A case of chronic gear imbalance

[Cordie]

Well, to be fair a fully upgraded relic should be far and away the best weapon in the game, as it requires far more effort to earn.

Sadly, so true.. and the reason I'm avoiding the relic quest at the moment, since I've seen this play out over and over again in all patches since 2.5 (I have not seen what happened before that but I can make an educated guess).. Come next patch, the relic will still be at i260.
It seems they are set to deter players from grinding for their equipment, in favour of pushing the instant gratification content -raids, savage, trials (to the extent they are of any use).

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Sadly, so true.. and the reason I'm avoiding the relic quest at the moment, since I've seen this play out over and over again in all patches since 2.5 (I have not seen what happened before that but I can make an educated guess).. Come next patch, the relic will still be at i260.

There are two possibilities. One, or two, more HW Relic steps.

If there is only one, they may indeed withhold it until 3.55. But, that one will both be something of a doozy, and bring the weapon to i275, same as savage level.

If there are two, then there will be one with 3.5, though whether it brings it to i265 or i270 remains to be seen. Then the 3.55 step will be the last one, bringing it to i275.

Their pattern of "new model, glow" suggests there will be two more relic steps. We just got the glow, so we are due for a new model step then a glow step. Though they may simply expand upon the glow if there is only the one additional step coming to us.

[Cordie]

Thing is, in their effort to downgrade equipment acquired via grinding they have made item rarity a joke.
If the relic was truly the rarest (and best-in-game) weapon it should have been an i275 immediately upon patch release (even if with more steps).

And the (hypothetical) problem is that raiders would whine and be demotivated if their freebie drop isn't a few item levels above it —simple and current solution: cripple grinders' gear yet again.