Arcanist Lupus Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 The Suvudu Cage Match thread got me thinking about the offensive capabilities of Soothing and Rioting. So the question is, how useful would it be for a Rioter to violently and suddenly Riot an opponent's emotions during physical combat? I'm not talking about subtlety here, but about using Rioting as a distraction, to confuse and disorient the opponent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
master Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 So the question is, how useful would it be for a Rioter to violently and suddenly Riot an opponent's emotions during physical combat? I'm not talking about subtlety here, but about using Rioting as a distraction, to confuse and disorient the opponent. I guess it would depend on how much they are expecting it, their ability at igmoring \their emotions, and a hundred other factors. but I guess against aan inexperienced opponent it could work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 I think it'd serve as a distraction, yes, but not very significantly. Anyone who would conceivably be in a fight with a mistborn would figure out what was going on pretty quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 Didn't Straf become fairly disoriented when Vin hit him with her Soothe during the negotiations? That could come in very handy during any fight. A mistborn could make an army turn on itself with Duralumin. Find a situation someone like the fight Richard started in Jagangs camp, hit it with a super riot, and you have half of the army killing the other half. Perfect for siege warfare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 With Straff, it was a display of power, and that's what freaked him. And I don't know if it would affect an army that way. You can only manipulate emotions, not thoughts. So you could make the soldiers angry, but not control who they're angry at. They might end up attacking you instead of each other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 It depends what classifies as an 'emotion' really. There are some pretty weird ones mentioned in the books, I think hunger was at one point, if you Rioted that as hard as possible that's a difficult distraction to ignore. I think fatigue was mentioned too, so yeah if in the middle of a fight you suddenly felt starving and exhausted, not much you could do. I always thought that people underestimated soothers/rioters. Emotional allomancy ftw! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcanist Lupus Posted March 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 (edited) What happens if you suddenly Riot surprise, distraction, and shock? I'm thinking that no matter how prepared you are, you're going to be very surprised, distracted, and shocked. Can you Riot dizziness? Probably not, since it's a physical sensation more than an emotion. But if hunger can be Rioted... What about forgetfulness? Edited March 24, 2012 by Sir Read-a-Lot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 The one I am now trying to find a mention of in the books is pain, I seem to recall someone (almost certainly Breeze) Soothing pain, if so then yeah, that basically speaks for itself, also duralumin fueled riot? Mega torture. So yeah, never underestimate a rioter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcanist Lupus Posted March 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 The one I am now trying to find a mention of in the books is pain, I seem to recall someone (almost certainly Breeze) Soothing pain, if so then yeah, that basically speaks for itself, also duralumin fueled riot? Mega torture. So yeah, never underestimate a rioter. Duralumin fueling any rioted emotion is hugely powerful. At that point, it doesn't matter if you're prepared, that emotion will squeeze out any other emotions - for a moment. I'm guessing that would distract any fighter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 Yeah, although I suppose I should say Nicrosil fueled now because we're unlikely to see Duralumin again unless we get some Mistborn back. But yeah, I mean the books seem to imply that the range of emotions is hugely vast, it's not just simple things. But I can see a few teams consisting of Rioters and Nicrobursts massively rioting the suspicion or something in an entire enemy army to cause some in-fighting or rioting their hunger periodically to cause them to go through supplies a lot faster. It could really be incredibly useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 (edited) Straff did get freaked out when Vin Soothed him, but only because he was being duralumin-soothed. He was unable to feel any emotions at all. I think that Soothing and/or Rioting could be immensely useful in combat. Can you imagine fighting someone, Rioting their fear while Soothing their confidence? You could Riot empathy or mercy to give yourself an edge. Also extreme bursts of emotion during combat followed by total numbness would be almost debilitating. I want to see a Soother or a Rioter who actually has combat abilities. I loved Breeze and Alrianne but they weren't getting in any fights, so we never saw any combat applications. Edited March 24, 2012 by Windrunner 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 24, 2012 Report Share Posted March 24, 2012 Yeah, I'd be really interested in a main character who was a Rioter or Soother, probably combined with some Feruchemical ability, not sure which. But yeah I think there are a lot of options for emotional allomancy that haven't been explored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aethling Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Everyone seems to be discounting the effect that the soothe had on Straff. If he had actually been fighing someone, the momentary distraction would have caused him to be killed. That is a pretty potent offensive weapon when you do not even have to be in the same room. As it was, he allowed Vin and Elend to make it back to the city. Vin