Bands of Mourning vs other types of investiture

[Kingsdaughter613]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I don't know Taln was known for picking unwinable battles, and winning them, and we have an unwinable battle...

The problem is speed. If we eliminate the ‘fast enough to leave a vacuum’ problem, then there are a lot more possible winners.

[StanLemon]

29 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

The problem is speed. If we eliminate the ‘fast enough to leave a vacuum’ problem, then there are a lot more possible winners.

Yup, that's always been my biggest problem with arguments that try to say others can beat Fullborns is that there really isn't a defense against that kind of speed

[Kingsdaughter613]

6 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

Yup, that's always been my biggest problem with arguments that try to say others can beat Fullborns is that there really isn't a defense against that kind of speed

It’s actually three factors: speed, leeching, and double pewter. The first allows you to move faster than anyone can react. The second allows you to remove the healing abilities of your opponent. The third allows you to kill them.

Which means you need to move fast enough to avoid 2, otherwise 3 kills you. The only ones I see having that chance are the Edgedancers, Dustbringers, and their respective Heralds.

But then you have to consider all the other abilities a Fullborn can bring to bear and the experience Vin has as an allomancer. Which is where I think the highly experienced Chana and Pailia might be able to bring her down. Chana, who is more combative than Pailia, might even have a chance against Kelsier (who is far more experienced with the Fullborn power set). But no one else has a hope.

[StanLemon]

25 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

It’s actually three factors: speed, leeching, and double pewter. The first allows you to move faster than anyone can react. The second allows you to remove the healing abilities of your opponent. The third allows you to kill them.

Which means you need to move fast enough to avoid 2, otherwise 3 kills you. The only ones I see having that chance are the Edgedancers, Dustbringers, and their respective Heralds.

But then you have to consider all the other abilities a Fullborn can bring to bear and the experience Vin has as an allomancer. Which is where I think the highly experienced Chana and Pailia might be able to bring her down. Chana, who is more combative than Pailia, might even have a chance against Kelsier (who is far more experienced with the Fullborn power set). But no one else has a hope.

What I meant was that speed on top of all the other powers is why there isn't really a defense against a Fullborn. Without the speed I could see a Herald at the very least putting up a good fight, but the speed pretty much outweighs what could be argued as a somewhat even fight.

Also to add to your analysis. A Fullborn also has Electrum and Feruchemical Zinc for defense and predicting what the enemy will do

[Kingsdaughter613]

7 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

What I meant was that speed on top of all the other powers is why there isn't really a defense against a Fullborn. Without the speed I could see a Herald at the very least putting up a good fight, but the speed pretty much outweighs what could be argued as a somewhat even fight.

Also to add to your analysis. A Fullborn also has Electrum and Feruchemical Zinc for defense and predicting what the enemy will do

Yes, which is why any Fullborn who knows what they’re doing will trounce a fifth oath Edgedancer/Dustbringer. The heralds are so skilled that they’d still have a chance, but only two have the speed.

[StanLemon]

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Yes, which is why any Fullborn who knows what they’re doing will trounce a fifth oath Edgedancer/Dustbringer. The heralds are so skilled that they’d still have a chance, but only two have the speed.

I would say that they wouldn't have the speed. Abrasion removes the friction that slows them down but it wouldn't make them faster, most definitely not anywhere near the extent Compounding speed would.

[Kingsdaughter613]

3 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

I would say that they wouldn't have the speed. Abrasion removes the friction that slows them down but it wouldn't make them faster, most definitely not anywhere near the extent Compounding speed would.

It would depend on how exactly the surge works, which we won’t know until the back five (unfortunately). That would be a fun question for Brandon: how the RUSTS do you beat a Fullborn’s speed?!

[Bejarden]

There is a limit to how fast they can go...

[StanLemon]

36 minutes ago, Bejardin1250 said:

There is a limit to how fast they can go...

