With the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion last year, New World added Artifacts. Whether you get them from reward tracks or by other means, the team continues to add more options to let you tailor your experience alongside gearing changes. There’s a new deep dive devblog on all eight Artifacts added in Season of the Guardian.
The new blog features System Designer Isaiah Cartwright Discussing the team's design goals and philosophy behind all eight of the artifacts. There are three weapons and five armor pieces introduced in season 5. The weapon ones are Sin, for the Hatchet, Venom for the Spear, and Tempest Fury - for the Great Axe. Armor options are Nature’s Wrath (medium chest), Gilli’s Gravity Gauntlets (heavy glove), Ironheart (heavy legwear), Creed Boots (light footwear), and the Phoenix amulet.
When choosing which to add, they wanted an artifact that would synergize with Hatchet through the use of longer debuffs. This was also part of an effort to make more of the underused skills more viable for this weapon. Venom for the spear was one of the Artifacts that was retooled after the PTR since it originally worked on more attacks but was pulled back to just melee. With a name like venom, it should be self-explanatory that you are adding damage and poison. Tempest Fury came along because the team wanted to add something fun for PVE and to add a whirlwind Barbarian feel for people to choose from.
The other Artifact that caused balance concerns on the PTR is the Phoenix amulet. Cartwright describes several iterations before they reached the current form. Not necessarily the final form, since they are still keeping an eye on whether this amulet that lets you avoid death and regain health when otherwise taking a final blow causes further issues.
We also get a rundown of the other armor pieces, which were added for balance, to fill a gap, and to just be fun. The gauntlets were added to offer an offensive glove option that also lets you charge up and unleash a blast at enemies.
The full devblog described each Artifact’s properties and more on the goals behind them.
