Hopes, dreams and fears for Dr. Boom: Warrior Hero

If, like me, you’re a big fan of Warrior, the recent Boomsday announcement will have set your heart racing. While other classes are receiving a Legendary Minion and a Legendary Spell, Warriors will be receiving a new Hero card. Like with Shaman getting Hagatha from the Witchwood, Warriors will soon have the opportunity to become Dr Boom himself. But what should we hope for in becoming the mad scientist at the heart of this expansion?

Hopes: Something Warrior-ey

Dr. Boom doesn’t seem like a natural fit for the Warrior class. The character seems to represent mad science, bombastic experimentation and mechanical terrors. This doesn’t seem to gel too well with Warrior’s identity. Warrior typically relies on tropes of traditional battles, axes, rage, armor and strength.

Could mechs hold the key to unifying Dr. Boom with Warrior’s themes?

However, there could be a number of ways to combine these concepts. The link between Warrior’s focus on metalworking and armour and Dr. Boom’s mechanised warriors is a potential unifying system. Perhaps some way of creating minions based on your armor level, or a way of creating armor based on some mech-based synergy (armor lifesteal?). Either way, there is hopefully a key link to some core aspect of the Warrior class, to prevent it feeling like Taunt Warrior, and fundamentally boring and incongruous with class identity.

Dreams: Something fun and late-game oriented

When it comes to weaknesses, Warriors have had several glaring ones for a while. While the weak tempo early game was partially solved with Rush synergies, there is still a severe issue in the ability of the class to carry into the late-game. While Shaman has Shudderwock, Warlock has Gul’dan, Druid has Hadronox and Mage has Jaina, Warrior has very few options. Taunt Warrior can almost compete after a lengthy quest completion, and Recruit Warrior can sacrifice early game for a limited window to tempo out big threats; but Warrior simply lacks the easy one-card late-game powerhouse due to the tempo-focused nature of Scourgelord Garrosh.

But while Warrior needs more late-game potential, it’s important not to sacrifice interesting gameplay. A hero power like Bloodreaver Guldan is an easy way to add huge late-game power, but doesn’t provide many fun interactions. A hero power like Deathstalker Rexxar or Hagatha creates many more thought-provoking decisions and varied gameplay moments.

Fears: Something overpowered

The Neutral legendary will be a new Warrior hero. Will he still be OP?

However, despite all the love Warrior needs, it’s vital this hero card is not overly strong. Warrior already has multiple interesting hero-power based strategies in Odd Warrior, Taunt Warrior and Scourgelord Garrosh decks. If Dr. Boom became the new auto-include late-game win condition, with no synergies or considerations required, it would squeeze out these strategies and potentially make Warriors over-represented given their existing anti-aggro shell.

Luckily, there is a good precedent set with Hagatha. This powerhouse card nonetheless is not a single-card win condition, and requires synergies and support to see her full potential. Regardless, it still has huge value potential, and can single-handedly swing games. Hagatha-style effects that synergise with and support other cards is a far better blueprint.

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment via Hearthstone.gamepedia.com.

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