While technically true, BoM showed that limit isn't problematic. Marasi was moving fast enough to leave a noticeable vacuum. To do that she would have to be moving a few times faster than the speed of sound. Far faster than anything we've seen can defend against 

Edited February 15, 2021 by StanLemon

[cometaryorbit]

On 2/14/2021 at 9:45 PM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

After Kelsier, I’d guess Chana and Pailiah, provided they have their honorblades. With the surge of Friction they’d have the possibility of moving fast enough to counter Steelspeed.

What about Nale and Jezrien? They have Gravitation. At "full power" (IE back when Honor was alive) that should give them pretty much unlimited speed (especially Jezrien - he can probably use Adhesion to mess with pressure to keep from burning up like a reentering spacecraft) as long as they stay in the air.

Gravitation Lashings would give better maneuverability than Iron/Steel Allomancy since they're not limited to metal, IMO. Though Vin is uniquely good at flying using metal (horseshoe trick). If the Bands wielder were any other Mistborn I'd say this would be a major advantage.

Actually, a high-Ideal Windrunner might have a chance, because...

Quote

(Otherwise anyone fighting a Fullborn dies immediately.)

...It's not quite that bad if you have Stormlight healing; nothing kills a full-healing Radiant immediately except something that disrupts Investiture.

Which the Bands allow, with Leeching - but IIRC Leeching isn't instantaneous, and given that Roshar is much higher Investiture than Scadrial this might be a problem. Steel speed shouldn't actually accelerate the Leeching process, and if it takes say 5 seconds of contact, that's a lot of Shardblade hits.

Compounded Gold should work against the Blade, of course, but how much gold did Vin bring? The amount in the Bands metalminds themselves might not be enough, given how fast they burn out in the book.

[cometaryorbit]

For that matter, does Feruchemical steel even speed up your motion on Allomantic Pushes/Pulls? I'd think not - that would be a simple Newton's Laws thing - but Feruchemy can be weird.

If not, then any fairly experienced Windrunner or Skybreaker would have a very good chance. They'd actually have superior mobility in the air.

[Kingsdaughter613]

13 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

What about Nale and Jezrien? They have Gravitation. At "full power" (IE back when Honor was alive) that should give them pretty much unlimited speed (especially Jezrien - he can probably use Adhesion to mess with pressure to keep from burning up like a reentering spacecraft) as long as they stay in the air.

Gravitation Lashings would give better maneuverability than Iron/Steel Allomancy since they're not limited to metal, IMO. Though Vin is uniquely good at flying using metal (horseshoe trick). If the Bands wielder were any other Mistborn I'd say this would be a major advantage.

Actually, a high-Ideal Windrunner might have a chance, because...

...It's not quite that bad if you have Stormlight healing; nothing kills a full-healing Radiant immediately except something that disrupts Investiture.

Which the Bands allow, with Leeching - but IIRC Leeching isn't instantaneous, and given that Roshar is much higher Investiture than Scadrial this might be a problem. Steel speed shouldn't actually accelerate the Leeching process, and if it takes say 5 seconds of contact, that's a lot of Shardblade hits.

Compounded Gold should work against the Blade, of course, but how much gold did Vin bring? The amount in the Bands metalminds themselves might not be enough, given how fast they burn out in the book.

The problem is that it takes time for Windrunners to get up to speed. They’re essentially falling and that takes a few seconds time. Time they don’t have. Especially when you consider that Fullborn also have Bendalloy.

And if you paid attention I said a Fullborn would use speed to allow them to Leech a Radiant. And Leeching is instantaneous for most forms of Kinetic Investiture, from what we’ve seen. No Stormlight=dead Radiant. And a Radiant will run out of Stormlight before a Fullborn runs out of metal.

Please note that a Fullborn could hypothetically kill a Radiant Spren. You do not want to try hitting a Fullborn burning Chromium with a Shardblade. It would likely be extremely painful for the Spren.

Also: does Stormlight heal a beheading?

Edited February 16, 2021 by Kingsdaughter613

[cometaryorbit]

2 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

The problem is that it takes time for Windrunners to get up to speed.

