Shaman kept me away from hearthstone for most of the last expansion, and unless changes are made soon itll keep me away from this one. Facing the same deck over and over again is fatiguing and incredibly frustrating. Too much tempo, too much value, too many answers. I came back with an open mind and a fair amount of optimism, but I've found this last couple of days to be really disappointing. More power to you if you've been having fun.
Well I have been playing some mage decks (last one is of the reno dragon variety) climbing up from rank 10 (7 atm) and found no real problemo in the shaman corner. More irritating is the pirate warrior which can aggro me quickly. Against shaman I have so much mid game presence that in the early turns after they completed quest they lose board and simply can not recover soon enough. Sure they have some irritating value combo's but hey, mine are bigger. I like mage again, currently it feels really good. Had an epic encounter this morning against a Galakrond warrior.
First turns we just removed a minion, played a minion but after I could get in Galaxy spell, I could start throwing big boards at him.
But he removed every big board for, I think, 6 turns in a row, and then he started to kick my face and threw me a happy feast comment.
But I still had cards in my deck, so I could throw him another 2 big boards and won any way with the last card in my deck being...Zephrys. Epic game!
At this point I have decided to boycott Shaman completely...meaning that whenever I queue up into one I just concede immediately.
Now this might sound silly, but honestly, if they don't actually want to try to play the game and just go for an auto win deck that'S 50% RNG anyways then I'm not going to allow them to play the game.
I'm done with this nonsense, it's completely out of hand and ruins the entire fun of the experimentation days.
I think the nerf will hit Galakrond rather than the quest. The tempo it offers with the 2/1 elemental feels pretty strong atm. The warlock Galakrond feels like a rare next to him.
I think the nerf will hit Galakrond rather than the quest. The tempo it offers with the 2/1 elemental feels pretty strong atm. The warlock Galakrond feels like a rare next to him.
The shaman Galakrond design never made sense to me. It is set up so the invoke cards are good if not great by themselves, and they are supposed to be the mediocre plays to justify the overpowered swing cards related to Galakrond (i.e. Galakrond himself, Kronx and the epic). As a result it is hard to justify not running it in every shaman deck until it rotates.
I honestly think it needs a fundamental rework, but since nerfs never do that, the most sensible thing would be to actually make the invoke cards mediocre. This is easily done with good old mana increases.
None of this means I think the quest or Mogu should go untouched (they were already broken, and are no less so because Galakrond is a problem too), and if they do something similar to what they did to rogue in RoS the class may be in for a whole batch of nerfs.
The amount of battle cry minions to get the hero power would probably be the easiest change to it, but we are in the age of lackey shit where battlecry minions semi-infinitely generate battlecry minions so I dont think it would be enough of a hit to it. When OP said that shaman usually only played one battlecry minion a turn I was wondering what quest shaman decks they were facing but it clearly wasnt the majority of them. The majority play lackey shit that summons more lackey shit. Or other battlecrys that are easily abusable when doubled up.
The quest is not the problem. Before evolve it wasn't among the strongest decks, it was just very popular. Corrupt Elementalist, Dragon's Pack and Mogu Fleshshaper are all potential candidates imo. Not to mention Faceless Corruptor, but that one isn't only shaman's fault.
Yeah. That faceless corruptor card iniates a awful meta. 5 mana 10 rush plus the possible attack of the token card thats altered. Nothing can beat that bullshit
The quest is not the problem. Before evolve it wasn't among the strongest decks, it was just very popular. Corrupt Elementalist, Dragon's Pack and Mogu Fleshshaper are all potential candidates imo. Not to mention Faceless Corruptor, but that one isn't only shaman's fault.
The quest is not the problem. Before evolve it wasn't among the strongest decks, it was just very popular. Corrupt Elementalist, Dragon's Pack and Mogu Fleshshaper are all potential candidates imo. Not to mention Faceless Corruptor, but that one isn't only shaman's fault.
^^^This
In non Shaman related nerf bets, I'm calling an eventual nerf to:
This photo shows exactly why. And yes, his turn 3 was Southsea Captain (in case you were wondering)
Show Spoiler
That's a total of 16 damage to face done by the end of turn 3. No deck should be able to take more than half your opponents health by turn 3. I thought Blizz had learned from their past mistakes with Pirates, yet here we are again...
