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Unrelated to Zenos chat (he's good!) what is that armor you're wearing Sang?
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Jun 25, 2022 03:05
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| # ? Jun 12, 2024 04:31 |
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My problem is that the Zenos duty can take a long time. It's not actually all that dangerous, but he has a lot of HP to grind down before the duty completes and I was one of those lunatics who mains a healer through the story so the whole thing felt like a prolonged whiffle bat duel before what I figured was going to happen the moment the entire battle started kicked in. And no, you can't just alt-tab and let things happen because you actually do fail the duty if you die. Personally, I found it a very frustrating and tedious experience. I can tell when I'm in an unwinnable boss fight and wish the developers had had the grace to at least make it a quick one.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:05
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Mordiceius posted:There were people who haaaaaaated the Zenos duty. I thought it was cool as heck. I hate HATED that Zenos duty. I switched to PLD for Stormblood after playing BRD for all of ARR & HW. So that fight was me whittling away at his hp until the game decides I don't get to win. gently caress that, either we're standing toe to toe or we're not, don't tease me with an epic battle that you arbitrarily decide he gets to win. It honestly spoiled my entire attitude toward Zenos going forward.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:10
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Honestly I had more trouble keeping people alive during the segment before you fight Zenos than the Zenos fight itself, because I do believe there is some kind of fail state where if certain friendly NPCs die you fail? I don’t really remember what actual class I was playing during this one, though. I think it was Bard but I switched between Bard and White Mage a lot during Stormblood because that was when I started going through the game with two of my friends and I was the only one who wanted to heal.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:12
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I had no problems with this fight, but some of my friends struggled with it. I think the main problem with this particular fight is, as Cythereal said, it's entirely possible to fail the duty and have to restart from the beginning, which really leaves a bad taste in people's mouths when the story is going to have you lose anyway. "What does it matter if I lose here versus losing a few minutes later at an arbitrary point in the fight?"
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Jun 25, 2022 03:15
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In other discussion, now that you’ve seen Zenos fight for a bit, the Golf Bag actually does have a purpose or two. Firstly, much like other Garlean Magitek, it is designed to let him use Aether techniques without Aether manipulation. The thing is basically a bottle of Ceruleum Oil his swords bathe in until drawn for techniques. Secondly, as has been shown today, sometimes his swords break either from his own strength or his foes, so he has three just in case. I love this fight, but I also play a very high damage main job so I didn’t have much trouble reaching the instant loss HP threshold.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:18
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To be slightly pedantic, the difference is the WoL wasn’t just that bit strong enough in the instance where you fail out and die on the spot. Count me in the column that this really worked for, meanwhile. I’m usually down for this sort of thing and the gameplay enforcing it is extremely my jam.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:21
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As I hope my write-up conveyed, I liked the Zenos duty because it got me into "the zone." The timing of the mechanics and the mechanical demand they put on me was very reminiscint of my first attempt at the Midgardsormr boss fight in Keeper of the Lake. It felt like a serious test but it also felt fair, it demanded I make full use of my character's toolkit and it didn't feel cheap. That is my absolute favorite kind of action gameplay, it gives me a feeling that I've achieved a certain level of gameplay mastery that feels super good to my brain. There's a reason I compared it to those First Bosses in Souls games that are supposed to be unbeatable but actually can be beaten. I got so into the zone I didn't really emotionally internalize it was an unwinnable fight even thought it was intellectually obvious. All that said, I didn't know you could fail this. That seems a bit excessive. If he beats you before you hit the HP threshold, that should be it. Maybe give a cheevo if you make it, that'd be fun. rantmo posted:Unrelated to Zenos chat (he's good!) what is that armor you're wearing Sang? That is the Ninja GARO PVP event set.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:22
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I think the clear level difference helps soften the blow and hint that it's a battle you're fated to lose. But it is also a scripted fight that takes forever. The level thing wouldn't matter as much in a single player RPG but in a MMO there's a clear indication of power. I mean, this logic only goes so far because a random level 70 monster would wipe the floor with you and Zenos is clearly intended to be depicted as strong.
