In a sense, they are not wrong about neutral cards helping priest. His best cards back in the times of Naxxramas were all neutral (Loatheb, Dethlord, Chow). It was the loss of those core neutrals that killed Priest, in addition to Lightbomb.

So I tried Silence Priest. Climbed from rank 21 to rank 20. So basically too OP

But honestly, i was thinking "What do I put into a Silence priest?" First the obvious like Earie Statue or Ancient watchers... Then I thought about Ogres. You know, make them 100% attack....but there is only one oggre in Standard, being Mogors Champion....

DragonBeastMurlocBarnesMedivhVolazjPurify Priest will make Undertaker Hunter and Patron Warrior look like...Priest right now.

Neutral cards that fit so well they look like they were specifically made for Warlock, Paladin, Druid, Mage and Rogue (and Warrior, because everything is for Warrior)—and anti-synergize with cards Priest has to play, and with all existing Priest decks (even Dragon)—will improve Priest's position in relation to those classes.

To us that might seem impossible.

We might even say it's "so retarded that even the short bus won't pick it up," if we say things like that.

But we haven't done some testing.

So.

So they actually believe, that introducing of a few neutral cards, that are supposed to work better in Priest than in other classes (that alone is highly debatable), will help the worst class across different modes right now (Standard Constructed and Arena) enough to make them "happy". That line of thinking seems insane to me.

It makes pretty good sense to me. Imagine if warrior was struggling with card draw and they released acolyte. Or if paladin had board clear issues and they released wild pyromancer. They might've been wrong thinking the neutral cards were good enough, but just the general concept of neutral cards that work better with a particular class seems fair to me.

I realize they don't have legions of playtesters to check all of the different scenarios/possibilities of a card before releasing an expansion/Adventure, but sometimes I wonder if they only test cards within the bounds of the new content (think TGT Tavern Brawl with Joust Hunter and Inspire Mage, where the cards may have been seen as balanced in that limited scope, but either of those decks would've gotten absolutely slaughtered in the meta at the time).

What's upsetting about this is that a lot of people have been complaining about priest having no identity.

I really like how Amaz presented it with priest which is supposed to heal, steal and control yet paladin, rogue and warrior do those things better and priest is just an inferior combination of those 3 classes.

So maybe the neutral cards will make priest viable again but in the end the new decks will be articulated around a neutral card with no identity. A bit like C'thun decks, some classes are better at working with C'thun than others but no class' identity is linked to their ability at working with C'thun because C'thun is a neutral with no identity.

I've played other blizzard games before, HS devs are the only ones that I have seen that will never admit a mistake.

I can understand Medivh, because Priest uses a lot of spells. Curator could help in Dragon Priest, because the 7 mana slot is weak. Barnes maybe for Velen/Maly OTK? And the dragon cards will be tried out.

But it is still insane. They basically said "Priest doesn't need good class cards, they can use the neutrals." What comes next? They don't make cards for a class in an expansion, because they think the class doesn't need them? Because that basically happened.

Well, there is one question I have to ask them, Why not play the SAME deck, and just replace the priest class cards with better warrior ones?

It's actually quite funny. Read the dev's comment again and simply replace "Purify" with "Power Word Tentacles", and the list of the cards from the current expansion with the ones from the previous one.

You'll see that this basically reads like a cookie-cutter response that seems like it explains something without actually even having to reference the discussed card's effect.

Their argument would hold ground if:

• The archetype they were hyping, 'silence your own stuff' Priest wouldn't already suck, even with a better silence than Purify
• There was any value to this card. Flavor, constructed or arena viability. However, the card has none and it's blatantly obvious how terrible it is, it doesn't take a rocket scientist or a game designer to tell

They're just trying to mitigate the damage and calm down the crowd. Imo, they should've just admitted they fucked up and tweaked the card before release. They are people, too, people mess up sometimes. Trying to deny that makes them look silly.

Lol, I found the problem:

"In my mind there is some positive to the outcry over Purify..."

It's all in their heads. They think that because 1% of the Hearthstone community will use this card, it is good. And even if nobody uses this card, they still "think" that there will be positive reception. They're literally fucking delusional.

Actually, that's their one and only option. Priest can only become a "neutral card" class because of how shitty the core set is.

