shardblade Do Shardblades provide a bonus versus Shardplate?

[Pathfinder]

Elit, yes, I remember that one, he had plate, did he ever hit Adolin with the hammer?

 

There simply is not enough data. There is too little unassisted blows to shardplate. In my mind, in order to compare shardblade verses hammer, I would need to eliminate the other variables. Since I do not recall reading about even one unassisted account of a shardblade damaging shardplate, I cannot determine if the damage was caused because of the shardblade or because of the strength. Furthermore, I only remember seeing the effects of many, many blows from unassisted mundane weapons on shardplate. 

 

Do I think that a shardblade has a bonus? From what I have seen no. Because I have not seen anyone damage shardplate with a shardblade alone. Based on too little evidence I could equally draw the conclusion that shardblades have a penalty, that would also likely be more appropriate thematically. I am reserving my right to change my mind once more data is available.

So side note, I think the big reason shardblades are preferred over hammers, is because other than their size, they are just normal. Shardblades can cut through them easily and was a tactic that Elit was concerned Adolin would use during the bout. Now to answer your question, yes the hammer did hit Adolin. See below:

 

Words of Radiance page 660 Kindle Edition

Elit swung, hammer crashing into Adoin's side. Plate cracked, and the blow shoved Adolin off balance

 

Now if I recall correctly, it takes roughly two or three strikes from a shardblade to the same spot to shatter it. During Adolin's earlier bout with Elit one on one, he playfully hit multiple spots, cracking it just to drain it of stormlight:

 

Word of Radiance page 618 Kindle Edition

The man tested forward, and Adolin slapped the Blade away, then brought in a backhand and clipped Elit's forearm. It, too, started to leak Stormlight.

 

So it seems in both cases, one strike from either a shardblade or oversized hammer would crack shardplate enough to leak. Now this of course is concerning individuals in shardplate themselves, which is not what the OP was asking. However:

 

Word of Radiance page 617 Kindle Edition

Adolin slapped away Elit's Shardblade with his forearm. Shardbearers didn't use shields - each section of Plate was stronger than stone.

 

So I believe personally based on those quotes there is not an inherent boon with shardblades against shardplate. Simply it is the enhanced strength bestowed from shardplate that allows the additional force to drive blade or hammer down to damage it. 

Edited April 5, 2016 by Pathfinder

[Dihatimus]

Good points. And it is a good question too. Because its answer may come when we eventually find out how shardplate is made/come-to-be.

[Argel he/him]

Yeah, I may be thinking of Nightblood. Really good research there. I agree, I think without more information, the current evidence suggests shardblades have no inherent advantage over shardplate. Really good question though.

[Rich2244]

I got the impression from the books that when a shardblade is blocked by anything the force of the blow is hugely magnified, possibly because it is not the physical blow that is actually being stopped, but the 'soul severing' aspect of it, sorry if that is not the correct terminology, only read through once. If a shardblade acted like a simple greatsword against plate it would take forever to shatter, when szeth first fights shardbearers

Spoilers

Admittedly he is using an honour blade not a traditional shardblade he is able to shatter their plate with relative ease even without plate of his own. He also breaks halfshards with just one unassisted blow, we don't have any regular shardbearers fighting against halfshards to compare that to yet but either they are pretty pathetic shields or the blades impact is magnified somehow.

[Pathfinder]

I got the impression from the books that when a shardblade is blocked by anything the force of the blow is hugely magnified, possibly because it is not the physical blow that is actually being stopped, but the 'soul severing' aspect of it, sorry if that is not the correct terminology, only read through once. If a shardblade acted like a simple greatsword against plate it would take forever to shatter, when szeth first fights shardbearers

Spoilers

Admittedly he is using an honour blade not a traditional shardblade he is able to shatter their plate with relative ease even without plate of his own. He also breaks halfshards with just one unassisted blow, we don't have any regular shardbearers fighting against halfshards to compare that to yet but either they are pretty pathetic shields or the blades impact is magnified somehow.

Keep in mind due to the honorblade he is also a surgebinder using stormlight with all of its speed, strength and healing benefits. So he can hit hard too. Kaladin, using a helm like a gauntlet is able to crack shardplate while using stormlight. Storms he is able to crack/shatter it with his own feet, with increased gravity. It is a cool concept, just I am not sold on it. 

[Rich2244]

Keep in mind due to the honorblade he is also a surgebinder using stormlight with all of its speed, strength and healing benefits. So he can hit hard too. Kaladin, using a helm like a gauntlet is able to crack shardplate while using stormlight. Storms he is able to crack/shatter it with his own feet, with increased gravity. It is a cool concept, just I am not sold on it.

True and again we haven't really seen what Kaladin would be capable of with shardplate, but from the descriptions it seems like normal blows from szeth are extremely effective, even when he isn't surgebinding. Kaladin breaks both of his legs when he shattered the chest plate and when he used the helmet as a gauntlet its shardplate against shardplate, one of them will inevitably break.

