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Scadrian vs. Rosharan magic post RoW


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Well, after RoW, Radiants now

1. Have experience fighting enemies who can drain their investiture.

2. Some of them have living shardplate, which is shown to regenerate quickly upon taking damage.

3. Have a lot more combat experience.

4. Have better showings of regeneration. (Kaladin repeatedly healing from stabs to the spine for a long time before running low on stormlight)

We have not, however, seen:

1. Stonewards in combat.

2. Exact details about the difference between living and dead shardplate.

So, has reading RoW changed anyone's mind about the battle between Radiants and Mistborn? Which Twinborn matchups can the Radiants now win? How many Radiants to kill a Fullborn?

Edited by Ookla the Unnamable
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Also - have we ever seen a full mistborn actually using all 16 metals? I think a radiant might be pulling ahead right now, but that's without knowing exactly how powerful the other metals can make a full mistborn. I think a full mistborn might have issues actually killing a radiant especially if living plate could block investiture draining, mostly because of how quickly radiants can heal and how much the plate blocks what a mistborn can do. (Does emotional allomancy work through plate? Can plate be pushed/pulled? I assume no because its too heavily invested)

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2 hours ago, Harfyn said:

Also - have we ever seen a full mistborn actually using all 16 metals? I think a radiant might be pulling ahead right now, but that's without knowing exactly how powerful the other metals can make a full mistborn. I think a full mistborn might have issues actually killing a radiant especially if living plate could block investiture draining, mostly because of how quickly radiants can heal and how much the plate blocks what a mistborn can do. (Does emotional allomancy work through plate? Can plate be pushed/pulled? I assume no because its too heavily invested)

No, we have not yet seen a Mistborn using all the metals. Plate cannot be (easily) pushed or pulled, but I am not sure if it blocks emotional allomancy.

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Is the fight a Fullborn with unlimited metal VS a Radiant with unlimited Stormlight? I think in that situation a Fullborn wins every time. If they both had just an equal amount of fuel available, but the Fullborn still had an equal amount of each metal, I'd still say the Fullborn. If you take into account the rarity of each of their sources of power, then I'd say the Radiant wins, because a lot of the Alloymancy stuff would require a supply line to smelters and access to stuff that's hard to get ahold of. Radiants just need to have spheres. We haven't seen the capabilities of a Fifth Ideal Radiant though, so maybe they'd do better.

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1 hour ago, seriodor said:

Is the fight a Fullborn with unlimited metal VS a Radiant with unlimited Stormlight? I think in that situation a Fullborn wins every time. If they both had just an equal amount of fuel available, but the Fullborn still had an equal amount of each metal, I'd still say the Fullborn. If you take into account the rarity of each of their sources of power, then I'd say the Radiant wins, because a lot of the Alloymancy stuff would require a supply line to smelters and access to stuff that's hard to get ahold of. Radiants just need to have spheres. We haven't seen the capabilities of a Fifth Ideal Radiant though, so maybe they'd do better.

Not a Fullborn, no. They could beat just about anyone who wasn't a shard. A Mistborn against a Radiant with infinite metals/stormlight, would lose for certain without Atium, and almost certainly lose with it. Hard to beat someone who won't stop regenerating. equal amounts of metals/stormlight, Radiant wins without Atium, it's a toss up if the Mistborn has a little Atium, and the Mistborn almost always wins with a lot of it.

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3 minutes ago, Ookla the Unnamable said:

Not a Fullborn, no. They could beat just about anyone who wasn't a shard. A Mistborn against a Radiant with infinite metals/stormlight, would lose for certain without Atium, and almost certainly lose with it. Hard to beat someone who won't stop regenerating. equal amounts of metals/stormlight, Radiant wins without Atium, it's a toss up if the Mistborn has a little Atium, and the Mistborn almost always wins with a lot of it.

Hmm I still think a full Mistborn would have a pretty good chance in those situations. In the infinite scenario they could use the Atium to make a plan to contain the Radiant rather than kill them. And Nicrosil seems like it's made for fighting Radiants. I think even without Atium a Mistborn with a plan could do pretty well.

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9 minutes ago, seriodor said:

Hmm I still think a full Mistborn would have a pretty good chance in those situations. In the infinite scenario they could use the Atium to make a plan to contain the Radiant rather than kill them. And Nicrosil seems like it's made for fighting Radiants. I think even without Atium a Mistborn with a plan could do pretty well.

