Anima Weapons and You: A Guide for Killing Yourself Again

[V'aleera]

Ugh... even the models are lazy.

 

In the 2.0 questline they gave you a sort of 'half made' version of your relic that you had to power up. Here they just reuse the model for the esoterics weapon.

 

The Eso model is only for one upgrade. At the end of the stage three part, it turns into a different unique weapon model that is the real Anima.

[Kellach Woods]

The Eso model is only for one upgrade. At the end of the stage three part, it turns into a different unique weapon model that is the real Anima.

 

So only after the most obnoxious step then?

 

Not good.

[V'aleera]

Having actually mathed it out, the last step actually requires a similar average time and (depending on the MB) investment to complete as the original Novus stage did. Which is to say that it's still a lot of time and gil, but hardly an unprecedented amount.

 

It's also not gated by RNG, not closed behind a specific, singular activity, and not restricted to being done with any particular class. After putting things in perspective, aside from a lack of originality I honestly don't see much worth complaining about here.

[Leggerless]

I bet if the relics were BiS there would be far fewer complaints. Certain classes, such as Warrior and Bard, are not as iffy about the ordeal as everyone else, for example.

 

Not everyone cares about stats though, right? It's just a i210 equivalent weapon afterall; something to match the weapons from raids.

 

There's also some math stating the time invested over useful life ratio is god awful, but beside the point.

[Melodia]

My problem with this is the crafting requirements. Specialist crafts are not an easy bit of content to get into, and they're not just forcing you to make one thing, but FOUR of each for a total of sixteen. It's so unreasonable for something that's supposed to be "casual" content.

 

Unless you have someone nice enough to craft them for free, you're looking at millions of gil. It's beyond comprehension why they thought this was a good idea.

 

This is always a concern of mine as well. I am fortunate in that my wife is a crafter and will do these items for me but without her I'd be out of luck. I don't have the gil or the time to master all the crafting jobs to do these. I do feel those kinds of requirements are a bit unfair to a lot of folks. And "deal with it" isn't a good response...it's a lousy design model period.

[Warren Castille]

Edited OP to reflect that Alexander Precision Items are rewarded on clear of a wing.

[Sounsyy]

Sylph: I don't have Sylph rep done

Ixal: I don't have Ixal rep done either

 

As max rank in all Beast Tribes, can confirm that Sylphs: Unidentifiable Seeds and Ixal have no rewards related to new Relic.

[Coatleque]

I'll agree that the model was lazy for the first step, but I can also understand why they did it. The Esoteric's gear is supposed to be "AF2" correct? Which means the weapon is already supposed to be some kind of job related artifact. Hence you are imbuing said weapon with more power.

[Melkire]

I'll agree that the model was lazy for the first step, but I can also understand why they did it. The Esoteric's gear is supposed to be "AF2" correct? Which means the weapon is already supposed to be some kind of job related artifact. Hence you are imbuing said weapon with more power.

 

Except the weapons purchased with tomestones of esoterics aren't at all related or involved in the new anima weapons quest chain. You're not imbuing the eso weapons with anything, you're having a whole new weapon forged and the initial result happens to look identical to the existing eso weapons.

 

Furthermore, the relic weapon quest chain from ARR / 2.x featured unique models from the outset and were released alongside brand new unique content specifically made to accompany those relic weapons.

[Coatleque]

[..] you're having a whole new weapon forged and the initial result happens to look identical to the existing eso weapons.

 

Then this is really a violation of Eorzean copyright law. We should bring a class-action suit against Gerolt.

[Warren Castille]

I'm just going to assume that every weapon every crafted came from Gerolt's forge. All of the old tome weapons are his, apparently all of the new Eso weapons are also his.

[Haven's Fox]

I love how even in the first cutscene our characters shake their heads like "oh hell no!"...

 

Bit of a disappointment that they took a year to figure out how to give us a oh so slightly better version of atma farming.

[111]

I'm just going to assume that every weapon every crafted came from Gerolt's forge. All of the old tome weapons are his, apparently all of the new Eso weapons are also his.

I'm not sure when he has the time to run up a bar tab.

