Looking for Party – Relic Hunter

Since returning to Final Fantasy XI, the main focus for Tenatzen, and myself has been to obtain his Relic Shield – The Aegis.

The Relic weapons were designed to be extremely time consuming and no easy task to obtain – hours of work goes into each stage of its creation. In order to complete your weapon you must collect certain types of currency that can be gathered (farmed is the normal term for this) from difficult time set zones all over Vana’diel called Dynamis.

A maximum of two hours real time per day can be spent in these areas, so naturally they are heavily populated at times depending where you are in the world, and it isn’t unusual to find yourself competing for monsters to kill. There are five stages of creation to work through, and the end result is a beautiful, and instantly recognisable weapon. A true embodiment of hard work, and dedication to your job!

Currency can also be sold in the bazaars. The prices can fluctuate on a daily basis so having a keen eye for a bargain when building a Relic is a must! Some players will farm this currency purely to sell on, which can be a rather profitable turnout.

We have also been working towards another set of weapons known as Empyreans. Ten plans to work towards the Ochain shield and the Almace Sword where as I have started working on my Verethragna Monk Fists. Just like the Relic, each weapon requires the player to focus on certain monsters, and the items they drop. Once collected to the required amounts, the items, and the base weapons can be worked though stages, and made into the final product.

I asked a few of my fellow players to tell me more about their own reasons for their weapons, and what drives them to complete their tasks.

Apcxsaint is one of the Officers of MoghatII, and has been working towards his Relic dagger: The Mandau. Once completing his Rhongomiant Polearm for his Dragoon, he decided to focus on putting more power into his Thief build. The Mandau is perfect for this as it has more damage per second, and has access to the Relic Weapon Skill – Mercy Stroke. Ideally Apcxsaint would like to become one of the best Thief characters on the Ragnarok server, too! When asked if he would ever work towards another Relic, he instantly replied “NEVER AGAIN!!”

Starting casually in the summer of 2012, Saint has been farming on a daily basis for currency alongside fellow players Tenatzen, Allslove, and myself. Together we have been collaborating our currency pulls, and funding each other for each stage.

Tenatzen’s main reason for returning to FFXI was to complete the mission he started many moons ago – he wants to cover his Paladin in shields. ALL the shields!

As I write this, he stands to the right of me, cracking out poses…

“Its a badge of competency – you cannot say you are a Paladin in FFXI unless you have both the Aegis and the Ochain”

“Its a badge of competency – you cannot say you are a Paladin in FFXI unless you have both the Aegis and the Ochain”, he tells me as he tries to fight the cat. Sadly, the Paladin job is becoming less of a requirement in this game, and once Final Fantasy XIV comes out we both know this will become our main focus. So to complete these shields, and sword would mean he could finally retire Tenatzen to go live happily ever after with his horrible punch-a-holic Elvaan wife.

Zseraphim is our resident Blue Mage who currently working on his Empyrean weapon: The Almace Sword. Recently pushing the sword to level 85, he is working hard to take it to completion at level 99. “Because the Blue Mage job does not have access to a Relic weapon, I focused solely towards obtaining my Almace, granting me access to the Weapon Skill: Chant du Cynge”, he says. Finding certain stages of the weapon particularly annoying, he continued on knowing this sword would only benefit his Mage class. He logs on daily, pushing progress as much as he can.

I have gave some thought to possibly one day attempting building my own set of Relic fists – The Spharai. I have seen first hand how much blood, sweat, and tears goes into creating these, so I am questioning if I have the time, and drive to go as far as these guys have. We have a good set-up right now with a select few all working hard together on pulling in the pennies towards each other’s gear.

Who knows, I might just knuckle (Oh, God, that was poor) down and get to it… maybe.

So every night, until we reach our goal, you can find us in various different sections of Dynamis, punching/slashing the money out of monsters!