They don't seem to want to have to print a good 2 and/or 3 Priest drop each adventure or expansion because the core set suck.

I'm really starting to think that Priest cards are only printed to support neutral cards, and not the other way around. They really want you to make an Ancient Watcher/Eerie Statue deck while backing it up with cards like Silence and Purify. It's still doesn't cut it because of the value loss, but that's the only reason I'm seeing in their design choices.

... That or they simply have absolutly no idea what to do with Priest and just release random terrible cards.

Priest NEEDS a class exclusive early game taunt.

If Priest was the same way it is now except it had Deathlord, the class could break into Tier 3.

Because it has such high health, it works well with the hero power, and can fill in extremely well for the lack of early drops. Now you don't NEED turn 4 Auchenai Circle to survive.

You look at the lake

"In my opinion Book Wyrm is a missed opportunity here. If it were for example a Priest only 3-drop with 3/2 stats and the same text."

lol

How is not giving priest a good class card ok because we have neutrals? Every other class can use neutrals aswell and you know what else every other class can use, CLASS CARDS!! Everyone except priest got good class cards!!! And i dont want to even talk about how bad priest is already. It looks like you dont respect your players anymore, so fuck you!

I wouldn't mind my deck being based on neutral cards as long as they weren't inherently understatted compared to class cards. In the case of priest though it might be the opposite so whatever.

yeah, but... blizz printed purify. like, that's a real card that made it through design, development, playtesting, and final implementation. like kripp said in his rant, I can't put faith in HS's dev team anymore because they allowed that card to exist. what the fuck, blizz?

I mean class cards are meant to be often far superior to neutrals and define a class, yet priest is meant to use almost entirely neutrals? Doesn't that just sum up the problems with priest perfectly? Oh sorry, I mean "is there a problem?" of course not.

Yea, about those neutral minions there is that small detail Team5 forgets and that problem is THAT EVERY OTHER CLASS HAS ACCESS TO THEM AND THOSE OTHER CLASSES WILL USE THEM MORE EFFICIENTLY BECAUSE THEIR CLASS CARDS DON'T SUCK.

PriestLivesMatter

So it seems like OP has much more insight and knowledge about the game than one of the people working on it. We can see Blizzard's failure as a company clearly showcased by the fact they've yet to hire Gola_ onto the dev team, and fired everyone currently working on it. He knows what Hearthstone truly needs!

This is turning into a Bus Shock moment with the developer responses so far.

Priest is strong enough already in wild.

But that's not their honest opinion. Mage got better synergy than priest with the neutral cards ffs.

If a card is supposed to work better with Priest than with other classes, that speaks of how poorly the class is designed.

Priest has no design concept except trying to heal things to get board advantage. Hence they should be getting minions that empower that concept.

Look, Blizzard... you have to give (forgive me meme gods) the priest the equivalent of a 4 mana 7/7.

They actually fixed shaman being shit tier by putting the pedal to the medal with the kinds of cards they got in WOTG. And heck, they totally set it up with LOE.

There is NO SETUP in this set. None. So the ONLY way they could possibly get the priest class to be playable is to give it an entire set of 4 mana 7/7s.

Which sounds, stupid. So really, someone should step up, retroactively purify this mistake, give priests a good card and move on. It's not hard, it requires work, but it needs to happen if you want to have more than 8 classes.

I view Book Wyrm as a good dragon replacement when BRM rotates out. But, and a lot of people have brought this up, it has a weak body and you have to meet two specific conditions to use it.

• You have to be holding a dragon.
• You have to have a 0-3 ATK creature to target.

From Mike Dondai's interviews, and now IksarHS, it seems Blizzard truly believes Book Wyrm will save Dragon Priest. Maybe they think Barnes too but there are far better classes and Barnes gets in the way of Resurrect.

It's not as good as Blackwing Corrupter but the dragon tag is a positive for activating other cards.

They should make Purify's flavor text read- Play Priest on Wild mode Only. If you want to stay rank 20 or worst, include this card in your deck. They might give a new portrait to Priest so we will not see Anduin anymore, since he basically is irrelevant in standard.

These guys are like drug addicts that don't think they have a problem!

How to fix Priest: Deathlord becomes Priest only and part of Standard

Now my only problem with this line of thinking is that if there's a neutral card Priest can take advantage of, there's a high likelihood that another class can do even better with the same card do to more valuable class cards

Ahahaha which neutrals? Museum Kurator 3+4. Sure! Why play for board when I can die with 10 Cards in Hand?!

