CaptainRyan

This is my interpretation also.

If Vasher has Nightblood then Vasher. elseif Marsh is in his (current) final form then Marsh. elseif Vin has a large supply of Atium (and other metals) then Vin (or same for basic Inquisitor form Marsh). elseif Szeth (assuming a supply of Stormlight). elseif Raoden has a chance if people ignore him for a few moments and he does some wild Aons. ... Ok ok, enough with the programming jokes -> We know Blackthorn Dalinar is no match for Szeth much less some of these other heavyweights. I think a solid shardblade cut through the head would kill Miles. MeLaan just does not bring much to the table. Perhaps she could survive long enough to simply win by default? Dilaf is a strong fighter and seems resistant to investiture but I, personally, do not think he is on the same level as a Mistborn or Szeth. Lyft is a bit of a wildcard but I imagine she is too young and inexperienced to win a gladiator cage match against other such hardened, and powerful, fighters. Sazed with enough Steelrunning could theoretically win but, barring large amounts of steel, I do not think he has much of a chance.

For full clarity, I was not saying Vin used steel to push away from the thug smacking her but rather that her instincts would have helped her to move with the blow in order to lessen the damage. An example might be that if I pushed someone and they fell down and then, while falling, they tucked into the fall and rolled. Vin was burning pewter at the time (I assume) so those instincts would have been heightened by the pewter. With the coinshot being hit in midair by Vin there are a lot of possibilities depending on the coinshot's momentum and angle to their anchor, Vin's momentum and angle of attack along with the coinshot's final momentum and angle. If the coinshot kept pushing on their original anchor after Vin struck them then perhaps that is why the coinshot was shoved so powerfully - the hit from Vin altered their angle to their anchor and that caused them to drift off course. I also recognize that this is completely rampant speculation but it is also worth noting that Brandon is limited in how much minute detail he can provide. I am merely suggesting, what seem like to me, plausible scenarios where, if Brandon says shardplate is a good deal stronger, we could reconcile the differences. Honestly, I could turn out to be totally wrong. (This happens often haha) I think you, and others, have made some excellent points in favor of pewter. edit: Hahaha seriously? Maybe you have some stored connection to Morgan Freeman!

@IndigoAjah Sorry, when I meant stuck I was referring to the massive tangent of pewter vs shardplate in terms of strength. As to the OP I think it is pretty clear that Era 2 Scadrial is clearly dominant unless/until Rosharans advance technologically. Even then, I, personally, would say the Metallic Arts give the advantage.

I won't quote Pathfinder because wow! What a post! Bravo for responding to everything and no worries about tone; I read everything in Morgan Freeman's voice to avoid accidentally misunderstanding someone's tone in a post! At this point, without either more books or a WoB, we are probably stuck. I feel like both sides have good arguments and that we are simply interpreting things a bit different. I look forward to the day when Brandon clears this up and we can move on to arguing whether or not Marsh could defeat the Sovereign haha. Cheers to everyone who contributed - I had a ton of fun!

Welcome and well said!

Oh wow! A steelrunner with a shardblade would be HORRIFYING! There would be no impact beyond the "slight tug" as they mowed down thousands in moments. *shudder*

At the expense of sounding like that guy who constantly says "Prove it!" I will now have to ask about the spike math that just occurred. I did not realize that hemalurgy worked that way - are we sure each spike is simply a +1 human strength?

All excellent points Voidus though I do have to ask how we know a Koloss is five times Vin's strength? Is that in-text or a personal estimate? IIRC, Vin wields the Koloss sword two-handed whereas Dalinar wields a 2-man warhammer with only 1 hand with no issues. Then again, I have definitely been known to IIRiC (if I recall incorrectly) haha so please feel free to correct me.

Great question and great hypothesis IndigoAjah. I think you might be on to something there. Perhaps in some realmatic way invested weapons are more capable of damaging invested armor.

