Go Figure, Druid is Popular! Dean Ayala Talks About Monitoring the Meta & Potential for Changes
Druid has been a very popular class recently thanks to some new additions handed to them during Frozen Throne. Unfortunately though when one class succeeds too well, the community won't stop asking questions and thankfully this time around, we've reeled in a response from Dean Ayala.
Below you'll find our recap of the important points and the full quote from Dean.
- It is not abnormal to see one archetype get popular early on; people latch onto powerful decks.
- Using short term statistics to say things like "more popular than Undertaker Hunter" isn't a good comparison. The two use different sets of data (biased publicly gathered vs all players via internal stats)
- Blizzard is always watching the meta.
- TL;DR: They are discussing possible Druid changes internally, but it's too early to say if anything will be changed.
Dean talked about some the cards being used by Druids and what they've been talking about internally.
Innervate, Swipe, Wild Growth
- Class defining cards are good, but auto-include cards into decks isn't their design goal.
- Internal discussions are weighing pros and cons about each card staying with Druid for eternity.
Ultimate Infestation
- They think changing it would only impact player sentiment and not play or win rate stats.
- It doesn't appear to be statistically responsible for Druid power or popularity.
- Player sentiment and the card's draw power not being a part of their class identity leave the card up for balance discussion.
Spreading Plague
- Druids have a vulnerability to swarms of minions. They liked this method to help them with that as it fit the flavor of the class.
- They'd like to only see it used during heavy swarm minion metas and not general inclusion in all Druid decks.
- The current meta shows a lot of swarm-style decks which is likely why we're seeing it played so much. Their eyes remain on this card.
Blue Post
Quote from Dean AyalaDruid surpasses in popularity the historic Undertaker Hunter
We cite internal statistics from time to time, but I tend to be cautious of that myself because it's very difficult to find any statistic that represents everyone. Given enough time and enough access I find that it's not difficult to display data to support almost any opinion about the metagame. At the end of the Un'Goro cycle, Hunter was actually the highest win rate class among all Hearthstone players. In fact, Hunter held the highest win rate for the a large portion of the expansion. Of course, I wouldn't say that in retrospect of Un'Goro that Hunter should have been less powerful, but that is what the data might suggest. With that in mind, here are some thoughts on some of the comments I've read in this thread.
- Druid surpasses in popularity the historic Undertaker Hunter.
The statistics being used for this post are for one rank over one day. The statistics we cite about Undertaker Hunter reference all Hearthstone players at all ranks over a time range of a week to a month. Druid is popular right now, but these statistics aren't comparable. If I had to guess what the most popular class within one rank of all time is, I would probably guess Mage at Rank 25 on an average day or Warrior at Legend during the Warsong Commander / Molten Giant era.
- Blizzard disappeared after the expansion.
As with every early metagame, we are monitoring play rates, win rates, and player sentiment on a daily basis. We hop in threads like this one fairly regularly to say exactly that, but people tend to want to know exactly whether we are or are not going to change something. We are discussing what potential changes we could make if Druid increases in popularity over time, but ~5 days of popularity is not enough to make that call at this time.
- The people want to know the status of a druid nerf.
We are looking at a number of Druid cards, but for a deck or archetype to reach this level of popularity this early on in an expansion is not abnormal. The population usually finds something powerful, latches onto it, then other decks that are powerful vs that archetype come onto the scene until one of them emerges as the new popular deck before the cycle continues. It's certainly possible that Druid is in fact so powerful that it prevents the normal metagame cycle from happening, but it's too early to tell. Here are some thoughts on current Druid cards. Keep in mind that these are some of the discussions we have internally, not a list of changes.
Innervate, Swipe, Wild Growth: When we changed Keeper of the Grove and Ancient of Lore, the goal was for Druids to have more interesting decisions to make when deckbuilding rather than a large group of cards to be automatically included. Even though those cards changed, there are still some other offenders of this such as Innervate or Swipe...and Wild Growth to a lesser degree. Having some powerful cards that help define what makes a class different can be good, but those cards in particular have spawned a number of internal conversations where we have been weighing the upside and downside to having each as a part of Druid for Hearthstone eternity.
Ultimate Infestation: Changing a card like Ultimate Infestation we think would have a bigger impact on player sentiment than actual play rate or win rate statistics. It's a big, flashy, cool design but it hasn't appeared to be statistically responsible for Druid power or popularity. Power level aside, having such a powerful card draw effect in Druid is something we are wary of in Druid because we wouldn't consider it part of their identity as a class. Partially for that reason and for sentiment reasons it is still part of discussions in terms of what to do with Druid should population and power level continue to rise.
Spreading Plague: Part of what keeps Druid vulnerable is their weakness to minion swarms due to a lack of powerful AoE. While we think plague is a soft version of AoE that fits the Druid flavor kit, it might shore up one of points of vulnerability more than we would have originally intended. Ideally Spreading Plague is used in heavy minion swarm metas and less so as a general inclusion in any Druid deck. Token Druid, Token Shaman, and Murloc Paladin are all showing high population in the current metagame so it's possible the meta for plague just happens to be now, but it's a card we're continuing to keep a close eye on going forward.
Don't be too harsh, Blizz is just a small indy company.