I just want priest to get a minion that doesn't require some kind of combo to work well. He's saying "silence priest could be good" as if that excuses the fact that they've basically given priest nothing but more inefficient ways to keep keep up on board.

Priest's best board clear is a two card combo. They deck they're pushing with Purify requires you to play an ancient watcher on turn two and silence it turn 3 to attack, while having 1 mana left to develop something else. 4 mana 7/7s and 0 mana 5/5s don't need an extra card investment before smashing your face in.

It's not really crazy. Look at how Grim Patron, a neutral, propelled Warrior to #1 in the BRM set period.

I'm a strong independent bla.. class minion

Just look at that turn-8 two-card combo where you assassinate something and summon a 3/3! That's op AF

While I disagree with what he said, I still think we shouldn't downvote him. The devs talk to us so rarely, lets not scare away the few who occasionally do communicate with us.

Do you want them to just do to priest what they did to shaman? Or would you rather it be more creative?

The issue with Priest is that as a class, there are cards it specifically NEEDS to even potentially win a game in its current state. Priest hero power is capped at 30 Hp, meanwhile 2 other classes offer a way of overcapping their effective health, so Priest isn't altogether that tanky. Other classes offer damage, or multiple cards with synergy IN THEIR CORE SET. Priest does not have many minions that actually synergize with their hero power in a way that affects the board. Also, strictly looking at the priest-only legendaries, you cannot expect to use either of them in a way that reliably affects the outcome of the game. Even the core legendary, Prophet Velen, is currently only useful if you have Emporer, and even then, consistency is a rarity. His removal cards are not as efficient as ANY other classes, even next to Warlocks, which even affects his own side of the board. So when you hear "The neutral cards will be beneficial" all that says is that at the core, the expansion will dictate if there is any chance of a viable Priest deck. He is missing out on cards that will ALWAYS EXIST to give him a decent deck. One that has some early game, some mid game, and a potential to deal 30 damage to the enemy. That is all we priest players want, and we don't have that. If there was ONE deck that was decently consistent, we'd only be annoyed at the current state of the game. As an example. I am playing Mage. I built a garbage deck That bases itself around Reno Jackson and Yogg Saron. It's garbage as a concept, and yet, I hit rank 15. I have barely gotten to rank 15 playing the best priest deck I have. And I have played priest in over 2,000 games. Why can this Mage deck find success? Because it has options like Fireball, Pyroblast, Flamestrike, etc. To win the game.

So Priest doesn't get good class cards because they get enough from neutral? Like other classes?

jesus fucking christ

Nah bro, another 4 drop!

The only neutral card that even remotely fills the broken range for Priest is Thespian, and it's still shit.

Well sure. Half the game is neutral cards <_<

We nerfed Mind Control for "emotional" balancing, but we won't buff the class for emotional or statistical reasons, in the timeless words of simon lane "WTF blizz"

The best thing priest got from this expansion is Arcane Anomaly into Coin PW:S

Here's what this statement says to me, and we already knew it: Blizzard doesn't know what to do with Priest. Their metrics tell them that players don't like playing against all the things Priest does well like stealing minions, healing minions and using your own cards against you. But they haven't figured out what it should do instead and so they're just throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Daily reminder blizz can't balance for shit

Why are you surprised exactly?

Expecting a class to make due with neutral cards has been standard practice for Warlock for a while now.

Blizzard: We've made a bunch of neutrals that are showing up in every deck. We want class cards to be more strongly represented in decks, so we're banishing half your collection to Wild.

Also Blizzard: lol we have no idea wtf we're doing with Priest class minions. Use the neutrals.

What a bunch of crap. They keep talking in circles, why are we supposed to take any of this at face value? After all, these guys printed Purify.^TM

I actually just got into Hearthstone, and I love playing my priest control deck. It's frustrating that it isn't getting support, but if you build a deck around the Holy/Shadow design it's a lot of fun to play.

That play style is how the class needs to be supported, IMO. Right now, it is a little inconsistent to build a deck that way (if you don't draw certain cards you are dead in the water), but when it works its a ton of fun.

