Healing from a shardblade?

[Kaerak]

Discussing the Cosmere with a friend of mine, and we were considering who'd win in a straight up fight against the Lord Ruler.The obvious combatants we pitted him against was Kaladin and Vasher.  The discussion raised two points we couldn't agree upon, so I'd like to know peoples opinions.

1) Would Nightblood view the Lord Ruler as evil? He had good intentions but ultimately acted in a tyrannical way. Assuming he is affected by Nightblood, would the metallic arts function the same as breaths for how Nightblood draws out investiture?

2) Surgebinders can use investiture to heal from a shardblade attack (according to the Coppermind, I can't remember this happening but my friend tells me Szeth cut Kaladin who healed from it via stormlight. Would the Metallic arts count as investiture to heal a shardblade attack, if so, could the Lord Rulers compounded Gold keep him alive long enough to beat Kaladin in a fight? This point is assuming Kaladin is in possession of his full surgebinder abilities also.

[Kurkistan]

Yeah, Feruchemical gold can heal shardblade wounds.

Assuming that you an active line of healing is good enough to keep you going even if your spine gets severed (which I would guess is likely, given the (physically) traumatic stuff Miles goes through), then TLR should be able to heal no matter what. There is the long-term soul-scarring issue, but eh.

More concerningly TLR really isn't a good candidate for a Versus match, since at the top of his game he simply wins. Functionally infinite Feruchemical steel alone is probably enough to one-shot essentially anyone without some special immunity, not to mention literally everything else TLR can do.

[Dunkum]

Ok, a few main things I see:

1. Syl seemed to think that the honorblades required "a dangerous amount" of stormlight in order to surgebind, ie there is such a thing as a dangerous amount.  so while it is likely true that enough stormlight could overcome TLR's innate investiture, that much stormlight might be too much for a person to actually hold  a presumably enhanced person like a herald.  this also doesn't account for copper, which likely could offer further protections against outside investiture, like it does against emotional allomancy (we know bronze could, in theory, detect other investiture use outside of scadrian ones, so it stands to reason that copper could protect against the same)

2. are you assuming the herald would be wearing no metal items themselves?  even something as simple as a button or belt buckle or even an earring or other jewellery would be usable by TLR.

3. TLR can compound pewter.  that is potentially an enormously powerful offensive attack.  add in compounding steel and he can hit like a freight train faster than an eyeblink.  stormlight enhances, but not nearly to that degree.  all he needs is to land a single blow to the head.  even a small amount of Atium makes that an almost certainty.

edit to add: and when I say he can hit like a freight train, that is literal.  compounding iron plus compounding steel means he could hit with the weight and speed of an actual freight train.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Dunkum
update

[Weltall]

Yeah, it helps to remember that TLR wasn't really trying when we see him in The Final Empire; we get a better idea what he could do if he was actually going full-out from Bands of Mourning and even that was without making use of atium aka the 'I Win' button for any fight where the opponent lacks an appropriate countermeasure. I'm not sure we've seen anyone at this point that could face him at his peak and win in a fair fight. Well, Hoid is described as ridiculously unkillable so maybe he could survive and annoy Rashek to death but that's about the only thing that comes to mind.

As for Nightblood, its ability to destroy things doesn't really depend on whether it recognizes something as 'evil' or not, it all depends on how it's being used. If you tossed Nightblood to TLR, there's a pretty good chance that Rashek's own recognition of what he'd done (best of intentions or no) would tell him that yes, he was evil. So if the Investiture-draining didn't get him first, he'd probably end up commiting suicide-by-Nightblood. If anyone else was using Nightblood, they'd probably see TLR as evil and the sword would fulfill its Command. Which gets you back to the question of whether someone with Nightblood could hit TLR with it before he could disable or kill them in any number of ways.

Here's the annotation where Brandon talks about this.

[Dunkum]

21 minutes ago, Kurkistan said:

Yeah, Feruchemical gold can heal shardblade wounds.

Assuming that you an active line of healing is good enough to keep you going even if your spine gets severed (which I would guess is likely, given the (physically) traumatic stuff Miles goes through), then TLR should be able to heal no matter what. There is the long-term soul-scarring issue, but eh.

More concerningly TLR really isn't a good candidate for a Versus match, since at the top of his game he simply wins. Functionally infinite Feruchemical steel alone is probably enough to one-shot essentially anyone without some special immunity, not to mention literally everything else TLR can do.

Though Vasher with the full stock of the Godking's breaths might stand a chance...or at least might last a bit longer than most.

though this now has me thinking: would copper allomancy protect against nightblood's temptation?  it seems like what nightblood does to attract evil people to him is probably similar enough to rioting that a coppercloud would offer some protection, and a TLR level coppercloud might stop it entirely.

[Markus]

46 minutes ago, Kurkistan said:

More concerningly TLR really isn't a good candidate for a Versus match, since at the top of his game he simply wins. Functionally infinite Feruchemical steel alone is probably enough to one-shot essentially anyone without some special immunity, not to mention literally everything else TLR can do.

 

27 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Yeah, it helps to remember that TLR wasn't really trying when we see him in The Final Empire; we get a better idea what he could do if he was actually going full-out from Bands of Mourning and even that was without making use of atium aka the 'I Win' button for any fight where the opponent lacks an appropriate countermeasure. I'm not sure we've seen anyone at this point that could face him at his peak and win in a fair fight. Well, Hoid is described as ridiculously unkillable so maybe he could survive and annoy Rashek to death but that's about the only thing that comes to mind.

I think you're both overestimating Rashek's power (or maybe everyone else's power compared to his).  While Rashek has massive amounts of incredible power, other characters have great power, as well as trump cards.  An elsecaller could (I think, we don't have too many details on the powers) simply go to Shadesmar and soulcast Rashek and his metalmids into smoke.  I think a Herald would have a pretty decent shot, even without soulcasting.  Hoid has investitures from lots of other planets.  I think he would have a good chance of fighting Rashek, not just annoying him.  We don't know the full extent of his allomantic and feruchemical powers (remember the lerasium), or most of his other powers for that matter.

