Is artifact power generic currency?

[Deleted]

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.

- - - Updated - - -



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.

Going from 19-20 costs the same as 0-16. So instead of getting one new rank on your main, you could get a secondary weapon up to 3 ranks below your main. I'm not arguing that it doesn't take time. I'm arguing that because of the way the cost increases, you will at some point be able to massively upgrade a secondary weapon (Depending on how far behind it is), just for one single point on your main weapon. I was also talking about when your main weapon is "max" level. The 20 point trait increases your damage with 0.5% per rank (For DPS at least), and you can't relic it obviously.

Also, getting very high level with your artifact weapon is simply not grindable. You NEED artifact research to ever hope to get it maxed, and that is gated anyway. So, in the end, you can choose to keep a secondary weapon within 3-4 trait points of your main weapon at the cost of 1 point (30 main, 0 secondary vs 29 main 25 secondary, for example), and while artifact traits are powerful, they don't make or break your performance as much as you seem to think.

[Maudib]

So, in the end, you can choose to keep a secondary weapon within 3-4 trait points of your main weapon at the cost of 1 point (30 main, 0 secondary vs 29 main 25 secondary, for example), and while artifact traits are powerful, they don't make or break your performance as much as you seem to think.

If you do as you say... you will soon be adding WEEKS to your next point in your main weapon. So the question is... Do I spend 2 weeks worth of AP on getting my alt spec weapon 3 points up(effectively waiting 4-5 weeks between my main spec weapon seeing a point added)... or get my main weapon one step closer to my 3rd dragon trait... and another step closer in 2 more weeks?

People who focus on the main weapon will be months ahead of people doing the "keeping alt spec caught up"... MONTHS. and once you get behind that much... there is no changing your mind.

And the poor suckers that try and keep 3 weapons up? lol This is why some people are saying alts are dead... because for the most part.. they are.

[Deleted]

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 catch up mechanic works by buffing the "quest reward" item of artifact power. Getting an item early simply means that item will give you 100 AP. If you save it the item doesn't change in your bags but if you do the world quest again that same time will be 150 AP instead. This way you will have two of the same item, one with 100 AP and another with 150 AP.

Weapon damage and ilvl and upgrades come ONLY from Relics, which are the gem-type thingies you slot into your weapon. You get one with, say +60 ilvl that will buff your weapon permanently (or until you replace that relic). You cannot unsocket relics, once slotted they're destroyed if you put a new one in.

[Deleted]

If you do as you say... you will soon be adding WEEKS to your next point in your main weapon. So the question is... Do I spend 2 weeks worth of AP on getting my alt spec weapon 3 points up(effectively waiting 4-5 weeks between my main spec weapon seeing a point added)... or get my main weapon one step closer to my 3rd dragon trait... and another step closer in 2 more weeks?

People who focus on the main weapon will be months ahead of people doing the "keeping alt spec caught up"... MONTHS. and once you get behind that much... there is no changing your mind.

And the poor suckers that try and keep 3 weapons up? lol This is why some people are saying alts are dead... because for the most part.. they are.

Except you don't know how long it will take to get the ArP required. My point is: Artifact research is needed to ever hope to progress at the higher artifact levels. Artifact research is time gated. What would take 10 dungeon runs the first week of release, would take 1 dungeon run 1-2 months after release.

In the end, the question will become: Do I want 0.5-1% more damage on my main spec (The last 20 trait points give 0.5% each, and are really expensive), or do I want my alt spec to have all the "normal" traits (Everything BUT the last 20 trait points).

Your time scale doesn't mean much, when grinding for ArP with low artifact research is never going to get you that far ahead anyway. And once you reach the "true" end game grinding, your choice is between all regular traits vs 0.5% more main spec damage.

Edit: I mean, you say those who focus on one weapon will be months ahead of the ones who don't. But that is months from a 0 artifact research perspective. It quickly turns into weeks or days or hours with enough artifact research. To be honest, I don't think you quite understand exponential scaling.

Edit2: Artifact research also becomes quicker the longer we get from launch. So let's say getting 10 research takes 46 days with launch times, it would be 37 days after a month, and so on, until it ends up at 10 days probably. From beta it looks like 5 days initially, -1 day for every month since release, capping at 1 day per research 4 months after release is my guess.

[Maudib]

Except you don't know how long it will take to get the ArP required. My point is: Artifact research is needed to ever hope to progress at the higher artifact levels. Artifact research is time gated. What would take 10 dungeon runs the first week of release, would take 1 dungeon run 1-2 months after release.

In the end, the question will become: Do I want 0.5-1% more damage on my main spec (The last 20 trait points give 0.5% each, and are really expensive), or do I want my alt spec to have all the "normal" traits (Everything BUT the last 20 trait points).

I don;t think anyone gives a crap about the paragon levels of 20/20... it's the initial 34 that DO make a difference... an they will still take an extremely long time to grind out. Anyone trying to keep 2 or 3 weapons similarly leveled is doing it wrong.

But I know you have a differing opinion, so by all means do what you feel is best and what makes you happy in game.

[Deleted]

I don;t think anyone gives a crap about the paragon levels of 20/20... it's the initial 34 that DO make a difference... an they will still take an extremely long time to grind out. Anyone trying to keep 2 or 3 weapons similarly leveled is doing it wrong.

