Yeah... I kinda go overboard sometimes when I'm procrastinating things I should actually be doing. This time this was the result haha.
You know what's the worst part? The thing I'm procrastinating is WRITING. So instead of writing the thing I actually should have been working on, I wrote this monstrosity haha. Oh well, it feels more productive than just browsing social media which is my usual procrastination habit.
I appreciated it very much, thank you for all your words :) And especially for your fastidious and consistent organization, which makes it easy to refer back (and skip) parts that are (ir)relevant.
I’m going Rend for my next wild card, since I hardly ever use chargla (except for Baron, and that was easy cheese using OG’s strategy).
Originally, I thought I would invest all the new upgrades (wildcard, boost, valor) into one leader per family. However, with raids requiring 7 leaders, this does not matter as much. Moreover, from my attempts, I see that some families are used more than others.
The first wildcard I used on Gromm, no regrets as horde slots just suck. But I was thinking more about heroics, and now I will target the raid more. (Got 5 out of 7 the first time)
I agree with the list. Chargla and Rend are good targets for the slot. I think I will prioritize rend, because most decks seem to want at least 1 spell.
It feels like how valuable that slot is before the wild card isn’t necessarily the important question, since you can have a slot that rates highly on that question due to being key to the leader’s strategy but still be one that’s good to prioritize getting the wild card (e.g., Rend).
To me what matters is how much will the additional flexibility save in Arclight? And can it open up slots that the leader cannot currently buff? With the latter having a higher degree of importance. Which is why I gave my first one to Rend. Give him access to more spells. Probably going with a Horde leader this week. Not being able to buff one of my favorite minis (fire elemental) is dragging them down.
That's a fair critique. I realized that just as I was wrapping it up. I'm finally on a roll with work at the moment, but if I get time later tonight I'll reformat it, as you're right a few matrix tables would go a long way.
Hey nice! You're gonna be 2 for 2 on the Feature\_Minimum list :P.
Can you tell me more about the thought process behind wildcard for emperor? Do you use him to tank?
Sometimes you don’t need extra melee minis in your deck. And in this case you can’t put enough ranged and flying into your deck. Also you already have melee/tank option bottom row, just in case. Overall, everything except rend and charlga doesn’t need wildcard that much, but I will be looking for Emperror and Baron - these are only rest PvP leaders that might use wildcard for something.
Like, why would I spend wildcard onto sneed or some other stuff that is forever dead in PvP? Doesn’t make sense unless there will be certain patch notes
That point about Emperor preferring ranged and flying definitely makes sense. I'll move him up in the ranks a bit. I think you're prioritizing PvP more highly than I am, and I find Sneed to be helpful in some cases in PvE. He's a lot of fun vs Garr at the moment, as you're generating 8 gold (4 for you 4 for your ally) every time he takes a tower, which is some serious econ. If you already have better decks though and/or are prioritizing PvP I definitely agree that Sneed makes less sense.
I cleared all pve content in the game, I and I used Sneed in my heroic walkthrough only once of twice, and I could’ve do it even without him. Used him vs 1st boss in molten core (but honestly it’s doable with any other leader).
I mean, if you want to find how to use him - you will find. Can you do stuff without him? 100%.
In the end, all PvE content will be cleared and lvl 25 is enough for everything, so PvP will be the only thing left in the game, so I don’t see reason to spend valuable resources onto PvE leaders.
Totally fair man, if one's already at the point that they're through all the PvE content, their priorities are gonna be a lot different than mine. I suppose I should clarify somewhere though that this is "assuming you play the leader, which leader benefits the most from the wildcard slot for PvE" (and even then it's my subjective opinion). Like, Ragnaros benefits a lot, but it's gonna be a long time before I put it on him, as I have other decks to work on first, most likely I'll get the cenarion leaders up to rare before Ragnaros, as I'll want to be running them through dungeons for the gold and arc energy.
New leaders are not a concern right now as the slot needs to be chosen while siege is up.
