Steel feruchemy speeds up allomantic burn speed, but how much can it slow it down?

[DoctaDajman]

So steel feruchemy can boost allomantic gain based on how much speed the user is tapping. Comparisons with pewter specifically; 

Pewter with no altered speed gives 2x strength and 3x when flaring. 

If you double your physical speed then the physiological process of burning the metal happens twice as fast and nets you twice the results, so 4x strength and 6x while flaring. 

Triple speed would triple it and things get even more exciting 6x strength and 9x while flaring. 

But what if you wanted to work it the other way around? 

Could you slow down your burn to half time and only gain 1.5x strength? 

Cut it by 3/4 and just get 1.25x normal strength for a far more prolonged period of time?

Yes this seems useless... except for duralumin. 

I anticipate that a duralumin burst doesn't truly happen instantly and instead takes place over a second or two. I view it as a continuous endless cycle of burning until the metal is gone. I guess my only evidence for this thought is that I feel like Vin's headbutt wouldn't work if Duralumin truly made the entire pewter store burn instantly. There is still some travel time between her head breaking the face, skull and brains of the man holding onto her. 

Now fiddling with time and slowing everything down by speeding up could likely help a user better time their duralumin uses but what about drawing it out? 

If you had 5 minutes of pewter in your system and every second of use nets you 2x strength for that second then duralumin lasting 2 seconds would give you like 300x your normal strength in that span of time.

But what if you could slow down the duralumin burn by storing 75% of your physical speed? Could you stretch that duralumin spike over 8 seconds? Each second would give you like 75x your normal strength still yet. And this supercharged duralumin pewter may even make up for the fact that you are storing 3/4 of your normal speed. Perhaps making it a functional use. 

I would never suggest that pewter provides enough speed to offset F-steel storage at that kind of rate, but we aren't talking about normal amounts of pewter. We are talking about condensing 300 seconds of normal pewter usage into 8 seconds of duralumin. That is still 75x the normal amount of pewter a person would use each second. 

And this is only for 5 minutes of pewter. A misting or mistborn could easily eat hour's worth. 

Side question. 

Can a duralumin burn run out before the other metal does if the ratios are off? 

[Frustration]

I'm curious.

Do you have a WoB for burning metals while tapping steel making the metals burn quicker from your perspective?

 

Tapping F-steel makes your own perspective speed up, so from your own perspective the metals burn just as fast and are just as strong.

[DoctaDajman]

9 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I'm curious.

Do you have a WoB for burning metals while tapping steel making the metals burn quicker from your perspective?

 

Tapping F-steel makes your own perspective speed up, so from your own perspective the metals burn just as fast and are just as strong.

 

Here you go sir. 

Spoiler

ElephantEarwax

Would tapping Feruchemical speed cause you to burn metals faster as your whole body speeds up?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I think it probably would. I don't know if we've gotten to that interaction yet, but it probably would. Good question. If it's speeding up... Yeah, I think it would. Good question. If you're in a speed bubble and doing it, it's totally going to do it, and there's some analogies there.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

This already makes A-pewter and F-steel my favorite twinborn combo (sorry F-iron). But if you added a spike to give A-duralumin this would be absolutely insane. 

Edited January 21 by DoctaDajman

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, DoctaDajman said:

 

Here you go sir. 

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ElephantEarwax

Would tapping Feruchemical speed cause you to burn metals faster as your whole body speeds up?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I think it probably would. I don't know if we've gotten to that interaction yet, but it probably would. Good question. If it's speeding up... Yeah, I think it would. Good question. If you're in a speed bubble and doing it, it's totally going to do it, and there's some analogies there.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

That wouldn’t result in you gaining extra strength from pewter, though. External metals like iron or steel, yes, I can see you getting more power out of. But pewter is going to be burning at the same rate from your perspective, meaning you have the same strength, you’re just faster while using it.

[DoctaDajman]

52 minutes ago, NameIess said:

That wouldn’t result in you gaining extra strength from pewter, though. External metals like iron or steel, yes, I can see you getting more power out of. But pewter is going to be burning at the same rate from your perspective, meaning you have the same strength, you’re just faster while using it.

I have to disagree with that. Metal usage = power. Pewter is the fastest burning non enhancement metal outside of atium. That is because it is doing the most for you. 

A lerasium mistborn burns more metal and gets more use from those metals in the same timespan as a regular mistborn. 

If you flare and use more metal you get more power from it.

The enhancement metals work on this principle as a baseline as well. 

While not cannon Brandon says in the Mistborn Adventure Game that a steel runner can generate a lot more kinetic energy when speedily smacking someone but that their body is not enhanced to endure it. So you hypersonic slap a fool and you break your hand, regardless of if you perceive that that smack should break your hand or not. 

Another interesting wob is here. 

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Allomancy's Mental Effects

An interesting side note is to watch how Allomancy—all of its forms—enhances the mind in some way. Though the original concept for the magic system focused on different powers—some physical, some mental—the final product always had a mental component. Notice how, when burning tin, Spook is more able to focus on solitary conversations in the room. Or how his mind can filter out the mist or the cloth he wears. Burning pewter or tin will also make the mind more alert and awake. Burning atium not only lets one see a little bit into the future, but also lets one process that information in a useful way.

