Rant warning - personal opinion ahead. Approach with caution.
United in Stormwind brought a bunch of Questlines as one of the main mechanic, and the initial skepticism of their potential viability quickly vanished when the true power level of the cards became apparent. We've now enjoyed their presence for about a month and the opinions on those Legendaries, as well as the meta in general, are currently very split. I, for one, think that while fun to play for some time the Questlines are unhealthy for the game in the long run and I will spend too many words on discussing why and making suggestions to make them more fair. So try to hang on.
An Issue?
In case you happen to be one of the naysayers enjoying the current meta, I may have to explain why exactly I think the Questlines should be changed. While I don't hate the current Standard meta, I still think Control (as all other archetypes) should have room in it. Right now the strength of the Questline rewards makes it very difficult for them to exist and it's basically the combo-ish Questlines vs aggressive decks that have the ability to rush them down.
The real issue becomes very apparent in Wild. By taking a look at HSReplay's stats (arguably from low ranks, but regardless) we can see that:
- Questline Warrior: Several lists at 80-85 % winrate.
- Questline Warlock: Same.
- Questline Hunter: Several lists at 75-80 %.
Why is it, when someone wins in Wild, it is always you three?
I know that Blizzard intends Wild to be the crazy, near-broken place of madness and combos but these numbers don't seem fine. While the winrates of these decks do go down on higher ranks (possibly due to increasing number of matches against each other), they still keep dominating the meta. These three biggest offenders also share the solitaire-like nature: while they do interact with the board to some extent, their quest completion is unstoppable. You just have to try and rush them before they get you and as the numbers suggest, you usually fail at that.
The General Problems
Let's dive straight into the issue - plenty of Questlines offer game-winning rewards which, as it stands, can be obtained either on curve or not long after. This, for me and many others, is way too fast. Not only that, playing a 7/7 around turn five will cause problems to many decks in itself even if we ignore the Battlecries altogether. Although winning games before hitting double-digit turns is nothing new as aggro has existed since the dawn of Hearthstone, the usual aggro tends to be much more interactive. Remove their board and heal the damage they've made and their progress on their gameplan is thwarted. The questlines' counters merely move on towards the inevitable final reward and what happens along the way doesn't matter that much for them.
As one of the main issues is that Questlines in general are too fast, a simple change knocking them all back a bit would be to make all Mercenary rewards 7-mana. That would not only justify the 7/7 body (I really don't get the current "overstatted with massive upside"-approach, I like to assume that the devs didn't intend the rewards to be obtained this fast) but also delay the power spike turns of many of these decks, and possibly force a different deckbuilding approach for some as you suddenly have to survive a couple of turns longer. However, I do not think it would solve all the issues so I will address the Questlines individually as well.
No Further Changes Needed(?)
There are some Questlines which do not dish out insta-wins after completion, so I would be willing to let them be after the 7-mana reward nerf and see if any problems still linger.
Demon Hunter
You still need to have something to discount, and potential issues are more likely to arise from that something being too powerful rather than the Questline effect being too powerful, in my opinion. Making the reward 7-mana would make it very clunky to play in e.g. Il'gynoth decks, I feel.
Rogue
Caught in the crossfire. I think the deck makes quite fair things as it stands, and I do think Control could easily outvalue the reward if given the chance. For the sake of consistency I'd still make the 7-mana 7/7 treatment for Rogue too.
Priest
This is a weird one for me. Many Mercenaries feel like they win the game when played and this one quite literally creates a card saying "win the game", yet it's inherently so slow to complete that it's not an issue at all (especially in the current meta). I think it'd be just fine although insta-win cards always bug me.
Additionally, I'm tempted to give a pass to a couple of more even if I'm not entirely convinced they're fine with just this:
Druid
I'm half-tempted at suggesting further nerfs because I just hate when the arrows start pointing at your face, you have next to no healing potential and you need to try and rush them down while their armor total just keeps growing. I'm still hopeful that making the reward 7-mana would help with the Mark of the Spikeshell combo, which quite often really decides the game. I might still remove the card draw from the second Quest's reward.
