If you’re after a relic weapon inFinal Fantasy XIVand don’t mind a grind, then you might want to go after a Zodiac weapon.
Make no mistake, this Relic carries arguably the most arduous grind of any Relic inFFXIV, but they are glorious to look at and, as a bonus, come with the title. You’ll need to be prepared for a lot of hard work if you want a Zodiac weapon, but if you’re up for the challenge, let’s look at the steps in detail.
Before you can begin the Zodiac grind, you’ll need to have completed a few things:
How to complete The Weaponsmith of Legend inFinal Fantasy XIV
You’ll only need to complete this quest before you begin your first Zodiac weapon grind. When beginning additional weapons, you’ll skip over this one.
Head to Vesper Bay and talk to Nedrick Ironheart (X:12.0, Y:14.0). He’ll send you off to Mor Dhona to speak to Rowena (X:22.0, Y:6.0) before you head to Hyrstmill in North Shroud to see Gerolt (X:30.0, Y:20.0).
This final location will be the main go-to point for the entire Zodiac grind, so you’ll get pretty good at finding it quickly.
How to complete A Relic Reborn inFinal Fantasy XIV
Relic stage: Unfinished
This quest has a lot of different steps, each of which requires some effort to complete:
Step one: Finding your broken weapon.
Where you need to go to find your broken weapon depends on which job you’re trying to get a Zodiac weapon for. Broken weapons are spread between the various A Realm Reborn Beastmen Strongholds:
Step two: Attach materia to a weapon
To complete this step, you’ll need to either craft or purchase a specific weapon for your chosen class, then purchase two of a specific low-level materia to meld onto it. you’re able to either meld the materia yourself or pay a Materia Melder NPC to do this for you.
Here’s the weapon and materia you’ll need for each Job:
Step three: Getting Alumina Salts
This one’s easy, especially if you’re going into this on a level 90 Job. You’ll need to complete A Relic Reborn: The Chimera, which is a level 50 Trial. However, it can be easily completedunsyncedwithin a few seconds solo with any level 90 Job.
To enter A Relic Reborn for the first time, you’ll need to head to Coerthas Central Highlands to find the entrance (X:32.0, Y6.0). For any additional weapons, you’ll be able to access this trial through the Duty Finder.
Once you’ve completed the Trial, you’ll be rewarded with some Alumina Salts. With these in hand, head back to Gerolt in Hyrstmill.
Step four: Getting an Amdapor Glyph
Again, this is a relatively easy step. All you need to do is complete the level 50 dungeon Amdapor Keep to get an Amdapor Glyph. Thankfully, as long as you complete the dungeon as your chosen Job, you may do it unsynced, so this is another step you can complete very quickly.
Once you’ve got the Glyph, take it back to Rowena in Mor Dhona and then revisit Gerolt in Hyrstmill.
Step five: Hunt some Beastmen
At this point, Gerolt will have given you an unfinished Zodiac weapon. You’ll now need to equip and go hunting for Beastmen. Again, which Beastmen you need to defeat depends on the Job you’re trying to get a Zodiac weapon for, but they’re in the same area as where you found your broken weapon in step one:
Step six: Complete some Trials
You’ll need to complete four different Trials in order to complete this step. The first of these needs unlocking – A Relic Reborn: The Hydra.
Like A Relic Reborn: The Chimera, you’ll need to physically go to the entrance location for this Trial the first time you complete this step. The entrance is located in Eastern Thanalan, directly next to the entrance to Halatali (X:14.0, Y:30.0). This step needs to be completed with the unfinished Zodiac weapon equipped but can be completed unsynced. When complete, return to Gerolt.
After that, Gerolt will send you into three Trials one by one to obtain their quest-specific drops, talking to him again between each Trial. You do not need to have the unfinished Zodiac weapon equipped to complete these trials, but you do still need to complete them as your chosen Job:
Step seven: Get some Radz-at-Han Quenching Oil
Radz-at-Han Quenching Oil can be purchased from Auriana in Mor Dhona (X:22.7, Y:6.6) for 15Tomestones of Poeticseach. You only need one and then you can return to Gerolt to finish this first quest of the Zodiac grind.
