Blizzard is Considering Options for Druid - More Information this Week
Hearthstone's Game Director, Ben Brode, tweeted this afternoon that we'd be seeing information from Blizzard this week on the problematic Druid class. Stay tuned! To the ground with you!
Quote from Ben BrodeThanks for the feedback regarding Druid. We've been considering options and should have more to share this week.
How about nerfing Ultimate Infestation by buffing it? Please, enjoy.
Yes, you will overdraw. Casting two UI will most likely kill you. Maybe it would be enough to "Draw 12 cards" but I left the "Draw 15 cards" for the beauty of all 5s alone.
Strongest spell ever; jade idol. if no nerfs at least rarity should be epic due to respect...
Nerf power creep.
In this meta 5 is the new 3, which was previously 3 is the new 2, where 2 was the standard during the beta.
Compare Ultimate Infestation with Ancient of Lore (which was NERFED because drawing 2 cards for 7 mana with a 5/5 was too good).
Compare Bonemare with basically any minion. 9/9 taunt, deal 4 damage for 7 evenly spread across 2 minions? Yeah, that's balanced. Only Dr. Balance himself was less balanced, except he was a legendary so was more difficult to play.
The Jade mechanic of creating an increasingly large minion for 1 mana is broken regardless of which card it is on (but especially Aya Blackpaw and Jade Idol which do it twice and several times a turn then every turn forever, respectively). The entire mechanic should never have seen the light of day. Strictly speaking, in what world does spending 1 mana allow you to put a 10/10 minion that has a cost of 10 in play? Compare this with the C'Thun mechanic, which itself was OP, but is currently unplayable.
In the same vein, minions that create exact copies of themselves for 1 extra mana are just as broken in an environment where casting cost matters (hello Evolve). What was so hard about them creating 1 cost, similar-statted minions? Doppelgangster into Evolve is the main way Shamans win right now, but it would be unplayable if Doppelgangster made two 1 cost vanilla 2/2s rather than two 5 cost identical cards.
Evolve as a mechanic was iffy because of the inherent randomness - Master of Evolution is largely unplayable, for instance (aka "a fair card"). But when you fully heal your entire board and upsize them for 1 mana, you know you're looking at a stupidly broken card. Skulking Geist is a) usually not fast enough, and b) doesn't stop Thrall DK from doing an even more broken job.
Well done, all round, Blizzard designers. The only way to make other classes relevant is to turn Priest into either a machine gun hero power or summoning large minions out of the deck and then resurrecting them (because we all know Paladin is the class that does the "proper" healing). While that might be in theme for the expansion, it's far above the previous power level of the metagame. So the classes that weren't that good before are almost completely dead now (Hi Hunter, Rogue) because they did not get the same level of upgrades. If Bloodreaver Gul'dan was not crazy powerful, Warlock would be just as dead as it was before.
And how will Blizzard balance that? By increasing the power of those classes in future. 6 will be the new 5.
Nerf power creep. Period.
"Compare Ultimate Infestation with Ancient of Lore (which was NERFED because drawing 2 cards for 7 mana with a 5/5 was too good)."
all you had to say... how are these decisions even being made by the same people ?
Can't believe they're not addressing the Moorabi issue...
said nobody ever hahaha
THERE IS A GOD AFTER ALL!!!!
IMO, I think that there are currently 3 big problem cards in Druid that make Jade Druid so Broken. First is Jade Idol, which allows you to generate infinite value unless your opponent is desperate enough to run Skulking Geist. My suggested nerf is to change it to this: 1 cost spell, summon a Jade Golem, or shuffle two Jade (shards or something) into your deck. These jade shards would be 1 mana summon a Jade Golem. this prevent Druid from going infinite without Completely destroying Jade Druid I think.
Second problem is that Jade Druid cannot just get blasted to hell by pirates anymore because of, you guessed it, Spreading Plague. Spreading Plague simply provides too much protection and value against aggressive decks. seeing as Druid ramp a lot, I think the solution here is not to make Spreading Plague cost more but to instead nerf the health of the scarabs to 3. this allows most aggro decks to push have a chance against Spreading Plague without completely removing all of Druids anti-aggro tools. (their best board clear is Starfall, after all.)
