Confirmed 1.9 Patch Notes

[Skandranon]

Nothing else really makes the Paladin stronger at all.  Just more efficient at doing what sucks most - buffing and healing.
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Only the raid blessings are an upgrade. The rest, especially the vaunted talent review, are sidegrades and downgrades. The talent trees didn't really get changed, just shuffled. Useless talents were replaced by other useless talents, and many useful talents were simply moved deeper into the trees as junk was weeded out of the deep areas and added liberally to the top.

The fact is, many paladin specs with the new talents are going to have basically the same capabilities as before, with the same number of points in each tree, just with a few less bonuses. Instead of making Holy past 20 useful, they simply kicked all the good holy talents down one tier and added junk to the top.

[Quark]

Some more undocumented stuff, ala Ming on the Rogue Forums:

1) Blind wipes paladin reckoning charges. In 1.8 this isn't all that great since you have to save blind for divine shield. In 1.9 however it is absolutely positively awesome. They only have one shield to begin with.

Wonders when the new Disorient / Incapacitate changes will actually work.
Edit: "they changed the description on zerg rage from disorient to incapacitate" - nevermind, the whole name changing was pointless from a gameplay perspective. Anything that broke Disorients before will break Incapacitates now?

2) Hunter flare leaves a mark on the ground. You won't see the full radius of the flare but you will see the center of the flare so to speak.

Finally. No more is it simple suicide to walk near a smart Hunter ...

5) Riposte is finally fixed. In 1.8 it was literally a non-factor sometimes, I would duel a dagger rogue in a no-stealth no-timer fight and it would not go off even once in three duels. In 1.9 I actually get to riposte people again, feels very solid.

No knowledge, though I had heard it was never useable which sounds wrong with 10% parry ...

6) Blade flurry is finally fixed. Secondary target will take EXACT same amount of damage as first. The way it should be. This is already a very, very situational special in PVP, now it is actually a threat instead of something you laugh at. Unfortunately, this also means dagger rogues even with backstab 9 will not be able to beat a combat rogue in an entire MC/BWL run. There are just too many opportunities to spam this and paint the stat sheet. I love to save adrenaline rush for firelord + spawn and with blade flurry I will double the damage of a dagger rogue for that pull and it really adds up.

For those who didn't know, 1 or 2 patches ago Blizzard tried to switch Blade Flurry from using the 2nd target's armor to the 1st target's. They failed and Blade Flurry did a double armor reduction, meaning it hit for less than the normal attacks hit for. As for Ming complaining about dagger rogues ... obviously he's never done dagger combat spec. Besides the fact that trash dps doesn't matter as much as boss dps does, trash dps only speeds up the whole group.

7) Fist spec appears to have been fixed. I went to Tyr's Hand and scored 14.5% miss rate with just +3 in items (400 hits). I have yet to miss any specials so hopefully we are good on this.

Previously, Precision (+5% hit when maxed) wasn't helping Fist weapons at all.

One other change I've heard of: Sword Specialization (% chance to have an extra attack) used to be 1/2/3/4/6, it is now 1/2/3/4/5.

So, due to all the undocumented changes/fixes, this is actually looking to be one of the best patches for Rogues. Sword Spec took a little hit, and Bloodfang set bonus reduced (but how many have full BF already?), but the rest is pretty positive.

[Quark]

So, ignore my post here. The Rogue who got it on test server had Opportunity, which changes to tooltip for Backstab to list 180%. Apparantly, this new rank of Backstab does nothing.

[NotSoDarklord]

Some more undocumented stuff, ala Ming on the Rogue Forums:
Edit: "they changed the description on zerg rage from disorient to incapacitate" - nevermind, the whole name changing was pointless from a gameplay perspective.  Anything that broke Disorients before will break Incapacitates now?
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Quark sir if I had to guess I'd say that this is in large part due to the fact that stoneform used to break the skills that were once classified as incapacitates. Most noticably blind. That and warriors wont be able to beserker rage out of blind/sap anymore, so maybe instead of warriors totally outmatching rogues they'll only win 90% of the time.

[Skandranon]

Quark sir if I had to guess I'd say that this is in large part due to the fact that stoneform used to break the skills that were once classified as incapacitates.  Most noticably blind.  That and warriors wont be able to beserker rage out of blind/sap anymore, so maybe instead of warriors totally outmatching rogues they'll only win 90% of the time.
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Stoneform used to break Blind because Blind is a poison, I thought.

I remember after 1.4 or so Heart of Noxxion could be used reactively to remove Blind.

