Relic weapon: what should I do?

Hello! I'm going to be hitting level 50 soonish, so I did some reading on relic weapons.

From the sound of it, I can either level up the 50 weapon to the 60 weapon in one huge endeavor, or tack on an extra step at level 60 to skip the 50 version and go right to 60.

Is the 50 version worth going through and upgrading? Or is it better to coast to 60 and skip it?

Skip. The 50 relic isn't required for anything anymore (used to be you needed to do part of it to unlock coil). If you did finish it, it removes a step you can do in a day easily for the 60 relic, and takes much more work than that to do.

The "extra step" at the start of the 60 relic has been nerfed already, it's just doing a handful of FATEs and you are done with it.
Absolutely not worth it to do the 50 relic for it.

But the 50 relic is very nice-looking, so you might want to keep it in mind to one day maybe do it for glamour :)

Don't do either of them. Get one of the weapons that are much easier to obtain and use the time you would have spent grinding relic doing something that's actually fun.

The 50 relic is just glamour at this point.
Do it if you want access to the weapon models or are interested in the quests, skip it if you just want a strong weapon at 60.
It'd be much faster to do all the steps at 60 than to do the entire 50 relic just to skip the first step.

Relic weapons in general are long grinds. There are quicker and easier weapons to get at 60 if all you want is something strong to use. The relic is worthwhile if you like having a long term goal to grind away at between patches.

If you want it for the glamour, do it. If you want it for the sake of: "Will it be useful?," skip it. It (the level 50 relic) caps at item level 135 when it's fully completed. You'll easily get weapons through the MSQ all the way up to 60 that you'll be replacing quickly, and the first part of the level 60 relic weapon quest is just a fate grind for crystals.

I don't think it's worth to get the level 50 Relic and upgrading it... It's probably faster to get to 60 than going through all the stuff needed to get it finished all the way to the end.

And even if you did, all it would do is reduce the amount of FATEs you need to do at 60 for the first step of the Anima weapon.

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Originally Posted by Launched

Don't do either of them. Get one of the weapons that are much easier to obtain and use the time you would have spent grinding relic doing something that's actually fun.

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Except that..you can totally do whatever you consider fun and that will progress the relic, because you can do the 60 relic steps with just about any content :rolleyes:

Also, other weapons are random, stats may suck in one patch or be good in another. Relic is always an alternative stat set-up, and in later stages even let's you choose your own stats.
AND unless you do really well in raiding (which most of the playerbase does not), Relic is the only way to obtain a weapon with a similar item level in the same patch.
So yes, it is actually worth it (the 60 one, not the 50 one).

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

And even if you did, all it would do is reduce the amount of FATEs you need to do at 60 for the first step of the Anima weapon.

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No it actually let's you skip that step completely. Not a single fate needs to be done :)
But since the step was nerfed, you get a crystal in nearly every FATE, so it will only take 1-2 hours to finish the first step now.

Thank you for the information. I will probably go back and do the 50 for glamour eventually, but that will be down the road.

Thank you again.

The 50 relic quest is classic. It's worth running for the experience of having done it. It's where it all started and you'll get to know Gerolt. :) I would recommending doing it first.

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Originally Posted by Atoli

No it actually let's you skip that step completely. Not a single fate needs to be done :)
But since the step was nerfed, you get a crystal in nearly every FATE, so it will only take 1-2 hours to finish the first step now.

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Ah, I've heard that it gave 2 of every crystal... But yea, even if it lets you entirely skip it, not really worth the work these days...

The only other thing I'd mention is that the completed 50 relic did get me almost entirely the way to 60 without having to worry about upgrading my weapon until near the end. Though I haven't done one since all the nerfs came, so it still may not be worth the time investment versus how quickly we level these days.

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Originally Posted by CaptainLagbeard

Ah, I've heard that it gave 2 of every crystal... But yea, even if it lets you entirely skip it, not really worth the work these days...

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I guess that was just a slight misunderstanding :)
Turning in your 50 relic gives you 2 crystals (the soul and star one that you need to bring to Azys Lla to finish the quest) and by word of mouth that probably turned into "2 crystals of each element" that you normally get from fates :)

@time investment:
I'm currently doing the 50 BRD relic and the 60 AST and NIN relics for glamour.
The book step of the 50 relic has not been nerfed at all and I've been at it for weeks now (dungeon queues and FATE timers make this a pain in the a**), while I did the first step for 60 NIN relic in 1 1/2 hours and finished the same step for AST in the same evening while waiting for NIN's dungeon queues.

The book step was nerfed heavily. It used to be killing 100 mobs, now it is what, 30? Also, you can probably, depending on the dungeon, run them unsync'd. That alone is a huge nerf to many of the dungeons.

At 50 just go full Ironworks, it will carry you until 55ish.

I did the FATE step laat Saturday. Overall, it took about on hour on average of FATE grinding for each stack of crystals in each area.

The Forelands, however, took about 3 hours. The Churning Mists took 5... FATEs. It was super fast.


I do think the first major step of the 50 relic is still worth it if you have any interest in lore around your job.

Otherwise, skip it.

Skip to the 60 stages for the weapon.
Play the 50 stages for the glamours/NPC developments/enjoyment/achievements.

The fact that the level 50 relic is really only useful as a glam is the reason to get it. Not avoid it. No doubt about it, if you are the type of player who wants to speed their way to HW and to level 60, the Lv50 relic will slow you down a good deal. You can very likely get to 60 in the time it takes you to complete it, but hear me out.

It's the glams in this game that have longevity. You may have noticed during the leveling stages how quickly your most up to date gear becomes outdated. Well, this continues post 50. The way I look at it is you get your glam(s), and you essentially level them up by getting the most up to date equipment and then glamour over them. You maintain the LOOK you worked hard for through the glamour system. I am currently working on my Lv50 relic for my SCH, and once I have it, it will be the last weapon glamour I use for this job, each upgrade I get on my way to 60 will be glamoured over with this book. It's a personal preference for me, but I want this look @50, not @60.

Another note is that nothing beats the fully upgraded relic until level 56 I believe. It is iLv 135, and the closest to that is the augmented ironworks arms which is iLv130. There are iLv115 @ lv 50, and iLv125 @52 that are very cheap purchases off of the MB if you choose to go with the easy road to HW.

It's a fairly quick quest to get the base version of the relic, and you will be doing the hard mode primals (Ifrit, Garuda, Titan) at some point anyway so might as well get the relic. It's also cheap to upgrade it to i90 until you can get the i120 via tomes or get dungeon weapons.