Artifact Catch Up

[Eapoe]

With the blue posts and other random things being said, how exactly screwed is your character when Legion hits? Blizzard stated they are not going to have a 100% catch up for artifact weapons, and MAYBE it would finally be caught up by the last tier of the xpac, but nothing official I have see . So, let's say you decide to play a Rogue, you level as Sub, you get thru 1st raid tier, next raid hits and suddenly sub is not only nerfed but becomes complete crap because of numbers tuning. So now, you go into next tier and are weaker in another spec that you now have to completely disavow any knowledge of having played Sub to suddenly pick up Outlaw.
Now, add in this gem, you raid 2nd tier as Outlaw, 3rd tier is released suddenly to have Assassination become the front runner. This is a spec you haven't touched at all, now just to have to grind out a whole new set of artifact power from the beginning of it. So now, because you wanted to start Sub at the beginning of the xpac, you are now working harder and grinding event more to play catch up to someone who maybe played Assass the whole time.
Is this going to be the xpac of switching mains or running multiple toons of the same class just so you have a completely viable spec at each launch? Am I reading too much into it and shouldn't worry? Does anyone have any knowledge of this being or not being an issue?

[Elsif]

It is something I wonder was well. I am on the fence about Legion period for this exact reason. I'm not a hardcore raider, just a LFR scrub, but still.

There has to be a balance between not trivializing the gameplay, while NOT making it some shitty grindfest due to a poorly thought out enhancement mechanic.

To be perfectly honest, considering what Garrisons turned out to be, I have less than high hopes about Blizzard's ability to make engaging, but not tedious features.

[TOM_RUS]

Pretty sure getting artifact for second/third spec won't be an issue. They will most likely make it so you get more artifact power when you finish one spec or something... Also system for getting artifact for second/third spec isn't in alpha yet (as far I know), so it's too early to worry about.

[Eapoe]

Pretty sure getting artifact for second/third spec won't be an issue. They will most likely make it so you get more artifact power when you finish one spec or something... Also system for getting artifact for second/third spec isn't in alpha yet (as far I know), so it's too early to worry about.

Not overly worried, but the last blue post I remember talking about it was that having a secondary spec artifact weapon will not be at 100% of the power as your primary pick. Stated they will have some catch up, but it won't equal the one you start with. So that does have me a little worried about how they are planning on doing it.

[Xcell]

Well, seeing how many people are complaining from lack of content. I wouldn't be surprised if it was like that.
Else people will cap the 3 specs in 1 month and sit in their class hall making posts on the lack of content again

[justinhalfout]

Main is a mage and I decide to level as frost,turns out though Arcane is the best dps spec for my raid and so I have to go out and grind boars to level up my Arcane artifact from scratch,next tier Fire is my best raid spec so I have to go out yet again and grind boars to level that artifact from scratch.

The possibility of the above scenario is what concerns me the most regarding artifact weapons since no real info has been provided yet as to how offspecs will be managed.

[ls-]

IMO, it's gonna be more or less trivial. After having a dual spec for so long, there's no way they can restrict players to one now, otherwise there'll be so much whine on the forums.

[SirCowdog]

IMO, it's gonna be more or less trivial. After having a dual spec for so long, there's no way they can restrict players to one now, otherwise there'll be so much whine on the forums.

I wouldn't put it past them to make secondary artifacts slow as hell. Blizzard has been grasping at anything to slow down players, it seems. What better way than to add more grind. I feel sorry for anyone who has more than 1 or 2 alts. Uhg....that's gonna be some serious timesink.

[ls-]

I wouldn't put it past them to make secondary artifacts slow as hell. Blizzard has been grasping at anything to slow down players, it seems. What better way than to add more grind. I feel sorry for anyone who has more than 1 or 2 alts. Uhg....that's gonna be some serious timesink.

TBH, I'm all for it, it's an MMORPG, MMOs are supposed to be sorta grindy. But I dun think it's gonna happen.

