FFXIV History: ARR Relic Weapons

[@Larryzaur]

After months of work, my plush is finally releasing next week!! Check it out here ► www.makeship.com/products/chicken-nugget-squishy-plush

[@milanugrinovic]

👏👏👏

[@Joeypark11]

Emotional Damage 💔

[@capwow187]

A hellish experience, of that I'm more than aware of. 😥 Though, I believe you overlooked the special Relic Questline for the "Kettle Knuckle Nexus" MNK weapons that came after making the Zeta weapon. ✊✊ I proudly sport those on my Monk after the hell I had to go through to get them. I still get some Players, particularly Monks, wondering how I got em. 😏

[@Asako_Gaming]

I never had any issues getting the atmas and dungeon drops. Stone Vigil hard took around 15 runs. Got 3 relics when they came out in ARR. WHM, MNK and PLD. A lot of people exaggerate the grind or were extremely unlucky.

[@kokayinewsome9308]

I always wanted all of the Ascians to attack the Scion at once in one huge raid or trial or dungeon. Then it occurred to me: if Thancred can be possessed why didnt the Ascians just possess all the Scions one by one over the years? Many times the Scions were stressed and overwhelmed or overworked. Traumatized by the deaths o friends. Why not possess them, and make each one unable to use magic or just walk off a cliff? I dont want the Ascians to win, but it seems like if they attacked together or like this with possession they would.

[@Thunder865]

Whenever people talk about ARR relics, it almost always turns into an extremely in-depth recollection of each painstaking detail, because we NEED whoever we're telling to understand our collective trauma. Remember us. Remember that we once grinded.

[@StephenSquarepants]

We will not squander it. The legacy you leave us.

[@JabbaWalker]

Lul you call it a grind? Back in my days, when playing lineage 2 classic at start, we had to grind for 3 months at the same spot of mobs to get 10 lvls and move to another spot to farm here for 4 months to get 5 lvls And i mean a real grind, 24/7, when 2-3 ppl have to be always online and handle 9 ppl party

[@andrewtimothy9792]

@@JabbaWalker damn man Heres your applause👏👏👏👏 You want some cake with that as well?

[@royox]

They don't understand why I'm scared every time I see freakin' Good King Moogle Mog, they just DON'T. "But how can you be scared of this?? iTs So CuTE!"" FUCK YOU!

[@MarkZeroGaming]

@Jabba Walker up hill? Both ways? In the snow? With no shoes on?

[@farimer888]

Larry forgot my favorite part of the entire quest line. Right at the end, you were working towards making your weapon into materia to fuse it with the new version. The game warns you that it only had a 3% chance of success and if it failed you had to start completely over. If you say yes, it asks if you were REALLY sure. Man, people were so stressed over that quest even though it was basically just flavor text. Imagine restarting your whole relic right before Zeta.

[@Andyjoe522]

I don't know if this was the case back then, but if you say no to that dialog Gerolt is just like "FUCK YOU! WE'RE DOING IT ANYWAY!" lol

[@Nihonguy]

@@Andyjoe522 i recently did my first arr relic and that cutscene scared the crap out of me, even nerfed the thought of doing atma again filled me with dread, so i said no thinking there might be a way to increase the odd, but geralt made me do it anyway. It was stressful lol

[@kyubayas]

@@Nihonguy I can’t even begin to fathom what your rng was if you mentioned the atma grind here over the books

[@Nihonguy]

@@kyubayas one of them took me 3 hours of grinding fates to get one of them, they weren't all that bad of course. But yeah it messed me up inside to say the least lol

[@fullmetalfan2]

I just got to that part yesterday and it says 1.9% chance now. When I tell you I was STRESSED

[@MythagoWoods]

Ah yes... the ARR Relics. The one where I started, got to the Atma phase, and went "Yeah... no I'm good." I recently returned to my old Ninja ARR Relic and got to the books... and went "Yeah... no, I'm still good."

[@GuyN0ir]

I did the entire book step for a weapon over the course of about 2 days. I didn't touch the game for two weeks after that after the burnout. Definitely not worth it.

[@Kekira]

Yeah when I got to the books, I was like.....mmmmm nah

[@404schmoozernotfound]

I just finished this on war in about 3-4 days of no life grinding. Some people say the bozja weapon takes longer and is a bigger grind, but at least you can fully level other jobs and passively do those weapons. The zodiac weapon is a committed grind.

[@zippydipity42]

I've been grinding out the last few ARR relics that I need, and I feel like doing 3 books a day when you're routined is not too bad. Each book takes between 40 mins to an hour typically, with correct routing. That said, you probably have to complete more books than you'd like in order to learn the patterns in the first place.

