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Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Warren Castille - 12-13-2014
Relic weapons! Zodiac weapons! As far as prestige amongst your peers is concerned, only shiny weapons from SPOILER REDACTED can compare to showing off how hard you've worked. With that in mind, let's review what it takes to get the shiniest weapon Eorzea has to currently offer!
Getting Started, ilvl80
So there it is. You've hit level 50, you've done all of your class quests and you're thirsting for something else to make you stand out amongst the rest of your peers. You get clued in to going to seek out an old weapon maker, and what does he have in store for you? Why, a million tasks! It all gets started here.
So what does Gerolt want? Easy! You just have to deliver a couple of items as directed via quest, culminating in a double-melded i55 weapon. These weapons are crafted from items found in the earliest level 50 dungeons (Wanderer's Palace and I think Ampador Keep?) and take two class-relevant melds, always two of the same. The specific melds required change depending on your class, so make sure you read your quest details in your journal!
Gerolt then sends you to kill the fearsome Chimera. This is a level 50 fight with no item level sync and is generally curbstomped by currency-hungry overgeared folks.
The next step to forging your relic weapon is obtaining an Ampador Glyph. This is awarded upon exiting Ampador Keep (NOT Ampador City!) and is generally a formality at this stage in the game.
Next, Gerolt will task you will slaying a series of enemies. They are not difficult, though it might take some time depending on your class.
Gerolt's next task is to slay the formiddable Hydra. You MUST be wielding your unfinished relic at this point, so make sure you equip it! This is another level 50 non-synced fight and is routinely smashed in Duty Finder.
The next stage requires you to defeat each Hard Mode primal in sequence: Ifrit, then Garuda, and finally Titan. These are again all level 50 unsynced battles and, despite having some learning curve, are routinely defeated easily in Duty Finder. It helps to admit if it's your first run upon entrance, as many experienced players are happy for the currency bonus provided by new players.
After turning in the three key items obtained from the Primals, Gerolt will finally ask you for a Radz-at-Han oil. This is purchased in Revenant's Toll for a relatively cheap sum of currency, so take advantage of the pile you've obtained doing dungeons and primal fights!
Once you turn the item in to Gerolt, he returns to his force and finally grants you a new weapon and an achievement! Your relic is item level 80, but there's an easy upgrade available right away!
Continuing, ilvl 90
No one is satisied with an ilvl80 weapon. Let's make it better!
Purchasing three Thavnarian Mist items will allow you to improve your relic; Just "talk" to the forge next to Gerolt with the item in hand and trade it in! For you aspiring paladins out there, you still require 3 items to upgrade your sword and shield, but it's split 2:1 for your items. Yes, you can upgrade your shield before your sword for one Mist, but you're going to want to do both!
This is the easiest upgrade stage of your relic process. Breathe easy, it's about to get serious.
Atma! Item Level "100"
Progressing your relic is a "simple" matter of beginning this quest right near Gerolt. It will task you with obtainining a dozen Atma, crystallized essences of enemies obtained by completing FATEs with your relic weapon equipped in specific zones.
All you need to do is complete a FATE with your Relic Zenith equipped to have a chance at the item dropping. It isn't guaranteed, nor do you need to "win" the FATE. You don't need Gold medals or anything besides participating in a completing FATE to have a chance at your Atma!
Yes, you can farm multiple sets of Atma at one time! As long as you have ANY Zenith weapon equipped, you can obtain an Atma from a FATE.
Once you obtain your twelve unique atma and turn them in back at Jalzahn, he will turn your weapon from Relic Zenith to Relic Atma! The item level will jump from 90 to 100 and it will get a nice new paint job, but hey, what gives? These stats are the same exact as they used to be! What's the big idea?!
Books! Study up! Item Level 100, for real this time!
Jalzahn's got big plans for your relic weapon. As nice as the new paint is, it's not making you do your job any better! To rectify this, Jalzahn supposes you should follow the path of the Zodiac Braves, and this means working hard! There's a long series of books containing the trials and travels of the Braves and you need to get cracking!
