SHADOWBRINGERS

[Dualgunner]

Then what's the difference between us and the WoD? We're all doing the same thing. Primal gets summoned - yeah, Ascian victory, no one denies that. But by that logic, our victory over it would just as equally fuel the next Darkness feat. And if you say beating the Primal is a victory to the Light, why did the WoD defeat Ravana? There has to be something to have made their victory not tilt the scales back, to still have made it worthwhile for them to bother. So far, the only thing setting us and them apart seems to be whose proxies we were at the time the deed was done.

I don't know the answer.

But then, if we follow your logic, should we pull Arenvald along to finish off every primal we beat? Or Fordola? Perhaps we should get Lolorito, assuming the former two are too associated with the Light? Or was it a victory for the Light too when the Company of Heroes defeated Titan and Leviathan? If it were explained as "Every time Hydaelyn's chosen defeats a primal entity, they become more powerful," we'd have a genuine point here, but as far as we're told, that's not the case. We're still street level with immunity to lower level godhax.

It also, again, begs the question: the Ascians act like they're in the advantageous position with the WoL between a rock and a hard place; defeat the summoned primal, and terrify beast tribes to summoning again or remaining idle and letting the primal rampage and turn more people and make themselves stronger. Why would this be an advantage if this weighted the world in Hydaelyn's favor, and why wouldn't we be running around doing what the WoD was doing (agitating beast tribes into summoning with the specific purpose of slaying that primal to gain Universal Points for their team)?

[BillyKaplan]

But then, if we follow your logic, should we pull Arenvald along to finish off every primal we beat? Or Fordola?

Arenvald is one of Hydaelyn's chosen, no difference if we had done it or him. As for Fordola, we'd need to learn more about her synthetic Echo before I can form an opinion. It might not even count for her.

Perhaps we should get Lolorito

While Lolorito is far from good, I wouldn't necessarily say he's pure evil either, and either way has no known ties to either Hydaelyn or Zodiark. The WoDs at this point in time have formed an alliance with the Ascians and therefore Zodiark, which is why I think they could even tip the balance in Darkness' favor.

If it were explained as "Every time Hydaelyn's chosen defeats a primal entity, they become more powerful," we'd have a genuine point here, but as far as we're told, that's not the case. We're still street level with immunity to lower level godhax.

You might've been able to claim that as fact until Stormblood. But in Stormblood we get cold, hard story telling us we got stronger over time because we saw the results as we kept fighting Zenos. At first we lost - then we fought Susano, and we managed to hold our ground against him in Yanxia. Then we beat Lakshmi, and we managed to beat him in Ala Mhigo. It was never clearly stated in-game, no, and there're other ways to explain our increase in power (my personal favorite is how we feed on people's faith in us like Primals do) but it's a very easy case to argue in favor of.

Why would this be an advantage if this weighted the world in Hydaelyn's favor, and why wouldn't we be running around doing what the WoD was doing (agitating beast tribes into summoning with the specific purpose of slaying that primal to gain Universal Points for their team)?

3.4 + 4.4. The Ascians are absolutely not in an advantageous position. This is a story-string that has been going strong since before the introduction of the WoD, and made clear once they showed up. We are an unstoppable force representing the Light. The only thing that even managed to slow us down was Zenos and we beat him. And now this voice from beyond - possibly the future - is warning us about a Calamity should we continue down this path of completely beating the Ascians.
Also, I'm not so sure if they agitated the Gnath into summoning Ravana. Their original reason for summoning him was waging war, I think that, and us taking Ravana down in the first place, gave them more than enough motivation to re-summon him. Which leaves this whole thing in an even bigger flux.

EDIT: addendum, random thought I had. Defeating the Primals in and of itself is not a victory for the Light, but us doing it is. Because Primals were defeated long before we showed up. We know, as you mentioned, the Company of Heroes defeated Titan. SMN questline talks about defeating Ifrit. In Limsa you hear about the last time they had to beat Leviathan. But all those Primals were beaten, yet still when the game starts it sounds like the Ascians are in full dominance, and the Scions have to wrestle the balance back tooth and nail and are still lagging behind.
Until you showed up. You, a Battle-ready Champion of Hydaelyn's. And that's when defeating the Primals started tipping the balance.

