According to the latest VS report (from last Thursday), the global play-rate of hunter is 24.7%, followed by Warrior 16.3%, and Mage at 15%. Between ranks 4 and Legend, Hunter is 27.3%, Warrior at 18.6%, and Mage at 13.8%. And at Legend, Hunter is 20.3%, Mage at 19.9%, and Warrior at 19.6%... The next frequent classes are Rogue and Shaman at about 10-14%. The rest is far below 10%.
Honestly, this is not a balance issue anymore. Ok, it might still be, but more than anything, I think it is a cultural issue. Maybe nerfing the top three classes would help, but to me, it really looks like no conceivable balance patch could even hope to fix what is broken: A community that only cares about winning, to a point that a large part of it will ONLY play whatever is arbitrarily rated "Tier 1".Whatever gets nerfed, I dare predict that in no time, 20%+ will move on and play the survivor instead.
Before the nerfs, Lackey Rogue had a playrate of well over 20%. And after dozens of thread of people talking about what "the real problem" is, the nerfs happened, and it was already predictable that Hunter would take Rogue's place. And here we are, with lots of players playing the next "Tier 1" like it's the only one in the game, bringing us to the exact same point again.
I know this sounds a bit offensive, but... I think this is exactly what this toxic, self-serving, hardcore-competitive community deserves for "lul rank 20" kindergarten level attitudes and insults on a daily basis; for making "braindead" an established term in Hearthstone lingo; for religiously rating decks and cards in "tiers"; for pretending that reaching Legend is all that matters, and for drowning criticism in hype while drowning optimism in negativity and hostility: A game where everyone plays the same few decks so that everyone can hate each other for playing the same few decks. Have fun!
But I also blame the developers for this. I said this a few times before: When the game structurally only rewards winning, when deckcosts statistically keep going up, when Blizzard sells and advertises Hearthstone primarily as an esports title, when they bring out 3 expansions per year to create more powerful and by sheer coincidence more polarizing decks, and when the only way they know how to handle balancing is nerfing older cards so that new ones will dominate the field entirely, they only foster an environment where this exact outcome should surprise nobody. Players are pushed hard to justify their resource-management, so most players will go all in on winning with "the best deck in the game".
1
As people mentioned here already, it probably is your lacking skill that keeps you from hitting rank5. To get better it is a good idea to play with someone else, discuss before making a turn and try to learn all your matchups. To not tilt, it helps to chose a deck that has no "autowins" or "autoloses", because you won't learn from those games.
The comunity is really helpfull and i guess if you leave your battletag and your region here, there will be some nice people willing to help you out.
cheers!
1
I just hit legend with the highlander hunter, it may not be the strongest deck overall, but it is not bad by any means.
1
lol you guys, if you say highlander decks suck then you clearly are bad, i played from rank 5 to rank3 with a homebrew highlander mage and from 3 to 1 with highlander hunter, those decks are great, i don't know how anyone can say they are bad. Reno is not as flashy as the old version, but it provides a full clear most of the time, considering you had a minion left on the board, PLUS a 4/6 body, which is really good tempo wise. What you also can do is coins blizzard into reno.
2
I feel like playing vs control warrior instantly sucks all the fun out of you. Compare it to control shaman. That deck has REALLY strong removal tools as well, but they dont feel as stupid to play against. Warrior just has the answer for EVERYTHING.
There is so much flawed in the warrior class. Brawl rng is tilting to the max and boom and devestator are simply op. You can't even play arround any cards from cw. If it's an attrition battle you will have to bait out EVERY removal anyway. And if you play any kind of aggro, you just have to play and hope the cw doesn't have the answer. I hate that deck and it tilts me so hard -.- I even found my way to the salt thread :(
-6
Guys, stop overreacting :D
this needs 2 cards to be played and is bad as a topdeck. Typical win more card. This card is strong but not op.
You also always know when your enemy is holding a lackey in his hand. If you want to generate the lackey the same turn as you play this, we are at 6 mana 9/9 on 3 cards, which doesn't sound too op for me.
2
man is the art ugly :/
1
Very diverse indeed.
4 class meta
1
I do understand that and I obviously exeggerated, when i said, it is "insanely" boring. I do not hate the game, because then i would never ever post on a forum. :P
The thing is, that i see so much potential, so much cool stuff that could go on this game. I know not every card is meant to be op, but in my eyes it is sad to see, that interesting mechanics and synergies get washed away douzens of times, just because one or two decks are so prominent. It has come to a point, where the last 5 legendaries i got from packs did not make me feel excited, because i knew i can't even play them on ladder.
3 days ago, i played with a friend of mine and we just played homebrews vs each other, they weren't super strong but they also didn't suck. The gameplay was so interesting and fun.
1
Yup this sums it up pretty much.
The control decks are so reactive it's not even fun. The warrior one doesn't even have any sort of wincondition besides fatigue. I compare this to BSM which had some many interesting optioions like, alana sindragosa toki pyroblast astromancer. Warrior just removes everything and then chills.
1
I tried to build a control shaman with mega windfury as a finsiher, emeriss hunter, bwomsamdi gallery priest, dragon paladin, handbuff paladin, control paladin, heal paladin liam hakkar paladin and some kind of boomzooka hunter. i know not all cards are supposed to be insanly strong, but it is such a bummer when you collect many cards and more than half of them are not even playable.