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As a general statement I want to point out that the historic trends on Warfare overall arent the best measure of what works tactically on a one-on-one fight, there's a big difference between what is makes the most effective fighter and what gets rolled out to the entire army. And it changes depending on the location. Full-plate, as the example being cited, is top notch while mounted and in a moderate climate. On foot in the heat it's lethal (as we europeans learned during various crusades), as is it while out to sea. Similarly, Longbows and later crossbows were widely considered to be vastly superior to the sword as a weapon, it was simply waaay too expensive to support an entire army built on it. But we are getting pretty far down the rabbit-hole of RL wartime history and tactics, which was not at all what the OP question was. And on the OP, I think I want to revise my previous statement. In general in the Cosmere, any large enough ball of investiture will (or at least can) gain sentience, which is what spren and aons/skaze are. Nightblood in an example of using a magic system to fake it and/or give that process a helping hand. While thinking about another topic I started to wonder: what happens if you Compound Copper? Would that empty all your memories into the metalmind, or would it imprint a more "complete" copy of your intellect? If it's the latter, could that Imprint be given enough investiture to awaken it (to the robot level of Nightblood) perhaps if you also juiced it with supply of Compounded Identity?

1. I mean, sure, Id go so far as to say most of them would be awful (Gold Swords and Armor have NEVER been a good idea even when they've existed) and some of them (Im looking at you, Bronze) are only good options when the others are not available. That doesnt eliminate iron and steel that are the obviously superior choices. 2. What are you trying to acomplish? Alimunim stops the supernatural trans-realmic cutting of a shardblade, but per WOB it can then still just cut through the physical object like any other sharp physical object can. And once it gets past the thin layer it would start realmically cutting again. So it's still inferior to a sufficiently charged steel armor. 3. Technically true but practically irrelevant, you can still charge "bad" alloy ratios to some extent, they jusst dont work as well or as efficiently; but when all you care about is how much free investiture you can cram into it, you dont need to worry about efficiency of filling it (thanks to compounding) or the usefullness when you try to tap it. And setting aside steel entirely, Im pretty sure both Iron and Bronze would out-perform Aluminum. I think you are underestimating how well armor did perform against guns. Armor lasted alongside firearms in combat for a very long time, and the reasons they dropped it had more to do with economics of equipping an army (and marching them in metal cloths) than it's practical performance. Same as now, we can make crazy Batman super armor, we just dont pay to equip all of our base infantry with it. The term "Bullet-Proof" comes from old armorsmiths who, in order to prove that their armor could stop a bullet, would shoot it at point blank range leaving a visible dent that was it's "Bullet Proof". That's just not true at all, they were GREAT at it, in the sense that swords and armor progressed together and against each other in the arms race of warfar for basically all of human history. Swords and armor were constantly adapting to each other, so there was no Perfect Armor that protected against all Sword styles and no sword that could pierce any type of armor, but that's a far cry from saying Swords sucked against armor. A lot of the most iconic sword styles were specifically designed the way they were to overcome various types of armor.

It's true that nightblood has been gradually getting stronger and/or more invested as he (presumably) absorbs Investiture, but as far as I know that's a permanent effect so it wouldnt matter where he got the investiture or how fast, so long as he had a ready supply and leveled up prior to the confrontation with Ati, so I dont think you could accelerate it with Duralumin. And while it does become harder to affect and/or counter as it gains investiture, I dont know of anything to say it hits harder/bigger. Meanwhile, Breathes are relatively finite and valuable, but you could compound yourself up a stack of 100% full Metalminds indefinitely, and any random twinborn (or medallion-holder) could provide it. Either one would get you to the endgame goal of charging Nightblood up as much as possible, short of going to Sel's CR and shoving it directly into the Dor. Which, actually, might be the only legit way to make nightblood more powerful than a Shard: feed him TWO shards....