[Dualgunner]

Arenvald is one of Hydaelyn's chosen, no difference if we had done it or him. As for Fordola, we'd need to learn more about her synthetic Echo before I can form an opinion. It might not even count for her. While Lolorito is far from good, I wouldn't necessarily say he's pure evil either, and either way has no known ties to either Hydaelyn or Zodiark. The WoDs at this point in time have formed an alliance with the Ascians and therefore Zodiark, which is why I think they could even tip the balance in Darkness' favor.

I brought Lolorito up to suggest a neutral entity.

You might've been able to claim that as fact until Stormblood. But in Stormblood we get cold, hard story telling us we got stronger over time because we saw the results as we kept fighting Zenos. At first we lost - then we fought Susano, and we managed to hold our ground against him in Yanxia. Then we beat Lakshmi, and we managed to beat him in Ala Mhigo. It was never clearly stated in-game, no, and there're other ways to explain our increase in power (my personal favorite is how we feed on people's faith in us like Primals do) but it's a very easy case to argue in favor of.

That is, indeed, an interpretation. It's not one I agree with, but that's certainly a valid interpretation of events that happened; it's also not exactly quantified, and by that point we'd already slain a dozen or so primals previous to Zenos, so how did slaying two more give us that dramatic of a power boost when the dozen we'd defeated before left us without the strength to so much as leave more than a scratch on his armor?

EDIT: Not to mention, among our victory list is a victory over Bahamut himself (why didn't we get a stupidly high power boost from that?) Odin (another elder primal), and the Warring Triad which are described as being as powerful as if not moreso than Bahamut. If we do gain power from defeating primals, there's no way Zenos would have been able to defeat us in the first place, because by the point we fight him we'd be stronger than Calamity-level primals.

3.4 + 4.4. The Ascians are absolutely not in an advantageous position. This is a story-string that has been going strong since before the introduction of the WoD, and made clear once they showed up.

Well, it's one that's been stated, for sure. This whole conversation started because I don't see them as doing anything but whining that the Light is finally fighting back in some measure against Darkness; they started freaking out because suddenly two of their most prominent members got axed in one battle.

This also doesn't answer my question. Their game is "We summon the primal. That hurts Hydaelyn. Either the WoL kills it, and it gets summoned again by scared beastmen, hurting Hydaelyn again, or the WoL leaves it alone and it starts rampaging, turning and killing people in droves, all the while continuing to harm Hydaelyn. No matter how the WoL responds to this situation, we gain from it." (The Ascian's Gambit, coining it)

This makes no sense if every time we defeat a Primal, that tilts the world in Hydaelyn's favor, because that's very much against what the Ascians want. If anything, that's more reason for the WoL to go around inciting summonings so we can slay the Primals summoned.

We are an unstoppable force representing the Light. The only thing that even managed to slow us down was Zenos and we beat him. And now this voice from beyond - possibly the future - is warning us about a Calamity should we continue down this path of completely beating the Ascians.

And yet Elidibus is confident he could handle us 1v1 with Zenos' body with very little effort. He's confident that the Garlean Empire could quite handily defeat us--Varis need only give a word, and we're as good as dead.

Also, I'm not so sure if they agitated the Gnath into summoning Ravana. Their original reason for summoning him was waging war, I think that, and us taking Ravana down in the first place, gave them more than enough motivation to re-summon him. Which leaves this whole thing in an even bigger flux.

https://youtu.be/-rW4QFujLDE?t=49m1s

"You know, you're right. Maybe it is time for a change of tack. Killing primals, tormenting beastmen, hastening the birth of a new god..."

It's not proof they were agitating the Gnath to summon Ravana. But it's a line of dialogue that suggests they're not above forcing summonings. Again, though, I argue the summoning itself is what harms Hydaelyn, and slaying the God scares them into summoning again. The WoD forcing the Ascian's Gambit, if you will.

