I am constantly finding myself unable to play the game the way I want to because of the Azerite trait system.
Like re-talenting, every aspect of this game requires me to play a slightly different build. Reforging caps me out quickly and I can’t toggle between playstyles they way I want to.
I also love switching between fire and frost. For some reason, Azerite traits don’t toggle for specs and I’d have to literally find sets of Azerite for every way I want to play the game.
On my paladin it gets even worse. I love the diversity of healing, tanking, and dps. Reforging fees lock me out of being able to play the class the way I want to.
And then there’s PVP, which requires different Azerite builds than PvE. So to play this game with some flexibility, I’d likely need 2 sets of Azerite for every spec, and then multiple sets depending on what spec I’m actually playing at the time.
Even if I had the gear, which I don’t, It’s a nightmare to have to swap gear all the time.
You don’t have to min-max every single spec you can possibly play for every single situation, pve or pvp.
You’re MEANT to main something.
Grab some easy 400s or whatever it will be in the next patch with the m+ currency for offspecs. Whatever the one you dont have to wait multiple weeks for is at your level of play.
Then pick traits that work the best for most situations, rather than absolute BiS for Arena, or M+, or single target raid encounters.
The AP grind going from 8.0-8.1.5 was horrid. You’d grind for the same traits over and over again with no actual reward in sight. Once you were done grinding you just ended up with the same traits you had on that heroic piece of gear or the same traits you had last season. It felt terrible and I hope we never see something like that ever again.
However, in 8.2, there’s a real reward behind the grind. I’m actually pretty excited to grind for essences. Most of them are really cool/good and they’ll provide a lot of interesting builds (not a full blown build though) between different forms of content like m+, pvp and raids. Two of my big essences come from rep so it kinda feels like the netherwing rep grind where there’s an awesome reward at the end of this grind and that’s fantastic. I’m pretty excited for that. I do wish they’d open up more forms of content to grind from though like m+ for example. I’d rather grind from m+ than from islands so I’d like to be able to make that choice and not just be pigeonholed into islands for AP.
Overall though I think by putting meaningful rewards behind the grind it’ll feel a lot better to me at least. Getting and upgrading the essences is imo a very meaningful grind whether you have to grind m+, WQs or whatever else there is. There’s mostly no RNG so you set your goals and reach them.
I never understood their approach to this. You create a great game with so many kinds of content - but then punish me with a gold cost if I try to optimize for the various types of content. It ends up feeling like they don’t want me to play as much.
I know I don’t have to min-max, but a lot of the time it’s significant. And it just makes me feel incomplete rocking the wrong traits or lower ilvl gear. I just think it’s sub-optimal game design.
Agreed all around. I don’t mind having to earn gear through challenging and/or time consuming content - but why restrict the roles I can take when they create so many different ways of playing the game?
I’ve never understood the benefit that these role restrictions provide.
Sub-optimal at best. At worst it feels like you’re being punished when you’re willing to heal or tank (when you’d rather blow stuff up as dps) - and then you have to pay gold just to help out the group/raid.
Why would you charge the players willing to take on roles that are needed?
I was actually fine with multiple sets of gear back in the day. It’s that there are multiple sets of gear needed for each of my offspecs now, and even more gear needed for the different types of builds within each spec.
It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows though – like back when re-talenting got too expensive. Interestingly enough, they learned, and removed that… and then add it back into the game in the form of reforging fees. smh.
Honestly the game has been telling me something quite different for awhile now.
As far as the game is concerned I’m supposed to be able to change my spec where ever I want, and my respec choices are free and unlimited as long as I’m in a rested area.
Azerite goes against that by forcing the player into limited choice without cost. A system we haven’t realistically seen since BC and the removal of the original talent trees.
I’m pretty optimistic about this, but it should have been working in a similar way from the start, the whole “re-grind” the same traits was absolutely absurd.
That said it doesn’t really address the fact that we are still grinding the exact same content still for the AP. It’s still only WQs and Islands.
and thats been in the game since… forever?
Hybrids were a nightmare, if you were a holy paladin and wanted to ret you had to get a ton of gear.
Funny enough at classic the set bonus were only for a spec rather than all of them.
Oh don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with it, I never had a problem with the way it was back in TBC or WotLK either.
I’m just addressing the fact that the game has clearly gone the other way in a lot of aspects, focusing on accessibility and not limiting the role/choices of a player. Yet makes this system based on their archaic design of “each person plays one spec” and that you have cost to change between specs.
It’s just a silly ridiculous choice for Blizzard to make. Do you want us to be able to swap in and out of roles or do you want us to stick to one? Take your pick.