[@jony2234fu]

@@404schmoozernotfound Some people never did a relic, XD nah ANIMA ARE THE EAZIES ONES FOLLOWING THE BOZJA AND THE NIGHTMARE THAT ARE EUREKA AND ARR

[@amelialoyselle2123]

When you got to the hardest step I was like, 'huh I don't remember this step being this hard?' But as you went on about it, I remembered. I had blocked it out because I quit doing the relic at that step and went back after it was nerfed. Oh my god. Larry, you unlocked a repressed memory in my brain, what the fuck.

[@Larryzaur]

*HAHAHAHA*

[@amuro9624]

Suppressed memories due to trauma lol

[@NPDStudio]

This also hits home for me

[@Wolfwood2057]

I remember it being the first time I actually got burnt out on the game Because I did 100s of Temple of Qarn (HM). Many times in the morning before work, and after work. I did it on tank usually despite being a healer because of tanks better queues and I since I was also doing it before work and during lunch I couldn't have an unreliable queue time. Every day, non-stop, entire week. Most of it being a single dungeon. Nobody can understand today because now it's a 100% droprate. But not back then.

[@gulver8693]

He unlocked a core memory.

[@zerwif]

If you completed a 1.0 Relic, it carried over as the ilevel 80 Relic when you started ARR. As 1.0 was less role restrictive, the Relics had all sorts of unique stats that could make jobs more defensive, supportive, or alter abilities.

[@Gemini476]

Let's be clear, though: the requirements for getting the 1.0 weapon were _also_ very grindy. Speakers Network did a good video on it, and honestly it sounds like a lot.

[@kentalacrucia]

Man, I miss back when leveling up would give us stat points that we could put into any stat and we had to be conscious about how we built our character with each job we played

[@YUXKE]

@@kentalacrucia that was an illusion of choice. There was only ever one stat that mattered to put towards for each job and didn’t scale very well over time (it was only like 35 points or so back then). Also made SCH/SMN stat allocation very tedious to flip between

[@idminister]

@@kentalacrucia illusion of choice indeed, anything other than all dump into primary stat was suboptimal the exception: tanks- dump into str instead of vit [for dmg+] as stats were tied to the class; this was hell for smn/sch as it meant losing use of 1 of the 2 jobs. the one time use item that allowed for reallocation was originally pricey (the price did eventually get nerfed), too pricey if one wanted to constantly flip between dps and heals with arcanist jobs

[@zerwif]

@@YUXKE they might be referring to 1.0's leveling, where the stat points were independent of your discipline. This resulted in constsnt scattered stats for every profession. There also weren't defined roles yet, so you could build a damage Conjurer or healing Pugilist.

[@PhoenonX]

There's at least a handful of people that went out of their way, Atmas and Anemos books and all, and got every single ARR Relic to max and I fear them more than any man

[@yestle7868]

fear me

[@RosePhantoma]

I aspire to be one of these people. someday.

[@kairitrioncerulean8502]

I know a guy who was a free trial for up to 1 year at least( i have a feeling it was 1 and a half year) and he had... all jobs(yes even crafter and gatherers) at 60, and all arr and hw relics. They scare me. I almost did not believe my eyes when i spotted their location at ruby sea last month while i was scrolling down my friend list. Shame i couldnt invite em to our fc once they finally subbed. Edit : they also had the crafter relics too which i did not know was a thing until i bumped into them at mor dhona and had a round of chit chat about what they were doing :o

[@Lionbladier]

This was me. I did all the Zodiacs, Animas, and Resistance relics. But then... *looks to Eureka* ...that, I fear most of all.

[@john_7000]

@@kairitrioncerulean8502 some people have no life 🤣🤣🤣

[@DameonStarflame]

Hearing Larry get more and more unhinged makes me feel sorry for everyone who did that. Holy crap.

[@Adamantian9]

you have no idea.... that relic grind would make even *hell itself* scream in horror.

[@kharnzarro6308]

we would spam brayfox hard up until the first boss for tomestones because it was the fastest way to grind during the book step...it was terrible I still have ptsd from the non nerfed arr grind

[@wildcardalbedo]

I know that people say that anything even mildly harrowing in video games "gave them PTSD", but TBH, that borders on accurate for anyone that did the ARR relics back in the day. ESPECIALLY people like me that were nutty enough to get more than one ;-;

[@SuperHexer123]

I did this grind in ShB for the PLD sword to glam....and even that was god awful. I can only imagine the pure agony that was doing this on release. I got my one weapon and I never want to see that questline ever again.

[@Adamantian9]

@@SuperHexer123 I have every single ShB relic. It was piss easy compared to ARR. I actually enjoyed doing the ShB relics. ARR relics were an absolutely *Monumental* 4 month undertaking.

[@Hkhai47]

I can see the crazed manic look in Larry's eyes as he talks about this grind.

