SHADOWBRINGERS

I dunno, I still don't buy that it's so much we've tipped the scales so hard in Hydaelyn's favor that we're breaking the balance. We're, what, six or seven calamities in, each of which a victory for Darkness, whereas the Light has had no such notable victories on that scale.

In fact, one of our biggest victories was pyrrhic in the long run because it wasted all of Hydaelyn's Hydaelyn-juice: surviving Ultima Weapon's casting of Ultima. Which...again...puts Light at disadvantage to Dark.

Five years ago darkness was winning hands down as far as I understand it, and what meager victories we've achieved don't, at least to my mind, amount to the colossal amount of things our enemies have achieved.

It smacks to me more of "Oh no, Light is finally fighting back. Mommy! Mommy! The balance! We need balance!" whining from the Ascians.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

I dunno, I still don't buy that it's so much we've tipped the scales so hard in Hydaelyn's favor that we're breaking the balance. We're, what, six or seven calamities in, each of which a victory for Darkness, whereas the Light has had no such notable victories on that scale

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The Darkness having "victories" is contingent on where the light has been standing. For example, if in each age, the Darkness was all but obliterated, it wouldve taken a catastrophic event to balance the scales. Or, if we've been sitting in a elongated 'light' age, that the current state of things is actually an attempt to return to normalcy. How much the "darkness is winning" is dependant on what the light is doing this whole time. Something we've not really seen to much of broadly. All we've been getting again and again is "Go and destroy the primals, defeat these things, and everythign will be golden". That same train of thought was was brought the Warriors of Darkness's world to ruin. On their world, they were the WoL, were defeating darkness, and the light ended up messing everything up.

And it is worth noticing that Hydaelyn isnt exactly the greatest thing ever. That she ended up possessing and killing someone (Minfillia) is worth noting, and if the rules primals follows are to be considered, Hydaelyn falls into that camp that even as a large crystal, she could be technically enslaving people too. Who is to say you have real free will yourself, as the WoL? Or that the fact that Zodiark is pretty much imprisoned at this time, yet Hydaelyn is not. Meaning, the light is free to do as it wills, while the dark is prevented. That would point to the scales being tipped well in favor of the light.

I think the ascians like Lahabrea were more of "Lets bring about our Dark Lord cause hes the coolest!", where Elidibus is probably along the more correct lines of neither side having supremacy and restoring a balance.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

The Darkness having "victories" is contingent on where the light has been standing. For example, if in each age, the Darkness was all but obliterated, it wouldve taken a catastrophic event to balance the scales.

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Each catastrophy is a victory for darkness. How can you consider light overpowering the darkness in any of the eras if they LOST all of them? For balance to be there, NO CALAMITY can happen. The moment the last calamity does happen (I think it was nine?!) Zodiark will awaken and will overpower Hydealyn that is too weak from constantly trying to win and failing.

That is, of course, assuming Hydaelyn is actually benevolent and is not lying. But as we have no knowledge to the contrary and it is quite obvious that her "no war" policy is more desired than Zodiarks "death and destruction" is more beneficent to humans as a whole (when it does not cause destruction due to excess light, that is), I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Though there is clearly something that she is not saying that we do not know.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

And it is worth noticing that Hydaelyn isnt exactly the greatest thing ever. That she ended up possessing and killing someone (Minfillia) is worth noting [...]

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Possessing, yes, but Minfilia isn't dead, just... transcended? And currently on an active mission to prevent the Warriors' world from being fully destroyed by light.

Who knows what's going to happen with her later? The story isn't over yet, and I don't think her part is over, either.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Possessing, yes, but Minfilia isn't dead, just... transcended? And currently on an active mission to prevent the Warriors' world from being fully destroyed by light.

Who knows what's going to happen with her later? The story isn't over yet, and I don't think her part is over, either.

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I agree that Minfillia isnt dead,

and I'm thinking she was "called" to another world maybe by Hydaelyn? (Now that we kind of have that "calling" thing going on, I wonder if Minfillia isnt pulling the scions to wherever she is.). Also I'd like to know more of the "rejoining" which also has yet to be fully detailed.... (if it was detailed in Eureka, I havent finished Pyros yet...)

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Originally Posted by Vespar

I agree that Minfillia isnt dead,

and I'm thinking she was "called" to another world maybe by Hydaelyn? (Now that we kind of have that "calling" thing going on, I wonder if Minfillia isnt pulling the scions to wherever she is.) and failing being called, perhaps its Hydalyns version of "rejoining" which also has yet to be fully detailed.... (if it was detailed in Eureka, I havent finished Pyros yet...)

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I don't have the quote right now because it was from a voiced cutscene (so not available in the text log) but...

as I remember it, the final scene with the Warriors of Darkness had Minfilia (or maybe Hydaelyn-as-Minfilia) specifically saying she would travel to their world to absorb the excess light and prevent it from being destroyed. I can't remember if we heard Hydaelyn speak directly or not.

Again, its relative to how well the light is doing overall.

Consider the current age: Weve been victorious against....

Titan
Garuda
Ifrit
Shiva
Nidd
Shinryu
Garlemald on numerous occassions
Dragon Space Pope
Diablo (and all Raids connected to Him)
Bismark
Zurvan
Ravana
Sophia
Sephirot
Alaggan Junk
Omega Weapon
Lakshmi
Ultima Weap
Lahabrea and Ascian ilk broadly
Wars of Darkness

These are All victories for the light, so to speak. Story wise, we as the WoL havent actually flat out lost to often. We almost always overcome. Now, if the Ascians ultimate goal is to bring about Zodiark, and the Light was such an easy push over, why isnt Zodiark actually around? Its more likely that every single previous age had similar warriors of Light, doing the exact same thing, and racking up victories over time. We know there were previous WoL cause FFXIV 1.0 Had them, which was before the next age change.

But lets assume that Ascians are losing the battles but winning the war with key victories. This still falls into the bigger point: Hydaelyn is free to to as she pleases, Zodiark is not. This would infer that Hydaelyn and Zodiark were both around and about at the same time at some point, and that Hydaelyn's forces was victorious in defeating Zodiark's forces. As such, we might be living in a "light" era, where she has had supremacy for a while. We wouldnt know this probably because it goes farther back than the races written history. This would mean that broadly, the power dynamic is already tilted towards Hydaelyn and she wants to keep it that way, while Elidibus wants to tilt it back towards neutral. (I point to Elidibus because of the ascians weve seen, hes not so hung up on letting Zodiark free for the sake of "Cause Zodiark is cool", and more for "returning the balance of things.")

Now considering this is a FF game, Its likely that Zodiark is just a big baddy who wants to obliterate everything ultimately with a "I will purge this world and return everything to zero!" nihilistic mentality. But as far as I can remember, we actually know very little about Zodiark, except whats been told to us by proponents for Hydaelyn. Those who are opposed to Hydaelyn have stated that if the light wins to much, that would also result in the ultimate end of the world.

Point is, how well the darkness is doing is completely contingent on things we dont actually know but are assuming to be the case. So far we've been warned by the Warriors of Darkness to be aware that always winning in favor of Hydaelyn can result in a terrible end for the world too. Outside of the Ascians, theyre the first group to tell us to think carefully about proceeding forward.

