Relic weapon: what should I do?

[Launched]

Don't do either of them. Get one of the weapons that are much easier to obtain and use the time you would have spent grinding relic doing something that's actually fun.

[Atoli]

Don't do either of them. Get one of the weapons that are much easier to obtain and use the time you would have spent grinding relic doing something that's actually fun.

Except that..you can totally do whatever you consider fun and that will progress the relic, because you can do the 60 relic steps with just about any content

Also, other weapons are random, stats may suck in one patch or be good in another. Relic is always an alternative stat set-up, and in later stages even let's you choose your own stats.
AND unless you do really well in raiding (which most of the playerbase does not), Relic is the only way to obtain a weapon with a similar item level in the same patch.
So yes, it is actually worth it (the 60 one, not the 50 one).

And even if you did, all it would do is reduce the amount of FATEs you need to do at 60 for the first step of the Anima weapon.

No it actually let's you skip that step completely. Not a single fate needs to be done
But since the step was nerfed, you get a crystal in nearly every FATE, so it will only take 1-2 hours to finish the first step now.

[CaptainLagbeard]

No it actually let's you skip that step completely. Not a single fate needs to be done
But since the step was nerfed, you get a crystal in nearly every FATE, so it will only take 1-2 hours to finish the first step now.

Ah, I've heard that it gave 2 of every crystal... But yea, even if it lets you entirely skip it, not really worth the work these days...

[Atoli]

Ah, I've heard that it gave 2 of every crystal... But yea, even if it lets you entirely skip it, not really worth the work these days...

I guess that was just a slight misunderstanding
Turning in your 50 relic gives you 2 crystals (the soul and star one that you need to bring to Azys Lla to finish the quest) and by word of mouth that probably turned into "2 crystals of each element" that you normally get from fates

@time investment:
I'm currently doing the 50 BRD relic and the 60 AST and NIN relics for glamour.
The book step of the 50 relic has not been nerfed at all and I've been at it for weeks now (dungeon queues and FATE timers make this a pain in the a**), while I did the first step for 60 NIN relic in 1 1/2 hours and finished the same step for AST in the same evening while waiting for NIN's dungeon queues.