Artifact minmaxing

[Marco]

It's probably too soon for people to wrap their heads around artifact power and artifact knowledge, but I wanted a thread to drop this post in.  The TLDR is that you might be able to minmax a little bit by delaying certain quests until you have a higher level of artifact knowledge, because these one-time rewards now scale with artifact knowledge.  It probably isn't worth thinking about, because you will get most of your AP from repeatable sources in the long run.

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20748135380?page=5#post-91

(It's also a little amusing that you could put artifact power items into void storage and take them back out in order to make them scale with the current level of artifact knowledge.  But that will be fixed before launch.)

As long as I've made this thread, I should link the article which maths out the performance difference between maintaining multiple artifact weapons versus dumping all of your points into one weapon.  But I'm having trouble finding it right now.

[jsoh]

This is probably a good place to place this bit of information (no source atm, since I can't spend 20 minutes searching right now):

The cost of the first 13 points in an artifact is less than the cost to go from 13 to 14 points. So. If you want to maintain 2 artifacts during levelling (i.e. heal/tank + dps), then it is not a huge burden to go up to 13 in one, without materially impacting progress in the other.

Edit: This got retweeted into my feed, so.. yeah. useful. https://twitter.com/Ansirox/status/768510967961509892

[Marco]

From poking around on reddit, it sounds like treasures don't award XP this time around, but they do award artifact power, which scales with artifact knowledge.

If you pick up treasures right away, you won't get very much AP, but you also don't need very much AP for your next trait.  If you pick up treasures later when you have artifact knowledge, you will get more AP, but you are also probably looking at a lot more AP needed for your next trait.  It probably makes sense to ignore treasures while leveling (i.e. don't level with HandyNotes installed) and treat them as an additional option for getting AP when you're looking forward to a particularly good trait.

[Marco]

wowhead just put up a nice just-the-facts rundown of the AP/AK system.

http://www.wowhead.com/guide=4607/acquiring-and-spending-artifact-power-and-knowledge

[Marco]

Here are the articles about the relative performance advantage of sinking points into one artifact spec versus several:

https://felconcentration.wordpress.com/2016/07/12/multispeccing-artifacts/
https://felconcentration.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/the-viability-of-partial-tri-speccing-artifacts/

As Apert said, the most important thing to know is that you can get 13 traits in an artifact without spending very much AP.  So, for example, if you want to level with a DPS spec but heal almost exclusively at 110, you can sink 13 points into your DPS spec artifact without setting yourself back by a noticeable amount in the long run.

[Winston]

I've been leveling my monk using a DPS spec and artifact. I just got the quest for the second artifact for my healing spec, which in the long run is the spec I'll use for any instances I'm in.

- Should I switch to healing spec and gear before going on the healing artifact quest? That is, is the quest for the healing artifact a test of your healing abilities? Or is just a standard killfest?

- Is there any particular reason to do the quest right away? Or should I let it sit in my queue until my monk reached level 110?

I've already figured out based on the posts above that, at minimum, I should consider doing the healing artifact quest at the point I've got 13 skills in my DPS artifact, so I can start throwing AP into the healing artifact.

[Edalia]

I've been leveling my monk using a DPS spec and artifact. I just got the quest for the second artifact for my healing spec, which in the long run is the spec I'll use for any instances I'm in.

- Should I switch to healing spec and gear before going on the healing artifact quest? That is, is the quest for the healing artifact a test of your healing abilities? Or is just a standard killfest?

- Is there any particular reason to do the quest right away? Or should I let it sit in my queue until my monk reached level 110?

I've already figured out based on the posts above that, at minimum, I should consider doing the healing artifact quest at the point I've got 13 skills in my DPS artifact, so I can start throwing AP into the healing artifact.

Yes, do the quest in a healing spec. I recommend getting your second artifact as early as possible, as you can swap specs when getting quest reward relics to increase its item level if you don't need it in your main spec.

