How likely are dps to play only one spec in raids?

[Hinastorm]

I have a alot of concerns about how artifact power currently works, and i'm worried.

I know that the first 13? or so traits on artifacts are relatively cheap, but after that it really ramps up.

If you start splitting your artifact power between more then 1 spec, you are hurting your potential power. You would be more powerful in one spec, but obviously be losing versatility that the old dual spec system used to offer. This is a question that everyone will have to ask themselves at some point, and the answer wont always be clear, which is fine, but its making it very hard for me to pick a class.

I LOVE outlaw, its fast paced, its not complicated, its just fun. The roll the bones rng doesent even bother me that much.

But I find assass dull, slow, and boring, albeit pretty effective with a certain talent build. Sub is...ok, but not a big fan of it either.

If i knew i'd be outlaw all exp, because I dont want to split my artifact power, I would pick rogue no question, right now.

I know you can respec your AP into another wep, but it comes with a steep AP cost, and its not something you'll want to do several times a night.

Will Bliz make AP character wide at some point soon after the exp, you think?

[Lewlies]

I have a alot of concerns about how artifact power currently works, and i'm worried.

I know that the first 13? or so traits on artifacts are relatively cheap, but after that it really ramps up.

If you start splitting your artifact power between more then 1 spec, you are hurting your potential power. You would be more powerful in one spec, but obviously be losing versatility that the old dual spec system used to offer. This is a question that everyone will have to ask themselves at some point, and the answer wont always be clear, which is fine, but its making it very hard for me to pick a class.

I LOVE outlaw, its fast paced, its not complicated, its just fun. The roll the bones rng doesent even bother me that much.

But I find assass dull, slow, and boring, albeit pretty effective with a certain talent build. Sub is...ok, but not a big fan of it either.

If i knew i'd be outlaw all exp, because I dont want to split my artifact power, I would pick rogue no question, right now.

I know you can respec your AP into another wep, but it comes with a steep AP cost, and its not something you'll want to do several times a night.

Will Bliz make AP character wide at some point soon after the exp, you think?

For more hardcore players, very unlikely to stick with one spec. At some point, you'll have access to all 3 artifacts and level them up (either equally or not).

Also, take into account possible buffs/nerfs to certain specs as we all know blizzard loves to do (which is fine to try to force play on other specs)

[ZazuuPriest]

I usually only play one spec per class so I'm not worried. What I am worried about is not enough throughput on my disc priest but nothing will stop me from playing it. I leveled in BC as disc so i basically can deal with anything.

[Wyrt]

You won't be able to easily switch specs for awhile because filling out your main spec artifact traits is going to take a very long time. Your other weapons will fall behind to the point that it's not really worth it to switch over.

Later in the expansion it'll be easier to maintain multiple weapons so you'll probably be switching more then.

[Cheze]

early on, most people will probably stick to a primary spec as they fill out the artifact

once we're midway through the expansion I bet you'll see people playing more offspecs though; an artifact with a couple fewer minor nodes filled out won't perform that much worse than their 'main' weapon, I'm sure there'll be fights here and there that're highly favorable to particular builds. Plus, people just get bored and wanna play something different.

also, I bet it'll get easier to fill out second and third weapons as the expansion goes along (easier than it is currently on beta, I mean)

[Cracked]

The ap cost of traits is exponential, so you can get reasonable points in offspecs. Don't listen to people who say no-no to offspecs, there is a handy spreadsheet going around with a great rundown, sadly, I'm on my phone right now, so can't link, but I'll give u an example : you can get 21.4 traits in one artifact, or 19 points in two artifacts. This trend is only improving due to exponential nature, by the time you get your 30 traits, it might be actually cheaper to get offspec to also 30 than to get 31st trait in main (not sure where exactly on the line this happens)

[Wyrt]

The ap cost of traits is exponential, so you can get reasonable points in offspecs. Don't listen to people who say no-no to offspecs, there is a handy spreadsheet going around with a great rundown, sadly, I'm on my phone right now, so can't link, but I'll give u an example : you can get 21.4 traits in one artifact, or 19 points in two artifacts. This trend is only improving due to exponential nature, by the time you get your 30 traits, it might be actually cheaper to get offspec to also 30 than to get 31st trait in main (not sure where exactly on the line this happens)

You can, but if it's your main spec that you're going to be playing most of the time it's going to be more worthwhile to spend those points on your main weapon. At least until you pick up all 3 golden dragon traits.

[Deleted]

I think every spec will HAVE to be viable. Because surely Blizzard can't expect you to level an entire artifact for a new tier. Example is for example Mages used Frost early WoD. Then when BRF came out, Arcane and Fire became the best specs, then finally in HFC Frost became on par again, even better. Imagine dealing with WoD's timeline with artifacts. And many classes go through this iteration.

