As I'm going through my first battle relic for Dawntrail I figured I would try and collect my thoughts on what I find personally to be the tripping points and what I'd like to see adjusted in the future relics.
I know that many disliked Endwalker's implementation of purely changing it to tomestones, so in that regard I do appreciate them bringing back the actual relic steps.
And I do not mind that the subsequent relics are purely tomestomes, I think that's a fair compromise. On that same token however you have people who would like to do all the relics the hard way.
So maybe that's one department where the game might want to reward a player for doing it the hard way in the future, but also; Not lock the player out of the process if they decide to go the tomestone route first. Always allow players to do the difficult route as well.
The reward for doing it the difficult way should be something players can visibly wear on their person, maybe it's an accessory item or a facewear. Maybe just a title and achievement.
As for the process itself, I think for the demiatma stage, it isn't as bad as people make it out to be, but I totally get the frustrations of the much lower drop % especially if you're left off with needing three of the same demiatma and are getting those outside of OC.
This is something where I struggled with and I wished the game was more clearer on it, I'll give you a rundown of what happened;
I gathered 3x5 of the unique demiatma within Occult Crescent, but never got a drop of my 6th demiatma at all. So people in OC recommended me to go do FATE's outside in the overworld, which I did know I could do. What I didn't know is that each of the demiatma are unique to a specific area in Dawntrail. So what ended up happening is that I was collecting demiatma in Living Memory for 2hours until someone mentioned it to me and I needed to go to Yak'tel.
There must have been a message at some point in the story saying they are unique like that, which I just missed, but I still would have hoped the game informed me more directly about this with some kind of notification.
For example, the item descriptions are very vague, which confused me;
"Only on the Occult Crescent or during perpetual thunderstorms can demiatma take in this hue"
Even when I knew demiatma could be collected outside of OC, I legitimately thought the perpetual thunderstorm just meant a weather condition within OC and was not a "hint" to which locale it would drop in.
And I've done 2x ARR relics, but with ARR atma, the description is clearer;
"The crystallized essence of the fallen, won from a battle in outer La Noscea."
(granted someone might not be directed to FATE's with "battle")
Regardless, this is just my personal experience where I think the game could be directing the player to a correct direction. For example there could be a message if you get an atma you no longer need saying something like;
"You already have plenty of these, try finding one in a different locale." If you are outside of OC.
That alone would have immediately made me double and triple check what I was doing wrong. Again the above is purely a personal tripping stone.
The crafting step I think was fine, at the very least it gives crafters somewhat of a source for some income.
Lastly the Aetherwell system;
The moment I saw this my only question was "why?". Let me explain, my issue with this is how it limits the player purely into duty roulette and specifically only four specific roulettes. This issue is amplified when you know other similar light farms allow the player to do content outside of dungeons or raids and in fact you are not limited to a specific duty roulette either. I'm unsure if it was always like this, or if the devs allowed other processes like FATE's to lightfarms later in patches.
Regardless, it highlights the aspect that Dawntrail relics, while the process is simplified from previous known relic steps, it also limits the player waaay too much.
This is not to say that the "all tomestones" is good either, because what that system does is make people do what the most efficient way is. So everyone is doing Hunt's through discord 24/7. Or whatever else gives the best tomes per hour.
So how would I fix Aetherwell? Well I would reduce all four current pools by 1000 light.
Add a 5th pool of 4000 that comes from FATE's and Hunts, but the unique aspect of this pool is that it also fills all other pools with a small amount of light, this would alleviate the aspect of downtime within the game. If you play during the night and no queue's pop-up you're still able to do the grind, just slower.
That alone, would make Atherwell something that doesn't need to be unlocked entirely. It can still be limited to duty roulette if it really wants to stay that way. But I would imagine the simpler solution would just be to unlock it out of Duty Roulette hell sometime later in patches.
And I do hope they increase the droprate of demiatma outside of OC from 5% to ~10%. Considering not everyone enjoys OC and FATE's not always being super active in overworld unless it's patchday or something.
Peek into DT Battle Relics
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03-02-2026, 01:06 AMKirutsukiPeek into DT Battle Relics
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03-02-2026, 02:35 AMDerio
My biggest gripe with the DT battle relics is how you cannot do the entire relic through OC alone, you know the actual place where the relics come from. Also that OC is the least most effective way to complete the relic, which is a major oversight.
OP I like your aetherwell suggestion. -
03-02-2026, 03:06 AMKirutsukiYea I think OC is heavily overlooked for no reason especially in the Aetherwell step. I think adding in the FATE/Hunt pool addition, would also include fates and CE's in OC 100%.Quote:
Originally Posted by Derio
Just make it something like 200total light per fate, 100 into it's own pool and the rest divided between the rest of the pools, so 25light per pool.
