Just two hero attacks would summon two 3/12s with rush. Seems too OP. My guess is that the tokens just get an additional +1 attack per hero attack, since that's what Demon Hunter's button does.
Seems likely Tamsin will still be working for Prestor once she resurrects. I'm amazed that you can tell that's Tamsin though - just looks like a pile of snow to me!
Warlock really needs to get a card that sets this up, like Lord Barov or Libram of Justice. And then we'll need to be in a meta where board-based decks are at a high percentage.
The question with a card like this is always going to be - is the effect strong enough to counterbalance the fact that you're playing "2 mana - do nothing" for the turn you're on. With the current meta, I don't think these "field" cards would cut it, but if it slows down, perhaps.
Honestly surprised it's taken eight years to get cards in this design space. Do we know how they're handling it UI-wise? Is it going to take a secret/quest slot?
Tying your allegiance decision to a free Legendary sounds cool, though I wonder if it will lead to people picking which card they think is better, rather than which side they'd actually want to be on. Especially if we can't get the other one until the release of the expansion! Hopefully only one doesn't become meta-defining, and you picked the other one.
I've always loved Hero cards. Whether I'm playing it or the opponent is playing, seeing the portrait change is always awesome. Admiteddly, as much as I like these Mercenary characters, it's probably not going to be as cool as seeing Death Knight versions of our original nine heroes.
I've got to say that I've really been enjoying Book of Mercenaries. The fights are fun enough, but it's definitely in first place in terms of story and emotional impact among all the solo adventures - frankly, the only one that even comes anywhere close is Aranna's Outland adventures.
And you have to remember that these are free! I can definitely see myself replaying it when all ten chapters are out. Maybe the most entertaining WarCraft tale being told right now?
I went into PvP for the first time today - I wanted to beat all the heroic bounties first, and have a team or two of lvl30s ready to go, and I've pretty much been against actual human opponents all the way from the start. I wonder if it's matching me against people with much higher ranks because of my high levels mercs? Although neither my or my opponent's mercs were generally maxed out completely.
To be honest, I prefer this than the bots. I want to be going against real people in PvP, or I'd be testing more team comps against the bounties.
I generally play my crazy decks at low ranked Wild. I feel like most people use casual for completing their quests. Obviously, that's difficult if your MMR in Wild is high, but I pretty much exclusively use it for fun decks.
I'm enjoying Mercs about as much as any of the other Adventures/Books/Dungeon Runs they've released. But considering how much more time and resources seem to have gone into this than any of those, I don't know if that makes it a disappointment?
It's good, but I think it's going to run out of stuff to do in a couple of weeks time. It doesn't seem like it has much longevity to it beyond grinding out all the mercs, which seems more like busywork than fun. I haven't yet beaten all of Winterspring/Blackrock and the heroics of those, but I can see my interest dwindling after that challenge is completed.
Honestly, I think the meta is in a lot better place after three rounds of nerfs. There are some viable control archetypes with high win rates - Demon Hunter and Big Warrior. And Paly has midrange.
There is a problem with aggro decks being the very best decks to play, given they already have the advantage of enabling the quickest games. But I think we're on a much better path than we were two months ago.
I can't imagine getting enjoyment from knowing other people don't have a skin in a digital card game, never mind actually valuing that monetarily.
Speaking as someone who has bought almost all of the pre-orders, and thinks seeing opponents have a larger variety of heroes to show up as can only add to the game.
I think one of the major problems is that they went for the simplicity of having all the final reward mercenaries cost 5-mana, when they're not all the same power level. Some of them should be 6 or 7-mana, but some of them would be completely useless at that cost, like Guff. I think for the sake of balance, it would be fine if they were different costs. Hell, they already broke the all 10-cost Old Gods cards with N'Zoth, God of the Deep.
I'm still getting them all, desperately awaiting the day we finally get the "random hero portrait" option. I'd like them all in the selection pool. Surely, it'll all have been worth it, right?
