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 like that better actually, good idea.
i think the 3 biggest problem cards right now are: Altruis the Outcast is completely broken. it should not deal face damage and be 4 mana. Battlefiend is waaaaaay more powerful than any 1 drop should be. it's just Mana Wyrm on steroids. definitely needs a nerf. at least -1 atk. -1 health would be even better.
and then there is Bad Luck Albatross a card with no downside that completly dominates the meta right now. decks like pure libram paladin or spell mage are impossible to play, just as a side effect. best nerf would be to make it a symmetrical effect. this way there would be downsides to consider
I think it would be fine if Altruis the Outcast does not deal face damage. The stats are ok.
1) Sacrificial Pact is only OP because you made DH OP. Card was dead before then and should've never interacted with the Jarraxus hero.
2)Albatross is where tech cards should be. Look at how much useless anti-tech we got in the last year. Although it is overstated (like a whole lot of stuff the last year) Change it to 3/3
3)Frenzied Felwing needs to be a 3 mana 2/2 or at least changed to 3/2. The problem with it is that the 3 hp is too hard to deal with.
If cards need balance changes, make the changes. Please don't see 'moving things to Wild' as a solution. Some of us actually play (and love) Wild. Sure, Blizz isn't going to make Wild balanced completely (not saying they should/could), but if something is clearly broken then they should nerf or tweak it.
because zephrys makes it completely unplayable. jaraxxus is a class legendary in the classic set, so its supposed to see play
I don't mind Albatross I just hate cards that abuse it. Perhaps the deathrattle could add (Max of two) so you cant shuffle more than 2 into a deck at a time. They'll never know when you draw them.
they could nerf Ress Priest.. that crap cant be beaten.. and no im not playing Demon hunter.. seriosuly what can you do agains that crappy crap ??
This is what Lord Jaraxxus should have been in the first place..
When Lord Jaraxxus came, he was a gimmick legendary in a way. Very unique, the first of his kind, and the only minion in the game that could transform your Hero besides Majordomo Executus when Blackrock came out. They should have made this change the moment Knights of the Frozen Throne was released. If they were able to change Queen of Pain and Wickerflame Burnbristle, they easily could have done this.
My only gripe with this edit is that the Battlecry should also say: "Set your health to 15."
Edit: Forgot they also changed the name of Mistress of Pain
A quick look on HSReplay shows Res Priest as the #3 deck.
Where its been for about a year.
They really talked about Quest Mage and Darkest Hour Warlock but forgotten how broken is Highlander priest with 0 mana hero power?
oh jesus.. i dont even want to see that.. i have problem with even ress priest...
i see. the game still sucks and the devs are still incompetent 🤷🏻♂️ nothing new then..
pretty much.. :/ where the heck is new adventure ??
I think Donald Trump took over blizzard, why not promote retard rush aggro even more, fake news i guess ... intresting expansion, badly tested by people who don't understand what a healthy meta is...
I never react to those announcement but this time its just a joke!
Sacrifical Pact, yes warlock is to good atm, but that is not the problem, the problem is galakrond... sacrificial atleast puts a dent in DH
Bad Luck Albatross: maybe make it 3/3, if you touch mana cost or its function, you need to ban alex and the genie, spellmage is a stupid development anyway rng can be tested when playing blackjack
Frenzied Felwing is a very good aggro tool one that gives an edge but i don't see it being the problem, but the enablers to make this a to early drop
Kaelthas might be a problem yes, but not now as you die 9 in the 10 cases to dumb handdumpers first.
So what is problematic?
DH the entire class, just cut it again, its garbage, like the idea, but it just kills everything.
Galakrond in all its form move to wild WAAAAAYYYYY to op
Pirate and murlock synergies are again to easy formed into a perfect storm.
Druid might need some tweaking here and there...
And please for once allow control to be playable wihout being depend of stupid rng!!
Nerfing Sac Pact isn't gonna make Jaraxxus see play. Making 6+ points of burst damage from hand not a given quantity for any class to be able to do at any time is what's gonna make Jaraxxus see play.
All of this is pretty cool. I'm really looking forward to see Bloodbloom and Open the Waygate finally getting hit. That would be 2 of the best things that could happen to wild. I don't hate Bloodbloom for allowing you to go big turn 2, but actually because it has something to do with Mecha'Thun - Warlocks and I despise those.
The only thing I don't understand is the statement Bad Luck Albatross would give you some "raw power". What exactly do they mean by that? It's perfectly fine in my eyes, but we'll see, they'll probably just nerf it slightly, like increase the mana cost by 1 or something like that.
I think the power of Bad Luck Albatross is best to calculate in control vs control matchup.
When you play value+board control game forcing opponent to draw 2 useless cards instead of anything that can impact the board can be deadly.
In a long 15+ turn games, tempo considering I think this way:
- 3 mana 4/3 battlecry: opponent shuffles 2 cards from his hand into his deck
- 3 mana 4/3 battlecry: polymorph a random enemy minion
- 3 mana 4/3 battlecry: put the counterspell secret into the battlefield
It feels like polymorph or counterspell implicitly
- a card and mana is considered waster if a minion is polyed or spell is countered
- a card and mana can be considered wasted if you have 10 mana but won't use it because instead of big minions or impactfull spells you have 1/1 and other cards that do not fit the board state
Vs aggro not sure. Sometimes you delay a deadly cards forcing a 1/1 draw and 4/3 is not such a bad body. Sometimes that 1/1 token perfectly fills mana curve and delivers the last hit to you.
So question of tempo+power is to the control vs control matchup.
They just introduced Spell Mage and Bad Luck Albatross shuts it down pretty hard, in addition to shutting down all Highlander cards. For a card with almost no drawbacks (4/3 Beast for 3) that is probably to much power. I personally think a nerf is justified, either +1 mana like you suggested or worse stats.