Non-Compounder Twinborn Synergies

[Cocoa]

Putting aside resonances (since we only know a little about them for surgebinders, and even less for metalborn) and compounding for a moment, what are some of the best Twinborn combos you can think of? Not simply "oh wow, these are both great powers," but pairs of powers that especially compliment each other? Here's what I've got so far:

• a-Tin and f-Electrum could work well if electrum let you stubborn through the worst effects of sensory overload.
• a-Pewter and either f-Steel or f-Gold are quite broken in terms of raw combat power. You could also use a-Pewter and f-Tin to become a bootleg Survivor of the Flames. One other thing I'd be curious about is whether tapping wakefullness or breath would let you push yourself for longer without causing a pewter drag.
• a-Pewter and f-Iron is an interesting one. Since Ham commented in Era 1 about Vin's pewter power being condensed because of her small frame, I think it must be additive rather than multiplicative. That means that as you tap lots of mass, your pewter strength is gonna seem less and less relevant instead of compounding with the multiplied strength you get from tapping. And if you burn pewter in combat and store mass, you'll probably just send yourself flying whenever you try hitting something. So all in all, this combo would probably be best for mobility. Something I actually think would be really cool to see is a pewter/iron twinborn ballerina. You get the strength, stamina, and grace of pewter (see: Vin and Elend's dance in HoA) plus the ability to work in incredible leaps thanks to storing your weight.
• a-Iron and f-Gold would pair well provided you're willing to spend a lot of time storing up health. Ironpull on bullets to yank them away from your squishy friends, ironpull on large structures with decreased consequences if you crash, etc.
• We've got ample canon evidence for why Crashers are such a powerful combo. Steel/pewter twinborn like Forch can also do this to a lesser extent I think, since the added or lost muscle mass has some effect on your steelpushing. Whether you can do some of the more limited tricks as a steel/bendalloy twinborn depends on if it works like in the MAG, where tapping lots of calories at once causes you to pack on weight.
• Either a-Zinc or a-Brass would pair quite well with f-Duralumin and f-Zinc (even ignoring compounding in Zinc's case) for a social person.
• a-Bronze works best for lookouts and trackers, so to that end I think it would synergize best with f-Tin. f-Zinc might also be good, if it gave you more subjective time to sort through the information you're receiving and maybe pick out a particular metal being burned.
• f-Speed would, I think, be pretty invaluable for a nicroburst or leecher. In close quarters with an allomancer, acting fast might save your life. And on the flip side, a-Chromium and a-Nicrosil are nice compliments for a brawler who mostly relies on f-Pewter.
• a-Gold and f-Aluminum could be either very good together or very, very bad, depending on how exactly Identity and gold shadows work. If tapping identity make you more resilient in the face of a gold shadow, great. If identity makes the differences between you and the shadow more pronounced, then you can at least store it and maybe suffer less side-effects that way. But if tapping it makes the differences worse and storing it makes you liable to lose yourself in the shadow, you're kind of hosed. f-Electrum, at least, should hopefully let you burn gold without too many side effects.
• One unorthodox combo that I'm still very convinced would yield interesting results is a-Electrum (or possibly even gold) and f-Chromium. (Word of Brandon and Stormlight spoilers)

Spoiler

We've seen Odium imply and Brandon confirm that Fortune is more than luck manipulation, but that it's tied somehow to the spiritual realm and seeing the future. What would happen, then, if you burned electrum and tapped Fortune, especially in huge amounts? Perhaps it lets you see further into your possible futures? And if so, what does that make gold shadows then? Are they somehow and aspect of Fortune, just from branches of possibility that never came to pass?

