them. The result is that majority of netdecked ladder decks are wrong and simply bad. Very few pros are actually good deckbuilders. 

Here's the good DH list:

Too bad that "many streamers and pros" don't stream only the decks with the highest win rates all day, eh? It's not like they might want to entertain their audience or showcase interesting interactions, they should just be tryhards like you Kappa

In regards to your deck list, that is no traditional Tempo but rather Aggro (Battlemage as additional 1-drop, Felwings, Warglaives etc.) so it's no surprise it's more effective in the current environment where many people are still experimenting.

Albatross is busted, simple as that. It's a 3 mana 4/3 which is considered excellent (not average!) stats for a vanilla 3-drop. On top of that it's a beast (which is negligible) and its Deathrattle is useful vs. ANY deck. Yes, any deck since it causes anyone to face at least two dead draws over the course of the match. Additionally, it disables beneficial key cards of specific archetypes, some of them even harder (Font of Power, Apexis Blast) than others (Zephrys the Great, Dragonqueen Alexstrasza, Reno the Relicologist, Dinotamer Brann to name a few)

If that doesn't sound OP to some of you, then I'm glad you're not responsible for the balancing in this game.