wow Patch 7.3 Netherlight Crucible Guide

[Stan 5,240]

Netherlight Crucible is only one week away. Learn more about the new relic customization option added in Patch 7.3.

Table of Contents 

• What is the Netherlight Crucible
• Location of the Netherlight Crucible
• How to Unlock the Netherlight Crucible
• Legendary Items & the Netherlight Crucible
• Netherlight Crucible Traits
• Relic Slot Levels
• Previewing Traits
• Netherlight Crucible Paths
• Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Netherlight Crucible? [Return to Top]

A new way of relic customization added in Patch 7.3. Remember the previously scrapped secondary traits on relics? It's a more polished version of them, giving players a little "more control" over the RNG.

Location [Return to Top]

The Netherlight Crucible can be found at 56, 67 aboard the Vindicaar.

How to Unlock the Netherlight Crucible [Return to Top]

Netherlight Crucible will be available to players starting September 12. The only prerequisite is to complete the Argus campaign in Mac'Aree, and a quest "The Netherlight Crucible". Unlock the Netherlight Crucible to get the Now You're Cooking with Netherlight achievement.

Legendary Items [Return to Top]

Insignia of the Grand Army is a new Legendary item of item level 1,000 that will be rewarded from defeating Argus the Unmaker in Antorus the Burning Throne (The Death of a Titan). It increases the effects of Light & Shadow powers granted by the Netherlight Crucible by 50%. Note that Antorus will be available later this year.

Netherlight Crucible Traits [Return to Top]

The Netherlight Crucible has three relic slots and tiers of traits.

Tier 1

The first tier is available immediately after unlocking the Crucible.

• Netherlight Fortification is the same trait for each relic, allowing you to increase the item level of your Artifact weapon by 5 item levels per slot (up to a maximum of +15 item levels).

Tier 2

The second tier contains 1 random Light & 1 Shadow power (regardless of your class or specialization) drawn from the following pools of power:

Light Powers

• Infusion of Light
• Light's Embrace
• Light Speed
• Refractive Shell
• Secure in the Light
• Shocklight

Shadow Powers

• Chaotic Darkness
• Dark Sorrows 
• Master of Shadows
• Murderous Intent
• Shadowbind
• Torment the Weak

Tier 3

Any Artifact trait (with more than one rank) that isn't yet empowered by the selected relic can be present here.

Examples

• In the first relic slot, I have Crashing Ember that empowers Weapons of the Elements by +1. That means, Tier 3 of that relic can contain any other Artifact traits, except Weapons of the Elements.
• In the second relic slot, I have Reactive Pylon Casing that empowers Wind Surge, so Tier 3 of this specific relic can have any other traits except Wind Surge.

Relic Slots Levels [Return to Top]

Relic slots are gated behind Artifact Level. They have three levels, corresponding to the three tiers of traits. You can increase the item level of your Artifact weapon by +15 immediately after you unlock the Crucible.

Progression

Relic Slot 1 Row 2 > Relic Slot 2 Row 2 > Relic Slot 3 Row 2 > Relic Slot 1 Row 3 > Relic Slot 2 Row 3 > Relic Slot 3 Row 3.

• Relic Slot 1
  • Row 1 - Available immediately after you unlock Netherligh Crucible
  • Row 2 - Available at Artifact level 60
  • Row 3 - Available at Artifact level 69
• Relic Slot 2
  • Row 1 - Available immediately after you unlock Netherligh Crucible
  • Row 2 - Available at Artifact level 63
  • Row 3 - Available at Artifact level 72
• Relic Slot 3
  • Row 1 - Available immediately after you unlock Netherligh Crucible
  • Row 2 - Available at Artifact level 66
  • Row 3 - Available at Artifact level 75

Previewing Traits [Return to Top]

An unsocketed relic can be inserted into the Crucible at any time. Previewing traits makes the relic soulbound, so you won't be able to trade it with anyone.

Paths [Return to Top]

It isn't possible to unlock all traits in the second and third tier. We have four different path variations.

• Netherlight Fortification > Tier 2A >Tier 3A
• Netherlight Fortification > Tier 2A > Tier 3B
• Netherlight Fortification > Tier 2B > Tier 3B
• Netherlight Fortification > Tier 2B > Tier 3C

FAQ [Return to Top]

We compiled all Q&A from Blizzard about the Netherlight Crucible and you can find them below.

