this is a copy paste of what i said in another thread essences when they asked how they differed from gear, since you compare them every time i’m gonna leave this here so maybe you can change your mind.
There are a lot of differences between gear and essences, even tho they both give you power.
First of all the stacking of systems (which is not really a difference i guess but is a good argument to discuss):
As even Ion said in the interview at blizzcon, they are not happy with the stacking and addition of systems during an expansion and for a good reason. There is a big difference between farm your hearth, your gear and farm your hearth, your gear, you essences. People were fine with alts before 8.2.5, come this patch slowly but surely all kinds of threads in every forum/site pop up about how people don’t like to farm essences a second time, some won’t even do it once.
Second of all the way you have to acquire them:
gear and essences both come from different sources, but the limitations are different. While you can get some gear with reps, raids and dungeons, the best gear is Always from the content tat needs gear to be cleared, the same can’tbe said about essences. The BiS essences for healers come from dailies, the best version you can get from those essences still come from dailies even if they are not designed to help you with dailies.
Third of all the very reason they were created:
They gave us essences because a lot of people felt their class was incomplete or lucklaster, the solution blizzard came up with is essences. This alone the reason they not only are a bad system right now, but will stay a bad system even when they do make them account wide. THey should be unlocked while you level your character through bfa and not be time gated in any way, while they are tied to the neck and people might say they are just a fanc trinket, we have to make a line somewhere where we separate active trinkets and abilities. With how impactful and how much work went into animations and such i think it’s disingenuous to say they are gear. Problem is they currently work like gear instead of abilities, think for a second how awful it would be if army of the dead required dailies to unlock and to power up instead of how it works right now.
Last but not least the general perception of the essences:
while it is true that rank three of all your BiS essences are not “required” for a +10 or an heroic raid a lot of people don’t feel good about unlocking them at rank 2 or 1 only, because they are not perceived as gear but as abilities.
For me personally i won’t invest time in a character that i will leave as incomplete, I’m not gonna start something i am sure i will not progress. I know i could kind of easily unlock the base essences in my alts and do heroic raids and +10, I know i could be carried for the first bosses in mythic by guild too, but i know that even if I end up liking the other class more then my main i would still not be willing to farm the essences to make ot competitive in the content i like, so it instantly kills all of my motivation. I’m sure i forgot something but I am writing this while i eat so I’ll write again if it comes to mind.
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