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Kelsier vs. Dalinar


Kelsier vs. Dalinar  

80 members have voted

  1. 1. Kell vs. Dalinar

    • Kelsier
      60
    • Dalinar
      17
    • Stalemate
      3


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Plate really doesn't seem that strong. The Parshendi were throwing rocks at Shardbearers and getting pretty good results. Arrows can damage plate too, and a coin should at the very least beat that. And the max force is not fully equal to the anchor at all. Strong Allomancers are able to produce much more force than their weight should allow. It's involved, certainly, but it's not a be-all, end-all.

Also, coins are smaller than people. A lot smaller. To accelerate a coin to the speed Kal was going, he'd need nowhere as much force.

 

Exactly! Along with this, it's not just one coin hitting at a time, it's dozens of speeding coins hitting in a relatively short time span, over and over again. How long would a shardbearer last if there was an entire contingent of archers firing shaft after shaft at him at close range? The time it would take to push on the coins, impact, pull them back, and push again has to be exponentially faster than an average archer shooting as fast as they can. Combine this with the fact that he can push on dozens of coins at once, I don't see how steelpushing can be discredited. 

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Well, Kaladin was going at lots of G's at that point, so high mass+high acceleration over a relatively small area (his feet) means lots of Force.

 

With a Steelpush, the max Force that can be applied is equal to the weight of the anchor, usually the mass of the person Pushing the coins.  Since coins are a lot less massive than a person, the coins can go pretty fast.  If Kelsier were to anchor himself to the point where he could Push the coins to the speed that Kaladin was going, he'd end up breaking his own bones, and Pewter wouldn't be able to heal nearly that fast.  He'd need almost that amount of force in order to even make hairline cracks.

 

I think that your weight determines the max acceleration, not max speed. Heavier people can, in the same amount of time, make a coin go faster than a smaller person would be able to. 

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I concede that Coinpushing might be somewhat stronger than many of us have argued, but I do posit that it would not give Kelsier an automatic win. Dalinar is savvy enough to rapidly understand what successive volleys would do to his Plate, and would likely go hide behind something that would give him sufficient protection against it. And then we're back to the stale-mate.

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Pewter does have some healing properties, although they're somewhat minor.

As for durapewter, see this: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7842-kelsier-vs-dalinar/?p=131089 Kell has no duralumin.

 

It does, but I always thought of it as being more towards boosting the body's own natural healing system rather than magical regeneration.

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I concede that Coinpushing might be somewhat stronger than many of us have argued, but I do posit that it would not give Kelsier an automatic win. Dalinar is savvy enough to rapidly understand what successive volleys would do to his Plate, and would likely go hide behind something that would give him sufficient protection against it. And then we're back to the stale-mate.

It's the Shattered Plains. It's pretty barren, and most things will be pretty-low-lying after erosion. Not much to hide behind. Plus, Kelsier can fly. He shouldn't have much difficulty moving to an angle that isn't blocked by the object.
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So. I can't change the poll to make votes public so here is my current tally of votes. Let me know if something is wrong.

Kelsier (11):

Awesomeness Summoned

Kobold King

Bartbug

Crystalbodies

El_warko

RShara

Moogle

Cracknut

Numb

Baine

PorridgeBrick

EMTrevor

Dalinar(6):

Ketek

ollie99

RShara

Edgedancer

Shaggai

Mailliw73

And Aether is at a stalemate between the two.

What does everyone think about me writing something up for this battle in a little bit based on discussion and voting?

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Plate really doesn't seem that strong. The Parshendi were throwing rocks at Shardbearers and getting pretty good results. Arrows can damage plate too, and a coin should at the very least beat that. And the max force is not fully equal to the anchor at all. Strong Allomancers are able to produce much more force than their weight should allow. It's involved, certainly, but it's not a be-all, end-all.

Also, coins are smaller than people. A lot smaller. To accelerate a coin to the speed Kal was going, he'd need nowhere as much force.

 

Plate is stronger than we think. Like I said, it seems weak because we tend to see things like Shardblades, Lashings, a bloody high drop and boulders being used against Shardbearers. Considering how a prospective bearer's training includes understanding the durability of their armor, I certainly think it's far stronger than it's looked like thus far.

