The hazekiller coefficient

[Frustration]

So I've thought about this one off and on for years. The basic idea is to take the number of uninvested individuals that it would take to defeat any particular manifestation of the invested arts and use it as a basis for a comparison of various cosmere combat capabilities.

 

Now a disclaimer: I recognize that this is not a perfect system, but I still think it would be beneficial to take a look at.

Spoiler

Elantrian: Given the overwhelming force displayed by elantrians I have to place this number somewhere in the low thousands, they simply have far too much power that cannot be countered without magic.

Mistborn: Eight hazekillers almost beat Kelsier who was one of the strongest Mistborn alive, now he was intentionally holding back but I'd say it's not much of a stretch to say that 10 is a good number. EDIT: Given duralumin, probably closer to 100.

Feruchemist: This one is actually very easy, just take the amount of storage and boom you get the number of hazekillers

Sandmasters: Kenten repeatedly struggled with between 4-5 opponents

Awakeners: This one is actually pretty hard as the number of breaths changes the effectiveness as does their preparation. Bare minimum assuming they can make lifeless the number of hazekillers equals the number of breaths.

Shardbearers: Most battles in the books show shardbearers with support but Helaran shows us what they can do unsupported. Easily close to 2-3 hundred.

Twinborn: too much variability to say.

Forgers: Shai using stamps could beat 6 skeletals with a lot of preparation

Radiants: by oath level

1. Probably 5-6
2. Easily dozens
3. See Szeth easily over 300, I'll say close to 400
4. Easily low thousands
5. Too little information

Aetherbound: Probably close to the same for Sandmasters 4-5

I'd take a passing look and say that this is probably pretty close but I recognize I probably missed quite a bit in here and I'm more than open for your thoughts

Edited May 18 by Frustration

[Cosmer]

@Frustration I love this stuff. I know you’re higher on Radiants (and lower on Mistborn) than me but I still like the list for the most part. Though “Thousands” feels like a LOT for a 4th oath radiant…
 

Curious how Taln’s burst in WaT played into these calcs for 5th oath and beyond. Don’t have my book handy so not sure how many singers he took out (and they’re deadlier than haze killers no doubt)? 
 

EDIT: see also Vin’s massacre…

Edited January 9 by Cosmer

[Trusk'our he/him]

19 minutes ago, Frustration said:

So I've thought about this one off and on for years. The basic idea is to take the number of uninvested individuals that it would take to defeat any particular manifestation of the invested arts and use it as a basis for a comparison of various cosmere combat capabilities.

 

Now a disclaimer: I recognize that this is not a perfect system, but I still think it would be beneficial to take a look at.

  Hide contents

Elantrian: Given the overwhelming force displayed by elantrians I have to place this number somewhere in the low thousands, they simply have far too much power that cannot be countered without magic.

Mistborn: Eight hazekillers almost beat Kelsier who was one of the strongest Mistborn alive, now he was intentionally holding back but I'd say it's not much of a stretch to say that 10 is a good number.

Feruchemist: This one is actually very easy, just take the amount of storage and boom you get the number of hazekillers

Sandmasters: Kenten repeatedly struggled with between 4-5 opponents

Awakeners: This one is actually pretty hard as the number of breaths changes the effectiveness as does their preparation. Bare minimum assuming they can make lifeless the number of hazekillers equals the number of breaths.

Shardbearers: Most battles in the books show shardbearers with support but Helaran shows us what they can do unsupported. Easily close to 2-3 hundred.

Twinborn: too much variability to say.

Forgers: Shai using stamps could beat 6 skeletals with a lot of preparation

Radiants: by oath level

1. Probably 5-6
2. Easily dozens
3. See Szeth easily over 300, I'll say close to 400
4. Easily low thousands
5. Too little information

Aetherbound: Probably close to the same for Sandmasters 4-5

I'd take a passing look and say that this is probably pretty close but I recognize I probably missed quite a bit in here and I'm more than open for your thoughts

This is a pretty good list, I'd say overall it's good.

As you mentioned, there's specifics to go over, and I'd like to bring up a few that come to mind if it's alright.

