Blizzard has shared details of the upcoming balance update. The list of cards we’re previously posted is 100% correct, but we now know how they will get nerfed.
Here are the details:
Balance Updates
Neutral
- Kael'thas Sunstrider – Old: Cost 6 mana → New: Cost 7 mana.
- Bad Luck Albatross – Old: Cost 3 mana → New: Cost 4 mana.
- Frenzied Felwing – Old: 3 Attack / 3 Health → New: 3 Attack / 2 Health.
Demon Hunter
- Altruis the Outcast – Old: Cost 3 mana, 3 Attack / 2 Health → New: Cost 4 mana. 4 Attack / 2 Health.
- Battlefiend – Old: 2 Attack / 2 Health → New: 1 Attack / 2 Health.
- Glaivebound Adept – Old: 7 Attack / 4 Health → New: 6 Attack / 4 Health.
Warlock
- Sacrificial Pact – Old: Destroy a Demon. Restore 5 Health to your hero. → New: Destroy a friendly Demon. Restore 5 Health to your hero.
- Bloodbloom – Old: Cost 2 mana → New: Cost 4 mana.
Paladin
- Libram of Justice – Old: Cost 6 mana → New: Cost 5 mana.
Mage
- Open the Waygate – Old: Cast 6 spells that didn’t start in your deck. Reward: Time Warp. → New: Cast 8 spells that didn’t start in your deck. Reward: Time Warp.
The following cards will be eligible for a full dust refund for two weeks after the 17.0.2 patch has been released:
- Golden Altruis the Outcast
- Golden Battlefiend
- Golden/Normal Bad Luck Albatross
- Golden/Normal Frenzied Felwing
- Golden/Normal Open the Waygate
- Golden/Normal Bloodbloom
Battlegrounds
Millhouse Manastorm
- Old: Minions cost 2 Gold. Refresh costs 2 Gold. Start with 3 Gold. → New: Minions cost 2 Gold. Refresh costs 2 Gold. Tavern Tiers cost (1) more. Start with 3 Gold.
Bug Fixes
- The Lurker Below is now properly tagged as a Beast.
- Fixed a tracking issue that prevented 500 wins with Demon Hunter from being achieved.
- Fixed a bug where Zephrys the Great would not offer a lethal option if your hero had a large amount of Attack.
- Zephrys the Great has been updated to accommodate the Sacrificial Pact and Glaivebound Adept changes.
Is there anyway to make free dust or golden leggos out of this?
It’s not a hall of fame, it’s nerfs. You can disenchant them at full dust value for two weeks after the nerfs, that’s it.
1) Kaelthas: raise to 7 can slow down furter the druid turn for comeback and also combo DH and freeze mage;
2) Albatoss: the card is still annoyng but a least not so mana/stat friendly still playable;
3) Frenzied Fellwing: 1 less means you die with explosive trap, 2 damage aoe of priest, holy nova, imprisoned demon of mage, ecc. , still good in mirror match, less good against aoe;
4) Altruist: It’s a big hit, now the skull don’t discount your card to 0, and 4 mana is a little slow, but still you can it face with outcast (I thought they left the same cost with no face damage);
5) Battlefiend: Yeah, perfectly predicted by me in the previous post;
6) Adept: Now you can’t kill him with your BGH 😀 , well the card is still good compared to fire elemental;
7) Pact: Ok, but if you target only friendly demon you must raise the LP gained. Kill any demon of 3 or less it would have been a better nerf;
8) Bloodbloom: More dust for me xD;
9) Libram: well paladin sucks, anything that help is good;
10) Quest mage: don’t change nothing is still too little
So Warlock has: 0 Mana kill a fucking imp and heal. 2 Mana deal 4 damage plus lifesteal. 3 Mana deal 5-6 damage split to all enemy minons. 1 Mana destroy a couple of imps after you invoke and destroy all your opponents minions. And a minion will 3 damage AOE…..
So lets see the facts again:
1)Kael’thas Sunstrider: cost 1 mana more. Is still broken? It is..
2)Bad luck albatross: 1 mana more. Priests and warlocks they still running this card if highlader decks be a threat. (difficult with milions DH on ladder)
3)Frenzied Felwing: has 1 less health. So in turn 1 or 2 you can face again a full board from DH. Hilarious nerf.
4)Altruis the Outcast: 1 mana more and 1 attack more. This is the best nerf for aggro DH because the mana matters. Too heavy. For control decks this card is still unplayable because you cant use outcast mechanic when your hand has big mana cards.
5)Battlefiend: 1 attack lower. I was afraid for that cute nerf. The card is not so strong after the nerf but still is very playable.