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Jun 25, 2022 03:26
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I didn't notice that Zenos is labeled as Level 70 until just now. 
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Jun 25, 2022 03:29
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I rather like that we got put on the backswing and by the one thing that we hadn't been by. Sheer strength and skill. Zenos being a One-Garlean-Wrecking-Ball was something I knew about, but until I ran the fight myself I didn't know how I was going to feel about it. Turned out that I like having such a strong foe to deal with, makes thing interesting. grandalt fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 03:40
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Switch to a healer job and re-watch that last cutscene where Krile is working on Y'shtola
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Jun 25, 2022 03:48
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Looking through my screenshots, it took me roughly 3 and a half minutes to finish the Zenos duty fight on AST. That's pretty much a dungeon boss battle length, didn't seem egregiously long to me at the time. Got a nice effects moment, too. (And look, the old card system!) FuturePastNow posted:Switch to a healer job and re-watch that last cutscene where Krile is working on Y'shtola 
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Jun 25, 2022 04:04
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Stormblood's opening chapter really, really works Also I'm already enjoying your thoughts on Zenos
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Jun 25, 2022 04:08
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I didn't mind this duty- unlike a lot of "you automatically lose" fights in RPGs, it's clear that Zenos is toying with you on purpose. Just like he alluded to with the resistance in general, he wants to put his opponents into a position where they will fight their hardest, rather than just wanting to beat them. So he put you through your paces, but when you failed to present a legitimate challenge after all that he just decided he was done and and knocked you on your rear end. Since there was a good in-universe reason, consistent with his characterization, it felt like coherent storytelling. And since you COULD mostly keep up by being careful, it made me want the chance to try again and get back at him. Which is probably exactly what Zenos wants, and why we're still alive. So it's pretty effective gameplay/story integration.
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Jun 25, 2022 04:11
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My feelings on Zenos are complicated, but as far as this opening stretch goes, I remember being floored at my loss and curious to see what this guy was about.
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Jun 25, 2022 04:19
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Making him level 70 when you're 61 is a great RPG fourth wall break. It can also be taken as a bit of foreshadowing since the player knows they'll also be 70 at the end of this expansion.
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Jun 25, 2022 04:21
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I hate the Zenos solo duty but that’s partly because when I did it I happened to be catching WHM up on levels to BLM so it just took for-loving-ever. I get the narrative purpose and I don’t hate unwinnable boss fights but it really needed to be shorter.
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Jun 25, 2022 04:30
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For the most part, I feel like solo duties are reasonable length, but there are some where I'm just like "Get on with it".
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Jun 25, 2022 04:38
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Structurally you can see this turn in the plot coming a mile away because the Initial Setback is a very common aspect of storytelling, so I approached these initial quests from a perspective that was less "what's going to happen" and more "how are they going to present this". For me, it worked out pretty well. It's also a good inversion from the start of Heavensward; while you start Heavensward with some apparent villains in Ilberd and some people in Ul'Dah after the events of 2.5, they're so far and out of your reach that you spend a pretty long chunk of Heavensward's start without a central opposing character at all. You're fighting "dragons" or even an entrenched Culture more than you're fighting a singular opponent pretty much until you hit the Aery. Stormblood, instead, leads with the singular opponent who is, in fact, a primo shitwrecker happy to kick you right in the face, hurt your friends, and burn your house down almost immediately. It's a good, striking motivator to push you forward, and not something they've done before, not so dramatically and so early in a plot arc. I quite enjoyed the Zenos duty but I can understand and respect how people walked away from it with a bad feeling. They try hard to marry a specific turn in the plot with something interactive to help make the player invested, and sometimes it's hard to reconcile the story experience with the gameplay experience. They don't always get it right.
