Confirmed 1.9 Patch Notes

[Quark]

Read the article.  The Pally buff section is roughly 20 billion times as big as the shaman buff section.  5 blessings for each party member, plus Auras on most of them are atleast as good as the average of 1 useful buff most party members get from shaman.  Can we stop the alliance vs horde for 1 second and talk about the patch?  Sheesh, be grateful for one thread atleast.
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Well, I really don't have the experience to say how good or bad the paladin changes are. Nevertheless, those are all buffs to already existant paladin abilities. This is the Horde getting something that was previously limited to just the Alliance.

Reciprocal would be Alliance getting a weakened version of Earthbind. I really can't say anymore on the subject, insightful, flaming, critical, or elsewise. I won't debate the degrees of use of blah, blah, blah, it's just the whole reciprocal part.

[Bob the Beholder]

So wheres the reciprical buffs for paladins, then?  Horde still does things we can't match.
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Alliance still does things horde can't match. Just not this one thing, now.

Reciprocal buff?

Blessing of Salvation.

There are things shamans can do that paladins can't. There are things paladins can do that shamans can't. Blizzard decided one of these cases imbalanced end-game raiding, and changed it. Perhaps there are things shamans can do that the alliance, as a whole, can not match. But apparently Blizzard deems those things less impacting then 20 percent less aggro for every DPS-monkey in a raid.

[mjdoom]

Can we stop the alliance vs horde for 1 second and talk about the patch? 
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Sigh... apparently we can't get away from Alliance vs. Horde. IMO this will not make a huge difference; can't we just give it a rest for now and discuss other things.

For the benefit of those of us that use linear views can we move this to another thread if we really feel compelled to argue the relative merits of two similar but different classes...

[Quark]

Things not in the patch notes:

Currently, players can easily game the battleground queue system by leaving battlegrounds and re-entering the queue to find a more preferable group matchup. This behavior is not desired. We are aware of several bugs concerning the Deserter Debuff which are active in the 0.9.0 test realms which we will address in a timely matter.

The Deserter Debuff should work as follow:

# If a player leaves a battleground by any means (/afk, walking out, hearthstone, teleport, etc) before that battle is finished, they will have a 15 minute delay (Deserter Debuff) before they are able to re-enter the queue for that battleground.
# If a player who is in the delay state attempts to open the battleground queue UI by any means (entering the portal or interacting with the battlemaster), they should get an error message stating "You must wait Xmin:Ysec before re-entering the queue for this battleground."
# A player should be able to leave one battleground and immediately enter the queue for a different battleground, however it should not clear their re-queue timer if they then leave the second battleground and return to the first.

There's new Ranks of skills/spells that drop in the AQ 20 man instance, this is a data-mined list:

Teaches Frostbolt (Rank 11). (729174)
Teaches Heroic Strike (Rank 9). (729967)
Teaches Battle Shout (Rank 7). (729999)
Teaches Revenge (Rank 6). (730030)
Teaches Blessing of Wisdom (Rank 6). (730056)
Teaches Blessing of Might (Rank 7). (730093)
Teaches Holy Light (Rank 9). (730129)
Teaches Healing Wave (Rank 10). (730158)
Teaches Strength of Earth Totem (Rank 5). (730190)
Teaches Grace of Air Totem (Rank 3). (730232)
Teaches Multi-Shot (Rank 5). (730269)
Teaches Serpent Sting (Rank 9). (730298)
Teaches Aspect of the Hawk (Rank 7). (730330)
Teaches Healing Touch (Rank 11). (730367)
Teaches Starfire (Rank 7). (730400)
Teaches Rejuvenation (Rank 11). (730427)
Teaches Backstab (Rank 9). (730459)
Teaches Deadly Poison (Rank 5). (730486)
Teaches Feint (Rank 5). (730613)
Teaches Frostbolt (Rank 11). (729174)
Teaches Fireball (Rank 12). (730637)
Teaches Arcane Missiles (Rank 8). (730665)
Teaches Shadow Bolt (Rank 10). (730699)
Teaches Immolate (Rank 8). (730730)
Teaches Corruption (Rank 7). (730757)
Teaches Greater Heal (Rank 5). (730786)
Teaches Renew (Rank 10). (730817)
Teaches Prayer of Healing (Rank 5). (730842)

Yeah, I know the Rejuv rank got cut off. So it looks like to keep up with other players, you better go to Ahn'Qiraj now ... There's also some questionable choice of upgrades, here. Backstab is upgraded at level 60, Sinister Strike at level 54. Yet here BS gets a new upgrade, while SS gets none.

Edit - found a bigger mined list.

[oldmandennis]

Interesting. The new skills seem like a big whack at the "Casual Gamer". Maybe an alternate, long quest could be implemented for them? Something that would take long enough that most players that can raid would rather do it that way, but still possible? Maybe hotpatch it in 1 1/2 months after the patch goes in everybody doesn't do it before the gates are open?

I'd rather see 1/2 hour on the BG deserter thing, but 1/4 should do it.

[Quark]

Okay, now I think Blizzard is insane, or just two-headed. To counter what Caydiem said earlier about breaking away from certain classes ruling DPS, I present you this:

Backstab (Rank 8)
60 Energy 5 yd range
Instant
Requires Daggers
Backstab the target, causing 150% weapon damage plus 210 to the target. Must be behind the target. Requires a dagger in the main hand. Awards 1 combo point.

And this:

Backstab (Rank 9)
60 Energy      5 yd range
Instant
Requires Daggers
Backstab the target, causing 180% weapon damage plus 210 to the target. Must be behind the target. Requires a dagger in the main hand. Awards 1 combo point.