Ok. So, in your mind, shardblades provide a bonus against shardplate. Good to know. Thanks for answering! Also, full disclosure, I too think shardblades (or perhaps all invested weapons) have a bonus against shardplate that normal weapons do not.

A crasher is a coinshot misting mixed with an iron ferring (think Wax). The idea is that the crasher could increase their weight to mitigate the effects of a powerful nicro-push. On a side note, does a nicro-misting touching a feruchemist/ferring using their ability cause any reaction or is it limited to Allomancy only?

The coinshot would only be thrown backward if the shardbearer has a solid grip on their shardblade and is prepared for the push; otherwise I think the shock of having their shardblade suddenly pushed on by invisible forces would knock the blade right out of the shardbearers hands. Shardbearers are not used to having to grip their blades tightly because it is literally impossible for the blade to not cut through anything except shardstuff. After the first few times though I think the shardbearer would learn to grip the blade more tightly and then the coinshot is going to have a very, very bad day.

Ohhh, I see the confusion. Sorry, I will edit the original post to be more clear. By warhammer I simply meant a mace/hammer that a normal soldier would be equipped with; not the giant hammers used by shardbearers. Would this information change your opinion at all?

Yeah, probably. If the push on something behind them while nicro-pushing on a shardblade then they crush themselves and die. If they just do a nicro-push on a shardblade then they fly backwards at a rapid speed and die. Maybe if they both pushed against the blade and then immediately pushed down they could redirect themselves up and then drop a coin/bullet after slowing down and do a controlled landing. The only problem here is that it would take a lot of time. They would be pushed back/up quite a distance, then they would need to land and then they would need to get back to their team to do another nicro-push. Maybe the squad could have 4+ coinshots so they could rotate who was being thrown backwards? Even then I feel like the massive amount of force their body would sustain would probably kill them immediately or at least leave them pretty incapacitated. Hmmm.

Oooo, I think this might be a good point. How does the Coinshot compensate for the massive force that would be inflicted on their body by a nicro-burst push? Vin needed to burn pewter when doing a steel + duralumin push. edit: Poor Pathfinder! I am sorry it seems like we are all ganging up on you! I hope you know my questions come from a love of all things Brandon Sanderson (minus Calamity - I did not enjoy that book) and that I am not just trying to be difficult!

So, to you, the damage inflicted on a piece of shardplate by a weapon is not completely related to the amount of force you bring to bear?

While I do not know the answer in full I would speculate that one reason is because each shard is only a piece of the whole (Adonalsium). So, each shard has unique properties that distinguish it from another. Kind of like how siblings can vary greatly in looks, physical/mental abilities etc. and yet still be from the same source. On top of that, Brandon has stated that the magic systems are not created directly by the shards but rather are interactions between the shards and the worlds they choose to invest in. This means differences between the shards can be magnified even further by difference between the various planets they have invested on and the people/creatures that are there. I think that might account for some of it eh? Well that and the fact that Brandon likes variety in his magic systems!