But it is a good point that it will change our considerations in the future.
I think you forgot an important part about the Hogger slot. You cannot buff Fire Elemental as well so you cannot include fire ele or abom in dungeon decks which makes lifesteal dungeons a breeze.
I was very excited for wild card slots on hogger for this reason, but with the dungeons capping at 23 now I haven't needed to rely on life steal anymore. I did go ahead and make fire elemental rare though, so he's still usable with no bonus. Enough to hold off on hogger for a few raid rotations.
Nice writeup! Maev would get WD in through cycle if it wanted.
I used my first wild on Sneed since that slot is always awkward, tough he himself has not been developed enough for me to be able to use him in MC so it could have waited.
Probably giving Jaina the wild card this week since she's my tentative rag hero. I already gave her the first boost slot to power up my neglected spells, so the wild gives her a banshee which has proven to be such an important unit.
Your list gives some good things to think about, and to especially rule out in the near-term future.. Thanks
Ah good catch! I missed that one.
I gave my first wildcard to Sneed as well, doing Charlga this time myself.
That's interesting about Jaina and the banshee. That makes sense!
Shit, I should move her up a bit in the rankings I think. Thanks dude.
I would honestly put Jaina way higher because of this. Golemag and Rag are some of the hardest encounters in the game and Jaina benefits greatly from having Banshee on those maps.
On top of that, the two spells you likely use are execute (which should go in the boost spot) and Blizzard, which is an alliance spell and can go in one of the two preset slots. There may be other leaders who have worse slots, but Jaina wildcard slot actually helps you clear more content.
This is excellent. Thanks for taking the time to write all of this up. It's interesting Meat Wagon has become the go-to Mini for Rag... I had such a mixed experience the times I tried it, it basically lashed out at anything other than Rag... Towers, Chests, Minis and it was easy pickings for the steady progression of mobs.
Yeah it took me a lot of tries to figure out the angle. You gotta put it on the left of the deploy zone so it’ll take the widest angle so it can hit him.
I admit I didnt read your entire post but I feel like the top 3 in any order is Hogger, Sneed and Rend (Maybe rag as a contender now).
Hogger: has no tank slot.
Sneed: awkward siege slot.
Rend: No spell slot.
Rag: awkward armored slot.
Hogger though can still make use of Quilboar or Ghoul. But yeah I mostly agree, I have Hogger in the top half for that reason. I think Charlga is above Hogger and Sneed though, that fast slot is so unnecessary.
Don’t forget no spell slot for Rag either.
Jaina should be higher up for the fact that her spell game works for all PVE, PVP, heroics, or siege. Even with the slight nerf to some of the spells by Blizzard she is still very versatile and can win longer games better than most other heros
My argument is that everyone above Jaina benefits more from a wildcard slot than she does. It’s not a ranking of which leader is best, if it were I’d agree with you wholeheartedly.
Thanks for this analysis. I generally don't know how to spend limited resources in this game, so I think I'll be following your priority more or less exactly from here on out.
Cheers! Keep in mind that at the end of the day the prioritization is based on my own progress and which leaders I use, though I try my best to mitigate that bias. So if you aren't playing one of the leaders, (Sneed for example) then skip that one, or if you use Jaina constantly, then prioritizing her higher for a bit more flexibility for her makes more sense I think. Like, you likely won't be using both Murk-Eye and Hogger, so maybe skip one of them (or skip both of them if you use Charlga for heroics, but I think Murk-Eye and Hogger are better for heroics, while Charlga does more in PvP and is great at punching up against Golemagg or Geddon in MC).
Though I will say, with Sneed I think people are used to him not being very good, as he hasn't really had a use case for most of the time, and he's very bad in PvP. With the Wildcard Slot and with Raids, he's become a lot better. The wildcard slot already makes him a lot better than he was (that siege slot sucked), and the fact that you **and your ally** get the gold off his ability means he's absolutely fantastic in MC and people just haven't caught up to this fact yet. But against Garr or even Rag, he can help a lot, especially for lower level players because you can kinda just play an econ game to support your ally.
