Quote Originally Posted by Vahlnir View Post
I think their point was that ARR relics were equal to tome/raid weapons after every significant upgrade, but it wasn't until the final step that they were truly BiS due to their customizable stats and a small bonus to other stats besides. I get why they stopped doing that and made them at most maybe current Extreme trial item levels until the very end when they actually do become BiS, but I think it's a shame.
The ARR relics were weird.

They started being equal to raid weapons (i90) but raiders said, what is the point in going after a raid weapon if the relic is the same ilevel and easier to get, which is why raid weapons are now all 5 ilevels above the rest of the gear.

When second coil came out, initially the weapons weren't on the same level, but upgrades came out and they got custom stats at the Novus stage (i110) which was then given the Nexus stage (i115) before final coil released, effectively making relic weapons BiS then.

Then, of course, final coil came and again, whilst delayed, relic weapons would outdo raid gear (i135).

So really, Relic has been at least BiS ilevel for every raid during ARR and it was only during HW that the relic was changed to only be BiS on the absolute final step.