[Quark]

Stoneform used to break Blind because Blind is a poison, I thought.
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Right. Blind can also be Resisted, Parried, and Blocked IIRC ...

[Drasca]

Nothing else really makes the Paladin stronger at all.  Just more efficient at doing what sucks most - buffing and healing.
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Not completely true. With paladin instant damage holy abilities changed to affect demons, they are now Paladin fodder, and so are warlock pets now. I'll try to contain my excitement about being nerfed severely on all fronts.

[Zarathustra]

Blizzard is taking steps with the new set stats/bonuses to make hybrids viable in more than one role. Great! Paladins get some +spell dam! Shamans get some spell crit and spell damage! Druids get...

Oh, Druids? Yeah, the stats on the Stormrage set were apparently too high, so they've been decreased. +14 mana/5 has been added to compensate. There's still zero spell damage.

In a time where the goal seems to be NOT to pigeonhole characters, they've gone and made sure the Stormrage set is geared 100% towards Restoration Druids. The only boon to Balance Druids is a larger mana pool due to the intellect (and a very slight increase to crit%), and the only benefit Feral Druids can hope to gain is a higher base armor value for Dire Bear form.

Disappointing.

[Icebird]

So, ignore my post here.  The Rogue who got it on test server had Opportunity, which changes to tooltip for Backstab to list 180%.  Apparantly, this new rank of Backstab does nothing.
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I think that's even more impressive than the increased damage to Searing Pain warlocks got.

It's maximum damage increased by 1.

Chris

[Quark]

I think Blizzard's afraid to make real feral epic gear. Then they might actually have to consider the fact that Ravage/Shred are very good counterparts to Ambush/Backstab.

[Kevin]

I think Blizzard's afraid to make real feral epic gear.  Then they might actually have to consider the fact that Ravage/Shred are very good counterparts to Ambush/Backstab.
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Don't forget that maul spamming is stronger than HS/Shield slam spamming for DPS. I do more DPS in feral from than Gnolack does in protection with the sword and 1 hander and that is with only 20 feral talents. When I had 34 it was even more DPS. Of course I do take less damage as Gnolack even with bear form giving me more armor than plate does but with no parry and no block I take more damage (Gnolack is 10-14% parry depending on gear and 10-14% dodge, in bear gear Taranna was about 15% so 5-14% more damage avoidance on the warrior). But that is alright. A higher DPS lower threat more damage taking tank is fine and while we haven't done it I don't see why a feral druid can't tank trash in MC just fine, we've had them tank Garr adds, majordomo and Corehound packs before. Keep in mind that the druids taunt holds the mob for I think 6 seconds (not 2 like a warriors which is another reason why a feral druid is better on domo than a warrior).

And yes Ravage/Shred are good but if you recall I had Taranna in cat form for the trash mobs in MC after 1.8 came out with 34 points in feral and I was still a good 30 DPS behind even the worst geared rogue there. I can live with that. Of course Taranna still doesn't have a good cat damage set, but even in the best gear we'll still fall behind rogues and won't have much mana at all for versatility. We are also more vulnerable to melee damage (only dodge) and since weapons don't give us as much DPS we lose even more damage than a rogue in resist gear. I don't think the feral druid is really all the out of whack talent wise and I don't think epic gear is going to put a feral druid past a rogue for damage if that rogue is in similar level gearing. And the extra utility of that druid to get to those DPS levels puts them at a bout 2500 mana pool which isn't much healing or casting if they need to shift so the higher utility isn't that big a deal wither.

Blizzard did druids pretty well in the last patch they just need to itemize for the 3 different types.

[Kevin]

That's never really been a problem. It needs to be ALL damage will no longer trigger Dazed...
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Umm it's been a problem. When I'm running through and area and get poisoned the daze was damn annoying that I can't use my travel form and other classes with travel froms can. It's a travel from not a combat tool so you should get dazed from damage because hunters that you can never get into melee range in PvP are pretty damn annoying and that is what no daze on cheetah would do.

As for the finger twirl what else did hunters need? I know you claim they haven't really gotten buffed and I don't agree with that but hunters have 3 trees that make the each tree build different as to how you can play them. Hunters have utility in all instances. Hunters have good DPS in all instances though a little more work on pet pathing would let them have pets out more easily on trash mobs in Molten Core to help even more with the DPS.