With Mistborn specifically, Kelsier only had access to the basic eight known metals at the time. No duralumin, no Bendalloy. Plus, he was putting himself in a position where he was entering their turf in an enclosed space- certainly a vaible tactic for the Hazekillers to make, but if Kel had truly fought them with the sole intent of putting an end to their lives (instead of stealing Atium) I believe he could have performed far better.

With Sandmastery, I think it can vary more. Kenton was highly skilled, but his targets often had Terken armor and Kenton himself, while skilled, has very finite power compared to many other Sandmasters. If one could form a suit or shield of sand armor, maybe covered in metal plate to stop Terken weapons, their power scales enormously, closer to a Shardbearer with offensive Investiture (perhaps comparable to the Surge of Division) to boot.

With Awakeners, I think their power is normally quite limited. Unless they have a ready host of deceased soldiers with bodies that are in alright condition ready to be Awakened, it's quite costly to Invest a simple piece of cloth to attack (which can also be cut). They certainly have quite a bit of potential for power, but I'd say if they're without paid bodyguards (something they'd often have, I'd think), then a handful of competent non-Invested Hazkillers (Chromakillers?) could take them, assuming they're in the hundreds or low thousands of Breaths. If they have an army of Lifeless equipped properly, they probably have a higher kill-to-death ratio than the opposing army due to a lack of pain, exhaustion, fear, or disloyalty on their side.

Elantrians in their own abode with prep time are nigh unbeatable without Investiture-countering tools or Investiture of their own. Catch them off guard or if they aren't steady handed in a fight and they go down with maybe only one or two non-Invested. They probably vary the most in terms of power, though it will probably be geared towards them having the advantage, what with how they'd be more comfortable closer to home/places with plenty of exploitable Investiture.

[Frustration]

27 minutes ago, Cosmer said:

@Frustration I love this stuff. I know you’re higher on Radiants (and lower on Mistborn) than me but I still like the list for the most part.

I do to definitely my bread and butter here.

27 minutes ago, Cosmer said:

Though “Thousands” feels like a LOT for a 4th oath radiant…

It is a lot, but without magic or anti-tank measures I don't see how they die before you run them out of stormlight and then to the point they collapse exhausted and you can beat them without them moving, and you have to do all of that without them retreating. With the offensive power they have with plate and blade, not to mention surges like division or transformation, I just don't see how you do that with less.

27 minutes ago, Cosmer said:

Curious how Taln’s burst in WaT played into these calcs for 5th oath and beyond. Don’t have my book handy so not sure how many singers he took out (and they’re deadlier than haze killers no doubt)? 

I would place Heralds as far beyond anything else we've seen. I'm working on another theory about their powers that I might post here in a bit.

25 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

With Mistborn specifically, Kelsier only had access to the basic eight known metals at the time. No duralumin, no Bendalloy. Plus, he was putting himself in a position where he was entering their turf in an enclosed space- certainly a vaible tactic for the Hazekillers to make, but if Kel had truly fought them with the sole intent of putting an end to their lives (instead of stealing Atium) I believe he could have performed far better.

That is true I do need to remember duralumin. Probably should be closer to Not-Wax going for some fifty-ish constables at once.

25 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

With Sandmastery, I think it can vary more. Kenton was highly skilled, but his targets often had Terken armor and Kenton himself, while skilled, has very finite power compared to many other Sandmasters. If one could form a suit or shield of sand armor, maybe covered in metal plate to stop Terken weapons, their power scales enormously, closer to a Shardbearer with offensive Investiture (perhaps comparable to the Surge of Division) to boot.

I haven't read the omnibus but I don't remember armor in the GN.

Kenton being weak is true. He only had the three ribbons during the story. The mastrells had what twenty?

25 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

With Awakeners, I think their power is normally quite limited. Unless they have a ready host of deceased soldiers with bodies that are in alright condition ready to be Awakened, it's quite costly to Invest a simple piece of cloth to attack (which can also be cut). They certainly have quite a bit of potential for power, but I'd say if they're without paid bodyguards (something they'd often have, I'd think), then a handful of competent non-Invested Hazkillers (Chromakillers?) could take them, assuming they're in the hundreds or low thousands of Breaths. If they have an army of Lifeless equipped properly, they probably have a higher kill-to-death ratio than the opposing army due to a lack of pain, exhaustion, fear, or disloyalty on their side.

