Gabe even stated in an interview this had nothing to do with "woops, op/scound too op lets nerf"
He explained the process of skills and healing 'ratings' in their system and a few things weren't being accounted for. This is something that had intended to be changed for awhile.
You can say he's just making stuff up, but it seems like that would be pretty pointless. Because all he'd have to say is "Well, they were killing too quickly and we needed to adjust".
For anyone interested in the interview I'm talking about. the pvp balancing topic starts around 9:50