Revelations from Patch 5.3

[EdwinLi]

New job teases

Yes this gets its own section because I truly believe they were just that teases
Chemist/potion healer - heavily requested by community
Necromancer - heavily requested by community
Thief- requested by community for full job
Rune Knight/Fencer(secret trial boss) - requested by the community
Beserker - staple job in series


I think each and every one of them was a red herring and the true job/s for 6.0 have yet to have any appearance, these jobs were a nod to what we would want and nothing more.

Don't forget about

The Soul Crystal of the Sun we obtained which contains our character's original soul powers and memories. This could lead to a Rain's Grandshelt Knight Job from Brave Exvius which is a Job in FF series about using the power of the Sun to destroy enemies and guide those out of despair so they can have true hope. A Job about being as bright as the Sun itself.

[Cilia]

Y'all couldn't even FINISH the damn thing 'fore posting on it?! Yeesh.

MSQ (I didn't have the time to get to anything else today!)

Predictable enough, but still well done.

Some sentiment on inspiring people and such, go to check up on Y'shtola in Anyder only to be ambushed by Elidibus and forced to fight through memory phantoms. Return to Eulmore, where Elidibus plays his hand by summoning phantom heroes from other worlds as an army. Carve your way back to the Crystarium, finish off Elidibus, and get the Good End.

Warrior of Light is all but verbatim confirmed to be the lost Fourteenth Convocation member, Azem the Wanderer, who behaves much as they did in their past life.

Elidibus is the Heart of Zodiark, shunted out in an effort to bring reconciliation between those who wanted to summon Zodiark and those who did not. Or... something like that. Regardless, as a part of Zodiark he was bound to fulfill his mission despite his compatriots' passing. He fight as the classical Amano artwork "Warrior of Light." His true form, aside from wearing the white robes befitting his station, is smaller and childlike to reflect how Zodiark was kept a child by the gods in Ivalician lore. Emet-Selch left Azem's crystal for us to get in order to send Elidibus off, thus the Ascian phantom doing his signature gesture after the QTE. Tears were shed.

Victory comes at the cost of Exarch G'raha's life, but he transfers his memories to a test Spirit Vessel beforehand, letting his Source self reawaken, receive them, and join the Scions. The rest say their goodbyes and make it back without issue. (All of them, save Alphinaud and Alisae, are even gifted their First duds by the GC leaders, recreated by Tataru with Feo Ul's help. Alisae whines about this; Urianger plays with his cards like he's in Yu-Gi-Oh!, likely a reference to his JP actor having starred in GX.)

SO. The ending. Zenos' new accomplice is revealed to be none other than Fandaniel, one of the fragmented Ascians possessing the corpse of Asahi (explaining Zenos' familiarity with him and his familiar voice). Without Elidibus to rein him in he's apparently going to wreak indiscriminate havoc and destruction with Zenos. So that's cool. Not much of a hint as to where we're headed, unless you consider Zenos having slaughtered his way through the Imperial Palace to the throne room a hint. I'll reserve further speculation for now, given as the source we have hinting at where we're going next and what we've now been shown is in conflict.

6.0 is da end?! Say it ain't so!

I'll get to Werlyt tomorrow and YoRHa over da weekend, ayy...

[Starkbeaumont]

the new guy in town

might be a language thing again but in german Fandaniel speaks about how he was now able to do anything (whatever that is) and he thinks that means Elidibus must be dead. this part makes me believe that Fandaniel (and likely the other ascians) were never sundered by Zodiark but by Elidibus. Meaning with the later now dead those still alive overlords are now unsundered.

[Lium]

No spoiler. But this feels like the end of FFXIV.

[ObsidianFire]

MSQ

This was... a really, really good ending. Tied up a lot of lose ends in some very clever ways and let just enough plot dangling for the "breather" patches before the next expansion really kicks in.

Going back to what Venat says about becoming Hydaelyn's heart, but not vanishing from the world and keeping her own form... I think that's what happened with Elidibus too. He's less his own primal and more... an extension of Zodiark on Hydaelyn. Which... suggests a lot about why Zoidark was summoned... to save a world on the brink of ruin. Which... Zoidark did do... just at a very high cost. Only... no one remembers Zoidark, so to still have people worshiping him... Elidibus is at least getting people to hope for the same idea "behind" Zodiark. Only, our character isn't playing by the same rules as other Warriors of Light have which is a huge problem for Elidibus. We've seen him get more and more... desperate... ever since 3.4 when we foiled his plan with the Warriors of Darkness. And it sounds like he snapped when we finally went so far as to call ourselves by a completely new title. It's a sad end, but given what he was doing and how many lives he was messing with, it had to be done.