Blizzard (Source)

Q: What are the requirements to access the Netherlight Crucible?
A: Our intent at this stage of development is for there to only be two requirements: your character is level 110, and you have the account-wide achievement "Now You're Cooking with Netherlight." That achievement is given as part of the final chapters of the 7.3 story campaign, which is planned to open week 3 of the patch (so 15 days after release).

We've been able to isolate a couple of bugs - partly due to responses to this thread, so thank you! - that are currently on the PTR preventing access to the Netherlight Crucible unless you have a rank in Concordance of the Legionfall. That's an unintended restriction, which we're working on fixing for a future PTR update.

Q: Why are you adding this system? What’s with the RNG?

A: The Netherlight Crucible (aside from being an important part of the 7.3 storyline) is intended to help with an issue with Relic availability that players have been reporting for some time now. As Ion explained during our last Q&A, there are technical issues with the way Relics were built that limit which bonus traits can be available from raids. This has caused a number of raiders to feel as though their best bet is to run Mythic Keystone dungeons constantly in the hopes of having a Relic with their ideal bonus trait drop (and Titanforge for a high item level).

Those who were following development of Patch 7.2 may recall an earlier take on an improvement for this issue, where we experimented with adding a single, randomized second bonus trait to Relics. Ultimately, we decided that was the wrong approach, and wanted a system that put a little more control in players’ hands. So, while the Netherlight Crucible does still have an element of randomness, it presents you with several options to choose from.
To be clear: we believe that having some element of randomness is important. Our goal was not to simply allow players to choose the precise bonus traits they wanted (you already do that, more or less, when spending Artifact Power). We still want there to be those exciting moments where a Relic gives you a great outcome. The Netherlight Crucible is intended to make Relics more valuable on average, not to make all Relics be equal value. 

Q: Will I be able to trade Relics with other players to see who gets the best options at the Crucible?

A: No. Previewing a Relic at the Netherlight Crucible will bind it to your character and remove the ability to trade it. This is because those trait options don’t actually exist on the Relic until you attune it to the Crucible, in a process similar to enchanting a piece of gear. It also prevents raid teams from feeling like they need to send everyone who might be interested in a Relic back to the Vindicaar before continuing.

Q: Will the Netherlight Crucible work on Relics acquired prior to 7.3 release?

A: Yes. However, keep in mind that it will take some time (likely several weeks) to unlock the later stages of the Netherlight Crucible, where the additional bonus traits come in. We don’t expect that stockpiling Relics prior to 7.3 will give any real advantage in practice.

Q: Doesn’t this just mean I’ll want my best two traits on each Relic now?

A: For the hardcore min/maxer, yes, there will still be a “best” outcome for your Relic configuration. However, there are now more Relics that can achieve that state (as Relics with your second-best trait can now roll your best trait at the Crucible), and you’ll encounter fewer “bad” Relics along the way.

Q: Why do I have to go back to the Netherlight Crucible to upgrade my Relic? Didn’t you want to get away from mechanics like that?

A: Players often compare this to the old Reforging system, and our dislike of having to visit a vendor after each and every upgrade. That hasn’t changed. The Netherlight Crucible only affects Relics – you won’t need to visit the Crucible every time you pick up a new pair of boots.

Q: How do the Relic "talents" unlock?

A: As your Artifact increases in level (by spending Artifact Power), your Relic slots will level up as well. When you first unlock the Crucible, you'll have access to the first additional trait (a +5 increase to your Artifact's item level) in each slot. The second row unlocks at Artifact level 60, 63, and 66 (for the left, center, and right Relic slots respectively), and the third and final row unlocks at Artifact level 69, 72, and 75. This should all be pretty apparent when you look at those slots in-game, but may not be showing clearly via datamined info.

Q: What did you mean by "it can't double roll a trait"?

A: Just that you will never be able to upgrade a Relic to increase the same Artifact trait twice. If your Relic already has a bonus rank of Wrath of the Ashbringer on it, that trait will not be one of the three options presented in the bottom row of the Crucible's upgrade tree.

In other words, there's no risk of having your Wrath of the Ashbringer relic be "ruined" by not rolling a second bonus to Wrath of the Ashbringer, because that could never have happened in the first place. However, if you get a relic without Wrath of the Ashbringer, there's now a chance that it'll gain it from the Crucible.

Additionally, those three options will always be unique; it won't, for example, give you the "choice" between Deflection, Deflection, or Deflection. Aside from making sure you always have options, this means that your odds of having your favorite trait appear on a Relic you'd otherwise have discarded are actually pretty decent.

Q: How do the ranks for the first two rows work?

