Wax V.S Kaladin

[Entr0pic He/him]

Okay, so first let me provide each of their significant attributes (TLM spoilers)

Spoiler

Wax: full lerasium mistborn, with a spike that would further enhance his duralumin, and iron feruchemy. While it’s unlikely that he would have much practice with any of his allomancy besides iron, he wouldn’t need much. He has aluminum to clear any lashing placed on him, which you don’t need practice for, and has chromium to clear any stormlight that Kal has, which you don’t need practice for. Additionally, his “flying” would be more agile now that he can ironpull. However, depending on the arena, there may not be metals handy. It’s also notable to note that he’s far older than he used to be, and thus would struggle after a prolonged fight. 

Kal: Windrunner of the 5th ideal, honorbade, herald. He has practice with all his powers. One of the only drawback he has is that he doesn’t have any real experience with ranged fighting (that i remember) however, you could also make the inverse argument for wax, in that he doesn’t have any experience melee fighting. Also, due to the fact that wax has access to aluminum and iron feruchemy, lashings against him would be rather useless. Also, he has his oaths that he needs to follow, however, i don’t think that wax would be the type of person to exploit those. Also, I’m not sure if an enhanced duralumin push using his steel would be enough to effect his shardplate, but i think it would be enough to push on the metals in his body (assuming kal takes his plate of at any point) 

So, i really think this just comes down to the arena. Assuming that we’re fighting in elendel, you could easily make an argument for wax winning. He has plenty of metals to use, Kal doesn’t have experience fighting in cityscapes, and he Scadrian atmosphere has less oxygen and there’s more gravity, which would hinder Kal and mess with his lashings even more. What wax would need to do to win would be to focus on a single piece of his shardplate and hopefully make a gap big enough to shot kal ‘till his stormlight runs out or until he can leech from Kal.

however, if this takes place in roshar, than Kal has an easy win. Wax wouldn’t benefit from the lower gravity like others might due to his iron feruchemy, and there isn’t much metal on Roshar. Kal could just fly to wax and boom, Shardblade, wax is dead.

so overall, Kal probably wins, but still, since i am biased, I’m gonna say wax wins. 

[QuantumAce]

Overall I believe Kaladin has enough of an advantage to put him in a separate tier above Wax. Random chance, I am taking Kaladin 100 times out of 100. 

It possible to construct a scenario where Wax is competitive, but that requires intentionally stacking external advantages for him. With enough plot armor time to prep, Wax could take anyone down. Brandon could write a pretty fun scene for them if he wanted to. 

[Treamayne]

WoB:

Spoiler

Bat_Mannington

If a Windrunner lashed Wax upwards, could he dump all of his weight into his metalminds and be unaffected or would the lashing affect his clothes and whatever else he had on him too?

Brandon Sanderson

Wax could mitigate the effect (unless he was in a vacuum) but not eliminate it completely.

faragorn

Vacuum or freefall?

It can be easy to confuse them in the context of surface to orbit.

Brandon Sanderson

I was talking about a Vacuum, but it's good to clarify. What I'm saying is that without wind resistance, his mass doesn't matter--and the books have established that what Wax does is a freakish transformation of his mass, not just his weight.

Kaladin changes how much gravity pulls on someone, and in what direction. Wax (basically, it's more complex than this) changes how much mass he has. The two, then, have some very distinctive effects.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 5, 2015)

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

59 minutes ago, Timiny said:

Okay, so first let me provide each of their significant attributes (TLM spoilers)

  Hide contents

Wax: full lerasium mistborn, with a spike that would further enhance his duralumin, and iron feruchemy. While it’s unlikely that he would have much practice with any of his allomancy besides iron, he wouldn’t need much. He has aluminum to clear any lashing placed on him, which you don’t need practice for, and has chromium to clear any stormlight that Kal has, which you don’t need practice for. Additionally, his “flying” would be more agile now that he can ironpull. However, depending on the arena, there may not be metals handy. It’s also notable to note that he’s far older than he used to be, and thus would struggle after a prolonged fight. 

