First: Sorry again for this big post ^^; I love to discuss and since its not my mother language I always write too much because I fear that its otherwise not understandable what I mean.

Originally Posted by
Okamimaru
It's not our strength that let's us defeat enemies but our skill level... I mean yeah we beat Zurvan but if he hit you it was still a huge problem... the ability to dodge his attacks is what let us win.... and if we are supposed to be alone in these battles then we are apparently face tanking every boss and still able to heal ourselves and work complex mechanics.... this is the single biggest issue I have with the single WOL theory... nevermind we are asked to completely ignore the fact we can SEE and work with 3-7 other people during those fights...
We should not forget that fights are not necessary really that way. Its just that we need mechanics to make it a interesting game for us but we cant be sure if Thordan for example really did all of that in the true story fight. Also why would we need heals if we are simply never hit? Yes it might look a little strange if a BLM can go against 13 people at the same time but we should not forget that a job restriction in a fight is game only. We simply can assume that we are not forgetting stuff just because we are on a different job at the moment.
So yeah we should truly not forget that any ingame mechanic and stuff like that is probably not really happening in the story itself. We did not run dungeons again and again, we did them once, get the items out of it and turned it to Rowena. Going through instances again is simply a game mechanic.
And I know I said it often enough but its no theory. At least in quite some fights we cant have others with us because it would not make any sense. And we also cant forget the lore book which points out that yes the WoL can do things all alone. Comments like "gather your friends" are imo mostly just ingame hints that this is another group content. Anyway even if only half of the things we did was solo only..this would still be quit the feats.
In the end I have nothing against loosing but the way we loose and against which people we loose is important. Because I never liked the way shonen like Naruto went about it. "Oh you defeated the strongest person that is alive..lets party.." "well seems that there is even an bigger threat.." and so on. There comes a point were its getting a bit too much. This is why I would have liked HW to be a bit less about such godlike beings. Because we still have lots of expansions with lots of fights yet we already defeated quite the beasts.

Originally Posted by
Lauront
It is pretty much nothing but the Echo. I don't see how skill level comes into it, except insofar as it is (significantly) amplified via the Echo. At any rate, your character is not alone in possessing it. I do hope that they are going to start scaling back on this and make the WOL suffer some hard falls, not like the ones in HW where you simply regained Hydaelyn's blessing gradually, to the point that by the point you faced the Ascian Prime/Thordan, it was nearly all back.
Never in the story was the echo shown as being some kind of power boost. Its simply just something that helps us against tempering. Minfilia had the echo too but put her against Ifrit and she would simply be killed. Even the blessing is nothing that big of an boost to us since we went most of 3.0 without it. If we did not have the reaction and skill we simply would have died somewhere.