A: There are no such ranks. We think this is coming from some confusion about how the Netherlight Crucible is showing up in datamining, versus how it actually operates in-game. Once you've unlocked a row in the Crucible, you just select the option you like, and that's it - there's no additional leveling up of those options beyond that.

For those peeking into the data (or anyone else who might be curious): this is because of how we built the system to allow the unlockable effects to stack between each relic. It's just a subtle behind-the-scenes optimization on our end.

Hopefully that will help clear the air about how the Netherlight Crucible works, but we're sure you have more questions, so ask away and we'll do our best to answer what we can! We'll aim to provide an update sometime next week. Thanks!

[Shishikyu 11]

11 hours ago, Stan said:

How to Unlock the Netherlight Crucible

Netherlight Crucible will be available to players starting September 15. The only prerequisite is to complete the Argus campaign in Mac'Aree, and a quest (The Netherlight Crucible) Netherlight Crucible). Unlock the Netherlight Crucible to get the Now You're Cooking with Netherlight achievement.

Very nice and detailed guide to start with. But september 15th? That would be on a friday? Don't you mean september 12 for US and september 13 for EU? (Reset day). 

[Stan 5,240]

50 minutes ago, Shishikyu said:

Very nice and detailed guide to start with. But september 15th? That would be on a friday? Don't you mean september 12 for US and september 13 for EU? (Reset day). 

Yes, I meant September 12 :) Thank you for your feedback! Fixed!

[DeathsDesign 92]

Thanks for the guide @Stan I had been a bit confused about how the tiers unlocked and what that meant but now everything has clicked and the AP farm is on!

Edited September 7, 2017 by DeathsDesign

[Zadina 923]

Meh. A bit disappointed that this will make it into the game. The disadvantages are much more numerous than its advantages and Blizzard seems to have ignored all the feedback on it.

@Stan Since I am lazy and haven't read your entire article yet, will this work retroactively? Should I start hoarding relics?

[Stan 5,240]

19 minutes ago, Zadina said:

Meh. A bit disappointed that this will make it into the game. The disadvantages are much more numerous than its advantages and Blizzard seems to have ignored all the feedback on it.

@Stan Since I am lazy and haven't read your entire article yet, will this work retroactively? Should I start hoarding relics?

It will work. I think it's worth keeping all relics from raids. Next week, you'll see how things pan out and disenchant them in the worst case. If you get bad traits, you can get new relics from the Relinquished vendor (ilvl 910).

[Valks 2,375]

On 9/7/2017 at 8:15 PM, DeathsDesign said:

the AP farm is on!

Motto of Legion right here.

[Whisla 76]

I am slightly confused on how the rerolling will work. Does the trait at the bottom replace the initial trait of the relic or get added to it?

[Stan 5,240]

12 hours ago, Whisla said:

I am slightly confused on how the rerolling will work. Does the trait at the bottom replace the initial trait of the relic or get added to it?

You can't reroll a relic. When you put in in the crucible, a set of traits will be generated for that specific relic. Some restrictions apply.  If you want better traits, you need to insert another relic. I'll try to explain it in more detail.

Relic in the first slot empowers my Wind Strikes by 1 rank. The red "bolt" indicates that any trait already empowered by the relic (in my case it's Wind Strikes) will never be found in third crucible row of that relic. My Wind Strikes has 6 ranks. That's 4/4 + 2 additional traits from relics. 

Wind Strikes can only appear in the third row of my third relic.

I highlighted all traits that I won't get from the crucible. All of them have one thing in common. They have just one rank.  All traits with a green circle have multiple ranks and a chance to appear in the third row.

[Whisla 76]

I think i get how it works for the most part. But will this mean you will technically get 2 ranks from 1 relic? my example would be as a demon hunter would I have a relic that increases throw glaive on its own put into the crucible and say get a increase to eye beam would the relic then give both of those traits?

[Stan 5,240]

8 hours ago, Whisla said:

I think i get how it works for the most part. But will this mean you will technically get 2 ranks from 1 relic? my example would be as a demon hunter would I have a relic that increases throw glaive on its own put into the crucible and say get a increase to eye beam would the relic then give both of those traits?

Correct. 2 ranks from 1 relic, but never the same 2 ranks from a single relic.

[Ethgar 2]

Question about the row two talents. Can two of the same one stack? Right now two of my relics have Murderous Intent. If I take it on both relics will I only get one buff or both? I haven't been able to find the information myself yet. It's early on so I don't even know if anyone has tried it yet.

