Talk: Hero Power

Powers vs cross class cards

I agree that comparing cross-class is questionable (hence disclaimer). But in these cases I think the comparison is close enough that it's better than nothing. For instance:

• Even though druids have no 2-mana card equivalent for Shapeshift, they do have Claw and Bite. So Seal of Light, which like the others gives the hero attack and effective health, seems like a reasonable approximation of "what might we expect 2 mana to do if this was a card and not a Power". (If anything it undersells the point about cards being much stronger, since class spell Claw is nearly as good as cross-class Seal of Light already, for half the mana).
• If you graph all weapons by mana cost against total damage potential, they actually follow a fairly smooth curve, regardless of class. We therefore can't really argue that the cross-class factor is so confounding that it completely invalidates the observation that Dagger Mastery is far weaker than Light's Justice.
• The fact that Armor Up! has no real equivalent demonstrates how weak it is, not how valuable it is. No other effect for 2 mana does so little to advance the player's position in the game!
• Neutral healing is not that hard to come by given the existence of Voodoo Doctor and Earthen Ring Farseer, which are clearly miles ahead of Lesser Heal in efficiency. There simply doesn't happen to be one at 2 mana, so I went with a cross-class option.
• Admittedly the warlock power is weird. The power is even more blatantly about card advantage than the others, so the idea of using a card to draw a card for so little mana kinda breaks down. Maybe I should just say "none" instead of Power Word: Shield...

That's probably a longer response than you were looking for, but I wanted to get my thoughts down as long as I was on the topic :) - jerodast (talk) 01:18, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

By the way, I think it's tempting to say "wait a second, Hero Powers are better than that!" after reading a long tract on why they "suck". But that doesn't mean the "sucky" logic is invalid, it just means it's not the whole story! We could definitely do with a line or paragraph or two on:

• the actual repetition being an advantage in the long run, which often cannot be duplicated with cards due to deck limitations (arguably this is a special form of card advantage)
• synergy with cards making both the Power and the cards better than they would be alone
• situational use of Powers being just as effective as cards (e.g. Fireblast is just as good as Frostbolt at killing a Magma Rager)

But, my energy for this subject is pretty tapped out :) - jerodast (talk) 01:50, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Hehe well I certainly don't have the energy to wade in there right now :P I'm sure it's fine, though, I just wanted to throw in the comment as general feedback. I haven't read your re-edits yet, but I agree the repetition and predictability of Hero Powers is a big advantage in terms of deck/strategy planning. Generally speaking, we're only ever going to be able to provide an overview of such a complex and constantly changing subject, though :) -- Taohinton (talk) 19:32, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Multiple DIE, INSECTs per turn

My brother told me about a video he saw where some combo was used to kill Executus, use DIE, INSECT!, then repeat the process; each time the hero power was reset even though it was the same power. This was a mechanics question I'd been wondering about - does power reset occur for different instances of the same power or only completely different powers? But, he didn't keep the link to the video and I can't find it. If anyone can find a URL for that reference it'd be cool to add it to the notes on this page. - jerodast (talk) 02:04, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe this is correct, and standard behaviour. It's stated in the Advanced rulebook (although not specifically in the case of double Rag (or double Jaraxxus... hard as that would be to test)) that replacing your hero replaces and resets its Hero Power 'cooldown', and as a part of the standard procedure I would think it would apply each time, regardless of the identity of the replacement hero. -- Taohinton (talk) 19:36, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

A related question is whether using a third Shadowform would allow you to use Mind Shatter twice in one turn? -- Taohinton (talk) 19:42, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Welp, the Shadowform page says it "will not have any effect", but I doubt that has literally been tested in that sense :) - jerodast (talk) 19:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Alternate heroes

I think it's a bit of a waste of space to list the alternate heroes' Powers here. They're named the same, they cost the same, their effect is the same, they even have the same icon, just ever so slightly glowier. The alternate icons can be listed on the alternate heroes' pages and on the Powers' pages, but it seems quite pointless here. A simple note that alternate heroes' powers function identically but have different animations is all that's needed, no? - jerodast (talk) 01:55, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I think I agree. While I'm open to having the current list here, when we have a full table it will be clearly redundant. -- Taohinton (talk) 04:02, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I've made the call. Alternate versions of Justicar Trueheart's Hero Powers mean 18 - or 19 if Charged Hammer gets duplicated - of these to list. I've added an explanation in place of the listing, although the section should probably be removed, and the note moved elsewhere on the page. -- Taohinton (talk) 04:32, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Modify Hero Power v. Inspire

How are we going to differentiate 'Modify Hero Power' ability from 'Inspire'? How does 'Hero Power-related' tag fit into all this? -- Karol007 (talk) 18:13, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Inspire seems quite different from modifying hero powers. As I understand it it's an ability that is activated BY hero powers, without affecting the power itself.

