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[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

I got a Northshire Cleric up to 7/7 really fast using Inner Fire and Power Words and the coin, and I got three free turns just wrecking my enemy. Then he drops two free Molten Giants with a Sunfury Protector. He wins in the next two turns. Cool game, I bet he was cackling.

 

[zoukka]

Rivendare plus Ancestral Spirit on any minion that already has a Deathrattle (such as Cairne) will be insane with Rebirth. It's a lot of combos to set up, but it is the dream whenever it works.

You get a board full of Yetis at best. Not that scary for a complex combo.

 

[StMeph]

I got a Northshire Cleric up to 7/7 really fast using Inner Fire and Power Words and the coin, and I got three free turns just wrecking my enemy. Then he drops two free Molten Giants with a Sunfury Protector. He wins in the next two turns. Cool game, I bet he was cackling.

He was waiting for you to hit him.

Buffing one card up with many cards is generally not good because it's prone to easy removal, and now you're down 3 cards to 1. If you must drop a buff, it should ideally come from another minion, be so powerful that it warrants the card, or you get immediate value out of it this turn.

As a general rule, buff cards are not good.

 

[I'm an expert]

I got a Northshire Cleric up to 7/7 really fast using Inner Fire and Power Words and the coin, and I got three free turns just wrecking my enemy. Then he drops two free Molten Giants with a Sunfury Protector. He wins in the next two turns. Cool game, I bet he was cackling.

New to the game? The second he tapped on turn 2 you know he's handlock. Good experience for you to know not to get them to 10 health without knowing you can remove the giants or have lethal in some other form.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

New to the game?

Very. I recognized the extreme risk and went for it anyway to see what would happen.

 

[FStop7]

Playing M. Rogue and hitting someone for 15-16 damage in a turn without ever having played Gadgetzan or Leeroy always leaves people so surprised. The deck is starting to finally make more sense to me.

 

[Aylinato]

Miracle rogue can be broken if you don't have the perfect combo in hand to stop it. Amaz had 30 health and died in one turn to auctioneer+ mana addict. Mana addict got to 20 damage

 

[cpp_is_king]

Is it better to spend my gold on Card packs or Arena? I assume arena, but it's hard sitting on gold when I have such a small array of cards at my disposal.

I tried ranked for the first time last night, until then I'd been doing only Practice and maybe 10 games of Casual. Went undefeated up to Rank 19 until I finally lost. But even then I think I had a bad hand, my first 10 cards were all 3-4 cost, and only 1 minion out of all of those.

At what rank does your deck build really start to matter? Like I can read about all these decks on this forum or other Hearthstone sites that are common, but at the rank I'm at now I suspect everyone is still relatively new and don't have these kind of cards at their disposal. When does that start changing?

 

[Fragamemnon]

Is it better to spend my gold on Card packs or Arena? I assume arena, but it's hard sitting on gold when I have such a small array of cards at my disposal.

If you are grinding out cards playing Arena, you can do so pretty cheaply without too much money into the system, especially if you are fairly good at Arena drafting/play and/or play infrequently. The main drawback is that card acquisition is pretty slow per hour spent playing-Arena runs, especially good ones, take a while to complete and you still just get a pack back when you are done. Buying packs is much faster if you're just looking to play constructed/ranked.

I personally just play Arena because I think the limited HS environment, while far from optimal (try beating a mage with a sick low curve draft + removal), is more interesting to me than the constructed environment.

At what rank does your deck build really start to matter? Like I can read about all these decks on this forum or other Hearthstone sites that are common, but at the rank I'm at now I suspect everyone is still relatively new and don't have these kind of cards at their disposal. When does that start changing?

Rank 15 or so. You'll start running into decks w/ lots of rares and epics a couple of ranks before that. It's around rank 15 where a deck just made from starter cards really starts to peter out. Then you'll want to run with some anti-zoo deck or a zoo deck that poops on the mirror.

 

[FStop7]

Miracle rogue can be broken if you don't have the perfect combo in hand to stop it. Amaz had 30 health and died in one turn to auctioneer+ mana addict. Mana addict got to 20 damage

I've tried one of the Mana Addict versions (Burstdown Pyro) and while it can be very effective I found I kept getting jammed up with spell cards and no minions. The Mana Addicts are fragile, too. If you don't have Conceal they're pretty much toast, so you only get one shot with them.

Is it better to spend my gold on Card packs or Arena? I assume arena, but it's hard sitting on gold when I have such a small array of cards at my disposal.