As for Minfillia, I sppose shes still alive then? That whole sequence was..odd. But for all intensive plot purposes shes out of the picture. But still, she becomes a light sponge on behest of Hydaelyn. This actually gets the Warriors of Darkness to leave, more or less. You know, the people who do pose a threat to Hydaelyn?

Again, Hydaelyn doesnt seem to be exactly operating on the most noble of principles here, and the warning given by teh Warriors of Darkness still stand. Doing Hydaelyns work to much will result in the same fate, and yet here we are, still pushing forward.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Again, its relative to how well the light is doing overall.

Consider the current age: Weve been victorious against....

Titan
Garuda
Ifrit
Shiva
Nidd
Shinryu
Garlemald on numerous occassions
Dragon Space Pope
Diablo (and all Raids connected to Him)
Bismark
Zurvan
Ravana
Sophia
Sephirot
Alaggan Junk
Omega Weapon
Lakshmi
Ultima Weap
Lahabrea and Ascian ilk broadly
Wars of Darkness

These are All victories for the light, so to speak.

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Victory for the Light: The Warrior of Light defeats their foe, no matter what that means for the grander scheme of things.
Victory for Darkness: Causing an apocalyptic-level event that at best forces civilizations to adapt to permanently altered climates and casualties in staggering amounts, and at worst literally floods the entire world and wipes entire civilizations off the face of it. These calamities all signalling the end of an era and the merging of one shard into the primary one, which is something as far as I'm aware can't be undone--as opposed to all of the Light's victories so far.

We killed Ifrit, for instance. But he can be re-summoned at a whim. I'd perhaps wipe every victory off that list except for permanently sealing away Igeyorhm and Nabreales, as well as Lahabrea being absorbed by Thordan. Even then, we stomp one and more appear.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I don't have the quote right now because it was from a voiced cutscene (so not available in the text log) but...

as I remember it, the final scene with the Warriors of Darkness had Minfilia (or maybe Hydaelyn-as-Minfilia) specifically saying she would travel to their world to absorb the excess light and prevent it from being destroyed. I can't remember if we heard Hydaelyn speak directly or not.

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That's RIGHT! I totally forgot about that.

Well then, it makes my hypothesis a lot more plausible. Perhaps she is the one "calling" the scions to the world drenched in too much Light?

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

Victory for the Light: The Warrior of Light defeats their foe, no matter what that means for the grander scheme of things.
Victory for Darkness: Causing an apocalyptic-level event that at best forces civilizations to adapt to permanently altered climates and casualties in staggering amounts, and at worst literally floods the entire world and wipes entire civilizations off the face of it. These calamities all signalling the end of an era and the merging of one shard into the primary one, which is something as far as I'm aware can't be undone--as opposed to all of the Light's victories so far.

We killed Ifrit, for instance. But he can be re-summoned at a whim. I'd perhaps wipe every victory off that list except for permanently sealing away Igeyorhm and Nabreales, as well as Lahabrea being absorbed by Thordan. Even then, we stomp one and more appear.

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I think your overselling the calamities. They caused prominent civilizations with a region to falter/collapse, but that doesnt always mean the absolute obliteration of everything, as we can see that we're all still here (so to speak) and knowledge and technology marches forward. Again, this is in relationship to how well the light is doing. I keep pointing that out because in the grander scheme of things, its Zodiark whos locked up, not Hydaelyn, when both are implied to be necessary for balance. And for Zodiark to have been locked up, what kind of battle was waged and on what scale to have that outcome. An outcome that is a clear and decisive victory for Hydaelyn, where all calamities, while thus far terrible, still havent spelled defeat or doom for Hydaelyn.

A subtle note to my point is the WoL is either damage control, or operating on continuing the current status quo, where the Ascians are operating on ending the current status quo and returning it to the former one (however far back that is). For some ascians, its cause Zodiark is best god. But for others (Elidibus) its for returning things to the intended state. A sentiment that has implications that IF things continue uncontested for Hydaelyn, everything gets screwed. Just like what happened on the Warriors of Darkness homeworld.

There are a lot of questions to actually think about. Like this for example:

If Hydaelyn remains unchecked, the conclusion is the world gets enveloped by light and destroyed, as demonstrated on other worlds when one side of the spectrum gains to much power (Creatures from the void are from worlds that fell into darkness). So, in making sure things are kept in check, does that means the ascians and their actions are necessary evils?

I dont think there will be a calamity like we think there will be.

I mean people are expecting another calamity to bring about serious changes to maps, current systems etc.

I am expecting them to find a way for the calamity to still happen but mitigate the damage it does to the environment while restoring aether to the land.

The real question is does it happen in 5.0 or is 5.0 the true leading up into the calamity in 6.0 which ironically is most likely when they will have new tech available.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

I think your overselling the calamities. They caused prominent civilizations with a region to falter/collapse, but that doesnt always mean the absolute obliteration of everything, as we can see that we're all still here (so to speak) and knowledge and technology marches forward.

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Technology vastly worse than what was several centuries (millenia?!) ago, magic vastly weaker than what was centuries (millenia?!) ago. And no, Garlemald doesn't count. They use ALLAGAN technology, as taught to them by Ascians. And even then they are inferior to actual Allagan still.

White Mages, Black Mages, Scholars...all of these jobs were almost lost to time because of these calamities. Entire groups of people were lost to time, becoming nothing more than history that needs to be uncovered from old tomes.

Sure...The calamities weren't a big deal and the light was doing just spiffy...

Sorry, but it's like saying that The Black Death was a sneeze, World War I and II were just small arguments or that obliteration of one continent (whichever one) in real world would be no problem cause, hey, there are several more left, right!

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Again, this is in relationship to how well the light is doing. I keep pointing that out because in the grander scheme of things, its Zodiark whos locked up, not Hydaelyn, when both are implied to be necessary for balance.

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Yeah...Except the light is losing from the moment that Hydaelyn sealed Zodiark. I'm pretty sure that she said it herself, that Zodiark suddenly begun craving destruction or something like that and that she had to seal him. And also that it did cost her a lot of her energy. You know...Sealing is usually done against someone you CANNOT defeat in fiction. Point in question...how the Warring Triad was sealed, how Bahamut was sealed, how the big-bad from the Four Lords (I don't remember his name...) is sealed. All of them are more powerful than who they fought and that's why they were sealed in desperation and not defeated.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

And for Zodiark to have been locked up, what kind of battle was waged and on what scale to have that outcome. An outcome that is a clear and decisive victory for Hydaelyn, where all calamities, while thus far terrible, still havent spelled defeat or doom for Hydaelyn.

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And what spelled doom for Zodiark?! He is all fine and dandy, having numerous servants each with power that literally one person in the world that have all the blessing that Hydealyn could muster (and lost at one point) can really oppose...He's sealed, but not defeated. His release is only a matter of time however. Not a problem for someone that's probably timeless. I mean, there is no reverse of the calamity. No "world reconstruction" that fixes the seal. It can only go his way or no way at all.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

If Hydaelyn remains unchecked, the conclusion is the world gets enveloped by light and destroyed, as demonstrated on other worlds when one side of the spectrum gains to much power (Creatures from the void are from worlds that fell into darkness). So, in making sure things are kept in check, does that means the ascians and their actions are necessary evils?