With infinite Stormlight, Nicrosil doesn't matter. I'm guessing that Shardplate blocks Nicrosil, and even if it doesn't, Radiants currently have experience fighting enemies that can drain stormlight away from them.

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The thing is that, especially right now on Roshar, the Radiants are all engaging in war to some degree. I would expect every Order, except Bondsmiths, to spend a fair amount of time on fighting skills with their Surges and weapons. I might add that especially the Windrunners are used to fighting against similarly powered individuals. 

Mistborn are rare at the best of times, and rarely fight each other as a result. They don't have as much experience fighting people with a high level of abilities. In addition, Radiants have weapons and armor that is too invested to be manipulated easily, and is probably bulletproof (to a point), as well as the fact that I can't think of a good way to counter Surgebinding with Allomancy. 

In conclusion, In a fight of abilities and preferred weapons, the Mistborn don't have a chance. The best they can do is hide, manipulate emotions, and hope the Radiant doesn't kill them. Or get a cheap shot in with an aluminum bullet. But that's not the question. 

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On 12/3/2020 at 6:12 PM, Stormgate said:

The thing is that, especially right now on Roshar, the Radiants are all engaging in war to some degree. I would expect every Order, except Bondsmiths, to spend a fair amount of time on fighting skills with their Surges and weapons. I might add that especially the Windrunners are used to fighting against similarly powered individuals. 

Mistborn are rare at the best of times, and rarely fight each other as a result. They don't have as much experience fighting people with a high level of abilities. In addition, Radiants have weapons and armor that is too invested to be manipulated easily, and is probably bulletproof (to a point), as well as the fact that I can't think of a good way to counter Surgebinding with Allomancy. 

In conclusion, In a fight of abilities and preferred weapons, the Mistborn don't have a chance. The best they can do is hide, manipulate emotions, and hope the Radiant doesn't kill them. Or get a cheap shot in with an aluminum bullet. But that's not the question. 

I agree with a lot of this, but I do think that you're selling the Mistborn a little short. Against Radiants of the third ideal, I would give them a pretty big advantage. It's only when the Radiants get Shardplate that they get a big advantage.

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Because one of the prerequisites of being a radiant is a damaged spiritweb, strategic soothing (or maybe rioting, though I think that giving a Radiant depression for the duration of the fight would be more effective).

The problem with allomancy in a situation like this is that their main attacks (turning metal objects into high-speed projectiles, and blunt force while burning pewter) aren’t especially effective against Radiants, even without shardplate both of those can be countered by a quick-thinking Windrunner using reverse and full lashings, and that’s without shardweapons, which counter the healing ability of a feruchemist/fullborn, and pewter, by killing the target instantly when used on the right spot. And that’s without shardplate, which provides some measure of resistance against projectiles, and complete immunity to blunt force.

I would say that a 3rd ideal windunner/dustbringer could reliably beat a mistborn, though most of the other orders would reliably lose. I’d say the same thing with 4th ideal radiants and fullborns, which in total puts your average 5th ideal radiant far above even a fullborn. 
I feel like people often forget the sheer amount of power that’s running around on Roshar, and how scary it is that it’s geared primarily around combat. Like a shardbearer without radiant abilities would be able to match most mistborn in traditional combat.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again, Radiants are so far out of Mistborns leauge it's insane, it's really not a contest.

 

On 12/2/2020 at 2:39 PM, Harfyn said:

Also - have we ever seen a full mistborn actually using all 16 metals? I think a radiant might be pulling ahead right now, but that's without knowing exactly how powerful the other metals can make a full mistborn. I think a full mistborn might have issues actually killing a radiant especially if living plate could block investiture draining, mostly because of how quickly radiants can heal and how much the plate blocks what a mistborn can do. (Does emotional allomancy work through plate? Can plate be pushed/pulled? I assume no because its too heavily invested)

With how invested plate is

  1. It would block emotional allomancy
  2. It is neigh impossible to push/pull

A particularly strong Mistborn, might be able to do it with duralumin.

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1 hour ago, DiePie said:

Because one of the prerequisites of being a radiant is a damaged spiritweb, strategic soothing (or maybe rioting, though I think that giving a Radiant depression for the duration of the fight would be more effective).