[Furty 51]

41 minutes ago, Ethgar said:

Question about the row two talents. Can two of the same one stack? Right now two of my relics have Murderous Intent. If I take it on both relics will I only get one buff or both? I haven't been able to find the information myself yet. It's early on so I don't even know if anyone has tried it yet.

Yes, they can stack.

[Valks 2,375]

On 9/12/2017 at 6:23 PM, Ethgar said:

It's early on so I don't even know if anyone has tried it yet.

You can always bet that one of our writers has been trying it :p

[techmanc 0]

I dont understand the preview relic traits that seem to indicate that you get relics that have unknown traits that you want to know if its useful to you char but when you use the preview it becomes soulbound?

Why would you want to have relics with unknown values that means my hunter get one of these relics and has to preview the traits to see if its useful and then I see  its more useful to my shaman but I cant give to him because the relic is now soulbound to me?

That's asinine if that how the system works so someone please explain how this works Thanks. 

[Valks 2,375]

18 hours ago, techmanc said:

That's asinine if that how the system works so someone please explain how this works Thanks. 

Any relic worth having will be BoP anyway. Most BoE relics are below like 830.

[Cedar 6]

Thank you for this post. It has cleared up a few questions, but not all. I am assuming that the best way to choose a relic ( I have a stack of them in my bank) is to determine which relic has the most desired boosts regardless of ilvl. Would this be correct?

What I am doing now is using the relic trait ranking guide as a point system for the traits represented. I count the value of all the traits including the one present prior to  the crucible. After adding up the relevant values, I select the relic with the highest number. This is, of course, a general statement and not an absolute rule.

Will a +50 levels relic increase the rank of my weapon more than one that is +25 levels? Or have no effect at all?

I have been away from the game for several years and am just coming back to it. Selecting to wear a lower ilvl piece that has more desired stats makes sense to me, but apparently not to most people ive come in contact with who only want to rate you by your ilvl.

[Valks 2,375]

On 11/7/2017 at 3:36 AM, Cedar said:

Will a +50 levels relic increase the rank of my weapon more than one that is +25 levels? Or have no effect at all?

I have been away from the game for several years and am just coming back to it. Selecting to wear a lower ilvl piece that has more desired stats makes sense to me, but apparently not to most people ive come in contact with who only want to rate you by your ilvl.

Okay, so. There's a very important way to consider stats in Legion. Every stat has some kind of us. There is no such thing as a useless stat anymore. This means that, even if something has the absolute worst stats available, enough of an increase in item level will eventually make it better than a perfect stat piece. We check this by using stat weights. Stat weights put the stats against each other in numerical form, comparing their usefulness in changing DPS. If Strength has a stat weight of 2 and Crit has a stat weight of 1, this means that Strength will increase your DPS twice as much for each stat point added than Crit would, at least at this point in time. As you gain more Strength, it might be that Crit becomes more useful to you over time. The stat weights might change to 1.5 for Strength and 1.4 for Crit. At this point, your evaluation of gear becomes different. The weights will change whenever you change any piece of your gear, but you can use things like RaidBots (https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/stats) to check your stat weights.

For relics, the traits are normally assigned an item level "worth" in our guides. You take the base item level increase (+50 or whatever), then add the item level "worth" of the base trait it increases, as well as the Netherlight Crucible traits. For example, let's use MM Hunter:

If you have a relic with the Gust of Wind trait that boosts your item level by 60 (A) and a relic with the Marked for Death trait that boosts your item level by 57 (B), which one do you take?

In this example, Gust of Wind (according to the guide) is valued at 0 item levels, since it makes barely any difference to your damage output. Marked for Death, on the other hand, is valued at 3.1 item levels. When you calculate the two relics with their traits, relic A is still worth 60 item levels and relic B is now worth 60.1. Therefore, you take relic B.

Now let's say you go to the Netherlight Crucible. Once there, you realise that, after checking our guide, the two relics present the following path:

• Best path for relic A would give you Master of Shadows on Tier 2 and Marked for Death on Tier 3.
• Best path for relic B would give you Dark Sorrows on Tier 2 and Precision on Tier 3.

Using our guide's item level values, you find that Master of Shadows is worth 3.25 item levels and Marked for Death is worth 3.1 item levels. This brings the total for relic A up to 66.35. 

You find that Dark Sorrows is worth 1.75 item levels and Precision is worth 0.7 item levels. This brings the total for relic B up to 62.55.

Relic A is now better due to its NLC rolls, even though relic B was better without.

[Cedar 6]

My apologies Blainie. I neglected to thank you for that post. It has been a great help to me.