6)Glaivebound Adept: 1 attack lower. The most hilarious nerf they have made at the start of the game. This 1 attack less can save us Blizzard. Now i feel so safe for this huge nerf on this card that cost 5 mana and deal 4 dmg very easily. They dont nerf the DH burst and still the class can rule the ladder.
6)Sacrificial Pact: And the winner of the nerfs is the Warlock that was big threat to ours beloved DH class and now this card cant kill any DH demon anymore. So after this warlock nerf, we expecting hundreds DH on ladder. So we are not safe, Mage still unplayble with these smorc DH, priest the same, paladin the same, shaman the same ect ect ect. Have fun people..
I speak only for standard mode. I see lot ppl speak for wild mode and im really surprised. Blizzard dont care about wild for years and should players do the same in my opinion..
Priest is not unplayable. In fact, higlander priest is one of the best decks in the current meta.
You have A LOT of early game removal against DH and if they dont kill you early, in late game you are really likely to win.
Against druids, you can win easy with your full board clears.
Against warlock, it is not the best matchup but you can win a fair amount of games.
Hard counter is rouge but i dont see lot of them in ladder now.
I have made a 80% winrate run to legend with that deck, best win rate i have had in years, fist time I climb to legend with control.
Against control decks, you can win the value game easy with Galkrond.
So stop crying about priest, the class is in an excelent spot right now as the best control class, maybe only in dispute with higlander mage but IMO priest is way better in this meta.
First of all i never play priest. I believe the class is the most boring thing in the game. So i dont cry about him but i try to be objective. Secondly in one game i was play aggro DH against control priest. I get disconect for 4 turns. In the end still win the game. So i dont know what you talking about.. And lastly the game is not only your beloved priest. I speak for all nerfing cards and for almost all class in the game and you write a wall for priest and only. Jesus.
Damn if you were really disconnected for four turns you would of auto-conceded, calling your bs right now
Thoughts on the changes for both formats:
Kael’thas: Barely a nerf for Wild, I don’t think this changes hurts the current Jade Druid builds that run it. For Standard I could see it still working in Druid thanks to Overgrowth, but it probably kills Combo DH.
Albatross: Albatross probably still sees play in control decks despite this change, it just makes it a bit slower, which is nice. For Wild, RIP Odd decks having access to it, but now Even decks can run it… probably doesn’t hurt Albatross Cubelock that much either, which was my main fear. Plus it means you can run Taldaram in Albalock now!
Felwing: Possibly continues to see play, but the 2 health breakpoint is very significant and it may stop being played altogether. DH may be forced into a more midrangey build with Priestess of Fury again.
Altruis: RIP Odd Demon Hunter. Altruis will probably continue to see play in every Standard DH deck, but this mana change should lessen his blowout potential
Battlefiend and Glaivebound Adept still see play in DH for sure, but them being toned down should rein the class in.
Sacrificial Pact: Finally, Jaraxxus is playable again! Expect to see Warlock experimenting with him again. This makes Zephyrs less swingy vs demons, but imo Zeph shouldn’t have those kind of tribe based options anyway (Zeph into Hungry Crab is another one that tilts me). I’ve seen some people say that this kills Galakrond Warlock, but I’m not so sure: Sac Pac was a 2-of in the deck during DoD, and it was very rare that you would land it on an enemy minion. 0 Mana for 5 health basically on demand thanks to the Draconic Imps is still good. Yes, this makes Galalock worse into DH, but DH is also being nerfed. If Galalock can maintain a good matchup spread against other decks it will be fine.
Bloodbloom: I am INCREDIBLY happy about this change. Darkest Hour is such an unfun deck to play against, and with the new Ranked system it was one of the most consistent climbers to Wild legend. I’ve seen some people say this kills Mecha’thun, but 1. Mecha’thun was basically dead anyway, and 2. there are still ways to combo. For instance, Dorian + Plot Twist + Cataclysm lets you win with an Emp Tick on any one of the combo pieces, and it’s 3 combo pieces just like the old Mecha’thun + Bloodbloom + Cataclysm combo. It might be worth testing the Quest version again simply because that deck already runs double Plot Twist and has the ability to highroll super hard withe Supreme Archaeology.
Open the Waygate: Once again, very appreciative of this nerf. A lot of Wild players who are better then me are saying it doesn’t do enough but I’m not sure, it’s very difficult to judge on paper. Slowing Quest Mage down at least makes it more vulnerable to Aggro decks. IMO it effects Reno Quest Mage less and that archetype could make a real come back (right now it’s pretty rare since regular Quest Mage is just that much better).
