[OB spoilers] Why Surgebinding and Shard-blade and Plate are probably the most deadly form of investeture

[Tador]

Stormlight is just raw investiture, you could in theory use it to power whatever you want. It's probably the easiest thing to use as a substitute, not using allomancy, which is easily the most practical magic to use cosmere wide without bringing a bunch of invested stuff around with you, you are also assuming that the surgebinder is at least the 3rd/4th oath, otherwise they don't get the shardblade/plate

[RShara she/her]

Pretty sure Feruchemical gold heals the soul. It's stormlight on steroids. And the Shardblade has to reach the person in the first place.

And again, I've said this like three times:  ALL the magic systems can be hacked to be powered by another.  So yes, you can use stormlight to power Allomancy, and you can use Allomancy to power surgebinding.

Given the information we have, I think it'd be much easier to use stormlight for Allomancy than Allomancy for surgebinding. And for Allomancy, you wouldn't really even need stormlight, you could just get more metal, since metal from any world would work.

And also, please see Weltall's post about double posting.

[Broseph]

1 minute ago, Tador said:

Stormlight is just raw investiture, you could in theory use it to power whatever you want. It's probably the easiest thing to use as a substitute, not using allomancy, which is easily the most practical magic to use cosmere wide without bringing a bunch of invested stuff around with you, you are also assuming that the surgebinder is at least the 3rd/4th oath, otherwise they don't get the shardblade/plate

Stormlight is raw investiture and there for can be fueled by any of the "More advanced " forms

[Broseph]

2 minutes ago, RShara said:

And also, please see Weltall's post about double posting.

Sorry, new to forums could you sen a link?

[Tador]

dude listen to RShara, stormlight and breaths are "easy" to use to power other magic, not the other way around. 

To use allomancy to fuel surgebinding you'd have to: 

a ) be a surgebinder 

b ) be/have access to an allomancer 

c ) co-opt the investiture from harmony when the allomancer tries to allomance 

This is difficult 

Also surgebinding is difficult to use off of Roshar, you have to be able to get the spren off world and then co-opt some-one elses investiture 

It is easier to be an allomancer and find/buy some metal dust

 

[RShara she/her]

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Don't post twice in a row. This is "double-posting". If you forgot to say something in your previous post, there's a button on all of your posts called "Edit". Please make sure to use this, rather than making a second, tiny post to correct an error or say one more thing. The only place we should see double posting is if, after a time when no one responds, you post new information or ideas. For example, if I post in General Discussion something about an upcoming video game, and after some replies, I posted the final comment, then if there's new information revealed about the game a month later, it would be completely acceptable for me to make a new post in that topic to let people know about this new information. I added something to the conversation, which is always acceptable (and encouraged!)

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Stormlight is raw investiture and there for can be fueled by any of the "More advanced " forms

Sorry, that would go the other way around.  If stormlight could be considered raw investiture, then it can be used as fuel for any of the other forms.

Edited April 24, 2018 by RShara

[Fatikis he/him]

55 minutes ago, Broseph said:

What I mean is that what makes surgebinding so god is that you can use it anywhere gain a one shot kill partial invulnerability and a  one shot kill

Also metal n mistborn acts as a filter that lets investiture in from the spiritual realm to create an a effect, that effect wouldn't happen if it was raw investiture i.e stormlight but the investiture let in by allomancy could fuel surges

I'm not sure where you got in your head that you can use surgebinding to oneshot kill anyone. That is just 100% not true.

You aren't really making any points. You seem to be very confused about the systems at play here. It is hard to correct any individual statement you make because you are assuming a lot of things that simply are not true.

You for sure could argue that surgebinding is the most  powerful current ability, but the way you are doing it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

It would be super difficult to use allomancy to power Surgebinding. You'd literally have to be an allomancer or do some crazy stuff. Stormlight is investiture which means basically anyone can just walk up and take it. Stormlight is by far the easiest investiture to use by anyone.