[Spoolofwhool]

2 minutes ago, Markus said:

I think you're both overestimating Rashek's power (or maybe everyone else's power compared to his).  While Rashek has massive amounts of incredible power, other characters have great power, as well as trump cards.  An elsecaller could (I think, we don't have too many details on the powers) simply go to Shadesmar and soulcast Rashek and his metalmids into smoke.  I think a Herald would have a pretty decent shot, even without soulcasting.  Hoid has investitures from lots of other planets.  I think he would have a good chance of fighting Rashek, not just annoying him.  We don't know the full extent of his allomantic and feruchemical powers (remember the lerasium), or most of his other powers for that matter.

I don't think soulcasting would work that well against Rashek, since he's got a stronger innate investiture than normal, even regular mistborns, or fullborns, due to having ascended at one point. Soulcasting metalminds would probably be fairly difficult as well since they're invested, and they would resist other investiture-based attacks, not to mention that the ones piercing his skin would have added spiritual protection. 

The others you mentioned, Hoid and the Heralds, aren't good examples for trying to argue that he's not extremely powerful, considering those entities are extremely powerful and regarded as being well-above anyone else around them in strength. 

[Weltall]

@Markus Hoid appears incapable of intentionally harming anyone so no, he wouldn't be terribly good at fighting TLR though he could probably survive anything the latter could dish out.

As far as the others go, Heralds are known to be as killable as anyone else, they just don't stay dead and while Taln does show enhanced speed and presumably senses, that's nothing TLR doesn't have as well. And if you take away their surgebinding then TLR's atium trump card once again rears its ugly head. It's awfully hard to stick a pointy bit of metal in a man who knows exactly where you're going to be several seconds in advance and has the mental processing power to deal with that knowledge (without the additional benefits that would be gained from F-Steel and F-Zinc). As for Soulcasting him, that's a slightly better option except for two things. One, TLR might be able to neuter Stormlight reserves with Chromium (we have reason to suspect it would work on other forms of Investiture) so as long as he can get in range first, you've got no powers. Second and more importantly, remember how Investiture interferes with Investiture? It's unlikely one could throw enough Stormlight into their Soulcasting to convince TLR that he really wants to become smoke, or even just his metalminds.

Edited March 6, 2017 by Weltall

[Markus]

2 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I don't think soulcasting would work that well against Rashek, since he's got a stronger innate investiture than normal, even regular mistborns, or fullborns, due to having ascended at one point. Soulcasting metalminds would probably be fairly difficult as well since they're invested, and they would resist other investiture-based attacks, not to mention that the ones piercing his skin would have added spiritual protection. 

The others you mentioned, Hoid and the Heralds, aren't good examples for trying to argue that he's not extremely powerful, considering those entities are extremely powerful and regarded as being well-above anyone else around them in strength. 

I did not mean that he wasn't incrediby poweful.  (See: "While Rashek has massive amounts of incredible power").  I was simply saying that there were characters that would be good in a duel against him.  I don't think that the innate investiture should be much of a problem.  Forging, for example, needs a boost to change an object that is invested, but has no trouble (power-wise) changing a person.  The extra boost that might be needed because of Rashek's innate investiture and status as a sliver would be easily countered by enough stormlight.  Stormlight could probably also override the metalminds, but that woud probably require even more stormlight than Rashek himself.  There is such a proliferation of easily accesible investiture on Roshar (which is why Vasher went there) that it would easiy override the innate investiture.

[The One Who Connects]

20 minutes ago, Markus said:

simply go to Shadesmar and Soulcast Rashek and his Metalminds into smoke.

I'm not sure anyone(Save Hoid/the Shards) has the mental strength to overcome 1,000 years of personal Identity in order to Soulcast him. Also, unless they know how Feruchemy works, they wont see the value of his Metalminds, given that many of them were disguised as common jewelry to begin with. Odds are, they'd see them as a cognitive part of him, like clothing is.

They would also have to overcome his innate investiture, which is increased a fair bit due to his more or less eternal active tapping of Atium. Which, to the Original poster's question, the investiture from burning metals/tapping Metalminds count as a valid source for Nightblood to consume.

1 hour ago, Kurkistan said:

Assuming that you an active line of healing is good enough to keep you going even if your spine gets severed

A Gold Compounder can heal through decapitation, but I am not sure if Shardblade spine severing is on the same level.

Edited March 7, 2017 by The One Who Connects

[Markus]

35 minutes ago, Weltall said:

@Markus Hoid appears incapable of intentionally harming anyone so no, he wouldn't be terribly good at fighting TLR though he could probably survive anything the latter could dish out.

As far as the others go, Heralds are known to be as killable as anyone else, they just don't stay dead and while Taln does show enhanced speed and presumably senses, that's nothing TLR doesn't have as well. And if you take away their surgebinding then TLR's atium trump card once again rears its ugly head. It's awfully hard to stick a pointy bit of metal in a man who knows exactly where you're going to be several seconds in advance and has the mental processing power to deal with that knowledge (without the additional benefits that would be gained from F-Steel and F-Zinc). As for Soulcasting him, that's a slightly better option except for two things. One, TLR might be able to neuter Stormlight reserves with Chromium (we have reason to suspect it would work on other forms of Investiture) so as long as he can get in range first, you've got no powers. Second and more importantly, remember how Investiture interferes with Investiture? It's unlikely one could throw enough Stormlight into their Soulcasting to convince TLR that he really wants to become smoke, or even just his metalminds.

