[Updated on August 15]
Final Update: Hopefully this is going to be the final word on the matter, with everything listed below now fully taking hold. We'll keep you posted should anything else come up, but the latest messages from Hearthstone's Team 5 have sounded rather decisive.
Quote From DeckTech This update that was initially planned for 8/11 is now live in all regions! Guff has officially been banned in Duels deckbuilding. Arena adjustments. Bug fixes. Should all be good now.
Server-side hotfix so, once again, nothing to download. By now it should be live everywhere. If you haven't been following all these updates as they happened, you can expand the 'spoiler tag' below to get the full picture of how the whole situation unfolded. This way we should avoid any unnecessary confusion.
Another small Hearthstone hotfix patch (technically the first of this type for the expansion) is on the way, and it should make some Duels and Arena players quite happy. As is usually the norm in these cases, it's all taking place server-side, with no added downloads being necessary. But that also makes it harder to tell just when or if the changes have already taken place in one's region.
Quote From DeckTech It's immediate once the patch goes out, and it usually takes a few hours for these patches to be live on all servers.
Unfortunately, it would seem that the initial deployment of the patch had to be halted, for reasons that still remain unclear (you can find some speculation on one potential issue below):
Quote From Blizzard 8/11 Second Update:Today’s hotfix was paused due to an issue with the patch. The team is working on the issue and will launch this patch again once the issue is resolved.
Update #1: No good news, the problems only continue. But we got a number of unexpected leaks (followed by developer comments) on some of the upcoming balance changes as a result.
Update #2: Alas, not quite fully there yet. But at least some fixes should be active by now.
Quote From DeckTech you said the hotfix was paused yesterday. Is it still paused or has it gone out ?That one’s in a bit of a weird state, actually. The server-side aspects of it are out, but the “new/returning deck claim” and Guff Duels ban are not. Haven’t updated because the Guff thing is the one most are waiting for.
[…] they were trying for before the weekend, but the live issue today took a bit of attention away from that.
Quote From DeckTech Not 100%, but they think they Arena changes are live.
Wishful thinking, or at least the Arena community doesn't believe that's the case. Still in the waiting room over there.
Now with everything properly active at long last, we can confirm the notorious Guff card's ban is indeed in effect for that one special game mode. So let's start there.
Duels - Guff Hero Card Retired
Quote From Blizzard In Duels, banned Wildheart Guff from deckbuilding.
First it was Twig of the World Tree, and now the time has come for the wannabe 20 Mana offender Wildheart Guff. Apparently Guff only ever did everything wrong. Hmm, if only we could extend this ban to Constructed.
For Duels specifically, this naturally affects not only Omu, but Elise and Drek'Thar as well (let's just say Drek was one of the top choices for a reason). Smooth ramping might just've become a lot more difficult.
As Modes Design Lead Matt London put it:
Quote From Matt London Duels: Ates wanted to drop the mic and the mic is Wildheart Guff.
Referring here to now former Duels overlord Ates Bayraktaroglu, who parted his ways with Hearthstone's Team 5 just a week ago. He still remains at Blizzard, working on another project ("Unannounced Survival Game"), but our modest community has definitely taken a sizable blow. This kind of passion and activity is always hard to match.
Before taking off, Ates did promise that Druid would "get a nerf in the near future" (so that didn't take long), as well as noted again that buffs for the newest Duels Hero Darius Crowley are bound to arrive before long.
Arena Adjustments
Somewhat annoyingly, we only ever get the most general notes when it comes to Arena balance:
Quote From Blizzard In Arena, the appearance rates of many cards across all classes and neutral have been adjusted.
For what it's worth, Matt London had a little more context to offer here:
Quote From Matt London Arena: We lowered the appearance rate of the worst performing cards and increased the appearance rate of the best cards for lowest-performing classes.We also lowered the appearance rate of some power outliers in the best classes.
And yes, that's still pretty vague. We do know that before this hotfix patch got properly deployed, the Arena rankings over at HSReplay were set as follows:
- Mage and Hunter leading the pack (53-54% winrate).
- Priest and Paladin keeping a step behind (49-50%).
- Demon Hunter and Warlock staying in the middle (46-47%), with Shaman and Druid next in line (44%).
- Rogue and Warrior being the lowest (41-42%).
We'll have to keep an eye on how the power levels might be shifting from now on. As for which new cards were the potent bane of our runs thus far, you don't have to look far - take Mage's Location or Hunter's Wildseeds for example. While Forensic Duster might've been the most impactful pick among Neutrals.
General
And then we have the rest:
Quote From Blizzard
- Fixed a bug that occurred for players who triggered the free new/returning player deck condition before Patch 24.0, but then did not claim the deck until after Patch 24.0.
- Fixed a bug where Collateral Damage would deal the wrong amount of damage if copied (such as by Twinbow Terrorcoil).
- Fixed a bug where playing and attacking with the weapon selected from Suspicious Pirate would result in your opponent being offered a version missing one Durability.
- Fixed a small visual bug with Decimator Olgra’s intro animation.
We knew the Collateral Damage interaction was not working as intended, but we still don't quite know just how exactly it's supposed to behave when following after Twinbow Terrorcoil. Even complex investigations have been conducted. To put it in simpler terms - the doubled 'overflow' damage from the initial shot's kills should now no longer be happening, and this in a way could be considered an indirect nerf to the current Face Hunter decks.