If you can get a lot of breath I'd assume you also have the money for some bodies

25 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

Elantrians in their own abode with prep time are nigh unbeatable without Investiture-countering tools or Investiture of their own. Catch them off guard or if they aren't steady handed in a fight and they go down with maybe only one or two non-Invested. They probably vary the most in terms of power, though it will probably be geared towards them having the advantage, what with how they'd be more comfortable closer to home/places with plenty of exploitable Investiture.

That's true but you can also pre-prepare Aons so I imagine they have shields inscribed on their clothes and AonDaa on a weapon of some kind

 

Edit: @Cosmer

With Vin at Cett's palace I think it's important to remember that they don't have a lot of training they are more day guards and probably have never seen combat in their lives.

Edited January 9 by Frustration

[Schizoposting]

I think that what a lor of people forget when it comes to "who would win" type discussions, is that there is no such thing as a fair fight—in other words, any given concrete circumstance will benefit one party over the other. For example, an Elantrian in a cage match is very formidable, but if you take by surprise and just shoot them in the head with a gun, they're suddenly not so scary. This is especially true for Feruchemists, since their strength is directly proportional to how much they have stored in their metal metalminds.

So, if we want to answer the OP's question then we have to first determine the exact situation that we are considering—how technologically advanced the combatants are, the environment, the degree of foreknowledge that the parties will possess, the skilled possessed by both parties, etc. Without answering these questions, the discussion is all but meaningless.

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Schizoposting said:

I think that what a lor of people forget when it comes to "who would win" type discussions, is that there is no such thing as a fair fight—in other words, any given concrete circumstance will benefit one party over the other. For example, an Elantrian in a cage match is very formidable, but if you take by surprise and just shoot them in the head with a gun, they're suddenly not so scary. This is especially true for Feruchemists, since their strength is directly proportional to how much they have stored in their metal metalminds.

Well no one is scary if you just teleport behind them and shoot them.

2 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

So, if we want to answer the OP's question then we have to first determine the exact situation that we are considering—how technologically advanced the combatants are, the environment, the degree of foreknowledge that the parties will possess, the skilled possessed by both parties, etc. Without answering these questions, the discussion is all but meaningless.

Assuming factors of terrain are as equal as we can, open fields and stadium type events, more pre-modern we meet at X location at X time for battle.

For technology I'd assume the fighters to be from the same world and use the technology from the books.

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

8 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well no one is scary if you just teleport behind them and shoot them.

What about a gold compounder? (Or whatever the super-healies are called. Miles.)

Or LR maybe.

Would a Radiant be able to heal?

Also Hoid, but he's on a whole other level, (slight WaT spoiler) unless you vaporize him (and I mean ALL of him)

But yeah, I get the point lol.

Side note: would Shardplate stop a bullet?

Edited January 9 by Theory
SPAG. Added stuff.

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, Theory said:

What about a gold compounder? (Or whatever the super-healies are called. Miles.)

Or LR maybe.

Would a Radiant be able to heal?

Aluminum bullets solve those problems

Except Radiants if they are a windrunner, their plate would save them.

Quote

Also Hoid, but he's on a whole other level, (slight WaT spoiler) unless you vaporize him (and I mean ALL of him)

Yeah but he can't hurt you either

Edited January 9 by Frustration

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

18 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Aluminum bullets solve those problems

Guess I forgot about that. My bad.

18 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Except Radiants if they are a windrunner, their plate would save them.

Or Shallan/Jasnah (Lightweavers/Elsecallers or whatever)? Or for Windrunners is it different? Like automatic for them but not regular Radiants?

18 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Yeah but he can't hurt you either

Oh yeah lol. But he's still basically unkillable conventionally, no?

 

Also, what if there is a perpendicularity (mouthful) nearby? Like a Bondsmith?

