Comments from the Devs

[solracht]

You kill Ifrit Extreme.

That's what the quest felt like to me anyway.

Spoiler: show

Serious answer: http://xivpads.com/?-Guides&Relic_We...nd_Progression

[miokomioko]

Grind hamlet defense until you're ready to kill yourself > attempt to double-meld specific Tier-IV materia on a specific weapon until you're ready to kill yourself > kill a beastmen tribe leader > grind killing beastmen to get their currency until you're ready to kill yourself > do repeated speed runs on all the endgame dungeons > beat Garuda without dying > Beat Ifrit Extreme > Relic. (I think)

[Raldo]

can someone give me cliff notes for how relic weapons are obtained?

Giving you the run down would be pointless, as certain sections are bound to change in 2.0.

Despite saying that, here you go because I'm bored. Steps 1 + 2 can be skipped after the first relic. I'm not going into great detail because these are the cliff's notes, as you asked. I've never done this myself, I'm merely summarizing from some other website.
1) Buy a "On the Properties of Beastmen" key item for 25,000 Grand Company Seals
2) Obtain 9 hamlet seals (3 from each hamlet).
3) Officially start the quest with Rowena in Ul'dah.
4) Go kill the specified beastmen tribe leader.
5) Obtain the specified class-specific weapon double melded with the specific tier4 materia, and give it to some guy in Nine Ivies.
6) Obtain 3 Miser's Mythril from Aurum Vale (only 100% if you complete a 5-chest run in less than 17 minutes).
7) Obtain 3 Alumina Salts from Cutters Cry (only 100% if you complete a 5-chest run in less than 17 minutes).
8) Obtain a copy of the Enchiridion from Dzemael Darkhold (5-chest <15min run).
9) Obtain an Allagan Band (Lv45 camp behest).
10) Obtain an Oschon's Finger Charm (perfect 1k seal caravan run).
11) Obtain 990 common or 495 uncommon or 99 rare of the specified beastmen coin items.
12) Fully spiritbond the "Unfinished" relic.
13) Complete the specified faction leve.
14) Complete a Garuda speed run without any deaths.
15) Defeat Ifrit Extreme.
16) Obtain relic.

[Rocl]

not quite. after turning in beastmen weapon & doublemeld you get sent to AV (17min run) then CC (17min run), then currency (which is awful), behest drop (which is 100%), caravan thing (which can be annoying, need a perfect run), and an item for a 15min DH run then you got spiritbond and faction leve time then it's garuda/ifrit etc.

Raldo beat me ): but the quest doesn't start until you go to Gerrolt iirc, the whole hamlet thing comes before you even start the quest. and a lot of those things can be done in any order, beginning with first steps (1&2, 4&5, 8,9,10,&11 14&15)

[Grey Jorildyn]

There are "shortcuts" too. For example you can stayed flagged on the parts of the quest that ask for items and keep obtaining them til your heart's delight. In cases like the U/U items, you can only keep 3 on you (1 on yourself, 1 on each retainers for total of 2). You can collect 21 ores, then hand in 3, then collect 21 salts, hand 3 in, move on in quest. Some people did extra prep work to move quicker through the quest. I know my LS did.

If you do this properly you can basically get a relic, then start quest over, hand in all the stuff and get your next unfinished immediately.

[Churchill]

I thought spiritbond and 1k caravan were the worst parts.

[Fievel]

I thought spiritbond and 1k caravan were the worst parts.

Yup. Unless it was whm then the Spiritbond was easy as shit. 1k caravan counting to 50 drove me nuts though.

[Jamison]

Did they change how getting 1k caravan works? I used to get it 3 of 4 times when farming seals back in the day...

[miokomioko]

I was gonna' say... The few times I've bothered to do some Caravans, 1000 point runs were like 50% for us. There was some sort of strategy for the Skull Valley one (I didn't know it) where you would get 1000 points assuming a certain mob spawned towards the end, which didn't always happen.

[Aratharn]

Spiritbond is the worse part for sure.

Caravan I thought was RNG whether or not the extra mob spawns or not to give you 1k?

