How long would it take to complete all of the old Relic weapons?

[Terin]

The other day I decided to start the OG Relic Weapon quests on my new character. So far, it's definitely proven fairly time-consuming, and I still don't even have the Atma version yet.

Part of me would like to complete that, then move onto Heavensward, and so forth until getting caught up to whatever the most recent Relics are. But I also wonder what I'm getting myself into?

I've heard the old Relics would take months MINIMUM to complete, and considering I still get stressed pretty easily trying to Tank group content (ironic, given the DRK is my main, and I've been thinking of leveling PLD), I kind of wonder if I'm making a mistake? Especially since Curtana, for example, I actually think the Zenith (first) version looks the coolest, and from what I gather, you don't unlock the ability to glamour until you finish the ENTIRE chain?

At the very least, how long would it take to get to each part in the chain, where you get the "head-start" on the following expansion's Relic? Like, getting far enough in the ARR Relic chain is supposed to let you skip certain steps when starting the Heavensward Relic and so on, right?

[Eldevern]

You will leveling faster than you will get relics weapons finished. It still takes at least a few months. If I can risk an advice, if it is mostly for glamour, just do it when you are in mood to do so without really thinking about the time it takes.

This said, you can do one in a few weeks if you are really dedicated. What will slow down you the most is if you don't have enough tomes (though you can solve it with roulettes, Eureka and hunts).

You can use it as glamour as soon as you don't destroy it. About the copies you can buy, I'm not sure how it works. For Eureka, I know the last step needs BA down to be considered as completed.

[Blindheart]

I poke at them every now and again. The book stages are very annoying have to go across multiple zones and kill 2 monsters and move on, is more annoying than anything else, slowest part is waiting on the fates to spawn. Past this its all just grinding poetics to buy parts or farm light which goes as fast as you can solo dungeons. It goes faster the higher lvl you are but its just alot of mindless grinding

[Terin]

You will leveling faster than you will get relics weapons finished. It still takes at least a few months. If I can risk an advice, if it is mostly for glamour, just do it when you are in mood to do so without really thinking about the time it takes.

This said, you can do one in a few weeks if you are really dedicated. What will slow down you the most is if you don't have enough tomes (though you can solve it with roulettes, Eureka and hunts).

You can use it as glamour as soon as you don't destroy it. About the copies you can buy, I'm not sure how it works. For Eureka, I know the last step needs BA to be down.

Well, my main is already 80 (although his PLD job is only 60), so not too concerned with leveling. Mostly just experiencing the story of that, and getting some cool Glamours along the way!

To be honest, I've been capped on tomes for like... over a year, lol. Is there anything I can be buying in advance?

As yeah, it would also be nice to know the state of Glamouring the "copies" or whatever. I would ASSUME that you can get all of the stages once you finish the chain, but would definitely be great for someone who knows to confirm that.

Also... in terms of the "head-start" for completing the previous Relic, how much of a head-start are we talking? Would it be better for me to try and work on all the Relics simultaneously, if I'm going to be waiting on weekly lockouts/timers? Or am I just as well doing the ARR Relic, then Heavensward, then Stormblood, and then Shadowbringers?

[ReynTime]

The book part is very tedious and you will not do it in a day or two. More like a week if you're very dedicated and patient.
The fate grinding could take you a day's worth.
First light farming is actually really fast. Takes less than 2 hours.
Nexus -> Zodiac Brave stage is fast if you get the material in advance. Can also be easily done in a day's worth. If you don't have the material in advance, expect to use 2 or 3 days.
Second light farming... not so fast. It takes you 12 syrcus tower runs...

Multiply that by the number of ARR jobs. I doubt a lot of players could do it in less than 2 months.

[Radacci]

Assuming you're just doing one relic wep, like PLD one, It's not going to take months...all old steps have been nerfed and don't require much work. If you're doing every wep for every job, then that's insanity haha.
If you're going to do all relics steps up until current ones, it's def going to take time though, but it depends on how much you play, and how much of it you want to dedicate to relics.
Everything prior to Shadowbringers, is easy. I haven't touched relics in ShB, but i heard the steps are easy.
There's not much of a head-start, you just need to skip 1 step of procuring a weapon, that's like kill a few fates or such.
You can start every expansion relic chain at the same time i guess, but no, you can't do all weapons simultaneously, and that would be insane thing to do anyway
There's no weekly lockouts, everything that require tomes, will use poetics.
You can do ARR-HW-etc in sequence if you wish, or start any one in any expansion area, since there aren't any pre-requisits to having any from previous exp.

[Eldevern]

Also... in terms of the "head-start" for completing the previous Relic, how much of a head-start are we talking? Would it be better for me to try and work on all the Relics simultaneously, if I'm going to be waiting on weekly lockouts/timers? Or am I just as well doing the ARR Relic, then Heavensward, then Stormblood, and then Shadowbringers?

There are probably items you can buy in advance. Just check Relics steps to know what you will need. The annoying part is the books steps. You can buy them only one by one.

You can do the relic of each extension simultanously, they are not connected.

There is only one things that can't be done in the same time : a relic phase.
You can do ARR relic 1 phase B and ARR relic 2 phase A but not two phase A.

[Terin]

Much appreciated, all!

And yeah, just planning to do a single job's Relic for each expansion for right now! Since the DRK didn't exist in ARR, I decided to do the PLD because it was my only 50+ job. I could see maybe trying a few others in the distance future, if I wind up leveling up other jobs (kind of thinking about leveling Dragoon, just because their armor is SO cool, haha), but mainly just want to feel like I got the FULL story experience. That, a lot of stuff always seems to require having completed certain old content, so I kind of want to go into Endwalker feeling like "it doesn't matter WHAT the requirements are for new quests, I'll be qualified!".

[Fland]

The HW one can be done in a couple days, depends on how fast can you farm poetics or how many alternatives currency like BT tokens, GC seals, allied seals you currently have.

The SB one can also be done in several days, also depends on final NM spawn of each zone. If you only do one relic for glam then you don't need to do BA for the Pyseos step.

ARR one might take a week or more, depends on how much grinding you're willing to do each day.

[TaleraRistain]

Would it be better for me to try and work on all the Relics simultaneously, if I'm going to be waiting on weekly lockouts/timers? Or am I just as well doing the ARR Relic, then Heavensward, then Stormblood, and then Shadowbringers?

I've been working on 9 HW animas for newly minted 80s I have along with up to their Recollection version on ShB and noticed some overlap.

First set of memories in ShB can be gotten in HW FATEs. This is also the place to get crystals for the HW anima first step. You can also turn in your finished ARR relic to skip this step but it's not hard to get a crystal from each zone if you don't want to.

Bitter memories you can get from either 50/60/70 or Leveling Roulette (I forget which one). There's two quests in Idyllshire where you run 50/60/70 Roulette and Leveling Roulette to get Singing Clusters.

There's a quest in Mor Donuts to run the three CT raids for aether oil and there's a drop from the ShB weapon that can be gotten here, I believe.

Stormblood has no overlap. It's entirely in Eureka. ARR I haven't done in ages but I don't think it has a lot of overlap, either.

You are going to need a lot of poetics and GC seals or you'll want to be a crafter/make friends with one. There are some steps like HW Umbrite which is only poetics and you need a lot, so I'd recommend using any alternative routes on items as much as possible. Some of the old crafted items you can get with GC seals so Greed on all that stuff, lol!

https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/ has great guides and they do a good job on each quest of outlining the needed items and how to get them, so you can stockpile for a future step while you're working on an earlier step.