Question for the people who don't dislike the 2nd relic step

[Nezerius]

They changed that years ago, which is why I consider the Zenith step the 2nd step.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. To me, the 2nd step is based on when "Zodiac Weapons - The Saga Begins" pops up on the screen, which is at the start of the Atma quest.

Again, I don't consider getting the Antiquated to be the first step. Upgrading it to the unantiquated form is the first step. Upgrading it to the Anemos weapon is the 2nd step (because + doesn't count).

So does this mean that you're considering the 2nd step of the Eureka weapon to not be as easy, then? Considering going from Unantiquated to Anemos requires 1200 Protean Crystals, reaching Elemental level 19, and obtaining 3 Pazuzu Feathers. Unless you think this is as easy as farming up 1500 uncapped tomestones? Keep in mind that the option to purchase Pazuzu Feathers didn't exist back then.

This doesn't take away from the fact that this second step is entirely lazy in how they didn't even bother to dress it up as anything interesting, and feels more like a last minute copy paste job.

Because I'm a rather casual player with limited gametime who also plays several other games, one of which (Destiny 2) just launched an entire new expansion and is currently my "main" game while I enjoy playing thru that. When I come back around to FFXIV in a bit, this is a nice convenient step that'll let me pick up a couple relic weapons while doing basically whatever I want (read: enjoy most) in the game. Artificially long grinds aren't necessarily a good thing in my view.

This just means that you're not the target audience for a weapon that originally required a grind. The game generally has a non-grindy alternative when it comes to weapons for players who either don't want to put in the time, or don't have enough time to grind. Weapons like the (augmented) crafted weapons, the extreme trial ones, and possibly even the unaugmented tomestone ones.