 

It's the Shattered Plains. It's pretty barren, and most things will be pretty-low-lying after erosion. Not much to hide behind. Plus, Kelsier can fly. He shouldn't have much difficulty moving to an angle that isn't blocked by the object.

 

There are pinnacles and stuff like those even on the Plains, I recall Dalinar and Elhokar racing each other on one. Kelsier's 'flying' is actually pretty limited. He wouldn't be able to maneuver himself past a single plain, because his Steelpushing wouldn't angle him correctly to fly over the chasms. Dalinar could just jump.

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So. I can't change the poll to make votes public so here is my current tally of votes. Let me know if something is wrong.

Kelsier (11):

Awesomeness Summoned

Kobold King

Bartbug

Crystalbodies

El_warko

RShara

Moogle

Cracknut

Numb

Baine

PorridgeBrick

EMTrevor

Dalinar(6):

Ketek

ollie99

RShara

Edgedancer

Shaggai

Mailliw73

And Aether is at a stalemate between the two.

What does everyone think about me writing something up for this battle in a little bit based on discussion and voting?

 

The poll says 13-10 though...

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It's the Shattered Plains. It's pretty barren, and most things will be pretty-low-lying after erosion. Not much to hide behind. Plus, Kelsier can fly. He shouldn't have much difficulty moving to an angle that isn't blocked by the object.

Oh, right, the Shattered Plains. Ketek makes my next point for me. The Plains aren't quite as barren as you suggest, and Kelsier can't fly around quite as easily as a Windrunner or Skybreaker.

 

So. I can't change the poll to make votes public so here is my current tally of votes. Let me know if something is wrong.

Kelsier (11):

Awesomeness Summoned

Kobold King

Bartbug

Crystalbodies

El_warko

RShara

Moogle

Cracknut

Numb

Baine

PorridgeBrick

EMTrevor

Dalinar(6):

Ketek

ollie99

RShara

Edgedancer

Shaggai

Mailliw73

And Aether is at a stalemate between the two.

What does everyone think about me writing something up for this battle in a little bit based on discussion and voting?

A List, a List! Up-vote for the List!

 

Unless one of them quickly gets the upper hand (which really depends on how fast Dalinar can gap-close and how powerful a Coin volley really is), I think this is more of a Stalemate. This should really be added to the voting options, by the way.

Edited by Aether
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Plate is stronger than we think. Like I said, it seems weak because we tend to see things like Shardblades, Lashings, a bloody high drop and boulders being used against Shardbearers. Considering how a prospective bearer's training includes understanding the durability of their armor, I certainly think it's far stronger than it's looked like thus far.

Yet arrows are able to harm it. That's certainly not weak or anything, but it's nowhere near as impenetrable as RShara was making it sound.
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Yet arrows are able to harm it. That's certainly not weak or anything, but it's nowhere near as impenetrable as RShara was making it sound.

 

Certainly. But I do wonder how long it took... need to reread TWoK sometime.

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They mention a Lighteyed archer killing a Shardbearer, but that was only after a horde of Spearmen had given him a decent bashing. I was under the impression that he killed him through an already destroyed and open section of the Plate. And if pelting a Shardbearer with arrows was so effective, then why does the Parshendi never use their Archer companies against them? Instead of sicking a never-ending line of War-pair on them, wouldn't it be more effective to send only some to keep them occupied while you pelter them with arrows? I think we are over-estimating the effectiveness of arrows here, and we shouldn't thus use it as a basis to determine the effect of Coin volleys.

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They mention a Lighteyed archer killing a Shardbearer, but that was only after a horde of Spearmen had given him a decent bashing. I was under the impression that he killed him through an already destroyed and open section of the Plate. And if pelting a Shardbearer with arrows was so effective, then why does the Parshendi never use their Archer companies against them? Instead of sicking a never-ending line of War-pair on them, wouldn't it be more effective to send only some to keep them occupied while you pelter them with arrows? I think we are over-estimating the effectiveness of arrows here, and we shouldn't thus use it as a basis to determine the effect of Coin volleys.

Arrows aren't effective because:

1. they need to be shot from a long distance so that Shardbearer doesn't gets to them before arrows even descend.