Until you showed up. You, a Battle-ready Champion of Hydaelyn's. And that's when defeating the Primals started tipping the balance.

So does it have to be a non-Echo user who fights the primal? We're not the first with Echo, there were plenty in 1.0. Does it have to be a non-Echo user who deals the final blow? Okay, we just take Raubahn to slit Ifrit's throat next time, and mainly play defense for him as we've shown we can do against Lakshmi, everything's hunky dory.

Suddenly we have the same effect (Primal harming Hydaelyn is vanquished) with all the Universe Points dropping into the neutral pile.

I'm critical of this because if they go this route, it's bad writing in my eyes. They're forcing this idea of "balance" after the Ascians had--sorry I forget the number--seven Calamitous victories already? Yet after defeating a dozen or two primals, we're suddenly not only back to full balance after seven apocalyptic events but we're pushing it too far to Light? I'm sorry, I need more than "Well the WoL killing things dumps points into the Light pool." to explain that, and if it is the case, it needs to be made explicit, and soon.

Another Edit: I apologize for my aggressive tone.

[KageTokage]

I feel like they might want us to push the balance too far in the light's favor if it'll only create calamity level destruction initially. That could just entail the elimination of several lesser Ascians, and not necessarily the key figures like Elidibus and Solus.

The former did mention that we were key to Zodiark's revival way back in 2.x, though the fact that he more recently seemed willing to eliminate us ran a bit contrary to that statement (Unless he meant it as something of a last resort in case things got really out of hand).

[BillyKaplan]

That is, indeed, an interpretation. It's not one I agree with, but that's certainly a valid interpretation of events that happened; it's also not exactly quantified, and by that point we'd already slain a dozen or so primals previous to Zenos, so how did slaying two more give us that dramatic of a power boost when the dozen we'd defeated before left us without the strength to so much as leave more than a scratch on his armor?

That admittedly makes more sense if you, like me, believe the WoL soaks up the people's faith in them. By the time we fought Zenos again in Yanxia, we had already rallied initial support from Gyr Abania, the Confederacy, the Kojin of the Blue, and began making progress in Yanxia. By the time we fought him - both in human form and Primal form - in Ala Mhigo, we had become rulers of the Steppe, and heroes of Doma.
It's more conjecture, I agree. But there are lot of story-elements that line up too nicely for me to think it's simply circumstance. And if it were, like you mentioned elsewhere in your post, it would just be lucky bad writing.

EDIT: Not to mention, among our victory list is a victory over Bahamut himself (why didn't we get a stupidly high power boost from that?) Odin (another elder primal), and the Warring Triad which are described as being as powerful as if not moreso than Bahamut. If we do gain power from defeating primals, there's no way Zenos would have been able to defeat us in the first place, because by the point we fight him we'd be stronger than Calamity-level primals.

1. Those are all optional Primals. I agree with what you're saying but at the same time...
2. You're making an assumption there about how much our power increases with every defeated Primal which the story might not necessarily share.
3. the pure story iterations of those fights always have a "fight them before they reach max power" elements. You intentionally released the Warring Triads from imprisonment so you could control when you fought them, instead of having to face them when they broke free and gained full strength - that's why you even have the Extreme versions of that fight in the first place. IIRC Odin you fight just as he manifested again, before managing to drink too much from the Shroud's aether. and I remember something similar for Bahamut as well, once you find him.

This makes no sense if every time we defeat a Primal, that tilts the world in Hydaelyn's favor, because that's very much against what the Ascians want. If anything, that's more reason for the WoL to go around inciting summonings so we can slay the Primals summoned.

That actually lines up with the trials we got in SB. Susano's summoning was a mistake, brought about by our infiltration of the vault and the Red's panic. To our knowledge, the Ascians weren't involved and there was momentary confusion about whether or not the thing was even a Primal because of where it came from. And Lakshmi was summoned in a surge of grief, seemingly unintentional. It's not coerced and planned like the other Primals we fought, so maybe they did stop inciting summonings. Then we have Tsukuyomi which was part of a grander scheme and a direct attempt at the WoL's life, and the rest of it aren't even Primals, they're... forgot the term but they're basically mythical beasts. SB really moved away from the old-school sort of trial bosses. Granted next expansion might double down on it, but we'll see.

