Blizzard happy with Hearthstone's explosive Dr. Boom

There are no plans to nerf either Hearthstone's Hunter Hero or the popular Dr. Boom card, according to game director Eric Dodds. The confirmation came as part of an interview with Eurogamer's dedicated Hearthstone sister site MetaBomb at Rezzed, the PC and indie gaming show hosted by Gamer Network.

Dr. Boom is an extremely popular character from the most powerful Legendary class of cards in Hearthstone. Not only does he appear on the board as a solid fighting force in his own right, he also summons a pair of low attack, low health mechanical contraptions which detonate on death to inflict even more damage against random enemy opponents.

It's certainly more powerful than similar cards of an equal resource cost, but it's the breadth of deck archetypes the doctor appears in that seems destined to keep him in rude health.

"Dr. Boom is certainly a card that a number of people have in their decks, but you certainly don't see it in all of the decks when you're looking at the highest level," explained Dodds.

"Even if it were in all the decks - which it isn't - the diversity of decks you see it in is still pretty broad. It's not really affecting things so you see the same thing over and over. There's still a tonne of different ways of making it fit."

What is it about the Hunter Hero that's got the community up in arms though? Despite re-tuning a couple of popular cards in the class's arsenal over the last 12 months or so, the emergence of an extremely aggressive Hunter deck has come to dominate the game's Ranked play mode.

It's a deck that's simple to play - yet extremely potent - and allows the wielder to make their decisions with little regard for the opponent's own tactical plays.

The aggressive nature of the deck is enhanced greatly by the Hunter's unique Hero Power, which allows a player to inflict two points of damage directly into the opposing Hero's health pool every turn, for a cost of two Mana resource points.

It all contributes to a steady whittling of the opponent's overall health pool, a process which can leave players feeling as though they're fighting an impossible uphill battle - at least while they're using the established decks of the expansion's metagame, that is.

"I don't think we are likely to redesign the Hunter Hero Power any time soon," Dodds explained.

"It's certainly not something we've talked about. I think it's an interesting class, and there are definitely cards that have been put into the environment to see if they can affect that tempo play. The Healbot from Goblins vs Gnomes, for example, that heals you for eight was a card put in there as an option if you're getting over-run by someone not going for board control.

"We don't have plans right now to adjust the Hunter. We feel like there are a lot of other tuning knobs that we have to affect all of the different classes. I still say that at the highest level, there are multiple classes that are still quite effective at this time."

To stay on top of all the latest Hearthstone developments, take a look through our dedicated Hearthstone site MetaBomb.