Hearthpwn

Quote from scout1515 >>

Quote from Greator >>

My take on this is that I've always thought that trying to complete the Quest should in some way restrict playing. But battlecry is so common keyword and some battlecries are so powerful that playing against quest Shaman that is trying to complete their quest doesn't  feel any easier at all.  Nerfs suggestions would be either change cost of some lackey generators (Sludge Slurper and EVIL Totem) or make the quest goal to be 10 battlecries. Anything less wouldn't be enough.

 It does restrict the deckbuilding though. You're forced to have a deck with all battlecries (with the exception of the mogu/mutate package), which basically means you include every good battlecry in the game with very little flex space.

The quest isn't even the biggest issue here. I can't even count the number of games I won with an early mogu/evolve. I think a suitable nerf would be minions like mogu keep their cost for evolve purposes at the cost it actually took to play them. So if you play for 2 mana then evolve it, it becomes a 3 drop. There's still pretty broken evolve combos like evolving giggling inventor, but that happens at turn 7 or later. Someone highrolling a tirion on T3 is ridiculous.

 There is still rabble bouncer at 7 mana reduced by enemy minnions, and some other cards that can be cheated out. It is not necessarily evolves fault that minnions can be cheated out earlier. 

Problem in my mind is that by turn 5 most of the time you have quest completed while generating cards.

Totem,rat into random lackey which might be lackeys that gives spells, 2/3draw if you have quest active etc. Your hand size does not reduce too much to forcefully complete quest.

Now if you want to complete old deathrattle quest your hand is ussualy depleted fast, if you wish to complete mage quest ASAP your hand size is reduced fast as well. Druid loses board and has to come back onto board of he aims to complete quest by turn 4 with coin.

Shaman on the other hand, generates cards too easily, which leaves him not losing tempo or much value from card generation. And those same cards increase in value post quest completion.

Does it need a nerf? 

Before priest gets changes/nerfed for divine spirit inner fire combo probably no. When the nerfs happen yes shaman needs massive changes  at the same time, in order not to become rampant t0 deck. 

For now just wait and see.

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

@Stingeris

I don't know if it's the ESL problem or just deliberate trolling.  Either way, at some point it just becomes futile to try with this guy.  The constant assertions about violations of ethics based on completely moral neutral design decisions have been going on for months now.

It's always shitty to have to wonder whether folks actually feel the way they profess to or if it's just troll culture, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.  There's so much misplaced anger, though.

The statement was made earlier that the fact that the same people win consistently in the game is NOT an indicator that skill is a factor.  Since it obviously disproves the notion that who wins and loses over time is totally random, the only other explanation is some multi-dimensional conspiracy theory in which Blizzard has arbitrarily picked a bunch of folks, many of whom do not stream or contribute to the publicity of the game in any way, and hold those names up as professionals.  He's sort of hinted at some sort of belief like that, but never come right out and said it.

Again, if you acknowledge reality and admit that a small group of players enjoy far more success than can be explained by random chance, there are ONLY two explanations.  Either that group of people is better at the game than most and that difference in level of play translates into success, or there is some artificial manipulation of win rates over a long period of time for the benefit of a few players, many of whom have no ties to the company or particularly large public followings that translate into aiding the game's sales.

No matter how many syllables you use to couch your arguments; no matter how many lofty ethical quandaries you try to create out of a card game, you simply can't get away from the fact that believing in the latter explanation flies in the face of all evidence available to us.  If you are willing to do that, then there is no arguing with you.

In any case, I've been away from the forums for a bit because I've actually been playing and enjoying the game.  The announcement of 1000 win portraits has me grinding away, and I have to admit I enjoy the hell out of this standard meta.  Just fought a 25 minute battle as Control Warrior vs Highlander Hunter in which the hunter cast 4 Hunter's Pack (2 of which got him Savannah Highmane) and 8 Unleash the Beasts.  Furthermore, he elected to take Twisting Nether off his Zephrys, and I instantly thought to myself, "well, that's going to suck for him when he plays Zul'jin".  Except it didn't, because the Twisting Nether was the 1st spell Zul'jin elected to cast, meaning it didn't kill any of his board.  Now, all of what I described is fodder for the folks who believe that RNG in the game is manipulated, these things couldn't possibly happen with truly random gameplay, etc.  And of course, that is all nonsense.  It could happen, it does happen, and it can (and in this case was) beaten.  I can't help but wonder how many of these folks would have pressed the concede button as soon as they saw the Zul'jin result.  Oh, by the way, my Dr. Boom was the bottom card of my deck.

I love games like that, and the experience would neither have been ruined, nor have changed the reality about RNG of the game if I had lost in the end.  If you can't derive enjoyment from the gameplay in situations like that, this game might just not be for you.  You don't have to poor poison out all over the forums; you can just go elsewhere for entertainment.  But acting as if there are factual statements to make that the game is not only flawed, but somehow malicious or evil, is far beyond absurd at this point.  Just decide if you want to listen to evidence and reason or not, and if not, be honest about it so we can move on.

