FFXIV relic weapons are some of the best-looking glamour pieces in the game, but the path to them runs through two of the most divisive zones Square Enix ever built: The Forbidden Land, Eureka (Stormblood) and the Bozjan Southern Front / Zadnor (Shadowbringers). Both are open-world "field operations" with their own leveling, their own currencies, and grinds measured in dozens of hours per weapon. This guide breaks down what each step actually costs in time, where the real walls are, and the handful of moments where buying a carry is a sensible trade instead of stubbornness.

Eureka relics (Stormblood): the Eurekan Magia weapons

Eureka is split across four zones — Anemos, Pagos, Pyros, and Hydatos — and you progress an "elemental level" cap of 60 that is separate from your job level. The relic line here gives you the Eurekan Weapons and their eventual Eureka Effulgent / shiny glowing forms. The currency that matters is protean crystals and zone-specific crystals (anemos, pagos, pyros, hydatos crystals), all earned by killing mobs and farming NM (notorious monster) trains.

The grind shape:

  • Anemos stage: you need hundreds of protean crystals plus Anemos crystals. Light farming with a train moving NM to NM is the standard, and it's genuinely AFK-resistant — you have to chain enemy kills near a train to stay efficient.
  • Pagos and Pyros: these are the most-hated zones because early elemental levels (20–26 in Pagos especially) have brutal XP curves. Expect to grind logographs and crystals while leveling, and a single relic upgrade can eat 50–100+ Frosted/Louhi-tier materials.
  • Hydatos and Eureka Fragments: the final shine requires crystalline scales, Eureka fragments, and a run through The Baldesion Arsenal (BA), a 56-player raid that needs a coordinated raid to clear and drops the materials for the ultimate glow.

Realistically, fully finishing one Eureka relic to its final glowing stage is a 40–80 hour project depending on how active the population is on your data center, and BA in particular is gated behind finding an organized run.

Bozja relics (Shadowbringers): the Resistance Weapons

Bozja's Resistance Weapons are a longer, more step-heavy questline than Eureka, but the zones themselves are friendlier. You progress through the Bozjan Southern Front and then Zadnor, earning mettle to raise your Resistance Rank and farming the big set-piece Critical Engagements and the duels.

The currency and material walls that define this grind:

  • Loathsome Memories of the Dying / Sorrowful, Harrowing, Bitter, Loathsome Memories: each upgrade tier wants 15–30 of a specific memory type, and these drop from skirmishes and Critical Engagements (CEs).
  • Compact Axles, Coatings, and Pneumatites: the mid-tier steps require these, often 6–18 per weapon, gathered from CE rewards inside Bozja and Zadnor.
  • Castrum Lacus Litore and Dalriada: the two large-scale alliance-style raids in Bozja are required for specific steps and drop the high-tier mats; Dalriada in particular is where the final Resistance Weapon (Augmented/Recollection) mats come from.

A single Bozja relic from scratch — including leveling Resistance Rank to unlock the right zones — is commonly a 30–50 hour endeavor, and every additional weapon for the same job-set reuses your zone progress, so weapons two through five are much faster.

Where the real time-sinks actually are

It's worth being precise about which parts are slow, because they're not the parts people assume:

  • Eureka elemental leveling (especially Pagos 20–26) is the worst raw-time wall. There is no shortcut except a busy zone with active NM trains.
  • Bozja Resistance Rank and mettle is mostly a function of how many CEs and Dalriada/Castrum runs pop while you're online. On a dead instance it crawls; on a full one it flies.
  • The large-scale instances — Baldesion Arsenal, Castrum Lacus Litore, Dalriada — are not hard once you're in a group, but finding the group at off-peak hours is the actual blocker.

When buying time makes sense — and when it doesn't

Relic weapons are pure cosmetic and completionist content. They are not required for raiding, and an item-level-equivalent weapon drops from normal endgame loot, so nothing about your raid performance hinges on owning one. That framing matters for the spending question.

A carry or boost is a reasonable time-for-money trade in a few specific situations:

  • You're on a low-population data center where NM trains and CEs barely pop. If you'd spend three real hours waiting for content to spawn for every one hour of progress, paying a service that runs you through an organized farm or a scheduled BA/Dalriada clear can save a full weekend.
  • You want one specific relic for glamour and have zero interest in the zones themselves. Eureka and Bozja are love-it-or-hate-it; if you bounced off them hard, outsourcing the grind for a single weapon you actually want is defensible.
  • The final gated steps — specifically a Baldesion Arsenal clear for the Eureka shine, or a coordinated Dalriada run for the last Bozja mats — are where a scheduled carry genuinely removes a logistical headache that has nothing to do with skill. If you're buying anything, buy the run that's hardest to assemble yourself.

Conversely, just play it out if any of these are true: you're on a healthy data center like Aether or Gaia where trains run constantly, you actually enjoy the field-operation gameplay, or you're chasing multiple relics for the same job-set (because the per-weapon cost collapses after the first one and the grind becomes genuinely efficient). And if you're buying gold to fund mats or convenience along the way, only do it through a source that protects your account — a quick honest delivery beats a cheap one that gets you flagged.

The honest summary: Eureka and Bozja reward patience and a populated instance more than they reward skill. Decide which weapon you actually want, check how alive your data center is, and reserve any spending for the population-gated final steps where assembling a group — not playing the game — is the real cost.