2. Volley of arrows shot from a distance are easily distinguished therefore easily avoided by Shardbearers speed.

3. They shouldn't glace off the armor, otherwise they will be as useless as they were against Bridge Four's bone armor.

4. Considering that Roshar is a windy place hitting a single target from a distance would be about pure luck, shooting volleys in a charging mass of Bridgerunners is easier though.

I will also add that we don't really know what kind of bows Parshendi are using and if Warform is supporting it. Maybe they have Archerform or something and they're actually really bad archers as they are so charging Shardbearers looks like a better option.

What about Shardbows? Do you think they could harm Shardplates?

No matter how you look at it arrows have more puncture power than any melee weapon. If a straight hit from a well aimed arrow can't harm Shardplate then I don't know what could. And we know that they get dented and even broken with close range weapons even if takes some time. So what I'm trying to say is that if it were possible to hit with arrows as easily as it is with melee weapons than arrows would do the job much faster.

Comparing coins to arrows is wrong, I agree as they're too different but that's closest thing we got to coins in Cosmere. So lets talk about coin vs arrow:

+Coins are smaller, therefore harder to spot.

+Coins don't need to be reloaded.

+Coins can be shot while moving at high speed.

+Coins are infinite as you can pull them to you afterwards.

-Coins don't have pointy ends thus less piercing power.

-Arrows also have better design for traveling through air.

(Kelsier also could stay 'just out of reach' and close enough to make avoiding coins impossible and being pushed from Dalinar would work in his hand)

Now it's obvious that arrows would deal much more damage to Shardplates than coins but coins are faster and defter(I could miss something here as I'm sleepy right now but point still stands: arrows = stronger/coins = faster), BUT there's one more point:

Coins keep getting pushed as they travel, while arrows only get momentum when they're shot and as they descend from the sky. It's a fact that Steelpush is stronger than gravity. I'm not that good at physics so I'm not sure about this whole thing but I believe coins do travel with same speed as arrows if not faster, and even though they don't have sharp points they would still be a serious problem for Shardplate.

Also, if I'm remembering correctly Wax pushed on bullets thus proving thus proving that it had enough power to affect force of bullet, which is obviously much stronger than any arrow or hammer could ever get.

I'm not saying that Kel would be able to pierce it with a single coin, or that he would be able to hit every time, or that it would be easy but he most likely would win. And there's no way he would lose. It's either tie or Kel's win. Why? Because there's no way Dalinar could stop him or bring him close to him if Kelsier didn't wish it and Kelsier was a smart guy.

Edited by Cracknut
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Comparing coins to arrows is wrong, I agree as they're too different but that's closest thing we got to coins in Cosmere. So lets talk about coin vs arrow:

+Coins are smaller, therefore harder to spot.

+Coins don't need to be reloaded.

+Coins can be shot while moving at high speed.

+Coins are infinite as you can pull them to you afterwards.

-Coins don't have pointy ends thus less piercing power.

-Arrows also have better design for traveling through air.

(Kelsier also could stay 'just out of reach' and close enough to make avoiding coins impossible and being pushed from Dalinar would work in his hand)

Now it's obvious that arrows would deal much more damage to Shardplates than coins but coins are faster and defter(I could miss something here as I'm sleepy right now but point still stands: arrows = stronger/coins = faster), BUT there's one more point:

Coins keep getting pushed as they travel, while arrows only get momentum when they're shot and as they descend from the sky. It's a fact that Steelpush is stronger than gravity. I'm not that good at physics so I'm not sure about this whole thing but I believe coins do travel with same speed as arrows if not faster, and even though they don't have sharp points they would still be a serious problem for Shardplate.

Also, if I'm remembering correctly Wax pushed on bullets thus proving thus proving that it had enough power to affect force of bullet, which is obviously much stronger than any arrow or hammer could ever get.

I'm not saying that Kel would be able to pierce it with a single coin, or that he would be able to hit every time, or that it would be easy but he most likely would win. And there's no way he would lose. It's either tie or Kel's win. Why? Because there's no way Dalinar could stop him or bring him close to him if Kelsier didn't wish it and Kelsier was a smart guy.

Very good points, and I'm sure you're about to get a squeal out of Aether for the list. 

 

 

 

I however, have a few points in to contradicting points in your list

 

1: Coins don't have pointy ends, thus less piercing power.