This photo shows exactly why. And yes, his turn 3 was Southsea Captain (in case you were wondering)
Show Spoiler
That's a total of 16 damage to face done by the end of turn 3. No deck should be able to take more than half your opponents health by turn 3. I thought Blizz had learned from their past mistakes with Pirates, yet here we are again...
I totally don't agree with you: this is the best possible scenario for a Pirate Warrior. Such highroll is not supposed to be countered easily (otherwise a deck would be complete dogshit).
PW is quite popular but it is far from being broken at all.
Spice Lord and self-proclaimed Meme Master.
You can follow me on Twitter - I am always active and you can tag me to highlight your (or someone else's) 12 wins Duels run or really anything Hearthstone-related!
The quest is not the problem. Before evolve it wasn't among the strongest decks, it was just very popular. Corrupt Elementalist, Dragon's Pack and Mogu Fleshshaper are all potential candidates imo. Not to mention Faceless Corruptor, but that one isn't only shaman's fault.
Part of the problem with the quest is the 'inevitability factor'. By which I mean it may not have been a problem at the start of SoU, but sooner or later it is bound to either become a problem or forever limit design space.
The best example of this in the past is Aviana (at 9 mana). No one will say she was a problem in TGT. Even when Kun the Forgotten King turned up in Gadgetzan people would argue they were strong but not a problem. Then, over time druid gets given more effective defensive tools and eventually a meme card is released (Star Aligner) and completely breaks Wild. And this wasn't the 'I hate Big Priest' sort of breaking wild, this was OTK decks routinely killing you on turn 5. There were lots of things arguably at fault there, but as soon as Aviana was printed the game had set off down a path where she was always going to cause a problem some day. It was just a question of when and what pushes it over the edge.
I personally feel the current version of Corrupt the Waters has the same problem. The fact people are calling it out already is a bad sign, albeit not conclusive by itself. But rather than asking 'is it broken right now?', which is very hard to answer because so much of the class could be considered a problem, I am wondering 'how long will it be before 2 battlecries can be doubled on the same turn that break the game given what else Shaman can do?'
The shaman quest is so easy to complete with cards you want to use in a deck anyway, and the reward directly buffs the very same cards. All this makes a 1-dimensional deck building 'challenge' with no tension between different parts of your deck that can be used to keep a deck's power in check. All this is compounded by 'battlecry' not actually being an effect but a trigger mechanism, meaning a deck of quest + 29 battlecries can still have all of removal, buffs, board floods, AoE, etc. Basically any spell can be used as a battlecry, so you don't even have to pay a price by making a deck that cannot do something very well.
tl;dr: the quest might not be a problem right now, but I think it is just too easy to complete and too little price to pay for playing it, meaning one day it is bound to become an issue.
The problem with Shaman is the same problem we faced months ago witht Dr.Boom, it was nearly impossible to stick a single minion on the board after Boom was played, they have so many minions with rush that is really hard to gain any kind of tempo against them also is the only class that can use a fully upgraded Galakrond on 7 most of the games, this creates a huge problem in the game because every kind of zoo/board centric deck in the game is completely outclassed by the rush minions, so what's left? OTK decks that doesn't care about the board like Holy Wrath Paladin, while is too early to ask for a nerf i think they should at least reconsider some of the rush minions like the 8/8 or the Invoked elementals
the nerf, if any , will end up being something inconsequential to the over all arch of Shaman. Honestly, they'd to best by dealing with it over the next 4 months until the next expansion kicks out the Witchwood cycle.
Something else very disturbing with the shaman is this card Corrupt Elementalist. All invoke cards are following the same pattern : the card invoke galakrond once. At least a nerf on this one can be a good start.
At this point I have decided to boycott Shaman completely...meaning that whenever I queue up into one I just concede immediately.
Now this might sound silly, but honestly, if they don't actually want to try to play the game and just go for an auto win deck that'S 50% RNG anyways then I'm not going to allow them to play the game.
I'm done with this nonsense, it's completely out of hand and ruins the entire fun of the experimentation days.
Honorable move. /did that in the Un'goro Quest Rogue era.