I hate Arena's uneven randomness but no doubt it's the better way to spend gold vs. packs. All you need is to win 2 or 3 games in Arena and you'll get a pack + 30 to 40 gold. Even if you go 0-3 or 1-3 you'll still get like ~30 dust and a pack.

 

[Alrus]

So as far as aggro decks go, would Raging Worgens be better than Amani Berserker?

Arena is generally more fun than constructed due to the randomness. It's just really frustrating when you get a really shitty draft (murlocs epics and useless stuff like that).

 

[ViviOggi]

Lol at the zookeeper sniping Amaz, playing around Auchenai+CoH for 5 turns and still losing.

 

[JesseZao]

So as far as aggro decks go, would Raging Worgens be better than Amani Berserker?

Arena is generally more fun than constructed due to the randomness. It's just really frustrating when you get a really shitty draft (murlocs epics and useless stuff like that).

Hard to say for sure, but the lower cost of armani is a pretty big advantage for the slot. You want consistent board presense and clear and tending lower helps zoo do that.

 

[Fragamemnon]

So as far as aggro decks go, would Raging Worgens be better than Amani Berserker?

Raging Worgen is a mage card (more or less), and even then I wouldn't play him in constructed. He's an arena all-star for that class though.

Amani Berserker is a great Arena minion- a 2 cost 2/3 is more valuable than a 2 cost than a 3/2 all other things being equal, as a turn 2 or coin'd turn 1 drop he's hell on Paladins, and has a lot of good interactions with other quality tempo minions like Shattered Sun Cleric and Dark Iron Dwarf. In constructed he seems reasonable in the zoolock deck.

 

[eznark]

Sp 90% of the cards I open need to be recycled. Not sure what the point of continuing to play is.

 

[Violet_0]

Sp 90% of the cards I open need to be recycled. Not sure what the point of continuing to play is.

save up gold for Nax like I do. I get around 80-90% duplicates as well now

then when the new meta gets stale as well, wait for the next real expansion

 

[JesseZao]

Sp 90% of the cards I open need to be recycled. Not sure what the point of continuing to play is.

Do you play because the game is fun or because you like the gambling rush of packs? If the latter, I don't see a reason to continue.

 

[Minsc]

Sp 90% of the cards I open need to be recycled. Not sure what the point of continuing to play is.

To build up to 20,000 gold for the expansion, so you can get ~75% of the set day 1.

 

[eznark]

Do you play because the game is fun or because you like the gambling rush of packs? If the latter, I don't see a reason to continue.

Pretty sure if i actually ask myself that question I'll stop playing altogether. It was nice to have something to sort of play for. Now? meh. 500 wins is ludicrous with a single character so that carrot is meaningless to me and I don't really feel like sitting around making arena decks all the time.

I dunno, without the excitement of new cards it just seems stale.

 

[JesseZao]

Pretty sure if i actually ask myself that question I'll stop playing altogether. It was nice to have something to sort of play for. Now? meh. 500 wins is ludicrous with a single character so that carrot is meaningless to me and I don't really feel like sitting around making arena decks all the time.

I dunno, without the excitement of new cards it just seems stale.

I'd really like the pace to quicken once naxx is out. I imagine they'll give us a better idea, but probably not until blizzcon :/

Right now, I can attempt a legendary grind, or play arenas for gold/dust. It's strictly better even moreso one you have most of the cards, because getting 40 dust in an arena award is new equivalent to opening an extra pack.

I've got my 2k saved for naxx, but I don't think I'll get anywhere near 20k ever.

 

[eznark]

I think if they charge $75 (that's the equivalent right?) for the expansion I'll happily delete the game and never look back.

 

[JesseZao]

I think if they charge $75 (that's the equivalent right?) for the expansion I'll happily delete the game and never look back.

My ceiling guess is 2k gold or $30.

Edit: I think Minsc was refering to saving 20k for the first full expansion which with have 100-200 new cards.

 

[Violet_0]

they'll open one wing every week once Nax is released, first and last wings are free, I'd say there's plenty of time to farm up the required gold. On average you should get 400-500 gold per week by just doing the dailies

 

[frequency]

For me, Naxxramas would have to have high replayability, unlike their AI practice mode. And even then I would pay no more than $20. $15 is already pushing it but I like this game enough to go up to $20. Any more than that and the value compared to other digital games is just too bad for me to invest further time into it.

It would be priced out of my range and while I enjoy the occasional player match, I need a more robust PVE offering to keep me hooked long term.

 

[I'm an expert]

Thanks for reminding Naxx is pve garbage. If I could I'd just buy the cards for gold.

