Awakeners, stronger than all

[Koloss17]

So there’s all this talk about how dangerous mistborn are, and how dangerous radiants are, but not many people have considered Awakeners. 
 

For one, awakeners use invested weapons, so it’ll be tough to soulcast or push/pull. The cloth or other items will be tough to cut through with coins, especially when you can fortify it. Shardblades are tough to stop, but invested vs invested are very good at resisting each other. Awakened stuff is also pretty darn strong, so pewter won’t make a huge difference here. And the strength of awakened objects might even be able to break some Shardplate.
 

so that cancels iron, steel, pewter, shardblades, soulcasting, and maybe even Shardplate right there.

now, the radiant’s trump card, regeneration, is tough. BUT awakeners also have resilient tools. The lifeless. One breath lifeless allows you to make an army pretty darn easy. If we are talking one v. one, awakeners will have superiority in numbers. If we are talking about many vs many, every death can be used as another soldier. That would cause a lot of emotional turmoil. If we’re talking about mistborn, lifeless koloss would be annoying to deal with. 
 

so that combats large numbers and the regenerative properties of radiants (sort of).

now the trump card of mistborn is their atium. But to an awakener with enough breath, that’s no problem. Just do Vasher’s hundred breath trick, catching them off guard and killing them without problem. 100 breaths to kill a mistborn is likely worth it. Heck, that truck might even kill a radiant!

 So there goes a mistborn’s trump card.  
 

Now for the awakener’s trump card. Anti-investiture.

Heightenings don’t usually grant much to awakeners in battle. But with the knowledge of anti-investiture, it means everything. Third hiieghtening grants perfect pitch. That allows you to know how to play the opposite tone of any type of investiture. That allows you to be an anti-investiture generator. One blast of that stuff can kill a radiant spren and, since scadrians are of preservation, that means that they too are susceptible to non-existence. 
 

so that DEFINITELY defeats Shardplate and regeneration.

 

Now Nicrosil and chromium is hard. It can’t affect the awakener because the breaths are not really kinetic investiture, since they are attatched to the spiderweb, not the person. But it can affect the awakened material (not lifeless though). That renders awakened cloth a tad useless, so long as there is nicrosil or chromium. Though, while that is being done, an anti-investiture blast can finish things off.

Abrasion is hard to use against invested stuff, so that’s out.

Gravitation is annoying to put up with, but holding anti-investure stops them from air drop kicking you.

soothing and rioting can really hurt, especially with duralumin. But an aluminum hat can cancel that easily. 
 

Bondsmiths can by tough to deal with if you are dealing with multiple people, but every awakener is an anti-investiture, perpendicularity closing machine.

I think, overall, that covered everything that could be thrown at an awakener.

Conclusion, awakeners are OP.
 

 

 

 

[Clovermite]

If you have someone who's collected a vast amount of breaths as Vasher has AND has access to a large number of resources, yes your analysis checks out. An awakener can be a huge threat. It's much harder to collect a the large number of breaths required where you could throw away 100 of them and not be phased by it, than it is to bring a stockpile of metals or spheres.

The perfect pitch will aid in singing the an anti-tone, but you still more equipment, including investiture of the shard you wish to oppose, in order to create anti-light. Thus far, the only process we've seen to create it involved vacuum tubes, which is rather unwieldy and not something that could be done on the spot in the middle of a battle.
 

Even then, once you've created the anti-light, you need a delivery mechanism. Thus far, the only one we've seen is Rasyium daggers. I'm sure we'll see other methods of delivering the anti-light, but I doubt it will be something that awakeners have a unique edge in applying.

3 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

so that cancels iron, steel, pewter, shardblades, soulcasting, and maybe even Shardplate right there.

...

so that combats large numbers and the regenerative properties of radiants (sort of).

...

 So there goes a mistborn’s trump card.  

...

so that DEFINITELY defeats Shardplate and regeneration.

...

Abrasion is hard to use against invested stuff, so that’s out.

Gravitation is annoying to put up with, but holding anti-investure stops them from air drop kicking you.

soothing and rioting can really hurt, especially with duralumin. But an aluminum hat can cancel that easily. 