I think with the separation of PVP from PVE, they're going to have a way easier time to balance specs damage. They can easily buff demonology in PVE without destroying PVP if need be, so on and so forth for every pure dps/classes with 2 dps specs.

[Chaosinciter]

Artifact Knowledge (the increase on all Artifact Power gains) is applied to all Artifacts that character gets, so after unlocking it and starting the dailies ya can pretty much just laze about till ya got 25 (24500% increase in AP gains) and then max the other specs then. Least thats my experience on the beta

[Deleted]

Artifact Knowledge (the increase on all Artifact Power gains) is applied to all Artifacts that character gets, so after unlocking it and starting the dailies ya can pretty much just laze about till ya got 25 (24500% increase in AP gains) and then max the other specs then. Least thats my experience on the beta

Can you explain this more? Is there a catch up mechanic for your other specs?

[Jellospally]

Can you explain this more? Is there a catch up mechanic for your other specs?

No.

You build Artifact Knowledge 1 level every 5 days. After 125 days into expac if you started it day 1 you will have 24900% AP gain. Building a alt artifact will literally take a couple days to get almost all 34 points. Lets just say if you hit 110 day 1 even with slowly getting artifact knowledge you can get 34/34 100 days in doing bare minimum AP stuff. So getting an alt one done 34/34 after you hit 24900% AP gains will literally not take any time.

Also you don't miss out on Artifact Knowledge either if you start late. If your artifact knowledge is behind you research it faster till you are caught up with the max possible.

Say you hit 110 like almost 5 days into expac your Knowledge research should take ~24 hours for the first level to catch up to people instead of 5 days. Then the rest would be 5 days.

[Raugnaut]

Due to the fact that you will always be behind on alt-spec artifacts (Or, if you treat all 3 equally, your "main spec" artifact will be slightly behind artifacts of other raiders who concentrate on one artifact by a trait or 2), hardcore raiders will likely learn all 3 specs, but will only play other specs when it gives a significant preformance boost in a fight (For Rogues, for instance, many will often be swapping between Outlaw for heavy AoE fight, and whoever is higher on ST for ST fights)

Casual players will, of course, play what they want.

But yea - Artifacts for alt-specs, AND for alts, will always be slightly behind those who fully concentrated on one spec. Of course, the eventual difference will be less then .2% throughput (Several months in, when most ppl are starting to hit later ranks of the 20 +%damage trait), but it will be there.

[Nefarious Tea]

For more hardcore players, very unlikely to stick with one spec. At some point, you'll have access to all 3 artifacts and level them up (either equally or not).

Also, take into account possible buffs/nerfs to certain specs as we all know blizzard loves to do (which is fine to try to force play on other specs)

Artifact acquisition is heavily time-gated; no one will be playing a second spec without being heavily gimped until at least 4-5 months into the expansion. The kinds of people whose guilds make them switch will be unaffected, because they're typically asked to switch class rather than spec, and separate characters can be, if you are willing to put in the time, kept at an equally progressed level. All being unable to respec properly does is hurt more casual people, who can ill afford it.

[Wildpantz]

As long as you do the research as much as possible it wont be an issuse. Youll get a massive % boost at rank 25

[Lewlies]

Artifact acquisition is heavily time-gated; no one will be playing a second spec without being heavily gimped until at least 4-5 months into the expansion. The kinds of people whose guilds make them switch will be unaffected, because they're typically asked to switch class rather than spec, and separate characters can be, if you are willing to put in the time, kept at an equally progressed level. All being unable to respec properly does is hurt more casual people, who can ill afford it.

The only time-gating that artifact gain is, the amount of time you're willing to put in. Yes there is a limit but you would have to play for more than 8 hours a day to reach that limit. If you're willing// have the time to put in, you can have enough to put in and level your twin specs pretty equally (~80% of your main weapon). This is due to the exponential increase of AP needed to level.

So being able to switch freely between specs now, we will definitely see more of it.

[Saiona]

Probably very likely for Emerald Nightmare, but after that not very.

[Mazeari]

You know there are certain cutoff in the artifact trees right. For example the first 13 points are relatively cheap. And after that the cost increases by like 7fold and more. Then there's another cut off around 20 points. Etc. Meaning that once you reach the cutoff, you have to chose 1,5 points in your main weapon or ~10 points in your os weapon. It's not that hard to maintain 1 os weapon

Unless you raid topnotch or outlaw is very bad there's no reason you can't stick to outlaw.

[Maudib]

Will Bliz make AP character wide at some point soon after the exp, you think?

This is one of those brilliant ideas that will turn out to be a very bad design choice. I definitely expect Blizz to either modify this greatly.. perhaps offer an item you buy that doubles or quadruples your Artifact knowledge... let;s say you were at 10,000% AK... it would be 20k or 40k after using the item.

Alt specs and alts are heavily limited with this system.