So let's make a 30 card deck of just neutrals. Problem solved

I mean Barnes+Purify is.. sort of a thing

You know what priest could use? A 1 mana 2/2. Or a 2 mana 2/2 discover a 1 cost card

As much as neutral cards are good id love more class-cards.

Well more class legendaries, they rock.

I love how they talk about neutrals being used in Priest as a way of making it better but then try and slide in Purify as being part of it.............

Yeah, but they made purify.

Bring back dark cultist again!

Neutral cards really don't matter given that they afford the same, if not far better options in synergizing with the other classes. Priest is already in a shit state; adding more of the same in the form of neutrals combats nothing, and Iksar's explanation is a simple way to deflect the real problem that'll go unsolved.

Cards I'm thinking of:

• Barnes, probably most synergy with priest because of silence (although wondering how shadowstepping the 1/1 token would be if it had a nice battlecry)

• Medivh since we have many high costed spells, but that is just a win more condition and implies that we win.

• Moat Lurker works well with silence but I'd rather shadowstep that bitch so I can play it again for 4 mana. Plus if we're on turn six we have access to Entomb and SW:D so more removal isn't super needed.

• Nethersprite Historian (and by extension, Book Wyrm) are nice for dragon decks but I don't see how they would help priest for than other classes. Twilight whelp is the only reason I can see where priest may have a slight advantage since its a 1 drop that facilitates Historian

• Arcane anomaly can be a 2/4 with PW:S, but relying on a two card combo on your first turn doesn't seem prudent (and if it was, Ancient Watcher + Silence would be better)

And that's it really? I don't see how mage, rogue, or warrior wouldn't benefit from this stuff more. Nothing seems designed for priest except maybe a Nethersprite Historian and Twilight Whelp combo for turns 1 and 2.

The only other possibility I see is they playtested a lot with the beast/murloc/dragon archetype and priest works well with zoobot, magician, and curator but even then I don't see why priest would benefit more than the other classes except for twilight whelp.

To be fair, I can't honestly see any other classes playing Netherspite Historian - it might be a neutral Priest card, the same way Shade of Naxxrammas was a neutral Druid card. However, I think the holes in the Priest class ought to have been partially filled before experimenting with something new. It's entirely possible that Dragon Priest could be somewhat viable, post-Kara. But a nice Dragon-synergy 2-drop or 4-drop would have helped a great deal more than what was given - it's probably a safe guess that Eerie Watcher and Barnes tokens aren't enough for Silence Priest to take off.

I've spent a lot on this game. I have every expansion card (that I want) and all adventures. I love the adventures and even go back to them fairly often to see how new cards change them. My favorite class is Priest. This is the first time I'm seriously considering not buying an adventure and maybe leaving HS alone until the next expansion. Good job, Blizzard. I guess you have saved me some cash/gold by wrecking my enjoyment of your game.

It's funny how they dare to speak about "new archetype" instead of just... admitting they've made a mistake. So next time we get 10/10 for 2 Mana - Can't attack. It's still better than changing Purify, right?

It might seem that way to you, and you could be right, but the people designing the set have actually played with these cards so I give them a little bit more credence right now.

why cant they throw preist a bone, giving them a 2 mana silence a minion draw a card wont make preist tier 1 it wont even make them tier 3. the fact its so limited is retarded and bad design. i know the folks at /r/hearthstonecirclejerk have been making jokes about eerie statue plus purify = 4 mana 7 7 overload 2 but if that was actually the though behind this then you need to rethink the design of preist a little bit blizzard instead of trying to coverup your blatent fuck ups

I feel like people are reacting way too early. You saw what happened in GvG, many people called Boom bad and praised troggzor to the top tiers. Exactly the opposite happened. Im not saying purify will be amaizng or something like that but I dont think it makes sense to outrage this much without even testing the new neutral and class cards with priest

That line of thinking seems insane to me.

Because it is. The whole point of picking a class is to provide value to the neutrals, neutrals are not the ones meant to be providing value to a class. It doesn't work that way and never will. Ever. Any value a neutral brings it brings to every class, because its neutral.

It is impossible for neutral cards to bring value to a class and before anyone thinks suggesting Chow or Deathlord them cards didn't provide value to priest, the Priest hero power provided value to them.