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No. It means that the Ascians and their actions cause a disruption because if they weren't there, neither would be the warrior of light. And the world would actually be in a state of balance where countries would be hostile towards each other, without waging all-out wars. Garlemald was such a harassed country after all. The three Eorzean states were allied to oppose the actions caused by Ascians, they wouldn't have allied otherwise. By trying to pull the state of the world towards one extreme, the Ascians led to creation of someone that opposes them, allying those countries that otherwise would be contesting for resources, space and what not as most countries do.

As I said, there ARE things left unknown that will probably show Hydaelyn in less favorable light with time. But the condition of light and dark is actually pretty clear. Just not the actual motives they have because we can only assume that Zodiark wants destruction going by what his "rival" told us. And Ascians do like to beat around the bush themselves instead of saying the thing that the warrior of light would supposedly agree with (if they had better mastery of echo).

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

Again, its relative to how well the light is doing overall.

Consider the current age: Weve been victorious against....

Titan
Garuda
Ifrit
Shiva
Nidd
Shinryu
Garlemald on numerous occassions
Dragon Space Pope
Diablo (and all Raids connected to Him)
Bismark
Zurvan
Ravana
Sophia
Sephirot
Alaggan Junk
Omega Weapon
Lakshmi
Ultima Weap
Lahabrea and Ascian ilk broadly
Wars of Darkness

These are All victories for the light, so to speak.

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I think you're confusing victories by the Warrior of Light with victories for the Light.

Primals need to be defeated to prevent them from draining the land's aether, and yet each defeat drives the anger and desperation of the beast tribes. We are essentially playing into the Ascians' plans.

Ultima - a 'victory for the Light' but one that came at great cost to Hydaelyn's strength when She shielded us from Ultima. (It's only after this that she 'summons' Minfilia to act as Her voice. Was it somehow necessary? We're lacking answers about why it happened.)

Nabriales and the Chrysalis - we thwarted some kind of Ascian scheme to acquire Tupsimati and kidnap Minfilia for... some kind of unknown purpose. (That makes me think - did Hydaelyn 'take' Minfilia so she'd be beyond Ascian reach? Is there something special about her?) Anyway, it was more preventing a gain for Darkness than winning a gain for Light. Nabriales' defeat might be a win, but only if his position isn't simply filled by promoting a lesser Ascian to his place. (The lorebook also notes that Nabriales had "far less raw power than the likes of Lahabrea and Elidibus".)

The Binding Coil - prevented further chaos from a reborn Bahamut, and returned its aether to the land. Is this a win for the Light, or is the natural flow of aether a separate, 'neutral' element to the conflict?

Thordan - this is an interesting one, and I've just got to this point with my alt charater. Thordan outplayed Lahabrea and things didn't go to plan. What was the Ascians' original intent? Increased conflict with the dragons? A long-term plan to get hold of Nidhogg's eyes? Regardless, it went wrong and Lahabrea was (apparently) destroyed by the primal he taught Thordan to create.
The post-credits scene is particularly interesting. Elidibus says he will need to take more active measures to fix the balance. This seems to be specifically calling on the Warrior of Darkness, but in light of recent events, that may not be his only intent.

The Warring Triad - not an increase for the Light, but a prevention of great chaos... and yet apparently Elidibus is pulling strings somewhere in the background (via Unukalhai) to get us to do this. And if Mr "Balance is Everything" who considers our recent victories inconvenient wants us to do something, I have to wonder about the long-term implications...

Nidhogg - one of our few true victories, winning peace for Ishgard - and yet it also left the Eyes free for the taking.

Warriors of Darkness - listing this as a victory is oversimplifying it. We defeated them in the battle instance but that wasn't the end of it.
Again it was Elidibus who had a hand in this from the start - guiding them to believe that the only way they could save their world was to bring about a Calamity in this one. (Though with some kind of counter-machinations from Urianger - I forget the details but will be playing through that part again soon.)

Diablos, Omega and other raids - perhaps our best examples of actual victories. And yet they tend to be high-stakes world-destroying events... and the Ascians don't necessarily want that to happen either.


The tricky question through all of this: what drives the balance of Light and Darkness? Do we need to actively create Light somehow or does it increase naturally as the number of Dark-aspected beings in the world lessens? Is Hydaelyn ideally able to 'feed on light' and keep it in check, but currently starved and weakened to the point She can't even reach out and do this?

There are so many unknowns, and we'll have to wait and see what revelations we get in the future.

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Originally Posted by Melichoir

This would mean that broadly, the power dynamic is already tilted towards Hydaelyn and she wants to keep it that way, while Elidibus wants to tilt it back towards neutral. (I point to Elidibus because of the ascians weve seen, hes not so hung up on letting Zodiark free for the sake of "Cause Zodiark is cool", and more for "returning the balance of things.")

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Elidibus wants balance - but that's because letting the world fall to either Darkness or Light makes it useless to Zodiark. By necessity, the Ascians' goal requires them to push the world to the brink of disaster without letting it topple over into the void. It's Elidibus's job to make sure that doesn't happen, especially since Igeyorhm already ruined the Thirteenth Shard this way.

Because of this, he's playing both sides. To quote the lorebook: "He has shown himself willing to lend his counsel and aid to the Scions, the embodiments of the Light. Nevertheless, his loyalty to Zodiark - the will within the Darkness - is absolute."

Each calamity lowered the overall technological level of the planet. The first calamity probably destroyed a civilization that had access to space travel, quantum mechanics on a high order and nearly unlimited energy resources. From there, we had the second collapse, followed by the third which wiped out the Allagans. With each fall, civilization lost more and more knowledge, resources and power. We have essentially gone from a world who had access to Star Trek levels of technology to where we are now, which in many ways is nearly medieval. One more big push and were all the way back to sticks and stones, if not worse.

I feel like we had this song and dance before, but

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I think you're confusing victories by the Warrior of Light with victories for the Light.

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I was always under the impression that these were effectively one and the same. Because when the WoDs tried to tip the balance back in Darkness' favor, we saw them beat Ravana before we could. And when they talked about what tipped the balance in their world too heavily towards the Light, they specifically said it was them being uncontested champions. They didn't even talk about who they beat so much as how they just kept on winning until there was no one left to challenge them. So victories by the WoL pretty much seem to equal victories for Light. Which is probably why Zenos was one of the best things to have ever happened to us, until we caught up to him and took him down.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

I feel like we had this song and dance before, but



I was always under the impression that these were effectively one and the same. Because when the WoDs tried to tip the balance back in Darkness' favor, we saw them beat Ravana before we could. And when they talked about what tipped the balance in their world too heavily towards the Light, they specifically said it was them being uncontested champions. They didn't even talk about who they beat so much as how they just kept on winning until there was no one left to challenge them. So victories by the WoL pretty much seem to equal victories for Light. Which is probably why Zenos was one of the best things to have ever happened to us, until we caught up to him and took him down.

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The story implication there--that WoL winning a fight means the Light won a fight and is tipping the scales back--is a really strange one and I don't think that would be a smart route to take. I inferred they antagonized the Gnath into summoning Ravana (because summoning drains Hydaelyn is my understanding), and that was Darkness' victory. I mean, heck I'm sure Iscah brought it up but I'll reiterate, even us killing a Primal only scares the beastmen into summoning their primal again: we've seen Ifrit summoned four times (Normal, Garuda, HM, EX), Titan summoned five times (Normal, Garuda, HM, EX, 3.4 story), Garuda summoned three times (Normal, HM, EX).The HM and EX of the first three even had side story of Ascians watching us and noting how yes, we're winning against the primals, but that's just stirring things into even more of a frenzy and we're playing into their hands, and that we have to because it's either that or let the Primals keep rampaging.

