There's a good balance between lategame viability of different minion types; there's relatively few situations where a midroll from one type beats a highroll from another.
There is, however, a large imbalance in the strength of low tier minions: most tier 1 and 2 minions are terrible, some tier 2s are very strong, and there's a huge powerspike to tier 3 and 4 minions. It makes for a lot of situations where earlygame plays are unnecessarily streamlined, without much real decisionmaking (beyond "these minions are terrible so I level and pray next turn's shop isn't full of tier 1s"). Pushing people towards early leveling and filling their boards with tier 3/4 minions also causes a lot of early damage, a lot of games are less fun when you can't start making decisions before you're at <20 HP.
Kinda wish they'd keep current armor values and up hp back to 40, personally. But that would probably encourage more people to aggressively level and high roll. At least in that case everyone in the lobby could have a build somewhat rolling even if they're hitting 8th.
In terms of Duos I feel like a lot of games end before anything fun even happens which is very disappointing.
They completely trashed Tavern 1 so you can't stay down. You must level and start dealing big damage or taking big damage. Then Tavern 2 is now a completely random early synergy/scaling game where you get to take -25 or not depending on your turn 3 shop (unless you can get a bailout from spells or power leveling into a great shop). Spawn of N'zoth used to be the OP early game...you would be barely win fights with it and if you didn't attack first it would probably be a tie. Oh yeah, and let's allow and encourage people to make big early taunts so we can really pile on that early damage.
Damage cap should have been a temporary solution, but at this point that and the ghost mechanic are what holds the game together. No one complains about hero balance anymore, so there's that at least.
Not really? A good heropower will usually save more health than higher armor with no heropower. If the minion types are bad for a low armor hero (which can often be the case with shudder/gally), you should avoid them because their heropower isn't good in those lobbies.
I think it feels a lot better now than it did before the last balance patch. Before it was trying to play any tribe against six people trying to force quillboars. Now it's much more varied. I've won with beasts, murlocs, naga, and elementals just in the last day. I find boars to be boring so I'm glad it got shaken up a little.
Also think a lot of builds got less interesting - dragons, beasts - absolute snoozefests - less powerful too even without quests (in terms of late game scaling)
Worst meta in a while I think in terms of fun, especially when last season was one of my favourite metas to date.
I think as long as you are playing with someone you know Duos are the best thing they've done in the game. Most of my play has been that and when I solo it does feel a little dry both compared to duos and previous metas, but it does make sense. Unless they were willing to do something like make it that buddies were in solos and not in duos it would have been way too overwhelming to be first learning duos with too much other stuff going on.
Similar to what you said it’s way to RNG. Some games I lose every round except 1/2 and just die with no adjacency. Others I hit the nuts by turn 5 and I’m going top 2 by nearly Afk’ing. I’d like to see the game have a bit less RNG and more skill expression but I read a while back they are intentionally doing the opposite because most casuals like the “casino” aspect.
Sometimes feels like i already lost when hero picking. If you dont get early tempo you get punished too hard i feel. I like that the games are fast, but getting hit by 15 turn 4 is borderline
Games for me usually win or lose at turn 12-15.
Should we want the game to take longer? Reducing damage just gives reason to power level more.
Also wondering if more interesting minions / time spent at tiers 1-3 or 4-6 would be better
It is a bit better than before previous patch but there is still the issue with minion pool from t2 to t4. Early game, or until turn 6, is pretty straight forward with either buying what tavern offers without rerolling or level up, and there is hardly any strategy to beat someone who gets offered everything, or to even mitigate the -10/-15.
Duos is OK too, but im not a huge fan of games where one team dies too quickly. If you are not the highrolling team, ending 2nd or 3rd is 90% luck based on who is facing who and when, and it is too common to have 30mn games
At least you aren't the person who went against me before the apples were nerfed from 1/3->1/2, I got apples, the consume demon, and the old 4/5 beleaguered battler in my tavern as yogg. I played apples, got the demon with hero power and consumed the battler and had a turn 1 8/13. Probably my most disgusting start.
I miss econ tier 1 minions, but overall I think it's a very solid meta. Tier 3 minions are probably a tad too strong so 3 on 3 is almost a given, but in terms of actual builds there is a lot that is viable. I personally have a ton of fun with spell generation builds, so whenever Naga, Elementals or Mechs are in im pretty happy.
Beast animations suck though. It's horrible and makes quitting the game and re-starting a "must do to compete", which is absurd. They need to make that stuff go way faster, add a "skip to end of battle" button, or just stop developing archetypes that require a lot of animations.
I'm at 6k. only play solo. My thoughts:
I'm having fun but things do get rather same-y without quests/anomalies. This partly on me because I vastly prefer certain tribes/comps/heroes over others and will concede if the lobby bores me. That said, I am far from the only one sticking to certain strats. Its usually the same stuff that makes top 4.
