I think they should increase synergies rather than reduce them... give each class powerful but non-stacking synergies to encourage varied group makeups.


This has several advantages...

-If a class is very powerful in a group, and most of their power is contributed via buffs, this character will generally be weaker solo than one who has a higher individual contribution and no group buffs. If everyone has group buffs, it is easier to balance solo/small group power level.

-It makes people always happy to be grouped with others. WoW wants to encourage the community aspect, and if raids are the only place I get Moonkin Aura & Stormstrike charges, it increases my desire to come to raid and see the biggest numbers possible.

-It would reduce or eliminate the elitism/bitterness that goes on between "pure" and "hybrid" dps classes. i.e. "I'm awesome because I'm topping the damage meters / I'm spending a lot of my combat time increasing your damage, where are my accolades?" stuff. It would be nice if differences between dps classes were smaller such that gear and player skill had more of an impact than class.

Yeah this is a point that definitly needs to be looked at. Every class brings something to the table. And if those hybrid classes weren't there the pure classes wouldnt top the meters, cause they would lack the buffs. Or even would lack someone to compete with.
I for myself would do half the dps if i didn't benefit from Battle Shout, Totems and Stuff.

Take the following with a grain of salt since I haven't been able to confirm the source:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- World of Warcraft PTR Patch 2.4.0 (2008-2-11)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The latest PTR patch notes can always be found at
WoW -> Test Realm Patch Notes

The latest patch notes can always be found at
WoW -> Patch Notes -> Current Patch Notes

Sunwell Isle

Surrounded by the Sunwell Grove, the Sunwell is a fountain of ancient
power at a convergence of powerful ley energies in Quel'Thalas,
created by the high elves who used a vial of sacred water stolen from
the Well of Eternity.

In this time of great peril a new force seeks to unleash the evil from
within this ancient source. Adventurers will be faced with the task of
destroying the threat to the stability of Azeroth and reclaiming the
Sunwell.

- Sunwell Plateau is a new 25 person raid which features 6 all new
bosses.
- The Magister's Terrace is a 5 person dungeon which will feature
both normal and heroic difficulties.
- In addition, a new faction called the Shattered Sun Offensive has
taken up residence outside the new dungeons and will offer a
slew of new daily quests for players to experience.


General
- Additional benefit will be seen by users with today's popular multicore
processors like the Intel(r) Core(tm)2 Duo processor family. Additional
threads have been spread across both processor cores.
- Desolace has seen many improvements with the addition of over 30
new quests and a new Alliance town called Shadowbreak Point located in
the southern part of the zone. Players will also see improved monster
spawning times and density.
- The maximum daily quest allowance has been increased from 10 to 25.
- Characters now retain talented spell ranks.
- Spell haste now reduces the global cooldown on spells, down to a minimum
of 1 second. This change does not apply to melee and ranged abilities.
- The restriction on summoning players into instances as well as restriction
on summoning players to Netherstorm have both been removed.
- The Kirin'Tor Mages have worked together to create a permanent portal to
the Caverns of Time. Players who have attained a friendly reputation will
be able to use the portal which will be located in Shattrath City.
- A new flight path has been added to southeastern Silithus near Ahn'Qiraj
as well as a new small quest hub for both Horde and Alliance.
- Players level 20 and below will no longer be afflicted with Resurrection
Sickness upon death. Resurrection Sickness now begins at level 21 at a timer
of 1 minute increasing until level 30 at a timer of 10 minutes.
- Players attempting the racing quests for the netherwing faction will no
longer benefit from Crusader aura during the quest.
- Undead Males main hand weapon size has been fixed.
- Equipping a thrown weapon while in the middle of an Auto-Shot will no
longer cause an animation issue.
- The Gnome racial ability Escape Artist will now properly remove the
Unstable Cloud debuff.
- Deleted characters no longer take up space in an arena team.
- Male Blood Elves can once again blink.


