Thought this was settled but 2 seconds in to endwalker and Allisae says the Blessing of Light prevents tempering.
Thought that was the echo.
WTF is going on?
She also seems to imply that Fordola has the blessing of light.
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Thought this was settled but 2 seconds in to endwalker and Allisae says the Blessing of Light prevents tempering.
Thought that was the echo.
WTF is going on?
She also seems to imply that Fordola has the blessing of light.
Having only played up to the end of the first dungeon, I can't say if this is actually going anywhere or not. But you're correct. From the very beginning of the game all the way up to patch 5.5, resistance to tempering was attributed to the Echo. We've had moments that shed light on just how effective that resistance actually is, but never a refutation or reveal that it's wrong.
Endwalker spoilers
It isn't a one-off transcription or localization error. Every time the WoL's resistance to tempering comes up in Endwalker, at least all the way up to the end of the first dungeon (Tower of Zot), characters both attribute this resistance to the blessing of Light and speak as if it were always believed to be the case. There is no mention of the Echo at all in these cases.
So unless someone bungled the script big time and it somehow made it past editing, this feels like retroactive continuity—a retcon.
yo, for real, i was like wondering when some uttered "how well your blessing shields" instead of the Echo. Uh...devs pls look into this.
The Echo and the Blessing of Light both prevent tempering and frankly I'm confused as to why anybody believes differently.
But we still had things to learn from early on. I believe in shb we've accepted that the echo is something inherent to all reincarnated ancient souls. Aether has memory and the echo is an ability to let you see into that memory.
The blessing is a defense...how it works i don't know. But I don't see how the echo prevents tempering. tempering being a rebalancing of aether
We learned that the Echo is a thing that's natural to reincarnated souls, but earlier in the game, especially in ARR, they considered the echo as something that was awakened/given by Hydaelyn. This whole Blessing of Light thing could be a fallback to that, since for the longest time that's what we thought the echo was. A blessing given to us from Her. As it stands, a lot of characters don't know about the Ancients, so prolly still believe that.
On the other hand...other people like fordola can shield people from tempering and that is attributed to a stolen echo.
however the echo is for seeing into the memory of aether. so how can she use it to see the future?
Maybe, I'm just overreacting at the dialogue and need to calmly analyze it again.
The Echo is basically a fragment of skills that Ancient souls had nearly the whole palate of. Fordola has the same facet of it Krile has, to see aetheric traces and trails. For Fordola that manifested as being able to foresee attacks, because she could basically see where someone was 'aiming' before they let loose. There are people with the Echo that actually do the ability to see the future (most notably Mikoto of the Ivalice and Bozja storylines), but not everyone can.
And on the subject of the actual topic title: yeah, I'm legit mad that they seemed to go back on this. I did a whole video on the what Blessing of Light is and isn't, and they've been consistent about 'it's not the Echo' for years. C'mon, guys, don't double back on that and pretend it's not at this stage, it's frustrating and makes me lose faith in the story right when I should be completely bought in!
I'd say that it might be a factor of 'talking to people who don't know The Truth', because it comes up rather prominently in Thavnair... but the Scions themselves bungle this, and they of all people shouldn't!
correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't it more or less been established that the echo and the blessing of light are more or less the same thing? You can't have one without the other (unless you're an ascian), because to ACTIVATE the echo you have to be exposed to a meteor shower that wakes up your previous cycle of incarnations memory of the ancient world's end of days.
Which in turn opens you up to hearing the "HEAR! THINK! FEEL!" of Hydaelen that she uses to contact you.
I remember it specifically being a fairly big deal that Hydaelen wasn't personally contacting every single Echo-bearer but just had a message running on repeat all the time to catch literally anybody who awoke their echo, implying that she never -actually- gave her blessing of light.
Question? Did we have any echo-memory events during the time period where the blessing of light was being suppressed by Midgardsomr? I think we had a few involving lady ice heart but I'm not -positive-.
Cause if we didn't have any echo-visions during that entire period... it'd kinda underline the idea that the echo and the blessing of light where two names for essentially the same thing, only with different wave lengths for different folks. Asskicking being one of them, and Visions of the future, reading people's emotions, perfect communication being another.
https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ystal-of-Light
Also brings this up, even Krile has the blessing of light.