 

 

You seem to be thinking that the mistborn or radiant will only ever use their powers directly on the awakener of their awakened objects, and that they are going to sit still long enough for the awakener to come up to them and donate breaths.

Using electrum, the mistborn would be able to see when the awakener is about to hit them with the breaths, and could thus potentially dodge it You ruled abrasion out completely, but seemed to forget that for the lifeless army to advance on a battle field, they rely on friction in order to run at their opponent. The edgedancer could use clever application of their slicking ability to immobilize the army.

 It's also unlikely that the entire army is going to go without metal and just use awakened cloth for weapons, so the mistborn is probably still going to have plenty of anchors to play around with on the battlefield.

The ability to awaken the dead as lifeless is indeed very powerful, but the awakener will have a slight moment of vulnerability while they are in the middle of awakening a lifeless. That's an opportunity for a radiant to get in with a shard blade, or an atium fueled mistborn to get in a lucky shot to the eyes or something.

I think a highly heightened awakener is definitely powerful, but I don't think they are op in the same way that a fullborn would be.

 

 

[NameIess]

The thing about anti-investiture is that you only have to find each anti-tone once. Sure, the initial discovery would be a heck of a lot easier with perfect pitch, but if the KR already know all the anti-tones, it doesn't matter. Kaladin seemed to be able to cut through awakened cloth just fine with Syl, but it would probably be possible to nullify the supernatural sharpness of a Shardblade.

[Frustration]

Only thing is Breath is significantly harder to obtain than Stormlight or metal.

[Dracnor]

On 17/01/2021 at 5:56 PM, Koloss17 said:

For one, awakeners use invested weapons, so it’ll be tough to soulcast or push/pull. The cloth or other items will be tough to cut through with coins, especially when you can fortify it. Shardblades are tough to stop, but invested vs invested are very good at resisting each other. Awakened stuff is also pretty darn strong, so pewter won’t make a huge difference here. And the strength of awakened objects might even be able to break some Shardplate.

so that cancels iron, steel, pewter, shardblades, soulcasting, and maybe even Shardplate right there.

- the awakeners won't usually have an invested metal weapon, so no push/pull (no need to invest it to get that true). The raw number of Breath required is just too high, and if we allow that much investiture then we can consider fullborn as opponents, and that will be a very ugly fight of compounding vs invested metal.

- cloth hard for coin : depend for the position of the cloth. Generally, the more tight and outstretched, the more easy to cut through (an arrow can easily go through a stretched sheet, but will decelerate an stop in contact to an unstreched one). But yeah, you can do a shield with that, and even a moving one. But as any shield, it might fail to be in the trajectory. So shield++, no absolute protection.

- Shardblade vs invested cloth : hard to say, we have contradictory WoB on how edgy the Shardblade is in itself, if we take away its magic. It's the same question as "can a shardblade go through an aluminium sheet ?". I'd personally say yes it cuts even if not magically, but no definitive canon. Anyway, invested cloths can at least stop the magic of shardblade and that's a huge counter indeed.

- pewter vs awakened : I'd say it depends on the number of Breaths. In my intuition, it's moreless equal. Maybe even a little defensive avantage to pewter as it gives you more resilience.

- Plate vs awakened : no, Plate is insanely resistant. You can fall at the bottom of a chasm and it will not break, only leak stormlight. That's a huge fall. And if we fight a radiant, he will have stormlight to feed his Plate. So no, IMO awakened cloth won't go through Plate.

 

Quote

now, the radiant’s trump card, regeneration, is tough. BUT awakeners also have resilient tools. The lifeless. One breath lifeless allows you to make an army pretty darn easy. If we are talking one v. one, awakeners will have superiority in numbers. If we are talking about many vs many, every death can be used as another soldier. That would cause a lot of emotional turmoil. If we’re talking about mistborn, lifeless koloss would be annoying to deal with. 
 

so that combats large numbers and the regenerative properties of radiants (sort of).

- Honestly I don't see a lifeless army hold very well against a lone shardbearer. He will just cut through them and they will be unable to do anything to him. And that's not even using specific orders power

- Every dead can be risen : yes... if you can access it and replace its blood by ichor. Not easy during a battle, and I doubt the ennemy will let you take back there deads.