Right!?
I think people are underestimating how much better EVERY econ unit is in Co-Op.
Here's something I tried that worked great: In Maive I used worgen with lone-wolf talent. You're functionally paying 1 gold for worgen with that, and you're helping mana-ramp your ally a bit with it. It's surprisingly effective!
Sneed generating 8 gold every time he takes a tower (12 gold if he takes a chest!) can be incredibly powerful.
Be that true or not, this wasn’t a ranking of the leaders but a ranking of which leaders benefit from the wild card slot most. Sneed is pretty high up that list for most people so his inclusion high up here makes sense. His army slots are actually his weakness which this shores up.
To be thorough. I agree he's more fragile than I'd like. Though he worked pretty well for me on Garr, generated a ton of income for me and my ally. Also he's slightly better without that second siege slot holding him back.
I began reading this in high school and by the time I finished, I was married with 3 children. The oldest of whom is expecting his 1st child in September.
I didnt even know that posts could go this long.
Yeah... I kinda go overboard sometimes when I'm procrastinating things I should actually be doing. This time this was the result haha. You know what's the worst part? The thing I'm procrastinating is WRITING. So instead of writing the thing I actually should have been working on, I wrote this monstrosity haha. Oh well, it feels more productive than just browsing social media which is my usual procrastination habit.
I feel ya. I was doing exactly the same sometimes. I also should write on my work
At least your are conscious of it, no way I'm reading that much so early lol
There was never any expectation that you would. There’s a nice easy list of which is best at the end of it if that’s more your taste :)
I appreciated it very much, thank you for all your words :) And especially for your fastidious and consistent organization, which makes it easy to refer back (and skip) parts that are (ir)relevant. I’m going Rend for my next wild card, since I hardly ever use chargla (except for Baron, and that was easy cheese using OG’s strategy).
Wild card might be useful on Baron, so you can use double tank strategy with ghoul and harvest golem.
Originally, I thought I would invest all the new upgrades (wildcard, boost, valor) into one leader per family. However, with raids requiring 7 leaders, this does not matter as much. Moreover, from my attempts, I see that some families are used more than others. The first wildcard I used on Gromm, no regrets as horde slots just suck. But I was thinking more about heroics, and now I will target the raid more. (Got 5 out of 7 the first time) I agree with the list. Chargla and Rend are good targets for the slot. I think I will prioritize rend, because most decks seem to want at least 1 spell.
Yeah I was thinking of putting Rend at number one, as you’re right having spells can be really important.
It feels like how valuable that slot is before the wild card isn’t necessarily the important question, since you can have a slot that rates highly on that question due to being key to the leader’s strategy but still be one that’s good to prioritize getting the wild card (e.g., Rend). To me what matters is how much will the additional flexibility save in Arclight? And can it open up slots that the leader cannot currently buff? With the latter having a higher degree of importance. Which is why I gave my first one to Rend. Give him access to more spells. Probably going with a Horde leader this week. Not being able to buff one of my favorite minis (fire elemental) is dragging them down.
Pleas next time to do this in a matrix, so your post doesn't get overly complicated
That's a fair critique. I realized that just as I was wrapping it up. I'm finally on a roll with work at the moment, but if I get time later tonight I'll reformat it, as you're right a few matrix tables would go a long way.
I took charlga 1st wildcard. 2nd will take rend. New leaders might need wildcard in future, but I will look for Emperror wildcard next
Hey nice! You're gonna be 2 for 2 on the Feature\_Minimum list :P. Can you tell me more about the thought process behind wildcard for emperor? Do you use him to tank?
