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.
Well, time to go back to miracle/rally priest with sethekk and bloodweaver I guess.
You can't force me to spend mana on my cards! I refuse!
I do wonder whether Gibberling sees any play after this. My guess would be no, but Gibberling turns are still powerful slightly later in the game - the nuts Gibberling turn where they fill their board with 1/1s and then buff them on Turn 1 is still almost as powerful Turn 2. It may be one of the rare deceptively soft nerfs - I wouldn't bet on it, but it's a possibility.
RIP Renew. You shall not be missed.
Remember boys, priest isnt dead, its by far the best class rn in game, now looks more fair to play against
Not even top 5. Nice try though
Sure, i guess this top-1 deck is still playable
https://sharehs.com/priest/24331/
I don't really know if you're being ironic or not, but i'll upvote just so i don't get /woooshed
Good nerfs! Now lower Rockbiter Weapon and Stormstrike bonus attack dmg from 3 to 2 and their manacost by 1 and we're gucci.
Or just play Ooze if you're that worried about weapons.
Ooze is bad card, shaman has direct weapon draw and you can't directly draw ooze. I could reach legend with face shaman in 4 hours and pity warlocks running Ooze could do nothing to me.
Huh. Seems odd, I'm at about 60% winrate against face shaman. So you have to be doing SOMETHING wrong my guy. Are you playing aggro only?
I used this
https://sharehs.com/shaman/24321/
If you're losing mirror matches then the issue is absolutely you my guy, sorry
Maby you are a master player
wtf man, i face control players more often than mirrors and hunters, indeed i have to run hex to win this game
I'm an ok player, I can reach Diamond but I've never pushed hard enough to get to Legend. But anyone who plays around what you know is in the deck should be able to win.
You can either force them to burn their resources early, heal through it, put out more pressure than them, taunt up, or like I said just Ooze. This is the deck I was having the most success with:
https://youtu.be/4ZbdN4qFPAU
"Tech cards are useless because I can't draw them on demand!"
Uh what.
Is anyone really happy about these nerfs to Priest. Renew was simply a fair card. Same with apotheosis. Now both cards are nuked from orbit.
I cant believe the problem was that you felt the need to remove every minion. I felt that way for YEARS playing vs. Shaman and Druid. Still do vs. Druid. And yet that doesnt seem to be a problem.
So the meta now has no control and no combo decks. Yay?
Did folks really hate queing up against a deck with a playstyle that wasnt some flavor of mid-range??
So stupid. Its like they are just dumbing down the game on purpose now.
Apotheosis was absolutely not a fair card. Being able to heal to 30 and board clear from nothing was ridiculous.
And Renew with Veilweaver was the worst. Going into a priest matchup where they drop Veilweaver on 2 if you don't have an answer for it was basically an auto lose.
The meta has control. Go look at Kibler, basically everything he runs is some sort of control deck and he consistently pulls 70-80% winrates. I love using his decks, I'm obviously not as good as he is but I can still get 60-65% with them. People just don't play as much control because it requires actual work
The problem is that priest pushes out all slower decks. It's by far the best control deck right now and can shut down combo setups with Mindrender Illucia.
So nerfing priest will hopefully diversify the slower decks.
Also those nerfs are by no means a "nuke from orbit". Apotheosis probably remains playable but doesn't end fast matchups when paired with Blademaster Samuro.
Personally, I really like those nerfs freshing up the meta for the last month of this expansion and setting up more possibilities for slower decks in expansions to come.
1 mana cards that add a card to your hand are just not great to have in the game, especially when priest can discount it so easily.
Apotheosis nerf is pretty extreme, though.