Best power set to fight a knight radiance

[bmcclure7]

Twin born ability is plus 4 spikes of your choice. Your opponent is a 4th ideal knight radiant  What will you choose.

[therunner he/him]

Is compounding allowed?
If yes, then Steel-twin, then F-Gold, F-pewter, F-Iron, A-chromium spikes.

Speed required for dodging them while using F-Pewter or F-Iron pushes to break through plate. After breaking plate, hit head hard with F-pewter and start Leeching.
F-gold is to ensure suvivability.
Though this tactic won't work against orders that can Soulcast, and orders that use Gravitation can move aside.

Without compounding F-steel spike (or in-born power) is required, but not sure if it would be sufficient.

[alder24]

Oh please, not again  

Atium spike stealing Bondsmith power from a spren and Duralumin spike stealing connection from Bondsmith - both granting you Bondsmith powers, with which you can steal Radiant powers for yourself  

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

If I wanted to Hemalurgically acquire a power from First of the Sun, which metal would the spike need to be?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

This is going to be pretty complicated, but several metals would work.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Would it involve Connection between the person being spiked and the bird?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well it would be even harder than on Roshar, where you need to somehow spike the spren and also the Radiant. You would need to spike the bird and steal the power, but also spike the person and steal Connection.

GenCon 2017 (Aug. 17, 2017)

With the other 2 spikes steal Elantrian-ness from Elantrian, and his Connection to the Dor - so you can become Elantrian. Twinborn powers - steel compounding. Cool set of powers. Get a few jars of purify Dor with you and you rule.

Spoiler

mail-mi

Could you spike Elantrian-ness? Like, could you Hemalurgically spike Elantrian-ness?

Brandon Sanderson

Theoretically, yes.

mail-mi

Could you out of a Reod Elantrian? The zombie ones?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, yes you could.

mail-mi

You could?

Brandon Sanderson

So what you would be spiking there is their Connection to...to the planet, first. That's gonna be the big important thing. So you're going to overwrite your Connection. Um, and then you're going to....it's going to be a complicated process because you're going to have to spike the actual ability to have been transformed, that's gonna be harder.

mail-mi

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Does that make sense?

mail-mi

Yeah, so it's gonna take two spikes.

Brandon Sanderson

It's gonna take two spikes.

mail-mi

Alright.

Brandon Sanderson

And you gonna have to get the right Connection to the right place. Let's say you spike somebody from MaiPon, and then you spike an Elantrian, you're not going to be able to use it, you're not connected to the right area.

Orem signing 2014 (Dec. 6, 2014)

But let's just say without something that complicated.

Twinborn ability you say. Then steel compounding. Speed is an extremely overpowered advantage. Then for spikes F-pewter, F-gold, F-zinc, A-chromium.

Get to Radiant fast, break his plate with strength, punch him in the head and stab a sword into his spine, while also leeching. It would work quite well against the majority of Orders.

You could steal a surge of Gravity or Transformation and Transportation from Fused, which would allow you to fight on more equal ground with Windrunners/Skybreakers and Elsecallers. And give you also the ability to use Voidlight to power not only those surges, but likely Allomancy and Feruchemy.

Or take aluminum offensive spike, and go to CR and spike Radiant's spren, taking away his powers and also Radiant's powers. Win-win. 

Edited March 21, 2023 by alder24

[Trusk'our he/him]

7 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

Twin born ability is plus 4 spikes of your choice. Your opponent is a 4th ideal knight radiant  What will you choose.

Well, assuming that certain TLM "factors" haven't been cracked yet, I would choose to be either a natural double steel Twinborn or double gold twinborn. If double steel, I want A-pewter, A-chromium, F-gold, and A-duralumin. If double gold, I want A-pewter, A-chromium, A-steel and F-steel.

Allomantic duralumin would allow me to use superpowered Steelpushing and Chromiumdraining against my opponent, though optimally I'd want to keep enough distance between me and them that they couldn't make effective use of their Shardblade. Feruchemical steel plus Allomantic chromium, pewter, and duralumin might also prove to be an effective strategy against plate and blade, and Feruchemical gold makes such a strategy a little less risky.

