The Demon Seed. I won't get into why this card needs a nerf, because let's be honest, if you're reading this, then you already know why. My proposed change is less of a nerf, and more a massive rework of the card. Each individual step of this Questline is getting changed, including the reward.
I detest these kind of cards, where the quest progress can go up by more than one at a time. For instance, Crystallizer increases the progress by 5, making the questline become far too easy to complete.
The other problem with this questline, is that it completely removes a lose-condition from the game in Fatigue, and turns it into a very lethal weapon for you. This definitely should not happen, you should only be able to utilise your cards as ways of damaging your opponent.
Here is the total proposed rework of the card:
With this change, you are required to damage yourself with your cards 12 times, this means the Hero Power no longer contributes, removing a far too consistent way to complete the questline whilst also massively slowing down your progress. The reward change forces you to still have cards left that can damage your opponent, as Fatigue and your Hero Power are no longer an option. This overall, forces you to massively build your deck around the self-damage mechanic, which could lead to the deck being constructed out of some lower quality cards.
This also keeps Fatigue as a lose-condition for the deck. I honestly think that in a more balanced state, this deck can be fun for both players in the match, as opposed to just one. If this rework is too much, then another consideration might be to reduce the quest completion stages from 3 / 4 / 5 to 2 / 3 / 4, 12 instances of damage to 9.
I'd love to hear feedback about this, tell me what you think.
This proposal seems pretty bad to me, and basically a nuke from orbit for most versions of the deck. A typical self-harm Warlock card deals two to three damage to your hero. So you'd go from 6/7/8 damage to something close to 7/10/12 (i.e. a change from a net 15 damage to 23 damage). In that sense, your proposal looks a lot like a convoluted way to remove the lifesteal from the quest, which I believe would make the quest totally unplayable (particularly after rotation) due to how weak it would be to aggro after sustaining that much damage.
But it's actually even worse than that. If you assume that average self-harm value is three (which is reasonable considering the popularity of cards like Raise Dead, Flame Imp, Backfire, and Hecklefang Hyena in many Questline Warlock decks), the quest would end up dealing 36 damage to your hero in order to restore six health and get Blightborn Tamsin. You'd literally have to kill your own hero to complete the quest.
One of the interesting things about the current design of damage dealt rather than instances of damage dealt is that there are times when you waste damage (e.g. you're at 5/6 for the first quest reward and you tap, wasting one point of damage). I think that's a positive aspect of the quest today because, for decks that care about quest completion, it forces you to think pretty critically about how to spend your damage to avoid getting demolished by aggro.
I also think you care too much about fatigue. You describe it as a lose condition, but it's very rare that any game actually goes to fatigue, so it's also mostly irrelevant as a way to lose. Fatigue is a major part of certain Questline archetypes (like the Stealer version of the deck that used it for burst), but latest nerf that moved Stealer of Souls up to 6 mana has really weakened that version of the deck, and it's mostly gone from the Standard meta.
One last note, I don't know that this proposal would do anything to impact the most popular version of Questline Warlock - the Handlock/Flesh Giant version. That version doesn't really try to complete the quest anyway, and Life Tap would still reduce the cost of the giants even if it doesn't proc the quest. That version is also probably the only one still viable in Standard after the latest nerfs, making your proposal all the more moot.
Let's address a few things about your reply to the OP... with one base assumption that I agree with: The average warlock card does 3 "self-harm" damage. That much I do agree with.
In that sense, your proposal looks a lot like a convoluted way to remove the lifesteal from the quest
It's not, but even assuming that was the case: in standard that isn't so bad. I've literally seen warlocks heal for more damage than they've dealt to themselves through the use of soul fragments, Soul Shear, Drain Soul, Blood Shard Bristleback, and Touch of the Nathrezim. Coupled with Tamsin (legendary) they can duplicate many of those spells because they are all CHEAP spells that are easy to copy with Tamsin for 0 cost, free healing.