We talked more about this updated returning player experience before the expansion (being offline for 120 days or more should trigger the now repeatable condition), and we also have all of the available decks conveniently listed here.
While the problem mentioned above should now be resolved, the early hotfix patch reports have also indicated that even some of the active players - who shouldn't ever qualify - were now getting the pop-up to pick a free deck. Perhaps that's why this hotfix patch's deployment was initially halted? After all, we already did have one Dustgate drama at the start of the year. If you found yourself among this crowd, best don't expect you'll get to keep anything. And don't try to dust these 'free cards', just to be on the safe side.
Other
For full context, you can find our previous compilation of 'Known Issues and Fixes' for Murder at Castle Nathria over here:
With this hotfix patch, a few more entries have also been added to the larger list:
Quote From Blizzard
[Added 8/11] The team is aware that Sinful Brand is not dealing damage in certain circumstances. The team is investigating the issue.
[Added 8/11] The team is aware that the “One of the Classic Blunders” Achievement has, well, fallen victim to one of the classic blunders. It currently tracks not when you tricked your opponent with Suspicious cards, but when they trick you.
[Added 8/11] The team is aware of players having difficulty completing the “Flower Power” Achievement. The team is investigating the issue.
At least they are aware of the problematic achievements.
And while Sinful Brand (or Demon Hunter for that matter) isn't exactly being played much in Constructed as of right now, it's certainly a nuisance elsewhere - I know I've already lost at least one Arena game thanks to the evil bug.
And before all that, there was one more crucial note:
Quote From Blizzard The team is aware of some players having difficulty while trying to edit their Mercenaries Parties on mobile, like being unable select certain Mercs from the Party screen. While the team works on the issue, we have identified some workarounds for this issue:1) select a selectable Merc on your team and hold down until the U.I wiggles, that will loosen things up and let you select your other Mercs; 2) select a selectable Merc and move it to over the collection area and then back into the Party; or 3) play on desktop–the issues we’re tracking seem to be isolated to mobile.
If you've attempted to play Mercenaries on mobile during the past few months, chances are you already know all about the bugged UI and painful experiences. The team has since managed to fix some of the previous bugs, yet these new ones (potentially even worse) just rose up to take their place. Very unfortunate.
Do you believe we are headed for a better Duels experience without Guff? And what about your Arena feelings for the current rotation and the new Castle Nathria cards so far? Anything else that stands out here?
Comments
I seem to have kept my free deck and cards so I'm happy.
Oh? Consider me very surprised if that's going to last, although so far I haven't heard any talk about solutions and measures. As Careidina mentions, have to wonder whether it survives for the next patch or two. But fingers crossed, it's nice to get an unexpected free gift.
Just to be on the safe side, they *might* remove it with tomorrow's patch. However, to not make matters worse and causing headaches they probably just let people keep them this time around(what they should've done with Dustgate). I don't know. I'm just skeptical when it comes to free dust and Team 5.
Been watching this situation and updating accordingly, here is where we are at for the time being - Guff still not banned, returning player decks issues not all resolved, Arena changes *should* be live, bug fixes *are* live.
It's a strange in-between state, no doubt.
Think they might've just pushed everything else back until patch day.
I have managed to dodge every single one of these bugs.
i realy hope blizzard hit hard on infinty turn mage, what deck is just toxic, and very anoying to play. i realy hate what deck and i hope i am not alone who think same way.
Tavern Regular final level (gain 2000 levels on Reward Tracks) can not be completed since you own all available portraits and can not claim a new one.
Wonder how long will I have to watch the exclamation mark on the Journal...
Well if Guff is on the table then its a good thing I'm holding off on crafting a ramp deck, lol
Unpopular opinion, I don't get why the card allowed to give Druid players as far as 10 extra mana. I personally think 2 extra mana is more than enough. Playing with 10 extra mana could end up allowing Druid class to execute all sorts of unfun combo that wasn't available in all history of HS.
Imagine Valdris Felgorge allows player to hold 20 cards instead of 12. This is the nerf I'm expecting, not a 1 mana increase nerf (as people suggested).
Personally the biggest problem with guff isn't really the amount of mana available, its the terrible ease of which the class ramps after guff. 1 mana ramp is about as broken as it is, to the point that if I ever saw them draw with hp I immediately think Im going to win the game.
An appropriate nerf would be for the hp to grant empty mana crystals, and for the hero itself to cost 6. But since they're committed to banning it from duels, I guess that's an indication that a nerf to this card isn't forthcoming, much to my displeasure.
The problem is the available mana to be honest. Hearthstone js designed around 10 mana maximum.
Guff clearly limits design space. But the same goes for Brann.
Brann is a fun card, but the combo with Sire/Kel Thuzad/Mordresh/Shaman Combo's is a bit too much.
I still dont understand why such a powerhouse needs to be in the core set, maybe because for consistency reason for the League of Explorers.
Hearthstone needs to be fun. And Brann is a fun card. As for whether something needs to be addressed, that one Im not exactly sure. Because Ive rarely ever see those cards combo out. Playing those decks myself, I rarely get to do it because there's no effective tutors to all those cards and the mad duke along with mutanus still exist to disrupt it.
That problem with guff is still mostly the amount of ramp rather than total mana in my opinion. We're talking a 4-5 mana advantage around turn 5-6, that's not normal. Even if we limit the total mana to 12 that's hardly going to help when your opponent has an extra 4 mana above you anyway.