No. That’s choice Blizzard did by not making traits switch with spec.
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Important question: are you a Mythic raider? Or perhaps a high rank PvPer?
You’d still go out and farm/grind for a better trait on a different piece of gear. And then you’d have that piece of gear in your bags.
I’ve been unwilling to let it get to the high cumulative levels, so I’ve never reforged a single piece.
If a reforge snob says I’m using the wrong trait, I need to be able to reforge, AND reforge back.
I do have one deviation from WoWhead’s BM hunter guide, but only because it works for the overworld better. This is the kind of thing that could lock me out of content.
I probably should have just taken the “better” trait, but since I don’t get invited to content, that would be crippling myself.
An in-game “Azerite Browser” would go a long way. Some sort of interface where we can see all possible azerite traits available for each spec, and maybe allow us to “favourite” traits so that whenever they show up on new gear they’re highlighted or something.
You get to recognising the icons pretty quickly, and as I believe a green above pointed out there’s not really a great way to display that given each piece has multiple traits. Just look yourself up on raider io to get an idea of how ugly it looks.
Blizzard’s old mantra: launch when it’s ready
Blizzard’s new mantra: it’s a little worse
These are good questions, actually. Thank you for participating in this discussion and asking probing questions, this isn’t the kind of thing we see often these days. I know you are a CM and not a dev, but yeah.
I guess I should say first off that I am not currently a progression raider. I have been in the past though, so hopefully I can put some perspective there. I tend to put a lot of research into what I need to put up good numbers, because I am a performance-driven person and if I am part of a guild or raiding group I will try to be competitive. If I had the option of using a piece for a .1% increase, I would definitely keep it. But if I had other uses for the piece I was replacing, I would keep that piece as well. Hopefully that answers that.
It’s true that in the past it has been ideal to keep gear too, for different specs, stats, or PVP when that gear was itemized separately (resilience, PVP power, etc.). I just think that now people probably have more helms, shoulders and chest pieces than they did in the past. Any other slot piece is typically saved for the stats.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a problem or that we don’t have space, I was just pointing out that I think it is still necessary to hold on to gear and it hasn’t changed with BfA due to the nature of Azerite gear. It is kind of funny to think about with all the changes that have been made to itemization and stats over time, that we still manage to keep a bag or two full of gear in some cases.
This is kind of a tough question, actually. My play style varies depending on which content I am doing so I tend to switch talents and gear and like to keep options available depending on what I’m doing. I don’t really like being caught with the wrong talents or gear on (but it does happen a lot ![:sweat_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/sweat_smile.png?v=6" ":sweat_smile:")
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I will say that sometimes there are talents or traits I strongly dislike but I use them anyway if the performance deficit is big enough. One example is the Inevitable Demise trait for Affliction, I don’t really like how it works or that it holds Affliction hostage in PVP but I use it anyway because it is by far the best trait, there really is no competition.
I do have 30 slot bags, and BfA/Azerite gear takes up just a bit more space than gear did by the end of Legion for me. Hard to say if this will change throughout BfA or remain the same. Obviously I will hit a point where I don’t want to use 370 gear anymore, but only if the traits on the new gear are truly better or I find a replacement piece with the same trait but higher item level.
I guess my biggest question about Azerite is why it was decided that it was better to be attached to armor rather than have its own interface. Personally I would have liked if the traits were tied to progression but either had their own interface or were part of the Heart of Azeroth. I think this is something Ion touched on at Blizzcon when he mentioned that they were talking internally about putting some traits on the Heart of Azeroth. BTW I know this wouldn’t do anything about ‘bag clutter’ as it is perceived because people would still hold on to helms/shoulders/chests for the secondary stats, just what I think would have been a better implementation of Azerite traits and also more player-friendly for swapping them out if we have done the required content instead of only having access to what is in our bags at any given time.
This is a little RP-ish, but it also doesn’t seem like our character has much interaction with the Heart of Azeroth like they did with the artifact weapon. There is no customization, apart from choosing traits on armor pieces. The Heart is almost always hidden because it is a neckpiece, and by now we were working on appearances for our artifacts in Legion. Customization is one thing that feels pretty stale in BfA to me that actually felt pretty good in Legion.
Personally, I don’t care which trait is “the best” anymore. I want to use whatever trait seems fun. I always use Overflowing Shores on my Resto Shaman because I like it. I have no idea how it actually sims, and nor do I care. And I think that’s kind of what Blizzard is aiming for.
