Hearthstone's Dean Ayala Talks About Rastakhan's Early Nerfs, Barnes, and Power Level
IGN's Cam Shea had a chance to speak with Dean "Iksar" Ayala on the nerfs introduced during early Rastakhan's Rumble, balance, and Barnes.
See our recap below and the full transcript here.
Rastakhan's Early Nerfs
- The early nerfs happened because they knew the changes they wanted to make.
- They didn't need to give the meta time to "breathe" this time, it was certain the nerfs would bring "more fun for the next month".
- Pretty happy. That's how the team feels about the post-nerf meta.
- Hunter power level is pretty high and is being watched closely.
Expansions
- This week and next week are some of the final weeks where they are working on 2019 Set 1's balance.
- There wasn't an effort last year to create expansions with less power than Un'Goro, KFT, and Kobolds.
- Introducing new archetypes was a goal, it doesn't matter how many of the older cards get brought along for that ride.
Changes
- Making changes for the sake of changes isn't what they want to do, they have to make them to make things better.
- Talk about Barnes still takes place. No current changes planned right now.
Quote from Dean AyalaIn a broad sense, how happy are you guys with the post-nerf meta?
Pretty happy, I would say. The popularity and power level of Hunter is pretty high right now, so that’s something that we’re keeping a pretty close eye on. It’s been stabilising a little bit, but we’re still looking at it pretty closely. We have meta reports that come in every single day and we monitor not only where stuff is, but where is it trending; where do we think things are going to be in a month or two months, or where do we think things are going to be in the month leading into the next expansion. And if we feel like that’s going to be a really positive environment, we won’t make any changes, but if we feel like there’s some things we can do to make a major impact, then we will.
Can't tell if people actually think Deathstalker Rexxar deserves to be nerfed when Barnes still trolls wild. During KFT, Razakus priest, murloc pally, token shaman/druid, and pirate warrior dunked hunters on ladder--when Hunter was complete dumpster tier with Warrior outside of midrange. Now that Rexxar found a home in a couple of nice hunter lists and a favorable meta that's considerably slower than it was upon release people realize it's a DEATH KNIGHT.
Why is Rexxar considered so op when some of the hero cards have the potential to end the game on the spot the moment they're dropped or in some cases four turns. Is that inevitability not more frustrating to play against? If Rexxar gets nerfed then Guldan should only res demons played from hand, Uther shouldn't equip Grave Vengeance, Jaina shouldn't have lifesteal or infinite water eles.--one or the other, Dr. Boom's hero power should have a chance to brick, etc. etc.
It's about to rotate to wild as well. Pls don't ruin one of my most beloved cards. My suggestion would be to look at the cards that allowed for the DK to succeed. Maybe tune some of the numbers. Looking at all yous Flanking Strike, candleshot, turn five 12/12, and Wandering Monster
What do you guys think of a nerf to Deathstalker Rexxar which would make his hero power alternate between build-a-beast and deal 2 dmg? Perhaps it could be enough to slow it down.
No because it would have no sense and, secondly, it would ruin the card flavor, which is also important for cards like Death Knights
Why would it make no sense? Dr. Boom's HP alternates between few of them because 7 armor each turn is OP and the other ones are OK. It's a better balanced hero card than Deathstalker Rexxar for this. Also, the whole point of hunter is to go face, so the controlling playstyle the card brings completely makes no sense flavor-wise. NONE of the other deathknight/hero cards has that much consistency, variety and value built in its hero power, and I would really like someone to prove me different.
You miss a lot of points
1) If you think Dr. Boom's 7 armor is the OP Hero Power, then you're totally wrong lol. It's not the worst, but it's not the best either
2) It wouldn't balance Rexxar, it would ruin the hero, because you would have the exact same problem but the card would become unreliable, thus unplayable. Moreover, if the alternatives are just two you lose the meaning of having more than one HP
3) Deathstalker Rexxar is Deathstalker Rexxar: Blizzard created a new character with his own personality and gave him a proper HP. Your suggestion wouldn't fit the Death Knights' theme, which is one of the best in HS
4) Considering points 2 and 3 together, you definitely don't want Deathstalker Rexxar, you want a crappy version of Dr. Boom cause you keep losing on Hunter and you want to see that class burnt down to zero.