Druid wasnt that good from wog to msg then only good druid deck was maly druid. Then they got jade and other shit
You're forgetting Yogg druid with Raven Idol, which was excellent until Yogg got nerfed. The trouble has always been with excessive card draw - pre-nerf Ancient of Lore, Gadgetzan Auctioneer, and now this ridiculous Ultimate Infestation. Jades have exacerbated the problem, but what is the one card that really made all three of those draw engines tick - Innervate!
It's exactly what they do in WoW and HotS and Overwatch. They don't know how to handle buffing/nerfing. I know it's not the same teams working on all those games, but it seems to be the Blizzard way.
I am curious as to when these changes are going to happen? Giving cards to Druids to deal with their only weaknesses while leaving other classes completely unplayble (Hunter) is showing bad design for the game.. Just if someone looks at the top legend decks will see 3-4 legit Druid archetypes. That means something.
I am playing since close beta and I wasnt that raged even when playing against miracle rouge, underrtaker hunter, midshaman or whatever else deck as I am now with Druid..
It is completely unfun to play vs a class that usually has 3-4 mana than you by turn 6 and when you think you are going to close the game and they have 2-3 cards left to their hands, Ultimate Brokenstation comes and you just wait to loose.. Let alone the fact that Jade druid is a reason for many decks to stop exist anymore.. It is so bad for the game that there is such a strong deck that has no weaknesses or counters
Hunter is hardly unplayable
I love articles like this one because it means i should not mass disenchant my extra cards for a little bit of time. (3 months sounds right)
3 months? You are rather positive.
Wait, let me rephrase it just to see if I get it:
When it comes to whether changes for Druids are needed, it is "early to tell" or that huge popularity is "nothing abnormal" at this point and they are continuing to monitor the game, as the stats are not telling over such a short timeframe...
But when it comes to Ultimate Infestation, the stats are telling suddenly? And they can guess that it doesn't affect win rates? (Their evaluation is not on point at all, as UI is bonkers)
Why can't they say then which changes they would strongly consider as well? I mean, they are able to see the impact of the 10 mana spell after the short time it sees play, but not the impact of other cards?
I believe the community should rant and fire this guy. I have had enough of his bullshit. His words makes no common sense and if intentionally, he has made blizzards public figure worse. Fire him now.
Giving druid stabilization is like giving rogue good board clears. It's really not part of eithers identity. Druid specializes in getting big threats out fast, the drawback is it is very hard for them to recuperate the card disadvantage of doing so. Likewise with rogue for example, the class specializes in dealing easily with large threats, and suffers in using those types of resources effectively vs smaller units.
This is how balance works Blizzard. You have to have give and take. Druid can have awesome stabilization and value if that is the direction you want to take them, but you have to take away the ramp if that is case. Right now they just have everything. Aggro can't effectively rush them down, control can't outvalue them, they are also able to out tempo us. Something has got to give. They really failed at giving any classes besides druid powerful meta shifting cards. Their playing it safe with KFT actually bit them in the ass.
Actually, they give rouge a very good board clear, that affects everything that doesn't have divine shield. I'm talking about Wild Pyromancer + Plague Scientist + any spell and we know rouge has a lot of spells.
Dear god, they're worse than the cable companies -.-
I see a lot of comments I don't understand that talk very lightly about Ultimate Infestation and more about Innervate. we've been playing with Innervate since forever, and while it is arguably one of the strongest cards in the game (and it does need fixing) downplaying Ultimate Infestation's role is absurd to me.
Ultimate Infestation changes everything. Druid decks can finally run every ramp card without fear of running out of cards, as they know they'll get a massive refill in the end. this is the first meta I've ever seen that Druid ran every decent ramp card and that Nourish was regularly used for mana crystals - not saved for draws. Ultimate Infestation basically means you can play with zero regard to resource management and still come ahead over the opponent with gain and possibly even board state, not to mention you're already building on the mana advantage.
I see the argument that UI isn't as important as there's always Auctioneer, but UI is a stand-alone card that is amazing without needing synergy ; Auctioneer actually requires you to save cards in hand just to be able to cycle, and there are games where Auctioneer isn't that good of a draw or you're unable to save the cards that are mostly for the cycling.
I mean to say there's a lot of wrong going on. Innervate was always a problem card on itself, but Ultimate Infestation is a problem card because of the entire class.
Tbh, i think they made a terrible mistake at giving Druid so many taunt and armor and comebacks with the last two expansions.
Since i doubt they will change the last released cards, my prediction is:
- Innervate nerf to: refresh 2 empty mana crystals (so it does not serve as ramp tool, possibly leaving enough room to Aggro to be a threat).
- Secondarily, and smh unfortunately, i think they will also go with a HoF to Swipe (simply because they seem to like Spreading Plague so much).
UI isn't really the problem, it's the collection of some very core cards that have made druid even stronger than it was. Nerf UI and they'll just use Auctioneer and people will just moan about that. Nerf Jade Idol and people will moan about aggro. Nerf innervate and they'll probably do just fine anyway thanks to multiple ramp choices. People moan very easily without thinking too much, but in reality they can't just cripple one card, I don't think it would do enough, Druid is an absolute powerhouse.