Kal: Windrunner of the 5th ideal, honorbade, herald. He has practice with all his powers. One of the only drawback he has is that he doesn’t have any real experience with ranged fighting (that i remember) however, you could also make the inverse argument for wax, in that he doesn’t have any experience melee fighting. Also, due to the fact that wax has access to aluminum and iron feruchemy, lashings against him would be rather useless. Also, he has his oaths that he needs to follow, however, i don’t think that wax would be the type of person to exploit those. Also, I’m not sure if an enhanced duralumin push using his steel would be enough to effect his shardplate, but i think it would be enough to push on the metals in his body (assuming kal takes his plate of at any point) 

So, i really think this just comes down to the arena. Assuming that we’re fighting in elendel, you could easily make an argument for wax winning. He has plenty of metals to use, Kal doesn’t have experience fighting in cityscapes, and he Scadrian atmosphere has less oxygen and there’s more gravity, which would hinder Kal and mess with his lashings even more. What wax would need to do to win would be to focus on a single piece of his shardplate and hopefully make a gap big enough to shot kal ‘till his stormlight runs out or until he can leech from Kal.

however, if this takes place in roshar, than Kal has an easy win. Wax wouldn’t benefit from the lower gravity like others might due to his iron feruchemy, and there isn’t much metal on Roshar. Kal could just fly to wax and boom, Shardblade, wax is dead.

so overall, Kal probably wins, but still, since i am biased, I’m gonna say wax wins. 

Wax is really cool, and before Kal became a Herald I might have given him a chance depending on environmental and equipment advantages. 

But Kaladin is functionally immortal now, has even stronger Surgebinding, may have Bondsmithing, and has whatever else Heralds can do- some of which seems to mimic Steelrunning, arguably the most dangerous Metalborn ability. 

Even if Wax had the Bands fully charged and in his possession, he'd be really, really hard pressed to pull a win.

[Entr0pic He/him]

20 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Wax is really cool, and before Kal became a Herald I might have given him a chance depending on environmental and equipment advantages. 

But Kaladin is functionally immortal now, has even stronger Surgebinding, may have Bondsmithing, and has whatever else Heralds can do- some of which seems to mimic Steelrunning, arguably the most dangerous Metalborn ability. 

Even if Wax had the Bands fully charged and in his possession, he'd be really, really hard pressed to pull a win.

 

38 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

Bat_Mannington

If a Windrunner lashed Wax upwards, could he dump all of his weight into his metalminds and be unaffected or would the lashing affect his clothes and whatever else he had on him too?

Brandon Sanderson

Wax could mitigate the effect (unless he was in a vacuum) but not eliminate it completely.

faragorn

Vacuum or freefall?

It can be easy to confuse them in the context of surface to orbit.

Brandon Sanderson

I was talking about a Vacuum, but it's good to clarify. What I'm saying is that without wind resistance, his mass doesn't matter--and the books have established that what Wax does is a freakish transformation of his mass, not just his weight.

Kaladin changes how much gravity pulls on someone, and in what direction. Wax (basically, it's more complex than this) changes how much mass he has. The two, then, have some very distinctive effects.

Worldbuilders AMA (Dec. 5, 2015)

 

 

40 minutes ago, QuantumAce said:

Overall I believe Kaladin has enough of an advantage to put him in a separate tier above Wax. Random chance, I am taking Kaladin 100 times out of 100. 

It possible to construct a scenario where Wax is competitive, but that requires intentionally stacking external advantages for him. With enough plot armor time to prep, Wax could take anyone down. Brandon could write a pretty fun scene for them if he wanted to. 

All valid points. However, my scadrial biased shall prevail (seriously though yea wax has like a 1%chance at best)

[dezaS Hᴇ/Hɪᴍ]

At the end of WaT isn't Kaladin dead and in the Braize cognitive/spiritual realms?

Shouldn't that decrease his power relative to Wax at least a little?

[Entr0pic He/him]

Just now, dezaS said:

At the end of WaT isn't Kaladin dead and in the Braize cognitive/spiritual realms?