@Jace21, @Oltux72, Dont get me wrong, I fully believe that modern industrialized warfar is going to defeat anything built around swords and armor, and for that matter I think that it would take some lucky tactics (or Powers we havent seen) for Rosharan Knights to have any chance against Era2 Scadrians with Metallic Arts, in the classic "Which Shardworld would Win" scenario's. But the OP question wasnt asking about it's tactical value or the likelyhood that Scadrians would bother, just whether it was possible to replicate s Shardblade with Metallic Arts the way it's more or less possible to replicate one with Awakening. With that, I think the closest you ca get is a Half-shard level via Charged metal object (metalminds being the easiest) and the main tactical advantage that has over aluminum is that it could be made of better/stronger metals than aluminum (which I believe would have to be of 95% or greater purity). We know per WOB that an aluminum sword vs shardblade would just come down to their metal characteristics, and aluminum makes terrible blades when steel is around. The Supply question is also reasonable, though that's going to be really circumstantial and in Era2 Scadrial that's going to come down to how much aluminum you have around vs Medallions. On the Plate side I am assuming that the Shardblade godmetal is a general steel or iron analog in terms of its base physical characteristics, but I realize that's 100% assumption with no real basis I can point to. If it's steel-ish, it would (I think) take cannon-balls to deliver enough of a punch to break through the plate in any sort of devastating single hit, at least from the sort of distance Id want to have between my unarmored self and a nightmare knight with a Buster Sword. Big Bore and/or close range would make it more damaging in general terms, though Id need some reference point on Plate v. Aluminum to quantify it.

Right, my point is that they'd be wrong, at least on the day they saw first Shardbearers closing on them, because they're from a world where wearing any metal is usually a liability rather than an advantage so they gave up on armor long before they reached the fire-arm level of tech. Plate would still stop aluminum bullets handily, at which point they have an enemy in their face with a six foot allomancy-proof blade and armor and no way to meaningfully affect either. With enough planning, distance, and/or suicidal tenancies you might be able to get explosives to work (big ones, plate is crazy tough), but that's far from a tactically balancing counter-measure.

I dont think the treasure trove of breaths would be necessary, the lord ruler could fuel him much easier and more efficiently with allomancy and/or compounding, and the Heightenings themselves wouldnt be specifically useful. If he's getting the temporary glimpse of Perfection to formulate and understand this plan, that might be enough for him to get how to just Make a TypeIV entity with his own chosen Command, rather than stealing nightblood.

Im with the others on this, I dont think Nale wasnt actually forcing anyone, and given how he counseled Szeth against swearing to him personally, he was arguably doing the opposite. Szeth could have sworn to anyone including Nale despite his warning. That being said, I think @Ciridae has the right of it in that for most of them the Herald of Law is going to be the final and most reliable interpretation of the Law, so his opinion would sway any and all of them to some extent (even assuming his swearing the 5th doesnt grant supernatural significance). In that light his interpretation of the Law could be binding for anyone of the 2nd and above; Szeth made sure to swear Oaths that gave him more wriggle room even on the 2nd. Im curious: Can a Skybreaker of the 3rd Ideal Break the Law if his sworn Master orders it, despite the 2nd ideal? I tend to think new Ideals trump old ones but the 2nd is also pretty fundamental to the identity of the Order as a whole.

Well, guns are generally terrible at blocking giant swords Pure Aluminum guns (since alloys like duralumin at 95% are considered different metals and would likely loose their inertness) are going to be relatively bulky and only be useful to resist allomancy, surges, etc on itself, not the bullets. Other than than there is only a little practical difference between aluminum and a charged metalmind. The biggest is that aluminum just counters the Magic/realmic soul-cutting bit, it is still left as a soft metal that has to contend with a giant blade made out of a godmetal (that presumably has better physical traits, hardness, etc). With charged metalminds your options for the base metal are more open, so your final product can be a more functional weapon (aluminum swords are going to suck any way you slice it). Similarly, an aluminum bullet is not going to punch through shardplate like magic (though it will do better than probably any non-invested object), it would still have to overcome the metal.

