How would a Full Feruchemist with all metals fight?

[Trusk'our he/him]

@Speeding Steelrunner did a thread recently that discussed how a Mistborn would fight were they to have access to all 16 base metals, so I thought it would be fun to think of how a Full Feruchemist in the same situation would work.

First of all, I think that finding all the synergies between the metals strictly for combat purposes would be wise; 

Pewter: can increase muscle mass to strengthen melee attacks, increase general athleticism (for running, climbing, jumping, etc.), and for tanking blunt forces like punches, vehicles, or voracious animals. Good to tap in moderation with steel to increase running capacity and endurance (by increasing general athleticism and therefore how much speed and strength is in each stride). Storing could make you skinnier, maybe enough to wriggle through spaces you normally couldn't, like air vents. 

Tin: tap sight to pinpoint distant targets or glean info from further away, tap hearing to prevent others from sneaking up on you, tap smell to track traditionally elusive targets or to alert you to poisons or explosive gasses, tap balance to aid in combat or acrobatics. Store pain partially (maybe 80% or so) to stay aware of damage delt to you in combat, but to prevent it from disrupting your ability to act (tap health more slowly, as the pain won't be an issue). Storing pain and the feeling of illness should make storing health much easier. 

Iron: storing about 33% to make you light on your feet, which should only add to your movement and dexterity when tapping steel. Also, since storing weight makes moving one's mass around a bit easier, you can afford to store a little more strength simultaneously. Conversely, tapping iron with pewter means you can make better use of your increased mass and can do things like gripping a charging animal or vehicle and stop it dead in its tracks. Finally, tapping large quantities of weight at once can allow you to crush opponents you grapple or to smash through floors and such.

Steel: useful to tap for all sorts of situations, but constantly tapping an extra 50% speed in a possible combat zone gives you more reaction time, then increase between 200-500% tactically to make aiming firearms at the Feruchemist nearly impossible (or to make aiming your own gun nearly impossible to dodge).

Copper: less useful for direct combat, but possibility storing short term memories may make one able to blissfully meditate through long periods of high storage without feeling the passing of time (though passage of time may be susceptible to tin, which may make that more desirable for this purpose). You could also store valuable notes on targets if you were spying or attempting an assassination. Maybe useful for memorizing poisons to use or avoid or what antidotes to tap with bendalloy.

Bronze: tapping wakefulness to allow cramming for other attributes may be necessary at times you're expecting a big battle in advance, though it's not ideal. Tapping wakefulness to be wide awake and alert for nighttime endeavors would prove invaluable, and storing it to fall asleep means you can effectively reset your circadian rhythm at will to blend in with other's sleep schedules. 

Brass: storing and tapping at the right times would allow you to regulate your body temperature, which would prove especially useful when in a fight so as to increase your stamina. Also, it's possible that you could better maintain a high body temperature when storing health to help prevent or fight of disease (I'm assuming that Feruchemy doesn't shield pathogens from the tapped heat since they're not a part of your body and your immune system recognizes this). It's also worth mentioning that tapping too much warmth can hurt you, but it's not terribly easy due to the nature of Feruchemy's protection.

Zinc: tapping some zinc alongside steel will not only slow down the world to your eyes, but give you enhanced comprehension, so you can use better tactics and act more intelligently in a quick paced stressful situation. This may also be useful when trying to read a situation or examining a potential target, especially if you're tapping tin to glean more information. 

Bendalloy: similar to brass, regulating your body's demands during an extended fight or stake out could prove invaluable. What's more, your body has a hard time digesting things when dealing with infection and will even break down muscle tissue to provide the immune system with enough proteins. However, tapping essential amino acids so your body can produce those proteins would prove extremely useful when storing health. If you're worried about being poisoned as a spy/assassin/warrior, storing antidotes in a Bendalloymind may be possible so as to minimize the need to "waste" a Goldmind. Also, since zinc requires a higher energy consumption to maintain, tapping some calories during zinc usage would prove useful. 

Cadmium: holding one's breath while sneaking around may provide a subtle edge, particularly against Tineyes or Windwhisperers. Being able to swim underwater for long, long periods could help with aquatic missions. Known airborne toxins could be evaded by holding one's breath. What's more, tapping breath while exerting a lot of effort (such as in a prolonged battle) could give yet another advantage towards maintaining peak physical condition. 

Gold: useful for surviving the most extreme situations, even most that have already left their mark. Having a reservoir of health can let you be more reckless and pull tricks others couldn't dream of, such as having an emergency stick of dynamite, Miles style. Using small amounts sparingly could rejuvenate your body to better deal with exhaustion. 

Electrum: determination would probably be most useful for focusing better than normal in a fight, possibly making it a good pair for zinc. Since pain is already being removed by tin, gritting through the agony of wounds through electrum seems redundant. Perhaps emotional/psychological durability is useful? We'd need more points of view of its usage in the books to say for certain though. 

