Which Halfborn would be best at fighting Radiants?

[Frustration]

So I made a thread here about 'halfborn'

if you don't want to read not problem Halfborn are basically Feruchemist-mistings/Mistborn-ferrings.

We eventually get into combat discussion and now this thread exists. 

So which combo would be best at fighting, say a fifth ideal Windrunner?

I would say a HalfBloodmaker would be best, as the main reason I say that Mistborn can't go toe to toe with Radiants is how frail they are, with gold compounding that is quickly overcome. 

[HSuperLee]

I would actually argue the other direction, and say that a feruchemist halfborn would do better than a mistborn halfborn. Namely, because while yes, mistborn are generally more inclined to combat, radiants are hard to kill. Killing a radiant is essentially a war of attrition, and while a halfbloodmaker could theoretically outlast a radiant's healing, I'm not convinced they could do enough damage to get past a 5th ideal Windrunner's plate, and at that point the radiant barely would even need to use stormlight to beat them. Gold compounding or not, a sharblade cutting through your spine ain't going to do much. For those pointing out that a mistborn can basically fire a coin like a bullet and then point out there's a WoB that says Wax could break through plate with one bullet, that's also Wax and non-living plate.

My arguement would actually be for a halfcoinshot. Steel compounding means that a halfcoinshot is basically never going to get hit (though they'd have to be careful for unexpected uses of adhesion to slow them down) and drawing upon weight means that they've got a ton of power behind their pushes. The issue just becomes then actually doing enough damage to overcome a radiant's healing, but I believe that once you get the plate out of the way, a halfcoinshot could use their super speed to just keep the pressure up at all times and not give a radiant time to recover their plate (however that works, we don't know yet.)

For a close second, I'd argue halfleacher. Though they'd need some serious feruchemical reserves to do it. They'd have to get in close to the radiant so they can touch them and drain their stormlight without getting instakilled by the shardblade, and then get out, as radiants don't need stormlight to use said blade. But ultimately in a fight between a feruchemist and what is essentially a non-radiant shardbearer, steel + pewter = victory.  

Edited September 11, 2020 by HSuperLee

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

I would actually argue the other direction, and say that a feruchemist halfborn would do better than a mistborn halfborn. Namely, because while yes, mistborn are generally more inclined to combat, radiants are hard to kill. Killing a radiant is essentially a war of attrition, and while a halfbloodmaker could theoretically outlast a radiant's healing, I'm not convinced they could do enough damage to get past a 5th ideal Windrunner's plate, and at that point the radiant barely would even need to use stormlight to beat them. Gold compounding or not, a sharblade cutting through your spine ain't going to do much. For those pointing out that a mistborn can basically fire a coin like a bullet and then point out there's a WoB that says Wax could break through plate with one bullet, that's also Wax and non-living plate.

My arguement would actually be for a halfcoinshot. Steel compounding means that a halfcoinshot is basically never going to get hit "though they'd have to be careful for unexpected uses of adhesion to slow them down" and drawing upon weight means that they've got a ton of power behind their pushes. The issue just becomes then actually doing enough damage to overcome a radiant's healing, but I believe that once you get the plate out of the way, a halfcoinshot could use their super speed to just keep the pressure up at all times and not give a radiant time to recover their plate (however that works, we don't know yet.)

For a close second, I'd argue halfleacher. Though they'd need some serious feruchemical reserves to do it. They'd have to get in close to the radiant so they can tough them and drain their stormlight without getting instakilled by the shardblade, and then get out, as radiants don't need stormlight to use said blade. But ultimately in a fight between a feruchemist and what is essentially a non-radiant shardbearer, steel + pewter = victory.  

Good points throughout, but gold-like stormlight-can heal shardwounds.

[Karger he/him]

I agree.  Feruchemist-Misting > Mistborn-Fering.  You can now see a biting example of why my terminology is superior!

Edited September 11, 2020 by Karger

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

I agree.  Feruchemist-Misting > Mistborn-Fering.  You can now see a biting example of why my terminology is superior!

20 letters as opposed to 9 yep so superior.

but that's besides the point of this thread.

[Karger he/him]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

20 letters as opposed to 9 yep so superior.

DO NOT QUESTION MY BRILLIANCE!  Sorry I am working on villains lately.

In all seriousness though furuchemy is better for combating radiants most of the time.  If you are choosing your misting attribute it will depend on what type of radiant you are working with.  However as a basic use compounding identity should provide a pretty good defense against a large number of radiant options.

