How do you feel about retiring your Artifacts?

Well that was a little anti-climatic — two world quests in Darkshore and my Kingslayers have officially been replaced. I mean yes, it required a little luck to get two Titanforged upgrades, but it happened. Mind you, I never really raided seriously in Legion. Players that spent more time hunting down every last upgrade for their weapons won’t necessarily toss them aside so easily. Still, it feels a little…weird to replace the weapons that I’ve been carting around the entire expansion. A little empty, in some ways.

I think part of that has to do with how we obtained them in the first place. Every Artifact in our arsenal required a quest chain to complete. They required a whole expansion’s worth of quest rewards and dungeon drops to kit out completely. And even then, they required yet another quest chain to max out to their full potential. Basically, we spent a fairly good-sized chunk of our time in Legion working on these weapons, more than I’ve ever spent on a legendary quest chain.

With those legendary quest chains, the items in question lasted us throughout a good portion of the leveling experience in the expansion that followed. I hit level 90 in Mists while still using my Rogue daggers from Cataclysm. It took a while to replace my cloak from Mists when I was out wandering Draenor. I suppose part of me was expecting to do the same with Artifacts — I knew they wouldn’t last forever once Legion was over, but I figured I’d get a zone or two’s worth of leveling out of them. Instead, they’re gone before I ever hit the shores of Zandalar or Kul Tiras.

I suppose it’s only appropriate, I mean we used the things to drain that giant sword Sargeras stuck in Silithus, after all. They shouldn’t be useful anymore, not after doing something like that. Maybe the unsettling feeling I’m getting is just a by-product of the experience as a whole. We spent ages making these things the best weapons they could possibly be, and just a few short quests and an admitted pretty cool cinematic burning them out.

I’m curious, though, about how you guys feel in regards to Artifact retirement, and Artifacts in general. Have you already replaced your Artifact weapons? How do you feel the whole Artifact experience went? Did you like the Artifact system? Were you happy with just one weapon for the entirety of an expansion? Given the sordid history of the Kingslayers, I can’t exactly say I’m upset to leave them behind. Are you going to miss your weapons when they’re gone?