Is artifact power generic currency?

[middling]

So, I keep hearing people talk about leveling as certain specs in order to power up the artifact weapon?

Isn't artifact power a generic currency?

So, I play with spec A and earn currency, switch to spec B and spend that currency on that other artifact weapon?

[Raetary]

its not a currency with which you can buy things.
its, power.
points, you spend on your artifact trait tree.
basically talent points in a little bit different way.

also, you get the power from items which are in your inventory, its bound to your spec and weapon if you consume the item.
if you didnt then you can swap specs all you want.

[Imnick]

I think Artifact Power is owned by your weapon, not in the currency tab.
Most rewards that grant artifact power do so in the form of inventory items though, so you can simply change spec before activating them.

[Deleted]

Your weapon has artifact power. Think of it as "leveling your weapon" and artifact power is just EXP or talent points.

Artifact power comes from specific consumable items, you get these from quests or bosses. You can stockpile these if you want.

Consuming these items will add artifact power to the weapon. You can play a DPS and stockpile all the artifact power, then switch to your healing spec/weapon and dump it all into it. So at the beginning of the expansion you can just play DPS and save up all the artifact power until lvl 110, then get the second weapon for your tank/healing spec and dump all the artifact power into it.

[javen]

And if they tune the catch-up mechanic wrong it may be smart to save them the first week and use them the second.

The AP value from an item is locked the moment you obtain it. Artifact Knowledge levels only impact items you get after achieving the next level.

[Imnick]

Nope. They said every week there is a catch up mechanic for those that skip a week or start late.

Yes and they also said that once you get an item, its value is locked, so there's no purpose in saving them for when you have upped your level of artifact knowledge.

Increasing Artifact Knowledge permanently increases your rate of Artifact Power gains, and this bonus applies to all artifact weapons your character may possess. (And no, Artifact Power items obtained at a lower Knowledge level won't automatically update, so hoarding items for future use won't benefit you.)

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...4323?page=2#23

Look things up before correcting people.

[Kralljin]

Artifact power works like a currency until you spend it, then it's linked to an artifact.

You can "release" artifact power from an artifact, but that costs the same amount of the next trait, since later traits require a lot of artifact power, you basically throw out multiple days of artifact progression to get the artifact power back.

Nope. They said every week there is a catch up mechanic for those that skip a week or start late.

There is something called "Artifact Knowledge" you can research that at your order hall.

Basically it increases the rate at which you gain Artifact power, however the research time is quite huge, multiple days in fact.

This research time will go by the time legion progresses, at first it will be like 5days, later on maybe one.

Artifact knowledge can be increased 10 times in total and is not linked to an artifact.

[Maudib]

So, I keep hearing people talk about leveling as certain specs in order to power up the artifact weapon?

Isn't artifact power a generic currency?

So, I play with spec A and earn currency, switch to spec B and spend that currency on that other artifact weapon?

You have to earn the Artifact power PER SPEC. This is lame as hell, but the way it is. I expect Blizzard to backpedal and make some really large catch-up adjustments.. because what they have now will not cut it. You can take a "break" from powering up your main spec... and spend 6500 on the off spec... that will get you 13 points... but the 14th costs more than the first 13 combined.

[Sylvaeres]

Artifact power works like a currency until you spend it, then it's linked to an artifact.

You can "release" artifact power from an artifact, but that costs the same amount of the next trait, since later traits require a lot of artifact power, you basically throw out multiple days of artifact progression to get the artifact power back.



There is something called "Artifact Knowledge" you can research that at your order hall.

Basically it increases the rate at which you gain Artifact power, however the research time is quite huge, multiple days in fact.

This research time will go by the time legion progresses, at first it will be like 5days, later on maybe one.

Artifact knowledge can be increased 10 times in total and is not linked to an artifact.

Yes, but it doesn't retro affect the items you have in your bags. If your item has a value of 100 AP, it will never change from that 100 AP, no matter how many notes you get. Only new items will be affected by an increased AK rank

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You have to earn the Artifact power PER SPEC. This is lame as hell, but the way it is. I expect Blizzard to backpedal and make some really large catch-up adjustments.. because what they have now will not cut it. You can take a "break" from powering up your main spec... and spend 6500 on the off spec... that will get you 13 points... but the 14th costs more than the first 13 combined.