Shouldn't that decrease his power relative to Wax at least a little?

No, i don’t believe so. In this scenario, we’re assuming he has one of the bodies the heralds have. I’m bad at reamatics though.

[Vambram he/him]

I predict that Wax would win, especially if he is also using firearms. Kaladin is my favorite Stormlight character, and Wax is my favorite character from Scandriel. I would be betting on Wax to win because of his excellent combination of Allomancy and feruchemy. I am pretty sure that the levels of skill AND strength of power from Wax's allomancy combined with his iron feruchemy is stronger than the lashings from Kaladin, even though he is a 5th ideal Windrunner. For betting odds, I would give Wax a 60% chance of defeating Kaladin. However, that advantage swings VERY heavily into Kaladin's favor if my favorite Windrunner turns the fight into a close quarters melee battle. 

[Entr0pic He/him]

Just now, Vambram said:

I predict that Wax would win, especially if he is also using firearms. Kaladin is my favorite Stormlight character, and Wax is my favorite character from Scandriel. I would be betting on Wax to win because of his excellent combination of Allomancy and feruchemy. I am pretty sure that the levels of skill AND strength of power from Wax's allomancy combined with his iron feruchemy is stronger than the lashings from Kaladin, even though he is a 5th ideal Windrunner. For betting odds, I would give Wax a 60% chance of defeating Kaladin. However, that advantage swings VERY heavily into Kaladin's favor if my favorite Windrunner turns the fight into a close quarters melee battle. 

This is my point exactly. 

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

13 minutes ago, Vambram said:

I predict that Wax would win, especially if he is also using firearms. Kaladin is my favorite Stormlight character, and Wax is my favorite character from Scandriel. I would be betting on Wax to win because of his excellent combination of Allomancy and feruchemy. I am pretty sure that the levels of skill AND strength of power from Wax's allomancy combined with his iron feruchemy is stronger than the lashings from Kaladin, even though he is a 5th ideal Windrunner. For betting odds, I would give Wax a 60% chance of defeating Kaladin. However, that advantage swings VERY heavily into Kaladin's favor if my favorite Windrunner turns the fight into a close quarters melee battle. 

14 minutes ago, Timiny said:

This is my point exactly. 

Wax would not survive long:

Kaladin speed-runs at Wax (new herald skills on full display), sending any and all objects he can touch along the way hurtling towards wax with triple lashings. Wax is forced to duck and run and is then quickly stabbed through the face with two spears - Syl and Kal's new herald spear.

Are we going to bother trying to figure out a way for Wax to maybe win? If he were to get his hands on the Kandra's cache of atium before Elend and crew burned that up, maybe he'd have a shot... but even with atium I think Kaladin lays a beat down on him. Hell, Wax could shoot Kaladin with thug-stopping rounds and he'd just heal and keep going anyway.

One needs only look at the absolute carnage that Taln left behind in his off-screen-taking-the-war-into-his-own-hands moment in WaT to see that any 1:1 fight against a herald who is actually trying (which we honestly haven't really seen in action yet) is pretty much an easy bet. Now, a Herald vs the Lord Ruler in a no holds barred fight? That one would get interesting, and I'd potentially lean on the side of the Lord Ruler. But Wax just doesn't have what it takes.

[Entr0pic He/him]

1 minute ago, CognitiveShadow said:

Wax would not survive long:

Kaladin speed-runs at Wax (new herald skills on full display), sending any and all objects he can touch along the way hurtling towards wax with triple lashings. Wax is forced to duck and run and is then quickly stabbed through the face with two spears - Syl and Kal's new herald spear.

Are we going to bother trying to figure out a way for Wax to maybe win? If he were to get his hands on the Kandra's cache of atium before Elend and crew burned that up, maybe he'd have a shot... but even with atium I think Kaladin lays a beat down on him. Hell, Wax could shoot Kaladin with thug-stopping rounds and he'd just heal and keep going anyway.