If no Compounding is allowed, natural Twinborn A-pewter and F-steel with A-steel, A-chromium, A-duralumin, and F-gold provided by Hemalurgic spikes. 

Still want to make use of that duralumin and steel/pewter combo with Feruchemical steel giving me the ability to steer clear of attacks and utilizing Feruchemical gold to recover from any injuries I do sustain.

[HSuperLee]

Can I swap out the powers for modern artillery and 20 miles of distance?

[bmcclure7]

42 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

Can I swap out the powers for modern artillery and 20 miles of distance?

 If you want you can swap a spike for 2 modern weapons so long as you can carry that weapon on you. A mile's distance between you is the most I'll allow

[Quantus he/him]

42 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

 If you want you can swap a spike for 2 modern weapons so long as you can carry that weapon on you. A mile's distance between you is the most I'll allow

A-Pewter to carry the Nuke, A-Atium to Aim it, (Twin) Steel to launch it, F-Gold To survive any fallout that reaches a mile off.

[bmcclure7]

2 hours ago, Quantus said:

A-Pewter to carry the Nuke, A-Atium to Aim it, (Twin) Steel to launch it, F-Gold To survive any fallout that reaches a mile off.

It would have to be a pretty small nuke if it has less then a mile blast distance.

[Quantus he/him]

8 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

It would have to be a pretty small nuke if it has less then a mile blast distance.

They just have to be able to "survive" enough to maintain some threshold biological contact with their Metalminds to Heal back.   I dont know the modern sizes, but the closest known survivor of Hiroshima was 170 meters away from ground zero (with heavy cover and other factors like the bomb's air detonation) and (according to shallow wiki level research) the fires afterward that spread through the wood structures only hit a radius of 1.2 miles.  So with a planned bunker the blast could be survivable for a Bloodmaking attacker, to survive the blast and later heal the radiation damage.  

[alder24]

32 minutes ago, Quantus said:

They just have to be able to "survive" enough to maintain some threshold biological contact with their Metalminds to Heal back.   I dont know the modern sizes, but the closest known survivor of Hiroshima was 170 meters away from ground zero (with heavy cover and other factors like the bomb's air detonation) and (according to shallow wiki level research) the fires afterward that spread through the wood structures only hit a radius of 1.2 miles.  So with a planned bunker the blast could be survivable for a Bloodmaking attacker, to survive the blast and later heal the radiation damage.  

1 Mt nuke has a fireball radius of around 1 km, so you could "throw" that nuke, hide behind a very thick reinforce concrete wall (to avoid radiation, thermal blast, much of pressure wave and debris) and heal with F-gold, while being certain that everything within 2 km circle next to you is vaporized. But you don't need 1 Mt nuke to kill 1 person, you don't even need 1 kt nuke for that if you can deliver it directly on your opponent. Use Davy Crockett tactical 20 t nuke launcher that has a range of 2-4 km.

[Quantus he/him]

45 minutes ago, alder24 said:

1 Mt nuke has a fireball radius of around 1 km, so you could "throw" that nuke, hide behind a very thick reinforce concrete wall (to avoid radiation, thermal blast, much of pressure wave and debris) and heal with F-gold, while being certain that everything within 2 km circle next to you is vaporized. But you don't need 1 Mt nuke to kill 1 person, you don't even need 1 kt nuke for that if you can deliver it directly on your opponent. Use Davy Crockett tactical 20 t nuke launcher that has a range of 2-4 km.

Oh lord, because of course we made mortar nukes...

 

Yup, back to the Holy Trinity of F-Gold to Survive, A-Atium for precog aiming, and Twin-Steel to just be overall OP.  Everything else is your preferred flavor of Smiting.  

Edited March 21, 2023 by Quantus

[alder24]

13 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Or lord, because of course we made mortar nukes...