and Elend did not soothe the Koloss armies one at a time, they grabbed blocks of them. Special case, but 50 or so Koloss would be a nice advantage in battle. For anyone that has read SoT, imagine having a Rioter placed at the match where Richard causes the army-wide fight. Now imagine doing the same thing to one of the camps at the battle of Elendel. Hide a rioter in an enemy camp to cause them to attack prematurely. Have a rioter cause friction inside of enemy camps. Have a rioter subvert a disgruntled captain into killing the general. Riot someone's paranoia so that they go postal inside the enemy camp. Every soldier killed by the enemy in their own camp reduced their morale and the number of bodies that will be attacking your walls. Have a rioter inflame suspicions and then slip poison into the camp water or foodsource. After a few weeks of that and sieges, eventually someone is going to snap hard. By risking one allomancer, you stand the potential for causing all kinds of damage to your enemy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Yeah I was thinking on similar lines Aethling, Allomantic sabotage. Also rioting everyones hunger to go through supplies, soothing the alertness of sentries so you can slip in more spies, rioting the lonliness of troops could cause some serious homesickness, confusion in engineers to prevent any ideas, same with the strategists, or their anger, so they continually argue. Soothe people so they become more comfortable around you, easier to find out any secrets or plans. Emotional allomancy is the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcanist Lupus Posted March 25, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Duralumin enhanced shocks would basically destroy any Calvary charge. Also, several good Soothers/Rioters could probably get secrets out faster than any torturer. Soothing is normally useless if it's noticed, but with enough Mistings working in concert, I bet it would become impossible to resist the emotions they're Soothing/Rioting. Also good for causing the enemy general to commit suicide, if you're close enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Actually I just thought of something on the subject of cavalry, do we know if emotional allomancy can affect animals? Because that could potentially be really dangerous at the right time in a cavalry charge if a duralumin fuelled riot of fear in the horses went off, they'd probably throw off their riders and trample them to death running away, also could be useful if any army was travelling cross country to get wild animals to consistently attack them, further decreasing morale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvers Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Well if it were me in a 1 on 1 situation I would act injured or too afraid to move and riot the other person's confidence. Try to get him to let his guard down and go straight for the heart. It's more of a situational tool than an offensive weapon, perhaps an original mistborn or duralumin flair would make it much more usefull especially on a large scale, but then you're mistborn... kinda makes it less important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 (edited) The rest of the allomantic powers are useful in combat against roughly 20 odd enemies simultaneously, emotional allomancy properly could destroy an entire army while losing 0 soldiers, it is by far the most versatile of the allomantic powers. EDIT: Also think of how useful it could be if applied with Operant conditioning techniques Edited March 25, 2012 by Voidus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lyssie95 Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 The best canon example of mass-soothing we have is prolly TLR in mistborn 1. He Soothes the crap out of everyone to the point where there is no hope-Kell and Vin have to riot their little group. That, on a battlefield? Heck YES that'd be effective! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Exactly! I mean I doubt anyones abilities could match TLR but if you had a team of savants they could probably do a fair job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odium's_Shard Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 As for the problem about being below Emotional Allomancy as a Mistborn: This could be solved by having a Soother/Rioter and a Nicroburst against a cavalry charge, ie, Sooth away their confidence, or Riot their fear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 So basically we've come to the conclusion that soothers/rioters are the best saboteurs ever. Also case in point just think about how effective the soothing stations were in Luthadel, it created a permanent emotional change in the people living there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triasmus Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 (edited) So I was just reading TFE and I came across the part where kelsier soothed vin's pain. It actually says ...and even her pain seemed unimportant It was really just the importance that was soothed away. It might in effect be the same as actually soothing or rioting pain or hunger or whatever, but I figured I might as well bring it up anyway, since I could. Edited March 25, 2012 by Lantern13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aradel Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 So he didn't take away the pain he just made it less apparent. I know we don't normally regard hunger or pain as an emotion, but this seems to indicate that it alters many sensations we feel. I wonder if a talented and tricky soother can mess with someone's vision or touch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 ^Have you ever been on morphine? You can still feel the pain, but you don't care about it anymore. Now, take that without the accompanying loopyness, and apply to soldiers in battle. That could be very effective. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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