I also think you care too much about fatigue
Yes, because up to this point fatigue has been a rather immutable point of decisive game-ending power. Barring select circumstances such as Archivist, dead man's hand, or Jade Idols...fatigue has largely been both the savior and adversary of control. It's the final "countdown" (no pun intended) of games. It treats both players equally fairly and requires playing around it to win in drawn out matches.
It's not some boogie man "ooh, I hate fatigue games, they are so boring and take forever", it's there to END drawn out games. And despite your protests of 'caring too much' it's not something that should be avoidable permanently. (Cards like mal'ganis which allow you to be immune to damage but the vulnerability of taking out malganis still exists are ok). But a permanent battlecry is not cool.
And even Kibler himself agreed that it ignoring fatigue feels like an odd design decision. (not that I'm citing Kibler as some gospel, but as someone who worked on the physical WoW card game...effectively the precursor to Hearthstone, I feel like his opinion usually isn't far from the truth)
but it's very rare that any game actually goes to fatigue
Currently, yes. However, the main problem is that warlocks with the quest accelerate TOWARD fatigue in an attempt to just kill their opponent with their own fatigue damage. Unavoidable, un-counterable fatigue damage.
I don't know that this proposal would do anything to impact the most popular version of Questline Warlock - the Handlock/Flesh Giant version
We are talking about ALL versions of the deck. Just because one particular version got weakened does not mean that it doesn't deserve nerfing. Again as I was Kibler the other day respond to someone in chat: "Something can be not overpowered, but also still need fixing/adjusting" Not to mention that warlock in both wild and standard is warping the meta. The meta is still entirely warped around Warlock. Hunters have hyper aggro decks TARGETING warlocks. Just because a deck isn't doing "well" doesn't mean that the meta hasn't adapted to it, but it means that the meta has adapted to target it.
All in all...
OP's proposal may not be the best, and will most likely not be the result that Blizzard goes with, but the premise and the understanding that something is fundamentally broken with Warlock is accurate and well founded. You seemed to miss that point and focus entirely on the details and not the whole picture...
Or as the saying goes "Can't see the forest for the trees."
OP's proposal may not be the best, and will most likely not be the result that Blizzard goes with, but the premise and the understanding that something is fundamentally broken with Warlock is accurate and well founded. You seemed to miss that point and focus entirely on the details and not the whole picture…
I don't believe I've missed anything. I never disputed that Warlock has been overtuned/warping the meta since United in Stormwind launched. The OP said "I'd love to hear feedback about this [proposed nerf]," so I offered some feedback on the details of their proposed nerfs.
Quote From Sykomyke
In that sense, your proposal looks a lot like a convoluted way to remove the lifesteal from the quest
It's not, but even assuming that was the case: in standard that isn't so bad. I've literally seen warlocks heal for more damage than they've dealt to themselves through the use of soul fragments, Soul Shear, Drain Soul, Blood Shard Bristleback, and Touch of the Nathrezim. Coupled with Tamsin (legendary) they can duplicate many of those spells because they are all CHEAP spells that are easy to copy with Tamsin for 0 cost, free healing.
My point here is that both the proposed change and the much simpler "remove lifesteal" idea I've seen bounced around results in an approximately 50% increase to the amount of net damage you'd need to take to complete the questline. That's enormous. This proposal also makes it a much slower process by removing Life Tap as a source of quest progress, meaning some of the healing that currently keeps Warlock in the game (i.e. the quest rewards) would be delayed. I really don't think you can overstate how dramatically that would weaken every version of this deck against aggro, regardless of whether or not the deck has free mid to late game healing combos with Tasmin and various Shadow spells.
Quote From Sykomyke
It's not some boogie man "ooh, I hate fatigue games, they are so boring and take forever", it's there to END drawn out games. And despite your protests of 'caring too much' it's not something that should be avoidable permanently. (Cards like mal'ganis which allow you to be immune to damage but the vulnerability of taking out malganis still exists are ok). But a permanent battlecry is not cool.
