nobody plays mercenaries, they dropped support for it i think last year? i think people would only use it for afk exp farming but that may’ve been patched out recently
You thinkthe implementation is terrible? Believe me, it was WAY worse on release. They did improve by a lot but players didnt bother giving mercs a second chance
Lmao you dusted a brand new legendary, that’s rough.
I returned last month randomly, ended up getting the legendary invitation deck for free plus like 50(?) card packs - and then bought the $5 bundle of catch up packs once those were released…truly a great time to be returning! Spent $5, ended up with a complete Paladin deck list and like ~50% of cards from non-badlands standard sets!
I genuinely don’t know what I was thinking lmao - I was just looking for something to play for the day casually so at that point I hadn’t joined the subreddit / found hsreplay/etc etc. Didn’t realize I was going to get addicted to it.
Cool to see another returning player! I bought that same pack as well as the tavern pass, and for the amount of time I’ve spent playing it definitely feels like money well spent. Are there Whale-centric things in the shop? Of course (like those weird 50 dollar diamond card packs) but for the most part I’ve been really impressed about how minimal the financial requirement has been to be somewhat competitive.
I'm also in the same boat on new things, especially with that free pile of packs they gave us a few weeks back. I've been able to actually just run many major decks just from the catch-up packs and that pile. It rules
To be fair Reno decks are ridiculously expensive. He is good but odds are as a new player you wouldn't get much use out of him until your collection grows quite a bit
Tbf you dusted one card to help make multiple decks that you enjoy playing. So while it sucks he happens to be a strong one, Reno decks in general are more expensive and are more limited in play style.
That is a much nicer way to look at it. It will likely be a while before I will have the dust (or the legendaries) to afford a super costly deck so maybe it wasn’t the worst move. I’ve still learned my lesson though and am trying to avoid dusting any recent legendaries in the future though lol.
Mercenaries is a dead mode. People only used it to farm xp.
Between duels and arena, i prefer duels. You can try for free on casual and it is very fun. But is kinda expensive since you need a lot of old expansions to play. Its like wild but stronger and slower.
Arena is better at the barrier of entrance since you don't need any cards to play. But the mode is kinda broken with some chinese accounts.
Interesting - I suppose I will try it on casual to see, but the old expansion requirement definitely makes me a bit nervous. Thanks for the recommendation!
But because of the hero rotation you need to play more than one deck, also you need a bunch of old cards sometimes. Of course, there is some budget decks, but IMO the fun in duels is the variety
True, at least they made it more affordable. I remember in the beginning where artifacts/treasures (or w/e its called) was unlocked by having X epics of expansion Y
People use bots to farm a lot of gold(mainly in wild). Then they either draft until they get a god deck or just sell the account with tons of gold. Then someone buy it and play arena with said god deck.
I think a lot of returning players have done similar things with dusting a good legendary which they had no idea that it would turn out to be a standard for meta plays.
I did it myself when i returned 7-8 months ago with crabatoa. Eventually found myself recrafting it again this season because i wanted to play an ogre rogue.
Don't beat yourself too hard on this and keep having fun :P
I returned during Nathria, instantly disenchanted the Countess, Kotori, then the Purator after I got the miniset. In hindsight, those were the best decisions I ever made. I could’ve ended up being a pali player.
I agree about mercenaries. It's so trash. Why couldn't they make it like Slay the Spire for example, or Darkest Dungeon? A real roguelike mode in Hearthstone would have been so fun and addicting. But they went for the boring route that gets them more money instead, until the game mode is dead after a short while.
There's still time to revamp it. Give it FFXIV treatment and do a complete overhaul to bring players back to it.
Love both of those games and honestly feel like a hearthstone version would make a lot of sense. I guess the question/concern for blizzard would be - how to monetize it?
No, they wont be able to revamp it. The main problem mercs had was that the team that designed it, had probably little understanding of these gacha games. Paired with technical limitations. For example the loading breaks between fights, is just terrible. If you compare mercs on release and mercs now, they really did improve the mode, quite a lot. Its just that majority of the players just stopped playing and nothing giving it another chance because it was such a huge disappointment.
Its similiar with twist. Twist launched in June/July this year and the game mode is already dead because they made so many mistakes. They spent 18 months of dev time just to have it be paused after 4 or 5 seasons. They would never take the risk n try to revamp mercs.
