FFXIV Zodiac Weapon Guide

Obtaining your first Zodiac weapon is one of the most notorious grinds in Final Fantasy XIV. While there are easier ways to obtain it, doing it the old-fashioned way will be tedious, but hopefully, with the help of this guide, the journey will become a little bit clearer, if not at all less painful. It will require at least a week of dedicated playtime and significant resources in the form of Gil, crafting materials, and other currencies.

Zodiac weapons are worth it for the glamour, prestige, titles, or completion’s sake, but stat-wise, they are outclassed by weapons you obtain just playing through the main scenario. However, they are still worthwhile because of the most crucial currency in any MMO: bragging rights.

Obtaining the Base Relic

Step 1: The Weaponsmith of Legend

For this quest to be available, you must first have completed the Main Scenario Quest, The Ultimate Weapon, and all quests for your chosen job.

You can accept this quest through Nedrick at Vesper Bay, who will send you to Rowena at Revenant’s Toll. You will then speak to Gerolt at Hyrstmill. You will only need to complete this quest once should you wish to obtain Zodiac weapons for your other jobs.

Step 2: A Relic Reborn

Gerolt, in Hyrstmill, will task you with a series of fetch quests, beginning with obtaining a broken weapon from a Beast Tribe Stronghold. The location of the weapon will depend on your job:

You will then be asked to gather a template for your Relic Weapon, as well as some materia to repair it.

Like the location of the broken weapon, the exact template and materia depend on your job. The templates can be crafted if you have leveled up the appropriate skills, or you can buy them from the Market Board or have a friend craft them for you.

Once you have the weapon template, you must meld the materia into the template. Again, this is something you can do yourself via a friend who has leveled the appropriate skill or by using an NPC materia melder. The exact weapon template and needed materia are listed below:

Step 3: Dhorme Chimera

After melding your template weapon with the appropriate material you will receive the base Relic Weapon and be tasked with defeating the Dhorme Chimera with your Relic equipped, in the trial A Relic Reborn: The Chimera. If you’ve kept up with any expansions from Heavensward onwards, this fight should be relatively trivial. The trial is located in the Coerthas Central Highlands.

Step 4: Amdapor Keep

Run Amdapor Keep, the level 50 dungeon, with your Relic equipped to obtain an Amdapor Glyph.

Step 5: Kill 24 Beastmen

It is as simple as it sounds; you just need to kill 24 Beastmen with your relic equipped.

Step 6: Defeat Hydra

Defeat Hydra in the trial A Relic Reborn: the Hydra, with your relic equipped. Again, this trial is trivial. You can find it in Eastern Thanalan.

Step 7: Kill Hardmode Primals (Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan)

You will be asked to complete the trials The Bowl of Embers (Hard), The Howling Eye (Hard), and The Navel (Hard) in that order. Looking for a group on Duty Finder is sufficient to clear these trials but if you struggle, learn the fights, ask in your guild or use another LFG service.

Step 8: Radz-at-Han Quenching Oil

You can buy a Radz-at-Han Quenching Oil for 15 Tombstones of Poetics from Auriana in Mor Dhona. Turn the oil in with Gerolt, and you should have your first Relic.

Base Relic to Zenith

This step is simple, just acquire three Thavnairian Mist, which can be bought for 20 Poetic Tomestones each, and take them to the furnace in Hyrstmill. Once you place both the Thavnairian Mists and your Base Relic into the furnace, you should upgrade your Relic.

Zenith to Atma

For this step, you will receive a quest from Jalzahn at Hyrstmill, who will task you with collecting Atma, which drops from FATEs in certain zones. Your Relic must be equipped for Atma to have a chance to drop. The drop-rate for Atma per FATE completed is estimated to be around 25%, meaning it will take roughly 48 completed FATEs for the required Atma, although this is subject to chance. After collecting the needed Atma, Jalzahn will upgrade your relic.

The locations are listed below:

Atma to Animus

• Trial of the Braves

This quest is collected from Jalzahn at Hyrstmill, who will send you to G’jusana at Mor Dhona. You will purchase nine books from him for 100 Tomestones of Poetics each. Each book contains a task from the following list, which you must complete all with the relic equipped:

• 100 monsters killed
• 3 dungeons
• 3 FATEs (at least Gold)
• 3 Levequests

Animus to Novus

• Star Light, Star Bright

This quest is, again, collected from Jalzahn, at Hyrstmill, and involves infusing your Relic with materia to tweak its stats. Each level of infusion requires eleven of a certain materia. As you meld more materia into the Relic, the materia tier requirement becomes higher. For example, after infusing Materia I, the next tier requires the same amount of Materia II, and so on. However, higher tier Materia has a chance of failing to meld, requiring more materia to offset the possibility. Seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh have a 96%, 90%, 82%, 72%, and 60% chance to fail, respectively.

You also need to infuse your relic with seventy-five Alexandrite, which is a resource that you can collect from the following activities with your relic equipped:

• Treasure Maps from Daily Quests
• Treasure Maps from lesser tombstones
• Allied Seals (hunting)
• FATEs

Novus to Nexus

• Mmmmmm, Soulglazed Relics

You should be pretty familiar with Jalzahn at this point, and he will offer a quest that gives you the ability to see how much Light your weapon has accrued. Light builds up from various activities at different rates; the potential points of light rewarded are 8, 16, 32, 48, 96, and 128. Once your weapon has 2,000 points of Light, return to Jalzahn, and he will upgrade your Relic. Garuda HM/EX, Primals HM, Fates, Duty Roulette, Treasure Maps, or Cape Westwind are the best activities to gain light efficiently. Garuda HM, in particular, can be completed in minutes with an efficient group.

Nexus to Zodiac

• Wherefore Art Thou, Zodiac

The final step also starts with, yep, Jalzahn, who will task you with acquiring four items, each with its requirements, which will be listed below:

Once the four items are returned to Jalzahn, he will finally upgrade your relic weapon to its Zodiac form and this relentless grind will come to an end.