If you are planning on healing at 110, you can pump your AP into that artifact, and stop putting points in your DPS one. You can still run around as Windwalker and quest as it, but then swap to Mistweaver when you use AP items to put points in your healing artifact. I don't know which way you're going with the WW artifact, but if you want to just get to one of the first Golden Traits and then pump everything into your healing artifact that might be best. But you could even just stop putting traits in your WW artifact and you'll be fine all the way to 110.

I hope that didn't confuse you more. If so, 13/13 will be rad!

[jsoh]

I don't have much to add to Frank's otherwise excellent answer, other than some small points:

* if you have zero plans on healing instances pre-110, there's no point in getting Sheilun immediately. It does give you a chunk of XP, if that's your thing.

* Aim for Crosswinds (golden trait to the right) with the WW artifact, even tho it means forgoing some points in the RSK talent. Big quality of life improvement. You can get there with 11-12 points

* You really, really want to get that touch of karma trait.

* No point switching to MW loot spec pre-108 or so - all gear save relics/trinkets can be used between the two. When you start seeing say.. 780+ ilvl trinkets/relics, then swap to MW to turn in the quests.

* Seriously. Just put all AP into the WW weapon while levelling. I got more AP in the first 2-3 hours at 110, than I did during the whole levelling process. It'll become even more moot after the first couple of weeks at 110 when Artifact Knowledge ramps up, and a single heroic will give you the equiv of 1-13 in a single shot.

Source: levelling a healer main monk to 110.

[Winston]

Since Edalia and jsoh paint a consistent picture, I'm following their advice. I got the healing staff, and had the experience of healing a goofball team during the scenario.

My only interest in Legion instancing is to pick up whatever pets are only available as instance quest rewards or 100% drops. Otherwise, based on my experiences so far (I'm only 104), I plan to do the Suramar dailies and world quests in the DPS spec. So my current plan is to put AP into the DPS artifact until I've reached 13 points (which will put me in mid-Tiger Claw, since I'm following the advice here http://www.icy-veins.com/wow/windwalker-monk-pve-dps-artifact-talents-relics and going clockwise).

Then I'll put all the AP into the healing artifact, and bump that up as much as I can to try to out-gear my difficulties with group play. Once I've got the last instance pet I plan to get, all the AP will go back into the DPS artifact again.

All this ignores the PvP grinding I'll have to do to get the prestige pet reward. I'll probably stick to healing spec for that, and therefore continue to put AP into the healing artifact until my PvP experience is done.

[Thanamira]

Thana is 108; her four followers are level 110.  The OH missions are starting to return AP items that are 200+ points.  Should I:
* bank them to open after getting some AK?
* open now, because a few 5s dungeons will give me much bigger rewards?
* something else?

No plans to raid, so I won't have access to those rewards.

[Tweed]

Thana is 108; her four followers are level 110.  The OH missions are starting to return AP items that are 200+ points.  Should I:
* bank them to open after getting some AK?
* open now, because a few 5s dungeons will give me much bigger rewards?
* something else?

Use them. Their value does not increase with AK. Blizz intentionally designed it that way so that people wouldn't sit on mountains of AP items until they'd capped their AK. AP items are like leaves in the fall: they're everywhere, and easy to acquire, and will increase in value as your AK increases.

[Winston]

Put high priority in doing the Artifact Knowledge research. I don't recall when that became available in my Order Hall; you may have to get to 110 before it becomes available. Each point of AK will cost 500 Order Hall Resources to research, and at present it takes about 3.5 days to research one point. As you gain more AK, the Artifact Power quest rewards and drops will grow higher.

I didn't gain any useful rewards directly from dungeons. However, there is one piece of Order Hall (the leggings for Monks) that becomes available if you do eight Legion dungeons. It's a good piece of (I guess pre-raid) gear, ilvl 820 and upgradable to ilvl 840.

I'd delay going into dungeons until you've completed all the non-Suramar storylines and gone as far through your profession and OH quests as you'd care to go, because some of those questlines take you into the dungeons. So get all those quests, and get them done in a single dungeon run. Also, it gives you a chance to get some AK under your belt, so the AP drops from the dungeons will be higher.