Each book can be purchased in Revenant's Toll for 500 Soldiery. It used to be 1500 Mythology and will likely be adjusted in the future as currencies change again, so get working! Each book is unique and will require you to kill 10 enemies from 10 families, totaling 100 kills, complete 3 FATEs that range from easy to rarely popping, complete 3 Levequests that are sometimes Grand Company Leves, and completed three dungeons.
This is a lot to digest all of a sudden! The 10x10 enemies are strictly "get credit for killing." The Leves can sometimes be hidden by other, lesser leves being offered. Similarly, FATEs are sometimes part of a chain that aren't immediately obvious. It is highly recommended you use a website like XIVDB to know exactly what is required of you. The dungeons require you to defeat a specific boss enemy, always appearing at the end of the dungeon, but be warned! You only get credit if you are alive at the time of death! Being KO'd will result in you not getting credit in your book, and this is no bueno.
You must complete NINE BOOKS, totaling 900 enemies killed, 27 leves, 27 FATEs and 27 Dungeons. You're going to need 4500 Soldiery to complete this stage and books are unique, so you can only hold ONE at a time! This is just a taste of the process, but completing each book will grant you a bonus to your Atma weapon. Once you've completed all nine books you can obtain your Relic Animus! This is an actually-statted-for-i100-weapon, but there's no time to celebrate because...
The grind is real! Item level 110!
No rest for the weary. Jalzahn's got an idea on how to upgrade your weapon, so there's no time to rest! He requires you to obtain a Sphere Scroll, which is easy! You just need to scrounge up 750 more soldiery to obtain 3 of these babies. You'll take them to Central Thalan and obtain a Sphere Scroll pertaining to your relic weapon. Paladins again take note: You'll split inks 2:1 for your sword and shield. You don't have to upgrade both at once, but you're going to want to. Trust me.
You're now going to need to infuse this Sphere Scroll with materia to increase the power of your relic weapon. In order to infuse a materia, you'll need an Alexandrite as a catalyst. Your bonding rates being at 100% but will quickly drop below that. If you explode a materia, you won't lose the Alexandrite but you will die a little inside as you lose your materia.
This is where you begin customizing your relic weapon's stats! Tired of inferior secondary attributes? Erase them! Every materia you meld to your sphere scroll will replace the stats on your Animus weapon. Players can upgrade additional stats such as Piety, Determination, Accuracy, Spell Speed, Skill Speed, Critical Hit Rate and Parry up to a total of 75 points. Accuracy, Spell Speed, Skill Speed, Critical Hit Rate and Parry cap at 44 points each. Piety caps at 33 points and Determination caps at 31 points.
If you stick to two stats, you're going to need several Tier IV materia to meld. Be warned, the success chance drops off very quickly on these materia and it is very possible to explode several million gil in materia gems as a result. It is possible to avoid Tier IV materia by doing a combination of three stats, and the stat difference is almost negligible in the long run. A "Budget" Novus weapon is more than sufficient! No shame in spending thriftly!
Alexandrite: An Exercise in Frustration
There are three and a half ways to obtain an Alexandrite gem.
1) Completing a FATE with your Animus weapon equipped will rarely (estimated 10% or less) give you an Alexandite, similarly to how you obtained Atma.
2) Alexandite are purchased with Allied Seals if you are stockpiling while doing Hunts.
3) Completing a Mysterious Map objective.
3a) Mysterious Maps are awarded daily for completing this quest that requires you to run Expert Roulette.
3b) Maps are also available for purchase in Revenant's Toll for 400 Soldiery each.
Mysterious Maps are tricky fights; It is recommended you bring a friend to cover your butt while clearing them. Better safe than sorry, I say!
You will eventually obtain the 75 Alexandrite required to fully meld your Sphere Scroll and the materia used to slot inside of it. Once you've completed the process, you're back to Jalzahn to hand everything over. Once he's done, you'll obtain a shiny new Novus weapon!
