A little Hearthstone Ranting

[Mark Rhodes]

I love Hearthstone. I have loved watching it before I got in the closed beta and loved it even more when I finally got to play. Despite my love for the game, I can see the glaring balance problems that are ruining the game. For the most part, the game is fairly well balanced, but several cards and one hero power are completely over powered.

First on trial is the warlock hero power "Life Tap". Life tap lets the warlock draw a card for 2 mana and 2 health, which is nothing. If the warlock is aggro, his own health doesn't matter and the extra steam from a guaranteed card draw each turn makes warlocks the single best class for aggro. For control decks, specifically Handlock, it is ridiculously broken in combination with both mountain and molten giants, which lower in value the more the warlock uses his ability. Life Tap is the single biggest problem Hearthstone has and it warlock will always be the best class until it gets fixed.

Next up is innervate. Druid already has some of the best class cards. Ancient of Lore is possibly one of the best control cards in the game and ancient of war stops aggro in its tracks like no other card. Cenarius is an amazing legendary and wild growth gives druids a great ability to ramp. All these cards are great, but balanced. Innervate is broken. Getting a 4 mana card on turn 1 is broken beyond belief. Getting a turn 6 card on turn 1 is ludicrous.

There are more cards I could rant about, but these are my big three. Please, feel free to add your own rants.
Again, another druid card: Savage Roar. Savage roar is a three mana finisher that can easily burst you down to unfair amounts if your opponent has even a slight board advantage. It is not only unfair to get burst down 20 hp on turn six, it is unfun. Combined with savage roar, it is a guaranteed 14 damage burst with only two cards.

 

[leberkaese]

It takes A LOT of luck to get 2x Innervate, Coin and a fitting 6 Mana card on turn 1

Spoiler

And yes, while card draw makes the warlock a perfect aggro deck, some other classes' abilities are very strong, too. Rogue class ability + 1 Mana card "Deadly Poson" destroys all 2 and most 3 Mana minions? Whoopsies!

I guess, they did a pretty good job at balancing the classes or else everybody would play the same deck in upper ranks.

 

[squid5580]

Naw the only balancing issues I see is miracle rogue. Mainly the auctioneer needs to be changed to only give cards off of 1+ mana spells only. I can't count the amount of times I have killed off the auctioneer on the first turn I possibly can only for the rogue to have already drawn 6+ cards.

Savage roar/force of nature is not unbalanced. Every class has a 12 point burst available to them (leeroy + faceless). That is a 2 card 9 mana combo. Believe me there is far worse leeroy combos out there. That is just a basic combo every class has access to. Shaman also has bloodlust which is a +3 damage for all friendly minions. Which is even deadlier since shaman can bring out a totem every turn.

Innervate is not anywhere near as bad as those 2 other druid cards that give extra mana crystals (which I can't remember the name of). Having 8 mana crystals (or even 10) on turn 6 is a huge advantage. Down side is those take up deck slots and empty your hand faster. Druid doesn't have many cheap card draw spells/minions to refill it. Look at the video above. That paladin could have had a humility in in his hand. Or an Alderon Peacekeeper. 4 cards and it could be turned into a 1/7 minion without getting a chance to attack (or got 1 attack if all they had was a peacekeeper). That is a huge risk on the druid's part. If that happened the druid is boned since he has nothing left to play without some amazing draws.

I have been running pally to try and get him golden. And I gotta say I love seeing warlocks. There is 2 types zoo (aggro) and handlock (big minions) both of which pally counters so easily. Zoo can't usually recover from a consecrate. And won't be doing much if you take away their Doomguard's attack power. And handlock is what equality/consecrate or pyro was made for. The only change that needs to happen for warlock is take away their ability to play cards demanding a discard from empty hands. Playing a 5/7 charge minion without paying the penalty (discard 2 cards) is unfair. No other card can avoid the cost like that except a turn 10 arcane golem.

 

[Mark Rhodes]

I don't feel like auctioneer needs to be changed right now, but I feel it will restrict what can be done in the future. Basically, blizzard is severely restricted in implementing low mana spells since they have to check for how they work with auctioneers. I personally don't feel like miracle rogues are too large of a problem but I can definitely see how the auctioneer could become game breaking.

 

[Ryotknife]

I love Hearthstone. I have loved watching it before I got in the closed beta and loved it even more when I finally got to play. Despite my love for the game, I can see the glaring balance problems that are ruining the game. For the most part, the game is fairly well balanced, but several cards and one hero power are completely over powered.

