16.0.8 Balance Update - Coming This Week! Including Battlegrounds & Arena Changes
Balance changes are coming, including to Arena and Battlegrounds. Read all about it below:
Quote from BlizzardWelcome to a new year in the tavern, everyone! We have a balance update in the works that will go live later this week which includes the following changes, primarily for Standard and Battlegrounds:
Warlock
Fiendish Rites : Mana cost increased from (3) to (4).
Warrior
Scion of Ruin : Mana cost increased from (3) to (4) .
Ancharrr : Durability reduced from (3) to (2) .
Shaman
Dragon's Pack : Now reads, “…If you’ve Invoked twice, give them +2/+2 .” (reduced from +3/+3).
Invocation of Frost : Mana cost increased from (1) to (2).
Rogue
Necrium Apothecary : Mana cost increased from (4) to (5).
Neutral
Dragonqueen Alexstrasza: Battlecry effect can no longer generate Dragonqueen Alexstrasza.
*Once the update is live, adjusted cards will be eligible for a full Arcane Dust refund for two weeks.
Battlegrounds
This update includes several adjustments and gets more Heroes brawling in Bob’s Tavern than ever before! Further Battlegrounds balance changes are coming very soon, in addition to the exciting new content we have in the pipeline… we’ll have more to share in the near future!
Heroes
Shudderwock
Burbling: Cost reduced from (2) to (1) .
Queen Wagtoggle
Wax Warband : Give a random friendly Mech, Demon, Murloc and Beast +2 Attack . (instead of +1 Health)
Infinite Toki
Temporal Tavern : Cost reduced from (2) to (1) . Now reads, “Refresh Bob’s Tavern. Include a Minion from a higher Tavern Tier.”
Patches the Pirate
Has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
Fire the Cannons! : At the start of next combat, deal 4 damage to two random enemy minions. (increased from 3 damage)
Pyramad
Has returned to the Battlegrounds Hero Pool.
Brick by Brick : Give a random friendly minion +3 Health . (increased from +2 Health)
Minions
Golden Soul Juggler
After a friendly Demon dies, deal 3 damage to a random enemy minion twice . (instead of 6 damage once)
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
Battlegrounds : Selfless Hero’s Deathrattle will now only affect minions that do not already have Divine Shield.
Arena : The appearance rate of cards in the draft has been updated to ensure class balance remains close to the ideal 50% win-rate. Specifically, the win-rate of Druid, Hunter, and Paladin should now be decreased. The win-rate of Priest, Rogue, Shaman and Warlock should now be increased. Card appearance rates for Mage and Warrior remain untouched.
We made some visuals for these nerfs to better see the changes:
he said WILD
Do they even playtest before releasing a set? This many cards from the set shouldn't have to be nerfed
i think no
Are you really playing the game? Priest in wild has actually the LOWEST WINRATE, and Big Priest is by far not even near tier 3 right now, but let's say this doesn't matter: Big Priest is not a coinflip-deck, it's a FRICKING LATE GAME DECK, where when you get an aggressive opening, you almost can't win the game anymore. Big Priest also have counters, as every other deck out there. The difference between Big Priest and Deathrattle-Rogue is simply that the last one is a coinflip: you play on curve, you win, it doesn't matter what happen; the same bullcrap as Naga Sea witch was. You either had her and win the game on curve automatically or not. That's a bad way to play the game.
And Paladin: transform a minion, silence it, it actually has counters, just because you don't want to play them does not make it beatable; Althrough i agree that it needs a nerf; and yes, with a nerf i mean fricking Mechwarper; in general: no minion in the game that has an aura that reduce the mana cost of minions should reduce a minion to 0 mana. When a minion cost 0, it's overpowered, period. There is a reason why Summoning Portal does not reduce minions below 1 mana. And here it should simply be the same.
Yay a generous nerf for Galakrond decks! Laughs in paladin :'(
I just want to say something unrelated to the topic. The Scion of Ruin art is actually quite cool.
Ok, I hate this because of reasons:
1) you don’t create an overpowered set so that people spend more money on it, only to nerf it within a month!
2) nice job with galakrond priest blizzard. Your design and balance skills are comparable to a fart in the wind.
3) ok, seriously now. What is wrong with highlander decks? It is like they draw the card they need, exactly when they need it. Is there some secret ability, like if you have a highlander deck always draw early minions to play, always draw ziliax when you are low on health, and zephyrs is always in the top 5 cards of your deck.
Am I the only one experiencing this, or is blizzard “Helping” some way these expensive in dust decks?
This comment is worth about 1 duck. And that's being generous.
DR rogue will still be good, Galakrond warrior won't really change, Face hunter and res priest untouched, great.
The goal is not to make these decks unplayable but to make them less oppressive so other decks have a fair chance. If any of these decks remain problematic, they could go with another round of nerfs. I prefer that over something like making warsong commander completely useless (please change her to 2 mana).
I completely agree. I much prefer multiple smaller nerfs that don’t destroy archetypes. I just wish they had this philosophy back with old kingsbane :(
What a weak nerf for Galakrond Warrior with its Scion of Ruin . Still Barista combo strong AF! But they nerfed Alex battlecry.... ^_^
Shaman nerf again no need they not strong
Nice nerfs blizzard. You didn't fuck up this time. However, i'm not sure about Fiendish Rites tho.
Am I the only one who had never actually got Alextrasza form Alextrasza?
Yes
No. We're at least 2... I must admit not having played her a lot though
+1 count me on!
What's the point of making Ancharrr absolutely bad?
Arcane Intellect + 2/2 weapon is not absolutely bad.