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coriolis

Joined 07/03/2019 Achieve Points 380 Posts 284

coriolis's Comments

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 6 months ago

    I also got a new legendary quest with this update: "Intro the Fray" -- Play 1 game of Battlegrounds (2-week deadline).

    Does this chain into additional quests?

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 6 months ago

    I'm hoping this cleans up all the bots in Classic. You can count on encountering one or two dozens of bots during the course of a month, especially in the latter half. They're always playing aggro decks (zoolock mainly, sometimes face hunter) and making nonsensical plays (playing minions when a Doomsayer is on board, attacking but not killing a Doomsayer, having their Elven Archer hit their hero, etc.)

    I was reporting them using the [email protected] address up to now -- with supporting screenshots --, but this is much easier!

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 6 months ago

    You can tell that people at Blizzard have been regretting their decision to make Battlegrounds free-to-play for a while now. They overcompensated wildly with Mercenaries, and outside of 2 or 3 bundles (such as the Welcome Bundle), all of their Mercenaries offers have been overpriced garbage.

    Now with runestones, they can finally get some steady revenue from all these Battlegrounds players. Unfortunately, that means that many secondary modes and products like Arena and Battlegrounds skins have suffered "collateral damage" with awkward costs in terms of runestones.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 6 months ago

    I can confirm a similar setup for the Canadian store: the 500-stone package is the most affordable value. Either you're saving 1 whole cent (sarcastic wow!) on the 2000- and the 8000-stone packages, or you're losing up to 50 cents on the other packages.

    I can see two possible reasons for this situation:

    • Incompetence on the part of Blizzard -- they never thought to check the various regional markets to see if their prices made sense.
    • They assumed their clients wouldn't bother doing basic math.

    Either way, it does not reflect well on Blizzard, and by extension, this whole initiative.

    Alternatively, someone on reddit evoked the idea that this is a deliberate psychological trick: "Haha, Blizzard is so dumb," you think to yourself. "I'm going to stock up on 500-stone packages and save so much!" thereby incentivizing you to buy more stuff with that "free" money. I don't think that's the case, otherwise you would see the same situation with the "major" currencies (USD and euro), and not just with the regional ones.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

    Note that there are only 4 matches today and tomorrow, and only 3 matches for the finals on Sunday. However, all the matches are Conquest best-of-7.

    Basically, this means the broadcasts are shorter than usual (e.g. 5.5 hours today), which significantly shortens the window during which you can earn packs. 

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

    With Sottle increasing his involvement on the production side and Jia leaving, there's certainly a big gap to fill in terms of "strategic analysts" for casters.

    Out of the guest casters they've used in recent months (Dragonrider, hunterace, Edelweiss, Jambre, etc.), Edelweiss is certainly the one who's come closest to fill that role, although I find her a bit 'stiff' -- I think she'll be fine if they give her the chance to get some experience at the casting desk.

     

    P.S. I hope they do something to send her off properly, like a short retrospective segment on Sunday or during next week.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

    Going from the past 9 months, I would say I usually get the packs the same day, sometimes right away, like you. There were one of two exceptions when I got the packs the next day, or even on Monday.

    In other words, I wouldn't get worried yet if I were you.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

    A good idea, but I prefer a little bit more consistency:

    ---------------------

    Prestor Chess
    Class: Druid

    (0) Innervate
    (2) Capture Coldtooth Mine
    (2) Jerry Rig Carpenter
    (3) Wild Growth
    (4) Overgrowth
    (6) Lady Prestor

    AAEBAaTABAbougPW+QOwgASJnwSunwSwpQQAAA==

    ---------------------

    Side note: During this Brawl, if you Discover spells from your class or the opponent's class, your only option will be the Coin.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

    As a reminder, if you're looking for free packs, Master's Tour: Castle Nathria (the fifth of six Master's Tours this year) is happening this weekend. As always, YouTube drops will be enabled (once you have linked your YouTube and Battle.net accounts, watch 2 hours over the weekend to get 1 pack, or 4 hours over the weekend to get 2 packs).

    The same goes for next weekend with the final 2 weeks of Grandmasters Last Call.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 7 months ago

    The "Supplemental Mode" team has really been dropping the ball lately. Not only are some recent adventures (Book of Heroes and Book of Mercenaries) now impossible to complete because the programmed draws fail to account for nerfed cards, but we now have the THIRD repeat of a Brawl in a single year, following other recent repeats.

    Murder at Castle Nathria was released yesterday; today's Brawl would have been the perfect time to do "deck recipes" brawl.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    For all those decrying YouTube, you have to remember that the exclusivity agreement ends in December of this year. Given all that's happened in the past 2 years at Blizzard -- specifically their new esports management team and the buyout by Microsoft -- I think it's a fairly safe bet this agreement won't be renewed.