But I know you have a differing opinion, so by all means do what you feel is best and what makes you happy in game.

So you are basically getting riled up about something that may or may not be an issue the first couple of months in the expansion?

[Maudib]

So you are basically getting riled up about something that may or may not be an issue the first couple of months in the expansion?

I'm not getting riled up.. I am telling it like it is... you are the one telling people it'll be fine to just keep them the same...

I don't think YOU understand that there will be a "cap" on Artifact research... and that % will never overshadow the exponential increase of AP needed.

I am currently at level 6 AK... 275% My 16th point required 11280.. It took me the better part of a day to earn that. The point for level 30 is 29 TIMES that amount. I am already at almost 3X the AP.. and even if the AR goes to 1000% (10 times) it will NEVER be 29 times.

Regardless of how much you can MAKE in a day... it will always remain that spending that AP in another spec effectively doubles the time it will take to get a point in your main spec. And when you are looking at 2 weeks already... you are waiting a MONTH before your main spec sees an upgrade.

13 points in any alt spec weapon for me until the main spec is maxed.

[Kralljin]

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.

There's an achievement for upgrading said rate 10 times, not a confirmation but a decent hint.

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.

True, but doesn't make my original statement wrong.

Artifact power is still similiar to a currency until you use it on an artifact, you can save it up if you like to, which isn't even a bad idea because releasing artifact power from an artifact becomes more costly the further you progressed.

[Sylvaeres]

Say goodbye to many tanks and healers.

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

Relics do. The artifact power only increases the abilities you have. some are direct damage increases, some are cool little addition to the spells

[Sylvaeres]

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.

- - - Updated - - -



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.

I can't agree there. I feel like this expansion is bringing back the idea of cause and effect. Your choices will have lasting consequences throughout the expansion.

[Maudib]

For example:

Blazing Hydra Flame Sac

Increases an artifact's iLevel by 35 iLevels and drops from a dungeon.

You have 3 relic slots. Base iLevel is 750... so 3 different relics adding 35 iLevel each would give you an iLevel weapon of 855.

[Unholyground]

They will reduce artifact power requirements at some point during the expansion.

[Maudib]

They will reduce artifact power requirements at some point during the expansion.

You can bet on it... it's currently tuned high to slow progression.

[Goshko]

The catch up mechanic works by buffing the "quest reward" item of artifact power. Getting an item early simply means that item will give you 100 AP. If you save it the item doesn't change in your bags but if you do the world quest again that same time will be 150 AP instead. This way you will have two of the same item, one with 100 AP and another with 150 AP.

To add to that - all AP tokens from quests (not world quests, just regular quests) and treasures are exempt from research. They specifically added "This item does not benefit from Artifact Research" in the description of all such tokens to avoid confusion. So "saving" quests for later doesn't work. You main AP source is world quests and to a smaller degree dungeons. Other sources are statistically insignificant in the long run.

[Allenseiei]

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.

In mythic + if you reached say level 15, you will clear the lower levels very fast. The new keystones you get will skip levels depending how fast you finish the lower level dungeons. It might take you 1-3 dungeons to reach level 15.

The amount of time it takes to finish world content is equivalent to around 5-10 dailies unless you want gold, pet battles and other meaningless loot.

Dungeons outside of mythic get outdated really fast so you won't need to do them.

[rhorle]

Artifact power is still similiar to a currency until you use it on an artifact, you can save it up if you like to, which isn't even a bad idea because releasing artifact power from an artifact becomes more costly the further you progressed.

It is a terrible idea. Once you have the item to use then it never increases in amount. It is a 100 artifact power now and 100 artifact power later. It doesn't matter that you need more artifact power later. 100 used now is 100 you are further ahead later vs saving the 100 to use later. It isn't a currency at all.

[Maudib]

It is a terrible idea. Once you have the item to use then it never increases in amount. It is a 100 artifact power now and 100 artifact power later. It doesn't matter that you need more artifact power later. 100 used now is 100 you are further ahead later vs saving the 100 to use later. It isn't a currency at all.

Actually you can use them immediately you want... and the amount you have "banked" will stay there just like currency until you click on the talents to spend it on. The "AR exp bar" will just wrap around and go a different shade of tan.

I agree it's a bad idea... although what he is saying is you can wait til you decide exactly what path to take, because if you change your mind when you are deep into points... it is very expensive to reset them.

Since AR can be used to buy points AND reset them.. it is technically a currency.

[Kralljin]

Once you have the item to use then it never increases in amount.

Where did i say that it does? I said that you can keep the artifact power until you decide to use it.

Whether you use it right off the bat or not makes no difference, except that you have less trouble if you want to reset the artifact power on an artifact.

It is a 100 artifact power now and 100 artifact power later. It doesn't matter that you need more artifact power later. 100 used now is 100 you are further ahead later vs saving the 100 to use later. It isn't a currency at all.

If you invest all power in one artifact the moment you get it, it might happen to you that switching all that AP over to another artifact becomes quite costly.

Makes no difference at the start, but once a single trait point costs +30k AP, you might consider to keep all that AP stuff until the first round of hotfixes is over and it's settled what you will play.

Because paying 30k Artifact power means multiple days of artifact progression going down the toilet.