Umbrites are terrible.

[Ogulbuk]

Umbrite I can take.

Crystal Sands? That killed me. All the "nerf" did for sands was add the option to earn them via Unidentifiable items. Know what that do to me? Every day I would log, try to do my roulettes. Then I would do the top tier of every single Beast Tribe to get tokens, with 3 of those I bought one unidentifiable item. x4 I got the set needed to get ONE Sand. That, and the tomes I got from roulettes, plus dumping any gear I got from these runs for seals to get some moonstones.

I finally got my Umbrite step done last week, I have not logged back in since. That ridiculous ritual honestly killed my desire to play the game any more. I'm taking a break, may log in tomorrow for my weekly Dun Scaith run, cap my Scriptures and not log again until next Tuesday. I don't give a [redacted] about the Singing Clusters right now.

If you want to cap my per-day progress, [redacted]!!! Just make a daily quest that gives me the one thing! Don't just add a thousand things I got to do to earn the stupid things!

[Settiesama]

You need around 80 umbrite, and for those who started before the nerf, they costed 300 lore. I'm at around 60 mark now and I run alot of PvP (because everything else is redundant). Just do pvp and lose a bunch (or try winning), you get lore either way. frontlines is the easiest way to get them in imo.

And btw, the system isn't flawed, its BS. Still have to buy some specific items just to turn the damn umbrites into sands anyway. I gather, but its still mind numbing-ly boring.

Dunno why you quoted me with that one. I know how it works, I've completed Animas, before the nerf and after. Also I did say it pretty much wasn't flawed, and we were talking Umbrites, not sands. The only flaw here, as you quoted for me, is the "Must have it all right now" frame of mind. These were quests to build a weapon gradually, to work towards something over time, not have it the day you started.

[eikomakimachi]

I actually had more problems to get the crystal sands than umbrite. But I don't find that step particularly bad cuz sooner or later you can get it done by doing stuff in game (your can get both items with lore and poetics). It's just a bit annoying cuz it takes so much time. The crystal fate farming step (the one you can skip if you had the Zodiac Zeta) was my least favorite, helped a friend farming his cuz he didn't complete the 2.0 relic.

[Kurogaea]

Dunno why you quoted me with that one. I know how it works, I've completed Animas, before the nerf and after. Also I did say it pretty much wasn't flawed, and we were talking Umbrites, not sands. The only flaw here, as you quoted for me, is the "Must have it all right now" frame of mind. These were quests to build a weapon gradually, to work towards something over time, not have it the day you started.

You need the umbrite to turn them into sands to upgrade your weapon, I know what your talking about. Also just quoted because you said it wasn't flawed, i agree, its just bad. I'd rather put a countless number of materia into my weapon honestly.

[Nixxe]

With the last patch the price of umbrite was cut in half... this step is about a year old and has already been nerfed - I think this complaint is coming a bit late...
If its any consolation: the steps afterwards are a lot easier

Yeah, I'm rather recently returned to the game and have only been back about five or six weeks, so I've been doing a lot of catchup. I had stopped playing back in like 3.1 or whenever 210s were still new and exciting.

[Malzian]

Its the main reason I don't understand how people can do 2-3 relics

THIS! I have a friend that, I think, is doing a relic for every single job. While I'm about ready to tear my hair out from just doing one.

Funny thing... I have 2 completed Animas and 1 more at the final light step and what I can say is this... The first Anima you complete is the hardest, every subsequent one is easier because while you're grinding the one you're currently on you are also able to get the materials and items for the others. There are a lot of places where the Anima steps overlap that you're getting stuff you can use to complete other steps at the same time.

Cases in point: Doing the weekly for oils gives you Poetics you can put towards Unidentifiables or Penumbrites. Grinding FATEs for crystals gives you GC seals you can buy the other items you need. Grinding Light gets you Lore you can use on Umbrites and Penumbrites.

Based on this, every new Anima you do benefits from all the activities you did for the other steps. This is a symbiosis that the previous relic didn't have and once you learn to leverage that symbiosis, getting your subsequent Animas is a lot less tedious than the first.

[CaptainLagbeard]

Umbrites you get by just playing the game since pretty much all max level content gives out lore tomestones. Crystal Sands on the other hand, you needed to actually go out of your way to get, though now you can just get unidentifiable stuff to get them... But that'll take away from buying umbrites and you'll still have use for Lore in the next step.

I got into the Umbrite step around October, and only finished it recently because of the availability of Crystal Sands... The only way to really "grind" them is spamming leves for Amber-Encased Vilekins. Or having trillions of Gil.

[Gamina]

I have found now that I am on my second the diadem has been a gift for farming the lore and the elemental tier 4 materia for a sands in the same run of content.

[Retry]

Sands were incredibly easy to get through velkin farming just outside Idyll. Got roughly 25 in one hour of farming. The rest i made up with scripts since i decimated my leve allowances haha.
Umbrites themselves arent hard to obtain i've just been getting lazy with it. My fc officer has already finished one and is on his second round of umbrites since the lore-nerf.

[Maero]

If you are working on your first one, no doubt it may be bad because probably wanting Relic done with, any subsequent Relic comes easier as you can purchase and stack up Umbrite.
Still this point in time, would be nice had they offer various different means to get Umbrite