[@markb1170]

8:03 It got so bad for me that I convinced myself somehow, that saying that "DING" sound effect ALOUD IRL after finishing a dungeon would influence the game to give me the required drop. It did kinda work, but deep down I knew I was going crazy after sleepless nights grinding dungeons. Then again, it does sound like employing dynamis to grind the ARR relic.

[@zenfith4311]

I'm kinda sad he didn't bring up the one part of the step where as you're melding the weapon the game trolls you and tells you it has a super low chance of succeeding and if it fails it will destroy the weapon.

[@ray_marbella]

Ah goddamn that made me snap but just went yolo and do it again if ever. Fking devs man

[@Red-fg9qr]

ooooh.... i remember that part.... they really wanted us to suffer. 2.5% chance was it?

[@Cassapphic]

This sounds absolutely insane because having done the resistance relic on content and every other relic except eureka in its shb/ew state, zodiac is still noticeably the most painful to do, but hearing how absolutely awful it used to be is honestly terrifying and I dont know how people survived it.

[@Golden910]

Agreed. I still think it's the worst. It's the most expensive in my opinion also. I managed to complete 2 of them but at what cost lol

[@gchnookums4951]

Not to mention they all look like absolute garbage.

[@Adamantian9]

@@gchnookums4951 maybe to you

[@Adamantian9]

they were some of the best weapons in ARR, even competing with final coil savage weapons by quite the margin.

[@noblewolf8232]

My first relic weapon was a resistance for PLD. When I go back to ARR to get a relic, I was surprise that spent around 1 mil gil to complete a zodiac weapon. How is that SHB relic weapon didn't cost a gil but ARR does. 1 Mil gone! Turn into dust! T^T

[@Skyace13]

I love the history lesson. Reminds us how far FFXIV has come. And I get to laugh at your suffering. I mean uh…feel sympathetic. Also very excited for the chicken nug

[@Larryzaur]

CHIMKIN NUGGET!!!

[@halapenopepper]

Even with all the nerfs, I still constantly tell people to only do ARR relics when they have nothing else to do because it's a horrific tedious grind that will make you hate level 50 content

[@Gamemaster-64]

For the achievements, past the first one, you only need to do it once unlike all the others after it.

[@FemboyJoe]

Fashion told me to do it... And i did it in a week and never touched the game for a year because burnout.

[@Grimnoire]

I did the Black mage one in three days and hated the game

[@ciberkid22]

When I got past the atma and the books, I felt I was on top of the world. Then came the aurum vale grind and the gil sink for the zodiac weapon to bring me back down to earth, but I was already prepared for them so they weren't too bad

[@CeruleanRogue]

I had a friend who dragged me into the ARR relic grind at the beginning of HW, because I had skipped the process back in ARR entirely due to all the horror stories I heard. They lied and said it was fine and people were exaggerating... :_) I still have the three atma I collected in my retainer inventory to remember the pain... Never forget.

[@Ephelle]

I actually kept a spreadsheet counting how many runs each dungeon atma took me to get. I still have it saved. I think I got pretty lucky all things told. 137 dungeons total. 20 Qarn HMs, 17 Hullbreakers, 16 Aurum Vales. Those were the worst offenders. There were several that I got in a single run or two.

[@kimlee6643]

Even with videos like these to put into perspective what the grind was like, there will always be people who'll never shut up about the Bozja grind being a mistake and that EW can't be like it. It's bizarre.

[@ienzocartel3174]

The Resistance weapons were my first intro to relics and after that, I went back to grind out ALL the relics from the different expansions just because of how much fun I had with them. I did one ARR relic and did not go back to do it. That's what I tell myself as I get ready to grind out 3 more ARR after I finish my Eureka weapons because its damn addicting to do.

[@Boyzby]

Every time I'm roaming around the maps and I see Taken or Giant Seps up, I think about how I would wait hours for them to pop. Because I'm stupid, I would go do FATEs or queue for a quick roulette out of boredom and hoped I wasn't too far before it was pulled or the duty didn't take too long. The first weapons put me off from doing any of these grinds until they were nerfed, but then again I hate grinding (I say as I'm 17 EX2 totems away from 99). The Resistance weapons weren't too bad though.

[@Larryzaur]

YES Taken in particular cost me two frekan days

[@milanugrinovic]

I love your history videos. ❤️ keep up with the great content.

[@hoshiboshihoshi]

You know the books were bad but honestly having to wait for mobs to come back when there were only 3 at a time when loads of people doing the same mobs was a pain!!! Also spirit bonding accessories hahahahahahah….

[@Mocita]

When I was making my Relics the first week that Atma came out, I got super lucky and got two weapons done. The second one I was able to get all the Atma’s in less than an hour. I pissed off so many people, I attributed it to my Lalafell Luck.

[@RussanoGreenstripe]

0:24 Got a good laugh out of me - whereas what I love the most about SMN is that it's the most mobile of all the caster DPS!

