Anima Weapons. Putting things into perspective.

[Inzoum]

OP must be new to this game or joined at or after 3.0

LOL, that's pure gold. I started playing during the FFXIV Beta. The original one. I'm a Legacy player. I'm also a skilled omnicrafter, able to make all of the HQ items for the Anima weapons with absolutely no trouble. I'm no stranger to sinking several hours in this game to get something done. But there are cases where this is meaningful and others where it's not.

I had 3 Zodiac Zetas before the expansion. I had no issues with the pacing for that relic, as each new step was always relevant, and the nerfs to previous steps were timely and appropriate. It was also convenient to be able to work on several steps at once after the first Zodiac was done.

You'll notice that the Anima weapons have the highest amount of work tied to the smallest boosts in ilvl, and the bigger jumps in ilvl come from the easiest steps. It makes absolutely no sense. The idea has always been that the time sink should substitute skill at end-game raiding for equivalent ilvl gear. This was true while Alexander Gordias Savage was the only means of obtaining a 210 weapon. That's no longer the case. "Skill at end-game raiding" for the 210 step is irrelevant now that I can sneeze on the way out of Void Ark and find a 210 weapon in my snot. I could get a 210 weapon for every single class in the game in the amount of grind needed to get just ONE Anima weapon to that stage. That's nonsense.

Also, the grind is boring d restrictive as shit these days. For the previous relic, light farming was a nice solution as there was some good coordination among communities to figure out which content had a bonus going on, and practically anything was a step forward. Tomestone-based grinding forces you to pour all your tomestones into the relic, effectively locking you out of spending them on other items, and it squishes down grinding opportunities to only a few "most optimal tomestones/minute" content. it's ridiculous.

[silentwindfr]

@inzoum the trouble it's with HW they have try to force us to play only 1-2 jobs max... everything is made in this sense. let's take a look at gears in general.

throught token for war, magic, land and hand, every full stuff will take you about 12 weeks for get a full one. means you will need 3 month for equip 1 jobs. it's not a trouble if... and i say if.... we had only one jobs per character. that not case.... because a part of the community did cry that it was pointless to do reroll or was wanting to do only one jobs (yeah i look at the people that have cry about omnicrafting when they had ease the level up of the craft to 50 quite a lot) we did end in this situation...

the trouble is the main core of the game is the multi job possibility... force us to equip only one jobs is sickly idiot. it's a major error since it negated the main forte of FF14, allowing a person to experience the different gameplay that the game offer with all this different jobs... without force us to redo the story quest. it's sad, because you can offer soo much more than simply add grind for force people to only play one jobs.

worst, a new player, can't catch up a player that did play since day 1... since they have time limit in the progression. 12 week for equip any jobs throught token. that a reality we can't ignore... everything is timed for take us about 12 weeks. indeed, the relic part 210-230 are not timed on this, but mostly because in 7-8 week we will have a new patch adding a new content, with without doubt a grind that will take about 10-12 week for normal player for end it.

we are at the point where we don't connect ourself to the game for play, but for grind... it's sad to imagine that the grind is the purpose of the game now. at the start in the mmorpg, the token system was there for counter balance rng.... but now it did become the core of the game... and it's sick to see how it did become void of any fun from it. we do grind for grind... mmorpg had always grind, but we had too part for challenge and simply enjoying the game.

ps: about the eso drained by the relic, we had the same trouble with the book part of the 2.x relic, that was draining all the memo of that time for get the book... limiting us into our progression.

i feel the relic must be freed of any other token existing, the way to earn the relic must be throught personal challenge... not grind, is not challenging... it's dumb, it don't even help to create a dynamic community, since people will try to earn it as fast as possible.

the craft part was abused by some crafter for make tons on cash on the other. the gordias part did arrive far to late for be relevant, most of us had already farmed too much gordias for wanting to return into it... especially for earn 1 item every 10 run of a floor.
the tribes quest, is maybe the most sad, indeed we do earn an item every 5-6 day.... why soo much day? it's idiot.

we can argue all day about the legitimity of this questline... but for me, it's maybe the worst of FF14, when i talk to people that don't play FF14, i never mention the relic, it's for me the part that are soo outdated and more bad... idiotic, since it's only 1 item on the 12-13 item our character can equip, even if you have the best weapon of the world, if the rest of the armor is bad... your character will still be bad.

even the AF in the V1 was easier to get.

[Mholito]

Problem is what if the stats are not ideal? For some classes the relic is better then lore, for others the Lore is better but the lore is easier to obtain so for some classes they have to put in more effort to obtain a good weapon for them. This whole notion about changeable stats is a farce they also if im not mistaken stated that the Novus ( Meld version) was a mistake and should not of been better then raid weapons. SO how do we even know they will let us change the stats at all this time round? How do we even know they wont bring out an upgrade for the Savage items?

I doubt the relic will be BiS next patch for the fear of repeating past mistakes.

