Any particular reason Azerite gear doesn't have secondary stats?

[Barnabas]

That answer would only be correct if gear still worked on the vanilla basis of %based stats like 2% crit chance. We have ratings for this exact reason, every level you gain requires higher rating to reach the same % levels, this is what stops people wearing the same gear from expansion to expansion, it has absolutely nothing to do with a stat squish, we have had squishes before and nothing changed, the squish is because of ilvls once again being over inflated too quickly.

It is entirely because of what Haidaes and Yggdrasil said, they want traits and ilvl to be the deciding factor when you compare gear upgrades, too often you get an "upgrade" ilvl wise but because of secondaries it is actually a downgrade that you only know by math calculations which they deem as not fun for the majority of people, and while i agree with them on it i most definitely do not agree with their solution of just removing the stats completely.

those are all valid points. i'm still going to stick by my comment though.

[klaps_05]

...that's not a good reason. Artifact weapons and legendaries still had secondary stats despite having other effects, so as to, ya know, not fuck over specs that rely on them heavily.

you didnt have a choice with your artifact. if azerite gear had 2ndaries, the value of some traits will be lower if the armor gives your worst stats. they want to keep the sim focused on the traits alone.

[Re4leader1]

Too much work for blizz to add more depth

[vertigo12]

3 words: HoA

[Wvvtayy]

3 words: HoA

That doesn't give nearly enough stats to make up for all that's missing from the Azerite pieces

[Izenhart]

Aside from the already announced attempt at weakening the secondary stats to prevent people from sticking with gear 30ilvl lower than a possible upgrade simply because of secondaries;

There is a finite amount of loot you can fit into the loot table of raid and dungeon bosses, which is where good azerite armor will drop.

Uldir right now has a single chest drop for cloth wearers, and just 2 shoulders/helmets, same for other armor types, 1/2/2 2/1/2 2/2/1.

If you have cloth classes needing to stack Mastery/Haste/Crit you'd need by default 3 copies of each for each stat, that's 4 extra pieces on the loot table, repeat that for all the other 3 armor types, that's 16 extra pieces on the loot table of a raid.

And dungeons are even worse, since M+ doesn't drop AA but just the cache does, you'd be even more at the mercy of RNG on whether or not you get the AA from the cache in the first place, and then it'd have to be the one with the BiS secondary for your spec.

[Armourboy]

Not in BFA there won't be

Fire Mage says Hi.

It's still very crit dependent and will be it's biggest issue early in the expansion, just like early in every expansion except Legion. There are still several specs that rely heavily on secondary stats to function in a fluid and consistent manner.

[Deleted]

Fire Mage says Hi.

It's still very crit dependent and will be it's biggest issue early in the expansion, just like early in every expansion except Legion. There are still several specs that rely heavily on secondary stats to function in a fluid and consistent manner.

And people generally don't play those specs early on, which is fine.

[Armourboy]

And people generally don't play those specs early on, which is fine.

No it's really not. Specs shouldn't be avoided because Blizzard can't get secondary stats to a good point.

[vertigo12]

By the time you deal with the first boss of Uldir during its first wing opening Heart of Azeroth might have ample stat weight and rating to make you function and contribute enough to make a successful kill.

The first time you aquire HoA and through various quests, dungeons, drops, reward you get along the way would somehow make you reach a reasonable HoA level and other means of pumping 2ndary stats through other gear slots and means.

[Deleted]

Secondaries and their priorities separated a good player from a bad one. They have at least two goals with this in BfA:

1) slow down the game and keep it so throughout the expansion (/time played metric - since mobs scale to your ilvl, they can more easily determine how long it takes for you to kill stuff, with secondaries having less impact on it)
2) lower skill cap (ilvl is always king, number of thought processes reduced even further)

[Wvvtayy]

Secondaries and their priorities separated a good player from a bad one. They have at least two goals with this in BfA:

1) slow down the game and keep it so throughout the expansion (/time played metric - since mobs scale to your ilvl, they can more easily determine how long it takes for you to kill stuff, with secondaries having less impact on it)
2) lower skill cap (ilvl is always king, number of thought processes reduced even further)

Exactly. It's to make things easier for idiots.

[s_bushido]

Because then you'd be complaining that the piece with the best trait doesn't have good stats for your spec.

[Wvvtayy]

Because then you'd be complaining that the piece with the best trait doesn't have good stats for your spec.

So it's better to just fuck them over all together by having no secondary stats? Flawless logic

- - - Updated - - -

And people generally don't play those specs early on, which is fine.

