The previously announced Balance changes, now out in full. Read on for the details!
Quote from BlizzardPatch 29.0.3, launching today, includes the following balance changes to Standard and Battlegrounds.
Hearthstone Updates
Dev Comment: We hope you’re enjoying Whizbang’s Workshop so far! We’ve seen you experimenting with lots of new cards and archetypes across most classes—and finding a few outliers. This patch is mostly to weaken those outliers and to offer a couple higher-confidence buffs based on early data.
The following cards have been adjusted to be weaker:
Tigress Plushy
- Old: [3 Mana]
- New: [4 Mana]
Deputization Aura
- Old: Your left-most minion has +3 Attack and Lifesteal. Lasts 3 turns.
- New: Your left-most minion has +1 Attack and Lifesteal. Lasts 3 turns.
Shroomscavate
- Old: [3 Mana] Give a minion Windfury and Divine Shield. Excavate a Treasure.
- New: [2 Mana] Give a minion Divine Shield. Excavate a Treasure.
Dev Comment: Paladin is the biggest power outlier since launch, with lots of damage from hand and healing. We like the overall play pattern of the deck, but we’re making these adjustments to tone down those two overperforming aspects of it.
Awakening Tremors
- Old: Get three 4/1 Worms. They cost (1).
- New: Get three 3/1 Worms. They cost (1).
Dev Comment: Hunter is another class that has overperformed in the early meta. Awakening Tremors is a card that has been played in almost all Hunter decks for some time now, and which can make for some really early snowballs. Shaving a little power from it should help keep other decks from falling too far behind as early as turns 1-2.
Thrall’s Gift
- Old: Discover a temporary Lightning Bolt, Hex, or Bloodlust.
- New: Discover a temporary Lightning Storm, Hex, or Bloodlust.
Dev Comment: Nature Shaman is primarily a sentiment outlier, with access to a lot of damage very early in the game. However, it’s also expected to get a better matchup spread after the other changes being made in this patch. This change removes some of that burst damage and redundancy in the deck. We think Lightning Storm is another good and flavorful option for Thrall’s Gift, weakening this specific deck, but offering options to other Shaman decks that weren’t there before.
Aftershocks
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Odyn, Prime Designate
- Old: [8 Mana]
- New: [9 Mana]
Dev Comment: Warrior is another class that is looking very strong in the early meta, and which is likely to get even stronger after the other changes in this patch. Aftershocks combined with Acolyte of Pain to let Warrior draw too quickly through its deck for its powerful late-game cards. We’re making these changes to make that endgame a little slower and less consistent.
Zilliax Deluxe 3000 (Ticking Module)
- Old: [4 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Dev Comment: The reception to Zilliax Deluxe 3000 has been just about... perfection. We love all the different variations people are trying, but Ticking Module was proving to be a bit too efficient. We hope this change will bring this Zilliax more into line with overall power level and also encourage more continued Zilliax variety.
The above craftable cards will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks following Patch 29.0.3.
The following cards have been adjusted to be stronger:
Dev Comment: We don’t usually make buffs this early in a meta, but this time we were able to see a couple buff targets even in the very early data. We’ll keep an eye on these changes and look out for more opportunities in our next balance window, when we’ll have more data to inform these types of changes.
Sky Mother Aviana
- Old: [6 Mana]
- New: [5 Mana]
Frost Lich Cross-Stitch
- Old: [5 Mana] Deal 4 damage to a character. If it dies, summon a 3/6 Water Elemental that Freezes.
- New: [4 Mana] Deal 3 damage to a character. If it dies, summon a 3/6 Water Elemental that Freezes.
Battlegrounds Updates
Quest and Quest Reward Updates
The following Quests have been made easier to complete, but can no longer be paired with low-requirement Quest Rewards:
- Follow the Money
- Pressure the Authorities
- Dev Comment: These changes should reduce the frequency of Quest-Reward pairs that feel too easy or too difficult to complete.
The following Quests have been removed from the Quest Pool:
- Exhume the Bones
- Sort it All Out
- Dev Comment: These Quests had too many situations where they were either very difficult or trivially easy based on your early board, rather than the Reward they were paired with. Removing these two from the Quest Pool will make Quest-Reward pairings smoother and more consistent across games.
The following Quest Rewards have been made easier to earn:
- Splitting Scroll
- Gift of the Golden Kobold
- Temporal Tampering
- Anima Bribe
- Cooked Book
- Wondrous Wisdomball
- Boom Squad
- Bloodsoaked Tome
The following Quest Rewards have been made harder to earn:
- Sinfall Medallion
- Stable Amalgamation
- Tumbling Disaster
- Turbulent Tombs
- Gilnean War Horn
The following Quest Rewards have had their effects updated:
Sinfall Medallion
- Old: After you play a minion, give 2 other friendly minions of its Tier +2/+2.