Corrupt Elementalist: Simple solution would be change it to Rush - Battlecry: Invoke Galakrond. Period. Invoking twice, and four times with quest enabled... That's the real problem. In theory, you could play normal Quest Shaman, add Galakrond and 1 Elementalist, finish the quest HP and a board full of 2/1's with rush ready to counter the enemy board, 2 8/8's next turn and that with just ONE battlecry, that you can previously HP and get 4 8/8's...
Galakrond, the Tempest: Two solutions, change the HP, summon a 2/1 with Rush that dies at the end of the turn. No way to maintain insane value for Faceless Corruptor, or make a full board capable of Bloodlusting the opponent next turn. Or, make the 8/8's be just 4/4's. The fact that Shaman can cheat out 2-4 Mountain Giants in the same turn, and replay 2 again when using Shudderwock, yeah... Busted.
Dragon's Pack: Some might say it's not busted, some might defend it... Yeah... Invoking with Shaman it's not only easy, but also useful for removal right now, for the same amount of mana you can get 2 5/5's with rush in Oasis Surger, previously you must fulfil the quest, or if not, it's a 5 mana 5/5 or 2 3/3's, then you can have Faceless Corruptor, 2 5/4's with rush, but you need another minion in play for that. While Pack doesn't sound busted, yeah, 10/12 in stats with 2 separate taunt with an easy to meet requirement for Shaman right now. +3/+2 would sound better and less busted IMO.
Anyway, that's what I think, and also... They even invaded casual... Not even funny anymore to be paired with a Shaman after Shaman... After Shaman...
the nerf, if any , will end up being something inconsequential to the over all arch of Shaman. Honestly, they'd to best by dealing with it over the next 4 months until the next expansion kicks out the Witchwood cycle.
You don't want to kill interest in the game by NOT addressing something that annoys the fanbase for months. If the successors to the Ben Brode regime have a positive against the founder, its that they have been quicker to address a problem card or class.
Hearthstone has been lucky recently. Battlegrounds took off while the meta staled because they let an experiment (bring back old cards like N'zoth) go on too long. If Hearthstone Battlegrounds hadn't been released, there'd be a significant increase in talk about "the death of Hearthstone because of N'zoth and evolve."
They've gotten great reviews on cards and interest in the Year of the Dragon, but if they let the game turn into Shamanstone or Pirate Warrior 2: Ancharrr Boogaloo, and people who enjoy other decks find it unfun and quit, they'll lose out to other entertainment options, and eventually, another card game.
HS has been fortunate competitors have failed, and the one that might break Heathstone's hold is still in the works. I don't have interest in Runeterra, but I also think Riot isn't going to blow it like Valve did.
/conspiracy theory of mine: Blizzard's founder is the voice of Thrall, therefore Shaman must almost always be the OP class
Shaman kept me away from hearthstone for most of the last expansion, and unless changes are made soon itll keep me away from this one. Facing the same deck over and over again is fatiguing and incredibly frustrating. Too much tempo, too much value, too many answers. I came back with an open mind and a fair amount of optimism, but I've found this last couple of days to be really disappointing. More power to you if you've been having fun.
Well I have been playing some mage decks (last one is of the reno dragon variety) climbing up from rank 10 (7 atm) and found no real problemo in the shaman corner. More irritating is the pirate warrior which can aggro me quickly. Against shaman I have so much mid game presence that in the early turns after they completed quest they lose board and simply can not recover soon enough. Sure they have some irritating value combo's but hey, mine are bigger. I like mage again, currently it feels really good. Had an epic encounter this morning against a Galakrond warrior.
First turns we just removed a minion, played a minion but after I could get in Galaxy spell, I could start throwing big boards at him.
But he removed every big board for, I think, 6 turns in a row, and then he started to kick my face and threw me a happy feast comment.
But I still had cards in my deck, so I could throw him another 2 big boards and won any way with the last card in my deck being...Zephrys. Epic game!
At this point I have decided to boycott Shaman completely...meaning that whenever I queue up into one I just concede immediately.
Now this might sound silly, but honestly, if they don't actually want to try to play the game and just go for an auto win deck that'S 50% RNG anyways then I'm not going to allow them to play the game.
I'm done with this nonsense, it's completely out of hand and ruins the entire fun of the experimentation days.
