Small-Time Buccaneer & Spirit Claws Are Being Nerfed, Ranked Changes Incoming
Nerfs are coming! Hopefully there's going to be a little less Yaaarrrr and guiding spirits in the future. The Patch does not yet have a release date, but is scheduled for the end of February.
- Small-Time Buccaneer's Health is now 1. (Down from 2)
- Spirit Claws's Mana is now 2. (Up from 1)
Discuss This Nerf
Discuss This Nerf
The new and improved cards!
Oh yeah, there's a wicked ranked change too.
- Once you hit Rank 15, 10, or 5, you cannot de-rank past that rank - exactly how it works at Rank 20 today.
Quote from ZeriyahUpdate 7.1 Ranked Play Changes – Floors
We’re continuously looking for ways to refine the Ranked Play experience. One thing we can do immediately to help the Ranked Play experience is to make the overall climb from rank to rank feel like more an accomplishment once you hit a certain milestone. In order to promote deck experimentation and reduce some of the feelings of ladder anxiety some players may face, we’re introducing additional Ranked Play floors.
Once a player hits Rank 15, 10, or 5, they will no longer be able to de-rank past that rank once it is achieved within a season, similar to the existing floors at Rank 20 and Legend. For example, when a player achieves Rank 15, regardless of how many losses a player accumulates within the season, that player will not de-rank back to 16. We hope this promotes additional deck experimentation between ranks, and that any losses that may occur feel less punishing.
Update 7.1 Balance Changes
With the upcoming update, we will be making balance changes to the following two cards: Small-Time Buccaneer and Spirit Claws.
Small-Time Buccaneer now has 1 Health (Down from 2)
The combination of Small Time Buccaneer and Patches the Pirate has been showing up too often in the meta. Weapon-utilizing classes have been heavily utilizing this combination of cards, especially Shaman, and we’d like to see more diversity in the meta overall. Small Time Buccaneer’s Health will be reduced to 1 to make it easier for additional classes to remove from the board.
Spirit Claws now costs 2 Mana (Up from 1)
Spirit Claws has been a notably powerful Shaman weapon. At one mana, Spirit Claws has been able to capitalize on cards such as Bloodmage Thalnos or the Shaman Hero power to provide extremely efficient minion removal on curve. Increasing its mana by one will slow down Spirit Claws’ ability to curve out as efficiently.
These changes will occur in an upcoming update near the end of February. We’ll see you in the Tavern!
The reason why is because they're releasing a scheduled patch on that date and they don't want to have to release patches every 2 weeks because getting releases on the Google Play store and Apple App Store is a pain in the ass. They've said previously that they're looking into ways to fix this, but for now they can only do these updates by releasing a whole new client patch and this is the system we have.
*cough*BULLS**T*cough*
Kabal Chemist had a bug where she couldn't give Dragonfire Potion. They fixed it stealthily.
Thanks for your opinion on that, ArgentumEmperio.
For better or for worse, I feel most times the real test is the perceived speed at which things are moving. I would be really interested in how many people would rather the game be more fluid and changing, than carefully and patiently tweaked.
All that said, I still think these changes took a long time. By no means am I wanting to shit on their work here, I am just concerned that if the perceived speed of changes is slow, people could slowly abandon the game.
ArgentumEmperio, as you kind of pointed out, we all have expectations that are vastly different. Your's seems to be aligned with the slow and steady approach, which is fine. At the rate in which things are releasing, no one is dying, and there are certainly a lot of "whiners", as you have mentioned a few times. Truly, I don't want to add to that noise. And yes, whenever I see a Blue post, I do try to make time to read it. Why? Because I am hungry for new or specific info.
And I think this comes back to my other question. Would people honestly love a more "fluid and changing" game or a game as it is now? I don't really buy the "millions of millions" of people preventing this style of development, by itself. I WOULD buy the excuse it if they just don't have the capacity for it. If you can't do it with your team and schedule, you just can't do it. But since you referenced WOW, I could reference Overwatch as a game that I think attracts a lot of people not only because of it being a great game, but because there is a fair amount of fluidity to how the game plays with balance changes and such.
Here me say that I don't think this is a perfect example of how it should work with balance changes. And neither is your example of WOW a perfect one because HS is different from any of their games. But its something I have chewed on. And I am definitely not suggesting creeping power levels on random cards, or making rushed decisions. This current meta was early-on identified as a problem. We knew that, the community knew that. Maybe you think the time it took to address the issue (exactly 3.5 months since launch) wasn't that long. That's fine. But the players perceived time to deal with this meta (or address two cards) was likely a little long. Judging by all the "whiners" a least.
If I am honest, I think the bigger problems start with why they even print cards like this and how the meta shifts long-term, but I am not getting into that. This is about fixing their problems, and the perceived time it takes.
My bet with the agression getting lower is that "Reno Chaman with Jade and Dragons and N'zoth"© will be THE deck. It performed decently when I tested it except against pure aggression decks whern you don't draw Reno. Tgat deck can handle other midrange decks
Presenting your new cards, "Small-Time Rager" and "Spirit-ey War Axe (just add spellpower)."
Needed nerfs - those cards will be tossed from a lot of decks. Aggro decks are going to take a tumble.
Will paladin and hunter arise from the shadows?
Why blizzard killed spirit claws? I totally don't like that way of nerf. They can just make it "Gain 1 attack for 1 spell damage" ( for example malygos on board = gain 5 attack) that will be so cool and maybe balanced.. And again wtf after 6 months.....Why so fkn long???
Well, ripping off Elder Scrolls Legends makes sense, since it's a better game and about to launch.
Dire Wolf is also releasing Eternal which is way meatier than any digital CCG available at the moment. Elder Scrolls is not that good of a game.
I find 2 mana cost for spirit claws an absolutely reasonable and healthy nerf and I'm sure the card will be played a lot after. Even nerfed, compared to rogue weapons it is strong af. IDK if you remeber right after Kara release so called rez priest was picking his nose the 1st 3 turns meanwhile sham got awsome weapon on t1 and seize you by the balls with early board control clearing your first couple of minions basically for free (1 pity mana) while playing tuskar to totem golem and dr4. The card is ridiculously strong. Some called it 1 mana pyroblast. And you cannot justify playing spell power totems/minions as tempo loss since it is exactly the oppsite - first are reducing skill from below, the latter improve your arcane explosion on roids (maelstrom portal) and the rest of the cheapest AOE ingame and buff your weapon to even more fiery win axe and assist your frikkin card draw, all at the very same time.... really, such tempo loss.
This was needed.
Guys, does anyone know the exact date of the patch? I couldnt find it in the article.
altho the nerfs are welcome im more excited by the ranked floors so many times ive gotten to ranks 5 or 10 and then go on a losing streak and get tilted
I promoted the idea of safeguarding rank at certain tiers to promote experimentation all the way back in October:
http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/1814-ben-brode-unhappy-with-ranked-ladder-system
Glad they went with it. It won't solve all the problems with ranked but it's definitely the simplest way to improve the experience.
Nerfs seem good. If they nerfed Spirit Claws to 2 durability or +1 attack I probably wouldn't DE it cause it could still be played. At 2 mana it's doubtful I'll ever miss it so there's some more dust!