That's the Cold War, they put nukes everywhere. Bombs - nuke, missiles - nuke, mortar - nuke, artillery - yup, that's nuke too (up to 15 kt), anti aircraft systems - they have a nuke for this too. Believe it or not, they even wanted to propel a space rocket by dropping small nukes behind it (project Orion). What a radiant times.

[HSuperLee]

I think the point being made is that most of us have so little desire to fight a fourth oath Radiant that our minds immediate go to the "toss a warhead then pick a Shard and start praying" option. Frankly, I wouldn't feel safe going up against a Radiant even if I was in a tank, so I'd want more than that if I had to fight one.

[Quantus he/him]

18 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

I think the point being made is that most of us have so little desire to fight a fourth oath Radiant that our minds immediate go to the "toss a warhead then pick a Shard and start praying" option. Frankly, I wouldn't feel safe going up against a Radiant even if I was in a tank, so I'd want more than that if I had to fight one.

Not really, but that is a fair point: I immediately go for extreme overkill from a distance, especially when the Metallic Arts are the attacker starting point.

So let's recast the conversation a bit, What's the Minimum it would take to take out a 4th Order Radiant?  And the Corollary, which order is the Least suited for Combat?

Radiants in general have three main advantages: Plate, Shardblades, and Healing.  Plate is pretty damn strong for stopping Investiture attacks, but easy enough to hammer through with basic physical attacks, and can then become a stormlight liability as it tries to repair. Shardblades are devastating without F-Gold, and can cut a bloodmaker off from them easier than anything but explosives.  Healing is costly and somewhat slow compared to Compounded Gold, but otherwise great.   

Both Plate and Shardblades will be mitigated by Steel Compounding, both to dodge the shardblade and hammer through the plate.  Then its either Leeching or pour on the damage so they cant do anything but heal until their Light runs out.  If we are using modern weapons this is where Id get a Modern World Smite, perhaps an explosive or a chemical weapon they cant heal from fast enough.    Decent F-Gold Stores will mitigate the attrition damage fighting a shardweilder.  From there, increased Strength, Mental Speed, Senses, or Precognition etc will all increase odds of getting the Radiant on the ropes enough to finish it.  AonDor or Bondsmith abilities might be able to shut down the Radiant's powers directly.  

Or Shardbow plus Aluminum Arrows plus Hemalurgic Intent (plus Atium to lock in the odds).   Powerful enough Shardbows can kill through plate, and Atium aiming will insure you hit a bind point.  If you are lucky the Plate goes inert and the radiant gets stuck in it (as if it ran out of stormlight), but regardless they can no longer hold stormlight, heal, or use surges.  

 

I think the least combat Order is probably the Truthwatchers. They can heal better and faster then the rest, but otherwise have no unique offense, defence, or Mobility. Their Lightweaving will not fool anyone with Life Sense, Steel Sight (assuming the illusions arent naked), or maybe an observant (or mentally augmented) person with A-Tin.  Not to say he radiant package itself itsnt formidable, it's just that the Truthwatcher combination of Surges doesnt offer as much in a fight as the other Order's surges and/or Resonances.  

 

[HSuperLee]

2 hours ago, Quantus said:

So let's recast the conversation a bit, What's the Minimum it would take to take out a 4th Order Radiant?  And the Corollary, which order is the Least suited for Combat?

