Why do bronze and tin savants seem to gain power rather than skill?

[The Living Avo]

If Spook gained for example the ability to make hearing extra strong while dulling sight, that would seem more "skillful," but he seems to just get more powerful. As for bronze, a wider range or the ability to pierce copperclouds also seems like a power boast, not skill. Can someone show me where I'm wrong?

[Ascended Grubberfly He/Him]

23 minutes ago, The Living Avo said:

If Spook gained for example the ability to make hearing extra strong while dulling sight, that would seem more "skillful," but he seems to just get more powerful. As for bronze, a wider range or the ability to pierce copperclouds also seems like a power boast, not skill. Can someone show me where I'm wrong?

Spook’s case is not skill, it’s power. Savants can draw insane amounts of power, and that’s what Spoik does.

Spook tells us in the first book that skill with tin is being able to ignore distractions and focus on only a single thing. Marsh shows that bronze skill is about recognizing pulse origins, identifying the metal burned, and even if the target is flaring or running low.

Piercing cooperclouds is more about strength, even though it would take a little practice in cases such as Elend.

[The White Drake]

6 hours ago, The Living Avo said:

So is this guy just wrong?

Yes. His WoB literally says 'it's not just skill'. We can see Brandon treats gaining power from savantism as a given.

 

Spoiler

Chaos (paraphrased)

I continued to ask about the Lord Ruler and his Allomantic strength.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

There's an upper bound to the amount of power you can get from being a savant. Brandon said that, obviously, the Lord Ruler wasn't using duralumin and Elend could only get that powerful in Soothing using duralumin. He implied that there was a way to Compound to enhance Allomancy.

 

 

 

Another WoB talking about stronger Allomancers and Savants. Drawing power more efficiently out the metal = more power for you. It's not because of skill (though doubtless Savants become very skilled and can do even more because of that), but a strengthened Connection.

 

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.

 

 

 

[Returned he/him]

7 hours ago, The Living Avo said:

If Spook gained for example the ability to make hearing extra strong while dulling sight, that would seem more "skillful," but he seems to just get more powerful. As for bronze, a wider range or the ability to pierce copperclouds also seems like a power boast, not skill. Can someone show me where I'm wrong?

There is a difference between being a savant versus being a more powerful Allomancer versus being more skilled. Power is its own thing, which may or may not let you brute-force your way through a lack of skill or talent, depending on the situation and intended effect. The skill comes in how effectively you use your power, which in many cases of Allomancy is related to more subtlety and nuance. Being talented is about natural affinity and the ability to intuitively use Allomancy more effectively than others. Becoming a savant seems like your spiritweb changes such that you become talented, rather than just flatly more powerful or more skilled through practice. There seems to be a continuum of ways to achieve a lot of specific allomantic outcomes, where enough additional power, skill, and/or savantism can all produce the same result.

Consider Marsh's description of burning bronze: the skill of it is in noticing variations in the allomantic pulses as well as when to use or display your use of the metal. Marsh got good at it through practice, not by becoming a more powerful Allomancer. Piercing a coppercloud, on the other hand, seems like a power issue in the cases where we've seen it. Marsh couldn't do it, Vin could (thanks to Hemalurgy), as could the Lord Ruler (possibly via Hemalurgy or compounding, possibly due to raw allomantic strength). A savant might be better at perceiving marginal pulses too subtle for most Seekers to notice, or might be able to disregard some degree of Smoking. Strength of the Smoker and the Seeker still count, though, which makes it hard to figure out:

Spoiler

Questioner

There is quantitative difference in Allomancy (e.g. Elend is stronger than Vin), there is skill difference (e.g. Breeze is better than Vin with zinc), but is there a qualitative difference too?

Brandon Sanderson

That’s the scale of what we call savant. Wax can do more with less. It’s not just skill, the burning for long, using for so long, will actually adapt your soul to the power.

Questioner

So can bronze savants pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a bronze savant should be able to pierce copperclouds. It depends on the strengths of the coppercloud and the strength of the savant, but yes.

Questioner

So Elend could theoretically learn to pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Weaker ones, yeah, totally. He can learn how to do it by brute force.

Shadows of Self San Francisco signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

Breeze is a more skillful Soother than Elend, despite Elend being a more powerful Allomancer. Breeze can push emotions more subtly, effecting changes without necessarily being noticed, while Elend can push harder but doesn't have the same precision. But Breeze can't take control of a Koloss or Kandra, because that's a power thing and not a skill thing. A savant should be better at soothing than a non-savant with similar practice, which could manifest in a way resembling more power, more skill, or both.

Ham's skill with pewter is described as being about when to use it at all, when to flare it, how to ration your supply, and similar. Presumably, Elend gets more strength/durability/balance/poise out of a given amount of pewter because he's a more powerful Allomancer, but that isn't the same as using the pewter effectively. A savant might naturally use their powers in similar ways without Ham's hard-earned experience to point out the tricks.