And even Kibler himself agreed that it ignoring fatigue feels like an odd design decision. (not that I'm citing Kibler as some gospel, but as someone who worked on the physical WoW card game…effectively the precursor to Hearthstone, I feel like his opinion usually isn't far from the truth)
I don't think fatigue is being treated as a boogey man, and I'm not saying its definitely better to include it as part of the effect, but I also don't think it's super relevant here. For starters, redirecting your fatigue damage doesn't negate its central purpose as a way to end drawn out games. Those games will still end in fatigue - they'll just do so in a lopsided way. More to the point, though, these questline decks aren't trying to win by going to fatigue - they're trying to win by hitting you in the face with giants. Yes, they can burn their own deck to get to fatigue quickly, but that's secondary to what they're actually trying to accomplish, and would make for a very weak way to win the game against aggro or midrange strategies if it were all they had going for them.
I agree that Kibler usually has a lot of good takes on these things, and one of the points he made in his Combos video on YouTube was that the biggest problem with decks like this (i.e. decks that are not necessarily OP but still warp the meta) is their popularity. At the time he made the video, these kinds of unbeatable combo decks were something like 30% of the meta, which is too high for control decks to have a lot of success (i.e. any control deck in a meta like that would need to have winrates against aggro that are well above 70%, which is a very tall order).
Nuking this quest is a great way to dramatically decrease that number, but there are better ways to tackle the actual combo pieces that are causing the problems, which in turn will weaken the quest in its weaker matchups and ultimately make it less popular. To their credit, Blizzard has already been nerfing these pieces. I know that mostly only helps Standard players, but the fact is the Wild format is too highly synergistic to do much about this quest without banning it or radically changing a lot of old cards (which Blizzard hates to do in Wild).
Im actually curious if you've actually went and check how many cards warlock actually has to damage themselves. The current hyper aggressive quest zoolock has precisely 12 damaging cards, not counting those that coming out of Raise Dead, and the total amount of damage runs to 26, not counting Unstable Shadow Blast which means there's potential for this to get even higher. In effect what you're suggesting is either warlock run useless cards like Elven Archer, or they simply kill themselves before they even get close to killing the opponent with tamsin.
Not to mention that this basically invalidates cards like Bloodbound Imp, Tour Guide, and ruins the fatigue win condition, which means tamsin has an effective cap on its power.
While Im 100% sure team5 will never implement this as a change, it's certainly interesting. I would go for your second suggestion, which limits it to 9 damaging cards, which will leave enough cards to close the game with tamsin.
Also, I'd like to comment on the 'fatigue as a lose condition' idea.
I don't hate the idea that tamsin kills via fatigue damage. If the deck is built to burn through their deck fast because they can kill their opponent via fatigue, that's entirely fair, because the deck would need to be built to do exactly that. That's no different to how mill decks win their games. Just slowing down the quest will more or less balance the idea of a 'fatigue warlock'.
If fatigue warlock is very consistent, very fast, and is polarizing games, then Im sure team5 would do something about it, as they have done to d6 warlock. There's no need to focus on the fatigue aspect of the quest. If they finish it quick, the game will be lost within 2-3 turns anyway, fatigue or no.
I agree that redirecting Fatigue damage is a huge part of the problem. My favorite solution for the whole Seedlock issue would be the widely popular idea to make Tamsin share damage dealt to your hero on your turn with your opponent (like her voiceline suggests as well). If the Fatigue aspect doesn't get changed but the (Wild) meta somehow slows down after the next round of nerfs, I'll try a "fun" version with Void Contract :D
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know? Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
Honestly I think a fair amount of the smaller tools need addressing as well. The early and midgame card draw needs to tank a hit as well as making Tamsin worded to not ignore Fatigue. Warlock bluntly has far too many cycling tools that synergize with this broken quest and in general.
Kobold Librarian needs to cost 2 mana at least - for what it does, it is entirely too powerful a tool at 1 mana. Backfire needs to be upped to 4 mana. Obviously Raise Dead will need to be addressed. Please stop printing cards that cost zero unconditionally, Team 5. It always leads to broken shit.
Far as neutrals...never thought I would say this but Crystallizer may need to tank a hit as well. Maybe down to 3 health and 3 armor? I stand by my assessment that Animated Broomstick should also tank a hit. If you start to make Glare & Flesh Giants the go-to again, then they still have this busted card that allows for far too much reach.
but that is just like, mY oPiNioN, man.