[@fd5934]

I love history videos from Larry, it's just such a good watch

[@bigredkid]

As someone who did every ShB relic and is working on my last two Animas, I did ONE ARR relic for my Warrior during ShB and never again. It was so time consuming still with all the nerfs.

[@ScarletMomiji]

I had my Monk ARR relic quest sitting around since HW and only finished it right before Endwalker...

[@Tystolfo]

Really? the anima weapons are way worse compared to the ARR relics imo.

[@bigredkid]

@@Tystolfo I did not enjoy the books phase, it was easy but I could not stand it.

[@RiseInAfterlife]

@@Tystolfo All you need for ANima ia saving up some scripts and tomestones, then its a breeze. ARR relics are still a massive pain.

[@Tystolfo]

@@RiseInAfterlife I mean personally the time it takes to save up the tomestones for Anima is the real pain in the ass for me. For the ARR relic I could just grind it out for like a week straight, no worries, but for the anima relic I couldn’t do shit but wait a couple weeks slowly collecting the mats. Anima is just boring as shit to grind and takes too long, at least with the Zodiac ones I can grind it out way quicker and all at once.

[@CamperCarl00]

3:23 Honestly, these theories came into being because two and a half months later they came out with the Sightseeing Log. Anyone who has ever done it will realize that the team had the means to program things that only happen at certain times of day and under certain weathers. It also wasn't that far of a stretch either, as my pre-nerf atma grind got significantly better once I started following the weather theory. It would make a lot of sense that Atma had hidden conditions for their drops, as the community really did try to pin down the drop chance. Of course, once the step was nerfed there was no real way to continue trying to do so, and the dev team has never disclosed the old Atma's drop rates.

[@Ephem13]

When I first came to FFXIV (ARR because I had also tried 1.x for a bit) I still had Stockholm Syndrome from FFXI. I felt SE was now taking care of me because things had gotten easier. With the game being where it is now, I finally get that you don't have to be punished to enjoy the game. Looking back, the only thing I really liked about FFXI was the community that it fostered. Recognizing names even when you didn't know someone. That stuff was the absolute best part and I don't think I'll ever find that again.

[@pachpaints5356]

"That means I don't like to move." made me ugly laugh.

[@theamericanbrotherofmightg3734]

I am new to the game but I complete the ARR relic because I really love how the Excalibur Zeta looks. The book farm was hellish and painful and light farm was me killing Ifrit in 5s thousands of times.

[@IceAokiji303]

Extra point on the Atma. If I recall correctly, originally the quest text listed one of the required zones _incorrectly._ So the list had a zone that didn't drop Atma, and was missing one that did (or rather, I think it like... listed C Thanalan twice, and didn't list C Shroud or something).

[@RBNinja]

I did it twice recently during Shadowbringers and I would absolutely never get another AAR relic again. Even the new nerfed process is painful. Severely less than during launch. But it's still very grindy.

[@s.s.6446]

Me and my friend recently went back to the roots and started the NIN and PLD weapon respectively. I think without him I would have lost my sanity during the book step…we finished about 2 weeks ago tho! I’d say the shiny itself wasn’t worth it but the journey sure as hell was :D

[@Adamantian9]

2 weeks is rookie numbers compared to on content pre-nerf Zodiac. took me 4 months to finish my warrior relic. yes, even with insta queue's, it still took me 4 months. i'd happily take 2 weeks over 4 months.

[@MarkZeroGaming]

I completely skipped this when I reached level 50 around the beginning of Shadowbringers. Nobody told me about it in order to protect me. I went back and did it at level, and oh man, even the nerfed current version is a major time sink if you're actually at ARR levels.

[@75skyloftmexican]

Larry video, Lets go!!

[@ZioSerpe]

You forgot the kettles. At the time I did the DRG weapon and called it a day for the rest of ARR. I think I ended up trading it in to do my 2nd relic during HW. I still roc the "Z" title you got from the whole ordeal

[@kairitrioncerulean8502]