I tried having fun once.
It was awful.
I think the nerf will hit Galakrond rather than the quest. The tempo it offers with the 2/1 elemental feels pretty strong atm. The warlock Galakrond feels like a rare next to him.
The shaman Galakrond design never made sense to me. It is set up so the invoke cards are good if not great by themselves, and they are supposed to be the mediocre plays to justify the overpowered swing cards related to Galakrond (i.e. Galakrond himself, Kronx and the epic). As a result it is hard to justify not running it in every shaman deck until it rotates.
I honestly think it needs a fundamental rework, but since nerfs never do that, the most sensible thing would be to actually make the invoke cards mediocre. This is easily done with good old mana increases.
None of this means I think the quest or Mogu should go untouched (they were already broken, and are no less so because Galakrond is a problem too), and if they do something similar to what they did to rogue in RoS the class may be in for a whole batch of nerfs.
The amount of battle cry minions to get the hero power would probably be the easiest change to it, but we are in the age of lackey shit where battlecry minions semi-infinitely generate battlecry minions so I dont think it would be enough of a hit to it. When OP said that shaman usually only played one battlecry minion a turn I was wondering what quest shaman decks they were facing but it clearly wasnt the majority of them. The majority play lackey shit that summons more lackey shit. Or other battlecrys that are easily abusable when doubled up.
Living like that.
The quest is not the problem. Before evolve it wasn't among the strongest decks, it was just very popular. Corrupt Elementalist, Dragon's Pack and Mogu Fleshshaper are all potential candidates imo. Not to mention Faceless Corruptor, but that one isn't only shaman's fault.
Yeah. That faceless corruptor card iniates a awful meta. 5 mana 10 rush plus the possible attack of the token card thats altered. Nothing can beat that bullshit
I'd say you can play faceless corruptor as well? To turn one of your own little helpers to good use?
I'm inclined to agree with this.
^^^This
In non Shaman related nerf bets, I'm calling an eventual nerf to:
Sky Raider - Down to 1 health
Parachute Brigand - Down to 1 attack or 1 health or both
This photo shows exactly why. And yes, his turn 3 was Southsea Captain (in case you were wondering)
That's a total of 16 damage to face done by the end of turn 3. No deck should be able to take more than half your opponents health by turn 3. I thought Blizz had learned from their past mistakes with Pirates, yet here we are again...
I totally don't agree with you: this is the best possible scenario for a Pirate Warrior. Such highroll is not supposed to be countered easily (otherwise a deck would be complete dogshit).
PW is quite popular but it is far from being broken at all.
Spice Lord and self-proclaimed Meme Master.
Part of the problem with the quest is the 'inevitability factor'. By which I mean it may not have been a problem at the start of SoU, but sooner or later it is bound to either become a problem or forever limit design space.
The best example of this in the past is Aviana (at 9 mana). No one will say she was a problem in TGT. Even when Kun the Forgotten King turned up in Gadgetzan people would argue they were strong but not a problem. Then, over time druid gets given more effective defensive tools and eventually a meme card is released (Star Aligner) and completely breaks Wild. And this wasn't the 'I hate Big Priest' sort of breaking wild, this was OTK decks routinely killing you on turn 5. There were lots of things arguably at fault there, but as soon as Aviana was printed the game had set off down a path where she was always going to cause a problem some day. It was just a question of when and what pushes it over the edge.
I personally feel the current version of Corrupt the Waters has the same problem. The fact people are calling it out already is a bad sign, albeit not conclusive by itself. But rather than asking 'is it broken right now?', which is very hard to answer because so much of the class could be considered a problem, I am wondering 'how long will it be before 2 battlecries can be doubled on the same turn that break the game given what else Shaman can do?'
The shaman quest is so easy to complete with cards you want to use in a deck anyway, and the reward directly buffs the very same cards. All this makes a 1-dimensional deck building 'challenge' with no tension between different parts of your deck that can be used to keep a deck's power in check. All this is compounded by 'battlecry' not actually being an effect but a trigger mechanism, meaning a deck of quest + 29 battlecries can still have all of removal, buffs, board floods, AoE, etc. Basically any spell can be used as a battlecry, so you don't even have to pay a price by making a deck that cannot do something very well.
tl;dr: the quest might not be a problem right now, but I think it is just too easy to complete and too little price to pay for playing it, meaning one day it is bound to become an issue.