 

Edited April 24, 2018 by Fatikis

[Weltall]

Just to put the question of using Stormlight to fuel allomancy to rest, Brandon has confirmed that it is possible:

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Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

If I'm a Mistborn and I change planet-- if I go over to Roshar, do I have to bring metal from Scadrial with me?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No, you do not.

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Could I use Stormlight, and just have the same power?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Not-- not-- It would take some work.

source

Note this, not 'it can't be done' but 'it would take some work'. Allomancy would be a harder system to power using another form of Investiture because of how the metal acts as a nozzle to shape the power coming from Preservation, but because it doesn't matter where your metal comes from it's more or less a moot point.

1 hour ago, Broseph said:

Thats literally what a shardblade does, its why people eyes burn when u kil them with it

This does not kill you immediately. See: Szeth in the original version of WoR's ending and the girl Nale kills in Edgedancer. The latter is dead but Wyndle says that if Lift had gotten there sooner and been stronger, she could have been revived.

23 minutes ago, Fatikis said:

It would be super difficult to use allomancy to power Surgebinding. You'd literally have to be an allomancer or do some crazy stuff. Stormlight is investiture which means basically anyone can just walk up and take it. Stormlight is by far the easiest investiture to use by anyone.

Actually, according to Brandon it's Breath that's the easiest system to use because it keys itself to your Identity. It's harder to get than Stormlight (insofar as that there's only so much out there at any given time and you have to be given it willingly) but once you have it, it's much easier to do things with. But if you're just looking for raw Investiture to perform magic hacks, then yeah, Roshar is one of the best places to be. Or Taldain, if you could get there.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Weltall

[TheHeadHancho]

Umm no sorry.

specifically, a shardblade is able to cut the “strings” of a soul web. There have been many forums on this, please look at them a little bit.

technically you are severing specific connections between parts of your body. 

Thats why it is healable in some cases (like compounded gold).

compounded gold is able to regenerate the spiritweb with TONS of investiture at once before the shardblade can kill you.

[Weltall]

52 minutes ago, TheHeadHancho said:

Umm no sorry.

specifically, a shardblade is able to cut the “strings” of a soul web. There have been many forums on this, please look at them a little bit.

I assume this was responding to my post? I'll repeat what I said before, we saw in Words of Radiance that it is possible for someone who has been killed by a Shardblade to be revived for some time after the fact, as Nale had to wait at least as long as it took Szeth to fall from the sky, assuming that Szeth's Mostly Dead body happened to fall right at his feet. Brandon still considers that possibility canon and mentioned that he was sad to lose that sequence but it worked better for Kaladin's character to be what the rewrite did. And Wyndle says that a Shardblade wound is healable after the fact, Lift simply couldn't do it at that time.

Now yes, I agree that the Shardblades do cut the soul directly but the point I was trying to make in my response is that it's not instantly fatal and thus, a Shardblade isn't a guaranteed OHKO.

Edited April 24, 2018 by Weltall

[MountainKing]

But fullborns don't appear naturally, allomantic sDNA interferes with Feruchemic sDNA. Radiants can be produced by the dozen if the spren allow it. A fullborn had to learn how to use all of his abilities and how to combine them without injuring himself, and store and compound all of the attributes. There are maximums of how fast, strong, heavy, etc. a fullborn can go before the magic stops providing them with protection. Radiants can use there abilities almost instinctively. Kaladin did a reverse lashing before he perform any of the other lashings, Lift perform regrowth on the first try when it was almost too late. 

Radiants also fight in pairs. There spren can watch for fullborns and change their shape into shields to block the fullborns attacks, they can reform over and over so full norms will have to destroy the spren before taking on the radiant.

The surge of transportation allows the radiant to escape into shadesmar and then transform the land around the fullborns or the very clothes on his back to kill him.

[Yata he/him]

@Broseph

I Just read the whole topic and there are some confused points.

