Steel Speedster ♂ Posted July 29, 2024 Posted July 29, 2024 (edited) According to this WoB, A-chromium and A-nicrosil work on Feruchemists while they are tapping their metalminds: Quote Questioner Nicrosil and chromium, do those have any interaction with people using Feruchemy, or other Investiture in general? Leechers or Nicrobursts. Brandon Sanderson Could you use those on Feruchemists? You should be able to, yes. Questioner Would that only work while they're tapping it? Brandon Sanderson If it's active Investiture, probably yes. You'd probably need it to be kinetic Investiture in order for them to do anything about it. Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021) So, this got me thinking about what use there might be in using nicrosil on a Feruchemist. From my understanding, using it with their consent, to boost their powers would be pointless, because they could already tap at as high a rate as they want. But you could do it as sabotage. In addition to losing their stores, here's the negative effects it could have for each Ferring. (I'm assuming that the Ferring has at least a moderate amount of attribute stored--if their metalminds are mostly empty, then nothing too bad should happen to them.) Skimmer Since storing gives benefits in many circumstances, I would guess that Skimmers tend to have pretty full metalminds most of the time, which means that they should have plenty of weight to crush them when they get nicrobursted. Also, even if they don't have a lot, the floor might collapse under them. Steelrunner I'm not sure if tapping a higher amount of speed automatically makes you go faster, or just increases your maximum amount of speed. If it's the former, then nicrobursting a Steelrunner could send them rocketing into a wall, or even make them burn up from wind resistance if they have enough speed stored. Good luck touching a moving Steelrunner though. Windwhisperer This would force them to use up any senses they were currently tapping. Duralumin on A-tin was already enough to stun Vin in WoA, but Feruchemists can carry a lot more power at once, so this would be even more devastating, assuming they had enough stored. Brute Since F-pewter increases your muscle size, I would imagine that too much could kill or at least harm you in some way. At high enough amounts, you should get crushed by your weight, due to the square-cube law. Sparker Nicrobursting a Sparker would cause them to tap all of their mental speed at once...giving them plenty of time to think through their next move now that you've used up their stores. However, F-zinc makes you hungry, so if they had enough, this might make them starve to death instantly(?) Firesoul This is the Ferring you would least want to nicroburst, because doing so will cause them to become very hot. And you have to touch someone to nicroburst them... Archivist I'm not sure that you even can nicroburst an Archivist, because you don't tap a coppermind in the same way that you tap other metalminds. Sentry This wouldn't have any significant effect except draining their bronzeminds. They would just feel super awake for a brief moment. Spinner Probably not a good idea to give them a huge burst of Fortune all at once... Soulbearer Not enough data to know what would happen. Trueself I'm not even sure if you can tap an aluminummind. Connector Not enough data. Gasper You can die of having too much air, so this could kill them. Subsumer Not sure why someone would be tapping a bendalloymind in the middle of a fight, but nicrobursting them would at the very least give them a crippling stomachache (although they could probably just re-store it and recover) or kill them with overeating. Bloodmaker This could heal some injuries (which you probably wouldn't want, as the nicroburst), but it would mostly just waste health. (Compressing health into a smaller amount of time isn't able to heal as much as tapping less for a longer amount of time.) Pinnacle They would become incredibly determined for a moment, but they wouldn't have a chance to do anything with that determination. Edited July 29, 2024 by Speeding Steelrunner 1
alder24 Posted July 29, 2024 Posted July 29, 2024 26 minutes ago, Speeding Steelrunner said: So, this got me thinking about what use there might be in using nicrosil on a Feruchemist. From my understanding, using it with their consent, to boost their powers would be pointless, because they could already tap at as high a rate as they want. I theorize that bursting a Ferring with a nicrosil/duralumin will release all stored attributes without losing it to compression and diminishing returns. Normally when you tap at an increased rate, the attribute is used up to to facilitate the compression of the Investiture, which makes you lose some of that attribute. In this case it would be nicrosil and duralumin that provide power for this compression, so you won't lose anything. This is very dangerous, but also very useful if you have small amounts of attributes separated among many metalminds and you just tap one of it. Spoiler Sporkify This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power? Brandon Sanderson It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself. In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful. Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored. Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008) Spoiler Questioner What happens if you burn duralumin while Compounding? Brandon Sanderson Duralumin while Compounding. So, what duralumin does is it burns out of all of your metal in one burst. So it doesn't necessarily gain you power, it makes it all happen at the same time. The same thing would happen. Questioner Could you turn into a baby? Brandon Sanderson Oh, you could totally turn into a baby. That is within the power of using that, doing <health wrong>, yeah you could totally... You'd be really dangerous. Questioner But it wouldn't really do much? Brandon Sanderson Oh it would have explosive... it does things really fast. That's what it does. Yes you could achieve very powerful sudden effects through that. It'd be scary. Controlling it can be dangerous, regardless of which metal you use. Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing (Dec. 1, 2016) 29 minutes ago, Speeding Steelrunner said: Skimmer Since storing gives benefits in many circumstances, I would guess that Skimmers tend to have pretty full metalminds most of the time, which means that they should have plenty of weight to crush them when they get nicrobursted. Also, even if they don't have a lot, the floor might collapse under them. They are protected from being crushed by their own weight, but the building certainly isn't. Spoiler Thoughtful Spurts If tapping heat means your own body gets hotter, does it also mean you become immune to hot temperatures so long as you're tapping it, or should you fill heat and grow colder for that to happen? Brandon Sanderson As everything in Feruchemy, you become immune to the effects of the ability only. Like weight doesn't crush you, but at the same time doesn't have a net gain in strength. Growing colder, however, would be more helpful in this regard. 17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012) 2
Steel Speedster ♂ Posted July 29, 2024 Author Posted July 29, 2024 2 minutes ago, alder24 said: I theorize that bursting a Ferring with a nicrosil/duralumin will release all stored attributes without losing it to compression and diminishing returns. Normally when you tap at an increased rate, the attribute is used up to to facilitate the compression of the Investiture, which makes you lose some of that attribute. In this case it would be nicrosil and duralumin that provide power for this compression, so you won't lose anything. This is very dangerous, but also very useful if you have small amounts of attributes separated among many metalminds and you just tap one of it. That actually seems very possible, and it would make A-duralumin not useless if you were a Twinborn! It wouldn't be a huge difference, but being able to be more efficient would certainly be a nice buff. 3 minutes ago, alder24 said: They are protected from being crushed by their own weight, but the building certainly isn't. I seem to recall that that only extends up to a certain point, but the coppermind doesn't mention that, so I could be wrong.