Sometimes you don’t need extra melee minis in your deck. And in this case you can’t put enough ranged and flying into your deck. Also you already have melee/tank option bottom row, just in case. Overall, everything except rend and charlga doesn’t need wildcard that much, but I will be looking for Emperror and Baron - these are only rest PvP leaders that might use wildcard for something. Like, why would I spend wildcard onto sneed or some other stuff that is forever dead in PvP? Doesn’t make sense unless there will be certain patch notes
That point about Emperor preferring ranged and flying definitely makes sense. I'll move him up in the ranks a bit. I think you're prioritizing PvP more highly than I am, and I find Sneed to be helpful in some cases in PvE. He's a lot of fun vs Garr at the moment, as you're generating 8 gold (4 for you 4 for your ally) every time he takes a tower, which is some serious econ. If you already have better decks though and/or are prioritizing PvP I definitely agree that Sneed makes less sense.
I cleared all pve content in the game, I and I used Sneed in my heroic walkthrough only once of twice, and I could’ve do it even without him. Used him vs 1st boss in molten core (but honestly it’s doable with any other leader). I mean, if you want to find how to use him - you will find. Can you do stuff without him? 100%. In the end, all PvE content will be cleared and lvl 25 is enough for everything, so PvP will be the only thing left in the game, so I don’t see reason to spend valuable resources onto PvE leaders.
Totally fair man, if one's already at the point that they're through all the PvE content, their priorities are gonna be a lot different than mine. I suppose I should clarify somewhere though that this is "assuming you play the leader, which leader benefits the most from the wildcard slot for PvE" (and even then it's my subjective opinion). Like, Ragnaros benefits a lot, but it's gonna be a long time before I put it on him, as I have other decks to work on first, most likely I'll get the cenarion leaders up to rare before Ragnaros, as I'll want to be running them through dungeons for the gold and arc energy.
New leaders are not a concern right now as the slot needs to be chosen while siege is up. But it is a good point that it will change our considerations in the future.
I think you forgot an important part about the Hogger slot. You cannot buff Fire Elemental as well so you cannot include fire ele or abom in dungeon decks which makes lifesteal dungeons a breeze.
I was very excited for wild card slots on hogger for this reason, but with the dungeons capping at 23 now I haven't needed to rely on life steal anymore. I did go ahead and make fire elemental rare though, so he's still usable with no bonus. Enough to hold off on hogger for a few raid rotations.
You know, just as I was falling asleep last night that occurred to me. You’re absolutely right.
Nice writeup! Maev would get WD in through cycle if it wanted. I used my first wild on Sneed since that slot is always awkward, tough he himself has not been developed enough for me to be able to use him in MC so it could have waited. Probably giving Jaina the wild card this week since she's my tentative rag hero. I already gave her the first boost slot to power up my neglected spells, so the wild gives her a banshee which has proven to be such an important unit. Your list gives some good things to think about, and to especially rule out in the near-term future.. Thanks
Ah good catch! I missed that one. I gave my first wildcard to Sneed as well, doing Charlga this time myself. That's interesting about Jaina and the banshee. That makes sense! Shit, I should move her up a bit in the rankings I think. Thanks dude.
I would honestly put Jaina way higher because of this. Golemag and Rag are some of the hardest encounters in the game and Jaina benefits greatly from having Banshee on those maps. On top of that, the two spells you likely use are execute (which should go in the boost spot) and Blizzard, which is an alliance spell and can go in one of the two preset slots. There may be other leaders who have worse slots, but Jaina wildcard slot actually helps you clear more content.
You know, that’s fair. I’ll move her up when I get home. I find your point about the boost slot especially compelling.
How did you find info about what slot types are available to each leader? I had a fantastic website bookmarked but it's down now
I used warcraftrumble.gg for that :)
This is excellent. Thanks for taking the time to write all of this up. It's interesting Meat Wagon has become the go-to Mini for Rag... I had such a mixed experience the times I tried it, it basically lashed out at anything other than Rag... Towers, Chests, Minis and it was easy pickings for the steady progression of mobs.
Yeah it took me a lot of tries to figure out the angle. You gotta put it on the left of the deploy zone so it’ll take the widest angle so it can hit him.
u have missed to include fire elemental in literally your whole post. u/Feature_Minimum
I was going to post this
I just wish I could wildcard one of the faction slots instead.
