Revelations from Patch 4.3

[TheCookieGod]

Cont. from above

Everything after Tsukuyomi, however, was amazing and makes up for all of my disappointment and then some. Was very happy to see Maxima being rational and the factions being an actual thing instead of pretense for Asahi to do his thing. Alphinaud deciding to go to Garlemald saw my jaw drop (Tataru scared him so badly about spending money he fled into enemy territory just to get away from her). Elidibus' body surfing (and Zenos apparently doing the same) will have interesting consequences for Garlemald and probably Ala Mhigo and Fordola as well depending on where they go with Elezenos.

ALSO #BLACKWOLFLIVES. DISNEY MAKES DREAMS COME TRUE BUT SQUARE ENIX MAKES MEMES COME TRUE.

Overall despite it's rough beginnings, 4.3's MSQ alone renewed my hype and interest in 14 after a lengthy hiatus. Looking forward to more!

[Anonymoose]

Well apparently I'm only allowed to write posts 1000 characters long for some reason, so pardon the multiple posts.

Write everything you want to say, copy the text and delete it, and post only the phrase EDIT INCOMING. Then manually edit your post, paste the text, and save. This will circumvent the text limit.


Re: Shadowhunter Discussion

If it's not Gaius, we must figure out who else would...
- Be dressed in red
- In his 50s
- Wield a DRK-length gunblade
- Use Terminust Est / Quickstep in battle
- Have a history with the Scions
- Recognize Alphinaud on sight
- Know of and loathe Ascians
- Be an imperial on bad terms with the Empire
- Have Gaius van Baelsar's faceplate on his belt

That's a lot of coincidences to redirect into, Actually, he's dead, but you should have seen the looks on your faces! ... Not that writers aren't occasionally so cruel.

I always imagined he'd try to rebuild something, if not Ala Mhigo when forces who didn't care about it (aside from Lyse, whose competence would be questionable at best) started tearing it apart, or a rebellious legion (not because the Warrior of Light is on "the right path", not because he's any friend of Eorzea, but because, To the Seventh Hell with Varis zos Galvus; they have every reason to want one another dead. It was a surprise to find that he'd taken Lahabrea's revelation of, "Not all the gods are lies and you've been a pawn in service to the Dark's restoration." so hard that he'd abandon all other pursuits to hunt them (with no particularly special gifts that we know of just yet).

The only question is ... how the sugar-frosted f[kupo]k does he have as many overlord kills as the Warrior of Light?
(I'm not even mad.)

[Mieck]

Re: Shadowhunter

Re: Shadowhunter Discussion

I suppose it might not be clear until we find out if he's just killed the host and taken the mask from the corpse, or if he's actually killed that many Ascians. Which leads on to the question of what trick Garlemald have for mimicking the Blade of Light and White Auracite?

[Belhi]

Re: Shadowhunter

I suppose it might not be clear until we find out if he's just killed the host and taken the mask from the corpse, or if he's actually killed that many Ascians. Which leads on to the question of what trick Garlemald have for mimicking the Blade of Light and White Auracite?

Well in regards to that:

My guess is he just kills the hosts. Even with our equipment and knowledge it takes a hell of a lot to actually kill an Ascian Overlord. In the cases we have seen, one was using an artefact that drew aether from a wide area plus the dying life energy of Moenbryda, one used an eye of an elderwyrm as an aether supply and the third got eaten by a primal. None of those scenarios are particularly easy to replicate without some serious trinkets.

[Rayo]

Well in regards to that:

My guess is he just kills the hosts. Even with our equipment and knowledge it takes a hell of a lot to actually kill an Ascian Overlord. In the cases we have seen, one was using an artefact that drew aether from a wide area plus the dying life energy of Moenbryda, one used an eye of an elderwyrm as an aether supply and the third got eaten by a primal. None of those scenarios are particularly easy to replicate without some serious trinkets.

I'm thinking:

I'm going with the Burn being more than just completely devoid of Aether, parts of the area are capable of Fully draining the Aether out of anything in minutes including the aether energy of Ascians, and/or Gais (not saying Gais is alive) had suspected Lahabrea's betrayal and prepared a means to disable/kill them, obviously never having been able to use it against Lahabrea but Gais's engineers had enough of an idea to prototype it.

[Lauront]

On that topic...