Originally Posted by
Mysteltain
Well, as I continue through the story on my alt, I am further reminded of why I really dislike discussions of what is canon or not. Do we take the in-game text as gospel, or supplementary material? Did we defeat the Warring Triad alone, or did we heed our allies advice and "gather trusted companions/champions/allies" to us in aid of our cause? Is the text in the duty finder the truth? I find it hard to beieve after 60 levels that the game needs to remind us to use it. And, please correct me in I'm wrong, but didn't Koji mention once how the lore book is written from the perspective of an Eorzean scholar/historian, and as such they only know somewhat more than the average person? Plus, historians have been known to make certain "embellishments" in their documentations (looking at you, Ancient Greece). So, for all we know this scholar is just assuming that we did this on our own to further our legend.
I understand that a lot of what I'm doing is nitpicking (and I do love playing Devil's Advocate), but at the same time I fully agree that, should we treat the lore book as canon, then how the hell can we be beaten by anything less than overwhelming numbers or some other form of unfair odds or handicap? But if we treat in-game lore as canon, well, we're inconsistently powerful (but never on the level of a demi-god without assistance from the Mother Crystal) with allies who seem to be conveniently absent when we're in danger after any given fight (such as Bismark). Obviously those inconsistancies can be swept away with head-canon or assumptions, but do we really want to go down that route?
Well I can understand that people might not like for things to be canon but some things have to just be accepted. For example if you dislike Alphinaud you cant simply say that he is not truly in those cutscenes because that would be against what is shown. But you could easily say that the WoL being nice to him is just on the outside because they know that they need him as an ally but maybe inside they dont really like him. This way someone still can go around the canon a bit. I also agree that its not always really simple since the game loves to tells us about gathering groups even if it does not make any sense. Next part is in spoiler tags simply because I will ramble a little.
I do believe that Koji meant it more for points that are about things we dont even know ourself. Like afterlife, the 12 gods and other things like that. I am not sure if he meant that we should be skeptic about everything that is written there. And lets not forget that even ingame it would not make sense if we have other people with us at Azys Lla (and all the fights there). Azys Lla is still a secret and we fly there with the scions to stop Thordan. In no cutscene when flying there do we see other people with us. Later on we also do solo instances with our scion friends on our side. Where are the other adventurers if they are with us all the time? Then we split up and are alone. Since we are the first people there nobody else could simply teleport to us and it does not make sense that we would fly down again to get help (there is no time for that). So anything that happens in that dungeon was solo. After that we instantly go against Thordan so again no time to gather friends. Thordan also only speaks about us at the end, which would be strange if we had others with us. We also leave this on the back of Middy with no place for other adventurers and the scions also only talk about us again. When we land in Ishgard Aymeric also tells us that we are the first person to arrive on a dragon. Would be kinda strange if they ignore all the other people on his back if we are not alone.
Then you have primals like Bismark and Ravana. If you are not alone against Bismark then those other adventurers are kinda jerks. They needed the echo too to fight against him so they are able to see the ascians. It was only one Ascian at that time so not enough to hold all down. So why did we not get help if we were not alone? We also travel to Ravana with the scions and Ysayle and only the two of us go into there. She battles against Ravana as shiva, gets defeated and Ravana challenges us. There is simply no time to leave and gather other people so we fight him alone.
The same with Ifrit which is one fight were they had even given us an escape route. But how big is the chance that we somehow see that this lake is going outside, then are able to escape without anyone noticing it, then meeting an npc on the other side that is just standing there randomly, go to a city or in the desert to find other adventurers that are willing to go with us (and have the echo!! We cant forget that we did not know at that time that there is something like tempering), yet somehow dont have the time to gather other allies like the grand company, go back again with more people and are still not noticed and then instead of overthrowing them right there we wait till they gather us before Ifrit, where we are still the only one that he comments on not being able to temper. So if you look at it simply from a story point there is not way we could have other adventurers with us. The only reason why there is even an exit is for us players. Would be kinda bad to be stuck there if we do not find some groups or if we want to do something else. (And in the lore book we are again solo there)
Ramuh was also done solo since this was a battle to show that we are strong enough to protect the forest.
Its interesting that in the lore book nearly every fight in the MSQ was done solo yet its written down that we we were not alone against Rhitahtyn so it seems that the scholars do show when it was different. And the part about the Castrum Meridianum says something about a unit of elite adventurers too. Its also written that the WoL was spared death by Hydaelyn so it could be that we had other people with us till that moment and after that we were alone again thus maybe slayed Ultima alone. Also they talk about an unit of adventurers in steps of faith. These are the only fights that have other people with us. These are also the few fights in MSQ were it makes sense that we have others with us. (I did have a problem wit the castrum first, because we see that we leave alone at the end, but the book makes it sound like only the WoL survived the attack from Ultima so it makes sense that we are alone at the end and does not make us look like a jerk if we had others with us till the end)
I found no information for the 24 man raids or the 8 man raids, so theoretically those could have been done with other adventurers and since these happen in the WoL spare time you could at least give a good reason why we have others with us.
But the story itself and the book seems to point that we do 90% of the MSQ alone. Thus we did beat quite the enemies alone. [Strangely its always against the Garleans that we had others with us so maybe they are truly our weakness? Still strange to loose against one person x)]