Hands on with the Kobolds and Catacombs New Dungeon Run Feature
We've got some of our greatest men on the show floor and we've gotten a chance to play through the new Dungeon Run feature in Kobolds and Catacombs. Here's what we've learned.
What is a Dungeon Run?
Dungeon Runs are a new type of single player content for Hearthstone, much like an Adventure. We won't be getting an adventure this time around due to Dungeon Runs but they're very similar in idea though Dungeon Runs have a ton of replayability.
- You'll pick a class to go on your Dungeon Run with.
- After you defeat a boss in a Dungeon Run, you get extra loot to power your deck up.
- Passives: Cards that give you a bonus for your run.
- Treasures: Powerful cards that are added to your Dungeon Run deck.
- Cards: You'll get to pick between themed bundles of cards to add to your Dungeon Run deck.
- There are 48 unique encounters in total, which are further augmented by the variance in cards you play with each time.
- Losing to a boss in a Dungeon ends your current run.
- If you win a Dungeon Run with each of the 9 classes, you unlock a card back!
The best part about Dungeon Runs? They're completely free! You don't even need to have cards in your Hearthstone collection.
Bosses
We don't know too much about all the bosses yet, but here's what we've learned so far both during panels and from playing.
- Blacksteed
- Hero Power: 0 Mana - Transform a minion into a random one that costs 1 more.
- Giant Rat
- Hero Power: Rat Race (2 Mana) - Summon two 1/1 Rats.
- Elder Brandlemar
- Hero Power: Dampen Magic (2 Mana) - Put a Counterspell secret into the battlefield.
- Waxmancer Sturmi
- Hero Power which creates wax clones of minions on the field. They're 1/1 copies.
- Room of Traps
- It's one of the hardest encounters out there.
- Due to difficulty, it has a lower chance to show up.
- Battlecrier Jinzo
- His Hero Power is a passive which makes Battlecries trigger twice.
- Frostfur
- Hero Power: Freezes a minion for 2 mana.
- Kraxx
Passives
You get two of these a run and you'll get them after you start to accumulate wins. Their goal is to increase your power. These are the passives that are available on the show floor today with many others being
- Captured Flag - Your minions have +1/+1.
- Glyph of Warding - Enemy minions cost 1 more.
- Justicar's Ring - Your Hero Power is upgraded and costs (1).
- Khadgar's Scrying Orb - Your spells cost 1 less.
- Mysterious Tome - At the start of the game, play 3 random secrets.
- Potion of Vitality - Double your starting health.
- Small Backpacks - At the start of the game, draw 2 cards.
Treasures
In addition to the passives you earn throughout your dungeon journey, there are also treasure cards. Like passives, you only get two treasure cards per run and they will unlock throughout your dungeon journey. Here are the treasures that were active on the show floor.
- Bag of Coins - Fill your hand with Coins.
- Boots of Haste - Your minions cost (0) this turn.
- Gloves of Mugging - Steal 3 cards from your opponent's hand.
- Horn of Cenarius - Recruit 3 minions.
- Rod of Roasting - Cast 'Pyroblast' randomly until a hero dies.
- Vorpal Dagger - Poisonous. Mega-Windfury (Can attack four times a turn.)
- Wand of Disintegration - Silence and destroy all enemy minions.
- Wax Rager - Deathrattle: Resummon this minion.
- Wish - Fill your board with Legendary minions. Fully heal your hero.
Expansion Guide
Our expansion guide is up and running for Kobolds and Catacombs!
Get More out of BlizzCon and HearthPwn
Join us on our Twitch Server to chat in real-time, follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates, and find all our BlizzCon 2017 content.
No rewards = no gameplay lol
Reward me for playing your singleplayer experience blizzard
I have no time for anything else than grindin'
I am going to send an apply to blizzard now,apparently they got payed for doing (and thinking) nothing.
