EU+US Under-performing artifact weapons?

[Boredom]

So out of curiosity how many of the twink's you've rolled have artifact weapons that don't really "make" the spec.

An example of one that clearly does perform is a boomkin. I have a 101 Feral druid that i can only describe as an overcooked piece of spaghetti when in boomkin form and i feel like its largely due to how the spec utilizes the artifact ability and how much it impacts me to not have it.

I've been researching the classes pretty heavily as im about to start a "from 0 to 101" blog to discuss/document the journey to twinktown and how to self fund both your twink and WoW. I'd like to find a less common spec, but also one that is viable to multi-spec on. In order for it to be truly viable without going on to 102, the class should be able to "off-spec" decently which means it would be great to pick a class with a very non-essential artifact weapon compared to other specs for that class.

Right now im looking at a Frost DK, or Prot Paladin, with the ability to off-spec blood or Ret (or vice versa). After rolling a enhance shaman twink and a Aff warlock(Another spec who's artifact weapon is meh), i've definitely seen that with leech abilities you don't -have- to be a tank if your DPS is high enough as the leech from high damage simply flat out over-performs vs mitigation 90% of the time. However having the ability to switch is pretty nice especially when you just want to see how much of the dungeon you can pull and tank at once

Any other classes you feel can get by without their artifact weapon and perform without significant loss?

 

[DeLindsay]

I'm interested in your results for sure.

 

[Syrayeda]

or choose off specs that dual wield 1 handers to use the tankards of terrors. like my monk that didnt buy legion
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/amanthul/Sheliena/simple
though im sad that bm can no longer dual wield. and fury warrior requires dual wielding 2 handers to use certain abilities

 

[Boredom]

or choose off specs that dual wield 1 handers to use the tankards of terrors. like my monk that didnt buy legion
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/amanthul/Sheliena/simple
though im sad that bm can no longer dual wield. and fury warrior requires dual wielding 2 handers to use certain abilities

Ya thats the jist of it, find a spec thats viable without its Artifact weapon and use it as your off-spec. Weapons of course dependent upon what the class is.

I'll post a reply in this thread by this afternoon that summarizes my assumptions/evaluations of each classes artifact weapon&spec

 

[Warglaive]

I'm of the opposite opinion on monks, BM is pretty bland and can be performed comparably as an off-spec.

WW is hotness, tho. There's many DPS buff traits throughout and the artifact ability is ridiculous itself.

 

[Naxxramaskid]

Aff warlock(Another spec who's artifact weapon is meh)

what's bad about it?

 

[Boredom]

what's bad about it?

Nothing is _bad_ about it, but nothing within the artifact dramatically enhances the class compared to something like...unholy DK, Where the main artifact skill bursts festering wounds and is responsible for a significant damage boost, or Ret paladin and Ashes. I'm not saying it doesn't enhance the class, it absolutely does, but not having it doesn't flat out cripple the class from a twinking perspective (to be clear this is ONLY related to twinks, at 110 every class needs their artifact gold traits)

 

[Naxxramaskid]

snip

yeah that makes sense.
It's odd though that the artifact is on the weaker side at 101/110 considering the fact that it's (the only?) artifact that provides a nice damage buff with decent uptime in form of reap-souls.

 

[Warglaive]

what's bad about it?

Not remotely game-breaking, but notably annoying for me anyway, is having everything you killed still wandering around in "spirit" form until you use it. I dont need more pointless clutter to enhance my "immersion".

Other than that, it's a boring ability that could easily just be baked into a passive. I'm sure there's more depth to it for advanced play, but when tooling around farming it's just click-when-available annoyance. Or dont. No biggie.

 

[Leek]

Well affliction on a whole seems a little more bland this expac

 

[Boredom]

Ok so here's my thoughts on the 3 plate wearing classes. If you play this class PLEASE let me know how much you agree/disagree.

if you want a TL;DR its:
These scores are how critical I consider the artifact weapon to be for class play, not how GOOD it is in general. Also this is for 101, not 110, which means you realistically cannot even consider having more than 2 gold traits for a VERY long time.

Paladin - Ret with prot offspec if you ever want to straight dps, otherwise go prot and off spec heals for super fast queues(if you even care about that)
Warrior - Fury or Arms with Prot offspec. Don't pick Prot as your artifact weapon...please?
DK - Unholy or Blood or Frost. No off-specs. if you really wanted to, i'd try to maybe offspec blood and know your self healing will suffer.

To gauge some of these I played through the class trial which includes getting the artifact weapon for each spec (it sucked). Others, like the warrior, is my Main and im very familiar with it already.

