Why is Waxillium such a good Shot?

[Swimmingly]

There do not necessarily need to be downsides - perhaps you grow an awareness of your steel lines that doesn't require you to look at them, and you pick up useful, subtle tricks like the steel bubble. You might come to depend on using blue lines to orient yourself. Someone like Ranette, who has tailored her environment to be ideal for the Lurcher, might simply become extremely aware of the position of every major source of metal in her house.

Completely off-topic, if I were Ranette, I'd set up a bunch of big metal anchors on pendulums around the house, so any Coinshot coming to kill me would push on the wrong source and get the wrong effect.

[Pathfinder]

There do not necessarily need to be downsides - perhaps you grow an awareness of your steel lines that doesn't require you to look at them, and you pick up useful, subtle tricks like the steel bubble. You might come to depend on using blue lines to orient yourself. Someone like Ranette, who has tailored her environment to be ideal for the Lurcher, might simply become extremely aware of the position of every major source of metal in her house.

Completely off-topic, if I were Ranette, I'd set up a bunch of big metal anchors on pendulums around the house, so any Coinshot coming to kill me would push on the wrong source and get the wrong effect.

I could see it ending up slightly like steel inquisitors. Admittedly it is due to them missing eyes, but they flare their steel to become savants, and "see" people by the iron in their blood and etc. So maybe color and general eyesight deteriorates, in favor of seeing everyone in terms of the metal pervading their body

Edited July 20, 2014 by Pathfinder

[Mailliw73]

Lots and lots of practice is the answer. And a bit of Steel.

I think a steel savant would be able to see faint lines pointing to blood in the body, similar to Inquisitors or be able to see the blue lines with their eyes closed/the lines behind them. The same goes for iron.

[king of nowhere]

The only time Wax makes an actually ridiculous shot as opposed to an awesome one, he is wearing the earring and was begging for a bit of help just before, so it's possible that's the only help he got from Harmony. The rest of the time can just be put down to natural ability and 20 years experience.

 

yeah, i also believe so. hitting a bullet in midflight so that it ricochets and hit a head-sized target? completely impossible, no matter how skilled you can be. it requires a timing accurate within a fraction of milliseconds, and that after the time bubble was dropped. in that case, i think harmony did personally interfere.

But all the other times, there's nothing superhuman in his skill. he's just extremely good, at a commando or olimpic athlete level, but still humanly possible. no need for paranormal justifications of his skills. what the hell, if someone told me that a person can run 42 km in 2 hours I would never believe the human body is physically capable of that, except that i know that's the time that champions take to run a marathon. highly trained humans can do stuff that can seem impossible.

 

Also, I don't see how burning steel can help with aiming. spatial perception and all that don't really matter that much; the most important thing, especially with a handgun, is that your hand must be still. yoou can have perfect sight, perfect spatial perception and all such, but if your hand trembles just slightly it won't matter. So I'd say thugs have an easier time aiming, as Allomantic pewter increases dexterity too.

[Swimmingly]

Having blue lines to sight along wouldn't help? Being able to continue accelerating bullets once they've left the gun wouldn't help? Though he doesn't do it, I bet he could steady the barrel by pushing lightly against the gun and locking his arms. I can definitely see how thugs might be better at aiming, but Wax is better at shooting.