First on trial is the warlock hero power "Life Tap". Life tap lets the warlock draw a card for 2 mana and 2 health, which is nothing. If the warlock is aggro, his own health doesn't matter and the extra steam from a guaranteed card draw each turn makes warlocks the single best class for aggro. For control decks, specifically Handlock, it is ridiculously broken in combination with both mountain and molten giants, which lower in value the more the warlock uses his ability. Life Tap is the single biggest problem Hearthstone has and it warlock will always be the best class until it gets fixed.

Warlocks are rare beyond rank 15 or so.

Next up is innervate. Druid already has some of the best class cards. Ancient of Lore is possibly one of the best control cards in the game and ancient of war stops aggro in its tracks like no other card. Cenarius is an amazing legendary and wild growth gives druids a great ability to ramp. All these cards are great, but balanced. Innervate is broken. Getting a 4 mana card on turn 1 is broken beyond belief. Getting a turn 6 card on turn 1 is ludicrous.

There are more cards I could rant about, but these are my big three. Please, feel free to add your own rants.
Again, another druid card: Savage Roar. Savage roar is a three mana finisher that can easily burst you down to unfair amounts if your opponent has even a slight board advantage. It is not only unfair to get burst down 20 hp on turn six, it is unfun. Combined with savage roar, it is a guaranteed 14 damage burst with only two cards.

Innervate....kinda sucks. It is two cards to use one card. At best you can turn 1 yeti (with a coin), but a nice steam of 3/2 will take him down. A turn 1 yeti is kinda pointless unless your opponent got a weak early draw or you can back it up with a solid 2 and 3 turn drop, which you probably cant because you are behind on cards.

Savage Roar as well is a weak card on its own. Combined with force of nature it is overpowered, but the problem lies with force of nature. Druids will rarely have board control as it is as they have very few "answers." Put out a nice big monster and a druid is done for other than perhaps big game hunter.

Cenarius is pretty darn nice for a class legendary, with perhaps only the Warlock or Paladin legendary being better.

As of right now, the "overpowered" specs in constructed are miracle rogues and frost mages. Both of which are annoying as hell

 

[squid5580]

I love Hearthstone. I have loved watching it before I got in the closed beta and loved it even more when I finally got to play. Despite my love for the game, I can see the glaring balance problems that are ruining the game. For the most part, the game is fairly well balanced, but several cards and one hero power are completely over powered.

First on trial is the warlock hero power "Life Tap". Life tap lets the warlock draw a card for 2 mana and 2 health, which is nothing. If the warlock is aggro, his own health doesn't matter and the extra steam from a guaranteed card draw each turn makes warlocks the single best class for aggro. For control decks, specifically Handlock, it is ridiculously broken in combination with both mountain and molten giants, which lower in value the more the warlock uses his ability. Life Tap is the single biggest problem Hearthstone has and it warlock will always be the best class until it gets fixed.

Warlocks are rare beyond rank 15 or so.

Next up is innervate. Druid already has some of the best class cards. Ancient of Lore is possibly one of the best control cards in the game and ancient of war stops aggro in its tracks like no other card. Cenarius is an amazing legendary and wild growth gives druids a great ability to ramp. All these cards are great, but balanced. Innervate is broken. Getting a 4 mana card on turn 1 is broken beyond belief. Getting a turn 6 card on turn 1 is ludicrous.

There are more cards I could rant about, but these are my big three. Please, feel free to add your own rants.
Again, another druid card: Savage Roar. Savage roar is a three mana finisher that can easily burst you down to unfair amounts if your opponent has even a slight board advantage. It is not only unfair to get burst down 20 hp on turn six, it is unfun. Combined with savage roar, it is a guaranteed 14 damage burst with only two cards.

Innervate....kinda sucks. It is two cards to use one card. At best you can turn 1 yeti (with a coin), but a nice steam of 3/2 will take him down. A turn 1 yeti is kinda pointless unless your opponent got a weak early draw or you can back it up with a solid 2 and 3 turn drop, which you probably cant because you are behind on cards.

Savage Roar as well is a weak card on its own. Combined with force of nature it is overpowered, but the problem lies with force of nature. Druids will rarely have board control as it is as they have very few "answers." Put out a nice big monster and a druid is done for other than perhaps big game hunter.