 

[cpp_is_king]

They already said that an explicit goal is to make Naxx very accessible to players who don't want to spend real money, so instead of panicking, it's probably best to just be cautiously optimistic and wait a bit longer. For all we know they could introduce a new type of currency, called Naxx tokens, and you can earn them by replaying the free wings, then you could use Naxx tokens to get into the harder wings. So those players who don't want to pay to enter, regardless of cost, could just replay the free wings to get enough Naxx tokens. The point is, relax

 

[Ashodin]

Thanks for reminding Naxx is pve garbage. If I could I'd just buy the cards for gold.

I'm laughing so hard at this post

 

[I'm an expert]

I'm laughing so hard at this post

Sorry to hear that.

 

[Ashodin]

Sorry to hear that.

No it's okay, you give me so much laughter. Keep posting

I'm fairly certain it will cost not an inordinate amount of gold to unlock the wings, probably somewhere around 5000.

 

[I'm an expert]

No it's okay, you give me so much laughter. Keep posting

I'm fairly certain it will cost not an inordinate amount of gold to unlock the wings, probably somewhere around 5000.

Now you're cracking me up. 5k is nothing. I just don't want to waste my time with boring AI. They'll probably just steal everything from Duels anyway.

 

[Ashodin]

Now you're cracking me up. 5k is nothing. I just don't want to waste my time with boring AI. They'll probably just steal everything from Duels anyway.

Oh you think they'll not create new insidious AI to fight against?

 

[Fragamemnon]

Oh you think they'll not create new insidious AI to fight against?

The AI will certainly be playing the same *kind* of Hearthstone game we are used to, but they will be doing so with very different cards than the player has, assuming that they roll with the WOWTCG raid style setup (which makes perfect sense).

 

[inky]

I'm increasingly convinced that Shield Slam should either cost more or reduce the amount of armor used from the total if it kills the enemy.

 

[Ashodin]

The AI will certainly be playing the same *kind* of Hearthstone game we are used to, but they will be doing so with very different cards than the player has, assuming that they roll with the WOWTCG raid style setup (which makes perfect sense).

You should be able to set it to "Amaz or Trump AI" or "Lol casual AI"

 

[JesseZao]

For me, Naxxramas would have to have high replayability, unlike their AI practice mode. And even then I would pay no more than $20. $15 is already pushing it but I like this game enough to go up to $20. Any more than that and the value compared to other digital games is just too bad for me to invest further time into it.

It would be priced out of my range and while I enjoy the occasional player match, I need a more robust PVE offering to keep me hooked long term.

The meat of this game long term is PvP. There's no reason to play the practice A.I. once you have all heroes unlocked

 

[Ashodin]

The meat of this game long term is PvP. There's no reason to play the practice A.I. once you have all heroes unlocked

You should be practicing against the meta and other players. I guarantee it

 

[frequency]

The meat of this game long term is PvP. There's no reason to play the practice A.I. once you have all heroes unlocked

I know. I don't play against the practice AI. I really only play (ranked) once every 3 days (to do the 3 dailies that have built up) at most. I am saying if I was to play this game longer term and if Blizzard wanted me to spend money on it, I would need some PVE to keep me hooked.

Though I've been playing on and off since beta in anticipation of Naxxramas.

 

[Llyrwenne]

I'm increasingly convinced that Shield Slam should either cost more or reduce the amount of armor used from the total if it kills the enemy.

Please do explain.

It is only fantastically amazing if you just ignore the Warrior's armor for the entire game for no reason at all and they get like 20+ armor and can insta-kill anything with it. If you mitigate his armor gain as much as possible, it's at best a slightly more powerful Kill Command that can only target minions (Shield Block + Shield Slam vs. any Beast minion + Kill Command).

 

[I'm an expert]

I'm increasingly convinced that Shield Slam should either cost more or reduce the amount of armor used from the total if it kills the enemy.

No.

 

[JesseZao]

I know. I don't play against the practice AI. I really only play (ranked) once every 3 days (to do the 3 dailies that have built up) at most. I am saying if I was to play this game longer term and if Blizzard wanted me to spend money on it, I would need some PVE to keep me hooked.

Though I've been playing on and off since beta in anticipation of Naxxramas.

I don't think that's their intent, though. The adventure mode is a side-show distraction. The long time hook is playing against other people.

You should be practicing against the meta and other players. I guarantee it

I tried to parse this, but failed.