For normal Windrunners/Skybreakers, sure. For "live Honor era" Jezrien/Nale, they just use their essentially-infinite Stormlight feed to do a x100,000 Lashing and accelerate at 1,000 km/s, hitting escape velocity in a hundredth of a second.

OK, not that much, they'd crash into a mountain and die unless they were aimed up. But I think they could.

Quote

And if you paid attention I said a Fullborn would use speed to allow them to Leech a Radiant. No Stormlight=dead Radiant

I don't think Feruchemical steel speeds up the Leeching process though. It's "physical speed" not "Investiture speed". So they have to actually touch for a second (maybe quite a bit more - I think a Radiant "full of" Stormlight has much more Investiture than anybody on Scadrial) while they can't use Feruchemical steel to dodge the Blade.

[Kingsdaughter613]

27 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

For normal Windrunners/Skybreakers, sure. For "live Honor era" Jezrien/Nale, they just use their essentially-infinite Stormlight feed to do a x100,000 Lashing and accelerate at 1,000 km/s, hitting escape velocity in a hundredth of a second.

OK, not that much, they'd crash into a mountain and die unless they were aimed up. But I think they could.

I don't think Feruchemical steel speeds up the Leeching process though. It's "physical speed" not "Investiture speed". So they have to actually touch for a second (maybe quite a bit more - I think a Radiant "full of" Stormlight has much more Investiture than anybody on Scadrial) while they can't use Feruchemical steel to dodge the Blade.

They don’t need to dodge the blade. A Fullborn can theoretically kill a Spren with Leeching. So if the sword hits, it’s the sword that will be hurting. And you can’t summon the blade while being Leeched anyway.

And there’s nothing preventing a Fullborn from using F-speed while burning Chromium either.

All of which is irrelevant if Stormlight can’t heal beheadings.

It still takes time for Jezrian and Nale to act. F-Speed allows someone to move faster than the eye can see.  That’s about 1/250th of a second. We’ve never seen anyone perform a lashing with anything near that speed. We’re talking ‘faster than anyone can breathe in Stormlight’ because Marasi was moving so fast the people around her were motionless. And Paalm moved so fast she was invisible. (You breathe about 12 to 20 times a minute, btw. Much slower than the eye processes.) They were moving faster than a human could breathe.

Which actually means Radiants are rust from the outset, now that I think about it. A Fullborn will kill them before they breathe in Stormlight.

https://www.visiondirect.co.uk/blog/how-fast-can-we-see

The above for how fast you need to move in order for the eye not to process you.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Kingsdaughter613

[HSuperLee]

Say it with me everyone: Fullborn are the Kryptonians of the Cosmere.

Now that that is out of the way, yeah, a Fullborn actually fighting with full effort is dang near unbeatable. Now, that said, I think people often overestimate a Fullborn's stamina. Even with the (two) compounders we've seen, they're not compounding all the time. Rather, they take the time to compound an absurd amount of a resource, enough to completely fill multiple metalminds (which really is an insane amount) then refill as needed. They're not compounding within the heat of battle. Then we need to consider that kicking your traits up thousands of times is going to drain resources fast, and quickly empty even completely full metalminds. With this in mind, a fullborn can't go all out for a very long time. Now, with fullborn speed, that little time can go a long way, but its still going to be rather limited. I wish we had some unit of measurement by which we could figure out just how much investiture metalminds can hold so I could make a more definitive statement in regards to how long their supply would last, but I'm guessing an hour, tops. Now, obviously this can be reduced by a fullborn not fighting at full strength, but then they're not fighting at full strength.

So if you were to ask me what it would take to defeat a fullborn, I'd say take all the Heralds and all the Radiants, then give them time to come up with a really good plan, and then I'd say you can probably have a decent chance. Is that overkill? Maybe, I really can't say. But either way, I believe the best way to beat a fullborn would be to force them to use their powers at a high level for as long as possible and hope to wear out their supplies, both allomantic and feruchemic.