This doesn't even make any sense. I would understand if a neutral card somehow interacted in a way that that benefited one class more than the others because of certain class mechanics like Patrons with warrior or mage. But none of the neutral cards in Karazhan do that with priest. I mean maybe Morose with powerword shield would be synergistic that other classes couldn't really duplicate, but that's really low impact and doesn't actually solve one of the core priest problems, namely putting minions sticky enough on the board so that your hero power actually matters.

Why would you play dragon priest over dragon warrior with the new neutral dragon cards? Warrior just simply has a better set of core cards to work with. For priests it is the entire infrastructure that is broken, which really became apparent after the loss of light bomb, velen's chosen, and sledge bulcher.

Curator is only going to be drawing dragon's for priests. Besides cold light oracle they won't be double dipping in reasonable way. Beast druid might experiment with the card and though I doubt the five mana slot will be open enough for azure drake, because druids are going to do everything in their power to get that ridiculous 5-mana beast into menagerie warden play. They may play with Onyxia.

Medivh is a late game win more card for priest that doesn't help in anyway to get to the late game. I see Medivh more viable in a mage or druid deck, possibly paladin deck than a priest deck.

Barnes is a card that pretty much every class hopes to abuse. I guess priests could use it for a OTK priest deck or throw it in a N'zoth priest deck. Again this doesn't elevate priest in any way above the consistency of the other OTK decks and N'zoth decks.

Defending purify is just stupid. It feels like a throwaway card that was slotted in last minute for the adventure to replace a problematic card that was planned for priests.

Why not "Silence all your minions. Draw a card" ? At least you could see some direction to the card..

Altough I see and to some extent agree with your points, your solution for Book Wyrm would make it the priests 4 mana 7/7.

Okay... so... let's just talk about the "dream scenario" here. Let's say you play priest and for some reason you make it to turn 6 (bear with me, I'm just speaking theoretically). So you play Barnes, you get your 1/1 Ragnaros/Deathwing Dragonlord and then you purify it. So now you have a 3/4 and a 8/8 on Board and you draw a card for 6 Mana. Seems good. The problem is, priest never struggled with putting out threats in lategame. It struggled with getting there in the first place. I think this "dream scenario" might actually be pretty solid if you play it for 4 mana and use Silence instead of Purify. That brings us back to where we started from. Purify can NOT realistically be a part of this archetype. I wish one of the devs would just go "Look, we know the card is trash. Let's focus on other possibilities." Atleast then we could move on with this ridiculous discussion.

Freak man, just gimmie a 2/2 for 3 with Circle of Healing attached at this point.

It got buried pretty deep in another topic, but Game Designer /u/IksarHS gave a honest reply yesterday what their thoughts about Priest are right now:

We have zero reason to believe this is a “honest” reply any more than any other “statement” from a figurehead on Team 5. In fact, to me it sounds like a PR response to what is clearly becoming an issue on this subreddit.

Let’s be honest… Purify, Priest of the Feast, and Onyx Bishop have zero synergy with one another. Add in the neutral cards, and I’m still not seeing hardly any synergies or a “new archetype” to be had… is he referring to some sort of silence deck with Purify? A resurrection deck with Bishop? Some sort of spell deck with Feast? There’s really very little interaction to even be had with the neutral cards… maybe Purify the Moat Lurker? Even the new dragon card is just a minion with Shadow Word: Pain attached to its battlecry.

I don’t know which is more worrisome… that Blizzard actually believes what they’re saying, or have zero problems lying to our face.

Number of options*

I don't think many people realize that Netherspite Historian is VERY powerful for Dragon Priest...essentially a Curator with one extra health that has a discover that actually helps the deck synergy rather than grabbing deathrattles that may or may not be useful. Of course the only drawback is that you need a dragon to activate it, but still. Book Wyrm's hard to evaluate, but the 6 spot is pretty uncontested in Dragon Priest and I believe it'd definitely be better than Drakonid Crusher and even possibly Cabal due to the dragon synergy. Maybe if a Kodo or two are added to the deck Curator could work, although admittedly that feels like a reach. All of this powers up Dragon Priest above what it currently is, and therefore it's impossible to declare all Priest decks dead this early.

Barnes also seems like he's able to do some crazy things, don't count out the possibility of some random Barnes Priest deck becoming quite powerful out of nowhere.