The problem with Shaman is the same problem we faced months ago witht Dr.Boom, it was nearly impossible to stick a single minion on the board after Boom was played, they have so many minions with rush that is really hard to gain any kind of tempo against them also is the only class that can use a fully upgraded Galakrond on 7 most of the games, this creates a huge problem in the game because every kind of zoo/board centric deck in the game is completely outclassed by the rush minions, so what's left? OTK decks that doesn't care about the board like Holy Wrath Paladin, while is too early to ask for a nerf i think they should at least reconsider some of the rush minions like the 8/8 or the Invoked elementals
the nerf, if any , will end up being something inconsequential to the over all arch of Shaman. Honestly, they'd to best by dealing with it over the next 4 months until the next expansion kicks out the Witchwood cycle.
Something else very disturbing with the shaman is this card Corrupt Elementalist. All invoke cards are following the same pattern : the card invoke galakrond once. At least a nerf on this one can be a good start.
Honorable move.
/did that in the Un'goro Quest Rogue era.
IMO:
Nerfing the quest isn't really the solution, the main problem with Shaman right now are 3 cards:
Corrupt Elementalist, Galakrond, the Tempest, and Dragon's Pack, the later being the least impactful of the 3.
Corrupt Elementalist: Simple solution would be change it to Rush - Battlecry: Invoke Galakrond. Period. Invoking twice, and four times with quest enabled... That's the real problem. In theory, you could play normal Quest Shaman, add Galakrond and 1 Elementalist, finish the quest HP and a board full of 2/1's with rush ready to counter the enemy board, 2 8/8's next turn and that with just ONE battlecry, that you can previously HP and get 4 8/8's...
Galakrond, the Tempest: Two solutions, change the HP, summon a 2/1 with Rush that dies at the end of the turn. No way to maintain insane value for Faceless Corruptor, or make a full board capable of Bloodlusting the opponent next turn. Or, make the 8/8's be just 4/4's. The fact that Shaman can cheat out 2-4 Mountain Giants in the same turn, and replay 2 again when using Shudderwock, yeah... Busted.
Dragon's Pack: Some might say it's not busted, some might defend it... Yeah... Invoking with Shaman it's not only easy, but also useful for removal right now, for the same amount of mana you can get 2 5/5's with rush in Oasis Surger, previously you must fulfil the quest, or if not, it's a 5 mana 5/5 or 2 3/3's, then you can have Faceless Corruptor, 2 5/4's with rush, but you need another minion in play for that. While Pack doesn't sound busted, yeah, 10/12 in stats with 2 separate taunt with an easy to meet requirement for Shaman right now. +3/+2 would sound better and less busted IMO.
Anyway, that's what I think, and also... They even invaded casual... Not even funny anymore to be paired with a Shaman after Shaman... After Shaman...
Papa Nurgle wants to share his gifts.
You don't want to kill interest in the game by NOT addressing something that annoys the fanbase for months. If the successors to the Ben Brode regime have a positive against the founder, its that they have been quicker to address a problem card or class.
Hearthstone has been lucky recently. Battlegrounds took off while the meta staled because they let an experiment (bring back old cards like N'zoth) go on too long. If Hearthstone Battlegrounds hadn't been released, there'd be a significant increase in talk about "the death of Hearthstone because of N'zoth and evolve."
They've gotten great reviews on cards and interest in the Year of the Dragon, but if they let the game turn into Shamanstone or Pirate Warrior 2: Ancharrr Boogaloo, and people who enjoy other decks find it unfun and quit, they'll lose out to other entertainment options, and eventually, another card game.
HS has been fortunate competitors have failed, and the one that might break Heathstone's hold is still in the works. I don't have interest in Runeterra, but I also think Riot isn't going to blow it like Valve did.
/conspiracy theory of mine: Blizzard's founder is the voice of Thrall, therefore Shaman must almost always be the OP class
I think instead of getting 2x 8x8 rush guys you'll get 2x 6/6 rush guys at max invoke
and 2x4/4 guys still at 2 invokes.