Paladin
It doesn't see much play as is. Hard to say if that would change should the meta get slower, but I think this would be another questline I'd be prepared to wait and see. I think the Hero Power reward would be hard to change without killing the entire point of the deck.
More Changes
Now to the good part - let's smack some cards even more!
Hunter
I mean, this has to see some changes for Wild's sake, in Standard it doesn't seem that strong right now though. I can tell you from experience that playing against Odd Questline Hunter is an absolutely horrible feeling - you just basically have to hope their draws don't allow them to get there in time. However, too many changes to the Questline can easily kill the whole gimmick. The quest reward cost nerf would certainly help, but I'd still be ready to either increase the total required damage spells with 1-2 or make it so that (at least) the final form of the Hero Power is the base form of it with 2 damage. Might be just personal bias though, I really despise the matches against it.
Mage
Mage is in a curious spot as it's a non-issue in Wild but usually somewhat unfun to play against in Standard. Again, the reward nerf would help, possibly incentivizing using higher-Cost spells to complete the quest instead of aiming to puke out your hand for turn 5 reward. However, having played a version with no Ignites (as I somehow got both Mage legendaries but not a single epic) I can say that the deck can indeed run out of damage if spells like Runed Orb and Fireball are used too liberally in the early turns. Even though the infinite copies are the entire reason of Ignite, I still think any further nerfs should be aimed at it rather than the Questline itself. That could even cause Mages to include spell-creating minions more often, which in turn would soft-nerf Incanter's Flow even further.
Shaman
Now this is a hard one. When you take a downside and turn it into an upside, things can get weird. Most of the truly broken stuff arises from outside the Questline itself, I feel. Overdraft just needs to lose the damage part, no question about it; it's a massive power creep on Lava Shock and it can create insane amounts of burst damage, especially in Wild. Charged Call is another card that seems a tad too efficient at the moment. A simple mana cost increase or capping the mana cost of the created minions should suffice though, otherwise we're approaching the "my opponent isn't allowed to have a win condition"-territory.
Warrior
Sorry for triggering your OCD but I'm going to ditch the alphabetical order here and save "the best" for last. The Warrior questline is another interesting one for me, and I daresay most of the issues arise from the fact that even if you removed the Questline you'd still have a decent aggro deck in your hands. This is especially true in Wild where Cap'n Rokara merely adds to the power of the deck and allows a more long-term gameplans instead of "win before turn X or bust". Unlike in previous cases, I would probably change the questline itself here to require more Pirates (possibly 3+3+3) and consider also changing the first reward as it allows a consistent tutor effect for Ancharrr, which is often important for guaranteed Pirate refill. Removing one of the effect of The Juggernaut would be next in line if the deck was still too powerful, or possibly even making the three effects rotate instead of all happening every turn.
Warlock
The elephant has entered the room. The deck has so many powerful things going for it that I don't even know where to start. I'm just going to toss around a ton of ideas and see if any will stick:
Removing the heals for Quest rewards is probably a no go; even though it would slow down Flesh Giants it would likely just offer the deck for aggro as lunch on a silver platter. Same is likely true for raising the required amount of self-damage as well. A more interesting change (in my opinion): instead of taking damage, I would make the quests require Health changes just like Flesh Giants. Warlocks could no longer just slam down armor gain whenever but actually plan ahead with their self damage. It would also help with one of the biggest Wild offenders, Crystallizer.
Another interesting suggestion I've heard is to make the reward ignore Fatigue damage. Right now (mostly in Standard, I guess) Warlocks can just draw draw draw and get the final points of damage through fatigue, but what if the fatigue still damaged them. By changing the wording to "take damage from your cards or Hero Power", you could still tap to damage your opponent but would have to calculate if you can afford the fatigue yourself. It would also give a much needed win condition for Control against the extremely unfavorable matchup that it currently is.