The fight with "Warrior of Light" is excellent and the number of call backs to other FF games and jobs is crazy. That the "Warrior of Light"'s ultimate attack is "Ultimate Crossover" is the cherry on top. As is what seems like the Ancient soul of Hades showing up to pull all of us out of the Rift.

Speaking of that... our Convocation Title and description is... amazing. Especially in light of something Temulun told us back in Stormblood.

Temulun
[You are] A singular radiance. Shimmering.
Like a jewel of the Dusk Mother, blinding in its brilliance.
Stars flicker and flock to you. Before such gathered light, even the secrets of the gods maybe laid bare.
Some are fated to rise in grace and glory. Others to falter and fade, though not from memory. Both will be your strength and salvation come the end.
Cherish the stars and the light they bring you in the dark.
For you are a traveler, are you not?

It's along very, very similar lines to what is read over the screen (probably in our star/soul crystal) when we summon the other WoLs/teammates to help us take down Elidibus.

Herein I commit the chronicle of the traveler. Shepherd to the stars in the dark.
Thought the world be sundered and our souls set adrift, where you walk, my dearest friend, fate shall surely follow.
For yours is the Fourteenth seat--the seat of Azem.

I find it very amusing that our OP Ancient ability is essentially the most OP teleport in existence (no wonder we never get teleportation fatigue). I don't think it's an accident that Hades' soul showed up on what looks like our Sigil of Power in that fight... not at all...

Watching the Scions say goodby to Novradant was... really emotional. It's amazing to think that from the Scion's point of view, they've been living there anywhere from three to five years. They've all matured in that time and really come into their own. What's also cool is to see that for all the Scions were leaders in their communities, the communities themselves will be able to get on just fine without them. Leading a people out of darkness (or light as the case may be) is one thing. Knowing that if you leave, your hard work will not go to waste is another. And it's clear nothing we did on Novradant will be wasted.

Elidibus not being around does kind of change things up on Zenos and Fandaniel's end. Before... we knew Zenos wanted to go take over Zoidark and then go fight us. But now Zoidak's heart is gone... and who knows how that is going to effect Zoidark. On top of all that, it sounds like no one is guiding the rest of the Asicans. And that could be... really bad in the long run. Like it or not, Lahabrea, Emet-Selch and Elidibus were the powerhouses in the Ascians and they honestly wanted the Source world to stay physically intact. Zenos and Fandaniel really don't care about that. In fact, watching Zenos and Fandaniel bounce off each other is like watching Kefja and Kuja interact in Dissidia. They're powerful enough to wreck the world and simple-minded enough to do so. And now there's no one riding herd on either of them to curtail that tenancy.

However, most x.4 plot don't end up continuing all the way into the next expansion. Wile I can see the fallout of whatever this Zenos and Fandaniel arc will be effecting the next expansion. I doubt Zenos and Fandaniel themselves will be major players in it. We've been wanting to know what Zoidark thinks for ages, and have found oiut that Elidibus is... a part of Zoidark. In effect, it's almost like we've been seeing something of what Zodiark is like since 2.3. I think Zodiark himself will take the main stage sometime before 6.0. How, I don't know, but Zenos wants to mess with Zodiark, and I have a much harder time seeing Zenos controlling Zodiark as opposed to oh... Zodiark controlling Zenos. As much as Zenos annoys me as a character, I can stand putting up with him if it means we get to finally find out what is going on with Zodiark.

YoRHa

This felt like the "Route B" of NieR. We're figuring out things aren't what we thought they were and realizing the situation is worse than we thought it was. Which is what it needed to be. Best of all, my reaction to the dungeon was one long constant stream of "oh no, not this!" due to knowing what certain things in NieR are, which was exactly how I was hoping it would go.

Some fun highlights...

Angelic script being a timing-style mechanic that was reminiscent of a specific Drakenguard boss.

Operator 210's combat data being used in a fight with so many pods. Also... I was very much wondering why "End of the Unknown" was playing in her fight when... that song only plays for Adam and Eve... the two human-like machines created by the machine network.

This was promptly followed up by head screaming "no, no, no... alien ship architecture is here!!!" when that part of the ship opened up. By which point the ball of android bodies giving birth to something that used the Adam and Eve hair-like attack indicators wasn't even a surprise. Given how much trouble 2B gave the machines in NieR: Automana, it made total sense that it was a machine-body version of her. That it's to a mash-up of Torn From the Heavens/Dark Colossus only made it better.