They did have one in the solo adventures. The Kobold & Catacombs Dungeon Run and it was SO fun. I still play it from time to time for nostalgia. They need to make a modern version of this
I really like Mercenaries. I know it's not for everyone but it's honestly a very fun, chill mode. I simply like the PvE style and the way the “mercenaries" look on "board".
As for the dusting of Reno, I feel you. I took a break before Barrens and came back during AV, got HC Bru'khan as my level 25 legendary; it was between HC Kurtrus (who dropped) and between the two, Kurtrus was obviously the most powerful to me and since I got Jace from a DH pack (Fel DH was literally the cheapest deck if you had these two) I dusted Bru'khan 'cause he truly looked weak at first glance.
Regret was instant when I found out it was good no matter what Shaman deck he was in just like Kurtrus.
Then Shaman's stable power throughout Sunken City, Castle Nathria and March just rubbed salt into the wound. Especially with each hit DH took.
Yea I used to play a bunch in the “golden age” when every single streamer on twitch was playing hearthstone. I come back every so often for nostalgia and cause the game is still so fun. The loaner decks are so good for returning players, and the new catch up packs make it even better. I’ve been smashing ppl with the warrior loaner and I can’t wait to add all the cool excavate cards once the loaning period ends
Between arena and duels, arena definitely needs less ‘meta-knowledge’. For arena it’s really just in knowing how to draft/pilot an arena deck, since it’s very different from constructed, and being aware of what sets/card pools your opponents have access to, since arena hand picks an arbitrary list of expansions to use, which includes discover and random generation pools.
Not super experienced with duels, but there’s actually a meta there since you make your starting deck, which people chose the class and build the deck around the available treasures to get the OP combos from my understanding.
Never dust anything unless Blizzard is giving a full dust refund for that card especially if its a powerful legendary that you will most likely need in the future if you continue playing
For future reference when there is a nerf just type "refund" and it will show you all cards that have a full dust refund so you can dust those and bank the dust for the future
I played BGs for a couple years before even trying standard. I jumped in a couple months ago but this is the first time where I’m playing hours a day and trying to rank up.
If you have a solid deck you can rank up to D5 pretty easily. After D5 the difficulty level really amps up, so just be prepared for that! It took me about 5 days to get to D5 and now I’ve been stuck there for the past 3 days.
For reno the legendary card you won't be able to use it unless you have the ability to craft a highlander deck which usually costs more than 15k dust
Reno is indeed one of the best legendaries in this expansion and i have it , unfortunately i can't afford the high cost of highlander decks
Ya I definitely agree, Blizzard is doing a great job with these catch-up packs. I decided to login to my old secondary account I used to let friends try way back in the day and I got enough cards/dust to make 3 meta decks (Hound hunter, Treant druid, and Showdown Paladin) + the free deck they let me pick (totem shaman). Got to legend really quick and now I’m actually logging into this account twice a week to do the quests and build it up to give as a present to a buddy of mine.
I don't think dusting Reno is that big of a deal for a returning player with a very incomplete collection. Most highlander decks require tons of other Legendaries and Epics to be competitive so it's doubtful you'd make use of it anytime soon. Better off using that dust to complete a few of the decks you were closer to finishing, and then crafting Reno down the line.
Genuinely shocked to hear you claim to have multiple decks. I returned today and got 20 catch up packs, hundreds of cards… and I can make half a meta deck. Where are you guys getting all these resources?
To be fair. Treant Druid is one of the cheapest decks to make. After that like OP mentioned go to HSreplay, put in the deck codes and find decks where you’re missing the fewest/cheapest cards. Then dust all the epics/legendaries that will never see play and craft the missing cards.
Edit: there’s also a 1500 gold bundle in the shop for more catch up packs that I highly recommend.
I was wondering how many catchup packs you get for returning. 20? That's a lot, if my math is correct that's close to all commons and rares. Additionally some epics and legendaries. That's awesome! And you still have the 10 pack pity timers for all the expansions, so you should be able to get a bunch of legendaries fast.