[Yssen]

I'm just going to assume that every weapon every crafted came from Gerolt's forge. All of the old tome weapons are his, apparently all of the new Eso weapons are also his.

I'm not sure when he has the time to run up a bar tab.

It makes more sense when you take into account that we have probably never seen Gerolt sober. He is the High King of Functioning Drunks. Yar.

[111]

I'm just going to assume that every weapon every crafted came from Gerolt's forge. All of the old tome weapons are his, apparently all of the new Eso weapons are also his.

I'm not sure when he has the time to run up a bar tab.

It makes more sense when you take into account that we have probably never seen Gerolt sober. He is the High King of Functioning Drunks. Yar.

Maybe it looks the same because he's like "Ehhh fuck it."

 

Idk, I wouldn't think it would be that hard to make a matte and sort of lame looking texture for the relic weapon, and as you get closer it gets all cool and detailed and glowy.

 

It would take less time to just make textures for the i170 and i200 weapons that make them look like a lesser version of the final product,  than it did to figure out how to make a glowing swirly pasta noodle particle effect.

[Kellach Woods]

I have a legitimate question here.

 

Are you capped at 3 crystals per quest or can you keep accumulating so long as you keep FATEing?

[Sylastair]

I have a legitimate question here.

 

Are you capped at 3 crystals per quest or can you keep accumulating so long as you keep FATEing?

you can keep collecting them. I for example have two left over from fates where I was helping friends.

[Parth Makeo]

As a casual in pve on this game, I would like to say that so far the anima weapon grind to me makes me less and less excited to do it. I never got far in the zeta but I at least had some kind of blast (atma took me 6 months...) 

 

This....this is just trying to make us do old content. I know the step for the beast tribes can be skipped but the gil is too much for me. 

 

If I was more pve focused here than WoW. I'd probably still think it's bad but I would grind it for the sake of seeing if the weapons gets better...

 

But this is as lazy as what blizzard did with valor in warlords...forcing mythic raiders to do illrelevant mythic dungeons and LFR to be able to upgrade their gear...and no one in my guild liked it.

 

Then again I shouldn't speak of pve here...I have yet to do Alexander Raid....mostly because time reason and scared that people in pugs would kick me for having minimum entry gear + never done it before. Pugs are toxic as hell here.

[Warren Castille]

It's been pointed out in a few places that the timing on the relic delay makes zero sense. It was supposed to be included at launch, which would have presumably been the first stage. The first quest would have granted you an i170 weapon, which was the Law equivalent at the time, and would have been easier than grinding tomes but lacked an upgrade to 180 or 190 in the form of doman upgrades or primal weapons.

 

3.05 introduced Alexander, and Savage was a week (two? three?) later. With the introduction of Esoterics, it was possible to purchase an i200 weapon, which meets the second stage of the relic. 3.1 ushered in Thordan weaponry at i205, which would have been "easier" than the grind we have now to grab an i210 weapon.

 

It's suspicious, given the breakpoints. I think I'm 11/80 because this would drive me insane to press hard on, though admittedly I've made a pretty penny just doing roulettes and dailies.

[Aaron]

There's people already with the finished animus weapon.

 

Talk about team no sleep.

[111]

It's been pointed out in a few places that the timing on the relic delay makes zero sense. It was supposed to be included at launch, which would have presumably been the first stage. The first quest would have granted you an i170 weapon, which was the Law equivalent at the time, and would have been easier than grinding tomes but lacked an upgrade to 180 or 190 in the form of doman upgrades or primal weapons.

 

3.05 introduced Alexander, and Savage was a week (two? three?) later. With the introduction of Esoterics, it was possible to purchase an i200 weapon, which meets the second stage of the relic. 3.1 ushered in Thordan weaponry at i205, which would have been "easier" than the grind we have now to grab an i210 weapon.

 

It's suspicious, given the breakpoints. I think I'm 11/80 because this would drive me insane to press hard on, though admittedly I've made a pretty penny just doing roulettes and dailies.

 

I wish there was a way to get at least one per day, like the alexandrite dailies. It would help queues if we had to do lvling DR or something for a token of your choice.