It actually isn't as big of a deal as you thing. Yes, a broken spiritweb is required, but Lopen is broken enough to be a Radiant, and he is literally the opposite of depressed or emotionally unstable. Also, I'd say that people like Kaladin would be better at resisting pushes and pulls on their emotions, simply because of the experience they have fighting while depressed.

2 hours ago, DiePie said:

and that’s without shardweapons, which counter the healing ability of a feruchemist/fullborn, and pewter, by killing the target instantly when used on the right spot. And that’s without shardplate, which provides some measure of resistance against projectiles, and complete immunity to blunt force.

A regular bloodmaker like Wayne would likely die to a Shardblade, but a fullborn or gold compounder would be fine, as long as they tapped healing as the Radiant hit them. Shardplatge doesn't give complete immunity to blunt force, a pewter compounder could probably break it.

2 hours ago, DiePie said:

I would say that a 3rd ideal windunner/dustbringer could reliably beat a mistborn, though most of the other orders would reliably lose. I’d say the same thing with 4th ideal radiants and fullborns, which in total puts your average 5th ideal radiant far above even a fullborn. 
I feel like people often forget the sheer amount of power that’s running around on Roshar, and how scary it is that it’s geared primarily around combat. Like a shardbearer without radiant abilities would be able to match most mistborn in traditional combat.

I agree that a third ideal Windrunner/Dustbringer would do well against a Mistborn, but I would also add Skybreakers and perhaps Stonewards to that list, with some of the other orders able to beat Mistborn through stealthiness or trickery (Lightweavers, Elsecallers, Willshapers maybe?). You are however hugely underestimating the power of a fullborn. They could simply speedblitz the Radiant and use their superpowered A-pewter that they got from compounding nicrosil to punch throught the Radiants chestplate, then instantly drain the Radiants powers with super-A-chromium.

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My two cents. One, we absolutely cannot have any scenarios of infinite sources of Investiture. It would always be a stalemate. Radiant would always heal and Atium would almost assure that the Radiant couldn't touch the Mistborn. 

After the course of RoW. As I have always believed, the Radiants do have the advantage and more often than not would win against a Mistborn. However, I still think that the fight wouldn't be too one sided. The number one issue with Radiants still persists even after this book, they are far less Investiture efficient than Mistborn. This is somewhat mitigated by the spheres being sewn into their clothing though. It still takes relatively short time for a Radiant to burn through all of their Stormlight in a fight. We still don't know how much Stormlight, if any, Plate goes through. I does seem to use very little if any though as Jasnah's battle would indicate outside of repairing itself. This is a huge advantage for the Radiant as it would be very difficult for a Mistborn to damage. However, also from Jasnah's battle, living Plate doesn't seem any more durable than dead Plate so the same arguments still apply for how a Mistborn can damage the Plate, therefore drain a Radiant's Stormlight stores. 

What this book showed me though, is that without Plate, a Radiant actually has a potentially worse chance against a Mistborn than we previously believed. Lezian's grapple maneuver very nearly killed Kaladin who is more or less the peak of Radiant combat skill (not counting crazy outliers like the Heralds). A Mistborn with their greater strength from Pewter could potentially do the same. 

At this point, though I still believe it is an ability past Bondsmiths before Dalinar weren't capable of, I think a Bondsmith with the ability to open a Perpendicularity is truly the only Radiant who a Mistborn's chance of beating is nigh impossible.

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If Ishar's trick of manipulation of Connection working similar to a regular Atium burn is the norm for a Bondsmith then there is at least 1 order of KR that, fully powered up, is going to have a major advantage over nearly anything the rest of the Cosmere could throw at them. Even a Fullborn may have trouble if said Bondsmith knows when a speed run is coming and can glue up the ground before the guy can reach them. Hyper Connection negates Atium shadows, grounds out Investiture,  can actually steal others Shardic connections.  If Dalinar at Oath 5 is even half as terrifying as Ishar was onscreen I'd give him nearly even odds vs. Rashek. 

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57 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

If Dalinar at Oath 5 is even half as terrifying as Ishar was onscreen I'd give him nearly even odds vs. Rashek.

That's quite an underestimation of Rashek you just did. Even with what we saw in RoW, what we've seen Rashek do, and what we saw from the Bands, Rashek would crush Ishar still. Remember, Rashek's normal Allomancy was as strong or even stronger than Vin with Duralumin. Combine that with his Compounding and there is nothing we have seen short of a Shard or Nightblood that actually comes close to Rashek. 