 

 

In other news, someone else in this thread claimed that it was proven that RNG was manipulated because of things like the Quest card mechanic where the quests are drawn in the opening hand every game.  You do understand, that piece of programming doesn't even touch the random number generation algorithms, right?  That's a trait of the card itself which triggers at start of game, just like Genn or Baku did last year.  There's nothing going on there related to this issue.

That was just a very weird way to come at this, especially from a programming standpoint.

 

TL;DR  Work on your attention span

 Now it is correct but you aimed your comment at the wrong person.

Quote from Purpenflurb >>

This is a bit of a ridiculous circlejerk.  Quest shaman is not overpowered, and isn't anywhere close to being the strongest deck right now.  It is a highly technical deck with a flexible game plan that rolls over to any deck that can do threatening things in the early game before the quest is completed.  It is the most popular deck on ladder right now because a lot of people enjoy playing it, but its win rate is barely over 50%.  Nerfing the card that a lot of players really enjoy that also isn't causing any balance issues would be a perplexing decision on blizzard's part.

 No shaman is not massively overpowered, But here is the deal. It is confirmed priest combo will be leaving in the future possibly next set I believe maybe sooner maybe later. In before patch hits shamans can't handle priests well.

Now if priests get divine spirit and inner fire changes before next set, Shaman who already has over 50% win rate while beeing weak Vs priest might be boosted to around 58-60%.

We saw same nerfs to priest during last patch. Priest was not THE best deck but still got hit alongside others, in courtesy of planning ahead.

If same happens again, it makes sense to hit shaman at the same time. 

With removal of secrets medivs valet is kind of not as useful, I would say.  Cloud prince could be bit I imagine it sits on your hand often too, Kirin tor mage is ok for pressure but ussualy highlander decks are more defencive I would consider more moderate approach. Your minnions are aggressive in a sustained damage deck. If 90% of damage comes from spells or minnions who are rerely contested I would suggest switching playstyle towards board control more and less towards aggression. Especially as its hard to be the aggressor in singleton deck.

Quote from mortoz >>

the thing makes this OP is actually the lackey that discover the spell. thart little bastard has to be nerfed to add a random class spell in your hand

  I kind of agree with it. Had scenarios where shaman just has no ways to win,plays double lackeys from rat, that he dropped same turn ,Drops discovers 2 silences for my 2 big taunts and still has mana for bloodlust also from discovery.

Making it random would be much more appropriate. In some games I see shaman discovering 6 to 10 cards, which are his choice as well, feels rather cheap.

But then again, if quest was harder to complete, he would need to use some of those lackeys for survival and trading. It would solve both problems not involving other classes in the nerf.

Quote from DrWhoIsBadTV >>

Quote from sigtrent >>

Too many people are focused on if you win or loose. Yes, its important, but it hides the skill involved in playing the game.

You can loose and play like a pro, and you can loose while playing like a chump. These are not the same thing. The win or loss wil be the same, but how bad you were beat might not be.

Hearthstone is like a series of puzzles. Some are pretty easy to solve, some are pretty tricky to solve. Solving them well doesn't always mean you win becasue the random elements of the game can confound you. But what you do control is how well you react to what is happening at anygiven moment. That takes skill, it just doesn't always win you games.

So saying hearthstone takes no skill flies in the face of what we all do each time we play. What you really mean is that it is not a game where skill ensures victory, and that is true. But that is not at all the same as saying there is no skill in playing it. 

 Yeah those cancerous Murloc Shamans are really proving skill by vomiting their hand on each turn. Just like those Mages that sit back and play secret after secret. Yeah the skill...

 You seem to be rather salty about it, but that is another can of worms I guess.

Secret mage does take some skill, applying right secrets at right time etc, it is considerably less than say shaman or priest right now , but choosing a less skill intensive deck does not mean it is less valid. Btw secret mage in standard is just meh, and it takes some skill to win with it good amount of time as your early just does not cut it by itself. Wild secret mage is too easy yes, but cmon in wild there is 101 problem and secret mage is just 1 of them.

Quote from Hooghout >>

Quote from Stingeris >>

Skill is necessary in hearthstone but not in a way that it is used in other games. 

In my opinion skill is assuming most likely scenario and playing around it. 

Say priest combo Vs priest combo deck. You drew just 1 drop and 4 drop early, enemy got coin. Do you play northshire and when, is enemy likely to benefit of it. Is he likely to coin his pyromancer, T1 into your northshire losing you your early game and letting enemy snowball during turn 2 and 3 or do you use 1 of you combo cards to fight for early board etc. 

