General recap on patch 8.9

Woody1999, on 31 October 2013 - 01:58 AM, said: Heyo guys, thought I'd share my opinion with you on the latest patch!
So, when phase 1 of the 8.9 test server was out, I decided that for once I would grind up the new tank line as soon as the patch came out. So I downloaded the test client (again) and started testing some things.
Let's start with the Marder II.
Marder has regained some of its old awesomeness with the swapping of guns and better aiming time of the 75mm. It feels the same as it did on the test server but of course there are more tier 3s to shoot at and the 110 damage really shines there. Overall, the Marder has had a very small buff, but the decrease in penetration has made it pretty poor against tier 5 tanks now.
Marder 38T:
On the test server I just could not make this tank work. If you played it as a sniper the game would be over before you saw anything and if you played with any aggression whatsoever you would die instantly - but that's just the problem of the test server, not the tank. On the live server, I have found out what an amazing piece of kit this little tank is. The gun is truly amazing - 1,7 sec aim time with 3 sec reload, 0,35 accuracy and that gun arc makes it a killer at any tier you meet. View range and camo values reign supreme at tier 1-5 and this tank has them both. The mobility is great! Very nippy to accelerate and very agile, doesn't lose much speed over bad ground. Other features include surprisingly good gun depression and frontal armor good enough to absorb HE and arty rounds, so not as many oneshots as you might imagine. Poor gun elevation is possibly the only big weakness to this tank, it is just awful.
Pz.Sfl.IVc a.k.a 'The Flak Bus':
On the test server, this tank was amazing. Ridiculously fast and really overpoweredly well armed made it pretty OP. It also has that tier 9 tank view range and Russian TD camo value which you wouldn't expect seeing as it is as tall as a T34. However, on the live server I'm kind of underwhelmed at its performance. It seems a lot more sluggish than on the test server and the gun never behaves itself, missing ridiculous shots and bouncing vital targets. I admit that I'm using a 75% crew and I haven't pimped it out entirely like I did on the test server but it feels like a much worse tank. Aiming time is too slow for the gun arc and you find yourself reloading just a little too late most of the time. I'm running Rammer, Binos, Camo net on live but was running Rammer, GLD, Binos on the test, so I can see where the aiming time problems might exist. Good tank, but a little underwhelming.
Team battles:
Ratings on the team battles seem to be that under 3000 is a bad player, 4000 is an average player, 5000 is good and 7000 is unicum. I'm at 2300 which shows that it doesn't take 60-day stats into account, only overall. This is quite good for me because I'm better than the game thinks I am so any team I play in has a little advantage. I haven't actually got round to playing a game but the window is very complex and hard to understand, I definitely got caught out by all of the different buttons on the team battle window!
Minor bugs etc:
Wargaming have broken clan chat! There is no gap between the text and the left of the window and it looks awful, sometimes cutting off half the name of the speaker (Laatikkomafia curse your long name, you're just omafia in clan chat now )
Service button flashing when ready in a platoon is still there despite them saying that they'd fixed it.
Markers above tanks keep resetting back to default every 10 battles or so - very annoying.
Lag! Random lag spikes up to 200ms for everyone, no matter how good your connection is. Sniper mode jerks and jumps around and tank suspension keeps resetting meaning your tanks seem to bounce around the battlefield. Not unplayable but annoying.
Hope you can use this to help you - please add anything that I've missed out!
Woody