Patch 8.0.1 Hotfixes - Sept 26, Blizzard Responds to Azerite Armor Concerns

[Deleted]

First off, thanks for putting this thread together. Even if phrases like "Worst Itemization in WoW's History" are a bit hyperbolic (seriously, I can't be the only one who remembers farming level 30 dungeons for AQ40 resistance gear), you've summarized a lot of the discussions we've been seeing around the community very well. It really helps us clarify exactly what we need to be focusing on.

The vanilla analogy makes the current system look even worse. In vanilla you knew what to farm and where to farm it. Simple. In BFA you can't even target items which is such a fundamental feature that it's making it clear, in my opinion, that BFA actually does have the worst itemization systems in WoW's history. Or are you saying that head, chest and shoulders should be as rare as legendaries were in Legion? That's the only system that comes close, and it was solved by the end of Legion; wakening essences. You have solved this exact problem before!

Like, what even is the reasoning behind the scarcity above 340 item level? Is there some fucked up roleplaying aspect I´m missing here?

Regarding targeting specific traits: I think we've said this a few times now, but just to reiterate, we believe that's merely a symptom of the imbalance between traits. Ideally, the gap between them isn't so large that you feel it would be hugely beneficial to grind out the perfect set.

This goes against one of the core aspects of loot-driven RPG games; Actually getting sought after loot. If your solution to the issue of not being able to get desired items is to make them undesirable, then you are in fact missing the very essence of loot-driven games. You are also telling people how their subjective enjoyment of the game is wrong which is complete folly.

The point about traits being "useless and uninteresting" is interesting considering that you also make the point of "every gear change requires simming." These two points are kind of at odds with each other. The way to solve the simming issue would be to make the traits more simplistic in nature. Similarly, making traits with more outside-the-box designs leads to more complicated questions of "is this better or not," which in turn encourages more simming. Either way, it's an interesting challenge, and one we're taking to mind as we move forward with traits in future updates.

Jesus christ, no those points are not at odds with each other, and this is not even an answer to the core issue of actually being able to get the traits in the first place. A trait can be uninteresting and require simming at the same time. You accomplish this by 1) wording the tooltips so vaguely that players have no way of knowing what is going on and 2) you make all traits similar and passive with zero player input interaction. You have successfully achieved this with Azerite traits.

I think we agree that re-farming traits doesn't feel great. I don't have a solve for that issue to share today, and to be completely transparent it may be something we simply have to accept as a downside to the system for other reasons. But we agree it can be a bit of a downer.

Well now I feel much more secure in my trust in BFA, thanks

Honestly though, throwing your hands up in the air saying "deal with it, we don't believe we can fix it" is possibly the worst response I have ever seen. It's far worse than not saying anything at all. YOU created this system, are you saying you don't know how to program a better system, or are you saying that the system is so heavily intertwined with other systems that no changes for the better can actually be made? I don't know which is worse.

I mentioned the imbalance between traits before, but just to expand on that: that's why we've focused so much effort into tuning Azerite traits over the past few weeks. With this most recent round of tuning, we think we've gotten most of the really egregious outliers dialed in, but please let us know if there are any you still feel are so good that they're worth huge sacrifices in terms of item level.

See above, the issue is not solely the balancing of the traits, it is also the acquisition of the gear with the traits in them as well as the traits themselves being boring and passive with zero interaction with what I, the player, actually does in the game. That aside, you're actually missing the mark with the balancing, so thats a triple failure.

As to the point about reforging costs: these costs get so high because we want the behavior you're describing -- reforging constantly depending on what you're doing -- to be unsustainable. Our intention is that you either build out multiple sets of gear for different situations, or you lean towards traits that work in a variety of roles (even if they're maybe not the absolute best for each in particular). We added the reforging system to help ease cases like, for example, a DPS who suddenly finds themselves needing to transition to being their guild's main tank, not as a means for constantly re-adjusting traits like a second set of talent points. Maybe the current system isn't achieving that, but if it isn't, we're likely to become MORE restrictive on reforging, not less.

Another contradictory system put in place here. Azerite traits are rare above 340 item level. There are also HUNDREDS of them in various combinations, so getting a trait is hard, and you might not be lucky and get the "right" trait for your playstyle. On top of that you add arbitrary restrictions to HINDER players from using that rare trait combination for more than one situation. The tank into dps into healer example is the go-to, but dps also have traits that work differently based on spec and talents and situation. Making it hard to adapt your gear to your character and gameplay, or as you do threaten to make it nigh impossible, is an arbitrary restriction on top of an uneccessarily cumbersome system. You worked for so long to get rid of these kinds of system, only to add them back. It is not FUN.

Here's an interesting exercise. Change the word "reforging" to "respec" and "traits" to "talents" in the above paragraph, and see how well it would sit with Blizzard's current system of talents and respeccing.

