AP and you - how the grind (barely) matters, and you really shouldn't stress before tomb.

So, I figured this could use a topic on it's own after reading the Asmongold-topic last night and commenting there, just to get some visibility on the facts of the current way AP and traits are working.To start with, let's list some base facts:1: Trait growth.Every trait level is equal to what you farmed for the previous level, +30% (plus/minus 1% for rounding errors). This is a constant, and furthermore, it means that to increase your traits by 5 levels, you will have to farm 4x as much AP as the total you've already farmed.As a concrete example of this:52 For concordance is 2163M Artifact power.57 for 6 concordance traits (2k+5x200 = 3k stats) is 8287M Artifact power - or a little under 4x as much (about 300M, but as a rule of thumb, this should suffice).By 62, you will need to gather an additional 32B artifact power.As you can see, this scales quickly and wildly out of control.To combat this, we have ;#2: Artifact Knowledge.AK Also goes up with 30% per rank (give or take a few percent every level for rounding errors, again).What this means is that if we assume all raiders that care about the grind had 54 traits on release with 26 AK, which was then converted into 40 traits (39+5M for 1), we can roughly estimate that for each AK level, we get one trait - especially as we get deeper into the tree.To elaborate: The effort of going 40-41 with 26 AK, is the same as going 50-51 with 36 Ak, or 60-61 with 46 AK. At 50 AK, we hit the "wall" - no more AK boosts means that after going 64-65, things will start to become really slow, very quickly. Again, by the time you hit 70, you'll have quadrupled your AP gains just getting to 65, but with no AK boost to help.Now, some people will be "ahead" of this curve - I'm on 48 traits at 31 AK, while I "should" only be on 45-46. That means if I keep up at the same pase (2x levels ahead of my AK boost), I will hit my wall at around 67 traits, rather than 65.3: But it's a powerup; Gotta get it, right?Now let's put the gains into perspective. Lets assume you're a DPS - you will value procs the most (they're already less important for healers and tanks to start with due to the nature of their roles).The Concordance spell has a 1.37 RPPM, with a 10 second duration. Accounting for some haste, I think it's safe to put the uptime at around 25%, if that's not lowballing it a bit. For haste heavy specs (shadow priest, fury warrior) it'll be higher, due to high amount of haste etc.Now, at it's base, it has a 2K mainstat proc. Every trait adds 200 to that power. This means that for 5 traits, a quadrupling in AP, mind you, you get 1K Int/Agi/Str on your proc - with a 25% uptime. That's 250 main stats for FOUR TIMES the AP. This will seem bigger at the start where the proc is relatively modest - however, when you hit the "wall" at 65 traits, your proc will be 4.6K mainstat. Adding 1K to this to get 70 is "only" a growth in proc-size of around 21% (the relative strength remains the same - 250 mainstat per 5 levels, but the perceived strength becomes much smaller; The proc still has HEAVY impact with 4.6K vs 5.6K, as compared to 2k vs 3k).4: So what about the short-term?Short-term, you'll want to reach Concordance before Tomb. However, that's "only" 2.2B AP. To put that into perspective, Tomb is supposed to hit around AK43; At that point, a single M+10 cache and a NH heroic clear will grant you well over 700M AP (or around 1/3 of the total required for concordance). No world quests, no nothing - 1/3 of the way just by a heroic raid and a M+10 that everyone should want to do anyway. Getting to 57-58 before tomb will be easy; It'll require the same effort as going 40-41 each level if you take it slow. But slacking right now doesn't really matter, because the catch up is so freaking extreme.5: And long term?I think it's safe to say that the standard, when Ak50 has been reached, will be 65-70 traits. Anything beyond that is an INSANE grind for almost no gains. Likewise, you're safe to go put AP into offspecs and secondary specs right now, or if you want, when you reach 52 for concordance in a months time; The catch up before tomb will be so massive that the 2B AP you put in a secondary weapon can be grinded back in a day or two on the release-week of tomb, and you'll have competent offspecs to boot. You're also better off keeping an alt well geared and traited, rather than spending all your time on your main, because the catch up simply makes any farm you're doing right now super fucking irrelevant.TL;DR - Blizzard succeeded. Concordance is such a small gain and has such a steep buildup that you won't want to kill yourself farming it. The difference between opening week of 60 and 6 weeks in at 67 with the extra 7 AK levels is so miniscule that it won't matter. Rejoice, for you are free.