The mind is such a big part of what makes us who we are. I wanted Allomancy to impact the characters—to have an effect you could see on the minds of those using it. As I've stated, one of the places where books can outshine television or movies is in the ability to see exactly what is happening inside a character's thoughts and emotions. By adding a mental component to each of the Allomantic powers, my hope was to play off of this strength of the written form.

The Hero of Ages Annotations (Sept. 22, 2009)

There is a mental component to each metal as well. Which hints that the more metal you burn the more that component helps you get the most from it. 

I think this interaction is just as broken as it should be. 

The physical burn is doubled in its rate so the power should come out in the same way. 

Even if strength were locked by perception what about all of the non perception based boosts? 

The denser tissues? The better balance the faster reaction time and speed?  

The metal is not a part of the user. It doesnt share an identity like feruchemy metalminds. It is affected by the users metabolism which is sped up by steel feruchemy. More metal burned = more power. 

The most powerful tricks of mistborn are in how well they can control these things. F steel just makes that infinitely easier to fine tune. Add in duralumin and you get stupid results. 

Duralumin breaks the game. This combo makes it break the game in less instantaneous ways.... which sort of breaks the game even more. 

 

Edited January 21 by DoctaDajman

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, DoctaDajman said:

A lerasium mistborn burns more metal and gets more use from those metals in the same timespan as a regular mistborn. 

Personally, I doubt this.

Rashek would have very quickly blasted through his metals with his ridiculous level of Allomancy if this was the case.

Even Elend would surely have noticed something was off given that Allomancers can track their metal stores by mass with great accuracy. 

 

Instead I think greater Allomantic power just gives you more Investiture per unit of metal burned.

Edited January 22 by Trusk'our

[DoctaDajman]

5 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

I seriously doubt this.

Rashek would have very quickly blasted through his metals with his ridiculous level of Allomancy if this was the case.

Even Elend would surely have noticed something was off given that Allomancers can track their metal stores by mass with great accuracy. 

 

Instead I think greater Allomantic power just gives you more Investiture per unit of metal burned.

Spoiler

Oversleep (paraphrased)

Allomantic strength. There are stronger Allomancers, they can burn metals faster, right?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, they can also squeeze more power out of it. They can use it more efficiently.

Oversleep (paraphrased)

So there is some loss of power along the way? How do savants work into that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Savants can use it way more efficiently. They are more Connected to the Shard. Closer to Spiritual Realm.

Warsaw signing (March 18, 2017)

Here you are friend. 

 

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 minutes ago, DoctaDajman said:

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Oversleep (paraphrased)

Allomantic strength. There are stronger Allomancers, they can burn metals faster, right?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, they can also squeeze more power out of it. They can use it more efficiently.

Oversleep (paraphrased)

So there is some loss of power along the way? How do savants work into that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Savants can use it way more efficiently. They are more Connected to the Shard. Closer to Spiritual Realm.

Warsaw signing (March 18, 2017)

Here you are friend. 

 

Yup. It's also paraphrased, so I'm hesitant to put my whole heart into it.

I feel like you might also be able to interpret the middle part that says there are Allomancers that can use it more efficiently as being the ones like Elend and not necessarily Savants like Spook, but I digress. Admittedly might be a hangover from the last time I was in a thread we teased this WoB to death.

 

Anyway, with that said, burning your metals faster will get you more power squeezed into a shorter period of time- that's how Flaring (and seemingly the augmenting metals) works. I just don't believe burning metal faster the only way to increase your Allomantic power.

[DoctaDajman]

1 minute ago, Trusk'our said:

Yup. It's also paraphrased, so I'm hesitant to put my whole heart into it.

I feel like you might also be able to interpret the middle part that says there are Allomancers that can use it more efficiently as being the ones like Elend and not necessarily Savants like Spook, but I digress. Admittedly might be a hangover from the last time I was in a thread we teased this WoB to death.

 

Anyway, with that said, burning your metals faster will get you more power squeezed into a shorter period of time- that's how Flaring (and seemingly the augmenting metals) works. I just don't believe burning metal faster the only way to increase your Allomantic power.

Certainly not the only way. The stronger allomancer is more efficient at pulling power from the metal... or using the metal to pull power from the spiritual realm. But the Steel feruchemy interaction works the same regardless. More metal consumed by the allomantic metabolism = more power. Steel speeds up that allomantic metabolism. Whether Elend burns metal any faster than Vin does (WoB aside) is irrelevant when we are talking about Steel speeding up the metabolism. 

I know that the steel and pewter synergy has been pointed out a few times. My curiosity and the reason for this thread is how storing speed could potentially slow down a duralumin burn to a point where the allomancer can cut it off and spare the other metal. Even if they can't cut it off to spare the other metal and igniting duralumin forces an endless stream of chain reaction that reaction is supercharged pewter beyond what tapping steel would give and it is plausible the pewter benefits could offset the world wrenching slowdown of storing speed. 

