.5 patches usually aren’t “content” patches but can still contain many class adjustments. Looking at 8.2.5 patch notes, there are 6 bullet points listed under “classes”. I know Blizzard has said they can’t redo classes in the middle of an expansion, but I want to point out that Legion’s 7.2.5 patch had around 315 class changes in it.
Three hundred and fifteen.
What happened?
The devs have not really messed with classes this expansion.
First expansion that that is the case as far as I can recall. They would tinker constantly with classes all expansion in the past; wonder why they have decided to not do that for BfA.
They can do whatever they want, whenever they want. The instead choose to focus on bad decisions, bad designs, laziness and arrogance.
It does seem strange, right? They’ve acknowledged that classes are in a lackluster state and it seems like even just changing a couple percentages here and there could go a long way to making classes feel better to play in the short term while they work out longer term solutions for the next expansion.
I guess I’m curious if 8.3 will have much more substantial changes or if this is what we can expect from 8.3 as well.
Well did you go read all the patch notes? There are just few and I mean a few class changes or QoL changes. I just really don’t worry about things like this. I know people want to see their classes polished but will that even happen in this expansion? Most likely not.
Will it class changes happen in the next expansion? We can only wait and see.
If they make smart changes now, it’ll make the changes they’ve already alluded to for 9.0 expansion seem less impactful. So they’ll just all save it for next expansion, then pat themselves on the back for being awesome.
They gave up on class design/balance in BFA.
You said it yourself, they don’t do big changes mid-expansion.
Legion had a lot of changes happening 'cause there was a lot of new things occurring that they had to work on.
With the removal of spec interactions with legendaries, loss of artifact weapons… loss of a lot of spells… any change now is just a balancing thing. Next one would be for the last raid. More changes would equate to a more major spec rebuilding so I imagine… 9.0 will see you get your old spells back so they will essentially give you back what you lost and act like it was a big achievement!