It also brings into question why Ascians would keep letting us fight primals, or let us fight primals with no hindrance. If us defeating a primal summoned by their hand* is good for us, why are they letting us do it?


*Well, not directly their hand, but...indirectly by their hand?

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

The story implication there--that WoL winning a fight means the Light won a fight and is tipping the scales back--is a really strange one and I don't think that would be a smart route to take. I inferred they antagonized the Gnath into summoning Ravana (because summoning drains Hydaelyn is my understanding), and that was Darkness' victory. I mean, heck I'm sure Iscah brought it up but I'll reiterate, even us killing a Primal only scares the beastmen into summoning their primal again: we've seen Ifrit summoned four times (Normal, Garuda, HM, EX), Titan summoned five times (Normal, Garuda, HM, EX, 3.4 story), Garuda summoned three times (Normal, HM, EX).The HM and EX of the first three even had side story of Ascians watching us and noting how yes, we're winning against the primals, but that's just stirring things into even more of a frenzy and we're playing into their hands, and that we have to because it's either that or let the Primals keep rampaging.

It also brings into question why Ascians would keep letting us fight primals, or let us fight primals with no hindrance. If us defeating a primal summoned by their hand* is good for us, why are they letting us do it?


*Well, not directly their hand, but...indirectly by their hand?

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Garuda was summon 4 time.
Normal, hard, EX and that one dungeon at that end of HW

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

even us killing a Primal only scares the beastmen into summoning their primal again: we've seen Ifrit summoned four times (Normal, Garuda, HM, EX), Titan summoned five times (Normal, Garuda, HM, EX, 3.4 story), Garuda summoned three times (Normal, HM, EX).

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And that's only the summonings we were present for!

One of the Tales From the Storm implies that it's a somewhat regular occurrence, and others are fighting primals too.

Well it's a matter of hours now before we get a few clues!

Are we taking bets? :D

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

I mean, heck I'm sure Iscah brought it up but I'll reiterate, even us killing a Primal only scares the beastmen into summoning their primal again

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Then what's the difference between us and the WoD? We're all doing the same thing. Primal gets summoned - yeah, Ascian victory, no one denies that. But by that logic, our victory over it would just as equally fuel the next Darkness feat. And if you say beating the Primal is a victory to the Light, why did the WoD defeat Ravana? There has to be something to have made their victory not tilt the scales back, to still have made it worthwhile for them to bother. So far, the only thing setting us and them apart seems to be whose proxies we were at the time the deed was done.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

Then what's the difference between us and the WoD? We're all doing the same thing. Primal gets summoned - yeah, Ascian victory, no one denies that. But by that logic, our victory over it would just as equally fuel the next Darkness feat. And if you say beating the Primal is a victory to the Light, why did the WoD defeat Ravana? There has to be something to have made their victory not tilt the scales back, to still have made it worthwhile for them to bother. So far, the only thing setting us and them apart seems to be whose proxies we were at the time the deed was done.

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I don't know the answer.

But then, if we follow your logic, should we pull Arenvald along to finish off every primal we beat? Or Fordola? Perhaps we should get Lolorito, assuming the former two are too associated with the Light? Or was it a victory for the Light too when the Company of Heroes defeated Titan and Leviathan? If it were explained as "Every time Hydaelyn's chosen defeats a primal entity, they become more powerful," we'd have a genuine point here, but as far as we're told, that's not the case. We're still street level with immunity to lower level godhax.

It also, again, begs the question: the Ascians act like they're in the advantageous position with the WoL between a rock and a hard place; defeat the summoned primal, and terrify beast tribes to summoning again or remaining idle and letting the primal rampage and turn more people and make themselves stronger. Why would this be an advantage if this weighted the world in Hydaelyn's favor, and why wouldn't we be running around doing what the WoD was doing (agitating beast tribes into summoning with the specific purpose of slaying that primal to gain Universal Points for their team)?

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

But then, if we follow your logic, should we pull Arenvald along to finish off every primal we beat? Or Fordola?

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Arenvald is one of Hydaelyn's chosen, no difference if we had done it or him. As for Fordola, we'd need to learn more about her synthetic Echo before I can form an opinion. It might not even count for her.

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Perhaps we should get Lolorito

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While Lolorito is far from good, I wouldn't necessarily say he's pure evil either, and either way has no known ties to either Hydaelyn or Zodiark. The WoDs at this point in time have formed an alliance with the Ascians and therefore Zodiark, which is why I think they could even tip the balance in Darkness' favor.

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If it were explained as "Every time Hydaelyn's chosen defeats a primal entity, they become more powerful," we'd have a genuine point here, but as far as we're told, that's not the case. We're still street level with immunity to lower level godhax.

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You might've been able to claim that as fact until Stormblood. But in Stormblood we get cold, hard story telling us we got stronger over time because we saw the results as we kept fighting Zenos. At first we lost - then we fought Susano, and we managed to hold our ground against him in Yanxia. Then we beat Lakshmi, and we managed to beat him in Ala Mhigo. It was never clearly stated in-game, no, and there're other ways to explain our increase in power (my personal favorite is how we feed on people's faith in us like Primals do) but it's a very easy case to argue in favor of.

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Why would this be an advantage if this weighted the world in Hydaelyn's favor, and why wouldn't we be running around doing what the WoD was doing (agitating beast tribes into summoning with the specific purpose of slaying that primal to gain Universal Points for their team)?

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3.4 + 4.4. The Ascians are absolutely not in an advantageous position. This is a story-string that has been going strong since before the introduction of the WoD, and made clear once they showed up. We are an unstoppable force representing the Light. The only thing that even managed to slow us down was Zenos and we beat him. And now this voice from beyond - possibly the future - is warning us about a Calamity should we continue down this path of completely beating the Ascians.
Also, I'm not so sure if they agitated the Gnath into summoning Ravana. Their original reason for summoning him was waging war, I think that, and us taking Ravana down in the first place, gave them more than enough motivation to re-summon him. Which leaves this whole thing in an even bigger flux.

EDIT: addendum, random thought I had. Defeating the Primals in and of itself is not a victory for the Light, but us doing it is. Because Primals were defeated long before we showed up. We know, as you mentioned, the Company of Heroes defeated Titan. SMN questline talks about defeating Ifrit. In Limsa you hear about the last time they had to beat Leviathan. But all those Primals were beaten, yet still when the game starts it sounds like the Ascians are in full dominance, and the Scions have to wrestle the balance back tooth and nail and are still lagging behind.
Until you showed up. You, a Battle-ready Champion of Hydaelyn's. And that's when defeating the Primals started tipping the balance.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

Arenvald is one of Hydaelyn's chosen, no difference if we had done it or him. As for Fordola, we'd need to learn more about her synthetic Echo before I can form an opinion. It might not even count for her. While Lolorito is far from good, I wouldn't necessarily say he's pure evil either, and either way has no known ties to either Hydaelyn or Zodiark. The WoDs at this point in time have formed an alliance with the Ascians and therefore Zodiark, which is why I think they could even tip the balance in Darkness' favor.