 

This is actually an advantage for the coin. You aren't going to pierce shardplate. Period. The only time we see that happening is when Szeth lashes himself down multiple times in succession and lands shardblade point down. This is partially why the arrows won't inflict damage, the smaller surface area is redirecting the force back into the arrow, instead of penetrating. If the Rosharan's would create a flat point arrow, it would be much more effective. The coins are able to push more of the energy from the shot into the shardplate because it will contact with more surface area. 

 

 

2:Arrows are better designed for traveling through the air

 

Arrows are designed that way because of the need for flight stability. Allomantically propelled coins will have a much more stable flight path because of the nature of the continual push, unless the allomancer is moving. The way allomancy affects the coin eliminates this as an advantage the arrow has. 

 

 

They mention a Lighteyed archer killing a Shardbearer, but that was only after a horde of Spearmen had given him a decent bashing. I was under the impression that he killed him through an already destroyed and open section of the Plate. And if pelting a Shardbearer with arrows was so effective, then why does the Parshendi never use their Archer companies against them? Instead of sicking a never-ending line of War-pair on them, wouldn't it be more effective to send only some to keep them occupied while you pelter them with arrows? I think we are over-estimating the effectiveness of arrows here, and we shouldn't thus use it as a basis to determine the effect of Coin volleys.

 

I do want to say, begrudgingly, that I was not able to find the section (that I'm sure exists) where the arrow harms the plate, but I did find a section where arrows are bouncing uselessly off of it. Definitely a point in your favor. But I still think a coinshot is almost a perfect weapon against a shardbearer. Sure, one hit isn't much, but a storm of 100 coins all hitting with the same force as an arrow, but most likely higher; it would be enough to make them stumble at the very least. The only reason I could see for why they weren't effective on Scadrial is because coins were easy to deflect by another allomancer. 

Edited by EMTrevor
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The list was nice, but I have some aesthetic issues with it.

 

And concerning the arrows, you'll note that all I said was that we likely shouldn't use them as a standard to evaluate the effectiveness of Coinshooting. I do now think, as per many of the arguments, that Coinshooting (at least from a Mistborn of Kelsier's calibre) would be more powerful than arrows. It is on how much more our opinions differ. I do think we need a WoB on this.

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The list was nice, but I have some aesthetic issues with it.

 

And concerning the arrows, you'll note that all I said was that we likely shouldn't use them as a standard to evaluate the effectiveness of Coinshooting. I do now think, as per many of the arguments, that Coinshooting (at least from a Mistborn of Kelsier's calibre) would be more powerful than arrows. It is on how much more our opinions differ. I do think we need a WoB on this.

 

I just couldn't bring myself to make my last point in the post in your favor, so I went ahead and beat the dead horse some more.  :D

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Very good points, and I'm sure you're about to get a squeal out of Aether for the list. 

 

 

 

I however, have a few points in to contradicting points in your list

 

1: Coins don't have pointy ends, thus less piercing power.

 

This is actually an advantage for the coin. You aren't going to pierce shardplate. Period. The only time we see that happening is when Szeth lashes himself down multiple times in succession and lands shardblade point down. This is partially why the arrows won't inflict damage, the smaller surface area is redirecting the force back into the arrow, instead of penetrating. If the Rosharan's would create a flat point arrow, it would be much more effective. The coins are able to push more of the energy from the shot into the shardplate because it will contact with more surface area. 

 

 

2:Arrows are better designed for traveling through the air

 

Arrows are designed that way because of the need for flight stability. Allomantically propelled coins will have a much more stable flight path because of the nature of the continual push, unless the allomancer is moving. The way allomancy affects the coin eliminates this as an advantage the arrow has. 

Had to throw in some advantages for arrows :D Knew second one was useless, first one is why I'm bad at physics :D

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This is quite like the battle between a bear and a wasp. The bear is Dallinar and the wasp is Kelsier. The bear has plenty of fur and can lurch quickly if necessary (Shardplate). A single blow is lethal or crippling (Shardblade)The wasp is fast and mobile (Allomancy) and can rain down small but annoying blows (coins). Eventually, both will tire. Both can make mistakes.

So what's the outcome?

Simple. A hunter comes, shoots the bear and swats the wasp.

Edited by Lightsworn Panda
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