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1 hour ago, StanLemon said:

That's quite an underestimation of Rashek you just did. Even with what we saw in RoW, what we've seen Rashek do, and what we saw from the Bands, Rashek would crush Ishar still. Remember, Rashek's normal Allomancy was as strong or even stronger than Vin with Duralumin. Combine that with his Compounding and there is nothing we have seen short of a Shard or Nightblood that actually comes close to Rashek. 

I don't know man. Complete Connection manipulation is frightening as all get out. And Rashek had some issues after his 1000 years of being needled by Ruin.  What if Dalinar could just straight up snatch his Connection to the Shards? Or if not so drastic,  maybe connect him with his memories of Alendi and drive him even more crazy? Don't get me wrong,  Rashek murders any other Radiant with relative ease regardless of order or oath level.  But Bondsmith powers are ridiculous on an entirely different order of magnitude than their Radiant counterparts. Rashek is still tough but a Bondsmith has a much more realistic chance to actually come out victorious. My opinion obviously. 

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If we put them into a fighting ring and give Mistborn a sword or a cane, then any Radiant of the 4th ideal has an enormous advantage. But I think you all severely underestimate the power of a firearm, especially something with repeat fire capability. As of RoW, where we haven't seen any Radiant who can engage on a distance effectively and repeatedly, anyone with a rifle, even without magical powers, is a significant danger.

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I get the impression that Radiant Shardplate doesn't require stormlight. There's a mention near the end of the book that, since Kaladin's sworn the Fourth Ideal, his Shardplate is now always surrounding him, even if it's not usually visible or tangible, which would not be practical if it was constantly draining stormlight. Besides, it makes sense; the Radiant's main spren doesn't require stormlight in order to become a Shardblade, so the lesser spren becoming Shardplate shouldn't either. I'm guessing it only needs extra Investiture if it has to heal damage.

What I really want some more info on is how Soulcasting and Releasing work in combat, given they're two of the most potentially destructive. We've seen almost nothing of the latter (and don't think I wasn't pissed that Windrunners vs. Skybreakers was left all off-screen in RoW), and while we've seen Soulcasting during battle, it's always under unusual circumstances. Shallan sucks at Soulcasting, so the only combat Soulcaster we've seen is Jasnah, and her three fight scenes have been 1) against some back alley thugs she barely needed to try against, 2) during the Battle of Thaylen Field, when the perpendicularity was beefing her up, and 3) during the battle in Emul, when she was deliberately holding back her Radiant abilities to get a feel for semi-normal combat.

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13 hours ago, StanLemon said:

My two cents. One, we absolutely cannot have any scenarios of infinite sources of Investiture. It would always be a stalemate. Radiant would always heal and Atium would almost assure that the Radiant couldn't touch the Mistborn. 

I pretty much agree, although the Mistborn would probably collapse from exhaustion before the Radiant. (Haha! You have had a heart attack and died! I am vicotorious!)

13 hours ago, StanLemon said:

After the course of RoW. As I have always believed, the Radiants do have the advantage and more often than not would win against a Mistborn. However, I still think that the fight wouldn't be too one sided. The number one issue with Radiants still persists even after this book, they are far less Investiture efficient than Mistborn. This is somewhat mitigated by the spheres being sewn into their clothing though. It still takes relatively short time for a Radiant to burn through all of their Stormlight in a fight. We still don't know how much Stormlight, if any, Plate goes through. I does seem to use very little if any though as Jasnah's battle would indicate outside of repairing itself. This is a huge advantage for the Radiant as it would be very difficult for a Mistborn to damage. However, also from Jasnah's battle, living Plate doesn't seem any more durable than dead Plate so the same arguments still apply for how a Mistborn can damage the Plate, therefore drain a Radiant's Stormlight stores. 

I am pretty sure that Plate only uses stormlight to repair itself, and I think that living Plate is probably a lot more investiture efficient than dead, as it repairs the damage quickly rather than continuing to leak stormlight. I agree that a Mistborn could drain stormlight by damaging Plate repeatedly.

13 hours ago, StanLemon said:

What this book showed me though, is that without Plate, a Radiant actually has a potentially worse chance against a Mistborn than we previously believed. Lezian's grapple maneuver very nearly killed Kaladin who is more or less the peak of Radiant combat skill (not counting crazy outliers like the Heralds). A Mistborn with their greater strength from Pewter could potentially do the same. 