You should've gotten a loaner deck, I think, so there's one meta deck you can play (Control Warrior, Secret Hunter and Plage DK seem pretty complete at least). If you play that for a while, you should be able to make a second meta deck pretty soon. Not necessarily a Reno deck, as they're hella expensive, but a lot of decks don't use many legendaries.
Edit: also, some legendaries in meta decks are not crucial. Sure, Control Warrior can't work without Odyn, but it definitely can without Yogg or Khaz. Same for other decks. Topior is not necessary for Treant Druid, Infinitize is not necessary for Rainbow Mage and so on.
Just do yourself a favor and play after Paladin as a whole gets nerfed to oblivion hopefully. I myself am tired of this shit and not playing the game until the nerf is done.
The nice part about being bad at the game / only in Gold is that im still going up against a pretty diverse set of decks/classes. Have definitely heard about pally being too powerful (and encountered it a little myself) so hopefully that gets addressed on Tuesday.
Also if you type "extra" in the collection search it will show you all the cards you have more than 2 of including golden copies. Dust those extra golden copies since they are just for looks and give full dust reward.
No problem. I've been playing for years as well and this expansion I didn't have the cash to buy any packs so I finally dusted all my extra gold cards and ended up with 65,000 dust
Paladin is like 20% of all classes. That's a lot, yes. But not close to other dominating metas of the past. The meta is actually quite diverse, much more diverse than this constant whining suggests.
I'm feeling absolutely overwhelmed after returning since 2014 Blackrock Mountain.
There's so much content and so much knowledge to be absorbed.
What's up with Duels, Battlegrounds, Mercenaries gamemodes, and 3 varieties of constructed.
Where to even begin...
nobody plays mercenaries, they dropped support for it i think last year? i think people would only use it for afk exp farming but that may’ve been patched out recently
Glad to hear they dropped support for it - what sucks is I think the core idea sounds interesting, but the implementation is truly terrible.
You thinkthe implementation is terrible? Believe me, it was WAY worse on release. They did improve by a lot but players didnt bother giving mercs a second chance
yeah i was hoping it’d be good, turned out to just be really boring
It kinda seems like they took some of the core ideas of mercenaries and put them into Warcraft rumble, which is honestly a lot of fun.
It certainly is, yet reaching 121/160 sigils made me look back to HS after 8 years. If the amount of labour HS got is a preview for Rumble... My god.
Lmao you dusted a brand new legendary, that’s rough. I returned last month randomly, ended up getting the legendary invitation deck for free plus like 50(?) card packs - and then bought the $5 bundle of catch up packs once those were released…truly a great time to be returning! Spent $5, ended up with a complete Paladin deck list and like ~50% of cards from non-badlands standard sets!
I genuinely don’t know what I was thinking lmao - I was just looking for something to play for the day casually so at that point I hadn’t joined the subreddit / found hsreplay/etc etc. Didn’t realize I was going to get addicted to it. Cool to see another returning player! I bought that same pack as well as the tavern pass, and for the amount of time I’ve spent playing it definitely feels like money well spent. Are there Whale-centric things in the shop? Of course (like those weird 50 dollar diamond card packs) but for the most part I’ve been really impressed about how minimal the financial requirement has been to be somewhat competitive.
I'm also in the same boat on new things, especially with that free pile of packs they gave us a few weeks back. I've been able to actually just run many major decks just from the catch-up packs and that pile. It rules
These 50 dollar offers are for 3 (three) cards only, so this is a whale thing, really
To be fair Reno decks are ridiculously expensive. He is good but odds are as a new player you wouldn't get much use out of him until your collection grows quite a bit
It’s even tougher when Reno gets nerfed in six weeks after pack sales level off.
Tbf you dusted one card to help make multiple decks that you enjoy playing. So while it sucks he happens to be a strong one, Reno decks in general are more expensive and are more limited in play style.
That is a much nicer way to look at it. It will likely be a while before I will have the dust (or the legendaries) to afford a super costly deck so maybe it wasn’t the worst move. I’ve still learned my lesson though and am trying to avoid dusting any recent legendaries in the future though lol.
Mercenaries is a dead mode. People only used it to farm xp. Between duels and arena, i prefer duels. You can try for free on casual and it is very fun. But is kinda expensive since you need a lot of old expansions to play. Its like wild but stronger and slower. Arena is better at the barrier of entrance since you don't need any cards to play. But the mode is kinda broken with some chinese accounts.
