"There has to be some kind of restriction on how you can get Azerite armor"

[clevin]

You'd just end up with some special case where the M+ piece is extremely powerful in a raid encounter so everybody "has to" get it.

Possibly but it's at least a step in the right direction of letting M+ and raids both be valid yet independent end game group PVE activities.

An example (not thought through in detail so let's not nitpick...)

Wild Growth now hits 6 targets for 63% of spellpower within 30 yards of the caster. An M+ trait could enable WG to, say, increase the spellpower % or remove a debuff. A raid version could increase the range or the number of people affected.

Yes, there might be cases were someone really wants the M+ version for a given raid fight... and that's fine. They can choose to get it to help. But right now if you want good high level Azerite pieces you HAVE to raid, even if you really are only interested in M+ high keys.

[Darknessvamp]

You'd just end up with some special case where the M+ piece is extremely powerful in a raid encounter so everybody "has to" get it.

Wasn't that one of the problems that people were complaining about due to the lack of sources for Azerite Gear? That there were M+ Chest pieces outperforming Uldir pieces and people getting more DPS because of it and they were pissed off that the chest was their only shot at getting them.

[liquidfear]

You'd just end up with some special case where the M+ piece is extremely powerful in a raid encounter so everybody "has to" get it.

just have some traits that are only active in mythic+, or you could do an m+ style reorigination array but that's just really boring. would be cool to have some m+ only traits that are interesting since there's raid only traits already and raiding gives better gear

[SinR]

they actually NERFED Laser Beams cause "too stronk". Never understood why.

[Nathasil]

This new Q&A has to be the worst i have ever seen from the 3 Game Directors that have come and gone while i actively followed Q&As.

Many of us saw some hope in the Blue Post explaining how they would increase Azerite from Emissaries...it was a VERY welcome change in tone compared to everything since BFA was annunced. They actually explained their reasoning and what exactly they were going to do. Of cause, the Hotfix was then bugged at first...as most things in BFA are...but you gotta at least credit them for trying.

Now this new Q&A is a hard 180 on the Emissary Bluepost. It is EXTREMELY condescending. "I am Ion, i know how this game works and should work and how you WANT to play it. You may not know how you want to play it, but trust me. I do." - the Q&A summed up.
Every single paragraph has at least one contradiction. The one the OP pointed out is not the worst by far.

If you look at how most items work, if you want to play another spec, you want another item for that slot.

If you want to minmax 0.x% of spec performance, yes. But generally speaking? No. Not at all.

Azerite armor is more flexible than normal items, as you can change the traits.

Azerite armor is LESS flexible than normal items because normal items WORK for all of my specs without reforging them. Except Trinkets, ofc. But if you consider Trinkets "normal items" you may as well work for Blizzard.

A lot of the elements that make a tank skilled aren't quantifiable in terms of damage taken or mitigated.

That's why skilled players chose the tank that looks best numerically (group buffs are a number, too) and then ADD their skill to this package.

The team did internal tests with full raid groups queuing for Warfronts. The problem is that with a full raid group you would steamroll the map objectives and get far ahead of the base building and other pacing mechanism. If you get too far ahead of the pacing, it isn't as fun.

"Letting you play the content with your friends made you wait...so we thought it would be best to not allow you to play it with your friends."

The 9 bosses that exist may be in the same order for both factions. Alliance may play through the entire battle, then have the recap of what they missed. Horde players may get their flashback moment during the middle of the raid.

Declare your Allegiance! For the Ho....oh wait...we're doing Alliance first? OK! FOR THE ALLIANCE!

The team has moved away from raids being the only/best endgame PvE content. There are plenty of people that are enjoying Mythic+ dungeons.

"In our >15 years of designing this game we have learned time and time again from player behaviour that if there are several reward systems and one of them is FAR, FAR, FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR more accessible than all the other, especially raiding, which is less accessible than litterally anything else in this game, players will OF COURSE not abandon all the other activities and just stick to the most efficient system! No! They NEVER did that! They never would!"

Tier sets were a unique raid reward, but players could jump into a PuG and usually get that set within a few weeks of clearing the raid. Tier sets aren't like they used to be, with a year long journey to get your entire set.

"So instead of giving you something new to collect over 2-6 weeks of a new patch to play with (along with unique Art for moggers!)...we are now just changing existing stuff so you can collect the exact same items you already had all over again! And have to grind Azerite to unlock them again! We're the BEST at what we do!"

Also: "a year long journey"...what is he reffering to? TBC? Which was argauably the last expansion where it took an average player months to get a tier set if s/he actually tried. Does that mean he considered Tier broken for the last *counts fingers*...11 years? Wow. That's some exciting news, Ion! Keep it coming!

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Sorry Ion....but no points from me for this load of crap. I was actually beginning to get hopeful again after the Emissary change, as it LOOKED like they were beginning to understand. You crushed that.