No more class reviews, says Blizz
In a "fix warriors" thread last night, Tseric stated that class reviews, as we know them from the 1.x patches, are not going to be happening any more. To quote:
'Class Reviews' as they have been known in the past, are a thing of the past. The devs will make adjustments as they feel are merited, but they will likely be sprinkled between classes and delivered over patches. There will not be a future patch which will be deemed a 'class patch'.
Does this mean that the devs think the classes are basically "done," with the exception of minor tweaks and balances? Perhaps; but on the other hand, most classes got what amounted to a full review with 2.0.1, so maybe they just plan on saving wide-scoping changes for the expansions, with adjustments tossed in from patch to patch as necessary.
I'm really of two minds about this. On the one hand, I like to think that the "class patches" gave the devs a chance to sit down and really concentrate on one class at a time, getting it all out there and considering many possibilities. However, we really don't know anything about the development process, so it could be that they do this all the time, and having a monolithic class patch just means (a) we wait longer than we have to for class changes and (b) the changes come all in a rush, which means that we all have to learn to play the class over again. Incremental changes could be easier to get accustomed to, as well as easier for Blizz to roll out. And perhaps even more importantly, incremental changes could make balancing much easier. If Ability X is changed, and that class subsequently becomes totally overpowered, it's pretty clear that Ability X is to blame; this might be harder to figure out if a whole slew of abilities were changed at once.
So I have to conclude that this is probably for the best, provided that it doesn't lead to class stagnation (because we all know there are some issues that could really use addressing). What do you think?