I wish we had a more complex tagging system. Inspire is definitely a subset of Hero Power-related, but it would be nice not to have to redundantly tag them with both. - jerodast (talk) 04:29, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The idea at present is to use Hero Power-related for general listings on this page. The reason is this: there are effects which modify the Hero Power (or replace it, but I'm not differentiating those for the time being; few enough examples as it is); Inspire effects which activate from the use of the Hero Power; and other effects like Frost Giant which are clearly Hero Power-related, but which do not modify them or get Inspired by them.

The reason for using Hero Power-related is that if you listed Modify Hero Power effects, and then also Inspire effects, you'd still have to also separately list Hero Power-related effects such as Frost Giant, since they don't fit into either of the previous listings. But, in order to do that, you'd be intentionally not tagging the vast majority of Hero Power-related effects as "Hero Power-related". A card which doubles your Hero Power usage or output would not be considered Hero Power-related, when it very clearly is.

So to me, it made sense to use the Hero Power-related tag on everything that is... well, related to Hero Powers. The only downside is that we get some redundancy in the infoboxes, and I agree this is clunky. I'm open to better suggestions, but at least the current system allows to: list all Hero Power-related stuff in one place without 3 separate sets of tables, and without very confusingly not tagging most Hero Power-related effects as such; to list only Inspire effects (ie on Inspire); and to list only effects which actually modify the Hero Power (Coldarra Drake vs Frost Giant). -- Taohinton (talk) 17:56, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

We've got Attribute#Damaged_status and Enrage + "Enrage effects are sometimes confused with triggered effects", so it's not the first time Blizzard throws us a curveball ;-) It's more messy this time, but what Taohinton wrote above makes sense to me. -- Karol007 (talk) 14:47, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah I mean, it's certainly not wrong to do so. It's just a question of how much redundancy you want to include, and how fine-grained you want to get.

The other approach makes sense too and is often used for classifying things. For example Frostborn Scout is not categorized as a Dwarf on wowpedia, even though he is a dwarf. That's because he's categorized as Frostborn, and Frostborn is a type of dwarf. If someone is unaware of this, they can click on Frostborn, and see that it is a subcategory of Dwarves. Similarly, labeling something Inspire and not including "Hero Power-related" is just fine because it is understood that Inspire is a Hero Power-related ability. Labeling Mittens a cat but not a mammal or animal is fine because it is understood that cats are those things.

So it's subjective. I tend toward the minimal, no-redundancy approach but I don't particularly care as long as it doesn't get ridiculous. i.e. Lowly Squire shouldn't be tagged Triggered effect, Inspire, Hero Power-related, Enchantment, Attack enchantment, Self-enchantment simply because all of those tags are true. (I'm not saying at all that's the proposal, just an extreme example). As a side note, I would caution against over-emphasizing new features, since "new" doesn't last; in short order everyone knows exactly what they are and the wiki ends up looking dated by giving special deference to them. But I don't think "Inspire" and "Hero Power-related" together crosses that line, so sure why not. - jerodast (talk) 03:55, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The Frostborn approach doesn't work, though, because our tables don't sort by multiple tags. Hence the need for a single unifying tag; hence "Hero Power-related". It is indeed an imperfect situation; the question is finding a decent solution given this. If we don't tag Inspire effects as triggered effects, we can't have them all in the one table. This is fine with me, but that's the very fixed tradeoff. I think having a single "Hero Power-related" table makes sense, while the triggered effect table is so long, and the visual listing so much more intelligent, I think we can do without that. It's all a tradeoff, though. It's also about visibility - if we don't have Healing-related in infoboxes, readers are far less likely to go and search for a list of such cards on Healing; which wastes potential site value, especially after we've gone to the trouble of compiling the lists.

