Getting Zeta for Anima or Farming Crystals?

[Februs]

I think it honestly depends on how lucky you are. Crystal farming can be infuriating if you're unlucky.

In-between waiting for PF's for Thordan EX, DF Q's for Wolves Den/Frontlines, or other random things during which I have a lot of down time I have been farming FATEs for crystals, and over approximately 20 + hours spread across 2 weeks of log-in's (2 or 3 hours a night, depending on how fast my parties filled up) I've only had ONE crystal drop. The one crystal that I have was from when I was in a FATE party. The members of that party swapped out, in full, twice before I got my single crystal drop. That's pretty demoralizing.

By comparison, I started another old relic 2 days ago and I'm already a quarter of the way through the books without even spending the full time grinding it out. That's pretty good considering that Books is the longest stage. By the end of it, I don't think it will be that much faster, but it's comparable. It's certainly better than a 1 drop in 20 hours grind rate because I actually feel like I'm progressing instead of just wasting my time. I'm also making more poetic tomes by doing lvl 50 dungeons and and more gill by selling the loot drops, especially on solo runs where I just get everything out of the boxes. So, I'm making more progress in the final step of the Anima weapon in advance.

[Nephisto]

What is the use of the Zeta at this point? I read you can buy a replica somewhere, so if it's only for the glamour, why not just trade your Zeta for the Anima and buy the replica? But for the crystals farming, I think I've been very lucky, because it took me around 6-7 hours to get the 18 crystals. I got the 6 crystals of the Sea of Clouds and Western Coerthas in one hour and half.

[ChameleonMS]

I read you can buy a replica somewhere

You can only buy the replica from Drake if you have finished a Zeta, specifically the quest the Vital Title.

[Morningstar1337]

The way I see it there are benefits and drawbacks from both methods

• Zeta: Well for starters, you have to do the entirety of the first relic, which makes it rather time consuming and you will need plenty of gil, fates and poetics, which adds something of an opportunity cost given how Step 3 of the Anima relic, but you get 9 cheap glamor pieces at the end of it all, as well as several achivements
• Crystals: generally less time consuming unless you have horrid luck, but still time consuming and still depending on RNG, the Zeta is guaranteed to get you your nodes, but you have to dedicate some time to it

Personally I'm doing Zetas for my alts for the glamor pieces anyway and Armory storage issues makes it difficult for me to work on both relics for the same class at the same time, but if you're not interested in the glamors, I'm recommend getting the crystals


Side note is that the Zeta and Zodiac replicas ARE dyable

[Tizzy_Tormentor]

I really hate long bouts of Fate farming, I got all my crystals in relatively generous time (I would say 5-7 hours or so) but the raw nature of the RNG aspect means that some will get their crystals super quick and others will get squat for the same level of work, which is pretty shitty. The drop rate is leagues ahead of Atma, but its still low, doesn't scale and if you are really unlucky, could spend hours or even days without a single crystal.

I'll admit I am quite lucky, but I dislike the step overall, the third step I don't mind, considering you get most of the items just by playing the game, the crafted ones I will wait a bit until they go down in price.

I just pray we don't get another god forsaken Novus stage...