But what if I have a 360 shoulder with Overflowing Shores, and all of a sudden I get a 375 chestpiece with the same trait on it. Should I double up the trait? Use it and reforge my head piece to use on another spec? Should I use it for Enh or Ele? Wait, what do these traits do again? Is this any good? This Enh trait looks good but do I already have it on my Enh shoulders? Ok if i swap over to these shoulders on Ele then I could use this piece on Enh, but oh crap now I’m doubling up on that other trait, is it worth it to reforge? Wait, where the hell did THAT Azerite piece come from? Now I have to do it all over again and oh dear my brain hurts I think I’ll log off.
It’s less min/maxing and more ocd, if anything.
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Role switching punishment is not the only example of previously removed game aspects that have been re-introduced. Whatever happened to “bring the player, not the class?” Hello, lock portals for Ghuun and rampant anti-melee encounters. Let’s not forget ilvl 370 shadow priests who dps like 350 hunters and radical tank imbalance causing gross over and under representation.
When previously removed aspects rear their heads again, it causes us to wonder if it happened for a reason or was just a mistake. Force people to re-roll a new class, investing more time or money? I can understand from a business perspective but I wouldn’t want to be a blue here trying to explain it. I hope they are paid well.
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This is true, but I think the high costs is supposed to discourage this kind of frequent switching. I think a better question to ask is why do some people feel the need to reforge so much in the first place.
I understand your point that keeping multiple sets of gear to use for different types of game play ie: PvP, dungeons & raids, PVE world content etc… The main problem I’ve noticed, which I hope they fix in 8.1, is the availability of gear upgrades through the content players do on a daily basis. Mainly the availability of gear upgrades through emissary quests - an their related world quests. I’m not saying we should be able to get M-raiding gear through world quests an their related emissaries, but we should at least get heroic equivalents specifically once we’re already geared beyond the normal range. example being say you’re gear is above 350 item level you should be getting 355+ item level upgrades from various sources instead of just Mythic+ or heroic an mythic raiding. Also the availability of specifically azerite pieces is horrible which is what I think is the reason the OP is upset about the ramped up cost of reforging cost of his/her azerite gear. A fix that could be implemented is you reforge 1 piece for 5g (head) then if you want to reforge the other 2 pieces (shoulder an chest) each of those could be reforged for 5g each, after that each piece be doubled if needed to be reforged before the 24 hour period in which the system is designed each piece having a separate calculator for cost. I know that would sorta complicate things a bit code wise, but it’d fix the severe ramp up of reforging costs to reforge a set once or twice within the set 24 hour tome period based on the first reforge done. ( 5+10+20=35g for a set) then (40+80+160=280g) to reforge back in <24 hours. it should be (5+5+5=15g) for first reforge, then (10+10+10=30g) to reforge back in <24 hours etc…
There’s also the issue of similarly-named pieces not swapping over when I change spec.
For example let’s say I have two pieces of Briarfart Shoulders or whatever. I have a Holy trait in one, and Ret trait in the other. Well if I swap from Holy to Ret, my shoulders don’t automatically swap over to the piece with the Ret trait because the name is similar. The only reason I notice is because transmog is bound to individual gear, not gear slots.
Now I’m using Outfitter, not the in-game EQ manager, but I’m guessing it’s the same problem.
I think blizzard’s EQ manager should work correctly, as it doesn’t use item names, but theirs GUID’s instead.
Guys like it or not. In order to be as optimal as possible everyone should have multiple sets of gear. For specs or even different situations with the current azerite talents.
I have always had multiple sets of gear on classes with multiple specs. I have always used different mogs for each set/spec ever since xmog became a thing.
Dont waste gold reforging make multiple sets and just adapt.
It’s hard to adapt to something as bad as azerite armor.
It does seem like very few people remember having to have multiple sets of tier gear, etc.
Shh, we wanted something easier to manage… also to rehash the Legion system as somehow new and innovative.
For a while, my most useful tank and dps traits by far for one slot were on the same piece. Another slot was an Uldir piece that made me choose between my first Archive and my only Waking Dream – which at the time was a tradeoff depending on whether you were physically inside Uldir or not. Today, I have a chest piece that makes me choose between an RA trait and Lively Spirit, which has the same problem – except one of those is getting nerfed soon because someone in a tournament ate a lucky double-crit when he let a boomie get loose after spending the whole match chargin his lazor, so I can’t even count on that ranking to stay static.
Obviously reforging isn’t quite so much of a problem once you have Heroic Uldir on farm for a month or two. But obviously that’s not an option for everyone and it was rough for a while before that – especially if my raid needed anyone to switch roles on a progression boss where they couldn’t afford to have half-assed traits.
So keep two sets?? Hybrids dont get to have their cake and eat it too. You want to be able to play different roles on the same toon?? You have to get different sets of gear. It’s only fair!
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