[Frustration]

8 minutes ago, Karger said:

DO NOT QUESTION MY BRILLIANCE!  Sorry I am working on villains lately.

Ah, monologues

True, I still think Gold is the way to go, it's the only way to take a hit, Steel comes at a close second.

 

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

So gold to take a hit, steel to make one unhittable.

[Frustration]

7 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

So gold to take a hit, steel to make one unhittable.

basically the idea, but neither is a guarantee and I like the back up that gold has.

Dealing with Radiant flight is an issue.  

[HSuperLee]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Ah, monologues

True, I still think Gold is the way to go, it's the only way to take a hit, Steel comes at a close second.

 

The issue is that while gold healing can heal a shardblade wound, I'm still fairly certain that a fatal wound from a shardblade cannot be healed. I'd need someone to confirm for me, as my books are currently in a different state, but I believe both Words of Radiance and Othbringer mention that a shardblade through the brain or spine will instantly kill a Radiant with no hope of regeneration. I imagine it would have a similar effect for gold healing. Thus, it can only take a non-lethal hit. Steel would be better for just avoiding that possibility at all.

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

45 minutes ago, Frustration said:

basically the idea, but neither is a guarantee and I like the back up that gold has.

Dealing with Radiant flight is an issue.  

That's what the half-coinshot would be good at combatting. Steel compounding and steelpushing to get up there in some capacity... Hm. Maybe a half-lurcher would be good too... Plate and Blade is too invested to Pull directly, but... Hmm...

I could always just invoke my personal theory on Reverse Compounding and say that they could store enough Ironpull power in an ironmind to then tap in a huge burst that could overcome the interference of Plate and Pull them anyway, but that seems kinda like a cop-out answer.

[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

The issue is that while gold healing can heal a shardblade wound, I'm still fairly certain that a fatal wound from a shardblade cannot be healed. I'd need someone to confirm for me, as my books are currently in a different state, but I believe both Words of Radiance and Othbringer mention that a shardblade through the brain or spine will instantly kill a Radiant with no hope of regeneration. I imagine it would have a similar effect for gold healing. Thus, it can only take a non-lethal hit. Steel would be better for just avoiding that possibility at all.

even only healing non-leathal hits is a huge plus, arms and legs are very good for offense.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

8 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

The issue is that while gold healing can heal a shardblade wound, I'm still fairly certain that a fatal wound from a shardblade cannot be healed. I'd need someone to confirm for me, as my books are currently in a different state, but I believe both Words of Radiance and Othbringer mention that a shardblade through the brain or spine will instantly kill a Radiant with no hope of regeneration. I imagine it would have a similar effect for gold healing. Thus, it can only take a non-lethal hit. Steel would be better for just avoiding that possibility at all.

General healing by Stormlight is inferior to Progression, which can heal that. Gold can apparently heal a bullet to the head. We lack direct data, but the idea that gold is better than Stormlight cannot be ruled out.

1 hour ago, Bigmikey357 said:

So gold to take a hit, steel to make one unhittable.

If the Blade materializes at just the wrong time and unexpectedly, you are still dead.

[HSuperLee]

15 minutes ago, Frustration said:

even only healing non-leathal hits is a huge plus, arms and legs are very good for offense.

Fully agreed.

However, we're talking about a blade that, unless you're making yourself super invested, that blade is going to have no resistance going through a body, plus it can possibly cut off metalminds, plus it cannot be pushed or pulled on. Once that blade is swinging, its going where its going, no being blocked or redirected. Thus, the metalborn is going to have to keep their central nervous system out of that path. That's way easier to do by moving at super speed than by hoping the radiant is going to miss.

7 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

General healing by Stormlight is inferior to Progression, which can heal that. Gold can apparently heal a bullet to the head. We lack direct data, but the idea that gold is better than Stormlight cannot be ruled out.

I guess my issue is less to do with the potency of gold, and more the fact that once your soul is severed from your body, I'm not convinced a metalborn would have the presence of mind or spirit to keep tapping while, you know, dying (especially since SH gave us a clear detail of just how painful that is.) Maybe if the tapping persisted after the hit the metalborn could heal (even that I question though) but it seems very unlikely that they'd be able to continue that healing after damage like that. And to those who might suggest that of course they can keep tapping, because of Intent, everything we've seen from SH indicates you need a body to use the metallic arts (see Kel eating a nail in the cognitive realm.) Once your mind and soul are being separated from your brain, you probably can't keep using feruchemy.