Cenarius is pretty darn nice for a class legendary, with perhaps only the Warlock or Paladin legendary being better.

As of right now, the "overpowered" specs in constructed are miracle rogues and frost mages. Both of which are annoying as hell

While freeze mage is so annoying (so are priest thieves) it isn't as broken and non interactive as miracle rogue. I wouldn't define Jaraxxus as a great legendary either. He is either a win more or just delaying the loss by a turn or 2. The only time I have seen him be effective is if you combine it with Alex. Beating him down to a few HP the turn he was played only to have the warlock heal up to 15 again is brutal.

 

[Slycne]

Warlocks are rare beyond rank 15 or so.

I think this is almost universally true for competitive games that the perception, and also to some extent the reality, of what is and isn't overpowered varies greatly depending what level of play your talking about.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Warlocks are rare beyond rank 15 or so.

Are they? I know Zoo's rather out of style at the moment but I thought Handlock was still fairly common. Haven't lattered in a bit though so maybe things have changed.

But yeah lol@OP complaining about Ramp druids. Innervate is a dead card in the late game and can be shut down completely with certain removal. Savage Roar requires board presence and even the FaN+Roar combo needs the opponent to have no taunts and being below 18. It's very viable but certainly not overpowered.

The only thing I'd kinda complain about is Miracle, but even then it's less because it's overpowered and more because of the direction it steers the meta.

 

[scotth266]

Warlocks are rare beyond rank 15 or so.

I think this is almost universally true for competitive games that the perception, and also to some extent the reality, of what is and isn't overpowered varies greatly depending what level of play your talking about.

You've got a picture of Pantheon as your avatar, so you might as well go all the way and mention League of Legends.

League is a game with multiple competitive levels, and Riot balances for all of them. There have been many cases where a strategy is easily winning at low/high levels of play but is useless at the other end - but Riot balances them all regardless.

Telling someone that there's no Warlocks past 15 when they can't get past 15 is like telling a man in a desert that there's plenty of water in the Great Lakes. If Warlocks are a problem at low levels of play, then they should be balanced even if they don't show up in higher levels.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Yeah I despise Miracle Rogue and Priests who use every spell steal card in existence. I've been informed that the name Miracle could be a reference to a similar strat in MTG but I still hate the name. Has anyone told you that it's not a miracle if the entire point is to make "miracle" 30 to 0 damage turns a regular thing? Dictionaries guys, please.

I sort of dislike the entire idea of a constant meta in these CCG games, I know there is always a meta in any game and nothing will change that but... I get the idea that you're supposed to craft your own personalised decks and find cool new things to do with that instead of copy/pasting the latest Miracle Rogue or Zoo Warlock deck from Hearthpwn wholesale. I feel like those people have missed the point somewhat.

I play Secret Mage, Battlecry Heal Priest and another more standardised (for my standards) Priest deck with less 6 costs and more mid game and recently some taunt Druid... thing. I tend to Coin > Scarlet Crusader > Mark of the Wild > SS Cleric > see how much I can get away with. I've won games with it because they had no answers.

Also I cannot see why Hunters would use Tracking. It takes up a card and makes you discard two cards to basically get the 3rd card in your deck quicker. How on earth is that worth it?

On the subject of Innervate, I know it can do some nasty early creature drops but seriously.


Ded as fuk M8

 

[Slycne]

snip

Actually most of my comment stemmed from my experiences playing Magic, but not even League is as immune as you suggest. Just look at the frequent ban lists between the higher and lower rankings, they are typically very different. Though I'll concede that I haven't been following the scene as closely lately.

Heck, what player didn't groan every time they saw Shaco get picked while they were leveling to 30 to only later realize it's not that big an issue. On some level, I don't think it's actually possible to balance perfectly across all the tiers of play, and part of the experience of stepping your game up is realizing that your preconceived notions were wrong.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I stopped playing and uninstalled because I wasnt having fun at first it was great the presentation is good and the game is fairly well balanced but I found the interaction between cards to be too limited also the pool of playable cards was/is pretty tiny.

The grind for new cards just so I could maybe build that deck I wanted to felt like work in magic I enjoyed making crazy combo decks but in Hearthstone the mechanics dont allow that and even if they did the time it would take to get a good collection without throwing money at it is ridiculous. Arena was fun but again it was a grind to enter. The game quickly grew stale for me which is a shame.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I stopped playing and uninstalled because I wasnt having fun at first it was great the presentation is good and the game is fairly well balanced but I found the interaction between cards to be too limited also the pool of playable cards was/is pretty tiny.

