Talk: Minion

Common

A. the collectible minion list shows a serval soulbound minions as "common" including:

• lord of the arena (always present), fire elemental (unlocked by ranking), and a few others.
• it seems that i can't edit the table, on the page and that the table is embeded and is not really on that page.

B. the minion type picture (that shows cut screenshots of the minion type tags needs to be updated with the mech type. i can't do it too cause i don't know how to cut screenshots and alike. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.177.16.36 (talk • contribs) 12:11, 16 December 2014‎

This is a common misunderstanding. These cards are correctly marked as Common, because this is how they are marked in the actual game data. Note that Common is a rarity, while Basic is a card set. Basic cards may be Free or Common rarity, and still be Basic cards. Half of all Basic cards are Common, but because they're Basic don't have gems. -- Taohinton (talk) 21:49, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

"Tribes"

I'd never heard of this term in Hearthstone until it was added to this page just now. As far as I can tell it comes exclusively from fans with other card gaming backgrounds, particularly the idea of a "tribal deck" from M:tG. Since it does appear on the forums a decent number of times I guess it doesn't hurt to mention it, but I feel like a distinction should be made between it and the terms used by developers, "race" and mainly "type".

(Yes, "race" is more official than "tribe". For one thing it actually applies in-universe to all the types except "Pirate". For another, the developers have used the term as a synonym for "type" on social media which as far as I could search for has never happened for "tribe" - since again, it is actually inaccurate in-universe).

I know it's nitpicky but I do think the Hearthstone wiki should emphasize Hearthstone / Warcraft terms, not shorthand borrowed from other games. - jerodast (talk) 00:52, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree very much with this sentiment, and I make a point of reforming use of terms of from other TCGs to the proper Hearthstone terms.

In this case, I don't think it's too obtrusive, and I don't think it hurts to give a synonym that you do indeed hear fairly commonly on forums, etc. I would not be in favour of using the term elsewhere on the wiki.

Re: the official term I agree it's either type or race; type seems more accurate ('Pirate' isn't really a race, is it?) but I'm not sure if there's actually an official source on the matter? Meanwhile the devs will use all sorts, and that shouldn't be taken as anything definitive. -- Taohinton (talk) 12:04, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Type is certainly the most accurate, official and definitive. But race "applying to all but one, and used for top-level categorization in the franchise as a whole" certainly passes a much higher bar than tribe "sort-of-applying to only one". The former arises naturally to anyone not knowing to call it "type", whereas "tribe" almost certainly has to come from a non-Warcraft game. And I disagree with "all sorts" - the devs will use the terms that are natural to Hearthstone, which is why Brode has called it "race" at least a couple times, but not tribe. (I think you will find the devs only say "tribal" when responding to a fan using the term first.)

I guess all I was really proposing was something like: "Several specific types (or "races") of minion exist. They are also sometimes called "tribes" after the similar concept in other card games." This way a newcomer to the game reading up on the type system knows which are the native terms, but is free to choose whichever. It even tells them a little bit about Hearthstone's relation to other games. I just wanted to check here to make sure I wasn't disrespecting some official term I'd somehow not heard of, and it sounds like I'm not.

Disclaimer: I acknowledge I'm biased based on my personal non-experience on the forums, but one could argue that makes me more authoritative on matters of game purity, since I am uncorrupted by the roiling masses :P Sadly, my prediction is that despite our best efforts, the generification of all discussions on the internet will mean that "tribal" will become so widespread that in a year everyone will have forgotten that it was never part of the game to start with. So allow me this futile gesture :)

- jerodast (talk) 14:47, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly, it appears the term 'tribe' or at least 'tribal' is also considered slang in MTG. The official or at least less colloquial term appears to be 'creature type', a direct equivalent of 'minion type' in Hearthstone ('creature' being the MTG equivalent of 'minion').

Regarding "all sorts" I stand by the statement, but it wasn't specifically to do with terms used for minion types. Devs have used terms like 'raid' and 'mission' to refer to adventures, for example, and not only in response to the use of those terms by others. Blizz tend to be pretty loose with terms within the company, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's a different matter than correct terminology and what we should be using on the wiki, though. -- Taohinton (talk) 23:53, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I will continue to quibble :P "Raid" is a natural term that reflects the Warcraft games and universe, much like "race". "Mission" was once considered as an official term before it was replaced in favor of more flavor-appropriate terminology, but it's understandable that developers might use old terms from their own game (and doesn't it still exist in game data?). "Tribal" is none of the above! Resist it! :) - jerodast (talk) 16:19, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Yong Woo: "in our patch notes we referred to them as "minion type"" That's about as close to an official statement as we're probably going to get. -- Taohinton (talk) 23:35, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I don't think there's any disagreement that "type" is the official, primary term. The question is how acceptable are the others. And I shall never give up that fight :)

("Even if the developers start using it?"

"Certainly not! Even if developers start saying "tribal", at this point it would clearly be because they've given up on fans actually using the right terminology, not because that's actually what it is!")

- jerodast (talk) 23:54, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Redirect 'Drop' here

I would like to create a page named 'drop' and redirect it here. It think phrases like 'a 3-drop' or 'is not a big drop for the mana cost' may not be clear to beginners. -- Karol007 (talk) 01:10, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree, but I don't think a simple redirect is quite sufficient, so instead I've made a short page of its own: Drop. It's basic, but defines the term and gives a couple of examples - and links to the Minion article, of course. -- Taohinton (talk) 21:05, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks :-)

Should I just create new pages even though the definitions / explanations I'm going to put there won't be worth much or is it better to suggest useful articles that should be created, like 'Drop' or 'Face'? There are so many red links in this wiki that the Special:WantedPages is IMHO useless for such task. -- Karol007 (talk) 00:49, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

It's hard to give a hard and fast rule on the subject, but if you think you can make a decent stub, I'd say that's reasonable, as long as you don't mind someone coming along and overwriting it entirely ;) If you really don't know what to say, it's probably better to post a discussion.