In fact, if we want to get technical, I think the only people who don't have 'the blessing of light' are the Ascians (who are explicitly fighting against Hydalaen), and the Hypertuned (who have an artificial echo in the first place), and then there's the Sahagin, who didn't have the blessing of light of course, but then, was that sahagin tempered BEFORE he activated his own echo? Or that the Sahagin didn't just claim that he doesn't have the blessing of light cause he worships Leviathan not hydaelen? It feels like the Echo is the universal term, and the Blessing of Light is used as a term for those who side with Hydaelen's goals specifically.
And I'm not actually convinced that the blessing of the light is hydalaen doing jack through you, or empowering you. If anything, Hydaelen has -one- power, and that is sundering things. She can break stuff down, weaken it by dividing it, which really tracks with what she does.
Even the -buff- that empowers us in dungeons is called 'the echo' and has been since the earliest days of the game, but what it -does- sounds a lot more like what you've described as the blessing of light. If anything, the Echo is literally you remembering how to do shit as the ancients did, back in Amurot. Your amazing feats are you remembering how to reality warp.
I'll correct you: you're wrong. The Echo is not the Blessing of Light, and was only conflated with it because of that 'hear, feel, think'; it's an innate ability of certain souls. The Blessing Light is an actual connection with Hydaelyn, and is granted via those crystals of light you might remember the surrounding cutscenes of.
While the Echo is not the Blessing of Light, we can also surmise with reasonable confidence that the Blessing of Light does require the Echo; all of those with the Blessing that we know of have the Echo (the WoL, Ysayle, Ardbert and the other Warriors of Darkness, conceivably but unconfirmably Minfilia), but there are those with the Echo that by all appearances don't have the Blessing (the Sahagin Priest, Arenvald, Mikoto, the Resonant (who you mistakenly called the Hypertuned who are a different thing)).
I can immediately tell you off the top of my head that, yes, there was at least one Echo flashback during the 'suppressed' period; Aymeric talking to Thordan. I'm fairly sure there was more, but that one I remember because I had reason to record it, and right now I'm not super inclined to dig into every single Heavensward quest journal entry.
And on your last point: there's actually no guarantee that the Sahagin Priest even was tempered. Through the Sahagin beast tribe we learned that there actually isn't much difference between the Sahagin factions' beliefs; unlike the actual spiritual beliefs that split beast tribes like the Amal'jaa and Ananta, the Sahagin summoners are essentially just 'the sect crazy enough to escalate'.
A correction to that:
https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/anni...?rgn=na&lng=en
Tales from the Calamity featured a short story in which Minfilia awakened to the Echo at a young age. This has never been contradicted, afaik.
To shoot my own argument in the foot:
When the Ascians do the whole fusion thing in Heavensward, they tell us they are showing us the true power of the Echo. So they have it. But they are self admittedly tempered by Zodiark.
Unless Zodiark is able to temper people even with the Echo.
AND Ifrit mentions smelling Hydaelyns blessing on us preventing him from tempering us.
Does not explain how Fordola and Zenos are immune to tempering however.
To clarify, the unconfirmed part is that Minfilia had the Blessing of Light with the crystals and everything. The fact she has the Echo is never in question (and specifically, she has the same variant the WoL has, with flashbacks), we just don't know exactly what form her favor with Hydaelyn took, if it was the same as the WoL or Ysayle has or something different.
Again, this is all to do with the difference between the Echo and the Blessing of Light, which has overall been consistent (which is why the MSQ suddenly not bothering to call them differently is so annoying):
- The Ascians have 'the true power of the Echo' because it is an element of having a fragmented Ancient soul (as clarified in the 5.x patches). Basically, we only have a slice of the whole pizza that the Ascians (especially the Unsundered) have.
- Zodiark is indeed able to temper through the Echo, and judging by the soul crystals in Etched in the Stars, did so immediately on summoning. The Echo isn't immunity to tempering so much as resistance beyond what anything less than Zodiark (or Hydaelyn, conceivably) could serve up.
- Ifrit does not actually smell Hydaelyn's blessing on us. His words are that he doesn't smell the influence of any other primal on us, despite his inability to temper us, which he puts down to us being of 'the godless blessed's number'--the Echo.
- The Resonance is an artificial Echo, with Fordola's specifically based on Krile's (and possibly Zenos' too, that's not stated in Stormblood and I don't know if Endwalker talks about it yet).
All of these are stated directly in the MSQ, these fortunately aren't super-secret truths hidden in random yellow quests or anything like that. Indeed, the only frustrating part is that the MSQ is right now deciding to call them both one and the same--although I should note it's not universal in Endwalker, I've found at least one sidequest that calls out the Echo.
