Hearthstone

I've trying out ramp druid and I suck at it. I fell from 15 (I know it's low, I mostly play Arena) to 19. Pretty sure I'm screwing up the early game. I have trouble knowing when to use Wild Growth or use Innervate to gain board presence. The only card I think I'm missing is a second Ancient of Lore so no glaring omissions in the construction (I think). I made some changes to gain more board clear and put in a Starfall and dropped the Zombie Chows for a Power of the Wild and an Ooze. I haven't lost since then but I'm still not sold on it. I'll post my deck later and have you guys tear it apart.

At 7-0 with this Rogue and then I play against a Shaman that I kid you not, casts 4 fire Elementals 4 turns in a row and then Alakir on the turn after that with 2 Rockbiters. I've not seen anything that tremendously retarded in a very long time. Fire Elemental is the single best card in the game. That mother fucker didn't even need a single ounce of skill with that shit, wow. The worst part is I kept up even after the 3rd Fire Elemental and still had a leg up, but then the 4th came down and then the Alakir, wow, just wow. In other news, I have been doing better with Rogue in Arena than any other class lately, and by far. Interesting. I've not had a Rogue go under 8 in a while.

Heh, yea, Arena Shamans seem to be getting some retarded luck recently I got hit by a Turn 5 Doomhammer followed by a TRIPLE Rockbiter on himself - I'd taken over 10 damage earlier in the game so that was GG.

I typically do pretty well with shaman. They have so many finishers with Bloodlust, Rockbiter, and Flametongue. A lot of unsuspected damage you can lay on someone in one turn.

Well aside from the spastic overreaction of calling Fire Elemental 'the single best card in the game', Shaman has always been one of the better arena classes. I would put them at #3 pre-GVG, but I think rogues edge them out post-GVG.

Crafted Dr Boom. Feels good man.

zzeris_sl said:

So, any use in the Gazlowe I just got?

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Gaz Priest is the only deck that really even has potential and it isn't that great. Kripp made a list for it thought, can Google it. Good starting point. Otherwise, no, not really.

zzeris_sl said:

So, any use in the Gazlowe I just got?

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He's super fun though. You can fit him in a competitive range in the lower ranks, like up to rank 14. I've won plenty of games in the lower ranks with Gazlowe decks. But no, he's not great. Best way to play him is to use a lot of small parts and get a Cloaking Device to play on the same turn as him. Then you end up with at least ~2-3 mechs which is quite nice. It's really fun when you get shit like Sneed's and Iron Juggernaut from him. I've had 3 land mines in my opponent's deck before thanks to Gaz, good times. Lots of funny shenanigans. He fits okay in Priest, Rogue, Shaman and Paladin. Although any deck with a lot of spare parts will do.

Gavinmad_sl said:

Well aside from the spastic overreaction of calling Fire Elemental 'the single best card in the game', Shaman has always been one of the better arena classes. I would put them at #3 pre-GVG, but I think rogues edge them out post-GVG.

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Definitely disagree completely. Shaman isn't even really in the top 5.

Mage
Paladin
Druid
Rogue

And then Warlock, Priest and Shaman are all pretty equal, but if I had to chose, I'd put Warlock and Priest slightly above Shaman. A Shaman's ability to do well in Arena rests entirely, entirely on getting 1 of 3 cards. Fire Elemental, Lightning Storm, Stormforged Axe. Hex is up there as well. Sure, the other top classes have very important cards they need too, like Flamestrike and Consecrate, but you can still do really well without them. As a Shaman, if you have none of those cards, there is no way in hell you are doing well unless you get extremely, extremely lucky. So yeah, Shaman is like #7. They run out of steam too easily and have very little ability to control the board. They are basically too inconsistent in arena. Sure, they are more likely to get to 12 wins with a good deck than a Warlock, Priest, Hunter, Warrior or possibly even a Rogue is, but they are far less likely to get to 7 wins than the 6 classes above them, and that's what really matters and what really dictates a good arena class. Arena stats are just slightly skewed to give Shaman a higher % average than they actually have, merely because people that tend to pick Shaman tend to be better players. They are #5 at best.

Time to craft my next legendary, choices are:

Archmage Antonidas
Tirion Fordring (need another copy now, don't get me started on how I lost the first one)
Troggzor
Ala'Kir
Gallywix
Mal'Ganis
Iron Juggernaut
Captain Greenskin
Harrison Jones
Barron Geddon
Foe Reaper 9000
Mekgineer Thermaplug
Deathwing

Lol pretty slim pickins. I think probably Greenskin, Tirion or Antonidas. Possibly Harrison.