Back when i was a naive free trial sprout i tried to farm an arr relic for summoner. It was the most agonizing thing i have ever suffered :c As a free trial you had no access to the marketboard so i had to level nearly all crafters but mostly alchemist and leatherworker to 50 to then be able to craft the eudite's picatrix of casting needed for the base relic. Then when i hit 50 on all gatherers and crafters except goldsmith, i realised to my horror that i needed a bloody grimoire binding that dropped from wanderer's palace in a trapped chest that most duty finder parties would pass or ignore in order to get fast clears. Cue 2 weeks of suffering as i spammrd wandrrer's palace for the bindings. At first i begged the parties to stop by the chests before we moved on and with a few exceptions most didn't mind grabbing the extra loot. After a few days of getting nothing but bloody spear heads and knive blades, i finally saw the bindings drop! But i did not get it :c this proceeded to happen two more times before i cracked and tried to solo the wanderer's palac as an astro at level 60, it did not go well. Afterwards i grew desperate and begged a friend who was a subbed player and had lvl 80 classes to help me get the bindings. She agreed and we spammed palace. Good news, the bindings dropped, bad news, my friend got it instead :c She offered to trade me the bindings but we unfortunately discovered free trial sprouts dont get nice things. This agony and suffering went of till i finally got the bindings on my 2nd week, where i would wait for all 3 other duty finder parties to leave before backtracking and looting the skipped chests. After finally getting the bindings i hit another snag as i needed to meld a materia for the weapon. But i did not have them and wasted more time extracting materia from full spiritbond gear. In hindsight i coulda bought it from the vendors. Once the erudite picatrix finally had the necessary materia affixed i went to gerolt to finally get the quest done. But to my horror(and i did not read whole guides back then besides checking where items dropped) it was far from the last step. After several more annoying quests i hit the a relic reborn hydra which took me hours and hours to queue as a dps . Once that was over i hit the atma stage. I hate it, i HATE it . It took me 3 days to get all the atmas, which admittedly was not as bad as the 2 weeks with the bindings but it was still really REALLY annoying. At this point my patience and sanity have reached the breaking point. And when the atms stage was over and i got the book stage i snapped. I couldn't handle it anymore :'( To me the relic wasnt worth all the farms with drop rates that hated me. I never ended up finishing any arr relic. I did finish arr and shb relics tho once i subbed, but i have never EVER touched arr relics since. Never again...!

[@sneakytrip6594]

Ah!

[@thalesn]

Great video, Larry. These are my favorite kind of video

[@LucyPyre]

the reminder that atma was a thing threatens to destroy my already fragile sanity but anyway A CHICKEN NUGGET SQUISHY???? i feel... targeted......

[@Larryzaur]

I couldn't work out with them for it to come with a happy meal :(

[@proy3]

The moment you mentioned the books I had that straight-faced Vietnam flashback look from sitting around Coerthas Central Highlands waiting for the FUCKING FATE to spawn.

[@carn5786]

Hearing all this, I actually feel inspired to go back and do a zodiac weapon or two.

[@Johan87577]

This was such a nice trip down memory lane. I remember the abyssmal droprate. Back then, playing in EU it was even worse when you had to do Titan hard cause of the ping situation, the EU servers was back then placed in NA.

[@bwells538]

As someone looking into doing relics soon, this pain was appreciated. At least you can do 90% of the Anima Weapon ahead of time now with spare poetics.

[@renycilfay9773]

I feel like some of the context on Atma and Animus being such horrid steps is lost these days. Those relic steps were released very close to an item level increase-- that's right, Atma and Animus both released on patch 2.2... So everyone felt like they **HAD** to do these relic weapons, to have a nice i100 weapon for raiding instead of the i95 leviathan extreme or T5 weapons. Well, maybe not everyone, but it was definitely part of what put me off the relic grind initially.

[@ayuvir]

I'll tell you a little bit of great grandpa knowledge. When ARR launched, the relic weapons first stage after being forged was called < relic name > +1. I remember beating Titan and getting that +1 on my Gae Bolg, so glad they changed that to Atma.

[@andriusstalionisable]

First time doing ARR weapon farm for my DRG and even today, the books wore such a pain. Took me 4 days 8-10 hours daily to do them ( i was sick ok). Such a horrible chore that i will remember for a long time. And to think how even worse was it back in the day.. My respects to you peeps.

[@hausofalts6220]

Love this Larry! So glad to see these vids again! Keep it up my good man!

[@marcelolinhares2465]

*hugs* I can see the PTS in your voice. I did the first relic back in the day, got Titan Hard killed when it was "the end game" and quit to only return at HW lol.

[@KaosOrder]

@Larryzaur Great video, and this is really sad to reveal to you this late in the game, but it was far cheaper to teleport to Gridania instead of North Shroud - the chocobo porter will take you directly to Hyrstmill for cheap. You don't even have to steer the chocobo. Also, the fate grind can be made SLIGHTLY easier both then and now by doing all of the fates on a dps class, as you can get more than one atma drop, and save them for when your next weapon hits the step.

[@hockey1973]

All of these videos is Larry telling us "If you think you want a "FFXIV-Classic" mode. . . take off the rose colored glasses"

[@michelle2407]

Idk if someone else mentioned it but to provide some insight into book FATEs (the reason why most people hate the step) like Larry said some of them took a while to spawn because their timers were broken. There’s a few that are infamous for it too, the one coerthas took 6h to spawn for me, the one in SThanalan a whole 24hs (Taken to be precise), the E Shroud one wasn’t bad for me but a fc friend had to wait 10hs for it to spawn. EVENTUALLY they decided to tune in the timers and they were not as broken anymore, even tho to this day some of them still take a bit to spawn. It was miserable lol I’m still surprised I put myself through that hell twice before they nerfed anything.

