Buddy

Buddies are minions that are unique to each Hero. They are designed to synergize with the hero gameplan.

Buddies are a seasonal system that is only occasionally available in Battlegrounds (See Patch changes section for more details).

Functionality

Unlike Tavern minions, Buddies do not appear in Bob's Tavern. Instead, every hero has a Buddy Button that has initial cost and can be activated twice per game.

• Initial cost is determined by Tavern Tier of the Buddy. The full details can be seen as below:

Tavern Tier	First cost	Second cost
1	11	13
2	13	15
3	15	17
4	17	19
5	19	21
6	21	23

• Winning a battle or getting Tie reduces this cost by (3), while losing only reduces by (2).
• The player clicks or taps the button to get the Buddies, as long as they have enough gold to spend.
• The first button gives the player one copy of their hero's Buddy, while the second and last button gives two copies.

Notes

• Buddy minions cannot be randomly generated.

Buddies

This section includes all available Battlegrounds heroes with their buddy.

Battlegrounds heroes

Battlegrounds heroes
Swipe left or right to see the cards.

History

Buddy meter

Buddy meter

From Patch 22.2.0.130051 to Patch 23.2.0.137922, every hero used to have a Buddy Meter that fills up during the combat phase whenever the player accomplished one of these objectives:

• • Enter combat
    • The player also gets a small bonus for how many minions they have before entering
  • Deal damage to enemies
  • Pop Battlegrounds/Divine Shields
  • Win or tie a combat phase
• Buddies were earned at three different rates.
  • The lower Tavern Tier is, the quicker the player can get that Buddy
  • There’s a limit to how much a Buddy Meter can be filled in a given round
• The Buddy Meter has two sections.
  • The player fills the first section to get 1 copy of their hero’s Buddy added to their hand, and the second section to get 2 more copies.
  • After both sections have been filled, the Buddy Meter breaks and is no longer available for the rest of the match (regardless of whether the player tripled their Buddy or sold any copies off along the way).
• The player can hover over heroes to see their buddy.
• The player can hover over the Buddy Meter to see the percentage.

• 

  As of Patch 22.2.0.130051
• 

  As of Patch 22.2.0.130051
• 

  As of Patch 22.2.0.130051

Average results

On average, the player could get the buddies on these turns, depending on their Tavern Tier:

• First section (1 copy)
  • Tier 2: Turn ~5
  • Tier 3: Turn ~6
  • Tier 4: Turn ~7
• Second section (2 copies)
  • Tier 2: Turn ~9
  • Tier 3: Turn ~11
  • Tier 4: Turn ~12

Speculations

This section includes speculation, observations or opinions possibly supported by data or by in-game experience. It should not be taken as representing official statement until Blizzard confirms it.

Buddy Meter details

As the Buddies were released along with Patch 22.2.0.130051, a number of players have conducted researches to figure out how exactly Buddy Meters work and the metric system involved. At 1AM UTC, January 28, 2022, an user named u/moocowfan (moocowalex on Twitch) has published a post to share what they have found so far. Their research is regarded by the community to be one of the most detailed explanations to the Buddy Meter system. The post can be summarized as followed:

• Different Buddy Meter tiers have a "pool" of about 75, 100, and 125 points to get the first buddy in the first section, for Tavern Tier 2, 3, and 4 respectively (the numbers are arbitrary).
• The second section seems to take twice as many points compared to the first section.
• The percentage displayed on Buddy Meter is rounded down. For example, the player may have achieved 4.8%, but the visual display will show it as 4%.
• Each turn, Buddy Meter can gain only around 30% on the first section; and 25% for Tavern Tier 2 and 20% for Tavern Tier 3/4 on the second section (regarding to the limiting factor)
• Objectives
  • Enter combat: The player gets percentage based on Tavern Tier of their Buddy and the turn.
  • Deal damage to enemies:
    • This includes the amount of damage Battlegrounds/Hero Powers or the player's minions deal to enemy minions.
    • Tavern Tier of enemy minions, number of attacks, destroyed minions are not related.
    • Dealing 1 damage 5 times and dealing 5 damage 1 time gives the same percentage.
    • The amount of percentage the player gets from the damage decays turn after turn.
    • The formula for calculating percentage seems to be $P={1.25}^{3-t}$, with $P$ as percentage per damage, and $t$ as turn.
  • Pop Divine Shields: Popping Divine Shields consistently gives 0-2% of the meter depending on Buddy's Tavern Tier.
  • Win or tie a combat phase:
    • Tying gives roughly 1-3%
    • Winning may give as high as 10% early game.
    • Winning percentage may be increased based on the damage the player deals to enemy hero.
    • Despite the existence of limit to how much percentage Buddy Meter can gain per turn, winning or tying will still give roughly 1-2%.
  • Number of minions at start of combat:
    • This bonus is very small and much less impactful than damage.
    • If the scaling for damage is ~2.2% per damage for Tavern Tier 2 on turn 1, the percent per minion is something like 0.1-0.3%.

Patch changes

• Patch 29.6.0.201108 (2024-06-17): Added.
• Patch 26.2.0.174258 (2023-05-09): Disabled.
• Patch 25.6.0.168788 (2023-03-14): Added.
• Patch 23.2.0.137922 (2022-05-10): Disabled.
• Patch 22.2.0.130051 (2022-01-25): Added.