hearthstone Druid Nerf Announcement Seemingly Imminent.

[L0rinda 307]

Ben Brode has suggested that there will be an upcoming nerf to Druid.

In a short, but precise Tweet, Game Director Ben Brode says that there will be more information later in the week.

Placeholder for tweet 904399898258190336

Although there is always dislike for the top tier decks, the dislike for Druid on social media since the start of  Knights of the Frozen Throne has been up there with the highest ever.

At the recent HCT Summer Playoffs, each of the 77 competitors brought Druid in their lineup. Any Druid nerf will need to be handled carefully however. It seems very likely that if Druid is taken down too far, then Priest will replace it as an overwhelmingly strong deck.

With that in mind it seems likely that Druid will still be left as a powerful class. My own thought is that nerfing Spreading Plague alone might be enough to give Aggro a way to beat Druid again, and stop the dominance.

This would be an unpopular option with some, as Ultimate Infestation is perceived to be the problem card, but I feel that if Aggro can keep Druid in check, then that problem would not leave people feeling powerless to do anything about.

[Valhalen 1,484]

I  don't play Hearthstone, but I'm curious. Why is the Druid so hated?

[SMOrcMan 76]

10 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

I  don't play Hearthstone, but I'm curious. Why is the Druid so hated?

It's hated this expansion because it is the strong class that feels unfair to play against a lot of the time.

[Synesthesy 114]

I hope two things: first, that if they nerf druid, they don't leave it unplayable as they did with quest rogue; second, that if they nerf druid, they don't make a pirate meta again.

[SMOrcMan 76]

2 minutes ago, Synesthesy said:

I hope two things: first, that if they nerf druid, they don't leave it unplayable as they did with quest rogue; second, that if they nerf druid, they don't make a pirate meta again.

Quest rogue isn't the only thing that has gotten nerfed to oblivion, RIP Hunter Class

[Yridaa 490]

52 minutes ago, Valhalen said:

I  don't play Hearthstone, but I'm curious. Why is the Druid so hated?

I'm not sure if you're aware with the basic mechanics of Hearthstone, like getting mana each turn and the way turns work. Depending on that this explanation might either totally confuse you or be understandable:

 

Druids have a "ramp" option, this means they can spend their turn on mana to gain more mana the next turns. They can do this more often than once depending on their current cards and turn. This might mean that by turn 5, you have 5 mana while the druid has 9 or even 10.

 

While that has been "fair" in the past, because the druid skips their entire turn for a more favorable later turn, KFT turns things a bit too painful with catch-up mechanisms. So while the druid loses boardcontrol and is set back on health compared to the opponent, their massive lead in mana and powerful cards can turn things around too fast in KFT. Their late-game cards are extremely high value so ramping up to those cards quick enough can alleviate their early-game disadvantage a bit too fast.

 

So what I think Blizzard is considering nerfing is either the ramp cards themselves (Say, make them cost 1 mana more) or nerf the end-game cards. The latter is a lot more work while the former also affects later expansions and even wild.

 

So that's a rough position blizzard is in. Maybe they'll just nerf one or two late game cards slightly so that it only affects this expansion while making sure priests don't get the upper hand.

[Plergoth 277]

1 hour ago, Valhalen said:

I  don't play Hearthstone, but I'm curious. Why is the Druid so hated?

Jade Golem decks in my experience, not sure how it goes at higher levels though. 

[Guest]

Yeah, nerf Druid.

I just spent quite a lot of dust to have at least one Tier 1 deck.

If they nerf this now - hey, I just dump a few thousand dust in the next deck.
Maybe they won't nerve this...

Luckily I have an unlimited supply of dust. Oh, wait...

[Caldyrvan 377]

I am totally ok with nerfing new powerful cards but I really hope they will not mess around with the basic/classic cards.

Balancing is always a hard job, no matter which game. But here they mostly "balance" to keep ppl happy and paying. That means the balancing is not always balanced :D

No idea how often I lost games I thought I have won to Bloodreaver Gul'dan will they nerf it next ? :D

Oh wait, Warlock is still not really strong, leave it ;)

Edited September 3, 2017 by Caldyrvan

[SMOrcMan 76]

1 hour ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Yeah, nerf Druid.

I just spent quite a lot of dust to have at least one Tier 1 deck.

If they nerf this now - hey, I just dump a few thousand dust in the next deck.
Maybe they won't nerve this...

Luckily I have an unlimited supply of dust. Oh, wait...

