Patch 20.8.2 - Balance Changes for Priest and Druid - Bugfixes
The Balance Changes coming in tomorrow, Thursday July 15th, for Priest and Druid, as well as some bug fixes. Check out the changes below!
This Patch Is Now LIVE!
Quote from BlizzardThe 20.8.2 patch, releasing on July 15, includes changes for three cards in Standard and three bug fixes for Battlegrounds.
Standard Balance Updates
Apotheosis
- Old: Give a minion +2/+3 and Lifesteal. → New: Give a minion +1/+2 and Lifesteal.
Dev Comment: We’re doing two Priest changes, targeting the burst healing available in the class and their generation capabilities. Let's start with Apotheosis—we are moving the buff down to +1/+2 to hit the card's general power and combo capabilities. While healing will always be a strength of Priest, we want to reduce the urgency felt when dealing with Priest's minions. Currently, it can feel like you must remove every Priest minion because of the threat Apotheosis poses. A slight reduction in the buff here should lessen that urgency and make the minions post-Apotheosis easier to deal with. The other side of this nerf is the Samuro + Apotheosis combo. The punishment for playing minions into this combo is too much at the moment, so while we'd like to keep some of that tension of resource commitment, we don't want the punishment to be a full heal for the opponent. The reduction in attack here helps get that combo into a healthier push/pull state.
Renew
- Old: [Costs 1] → New: [Costs 2]
Dev Comment: Renew is going to 2 mana. Heading into this patch, we wanted to knock some of Priest's generation potential as one of our main goals in Hearthstone is to have the cards you chose to include in your deck matter. We decided to change Renew specifically because we believe this change makes the largest impact towards curbing the chains of generation in Priest. At 2 mana, Renew has to be more thoughtful inclusion during deckbuilding, won't be generated by Wandmaker, and takes another mana reduction to get to 0. While Priest's identity looks different in future expansions, we wanted to take this opportunity to reign in their card generation and build a better match experience for both players.
Gibberling
- Old: [Costs 1] → New: [Costs 2]
Dev Comment: Gibberling is moving to 2 mana. Currently Gibberling is the cause of many "non-games", matches that are heavily lopsided in the early game and can have their outcome decided far too early. We want to lower the frequency of this occurrence and Gibberling at 2 mana should result in many more games where opponents can respond to an early board of this little menace.
The cards listed above will be eligible for a full dust refund for 2 weeks after the 20.8.2 patch goes live.
Game Improvements & Bug Fixes
- Updated the wording of Kurtrus Ashfallen’s fully upgraded Battlegrounds Hero Power to clarify its one-time completion (no functional change).
- Updated Archdruid Hamuul in Battlegrounds so that when your minion types are tied, he will not refresh Bob’s Tavern with minion types that are not in the pool.
- Adjusted Darkmoon Prizes to offer better Prizes for players on the bottom half of the leaderboard.
United in Stormwind Card List & Expansion Guide
Learn more and see all the cards in our dedicated Card List.
So we're nerfing cards that help you prolong face decks... why? Gosh forbid we love getting clapped by aggro. My favorite part is Demon Hunter, Hunter, and Mage going after my life only. Love Paladin getting endless buffs, Warlock sitting with a 6 mana 8/8. Yet we're worried about healing... really. Who is in charge personally on these decisions. I would enjoy a developmental insight into these.
they are catering to the top 1% of players only, the JAlexander crybaby types who whine about their "feels" when losing to Priest, ignoring the fact they only loose 50% of the time.
Imagine a guy named after Leeroy Jenkins that complains about face decks! Lol very ironic
The developer insight is at the top of this exact page homie. Generation was too strong, and playing against priest meant that you were rolling the dice every time you commit to the board. Too much generation means they almost always have the answer to what you present. When you have to play around every possibility every turn, you cant play around anything. its very tilting. There are stats out there that show a significant amount of people literally concede turn 1 against priest. Even if they are favored in the stats. why do you think people do that?
Smorc them all!
had 21 copies of giberling normie and 1 golden, nice dust, but rather they nerf shaman/hunter
Yeah. Although these cards were broken though. But they missed the mark with the wind fury elemental (-1 less health) AT MOST. And don’t make me start with DH King Krush.
I'd rather be smashed in the face and have it be over by turn 6 than be ground to dust in 20 minute games.
My theoretical approach to these nerfs is to prepare for the next expansion and maybe entails that Priest will have strong defensive tools and healing. Although with the release of the Shadowform Legendary card I reckon healing will be a strong identity next expansion.
Me go face but you no heal? SMORC happy.
Gibberling will not be missed. Bring back treants, atleast they had good thematics, and still flooded the board.
Ah yes let's nerf underwhelming classes because noob bad.
no KEKW
Honestly, I think they went too far with Renew. It should heal 5. Discover is 1 mana or so so, healing 3 is 0.5 mana (since Flashlight exists)... They hit priest VERY hard. Every aspect of the class got destroyed. It won't be able to control and have those tempo swings, since it relied heavily on combos for it. They crushed the card generation aspect (which I think it's ok) AND also killed most of it's healing, which I find stupid, a priest should heal. And I don't even like priest!
The other 2 nerfs are OK, but I think they missed the mark with Shaman (the mini A'lakir should have 4 health) and with DH's King Krush. For 1 less mana, it also trades and skips Freeze effects... How is that balanced? And even what makes it worse is that DH can also run N'Zoth, since it has a good menagerie package (opposite to Hunter). That thing should be a 10/10 for10 mana. It would only hit when you have a weapon (so it'll make trades with weapons a lot harder to do) or it would need to run a Tour Guide. That actually would be ok.
Just that you can't get renew now from wand maker makes me so happy.
They nerf priest and druid but dont touch dh... I dont understund.
Ok I get why Renew and Gibberling should cost 2, but shouldn't there also be another number going up? restore 5 and a 1/2 or something... The apotheosis nerf too actually. OK 2/3 can be a bit much, but then make it a +1/+1 2 mana spell at least.
Good ideas, bad execution.
You're trying to keep the power level of the card the same while they are trying to nerf it.
Exactly!
Because the problem (as I see it) is that the low cost or high stats had too much impact on the game. The problem with gibberling was the turn 1 win and Renew that it was a pseudo combo card. Apoth could require too much removal power from the opponent. There are plenty of cards that are more powerful but less problematic in this game.
Priest nerfs POG