Class Balance

• General
  • The classes in Hearthstone are based on the classes in World of Warcraft, and the developers don't want to stray too far from that, but want all classes to still feel viable.

• Rogues / Valeera Sanguinar
  • Very much aware that Rogues are currently on the strong side, which is backed up by both internal and external metrics.
  • There are plans in place to tune Rogues in a variety of areas to help bring them in line with the other classes.
  • The combo mechanic is here to stay, the developers really like how it plays out.
  • Defias Ringleader will not be surviving in its current form. "It will be his town, but not quite his town."
• Priests / Anduin Wrynn
  • Priests are currently on the weak side of all the classes, and the team is looking at ways of increasing the viability of the class without players having to rely on a couple of cards.
  • There aren't many ways for Priests to deal with the mid-game, a lot of trouble occurs at turns 4 and 5 when they likely don't have anything to play.
• Warriors / Garrosh Hellscream
  • Warriors were one of the strongest classes during the internal Alpha test. After a few number tweaks, they are slightly lacking.
  • Card draw is currently a weak spot in the Warrior arsenal. They are looking at ways to improve it to help with top-decking.

Beyond the Beta

• They are very focused on getting Hearthstone out to everyone as soon as they can so that they can start to work on new features.
• Team games would be "super cool", but there they are waiting for feedback from the community post-launch to look into it.
• Rest assured that more cards are definitely on the horizon, but there are no plans currently on how they want to implement them.
• The team is currently not looking at expansion content because they want to see the reaction from the community post-launch.
• Blizzard is very thankful for all of the community feedback, and hope to see it continue.

 The Arena

• There are no plans to reduce the randomness in the Arena.
• They really like how players can receive 4 Fireball or multiple legendaries.
• The randomness of Arena can really display the skill of a player when they consistently obtain high numbers of wins during a run.

User Interface

• The team wants to keep the interface straight forward and easily accessible.
• Statistics are something the team really wants to do in the future, but they want to make sure they get it right.
• A spectator mode will not be available during beta and is something that will be considered post-launch based on community feedback.
  • Esports direction is something they are thinking about, and are currently blown away by the stuff the community is currently doing.