#heropowers

[goldtowerdefence]

🦸‍♂️ How to Use Heroes in Gold Tower Defence Learn how to pick and use powerful heroes to destroy enemy waves and support your towers.

[aodhfyn]

Hearthstone: Hero Powers Followup

So I enchanted Dinomancy, and tried it out.... and immediately regretted it. My free-to-play heart stopped, and I cried inside. Melodrama aside, Dinomancy is terrible for control decks. It’s good in a specific capacity, when you get it early, ~around turn 3-4, when you can use it and hero power immediately, and it’s good in a midrange/aggressive deck with lots of cheap or mid-cost beasts. It has negative synergy with Deathstalker Rexxar, because you will usually get it after you use him, and then you don’t want to transition. The dream of using it early, and then Deathstalking is really rare, and putting in two copies is only good in a deck that can afford that--eg, the early/midrange Dinomancy deck. While the power itself is really good on Hunter, if it goes to stall, the deck fails, because you need to have beasts alive to buff. So it ends up being an alternative aggressive Hero Power. A strictly weaker variation on classic aggressive Hunter. What is necessary to make a good early-game control oriented Hero Power variation for Hunter is something that is good both early and late, and has the ability to actually combat the board. Something to the effect of: “give target beast +2/+2 or non-beast minion -0/-2″ would be amazing. It could be used in a multitude of situations, and actually fight for the board when behind. That said, it just wouldn’t be as fun as ‘Build-a-Beast’. What would make this whole control-hunter situation better is a beast that draws Deathstalker Rexxar for you. The main problem with Hero Cards is that they are inconsistent. You build a deck specifically to play them, and then you never draw them. In any case, that’s my review of Dinomancy, and a few more opinions on top. 

Good day all,

~Aodhfyn

[aodhfyn]

Hearthstone: hero powers

While this blog has been all about league so far, that’s not indicative of the games I play--well, at the time of my other posts, it was mostly league. But I’ve been playing Hearthstone for more than two... three years now. Ever since a little before the league of explorers expansion, if I remember correctly. And before I played Hearthstone, I had played (1 game of) Magic the Gathering. Now I play Magic regularly. I’ve also played Shadow Verse and Eternal, as well as a number of inferior card games. 

Hero Powers, however, are unique to Hearthstone. While Shadow Verse has unique card interactions with its heroes, it doesn’t have a unique ability. However, what struck me about Hearthstone’s Hero Powers is how bland they are. Each power is a chance to be unique, and display some sort of character defining strength--and maybe even weakness. However, most of the abilities fall into two basic categories: deal damage, or heal. And their only weakness are usually their inflexibilities. I’ll demonstrate this by going through them and showing how they fall into those categories, and how they don’t. 

Warrior: heals himself. He gains armor, and since there isn’t a way to ignore armor in Hearthstone, this is essentially just a form of healing. I class this as A-tier healing, and F-grade utility, since it’s completely inflexible.

Shaman: More unique, however, loosely classed under healing. He produces a totem that usually has 0 attack and 2 health. Half of the totems are ‘aggressive’ but they are conditional. The other two either heal minions, or taunt, which is a damage protection ability. I class this as C-tier healing, C-tier damage, and B-tier utility.

Rogue: she gains a weapon. I class this as C-tier damage, C-tier utility.

Paladin: summons a minion. I class this as D-tier damage, and C-tier utility.

Hunter: he deals damage to the enemy hero. I class this as A-tier damage, and F-grade utility. 

Druid: he gains attack and armor. I class this as C-tier healing and C-tier damage.

Warlock: He’s quite unique, he deals damage to himself in order to draw a card. I class this as A-tier utility, A-tier theme, and F-grade healing.

Mage: she deals attack to a target. I class this as B-tier damage.

Priest: he heals a target. I class this as A-tier healing.