You mentioned the mercenaries coming out as 5-mana 7/7s, and I wonder if that points to them using super unoptimised decks during playtesting. Design-wise, it does seem like they expected these to come out Turn 7 upwards, so they buffed the stats to compensate.
I've been under the assumption that they wanted the meta this way - short games, but huge power turns. But maybe they were genuinely surprised by the deck construction that happened?
Unfortunately, I think the largest problem with the meta is not fixable without some serious design reconsideration by the dev team. Cards have simply become too powerful across the board, and that's why we see most matches end at turn 7-8. And because of the sheer amount of card draw that's now in the game, you can often go through your entire deck in that time.
Sure, in previous metas, aggro vs. aggro matches would be that quick, but now it's almost every notable match-up. Maybe others disagree, but I think all matches being that short makes each one less memorable.
Negativity breeds fast. I'm pretty sure if I made a post on reddit about how I'm still kind of excited for Mercenaries, I'd be downvoted into oblivion. Neither Battlegrounds nor Duels held my attention past the first month, but while the mechanics are very different from what I expected, Mercenaries does seem like it'll deliver the repeatable PvE content I was hoping for. And if that's all your concerned with, there's no need to buy every character and cosmetic, so it won't be that much of an investment.
If I want PvP, I'll play "traditional" Hearthstone.
I agree with this article's sentiment. I'm surprised we haven't seen a brain drain in the games industry given how much crap gets thrown at anyone even slightly publicly facing.
Prep Sprint, despite being available from the beginning, didn't become commonplace in Rogue decks until close to Naxx, if I remember rightly. It stuck around for quite a long time. Prep reduced by three mana back then, of course.
We merely dreamed of the kinds of card draw that are in the game now.
It's honestly a little bit surprising to me that we're this far into Hearthstone's life cycle, and we haven't seen field effects yet. Seems like it's a mechanic they're considering now. I guess you could consider Transfer Student to be a stepping stone to that. It just lacks the player's ability to change the field themselves.
Just two hero attacks would summon two 3/12s with rush. Seems too OP. My guess is that the tokens just get an additional +1 attack per hero attack, since that's what Demon Hunter's button does.
Seems likely Tamsin will still be working for Prestor once she resurrects. I'm amazed that you can tell that's Tamsin though - just looks like a pile of snow to me!
It's more pertinent to using Cookie to complete tasks. You often need 50+ turns there, to spam the fish and kill them.
Warlock really needs to get a card that sets this up, like Lord Barov or Libram of Justice. And then we'll need to be in a meta where board-based decks are at a high percentage.
The question with a card like this is always going to be - is the effect strong enough to counterbalance the fact that you're playing "2 mana - do nothing" for the turn you're on. With the current meta, I don't think these "field" cards would cut it, but if it slows down, perhaps.
Honestly surprised it's taken eight years to get cards in this design space. Do we know how they're handling it UI-wise? Is it going to take a secret/quest slot?
Tying your allegiance decision to a free Legendary sounds cool, though I wonder if it will lead to people picking which card they think is better, rather than which side they'd actually want to be on. Especially if we can't get the other one until the release of the expansion! Hopefully only one doesn't become meta-defining, and you picked the other one.
I've always loved Hero cards. Whether I'm playing it or the opponent is playing, seeing the portrait change is always awesome. Admiteddly, as much as I like these Mercenary characters, it's probably not going to be as cool as seeing Death Knight versions of our original nine heroes.
I've got to say that I've really been enjoying Book of Mercenaries. The fights are fun enough, but it's definitely in first place in terms of story and emotional impact among all the solo adventures - frankly, the only one that even comes anywhere close is Aranna's Outland adventures.
And you have to remember that these are free! I can definitely see myself replaying it when all ten chapters are out. Maybe the most entertaining WarCraft tale being told right now?
I went into PvP for the first time today - I wanted to beat all the heroic bounties first, and have a team or two of lvl30s ready to go, and I've pretty much been against actual human opponents all the way from the start. I wonder if it's matching me against people with much higher ranks because of my high levels mercs? Although neither my or my opponent's mercs were generally maxed out completely.
