Mistborn vs Feruchemist

[MangoBoi101]

So I was wondering in a real fight if both had all the metals they need (and the feruchemist had about 10 hours stored of each metal) who would win, a lot of people would value a feruchemist above a mistborn but which one is actually more powerful? I know that one of the reasons feruchemists are so good is because of their memory, but how strong are they in a fight? 

[Tglassy]

Well, what do you mean about 10 hours?  Is that 10 hours of double attribute?  So they can be twice as strong/fast/etc for 10 hours?  

If that's the case, the Feruchemist wins, hands down.  If you can move at double speed for 10 hours, then you can move at 4x speed for 5 hours, 8x speed for 2.5, 16x speed for 1.25, 32x speed for .625, and 64x speed for .3125, which is just under 20 minutes.  So for 20 minutes, you're moving 64x as fast as normal, with 64x as much strength (yes, i know there's a muscle growth cap), and thinking 64 times as fast as the Mistborn, along with a good bit of healing stored away.  And that's just three attributes.  There would ALMOST be no contest.

Except for steelpushing and Ironpulling.  If the Mistborn managed to get out of range of the Feruchemist, all the speed in the world won't help him.  Just go Kel when he fought that Inquisitor.  Never stop moving, in the air, out of reach, and keep throwing metal things at him until he stops moving and stops healing.  The Feruchemist would likely run out of attribute before the Mistborn ran out of metals.  And if he kicks up the metal debris enough, there wouldn't be any getting away from it.  

So basically, if in a Final Destination fight where they start opposite each other and someone says "Go!", then the Feruchemist will need to end it quickly.  Tap all the Speed, as much Strength as he can, and rip the Mistborn's head off before he can jump away.  Because if the Mistborn gets airborn, with enough metal on him, he's going to win.  

[alder24]

We already had that fight, Marsh vs Sazed in WoA. Sazed had only very small amounts of attributes in his rings, but he almost won if not for lack of speed. But that was in the close space. 

Feruchemist is able to disrupt steel/iron allomancy with weight, he can heal, he can move very very fast and strike even harder. Mistborn can't heal. Pewter makes them withstand more wounds, but a deadly wound is still deadly. Feruchemist can heal. Not to mention he can think faster and this is very handy in combat. With speed and strength that increases the muscle mass, he can dodge and withstand coins.

If the fight happens in the open space, Mistborn can stay in the air. Feruchemist can still get to him, by reducing weight, increasing strength and jumping really high, but Mistborn has the advantage. Mistborn can slowly drain him out of attributes. If Mistborn have Atium, he wins.

If they both starts on ground and Feruchemist has 10h of attribute, he wins, he will get to Mistborn with insane speed and kill him before he jumps in the air.

[Trusk'our]

On 1/21/2023 at 9:45 AM, Tglassy said:

Well, what do you mean about 10 hours?  Is that 10 hours of double attribute?  So they can be twice as strong/fast/etc for 10 hours?  

If that's the case, the Feruchemist wins, hands down.  If you can move at double speed for 10 hours, then you can move at 4x speed for 5 hours, 8x speed for 2.5, 16x speed for 1.25, 32x speed for .625, and 64x speed for .3125, which is just under 20 minutes.  So for 20 minutes, you're moving 64x as fast as normal, with 64x as much strength (yes, i know there's a muscle growth cap), and thinking 64 times as fast as the Mistborn, along with a good bit of healing stored away.  And that's just three attributes.  There would ALMOST be no contest.

It is worth noting that the quicker a Feruchemist taps their Metalmind, the less efficient they the Investiture becomes. So a Feruchemist who stored away 10 hours of being half as fast wouldn't be able to go 10 times as fast via steel Feruchemy for an hour, they would probably have would only have minutes (but we can't be certain how much attribute is lost yet).

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Sporkify

This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

 

Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.

Even so, a Full Feruchemist who had 10 hours of attributes stored up and who had trained with their Feruchemy would have a very good chance of defeating a Mistborn with the same level of training, because a Feruchemist can tap speed, and even if they were only moving 10 times as quickly for less than a minute, heck, even 3 or 4 times as quickly, they would very likely overwhelm the Mistborn.

And that's not even taking into account that the Feruchemist can tap health to regenerate and store pain via tin Feruchemy to overcome most injuries.

The best for way a mistborn to would win is if they somehow fought very, very unfairly (which is how they prefer to do buisiness anyway), or perhaps if they fought as Tglassy suggests, and never lets themselves touch the ground and uses entire clouds of deadly spinning metal.

The Mistborn also might be able to get away with sapping away the Feruchemist's stores of Investiture with chromium, but they would need to get uncomfortably close to someone with the strength, speed, and sheer weight of ten to twenty people, which is likely what the Feruchemist wants in the first place.

Atium might also allow a Mistborn to win, but Feruchemical steel would likely make it much less effective than it would normally be, as the Mistborn is still limited by their own physical speed and the Feruchemist could see how the Mistborn moves and pull a Vin. Plus, Feruchemical chromium can grant its own version of future sight, which may be able to negate or at least reduce the power of Atium.

I'm certain that Allomantic bendalloy would be useful for the Mistborn if they needed to re-position themselves and put some distance between them and the Feruchemist, but it wouldn't likely be as useful in this fight as Feruchemical steel or zinc. Especially if the Feruchemist manages to close the gap between them and their opponent, as the Mistborn would catch the Feruchemist in their own bubble of sped up time.

The last thing to consider on the Mistborn's side is duralumin, and the massive amounts of damage that steel and pewter could be used for if the Feruchemist got caught up in it.

So, it probably could go either way, depending on the battlefield, the level of training of each combatant, and the levels of Investiture available to each, but a Feruchemist does have a sizable advantage if they can store enough attributes, especially speed and health, for the fight ahead of time.