I have a friend doing the old relic to avoid the atma phase on the new relic. I mean I think he really hates atma farming, but is this a thing?

It seems to me that doing the old relic to skip the first phase of the new relic would take longer. I know it got nerfed to all hell though, so maybe I'm wrong.

I farmed the crystals and it took me like 3-4 nights of just random farming, so it didn't seem bad to me.