He's confident that the Garlean Empire could quite handily defeat us--Varis need only give a word, and we're as good as dead.

That I believe in. Most of our fights were always one-on-one or very limited raids with assistance. If they brought down the might of the empire? Yeah, we're goners.

So does it have to be a non-Echo user who fights the primal? We're not the first with Echo, there were plenty in 1.0. Does it have to be a non-Echo user who deals e final blow? Okay, we just take Raubahn to slit Ifrit's throat next time, and mainly play defense for him as we've shown we can do against Lakshmi, everything's hunky dory.

The problem with that is that they're so very likely to be tempered on the way, which is why they don't go with us normally, and needed protection from WoL, Arenvald and Fordola all together in 4.1. It's not a reliable strategy.

I'm critical of this because if they go this route, it's bad writing in my eyes. They're forcing this idea of "balance" after the Ascians had--sorry I forget the number--seven Calamitous victories already? Yet after defeating a dozen or two primals, we're suddenly not only back to full balance after seven apocalyptic events but we're pushing it too far to Light? I'm sorry, I need more than "Well the WoL killing things dumps points into the Light pool." to explain that, and if it is the case, it needs to be made explicit, and soon.

We already have examples of what happened if the balance was tipped too much in the favor of one or the other. It wasn't Calamities, it was the world being nigh unsalvagable - The Void is the way it is because the Ascian we killed along in ARF was too strong for that world's WoL. The First was wiped out because the WoD, then that world's WoLs, were too strong. Calamities seem to be horrible, unimaginable disasters more so than necessarily any one side becoming too strong. Look at the war of the magi and the resulting flood - it had less to do with Light or Darkness.

Another Edit: I apologize for my aggressive tone.

o7 All good. Honestly I'm not sure how much we can really resolve here given there's so much we just don't know. All we can do is toy with what partial details we have on-hand at the moment, which like you said, can be taken this way or that.

[Dualgunner]

That admittedly makes more sense if you, like me, believe the WoL soaks up the people's faith in them. By the time we fought Zenos again in Yanxia, we had already rallied initial support from Gyr Abania, the Confederacy, the Kojin of the Blue, and began making progress in Yanxia. By the time we fought him - both in human form and Primal form - in Ala Mhigo, we had become rulers of the Steppe, and heroes of Doma.
It's more conjecture, I agree. But there are lot of story-elements that line up too nicely for me to think it's simply circumstance. And if it were, like you mentioned elsewhere in your post, it would just be lucky bad writing.

I've toyed with the idea that the WoL is a primal, or a primal-like entity that gains power with faith. Certainly speaking, if our WoL ever dies, a good question is how long until Eorzea summons a WoL-Primal, because of how much faith they have in us lol. I would sooner believe in that than defeating a primal granting us power for a few reasons, I'll go over my biggest problem soon.

2. You're making an assumption there about how much our power increases with every defeated Primal which the story might not necessarily share.

Answering this one first because it interests me the most.

Yeah, it's a pretty big assumption on my part. I'm a very...quantitative person, the kind that found power levels in DBZ to be an interesting concept. That's why my instinct is to try to quantify how much, if at all, defeating a primal powers us up. With the info we have now, I think the simplest solution is they don't make us any stronger--in addition to defeating Lakshmi and Susano, we did also gain 10 levels and experience 5 new job quests worth of training, and I'm more given to believe that the training inferred in those quests is a large part of how we grew to match Zenos.