    • Best case scenario: All Blizzard esports fully return to Twitch, and YouTube is only used for select videos (trailers, announcements and VODs of special events).
    • Worst case scenario: Microsoft uses this opportunity to push their existing partnership with Facebook Gaming.
  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    I'd be OK with reskinning the Animal Companions if it was a different class. However, re-using the effect in hunter, especially for such iconic minions, seems quite lazy. Either use the standard companions (not ideal, since they have no connection to Altimor), or come up with new statlines or abilities: rush and lifesteal are the two big ones that have been added to Hearthstone since its intial release. Lots of options for the third ability: silence, gives your other minions poisonous or divine shield, etc.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    I completely agree -- restricting this to minions is a huge limitation, because they are inherently less powerful than spells simply due to the fact that they can be used over multiple rounds.

    The most obvious class for new Kael'thas is rogue because of Shadowstep. However, I can't think of an expensive and impactful minion they would want to cheat out with this effect.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    I'm much less enthusiastic about the Relics package, because the floor is very low -- you're basically paying 1 extra mana over what you would expect for the base effect to slightly improve further cards. And with only 7 cards that care about Relics in your deck, the ceiling is also fairly limited; realistically, you'll cast your seventh Relic on turn 9 or 10, and at that point, summoning two 10/10 or dealing 10 damage to two minions is not very impressive.

    Edit: I forgot that the demon hunter Location doubles the effect of Relics played that turn. That makes 9 cards in the Relics package, which improves its effectiveness slightly, but still feels underwhelming to me.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
    Quote From FrostyFeet

    No packs from Battlegrounds tournaments for some reason.

    There is some logic to not offer packs for watching Battlegrounds tournament -- Hearthstone packs only help you if you play a constructed format, and presumably, a large part of the audience is focused on playing Battlegrounds. Why give out a reward that many won't use at all?

    It's also possible that Blizzard thinks that Battlegrounds doesn't need the artificial boost. It is the most popular format for viewers after all!

    On the other hand, giving out packs probably costs them next to nothing, so why not offer them whenever possible?

    Finally, you have to remember that the Hearthstone esports scene will change drastically next year. YouTube's exclusivity contract expires at the end of this year, and we're gonna have a whole new structure for competitive play -- both constructed and Battlegrounds -- so it wouldn't surprise me if we had a grand return to Twitch, along with strong promotional support in the form of packs, emotes and cardbacks (think of the Hearthstone Global Games, or the Team Dark/Team Light promotion they did in 2017).

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago
    Quote From dapperdog

    Before anything start panicking about edwin 2.0, this is Biteweed, a card that saw no play.

    This is not like Biteweed at all, and certainly the best location we've seen so far:

    • You don't have to activate it immediately. In fact, I expect that 99% of the time, this will just be played as a setup so you can have an optimal pop-off a few turns later.
    • As you point out, the innate stealth protects it from targeted removal and attacks.
    • A clarification that was made from the designers is that the stats won't be affected by silence -- Smothering Starfish will only remove the stealth, not completely disable it as a threat.
  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    Quote From Author

    As you can see from the picture below, Snowclaw will appear on the board as a 8/150 Caster with two 0/25 Frostbite Totems. Each of the aforementioned enemy units has an additional effect:

    • Yeti Hunter Ranel - After an enemy casts an ability of (8) Speed or slower, it takes 10 damage.

    You forgot to change the name of the boss near the beginning of your article. :-)

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    I'm also surprised that this focuses on deathrattles in druid, as it's never been part of that class's identity. In fact, they've been about the exact opposite: vitality and living creatures (beasts and treants, in particular). I know we're going to the Shadowlands and there's a big emphasis on souls and the afterlife, but the card's effect still sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I wonder if it started for another class and got shifted to druid later on in the set design process.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    I agree, this small change doesn't solve the fundamental problems with this encounter:

    • Their duplication ability is too fast for most teams. At the abolute best, you'll be able to take one out of the six Dopplegangsters.
    • In the second and subsequent rounds, their damage output is overwhelming -- 36 x 6 = 216 points of damage, assigned in discrete chunks, ensuring at least 2 of your team members will die.

    Until the designers fix either of these problems, this whole encounter will remain the most danagerous one in the game.

  • coriolis's Avatar
    380 284 Posts Joined 07/03/2019
    Posted 1 year, 8 months ago

    Quote From Developer Comment
    with how easily cards like Sentinel and Moon Girl compliment the Dino.

    I know it's a common typo, but this is what I thought when I read this:

    "Oooh, what a cute dino! You're a strong dino; yes, you are! Who's the best dino? Who's the best dino?..."

    ;-)

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