One needs only look at the absolute carnage that Taln left behind in his off-screen-taking-the-war-into-his-own-hands moment in WaT to see that any 1:1 fight against a herald who is actually trying (which we honestly haven't really seen in action yet) is pretty much an easy bet. Now, a Herald vs the Lord Ruler in a no holds barred fight? That one would get interesting, and I'd potentially lean on the side of the Lord Ruler. But Wax just doesn't have what it takes.

For a herald v.s lord ruler, I’d take TLR easily.

Edited March 6, 2025 by Timiny

[Treamayne]

WoB:

Spoiler

#1 Taln Fan

Who in the Cosmere could beat Taln in a fight back when he was in his prime?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends what level of abilities he has access to. If you're saying access to full abilities, I don't know of anybody who could beat him in an actual one-on-one.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

1 minute ago, Timiny said:

For a herald v.s lord ruler, I’d take LR easily.

Right, but at least that is close. A Herald like Nale or Kaladin who have shardplate, shardblade, honorblade/spear, and the herald's speed run skills and whatever other skills they have... like they'd put up a good fight and TLR would have a tough time with them.

I don't think Wax gives Kaladin a tough time at all. Even shooting at him from long distance... like it wouldn't actually do anything. Kaladin would fly around and eventually close in on Wax and it would be over before Wax could put in his earring and ask Harmony why he let him go up against a herald in a fight.

[Ashbringer he/him]

Wax also isn't exactly a full Lerasium Mistborn. He is a Mistborn, but I believe he only got a trace dose, enough that it wasn't innately obvious that he had the powers like Elend did.

He also doesn't necessarily have the practice with those powers (although Kaladin won't have practice with Herald Powers either).

[Qianweilian He/him]

Wax just doesn't have the firepower to kill Kaladin. 

Edited March 7, 2025 by Qianweilian
In his plate

[Heilven he/him]

Heralds also seem to have some sort of fortune based abilities, as well as strong lifesense. Iron compounding gives very little advantage in the scheme of things, considering that all wax can do to avoid the consequences of being lashed is store weight, which is not improved by compounding. In addition it seems likely that they properly oathed honorblades grant limitless stormlight, so there's no real war of attrition.

The arena advantage is real, but Kaladin can compensate for the lower oxygen with shardplate and or adhesion, and the higher gravity would likely effect him, but it is something he could get used to.

Additionally, Kaladin has shown the ability to reverse lash people, and Wax could only use aluminum once, and at great cost. The heralds are simply in a tier of their own, and Kaladin is a herald and a 5th ideal knight radiant. It's really no contest, even if you remove his more speculative abilities.

[alder24]

On 3/6/2025 at 8:26 PM, Timiny said:

Okay, so first let me provide each of their significant attributes (TLM spoilers)

  Reveal hidden contents

Wax: full lerasium mistborn, with a spike that would further enhance his duralumin, and iron feruchemy. While it’s unlikely that he would have much practice with any of his allomancy besides iron, he wouldn’t need much. He has aluminum to clear any lashing placed on him, which you don’t need practice for, and has chromium to clear any stormlight that Kal has, which you don’t need practice for. Additionally, his “flying” would be more agile now that he can ironpull. However, depending on the arena, there may not be metals handy. It’s also notable to note that he’s far older than he used to be, and thus would struggle after a prolonged fight. 

Kal: Windrunner of the 5th ideal, honorbade, herald. He has practice with all his powers. One of the only drawback he has is that he doesn’t have any real experience with ranged fighting (that i remember) however, you could also make the inverse argument for wax, in that he doesn’t have any experience melee fighting. Also, due to the fact that wax has access to aluminum and iron feruchemy, lashings against him would be rather useless. Also, he has his oaths that he needs to follow, however, i don’t think that wax would be the type of person to exploit those. Also, I’m not sure if an enhanced duralumin push using his steel would be enough to effect his shardplate, but i think it would be enough to push on the metals in his body (assuming kal takes his plate of at any point) 