Let's start with the terms:

- Stormlight: Raw Investiture

- Surgebinding: Magic System

You seems to blend the two and this make It hard to follow you, sometime.

 

Now to the actual topic, all Magic Systems could be' used with all' Raw Investitures with differents workaround. This workarounds are not equality easy to performe so some hack would be harder than others.

1) Now the magic system portability:

- Surgebinding in foreign lands:

To Surgebind on .... Therenody (random neutral ground), you need at First to be' a Surgebinder, yeah It's not a joke because you need a first Hack (we call It "Hack1") only to allow your Spren to leave his Homeland, as Spren are tied to Roshar's system by the Investiture Who compose them.

Now we assume you performed the Hack1 and you and your Spren are on Therenody. Unless you carried with you some Stormlight in Perfect gemstones, you Need to hack some others Investiture Source, we Will call this hack2. Probably the easier way to use another Source is to have a stockpile of Breath and hack them...of course Breath are expansive but Easy to get if you have money.

This also doesn't consider that Surgebinding could be' dastrically weaker outside of Roshar (probably no Blade or Plate) as Roshar itself boost symbiotic magics.

So you need two hacks in the best scenario possible to have a Surgebinder able to performe his magic offworld and probably not at the same degree.

- Awakener of world

Our Awakener in Therenody (to keep the neutral ground) will use his magic without any difference than his own world. He Need to carry his Breath from home but as long he manage to retrive them, he could keep performing magic Forever (colors are a too common catalyst and you may find them Almost everywhere...I don't even consider them a limitation).

- Scadrial Magic users off world

I Will put both of them in the same umbrella as they works in the same principles. Every bit of metal with the right composition regardless of the source would do the work.

They could carry a lot of metal from home or obtain It everywhere else (dipending by the metalurgy of the world they are).

They could also use the previous hack2 to do the same as a Surgebinder...but what is the point when your natural way is easier to performe?

- Selish magic users off world

The worst portability in this list, their magic is tied to be' fueled by everlasting Investiture Source in the Cognitive and tied to their Magic itself. Make It work off world is very very hard. Let's say for semplicity they have to performe Hack2 and an hard hack3.

I believe to not have forgot someone

EDIT: Switched from Mobile to PC

I forgot Taldain 

- Sand Master off world

It's a weird case, a Sand Master need to carry with himself the Taldain's Sand and the Sand's investiture is consumed upon use. But it can be recharged exposing it too an Investiture Source (Highstorm, Mists) or near a Magic Users (most of the above cases) as the Kinetic Investiture they produce could recharge the Sand and gives the Sand Master his tool again.

- Voidbinding off world

We know nothing of this so...

NOW I think I exposed all the main Magic Systems' portability.

2) Surgebinder (Radiant) Power level

I will not deny the powerful abilities a Surgebinder could put in place. It's a powerful magic system.

We could split the Radiant's powerset in two categories: Shards & Surges

- Shards are awesome tools, not unreplicable in others magic but they are mostly common in Roshar's Magic.

They are not invincible, every Invested object (and Aluminium) would resist a Blade from magical cut. A fast list of possible obstacle to a Shardblade are: Metalminds, Hemalurgic Spikes (weekly), godmetals (except Atium because it's weird), Object with Breath inside, a Dor powered stuff (maybe a Forged object too) and White Sand actively used to block the Blade. This fearsome but not an invincible weapon.

The Plate is actually a good defense, I will talk of his offensive skill together with the "surges" part as it's a bit more complex. It could take a good amout of blow to be destroyed by average men. Of course if a magic users' battle the others are not for sure normal men. Stuff could strain a Plate:
Pewter Allomancy, Pewter Feruchemy, Steel/Iron Allomancy and a storm of projectile, Sand Mastery's assault, ecc... Still a great help but not an ultimate defense.

Notice that the Plate and Blade could be not avaliable for a Radiant off world (at least I am quite sure the Plate will not).

