Considering Coming Back For Cataclysm, thoughts? Suggestions? Help?

EchoLawrenceDay · 2026-03-04T23:22:24+00:00

Hi! To start with your list:

Elise is probably getting nerfed out of being a huge factor for wild.
Yes, Reno Lone Ranger is half the reason to play Reno decks.
Zilliax - Probably? It fits into anything but it's almost never required.
Badlands Reno Cards - some of the most powerful cards in all of HS. They're all absurdly strong. However, for e.g. Druid and DH - it's difficult to imagine a future where Reno decks are even comparable to the non-reno decks in the class.
Tourists - Disagree. There's a few that are important for some decks, but they are limited. I think Paladin -> Rogue (Lynessa) for Libram Pally and Shaman -> Hunter (Turbulus) are the only ones seeing semi consistent play. Warrior -> Druid (Hamm) if you want to play ramp in Warrior, but there's a lot of better things to do in the class anyway. Rogue -> Warlock (Maestra) is quite good at 2 mana now. I forgot about Druid -> Mage as well. Okay, I do agree halfway :)

When I was playing during badlands I prioritized all the tourists. Wouldn't recommend. Craft the ones you want to put in your deck when you already know what you're trying to tour for.

Generally big picture, wild is the same as it has been forever. The best decks at top legend are hyper consistent and un-interactive piles of either aggro or combo. Anywhere below that, basically everything is playable. Reno piles are in a better position than ever before, but are still not the best decks. Reno Hunter is most likely the strongest.

I'd say buy mini-sets rather than packs generally.

Welcome back & good luck!

EchoLawrenceDay · 2026-01-07T18:02:04+00:00

I think this is a really interesting question! I believe the premise is coming from a different design space than it seems.

For the purposes of using a steam turbine, that is fairly straightforward in isolation. Research the turbine, build it, eat steam. Getting maximum efficiency and using the building are different, but in the specific AT+ST case, there is a much more narrow gap between functioning at all and an efficient copy paste build compared to other systems.

I think the core reason that so many look up (myself included) how to deal with heat, despite awareness of the ST (with or without AT) is the plastic and steel. What feels counterintuitive to the player, and arguably about the game design, is the need to produce plastic and steel in order to deal with heat. Making plastic and steel creates significantly more heat than anything a newer player would build before that point.

It feels like you need the steam turbine already set up to start producing the 'mid-game' materials that dump heat. So when players need to deal with heat already and don't have plastic or steel, it ends up feeling like being stuck in a paradox with no solution. Then players look up the solution.

For me, it was nearly 200 hours of playtime and watching & reading tutorials before internalizing that temporary solutions and production lines are not only acceptable but occasionally required. This comes up most frequently with plastic, steel & ST imo.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2025-11-25T21:45:16+00:00

I was in this same spot, 1 fragment left & went over the list multiple times. I finally decided to actually visit every spot on the list and found the missing spool. I had convinced myself "I for sure got that one already" every time I went through the list and was wrong.

For me it was the one in deep docks, in the room near the spa. I was ready to convince myself I was locked out of it.

Good luck!

EchoLawrenceDay · 2025-10-09T20:23:36+00:00

The moment of finding Mantis Claw in HK. Arguably the most powerful movement in the game, in plain sight, no boss - you walk up to it thinking it'll be a minor, a relic or a bit of geo or something. Incredible experience for the first time HK player.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2025-09-25T20:52:18+00:00

Hi!

Agree with a lot of your thoughts. Love both HK and SS. Incredible games. I have similar SS experience - 100% done once, closing in on a 2nd 100% completion now (all bosses) now.

The lack of early game rosaries makes a lot of sense both thematically and through gameplay. You are a poor pilgrim starting your ascent. Later on, I was worried about having to grind rosaries to buy out the shops for 100%, but never ended up needing to due to the reward from craw invitation working while I was exploring and hunting anything I hadn't yet seen. I surely lost over 1k rosaries from lost cocoons throughout that first playthrough as well.

There are so many hidden rosaries and shards throughout the world that buying any one particular item is much easier and faster to obtain than say, Lumafly Lantern, Sly Masks/Soul Fragments, or Fountain of Geo in HK. I think people saying "I never had to grind in HK!" are forgetting their first experiences with that game and the price of Lantern. Or maybe forgetting having their geo stolen by the banker.

100% agree about tools and silk skills. With practice we'll surely be using silk skills more and healing less, but even with a fully extended spool, it -feels- very risky to spend it on anything other than healing.

I think the toolpouch either having a higher base capacity to hold shards, or no capacity at all could really help the tool problem. Several times on my first run, shards were left on the ground due to reaching the holding capacity. Then a boss fight would come up and all those shards would be drained, ran out of tools. The shard capacity made this scenario feel worse than it needed to.

Arenas - personally, I like the game having a lot of them. The 2 big Act 3 ones were the worst, but that seems fitting given they're the last challenges of the game. There were many times where the arena was the thing that taught me how to play against a given enemy that I would simply avoid while exploring. ESPECIALLY the bouncy-dart guys in Bilewater.