IF wanna change crystalzie(which wouldnt be needed at alll with the rework of demon seed op proposes), chaneg to CONVERT hp to armor like thekal
One thing I see people here, and in other places too, assume wrongly is handlock's win condition and the fact that it "doesn't need the fatigue win-con because it wins through giants with windfury".
But the reason it doesn't need that win condition is because there are no slow decks present that push it to fatigue.
If a handlock player were to play against a control priest or control warrior they would absolutely need that fatigue win condition because their limited threats get cleared rather easily.
Just because that win condition is not relevant now doesn't mean it isn't limiting deck building.
Obviously, there's plenty of other quest decks that push slower strategies away all the same. But handlock is no less of an offender, due to the fatigue win condition it has.
I agree that redirecting Fatigue damage is a huge part of the problem. My favorite solution for the whole Seedlock issue would be the widely popular idea to make Tamsin share damage dealt to your hero on your turn with your opponent (like her voiceline suggests as well). If the Fatigue aspect doesn't get changed but the (Wild) meta somehow slows down after the next round of nerfs, I'll try a "fun" version with Void Contract :D
Sharing the damage sounds like an elegant solution. Should solve some Wild issues too.
I agree that redirecting Fatigue damage is a huge part of the problem. My favorite solution for the whole Seedlock issue would be the widely popular idea to make Tamsin share damage dealt to your hero on your turn with your opponent (like her voiceline suggests as well). If the Fatigue aspect doesn't get changed but the (Wild) meta somehow slows down after the next round of nerfs, I'll try a "fun" version with Void Contract :D
Sharing the damage sounds like an elegant solution. Should solve some Wild issues too.
I kind of like that too. My main question would be is it a straight copy of damage? As in the Warlock uses Tap, draws a card, and both players take 2 damage? Or is it more like using Tap both players take 1 damage? If it is the second one, would something like 3 damage from Raise Dead give the 2 damage to the opponent since it can't split into halves? Honestly I think either would be an interesting solution to at least try. At least then it's not just "vomit self damage cards into play" after the Tamsin is played. Might require a little more thought to continue managing your own HP.
I'd also like it if the damage to advance the quest had to come from the Warlock's "Hero Power or cards." I was having fun with Shadowed Spirit in my Shadow Priest build until I realized it was basically a dead card against QL Warlocks who benefited from killing it and taking the deathrattle damage on their turn.
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
I agree that redirecting Fatigue damage is a huge part of the problem. My favorite solution for the whole Seedlock issue would be the widely popular idea to make Tamsin share damage dealt to your hero on your turn with your opponent (like her voiceline suggests as well). If the Fatigue aspect doesn't get changed but the (Wild) meta somehow slows down after the next round of nerfs, I'll try a "fun" version with Void Contract :D
Sharing the damage sounds like an elegant solution. Should solve some Wild issues too.
I kind of like that too. My main question would be is it a straight copy of damage? As in the Warlock uses Tap, draws a card, and both players take 2 damage? Or is it more like using Tap both players take 1 damage? If it is the second one, would something like 3 damage from Raise Dead give the 2 damage to the opponent since it can't split into halves? Honestly I think either would be an interesting solution to at least try. At least then it's not just "vomit self damage cards into play" after the Tamsin is played. Might require a little more thought to continue managing your own HP.
I'd also like it if the damage to advance the quest had to come from the Warlock's "Hero Power or cards." I was having fun with Shadowed Spirit in my Shadow Priest build until I realized it was basically a dead card against QL Warlocks who benefited from killing it and taking the deathrattle damage on their turn.
My idea would be that both players take full damage.
I don't mind the fatigue component of the quest, but when you race them, they should not be semi-immune after quest completion.
I have seen a lot of people propose either to have the quest reward actually share the damage or not work with fatigue damage - but how about just make it the first time you take damage each of your turns? Yes, it would still work with fatigue but your lifetap would use up that once-per-turn effect if you were to try and accelerate it. So if you have too many self-damage cards, you will still kill yourself but there is an option to go more of a control route.