- lifeless koloss : good point probably, still vulnerable to shardblade

- many vs many : the lifeless won't be a problem for a shardbearer. For mistborn that might be more problematic if they want to fight in close quarter, but they can flee the army by just flying over it.

So I don't see how regeneration is dealt with, but maybe that huge numbers can be a problem for a mistborn (however, let's not forget the raw destructive potential of a mistborn, as shown by Vin during the attack on the Cett power. Hundreds of deaths in minutes)

 

Quote

now the trump card of mistborn is their atium. But to an awakener with enough breath, that’s no problem. Just do Vasher’s hundred breath trick, catching them off guard and killing them without problem. 100 breaths to kill a mistborn is likely worth it. Heck, that truck might even kill a radiant!

 So there goes a mistborn’s trump card.  

The breath trick is problematic. But remember that mistborn are Leecher, so I'm not sure that going close to them with your Breaths is a good idea. Moreover... How do you even touch a mistborn burning atium ? They are never off guard. I'd just say that it's fairer to get rid of atium, as I indeed with invested metal.

 

Quote

Now for the awakener’s trump card. Anti-investiture.

Heightenings don’t usually grant much to awakeners in battle. But with the knowledge of anti-investiture, it means everything. Third hiieghtening grants perfect pitch. That allows you to know how to play the opposite tone of any type of investiture. That allows you to be an anti-investiture generator. One blast of that stuff can kill a radiant spren and, since scadrians are of preservation, that means that they too are susceptible to non-existence. 
 

so that DEFINITELY defeats Shardplate and regeneration.

We don't know how Plate interferes with anti-tones. So no Definetely here. Clearly something to take into account though. Moreover, antitune was unpleasant for Raboniel, but it didn't kill here at all. We don't even know if it neutralized her powers.

A remark : you are giving many tricks to the awakeners (as knowing the anti-tunes, or Vasher's trick), and just taking "standard" radiants/mistborns. A witty Windrunner could just stay at distance (outside of anti-tune) and Lash several times huge rocks / metal to you. Even if assuming that the Lashing ends when close due to the anti-tune, the kinetic energy will make it continue its trajectory and smash you. Gravity is scary. I'm pretty sure that almost all orders can find tricks that we don't know of. (Elsecaller going into shadesmar and soulcasting the air into oil then fire from there ? Good luck to survive that)

 

(I have to go home now, I'll answer the rest later. But as you see, I think you are being too optimistic)

[Clovermite]

18 minutes ago, Dracnor said:

- Every dead can be risen : yes... if you can access it and replace its blood by ichor. Not easy during a battle, and I doubt the ennemy will let you take back there deads.

 

I was originally thinking the same, but when I looked it up, it appears that the ichor alcohol is optional, to make the lifeless viable over a much longer time period. It seems that an awakener is perfectly capable of re-animating a lifeless fairly quickly. If it survives the battle, then the awakener can decide to inject it with ichor-alcohol

[Dracnor]

18 minutes ago, Clovermite said:

 

I was originally thinking the same, but when I looked it up, it appears that the ichor alcohol is optional, to make the lifeless viable over a much longer time period. It seems that an awakener is perfectly capable of re-animating a lifeless fairly quickly. If it survives the battle, then the awakener can decide to inject it with ichor-alcohol

Yeah, Ichor is just a way to make it cheaper. The question is how much it costs without Ichor ?

[StanLemon]

Awakening for sure has an obscene amount of potential. Nightblood alone is proof of that. But it's also arguably the single most expensive magic system and thus the most difficult to reach those high levels of power. 

[Daggon Forescout]

1 hour ago, Dracnor said:

Yeah, Ichor is just a way to make it cheaper. The question is how much it costs without Ichor ?

Unless I'm mistaken, a lifeless with ichor costs the same number of breaths as a lifeless with regular blood. It was the discovery of new commands that enabled one-breath lifeless. The problem with regular blood is that the lifeless muscles stop working after a period of time (days? weeks?), whereas with ichor you can keep the lifeless going indefinitely, barring injury.   Edit: From memory I'm pretty sure that using the old commands, a lifeless took about 50 breaths to make.