The grind for new cards just so I could maybe build that deck I wanted to felt like work in magic I enjoyed making crazy combo decks but in Hearthstone the mechanics dont allow that and even if they did the time it would take to get a good collection without throwing money at it is ridiculous. Arena was fun but again it was a grind to enter. The game quickly grew stale for me which is a shame.

I agree with you, though it's not quite enough to stop me from loading the game whenever I have nothing else to do and playing a few matches. You might want to keep an eye on this new singleplayer expansion... thing they're working on. I hear they're adding new cards which should be interesting though you'll probably have to grind for it again.

The fact that the cards have animations and little voice clips really helps the game for me, it may have been the one thing keeping me interested in the game entirely. Seriously, I am going to get Magic 2015 but I really, really hope they add voices and stuff like Hearthstone. The things they could do with some of the more game changing and dramatic cards... Avacyn breaking out of her prison as described in her card could be amazing.

If I was so inclined to get into the physical game I would try to get a full angel deck just for the style. Sunblast Angel makes the plays.

Spoiler

Angels are hype as fuck

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Also I cannot see why Hunters would use Tracking. It takes up a card and makes you discard two cards to basically get the 3rd card in your deck quicker. How on earth is that worth it?

Because a 22 card deck is better than a 30 card deck. Gives greater consistency to decks especially combo reliant which was what made UtH OP to a large degree and once again deck thinning and cycling is generally quite important.

 

[Vrach]

First on trial is the warlock hero power "Life Tap". Life tap lets the warlock draw a card for 2 mana and 2 health, which is nothing.

Dunno, killed plenty of Warlocks in my plays. Unless they're running the murloc deck, I very much appreciate them killing themselves for me. 2hp per turn is what the Hunter deals with his hero power and I would not call that nothing.

Innervate is broken. Getting a 4 mana card on turn 1 is broken beyond belief. Getting a turn 6 card on turn 1 is ludicrous.

Not really. Takes a lot of luck to get those cards right then and it's not something you rely on. Innervate can be pretty useless later on and even when you get it at the start and play that, you just used 4/5 of your cards for something your opponent might be able to remove in 1-2 cards (Inner Rage->execute=1 mana. Deadly shot=3 mana, backstab/eviscerate=2 mana etc.). Even if your opponent doesn't have a counter right away, you just dropped your pants and blew your load on your first turn. That's a situation that can be easily reversed and I've seen it go wrong countless times, for both myself and my opponents.

There are more cards I could rant about, but these are my big three. Please, feel free to add your own rants.
Again, another druid card: Savage Roar. Savage roar is a three mana finisher that can easily burst you down to unfair amounts if your opponent has even a slight board advantage. It is not only unfair to get burst down 20 hp on turn six, it is unfun. Combined with savage roar, it is a guaranteed 14 damage burst with only two cards.

Savage Roar=Bloodlust. Same thing except cheaper, but then, the Shaman has cheap, no-card-use totems that get that bonus, windfury etc. and most of a druid's signature minion arsenal tend to be more expensive cards.

 

[Janaschi]

Currently, I find Rogues to have the most broken strategies available to them. Not only are their class-spells extremely cheap and deadly, but they also have amazing synergy with both goblin auctioneer and questing adventurer.

Then we get to their hero-weapon combo, where they deadly poison either their default blade or the assassins' blade, where they can shatter it and essentially destroy everything on the board. No other class has the capability to do 6-12 damage to every single enemy on the board with minimal cost.

Then we have the fact that they have numerous cards that allow them to place a cheap charger onto the field, return that charger to their hand, and keep playing them before finally stealthing their entire field after combat for the next 2 turns, essentially sealing in a win unless good enough taunters are able to hold onto dear life until the brutality is finally over (and we still have not taken into account their combo card that allows them to deal 4 damage directly to your hero)!

Thank God for AoE and flare, which is why I enjoy playing a Hunter control deck, but there are times where it simply is not enough to combat Rogue synergy.