Edited September 11, 2020 by HSuperLee

[+Oltux72 he/him]

8 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

I guess my issue is less to do with the potency of gold, and more the fact that once your soul is severed from your body, I'm not convinced a metalborn would have the presence of mind or spirit to keep tapping while, you know, dying (especially since SH gave us a clear detail of just how painful that is.) Maybe if the tapping persisted after the hit the metalborn could heal (even that I question though) but it seems very unlikely that they'd be able to continue that healing after damage like that.

That is almost exactly what Miles Hundredlives demonstrated. That man survived setting off a stick of dynamite on his body.

8 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

And to those who might suggest that of course they can keep tapping, because of Intent, everything we've seen from SH indicates you need a body to use the metallic arts (see Kel eating a nail in the cognitive realm.) Once your mind and soul are being separated from your brain, you probably can't keep using feruchemy.

Well, yes. But it does not demonstrate that you need a mind. In fact you can burn pewter while unconcious and feruchemical bronze requires that you be asleep to store the attribute. That very much suggest that you need Intent to start burning, tapping or filling, but once that's done, the process will go on until you stop it intentionally or run out of fuel.

[Frustration]

15 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

Fully agreed.

However, we're talking about a blade that, unless you're making yourself super invested, that blade is going to have no resistance going through a body, plus it can possibly cut off metalminds, plus it cannot be pushed or pulled on. Once that blade is swinging, its going where its going, no being blocked or redirected. Thus, the metalborn is going to have to keep their central nervous system out of that path. That's way easier to do by moving at super speed than by hoping the radiant is going to miss.

I guess my issue is less to do with the potency of gold, and more the fact that once your soul is severed from your body, I'm not convinced a metalborn would have the presence of mind or spirit to keep tapping while, you know, dying (especially since SH gave us a clear detail of just how painful that is.) Maybe if the tapping persisted after the hit the metalborn could heal (even that I question though) but it seems very unlikely that they'd be able to continue that healing after damage like that. And to those who might suggest that of course they can keep tapping, because of Intent, everything we've seen from SH indicates you need a body to use the metallic arts (see Kel eating a nail in the cognitive realm.) Once your mind and soul are being separated from your brain, you probably can't keep using feruchemy.

Wax uses the BoM after dying.

[HSuperLee]

1 minute ago, Oltux72 said:

That is almost exactly what Miles Hundredlives demonstrated. That man survived setting off a stick of dynamite on his body.

Well, yes. But it does not demonstrate that you need a mind. In fact you can burn pewter while unconcious and feruchemical bronze requires that you be asleep to store the attribute. That very much suggest that you need Intent to start burning, tapping or filling, but once that's done, the process will go on until you stop it intentionally or run out of fuel.

 

Just now, Frustration said:

Wax uses the BoM after dying.

I apologize, I'm about to be real stubborn on this. Sorry, y'all.

 

Dynamite is not comparable to a shardblade. Dynamite is a purely physical form of damage, whereas shardblades are not. Unconscious is also very different from dead. As for Wax, that's a weird situation that may or may not involve shardic intervention. Now, I will admit that if y'all are right, and a gold compounder can survive a shardblade though the central nervous system (which would be frustrating from a story perspective as it means they are essentially truly unkillable) then I don't actually know if a Radiant could win that fight. Like, at all. It would be a long long fight. But yeah, I don't see how a compounder could lose in that situation. Unless the Radiant lashes them to the ground and starts systematically surgically cutting out their metalminds, and even that I don't know how effective it would be considering shardblades don't cut living flesh. Maybe a 5th ideal Windrunner could full lashing them in place while reverse lashing only the metal out of their body at something like 20g, but other than that I've no ideas.

[Frustration]

7 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

I apologize, I'm about to be real stubborn on this. Sorry, y'all.

Is fine

8 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

Dynamite is not comparable to a shardblade. Dynamite is a purely physical form of damage, whereas shardblades are not. Unconscious is also very different from dead. As for Wax, that's a weird situation that may or may not involve shardic intervention. Now, I will admit that if y'all are right, and a gold compounder can survive a shardblade though the central nervous system (which would be frustrating from a story perspective as it means they are essentially truly unkillable) then I don't actually know if a Radiant could win that fight. Like, at all. It would be a long long fight. But yeah, I don't see how a compounder could lose in that situation. Unless the Radiant lashes them to the ground and starts systematically surgically cutting out their metalminds, and even that I don't know how effective it would be considering shardblades don't cut living flesh. Maybe a 5th ideal Windrunner could full lashing them in place while reverse lashing only the metal out of their body at something like 20g, but other than that I've no ideas.