[Kingsdaughter613]

1 hour ago, HSuperLee said:

Say it with me everyone: Fullborn are the Kryptonians of the Cosmere.

Now that that is out of the way, yeah, a Fullborn actually fighting with full effort is dang near unbeatable. Now, that said, I think people often overestimate a Fullborn's stamina. Even with the (two) compounders we've seen, they're not compounding all the time. Rather, they take the time to compound an absurd amount of a resource, enough to completely fill multiple metalminds (which really is an insane amount) then refill as needed. They're not compounding within the heat of battle. Then we need to consider that kicking your traits up thousands of times is going to drain resources fast, and quickly empty even completely full metalminds. With this in mind, a fullborn can't go all out for a very long time. Now, with fullborn speed, that little time can go a long way, but its still going to be rather limited. I wish we had some unit of measurement by which we could figure out just how much investiture metalminds can hold so I could make a more definitive statement in regards to how long their supply would last, but I'm guessing an hour, tops. Now, obviously this can be reduced by a fullborn not fighting at full strength, but then they're not fighting at full strength.

So if you were to ask me what it would take to defeat a fullborn, I'd say take all the Heralds and all the Radiants, then give them time to come up with a really good plan, and then I'd say you can probably have a decent chance. Is that overkill? Maybe, I really can't say. But either way, I believe the best way to beat a fullborn would be to force them to use their powers at a high level for as long as possible and hope to wear out their supplies, both allomantic and feruchemic.

One important thing to consider, at least with Kelsier, is that he was an allomancer first. That means he’s likely to carry around beads of metal that he’s stored abilities in, allowing him to burn them as needed. Which gives him a lot more leeway on his abilities and stores.

Everyone else we’ve seen has been a feruchemist before being an allomancer. A feruchemist thinks in terms of storage; an allomancer thinks in terms of burning. This was noted when discussing why the Southerners use medallions instead of bands. A feruchemist wouldn’t think in terms of easily removed metal; an allomancer would. Even the spearhead is something you can hold AND it doubles as a practical weapon.

So odds are Kelsier carries around vials of Feruchemical storage on the off chance he needs them, because at his core he’s an allomancer and that’s the kind of thing an allomancer would do.

Besides, if there’s anyone who would find a way to compound in combat, it’s Kelsier.

Which, yes, means he could defeat Vin if she held the Bands. Whether or not anyone could defeat him... (Shards not included.)

[StanLemon]

On the topic of Metalmind storage. We often vastly underestimate just how much can be stored in one. The Goldmind from BoM which was described as a bracelet had enough Health in it that Wayne healed his broken body in seconds and using what he described as months of stored health and still remarked that the Goldmind was mostly full. And then you have the Bands themselves. They are about the size of the a hand but are made up of multiple metals (at least 16, possibly more accounting for Tin, Nicrosil, and Bendalloy) meaning each individual Metalmind is very small. Meaning that Marasi and Wax did amazing feats with relatively* small amounts of what's actually possible. 

*compared to how much would theoretically be possible with compounding as what was in them is was far more than a normal Feruchemist could likely store unless they spent years on it

[HSuperLee]

42 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

On the topic of Metalmind storage. We often vastly underestimate just how much can be stored in one. The Goldmind from BoM which was described as a bracelet had enough Health in it that Wayne healed his broken body in seconds and using what he described as months of stored health and still remarked that the Goldmind was mostly full. And then you have the Bands themselves. They are about the size of the a hand but are made up of multiple metals (at least 16, possibly more accounting for Tin, Nicrosil, and Bendalloy) meaning each individual Metalmind is very small. Meaning that Marasi and Wax did amazing feats with relatively* small amounts of what's actually possible. 

