I’m sitting on 250 arcane dust. I wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go with it. Would it be worth crafting the highmanes? In place of what? Any other suggestions as to deck tweaks?
I think I sent you a friends request a few days ago, not sure if you got it.
Well, Highmanes are going to be a staple in most hunter decks, so I’d craft them if I wanted to play Hunter a lot in the future. However, they are not indispensable - as I alluded to earlier, the faster version of the hunter deathrattle deck doesn’t run Highmanes, and if you really had to Ogres do about the same thing. On the other hand, Freezing Trap/Eaglehorn bow are also staples, and have effects that can’t be duplicated by neutral cards.
In terms of crafting, I’d probably go Freezing Trap > Eaglehorn bow > Highmanes. I can’t remember the rarities, though, also, if you have a one of of Freezing or Eaglehorn I’d craft the other.
I totally added you as a friend, I was just creeping on your Windfury shaman about 3 hours ago. 
Going for Earth Elemental into Ancestral Spirit into windfury? I was just waiting for you to drop that!
I just came across this interesting guide, might be useful for those who only have Naxx.
http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2nw107/basic_naxxramas_deck_guides_for_all_9_classes/
Oh, does it not tell you when your friends are watching you play? That seems like an obvious one, along with opening some sort of chat. Do you see your friends’ hand?
It does tell you, I guess you just missed it. And yes, it shows you their hand and everything. I thought about opening a chat, but I was on an iPad and that’s just clunky.
Must be a quick pop up message. They should integrate chat into the screen when you have an observer. When I play on PC I alt tab out a lot when I’m playing against someone slow, so that’s why I could’ve missed it. If you’re ever on PC and watching me, definitely give me any advice you’d want to share.
Haha, okay then, I’ll pop a message up next time I see you online. I’m on iPad most times, though, I hardly have time to play any more except during lunch… which is why I’m on my iPad.
Oh, I just thought up a clever synergy and use for unleash the hounds. When I pull out my leeroy, the two extra whelps would give me 2 extra hounds, which makes me kill shot worth at least 8 damage rather than just 6. In situations where I don’t have a better use for my mana.
So I built my first zoolock deck. Early results are really good, I think I’ve gone 6-2 so far, with 4 overwhelming victories. Crafted a defender of argus (generally useful) and a doomguard for it.
Found out something interesting in one of those losses. The new mistress of pain lock minion, the one that heals your hero for as much damage as she does, heals based on delivered damage, rather than absorbed damage. So if she’s buffed up with, say, demonfire and defender of argus to have 5 attack, even if she’s hitting a minion with 1 hp, she will heal 5 hp. I was facing one that was buffed up to 7/10 and then taunted with argus - I had to attack with 3 units to kill her, thus healing his lock from like 9 hp to full. I could see her being useful.
I wonder if things that have a random element (ability targets a random enemy, unit deathrattle brings a random new minion, etc) are undervalued by blizzard. The new shredder mech units, the 6-drop unit that makes a random 4 drop appear if it dies, and the 4 drop unit seem like too good a value to me. I suspect that because they drop a random unit with no guarantee of synergy, they may be undervalued. But perhaps I don’t understand the usefulness if a random element without synergy at higher level play. But those units seem universally useful, sort of like a harvest golem, even without a mech deck.
The new cards have to be somewhat stronger than the old cards – that’s what keeps the money coming in. Power creep, it’s called.
Keep in mind that you can sometimes “steer” the random action.
Here are a couple of good articles on hunter and zoo aimed at keeping the cost down:
http://hearthstoneplayers.com/f2p-focus-v-2-hunter/
http://hearthstoneplayers.com/evolutions-zoo-first-thoughts-post-expansion/
I have been struggling following a major losing streak after the GvG release. These two decks have me back on track and climbing again.
I came across just the article for the Piloted Shredder! Reddit - Dive into anything
It’s a long read though, TL;DR, it’s good but there are probably better 4 drops that synergise with your deck better. Also has a chance of blowing up your board with a doomsayer, so it’s not always an upside.
I think what Blizz was going for was the stories, it’s always amazing to hear about the lethal that just appeared when a direwolf alpha came out or something, but for competitive play, the variance is probably so high that you’d want to stick with something that’s “good enough” rather than play russian roulette.
So what are the best neutral heroes of GvG do you think? The only one I’ve faced that seems universally useful is the one who creates the bombs that deal damage to a random enemy.
Did they change the matchmaking for arena lately? My last 10 or so pre-GvG arena runs got at least 3 wins, 4 about half the time, sometimes 5. Since GvG, I’ve played about 8 arenas, and I’ve only got 3 wins 3 or 4 times. And a few 1 win runs, which I haven’t had in a long time pre-GvG.
Oh, and as far as the randomness of the shredder drops - last night I had a game where a guy was crushing me in board control, 5 units to my one. He finished off my last unit with his damaged shredder, and it dropped a doomsayer. Board wipe. Turned a probably loss into a win for me.
If you mean legendaries, Dr Boom, the 7/7 with the 1/1 boom bots, is generally thought of as one of the most consistent ones. It has a fixed value, and the RNG isn’t too bad if you can shape the board so the boom bots go where they would do the most damage.
Other than that, Sneed’s old Shredder seems to be getting the most action. I pulled a Troggzor and it’s been doing work in my Pirate deck, locking down the board against AOEs and such, but the pros seem to think it’s not any good. I don’t know, it’s kind of like a persistent effect Loatheb, but then again coming down on 5 and coming down on 7 is a big difference.
To be honest, though, the Legendaries that are doing the most work are the class legendaries. Malganis seems to open up a new kind of demonlock deck, same with Bolvar, Vol’jin, etc. The new neutral legendaries don’t seem as powerful as say Rag, or Sylvanas, or Ysera.
I know people like to say power creep, but the high end didn’t seem to increase very much, if at all. Of course, everything is better than Magma Rager…
Pulled the 5/8 trade merchant guy in my arena and have been very happy with him - the stats are good enough that the ability is a pure bonus, and my most recent game against a priest I got a power word shield and a holy smite off of it - the latter one let me combo off for lethal. The combo weapon power oil spell has been very good on this run, too, letting me swing for lethal on several occasions out of nearly nowhere.
I just want him for the art. Trade Prince Gallywix looks awesome!
I just got a mage down to 2 hp. He played Molten giant, molten giant, sunfury protector. Then eye of medivh, or whatever the one is that gives you the cards back for your current minions, and then he played molten giant, molten giant, and sunfury protector again. I had four 8/8 taunt units to work through. Oh how I wish I had a soulfire ready.
I’ve heard of this deck on reddit, but never seen it played. Interesting combo with Echo of Medivh. With ice block, I guess that could be the end of you.
Twisting Nether new meta.
Is the quality of player significantly better at certain times of day? In particular, what would be late night in the US? The opponents seem better. I wonder if it’s just that only the hardcore hearthstone players are up playing at 2am, whereas all the casual players flood the game in the day.
Earlier today I won about 80% of my games and moved from rank 18 to rank 12 rather quickly - and at night, I’m losing about 70% of my games and moving down almost as fast. Small sample size in this case, and I made minor alterations of my deck. My observation about the player quality is more general, not just today.
Definitely different levels of play at different times of day.
Lately I only play a little, basically just enough to do the daily quest, usually early afternoon, and find the games easier until around the time school kids start getting home, then another jump of stronger players around the time people with jobs start getting home. Don’t know about late night play.
I find Saturdays to be the toughest competition and Sundays the easiest day.