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I brought Lolorito up to suggest a neutral entity.

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You might've been able to claim that as fact until Stormblood. But in Stormblood we get cold, hard story telling us we got stronger over time because we saw the results as we kept fighting Zenos. At first we lost - then we fought Susano, and we managed to hold our ground against him in Yanxia. Then we beat Lakshmi, and we managed to beat him in Ala Mhigo. It was never clearly stated in-game, no, and there're other ways to explain our increase in power (my personal favorite is how we feed on people's faith in us like Primals do) but it's a very easy case to argue in favor of.

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That is, indeed, an interpretation. It's not one I agree with, but that's certainly a valid interpretation of events that happened; it's also not exactly quantified, and by that point we'd already slain a dozen or so primals previous to Zenos, so how did slaying two more give us that dramatic of a power boost when the dozen we'd defeated before left us without the strength to so much as leave more than a scratch on his armor?

EDIT: Not to mention, among our victory list is a victory over Bahamut himself (why didn't we get a stupidly high power boost from that?) Odin (another elder primal), and the Warring Triad which are described as being as powerful as if not moreso than Bahamut. If we do gain power from defeating primals, there's no way Zenos would have been able to defeat us in the first place, because by the point we fight him we'd be stronger than Calamity-level primals.

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3.4 + 4.4. The Ascians are absolutely not in an advantageous position. This is a story-string that has been going strong since before the introduction of the WoD, and made clear once they showed up.

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Well, it's one that's been stated, for sure. This whole conversation started because I don't see them as doing anything but whining that the Light is finally fighting back in some measure against Darkness; they started freaking out because suddenly two of their most prominent members got axed in one battle.

This also doesn't answer my question. Their game is "We summon the primal. That hurts Hydaelyn. Either the WoL kills it, and it gets summoned again by scared beastmen, hurting Hydaelyn again, or the WoL leaves it alone and it starts rampaging, turning and killing people in droves, all the while continuing to harm Hydaelyn. No matter how the WoL responds to this situation, we gain from it." (The Ascian's Gambit, coining it)

This makes no sense if every time we defeat a Primal, that tilts the world in Hydaelyn's favor, because that's very much against what the Ascians want. If anything, that's more reason for the WoL to go around inciting summonings so we can slay the Primals summoned.

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We are an unstoppable force representing the Light. The only thing that even managed to slow us down was Zenos and we beat him. And now this voice from beyond - possibly the future - is warning us about a Calamity should we continue down this path of completely beating the Ascians.

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And yet Elidibus is confident he could handle us 1v1 with Zenos' body with very little effort. He's confident that the Garlean Empire could quite handily defeat us--Varis need only give a word, and we're as good as dead.

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Also, I'm not so sure if they agitated the Gnath into summoning Ravana. Their original reason for summoning him was waging war, I think that, and us taking Ravana down in the first place, gave them more than enough motivation to re-summon him. Which leaves this whole thing in an even bigger flux.

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https://youtu.be/-rW4QFujLDE?t=49m1s

"You know, you're right. Maybe it is time for a change of tack. Killing primals, tormenting beastmen, hastening the birth of a new god..."

It's not proof they were agitating the Gnath to summon Ravana. But it's a line of dialogue that suggests they're not above forcing summonings. Again, though, I argue the summoning itself is what harms Hydaelyn, and slaying the God scares them into summoning again. The WoD forcing the Ascian's Gambit, if you will.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

Until you showed up. You, a Battle-ready Champion of Hydaelyn's. And that's when defeating the Primals started tipping the balance.

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So does it have to be a non-Echo user who fights the primal? We're not the first with Echo, there were plenty in 1.0. Does it have to be a non-Echo user who deals the final blow? Okay, we just take Raubahn to slit Ifrit's throat next time, and mainly play defense for him as we've shown we can do against Lakshmi, everything's hunky dory.

Suddenly we have the same effect (Primal harming Hydaelyn is vanquished) with all the Universe Points dropping into the neutral pile.

I'm critical of this because if they go this route, it's bad writing in my eyes. They're forcing this idea of "balance" after the Ascians had--sorry I forget the number--seven Calamitous victories already? Yet after defeating a dozen or two primals, we're suddenly not only back to full balance after seven apocalyptic events but we're pushing it too far to Light? I'm sorry, I need more than "Well the WoL killing things dumps points into the Light pool." to explain that, and if it is the case, it needs to be made explicit, and soon.

Another Edit: I apologize for my aggressive tone.

I feel like they might want us to push the balance too far in the light's favor if it'll only create calamity level destruction initially. That could just entail the elimination of several lesser Ascians, and not necessarily the key figures like Elidibus and Solus.

The former did mention that we were key to Zodiark's revival way back in 2.x, though the fact that he more recently seemed willing to eliminate us ran a bit contrary to that statement (Unless he meant it as something of a last resort in case things got really out of hand).

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

That is, indeed, an interpretation. It's not one I agree with, but that's certainly a valid interpretation of events that happened; it's also not exactly quantified, and by that point we'd already slain a dozen or so primals previous to Zenos, so how did slaying two more give us that dramatic of a power boost when the dozen we'd defeated before left us without the strength to so much as leave more than a scratch on his armor?

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That admittedly makes more sense if you, like me, believe the WoL soaks up the people's faith in them. By the time we fought Zenos again in Yanxia, we had already rallied initial support from Gyr Abania, the Confederacy, the Kojin of the Blue, and began making progress in Yanxia. By the time we fought him - both in human form and Primal form - in Ala Mhigo, we had become rulers of the Steppe, and heroes of Doma.
It's more conjecture, I agree. But there are lot of story-elements that line up too nicely for me to think it's simply circumstance. And if it were, like you mentioned elsewhere in your post, it would just be lucky bad writing.

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EDIT: Not to mention, among our victory list is a victory over Bahamut himself (why didn't we get a stupidly high power boost from that?) Odin (another elder primal), and the Warring Triad which are described as being as powerful as if not moreso than Bahamut. If we do gain power from defeating primals, there's no way Zenos would have been able to defeat us in the first place, because by the point we fight him we'd be stronger than Calamity-level primals.

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1. Those are all optional Primals. I agree with what you're saying but at the same time...
2. You're making an assumption there about how much our power increases with every defeated Primal which the story might not necessarily share.
3. the pure story iterations of those fights always have a "fight them before they reach max power" elements. You intentionally released the Warring Triads from imprisonment so you could control when you fought them, instead of having to face them when they broke free and gained full strength - that's why you even have the Extreme versions of that fight in the first place. IIRC Odin you fight just as he manifested again, before managing to drink too much from the Shroud's aether. and I remember something similar for Bahamut as well, once you find him.

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This makes no sense if every time we defeat a Primal, that tilts the world in Hydaelyn's favor, because that's very much against what the Ascians want. If anything, that's more reason for the WoL to go around inciting summonings so we can slay the Primals summoned.

