Mistborn V.S. 3rd Ideal Lightweaver

[NameIess he/him]

I think that scaling soulcasting off of Jasnah is a mistake. Jasnah is not only an Elsecaller, an order that is naturally more skilled at Soulcasting than LIghtweavers, but she's also of the 4th ideal, and she's a basically perfect Elsecaller candidate, with a focus on mastering her powers. She's more powerful in that art than even the best 3rd ideal Lightweavers will be, and leagues beyond the average. Even if we saw her soulcasting blocks of stone around people, that would go nowhere towards proving that Lightweavers can do the same.

Edited December 16, 2022 by Ookla the Untitled

[Frustration he/him]

On 12/16/2022 at 4:28 PM, Tglassy said:

I don't buy that.  She was in a pretty hard fight with a Fused.  If he could have been defeated just by soulcasting the air around him into stone, that should have been her first thought.  She wouldn't even have had to worry about killing the other people in the area.  Just kill the one Fused, and be done with it.  

I don't think "Soulcasting a box of stone around their head" is an actual strategy a Soulcaster can employ.  When she soulcasted the air into oil, she soulcasted ALL the air around her as well.  She didn't have precise control over it.  So she chose a substance that would be relatively benign...unless someone lit it on fire.  

Basically, I think if trapping a person in stone was a viable option, we'd have seen it already.  

How fortunate that even if the Lightweaver were forced to trap themselves in the stone to they could survive, because unlike the Mistborn, they don't need air.

On 12/16/2022 at 4:28 PM, Tglassy said:

Edit: Heck, if they could do that, just have Jasnah go up to the army and turn the whole area into Stone.  She could have used the abundance of Stormlight at the battle at the end of Oathbringer to just soulcast all of Amaram's forces in Stone.  I mean, why not, if that's a possibilty?  She had enough Stormlight there.  

Making the steps onto the top of the wall in OB was noted as harder for her than soulcasting people. It is possible to do stone, but a whole army is too much to ask for.

@Nameless

We see fabrial soulcasters are more than capable of doing what we are suggesting, I doubt that they have more control than a radiant.

 

Edited December 19, 2022 by Ookla the Frustrated.

[SwordNimiForPresident he/him]

Couldn't the Mistborn use bendalloy, bronze and chromium to kill the Radiant's spren as soon as the fight starts?

[alder24]

12 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Couldn't the Mistborn use bendalloy, bronze and chromium to kill the Radiant's spren as soon as the fight starts?

Chromium is not anti-investiture. I don't think it would work like that. Chromium leeches kinetic investirure, the one that is being used (leecher can drain metalmind only when feruchemist is tapping it) - trying to leech spren would be like trying to leech someone's soul.

[SwordNimiForPresident he/him]

13 hours ago, alder24 said:

Chromium is not anti-investiture. I don't think it would work like that. Chromium leeches kinetic investirure, the one that is being used (leecher can drain metalmind only when feruchemist is tapping it) - trying to leech spren would be like trying to leech someone's soul.

I suppose that could be the case. I assumed that, since spren can be captured in gemstones, they were kinetic while in the physical realm.

[Frustration he/him]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I suppose that could be the case. I assumed that, since spren can be captured in gemstones, they were kinetic while in the physical realm.

You can capture souls in gemstones too.

[NameIess he/him]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:54 PM, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

We see fabrial soulcasters are more than capable of doing what we are suggesting, I doubt that they have more control than a radiant.

We see them soulcasting blocks of stone around people? Or soulcasting in battle/at a distance at all?

[Frustration he/him]

4 hours ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

We see them soulcasting blocks of stone around people? Or soulcasting in battle/at a distance at all?

Why would soulcasting around people be any more difficult than otherwise?

[NameIess he/him]

2 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Why would soulcasting around people be any more difficult than otherwise?

We don’t see them soulcasting anything quickly, or at a distance, or in combat.

[Frustration he/him]

3 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

We don’t see them soulcasting anything quickly, or at a distance, or in combat.

1. Quickly, yes we do. Kaza makes a tunnel, and turns large sections on the island into smoke alomst instantly, as does Rushu.

2. At a distance is irrelevant. Even if they can't, capturing both themselves and the mistborn still results in the lightweaver winning. 

3. Why would combat change anything?

Edited December 18, 2022 by Ookla the Frustrated.

[NameIess he/him]

8 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

1. Quickly, yes we do. Kaza makes a tunnel, and turns large sections on the island into smoke alomst instantly, as does Rushu.

2. At a distance is irrelevant. Even if they can't, capturing both themselves and the mistborn still results in the lightweaver winning. 

3. Why would combat change anything?

1. Kaza took some time to do that. The transformation happened instantly, but she needed time to initiate it. Beyond that, she was probably the most experienced soulcaster we’ve seen barring Jasnah.