Skill in hearthstone is judging RNG and playing around it. 

It is skill to include tech cards which win you more games than they lose you etc. 

Say dropping out 1 lightwarden for a crab to kill murlock decks or adding 1 stormwind knight for charge minnion, to combo out of hand with low board presence instead of adding 1 more minnion to fight for actual board itself early. 

Skill in hearthstone is not outplaying our opponent as it would in shooters, it is out planning our enemy.

 Very well said and I tend to agree with you. But how do you out plan your enemy if they overwhelm you with murlocs (Shaman, Paladin) as a  say control archetype? My point, skill is curbed as RPS is too steep. Skill is curbed as AI intervenes. 

 you don't. You plan your matchups in deck maker. That is where planning begins. Occasionally you get into a match you can't possibly win,  and you take it like a champ, knowing odds of that happening are rather low, and well if 10% of your matches are unwinnable you should have over 10% auto win matches. 

If you do not over a long run, your planning failed and you need to change deck or part of it at least.

Now I am having mixed success in standard playing quest wall priest currently at 44-26 last month. Some of the games are played this month that are listed here.

In general it is simply a wall priest deck slotting in a single quest. You do not change much, it plays like fair big priest. Big minnions with taunts come turn 4+  and before that, you survive off loads of removal cards. 

https://www.hearthpwn.com/deckbuilder/priest#249:1;315:2;401:1;409:2;547:1;671:1;89461:1;89803:1;90235:1;90253:2;90548:2;90588:2;90598:2;90614:1;90630:2;90693:1;90710:2;90794:2;90796:1;90802:2;90809:2;

Here is the deck code. It features 32 cards 3 of which are tech cards. Holy smite and seanse are tech. If you meet a lot of early decks keeping smites lets you survive better early. Seanse is pure value card. Silence is used as tech sometimes too.

Vs warriors you copy shuffle 10 into deck card, Vs druids copy Nomi if they play one into mass hysteria for a pretty much full board clear, and full board of your own next turn. Vs midrange decks or ones with low removal for tall minnions a copy of Catrina muerte allows you to play value game. Vs aggro just survive early game.

It has 14/2 winrate to quest druid. Only way to lose  is not having your removal ready when double Nomi hits or when they play malygos version, as 1st 4-5 turns you are not punished for not developing board much. And after that with your removal you outlast every threat they can pose, while healing up if you allowed any damage to slip by. Eventually you complete quest and they don't have any removal for them to win board battles.

9/5 Vs quest rogue. It is mostly your win as rogue doesn't pack enough minnions to win board in later turns unless they got nuts cards from their steal effects, and/or Tess replayed some spells that shouldn't be likely.

4/0 Vs hunter faced few different decks but they all focused on early board which backfired. Hunter currently does not pack enough aggro or damage to burst you down with available removal early. Loses board and fails to finish it late due to execive heals.

6/4 Vs combo priest. Your amount of removal is usually enough to not allow them to make big minnions early, and later in the game, when you have 2+ taunts up without a mass dispel and a mistake on your part leaving 6+ max hp minnion up they cannot 1 shot you. Happens but you are favoured unless they draw nuts.

6/4 Vs control warrior, ussualy goes to fatigue you ussualy win value war there. Until you complete quest you do not pose enough threat but after it, your single minnion can ussualy contest board avoiding brawls and all other aoe removals.

1/1 Vs bomb warrior. Honestly didn't play enough to judge it too much but of you draw your penances early and avoid drawing too many bombs in a row I don't see much of a problem.

13/11 Vs quest shaman. Your deck Wins value wars Vs standard value version of it but, it is varnuable to token version with bloodlust, lost a couple of games to turn 5 bloodlust which could be avoidable teching in 2 mana priest aoe, but that spell just is useless in many other matchups.

2/3 Vs murloc shaman. You are unfavorable here if shaman drew decent curve . That new murloc that generates others is messing up early game. Just too many removals with priority. Murlock warleaders, and all. Survivable if you last to turn 5 and got mass hysteria. Holy nova does not cut it. Holy smite is not enough as well, pennance and shadow word pain is your Mulligan friends here. 3 hp is the benchmark in this. Current priest sadly might not necessarily clear the board with mass hysteria and if no, it is vurniable to charge minnions/bloodlust.

4/0 Vs quest pally, you auto win the game really, you outvalue paladin by making bigger minnions and your mass dispel and mass hysteria can clear many boards impossible to clear otherwise. You win value game.

OTK pally 0/3 I found no way to win this even with tech cards. Your game plan is to wait early game and it is more useful for palladin. He uses his card draw, has heals and immune to prevent your killing potential too. Packs many board clears as well, deals with big minnions well too. Most definitely  an auto loss unless paladin makes some mistakes.

