They could also just make it easier to get azerite armor. Not TOO easy; gear inflation is real, but maybe make it so if you do something above a +10 you get more Residuum.
The CS responses were an amusing.
First glaring issue with their argument I notice is they treat Azerite pieces as if they were any old off-piece that we may have acquired, both in the past and present. This is flawed logic that only serves to undermine the issue of the topic, while completely disregarding where much of the value for these item is coming from and the lessons learned - supposedly - from past systems like functioned very similarly but were scrapped.
Tackling the lessons learned part first, weâve had systems that required players to repeatedly pay into the system in order to engage in some aspect of their character or improve performance.
- Playerâs were required to head to their capital and pay a vendor to respec their class in the past and it too had a growing cost.
- For the classes that have different role specializations - tank, dps, and heal - their tier set bonuses weâre split into different sets based on the role they fulfilled.
Now the solution to these examples may have been driven by the down time created from having to leave the instance, but that only begs the question, âWhy implement another system with the same restrictions?â If someone makes a mistake with a new piece, if they need to change roles for an encounter, or if they just want to have fun doing something different from their usual routine that player would have to create down time in order to achieve their desired results.
The solution to reduce downtime obtaining gear also required a solution for classes that required various sets for different roles; we got tier sets whose set bonuses changed dynamically based on your spec and the role it served. This creates the expectation that any tier-like pieces going forward would follow the same logic, and when it doesnât it can lead to inconveniences not experienced in years or ever for some people.
Now lets look at a comment like this:
Some people might see this and actually think that using an Azerite piece without the spec specific trait active is equivalent to using a less-than-ideal off piece. Itâs not.
Using my character as an example, let us assume that my set up was the following for Assassination:
- Helm -Shrouded Suffocation
- Shoulders - Archive of the Titan
- Chest - Laser Matrix
Today, however, I decide Iâm not feeling Assassination so Iâd rather play Subtlety, but for whatever reason - maybe the price is too high, or Iâm too cheap - I donât want to pay to change my traits for a more ideal Subtlety setup. In other words, my shoulders would not be using Inevitability and my helm would offer nothing as Shrouded Suffocation is exclusively for Assassination. Using:
- 100,000 iterations
- 300 seconds
- Light Movement
- 1 Boss
- Nightly build
According to Raidbots, I would be losing 5.5% compared to my current set up. If not only my helm but my shoulders had spec restrictive traits too, that would be an additional 2.4% gone.
Now some might say this is too nit-picky, too min-max or hardcore and maybe theyâre right. As Bornakk also pointed out
In other words we all have different opinions on what constitutes an acceptable loss, or at least acceptable loss in relation to the inconvenience of address the issue. So maybe a 5.5-7.9% loss is acceptable to some, or at least seems so at face value. I mean there hasnât really been any perspective provided to explain if 5% is a lot or a little.
So in order to provide some, here were a few other tests and their results:
- Side grade boots > 0.1% loss - Difference: 79 crit, 105 mastery (Emblazoned Tempest Boots of the Peerless)
- 375 Helm > 2.2% loss - Traits: The First Dance, Earthlink (Honorbound Outriderâs Headpiece)
- No Wrists > 7.2% loss
- No Gloves/Belt> 8.1% and 8.3% loss
Basically, not having access to one or either trait in my helm and shoulders is practically equivalent to removing 385+ pieces completely. Thereâs no substitute, just an empty slot.
That seems fairly significant to me, especially when the difference is being portrait like itâs some negligible, 0.1% side grade in either direction.
Another common theme seems to be the idea that everyone is lucky as all hell and has access to multiple alternatives. Iâve only got 1 other 390 piece thatâs not currently equipped and the rest are 375, or worse, that total 4 pieces in all across all 3 slots. Seems like it could be pretty difficult to cover all 3 slots for all specs while achieving a side-grade level of difference in performance compared to the value of a piece after re-traiting. Again, unless youâre very lucky with mythic+ caches or no one else needs or wants multiple copies from mythic raids I donât see minor loss in performance being achievable unless comparing an empty, inactive slot to anything.
