Hearthstone

Haha, I assumed that would be the reply. I know mage/priest/paladin were considered the best arena classes tho I dunno if that's still the case at current version.

I can only talk from personal experience. Hunter is supposed to be a lower-tier class but I've done most of my arena wins with em. I've only lost to a mage in arena once, I think, and my one mage arena run went 1-3. That probably colors my perspective. I don't know if anyone has good overall stats though. I know mage arena was mid-tier for trump a while ago, but I dunno where his stats are now.

But with no good overal stats available, I guess I'll take your word for it. That said, if there was real statistical evidence for Blizzard that mage is significantly better at both arena and top-tier play, don't you think they would've nerfed her? I mean, if anyone has the exact statistical info here, it's them, and if the difference was that significant, why'd they just leave it be?

PS: I hate blizzard though.
PS: the card, not the company.

 

Mage is probably better at arena than constructed. Which isn't to say that they're bad at constructed, just that they tend to do really well in Arena.

Direct hero damage is superb in arena, and mage has scads of it. I could write some long, analytic post about what specifically makes that so, but just go watch Kripp or Trump stream arena sometime. I guarantee the majority of their losses will be against mages, and will be of the "welp, I did everything I could correct, but they just kept casting fireballs and pyroblast".

Incidentally, just because Blizzard knows something is imbalanced doesn't mean they necessarily want to fix it. Game balance in online environments often suffers from a "the solution would possibly be worse than the disease" syndrome, where they are hesitant to change things for fear of the consequences, or leave something be because it's overpowered in X scenario, but not all scenarios.

(For example, the value of particular cards in arena is drastically different from their value in constructed.)

 

Another thing to consider:

It's probably immensely hard to divine any knowledge from Blizzard's internal arena statistics. A class could be significantly overpowered in arena but not show up disproportionately in the statistics, because the overriding factor in arena is often the RNG of draft-picks. A mage deck with 0 spells vs. a druid deck with 4 epics, 2 legendaries, and so on puts questions of class balance out the window. Of course good players will inevitably suss out the mechanics underlying such randomness, and come to a consensus on what's good. People seem to think mages are really good in arena. Take that as you will.

 

I've watched streams. http://www.local.se/trumpstats_afterpatch.pl Trump's winrate against mages is actually pretty high (third highest after warlock and druid), and those are post-patch (I assume he means the big patch which wiped, otherwise Rogue would be up higher, it's still a class he hates playing). It's also funny to see it's by far the most common deck he plays against, meaning people do tend to pick it (and priest second, no surprise there), but he's figured out efficient tactics against em.

I know mages are generally considered a top-tier deck. I just haven't seen it. Perhaps most people play em too predictably, it can be easy to draw out removal and win through meta, though not if the other player simply has a superior deck/hand obviously.

Also, the noise factor of random draft is likely not significant statistically. The odds of people drafting a completely unplayable deck is really minor, and not that hard to compensate for (they can simply cut out drafts without key cards from the stats). That's a non-factor if you do your stats properly, and I'm kind of working on the assumption Blizzard has a sizable analytics team.

 

The main reason i dont play arena is because of the possiblity of drafting more than 2 cards of a type. Not only does this cause problems like mage having 4 fireballs in their deck, killing you without any counterplay, it also just makes baiting and prediction close to useless.

tldr: a lot of the problems stem with the arena format and not the cards/classes themselves (which doesnt mean that blizzard doesnt need to fix shit)

 

Mages just have too many direct hero damaging spells, support that with +spell damage mobs and cheap mobs like mana wyrm or apperentice they become quite a thorn.

On the otherhand neither me nor my gf had problems against mages on arena or play mode. My nemesis is shaman and his army of totems (also that spirit wolf thingy hurts) while my poor gf getting roflstomped by rogues mostly.
It is not nice when a shaman with 2 support totems on board, play İllidan and Ragnaros in 2 turns...
I was not prepared :/

 

wait, you get bonus gold for beating opponents on expert?

I won against mage on expert, and the game didn't give me any feedback, so I just started playing normalt opponents.

How does the ranking system work btw? Can you play ranked care-free (it just counts elo) or is there placement matches and leagues?

