Thread: Revelations from Patch 5.5 (Part 1)

More ruminations on 5.5, now that I have more time to write, and I'm not up past my bed time.

MSQ

I hope we get an Echo vision of Fordola carrying Arenvald back. Or them contending with Lunar Ifrit, unless it just gashed and dashed. Also talk about character development for Fordola. She was once willing to follow any order to climb the Garlean ladder, willing to fire on her own comrades that climbed said ladder with her, killing them all. For someone who was quick to push on Alphinaud for his idealism(which I loved btw), she did something very heroic and ideal. Instead of getting out of there by herself, she carried Arenvald back.

I feel like Estinien's commentary to Alphinaud is foreshadowing the ground punching scene from the trailer. It brought to mind the final slew of Trigun episodes, where Wolfwood tries to embrace Vash's ideals, and then dies for it. Followed up fairly quickly by Legato forcing Vash to choose between compromising on his ideals and killing him, or watching Milly and Meryl die to his horde of mind controlled minions. Ideals are nice to have, but you can't really uphold them 100% of the time unless you are omnipotent. I look forward to seeing the fire in Alphinaud's eyes in Endwalker. I suspect he will have a truly scathing, blistering condemnation of his homeland's isolationism, along with their hoarding of technology that could have been used to uphold his ideals. Mercy always has a cost. Estinien's perspective aligns very closely with my own.

I see a lot of people remarking surprise, or that they didn't really think Tiamat was tempered. Of course she was, and I rather think that its effects were weaker in her, because dragons aren't sundered. Plus, she is a powerful, elder dragon. Though it also calls to mind our fight against Isgebind in Stone Vigil. That's the only other time I can think of, where an Ascian roused and perverted a dragon's will. Though obviously that's a bit more grey, since Isgebind was harrying us earlier in the dungeon anyway.

It was odd to see Zenos care about losing the dragons. Perhaps their aesthetic truly pleased him, since he took control of a primal version of their forebear.

As for Fandaniel's nonchalance... I do not believe it is feigned. He wants to die, and he wants everything to die. Many died, and it does not prevent his overarching plan, but even if it did... even if we were to kill him, we would still satisfy him in some way. There are no stakes for Fandaniel, which contrasts against us nicely, where the stakes for us are ultimate. He is being setup to be a character who is undeserving of the idea that every life is precious, running directly counter to it even, in his actions and will.

Nier

The majority of my experience with the Nier series is with Drakengard(Drag on, Dragoon) 1, and then the soundtrack to the first Nier. I bought and played about 6 hours of Automata, but it wasn't for me.

I am rather pleased with the soundtrack integration for the raid though. The combination of the prelude into the final boss theme was simply divine. I won't understand any of the bosses without looking further into Nier, though.

My trouble with getting into Nier is that the ideas and concepts being explored with its narrative are concepts that I have already explored in other, earlier games. It's not that it holds no appeal to me, but it's not as profound to me, because I'm already familiar with such things.

More musings on Werlyt, and sort of responding to Cilia's take on the fight.

I found it interesting that the weapon changed into an Ifrit like shape. I'm looking forward to seeing what it does in Extreme. I assume that the shoulder pads breaking off completely with the "muscles" bulging and rippling happens in Extreme, as in the trailer.

Huh, I found it to be as exciting as the other fights. It's true that as with most end patch trials, it's easier mechanically, but I thought it was just as, if not more exciting. I mean, Goo Nael was pretty cool and definitely was expecting things like that in future weapons... but when Emerald Weapon used data on someone living, I knew it was only going to tone down again. Maybe I just had curbed my expectations heh. I thought it was really cool that Diamond Weapon could transform back and forth, and I also like that there was no holodeck tech this time, but it still controlled the battlefield, to an arguably greater extent, since it was fighting us in a situation that could not have been predicted by its designers.

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

More musings on Werlyt, and sort of responding to Cilia's take on the fight.

The answer is quite simple:

Just about everything in the Diamond Weapon fight we've already seen, and more dynamic at that.

Diamond Weapon's armored form relies on the powers of the previous three Weapons: Ruby's claw tentacles, Sapphire's chest blaster, and Emerald's disembodied hands. It's unique abilities consist mainly of explosions, which... aren't all that impressive. This version appears to use Shinryu's skeleton, albeit with unique animations.

Diamond Weapon's unarmored form is... a coked-up mecha Ifrit, whose main form of attack is knockback into a bottomless pit. It's... not a particularly novel strategy in this game, and while other bosses do employ it said strategy is particularly egregious here because you probably aren't going to die otherwise in this phase.

Finally, the backdrop is... and endless expanse of clouds. While fighting high in the sky on an airship deck is interesting, we've already done crazier stuff; the Bismarck fight is almost identical in setup, except there you're on a floating island being towed behind an airship, shooting harpoons into a sky whale while it manipulates the weather and throws endless flunkies at you... it's much more dynamic than the Diamond Weapon fight which is, again, just an endless expanse of clouds. You hit the Weapon and swap platforms to evade some of its armored attacks. Woo.