Edited January 9 by Theory

[Schizoposting]

24 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well no one is scary if you just teleport behind them and shoot them.

My point is that a given fighter's effectiveness is dependent on the context; if an Elantrian steps on a landmine, their invested powers aren't going to be so useful. Besides, ambushes are integral part of war, so dismissing them out of hand is silly.  

27 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Assuming factors of terrain are as equal as we can, open fields and stadium type events, more pre-modern we meet at X location at X time for battle.

For technology I'd assume the fighters to be from the same world and use the technology from the books.

It's fine you are assuming a gladiator style contest, but this would be a very unrealistic and contrived situation, one that rewards brute strength over tactical finesse; in an actual armed conflicted, nobody is going to be attacking Elantrians head on with uninvested fighters—instead they'll try and use some asymmetric strategy or use their own invested arts. If we look at the Taliban as a real-world example, they would have been obliterated had they fought the U.S. military head on, which is why they used guerrilla warfare instead, which allowed them to return to power after 20 years of war.  

[Cosmer]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

 

I would place Heralds as far beyond anything else we've seen. I'm working on another theory about their powers that I might post here in a bit.

 

Ok but are we concerned that he did in fact die in that fight…like he didn’t just kill everyone and waltz away

[Usseewa ✾ She♡Her ✾]

3 minutes ago, Cosmer said:

Ok but are we concerned that he did in fact die in that fight…like he didn’t just kill everyone and waltz away

Maybe he was at some sort of disadvantage? But yeah, good point.

[Schizoposting]

8 minutes ago, Cosmer said:

Ok but are we concerned that he did in fact die in that fight…like he didn’t just kill everyone and waltz away

He was fighting whilst being completely insane and lacking any surges, shards, or Stormlight; I don't think that performance is representative of his actual fighting prowess during the desolations.  

[Frustration]

21 minutes ago, Cosmer said:

Ok but are we concerned that he did in fact die in that fight…like he didn’t just kill everyone and waltz away

He crushed focused ones gemhearts inside their bodies with his bare hands.

He didn't have his Honorblade or stormlight, and before he died he had so many weapons stuck inside of him his body was held upright, and the entire army was just... deleted.

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

My point is that a given fighter's effectiveness is dependent on the context; if an Elantrian steps on a landmine, their invested powers aren't going to be so useful. Besides, ambushes are integral part of war, so dismissing them out of hand is silly.  

It's fine you are assuming a gladiator style contest, but this would be a very unrealistic and contrived situation, one that rewards brute strength over tactical finesse; in an actual armed conflicted, nobody is going to be attacking Elantrians head on with uninvested fighters—instead they'll try and use some asymmetric strategy or use their own invested arts. If we look at the Taliban as a real-world example, they would have been obliterated had they fought the U.S. military head on, which is why they used guerrilla warfare instead, which allowed them to return to power after 20 years of war.  

Well I'm not trying to simulate a war or battle.

I'm trying to create a ranking system of sorts so that various power levels can be compared using Hazekillers as a unit of measurement.

Edited January 10 by Frustration

[Schizoposting]

5 hours ago, Frustration said:

Well I'm not trying to simulate a war or battle.

I'm trying to create a ranking system of sorts so that various power levels can be compared using Hazekillers as a unit of measurement.

If your goal is to create some sort of "power level" system, then Hazekillers do not make for a very good unit of measurement.

Even if we ignore the very contrived nature of the confrontation, you still run into the problem of equipment—a "Hazekiller" with a fighter jet, could trivially defeat a 5th ideal Windrunner in ariel combat, does that mean that a Windrunner has a score of only one? Or conversely, a regular full shard bearer could likely kill an arbitrarily large number of unarmed senior citizens. So, you'll need determine some way too weigh Hazekillers based on the technology the weapons they possess, their skill, and physical capability.

This is non-trivial; how do we for instance, determine the relative worth of, say, a tank vis-à-vis one thousand riflemen? And again, the effectiveness of various equipment heavily depends on the specific environment and situation. 

