Since it’s rebirth in 2013, Final Fantasy XIV has been one of the most successful MMORPGs on the market, supporting play for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Mac. And part of the games success has been it’s intricately crafted story, lore and broad range of characters. However, there is one aspect of the game that makes all players, old and new, shudder with both anticipation and rage... The Relic Quests.
Back in 2013 I started working my way through the original Relic quest and, to be frank, it was horrific. With low drop rates of the required materials and items through having to constantly do the games Full Active Time Events (FATEs as they are more commonly known) the frustration became a bit of a gate keeper for those that wanted to have a life and enjoy the game against those that wanted to spend hours running around the games main areas redoing the same stuff.
Since this, the development team working on FFXIV have tried to adjust and develop the relic quest. The Heavensward relic was slightly better, relying slightly less on RNG and more on purchasable items. And the Stormblood relic gave us Eureka, a new area to explore and level in, with death penalties tied to experience and levels – something akin to classic MMOs.
With Shadowbringers, the team brought us the Resistance Weapons and the new areas of Bozja. Working in a similar way to Eureka, this large instanced area is full of different types of FATES called Skirmishes and Critical Engagements. We were also given a more in-depth story and, as of patch 5.55, 3 new large scale assault missions where parties of up to 48 players can all work together to defeat an invading Garlean force – the IVth Legion.
As someone who seemingly is a glutton for punishment, I have striven to obtain at least one Relic weapon per expansion (because I have other responsibilities and can’t no life the game like I used to) and I must admit the Shadowbringers relic seems to be more balanced, especially with the most recent update.
Sure you need to grind your way through Zadnos (the northern part of the Bozja) and it’s myriad numbers of Skirmishes and Critical Engagements to obtain 30 lots of 6 different items (yes, you need 180 individual items for just the first stage!), but the drop rates are seemingly 100%, at least for me they were, as long as you managed to receive a gold medal on each of the skirmishes in the 3 areas and a gold in the critical engagements in each area.
The other positive of running Zadnor is the ability to level other classes with relative ease. You can take a job that is level 71+ and get boosted to level 80 in either the Bozjan Southern Front or Zadnor and gain a hefty amount of experience while also grinding for the materials for you oh-so shiny relic weapon. A good trade-off for the time if I’m honest.
With another 5 months (at time of writing) until the exciting expansion Endwalker is released, the Shadowbringer Resistance weapons provide some interesting content to run that may keep us as a players entertained for at least some of that time.
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