All this isnât to say that the core of this system is trash, just the current implementation. Assuming this trait system is expected to persist beyond Battle for Azeroth and isnât just some kind of expansion-long beta-experiment for the next one, is the plan to just keep this aspect as is going forward. Are we really going to have stop everything weâre doing, travel back to our city, and pay some NPC anytime we want to make changes in future expansions? Could you not draw the comparison to the talent system and come up with a similar solution?
Personally I donât see how offer the same mechanics for changing talents would break the game if they were offered for Azerite armor. Basically thatâs the ability to change traits in a rested area for free, or, through some kind of method like the Tome of the Tranquil Mind, the ability to change anywhere at cost.
My view of the current implementation of this system is it is game-play restrictive purely for the sake of functioning as a gold sink. I call it a gold sink because what other justification is there to have a cost that has a multiplicative growth rate with no cap on a feature that is supposed to allow players access to all aspects of the game without being overly convenient? This could be someones 5 million gold mount, except you get no mount and no convenience.
15 Likes
This is the best Iâve been able to find as an answer:
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Pretty much.
People arenât arguing to be able to switch traits whenever they want WITHIN a given spec for AoE vs ST - theyâre just wanting to be able to access optimal traits when they have to take one for the team and take on a healing or tanking role.
According to one of the BLUE responses - itâa not a matter of harm; Blizzard thinks itâs a good thing:
I still have different pieces, regardless. Rings, trinkets, etc. Secondaries are still different for my Resto druid compared to my Balance spec. Perhaps not as much as I used to have to carry, but still stuff. And thatâs fine by me. Itâs what I signed up for in being a class that has four roles.
Iâve been carrying around 2-4 sets of armor in my bags since Vanilla. I fail to understand why people think that Azerite armor is somehow new to gearing for offspecs. Because youâre right: I still have the option to swap traits on one set if I want. Which is something we didnât have before.
Does everyone suddenly forget Legion, where you had to level up more than one weapon and AP didnât count towards the other weapons?
Itâs player choice to have several specs that are viable. Thatâs not Blizzard punishing anyone, OP.
Legion Tier sets switched their bonus when you changed specs. The questions is: What BENEFIT is provided by removing this functionality?
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More and more I wish this game was more like Overwatch. Bring yourself, your toon(s), and your skill. Smash stuff. Grind for the pretties.
This system is in place for the people thst like to spreadsheet/minmax. Something for everyone. Honest though, the differences arenât really huge overall and since most content has a floor that once you clear it, itâs all gravy, its not that relevant either.
Wrong equivalent. Azerite armor isnât a tier set. At all. Itâs the new equivalent to the Artifact weapons. And the upgrade from the Artifact weapon is that the same AP counts towards swapping traits in the same gear for different specs and for new pieces that you receive.
You people wanted reforging and you got it. Now youâre complaining that you have it? That astounds me.
And again, people who choose to run multiple specs have ALWAYS had to carry extra sets of gear. This isnât new and itâs not a punishment.
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Have some ![:beers:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/beers.png?v=6" ":beers:")
on me. ![:kiss:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/kiss.png?v=6" ":kiss:")
1 Like
It replaced tier sets. The traits replaced the weapon traits.
You can still have separate traits for each spec and have those selections switch when you change specs.
No⌠it replaced Artifact weapons. Not tier. Tier was just left out entirely. We didnât gain AP for tier. We did for Artifacts. Which why the gear is the same rarity color as Artifacts. Itâs artifact gear. Not tier. Even the traits are similar to Artifact traits.
So youâre wrong.
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Youâre adorable.