You're right, I had forgotten that about Hoid.  I'm not sure about that "Heralds are known to be as killable as anyone else."  They're not immortal, but Stormlight can heal from very dangerous wounds and Heralds likely have a multitude of incredible powers, due to the legends about them.  Quoting from memory but "heal with a touch, destory cities," etc.  Most of these probably come from fabrials, which are probably incrediby poweful (Nale heals Szeth from a shardblade would).  Atium would hurt the Herald's chances, but Rashek doesn't really have that many abilites that could kill a Herald.  Anything that Rashek could steelpush at a Herald wouldn't hurt them due to stormlight and fabrial healing.   If he touched Jeziren or Nale he would get launched away, screaming.  Undoubtebly he would recover, but it wouldn't be fun for him.  Also Rashek can't fly (at least not at the speed a Surgebinder can), so if they were losing, they could just run away.  It would probably fight to a standstill.  He might beat other Heralds, like the Edgedancer one.  As for the chromium, has it been confirmed that it can take other forms of investiture?  If so, then I would suspect that a larkin can as well.  Again, Jasnah sucessfully soulcasts the theives, so Stormlight can probably override that.

26 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I'm not sure anyone(Save Hoid/the Shards) has the mental strength to overcome 1,000 years of personal Identity in order to Soulcast him. Also, unless they know how Feruchemy works, they wont see the value of his Metalminds, given that many of them were disguised as common jewelry to begin with. Odds are, they'd see them as a cognitive part of him, like clothing is.

They would also have to overcome his innate investiture, which is increased a fair bit due to his more or less eternal active tapping of Atium. Which, to the Original poster's question, the investiture from burning metals/tapping Metalminds count as a valid source for Nightblood to consume.

A Gold Compounder can heal through decapitation, but I am not sure if Shardblade spine severing is on the same level.

Yes, but I doubt that TLR would tap all (or any) of his Identity at that moment.  Good point about the metalminds, but if he's smoke, the metalminds aren't going to do much.  Again, I think innate investiture could be overriden by enough stormlight.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Markus
Clarification

[The One Who Connects]

1 minute ago, Markus said:

Yes, but I doubt that TLR would tap all of his Identity at that moment.

I don't mean tapping Identity. I'm talking about why Shallan couldn't Soulcast the stick. She couldn't overcome its natural identity of "being a stick."

The Lord Ruler has had 1,000 extra years of thinking "I am the Lord Ruler" and I'm not sure that even some of the more experienced practitioners have the mental strength to overcome that. If he taps Identity(assuming he actually stored that) then it'll be even harder.

6 minutes ago, Markus said:

If he touched Jeziren or Nale he would get launched away, screaming.

Ok, you've lost me here. Why would he be launched away screaming? What have I missed?

7 minutes ago, Markus said:

Also Rashek can't fly (at least not at the speed a Surgebinder can), so if they were losing, they could just run away.  It would probably fight to a standstill.

He has steel compounding. He can quite literally run faster than they can fly unless they put a fair number of Lashings on themselves. That would go through their Stormlight reserve quite quick though, especially since the Honorblades are less efficient. He can simply follow them until they have to land and deal with them there, now without any Stormlight to help them. [same point as below, but only 2 of them can fly since only 2 of them have Gravitation]

10 minutes ago, Markus said:

I'm not sure about that "Heralds are known to be as killable as anyone else."  They're not immortal, but Stormlight can heal from very dangerous wounds and Heralds likely have a multitude of incredible powers, due to the legends about them.

The Heralds have been killed by something as mundane as Thunderclast Claws so people on here have assumes that while they can heal from great wounds, a killing blow is a killing blow. Additionally, only 2 of the Heralds can heal, as the other Honorblades do not have the Regrowth Surge. Meaning that the other 8 are fair game for killing blows.

15 minutes ago, Markus said:

Anything that Rashek could steelpush at a Herald wouldn't hurt them due to stormlight and fabrial healing.

Oh yea, Fabrial healing... those have a finite amount of Stormlight they can hold, so that's my counter: he can outlast the healing reserves. As for Steelpushing, who says he has to push something at them? He can just as easily pull something sharp/heavy towards them from behind. He doesn't need to touch the items, so there wouldn't be a visual cue for the Herald to notice and try to dodge.

[Spoolofwhool]

25 minutes ago, Markus said:

Yes, but I doubt that TLR would tap all (or any) of his Identity at that moment.  Good point about the metalminds, but if he's smoke, the metalminds aren't going to do much.  Again, I think innate investiture could be overriden by enough stormlight.

He's talking about cognitive identity, not spiritual identity. Rashek sees himself as Rashek and has for close to a millennia. It would be difficult to cognitively convince otherwise. Innate investiture could probably, but there's also the issue of kinetic investiture from allomancy and feruchemy all shifting through his body at all times. The amount of cross-interference going on would make it really difficulty. There's also a possibility, though we haven't seen any indication, that the process of trying to bribe his cognitive with stormlight to change would be recognized by him consciously, in which case he could just run away and they would have to follow in either the physical or cognitive realm. 

56 minutes ago, Markus said:

I did not mean that he wasn't incrediby poweful.  (See: "While Rashek has massive amounts of incredible power").  I was simply saying that there were characters that would be good in a duel against him.  I don't think that the innate investiture should be much of a problem.  Forging, for example, needs a boost to change an object that is invested, but has no trouble (power-wise) changing a person.  The extra boost that might be needed because of Rashek's innate investiture and status as a sliver would be easily countered by enough stormlight.  Stormlight could probably also override the metalminds, but that woud probably require even more stormlight than Rashek himself.  There is such a proliferation of easily accesible investiture on Roshar (which is why Vasher went there) that it would easiy override the innate investiture.

I know, I'm just pointing out that trying to play down his strength, which is what I thought you were doing, with comparisons against those characters, doesn't work. In part my mistake. With regards to forging, we don't actually know if it's more difficult power-wise to forge a human. I'm pretty sure it is, compared to a pot, due to the increased innate investiture. 

[Markus]

33 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I don't mean tapping Identity. I'm talking about why Shallan couldn't Soulcast the stick. She couldn't overcome its natural identity of "being a stick."

