Patch 3.3 (Trailer) Discussion (2.x - 3.2 Spoilers)

[Cilia]

I'm pretty confident that Ratatoskr's power isn't limited to Elezen. It seems to be inherent in all native Ishgardians, of which Hyur are a minority population. It's also known that there are hybrids in the city (Hilda, f'ex) for various reasons (primarily adulterous affairs within noble houses), meaning even the "pure" Elezen probably have some Hyur ancestry... excepting the High Houses, to an extent.

My wager is that we'll use the Echo to go into Estinien-Nidhogg's soul and convince Estinien to let go of his hatred and lust for revenge. Doing so should theoretically break Nidhogg's hold on him, given the wyrm now self-identifies as vengeance incarnate (and he's almost literally correct). Many believe the Echo can be used to brute force Nidhogg out, but I'm not sure of that yet... besides which, we haven't been seen doing anything with the Echo but unwillingly rooting around in peoples' memories. It'd be a big leap to go from unconscious, unwitting memory theater to ripping out entire psyches.

[Belhi]

I'm pretty confident that Ratatoskr's power isn't limited to Elezen. It seems to be inherent in all native Ishgardians, of which Hyur are a minority population. It's also known that there are hybrids in the city (Hilda, f'ex) for various reasons (primarily adulterous affairs within noble houses), meaning even the "pure" Elezen probably have some Hyur ancestry... excepting the High Houses, to an extent.

My wager is that we'll use the Echo to go into Estinien-Nidhogg's soul and convince Estinien to let go of his hatred and lust for revenge. Doing so should theoretically break Nidhogg's hold on him, given the wyrm now self-identifies as vengeance incarnate (and he's almost literally correct). Many believe the Echo can be used to brute force Nidhogg out, but I'm not sure of that yet... besides which, we haven't been seen doing anything with the Echo but unwillingly rooting around in peoples' memories. It'd be a big leap to go from unconscious, unwitting memory theater to ripping out entire psyches.

I should probably clarify that I didn't literally mean we rip out Nidhogg. Just that the Echo allows us to go into the soul of Estinien and act as a catalyst. I originally imagined something like is going into some mindscape that where we were in the memory of the village where Estinien lived before Nidhogg attacked and if we had a solo instance perhaps we fought with a mental form of Nidhogg there who was trying to stop us from reaching Estinien. After all the source of Estinien's rage and desire for vengeance is that attack.

Also I'm curious on how our our strengthened blessing of light effects things. Strickly speaking our original blessing never really failed us till it was stripped. My thought is our strengthened blessing might simply be less reliant on Hydealyn. It would make sense if she was weakening for her to seek to make us more independent of her power.

[Pomelo]

My wager is that we'll use the Echo to go into Estinien-Nidhogg's soul and convince Estinien to let go of his hatred and lust for revenge. Doing so should theoretically break Nidhogg's hold on him, given the wyrm now self-identifies as vengeance incarnate (and he's almost literally correct). Many believe the Echo can be used to brute force Nidhogg out, but I'm not sure of that yet... besides which, we haven't been seen doing anything with the Echo but unwillingly rooting around in peoples' memories. It'd be a big leap to go from unconscious, unwitting memory theater to ripping out entire psyches.

Didn't Laha and his girlfriend combine together using the Echo? I suppose we could use it ...to uncombine individuals.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Didn't Laha and his girlfriend combine together using the Echo? I suppose we could use it ...to uncombine individuals.

Except we're made fun of for having the echo and not knowing how to use it (other than some outside help anyway)

[CyrilLucifer]

Didn't Laha and his girlfriend combine together using the Echo? I suppose we could use it ...to uncombine individuals.

While I'm definitely one of those that has perpetuated that theory, it's important to consider that the Echo is the ability to break barriers and that is what gave them the ability to fuse.

Lahabrea and Igeyorhm willingly destroyed the barriers surrounding their souls so two individuals could become one. That logic doesn't really work with separating people.

However, what we have been shown is that's we're capable of forcefully entering/resonating with a shared soulspace like an Ascian and basically tearing people apart - but the key thing to note is that Lahayorhm claim it was the Blessing that separated them, not the Echo - and yet the Echo was clearly also at work, because we couldn't have entered Thancred/Lahabrea without it and Elidibus states outright in 2.1 that it was the Echo that banished Lahabrea.

So, the result is identical, but mechanically it's not the same thing at all. Without the Blessing paired with the Echo, I'm wondering if we're even capable of banishing an Ascian from its host - thus separating two individuals from a soulspace - simply because we don't have that much control over the Echo yet. Maybe in the future?

There's not much doubt in my mind at this point that, if Estinien is going to survive, it's going to be because the WoL uses the Echo to enter Estinihogg and tear them apart, though.