Assuming, though, for the sake of argument, that they do (and you'll indulge me):

How much stronger do they make us? Is it a uniform power increase, as in defeating any primal from Ifrit to Tsukuyomi gives us 100 cheerios? Is it based on the relative power of the primal we defeat, in which case would Bahamut Prime have given us 1,000 cheerios compared to Garuda who only gives 100? Is it percentage based on our current power level, in which case if I had 1,000 cheerios when I defeated Ifrit, I gained 100 cheerios, but since I had 10,000 cheerios when I defeated Susano, I got 1,000 cheerios? Is it an exponential gain?

Over the course of our adventure, we've defeated Ifrit three times, Titan four times, Garuda four times, Leviathan twice, Ramuh twice, Moogle Mog twice, Shiva twice (since EX modes in ARR aren't Minstrel's Ballads), (weakened) Odin, (weakened) Bahamut, Ravana, Bismarck, the (weakened) Warring Triad, (weakened?) Alexander, and Thordan...maybe more, I'm not actively checking. That's a lot of primals, and depending on how my question is answered, that will reflect how...odd it is to say adding just two more to our pile of Primal kills would suddenly bring us from "Unable to touch Zenos" to "Matching Zenos blow for blow" to "Trouncing Zenoshinryu".

Not to mention that the biggest foil to this theory is the blatant Worfing of the WoL regarding Zenos. We went from matching the entire Knights of the Round, surpassing them so hard that Thordan had to ask "WHAT are you?!" to getting roflstomped by Garlean Deathstroke. Post Thordan? You'd have had my attention with this. Ironically where Zenos convinced you that Primal kills and faith powered us, Zenos was what broke me of that theory.

1. Those are all optional Primals. I agree with what you're saying but at the same time...

3. the pure story iterations of those fights always have a "fight them before they reach max power" elements. You intentionally released the Warring Triads from imprisonment so you could control when you fought them, instead of having to face them when they broke free and gained full strength - that's why you even have the Extreme versions of that fight in the first place. IIRC Odin you fight just as he manifested again, before managing to drink too much from the Shroud's aether. and I remember something similar for Bahamut as well, once you find him.

This is all fair, and I cede that they were weakened versions of themselves. I suppose the interesting thing to chew on would be "Does that matter?" They're still technically composed of the same levels of aether.

That actually lines up with the trials we got in SB. Susano's summoning was a mistake, brought about by our infiltration of the vault and the Red's panic. To our knowledge, the Ascians weren't involved and there was momentary confusion about whether or not the thing was even a Primal because of where it came from. And Lakshmi was summoned in a surge of grief, seemingly unintentional. It's not coerced and planned like the other Primals we fought, so maybe they did stop inciting summonings.

It was as far back as 3.0's end we'd have to track this though: that's when Elidibus summoned WoD because he needed to apply a balance patch to Hydaelyn. Which he then went on to have us (he directed Unukalhai to us, not the WoD) defeat the Warring Triad, while all we've seen is the WoD go on to summon and defeat Ravana, and then try to repeat this with Garuda, Titan, and Ifrit. Wouldn't the Triad be a lot more Cocoa Puffs to put in Zodiark's basket, but instead he has the WoL go beat them up?

Then we have Tsukuyomi which was part of a grander scheme and a direct attempt at the WoL's life, and the rest of it aren't even Primals, they're... forgot the term but they're basically mythical beasts. SB really moved away from the old-school sort of trial bosses. Granted next expansion might double down on it, but we'll see.

I must have missed where Tsukuyomi was an assassination attempt on the WoL--in fact, the outcome of the fight surprised nobody iirc. Asahi even admitted "Tis true that a gaudy mirror and a handful of crystals make for a feeble summoning." https://youtu.be/EzUZjiM5qe4?t=950

Besides the "direct attempt" part, I completely agree here.

That I believe in. Most of our fights were always one-on-one or very limited raids with assistance. If they brought down the might of the empire? Yeah, we're goners.

I have no doubt we'd be crushed by a whole army. I actually just wanted to highlight that Elidibus as Zenos is confident he alone could take us--and kill us, at least that's my inference. Neither he, nor assumedly Solus, see us as unstoppable by any means.

The problem with that is that they're so very likely to be tempered on the way, which is why they don't go with us normally, and needed protection from WoL, Arenvald and Fordola all together in 4.1. It's not a reliable strategy.