The Lord Ruler has had 1,000 extra years of thinking "I am the Lord Ruler" and I'm not sure that even some of the more experienced practitioners have the mental strength to overcome that. If he taps Identity(assuming he actually stored that) then it'll be even harder.

Ok, you've lost me here. Why would he be launched away screaming? What have I missed?

He has steel compounding. He can quite literally run faster than they can fly unless they put a fair number of Lashings on themselves. That would go through their Stormlight reserve quite quick though, especially since the Honorblades are less efficient. He can simply follow them until they have to land and deal with them there, now without any Stormlight to help them. [same point as below, but only 2 of them can fly since only 2 of them have Gravitation]

The Heralds have been killed by something as mundane as Thunderclast Claws so people on here have assumes that while they can heal from great wounds, a killing blow is a killing blow. Additionally, only 2 of the Heralds can heal, as the other Honorblades do not have the Regrowth Surge. Meaning that the other 8 are fair game for killing blows.

Oh yea, Fabrial healing... those have a finite amount of Stormlight they can hold, so that's my counter: he can outlast the healing reserves. As for Steelpushing, who says he has to push something at them? He can just as easily pull something sharp/heavy towards them from behind. He doesn't need to touch the items, so there wouldn't be a visual cue for the Herald to notice and try to dodge.

Sorry, the capitalization tripped me up.  I don't think that a thousand years of thinking that is that important.  More obstructive would be the whole rest of the final empire thinking he was the Lord Ruler.  However, I hold that stormlight could override it.  Shallan's stick isn't a very good comparison either.  The elsecaller idea was of an experineced elsecaller who had sworn all five oaths.  Jasnah can soulast a person with realitve ease, for example.  Clearly Shallan hadn't said enough truths, have enough stormlight, or was missing something else.

Jeziren and Nale could lash him away.  With enhanced reflexes and speed, this shouldn't be too difficult.  He can run faster than they can fly, but if they're in the air, and he's on the ground, it's hard to hit them.  I don't think the Heralds would go around without a huge reserve of spheres and stormlight.

Healing- I meant sormlight healing, I think regrowth is mainly healing other people.  Stormlight healing is very poweful- Kaladin stuffs the sould back into his arm.  A thunderclast claw.  Yes, that could kill a Herald, but Rashek coudln't really crush them with anything.  I suspect a fabrial could heal them from anything short of crushing them, though as I type it, I realize that Rashek could push the fabrial away.  Still, Stormlight healing is strong and Rashek doesn't actually have any really destructive offensive attacks.

Pulling something- that's a possibility.  What, though?  It's unlikely that the Herald would get positioned exactly between a source of metal and Rashek.  I see this battle invoving a lot of moving around quickly.  A successful Ironpull attack would have to be planned and executed perfectly.  The timing and acuraccy would be almost impossible to get right, even with superspeed.

I think that this battle depends on the Herald.  In my opinion, a Soulcasting Herald would win, a Gravity Herald would draw, an Edgedancer Herald would lose, and I can't really judge the ones whose surges we don't know a lot about.

[Kaerak]

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

They would also have to overcome his innate investiture, which is increased a fair bit due to his more or less eternal active tapping of Atium. Which, to the Original poster's question, the investiture from burning metals/tapping Metalminds count as a valid source for Nightblood to consume.

Thanks. Do you think this holds for all investiture? How would Nightblood draw on Elantris or Taldain's (I think? White Sand planet?) investiture, if that would even be possible?

[Weltall]

We have WoB that soulcasting an ordinary person is very hard and soulcasting someone with Investiture is even harder (here). Now factor in that TLR is one of the most heavily-Invested people we know about (along with the God-Kings) and you've got someone much harder to soulcast than an ordinary Mistborn, who's already noted as being harder to soulcast than a human. Brandon doesn't flat-out say that it's impossible but... it's probably impossible. Especially when that person is not only invested to the gills but has had a millenia worth of built-up Cognitive self-perception to overcome.

On Chromium, we don't have firsthand evidence that it works on other forms of Investiture (Brandon RAFOs questions like that) but if we can take any part of the Nicki Savage story in the BoM broadsheet at face value, then one can indeed Leech other Investiture, as the titular character temporarily disables a gun used by Nazh which appears to be powered by/employ Shades from Threnody. Whether a Larkin could absorb other Investiture or if its biology is keyed to only certain manifestations, we can't say.

As for what TLR can do offensively, bear in mind that with both forms of Pewter going he doesn't need any flashy abilities, he just needs to get close enough to punch you in the head. We know from the Jasnah chapter released online that a crushing blow to the head will still kill you even if you've got Stormlight healing and while that chapter doesn't sound like it's going to ultimately be in Oathbringer, there's no reason to doubt that bit of mechanics trivia. And unless the Heralds are somehow inherently immune to emotional manipulation (the fact that they're all various degrees of insane suggests not) Duralumin-boosted Zinc or Brass can shut them down pretty effectively too.

[Markus]

12 hours ago, Dunkum said:

Ok, a few main things I see:

1. Syl seemed to think that the honorblades required "a dangerous amount" of stormlight in order to surgebind, ie there is such a thing as a dangerous amount.  so while it is likely true that enough stormlight could overcome TLR's innate investiture, that much stormlight might be too much for a person to actually hold  a presumably enhanced person like a herald.  this also doesn't account for copper, which likely could offer further protections against outside investiture, like it does against emotional allomancy (we know bronze could, in theory, detect other investiture use outside of scadrian ones, so it stands to reason that copper could protect against the same)

2. are you assuming the herald would be wearing no metal items themselves?  even something as simple as a button or belt buckle or even an earring or other jewellery would be usable by TLR.

