Artifacts feel like a step back in terms of limitations...

[Rotted]

Ive now got two alts which are slighty trailing behind my main. I wouldn't say artifacts on alts are a hinderance at all

You level them, log in every x amount of days - do the research - Go catch up.

Now second specs, honestly I haven't even switched specs once, not even for legacy raids or soloing. I think it's a good thing spec switching isn't as big as it was. For the first time in years I see people asking for help, working on their specs properly and everything

[procne]

People are killing themselves with this min maxing - it seems to take all the fun away and turns people into constantly whining elitists. In most cases those couple traits make really small difference. But people have this mindset "oh noes, I don't have +3% crit damage traits, my char is broken, I can't show myself to any raid!". Well, ok, if you are a mythic raider striving for world firsts then even this small thing might be important. But world firsts are already taken, so I would propose to chill out, slow down a little, and enjoy the view.

[DeusX]

How exactly was this a step back?

Back in WoD after you changed spec you had to get a new weapon, necklace, cloak, rings and trinkets first.

Now ...

Sorry but noboy is buying this. Your suboptimal way to judging this only means you may not care about the facts, not that you know the facts.
When changing specs you may or may not need to change all of the above, even more, just like in WoD. You don't need to switch weapon, because you already have one for each spec, but then you have the AP and relics to gather.

Example: I am main Elemental, 20 traits. My most wanted secondary is crit so my gearing is built around that.
If I switch to Resto offspec, i have to change most gear I can to mastery main.
Do not forget about trinkets... You cannot heal with damage proce trinkets (the ones that do the best output for DPS oriented specs).
I also need to change the neck because Mark of the Satyr on neck is kind of a waste, there must be a healing boosting enchant available.
Then the AP.
Then the relics inside the artifact... they have to be grinded to if you want to have decent ilvl+trait on them.

So where does this "use same gear for everything" comes from? Maybe a Frost DK and a UH dk can share the gear, but not classes and specs like mine.

[OreoLover]

Sorry but noboy is buying this. Your suboptimal way to judging this only means you may not care about the facts, not that you know the facts.
When changing specs you may or may not need to change all of the above, even more, just like in WoD. You don't need to switch weapon, because you already have one for each spec, but then you have the AP and relics to gather.

Example: I am main Elemental, 20 traits. My most wanted secondary is crit so my gearing is built around that.
If I switch to Resto offspec, i have to change most gear I can to mastery main.
Do not forget about trinkets... You cannot heal with damage proce trinkets (the ones that do the best output for DPS oriented specs).
I also need to change the neck because Mark of the Satyr on neck is kind of a waste, there must be a healing boosting enchant available.
Then the AP.
Then the relics inside the artifact... they have to be grinded to if you want to have decent ilvl+trait on them.

So where does this "use same gear for everything" comes from? Maybe a Frost DK and a UH dk can share the gear, but not classes and specs like mine.

The gear is viable and nearly as powerful, min-max isn't what was addressed.

You can be viable with little to no changes. You just won't be preferred or most powerful.

[ItachiZaku]

I guess they could also just remove the having all stats on every item thing, and making you go to your class trainer and charging you 15K g to respec on a 8 day CD.

[Flurryfang]

you forget the part where your mainspec is behind of everyone else because you're spending your ap on your offspec

The same would happend before. If you went into raiding with your off-spec, you would not be gaining upgrades for your main spec. I know of very few raids, who would let players take gear for multiple specs.

But as said before, you are in a situation where you can get 15 lvls of AP on your alt-spec or 1 lvl on your main. Sure, there is a reward for sticking to 1 spec, but doing multiple specs will only cost you 1½% of dmg overall. If such small values can ruin your playing experience, then there is really no way to make happiness happend.

[Deleted]

Well, it is the big thing this expansion, and we are barely 5 weeks in. Either you suck it up, buttercup, or play another game. There is not much in between.

[Nayami]

I like levelling my Artifacts. In fact, I hope they add a new layer of traits in the future (7.2?).

[Alvito]

All your points are literally "I'm too lazy".

Ah yes, too lazy when referring to playing a game based on laziness. What a joke. Your first point is just wrong and has nothing to do with any laziness other then devs and testers perhaps. 2 has nothing to do with laziness rather wanting to max out your character and not be punished for having other specs. 3 Not since vanilla have you really had to do any extra work on an off spec beside maybe hunting down a trinket you wanted. 4 Is just you being a blowhard, much like your reply. Who knew Colonel Snacky Cakes would be such a foolish person.

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The first 13 levels literally cost as much as level 14. You delay your main weapon at most by 1 level to get another artifact to a decent level. And there's another similar break point later but I don't remember what level exactly.

I understand the math of spending your AP. Take ret as an example they are racing to the furthest gold dragon talent from them. So slowing yourself down 2 abilities is a big deal for them. While that might be the most extreme example you are still making your character worse then it could be to have a weak off spec. The weapon and the AP system is a poor set up. It is just something to keep people chasing their tails for a few months.

[giniyo]

ok gotta admit theres good parts too that i forgot about, like the respeccing your whole gear except trinkets - the artifact stuff right now just takes so long and its not really "content"

[sponge5307]

What I don't like is when we want to respec a talent we have to be back in town or pay thousand of gold on the AH for those respec tombs. At least back in the day with dual spec I can just change spec on my fly depending on the fight and what the raids/party need for that boss.