They won't backpedal. It's meant for you to invest your time into one spec, and occasionally get a few points in an alt spex

[Fleckens]

There is something called "Artifact Knowledge" you can research that at your order hall.

Basically it increases the rate at which you gain Artifact power, however the research time is quite huge, multiple days in fact.

This research time will go by the time legion progresses, at first it will be like 5days, later on maybe one.

Artifact knowledge can be increased 10 times in total and is not linked to an artifact.

I'm pretty sure we don't know how high artifact knowledge can go or how much it gives, so far highest i've heard of is rank 7 which is 375% increase.

However as others have also pointed out, it only affects items you get after you got that level, so you can't save them up. Also it does not work on 1 time quests, so don't worry about saving those quests for later either.

[Phurox]

They won't backpedal. It's meant for you to invest your time into one spec, and occasionally get a few points in an alt spex

Say goodbye to many tanks and healers.

Question: Does your weapon damage increase the more AP you use on your weapon?

[Goshko]

Question: Does your weapon damage increase the more AP you use on your weapon?

No, AP is experience for weapons. You get new abilities but straight up ilvl (and consequently damage) increase comes from relics (think artifact weapon gems) that come from various sources.

[Maudib]

They won't backpedal. It's meant for you to invest your time into one spec, and occasionally get a few points in an alt spex

Yeah they will. It's not balanced and not something they can see with beta testing. When the masses begin to see the exponential time it takes to earn each point... Blizz will either increase significantly the AP gains... or maybe even let each spec spend the full amount of AP.

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The thing is, a single rank on the 20rank trait can cost as much as the first 20-25 ranks in another artifact. The "sacrifice" of keeping a second spec at a very good level will be like 0,5-1% of throughput

Once you reach level 13 on each spec you are right... but after that... peeps will not level their alt specs for a LONG time.

[Deleted]

You have to earn the Artifact power PER SPEC. This is lame as hell, but the way it is. I expect Blizzard to backpedal and make some really large catch-up adjustments.. because what they have now will not cut it. You can take a "break" from powering up your main spec... and spend 6500 on the off spec... that will get you 13 points... but the 14th costs more than the first 13 combined.

Which is exactly why it works. You can either get a single trait for your main weapon, or get your secondary one caught up.

Why this system works:

Artifact research greatly increases the amount of Artifact Power you get from various sources (Only affects items that dropped after you did the research, to prevent pooling items and then upping the ArP they give. Quests that reward ArP are not affected at all).

Artifact research will take less time to research the further we get from release. It takes 5 days on launch day, 4 days after a month (Or something like that), and so on. This will allow alts to catch up quickly later on.

You can use ArP items on whatever artifact weapon you choose. So you can farm ArP items on main spec, switch to secondary spec and then use the items.

The cost for a new trait increases exponentially. This means that unlocking 1 trait at a high level costs as much ArP as getting a secondary weapon up to the same level minus 2-3 points. Individual traits give some power, but you won't be gimping yourself that much by having two weapons leveled.

The very late game traits have a huge cost, but only 0.5% damage per trait point. So, gaining 0.5-1% more damage on your max level artifact weapon costs the same as getting another artifact weapon very close to max level.

If anyone disagrees, I'd like to see some reason why it shouldn't work.

[Deleted]

Yeah they will. It's not balanced and not something they can see with beta testing. When the masses begin to see the exponential time it takes to earn each point... Blizz will either increase significantly the AP gains... or maybe even let each spec spend the full amount of AP.

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Once you reach level 13 on each spec you are right... but after that... peeps will not level their alt specs for a LONG time.

Well, people endlessly complained about having nothing to do outside of raiding. WoD was one of the most effortless, player time friendly expansions, if not THE most. You were never forced into anything, and catch-up was extremely rapid & efficient. Yet people HATED that.

So there you go. Legion will be exact opposition of WoD. No more convinience, no more ease of access. Hurdles basing on time gating and arbitrary currency grinds are coming back with a vengeance. No alt catchup, BOP blood of sargeras, no daily cooldowns on professions, artifact power grinds restricting your ability to play offspecs etc. etc.