My view is along the lines of Belhi's, i.e. that he's killing the hosts, along with his band. He's got assistance. Bear in mind, he is a powerful character, who himself faced off the WoL and the scions. I very much doubt he is permanently killing the red-masked ones, as I am not convinced he has a means of killing them permanently, unless it's Allagan tech, which could for instance imprison eikons... but Ascians are not the same thing, so it's a big if. It's possible that parts of the Burn do act as a "drain", flushing down aetheric beings (perhaps an Ascian's essence after the host is slain), but I'm not convinced of it and I don't see how it'd leave even regular mortals unaffected; aether is the very essence of most living beings in the game universe and the source of the vast majority of jobs' powers, too. Either way, it'd work, until it didn't... eventually the Ascians would figure out which locations to avoid when confronting their foe. They are also likely familiar with such locales from traversing the Void. For now I am putting my money on the hosts being the deceased, not the actual Ascians. Either way, SE is not being at all subtle about it being Gaius, so I think we're safe in assuming it's him.

[Evraeh]

Shadowhunter :

Please, for love of god, make that guy to be Gaius. Like some people here, I'm still sceptic and keep thinking that could be someone else or if it's really someone else, I'll be more than disappointed.

Though, everything mark him to be "him" : The mask first, the gunblade design, his battle positions and skills (watch back the praetorium fight and how he was fighting), his third eye, his skin burned, his left arms with bandages, his hate for Ascians,... and he want to stay anonymous but still say he already crossed Scions' path.

Something when he said it make me think he really regrets his actions with the Ultima and the Ascians.

I want to believe it's him, so PLEASE SQUARE-ENIX, IF HE IS REALLY WHO EVERYONE THINK, DON'T KILL HIM AGAIN.

[ObsidianFire]

On killing Ascians

In the Lvl. 60 Summoner quest, we find out it's possible to really kill the black-masked Ascians by killing their bodies. There just can't be any dead bodies in the area. The black-masked Ascians aren't skilled enough at leaving their bodies to get back to the space between worlds or take over living bodies. As far as killing them in the first place goes, Deathflare works just fine, no crazy empowered-by-Hydalen blades of light needed. Whether that just means killing them normally works, or a spell that slams them with a bunch of aether works, or dragon death magic works, is up for debate.

In order to kill an Ascian though, you need to know it's an Ascian in the first place. None of the Ascians in 2.0 and onwards have been "found" by the Scions while they were possessing someone. They have all revealed themselves to the Scions. Which kinda begs the question of how Giaus has found so many. 'Cause if it's by tracking down people with agendas that align with the Ascians' goals, that's a very different way of finding Ascians then the Scions. If it's because the Ascians have been purposely revealing themselves to him, then how much of a threat is he to them compared to the WoL?

The irony is that one of the big GiausLives theories was that he survived due to being possessed by an Ascian. Instead he's been doing one of the things the Scions have let fall by the wayside ever since SB started.

[Iscah]

MSQ

Re. primals, I was of the understanding that Thordan and the knights were in fact tempered/'blessed' by the primal. We've seen now from other cases that people can be tempered and still appear and function as normal, other than their dedication to their 'deity'.

Possibly the difference between Echo and non-Echo people channel-summoning is that a non-Echo summoner will be "tempered from within" as soon as they call up the primal. So it's safe for Ysayle to do it and keep her mind intact, but not Thordan or Yotsuyu.

Although... even though Elidibus/Zenos implies that the summoning will destroy Yotsuyu and leave her a 'husk', she still seemed to be 'herself' after the trial - and so much of the trial itself was tangled up in her story and emotions. Does she have some unknown degree of the Echo or is it just a matter of willpower, as Zenos implied at the end of Stormblood?


Overall this ending of Yotsuyu's story was very well done. The trial was amazing and heartwrenching (that moment where Gosetsu appeared to defend her!) and afterwards... she was at peace in the end, finally. I cried - not so much immediately at her death but from seeing Gosetsu's reaction. Oh dear, now I'm crying again at the thought of it.

I really wasn't expecting Asahi to be killed off so soon, but it's absolutely poetic justice that Yotsuyu did it after all he put her through.

Nasty trick with getting Yotsuyu to do the summoning and then turn Hien's insistence on her being a Doman citizen into a charge against them.


With the confirmation that Elidibus is using Zenos's body, I wonder if he *was* previously Aulus and so needed a new host after being defeated in Ala Mhigo? In which case, either it was potentially not 'planned' for him to take over Zenos but rather an opportunity, or Aulus's fighting us and being defeated was staged to free Elidibus and let him take a new host. (Can Ascians body-jump entirely at will or are they locked into a particular host until killed, or their crystal destroyed?)


