About the final boss of the 5.0 MSQ

[Big-Isaac]

Going into the first level 80 dungeon expecting to fight Emet Selch as its final boss, I thought to myself "haven't we been here before? Am I supposed to feel threatened?"
For indeed we HAVE been here twice before
- we fought Lahabrea together with his lady friend, and won
- we fought Elidibus wearing Zenos' body, and won

Both of them are of the highest tier of Ascian, just like Emet Selch. So I assumed that if anything, this would end up being significantly easier than both of those previous instances. We're only fighting a single Ascian with no aid after all - Emet would fail to take us seriously because we're on the verge of going feral and lose to us. In a last effort, he would then pull the lightwardens out of us and combine them into some kind of super sin eater (like, say, SIN), which would then serve as the final boss of 5.0.

Imagine my bewilderment, then, when Emet started talking about how overpowered he is before transforming into an edgier version of Nightmare from the Kirby series.

Soooooo.... did I miss anything? Was there any explanation for why Emet is so much more powerful than his colleagues?
Unless canonically that entire fight was an ungodly stomp in our favor, it doesn't seem to make any sense.

[JeanneOrnitier]

For all that I really, really liked the Amauront dungeon and cutscenes surrounding it, Innocence felt like a more epic boss fight than Hades did to me. Because I agree, the question on my mind was "Ascians can suddenly do this? Why didn't Lahabrea?"

[Ultimatecalibur]

Hades is the first case of one of the 3 Unsundered going all out. Lahabrea was absorbed into Nidhoggs eye before he could do something similar and Elidibus was handicapping himself in order to boost Garlean morale.

[polyphonica]

They did kind of address this in one of the optional dialog sequences with Emet-Selch. Lahabrea was weakening himself by constantly moving between bodies, which is something that Emet-Selch tried very much to avoid. Igeyohrm (like Nabriales) was also one of the sundered Ascians rather than being one of the original three. Emet-Selch also identified himself as a powerful sorcerer, so it may be that he always had more raw power than Lahabrea did. We also see, in the final fight, that Emet-Selch appeared to be drawing power from the faith of other Ascians to summon himself to his final form. I take it that, having thus tested us so far, Emet-Selch realized he needed to bring it all to bear in that fight.

For Elidibus, we can infer that he was also weakened by occupying Zenos' body, but it also may be that as the Emissary, his skill was never necessarily strength to start with. If/when he reveals his final form I assume he'll still put up a good fight anyway, but that his current approach seems to be to pit us against other WoLs is perhaps telling.

[Odstarva]

Well, for starters, in the very first moment we fight lahabrea, we keep being showered with hydaelyn's blessing (revisit the MSQ roulette if you forgot). I'd imagine that would hamper his ability to do much of anything.

Secondly, if you took the opportunity to talk to Emet-Selch during the MSQ, you'll note that he mentions lahabrea is weakened for all the constant body-snatching he does (I think it was something along the lines of "it took his toll on him". It's the very reason he himself opts to maintain the same body for as long as possible, as well as (I assume) the clones he kept ready in Garlemald.

Plus, if there's anything Lahabrea constantly did it was underestimating us, which certainly proved to be his undoing.

Edit: Wow, I must be a slow typer. The person bove me pretty much explains it a lot better than I did :b

[Big-Isaac]

Lahabrea having weakened himself with his body hopping isn't the worst explanation in the world, though it would require him to have lost something like 90% of his strength by doing this. It seems sketchy to me that someone as powerful as that (supposedly, anyhow) could lose so much of his power just by possessing a couple of humans.

Elidibus, though, doesn't make any sense to me at all. When talking to the emperor while wearing Zenos' body, he states that "with this adamant flesh", he would now have no trouble killing us. This implies that 1) Zenos' body does not weaken him and 2) he does not think that he could beat us without that body

[EdwinLi]

If anything this IS the first time we fight a Ascion in their full strength while in the past they all have been weakened or was just holding back because they were expecting a easy win.

[HyoMinPark]

Lahabrea having weakened himself with his body hopping isn't the worst explanation in the world, though it would require him to have lost something like 90% of his strength by doing this. It seems sketchy to me that someone as powerful as that (supposedly, anyhow) could lose so much of his power just by possessing a couple of humans.

Elidibus, though, doesn't make any sense to me at all. When talking to the emperor while wearing Zenos' body, he states that "with this adamant flesh", he would now have no trouble killing us. This implies that 1) Zenos' body does not weaken him and 2) he does not think that he could beat us without that body

To be fair, we don’t know how many times Lahabrea possessed another’s body. He could have done it numerous times in order to fuel all of the prior Calamities, which would have slowly but surely impacted his strength. Each possession could have also shredded his already fractured strength further (I’m reminded of Voldemort’s quest to create so many Horcruxes further dismantling his already mangled soul when I think about this).

With Elidibus, someone above already stated that it’s possible Elidibus’s strengths are not physical or magical prowess, but lie otherwise. By him controlling Zenos’s body, that could have been what gave him the edge over us. This may come to light in the 5.x patches, since he’s definitely planning something.

[Remedi]

The explanation is that Emet-Selch fought us in his original form whereas the others didn't. He said specifically he would throw away all pretenses and fought us in earnest. Lahabrea and Igheyorm's ascian prime form was a powered up form but nothing much really and Elidubus was still using a borrowed form, Emet was using his true form and true name.

Also ,according to Emet-Selch, Lahabrea's modus operandi of jumping from souls to souls had a great cost which implies his powers diminished over time

[Bright-Flower]

On top of Lahabrea having weakened himself, I also look at the Saiyan saga in DBZ as an example. Raditz, Nappa and Vegeta were all pure blooded Saiyans but had vastly different power levels. Lahabreah, Elidibus and Emet-Selch all being unsundered ascians does not mean they are necessarily of equivicable power in terms of raw combat strength.

Lahabrea was apparantly a researcher of some kind back int he day according to some of the quests and Emet-Selch identifies himself as a sorcerer of eld. He may have just always been stronger than the other two.

Though in the back of my head I keep wondering if Lahabrea is going to get brought back. They keep mentioning him int he msq and elevated his importance by saying he was unsundered when they could have just as easily said Emet-Selch and Elidibus were the only two unsundered. On top of that, we have that scene back in the ARR patches where Elidibus and Lahabrea are talking that hinted that Lahabrea had his own agenda outside of Zodiark.

I could easily be reading too much into things but it makes me wonder if Lahabrea might actually turn up again somehow because otherwise it feels odd he keeps being brought up and was revealed to be unsundered.