Okay, this is a much more difficult question to answer. We don't actually know the full capabilities of living Plate yet. For example, if an assassin was able to sneak into a Radiant's room to try and kill them in their sleep, would the Plate automatically for as the assassin brings down their blade, despite the Radiant not being aware of it? We don't know. I will admit that trying to sneak attack a Radiant is a lot more difficult when they have a spren that can keep watch while they sleep, and is probably not going to be easily discovered by a would-be assassin. Fortunately, we can ignore the unknowns of living Plate for one order, the bondsmiths. Now, I know, bondsmiths are extremely powerful, and might even have virtually unlimited light to draw upon, assuming they keep infusing themselves or gemstones they're carrying. But if you can catch one unaware, or have a way to bypass healing, they lack the defensive boost of Shardplate, which is the biggest hurdle in my mind to killing a Radiant. With that in mind, all we need is a way to overcome the healing effect of Lights. While I admit this would be another unknown, I see great potential in the use of hemalurgic aluminum. We don't know what exactly aluminum spikes do or how they work, but the little information we do have says that they "remove all powers." The way I see it, the spike likely needs to be charged before it has this effect, and we have no idea if you can charge a hemalurgic spike off a normal person, if you need a special kind of metalborn, or whatever else it might take. But once you have this charged aluminum spike, reforge it into a bullet(s)  (I don't know if this would be possible in reality, but Sanderson seems to have decided aluminum bullets are a thing in the Cosmere), and now you have a shot that can negate magical abilities. I will acknowledge that this is where the spren bond complicates things. It might be that a spren can restore the Radiant's abilities fairly quickly by simply reestablishing their with the Radiant, but at the very least I'd imagine this would require the Radiant reswear their oaths and probably remove the aluminum spike first. While Plate would almost certain block aluminum bullets (lighter bullet = less momentum), Bondsmiths do not have such an advantage. Though they might be able to use Tension to  turn their clothes into armor, but until we see Tension actually used, I'm going to ignore that possibility.

Theoretically, a single h-aluminum bullet can kill a Bondsmith. In practice? Who knows. There's a reason I generally avoid the versus threads, fights rarely work out the same way in reality as they do on paper.

[therunner he/him]

6 hours ago, Quantus said:

Radiants in general have three main advantages: Plate, Shardblades, and Healing.  Plate is pretty damn strong for stopping Investiture attacks, but easy enough to hammer through with basic physical attacks, and can then become a stormlight liability as it tries to repair. Shardblades are devastating without F-Gold, and can cut a bloodmaker off from them easier than anything but explosives.  Healing is costly and somewhat slow compared to Compounded Gold, but otherwise great.  

Surges are not to be underestimated, some are a game changer for this discussion (e.g. Transportation/Gravitation/Transformation).
Also, Plate is not easy to hammer through. As seen in WoK, Shardplate can survive multiple super-strong assailants (Warform being 2-3x as strong as human) wailing on it for minutes without fully breaking.

Quote

Or Shardbow plus Aluminum Arrows plus Hemalurgic Intent (plus Atium to lock in the odds).   Powerful enough Shardbows can kill through plate, and Atium aiming will insure you hit a bind point.  If you are lucky the Plate goes inert and the radiant gets stuck in it (as if it ran out of stormlight), but regardless they can no longer hold stormlight, heal, or use surges.  

I don't think Atium would let you hit bind point. Sure it will show you where opponent will be (unless they are Corrupted truthwatcher), but bind points are very precise things.
So far the only incidents of 'in-fight' spiking were done by people guided by Ruin (Spook, Penrod), and the rest were performed in relatively 'clinical' setting.

Additionally, Shardbows cannot kill through plate, at least not in one shot. I don't think we have even seen Shardbow being used against Plate.

4 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Okay, this is a much more difficult question to answer. We don't actually know the full capabilities of living Plate yet. For example, if an assassin was able to sneak into a Radiant's room to try and kill them in their sleep, would the Plate automatically for as the assassin brings down their blade, despite the Radiant not being aware of it? We don't know. I will admit that trying to sneak attack a Radiant is a lot more difficult when they have a spren that can keep watch while they sleep, and is probably not going to be easily discovered by a would-be assassin. Fortunately, we can ignore the unknowns of living Plate for one order, the bondsmiths.

Bondsmits have access to Plate too (most likely formed of Gloryspren):

Spoiler

Questioner

Did every Order have Shardplate?

Brandon Sanderson

Every Order was capable of it.

Firefight Seattle Public Library signing (Jan. 7, 2015)

 

[HSuperLee]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Bondsmits have access to Plate too (most likely formed of Gloryspren):

Well that negates just about everything I said.

