Second Azerite Armor Piece

[irdsyd]

After you do the introductory scenarios you get one piece (choice between head, chest or shoulders) that has an azerite talent tree. It has 3 talent rows that you gained at level 1, 4 and 7 of the Heart of Azeroth. (Row 1 of the talent tree gives you 3-5 choices (depending on class) - one that applies for all specs and 1 that is spec dependent, Row 2 gives you a choice between extra speed or a defensive talent and Row 3 gives you +5 ilvls).

After doing the quests for tirigarde sound and getting the lore achievement the final quest gives you a new piece of armor that has an azerite talent tree. (There are quests throughout the zone that have head, shoulder or chest armor reward but no attached talent tree - not sure if this will change). The choices for the new piece are different but the model is the same (ie 3 rows same sort of choices ). What is different is that you now get these talents unlock at levels 2, 5 and 8 or the Heart of Azeroth. I sort of feared this - as you unlocked better azerite armor you would need higher levels of the Heart of Azeroth to unlock the talents. That begins to feel like artifact level and that became a grind until changed later in Legion (which they said they had 'learned from'). I hope levelling Heart of Azeroth is not the same sort of grind.

The good is I now have 2 different procs (extra versatility and extra damage), and 2 different speed effects (one permanent, one on killing).

[Deleted]

No, if anything this is the opposite of the Artifact system. Let's say the final trait of the Azerite gear from Uldir needs 15 or 16 traits to unlock. This is a reasonable level, especially considering how easily you can get AP (my neck is lvl12 after one weekend without even trying).
So getting to 16, you have now "completed" your grind until the next raid tier. Of course getting more levels for the Heart is always advantageuous, but it won't unlock new traits earlier. As long as you slowly gain levels in time for the next raid you never actually have to grind for anything.

[DarthMonk79]

Yep... its not like the artifacts where you technically "lose" the AP as you put it into a point. SO if you get a different piece that is higher item level with possibly better talents, etc, you won't have to grind back the AP you lost. Your neck has already gained it so you just choose the new piece talents and continue to build from there. It looks like a grind but not to the insane levels of the Artifact. More like a slow bake that you just do w/o the stresses of having to be at point 55 to do anything. Also the mere statement 1,4,7 to 2,5,8 is still way better than 25, 40, 55, 75

[Gaidax]

Yes that is the intent, the more ilvl Azerite pieces have the more Heart level you need to unlock all of traits. I mean, they said it to be this way, so not surprising.

As for "grind", honestly people are making too much of a deal of this. It was not that much of a grind, just some people went cray cray on the whole thing running hundreds m+ at start of expansion and what not which was a massive waste of time I looked at with amusement.

[Ophenia]

More like a slow bake that you just do w/o the stresses of having to be at point 55 to do anything. Also the mere statement 1,4,7 to 2,5,8 is still way better than 25, 40, 55, 75

There is a high chance the next tiers will require some level 50s/100s, it's their only way to make sure the "First tier" is outdated and to allow for people to catch up when they took a break from WoW (or simply didn't start at the beginning of the expac).

Just like we started Legion with 100 AP tokens and now 2 billion AP token are on the low-end