Seeing the machines use the idea/appearance of YoRHa was... honestly really cool. It felt like something that could have logically come out of the end of NieR: A. 2B being the cavalry to stop the machine YoRHa was a really awesome moment. It's really cute to see 2B being... not overly concerned with people thinking she cares about 9S.

All in all, it was a fun romp. Which means that 5.5 is probably going to throw a massive 3rd Act curve-ball at us in typical Yoko Taro fashion...

Werlyt

If nothing else, this shows that Garlemald is running out of sane people for the position at the Legatus level ridiculously fast. None of the high-ranking Garleans we've met since Varris came to power except Regulus really fit into their positions. Valens is a particular kind of nasty we haven't seen in FFXIV anywhere really. It is pretty funny how he's really mad at Gaius for being the one to bring the old VIIth Legion down... when the only thing Gaius really did against the VIIthB that could really be called treason was when he told the 1.0 WoL that they'd be at Cartenau.

Valdeaulin is a pretty good take on "revenger" type characters... He's pragmatic enough to acknowledge that keeping Gaius alive for now is going a lot of people good since the Ascians do need to be stopped. At the same time, if Gaius does a 180, Valdeaulin won't have a problem killing him either since he has good reasons to hate him. I like how he admits that Gaius is a really smooth talker and that makes it much more difficult to know if Gaius is lying or not.

That Overdrive is supposed to fuse the pilot to the WEAPON is... very very worrisome. Particularly when all the pilots know it and are still turning Overdrive on. I am very suspicious that they are getting threatened by someone (probably Valens, but you never know).

The other thing the WEAPONs prove is that... primals/eikons are sill being summoned somehow. Probably in Ilsabard I'm guessing, as if it was in Eorzea, we'd know about it. And we know what happens in most of Othard by this point as well. Which kinda begs the question that if a lot of the WEAPON caracteristics come from the eikons they... absorb/devour... what happens to that eikon when we subdue the WEAPON? Does the eikon just... get pulled out by the Lifestream like Ifrit, Garuda and Titan were when Ultima Weapon being fought?

G-Warrior is as cool as hell. It's nice to see the Azys Lla models get more life. Gaius and Cid giving each other looks of "we've now both dug up Allagan Mecha and restored them to usable condition" was really funny to watch.

[EdwinLi]

No spoiler. But this feels like the end of FFXIV.

The developers have been saying for months now that Season 1 of FF14 storyline is finally reaching its conclusion. Season 2 on the other hand is up to determine how long it maybe since that is 7.0 and beyond content

[Enla]

The developers have been saying for months now that Season 1 of FF14 storyline is finally reaching its conclusion. Season 2 on the other hand is up to determine how long it maybe since that is 7.0 and beyond content

To add to that.

And apparently there's a discrepancy between the Japanese and English dialogue where the latter makes it seem like the entire story is ending where as the former is pretty clear it's just the end of the Star's story, aka the Ascians and whatever caused the Terminus. I wonder if they're going to have to address this in another live letter like they did with the whole Hytholodaeus = WoL theory that was floating around due to people taking too much stock in his English dialogue back in 5.0.

[RicaRuin]

One thought about MSQ...

Seven years. They kept shredding Elidibus in mystery for seven years to off him in just 1,5 patches? I'm... disappointed. Also they just wrapped up the whole Amaurot stuff in one go, so why were they so secretive in Lore panels about the real name of Lahabrea and so on, claiming they couldn't tell because it was tightly related to MSQ?

And Zenos as the new antagonist. Just... uuuuurgh to all.

the new guy in town

might be a language thing again but in german Fandaniel speaks about how he was now able to do anything (whatever that is) and he thinks that means Elidibus must be dead. this part makes me believe that Fandaniel (and likely the other ascians) were never sundered by Zodiark but by Elidibus. Meaning with the later now dead those still alive overlords are now unsundered.

Nah, playing on german as well and it seemed more like he wondered that no one was stopping his escapades, more like Elidibus was just keeping him on a short leash. You know, like a boss. He still seems sundered going by his claims that his knowledge of the Final Days is second-hand and him being glad he's no longer bound to the Ascian goal.

[Enla]

Urianger about the Fourteenth:

So the name and the allusions between the deities we know wasn't happenstance.

[VirusChris]

ten characters

She gets mad at you for throwing the match actually, it's actually legitimately hilarious because she's SO offended by the idea that you let her win. xD.

I hate character limits on this site.

I didn't even you can win the fight. I thought kill three spots and return. I saw the Quest Marker change and I thought it was done. Still... was funny seeing her reaction.

"Yes, I bested [You]... in another gods damn life! You weren't even trying and intentionally lose!?"

It was something like that.

What does Alisaie says if you best her?