[@Sano-san]

Gotta love when you can just hear Larry getting progressively more heated as he explained the old relic grind. I feel. I remember doing this....I remember that pain....that was the worst

[@muyspecial4u]

I might of hated myself when I did this but I made my self do the monk ARR Relic for the "Kettle Knuckles Nexus". It took me 3 months because I would finish a step and then take a break for a few days.

[@junlockhart5096]

Larry is like the ffxiv grandma. Telling the grandkids about the ff14 history/stories and how hard life used to be compare to how we live now xD i love it

[@cceider]

i hope you will do other history videos like this, it's very interesting!

[@thaigon1247]

God this song plays with the strings in my heart. Also great video as always!! ♥

[@816262]

I love this history series! Really reminds us how far we've come! Are you gonna do HW relic next? I remember I got mine done ONE WEEK before Stormblood Early Access. I was so proud of myself

[@katarh]

I did the WAR axe when ARR was current because as a tank I got instant dungeon queues. And FATE parties loved me. And light parties loved me. I then went back over the course of the next eight years and finished all of them. ALL OF THEM. ALL OF THE ZETAS. They are very shiny at least.

[@melonkollyNZ]

never have i felt such fear from the phrase "nexus light farming" i remember the shout arguments ppl had that when odin spawned, the fate drop increased for his fate and also for behemoth, it was insane!! this was before world travel too lol also i distinctly remember that u had a specific fate in books as well and shouts for "omw to " were very common

[@yearls]

I clicked on this video thinking "A trip down memory lane, that'll be fun." you've gone and brought up suppressed memories.. I had fond memories of ARR Relic weapons, that is, until you mentioned the FATES.. Omg the FATES. I remember logging out in the area of the FATE after waiting a day for it to pop, then getting a message from a friend on Skype saying "Your FATE popped" so many sleepless nights... The horror, the horror. Though, Eureka and Bozja are no better..

[@Tuskor130]

I just recently started playing and figured I would try out the Relic Quest for Scholar. I saw the book on the market with the materias on it for 50k and thought "ill just buy an empty one and put them on myself." But when I just threw on a materia and didnt get it i was like "oh maybe it needs to be fully materia'd" and filled all three slots. Then when the quest progression didn't change I read it again and realized "oh i put the wrong materia on it." And for some absurd reason I didn't buy another empty one and just spent the 50k on a filled one. So I ended up wasting 20k on an empty book, and then wasting another 30k on buying a book with materia on it that i had in my bag that i could have spent 200 gil on the npc right next to me to fill myself. Also wow, the relic grind between then and now sounds wild. I already thought that doing the 16 or so steps at the current quest layout was wild. Grinding hundreds of fates and dungeons/trials for drops sounds like absolute anguish.

[@edwarudo]

Recently did the ARR relic for bard and hooboy, I will never forget the "Surprise" fate in Upper La Noscea. If you're late by 2 mins, the NPC just dies

[@Stormzsayshi]

Hearing about how the game used to be is so cool. Keep up the great work. :D

[@omensoffate]

Lol right

[@Salt_Mage]

Completely glossed over how painful getting even Zenith (or +1 at the time) was! Titan Hard Mode with the severe latency of early ARR, solo tank (almost always a paladin, sorry warriors), and still not even a sure win was certainly something.

[@maeh340]

I'll never forget how I spent 3 hours in South Shroud doing fates only to realize atmas don't even appear there

[@Altearithe]

I'm actually currently on the zodiac step for my first weapon and hearing that I don't have to run dungeons over and over like back then makes me so happy, but damn do I feel for everyone that did it on content. You're powerful as hell being able to go through that.

[@nonemitigation]

i think you missed the most important part of the zodiac weapon, which was how for the second to last step, the game repeatedly implied that you had a ~1% chance to destroy your relic forever for trying to continue

[@Decree_]

Literally doing the WHM ARR relic right now at the atma step, nice timing! I already did a couple back in HW-SB days, but I'm bored enough to torture myself again

[@jet44444]

That WHM ARR wep is soooo worth it, don’t give up. You will not be disappointed, it’s considered the best one for WHM.

[@ZZTroll1]

I think I only ever made one fully completed relic weapon in ARR in the end. I remember doing Moogle EX and I think garuda hard mode in particular on the rotation for my light farm. I think the reason I barely remember the Zodiac farm was to bleach it from my memory.

[@ViniciusGso]

Finished my PLD Zodiac Weapon last week and man I don't want to touch that grind anymore. Maybe one day If i like a class so much to main it more than PLD, I will try doing it. It took me like 4 days to finish. That's because I was doing like 2 to 4 books per day. I'm still in shock, lmao. Not only that but after you finish the books you need to run dungeons 80+ times, sometimes the same one to get through the weapon light farming and atma light farming at the end. Truly a pain. Also, I'm just finishing Eureka and got my elemental armor +1. That golden armor along with the excalibur zeta and aegis shield zeta is so divine... I think all this grind was worth it at the end, after all, glamour is the true endgame.

