Artifact Appearance Availability Change in Battle for Azeroth

[Tock20]

Do you still have to complete Balance of Power before next xpac?

[Marrilaife]

Do you still have to complete Balance of Power before next xpac?

You never had to, balance of power will stay in the game.

[Castrum]

Well, enough whined. Blizz caves as always.

[Thrif]

If you do the Argus stuff you should be able to get to 930 within a few weeks. From there you can get into an Antorus normal group and you should be able to brute force the prot challenge. At least that's what I did.

But yeah, I agree it sucks that they remove things as liberally as they do.

If you spend time on getting 910 token gear its doable. I did that with most of my alts that I didn't actively play this expansion. You can still do it before the august.

Keep in mind that the Mage Tower is going away in the pre-patch as confirmed by Ythisens, and if it releases 6 weeks prior like the Legion one did, we're looking at the beginning of June, putting the remaining weeks to farm Mage Towers at 5 or 6. It might work if he's really lucky, farms all antorus bosses like a champ or manages to get a normal antorus boost somehow, but it won't be easy or guaranteed at this point.

[Ophenia]

Y'all see the free tint staying in BfA, all I see is the disappearing of "Link Keystone Master" in BfA Mythic+ PUG as it won't be relevant anymore

[Corroc]

Keep in mind that the Mage Tower is going away in the pre-patch as confirmed by Ythisens, and if it releases 6 weeks prior like the Legion one did, we're looking at the beginning of June, putting the remaining weeks to farm Mage Towers at 5 or 6. It might work if he's really lucky, farms all antorus bosses like a champ or manages to get a normal antorus boost somehow, but it won't be easy or guaranteed at this point.

I mean you can get 3x910 tokens weekly by just doing the two quests, clearing minor invasions and if you really want more you can do dailies with veiled argunite reward. There is 17 slots of gear, two which will be covered by legendaries and 3 of them are relics. Getting 3x910 relics is great but not required. You can get the required gear without having to waste time with pug raids.

[Duridi]

Besides, it's just one color variant of that specific appearance. I doubt most people even know what the tint is for most of the weapons just from memory. Hardly anyone is going to care that your assassination daggers are red instead of green. Not to mention that some classes probably won't even use a weapon that can be transmogrified into the artifact when the expansion comes out and adds normal weapons once again. If a resto shaman ends up using a staff, that ever so prestigious hammer tint is going to mean nothing.

This is a concern I really hope will be adressed.

I am currently wearing a MH+OH combo on the beta because that was the best option for me, but my artifct weapon is a staff... I am gonna be so disappointed if I end up not being able to use my artifact apperances, or any other stave mogs in BFA, because MH+OH design is better stat wise... I always hated that combo!

I haven't started gearing properly on the beta btw, so I am not 100% sure it will continue like this, but right now I am, and knwoing the past... where staves were never an option(I have a vague memory of them changing up things, to make staves more attractive stat wise, but i didn't play much duing MoP and WoD so if it happened then I would not know), I'm "scared" I'll be forced into MH+OH again.

I'm one of those who absolutely loved my artifact weapon, and I'm really gonna miss it. Part of the reason why I miss it, might have been because it was a staff. Not so fond of it on my alts that were forced into MH+OH(shadow priest e.g.)

[Deleted]

That's going to hurt m+ boost sales. Good. Hate that spam took over channels and group finder.

[Keashaa]

This means that the only artifact appearance that will become unobtainable with Battle For Azeroth is the Mage Tower base appearance.

So we can do the mage tower at level 120 and then obtain the other three appearances?

[Pickynerd]

So we can do the mage tower at level 120 and then obtain the other three appearances?

That's how I read it.

[Soeroah]

That's how I read it.

That contradicts their earlier statements, which were that you can earn the other three tints post-Legion IF you earned the base appearance DURING Legion.

They are technically accurate in that statement, but not very clear. If you want ANY Mage Tower appearance, get the base one during Legion, and then you have all the time in the world to do 10 Legion Dungeons, kill heroic KJ or do 10 Rated BGs.

[Thrif]

I mean you can get 3x910 tokens weekly by just doing the two quests, clearing minor invasions and if you really want more you can do dailies with veiled argunite reward. There is 17 slots of gear, two which will be covered by legendaries and 3 of them are relics. Getting 3x910 relics is great but not required. You can get the required gear without having to waste time with pug raids.

3x910 equals 650x3 = 1950 veiled argunite (VA). You get 500 from the weekly quests, so that's 1450 to come from minor invasions, I can't remember exactly how much you get per invasion, but isn't it like 40 so you'd need like 5-6 invasions per day? I guess that's actually doable, I just never could be bothered since I always geared several toons at once.

Even so, 910-915 is pretty low ilvl to do the mage tower, especially one as challenging as prot warrior, and especially if you haven't done Kruul on any other character. Might be doable since it's his main, but as I said, it won't be easy or guaranteed at this point unless he can get some normal antorus clears and get at least 930+ ilvl.

