Hearthpwn

The idea is to expand on the number of card types and equipment mechanics in the game in order to diversify the card pool and provide class specific healing mechanics. The mechanic works like, Armor is a card type that equips and adds Armor to your hero, the Armor as a card type stays equipped to your hero until the Armor stat is reduced to zero. 

For Example,

"Golden Chest Plate" 3 mana

Paladin

Add 4 Armor to your Hero

All of your minions have +1 Attack while "Golden Chest Plate" is equipped. 

This would give Heros who can't have Healing powers a sensible mechanic for extending the duration of the game, the Armor amount essentially acts as the Armor's durability and can provide other various effects for different classes like Freezing minions who attack your Hero in the case of Mages etc. I figure the design should be based on the non-healing classes more than on the healing classes, with each class receiving one set of Armor and that Armor's mana cost should be based on the average turn that class loses to aggro in order to extend the game. It'd be quite a different mechanic from healing because you can't "over Armor" compared to "over Heal" and you could make Armor less cost effective than Healing but allow Armor to provide other benefits to your Hero or Minion in an offensive or defensive capacity. For Warriors for example, I thought it would be very interesting to give them an Armor that gives them Taunt so the Hero could essentially tank for the Minions instead and extend the Taunt as long as they could continue to add Armor with their hero power.

The interface would have to change a little in order to add the mechanic, but it shouldn't be a big deal because the Hero Power could just be combined with the Hero portrait and the Armor slot could replace the Hero power.

As far as trading is concerned it's true, but I think the strongest 2 and 3 drops don't trade up at all, Imp Master, Harvest Golem, Arcane Golem, Wolfrider, Bluegill Warrior, Loot Hoarder, Novice Engineer and Ironbeak Owl are all insanely powerful.

I hope we'll see more 2/4 3 drop minions in the future, stuff like neutral 2/4 Taunt or 3/4 "Vanilla" are quite strong, interesting all of the Warlock minions break these rules, Fire Imp trades with 3 drops, Succubus trades with 4 drops etc.

Animal Companion is something of a pariah, it's an under costed 4 drop that's off set by RNG.

I think the 6 drops are the most interesting, so many different flavors of card advantage.

I just don't find that to be the case, and I had to claw my way thru' aggro to get to Legendary and Ranks 5-1 were either Paladin, Druid, Shaman, Warlock or Aggro mostly, I think you're really under estimating the importance of having the 4/6 Taunt and 4/4 Charge option as well as over estimating the problem of having 4 five drops because targets for Innervate are crucial and cards like Defender of Argus and Violet Teacher fail to capitalize on your "Black Lotus" because you don't have the board position to get the full Taunt or +1/1 or you lose a spell to trigger Violet Teacher and end up with a 3/5 instead of a 4/5 compared to Chillwind Yeti.

The Black Knight is a part of life, if you can't withstand the tempo loss then don't choose Bear Form.

I've been liking Cairne, Bloodhoof and Hogger as 6 drops, especially over Cenarious because they're relevant before you're dead - their like Harvest Golem and Imp Master on crack.

I can understand playing only 1 Force of Nature because the card isn't capable of creating a sustained offense or defense, but only 1 Savage Roar is kind of bullshit because it's not just a "GG" button but spot removal, I've won so many games by just buffing a Loot Hoarder to trade with a Frothing Berserker and using my Hero to kill a Faerie Dragon for the "241."  A lot of the times I feel like I should be cutting Violet Teacher because it makes me play more, bad spells in my deck to support it. The moment Claw and Moonfire show up in your deck list is the moment you have to ask yourself whether or not Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Violet Teacher are really contributing to your deck as a whole.

I agree Argent Squire is pretty terrible, it's such a low impact top deck.

I'm Legendary and see aggro all night and all day, mid-range doesn't race aggro it holds their assault and then it counter attacks. Not playing Druid of the Claw is just greedy unless you have at least Defender of Argus replacing it. Maybe it's the NA server or something, IDK, but cheap aggro is everywhere in the EU - especially Reynad Warriors and Hunters.

How do you guys keep yourselves from dying without Druid of the Claw vs any aggro deck?

All Charge creatures make sense with Savage Roar in that context, but a card like Leeroy Jenkins is really for redundancy and why play a dedicated finisher when you could be playing an Argent Commander etc? It's not like you're going to play Leeroy Jenkins when you hit four mana so the cost should be irrelevant and Argent Commander is a way more utilitarian card.

Use a second Force of Nature, you need Force of Nature and Savage Roar/Power of the Wild to clear giants. Replace Defender of Argus with Druid of the Claw, you want to be able to choose between the offensive or defensive roles and have another target for Innervate which Defend of Argus is not. Leeroy Jekins makes absolutely no sense and should probably be a Tinkmaster Overspark, playing Claw guarantees you lose the Druid mirror and it's just an incredibly inflexible card..

I prefer Ragnaros to Cenarious personally.

