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.
I'm happy and surprised they recognized wild players here.
Sacrificial Pact is probably the most deserving card of these to be nerfed. Now that demons are a way more common minion type it's really oppressive powerful and preventing a lot of cool cards from seeing play (Mostly from DHs). The easiest Nerf I see is that it can only target your own minions. May Jaraxxus rejoice.
I'd say Bad Luck Albatross is nearly as bad as Sacrificial pact in terms of oppressiveness. It's a well statted 3 mana 4/3 that kills several different deck types like highlander and pure paladin for little to no cost for running it. My guess is either it will go to 5 mana or be nerfed to a 2/3.
Frenzied Felwing is probably the least offensive of these four cards however it's a bit on the powerful side. I think the only deck that uses it is aggro demon hunter which can easily play it or even two on turn two with battlefiend turn 1, hero power attack for 1 then 3 on turn two. However, with Sacrificial pact being nerfed I can see it getting much worse. My guess is it's gonna be nerfed to 5.
Kael'thas Sunstrider is probably my least favorite new card. Who thought it was a good idea to release this card while Demon Hunters have a 0 mana twinspell card and an 8 mana deal 8 damage which you can't even block with taunt thanks to Kayn being conveniently 4 mana? This doesn't even include the bull crap spell druid is doing with the card. I'm willing to bet the only nerf it will see is the free spell being the 4th one instead of the third however I'd love to see it go ti 7 as well so it cant be played with Kayn.
As for the two demon hunter cards I think will be nerfed. My easy guess is Battlefiend, it's nearly pre Nerf undertaker levels of oppressive if your opponent plays it turn 1 and you dont have an answer. My guess is it will be nerfed to a 1/2 stat-line. This way it's still playable but no where near as agressive of a start if played on turn 1. Also you'll have to try a lot harder to get a free frenzied felwing on turn 2 with it.
My other guess for nerfs is Priestess of Fury. While it isn't anywhere near as prevalent as Battlefiend right now, the only reason for that is because Sacrificial pact is in literally every warlock deck. Back on day 1 and 2, raging felscreamer into a turn 5 priestess of fury was a game ender if there was no answer and with seven health it was a hard card to answer. I'm willing to bet it'll be nerfed to a 6/5, still a really impactful card, but not as devastating if its out on turn 5.
I agree with most of this however I doubt priestess will be nerfed. Altruis is way worse.
I think the best nerf to Kael'thas would be to make him how he was originally going to be, the third spell is free, not every third spell.
nerfing quest mage will probably bring raza priest to the throne
fuck it, it's worth
Yeah youre right the only Problem raza priest has is the Tempo from quest mage. I did only win 2 times against quest mage after getting raza at 5 and anduin at 7. 😂 I Think aggro matchups arent the problem. There are so many options and so much heal to beat them.
I'm not sure if Lord Jaraxxus will also be unaffected by Repentance and Snipe but the card will still be unplayable because of the nerfed health compared to other hero cards. Many decks can pull 15 damage at turn 9 these days.
Will they refund the 2800 gold I spent to get Felwing?
Sacrificial pact and Albatross definitely should see heavy nerfs and it will make a big difference in the meta I think because those cards are as close to win buttons as there are in standard right now.
I doubt nerfing Open the Waygate will do as much as people expect it will to curb mage dominance in wild. Their toolkit is just so broad and the spells so efficient, it is difficult for non-combo decks to reach their win condition.
I don't even use the quest card and have pretty ridic win rates with dragon highlander, big control mage, spellmage, and even elemental mage. TBH it is hard to make a bad mage deck in wild.
Yes mage is strong in wild, but at least every archetype that does not involve the quest (even secret mage) feels ok to play against( i don`t mind losing to Decks of Wonders and Yogg boxes, but i hate not playing for 3 turns and dying. They can complete the quest before turn 5 usually and if they have a giant/flamewaker even win vs aggro.
Yeah, I'm not saying Open the Waygate shouldn't be nerfed - it should, for the reasons you say, I just think people who are expecting mage to drop tiers with that one nerf would be mistaken. I don't think it will shake up the Wild meta the way a nerf to sac pact and albatross would in Standard.
Nerfing tech cards...
Sac pack is an oppressive tech card that needs to go if demons are going to be more common.