Don't relax, though...
Grind! Grind! Grind! i115!
Jalzahn and Gerolt have a theory. You can increase the power of your relic by locking in souls! This surely has no moral quandry and will be juuuuuust fine.
Soulglazing your relic will allow you to obtain "lights" by completing almost every task in the game. Do a dungeon? Lights! Kill a primal? Lights!! Doing Coil? LIGHTS! Just killing time in PVP? LIGHTS!!11ONE
As long as you have your Novus weapon equipped, finishing instances will give you lights. PALADINS, MAKE SURE YOU SOULGLAZE BOTH YOUR SWORD AND SHIELD. It's possible to finish one and not the other and then you have to do the whole process over again. Values and threshholds are below.
There are constantly areas that grant "Bonus" light. A hard mode Primal ordinarily grants Gentle Light, but if, say, Garuda HM is the Bonus window, it will grant one stage up, resulting in Bright light. The most common tactic is to find a farmable Bright window and demolish is as much as you can in the 120 minutes the bonus is live. It is random where bonus windows go and sometimes it won't move after 120 minutes, resulting in long, long sessions where madmen kill Garuda dozens and dozens of times.
There is now way to speed this stage along. Efficient grinding will only take you so far, and even at the fastest time you are still looking at eight hours of killing Garuda before you're finished.
Eventually, though, you WILL complete your lightshow. Turn that junk back into Jalzahn for a super-shiny, can't-see-the-weapon-anymore Nexus weapon.
Don't rest yet, though...
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Warren Castille - 12-13-2014
Zodiac Weapon! i125!
First complete this quest. Finishing it will allow you to flag this this this and this quest.
To obtain all of the items required for these quests, players need: over 400k gil, 80k Company Seals, 6400 Allagan Tomestone of Soldiery, drops from 16 dungeons, Many 3 star HQ crafted items, many desynthesis items and some miscellaneous items.
Each quest will require one bombard core, one springwater, one 100k material, four dungeon drops (only obtainable when the quest asks for them, no farming ahead of time!) and two crafted items, requiring the entire gamut of desynthesis skills. Bombard cores are purchasable ahead of this portion of the quest.
Once you complete this substantial list of objectives, you'll be able to complete His Dark Materia and be able to kill God obtain your Zodiac weapon. It's been a long time coming, but you've got a new weapon to swing around!
...but you shouldn't rest easy...
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Aldotsk - 12-19-2014
I am sorry for late response to this. But I really appreciate Warren's work to help new members out to get their Relic weapon.
Relic Weapon Guide Revised
This is the same guide that Warren made, and I've just added some images into them for people to understand they they look like.
Again, wonderful job.
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Gegenji - 12-19-2014
It should be noted that while you can stockpile the Bombard Cores ahead of time, with the Sacred Spring Water you cannot. I was hoarding my tomes and went to dump 1600 of them on the first Water while I'm still collecting Light and they apparently aren't on the list at all. Unless my several passes through missed them and I'm just being a dumb.
I haven't checked on the other vendor-purchased items, but I should probably get on that.
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Warren Castille - 12-19-2014
Chachanji is correct. Bombard Cores are purchasable once you get GC rank for them, but Springwaters require you to be on the current stage of the quest. Forgot to edit that in.
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Melodia - 12-19-2014
+1 to the rep, friend. Great guide.
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Warren Castille - 03-10-2015
For posterity!
Zodiac Zeta! Item Level 135!
So you've come a long way. You've beaten primals, collected tokens, read lots of books, killed more primals, ran dungeons, crafted things. Are you ready to all of that AGAIN, BUT THIS TIME IN THE LIGHTNING ROUND?!
The next quest starts when you return to Jalzahn and begin Rise and Shine. The quest ends up with you in Swiftperch speaking to a shady specter of Gerolt's past, and boy does he have a deal for you. Super-rare mega-atma called Mahatma! He'll bind them to your weapon so you can acquire more soul energy!
