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:
It is, because Pirate Warrior is already bad compared to any Galakrond Warrior deck.
"Selfless Hero’s Deathrattle will now only affect minions that do not already have Divine Shield."
Glorious.
Changing one mana cost has more effect than most noobs think. It's about finding a balance, not completely ruining cards until they never see play again. Most of those changes are what the community called for during the last nerf not long ago, so it's actually a good thing.
i was talking about wild :P
"Golden Soul Juggler
After a friendly Demon dies, deal 3 damage to a random enemy minion twice . (instead of 6 damage once)"
Did they just buff it or am I reading it wrong?
Anyway most of those nerfs don't do much so I guess we have to wait for 2nd nerf wave.
Breaks divine shields,, so I would say that it is a buff
Yeah and that's wierd because this minion was already really strong for it's tier and now it's just better.
Edit: I guess they just want to make mech build weaker.
Demons are the worst tribe in battlegrounds so they could use a slight buff.
Wow, how can you be this wrong. Demons are the best performing tribe right now, in the super late game they lose to a great murloc build, but they're the strategy that most consistently places first.
They are only weak vs poison which kills your 300hp minion and Zapp Slywick who deals really fast with Soul Juggler. And demons are not the best since you don't get Divineshield, their utility is THE LOWEST and there is only 9 demons+like one buff neutral.
I mean you can claim that all you want but stats consistently show demons are the tribe that has the best average MMR gain per game. They're not the best at getting first place with, but they're the best at getting top 3, and that's more important statistically. Look it up. Stats trump anecdotal experience every time.
They have the best early power with turn 1 2/4, Juggler if you get him right after getting tavern 3 when you have few demons already and the deal 1 damage for +2/2 with +2/2 when you take damage. Demons just get weaker after a while but they can still get 1st if you get the buffs right and destroy everyone with early 5+ damage to face.(or if ppl just suck)
Edit: also they are really easy to use
Hope they fix arena too, it's literally unplayable right now.
those nerfs ahah.
scion 4 mana won't change how broken the card is (it is still 4 mana 9/6 with rush and with galakrond buff 4 mana 21/18). and still the warrior can deal huge amount of damage with the invoke cards and the combo with charge (which is 16 and more damage in 1 turn).
warlock didn't need that fiendish rites nerf.
Alexstrasza nerf it's ok I guess.
didn't see any real nerf
These nerfs seems to be so superficial. They always just change mana cost, only one card got status nerfed.
I actually prefer these slight nerfs over the old-fashioned ones that completely killed the card (i.e. Warsong Commander).
I ll dust de crap out Ancharrr !!!
Great ! This is what Battlegrounds Shudderwock and Infinite Toki needed to be competitive with the top tier.
I’m just not sure if Queen Wagtoggle isn’t too op now. Getting the right zoo or Cave Hydra early will be devastating.
i'm sad secret mage isnt affected... Currently played 160 games in wild and faced Mage 28.8% of the time... Where if you count only secret mages its close to 25%...
what rank? you barely see mages above rank 5 in standard.