Descent of Dragons Balance Changes Coming - Including Shaman Changes
Blizzard posted a message that Balance Changes are planned for somewhere in the next week, with a specific mention of changes to Shaman. Read the full statement below:
Quote from BlizzardHey Folks,
Just to give a heads up - we’re working on a balance update that will arrive within the next week with card adjustments for Descent of Dragons, including some changes aimed at Shaman. Any cards that are affected will be given full Arcane Dust refunds.
Stay tuned for more details next week.
Cheers,
The Hearthstone Team
Clear the way is phenomenal in quest hunter. There hasn't been that much of a chance to explore the others, but that one at least is doing quite well.
Change the quest hero power so it only affects minions' battlecries. Problem solved.
that is it!!!!
The non-quest galakrond shaman is more of a problem than the quest version. The issue is that all of the invoke cards in shaman are great tempo/removal tools, so it's difficult to win with early minion pressure, and then galakrond + shudderwock makes them difficult to outlast.
Except the nonquest version is actually the better deck. So that wouldn't solve the problem at all.
I could see them making a change to spread out the stats across more than 2 bodies. Dealing with 7 4/4s is so much easier than dealing with 4 8/8s, just because of the smaller damage of sweepers available to some classes. So I imagine it would be something like either 4 1/1 rushers into 4 2/2 rushers into 4 4/4 rushers, or 1 4/4 rusher into 2 4/4 rushers into 4 4/4 rushers.
This is the kind of change that should be based on careful analysis and a fair bit of stats as opposed to just knee jerk reactions, but I will say at a cursory glance it seems warranted. I'm tinkering with a lot of ideas atm (in a more casual environment, but still, any shaman player that has the quest in their collection can easily build the Galakrond version, given that he was a free card and most of the invokers are common or rare), and for some classes it's just so difficult to think of a half-decent solution to deal with the four potential 8/8s. I've taken to including double MCT as a half solution (if it's just the 8/8s, it's basically 3 mana to kill two of them), but that still leaves two bodies to deal with afterwards, so at that point I'm hoping that the combination of what I already had out plus what I have in hand will help me deal with the rest (generally hoping I have a Faceless Corruptor and two of the remainders after MCT have 5 or less health).
This mentality is so dumb. "Things were worse back in my day, but gosh darnit let's stick with tradition rather than making things better!". A balanced approach is better - forethought and proper planning should be used to try and avoid situations like this, but when these situations do come up they should actually be fixed where possible, rather than leaning back and saying "nah, we never used to change games, let's not now". Though having said that - how far back was your day? They've had patches for games since at least the late 90s (as I distinctly recall there being a patch or two for Age of Empires 2), so seems like you're in boomer territory if it was before that. Also, Magic has had a ban list since 94, so if we're talking card games specifically - almost 30 years worth of alterations to the game.
'Patch culture' of putting out broken products with the idea that they can be fixed later is bad. 'Hardcore traditionalism' of thinking that methods and practices shouldn't be improved because of how they used to be is also bad.
I know. And know what is the worst?
Neverending impatience and constant crying.
Like "omg the blizz is so dumb someone should get fired"
Honestly no one can do it any better but everyone wants everything asap. That comes off as incredibly immature and spoiled.
Cry more xD players who dont know how to play cry "shaman kill me BABYRAGE" Pathetic
Looks like you're the one crying.
Well, that was quick. ^^
I'm sure some people are happy about this, but I didn't even have much time the past 3 days to play the game, and I played against 0 Shamans so far. Normally, I play the game fairly frequently, but in this case I don't even know yet what is so super unfair right now. All I know is that a friend of mine was complaining about Shaman on the release day, but then again, he's just like that, and the community tends to overreact as well. The last time people demanded a nerf within 48 hours was Tip the Scales. That deck wasn't nerfed at all, and half a month into the expansion, it was barely played anymore, because it turned out to be significantly weaker than people thought it was.
So, for the first time, the developers don't say "we want to collect more data" or "we keep an eye on it"; but they just go with the community suggestion. Either it means that they gave up their conservative approach to balancing, or that they effectively admit they released something way too strong that couldn't possibly be countered.
Shhh... don't tell the kids that they are overreacting.
Back in my days hotfixes didn't even exist. You bought a game and it stayed the way it was,
I wasn't even saying that people overreacted, just that they tend to.
Actually, I meant to say that the community is probably right for once, if even the developers agree that something needs to be done fast. I mean, this is unprecedented.
I'm not sure if I'm happy about it though, because neither do I want to see another instance where they need to rebalance something within a week, nor would I like the game to see another balance patch every other week, because there's always something that someone considers unfair.
Buuuuuuut I didn't say in the clearest of all terms that I 100% agree and I didn't even call the developers or testers incompetent or lazy or whatever, so the downvote-train was expectable.
I also don't feel like the number of Shamans I've faces is too extraordinary. Slightly higher than normal, but not bonkers high.
Then again, my Hunter ends them quickly, so maybe they just don't stick in my mind as much. (And this is also why they don't seem terribly OP -- I have only seen them pull off the "big play" a couple of times.)
But yeah, having watched streamers now, I see how much other decks are struggling. It's not surprising that Blizz has taken notice.
Played against 0 shamans? Did you play this game on Mars?
My wr as shaman 28-5 and rank 1 now. against secret hunter 0-2
Perfect, hopefully next one is Mage, who don't even need minions to hit your face to death e.e
18 damage to face from hand is fun and interactive
Only because you can tech against it. Try tech against a constant stream of 2/1, 5/4, and 8/8 rush minions that all return again as 1 card.
Oh and if that's not enough play two 5/6 Taunt Minons for 5 mana.
And if all of this is not enough, have a ton of lackeys and card draw.
Wait are we missing anything? Oh yea one more thing, have a 0 mana turn your 0 mana minion into an 8/8 or something else broken card.
And all of this has little to no RNG Potential. Almost 0.
Very early balance. Please hire competent testers before next expansion