Alphinaud's decision to travel to Garlemald took me completely by surprise, but it's awesome, and I loved getting the dialogue box options to 'cheer him on'.

Getting to play as him was also very cool! I was pretty excited when the 'commence battle?' message popped up. I hope they continue to do this in the future!


Also an interesting thought I had on Gaius's companions, in conjunction with remembering that Ascians can be defeated without killing the host... perhaps they're both 'rescued' hosts? Gaius is carrying two red Ascian masks alongside his own. (They must have killed others, since he had at least the one black mask that he shows to Alphinaud as well, but according to the HW summoner quests, the red-masked Ascians can take living hosts but the black masks can only possess corpses.)

He'd be aware of the fact that the Ascians are possessing others due to dealing with "Thancred" - Lahabrea might have explained the basics of it, and/or Gaius might have witnessed us defeat Lahabrea and destroy the crystal - depending on how that looked in the real world rather than the presumably-metaphysical one we were in for that final scene.


Overall I'm very interested to see where the story goes from here! (Figuratively and literally-into-Garlemald....)

The mysterious Elezen is most likely Zenos. Same eyecolor, same talking style, same move skills, talks about hunting... I only wish he snatched a Hyur body just cause I'm a bit tired of seeing Elezen since Heavensward haha, but it's just personal preference. Plus could been worse if he snatched a lalafell body lol

If he had a choice, it's not surprising that he went for an Elezen host since it's the closest body type to his own - which would mean less time adjusting to it and being able to fight well.

It is a bit surprising that Zenos itself seems to have gone into the body of an resistance fighter. Not really sure where they are going with him but maybe he will be our short term ally at the end and the one to take out his father (Would be better than him just wanting to kill us again and again..) I am just not sure why he did not change his form to Zenos? I mean we only know about one instance where someone took over other bodies but the Sahagin priest did change the bodies of the other sahagin as soon as he went into them (if I remember it correctly)...now is that because he wanted to change or because it will happen if you take over a body?

I don't know if he would have conscious control over how much the host transforms to resemble his original self, but if he could then there are plenty of reasons for him to not want to. He might have taken over one soldier in a group, in which case visibly transforming would immediately ruin any secrecy of the takeover. He might want to be able to remain undercover in the Resistance until an opportune moment came about (eg. a chance to steal a magitek vehicle, as we saw him doing). He might just want to break away from his old identity.

I wonder though - what happens to Zenos's previously-acquired Resonance? Does that stay with the body or the soul? Would Elidibus gain anything from having access to it?

Four Lords / Swallow's Compass

I really, really wish the Kojin didn't have those rigid faces. It weirds me out that they don't even have moving mouths.

The dungeon is incredibly pretty. I guess we've crossed the river and gone into the mountain chain to the northwest?

The solo trial was annoying and I wiped a few times (eventually scraped through with Echo power) but at least it meant I got to appreciate Tataru's struggles with her carbuncle. Only caught onto it at the second time through and paid more attention during the third.

Ivalice

I'm only partway through the raid. Our FC were doing it as a group earlier tonight but some people had to leave partway through, so it's delayed until tomorrow.

The fetchquest was quite literally Great Titan Fetchquest: The Sequel (involving the same group of characters and all) but wasn't as long or terrible as people made it sound. Hancock popping up was bizarre and the resolution was actually funny. The final sting was the missable line from talking to Gegeruju once you're free to return to Kugane - he's going to refill the bottle with cheap Hingan wine that an East Aldenard representative just sold to him, and pass it off to someone as the real thing....

Also I really hope we'll be able to get Drest back to his family at the end of all this. I'd wondered about it anyway, and now he's officially part of the plotline.


On a completely unrelated note, I feel like they really need to make some proper Garlean character models instead of hijacking Elezen ones, because they end up looking quite unsettling. Jenomis's head is really out of proportion with his shoulders and arms. (Nero has the same issue, but I think Jenomis is worse.)


Overall I'm just finding the Ivalice plotline hard to keep track of. I haven't played the games that it's referencing, so all the "legend of Ivalice" is a huge text dump and none of it is clear or simple enough to keep in mind just from that presentation.

[Remedi]

What if our dear mother has a hand in this?