I successfully made a fully upgraded relic weapon in FFXI(2 months for level 99, 2 months for 119+), and was curious how much time i was going to be investing in my artifact weapon? I am at the 16,000ish mark for my next level up. As far as where to farm artifact power, I've just been doing the daily world quests-which seem to grant around 2500 AP? Is there a better way, or is there something else I should be doing for more power?

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    The real crux of this question is Artifact Knowledge. It's difficult to given a specific answer given the scaling nature and catch up mechanisms. – two bugs Sep 16 '16 at 18:35

The amount of Artifact power (AP) is only limited by your play time and ability to quickly clear dungeons (especially Mythic+ dungeons).

There are a few things at work here. First of, artifact Knowledge. Artifact Knowledge increases the AP gains, and works exponentially. You can find a nice table on WoWHead.


One “hidden” feature of the Artifact system is that the rate at which your Artifact Knowledge Work Orders complete speeds up over time. The system keeps track of the time that it’s been since the release of the expansion, and how long it takes to process Artifact Knowledge Work Orders and gain Artifact Knowledge will reduce as time goes on. So whether you’re just working on an alternate character or you’re not playing cutting-edge player, the system will gives you ways to “catch up” as time goes on.

Source: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/news/20286674

Next, there are World Quests (WQs) that give AP, certain rare mobs, and alot of treasures. The treasures and WQs are limited, though. The first random heroic ini per day yields increased AP, but subsequent runs still yield AP.

Mythic+ dungeons also reward AP, and the AP rewards increase with the difficulty of the keystone.

WowProgress show artifact power rankings. It has the highest AP currently (17.10.2016) at 2,770,964 - since you need 5,216,130 Artifact Power to get all 34 traits of one wepon, nobody has yet done that. And after the initial 34 traits you can get 20 ranks in a "bonus trait", for a total of 60,040,200 Artifact Power (see http://www.wowhead.com/guides/legion/artifact-weapons#knowledge).

So how long will it take to finish those? Thats impossible to answer. For players that invest much time, shorter then for others. For people who start well after the launch of legion, it will take shorter then for people who do it right now.

At some point somone will finish the weapon, and when that time comes, we will have a lower bound for the time (before the catch-up kicks in significantly). Right now, it would only be wild speculation. But I'd guess it will take most people several months to max out their weapons, maybe even most of the whole expansion.

Update 30.10.2016

The first players have now unlocked all 34 artifact traits (see http://www.wowprogress.com/artifact_power/) and started unlocking bonus traits. This means that it took pretty much exactly 2 months to complete the first "stage" of the artifact weapon. Those players have done well over 600 Mythic+ dungeons, so it will take longer for most other players (but then again, there will be a catch-up).


Leveling up your Artifact will solely depend on your Artifact Knowledge which increases Artifact Power gains. As you become more knowledgeable with your Artifact, you gain a percentage increase which is not retroactive (saving AP related items won't increase when your knowledge increase), the bonuses range from 50% (level 2) to 24,900% (level 25). With this will take a long time, the total AP cost to max traits on your Artifact is 5,216,220, once you finish those traits you move into 'paragon' area. Your first three paragon points will cost 5,560,200 AP and increase from there.

AP levels are as followed:

  1. = 100
  2. = 300
  3. = 325
  4. = 350
  5. = 375
  6. = 400
  7. = 425
  8. = 450
  9. = 525
  10. = 625
  11. = 750
  12. = 875
  13. = 1000
  14. = 6840
  15. = 8830
  16. = 11280
  17. = 14400
  18. = 18620
  19. = 24000
  20. = 30600
  21. = 39520
  22. = 50880
  23. = 64800
  24. = 82500
  25. = 105280
  26. = 138650
  27. = 182780
  28. = 240870
  29. = 315520
  30. = 417650
  31. = 546000
  32. = 718200
  33. = 946660
  34. = 1245840

So really, the gist of it is: invest the time and you'll have a pretty well rounded weapon. This entire system requires time, if you plan on not playing in 2 months then you shouldn't worry about it too much.


After getting enough AP into both weapon specs, I've noticed you get a lot more AP the higher you go. The Artifact research notes increase the amount of AP items give you. I was getting 3k for an elite WQ, and 900 for the most basic now. Just to add to the current topic, you will get more AP the farther in your progression for a weapon that you are.

  • It's not at all related to how far into the progression of a weapon you are, but instead directly related to how many times you've completed Artifact Research. Artifact Research applies across all weapons regardless of if you've invested any power into them or not. – Nathan K Oct 26 '16 at 15:36

This post from Ask Mr. Robot will answer your questions. To summarize the contents, you can earn 2400+ AP daily and it'll take 14 weeks to unlock all traits and 27 weeks to fully upgrade

  • That blog post is not accurate. Some numbers (artifact sources) are missing and a few others are different/wrong. It's just summarizing the very least minimum you can get from doing quests and daily stuff. – dly Sep 19 '16 at 13:53
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    @nly "Note that this data is the minimum you’ll have if you do all activities, as it doesn’t account for drops from mobs or rares that give Artifact Power." It says right at the top of the infographic that they're assuming you're getting the minimum. A fully accurate answer is specific to each player – Son of a Sailor Sep 20 '16 at 16:04
  • Ok, so they had a good guess at what you can get from fixed sources (excluding all variable sources, like drops, missions, etc). – dly Sep 20 '16 at 16:14
  • @dly Its not a good answer but its not a good question. Valid, but too player specific to be good – Son of a Sailor Sep 20 '16 at 16:17
  • Yep, that's true. :) – dly Sep 20 '16 at 16:29

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