Racial Abilities
- Undead: Will of the Forsaken cooldown increased from 2 minutes to 5
minutes.
- Human: Diplomacy reputation bonus decreased to 3% and a new component
has been added decreasing repair costs as reputation increases.
- Tauren: Endurance bonus reduced from 5% to 3%.
- Dwarves: Treasure chests now appear on the minimap for all players so
Find Treasure has been replaced with Mining Mastery.
Dwarves: Mining Mastery added in place of Find Treasure. Mining Mastery
increases the chances that mineral nodes yield rare minerals!


PvP
- Arenas
A new buff has been added to all PvP arenas increasing movement speed
by 50% for 15 seconds. This buff will appear in the center of each arena
and will have a respawn time of 2 minutes.
Star's Tears: The amount of mana restored has been reduced to 4320 and
maximum stack size reduced to 10.
Vendors have been added outside Blade's Edge and Nagrand arenas who
stock various reagents, food, and water.
- Battlegrounds
New daily quests have been added for each PvP battleground. These new quests
will be located at the Alliance Brigadier Generals and Horde Warbringers near
your faction's battlemasters in all major capitals.

Alterac Valley
- The Horde starting tunnel has been moved back to a more equal distance
from the first objectives.
- Generals and Warmasters for each faction will receive a stacking buff
from each other that boosts their health and damage. The more of them that
are still in the battleground, the more dangerous they will all be.
- Balinda Stonehearth has become a more challenging opponent to the Horde
and will do more damage with her spells.
- Balinda Stonehearth and General Vanndar Stormpike have both had their health
reduced to previous amounts.

Eye of the Storm
- Spawn points for both factions have been lowered.

Warsong Gulch
- A new system has been introduced to Warsong Gulch changing the flag carrier
buff. The Warsong Flag buff now has a timer of 5 minutes. After this timer
has expired the flag will reset to the appropriate flag room.

Druids

- Lacerate damage has been increased, dealing additional damage based on attack
power.
- Cyclone: Range has been reduced to 20 yards.
- Druids in Tree of Life form will now have a 15% chance to entangle their
attackers.
- Base damage dealt by Wrath (Rank 10) has been increased to 402-478.
- Gift of the Wild: The armor increase provided by the spell is now 5% for
Rank 3 instead of the previous hard value.
- Travel form: Base mana cost has been increased from 13% to 18%.
- Force of Nature mana cost decreased from 12% to 10%.
- Survival of the Fittest now also decreases the chance to be critically
hit by spells by 1/2/3%.
- Barkskin: Duration increased to 20 seconds, mana cost reduced to 8% of
base mana.
- Shapeshifting now correctly removes the movement impairing debuff Frost
Breath.
- Pets will no longer attack a target after it has been effected by Druid's
Maim ability.

Hunters

- Volley: The graphic for this spell has been changed to its previous form.
- Explosive Trap: The base multiplier for this spell has been increased
from .1 to .3 and the damamge over time component has been increased by 15%.
- Viper Sting: The amount of mana drained by this spell has been decreased
by 40% to 548. Mana cost has been reduced by 20% and cooldown has been
reduced to 10 seconds.
- Aimed Shot: The healing debuff associated with this spell has been
reclassified as a poison.
- The tooltip for the Hunter Snake Trap spell has been fixed.
- Snakes from a Hunter's Snake Trap can no longer Daze players.
- The stamina tooltip for hunter pets will no longer report an incorrect
health increase.
- Improved Mend Pet now has a 50/100% chance to remove one Curse, Disease,
Magic or Poison effect, up from 15/30%.

Mages

- Spellsteal will no longer cause a buff of longer duration to be overwritten
by a shorter version of the same spell.
- Conjured Mana Biscuit has been changed to allow a maximum of 80 to be held at
one time.
- Icey Veins no longer increases the chance to freeze a target. It will
instead provide immunity to spell interruption while activated.
- Prismatic Cloak: The amount of damage reduced by this talent has been
increased to 3/6%.
- Mage's Frost and Ice armors are once again affected equally from each other
by the Frost talent Permafrost.