*compared to how much would theoretically be possible with compounding as what was in them is was far more than a normal Feruchemist could likely store unless they spent years on it

Yeah, you're definitely correct about even small metalminds having an insane maximum storage capacity. Its just that we know that feruchemy becomes less and less efficient the more you tap at once, and when you're tapping literally thousands of times, I imagine the investiture leakage must be huge. This has generally been my headcannon (and I know others have proposed this as well) for why Marasi had mist around her when she tapped the bands, similarly to how Nightblood releases black smoke. I'm not trying to downplay how much a metalmind can store, I'm just trying to acknowledge that compounders tap what a normal feruchemist would consider enough to last them for months.

[cometaryorbit]

Yeah. Small metalminds have a huge storage capacity compared to what a normal Feruchemist would have/use, but we do know that Marasi and Wax pushed the Bands pretty close to exhaustion in a few minutes.

So once supersonic Feruchemical steel and healing from Shardblade wounds etc. gets brought in, I think those stores get used up pretty fast.

I think the difference in general "Investiture level" between Rosharan and Scadrian magic is being undervalued, both for this, and for Leeching - theoretically you could Leech a spren but with how much Investiture is in a Radiant-Spren/Shardblade...

But most importantly - "physical speed" shouldn't accelerate other uses of Investiture. Leeching would still take whatever time it takes (and since it requires touch, you can't dodge effectively with super-speed). 

And it doesn't boost Pushes/Pulls. So in the air a Fullborn is going to be fairly comparable to a Crasher like Wax (with the slight advantage of being able to use Ironpulls as well as Steelpushes) and will likely still have inferior maneuverability to a Windrunner or Skybreaker.

 

[Frustration]

16 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

For that matter, does Feruchemical steel even speed up your motion on Allomantic Pushes/Pulls? I'd think not - that would be a simple Newton's Laws thing - but Feruchemy can be weird.

F-Steel speeds you up reletive to everyone else so yes you could.

 

If we count Nightblood as his own character, then he could.

[cometaryorbit]

13 minutes ago, Frustration said:

F-Steel speeds you up reletive to everyone else so yes you could.

Do you have evidence for that? It certainly speeds up physical movement and reaction time, but accelerating Investiture processes seems outside its scope.

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Do you have evidence for that? It certainly speeds up physical movement and reaction time, but accelerating Investiture processes seems outside its scope.

It would let you switch between using Steel and not faster, it wouldn't make Steel push with more force if that's what you mean.

[StanLemon]

57 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Yeah. Small metalminds have a huge storage capacity compared to what a normal Feruchemist would have/use, but we do know that Marasi and Wax pushed the Bands pretty close to exhaustion in a few minutes.

They effectively used the amount that could be stored in a ring per trait, a fully filled bracer should be more than enough to finish any fight very quickly

57 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

So once supersonic Feruchemical steel and healing from Shardblade wounds etc. gets brought in, I think those stores get used up pretty fast.

Unlike with Stormlight, each trait is its own store and the stores of a normal Feruchemist, not even counting the massive amount Compounding can do, is comparable to Stormlight healing. Remember, in the books healing is one of the things that drains Surgebinders fastest. Shallan had to use basically all her stores to heal from an arrow in the head.

57 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think the difference in general "Investiture level" between Rosharan and Scadrian magic is being undervalued, both for this, and for Leeching - theoretically you could Leech a spren but with how much Investiture is in a Radiant-Spren/Shardblade...

I agree on Leeching a Spren not being practical but it wouldn't take more than a second or two to Leech the Surgebinder. The description from Wax and Marasi tapping the Bands was far more pronounced than sucking in Stormlight ever has been from say Kaladin when he was first using so I think as far as how much Investiture is actually greater from tapping the Bands. Also, the absurd inefficiency of Surgebinders compared to Metalborn implies that the actual amount of Investiture being used isn't all that much greater, just that the effects of Surgebinding in general are stronger. I'd argue that an Elantrian or any Returned is more Invested than any Surgebinder. So 'Investiture level' doesn't seem like much of an argument

57 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

But most importantly - "physical speed" shouldn't accelerate other uses of Investiture. Leeching would still take whatever time it takes (and since it requires touch, you can't dodge effectively with super-speed). 

