What is the "Official" Class Identity of Each Class?

Multiplayer Discussion
1

I noticed a lot of the new nerfs talk about class identity.

What is the “Official” Class Identity of Each Class?

Druid: ?
Hunter: ?
Mage: ?
Paladin: ?
Priest: ?
Rogue: ?
Shaman: ?
Warlock: ?
Warrior: ?

I would like to know so I can focus my collection on collection on classes I like.

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2

Druid should be about shapeshifting. They kinda failed with this one.

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3

As far as I can see from the last expansion:

Mage is about Fire.

Shaman is about Elementals.

Hunter is about Beasts.

Warrior hopefully will go to direction of Dragons.

Priest is about Ressurecting the dead.

Druid is about shapeshifting, though it should be about nature elements.

Rogue is about stealing cards, but somehow Blizzard push it into Pirates.

Warlock is about demons and the netherworld, but somehow pushed into discard Warlock.

Paladin is about divine power.

I hope to see more cards supporting the themes of Elemental Mage/Shaman, Dragon Warrior/Paladin, Discard Warlock, Thief Rogue, Big Druid.

Basically, any theme decks that Blizzard tried to create but failed.

4

I think you went with class themes and not identities.

A theme is like “divine warrior of light”
An identity is like “resiliant minions and good trading power”

Hunter would be “aggressive boards that empower themselves”

Priest “Healing, defense, support minions”

Warrior “weapons, armor, survival”

Warlock “strong minions that cost you something, powerful spells that hurt you as well, and card draw that kills you”

Shaman “nobody has a clue”

Druid “big beasts, hero attacks, boosting yourself or your minions”

Rogue “fancy combos, aggressive strategies, using your opponents class against them”

Mage “great hand strength, high spell damage, limited minion support”

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5

Shaman’s class identity is layaway. Solve something now, pay for it later. The rub is that shaman players are still paying for Team 5 just quickly throwing together a class that’s more flavor than stability.

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6

Druid: big minions
Hunter: beast synergy
Mage: spell
Paladin: heal
Priest: stealing stuffs
Rogue: cycling cards
Shaman: tokens
Warlock: self-damage
Warrior: fatigue strategy

7

The Druid class identity is all about getting nerfs … apparently.

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8

They are rapidly becoming the best…the best that ever was!!

Nerfemon!

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9

Warlock has me starting to believe it has “Strong Heropower” as an iditenty.

Got to thinking, I know Warlock already had the best base set hero power. Cause drawing cards is always top tier.

But we also have 2 Mana spawn a 6/6 demon, an of course who can’t forgot 2 Mana deal 3 damage to any target an heal 3. I mean when you step back an look…it sure seems that way lol.

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10

Druid: Hero-attacks, Beasts, Choose One
Hunter: Beasts, spells, secrets.
Mage: Elementals, Spells, hero-power damage
Paladin: Buffs, Divine Shield, Silverhand Recruit
Priest: Heal, Revive the same minions over-over again.
Rogue: Pirates, copying enemy class
Shaman: Overload, spells, Totems, battlecries, elementals
Warlock: Demons, Discard
Warrior: Rush, Self-damage, Armor

11

There isn’t an official list.

I’ve asked Team 5 several times for it. Since back when we had class forums.

The class identities are always in flux and don’t stay consistent. The Team has said a class is supposed to be good at X and bad at Y then they give it a good Y card and bad X card.

I’ve asked for a class dropdown of each class on a page on the official Hearthstone site for years. It won’t happen. This is likely because Team 5 wants the freedom to switch up a class at any time and don’t want to be held back by their own written official words outside of nerf/HOF announcements.

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12

I’d just call it “sacrifice” - sacrificing health, sacrificing cards

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13

Well Valeera is about Blue Murloc or a big dagger. With one stealth turn later on to seal the deal.

Never thought i’d see Rogue and think a Blue Murloc bouncing up and down and that’s it.

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14

You really do have an unhealthy obsession with a deck that barely sees any play.

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15

I’m still kind of hoping they take a second look at these, and consider buffs. Gnash should have been 2 mana, not 3, which would have made it a Druid Frostbolt equivalent, and there was no way Bite should have been 4 if Truesilver Champion was a thing.

Not even “different classes being different” can justify this one; these cards were outright bad. I think Feral Rage was the only one that saw play, on account it could flex itself between two mediocre (but situationally useful) options rather than stay stuck with one mediocre effect.

Think Bite at 3 would be just enough to see play.

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16

Blizzard should officially announce what class identity is and re-design cards accordingly. Retire cards that do not fit and give us the new ones directly, instead of nerfing classic and basic cards all the time.

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17

Yeah they’ve been talking about class identity so hopefully year of the dragon cards will be focused on strengthening each class’ core intended playstyle, instead of giving them more new, novel–and unsupported–things to do.