As a side discussion, "Hero Power-related" is also a lot more specifically descriptive, and it's used for game-critical purposes, unlike the rough sorting of racial divisions in Warcraft. Technically, all elves are trolls, but does Wowpedia tag them as such? No, because it's really not important. If we had Troll and Night Elf minion types, and an effect which gave +1 Attack to all Trolls, and this implicitly but not at all explicitly included Night Elf minions too, wouldn't a little clarification be worthwhile? Hero Power-related is useful not only intellectually, but practically.

We'll have to see what the future brings for expansive tags. The main question is "is this tag useful?". If so, it's worth considering adding it. I agree we don't want a ton of them, but that is to some degree up to where the game goes, and how we want the wiki to function. We can use |hiddentags for far more specific sorting, but if we want it clickable, or on display for any of the cards in question, it needs to be visible. If we don't visibly tag Lowly Squire as Hero Power-related, we can't tag Frost Giant as Hero Power-related, which would be weird. I wouldn't worry though ;) -- Taohinton (talk) 00:11, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Another possibility if we find the desire to break tags down to a fine level (such as if/when we have tons more cards in-game than we do now) would be to have a main tag visible, and then more specific ones invisible, like I was planning with triggered effects. Readers can see "Hero Power-related" and click on it; the page they're taken to can then break down how the card is related to Hero Powers in several different tables if we wanted to. But the tag still alerts readers to the fact that such lists exist, and provides a link. -- Taohinton (talk) 20:20, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

TGT is here and we still haven't decided, see e.g. Talk:Lowly Squire for the current messy situation. -- Karol007 (talk) 23:38, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

The situation wasn't actually a conflict of approaches, just human error with cards not getting tagged comprehensively, same as the recent work with AoE effects. I'm still open to discussion, but in the meanwhile the cards are now tagged consistently. -- Taohinton (talk) 04:42, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Update

As an update to this general discussion, I recently added the facility to manually specify MediaWiki queries to templates like {{List cards}}. This means that for the first time we now have the ability to search for multiple possible tags/abilities/etc. This means that if we wanted to, we could take "the Frostborn approach", with card lists combining multiple tags to produce a single listing of cards - something that wasn't possible before. For example, I've now been able to include Inspire listings in the table on Triggered effect, where previously they were missing.

However, taking this approach still depends on the individual case, and how clear or confusing it will be to readers (new players especially) that ability/tag A is actually a subtype of ability/tag B. And of course only displaying a subtype link means there's no immediate way to link to the fuller list, and no display pointing out that such a list even exists. But, where it feels right, we can now do this. -- Taohinton (talk) 00:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I would like to improve the Hero Power-related cards section by splitting it into subsections (Hero Power-generating, modify Hero Power - which can be splitted into Mana cost modifications and Hero Power buffs -, other Hero Power-related cards), but I need some information about how to create/use tags/lists (e.g., how to create a list or show all cards with two given tags, or with at least one of two tags, or with a tag but without another,..). Is it possible to use some boolean operator (AND, OR, NOT) with tags? Where can I find information about this? Elekim (talk) 06:43, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

The way to do this is to use the |query parameter for {{List cards}}. Alternatively depending on the list you might want to have a single table using {{Custom card table}} and then just split the visual lists with {{Cards}}.

The syntax is Semantic MediaWiki - you can find a fairly good explanation here. Using the parameter overrides all other parameters, so you need to spell literally everything out in the query. The main thing is to specify Category:Standard format cards (or not, on Wild format pages) and Category:Card data, so that you only include appropriate cards; then you just add bits for all the specific properties.

An example would look something like this: {{list cards|query=[[Category:Standard format cards]] [[Category:Card data]] [[Has tags::Hero Power-generating]] OR [[Category:Standard format cards]] [[Category:Card data]] [[Has abilities::Modify Hero Power]]}} Negative selection is available for single value properties like Has class like this [[Has class::!Mage]] but doesn't work the same way for lists like tags and abilities; I've asked oOeyes.