2. Does it? Electrum and bronze could let the Mistborn dodge such an attack, and then the Lighteaver’s just used up a ton of Stormlight in order to trap themselves, and they’ll need to use up even more to get themselves out.

3. Stress tends to make things like calmly focusing on exerting your will over the air to be more difficult.

[SwordNimiForPresident he/him]

15 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

You can capture souls in gemstones too.

I don't recall where we see this happen, could you remind me?

[Frustration he/him]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

1. Kaza took some time to do that. The transformation happened instantly, but she needed time to initiate it. Beyond that, she was probably the most experienced soulcaster we’ve seen barring Jasnah.

And Rushu? And the soulcasters Adolin saw? And the diagram soulcaster?

1 hour ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

2. Does it? Electrum and bronze could let the Mistborn dodge such an attack, and then the Lighteaver’s just used up a ton of Stormlight in order to trap themselves, and they’ll need to use up even more to get themselves out.

Electrum would only show them freezing in place, and bronze won't warn them until it's too late. And the range they have is far too much to dodge.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

3. Stress tends to make things like calmly focusing on exerting your will over the air to be more difficult.

Stress also makes turning multiple metals on and off in quick succession difficult, but it seemed the Mistborn in these situations is always able to handle that.

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I don't recall where we see this happen, could you remind me?

Jezrien's soul got stuck in a sapphire.

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

43 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Jezrien's soul got stuck in a sapphire.

Not to derail the topic, but I believe the reason this worked is because Jezrien's a Cognitve Shadow and therefore similar to the spren. It also specifically required a Raysium dagger to draw the Investiture into the gemstone. I feel that it's a bit of an assumption to take that one specialized example and apply it to all souls in the cosmere. 

[NameIess he/him]

49 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

And Rushu? And the soulcasters Adolin saw? And the diagram soulcaster?

They all soulcasted in a controlled environment, and focused for several seconds before succsesfully soulcasting.

49 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Electrum would only show them freezing in place, and bronze won't warn them until it's too late. And the range they have is far too much to dodge.

The vast majority of your electrum shadows freezing in place is a very good indicator to dodge, and with steelpushes, a Mistborn will be able to get out of the way unless the Lightweaver has perpendicularity levels of Stormlight. 

50 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Stress also makes turning multiple metals on and off in quick succession difficult, but it seemed the Mistborn in these situations is always able to handle that.

Yeah, but we've never seen a Lightweaver combat soulcast. In fact, the only person we've ever seen do that, unless I'm mistaken, is Jasnah.

[Frustration he/him]

5 minutes ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Not to derail the topic, but I believe the reason this worked is because Jezrien's a Cognitve Shadow and therefore similar to the spren. It also specifically required a Raysium dagger to draw the Investiture into the gemstone. I feel that it's a bit of an assumption to take that one specialized example and apply it to all souls in the cosmere. 

Kalak said that Jezrien's soul deteriorated into an ordinary one 

3 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

They all soulcasted in a controlled environment, and focused for several seconds before succsesfully soulcasting.

That's not true. The diagram one and Rushu both simply held their hands up and turned the stone into smoke.

3 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

The vast majority of your electrum shadows freezing in place is a very good indicator to dodge, and with steelpushes, a Mistborn will be able to get out of the way unless the Lightweaver has perpendicularity levels of Stormlight.

Why would the amount of stormlight matter? Once a Lightweaver decides to soulcast the victim is either out of range or dead 

4 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Yeah, but we've never seen a Lightweaver combat soulcast. In fact, the only person we've ever seen do that, unless I'm mistaken, is Jasnah.

We've never seen a Lightweaver in combat aside from Shallan. And she intentionally suppressed her soulcasting ability, so she is less of an example than Jasnah.

[NameIess he/him]

Just now, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

That's not true. The diagram one and Rushu both simply held their hands up and turned the stone into smoke.

No, they both took several seconds to do so. And transforming the air is more difficult than transforming stone, according to Jasnah.

9 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Why would the amount of stormlight matter? Once a Lightweaver decides to soulcast the victim is either out of range or dead 

First off, it would take a bit, second off, the electrum shadows would provide ample warning, and third off, if the Lightweaver misses they've just used a ton of Stormlight, and trapped themselves in stone.

10 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

We've never seen a Lightweaver in combat aside from Shallan. And she intentionally suppressed her soulcasting ability, so she is less of an example than Jasnah.

The other lightweavers, even after training from Jasnah are not skilled enough to use soulcasting in combat.

