You can find a lot of opinions about the latest balance update online (and we’re in the process of writing our own, actually), and most of them aren’t positive. The meta didn’t change much – in fact, some people didn’t feel the change at all. Today, Lead Designer Alec Dawson referred to that on Twitter.
He said that except Paladin, which is a little stronger than they’d like, everything else it hitting on the intentions. Player expectations surrounding patch were high, but changes are in line with how they’ve been balancing the game over the last year or so (small changes, not trying to kill decks). Patch was mostly meant to set up classes for the future – by “future” he most likely meant the upcoming mini-set, which should be released in the coming weeks (since Forged in the Barrens already released 1.5 months ago).
He also said that the biggest meta changes should happen when expansions and mini-sets hit, while frequent balance updates aren’t meant to change the meta heavily.
And I think that he has a point. We don’t know the contents of the mini-set yet, but 35 cards could make a major impact on the meta. For example, players wanted heavier Shaman buffs, but Shaman’s mini-set might be on a very high level already and buffing the class now could result in Thrall being broken next month. The biggest issue is of course Paladin, which is still too good, but I’d say that we should wait a couple more weeks.
Paladin a little stronger than we’d like but everything else is hitting on the intentions. Most of the buffs were to set up classes for the future or do some cost correction. Player expectations surrounding patch can be hard to manage (people have different spice tolerance).
But we can see that and adjust how some of the communication goes out. We’ve been fairly consistent in the way we balance over the last year or so (lighter touches, usually don’t kill decks) and can do a better job of getting that message out.
In the end though our expansions and mini sets will act as opportunities for bigger landscape shifts. Less likely to see that in our frequent balance changes unless something is very off.
Spicy stuff
Turns out when you nerf both the best deck and the next best options, nothing really changes. Who could have foreseen this :((((
So anyone else’s standard games not counting towards the weekly quest or their rank? One two games just before this and neither registered. And no I’m not accidentally on casual.
“Release balanced expansion and do nerfs to strongest cards to make it even more balanced”?
nononononon
“Release expansion with broken decks and not nerf them properly, then release mini-set with other broken cards”
wow thats cool bro!
/sarcasm
If you can reach Legend with a standard Paladin in Wild where you can create a deck picking the best cards out of all the cards ever printed, how’s Paladin just a little bit stronger “than they’d like”? How’s 35 new cards gonna change that?
You can reach legend with practically anything half-decent, so I don’t think that’s really saying much.
I just realized that the proportions of the dark skinned figure on First Day of School (head and body) are totally off. o.0
Might just be the weird perspective, but yeah, it does look a bit odd.
Patch has been live for a week and this site still hasn’t done a deck list post. It’s literally in the domain name. Theres too much noise in the community posts, and even at that they are doing too many balance changes for community decks to be viable for more than a few weeks.
Hope they drop mercenaries soon, haven’t touched the game in a month and most certainly don’t intend to with this kind of approach to the game’s problems.