As for EX differences... I've watched some tutorial videos to get ready for it (maybe), and there are no major changes to the fight. It's essentially the same as most EX fights: same as normal with some tighter coordination needed, no AoE markers so you have to rely purely on visual tells to dodge attacks, and a couple new mechanics to keep it fresh. I haven't seen the "mutation" type animation anywhere; I dunno, maybe there's a secret phase with Zenos' combat data that triggers if you bring it down fast enough? (Probably not.)

Ruby had the Evangelion-style Nael hatching out of its back. Sapphire was a mano e mano mecha battle. Emerald was a complete battlefield shift, along with a chance to see Gaius in his prime. Diamond... is you beating on a mecha while riding an airship, surrounded by an endless cloud expanse. It's just boring in comparison. There's no "wow" factor.

To me, at least.

Originally Posted by Cilia

The answer is quite simple:

Passing strange from my perspective.

Well, to be fair, normal mode doesn't showcase its "just explosions" mechanics very well. Also to be fair, all of the other weapon fights featured mechanics we've seen before with mildly different aesthetics.

The two platforms are put to more work in Extreme. Diamond Rain aka "just explosions" deals damage and vuln stacks proportional to the number of players on each platform. This means without shields, having too many people on one, even if they are dead, will kill everyone on that platform.

The knockbacks in Extreme also have to be used to be knocked across the gap, sometimes due to the teleporter debuff being 10x longer.

The teleporter debuff is increased to 20 seconds, so that the teleporter can't be used by the same people, such that everyone has to use it at some point, people have to adjust.

I found it really interesting that Auri Arts plays out while Diamond is armored off in Ifrit-speed form. Creating stable aether bubbles to use as jump and pivot points is something we've never seen anything do, though obviously it's a retake on Ifrit's Charges from days of yore, except instead making clones of himself, he just does all of the charges in a zigzag by himself.

The unfortunate metafactor of all .5 Trials is the fact that they will be used to give out weapons intended to increase below average or late to start raider's chances of defeating the 3rd fight in a Savage Tier with their weapons always being 5 iLvls below Ester augmented weapons. They never have the same impact as trials before them. Shiva was easier than Ramuh or Leviathan. Zurvan was easier than Sophia and Sephirot. Seiryu was an absolute joke compared to Byakko, Tsukuyomi, and Suzaku. They are intended to be easier though, and so their mechanics are never as complex or as devastating.

Though, tbh, mechanically none of the weapon fights have really been that difficult to pick up. I find Diamond to be the most interesting, as some of them are actually new. Gonna rattle some comparisons off, after the edit.

Ruby Weapon's Reused Techniques
Quicksand = Sunken Temple of Qarn HM, first boss.
Red Orbs = Stationary versions of orange orbs from Burden of the Father
Dashes with half cleave = Retake on divebombs/ifrit charges mixed with half arena cleave
Group Stack markers w/ donut aoe = reuse of general aoes combined
Nael Adds = Reused Turn 9 mechs
Hide behind comets = reused LoTA mech
Catch comets = reused clash catch mech from Stormblood, seen in Susano, Orbonne, and a couple other places
General raidwide

Emerald Weapons Reused Techs
Colored Orbs = Orbs from Ultima hard mode mixed with orbs from Chrysalis
Donut/proximity aoes = general aoes
Knockback with upper body
Shared tank buster = double rocket punch from BJ
Spread explosions in phase 1 = spread explosions from T11/anywhere else
Cleave spread in phase 2 = Protean wave, except easier
Blue Sword Cross AOEs = Scarlet Price Cross Explosions from Nidhogg Ex/Midgardsormr
Sky Armor bombs = exaflares
Formation volley or whatever = staggered line AOEs in many fights with a much cooler tell
General raid wide

Diamond Weapon's Reused Techs
Laser stack = line stack from Phantom Train
Claw cleave = half room cleave with a twist
Diamond Rain = new to me, maybe something from deeper in an Ultimate than I've been
Line laser autos that hit two highest enmity targets/tanks = Ozma Cube/Leviathan/etc.
Proximity Tethers = Exact purple tether in Chardarnook
Proximity Flares = Lots of fights
Proximity knockback = used in lots of fights, but PK used to cross a gap you can fall off of = new afaik
Quadrant cleaves with alternating party members = First Limit Cut from Cruise Chaser with a different aesthetic

If you've played the game a long time and delved into most of the battle content, you see recycled mechanics with new paint a lot. The most similar thing to have two sides that have a unique method of traversal is probably the Antigravity Limbal vs. getting down with 100Gs in Deltascape. I like seeing a new twist on the battlefield, rather than new paint.