BFA is the first expansion where we lose more than we gain.

[Deleted]

If we go ahead and ignore the stat squish, which is something that comes down to personal taste since its just numbers:


- We lose Tiersets. While they tended to lock down slots in armor, they are still more interesting than "stamina crit and hast" on a slot.

- We lose legendaries which where a nice way to customize classes. Especially in mythic+ you find yourself often switching between them for different situations. The method of acquiring these obviously sucked, but the idea itself was really really good. They do implement a few as talents, but thats it.

- Artifact weapons are gone, and with them a million passives (remember, WoD had passives as well while you leveled up). This time around, there won't be any passives from leveling, and there wont be any passives from artifact weapons.

- We trade in 20+ passives that completely changed how a class worked or had nice small effects for THREE effects from our Azerite "tierset".



- We lose effects such as execute for Assa Rogues, Full Moon for owls, fall damage immunity for rogues, purgatory-lite for Fury warriors, sprint on leap for arms warriors, Ebonbolt for mages, the list goes on forever. One wonders how an elemental shaman will ever be able to do DPS without his legendary boots and gloves.

- Visual diversity will be gone. With no more artifact weapons, their transmogs are gone (old ones stay, obviously.) and with the removal of tiersets, i fear that every mail, leather, plate and cloth wearer will look the same, akin to Trial of Crusader tiersets.

- Many classes class identity will suffer greatly from this. They feel incomplete and i HIGHLY doubt that 3 traits can change that.

- No level 120 talents, no "new" talents, no active effect from the azerite neck itself, no new spells for any class, nothing.

[seraknis]

Yeah, what's the point of this post?

[ReVnX]

- "We lose Tiersets" Good thing, locked items never to be replaced
- "We lose legendaries" Good thing, locked items never to be replaced
- "Artifact weapons are gone" The interesting passives and skills should be made baseline/talents/azerite
- "Visual diversity will be gone" Tier visuals are not going anywhere, only the tier set bonuses

[Dazkareith]

I wonder where you get all this information, and how you can at least do this tread so ill informed.

[Teri]

Spec-bound legendaries and artifacts being gone is a good thing.

At least the necklace/azerite works for all specs.

Now, max level tuning is a different story and I doubt they are even testing that in Alpha right now.

[Deleted]

- "We lose Tiersets" Good thing, locked items never to be replaced
- "We lose legendaries" Good thing, locked items never to be replaced

First, you constantly changed out legendaries. A hunter as example constantly switches between them in m+, same with warlocks.

Secondly, do you think the removal of tiersets changes anything? You get your BiS stat item and thats never gonna be replaced. But you lose set boni, and in return receive a stat stick that locks down the slot just as much because of its stats.

[Nevcairiel]

- We trade in 20+ passives that completely changed how a class worked or had nice small effects for THREE effects from our Azerite "tierset".

You got this wrong, though. You get up to 4 effects from every piece of Azerite gear, 3 rings with choices and a final fixed one in the middle, which right now are planned to be Head, Shoulders and Chest, so a total of 12 effects. If you remove all the passive effects which just increased your power by x%, how many are really left?

These effects also tie-in to your first two points: They replace legendaries and their effects at varying levels of strength, as well as the effects of tier sets.
You can also opt to change your Azerite gear to obtain different effects in different content, ie. just like legendaries.

At the end of the day, Azerite gear is a combination of what worked well about legendaries (interesting ability changes, and a choice which to use), and the Artifact weapon - unlocking more power over time, as you unlock the inner rings of the Azerite gear.

PS:
In case that wasn't clear, Azerite bonuses are bound to the items in those 3 Azerite slots, so exchanging the item also gives you potentially different bonuses to choose from. Or even using the same item with a different choice in Azerite affixes might be a possibility.

[Rorixis]

Sometimes "Less is more". Removing choice-less fluff can bring new depth to a class through fewer but more meaningful choices. That's the idea behind the changes.

