Hearthpwn

Quote from fjl93 >>

Nice concept there with Cleanse, I like it! But I don't think it's a good idea to also give ramp tools for Shaman. Shaman kinda "ramps" it's own way with overload, by casting powerful effects for less mana than they should. If you also give them the ability to ramp, you probably eliminate the problem with overload, since most of the time, overload cards aren't expensive. I think Cleanse alone would be just a wonderful mechanic alone by itself, with no need of adding ramp. Even without Cleanse, IMO ramp would be broken af in Shaman.

It's kinda why they removed druid most of it's face damage. Ramping + face damage isn't something fun to play against.

 I think there's a great deal of valid criticisms to levy at giving any class Ramp outside of Druid.  Shaman having a large amount of access to burn is certainly one of them.  Ramp being added to Shaman to help balance out Overload being as bad as it is - is certainly a weird solution with a great deal of downsides.  The way I saw it was

A: This lets me brainstorm how to bring a new - but existing - mechanic to a class.  How does X mechanic look in X class is a fun exploratory thought.
B: The same downsides of Ramp in Druid exist here as well, where it's inherently slow and would open the door for early aggression to take you out.  Some cards, like the one that heals, contradict the nature of ramp being a downside since it patches up the intended downside.  Others, like the one that ramps really slowly by giving you an empty crystal next turn, or the one that requires you to be behind on mana I think are more true to the concept.
C: Let them eat cake!  When I design cards/mechanics, I tend to design really high on the power spectrum on purpose.  It's more exciting and fun to make powerful cards, and I've got the mentality - though it is probably flawed - that if everybody's cards/mechanics are overpowered, things are basically "fair".

I'm glad you like Cleanse!  Out of all of the concepts here I'm sure it's most likely to "Ship" so to speak, it's fair and allows for interesting designs in minions and spells.
Logic-wise, Overload is actually the reason I wanted Ramp.  Overload is a really, really bad mechanic that's held the class back for so long, but it does effectively act like ramp in the way you described.  I thought "well, if Shaman can play with Mana, why make their Mana-Playing awful?

I hope this helped you understand where I was coming from.  I think you're right, Ramp isn't something that belongs in a burn class.  Incanter's Flow has effectively proven how the community responds to that.

Quote from Mugwump >>

Quote from Cagey75 >>

Nothing has changed much, still all Pallys and Mage with the odd bore-fest Priest in Diamond 

 Mages?

 Win-rate doesn't equal play-rate.
That tier list may show how successful those decks are, but it doesn't show how common they are on ladder.

While it's almost self evident that the most powerful deck will be the most common one, and I've made that argument before, that doesn't mean that decks/classes that don't show up here aren't being played at all.

I sure hope this isn't thread necromancy, but I finally found time to put some stuff together from concepts I had.  Revisiting the ways that Shaman would be allowed to Ramp, I had this idea of shuffling mana into your deck that Casts When Drawn and gives you a Mana Crystal.  While becoming more fundamentally random - something I want to avoid - the idea of moving your mana forward in time, and setting up Ramp to recover after destroying your own mana is far too compelling to me not to at least look into.

Here's the first idea I came up with (and also I figured out how to put cards into posts the good way, yay for me!): Astral Recall puts Mana Crystals into your deck that "Cast When Drawn".  Functionally, when you draw a Mana Crystal this way (I would have made a card for it but "mana crystal fan art" was impossible to find) you gain that Mana Crystal back permanently, then draw the next card (a function of Casts When Drawn).  This is a neat setup tool, you can put yourself behind in Mana to trigger something like Elemental Surge for instance, or just keep playing as you are and when the Ramp finds you, you're pretty happy about it.

Next was an idea I had yesterday when considering Shaman's general lack of advantage.  And while I know Legendaries are hardly a good fix - more of a band-aid solution than anything - I liked this idea too much not to share it.

Gurrath here generates advantage in an interesting way.  Essentially he gives each spell in your hand Twinspell, though functionally it's not that simple.  "Unique" is here to balance the card; meaning that the effect only triggers when you cast a spell with a different name than one you've cast this turn.  That way, you couldn't Lightning Bolt and add infinite Lightning Bolts to your hand (which may be a completely unnecessary form of balance but, hey, I can't let everything be OP).  Letting you milk 2 casts out of each spell in your hand is an interesting form of advantage I haven't seen explored yet - though the downside of not being able to keep the second copy around in hand makes the advantage Gurrath provides rather fleeting, which I think is fine from a class flavor standpoint.

