Sagacyte's BG corner

I would like to preface this post by saying this is my opinion... which should be fairly obvious considering this is my blog but you'd be surprised the amount of brain-covering sap you can find on the internet.

The latest grind, the Anima Weapon quest, is being eyed by many as the last straw that leads them to unsub because of the almost ridiculous length one must go to obtain it. Of course, there's a big difference between saying you're unsubbing and actually going forward with it... but I digress: people aren't happy.

But is it really that bad? For starters I'll quote this Reddit comment which sums the final phase pretty well:

That means... 800 Alex runs, or 27000 law+27000 poetics or 1040 rank 3 beast tribe quests. Of course, you can combine. But um...

Wow. I wonder if it is worse than the 2.0 Relic saga, where some people did fan-favorite (not) Aurum Vale over 40 times in hopes of getting a single drop from RNG.

So what does one have to do?

Phase 1: ATMA 3.0

Let's start with a repeat of everyone's favorite Relic activity: do FATEs in the new zones over and over until, by the grace of RNGesus, one drops you an item; you must do this three times per zone. This will grant you with a "base" Relic that has 170 item level (ilvl170). Forget for a moment that people has expressed a terrible distaste for RNG-based drops.

There's an alternative: you can forfeit your Zeta weapon (the final 2.0 Relic) and get the new base Relic immediately. As a Zeta holder, I am glad I can skip this first step.

Phase 2: Run dungeons

Secondly you need to take this base Relic to a series of dungeons in order to empower it. I understand there is no RNG here; clearing the dungeon is enough. This phase is basically a small time investment to take the base weapon from ilvl170 (insignificant in today's terms) to a decent ilvl200 (on the level of the current Esoteric weapon).

To note: if you don't raid at all, ilvl200 is the current top weapon you can achieve (buy an Esoteric weapon for 900 tomes). If you do raid, however, you can get an ilvl205 with relative ease by killing the latest Primal (King Thordan Ex). Which means finishing this step leaves you with a weapon that is comparable to what is widely accessible at best, and an inferior weapon at worst. Glamour, tho...

Phase 3: Your unborn child and your soul

I'll refer once more to the Reddit comment from earlier:

There's 4 catalysts you need to present to finish the relic (Vendor: Cristiana @ Mor Dhona)

EACH of the catalysts requires 20 of "Unidentified" item (specific per) and 4 HQ crafted specialist items (recipe takes dawnborne, diadem mats, all that good stuff).

How to get unidentified items?

Option one: 10 new Alexander tokens per ONE item (floor-dependant, guaranteed direct drop to inventory of 1 token per run).

Option two: 13 beast tribe tokens per ONE item (tribe-dependant, Vanu require 18 tokens per item, Ixali don't participate). For 2.0 beast tribes, only rank 3 quests apply.

Option three: Get them from HW timeworn maps (Shell/Ore only, Dragonskin not 100%)

Option three and a half: 1000 allied (2.3 hunt) seals per ONE item (Bone/Seeds only)

Option four: Buy them for tomes (680 law/poetics per ONE item, law=ore, seed, poetics=bone, shell)

This would require the options quoted previously:

That means... 800 Alex runs, or 27000 law+27000 poetics or 1040 rank 3 beast tribe quests. Of course, you can combine. But um...

Yikes. Granted, if you do Alexander runs you also get Law and Poetics, so you're kinda killing two birds with one stone - and it has lead to a spike in people running Alexander normal.

Now, a friend yesterday told me that Disciples of the Hand (aka Crafters) are required for this step, but they need to be "specialized". A single char can only specialize in three crafting professions; you need multiple people with different specializations. The crafted items need to be HQ as well. At the moment, the finished items are going for around 2 million each per server. If your FC has such high level Crafters and diversity, that's cool; if you don't... well...

The end result is the Anima Weapon, which is ilvl210. This is the top ilvl you can achieve right now, and the only weapon of the same ilvl you can get is a drop (random!) from the 4th floor of Alexander in Savage mode, a feat on par with surviving a Xenomorph attack while blindfolded.

Curious detail: the Relic was always inferior to the current raid weapon during the majority of 2.0. It wasn't until the final patch when the devs made it so the Relic would be on par with the final raid weapon, at the end of 2.0 (2.5).

Is it worth it?

So what's the issue, then? Sure, it's a heck of a grind, and a friend of mine who's into the process told me it would take about "two months" of moderate grinding. The issue is, if we follow the flow the game's been having, is that when 3.2 launches it'll bring a new weapon that will render this one obsolete quickly. Keyword: quickly. As someone who never cleared the Coils while they were "hot", the Relic was my go-to top weapon. I used my Zeta until I was level 58, way into the Heavensward story. So it got some use.

When will 3.2 launch? No one knows. During the 2.0 cycle every mayor patch came 3 months after the previous one. Heavensward began with a 5 month gap between 3.0 and 3.1. Will they keep this gap for the next big patch or will they return to the fan-favorite 3 month gap? Now, remember this is 3.15... a mid patch. If 3.1 came on November (the 10th), could 3.2 come on February? Could this mean that with the new Relic taking an estimate of two months of moderate grinding we may see many people getting it by the time a new tome weapon (of possibly superior quality) comes out?

Content pacing

Let's now dwell on how the distribution of content during 3.0 was, from my point of view, poorly paced. Right now the content released in 3.15 doesn't seem to substantial: the Relic grind is mostly doing old stuff again and the Scholasticate quests seem to be, by some accounts I've read, something you can clear in a couple of hours. Was it a good idea to "split" 3.1 in two and releasing 3.15 later? I'm sure it has the advantage of giving players something "new" to do for a while before 3.2, but was it worth it?

Not Hildibrand

The Scholasticate side quest is, sadly, not Hildibrand-related.

Yes, I'm salty because of that.

So, what are you going to do?

Me? Simple, I am not grinding the new Relic. Note I say I am not "grinding" it, not that I am not "doing" it. I plan to slowly do it. I'm the kind of guy that dedicated myself to the Relic grind in 2.0 - run dungeons over and over, farm Atmas, spend weekends doing stuff that would progress my weapon. Now? I have no drive to do it. I haven't even logged in since the patch (other than a quick night to raid) - but when I do I'll do a dungeon or a quick something.

Heck, by the time I finish it they may even nerf the requirements

I leave you with another question, just for the sake of it: what if the Relic (and all 3.15 content) had been released when 3.1 launched?

Game on.

- Sagacyte