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

[Alahra]

There will be weapons that beat relic on patch 3.2 that's the start of a raid cycle. These relic won't get an upgrade till the end of that cycle. There was no real reason why these weapons were delayed only cause they usually want to have people raid first.

Yes, but you're forgetting something crucial: typically, weapons at the beginning of the new raid cycle aren't available to non-raiders. While tomestone weapons didn't require raiding in HW so far, the whole gear paradigm was a bit different than usual, so it's too early to say either way whether the Animas will be immediately invalidated in February or not. There's just too much we don't know and you're assuming quite a bit yourself.

And just because something isn't BiS doesn't mean it's not relevant. I kept up with Relic all through ARR and never needed to buy a tomestone weapon for my main as a result, as I'm not a hardcore raider (I don't typically start a new raid tier until after the odd-numbered patch and I've completely skipped Alex Savage thus far). Were their better weapons available at the start of each raid tier? Yes. But I still got plenty of use out of both Omnilex and Yoshimitsu at their various stages.

If we were to strictly hew to ARR's weapon release schedule, actually, HW hasn't even been anomalous with regard to weapon availability. Relics in 2.0 (the top-level weapons outside of Allagan ones) were available outside of Binding Coil, but all future top-level weapons weren't available at the release of a new raid tier. It wouldn't be surprising to if something similar happens in HW now that all of the various pieces are in place.

But again, we simply don't know yet--we need more information to have some idea of what they're going to do.

[Kallera]

And just because something isn't BiS doesn't mean it's not relevant....

If that is the case, why is there so much resistance when BiS items are made for activities that don't involve raiding?

Just the suspicion of gear that is BiS and not in a raid has raiders up in arms and claiming that raid groups will discriminate more and make things "mandatory", I find it far harder to convince them of that statement.

[Alahra]

If that is the case, why is there so much resistance when BiS items are made for activities that don't involve raiding?

Just the suspicion of gear that is BiS and not in a raid has raiders up in arms and claiming that raid groups will discriminate more and make things "mandatory", I find it far harder to convince them of that statement.

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, given context.

But my point was that, even if there is an i220 weapon available from tomestones in February, the i210 weapon can still be relevant for a chunk of the population if previous trends of that weapon not being available without raiding resume. Even if the weapon can be gotten without raiding, personally I would focus on gear items before the weapon in that case, since I'd know I would still be getting the relic during the new raid tier and prefer to spend my tomestones efficiently (especially since I try to gear three jobs with tomestone gear each patch).

Frankly, I don't particularly care if raiders get upset that non-raiders can eventually have gear that is top item level. The acquisition of top gear for non-raiders is already delayed by several months, and my honest impression is that hardcore raiders that actually get upset about that are in a very small (but vocal) minority.