Hearthstone

[Castanova]

It's interesting, because some classes (Warlock for example) have far better hero abilities than other classes. So they give them crappier cards to compensate. But with neutral cards available, it seems like a small drawback in the long run.

I have my suspicions that this game will be vastly more difficult to balance than anything they've done before, including Starcraft/War3/WoW/etc. Especially since they need to support two opposite game modes: constructed and arena. On the flip side of the coin, I doubt very many people will care.

 

[J1M]

It's interesting, because some classes (Warlock for example) have far better hero abilities than other classes. So they give them crappier cards to compensate. But with neutral cards available, it seems like a small drawback in the long run.

I have my suspicions that this game will be vastly more difficult to balance than anything they've done before, including Starcraft/War3/WoW/etc. Especially since they need to support two opposite game modes: constructed and arena. On the flip side of the coin, I doubt very many people will care.

The turn-based nature of the game will make it easier to balance. They don't need to account for reaction times and spacial awareness like they do in a 3D game.

Also, they can literally log every single turn of every single game, so if they suspect something is too powerful they can search through their database to confirm their suspicions. They can also look at the games where that thing was countered and determine if players can be reasonably expected to have access to those counters.

 

[Zed]

It's interesting, because some classes (Warlock for example) have far better hero abilities than other classes. So they give them crappier cards to compensate. But with neutral cards available, it seems like a small drawback in the long run.

in my experience priest and paladins have the best abilities.
they can both be shit in arena if they dont get their mindcontrols etc.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Paladin ability seems quite shit to me. It's like a strictly worse version of the shaman ability. Priest is probably one of the better ones, I'd agree. It makes trading creatures much more advantageous.

Best to worst I'd probably rate them something like-

Warlock (Card advantage is king)
Priest
Shaman
Paladin
Mage
Warrior (Basically a 4 way tie of shittiness from here down)
Druid
Hunter
Rogue

And the strength of cards is pretty much the reverse of that, with the descrepencies accounting for the imbalance (mages OP). And pretty much any other class would be overpowered as fuck with the combo cards a rogue has access to. Likewise the only thing holding Warlocks back is the fact that they have a lot of shit creatures and awkward spells among their basic cards. Priests can't do shit to clear the board or enforce any sort of control on their opponent.

 

[Castanova]

It's interesting, because some classes (Warlock for example) have far better hero abilities than other classes. So they give them crappier cards to compensate. But with neutral cards available, it seems like a small drawback in the long run.

I have my suspicions that this game will be vastly more difficult to balance than anything they've done before, including Starcraft/War3/WoW/etc. Especially since they need to support two opposite game modes: constructed and arena. On the flip side of the coin, I doubt very many people will care.

The turn-based nature of the game will make it easier to balance. They don't need to account for reaction times and spacial awareness like they do in a 3D game.

Also, they can literally log every single turn of every single game, so if they suspect something is too powerful they can search through their database to confirm their suspicions. They can also look at the games where that thing was countered and determine if players can be reasonably expected to have access to those counters.

Eh, in Hearthstone you have a ton of classes with hero abilities that are accessible at all times. The hero abilities all cost the same amount and yet some are clearly better than others. Combine that with the fact that there are a lot of cross-class cards and I guarantee there will always be one or two classes that are clearly the best, especially once it's open to the public and there's open competition to find the most OP combinations.

 

[Zed]

Paladin ability seems quite shit to me. It's like a strictly worse version of the shaman ability. Priest is probably one of the better ones, I'd agree. It makes trading creatures much more advantageous.

Best to worst I'd probably rate them something like-

Warlock (Card advantage is king)
Priest
Shaman
Paladin
Mage
Warrior (Basically a 4 way tie of shittiness from here down)
Druid
Hunter
Rogue

And the strength of cards is pretty much the reverse of that, with the descrepencies accounting for the imbalance (mages OP). And pretty much any other class would be overpowered as fuck with the combo cards a rogue has access to. Likewise the only thing holding Warlocks back is the fact that they have a lot of shit creatures and awkward spells among their basic cards. Priests can't do shit to clear the board or enforce any sort of control on their opponent.

I don't agree with that at all but on the other hand I haven't played too much.
I would rate Hunter higher, at least.

 

[J1M]

Paladin ability seems quite shit to me. It's like a strictly worse version of the shaman ability. Priest is probably one of the better ones, I'd agree. It makes trading creatures much more advantageous.

Best to worst I'd probably rate them something like-

Warlock (Card advantage is king)
Priest
Shaman
Paladin
Mage
Warrior (Basically a 4 way tie of shittiness from here down)
Druid
Hunter
Rogue

And the strength of cards is pretty much the reverse of that, with the descrepencies accounting for the imbalance (mages OP). And pretty much any other class would be overpowered as fuck with the combo cards a rogue has access to. Likewise the only thing holding Warlocks back is the fact that they have a lot of shit creatures and awkward spells among their basic cards. Priests can't do shit to clear the board or enforce any sort of control on their opponent.

I don't agree with that at all but on the other hand I haven't played too much.
I would rate Hunter higher, at least.

Before the wipe I got lucky and found a snake trap in a pack of cards. I built a deck around that + starving buzzard + cheap beasts. Was good, not great, but fun to play.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The problem with all 4 of those abilities is that they are just generic mana dumps. The warrior prolongs the game while the hunter shortens it. Druid and rogue can occasionally ping a creature but that's rarely worth anything. By comparison, the Mage and Priest skills let you make trades you otherwise couldn't between creatures on the board, without taking any damage yourself. And the Paladin and Shaman both force your opponent into wasting cards or at least tempo by killing your extra minions. Warlock's advantage is self explanatory.