I don't believe we can affect the overarching idea behind this but if you are concerned about individual things that are being removed you should give the feedback that you want certain things to stay during the beta period. For example you can ask them to add Full Moon as a talent or make fall immunity baseline for sub rogues and so on.

[ReVnX]

First, you constantly changed out legendaries. A hunter as example constantly switches between them in m+, same with warlocks.

Secondly, do you think the removal of tiersets changes anything? You get your BiS stat item and thats never gonna be replaced. But you lose set boni, and in return receive a stat stick that locks down the slot just as much because of its stats.

I have some BiS legendaries, I use them all the time until some others sim better(which at this point will rarely happen) end of story.

I'm getting lots of upgrades even 40 o 50 ilvls higher than the tier I'm using, which I could NEVER wear because I lose the stupidly OP tier bonuses without which my class cannot operate at a decent level

[Inukashi]

Losing stuff isn't always bad.

Massives changes are good, even if the changes itself may be bad.

Just think WoW would always be the same. Take your favourite talent tree system. Now imagine you would have this system since the very beginning with only minor tweaks every addon. It would be totally boring. Just Imagine we would have artifactweapons since classic. How interesting would the next addon be? “So what did Druid healers get this time? Another stick with leaves?“

I'm happy with a new system every addon, even if the new system might not be as good as the old one sometimes.

[klaps_05]

The new 3 special items are basically your tier set. Was trying to manage a 4-set bonus really that engaging? Also, you arent getting 3 traits and a Legendary in the middle. You get 3 traits PER each of the 3 empowered items and 1 special effect (center) from each one. If you remove all the static +dmg on an artifact, the number is almost the same.

The legendary-type effects are not gone - they are the center talent of each helm/shoulder/chest. So technically in BFA you will be able to equip 3 Legion-legendaries effects. I see here the full benefits of legendaries without the whole Legion legendary system majority of people didnt like.

Artifacts: Passive arent really engaging and you still get them, but instead of 20 or so random ones, you get to combine different ones based on what you want dmg/survivabiity/utility/etc. from the rings. +12% Pyro dmg? +10% proc? No actual gameplay impact. I assume they will take the Artifact traits which actually did something (like Blazing barrier reducing physical dmg or Blink healing for mages) and maybe 1 ring with +% dmg/heal for XYZ abilities.

Visuals: you keep all your skins and can now freely transmog, the sets from pve/pvp/warfronts look absolutely outstanding, different AND have different levels you can progress through.

Multiple new spells have been datamined - from legendaries turning into talents or classes straight up getting new spells, you do get new stuff. I would also like to see level 120 talents, but BFA will be fine without too.

So:

- no more pain the ass tier slots
- as long as the drops have the secondaries you want, its an upgrade
- no boring artifact passives, only ones that impact gameplay
- 3 legendary effects at once
- no more being limited to a type of weapon you use!

My suggestion is to go through wowhead or mmoc front pages and actually read up.

[Orwell7]

which I could NEVER wear because I lose the stupidly OP tier bonuses without which my class cannot operate at a decent level

Why do you want to replace them in the first place?
To be stronger ain't ya. So if you could not see the ilvls you won't be bothered at all.

With BfA, there won't be any new "omg" moments when you complete a set, less excitement is always... fun..?
So you got to play the same rotations for 2 years straight! Hooray!

Also the legendary system isjust a sucky Glyph system.
Remember that? You could have 3 major and 3 minor glyphs. The major glyphs were as strong as legendaries now, EXCEPT you didn't have to shuffle your gear all the time, and you didn't have to pray to RNGsus, so more slots were "exciting".

In bfa, do you think that getting a chest or waist 10 ilvls higher would be exciting? You just right click it and forget about it forever.

I get your pint that the CURRENT legendary system, with titanforging, sucks. But please do not accept any alternative just because it is not the same!