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18

Druid - Ramp. Stompers. Big stuff. Limited removal and AOE
Hunter - Aggro. Beasts. Limited card draw and healing.
Mage - Spells. Removal. Stalling. Ice.
Paladin - Mid range. Stat manipulation. Divine Shields. Weak to control.
Priest - Healing. Resurrection. Buffs. Weak to combo.
Rogue - Weapons. Cycle. Combo. Trickery. Aggro. Limited healing.
Shaman - Elementals. Spells. Tokens. Burst damage. Weak to Control.
Warlock - Demons. Fire. Self damage. Sacrifice. Board flooding.
Warrior - Weapons. Value. Control. Dragons.

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19

Druid
Identity : Ramping
Strength : Cheating mana curve, and big minions, “Legally”
*Legally are up to subjectivity
Weakness :

  1. Singular Big Minions (No Efficient Removals)
  2. Not a lot of wide board, instead focusing on big minions/plays.

Hunter
Identity : Beast and Trap
Strength : Powerful Synergistic effect, but often limited to beasts.
Weakness :

  1. Hard to fight against a wide board of enemy (But have a lot of efficient single target removals)
  2. Synergy being limited to beasts.

Mage :
Identity : Spells
Strength : Efficient Removals for single and wide board with enough draw engine
Weakness :

  1. Weak stated minions
  2. Easy to kill enemy minions, but hard to capitalize on it.

Paladin :
Identity : Building a board, and buff them.
Strength : A lot of buffing and above average minion stat+effect combination.
Weakness :

  1. While minions are above average for their effect and stats, they are usually more focused on the early game, thus weak to aoe’s.
  2. Lack of a good form of direct removals, but have the ability to make good trades thanks to the access of buffs.

Priest :
Identity : Survivability and heals and spells (This class is a bit confusing)
Strength : Premium stated minions with above average buff.
Weakness :

  1. Hard to take control of the board without help from removals AFTER the board is being taken.
  2. Minions and spells are focused on survivability rather than damage (Although not stopping the possibility of them having any)

Rogue :
Identity : Tempo
Strength : Have a lot of tools to gain AND capitalize Tempo gain (i.e, win more cards)
Weakness :

  1. Poor Stated minions
  2. Not having efficient removals
  3. Spells are costly when not combo’ed.

Shaman :
Identity : … Just gonna be honest, I don’t even know… Versatility
Strength : Semi tempo class, with the ability to cheat out mana curve with overload, with premium minion stats, and versatile but not reliable spells.
Weakness :

  1. Single target damage spells are overcosted in shaman
  2. Aoe effrct spells are not reliable(Volcano not killing a certain minion, Healing rain not healing a certain taunt)
  3. Mostly vanilla effects with weak hero power synergy.

Warlock :
Identity : Sacrifice resources for buff (usually hp)
Strength : Having what basically is an in built draw engine.
Weakness :

  1. Below average minion stats
  2. While strong, sacrificing cost a lot, and sometimes are not worth it.
  3. Lack of healing (In its core set, which is why it is always an aggro deck, without heal, they have no choice but to go fast)

Warrior :
Identity : Weapons
Strength : Premium weapon stats and a hero power that supplements it, with above average minion.
Weakness :

  1. Fiery Win Axe is now dead
  2. Weapons can’t handle BIG minions, which is where their removals come, but their removals are also non efficient, single target and aoe.
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20

Well, haven’t you heard of Token Druid? They actually did have enough support to run a token-based deck at several points in Hearthstone’s history. Living Mana, Savage Roar and Living Roots are some good examples of token support in Druid.

I think a bigger weakness for them is a lack of mana-efficient cards in general. Compare Branching Paths to Arcane Intellect, for example. They can generate a lot of mana really quickly, but their options for spending it are generally not quite as good as other classes’.

I (and Blizzard, if you look at their official page for Shaman) consider Shaman to be the “generalist” class, which is how they are in WoW too. Jack of all trades, master of none.

In WoW, for example, they have a LOT of utility spells that allow them to fill a lot of different roles in a composition, but they don’t specialize in anything in particular. A DPS Shaman will almost never top the DPS charts, but they always bring some utility to any given encounter.

In Hearthstone, they have a little bit of everything too; big minions, small minions, tokens, removal, AoE, burn spells, healing… but they aren’t the best at any one specific thing, which is why they’ve often defaulted to some variation of Midrange Shaman many times in the past.

I’m surprised that you didn’t list Warrior’s Hero Power as a weakness. It holds the class back whenever it tries to play a non-Control archetype. It has zero impact on the game until you start taking face damage, and thus it usually restricts Warrior to being a defensive class.

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