Could someone explain to me the artifact power system?

[Deavane]

The more I look into it the more it feels path of exileish. Especially since the further you ar into the artifact the harder it is to respec it (If it costs 10k to upgrade I have to re-farm that which may make me not want to upgrade it... at least as it's described.

A lot of research has already been done into what the optimal route will be when it comes to speccing your artifact for PVE. Guides will be available well before Legion is out that will tell you what nodes to spec into if you are unsure.

I will admit that I am interested in what values they will finalize the artifacts with. While it is important that artifact rewards remain exciting initially, getting every node in your artifact after three months seems a bit long.

[Antermosiph]

A lot of research has already been done into what the optimal route will be when it comes to speccing your artifact for PVE. Guides will be available well before Legion is out that will tell you what nodes to spec into if you are unsure.

I will admit that I am interested in what values they will finalize the artifacts with. While it is important that artifact rewards remain exciting initially, getting every node in your artifact after three months seems a bit long.

I hope they change the re-trait system as well. It'd suck to upgrade that 20,000 cost trait and then need to rebuild it and simply not be able to cause of the excessive cost by that point.

[Ersula]

This sounds unnecessarily complicated. Why not just give us X points to spend and then increase those each raid patch after a quest?

This is a progression system. You gain power as you play the game.

And everyone keeps saying "Everyone will reach the cap eventually," but I don't think they will. Yes, there is also the artifact knowledge system that multiplies how much you earn, but at least for launch content, will cap around 400%, but that's why they give you a 20-point trait once you fill your artifact, so you won't hit the cap before the next content patch is released, will inevitability add more traits and a higher cap.

Just 1 of the three major artifact traits will be expected of you to start raiding, as you'll get your first in the first week, but the exponential cost means this is how it'll break down at launch for a frequent player:

First day: 1 to 4 traits bought.
First week: 10 to 15 traits bought.
First month: 30 to 40 traits bought.
Six months: about 50 of the 55 traits bought, just in time for more to be added.

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I hope they change the re-trait system as well. It'd suck to upgrade that 20,000 cost trait and then need to rebuild it and simply not be able to cause of the excessive cost by that point.

It won't be possible for another player to view how you built your artifact, and frankly if a guildie asked me to respec, I'd tell them to eat themselves. "You need to go respec." Yeah, I'd need 2,000 more artifact power to do that. I had more, but guess what? I spent it on more traits.

This expansion is telling Theorycrafters to sit on it and I couldn't be happier.

[Xenyatta]

Having just finished getting to 110, upgrading sucks as you go along especially the further into it you get. I cry when I see how much I need to get to the next level. But then I stop and realize, this thing isn't meant to be completed in a week. Where's the fun in that? This isn't meant to be completed in a month or two months or maybe even a year. That's the overall point. I'm the kind of person who wants everything in about 12 minutes ago but not everything can happen that way and I have to accept that. So instead of grinding away and being totally miserable trying to upgrade this as fast as I can, I'll keep at it but while I do other things and when it upgrades, it upgrades.

[Schmilblick]

Looks like a crappy system, before we needed to farm to get a better gear, now, we will farm just to be able to use our spells...

[Xenyatta]

Looks like a crappy system, before we needed to farm to get a better gear, now, we will farm just to be able to use our spells...

I haven't looked into too many other classes but from what I've seen from the demon hunters, there are no new spells to unlock. There are passives and +x% to damage or things that happen but you're not looking for new spells with Havoc. I could be wrong with the other classes though.

[Schmilblick]

there are no new spells to unlock. There are passives and +x% to damage or things that happen but you're not looking for new spells with Havoc.

Passives are spells too you know...

[Deleted]

Looks like a crappy system, before we needed to farm to get a better gear, now, we will farm just to be able to use our spells...

There are only 3 active abilities unlocked with artifact power, frost DK, BM hunter, and holy priest. Everything else is passive. So you farm to make your spells better, and it actually works really well. It is a constant source of power increases, and it is nice when you get to unlock a new passive. It also adds customization as to what to get first, since you won't be able to get it all for quite a while.

Edit: As others have mentioned, this is not designed to be maxed out soon at all, and you have to accept that. There is no way to immediately unlock it all, so you will just be frustrated if you think you should have it all at once. With all the moaning that usually is on this forum about everything being too easy and quick to obtain in WoW, this should be a welcome change for those people.

[Deleted]

Passives are spells too you know...

Not really, they enhance your current spells.

[Schmilblick]

Not really, they enhance your current spells.

Like talents ...

[Deleted]

Like talents ...

This discussion is about artefact power and traits, most of which are passives, which is why not having a fully levelled artefact on day one is not such a big deal. Why you would drag talents into this I have no idea.