[Swizzle]

Sometimes "Less is more". Removing choice-less fluff can bring new depth to a class through fewer but more meaningful choices. That's the idea behind the changes.

I don't believe we can affect the overarching idea behind this but if you are concerned about individual things that are being removed you should give the feedback that you want certain things to stay during the beta period. For example you can ask them to add Full Moon as a talent or make fall immunity baseline for sub rogues and so on.

The thing with BfA is that, as of right now, this is the first expansion where we gain nothing new while leveling. There is no new max level spell for a class, there are no new talent rows, and we don't seem to unlock any new perks while leveling either. What we are being given back as talents, for some classes, is what we had halfway through Legion. It's a strange feeling gameplay wise to have your character get demonstrably weaker as you progress in levels and this is the first time Blizzard is trying this. Sure it makes sense thematically since we are essentially giving up the strongest weapons on the planet to do something in Silithus, but progression is going to feel off until you're 120.

[ReVnX]

I get your pint that the CURRENT legendary system, with titanforging, sucks. But please do not accept any alternative just because it is not the same!

You are right, the current Titanforging system is the problem but sadly they are not going to remove it in BfA.

I'm happy that the Azerite items are not going to warforge at all, and the weapons cannot titanforge

[Castrum]

The de-powering of our toons is going to hurt. I knew this from the second Artifact Weps were announced. We're headed back to boring combat visuals and dime-a-dozen weapons.

[Cyanu]

yeah we lose a sea of pointless PASSIVES that add nothing to the game, don't you get it? essentially they nerfed all of our skills so that their dmg can be increased via the artifact passives

the legendaries are a loss indeed but many players hated them with passion, so they got what they asked for, this is community feedback

now tiersets? that's great news indeed, tiersets either sucked or everyone ended up asking 'why is that not part of the spec already?' not to mention that they restricted your talent builds because X talent scales better with the set bonus, good riddance

the stat squish should be ignored like you said because relative dmg matters not absolute, in some fantasy patch you might as well one shot people with 80 dmg in other 1M damage barely tickles

btw you're wrong about the 'no new class spells' part, a number of pruned skills is returning while some specs are receiving completely new talents/skills, while the best of artifact traits are going to be implemented as talents

[HuxNeva]

I have some BiS legendaries, I use them all the time until some others sim better(which at this point will rarely happen) end of story.

Casual Raid-Logger? Legendaries provide circumstantial advantages that go far beyond dps meter-whoring.

[Swizzle]

btw you're wrong about the 'no new class spells' part, a number of pruned skills is returning while some specs are receiving completely new talents/skills, while the best of artifact traits are going to be implemented as talents

So it's not wrong...giving back something you had already isn't new. Spellsteal, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Time Warp, and Altered Time. Those were new abilities that rewarded a player for getting max level. Getting Phoenix Flames as a talent isn't the same thing.

So far, as of 2/13/2018, no new abilities have been announced for reaching 120. Not a single one.

[Nevcairiel]

The thing with BfA is that, as of right now, this is the first expansion where we gain nothing new while leveling.

You'll get the Heart of Azeroth and obtain and unlock the first Azerite gear affixes, and I would assume also start increasing the power of the Heart, further unlocking more Azerite affixes on your way to 120. How is there no secondary progression here? Seems quite similar to Artifact progression during leveling.

[Deleted]

@OP every item you listed is everything that I personally can't wait to be gone.

- We lose Tiersets. - As of late they have proven that they are unable to create good tier set bonuses (like previous tier bonuses with 40ilvl less is on par and sometimes better than current tier bonuses with 40ilvl ahead)

- We lose legendaries - Yeah, rolling with bags full of legendary items .. no thank you

- Artifact weapons are gone, and with them a million passives - Specs will get reworked ... also nothing interesting in having a list of passives unlocked

- We trade in 20+ passives that completely changed how a class worked or had nice small effects for THREE effects from our Azerite "tierset".