Patch 19.2
In case you haven’t been following along with Hearthstone, the last few weeks or so have been a doozy.
Blizzard completely overhauled the game’s reward system, much to the chagrin of most of the playerbase. After some Reddit sleuths discovered that the game was actually being more stingy, the development team vowed to fix things with a future patch. That patch just dropped this week.
The short of it? You need 37,000 less XP to finish the entire seasonal rewards track, which is a significant drop considering that weekly quests reward you with anywhere from 2000-3000 XP, with XP boosters from the premium track. Arena quests have also been eliminated (good), and many XP-providing quests have been nerfed so that they’re easier to finish. Also, there’s 50 more gold per level from levels 27 to 30 (to help shore up the gold economy that was lacking). I’m sure the community will have further notes and this isn’t the last we’ve seen of the rewards track saga.
As for actual content, the new Book of Heroes Garrosh quest is on the way on December 16, followed by Uther on January 5. Right now Jaina and Rexxar are available, and there’s room for six more heroes (for now) after the Garrosh and Uther enter the fray. Several cards and one hero power have been reworked for standard and duels play as well, which you can find more info on here.
The update I’m most excited about however is the huge splash that Battlegrounds is making in this patch. A new “Darkmoon Prizes” mechanic is now a thing, where every four turns you’ll get a new item that can mix things up (at first it’s stat boosts, then it’s huge bonuses like the reduction of all minion costs by one coin). C’Thun, N’Zoth, Y’Sharrj are now Battlegrounds heroes, with Galakrand (who was newly buffed and was dominating) rotating out. New Old God themed minions have also been cycled into Battlegrounds.
It’s a lot of stuff to keep track of! For me the Battlegrounds changes have been the biggest shakeup, followed by the increase in cost of Voracious Reader from two to three. Given that I see it nearly every game, the latter is a no-brainer!
19.2 Patch Notes [Battle.net]
