We need more stuff about Zinc ferrings

[Shadow of Electrum]

So I was scrolling through the forums yesterday when I saw a topic discussing what the most useful twinborn combination would be in the modern day. After thinking about it I decided that F-Zinc would be my preferred Feruchemical power, and I realized that F-Zinc has been heavily underutilized. Mental speed is an amazing power for basically any situation, whether it be scholarship, combat, politics, sports, basically anything that takes a brain, which is most things. I imagine compounded zinc would have a similar effect of atium, not seeing the future, but being able to take in and calculate everything around you so fast that you can anticipate everything that's about to happen. Combined with rioting I think it could make for someone particularly threatening. I really want to see F-Zinc be utilized more in the future because it really is just an awesome power, and I can't stop thinking about the possibilities of compouned zinc.

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Shadow of Electrum said:

So I was scrolling through the forums yesterday when I saw a topic discussing what the most useful twinborn combination would be in the modern day. After thinking about it I decided that F-Zinc would be my preferred Feruchemical power, and I realized that F-Zinc has been heavily underutilized. Mental speed is an amazing power for basically any situation, whether it be scholarship, combat, politics, sports, basically anything that takes a brain, which is most things. I imagine compounded zinc would have a similar effect of atium, not seeing the future, but being able to take in and calculate everything around you so fast that you can anticipate everything that's about to happen. Combined with rioting I think it could make for someone particularly threatening. I really want to see F-Zinc be utilized more in the future because it really is just an awesome power, and I can't stop thinking about the possibilities of compouned zinc.

Yes, 100% agree. F-zinc is my favorite Feruchemical metal, and personally one of the best. It combines very well with many other abilities, for example an A-electrum F-zinc Twinborn would be able to fully utilize all electrum shadows to the scale of A-Atium, which would be extremely dangerous. We need more of it, we need to see it in action. 

[Treamayne]

55 minutes ago, Shadow of Electrum said:

After thinking about it I decided that F-Zinc would be my preferred Feruchemical power, and I realized that F-Zinc has been heavily underutilized. Mental speed is an amazing power for basically any situation, whether it be scholarship, combat, politics, sports, basically anything that takes a brain, which is most things.

I think the Pewter caveat applies to F-Zinc. By this I mean:

• In TFE (and a bit more in WoA) Ham goes on about how most thugs are only marginally effective because they fail to train their bodies or practice using weapons - IOW - without training and practice, Pewter can only take you so far. 
• With F-Zinc, I feel something similar applies. Without basic knowledge of physics, all the mental speed you tap can't help you calculate a trajectory. Without understanding deductive and inductive reasoning, thinking quickly won't help you understand a situation any faster. I think it's one of those abilities that can be very strong with training, but can only go so far on its own merits and won't always help in a dangerous situation (WoA Ch 58)

Spoiler

Marsh stepped forward, and Sazed coughed, trying to get his bruised body to move. He worried that he’d rebroken his arm. He tapped zinc again, speeding up his thoughts, but that didn’t help his body move. He could only watch—more fully aware of his predicament and unable to do a thing to stop it—as Marsh picked up the fallen lamp.

 

[Trusk'our]

2 hours ago, Shadow of Electrum said:

So I was scrolling through the forums yesterday when I saw a topic discussing what the most useful twinborn combination would be in the modern day. After thinking about it I decided that F-Zinc would be my preferred Feruchemical power, and I realized that F-Zinc has been heavily underutilized. Mental speed is an amazing power for basically any situation, whether it be scholarship, combat, politics, sports, basically anything that takes a brain, which is most things. I imagine compounded zinc would have a similar effect of atium, not seeing the future, but being able to take in and calculate everything around you so fast that you can anticipate everything that's about to happen. Combined with rioting I think it could make for someone particularly threatening. I really want to see F-Zinc be utilized more in the future because it really is just an awesome power, and I can't stop thinking about the possibilities of compouned zinc.

Indeed. I'd personally love to see Feruchemical zinc, electrum, chromium, duralumin, aluminum, nicrosil, pewter, and steel be used by viewpoint characters.

Then we'd have a better idea of what they can and cannot do.

[Shadow of Electrum]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

I think the Pewter caveat applies to F-Zinc

In TFE (and a bit more in WoA) Ham goes on about how most thugs are only marginally effective because they fail to train their bodies or practice using weapons - IOW - without training and practice, Pewter can only take you so far. 