So, by my classification, the vast majority fall under the category of damage or healing, with only Warlock and Shaman branching out enough for me to mention. Furthermore, there’s a surprising amount of overlap between them, with Warrior essentially being a limited version of priest, Rogue of Druid, Paladin of Shaman, etc. This last expansion, they created the Hero card, which upgraded the Hero Power, and in some cases completely changed it. While this was a breath of fresh air, they were legendary--limited to one copy per deck, and very hard to get--limited to one class, and for the most part, functionally the same as the previous Hero Power. While some cards in the past changed hero powers, they were commonly considered joke cards, and exclusive to a single hero. (Excepting one that ‘upgraded’ your Hero Power--but it didn’t change its function.) However, in all this time, and despite some of their issues with Hero Powers--primarily Hunter and Warlock--they have never changed a Hero Power. While I don’t believe it’s necessary to change the default Hero Powers, I think easier access to more unique and interesting Hero Powers is (borderline) necessary, now that I’ve experienced just how absolutely amazing it can be to upgrade one. 

Specifically, I think it’s essential to allow some of the more restricted heroes access to some diversity of play--the Hero Power, in some ways more than class cards, defines the mobility of playstyle. Essentially: cards are at max two-per-deck. A Hero Power is once per turn. It has more impact than the cards in the long run. However, they’re all so bland, it almost doesn’t matter. In the state they’re in now, it’s almost as if no hero but Warlock and Shaman even have Hero Powers. (It’s not that bad, I’m exaggerating. It’s like there are two hero powers.) The Heroes I think need diversity in their Hero Power, and why, are as follows:

Warrior: he can’t do anything but ‘armor up’ meaning that all he can do when he has extra mana on a turn is use his hero power to survive a little more. However, the most successful playstyle on him is an aggressive one, in which he rarely needs to worry about his own health total. The difficulty this creates is that he then needs to have perfect mana every turn to maximize efficiency in an aggressive deck. This is fine, as a weakness to the character, but he is typically outclassed by Priest in this area. Or, more specifically, unlike Priest, who can heal his minions as well, or even the enemy for more pain, Warrior can only heal himself. Which makes him frustrating to play in situations wherein you want another hero power. An interesting solution could be to expand his power to ‘grant 2 maximum health to the target’. This would also have interesting synergies with other existing (most hall-of-famed) cards. (e.g. Reno Jackson and Hozen Healer.)

Paladin: summoning a 1/1 dude is very weak at two mana. And it’s often a bad play, being directly countered by most other Hero Powers and not easily exploitable for any sort of substantial advantage. However, because of how much more interesting it is compared to most of the other Hero Powers, I don’t think it needs to be changed directly. Instead, I think it would be cool if some card read: “for the rest of the game, your Silver Hand Recruits [the 1/1 dudes] have 1 extra attack” or “for the rest of the game, your Silver Hand Recruits have taunt.” The reason I make this distinction is because Paladin’s Hero Power doesn’t suffer from a lack of identity--it suffers from a lack of power and usefulness.

Hunter: I think that Hunter’s Hero Power forces him to either play aggressively or resign himself to trying to get more usefulness from his cards. Which massively limits the design potential on Hunter cards. If they are too powerful, Hunter becomes too powerful aggressively, and if they aren’t, control Hunters are terrible. I think an early switch to a more utility-based Hero Power is necessary for control Hunters to exist. (And I really want them to exist--Deathstalking is so much fun.) I’d like to note that Hunter does indeed have a card from the last expansion that changes his hero power to a higher utility and control option, which I think is perfect. I don’t have it yet, but I plan on trying it. When I have, I may, or may not, change my opinion on that option. If I do, I’ll make a post. (My current suspicion is that it’s a spell that doesn’t do anything else, so it’s probably too slow on average. But control decks are usually slow. Like I said, I need to check it out.)

Other than those three, I think Rogue and Druid are both problematic in how similar they are, and how useless they are in certain situations, both being generally outclassed by Mage, whose power is just about always useful, and does essentially the same thing. However, I wouldn’t classify them as ‘urgent cases.’ And even so, I’d suggest changes/options for every hero, since it’d be crazy fun.

~Aodhfyn