Looking through most guides on the subject, it seems that we should, in nearly every case, be going for the general traits on our gear. This is because our spec specific traits, that buff our abilities (something I'd consider to be more fun) don't compete, barring a few notable exceptions: -
This obviously isn't an issue with the general power's themselves, as they offer the same damage/stat effect, at the same Ilvl for every spec in game. So why aren't these spec-based powers getting numerical increases, so we can have a little more choice in how we play?
I did a 62k crit in an rbg on an unholy death knight tiday by stacking tunnel of ice and frigid grasp, and using flurry to get the freeze effect on the frostbolt.
I should've made it clear, my bad. I'm talking in terms of PvE.
A 62k crit (which seems improbable without external buff/debuff) is nice and all but my main concern is that barely any of our ability enhancing traits are competitive with the generic traits.
I'd love to be able to have a piece each with Glacial Assault, Winter's Reach and Frigid Grasp, to shift the damage load around my abilities and buff my burst. Instead I'm stuck picking Tidal Surge and Dagger in the Back, because overall, they will deal more damage.
Granted I'd do have a set with the traits I desire for both frost and fire but I don't feel right using them, especially if I'm running mythic+ where damage is secondary only to mechanical skill.
The traits that exist are very boring imo. We lost so much going into BFA and gained so little. Seeing the devs give Fire mage literally 0 attention on the PTR is kinda worrisome. The fact our best trait in pve is a mastery proc is laughable.
They should not buff these traits, they should replace them.
We need a rework/rebalance for all 3 specs, large chunks of our specs/talents/azerite powers are just straight-up broken.
Arcane - 50% of talents are worthless, 70% damage comes from AB, only worthwhile azerite trait is the one that buffs AB
Fire - Its the same as legion but we’re missing an ability that should be baseline, a number of talents are never worth taking and we only have one good azerite trait
Frost - Has the most viable talents but is too proc reliant, impossible not to waste IL procs whilst there’s a winter’s chill effect, again has too few viable azerite traits
Hell, there’s no situation in which we take mirror images for any spec, but its not been changed, removed or buffed
Yeah as an arcane mage azerites really really bad. For me to be decent AoE I need to stack explosive echo. That’s great there’s 1 raid piece with it. And literally 1 chest and shoulder from dungeons. So I’ve gotta be mega mega lucky getting that from weekly chest or emissary (which I haven’t in 6 weeks). And them 3 give me over 3000 more AoE dps…