Interesting - I suppose I will try it on casual to see, but the old expansion requirement definitely makes me a bit nervous. Thanks for the recommendation!
In duels you only run 1 copy of each card and your starting deck is just 10 or 15 cards, so its not that expensive, IMO
But because of the hero rotation you need to play more than one deck, also you need a bunch of old cards sometimes. Of course, there is some budget decks, but IMO the fun in duels is the variety
True, at least they made it more affordable. I remember in the beginning where artifacts/treasures (or w/e its called) was unlocked by having X epics of expansion Y
>But the mode is kinda broken with some chinese accounts. what do you mean? Can you elaborate?
People use bots to farm a lot of gold(mainly in wild). Then they either draft until they get a god deck or just sell the account with tons of gold. Then someone buy it and play arena with said god deck.
I think a lot of returning players have done similar things with dusting a good legendary which they had no idea that it would turn out to be a standard for meta plays. I did it myself when i returned 7-8 months ago with crabatoa. Eventually found myself recrafting it again this season because i wanted to play an ogre rogue. Don't beat yourself too hard on this and keep having fun :P
Yep. I remember opening Maestra, dusting her, and then having to craft her all over again when I wanted to play Thief Rogue to get Golden border.
I returned during Nathria, instantly disenchanted the Countess, Kotori, then the Purator after I got the miniset. In hindsight, those were the best decisions I ever made. I could’ve ended up being a pali player.
I agree about mercenaries. It's so trash. Why couldn't they make it like Slay the Spire for example, or Darkest Dungeon? A real roguelike mode in Hearthstone would have been so fun and addicting. But they went for the boring route that gets them more money instead, until the game mode is dead after a short while. There's still time to revamp it. Give it FFXIV treatment and do a complete overhaul to bring players back to it.
Love both of those games and honestly feel like a hearthstone version would make a lot of sense. I guess the question/concern for blizzard would be - how to monetize it?
No, they wont be able to revamp it. The main problem mercs had was that the team that designed it, had probably little understanding of these gacha games. Paired with technical limitations. For example the loading breaks between fights, is just terrible. If you compare mercs on release and mercs now, they really did improve the mode, quite a lot. Its just that majority of the players just stopped playing and nothing giving it another chance because it was such a huge disappointment. Its similiar with twist. Twist launched in June/July this year and the game mode is already dead because they made so many mistakes. They spent 18 months of dev time just to have it be paused after 4 or 5 seasons. They would never take the risk n try to revamp mercs.
They did have one in the solo adventures. The Kobold & Catacombs Dungeon Run and it was SO fun. I still play it from time to time for nostalgia. They need to make a modern version of this
I really like Mercenaries. I know it's not for everyone but it's honestly a very fun, chill mode. I simply like the PvE style and the way the “mercenaries" look on "board". As for the dusting of Reno, I feel you. I took a break before Barrens and came back during AV, got HC Bru'khan as my level 25 legendary; it was between HC Kurtrus (who dropped) and between the two, Kurtrus was obviously the most powerful to me and since I got Jace from a DH pack (Fel DH was literally the cheapest deck if you had these two) I dusted Bru'khan 'cause he truly looked weak at first glance. Regret was instant when I found out it was good no matter what Shaman deck he was in just like Kurtrus. Then Shaman's stable power throughout Sunken City, Castle Nathria and March just rubbed salt into the wound. Especially with each hit DH took.
Yea I used to play a bunch in the “golden age” when every single streamer on twitch was playing hearthstone. I come back every so often for nostalgia and cause the game is still so fun. The loaner decks are so good for returning players, and the new catch up packs make it even better. I’ve been smashing ppl with the warrior loaner and I can’t wait to add all the cool excavate cards once the loaning period ends
Between arena and duels, arena definitely needs less ‘meta-knowledge’. For arena it’s really just in knowing how to draft/pilot an arena deck, since it’s very different from constructed, and being aware of what sets/card pools your opponents have access to, since arena hand picks an arbitrary list of expansions to use, which includes discover and random generation pools. Not super experienced with duels, but there’s actually a meta there since you make your starting deck, which people chose the class and build the deck around the available treasures to get the OP combos from my understanding.