A couple of things to bear in mind in terms of design: Make sure to include some sort of catch-all, so cards don't fall through the cracks. Even if they don't exist yet, they might one day, and with automated lists there's a very good chance of cards simply missing from lists they should be on! For example if you split the list into ongoing effects and triggered effects, bear in mind if we add a card that isn't tagged as either, it won't show up at all. Secondly, once you split the list into smaller lists, it's not possible to view it as one big list, which means you can't compare cards as easily. So if you make too many lists, it might end up being less useful than having fewer lists. That said, this is a fairly cerebral type of grouping (not a practical one like Charge or Spell Damage) so there shouldn't be too many players searching through to compare costs, etc!

Any further queries, just let me know. Have fun! -- Taohinton (talk) 03:20, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Modify Hero Power vs Replace Hero Power

Welp, haven't even finished putting thoughts together regarding Inspire tagging, but here's another question: Do we want separate tags for temporary/ongoing buffs to Hero Powers vs complete replacement of Hero Powers? This question first occurred to me on the Auchenai Soulpriest talk page but it applies to all similar effects. Karol implied that such distinctions were too nitpicky to bother with, but I disagree.

There is a massive difference between Lesser Heal temporarily doing damage instead of healing, and permanently switching from Life Tap to INFERNO!. With replacement, the entire Entity representing the Power permanently changes - name, card ID, effect, etc. It is much more than, say, the difference between a temporary and permanent health buff, which in both cases is a simple statistical change that does not affect the overall gist of the card. Karol compared it to the difference between buffs and debuffs, but it's actually much more like the difference between Enchant and Transform. One applies modifications to an entity, the other completely replaces it. That's why Transform is its own completely different effect, and we're looking at the same thing with replacement Hero Powers. - jerodast (talk) 23:29, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

I considered this when I first added the Modify Hero Power tag; at the time I decided to just go with the initial tag and split it later if necessary.

I agree with the conceptual division. One question I would ask though is why exactly do you want to split the tags? Since there are only a few cards in the game which replace Hero Powers, it probably isn't necessary to have a separate page for these types of effect, and as discussed there's definitely no reason to give them their own redundant listing besides the main Hero Power-related list. So is the change purely intellectual?

On the other hand, if we split the tag, we could give them their own page, and use that to centralise info on changing Hero Powers, etc. But would that be a good division, or would it just lead to isolated and/or duplicated info? -- Taohinton (talk) 15:55, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

I probably came on a little too strong with this suggestion. Really, it started out as just a question (as in my first line) and I guess I sort of talked myself into it haha. I do think the distinction should be acknowledged in the wiki writeup but it doesn't need its own page and tag (yet). I do think it's conceivable that a reader might be interested in only the cards that grant entirely new Hero Powers, but as long as it's clear which abilities are which, seems fine to put them all on the same page.

I'm not clear about what you were meaning with redundancy. Currently we have "Modify Hero Power". Apparently (I am just realizing this) everything so tagged is also tagged Hero Power-related. This seems absurd to me. It's the Inspire issue all over again, except so much worse because literally the same words are in the two tags. Anyone with a tenth of a brain can tell that something that "Modifies Hero Power" is "Hero Power-related", we don't need to tell them twice. It's like tagging Hand of Protection with Divine Shield AND Divine Shield-related.

At any rate, if we DID split Modify and Replace Hero Power, it wouldn't add any more redundancy: some things would be Modify, other things would be Replace, and that would be that. But again, I don't really think that's necessary. - jerodast (talk) 03:28, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

We already have those spelled out in the big Hero Power displays, so yeah I'd say it's pretty clear. There's no problem with adding a tag, though. And no, I never said it would add any more redundancy; switching the top-level tag is irrelevant to that.

Re: redundancies, yes... that's what I was explaining just a little higher up this page! :P You might want to read that discussion again, if only to save me repeating myself ;) -- Taohinton (talk) 06:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Update introduction?

"Hero Powers can be used once each turn" - not true anymore - "for a set amount of mana - in the case of player Powers, this cost is always 2 mana." Again, not true anymore. Should we mention this upfront or in the 'Details' section? -- Karol007 (talk) 17:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I've reworked the lead section and made a few other changes. For now I've mentioned in the intro that cards can change the normal rules, but it might be reasonable to leave that to the Details section. -- Taohinton (talk) 04:18, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Can Hero Powers be used for no effect?