Hunters don't have a lot of problems. Spirit Bond was nerfed with the talent changes but if they hadn't nerfed it the new improved beast master talents would have made a beast hunter way too strong in PvP. You have a pet that can now destroy cloth wearers (and it still should even with the damage and duration changes) a pet that can stun, and if you had the old spirit bond a pet that could give the hunter 30 health per second as well. How are you going to solo kill that? Spirit bond would take 30 DPS off of anyone with a 100+ DPS pet beating on that person and even if the hunter has to melee the hunter is still adding 60 DPS. So you get to do at least 160 DPS to your attacker while taking 30 DPS less? No spirit bond needed a change and I'm one of the people that constantly pines for the old version. The new version still needs a tweak (2% then 4% health I think would do it as 160 health every 10 seconds is a real difference but still in PvP where you probably aren't going to live 10 seconds to get that benefit too often unlike the 30 every second or every .7 seconds with the right pet).

The Marks tree got a buff in that patch as well with the new trueshot aura and the overall DPS of aspect of the hawk didn't change just they way it worked (you got to have more pally like DPS with the change). And moving Hawk Eye up where every hunter could get it was a huge buff too. Survival got a huge buff. I don't see how the hunters were nerfed in that patch at all and the nerfing was well below the buffing and gave the hunter 3 solid deep builds and 3 solid shallow tree paths to back that up.

The change to aimed shot not resetting the autoshoot timer was a buff too. (even if it was a bug fix).

[Zippyy]

Warlocks get hit with the nerf bat every patch as well.  This time it is the overall damage of Warlocks that has been nerfed.  A lot of Warlocks tested out how much additional damage negative resistance gave over a number of casts and found that it gave around 20% additional DPS.  With the change to Curse of Elements/Shadow, Warlocks now lose around 15% of their sustained DPS.
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On the bright side, they increased the Searing Pain damage for all ranks by 1 point. Whoopie!

As for Curse of Shadows/Elements, I think we should wait and see how it actually works. Have you tried on on Test yet? I'm out of town right now, or I would. The new versions of the spells supposedly make up for the lack of negative resistances by increasing damage by a percentage.

I think the buff to Infernal/Doomguard armor of 10% and damge by 30% (!) is quite significant, at least for the infernal. Considering neither of them have diminishing returns on Enslave as of 1.8, and Improved Enslave 5/5 almost guarantees a 5 minute enslave each cast, the Infernal should be quite powerful. At the very least, I'll be using him for farming Felcloth, where a bounty of shards are to be had. This is the reason why I wanted to pass on the Sash of Whispered Secrets (which also got buffed this patch, I just dont know how), I wanted to save up for one more piece of Felheart to get the -1.5s casting time 3/8 set bonus. But I am happy with this amazing belt. :)

Voidwalker Demonic Sacrifice for major health regen, and buffed Infernal+Soul Link for major killing and staying power. Hope it works out as well as I'm hoping :)

Shard Bags. The forums are ignited with outrage over the 20 slot shard bag. Funny thing is, we have yet to see how good the 30 slot bag and 40 slot bag (from MC) are. We don't know if they have any effects aside from a large amount of space, or if they even "behave" like normal bags by residing in bag slots. Ages ago, the devs said we would be very happy with the new bags and they would have nice bonuses, suggesting something besides lots of space.

Regardless, here's to hoping the MC bag is BoE. Our warlock corps would be very happy very quickly. I'm also praying that it's epic! Think of the glory, an epic bag! All I know about the bag is that it's name is Core Felcloth Bag, and it is rumored to be 40 slots.

[Dozer]

Regardless, here's to hoping the MC bag is BoE.  Our warlock corps would be very happy very quickly.  I'm also praying that it's epic!  Think of the glory, an epic bag!  All I know about the bag is that it's name is Core Felcloth Bag, and it is rumored to be 40 slots.
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It's epic, but it ain't 40-slot.
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[CrescentWindX]

In a time where the goal seems to be NOT to pigeonhole characters, they've gone and made sure the Stormrage set is geared 100% towards Restoration Druids.  The only boon to Balance Druids is a larger mana pool due to the intellect (and a very slight increase to crit%), and the only benefit Feral Druids can hope to gain is a higher base armor value for Dire Bear form.

Disappointing.
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To be fair, Druids are not alone in this. We Priests are more or less in the same situation as our furry and feathered friends when it comes to our class sets.

Devout is a pretty decent set for a Holy or Discipline-specced Priest. It focuses primarily on int and spi. The partial set bonuses include a very minor bonus to damage (+7 Shadow damage, +14 all damage vs. Undead). The full set bonus is +55 healing. Prophecy provides +30 spell damage, versus over three times that in +healing. Transcendence totally throws out the concept of spell damage, providing only healing bonuses.