Wonder if they will bring up the concern of Zodiark tempering us. Or just ignore it.
Is there anyway the ability to avoid tempering can come from either source? Like, I know the Blessing of Light and the Echo are two different things, but is it possible that the two abilities have an overlapping “anti-tempering” effect? Where one can avoid tempering from the Echo abilities the protection and imprinting the Blessing provides?
I remember saying this a few years ago and received less than favorable replies.
Little victories and all that.
I suppose it's possible that protection from tempering is an overlapping ability. It would certainly have it's limits. As was explained to us in the 5.x patches that tempering is a kind of rebalancing of one's aether. Whatever protects you from tempering must protect the person's aether from outside aetheric influence. But if that influence is too strong then it should be possible to overwhelm that protection.
It's just we have no reason to think the echo is any kind of shield. Unlike in the ultima fight when Laheebrea tells gaius that we are protected by the blessing. And he broke that shield with the ultima attack
it might be a case of not all B is A, but all A is B.
I find it unlikely that anybody could get the blessing of light without first having the Echo, at least, we've seen nothing related to it.
It could be considered superfluous to refer to the Echo when you also have the Blessing of Light?
You just need to keep playing, folks, this is all cleared up later in the MSQ. We are specifically told by an NPC, who indisputably knows what they are talking about, what it is that prevents the WoL (and presumably the others too) being tempered and where it comes from
Ten characters hide spoilers
After the battle with Zodiark and some other cutscenes when you meet together and you get to take a rest in your room, there is a prompt to select a guest which comes to check on you (similar to in the final role quest in ShB). Selecting Y'shtola gives a cutscene where she inspect your aether for changes, but find that you're fine after experiencing the great forces of Zodiark.
So we're not tempered by Zodiark.
So. I just hit a point in Endwalker with SPOILERS below.
After you first meet venat in elpis she says she senses a traveler's protection ward of her own making on you. I think the echo doesn't naturally convey protection against primal tempering, I think it's just at the same time you hear 'hear, feel, think' you end up getting her to pass that much onto you no matter what. She might give -more- than that as well to certain people, but the warding against tempering she gives to literally everyone with the echo.
Yeah, this actually really annoys me, because it's the game contradicting itself. In fact, it torpedoes an entire expansion finale, and then some, by saying it.
Specifically, it mangles the Resonant. The Resonant is explicitly an artificial Echo, the best example we have of an Echo without a blessing--because we can reason that Zenos is too horrible a person to be granted it, and Misija didn't give herself enough time to earn it (Fordola having the Blessing I could buy, but isn't confirmed). And all three of them use it to protect from tempering; Zenos against Shinryu, Fordola against first Lakshmi and later other Eorzean standard primals, and Misija against Queen Gunnhildr. Indeed, Misija outright says that this is the reason she's shooting for the Resonance.
So either we ruin the Resonance by messing up the one thing all three of them have in common, or we destroy Hydaelyn's capability in judging a person's character. And I feel like we're supposed to hold that second one high.
I think… this is just in the long run going to be something they’ll need to explain. It’s just too inconsistent really.
I think I have an answer even to that, but they really do need to address it.
I don't think it is entirely contradictory. I think that the whole 'push energy into us' part of the blessing of light is granted only to her champions, but everyone else is, full stop, granted the protection from primals, because the whole 'prevent your aether from being disrupted' I'm willing to bet -also- protects you from dynamis shoving your aether out of your body and morphing you into a monster, since the whole point of the warding spell is to prevent your aether from being depleted or directly manipulated by outside forces.
It doesn't matter how evil you are if that's the -actual- purpose of the anti-primal defense of the blessing of light. Because Hydaelen doesn't -care- about you as a moral human being, she's gonna assume you're not interested in the world ending regardless of your moral stance and put it on autopilot along with the vision granted to everyone who activates their echo.
One possibility is that
Hydaelyn just gives the blessing of light to anyone who can hear her, both those with natural Echoes and the Resonant, and it's just that people with Crystals of Light like the Wol, Ysayle, and Ardbert's party have an even stronger blessing than everyone else. I agree I hope this inconsistency is something they address though.
Doesn't really mangle anything IMO.
