How long does the average fight with Nightblood last?

[Argenti he/him]

How long does it take for Vasher to run out of, say, 200 breaths or Szeth of Stormlight with Nightblood fully drawn?

[alder24]

56 minutes ago, Argenti said:

How long does it take for Vasher to run out of, say, 200 breaths or Szeth of Stormlight with Nightblood fully drawn?

Reread the books and check for yourself 

Sword fights are relatively fast, some can end in just a few seconds. With Nightblood it is even faster as there isn't a blade capable of blocking him. 

Vaher had hundreds of Breaths to begin with when he drew out Nightblood but it's hard to say how many, Vivenna had at least 600 but she used some to Awaken clothes, ropes and Tonk's shirt. Vasher had at least 1000 from Vahr and 50 of his own. He used most of his Breaths to Awaken pieces of clothes and ropes before sneaking into the palace, - but when he got captured he said he used all his Breaths during fight with mercenaries, and had none left. After Vivenna had freed Vasher, she retook most of her Breaths and gave them to Vasher, so he should have around 600 Breaths or less (not including Breaths from Tonk's shirt and 2 ropes).

The Breaths Nightblood consumed were all Vivenne's, most of her Breaths.

After this they both collected remaining Breaths and managed to have at least 200 Breaths each, not enough for 3rd Heightening (600).

In took Vasher minutes to destroy 50 Lifeless:

Quote

Each creature he struck with the blade immediately flashed and became smoke. A single scratch and the bodies dissolved like paper being consumed by an invisible fire, leaving behind only a large stain of blackness in the air. Vasher spun among them, striking with wrath, killing Lifeless after Lifeless. Black smoke churned around him, and his arm twisted with pain as veinlike tendrils climbed up the hilt and around his forearm—like black blood vessels that latched on to his skin, feeding off his Breath.

In a matter of minutes, the Breath Vivenna had given him had been reduced by half. Yet in those moments, he destroyed all fifty Lifeless.

Then he ran, jumped a few times with rope, ran again and that likely took a few minutes as well. I would say the whole sequence took less than 5 minutes, and in that time Nightblood consumed almost all Breaths he had and he was left with barely 50 Breaths.

Keep in mind, Nightblood consumes exponentially more investiture the longer he is drown. Which makes any predictions impossible to make.But there is a point when he would get full and fall in a food coma state when you would only need very little investiture, but that’s a lot of investiture, Vessel worth or Perpendicularity worth of investiture. 

 

Now that I think of it, math barely checks out, as if all of Vivenne's Breaths were consumed by Nightblood, except for ones in 2 ropes and Tonk's shirt (which likely wasn't retrieved), they should have at the end more than 1050 Breaths. If Vahr had more than 1000 Breaths, and 2 ropes hold more Breaths than mere dozens, they should have enough for 3rd Heightening each. Of course this can be explained that they couldn't find all of Vasher's clothes, or Vahr had exactly 1000 Breaths. Weird but it could have happened.

 

In Oathbringer Szeth killed one person without a fight, which would take seconds, and it drained most of the spheres he had.

 

So yeah, that's it. I don't want to go into OB as it's late at night and you're lucky that was a Warbreaker question. The answer is minutes, for 200 Breaths it would be less than how long it took Vasher to destroy all 50 Lifeless (as he consumed half of what Vivenna had given him).

[Argenti he/him]

13 hours ago, alder24 said:

Reread the books and check for yourself 

Sword fights are relatively fast, some can end in just a few seconds. With Nightblood it is even faster as there isn't a blade capable of blocking him. 

Vaher had hundreds of Breaths to begin with when he drew out Nightblood but it's hard to say how many, Vivenna had at least 600 but she used some to Awaken clothes, ropes and Tonk's shirt. Vasher had at least 1000 from Vahr and 50 of his own. He used most of his Breaths to Awaken pieces of clothes and ropes before sneaking into the palace, - but when he got captured he said he used all his Breaths during fight with mercenaries, and had none left. After Vivenna had freed Vasher, she retook most of her Breaths and gave them to Vasher, so he should have around 600 Breaths or less (not including Breaths from Tonk's shirt and 2 ropes).

The Breaths Nightblood consumed were all Vivenne's, most of her Breaths.

After this they both collected remaining Breaths and managed to have at least 200 Breaths each, not enough for 3rd Heightening (600).

In took Vasher minutes to destroy 50 Lifeless:

Then he ran, jumped a few times with rope, ran again and that likely took a few minutes as well. I would say the whole sequence took less than 5 minutes, and in that time Nightblood consumed almost all Breaths he had and he was left with barely 50 Breaths.

Keep in mind, Nightblood consumes exponentially more investiture the longer he is drown. Which makes any predictions impossible to make.But there is a point when he would get full and fall in a food coma state when you would only need very little investiture, but that’s a lot of investiture, Vessel worth or Perpendicularity worth of investiture. 

 

Now that I think of it, math barely checks out, as if all of Vivenne's Breaths were consumed by Nightblood, except for ones in 2 ropes and Tonk's shirt (which likely wasn't retrieved), they should have at the end more than 1050 Breaths. If Vahr had more than 1000 Breaths, and 2 ropes hold more Breaths than mere dozens, they should have enough for 3rd Heightening each. Of course this can be explained that they couldn't find all of Vasher's clothes, or Vahr had exactly 1000 Breaths. Weird but it could have happened.

 

In Oathbringer Szeth killed one person without a fight, which would take seconds, and it drained most of the spheres he had.

 

So yeah, that's it. I don't want to go into OB as it's late at night and you're lucky that was a Warbreaker question. The answer is minutes, for 200 Breaths it would be less than how long it took Vasher to destroy all 50 Lifeless (as he consumed half of what Vivenna had given him).

I will reread them... once I finish Discworld... 

Thanks fellow human.