Lesser Heal can be used (and thus Inspire effects can be triggered) even if there is no damaged character in play. Is the same true for Steady Shot when the enemy hero is Immune? Or for DIE, INSECT! when all enemies are Immune? Or for Paladin/Shaman Hero Powers if you have no room on board?

I think it should be mentioned (both here and in the Inspire page) which Hero Powers can NOT be used in which situations, even if you have enough mana to do it.

Slighthly related to this, maybe a Targeted effect page should be created (in parallel with Area of effect and Random effect) where collecting facts like:

Targeted spells can NOT be cast if there is no valid target, while minions with targeted battlecries can.

Sabotage can be used with no enemy minions on the board, while Deadly Shot cannot.

Targeted effects can only be found on spells, battlecries and hero powers (as well as when choosing defenders during combat); the target is always a single one (although the effect may affect other targets as well - adjacent ones, all other enemy chacarters in case of Swipe,...).

Targeted effects can be 'undone' ...

A list of targeted effects is ...

I'm sorry but I don't feel ready to write such a page by myself :-(

Elekim (talk) 16:53, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

I went ahead and created a Target page, but I'm already suspecting I went a little overboard. A lot of the targeting details you mention I think would be better located on the pages for the types of actions being played (summon, this page as you suggested, etc), which already describe - or should describe - the process of playing those actions. Sabotage as far as I know is the only spell with a "target" on the board that can be cast without one, so it's probably fine to leave that as a card note, or a minor aside on the Spell page. There is Thoughtsteal, Mind Vision, etc, but then you get into "are cards not in play really targets", for that matter are random selections of any kind even targets, and so on. So, I used that page as a place to gather the info but ultimately that info should be moved to preexisting pages and Target should be mostly a portal to direct you to other places, in my opinion. I don't think we need a list of targeted effects - I don't foresee high demand for that search query and the term is a little too vague (is Steady Shot targeted at the opponent's hero, or untargeted; does Acidic Swamp Ooze target the opponent's weapon, their hero, or neither; etc).

I do like your questions about Immune guys! Hope someone can answer, but you may have to run some tests yourself :) The summon powers cannot be used with a full board. Totemic Call can't be used if the 4 totems are already in play. I believe this was already noted on individual pages, but we can summarize it here and on Inspire - let's just be careful not to go overboard, at some point if people want more details about playing a certain power they need to just go to that page. - jerodast (talk) 19:07, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Death Knight Hero Powers

I feel like the Death Knight hero powers should be organised like the Justicar ones with their own category. Like the upgraded ones, there's one for each class and they're all from pretty much the same source. I would do it myself, but I don't know how.

TheMurlocAggroB (talk) 02:44, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree, and I went ahead and made the change. I did leave the source of the Deathknight Hero Powers in; not sure if that is needed.

BigHugger (talk) 08:41, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

getting a random hero power

I think I vaguely remember playing a match where I was given The Four Horsemen (Hero Power) without actually having played Uther of the Ebon Blade.

Isn't there some card which gives you a random hero power? I just can't remember which one, or which type of game I was playing... but I couldn't find it on this page. Tycio (talk) 18:34, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

You probably had A Prince's Ring, which gives you a random Death Knight hero power. It's a Dungeon Run treasure. TheMurlocAggroB (talk) 22:35, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah that's the one! Though I notice the page says Dalaran Heist. I can't remember which one, but I love both modes so I'll keep playing them and see if it shows up again I guess. Not sure if it would belong on either Hero_Power/Wild_format#Cards_that_replace_Hero_Powers or Hero_Power#Related_cards though. I figure the main page (not wild subpage) is for non-wild cards... with wild being limited to stuff you could collect and play in wild (non-standard) games... but maybe the main page implies you could play them in standard games? That also wouldn't include non-collectible cards only playable in single-player like Prince's Ring, which I guess means there's no place to acknowledge cards like that?

wondering if we could maybe split "related cards" into "standard play" (ie online pvp) vs "campaign play" or maybe collectible/uncollectible so there is a section in which we can acknowledge Prince's Ring? Tycio (talk) 22:53, 31 January 2021 (UTC)