Battlegrounds - Deathwing Nerf Coming and More
Dean "IksarHS" Ayala continued his twitter activity and posted about a host of Battlegrounds related topics. Most eye-catching among his statements was the fact Blizzard have been playtesting Deathwing at +2 attack on his hero power (currently +3) and will likely nerf him to that soon. He also mentions that Millhouse Manastorm needs a buff!
Read all Dean had to say below:
Quote from Blizzard10 Battlegrounds Fun Facts!
1. Murloc Tidehunter is the most picked Tier 1 Minion. Spawn of N'Zoth for Tier 2, Cobalt Guardian for Tier 3, Defender of Argus for Tier 4, Brann Bronzebeard for tier 5, and Ghastcoiler for Tier 6.
Quote from Blizzard2. Dancin' Deryl is the 2nd most played hero on the NA, EU, and Asia servers. He is the 11th most played hero on the Chinese server.
Quote from Blizzard3. Reno Jackson is the 4th most picked hero, but has the 24th highest placement ranking among all heroes. Ragnaros is 23rd place and Pyramad is 25th.
Quote from Blizzard4. Among 5k+ rated players, Jaraxxus has the 28th highest average placement. Among players with less than 5k rating, Jaraxxus is the 5th highest average placement. Among <5k rated players, he has the 2nd highest top 4 rate (69.5%), only behind Deathwing.
Quote from Blizzard5. Among 5k+ rated players, The Great Akazamzarak has the 8th highest average placement. Among players with less than 5k rating, The Great Akazamzarak is the 20th highest average placement.
Quote from Blizzard6. Lich Baz'hial has the 4th lowest average placement, but the 9th highest rate of 1st place finishes.
Quote from Blizzard7. The least powerful hero in all regions at all levels is Millhouse Manastorm. He has the lowest average placement and lowest rate of top 4 and top 1. He could use a buff :).
Quote from Blizzard8. Among 11k+ rated players. Nozdormu has the highest average placement.
Quote from Blizzard9. Deathwing is the most powerful hero in all regions at all levels outside the very, very top rated players. We're playtesting him internally at +2 attack and will likely nerf him to that soon (tm).
Quote from Blizzard10. The most powerful hero in all regions at all levels was Tirion. We playtested with his hero power at (2) mana and it felt like too big of a detriment. We also thought about changing the minion pool but opted to take some more time to playtest internally while we deactivate.
We can only post the news that Blizzard comes out with. Blizzard did say there would be more news in mid March however, so maybe hang in there a little longer. :)
I'm not sure if reducing Deathwing's passive to +2 attack is enough, since the Token advantage is still huge, making him borderline invincible in the first 2-4 turns, and Rat Pack would still carry him quite a bit.
In addition to nerfing Deathwing, Infested Wolf and Rat Pack should swap tiers, because aside from initial stats (and only a 1/1 difference), Rat Pack is way stronger, and a big reason why Deathwing oftentimes ends up inflicting around 10 damage to everyone else on his rush to Tier 5/6. And even with that, he might still be just a little too good. Especially compared to some of the weaker heroes.
Besides Millhouse, I hope they also change or replace Millificent. With so many mechs gone, especially those with Divine Shield, she feels super weak.
I think it'd make a significant enough difference to have Deathwing at +2 and not +3. There's enough 4 health stuff out there that won't die to a single 1/1 token, and 3/3 stuff with Spawn of N'Zoth will now survive as well. An otherwise unbuffed Rat Pack goes from 25 damage (across the various tokens) down to 16 damage.
Is Deathwing likely to still be quite good? Sure. But I don't necessarily think it'd be problematically strong.
//
I'd love to see Infested Wolf deleted, Rat Pack moved to 3, and have some new beast created for Tier 2. The new dragons invented for BG have been really cool, and it'd be nice to see standard HS minions removed bit-by-bit for more interesting designs. The fact that there are three beasts (Wolf, Rat, and Grandmother) which are all essentially the same in two tavern tier levels is... kind of silly.
//
With Millificent, I wonder if either undoing her earlier nerf (so she gives +1/+1 to mechs in the tavern), or making her ability an aura on all mechs (so her mech tokens would be +1 attack) would work...