[Edalia]

AK is available at 110-the time to complete goes down as the expansion goes on, so you can attempt to catch up to others.

AP items snapshot your AK level when you acquire them-if you raise your AK before using the items, they are still worth the same amount of AP. As Tweed said: Use them!

[Snique]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNGpGKEwD7E

Recent Tradechat had some things to say about what's wrong with Artifact Power. I don't follow her all that closely but generally enjoy her vids. This video is worthwhile for the rant about AP items (which she HATES - I sort of dislike them but sympathize heavily). The items all have different names, don't stack, have inconsistent behavior, are not interruptable, and it's just freakin' dumb to have to (remember to) change specs, stand around clicking a bunch of items and watching cast bars, then spec back in order to continue.

[ETA: OK I just watched the bloopers, which I skipped the first time and I'm laughing so hard I am crying actual tears.]

Points made:

- Total AP needed varies a huge amount because two-spec classes vs four-spec classes (or one spec - do hunters, warlocks, and mages ever seriously switch specs, or is it just flavor/preference?).

- AP currently rewards time spent much more than skill. People who don't get to play their regular spec in raid (usually excess tanks and healers) are at a big disadvantage because their off-spec weapon is far below the curve in AP, unless you're the sort that can grind AP many hours/day.

- Imbalanced AP runs counter to the overall Blizzard philosophy of allowing people to play two specs in a reasonable manner. This particularly hurts new tanks and healers who mostly want to (need to) level in DPS spec and need AP in that weapon but want to be tanking or healing in end-game content. It's harder to do that when you come into heroics and mythics with an underpowered weapon. I'm feeling this myself as I'm leveling Shurten now. Mostly I want to raid-heal (or at least mythic-heal) with him but if I don't spend AP on my DPS weapon the content is going to be more grindy. It's not an insurmountable challenge, just a flaw in the system-as-implemented.

- Artifact Knowledge both doesn't scale well with the needed AP for the last set of traits and is also highly penalized for missing a few days. I feel like the phone app helps that and there are supposed to be new catch-up mechanics coming so maybe this will be less of an issue soon.

- AK and AP are very alt-unfriendly. She suggests making AK account-wide, which doesn't feel like it would unbalance things terribly but I haven't mathed it out.

- It would be nice to be able to set your AP spec the way you set your loot spec. That would save a TON of pointless clicking around. At least the weapon auto-equips on spec change, but still.

- the lack of a confirm is uniquely bad. The game gives you confirms and undos for many things (remember how bad it used to be before you couldn't buy back from merchants or undo an accidental disenchant) but the only "undo" for AP is so insanely expensive it's nohow worthwhile since it's not actually an undo, it's "spend all the points you saved up for your next trait" instead.

In some ways this is a "now" problem and nobody will care when everyone is capped. Except maybe more traits are coming? I don't know how to read those tea leaves. Either way it's kind of a pain for the moment.

[Marco]

I watched that video earlier, and it was entertaining and mostly made good points.  It's very easy to imagine more convenient ways of putting AP into an offspec weapon that don't require any additional UI elelements, such as being able to shift-click the weapon and use the AP item.  Making unspent AP into a currency would also be a big improvement.

The video does sweep the catch-up design of the AP/AK system under the rug of "math".  In some sense this is the correct attitude; the catch-up system is opaque and demands more patience than MMO players typically have.  But that system does mitigate against some of her points.  People who invest lots of time into getting AP will generally only be a couple of traits ahead of people who don't.  Druids need twice as much AP as demon hunters for their four specs, but the amount of time required to acquire that AP is a lot less than twice as much.  People who hit 110 late or get behind on AK research will catch up with faster AK work orders.

That said, I was pretty surprised that they didn't simply make AP apply to all specs, like honor levels do.  And while I don't know if AK should be account-wide, I was surprised that there wasn't a stronger catch-up mechanism for alts than the one they designed.  Although my warlock will eventually catch up to my raid mains in AK, right now it feels pretty meaningless mucking around at AK 10 when I have other characters at AK 15ish.