Artifact Weapon Traits

[Maltore]

Since the other Warrior Artifact Weapon thread is mainly focused on what the weapons will be, I thought I'd try to start a discussion on what the weapons will do.

We know that we'll be able to customize our Artifacts, not only in how they look, but the weapons will also have "Traits" (or perks, or talents... whatever they call them), which will augment certain abilities for your spec. I'd also image that it's very possible that there could even be traits that are actually new abilities.

It's not certain at this time whether we'll be able to have all the traits active at the same time, or if we'll have a limited number of 'points' to allocate throughout the trait 'tree'. I believe they've said the current idea is to open them all up, but it doesn't sound like they're hard over on that. Personally, having a limited number of points to spend adds potential for more interesting gameplay, but that's beside the point of this post.

My interest is in what sort of Traits we're going to get. Based on the previews they showed during the announcement, it looks like they're planning to have quite a few Traits to unlock (Ashbringer graphic showed 14 slots, Icebringer/Soulreaper showed 18 trait slots). It's all subject to change, of course; but it seems likely we'll be getting quite a bit more than 5 simple "Perks" per spec as we got in WoD.

So what are your thoughts? I'd like to hear some ideas about what we might see for our Artifact Traits.

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I'll start off by throwing out some of my ideas for Fury's Artifact Traits. I think the spec will continue to focus around being Enraged and landing critical strikes, so I suspect many of the Traits will play into that. However, I believe there will also be a mix of traits to augment damage, utility, and survivability.

Ideas for Fury Artifact Weapon Traits:

Damage traits:

• Your Enrage buff can now stack in duration up to a maximum of 20 seconds.
• While Enraged, your Haste is increased by 10%, and movement speed is increased by 20%
• Your Execute critical strikes cause you to Enrage.
• While under the effect of Meat Cleaver, your Raging Blow critical strikes have a 25% chance to Enrage you and refresh your Meat Cleaver buff to 4 stacks.
• New Ability - Rampage: You go on a rampage for 10 sec, increasing you critical strike chance by 30%, reducing the rage cost of all your abilities by 50%, and increasing all damage you deal by 2% every 1 second to a maximum of 20%. Raging Blow, Wild Strike, and Execute critical strikes have a 50% chance to increase the duration by 1 second. Replaces Recklessness. 2 minute cooldown.

Utility traits:

• New Shout Ability: Increases the movement speed of all party and raid members by 60% for 8 sec and removes all roots and snares on those targets. 2 minute cooldown.
• All enemies hit by your Heroic Leap ability are now stunned for 2 seconds and have their movement speed reduced by 50% for 8 seconds.

Survivability traits:

• Critical strikes from any of your abilities return 3% of the damage done as health.
• Shield Barrier is now usable in any stance and costs no rage, but has a 1 minute cooldown.

[ComputerNerd]

It is my understanding that there wont be a limited number of points, us being able to get everything given time.
Unless there is specific gating on some of it.
I can honestly see a catchup mechanic being offered later in the expansion.

[Maltore]

Right, I believe they've said the current plan is to be able to have all the traits, but as I mentioned they didn't seem very certain on that.

They did mention a catch-up mechanic for your different specs, but seemed pretty adamant that there would not be a catch-up for alts. I could see them going back on that a little bit though. It sure would suck as a new player coming in half way though the expansion to not be able to catch up. I suppose they could allow a quick(ish) catch-up for new players, but not alts, though I'm not sure how that would work.

[Deleted]

Right, I believe they've said the current plan is to be able to have all the traits, but as I mentioned they didn't seem very certain on that.

They did mention a catch-up mechanic for your different specs, but seemed pretty adamant that there would not be a catch-up for alts. I could see them going back on that a little bit though. It sure would suck as a new player coming in half way though the expansion to not be able to catch up. I suppose they could allow a quick(ish) catch-up for new players, but not alts, though I'm not sure how that would work.

