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:
Actual nice changes. 800 dust here I come (Necrium Apothecary)
For the love of god nerf priest, for example make butterhead 9 mana so they cant heropower it.
they need to collect more info about slow poison animation i guess
I think the Battlegrounds changes are actually pretty solid. Good stuff coming up :)
It feels like they refresh Battlegrounds as much as we refresh Bob's Tavern.
Shaman should be fine. We just have to replace Earthen Might with a 1-cost spell to draw Invocation of Frost or Witch's Brew which helps vs face hunter. The only 1-cost spell Shaman will have is Earth Shock.
Battlegrounds Poison effect ResidentSleeper
why not improve this so long ?? kappa
I have 1200 gold, do you guys think i should buy 12 packs just to get some extra copies of the nerfed cards, or wait for the adventure later this month that costs gold?
No. Save your gold.
The dumbest question I have heard
That was a legit question IMHO
I buy 1 pack every 2 days and get about +50 gold total every 2 days which let me have 2800 gold I need for the adventure by february.
A better question is: Why do they keep making Hero cards when every single previous attempt has proven nearly impossible to balance?
And this round of Heroes was even more complex than all the previous ones, making the task even more impossible.
Hunter was strong because Galakrond Shaman was strong. But it's easily countered: it's weak against Warrior and especially priest.
It was around 60% winrate, and yes, it is a problem: it is actually exactly the same problem as Naga Sea Witch: it didn't had the biggest winrate of all decks, but it was a coin toss: you either draw the right cards and have a 100% win chance or not. That's simply not fun, and the biggest issue of this cards. The nerf right now allow most classes to deal with it one way or another. The card is overpowered at 4 mana because of the insane curve, but mediocre at 5. And that's much better.
So yes, even if this deck was max tier 3 (and i doubt it that it would have stayed there or that it even was at tier 3), but to play against coin toss decks is simply not fun. You win it, you lose it, but you can't play against it, since you either win the game definitively or not. You can't even tech against it, it's just a game of luck. At 5 it's no longer a game of luck, and the curve do not longer exist, and that's important.
And why nerf this and leave garbage like Big Priest untouched for like a year? That was essentially just a coinflip deck. Or not nerf Mech Paladin that is able to produce 15/15 worth of stats with divine shield by turn 3-4. Mech Paladin can draw openers that are literally unbeatable no matter how good you draw. That is essentially a coin flip too. I get your point, but Blizzard honestly doesnt seem to give the slightest about decks that can consistently just luck out an guaranteed win.
Where are the hunter nerfs? Face hunter is almost the only deck thats being played at smaller ranks...
Hahaha get ripped off kids with the preorders, they wanted the $$$$
Now enjoy the waste of money and the resurrection priest meta that is not even this expansion deck
Goodbye golden Ancharr in my collection, so sad i never played you even once.
While not getting Alex from Alex sucks, not worth disenchanting for the insane value you can still get.