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Jun 25, 2022 04:49
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Great writeup as always. You continue to pick up on lots of small characterization moments that I hadn't internalized - in particular your thoughts on what it means that Zenos seems to be less xenophobic and more egalitarian in various ways were very interesting. Building on that, it's interesting to think about what that golf bag full of katanas says about the man's personality--yes, it's anime as gently caress, but it's also 1) using a martial tradition that isn't native to Garlemald (compare Gaius and Regulus who both fought with magitek gunblades) 2) as Lord Magmar said, an assistive device which lets him use techniques that require aether 3) literally embodies the principle of bringing the right tool for the job (perhaps taken to the extreme). From what little we've seen so far it isn't implausible to think that maybe he treats his subordinates in the same way as he treats his swords, as you already noted--compare his reaction to the broken sword and his reaction to the coward Garlean (how much of that "Pathetic" was directed at us, versus the broken tool, versus himself for selecting that tool?). I have a lot of other thoughts about how Stormblood works structurally but none that shouldn't wait until much later on in your journey.
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Jun 25, 2022 05:10
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I loved the Zenos fight, it was pretty obvious that you weren't gonna win given how little his HP bar moves the whole time. It was either going to be some NPC coming in with a super move to chase him off, or he just beats you. It's so odd to me that people get all worked up about forced loss fights like this. It's not even like a regular JRPG, where you might waste a bunch of rare resources or whatever. There are no megalixirs to pull out, you're not gonna burn up all your phoenix downs on an MSQ duty. If it seems difficult at all, then you're probably supposed to lose, since the MSQ fights are (almost) never super difficult. I appreciate the game taking the WoL down a notch. Like Kheris was saying in the last update, you feel like you can just go run roughshod over the whole Garlean empire going into the expansion. This is a nice way of saying, like, "no, there are actually stronger people out there, still".
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Jun 25, 2022 05:27
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+1 for enjoying the Zenos fight, I've always liked the man. But I do wish he was built up more - hearing about him during the 3.X patches would have been great setup for example, and these kinds of things tend to work better when the character in question has been built up a little as opposed to "coming out of nowhere" like some complain Zenos of doing.
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Jun 25, 2022 05:33
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As I’ve said before, I don’t hate the idea of an unwinnable boss fight. It’s a totally valid use of gameplay and story integration and has been used well tons of times. I just think this one is paced really poorly if you aren’t running dps, so I was throwing rocks for over five minutes waiting for the game to finally knock me down. I got that it was unwinnable long before I hit the hp threshold to end the fight but because as WHM all I can do is throw stones and the odd bit of wind, it felt like it was dragging out the inevitable way too long. Maybe if they had made the clear condition time triggered instead of hp triggered it would work better. When it goes on that long when you’ve already figured out the outcome, instead of shocking and a hit to the pride like it’s supposed to be, you just end up annoyed that the game is wasting your time. And also yeah a checkpoint after the first objective and adding another clear condition for the duty of “WoL hits 1 HP” would also help.
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Jun 25, 2022 05:40
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I enjoyed the fight a lot. Doing it as BLM was rough, but I had fun. Also, yeah, rewatch the scene on an inn as a healer! It's nice when the game acknowledges "HEY! You have HEALING POWERS!" for a change.
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Jun 25, 2022 06:03
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Sounds like part of the problem is they didn't do a great job of tuning this fight to be appropriate to weaker jobs like healers. I did it as warrior and it was great.
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Jun 25, 2022 06:09
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Yeah I did it on Warrior and I was doing great until I lost lol
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Jun 25, 2022 06:23
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As a terminal completionist it's so weird for me to contemplate doing MSQ on anything but a DPS job. You're basically wasting XP doing quests on a job that has instant roulette queues! :p The tradeoff with healing jobs in solo duties is that you basically can't die, since you can just heal through any amount of incoming damage other than failing do-or-die mechanics. Similarly the tradeoff with tanks is that in exchange for doing lower base DPS you can deliberately stand in AOEs and keep DPSing when you'd have to lose uptime as a DPS job. So I think it works out to both DPS and tanks taking roughly the same amount of time on solo duties, whereas healing jobs will always take longer but you can turn your brain off. I think that's a reasonable tradeoff, and the only person who gets screwed over by it is the sprout who has *only* leveled a healer (which, let's not kid ourselves, means WHM mains).