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That actually lines up with the trials we got in SB. Susano's summoning was a mistake, brought about by our infiltration of the vault and the Red's panic. To our knowledge, the Ascians weren't involved and there was momentary confusion about whether or not the thing was even a Primal because of where it came from. And Lakshmi was summoned in a surge of grief, seemingly unintentional. It's not coerced and planned like the other Primals we fought, so maybe they did stop inciting summonings. Then we have Tsukuyomi which was part of a grander scheme and a direct attempt at the WoL's life, and the rest of it aren't even Primals, they're... forgot the term but they're basically mythical beasts. SB really moved away from the old-school sort of trial bosses. Granted next expansion might double down on it, but we'll see.

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He's confident that the Garlean Empire could quite handily defeat us--Varis need only give a word, and we're as good as dead.

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That I believe in. Most of our fights were always one-on-one or very limited raids with assistance. If they brought down the might of the empire? Yeah, we're goners.

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So does it have to be a non-Echo user who fights the primal? We're not the first with Echo, there were plenty in 1.0. Does it have to be a non-Echo user who deals e final blow? Okay, we just take Raubahn to slit Ifrit's throat next time, and mainly play defense for him as we've shown we can do against Lakshmi, everything's hunky dory.

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The problem with that is that they're so very likely to be tempered on the way, which is why they don't go with us normally, and needed protection from WoL, Arenvald and Fordola all together in 4.1. It's not a reliable strategy.

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I'm critical of this because if they go this route, it's bad writing in my eyes. They're forcing this idea of "balance" after the Ascians had--sorry I forget the number--seven Calamitous victories already? Yet after defeating a dozen or two primals, we're suddenly not only back to full balance after seven apocalyptic events but we're pushing it too far to Light? I'm sorry, I need more than "Well the WoL killing things dumps points into the Light pool." to explain that, and if it is the case, it needs to be made explicit, and soon.

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We already have examples of what happened if the balance was tipped too much in the favor of one or the other. It wasn't Calamities, it was the world being nigh unsalvagable - The Void is the way it is because the Ascian we killed along in ARF was too strong for that world's WoL. The First was wiped out because the WoD, then that world's WoLs, were too strong. Calamities seem to be horrible, unimaginable disasters more so than necessarily any one side becoming too strong. Look at the war of the magi and the resulting flood - it had less to do with Light or Darkness.

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Another Edit: I apologize for my aggressive tone.

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o7 All good. Honestly I'm not sure how much we can really resolve here given there's so much we just don't know. All we can do is toy with what partial details we have on-hand at the moment, which like you said, can be taken this way or that.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

That admittedly makes more sense if you, like me, believe the WoL soaks up the people's faith in them. By the time we fought Zenos again in Yanxia, we had already rallied initial support from Gyr Abania, the Confederacy, the Kojin of the Blue, and began making progress in Yanxia. By the time we fought him - both in human form and Primal form - in Ala Mhigo, we had become rulers of the Steppe, and heroes of Doma.
It's more conjecture, I agree. But there are lot of story-elements that line up too nicely for me to think it's simply circumstance. And if it were, like you mentioned elsewhere in your post, it would just be lucky bad writing.

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I've toyed with the idea that the WoL is a primal, or a primal-like entity that gains power with faith. Certainly speaking, if our WoL ever dies, a good question is how long until Eorzea summons a WoL-Primal, because of how much faith they have in us lol. I would sooner believe in that than defeating a primal granting us power for a few reasons, I'll go over my biggest problem soon.

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2. You're making an assumption there about how much our power increases with every defeated Primal which the story might not necessarily share.

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Answering this one first because it interests me the most.

Yeah, it's a pretty big assumption on my part. I'm a very...quantitative person, the kind that found power levels in DBZ to be an interesting concept. That's why my instinct is to try to quantify how much, if at all, defeating a primal powers us up. With the info we have now, I think the simplest solution is they don't make us any stronger--in addition to defeating Lakshmi and Susano, we did also gain 10 levels and experience 5 new job quests worth of training, and I'm more given to believe that the training inferred in those quests is a large part of how we grew to match Zenos.

Assuming, though, for the sake of argument, that they do (and you'll indulge me):

How much stronger do they make us? Is it a uniform power increase, as in defeating any primal from Ifrit to Tsukuyomi gives us 100 cheerios? Is it based on the relative power of the primal we defeat, in which case would Bahamut Prime have given us 1,000 cheerios compared to Garuda who only gives 100? Is it percentage based on our current power level, in which case if I had 1,000 cheerios when I defeated Ifrit, I gained 100 cheerios, but since I had 10,000 cheerios when I defeated Susano, I got 1,000 cheerios? Is it an exponential gain?

Over the course of our adventure, we've defeated Ifrit three times, Titan four times, Garuda four times, Leviathan twice, Ramuh twice, Moogle Mog twice, Shiva twice (since EX modes in ARR aren't Minstrel's Ballads), (weakened) Odin, (weakened) Bahamut, Ravana, Bismarck, the (weakened) Warring Triad, (weakened?) Alexander, and Thordan...maybe more, I'm not actively checking. That's a lot of primals, and depending on how my question is answered, that will reflect how...odd it is to say adding just two more to our pile of Primal kills would suddenly bring us from "Unable to touch Zenos" to "Matching Zenos blow for blow" to "Trouncing Zenoshinryu".

Not to mention that the biggest foil to this theory is the blatant Worfing of the WoL regarding Zenos. We went from matching the entire Knights of the Round, surpassing them so hard that Thordan had to ask "WHAT are you?!" to getting roflstomped by Garlean Deathstroke. Post Thordan? You'd have had my attention with this. Ironically where Zenos convinced you that Primal kills and faith powered us, Zenos was what broke me of that theory.

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1. Those are all optional Primals. I agree with what you're saying but at the same time...

3. the pure story iterations of those fights always have a "fight them before they reach max power" elements. You intentionally released the Warring Triads from imprisonment so you could control when you fought them, instead of having to face them when they broke free and gained full strength - that's why you even have the Extreme versions of that fight in the first place. IIRC Odin you fight just as he manifested again, before managing to drink too much from the Shroud's aether. and I remember something similar for Bahamut as well, once you find him.

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This is all fair, and I cede that they were weakened versions of themselves. I suppose the interesting thing to chew on would be "Does that matter?" They're still technically composed of the same levels of aether.

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That actually lines up with the trials we got in SB. Susano's summoning was a mistake, brought about by our infiltration of the vault and the Red's panic. To our knowledge, the Ascians weren't involved and there was momentary confusion about whether or not the thing was even a Primal because of where it came from. And Lakshmi was summoned in a surge of grief, seemingly unintentional. It's not coerced and planned like the other Primals we fought, so maybe they did stop inciting summonings.

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It was as far back as 3.0's end we'd have to track this though: that's when Elidibus summoned WoD because he needed to apply a balance patch to Hydaelyn. Which he then went on to have us (he directed Unukalhai to us, not the WoD) defeat the Warring Triad, while all we've seen is the WoD go on to summon and defeat Ravana, and then try to repeat this with Garuda, Titan, and Ifrit. Wouldn't the Triad be a lot more Cocoa Puffs to put in Zodiark's basket, but instead he has the WoL go beat them up?

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Then we have Tsukuyomi which was part of a grander scheme and a direct attempt at the WoL's life, and the rest of it aren't even Primals, they're... forgot the term but they're basically mythical beasts. SB really moved away from the old-school sort of trial bosses. Granted next expansion might double down on it, but we'll see.

