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:
"Selfless Hero’s Deathrattle will now only affect minions that do not already have Divine Shield."
Hell, It's about time
I was thinking the same thing, it seemed pretty fair at 3 mana for what it does.
Galakrond zoo is currently a very good tier 1 deck so it needed some kind of a nerf. Im not sure this was the best one but it does the job. I would've prefered dragonblight cultist tbh.
Golden Soul Juggler
After a friendly Demon dies, wait twice as long for damage to resolve.
Further nerfs to galakrond shaman? didn't feel like it was that bonkers anymore.
Others seem fair. Curious how rez priest will perform now, all untouched it might get scary
The deck is still really good and dragons pack should have gotten nerfed last time for various reasons.
These are reasonable nerfs to Galakrond decks in standard ... Dragonqueen Alex nerf has me a bit upset as I just recently pulled 3 of her from the original to beat Dragon druid ... seemed fair and balanced to me!
I am just glad dragon´s pack, ancharr and necrium apothecary got nerfed :D This will make ranked so much more enjoyable!
Also galakrond shaman will be a lot weaker in general, should make some room for other midrange decks.
I think galakrond warrior will be the strongest deck in the game now, the nerf to scion does not rly matter, still amazing for 4 mana and playing it on curve was often impossible anyway. At least it is not longer possible to play it on the same turn you play galakrond ;D
Ps: I would also love to see a nerf to the face-hunter quest.
Face Hunter needs no nerfs. It's easy to counter
It has counters, but at the same time it has auto-win match ups. Not healthy for the game.
My dude what are you smoking? More varied decks? STD will be 80% warrior. A cesspool of crap were these nerfs.
I think warrior will be the strongest deck right after the nerf and people will play it a lot for a few days. Than the meta will adapt. There is more room for other interesting decks now. (most alternative decks could not deal with two 5/6 wolves turn five or the apothecary on coin / turn 4.)
And the Pickrate of Rafaam can grow on...
I scrolled through this whole thing looking for the announcement that he'd been removed. I'm very disappointed.
I'm not quite sure why they nerf Fiendish Rites, I guess it's to prevent Galakrond Zoolock from being too oppresive once the other classes are nerfed.
True that. Zoo is gonna climb quick with these nerfs.