So, i really think this just comes down to the arena. Assuming that we’re fighting in elendel, you could easily make an argument for wax winning. He has plenty of metals to use, Kal doesn’t have experience fighting in cityscapes, and he Scadrian atmosphere has less oxygen and there’s more gravity, which would hinder Kal and mess with his lashings even more. What wax would need to do to win would be to focus on a single piece of his shardplate and hopefully make a gap big enough to shot kal ‘till his stormlight runs out or until he can leech from Kal.

however, if this takes place in roshar, than Kal has an easy win. Wax wouldn’t benefit from the lower gravity like others might due to his iron feruchemy, and there isn’t much metal on Roshar. Kal could just fly to wax and boom, Shardblade, wax is dead.

so overall, Kal probably wins, but still, since i am biased, I’m gonna say wax wins. 

Wax is a weak Mistborn, a very weak one. He's not as powerful as Elend, not even as Vin or Kelsier, he barely counts as a Mistborn. He has all Allomantic powers, he can burn all metals, but because he inhaled only a tiny fraction of Lerasium, he's got very little of it. So little that he couldn't figure out what was happening with him in TLM. Those additional powers would give him a little boost, but he would still rely mostly on his Crasher set of powers. And he also has no real experience with his new Mistborn powers.

Kaladin is not only a 5th Ideal Radiant with an insane amount of healing abilities, a Shardplate and a Shardblade, he's a Herald now with a new Honorspear. Nale and Taln have shown us what a Herald can do and they are basically unrivaled in Cosmere. Even without his Herald powers, he can use Reverse Lashing to divert all of Wax's bullets away from him, all except for aluminum ones which can be stopped by his Shardplate and a Shardshield. A single cut with his Shardblade would kill Wax - Wax can't even heal any normal wound, not to mention a Shardblade cut. Wax stands no chance against Kaladin at his weakest, not to mention Kaladin the Herald who is a literal demigod.

Chromium also doesn't drain all investiture in a single moment - the more investiture you need to get rid of, the longer it takes and the more chromium you need to burn. Because Wax is a weak Mistborn his chromium would also be weakened and Stormlight is investiture dense, so it would take a lot of time for Wax to drain all of Kaladin's Stormlight - enough of it so he would just get stabbed with a Sylblade. Even though Wax has tools to break a segment of Kal's Shardplate, he has no tools to kill Kaladin in any realistic way. Radiants are simply too OP compared to Metalborn, Heralds are just out of this world OP.

Spoiler

Kaymyth (paraphrased)

I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both Invested and un-Invested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

What it boils down to is this:

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2) The non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones. He said that because Invested metals are harder to affect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

ConQuest 46 (May 22, 2015)

 

Spoiler

Trae Cooper (paraphrased)

Why are Invested objects like metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes able to be Pushed and Pulled on, but Shardblades and Shardplate, which are also invested, are not susceptible to Pushing and Pulling?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There were a few concepts that he outlined in answering this question.

1.) The ability to Push/Pull an Invested object is predicated to the amount/power of the Investiture.

2.) Further, Invested objects also gain resistance to pulling/pushing based on proximity to soul possibly via the soul. An example given is that a Hemalurgic spike touches the blood of the person, and from there is now part of both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm. This provides what Brandon termed a kind of "soul interference," based on its proximity to the soul.

This further explains why Vin required more than normal power to Push/Pull the metalminds from the Lord Ruler, because of their proximity to his soul, via the Spiritual Realm.

3.) The amount of Investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that Hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of Investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.

Brandon said that theoretically you can Push/Pull Shardblades and Shardplates but you would need to wield an incredible amount of power. One example he gave that could so such as a thing is that if you were a Mistborn wielding the full power of the Well of Ascension, you could Push/Pull Shardblades/Plate.