The Echo itself, and its artificial form, Resonant, both give the user access to power they would have had as an Ancient. In both cases, this means strengthening their Aether, and thus increasing the resilience against tempering, which is a form of Aether corruption. The only difference is that the Echo is obtained naturally, and the Resonant is unnaturally obtained.
Yes, you have completely described everything we knew about how the Echo and the Resonant worked up until Endwalker. The problem is Endwalker disagrees with you.
Endwalker declared the resistance against tempering/aether corruption to be a result of the Blessing of Light, not the Echo. Which ruins the Resonant, because all three of them use a resistance to tempering as a major element (in some cases an extremely strong resistance, it's not nothing that Zenos possessed a primal).
You need to think in terms of buffs for part of this, and how previous encounters have gone for the rest.
The Echo/Resonance is a buff akin to SCH's Galvanize, shielding you. The Blessing of Light is akin to Catalyze, which is a STRONGER version stacking on top of it. The Echo/Resonant provides a shield to tempering on its own, but the Blessing of Light is a stronger layer of shield on top of that.
On the case of Zenos, we've already seen via Ysayle and Ryne's using of Shiva that you need a strong will to control a primal. Ysayle had this and had full control over Shiva. Ryne did not and was almost overtaken by Shiva. A Sahagin Priest in ARR attempted to join with Leviathan using the Echo, but was swallowed up by it because his will was not strong enough. Zenos took control of Shinryu simply because of how strong willed he is. He moves for nobody, and when his eyes are set on prey, he will focus entirely on it, and NOTHING will be able to stop him.
The Blessing being a doubling up of primal protection power seems an utterly pointless expenditure of energy on Hydaelyns part, seeing as no primal summoned in the modern era is capable of overpowering even the basic echo level of protection.
Given that Venat used to hold the title of Azem, it would have made more sense if her protective ward was framed as a more proactive form of protection than a normal ward. i.e. it boosting attack power.
If I recall correctly, we needed the blessing to attack Ascians properly (they got very gloaty when they learned we'd lost it,) and the Ascians oppose her so it would be a sensible thing to hand out to potential WoLs. Also fits with Midgard sealing it to test our own strength. It all ties together neatly.
Could even have made a little joke about it in Elpis, Emet rolling his eyes and being all 'of course YOU would make a protection ward that boosts the wielders combat abilities.'
I don't know if this will help in the discussion but here is what I can say about it
The echo is an inherent quality of having an ancient soul. It's purpose is not specifically for warding against tempering, but offers resistance by virtue of sheer power/strength. In ShB Emet mentions that Zodiark tempered them while implying that even the strongest can be tempered if the primal is strong enough. This clearly means, the ancients has some level of resistance based on their power. Echo-bearing-sundered people or resonant-bearing people could also have that kind of resistance, albeit weaker and the strength of it could entirely be dependent on how strong the person is wielding that echo/resonant. Zenos and Fordola are quite strong enough, I think to resist some primals. Same with WoL, as seen during the HW. We know that echo is manifested differently to differently people based on the power/personality of their unsundered soul, but common to all is the side-effect of being resistant to tempering.
The Blessing of light is entirely from Venat/Hydelyn. Venat mentions that a traveler's ward was placed on the WoL which is a magick specifically made to "Prevent" tempering. So in contrast to echo which provides resistance, traveler's ward provides protection. I hope the distinction is clear. As to the Blessing of Light, it is not clear whether it only means traveler's ward. Venat mentions that there are other protective magicks, but the traveler's ward is one specifically made to prevent tempering. This could mean that the blessing could be collection of all magicks that Hydelyn/Venat imparts to the WoL, one of which is the traveler's ward.
We also know that when someone awakens the echo, an "automated" message is sent directly to that person which enables them to see the meteor shower and the 'hear, feel, think'. This, I believe is way of making sure Hydelyn initiates the first connection with the echo-bearer and which they are given a test of character to become WoL. A test in which if they pass, they will be granted the full power of the Blessing of Light. In our WoL case, the test is represented by all the crystals that we lit during the ARR story. This could be a way for Venat to get as many WoL as possible to serve her battle calamities or the final days.
Yeah, that’s how I basically understood too. That everyone who awakens to the Echo naturally (basically not Ascians and the artificial Echo/“The Resonant”) receives the base version of the Blessing of Light (as Krile stated in 3.1 she has the Blessing of Light in addition to the Echo), which includes Venat’s Traveler’s Ward magick. But then the Blessing of Light can be empowered further by individuals earning Crystals of Light.