14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard Entertainment's collectible card game Hearthstone has been a huge success, and in-game balance is one of the development team's main concerns.
The playing ground has been pretty even so far, with a couple of hero classes seeing less play than others at the top echelons do, but with a pretty healthy metagame, featuring a pretty diverse range of builds.
Game Director Eric Dodds commented on nerfing particular cards viewed as overpowered in the past, saying that the team was very conservative when it came to enforcing such changes.
The latest cards to get adjusted were Leeroy Jenkins, Starving Buzzard, Soulfire, Gadetzan Auctioneer, Flare, and more recently Undertaker, all of them staples in several high-profile decks.
In spite of the recent nerf to Undertaker, making it only gain attack power whenever a friendly minion with the Deathrattle ability is played, instead of both attack power and a health point, the Hunter face rush deck is still seeing massive success.
There are no nerfs currently planned
During an interview with MetaBomb, Dodds reveals that the team's design philosophy is to refrain from changing anything, unless it negatively impacts the overall experience for Hearthstone players.
He addresses the concerns regarding Azure Drake and especially Dr. Boom, a ubiquitous Legendary that can single-handedly turn games around, stating that neither of them will be nerfed anytime soon.
On the topic of Dr. Boom, Dodds mentions that, although there is a wide range of decks running him, it's not present in all the decks played at the highest level, and it also has a direct counter, Big Game Hunter, which many top-tier decks run by default, which diminishes Dr. Boom's overall impact.
Addressing the issue of Hunter aggro decks, he states that there are a ton of answers to those decks, including the Healbot from Goblins vs Gnomes, a card that heals you for eight points of health and also puts a 3/3 body on the board, which was especially introduced to combat decks that don't go for board control.
Dodds also states that the Hunter's power, hitting the other player for two damage, is not under scrutiny, in spite of the fact that it led to the class being one of the premier aggro contenders ever since the game's release.
Hearthstone is getting its second single-player expansion soon, Blackrock Mountain. You can watch its cinematic trailer below and get a taste for what's coming our way.
Blizzard is also working on bringing Hearthstone to iOS and Android smartphones soon.