[Soeroah]

Vague throw-away lines and data I've seen suggest (suggests, mind you, there's no confirmation) that the current intention may be to set things up so that every now and then (say, every month or two) a given 'level' of Artifact Power will be reduced in how much experience is required to level it and its associated traits.

By which I mean; say Artifact Knowledge 1 requires 500 Artifact XP to learn your first trait, but after a month or two, Artifact Knowledge Level 1 is nerfed to only require 250 Artifact XP, without reducing the overall XP you can gain. So in effect playing from launch and leveling the Traits ASAP would result in spending a lot more experience than someone coming in a year down the line.

Personally, I'm okay with that concept, but I think it should be based more on your most progressed Artifact across your characters. If you level up your Artifact Knowledge to level 4 on one character, all characters on your account should be able to get to level 3 quicker.

[Sentynel]

It is something I wonder was well. I am on the fence about Legion period for this exact reason. I'm not a hardcore raider, just a LFR scrub, but still.

There has to be a balance between not trivializing the gameplay, while NOT making it some shitty grindfest due to a poorly thought out enhancement mechanic.

To be perfectly honest, considering what Garrisons turned out to be, I have less than high hopes about Blizzard's ability to make engaging, but not tedious features.

What grindfest are you talking about? You will get Artifact Power for literally everything. Doing a random bg, doing a random hc, questing, every single fucking activity in the game will award AP.

Also, Blizz said that there will be a catch-up mechanism for it. Even your second artifact weapon for the same character will receive a bonus.

[SirCowdog]

TBH, I'm all for it, it's an MMORPG, MMOs are supposed to be sorta grindy. But I dun think it's gonna happen.

Sorta grindy is fine, so long as the core gameplay loop is enjoyable. Grind simply for the sake of filler, however, is NOT.

It would be nice if the game recognized your artifact progress account wide, or some other concession for people with lots of alts. Paragon level style from Diablo 3, or maybe something like Marvel 2016, where the more characters you level up the faster it gets. I don't know, something like that.

[ls-]

Sorta grindy is fine, so long as the core gameplay loop is enjoyable. Grind simply for the sake of filler, however, is NOT.

It would be nice if the game recognized your artifact progress account wide, or some other concession for people with lots of alts. Paragon level style from Diablo 3, or maybe something like Marvel 2016, where the more characters you level up the faster it gets. I don't know, something like that.

This kind of balance is quite difficult to achieve. It might be helluva grindy for one person, but for another one it's a cakewalk. Take a look at LFR, there are people who say that LFR is engaging and challenging, yes they do exist, even on this forum, yet there are people who literally fall asleep during LFR runs, cuz it's boring af.

I wonder what are their thoughts on player retention now, D3-like model sucks at retaining players.

[Supercool]

If Blizz wanted secondary artifacts to REALLY be a pain in the butt they wouldn't have already confirmed that unlocking appearances for one artifact unlocked the equivalent for all others on that character.

[Dasani]

Even without a catchup mechanic, artifact power isn't exactly hard to get.

From what I can tell, virtually any mob you kill has a chance to drop an item that gives artifact power at a rate of about 10 per. So if all else fails, you could grind these things out pretty easily to cap.

Rares also drop the same kind of lil items that grant artifact power 100% of the time. I haven't checked this or anything, but it is possible you might could get such items once per day? Meaning making the rounds killing all the rares again might be worth your time. I will check tomorrow and see if I get another thingy from one i've already killed.

Here's the thing about artifact power from what I have seen and experienced. You get the shit like almost constantly while you play, but the cost of each upgrade increases on your weapon every time you pick one. So you can get some of the earlier stuff fairly quick without much effort, you could even get to one of the "super" abilities pretty quick, but maxing out the entire thing is going to take serious time and/or commitment. I can already envision in my mind's eye all the hardcore progression guilds forcing their members to farm non-stop after launch to try to max out their artifact before the raid opens up. Might be possible, but it would take a shit ton of grinding. But on the other hand, legendary world drops. Sooooo.

[Eapoe]

Even without a catchup mechanic, artifact power isn't exactly hard to get.

