Reasoning behind 1 large balance patch instead of several small ones?

[Elro]

Please explain the reasoning behind development of a large balance patch with several changes at once, instead of small ones on a quicker release schedule.

If you make many changes at once, it is difficult to observe the magnitude of each single change in actual gameplay statistics.

Take, for example, the upcoming helm of the black legion nerf and the zephyr (and possibly ra) nerf.
If you do them all at once, it is very difficult to judge if the heroes had been fine with only the helm nerf, since both reach very high amounts of EHP due to the healthpool scaling of the helm and their self healing abilities.

With smaller balance patches, the impact of every small change can be evaluated without any interference.

[xanderK]

There's pros and cons to both methods of patching.

For small patches, changes are made quicker. However, this means that there's less consistency in the game and harder to develop a set of solid strategies or playstyles.

For large patches, the game is more consistent because there's more time between patches for people to figure things out. Also, in large patches, changes are often related to one another and develop a clearer picture of what the intent of the changes actually is. The negative is, of course, that this takes longer.

We've used both methods in the past but this particular patch was decided to be a large one.