Quick Facts

Each spec gets a unique weapon--36 weapons total. These are intended to be ultimate weapons for you, the hero.

Each artifact is acquired by completing a spec-specific quest that emphasizes your class' unique abilities and reveals more about important lore figures.

Your Artifact Weapon is your main weapon in Legion, there are no other weapons that will match it's power.

Traits increase the strength of various class abilities while relics enhance specific traits and increase the item level of your weapon.

Artifacts increase in power through Artifact Power unlocking traits and Relics which can be socketed into the weapon.

Artifact Knowledge is a system which helps players progress faster on their off-spec weapons. You can acquire all artifacts for your class via the Order Hall Campaign.

Artifacts have different styles and color tints which are unlocked through various activities. You will be able to transmog your artifact to another appearance, but cannot transmog other weapons to look like your artifact.

Artifact Calculator

Artifact Traits

Traits are, for the most part, passive abilities which enhance your spec's abilities. When you acquire your artifact weapon however, the first ability is an active one that is quite powerful like Phoenix's Flames.

To select new traits in game, simply Shift-Right Click on the artifact weapon.

Most traits have three basic ranks. Spending more Artifact Power to unlock a new rank for a trait increases the strength of that trait.

Several traits have a gold dragon border on the calculator UI. These traits boost your class abilities in powerful ways, usually with distinctive visuals as well.

The amount of trait ranks you have purchased increases the amount of Stamina all classes have, and for healers, DPS as well.

Artifact Relics

Relics can be socketed into your Artifact Weapon to increase the item level as well as boost the rank of one trait.

The maximum rank a trait can be increased to is 6/6.

There are different types of relics and each artifact has a unique combination of relics that is thematic. For example, the Shadow Priest Artifact has two Shadow Relics and one Blood Relic, while the Frost Mage Artifact has two Frost Relics and one Arcane Relic.

Each relic boosts a specific trait. Not all specs benefit from a particular relic. You can see this on Wowhead by going to the "Improves" tab on Relic pages or selecting "Choose a Spec."

You cannot swap relics in and out. They are destroyed when they are replaced. You will be able to vendor or disenchant unused relics.

There are uncommon, rare, and epic quality relics. So far these are found from quest rewards, dungeon bosses, crafted recipes, and raid bosses.

If a quest offers a uncommon or rare relic, it has the chance of rerolling to a higher quality such as uncommon rolling rare.

Acquiring your Artifact

Artifact Power

Artifact Power is acquired through many activities in Legion, such as major quests, dungeon bosses, treasures, and completing random Heroics. Here is a list of items that grant Artifact Power.

Artifact Power items are applied to weapons. Just click on the Artifact Power item and then on the weapon you wish to apply it to.

The costs for each trait rank increase as you progress further along on your Artifact.

Artifact Knowledge

Level 110 players are sent to retrieve tomes from around the world so a Researcher in your Order Hall can decipher them.

The research will require Order Resources and when it is complete, you will gain more Artifact Knowledge. Here is a list of books related to increasing your Artifact Power rate.

These Artifact Power boosts apply to most sources of power like items. However a few sources of large Artifact Power like level-up quests boosts will not be affected so you don't try to game the system.

Artifact Knowledge increases your rate of Artifact Power gains. This applies to all weapons on your character. This will help players that are trying to upgrade artifacts for different specs.

This also has a lore component; the research your scribe completes will yield a book with more information about your artifact.

You will acquire Artifact Knowledge faster as the expansion progresses. Your researchers will work faster as time goes on, so alts or players who have taken a break can progress quickly on their artifact.

Artifact Appearances

Art Interview on Appearances



Can you tell us about Artifact design? Style, variations, colors?

Similar to Order Halls, we wanted to hit the tone for the class and spec. A few were easy because they were established, but the new ones were more difficult since they weren't established. We had to come up with something that felt lore-comparable and helped answer the questions: what is the core class fantasy? What weapon feels like what you want your character to feel like? I play a rogue, so I used a lot of personal experience to get the feeling of what a rogue would want to pick up in their hand to use. Then with spec differentiation in the weapons we went on with further honing into that class fantasy.



What was it like to create a weapon from scratch when there's some well-known artifacts like Doomhammer and Ashbringer?

We start with a base artifact level, i.e. Ashbringer - this is what the player expectation is for an epic level artifact weapon. Using that as a reference, all weapons should feel comparable next to each other. The problem with that is there is no established lore for the new ones, which makes them harder to identify with. So the new weapons had to look above and beyond to feel equal to Ashbringer. The base visual levels for the new weapons were a bit more complicated than the established weapons to make them feel equally epic.



Another difficulty was Shaman. Doomhammer was difficult because it didn't feel right seeing two Doomhammers (as dual wield). A solution was to make one a magical magma hunter to avoid breaking fantasy and make it seem like we're just giving Doomhammers away.



We know classes are going to feel unique with artifacts - how well have you accomplished this and making each spec feel unique visually?

We are trying to make this a balance and it will always develop along with characters - artifacts being there early on took us into a more streamlined weapon design process. There are usually 550-750+ weapons, this time 240....so we had more time to make them more epic.



As we worked on armor sets, we used visual decisions from artifacts to layer them on top of armor sets. There are not spec-specific armor sets but we looked at all the artifacts from one class to utilize visual elements on armor. Provides a more cohesive vision.

Artifact Lore

Hidden Artifact Abilities

Watcher

1. Are these effects meant to be hidden, or is there simply a missing spell ID, artifact trait, etc?



2. If not, what actually enables them? Are they baseline, tied to the equipped artifact, different per spec, and so on?

Feral Spirit, Balance Druid: Ancient and powerful magic has affected this creature. Only a powerful Druid wielding the Scythe of Elune can dispel the effect.

Hunter's Rush, Feral Druid: The Fangs of Ashamane have fed on the blood of beasts, providing a 3% movement speed increase. The rush will end upon entering combat.

Call to the Eagles, Hunter: When you are below 40% health, a massive eagle comes to your aid for 10 sec. This can only occur once every 3 min.

Overcharge, Arcane Mage: Aluneth has recently absorbed power from a nearby source of magical energy. Arcane damage increased by 2% within the Broken Isles.

Lightning Burst, Windwalker Monk: The gust of wind from your landing hits nearby enemies and knocks them back.

Might of the Silver Hand, Holy Paladin: The Light empowers you, increasing your damage to Undead by 100%.

Overloaded with Light, Discipline Priest: Light's Wrath is getting hot. Your next Light's Wrath will do massive damage.

Gaze of the Val'kyr, Fury Warrior: Odyn has granted you a second chance to defeat that which has bested you in combat. Do this within 8 sec and Odyn will grant you your life and restore 50% of your health.

Spirit of Vengeance, Paladin: When you die, you return as a Spirit of Vengeance for 15 sec.

Ashbringer, Retribution Paladin: The Ashbringer has a chance to instantly destroy any lesser demon or undead creatures.

Artifact Overview Guides