DragonCon 2012 (Sept. 4, 2012)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

How many shots would it take for Wax using his gun to break a section of Shardplate?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on the gun... Okay, so Vindication. He could probably... depends on the bullet, cause he's got several styles. But let's just say two or three. There's an argument he could do it with one, with the right shot, the right bullet, in the right moment.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

 

[Entr0pic He/him]

30 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Wax is a weak Mistborn, a very weak one. He's not as powerful as Elend, not even as Vin or Kelsier, he barely counts as a Mistborn. He has all Allomantic powers, he can burn all metals, but because he inhaled only a tiny fraction of Lerasium, he's got very little of it. So little that he couldn't figure out what was happening with him in TLM. Those additional powers would give him a little boost, but he would still rely mostly on his Crasher set of powers. And he also has no real experience with his new Mistborn powers.

Kaladin is not only a 5th Ideal Radiant with an insane amount of healing abilities, a Shardplate and a Shardblade, he's a Herald now with a new Honorspear. Nale and Taln have shown us what a Herald can do and they are basically unrivaled in Cosmere. Even without his Herald powers, he can use Reverse Lashing to divert all of Wax's bullets away from him, all except for aluminum ones which can be stopped by his Shardplate and a Shardshield. A single cut with his Shardblade would kill Wax - Wax can't even heal any normal wound, not to mention a Shardblade cut. Wax stands no chance against Kaladin at his weakest, not to mention Kaladin the Herald who is a literal demigod.

Chromium also doesn't drain all investiture in a single moment - the more investiture you need to get rid of, the longer it takes and the more chromium you need to burn. Because Wax is a weak Mistborn his chromium would also be weakened and Stormlight is investiture dense, so it would take a lot of time for Wax to drain all of Kaladin's Stormlight - enough of it so he would just get stabbed with a Sylblade. Even though Wax has tools to break a segment of Kal's Shardplate, he has no tools to kill Kaladin in any realistic way. Radiants are simply too OP compared to Metalborn, Heralds are just out of this world OP.

  Hide contents

Kaymyth (paraphrased)

I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both Invested and un-Invested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

What it boils down to is this:

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2) The non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones. He said that because Invested metals are harder to affect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

ConQuest 46 (May 22, 2015)

 

  Hide contents

Trae Cooper (paraphrased)

Why are Invested objects like metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes able to be Pushed and Pulled on, but Shardblades and Shardplate, which are also invested, are not susceptible to Pushing and Pulling?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There were a few concepts that he outlined in answering this question.

1.) The ability to Push/Pull an Invested object is predicated to the amount/power of the Investiture.

2.) Further, Invested objects also gain resistance to pulling/pushing based on proximity to soul possibly via the soul. An example given is that a Hemalurgic spike touches the blood of the person, and from there is now part of both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm. This provides what Brandon termed a kind of "soul interference," based on its proximity to the soul.

This further explains why Vin required more than normal power to Push/Pull the metalminds from the Lord Ruler, because of their proximity to his soul, via the Spiritual Realm.

3.) The amount of Investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that Hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of Investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.

Brandon said that theoretically you can Push/Pull Shardblades and Shardplates but you would need to wield an incredible amount of power. One example he gave that could so such as a thing is that if you were a Mistborn wielding the full power of the Well of Ascension, you could Push/Pull Shardblades/Plate.

DragonCon 2012 (Sept. 4, 2012)

 

  Hide contents

Questioner

How many shots would it take for Wax using his gun to break a section of Shardplate?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on the gun... Okay, so Vindication. He could probably... depends on the bullet, cause he's got several styles. But let's just say two or three. There's an argument he could do it with one, with the right shot, the right bullet, in the right moment.

Orem Signing (March 16, 2019)

 

Ah, i see.  

[Nitpicking]

On 3/6/2025 at 2:26 PM, Timiny said:

Okay, so first let me provide each of their significant attributes (TLM spoilers)

  Hide contents

Wax: full lerasium mistborn, with a spike that would further enhance his duralumin, and iron feruchemy. While it’s unlikely that he would have much practice with any of his allomancy besides iron, he wouldn’t need much. He has aluminum to clear any lashing placed on him, which you don’t need practice for, and has chromium to clear any stormlight that Kal has, which you don’t need practice for. Additionally, his “flying” would be more agile now that he can ironpull. However, depending on the arena, there may not be metals handy. It’s also notable to note that he’s far older than he used to be, and thus would struggle after a prolonged fight. 