Millhouse is so bad for the same reason Nozdormu is so good. The mode is all about those rolls, man.
Your suggestion is far too strong imho. Imagine he can straight up buy double 2 star on turn 3 and then potentially three 2 stars selling only the 1-star. That's just too much of a buff. But I must admit that I also don't have an idea how he can be balanced because every idea seems to either leave him to weak or buff him over the top.
Add in the Bartendotron effect? Cheaper tier-ups saves at least a little gold, makes it easier to weave in with his odd buying.
I love to see all this extra data, gives so much more insight on the current state of battlegrounds.
And that's why Hearthstone would, in my opinion, be way more fun without statistics / tier lists / winrates / hsreplay.
Well, to me it is a sign that a fun hero makes people play it no matter the power level.
Except that those statistics weren't public yet, so people didn't know his power level. The pick rate will probably go down dramatically once most people know it's not actually very good, which could be avoided by not telling us the statistics.
People are picking him because they find him fun and he's new - we don't need stats to know if a hero is strong or not, everybody could tell Tirion was strong and everyone can tell that Deathwing is insane, it only takes playing the game to notice.
I think everyone (decent) always knew that Reno was average at best - the minions that are worth spending 4 gold on to immediately golden and win off of (which is what you want off a 1-use hero power that costs so much) tend to be tier 5, so you're looking at a hero that has no power for most of the game, and then has to get lucky to get one of those back-breaking minions to launch off of. There are very few minions below tier 5 worth goldening - most just get stats, which is the problem - though I did see one player do it to a Wrath Weaver which has merit due to the growth factor (Hangry Dragon might be similar if you've started strongly).
Personally, I'm 2-for-2 with Reno at the 6k region. Tiny sample size, I know, but he's very enjoyable even if he is below average overall, as his high rolls are really freaking high. First game I got a Lightfang, goldened, already had 4/5 Menagerie on that turn, and completed it to 5/5 on the next turn. That kind of no-gold buffing takes a good build to beat. Second game, a triple'd into a Razorgore - which I wasn't immediately sold on as I wasn't dragons at all - then on my first tier 5 turn got a second Razorgore and committed to it, and with Kalec coming a few turns later to help things out I developed a monstrous board. The golden got up to 163/167, the other two I ended up with were 61/63 and 94/96 respectively, along with a sizeable Kalec, DS/reborn dragon, and two DS givers (as 2nd and 3rd both had divine shield or givers in their minions, I had to include two to gain ascendancy).
However, what should usually happen with Reno; you chug along as normal, maybe doing well, maybe not (depends on what cards you roll). On average, you're probably in the bottom 4 just because you don't have a hero power whereas other players do. You get to tier 4 and triple (if you're lucky), or you get to tier 5 normally. And then, on average, you probably won't immediately get Lightfang/Baron/Brann and maaaybe one or two other fives depending on your build (ie. Razorgore is worthwhile if you're already dragons), and after you get that card you still need to unlock its power in most cases and catch up. But, on average, you probably won't, and will probably lose.
It’s all great but I hope they share HoF cards soon.
Blizzard said it would come in the middle of March, so likely this week. Traditionally, these announcements comes Tuesdays, so tomorrow is a good guess. But it could be any day in this week IMO.
My guess is that we get a teaser of the new expansion today, and then announcement tomorrow, can't wait, let's hope.
Battleground feels like a roller coaster.. with nerfs and buffs.. i wonder where is the end of it lol :D
Well battlegrounds is currently in beta and games in beta will get updated a lot. I also feel like constantly adding changes to the game is very good for any online game out there as it really increases the replayability and makes things more fun for everyone. Which is something they really should be doing to constructed as well.
When they retire the mode
Oh wow, more battlegrounds! So exciting, I can hardly contain myself!
you mean I can't just get a rat on turn 3 and coast my way tier 6 on the gravy train anymore? DW isn't overpowered, its straight up broken. cobalt has needed tweaking for ages, stats just prove it even more so, T4 is to much of a nerf, maybe adjust starting stats?