Just two more for this post, I think.  Next up is a cool idea for a finisher I had.  For Shaman, burn is a reliable way to close out games, hampered by the fact that it has no draw and bad card generation.  There's something Hearthstone did exactly one (1) time that I really like, that Legends of Runeterra does a lot, which is let cards generate non-random tokens, or generate other cards that already exists.  Kiri, Chosen of Elune and Razorpetal Lasher are the only cards I can think of that do this.  I think these cards are cool, and the thing they do is underutilized.

Crack the Skies is my interpretation of a rock-solid finisher in Shaman.  You could play this in a classic aggro-burn list as a finisher, and I'd encourage that, but being able to rip 9 damage of burn for 5 mana (Plus 6 Overload) is awesome - though perhaps too good.  I'd considered, and it might be better this way, that Crack the Skies gives you 2 Lightning Bolts instead, bringing it down to Fireball levels of burst.  But as far as I'm concerned, if Mage can get away with the things that it does, then this should be allowed by Blizzard's standards.

Finally is another card pondering what advantage could look like in Shaman, but leaning towards Elementals.  There's a lot of reasons Elementals are underpowered, the function of their synergy in particular being a huge detriment to the tribe.  Being able to at least acquire multiple Elementals without having to proc any synergies is a start for the tribe in a better direction, in my opinion.

Wizened Weird does the ole "Battlecry and Deathrattle", something I like quite a lot.  Tutoring Elementals is something really valuable, and the last card that did so wasn't even an elemental, thanks Sandbinder.  Here we have a "slower" 2 mana draw 2.  The balancing here was simple imo.  Knight of Anointment is 1 mana and tutors something.  Tutoring has its advantages and disadvantages.  Sometimes its as good as drawing a card, but sometimes a tutor is unable to get what you actually need in the moment, and is far less flexible than card draw is.

Alright so that's today's lil update to the thread.  Sorry it's been so long - and I know that only 1 of these cards is directly related to the mechanics I conceived specifically for Shaman - but hey not every Mage card says Freeze or Counter on it, ya know?  I hope y'all liked these!  Let me know what you think.

Quote from AntonydusWurm >>

nzoth must really like a broom (hint hint, cough cough)

 

I had this thought as well, actually.  but this raises the question:
Why not keep N'Zoth, God of the Deep at 10 mana and just... give the minions Rush?

In terms of the nerfs we did get, I'm mostly disappointed because the Paladin hits absolutely thrashed my Even Paladin deck.  First Day of School was great for rounding out my curve and getting my Call to Arms through Counterspell.  And poor Crabrider was the best Windfury minion that Corpsetaker had access to...

Oh well!  I'm having fun with Even Hunter too.

I will say that Mage, perhaps, needed a little something more than a slap on the wrist.  At least slap both wrists...
Or the dominant wrist a la Incanter's Flow.  Silly wrist metaphor aside, Sorcerer's Apprentice and Flamewaker perhaps should have been tickled even a little bit.

I feel - and this could be wrong and we'll see a meaningful difference - that the Shaman changes missed the mark a little bit, ya know?
Lilypad Lurker wasn't underplayed because its stats were bad, it was already solid on its own.  It was underplayed because elemental synergies are just kind of bad.  They're inflexible and reward making suboptimal plays sometimes.

Tidal Surge should never have costed 4 in the first place, so this is a great change - though I don't think Shaman has the tools to take full advantage of having a decent anti aggro card.  The things Control Shaman needs are absent from the game.

Unbound Elemental is also just... a suboptimal card.  It's a slightly worse Questing Adventurer that demands you play cards with downsides.  Just kind of stinky on the face of it, a single additional attack is nice but I don't see that pushing it into viability.

I wasn't expecting much for Shaman, tbh.  It needs changes way closer to the roots of its design, nothing they could possible change with a regular balance patch.  I'm not disappointed, but I hope more changes come next expansion that involve the whole class, not just cards that don't do well.  Ya know... since the whole class isn't doing well.

Change is good most of the time, though.  And changes that are made with the intent to improve things should be considered.
I think every class should have a good deck.  So yeah, I do want Shaman to have some insane burn deck or whatever - because if that's what it takes for Shaman to have a good deck then at least we have something to work with in a previously terrible class.

