Agreed. Artifact weapons should have stayed.
Sick of doing to the farm for weapons especially on certain specs like dagger users like my assassin rogue or shield users like my ele/resto shamans.
Artifact weapons were the best thing to happen since it meant you never had to worry about that slot and it saved you alot of stress.
Bring them back blizz!
Artifacts without BiS Titanforged relics were no different than buying a green weapon off the AH today or any other quest reward. All the Artifact weapon system did was switch waiting for a weapon to drop to waiting for a BiS relic to drop AND titanforge.
If you just equipped an artifact weapon and then never worried about it like you are suggesting, you may as well have not even bother playing.
In a modern comparison, youâre effectively suggesting that you could just equip the base white common quality crafted grim veiled stuff and never have to worry about that slot again. Just because you completed the artifact quest and got the weapon, that doesnât mean you had a good weapon.
It does, though. I can transmog the Prot Warrior sword and shield separately now, as long as I do it outside of the Artifact options, in 1H Sword, 1H Axe, 1H Mace, Fist, and Shield options. I think some dual wield items can be mogged into staves. Example Fists of Ra-Den below.
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/terenas/fahoogwa
If they expanded upon the appearance options Iâd be so down, BM really got the shaft on artifact appearances imo. Elekks thunder is cool but the rest are meh, and even with that its coloring barely matches most sets.
If they do ever bring it back, itâd need to be changed. Having classes be locked to weapon types wasnât that great. Then thereâs also the horrid relic system. Having those pieces of trash flood the loot tables was awful, especially now when trying to do Legion transmog runs. (Fix Legion scaling Blizzard!)
Then thereâs also the fact that it not only limited the look of new weapon models, but also limited them to their class as well. Oh Paladins get a corrupted Ashbringer skin? Man, I sure would love to have that, huh? But no, thatâs cool. You enjoy your giant skull blade thatâs most known for being wielded by Death Knights. T_T
Thats not what i meant.
You can transmog the artifact itself onto completely different weapons because it counts has a single item.
But when you try to do each part separately you cant do it anymore.
The same would happen with normal weapons, cause those are two separate items, not one.
I dont care for bis anything and many others donât either.
Artifact weapons were great. They leveled with any type of content we did. They filled a slot thatâs a massive pain dealing with and were all around awesome.
They need to be brought back.
If you donât care about the weapon being any good, then there is no reason for you to need anything more than a high level green in this expac, because thats all the base artifact was.
You can use a high level green in your weapon slot for as long as you like. The concept of artifact weapons is pointless if you dont care about the relics you put in it.
Lore wise, I donât know why anyone would stop using the artifact weapons. Like, at some point enhancement shaman stopped wielding the doom hammer to use a random quest reward. Blizz should have kept the artifact weapons going.
I said I dont care about bis. I never once said I didnât care about the relics I put into it.
If the relic is an upgrade ill use it.
If itâs not bis I dont care. An upgrade is an upgrade.
heâs probably the type that put the higher mimronâs shell relic over his BiS one into his titansrike because it was high ilevel and an âuprade.â 
So what youâre saying is itâs BiS or complete garbage with no in between.
Youâre objectively wrong.
In my example, he has Fists of Ra-Den equipped. They are transmogged into completely different items. I also have the reverse, where I transmog the Artifact appearance, sometimes the same item in both slots, over heirlooms. Both are possible, each side can be mogged separate. The only time it becomes impossible, is if you have a 2H weapon, and want to make it one of the dual wield or 1H/OH combos.
Below is one where I mogged two Doomhammer offhands over heirlooms.
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/terenas/ourrix
Thats what im saying.
The classes that would have the most issues with this would be the casters due to them being either staff or 1H and Off-hand.
But other classes like Monk, Fury, Frost, etc would suffer aswell.
Thats why the idea of having a permanent weapon is bad, unless they rework the transmog system for weapons
Make the cast on Mists of Sheilun a bit faster and I will sign this petition.
I hated artifact weapons. Every WoW player I know hated them. At the time, they were considered the single worse feature ever in WoW.
Iâm saying they already did this. Transmog restrictions were way loosened when Shadowlands launched. You can mog a wand into a dagger or sword, now. Probably even a staff.
It is more open. Below is my Worgen Shadow Priest. She has an heirloom staff mogged into Xalâatath. I canât change the two parts separately, unless I use a 1H/OH heirloom combo, if thatâs what you mean.
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/hyjal/lyssanthia
I dunno.
All of this does not reflect a flaw in the system. It reflects a flaw in absolute min-maxing becoming mainstream. For 95%+ players, grinding for TF on a specific relic was not a thing. At all.
Overall, relics didnât affect the way the class played nearly as much as the artifact weapons themselves did (at least for most of them). Youâre kinda saying the house is ruined because the wallpaper is ugly, yet the house itself is solid.
Yes thast what i mean.
Forcing a permanent weapon like the Artifacts would limit options (which it did back then)
Since you could only transmog the same type of weapon to it, only way i see it working at all would be to add a new customization option âpairedâ which would allow you to turn two pieces into a single one, like the artifacts.
You would make them in a similar fashion to the Custom Sets we have now.
I still recommend going in and seeing how versatile the transmog system is now, because it is way more useful than it has ever been. Itâs not unlimited, but you can change weapon types for a lot of them, now, even legendaries like âdid someone say,â and Azzinoth. Changing Warglaives into swords and vice versa, Bows, crossbows, and guns interchangeably, and even 1H into polearms/staves and back.