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I must have missed where Tsukuyomi was an assassination attempt on the WoL--in fact, the outcome of the fight surprised nobody iirc. Asahi even admitted "Tis true that a gaudy mirror and a handful of crystals make for a feeble summoning." https://youtu.be/EzUZjiM5qe4?t=950

Besides the "direct attempt" part, I completely agree here.

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That I believe in. Most of our fights were always one-on-one or very limited raids with assistance. If they brought down the might of the empire? Yeah, we're goners.

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I have no doubt we'd be crushed by a whole army. I actually just wanted to highlight that Elidibus as Zenos is confident he alone could take us--and kill us, at least that's my inference. Neither he, nor assumedly Solus, see us as unstoppable by any means.

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The problem with that is that they're so very likely to be tempered on the way, which is why they don't go with us normally, and needed protection from WoL, Arenvald and Fordola all together in 4.1. It's not a reliable strategy.

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Protection from the WoL was fine for a while. When the civilians were all evacuated, and it was just WoL, Arenvald, Raubahn, Lyse, and Fordola left, Raubahn and Lyse didn't seem the most worried about tempering; when there were dozens of innocent noncombatants nearby it was a trial though.

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We already have examples of what happened if the balance was tipped too much in the favor of one or the other. It wasn't Calamities, it was the world being nigh unsalvagable - The Void is the way it is because the Ascian we killed along in ARF was too strong for that world's WoL. The First was wiped out because the WoD, then that world's WoLs, were too strong. Calamities seem to be horrible, unimaginable disasters more so than necessarily any one side becoming too strong. Look at the war of the magi and the resulting flood - it had less to do with Light or Darkness.

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I recall reading somewhere on the Lore forum that things might be different for our world because we're the Source world--we're not a shard that's really only a reflection of the Source. That's why calamities happen here, to weaken the separation between the Source and the shard world when the shard is merged back into the source. That said, I cannot properly cite this, and can only put the idea out there.

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o7 All good. Honestly I'm not sure how much we can really resolve here given there's so much we just don't know. All we can do is toy with what partial details we have on-hand at the moment, which like you said, can be taken this way or that.

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It's definitely a fun conversation. I'm no expert on the lore though, and if anyone can correct me on things, I fully welcome it.

I do wonder if the Ascians are truly fearing that the balance is going more towards Lights. I mean if that is the case why not go against us more directly? Yes seemingly now Elidibus is worriered enough to call back another one and even says that he himself can kill us (but wouldnt that in any way destroy the balance completely?) but before that nothing much was done.

IMO the WoD were not used to create a better balance because we were winning to much but more to stop a world from being lost. For example would Elidibus really have called them if their shard was in balance? For me it was because without that the shard would have been lost, thus not useable for Zodiark. It was not imo because we were winning to hard. Thus if we truly get too much Light this must have been something that was done in SB. And I cant think of anything that was done that great by us that it would balance out the last calamity and it consequences.

But thats just me. I am honestly not a fan of that balance stuff and Light getting to strong.

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Originally Posted by Dualgunner

I've toyed with the idea that the WoL is a primal, or a primal-like entity that gains power with faith. Certainly speaking, if our WoL ever dies, a good question is how long until Eorzea summons a WoL-Primal, because of how much faith they have in us lol.

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That's literally why Louisouix didn't want anyone to know he survived. All the more so because as we saw with Ga Bu's summoning of Titan, the summoner's intent affects the Primal's incarnation. Which is a terrifying thought because it basically creates a cycle - Primal is summoned, probably in a distorted version following the Ascians' plans, Tempers followers. Followers will then continue summoning the Primal who will continue to be corrupted further with every iteration. It's one way to explain why the Ixali have such an extreme, polar Primal like Garuda, because they as a people are pretty... derpy.

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I would sooner believe in that than defeating a primal granting us power for a few reasons

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Well, it certainly adds grandeur to the WoL's mythos, if nothing else.

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in addition to defeating Lakshmi and Susano, we did also gain 10 levels and experience 5 new job quests worth of training, and I'm more given to believe that the training inferred in those quests is a large part of how we grew to match Zenos.

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And that's the question - what does the story consider as canon? To me it feels like it's intertwined. Because I doubt bringing a level 70 character into the fight against Zenos in Yanxia would've made that much of a difference. I could be wrong, but story-wise, it shouldn't. I feel like they're intertwined. You can't progress through the story without hitting a certain level cap, for sure, but oftentimes it's levels you should've reached pretty naturally just by progressing through the story in the first place (give or take a couple of side-quests or what have you). The story progresses your level as much as your level progresses the story, and it shows quite nicely with how you get experience from MSQ. Even if it's a flimsey "go talk to these 5 NPCs". Just going through the story makes you stronger, which actually aligns with the story's content itself. So I'll stop saying the same thing in different ways like a certain Emperor's New Groove chara and say I think you're looking at it too technically. As we bettered our relations with the Confederacy and the Kojin of the Blue, we hit 63. As they accepted and acknowledged us and we started winning Yanxia over, we hit 65. Story feeds mechanics feed story.

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Is it based on the relative power of the primal we defeat, in which case would Bahamut Prime have given us 1,000 cheerios compared to Garuda who only gives 100? Is it percentage based on our current power level, in which case if I had 1,000 cheerios when I defeated Ifrit, I gained 100 cheerios, but since I had 10,000 cheerios when I defeated Susano, I got 1,000 cheerios? Is it an exponential gain?

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I think there are a lot of things that can influence that power growth, and they will ultimately mean that us beating Bahamut might've given us the least amount of boost, ironically. Why? Because Bahamut was contained to the level 50 zone. You could go through the entirety of the Coils back in ARR and not gain a single experience point. Even when the level cap was increased, it still didn't give you that much. Why?
Because no one knew you did that. Bahamut's followers at the time were very limited and you offed them on top of it all. Furthermore, the deed was kept hush hush both because of the OMFG IT'S BAHAMUT PANIC element, as well as keeping Eorzeans from summoning Louisouix.
Similar logic can be applied ironically to Extreme Primals, and most of the 50/60 content. The vast majority of those things were side quests, restricted to limited knowledge, and Primals with limited power. Beating them wouldn't give us much. I realize that level 50/60/70 story Primals kind of wreck it, but I can handwave most of them away with a mixture of needing to be that strong in the first place to beat them, the knowledge of the deed being limited, us being taken for granted if the Primal didn't cause widespread panic (like the Warring Triads and yes even Bahamut), and a plethora of other reasons.
Story-wise, the leveling Primals were made a much bigger deal out of compared to anything you got at max level for that expansion.
And yes I realize that's a lot of handwaving and forcing logic on gameplay mechanics. But I'm still relatively satisfied with it. Granted, milage may vary, that's what debates are all about. Especially since you seem to be much more into the technical, quantitative element of it while I'm a lot more liberal with freedoms the story can take and how the story and gameplay interact with each other.

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odd it is to say adding just two more to our pile of Primal kills would suddenly bring us from "Unable to touch Zenos" to "Matching Zenos blow for blow" to "Trouncing Zenoshinryu".