*paid
I get that there's no built-in rewards, but 1 or 2 daily quests associated with Dungeon Runs might be fun. I typically play Tavern Brawl as a one and done, but often have fun when my quest is Win 5 Tavern Brawls.
I'm gonna check this when the expansion launches, but certainly this won't last long if there's no rewards besides the card back.
Sigh, I really wanted some gold or dust or even one random common card would make me play this more. Please Blizzard, give us more rewards!
One-time rewards wouldn't change a thing, since it would only be played for the reward. If you would have reocurring, you would need something to balance things out, otherwise everyone would play it (since it gives more rewards than Arena or ranked).
The only possibility I can think of, is, to have an entree fee, something like ~200 Gold, with the first run being free. Then we could talk about possible rewards.
oh maybe we'll get a new daily, like complete a dungeon run for 100 gold or a pack, just maybe.
I know I'm clearly in the minority here, but I still replay the adventures for FUN. Two things I haven't earned yet from PvE are the Blackrock Mountain heroic card back and Arthas, but other than those I don't have any reason to continue to play the PvE.
Would I like to receive dust and/or gold for playing the Dungeon Runs? Sure. We all like more "stuff". However, I'm looking forward to replaying the Dungeons just to try new tactics and enjoy them. Of course I grew up in the 80's (yes, I'm THAT old) and used to play video games for enjoyment...we didn't have downloads, achievements or any other rewards other than fun.
Anyway, I hope everyone is able to play and enjoy the Dungeon Runs for their own reasons. I'm looking forward to Kobolds & Catacombs. Thanks to the hearthpwn mods for all of the info and updates : )
The main issue I see is that a dungeon run does not fundamentally change. Sure, like an area run, the cards you use and modifiers you get will change, but it is the same basic system. In adventures, you can build your own deck using cards now that the designers never even thought of at the time of making the encounters and that leads to funny moments. It is this constructed aspect that keeps them fresh. I am very hesitant to believe this will have the same feeling of "cheating the system" that adventures have now and I am not sure if it will be as fun as a result. In dungeons, you have a preset deck that will never change (unless they spend dev time to change it up over time) and all that changes is modifiers. That is clearly not the same. That said, we will have to see if there is enough variety in the drafting system to warrant many replays.
I will play Dungeon run a lot.. but Arthas and Adventure Heroics is too hard for my FtP collection, so I'm happy that Blizzard added the single player mode that doesn't depend on your collection.
We could have gotten a Kobold hero or something, maybe Druid or another Shaman. Normal BMing is bad enough but imagine how annoying you could be as a Kobold! 'Threaten: You no take candle!' again and again and again!
Yes
There's a card I ran into during my Dungeon Run.
It's called 'Wish'. It costs 10 mana and fully heals your hero as well as fills your board with Legendary minions. It is rather powerful lol.
What I find more annoying about the fact that the only reward is a card back its that it doesn't make sense flavourwise.
You are entering a dungeon that appears to be filled with treasure (nearly all of the images of the expansion are kobolds standing on mountains of coins) and after avoinding traps and defeating several bosses you only find a cardback? Where did all that gold go?? Adventures in PvE made sense: you defeated bosses, got loot (cards) and advanced deeper in terms of story and challenge.
This feels like that joke from monkey island "I beat the swordmaster of melee island and all i got was this lousy tshirt"... only then it was funny
True that, they could at least give us a bit of gold based on performance, even if it's a low amount (similar card games do that on this kind of infinite random PVE content, blizz just don't want to learn new things)
The gold? That goes to Blizzard to add to the Brode Laugh Fund. Very important.
Why are you complaining about something that's completely free.
Like free as in no ads.
Like free as in not play to win.
Like free way to spend money on it.
Like free as in, the developers, artists, programmers and the rest of the teams made something fun and didn't put any price-tag on it only to have entitled people complain that there free game doesn't come with enough free stuff.
Thought it's quite a lame theme but nicee this gets me excited a bit😍