The redlinks special page is indeed useless, mostly because of competition pages/templates but also because of data issues. I've been through it with a fine-tooth comb and found a few things to fix, but it's not really usable for its intended purpose. -- Taohinton (talk) 23:49, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Full board

"Once 7 friendly minions are on the field, the player will not be able to summon further minions. Minion cards and summon effects such as Totemic Call will not be playable, and any minion Battlecries and Deathrattles that summon other minions will be wasted."

Do we have an explanation for Imp Master and Harvest Golem? The former won't summon a minion due to full board, but the latter is going to get replaced by Damaged Golem, so the deathrattle will work as usual. Haunted Creeper has a note about it, but what about more complex interactions - keep them in the advanced rulebook?

Imagine 5 War Golems, Haunted Creeper and Sylvanas Windrunner. The last two are destroyed with Explosive shot. Will Sylvanas' deathrattle grab a minion, does it depend on whether the Haunted Creeper was played first and if so, will the minion grabbed by Sylvanas be destroyed?

-- Karol007 (talk) 15:53, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

My guesses: Imp Master's summon and DAMAGE are simultaneous, however the death only occurs after the simultaneous events are resolved, so the Master is still on the board and prevents the imp from being summoned. Sticky deathrattles on the other hand summon replacements after the minion has already died and left the board. Perhaps this should be made clearer in the "Battlecries and Deathrattles" case, since Deathrattles usually DO work (only multi-minion-summoning Deathrattles fail due to lack of room).

Yes, order of play matters, unless there's some weird timing from Explosive Shot I don't know about. If Haunted Creeper was out first, you get two creeperlings and there's no room for the possessed minion. If Sylvanas was out first, you get the possession first and there's no room for the second creeperling. I don't quite remember the details on when a minion dies from change of zone, but I'm pretty sure Sylvanas's random target will die if there's no room for it rather than just fizzling. - jerodast (talk) 18:34, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the article itself, there's room for a section detailing more complex interactions, but this would be better put further down the page (with a link from the Summoning section) since most of the page is basic info, primarily for newer players. When it gets to really complex info though we probably are better off linking to the advanced rulebook, because of the very lengthy related info and terms you'd need to explain as background, and because that info tends to be updated and revised fairly regularly. -- Taohinton (talk) 01:13, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

New section for Exhaustion?

I feel as though Exhaustion should have its own section, but I'm not sure if it warrants enough importance. Though it frequently crops up that I want to wikilink to it in articles I come across. This can be considered a mild suggestion. Actually, or its own page, since Exhaustion applies to weapons as well. Mainly because of Doomhammer and Fool's Bane. Aegonostic (talk) 05:27, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I could see exhaustion having its own page, but I think the term you're looking for is "character", which includes both minions and heroes. Exhaustion doesn't apply to weapons, just the characters that wield them. For instance, a hero that equips two weapons in a turn can't attack with both of them, because the hero is still the same character. A lot of discussion of exhaustion occurs on the Attack page which describes the "attacking" action in detail, which could be linked to when relevant instead of making a new Exhaustion-specific page, if you like. - jerodast (talk) 05:44, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Very good point about "Character", I'll take a look at Attack, and see about the wikilinking potential. :p Aegonostic (talk) 13:15, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I was actually considering making an Exhaustion page myself just the other day, but ironically decided I was too exhausted at the time to do it xD I'm not entirely sure whether it's best to host the information on its own page or expand its presence on Attack. I think we could make a fairly simple page of its own that links to Attack for full details. This way we wouldn't need to repeat everything already on Attack, but we would have a simple explanation (ala Face) for new players, and a place to put the stuff that might feel too specific (and overbearing) for Attack. -- Taohinton (talk) 12:27, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Yea I'm not sure about it either. If I come across more stuff which I specifically want to wikilink to "Exhaustion", I'll repost here. :p Aegonostic (talk) 14:16, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

As usual I will recommend a slightly different distribution of detail if we do make an Exhaustion page: instead of making Exhaustion just a feeder into a much longer Attack article that covers many other terms too, we should move the heavy detail about exhaustion on the Attack page ONTO the main exhaustion page, and simply mainarticle link it from there. Balance! - jerodast (talk) 18:36, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that was actually pretty much what I was suggesting, I guess I just started from the other end, and ended up contradicting myself a bit due to being... exhausted :P -- Taohinton (talk) 03:19, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

"Factions"?

"Races" is indeed commonly used to refer to minion types, but I haven't heard much mention of "factions". In fact there are various "faction" decks designed to recreate factions from WoW, which is a completely different concept, so the word is used somewhat with an entirely different meaning. Do you have a source for significantly common use of "factions"? A Google search brings up nothing to match that usage. -- Taohinton (talk) 06:34, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, I guess it can be removed. It was my own idea and I use it on a personal level. I thought it synonymous to "tribes" and "races". If the relevancy of the term in public usage is being questioned, it can be removed, although I thought it would broaden the synonym spectrum. Aegonostic (talk) 13:14, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, the idea is to list the terms commonly heard in the community, rather than suggest alternatives; it's basically the same as you would put at the top of an article, where you list other common names for the subject. Since it doesn't seem to be such, I've removed it. -- Taohinton (talk) 11:38, 5 September 2016 (UTC)