How to upgrade to a Zenith Zodiac weapon inFinal Fantasy XIV
Relic Stage: Zenith
Unlike any other steps in the Zodiac grind, this one involves no quests (yay!). This is a really easy step, and all you need is 60 Tomestones of Poetics to purchase 3 Thavnairian Mist. These can be purchased from Auriana in Mor Dhona.
Once you’ve got them, take them to the Furnace in Hyrstmill and combine the Mists with your weapon. Ta-da!
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Relic stage: Atma
For this next step, you’re going to have to complete a lot of FATEs. And I do mean a lot.
After speaking to Gerold, he’ll send you to Jalzahn (located very close by), and he will tell you that you now need to collect 12 Atmas, each of which drops from FATEs completed in specific areas. However, these Atmas have an abysmally low drop rate even today, so this step might take you a while to complete. You’ll need to complete these FATEs with your Zenith weapon equipped.
As soon as you talk to Jalzahn, this quest will be marked as completed whether you have collected the Atma or not. Keep track of them by organizing your inventory. If this isn’t your first Zodiac grind, you do not need to talk to Jalzahn this first time and can immediately progress to collecting Atmas.
Here’s all the different Atmas and where to get them:
Once you’ve collected your Atmas, head back to Jalzahn and hand them back to him. He’ll upgrade your weapon to the Atma stage.
As a side note, if you happen to end up with extra Atmas from any area (if you’re doing this grind with a friend, for instance), I strongly recommend keeping them somewhere. You never know when they’ll come in handy.
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Relic stage: Animus
Even I have to admit that this is the stage that causes people to take a break or give up the Zodiac grind altogether — the dreaded Books.
With your Atma Zodiac weapon equipped, talk to Jalzahn, and he will explain that you need to recreate the ‘valorous deeds’ of the Zodiac Braves. In order to do this, you’ll need to complete objectives set out in 9 books with your Atma weapon equipped.
Head to Mor Dhona and talk to Rowena first, then to G’jusana, who is also in Mor Dhona (X:22.9, Y:7.3). From here, you can purchase books, but there is one big caveat to this – you can only ever own one book at a time, and each book must be completed in full before purchasing the next book.
Each book contains the following which must be completed:
Completing each book upgrades a stat on your Atma weapon, which varies depending on your chosen Job:
Once you’ve completed all nine books, head back and talk to Jalzahn again. He will reward you with an Animus stage Zodiac weapon.
Upgrading your Animus weapon to a Novus weapon will require you to complete the next two quests.
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Speak to Jalzahn in Hyrstmill with the Animus weapon equipped, and he’ll send you to Mutamix Bubblypots in Central Thanalan (X:23.0, Y:13.0). Speak to him, and he’ll ask you to get 3 Superior Enchanted Ink. This can be purchased from Rowena in Mor Dhona (X:21.0, Y:5.0) for 25 Tomestones of Poetics each.
Take these to Hubairtin in Central Thanalan (X:23.0, Y:13.0), and he will provide you with a Sphere Scroll, which serves as the blueprint for the Novus upgrade.
Relic Stage: Novus
For this stage, you will need two things:
If you’re getting a Zodiac weapon for glamour purposes, which you most likely are considering the relatively low Lvl, it doesn’t matter too much which Materia you choose to use. Use Universalis to see which Materia is cheapest and go from there. You will need to use multiple different types of Materia, but this is entirely down to personal choice.
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There are a few different ways to obtain the Alexandrite you need to meld Materia onto the Sphere Scroll:
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Mysterious Maps can be obtained in a couple of different ways, but most easily through purchase from Auriana in Mor Dhona for 75 Tomestones of Poetics each.
