Azerite Armor System actually is not that bad

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Most of the traits are terrible is the issue. I don't mind the idea of azerite gear, but having things like:

-Increase X stat
-When you take damage, heal for X amount, every 6 seconds..
-when an enemy near you dies, heal for 3000 ... which is about .3% of my health. Great!
etc..


These are the same as the old talent trees, which they took out of the game for being bad "cookie cutter" and "non-engaging..."

Why add them back? They easily could have given 1 tier being a stat increase, 1 tier being a new spell/ability, and 1 tier manipulating or improving your bread and butter spells... instead most of the are boring.

[Deleted]

Azerite gear has the same drop chance as any other type of gear. If you're not getting any from raiding, then you are just unlucky, but the same could be said for trinkets, rings, weapons, name it. In fact there is only 1-2 drop chances for a weapon in the raid for each spec, so the chances that you get a weapon are equally low as getting any specific azerite piece.

Problem is on azerite slots the dps increase from 340 to 370 is like 500dps, while on trinkets its like... 200-250dps

[maccajoe]

System is bad because they traits have no meaning. They are looking to make the traits even more the same so there shouldn't be a disappointment it getting the wrong one. Well why have the traits in the first place? Why have so many. The system would at least be better if there was less of a pool of traits that were more impactful....... and ya know not 21million passives.

Id take artifact system any day of the week coz at least they were packaged nice and the passives changed gameplay enough. I dont know it is objectively the worst system implemented but it sure feels the worst. Coming from someone whos played the game a long time.. I have zero care for any of the traits because ones that a remotely interactive (by azerite trait standard at least) are really weak and the ones that are strong are random procs.

[Rovsnegl]

you surely don'T understand what the gameplay is about.hanks for reading.

Aight it's bait pack it up boys!

[Musta]

I disagree, most people here will disagree and hey, blizzard disagree as well!!

[BlueRemedy]

Grinding is more than fine, I want gameplay focused grinding in my MMORPGs. I've not seen many people who out and out chastise grinding in an MMO. The issue is that every single last trait is garbage, you gain nothing over the course of an expansion and the interaction with the entire package is a joke. This is ignoring the more local 8.0 problems with balancing and gear targeting.

Azerite literally has no reason to exist. It adds nothing to the experience. Artifact Weapons had a lot of issues with the AP grind and static board but at least the traits themselves were fun and powerful and you grew over the course of an expansion with something to look forward to.

Azerite is objectively bad, end of discussion. I've yet to see one single defense actually prop itself up in a way that isn't' just being contrarian and hand waving away concerns. It is probably the worst RPG progression system I've seen in 25 years of playing video games.

[DarthMonk79]

Why are people complaining about not being able to access that 3rd or 4th trait when they get the "same exact piece" that was 325 but now at 340 its not accessible... the 3rd trait is usually the defensive one, while a nice perk it isn't needed to get by in either dungeons or raids, that's what healers are for. The 4th trait is of course like the 3rd trait of 325 gear and just a item level increase of 5... once again, not really needed. Getting 3 pieces to raise +5 item levels isn't gonna do much if anything at all for your overall item level. To complain about such minute things is to complain for the sake of complaining!!
I mean I'm sorry but here we are getting 3 pieces of gear that at blue level give you either a stat perk or a offensive/defensive/healer perk depending on your class or some unique off hand ability like launching swirls of water/ice that do damage and slow a target, fire, poison, etc. Then they include shields, leeches, etc as second trait. When you get 340+ epics you start getting 2 unique traits per piece! How is any of this boring, even if you're taking the ones that increase your primary/secondary stats they are still perks and increases to your overall dps.

[Deleted]

Regadring The Trait imbalance
Some Traits beeing more powerful than other is indeed not the best design and blizz admitted that. And they want to adjust the traits that are too powerful or too weak. But to be fair on this, as i stated above: this is not meant to be fast food content. An mmo should develop your character over time. That means you will have plenty of time to gather gear and level your HoA. That for by the time that you are supposed to step into hard Mythic content you have everything you need to do that content (not to mention there players, hi there method, who can do the content with 340 pieces). Weather it be specific traits or azerite pieces for your offspecc or whatssoever.

Also you may say "but i have to sim everything that there is to do max dps". No you don't. There is absolutely no need for that. This are things that are important for the absolute top end players in the world who really need every single dps they can get. These are maybe 5k people out there. For the rest of the playerbase it is nonsense to destroy your gameplay by trying so hard. All the people that follow after the absolute world elite: for those of you it doesn't matter. You are not supposed to play this way because you surely don'T understand what the gameplay is about.

I don't really care about the other part of your post even though I disagree somewhat, but in this matter, you've got it all wrong in my opinion.

Right now we have dozens of traits, like 30 generic traits and 10 spec specific traits. Now most of these traits do not affect your gameplay in any way, they are passive bonuses. You said that trait imbalance is bad, and Blizzard is going to tune the traits to do similar damage. Then I ask you; what is the point of having them? If we have 40 azerite traits that are different versions of the same thing "Launch a blood bolt dealing X" "Launch a lightning bolt dealing X" "Launch a dagger dealing X" and so on, and they all do exactly the same amount of damage, why have different traits in the first place? To put it blunt, we could then have had simply 1 trait shared by everyone. Because they're all the same anyway.