[@fruhead8098]

You forgot part of the pain. For each step, you had to have the relic weapon equipped when doing the content (fates, dungeons, etc.), which depending on where your gear was at, might have been worse than your current weapon. So many people would have to remember to swap to the relic before queueing. Imagine doing those 100 fates or dungeons, only to realize you forgot to equip the weapon ( : At least the light step, you'd remember right after the first one because "oh, I didn't get the light notification". But those random drops? "Oh well, guess my luck was just bad ( : "

[@Rc3651]

2.0 player here, my friends would buy me food to farm Atma for them haha. I never did finish the book step on my SCH relic though, got burned out on the grind =P We did so many FATEs back then though. I don't think people nowadays have any concept of how much FATE grinding there was. It was the best way to level (in a system where leveling other jobs was mandatory, since you needed all of your Cross Class Skills unlocked) and required for a bunch of other stuff. First in-game event? Had to FATE grind for all of the swimsuits. Hildibrand? Requires camping a FATE to unlock! There was a lot less diversity of content back then and I think they were trying to emulate the Guild Wars 2 system a bit which was very popular in that game at the time

[@mimikyoo]

I only got my first zeta after it was nerfed since I joined the game in 4.0. I used to think the my zeta relic grind was the worse than Anima, given the amount of steps but hearing how it used to be makes me appreciate where it is now. My advice to anyone trying to get a zeta/anima/resistance relic is to not make it your main focus. Put it on the back burner while you do other things. It's a good sink for poetics and you can do fates while waiting in Party finder

[@chimpzorz]

i remember dragging an FC member through this the day before HW we got it for them at like 4:30 in the morning or so 30 mins before the servers went down for HW... thanks for bringing long repressed painful memories back ;_;

[@16xthedetail76]

Honestly i quit during stormblood but this popped up in my recommended and i clicked because i KNEW that somebody else felt my pain. Screw those damn early relics. I dont know what its like now but man, sadistic shit happened during 2.0.

[@BlazingAzureTheta]

Let me just say this, in current expansion (in my opinion) the materia meld is the hardest step. Just because depending on the materia it can be expensive. They really took the ARR Relic and nerfed it to the ground.

[@AoiKaze2000]

What's interesting is comparing the WHM Zeta from back in the day to the PLD ARR relic (cause I'm a masochist! =D ) as it stands now. It's SOOOOO much easier these days, but still just as tedious.

[@c_huvaknunh9138]

I did 2 on content as well, PLD and MNK. Thanks for the wonderful traum.. memories @Larryzaur

[@SpacePrincessNilah]

It's been several years and I still break into fits of anger whenever I think about those damn books

[@knowwhoiamyet]

I feel like this is a common trend in a lot of MMOs. Earlier content was grindier because there was simply naught else to be done. Imagine today if all we had access to was ARR. Including only ARR jobs. There's just... Not much there. So of course, everything was slower. Drop rates lower, player power lower, everything lower. Dangle the carrot, but give us a few dozen extra whips with the stick before we get to nibble on it. But as games grow into themselves, adding more side content, new zones, new classes, etc., the grinds not only no longer need to be as big as they are, but *can't* be as big as they are, lest players miss out on other content being added.

[@LucasBernardesRosa]

God... I started properly in Shadowbringers and I thought I did so much crazy work by making 2 Zeta weapons... But low drop rates on the Zodiac Dungeons? 300 monsters per book? 1 day per Animus Fate? And I hear that you now always get 5 Alexandrite from the coffers but used to be random 1-5! Omg, I've had it so easy making my Zetas! I had no Idea!

[@ChappeticMarina]

Lol i remember there being reports every so often of "__ is diming", "___ is Bright!" I too didn't know how to put Materia on even after I got all the Alexandrite (The Pain...the Loss...of sanity) but I was also SO BROKE back in ARR that I couldn't even buy it off the MB so I just kind of been stopped there ever since and didn't pick it back up till the lull for EW xD Those players that did all 10 class relics back then I think I still respect slightly more than those that did all the ShB relics before the DR number of runs requirement got nerfed.

[@silvanbarrow86]

I may have gone a bit mad during those last months of Shadowbringers... A while back I had done the Atma step on all of the ARR relics, but that took a lot out of me so they were just resting in my bank. But when CT raids ended up being a faster way to farm items for one of the Resistance weapons steps, AND that one CT raid was enough to fill a whole Mahatma on the light going for Zeta, I decided to kill two birds with one stone. So I bit the bullet. Finished one relic all the way through to unlock all the steps, then streamlined doing the Animus books with the Zodiac Materials quests.