The Demon Seed. I won't get into why this card needs a nerf, because let's be honest, if you're reading this, then you already know why. My proposed change is less of a nerf, and more a massive rework of the card. Each individual step of this Questline is getting changed, including the reward.
I detest these kind of cards, where the quest progress can go up by more than one at a time. For instance, Crystallizer increases the progress by 5, making the questline become far too easy to complete.
The other problem with this questline, is that it completely removes a lose-condition from the game in Fatigue, and turns it into a very lethal weapon for you. This definitely should not happen, you should only be able to utilise your cards as ways of damaging your opponent.
Here is the total proposed rework of the card:
With this change, you are required to damage yourself with your cards 12 times, this means the Hero Power no longer contributes, removing a far too consistent way to complete the questline whilst also massively slowing down your progress. The reward change forces you to still have cards left that can damage your opponent, as Fatigue and your Hero Power are no longer an option. This overall, forces you to massively build your deck around the self-damage mechanic, which could lead to the deck being constructed out of some lower quality cards.
This also keeps Fatigue as a lose-condition for the deck. I honestly think that in a more balanced state, this deck can be fun for both players in the match, as opposed to just one. If this rework is too much, then another consideration might be to reduce the quest completion stages from 3 / 4 / 5 to 2 / 3 / 4, 12 instances of damage to 9.
I'd love to hear feedback about this, tell me what you think.
Thanks guys
This proposal seems pretty bad to me, and basically a nuke from orbit for most versions of the deck. A typical self-harm Warlock card deals two to three damage to your hero. So you'd go from 6/7/8 damage to something close to 7/10/12 (i.e. a change from a net 15 damage to 23 damage). In that sense, your proposal looks a lot like a convoluted way to remove the lifesteal from the quest, which I believe would make the quest totally unplayable (particularly after rotation) due to how weak it would be to aggro after sustaining that much damage.
But it's actually even worse than that. If you assume that average self-harm value is three (which is reasonable considering the popularity of cards like Raise Dead, Flame Imp, Backfire, and Hecklefang Hyena in many Questline Warlock decks), the quest would end up dealing 36 damage to your hero in order to restore six health and get Blightborn Tamsin. You'd literally have to kill your own hero to complete the quest.
One of the interesting things about the current design of damage dealt rather than instances of damage dealt is that there are times when you waste damage (e.g. you're at 5/6 for the first quest reward and you tap, wasting one point of damage). I think that's a positive aspect of the quest today because, for decks that care about quest completion, it forces you to think pretty critically about how to spend your damage to avoid getting demolished by aggro.
I also think you care too much about fatigue. You describe it as a lose condition, but it's very rare that any game actually goes to fatigue, so it's also mostly irrelevant as a way to lose. Fatigue is a major part of certain Questline archetypes (like the Stealer version of the deck that used it for burst), but latest nerf that moved Stealer of Souls up to 6 mana has really weakened that version of the deck, and it's mostly gone from the Standard meta.
One last note, I don't know that this proposal would do anything to impact the most popular version of Questline Warlock - the Handlock/Flesh Giant version. That version doesn't really try to complete the quest anyway, and Life Tap would still reduce the cost of the giants even if it doesn't proc the quest. That version is also probably the only one still viable in Standard after the latest nerfs, making your proposal all the more moot.
Let's address a few things about your reply to the OP... with one base assumption that I agree with: The average warlock card does 3 "self-harm" damage. That much I do agree with.
In that sense, your proposal looks a lot like a convoluted way to remove the lifesteal from the quest
It's not, but even assuming that was the case: in standard that isn't so bad. I've literally seen warlocks heal for more damage than they've dealt to themselves through the use of soul fragments, Soul Shear, Drain Soul, Blood Shard Bristleback, and Touch of the Nathrezim. Coupled with Tamsin (legendary) they can duplicate many of those spells because they are all CHEAP spells that are easy to copy with Tamsin for 0 cost, free healing.