- Surges, In this I will put both the  actual Surges and the Stormlight's passive benefit

Stormlight's effect together with the Plate will give you something like a Pewter Allomancy effect and this is good...Of course in the offworld case you could be unable to have Stormlight or to have it in a decent amount.

The Surges themself are a variegate set of powers. Some could be extremely useful and some others completelly useless in combat. Depending on the Order, some Knight will be destroyed by a Misting/Mistborn and some others will overcome the Allomancer.

EDIT2 because I didn't see the MountainKing's post.

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Radiants also fight in pairs. There spren can watch for fullborns and change their shape into shields to block the fullborns attacks, they can reform over and over so full norms will have to destroy the spren before taking on the radiant.

The surge of transportation allows the radiant to escape into shadesmar and then transform the land around the fullborns or the very clothes on his back to kill him.

Spren doesn't that of their own, the Knight have to summon them and by the way, Spren's sense aren't faster and if they are they are still limited to the Knight's reaction time.

Yeah Fullborn need a training time, this is true also for the Radiant. And remember (regardless on what it is) there is a way to transition into CR into the Metallic Arts too.

I am not sure about the clothes stuff, could you gave me an example ? Because in theory the Mistborn could burn Chromium when something weird around him start to happen or an appropriate power for the situation.
By the way, I think the Fullborn is the ultimate being in Cosmere, but...I don't even count Compound, simple the huge amount of option he has in fight thanks to the wide array of powers

Edited April 25, 2018 by Yata

[Dlyol]

Setting aside the question of portability, it honestly baffles me that people can read what Jasnah was doing at the end of Oathbringer and go yep a mistborn would definitely beat that. (Fullborn obviously are a different matter)

On a related note, I tend to think atium's effects are very overrated in these conversations. There are I think two different scenarios that need to be considered, one where both combatants have perfect knowledge of the opponent's capabilities and one where neither have any knowledge (hazy inbetweens are really hard to make fair in this context). If we take the latter one first it is really hard to see how atium grants a significant advantage as you can see the movements of one's opponent but you don't know what they denote - to take a slightly trivial example if the Radiant goes to hit the Mistborn with a Shardblade, atium would tell to parry but not that only a highly invested object or aluminium would actually be effective at parrying. To take the former scenario perfect knowledge of atium's abilities could allow the radiant to devise a strategy for defeating it while of we take as read that the generic mistborn powers are weaker than radiants ones it is actually unclear how much predicting the radiants attacks would help if you have no counters - to analogise if Iceland and the US fought a war where Iceland could predict the US' moves perfectly this would certainly help a lot but they would still lose because Iceland has no counters to nuclear weapons. Similarly, mistborn have a lot of powers but none of them counters an Elsecaller abusing the cognitive realm or a radiant getting creative with soulcasting, cohesion or tension so atium only helps on that front so much.

[King Cole he/him]

I agree, Fullborn is the Ultimate being. Heck, TLR was describedas walking out of a butning body barely a skeleton. F-Gold is way better healing then Stirmlight

Fullborn don’t need to eat, sleep, or breathe

Simpky through tapping large amounts of Nicrosil, they could push on the blood in somone’s body.

Through the same thing they could butn pewter and be a walking tank, super durable, super strong, super fast, and super nimble. 

Atium doesn’t even have to be brought up to establish the raw power of a Fullborn. In fact, I don’t think its ever worth it to burn Atium if you are a Fullborn because it’s not going to make a difference to what a Fullborn can accomplish. Just as easily they could use Electrum, and know if anything is by some miracle able to kill them. Atium is completely unnecessary  

[Dlyol]

10 minutes ago, King Cole said:

Atium doesn’t even have to be brought up to establish the raw power of a Fullborn. In fact, I don’t think its ever worth it to burn Atium if you are a Fullborn because it’s not going to make a difference to what a Fullborn can accomplish. Just as easily they could use Electrum, and know if anything is by some miracle able to kill them. Atium is completely unnecessary  

I agree with this (although we still aren't entirely sure what Bondsmiths can do) so the question really becomes what is next in the pecking order and I think people who believe it to be Mistborn really overstate the case for atium.