3. TLR can compound pewter.  that is potentially an enormously powerful offensive attack.  add in compounding steel and he can hit like a freight train faster than an eyeblink.  stormlight enhances, but not nearly to that degree.  all he needs is to land a single blow to the head.  even a small amount of Atium makes that an almost certainty.

edit to add: and when I say he can hit like a freight train, that is literal.  compounding iron plus compounding steel means he could hit with the weight and speed of an actual freight train.

I meant Stormlight in the form of spheres.  I don't really see the Heralds as the type to wear jewelry, but stormlight could heal a belt buckle through the stomach.  Copper resists emotional allomancy, and may resist other forms of investiture, but I think it resists coginitve effects.  Stormlight might not enhance a regular person enough, though we've only seen three-oaths-level stormlight.  Talenel, however, catches a blowdart without any stormlight.  I'm not sure of the speed of a blowdart, but I'd imagine it's pretty fast.  Again, he catches this without stormlight.  Imagine him with stormlight!  He is moving fast.  Not as fast as Rashek perhaps, but he has a Shardblade and surgebinding.  Atium would be a problem, but it has limits.  If they go in without knowledge of eachother's powers, Rashek would not see the risks of touching a gravitation Herald.  He wouldn't see the patch of glowing ground as a threat (cohesion).  Atium wouldn't show him that the boulder flying at him is fake, or tell him which of the thousands of people surrounding him is real, or let him see through the blackness that has suddenly surrounding him (Illumination)

12 hours ago, Weltall said:

We have WoB that soulcasting an ordinary person is very hard and soulcasting someone with Investiture is even harder (here). Now factor in that TLR is one of the most heavily-Invested people we know about (along with the God-Kings) and you've got someone much harder to soulcast than an ordinary Mistborn, who's already noted as being harder to soulcast than a human. Brandon doesn't flat-out say that it's impossible but... it's probably impossible. Especially when that person is not only invested to the gills but has had a millenia worth of built-up Cognitive self-perception to overcome.

On Chromium, we don't have firsthand evidence that it works on other forms of Investiture (Brandon RAFOs questions like that) but if we can take any part of the Nicki Savage story in the BoM broadsheet at face value, then one can indeed Leech other Investiture, as the titular character temporarily disables a gun used by Nazh which appears to be powered by/employ Shades from Threnody. Whether a Larkin could absorb other Investiture or if its biology is keyed to only certain manifestations, we can't say.

As for what TLR can do offensively, bear in mind that with both forms of Pewter going he doesn't need any flashy abilities, he just needs to get close enough to punch you in the head. We know from the Jasnah chapter released online that a crushing blow to the head will still kill you even if you've got Stormlight healing and while that chapter doesn't sound like it's going to ultimately be in Oathbringer, there's no reason to doubt that bit of mechanics trivia. And unless the Heralds are somehow inherently immune to emotional manipulation (the fact that they're all various degrees of insane suggests not) Duralumin-boosted Zinc or Brass can shut them down pretty effectively too.

That WoB doesn't say that soulcasting an ordinary person is very hard.  If there is one that says that please post it.  Again, Jasnah soulcasts four people, right in a row.  I don't think she's sworn all five oaths anyway.  According to that, only a Mistborn burning metal is harder.  TLR is probably burning only pewter.  He is heavily invested anyway, but Stormlight is easily accessible and powerful.  That's why Vasher goes to Roshar.  I think that, with enough Stormlight, you could soulcast him.

Chromium-  this may be a stupid question, but does Rashek even have Chromium?  I'm not sure it had been discovered yet.  I think that most forms of investiture are interchangable (i.e. stormlight substituting for Breath), so a larkin could probably take other forms as well.

Yes, the pewter-enhanced punch again.  Again, Heralds are fast, and two can fly.  Another two could slide away at incredible speeds (though they would probably lose).  Rashek wouldn't be sure which figure to hit when attacking someone with illumination.  Two more could teleport away. Again, getting stuck to the ground wouldn't help him.  And if I knew more about Division and Tension, I suspect those would be effective as well.

Duralumin-enhanced emotional manipulation was not something I had considered.  But, as you said, investiture interferes with investiture, and holding Stormlight would probably block or at least limit the effects.  Even if it worked, I doubt it would do much.  It would only go for a second (duralumin) and might confuse or disorient the Herald, but ultimately do little.

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, Markus said:

Atium wouldn't show him that the boulder flying at him is fake, or tell him which of the thousands of people surrounding him is real, or let him see through the blackness that has suddenly surrounding him (Illumination)

Atium plus Electrum can show you going through the area where the fake boulder is without being harmed and can show you how Lightweaving illusions of people react or don't react like a real person should. And creating a mass illusion like that would take a huge amount of Stormlight and we already know that the Heralds burn through it faster than Radiants do. TLR shouldn't have much trouble waiting out a Herald if it really comes down to that since their Surgebinding, healing and enhanced (past whatever they can already do) reflexes all depend on Stormlight while TLR's powers each use an independent reserve. Even if a single coin or button doesn't do much more than inconvenience a Herald, each one requires healing and that will drain more Stormlight until eventually they run out.

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That WoB doesn't say that soulcasting an ordinary person is very hard.  If there is one that says that please post it.  Again, Jasnah soulcasts four people, right in a row.  I don't think she's sworn all five oaths anyway.  According to that, only a Mistborn burning metal is harder.  TLR is probably burning only pewter.  He is heavily invested anyway, but Stormlight is easily accessible and powerful.  That's why Vasher goes to Roshar.  I think that, with enough Stormlight, you could soulcast him.

Not sure how you're not seeing that he did indeed say that soulcasting a person is hard. Emphasis added:

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Blightsong

Would it be harder to soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Blightsong

Would it be harder for her to soulcast a mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, investiture disrupts investiture. It's harder for her to even soulcast a regular person than, say, a rock.

Ergo, Soulcasting an ordinary human is harder than soulcasting nonliving matter and Soulcasting someone Invested is harder still because the two Investitures interfere with one another. Again, TLR is about the most Invested you can get aside from being a God-King, ergo TLR is about the hardest thing in the Cosmere to Soulcast.

