So you want an ATMA weapon? A casual guide to success!

[Karnyboy]

Let me give you a scenario first and foremost. I am a busy man, with a full time job and a family on the way and I log roughly 50+ hours a week I have little time to play. When I heard of the system implemented for the relic upgrade via FATE I was cringing, I attempted it and failed, I died a little inside and gave up.

So here is my success story and the steps I took to get it with minimal frustrations. I acquired my final atma on May 25th 2014. Here's what I did to alleviate the grind tension:

1. Limit yourself. My limit was 4 Chocobo summons a day in a row. If I could not get a piece after 2 hours then I moved on and did something else (log off, play with friends)
   
2. Understand you may have no luck at all and come up empty handed. Ignore forum stories of people getting it in one day in 8 hours. This will only depress you. I went for 2.5 weeks of nothing at one point.
   
3. Do not stretch yourself out. Pick one thing to do and stick with it. I found this to be the most important, if I was farming for Atma that's all I was doing, I wasn't caring about capping Soldiery at any point in the week and if I didn't cap I wouldn't let it bother me.
   
4. Form a list to check off. I wrote down all the locations and the Atma obtained from them and as I got them I checked them off, keeps you organized and keeps your focus solid (at least for me). This thread also helps with the in game errors in the quest log. It is correct.
   
5. It's a game, treat it as such, why compare yourself to others who have an ungodly amount of time to play over you? This goes hand in hand of not worrying so much about capping in a week and then grinding out to myth cap and then grinding out crafting levels, beast tribe rep, etc. Know your tolerance level for petty time wasting things and remember, stay focused.
   
6. Believe in superstition. This is just a funny point, but I swear the longer I stayed logged out on a daily basis the more RNGesus favored me.
   
7. Finally, remind yourself when you doubt things will get better that this is an MMO, they will nerf this at some point because 4 years from now to grind out 12 Atmas for another 8 classes would be only something reserved for sadists and OCD gamers.

I hope that this helps someone and gives them hope. It worked for me it can work for you!

[Raeanya]

I play with a similar mindset. I haven't even started ATMA yet, I still need to upgrade to zenith first. I have not yet capped sol, though I did come within 45 tomes of capping during one week. I have about 2 hours of available play time per day, with more on the weekends, mostly. There are nights where I am leveling my sch, and I get so wrapped up in that because I get so close to the next level, or I unlocked the next job quest and want to get that done, that I never touch my main (whm). My goal most nights is to run my roulettes for sch, then roulettes for whm, then whatever else I have time for after that. Some nights, I don't even get a chance to do anything other than the low level roulette. I finally got CT unlocked last week, and ran it once so far. I want to run it until I get the Royal Set for glamour, and I already know that will take me a few weeks, if not longer. I have yet to run any Coil, but I do have the first set unlocked. I'm only ilvl78 on my whm, so I am nervous about Coil. Same goes with Garuda Ex. And I'm on You've Selected Regicide for the main story patch. Basically what I am saying is that there is so much that I want to do, but I don't have the time, so I've accepted the fact that it will take me months to get to Levi Ex and Coil2. By the time I get there, we will have new content, and I will be behind again. It happened before, I finally unlock WP and have some nice runs there, but BFlox HM comes out and suddenly WP is useless. c'est la vie!

[Erudain]

Useful hint in case people forgets.
If you are alone trying to do a low-mid level notorious monster FATE and you lose what heals/cross-skills you have and your Choco is not a healer: you can de-sync and use your natural lv50 heal regen/cross skills/high lv pots and sync again to continue fighting. Boss will no reset so long as he keeps hitting you (for squat dmg)

Edit: same thing can be done when aggroing trash mobs outside the fate mobs due to lv sync...de-sync, one shot trash mobs, sync again.

[Karnyboy]

c'est la vie!

I have yet to get past garuda Ex and Past Turn 1 in Coil, no big deal really to me, the content will come when it's due. I just find myself disheartened on missing out on story elements.

[Bloodclaw]

#6 I totally believe. I found that this bonus seems to reset every 3 days. You can get really lucky after that everyone once in a while, but after 3 days, after I have been logged off for a while, I will start farming for about an hour and BAM! get an atma. Up to 4 now, but it has taken some time and spreading out my farming.

[Black91CRX]

The atma "zodiac clock" theory worked wonders for me. It may just have been a coincidence but I had several atmas drop within the first fate when I started using it.

[Ave_Ohki]

I exploit the system.

Here, I fixed your post.

[Kaze3434]

doesnt mean too much, but quest log was fixed a while back.

[AlrikRouge]

Thanks for te upbeat post and thread.

I, too, took it on this approach, but refused to be in one location for longer than an hour at once. I kept my main focus on DF roulette during the week, and would do one or two fates in between dungeons, having only 1-2 hours a night.

While not nearly a fast as some people I know in-game (who have 2 animus and working on 3rd - yeah, 18+ books done...), I'm currently now working on my 4th book, only doing DF roulette and the occasional dungeon to get my tombs stacked up for the next one.

For me personally, when I focused on farming for atmas, I never got them. When it became a casual go, I got one every 3 days or so, and even accidentally getting two duplicates. Good luck for me on those!

And to everyone else, too.

[Kinseykinz]

Also, I found for me, it was helpful to keep track of how many fates I had to do in each zone before I saw and Atma. I did this by noting how many FATES I had towards my 'Date With Destiny' achievement and writing down that number before farming. Then when I got my Atma, I wrote down the new number of fates I had completed, did a little math and could figure out how many fates I actually had done in each zone. This lead to me knowing that for the most part, I would see a drop after 30-40 fates....sometimes I'd get lucky, and sometimes not...but it helped keep me motivated if I looked and saw 'oh, I only did 23 even though I've been out here awhile...I can keep going' Usually, I'd get it not too long after that.

Oh, and I always put my atma on my retainers....I swear they drop faster that way....but probably a silly thing.