Hearthstone

I've mentioned this before but right now I'm sitting on the following:

1 extra Defender of Argus
2 extra Iceblocks
3! extra Blood Imps (common so not too hard to get a bunch)

I fully expect one more round of "balancing" to be done prior to open beta or shortly after. After that it will depend on how much time between open beta and "live" but I would guess at least another "balance" adjustment during this time.

Defender of Argus is just too good and everyone uses him. My guess is they'll remove the +1 attack from his buffs which leaves the card intact to the intended purpose (creating taunters).

Iceblock I'm not sure about. If it gets nerfed, there's really nothing that they can do that doesn't render it completely useless. Personally I'm not sure it will be nerfed but there are a LOT of people whining about this and Pyroblast so I'm not sure how much Blizzard is listening to the noise. People just remember those bad games where they see an iceblock pop up and then get pyroblasted to the face the next turn. What they're not realizing is that there is a reason that the situation occurred in the first place.

Blood Imp. Again, not sure if it will be nerfed or not but I don't have a pressing need for the 15 dust it would turn into and there's a lot of forum whining about this card as well.

Splitting post because this is completely unrelated to the last post:

At any rate, I'm really liking my Druid deck. It is VERY powerful and able to keep my opponent locked down pretty well. I've also created my own spin on the aggro mage and that's been working out REALLY well too. The nice thing with the aggro mage deck is that it's very fast.

On a final note, I'm starting to see a lot of "second tier" Legendary cards get used a lot more often. Baron Geddon is the, current, flavor of the month it seems. I figure that by this time the competitive players have their Ragnaros, Ysera, Sylvanas's and are looking at the next tier down and Geddon is, definitely, there. He completely shuts down a lot of opponents and he's just a bastard to deal with being able to smack the face for 7 damage a turn and his blowey uppy ability. I'm not sure what I want to craft next though. I still need a Tinkmaster which fits into a lot of Paladin and Druid decks as a rich man's Polymorph.

Angelwatch_sl said:

Splitting post because this is completely unrelated to the last post:

At any rate, I'm really liking my Druid deck. It is VERY powerful and able to keep my opponent locked down pretty well. I've also created my own spin on the aggro mage and that's been working out REALLY well too. The nice thing with the aggro mage deck is that it's very fast.

On a final note, I'm starting to see a lot of "second tier" Legendary cards get used a lot more often. Baron Geddon is the, current, flavor of the month it seems. I figure that by this time the competitive players have their Ragnaros, Ysera, Sylvanas's and are looking at the next tier down and Geddon is, definitely, there. He completely shuts down a lot of opponents and he's just a bastard to deal with being able to smack the face for 7 damage a turn and his blowey uppy ability. I'm not sure what I want to craft next though. I still need a Tinkmaster which fits into a lot of Paladin and Druid decks as a rich man's Polymorph.

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Said this weeks ago as well: Baron Geddon is underrated. He's very versatile and he can clear the board on the turn you drop him, with a little ingenuity and other utility. Sure he hits your own creatures, but you get to prepare for that, your opponent doesn't. He's 7 Mana for a 7/5 with a guaranteed Consecrate. Wut? So you're paying 3 mana for a 7/5 with the chance of future consecrates. I love the guy. Particularly in a Priest deck, since Northshire Cleric is just out of range, lots of fun combos. Baron Geddon is sweet as hell. You can also cast Equality and Geddon on the same turn if you needed to, or pop an Equality on turn 6 and then Geddon on turn 7, stalling and leading your opponent into a false sense of security. Surprised he's not used in some unique version of OTK decks/giant decks.

All they will do to Blood Imp is knock it down to 0 attack. They've already talked about it. Argus, I suspect, will go to just adding either +1 Attack/Taunt or +1 Health/Taunt, but not both. He won't be changed to just Taunt, as that's too close to Sunfury and he'd be worthless. But I agree, he's too versatile and used in every deck. He's the first card I crafted on both my accounts. He's sick, particularly when you learn to use him a little more creatively and not simply with the most obvious choices.

I am now sitting on a total of 6 Blood Imps after a really bad Arena run... There is no point in disenchanting the extras now for 20 dust. I'm simply banking on the fact that he will get nerfed and I'll be able to cash in on 160 dust! Oh the rare cards I'll be able to craft!

Mr. MorrowGirl_sl said:

All they will do to Blood Imp is knock it down to 0 attack.

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That's not really a blood imp nerf. They should make him 1/5 stealth where he loses 1 health at the end of every turn like the imp master.