Paladin
Prot - 6/10
Eye of Tyr (defensive cooldown, fills damage gaps), Then two gold traits worth mentioning, 1 gives Avenger Shield a bubble effect, the other makes it do more aoe damage. Overall its a nice set of abilities, but you are still a solid tank without it. You would notice the effects if you had them, but if you never have them, you'll still feel tanky. That being said Faith's armor combined with light of the protector usage will make you very hard to kill.
Ret - 9/10
Wake of Ashes (Holy Power generator), Then 3 kinda meh gold traits. Ashes to Ashes is certainly not bad, but it doesn't elevate Wake of Ashes to being anything other than a Holy Power generator. Sadly however without them your aoe is insanely bad, so having Ashbringer vs not dramatically impacts your aoe capabilities. (which affects how quickly you'd grind dungeons)
Holy - 4/10
Tyr's Deliverance (Emergency HoT with heal buff bonus). Its really hard to score this in relation to twinking solo but lets assume you wanna go shockadin.. If so this artifact grants you 24% increased crit damage, and some crit. If you want to heal occassionally then realistically you are probably safe to take a different weapon. You lose slight utility, but your gear as a twink should so heavily offset things that realistically if I had to pick, this is the artifact weapon I'd not take.
Warrior
Prot - 2/10
Neltharion's Fury (defensive cooldown, 400% chance to block, guaranteed critical block). I main a Prot warrior, so I can say with great confidence that for twinking, this artifact weapon is balls in relation to how critical it is for your spec. The base toolset of a warrior is OP. The only major benefit is the significant boost to IP, and shield reflect. However, IP scales with attack power and twink'd out, you'll be just fine. Don't chose this unless you have no intent to ever offspec.
Fury - 9/10
Odyn's Fury (Dps cooldown, aoe w/ DoT). Fury warriors do really nice aoe damage. If your goal is dungeon grind this is the spec to choose as a warrior IMO. Its also one of the better artifact weapons in relation to the benefits it provides you. Odyn's Champion proc's are glorious, but not super common. All in all this is probably the most reliant spec on its artifact as getting any 2 decent 2h weapons won't be especially easy and multiple skills require you to wield 2 2h weapons.
Arms - 8/10
Warbreaker (Offensive cooldown, aoe damage w/ debuff) 2 very solid gold traits that will be within reach, and a strong aoe burst suite. Without this artifact weapon you will feel resource starved quite often and your throughput just wont be what it should be. If you want to play a warrior, I'd highly recommend you pick arms or fury and offspec prot, but don't try to offspec arms or fury.
DK
Blood - 7/10
Consumption (AoE damage w/ heal). Unending Thirst your first gold trait, 25% leech with blood shield active. Then Umbilicus Eternus, more leech & heal. Extra Bone Shield charges. So much utility is in this artifact weapon, off-speccing it will definitely impact your play. This is the go-to twink spec and its hard to argue against it.
Frost - 8/10
Crystalline Swords (passive damage boost). So much of frost's artifact weapon is passive. This is both good and bad. Its good because not using it doesn't ruin rotations, but you will feel a noticeable difference. On the plus side, There are some 810 weapons that make good substitutes.
Unholy - 8/10
Apocolypse (Bonkers Dps burst). Scourge of the Worlds is a good first trait, and Portal to the Underworld will keep you flush with pets. I'd recommend not following icy veins on this one and go from Scourge of the Worlds to Double Doom. Since getting your 3rd gold trait will take ages the extra pet effects and healing will go a longer way. Overall a solid Dps option.

 

[Warglaive]

At 99 (i know, wrong bracket) i chose frost DK, and switching to blood allows me to kill bosses i could normally not. And still have superior AoE farming capability of frost... I doubt the other way around would be better.

But blood is awesome for overall PvE. Frost is pretty decent for PvP. Just preference, mostly.

 

[Boredom]

At 99 (i know, wrong bracket) i chose frost DK, and switching to blood allows me to kill bosses i could normally not. And still have superior AoE farming capability of frost... I doubt the other way around would be better.

But blood is awesome for overall PvE. Frost is pretty decent for PvP. Just preference, mostly.

Ya, in general i think the tank specs are all viable off-specs simply due to the baseline adjustments you receive (increased stamina and armor + mitigation abilities). I may adjust the scoring on blood for that reason and bring up frost. The more i've thought about it the more it feels like not taking a DPS spec's artifact weapon jeopardizes your play much more than not taking a tank spec artifact weapon.