[Churchill]

It is, I've spent 3 hour waiting for a 1k caravan and the worst part is by the time you get there SOMEONE is going to have full inventory.

[Sephiroth]

can someone give me cliff notes for how relic weapons are obtained?

Step 1: Sit crafting the same item for 2 months straight in hamlet hoping the double RNG of a seal dropping (around 1/4) and then you winning the lot (around 1/8) goes your way. You need 9 of these.
Step 2: Obtain 25mil gil so you can sit blowing it up trying to fight the materia meld RNG until you can double meld an item worth 1 mil NQ with materia worth 2-3mil each.
Step 3: Kill the main NM in one of the strongholds (easy).
Step 4: Farm 25k GC seals so you can buy a key item (became easy during atomos).
Step 5: Pray you have a group competent enough to beat CC and AV in under 17 minutes so you can obtain some key items.
Step 6: Fight the RNG again for lots beastmen coins (around 1000 or equivalents), or buy from other people.
Step 7: Complete a specific faction leve.
Step 8: Defeat a hard version of Ifrit.
Step 9: Defeat a hard version of Garuda.

Plus one or two other easy things mixed in such as caravan and behest.

I may have the steps in the wrong order but you get the idea, lots of mind numbing RNG, a few fun battles and lots of frustration trying to waltz through dungeons skipping all loot including that dark light you might also want from them.

The only parts of the quest worth keeping are the hard primal fights and those are changing in ARR. The RNG parts definitely need to go, but I can accept keeping the fluff parts like beastmen NMs, faction leve, caravan etc.

Edit: I didn't see all these other posts when I wrote that. Seems caravan is all about RNG too and I missed the mind numbing spiritbonding.

[Churchill]

Why do people always consider the coins RNG? I never farmed a single one.

You also don't skip darklight by doing a speed run...lol...it has to be 17m SR5C. I hope that however the dungeon are in 2.0, speed runs are still required for relics. CC is easily a great stopping point for most people.

[Sephiroth]

If you're not farming the coins you're buying them and someone else has had to deal with that RNG for you. It's still RNG.

And good point about CC. I remember doing a few runs back when the quest was new and they insisted on skipping all the chests to get through as quickly as possible for the 17 minutes. That's why I thought you didn't have time to get the 5 chests.

[Alkar]

Didn't Yoshida mention that speed-runs are going away in ARR? Not sure if that applies to relics too.
Most of the things are going through heavy changes anyway (raids, primals, materia,hamlet etc.) so the process will be different in ARR.

[Evane]

Didn't Yoshida mention that speed-runs are going away in ARR? Not sure if that applies to relics too.
Most of the things are going through heavy changes anyway (raids, primals, materia,hamlet etc.) so the process will be different in ARR.

He did. He also said that the dungeons will be large but the participants can choose which parts they want to play in/objectives they want to achieve.

So my guess is, the hardest/most time consuming objective will contain the ore/salt chest.

[Gokulo]

I think speed runs are not going away, they're just no longer requirement to get chests?

[Fievel]

It is, I've spent 3 hour waiting for a 1k caravan and the worst part is by the time you get there SOMEONE is going to have full inventory.

This, we've gone 1/1 on some runs and taken hours for others, it's all RNG for caravan. Basically the way it worked is you had to kill 50 mobs before the caravan ended, mobs would pop during the run constantly but it'd be in groups of 1-4, and you just had to sit back and hope that by the end it popped 50 or more for you, and most of the time it popped 49.

Also Sephiroth, I'm not even going to respond to your post to explain why you're stupid, just understand that you are.

[Thiefami]

I think speed runs are not going away, they're just no longer requirement to get chests?

From what I read most dungeons are extensively larger (iirc some as big as twice the size now?). Not saying they won't exist, but they likely will not be the same if they do.

[Sephiroth]

Also Sephiroth, I'm not even going to respond to your post to explain why you're stupid, just understand that you are.

Translation: "I can't put up a valid argument against what you said because I know you're right and I refuse to admit it."

Either start typing or shut up.