To be honest, I prefer this than the bots. I want to be going against real people in PvP, or I'd be testing more team comps against the bounties.
I generally play my crazy decks at low ranked Wild. I feel like most people use casual for completing their quests. Obviously, that's difficult if your MMR in Wild is high, but I pretty much exclusively use it for fun decks.
I'm enjoying Mercs about as much as any of the other Adventures/Books/Dungeon Runs they've released. But considering how much more time and resources seem to have gone into this than any of those, I don't know if that makes it a disappointment?
It's good, but I think it's going to run out of stuff to do in a couple of weeks time. It doesn't seem like it has much longevity to it beyond grinding out all the mercs, which seems more like busywork than fun. I haven't yet beaten all of Winterspring/Blackrock and the heroics of those, but I can see my interest dwindling after that challenge is completed.
Honestly, I think the meta is in a lot better place after three rounds of nerfs. There are some viable control archetypes with high win rates - Demon Hunter and Big Warrior. And Paly has midrange.
There is a problem with aggro decks being the very best decks to play, given they already have the advantage of enabling the quickest games. But I think we're on a much better path than we were two months ago.
I can't imagine getting enjoyment from knowing other people don't have a skin in a digital card game, never mind actually valuing that monetarily.
Speaking as someone who has bought almost all of the pre-orders, and thinks seeing opponents have a larger variety of heroes to show up as can only add to the game.
I think one of the major problems is that they went for the simplicity of having all the final reward mercenaries cost 5-mana, when they're not all the same power level. Some of them should be 6 or 7-mana, but some of them would be completely useless at that cost, like Guff. I think for the sake of balance, it would be fine if they were different costs. Hell, they already broke the all 10-cost Old Gods cards with N'Zoth, God of the Deep.
I'm still getting them all, desperately awaiting the day we finally get the "random hero portrait" option. I'd like them all in the selection pool. Surely, it'll all have been worth it, right?
You mentioned the mercenaries coming out as 5-mana 7/7s, and I wonder if that points to them using super unoptimised decks during playtesting. Design-wise, it does seem like they expected these to come out Turn 7 upwards, so they buffed the stats to compensate.
I've been under the assumption that they wanted the meta this way - short games, but huge power turns. But maybe they were genuinely surprised by the deck construction that happened?
Unfortunately, I think the largest problem with the meta is not fixable without some serious design reconsideration by the dev team. Cards have simply become too powerful across the board, and that's why we see most matches end at turn 7-8. And because of the sheer amount of card draw that's now in the game, you can often go through your entire deck in that time.
Sure, in previous metas, aggro vs. aggro matches would be that quick, but now it's almost every notable match-up. Maybe others disagree, but I think all matches being that short makes each one less memorable.
Negativity breeds fast. I'm pretty sure if I made a post on reddit about how I'm still kind of excited for Mercenaries, I'd be downvoted into oblivion. Neither Battlegrounds nor Duels held my attention past the first month, but while the mechanics are very different from what I expected, Mercenaries does seem like it'll deliver the repeatable PvE content I was hoping for. And if that's all your concerned with, there's no need to buy every character and cosmetic, so it won't be that much of an investment.
If I want PvP, I'll play "traditional" Hearthstone.
I agree with this article's sentiment. I'm surprised we haven't seen a brain drain in the games industry given how much crap gets thrown at anyone even slightly publicly facing.
Perhaps the rule doesn't apply to people who have passed away. Very unlikely to have new skeletons revealed at that point.
Prep Sprint, despite being available from the beginning, didn't become commonplace in Rogue decks until close to Naxx, if I remember rightly. It stuck around for quite a long time. Prep reduced by three mana back then, of course.
We merely dreamed of the kinds of card draw that are in the game now.
It's honestly a little bit surprising to me that we're this far into Hearthstone's life cycle, and we haven't seen field effects yet. Seems like it's a mechanic they're considering now. I guess you could consider Transfer Student to be a stepping stone to that. It just lacks the player's ability to change the field themselves.