The third problem with Jade Druid is our beloved Ultimate Infestation. Gadgetzan Auctioneer had some pretty insane synergy with Jade Idol but it was generally hard removed by your opponent the next turn, probably drawing a MAXIMUM of 5 cards. Ultimate Infestation GUARANTEES that you draw 5 cards, with the added bonus of a 5/5 body, removing a minion or killing your opponent, and gaining 5 life. The value of this card is broken, but it is even more broken with the infinite value provided with Jade Idol. Ultimate Infestation would probably not be as amazing as everyone thinks without Jade Idol Because 2 copies alone will draw out a third of your deck, which will send you into mill faster. I think if they nerf Jade Idol, this is an appropriate adjustment: 10 mana, draw 5 cards, deal 5 damage to a minion, summon a 4/4 ghoul, and gain 4 armor.
This is my opinion on how to nerf Druid without making it unplayable, tell me what you think and if you agree. :)
EDIT: Fixed a few spelling errors :)
I agree 100%. I even proposed the "shard nerf" a few pages back and setting the scarab health to 3 seems rational to me (5 health cannot be removed by AoE with the exception of Dragonfire Potion and perhaps Twisting Nether but if your opponent casted Spreading Plague he is behind on tempo so with those cards you just wipe out your board and spend turn doing nothing).
And if you nerf the idol using the "shard nerf" sudddenly Ultimate Infestation in no longer a huge issue. I mean it is 10 mana spell and those should simply do something powerful. This is why Yogg-Saron, Hope's End was played - he offered heal, board clear, card draw and board presence in one card. That is something which no other card can provide. Then he got nerfed and we have got Ultimate Infestation which does the same thing but more consistenly. I do not know if it needs to be nerfed itself like you proposed for example.
Thanks for your support. I think I might have actually pulled the general idea of limiting Jade production without voiding Skulking Geist from you. I'm posting this post-nerf (I've already posted my thoughts on that thread) and I'm very disappointed with Blizzards handling of the situation. Thanks for the kind comment none the less!
The problem boils down to Jade Druid. I recently crafted a budget version of the plague druid, which is strong, but not proactive and gets destroyed by decks which don't play any minions. This deck does indeed run UI but has weaknesses as it is more an anti-aggro/midrange deck. The deck also runs other cards at question like Nourish, Spreading Plague, etc. This is deck is not overpowered or meta-breaking. The Jade aspect adds a proactive, and "infinite" combo that is impossible to out control. And with the addition of spreading plague is even more powerful being able to last aggro decks. The jade idol concept is stupid and should never have existed as Jade druid has been king of the meta for a very long time. Aggro druid and Token druid are fun, but beatable decks, the Jade archetype is not. Jade Idol deserves the nerf.
What Blizzard obviously needs to do is add a third format: Jade. You Have your Standard format, your Wild format, and your Jade format, where all the Jade Druids can play 30 minute games to their heart's content.
In my opinion UI is not the problem it's earthern scales and spreading plague along with the jade idols that make the deck cancer cause if you out tempo In the early game and the manage to get a decent size jade plus earthern scales you have so much armour to beat back down then spreading plague stops most decks in their quest to kill the druid before they get big jades but filling the board with taunts then the issue card jade idol with kripp said in mean streets it was gonna become a problem cause you can't outlast them in fatigue and they out value you in terms of minions they create
In my opinion UI is a big problem. Espacially combined with SP. UI combined with SP allows you to play nearly every imaginable druid deck at highest tier level. (no matter if it's jade, taunt, ramp or whatever....)
Just move every jade golem card into hall of fame and be done with it
While moving the Jade cards to wild is a viable option, I don't think it's really a good one, because they could still be used in Wild, their effects untampered. Sure, Blizzard may care more about keeping balance in Standard, but when you think about it, this would essentially be the same as pushing a problem aside so that someone else has to deal with it.
I think Innervate should be change to have a kunn like effect for 2 mana. This way you get to play 2 mana extra on a turn but not play a 3 drop on 1 or a 6 drop on 4. Right now innervate is strictly better than counterfeit coin. I don't think however that innervate should be hall of famed as it's a key part of druids identity. There's plenty of other basic cards that are op such as fireball, fiery war ax, kill command, north shire cleric, backstab, flame tongue totem, and hex that are at the core of a class' "kit" that allows new players access to the early good cards.
Change it to refresh two mana crystals or a little worse as a 2 mana card that refreshes 4 mana crystals.
Ultimate Infestation is the only card that made control type Druid decks viable again and now it's likely getting nerfed in to oblivion because it's absolutely OP in Jade Druid decks but perfectly balanced in a normal deck. AKA almost every Druid deck is not viable anymore. Thanks blizz!