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Chromium-  this may be a stupid question, but does Rashek even have Chromium?  I'm not sure it had been discovered yet.  I think that most forms of investiture are interchangable (i.e. stormlight substituting for Breath), so a larkin could probably take other forms as well.

Brandon implied that TLR did indeed know about Chromium. We know for a fact that he knew about other metals like Duralumin and Electrum that he kept secret and we also know that less than twenty years after his death, the Bands of Mourning were created with all sixteen metals, including by necessity Chromium's alloy Nicrosil. So yes, we have every reason to assume that TLR knew about Chromium.

[dyring]

Suggestion would be to reread bands of mourning.

Look at what Marasi does with speed before she starts to run out. The lord ruler would not run out if hes prepared(and what Marasi used would really be enough)

Also, there is metal in peoples blood. boost your pushing/pulling enough, and you can push/pull on that. It would not help that you didnt wear metal, he would just use your blood, so if he for some reason couldent reach someone, he could just pull them down. Or he could pull on one arm and push on the other, tearing them apart. Dont think of regular allomancy when thinking about TLR, he could boost pushing/pulling the same way he did with him emotional allomancy in the books.  

The lord ruler is just.. cheating. If he took a fight seriously, there just is noone we have seen so far who could handle him, (with the possible exception of hoid, who propably couldent fight back anyway). Feruchemy is one of the nastiest fighting magics already if you have attributes stored. The only weaknesses really is lack of flight and that you can run out of stored attributes, and TLR´s allomancy and compunding removes those.  

Sufficent speed is just unbeatable.

 

Edited March 7, 2017 by dyring

[The One Who Connects]

16 hours ago, Markus said:

Sorry, the capitalization tripped me up.  I don't think that a thousand years of thinking that is that important.  More obstructive would be the whole rest of the final empire thinking he was the Lord Ruler.  However, I hold that stormlight could override it.  Shallan's stick isn't a very good comparison either.  The elsecaller idea was of an experineced elsecaller who had sworn all five oaths.  Jasnah can soulast a person with realitve ease, for example.  Clearly Shallan hadn't said enough truths, have enough stormlight, or was missing something else.

Jeziren and Nale could lash him away.  With enhanced reflexes and speed, this shouldn't be too difficult.  He can run faster than they can fly, but if they're in the air, and he's on the ground, it's hard to hit them.  I don't think the Heralds would go around without a huge reserve of spheres and stormlight.

Healing- I meant sormlight healing, I think regrowth is mainly healing other people.  Stormlight healing is very poweful- Kaladin stuffs the sould back into his arm.  A thunderclast claw.  Yes, that could kill a Herald, but Rashek couldn't really crush them with anything.  I suspect a fabrial could heal them from anything short of crushing them, though as I type it, I realize that Rashek could push the fabrial away.  Still, Stormlight healing is strong and Rashek doesn't actually have any really destructive offensive attacks.

Pulling something- that's a possibility.  What, though?  It's unlikely that the Herald would get positioned exactly between a source of metal and Rashek.  I see this battle invoving a lot of moving around quickly.  A successful Ironpull attack would have to be planned and executed perfectly.  The timing and acuraccy would be almost impossible to get right, even with superspeed.

I think that this battle depends on the Herald.  In my opinion, a Soulcasting Herald would win, a Gravity Herald would draw, an Edgedancer Herald would lose, and I can't really judge the ones whose surges we don't know a lot about.

Capitalization has kinda became force of habit. And I see them in much the same way, with the Feruchemy power just changing your natural Identity to be more/less. Not sure if that is fully accurate, but...   And I see the stick example as a great comparison. Bribing it with Stormlight didn't work, which was my point. She needed the mental fortitude to overcome the personal identity, and she didn't have it. Jasnah did, since she is more experienced, but I still feel that the more time you spend believing that you are someone, the stronger your identity would get.
Now that you mention the Final Empire's viewing him as the Lord Ruler.. hadn't actually considered that since I figured personal identity, but that would only make it harder, as that is 1,000 years of thousands of people seeing him as The Lord Ruler.

Oh, you meant Lashings. It makes sense looking at it now... He can tap a lot of weight and not go very far at all.

Double Pewter basically is crushing things. Increased size, increased strength, increased pain tolerance... its like he becomes the Hulk, but with the benefit of steel compunding speed and Zinc boosted mental capacity. Speaking of F-Zinc, that could answer the timing and accuracy of the pulling trick. The physical speed to align himself, the mental speed to make his decisions, and presto. Add in compounded weight and he could pull most anything.

2 hours ago, Markus said:

Atium wouldn't show him that the boulder flying at him is fake, or tell him which of the thousands of people surrounding him is real, or let him see through the blackness that has suddenly surrounding him (Illumination)

The boulder doesn't exist, therefore it shouldn't have an Atium shadow. (I cannot expressly confirm this, but it feels right.) As for the copies of people, Atium expands the mind to process the information, so he could dodge and take them all on for as long as he had Atium with no trouble even if they were real. As for seeing through an illusion of blackness, that's quite clever and I cannot directly contradict that yet.

[Do Atium-users react to the shadows of things coming from behind them? That would negate the blinding illusion entirely if they don't need to see]

2 hours ago, Markus said:

TLR is probably burning only pewter.  He is heavily invested anyway, but Stormlight is easily accessible and powerful.

He's constantly tapping F-Atium, so that adds in a lot on actively moving Investiture to counter 1,000 years of aging. I will admit that he has grown used to not needing to tap much of anything else, but the longer the fight lasts the more likely he will stop playing around and start using more abilities. And against Stormlight users, the longer the fight lasts, the worse the odds get.

4 minutes ago, dyring said:

Also, there is metal in peoples blood. boost your pushing/pulling enough, and you can push/pull on that.

