Do I understand this dread regrants correctly?

Now not only do I have to grind to maintain my skills constantly at a level far below someone with more time to play can maintain. But now in order to use dread artifacts I need to suffer decay at an alter without dying? So grind some more exp please....

Wtf, non grinding game my ass...

 

Dread Artifacts are intended to be used VERY rarely, not as a regular or even daily use. If you see someone use one in PvP you should be very surprised...

We haven't implemented the actual mechanic for what will need to be done, but it isn't what you mentioned; you'll have to go to a Titan Colossus and suffer a significant penalty.

 

From the Release Notes:

I'm sure you can see why this would be confusing, as it actually says "die", "decay" and "death penalty". The only penalty for death currently is decay...

 

Yeah I'm a bit confused about the purpose of these dread artifacts. I can't really think of a single scenario where a 1 off use of a spell is going to be worth grinding back hours or days of experience?
I mean, even if I walked into a zone and the dread artifact instantly killed everything in the entire zone the xp gain from it wouldn't even make a dent in the cost. These seem pretty useless beyond a certain adventure level, unless I'm missing something.

I mean, even if you were going to use this for a difficult fight to avoid death - you'd essentially be paying for a death regardless of the fight's eventual outcome....

 

It's sad but I truly believe now, this is the way they are taking this game. I think they believe it is the right choice and the path will not change. Unfortunately my choice over the last few weeks to log in to grind more Exp or do something else, I have been choosing to do something else...

Maybe it will change or maybe when it is all done and exp is just another commodity like gold you have to constantly maintain there will be some fun left in the game.

 

Um... did you all happen to notice the bonus to stats that the dread artifacts also give?

 

Yea apparently +10 to base stats isn't worth getting.