 

[jstevenson]

The meat of this game long term is PvP. There's no reason to play the practice A.I. once you have all heroes unlocked

sure, but PVE can offer some super hard / puzzle like situations. Also you can do some custom stuff that wouldn't fly in the PVP mode.

not sure what the issue is. you're right the long term game is PVP, but that doesn't mean you can't have other fund side stuff that also give you new cards

 

[frequency]

I don't think that's their intent, though. The adventure mode is a side-show distraction. The long time hook is playing against other people.

You're probably right but I can still be hopeful I think. WoWTCG has dungeon decks and raid decks (raid decks are group vs 1 player controlling monsters).

It's not the main attraction but it's enough for me to enjoy longer term. I won't ever be playing daily and as much as your Trumps and Hafus. But I don't need to. If they release "dungeon decks" on a regular enough basis and they hold my attention more than the practice AI, Blizzard will probably get a steady stream of money from me.

I won't ever pay for card packs or arena runs though.

 

[JesseZao]

sure, but PVE can offer some super hard / puzzle like situations. Also you can do some custom stuff that wouldn't fly in the PVP mode.

not sure what the issue is. you're right the long term game is PVP, but that doesn't mean you can't have other fund side stuff that also give you new cards

Of course. He was just saying it was the pve that would keep him long term, when that's not what they're going for. You're agreeing with me. I said it'll be a distraction, a fun one I look forward to, but I'm not expecting to play it for 6 months after release either.

 

[FStop7]

The PVE Adventure aspect of Naxx sounds fun. Maybe some day there will be full on raids, where you'll have a party - each member playing a specialized deck appropriate to their class (tank warrior, healing priest, dps mage, etc) working together to progress through a dungeon and fight bosses.

 

[inky]

Please do explain.

It is only fantastically amazing if you just ignore the Warrior's armor for the entire game for no reason at all and they get like 20+ armor and can insta-kill anything with it. If you mitigate his armor gain as much as possible, it's at best a slightly more powerful Kill Command that can only target minions (Shield Block + Shield Slam vs. any Beast minion + Kill Command).

I never said it was fantastically amazing. You don't need to ignore the armor all game for it to pile up in certain situations. Usually when playing against a control warrior with anything but a rush deck you are going to let some turns in before you can establish a board presence to attack him. It's a relatively cheap removal with almost no drawbacks in itself and it combos well with other warrior cards and hero ability.

And the "equivalence" argument is always so dumb when we are assessing different circumstances. By that logic Elven Archer and Execute is the best removal in the game! OMG so cheap. It's a 2 mana removal for any creature! How hasn't anyone seen this?!

No.

Yes.

 

[Szadek]

Of course. He was just saying it was the pve that would keep him long term, when that's not what they're going for. You're agreeing with me. I said it'll be a distraction, a fun one I look forward to, but I'm not expecting to play it for 6 months after release either.

I'm pretty sure that's about the time it takes from the release of the last wing till the next expansion or at least the announcement.

 

[JesseZao]

I'm pretty sure that's about the time it takes from the release of the last wing till the next expansion or at least the announcement.

I don't expect to be playing the adventure mode for six months after.

 

[frequency]

Of course. He was just saying it was the pve that would keep him long term, when that's not what they're going for. You're agreeing with me. I said it'll be a distraction, a fun one I look forward to, but I'm not expecting to play it for 6 months after release either.

I assume you mean me by "He", though that would be inaccurate.

Anyway, by longer term, I do not mean daily. I just mean I'll keep it installed and come back to it every new PVE deck expansion they put in. With money since I won't be playing daily grinding gold to buy expansions. There is no game (except MMORPGS) I play consistently for 6 months.

If Naxxramas proves to be a weak and shallow PVE with only purpose to be card reward for the PVP game, I'll probably just give up on Hearthstone being what I want. And that's fine too. Not every game is for everyone.

The PVE Adventure aspect of Naxx sounds fun. Maybe some day there will be full on raids, where you'll have a party - each member playing a specialized deck appropriate to their class (tank warrior, healing priest, dps mage, etc) working together to progress through a dungeon and fight bosses.

Dungeon and Raid decks in WoWTCG are group of players cooperating against the deck (dungeon) or a single player controlling the monsters (raid). I am hoping Hearthstone eventually has such play modes.

 

[JesseZao]

Dungeon and Raid decks in WoWTCG are group of players cooperating against the deck (dungeon) or a single player controlling the monsters (raid). I am hoping Hearthstone eventually has such play modes.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[frequency]

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Unless you are an insider with information I don't have, I will continue to remain hopeful based on Blizzard's history, despite you trying to crush my dreams for some reason.