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Jun 25, 2022 06:26
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Sanguinia posted:Side note, while I was doing this, the night version of the Rhalgr’s Reach theme, “Afteglow,”, was playing. Since this was literal minutes after the last cutscene, and the tune was still ringing in my head, I couldn’t help but notice that the melody was identical to the Garlean anthem. Funny that. I am super glad you noticed this (because I did at the time, too), but just put a pin in it for now. As for Zenos... I managed to get this HP down to 92% on dragoon and I felt super proud of myself. It was pretty obvious to me from the get go that it was unwinnable, so I just needed to hold out for X amount of time or deplete X% of his HP. In the meantime, how much of that HP can I get down if it isn't a % trigger?
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Jun 25, 2022 06:37
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The main feeling I remember on Bard was "it's slow but I can do this all day". I mean, I *have* done that all day soloing things that shouldn't be soloed (not at that level, but I've done some shenanigans on Warrior lately). It's tough to find a sweet spot that everyone will like, if I'm getting overwhelmed for narrative reasons I prefer it to be demonstrated quickly. If I were designing the fight I'd want a stacking debuff, untelegraphed attacks, something to demonstrate you're losing the battle of attrition and getting outplayed other than "that hp bar isn't moving very quickly." Instead of finding safe spots in his attacks, find spots where you're only getting hit once. But someone else walking into the same situation would find THAT to be frustrating in an unfun way. Not every problem is fixable, this is just one a lot of folks remember because it was clearly intended to land in a particular way.
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Jun 25, 2022 06:41
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The Zenos fight was great. After he chews through your friends you're super pumped to take him down a notch... and then it's like banging your sword against a castle wall. While the people in the castle are firing cannons at you. I distinctly remember looking over at his HP bar, going "what the f... oh. Level 70. poo poo." Plus I was playing monk at the time. Dropped combos everywhere! As has been mentioned, some people just can't stand Guaranteed Loss fights no matter what. I don't mind them though, as long as they're done well and used sparingly. The point here is to establish that Zenos as a next level poo poo kicker / anime villain and pass on the idea that even the world-renowned hero can't count on winning every fight. A war's on and nothing is guaranteed. And at the same time, give that enticing hint that the secret to beating this jerk is to Level Up some more. And yeah, it is interesting to note that he isn't vindictive towards Fordola or Grynewaht for being beaten back. They had the initiative to take the field, the skill to make an impact, and the smarts to retreat when they reached their limit. Useful traits for an underling, even if Grynewaht's exit was less than dignified.
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Jun 25, 2022 06:57
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Put me in the "Zenos Duty didn't work for me" camp, but it's for a reason that's somewhat unfair to the develpers. See, I was levelling into StB in the middle of Shadowbringers, and as a result of occasional MSQ roulettes, I was already ~level 70. So getting level shifted down, but then put up against a level 70 dude who causes me to miss attacks and drop combos, etc etc felt... artificial, and very, very unearned, for lack of a better word. It kinda soured me on the whole character, to start with.
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Jun 25, 2022 06:59
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It wasn't really that hard/long on a healer that I recall, but maybe it was worse on White Mage? I dunno, I really don't find anything in the main story too much longer on healers than dps. Incidentally, that isn't actually the first time V'mah Tia's been named in game - but his prior appearances were fairly easily missed during Heavensward, since he's kind of off to the side of the door from when you enter the Rising Stones, and he's not always there to boot. This one is from back when Hoary Boulder, Coultenet, and F'lhaminn came back to Eorzea on the boat from their escape to Thavnair. 