 

Except ... clearing Kaladin's Stormlight is moot. As a V2 Herald, he can draw unlimited Warlight from Retribution. You seem not to be counting his Herald abilities, like steelrunning-like speed. Also, he would never be fighting alone, he'd have Syl with him. Couldn't help it.

Also Kaladin is now immortal, but you mean only one battle, not when Kaladin pops right back up to fight again shortly after getting killed.

[Entr0pic He/him]

4 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

Except ... clearing Kaladin's Stormlight is moot. As a V2 Herald, he can draw unlimited Warlight from Retribution. You seem not to be counting his Herald abilities, like steelrunning-like speed. Also, he would never be fighting alone, he'd have Syl with him. Couldn't help it.

Also Kaladin is now immortal, but you mean only one battle, not when Kaladin pops right back up to fight again shortly after getting killed.

I have had my attention drawn to how skewed this is in kaladins favor. As for abilties, i assumed that simply saying “herald” was enough at the time, however, upon pondering, it does appear i have underselled Kal’s abilities. As for syl helping him, that would be cheating. This isn’t “can syl and kal beat wax”. He would still be able to manifest syl as a shardblade in this hypothetical encounter, but not anything else. 

[Nitpicking]

10 hours ago, Timiny said:

I have had my attention drawn to how skewed this is in kaladins favor. As for abilties, i assumed that simply saying “herald” was enough at the time, however, upon pondering, it does appear i have underselled Kal’s abilities. As for syl helping him, that would be cheating. This isn’t “can syl and kal beat wax”. He would still be able to manifest syl as a shardblade in this hypothetical encounter, but not anything else. 

I'm not at all sure he can summon Syl as a Blade any more. She's a superspren like the Stormfather now (IMO). Notice that neither Navani nor Dalinar could summon their superspren as Blades.

[alder24]

34 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

I'm not at all sure he can summon Syl as a Blade any more. She's a superspren like the Stormfather now (IMO). Notice that neither Navani nor Dalinar could summon their superspren as Blades.

Well, the Sibling already have a physical manifestation of their body - the tower of Urithiru itself - so that's why Navani can't summon them. The Stormfather likely exists more in the Physical Realm than any other spren and that's also why he can't be summoned as a Shardblade that easily (but in his case, it's still possible - Dalinar almost did it in OB). I don't believe Syl is there yet, she's changing, but she's not like other godspren for now. 

Spoiler

dresdentc24

Can other Bondsmith spren become Blades for their Bondsmith? And how would it affect the Tower if the Sibling became a Blade?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna say it's outside the realm of plausibility for the Sibling right now. Is it possible for the other two, yes. It's possible but implausible. Highly implausible for the Sibling.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

[AsherCrane]

Yeah, the reason I understood for not be able to summon the Stormfather was that, as the spren of the storm, it would cancel the storm for the time or something. I think all the stormfather said was that it would have "consequences," but that was my idea of it.

Edited March 10, 2025 by AsherCrane

[therunner he/him]

Kaladin, and it is not even a contest.

Wax may under ideal conditions break single section of Plate in one shot, which won't yet disable Kaladin.

Kaladin will kill Wax in single swing of either Syl or Honorspear.

Even if we stack the odds, by saying that e.g. they start 100 meters apart, and Wax is ready to immediately make the perfect shot, Kaladin will reach him in less than 2.5 seconds (circa 5 lashings) and it will be over. Any Windrunner with Plate could do that, this does not even require any Herald shenanigans.


Wax is great characters, but on Roshar, he is not particularly relevant fighter.

[Nitpicking]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Kaladin, and it is not even a contest.

Even I think that's overstated. Depends on the details. Example: Wax shoots Kaladin with two aluminum rounds. The first one punches a hole in his Shardplate. The second punches a hole in his head.

Kaladin falls down dead.

There's no physical or Realmatic reason that wouldn't work. It's just that Brandon wouldn't write it.