Alexandrite: How to get it easier?

[Aldotsk]

I've been trying to figure this out since 75 Alexandrite is just tedious now that Hunts have gone dead. X_X

 

and FATE suggestion is just ridiculous since it's worse drop than Atma. Which dungeon would it be a good way to earn a lot of Solidery? I know that I've started doing daily Expert quest that gives me the map, but it feels like it's going slow as of right now.

 

I'd exactly need at least 25,000~30,000 solidery to complete 75 Alexandrites - and 400 solidery is needed to buy a map along with the daily I am doing frequently. 

 

I am willing to accept any suggestions, and I also will need 1600 Solidery each for Zodiac anyways.

 

(I am a DPS as Mizuho so it's a lot harder for me to queue easily than tanks/healers).

[Gegenji]

Ouch, it's was obnoxious enough for me as a healer.

 

I literally just did the roulettes every day. All the ones that gave tomes. Even the story one. Couple that with the 6 daily Beast Tribe dailies, and I usually had enough to buy an extra map pretty much every day. I was short a handful of times, but usually I could do two maps.

 

It's tedious, it's boring, and it's a lot of work... but that's basically how I did it. SE has apparently designed this quest to be as much of a slog as possible, so it taking a while is more or less implied unless you're doing some serious grinding for extra maps.

 

And, you probably already know this, but make sure you have a friend handy. I soloed all my maps (SCH + Fairy + Chocobo = One Man Team... usually), and there was nothing more frustrating than losing an Alexandrite because the game decided now was the best time to start chugging like Homer Simpson on a treadmill. It was always when I hit the Cyclops with swarm of tiny puks or that stupid Mythril Golem, too.

[Berrod Armstrong]

I've been trying to figure this out since 75 Alexandrite is just tedious now that Hunts have gone dead. X_X

 

and FATE suggestion is just ridiculous since it's worse drop than Atma. Which dungeon would it be a good way to earn a lot of Solidery? I know that I've started doing daily Expert quest that gives me the map, but it feels like it's going slow as of right now.

 

I'd exactly need at least 25,000~30,000 solidery to complete 75 Alexandrites - and 400 solidery is needed to buy a map along with the daily I am doing frequently. 

 

I am willing to accept any suggestions, and I also will need 1600 Solidery each for Zodiac anyways.

 

(I am a DPS as Mizuho so it's a lot harder for me to queue easily than tanks/healers).

What I've been doing: Do the daily expert quest, it gives you an Alexandrite Map. You can pick up the quest from Brangwine in Revenant's toll, up the uphill path from the Aetheryte.

 

Doing your daily roulettes (as much as you can on a given day, but at least do the expert for the quest) and maybe ST every other day (you can get sands/oils and ST gear for your other jobs!) will help you get the soldiery you need to buy maps inbetween.

 

Do your weekly hunt, and hunt around for hunting groups on the weekends. It's a lot less dead on the weekends, and if you keep an eye out for people calling S ranks, you can make the 200 Allied Seals for an Alexandrite piece easily enough. This method is really more of an occasional buffer so that you get that extra -one- Alexandrite sometimes.

 

If there's reason for you to do a FATE, do it! Don't FATE grind by any means, but if it won't harm you to do a FATE that's nearby, go smash it! You never know, you might get lucky...

 

All in all, it's really a matter of persistence and patience. You'll get there! I'm at 63/75 myself, with a buffer of 5 maps (one in my key items pocket and four on my retainers), so I'm MOUTFROTHING right about now. 

 

You can do it!

[Warren Castille]

Alexandrite! It's a term that scared the bajeezus out of people in FFXI and the appearance of it in FFXIV isn't nearly as bad, though still plenty daunting. I'd rather collect 75 of something than 30,000 of anything. That's not an exaggeration.

 

So, for those not in the know, Alexandrite are required for the Animus > Novus stage of a relic weapon. You need to appropriate 75 pieces of it. There are four ways (well, three and a half) to obtain an Alexandrite:

 

1) Completing a FATE with your Animus weapon equipped has a low (estimated 1%) chance to drop an Alexandrite, similarly to Atma.

 

2) Purchase one for 200 Allied Seals form the AS vendor in your home nation.

 

3) Complete the daily quest Morbid Motivation to receive a Mysterious Map.

 

3.5) Purchase a Mysterious Map for 400 Soldiery in Revenant's Toll.

 

As you can plainly see, it's not exactly a fast method regardless of choosing. The strategy that seems to be the most effective is doing the daily quest (which is always the same every day: Complete Expert Roulette in the Duty Finder) and then supplementing those maps with purchased maps in RT. Allied Seals end up being a disproportionate amount of effort to reward in the long term: Needing to get full credit on ten A-Rank enemies or full credit on 4 S-Rank enemies is a crapshoot these days. It wasn't much better when Hunts were still fresh, either, because it was 800 Myth to purchase a map back then.