That's right, it's the only rank of Backstab that increases the % damage instead of the flat damage bonus. Getting this, I really can't tell if my Ambushes would do more or less damage than my Backstabs - note, that's due to me respeccing and keeping all the +damage/crit talents for Backstab, but not the one for Ambush.

[RTM]

Code:

Soul Shard Bags

     Tailors now can make soul bags to hold soul shards. The smallest is a 20-slot bag, the recipe for which can be purchased in Gadgetzan. The recipe for a larger bag can be found in Scholomance, and one for an even larger bag can be found in Molten Core. In the main UI, these soul bags will display how many shards they contain. So long as the soul bags have room, any soul shards a warlock creates will automatically go into the bag.

I don't see enough drooling about this. I hear the progression goes 20-slot -> 30 -> 40. I'll be parking my Warlock in Gadget the night before the patch.

I'm a little miffed that they didn't add a Ratchet flight point. Oh well, it gives me something to complain about I guess.

[Quark]

Followup - right now these items are BoE!

I think I prefer it this way, it gives people who can't raid AQ for whatever reason a chance to keep up. Prices will be astronomical at first, though ;)

[Tuftears]

*boggles at new ranks of spells being dropped in AQ* :blink:

For me as a healer, the new healing touch doesn't really do anything much - I can still restore most of someone's health with a rank 10 healing touch, rank 11 would be letting them get to 25% before the heal kicks off, which is too prone to failure.

However... Damage is where people are going to be slavering over the spells. More DPS = faster battles. More HPS = no effect on battle length.

[Icebird]

No one has mentioned the nerf to Curse of Shadows and Curse of Elements yet.

Blizzard had signalled that the days of the outrageous warlock crit were numbered. Resistances can't be lowered below zero so no 25% / 50% / 75% / 100% vulnerability bonuses.

Instead we get the resistance reduction and a flat 5% damage increase.

I'm trying to contain my excitement. Over time, it seems like Curse of Shadows adds about 20% damage to Shadowbolt currently. A 5% damage increase just doesn't impress me much.

Expect the price of large brilliant shards to go up with the new Wizard Oil recipes.

Chris

[WildFire]

New spell ranks, questable class weapons ala ZG class sets, insect mounts, Egyptian theme, CC rep.

Hey, sign me up for Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj!!

[Mirajj]

New spell ranks, questable class weapons ala ZG class sets, insect mounts, Egyptian theme, CC rep.

Hey, sign me up for Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj!!
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I'm interested in the new levels of class spells. But it's going to be the getting in that's hard. People seem to forget that 40man AQ was designed to leave BWL in the dust, and 20man AQ was designed to be MC for 20...

It does sound fun, though.

[WildFire]

I'm interested in the new levels of class spells. But it's going to be the getting in that's hard. People seem to forget that 40man AQ was designed to leave BWL in the dust, and 20man AQ was designed to be MC for 20...

It does sound fun, though.
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I'm not forgetting at all, which is why I said what I did HERE

I think we are going to be moving onto Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj AKA AQ-20, only when we are good and bored of ZG... which will not be anytime soon, at least not for me. A diversion, maybe, but it will not be a replacement for the 2-man raids for some time yet.

Temple of Ahn'Qiraj appears to be out of our league for some time yet, but going by how quickly we progressed through MC and ZG, we may just surprise ourselves.

But what I effectively said still stands... sign Kateley up for any and all exploratory trips into the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj! At this point, I would suggest Avarice third days be used for AQ-20 instead of BWL.

[MongoJerry]

So wheres the reciprocal buffs for paladins, then?  Horde still does things we can't match.

:o

*Sputters* Thinks, "Are you nuts?!" An easy mode alliance player complaining about shamans when their already unbalanced class gets a massive buff? It's just incredible. Stunning. Paladins are so unbelievably powerful in raids versus the comparatively weak shamans in every way. There is only one raid encounter in the game, Razorgore, where you'd rather have a shaman than a paladin. It's just phenominal that you can't recognize that.

I'm just planning to close my eyes during the 1.9 patch and hope and pray that the shaman buff in 1.10 rebalances PvP in some way, because for one patch the Alliance is going to destroy everybody even more than they already do.

Then, I'll have to hope that 1.11 buffs priests in some way that gives them surviveability and counters all the buffing that warriors, druids, hunters, paladins, and (soon to be) shamans have gotten over time.

[Mirajj]

An easy mode alliance player
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So paladins and their BoS made Alliance "easy mode". Does that mean that now that Shaman have TAT that Horde is easy mode, too...? ;)

[Tuftears]

I'll be running AQ20 on alternate Tuesdays and Saturdays, I think, to introduce variety.

[oldmandennis]

:o

*Sputters* Thinks, "Are you nuts?!"  An easy mode alliance player complaining about shamans when their already unbalanced class gets a massive buff? .......
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/Sigh

Not sure if you are joking or not, but here we go.

[oldmandennis]

People seem to forget that 40man AQ was designed to leave BWL in the dust,

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Not really. The blue post said it should start a bit easier if anything, sloping to much harder in the final encounter. The problem with BWL is that 2 of the hardest encounters are smack in the beginning.

[Rinnhart]

/Sigh

Not sure if you are joking or not, but here we go.
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This thread = total sausagefest.

[Quark]

Wonders if MongoJerry actually looked at the Paladin changes.

Only changes I see that modify PvP at all are Eye for an Eye -"oh wow, he does 100 damage I do 30!, and Vindication, which is yet another PRNG dependent paladin ability. By the way, Reckoning Bombing has been nerfed.

Nothing else really makes the Paladin stronger at all. Just more efficient at doing what sucks most - buffing and healing.