[Fatikis he/him]

24 minutes ago, Dlyol said:

I agree with this (although we still aren't entirely sure what Bondsmiths can do) so the question really becomes what is next in the pecking order and I think people who believe it to be Mistborn really overstate the case for atium.

We have a pretty good idea. The abilities aren't meant for combat. They works with some sort of spiritual Tension and Adhesion. They are meant to bind and connect. Dalinar is a bit of a special case now that Honor is dead. He is probably the most powerful Bonsdmith ever.

A Fullborn would be (in raw power) stronger than any normal Surgebinder. That doesn't mean the Fullborn will win the fight. For instance I honestly think that a Surgebinder is far more powerful than any twinborn, but I think that Wax could take out a full plated Surgebinder of any order (Other than possibly Dalinar).

That being said Dalinar's full power potential as the Bondsmith of a dead shard is probably greater than that of even a fullborn. The Stormfather is an incredible amount of investiture. There is no real competitor in power levels for him. The only thing with greater power is probably a shard or maybe an avatar of Autonomy. 

I honestly would ignore Atium completely. Even without it a full mistborn is going to have huge advantages over a Surgebinder. Surgebinders are working with 2/10 surges. Mistborn are 16/16 powers. Their scope not including god metals is just beyond that of a Surgebinder. If you start mixing in ANY amount of feruchemy the power is just unreasonable.

The only good counter to Atium right now would be Reranin who has the advantage of Voidbinding.

Edited April 25, 2018 by Fatikis

[Dlyol]

2 minutes ago, Fatikis said:

We have a pretty good idea. The abilities aren't meant for combat. They works with some sort of spiritual Tension and Adhesion. They are meant to bind and connect. Dalinar is a bit of a special case now that Honor is dead. He is probably the most powerful Bonsdmith ever.

While I agree with this it is the case that Bondsmiths have done some pretty ridiculous things over the years, like what Melishi did, and that TLR is also a bit of an exception in that he is also a Sliver, which while not granting him any powers did give him lots of potentially useful realmatic knowledge.

6 minutes ago, Fatikis said:

but I think that Wax could take out a full plated Surgebinder of any order (Other than possibly Dalinar).

I'm just so unclear how any of the metallic arts counter all the myriad ways a creative Elsecaller can abuse the cognitive realm and the ability to soulcast over distance

[Fatikis he/him]

1 minute ago, Dlyol said:

While I agree with this it is the case that Bondsmiths have done some pretty ridiculous things over the years, like what Melishi did, and that TLR is also a bit of an exception in that he is also a Sliver, which while not granting him any powers did give him lots of potentially useful realmatic knowledge.

I'm just so unclear how any of the metallic arts counter all the myriad ways a creative Elsecaller can abuse the cognitive realm and the ability to soulcast over distance

That is a huge advantage, but as long as a metalborn is burning or tapping they will resist soulcasting. A surgebinder also is using up investiture always. If a metalborn can survive they can control their burn rate. Unless the surgebinder has access to a load of investiture the metalborn just needs to outlast them. 

Depending on the circumstance it is going to come down to who uses the reserves first. Which the Mistborn will have the advantage here, unless the surgebinder has access to stormlight.

[Dlyol]

5 minutes ago, Fatikis said:

That is a huge advantage, but as long as a metalborn is burning or tapping they will resist soulcasting. A surgebinder also is using up investiture always. If a metalborn can survive they can control their burn rate. Unless the surgebinder has access to a load of investiture the metalborn just needs to outlast them. 

