I can only speak from a Mage player’s point of view, but I cannot understand multiple expansions where a class is forced to play a single archetype and then that expansion also prints multiple hard counters to said deck. I have recently been playing highlander mage only to learn the hard way that practically every class has some way to disable the deck. I understand that Albatross was nerfed, but it seems plenty good enough to kill the only tier 2 deck Mage can run,
not to mention the odd bomb warrior and whatever other decks directly counter this deck.
I also know that Pally is in a bad place along with Shaman, and so finally that leads me to my question?
Who decides, and why?
Why is Hunter perennially top tier with multiple decks, while every other class has to make do with one viable deck if they’re lucky, and no tier decks at all if they aren’t?
I’ve heard it said many times that not every class can be top tier.
I get that. For one class to be the best another class has to be weaker.
I find myself wondering yet again why certain classes are always top tier?
The people who design this game never explain how
it is that one class gets three tier decks and other classes get one, or none.
I cannot see how that sort of thing is good for this game’s long term health.
And yet, “X class gets multiple top tier decks* while others are trash” has been true of Hearthstone pretty much since the beginning. So clearly it hasn’t affected the game’s long term health yet.
*(not necessarily all at once, of course)
Its easy - Hunter hero power + classic/basic class and neutral cards fits to aggressive playstyle very well.
So they doesnt need that much goodies in new expansions to be kinda meta worthy (unless the meta is heavily unfriendly to aggro).
Thats why hunter isnt able to build some reliable form of control deck because the basic and classic cards he has access to arent good for that deck.
And then there are classes with either horrible classic/basic cards or their classic/basic cards followed by their hero power are all over the place and do not synergize with each other.
While it would allow these classes to be more flexible in crafting a different archetype decks, they require heavy support from new expansions. If it doesnt happen, they can be flexible enough to build various archetypes to polute trash-meme tiers.
Well. As someone who’s played HS for a long time, I do not feel incentivised to play it anymore. I know several people feel the same way, too.
The fact that competition for HS is now truly more than worthy of mere consideration/mention, as well as the fact this “class rotation” persists, and of course the lack of, or extremely postponed, positive changes and general improvements which are undoubtedly part of this trend, as a whole generally demotivate me as an HS-player.
To add: I haven’t played HS in about 10 days.
I get that it’s easier to make Hunter good, but I was told in these forums that Team 5 designs something like three expansions ahead? So, it seems like they would be able to foresee these types of disparities and act accordingly?
Un’Goro was balanced, so we know it’s possible.
It kind of makes me think it must be intentional and i don’t understand that.
people say it all the time
before mage nerfs people said mage was their favorite class they said the same about druid and other classes too
i guess those type of complains seems the easier to write and thats why i see them every meta
Sounds like there’s more to your (totally valid!) burnout than balance issues though.
I’m a passionate homebrewer/deckbuilder.
And am quite honestly tired of the current state of HS.
The inclusion of DH didn’t add much, imo.
I’ll give it until maybe two or three weeks,
after the next expac, and truly quit if I do not feel any satisfaction from playing this game.
As of now, it’s an indefinite break.
*Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiits the cyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyrcle of pooooooooower! *
*Nananannajamawaiiiii"
*Blizzard raises Hunter over a gathering of other class, while Uncle Demon Hunter looks pissed in the background."
Ahem, yeah, It’s been a system for years that switches around the power level of the classes… I can’t actually recall who talked about it… Might have been Omnistone, but anyhow… yeah, Blizzard have a cycle of power that keeps switching the powerlevel of the classes, meaning that people who focus solely on 1-2 classes either have to reinvest in another, by dusting old cards or give money to help them gain cards in another class.
Some periods a class is on top and sometimes in bottom, Shaman and Priest is a good example of that.
Some classes handle it better than others due to the nature of their classic set and hero power, such as Hunter but also because their decks and their playstyle in itself is “cheap” and their classic set always keeps the afloat along with the likes of Rogue, who can survive if given the right neutral cards.
In some periods, where classes are high on the power cycle, they have multiply decks and so on, while in some other cases they are low and only have access to one or maybe two, viable deck “types”.
Some classes such adapts better when their strong cards rotates and fall back on classics like Tempo Rogue and Hunter or Zoolock, while others have a hard time adapting when they lose keycards.
My opinion is again quite simple - I think they are incompetent.
Its not meant as an insult.
In my opinion : There are way too many classes to balance it properly. I do not mean to make all classes on same level. But I guess its bloody difficult to even make that no class is falling way behind the top classes in meta.