I'm not quite fond of this. In fact this is when my journey with WoW shall end. I'll use September to make as much gold as I can, then I'll sell it all. Then I'll sell the account. And that will be it. Sorry, I can't play this much anymore.

Thank you Blizzard for years of fun.

Hope you guys will have fun in Legion too.

[Deleted]

Well, people endlessly complained about having nothing to do outside of raiding. WoD was one of the most effortless, player time friendly expansions, if not THE most. You were never forced into anything, and catch-up was extremely rapid & efficient. Yet people HATED that.

So there you go. Legion will be exact opposition of WoD. No more convinience, no more ease of access. Hurdles basing on time gating and arbitrary currency grinds are coming back with a vengeance. No alt catchup, BOP blood of sargeras, no daily cooldowns on professions, artifact power grinds restricting your ability to play offspecs etc. etc.

I'm not quite fond of this. In fact this is when my journey with WoW shall end. I'll use September to make as much gold as I can, then I'll sell it all. Then I'll sell the account. And that will be it. Sorry, I can't play this much anymore.

Thank you Blizzard for years of fun.

WoD had nothing worthwhile to do outside of raiding. That's why people hated it. Dungeons? Pointless after a few weeks, few days if you are a good player. Apexis dailies? Rewards were very expensive, poorly itemized, and expensive enough that raiders would have better gear by the time they could buy a single apexis item. Oh, and those quests were boring as fuck. Which left trapping beasts for your barn work orders. That was pretty much the only content WoD had to offer outside of raids. Bringing a mob to 50% hp and then trapping it. Wow, so much fun.

"No alt catchup" - Artifact research says hello.

Do you have beta access? I'm guessing not, because anyone should be able to tell that Legion is the best expansion since Wotlk, and in my opinion much better than any other expansion.

[Deleted]

WoD had nothing worthwhile to do outside of raiding. That's why people hated it. Dungeons? Pointless after a few weeks, few days if you are a good player. Apexis dailies? Rewards were very expensive, poorly itemized, and expensive enough that raiders would have better gear by the time they could buy a single apexis item. Which left trapping beasts for your barn work orders. That was pretty much the only content WoD had to offer outside of raids. Bringing a mob to 50% hp and then trapping it. Wow, so much fun.

"No alt catchup" - Artifact research says hello.

Do you have beta access? I'm guessing not, because anyone should be able to tell that Legion is the best expansion since Wotlk, and in my opinion much better than any other expansion.

Yes, legion does look fun indeed.

However. It is a time sink. Much greater than WoD or tbh any expansion since WoTLK or even TBC.

1. Grinding AP is a necessity
2. Taking part in world content is a necessity
3. Dungeons are a necessity
4. Mythic+ looks good on paper, except not when your key level resets every week. Meaning that you'll pretty much have to run like twenty dungeons a week. PER CHARACTER if you play any alts!
5. Raiding. Pretty much unchanged, but yeah, now you have so much stuff to do outside of raids.

In order to enjoy Legion at its fullest I'd need to play it like 8 hours a day. I won't have even a third of that, so no, thank you.
I'm not going to be a casual scrub achieving nothing. That's now how I play games.

I'll take the opportunity, make some buck out of it, and close this chapter of my life. This doesn't mean that I hate legion, or that legion is bad. It's just my personal decision, nothing more. It's not an expansion for me.

Propably going back to Diablo or Hearthstone. It's a game I can pick up, play for 1-2 hours and be done with it. WoW is a different style of game. It's going back to its time devouring, teenage boy virginity keeping roots. I grown out of this type of gaming long ago.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I look at it more like experience points for your weapon than currency. It is what levels your weapon up and unlocks new skills. Relics are like the "gear" for the weapon that increase its item level and general stats.

[Deleted]

Yes, legion does look fun indeed.

However. It is a time sink. Much greater than WoD or tbh any expansion since WoTLK or even TBC.

1. Grinding AP is a necessity
2. Taking part in world content is a necessity
3. Dungeons are a necessity
4. Mythic+ looks good on paper, except not when your key level resets every week. Meaning that you'll pretty much have to run like twenty dungeons a week. PER CHARACTER if you play any alts!
5. Raiding. Pretty much unchanged, but yeah, now you have so much stuff to do outside of raids.