 

45 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Do you have evidence for that? It certainly speeds up physical movement and reaction time, but accelerating Investiture processes seems outside its scope.

Brandon has said that it causes metals to burn faster (and that their is a slight temporal aspect but that is a whole other conversation), the logical extension of this is that their effects progress faster

57 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

And it doesn't boost Pushes/Pulls. So in the air a Fullborn is going to be fairly comparable to a Crasher like Wax (with the slight advantage of being able to use Ironpulls as well as Steelpushes) and will likely still have inferior maneuverability to a Windrunner or Skybreaker.

 

And? The Windrunner/Skybreaker have to come down sometime. Surgebinding is way less efficient than Allomancy when it comes to Investiture usage. Allomancers can regularly have enough Pewter the fastest burning basic metal for instance to burn for hours while Surgebinders will regularly use up their stores in minutes. The only times in the books that a Surgebinder has had enough Stormlight to go on for longer than that is when they've either had whole packs full of spheres or when Dalinar opened a Perpendicularity.

[Kingsdaughter613]

Note that the Bands allow you to push on trace metals which MASSIVELY ups the manouverability of an allomancer. And Nicrosil stores do NOT get used up, as they work like copper.

And you’re still underestimating the speed. Paalm moved fast enough that she couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. That’s 1/250th of a second, MUCH faster than a Radiant can breathe in Stormlight.

[cometaryorbit]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

It would let you switch between using Steel and not faster, it wouldn't make Steel push with more force if that's what you mean.

Well, it's more than that - when an Allomancer is in the air their speed is set by Push/Pull strength, mass, and air resistance - Feruchemical speed won't do anything relevant (IMO) since their own physical movements has no effect on their flight speed. Their arms and legs can still move way faster, but it's no help.

So as soon as they Push off the ground (such as to fight a flying Windrunner/Skybreaker) they lose any real advantage from Feruchemical speed.

3 hours ago, StanLemon said:

They effectively used the amount that could be stored in a ring per trait, a fully filled bracer should be more than enough to finish any fight very quickly

Sure, all I mean is that one can't necessarily assume the Bands by themselves (without other sources of gold) would be enough to survive having a Shardblade in one's spinal cord for several seconds (while Leeching a Surgebinder). They might be - but IMO we don't know enough about how Spiritual healing costs compare to regular damage.

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I agree on Leeching a Spren not being practical but it wouldn't take more than a second or two to Leech the Surgebinder. The description from Wax and Marasi tapping the Bands was far more pronounced than sucking in Stormlight ever has been
 

I don't know. The Bands are extremely Invested, sure... but I think Leeching is not instantaneous even for normal Allomancers.

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I'd argue that an Elantrian or any Returned is more Invested than any Surgebinder. So 'Investiture level' doesn't seem like much of an argument

A Returned, possibly; a Divine Breath is equal to 2000 Breaths apparently. But they can't actually use that Investiture without dying. It would keep someone with the Bands from Pushing/Pulling on metal in the Returned's body, but otherwise it's kind of useless.

Elantrians, I am skeptical; but we haven't seen them much at "full power", so who knows. They get a constant "feed" rather than having to inhale Stormlight, but I don't know if that really equates to more power at one time. I think the Rosharan System essay in Arcanum Unbounded suggests Surgebinding is uniquely powerful compared to any other 'normal' magic system (i.e. not the Well of Ascension or whatever).

(Re Investiture level in general, the Bands are not as Invested as a Shardblade per WOB...)

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Surgebinding is way less efficient than Allomancy when it comes to Investiture usage. Allomancers can regularly have enough Pewter the fastest burning basic metal for instance to burn for hours while Surgebinders will regularly use up their stores in minutes.

Do we know that's efficiency, and not power? I think Allomantic stores last longer because the power level is low... the really high power metals (atium and anything+duralumin) do burn fast, much faster than Stormlight.