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Jun 25, 2022 07:08
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Hogama posted:It wasn't really that hard/long on a healer that I recall, but maybe it was worse on White Mage? I dunno, I really don't find anything in the main story too much longer on healers than dps. Huh, I must have missed that. He's appeared in the background a lot but I'd never seen his name before this.
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Jun 25, 2022 07:16
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As someone who despised the amount of solo encounters in WoW where you dps them down to 30%health before they just shout "ENOUGH" and auto defeat you, I actually really liked the Zenos duty. Part of it is just his sheer attitude. The man just slowly RP walks towards you, knowing that it doesn't matter how long it takes to get to you, you can't stand against him. His Concentrativity attacks feel impactful, even on a tank and knock you down for a bit before the usual duty healing kicks in to bring you back. Also his magiteck golf bag owns.
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Jun 25, 2022 07:29
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GilliamYaeger posted:+1 for enjoying the Zenos fight, I've always liked the man. But I do wish he was built up more - hearing about him during the 3.X patches would have been great setup for example, and these kinds of things tend to work better when the character in question has been built up a little as opposed to "coming out of nowhere" like some complain Zenos of doing. Yeah, it didn’t quite land for me simply because it was the first time you ever get to see him in actual action, not just shishkabob’ing a random storm trooper, so it felt like my WoL (who canonically has killed close to a dozen gods and such by this point) was just getting blown the gently caress out by this important but seemingly-normal twerp who hadn’t done anything prior to then on-screen to justify being on a whole ‘nother level above you when you finally come to blows. If they had just taken a bit of time to plant the seeds beyond just saying that he was the one grinding Ala Mhigo beneath his heel (which doesn’t really confer that he’s a total powerhouse of a warrior in his own right), it would have been a much less bitter pill to swallow, in my mind.
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Jun 25, 2022 07:36
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It's pretty hard to pin down exactly how powerful the WoL is even supposed to be. Like yes, you kill gods, but sometimes the game implies that other decent warriors could do just as good a job of that if they also had the Echo to protect them from tempering. But then you can fight other warriors "in universe" in things like PvP and get your rear end kicked, so maybe you're just a very good fighter, but not necessarily godlike. But then you go and fight something like Niddhog that isn't a Primal and is still the scourge of a nation, so it's not your Echo that's protecting you there. So like I said, hard to pin down whether you're supposed to be a Destroyer of Worlds or just "someone who swords real good."
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Jun 25, 2022 07:43
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I propose the Warrior of Light is a specialist predator, wired for murdering gods, and gods specifically. Thordan becoming a Primal is what made him killable- we would have had much more trouble fighting him while he was a man.
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Jun 25, 2022 07:56
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So far "gods" are more like big aetheric conjurations (slightly less big in the case of Enkidu) and mantled battle transformations (a la Shiva and Thordan), and the main reason the city-states had struggled with them prior to the Warrior of Light was less to do with how strong they were and more to do with the fact that they'd absolutely take more casualties from tempering than they might otherwise have. This is not to say the Warrior of Light is not strong, because they obviously are, but they are still mortal and capable of being challenged. Both times you fight Nidhogg, you've got a dragon eye on your side, even if the Final Steps doesn't have a bit where you need to stay under a shield for a bit like the Aery fight.
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Jun 25, 2022 07:57
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| # ? Jun 12, 2024 04:31 |
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I'll be the guy who dislikes these fights. There's nothing wrong with having someone who just comes in and is stronger, but having a fight you could win and then he changes phases and easily wrecks you. Or make it a non-traditional duty where it's clear that survival, not combat, is the win condition. WoW did this with Arthas appearing at the end of a simple dungeon, and all you can do is just run from him. Anyway, this fight's problem is that they can't control the damage output of the various classes, but I say even putting health aside class balance XIV has problems with these long solo duties where you can't really win in the logical sense but can't fail or else you have to do it all over again.
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Jun 25, 2022 08:14
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