Very good points, and I agree with you on Open the Waygate, it seems as a improvement to me. Even if it just one turn slower it is still a really god improvement.
It will affect RQM more than the regular QM! Think about those turn 3-4 completion from QM. Now they got 2 more spells to play. QM will do just fine with this nerf.
Good to see these Nerfs. Because Big Priest have really lost steam in this expansion, but the nerf to mage and warlock should bring big priest back on top again….
Big Priest will still be bad. I would be worried about Raza Priest instead.
Hmm, maybe, but I was thinking about my version that I play witch is focused mainly on Blood of The Ancient One and silence. (Almost always wins against normal big priest, because mine is bigger…), Where my main issues in rank is quest mage and mech warlock. If they are just a bit slower it will be a great boost for me. Since my deck can handle aggro pretty well. As the annoying fucker that I am…
My only problem with these nerds is the Bloodbloom because of this nerf it makes meca’thun warlock unplayable, and surprisingly I have never run into a single darkest hour warlock, I realize that this is just really lucky
Wall not unplayable. You just need EMPEROR THAURISSAN1 and one GALVANIZER. A bit more annoying, but shouldn’t be imposible to make it work.
I have played a meca’thun in ranking and won with only EMPEROR THAURISSAN1 and PLAGUE OF FLAMES and no Bloodbloom. You just need more cards that are either valubale to play ot cheep.
Oh my bad it needs two GALVANIZER… That’s a bit worse…
But hey PLAGUE OF FLAMES is still possible…………….. Maybe, I only tried it once xD
Right you can just replace Bloodbloom with Drakkari Enchanter and play the old deck.
There are ways to win with Mecha’thun even with this change, though they certainly make the deck more clunkiest. Clunkiest is to run double Galv and then hit Cataclysm and Mecha’thun with an Emp tick. Least clunky imo is using Dorian + Plot Twist + Cataclysm, you still need an Emp tick on one combo piece but it’s less unwieldy. Quest Mecha’thun can of course highroll like always. But I wouldn’t count the deck out yet.
Dorian + Plot Twist + Cataclysm actually doesn’t sound to bad for Mecha’thun players.
The nerf wasn`t for Mecha`thun, which is not that oppresive in wild. It`s all about the Darkest Hour warlock. This nerf will slow it down quite a bit.
still no nerf to imprisoned antaen/priestess of fury so they can’t go face, so tired of having to choose between letting low skill face hunter either take a 4 for 1 trade or pyroing my face
and why make sac pac so bad? just change it to destroy a demon, if it was friendly restore 5 health to your hero. and make it not work on jaraxxus.
I think sac pac is still a very playable card in galakrond warlock. It was already played before Ashes of Outland as a healing tool.
True but nothing puts out damage like DH other than face hunter which is a terrible matchup for warlock.
You barely get there vs agro DH even with double sac pac. My only hope is that DH goes a bit more midrange which will give other classes a chance. If DH continues it’s dominance I’ll stop playing. Such an unfun brainless deck.
Sac pac nerf is a horrible decision. Why are we nerfing the one class that can attempt to counter DH? Jaraxxus wasn’t not played because of this card in standard. They should have left it alone and instead buffed Jaraxxus to not have a demon tag to eliminate this interaction.
great point wished blizzard’s team thinks that.
i just logged for type that. congratz
Jaraxxus wasn’t played in standard because having maximum health set to 15 was a suicide even before the expansion and now it will probably be even more problematic with Demon Hunter e Dragon Hunter that can easily deal massive damage in one turn…
What was the point of the Glaivebound Adept nerf? Not even a nerf in my opinion, I only play it for the effect. :p not terrible Nerfs for Demon Hunter I suppose but enough to put it lower than it should be, seriously who wants another of the same rogue/hunter meta? How many expansions has it been now?
rogue hunter meta is still better then dh brainless meta lmao
Man that murders Galak warlock vs DH which is not good news.
Bad Luck Albatross may be teched as a 1-of in control decks to prevent the rise of highlanders. After the patch my bets:
DH will be strong (less OP) not aggro as will cut Frenzied Felwing. Maybe a Priestest of Fury build.
Druid will change from Spell to Big archetype.
Highlander Rogue/Hunter/Mage will rise in popularity.
Warlock will se a lot of experimentation with Jaraxxus.
Odd demon hunter is really dead…
hardly dead just less busted
https://www.hearthstonetopdecks.com/decks/odd-demon-hunter-post-nerf/
Maybe like this ..
Release date?
“Early next week”. We’ll post an update if we get the exact date.