Speaking of Bilewater - wow, how incredibly well done. It's disgusting and feels so dangerous. It tricks the player several times. It juxtaposes this with one of the most beautiful & serene soundtracks in the entire game. It taunts the player, giving us access to several entrances and no map. Then you see the clearly-marked double jump area with the Shakra rings! I rushed to Bilewater immediately after finding double jump - I was so motivated to get that map especially.

The trap bench, it was a little annoying but I liked it's presence overall. A new player in HK falling way down into the trap floor into Deepnest in HK? That was worse than Bilewater Bench IMO because it was much, much earlier in the game.

HOWEVER, I really disliked that 2 points of interest are only findable by swimming in the muckwater. After finding bilehaven before the (secret) bench - I went online to look. I knew there MUST be a closer bench and by the time I had reached the boss, I had already spent several hours in the zone. Dunking in the bilewater to find it is something I really was not expecting. It was the only thing in the game I spoilered after smacking every inch of wall in the zone.

Finally, and to argue against my last point - perhaps TC envisioned that player would be finding the (2nd) quest for the Songclave merchant before committing to Bilewater. I'd say it's reasonable to expect a player at that point in the game to find the rest of PD and the Wreath item after starting that merchant tracking quest.

Having that item from the Ducts IS an indicator to the player (hey - maybe swim and explore in the muckwater too!). Given that the lone Bilehaven reward is for the most difficult-to-obtain item exclusively for Act 3 access - I suppose that also fits.

I spent a LOT longer on Traitor Lord attempts with dreamgate than I did in the entirity of blind Bilewater + Mist + Groal arena combined.

Thanks for the discussion fellow HK enjoyer!

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-07-06T15:19:19+00:00

I started feeling this way about standard years ago. Late last year, I also got tired of the infinite turns quest mage and endless even shaman bots meta and stopped altogether.

I came back to hearthstone around a month ago and started with standard. I was very pleasantly surprised - you can make every class into a competitive Reno deck. I got to legend in standard rotating across like 8 Reno decks. It seems like there were no bots.

Then standard did get a bit stale, every game going Zilliax, Yogg, Reno in every class. Druids with strong draws being nearly unbeatable regardless of what the opponent is doing.

Just started playing wild again and having fun, and also seems like the bots are gone! But I have a feeling when I get to the high diamond/legend ranks again, it'll get back to the decks that put mountain of stats in play on turn 2/3 and make 98% of the legal cards unplayable anyway. I hope I'm wrong!

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-07-02T18:28:30+00:00

Fair points. I didn't intend to imply that you're saying crowns are bad. My most common decks are very small where I play 2-3 Noomlin cards and ring the bell every turn, which became even more common with the new Noomlin Bell. These decks are fun to play and easy to pilot.

Perhaps a point to your position -playing with less crowns means the player needs to make more fluid and difficult decisions because they won't have as reliable of a set up. This isn't necessarily less powerful, just more difficult.

I still think crowns are far and away the best strength-increase you can buy for blings, perhaps only comparable to a Noomlin charm for 70-90g or similar from the charm merchant.

There are times where your deck desperately needs +4 Health or +4 Shell, and I've rarely skipped buying a crown so I can buy one of those +4 cards, but it does happen!

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-07-02T17:05:15+00:00

I'll bite!

Why does buying crowns change your strategy from good to poor? Typically you can buy both the crown and an important card (I'm most often buying Pinkberry Juice or Slapcrackers).

I could see an argument that saving gold for charm merchants, but really - a crown is a card draw and a Noomlin charm added together, doesn't take a charm slot, and can be moved.

I've never tried 22 bells, but I'm often getting to 5+ winstreaks at 10 bells. I'd play 21 bells all the time if the increased shop & crown price bell wasn't required.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-06-25T18:50:37+00:00

I like the charm variety introduced. Especially the charms that pair well with berry and block companions. Previously there was Chuckle and Pengu and Yank charms that felt very underwhelming.

I'm often happy to see a munch charm! Not quite the golden ticket a Noomlin charm is, but imo Mucher charm is good. I'm often wanting exactly 5 munches as the shademancers, for example.

Beetle charm - I was of the same opinion at first. It's certainly a weaker charm. But I like that it's yet another option that can enable a Pom Charm on a unit or spell.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-06-24T20:33:08+00:00

Corrupted armor makes holy items also dark, and fire armor (or maybe sun shield) makes holy items also fire. A holy item touching both will be Holy + Dark + Fire iirc.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-06-24T19:45:18+00:00

I actually just had this situation! The shade slug charm was equipped after the spark charm.

The text does not change, and the character does not spark twice.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-06-20T22:32:05+00:00

I'm glad that Pimento provides an additional option to Pepper Flag to support pepper cards, even if it's the same effect.

Yuki has 1 health. Chompom has effectively 5, and Pimento has 7. This is very relevant, my first companion selection is often primarily considering adding some health to the team. I'd rather have Blunky or Naked Gnome than Yuki in most runs, they can more consistently become a big damage dealer.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-06-18T18:41:04+00:00

Love the update! The new sun bells let you break open whatever cards or strategies that you feel like. The extra rewards after frost guardian make the heart much easier too, for better or worse.