Also, the game has like a bajillion million billion players or something like that.  Valuing your own enjoyment over theirs, while understandable and I endorse that most of the time, isn't really helpful when talking about nerfs/buffs.  Value your own enjoyment over others on a game-to-game basis.  Play whatever you want that brings you joy, that's what video games are for.  Nothing will ever make every person happy.  Nothing ever makes Hearthstone players happy.  But these improvements might make enough people happy to make them worth trying.

Is this for Wild or Standard?
For Standard I'd say keep the Armor Vendors.  The extra 4-8 Health can mean the difference between life or death (consider how popular Alexstrasza the Life-Binder is rn).

That's about all the advice I can give, though.  I just recently got into Warlock as a class so...
Yeah.  Armor Vendor good against aggro, while the healing from Soul Fragments is good, it's unreliable and slow.

Do people believe that FTP players "don't have stake in the game"?  Just because they've not spent money on it?
That's a little bit bologna to me.

FTP players can lament about how expensive the game is all they want.  Hearthstone is  expensive.  Not only that, but stake in something doesn't require fiscal investment.  The amount of time and dedication needed to do FTP competitively is immense, having to earn every card in your collection with time is a lot more difficult and painstaking than just blowing money on packs.

Besides, there is a direct translation of how many dollars Hearthstone Gold is worth.  There are products available for purchase with either.  FTP Hearthstone players can only acquire cards with money they've earned and worked for in game.

I'm rambling.  All this to say, FTP Hearthstone players absolutely have stake in Hearthstone.  They've invested their time.

Besides, the game being more accessible (such as these decks being available for purchase with Gold) is literally detrimental to nobody (except Blizzard in a minor way) - it's a literal positive to everybody who plays the game when things become more accessible.  Not sure why so many people are so opposed to that.

Finally, Shaman is good somewhere!

Quote from PetiteMouche >>

It's a dead card for at least 8 turns, win before turn 9 if you're aggro or keep your health total high enough if you're control.

Force them to use Alex for the heal or to target one of your minions.

 This is a good point, if you suspect/assume an aggro deck is running Alex, just take measures to make sure you don't go below 9 Health.  Play to stay above 8 and you should be fine.

I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that it's a control card.  It clearly does 8 damage to whatever I want to so I can put it in any deck I want to.  Weirdly enough it also heals?  Me or my minions?  That's not really necessary but it's cool I guess - but I'll point it face to win games and smile because Alexstraza is a cool dragon :)

Quote from SinAscendant >>

Quote from xskarma >>

Cut out the politics discussion. That is not something we allow. 

 The only thing that the rules ban is hateful language about political beliefs, and I don't believe we've used any of that here.  If there is meant to be a blanket ban on political discussions, you should probably add that to the rules. 

 To be fair, the one of the first posts to bring it up was firing off the r-word, which is hate speech against people with autism.  That's the kind of stuff I'd normally report.  Political discussion has its place in the context of discussing card games for various reasons (eg. economical discourse about the accessibility of card games is inherently political because politics has an effect on who can afford what) but I get the mods wanting to keep the site clear of political discussion.  Political discussion online brings people around I'd rather not share spaces with, and that the mods would have to busily remove.

Ultimately a lot of the weird rhetoric around aggro being "instant gratification" and "slower decks being better because they have delayed gratification" is a load of bunk, and comes from a place of believed superiority.  A few control players out there seem to think very highly of themselves for the way they prefer to play the game, which is toxic and leads to non-conversations with somebody who will never change their mind about anything.  That sort of thing has bothered me for a long time, and it'll never go away.  The best anybody can do is prove them wrong and move on even if they keep waxing philosophically in circles, only letting themselves come to the conclusion they've settled on already.

Quote from M0res >>

I can’t believe people are buying this……. Before you know it a nerf and a mini expansion will result in an obsolete deck 

 I deleted the deck mere seconds after buying it.  I wanted the cards.

I mentioned this to somebody on twitter, but I'll drop it here too in case it's in any way helpful:

The card back is Kael'Thas themed.  The 3 green orbs, the red and gold, down to the name in the files.
Kael'Thas is a fella who loves the number 3, apparently.  So my first guess would be doing things in 3's, or doing 3 different things.

Also, since it's Kael'Thas themed and he was from the Outland set, this might have to start on the Outland board.

I bought the Warlock one.  It's a class I have very few cards for that I'm developing a fondness for, so I went with it.  Great dust value for the 20 bucks too.  20 bucks in packs sometimes doesn't net you one legendary, let alone like 4.