That'd make it so that the FATE pool would fill in 40 completed FATE's and when complete is just keeps doing that until the other pools are filled.
Considering how bad filling in the Alliance Raid can be, adding in a +25 from every completed FATE would do wonders to sanity.
EDIT: For hunts I think it should follow a similar structure to tomestones, where the total of a hunt train would ammount to ~500-650light. -
03-02-2026, 12:29 PMEspon
It would be nice if there alternate ways to get the ore other than tomestones. For example, allow us to trade silver coins from OC, bicolor gemstones from FATEs, and societal tokens from DT and EW for them. They did something similar with HW relics so that you're not just stuck grinding dungeons mostly.
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03-02-2026, 02:19 PMKirutsukiThis would make sense, atleast puts some value in going into OC.Quote:
Originally Posted by Espon
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03-02-2026, 02:23 PMLisseyCrowe
What bothers me the most is that in these last two steps it's still the same Tomestone grind as Endwalker. "Go run a bunch of roulettes before we let you acquire the relics through tomes" doesn't mean a whole lot when the way to get tomes is through roulettes anyway. All it means is you spend more weeks collecting relics for off-jobs until you finally acquire the right to purchase the new ones and the cycle repeats.
Occult Crescent should be the efficient farm, with other, potentially daily and random methods added to spice it up and roulettes being a back-up "if you really don't want to do anything, you can just do your daily roulettes for a month" option. Otherwise I'm sorry, but at least the Endwalker relics didn't feel like they just slapped an extra "well the new relic is out, but not really" mandatory timer. -
03-02-2026, 03:02 PMKirutsukiExactly, there is not much of a difference. But there is Hunts, that were much more viable way to get tomestones than any dutyroulette, but not everyone does hunts, so you're stuck in duty roulette if that's the case.Quote:
Originally Posted by LisseyCrowe
OC 100% should have been part of Aetherwell Array 100%, even if it's something like mob farming, atleast that would make it so people actually mobfarm there. I dunno, just spitballing ideas. -
03-02-2026, 03:32 PMAbsurdity
For some inexplicable reason they seem vehemently opposed to the method they used in Heavensward, where at certain stages you could progress your relic through like 5 different avenues. Letting you do it through crafting, roulettes, extreme trials, beast tribes, even grand company seals.
They already had a good blueprint and they just don't want to use it. -
03-02-2026, 06:33 PMGwenkatsuComing from the other side of the spectrum, I have to second this. I gave up on DT, never played OC, and am currently having fun with 2 chars in HW and SB. And in the last couple of weeks the amount of players I meet in low level roulettes with very high iLvl, and very low IQ is mind boggling. When I get one of those in Qarn/normal as tank, I already know what's going to happen: Drags all the trash into the first boss room, then dies to a couple of non-interrupted Final Stings. Next try they drag all the trash before the boss room, and die again, due to the exact same issue. And one of those heroes in a 50/60 dungeon? It's faster to leave directly, than watching that drama unfold.Quote:
Originally Posted by LisseyCrowe
It's like this forum's attitude "everything is easy except savage, and I can do savage first-try with my eyes closed anyway" has turned into flesh and is now haunting me in my low level roulettes.
So giving the uber leet endgame players some uber leet endgame stuff to do for their relics, except wasting my time in roulettes, would be a very welcome change. -
03-02-2026, 07:26 PMGarruss
I'm happy for the option to do the Relic outside of OC, it's always nice to have the option when having to do the grind for the relic. I'm not a fan of OC at all and I am happy to be able to get my relic without stepping in there
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03-02-2026, 11:24 PMCatwhoRight? I've got so many poetics I can't use for anything because I'm DONE with all the other relics. So I buy ore, and turn that into dirt to sell. Sure would be nice if I could use the Poetics for any part of the current relic step.Quote:
Originally Posted by Absurdity
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03-04-2026, 01:09 AMKirutsukiFair, but that ignores the fact that relics were tied to OC and that people were still doing OC pretty actively, even now. There should have been a way to things both in and out of OC, but also not in the way that it's just pure Tomestone grind like what EW had.Quote:
Originally Posted by Garruss
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03-04-2026, 07:24 PMNinaran
I am currently in the Aetherwell stage and it is brutal. That entire thing will take me a good month probably as I simply do not have the time to do all four roulettes every single day, or even multiple times. Not to mention that it'll also mean that those roulettes are the ONLY thing I do during that time.
It is a bit much.