I agree with this for the most part. I had been thinking that if I actually had the power if it might actually make me worse at thinking fast at base power, but I also feel like the pewter caveat, I'll keep calling it that for consistency, doesn't apply as much. I say this specifically because tapping mental speed doesn't increase your mental capabilities, like you said earlier, so I believe that most people would still think to train their mind to understand more since they know that tapping mental speed doesn't do that. I also believe that they wouldn't be as dependent as pewter burners because Feruchemy requires a lot more regulation assuming they aren't a compounder.

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

• With F-Zinc, I feel something similar applies. Without basic knowledge of physics, all the mental speed you tap can't help you calculate a trajectory. Without understanding deductive and inductive reasoning, thinking quickly won't help you understand a situation any faster. I think it's one of those abilities that can be very strong with training, but can only go so far on its own merits and won't always help in a dangerous situation.

I know it wouldn't always be helpful in a selection of combat situations, but in the section you quoted I think most powers theoretically wouldn't have been able to help save for pewter burning or maybe more physical speed. Even something like atium would have been the same in my estimation; it shows the next few seconds and expands your mind, but your physical capabilities are the same. I feel like the few times Yomen fought with atium best represent what I believe the power could give. Even without strong reasoning skills, you would be able to read tells from your opponents attack, like seeing which direction they're trying to swing in. You wouldn't be able to react to stuff behind you like atium seems to be able to do, but you would be able to see and process someone prepare a knife strike fast enough to move out of the way. This is also assuming that mental speed increases reaction time, which I don't see why it wouldn't.

[Treamayne]

7 minutes ago, Shadow of Electrum said:

Even without strong reasoning skills, you would be able to read tells from your opponents attack, like seeing which direction they're trying to swing in. 

I would agree that a trained and/or experienced fighter tapping Zinc might be able to read tells from an opponent's attack.  I disagree that un untrained fighter would have any chance of correctly interpreting a possible attack from body-language alone - and especially not in time to dodge/parry/block that attack only based on Zinc-assisted reasoning. 

I don't know if you have any fighting experience or not, but there is a reason that Hollywood needs to over-exaggerate fighting technique movements so the viewer can follow the action. Real fights do not work that way, and only a trained fighter would have a chance of noticing the subtle tells of shifting center-of-gravity; cm or less repositions of joint to line up an attack; etc.

Not to montion that significant difference that fighting style may have. For example,  a body position change in Boxing will indicate a vastly different attack vector from the same body reposition in Aikido or TaeKwonDo. 

7 minutes ago, Shadow of Electrum said:

 This is also assuming that mental speed increases reaction time, which I don't see why it wouldn't.

F-Zinc has already been shown to not affect reaction time, or anything relating to physical capabilities/movement. Sazed, in both WoA and HoA has to tap Zinc, calculate/deduce the situation and tap steel to take action in time to do anything. Now, if you are saying that if they "see it coming" with enough advanced warning for thier normal reaction times to be effect, that may be possible. 

[Shadow of Electrum]

47 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I don't know if you have any fighting experience or not, but there is a reason that Hollywood needs to over-exaggerate fighting technique movements so the viewer can follow the action. Real fights do not work that way, and only a trained fighter would have a chance of noticing the subtle tells of shifting center-of-gravity; cm or less repositions of joint to line up an attack; etc.

 

Yeah that's fair. You're correct in assuming I don't have any fighting experience, and now that you've mentioned it I remember hearing that real fighting isn't as telling as it's portrayed in popular media.

47 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Now, if you are saying that if they "see it coming" with enough advanced warning for thier normal reaction times to be effect, that may be possible. 

That is what I was trying to get at. My thought process was that if you see and process what's happening, your conscious decision/reaction would start before someone thinking at normal speed.

[Treamayne]

7 minutes ago, Shadow of Electrum said:

My thought process was that if you see and process what's happening, your conscious decision/reaction would start before someone thinking at normal speed.

What I was saying was that your reaction won't be any faster (a flinch reaction is a flinch reaction - happening in fractions of a second for both a Zinc Ferring and a non-ferring) but the reaction you do take is more likely to be beneficial/correct. My example you quoted above is more about having multiple seconds to sense/analyze/respond. For example, with F-Zinc then Vin vs Cett's allomancers in the beginning of WoA, she may not have needed Watcher's help in deducing one Coinshot was Mistborn in disguise. Just the extra thinking time to process the cues she was already seeing may have helped her deduce the trap.

Though, that's not a great example becuase Vin has so much else already going for her. 

[Elite01]

My main concern with F-Zinc is that even though you can think faster I don't think there is any evidence that you get any smarter. So even though there is more time to process the information if you don't know how to do something then having an extra minute to remember won't necessarily help. Of course the right character could get around that weakness.