Kelsier had incredible control over his steelpushes and ironpulls, which is due to his skill and practice. Wax had similar skill. But no amount of skill would let them push as hard as the Lord Ruler could, since he was a more powerful Allomancer. A savant might be able to do things like Push or Pull from areas other than their center of mass, or instinctively Push or Pull in ways that are more effective for their goals than center-of-mass to center-of-mass, again without necessarily needing specific practice.

Spook's use of tin seems to fit this pattern, too. His constant flaring of the metal gives him experience with his enhanced senses, enough that he can feel the grain of wood through a glove or see through a blindfold. Spook in Final Empire might have only noticed a rough texture through the glove, or blobs of light through the blindfold, but in Hero of Ages he's able to more finely perceive those sensory inputs. More allomantic power might be enough to achieve the same effect, though with the downside that the stronger sensory input might be overwhelming or unpleasant. I imagine the difference to be like having glasses that correct your vision (analogous to "more power") versus being better able to determine what blurry shapes are without being able to bring them into focus (analogous to "more skill"). Maybe with more skill and/or deeper savantism he could do as you describe and enhance one sense while not enhancing another.

Edited 20 hours ago by Returned

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

2 minutes ago, The Living Avo said:

If Spook gained for example the ability to make hearing extra strong while dulling sight, that would seem more "skillful," but he seems to just get more powerful. As for bronze, a wider range or the ability to pierce copperclouds also seems like a power boast, not skill. Can someone show me where I'm wrong?

I think the other metals do this too. Pewter savants are stronger and can withstand more punishment, copper savants can make a larger coppercloud (there's a WoB, I think), and so on.

[The Living Avo]

On 7/1/2026 at 8:04 PM, Treamayne said:

Neither.
Savantism does not increase your power at all. Things like Hemalurgy or being a Lerasium Mistborn are a Quantitative difference. Savantism is a Qualitative difference - you are better at things a normal Misting can already do (like a Slider Savant learning to pin their bubble to themselves so it moves with them).  The investiture has premeated your spiritweb to the point that it has malformed and adapted to the power - your understanding of the power is deeper, your finesse improves, your skill in finding other ways to use the power broadens. You aren't 'stronger' - just more skilled (and, of course, any repurcussions the malformed spiritweb may cause like Spook and  Kaza).

WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

There is quantitative difference in Allomancy (e.g. Elend is stronger than Vin), there is skill difference (e.g. Breeze is better than Vin with zinc), but is there a qualitative difference too?

Brandon Sanderson

That’s the scale of what we call savant. Wax can do more with less. It’s not just skill, the burning for long, using for so long, will actually adapt your soul to the power.

Questioner

So can bronze savants pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, a bronze savant should be able to pierce copperclouds. It depends on the strengths of the coppercloud and the strength of the savant, but yes.

Questioner

So Elend could theoretically learn to pierce copperclouds?

Brandon Sanderson

Weaker ones, yeah, totally. He can learn how to do it by brute force.

Shadows of Self San Francisco signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

 

So is this guy just wrong?

[The Living Avo]

Ok thanks everyone! Would it be fair to say that Allomantic Savantism:

1) Boosts power by molding your soul into a more efficient conduit for Preservation's investiture, and

2) Allows you to intuitively use your powers in more nuanced and creative ways?

[The White Drake]

47 minutes ago, The Living Avo said:

Ok thanks everyone! Would it be fair to say that Allomantic Savantism:

1) Boosts power by molding your soul into a more efficient conduit for Preservation's investiture, and

2) Allows you to intuitively use your powers in more nuanced and creative ways?

I believe so.

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, The Living Avo said:

So is this guy just wrong?

1 hour ago, Ascended Grubberfly said:

Spook’s case is not skill, it’s power.

Spook's case is not power though - the power comes almost-entirely from the quantity of Tin he is flaring constantly (foreshadowed in Book 1 with the quantity of Pewter Vin and Kelsier were flaring during their pewter-drag run). The skill and finesse comes in the fact that he can function at-all from within that level of Flared Tin (compare to the 2 seconds of Duralumin+Tin Vin experienced in Book 2). 

The "doing more with less" implies a possible small increase in maximum flare potential (possibly when flaring at maximum) - but the point is that Savantism is much more of a Qualitative difference. Primarily, quantitative differences come from bloodline and hemalurgy (or burning Lerasium itself). 

1 hour ago, The Living Avo said:

 the ability to pierce copperclouds also seems like a power boast, not skill. Can someone show me where I'm wrong?

The ability to Pierce copperclouds is not-only a power-thing. Vin was able to do so through Hemalurgy (ditto Inquisitors) and Elend could learn to do it because he was a 1st generation Lerasium Mistborn and just natuarlly stronger. A Bronze Savant "doing more with less" would have to learn the technique of applying their Flared Bronze to pierce a (weak) cloud. WoB was quoted above - but notice that, for Elend, Brandon specifies the difference (Elend needs "brute force" rather than skill and finesse).