Artifact Knowledge EXPLOIT - Help Fix It

[Schizoide]

There's a difference between doing the minimum to unlock content and picking up tons of one-time treasures. That's what this thread is about-- skipping all the treasures and as many quests as possible when you level up, then delaying as long as possible even at maximum level.

The fix is very simple; one-time artifact power gains should not be affected by artifact knowledge at all.

One-time artifact power gains added in later patches should simply be much larger, at baseline. They shouldn't be affected by artifact knowledge either.

[OrcsRLame]

There's a difference between doing the minimum to unlock content and picking up tons of one-time treasures. That's what this thread is about-- skipping all the treasures and as many quests as possible when you level up, then delaying as long as possible even at maximum level.

The fix is very simple; one-time artifact power gains should not be affected by artifact knowledge at all.

One-time artifact power gains added in later patches should simply be much larger, at baseline. They shouldn't be affected by artifact knowledge either.

The one time treasures are not worth the time it takes to run up to the chests and click them, at any level of Artifact Knowledge.

[Synadrasa]

There actually are some world quests at the Waning Crescent and Twilight Vineyard that don't unlock until you progress to their respective points in the Suramar questline, and some of those do give AP and from what I can tell those appear to be in addition to, not in place of, other world quests in the zone.

Either way, anyone that actually cares about min/maxing will want to unlock CoS/Arcway as fast as possible, because they contain the best gear in the game and you will want as many chances as possible before mythic Gul'dan progression to get certain key pieces as titanforged as possible. Healers will all want the +5% mana neck, melee and tanks will want the +10% auto attack ring, casters will want the 5% magic damage on use ring, everyone and their mother will want Chrono Shard, etc. Some lucky specs will even get a two piece bonus that doesn't conflict with their legendaries or 4PT19.

Delaying doing Suramar is quite literally the worst thing you could possibly do for powering up your character. People that think they're gaming the system are actually playing themselves.

You can wait 10 days for artifact knowledge and then unlock cos/arcway and gear up easy before raids come out, its not mutually exclusive.

[Ataxus]

Non-repeatable AP items used to not benefit from AK. No idea why they changed it a few weeks ago, makes no sense.

[OrcsRLame]

I was getting tokens for 3k AP with barely any artifact knowledge in suramar. The idea is to save suramar after you get a couple artifact research going and artifact traits don't matter at all until the first day of raiding. Either way if you are committed to one weapon you should be able to get your first two major traits by the time raids open.

Most Suramar quest rewards that give AP, give 100 base. The others at the end of major quest chains give 350.
http://www.wowhead.com/item=140255/e...ightborne-coin
http://www.wowhead.com/item=140247/m...chanted-statue

Fyi, most heroic dungeons are gonna give you ~210-265 per clear, and time wise they're a lot faster than Suramar quests. The people that think this matters have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. I don't mean to sound condescending, but that's the reality. For a dedicated mythic raider, the vast overwhelming majority of your AP will come from running ~50-100 dungeons a day.

[Synadrasa]

Most Suramar quest rewards that give AP, give 100 base. The others at the end of major quest chains give 350.
http://www.wowhead.com/item=140255/e...ightborne-coin
http://www.wowhead.com/item=140247/m...chanted-statue

Fyi, most heroic dungeons are gonna give you ~210-265 per clear, and time wise they're a lot faster than Suramar quests. The people that think this matters have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. I don't mean to sound condescending, but that's the reality. For a dedicated mythic raider, the vast overwhelming majority of your AP will come from running ~50-100 dungeons a day.

There are tokens at the end of large suramar quest lines that give much more. I've got several ones for 3k and even one for 5k. The majority of small quest give those tokens.

[Schizoide]

The one time treasures are not worth the time it takes to run up to the chests and click them, at any level of Artifact Knowledge.

They're worth 20-60 AP before AK multiplier, compared to quests that might give 100-300. But it's just a matter of clicking, and doing an entire zone of them would add up for very little effort.

[OrcsRLame]

There are tokens at the end of large suramar quest lines that give much more. I've got several ones for 3k and even one for 5k. The majority of small quest give those tokens.

There are some rep based ones that give significantly more, but all of those are actually still not affected by AK. There are, ~7 or 8 that give 650-1000 AP, and those are certainly nice, but still not even close to worth worrying about, especially with how long it takes to unlock CoS/Arcway. I mean, the daily heroic gives 800 plus whatever drops from the bosses.

You are literally talking about gaining like one third of one rank, if that, in exchange for starting the Nightfallen rep grind a month late. That's literally the least optimal thing you could possibly do.

