Velious Noob Question

[Plaidpants]

Hi - I've been around p99 for a couple of years - very casually and infrequently however - I just recently had a couple of friends/relatives commit to playing.

We are still picking race/class combos for our group but I wasn't sure about the class exp penalties with Velious. As I understand, they will be gone come Velious... but are they going to be gone launch date? Or is that to be determined patch in the future?

My buddy is interested in some of the hybrids but opt for something else if it will be quite some time after the expansion release for them to remove the class penalty.

Thanks!