But even if we ignore this problem or just have all the Hazekillers be identical, then there's still the issue that being good at killing Hazekillers != being good at fighting other invested beings; a military that's optimized towards slaughtering civilians, is probably weaker than an equivalent military is optimized for, well, fighting other militaries.

In general, power rankings should be taken with a grain of salt, since they abstract the manifold of concrete possible situations down to a single quantitative value. Obviously, they are not entirely useless—a Herald is more likely than not to win in a fight against a duralumin misting with Parkinsons—but we should understand them as being potentially useful abstractions instead of fetishizing them as being objective measures of combat strength.

[therunner he/him]

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

Mistborn: Eight hazekillers almost beat Kelsier who was one of the strongest Mistborn alive, now he was intentionally holding back but I'd say it's not much of a stretch to say that 10 is a good number.

I think Mistborn change heavily depending on Metals available.
E.g. Vin with addition of Duralumin was certainly killing more than just 8 people at once.

Also Mistborn + Atium is completely different ball game, suddenly jumping up to possibly hundreds to thousands, if they have enough Atium.


Basically, I suspect that a large part of the scaling is, "How much Investiture is available?"

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

Even if we ignore the very contrived nature of the confrontation, you still run into the problem of equipment—a "Hazekiller" with a fighter jet, could trivially defeat a 5th ideal Windrunner in ariel combat, does that mean that a Windrunner has a score of only one? Or conversely, a regular full shard bearer could likely kill an arbitrarily large number of unarmed senior citizens. So, you'll need determine some way too weigh Hazekillers based on the technology the weapons they possess, their skill, and physical capability.

From the provided numbers, and what Hazekillers are in context of Cosmere, I think it is pretty clear the equipment is considered to be  non-modern weapons.

And weigheing Hazekillers by their physical ability and skill is pointless in this exercise, you just need them to be reasonably physically fit and skilled with their tools, i.e. they are representative of semi-regular soldiers.

I.e. exactly what was stated in OP

Quote

The basic idea is to take the number of uninvested individuals that it would take to defeat any particular manifestation of the invested arts

 

1 hour ago, Schizoposting said:

But even if we ignore this problem or just have all the Hazekillers be identical, then there's still the issue that being good at killing Hazekillers != being good at fighting other invested beings; a military that's optimized towards slaughtering civilians, is probably weaker than an equivalent military is optimized for, well, fighting other militaries.

It does give you certain baseline, i.e. if non-Invested army needs circa 10x the number to beat the Invested one type A, and 30 of Invested one type B, than Invested Type A should need about 3x the number to beat Invested type B, provided their specific skills don't function as good counter. But it can be a starting point for discussion.

Good example of outlier to this ranking would be Chromium mistings. Hazekiller coef 1, but more dangerous than non-Invested soldier against Invested soldiers, even if not by much.

Edited January 10 by therunner

[Isilel]

12 hours ago, Frustration said:

Eight hazekillers almost beat Kelsier who was one of the strongest Mistborn alive, now he was intentionally holding back but I'd say it's not much of a stretch to say that 10 is a good number.

 

I disagree. Kelsier may have been strong, but not very experienced, given that he had been a Mistborn for only 2 years and the rudimentary combat training that he thought would be sufficient for Vin. If he had used something similar to what he did to kill the inquisitor or Vin's later horseshoe trick, he could have easily mown down dozens, if not hundreds, even with just the basic 8 metals. 

Edited January 10 by Isilel

[Frustration]

9 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

If your goal is to create some sort of "power level" system, then Hazekillers do not make for a very good unit of measurement.

But even if we ignore this problem or just have all the Hazekillers be identical, then there's still the issue that being good at killing Hazekillers != being good at fighting other invested beings; a military that's optimized towards slaughtering civilians, is probably weaker than an equivalent military is optimized for, well, fighting other militaries.

In general, power rankings should be taken with a grain of salt, since they abstract the manifold of concrete possible situations down to a single quantitative value. Obviously, they are not entirely useless—a Herald is more likely than not to win in a fight against a duralumin misting with Parkinsons—but we should understand them as being potentially useful abstractions instead of fetishizing them as being objective measures of combat strength.