[Schmilblick]

This discussion is about artefact power and traits, most of which are passives, which is why not having a fully levelled artefact on day one is not such a big deal. Why you would drag talents into this I have no idea.

Seriously ? Talents have also a big chunk of passives, which make them more like traits that are gated behind leveling and not artifact power, now you have an idea why "i drag talents into this".

[Glas]

Is there any system in place that allows you to grant artifact power to your second/third artifact without sacrificing the your main spec's power growth?

For example if I play a mage and main Arcane but want my secondary spec Fire to be relevant, will I have to pick & choose when to give my Fire artifact power over Arcane artifact, or is there anyway that is done passively?

[Cynep]

Is there any system in place that allows you to grant artifact power to your second/third artifact without sacrificing the your main spec's power growth?

For example if I play a mage and main Arcane but want my secondary spec Fire to be relevant, will I have to pick & choose when to give my Fire artifact power over Arcane artifact, or is there anyway that is done passively?

At this point of Beta, no. You have to choose which weapon you're empowering. However:
1. Artifact Power will be gained at progressively higher rates with your artifact research, and devs said they will increase AP gains during x-pack with time.
2. As of now, fully unlocking 35/35 tree (not counting 0.5% "paragon levels") on one weapon is more expensive than unlocking 30/35 on three weapons combined.

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Passives are spells too you know...

Offtopic, but:

Circles are not triangles.
Passive effects are not spells.

[Schmilblick]

Circles are not triangles.
Passive effects are not spells.

Then Passive talents are not talents too.

[shanthi]

2. As of now, fully unlocking 35/35 tree (not counting 0.5% "paragon levels") on one weapon is more expensive than unlocking 30/35 on three weapons combined.

Hmm, that's interesting. So it might be wiser to get main spec and off spec weapon to 30/35 before pushing main spec weapon to 35/35, if you expect to use your off spec much in raids.

[SirBeef]

This sounds unnecessarily complicated. Why not just give us X points to spend and then increase those each raid patch after a quest?

Meh, I was super excited for legion and this + the talent system change is largely making me feel like not bothering till 1-2 patches in. Doesn't help I gotta reroll because fuck ice armor.

It's not complicated at all. You kill things, you get AP. You finish quests, you get AP. You run dungeons, you get AP. You do order hall missions, you get AP. You kill rares, you get AP. You find treasures. you get AP. It all adds up and you put points into your Artifact to gain new abilities and traits. The longer you wait to more catch up you will have to do. You gain AP like candy. YOu get a quest to find another artifact for off specs fairly early and there are items that make catching up off specs easier. Nothing about the system is complicated.

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So what? Make your own groups if you dont like it. People should be able to invite whoever they want with whatever ridiculous stipulations they want to their pug groups.

No shit. To who you quoted, Blizzard has gone back to your main spec should feel like it's important and you will need to put effort into your off specs/alts. There is nothing wrong with making players work for their rewards from a game play perspective. You do not need to have a fully maxed out artifact to be viable in raid or mythic/mythic+ settings. You can easily get your off specs to a viable level by the time raiding starts. There is also a good chance raiding/LFR will give nlarge AP rewards per week to help.

Frankly I like the change. I said in the vanilla zone leveling thread that people hailed the slower leveling process as awesome in vanilla, ignoring that all it was was a giant time-sink. But when Time-sinks are added in modern day WoW, it's heresy.

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This expansion is telling Theorycrafters to sit on it and I couldn't be happier.

I was excited for WoD. I mean really excited. Then after a few months of realizing that outside of raiding there really was nothing I wanted to do or had to do. There is something good in the waters for Legion IMO. It just feels different. I can't really explain it, it just feels different to me. I am far more excited for Legions release than I have been for any expansion partly becasue I know there will always be something for me to work on that I am interested in. Collecting and maxing out all the artifacts I possibly can. The drop dead gorgeous zones and fun dungeons, minus a boss or two, doesn't hurt either.

[BiggestNoob]

It's not complicated at all. You kill things, you get AP. You finish quests, you get AP. You run dungeons, you get AP. You do order hall missions, you get AP. You kill rares, you get AP. You find treasures. you get AP. It all adds up and you put points into your Artifact to gain new abilities and traits. The longer you wait to more catch up you will have to do. You gain AP like candy. YOu get a quest to find another artifact for off specs fairly early and there are items that make catching up off specs easier. Nothing about the system is complicated.

Order hall missions - 20 AP. Treasures - 5-75 AP. Treasures are a one-time thing, and so are quest rewards. The bulk of the AP you need (some 90%) is going to come from actual grinds. It isn't given out like candy. Killing hundreds of mobs yields you a few drops of AP. Clearing a heroic dungeon could get you 50-300 AP. Once you've actually finished all the content, it's not nearly as plentiful as you claim.