I (accidentally) took this class in college (ie "Philosophy of Mathematics", focused on Set Theory). It's not technically "Twice as Big" but it's also not "undefined" so much as it is of a higher order of Aleph (which is a set of numbers that they invented just to be able to compare different sets of Infinity). For what it's worth, I found it easier to think of it in terms of Venn Diagrams, you can be sure one is larger than the other if one can be proven* to contain another. * "Proven" comes down to a oddball mathematical principle of "Countability", so there is an element of Proof vs just Intuition, but I cant promise it actually makes it any easier to understand. They could prove fairly easily that, for example, all Whole number are larger than all Integers, because you can line them up from the start and see both progress toward infinity together. By contrast they couldnt prove Fractions for a long time because you couldnt count the set and ever get all the way from "1" to "2". To prove it they had to plot all fractions on a matrix, with one axis on the numerator and another on the denominator, and count in the diagonals... In the case of Shards, they are lesser subsets of the more complete Infinite that was Adonalsium.

Been watching My Hero Academia, and I've found that Black Clover is scratching a Shonen Jump nostalgia itch I didnt realize I had (it feels like Naruto with floaty books, if Rock Lee were the Chosen-One). Other than than Im really just waiting for new seasons of Food Wars to drop, and occasionally catch something new on Netflix or Hulu (Crunchyroll is too unreliable on the tech side to be worth it to me anymore). Oh, and I think Ill go ahead and classify The Dragon Prince as anime despite it's US origins, I LOVED that and cannot wait for another season.

It's been RAFO'd for what it's worth:

I think it's likely awakened, or at least being held at the ready to be, given the hanging length that would otherwise be a liability. The other, simpler side of it might be that her blade will cause visible effects on it's wielder the way Nightblood does and Shardblades do not. Assuming whatever effect is temporary she'd only need to hide it during actual combat.

Greetings! I perused s similar B.S. path in my youth, how are you liking it? What's your favorite cosmere scene?

Given that the bulk of their Investiture has gone wild on the Shadesmar side of Sel, Im curious if that was some echo from the Cognitive Realm. Or a lure by something horrible and chaotic (I really want to post General Akbar right now...)

If we assume that a Smoker (and similar aviar) can block anything a Seeker can detect, then I think the most tangible effect on Roshar is that they might be able to block a Singer's access to the Rhythms. It wouldnt block actual use of Surges and whatnot, though I wonder if it could interfere with a Nahel Bond at any point. I suspect a powerful enough cloud could be able to prevent Singers from changing forms, on the login that it could hide them from the necessary new Spren.

I dont really think so personally, but I dont know of any counterpoints Id say it's a valid theory. I have a couple thoughts, though Im not sure they add up to much. Per WOB we know that Atium is an early example of a Fortune Effect. I tend to think this implies that the Ultimate Future that flairing it shows is the allowmancer's current Platonic Ideal in the Spiritual Realm. I dont think that Shallan's Lightweaving is realmically creating alternate versions the way Forgery can, mainly based on their flaw in that they dont actually have the knowledge/skills/experience of those alternative selves. If she were to get better at those selves I think it would still be limited to her own storytelling abilities and not be able to realmically gain abilities she does not already possess even if their internal narratives should have it. .

Hopefully it would repopulate the physical materials in the proper Bladder&Bowel locations instead of direct to bloodstream, so you'd at least have your body's normal capacity before you have to worry about overloading.

That's a fair point. Im of the opinion that he will eventually learn the error of that logic on stage, and come back to the "good" side in some properly dramatic fashion (especially if it involves a Herald-on-Herald confrontation with Ishar).

I dont believe that is the case:

Oh yes, this was very good. Sokka finally gets magic! And I fully expect a magic sword before long.

My best guess for the winderunner forth is something along the lines of "I will Stand Aside when I must". For the original Truthwatchers, Im guessing something along the lines of "I will Uncover that which is Hidden", though I expect Renarin's will be different.

Hmm, I think the ones we havent seen will be the rarer and more extreme emotions. Things like Martyrspren or Zealotspren,

Yeesh, everyone's a critic. Admittedly "hexadecadiety" would be more accurate, it just sounds weird to me.

It was a play on Hexadecimal, as in the base-16 number scheme that a lot of computer science happens in. Lets just call em PowerBallzzzz

I have to agree with @RShara on this; there's interacts because it's a realmic effect, but if they could learn to "hear" Allomancy the way a Bronze Seeker could they should be able to do the same with the Surges the way a Seeker can. That being said the rhythmic way a bronze seeker hears the differences between the different uses of allomancy likely does have common Spiritual Realm underpinnings.