Nicrosil: probably less directly useful in Feruchemy than Allomancy, but maybe by storing access to your other Feruchemical powers when not tapping or storing their attributes you could increase their efficiency when tapping their Metalminds at a quicker rate. 

Chromium: not any examples in the books yet, but having some type of precognitive edge, no matter the form, is going to help with basically every situation. So continuously tapping at 200-500% any time you're fighting will give you a subtle but powerful edge. 

Aluminum: not useful for most situations, but if there's another Full Feruchemist you could share Metalminds. 

Duralumin: storing Connection while sneaking around would be useful. You could escape into a crowd of people after eliminating your target, or better hide when you must weaken yourself to store other attributes. Tapping would be useful for bypassing unnecessary guards (storing might help sneak past too), or general manipulation (such as convincing the hotel manager that you really should get a room with complete privacy so you can safely store more attributes). There may be other uses as well, but these are still highly theoretical. 

While pewter bound muscle mass is great, firearms are just too convenient to give up, so I doubt that particular power is actually going to be as useful as it was in era 1.

If the Feruchemist is worried about Leeching, having multiple Metalminds to tap independently may help, as the Investiture must be kinetic to Leech.

Aluminum threaded gloves or a loose aluminum threaded outfit may protect from Emotional Allomancy, Steelpushing/Ironpulling on their Metalminds, as well as Leeching (and since a Feruchemist's abilities are strictly internal, the aluminum shouldn't interfere with any of their powers).

With all their powers, I'd say that a Feruchemist warrior come era 2 would be most inclined to use guns with tin, chromium, and steel to aim quickly and take down targets, while possibly using pewter, iron, steel, and gold to tackle those who get too close or if they need to use non-lethal means. Pewter, tin, and gold would be great for durability, and pewter, brass, bendalloy, cadmium, bronze, and gold would be excellent for stamina. 

Edited August 3 by Trusk'our

[Speeding Steelrunner Male]

Cool ideas!

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Pewter: can increase muscle mass to strengthen melee attacks, increase general athleticism (for running, climbing, jumping, etc.), and for tanking blunt forces like punches, vehicles, or voracious animals. Good to tap in moderation with steel to increase running capacity and endurance (by increasing general athleticism and therefore how much speed and strength is in each stride). Storing could make you skinnier, maybe enough to wriggle through spaces you normally couldn't, like air vents. 

I had the impression that F-pewter wasn’t very good for general athleticism, since it increases your bulk drastically at higher levels, which makes moving more difficult. I suppose since you can use iron to store weight, that counteracts some potential issues.

As far as squeezing through tight spaces goes, you could potentially also use bendalloy to make yourself even thinner.

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Bronze: tapping wakefulness to allow cramming for other attributes may be necessary at times you're expecting a big battle in advance, though it's not ideal. Tapping wakefulness to be wide awake and alert for nighttime endeavors would prove invaluable, and storing it to fall asleep means you can effectively reset your circadian rhythm at will to blend in with other's sleep schedules. 

 

Tapping bronze in combat could also be effective in a similar way to cadmium, brass, or bendalloy.

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Cadmium: holding one's breath while sneaking around may provide a subtle edge, particularly against Tineyes or Windwhisperers. Being able to swim underwater for long, long periods could help with aquatic missions. Known airborne toxins could be evaded by holding one's breath. What's more, tapping breath while exerting a lot of effort (such as in a prolonged battle) could give yet another advantage towards maintaining peak physical condition.

I hadn’t really thought of the stealth applications of cadmium before. If you store weight as well, you could eliminate nearly all noise that might give you away.

 

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Electrum: determination would probably be most useful for focusing better than normal in a fight, possibly making it a good pair for zinc. Since pain is already being removed by tin, gritting through the agony of wounds through electrum seems redundant. Perhaps emotional/psychological durability is useful? We'd need more points of view of its usage in the books to say for certain though. 

Electrum is by far the worst Feruchemical power in my opinion. It doesn’t boost your body, your mind, or give you any extra spiritual powers—all it does is improve your emotional state, which is better than nothing, but probably the most boring magical power we’ve ever seen.

6 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Aluminum: not useful for most situations, but if there's another Full Feruchemist you could share Metalminds. 

 

Actually, you could still use this even if your allies were only Ferrings, or even Mistings. They can’t give metalminds to you, but you can give it to them. Mistings could burn the metalminds for a brief surge of power, which could be useful as a surprise tactic. A Coinshot could suddenly move really fast, a Lurcher could become heavy to Pull on something big.

 

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

While pewter bound muscle mass is great, firearms are just too convenient to give up, so I doubt that particular power is actually going to be as useful as it was in era 1.