They have already said the stats will be changable in the next step. It will most likely be ilevel 240, which means it will be superior to everything except for the midan weapons. If it's going to surpass the midan weapons at any point, it will be some time after 3.3. The only case where it might end up being superior to midan weapons would be for healers, if they can chose accuracy as one of the secondaries.
If the novus step was a mistake, why would they add the nexus step before the next raid tier? The mistake they did was making the original relic +1 be the same item level as the allagan weapons at launch. They fixed that by making raid weapons be 5 item levels higher than everything else. Since then, the original relic would only surpass the raid weapons near the end of the current raid tier.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Just to address on the "How do you feel about all that work you put into your weapon being replaced in the next expansion?":

Let me turn that around. How do you feel about all that work you put into your raid weapon being replaced in the next patch/expansion? Everything gets replaced sooner or later no matter how much work you put into getting what you gotten. My Zeta stuck with me until at least LV56 so that saved me time farming for dungeon weapons and money for vendor weapons, thus my first run of Heavensward was pretty smooth.

A common complaint about relic grinds is how "boring" they are, but is it really any less boring than farming end game raids/trials over and over until your gear/token drops?

[ScarletDawn]

They wont make the relic upgrade so high that quickly it doesn't make sense since most people have not even done Savage enough to get the weapons, Also pretty sure Lore will get its upgrade next patch to go with the new relic content.

[Synestra]

Do it with party finder, if you fear the duty finder

There is no diffirence between DF and PF both are filled with randoms that cant even do simpliest things or they simply dont care at all. Lucily there are currently multiple options to advance your relic so theres no need to use DF/PF at all.

[Ibi]

If it's going to surpass the midan weapons at any point, it will be some time after 3.3.

They probably won't surpass Midan weapons until after 3.4, given that Yoshi-P said in December that one of the concepts Anima weapons are based on is that they "Will not be the strongest weapon at the same time as the rewards for clearing the hardest difficulty content."

The mistake they did was making the original relic +1 be the same item level as the allagan weapons at launch. They fixed that by making raid weapons be 5 item levels higher than everything else. Since then, the original relic would only surpass the raid weapons near the end of the current raid tier.

That was the first mistake. The second mistake was repeating this for Anima weapons and, rather than fixing it the same way (by increasing the item level of the Gordian weapons to i215), choosing to make Anima weapons require considerably more time and effort to acquire.

A common complaint about relic grinds is how "boring" they are, but is it really any less boring than farming end game raids/trials over and over until your gear/token drops?

At least for me, the difference is that the relic/Anima grinds are exclusively and intentionally from outdated, non-challenging content that we've all done many, many times over already.

Raids and extreme trials are at least new and, at least on release, provide a challenge to be overcome.

[Granyala]

A common complaint about relic grinds is how "boring" they are, but is it really any less boring than farming end game raids/trials over and over until your gear/token drops?

The difference is: Raids are entertaining.
Anima is the most boring "busywork" they could think of.

No matter how you slice it, the 210 step is completely off key in terms of effort -> reward and probably the reason why your 230 step is so easy.

Personally I won't bother with the Anima until next expansion. Just not worth all that time doing non entertaining activities like beast tribes.

[Ibi]

Just not worth all that time doing non entertaining activities like beast tribes.

Assuming you had them leveled already, beast tribes aren't that bad now that they award Grade IV materia for the level 48 quests. If you get lucky with the materia offered you can make a couple of hundred thousand gil per day from them while working on the relic.

I can see it looking unappealing if you're starting from scratch though.

[Warlyx]

Snip

while some of u say its true , SE isnt afraid of "raiders" , is afraid of breaking the balance of hardest = better rewards

FFXIV needs more endgame? yup tons more and varied / fun , Void ark is fun for 2 weeks.... , Alex "normal" is hardly difficult , and trials while cool , last what 1 week ? , more if u add a 2% mount ...no lasting content for NON-RAIDERS at all , and thats a huge issue....

Diadem was supposed to be the "fun" endgame , go there kill stuff get some gear , trade spoils for materias , mount ....failed hard to deliver any fun , dont forget the gatherers joining and going alone farming ....lack of foresight from SE no doubt. Guess we can go to gold saucer for fun.....LoV is a raging sucess .....

Anima , was supposed to be released on 3.0 , got delayed again and again why? who knows...then here comes the "quest" chain ,that is basically the same quest we did in 2.0 (farm fates) do low lvl dungeons no1 wants to do , and farm easy content (alexander , tribes...) , and buy overpriced items just because....and now do Archmage quest AGAIN....or buy it with ESO tomes. Thats for a i230 weapon.....

i wonder about newbies.....asking how u got that weapon? looks awesome....i did a bunch of fates , some low lvl dungeons , did 2.0 tribe quests, farmed esoterics , and Crystal tower ....but that isnt content for 50 or below?...how is that rewarding ilvl230 content? i would be confused as newbie...so the expansion relic is traveling to 2.0 zones and doing 2.0 stuff?....uhm yup.....

if Anima had different paths , i would be more than happy :

a easy grindfest path , that involves fates , 4 man , slower
mid path : trials , alex normal , Void ark , medium speed
hard path : savage , and trials extreme , fast speed (remember that u can only kill savage bosses once a week so isnt farmable at all)

SE think of raiders when creating anima? far from it ....raiders DONT WANT to touch easy and boring content with a totem pole....is like playing basketball with kids....no challenge and not fun.