Blizzard should make it so we can respec our talent anywhere for free.

[Aleksej89]

I am not a fan of anything that screws with leveling alts, but lets be real for a moment:

1. If you are not competing for world first then that 3% difference will not mean anything REALISTICALLY.
It might feel sucky but that 3% if not big enough to warrant getting benched assuming your raid leader is not a tool.

2. If you are competing for world first then "grinding AP" is just one of many many grinds you have to suffer to be the best.
World first competitors grind hard for even a 0.1% advantage, so getting 3% from simple AP grinding is an easy burden.

[Lucreta]

People are killing themselves with this min maxing - it seems to take all the fun away and turns people into constantly whining elitists. In most cases those couple traits make really small difference. But people have this mindset "oh noes, I don't have +3% crit damage traits, my char is broken, I can't show myself to any raid!". Well, ok, if you are a mythic raider striving for world firsts then even this small thing might be important. But world firsts are already taken, so I would propose to chill out, slow down a little, and enjoy the view.

But procne, without that extra 5 fury I get from dodging a spell how will I compete with all of the other DH!?

Seriously though some of the traits are a dps increase sure, but other than the gold traits themselves nothing is going to make that much of a difference to anyone unless they are in a world first guild like procne here stated. It's so silly to get this worked up over a couple levels in your artifact weapon when it means very little. Both my rogue and DK alts which don't even have their secondary gold trait yet consistently out dps most people anyway, skill and other gear (which you can easily get no matter what your artifact is at) will still far outweigh a few levels in your weapon traits.

[Compstance]

If there was no bonus to artifact power it would suck, but given that you can increase your gain rate over time it seems fine to me. Given that you can respec so easily now without farming multiple full sets of gear, it kind of replaces that to retain the feel of your "main" and "off" specs.

At least we don't have to farm a full set of gear before we can respec now.

[giniyo]

What I don't like is when we want to respec a talent we have to be back in town or pay thousand of gold on the AH for those respec tombs. At least back in the day with dual spec I can just change spec on my fly depending on the fight and what the raids/party need for that boss.

Blizzard should make it so we can respec our talent anywhere for free.

yeah i did not understand this change at all..

[Musta Kyy]

you forget the part where your mainspec is behind of everyone else because you're spending your ap on your offspec

When your next trait in mainspec requires 300k AP it doesn't matter much to spend, lets say 150k AP to get your off spec in decent shape.

- - - Updated - - -

Example: I am main Elemental, 20 traits. My most wanted secondary is crit so my gearing is built around that.
If I switch to Resto offspec, i have to change most gear I can to mastery main.

Crit is second best for resto, not a big deal. Of course your main spec will be slightly better.
I talked about viability in my post, not min maxing.

I have to say though, people look at stat priorities way too much.
For a lot of specs the difference between best stat and worst stat is only few percentages.
And for a lot of specs the order changes completely when AoE/cleave come into consideration (note that 5/7 bosses have aoe/cleave in EM).
Yes there are few exceptions like shadow priests and fire mages.

[jeanericuser001]

I guess they could also just remove the having all stats on every item thing, and making you go to your class trainer and charging you 15K g to respec on a 8 day CD.

I gotta give you credit that did bring a good chuckle. The combined qq alone from a change like that would be loud enough to make an alien race attack earth just to shut people up. Im glad Im not playing wow now these days though it is good to see the grind from this outside looking in perspective. Very enlightening.

[ItachiZaku]

I gotta give you credit that did bring a good chuckle. The combined qq alone from a change like that would be loud enough to make an alien race attack earth just to shut people up. Im glad Im not playing wow now these days though it is good to see the grind from this outside looking in perspective. Very enlightening.

They are always adding things and changing things to make it easier, and then at the same time, add things to put the time sink they just removed, right back in.

[Samin]

I understand the math of spending your AP. Take ret as an example they are racing to the furthest gold dragon talent from them. So slowing yourself down 2 abilities is a big deal for them. While that might be the most extreme example you are still making your character worse then it could be to have a weak off spec. The weapon and the AP system is a poor set up. It is just something to keep people chasing their tails for a few months.

The important ret talent, Ashes to Ashes, is within the first 13 levels. Yes, 3 additional talent points go to a situational utility talent, but unless pure raid dps is the only thing you want to focus on, it's not useless. And even if that is the case you have to be ready for some heavy time investment to justify going the long way and doing it in time.

Ashbringer short path is absolutely viable. If you're planning on having an off-spec, have ret as your offspec or are not really into the bleeding edge raiding race, you're probably crippling yourself by not just going & sticking with the short path (rather get the other major talents sooner). Also if you maybe want to PvP once in a while even just casually, those short-path utility talents are really neat. Otherwise it's just a big noise over small dps differences.

[mistahwilshire]

People are killing themselves with this min maxing - it seems to take all the fun away and turns people into constantly whining elitists. In most cases those couple traits make really small difference. But people have this mindset "oh noes, I don't have +3% crit damage traits, my char is broken, I can't show myself to any raid!". Well, ok, if you are a mythic raider striving for world firsts then even this small thing might be important. But world firsts are already taken, so I would propose to chill out, slow down a little, and enjoy the view.

That's not what elitism is, but yea people are dumb.