This is just a theory but I find it very difficult to believe that shardblades would be similar in effectiveness to a shardbearers hammer without some sort of bonus at the end of the day it's a light greatsword which isn't something designed to damage plate, like a hammer is

Edited April 9, 2016 by Rich2244

[Argel he/him]

Yeah, but a virtually indestructible greatsword, so you can do things with it you could never do with a regular greatsword. I wouldn't call that a bonus though -- it's more like better quality materials. Cutting in the cognitive realm may give it a bonus though. I think the test in the OP should be changes to a shadblade vs. a hammer with the equivalent amount of Investiture in it but nothing special beyond that.

[Voidus]

Well I imagine that the Shardplate loses some Investiture by virtue of needing to resist the Shardblades usual instant-cutting, which gives less Investiture for durability.

[Argel he/him]

Okay, so, new line of thought. Does it take longer to repair/regrow shardplate if it was damaged by a shardblade, a mundane weapon like our hammer, or no difference?

[Oversleep]

I guess damage is damage - it takes the same amount of time.

[Argel he/him]

I'm trying to get my head wrapped around how shardplate blocks the cutting power of shardblades. Do we know if shardplate without any Stormlight still blocks a shardblades special cutting power(s)?

[Three1415]

I'm trying to get my head wrapped around how shardplate blocks the cutting power of shardblades. Do we know if shardplate without any Stormlight still blocks a shardblades special cutting power(s)?

 

We haven't seen anyone try to damage depleted Plate, as far as I can recall.

 

With regards to blocking ability, as we don't really know the basic mechanics of Investiture it's difficult to speculate, but Invested Plate probably has the same resistance to being acted on by other forms of Investiture (in this case the Shardblade) as everything else of that nature does. So if you had, say, the Bands instead of Plate, I predict they would block as well as, if not better than, it* (although, of course, the bones in your arm would probably still shatter from the impact force).

 

As a result I don't think it actually requires more Investiture of the Plate to actually block a Shardblade strike (likewise, Steelpushing something heavily Invested probably doesn't actively drain Investiture from it); it's just naturally resistant to it, although presumably its more mundane physical resilience stems from the same source.

 

*As an aside: Does Investiture grant increased physical durability to objects holding it? I assume Nightblood is basically indestructible if that's true, though to my knowledge we haven't actually seen anyone try to actively harm it, or anything else with a great deal of Breath/Light/Metallic power. Someone needs to ask Brandon whether something as heavily Invested as, say, the Bands could be damaged, or if things with comparable levels of Investiture are immune to each other's magical effects--e.g., could the Bands block a strike from Nightblood?

Edited April 11, 2016 by Three1415

[Erunion he/him]

Well I imagine that the Shardplate loses some Investiture by virtue of needing to resist the Shardblades usual instant-cutting, which gives less Investiture for durability.

 

Well said Voidus!

I think that Shardblades ARE more effective than regular weapons against plate, for specifically this reason. 

Every time, without fail, that a shardblade strikes shardplate with anything more than the lightest force, that plate is described as cracking, even the light strikes Adolin uses in his duel (in order to embarrass the guy) were causing cracks and leaks. It appears to take two 'normal' blows from a shardblade to shatter a piece of plate (see Szeth's fights, the duels/etc.). Remember, shardstrikes are generally slower and have less kinetic energy than typical weapon strikes, yet still shatter plate in two blows.

 

The only time we see a one-shot kill on plate (the weapon going through an untouched section of fully charged plate, and killing the bearer rather than being repelled by plates ablative aspect) is when Szeth uses lashings with his blade to slam into the Veden shardbearer when he's assassinating the king. 

Every other weapon takes much more work to establish similar effects, and nothing one shot penetrates. A chasmfiend slams into Elhokar, and only really causes problems because Elhokars plate is already depleted. In order to do damage, a shardbearer wielding a hammer has to two-hand a massive blow into Adolin. 

The most effective non-shardblade strike we see against a shardplate is Kaladin's super kick. 

 

So, what do our three most effective anti-shardplate attacks have in common? 

Shardblades are chock full of investiture.

Szeth's lashing attack uses a Shardblade AND a huge amount of momentum AND a huge amount of investiture.

Kaladin's Shardkick uses a HUGE amount of investiture. 

 

Furthermore, we see shardplate (while still useful) becoming much less defensively effective as the suit drains of stormlight; as it loses the investiture.

 

To summarize: 

 

Shardplate uses investiture for both mobility AND for extra strength (otherwise it would be completely unable to block a shardblade!). As its level of investiture decreases, it becomes simply a suit of heavy plate armour made of an extremely high hardness material. 

In order to break shardplate, you need to either overwhelm it's investiture (and innate strength) with energy, be that in the form of kinetic energy or investiture. 

