Ashbringer Artifact Progression?

[Gracin]

No, the discussion isn't about taking A2A as the first gold trait. A2A is a far better golden trait than either of the other two, that is plain to see. The discussion is the bonus of getting A2A early via the short route(8 points), is less of a dps gain overall than going the long route(18) to A2A.

[Tojara]

OPTION A : If you go right to A2A you'll probably have more fun with the game for the first 2 weeks, but mathematically you will perform worse when raids come out by a moderate margin on single target. You will however be a bit better on cleave and AoE (up to a point).

OPTION B: If you go the long way around to A2A you will hate playing the game for those first 2 weeks because one of the only fun abilities you have access to, well, you aren't getting it. Your DPS will be worse in every way until you pick up A2A. Once you do pick it up, for all intent and purpose you will basically be slightly worse in AoE but a good chunk better in single target.

OPTION C: The other scenario is to take the short route, but stop spending AP once you get it. This will allow you to have fun for 2 weeks (although you will do less DPS than going straight to A2A and then using points elsewhere "OBVIOUSLY"). Once you have 67k AP you can then refund your traits and you effectively get all the perks of option B, but you lost ~550 AP (which is nothing)

TLDR;

Option C requires restraint, which is hard for people. If you care about completely min/maxing option B is the absolute best. Raids open up in 3 weeks after launch, with mythic being out on the 4th week. Probably best to do B or C if you care about your damage because honestly, all we get for 3 weeks is heroic dungeons and mythic dungeons. It sucks but if you poop sock a lot you can do option B or C faster.

[Super Kami Dende]

So this means you can't get the improved ashes attack before you start raiding unless you go the quick and dirty route?

First Raid doesn't open for a few weeks, if you play at any rate and do things in game you should have it.

[Deleted]

Guess protector of the ashen blade tooltip is kinda wrong since it predicts a 30000% cd decrease of a 300 sec original cd duration.

Edit: Bah found it , is only 10% per rank.

- - - Updated - - -

OPTION A : If you go right to A2A you'll probably have more fun with the game for the first 2 weeks, but mathematically you will perform worse when raids come out by a moderate margin on single target. You will however be a bit better on cleave and AoE (up to a point).

OPTION B: If you go the long way around to A2A you will hate playing the game for those first 2 weeks because one of the only fun abilities you have access to, well, you aren't getting it. Your DPS will be worse in every way until you pick up A2A. Once you do pick it up, for all intent and purpose you will basically be slightly worse in AoE but a good chunk better in single target.

OPTION C: The other scenario is to take the short route, but stop spending AP once you get it. This will allow you to have fun for 2 weeks (although you will do less DPS than going straight to A2A and then using points elsewhere "OBVIOUSLY"). Once you have 67k AP you can then refund your traits and you effectively get all the perks of option B, but you lost ~550 AP (which is nothing)

TLDR;

Option C requires restraint, which is hard for people. If you care about completely min/maxing option B is the absolute best. Raids open up in 3 weeks after launch, with mythic being out on the 4th week. Probably best to do B or C if you care about your damage because honestly, all we get for 3 weeks is heroic dungeons and mythic dungeons. It sucks but if you poop sock a lot you can do option B or C faster.

Simed these ?

[marinos]

Considering that the long way around A2A is the best one, the question now is, Echo or Divine Tempest after? I personaly believe that DT will be better, providing more aoe which will be needed for sure.

[Deleted]

Echo tool not clear to me. What does "deal" and "normal damage" mean. Meaning it would behave like tv and ds regarding st/aoe ? meaning it won't be holy damage? and how will it behave when ds gets projected ? are tv and ds buffs through traits going to be accounted for ?

[Gracin]

I think I remember seeing a sim that showed Echo was higher, but can't remember where I seen it. Also, getting to Echo decreases the CD to 90sec on SoV gives you some burst AoE/Survivability if you're taking raid damage.

[Deleted]

Think there is no easy way answering atm. By going long route u don't pick righteous blade having zero boost to aoe abilities. And as it is atm there is no telling if by picking might of the templar and echo gonna make FV the only tier 1 choice (i mean that ES atm hits harder on ST maybe that changes). Only sim regarding traits i seen till now is that of thete in his vid where he clearly states that he took short "mythic+"-ish fights into consideration by grabbing FV, Greater Judge and Div Hammer as talents.
Everything is a wild guess and will have to wait for quite some time.