I guess the amount of work to level your weapon will just be high. For a new Player it is not a problem to do questing, pvp, dungeons and old raids. If you are new to an expansion, you will just do this things for gear and leveling. With alt's it is different, you often get pulled through high lvl raids where you just lay dead in the corner and get your gear. This won't help you with your weapon and you have to do the grind, which is ok i guess.

For what I wish for, are traits like class trinkets and I guess these where beta tests for artefact traits. I guess most of the traits would be some passive buffs like the Classic Talent System.

-Your Mortalstrike does x more Damage
-Your execute can be used at x%
-Your rend ticks x times more often
-Your enrage duration is x seconds longer
-Your Execute consumes up to x Rage
-sweeping strikes hit an additional target

And there will be traits who change your playstyle.
-Critical rend ticks rest your MS cooldown
-Your Wildstrike hit with both weapons
-raging blow no longer consume meatcleaver

What i am hoping for is:
You can add in the small Buffs more than a few points and in the Mayor traits just one.

[Jaybee9084]

I'm not particularly picky, they could just make Recklessness also increase your damage dealt and I'd be perfectly ok with that. Also baking in the T17 2pc would be orgasmic, and having execute crits enrage you would be nice too.

[Herogamer555]

What about having ALL crits enrage us. Endless rage for days.

[Archimtiros]

What about having ALL crits enrage us. Endless rage for days.

It would kind of trivialize the mechanic, not that I'd complain about that. If the intent is to keep total uptime on Enrage though, I would just as soon make BT auto crit. Remember that Enrage generates rage, so having every crit proc Enrage would really skew our rage generation. Believe it or not, that's actually a bad thing!

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I'm not particularly picky, they could just make Recklessness also increase your damage dealt and I'd be perfectly ok with that. Also baking in the T17 2pc would be orgasmic, and having execute crits enrage you would be nice too.

Capstone: Fury rotation actually works and you orgasm endlessly while playing.

[Fawkess]

Well it really depends how the specs work at launch

I want this
*your Auto attacks cause colossus smash to reset*

[Archimtiros]

Well it really depends how the specs work at launch

I want this
*your Auto attacks cause colossus smash to reset*

Yeah, that's why I haven't really gotten involved in this thread. I don't care so much about the artifact, what I (and I believe most) Warriors really want is our specs to be overhauled to the point where they actually work.

After that, I'll care about artifact stuff. What I don't want is for the specs to be left alone and artifact bonuses to bandaid the spec until it works. While it might accompish the same goal in theory, what it really does is gate our spec behind the artifact, and gives us the Warlords "leveling bonus" treatment. Yeah I'm looking at you Improved Recklessness.

[Deleted]

hat I don't want is for the specs to be left alone and artifact bonuses to bandaid the spec until it works.

This.
Specs can't be fixed by gear or perks, stripping the class of tools it always had just for them to become stuff to be added through leveling or bonuses, which by all means and end are optional content.
Aside from leveling I guess, but you get my point.

Artifacts should have more of a cosmetic value aside from the proper scaling since it's the only weapon we'll get for all the xpac. I'd rather it not doing anything for any of our buttons, I'd like our buttons to function on their own.

And by the way I'm curious about the next stat squish. Because if we walk in Legion with those stats then we get 1mil healthpools by t19's end.

[purebalance]

All they are is Draenor perks 2.0

[Maltore]

All they are is Draenor perks 2.0

It's all speculation at this point, but I think they'll be more than that. Each spec only got 5 perks for WoD, and like I said, those artifact trait trees are showing way more than 5 trait slots. That said, the one they showcased for Retribution (while it may sound cool) is just a damage increase that you can't control... so who knows.

I believe it's been stated that we won't get any new talents for Legion, meaning new abilities aren't coming from talents, and I doubt we'll see new baseline spec abilities. But there's always been something new, and I believe it will be in the artifact trait trees. The question is, how soon will we be able to max out those trees?

