Working as intended and all out of whack.

World of Warcraft is back online, mostly. With some rolling restarts and continued instability keeping the Blizzard IT crew hopping, Nathaera (Blizzard Blue) posts that the current imbalance between classes is unavoidable and for the next month we just need to deal with it (at least that is my translation):

"We also wanted to address the concern some players have expressed over the balance between classes now that the new talents (including the new 51-point talents), spells, and abilities are in the game. As with the Before the Storm patch released prior to the launch of The Burning Crusade, many of the changes in Echoes of Doom are intended to act as a bridge to the next expansion and are meant to give players a chance to play with some of the new changes prior to Wrath of the Lich King's release. As such, they have been designed with the 10 additional levels and new gear players will receive in Northrend in mind. While we performed balance testing for level 70 gameplay, our focus was on gameplay beyond level 70. As always, class balancing is an ongoing process, and we will continue to monitor the effects of these new talents, abilities, and spells on the overall game."

What they mean is that they looked at how short the time span will be that people will be playing level 70s with the new talents and decided to move on. In a way Blizzard is saying that they have moved the players ahead of the content (especially when you consider the nerfs to the current mobs). While this is fun for those of us running around downing mobs in one shot, the discrepancy between the classes is causing some consternation in PvP. Regardless of the whining and thrashing, it sounds like Blizzard is done with all of the level 70s and is only looking at level 80 now.

Is this a bad idea? Should they have waited until the patch? Personally, I like it. It gives me time to spec my characters and get used to playing them again and then enjoy the content instead of learning my own character while being dropped into a new environment. What do you think, did Blizzard go crazy this time or are they crazy like a fox? Let's discuss on our forums.