As strong as the Lord Ruler is, I think that is beyond him for the exact reason that the Inquisitor's can see the metal in blood. Rashek has normal eyes to see, and is content with the metal in an Allomancer's stomach. The Steel Inquisition has to reach the point of seeing trace metal in blood so that they can see anyone. I don't doubt that he is powerful enough to do it, but he doesn't have any reason to learn that he can do that.

---

All in All, I see the Lord Ruler as a hard counter to more or less anyone. He just has too much versatility due to being Fullborn.

[dyring]

1 minute ago, The One Who Connects said:

 

As strong as the Lord Ruler is, I think that is beyond him for the exact reason that the Inquisitor's can see the metal in blood. Rashek has normal eyes to see, and is content with the metal in an Allomancer's stomach. The Steel Inquisition has to reach the point of seeing trace metal in blood so that they can see anyone. I don't doubt that he is powerful enough to do it, but he doesn't have any reason to learn that he can do that..

 

He pretty much does it to Vin in the end of Final empire, to a lesser degree. Propably just regular push there thou.

"pushing the metals in her stomach and in her body, threatening to chrush her back against the pillar"

But its really unimportant. The speed is the killer, he never bothered to use that much, to much Ennui I guess. 

 

[The One Who Connects]

Just now, dyring said:

He pretty much does it to Vin in the end of Final empire, to a lesser degree. Probably just regular push there thou.

"pushing the metals in her stomach and in her body, threatening to crush her back against the pillar"

But its really unimportant. The speed is the killer, he never bothered to use that much, to much Ennui I guess.

guess I remembered the wrong line. Figured the "in her body" that she used at a later point was referring to the metals in her stomach.
Actually, given that he had enough strength to push Vin, rattle the doorframe, and push pieces of his stained glass window.. It's the glass that makes me think he might know he can do that, since he can assume metal door hinges and Vin's metal reserves, but no such shortcut for the glass.

[A Secret Corner]

Well.... The thing is that Rashek would win against pretty much any protagonist, character, etc. that we've seen so far, excluding Hoid or a shard. Vin was lucky and skilled enough, and even then required the use of Preservation's pure power and a target that would easily take him out. Taking the Lord Ruler to be old in any fight, one of the only ways that I could conceive someone winning against him would be to take out his metalminds, and between compounded feruchemy, steel, strength, etc. and extremely powerful alomancy, I think that the Lord Ruler could do against just about anyone (including Heralds) what he did to Kelsier. Take them out with a single extremely powerful blow. That's just one simple way for him to kill you. And on the matter of steelpushing, I wouldn't be surprised if the Lord Ruler could push most things, including the Heralds themselves, though very likely not the sharblades. Its mentioned that the Heralds would have enhanced speed, among other things. However the problem with this is that the Lord Ruler can have true super speed inbetween healing, heat management with F brass, and F steel compounding. Any stat of the Heralds, he could easily tower over by magnitudes. Inbetween F stats, alomancy, Atium, and everything else the Lord Ruler has up his sleeves, I think that even all 10 Heralds might not be able to kill him. And as far as Inquistors and their steel sight, the Lord Ruler could probably use that if need be, as it is a matter of connection to the power through savant-ness, and he could probably replicate that through F aluminum and F Chromium. As far as metals go, I'm personally convinced that the Lord Ruler knew about chromium and Bendalloy inbetween all his experiments through time and what he learned while holding the power of Preservation at the Well of Ascension. So the Lord Ruler could use say Chromium to wipe stormlight reserves as stated above. I personally would think that this would likely work. Based on what we've seen of the Bands of Mourning, I think that the Lord Ruler could easily see and probably distinguish stormlight illusions and reality, through seeing the investiture compared to other things. If the Lord Ruler can gain savant-ness, than he could due things like attach speed bubbles of both types to himself, and whatever else savants of all types can do. Than again, there always is Atium as well...

TL:DR The Lord Ruler can easily match and tower over by magnitudes any stats of the Heralds, could survive the one thing that the Heralds have that he dosen's (sharblades), and use Atium to easily crush the Heralds as he has all but the last Skaa rebellions. An open mind must be kept on pending knowledge of Herald's powers.

 

[Spoolofwhool]

Keep in mind that if we're talking about TLR versus pre-Aharetiam Heralds, the amount of stormlight they have might be limitless. According to a WoB, the Heralds had a direct conduit to Honor's investiture at one point.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Spoolofwhool

[Markus]

7 hours ago, Weltall said:

Atium plus Electrum can show you going through the area where the fake boulder is without being harmed and can show you how Lightweaving illusions of people react or don't react like a real person should. And creating a mass illusion like that would take a huge amount of Stormlight and we already know that the Heralds burn through it faster than Radiants do. TLR shouldn't have much trouble waiting out a Herald if it really comes down to that since their Surgebinding, healing and enhanced (past whatever they can already do) reflexes all depend on Stormlight while TLR's powers each use an independent reserve. Even if a single coin or button doesn't do much more than inconvenience a Herald, each one requires healing and that will drain more Stormlight until eventually they run out.

Not sure how you're not seeing that he did indeed say that soulcasting a person is hard. Emphasis added:

Ergo, Soulcasting an ordinary human is harder than soulcasting nonliving matter and Soulcasting someone Invested is harder still because the two Investitures interfere with one another. Again, TLR is about the most Invested you can get aside from being a God-King, ergo TLR is about the hardest thing in the Cosmere to Soulcast.

Brandon implied that TLR did indeed know about Chromium. We know for a fact that he knew about other metals like Duralumin and Electrum that he kept secret and we also know that less than twenty years after his death, the Bands of Mourning were created with all sixteen metals, including by necessity Chromium's alloy Nicrosil. So yes, we have every reason to assume that TLR knew about Chromium.

