Maxed out weapon on AP, what to do with AP?

As many of you have noted, Patch 7.2 will be introducing several new traits to Artifact Weapons. We'd like to clarify how these traits will unlock so that you can best prepare for them.

After Patch 7.2 is available, players who have an Artifact Weapon of at least rank 35 will be able to further empower that Artifact through a short quest chain. Completing this quest chain will consume any ranks beyond 35, increase the overall power of your Artifact Weapon (to ensure that losing ranks 35+ isn’t a downgrade), and unlock access to the new 7.2 traits. Any Artifact Power spent on traits beyond 35 will be refunded and you’ll immediately be able to spend that refunded Artifact Power on the new traits.

Note that any Artifact Power tokens acquired before Patch 7.2 will not be usable on an Artifact Weapon that has had its new traits unlocked. If you’ve already reached Rank 54, feel free to use any tokens you earn between now and then on alternate specs; there is no need to stockpile those tokens for Patch 7.2. We’re also planning to apply a hotfix in the near future that will allow the current Artifact Power tokens to be sold to vendors.

Please feel free to add any feedback, questions or thoughts to this thread.

25/01/2017 17:59Posted by Kylnathae

You mention that "Completing this quest chain will consume any ranks beyond 35, increase the overall power of your Artifact Weapon (to ensure that losing ranks 35+ isn’t a downgrade)". How will this work for players with rank between 35 and 54? Will they never be able to get as strong a weapon as those who got to Rank 54 before the refund? Or will it be just a flat increase to the power of everyone's artifact weapon, regardless of the rank they had? (Ie. a player with Rank 37 will get just as much of an increase than a player with Rank 54, the only difference being how much AP they have due to the refunded Ranks).

It will be a flat increase.

The person who currently has Rank 54 will still have a stronger overall weapon though due to the fact that they will receive more refunded Artifact Power, thus immediately being able to purchase more of the new traits than someone who was at Rank 37 before 7.2.

30/01/2017 23:17Posted by Ruvyn

Does that mean that several weapons @ rank 54 will net you even more ranks to put into 1 weapon, or is the AP somehow tied to the weapon from which it originated?

The Artifact Power will be tied to the weapon from which it originated.

31/01/2017 18:06Posted by Vezna

What will happen in this scenario?

Person A has 54 points in his weapon and thus cannot "stack" more AP into his weapon and is thus forced to spend AP on offspec weapons.

Person B has 53 points in his weapon and can thus "stack" more AP into said weapon than person A that spent the last point in the weapon.

Will they both have the same AP/points to spend in the main weapon or is there an advantage for person B since he technicly has the potential to have a lot higher AP spent in his weapon then person A?

The current Artifact Power cap is based on total amount of AP, not on number of ranks purchased. Once you have enough AP to buy your 54th rank, you'll no longer be able to add additional AP, regardless of whether you actually buy that final rank or not.

Any additional AP beyond 54 will not be refunded. The core intent here is that you cannot farm Artifact Power beyond what is useful in Patch 7.1.5 until Patch 7.2 releases.