About Wuk's strength [Ending spoilers]

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Originally Posted by EdwinChucklenuts

I'm loving that everyone's gripes with Wuk Lamat is because they feel like their OC's screentime is cucked by Wuk Lamat

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Yea, it's totally that! It's not the awful writing, inconsistent characterization, subpar VAing (not just Wuk's, these two are issues with almost everyone) or, as per this thread's topic, inexplicable power ups, inconsistent world-building, retcons and ignoring established lore!
It'd be as if, in Heavensward, a random knight-templar charged at Nidhogg without Hraesvelgr's eye and somehow won. Would've made a ton of sense.
But yea lol, look at those idiots malding about their OCs :')

It's like people don't put 2 minutes of thought into what's being presented on screen.
And Llama Tea's inexplicable powerups are only half of the shark-jumping of this expansion, I'm dying to see how they explain why electrope can't be used in the Source to fix literally every problem ever.
Someone mentioned Dynamis was a plot-device contrivance that could lead to lazy writing- correctly so- but electrope, which can even create matter, is going to be even worse.

I don't think Elidibus using limit breaks has any bearing on the Dynamis debate. At the time, he was also a primal, and primals basically operate on pure emotion. I'm not sure the inability of ancients to utilize Dynamis would apply there.

It's like homie doesn't bother reading the various detailed description of people's problem with Wuk. So yeah I'm going with intentionally ignorant

I really don't see the issue with her power up. It's certainly no more egregious to use getting stomped by Zenos and then beating him at the end of SB. Despite us just ocntinuing on withour adventuring we'd already done for a base game and full expansion beforehand and not doing anythign special to pursue that goal. Wuk loses. She has a character arc, grows more determined in her resolve, and is able to best Bakool. Same with us losing to Rhan'jit and then killing him later on.

Bakool is tough but he's also no legendary dragon either. For Sphene, the idea that s he's 'surpassing the wol' is laughable. She isn't even neccesary to defeat the boss. She does a hefty chunk of damage with her lb sure but it's not even presented as us being in danger. It's just the climax of her arc with Sphene built up through Heritage Found and people are blowing this out of proportion. NPCs do big limit break attacks all the time in solo instance fights, often to save us from bad situations, yet only Wuk Lamat is argued to have 'surpassed us' because of doing something like this.

Damage that, might I add, only comes into play after the WOL and friends push her into the victory lap desperation phase that allows Wuk to break free at all.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I really don't see the issue with her power up. It's certainly no more egregious to use getting stomped by Zenos and then beating him at the end of SB. Despite us just ocntinuing on withour adventuring we'd already done for a base game and full expansion beforehand and not doing anythign special to pursue that goal. Wuk loses. She has a character arc, grows more determined in her resolve, and is able to best Bakool. Same with us losing to Rhan'jit and then killing him later on.

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The key difference in all of this is that we, as players, do stuff that in a lore sense make ourselves stronger. Typically training via combat. While there are often villains that make little sense being stronger than us to begin with, the growth of our characters starting weaker than them and then getting stronger typically does make sense.

Wuk on the other hand did not do this. She had zero combat or physical training what-so-ever outside of dungeons, which the other characters also did. She largely just had a lot of diplomatic training (which isn't a bad thing story wise in its own right), and no matter how you cut it making tacos isn't going to make you more martially adept than two separate characters who we were both told and shown to be vastly stronger than her. The only thing I can even think of that would have been like training in this case was the first trial fight since Bakool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja weren't there. But Koana was, so is he super strong now too?

I've seen a lot of people compare her to Naruto, but at least he had training arcs and effectively a nuke in his back pocket. She had nothing. No training, no special powers, no magical weapon. Nothing besides plot armor. Plot armor and tacos. No matter how you cut it, that's bad writing.

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Originally Posted by Bright-Flower

I really don't see the issue with her power up. It's certainly no more egregious to use getting stomped by Zenos and then beating him at the end of SB. Despite us just ocntinuing on withour adventuring we'd already done for a base game and full expansion beforehand and not doing anythign special to pursue that goal. Wuk loses. She has a character arc, grows more determined in her resolve, and is able to best Bakool. Same with us losing to Rhan'jit and then killing him later on.

Bakool is tough but he's also no legendary dragon either. For Sphene, the idea that s he's 'surpassing the wol' is laughable. She isn't even neccesary to defeat the boss. She does a hefty chunk of damage with her lb sure but it's not even presented as us being in danger. It's just the climax of her arc with Sphene built up through Heritage Found and people are blowing this out of proportion. NPCs do big limit break attacks all the time in solo instance fights, often to save us from bad situations, yet only Wuk Lamat is argued to have 'surpassed us' because of doing something like this.