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

44 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Kalak said that Jezrien's soul deteriorated into an ordinary one 

I believe the meaning of this phrasing was that Jezrien's soul couldn't reincarnate anymore, as he couldn't return to Braize, making his soul 'ordinary' in that once he died he went to the Beyond. Whether or not he could've been captured in the first place though is another matter. Besides that, Odium's forces couldn't hold him long in the gemstone, as he couldn't exist outside of his body for very long.

I feel that if Odium's forces had the capability of trapping ordinary souls in gemstones, using Raysium, that they'd be doing so more frequently in the ongoing war. 

[Frustration he/him]

1 hour ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

No, they both took several seconds to do so. And transforming the air is more difficult than transforming stone, according to Jasnah.

In that particular insurance. In the Ars Arcanum Khriss says soulcasting stone is one of the most difficult things a soulcaster can do. And no, they both did it practically as soon as they tried.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

First off, it would take a bit, second off, the electrum shadows would provide ample warning, and third off, if the Lightweaver misses they've just used a ton of Stormlight, and trapped themselves in stone.

Soulcasting is shown to not be dramatically more stormlight intensive than lashings. And Lightweavers can soulcast at a distance.

Spoiler

Questioner

Is Jasnah being able to Soulcast at a distance the resonance of her two Surges or is that just a Radiant thing that's not with the fabrials. 

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah's Order is better at that than others. It is not impossible that you could imagine a Lightweaver being able to do it.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13399

 

 

And so electrum is not enough. Even if they only did it nearby they can soulcast entire buildings, Mistborn cannot cover that distance in the time it takes to soulcast.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

The other lightweavers, even after training from Jasnah are not skilled enough to use soulcasting in combat.

Why do you keep using this argument? All the Mistborn are dead so going by current sample size Lightweaver wins by default.

48 minutes ago, Werewolff Studios said:

I feel that if Odium's forces had the capability of trapping ordinary souls in gemstones, using Raysium, that they'd be doing so more frequently in the ongoing war. 

They just barely figured out they could do it. And what would be the point of trapping human souls?

[SwordNimiForPresident he/him]

4 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Jezrien's soul got stuck in a sapphire.

That explains why I didn't remember, I was going off the assumption that a Cognitive shadow wasn't a soul. I thought they were more like a reflection or memory of a person that had been filled with Investiture. I guess a bigger question to ask would be "what is a soul in the Cosmere?", but that's off topic.

[NameIess he/him]

14 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

In that particular insurance. In the Ars Arcanum Khriss says soulcasting stone is one of the most difficult things a soulcaster can do. And no, they both did it practically as soon as they tried.

They both did it in several seconds. Rysn had time to explain how she'd gotten the soulcaster and warn The Lopen to hold his breath before she managed to transform stone. The diagram's soulcaster gave Szeth time to speak several sentences before he completed his soulcasting.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Soulcasting is shown to not be dramatically more stormlight intensive than lashings. And Lightweavers can soulcast at a distance.

Considering how little we see people soulcasting, I'd say that's not true Jasnah fought for hours using soulcasting intermittently, true, but she was at the Fourth ideal, and didn't male any giant chunks of stone. Oil is far more efficient, in that regard. And while Lightweavers can soulcast at a distance, the way Brandon phrased that answer implies to me that it isn't something an average LIghtweaver can do. Even if they can, accurately and quickly creating a large mass of stone around a moving object would be very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone who isn't Jasnah.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

And so electrum is not enough. Even if they only did it nearby they can soulcast entire buildings, Mistborn cannot cover that distance in the time it takes to soulcast.

In a few seconds a Mistborn can move more than a small building away, and also we don't see singular soulcasters making entire buildings at a time, so far as I know. Closest we get is five of them making a stormbreak in the warcamps, and Jasnah using the perpendicularity stormlight to repair the wall of Thaylen city.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Why do you keep using this argument? All the Mistborn are dead so going by current sample size Lightweaver wins by default.

All Mistborn are dead, but we can see their average skill from the books. We can also see a Lightweaver's average skill from the books. I will admit that the current Lightweavers probably haven't quite reached what the eventual average will be, but even so they're nowhere near Jasnah's level. None of them have displayed the capability to soulcast at a distance, and I doubt they've even tried soulcasting people.

1 hour ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

They just barely figured out they could do it. And what would be the point of trapping human souls?

Jezrien is dead. His soul decayed and he passed on to the Beyond.

[Frustration he/him]

10 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

They both did it in several seconds. Rysn had time to explain how she'd gotten the soulcaster and warn The Lopen to hold his breath before she managed to transform stone. The diagram's soulcaster gave Szeth time to speak several sentences before he completed his soulcasting.

If they can hold a conversation with others they clearly do not need to focus.

