Hearthstone Mercenaries: Lunaloveee PvP Tier List - The Most OP Mercenary
At the end of the first week we have Lunaloveee's PvP Tier List, quite possibly the most OP Hearthstone Mercenary and some questions for you!
Lunaloveee PvP Tier List
We already brought you Thijs' Hearthstone Mercenaries Tier List last week, but Americas Hearthstone Grandmaster Lunaloveee came out with her best Hearthstone Mercenaries Tier List and it is markedly different, most likely shaped by a changed Meta that is slowly getting figured out and by her interactions with other top 50 players at above ~7500 rating in Americas.
Lunaloveee Tier list. Click for larger version!
The Most OP Mercenary?
The top end of Lunaloveee's Hearthstone Mercenaries Tier List seems to revolve around Mercenaries that either increase or decrease Speed. The concept of Speed Cheating, much like Mana Cheating in constructed, is very powerful because it lets you do things before your opponent has a chance to do things. And when your can act before your opponent does, his Mercs usually die. Which brings us to Cairne Bloodhoof.
Cairne's ability to speed everything up for your whole Party with his ability Endurance Aura {0} is incredibly strong, which lead Lunaloveee to comment that Cairne Bloodhoof was probably the most OP Hearthstone Mercenary. She also commented that his inclusion in basically every high level Party means it sort of turns into a coin-flip simulator with whoever gets their Endurance Aura to go off first, winning the game.
One Week In - Questions
At the end of the first week, we'd love to know your thoughts on Hearthstone Mercenaries, since the game mode was under fire in parts of the community, but seems to have had people play it a lot too once it was launched and people could play it for themselves.
Is it fun?
Pretty simple question, but sometimes simple questions have lengthy and complicated answers.
PvE or PvP?
We've found that there seems to be a divide in the Mercs community between players that play it for PvE and players that play it for PvP. This is new territory for Hearthstone since usually there's only 1 particular way to play an activity. What side are you on?
Love the Grind or Hate the Grind?
Hearthstone Mercenaries introduces the grind to the game, where you are expected to play certain Bounties a bunch of times to gather resources or to complete Tasks. Some people love to just spend an hour running the same Bounty a bunch of times and to see their work rewarded with real progress. That's not for everyone, as some people would prefer to just get the Mercs from the start and all done and just make the choices and do the Bounties as challenges. So, love the Grind or hate it?
Who starts your Party?
Everyone that plays Hearthstone Mercenaries has a favorite Mercenary. The one that you put in your Party first and then figure out the rest. So who starts your Party? Who's your favorite Mercenary so far?
Which Mercenary would you add to the game?
A lot of the Mercenaries in the game are known lore characters, and a bunch of them are the new Mercenaries we were introduced to this year as part of the Year of the Gryphon in Constructed. But, obviously more Mercenaries will be introduced, so who would you like them to add? It could be a lore figure, a minor NPC elevated to a major role, or just a set of abilities with a to-be-decided name. So who would you add?
PVE
i believe the number one ranked player runs Cairne Varden Sylvanas Lich King Voljin Tamsin. all of them considered here top tier. makes sense
I tried it and the grind spoke to the completionist in me, but the cumbersome mechanics and the presentation put me off of it.
So I haven't checked back.
But you still felt the need to open a tier list?
Yeah, I still find reading and learning about mercs interesting. It’s not like the mode is completely boring, it’s just the feeling that it’s not fully polished: a bit too much clicking for the general combat actions and the empty combat map paired with the presentation of the heroes as flat cards.
That doesn’t detract from the core concept though and while I probably won’t read everything, I found the meta shift from Xyrella + Samuro to Cairne interesting, so I posted my views on the questions raised in the second part of the article.
I have never found a single PvP match against a real player.
weird how many matches did u play?. in my first 5 matches, just playing with 3 lvl 30 and 3 level 5 and below (in order to rank up these faster) i faced one player-
btw the word on the street is that after rank 5k you start facing players almost exclusively specially if you bring a full team with 30 level mercs.
cause since the system wants to match u with exactly the same lvl comp, and since most ppl are playing with full lvl 30 mercs it means that if u aint bringing a full lvl 30 team odds are u are gonna get a bot
If they didn't do it this way, people would complain about how it's pay to win.
Ignorant people who don't even play the game say that anyway, of course, but at least you can tell who the real trolls are.
It is pay to win though.
Trump bought only the $5 welcome bundle, and he's climbing the PvP ranks pretty well.
But it's still pay to win.
You mean like every other free-to-play game ever released? So what?
Mercenaries is dead.
super stupid grindy p2w mode.
OOOH look...silvanas, lk and diablo are top tier and THEY WERE ON THE BUNDLES wooooow...what a coincidence!!!
dont play this mode plz..focus all ur efforts in BG and RANKED.
this mode is super super POINTLESS.blizztard actigreed REALLY wants ur time and money making this gacha addictive and copy paste games.
stay away at all costs!
Mercs is the no RNG paradise btw
"She also commented that his inclusion in basically every high level Party means it sort of turns into a coin-flip simulator with whoever gets their Endurance Aura to go off first, winning the game."
The speed coin-flip is literally the only RNG in the game.
I would argue that if you're going to bring exactly the same comp as everyone else, you deserve to have your games decided by a coin toss.
You know you can just grind and get lich king, Sylvanas and Diablo, right? And that this tier list is just one player's opinion?
I was really excited for the PvE experience when it was announced since they compared it to Slay the Spire, but it has just been so underwhelming. The enemies all feel very similar and I use the same abilities most of the time, so it got repetitive fast. Also it sucks the optimal way to progress a mercenary isn't the most fun way to play - when you have to do x damage with a mercenary you have at level 1 when you have a level 30 healer is just to repetitively keep things full and not play the game as it was intended. Similarly for tasks, it was found out quickly that the best way to progress them was the second heroic boss. Again, it just sucks that doing what is optimal isn't in line with doing what is the most fun. It also doesn't progress the battlepass nearly at all, so you are making less gold then you would be constructed. But why should I have to play constructed to buy packs for Mercs? I just hope that blizzard views this as something to invest in over time, because I could see a world where it becomes good.
PvP seems cool still though.
I honestly found it fun to have to balance getting progression on my Mercs' Tasks while also grinding out Bounties for more Tasks and Coins.
It lead to very alternative game play strategies, where you sometimes indeed just healed the opponent just so you could get one more attack in with a Merc for Task progression. But also just going about a fight in a very different way and with very different Mercs just to get a Task done.
I remember doing Sylvanas Task 3 I think? or 2? where you have to have friendlies die to boost her attack. I specifically built a team of low levels, sacrificed them all, then used the ability. Had to do 2 Bounties to get this done and Sylvanas literally died on the last one as I JUST got my ability use in. Totally against what you would usually do in the game or what you would do "normally".
But it was fun! And it was refreshingly different, and I had to do unique problem solving while doing it (both to think od the strategy in the first place and to then execute it.
And I suspect that this is not at all against what Blizzard expected or wanted for the Game mode. Games like this kind of demand that you get tricky and think of solutions and that's what you do.
So in a roundabout way, I'm saying that I disagree. :)