Alright, I suppose I’ll give reviewing this patch a go, putting some initial impressions or emotions aside.
For some background on my side:
(Highlighted by me)
Well, yeah… Don’t get me wrong, the patch in general isn’t that bad — many of the changes seem completely fine, but the… general direction, if you will, raises some questions. I’ll elaborate on that below, as well as point out some individual changes that ‘resonated’ with me somehow.
So, one of the big themes has been the elimination of ‘hyper-efficient’, oppressive AoEs, right? Nothing wrong with this idea, it’s indeed a problem, and the design team has declared this and its intentions. However, the steps taken so far remind me of some ‘meme’ forum guys would use, dunno where it’s from, but I’ll try to imitate the style:
Blizzard: Raises the issue of ‘particularly hyper-efficient AoE board clears’.
Also Blizzard: Buffs Reno Jackson much more than nerfing him…
So, yeah, about that, as some people would say… What’s baffling here is not just individual cards or decks, although it’s also an interesting discussion, but the inconsistent, incosequential course of action. Are you trying to reign in Reno or give him some plague immunity to boot at a rather small cost? So far, it looks like this: one step forward, one step back — which doesn’t really seem to take you in that general direction, you know.
Being able to draw your deck to avoid the downside of these cards is an interesting deck construction challenge, but it has in large part devolved into turbo-draw decks that tend to be less interactive and not in the spirit of these cards.
If you look at the pre-patch ‘meta’, that’s mostly Warrior, apart from actual singleton builds (which are probably even happier after the patch — more on it later), and Warlock, which isn’t really everything. There’s also the ‘singleton’ DH, which might be hurt more than benefit from this change — now Kurtrus truly has to sacrifice a single copy of everything, including those Window Shoppers, which doesn’t look too bright… So yeah, make the ‘singleton’ tyrants, namely Warrior, even stronger, make at least some of the weaker ones even weaker — isn’t that strange?
And yeah, about that Brann Warrior…
And that’s not all: Aftershocks had their previous nerf almost reverted. Lost direction again?
Some other changes to Warriors of all kinds look rather minor, to be honest, and more like regular balance changes than a drastic change in direction. Non-singleton Warriors can no longer abuse Reno, but that’s it. Brann is even stronger, and as for that boombozo… It’s mostly against slower decks anyway, and why bother when you can do a guaranteed board lock with Reno now, followed up by Inventor Boom to just finish them off on the spot? No more tentacles (a bit more about it below) — okay, fine, but it was merely one of many options for them anyway.
The next point was about OTKs… Okay, Zarimi and Nature Shaman have had their stuff delayed a bit, but it’s still there, and some of those changes, especially for the latter, look rather minor, to be honest. What do they call it, ‘baby steps’? Well, I guess it’s a start, as long as a general sense of direction is not lost.
Another one that resonated with me, perhaps as a DK player, was about DK cards in particular, namely Threads of Despair and Sickly Grimewalker. Okay, I get it — the general theme is toning down those ‘hyper-efficient’ AoEs, as dicsussed previosuly, which isn’t that bad, however, as for the particular class and its match-ups… I dunno, in my experience, the former card was mostly used as a defensive tool against decks like token Hunter or even, cough cough, Zarimi Priest — and it’s not like the DK was totally dominating there, you know, just keeping up sometimes. Threads of Despair is an excellent card in this regard, no question, and is probably still useful, but does this change really balance the meta? I dunno… And that poisonous stuff — more often than not it’d be used to answer an early big Zilliax or giants, as opposed to oppressing the opponent’s board with your virtually infinite removals, which often do something else as well, in a Warrior fashion, being more of a reaction tool to big threats, much like the Threads of Despair. Just as a demonstration: the ultimate DK board wipe with these cards is Sickly Grimewalker + ghoul (hero power) + Threads of Despair, which effectively is like Twisting Nether and even costs the same now… except that it takes two cards. Is that really so ‘hyper-efficient’? I dunno… It’s not like the DK was particularly dominant vs this kind of aggro anyway, in fact, it seemed rather… balanced, perhaps less so after the supposed balance patch?
Alright, what else… Some buffs — dunno if they’ll suddenly make those weak cards immediately playable, but okay, it’s an attempt, at the very least… Some positive changes, too.
In particular, taking Zilliax out of stealth is nice (and that ‘girlboss’ change looks not bad, too, btw). Also the nerf of tentacles, elegantly disguised as a buff to Sunset Volley ---- yes, yes! Those were particularly annoying to play against, besides, you know, the Yogg event has long ended — isn’t it time to play something else? From the latest expansion, too (looking also at Odyn Warriors and Sludge Warlocks), perhaps, no?
Speaking of which: Whizbang has received some attention, which is also a plus — sadly, it was really weak even in, say, Gold before.
Alright, this might not be a comprehensive review, but at least here are some general ideas and particular changes that I wanted to point out. Overall, it’s a big balance patch, and it’s not all bad, but the ‘general direction’ raises some questions whether the announced course aligns with the changes implemented so far. As noted by the developers, this probably isn’t a final design, so there’s still opportunity for them to consider the points discussed here and other potential actions to be taken.
(Updated and complemented a bit)