• a-Bendalloy pairs best with close-combat feruchemical metals: steel pewter, and gold. You throw one up around you and a single opponent, beat the snot out of him, drop it and move onto the next guy. I'd say of these it pairs best with f-Steel, since that's the one I can best imagine someone tossing up a bubble for, standing perfectly still and dumping as much investiture as they possibly can into their metalminds, and then using that investiture when the bubble drops. With f-Zinc, of course, you also get the doubled effect of being in a speed bubble while you tap your accuity, which really just makes you think ludicrously fast.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Cocoa

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

I love the idea of being a super acrobat with A-pewter and F-iron.  Tapping to double your weight then jumping and instantly storing down to nothing could launch you so far.   Then just tap weight as you are landing to slow yourself down. 

A-pewter and F-zinc wouldn't be quite as broken as with F-steel but I think the zinc would bring you so much benefit outside of combat it would more than make up for being limited to a pewter enhanced person who can nearly instantly think through all of their enemies telegraphing in a conflict.  

Really honestly anything with A-pewter because I simply see no drawback to having that much added physical ability.  

 

[FictionSpren]

A-chromium and F-Steel. 
Hyperdrive. 
No more needs to be said. 
 

isnt there also 256 possible twinborn combos or is my maths questionable. This could be a problematic rabbit hole. 

Edited December 30, 2021 by FictionSpren

[Cocoa]

26 minutes ago, FictionSpren said:

isnt there also 256 possible twinborn combos or is my maths questionable. This could be a problematic rabbit hole. 

256, correct, since so far as we know there's no more godmetal mistings. If we disregard non-compounding combos where the allomantic ability is duralumin or aluminum (though I'm not entirely convinced burning duralumin while tapping wouldn't do something, and those twinborn would still have resonances) then the number drops to 226.

If you stick to one allomantic metal at a time and ask "what feruchemical abilities would mesh well with this ability?" (or vice-versa), then it becomes a lot more manageable to figure out combos.

[Halyo_Alex]

Speaking of "no more godmetal mistings," A-Electrum, F-Zinc.

Tap Zinc for the mental boost of A-Atium, burn Electrum for the future-sight. Granted, it's future sight of yourself, but with the more customizable (in terms of potency) mental boost of Zinc feruchemy, I find it plausible that you could set up a system of hand gestures or other signs that only make sense to yourself, and then commit to, "if option A turns out well for me, I do gesture X, if option B turns out poorly I do gesture Y," and then your Electrum shadows will do a gesture based on how their choices turn out, which you can analyze while mentally boosted and then replicate that shadow's sequence of actions for the best outcome of the potential futures you saw.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

An A-bronze and F-tin would make the perfect lookout/seeker for a group.  You could store your bronze while your coppermind buddy is around and then tap it to continue seeking even when said coppermind is not around.  

[Cocoa]

7 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

An A-bronze and F-tin would make the perfect lookout/seeker for a group.  You could store your bronze while your coppermind buddy is around and then tap it to continue seeking even when said coppermind is not around.  

I think that depends in part on whether or not bronze-detection counts as a 'sense' or not. I do agree they mesh well for a lookout/tracker regardless, though.

[+Bzhydack]

A-Bendaloy works very good with almost all Feruchemy, except Iron and maybe Duralumin, because allows you to bypass the main drawback of this Metalic Art, witch is fact you need to store atribute, what takes time and let you vulnerable or just unconfortable thruout many hours. With A-Bendaloy you can reduce time of storing to just seconds/minuts. And works for allies too!

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, Bzhydack said:

A-Bendaloy works very good with almost all Feruchemy, except Iron and maybe Duralumin, because allows you to bypass the main drawback of this Metalic Art, witch is fact you need to store atribute, what takes time and let you vulnerable or just unconfortable thruout many hours. With A-Bendaloy you can reduce time of storing to just seconds/minuts. And works for allies too!

I was just picturing a F-pewter A-bendalloy using the rest of his strength to throw an enemy out through his bubble and then immediately start storing up strength again and the enemy has to slowly fly/fall regain their footing and come back through the bubble to keep fighting.  

[Trusk'our]

On 12/29/2021 at 11:39 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

Speaking of "no more godmetal mistings," A-Electrum, F-Zinc.