That's why there's a disclaimer in the OP.

9 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Even if we ignore the very contrived nature of the confrontation, you still run into the problem of equipment—a "Hazekiller" with a fighter jet, could trivially defeat a 5th ideal Windrunner in ariel combat,

Um no, not even close.

A Windrunner would run circles around even an F35, I ran the calculations and Kaladin can get to the moons of Roshar in 20 minutes on a single lashing, not to mention they can casually move in any direction they so please, leave the atmosphere, and so much more.

Perfect example of the: "Look what they need just to mimic a fraction of our power"

9 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

So, you'll need determine some way too weigh Hazekillers based on the technology the weapons they possess, their skill, and physical capability.

I still see nothing wrong with going by the same technology level as seen in the books at the time the powers are in use.

It wouldn't be fair for Wax to fight final empire era Hazekillers as they have never seen guns before, and it would be unfair for Adolin to fight era 2 Hazekillers, or any Scadrian hazekillers for the same reason.

I believe the technological developments will aid both sides more or less equally, and don't think it would weigh too heavily on the scales.

Edited January 10 by Frustration

[Immortal Platypus]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Um no, not even close.

A Windrunner would run circles around even an F35, I ran the calculations and Kaladin can get to the moons of Roshar in 20 minutes on a single lashing, not to mention they can casually move in any direction they so please, leave the atmosphere, and so much more.

Perfect example of the: "Look what they need just to mimic a fraction of our power"

don't forget that the F35 missile systems wouldn't be effective, they target sources of heat much, much hotter than humans. There is still some function to them, but it's certainly not going to be particularly effective. That makes their only way to kill the Radiant dogfighting and shooting them (repeatedly) with the machine gun. Give them the benefit of the doubt and aluminum rounds, and that makes the fight more even, but still not even close, especially when if the Radiant touches the plane they can do all sorts of funky things with it.

[Frustration]

8 hours ago, therunner said:

I think Mistborn change heavily depending on Metals available.
E.g. Vin with addition of Duralumin was certainly killing more than just 8 people at once.

That is true, and I'm still going back and forth on how much I think duralumin adds. My only two data points are Vin attacking Cett's fortress, which was close to 200 but she was also able to fight them in smaller groups.

And Not-Wax but he wasn't a full mistborn, and he was closer to 50-80, but he didn't even fight them directly much.

 

I'm leaning at closer to around 100, but I'm still too hesitant on that one to make a call.

Quote

Also Mistborn + Atium is completely different ball game, suddenly jumping up to possibly hundreds to thousands, if they have enough Atium.

I mean I don't consider Atium to be a part of the standard toolkit for Mistborn, and think of it more like Raysium weapons for Fused, but yeah it changes a lot.

6 hours ago, Isilel said:

I disagree. Kelsier may have been strong, but not very experienced, given that he had been a Mistborn for only 2 years and the rudimentary combat training that he thought would be sufficient for Vin.

Well he did kill at the very least two other mistborn and an Inquisitor. I think his experience is more than enough.

6 hours ago, Isilel said:

If he had used something similar to what he did to kill the inquisitor or Vin's later horseshoe trick, he could have easily mown down dozens, if not hundreds, even with just the basic 8 metals. 

He did a pretty good approximation with the ingot that he had, and the Hazekillers took that in stride.

Edited January 10 by Frustration

[Isilel]

28 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well he did kill at the very least two other mistborn and an Inquisitor.

 

But Mistborn and gentlemen Allomancers in general weren't particularly good, due to the whole secrecy thing, that didn't really allow them to practice much. Nor did they seem to see the need. I mean, if you look at the performance of Coinshots in Era 1 and 2, it is night and day, despite the reduction in raw power. They couldn't even use their allomancy for locomotion back then, they just threw coins and that was that.

IIRC, Kelsier displayed significantly higher skill when fighting the Inquisitor than against the hazekillers, which is why that early fight can't be the measure of his true capabilities, IMHO.

