Could someone explain to me the artifact power system?

[Space Troll]

Then Passive talents are not talents too.

Are you seriously complaining and whining to get attention?

OT: I'm glad it's not required to be 35/35 on your weapon traits, because some of them are closer to useless or super situational.

[Lucypurr]

Hello, does anyone know how long it will take to get the artifact primary spec for the maximum level and the secondary spec?

Hardcore players like 1month and a half for both? Casual 2-3months? more, less?

[Antermosiph]

Hello, does anyone know how long it will take to get the artifact primary spec for the maximum level and the secondary spec?

Hardcore players like 1month and a half for both? Casual 2-3months? more, less?

if Hardcore = 50 heroics a day, possibly a month?

Its something like 5-10AP or something each, and you need well into the hundreds of thousands to max out. And from what it sounds like its also RNG gated a bit.

I'll be honest I was looking forward to legion as a mythic raider, but now I'm really not. The epic ring was horrible towards alts and frankly made me unwilling to bother with any of them near the end of WoD, this is just a worse version of that. Ah well, that'll teach me to pre-order. At least blizzard refunds them upon request.

[SirBeef]

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, 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.

Not true with the treasures. I just opened one in Highmountain that had two of the epic 250 AP items along with several 5s. I know they are one shots and I understand it will be a grind. Artifacts are not something you are expected to fully open up by the time the first raid is available. It is very easy to hit two unlock two big ones by the time raiding opens and one on an alt spec or alt toon. You do not need a fully unlocked artifact to raid.

You quoted me in saying it would be harder and I am all for that. I have no issues with it taking time or a grind to get alt specs and toons to an equal footing as your main spec/toon. I think that is how it should be. But with that said, it doesn't take that long to level a character to 110 especially with the 11% nerf to experience needed implemented recently and by the time you reach 110 you will have at least one big talent unlocked which is more than enough for the first tier of raiding.

You also have it completely backwards. The optimal way to play alts would be to do quests that give you AP so you can grind out the mobs and find the treasures while popping into dungeons every now and then taking a break to hit your Order Hall to grab those quests that reward AP while you add a talent to your artifact. Taking full advantage of of every AP earning activity.

Funny that recently it's been the game is so easy you are handed everything just for logging in. Now you are asked to put in a little effort and you guys are against that. The WoW community just really doesn't know what it wants.

- - - Updated - - -

Hello, does anyone know how long it will take to get the artifact primary spec for the maximum level and the secondary spec?

Hardcore players like 1month and a half for both? Casual 2-3months? more, less?

I wish it took the whole expansion personally. There is a chance it might if they add more to it with patches.

[Cynep]

Hello, does anyone know how long it will take to get the artifact primary spec for the maximum level and the secondary spec?

Hardcore players like 1month and a half for both? Casual 2-3months? more, less?

We can't know yet. Blizzard has 3 months to change numbers.

[Sylvaeres]

Title, I understand the overall gist of it (gain power from doing stuff, power increases artifact strength) but I do have a few random questions regarding it from folks on beta.

1. If you gain power, is it capped on how much you can get per day/week?
2. How absurd is the grind? As the first goal will obviously be to max it out asap (if possible).
3. How does this system work for offspec, and if there is a cap does that cap count against all specs?
4. What sort of activities give artifact power, and approximately how much?

No cap so far.
The grind to your first major ability isn't bad, you'll get there pretty much from quests. After that it jumps up significantly to make it harder to obtain new skills

As far as offspec, get used to not having one for the first full tier. If you waste artifact points in anything but your main spec, you're putting yourself at a huge disadvantage.

And finally, pretty much everything gives artifact power. World quests give between 20 and 60, you get a decent amount in dungeons, etc.

[BiggestNoob]

Not true with the treasures. I just opened one in Highmountain that had two of the epic 250 AP items along with several 5s. I know they are one shots and I understand it will be a grind. Artifacts are not something you are expected to fully open up by the time the first raid is available. It is very easy to hit two unlock two big ones by the time raiding opens and one on an alt spec or alt toon. You do not need a fully unlocked artifact to raid.