Atium only shows you other's futures.  Electrum could be used but it throws out hundreds of shadows and would be very difficult to use.  A mass illusion would take a lot, yes, so they probably shouldn't throw out hundreds.  Ten or so would work just as well though.  Waiting out is possible, but I don't think Rashek is the kind of person who would do that.  He is arrogant (for good reason) and would probably attack.  If they fight, there are ways a Herald could win.  I'm not saying it's 100% in favor of the Heralds, but they have a decent chance.

Harder than a rock isn't neccesarily "very hard."  A rock might just be very easy to soulcast.  Again, Jasnah soulcasts four people.  Vin pushes (maybe pulls?  I forget) on Rashek's bracers with only a little bit of mist.  IIRC, Stormlight is the gaseous manifestation of Honor, as mist is of Preservation.  We're assuming that the Elsecaller/Soulcasting Herald has a bunch of spheres and stormlight with them.

Okay, chromium probably does take other forms of Investiture.  And according to that, Rashek probably has it.  However, Heralds have larkins:

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QUESTION

Is a Larkin capable of pushing Stormlight into someone as well as pulling out ?

BRANDON SANDERSON

An excellent question, they actually eat on Investiture, as some other people and things that you see.

QUESTION

so this is a NO

BRANDON SANDERSON

This is more a NO than a Yes

This could probably take Rashek's investiture or maybe even the investiture out of his metalminds.  That would be seriously crippling.

Constantly tapping F-atium is a good point.  However, I think it would be more crippling for Rashek than helpful.  Investiture interferes with investiture, and throwing a bunch of Stormlight at him might cancel out the atium for a second.  In that case, he would age incredibly and die.

To the speed question: Heralds are fast.  As I said before, Talenel manages to catch a dart without any stormlight.  We know that stormlight enhances, perfects.  He won't be as fast as Rashek, but he's going to be fast.  Really fast.  And if @Spoolofwhool is right, and the Herald has unlimited stormlight, then, he's going to be even faster and stronger.  Add this to other surgebinding powers and they're really powerful.  Cohesion, for example would hurt him.

I think that the right Herald could beat Rashek, and that all ten would easily destroy him.

 

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Markus said:

Atium only shows you other's futures.  Electrum could be used but it throws out hundreds of shadows and would be very difficult to use.  A mass illusion would take a lot, yes, so they probably shouldn't throw out hundreds.  Ten or so would work just as well though.  Waiting out is possible, but I don't think Rashek is the kind of person who would do that.  He is arrogant (for good reason) and would probably attack.  If they fight, there are ways a Herald could win.  I'm not saying it's 100% in favor of the Heralds, but they have a decent chance.

Rashek is arrogant, but he's also not an idiot. He knows how to plan and make contingencies, as he clearly showed during the Mistborn Era 1. He wouldn't throw everything away in an attack without preparing first.

1 hour ago, Markus said:

Harder than a rock isn't neccesarily "very hard."  A rock might just be very easy to soulcast.  Again, Jasnah soulcasts four people.  Vin pushes (maybe pulls?  I forget) on Rashek's bracers with only a little bit of mist.  IIRC, Stormlight is the gaseous manifestation of Honor, as mist is of Preservation.  We're assuming that the Elsecaller/Soulcasting Herald has a bunch of spheres and stormlight with them.

Four normal people is well below a sliver with a ton of investiture circulating through him. The argument falls through. While we don't know how much more invested a fullborn sliver is to a person, nor how much more a fullborn sliver with that much kinetic investiture is circulating within, trivializing it like you are doesn't work. Also, Vin being able to steelpush his metalminds is not an argument as that was literally the power of a shard helping her. Just because stormlight is the gaseous manifestation of a shard's power doesn't mean it works in the same way, and we've seen no indication of stormlight working similarly to how mist do as you've described. 

Also, I find it odd that you're arguing that soulcasting would be relatively effective against TLR despite the amount of investiture he's got going on, but that emotional allomancy wouldn't be that effective against Heralds for the exact same reasons. Mind elaborating a bit on that discrepancy?

1 hour ago, Markus said:

This could probably take Rashek's investiture or maybe even the investiture out of his metalminds.  That would be seriously crippling.

We have no indication that Heralds just casually carry around larkins. Nale was because he knew he was going to find Lift. Nothing has indicated that Heralds at the time when they could've actually fought Rashek carried around larkins as weapons, so this is a moot point. 

1 hour ago, Markus said:

Constantly tapping F-atium is a good point.  However, I think it would be more crippling for Rashek than helpful.  Investiture interferes with investiture, and throwing a bunch of Stormlight at him might cancel out the atium for a second.  In that case, he would age incredibly and die.

Nothing we have seen indicates that throwing investiture at a target interferes with the investiture they already have. Everything has only shown the opposite to occur, where the investiture already in place resists further addition of investiture. As such, I doubt this would actually happen and could count as a credible threat. 

1 hour ago, Markus said:

To the speed question: Heralds are fast.  As I said before, Talenel manages to catch a dart without any stormlight.  We know that stormlight enhances, perfects.  He won't be as fast as Rashek, but he's going to be fast.  Really fast.  And if @Spoolofwhool is right, and the Herald has unlimited stormlight, then, he's going to be even faster and stronger.  Add this to other surgebinding powers and they're really powerful.  Cohesion, for example would hurt him.

Apparently darts can go up to 400 ft/s, or 439 km/h. Interesting. Still can be six times slower than a bullet.

 I'll note that while having a mainline to Honor's power means that they won't ever run out of stormlight, it doesn't mean that they don't have a limit on how much they can use at a given moment, so unlimited is incorrect.

We know next to nothing about what surgebinding cohesion would do so using it as an example is completely moot, and at best, speculation.

1 hour ago, Markus said:

I think that the right Herald could beat Rashek, and that all ten would easily destroy him.

I still see no reason to think that any Heralds, with what powers we know them to possess pre-Aharetiam, could beat TLR one on one. All ten at once, I would doubt TLR's chance, but one on one I would bet on TLR every time.