No shit. To who you quoted, Blizzard has gone back to your main spec should feel like it's important and you will need to put effort into your off specs/alts. There is nothing wrong with making players work for their rewards from a game play perspective. You do not need to have a fully maxed out artifact to be viable in raid or mythic/mythic+ settings. You can easily get your off specs to a viable level by the time raiding starts. There is also a good chance raiding/LFR will give nlarge AP rewards per week to help.

No, this change makes it harder to level off-specs and alts. In other expansions, you don't really get punished. The limiting factor is gear and a weekly time gated mechanic that takes a short period of time (clearing 13/13 or killing Archimonde once, for example). And this new design is yet again bad because the optimal way to play alts is to get them to 110 without doing quests that reward AP (ie grinding mobs or dungeons) and then waiting until you've got months of research done to make your AP rewards 5-10x before you go out and actually start gathering AP. This is just a stupid design. It means that the upfront cost in getting alts is the exact same as WoD, but they'll be gimped until the 2nd/3rd raid.

It also means if you actually need to play 2 specs early on in the expansion, you must make 2 characters and spend all your AP on one artifact on each of them.

This is only beneficial for shitty players who can't actually do anything other than play 1 spec or don't do anything that matters. People who like changes that harm the gameplay of others just because they don't do those things are asking for this game to die. No previous expansion was even remotely close to this hostile to alts or off-spec play.

This discussion is about artefact power and traits, most of which are passives, which is why not having a fully levelled artefact on day one is not such a big deal. Why you would drag talents into this I have no idea.

Because before you have a lot of AP, you often have to decide between making ST better or AoE better. This is like the choice you have in talents, and the respec cost of your weapon is enormous even early on. Just as idiotic is the artifact design which makes you make a permanent bonus artifact node choice. Unlike other gear, you can't remove them. They act more like enchants or gems, but they're more rare than gear drops (more like trinkets) and they aren't crafted. Yay more grinds!

This entire system is stupid. Casuals aren't going to be able to put up the grind required to progress their weapons and so they won't feel any sort of growth from them. I guarantee you that a casual in 1 month won't be able to run the 50 dungeons back to back it's required to gain a new level at 16-17 unlocks.

This grind is currently so astronomical that Blizzard is most certainly going to nerf it. They intend for people to finish the weapon and work on the AA system because they implemented an AA system and added a very powerful extra ability once you've finished all the primary nodes. And currently that's completely unreasonable to do unless you play all the time and chain run heroics with a group that can clear them in like 5 minutes. This is not a casual friendly system.

Hmm, that's interesting. So it might be wiser to get main spec and off spec weapon to 30/35 before pushing main spec weapon to 35/35, if you expect to use your off spec much in raids.

There are nodes in each that you don't care about at all which can be skipped, but you still want to eventually unlock all of them because at 35/35 you gain an incredibly powerful bonus and access to an AA system that flat increases your role's performance.

[shanthi]

There are nodes in each that you don't care about at all which can be skipped, but you still want to eventually unlock all of them because at 35/35 you gain an incredibly powerful bonus and access to an AA system that flat increases your role's performance.

Yeah, I understand that, but if getting your secondary weapon to 30/35 is fairly quick and your raid team needs you to use your off-spec a reasonable amount, it might be more efficient to actually get your off-spec weapon to the point that you're not totally gimped when you play the spec before maxing out your primary weapon.

[ComputerNerd]

This is a progression system. You gain power as you play the game.

And everyone keeps saying "Everyone will reach the cap eventually," but I don't think they will. Yes, there is also the artifact knowledge system that multiplies how much you earn, but at least for launch content, will cap around 400%, but that's why they give you a 20-point trait once you fill your artifact, so you won't hit the cap before the next content patch is released, will inevitability add more traits and a higher cap.

Just 1 of the three major artifact traits will be expected of you to start raiding, as you'll get your first in the first week, but the exponential cost means this is how it'll break down at launch for a frequent player:

First day: 1 to 4 traits bought.
First week: 10 to 15 traits bought.
First month: 30 to 40 traits bought.
Six months: about 50 of the 55 traits bought, just in time for more to be added.

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It won't be possible for another player to view how you built your artifact, and frankly if a guildie asked me to respec, I'd tell them to eat themselves. "You need to go respec." Yeah, I'd need 2,000 more artifact power to do that. I had more, but guess what? I spent it on more traits.

This expansion is telling Theorycrafters to sit on it and I couldn't be happier.

A while back I brought up a concern about the artifact being another measure of a player's readiness above what blizzard dictate.
So this is certainly a welcome step.

The rate of off-spec artifact progression is a double-edged sword really.
Make it difficult and players get pidgeonholed and even excluded if not the best spec for the job.
Make it too easy and there is this expectation that you progress all of them.