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Assuming Zenoshinryu is the Ex - that one's just the Minstrel's rendition of events, canonically it never happened. Which is an interesting thing to keep in mind for this debate, a lot of the Extreme primals aren't canon! Ultima, Thorda, Nidhogg, the Warring Triad, and interestingly enough - every last one of the SB Primals as you unlock them all through the Minstrel. With the odd exception of the Rathlos fight but that's not XIV native anyway.
As for Lakshmi and Susano, tying back to what I said before, they were pretty well known Primals and defeating them left a mark on the story in a way that most other Primals don't. That would translate into a much bigger power-up, even when it's more intuitive that defeating frigging Bahamut should've left you at 120 instead of the 50 you were canonically at.

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Ironically where Zenos convinced you that Primal kills and faith powered us, Zenos was what broke me of that theory.

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Zenos had the synthetic Aether. That is a formidable power in and of itself. Zenos also has a frigging cult behind him, judging by Asahi. I wouldn't be surprised if, using the synthetic Echo, he was fueled by their faith similarly to how the WoL (hypothetically) is fueled by the faith of all those we ran into before.
And that actually offers an answer to your previous question - why does Elidibus think he can take on the WoL single-handedly in Zenos' flesh? Because he's riding that power-source.

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This is all fair, and I cede that they were weakened versions of themselves. I suppose the interesting thing to chew on would be "Does that matter?" They're still technically composed of the same levels of aether.

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They're not, that's why they're weaker, that's literally why we had to take on the Warring Triads when we did - to keep them from amassing that much aether.

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Which he then went on to have us (he directed Unukalhai to us, not the WoD) defeat the Warring Triad, while all we've seen is the WoD go on to summon and defeat Ravana, and then try to repeat this with Garuda, Titan, and Ifrit. Wouldn't the Triad be a lot more Cocoa Puffs to put in Zodiark's basket, but instead he has the WoL go beat them up?

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I'll admit I never did get what the deal was with that. So I can't answer that.

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I must have missed where Tsukuyomi was an assassination attempt on the WoL--in fact, the outcome of the fight surprised nobody iirc. Asahi even admitted "Tis true that a gaudy mirror and a handful of crystals make for a feeble summoning."

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See above "taking us for granted" - even our enemies. But I don't think anyone would've complained had she succeeded.

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Protection from the WoL was fine for a while. When the civilians were all evacuated, and it was just WoL, Arenvald, Raubahn, Lyse, and Fordola left, Raubahn and Lyse didn't seem the most worried about tempering; when there were dozens of innocent noncombatants nearby it was a trial though.

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It does seem like strength of will has to do with it, as we do have evidence of non-Echo users battling Primals. Lyse and Raubahn deffo fall into the 'more willful' bunch. But in every retelling of a Primal being bested, it seemed like the longer the battle dragged on, the more they had to fight their own people and that's where a lot of the casualties came from. Also, depending on how powerful the Primal is (Lakshmi in 4.1 wasn't even a trial, so I'd say in her case it was "not too much"), you might not have the privilage of being able to defend the non-Echo users. Notice how most of the mechanics of that fight was exactly that, you and Arenvald blocking Lakshmi's influence, and then Fordola popping her Collective Unconscious on Lyse and Raubahn.
Non-Echo users, strong and reliable as they may be, are a liability in Primal fights. It's part of the disconnect between most of those fights' stories having just you go in there, but the gameplay is 8-players.

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That said, I cannot properly cite this, and can only put the idea out there.

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That's fair.

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It's definitely a fun conversation.

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I agree! :D

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

I was always under the impression that these were effectively one and the same. Because when the WoDs tried to tip the balance back in Darkness' favor, we saw them beat Ravana before we could. And when they talked about what tipped the balance in their world too heavily towards the Light, they specifically said it was them being uncontested champions.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

It was never clearly stated in-game, no, and there're other ways to explain our increase in power (my personal favorite is how we feed on people's faith in us like Primals do) but it's a very easy case to argue in favor of.

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Originally Posted by BillyKaplan

That admittedly makes more sense if you, like me, believe the WoL soaks up the people's faith in them. By the time we fought Zenos again in Yanxia, we had already rallied initial support from Gyr Abania, the Confederacy, the Kojin of the Blue, and began making progress in Yanxia.

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You actually answered yourself there.

Warrior of Light is a proxy for Hydaelyn. Summoning a primal is a blow against light, that much is impossible to contest as Ascians repeatedly said stuff to such effect. Warrior of Light defeating the Primals is some sort of blow against darkness, that much is suggested by what Warriors of Darkness said and by how Warrior of Light is beginning to be a thorn up the Ascians asses (largely due to how FAST Warrior of Light kills them, meaning they don't manage to cause a lot of damage after being summoned). Why Warriors of Darkness tips the favor in darknesses side though?

It's simple. If it's a different entity that defeats the primals, the Warrior of Light doesn't get the credit for it. In other words, the primals summoning harms Hydaelyn, but the Warrior of Light defeating the primal does not happen, so that "wound" is in no way mitigated. Warriors of Darkness, as proxy of Zodiark, on the other hand, would gain "faith" that goes towards Zodiarks strength rather than Hydaelyn. Even if not, it's still a clear positive since Hydaelyn is stopped from getting anything back.

Warrior of Light is shown as the centerpiece in the world. Because people have faith in this proxy of Hydaelyn, they are willing to follow even extremely ridiculous plans that they'd not dare do otherwise. They know they have that "safety net". That leads them to uniting. And that unison is exactly what "produces light" in my opinion. If the Warrior of Light is undermined (through failures or being outdone), then others will start questioning the strength of that "safety net" and may even start breaking alliances out of fear for retribution.

Confirmed 5.xx will be Shadowbringers

AND WHAT DO YOU KNOW!!!!!! HYPE!!!!

Half of this debate just got kind of confirmed in the keynotes lmao

Can't wait for the new NA data center to also be west coast.

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Originally Posted by Fourbestintoner

Can't wait for the new NA data center to also be west coast.

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A third NA datacentre? Any idea if EU is getting any love?

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

A third NA datacentre? Any idea if EU is getting any love?

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Yes, they're getting another DC too

So seemingly we do turn into a WoD...hopefully this dont mean that we are going to have to watch bad stuff happening or doing bad things..and hopefully there is a very good reason why our character even does it..x)

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Originally Posted by Alleo

So seemingly we do turn into a WoD...hopefully this dont mean that we are going to have to watch bad stuff happening or doing bad things..and hopefully there is a very good reason why our character even does it..x)

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We might have a situation like at the end of Legacy, rather than something like Before the Fall.

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Originally Posted by Alleo

So seemingly we do turn into a WoD...hopefully this dont mean that we are going to have to watch bad stuff happening or doing bad things..and hopefully there is a very good reason why our character even does it..x)

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My guess is that we will do those things to bring back the balance. Right now we have been very effective in pushing back the darkness, now we suddenly will have to push against the light to bring back balance.
If done right this could result in us having to choose side in 6.0, either you play as a WoL or as a WoD. Two sides needed to keep the balance from going out of control again.

Become the Warrior of Darkness! Who would of thought that they weren't talking about Ascians? :p

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Originally Posted by Lufir

Become the Warrior of Darkness! Who would of thought that they weren't talking about Ascians? :p

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I wasn't really surprised by the development with 4.4 hinting towards a major imbalance in light being the cause for the next calamity.

I'm mostly curious as to what's going to lead up to it, though it seemed like they implied it may very well happen in 4.5.