[Note]: The update is now live!
As the majority of the 'serious' playerbase has now reached level 110 and begun delving into Mythic Dungeons - certain imbalances have started to become quite apparent. For example, Demon Hunters are able to absolutely demolish the DPS meters when it comes to fights with multiple enemies, whereas Warlocks suffer from a ridiculously long wind-up time before they finally hit their stride.
Thankfully, it does appear that Blizzard is aware of these issues as they have just announced their plans for an upcoming balance patch. There won't be any sweeping changes that completely redefine how a class is played, these sort of corrections will be reserved for a much larger patch down the line, but there are still some nifty changes coming in the near future (with some of them already being live). Here's a brief overview of what's changing, but do keep in mind that these aren't official patch notes:
• All Tanks - damage output will be reduced accross the board as they are currently able to rival dedicated damage dealers
• Warlock - Default number of Soul Shards has been increased to 3 in order to decrease the ramp-up time
• Arms Warrior - Colossus Smash cooldown has been decreased to 30 seconds in order to mitigate the worst-case scenario when Tactician failed to reset its cooldown.
• Windwalker Monk - Strike of the Windlord’s area damage component is going to be reduced in order to bring their AOE damage back in line
• Havoc Demon Hunter - Fel Barrage's damage is being reduced in order to bring their AOE damage back in line, though the class should still excel at it
As you can see, all of these changes are relatively minor and aimed at making the upcoming Mythic Keystone Dungeons as fair as they can possibly be. The exact release date for this patch hasn't been announced just yet, but Blizzard did say they will be hotfixing these changes onto the live serves in the near future. In other words, don't be surprised if you wake up tomorrow with a slightly reduced AOE damage output.
More specific balance changes will be arriving in a couple of weeks once Blizzard finally gets the data from players running the 'real' end game content such as Raids and Mythic Keystone Dungeons. Or, as Blizzard themselves put it:
"Until we can see data from the endgame in its entirety, we can’t make informed decisions about which numbers need adjusting, and by how much. Therefore, at this point we’re aiming to hold off on a broad pass of tuning hotfixes until the end of the first week of raiding and Mythic Keystone dungeons.
In the long run, our tuning goal is simply for everyone to feel that they can play the class and specialization they prefer. There will of course be areas of strength and weakness, and some specs will thrive in certain situations while lagging behind in others, but those gaps should not preclude viability. We’ll continue to look at available data and player feedback and make adjustments until that is the case, but that process will not begin until next week. Thank you for your patience."
World of Warcraft has historically had absolutely terrible balancing with multiple classes getting the rollercoaster treatment throughout entire expansions, so to see them actually take the effort of communicating their plans with their playerbase is quite the refreshing change. Legion has already corrected many of the mistakes World of Warcraft has been making for the past few years, so who knows, maybe Blizzard will extend this to the balance as well. It would certainly be the icing on Legion's cake!