Paladins

- Items intended for Retribution paladins have had their stats reallocated
resulting in an increase in damage.
- Turn Undead: This spell has been renamed to Force of Light and can now
be cast on demons as well as undead.
- Lay on Hands: Cooldown reduced to 20 minutes.
- Improved Lay on Hands: This talent no longer reduces the cooldown of Lay
on Hands. Instead, this talent will now also increase the amount of healing
the target receives by 10/20% for 20 seconds.
- Sanctity Aura will now also increase the amount of healing received by
party member by 5%.
- Improved Sanctity Aura 0/2: This talent will now increase the amount of
damage caused by players affected by Sanctity Aura by 2/4%.
- Righteous Fury will no longer count as two spells for purposes of dispel
effects.
- Paladins can no longer cast Blessing of Protection on other players while
affected by Blind.

Priests

- Fear ward: The school of magic for this spell has changed allowing priests
to cast it while in Shadowform.
- Shadow Resilience 0/2: This talent has been changed and will no longer
reduce the chance the priest will be critically hit by spells. Instead,
after the priest has been the victim of a movement impairing effect they
will gain a 15/30% movement bonus as well as a 15/30% chance to resist
additional movement impairing effects for 10 seconds. This effect cannot
proc more than once every 2 minutes.
- Mana burn casting time reduced to 2 seconds, mana cost decreased by 10%,
and amount of mana burned decreased by 40%.
- Improved Mana Burn 0/2: This talent has been changed to increased the
amount burned by Mana Burn by 10/20%.
- Lightwell: Number of charges has been increased to 15. The amount healed
by each instance of the buff has been decreased by 10%.

Rogues

- Envenom no longer consumed poison charges.
- Hemorrhage: This ability now also reduces the affected creature's resilience
by 2 per charge.
- Find Weakness: This talent now also causes the rogue to ignore 2/4/6/8/10% of
the target's resilience per point for the duration of the buff.
- Sprint: Cooldown reduced to 2 minutes.
- Dagger Specialization: This talent has been changed to also increase base
damage by 1/2/3/4/5% per point.

Shaman

- Healing grace changed to reduce the chance that all of the shaman's
spells will be dispelled by 10/20/30%.
- Shamanistic Rage now also removes any movement impairing effects.
- Toughness: This talent now also grants a 1/2/3/4/5% chance to resist movement
impairing effects.
- Casting totems no longer initiates the global cooldown.
- Stormstrike will now cause the afflicted target to spin uncontrollably for
3 seconds. The player may still be healed while afflicted. Damage will
not interrupt this effect.
- Earth Shield mana cost has been reduced by 50%.

Warlock

- Summoning restrictions in instances have been removed. Players can now be
summoned from anywhere in the world provided they meet the requirements
to enter the instance.
- Lifetap: The base health cost of this spell has been increased by 10%.
- Improved Shadow Bolt has been changed to provide 3% bonus damage per point.
- Devastation: This talent now also provides 1% spell hit per talent point.
- Master Demonologist now also grants each of the Warlock's pets 2% of the
Warlock's total resilience per point.

Warrior

- Endless rage fixed to yield the intended amount of rage.
- Critical hits from offhand weapons from Whirlwind can now trigger Flurry
and Rampage.
- Improved Hamstring: This talent now has a 10 second internal cooldown.
- Intercept: The rage cost for this ability has been increased to 25.
- Enrage: This talent is no longer a prerequisite for Flurry.

Professions
- A new daily quest for fishing is now available near Lake Silmyr outside
of Shattrath City.
- New recipes have been added for cooking throughout all levels of the
profession.
These new recipes can be found at Bale (Horde) or Malygen (Alliance)
in Felwood.
- Juicy Bear Burger
- Charred Bear Kabobs
- The levels at which mining nodes grant skillups have been extended to
make transitions easier.
- A new enchanting recipe has been added allowing Enchanters to split a
Void Crystal into 2 Large Prismatic shards.
- Skinning: The amount of skins gained from creatures has been increased
by roughly 20%.
- Jewelcrafting: 2 new patterns have been added as drops for lower level
players.
- The Formula: Large Prismatic Shard will now display the correct icon.
- Shadow Oil will now properly fit into Leatherworking Bags.
- Druids can no longer make Bandages while in feral forms.
- Recipe: Hot Apple Cider no longer appears yellow in the cooking UI when
it provides no skill ups.