"a new archetype that Purify could be a part of." so, they truly believe a debuff deck is possible and, most importantly, good? What are they smokin' and where can I find some of that good shit?

It's sad how they try to push every class towards minion based strategies. Priest used to be about comboing spells and minions, using auchenai + circle/flash heal or velens chosening a deathlord, or power word shielding a wild pyromancer.

Now priest is being pushed toward having dragons be its only viable strategy, a midrangey deck that just tries to curve out with high stats like every other midrange deck

You can see the same thing with other classes that didn't rely as much on minions. Rogue has been pushed toward deathrattles and away from spells. warrior started playing all the Cthun minions.

It makes for very homogenous games without much decision making

that

is dumb

what they're saying is that priest is so bad their best cards are neutral cards

that is absurd

you have classes for a reason, a class that relies on neutral card is just stupid, neutral cards are good for archetypes that you want every class to be able to play (reno, c'thun, big dragons), vanilla cards for new players and generic cards that can help every class (sludge belcher to stop aggro, thaurissian for combo, loatheb etc.), you can't have a class be reliant on neutral cards when no other calss does it

Oh boy, i don't play priest to play a neutral class, neutral cards are for supporting not for making the entire deck.

Credit to Iksar for being the only one to communicate, but all it's really doing is making me despair as to Blizzard ever getting Priest right.

Priests have no identity. Paladins are superior at healing and buffing and board clears. Warrior is superior at removal and health gain (because armor is superior to healing). Rogue is also now being pushed as the premier thief class, with some synergies to boost the power of stolen cards.

Priest literally has nothing. It's Basic/Classic cards are all mostly inferior to other class cards. Because the Classic set Priest cards are so bad, every expansion will need to boost Priest every time cards are cycled out. This is also an issue for Paladin. Blizzard seriously needs to fix the Classic set and make some core archetypes for classes. If they don't do this, Warrior and Warlock will ALWAYS be the best classes without exception.

Nobody's complaining about the lack of class identity for warlocks. Warlocks, with the exception of Demonlock decks, have always relied on neutrals. And now, before you even had a chance to test the new cards, you start lynching Blizzard for suggesting Priest might have to rely on neutrals.

In my opinion Book Wyrm is a missed opportunity here. If it were for example a Priest only 3-drop with 3/2 stats and the same text, that could at least be a start to push Dragon Priest towards 50 percent.

WTF?!? A 3 mana 3/2 that destroys target minion with 3 or less attack... That card single-handedly makes Dragon Priest the best deck in the metagame as long as there are viable Dragons available.

Fuck you Blizzard

Wait for the cards to be out and testable for fucks sake

Y'all know that Priest is currently one of the strongest contenders in Wild... because it synergies better than anyone else with a lot of the neutral cards?

Neutral cards CAN be the solution. Not saying they ARE currently, but they definitely can be.

Holy SHIT!!! I was with you until your example about the theoretical priest dragon, are you insane?!?! a 3-cost card that straight up kills any minions with 3 attack AND puts a 3/2 body on the board would straight-up be the most broken card in the game... completely meta-defining shit!

Just imagine Shaman throws out that turn 2 totem golem, taking a overload point just to see it annihilated, leaving him with 1 mana against a 3/2 on the board (that is if there isn't even more, like a 2/3 whelp). Same goes for shit like frothing or even FANDRAL!

Barnes is probably the best here. The problem with the rest of the cards you listed is twofold.

The Curator and Medivh are too slow for current priests. Priests have plenty of big crazy win conditions, like N'Zoth, Monkey and Paletress, available to them. Those were the problem once upon a time, but not anymore.

For Dragon Priest, I don't think Book Wyrm is going to help -- it's worse than cards like Blackwing Corruptor and Fire Elemental by a clear margin -- and I don't think the other one will help, because wyrmrest agent is so much better.

Right now, the problem is that Priests don't have any early game board contesting cards.

Guys, calm the fuck down. Wait to see how strong priest is. If it's trash, then bitch about it. But for now, calm down.

These morons have no idea how their own game works, buy refuse to hear anything anyone else says.

They probably thought dr boom would be a fringe card and troggzor was OP.

HOW THE FUCK do the new neutral minions benefit from Purity? People should stop being so nice to these developers and fucking start flaming then big time so that they are forced to do changes.