Exactly

Harmony might have done something yes, but what if he didn't?

NIghtblood, nukes, aluminum etc there are a lot of ways to go.

As for a Radiant doing it, cutting metalminds off would work, or pin them down and keep swinging, eventually they will run out.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

15 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

Dynamite is not comparable to a shardblade. Dynamite is a purely physical form of damage, whereas shardblades are not. Unconscious is also very different from dead.

Bloodmakers can recover from mortal head wounds. That is pretty much established. For Shardblades we do lack final evidence.

15 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

As for Wax, that's a weird situation that may or may not involve shardic intervention. Now, I will admit that if y'all are right, and a gold compounder can survive a shardblade though the central nervous system (which would be frustrating from a story perspective as it means they are essentially truly unkillable)

No. Even Miles could be killed. While a mortal wound is survivable, it still takes time. During that time the feruchemist is out of action. So you just leave the Blade in for as long as it takes.

15 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

then I don't actually know if a Radiant could win that fight. Like, at all. It would be a long long fight. But yeah, I don't see how a compounder could lose in that situation. Unless the Radiant lashes them to the ground

I really doubt you could lash an allomancer who has chromium to the ground for more than a few moments.

15 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

and starts systematically surgically cutting out their metalminds, and even that I don't know how effective it would be considering shardblades don't cut living flesh. Maybe a 5th ideal Windrunner could full lashing them in place while reverse lashing only the metal out of their body at something like 20g, but other than that I've no ideas.

Fullborn are for practical purposes demigods. We are going quite some part of the way in that direction.

[HSuperLee]

18 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Fullborn are for practical purposes demigods. We are going quite some part of the way in that direction.

That's actually a really good point. As we all know, fullborn are the kryptonians of the Cosmere.

(had to do it. Frustration has his bit, I have mine.)

[+robardin he/him]

I would think Mistborn-Ferring is the way to go here if you're selecting an agent to go toe-to-toe with a Fifth Ideal Windrunner, because a Mistborn can burn two extremely useful metals (and you'd therefore need the Mistborn part as a starting point): (1) chromium, to Leech away the Stormlight if the Radiant gets within grabbing distance; (2) copper, where a coppercloud's "investiture blocking" effect I suspect would have... An annoying interaction with Surgebinding for the Windrunner.

We have RAFOs about exactly what this interaction might be, but the Coppermind's entry on burning copper (ha) has collected WoBs that a coppercloud would block an Awakener's life sense, block a listener's ability to hear the rhythms of Roshar, and would "affect how spren act" in an unspecified way. What if it meant being unable to appear as a Blade? Hmm!

(RoW spoiler:

Spoiler

That "Surgebinding smothering" effect Kaladin experiences in Chapter 7 of Rhythm of War is exactly what I imagine a fabrial-generated coppercloud might do!

)

That's on top of (3) being able to burn both steel and iron to do the "shrapnel cloud of metal" trick that could wear down the Windrunner's Shardplate and Stormlight healing while also folliowing him/her around as they tried to get away from it, unlike Lashed projectiles aimed at the Mistborn which cannot change trajectory once thrown (though Lashing a cloak with Adhesion to work as a thrown net might be interesting).

The Fifth Ideal Windrunner's advantage would mainly be that Shardplate would be very effective protection against a lot of things and for a long time, maximally efficient Stormlight healing factor, and of course, just one good Shardweapon thrust and it's game over for the Mistborn-Ferring. (I considered calling such a person an MFer, then realized, probably best not to do so.)

Oh, and I just realized a Windrunner's best defense to the shrapnel cloud: infusing a shield of some kind with gravitation, like Kaladin unconsciously did to draw away Parshendi arrows from his crew to hit the bridge planks instead. It'd be like a magnet sucking up the shrapnel. Except that the Mistborn could just Push/Pull harder to overcome it, it would surely take some time getting used to the adjustments involved.

I'd think the more offensively dangerous Ferring attribute to have, which for a M-F would also mean compounding for nigh infinite storage, in this case would be F-steel. A steelmind's speed becomes less useful if it's an airborne duel with the Mistborn Pushing and Pulling on metal to keep aloft, so if I were the Mistborn I'd stay on the ground, even seeking cover, while trying to shrapnel-shred the Windrunner (who's presumably in the sky) and casting as big a coppercloud as I can around us both (if it has a dampening effect on the Radiant spren).