No sane Shadow priest would ever wear Devout, Prophecy, or Transcendence for PvP gear. Most Shadow priests who want a tier 0 set for PvP will collect Dreadmist for the focus on stamina and the minor Shadow damage boost. Any Shadow priest who wants a tier 1 or 2 epic set for PvP is SOL, unless they feel like collecting things like the Sash of Whispered Secrets.

So much for "The Balance of Light and Shadow," huh?

[Treesh]

No sane Shadow priest would ever wear Devout, Prophecy, or Transcendence for PvP gear.  Most Shadow priests who want a tier 0 set for PvP will collect Dreadmist for the focus on stamina and the minor Shadow damage boost.  Any Shadow priest who wants a tier 1 or 2 epic set for PvP is SOL, unless they feel like collecting things like the Sash of Whispered Secrets.

So much for "The Balance of Light and Shadow," huh?
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But you're looking at PvP vs PvE rather than differences in specs. Even if Aleri wanted to PvP, she'd still have the same issues that a shadow priest would with those itemizations, despite being holy specced.

[CrescentWindX]

But you're looking at PvP vs PvE rather than differences in specs.  Even if Aleri wanted to PvP, she'd still have the same issues that a shadow priest would with those itemizations, despite being holy specced.
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Uh, what? I was pointing directly AT differences in specs, and saying "Prophecy/Transcendence aren't useful for a Shadow priest" - essentially, not useful for a DPS priest.

I suppose I tend to see the difference between Holy and Shadow specs in a bit more black and white than ohers do. To me, if someone is speccing holy, it's because they want to be the best healer they can be.

[Treesh]

Uh, what?  I was pointing directly AT differences in specs, and saying "Prophecy/Transcendence aren't useful for a Shadow priest" - essentially, not useful for a DPS priest.

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Then why mention PvP at all if it was for shadow vs holy/disc instead of PvP vs PvE?

No sane Shadow priest would ever wear Devout, Prophecy, or Transcendence for PvP gear.  Most Shadow priests who want a tier 0 set for PvP will collect Dreadmist for the focus on stamina and the minor Shadow damage boost.  Any Shadow priest who wants a tier 1 or 2 epic set for PvP is SOL,
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Emphasis added by me. Now, I can say the same thing for holy and discipline priests. They won't help in PvP because there isn't the stamina and damage boost. I really don't think priests are quite in the same boat as druids on this. If you want to max your feral damage, you're looking at completely different stats than you would for restoration or balance. Strength isn't going to help your balance at all, it won't help your restoration at all; Intelligence and spirit aren't going to help your ferocious bite or maul. Intell and spirit will still help a priest in PvE with healing and throwing out more spells, regardless of spec. Priests, regardless of spec, are still basically just casters, whether we're healing or DPSing. Druids can be meleers or casters and require different equipment to do both because Blizzard won't implement gear that benefits both the melee role and the caster role of druids. That's why druids have more of a right to complain about end game itemization hurting their different specs than priests do, in my opinion.

[Zippyy]

It's epic, but it ain't 40-slot.
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Well... hrm. I hate to be a Whinelock, but that's a superbly lackluster and misguided solution to the problem of shards. By 60, most warlocks should have shard management down pat. The problem isn't storage space (although the bag will help), it's farming for shards. Eyonix promised us way more. E fails again.

At least it's BoE, so our locks can all get it fairly quickly.

[Watto44]

I think Blizzard's afraid to make real feral epic gear.  Then they might actually have to consider the fact that Ravage/Shred are very good counterparts to Ambush/Backstab.
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From a PvP view-point, I'd have to agree with you. I was messing around with WoWEquip and seeing what I could come up with in terms of feral gear with mana. With access to every item in the game, I managed to get the following: 4k hp (about 6k in bear form), 6k mana, 1k ap in cat form with 20% crit, and 8k armor in bear form. But that's with the rank 13 armor set. If gear of that sort was available in raid dungeons...ouchie. :) (Those stats are if you've invested 31pts in feral admittedly.)

Of course, that's feral. If you're balance, you've gotten Le Royal Shaft™. :( 12 (leather armor) items that give + spell damage (and 4 of those are PvP gear), 3 that give +nature damage (all of them pretty average) and none that give arcane damage (although that might be an error with Allakhazam, since they decided to spell arcane "arcange" :) ). Your only real option for damage is to collect cloth gear, which makes your mages sad pandas.

(Although I've heard somewhere that blizzard intends to examine itemisation for balance and feral druids...but I can only imagine that implementation is a long way down the track, but I have high hopes for AQ.)

From a PvE point of view, I really don't know. I've never dps'ed in MC. :) Even when I do get to dps in instances I tend to ignore the meters.