[Fawkess]

All they are is Draenor perks 2.0

I think its more of a fusion of both

You have a talent tree which you can put points into like Talents
Everyone will have the same at the end like perks
More than 5 perks like talents

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I believe it's been stated that we won't get any new talents for Legion, meaning new abilities aren't coming from talents, and I doubt we'll see new baseline spec abilities. But there's always been something new, and I believe it will be in the artifact trait trees. The question is, how soon will we be able to max out those trees?

They said by the end of the expansion you will have everything maxed

[Maltore]

What I don't want is for the specs to be left alone and artifact bonuses to bandaid the spec until it works. While it might accompish the same goal in theory, what it really does is gate our spec behind the artifact, and gives us the Warlords "leveling bonus" treatment. Yeah I'm looking at you Improved Recklessness.

Why does it matter if the spec improvements come from the artifact traits or are baselined into the spec? Assuming we get to max out the trees for the first raid tier, the artifact traits are just part of the spec, no?

Though it could be awkward if we can't max them out, but can swap the point allocation around on the fly. Then we'd be juggling talents, glyphs, and artifact traits on a boss-by-boss basis. Not sure how I would feel about that...

[Fawkess]

Though it could be awkward if we can't max them out, but can swap the point allocation around on the fly. Then we'd be juggling talents, glyphs, and artifact traits on a boss-by-boss basis. Not sure how I would feel about that...

You will most likely not be able to swap them unless your at a class hall or city

[Archimtiros]

Why does it matter if the spec improvements come from the artifact traits or are baselined into the spec? Assuming we get to max out the trees for the first raid tier, the artifact traits are just part of the spec, no?

Though it could be awkward if we can't max them out, but can swap the point allocation around on the fly. Then we'd be juggling talents, glyphs, and artifact traits on a boss-by-boss basis. Not sure how I would feel about that...

That's the question though isn't it? Will we max our the artifact by the first raid tier? I kind of doubt it, considering that would make the 2nd and (possibly) 3rd raid tier pretty insignificant by comparison.

A few reasons I don't like it:
1) Because the attributes don't feel like bonuses, they feel like requirements. I go back to the example of Improved Recklessness.

2) Even if the artifact was maxed out within one tier, that still gates the specs mechanical performance behind maxing out the artifact, which isn't conductive to a lot of players; namely those who start late or progress less quickly than others.

3) It's just bad design philosophy. I'm not asking for everything I want to be given on a silver platter, and I do see the importance of noticeable bonuses gained through the artifact, but that shouldn't excuse a poor base rotation. Just like the talent system should not be a bandaid, requiring specific talents to make a spec work (eg: TfB for Arms), and set bonuses should not be a bandaid; the rotation should be made mechanically sound first, and then bonuses added on top of that. It also sets better precedent for the next expansion after Legion.

[Fawkess]

I like it better than Diablo paragon system because its not meaningless
I get cool perks that can alter and change my playstyle rather than extra health and speed

[Archimtiros]

I like it better than Diablo paragon system because its not meaningless
I get cool perks that can alter and change my playstyle rather than extra health and speed

I agree, but I don't think it's an excuse for a broken rotation. It's still completely possible to make compelling artifact bonuses after fixing the base of the spec.

A good example of this would be Meat Cleaver: The ability works fine as is, some might say it could be better, but it certainly isn't broken. Thus, a good artifact bonus would be: Whirlwind generates a charge of Meat Cleaver for every target hit (up to a reasonable cap). This fufils both criteria; it's a compelling bonus but the ability/rotation works without it.

Most importantly, the artifact bonuses need to be compelling but not feel mandatory. This is the problem with rotational bandaids, because although we may end up with all of the bonuses, we won't start out there. Early on, we want the freedom to be able to pick the bonus we want, without being "required" to take the BT always crits ability simply to save our sanity and make the rotation work.

[Super Kami Dende]

People will unlock ALL Traits.

But Relics from Raids and such will increase the ilvl AND alter Traits on the weapon. Further customizing it.

[Rorke]

Hamstring reduces the targets movement speed by 60%. Why this isn't currently in this game is beyond me.