Rough Outline of Coming Balance Changes - Including Sac Pact, Albatross & Kael'thas
Blizzard did a reddit AMA and one of the questions asked was about the upcoming Balance Patch that was posted about in our news last week. We have their answer below, which includes mention of changes to Sacrificial Pact ,Bad Luck Albatross ,Frenzied Felwing ,Kael'thas Sunstrider and the Demon Hunter class with 1 or 2 more cards and more! Read all about it below:
Quote from BlizzardHey! We are planning something soon, but here I will shed light on what we are looking at.
With the Year of the Phoenix and Demon Hunter especially, we want to make sure we are active with our approach to balance. There will be additional changes coming shortly that is focused on Demon Hunter, Standard, Wild, and Arena.
For Demon Hunter, we are still monitoring the data as it comes in but expect 1 or 2 cards to see a change. We are thrilled by how players have responded to Demon Hunter, but we want the class to be in a healthy state for years to come. Will be adjusting as we see fit in order to get it into a great spot.
For other standard cards, we are looking at a number of cards including Sacrificial Pact, Bad Luck Albatross, Frenzied Felwing, and Kael'thas Sunstrider. Some of these cards present some raw power that is just a little too high (Bad Luck Albatross, Frenzied Felwing), while a card like Kael'Thas can create some crazy swing turns but that's usually only fun for one player. Kael'Thas is a super interesting card though so we don't want to kill off his combo potential entirely.
When it comes to Sac Pac, we don't believe it is fun if it plays such a large role in the metagame. That says a lot about where the meta is and your ability to play certain cards. Also, it would be awesome to see more Lord Jaraxxus!
For Wild, we know there has been a lot of very strong reactions to Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock. These decks play in a one-player fashion similar to other decks we've nerfed in the past. There's going to be crazy combos in Wild, but we don't think these two decks in particular are healthy. Expect to see changes to Open the Waygate and Bloodbloom.
Finally for Arena, we are looking to do a full microadjust patch alongside these changes or shortly after. DH is still a little too strong here and we want to bring up the other classes to close this gap.
nice job blizzard, and the secret mage? nerfing some decks but leaving the worst of them free to continue reigning
Looks like really good changes.
In this hard times we are faceing this fking vomi.t shi.t called game is the worst thing u should do!!!!!
I mean, I don't like blizzard's recent decisions either but you should really calm down.
That's totally pointless though if their intent with Albatross was to make an anti-highlander card. Nothing wrong with having a 1 or 0 cost 1/1 that draws a card when played, if they don't want to do it when draw (and they definitely can do it when drawn, given that Aranasi Broodmother can heal 4 when drawn).
Sacrificial Pact's interaction has always been broken, but they've never released an expansion focusing on demons before. One class getting 0 cost hard removal that gains significant life is beyond broken. Having Zephrys able to generate it at will is broken. And the Jaraxxus interaction has been stupid from the start.
They should have changed this before the expansion, but as we saw they didn't do any testing.
I agree with this. Sometimes I think I locked a game because I have the total control of the board and a decent amount of health and they drop him, skull of Guldan, and suddenly I have no board, my health is not so high anymore and I have his board to clear. I was thinking that priestess was a problem, but she is only good when they are already ahead and put you under pressure, doesn't allow crazy comebacks like altruis
"For Wild, we know there has been a lot of very strong reactions to Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock."
How about the secret mage ? are you guys deaf or something didn't you heard any secret mage reaction?
YES, but, honestly, whenever I TRY to play that deck, I get wrecked. I just don't understand the game sometimes. I guess I am just a bad player.
"When it comes to Sac Pac, we don't believe it is fun if it plays such a large role in the metagame. That says a lot about where the meta is and your ability to play certain cards"
So cards that play a large role in the metagame are not fun? According to this logic, shouldn't they nerf like 90% of their cards then? What kind of bizarre logic is this?
Also, I don't know about you guys, but this entire post is just weird. Like when it says it "We are thrilled by how players have responded to Demon Hunter"
Uhm, wtf? People played it like crazy because it is OP with a super high win %. If it was as bad as warrior, no one would play it. Further, DH mostly just pissed everyone off, so you were thrilled people were pissed off? Weird, man.
They go on to talk about how they plan to nerf it more to make it healthier in the long run, like they didn't just totally crap the bed.
What a bizarre post.
I totally agree with you on the DH part. As for the Sac Pac part, I think what they mean is that a tech card shouldn't be so relevant in the meta. Tech cards are typically meant to either keep certain decks from getting completely out of hand, or help out if your deck has certain bad match-ups (such as adding in anti-secret cards if your deck's main issue is secret mage). Their issue here is that demons are so common that this can be an easy include as you're very likely to have a target in a lot of match-ups.
I think that he issue is more the fact that the card has gone from only being useful in the mirror to being one of the tools that allowed warlock to keep DH in check.
And let's face it, 0 mana destroy a minion+heal 5 is busted and the card right now is keeping a lot of the new demons intruduced in the expansion from being playable.
they thrilled because of all the $ they've made.
...may some off-topic, but during AMA, there was one interesting response, that should be mention:
As usual, they bait you with a nice set, new powerful minions and combos just to get your money. Then they funk you sideways by nerfing cards after a few days. Just after you've dusted all your other cards just to build that shiny new toy. People should be able to sue over these things. Funk full dust refund.
Nerfing should be scheduled and limited to only once per set. Blizzard is very lazy in the development process. They do their beta test after the live date yet they sell you a half-baked cookie and charge you full price.
I agree, but when I tried to upvote this is gave it a minus, weird! I feel EXACTLY the same way bro. it's ludicrous. F them.
How stupid are you? Nerfing cards is good for the game. If you like to abuse broken cards and mechanics, don't be surprised when shit gets nerfed. If cards didn't get nerfed the game would be incredibly broken and incredibly stale.
The problem is that while it's technically designed to counter highlander and pure decks - it has no downside because its effect is also strong against non-highlander/pure decks as it delays their draws. I proposed this as a change, but it was downvoted heavily so I suspect making it a battlecry would just cause even more problems:
It should be a 1/2 for 4 mana with that battle cry.
Why not leave the stats and let him draw you an additional card when you draw the 1/1s? This way it's still a tech to Highlander, but does nothing against other decks other than giving you a free 1/1.