Items
- Dog Whistle: the quality of this item has been fixed.
- The Robe of the Moccasin now correctly has an Equip effect.
- Batwing Mantle now correctly have an Equip effect.
- Serpent Gloves now correctly have an Equip effect.
- Item name of Torquoise Brooch is now spelled correctly.
- Tooltip of Whipper Root Tuber: added text indicating its 2-minute
cooldown.
- Medallion of the Alliance now works properly during Landslide's Summon
Shardling ability.
- Nimbus Boots now correctly have an Equip effect.
- Scroll of Strength V will now appear in the proper Auction House
subcategory.
- Goblin Jumper Cables and Goblin Jumper Cables XL: added cooldown
information into their tooltips.
- The quest item Battered Steam Tonk Controller no longer procs the warrior.
talent Second Wind when controlled out of range.
- Mobs no longer gain health during the stun effect from the Goblin Rocket
Launcher.
- Gift of Arthas: stack size corrected.
- Druid Gladiator PVP Helmet: fixed the texture for the set
- Baelog's Shortbow: the quality of this item has been fixed.
- Snakeskin Bag: the quality of this item has been fixed.
- Vengeful Gladiator's Mooncloth Hood and Vengeful Gladiator's Satin Hood
will now properly display Troll Tusks.
- Several gems with spell healing modifiers have been fixed to receive their
additional spell damage modifiers.
- Players who attempt to buy arena items that require ratings above 1850
will no longer receive an incorrect error message if the team rating is
below 1850.
- Casting time will no longer be interrupted when the Darkmoon Card: Madness
procs.
- The equip bonus of the Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Gloves is now
functioning properly.
- Libram of Avengement no longer applies it's buff when auto-attacks refresh
judgements.
- Helm of Assassination no longer removes the jaw of undead males models.
- The Burrower's Shell can now be properly disenchanted.
- The typo in the item tooltip of Dark Iron Bomb and The Big One have been
fixed.
- Coarse Gorilla Hair can now be placed in a Leatherworker's Satchel as
intended.
- Paladin Retribution Tier 5 armor set Crystalforge Battlegear: the bonus
for this set is now functioning correctly.
- The proc effect of the item Band of the Eternal Sage has been reduced
to match the indicated value in the item tooltip.
- The correct sound will now play when players sheathe or unsheathe the
Sin'dorei Warblade.
- Level 50 class quest rewards can now all be disenchanted.
- Bulwark of the Amani Empire: the attachment point has been adjusted to
be more consistent amongst all races.
- Infused Amethyst: fixed an inconsistency in its tooltip.

Dungeons and Raids
- All 25-player raid bosses that drop set tokens will now drop an
additional token!
- All 25-player raid bosses will drop more gold.
- Gems obtained through Heroic difficulty instances are no longer
Unique-equipped.
- Loot dropped by Doomlord Kazzak and Doomwalker has been changed to
Bind on Equip. In addition, the gold dropped by these bosses has been
significantly increased.
- Scale of the Sands reputation will now be awarded in Hyjal at a much
higher rate.
- Hammer of Justice from Gathios the Shatterer is no longer able to be
reflected.
- Commander Springvale in Shadowfang Keep will now always drop superior
quality loot.
- Nazan will no longer melee players while in the air.
- It is no longer possible for Zul'jin to perform Claw Rage at unintended
times.

