Here’s what I think is happening… Developers and higher up Influencers and Streamers have been dictating how Nerfs and buffs go and in a lot of cases they have NOT been to actually make a healthier meta but to make themselves look like gods. The way DH has been nerfed is one thing but why has Priest been allowed to be so broken for so long while a Shaman gets nerfed to the ground at the 1st sign of 1 of its decks being a lil too OP? Then there are the Buffs that makes class tools more viable & the arbitrary stat boosts to isolated cards with few other combo pieces.
There needs to be more transparency, plain and simple. When nerfs come down I’d like to see Q&A sessions with DEVs explaining why and why not because some of this stuff make no sense! Thoughts?
No, Priest is KNOWN to be a training wheel class. As exciting as some Priest combos can be no one wants to see majority of games won by convincing infiltrator being resurrected 10 times!
But then wouldn’t streamers push for nerfs to Resurrect Priest? Since nobody wants to watch that deck (as you point out), it would be in the streamers’ best interest to make that deck (and any other boring decks) were as unpopular as possible, since that would minimize the odds of having to play a boring match on stream. If anything, the fact that Priest hasn’t been nerfed seems to support the opposite conclusion from the one you presented (that is, that streamers/influencers aren’t dictating what cards get nerfed/buffed).
I have never approved of any nerf, not even once. They could have just as easily buffed cards, to make them competitive, instead of nerfing. And for years it was only nerfs. It wasn’t until a couple years ago they finally started buffing a card here and there.
And still it is not enough. Because the overwhelming vast majority of cards are still complete trash. And they justify those trash cards by calling them “filler”. It is ridiculous. It is a borderline scam, actually.
Not if its their “secret weapon” …Obviously experienced players realize the reason there are deck tiers is because newbs don’t play the same way as pros do! Priest is a missleading class in this way because on one hand it allows new players to wiff and make many poor decisions per game and still secure a win condition. While on the other hand its packed with complex control tools that also make it a relaxing easy class for pro players to pilot as well.
And cume on man, lets not be naive here, of course the streamers aren’t going to post the 100’s of boring matches in which they used embarrassing gimmicks and special temporal exploits and to blaze through. Your smarter than that Madmax, you know this!
And yet, Priest decks generally perform worse as you go up the ranks, not better. That doesn’t sound like the kind of deck that performs better at higher ranks (unlike, for example, Enrage Warrior). This is particularly true of Resurrect Priest (the deck you appear to reference in your first comment) which goes from low Tier 2 at Bronze all the way down to Tier 4 at Diamond (and nonexistent in games recorded at Legend).
That being said, Galakrond/Highlander Priest do perform better at Legend than they do at Bronze-Diamond, so you’re probably right that the overall stats for those decks are deflated by people playing them poorly. However, it’s also possible that the better performance at Legend has less to do with the skill required to play Galakrond/Highlander Priest, and more to do with the fact that decks that are hard countered by Galakrond/Highlander Priest (like Enrage Warrior) are much more prevalent at higher ranks. In other words, it might just be that the meta is more friendly to them at higher ranks.
But streamers rely, at least in part, on the streaming part of their job. So even if they don’t post Priest games on their highlight videos, they still would have to play against them during their live streams. And you can’t just skip that.
Well, should the developers not dictate nerfs and buffs?
But streamers? Hardly. I think people get confused with: “Most streamers have a fair bit of knowledge on the game, and so, when something is broken, it’s easily perceived as so and a nerf is called” with “Yeah, kibler didn’t like it so it was nerfed”
Galakrond shaman was not a “little bit Op”, it was nerfed. DH was also not a little bit Op, and got nerfed. Priest is “allowed to be broken” because priest is not broken. There’s data on that.
More transparency? Sure. I’d wager it would’nt do much to appease people though.
I don’t know, Galakrond Shaman being nerfed is entirely reasonable. At the time, it was far and away the best deck, and this was after a period of Quest Shaman dominance.
In the current standard, the biggest nerf to Shaman is year of the Raven stuff rotating out.
Priest is broken desing wise, not win-rate wise. Is a mess of a class more relegated to memes than anything, but unintuitive and boring to play against.
Blockquote[quote=“Madmax-12395, post:2, topic:34280, full:true”]
You think the average Priest deck makes for an interesting streaming experience?
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This there are some high legend players I like to watch streaming. One in particular has been playing alot of gala priest recently and when I see him play it I go watch another streamer straight away.
Boring to play against and even more boring to watch
ShamanKing #1511
Not if its their “secret weapon” …Obviously experienced players realize the reason there are deck tiers is because newbs don’t play the same way as pros do! Priest is a missleading class in this way because on one hand it allows new players to wiff and make many poor decisions per game and still secure a win condition. While on the other hand its packed with complex control tools that also make it a relaxing easy class for pro players to pilot as well.