Granted by the time you finish the 210 step, the majority of people will have the aether oils to instantly complete the 230 step
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There are many people who can only play 3-4 days in a week who've already gotten their 210. In fact I'm pretty sure since it's been months that there would be people who could log in 1-2 days in a week that managed to get their 210 already. It's not a hard step, you earn the items as you play the game the way you want to play it.
If you think the step is too hard, wait for the nerf that comes in 3.4 or whenever Yoshida decides to implement one.
It was indirectly nerfed by the increase in Tomestones yield and the addition of two Beast Tribes that provide the items. I don't quite know that we'll see additional softening of the step until it's pretty late in the patch season.
I'm still on the 210 step for a number of reasons: disinterest (largely), not attempting to grind the unidentifiable items (and with even less gil/desire to pursue the crafts), the stats on the MCH relic were less favorable than other weapons I'd rather work/clear harder content for, and I didn't even like the look of it, so glamour wasn't even an option.
Sitting at 18/19/20/20, with no crafts, all the oils, and slowly starting to get Umbrites cause there's nothing else to do with Esos. . . By the time I might actually complete this, it'll be time for the next relic, and I'm only doing this one because I had promised to give it a fair chance.
I have yet to be motivated or inspired to even WANT a relic, present or future.
If you want the relic. Grind it out. The 210 stage is still relevant to the grind. The effects of the difficulty are cumulative. You can use your i230s instead of your i200. In that sense the grind is slightly nerfed. I don't see them directly nerfing anything until 4.0.
EDIT: if they were going to nerf something about it, I would decrease the number of Alex normals needed, since the content is less relevant now and harder to solo queue.
There's not much point in the relic besides glamor. It's gonna be obsolete by the time you finish it anyway so what's the point? I told Gerolt to screw off this time around and it was the best decision I ever made
Worry not, as 3.35 will undoubtedly "Coming into it's Own." Though I'm currently unsure whether it's going to be because they're going to introduce new tomes, or if they're just going to make it so that they exchange 1 for 1 for all of the Precision items you can get from A1-4.