The upcoming major Patch 24.2 isn't all about Hearthstone Battlegrounds, 'just only' about 90% of it at a glance. As it happens, the only other game mode to receive its own small devoted section is Hearthstone Mercenaries.
There really isn't much to be found here, beyond just a handful of updates to existing characters and their abilities, equipment, or stats. Nonetheless, some of them might prove to be impactful enough to make a greater difference either in PvE or PvP aspects of the game.
Mercenaries Updates
As always, Blizzard didn't care to add any relevant pictures or links to their section of the patch notes. We'll be making up for that as we go:
Quote From Blizzard General Updates
- Murky and its portraits can now be obtained through all normal methods.
Merc Updates
King Krush
- Apex Predator 5
- Old: Attack the lowest Health enemy minion. Deathblow: Repeat this. → New: Attack the lowest Health enemy minion. Deathblow: Gain +5 Health and repeat this.
- In addition to this effect change, the Ability will now be Speed 5 at all levels.
Cariel Roame
- Crusader’s Blow is now Holy.
Deathwing
- Claws of Terror 5
- Old: Attack an enemy. If it was damaged this turn, deal 8 damage to them. → New: Attack an enemy. If it was damaged this turn, deal 8 damage to it and its neighbors.
- Heart of Unliving 4
- Old: Claws of Terror deals 5 more damage and affects adjacent enemies. → New: Claws of Terror deals 5 more damage.
Yrel
- Maxed Health
- Old: 76 → New: 88
- Radiant Light
- Old: Speed 4 → New: Speed 2
Blink Fox
- Maxed Stats
- Old: 11/84 → New: 14/92
- Arcane Fling 5
- Old: Deal 13 damage to an enemy. If it has not acted yet, deal 18 instead. → New: Deal 17 damage to an enemy. If it has not acted yet, deal 22 instead.
Rexxar
- Animal Companion (All Ranks)
- Old: Cooldown 1 → New: Cooldown 0
- Explosive Shot 5
- Old: Deal 16 Damage to an enemy and 8 to adjacent ones. → New: Deal 20 Damage to an enemy and 12 to adjacent ones.
- Huntsman’s Rifle 4
- Old: Explosive Shot deals 4 more damage. → New: Passive: At the start of each turn, deal 10 damage to all enemies if you’ve summoned all 3 Animal Companions this game.
Fathom-Lord Karathress
- Cataclysmic Bolt 5
- Old: Deal 20 damage to the lowest health enemy. → New: Deal 22 damage to the lowest health enemy.
Cornelius Roame
- Martial Mastery is now Holy
Bug Fixes and Game Improvements
- Updated Trigore’s Task 9 criteria.
Got any thoughts on the above? Is that going to impact your favorite Mercs comps in any way?
Comments
Going merc by merc:
Krush: not a bad change, but beast builds haven't been a thing for a while, and when they are it's because of Trigore and King Mukla. I don't think this changes that.
Cariel/Cornelius: in both cases, their attacks are made Holy to help with their overall synergy in Holy Human comps. Off-hand, the only real synergies I think this affects are Yrel's Radiant Light and Velen's Blessing. (I can already see the humor potential of someone accidentally eating a Velen's Blessing proc with a generic attack from a Roame, kek.) As ever, the Holy Humans build boasts an embarrassment of PvE riches.
Deathwing: upping the damage potential of Claws of Terror is an attempt to get players to do something other than cast taunt every turn. Not sold. If you brought Deathwing, it's probably because your comp needed a Taunt...
Yrel: a big, beefy stat buff of +12 health-- useful for an attacker, to be sure. There have been lots of attacking mercs that have gotten health buffs, and the reason is always the same: burning up your health is a stiff price, so the merc needs to be able to take the hits. The increased speed on Radiant Light doesn't catch too many more abilities, but there are some good ones, like Cornelius' Taunt and Sacrifice abilities and Tirion's attack-debuff-attack. "Nice. Not thrilling, but nice."
Blink Fox: Blinkie has seen some experimentation outside of Beast comps, and it always feels like there's some potential for shenanigans there, even if oftentimes it seems more effort than it's worth. Buffs to Blinkie might encourage this. The increased health and Attack are useful given how often Blinkie ends up copying attack moves in PvE.
Rexxar: the latest merc with summoning moves to get a buff. It's clear that when Mercenaries came out Blizzard was way too conservative with summoning moves, as they were largely ignored apart from Battlecry summons like Mukla's Big Brother. One by one they've been getting buffs, especially as the Old Gods and Chen have vastly outshone the original summoners. I think my favorite part of this is the potential to repeatedly summon Misha for ablative Taunts. Rexxar might have potential, now.
The Huntsman's Rifle change seems like a gimmick, but I thought the same of Elise, so who knows.
Karathress: the weakest part of the naga comp is probably still the weakest part of the naga comp.
Took them this long to realise that king krush is more likely to kill himself than actually accomplishing anything useful.
Sadly its simply not enough, even with his monstrous attack. PvP have no use for him, and PvE enemies now sport so much damage, even on blues, that even gaining 5 health per attack will still end up with a dead dino 90% of the time. Should've made it immune while attacking quite frankly, because why not? Krush is about as useless as it gets, especially considering that Ysharaaj is just objectively the better choice.