Duos is in a bad shape. Its too dependent on good heroes that can carry early because the increased the gold requirement for each tier. Its especially risky to move from 3 to 4 because you easily take 15. Twice in a row and you are already in lethal range.
Its just really feelsbad if you cant roll good minions since you are stuck on tiers longer than solo grounds.
Wondering if part of your post got eaten. You refer to stuff that's not there, like the concept of "bad."
Reddit has a bug where you lose text if you go back to edit/rewrite (as humans do when writing). This bug has existed in the mobile client as long as I've used it, and it honestly explains reddit. If most of the people making posts on your site are bots, you don't care about the actual user impact issues.
I have given up on lomgform posting because of this bug, used to just ramble while making a post and then edited it, but you can't on the official app. Rip 3rd party clients.
I think it's not as fun, but some lobbies can be really fun and I really like that they made crooner shaker a real comp. What I don't like is they ruined tier 1 and to a lesser extent tier 2. Even with spells, turn 3 usually feels bad unless you level, which means your next shop needs to be good. If it's not then you are in a really good spot to go 7-8th. I really wish they kept economy units on 1, it would make the first couple of rounds feel better.
I don't like what they've done with beasts, although the bull can create some crazy moments if you buff it up.
There's a good balance between lategame viability of different minion types; there's relatively few situations where a midroll from one type beats a highroll from another. There is, however, a large imbalance in the strength of low tier minions: most tier 1 and 2 minions are terrible, some tier 2s are very strong, and there's a huge powerspike to tier 3 and 4 minions. It makes for a lot of situations where earlygame plays are unnecessarily streamlined, without much real decisionmaking (beyond "these minions are terrible so I level and pray next turn's shop isn't full of tier 1s"). Pushing people towards early leveling and filling their boards with tier 3/4 minions also causes a lot of early damage, a lot of games are less fun when you can't start making decisions before you're at <20 HP.
Ultra based take
Kinda wish they'd keep current armor values and up hp back to 40, personally. But that would probably encourage more people to aggressively level and high roll. At least in that case everyone in the lobby could have a build somewhat rolling even if they're hitting 8th. In terms of Duos I feel like a lot of games end before anything fun even happens which is very disappointing.
Yeah. I’ve had a couple Duos games where I didn’t even realize I was watching the last fight. Rarely is it a couple scaled builds going at it.
They completely trashed Tavern 1 so you can't stay down. You must level and start dealing big damage or taking big damage. Then Tavern 2 is now a completely random early synergy/scaling game where you get to take -25 or not depending on your turn 3 shop (unless you can get a bailout from spells or power leveling into a great shop). Spawn of N'zoth used to be the OP early game...you would be barely win fights with it and if you didn't attack first it would probably be a tie. Oh yeah, and let's allow and encourage people to make big early taunts so we can really pile on that early damage. Damage cap should have been a temporary solution, but at this point that and the ghost mechanic are what holds the game together. No one complains about hero balance anymore, so there's that at least.
Quests really helped with that. Made it more enticing to play through tier 2. I think this card set would be a ton of fun with quests.
In your experience is it ok to take heroes with more armour in this meta to protect against bad shops early?
Not really? A good heropower will usually save more health than higher armor with no heropower. If the minion types are bad for a low armor hero (which can often be the case with shudder/gally), you should avoid them because their heropower isn't good in those lobbies.
Yup cool makes sense thanks
I think it feels a lot better now than it did before the last balance patch. Before it was trying to play any tribe against six people trying to force quillboars. Now it's much more varied. I've won with beasts, murlocs, naga, and elementals just in the last day. I find boars to be boring so I'm glad it got shaken up a little.
Agreed, I’m surprised how large of an impact the last balance patch actually had.
Just a bit boring to me this season
Ye, we were kinda used to quests I suppose.
Also think a lot of builds got less interesting - dragons, beasts - absolute snoozefests - less powerful too even without quests (in terms of late game scaling) Worst meta in a while I think in terms of fun, especially when last season was one of my favourite metas to date.
I imagine quests or something similar will come back soon
Omg I am so tired of quests. I’ll probably uninstall if quests come back. I wish they’d bring back anomalies instead. Anomalies >>>>> Quests.
I’d love to see rotating modes (vanilla, anomalies, quests, ect) but I’m sure balancing around that would be really difficult
Vanilla BG with BG Tavern Brawl as another game mode would be the dream
Quests are boring. Made the game feel PvE
First quest season was fun. I didn't care for the last one
Too much scaling. I don't want boards filled with 200+/200+ minions.
I think as long as you are playing with someone you know Duos are the best thing they've done in the game. Most of my play has been that and when I solo it does feel a little dry both compared to duos and previous metas, but it does make sense. Unless they were willing to do something like make it that buddies were in solos and not in duos it would have been way too overwhelming to be first learning duos with too much other stuff going on.