Divine Shield also looks reasonable if you don't want to spend the 80 dust on redemption, I think what I was noticing when I was playing the deck was that I just didn't have enough answers to decks with upwards of 4 to 6 taunts and Noble Sacrifice just didn't make any sense in an aggressive deck. I also ended up cutting Avenging Wrath so I could run the full set of Blessing of Kings and Dark Iron Dwarf so I could swing thru' a taunt earlier or have sustained pressure.

Is there a reason people use Timber Wolf instead of Dire Wolf Alpha in here? Timber Wolf dies to Mages, Druids and Rogues immediately, trades with Paladins shortly, trades with Shamans possibly and then there are countless spells like Earth Shock, Mortal Coil, Wrath (cycle), Swipe, Inner Rage and minions like Argent Squire, Novice Engineer, Knife Juggler, Wild Pyromancer and 1/1 Tokens that all kill Timber Wolf. Timer Wolf isn't a real one drop, because it doesn't provide significant amounts of damage with it's attack or buff a significant amount of minions in the deck or trade with a two drop other than Loot Hoarder, Novice Engineer or Bloodmage Thalnos, all of which are card disadvantage.

Dire Wolf Alpha is immune to all of the removal mentioned above, as well as a 2 drop that can trade with other 2 drops and buff all of the Charge minions for additional damage. Is Timber Wolf being half the cost worth being less than half as effective when we have to hold Timber Wolf in hand as a buff spell for Unleash the Hounds as opposed to playing Dire Wolf Alpha on turn 2 as an attacker and buffer for all of our minions? We tend to hold on to our one drops as buff spells a lot in this deck, it's getting to the point where our "buff spells" like Abusive Sergeant just feel like they should be a Deady Shot or Hunter's Mark a lot. I tend to play the deck as combo a lot, just clearing the board with Arcane Shot, Explosive Trap, Misdirection and Animal Companion and then drop the Leeroy Jenkins, Starving Buzzard and Unleash the Hounds combo and short of Lepper Gnome there really isn't a one drop in this deck that you can really get behind with the hero power for a run down.

Has anyone else made the wolf sub?

Spent awhile laddering with the OP deck list and I think I've found the problem, replace Noble Sacrifice with Redemption and now Charge minions can attack into a Taunt twice - this allows a single Wolfrider to clear the board vs Feral Spirits or a Druid of the Claw.

All Druid decks are Savage Roar and Force of Nature decks, but right now at ranks 5 thru' Legendary Ancient Watcher has become the metagame for Druids, Shamans and Warlocks as well as the token generators like Violet Teacher and Imp Master - Innervating Imp Master is brutal on turn 1, I have a strong suspicion that Imp Master should replace Harvest Golem in all Druid decks at this point forward because the potentiality of Innervating Imp Master on turn one, clearing the board with your hero power on turn 2 and then Savage Roaring the board on Turn 3 is insane.

I don't think any deck is fast enough to outright race Druid or Shaman right now, we're living in a world of turn 2 or turn 3 4/5 or 5/6 Taunts which Silence does not solve and running head long into Stormforged Axe, Feral Spirits, Earth Shock, Forked Lightning and Lightning Storm while ramping their mana with Arcane Golem or giving them tokens for Defender of Argus and Sunfury Protector is not ideal. I don't think it's even a question of "play styles" at this point, you can't beat Druid without Equality and Druid is the most popular deck on ladder.

So how are you guys beating mid-range Druid with the OP deck list without Wild Pyromancer and Equality, pretty much Divine Favor?

It's honestly not that difficult to win in the aggro meta right now, Warrior aggro isn't even competitive because it has no mechanic for sustained aggression against removal like Starving Buzzard, Divine Favor or the Warlock hero power - if you can't beat Reynad's Warrior deck then you can't beat any aggro deck.

I like Shamans a lot right now, their board control is pretty insane.

Try something like this, you don't even need Defender of Argus or Sunfury Protector honestly, just play the spells to get value out of token generators and tokens, if they Silence you then you get a 4/5 on the board anyway.

That's what I'm trying to tell you dude, you don't need Legendaries in order to reach Legendary; with the exception of my 2 Epic Ancients of Lore every deck I play has nothing but rares in it. Right now, I think the most important cards for Druid are Ancient Watcher, Defender of Argus, Sunfury Protector, Violet Teacher, Imp Master, Azure Drake, Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Argent Commander and all of those are 100 dust, general cards and some of them even have substitutes like Spellbreaker and Ironbeak Owl for the Ancient Watcher decks. That lets you play Charge Druid, Ancient Watcher Druid, or Token Druid without Force of Nature (Argent Commander is a reasonable replacement).

I'm currently ranked Legendary Shaman without a single Epic or Legendary in my deck, I ported my deck to Druid just to see if it would work and it's also perfectly fine albeit slightly different.

There really aren't that many Legendaries I've been impressed with enough to spend the dust on them, altho' I've seen some people do some crazy shit with Ilidan Stormrage in Rogue combo decks.