[dranlord]

So I’m slightly confused about something. Why are people saying azerite gear isn’t farmable? As far as I know each piece has specific traits so I’m not seeing why you couldn’t just get multiple of the same piece or whatever and lock in diff traits? Am I missing something?

bc ppl try to max out trails for dps reason when they shouldnt.
So ppl that only do M+ cant upgrade thier Azorite gear outside the M droop. Something THAT BLIZZARD said was going to be a thing, to separate M+ from Raiding.

So if you want to replace your azarite gear you need to raid or pvp.
So ppl dont want that they just want to do M+

Ppl complain allll the timeeeeee

[Simulacrum]

I wonder if Lore has become this much of a full-on fucking retard by working at blizzard, or if he has to act as if he has as part of his job.

In any case, wow, their corporate culture must be really fucking bad to turn people into this.

[Novaice]

Could at least allow m+ azerite armor be attained through bonus rolls since they are a limited weekly resource.

[Kaeth]

bc ppl try to max out trails for dps reason when they shouldnt.
So ppl that only do M+ cant upgrade thier Azorite gear outside the M droop. Something THAT BLIZZARD said was going to be a thing, to separate M+ from Raiding.

Meanwhile, due to the assigned combinations of traits on armor pieces, the BiS drops for several specs are only found in the M+ weekly chest. Or, to be more accurate, only potentially -- but never actually -- found in the M+ weekly chest.

There are a lot of raiders farming high keystones for potential upgrades to their raid loot, but after doing at least one +10, it's just a weekly lottery to see if you get anything useful for your efforts. Because M+ Azerite armor -- which, again, includes BiS pieces for several specs -- only has a single chance to drop a single piece per week from a loot table of over a hundred items, it's more likely than not that you will never see the piece you are looking for over the course of the entire expansion.

And then the devs tell us that they want us to farm more Azerite sets if we want to play multiple roles.

These two points are kind of at odds with each other.

Indeed.

[dranlord]

why dont just run raid for Azorite armor like the game is telling you to do??????
like i replace all my 340 gear with pvp one and raid one.

So i dont see the issue.

[kevincuomo]

You want us to "Farm out multiple sets of gear" ... wtf. Yea because being a monk and having a healing set for mythic+ and for raids and now azreite gear.. yea i love to hold 50 pieces of gear in my bags at all times.

Man, Blizzard is so out of touch with what people want and enjoy.

[JSA2422]

yoooooooo that blue responds makes me want to unsub holy shiitttt

[Ophenia]

like legit. How does having to sim gear indicate any sort of gameplay complexity? when we fucking have 0 info about the effect, at all. How do we value an arbituary 500 haste vs 120 agility vs 1200 dmg on a X PPM? Simming is how we value it.
How are the points of traits being passive number increases come at odds with traits being useless and uninteresting.
How?
Legit, how the fuck?

Exactly this. That was a lot easier to manage back in MoP, when all proc chances were actually written down (i.e. 15% proc chance, 55sec iCD). Most of Azerite traits are like "Your damaging spells have a chance to". A chance to. 5% ? 98 ? No iCD ? 20 minutes iCD ? No idea, simming is literally the only way to know if you should expect a 0.2% dps upgrade or a 20%.

Plus, the fact trait stacking is absolutely not transparent (and you have to wander around the internet to know) entirely sucks. Why didn't they add something in-game, to clearly see what are the actual benefit of your items ?

[nodder]

Meanwhile, due to the assigned combinations of traits on armor pieces, the BiS drops for several specs are only found in the M+ weekly chest. Or, to be more accurate, only potentially -- but never actually -- found in the M+ weekly chest.

There are a lot of raiders farming high keystones for potential upgrades to their raid loot, but after doing at least one +10, it's just a weekly lottery to see if you get anything useful for your efforts. Because M+ Azerite armor -- which, again, includes BiS pieces for several specs -- only has a single chance to drop a single piece per week from a loot table of over a hundred items, it's more likely than not that you will never see the piece you are looking for over the course of the entire expansion.

And then the devs tell us that they want us to farm more Azerite sets if we want to play multiple roles.

These two points are kind of at odds with each other.

Indeed.

So if you dont have full BiS its a problem?? I dont know what to tell you. Deal with using the best gear you have and hoping for an upgrade here and there.....just like wow has been forever.

[dranlord]

Meanwhile, due to the assigned combinations of traits on armor pieces, the BiS drops for several specs are only found in the M+ weekly chest. Or, to be more accurate, only potentially -- but never actually -- found in the M+ weekly chest.

There are a lot of raiders farming high keystones for potential upgrades to their raid loot, but after doing at least one +10, it's just a weekly lottery to see if you get anything useful for your efforts. Because M+ Azerite armor -- which, again, includes BiS pieces for several specs -- only has a single chance to drop a single piece per week from a loot table of over a hundred items, it's more likely than not that you will never see the piece you are looking for over the course of the entire expansion.