Yeah. Really, all you need is steel, zinc, gold, and a gun. With steel and zinc you could shoot down enemies incredibly quickly, while avoiding return fire. Since Feruchemists can’t deflect bullets or withstand injuries using A-pewter, you need gold to stay in the fight. Everything else is just extra.

 

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

If the Feruchemist is worried about Leeching, having multiple Metalminds to tap independently may help, as the Investiture must be kinetic to Leech.

Aluminum threaded gloves or a loose aluminum threaded outfit may protect from Emotional Allomancy, Steelpushing/Ironpulling on their Metalminds, as well as Leeching (and since a Feruchemist's abilities are strictly internal, the aluminum shouldn't interfere with any of their powers).

I think the best strategy is to have a bunch of little metalminds implanted in various points of your body. This protects them from being Pushed or Pulled, and minimizes losses if you get leeched while tapping.

 

7 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

With all their powers, I'd say that a Feruchemist warrior come era 2 would be most inclined to use guns with tin, chromium, and steel to aim quickly and take down targets, while possibly using pewter, iron, steel, and gold to tackle those who get too close or if they need to use non-lethal means. Pewter, tin, and gold would be great for durability, and pewter, brass, bendalloy, cadmium, bronze, and gold would be excellent for stamina. 

I think zinc is more relevant to aiming a gun than steel is. Theoretically, you can move your gun to the right position quickly enough without F-steel, it’s finding the right position that takes time. Steel seems to only enhance reactions, and while blocking a hit, or striking with a melee attack, would fall into that category, I don’t think aiming a gun would. Of course, if you tap both, you can both aim and fire at ridiculous speeds. With enough chromium, you might be able to substitute that for zinc, but that seems more costly to me.

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

F-steel is really all you need. If you can move faster than thought, you auto win every fight. Everything else is just gravy.

[Trusk'our he/him]

22 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

F-steel is really all you need. If you can move faster than thought, you auto win every fight. Everything else is just gravy.

It really is the best power for combat, no question, but the others do add some versatility and synergies in other areas. 

Plus, your Steelmind's Investiture is finite. Yes, you can store a lot given time, but a professional combatant needs to train and make use of their power more than once a month, I'd assume (actually, maybe not technically speaking, but that's a pretty cumbersome restriction if you only allowed yourself to do it that infrequently), so using it sparingly and adding other powers to the mix improves your overall performance. 

3 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

Cool ideas!

Thanks friend!

3 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

I had the impression that F-pewter wasn’t very good for general athleticism, since it increases your bulk drastically at higher levels, which makes moving more difficult. I suppose since you can use iron to store weight, that counteracts some potential issues.

If you tap enough to turn into Bruce Banner, sure, but tapping enough to just become any other genetically blessed gym nut should only provide advantage for sprinting.

3 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

I hadn’t really thought of the stealth applications of cadmium before. If you store weight as well, you could eliminate nearly all noise that might give you away.

Ooo, that's a good one. Reduce any possible creaking from footsteps. 

3 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

Electrum is by far the worst Feruchemical power in my opinion. It doesn’t boost your body, your mind, or give you any extra spiritual powers—all it does is improve your emotional state, which is better than nothing, but probably the most boring magical power we’ve ever seen.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of one's emotions.

It's definitely not the most useful of the Feruchemical attributes, but electrum has some potential other uses, I'd say.

Though in this context, yeah, probably the least dramatic or powerful for a Full Feruchemist. 

3 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

Actually, you could still use this even if your allies were only Ferrings, or even Mistings. They can’t give metalminds to you, but you can give it to them. Mistings could burn the metalminds for a brief surge of power, which could be useful as a surprise tactic. A Coinshot could suddenly move really fast, a Lurcher could become heavy to Pull on something big.

Can't believe I forgot about bootleg Compounders.

Get a team of Coinshots and go crazy, I suppose. 

4 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

I think the best strategy is to have a bunch of little metalminds implanted in various points of your body. This protects them from being Pushed or Pulled, and minimizes losses if you get leeched while tapping.

Metalmind implants are a great option, especially for combat, but it does limit the size of the Metalminds more severely. 

Having cheap aluminum to shield from pretty much all direct Invested attacks would probably be enough, but getting implants on top would be wise.

4 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

I think zinc is more relevant to aiming a gun than steel is. Theoretically, you can move your gun to the right position quickly enough without F-steel, it’s finding the right position that takes time. Steel seems to only enhance reactions, and while blocking a hit, or striking with a melee attack, would fall into that category, I don’t think aiming a gun would. Of course, if you tap both, you can both aim and fire at ridiculous speeds. With enough chromium, you might be able to substitute that for zinc, but that seems more costly to me.

Tapping steel is essentially like being inside a Speed Bubble that you can fire out of, which should make aiming easier, as you have more time to target a slow-motion opponent. 