Tap Zinc for the mental boost of A-Atium, burn Electrum for the future-sight. Granted, it's future sight of yourself, but with the more customizable (in terms of potency) mental boost of Zinc feruchemy, I find it plausible that you could set up a system of hand gestures or other signs that only make sense to yourself, and then commit to, "if option A turns out well for me, I do gesture X, if option B turns out poorly I do gesture Y," and then your Electrum shadows will do a gesture based on how their choices turn out, which you can analyze while mentally boosted and then replicate that shadow's sequence of actions for the best outcome of the potential futures you saw.

I've just got to say it, I absolutely love this idea  

It also seems like it could be very, very powerful, even if you only could see a few seconds in the future.

[Cocoa]

4 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

A-Bendaloy works very good with almost all Feruchemy, except Iron and maybe Duralumin, because allows you to bypass the main drawback of this Metalic Art, witch is fact you need to store atribute, what takes time and let you vulnerable or just unconfortable thruout many hours. With A-Bendaloy you can reduce time of storing to just seconds/minuts. And works for allies too!

I certainly agree with that in theory, but in practice you run up against one of the major limits of allomancy: you have to consume metal. Bendalloy in particular is an expensive and, so far as I can tell, fast-burning metal. In effect, you're trading off one logistical issue for another. You can buy time to store your feruchemical attribute in the most literal sense possible, but you have to spend time making money to buy more metal to make more time. I think there's a reason Wayne just spends time in bed storing up goldmind health instead of using his bendalloy to do it, even though he has easier access to bendalloy than most sliders on account of Wax's wealth.

[Raphaborn]

I find it difficult to overcome the synergy between almost all of Feruchemy's powers + Duralumin. 
But I think A-Bendalloy + F-Bronze is underrated. Just store wakefulness inside a Bendalloy-bubble and have as much productive time as possible outside the bubble.
A-Pewter and F-Gold too. It's a great way of life. You will always be strong, fast and balanced and can always store boosted health. So, in the worst of consequences you are in the normal health you were born. At best, it can survive being beheaded.

[Cocoa]

13 minutes ago, Raphaborn said:

I find it difficult to overcome the synergy between almost all of Feruchemy's powers + Duralumin.

Depends on what burning duralumin does to tapping a metalmind. Personally, I'm convinced there should be some way to use it to boost feruchemy, even if it just amps up your draw rate, but by default it just boosts other metals you're burning, and we've never seen anyone use it differently up to this point.

[lukaash]

7 hours ago, Cocoa said:

Depends on what burning duralumin does to tapping a metalmind. Personally, I'm convinced there should be some way to use it to boost feruchemy, even if it just amps up your draw rate, but by default it just boosts other metals you're burning, and we've never seen anyone use it differently up to this point.

Can't feruchemists already do this? They already control how much exits a metalmind. I don't think that Duralumin will have any special effect on Feruchemy that is different than what a Feruchemist could already do. Mabye duralumin pulls all of the power out at once, but they they can already do that. Wax's massive tower crush is a good example of that.

Mabye duralumin will increase the amount stored when it does it massive pull. That could be an interesting resonance, but idk if that is true. 

[Cocoa]

10 hours ago, lukaash said:

Can't feruchemists already do this? They already control how much exits a metalmind. I don't think that Duralumin will have any special effect on Feruchemy that is different than what a Feruchemist could already do. Mabye duralumin pulls all of the power out at once, but they they can already do that. Wax's massive tower crush is a good example of that.

Mabye duralumin will increase the amount stored when it does it massive pull. That could be an interesting resonance, but idk if that is true. 

I think it's a technical quibble. I think there's probably some physical limit as to how fast feruchemists can tap an attribute, but if so it's such a high ceiling that you'll almost never hit it. If there's a trick to boosting feruchemy, it'd just push that never-touch-it ceiling even higher. It'd only ever really be useful when tapping the full stores of something like the bands of mourning.