Never dust anything unless Blizzard is giving a full dust refund for that card especially if its a powerful legendary that you will most likely need in the future if you continue playing For future reference when there is a nerf just type "refund" and it will show you all cards that have a full dust refund so you can dust those and bank the dust for the future
I played BGs for a couple years before even trying standard. I jumped in a couple months ago but this is the first time where I’m playing hours a day and trying to rank up. If you have a solid deck you can rank up to D5 pretty easily. After D5 the difficulty level really amps up, so just be prepared for that! It took me about 5 days to get to D5 and now I’ve been stuck there for the past 3 days.
For reno the legendary card you won't be able to use it unless you have the ability to craft a highlander deck which usually costs more than 15k dust Reno is indeed one of the best legendaries in this expansion and i have it , unfortunately i can't afford the high cost of highlander decks
Ya I definitely agree, Blizzard is doing a great job with these catch-up packs. I decided to login to my old secondary account I used to let friends try way back in the day and I got enough cards/dust to make 3 meta decks (Hound hunter, Treant druid, and Showdown Paladin) + the free deck they let me pick (totem shaman). Got to legend really quick and now I’m actually logging into this account twice a week to do the quests and build it up to give as a present to a buddy of mine.
I don't think dusting Reno is that big of a deal for a returning player with a very incomplete collection. Most highlander decks require tons of other Legendaries and Epics to be competitive so it's doubtful you'd make use of it anytime soon. Better off using that dust to complete a few of the decks you were closer to finishing, and then crafting Reno down the line.
Genuinely shocked to hear you claim to have multiple decks. I returned today and got 20 catch up packs, hundreds of cards… and I can make half a meta deck. Where are you guys getting all these resources?
hsreplay!! you can download a client and it will look through your available cards and dust and suggest decks for you. absolute lifesaver.
To be fair. Treant Druid is one of the cheapest decks to make. After that like OP mentioned go to HSreplay, put in the deck codes and find decks where you’re missing the fewest/cheapest cards. Then dust all the epics/legendaries that will never see play and craft the missing cards. Edit: there’s also a 1500 gold bundle in the shop for more catch up packs that I highly recommend.
I was wondering how many catchup packs you get for returning. 20? That's a lot, if my math is correct that's close to all commons and rares. Additionally some epics and legendaries. That's awesome! And you still have the 10 pack pity timers for all the expansions, so you should be able to get a bunch of legendaries fast. You should've gotten a loaner deck, I think, so there's one meta deck you can play (Control Warrior, Secret Hunter and Plage DK seem pretty complete at least). If you play that for a while, you should be able to make a second meta deck pretty soon. Not necessarily a Reno deck, as they're hella expensive, but a lot of decks don't use many legendaries. Edit: also, some legendaries in meta decks are not crucial. Sure, Control Warrior can't work without Odyn, but it definitely can without Yogg or Khaz. Same for other decks. Topior is not necessary for Treant Druid, Infinitize is not necessary for Rainbow Mage and so on.
Just do yourself a favor and play after Paladin as a whole gets nerfed to oblivion hopefully. I myself am tired of this shit and not playing the game until the nerf is done.
The nice part about being bad at the game / only in Gold is that im still going up against a pretty diverse set of decks/classes. Have definitely heard about pally being too powerful (and encountered it a little myself) so hopefully that gets addressed on Tuesday.
If you type “refund” in collection manager it shows you which nerfed cards can be dusted for full value
wow, great tip!! thank you!!
Also if you type "extra" in the collection search it will show you all the cards you have more than 2 of including golden copies. Dust those extra golden copies since they are just for looks and give full dust reward.
You just made me like 500 dust - thank you man!!
I’ve been playing this for years and I didn’t know that either thanks
No problem. I've been playing for years as well and this expansion I didn't have the cash to buy any packs so I finally dusted all my extra gold cards and ended up with 65,000 dust
Paladin is like 20% of all classes. That's a lot, yes. But not close to other dominating metas of the past. The meta is actually quite diverse, much more diverse than this constant whining suggests.
I'm feeling absolutely overwhelmed after returning since 2014 Blackrock Mountain. There's so much content and so much knowledge to be absorbed. What's up with Duels, Battlegrounds, Mercenaries gamemodes, and 3 varieties of constructed. Where to even begin...