Quests
- New random Daily Dungeon quests have been added for both the heroic
and non-heroic five-person Outland dungeons, as well as for the
5-person Caverns of Time instances.
- The typo in the Quest Description Text of the Dustwallow Marsh quest
"Thresher Oil" has been fixed.
- The punctuation error in the acceptance text for the quest "Inspecting
the Ruins" has been fixed.
- The quest description of "Super Hot Stew" will now correctly indicate
how many ingredients are needed to create a Demon Broiled Surprise.
- Splintertree Raiders will respawn with Toerk if Duriel Moonfire and
her guards are killed while the Raiders are still alive.
- The quest description text for "The Corpulent One" no longer refers to
it being a group quest.
- The quest "Bark For Drohn's Distillery" is again attainable if the
player meets the appropriate requirements.
- Quest Items are properly lootable from chest objects when their tap
list is issued on creation, and the object is summoned in via a pet.
- After applying the Healing Salve to a Debilitated Mag'har Grunt
for the quest "Administering the Salve" the buff applied to the grunt
will no longer display an internal tooltip.
- The typo in the emote made by Bladespire Ogres when responding to the
/point emote from a player who has become King of the Ogres has been
fixed.
- The level range of the quest Bring the Light has been changed to be
consistent with the level range of the Razorfen Downs dungeon.
- The quest "Delivery to Tranquillen" can again be accepted if you have
"Suncrown Village" in your quest log.
- Cipher of Damnation no longer shows place holder icon on the castbar
portrait when used.
- Horde players are no longer able to loot Salvageable Metal doodads
on the Alliance side of the Path of Glory, Hellfire Peninsula.
- The quest 'Fiora Longears’ no longer states that Fiora is located in
Theramore. It correctly indicates she is in Auberdine.

User Interface
- With the release of patch 2.4.0, we’ve made some enormous changes to
the existing combat log. Players and mod authors will now have the
ability to filter the combat log. The combat log stores the last five
minutes worth of raw combat events. Filters can be setup on multiple
criteria, affiliation, ownership, and more. Any events that match the
current filter are passed through the client via the COMBAT_LOG_EVENT
message. The combat log filter is global. The COMBAT_LOG_EVENT_UNFILTERED
message will allow all existing AddOns to still respond to combat events
without a complicated middle-manager AddOn.
- The new combat log will be coming with two text formats. One is the
familiar, grammatically correct sentences with substitutions. The other
is a terse format, containing the source, target, spell, action and result.
There are a number of ways to manipulate the formatting, from unit name
coloring to coloring the damage numbers by their magic school. The
settings used for these formats are stored in the Blizzard_CombatLog_Filters
variable.
- Mod authors seeking more detailed information regarding the LUA changes
should head to the UI and Macros discussion on the forums.
- GM messages now appear with a Blizzard icon near their name.
- The profession UI search field has been improved and now allows for
searching of more types of things. You can now search for items by
socket color or effect. In addition, the searching of items by level
has been made more intuitive. You can now search for items by level
with "15-20" to search for items that you can make that have a minimum
level required of 15 to 20.
- When a player loots a Bind on Pickup item that only they can pick up,
they will no longer see the confirmation dialog.
- When a player loots a Bind of Pickup item the confirmation window now
lists the name of the item in the window.
- For more details on UI macro and scripting changes, see the UI and
Macro forum.
- The sound effect heard when mouse-clicking on several options menus
and options checkboxes has been fixed.
- Cancelling the use of a Steam Tonk Controller will no longer cause
the tonk's abilities to momentarily appear as a pet bar.
- Unit names will correctly appear in Alt-Z view.
- When a unique item drops that a player already has the automatically
passing message will no longer tell the player he cannot use the item.
- The Guild Log window has been improved and should no longer experience
any resizing issues.
- Raid permission icons that are altered during a ready check no longer
become stuck.
- Ready checks begun before icons from a previous ready check have faded
will now overwrite the old icon and properly refresh.
- Ready check in a Party will be properly cleared when leaders are
change during the check.
- The Trade Channel has been fixed so that when players zone out while
using a chat macro they will no longer receive an error.
- The interface option to always display status bar text on experience
bars now works correctly for Reputation.
- The "Unread Mail" icon will appear for players who receive returned
mail that contains no text, as intended.
- The "Unread Mail" icon will tell players who the mail is from when their
auctions are sold / canceled.
- Inspecting a player with an unlearned talent that teaches an ability
that you meet the requirements for will no longer show "Click to learn"
on the talent inspection UI.
- Buffs gained from herb gathering will appear in the newly revamped combat
log.
- Vertex shader state effects have been improved and will now correctly
display for some players between logins.

