How Physically Strong is the Warrior of Light?

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So...just how physically strong are they, and do the feats you do during side quest count?

With dynamis in play I’m inclined to say ‘as strong as the writers need them to be’. Though, there’s no much fun in that lol.

To me it would depend a lot on which job they are. Like I’d imagine something like Black Mage would have fairly average/low strength compared to other ‘average Eorzeans’, whilst something like Warrior or Monk would be ‘freakishly strong’ compared to the average person lol.

It’s also kinda hard to judge though because there’s things like the Bard harp-bows that would require Hulk-like strength to actually draw properly, yet they handle them like they’re nothing lol. Imagine taking a punch from that guy! There’d definitely need to be strict criteria i.e ‘only feats performed during non-Hildi quests’ or ‘only cutscene feats’ lol, otherwise we’d just end up constantly cycling back to ‘as strong as the writers need them to be’

Agreed with Connor; somewhere in the ballpark of "human-y levels" for the most part, "whatever the story wants" otherwise. Aether is a force multiplier that increases combat potential in most of the skills we see. They're not going to make a new "Warrior of Light interacts with item" animation for every weight of item, so some are exaggerated or at scale.

But when Zenos and the Warrior of Light get into a street fight, they still just traded slugs to the face that, if they had any degree of preternatural muscular power, would have caused instant death.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Agreed with Connor; somewhere in the ballpark of "human-y levels" for the most part, "whatever the story wants" otherwise. Aether is a force multiplier that increases combat potential in most of the skills we see. They're not going to make a new "Warrior of Light interacts with item" animation for every weight of item, so some are exaggerated or at scale.

But when Zenos and the Warrior of Light get into a street fight, they still just traded slugs to the face that, if they had any degree of preternatural muscular power, would have caused instant death.

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The Warrior of Light has generally shown a great deal of superhuman strength when the time calls for it though. They can trade blows with being like Titan, who can smash the ground so hard it undulates like a rug on top of having attacks like "Mountain Buster", catches and deflects the building-sized sword wielded by Susano, and is repeatedly described as having the strength of a hundred men. In "Mama, She Is In Rubble Deep", they lift a piece of fallen concrete rubble so heavy that a Maelstrom soldier initially believes the feat to be a "tall tale" until he remembers who he's speaking to. And then in the posted screenshot from "The Might Be Giant", they can easily bench press and carry hunks of stone that even the Yok Huy would find burdensome to carry.

The Warrior is also generally described as being rugged and brawny for their race and regularly go toe-to-toe with enormous monsters like behemoths, Gajasura Matanga, and Maulskull. In the Warrior questline, they're considered the greatest warrior alive and are stronger than Dorgono and Curious Gorge, who can sweep aside small armies and bat Roegadyn in heavy armor clear across the Wolves' Den. In the Monk questline, they trounce the Corpse Brigade almost single-handedly after more than ten hours of heavy training and sprinting through the Gyr Abanian wilderness to meet up with Erik. Then there's their rivalry with Zenos, who is so strong that he can bat entire military squads away with a single swing of his sword.

I struggle to call the Warrior of Light's physical fitness anything other than superhuman.

Not to say that the Warrior of Light isn't uncommonly strapping, or dismiss the "when the story calls for it" exceptions, but some of the objects the Warrior of Light lifts in fetch quests and the like are so heavy that - even if their bones and muscles could support it - the ponzes-per-square-ilm exerted by their feet on the ground should cause them to immediately sink into the earth, I think.

Some of the examples that aren't aetherially infused combat feats or the poetic license of anime cinematography, I assumed were, like, "The Joke", so to speak.

There are a lot of examples of the game pointing out that you carried a bunch of corpses across Thanalan in your pocket, or carried that entire wagon of crystal crates back to the merchant it was stolen from, or dragged around that Grebuloff in a sack, or that you're carrying "an entire arsenal in your pack", but that it's "perhaps best left unexplained". I took that as the game is saying, "Don't think too hard about it." when the feats start getting kind of silly.

I think we can mostly handwave any complications of super strength in fiction because, well, most writers don't care about physics to that extent unless they're trying to lampoon the superhero genre in some way.

The thing about stuffing big objects in their backpack is clearly a gameplay convenience, but their on-screen feats of strength aren't.

It's worth remembering that all the races we can play as have the ability to bolster their techniques with aether, so while it feels both plausible and useful to declare some sort of average/expected 'floor' for the WoL, it honestly isn't; we can, literally, punch as hard as the context calls for. That isn't a protagonist thing or a heroism thing, that's just how most humans in this setting work. (RIP Garleans)

What I do think is a little exceptional there is that the WoL's baseline says that they're clearly quite good at that aetheric manipulation of physical ability; even the weediest dork of a job we've got (which my character's stats say is Black Mage by a good like 30 points at level 100) can hold off Susano's sword, do sick extreme sports stunts in Hildibrand, and as we've stated, carries way more things than we reasonably need.

If I were to REALLY dork out on this I'd actually zero in on quests like Beast of Burden, where we physically carry a thing for a limited amount of time; of all things, those quests are the ones that suggest we have a limit of physical strength and stamina, and we might be able to work out a plausible 'sans-manipulation average' by figuring out how heavy those things tend to be.

