Why is "It's something to do" apparently a valid defense?

[Reilyn]

Well, there was actually a lot of feedback about the original questline, too. The fact that we *don't* have to do challenging content for the Zodiac weapon and now the Anima weapon was because people wanted the weapon *not* to need challenging content.

And that is what grinds my gears. Have my like.

Rewards for challenging content have typically been in raid content ever since.

This annoys me even more so since unlike previous raid tiers, the relic is at ilvl of gordian/upgraded eso currently, and will remain on par with bis weapons until 3.2, or if they decide to bump up gordian weapon ilvl like they did with T5 weapons in 2.0 before 3.2 comes around.

As a result; Hilariously enough, bis weapons for DRK, WAR, and SCH to name a few don't come from any content resembling a challenge at all, unless you count trying not to fall asleep.

My co-healer and I go through healing savage manipulator with MP constantly <5k, and having to deal with sporadic damage. My reward is: no title, a mount that looks like crap, sounds literally like garbage (seriously, it's the sound of a bunch of trashcans), and the chance at a weapon... that gets outdone by doing content anyone can do while dozing off...?

[Alahra]

My co-healer and I go through healing savage manipulator with MP constantly <5k, and having to deal with sporadic damage. My reward is: no title, a mount that looks like crap, sounds literally like garbage (seriously, it's the sound of a bunch of trashcans), and the chance at a weapon... that gets outdone by doing content anyone can do while dozing off...?

Yes, the general tradeoff is that you can, with a solid group, get that weapon much, much earlier than the Relic/Anima questline (as the "max level" weapons for that avenue are always unobtainable until well after the raid content is released. Raid weapons are BiS for several classes as well (but that's an issue of itemization and the generally poor functioning of secondary stats in the game so far). They've at least deadened the impact of RNG on raiding thanks to the addition of the token system, at least.