Of course one of the first thing I had to do upon my return was check out the official World of Warcraft site to see if there was anything new revealed about the game in my absence. And lo and behold, the Patch 1.9 test servers are live and they’ve posted the really detailed notes.
There’s so much stuff in this patch! Is there always this much stuff in a patch? I just don’t even remember right now. One of the first things I noticed (that was new info, not something that I’d read before - see my first post on patch notes for general big feature items) was the changes to the Hunter pets.
- Turtles can now learn Shell Shield, allowing them to reduces all damage taken by 50% for 10 sec.
- Hunters can now tame Sons of Hakkar. Sons of Hakkar are in the Wind Serpent family and will know Lightning Breath (Rank 6).
- Boars can now learn Charge, an ability that allows them to charge to an enemy, immobilize that enemy for 1 second, and add a large amount of Attack Power to the boar’s next attack.
- Gorillas can now learn Thunderstomp, an ability that causes high threat area Nature damage.
Definitely seems like they’re trying to give the Hunters a reason to actually have a stable of pets and pick ones that are better for different circumstances, like one if you’re soloing, one in a group when you’re the tank, one in a group as support, etc. Right now, I just always use my cat. But if different types of pets have really cool unique abilities, it becomes way more of a decision to be made!
All the details of the Paladin skill tree changes are listed, but it’s a bit hard to parse in its current format. I think I’ll need to see it in game and play around with it to understand it. The biggest change is to enable easy buffing of entire raid groups -
Greater Blessings will cast the associated blessing on all raid members that share the same class as the target. For example, if you cast Greater Blessing of Might on a warrior in your raid, all warriors in the raid party will receive Blessing of Might from you. Additionally, Greater Blessings have an increased duration of 15 minutes. These blessings require twice as much mana as the single target version, as well as a reagent. Paladins can purchase these new Greater Blessing spells from their class trainers
Also, some spells that were anti-undead now work on demons. That’s cool.
Interestingly, they are changing the racial traits of some of the races! I thought that was sort of a big deal, since I didn’t even consider those mutable. But I guess everything is, really. But since I have no characters of any of the races experiencing changes (Troll is the big one, a bit for Orc, Gnome and Dwarf as well), I don’t have much to say on it.
They’re also adding to the professions. Enchanters are getting the most changes, with an all new item gained from disenchanting high level items, the Nexus Crystal, and corresponding recipes that use it. But also -
Enchanters can now turn some of their dusts and shards into magical oils. These oils when applied to weapons add a temporary bonus to magical damage or mana regeneration that stacks with permanent enchantments. The lower levels of these recipes are found on normal enchanting vendors. The higher level versions are found on special vendors and are rewards for high Zandalar faction.
I’m seeing these oils as comparable to Blacksmithing sharpening stones - they give a temp boast to your weapon and something you can easily make to raise your skill in Enchanting without having to give stuff away.
Blah blah, fishing changes, schools of fish in the world give high level fishies out of them, new cooking recipes for these high and might fishies, blah blah.
“Auction buyers/sellers will now receive a detailed invoice of the transaction.” That’s good. I frequently forget what something was or want more info than I can get right now. The more info the better!
Some UI changes to let you have more info on the guild page are being added.
For those who bother to read every single word of the notes (um, me), there’s a bit of light-heartedness.
Hallow’s End Pumpkin Treats should no longer be on the same timer as combat-oriented potions. Really.
Baron Revilgaz now should be a little more vociferous.
Noxxion is now social and will bring friends if pulled past other creatures.
Ok, there’s a ton of stuff there that you can, of course, read for yourself. I just pulled out the bits of particular interest to me. By the time you manage to finish reading the thing, it’ll probably be live anyway!