- - - Updated - - -

So we can do the mage tower at level 120 and then obtain the other three appearances?

That's how I read it.

No, you need the base appearance to get all the other tints. Although that particular quote was pretty vague, they've been extremely clear about this in earlier posts.

Mage Towers will only be up until the Pre-patch. If you haven't done it by then you won't be able to get any of the tints. But if you have done the mage tower by then, you can unlock the 3 remaining tints in BFA and forward.

[HuxNeva]

Y'all see the free tint staying in BfA, all I see is the disappearing of "Link Keystone Master" in BfA Mythic+ PUG as it won't be relevant anymore

It has been completely irrelevant since raider.io released the addon.

[Deleted]

It in incredibly stupid, but they insist on catering to the 5% population of elitist d-bags who just can't enjoy something unless they know other people don't have access to it. Not sure why rewarding their arrogance at the expense of the majority of their players is a good business choice, but it's their player-base to alienate... not mine.

Doesn't make it any less incredibly stupid, though. e_e

Would you go to work every day if the government handed out equal paychecks for everyone for just sitting on the couch?

[Soeroah]

Would you go to work every day if the government handed out equal paychecks for everyone for just sitting on the couch?

The ability to earn an in-game reward two years after it was a current reward isn't the same as equal paychecks for doing nothing.

[Deleted]

They don't do this NEARLY enough.

And I haven't played seriously since sometime before the Arcanist's Manasaber came out with a brief return during the Dragons of Nightmare event so it's damn near impossible for me to come back and gear up enough to get that artifact appearance at this point I think. I'm 875 ilvl. Actually thought I was lower but still...
I REALLY wanted the Prot Warrior one so I could rock it with the Garrosh shoulders one day. FUUUUCK.

I leveled up a Nightborne mage, all my friends have stopped playing until BFA and my guild disbanded. I dinged 110 2 weeks ago and I am now 920 item level.

You can get a lot of gear from Argus and from kindly asking every person in LFR that gets a drop you need if they would give it to you if they don't need it.

- - - Updated - - -

The ability to earn an in-game reward two years after it was a current reward isn't the same as equal paychecks for doing nothing.

But still; exclusive rewards that are unobtainable to a majority is not neccessarily a bad thing. I remember when I used to play alot of RTS games as a kid and then I found out about cheat codes. It was fun for a few hours but then I realized I actually wanted to work hard for my rewards.

[Zyrosis]

Better solution to that would be locking the quest availability to 110 as a maximum. That way you can lock experience gain on your character and still work for them at any given time, rather than removing content for the sake of removing exclusive content restricted to one expansion.

I mean, it renders it obsolete because imagine if a new player comes (child ages up enough to play the game) two expansions from now and sees a Demon Hunter with awesome burning glaives, gets a boner and wants to compete with the challenge for it. Bad luck eh? Growing up in the wrong time and not being able to do it now, supoose it's a generation issue.

If they weren't deactivating all your artifact traits, and doing a massive level scaling change that would require tons of rebalancing on all the challenges to keep them actually challenging, they may have kept them for 110s only. They also can't just scale them or they may become too easy or too hard if they don't scale them enough.

I mean, for fucks sake the damn tower has been available for over a year now. If you don't have all the mage tower skins you care about, then you never cared enough in the first place. I myself only got like 8 of them or so. I couldn't give less of a shit if I don't have the other 28 when they go away. People really need to get over this idea that they should always have access to everything. It's completely fine that there are some things, especially as minor as a fucking weapon skin, that are only available for a "short" (1 year is not short) period of time or only for those who excel at the game.

[Soeroah]

But still; exclusive rewards that are unobtainable to a majority is not neccessarily a bad thing. I remember when I used to play alot of RTS games as a kid and then I found out about cheat codes. It was fun for a few hours but then I realized I actually wanted to work hard for my rewards.

That's true, but the content in the games wasn't getting removed arbitrarily just so the early adopters could feel special.

I'm not saying these sorts of things should necessarily be easier to obtain over time, just that they shouldn't be removed. More achievements like the Algalon one that requires you being at X level with gear at a certain point, for example. That way it's not soloable but it's still obtainable. Wouldn't that be better than creating a situation where a new player looks at a thing they want, learns they can never obtain it because it was only available for a year, and then finds out about a ton of other similar situations, where all the 'unique' stuff can't be earned any more?

[Deleted]

That's true, but the content in the games wasn't getting removed arbitrarily just so the early adopters could feel special.

I'm not saying these sorts of things should necessarily be easier to obtain over time, just that they shouldn't be removed. More achievements like the Algalon one that requires you being at X level with gear at a certain point, for example. That way it's not soloable but it's still obtainable. Wouldn't that be better than creating a situation where a new player looks at a thing they want, learns they can never obtain it because it was only available for a year, and then finds out about a ton of other similar situations, where all the 'unique' stuff can't be earned any more?

So you mean for instance you can only complete the mage tower challenge with characters below a certain item level? I could get behind that.

[Deleted]

So this blue post is equivalent to a lack new apperance from m+ in BfA ?