It's random, and those nodes are extremely potent for raiding, so if you're planning on actually going in and raiding on the day the raid launches, you can't spend any time on an alt at all.

Once you've opened every treasure and done every quest your only source of AP is world quests, missions, grinding mobs, and doing dungeons. We've been to that point for a while now on beta and it's taking a very long time to unlock another node.

You quoted me in saying it would be harder and I am all for that. I have no issues with it taking time or a grind to get alt specs and toons to an equal footing as your main spec/toon. I think that is how it should be. But with that said, it doesn't take that long to level a character to 110 especially with the 11% nerf to experience needed implemented recently and by the time you reach 110 you will have at least one big talent unlocked which is more than enough for the first tier of raiding.

It doesn't make sense for it to be harder to get alts and off specs to the same level. In fact, once you have content on farm, it should be much easier to do. And if you want to be competitive, you need 18-20 unlocks before the first raid, minimum. I'm going to bet that 95% of people on beta have fewer than 14, even several weeks into the beta.

You also have it completely backwards. The optimal way to play alts would be to do quests that give you AP so you can grind out the mobs and find the treasures while popping into dungeons every now and then taking a break to hit your Order Hall to grab those quests that reward AP while you add a talent to your artifact. Taking full advantage of of every AP earning activity.

No, because once you hit 110 you have a quest that unlocks AP research. The tooltip was just updated in the last patch from 1% to 100% per research tier. The research takes 5 days to complete each. This bonus doesn't currently work, however. So if you're going to see 100% more AP after every 5 days, the optimal way to play alts is to grind them to 110 without collecting any one-time AP, wait until you have like 2 months of research done (1200%) then go do all the AP gaining activities, which will basically let you fully unlock one weapon or unlock most of all your weapons. That's too late for the first raid tier.

It also means that grinding AP early on your main may not be the optimal strategy either, and for the first 5 days just getting a basic set of mythic dungeon gear and pooling AP will be optimal.

This entire system is incredibly stupid. If Blizzard wants to keep this AP system intact, they need to make you need to fill 1 AP bar for all your weapons (some classes have 2, some classes have 4, this is bullshit), and to get rid of the research and just make AP way more reliable. Bosses in dungeons/raids should drop it always, instead of 20 for doing world quests you should get 100, and actually use it to encourage playing the game and not just mindless grinding.

Funny that recently it's been the game is so easy you are handed everything just for logging in. Now you are asked to put in a little effort and you guys are against that. The WoW community just really doesn't know what it wants.

Sure we do. I don't want pointless grinds added to the game. I already do more than 99% of people playing this game, and I do it on multiple characters. Pointless grinds that punish playing the game outside of a single spec is bad design.

If their goal is to cut down on split farming, they need to address it by just shifting the launch of mythic and heroic so mythic comes out first, then for a couple of weeks heroic/normal are exclusive with mythic so you have to do mythic for 3 weeks or do heroic on week 2. This is sufficiently punishing and by the 3rd week a guild actually progressing through bosses in mythic would have more gear than they would get by split clearing on alts in heroic in week 2 and coming in the 3rd week (and would be substantially ahead in progression). There's no way to game this, the race would end in the 3rd or 4th week and split farming would be completely removed from the game.

This is bad even from the perspective of someone who actually plays hardcore. You do realize that I'm a super minority in this game, right? Legion is shaping up to be one of the worst expansions, and possibly to have a bigger sub loss than WoD did. There's nothing to do in Legion after a week except grind. That's just WoD without the "waiting on garrison missions" except you are waiting on garrison missions because your class campaign is gated behind 2 weeks of garrison missions that you can't skip. Engaging gameplay there.

[Antermosiph]

Bit of a continuation question: So far in the beta what are the 'best' ways to farm artifact power?

And I don't mean questing, as that's limited. When quests are exhausted how would someone grind it out? Dungeons?