5) Literally everyone complains about the fact that Hunter is a SMOrc class: Blizzard gave it a tool (overpowered, we agree on this point, but still) to play control and now we want to go back to Face Hunter. Damn you're really insatiable dude. Moreover, you talk about class flavor, but *see point 3*
1) There's a successful deck both in standard and in wild centered around odd warrior's hero power, which gives you just 4 armor. If you could gain 7 armor each turn after turn 7 with no deck building restrictions it would be OP as no deck could reduce your health quickly enough. That was my point, you just called me wrong with no counterargument.
2) You would reliably have access to build-a-beast every second turn. It would just be slower, although it is debatable whether or not it would make him unplayable. You said I missed a lot of points but you fail to introduce any new points about the broken value of the hero power. You said you agree it's overpowered, but didn't suggest a way to reduce its power, which was the point of my initial comment.
3) I agree it's fun to play, but what you wrote here is deeply subjective.
4) It was just a suggestion, chill with the assumptions that I want the class destroyed. I myself like the card, but I think it's unfair that other classes don't have as powerful hero cards. Jaina and Gul'dan are close, but they still require you to play a more specific deck than hunter does.
5) The problem is that Hunter is still a smorc class with one card which can completely change its playstyle to control all by its own, with no drawbacks. I didn't say anything about not wanting hunter to be a smorc class so I'm not sure how I'm being "insatiable".
Hunter may be in the spotlight but what we really need right now are options to disrupt OTK decks
Mojomaster Zihi, but perhaps what you're asking for is just to get a free win ticket when you face OTK decks, disrupting their combo on turn 3 or 4, which is not fair. Gotta grind those stars
If you want to disrupt OTK combos just play Control Warlock.
You have a lot of cards that destroy/burn/change your opponents deck and hand, and unless you are extremely unlucky and/or play horrible you'll get a guaranteed win.
I think the problem are the number of different OTK decks and some of them dont even need 10 mana to kill you. I remember blizzard saying that OTK is unfun to play against and that they wanted less OTK decks with lower powerlevel to be around. Also mojomaster is a legendary and not everyone can invest 1600 dust for a techcard.
I find firebat's opinion on hunter funny.
it's like a multi stage raid boss. Every Time they play a hero card it a new stage. It makes me feel better losing to it.
Team 5 watching closely the meta XD
Exactly it was like wild , no changes= no money
Rexxar 7 mana , Barnes 5 .Done
The issue is, how do you nerf Rexxar DK and Barnes without completely killing the cards? And yes, this is an honest question.
I'd make rexxar 8 mana, significantly lower some problematic overpowered cards - charge, lifesteal, echo, rush, poisonous and mostly THE COMBINATION of these.
Rexxar is untouchable. They aren't going to nerf one classes DK. They all broken. Nerf em all or leave them alone.
Agree with TardisGreen... Rexxar is strong vs control decks but I think is ok as it is... there are other cards clearly above the power curve, such as Flanking Strike and Spellstone.
For Deathstalker Rexxar, I would change the bucket system, in order to reduce its ability to generate most of the time the perfect answer. How? Create a total of three different pools (1. Battlecries/Deathrattles 2. Keywords 3. Text/vanilla for example, but this isn't probably the best division) and each Hero Power will get to choose Beast of just two of them randomly. His cost could be also brought to 8, in order not to start snowballing during the mid-game but being still able to use the HP if played on turn 10 (but I don't know about this last change).
For Barnes, I don't play Wild that much so I should not talk about this, but I think the "summon a 1/1 actor with the effect of a minion in your deck" would just straight up kill the card. Maybe just increasing his cost by 1 mana should be fine?
that sounds like an awesome idea to be honest, both parts.