Blizzard is not doing this out of an economic motivation, but it will certainly drive players in a similar situation to you to possibly buy packs with $$$

[Hanz39 53]

If they nerf cards you take back full dust there is no reason to complain for that.

Btw druid need a nerf to the ground treatment since like 9/10 of the people i match play some kind of druid either aggro jade 10 mana cards ... need heavy nerf to stop this druid spam before all other class get completely wiped from the game, right now is just 1 class with a ton of viable decks and some classes with absolutely no deck viable (rogue, warlock)

Moving Innervate to wild will be the best thing they could ever do to fix it once for all, also ultimate need a nerf because right now is 10 mana battlecry: win the game, and is kinda too much for a single card that can be dropped at turn 5 with ease.

Skulking Geist is now a must play in every deck to destroy druid decks a little but is a 6 mana card they have already 10 mana when you drop it so is not even that good if you already lost the game from all the stuff they dropped for free while you wait to drop it and remove idols and 20 hp from his deck, making skulking a 1-3 mana card woulda have really more helpful to stop druid domination

 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Hanz39 said:

If they nerf cards you take back full dust there is no reason to complain for that.

 

If they nerf Jade-Druid that he isn't Tier 1 any longer - do I get my dust for Fandral Staghelmback too?

No?

Well, seems like I could have reasons for complaining...

 

[Yridaa 490]

13 minutes ago, WedgeAntilles said:

If they nerf Jade-Druid that he isn't Tier 1 any longer - do I get my dust for Fandral Staghelmback too?

No?

Well, seems like I could have reasons for complaining...

 

I know your question is rhetoric and made in spite. However, I'd like to clarify to anyone else that nerfing cards does not always yield a return in dust. Of course, decks built around one or two cards that get nerfed will not get their dust returned either, only those nerfed cards have a chance to get your dust returned.

 

And I agree with a few posts above that dabbling and nerfing long-standing cards (Basic/classic etc) is really not a nice thing to happen. But if Blizzard deems it mandatory, it will happen regardless (They'll try to avoid it but if not possible then to hell with it).

 

Buzzard, azure drake, ragnaros, charge minions (or minions that affect charge) for warrior for example, among other nerfs and buffs to classic/basic cards do happen.

 

 

I feel your pain if you have a few decks built around specific cards and then have the entire deck get crushed because you no longer have those cards. Truly an awful feeling :(

[Caldyrvan 377]

Players always start to complain when a deck/class gets to strong, others when cards get nerfed. Sometimes they complain for good reasons. sometimes not. I agree that druid is a little to strong atm, but a nerf should still be done carefully.

But right now we can just be patient until they reveal what they will do with druid, hopefully it will make more people happy than angry :)

[Hanz39 53]

Doesn't seems Fandral is a Jade card to me, it works with any druid deck and exist way before jade was invented.

I crafted Krul to try Demon deck (make warlock playable Blizz someday we still wait from Reno times) nobody will give me back the dust but I was aware that i was throwing my dust doing so.

Now is clear as sun that druid need a brutal nerf because when you play 10 matches and find 9 druids need a brutal treatment otherwise we keep this mono class meta until a new release and it makes no sense.

If in competitive play 100% of players use druid even Blizzard have to hurry up and fix it before it become a joke with coin toss matches with same decks

[Mknissan 0]

3 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Yeah, nerf Druid.

I just spent quite a lot of dust to have at least one Tier 1 deck.

If they nerf this now - hey, I just dump a few thousand dust in the next deck.
Maybe they won't nerve this...

Luckily I have an unlimited supply of dust. Oh, wait...

They always give the option to disenchant cards for full value when they're changed so you won't lose anything

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, Mknissan said:

They always give the option to disenchant cards for full value when they're changed so you won't lose anything

Sure I will, since I had to craft several cards especially for the deck.

Cards I would have never crafted if not for Druid-Jade decks.

If (only if) Jade-Druid stops being a Tier 1 deck ALL THESE CARDS I crafted for the deck are useless for me. Not just the specific cards they changed.

 

And Hanz39, I don't know where you got your figures, but all stats I see (be that from my own games, be it from statistics from different websites) show not nearly 90% off all decks being Jade-Druids.

On how many games are the 90% based?

 

And your reference to competitive play (again, based on how many tournaments? 1? Wow, great...) - a vast majority had Pirate Warrior in their deck list. Or - earlier on - Midrange Shaman.

Edit: I just checked the HCT EU SUmmer Playoffs.

Even there isn't a 100% Druid-Play.

Seriously dude, where do you get your numbers from? Out of thin air? Quite hard to discuss if one party just makes up numbers.