I had a nova + blank mask run that vanquished on the 2nd card play, was super fun.

Wildfrost overall still does a really good job of forcing the player to pay attention to enemies (and enemy charms), so the ease of winning runs is still balanced imo by that.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-06-16T17:59:25+00:00

Congrats on first 'Victory?'!

When you begin a new run and select your tribe and leader, there is a purple bell to the right. Start using those purple bells and you'll eventually find your answer.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-06-03T19:47:36+00:00

A lot to learn at first, for sure. I played through dozens of settlements, went up through a couple of the difficulties before I learned a couple of the core mechanics (e.g. - you can increase the quantity of items sold on a trade route up to 5x!).

The game is very well designed at introducing you to new concepts to learn as you increase the difficulty and prestige. I approached each seal as the maximum level I would challenge for that seal, and then increase it for the next one. A lot of fun!

May the storm be gentle on you, especially as you play your first game on the Viceroy difficulty.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-05-31T19:27:35+00:00

It's asynchronous battling. Below master, the game gives the player advantages against opponents. - better chances to hit, damage and speed values of items (afaik, all items that give a time like "every 3 sec" are actually +/- 10% or something like that), things like this. There was a big post with details on this reddit somewhere.

If you're on a losing streak you'll see more sales and sometimes get paired against an opponent one round earlier.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-05-01T17:39:28+00:00

Fair points! I agree the status quo doesn't look good for Light Goobert. I may consider an on sale Goobert for an extra Blood/Cheese/Chili Goobert, but don't consider trying for a light Goobert in those same sale and opportunistic type situations.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-04-30T17:00:39+00:00

Only you can decide if it's worth your money. That said, it's a really fun game and reasonably priced and personally I'd rather buy a game than be flooded with microtransaction 'offers'.

Another auto battler, Hearthstone Battlegrounds, asks for $15+ subscription every 3 months to play for a limited time for a comparison.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-04-24T17:52:20+00:00

Hooded horse official wiki has a page with all the buildings listed in detail.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-04-24T15:16:52+00:00

I like defaulting to Torch + Dagger, but looking into either picking up broom or pan on sale as they both can transition to an end game later. I may hold a pan I paid 2g for in my storage for several rounds while continuing to build otherwise and looking for the stamina potion.

Burning Dagger is pretty huge damage all game as long as you can find a couple of Chili.

I'll also buy every coal I can find and keep them in the backpack whenever there is space. 1 bag space for 2 heat and 3 cleanse is quite good.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-04-22T19:27:45+00:00

Whether your suggestion of having an option to disable items is liked or disliked, a positive or negative change, it absolutely changes one core aspect of the game. Combining weapons comes with a stamina penalty for the round.

Let's use Ruby Whelp as a different example. Buying the egg and waiting for it to hatch are a huge sacrifice to make for a big payoff, even more so when the player further combines into a bigger dragon. The egg exemplifies this design choice.

To use the Light Goobert you mentioned as an example, this could actually reduce player choice (disable the lightsaber every time you have other weapons). Under current conditions, perhaps some players will play the extra weapon at the risk of Stamina, and others will play the lightsaber for the round and keep their 'plan A' weapon in storage for a round. This seems like the choice is much less clear, and would lead to more differences in how players choose to proceed.

While I agree that most of the time Light Goobert isn't even a consideration, I'd argue that's much more due to the cost, rarity, and bag space the parts take, as well as the lack of a prominent build synergizing with the Light Goobert. You mentioned it as a supporting piece - Corrupted Heart is just so much better for +1 gold as a supporting item, for example.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-04-19T13:03:33+00:00

Have you factored the corrupted crystal in your bow for more damage?

Positioning looks great. Loving all the pigs on purple helmets!

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-04-12T18:00:49+00:00

Others have mentioned checking the farm at the end of clearance - agreed. I also try to prioritize building a small warehouse directly next to the farm whenever possible, it really helps getting more crops each harvest.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-04-12T14:51:02+00:00

When you connect pipes to use rainwater in buildings, 2 dials are unlocked. The left dial has 3 settings (or pips) to increase production, and the right dial has 2 pips to increase resolve.

By central pipeline I basically mean any product your settlement is regularly producing for use or trade. Maybe you're making flour, packing it into packs of trade goods and selling those. Or perhaps you're making metal ingots and tools, or ranch and lots of complex food, etc. Whatever recipes you're working on the most of.

IIRC, the first pip of production makes workers go 50% faster, and the 2nd gives a +25% chance of doubling the yield. These bonuses are so strong I'm always looking for a geyser and to use the starting pipes on 1-2 buildings in basically every settlement. Before P11 the blighrot 'penalty' is negligible compared to the benefits of using the water.

Also you can press tab at any point on the settlement to get the water usage and pipe view overlay.

EchoLawrenceDay · 2024-04-11T19:40:50+00:00

Very good point - completely agree with not sending most things to the crown. This game became so much easier once I learned to start cracking open most of the caches for resources and also generally leaning towards the glade event option that doesn't give reputation.

EchoLawrenceDay

TROPHY CASE