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

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Let's see how many times we can survive Safer Sephiroth destroying the sun...

That's just him trolling you.

[Cilia]

It has everything to with resolve. You can't save someone if you expect you may have to kill them. That tiny bit of doubt allows despair to take root and grow until you decide it "must be done," whether or not that's truly the case. ("Manly resolve" was only meant as a jab at the Japanese script, where comparable phrases get thrown around right left and center, especially in Ishgard. I imagine Alphinaud is sick of it by now. I know I am.)

Ironically enough it was Hydaelyn Herself who gave us another way in the fight with Lahabrea-Thancred, and told us to stop listening to the cackling madman telling us there was no other way. Still betting on her being the "save everyone" goddess, she just needs to get her crap together. And fix her damn internet.

Resolve is important, but so too is looking at it from a different viewpoint.

While I am hopeful (believe, even) that there is a way to save Estinien, there may not be as well. We shouldn't just give up on saving him, but on the other hand, we have to accept we may be unable to. Letting (Estinien-)Nidhogg walk after the climactic Final Steps of Faith would be both a disservice to Ishgard and Estinien; we can't just let him roam free to continue terrorizing Ishgard, and if there is absolutely positively no way to free him, I would like to think Estinien would prefer the release of death to being used as Nidhogg's meat puppet. That too is salvation... after a fashion.

But still, I believe there is a way to save him proper. I just don't want to get caught off-guard again like during "The Parting Glass."

I was thinking "Didn't Griever do something like that?" but I found a video and the sky actually got lighter after Shockwave Pulsar...

I can't account for the swirly thing Alphinaud is shown during, but...

The sky seems perpetually dark and cloudy during the battle, as opposed to the normally sunny / snowy weather in Ishgard. However when Estinien-Nidhogg is shown readying and using his new super, the clouds have changed violet as per Nidhogg's "energy signature," such as it were.

Still, nothing says "This is The Last Battle" like special moves that affect the weather. Let's see how many times we can survive Safer Sephiroth destroying the sun...

That's just him trolling you.

Literally: despite the fact Supernova destroys about half the solar system and causes the sun to go... well, supernova, the attack can't actually kill you. It deals Gravity damage and inflicts negative status effects, but as a result of doing Gravity damage, you'll never die.

Yep, even if half the solar system is destroyed, the sun has gone supernova, and the Earth (Gaia?) is about half-destroyed by the time you get hit.

[Fenral]

While I am hopeful (believe, even) that there is a way to save Estinien, there may not be as well. We shouldn't just give up on saving him, but on the other hand, we have to accept we may be unable to. Letting (Estinien-)Nidhogg walk after the climactic Final Steps of Faith would be both a disservice to Ishgard and Estinien; we can't just let him roam free to continue terrorizing Ishgard, and if there is absolutely positively no way to free him, I would like to think Estinien would prefer the release of death to being used as Nidhogg's meat puppet. That too is salvation... after a fashion.

If you mean you want a way to contain him after the final battle and prevent further damage, assuming the power of hugs doesn't work at first...

I actually remembered there is one thing, and Alphinaud knows about it: Allagan Neurolinks. Binding Coil tech. If he really can't admit there's a stash buried under Northern Thanalan (even to save a friend), he can ask one of the nodes flying around Azys Lla, assuming we're allowed to go there outside of the Triad storyline. Hell, Alisaie could do the legwork herself and make the delivery in person.

It wouldn't need to be forever, just long enough to get him straightened out.

[Cilia]

On the subject of Nidhogg using Estinien's form to brutalize Vidofnir at the peace summit, it's actually a pretty clever stratagem.

See, Estinien is the Azure Dragoon, the exemplar of Ishgardian aggression. Given dragons have functional immortality as long as nobody offs them, any Dravanian still alive would recognize and know the Azure Dragoon, and having him (or at least his form) brutalize a peace ambassador would remind them of all the cruelties Ishgard had inflicted on dragonkind over the millennium-long war. This would, hopefully, get them to abandon peace with Ishgard and take the opposite course. Of course, given he then transformed into his dragon form to threaten the Ishgardians, I don't know if that was the best idea... but that's probably the gist of it.

Either way, brutalizing your niece, at a peace conference, which she was attending with her father's blessing was probably not a very good idea. Even though we have yet to see any friendlies in the Final Steps of Faith scenes, I'll be very surprised if Hraesvelgr really does sit around Zenith with his thumb up his ass the whole time. Regardless, Nidhogg seems to have shifted his strategy from "make Ishgard suffer forever" to "raze Ishgard or die tryin'," so it didn't need to be the most well thought-out tactic.

If you mean you want a way to contain him after the final battle and prevent further damage, assuming the power of hugs doesn't work at first...

<Use an Allagan Neruolink>

It wouldn't need to be forever, just long enough to get him straightened out.

Well, we don't know how to make a Neruolink, or how to use one (the ones on Twintania certainly didn't seem to be functioning). The Azys Lla nodes tend to be... less than helpful, but who knows.

Either way, I have conquered my doubt. It'll work out somehow!

... what I mean is, we'll make it work somehow!