Legion Impressions: Artifact Weapons

So, Artifact Weapons is today’s topic.

Getting My Artifact Weapons

I must say that the weapons were my first goal in the first launch hours. What I did before any zone questing is that I led all my 12 toons to get their artifact weapons – both to see the story and see their class order halls.

Maybe it’s the weapons fault that I was overloaded, overdosed with lore on my first days. The story behind artifacts is HUGE. Yes, the quest chains are different. For some you jump across two or three locations, leading investigation. For some you just arrive at a place and boom! you’re done after you slay a pair of mobs and a boss.

So far I’ve acquired these artifacts and saw these quest chains:

• Micromantica: Frost, Fire, Arcane
• Microfury: Destruction
• Aurinko: Shadow
• Bons: Protection, Fury
• Paitsu: Brewmaster
• Mindebad: Frost
• Mayluna: Feral
• Melaris: Havoc
• Lizgun: Survival
• Schlitzchen: Elemental
• Hexen: Assassination
• Gardell: Retribution

People keep praising some artifact chains and call the other ones dull. It means that I plan to see all the 36 artifacts for my toons. Even the healer ones. For the sake of lore, and to compare.

By my liking, the most interesting and enjoyable quest chains were:

Priest – Shadow: shares the first place with Monk – Brewmaster. I liked these quests best of all, very different, not alike each other at all, but so cool. Total immersement in Shadow thing for Priests, I was screaming with delight at every step of the quest chain.

Perfect fun/dark balance in the tanking Monk quest. You actually collect your fighting staff – it’s the most fun thing ever, and then things grow dark when you have to protect a temple from Legion forces. Then it’s sunshine again thanks to the very amusing Hozen King. I’m not fond of Hozen, but the King was hilarious here.

By the way, isn’t that stance awesome?

The ones I liked in no particular order:

• Mage – Fire: return to ICC, and you need to break the ice walls on your way. You know, what Fire does? It melts.
• Mage – Arcane: it’s the hardest but very interesting quest chain with Azuregos
• Shaman – Elemental: it’s a way back to Pandaria with three very different stages – each of them is awesome. If you ever wanted to kick LiLi Stormstout’s bottoms for all her questing in the Valley of Four Winds – it’s a quest for you.
• Paladin – Retribution: a big lore thing there. I’ll just say it’s linked to Broken Shore scenario and it happens there.
• Druid – Feral: there’s a big lore thing, and it’s a great lead into Val’sharah, so you just want to start questing from there, no options.

Now, next go the ones that were quite ok, simple but well done. This is the case when simplicity is the best way possible, and it works. I wouldn’t add or alter a single thing to these quest chains:

• Warrior – Protection and Warrior – Fury. Both are very easy and fast smashing some vrykul skull in Stormheim.
• Demon Hunter – Havoc: Same thing, but in outer green space. Slay some demons, kill a boss.

These quests were intended to be awesome and filled with lore, but complexity appeared to be very tiresome:

• Warlock – Destruction: make your way to Scholomance grounds, then Tol Barad, then meet Gul’dan. You are required to be cheating and stabbing your allies in the back.
• Mage – Frost: there’s some very tiresome, boring and hard demon slaying in several places.
• Death Knight – Frost: I was dead more than with any spec. It’s very hard to complete, and if the mobs healed themselves after you died, I would never make it. Even some Arthas flashback does not win it.
• Rogue – Assassination: despite that the core of rogues is stealth, I hate stealth quests. A single mistake, and you start over – that sort of thing. I was just glad when it was over, despite the long and what meant to be lore-rich quest chain.
• Hunter – Survival: it was plain dull. You’re hunting a beast in Stormheim, and while they teach you to use traps and all, it’s pretty bugged, repeatable and boring.

The important point is that you can complete an artifact quest chain in another spec. For example, if they give you a quest to acquire Felo’melorn, they will switch you to Fire, but after taking this quest you can switch back to your Frost and complete it as such.

I didn’t see yet how it works with healer quests, but by all means you can get dps artifacts as a tank – which I did.

Artifact Models

I totally enjoy the Elemental Shaman’s shield and claw thing. Protecton Warrior’s combo of sword and shield is cool. Shadow Priest’s dagger and tome are awesome! And I like the Brewmaster’s stuff – but these dangling mugs are a bit annoying. I need to get her a keg model, and it will be perfect.

The others are… well, they’re very nice. I don’t feel the urge to mog over them, no.

The only artifact weapon I dislike is Destruction Warlock’s staff. It’s too big for a gnome. That one will be mogged I guess, and very soon.

Artifact Leveling

It’s very fast up to level 13-14. I’ve decided to play Fire on my Mage (cause Frost felt weak and not enjoyable at all), and  I went for Felo’melorn. Ebonchill was put in the bag at its level 14, and the fire blade became level 11 in the first day. Mind you, I don’t have any artifact knowledge yet.

Artifact Traits

What I feared much is that Blizzard chased themselves in the corner with artifact traits – that they will need to rework the classes again in the next expansion to make them work without artifact weapons. But no, they didn’t. 95% of traits are percentage buffs, and that’s tweaked easily. Blended into spells or passives. That’s very good I think.

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All in all Artifact Weapons are an enjoyable feature

They add this extra leveling layer. They are your favorite pet you care about through the expansion. You educate and nurture it, and watch it grow in power. Not to mention huge chunks of lore they add up to your knowledge of places, stories and characters.

Me likey.

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