The Ancient_sl said:

That's not really a blood imp nerf. They should make him 1/5 stealth where he loses 1 health at the end of every turn like the imp master.

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Well that's what a developer has mentioned as if they have discussed this actively and thought about it seriously as the nerf they would do. It was on one of the YouTube caster's programs with Trump and Kripp I think not a while back. While it's not a drastic nerf that doesn't really fix the "problem" with the Blood Imp, it's certainly a nerf. Usually they end up doing a couple damage once the Warlock feels in a somewhat comfortable place to do so and they also benefit from the 2 mana buff that can cause some problems. So maybe also removing Demon from it as well might help? But they could also just keep it a 1/1 that cannot attack. I dunno, maybe it's because I play Druid, but I don't think Blood Imp is really a problem. The problem is the way buffing works. If they fixed the way buffing works, Blood Imp would be totally fine.

If a minion has 1 base health and you do 1 damage to everything and kill a blood imp and do 1 damage to the minion with 1 base health, it needs to mother fucking die. Problem solved, and that's much more intuitive as well. Basically the way minion abilities queue based on which was played first, minion deaths need to queue based on buffs/auras. Therefore if you do AoE that kills multiple mobs/damages multiple minions, it should do it to the buffer first and then check the rest of the board state. Even if there wasn't a balance issue, I'd want the way buffing works right now to change because it's just so god damn counter intuitive and no amount of getting used to it will stop it from annoying me.

A change I would like is for them to seperate max health and damage. Meaning a minions damage taken is a stat on its own, seperate from max/current health. Currently if a 2/2 is buffed to 2/3 from blood imp, then they both get hit with blizzard, then the 2/3 becomes a 2/1, and the extra point of damage is "removed". Instead I would rather the 2/3 receives 2 damage points as a static value, then becomes a 2/2 with 2 damage points when the imp died, and dying as a result.

Would also mean if they buff a 3/3 with argus to 4/4, attack and kill your 3/3, leaving them with a 4/1, you could silence off the buff to kill their buffed minion.

The change I would like them to make is stop using a MMO patch cycle for a card game.

Arbitrary_sl said:

The change I would like them to make is stop using a MMO patch cycle for a card game.

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I agree with this for the most part, but you have to keep in mind the game is still technically in beta. If anything, they don't patch often enough for a beta. Once it's officially released though, I also do not want frequent balance changes.

Yeah, that's why I'm not more uppity about it. This is the time to make changes.

I'm just seeing lots of "they need to fix/change X!" one week and then after that "they need to change/fix Y!" right after. It's a card game so there's always going to be something you are bored with playing against.

Those buff changes people are proposing because of Blood Imp just makes the game counterintuitive. If there's a 3/3 on board, you need to do 3 damage to kill it. End of story. Killing the Blood Imp buffing it with Consecrate/Holy Nova/Blizzard shouldn't also kill your 3/3.

Just make Blood Imp only affect adjacent minions.

Had the best arena deck for warrior I've ever had. Easy 12-1 with most games being flat out rape. Lost to one great shaman whose fire elementals and shit just killed my rape-train.

3x Fiery War Axe and 3x Warsong Commander is just so sick.

dassem_sl said:

Had the best arena deck for warrior I've ever had. Easy 12-1 with most games being flat out rape. Lost to one great shaman whose fire elementals and shit just killed my rape-train.

3x Fiery War Axe and 3x Warsong Commander is just so sick.

Spoiler

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That deck is lol for Arena.

Sinzar_sl said:

I agree with this for the most part, but you have to keep in mind the game is still technically in beta. If anything, they don't patch often enough for a beta. Once it's officially released though, I also do not want frequent balance changes.

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That's a pretty thin technicality though. I wonder what revenue this 'beta' has drawn since it started?

I'm sure they have made a ton already.

Isn't there a million in the beta worldwide, or some shit.
Once it hits the tablets they will just have another huge game that gives them even more money.


Does anyone play the physical card version? I think they are even just reusing art assets from that game.
Talk about low overhead, and will make them shitloads of chedda..

Most of the top players are people who play the physical CCG. Ek0p, Savjz, etc., or such is my understanding from one of the Turn 2 episodes. Basically all the top EU guys.

It's funny. I keep saying "Nope, not going to spend any more money on this game." A week will go buy and I'm all "fuck it, what's another $20?"

Experimenting with a spell damage Shaman... it isn't good. Trying to come up with some consistent decks that are different from what is currently being played so I can do some climbing when the reset happens.