My Artifact Weapon Theory

[Justpassing]

I'm sorry but you'll have to pry my artifact weapons off my dead hands.

Ashbringer, Doomhammer etc., sorry if you started playing two years ago but the rest have been waiting for this our whole lives (in Azeroth).

[Zardi]

Once the Legion threat is over we will probably just lock them up somewhere safe, "until they're needed".
And of course, we'll never hear of them -or the Orders- ever again.

[Natureseer]

I can't really say what the lore reason will be, but from a technical perspective they should probably do something along the lines of having a quest where you turn in your artifact <for lore reasons> and immediately all artifact traits and abilities become character passives, all existing artifact appearances go into the wardrobe, and in return you recieve a generic weapon of the same type and item level as your artifact. This would probably happen in 8.0. There would also probably be some other reward involved to make it more satisfying (not that it necessarily will be, but it has to happen eventually presumably)

[Deleted]

The amount of energy discharged from the constant use of these powerful weapons will break N'zoths prison. We'll have to refrain from using them after we find out because there could be other negative effects too.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Again, all classes on the darker side of the spectrum will never give up their weapon just for funsies. Especially not the army of the light, rofl.

The second post probably got it best so far.

- - - Updated - - -

I may be one of the very very few but I like my truthguard. I would like to keep my artefact. I know it wont happen

Why would you be the only one.Imho one of the best if not the best looking shield ingame. I wish I could use shields .



Edit: For DKs at least I could see a story where Bolvar screws us over though, and absorbs the power the weapons have gathered or something like that.

[Eazy]

My speculation: they won't get destroyed, they won't be given to anyone. We will just find more powerful weapons, but we will keep them, just as we could keep MOP cloak and other legendaries.

FAQ:
What about traits?
Some are boring and will be deleted, some will be passives in our spellbooks.

What can be more powerful than one of the most powerful items in Azeroth?
I don't know, maybe some titans relics or whatever.

What about someone absorbing artifact powers?
That's ridiculous.

[Carnivale]

I think each spec will get his own different story as to where it will go.
Some real weapons like Ashbringer(I guess Turalyon migh get it), Doomhammer, Thas'dorah (Alleria will want it back for sure) will probably be passed to other characters.

Spoiler alert: No she won't.

[Dead Moose Fandango]

I see us tossin' 'em in a fire and making hotdogs over it. Sadly, since the artifacts're poorly made, they will burn the hotdogs and we'll have to find something else for dinner.

[Deleted]

As we'll go by the ship to the Kul Tiras, the ship bumps on a kraken and the artifact weapons slips from our hands into the ocean

[Jujudrood]

I'm guessing there will be a pre-launch event that has us using our artifacts to stymie the next big bad, then as a result we 'sacrifice' ourselves and our weapons at launch of the next expansion (first big quest chain).
Then after a cutscene plays out with us 'dying', we wake up to find the power of the artifact saved us but the weapon is no more, so then you are given a weapon of relative ilvl equivalence to your artifact weapon and continue on with the expansion.
In-game, you keep the weapon but it will no longer be equipable, so you use greens/blues while leveling and your artifact would only serve as a memory (and a weapon for timewalking whenever Legion dungeons get thrown into the mix in 9.0 or beyond).

This would also be a good time for them to do a stat crunch and essentially drain our order hall heroes of their near god-like power and bring us back down to earth a bit.
The shattering of the artifact would sap us of our own strength and we get to level all over again with smaller (though still roughly equivalent in % terms) numbers.

[MrTharne]

As we'll go by the ship to the Kul Tiras, the ship bumps on a kraken and the artifact weapons slips from our hands into the ocean

Murlocs then pick them up and the last boss of first raid is a fight against them.

[Deleted]

WoW it damaged Sargeras? Those weapons of some demon lord?

Man i am a noob in lore

the vengeance weapons where actully used to lay very small wound to sargeras i believe.

[daiceman]

You give your weapons to Yrelka as a 8.0 event.

[Saverem]

Here is what I think will happen:

We meet the Army of Light and do some quest with a class specific general, lore character, w/e with them. At the end of the expansion, we give that person our artifact weapon to assist them in their fight with the void. They give us a kickass weapon in return, which stat-wise is equivalent to our artifact weapon but that way when we get a quest-green upgrade in the next expansion it doesn't feel as stupid as throwing away the Ashbringer.

I can't imagine Blizz will do something that destroys or de-powers our artifact and I can't think of any reason that we would still have it and not use it.

We already know that Illidan is going to be Sargeras' jailer at the end of 7.3, I'm guessing we will use our weapons as artifacts to empower the bonds on Sargeras. Basically, we'll use our weapons as a power source to strengthen his chains.

That way, the weapons are still there, they still exist, but they are being used as batteries to help keep Sargy-tits imprisoned.

[Highwhale]

The best way to remove AW is to kill off/seal with Illidan ours characters. Like gameplay wise we play with the same character but lore wise you characters are died in last raid boss fight.

[ArmatisUlv]

You will be able to transmog its appearance over other weapons.

Yes I know, but I meant to actually keep it, not just transmog.

[Deleted]

I'm guessing there will be a pre-launch event that has us using our artifacts to stymie the next big bad, then as a result we 'sacrifice' ourselves and our weapons at launch of the next expansion (first big quest chain).
Then after a cutscene plays out with us 'dying', we wake up to find the power of the artifact saved us but the weapon is no more, so then you are given a weapon of relative ilvl equivalence to your artifact weapon and continue on with the expansion.
In-game, you keep the weapon but it will no longer be equipable, so you use greens/blues while leveling and your artifact would only serve as a memory (and a weapon for timewalking whenever Legion dungeons get thrown into the mix in 9.0 or beyond).

This would also be a good time for them to do a stat crunch and essentially drain our order hall heroes of their near god-like power and bring us back down to earth a bit.
The shattering of the artifact would sap us of our own strength and we get to level all over again with smaller (though still roughly equivalent in % terms) numbers.

Yeah us dying and losing the artifacts could actually fix the power level scale of our heroes. Together with the next item squish I could see this beeing a thing. Just make us adventurers again, not heroes.

[Deleted]

Power drained through Argus/Illidian/Khadgar to imprison Sarg, we get to keep them as trophies but they are in lore rendered useless. New expansion we will require void-forged weaponry.

[anon5123]

While artifacts are going away, I can't help but be 100% sure Blizzard will keep the AP system alive in the next expansion, just like how Order Halls are a lite version of Garrisons, even though everyone fucking hated garrisons.

[Azalar]

I can see using all our AP (and our Artifacts in the process) to seal Sargeras inside Illidan once we're done with him.