Relic and Artifact..Follow

Relic just refers to the top weapon for you class. All relics have a purple icon. Artifact is an old term used in FFXI to describe the class specific armor. It is the iconic armor that most people recognize each class by, such as the wizards petasos for BLM.

The icons colors dont refer to relic or artifact, but gear rarity. Pink gear is Aetherial gear which is looted from dungeons. It is only slightly better than white which is normal gear. Green is scarce, which usually means that it has a higher ilvl than gear lvl. Blue is rare, which is typically some of the best gear in game. If youve played WoW, pink gear is like greens. Blue is like purple (epics) and purple is like orange (legendary)

HQ refers to crafted gear that has reached high quality level which slightly improves stats and adds a gold tint to the icon
. The +1 relic is an upgraded version of the relic with improoved stats.





Edited, Nov 5th 2013 6:51am by OnyxFFXI

I didn't realise you were a Qiqirn until your accent came through at the end there :P

Actually you've reversed that: both are usually 1/2 iLVLs higher than the required level. However Pink/Aetherial has the potential to be stronger depending on your luck.

The difference is that the stats for Green are pre-determined and unchanging. Every single 44 Coliseum Shawl, for example, will always have the exact same stats and will never change (barring any patch itemization changes). However, an equivalent 44 Aetherial DoW chest piece maybe have STR and VIT static and up to 1-3 additional stats that are randomly generated.

Brayflox's Longstop is a prime example of this because you usually get a lot of Aetherial/Pink pieces from the non-boss chests. Sometimes you'll find a say a WHM Cane that has 2-3 stats on it; another time it may have 4-5.