And then when the Windrunner got down on the ground to close me, tap that steelmind to zip in close and Leech, Baby, Leech, hopefully without getting a Shardknife in the gut waiting for me. Since I'd be Componding speed, I'd be able to zip in, Leech a bit, and zip out, like a really annoying Mosquito of Investiture Sucking.

Edited September 11, 2020 by robardin

[StanLemon]

I have posted before in other threads how I think that a Mistborn could take on a 5th Ideal Radiant, let alone one that could Compound something so I'll avoid that. I think though that a Feruchemist Halfborn with a decent amount of each trait saved up and with either Steel or Gold as the one they could Compound would be a nightmare for a Radiant. This however has, as all scenarios involving Feruchemy, the caveat of just how much of each trait they have stored. If it's like Sazed in Well of Ascension who had a very large stockpile of stored traits, my money would be on the Feruchemist. Just as a reminder, in Well of Ascension, he had enough speed stored to turn a months long journey into about a week and enough weight and strength and presumably health to hold of the hoard of koloss at his gate for hours.

Edited September 12, 2020 by StanLemon

[wildcard09]

I donno man, A misborn-sparker would do the trick. 

There's no way any metal born could beat a Radiant head on. However; with clever manipulation of emotions via soothing and rioting and possibly cheesing duralumin you may be able to cause the radiant to stress or break it's nahel bond, weaking it. As an example, how easy would it be to wreak havok on kaladins depression as a mistborn while compounding zinc. He lost syl at one point because of it so the bonds seem pretty fragile.

Also mental quickness is a pretty nice power to compound in this situation. 

Edited September 12, 2020 by wildcard09

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

18 hours ago, wildcard09 said:

I donno man, A misborn-sparker would do the trick. 

There's no way any metal born could beat a Radiant head on. However; with clever manipulation of emotions via soothing and rioting and possibly cheesing duralumin you may be able to cause the radiant to stress or break it's nahel bond, weaking it. As an example, how easy would it be to wreak havok on kaladins depression as a mistborn while compounding zinc. He lost syl at one point because of it so the bonds seem pretty fragile.

Also mental quickness is a pretty nice power to compound in this situation. 

Oh storms, going for the mental battle over the physical one... Didn't even consider that. I could totally see rioting negative emotions being potent at breaking a Radiant's will... Not even just specifically Kaladin, riot the Radiant's Guilt and Sadness and the like and you'll probably be able to figure out an avenue of mind-games to demoralize them and possibly get them to break their bond.

[Pathfinder]

On 9/11/2020 at 5:49 PM, HSuperLee said:

 

I apologize, I'm about to be real stubborn on this. Sorry, y'all.

 

Dynamite is not comparable to a shardblade. Dynamite is a purely physical form of damage, whereas shardblades are not. Unconscious is also very different from dead. As for Wax, that's a weird situation that may or may not involve shardic intervention. Now, I will admit that if y'all are right, and a gold compounder can survive a shardblade though the central nervous system (which would be frustrating from a story perspective as it means they are essentially truly unkillable) then I don't actually know if a Radiant could win that fight. Like, at all. It would be a long long fight. But yeah, I don't see how a compounder could lose in that situation. Unless the Radiant lashes them to the ground and starts systematically surgically cutting out their metalminds, and even that I don't know how effective it would be considering shardblades don't cut living flesh. Maybe a 5th ideal Windrunner could full lashing them in place while reverse lashing only the metal out of their body at something like 20g, but other than that I've no ideas.

Not to prolong this portion and digress, but there is a reason for this. It is how long it takes for the "self" to "depart" to the "beyond" (all the quotes is because we don't know exactly specifically what any of that is and Brandon intends to keep it that way). The more invested that self is, the longer it hangs out in the cognitive realm before "going away". Wax was invested enough to have a nice convo with Harmony before Marasi got him the Bands. Szeth presumably had a shorter window since he did not have any innate investiture (anymore than anyone else gets that is) and got his abilities from the honor blade. Which is why Nale had to get to him right after he died, and even then it was a close call, because Szeth doesn't fully "stick" to his body, hence the after image effect. Nale nearly missed the window. Speaking of Nale, as per him we know how it would work. He says with Stump, since she is new, he could run her through with the shard blade, and she would die. With Lift, because she had advanced in oaths, he would need to keep the shard blade in for an extended period of time to make sure. Presumably it is for the reason I mentioned above, which is to make sure she ran out of all her stormlight preventing healing, and her "self" well and truly "left the building. 

Edited September 13, 2020 by Pathfinder