Those were my questline suggestions, but the deck is filled with other offenders:
Yesterday's news by now as the recent nerfs have toned it down, but I kinda hoped for a change in its effect instead - make it become once per turn or similar. That kind of change could have had drastic consequences to the card's playability, but so did the mana cost change they went with. At least I don't have to watch my opponent drawing and playing half a deck in a turn anymore, even though it undeniably required some skill to navigate correctly.
Another infinite mana generator. Arguably slowed down a bit since the first round of nerfs but still hard to deal with on curve and still generates big swings in Wild where it wasn't the most popular card even before Questlines. I'd smack the Health, possibly hard, to make it easier to deal with as the effect itself is hard to nerf any further (without making it once per turn, which would make the card relatively useless).
Remember when Control Priest was an actually good Standard deck with tons of annoying card generation, I do. Renew got smacked (I'm not saying wrongly) but I really hoped this card would also see changes but it wasn't good in Warlock at that point. Oh how the times have changed. How about now, Blizzard? Again, the situation is even worse in Wild with Crystallizer & co being a thing. I'd bring out the big bonker for this one and smack it to two mana, just outside the grasp of Wandmaker. Another option would be to only bring back one minion for 2 damage. It's just way too efficient right now.
As a final note, I don't see Questlines as the worst thing ever. They're an interesting mechanic that just came out too strong and should be adjusted accordingly. They too should have a chance to thrive in the meta but not at the expense of everything else, especially Control.
What do you think? Did you just waste your time reading useless ramblings or is there wisdom in these words? What would you change first and why, if anything?
Comments
I mean the most quest decks are to strong , and the meta is boring, it bores me, don't know how other people feel about it. But the thing is you can play Aggro decks wich rise above last time, Aggro Druid / Priest and also Hunter but is this fun? Or you decide to join the winners side and play them by you self and this is the problem, there is nothing between this.
Mana increase on final Mercenaries is the best solution, and it could even be applied to just some mercenaries (Guff is already asymmetrical in body), like Tamsin and Tavish at the very least.
I don't think more nerfs would be necessary for Wild, at least on QLs, and mana nerfs would probably not be bad for Standard either.
I should add, and this is not secondary at all, that the bothersome component of current situation to me is that the powerlevel is crazy high in FROM-HAND synergies (REACH): very few decks rely heavily on going through the board to find lethal.
In Wild, we could say Shadow Priest is the fairest of the meta decks, and by far.
It also happened very rapidly, which made several decks simply unable to adjust. Rise in powerlevel was too fast and brutal, and this contributed a lot to the alienation of some part of the Wild playerbase, which was at least decently comfortable before Stormwind.
All this generates an "own thing" meta (it's not just a feeling) where interaction is indirect or concentrated into popoff turns for the most part. And I don't like it at all. Personally ofc, but it's fair to say this is pretty far from the old "fast&interactive" that I think made many of us fall in love with the game.
Anyway, I doubt any of them mercs will ever go beyond (6). We'd be lucky if Tamsin and Tavish did.
Finally, I'm afraid Wild just passed a threshold, even if we go back now, design policy is rampant on crazy levels right now, and more insane lightning-fast combo-ish stuff is bound to appear, at every release, especially on Druid, Mage, Warlock.
I think Wild reached its own 2.0 and there's no going back.
I had hoped at the start of the expansion that the quests would be similar to what they did with the Death Knight story. That was really fun at the time.
Each hero had a unique ability that was very strong in itself. But still, there was no deck that was as extremely dominant as it is today. The balancing was right back then. Today, as a warlock or mage, you just have to play your cards without having to use your head. (Somewhat extremely expressed)
In the past you really created the craziest combos.