Edited March 23, 2023 by HSuperLee

[Quantus he/him]

14 hours ago, therunner said:

Surges are not to be underestimated, some are a game changer for this discussion (e.g. Transportation/Gravitation/Transformation).
Also, Plate is not easy to hammer through. As seen in WoK, Shardplate can survive multiple super-strong assailants (Warform being 2-3x as strong as human) wailing on it for minutes without fully breaking.

I don't think Atium would let you hit bind point. Sure it will show you where opponent will be (unless they are Corrupted truthwatcher), but bind points are very precise things.
So far the only incidents of 'in-fight' spiking were done by people guided by Ruin (Spook, Penrod), and the rest were performed in relatively 'clinical' setting.

It does, per WOB (as will anything that gives you a glimpse of the Spiritual realm).  In the case of Atium Shadows you are aiming for the temporal path of the shadow that goes down, same as how it helps find killshots generally.  

14 hours ago, therunner said:

Additionally, Shardbows cannot kill through plate, at least not in one shot. I don't think we have even seen Shardbow being used against Plate.

I was thinking of Amaram, but I looked back and he got hit in the inhuman spots, not through any plate.  That means it'll take more hammering in a single spot, more heavily relying on the Atium Fortune aiming to get it right: single small piece of the plate, repeatedly, to expose a bind point.  

[therunner he/him]

16 minutes ago, Quantus said:

It does, per WOB (as will anything that gives you a glimpse of the Spiritual realm).  In the case of Atium Shadows you are aiming for the temporal path of the shadow that goes down, same as how it helps find killshots generally. 

It could help sure, but that is not the same as being able to do it while fighting.
The precision to spike out power is on milimiter scale (considering the amount of bind points in heart for example), and Atium does not grant supernatural precision.

16 minutes ago, Quantus said:

I was thinking of Amaram, but I looked back and he got hit in the inhuman spots, not through any plate.  That means it'll take more hammering in a single spot, more heavily relying on the Atium Fortune aiming to get it right: single small piece of the plate, repeatedly, to expose a bind point.  

Yep., but Atium is not Fortune, for that you need F-chromium.

Edited March 23, 2023 by therunner

[Quantus he/him]

7 minutes ago, therunner said:

It could help sure, but that is not the same as being able to do it while fighting.
The precision to spike out power is on milimiter scale (considering the amount of bind points in heart for example), and Atium does not grant supernatural precision.

Yep., but Atium is not Fortune, for that you need F-chromium.

Yes it does (or close enough for this purpose) and yes it is. 

Atium grants you both the view of the shadows and the mental abilities needed to process the information in real time.  The same ability that lets them dodge attacks from behind will let them choose the perfect moment to aim and fire to hit the shadow that get's their powers blanked and falls over.  It's not the same long odds as actually doing "real" Hemalurgy this way, since any Bind point will do the same thing and there are hundreds if not thousands of them. 

Atium was specifically his first foreshadow of a Fortune effect.  That why in the WOB I posted earlier, when asked about Atium he replies that any Fortune effect will help with placing Spike, because Atium is a specific example of one.  

 

Quote

 

Questioner

So, in Allomancy, most of the metals are in pairs, they're equal and opposite, pushing and pulling, Rioting, Soothing, that kind of thing. The god metals have always-- lerasium and atium, have always struck me as kind of unbalanced in a way. Like, lerasium gives you the power to use all these metals, plus atium being one of them. Is there a reason for that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is, and it kinda has to do with Snapping and some of the fundamental rules of the Mistborn world and the fact that people have Preservation and Ruin inside of them and all these sorts of things. So, the answer is yes.

Partially, narratively, I built that in partially just 'cause I wanted atium to seem odd in the placement, right, when people got to it it's like "What? Why is this one-- This one doesn't match the others. This doesn't really work." When I was building Mistborn, one of the big things I wanted was this idea of a periodic table that was, kind of a flawed construct, that, as you read the books, you came to understand better and better. And that was something I executed-- I don't think I executed that 100% right, but I'm pleased with the general concept and how it plays out. And so I wanted atium to stick out like a sore thumb.