[@DenemeDokio]

Oh god I thought I forgot about this horror and just had my PLD relics as a neat little glamour. Now I properly remember the horrors and nightmares I had to go through for these items all those years ago.

[@esperan2k]

There's the one FATE in Upper La Noscea that halted my progress getting all of these guys solo. I did three Relics when it was current: BRD, PLD, WAR. I have everything set for all of the rest (that Zodiac step, have everything for those), but as I was doing the books for BLM, I had to do that couriers fate where, if you don't get there immediately, they will die in a minute to the Kobolds, and even if you camp it, killing both sets of Kobolds and protecting the couriers is pretty damn tough, especially as a mage. So yeah, I pretty much got all the ARR Relics done up to the Books step, and didn't bother doing more after that because of that one FATE.

[@amitamaru]

I still build zodiac/anima weapons as a hobby. I've gotten quite a few. I'm on the MNK nova step currently. My first zodiac on content was the Nirvana Zeta.

[@vashtilyris4510]

lol, the good old days..... I got the first set of glowy weapons for all of my classes. The proceeded to grind out my Dragoon and Black Mage Relic to the max. Fun times that I kinda miss in a very sick way.

[@SeldimSeen1]

I remember the pain. I stopped at my Yoshi bow and none of my other jobs have their ARR Relic Weapons and never will. LOL

[@xtremefurrycat]

Man this video takes me back to the ridiculousness of this grind and at the time I was like "I'm okay with this" but now I think how the hell did I even do this.... Man I really must have blacked out a lot while collecting stuff.

[@waffles8512]

He called me powerful hehe I still love these relics to this day and am now forcing myself to do all the eureka weapons, almost SOLO as well due to me being on Tonberry and being an EU player. the times I play the game is almost dead but I so enjoy these grinds... No raid or any content will ever outmatch the love I have for ARR and SB relics. Love the vid my dude ♥ ( he says while painfully farming mobs on pyros alone x.x )

[@peterling2801]

Back in ARR my first Weapon was the Bow and when i finished it i was so proud. I like the Relic Quests and Gerold I hope Endwalker gets wonderfull shiny Weapons too

[@reflett]

I remember I only picked up Carpenter during ARR to craft the base bow for the relic and I would just craft them and sell them. I’d even sell lumber for people (and it was very profitable haha) Made some good gil 👍

[@primalmeridian]

I literally JUST clicked off my document that I'm using to keep track of where I am in the ARR relic grind (currently on the second-to-last step for Warrior, started Dragoon, planning on doing White Mage and Black Mage), went to Twitter, and saw that you uploaded this video. Thank god for unsyncing, because there is no way I could stand that level of grind if I had been playing the game at that time. Especially since nowadays, the most efficient way to grind light is to run Aurum Vale repeatedly.

[@NCISCherno]

Amusing to remember those days, and alexandrite, and no matter how nuts they were in XIV you'd think, "At least this isn't a Mythic in FF XI difficult."

[@sonder006]

Make more history videos please! These are super interesting and entertaining for someone who started in 5.5

[@artrianshamastadis8526]

that book step was like draining your insanity. but ARR relic have best looking NIN weapon

[@mudalaca01]

you know ... for some reason this gave me motivation to continue getting all 10 sets to their maximum power, even thought i'm pretty sure i dont have enough materia for it, and i'm free to play so i have to grind the materia myself

[@alexarnaiz9769]

I love your history FFXIV videos, make me feel old xD

[@tj_chaosangel]

Ahh.... the zodiac relics. Can't forget those! Not after...: Spending many hours in S.Thanalan for Atma (the worst for me) Doing the many steps in the books, the waiting for Fates in particular Spending a stupid amount of gil on materia... Doing so many dungeons for there drop, being an extremely low drop rate then 75 maps, 1 alexandrite! Light grinds, took forever for me Being confused on what stats to choose All this was for Black Mage btw And to this day, I still have Paladin, Monk, and Dragoon to finish up, lol

[@Keryusupercoologuy]

lol I did Monk largely in ARR, though I finished the thing in Heavensward. I've been prepping to be able to just kinda power through the relics at some point by getting every Zodiac quest item finished. I already did my Atma grind

[@iiOmarSP]

As a person who finished their first and only ARR relic (PLD) a couple of weeks ago, the two steps that required light grinding had me go on PF just to ask for a Physical Ranged DPS, for spamming Peloton just for faster movement, and it was fun going thru Aurum Vale the first time around for like 20 or so runs (not) during a specific 2 hours window for a high bonus...Twice They're a lot more grindy than HW relics, which is something more fun personally speaking.

[@iiOmarSP]

The books were also unfun half the time cause of fate waiting, had to wait at least 2 hours *three times* just for a fate, and barely missed one needed for the relic the other day.

[@XChronicHash]

I haven’t played since mid ShB but this brings back memories. ARR/Heavensward were good times