Protection from the WoL was fine for a while. When the civilians were all evacuated, and it was just WoL, Arenvald, Raubahn, Lyse, and Fordola left, Raubahn and Lyse didn't seem the most worried about tempering; when there were dozens of innocent noncombatants nearby it was a trial though.

We already have examples of what happened if the balance was tipped too much in the favor of one or the other. It wasn't Calamities, it was the world being nigh unsalvagable - The Void is the way it is because the Ascian we killed along in ARF was too strong for that world's WoL. The First was wiped out because the WoD, then that world's WoLs, were too strong. Calamities seem to be horrible, unimaginable disasters more so than necessarily any one side becoming too strong. Look at the war of the magi and the resulting flood - it had less to do with Light or Darkness.

I recall reading somewhere on the Lore forum that things might be different for our world because we're the Source world--we're not a shard that's really only a reflection of the Source. That's why calamities happen here, to weaken the separation between the Source and the shard world when the shard is merged back into the source. That said, I cannot properly cite this, and can only put the idea out there.

o7 All good. Honestly I'm not sure how much we can really resolve here given there's so much we just don't know. All we can do is toy with what partial details we have on-hand at the moment, which like you said, can be taken this way or that.

It's definitely a fun conversation. I'm no expert on the lore though, and if anyone can correct me on things, I fully welcome it.

[Alleo]

I do wonder if the Ascians are truly fearing that the balance is going more towards Lights. I mean if that is the case why not go against us more directly? Yes seemingly now Elidibus is worriered enough to call back another one and even says that he himself can kill us (but wouldnt that in any way destroy the balance completely?) but before that nothing much was done.

IMO the WoD were not used to create a better balance because we were winning to much but more to stop a world from being lost. For example would Elidibus really have called them if their shard was in balance? For me it was because without that the shard would have been lost, thus not useable for Zodiark. It was not imo because we were winning to hard. Thus if we truly get too much Light this must have been something that was done in SB. And I cant think of anything that was done that great by us that it would balance out the last calamity and it consequences.

But thats just me. I am honestly not a fan of that balance stuff and Light getting to strong.

[BillyKaplan]

I've toyed with the idea that the WoL is a primal, or a primal-like entity that gains power with faith. Certainly speaking, if our WoL ever dies, a good question is how long until Eorzea summons a WoL-Primal, because of how much faith they have in us lol.

That's literally why Louisouix didn't want anyone to know he survived. All the more so because as we saw with Ga Bu's summoning of Titan, the summoner's intent affects the Primal's incarnation. Which is a terrifying thought because it basically creates a cycle - Primal is summoned, probably in a distorted version following the Ascians' plans, Tempers followers. Followers will then continue summoning the Primal who will continue to be corrupted further with every iteration. It's one way to explain why the Ixali have such an extreme, polar Primal like Garuda, because they as a people are pretty... derpy.

I would sooner believe in that than defeating a primal granting us power for a few reasons

Well, it certainly adds grandeur to the WoL's mythos, if nothing else.

in addition to defeating Lakshmi and Susano, we did also gain 10 levels and experience 5 new job quests worth of training, and I'm more given to believe that the training inferred in those quests is a large part of how we grew to match Zenos.

And that's the question - what does the story consider as canon? To me it feels like it's intertwined. Because I doubt bringing a level 70 character into the fight against Zenos in Yanxia would've made that much of a difference. I could be wrong, but story-wise, it shouldn't. I feel like they're intertwined. You can't progress through the story without hitting a certain level cap, for sure, but oftentimes it's levels you should've reached pretty naturally just by progressing through the story in the first place (give or take a couple of side-quests or what have you). The story progresses your level as much as your level progresses the story, and it shows quite nicely with how you get experience from MSQ. Even if it's a flimsey "go talk to these 5 NPCs". Just going through the story makes you stronger, which actually aligns with the story's content itself. So I'll stop saying the same thing in different ways like a certain Emperor's New Groove chara and say I think you're looking at it too technically. As we bettered our relations with the Confederacy and the Kojin of the Blue, we hit 63. As they accepted and acknowledged us and we started winning Yanxia over, we hit 65. Story feeds mechanics feed story.