 

You don't get any gold from beating AI even on expert, unless it is some quest related. I only got gold from arena, 3 cons wins and quest rewards.

I only got higher on ranked matches, never lost a star even after some defeats, so have no clue how it works now, not like SC2 though.

 

Zeriel you lier!

So there is no reason not to play ranked, is what you're saying.

 

Well, after a while you start to face some serious cards which tells you that you need to farm on unranked or arena games a bit
I hit the wall at platinium 2 star, after that it is raining friggin epics&legendaries. Everyone and their grandparents have İllidan especially...

Zeriel is talking about a quest/an achivment I think, that rewards you after beating ALL expert AI, I only remember arene got opened after beating ALL of the normal ones. But no reward for single wins against AI.

 

Honestly I stopped pushing up my ranks after Diamond 3. I prefer Arena now, if I wanna do Play mode it's mostly for quests, and I don't necessarily want to face tough opponents there with a hero I don't have a good deck for.

He's half-right. Beating all Expert AI opponents gets you 100 gold. It's a unique quest

As for the ranking system, it's a complete mystery, I don't think Blizzard's ever explained it. You go up as you win games, is all I can tell you.

 

Thanks! That's a useful list!

 

Honestly, it can just do with more arena types moreso than fixing arena (which is fun but I can see why specific elements of it turn people off). That can be hard to balance, which is probably why they're keeping it simple now, but you could easily think of specific types of arena, like an arena with drafts all coming from the same basic set, with either no variance in options offered (this would likely be bad and lead to identical decks similar to high-end ranked) or very limited variance (ie same number of epics/legendaries, same balance of class cards offered), or indeed an arena with a cap on card-types at the traditional 2.

 

Zeriel is right though: if you defeat ALL 9 AI on expert, you get 100 gold. Check it there: http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Quest

Currently you do not lose rank if you lose games but that system will be changed at some point—at least for the end of beta—and your rank will vary according to your win/loss ratio.

 

I think I misremembered "unlocking all the basic hero cards" as "beating all the AI on basic", which does give a big boost of gold. So, yeah, I'd still reccomend battling it out with the AI first.

Currently it works similar to the way it does in SC2: you go up in ranking based on your MMR. You simply can't lose medals, which at the moment amount to participation ribbons. You can lose MMR, which is your real ranking. When and how you're promoted is quite a bit more obscure and weird, but it basically does boil down to winning against opponents who are of higher skill than you. Going 10-0 won't necessarily raise your rank if you are beating up on people of lower MMR, leading to all kinds of confusion on the part of players, but it does work.

Up until Masters 3 I'd say the current system is mostly fine, but once you get there it's heavily flawed. The new system is definitely needed, playing in Ranked right now feels very weird at the top because you have no feedback on how you are doing, and Unranked matches often feel more challenging than Ranked as a result (no one cares either way, so they play whatever in Ranked).

Also, what is everyone's thoughts on the earnings cap they're going to be implementing for play mode? They say it's to combat botting, but 100 gold a day doesn't sound like very much to me, and makes me think they're more interested in incentivizing paying money as opposed to F2Ping it.

 

Why are you all saying you dont lose rank. They implemented the new system

 

When I wrote that post I hadn't logged in yet. Can't speak for anyone else.

 

Well in any case im stoked. it was my main complaint. Actually feel like constructed play means something, even if it is only epeen waving (or lack of)

I feel a sense of progression. This is a good thing

 

Yeah. I wish they'd bring back their initial idea of giving you a gold "salary" every week based on rank, but seems like they really want to jew it up in Hearthstone, so that's unlikely.

 

Game hangs when I start it now.



Dunno if it's because of my laptop or if it's trying to phone home, which in my case is across the Atlantic and may be very busy now.

 

Was this your problem?


Personally, I think it's set up in a way that arena is where all the competition is at. Since it's fair and all

I rather have it this way personally

 

Yes, completely random decks that are not even drawn from the same pool of cards as other players is certainly the very definition of "competitive".

 

I dont see how anything can be more competitive than constructed as long as both players have the cards for a competitive deck (which tends to be the case in my matches, not sure if they match you vs people with similar card rarities)