Ok, so I logged on my warrior to try and aquire strength of the warden from the vendor, since I already got it’s dps counterpart on my shaman. It happens that I cannot get it for some reason.
I then logged on my shaman to see if I had to speak to MOTHER to get the essences unlocked, and this happened:
https:// imgur .com/ S8ZZ44o
You need to login on character that has it first.
For ease of visibility.
Issue is, they don’t translate. You only have the DPS one available. You won’t be able to get the tank one unless you unlocked that yourself on a viable character. Counterpart doesn’t matter, far as I’m aware.
Also Mother won’t have anything for mains unless you have a Rank 3 on another character that your main doesn’t have.
Congrats, you just discovered if you like playing different roles, they want you to regrind almost all of it.
Yup, as Rhuor said, this is essence specific. There are no “counterparts” for unlocks. It needs to be rank three and it’ll only be that specifically named essence. And you need the currency to purchase it on an alt.
Wow that F-ing sucks, and here I thought I could just log into my warrior to get it asap.
Wow blizzard, you did me in the a*s again 
While I do agree that it screws over basically anyone not playing a Druid, Paladin, or Monk, it was specifically stated that:
They did clarify that it has to be a Rank 3 Essence that a character on your account has obtained.
Regardless, they should look into this. I agree it isn’t the best fix they could have done.
It is absolutely not, because it brings down the whole purpose of gearing an alt character. I only feel bad because I have to grind again horriffic visions, but that can be done easily if one person helps me out with them, so probably I only need to full clear 5 or 6 of them, which in all due honesty isn’t THAT bad. However, I do feel bad for people that have played a dps class since the very beggining and never had a chance to get the other essences due to they not being available to them.
Oh there’s no denying they did a bandaid fix that didn’t address some major issues with Essences (which I still believe were bandaid fixes on their own to the failure of Azerite).
I lucked out, playing a Druid. But I feel for those who either switched mains or mained pure DPS. I sincerely hope they do something about it.
I thought they said something about unlocking essences for other roles if your main met the requirements in the initial announcement… I’m gonna go check.
*edit:
Looks like just the Mechagon and Nazjatar ones should be unlocked regardless of your role assuming they stuck to this initial plan.
Okay just checked on my Paladin alt after logging into this Shaman and I can buy the tank essences from Mechagon and Nazjatar on my Paladin.
Oh, I have to check that then if that’s the case, that’s a relief for me to hear!
Nazj/Mech essences unlocked for all roles was stated in their original announcement about this. I think players glossed over that section and assumed all essences would work that way, but it specifically did only say that applied to Nazj/Mech essences.
They should make Eternal Palace, Battleground, Mythic+ and Rajani/Uldum Accord reputation Essences work like Nazjatar/Mechagone do, unlock all roles if you have at least one of any role already unlocked… Stop punishing those who play pure DPS mains.
Not really regrinding. They aren’t the same essence, so they wouldn’t be unlocked anyway.
But why have one rule for reputation essences (which includes all specs) and not have it for another? Getting punished for not playing a druid/pally Seems pretty sh*te to me 
really poor system, that layers on a system, that layers on another system. I’m not renewing my sub next week.
They are from same source that require same grind… So they are the same and should be unlocked for all roles as long as you have at least one for any role unlocked.
Bandaid fix is right. This is the quality we get when Ion and company act stubborn until they’re forced to react and run around like chickens with their heads cut off.
Imagine if they just started working on good systems from the beginning… Then they wouldn’t have to freak out and release broken content when subs drop to nil.
No need to question me on that, I’m just responding and even acknowledged that it’s a horrid system after. They did add clarification is all I’m saying so expecting otherwise is on the fault of the individual, not Blizzard.
With that said, they should just allow the purchase of any R3 Essence regardless of if you have it or not. It’s the end of the expansion, who cares if we get things now.
Yeah, Ion has this opinion of games that doesn’t honestly seem to be shared with the vast majority of people. I respect that games are subjective works of art but they continue to make the same mistake and have to desperately scramble to fix things when it blows up in their faces. Azerite failed miserably so they scrambled to make Essences with rather boring, reused Azerite effects from bosses. Their response to the unfriendliness of Essences for alts was very unpopular and now they scrambled to make this new system with so many flaws it’s hilarious.
Making good decisions for the game from the start would save them the heart ache later. They just don’t seem to agree on what the good decisions would be at the start.
You only have access to the essences you have already earned (with the exception of the two 8.2 reputation ones). So if you only bought the DPS version of an essences, you will not have access to the tank or healing version of that same essence.
The issue I see is that two people could have spent the exact same amount of time playing DPS in the exact same content from 8.2 til now and one could have unlocked all three essence roles just by playing on a hybrid class.
So now if both want to switch over to a different alt and heal, for example, the one who played the hybrid class will have far less time required to get their healer essences on that alt than the one who didn’t, because the original hybrid player will be able to take advantage of this new system.
That’s definitely something that should be addressed. There’s really no reason to shrug and go “oh well, sucks for you” at this point in the expansion.
We can’t expect them to be psychic, but when it comes down to something where people are saying they don’t like it (for the most part - there will always be people who take the opposite stance), that’s where the stubbornness problem kicks in.
Blizzard response: “You’re wrong, you’ll love it/it’s our philosophy. We aren’t changing it.” They’ve been doing this for the last 6 years and it hasn’t worked out for them, ever. That’s what’s so disappointing to me… if it were a one-time system that they were stubborn about and then got better I’d say hey they do listen to feedback.
When it’s nonstop for over half a decade, it means something is wrong with the people running the game from a professionalism standpoint.