[Cassandra]

Honestly, they woefully missed the mark on this grind. The most efficient method to grind is spamming Alexander Normal 620 times. This means old content is only really being populated briefly during step two. In a lot of cases, people will just use premades and run ARR dungeons unsynced. What they could have do instead if put the items in a roulette, but made it so multiple dungeons/trials awarded the same amount. That would actually get people to repopulate old content and make up the monotony of Alexander spamming.

[Parth Makeo]

Honestly, they woefully missed the mark on this grind. The most efficient method to grind is spamming Alexander Normal 620 times. This means old content is only really being populated briefly during step two. In a lot of cases, people will just use premades and run ARR dungeons unsynced. What they could have do instead if put the items in a roulette, but made it so multiple dungeons/trials awarded the same amount. That would actually get people to repopulate old content and make up the monotony of Alexander spamming.

They are a Japanese developer though...So i am guessing old time traditions of grinding in the game still resides. Most MMOs, both F2P or P2P from Japan/China/Korea pride themselves on the grind. Take for Example Monster Hunter Frontier Online (Still going strong in Japan btw). If you played a monster hunter game...Imagine that, with new monsters to fight every update and new armor/weapons with double the element weapon types you can get (Like Wind element)with gear skills and leveling up pets...Grinding is the name of Monster Hunter, and the online game is triple the amount of time you will grind.

 

To do the method you suggested is more sensible to an american market.

 

Take for example (And i know i can't shut up about it) World of Warcraft. The Legendary ring has a few steps that you need to do and they were all during content stuff. First step was run a certain heroic for the base ring then do three heroic specific dungeons for items and the current first raid (Highmaul) to get stones and kill last two bosses for their items. After those steps you get the next level and have to do the next raid on that same dungeon (Blackrock Foundary) and gather 900 Elemental Tablet fragments (300 per tablet but they dropped a hefty amount each boss) while also getting the three needed items from the end bosses of the three wings (Kromrok, Maidens and Blast Furnace). Once you got the three items and the fragments, you needed to kill Blackhand for his item and get the next ring.

 

After that it's the 6.1 stuff which was filler and follower

 

Then 6.2 was the last step. You needed to do work on the Shipyard (Full detail in the link below) to get a map and needed 33 tomes of the legion from the current raid (Hellfire Citadel) at a 50% drop chance from the 14 bosses in it. Once you got all those items GRATZ! you got your legendary ring- oh wait...Hold on. There is one more thing to grind.

 

100% optional but...

 

After you get your 735 ring, you are free to leave it as is...or do normal or harder Archiemond each week to upgrade the ring by 3 Ilevels up to a max of 795. Total of about 20 kills to max out one ring (Meaning multi spec classes may have to spend 40 or 60 kills to max their other rings)

 

Better detail down below.

http://www.wowhead.com/guides/raiding/warlords-of-draenor-legendary-ring-guide

 

After finishing all that on my mage (Besides feeling like WOD was a major letdown as an expansion) it was at least fun and the catch up mechanics they added helped for alts and people behind on the quest. Because each week you run the raid, you DO make progress towards the ring, Albet at a 'fixed' rate. some get lucky while others get theirs 2-3 weeks behind, but it's not to the point that you get jack shit in the end...Unless you were one unlucky person in my guild who had one whole week with only getting one tome out of the raid of 14 bosses

 

If they went the way you suggested Olivia, it would at least make me do more dungeons (But the FATE grinding has got to fucking go)

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If anyone has other examples from other games of these "artifact/legendary/Atma" weapon/gear systems, i would love to hear them.

[Kellach Woods]

The FATE grinding is the most tolerable aspect of this to me.

 

The ability to level other classes through it and get stuff for your main is a godsend for what I need to do on Kell. Less so for people who are interested in playing one single class.

[V'aleera]

Honestly, they woefully missed the mark on this grind. The most efficient method to grind is spamming Alexander Normal 620 times.

 

The most efficient method, in terms of time spent, is doing roulettes and daily beast tribe quests every day. Grinding Alexander is not efficient, but expedient.

 

Though that's not including the possibility of running new players through all the ARR content for the bonus rewards, which is the single most efficient way to get the Poetics items. It is conditional on being able to find new players, however.