I mean we canocilly blocked off susano sword, fell from sky, got shot by what i would assume is a heavy bolt rifle got back up.....were but different.

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Originally Posted by Zakuyia

I mean we canocilly blocked off susano sword, fell from sky, got shot by what i would assume is a heavy bolt rifle got back up.....were but different.

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true but chemical warfare killed us in another timeline,

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Originally Posted by Selvokaz

true but chemical warfare killed us in another timeline,

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In Heavensward the WoL got taken out by a cup of tea

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Originally Posted by Selvokaz

true but chemical warfare killed us in another timeline,

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And the buffest man in the world would still die if he was shot.

Physical strength means nothing in the face of death.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

In Heavensward the WoL got taken out by a cup of tea

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yeah you'd think after that they'd look into maybe finding away to not get killed by poison, or at least knocked unconscious.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

And the buffest man in the world would still die if he was shot.

Physical strength means nothing in the face of death.

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yes I know but I thought it funny if not prudent to point out that while I am curious about the WoL capabilities, I don't see them as unkillable or unbeatable.

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Originally Posted by Selvokaz

yeah you'd think after that they'd look into maybe finding away to not get killed by poison, or at least knocked unconscious.

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If you look at their interactions in the MSQ and sidequests, they never, ever accept a drink from a stranger again unless they see other people drinking from the same batch or if the drink is made right in front of them. It's a neat bit of subtle characterization for the Warrior of Light.

Otherwise, the Warrior of Light is stronger than Estinien, whose jumps can flatten entire forests, and they can meet the colossal Gulool Ja Ja evenly in a contest of physical strength and is the only one to do so other than Valigarmanda.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

If you look at their interactions in the MSQ and sidequests, they never, ever accept a drink from a stranger again unless they see other people drinking from the same batch or if the drink is made right in front of them. It's a neat bit of subtle characterization for the Warrior of Light.

Otherwise, the Warrior of Light is stronger than Estinien, whose jumps can flatten entire forests, and they can meet the colossal Gulool Ja Ja evenly in a contest of physical strength and is the only one to do so other than Valigarmanda.

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I'd generally put forward that Estinien is stronger in a 'brute strength' way, it's just that the WoL is a better fighter.

Which is exactly something that'd come into play in a duel against Gulool Ja Ja. You don't destroy the royal palace you're a guest in, that's just rude.

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Originally Posted by Selvokaz

true but chemical warfare killed us in another timeline,

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Granted, that was chemical warfare that had an entire shard's worth of aether powering it up. I'm pretty sure anything would die if a planet entered its lungs.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I'd generally put forward that Estinien is stronger in a 'brute strength' way, it's just that the WoL is a better fighter.

Which is exactly something that'd come into play in a duel against Gulool Ja Ja. You don't destroy the royal palace you're a guest in, that's just rude.

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Well, remember Gulool Ja Ja's challenge to the Warrior of Light.

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Originally Posted by Gulool Ja Ja in "A Father First"

The battle rage is upon me! I'll stop short of killing you, of course... but expect no other mercies!

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Gulool Ja Ja and the Warrior of Light were going full throttle. Their pride as fighters wouldn't let them do anything less. And Gulool Ja Ja claims that WoL is the first one to withstand his full strength.

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Originally Posted by Gulool Ja Ja in "A Father First"

I've brought my full strength to bear against opponents before, but you are the first to withstand it. Even with my Head of Reason asleep, I never expected you to give me so much trouble... Estinien did not exaggerate: you are a force to be reckoned with!

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Gulool Ja Ja would WANT Estinien to use his full strength and Estinien would almost certainly give it to him given his interest in worthy opponents every now and then.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

Well, remember Gulool Ja Ja's challenge to the Warrior of Light.



Gulool Ja Ja and the Warrior of Light were going full throttle. Their pride as fighters wouldn't let them do anything less. And Gulool Ja Ja claims that WoL is the first one to withstand his full strength.



Gulool Ja Ja would WANT Estinien to use his full strength and Estinien would almost certainly give it to him given his interest in worthy opponents every now and then.

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Absolutely fair! But at the same time, Gulool Ja Ja is a man absolutely capable of handling raw, brute force (like you said, he fought Valigarmanda, who wasn't exactly dangerous because of intellect), while also being capable of recognizing that strength is more than that.

Exactly what we have over Estinien in this context is... interesting, because that's one of the few scenes in the game with role-based dialog changes: what Gulool highlights as your grestest strength actually changes based on if you're a tank, DPS or healer. But no matter what, he always respects our ability to withstand him in a fight. So if anything, our strength compared to Estinien isn't in power, it's in being able to last longer. Granted, Estinien's fight was called off, so maybe Gulool couldn't be considered an accurate judge of that?

We're very strong by human standards, but not as strong as like, beasts of burden.
Our character is shown carrying very heavy boxes that multiple people would usually struggle with.
Sometimes these quests give you the heavy debuff, to show it's not easy.
We aren't about to beat Gulool Ja Ja in a power lifting contest though I don't think.

Most of our fighting power comes from "skill" enhanced by typical fantasy fighting energy. Chakra or Aether or whatever.
Makes us super hero levels of strong and durable in a fight, but we can be knocked out pretty easily if taken unawares.