The abilities of the last 4 are almost never preferable to a card, even a cheap one. The only reason their abilities get used is because their cards are cheap and efficient so they have mana to spare, and they need something to spend mana on without dumping all their cards on the field and overextending so they get wiped with a flame strike.

But even if a Priest is sitting on a full hand of cards, he still will likely find it useful to use his ability each turn. A card that healed for 2 and drew another card would be a worthy addition to any deck. A card that dealt 2 damage only to the enemy hero and drew another card would not.

 

[J1M]

You have to look at how the hero ability combines with the class cards. On paper the warrior's +2 armor may look like a weaker version of the priest's +2 heal ability. In practice, the extra hero health of the warrior allows them to make much greater use of weapons than any other class and weapons generally trade at least 2-1 in terms of card advantage.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You'd be fucking nuts to prefer the armor over the heal. The warrior has synergy yeah, but he'd have even better synergy with the heal. And in the end, you only need your last hp anyways. Almost any chance to trade 2 hp on yourself for an extra card is well worth it. And the priest can get those 2-1 trades on creatures, which are far more common and versatile than weapons. The warrior's ability never nets him card advantage, just a couple more hp, which works out to an extra turn or two to hopefully win late game. But the warrior isn't strong lategame anyways, so it's an awful ability. What's the point of dragging the game out an extra 3 turns vs an opponent with 3 more cards in hand? You'll just be locked down.

 

[J1M]

The warrior also has lots of access to charge minions. It is not uncommon to see warsong commander combined with something that has enrage or windfury to drop 12-15 damage onto the enemy hero from a position of having nothing on the board.

In comparison, the priest is slow and vulnerable to things like silence. With the recent changes, priests may be stronger overall, but I would not say it is due primarily to the hero power.

 

[SmartCheetah]

So, rogue is that bad?
I'm in the beta btw. Just got my key.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Rogue is quite strong overall, but it's entirely because of the cards it gets. The ability is utter shit. Rogues win games because they get overpowered combo cards like headcrack and eviscerate, super cheap AoE like fan of knives, and some really good creatures as well. But the mage ability is almost strictly superior, and has far far more utility.

 

[SmartCheetah]

So I'll roll mage.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I don't think I'm explaining myself properly here. Mage isn't a better class than Rogue (well maybe it is, I haven't followed things too closely lately, and from what I have seen mage is still damned good) just the innate ability. Each class also has cards only that class can use, and the Rogue's are good enough to compensate for the crappy ability.

I'd pick the class based more on your preferred playstyle (rushdown vs long game, control vs card advantage) or a particular idea for a deck. For example, there are neutral cards like pirates that benefit from weapons, which can work well with the rogue ability, or you can make a rogue deck with spellpower cards so all your cheap spells hit twice as hard, or do a warlock deck with murlocs (they buff eachother) to take advantage of the card draw. Or you can make a mage deck with lots of heavy creatures to take advantage of the strong control mage has that ensures getting to the late game.

 

[1451]

Fan of knives is not that cheap. Warrior's Whirlwind does the same(AoE wise) and costs one manna.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah but considering 'draw a card' could be valued at over 2 mana easily, and the massive synergy rogues have with extra card draw thanks to combo, fan of knives is ridiculously undercosted. And you can't really make use of spellpower just for the sake of whilwind, whereas a rogue can make use of it with fan of knives, shiv, headcrack, backstab, sinister strike and eviscerate.

Warrior tends to be more suited to life manipulation, using things like mortal strike and armor cards together alongside things like molten giant, with an abundance of weapons to use to get your hp low to begin with while maintaining a margin of safety with high armor and taunt creatures.

 

[Zed]

hey if anyone wanna play give a holla

 

[J1M]

Last night I got a chance to use Raging Berserker + Coin + Whirlwind against a murloc rush deck.

Result? 4 dead murlocs and a 7/3 on the board after turn 3.

 

[Castanova]

I wanna play, Zed.

I need to get an invite first, though. Fuckers.

 

[DakaSha]

these beta waves are going to make me slit my wrists

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

these beta waves are going to make me slit my wrists

This. I've possibly spent more time watching people stream this game than I have playing games myself. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M DOING.

 

[DakaSha]

these beta waves are going to make me slit my wrists

This. I've possibly spent more time watching people stream this game than I have playing games myself. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M DOING.

Well if i somehow get 2 keys ill make sure to get you my extra key bro. Until i get my second key however, all bets are off
Its obvious that blizzard is doing what its doing to generate hype (and its obviously working), but the way they are going about beta keys is pissing a lot of people off (not that itll matter.. we'll both be playing regardless)

 

[Emily]

Hey fuck you two for reminding me i dont have a key yet :/
Just wait until November 8 it should be open beta then

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

these beta waves are going to make me slit my wrists

This. I've possibly spent more time watching people stream this game than I have playing games myself. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I'M DOING.

Well if i somehow get 2 keys ill make sure to get you my extra key bro. Until i get my second key however, all bets are off
Its obvious that blizzard is doing what its doing to generate hype (and its obviously working), but the way they are going about beta keys is pissing a lot of people off (not that itll matter.. we'll both be playing regardless)

Thing is, the not being able to play might build hype for me but it doesn't mean I'm gonna spend any more on the game than I would otherwise. Most likely only going to play casually doing dailies for gold for arena runs, and never use gold for boosters. If I really get into it and if I seem good enough at playing I might do the $1.99 for arena entries a few times, but that's basically it. If the game somehow loses me when I actually play it, hype won't have made a difference.