The WoL reawakened in Endwalker?

[KageTokage]

I think as far as canon is concerned we were alone when we defeated Zenos in Stormblood.

The only time we've explicitly had help from others was during the 5.0/5.3 trials.

[Rosenstrauch]

I think as far as canon is concerned we were alone when we defeated Zenos in Stormblood.

The only time we've explicitly had help from others was during the 5.0/5.3 trials.

Not only Zenos, but Shinryu as well. And it's really odd, since the first time Shinryu was involved, we had to sacrifice Papalymo just to stall its creation because it was far too powerful to take on. Then we had to unleash an Allagan superweapon (actually a reality-altering sapient machine with the powers of creation at its beck and call) to deal with it because, again, it was far too powerful to try and fight ourselves.

Zenos pops himself into it and suddenly it's just like any other primal. The most powerful one we'd ever fought, certainly, but completely manageable. It's... hard to believe we could do that solo. But then it's also hard for me to buy that having seven buddies hanging in our back pocket would have actually changed anything. Unless Shinryu had exhausted most of its strength getting thrashed by Omega or Zenos unknowingly nerfed it by taking control, it's just all sorts of weird that we even won that fight.

[Vyrerus]

Not only Zenos, but Shinryu as well. And it's really odd, since the first time Shinryu was involved, we had to sacrifice Papalymo just to stall its creation because it was far too powerful to take on. Then we had to unleash an Allagan superweapon (actually a reality-altering sapient machine with the powers of creation at its beck and call) to deal with it because, again, it was far too powerful to try and fight ourselves.

Zenos pops himself into it and suddenly it's just like any other primal. The most powerful one we'd ever fought, certainly, but completely manageable. It's... hard to believe we could do that solo. But then it's also hard for me to buy that having seven buddies hanging in our back pocket would have actually changed anything. Unless Shinryu had exhausted most of its strength getting thrashed by Omega or Zenos unknowingly nerfed it by taking control, it's just all sorts of weird that we even won that fight.

Yoshi-P describes us defeating him as a miracle, iirc.

But it's not super duper hard to believe. First off, it had been weakened a bit by Papalymo's action, because its growth was stunted and contained. It had to expend aether to break out of the cocoon. Then it immediately did battle with Omega, again expending a large amount of aether, and then being subjected to captivity.

The first thing Shinryu does when Zenos cuts him free is try to temper two individuals who have the Echo, so that backfires, weakening it further, or at least causing it to expend yet more aether on a futile exertion. Zenos then mantles it, and there's no way that Zenos knows exactly what its powers are, so he has to acclimate to use its body, and he uses another surfeit of aether to create the pocket realm and arena up above the sky.

Basically, he beat himself as Shinryu by giving us the leg up we needed to continue combating him directly. If he'd destroyed the platform after Protostar, and then shaken us off and merely let us fall to our demise, he would have won.

[DreadCrow]

I think as far as canon is concerned we were alone when we defeated Zenos in Stormblood.

The only time we've explicitly had help from others was during the 5.0/5.3 trials.

We've had help against most, if not all, the dungeons. Most primal fights, especially the later ones, which show the entire party in the cut scene leading up to the fight. Canonically, we've done all the Shadowbringer dungeons with the Scions, too, since the dialogue suggests they are going with us. This doesn't include all the times we're told in ARR to gather a band of adventurers. They stopped that in Heavensward, but with how it was lampshaded leading up the to Susano fight, I'd imagine we're not soloing everything.

[DreadCrow]

Not only Zenos, but Shinryu as well. And it's really odd, since the first time Shinryu was involved, we had to sacrifice Papalymo just to stall its creation because it was far too powerful to take on. Then we had to unleash an Allagan superweapon (actually a reality-altering sapient machine with the powers of creation at its beck and call) to deal with it because, again, it was far too powerful to try and fight ourselves.

Zenos pops himself into it and suddenly it's just like any other primal. The most powerful one we'd ever fought, certainly, but completely manageable. It's... hard to believe we could do that solo. But then it's also hard for me to buy that having seven buddies hanging in our back pocket would have actually changed anything. Unless Shinryu had exhausted most of its strength getting thrashed by Omega or Zenos unknowingly nerfed it by taking control, it's just all sorts of weird that we even won that fight.

The cutscene explicitly shows us running with a group of people in the Shinyu fight. And it's not that hard to believe when people see the Warrior of Light running like mad in an active warzone, glory-seekers would follow.

[Cleretic]

Actually, the amount of trials and raids the WoL soloed vs. canonically had a group for differs depending on the language! A user named LemonJuice put together a Google doc in September going over the differences, among other things; I don't really like the tone he strikes overall about it (basically dismissing every change the English script makes just because it differs), but he did his homework, directly translating the Japanese script into English for most of those to figure out which ones actually mentioned the WoL getting allies or not.

Shinryu specifically is one of the examples where the scripts differ; the Japanese version never mentions any allies and generally seems to assume you were solo, while English mentions the WoL has allies. This is actually kinda consistent for all the 4.0 MSQ trials; the English script mentions allies, the Japanese doesn't.

Personally, I put the WoL right now as capable of going toe-to-toe against the best practitioner of a combat style with no tricks, while never certifiably overpowering them. Which generally seems to match our performance against Zenos, Ran'jit, the Bozja duels, and any other 1v1s we've ever fought. They've grown over time, but not by an insane amount; remember that Ruby, Emerald and Diamond were all about as challenging as Ultima was, and were generally considered to be on par in strength to their predecessor.

[PastelGothGuy01]

Considering how they've delved into the mental stress of being the WoL with the DRK storyline...would the WoL even want that added stress? With how badly the WoL has taken betrayal, people taking advantage of them, those they've lost and have been unable to save, and just overall been there just to raise morale, do they really want to be known as the WoL anymore?

TBH i just want my WoL to live a normal life, still with all their powers past memories and abilities...I think that is what Island Sanctuary was created for, so that our WoL can have a rest from saving the world and living a normal life like they want and desserve,pretty much a nice and really good retirement plan.