AzZzerite Armor.

[Karthius]

Idk I find it pretty silly and boring, I would rather just our static gear and another talent row with all the "Azerite traits" attached to it. At least blizzard can get a bit more creative, cause at the moment this seems lackluster and half backed. I skimmed the raid journal as well and wasn't too excited. Maybe its just my class (Blood DK) how is the system for others?

[Deleted]

how is the system for others?

The exact same for all classes and specs. Just like artifact weapons. How is this a surprise and why did this need another thread when there are so many others already?

[Karthius]

The exact same for all classes and specs. Just like artifact weapons. How is this a surprise and why did this need another thread when there are so many others already?

AW was fun, so thats already 1 lie.

[Deleted]

AW was fun, so thats already 1 lie.

I did not lie. YOU found the weapons fun but the armor boring. That's not true for everyone. For some both were boring, for others both were fun, and then there are the people that feel like you or the other way around.

Bottom line, it's the exact same system being used for your DK as it is for all the other classes.

[Cosmic Janitor]

My biggest gripe with it at the moment - besides the scaling, aquisition, the boring ass grind, etc - is that for alot of classes the general traits tend to be the best, which kills class identity and replayability of azerite gear completely for me. We essentially traded head/shoulders/chest for another 3 trinket slots.

[InfiniteRetro]

My biggest gripe with it at the moment besides the scaling, aquisition, the boring ass grind etc s that for alot of classes the general traits tend to be the best, which kills class identity and replayablility of azerite gear completely for me. We traded head/shoulders/chest essentially for another 3 trinket slots.

shit i never saw it like that.

[Villager720]

We lost legendaries with game changing equip bonuses, artifact weapons with significantly more traits than the 6 we get from Azerite armor, AND tier sets.
Of course it seems lackluster. It is lackluster.

[felrager]

We lost legendaries with game changing equip bonuses, artifact weapons with significantly more traits than the 6 we get from Azerite armor, AND tier sets.
Of course it seems lackluster. It is lackluster.

not really. legendaries gave the equivalent of 2 new "upgrades" that we got to use, just super powered. add in set bonus and that's 2 more "upgrades" at the cost of at least 4 slots. so we got 6 slots used and 4 "upgrades." Now we have 3 slots giving us 6-9 new "upgrades" depending on the source of the equipment.

sure they're lackluster when in comparison to all the crazy that artifacts gave us but ultimately it about evens out as far as modifications to our character go

[Queen of Hamsters]

It's disappointing to say the least how the traits are... well, they don't do anything of note? And so many traits are just at the bottom with a few generic X buff to Y-stuff being BiS to a good few specs.

They'll have to give out some actually impactful traits in order to make it less of a snooze.

When they said that the traits will become more interesting from higher content, I didn't expect them to simply offer more in the buff stat or whatever... I was seeing some effects from say, the legendaries and previous tiers, being worked into the mix.

We lost legendaries with game changing equip bonuses, artifact weapons with significantly more traits than the 6 we get from Azerite armor, AND tier sets.
Of course it seems lackluster. It is lackluster.

If it means we'll never have that Legendary situation again, then I can live with it I guess...
Seriously speaking though, Azerite armor feeling like a bore is no wonder seeing what we came from, for sure.

[The Stormbringer]

not really. legendaries gave the equivalent of 2 new "upgrades" that we got to use, just super powered. add in set bonus and that's 2 more "upgrades" at the cost of at least 4 slots. so we got 6 slots used and 4 "upgrades." Now we have 3 slots giving us 6-9 new "upgrades" depending on the source of the equipment.

sure they're lackluster when in comparison to all the crazy that artifacts gave us but ultimately it about evens out as far as modifications to our character go

The bonuses they give aren't as strong as the Legiondary bonuses, though. Those were often very impactful and/or useful for utility and such. Azerite traits, not so much.

