#1 - Jan. 25, 2017, 10:38 p.m.
This was posted over on the EU forums where I, being a US server player, could not comment on it directly.
Lets begin before 7.1.5 where Blizzard removed the ability to pool AP in your selected weapon, which in it of it's self was a bit of a slap in the face for anyone who had farmed to 54 prior to 7.1.5. In this extremely rng expansion, with legendaries, Mythic+ loot being the actual item you needed and then it having nothing or titan forging 30ILV not to mention a socket or not; progressing your character has been a spin of the wheel almost all the way through. The only 100% guaranteed reward that could contribute to your character's power was AP. Thus people farmed it, because it was an assured power increase, and in hindsight some what poorly paced. People were able to continue to use AP on their capped weapon. Being able to form a nice little pool of AP in the hopes that when new artifact traits were brought into the game that their labor would bare fruit.
7.1.5 launches, hooray NH is almost here. But what's this? I can't put any AP into my weapon? TO THE INTERNET! Hotfix January 10: Players are no longer able to use Artifact Power items while an Artifact that has all 54 points completed is equipped. The one silver lining being that there was no mention of banking tokens, which while barely a fraction of what was capable before in pooling AP, could still help those who worked hard for it to get a leg up on everyone else come 7.2. Obviously as one's bank began to reach maximum capacity of AP tokens the reason to login started to drop as well. The only real reason to login now is for raid; Mythic+ being so rng heavy for a usable upgrade and pretty much any other content in the game only really rewarding AP. The game quickly begins to show it's cracks when AP is no longer a guiding force.
It's easy to have been someone who was not close to their 54 trait at the time and come up with rebuttals. Why not just put your AP into your other weapons, problem solved... well no. The over all best thing this expansion has done is allow the ability to play almost any spec you want and pull comparable numbers. If someone put in the time to acquire their traits, farm the gear best stated to their spec and prayed hard enough to rnJesus to get their BiS spec specific legendaries, they could compete with other classes. This opened the world of class fantasy again and allowed a player to choose and play their favorite class/spec while still being able to participate in pretty much any content in game. I am a Fury Warrior Full Stop. So placing any AP in either of my off specs is pointless and that's truly amazing. No more having to farm my off gear sets for when a tank doesn't show up to raid and then I am forced to tank. No more having to switch to a different spec for a an aoe fight or a single target fight, people still do and more power to them, but now it offers a much smaller variation on dps then it did in the past. Grinding multiple specs is now optional, more options is almost always a good thing. So why punish me for making my choice of being solely a Fury Warrior in the class fantasy focused expansion Legion is suppose to be.
Another response is one of distaste for me and players like me, "Well you deserve it. You no-life'd the game and now complain about not having content." I realize it's easy to hate on those who are further along then you just cause you're jelly or cause you believe the game should be centered around the casual-est player. The "I pay my subscription just like everyone else" player is quick to shoot down any problem the perceived "Elitist" encounters.
Now the cat is finally out of the bag on how AP is being handled towards 7.2.
I was linked this blue post by a friend and at just a glance my heart sunk. Not only is the not being able to put AP into a capped weapon not solved, but the problem has been further exacerbated to exclude all AP past 54, token or otherwise. What were they thinking, what was the plan? Was it to make a pseudo catch up mechanic for new players; by pinning everyone else's progress in place? Was it to halt character progression come 7.2, so all the new traits couldn't be bought so early on? But they are including more AK knowledge in 7.2 so these traits will be acquired at a faster rate as a whole anyways. The dedicated few will just grind the new AP the week of release regardless. So why put the populace of 54 traiters into stasis for the foreseeable future? All the while the number of people affected only continues to grow. Now only a week into 7.1.5 those who were quick to shake off these complaints because they saw it as only affecting a small number of players are now realizing 7.2 is quite a ways off and I'm actually approaching 54 soon. Even the most casual players I know (do most of the AP world quests, and 2 or 3 mythic+ dung a WEEK) are approaching 54. This AP catastrophe needs to be addressed.
