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:
I got scared when I saw Alex on the nerf list.
That is perfectly acceptable. I never even thought of that happening. i don't get god tier high rolls.
all around these are some very tame nerfs. Good job i think. The only surprise was the fiendish rites.
The strongest deck right now is control galakrond warlock which uses 2 of them.
So, As I Wrote in the previous Thread:
Blizzard's strategy:
Let's print many broken cards in order to receive many preorders, we will nerf all after.
This is very dirty. Many people made the pre-order because the expansion was broken.
I pre-ordered because I had been gone for over a year. However, I knew that they would nerf the insanely strong cards. So pre-ordering essentially give me a really good shot to have a bunch of cards that would receive full dust refunds. That was what I was hoping for and exactly what I'm about to receive. Just from this particular nerf, I'll be getting 5,760 dust.
Galakrond warrior was one of the best decks and will be the best deck. Scion nerf is a joke.
I thought I would never dust my Golden Dragonqueen... Nevermind xD
For some of these changes: BLESS YOU!
If Blizzard checks this: PLEASE make a small editorial change to Queen Alexstrasza with this nerf. Insert the word "OTHER". (As in "add to OTHER dragons...").
And I love the changes for battlegrounds minions. It always felt bad, but better, to keep two soul jugglers instead of making a golden copy. And Dancing Derryl & Cobalt Guardian sincerely thanks you for the changes to Selfless Hero.
Does anyone know exactly when does the patch arrive? It says only later this week.
maybe tomorrow
9+ invocation of frost
8 fiendish rites + 1 golden
Regular + golden dragon's pack
1x necrium apothecary (has 3 in total but gonna keep my dupes).
And I have the rest but not gonna dust them.
All in all quite decent dust harvest.
No point disenchanting Alex. She played in all highlander decks!!
There is literally no reason to not disenchant every single card that you can get the full dust value for if you are not currently playing the deck.
If you end up wanting to play that deck at a later time you can just craft the card as usual and end up back at square one with no value lost.
The 'auto-win' matchups for face hunter are extremely greedy decks that want to mostly ignore the early game and not play any defensive tools (like warbringer rogue). I view that as a good thing, it keeps decks honest and ensures that every part of the game actually matters.
As tempting as it would be to get the 1600 dust from Alex...she's still too good so I won't even bother.
I’ve never gotten Alex in to Alex, so that hasn’t changed. Other than that, this gives more room for new possibilities.
Excellent nerfs, might actually make ladder fun to play again
Invocation of Frost No more rouge/warrior bullying in turn 1? XD
Some pretty sensible nerfs! Gj blizz!
Just gonna add; don't overlook the change to Invocation of Frost in how it affects Spirit of the Frog and Earthen Might
Embrace Highlander Hunter as your new lord.