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AlrightâŚ
gotta tab out the game, for like 20-30 minutes. checking three websites, a simcraft program, herodamage, raidbots, try to find statweights, make sure the profiles are up to dateâŚ
Spend my night setting up weights and addons to track them and sims to run them and logs to compare so I can run a damn dungeon. Out all these weights, then find the right sim, thatâs going to look at item level, additions like sockets, azerite trait, azerite ilevel, as well as stacksâŚ
Going to be honest, itâs trash. This whole idea that we are expected to be able to look at a piece of gear and know if we need it or not is complete garbage. Not only do we have to horde the pieces because itâs blizzard and youâll nerf and buff, nerf and bufff, cause you canât figure out in the fourteenth year ppl are going to stack haste. So we have to make sure when you throw down the nerfs we got the next stat to stack.
I remember back when hit and def caps were taken out of the game under the umbrella of streamlining the game. Can you honestly tell me that you guys over there think you have done that?
Throwing money at raidbots. throwin money at mr.robot just to pay them to speed up these sims so maybe i can tab back into the game and still have time to pass the gear off to another player in the party. Fun fun fun.
I try to actually play the game and not spend an hour of what little playtime I have running sims and figuring out combinations trying to decipher this exciting package of stat buffs.
Sit there and act like comparing trinket lists was nearly as time consuming as the gauntlet you guys put us through now. Itâs insulting. Just absurd design philosophy from the ground up.
4 Likes
The sad part is all of this would still be needed even if they cut us some slack on role switching.
But being cut some slack when weâre willing to take one for the team and tank/heal would at least be a HUGE help in various ways.
The difference is, before you were able to still determine what will be best within the game. In the past, the websites and simming just sped things up, or made it easy for lazy people. Even during reforging, you could sit there and do the math in game and determine what will be best +/- a small percent. I have played since Vanilla, I have excelled at my class and spec at all times throughout, and I have never needed a website or spreadsheet to determine what is best for healing. Occasionally, a trinket website was helpful for DPS alts / offspecs (specifically during siege of org), but that was literally a check the website, âok this trinket is betterâ, close the website situation.
Now? Itâs not even close to the same as any point in WoWâs history. The vast majority of the time, there isnât enough information provided in game to be able to logic or math out what will work best or be an improvement. By this I mean, there is zero elaboration as to Azerite trait proc chances, proc rates, the effect of stacking traits or lack thereof, etc.
The fact that you are implying it isnât different now is both insulting to the player base intelligence and contradictory to Blizzardâs previous stances (read: previous Blizzard logic as to why reforging was removed).
The community had already reached a consensus on this topic throughout discussion this expansion, and from the questions posed at all of the Dev Q&A periods as well.
If you honestly believe the current Azerite trait system is even close to being the same as any previous expansion, then you clearly fit under one of these two categories:
- Youâve never played the game
- Youâve played this expansion, but nothing previous
There is no other way to explain how you havenât personally noticed the difference (even if you were still doing it in the past, you would have come across situations you did not need to open any website up for), and the difference in community backlash as well.
You can boil my entire post down to âthere is zero elaboration as to Azerite trait proc chances, proc rates, the effect of stacking traits or lack thereof, etc.â if you would like. That is a large reason for the backlash, and the reason for people requiring spreadsheets and addons to try and figure out what the actual data is. If you just provided it to us like it always has been (or at least was always easy to determine), it would solve a lot of issues.
5 Likes
oh yeah definitely. My entire 5 man group broke up because no one wanted to do anything besides what they were going to raid as, dps. Back in wrath and cata, if I wanted to help tank to get us through stuff all I needed was a shield, a one hander, and my defense/hit capped, and I could let my skill do the rest.
Now, no one wants to do it because if you decide to do it, you gotta do all this extra nonsense like constantly switching traits just to boost the stats you need to be effective. This games just gotten so out of hand with all the stuff that takes you out of the game, and its all for nothing.
Itâs not like iâm being immersed in a quest for knowledge, no Iâm just running equations and simulations over and over because blizzard lacks vision when it comes to gear progression.
5 Likes
I donât understand why itâs so hard for azerite to just change depending on specâŚ
5 Likes
yea or just spend their time making gear look cool cause thats why ppl originally wanted stuff, and make a better talent tree. I feel like this entire situation we are in is rooted in the decision to only allow us to make 7* choices for talents in 120 levels.