Longshot97 he/him Posted July 30, 2024 Posted July 30, 2024 I actually had a similar theory some time back. Eliminating Feruchemy's Diminishing Returns https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/165699-eliminating-feruchemys-diminishing-returns/ The conversation got a bit heated, but it was a good conversation.
Steel Speedster ♂ Posted July 30, 2024 Author Posted July 30, 2024 10 hours ago, Longshot97 said: I actually had a similar theory some time back. Eliminating Feruchemy's Diminishing Returns https://www.17thshard.com/forums/topic/165699-eliminating-feruchemys-diminishing-returns/ The conversation got a bit heated, but it was a good conversation. Yeah, I think it’s a good theory, and it would be cool if this works! The best part is, if you duralumin tapped your metalmind, then immediately dumped all the power into another metalmind, you should’ve eliminated all compression issues for that metalmind permanently. It would act like you had originally stored that attribute at 500% (or whatever), so you could tap it up to that level without losing anything, but you could also tap at lower rates. Basically like the compounding process, but just to increase efficiency. 2
Trusk'our he/him Posted July 30, 2024 Posted July 30, 2024 52 minutes ago, Speeding Steelrunner said: The best part is, if you duralumin tapped your metalmind, then immediately dumped all the power into another metalmind, you should’ve eliminated all compression issues for that metalmind permanently. It would act like you had originally stored that attribute at 500% (or whatever), so you could tap it up to that level without losing anything, but you could also tap at lower rates. Basically like the compounding process, but just to increase efficiency. As cool as that would be, I don't think that's how that works. You lose a certain amount of attribute to compression loss regardless of the speed you stored it at. It's the total Investiture that counts, so a person who can lift 200 lbs. Who stored at 50% and a person who can lift 400 lbs. Who stored at 25% for the same time in a Pewtermind would each be able to tap the same added strength (though the needed percentage to tap compared to their base strength to, say, double their strength would be different) for the same duration of time. Spoiler https://wob.coppermind.net/events/153-hal-con-2012/#e2803 Lance Alvein (paraphrased) Does the loss during the withdrawal of large amounts of attribute depend on the rate of original storage? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) No. 2
Steel Speedster ♂ Posted July 30, 2024 Author Posted July 30, 2024 3 hours ago, Trusk'our said: As cool as that would be, I don't think that's how that works. You lose a certain amount of attribute to compression loss regardless of the speed you stored it at. It's the total Investiture that counts, so a person who can lift 200 lbs. Who stored at 50% and a person who can lift 400 lbs. Who stored at 25% for the same time in a Pewtermind would each be able to tap the same added strength (though the needed percentage to tap compared to their base strength to, say, double their strength would be different) for the same duration of time. Reveal hidden contents https://wob.coppermind.net/events/153-hal-con-2012/#e2803 Lance Alvein (paraphrased) Does the loss during the withdrawal of large amounts of attribute depend on the rate of original storage? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) No. Oh well. Theoretically, you could still duralumin tap any time you wanted to compress, and just store the excess back into a metalmind. Wouldn’t be as convenient as being able to do it ahead of time, but if duralumin can remove compression loss, theoretically you could still tap at any rate without losing any power. Actually, the best thing to do would be creating several small metalminds of the same size, so that way you can just duralumin tap as many as you need and not need to worry about the excess. Unfortunately, duralumin tapping would require you to tap in bursts, which wouldn’t be ideal for most metals.
Trusk'our he/him Posted July 30, 2024 Posted July 30, 2024 1 hour ago, Speeding Steelrunner said: Oh well. Theoretically, you could still duralumin tap any time you wanted to compress, and just store the excess back into a metalmind. Wouldn’t be as convenient as being able to do it ahead of time, but if duralumin can remove compression loss, theoretically you could still tap at any rate without losing any power. Actually, the best thing to do would be creating several small metalminds of the same size, so that way you can just duralumin tap as many as you need and not need to worry about the excess. Unfortunately, duralumin tapping would require you to tap in bursts, which wouldn’t be ideal for most metals. Tapping in quick enough bursts would probably work. For example, if each burst of Investiture lasted for a full second, 180 mini-Metalminds could allow for about three minutes of highly compressed attributes. You'd need to experiment, but it seems fairly achievable. If you're really good, siphoning off excess attributes from duralumin should be possible too, as you mentioned.
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