I think the best way to make it fair is to have a drop rate of the totems and the amount required equal the same percent chance of a weapon drop rate. For example if Ifrit drop rate of a weapon is 5% then the drop rate of the totems should be 50%. This would mean that a weapon should drop 1 out of every 20 fights and you would get 10 totems about every 20 fights then they are about equal in order to obtain a weapon. While this of course would never be a 100% scenario in fact you could still end up with more weapons than totems or purely totems it at least would give a balance between the drop rates and the reward associated with the drop rate.