And then the devs tell us that they want us to farm more Azerite sets if we want to play multiple roles.

These two points are kind of at odds with each other.

Indeed.

agree with you abuot farming a 10+ for a chance on that BiS azorite gear.
But you dont need any of that to do the current content that is out there.
Not bc your have your BiS trail your dps will go up crazy vs a 375 droop from Heroic raiding with not BiS traits


That is just a metality that blizzard is trying to remove from player, and i hope they stay with this new system. Allow you to just dont go crazy over gear like past expansions

[boz0]

Title should be : "Blizzard doesn't respond to Azerite Armor concerns" ...

[Jahrastafari]

Wow, could this Lore guy be any more out-of-touch? Do these assholes even play their own game?

[Dartakan]

So sad to see Josh turn into blizzard mouthpiece, he would criticize blizzard so hard if he was still making videos and see the failures of the system.

[andrewjoy]

I am sorry , but that reply just shows that the dev team have absolutely no concept of what the problem is , let alone the skill or will to fix it.

[crimsonhead]

Blizzard Responds to Azerite Armor Concerns

Azerite - Worst Itemization in WoW's History

Few things I'd like to comment on here.

First off, thanks for putting this thread together. Even if phrases like "Worst Itemization in WoW's History" are a bit hyperbolic (seriously, I can't be the only one who remembers farming level 30 dungeons for AQ40 resistance gear), you've summarized a lot of the discussions we've been seeing around the community very well. It really helps us clarify exactly what we need to be focusing on.

I remember having to farm for the mats for the Frozen Shadoweave set back in BC....that was a CRAFTED SET with materials I had to FARM to TARGET the gear I wanted. I also remember having to farm shadow resist gear and fire resist gear for Tempest Keep - again, I KNEW where the gear was that I needed. This is the most bullshit way to start this wall of text of a response.

I'll speak to each of your points as best as I can:

Regarding targeting specific traits: I think we've said this a few times now, but just to reiterate, we believe that's merely a symptom of the imbalance between traits. Ideally, the gap between them isn't so large that you feel it would be hugely beneficial to grind out the perfect set.

What the fuck even is he trying to say here? Does blizz not realize certain classes value certain stats over others and we are targeting them because our rotation(s) feel like dogshit due to the lack of secondary stats (thanks again for not putting any on azerite gear). Like, I have to stack 3 different types of haste procs just to create a semblance of casting smoothness. It's egregious I have to keep swapping gear around to make sure I have one or two decent haste procs just to make my rotation feel normal. That's not fun or interesting or anything, that's fucking broken.

The point about traits being "useless and uninteresting" is interesting considering that you also make the point of "every gear change requires simming." These two points are kind of at odds with each other. The way to solve the simming issue would be to make the traits more simplistic in nature. Similarly, making traits with more outside-the-box designs leads to more complicated questions of "is this better or not," which in turn encourages more simming. Either way, it's an interesting challenge, and one we're taking to mind as we move forward with traits in future updates.

Even if you made traits simplistic such as "this grants 538 haste for 12 seconds when you cast spell and effects" and "this grants 323 mastery, 323 crit and 323 haste for 18 seconds" people would STILL SIM THEM. These two points are not "at odds with each other" and in fact they are mutually exclusive. Irregardless of the gear people will sim, that cannot be changed. What can be changed are the variances and effects of our gear. I would like to be able to maintain other abilities (class baseline ones) with the azerite traits for some serious synergy. Allow some traits to interact with the core abilities of classes to make the rotations and abilities feel INTERESTING. While I like the flat haste and mastery buffs, I like things that change the rotation. As a Destruction lock I actually like 'Bursting Flare' as it changes the rotation up but to maintain it and ensure it stays up is a pain vs other traits, not to mention the buff isn't as good as other passive ones. I want to use them but the other passive options are clear winners. These traits are not fun (oh and the ones that are get nerfed rather than buffing other ones, gg)

I think we agree that re-farming traits doesn't feel great. I don't have a solve for that issue to share today, and to be completely transparent it may be something we simply have to accept as a downside to the system for other reasons. But we agree it can be a bit of a downer.

lol

I mentioned the imbalance between traits before, but just to expand on that: that's why we've focused so much effort into tuning Azerite traits over the past few weeks. With this most recent round of tuning, we think we've gotten most of the really egregious outliers dialed in, but please let us know if there are any you still feel are so good that they're worth huge sacrifices in terms of item level.