The best argument I can think of against creating lifeless mid battle is that Vasher doesn't do it when he's storming the palace at the end of Warbreaker. Instead he animates the clothes and has those fight alongside him, presumably at a significant (recoverable) cost of breath. I could see potential local applications on a battlefield, but that's too expensive to scale up. Why didn't Vasher animate the bodies? Maybe the commands for one breath lifeless take a minute? Maybe there's a little prep work needed? It's still entirely possible that creating lifeless would be a viable strat during an hours long battle where you can safely work behind the front line, but that it's not viable in the 1v10 brawl Vasher found himself in. Until we see the actual process of making a lifeless, we don't know.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Daggon Forescout

[feruchemicalrockband]

The breath trick Vasher pulls off at the end of Warbreaker only works on awakeners who have lost their breath for a significant amount of time. There's a huge difference in Vivenna's reaction to gaining breaths when you compare when she first gets them to when she regains them from her shawl/carpet. Using it against an enemy invested in a different magic system would just make them back off from the new sensations, not what happens to Denth and Vivenna.

And like others have stated, Kal was easily able to rip through the blankets Basher used against him in part 1, and those were probably more invested than a lifeless.

Edited January 18, 2021 by feruchemicalrockband

[SwordNimiForPresident]

I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk of A-Chromium in this discussion. A Mistborn could completely wipe out an Awakeners breath in one touch. Also, A-Duralumin plus either steel or pewter is going to certainly result in a sticky pile of remains where the Awakener used to be.

Bondsmith vs. Awakener. If what we saw from Ishar is any indication, a Bondsmith is one of the most dangerous fighters in the Cosmere, they can literally steal make/steal connections. Could a Bondsmith just take an Awakeners breath with a touch? What about taking control of Awakened objects? Bondsmiths went way up my list of "most powerful" people in the Cosmere. They're on a level with Elantrians and Fullborn IMO.

[NameIess]

13 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I'm surprised there hasn't been more talk of A-Chromium in this discussion. A Mistborn could completely wipe out an Awakeners breath in one touch. Also, A-Duralumin plus either steel or pewter is going to certainly result in a sticky pile of remains where the Awakener used to be

A-chromium only affects kinetic investiture. It might work on awakened objects, but that’s about it. You can’t just destroy someone’s spiritweb, so you can’t destroy breaths.

[Frustration]

47 minutes ago, Nameless said:

A-chromium only affects kinetic investiture. It might work on awakened objects, but that’s about it. You can’t just destroy someone’s spiritweb, so you can’t destroy breaths.

You can drain metalminds with it, so it isn't just kinetic investiture

[Koloss17]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

You can drain metalminds with it, so it isn't just kinetic investiture

Darn. Wait-can you drain metalminds? When was this info dropped? Chromium just got a lot more powerful than a I thought before.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Koloss17

[Frustration]

48 minutes ago, Koloss17 said:

Darn. Wait-can you drain metalminds? When was this info dropped? Chromium just got a lot more powerful than a I thought before.

Kaymyth

I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both Invested and un-Invested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

Brandon Sanderson

What it boils down to is this:

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2) The non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones. He said that because Invested metals are harder to affect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

ConQuest 46 (May 22, 2015)

[NameIess]

@Frustration, it sounds like they could only burn them off if they were being burned or tapped at the time.

[Frustration]

8 minutes ago, Nameless said:

@Frustration, it sounds like they could only burn them off if they were being burned or tapped at the time.

Considering it destroyes univested metal, even if it isn't in the stomach I'm inclined to believe otherwise.

Of course we don't know for certain.

[NameIess]

Just now, Frustration said:

Considering it destroyes univested metal, even if it isn't in the stomach I'm inclined to believe otherwise.

Of course we don't know for certain.

You can burn/tap metal that's not in your stomach.

[Dracnor]

22 hours ago, Daggon Forescout said:

Unless I'm mistaken, a lifeless with ichor costs the same number of breaths as a lifeless with regular blood. It was the discovery of new commands that enabled one-breath lifeless. The problem with regular blood is that the lifeless muscles stop working after a period of time (days? weeks?), whereas with ichor you can keep the lifeless going indefinitely, barring injury.   Edit: From memory I'm pretty sure that using the old commands, a lifeless took about 50 breaths to make.