Is it based on the relative power of the primal we defeat, in which case would Bahamut Prime have given us 1,000 cheerios compared to Garuda who only gives 100? Is it percentage based on our current power level, in which case if I had 1,000 cheerios when I defeated Ifrit, I gained 100 cheerios, but since I had 10,000 cheerios when I defeated Susano, I got 1,000 cheerios? Is it an exponential gain?

I think there are a lot of things that can influence that power growth, and they will ultimately mean that us beating Bahamut might've given us the least amount of boost, ironically. Why? Because Bahamut was contained to the level 50 zone. You could go through the entirety of the Coils back in ARR and not gain a single experience point. Even when the level cap was increased, it still didn't give you that much. Why?
Because no one knew you did that. Bahamut's followers at the time were very limited and you offed them on top of it all. Furthermore, the deed was kept hush hush both because of the OMFG IT'S BAHAMUT PANIC element, as well as keeping Eorzeans from summoning Louisouix.
Similar logic can be applied ironically to Extreme Primals, and most of the 50/60 content. The vast majority of those things were side quests, restricted to limited knowledge, and Primals with limited power. Beating them wouldn't give us much. I realize that level 50/60/70 story Primals kind of wreck it, but I can handwave most of them away with a mixture of needing to be that strong in the first place to beat them, the knowledge of the deed being limited, us being taken for granted if the Primal didn't cause widespread panic (like the Warring Triads and yes even Bahamut), and a plethora of other reasons.
Story-wise, the leveling Primals were made a much bigger deal out of compared to anything you got at max level for that expansion.
And yes I realize that's a lot of handwaving and forcing logic on gameplay mechanics. But I'm still relatively satisfied with it. Granted, milage may vary, that's what debates are all about. Especially since you seem to be much more into the technical, quantitative element of it while I'm a lot more liberal with freedoms the story can take and how the story and gameplay interact with each other.

odd it is to say adding just two more to our pile of Primal kills would suddenly bring us from "Unable to touch Zenos" to "Matching Zenos blow for blow" to "Trouncing Zenoshinryu".

Assuming Zenoshinryu is the Ex - that one's just the Minstrel's rendition of events, canonically it never happened. Which is an interesting thing to keep in mind for this debate, a lot of the Extreme primals aren't canon! Ultima, Thorda, Nidhogg, the Warring Triad, and interestingly enough - every last one of the SB Primals as you unlock them all through the Minstrel. With the odd exception of the Rathlos fight but that's not XIV native anyway.
As for Lakshmi and Susano, tying back to what I said before, they were pretty well known Primals and defeating them left a mark on the story in a way that most other Primals don't. That would translate into a much bigger power-up, even when it's more intuitive that defeating frigging Bahamut should've left you at 120 instead of the 50 you were canonically at.

Ironically where Zenos convinced you that Primal kills and faith powered us, Zenos was what broke me of that theory.

Zenos had the synthetic Aether. That is a formidable power in and of itself. Zenos also has a frigging cult behind him, judging by Asahi. I wouldn't be surprised if, using the synthetic Echo, he was fueled by their faith similarly to how the WoL (hypothetically) is fueled by the faith of all those we ran into before.
And that actually offers an answer to your previous question - why does Elidibus think he can take on the WoL single-handedly in Zenos' flesh? Because he's riding that power-source.

This is all fair, and I cede that they were weakened versions of themselves. I suppose the interesting thing to chew on would be "Does that matter?" They're still technically composed of the same levels of aether.

They're not, that's why they're weaker, that's literally why we had to take on the Warring Triads when we did - to keep them from amassing that much aether.

Which he then went on to have us (he directed Unukalhai to us, not the WoD) defeat the Warring Triad, while all we've seen is the WoD go on to summon and defeat Ravana, and then try to repeat this with Garuda, Titan, and Ifrit. Wouldn't the Triad be a lot more Cocoa Puffs to put in Zodiark's basket, but instead he has the WoL go beat them up?

