New to Hydatos: Need Some Clarification on a Few Topics

Good morning! As a new player to Hydatos, I'm confused about some aspects of this level/stage/instance; questions below:

1) Crystal Drops: I'm noticing that NM's only provide about 6 crystals after defeat. I need 300 just for the relic, and that's not even including the armor. Does this get better? This seems like more of a grind than people complain about. Are there easier ways to get crystals?

2) Notorious Monsters [Spawning/Farming]: I've been in a handful of instances and this seems to be (anecdotally) non-existent. You'll hear shouts for PW spawn or that Ovni is up (both lvl 60 bosses), but the vast majority of the instance is AFK at the entrance or at the bunny fate location. Is this normal? I'm trying to level, but this seems impossible - which leads to my next question.

3) Leveling? Am I Too Late?: Dovetailing off the last question, since players are not spawning NM's regularly, and there doesn't seem to be chain/mob farms, how is one to level after challenge log is complete? Pyros at 52+ is too slow. I'm worried that I'm too late to Hydatos with it being a month old and will need to wait until it's nerfed before people start coming back into the instance. Is this a valid concern?

Hello there !

1) It is slow. Apart from one special NM, the max you can get on higher level NMs is 10. It might be nerfed by the end of 4.5
2) It is typical Eureka downtime behaviour, sadly. But I seem to see a good amount of Fate spawn parties there, because all low levels NMs are easy to spawn.
3) Doing your weekly challenge log is a reliable amount of "free" EXP. You technically can solo chain mobs of your level / one level higher but it's slow. You can solo elementals with the Reflect Logos. Ovni is a good source of "free" EXP too, as it spawns every 30mins.

I must admit I finished my two weapons in the first 10 days and then I have not been too much there, as I went back for a third weapon. I think you should go there regularly, because people flow between various Eureka instances :)

Ovni and Support fate are 40 crystals at 59. That helps a lot. Crystal drops and tomes are always slow when leveling until you get higher. 350 isn't that bad when you're leveling a character. Additional relics are a bit more work but I suspect we will see crystal drops increased somewhat soon like they did with Pyros.

1. The bulk of your crystals come from Ovni and the Support Fate (when a group go into BA). The support fate is a full 30 if it pops. It's still a tedious grind but there's no light farm step at all.

2. What tends to happen in a fresh instance is all the west side NM's are spawned easily very quickly. Ovni tends to spawn during this, a group goes into BA. You might get a Support Fate, you might not. But around this stage the instance is far less populated since 56 are in the raid, the east side is far more difficult to spawn NM's and most people don't bother. Sometimes you'll enter an instance at this stage, the best thing is try and hop until you find a relatively fresh instance.

3. You can solo level on sprites using Reflect. As long as they aren't way above your level (+6-8 is ok) they're generally good exp. You can find where they spawn here: https://ffxiv-eureka.com/maps/hydatos.jpg
There generally aren't chain groups, but when you get an instance with NM's the exp comes in fast too. If you want the bunny mount, I'd recommend doing the bunny fate every time it pops in-between NM's, it can take a long time to farm. Bunny exp isn't great either but it does add up.

Higher level NM's drop more Crystal's, but are generally rare.

You'll get a bulk of your crystals from west side nm and ovni.

People suck at spawning things. I have zoned in to instances in progress and solo spawned 5 or 6 nm's (sometimes there's another group working on a different nm as well) while people do squat. Sometimes theres a group or two rotating through things to spawn them.

You can solo level in there, but the effectiveness is probably based on your class. Warrior + Martialist logogram can keep a chain going on +1 mobs if you want to slowly trudge your way around the map with no real fear of dropping chain or dying. Reflect works as well, though some levels of some sprites mutate into melee machines that stop casting (ohgodwhy).