Mike Donais Talks Frozen Throne - Undead Tribe, Build-a-Beast Spell, Hero Powers
Mike Minotti of GamesBeat got a chance to speak with Mike Donais about the new expansion and Donais had quite a few interesting things to say. Here's everything that we learned!
Frozen Throne
- The idea for a Lich King expansion has been one the team has had before launch.
- They're not excited about trying to make brand new classes due to it clashing with their philosophy behind class identity.
- Warlocks are getting some cool cards but they have to be careful.
- Warlocks have been strong since the start of Hearthstone with the exception of Un'Goro so they may need to slowly give them more power over multiple sets.
- The only characters reappearing as new cards during the set are the hero cards. This won't be an Old Gods corrupted-minions-fest.
Undead Tribe
- Mike Donais could see an Undead tribe added in the future. "I don’t think there are too many disadvantages".
- One reason why we didn't see an Undead tribe for Frozen Throne was due to them just adding a new tribe in Un'Goro.
Hero Powers
- The Build-A-Beast Hero Power was originally a spell in the set.
- The new Death Knight Hero Powers were what they spent the most time on. Rexxar saw "maybe 10" iterations.
- An early Hero Power from DK Rexxar was 5/5 beasts summoned for each beast that died that turn.
- Another version of the Hero Power saw an N'Zoth-style effect where beasts which died that game were re-summoned.
Learn More About Knights of the Frozen Throne
Looking to learn more about Hearthstone's sixth expansion? Visit our adventure guide for Knights of the Frozen Throne!
Imagine making a WHOLE new class 'n' hero/voice lines.
Now imagine having to go through every single expansion to make cards for that class apart from class cards from the first expansion/adventures to unguro... That's too much to ask for from a simple indie company. Feelsbadman
Well that what I think about the whole class thing a new class will be severely underpowered in wild and standard if they don't go through each expansion/adventures to add cards to it.
Not just making these cards, It is really about class identity
Deathknights are known for Healing, Melee Dmg, Minion Armies, Ice, Debuffs (Plagues) and Buffs (Runes)
So in Hearthstone terms, how does it differentiate from Paladin? The Ice and Spooky theme? Wow?
Or Druid? The Ice and Debuffs?
Or Shaman? Also just the Ice.
I don't think that a new class should be introduced at the moment, they should rather fix the existing classes with identity crisis like Rogue or Priest.
Furthermore Blizz cant even balance 9 classes, at least 2 classes often got the D, so how should they do 10
This was litarerly THE expanson to add the undead tribe. You had one job Mike, one job!
but we got elementals we just got elementals!!!!!!!¬¬ /sarcasmoff
add a tribe to all card alreadys, all minion types have "tribes" in warcraft
It's useless to add tribes if there is not tribe interaction. So what you are asking for is new tribe interactions/mechanics.
If you mqnt a tribe in every minion, just play TES Legends
"The only characters reappearing as new cards during the set are the hero cards. This won't be an Old Gods corrupted-minions-fest."
How is there not a new Sylvanas?
Because the set is focused completely around those serving the Lich King, and Sylvanas more than anyone else would never serve the Lich King.
There could be a rebel part of the expansion... who knows!
If there was, it would be with Paladin like in WotOG, but we already know all 9 classes are fully in support of the Lich King. Overall, it doesn't make much sense to add a few random neutrals that are against the Lich King when the entire set is supporting him.
If you ever pay attention to their reasoning, it would seem very reasonable.
The reason given for not adding the Undead tribe is a stupid one and I'm really disappointed that we won't see another version of Sylvanas.
They need to make sure they keep enough fuel for other expansions.
What if they wanted to create an Undead race at a time when there's more functionality with affecting the Death Event Cache? A user interface for inspecting it, perhaps a simplification of the rules? People certainly seem to get confused by it.
They might have some cool stuff in mind for the Undead identity and a fun synergy mechanic, but there's no compelling reason for its existence while those don't exist.
And he gave that reason off the top of his head, I'm sure one of many. There's an infinite number of reasons not to do it and an infinite number of reasons to do it.
One big reason is because in WoW, there are playable Undead and undead type NPC's and mobs, and they're categorized differently. For example, if they go by the way undead characters work in WoW, Crazed Alchemist and Undercity Valiant shouldn't be undead because they're playable characters, which are classified as humanoids to keep spells and abilities that affect undead characters balanced.
Also, there's the fact that the Undead tribe won't matter without specific synergies, which don't exist yet. Frozen Throne was in the works since the beginning, but when Un'Goro was decided to introduce elementals and FT was the next expansion, they didn't want to overload new tribes too fast.
the warlock legendary is purposedly 10 mana, I just hope it has support for jaraxxus.
"One reason why we didn't see an Undead tribe for Frozen Throne was due to them just adding a new tribe in Un'Goro."
I'm not entirely sure this would make the community explode, but hey as long as it happens one day