2/4 Vs murloc paladin. Honestly early game is worse than shamans and is easier to handle. Problem comes in their turn 4 play. If they get a discount on summoning murlocks and swarm you full board turn 5 is becomes insanely hard to remove and only mass hysteria can potentially save you, does not always happen though. Even if you have it.

3/2 Vs zoo warlock. It's kind of messy, boards might develop too fast and their removal can hit face if situation calls for it too. Lackeys can highroll as well. It is winnable with right starting hand. Gotta remove their darn flying carpet asap their board buff can create bad situations too early for you to have answers with low amount of card draw. If you manage to survive turn 6+ mostly won. They cannot do unmanagable burst unlike shaman or summon board as easy as murloc palladin. So once stabilised it is easy to get back to high hp levels.

Conjurer calling Mage... Honestly I have not seen a good mage deck yet. Conjurers calling mage is 1/1 but that deck was pathetic, and I my single loss was due to puzzle box of yog. Without random elements it is not up to standard.

Secret mage 2/0 you might struggle to develop board but neither can mage. Their win con of early burst is badly countered by all your healing, which helps you complete quest and heal more.

Faced some off meta decks too including c'thun priest 0/1, pirate rogue 1/1, big shaman 0/1, wall priest (no quest)2/0, quest priest (early game version with injured blade master etc.) 2/1, mech paladin 1/0, burgle rogue (no quest) 0/1( enemy found 2 mind controls then played tess and returned it to hand, lost miserably but mostly to RNG) 0/1, also mech aggro warrior 1/0 which I am not sure what the game plan was.

All in all, it performed reasonably well. I'd did fine Vs most meta decks and has good winrate Vs majority of popular matchups

OTK paladin and c'thun priest seem to me unwinnable matchups but how rerely o encountered them I deem it worthy enough to ignore those decks and accept auto losses.

Wanted to see your ideas and possible tech cards or cards to swap in. 

Honestly secret mage isn't even the worst of it. BUT MAYBE it is just me as I play priest with potions of madness and penances which trade out nicely and even if counter spell is up, enemy denies me 1 or 2 mana for a card of his.

Mm I do play him in wild sometimes and his offers do not make much sense at times, yes.

Playing highlander priest. Dropped him turn 2, for a good 3 drop or a spell to clear enemy 3/4. Offers ware druid 3 mana card to improve my mana pool by 1, 0 mana silence to debuff 3/4 into 2/3 I guess and I don't remember 3rd chlhoixe but it was 3/4 minnion with little synergy to my deck.

Skill is necessary in hearthstone but not in a way that it is used in other games. 

In my opinion skill is assuming most likely scenario and playing around it. 

Say priest combo Vs priest combo deck. You drew just 1 drop and 4 drop early, enemy got coin. Do you play northshire and when, is enemy likely to benefit of it. Is he likely to coin his pyromancer, T1 into your northshire losing you your early game and letting enemy snowball during turn 2 and 3 or do you use 1 of you combo cards to fight for early board etc. 

Skill in hearthstone is judging RNG and playing around it. 

It is skill to include tech cards which win you more games than they lose you etc. 

Say dropping out 1 lightwarden for a crab to kill murlock decks or adding 1 stormwind knight for charge minnion, to combo out of hand with low board presence instead of adding 1 more minnion to fight for actual board itself early. 

Skill in hearthstone is not outplaying our opponent as it would in shooters, it is out planning our enemy.

Quote from Mazi >>

Quote from elitevbman >>

Nerf Brawl it is the most frustrating spell in the game!

 

Followed by Conjurer's Calling as a close 2nd.

 What about twistin nether, earthquake, hagatha scheme, mass histerya? For you guys only warriors has mass removal lel

 I am sorry what, of all those things you listed brawl is most reliable early removal that can be played immediately when drawn. Hagathas scheme needs to stay in hand for a long time, mass histeria does not always clear the board sometimes nothing at all( say you got 2/7 priest card and 4/7. End result is 2/1 and 4/3 no minions cleared at all). Others do work yes, and they do cost 2-3 mana more.

Honestly, divine spirit kind of needed overhaul for a long ass time. And since they seem to be fallowing the lore lately how about making some lore fallowing cards for anduin in that place. Real card draw or tutoring would be appreciated too.

Well kind of, I mean druids and warlocks don't run high hp minions neither does paladin as of late. Warrior has I guess 6 hp taunts for 8 mana sometimes boosted to 8 hp but it comes out rather late.

Currently Vol'jin on curve is a bad play that is all. He might still work late in the game but damn there are better cards for that.

And i thatconsidering priest that is not combo priest, that rerely runs much early presence and combo priest already has a great deck list with no need for Vol'jin

I am not against lightbomb and all but I'd really love to see 1 mana potion of madness.

Vol'jin is kind of not so great on this meta where there ain't that many high hp minions going around and midrange is more prevalent.