It seems like they didn't expect hardcore players to figure out the best builds so quickly and disseminate that information so widely.<p>When I learned of the 'damage buckets' design, I was somewhat disappointed in that the diversity of viable builds was maximally minimized as the majority of affixes (stat bonus types) were essentially useless.<p>They seem to be correcting exactly that in this build, so one wonders whether this change will be for the better in the sense of supporting diverse playstyles, however they also decreased defensive bonuses with no counter-balance from what I can see, so many people are expecting much longer grinds, which most suspect is the actual goal of this patch.
Blizzard always loved "playing" with players. They announced something, advertised it for weeks, then prior release they removed the shiny new thing. Or after release they nerfed it, saying it was too imba or some unfixable thing occured and they had to remove it. Microsoft will successfully suck the remaining marrow from their bones, thats for sure.
I don't think I've seriously (at least knowingly) touched a Blizzard game since they nerfed shadow priests in World of Warcraft back in 2007 with the series of post-Burning Crusade patches.<p>It was such a stupid feeling to have tried to develop any sense of mastery or enjoyment in the game as it had been designed, and then have a series of z-version update all but unravel it. Now that's normalized as "the meta", but it's the same now as it was then — a hamster-wheel of an obstacle that doesn't accomplish "balance" so much as it separates casual players who give up or get out while they still can from the suckers who keep paying to chase eternally moving goalposts of mastery.