How to get all 3 Priest hidden Artifact appearances

Hidden Artifact appearances have been the talk of WoW lately, with each class receiving a unique way to acquire each appearance. While Priest hidden Artifact appearances do involve a bit of RNG and grinding, they aren’t particularly difficult to get. Your current spec and loot spec don’t matter for any of these, just that you meet the individual requirements.

Discipline: Tomekeeper’s Spire

Acquiring the Discipline hidden Artifact appearance is akin to a scavenger hunt with a bit of competitive camping. The sole requirement to start the search is Artifact Knowledge 4. Once you reach that, go talk to Archivist Inkforge in your class hall. He’s sitting on a bench to the left of the entrance to Saa’ra‘s Holy room, and he’s very vocal about his feelings of youngsters these days. He has a slew of dialogue options, so you can play around with them if you like. Or, if you want to get straight to the point, you can keep choosing the middle option to hear his tale. At the end, he grants you Volume VI of The Annals of Light and Shadow, a collection of 12 books. It’s up to you to find the rest.

The first three books are easy to get. Two are in your Class Hall and the third is in Dalaran.

• Volume II: behind Juvess the Duskwhisperer on the table.
• Volume IV: on the bookshelf behind Grand Anchorite Gesslar and to the left of Meridelle Lightspark.
• Volume I: in the Violet Citadel in Dalaran, on the bookshelf behind Archivist Elysiana.

Here comes the frustrating part: Volume III is in New Hearthglen in Northrend. Inside the smaller church (not the cathedral), in the room on the left, it will spawn on top of the bookshelf (Coordinates 73,72). You’ll know you’re in the right spot when you see the 10 other Priests also waiting. There are several reasons this one is so frustrating. The book is on a 1 hour spawn from the last time it was looted, and only one Priest can loot it. New Hearthglen is a cross-realm zone, so you are competing with every other Priest in your server cluster, made even worse if you are PVP. And lastly, other people know about it and can grief you. When I was there, a Tauren Druid was hopping from zone to zone when it was time to spawn, laying on top of the bookshelf in bear form so no one could loot.

If you get lucky in New Hearthglen, the next four are in instances.

• Volume V: Scholomance, in Chillheart’s room, on the 6th bookshelf on the right.
• Volume VII: Scarlet Halls, at the very end in The Flameweaver’s library, on a table on the left side of the room.
• Volume XI: Karazhan, in the Guardian’s Library, at the end of the first wing on the right, on the bottom of the bookshelf.
• Volume X: Black Rook Hold, in the Map Room after the first boss, on a table on the left side.

The remaining three books drop from rares in the Broken Isles. Only one Priest can loot these at a time, even if multiple Priests tag it. Luckily the rares respawn relatively quickly.

• Volume XII: Chief Bitterbrine inside the Queen’s Reprisal in Azsuna.
• Volume IX: from Artificer Lothaire in Moon Guard Stronghold in Suramar.
• Volume VIII: from Inquisitor Ernstenbok in Stormheim.

Make sure you get all 12 books within the weekly server reset, otherwise they can bug out and you might have to re-collect some. Once you have all 12, you can head back to your Class Hall, combine the books by right-clicking on them, and talk to Archivist Inkforge again. He’ll then give you Writings of the End, which grants you Tomekeeper’s Spire.

Holy: Crest of the Lightborn

Holy’s hidden Artifact appearance has two parts: a staff purchased from the Valarjar Emissary and a headpiece dropped from Hyrja. When you reach exalted with the Valarjar, you can buy Rod of the Ascended from Valdemar Stormseeker for 1,600 gold. Then go run Halls of Valor until your eyes fall out, or until you get sick of it. Hyrja’s drop is not guaranteed, though the exact drop chance is unknown. I got mine within about 20 Hyrja kills, 15 of those were farming Normal over and over for two days with two daily Heroics thrown in. Your spec doesn’t matter, just that you have exalted reputation with the Valarjar. I’m not sure if you need the Valarjar staff in your bags, but I had it in mine. Eventually, when you’re just about to give up hope, Hyrja will drop Crest of the Lightborn. Combine these to make Staff of the Lightborn, which will grant you the Crest of the Lightborn appearance.

Shadow: Claw of N’Zoth

Shadow’s hidden Artifact appearance is simple. Your creepy Claw of N’Zoth is from…wait for it… Il’gynoth. Actually, that’s kind of fitting. It’s a completely random drop from Il’gynoth in Emerald Nightmare, which makes it technically more limited than the healing appearances due to raid lockouts. Your spec in the raid doesn’t matter, nor does the difficulty. Technically you have four chances per week to get it, if you do LFR, Normal, Heroic, and Mythic. I assume that you’ll only be able to get it if you are loot eligible (i.e. the first time you do the boss that week in each difficulty). The item is also trade-able within the raid, if another Priest happens to get it and does not want it. I don’t know if the Claw will still drop if you’ve already acquired the appearance (in order to trade to someone else), but I assume it’s a one time thing.

Additional colors

There are three additional colors for each hidden Artifact, unlocked by wearing a hidden Artifact skin while performing certain activities. I can confirm that completing a criteria with one spec will also unlock the same criteria/color for the other specs. I unlocked the world quest version with my Discipline hidden appearance and I also received that tint for Holy as soon as I unlocked the Holy appearance.

The three criteria are:

• Complete 100 dungeons using a hidden Artifact appearance.
• Complete 200 world quests using a hidden Artifact appearance.
• Kill 1,000 enemy players using a hidden Artifact appearance.

Funny enough, attacking mind controlled players on Mythic Nythendra will give you credit for killing enemy players. You can track your progress in unlocking the skins by using this handy Weak Aura (works for Priests) or a nifty macro. I personally use the Weak Aura and have it sitting at the bottom of my screen.

Now, there’s one appearance that has been noticeably missing from the lineup. Back on beta, Discipline had an appearance called Ascended Watch, and it was beautiful. It looks like each spec has multiple hidden appearances — you can see them in appearances tab of the artifact calculator on Wowhead)=. Holy likewise has Memory of Argus and Shadow has Twisted Reflection. Hopefully they’ll be adding these in the near future.