I would like to see the changes to Flux go live like that. Some decks are just unfair. There should be at least one card for each mechanic (even if it's a quest) on how to counter certain effects. For example, that The Juggernaut from the Warrior Quest. Without using Silas Darkmoon, you can't get that card off the field. Even Mass Dispel or something like that doesn't work.
Even with Incanter's Flow or Stealer of Souls, I would have liked something like "The first card you play in your game costs 1 less mana or life instead of mana."
Personally I have most trouble with the mage questline. I play it myself as well, but recently when I played with DH, my opponent had only 2 cards in his hands (quest was finished), but managed to draw like 8 and deal 22 damage to face. If there wasn't so much card draw, I think it would be fine, but the combination of card draw and low mana spells is too much.
The majority of the player base would appreciate these nerfs, but in reality, we know Team 5 would never nerf all the quests as that would (theoretically) break the economy with players dusting a total of 10 legendaries. Questlines are also the main focal point of the expansion, and changing all of them would mean Blizzard knew they were a mistake.
Our only hope is they change (at the very least) Blightborn Tamsin with any of the above changes mentioned in the article. I'm sure Blizzard know they effed up on this expansion, but they'll never publicly admit it.
I have 3 nerf suggestions to nerf warlock quest:
1) make some cards banned to use with the questline.. for example crystalizer, spirit bomb, stealer of souls.. (pick up your choice)
2) change Tamsin's Battlecry to: for the rest of the game, whenever your hero takes damage on your turn enemy hero takes it as well.. this is better than reverting all the damage your hero takes to the enemy hero because that sounds stupid and unfair
A sidenote:
Tamsin's Battlecry voice line says: "all of stormwind shall *SHARE* my pain" and this nerf suggestion above is the actual meaning of "share"
3) you could also make the questline progress harder by changing if from taking points of damage on your turn.. to how many times you took damage on your turn.. which means the questline should say: "take damage X times on your turn" instead of: "take X points of damage on your turn"
And the last nerf suggestion will be great to slow down the questline unless blizzard some day prints a card that can deal sperated damage to your hero.. in that case you could just change the questline progress mechanic to: "play X cards that deal damage to your hero"
Sorry my English is not perfect, feel free to tell me your thoughts, and hopefully i didn't miss or mess up something, thanks for your time :)
I think banning the usage of certain cards just because you're playing the Questline is a really bad solution. I would much rather find a middle-ground nerf, like sharing the damage as you noted.
On phone so this may be messy:
Questlines overall are my favorite version of the quest mechanic. The smaller rewards have a nice impact on the early game and they can stick around long enough to trigger your quests matter cards more often. The end rewards mostly feel really good too (was surprised by DH). However I do agree they can be completed way too quick. The priest one seems to be the slowest and probably should still be. But the others should be brought closer in line to that questline's completion time.
Stealer of Souls: I've talked about this in other places but static effects with unlimited cost reduction are very hard to balance. First off aura effects like this or Sorcers apprentice cause a lot of issues, especially on cheap cards. Second I understand the limit here is supposed to be your life pool but even with an opponent hitting them warlocks can spend 20-40 life on cards because of all the healing they have access too. That's an obsurd number. In most cases that would matter but because they are ending the game that turn or next it doesn't matter. It really should. I love the idea of price for power but this is just nearly free power.
Overload: Similar to the above if they keep printing cards that make overload a bonus or undo it's effects it is no longer an issue (same with discard). Cards get printed with a big overload cost at cheap mana but then you play a card that says overload never happened well that's just free mana. I don't know if they hit the breaking point here but just like exchanging life for mana in warlock they'll get there.
Weaknesess that have some bonuses and effects are fine but again too many that undo it just leads to a critical mass and makes the entire mechanic irrelevant.
Both the article and these comments have been a good read; thank you to everyone and especially Frosty as this is a tough topic to tackle well!