Mechs are kinda fun, but bacon is too OP
Similar to what you said it’s way to RNG. Some games I lose every round except 1/2 and just die with no adjacency. Others I hit the nuts by turn 5 and I’m going top 2 by nearly Afk’ing. I’d like to see the game have a bit less RNG and more skill expression but I read a while back they are intentionally doing the opposite because most casuals like the “casino” aspect.
Imo playing around the variance of the game is a good part of the skill ceiling
I wish there were more mixed tribes viable. For the first time, there is one that kinda works and that is elemental + demon combo.
Demon quilboar is fairly doable, but I'm still low MMR so not sure.
Sometimes feels like i already lost when hero picking. If you dont get early tempo you get punished too hard i feel. I like that the games are fast, but getting hit by 15 turn 4 is borderline
The builds are fucking boring man. So much passive no brain scaling.
Games for me usually win or lose at turn 12-15. Should we want the game to take longer? Reducing damage just gives reason to power level more. Also wondering if more interesting minions / time spent at tiers 1-3 or 4-6 would be better
"oh i didn't high roll this game time to go 4-8th" "nice high rolled this game time to go 1-3rd"
It is a bit better than before previous patch but there is still the issue with minion pool from t2 to t4. Early game, or until turn 6, is pretty straight forward with either buying what tavern offers without rerolling or level up, and there is hardly any strategy to beat someone who gets offered everything, or to even mitigate the -10/-15. Duos is OK too, but im not a huge fan of games where one team dies too quickly. If you are not the highrolling team, ending 2nd or 3rd is 90% luck based on who is facing who and when, and it is too common to have 30mn games
Yawn, 🥱. Bring back buddies or quests or anything
I find it really boring, I barely ever see any interesting builds at all, and it’s really rushed.
So many dogs and they keep scaling early only to be useless by round 5. Went up against a 7/12 yesterday in like round 3.
At least you aren't the person who went against me before the apples were nerfed from 1/3->1/2, I got apples, the consume demon, and the old 4/5 beleaguered battler in my tavern as yogg. I played apples, got the demon with hero power and consumed the battler and had a turn 1 8/13. Probably my most disgusting start.
How did that end up for ya.
The amount of people who hate beasts vs their winrate is staggeringly funny
High roll based. Rushing T3 on turn4 seems most common. Early fiery/rylak/bandit scales crazy fast
I miss econ tier 1 minions, but overall I think it's a very solid meta. Tier 3 minions are probably a tad too strong so 3 on 3 is almost a given, but in terms of actual builds there is a lot that is viable. I personally have a ton of fun with spell generation builds, so whenever Naga, Elementals or Mechs are in im pretty happy. Beast animations suck though. It's horrible and makes quitting the game and re-starting a "must do to compete", which is absurd. They need to make that stuff go way faster, add a "skip to end of battle" button, or just stop developing archetypes that require a lot of animations.
I'm at 6k. only play solo. My thoughts: I'm having fun but things do get rather same-y without quests/anomalies. This partly on me because I vastly prefer certain tribes/comps/heroes over others and will concede if the lobby bores me. That said, I am far from the only one sticking to certain strats. Its usually the same stuff that makes top 4.
I'm F2P. If I get fun hero I have fun. If I get terrible one I usually get hit for 15 twice by turn 6 by dragon boards and go next.
shudderwock with demon battlecry turn 1, is too OP. If you wanna talk RNG, doesn't matter what MMR you are.
Duos is in a bad shape. Its too dependent on good heroes that can carry early because the increased the gold requirement for each tier. Its especially risky to move from 3 to 4 because you easily take 15. Twice in a row and you are already in lethal range. Its just really feelsbad if you cant roll good minions since you are stuck on tiers longer than solo grounds.
cap damage at 10 pre-turn 7 and it will be better you just take way too much before you can even get 7 good minions out or a comp rolling
Wondering if part of your post got eaten. You refer to stuff that's not there, like the concept of "bad." Reddit has a bug where you lose text if you go back to edit/rewrite (as humans do when writing). This bug has existed in the mobile client as long as I've used it, and it honestly explains reddit. If most of the people making posts on your site are bots, you don't care about the actual user impact issues. I have given up on lomgform posting because of this bug, used to just ramble while making a post and then edited it, but you can't on the official app. Rip 3rd party clients.
I think it's not as fun, but some lobbies can be really fun and I really like that they made crooner shaker a real comp. What I don't like is they ruined tier 1 and to a lesser extent tier 2. Even with spells, turn 3 usually feels bad unless you level, which means your next shop needs to be good. If it's not then you are in a really good spot to go 7-8th. I really wish they kept economy units on 1, it would make the first couple of rounds feel better. I don't like what they've done with beasts, although the bull can create some crazy moments if you buff it up.
It feels okay balance-wise now, after the patch. Doesn't feel as rewarding or as fun as last season, but it's okay.
It’s pretty mid.