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, Isilel said:

But Mistborn and gentlemen Allomancers in general weren't particularly good, due to the whole secrecy thing, that didn't really allow them to practice much.

One of the mistborn he killed was open about the fact that he was a mistborn, and he very much practiced.

11 minutes ago, Isilel said:

Nor did they seem to see the need. I mean, if you look at the performance of Coinshots in Era 1 and 2, it is night and day, despite the reduction in raw power. They couldn't even use their allomancy for locomotion back then, they just threw coins and that was that.

I really don't see that. There doesn't appear to be any real difference between the eras and how they use steelpushing.

In Era 1 they had spikeways, and there were so many allomancers flying through the city that there were Skaa who made a living following them around and picking up their coins.

14 minutes ago, Isilel said:

IIRC, Kelsier displayed significantly higher skill when fighting the Inquisitor than against the hazekillers, which is why that early fight can't be the measure of his true capabilities, IMHO.

I wouldn't say higher skill so much as he was willing to take higher risks.

[Schizoposting]

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

Um no, not even close.

A Windrunner would run circles around even an F35, I ran the calculations and Kaladin can get to the moons of Roshar in 20 minutes on a single lashing, not to mention they can casually move in any direction they so please, leave the atmosphere, and so much more.

Perfect example of the: "Look what they need just to mimic a fraction of our power"

Windrunners only travel at ~200 mph due to terminal velocity; if they use multiple lashings to try to get around this, they will run out of Stormlight much quicker, not to mention that shardplate is way less aerodynamic than fighter jets. So no, a windrunner is not beating a fighter jet. 

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

I still see nothing wrong with going by the same technology level as seen in the books at the time the powers are in use.

It wouldn't be fair for Wax to fight final empire era Hazekillers as they have never seen guns before, and it would be unfair for Adolin to fight era 2 Hazekillers, or any Scadrian hazekillers for the same reason.

I believe the technological developments will aid both sides more or less equally, and don't think it would weigh too heavily on the scales.

So Hazekillers are allowed to use nukes when facing someone from era 3?

3 hours ago, Immortal Platypus said:

don't forget that the F35 missile systems wouldn't be effective, they target sources of heat much, much hotter than humans. There is still some function to them, but it's certainly not going to be particularly effective. That makes their only way to kill the Radiant dogfighting and shooting them (repeatedly) with the machine gun. Give them the benefit of the doubt and aluminum rounds, and that makes the fight more even, but still not even close, especially when if the Radiant touches the plane they can do all sorts of funky things with it.

Who said anything about using F-35s? A J-10C using PL-15s with AEWAC support would be more than enough to take down a Windrunner.

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Windrunners only travel at ~200 mph due to terminal velocity; if they use multiple lashings to try to get around this, they will run out of Stormlight much quicker, not to mention that shardplate is way less aerodynamic than fighter jets. So no, a windrunner is not beating a fighter jet. 

Terminal velocity for a human with a human weight, not weighing over 2,000 pounds, while human size. Even assuming that the Windrunner by themselves weighed 200 pounds that's still a density increase by a factor of ten.

Not to mention that Shardplate can adjust to become more aerodynamic, and they can adjust atmospheric pressure on top of that.

Windrunners are just objectively better than any aircraft ever invented.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

So Hazekillers are allowed to use nukes when facing someone from era 3?

How many individuals own nukes?

Not countries individuals.

2 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Who said anything about using F-35s? A J-10C using PL-15s with AEWAC support would be more than enough to take down a Windrunner.

F35's are possibly the best all around fighter jet, so I used them to point out the futility of challenging Windrunner air superiority

[Immortal Platypus]

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Who said anything about using F-35s? A J-10C using PL-15s with AEWAC support would be more than enough to take down a Windrunner.

if the windrunner so much as touches the plane once it goes down. in addition, we still deal with the idea of why the hazekiller has that equipment. Similarly to the idea of would the hazekiller have nukes, why would they have a J-10C with PL-15s with AEW&C support? very few (if any) individuals own something like that.

and I think it would be a closer fight than you're expecting. I'd have to see how fast a windrunner is actually capable of moving before coming down on either side of the issue.