Forgive me if I'm wrong here but my sense is that elsecalling into and out of the cognitive is expensive but not prohibitively so and when in you don't need to spend any stormlight beyond normal leakage. It wouldn't be difficult to enter cognitive - wait until the mistborn, who will need to burn atium to predict when the elsecaller will come out, runs out - then just come out behind him

[Fatikis he/him]

1 minute ago, Dlyol said:

Forgive me if I'm wrong here but my sense is that elsecalling into and out of the cognitive is expensive but not prohibitively so and when in you don't need to spend any stormlight beyond normal leakage. It wouldn't be difficult to enter cognitive - wait until the mistborn, who will need to burn atium to predict when the elsecaller will come out, runs out - then just come out behind him

You don't need to use atium to predict where an opponent is going to emerge. It is an advantage yes, but it is not an overwhelming advantage. You then have to follow a potentially flying enemy who can detect your investiture. Given stormlight is always leaking it can probably be detected by a seeker. At the very least a seeker could detect the direct use of power as you leave the cognitive realm. Changing the advantage to a disadvantage as you try to orient yourself popping back into the physical world. 

[Tador]

I still maintain that anyone who has access to feruchemical steel (speed) and an aluminium spikey thing just wins

because you run up to them faster than they can deal with, and leave a chunk of unhealable metal through their eye 

 

also just to note for the 'mistborn with atium wouldn't know what a shardblade does' literally every time we see somebody use atium they DODGE stuff not block it, because that's kind of the point of atium 

another point it is implied that Jasnah has difficulties getting back from the cognitive realm at the end of WoR, we don't really know the limits of transportation, and the only reason Jasnah can do what she does at the end of Oathbringer is the huge amount of stormlight around (I know she does similar things earlier, but never to somebody properly invested) 

(also note that I do however believe that combat soalcasting is almost as much as an 'I win' button as steelrunning) 

[MountainKing]

8 minutes ago, Tador said:

I still maintain that anyone who has access to feruchemical steel (speed) and an aluminium spikey thing just wins

because you run up to them faster than they can deal with, and leave a chunk of unhealable metal through their eye 

 

also just to note for the 'mistborn with atium wouldn't know what a shardblade does' literally every time we see somebody use atium they DODGE stuff not block it, because that's kind of the point of atium 

another point it is implied that Jasnah has difficulties getting back from the cognitive realm at the end of WoR, we don't really know the limits of transportation, and the only reason Jasnah can do what she does at the end of Oathbringer is the huge amount of stormlight around (I know she does similar things earlier, but never to somebody properly invested) 

(also note that I do however believe that combat soalcasting is almost as much as an 'I win' button as steelrunning) 

You can use Soulcasting to transform the ground into aluminium spikes that stab the opponent.

[Tador]

If you are a steelrunner with an aluminium spike and you see someone before they kill you, then you win

that is not exaggerated, it's just true 

bleeder in shadows of self does something basically equivalent of the quicksilver scene in the x-men films, except possibly a bit faster (can't remember how big the room in SoS is described as being), if you can't kill a steelrunner before they see the attack coming they win 

[MountainKing]

4 minutes ago, Tador said:

If you are a steelrunner with an aluminium spike and you see someone before they kill you, then you win

that is not exaggerated, it's just true 

bleeder in shadows of self does something basically equivalent of the quicksilver scene in the x-men films, except possibly a bit faster (can't remember how big the room in SoS is described as being), if you can't kill a steelrunner before they see the attack coming they win 

Turn the ground around you to air then aluminium.

[Fatikis he/him]

I think people are overestimating the power of transformation. Jasnah is no where near efficient at killing as even Kaladin. The amount of Stormlight she consumes to do these things are crazy. We've seen gems crack from Jasnah over exerting her power killing only few thugs in which they nearly got her.

There is a reason we've only seen her super powerful a few times. The amount of investiture needed is insane. She has only went full ham when she had unlimited stormlight. Unless she has access to that it isn't going to combat a Mistborn.