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They're worth 20-60 AP before AK multiplier, compared to quests that might give 100-300. But it's just a matter of clicking, and doing an entire zone of them would add up for very little effort.

Very little effort and a ton of time. Heroic dungeons. Infinite. Fast. More AP. Concerning Artifact Power Per Second, dungeons are just better than treasures, period, at all levels of AK. Dungeons are better than anything if you have a good group. Even world quests that drop AP are probably not worth it to do if I'm being completely honest, because dungeons are just that efficient. I mean, I'm still gonna do them because time wise they're probably pretty close and they give rep. But still. I don't think you understand how ludicrously good heroic dungeon speed clears will be.

[Jotaux]

You can wait 10 days for artifact knowledge and then unlock cos/arcway and gear up easy before raids come out, its not mutually exclusive.

You want to be able to clear cos/archway as many times as possible before raids open up.

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Fyi, most heroic dungeons are gonna give you ~210-265 per clear, and time wise they're a lot faster than Suramar quests. The people that think this matters have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. I don't mean to sound condescending, but that's the reality. For a dedicated mythic raider, the vast overwhelming majority of your AP will come from running ~50-100 dungeons a day.

I agree 100% with this. The treasures are not worth picking up while you level, and not worth it at max level. You want to blast through the Suramar quests as fast as possible so theres no point delaying those either.

[Schizoide]

Very little effort and a ton of time.

Not really, because you'll be leveling through some of those areas and doing world quests around them too. The incentive to not pick up a treasure is perverse.

I'm sure you're right that dungeons are far more efficient in terms of time spent, but that doesn't make that perverse incentive OK.

[Jotaux]

Not really, because you'll be leveling through some of those areas and doing world quests around them too. The incentive to not pick up a treasure is perverse.

I'm sure you're right that dungeons are far more efficient in terms of time spent, but that doesn't make that perverse incentive OK.

Even before the treasures scaled with AK, every guide was telling you to ignore them. if AK doesn't affect them later what is the reason to even bother picking them up?

[nazrakin]

The problem is that if the chests and quests dont scale then those rewards are completely worthless. The vast majority of the treasures are only worth 15-30AP, that stops being relevant before you're even done leveling and you start needing 3k per trait. After a couple of weeks at max level when you're needing 60-80k per trait then getting 20AP from a chest or 200AP from a quest is just a slap in the face.

The irony is that even with AK scaling those rewards are still pretty terrible compared to any other source. Im at 21AK and a typical treasure is worth ~1k AP. Basic world quests give 19k-25k. The Class Hall Mission gives 18k. "Rare" World Quests are 40k. I can see why you may want to hold those things for later but I dont think its worth it for finite sources that will account for much less than 1% of the total Artifact Power you'll need.

[Spl4sh3r]

Won't you be able to gain enough Artifact Power from normal playing in the time you wait for the Artifact Knowledge? Or is the leap so huge that you need to wait to finish?

[Jotaux]

Won't you be able to gain enough Artifact Power from normal playing in the time you wait for the Artifact Knowledge? Or is the leap so huge that you need to wait to finish?

The treasures are not worth picking up at any level of AK relative to other rewards.

[Servasus]

People need to realize that for your main, what is important is your number of traits at any given point. Due to the scaling number of both artifact knowledge and quest rewards, saving them for later might work for alts but for your main who needs traits NOW and not in 4 months when knowledge caps, it makes little sense to not complete quests. The only thing I could suggest is that after leveling to 110 and starting artifact research you wait to get your first upgrade (day 5) before completing the zone end quests and suramar and again for day 10 for the next level of suramar.

Simple mathematics and theorycrafting has already proven you wrong. If you wait until right before raids open (3 weeks after launch) the amount of AP you'll get from suramar quests is mountains higher than had you done them immediately. Literally not doing quests until the last possible moment before progression means you'll be further ahead in your artifact tree by at least a few traits than someone who did the same amount of content as you, but earlier.

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Won't you be able to gain enough Artifact Power from normal playing in the time you wait for the Artifact Knowledge? Or is the leap so huge that you need to wait to finish?

The leap is huge. Level 1 AK is 25%, 2 is 50%, then 90%, then 150%, then 250% all the way up to 24,000% at level 25.

Level 1 work order takes 2 days to finish. All levels after that take 5 days.

That means you can achieve Level 5 or 6 (depending on when your raid days are in the week) before you need that AP to step into your first raid.

