Quote Originally Posted by Bright-Flower View Post
I WISH Zenos actually hunted us.

He didn't know we were in Doma, and in Ala Mhigo, his 'hunt' was....sitting in his throne room and waiting for us to come to him?

Aside from his dull depthless personality, he could have at least been intimidating or imposing or menacing. But he wasn't really. He shoots a couple defenseless subordinates which just makes him seem dumb.
Well, I guess I would have to ask what makes a villain imposing and menacing? I have to ask because you said he "shoots" a couple of defenseless subordinates. It's made pretty clear what kind of weapon Zenos prefers to use. While I suppose that could be an honest mistake, it deflates your argument a good deal as it shows you don't understand the character as much you portray. This also goes into why Zenos cuts down his subordinates in the first place. It isn't to show how bad, evil, or menacing he is. The display is used to exhibit he has no love for the empire. It is foreshadowing the events that ultimately lead to him committing patricide.

He attacks Rhalgr's Reach, but what really happens here? We lose but nothing bad happens to us. Y'sthola is injured but that just means's she's 'put on a bus' for a while, nothing lasting happens to her it feels more like an excuse to put her offscreem for a bit.
Actually, prior to Zenos decimating the Reach, the resistance was planning a full scale assault on Castellum Velodyna. As an enemy stronghold at the time, it would have been a crushing blow to the empire and their hold over Ala Mhigo. Zenos' preemptive attack turned that scheme right back on the resistance; reinforcing their influence over Gyr Abania. Y'stola might have lived, but so many others died that day. Even though most are not of any significance and off-screen, what matters is their efforts and plans to get a firm hold on Gyr Abania was thwarted, and effortlessly. It is established early on that Zenos is some serious muscle the empire wields.

Some minor C tier character dies, but it's not even Zenos that kills him it's Fordola. And then...Zenos leaves and the resistance DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO ABANDON THE BASE.
Zenos doesn't care about any of it. The only reason why he showed up in the first place was because he knew the WoL would be present, and he wanted to see what he/she is all about. Disappointed and bored, he simply leaves. However, you do make a point, and even Raubahn found it very odd that Zenos and co left survivors. This is elaborated on later when even though Zenos was disappointed with the encounter with the WoL, he still saw enough in him/her to let them live in hopes that his new prey will get stronger as a result of his/her resolve. Later on he is absolutely exhilarated when it turns out his hunch about the WoL turned out to be correct.

We lose to him in Doma when we foolishly decide to attack him and expose our presence there. Yugiri doesn't die, the village isn't burned, we just get spanked and then left to recover. The only bad thing that happens is Grynwaht gets sent after us into the Steppe but this works out IN OUR FAVOR even by helping to rally the Xaela against the empire when they attack chasing after us. Once again, no consequences for our loss.
They didn't expose themselves. Zenos did, and they decided to take that opportunity to try and assassinate him, which failed. Even though the objective was huge, the overall risk was low because they were not mounting a full scale attack on Zenos where who knows how many could die. It was just a small group of peeps trying to seize a perfect opportunity to take down the Crown Prince, and with him out of the way, the Empire loses a large part of their arsenal. Ultimately, Zenos leaves the east to Yotsuyu, which is her duty anyway. The empire sees the Xaela of the Steppe as a very small threat. What are they going to do against a fleet of airships?

On top of that, the way these two fights are implemented into the game just falls flat. I know the fights aren't 'actually' that long, but because Zenos has such an overinflated health bar, it makes the fight FEEL tedious to chip away at his hp. And the fights themselves aren't even actuall hard, they don't keep you on your toes, don't challenge you at least not more than typical instance fights. So when Zenos gets bored and unleashes his 1 hit kill attack at the end of these it feels cheap, rather than like we're being overwhelmed by the sheer force of his power.
Those are scripted fights that you cannot win no matter what you do. That is the only way the game can actually put a tack in the loss column for the WoL. Otherwise, it is reset and rezz until you win. Whatever challenge is there is surviving the AoEs until the script calls for Zenos to end the fight. You're not going to find an overly challenging fight with the MSQ instances. If Zenos was to be made mechanically difficult to defeat, they would have to throw him in an 8-man. Myself and I'm sure many others feel this cheapens the encounter as it should be mano y mano.

The Elidizenos fight had a somewhat tight DPS check, and it was really the only way to lose that fight. You would almost have to deliberately stand in all the AoEs for him to win through submission. I am quite sure that whenever we face him again in a solo instance, even if it is really easy for you, there are still going to be some posts on reddit and perhaps here from some players who are having trouble with it.