And it seems they simply cannot handle it. Also their fails with Gala Shaman and DH leading to fast emergency nerfs are kinda bad sign too.
Honestly I do not know how to keep 10 classes kinda on similar level where no class would be unplayable garbage compared to top classes. But for that reason alone I am not working in balance team. But if there are lads and lasses paid and responsible for that and being unable to perform their tasks…
So…nope, I do not think they are biased. I just think they arent able to perform their tasks because of how difficult these are.
No they are not biased. The class themes they try to uphold are not equally easy to build cards and decks around though.
Mage is supposed to have freezing mechanics instead of healing, which can go from better than healing in a meta which does not have unavoidable damage (old freeze mage) to largely insufficient when that is not the case (face hunter or demon hunter).
Druid is only allowed to control the board with their own board state and can’t have any single target removal or board resetting AoE.
The list goes on. Like I have said before Some of these restrictions are more difficult to maintain than others.
And then there is also the fact that some classes basic sets are much better than others. And without redesigning them, the weaker basic sets lead to heavily dependent expansion sets like Paladin and shaman which are useless if they don’t get a lot of exceptional cards.
I feel like they aren’t biased, really, and it’s more that they didn’t think some things out. Like with Paladin for example. Paladin is a class which gets like, three separate archetypes per expansion which have absolutely no synergy with each other, and so they typically have to fall back on whatever Murloc cards they get.
Shaman is bad because it was so good that it needed to be nerfed down last year. It doesn’t help that some cards that were really good in Quest Shaman, like Shudderwock and Lifedrinker, are rotated out.
Team 5 thought process:
Created agro shaman: Aw sheeet we can’t have this happening(nerfs cards and removes to wild)
Freeze mage: Everyone plays this it’s boring(nerfs cards and removes to wild)
Control Mage: Ehh mage shouldn’t have this kind of control… they are more rng based right guys? YEAH!(nerfs cards and removes to wild)
Dragon Mage: Why did we allow mage this crap(nerfs cards and removes to wild)
Dragon Priest: ok we gave the kids something new for awhile to make them happy, time to take it away now(nerfs cards and removes to wild)
Patron Warrior: Charge? Oh you mean the thing we do to players for card packs? No? It’s a card? For warrior? Nahhhhhhh(nerfs cards and removes to wild)
Zoolock: what do you mean they are spamming the board with low mana minions or smashing with mountain giant. Outrageous!(nerfs cards and removes to wild)
Anything Paladin: Ehhh they don’t these important cards right?(nerfs cards and removes to wild)
Hunter: nods head I don’t see anything wrong here… in fact I think hunter looks weak… let’s buff them more…
Its inevitable kinda. Like they design for 1-3 classes mostly. To make a class stick out it does need a lot of generally strong cards and when a class has a lot of those generally strong cards you will see that they can use those cards as a carry to go different directions and emerge with several strong decks all for 1 class.
Developers are biased,i have seen it in every single game. There is nothing wrong with that though and in hs the bias against certain classes and in favor of other classes is not so strong. That some classes get favored for a long time has more to do with how hs designs the game over several expansions and then to create an actual good and fun deck a class needs to get a lot of attention and good cards.
I have not seen a single bad luck albatross since the nerf went live…
I saw one albatross in wild yesterday. I forget if I won or lost that game, but the albatrosses can help an opposing warlock who’s worried about fatigue.
I think its funny when people put the bird in my Druid deck…guess they don’t know what embiggen does…
The irony is that hl mage is really strong but you can wither mage down. All kind agressive decks were bad thing for mage and hl hunter can do it with just hero power. Mage really needs to control board and have tempo to have some chance. So no reason rather not to play hunter.
Not all classes and cards are created to be competitive.
There are cards created for fun. and there are classes created just like that. to fill a specific niche.
Yeah, the OP complaining about Albatross and Bombs seems utterly crazy. I meet one of those maybe once every, what, forty games? They are insanely rare.
And this meta seems kinda fine - every class has at least one solid deck to climb with.
And the idea of bias is just stupid. The HS developers don’t really have a way to simulate the meta and it’s ultimately the meta that decides which decks are viable and which are not.
For example, No Minion Mage is great against Rogue, Druid, Warlock and Priest. But it isn’t good against Hunter or tempo DH. Is it a good deck? Depends on the meta. Did the developers make the No Minion Mage cards somehow weak on purpose or because they’re idiots? No.