Empyrean weapons are now standard equipment.

[hiko]

I would say this is about standard, but with the introduction of +2 items in every zone and body/hands from much easier mobs, I would say having some +2's is becoming pretty common as well.

and that also help weapons being more "standard".
the "harder" part for a "casual player with no friend wanting to help" was 80 item because you couldn't farm with /sh group (no reward for other). Now you can
/sh "visionNM" +2 item do you need it, weapon item locked
and you get people

[Dew]

Still don't understand the people claiming Emps can be done in 1-2 days. The moogle doesn't hand a weapon with all the trails up to the collect trials done. You still have to spend time on them. No emp can be made in 1-2 days no matter how fast you are. People fail to realize that trails before the Abyssea nms are part of the weapons. The nms will add least 2-3 days if they don't take 6-20hrs for 1 repop. So no matter how fast you are, no one will ever get an emp done from start to 90 or even 85 in 1-2 days.

[sruon]

Yeah, you can.

[Dew]

Sure you can, cause camping the 9 nms before the collect trials isn't part of the emps right?

[Shoko]

Sure you can, cause camping the 9 nms before the collect trials isn't part of the emps right?

When someone says "We finish an emp in such and such time" they ONLY mean the Abyssea portion, not the NMs/VNMs before that. Not sure how you missed this.

[Atomic_Skull]

Sure you can, cause camping the 9 nms before the collect trials isn't part of the emps right?

Not really no. Everything up to the VNM can be done solo and is so ridiculously easy that it really doesn't count.

VNM's can be completed in a few hours with 2-3 people thanks to 4 copies of each NMs existing in 4 zones with a 1 hour repop in each and so again they don't count because doing them is trivial.

[rog]

Vnms can all be soloed too even, though depending on job/nm, can potentially take unrealistically long.

[Kwate]

Still don't understand the people claiming Emps can be done in 1-2 days. The moogle doesn't hand a weapon with all the trails up to the collect trials done. You still have to spend time on them. No emp can be made in 1-2 days no matter how fast you are. People fail to realize that trails before the Abyssea nms are part of the weapons. The nms will add least 2-3 days if they don't take 6-20hrs for 1 repop. So no matter how fast you are, no one will ever get an emp done from start to 90 or even 85 in 1-2 days.

slight exaggeration by some people, but can be done pretty quickly if you have a LS to help, (which people think everyone have). not happening in a duo or trio setting, especially when you get to stage 2, where you need to compete over claim timed spawns.

[Glamdring]

I'm just going to come right out and say it. Empyreans are now so easy, and their performance so far beyond "normal" weapons that if a job doesn't have one it is essentially gimped. They are simple enough to upgrade that they can be considered standard equipment now.

Especially now that leveling has become so fast, the couple weeks to upgrade your empyrean once you reach lvl 90 can be considered part of leveling a job.

Kinda depends on WHICH empyrean you choose, some are easier than others. I remember my bst ele axe I did for magic defense, the light path. About half of it was pet kills in sea. No pets, so jugs were mandatory. No light weather ever. Even though the kills were fairly easy (I was doing 75-80 at the time, outside Abyssea, solo), getting Lightsday to allign with my play times was a problem. It ended up taking me most of a month to get past it, and I have 3-4 hours weekdays and 10-12 a day on weekends. Now I'm doing pet kills on Soulflayers under Thunder. I'm doing it solo in Abyssea. Yes, there is thunder weather in the Mire, but it is not dependable and soulflayers don't go down quick to my pup, especially if I need it to heal me as well, so that's slow, too.

Even worse are those doing the NM paths, especially on an NM that's popular with several different trials. Between fighting for claims, farming pops (for those that use pops) and getting people to help, especially if the leader isn't allowing the jewels, etc. to go to the helpers this is not just a gimme. Nor is it necessarily fast. Couple that with most of us having several 90's, frequently dualwielding so we need 2 of them and while they may be "standard" they are standard as "work in progress".

[blowfin]

VNM's can be completed in a few hours with 2-3 people thanks to 4 copies of each NMs existing in 4 zones with a 1 hour repop in each and so again they don't count because doing them is trivial.

A few hours per VNM stage is far more realistic. 2 would be a bare minimum and then that's probably excluding time wasted looking for the VNMs and time taken to go and visit the moogle to move onto the next trial. Plus if you're teaming up with a group and both VNM's are needed that's going to add a nice chunk of time in there too.

So, realistically if people aren't breaking any world records for getting stuff done, 6-12 hours of gameplay is probably a decent estimate for most players for the VNM stages.

It's also the first stage where teaming up is really going to help you get things done faster.