The other way to get them includes a couple of steps:
Once you’ve successfully melded enough Materia to your Sphere Scroll, head back to Hyrstmill and talk to Jalzahn, who will reward you with your Novus weapon.
How to farm Zodiac Light inFinal Fantasy XIV
Relic stage: Nexus
Speak to Jalzahn with your Novus weapon equipped and complete the quest “Mmmmmm, Soulglazed Relics”. Select which weapon you wish to Soulglaze (the one that you’re working on, and remember to choose both the Sword and Shield if you’re working towards a Paladin weapon), and then you’ll be into the next grind.
In order to upgrade your Novus weapon to its Nexus stage, you’ll need to run duties to gather 2,000 Light. These duties can be completed unsynced, and you earn light by running any duty that’s part of A Realm Reborn. Each duty provides a certain amount of light:
While it may be tempting to try for Newborn Star levels of light, this is only a possible bonus in either Syrcus Tower or The World of Darkness, which require a lot of time to complete.
The easiest way to complete this step solo at any level is by completing unsynced runs of the following dungeons, which reward guaranteed Brilliant light (48 points) per completion and a possibility of Blinding light (96 points) for any run:
Once you’ve gained 2,000 Light, return to Jalzahn and select “Relic Weapon Novus Enhancement” to upgrade your Zodiac weapon to the Nexus stage.
Upgrading to Zodiac BravesinFinal Fantasy XIV
Relic stage: ZodiacBraves
In order to upgrade your weapon to the Zodiac Braves stage, you’ll need to complete the following four quests to get four items:
These four quests all require you to gather up a large number of items, talking to the respective NPC at intervals through the quest. I’d suggest picking all four quests up at the same time and completing the stages for each before moving on to the next stage and so on. Once you’ve handed all items to an NPC, the quest will be complete.
These quests do not need to be completed as your chosen Job and any dungeons required can be completed unsynced. You’ll need four Bombard Cores total and four Bottles of Sacred Spring Water to complete these quests.
Here’s the full list of items you’ll need, along with who you need to hand them in to:
Once you’ve completed all four quests and got all four items, head to Hyrstmill and talk to Gerolt with them in your inventory to pick up “His Dark Materia”. Gerolt will send you to talk to Mutamix Bubblypots, then head back to Gerolt.
Finally, after all of this, talk to Jalzahn and select “Zodiac Weapon Recreation”. You’ll get a warning that this process has only a 1.4% chance to succeed but do not panic – this process is guaranteed to succeed. You will be rewarded with your upgraded Zodiac Braves weapon.
Upgrading to Zodiac Zeta inFinal Fantasy XIV
Relic stage: Zeta
Head to Swiftperch in Western La Noscea and talk to Remon (X:34.3, Y:31.7), picking up the quest “Rise and Shine”. It’s a relatively simple travel and talk quest, which will allow you to progress once completed.
Return to Remon, and he’ll allow you to attach Mahatma to your weapon. There are 12 Mahatma in total, and, once again, you need to gather 40 Light for each Mahatma. You can only have one attached to your weapon at any time, and attaching a Mahatma costs 50 Tomestones of Poetics. You’ll need to revisit Remon to attach a new Mahatma once the previous one is completed.
With any Mahatma attached, you’ll need to runA Realm Rebornduties in order to gather Light. Again, there are different tiers of Light rewarded for different duties:
With each Mahatma requiring 40 points of light to complete, it’s tempting to run duties that reward Forceful levels of Light. However, the only two duties that reward this are Syrcus Tower or The World of Darkness, and these require a lot of time, especially given the need for 12 runs to complete all Mahatmas.
Once again, the easiest way to do this solo at any level is by unsyncing the dungeons noted in the previous Light gathering stage, such as Aurum Vale or Sunken Temple of Qarn.
Once you’ve completed all 12 Mahatmas, head back to Jalzahn in Hyrstmill and select “Zodiac Weapon of Awakening” to complete your Zodiac relic weapon, get your title, and swear off doing this hellish grind ever again.
