EU+US Artifact Traits: which path did you take?

[Forty]

With the high cost of respecing your artifact, I'm a bit surprised I haven't seen any discussion about which traits are widely regarded as the best for a certain class. At a certain point you will be essentially locked into a path, and it would be easier to make a new twink than to change up your artifact.

Obviously it depends what your twink is focused on, but I'm curious what people have deemed the best path and why. Unfortunately as a first time poster, I'm not supposed to post links, so you guys can get a text version of what I've chosen so far:

As a frost dk focused mostly on skinning, I went down to Sindragosa's Fury as the first golden, and I'm extremely happy with it. I can pull all the crabs in EoA and 1 shot them. Doing Nelth runs I can clear huge pulls quickly before the 2nd boss. The next points (12-14) I've put into Cold as Ice (1% increased frost damage), thinking I would eventually go toward my 2nd golden Hypothermia (at 20!), but I'm not so sure it's feasible. I wonder if going for more howling blast damage (Blast Radius) would be more beneficial in lieu of heading toward Hypothermia, or if I should pick up more defensives.

I'm curious what other classes/specs have chosen as well, and what they think is a good stopping point, in case I make more twinks, thanks!

 

[Changzu]

It all deepends on the playstyle I guess. However, i'll look into this the upcoming days and make a guide on traits based on max DPS, the guide i'll make will include; Shaman (Enchance), Hunter (BM) and Druid (Balance) since I have all of those on 18-20 traits.

 

[Shunkley]

Theres really multiple things that might it kind of hard to do. Like you point out you look at your second golden which would be 20 and you balk at it. Other people are more then happy to grind out 20. I'd argue time commitment is more of a determining factor than playstyle.

 

[Forty]

I'm not really looking for what gives the best DPS (although it's part of it), but what feels the best (obviously subjective) after grinding out levels and playing a character for an extended period of time, such as if anyone had wished they had gone for a certain trait in hindsight, more AoE damage than ST, more survivability or utility, etc. I also understand that people might take different paths because they've planned that they're going to grind out X number of traits beforehand. I balk at 20 just because of the inconsistency by Blizzard, many other classes can get their 2nd golden at 16. I'm just curious about what other people think who've played the class. "This is why I chose this path, this trait is garbage, this is nice but it'd take forever to get to it so I opted for ____ instead, this one is better for single target but you lose ____", etc.

For example, freshly geared, I started running Nelth AP runs with a tank DH who was going mind-boggingly fast. It sucked. I have 1 crappy movement speed increase, he was killing packs before I could get to them. He was gliding to the chest after Naraxxus and I had no way to slow-fall so I was useless. I thought I had made a terrible mistake. But after playing it for a while, picking up some speed pieces, having bear tartare food buff, it's loads of fun and I really enjoy it. Now it's not so much related to my artifact path, but it's something I didn't really consider before I made it. I was just hoping to spark a discussion about those little things that you don't think of without considerable play, so others can learn from your mistakes/suggestions.