This is mostly useful when bracing for impact as a hit is incoming. Or multiple hits are incoming. The strength is simply a number we can see and quantify. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

Just now, DoctaDajman said:

Certainly not the only way. The stronger allomancer is more efficient at pulling power from the metal... or using the metal to pull power from the spiritual realm.

Please forgive my confusion, but I thought your point with me was that Allomancers with a higher base level of power, such as TLR and the ancient Lerasium Mistborn, only get more Investiture because they are metabolizing their metals quicker than other Allomancers could.

4 minutes ago, DoctaDajman said:

But the Steel feruchemy interaction works the same regardless. More metal consumed by the allomantic metabolism = more power. Steel speeds up that allomantic metabolism. Whether Elend burns metal any faster than Vin does (WoB aside) is irrelevant when we are talking about Steel speeding up the metabolism. 

I think it will work with some forms of Allomancy, but not all of them.

Internal powers, like @NameIess said, should presumably be used up as quickly as they're being pulled out, so even though your metal reserves are being used up more quickly they're being balanced out. External Investiture uses, like Emotional Allomancy, should get an upgrade since you're throwing more power at someone who's not soaking up that Investiture at the same speed as you the Allomancer are.

I would compare this to Speedbubbles. A Pewterarm gets no additional strength inside one, though from an outside perspective his metal is going to be used up far more quickly.

15 minutes ago, DoctaDajman said:

I know that the steel and pewter synergy has been pointed out a few times. My curiosity and the reason for this thread is how storing speed could potentially slow down a duralumin burn to a point where the allomancer can cut it off and spare the other metal. Even if they can't cut it off to spare the other metal and igniting duralumin forces an endless stream of chain reaction that reaction is supercharged pewter beyond what tapping steel would give and it is plausible the pewter benefits could offset the world wrenching slowdown of storing speed. 

After giving it some thought, I'm leaning in the direction of a slowed Steelrunner not slowing their other Investitures.

Sounds like hypocrisy, I know, but storing speed Feruchemically is not truly the inverse of tapping it. You get a spiritual adaptation when tapping, which is how your perception speeds up to match. The inverse doesn't have that, and it's making me think you wouldn't be able to get the strength of a Pewterarm (or any other power) at max for much longer than if not storing speed.

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361-skyward-pre-release-ama/#e11520

Calderis

I recently got the opportunity to ask you a question about Feruchemical steel and if it was a temporal effect and you told me to define that better. When tapping steel, the mind of the Feruchemist is sped up and physics affects their actions normally. When storing, their mind is not slowed and the effect seems tortuously difficult to amass. Storing generally seems to be the more dangerous/difficult option in Feruchemy, so does [Feruchemical steel] alter a person's personal relationship to the flow of time, with the disconnect between the Physical and Cognitive as a drawback of storing?

Brandon Sanderson

I see what you're asking. The mind-altering effects of [Feruchemical steel] are similar to the slight strength you gain from [Feruchemical iron]--it is your Spiritual nature adapting to the new influx of an attribute that it's not really expecting, and siphoning some of that investiture to make you capable of actually using it. So there is a slight temporal effect here, but nothing as big as I think you're looking for.

 

Footnote: This question is a follow-up to this question.

 

[therunner he/him]

4 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Sounds like hypocrisy, I know, but storing speed Feruchemically is not truly the inverse of tapping it. You get a spiritual adaptation when tapping, which is how your perception speeds up to match. The inverse doesn't have that, and it's making me think you wouldn't be able to get the strength of a Pewterarm (or any other power) at max for much longer than if not storing speed.

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https://wob.coppermind.net/events/361-skyward-pre-release-ama/#e11520

Calderis

I recently got the opportunity to ask you a question about Feruchemical steel and if it was a temporal effect and you told me to define that better. When tapping steel, the mind of the Feruchemist is sped up and physics affects their actions normally. When storing, their mind is not slowed and the effect seems tortuously difficult to amass. Storing generally seems to be the more dangerous/difficult option in Feruchemy, so does [Feruchemical steel] alter a person's personal relationship to the flow of time, with the disconnect between the Physical and Cognitive as a drawback of storing?

Brandon Sanderson

I see what you're asking. The mind-altering effects of [Feruchemical steel] are similar to the slight strength you gain from [Feruchemical iron]--it is your Spiritual nature adapting to the new influx of an attribute that it's not really expecting, and siphoning some of that investiture to make you capable of actually using it. So there is a slight temporal effect here, but nothing as big as I think you're looking for.

 

Footnote: This question is a follow-up to this question.

 

Correction, F-Steel doesn't speed up perception to fully match, only some partial compensation (to WoB explicitly says the effect is not as big as the questioner is implying).

 

Also, if it is the physical body being sped up that causes the metals to burn faster, than physical body being slowed down should result in reduced burn for metals. 
Any cognitive side effects of F-Steel should be relatively irrelevant.