If you do a Suramar quest that gives you 100 baseline AP at level 0 knowledge, you'll get 100 AP. If you wait the 3 weeks and do it at level 5 knowledge, you'll get 350. Some Suramar quests give much larger amounts of baseline AP than 100. A 500 AP reward will give you 1750. There are Suramar quests that give you 1k baseline AP really early on in the zone. That's then 3,500 AP (for an extra 2,500 AP) if you had just waited. See where the leap starts to matter?

[Jotaux]

Simple mathematics and theorycrafting has already proven you wrong. If you wait until right before raids open (3 weeks after launch) the amount of AP you'll get from suramar quests is mountains higher than had you done them immediately. Literally not doing quests until the last possible moment before progression means you'll be further ahead in your artifact tree by at least a few traits than someone who did the same amount of content as you, but earlier.

That's incorrect because if you spent that time in mythic dungeons or even heroics instead of suramar quests you would be ahead.

[Spl4sh3r]

The leap is huge. Level 1 AK is 25%, 2 is 50%, then 90%, then 150%, then 250% all the way up to 24,000% at level 25.

Level 1 work order takes 2 days to finish. All levels after that take 5 days.

That means you can achieve Level 5 or 6 (depending on when your raid days are in the week) before you need that AP to step into your first raid.

If you do a Suramar quest that gives you 100 baseline AP at level 0 knowledge, you'll get 100 AP. If you wait the 3 weeks and do it at level 5 knowledge, you'll get 350. Some Suramar quests give much larger amounts of baseline AP than 100. A 500 AP reward will give you 1750. There are Suramar quests that give you 1k baseline AP really early on in the zone. That's then 3,500 AP (for an extra 2,500 AP) if you had just waited. See where the leap starts to matter?

What I mean is, how much time would someone who does all quests/treasures on day one have to spend to gain as much artifact power as those that delay? For those you mention now it only sounds like the difference is a few dungeons once you hit Artifact Knowledge 5 would make up the difference if those gives almost 300 at the start.

[Tharkkun]

Simple mathematics and theorycrafting has already proven you wrong. If you wait until right before raids open (3 weeks after launch) the amount of AP you'll get from suramar quests is mountains higher than had you done them immediately. Literally not doing quests until the last possible moment before progression means you'll be further ahead in your artifact tree by at least a few traits than someone who did the same amount of content as you, but earlier.

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The leap is huge. Level 1 AK is 25%, 2 is 50%, then 90%, then 150%, then 250% all the way up to 24,000% at level 25.

Level 1 work order takes 2 days to finish. All levels after that take 5 days.

That means you can achieve Level 5 or 6 (depending on when your raid days are in the week) before you need that AP to step into your first raid.

If you do a Suramar quest that gives you 100 baseline AP at level 0 knowledge, you'll get 100 AP. If you wait the 3 weeks and do it at level 5 knowledge, you'll get 350. Some Suramar quests give much larger amounts of baseline AP than 100. A 500 AP reward will give you 1750. There are Suramar quests that give you 1k baseline AP really early on in the zone. That's then 3,500 AP (for an extra 2,500 AP) if you had just waited. See where the leap starts to matter?

Did all this theorycrafting take into account the gear you will lose by not taking part in world quests, dungeons, etc? A lot of the world quest rewards are based on your current ilevel. I can't see 2-3 trait points overpowering a handful of gear upgrades.

But if you really want to delay playing the game for 3 weeks to get a 3 trait boost, knock yourself out. Why even play the game?

[Hellfury]

Did all this theorycrafting take into account the gear you will lose by not taking part in world quests, dungeons, etc? A lot of the world quest rewards are based on your current ilevel. I can't see 2-3 trait points overpowering a handful of gear upgrades.

But if you really want to delay playing the game for 3 weeks to get a 3 trait boost, knock yourself out. Why even play the game?

Thats not the point

One can still get gear by doing dungeons/world quests, but having Suramar on hold for when AK is bigger

[nazrakin]

Simple mathematics and theorycrafting has already proven you wrong. If you wait until right before raids open (3 weeks after launch) the amount of AP you'll get from suramar quests is mountains higher than had you done them immediately. Literally not doing quests until the last possible moment before progression means you'll be further ahead in your artifact tree by at least a few traits than someone who did the same amount of content as you, but earlier.?

If you were able to bank all the quests and cash them in as soon as raids launch.. Sure the math favors that. Thing is, Suramar is rep gated and the primary sources of that rep is time sensitive content like world quests, dungeons and the withered training that unlock as you progress the questline. So a more realistic approach to figuring out how much, if any, advantage there is in waiting would be to find out how far in the Suramar questline can you get in 3 weeks? And where in the questline is the second guy stopping? Then factor in any world quests, Arcway/CoS runs, and Withered training scenarios will he miss.