The other thing is, I knew I needed some good foreshadowing for Fortune, for people being able to kinda see the future or versions of the future, for the whole cosmere to work. And, so, I built in atium specifically to do those things. And I built in lerasium to have, kind of, the ultimate sort of benevolent endowment sort of thing. (Not Endowment the Shard, you know what I mean.) But I also wanted to show these two magics were intrinsically tied together on Scadrial because the way that humankind was created. We're getting into some deep stuff, I'll just leave it there. But that was what was going through my mind as I was building those things all out. 

Oathbringer Chicago signing (Nov. 21, 2017)

 

 

 

 

[therunner he/him]

1 minute ago, Quantus said:

Yes it does (or close enough for this purpose) and yes it is. 

Atium grants you both the view of the shadows and the mental abilities needed to process the information in real time.  The same ability that lets them dodge attacks from behind will let them choose the perfect moment to aim and fire to hit the shadow that get's their powers blanked and falls over.  It's not the same long odds as actually doing "real" Hemalurgy this way, since any Bind point will do the same thing and there are hundreds if not thousands of them.

No, different bind points do different things, so you need to hit specific bind point otherwise spike won't do what you want it to do (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/377/#e12283).

And dodging attack vs hitting milimiter sized target is quite a different thing. Atium as shown in books does not let you do that.
It can help spiking, that is not the same thing as letting you spike someone while fighting them (which again, only Ruin guided actions ever did, even Inquisitors spiked restrained victims) with 100% accuracy.

[Tea Leaf]

So the logical path would be: 

Twin: Steel
A/F - Pewter
A - Atium
F - Gold
A/F - Chromium

Others could be:

Twin: Gold
A - Bendalloy
Elantrian
A - Atium

Twin: Chromium
A - Atium
A - Electrum
F - Zinc
F - Steel

Twin: Steel
A - Bendalloy
A - Atium
A - Duralumin
A - Chromium

Twin: Pewter
A - Atium
F - Steel
Blessing of Potency x 2

[Quantus he/him]

6 minutes ago, therunner said:

No, different bind points do different things, so you need to hit specific bind point otherwise spike won't do what you want it to do (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/377/#e12283).

And dodging attack vs hitting milimiter sized target is quite a different thing. Atium as shown in books does not let you do that.
It can help spiking, that is not the same thing as letting you spike someone while fighting them (which again, only Ruin guided actions ever did, even Inquisitors spiked restrained victims) with 100% accuracy.

Not With Aluminum.  It only does one thing, and it does it no matter which Bind Point is used.  It's cool that way.  And because of that, it becomes well within the capabilities of atium , there are hundreds of Bind points with several clusters of them (around typical vital areas, mostly). That does require there to be some visible effect and/or reaction from the target when their powers are suddenly removed.  But assuming they are moving and fighting and not standing stoically still (like a shooting target) their will inevitably be some effect from the sudden loss of all a Radaint's stormlight.  

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Not With Aluminum.  It only does one thing, and it does it no matter which Bind Point is used.  It's cool that way.  And because of that, it becomes well within the capabilities of atium , there are hundreds of Bind points with several clusters of them (around typical vital areas, mostly). That does require there to be some visible effect and/or reaction from the target when their powers are suddenly removed.  But assuming they are moving and fighting and not standing stoically still (like a shooting target) their will inevitably be some effect from the sudden loss of all a Radaint's stormlight.  

Citation needed, all spikes require bind points, and as far as I know Aluminum is not special that way.

[Quantus he/him]

Just now, therunner said:

Citation needed, all spikes require bind points, and as far as I know Aluminum is not special that way.

I mean, the Hemalurgic Chart. An Aluminum Spike "Removes All Powers".  That makes it unique in two ways: It has a single, absolute effect with no logical room for variation, and it's the only spike that doesnt "Steal" anything so a 2nd implantation is pointless, and it is still an open question of whether aluminum Spikes (or metalminds, for that matter) actually get Invested, or if they just continue to blank, block, and/or ground out Investiture.