- New: After you play a minion, give 2 other friendly minions of its Tier +4/+4.
Minion Updates
Moroes, Steward of Death
- Old: 5/1. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +1/+5.
- New: 5/2. Reborn. Deathrattle: Give your Undead +2/+5.
Felboar
- Old: [Tier 6] 3/8
- New: [Tier 5] 2/6
Tichondrius
- Old: 4/4. After your hero takes damage, give your other Demons +1/+1.
- New: 3/3. After your hero takes damage, give your Demons +1/+1.
Living Azerite
- Old: [Tier 4] 4/4
- New: [Tier 3] 3/3
Wildfire Elemental
- Old: [Tier 3] 6/3
- New: [Tier 4] 8/4
Bream Counter
- Old: 5/5. While this is in your hand, after you play a Murloc, gain +3/+3.
- New: 6/6. While this is in your hand, after you play a Murloc, gain +2/+2.
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Shudderblock couldn’t deal damage to the enemy hero if played and then its effect was not consumed.
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where Warsong Wrangler could buff the King Krush hero skin. You can’t wrangle the King!
- [Hearthstone] Fixed a bug where there were different versions of Air Elemental in Core and Journey to Un’Goro. Now, both versions will have 3 Attack.
- [Battlegrounds] Cloning Conch will remain removed from the Tavern Spell pool with this patch.
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Turbulent Tombs, Gilnean War Horn, Secret Culprit, and Ghastly Mask had the wrong completion difficulty modifiers (sometimes making them too easy to complete, sometimes making them too hard to complete).
- [Battlegrounds] Fixed a bug where Free-Flying Feathermane’s effect could trigger during the Recruit phase.
- [Progression] Fixed a bug where the “destroy Jepetto Joymancer” condition didn’t progress the Toymaker’s Trouble Event Quest.
- [General] Fixed various localization issues across languages.
How much do you want to bet that you're completely wrong?
It was annoying but believe it or not it was the ONLY viable shaman deck
Oh yeah, next not important and "no fun allowed" changes
I was hoping they would replace Lightning Bolt in Thrall's Gift with Rockbiter Weapon, and revert it back to 1 mana, so it is a cheap source of damage that does not benefit from spell damage and
isn't a Nature spell either(apparently changed to a nature spell at some point??).Yes, there's Sand Art Elemental which could make good use of Rockbiter, but it's one of those old cards that feels just underwhelming since the nerf, and I think it wouldn't be that out of place for Wild to have Rockbiter reverted at this point.
And as far is flavor is concerned, Lightning Storm is ok, but look at the artwork and tell me why Doomhammer isn't an option.
Why didn't they make Thrall's Gift just actually give Doomhammer which is in the artwork? lol
Shroomscavate could have gotten rush instead of windfury, would have been more balance
Yeah the card is so dead now, that when I thought "it could be NEUTRAL so mediocre that it became", I realized even as neutral it's crap for pure-Excavation decks (and Excavation decks are already old news now anyway).
I much prefer the card being dead.
Me too but rush would've been ok, they did hit it pretty hard.
So I was right, Odyn nerf was just a mana nerf instead of addressing the real problem of the card which is making 30+ damage in a turn.
Yup. That change does absolutely NOTHING to stop that deck. I am surprised they don't understand this?
It's not true, at least for Wild it is a big hit since you can't have it in Even warrior.
Well I'll be damned they actually did remove windfury from shroomscavate. That's probably the smartest nerf they've ever done.
Do you people ever play the classes you hate? That is literally a deleted card now [MAYBE it will see 1% play in "pure excavation" decks (old news from Badlands now)]. Deputization Aura on 3 mana is also a practically deleted card (after those nerfs).
Zero chill with this one. I didn't even evaluate how good or bad shroomscavate or mentioned deputy aura. Go whine in Group therapy thread.
I see. Your only "argument" is vile personal attacks and calling people "crazy".
Nice "arguments".
Paladin was grossly overpowered before this balance patch, they needed significant nerfs. Shroomscavate is still above average for an excavate card. Compare it to Kobold Miner which sees plenty of play, which would you rather spend two mana on? It's now a "Give a minion divine shield, draw a good card and get Excavation progress". Strong but fair.
What did you expect, that they would just give some cosmetic nerfs and still keep the deck at nearly 70% winrate? Be serious. With that kind of an imbalance, it's unavoidable that some cards will have to be significantly nerfed to bring it into line with the rest. I get that you enjoy the deck, but that doesn't make it a special case that can be left completely unbalanced and shouldn't be adjusted.
3-mana Deputization Aura[after this massive nerf], is practically DELETING the card. Who is working on the game these days?
found the paladin player