Revelations from Patch 7.3: The Promise of Tomorrow

[Dikatis]

I know I'm forgetting some (gtg soon)

Shale backstory made no sense under regulators, Spene affecting tempered people plot device and the terminals reactivation (after bowing part of the mesoterminal no less).

Also the final part of the Calyx fight CS made no sense as a ranged DPS (and the parry was awkward as well)

1) Regarding Shale's backstory, even if you can't remember exactly who the person you forgot was, strong connections can still leave a lingering emotional pain. We see this at numerous points in the story and in sidequests, such as in the Cornservant quests where an Eldite woman continues to feel depressed after losing someone close to her despite not being able to remember them. The Cornservant's gift of food helps her recall that she used to eat Turali food like tacos with her departed loved one and that she deeply cared about this person. Not a plot hole.

2) Sphene's words affecting the tempered is hardly a plot hole. Sufficiently strong emotional jolts have been shown to affect tempered people and people suffering similar effects. We see this with Halric and how he grieves Tesleen after she's killed despite being barely able to think due to his body being overaspected to Light. Ga Bu is tempered by Titan upon summoning him but still responds to external stimulus such as his friendship with Alisaie. We see this even more dramatically at Paglth'an, when Tiamat's roar as one of the First Brood shocks several wyverns out of the Telophoroi's control and summons them to carry the Scions into battle. Sphene is the mirror image of the ruler of Alexandria for the past 300 or so years and universally beloved for her compassion during this time. The idea that the living Sphene's voice and compassion could touch the hearts of the tempered people who loved the Endless Sphene isn't a plot hole at all and emphasizes the importance of connections while underscoring how Calyx mistakenly believed that other people all fear death as much as him.

3) Parrying the blow in the cutscene is hardly weird when you realize you can tank Susano's sword as any job.

[Carin-Eri]

3) Parrying the blow in the cutscene is hardly weird when you realize you can tank Susano's sword as any job.

A little off-topic, I know - but despite having played the game for approximately four years now.... I was unaware of this.

Every single time I've played it the Tanks always deal with Susano's sword and I always took it for granted that it was a Tank's job to parry his sword.

[Dikatis]

A little off-topic, I know - but despite having played the game for approximately four years now.... I was unaware of this.

Every single time I've played it the Tanks always deal with Susano's sword and I always took it for granted that it was a Tank's job to parry his sword.

Yeah. It's not something you really think about doing and the tanks are the best at it for obvious reasons, but you CAN do it regardless of job. I always try to let the sprouts take it for the first time so they can see it happen fresh.

[Cleretic]

A little off-topic, I know - but despite having played the game for approximately four years now.... I was unaware of this.

Every single time I've played it the Tanks always deal with Susano's sword and I always took it for granted that it was a Tank's job to parry his sword.

I've always been a little mad about it because 'make big shield to protect people' isn't a tank thing in the game's cutscenes, that's a healer thing. Y'shtola used to do it a lot!

The game's always been in need of 'cool healer moments', where the healer feels like the big, center-stage hero. Even the actual healer-focused mechanics are more often the healer doing smaller complex stuff like having to clear Doom; 'make a big damn shield' is exactly healer's brand for a hero moment, and yet... well, it's a tank mechanic! (Even if other people can do it, it's intended as a tank mechanic, the healers have healing to do, the tanks don't ahve tanking to do.)

So yeah, let's look at the Alexandrians. They were specifically wearing something like a neurolink with the capacity to alter their very souls, and they were fully tempered by said device and Necron. So they actually had a wombo combo. Both tempered and thought controlled. But mere words, spoken gently by their queen caused it to fail just enough so Necron could be beaten. Keep in mind that they are all, at a minimum, Sundered Source inhabitants, but there should be quite a few of them who have a drastic amount less aetheric density, on top of not having dragon scales.

If it's not a plot hole, then it is at least disrespectful to previously established lore. Heck, look back at the Summoner questline from ARR. Tristan Nightflicker was one of many people forced to kill family members who were tempered. If emotional response was so worthwhile, then we wouldn't have needed a cure for Tempering, now would we?

Dikatis did a good job showing that your read on all this was pretty narrow, but to add to it:

The thing with the people who had to be put to death for tempering is that they were fantatical and violent. A cure would've been nice, everyone theoretically wanted that, but it wasn't available for a long time. Meanwhile, the people forced to summon Necron weren't really doing anything; they were sort of laser-focused on the summoning and just sorta vegetative otherwise. Ironically, they were probably more dangerous before the tempering, that one guy mugged someone for their neo-regulator. All this makes sense not only when you remember that Necron isn't exactly megalomaniacal, but also when you remember that Calyx is a very technically-minded person who just wanted them to do one thing; of course they're not exactly doing anything else.

The writers haven't lost their grip on their worldbuilding', and they're not disrespectful of it; I think you're overly rigid in your understanding of it. It's not that the thing can't be done: it's that you decided it can't, probably quite a while ago. When the truth is this all completely scans, this is essentially an echo of Ga Bu as Dikatis said, but also Venat as RedLolly said.

Bringing up ARR Summoner is a little weird to me, because it's kinda... neutral to the point. Tristan isn't proving or disproving anything about this, he's merely a consequence of a previous status quo. But I kinda suspect you're putting him forward as an unconscious appeal to 'old and more niche info is better': that because he's from an old storyline that other people might not have touched or remembered, he is therefore 'greater evidence' than much clearer things like, again, Ga Bu and Venat.

[Carin-Eri]

I've always been a little mad about it because 'make big shield to protect people' isn't a tank thing in the game's cutscenes, that's a healer thing. Y'shtola used to do it a lot!

The game's always been in need of 'cool healer moments', where the healer feels like the big, center-stage hero. Even the actual healer-focused mechanics are more often the healer doing smaller complex stuff like having to clear Doom; 'make a big damn shield' is exactly healer's brand for a hero moment, and yet... well, it's a tank mechanic! (Even if other people can do it, it's intended as a tank mechanic, the healers have healing to do, the tanks don't ahve tanking to do.)

This!

In hindsight, it's a real shame - particularly since I play as Sage very frequently, and shields are pretty much a Sage's MO!