They have "tuned" traits that were already garbage. I have 0 reason to use Flashpoint - mobs above 80% health are non existent as higher gear levels are achieved. It should be > 80 and < 30 to balance it out. As I mentioned, Bursting Flare for Destruction locks can be fun but managing it vs others is a no brainer. Accelerent seems cool and in theory it works nicely to boost the AoE for Destruction buuuuut when there are not 3 adds it leaves a lot to be desired (this is not going to turn into a Rain of Fire bashing as that spell needs a massive rework). The tuning they did were on garbage traits, they need to bring traits more in line and buff the proc rate / chance and maintenance for a whole lot of azerite traits.

As to the point about reforging costs: these costs get so high because we want the behavior you're describing -- reforging constantly depending on what you're doing -- to be unsustainable. Our intention is that you either build out multiple sets of gear for different situations, or you lean towards traits that work in a variety of roles (even if they're maybe not the absolute best for each in particular). We added the reforging system to help ease cases like, for example, a DPS who suddenly finds themselves needing to transition to being their guild's main tank, not as a means for constantly re-adjusting traits like a second set of talent points. Maybe the current system isn't achieving that, but if it isn't, we're likely to become MORE restrictive on reforging, not less.

I mean, I guess kudos for standing your ground but this flies in the face of OBTAINING THE GEAR WITH THE RIGHT TRAITS that was mentioned at the start of this excuse of a response. Like, ok, sure let's get the pieces we need with the traits we want so we don't have to reforge oh wait I just realized the piece I need is above 340 and therefore I have to wait for RNG upon RNG upon RNG to get what I want - GREAT IDEA.

And finally, regarding the tuning passes: like I mentioned, we think we've got most of the major outliers dialed in to an acceptable level at this point. There's likely to still be some adjustments here and there, but we don't believe we're going to need another big wave of Azerite trait tuning like you've seen over the last few weeks. To put it another way: if one trait is far and away the best compared to every other option, sure, we should probably do something about that, but we don't expect that to take the form of a widespread tuning pass going forward.

They are so tone deaf to the issues that the playerbase is suffering from. Tuning a trait here or there is not what certain classes need. Touting the azerite gear as a replacement for legendaries, tier and artifact weapons was far too ambitious and ludicrous. Someone should have told them to pump the breaks on that idea because it has sunk like a stone. These traits do not make the rotations interesting nor do they enhance the gameplay. All they do for me is long for a time when I had a balanced class and stats that I could manage myself and be happy with that. Now in between procs of "Overwhelming Power" and "Blood Rite" and "Elemental Whirl" I am just crossing my fingers and hoping that the proc will happen again otherwise it's just stagnant and sluggish.

Also, to Ion's comment about new traits being introduced: he was referring to new traits on new gear added in new content, with higher item level, that replaces your old gear entirely. We're not planning to add in new traits to existing items, so don't worry about holding onto old Azerite pieces just in case their traits change.

Oh, that's great. That doesn't solve the issue of me having 9 chest pieces, 7 headpieces and 3 shoulders though at the moment, does it?

I swear this whole response was a giant middle finger to the players. blizzard has no fucking clue what they are doing and they are bringing us down with them.

[Shigma]

Well even if some people are super happy with BFA, to me it's re-living another WOD scenario, maybe different reasons, but same result. Game is not fun. Heck, for someone who plays since launch day, for every improvement made, they seem to add another fun-barrier: call it grinding, time gating, RNG. Whatever.

While i loved Classic, and i certainly wouldn't go back to that, it is true AT LEAST i could aim for an item and farm it. And after that, there's been many iterations of that system and improvements working perfectly. Til WoD. Now i don't even know. Roll the dice and pray RNGesus. So much bullshit going on and they still act like entitled gods with all knwoledge. It's like re-living Diablo 3 bullshit storm.

Fix all this nosense and focus again on the main aspect of the game, HAVING FUN. Please. I agree there needs to be a good amount of grinding, it's an MMORPG game, but they made everything so dull, boring and job-like nowadays, from leveling to farming gear, it is digusting.

[dranlord]

Oh, that's great. That doesn't solve the issue of me having 9 chest pieces, 7 headpieces and 3 shoulders though at the moment, does it?

I swear this whole response was a giant middle finger to the players. blizzard has no fucking clue what they are doing and they are bringing us down with them.

why you have 9 chest 7 head and 3 shouelders????
what situation demand that you have that many options????

If you are hybrid class you have 3 combinations, and maybe one for pvp if you are a hight end ranking player.


So plz im really interesting to know why you have 9 chest

[Dartakan]

why you have 9 chest 7 head and 3 shouelders????
what situation demand that you have that many options????

If you are hybrid class you have 3 combinations, and maybe one for pvp if you are a hight end ranking player.


So plz im really interesting to know why you have 9 chest

I also have that many items, you dont know if blizzard is going to nerf or buff trait, is better to keep as many of them as you can.

[Danuel]

why you have 9 chest 7 head and 3 shouelders????
So plz im really interesting to know why you have 9 chest

That's quite simple mate - he waiting for next "nerf-patch" to swap gear.