I also think you care too much about fatigue
Yes, because up to this point fatigue has been a rather immutable point of decisive game-ending power. Barring select circumstances such as Archivist, dead man's hand, or Jade Idols...fatigue has largely been both the savior and adversary of control. It's the final "countdown" (no pun intended) of games. It treats both players equally fairly and requires playing around it to win in drawn out matches.
It's not some boogie man "ooh, I hate fatigue games, they are so boring and take forever", it's there to END drawn out games. And despite your protests of 'caring too much' it's not something that should be avoidable permanently. (Cards like mal'ganis which allow you to be immune to damage but the vulnerability of taking out malganis still exists are ok). But a permanent battlecry is not cool.
And even Kibler himself agreed that it ignoring fatigue feels like an odd design decision. (not that I'm citing Kibler as some gospel, but as someone who worked on the physical WoW card game...effectively the precursor to Hearthstone, I feel like his opinion usually isn't far from the truth)
but it's very rare that any game actually goes to fatigue
Currently, yes. However, the main problem is that warlocks with the quest accelerate TOWARD fatigue in an attempt to just kill their opponent with their own fatigue damage. Unavoidable, un-counterable fatigue damage.
I don't know that this proposal would do anything to impact the most popular version of Questline Warlock - the Handlock/Flesh Giant version
We are talking about ALL versions of the deck. Just because one particular version got weakened does not mean that it doesn't deserve nerfing. Again as I was Kibler the other day respond to someone in chat: "Something can be not overpowered, but also still need fixing/adjusting" Not to mention that warlock in both wild and standard is warping the meta. The meta is still entirely warped around Warlock. Hunters have hyper aggro decks TARGETING warlocks. Just because a deck isn't doing "well" doesn't mean that the meta hasn't adapted to it, but it means that the meta has adapted to target it.
All in all...
OP's proposal may not be the best, and will most likely not be the result that Blizzard goes with, but the premise and the understanding that something is fundamentally broken with Warlock is accurate and well founded. You seemed to miss that point and focus entirely on the details and not the whole picture...
Or as the saying goes "Can't see the forest for the trees."
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I don't believe I've missed anything. I never disputed that Warlock has been overtuned/warping the meta since United in Stormwind launched. The OP said "I'd love to hear feedback about this [proposed nerf]," so I offered some feedback on the details of their proposed nerfs.
My point here is that both the proposed change and the much simpler "remove lifesteal" idea I've seen bounced around results in an approximately 50% increase to the amount of net damage you'd need to take to complete the questline. That's enormous. This proposal also makes it a much slower process by removing Life Tap as a source of quest progress, meaning some of the healing that currently keeps Warlock in the game (i.e. the quest rewards) would be delayed. I really don't think you can overstate how dramatically that would weaken every version of this deck against aggro, regardless of whether or not the deck has free mid to late game healing combos with Tasmin and various Shadow spells.
I don't think fatigue is being treated as a boogey man, and I'm not saying its definitely better to include it as part of the effect, but I also don't think it's super relevant here. For starters, redirecting your fatigue damage doesn't negate its central purpose as a way to end drawn out games. Those games will still end in fatigue - they'll just do so in a lopsided way. More to the point, though, these questline decks aren't trying to win by going to fatigue - they're trying to win by hitting you in the face with giants. Yes, they can burn their own deck to get to fatigue quickly, but that's secondary to what they're actually trying to accomplish, and would make for a very weak way to win the game against aggro or midrange strategies if it were all they had going for them.
I agree that Kibler usually has a lot of good takes on these things, and one of the points he made in his Combos video on YouTube was that the biggest problem with decks like this (i.e. decks that are not necessarily OP but still warp the meta) is their popularity. At the time he made the video, these kinds of unbeatable combo decks were something like 30% of the meta, which is too high for control decks to have a lot of success (i.e. any control deck in a meta like that would need to have winrates against aggro that are well above 70%, which is a very tall order).
Nuking this quest is a great way to dramatically decrease that number, but there are better ways to tackle the actual combo pieces that are causing the problems, which in turn will weaken the quest in its weaker matchups and ultimately make it less popular. To their credit, Blizzard has already been nerfing these pieces. I know that mostly only helps Standard players, but the fact is the Wild format is too highly synergistic to do much about this quest without banning it or radically changing a lot of old cards (which Blizzard hates to do in Wild).
