Spectral Insight: Vengeance Artifact talents and skins

It’s time. Legion is here, and the training wheels for up-and-coming Demon Hunters have officially come off. Hopefully you’ve been using the last few weeks to get a feel for Vengeance, because today we’ll be going over the Vengeance Artifact talent tree, what order to grab Artifact talents, and what different appearances you can expect to see as you progress through Legion.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, be sure to give a look at our guide to Vengeance’s standard talent tree, and a look at the key Artifact traits that make up the end-goals of our Artifact trees.

While some things have received tuning or environmental changes from back when I went over the Demon Hunter Artifact acquisition quests, they’re still largely the same overall. For Vengeance, most of my original quibbles have been fixed and the Artifact quest now offers a solid test of your various abilities, both as a Vengeance Demon Hunter and an Illidari in general. Once you obtain your Artifact weapons and start questing on the Broken Isles, you’ll need to figure out how to spend your Artifact Power.

That’s where today’s column comes in.

If you look above, you’ll notice three different pathways have been outlined in various colors. But what do they mean? Fear not, we’ll cover that in just a moment. Before we do, though, it’s worth noting that the trait with the triple-asterisks is Soulgorger, and will not show up when you first acquire your Artifacts. To unlock this final trait, you must completely fill out your Artifact tree — all 34 ranks worth.

The optimal Vengeance Artifact route

The green route

This is the route I will be taking, all the way up to the second major Artifact trait, Charred Warblades. This route offers a solid mix of damage and survivability as well as the fastest path to more than one Artifact trait — that is, Fueled by Pain and Charred Warblades. If you follow this particular path, you’ll have your second major Artifact trait purchased on your 16th rank.

The orange route

This route is still viable as a first-path option, but the reason I’ll be taking it second is because it’s almost entirely survival-based (except for Infernal Force, which is still limited in usage). If, however, you want to focus solely on survivability, your first major trait will be Painbringer. Taking this route first and then going down the green path second will still get you two major Artifact traits by your 17th rank.

The red route

You’ll notice everything in this route has an asterisk over it and, well, it’s also red (as in, “Stop!”). The reason for this is because you can grab the three major Artifact traits without putting a single point into any of these talents. It’s not that these talents are bad, it’s just that your points are almost always going to be better spent elsewhere first. For example, if you were to follow the red path thinking Charred Warblades is the first major trait you want, you’d end up getting your very first major trait on your 14th rank.

That said, when the time does come, I would recommend taking Demonic Flames before the other three traits on the red path. Those last three will largely depend on how you want to play — Devour Souls and Will of the Illidari both offer more survivability, while Honed Warblades is a flat increase to damage.

Different appearances

Of course, what’s an Artifact weapon without a little flair? As you may know, every class can unlock multiple version of their Artifacts, and those versions each have four tints. Outside of the hidden appearance, all appearances are obtained via the same methods — with a few small exceptions.  However, they are not account-bound — so if you have a particular appearance you want for your Vengeance Demon Hunter, you’ll need to unlock that appearance on your Vengeance Demon Hunter.

Below are the different appearances and tints, as well as how to unlock them.

(All images below via Wowhead.com)

Standard appearance tints

You unlock this classic appearance by default for obtaining your Vengeance Artifact. Congratulations! That’s it! Okay, not really. There are four tints and they’re all pretty easy to unlock, provided you quest and participate in Order Hall shenanigans.

• Tint 2: Obtain one of the Pillars of Creation. Literally just complete at least one zone’s major storyline and this one’s yours.
• Tint 3: Finish Light’s Charge. Again, this is pretty simple, since you only need to complete a short quest chain that starts with Khadgar.
• Tint 4: Complete the first major campaign in your Order Hall. Like I said, this appearance’s tints are all about the Order Hall basics.

Illidari Crest (via max-level solo content)

This is essentially the “Master Skin” version of your standard Artifact appearance. In this case, the Aldrachi Warblades gain a bit of a glow and also horns. ‘Cause why not? The biggest hurdle for this appearance is going to be time.

• Initial unlock: Complete your entire Order Hall campaign. Technically, this one isn’t too tough — but it will be time-consuming.
• Tint 2: Again, this one is going to be more time-consuming than anything else. You’ll need to fill in all 34 Artifact traits to unlock this tint.
• Tint 3: Potentially easier than the previous two, this tint requires learning the entire history of your Artifact weapon. Time-consuming, but easy.
• Tint 4: You may as well groan right now, because this one requires Archaeology to unlock. What’s more, you’ll need to do at least 8 quests that unlock only once every two weeks before you can get this appearance.

Dreadlord’s Bite (via group PVE content)

Unlike the Illidari Crest appearance, this one is entirely unique and will likely be the goal for many Vengeance Demon Hunters.

• Initial unlock: This actually requires a little bit of work and can’t be started until 110, at which point you need to grab The Power Within. You’ll need to do a mix of running Mythic dungeons, farming for Blood of Sargeras, and gathering a few items from the Emerald Nightmare raid.
• Tint 2: There are 10 world bosses on the Broken Isles. You need to kill any 8 of them for this tint.
• Tint 3: Complete a level-15 Mythic+ dungeon. Good luck, this one is going to be incredibly tough to get.
• Tint 4: Complete Glory of the Legion Hero. This is also going to be difficult, but on the plus side, the meta achievement is account-wide. Once you have the achievement on one character, you won’t have to do it on others to unlock this particular tint.

Boneterror (via PVP)

If you’re into PVP, the initial skin won’t be too bad. All you need to do is hit Prestige 1, rank 50. For the remaining tints, you need to reach Prestige level 5, Prestige level 9, and Prestige level 13, respectively. However, doing so isn’t a matter of just PVPing, as each additional tint can only be unlocked with a new season. In other words, you’ll have to wait until at least season 4 starts in order to collect all the appearances for the PVP skin.

Iron Warden (Hidden appearance)

If you want to discover the Vengeance’s hidden appearance for yourself, then go ahead and skip this last section. If not, read on!

• Initial unlock: To unlock this appearance, all you need to do is get the Bulwark of the Iron Warden drop! However, doing so requires you to not only select the Twisting Nether Order Hall trait, but also to defeat a boss-like demon in the Twisting Nether. These bosses have a chance to drop the Bulwark, but looting a boss in the Twisting Nether is limited to once per day.
• Tint 2: Complete 100 dungeons while a hidden appearance is active.
• Tint 3: Complete 200 World Quests while a hidden appearance is active.
• Tint 4: Kill 1,000 enemy players while a hidden appearance is active.

If you level as Havoc, don’t forget your end-goal

The Vengeance Artifact traits offer a solid mix of damage and defense, which will certainly come in handy while soloing or tanking dungeons. And while my own personal experience makes me caution against actually leveling as Vengeance, it’s still a viable option should you choose to do so.

If not, however, don’t forget that you’ll want to spend Artifact power on your Vengeance weapons. If you’re leveling as Havoc, you can obtain your Vengeance weapons at 102 and just use your stored Artifact Power then — though you’ll likely miss out on some spec-specific relics as rewards if you’re not careful to switch ahead of time!

Now, go forth and unleash your Vengeance on the Legion!