[Just1c3]

I think Azerite armor is fine, generally speaking. The one complaint I have with it, is that sims have made it to where the "auto-pick" traits aren't ones I necessarily want. That's just kind of the nature of the beast with WoW, I get it, the math guys figure out the best shit, and if anyone finds out you're not using the best shit, you get yelled at for holding your group back. But like, maybe they could have tuned some of the class-specific traits higher, and made them better? It's really disappointing that the best traits are all the generic ones. Like, I've only got one 120 right now, but the best example I can think of is the trait "Feeding Frenzy" for BM Hunter. It makes the rotation feel a bit better, smooths it out a little bit, it's a definite QoL upgrade for the playstyle imho, and yet, it sims like crap, and I'm expected to use nothing but Thunderous Blast and/or Dagger in the Back instead. I went from having Feeding Frenzy while leveling, to NOT having it at 120 because I had to swap it for Thunderous Blasts and Dagger in the Back, and that feels bad.

I mean, I don't know, YMMV with all of this. I guess some folks are fine with just picking whatever performs the best, but in cases of traits that make your class FEEL better to play, not taking them feels shitty.

To answer your original question, maybe some of the traits could have been tuned higher, but generally Azerite armor feels fine. It's just another fire-and-forget situation where 9 times out of 10 you're picking the best thing, and using it forever, just like virtually everything else has been in WoW for a long time, so it doesn't feel that different to me. It's certainly not the "sky-is-falling" situation that some folks here on MMO-Champ have made it out to be. But then again, you fuckers do quite like to accentuate the negative and make everything seem worse than it actually is, so I guess the reactions are par for the course.

[Villager720]

not really. legendaries gave the equivalent of 2 new "upgrades" that we got to use, just super powered. add in set bonus and that's 2 more "upgrades" at the cost of at least 4 slots. so we got 6 slots used and 4 "upgrades." Now we have 3 slots giving us 6-9 new "upgrades" depending on the source of the equipment.

sure they're lackluster when in comparison to all the crazy that artifacts gave us but ultimately it about evens out as far as modifications to our character go

But you completely negated the fact that artifacts had more traits and ABILITIES in them than all 3 pieces of azerite armor combined.
Then they went and removed talents we had to give us the artifact abilities we were losing in place of the removed talents.

In no way, shape, or form, can you argue azerite armor evens out with everything lost from Legion. That is madness and willful ignorance.

[Sorshen]

Interestingly enough, azerite gear goes against their stated game design.
You do need to look up sims to get the best out of it.
Reforging died for this, basically trinket procs on 3 other slots.

[Mr chub]

Think they fucked up. Azerite feels like a last ditched tacked on system for something that exploded in testing. Would explain the absurd class changes at the 11th hour of beta.

[Underverse]

Azerite armor feels like an extra passive trinket to me. It's not particularly compelling especially when the final trait is...an ilvl upgrade.

[Scrysis]

Idk I find it pretty silly and boring, I would rather just our static gear and another talent row with all the "Azerite traits" attached to it. At least blizzard can get a bit more creative, cause at the moment this seems lackluster and half backed. I skimmed the raid journal as well and wasn't too excited. Maybe its just my class (Blood DK) how is the system for others?

We have multiple raid tiers. All of the exciting stuff is going to come out of future content. As I recall correctly, the first set of tier bonuses of Legion weren't all that spectacular either. That's right. You're not replacing an artifact weapon with azerite gear; you're replacing raid set bonuses. Azerite gear at least has multiple levels, so I can get utility bonuses along with my normal ones.

[Kaeth]

My biggest gripe with it at the moment besides the scaling, aquisition, the boring ass grind etc s that for alot of classes the general traits tend to be the best, which kills class identity and replayablility of azerite gear completely for me. We traded head/shoulders/chest essentially for another 3 trinket slots.

Totally agree. And even when class/spec-specific traits are desirable, some are tuned as much as 5x higher than others. Hard to be excited about a mythic raid piece down the road in Uldir that may feature a completely throwaway trait. Hoping Blizzard balances these soon. And by "balances" I don't mean "nerfs all of the good ones until the entire system is dead."

[Nathasil]

The absolute best part about the system is that Blizzard has to invest absolutely NOTHING in extending it for future patches. Just make the exact same chest armor 25 ilvls higher, rotate existing traits on it, boom profit. Players love to grind out 10 more neck levels to activate the exact same traits on their new gear that they used on their old gear. Over and over.

THEY LOVE IT!

[ashblond]

very boring system so far

[Weeps]

If I learned anything from Legion... is not to grind AP. Just let it happen.

People are try-hard farming AP and already have 19+, I log on for about 2-3 hours and I'm at 16. I'm not far behind w/o trying. So... don't bother, really.