As a control player in Standard, I'm fine sitting out a season to let other people enjoy combo decks. However, what concerns me is similar to what others have already said better:
1) The powercreep required going forward to overcome these decks (plus the delicate balance needed to somehow not make the quests stronger)
2) The solitare nature of the current combos - that feeling of helplessness combined with the frustration of long turns watching card draw/animations
3) The combination of quick quest completion PLUS mid-quest rewards. I think the latter was a really cool addition, but that it'd work better as a way of softening the blow of longer quests.
4) The ease of piloting + completing meta quests makes them both popular and strong in the lower ranks + Casual. I understand the rationale of balancing a game from the top down (e.g. Mindrender Illucia nerf), but I also care about the metas not covered by VS where the majority of the playerbase experiences the game. Again, one expansion of an aggro + combos meta is fine by me, but pushing out the slower strategies until Quests rotate doesn't feel sustainable.
Lastly, on a design philosophy note, I love it when quests open up an alternative playstyle for a class and/or give life to underused cards. For example, Queen Carnassa gave Hunters card draw and an Unsealed Vault made Swarm of Locusts super useful. By comparison, some of the current quest rewards just feel kinda boring to me in the sense that we're doing the same old same - Mage spell dmg, Demon Hunter card draw/OTK, Hunter ignoring board to go face with spells + hero power instead of spells + rhino, etc.
So you want to buff the quest? What?
Ah yes it can be interpreted like that, my bad. I still want it to take damage but it should affect the hero's Health, i.e. if you have armor and take damage without your Health changing, you wouldn't get quest progress. I definitely think Warlock quest doesn't need any additional buffs so healing shouldn't count :D
Losing armor is considered as health changing for Flesh Giant, isn't it?
they were very much a mistake in a way that they're waaay too easy to complete and pushed the game into a very bad position
they're even worse than genn and baku decks and should get the same treatment as those if they can't be nerfed in a better way
i feel like they should be a little bit risky to play with huge upsides of course, kind of like an alternate win condition type thing...
a quest imo should be hard and take a long time, which they're not in the slightest
it just doesn't feel like hearthstone anymore, which is a huge problem
Once more I'm amazed by this awesome community. Frosty literally picked the most controversial topic there is right now, which is dividing the Standard and the Wild community in a most disgraceful way all over social media and all of you guys and gals in this place keep their cool and stay friendly. Glad to be a part of this :)
I wish they nerfed Crystallizer for Wild, because she is so damn powerful for Questline Warlock specifically she's become the new Spawn of Shadows in terms of their rise from zero to hero. Somebody mentioned that she should conver Health into Armor instead of dealing damage to your hero, but I'd say she can become a 1/1 and deal only 2 to you, but still grant 5 Armor - to shift her focus to a defensive card. Alternatively, nerf her to 2 Mana 2/3 to make her less spammable with Raise Dead.
The issue with reducing the damage she does (or better put: the amount she reduces your health by) is that she is important for heal-focused decks to make sure they can be damaged to utilise their healing cards and synergies. You can only run 1 High Priest Thekal, so these decks still need Crystallizer for consistency. That collateral damage might not matter much to the meta, but since it is what she was actually designed for I would strongly oppose it.
Crystallizer could convert 5 health to armor instead of dealing damage. That means it wouldn't help questline progression, but it would make the card more useful in other decks, for example when combined with Thekal.
Actually, you suggested exactly that in an earlier thread...
The Warlock quest will certainly be nerfed this month, so after that see how things are in meta
well, the other quests take over and then this whole issue starts over again. pretty much all of them are a problem
I really enjoy questline decks in standard and don't really want to see too much of a change (it is a little absurd that the people complaining about control priest last expansion are the same people complaining about this meta). I personally think the best solution is to nerf any of the problematic cards in wild but keep them the same in standard. It might be a little confusing for newer players, but we already play with two different versions of classic cards so I do not think it will be that big of a deal. Anything is better than banning a card because it sucks not even being able to use a card at all.