Predictions for 5.3?

[Archwizard]

I want to clarify once again, I don't think we'll be world-hopping in the immediate next expansion, and obviously I have no idea what they plan for those after. As it stands right now we've spent long enough away from the world we're fighting for, and if we just started chain-hopping across worlds then we would lose touch with events in Eorzea. There's still more of Hydaelyn to be explored, like Meracydia, Sharlayan, Thavnair, the New World and Ilsabard itself. Not to mention whatever's beneath that cloud cover on the edge of Othard.

However, I'm not going to write off more world-hopping as a possibility later given the loose threads already in play related to at least one of them. As it stands we know more about the Void than any other remaining Reflections.

With all this stuff going on with Graha, i'm gonna feel so bad for Lyna. Those two are both in love with each other but haven't said it.

Lyna has mentioned before that the Exarch essentially raised her after the Flood. Her concern for his well-being isn't romantic.

If anything, the way the Exarch speaks about the Warrior of Light hints more towards a romantic connection than the way he speaks of or to Lyna. He would take Lyna's loss hard if she fell in battle, but she is Captain of the Guard so he has to face that fact regularly, while keeping a level of distance from her in expectation of his own death; meanwhile he was fully planning to die for the WoL.

[Enkidoh]

However, I'm not going to write off more world-hopping as a possibility later given the loose threads already in play related to at least one of them. As it stands we know more about the Void than any other remaining Reflections.

Except we can't world-hop to other Shards even if we wanted to - the original means we entered the Void/Thirteenth was through a dimensional rift originally engineered by the Cloud of Darkness and her Covenant to Xande which Cid and the Ironworks used magitek technology to brute force open - destroying her and Xande cancelled the Covenant and caused that protal to the Void to completely collapse (yes minor rips allow Voidsent to enter the Source but they have to always possess a physical host in order to complete the 'jump' so to speak). And the way the Crystal Tower became the Crystal TARDIS and ended up in the First is also now unrepeatable, as we destroyed the mechanism that made that possible during the Twinning.

So both means are now unrepeatable - the Crystal Tower just will be going nowhere fast from now on and simply never will be dimensionally travelling again. We can still travel to and from the Source to the First though due to our aetheric trails between aetherytes, but the Tower simply will not be doing the same.

No, I think it's pretty clear we won't be doing any more dimension hopping I'm sorry to say as the ways we have done so in the past are now gone and no longer available to us that could make travel to the other remaining Shards possible, if even hypothetically. There is just too much now demanding our attention on the Source now as it is so we really don't have time to do further Shard-hopping, that's just facing facts.

[Archwizard]

Except we can't world-hop to other Shards even if we wanted to

... and we couldn't world-hop to the First either except as a soul, until Shadowbringers very much set up a completely new means to. That's just how a progressive narrative goes: "We can't do this right now, please come back later."

Every expansion is literally "Hey look what we found, a Brand Spankin' New means/reason to travel to Place You Haven't Been." The means may not exist yet for us to do so at-will, but as soon as the writers find it relevant to execute, a path will open.

Because anything is possible within the narrative if the writers will it to be so. Likelihood is not the same as possibility.

yes minor rips allow Voidsent to enter the Source but they have to always possess a physical host in order to complete the 'jump' so to speak

Which is an interesting point that's worth discussing, since it's repeatedly discussed AND USED AS A PLOT POINT that:
1) The Crystal Exarch was able to forge aetheric vessels for the Scions' souls whom he Called (proper noun by Elidibus, implying it's an important term in magic, probably the same method used for summoning Voidsent) into the First so that they could interact with the world (which presumably Elidibus was able to do for Ardbert and his companions on the Source), and
2) The Warrior of Light appears to be a unique case, in that they were able to be called to the First complete with their physical body and any belongings they possess. The means by which is this possible is never again expounded upon (only that the Scions hope to abuse it to get back via the auracite the Exarch is prepping), making it implicitly a unique property of the WoL given that this is a feat even Ardbert and his companions couldn't do.
Not to mention that the Exarch is able to just... make a portal back to the Source within the Tower, which hasn't gone away with The Tycoon's destruction, just one that only the WoL can use.

Not to beleaguer the point, but the story shows that's not really a limitation for us. In theory we could just hop through a rift summoned for a Voidsent, and we just happen to know a girl who can open those at-will.

So both means are now unrepeatable

All you're saying is the current means we've used are now unique to the locations we've used them to get to.
Great.
So if it ever becomes relevant for us to go - and I'm agreeing with you that's a big if - we'll use something else. Not "it's impossible and will never happen."

[MrThinker]

Which is an interesting point that's worth discussing, since it's repeatedly discussed AND USED AS A PLOT POINT that:
1) The Crystal Exarch was able to forge aetheric vessels for the Scions' souls whom he Called (proper noun by Elidibus, implying it's an important term in magic, probably the same method used for summoning Voidsent) into the First so that they could interact with the world (which presumably Elidibus was able to do for Ardbert and his companions on the Source), and

Hold it right there, I can't really say much for your other points, because yes, IF they want us to do something in another Shard, they'll put something together, but on this point in particular, the English version clearly states that the Scions are literally corporeal spirits, not that the Exarch prepared vessels for them to interact with the world. The 'vessel' idea was a fan theory that people (including myself) were espousing before the expansion released, but has subsequently been debunked by the story.

The truth on Ardbert and his companions remains unclear. Did Elidibus prepare bodies for them to possess like a common Ascian, or were they, like the Scions are now, corporeal spirits? The last time this was addressed, in an interview in 2017, we were told it was left deliberately vague to allow the player to come to their own conclusion. I'm personally on the corporeal spirit side of the argument, but the vessel side is equally valid.

EDIT: (Forgot to add this before)

2) The Warrior of Light appears to be a unique case, in that they were able to be called to the First complete with their physical body and any belongings they possess. The means by which is this possible is never again expounded upon (only that the Scions hope to abuse it to get back via the auracite the Exarch is prepping), making it implicitly a unique property of the WoL given that this is a feat even Ardbert and his companions couldn't do.

While we aren't given the exact mechanism by which he did it, it was G'raha who pulled us through with magic, "cutting a hole in the fabric of reality through which only the target of the spell may pass unhindered", as he put it in the 5.1 MSQ. It's a unique property to us BECAUSE someone on the other side made it so, the Scions were summoned incomplete because they were not the target and G'raha wasn't that good with the spell, at first. Yes, it is also possible that someone on another Shard may do the exact same thing to pull us through, but the ability to travel between worlds with our body is not intrinsic to us, but extrinsic.

Not to mention that the Exarch is able to just... make a portal back to the Source within the Tower, which hasn't gone away with The Tycoon's destruction, just one that only the WoL can use.

It is implied The Tycoon was the main controlling mechanism that allowed The Crystal Tower itself to travel through time and dimensions; the time travel being what needed the most aether (See the side effects of Alexander's limited Time Travel) and thus the energies of the Tower, but opening rifts also takes quite a large amount as well, which is why Xande used the tower to open the Cloud of Darkness's rift, and let's not forget travelling through the rift apparently requires alien level technology reverse-engineered from a destroyed robot. The Exarch's portal instead seems to be born of the spell he used to pull us through, or if you think it is a more technical thing, based on the 'WoL/D-shaped' hole he made in space-time and focused on the beacon he used to lock onto us. Without the Tycoon, any time travel shenanigans by plot elements that were introduced prior in the story (optional branches of the story, but already present elements anyways) are currently not on the table, but this isn't about the time travel component so explanations on this are not of use to either of us.