I'll admit I never did get what the deal was with that. So I can't answer that.

I must have missed where Tsukuyomi was an assassination attempt on the WoL--in fact, the outcome of the fight surprised nobody iirc. Asahi even admitted "Tis true that a gaudy mirror and a handful of crystals make for a feeble summoning."

See above "taking us for granted" - even our enemies. But I don't think anyone would've complained had she succeeded.

Protection from the WoL was fine for a while. When the civilians were all evacuated, and it was just WoL, Arenvald, Raubahn, Lyse, and Fordola left, Raubahn and Lyse didn't seem the most worried about tempering; when there were dozens of innocent noncombatants nearby it was a trial though.

It does seem like strength of will has to do with it, as we do have evidence of non-Echo users battling Primals. Lyse and Raubahn deffo fall into the 'more willful' bunch. But in every retelling of a Primal being bested, it seemed like the longer the battle dragged on, the more they had to fight their own people and that's where a lot of the casualties came from. Also, depending on how powerful the Primal is (Lakshmi in 4.1 wasn't even a trial, so I'd say in her case it was "not too much"), you might not have the privilage of being able to defend the non-Echo users. Notice how most of the mechanics of that fight was exactly that, you and Arenvald blocking Lakshmi's influence, and then Fordola popping her Collective Unconscious on Lyse and Raubahn.
Non-Echo users, strong and reliable as they may be, are a liability in Primal fights. It's part of the disconnect between most of those fights' stories having just you go in there, but the gameplay is 8-players.

That said, I cannot properly cite this, and can only put the idea out there.

That's fair.

It's definitely a fun conversation.

I agree!

[kikix12]

I was always under the impression that these were effectively one and the same. Because when the WoDs tried to tip the balance back in Darkness' favor, we saw them beat Ravana before we could. And when they talked about what tipped the balance in their world too heavily towards the Light, they specifically said it was them being uncontested champions.

It was never clearly stated in-game, no, and there're other ways to explain our increase in power (my personal favorite is how we feed on people's faith in us like Primals do) but it's a very easy case to argue in favor of.

That admittedly makes more sense if you, like me, believe the WoL soaks up the people's faith in them. By the time we fought Zenos again in Yanxia, we had already rallied initial support from Gyr Abania, the Confederacy, the Kojin of the Blue, and began making progress in Yanxia.

You actually answered yourself there.

Warrior of Light is a proxy for Hydaelyn. Summoning a primal is a blow against light, that much is impossible to contest as Ascians repeatedly said stuff to such effect. Warrior of Light defeating the Primals is some sort of blow against darkness, that much is suggested by what Warriors of Darkness said and by how Warrior of Light is beginning to be a thorn up the Ascians asses (largely due to how FAST Warrior of Light kills them, meaning they don't manage to cause a lot of damage after being summoned). Why Warriors of Darkness tips the favor in darknesses side though?

It's simple. If it's a different entity that defeats the primals, the Warrior of Light doesn't get the credit for it. In other words, the primals summoning harms Hydaelyn, but the Warrior of Light defeating the primal does not happen, so that "wound" is in no way mitigated. Warriors of Darkness, as proxy of Zodiark, on the other hand, would gain "faith" that goes towards Zodiarks strength rather than Hydaelyn. Even if not, it's still a clear positive since Hydaelyn is stopped from getting anything back.

Warrior of Light is shown as the centerpiece in the world. Because people have faith in this proxy of Hydaelyn, they are willing to follow even extremely ridiculous plans that they'd not dare do otherwise. They know they have that "safety net". That leads them to uniting. And that unison is exactly what "produces light" in my opinion. If the Warrior of Light is undermined (through failures or being outdone), then others will start questioning the strength of that "safety net" and may even start breaking alliances out of fear for retribution.

[347SPECTRE]

Confirmed 5.xx will be Shadowbringers