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We were only stomped by Zenos in the first fight and even then his sword broke instantly and in the second encounter we managed to deal damage to his armor.
We were never really far behind him we just met our equal for the first time.
Then we had Susanoo, the Azem steppe battle and liberated Doma (war experience) and we spared with Lyse and Hien two, while not as strong, still formidable fighters.
Wuk Lamat goes from getting stomped by Bagool Jaja with one arm to defeating him and his lackeys together, fighting her brother on equal ground (who also had a battle armor on top) to single handedly holding the final boss back and doing a uberful limit break.
Ranjit was a battle hardened veteran who fought sin eaters for his whole life and taught the oracle of light how to fight time and time again.
He had finesse to our brawn and we learned that after the first shock against him.
It is equally stupid that we kept running away from him.

It's really not comparable at all.

The other thing to consider is, the the WoL is the Main Character in this game. Of course we get stronger, of course we overcome the odds. It's a jrpg after all. If you take that and say "oh well you know this NPC? Yeah he has more growth in strengh then you in the last few expansions" then what is the point?
That would be like having Lyse come in and hold Shinryu back single handedly or Raubahn blocking the ultima weapon.
The final boss, while not our toughest enemy was not a pushover. It has Azem's hourglass and technology far behind our own. It warped dimensions. There is a reason we used Azems crystal there and didn't just do a Thordan on it.

The whole thing has the taste of:
"Hey Wuk Lamat is now the main character you can go now. Thanks for the money till now and don't forget to close the door."

Ffs, all I wanted was AT LEAST the final battle for my character. Was that too much to ask?

Zenos defeated us easily in the first two encounters once he was done playing around. It was not a nearly even fight. He toys with us and then when he's done toying with us, defeats us quickly and easily. We might break a sword or damage his armor or whatever but we are very clearly outclassed and he instantly shuts us down when he gets tired of playing around.

And Bakool Jaja and even Zarool Ja (pre power up at least) are no Zenos. And we know that, without drawing on souls to power himself up, Zarool is weaker than his father even in his old age.

If questing and doing dungeons is enough for the WOL to bridge the gap with Zenos then I dont' see why it shouldn't be enough for Wuk Lamat to do the same. The trusts are canonically there for the dungeons afterall. The WoL 'leveled up' to fight Zenos, Wuk Lamat 'levels up' to defeat Bakool. And we don't even know how the duel between her and Zooral Ja would have gone if he hadn't backed off after she broke his regulator anyway.

In the final battle, Wuk Lamat does not save the day. She does not defeat Sphene single handedly. She does not shield us from Ultima or anything like that. WE are the ones who push Sphene into drawing on reserve power, and making her error out from pushing the system too hard trying and failing to kill us. WE weaken the system so that WUK LAMAT can escape from cyber prison. And in that final phase sure she does a big chunk of damage to the boss but at that point the fight is basically over anyway because WE pushed the Queen onto the back foot desperately trying and flailing about to win even though it's clearly over, just as with Thordan/Hades/Endsinger final phases. Wuk Lamat just shows up to put a climactic cap on the arc betwen her and Sphene, she doens't really turn the tide of the fight.

Whether she SHOULD be there narratively is another topic with no relevance to her physical strength.

Let's think about these final bosses for a moment:

ARR: We get bailed out by Hydaelyn's divine intervention four times in a row, sacrificing most of her remaining power for us.
HW: An ancient dragon who seemed to have lost all faith in humanity turns around and trusts us with his eye, bringing the theme of the expansion to its conclusion.
SB: The game keeps squaring us up against Zenos several times to show our growth and training, showing how we gradually tank his super attacks better and better each time.
ShB: Like four different things happen that have been built up the entire game? You have G'raha coming to our rescue. We finally harness the Warden's light we've been struggling with the entire game. We rejoin with our soul brother and learn the biggest lore bomb about WoL. All of the main Scions pull together for the first time.
EW: Our nemesis and the most overpowered villain established for 3 expansions shows up to aid us as a finale for his character arc. Scion's once again there all helping out with a callback to the very first cinematic of the journey. The dynamis Limit Break theory they established earlier comes to fruition.
DT: Wuk Lamat *crayon scribbles* power of friendship! (ignore Krile and G'raha right there in the corner, apparently no longer having enough feelies to help us in any way, only Wuk Lamat, for no rhyme or reason)

How can anyone seriously argue DT final trial conclusion is just as well constructed as any other expansion's?

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Originally Posted by Sacae

I don't think Elidibus using limit breaks has any bearing on the Dynamis debate. At the time, he was also a primal, and primals basically operate on pure emotion. I'm not sure the inability of ancients to utilize Dynamis would apply there.

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Primals feed on aether which is the main issue besides the tempering problem: They suck the ambient aether like big ass vacuums and can rend a sizeable area virtually barren if they remain summoned long enough.

The crystals are usually for the "cost" of summoning them, after that they will use their aether reservers then proceed to feed on ambient aether passively as a "maintenance cost"