 

Maybe Jade-Druid is a little too strong atm, that is a possibility.

But since Tier 1 decks have become horribly expensive it is just not possible for me (F2P Player) to craft several of them - in the hope that one of them won't get nerfed. And if I loose the one I have (after investing a lot of dust) that would realy suck.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Guest

[Caldyrvan 377]

I agree, with the release of more expansions in a short time it became nearly impossible to keep up with tier 1 decks (except for those playing for so long that they have tons of dust or do not mind to spend hundreds of $ / € per expansion.

I doubt they will nerf druid to the ground (as some demand :D ) and there is no need to do that. Just a bit to bring druid back in line.

And again I have to say I really hope they will not do something like "Move Innervate to Wild". but I have the feeling they will keep nerfing and moving cards to wild from the basic and classic set, so people have to rely more and more on the newest expansions to play standard and therefor make even long time players pay again/more.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Caldyrvan

[Dustintime 7]

I watched disguised toast on his stream last night play 14 druids in a row...

Nuff said

[Yridaa 490]

2 hours ago, Caldyrvan said:

And again I have to say I really hope they will not do something like "Move Innervate to Wild".

I think this would cause such an upset from Druid players... I hope they'll consider something a bit more creative and less impactful than move a staple card out of the game.

[PaasHaaS 81]

I'll be happy with a Spreading Plague nerf. The harder they hit it, the better imo.

Wouldn't mind innervate being changed to refill 2 already existing mana crystals either. This at least stops bullshit like turn 1 flappy bird.

[batanete 28]

Expecting them to change UI to 5 mana and claim that it counts as a nerf because it gives you a worse minion off medivh.

Nah, I honestly expect them to just move Innervate to HoF and maybe change plague to 6 mana. This would probably be enough for aggro decks to keep Jade Druid in check, and Aggro Druid to not just blow people up on turn one with broken innervate turns(although there's a chance it will actually be enough to kill the archetype).

[Caldyrvan 377]

No idea what you all have with Innervate. It was fine in the past and will be. The problem is the synergy with cards of new expansion. Yesterday I had a game against a druid who played 2x Vicious Fledgling on turn 1. I could remove one but the other was my death. Who cares?... that happens not every game, I would rather nerf the stupid Fledgling 

When I think about Spreading Plague I'm not so sure they will nerf exactly this because as opponent you know he can have this card and play around it, If you feed the druid with a ton of small minions it's your fault not the druids' or the fault of a card :)

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Dustintime said:

I watched disguised toast on his stream last night play 14 druids in a row...

Nuff said

Let's talk about some real numbers, shall we?

I have played 151 games in the last week (I was on vacation and had a lot of time...) with Jade-Druid decks.

Ranked games.

30% of these games were against Druid. The majority of those were Jade-Druid, but not all.

Around 1/4 or 1/3 were Aggro-Druid.

That leads us to less then 1/4 of all games against Jade-Druid.

 

Not quite the 90% or 100% you guys like to make up.

 

[Zadina 923]

The interesting question is: will Innervate be targeted with some change? There are good arguments for both yes and no. I am more inclined to yes, since they have nerfed vanilla and classic cards in the past (like Force of Nature) or they have removed them from Standard. I think removing Innervate from Standard is a little too extreme. If my memory doesn't fail me, Blizzard had sort of admitted quite a long time ago (when the game was less than a year old) that they see 0 mana cards causing problems in the future. A little after that they made Soulfire and Hunter's Mark cost 1 mana. Will they make Innervate work like The Coin?

I will have to agree with L0rinda that if they target one of the new cards, it will be Spreading Plague and not Ultimate Infestation. The latter is only broken when it's used earlier than turn 10. Ramping is what makes UI overpowered and that goes back to my hypothesis in the previous paragraph that Innervate might be targeted in some way.

When I saw the KoFT card reveals and during the first week of the new expansion, I thought that the new expansion wasn't that impactful and it was only slightly better than TGT. Apart from Druid and the new Highlander Priest, I didn't see any new decks. On the contrary, the ones that still dominated - like Jade Druid, Murloc Pala and Pirate Warrior - had cards from MSG and Un'goro. That's why I think that the Jade mechanic should also be looked upon somehow.

On the other hand, with Druid being banned in almost all games in this weekend's EU playoffs, I thoroughly enjoyed most games. The games were long enough to be challenging for the players and not boring for the viewers, they offered some good highlights and overall the matches seemed well balanced and - what's more important for Blizzard, I guess - enjoyable to watch. By promoting a class that gets instantly banned, Blizzard created the perfect tournament meta (lol).