by JR Cook - 11 years ago     show comments

Of all the distinct classes I’ve played thus far in Hearthstone, Priests are by far the most unique, and sadly, the weakest. They possess the ability to have a crushing and controlling late game, but in order to get to that point, they must first survive a somewhat intense mid game experience, and find a way to stall through enemy tactics. Even then, their late game win condition Mind Control is no guaranteed victory. It’s possible that the opponent is not running large creatures, or that they are running large creatures, but stealing one doesn’t do much for you, in the face of overwhelming odds. Shadow Word: Pain and Smite, while amazing crowd control abilities in the first few turns of the game, tend to wither, save for circumstances where they deal with a select few troublesome minions with three or less attack, most notably Demolisher, Sen’jin Shieldmasta and Gurubashi Berserker, among others.

Your opponent played a Malygos? Don’t murder the fabled dragon, take it for yourself.

What Priests can do is buff a minion to absurd heights. This tactic is brutal if it works, transforming a cheap stall minion such as Shieldbearer into a 4/4, or something more menacing. The issue is, creature hate and silences are in great supply for most of the other sets. What’s more, in order to make a  creature into a lumbering titan, a Priest deck is often forced to expend multiple cards, in order to cast buffs such as Inner Fire, Divine Spirit and Power Word: Shield. If the gamble doesn’t pay off (and it often doesn’t in higher tier play) the Priest is already down on card advantage and walking into a rather dubious mid game situation.

All this said, there’s an obvious temptation to begin trying to figure out just how to fix the class ourselves. Eric Dodds mentioned in a recent interview with podcast Turn2 that Priest was one of the classes that the Hearthstone development team acknowledged needed some love. He was not clear on how they specifically intended to do that, but I actually don’t expect anything dramatic, and here’s why.

I don’t believe the class has been as thoroughly tested as it needs to be. There are a lot of rares, epics and a legendary that I often don’t see in opposing Priest decks, focusing more on the damaging shadow route. It’s entirely possible that these cards, when used correctly and in conjunction with the right minions, could put Priest in a better spot. This is not to doubt those in the competitive scene who have been working extensively with the class. Let’s face it though. We, as players, have to learn to judge a card set for its entirety, and not just for what we happen to have unlocked. It might just be that Priest is an ‘expensive’ deck to play at a high level.

Imagine what kind of trouble you could get into with Prophet Velen on the board.

I still expect some Priest buffs in the next patch (presently, there’s no date for when it’s expected) but I don’t expect anything nearly as radical as some people have suggested. I don’t expect Shadow Word: Pain’s threshold to be brought up to five, nor do I expect Mind Control’s cost to be lowered to six. Dodds had a great line in his interview when discussing the balance of Warriors, and it feels relevant to Priests as well.

“..all it takes is the changes of a couple numbers here or there and actually that’s one of the things that we’re making sure that we adjust accordingly because it’s really easy for us to go ‘bump this one, bump this one, bump this one’ and oh my god the Warrior is just ruining everybody..”

Sure, this is the Priest set and not the Warrior set, but the idea still holds true. It’s important that the development team takes a look at the class and really tries to identify the issue, rather than just arbitrarily changing the numbers. That will, in the long term, lead to the most balanced, and enjoyable competitive scene, and hopefully a stronger, more  viable Priest set to work with. Fortunately, given how spot on most of the changes have been thus far, I believe we’ll see some answers in the near future that should put the class on the same tier as the others, right where it belongs.