Patch Notes are up!

[Ultimatecalibur]

This stage will propably lose it just like Atma and final one will bring it back, i mean this cannot be final stage yet as it ended just being ilvl125. Tbh its kinda wierd that it already didnt match with augmentet IW weapons, maybe it gets "hotfix" when tomes/upgrade items will start to drop from CT3 as othervise it would huge middlefinger for all relic grinders, and final stage will mostlikely make it on par with Dreadwyrms just before expansion.

The new stage likely to stay i125 in order to keep the alternating upgrade path.

Nexus -> IW -> Legendary Relic -> AIW -> Legendary Relic +1/Dreadwyrm -> Heavensward Raid weapon

They don't want a repeat of 2.0 where people ignored T5 because they already have an i90 weapon and 2.3's calls of "Ignore the Relic just do ST and get an Unaligned Tomestone and Sands of Time."

[Eul]

I just got my GSM 70 mainhand like 3 days ago! lol
Spend all day mining gold ore and making the nuggets

Well I just got it last week, my first ilvl 70 too from those 300 rose gold nugget I mining myself .

[AlphaDragoon]

Keep in mind they do want to retain some level of fair-ness with people who've already done it. Just saying it wouldn't be fair to those who paid full price. Though increasing ways to get alex (Whether it be % increase in Fate drop, or price reductions) would still keep to the fair-ness and making it easier on those that have been left behind or perhaps working on a second / third relic, etc.

Ultimately though, without easing the Materia portion it will never be easier for other players to catch up because the Materia is the hurdle. Relics (with ideal stats) are a rich person's weapon as it stands.

I don't think they'd do something like that though until say, the expansion at minimum for the very reason you stated.

[Clarkamite]

I know some people might not agree with this but they sort of already nerfed at least the Alexandrite portion of the relic grind. You can buy maps now for 400 Soldiery instead of 800 Mythology. Still a grind but easier now. In my experience, I'm getting bonus Soldiery tomes from all sorts of duties so its still really easy to get the required amount fast.

EDIT: I will say this though the materia portion is a little bit ridiculous. I'm sure it's this way on most servers but if you want to make a min/max best version of your weapon (at least for DPS) it costs a ton of money. And in fact, it used to be cheap to just meld accuracy on your weapon. Things like Acc 4's and Parry 4's were pretty cheap but now on my server everything is expensive.

[Keisatsu]

I know some people might not agree with this but they sort of already nerfed at least the Alexandrite portion of the relic grind. You can buy maps now for 400 Soldiery instead of 800 Mythology. Still a grind but easier now. In my experience, I'm getting bonus Soldiery tomes from all sorts of duties so its still really easy to get the required amount fast.

Wasn't there some massive argument about how Myth tomes =/= 1/2 Sol tomes because Sol was harder to obtain? I swear I recall that somewhere..and I'm just waiting for the same people to show up and start that argument all over again.

[Zanmato]

Please, everyone, pay extra attention to this!

Known issues:
During the Ceremony of Eternal Bonding, an error message does not appear properly when there is insufficient Inventory space.

MAKE SURE that your inventory space is NOT FULL when Bonding!

[Clarkamite]

Wasn't there some massive argument about how Myth tomes =/= 1/2 Sol tomes because Sol was harder to obtain? I swear I recall that somewhere..and I'm just waiting for the same people to show up and start that argument all over again.

Maybe. I tend to stay out of the big pissing contests about whats harder to obtain/do. Personally I think Soldiery is pretty easy to obtain. I DO think it comes a little bit slower with some methods. Hunts being a good example. You still get the same Soldiery as you did before but since Soldiery is the new Mythology I guess that's sort of a nerf. Before one S rank hunt was 200 Mythology and now it's just 50 Soldiery. So I guess that is a little slower.

[polyphonica]

Keep in mind that Sleipnir mount is $24 all by itself. The platinum wedding is coming with a mount and much much more.

That mount is also account-wide, though, and not per character as I suspect this one will be. So that's why the $10/$20 Gold/Premium they suggested on the stream may make sense.

[Ultimatecalibur]

Ultimately though, without easing the Materia portion it will never be easier for other players to catch up because the Materia is the hurdle. Relics (with ideal stats) are a rich person's weapon as it stands.

I don't think they'd do something like that though until say, the expansion at minimum for the very reason you stated.

That will likely happen with the introduction of equipment that converts in Tier IV/Tier V Materia.

[LaurelinKementari]

Unfortunately they kinda can't nerf that part specifically, maybe increase ways to get Alexandrite or lower the costs of them. Though I can imagine them doing something with the requirements for the books.

My suggestion would simply be to remove the RNG aspect of the melding, and make every meld 100% succesful. That alone would already go a long way to easing up (and make fairer) the Novus step, IMHO.