What's the opinion on dusting legendaries to make other legendaries? I feel like the ones I do have are too good/decent to dust. I do really want dr boom tho.

Cenarius
Malorne
Neptulon
Grommash
Rag
Troggzor

I wouldn't dust any of those, they are all too good.

Ryoz_sl said:

What's the opinion on dusting legendaries to make other legendaries? I feel like the ones I do have are too good/decent to dust. I do really want dr boom tho.

Cenarius
Malorne
Neptulon
Grommash
Rag
Troggzor

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Those are all playable in one deck or another. But Dr. Boom is just flat out amazing. How much dust are you missing for him? Dusting Cenarius, Malorne, Neptulon and Troggzor wouldn't be the worst thing though. But 4 legendaries for 1 just feels so painful, particularly if they are playable. Don't even come close to dusting Grom or Rag.

Malorne isn't seeing much use but I personally wouldn't dust it. That and maybe Trogg are the only one's I'd consider. Rag is a top tier legend, Neptulon has seen play in shaman recently, Cenarius is very commonly used in ramp druid and Grommash is auto include for any standard warrior.

You never know if Boom might have nerf bat incoming either. Not that Blizzard has usually been that quick about the nerfs but if anything is potentially getting changed its Boom or Mechwarper.

Morrow_sl said:

And then Warlock, Priest and Shaman are all pretty equal, but if I had to chose, I'd put Warlock and Priest slightly above Shaman. A Shaman's ability to do well in Arena rests entirely, entirely on getting 1 of 3 cards.Fire Elemental, Lightning Storm, Stormforged Axe. Hex is up there as well. Sure, the other top classes have very important cards they need too, like Flamestrike and Consecrate, but you can still do really well without them. As a Shaman, if you have none of those cards, there is no way in hell you are doing well unless you get extremely, extremely lucky. So yeah, Shaman is like #7. They run out of steam too easily and have very little ability to control the board. They are basically too inconsistent in arena. Sure, they are more likely to get to 12 wins with a good deck than a Warlock, Priest, Hunter, Warrior or possibly even a Rogue is, but they are far less likely to get to 7 wins than the 6 classes above them, and that's what really matters and what really dictates a good arena class. Arena stats are just slightly skewed to give Shaman a higher % average than they actually have, merely because people that tend to pick Shaman tend to be better players. They are #5 at best.

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I just had a shaman deck this past weekend without any of those that went to nine wins. Sure, I absolutely missed Lightning Storm. I had two Forked Lightnings to kind of make up for it, but it had a ton of one-turn burst damage with Bloodlusts and Flametongues.

No way is warlock better than shaman. Warlock is one of the worst.

The problem with warlock in arena is that their class cards are terrible.

Arena is all about your minons and removal. You can't reliably count on good class synergies and combos so certain classes just inherently struggle more. Mage and Paladin stand at the top because they have the most effect on the board with their hero power and the best stand alone board control class cards. Just the chance to draft shit like four fireballs a frostbolt and a flamestrike can win you games outright against most classes in arena.

Alex_sl said:

I just had a shaman deck this past weekend without any of those that went to nine wins. Sure, I absolutely missed Lightning Storm. I had two Forked Lightnings to kind of make up for it, but it had a ton of one-turn burst damage with Bloodlusts and Flametongues.

No way is warlock better than shaman. Warlock is one of the worst.

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Warlock is certainly in the lower tiers, but it is not the worst, not even close. You can do a lot of amazing things with a well played Warlock. That's the thing though, they are much, much harder to do well with and play well than every other Arena class. Voidcaller is real, and sick, as is the massive amount of removal options you'll always get a selection of. The draw engine, combined with now having Antique Healbot as a common in the pool, has improved Warlocks situation in arena by quite a bit. Floating Watcher not dealt with immediately is GG as well, and that's a common. I had a 12/12 Floating Watcher on turn 7 the other day thanks to Voidcaller. Hunter, Warrior and Priest (and arguably Shaman, depending on your skill level/experience) are all worse than Warlock if you know what you're doing and are a good arena player.

And your Shaman with none of those 4 key cards getting to 9 wins is one of the extremely rare exceptions. You won off of gimmicks and a lot of luck.