With World of Warcraft: Legion being announced last Thursday, discussion on the expansion and its new features has been widespread across the World of Warcraft community. One of the most discussed and debated features announced thus far are Artifacts - a new item and progression system combination.
The premise behind the Artifact system is quite simple: With the Burning Legion launching their largest attack on Azeroth ever, we are asked to take up arms, wielding some of the greatest weapons Azeroth has ever seen in order to fight back the demonic threat.
Each class and spec will have their own unique artifact that they’ll obtain early on while questing, and it will stay with us right throughout the expansion. However, there will be no weapon drops during the expansion, save for a very tiny number at the beginning of the levelling experience. As weapons determine a substantial amount of DPS capabilities for a large amount of specs, Blizzard has detailed some of the systems they are implementing into the Artifact weapons to help ensure they remain a scalable, customisable and fun system for players.
Obtaining Your Artifact and Customising It's Appearance
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Each artifact will have its own unique questline that you’ll play through in order to obtain it. It will tell the story and history of the Artifact, and send you on a quest to obtain it from its owner, forge the weapon or collect it from wherever it may lay. Though each spec will have its own story and quest, the quests will not be difficult like the Warlock Green Fire questline, as players of all skill levels will need to obtain it. Because each artifact is unique to each spec, it will be heavily Class and Spec themed. Retribution Paladins will take up the legendary Ashbringer, Protection Warriors will collect a Sword and Shield from an Ancient Vyrkul king, made from the scales of Deathwing, Frost Mages will take up Ebonchill, the staff of the first Guardian of Tirisfal and Mistweaver Monks will obtain the staff of Emperor Shaohao. Each Artifact will start off with a base appearance to resemble the weapon as they are in Lore. From there, multiple appearances of the weapon are available to unlock that will be obtainable through a number of different sources. These will vary from colour shifts, all the way to totally different re-interpretations on the Artifact’s appearance, and they’ll all match the theme of the spec in some way. These can be obtained by spending Artifact Power, unlocked through PvP and possibly further ways in the future. If you don’t want to use any of the appearances, you’ll be able to transmogrify your Artifact as per usual. |
Increasing Artifact Power
| Artifact Traits are essentially a talent tree for your weapon, and Artifact Power are the points you spend to unlock those Traits. Harking back to the talent trees of old, by spending your points to unlock traits, you unlock adjacent traits, each being more powerful than the last as you move further down the Trait tree. Artifact Power is obtained by most PvE and PvP activities in the game, such as completing Dungeons, Raids, Quests, Battlegrounds and World Objectives. Though you will eventually be able to unlock every trait on your weapon, you’ll determine how you wish to navigate the tree, as there are multiple path options you can take. Furthermore, relics will determine how powerful your Artifact is, giving the item its stats, DPS and item level. These relics will drop from a lot of traditional sources, such as Dungeon and Raid bosses throughout the expansion. Like traditional weapon drops from prior expansions, these Relics will have varying levels of power - the Mythic relic will be more powerful than the LFR relic, the Heroic Dungeon relic will be more powerful than the Normal Dungeon and so on. Although it is not confirmed by Blizzard, it is likely that you'll also obtain relics from PvP, as your Artifact will be the weapon you use in PvP as well as PvE. |
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While there isn’t much detailed information on these topics just yet, there has been some important groundwork laid out.
Blizzard have stated that they do not wish for it to be a multiplicative effort to upgrade and maintain Artifact weapons for your offspecs, but they have also not outlined any particular method or system to make it easier. It is known that you will still obtain separate Relics for each weapon you want to maintain. It has also been stated that there will not be any catch-up mechanics for your alternate characters’ Artifacts.
With all that said, are you looking forward to obliterating hoards of demons with some of the most powerful weapons to ever be forged on Azeroth, or do you think it's all a bit ridiculous to take Lore weapons from major NPCs? What are your thoughts on the progression system that Blizzard is building in with these weapons?
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