World Environment
- The tooltip has been corrected for players hovering over Shartuul's
Transporter on a flying mount.
- Relogging on the flight path from Southshore, Hillsbrad Foothills to
Ironforge, Dun Morogh in the entrance to Ironforge no longer
causes players to fly through a wall.
- The flight path from Stormwind to Rebel Camp, Stranglethorn Vale
has been modified slightly.
- The Alliance flight path between Booty Bay and Stormwind has been
modified slightly.
- A Feralfen Idol in Feralfen Village, Zangarmarsh has been moved and
is now lootable.
- Tin vein in Hillsbrad Foothills is now reachable as intended.
- The water near one of the waterfalls in Hatchet Hills outside of
Zul'Aman has been fixed to be more consistent.
- The message "Zul'Aman Exterior InvisMan gains Cosmetic - Flame
Patch X.X" will no longer appear in the combat log whenever a troll
hut is burning in Hatchet Hills.
- Fixed a leanto in Agama'gor, The Barrens that had no tooltip appearing.
- The world geometry in Gruul's Lair has been changed to prevent an exploit.
- Charge, Intercept, Intervene , and Feral Charge are now consistent in
their behavior when being used at 10 yards vertical range.
- Chests in Zul'aman can no longer be looted by other players who were
not in tap list.
- Burning troll huts on Hatchet Hills correctly deal fire damage once
again.
- Wooden spikes jutting from pillars in Circle of Blood have been reduced
in size slightly and should no longer cause line of sight issues.
- The floating tree root northwest of Garadar in Nagrand has been removed.
- The Legion Ring boundary markers no longer occasionally disappear.
- Learning certain spells via a class trainer will no longer cause the
yellow spell effect to appear on the trainer rather than the player.
- The buff Phasing Invisibility on the Warp Stalker will now have a tooltip.
- Anchorite Ayuri has found her new female draenei voiceset.
- Goreclaw the Ravenous can now be skinned.
- Cursed Lost One now has the appropriate buff for the zone in which it
is located.
- There is no longer an error in Sky-Captain Bomblast's dialogue text on
the Orgrimmar to Grom'gol zeppelin.
- Shattered Hand Heathens ability Bloodthirst has been corrected to include
a tooltip description.
- Ogri'la Peacekeeper's weapons have been scaled to the appropriate sizes.
- Exarch Orelis and Anchorite Karja can no longer be attacked in Area 52.
- Flying units have had their AI improved and will now path in formation.
- Felspine the Greater will no longer evade after leashing.
- Gutripper does not become stuck evading after being leashed while it is
in its flight phase.
- "Troll Commoner" gives the correct directions to Great-father Winter during
the Winter Veil holiday.
- The name plate for Gutripper while he is flying in motion has been lowered.
- The Doomguard Punisher will no longer display internal icons during
possession transfer.
- Booty Bay Bruisers no longer spawn when speaking with Landro Longshot,
thus players who are hated by Booty Bay can redeem UDE items.


Bug Fixes
- An issue with spawn rates in Forge Camp: Terror and Forge Camp:
Wrath has been fixed again.
- Fixed the position of one of the Herbing Nodes at Ango'rosh
Stronghold.
- Fixed the position of a mineral node in the Blade's Edge Mountains
so that it is no longer floating in the air.
- Fixed a problem with the directions in the quest, "A Crew Under Fire".
- Fixed a bug in the pet sheet stamina mouseover tooltip that showed an
incorrect health increase value.
- Fixed an issue with Paladin auras stacking incorrectly.
- Cooldowns are correctly refreshed when a buff is reapplied by
another player.

I really hope these are real.

Uh huh.

They're fake. 100% sure.

Yeah, the Shaman changes...
Stormstrike, 10s cd and 3 sec unbreakable CC? Right.
No GCD on totems? Please, but I doubt they are real.

The 2 resilience per hemo charge ... made my day.

As fake goes, they're pretty consistent with what we already know. Some of the changes came out of nowhere.

I assume diminishing returns still apply.

Ya alot of it makes no sense,, and lots of typos. They are just random things that got put together in a single list.

I can also confirm this with absolute certainty. Please don't derail the thread into further discussion of another batch of fake notes - the last ones were bad enough.

@Vectivus : Most of what you saw wasn't supposed to be public, and I don't really care about this, I'm only worried about things not included in these notes, I'm 1000% sure they're fake. ^^

Toot Toot don't post fake notes please.