Quote Originally Posted by Edax View Post
I thought that was dumb. Even Captain Madison from Sastasha can trounce the player if they fought him mono e mono. The game from the very start has conditioned us to fight bosses with a party, so having to fight a tough boss one on one establishes nothing.


And it's a stereotypical anime villain setup. "I'm so powerful, I don't have to care." Or "Your 1000 years too early to face me!" No reason for why he's powerful, no backstory for why he's so sadistic, no reason why he's got the loyalty of so many disloyal ashats. I can't even say he's two dimensional. Just another insane person that's been given power in the world because we needed a bad guy to do bad things.
"He's the most diplomatic man I've ever met! Promote him to Ambassador at once!" - Probably Zenos


Lady Iceheart made a better villain because she was three dimensional. She had motivations, beliefs and could be reasoned with. She wasn't all about power or destroying the world. Some may even debate if she was a villain. That's the mark of better writing.
We're given a reason why he's powerful, though. It's the Resonant. Remember how Fordola could auto-predict attacks coming her way by virtue of her magic eye? Same reason Zenos is basically untouchable until the level gap closes. That's why Yugiri trying to assassinate him failed.

It's not really ever said one way or another, but I'd be inclined to believe that Zenos has the Resonant active 100% of the time whenever he's out and about with his helmet on.