The best argument I can think of against creating lifeless mid battle is that Vasher doesn't do it when he's storming the palace at the end of Warbreaker. Instead he animates the clothes and has those fight alongside him, presumably at a significant (recoverable) cost of breath. I could see potential local applications on a battlefield, but that's too expensive to scale up. Why didn't Vasher animate the bodies? Maybe the commands for one breath lifeless take a minute? Maybe there's a little prep work needed? It's still entirely possible that creating lifeless would be a viable strat during an hours long battle where you can safely work behind the front line, but that it's not viable in the 1v10 brawl Vasher found himself in. Until we see the actual process of making a lifeless, we don't know.

Okay. The point of the original post was to use it as a psychological impact during a fight, so that works. Legit. However mistborn also have use emotionnal weapons (duralumin + zinc = overwelming fear)

 

On 17/01/2021 at 5:56 PM, Koloss17 said:

Now Nicrosil and chromium is hard. It can’t affect the awakener because the breaths are not really kinetic investiture, since they are attatched to the spiderweb, not the person. But it can affect the awakened material (not lifeless though). That renders awakened cloth a tad useless, so long as there is nicrosil or chromium. Though, while that is being done, an anti-investiture blast can finish things off.

With the above posts, I will skip this : we don't know enough. As you said : "It's hard".

 

On 17/01/2021 at 5:56 PM, Koloss17 said:

Abrasion is hard to use against invested stuff, so that’s out.

Gravitation is annoying to put up with, but holding anti-investure stops them from air drop kicking you.

soothing and rioting can really hurt, especially with duralumin. But an aluminum hat can cancel that easily. =

- abrasion : not sure of how it works. It will still give the radiant a boost to mobility, and probably will make him hard to grapple.

- gravitation : as I said before, even assuming that anti-tunes deletes Lashing or any surge manipulation (which is not canon as far as I know), the kinetic energy won't go away. The before-Lashed rock still smashes you.

- aluminium hat : yeah, but if we give stuff, why not give oil pistol (easy to craft, just like a water pistol) and a lighter to the adversary ? There goes awakened clothes.

On 17/01/2021 at 5:56 PM, Koloss17 said:

Bondsmiths can by tough to deal with if you are dealing with multiple people, but every awakener is an anti-investiture, perpendicularity closing machine.

I think, overall, that covered everything that could be thrown at an awakener.

Conclusion, awakeners are OP.

 

Once again, we don't know if anti-tune = stop all surge manifestation. But if that's indeed the case, then Radiant clearly aren't as good as they are.

 

My conclusion : nah, not so OP in all generality. The issue of the fight would still depend on more infos : the adversaries' personnalities and skills, their stuff, how much Investiture, preparation before, etc

[Shob the Voidbringer]

On 1/18/2021 at 10:23 AM, Dracnor said:

- Every dead can be risen : yes... if you can access it and replace its blood by ichor. Not easy during a battle, and I doubt the ennemy will let you take back there deads.

depends on the battlefield, if your in the shattered plains for instance...

[Valigus]

On 1/18/2021 at 1:23 PM, Dracnor said:

- the awakeners won't usually have an invested metal weapon, so no push/pull (no need to invest it to get that true). The raw number of Breath required is just too high, and if we allow that much investiture then we can consider fullborn as opponents, and that will be a very ugly fight of compounding vs invested metal.

- cloth hard for coin : depend for the position of the cloth. Generally, the more tight and outstretched, the more easy to cut through (an arrow can easily go through a stretched sheet, but will decelerate an stop in contact to an unstreched one). But yeah, you can do a shield with that, and even a moving one. But as any shield, it might fail to be in the trajectory. So shield++, no absolute protection.

- Shardblade vs invested cloth : hard to say, we have contradictory WoB on how edgy the Shardblade is in itself, if we take away its magic. It's the same question as "can a shardblade go through an aluminium sheet ?". I'd personally say yes it cuts even if not magically, but no definitive canon. Anyway, invested cloths can at least stop the magic of shardblade and that's a huge counter indeed.