Shardblades counteract the investiture directly, and I suspect are more effective because they have to be stopped by the plates innate investiture. They have cognitive 'momentum', if that makes any sense. 

 

HOWEVER: You want to really break shardplate? Have your Spren form you a real Shardhammer. Much more kinetic energy (plus a spikey point if you use a good warhammer design), AND the investiture bonus. 

 

 

TL;DR? Shardblades are better because MAGIC.

[Argel he/him]

Kaladin used  a lashing to increase his speed. Does that really count as being Invested for the purposes of this discussion? For example, if Kaladin used his last Stormlight for that, would he have done the same damage? It's also hard to gauge how much force Kaladin hit with compared to the force from a boosted attack from someone in shardplate. Those "light taps" from Adolin would still pack a punch.

 

Do we have any good examples of slashing vs. piercing attacks with shardblades?  I definitely remember a piercing attack shattering some chest plate armor, though I am not sure if it was in the duel or a different fight. Anyway, what if shardplate is better at blocking slashing attacks than piercing?

 

The hammer used also has less Investiture, so this could still be a "higher quality" materials thing. I wish we knew many hits that hammer could sustain, and how often hammers were used in duels (maybe when both duelists do not have a blade?).

[Rich2244]

So would a general consensus be that a spren formed shardhammer would be the best weapon for shattering shardplate? If that is true then surely we have decided that shardblades do get a bonus otherwise a shardhammer would be no more effective than a shardbearers hammer.

[Pathfinder]

Well I would also like to point out that I feel shardblades were never designed or intended to damage shardplate regardless whether they get a boon or not. Knights radiant have shardplate, and get sprenblades. Why would you design your sword with the intention of it working better on destroying your own defense? To my knowledge we haven't seen any inclination that there might be radiant shardplate vs a voidbringer shardplate. Yes a listener uses one later, but if we are trying to see if there is an inherent boon, then that would mean it was there from the start, back when the shardblades were sprenblades and the shardplate were wielded by radiants. 

[Erunion he/him]

So would a general consensus be that a spren formed shardhammer would be the best weapon for shattering shardplate? If that is true then surely we have decided that shardblades do get a bonus otherwise a shardhammer would be no more effective than a shardbearers hammer.

That's what I think, although I'm not sure it's a consensus yet!

 

Well I would also like to point out that I feel shardblades were never designed or intended to damage shardplate regardless whether they get a boon or not. Knights radiant have shardplate, and get sprenblades. Why would you design your sword with the intention of it working better on destroying your own defense? To my knowledge we haven't seen any inclination that there might be radiant shardplate vs a voidbringer shardplate. Yes a listener uses one later, but if we are trying to see if there is an inherent boon, then that would mean it was there from the start, back when the shardblades were sprenblades and the shardplate were wielded by radiants. 

 

Great point Pathfinder! Shardblades were never meant to break shardplate! However, I do think they still have an advantage against it, even if it's only an incidental one due to innate investiture. 

[Argel he/him]

If they have an advantage, my guess is it has to do with cutting in the cognitive realm. To me, just being higher quality material (more Invested) doesn't count as a bonus for a shardblade in the context of this thread. I mean, we all know that better quality materials should have an edge over inferior quality materials. I think OP's question is about whether there is some bonus beyond the quality of the material.

[CaptainRyan he/him]

If they have an advantage, my guess is it has to do with cutting in the cognitive realm. To me, just being higher quality material (more Invested) doesn't count as a bonus for a shardblade in the context of this thread. I mean, we all know that better quality materials should have an edge over inferior quality materials. I think OP's question is about whether there is some bonus beyond the quality of the material.

 

Clarification: the original question (hi, I'm the OP haha) focuses on the idea of whether a shardblade, swung by the same person (i.e. with similar force), would be more, less or equally effective against shardplate as a non-shardblade weapon (the example was a mace/warhammer but you could substitute any generic 1h/2h weapon).

Certainly, it is hard to debate the "quality" of materials when comparing a shardblade (a spren) to a metal mace/hammer (not a spren - at least, not in the same sense). The idea is to tease out whether the shardblade, being "magical", provides any special bonus against shardplate or not.

 

Personally, I do think that shardblades, due to their Invested nature, are more effective against shardplate than a regular weapon. That being said, normal weapons can definitely shatter plate and the amount of force brought to bear against the plate seems to be an important factor as well. Heavily Investing a piece of chewing gum would not really change its effectiveness against plate haha. In the same way that if a shardblade gently touches a piece of plate as if it were a feather would not harm the plate.

[Rich2244]

I think it is difficult to compare shardblades to maces or hammers as they are different weapons that work differently, if we were comparing a shardblade to a traditional greatsword I think it absolutely would be more effective, they seem to do similar amounts of damage to a shardbearers hammer, a weapon designed to allow those with the plate but not the blade to fight others in the plate.