What a stupid post. Certain specs should absolutely not be avoided because Blizzard made the idiotic decision to make some specs entirely on certain secondaries.

- - - Updated - - -

Because then you'd be complaining that the piece with the best trait doesn't have good stats for your spec.

So it's better to give them nothing at all? As an aff lock, my worst stats are versa and crit, but both of those are worth a great deal more than intellect and its much better to have them than nothing at all.

[Nikkaszal]

It's really very simple.

Azerite gear has set traits (they're not random). You're going to be gunning for the specific pieces which have the traits you want. With me so far?

Cool

Now throw two secondary stats on this particular piece of equipment that you want, that is shared across all classes and all specs that use the particular armour type.

You seeing the issue?

You'll end up with either your preferred traits, OR your preferred secondaries, but rarely (if ever) both.

Now imagine the storm of whinging that would happen over this.

[Nevcairiel]

The reason is simple, and as many have already pointed out above. They are not giving it secondary stats to avoid issues with an imbalance between different secondaries, so the ilvl and traits become the only decision you have to make, and not also take the secondaries into account.

Its not about making the selection easier, its about making it less frustrating, because there wouldn't be 10 variants of every Azerite item with all possible trait and secondary stat combinations a "good" player could pick from, instead someone would always feel bad if he had to either get bad traits or bad secondaries.

Its important to keep in mind that the Azerite gear does not have less stats then normal gear, it just doesn't have secondaries. It has more primary stats to make up for that difference. For example, this Azerite Headpiece I have on Beta right now is 290 with 258 Agility, my 290 Pants have 136 Agility.

In the end it really doesn't matter, because everyone is in the same boat.

[Armourboy]

The reason is simple, and as many have already pointed out above. They are not giving it secondary stats to avoid issues with an imbalance between different secondaries, so the ilvl and traits become the only decision you have to make, and not also take the secondaries into account.

Its important to keep in mind that the Azerite gear does not have less stats then normal gear, it just doesn't have secondaries. It has more primary stats to make up for that difference. For example, this Azerite Headpiece I have on Beta right now is 290 with 258 Agility, my 290 Pants have 136 Agility.

Maybe so, but for some specs the secondary stats are far more important than the primary is. If this is the reasoning than those specs need their secondaries boosted in some way so that the primary comes up to par. I know on my mage, I don't care how much int something has on it, if I can't get crits on a regular basis Fire just stinks to play.

[exochaft]

Maybe so, but for some specs the secondary stats are far more important than the primary is. If this is the reasoning than those specs need their secondaries boosted in some way so that the primary comes up to par. I know on my mage, I don't care how much int something has on it, if I can't get crits on a regular basis Fire just stinks to play.

Even if there were secondary stats on Azerite gear, you'd still have the same problem with some classes coupled with the aforementioned issues. Be that as it may, I'm fairly certain Blizz is taking into account the lack of secondaries on 3 pieces when it comes to secondary scaling for classes, so it's not like you automatically are losing from the start as it's already accounted for. Probably isn't perfect, but some adjustments are likely made, especially when it comes to traits.

[Armourboy]

Even if there were secondary stats on Azerite gear, you'd still have the same problem with some classes coupled with the aforementioned issues. Be that as it may, I'm fairly certain Blizz is taking into account the lack of secondaries on 3 pieces when it comes to secondary scaling for classes, so it's not like you automatically are losing from the start as it's already accounted for. Probably isn't perfect, but some adjustments are likely made, especially when it comes to traits.

You do realize this is Blizzard we are talking about in regards to class design right? Don't get me wrong, I love the product, been playing since Vanilla, but it wouldn't be the first time they made changes and left certain specs hung out to dry because they didn't account for things properly.

[grexly75]

I wonder if the OP in their usual tirade has taken into account that secondary stats still come on all the other non Azerite pieces.. Because as everyone knows that in BfA you get 15 to 16 items (depends if you are using a 2 handed weapon, 2 one handed weapons or 1 one handed weapon and a offhand)..

Now 4 of those items are your Azerite gear, your HoA neck and the other 11 to 12 are just normal items with shock horror secondary stats on them.. I think that it is an interesting idea to have some items without secondary stats as it makes swapping them around when you get more of them so much easier..

And since Azerite gear does not have secondary stats on them, you don't have the issue of have an item with great secondary stats but a shitty trait selection or vice versa, great trait selection but shitty secondary stats..

Makes me wonder if people instead of going on a tirade actually thought, that maybe that is the reason for their being no secondary stats on the Azerite gear..