Here's where I disagree with you. Lezian was one of the most deadly fighters that the Fused had, with centuries of combat experience fighting Radiants. A Mistborn would have a lot of difficulty pulling off something like that.

11 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

If Ishar's trick of manipulation of Connection working similar to a regular Atium burn is the norm for a Bondsmith then there is at least 1 order of KR that, fully powered up, is going to have a major advantage over nearly anything the rest of the Cosmere could throw at them. Even a Fullborn may have trouble if said Bondsmith knows when a speed run is coming and can glue up the ground before the guy can reach them. Hyper Connection negates Atium shadows, grounds out Investiture,  can actually steal others Shardic connections.  If Dalinar at Oath 5 is even half as terrifying as Ishar was onscreen I'd give him nearly even odds vs. Rashek. 

When did Ishar use Connection like Atium? I figured that his awesomeness was just because he was a herald.

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I agree that 4th Ideal Radiant vs Mistborn would be not be a close contest. A fullborn would be quite the battle. A third options I'd like to consider, though we have very little information about them and they are basically tied to Elantris due to the nature of the magic, is fully trained Elantrian. I think it would take very creative use of Aons to stand up to the raw power of the Radiant I think AonDor seems like a very versatile magic. Awakening would be interesting as well. Both of them might be better suited to utility support though. Radiants and Mistborn/Fullborn do seem very focused on combat abilities.

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4 hours ago, Aiken Frost said:

Can Radiants fight without a brain?

Because a Mistborn with Atium + Pewter + a big freaking hammer can make that a reality very quickly, Shardplate or no. Not to mention the good ol' .308 to the face.

You guys are seriously underplaying how much Atium is an "I Win Button".

Well, no, but they can grow one back really quickly. Shardplate will heal itself, and it can close its eyeslits in order to prevent bullets from being effective. Atium is an "IWB", but only if the Mistborn can drain the Radiant's stormlight before running out of Atium, which, with Shardplate, becomes very difficult.

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6 hours ago, Aiken Frost said:

Can Radiants fight without a brain?

Because a Mistborn with Atium + Pewter + a big freaking hammer can make that a reality very quickly, Shardplate or no. Not to mention the good ol' .308 to the face.

You guys are seriously underplaying how much Atium is an "I Win Button".

It really isn't, Vin proves it, Demoux was the only Seer to survive (maybe Yomen) and besides Radiants could fight Nightforms, I find it highly unlikely that Atium is a "I win" especially against Radiants.

Additionally Radiants especially from Stonewards and Windrunners would be far more likely to overcome Atium.

And furthermore, pewter is not enough to lift a hammer of sufficient mass to break plate and overcome Stormlight healing.

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2 hours ago, Ookla the Unnamable said:

Well, no, but they can grow one back really quickly.

It isn't as simple as that, having their brain smashed in would stop a Radiant. Merely pulling out an arrow caused Shallan to black out and used pretty much all of her Stormlight to heal from.

1 hour ago, Ookla The Frustrated said:

It really isn't, Vin proves it, Demoux was the only Seer to survive (maybe Yomen) and besides Radiants could fight Nightforms, I find it highly unlikely that Atium is a "I win" especially against Radiants.

That was after literal hours of fighting, they died because they were too exhausted from the non-stop slaughter they were doing.

1 hour ago, Ookla The Frustrated said:

Additionally Radiants especially from Stonewards and Windrunners would be far more likely to overcome Atium.

Where is your logic in this?

1 hour ago, Ookla The Frustrated said:

And furthermore, pewter is not enough to lift a hammer of sufficient mass to break plate and overcome Stormlight healing.

A hammer with sufficient enough mass to break Plate can be lifted by two men, Pewter gives the Allomancer greater strength than that.

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12 hours ago, Ookla the Unnamable said:

 

When did Ishar use Connection like Atium? I figured that his awesomeness was just because he was a herald.

Dalinar's observations of Ishar's movements during the fight look awful similar to how an Atium burner is described. That could be the multiple millennium fighting experience (Taln was considered the best and he doesn’t have that type of magical advantage). But it could also be Ishar reading Connection and taking advantage of it in combat. But even if a Bondsmith cannot use Connection as an Atium defense they can still steal Connection from an intended target or ground out Investiture.  Either of those abilities would kill about 99% of any opponent in the Cosmere you could name.

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