From what I can tell, virtually any mob you kill has a chance to drop an item that gives artifact power at a rate of about 10 per. So if all else fails, you could grind these things out pretty easily to cap.

Rares also drop the same kind of lil items that grant artifact power 100% of the time. I haven't checked this or anything, but it is possible you might could get such items once per day? Meaning making the rounds killing all the rares again might be worth your time. I will check tomorrow and see if I get another thingy from one i've already killed.

Here's the thing about artifact power from what I have seen and experienced. You get the shit like almost constantly while you play, but the cost of each upgrade increases on your weapon every time you pick one. So you can get some of the earlier stuff fairly quick without much effort, you could even get to one of the "super" abilities pretty quick, but maxing out the entire thing is going to take serious time and/or commitment. I can already envision in my mind's eye all the hardcore progression guilds forcing their members to farm non-stop after launch to try to max out their artifact before the raid opens up. Might be possible, but it would take a shit ton of grinding. But on the other hand, legendary world drops. Sooooo.

One of the problems I have with the blue post is that it stated that they will have a catchup mechanic, but if it's not the weapon you start with it will not be equal. So if you pick 1 spec to start, you are choosing to have 2 others that will not be 100%. This seems wrong and the fact it shows you can not freely swap on a fight to fight basis means you will always be sub-optimal to your first spec choice.
This is something I hope they change and actually let you keep them all at the same level if you decide to put the time I to each of them.

[Wolfrick]

I have heard and read that you will have a cap on the artifact power, it means that in the first patch 7.0 you will sooner or later reach a cap on your main Artifact, this means that you can then go over to your second or third Choise artifact and work on it.

So Ok, I can see that people would like to have catchup mechanics, but guys, if blizzard implements catchup mehcanics there content gets runied since things will go so fast, leave it just as it is, and make people work to get the artifact.

Btw: you can change spec any way, you just dont have a super powerful Artifact.

As in WoD, with the raid catchup mechanics... Blackrock and high Maul, went almost obsolite at 6.2....... what is the point of content if when it comes out it will destry the past content, Catchup mechanics make the game easyer and so after let us all end up with nothing to do after just a month of game play.

blizzard should make good content and let us work for it and let us use many Months to compleet it.

[Dasani]

One of the problems I have with the blue post is that it stated that they will have a catchup mechanic, but if it's not the weapon you start with it will not be equal. So if you pick 1 spec to start, you are choosing to have 2 others that will not be 100%. This seems wrong and the fact it shows you can not freely swap on a fight to fight basis means you will always be sub-optimal to your first spec choice.
This is something I hope they change and actually let you keep them all at the same level if you decide to put the time I to each of them.

I haven't seen the post or whatever cause I don't really care enough to keep track of all the stuff, but what they probably mean is during the leveling experience you get quite a chunk of artifact power from various quests. So whatever you chose to invest all that power into would naturally be ahead of any of the other ones that you didn't. So basically they would all progress and advance at the same rate (assuming you used them all equally) but the one you start with will have a big boost just from leveling with it.

Another note for anyone who cares, it seems prettymuch all the artifact power you get from quests and junk are given to your equipped weapon directly. But the bulk of the artifact power you get comes in item form and you gotta throw em into your respective forge thing to get the power. So theoretically you could do quests or grind as a dps and save those items and use them to fuel your healer or tank artifact or whatever. The item-based stuff seems to be the biggest part of where you get your power from, at least from what i've seen.

[Cathbadh]

Hopefully it won't be too painful. We don't need more disincentive to play tank/healer specs

[Supercool]

This seems wrong and the fact it shows you can not freely swap on a fight to fight basis means you will always be sub-optimal to your first spec choice.

Well firstly, spec swapping on a per encounter basis wasn't a common thing prior to dual-spec being introduced anyway. It also wasn't something that every class could do. Only the pure DPS classes could realistically use the same weapon in all specs, and even that's leaving out Combat Rogues.

Swapping specs should be something that isn't too punishing, because there's plenty of reasons someone might want to try a different spec out, but it shouldn't be as trivial as swapping talents has become.