 

The "most effective" way I've found is to do your daily and just stockpile soldiery. Doing your Expert Roulette every day will grant you some extra maps every week, and this is further added if you're also doing High Roulette and Trial Roulette. Main Story is a good shot in the arm, too, but we're now talking four different DF events every day. You're still likely going to need to do this for five weeks or so, and that's... less daunting than thirty thousand gems but still not exactly smooth.

 

Speedrunning dungeons only goes so far, especially as a DPS. In a properly chainsawing group you can get through the new experts in 12-15 minutes but nothing will compare to Speedflox sadly. If you've got the game time every day, roulettes (and beastman dailies, if you can poach six max-level ones for soldiery, all the better) will smooth things out. Boarskin and Peisteskin maps also give you small piles of soldiery that can add up.

 

This stage marked the "chill, just work at it" sort of mentality. Instead of short lists of objectives to do like the Animus books, the game just drops the whole kaboodle in front of you at once. "Bring me 75 of these" makes the mountain look a lot bigger than it really is. Just keep at it, do your daily and augment it however you can, and try not to think about it too much.

[Aris]

Thank you for the extra info - I'm about to work on my first atma but am otherwise clueless about what's next.  Except that there is a lot of gil involved at some point. And I'll cry lots.

 

Good luck with your relic, Aldotsk!

[Aldotsk]

To the others for the encouraging posts, I really appreciate it. I've had 5 Alexandrites on Mizuho as of right now for Yoshimitsu and I am taking it slow.

 

I've read the posts quite a while ago, but my schedule has been so busy past few days so I have not been able to respond at all.

 

As for Anelia, I've done hunts before 2.4 so I had plenty of Alexandrites saved up even before, so she's up to 26 at the moment. 

 

Yes, Novus~Nexus is really the term where you just have to sit down and take it slow and it'll eventually come. I might as well as just do some FATEs to gain some company seals to buy the items required for Zodiac weapons while at it.

 

Though I think we should really make a decent Relic gear guide for those who has been bashing their heads so they know how this works.

[Warren Castille]

Making a comprehensive guide is a good idea. If no one beats me to it, I'll get working on it later tonight.

[Kirostyle]

Hello! I happened upon this thread and thought I'd offer my two cents. I started my monk Novus back before the Nexus was announced, so I was in no hurry. Between the "Morbid Motivation" daily map quest and casually buying maps from Auriana whenever I happened to have enough, it took me about two months to get all 75. My friends and I never had any luck getting Alexandrites from FATEs.

 

Lately, I've found that hard mode primals and Turn 4 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut are surprisingly fast and easy to spam, even by yourself. The reason why is because of Novus light grinding. You can check here to see what bonus windows are up (if a hard mode primal or Binding Coil turn are listed as "Bright," then it is the current bonus). If something is currently on bonus, you can bet that the queue will be very quick (even if you're DPS!) and the run usually lasts no more than a couple minutes, since a lot of Novus wielders will be queueing up for it repeatedly. I personally find Ifrit, Garuda, and Turn 4 to be the fastest.

 

Even if the bonus is not up, Turn 4 is still pretty easy to queue up for now. People regularly spam this for allagan silk/leather/wootz nuggets, armour/accessories for desynthesis, easy Novus light, and for the Paladin and Warrior mount achievements. 10 soldieries per run may not seem like much, but when you can do 6-10 runs an hour, it adds up. If you happen to get one new person in the party, you'll also get the 100 soldiery bonus!

 

High level roulette is nice, but the queues are usually fairly long, especially if you're a DPS. Also keep in mind that you'll get less soldieries if you happen to get Wanderers' Palace or Amdapor Keep, as opposed to Tamtara (HM), Stone Vigil (HM) or Hullbreaker Isle. It is a bit more fun than repeatedly doing the same trials though, haha. If you get a party full of new people, though, it might take longer than expected. Not sure how high roulettes are now, with the Zodiac weapon quest. I heard it's better than it used to be.

 

One of my friends got their Novus only a week or two after getting their Animus. When I asked them how they did it, the answer was in The Hunt. Basically, they hunted non-stop and bought Alexandrities using Allied Seals, and maps using Tomestones of Mythology (which are, as you know, now bought using Tomestones of Soldiery). They were hunting even when they still had their Animus, so I'm sure they had Alexandrites even before completing the Animus books. Mind you, this was back when non-weekly B rank hunts still gave everyone rewards, so I doubt the same feat would be possible now. But The Hunt is still a very viable option, especially if you happen to be on when all the marks pop!

 

Hope that was a bit helpful. Good luck!

[Zyrusticae]

I completed my Novus in a week and a half just farming Alexandrite from Hunts and the daily quest + occasionally buying maps with myth.

 

I don't know if that's possible anymore with how Hunts are today, but that's how I did it. Granted, getting 11 Alexandrite in a day basically requires you to do nothing else for that day, but even just casually getting 3-4 maps a day should be doable on a relaxed schedule.