...Gee, this sounds sort of familiar...
All for the low, low price of 200 soldiery each! And there's only twelve of them!
There are different light values for doing the same tasks this time; Primals are going to be your go-to in terms of effort/reward ratio. Each mahatma requires 40 points to collect, but don't have a heart attack yet. The light value's been tinkered with a little.
Feeble: 1
Faint: 2
Gentle: 4
Steady: 6
Forceful: 12
Nigh Sings: 16
There's... Not a lot to this stage. You can grind in any of the same ways you did previously for Nexus, and you'll get a notification when it's time to buy a new Mahatma. It'll end up costing you a total of 2400 soldiery, but you'll likely make back most if not all of that just killing primals/doing dungeons.
When the grinding is all said and done, return to Jalzahn and let the cutscenes play. Congratulations!
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - BlackmoreKnight - 03-10-2015
Just a note, the Alexandrite drop rate from fates was buffed a patch or two ago. I think it's around 10% now, same as the atma drop rates. Certainly, if it was at 1% then I wouldn't have gotten it in about a week of 4-6 hours of fate grinding a night in Middle La Noscea.
Also I recommend not grinding fates for 6 hours a night for a week it makes your eyes bleed.
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Warren Castille - 03-11-2015
Edited some patched info, spruced up the crafted items for Zodiac section.
AND NOW, WE WAIT FOR 3.1.
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Leanne - 03-11-2015
I profoundly thank Warren-sensei to show me the path of true pain and suffering.
Aka, holy christ, I'm glad I'm done with it!
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Steel Wolf - 03-12-2015
Lord help me, I'm going for Atma.
Just Atma.
Don't wanna dive too deep into this rabbit hole for a job that I'm ultimately going to shelve.
...pray for me, friends, though I may be an idiot. ><
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Gegenji - 03-12-2015
(03-12-2015, 08:01 AM)Steel Wolf Wrote: Lord help me, I'm going for Atma.
Just Atma.
Don't wanna dive too deep into this rabbit hole for a job that I'm ultimately going to shelve.
...pray for me, friends, though I may be an idiot. Â ><
Well, that shouldn't be too bad for you. They bumped up the Atma drop rate pretty significantly a little while back. Other than due to a string of bad luck, you should be able to do that part relatively painlessly.
Meanwhile, I'm on the Nexus stage. Getting to run full dungeons at a small chance for the dungeon item. And since I'm basically DFing all of them, I get to... "enjoy" the various other folks I get paired up with.
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Steel Wolf - 03-12-2015
Urf...my condolences in advance.
Having had another look over the steps, it does seem that I'm doing this just for "the lulz" or to pass time until Heavensward without any real level of benefit, since the Atma is lower than the Conqueror.
....ah well, at least I can glamour away the Conqueror. I like the weapon, but I'm seeing it on a lot of backs and I kinda would like to stand out a bit, if possible.
Yes, I'm doing Relic quests for glamouring purposes.
Yes, I'm an idiot.
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Gegenji - 03-12-2015
Hey, some of those models are pretty swank. Excalibur and... whatever the MNK weapon is called come to mind first and foremost. I went with SCH, so all I'm getting is a really fancy-looking book.
![[Image: GrVdcqT.png]](http://i.imgur.com/GrVdcqT.png)
Meanwhile, I have the really neat pop-up future-book thing from Lightning's Return that I keep glamouring over it most of the time...
RE: Relic weapons, grinding and you: A guide to killing yourself slowly - Dogberry - 03-12-2015
(03-12-2015, 08:01 AM)Steel Wolf Wrote: Lord help me, I'm going for Atma.
Just Atma.
Don't wanna dive too deep into this rabbit hole for a job that I'm ultimately going to shelve.
...pray for me, friends, though I may be an idiot. ><
If you want a Atma partner, let me know! I'm on the same phase.
Let FATE unite us!