Or my mostly-baseless speculation is wrong, the only physical limit on feruchemy at all is the speed-of-Intent you need to activate it, and duralumin burning really does have no use for a twinborn aside from resonance. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Either way, I disagree with Raphaborn that a-Duralumin has synergy with all sorts of Feruchemy. We haven't seen anyone use the two together in canon yet, and even if my speculation is correct it's such a niche interaction I wouldn't really call it 'synergy.'

Edited January 2, 2022 by Cocoa

[StanLemon]

If you ignore Compounding, there are a number of good same metal synergies that exist. So lets for a second imagine that these Twinborn didn't know about Compounding

There are numerous Tin threads, so no real need to go into that

Double Pewter, burning while tapping Strength would allow for a great deal of dexterity and additional power even while Hulked out.

Double Iron, you would be the best Allomantic anchor and I'm sure the manipulation of Weight would let you do some fun trajectory alteration

Double Zinc, increasing your mental speeds would probably be very helpful Rioting

Just some quick examples. For separate metals. 

Allomantic Steel would go fantastic with Feruchemical Zinc. The increased mental speed would be able to keep track of every line I'm sure, and plan out how best to use them all.

 A-Cadmium would work good with F-Steel. If you have a large number of people you want to disable, throw up a Cadmium Bubble, tap Steel and you have them disabled while putting yourself at minimum risk. Especially if you are disabling while there are civilians still around.

[FictionSpren]

On 02/01/2022 at 7:16 AM, Raphaborn said:

I find it difficult to overcome the synergy between almost all of Feruchemy's powers + Duralumin. 
But I think A-Bendalloy + F-Bronze is underrated. Just store wakefulness inside a Bendalloy-bubble and have as much productive time as possible outside the bubble.
A-Pewter and F-Gold too. It's a great way of life. You will always be strong, fast and balanced and can always store boosted health. So, in the worst of consequences you are in the normal health you were born. At best, it can survive being beheaded.

Everyone seems to be forgetting the speed at which bendally burns. It’s one of the fastest, being up there with pewter and even atium. Many of these combos are in theory powerful but the amount of bendalloy being burned is barely feasible. Unless storing F-steel allowed you to essentially have a longer A-bendalloy and then you had an additional F/A attribute. So yeah hemalurgy and Mistborn stuff needed here.

Not to burst anyone’s bubble (no pun intended). 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

2 hours ago, FictionSpren said:

Not to burst anyone’s bubble (no pun intended). 

The effects of people passing through bubbles and the bubbles bursting are actually my favorite part of bendalloy and cadmium.  Legit I think it would be a pretty funny day to set up a bubble as someone is about to pass through it without realizing it is up.   I would love to see this aspect of these metals be a focal point in a conflict one day in text.  

[cometaryorbit]

Best option for future sight might actually be f-Nicrosil / a-Electrum. Storing lots of Allomantic power in nicrosil then tapping it all at once with an electrum burn might get to something like the Spiritual Realm vision of duralumin+atium.

My favorite non Compounding combos, besides Wax and Wayne's that we actually see in the books, are f-Gold and a-Pewter / f-Steel and a-Pewter, since health and speed are usually very hard to store, but you can just make up for the storing loss by burning pewter,  which isn't a very expensive metal. But those were already brought up.

Mental fortress combo: a-Copper (soothing and rioting protection) + f-Electrum (determination). But we don't really know what feruchemical determination looks like.

In era 2 or later, with skyscrapers, a-Iron plus either f-Pewter or f-Steel would be basically a Spiderman combo.

F-Gold would let a Coinshot do much more daring things with steel jumping, and do anchored Pushes that would damage a normal human (things Vin uses pewter to brace herself for).

 

[+Bzhydack]

10 hours ago, FictionSpren said:

Everyone seems to be forgetting the speed at which bendally burns. It’s one of the fastest, being up there with pewter and even atium. Many of these combos are in theory powerful but the amount of bendalloy being burned is barely feasible. Unless storing F-steel allowed you to essentially have a longer A-bendalloy and then you had an additional F/A attribute. So yeah hemalurgy and Mistborn stuff needed here.