This is also related to simming but not in the way you describe it, the issue isn't about if we "have" to sim because it only gives minor increase to the average player, that's true even without azerite. No the issue is because the traits are so very similar, it's impossible to know simply using your own eyes, experience and logic with trait is good when.

Imagine if we had traits like "Your frozen orb deals extra damage for each target it hits" I as a mage would know, this trait is awesome for aoe. And then maybe I had another trait "Your Ice Block now has two charges" Then I could equip an azerite piece with this trait for a boss where I could help soak something several times.

This would be engaging choices and gameplay surrounding azerite traits. But as the system is now, Blizzard could just remove every single trait and replace them with a trait called The Trait: "Increases your damage by 5%" and it would be the same as what they currently envision the system to be.

[Alkizon]

I'm too lazy today to explain it all again...

Oh... alright tl;dr:

Glyphs are tied to a character, and Azerite don't. This already makes glyphs better then any of Azerite/legendary items and artifacts, witch are content progression (expansion), not character (class). That's basis for this game design. THE END.

This rule is still fully apply to AA = item is trying to be part of build, part of class fantasy (in some places even worse = spec fantasy), same applies to legendarys and other tomfoolery of this type (don't understand people who are asking for more "influential" traits, don't ask for this, it'll be even worse).

It follows that problem stays the same, wrong realization of class fantasy (with its attendant mechanisms), and no matter how they try to camouflage it. They have to forget about AA, legendarys and specs, but work on class fantasy right. Items/characteristics/reputation = expansion progress, but fantasy = class/character development as a whole. Traits are not talents+characteristics system+pvp/pve class' sets (because of different implementation mechanism) which they're trying to become, they're not absolute, they'll be switched off (or have to be replaced with big problems for every field of activity) every expansion (some times even - patch) ⇒
Ie: your "class fantasy" will be disabled not just every expansion, but even every item/activity change with no longer requiring any effort to try to hide it since now = AA.
It'll be done automatically, according to new mechanic; moreover characteristics grow with time and they permeate entire game engine with connecting threads, but traits can be turned off painless completely and then force you work on them again (such an endless carrot ), secondary characteristics at least were symbiotic part of system (helped to play your role as (m/r)dd/h/t, not your class) for this case, but not a parasite corroding it, so the only way to correct them is to make them characteristics ⇒

General requirement| they won't need to be unlocked or part of class' talents/mechanics (key part of build, only reinforce/strengthen it, even less significant, more general non-specific), but can be stackable/replaced and be part of professions/RPG-customization system (can exist/functioning outside of any items/locations/reputations), mathematical part of engine, otherwise they will spoil progress/balance system, class' fantasy and provoke more and more "unrecorded results".

If being permanent, they should end with being in class; if being difficult to change, they should not give significant abilities, but only passive and be in the field of talents (that is, they should remain outside choice of reputation of local races, for both from above); if they're “external” then shouldn't go beyond “influence” of characteristics (= gear) and be quick and easy to switch.

Therefore: your entire wall of text has no meaning in principle, idea is bad by definition, this idea is a crutch of a previously broken system (we already had talent tree, secondary characteristics (also pvp/pve dividing), pvp/pve class' sets, reforging... it's enough to admit that "someone" screwed up and it should return to what it was (because at best you will come to what has already been, this is how it works), and not reinvent the wheel), the same crutches are CRZ/shards, auto-search system for dungeons/raids/groups for quests, scaling, phasing, M+ (in current version)/artificial modes of complexity, scraps remaining from classes, warmode, RNG/itemisation+. Can it function? Perhaps, theoretically, but this will no longer be a question of fun, but a question of survival/functioning for the game.

All they have now is automatic/off-on-switchable: searching, moving, mixing players, selecting allies, opponents, bonuses, items, modes, it remains only to replace players with bots and there will be a complete artificial idyll... but it just doesn't work, because players are alive and only they can make this world live, but current system is clearly not designed for it (main players task is and always has been - making non-critical perturbations with their original decisions within framework of this system, and when game itself doesn't allow them to do it, then process seems completely dead - not interactive, living its own artificial life), doesn't meet these requirements, which leads to a huge number of related bugs and exploits. Devs, you'll never be able to foresee everything, may be much more easier to allow players to solve all problems that arose in original system themselves and together without your help (which looks more like a disservice)?

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Linkedblade
Honestly if they would let you choose the trait you want from the entire pool of traits, that would remedy 90% of the issues. Another 5% would be that your HoA level should be high enough to use all traits on a piece you receive. The other 5% is removing the cost to reforge.

Not from traits, but from talents.

[Linkedblade]

Honestly if they would let you choose the trait you want from the entire pool of traits, that would remedy 90% of the issues. Another 5% would be that your HoA level should be high enough to use all traits on a piece you receive. The other 5% is removing the cost to reforge.