My issue with the "balanced at 85" thing is that all the spells scale now, so it should be entirely possible for them to set the numbers more exactly that previously, where you might get a damage spellboost 2-5 levels before max. I understand the gear issues also, but they are going out of their way to make sure good gear is getting out there, and new leveling characters will jump to UberGear at level 78, not 80...

So yeah, it gets old, but it's what it is.

@Voce

I agree, but I'd say that a big part of the current imbalance is current gear scores. Blizzard has acknowledged that they made a mistake with too many tiers of content (separate gear for normal raiding vs. heroic in ToC, for example), which inflated gear scores beyond what they had intended.

My assumption is that, since that won't happen in Cata, they have a better idea of how much damage properly geared dps will do. In the mean time, some will outshine others due to how their stat-inflated gear affects their new talents and abilities.

Or, at least, it seems like reasonable guess for a guy who doesn't crunch numbers. :)

This. I am so tired of hearing that everything in every class is completely junked because it's "balanced around level 85." Sooo...since the game is not playable in a fun way until I am level 85, that means I don't have to pay my subscription fee until I am level 85? Didn't think so.

Actually, you DON'T have to pay your monthly fee until Cataclysm is out. In fact, you don't have to pay for your monthly fee ever. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.

The issue is that there is nothing Blizzard can do about the insane crit and haste levels at 80 unless they combed through all of the gear and rebalanced every tier of content in the entire expansion. It's virtually impossible to balance classes around absurdly high crit and haste levels at 80 that were never intended in the first place, and then have those same mechanics balance fine at 85, when crit and haste will be SIGNIFICANTLY lower percentages. That isn't a simple numbers fix. Crit and haste don't simply give a passive boost to damage. They drastically change rotations and completely change the battlefield in PvP.

In other words, you would have a valid point if crit and haste were at the same percentages which they are expected to also be in Cataclysm, but they aren't. They are drastically higher.

Nobody held a gun to Blizzard’s head and forced them to make the current haste and crit levels.

@Kai

"This. I am so tired of hearing that everything in every class is completely junked because it's "balanced around level 85." Sooo...since the game is not playable in a fun way until I am level 85, that means I don't have to pay my subscription fee until I am level 85? Didn't think so."

Its not that things are unplayable, its that they're not BALANCED. Meaning that some classes do more damage/heal better/have more threat, etc than others. The class is far from unplayable. Also saying that its balanced for 85 is completely fair, just like you don't expect every class to be balanced at level 17 or 54, you shouldn't expect it at 80. 80 used to be end-game now its not. The game is preparing for 85 being end game. If you don't like it, take a hiatus until Cataclysm comes out.