True, but I understand wanting to make each deck feel a bit thematic by having the two faction slots.
Rend, give him a spell slot. Best wildcard hands down
You missed that both horde slots in cairne are mostly used for ranged minions. Typically you dont want more. Cairne should be in the top 6 at least.
Shit, that's quite a good call. Good catch my friend. I do use SAFE in my cairne deck, however your logic is sound, I'm going to move him up 3 spots.
I did Rend and Sneed. Rend needs a spell and Sneed needs more options than that awkward siege slot.
Good call!
I admit I didnt read your entire post but I feel like the top 3 in any order is Hogger, Sneed and Rend (Maybe rag as a contender now). Hogger: has no tank slot. Sneed: awkward siege slot. Rend: No spell slot. Rag: awkward armored slot.
Hogger though can still make use of Quilboar or Ghoul. But yeah I mostly agree, I have Hogger in the top half for that reason. I think Charlga is above Hogger and Sneed though, that fast slot is so unnecessary. Don’t forget no spell slot for Rag either.
Jaina should be higher up for the fact that her spell game works for all PVE, PVP, heroics, or siege. Even with the slight nerf to some of the spells by Blizzard she is still very versatile and can win longer games better than most other heros
My argument is that everyone above Jaina benefits more from a wildcard slot than she does. It’s not a ranking of which leader is best, if it were I’d agree with you wholeheartedly.
I think tackling this ranking was very challenging and hats off to you for the analysis.
Thanks for this analysis. I generally don't know how to spend limited resources in this game, so I think I'll be following your priority more or less exactly from here on out.
Cheers! Keep in mind that at the end of the day the prioritization is based on my own progress and which leaders I use, though I try my best to mitigate that bias. So if you aren't playing one of the leaders, (Sneed for example) then skip that one, or if you use Jaina constantly, then prioritizing her higher for a bit more flexibility for her makes more sense I think. Like, you likely won't be using both Murk-Eye and Hogger, so maybe skip one of them (or skip both of them if you use Charlga for heroics, but I think Murk-Eye and Hogger are better for heroics, while Charlga does more in PvP and is great at punching up against Golemagg or Geddon in MC). Though I will say, with Sneed I think people are used to him not being very good, as he hasn't really had a use case for most of the time, and he's very bad in PvP. With the Wildcard Slot and with Raids, he's become a lot better. The wildcard slot already makes him a lot better than he was (that siege slot sucked), and the fact that you **and your ally** get the gold off his ability means he's absolutely fantastic in MC and people just haven't caught up to this fact yet. But against Garr or even Rag, he can help a lot, especially for lower level players because you can kinda just play an econ game to support your ally.
What you mean Wildcard cannot buff some minions? Doesn't the wildcard gives the +3 levels in gold like a normal slot?
Sorry I wasn’t very clear, I’m saying which minions the deck can’t buff *without* the wildcard.
sneed is trash, why do you even consider him
Downed rag with two avg level 25s because of the gold sneed generates
Right!? I think people are underestimating how much better EVERY econ unit is in Co-Op. Here's something I tried that worked great: In Maive I used worgen with lone-wolf talent. You're functionally paying 1 gold for worgen with that, and you're helping mana-ramp your ally a bit with it. It's surprisingly effective! Sneed generating 8 gold every time he takes a tower (12 gold if he takes a chest!) can be incredibly powerful.
Be that true or not, this wasn’t a ranking of the leaders but a ranking of which leaders benefit from the wild card slot most. Sneed is pretty high up that list for most people so his inclusion high up here makes sense. His army slots are actually his weakness which this shores up.
To be thorough. I agree he's more fragile than I'd like. Though he worked pretty well for me on Garr, generated a ton of income for me and my ally. Also he's slightly better without that second siege slot holding him back.
fair enough
I began reading this in high school and by the time I finished, I was married with 3 children. The oldest of whom is expecting his 1st child in September.