The Demon Hunter continues to dominate in Hearthstone, despite nerfs. Players mock the class and explain what makes it so powerful.
For several weeks now, the new class of the Demon Hunter has been causing havoc in Hearthstone. The new class was so overpowering after its release that Blizzard published a major nerf just a few days later to rein in Illidan. However, it seems that the adjustments were not enough. The Demon Hunter not only dominates the battlefields but also keeps the community on Reddit in check.
What is the problem with the Demon Hunter? Even after the nerfs, some Demon Hunter decks still have a very high win rate. On the HSReplay site, one of the “Tempo Demon Hunter” decks has been at number 1 in popularity for days with a win rate of 62.9% across more than 55,000 matches (as of 01.05.2020, 12:00).
Other Demon Hunter decks even achieve an even higher win rate of up to 66.7%. However, they have fewer matches played (under 1,000) and are therefore not as significant.
The Demon Hunter is therefore not only “op” in World of Warcraft, but currently also in Hearthstone.
Demon Hunter destroys old mechanics
What makes the Demon Hunter so strong? The strength of the Demon Hunter comes from the extremely powerful cards it received at release. While most classes have advantages in one direction and therefore disadvantages in another, the Demon Hunter is strong in every way. It has not only powerful minions but also a thick repertoire of removal abilities that can swiftly and efficiently eliminate enemy minions without loss of tempo.
Additionally, the Demon Hunter breaks traditions and shatters behaviors that players have trained for years. The card “Kayn Sunfury” allows all attacks from the Demon Hunter and its minions to ignore Taunt, rendering any defense useless.
This is particularly critical because Blizzard nerfed many cards years ago with “Silence” to ensure that Taunt minions actually grant the promised protection.
The biggest criticism, however, is the rare card “Priestess of Fury.” For 7 Mana, it has stats of 6/7 and the effect “Deals 6 damage randomly split among all enemies at the end of your turn.” The high health points of the Priestess make it difficult to remove. In most cases, its cost is reduced by cards like “Skull of Gul’dan” or “Furious Felcaller.” If it stays on the field for just one turn, it has dealt a total of 18 damage, as it can also attack.
For comparison: Ragnaros, a legendary minion with a similar effect, which Blizzard considered “too powerful,” has been banished to the category of “Timeless Classics.” It dealt 8 damage to a random enemy for 8 Mana but could not attack itself.
Here are 3 good decks for Demon Hunter beginners.
Lastly, there is the outsider mechanic, which grants cards a strong bonus effect when played from the far left or far right of the Demon Hunter’s hand. Since many Demon Hunter cards are very cheap (1-4 Mana), it is almost always possible to activate the outsider effect.
This is how the community reacts: In the Hearthstone subreddit, a “small war” has broken out between two groups of players:
- One group of players believes that the Demon Hunter is well-balanced and needs no changes.
- The second group sees it differently and has started to develop “new cards” for the Demon Hunter to mock the class and the current meta. Following the motto: “If the Demon Hunter’s cards are acceptable, then these cards here are fine too.” They bring many old classics back into prominence and often make only minor text changes to the card so that they would fit perfectly with the Demon Hunter.
Here are some of the popular examples:
These “fake” cards are all designed so that their actual disadvantages become advantages for the Demon Hunter. Millhouse Manastorm, for example, reduces the cost of your spells to 0 (instead of the enemy’s) or Reno deals 10 damage if you have no card tripled in the deck – which is not easily possible in Hearthstone anyway. The Succubus could come back after the “breast ban” in the game – and simply remove an opponent’s card.
But how do you see all this? Is the Demon Hunter too powerful in Hearthstone and needs more nerfs? Or is the class perfect and needs no changes?
