Has the question of how many people have cleared T9 vs. obtained Novus ever been...

[Bushido_Brown]

Exactly my thoughts. The amount of time to spirit bond my own materia, or craft and sell items to buy materia, combined with the RNG to meld that materia (if you're going to go through all that, why not go for top stats?), and still not have the strongest weapon in the game... really!? I'd much rather take my 1/9 RNG chance for an HA weapon, especially knowing that the lockout will be uplifted in just a few months to grind it out for the weapon, which will then be once again obsolete with Third Coil out. The soldiery weapon is more than good enough until that drop for me. I'm definitely not knocking anyone willing to go for their Novus, but for someone that only has a few hours a week to play, the Novus is not happening for me, ever.

[Tranquil]

I'd much rather take my 1/8 RNG chance for an HA weapon

It's 1/9. Arcanist has two jobs.

Also, some of you people in this thread are talking about the issue as if you are "supposed" to get at least one of these alternatives easily. HA is the best in slot -weapon, you will need a group, skills and luck for it. Novus is the 2nd best, you will need time, effort and then some. (But you never need to do anything challenging like raid-content). Your easiest i110 -route is obviously getting the soldiery weapon, which in most cases is nearly as viable as the Novus weapon anyway, and easy to obtain now. Considering the relic weapon will always be updated, even if it's only the 2nd best weapon in any given patch - it is definitely worth it to do.

Seems balanced enough to me.

[Bushido_Brown]

whoops, thanks, forgot they don't share books after darklight (have yet to even start leveling those classes >.<). The Novus weapon requires just the same amount of luck, if not more, since RNG gets to play with your emotions after the first 4 melds (which was the main deterrent for me, no way I'm grinding that much materia with a chance of failing to meld it, and lose it in the process). The 2 options are definitely balanced, but being worth going for the Novus is really just as much of a matter of opinion as the HA weapon is, different strokes for different folks. As of right now, the Novus just seems like a time/gil-sink that adds nothing to the end game storyline, which is just my opinion that no one asked for