- pewter vs awakened : I'd say it depends on the number of Breaths. In my intuition, it's moreless equal. Maybe even a little defensive avantage to pewter as it gives you more resilience.

- Plate vs awakened : no, Plate is insanely resistant. You can fall at the bottom of a chasm and it will not break, only leak stormlight. That's a huge fall. And if we fight a radiant, he will have stormlight to feed his Plate. So no, IMO awakened cloth won't go through Plate.

 

- Honestly I don't see a lifeless army hold very well against a lone shardbearer. He will just cut through them and they will be unable to do anything to him. And that's not even using specific orders power

- Every dead can be risen : yes... if you can access it and replace its blood by ichor. Not easy during a battle, and I doubt the ennemy will let you take back there deads.

- lifeless koloss : good point probably, still vulnerable to shardblade

- many vs many : the lifeless won't be a problem for a shardbearer. For mistborn that might be more problematic if they want to fight in close quarter, but they can flee the army by just flying over it.

So I don't see how regeneration is dealt with, but maybe that huge numbers can be a problem for a mistborn (however, let's not forget the raw destructive potential of a mistborn, as shown by Vin during the attack on the Cett power. Hundreds of deaths in minutes)

 

The breath trick is problematic. But remember that mistborn are Leecher, so I'm not sure that going close to them with your Breaths is a good idea. Moreover... How do you even touch a mistborn burning atium ? They are never off guard. I'd just say that it's fairer to get rid of atium, as I indeed with invested metal.

 

We don't know how Plate interferes with anti-tones. So no Definetely here. Clearly something to take into account though. Moreover, antitune was unpleasant for Raboniel, but it didn't kill here at all. We don't even know if it neutralized her powers.

A remark : you are giving many tricks to the awakeners (as knowing the anti-tunes, or Vasher's trick), and just taking "standard" radiants/mistborns. A witty Windrunner could just stay at distance (outside of anti-tune) and Lash several times huge rocks / metal to you. Even if assuming that the Lashing ends when close due to the anti-tune, the kinetic energy will make it continue its trajectory and smash you. Gravity is scary. I'm pretty sure that almost all orders can find tricks that we don't know of. (Elsecaller going into shadesmar and soulcasting the air into oil then fire from there ? Good luck to survive that)

 

(I have to go home now, I'll answer the rest later. But as you see, I think you are being too optimistic)

I agree with you but it’s also worth noting putting mistborn and shardbearers to togetwhr for this kinda thing is a mistake vins biggest vs army feats are equal to a average skilled shardbearer roshar operates on a power level so entirely above most of the cosmere it’s insane.

also Lightweavers that really have no way to counter them, Lightweavers are like kandra who are also tanks. 

Windrunners and sky breakers are basically fighter jets

Elsecallers, stonewards and willshapers basically let you control the terrain however you want, which is such a huge advantage and cannot be underestimated.

imagine like a bunch of stonewards show up and boom we made a fort out of rock in like 10 seconds and now the fort is made of iron like stone

or willshapers and elsecallers doing the same 

edgedancers and truthwatchers healing is op

from what we have heard or had hinted at dustbringers are like heavy artillery 

bondsmiths are well bondsmiths

and every single one of these orders has acess to a suepr sharp sword that cuts through almsot everything kills pretty much everything instantly and armor that makes them into a smaller much more mobile tank. On top of the fact that they can heal from anything short of like complete disintegration or having their head removed and even those are in doubt considering the feats of healing we have seen in Rythm of war like kaladin having his spine severed over and over and over again bad in oathbringer shallan getting a crossbow bolt to the brain and Renarin being completely squished.

[Bigmikey357]

If we stack up the Big 4 then Awakeners are the least OP. However they'd be an extraordinary ally to any of the other 3 depending on how they are used to support.  

[garlick]

I would just like to point out that we have barley scratched the surface on what awakening can do. Just think of susebron when he gained his tongue back. With no training he became a one man army instantly. Even with vashers power levels in warbreaker I feel like we have only seen the equivalent of a misting where the godking is more like a fullborn in comparison. I also feel this way about surgebinding. We have barley seen whats possible with the few orders we have seen. I will agree that awakeners are underestimated.

Edited March 8, 2021 by garlick