I don’t know how else to put it, at this point. I know this account isn’t very old, but I’ve played this game since I was in highschool over a decade ago. In that time I’ve played a few classes, but none so much as Priest. In fact, over the years it became my main. Why? Because I could heal the other player and say “Blessings to you.” That’s quite literally it. So I’d like you to hear me when I say that I’ve stuck with this class because I’ve enjoyed it’s style, even when the devs have seemed hell bent on driving it straight into the ground.
I get it, a lot of players want to be in and out of a match in 5 minutes and play without any actual strategy or forethought other than “Hulk smash,” but some of us do enjoy a control play style. Some of us like longer matches where winning is actually a struggle and not just a matter of who can get more more minions on the board faster or trigger some ridiculous insta-win mechanic. Maybe I’ll give some examples further on, but the reality is that I could be here all day listing the ways in which this entire class has crashed and burned. I also don’t want to argue, this is just the only place for a player to express their frustration and disappointment.
As for an example… Arkonite Defense Crystal. It wasn’t a Priest-specific card, but it fit rather well into Priest’s arsenal in Wild. Yes, you could get ridiculous amounts of shields, but that’s just a big if. You had to survive long enough to play it in the first place, then not have it get overrun by a full enemy board, silenced, transformed, removed, made dormant, or just ignored entirely by Kayn, etc. It needed a nerf in some ways, yes, but it could also have been safely buffed in others. And either way, the recent change to it’s stats ruined the last technically viable Deathrattle Priest deck I had up my sleeve.
And just to throw this out there, people have loved to complain about the ridiculously high shields that you could get, but meanwhile, I still often struggled because several other classes have the ability to get equally (if not more so) high numbers in terms of damage. And again, no amount of shields can or will stop cards like Wheel of Death or any of the other ridiculously easy insta-win mechanics of the game.
I just wish I could still enjoy playing this game, but right now the only Priest decks worth running are just the most stale, boring things. I’ve won more playing them, sure, but I don’t just play to win. I play to enjoy the game and have fun.
EDIT: I also just wanted to throw it out there that this is only my 2nd post ever in all these years playing. The only other post was me hoping there was a match recording function like there is in Overwatch. I’ve kept my complaints to myself all these years, but it’s gotten to the point where the entire class I want to play is just 1 big complaint. So it will also likely be my last post.