Im actually curious if you've actually went and check how many cards warlock actually has to damage themselves. The current hyper aggressive quest zoolock has precisely 12 damaging cards, not counting those that coming out of Raise Dead, and the total amount of damage runs to 26, not counting Unstable Shadow Blast which means there's potential for this to get even higher. In effect what you're suggesting is either warlock run useless cards like Elven Archer, or they simply kill themselves before they even get close to killing the opponent with tamsin.
Not to mention that this basically invalidates cards like Bloodbound Imp, Tour Guide, and ruins the fatigue win condition, which means tamsin has an effective cap on its power.
While Im 100% sure team5 will never implement this as a change, it's certainly interesting. I would go for your second suggestion, which limits it to 9 damaging cards, which will leave enough cards to close the game with tamsin.
Also, I'd like to comment on the 'fatigue as a lose condition' idea.
I don't hate the idea that tamsin kills via fatigue damage. If the deck is built to burn through their deck fast because they can kill their opponent via fatigue, that's entirely fair, because the deck would need to be built to do exactly that. That's no different to how mill decks win their games. Just slowing down the quest will more or less balance the idea of a 'fatigue warlock'.
If fatigue warlock is very consistent, very fast, and is polarizing games, then Im sure team5 would do something about it, as they have done to d6 warlock. There's no need to focus on the fatigue aspect of the quest. If they finish it quick, the game will be lost within 2-3 turns anyway, fatigue or no.
I agree that redirecting Fatigue damage is a huge part of the problem. My favorite solution for the whole Seedlock issue would be the widely popular idea to make Tamsin share damage dealt to your hero on your turn with your opponent (like her voiceline suggests as well). If the Fatigue aspect doesn't get changed but the (Wild) meta somehow slows down after the next round of nerfs, I'll try a "fun" version with Void Contract :D
I notice I am confused. Something I believe isn't true. How do I know what I think I know?
Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres, hpmor.com
IF wanna change crystalzie(which wouldnt be needed at alll with the rework of demon seed op proposes), chaneg to CONVERT hp to armor like thekal
One thing I see people here, and in other places too, assume wrongly is handlock's win condition and the fact that it "doesn't need the fatigue win-con because it wins through giants with windfury".
But the reason it doesn't need that win condition is because there are no slow decks present that push it to fatigue.
If a handlock player were to play against a control priest or control warrior they would absolutely need that fatigue win condition because their limited threats get cleared rather easily.
Just because that win condition is not relevant now doesn't mean it isn't limiting deck building.
Obviously, there's plenty of other quest decks that push slower strategies away all the same. But handlock is no less of an offender, due to the fatigue win condition it has.
Sharing the damage sounds like an elegant solution. Should solve some Wild issues too.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
I kind of like that too. My main question would be is it a straight copy of damage? As in the Warlock uses Tap, draws a card, and both players take 2 damage? Or is it more like using Tap both players take 1 damage? If it is the second one, would something like 3 damage from Raise Dead give the 2 damage to the opponent since it can't split into halves? Honestly I think either would be an interesting solution to at least try. At least then it's not just "vomit self damage cards into play" after the Tamsin is played. Might require a little more thought to continue managing your own HP.
I'd also like it if the damage to advance the quest had to come from the Warlock's "Hero Power or cards." I was having fun with Shadowed Spirit in my Shadow Priest build until I realized it was basically a dead card against QL Warlocks who benefited from killing it and taking the deathrattle damage on their turn.
Quick! Someone give me something clever to write here.
My idea would be that both players take full damage.
I don't mind the fatigue component of the quest, but when you race them, they should not be semi-immune after quest completion.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
I have seen a lot of people propose either to have the quest reward actually share the damage or not work with fatigue damage - but how about just make it the first time you take damage each of your turns? Yes, it would still work with fatigue but your lifetap would use up that once-per-turn effect if you were to try and accelerate it. So if you have too many self-damage cards, you will still kill yourself but there is an option to go more of a control route.