Sazed did use zinc to track the trajectory of a flying lantern in WoA though, so maybe it would make you into a super-sniper with practice. 

And chromium. . . yeah, we don't know enough about Fortune yet to tell how much you need to tap to see a real advantage (or what that specific advantage looks like), so erring on the side of it being costly feels right to me.

[Walter The Moral]

15 hours ago, Speeding Steelrunner said:

I think zinc is more relevant to aiming a gun than steel is. Theoretically, you can move your gun to the right position quickly enough without F-steel, it’s finding the right position that takes time. Steel seems to only enhance reactions, and while blocking a hit, or striking with a melee attack, would fall into that category, I don’t think aiming a gun would. Of course, if you tap both, you can both aim and fire at ridiculous speeds. With enough chromium, you might be able to substitute that for zinc, but that seems more costly to me.

Bleeder shot 4 people in less than a second at the start of AoL though. She was able to aim, shoot, and move around the room incredibly quickly.

[JustQuestin2004 he/him]

58 minutes ago, Walter The Moral said:

Bleeder shot 4 people in less than a second at the start of AoL though. She was able to aim, shoot, and move around the room incredibly quickly.

F-Steel proves, yet again, to be insanely broken.

[Trusk'our he/him]

Just now, JustQuestin2004 said:

F-Steel proves, yet again, to be insanely broken.

Always has been

Spoiler

 

[Speeding Steelrunner Male]

23 hours ago, Walter The Moral said:

Bleeder shot 4 people in less than a second at the start of AoL though. She was able to aim, shoot, and move around the room incredibly quickly.

I believe people have attributed Bleeder's seemingly sped-up cognition while using F-steel to her being a Kandra, which isn't to say that that's definitely true, but I would be hesitant to make any generalizations about F-steel based on what Bleeder does. It seems unlikely that F-steel would enhance your mind so much, since that's supposed to be F-zinc's power. When we see Sazed use F-steel in WoA and HoA, there are no references to time slowing down or anything that would suggest that he can process things faster.

All in all, we haven't seen that much of F-steel so far, so we'll probably have to wait a bit longer before we'll know for sure.

[+hwiles]

Honestly, someone with access to all of the metals would be a fool to fight in my opinion. Still a great thread, but wanted to put that out there.

[Trusk'our he/him]

7 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Honestly, someone with access to all of the metals would be a fool to fight in my opinion. Still a great thread, but wanted to put that out there.

Yeah, getting money, fame, and maybe even religious influence from their Metalborn status would make them a powerful leader over a significant number of people. 

Plus, you know, having greater ability to manufacture Unsealed Metalminds. That would be a powerful advantage too.

[+hwiles]

16 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Yeah, getting money, fame, and maybe even religious influence from their Metalborn status would make them a powerful leader over a significant number of people. 

Plus, you know, having greater ability to manufacture Unsealed Metalminds. That would be a powerful advantage too.

Strongly agree, except for the part about Unsealed metalminds. Those are for criminal use only, like IED's in real life. Medallions though, medallions might work to keep from being eaten alive.

 

Edit: Sorry. Criminals, AND active duty soldiers in need.

Edited August 14 by hwiles

[Trusk'our he/him]

6 hours ago, hwiles said:

Strongly agree, except for the part about Unsealed metalminds. Those are for criminal use only, like IED's in real life. Medallions though, medallions might work to keep from being eaten alive.

Well, I'm actually not sure that you can just slap together an Identity blanked Nicrosilmind in order to create an Unsealed Metalmind. I think that the Excisors are probably still needed for creating the bonding mechanism. 

If this holds true, a Full Feruchemist couldn't just abuse this mechanic, but they could perhaps create medallions that had more powers. Which, of course, would be very lucrative for them, and thus very powerful. 

[+hwiles]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Well, I'm actually not sure that you can just slap together an Identity blanked Nicrosilmind in order to create an Unsealed Metalmind. I think that the Excisors are probably still needed for creating the bonding mechanism. 

If this holds true, a Full Feruchemist couldn't just abuse this mechanic, but they could perhaps create medallions that had more powers. Which, of course, would be very lucrative for them, and thus very powerful. 

Haha, strongly agree again, sorry if I'm mixing up my terms, it's been a very long week already. I'm as confident as I can be that a full feruchemist could manufacture medallions with as few as a single excisor. More is more, but lean and efficient processes are always preferable to bloated and wasteful ones.

[Trusk'our he/him]

48 minutes ago, hwiles said:

Haha, strongly agree again, sorry if I'm mixing up my terms, it's been a very long week already. 

It's all good friend 

49 minutes ago, hwiles said:

I'm as confident as I can be that a full feruchemist could manufacture medallions with as few as a single excisor. More is more, but lean and efficient processes are always preferable to bloated and wasteful ones.

Agreed. 

Better, more efficient processes are always more advantageous.