Bondsmith's True Potential

[Trusk'our he/him]

Bondsmiths have been hyped up by Brandon a lot: they have loads of Investiture and can manipulate Connection on a fundamental level. 

I've had some difficulty taking them seriously at times (mostly before Ishar's display of power), but I think I have an idea as to why they're so powerful, specifically.

Bondsmiths have "access to more Investiture than any other Radiant Order", but this honestly seems pretty irrelevant, as they don't display this Investiture as Heightenings, extra fuel, or even efficiency from what we've seen (actually, no Radiant brazenly displays the effects of high quantities of Investiture, at least not compared to Awakeners. Perhaps because only the necessary Investiture to bridge their Spiritweb to their Spren's is actually saturating them, and the rest they technically have access to but it's not part of them?)

Anyway, Bondsmiths have no noticeably boosted efficiency, Heightenings, or fuel (Perpendicularities seem to be a separate effect based on their power's composition rather than strength, given that Ishar can use his Honorblade to do so), but I think they might still have the advantage: intuition. 

With Heightenings, the stronger your power, the easier it is to instinctually utilize Awakening Commands. While Bondsmiths don't have the traditional Heightening benefits, what if they still have this benefit?

We've seen Dalinar Connect to Shallan in such a way as to create a large illusory map, visualize the Spiritweb of one of his soldiers, and Connect Kaladin to a custom on-the-spot vision in RoW. All of these seem rather unintuitive, yet he does so nearly by accident. 

This makes me think Bondsmiths (except for Honorblade Bondsmiths) will have a high talent for intuitively manipulating Connection, allowing them to potentially pull stunts like complex Spiritweb alteration without having to do extensive research.

Basically, even if an Elantrian smartipants can copy most of what a Bondsmith can do, the Bondsmith might be able to figure out the same solution with only a fraction of the time and brainpower. 

[Quantus he/him]

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Bondsmiths have been hyped up by Brandon a lot: they have loads of Investiture and can manipulate Connection on a fundamental level. 

I've had some difficulty taking them seriously at times (mostly before Ishar's display of power), but I think I have an idea as to why they're so powerful, specifically.

Bondsmiths have "access to more Investiture than any other Radiant Order", but this honestly seems pretty irrelevant, as they don't display this Investiture as Heightenings, extra fuel, or even efficiency from what we've seen (actually, no Radiant brazenly displays the effects of high quantities of Investiture, at least not compared to Awakeners. Perhaps because only the necessary Investiture to bridge their Spiritweb to their Spren's is actually saturating them, and the rest they technically have access to but it's not part of them?)

Anyway, Bondsmiths have no noticeably boosted efficiency, Heightenings, or fuel (Perpendicularities seem to be a separate effect based on their power's composition rather than strength, given that Ishar can use his Honorblade to do so), but I think they might still have the advantage: intuition. 

With Heightenings, the stronger your power, the easier it is to instinctually utilize Awakening Commands. While Bondsmiths don't have the traditional Heightening benefits, what if they still have this benefit?

We've seen Dalinar Connect to Shallan in such a way as to create a large illusory map, visualize the Spiritweb of one of his soldiers, and Connect Kaladin to a custom on-the-spot vision in RoW. All of these seem rather unintuitive, yet he does so nearly by accident. 

As one thought, Bondsmiths can attach objects to a person and make their spiritweb treat it as part of them (as seen when Ishar drained their stormlight into the ground).  They could probably attach Gems and such to you as well.  Grant a Gemheart, Attach a Perfect Gem, who knows what that could do.  

WOB says the Migration was a Bondsmith Connecting to and/or augmenting an Elsecalling, implying that they can reach scales of power by Connecting groups that Im guessing no single individual could match.  

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

This makes me think Bondsmiths (except for Honorblade Bondsmiths) will have a high talent for intuitively manipulating Connection, allowing them to potentially pull stunts like complex Spiritweb alteration without having to do extensive research.

The Nightwatcher's Bondsmith almost certainly will be able to, I'd think, given that's what's she's doing already on her own. I think there is a very real possibility that the Nightwatcher Bondsmith can grant Boons just as easily, but historically was not allowed to do so very often.  

13 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Basically, even if an Elantrian smartipants can copy most of what a Bondsmith can do, the Bondsmith might be able to figure out the same solution with only a fraction of the time and brainpower. 

Almost certainly, Needing more Cognitive handholding seems to be a common weakness of Selish magics.  Bondsmiths will still have to learn and train and gain realmic understanding to provide the appropriate Intents, but the Surges seem to act more intuitively both because of innate default settings (as seen with the essences, Healing of people and objects, etc) as well as the fact that the Godspren have pre-existing experience with them (and had Shardic teachers, I assume).

There's also a very real possibility that, without Honor preventing it, they'll be able to recreate the pre-shattering power of Microkinesis which allows for manipulation of subatomic particles, nuclear effects, and the ability to both directly perceive and directly manipulate the Spiritweb.