Looks like the next level of Relic is about to come..

[Felis]

or for blackmage:
zenith +1: improve fire 3 proc chance by 50%! etc etc

I hope it would be Zenithga or Zenithra, no just Zenith +1. This sound boring.

[CK11]

Hummmm, what about the Hilidibrand quest line, with Gilgamesh being introduced. His infatuation with powerful weapons.... he might be interested in our relic weapons. Could be a quest line there to upgrade it?!?! ^^

[EmiliM]

As mentioned earlier, the Japanese letter specifically referred to the new tier as "Zodiac Weapons".

However, Yoshida spoke of it as a "new concept", so hopefully that means it's going to be a different upgrade mechanic than going from relic to zenith.

The name alludes to the job specialization system used in FFXII, and some Japanese forums are guessing that it may allow players to improve their zeniths through customize-able upgrades. Or that it is a completely separate tier running parallel/above relics.

Remember that "Zenith" means "the highest point" in English, and they went through all that trouble changing the +1 to Zenith. It wouldn't make a lot of sense for the new weapon tier to be another simple upgrade.

[Skies]

Just so you guys don't get too excited, I wouldn't expect special effects on gear until the next expansion at least.
Think what you will, but the game's too early in it's development for the team to feel comfortable with it's balance as-is, they need more time working with it to throw complex balance-changers like special abilities as well as having to figure out way to make them easily replaceable.

[Kuwagami]

They should make the upgrade a fun thing to do, gather 3 key materia from some Notorious monster, fuse them into the relic, then soak it into the blood by killing 100 tonberries with it... then at 3:00 midnight time, dip the weapon in Urith's gift pond, which will spawn a monster character with your skill set and class, you must defeat him solo.

Oh wait, that is too much hard work for this game..

I would definitively do that, except for the tomberry massacre.. Poor Nymians, they don't deserve that much hate.

Don't forget the "run all 2.1/2.2 dungeons once again and get me a sea drake scale just because"



Edit :

So.... turn 6-9 is progression content and Twintania is going to be the big blocking boss for most people to get through it and she's arguably harder than EX primals....

that's different matter. Twintania, though way harder that way, can be done with a reasonnable amount of lag. Also, the echo weekly-growing buff we'll get will able even the average people to clear it sooner or later. Titan EX, as an example, is stricly impossible to do with lags, unless the remaining 7 are very highly skilled and can do it without you.

sadly, I can't expect the Ex primals to have that same buff, and above all, not a freshly released one. That's why we can't have EX primals in the way of the casual progression : as they remain side content, they have no reason to step on a core content..

Give them the echo buff though, and let Leviathan EX not be a lag-check fight, and I'll have no objections



Also, whoever said "levi Ex". Nope. Extreme primals should remain out of progression content.

[Estellios]

Yea, better not let those bastard ass crafters or spiritbonders make any gil. Screw that.

Who are these "tons of people" by the way?

Pretty much everybody in 1.0 hated that double meld part. But it was mostly because of the fact that you would lose millions all to dumb luck. It wasn't difficult, just frustrating and a time sink you couldn't even make progress towards since it was all RNG.

I don't think anyone would be against crafters/gatherers being required in the next relic steps, they already are required for the initial quest with the i55 weapons.

[Lemon8or]

Also, whoever said "levi Ex". Nope. Extreme primals should remain out of progression content.

So.... turn 6-9 is progression content and Twintania is going to be the big blocking boss for most people to get through it and she's arguably harder than EX primals....

[Zumi]

I think it's silly for them to talk about "true powers" this early on. Because there's no way this is the last round of Relic upgrades, and it's going to feel cheap if we keep unlocking their true, no for real we mean it this time powers.

But anyway. I hope it's something cool and not just a stat/glow upgrade, but I'm not holding my breath. New abilities, random procs, enhancements to existing abilities would all be very cool.

They can't give the weapons a special effect without upping the stats, because weapon damage has the greatest effect on overall dps. Like if they gave a weapon a slow proc, or a paralyze proc, gives you shock spikes (FFXI drg relic), stun proc, gives you regen proc, drain hp proc, poison proc. Out of all those procs I listed the only one that gives a dps increase is a poison proc.

You can't just give a relic some proc and not increase its base states and weapon damage otherwise nobody would use relics because they would have weaker overall dps. Its really hard to balance procs, which is why they have to up the stats.

If relics just got a proc with no stat increases any other weapon that is the same ilvl as a relic would destroy the relic in terms of dps

[Pence]

Wasn't it said relics were more common than anticipated/desired? I'd imagine a simple tome upgrade is out of the question.

[Theplatter]

Hummmm, what about the Hilidibrand quest line, with Gilgamesh being introduced. His infatuation with powerful weapons.... he might be interested in our relic weapons. Could be a quest line there to upgrade it?!?! ^^

Actually, this could be a really cool alternative to the tomestone grinding. Say after doing w/e dungeon requirement or otherwise finding some rare item, you trade it to him, upon which he challenges you to a one-on-one fight, 8-man or even 24-man fight.