Not to burst anyone’s bubble (no pun intended). 

Bendaloy is now rather expensive metal on Scadrial, probably because is relatively new alloy. But remember, we have whole unexplored planet. Also, bendaloy components are cadmium, bismuth, lead and tin, and two latter already have use in Allomancy. In our world bendaloy have not very wide use, but on Scadrial, where is magical with very usefull power I can see why they would want to produce it in very large amounts. Especially if our prediction about Scadrian Warp Drive will be true.

Also, faster you burn Bendaloy, then larger time compression is. In fact, you dont need burn very fast during storing metalminds. Also, it works on others too -  gather few Ferrings around you and help all of them charge metalminds. Maybe even for a price.

[lukaash]

On 1/3/2022 at 7:00 AM, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

The effects of people passing through bubbles and the bubbles bursting are actually my favorite part of bendalloy and cadmium.  Legit I think it would be a pretty funny day to set up a bubble as someone is about to pass through it without realizing it is up.   I would love to see this aspect of these metals be a focal point in a conflict one day in text.  

This brings up a really interesting idea. You could have someone with f-steel and a-cadmium who just run around and make enemies really disoriented. You run in and pop up a speed bubble for only a couple of seconds inside of the bubble while outside time moves faster. You are moving faster as well though, so you nullify the drawback of cadmium (you slow down). When I say you move faster, I think that it would be wise to use just a little bit of speed. To make sure you can get in and out, but not so much that you burn through your metal mind. Then you drop your bubble, and leave a bunch of enemies disoriented and move onto a different group. If you were skilled enough, you could even catch someone on the edge of a speed bubble, and make there body do weird time stuff. I would bet that it would be very hard to recover from that fully. Similar to what Wayne does, but more support focused. 

The Cadmium is cheap, so that wouldn't be a problem. F-steel is hard to store, but it isn't the worst metal to store (health, strength, etc.). 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, lukaash said:

This brings up a really interesting idea. You could have someone with f-steel and a-cadmium who just run around and make enemies really disoriented. You run in and pop up a speed bubble for only a couple of seconds inside of the bubble while outside time moves faster. You are moving faster as well though, so you nullify the drawback of cadmium (you slow down). When I say you move faster, I think that it would be wise to use just a little bit of speed. To make sure you can get in and out, but not so much that you burn through your metal mind. Then you drop your bubble, and leave a bunch of enemies disoriented and move onto a different group. If you were skilled enough, you could even catch someone on the edge of a speed bubble, and make there body do weird time stuff. I would bet that it would be very hard to recover from that fully. Similar to what Wayne does, but more support focused. 

The Cadmium is cheap, so that wouldn't be a problem. F-steel is hard to store, but it isn't the worst metal to store (health, strength, etc.). 

I definately love the idea of even seeing cadmium charged into a cube in a battle with a groups.  You could drop a line of bubbles that not only bring your enemies to an absolute stand still but also make them all catch a momentary wave of extreme nausea and dizziness.  Then have steel pushers toss out handfuls of any objects they can get their hands on and pepper it all into the bubbles.  Absolutely devastating to an enemy formation... shoot even a single enemy against A-Cadmium paired with a cube and a ranged option for a weapon.  

Pair it with F-Nicrosil and potentially supercharge your allomantic time slowing grenade to a time stopping grenade.  Enough metal objects flying through a speed bubble and you are sure to hit with one or two.  

For a group of enemy foot soldiers I also love the idea of a pile up of puking tripping and falling allies as you are charging forward and the people in front of you suddenly stop in their tracks.  Imagine you start impaling all of your buddies lined up in front of you because mid charge they just stop... before you realize what's happening you have spears and swords from behind you hitting you too...   I know this isn't a picture that is great for the gun toting scadrial population but it seems a totally viable tactic if it ever came to war with other planets who still rely on melee combat primarily.