Hildibrand for relic? Really?

[RyuDragnier]

I think you misunderstand, Hydra and Chimera were unlocked as a consequence of doing the relic itself. There were no prerequisites to the ARR relic other than beating 2.0. Hard modes you could unlock prior to doing the relic, and while they are required, they were not needed before the actual relic started unless you wanted them or had ilvl issues trying to complete the other hard modes. The issue deals with prerequisites, not doing other pieces of content for the relic after the relic has been opened up.

Actually, back in ARR (meaning when it was current content) you could only unlock those Hard Modes for the primals if you started the grind for the relic. They were not optional, they could only be unlocked by the relic questline.