13 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Considering how little we see people soulcasting, I'd say that's not true Jasnah fought for hours using soulcasting intermittently, true, but she was at the Fourth ideal, and didn't male any giant chunks of stone. Oil is far more efficient, in that regard. And while Lightweavers can soulcast at a distance, the way Brandon phrased that answer implies to me that it isn't something an average LIghtweaver can do. Even if they can, accurately and quickly creating a large mass of stone around a moving object would be very difficult, if not impossible, for anyone who isn't Jasnah.

Jasnah isn't the pinical of skill.

14 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

In a few seconds a Mistborn can move more than a small building away, and also we don't see singular soulcasters making entire buildings at a time, so far as I know. Closest we get is five of them making a stormbreak in the warcamps, and Jasnah using the perpendicularity stormlight to repair the wall of Thaylen city.

Jasnah during RoW turned all the air in a large radius into oil, and Kaza made an opening in rock large enough to sail boats through.

16 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

All Mistborn are dead, but we can see their average skill from the books. We can also see a Lightweaver's average skill from the books. I will admit that the current Lightweavers probably haven't quite reached what the eventual average will be, but even so they're nowhere near Jasnah's level. None of them have displayed the capability to soulcast at a distance, and I doubt they've even tried soulcasting people.

We did not see their average skill, we saw the best of the best. The Eleventh metal showed a mistborn just get stabbed in the neck, the average is much lower than what we saw in era 1. And given that when Shallan stops repressing her abilities she pretty much instantly gets soulcasting, I'd say average Lightweaver skill is much higher than we have seen.

18 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Jezrien is dead. His soul decayed and he passed on to the Beyond.

I know.

[NameIess he/him]

Just now, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

If they can hold a conversation with others they clearly do not need to focus.

Rysn had a long conversation, and the diagram guy didn't talk. Besides that, they were performing among the easiest feats of soulcasting.

3 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Jasnah isn't the pinical of skill.

Name one Soulcaster who's demonstrated more skill onscreen than Jasnah.

4 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Jasnah during RoW turned all the air in a large radius into oil, and Kaza made an opening in rock large enough to sail boats through.

Jasnah was fueled by a perpendicularity. Beyond that, as I said earlier, Jasnah has years of practice focusing specifically on Soulcasting, is of the Fourth ideal, and is from an order that is naturally more skilled at Soulcasting than the Lightweavers. Kaza was a savant, and the boats were small.

5 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

We did not see their average skill, we saw the best of the best. The Eleventh metal showed a mistborn just get stabbed in the neck, the average is much lower than what we saw in era 1. And given that when Shallan stops repressing her abilities she pretty much instantly gets soulcasting, I'd say average Lightweaver skill is much higher than we have seen.

Eleventh metal Mistborn was below average. Soulcasting objects in the cognitive realm is easier than the physical, if I'm not mistaken, and the average Lightweavers have had training from Jasnah and are still very far from pulling off combat Soulcasting.

[StanLemon]

16 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

We did not see their average skill, we saw the best of the best. The Eleventh metal showed a mistborn just get stabbed in the neck, the average is much lower than what we saw in era 1.

Shezler is explicitly said to be unaccustomed to fighting people who can fight back and his scene shows he's less skilled than most Mistings we see in the books. He likely had basic training and called it good

[Frustration he/him]

25 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Rysn had a long conversation, and the diagram guy didn't talk. Besides that, they were performing among the easiest feats of soulcasting.

No? Khriss says that affecting stone is one of the hardest things a soulcaster can do.

27 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Name one Soulcaster who's demonstrated more skill onscreen than Jasnah.

"She's the best we've seen and is thus the best that there can be"

I can count the number of soulcasters shown on screen on one hand. And Jasnah is self-admittedly bad at making organic matter.

29 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Jasnah was fueled by a perpendicularity.

Not in that scene.

29 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Beyond that, as I said earlier, Jasnah has years of practice focusing specifically on Soulcasting, is of the Fourth ideal, and is from an order that is naturally more skilled at Soulcasting than the Lightweavers. 

Elsecallers are more attuned to the Cognitive realm, but we have no indication that they are better at soulcasting.

34 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Kaza was a savant, and the boats were small.

They managed to get Wandersail through it.

34 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Eleventh metal Mistborn was below average.

 

18 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

Shezler is explicitly said to be unaccustomed to fighting people who can fight back and his scene shows he's less skilled than most Mistings we see in the books. He likely had basic training and called it good

My point was that skill is a spectrum, and that Vin, Kelsier, Elend, and Zane were all among the most skilled, and powerful, individuals.

36 minutes ago, Ookla the Untitled said:

Soulcasting objects in the cognitive realm is easier than the physical, if I'm not mistaken, and the average Lightweavers have had training from Jasnah and are still very far from pulling off combat Soulcasting.

Jasnah uses soulcasting differently. She can't teach Lightweavers how to do it.