 

[Nathaniel Grey]

The only class that I truly believe is too ridiculous is the Mage. She single handily makes me want to throw my computer on the floor. Her magic cards are simply too overpowered. Any effort I make to take control of the game or change the tide of the match is completely destroyed by her spell cards. The sheep, the fireball, Fucking Flamestrike, her secret cards. It all compounds to destroy any sort of strategy I begin to cook up. She has a secret that takes a copy of your minion and then summons it. She can then immediately use it on her next turn and only cost her (3). What kind of crap is that?! It just seems like the mage has to work a lot less than all the other heroes in order to pull off a win.

 

[squid5580]

Currently, I find Rogues to have the most broken strategies available to them. Not only are their class-spells extremely cheap and deadly, but they also have amazing synergy with both goblin auctioneer and questing adventurer.

Then we get to their hero-weapon combo, where they deadly poison either their default blade or the assassins' blade, where they can shatter it and essentially destroy everything on the board. No other class has the capability to do 6-12 damage to every single enemy on the board with minimal cost.

Then we have the fact that they have numerous cards that allow them to place a cheap charger onto the field, return that charger to their hand, and keep playing them before finally stealthing their entire field after combat for the next 2 turns, essentially sealing in a win unless good enough taunters are able to hold onto dear life until the brutality is finally over (and we still have not taken into account their combo card that allows them to deal 4 damage directly to your hero)!

Thank God for AoE and flare, which is why I enjoy playing a Hunter control deck, but there are times where it simply is not enough to combat Rogue synergy.

Uhh actually warlock has shadowflame which does the attack of a minion to the entire board. Only difference is it doesn't hit the player

 

[Janaschi]

Currently, I find Rogues to have the most broken strategies available to them. Not only are their class-spells extremely cheap and deadly, but they also have amazing synergy with both goblin auctioneer and questing adventurer.

Then we get to their hero-weapon combo, where they deadly poison either their default blade or the assassins' blade, where they can shatter it and essentially destroy everything on the board. No other class has the capability to do 6-12 damage to every single enemy on the board with minimal cost.

Then we have the fact that they have numerous cards that allow them to place a cheap charger onto the field, return that charger to their hand, and keep playing them before finally stealthing their entire field after combat for the next 2 turns, essentially sealing in a win unless good enough taunters are able to hold onto dear life until the brutality is finally over (and we still have not taken into account their combo card that allows them to deal 4 damage directly to your hero)!

Thank God for AoE and flare, which is why I enjoy playing a Hunter control deck, but there are times where it simply is not enough to combat Rogue synergy.

Uhh actually warlock has shadowflame which does the attack of a minion to the entire board. Only difference is it doesn't hit the player

That is not even close to comparison. Not only does it require you to destroy whichever minion in which you are duplicating their attack power, but it also costs 4 mana, where in blade flurry only costs 2 mana, allowing for better synergy.

 

[squid5580]

Currently, I find Rogues to have the most broken strategies available to them. Not only are their class-spells extremely cheap and deadly, but they also have amazing synergy with both goblin auctioneer and questing adventurer.

Then we get to their hero-weapon combo, where they deadly poison either their default blade or the assassins' blade, where they can shatter it and essentially destroy everything on the board. No other class has the capability to do 6-12 damage to every single enemy on the board with minimal cost.

Then we have the fact that they have numerous cards that allow them to place a cheap charger onto the field, return that charger to their hand, and keep playing them before finally stealthing their entire field after combat for the next 2 turns, essentially sealing in a win unless good enough taunters are able to hold onto dear life until the brutality is finally over (and we still have not taken into account their combo card that allows them to deal 4 damage directly to your hero)!

Thank God for AoE and flare, which is why I enjoy playing a Hunter control deck, but there are times where it simply is not enough to combat Rogue synergy.

Uhh actually warlock has shadowflame which does the attack of a minion to the entire board. Only difference is it doesn't hit the player

That is true - however, I can truthfully say I have never once seen that card used. Either way, that still means very little to my overall point.

Well I do agree 100% about shadowstep combo being broken (especially when you can draw your whole damn deck by turn 10 removing any sense of rng). It is just that almost every class has a way to deal AOE damage which with the right combination can do massive damage

And to add to your edit there for a rogue to get 5 points of damage it will cost them 2 cards at a 4 mana cost. That is just from the basic weapon. It gets pricey if they burn an assassin blade to pull it off. And just like the warlock they can attack with the minion before burning it. What is worse with the warlock is power overwhelming. I have had handlocks buff a giant with it, smack me with it for 12 then shadowflame wiping my board