[Deleted]

I think people will be shocked when they get to level 110 and they don't have 11 trait points. When i leveled on the beta i had 8, just thought i'd warn. That was with some dungeons in there and every quest chain in the 4 areas done, bar one maybe.

[Deleted]

I think people will be shocked when they get to level 110 and they don't have 11 trait points. When i leveled on the beta i had 8, just thought i'd warn. That was with some dungeons in there and every quest chain in the 4 areas done, bar one maybe.

Idd people seem to forget how much effort they will need to place and the huge "everyday to do" list it will require for a fast paced ap farming. Quite reluctant to leave the short upper route reaching a2a and echo relitevely easy investing some ap for truthuard to save some time from endless ques for ez heroics and lower mythic+ . Might be a more proper way for less hardcore players.

[Temna]

Echo tool not clear to me. What does "deal" and "normal damage" mean. Meaning it would behave like tv and ds regarding st/aoe ? meaning it won't be holy damage? and how will it behave when ds gets projected ? are tv and ds buffs through traits going to be accounted for ?

It is effectively "Your Divine Storm and Templar's verdict do 10% more damage" Still Holy, still projects the Storm.

[Deleted]

It is effectively "Your Divine Storm and Templar's verdict do 10% more damage" Still Holy, still projects the Storm.

So when it says 10% normal damage it doesnt refer to the actual weapon damage irrelevant to the buffs tv and ds have received in the way of the traits?

[Temna]

So when it says 10% normal damage it doesnt refer to the actual weapon damage irrelevant to the buffs tv and ds have received in the way of the traits?

Effectively it recasts the ability with a 90% damage penalty on it if that makes more sense.

[Deleted]

Effectively it recasts the ability with a 90% damage penalty on it if that makes more sense.

Don´t forget about that mastery does not apply as well so the penalty is 90% + X.

[Temna]

Don´t forget about that mastery does not apply as well so the penalty is 90% + X.

Really? Huh...to me that seems like a bit of a bug or some sort of oversight...weird but oh well.

[Deleted]

Really? Huh...to me that seems like a bit of a bug or some sort of oversight...weird but oh well.

nope intended. you get 10% of baseline TV/DS dmg with no mastery modifier but it can crit. one more point for the haste(30%)->crit->vers->mastery stat priority*

* all subject to chance sim it when you realy want to be sure

[Empulsiv3]

Thanks to all those that have added to this thread ,
After reading all the responses here and alot more research i feel for any ret paladin that is going to be grinding artifact power hard should consider the short route of 9 points and banking 67k

Now before ppl cry out the sky is falling my main reasoning for this is it will allow us to be competent in dungeons for gearing as of day 1 and will allow us to get us to our new rotation involving timings at low stat levels and with AtA in it, also Askmrrobot released a graph showing if we spent only points on 1 artifact that by 3 weeks we would have 20 artifact levels just from doing the bare minimum everyday to gain 20 Levels into it.

So pooling 67k becomes very advantageous in that sense, sure you wont have the passives for 3 weeks or even 1 week if u are going to grind out ap so u can have nearly all of it unlocked for raiding like me but it seems the sensible way to go about leveling the ashbringer

[Taven]

I can see where you are coming from but I think the long route is the bigger pay off. If you have a guild slogging a bit through dungeons will more than be worth it for a big burst in raid season.

[Grimgrin]

I'm looking at the short route mainly because I want to practice the rotation with the 5 HP that AtA brings to the toolkit!

[Deleted]

This might sound stupid but has anyone considered that going the short route might even help with mythic dungeons early on because of the increased AoE, CC break and reduced BoP CD for healers? I am by no means a hardcore player and my guild isn't either but we want to do those mythics too and me being a supporty dps might help with this way anyways. Then just pool AP until 67k and reset for the long route.

It looks good to me for more casual players like us.

Would it really gimp me later on when raids start?

Oh and relics. Is it Ilvl > everything for us?

Sorry if this has been answered, i'm just really confused about all of this atm.