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.
I love how you still put brode’s picture in the developer insight banner lol.
Ben... Ben!
Rexxar is too overpowered, it needs to be nerfed. Control decks can't beat rexxar, it's just simply not possible to do it consistently. Rexxar always overwhelms you. YOu either need to play OTK and pray you draw decently and they don't or you play aggro and hope they draw terribly. Rexxar is the most disgusting card this game ever seen.
I love it because it beats Control. Especially Control Warrior. I love to just grind them down.
I'm really glad you are disgusted by Rexxar. Your misery is my joy.
Cry more. I will have even more enjoyment.
Play something else. 9/10 when I play Even Warlock or Odd Warrior, I see Rexxar and I wreck them in the long game. With Warlock, there is so much removal it is hard to keep up with it. With Odd Warrior, once you drop Dr. Boom, you can get more stuff on the board than they can.
you know, I actually don't lose to deathstalker rexxar all to much when playing control. sure its powerful, but its not enough to beat every deck all on its own. i think its fine where it is, especially because it is hunters ONLY consistent control tool.
IMHO problem with Rexx is not its power level, its how you can play aggro/midrange Hunter with 30th card being DK, and just win (or have a decent chance at winning instead of 0%) against some Odd warrior or even Jaina mage. There is no another card of that power level in all of HS. Thats the wrong part, and I honestly dont know how can this be altered.
So apparently all it takes for them to consider Hunter's power level to be "pretty high" is this:
No, I did not sort this by class, 4 out of the 5 most played cards in Standard right now are Hunter cards.
But don't worry boy and girls, they're watching it closely!
Some companies just want to watch the world burn
Really, Blizzard? And it will take next 3 months? Thanks for nothing.
I really don't understand what the issue with Barnes is. He is great on curve, but when he doesn't show up on curve... well... he isn't that good. There are a ton of cards that are better on curve. I think I'm missing something. (Yes, I know about Big Priest)
i dont play wild nowadays because i dusted all my wild cards for more decks in standard but i remember the spellhunter or bigpriest with barnes. The problem in my point of view is that the card has such a high snowball-potential an can archive an instawin if lucky and that feels really bad and unsatisfying. Obvious luck plays an important role in HS but playing shouldnt feel like flipping a coin.
Just a small comment - have you faced a spell hunter in wild? Big Priest isn't the only deck that uses Barnes. Hunters have Master's Call and they can fetch the aforementioned legendary with ease. So in this case playing Barnes on curve and summoning 14/15 stats on turn 4 isn't that rare. It's super annoying, if you can't deal with the 10/10 Y'Shaarj, Rage Unbound and lose a game just because you couldn't find an answer to him on time.
A 3/4 which can summon a 10/10 for 4 Mana is a problem.
The issue with Barnes is that he is such a polarising card that exponentially skyrockets the winrate of certain decks. In essence, it offers extreme highroll potentially which a lot of people are not a fan off.
It's also had issues outside of Big Priest in Wild Spell Hunter. Even with Rhok'delar the decks still runs barnes and ysharrj due to the recorded 80% winrate the deck has when Barnes is played on curve.
Honestly, I'm not that bothered by Big Priest. But the deck does echo the Naga Sea Witch Era.
I would love to hear how they quantify how a nerf makes a meta "more fun." Is it customer feedback? Do they monitor rage quits? I actually have less fun against Hunter/Paladin/Priest than I did against Druid/Rogue/Shaman. It's been a brutal year to play this game.
They need a new format that isn't wild and isn't standard. Something in between the two that removes all the totally busted cards in wild but gives access to the vast majority of the cards available in wild.
And how would they get the profits with this mode? I understand your idea and I support it too, but you have to think with their brain, which is directly connected to their pocket.
They'll never create a non-RNG mode without busted cards, because this wouldn't push people to buy packs.
They would have to start selling old expansion packs. Something they probably should have been doing for a while now. Having it like the recent brawl that rotates or something would limit the number of cards unavailable while also creating a mode that is unique from the rest of the game. I'm not saying this is perfect but they need to have something in the middle like MTG has,which ironically is one of the most popular formats for MTG.
Probably a lot of people don't grasp the concept of "communication".
They can't and won't say "Yeah the game is really messed up" even if it is and, on the same line, they'll never say "Yeah that card is broken, we will destroy it for the sake of the community". Because for each person who's happy for a change, there's another one that may not be the same. It's called compromise. They agreed to make this interview and they gave attention to specific decks/cards, and that's not to underestimate: there aren't a lot of occasions in which Blizzard tells its thoughts, and when they do it's because they're probably up to something.
I bet my two cents that in the next two weeks we'll see some balance changes involving at least one between Hunter and Big Priest. Mark my words.