In order to enjoy Legion at its fullest I'd need to play it like 8 hours a day. I won't have even a third of that, so no, thank you.
I'm not going to be a casual scrub achieving nothing. That's now how I play games.

I'll take the opportunity, make some buck out of it, and close this chapter of my life. This doesn't mean that I hate legion, or that legion is bad. It's just my personal decision, nothing more. It's not an expansion for me.

Propably going back to Diablo or Hearthstone. It's a game I can pick up, play for 1-2 hours and be done with it. WoW is a different style of game. It's going back to its time devouring, teenage boy virginity keeping roots. I grown out of this type of gaming long ago.

1. Grinding ArP is not a necessity. Depending on what you mean by grinding.
2. Taking part in world content is a necessity in the sense that it is pretty much the only way to get order hall resources, and you want those at least in the early stages.
3. How are dungeons a necessity?
4. Why will you have to run twenty dungeons a week? It's an odd number, and I don't really get where you got that from.
5. Yes?

Why would you need to play it 8 hours a day? I'm not sure you understand how world quests work, or the emmisary quests for that matter.

The current reward structure in Legion is basically the same as the one in Hearthstone. Every day you get this thing you can do that takes no longer than an hour or so to do. It rewards you with quite a bit, compared to the time invested. If you don't have daily quests in Hearthstone, arena is the only "really" rewarding thing to do. Same with Legion. If you don't have emmisary quest up (Or specific world quests that provide you something you need), you gotta do dungeons or raids for bigger rewards.

This works fine though, since that means you don't have to spend massive amounts of time to actually get somewhere in Legion. Log in, check your world quests, find the ones you want to do and go do them, and then you can take it from there.

I just don't understand why you would insist that it requires a lot of time to get anywhere, when that is not the case.

[Maudib]

Which is exactly why it works. You can either get a single trait for your main weapon, or get your secondary one caught up.

If anyone disagrees, I'd like to see some reason why it shouldn't work.

1%.. maybe... but putting 3 in there is 3%... and if you get the right relic... +1 so 4%... in other cases it's 5%, 10%, 15% and maybe 20%.

That's significant. In addition let's say you are at point 19... and it takes 30,600 to get to point 20. That will NOT buy the previous two points for the alt weapon. So yeah... you can get both weapons to around 14... but at that point you every point you put i n your alt spec, effectively DOUBLES the amount of time to increase your main spec.

So at level 19 (let's say for argument you have keep them equal thus far) you need 30600. You gain it and up your main to 20.

21 is 39,520. If you do your alt weapon next... you need 30600 AND 39,520 before your main gets upgraded. 70,120 points before you get main to 21. The higher you get, the longer it will take to upgrade the main weapon dragging the alt spec along.

Right now, in beta, it's not that bad... you are getting something like a point or two a day (I'm level 15 or 16) but it's getting longer and longer between points... soon it will be a few days, then a week, then 2 weeks. At some point, putting a point in you off spec will make you next main spec point take like weeks to get from the last one you earned for it.

For me.. I will so the 13 points (before the big jump) in the alt spec weapons... then stop until I have the 34 to fill in the main weapon.

When people start seeing how much slower it becomes to add those last 14 points... they are going to change their tune.

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1. Grinding ArP is not a necessity. Depending on what you mean by grinding.

Why would you need to play it 8 hours a day? I'm not sure you understand how world quests work, or the emmisary quests for that matter.

I just don't understand why you would insist that it requires a lot of time to get anywhere, when that is not the case.

If you want to progress as fast as possible... you will want to clear ALL World Quests each day. Mayne slkip the gold ones, but we cannot be sure how the WQ are generated.. random or so many of each kind.

Dungeons are unlimited... spamming random heroics will be a consistent and unlimited way of generating AP. I was seeing about 225 per boss... and I have went up a level (275% Knowledge) since then.

This is a good thing overall... giving a reason to run more than a couple per day. But make no mistake.. the way the numbers are NOW... the grind is VERY real in legion. And we haven't even touched on the Suramar Ancient Mana grind.