Free lord Jaraxxus!
Jaraxxus' se problem is not sac pact, is that he sets your max health in 15, an easy to archive amount of damage for most decks, I remember dark when hand lock was everywhere, and Jaraxxus was a prominent card in the meta, not a single warlock ran sac pact in their it's deck to counter he posible enemy Jaraxxus, if blizzard really wants to make Jaraxxus a playable card, they should buff the life total he gives to the player, I already said the best way is make him a hero card that sets your health in 15-20 and equips the weapon as battle cry, the way he is inmune to sac pact being a hero card instead of a minion with the demon tag that replaces your hero. 15-20 heath + 5 armor from the hero card is reasonable, a and maybe a little nerf to the hero power to not become so oppressive in the long games like 5/5, 4/5 or 4/4 infernals
Wow, this might be the best set of nerfs since Naga Sea Witch. I almost hope they don't touch the albatross, though. Even though I play almost exclusively highlander (I just counted and 11/15 of my current decks built are highlander, and two of the other 4 are Zayle and Whizbang) I think that the albatross is a necessary card. Maybe nerf it to a 3/3 or make it 4 mana, but it should be kept around and not nerfed to something like 'put 1 albatross in the opponent's deck'.
Sac pact seems reasonable except for the Jaraxxus interaction. I'm okay with it targeting enemy demons, since that's a tech choice, just like that 4/3 for 3 that silences a demon (Light's something or other; I should know this, considering how many golden ones I pulled, but I don't) is a tech choice against demons for the other classes.
Quest mage and Bloodbloom definitely need nerfing, though. I remember posting when Bloodbloom was spoiled that the card wasn't a problem that day, but that one day in the future it would be. That day has come. I said the same thing about Barnes when it came out, too, but back then, you either built around it (like having only 1 or a few targets) or you accepted that half the time it would just make a vanilla 1/1. And resurrect priest's most powerful move used to be bringing back Injured Blademaster as a 4/7 on 4... :p I didn't foresee resurrect priest being such a problem, though, but I suppose stuff like Shadow Essence wasn't around back then.
Kaelthas is absolutely bonkers and when it was spoiled, I think everyone knew exactly how OP it would be, or else they were new to Hearthstone. Hopefully it gets changed to only discount the third spell per turn, instead of the sixth, ninth, twelfth, and so on as well, because as anyone higher than bronze rank knew, the count easily gets that high.
Frenzied Felwing... I thought this would be the original Corridor Creeper, not quite as good obviously, but one that would be in every aggro deck ever. I've seen it once so far at Diamond rank, in the otherwise netdeck aggro demon hunter. I'm not sure why it's not seeing way more play, but it should be with its current stats.
Also glad to see they're looking at Demon Hunter again. The worst offenders right now are the 1 mana 2/2 that grows on attack, the 3 mana 4/2 satyr that barfs out 2/2s on attack, and the 6/7 priestess of fury, which would be complained about a lot more if demon hunter games ever got to turn 7. Imprisoned Antean is really strong as well, but the games rarely last long enough to find out. Honestly, Skull of Guldan needs even more work to be balanced; it's still OP. 3 mana discount on 3 cards is just way too much.
I understand that Albatross is an important technical card against several decks, but it ruins the aspect of running those decks if a card like this exists and is very cheap to play. I mean it killed Pure Paladin, and hell Paladin never got a decent Archetype anyways, minion only mage and highlander are unplayable because of it. It should've never been printed, a hard counter to specific decks when we never got anything to counter Galakrond was not a justified addition to the game. Now I could be biased, but this is not the direction we want Hearthstone to go in, a Neutral card to win you the game from the start if you get it early on.
So would Sac Pac work as a zero cost that only targets friendly demons?
Also, how do we buff Jaraxxus?
I'd be more than keen if they are actually buffing Jaraxxus
I think they'll make it cost 1, and Jaraxxus'll be untargetable. This last thing is pretty obvious since they mentioned that they're going to nerf it and that they'd love seeing Jaraxxus in the meta. Sac pact it's the main reason why Jaraxxus was always unplayable.
It would be good if they make it a hero card and give it 5 more armor. I think that the 15 hp is fine because the card has a good hero power.