Thanks a ton Pathfinder for pulling the relevant quotes! That is awesome of you. - - - - - Pathfinder's post plus my responses (in bold) - - - - - page 15 Well of Ascension Vin is fighting a haze killer squad that has three thugs. One thug catches her in the ribs with a dueling cane and literally flings her across the street from that blow alone. Vin is tiny slip of a girl and, during a fight, would naturally (especially while burning pewter) move with the direction of the hit to reduce the impact; even when caught entirely by surprise the body would probably try to "go with the flow". page 493 Well of Ascension, A coinshot starts to fly away, and Vin smacks him out of midair with a dueling cane throwing him to the side. So with pewter she literally swats another person out of mid air like a fly, changing the direction he is going Changing the direction of something in motion is much easier than changing moving that is at a "dead" stop. (See what I did there... dead stop haha). page 631 Well of Ascension, Zane kicks oreseur wolf hound form tumbling across the floor. This is, to me, one of the more compelling examples but even a large wolfhound probably does not weigh as much as a warform Parshendi. Also, see the previous about rolling with the punches. page 734 Well of Ascension, Vin flares pewter and punches a koloss (5 feet taller than her, so roughly 10 ft tall), in the face cracking the skull. No duralumin An impressive feat of strength, for sure, but in the realm of shardplate I would label it as unremarkable at best. Now for the Way of Kings portion page 379 Way of Kings Dalinar kicks the parshendi corpse sending it tumbling 30 ft Adding the full quote: "Then [Dalinar] kicked, tossing a corpse into the faces of the Parshendi nearby. A few more kicks sent corpses flying—a Plate-driven kick could easily send a body tumbling thirty feet—clearing the ground around him for better footing." This is the money quote. As anyone who has been forced to carry an unconscious person can attest, moving dead weight (same joke, again!) is very, very different from moving a conscious person. In this case the Parshendi was dead, not unconscious, but that means a large, dense, heavy corpse is changed from being completely at "rest" (the jokes just don't stop!) to being launched into the air and into someone's face. Not only that but it is such an easy task for a shardbearer that they can do it, repeatedly, in the middle of intense combat. It seems like it is easier for a shardbearer to repeatedly kick corpses into the air than it would be for you or me to kick soccer balls that are lined up neatly in a row. page 780 Way of Kings Dalinar kicks a parshendi in the chest, sending him 20 ft - - - - - Pathfinder's post ends - - - - - For some reason I did not like the way this looked in the quote box so I did this instead haha. I really do think there is a clear advantage to strength in the shardplate department. That is not to say that pewter is "weak" or "useless" by any means but I think if you sat down a thug and a shardplate wearer and had them arm wrestle then the thug, even flaring, would lose without too much of a struggle. That being said, pewter has plenty of its own advantages in terms of innately granting balance/dexterity (remember Renarin having to learn how to hold cups?), providing a healing bonus, increasing stamina (shardbearers get fatigued while fighting at a slower rate than normal people but they definitely wear out faster than a thug) etc. In pure, brute strength however I think the win is clearly in favor of shardplate (in my opinion of course).

Imagine that you, yes you little muggle/skaa/non-radiant etc., are standing in front of a suit of shardplate. You are given two weapons: 1) a shardblade and 2) a warhammer. You take the shardblade and swing it repeatedly against the left vambrace of the shardplate until the vambrace shatters. You then take the warhammer and swing it repeatedly against the right vambrace of the shardplate until the vambrace shatters. Did it take the same number of swings or would the shardblade provide a bonus against shardplate? *** edit ***: To be clear I do not mean a warhammer as in the massive weapons wielded by shardplate users but rather a one (or two) handed mace/hammer meant to be wielded by a regular soldier.

This brings up an interesting (to me at least haha ) point IndigoAjah. Would a normal person wielding a shardblade require the same number of hits to break a piece of shardplate as compared to the same person wielding a hammer? In other words, is there no advantage to hitting shardplate with a shardblade? My initial reaction was to think that shardblades would be more effective than a non-shard (or non-invested) weapon but, after thinking about it for a moment, I am not sure why that would be. Thoughts?

Take your time. Honestly, the more time in-between posts on this thread the more work I get done! I am interested in seeing what you find though so don't take toooo long haha

I just had another scene pop in to my mind - Dalinar (or maybe Adolin) kicks, with ease, a Parshendi corpse into a group Parshendi so hard it knocks the Parshendi down. We know warform Parshendi are dense and have heavy, all-organic, possibly gluten free, armor on. Can you similarly imagine a thug, even flaring pewter, having enough strength to kick, with ease, an armored corpse so hard it knocks down a group of charging warriors? I certainly agree that pewter and Shardplate are not massively far apart but I do think they are relatively significantly far apart. Pewter might give you more dexterity but shardplate is way ahead in terms of strength (in my personal opinion). I will try to remember this question for the next book I order or the next signing I go to. I would love to hear Brandon's take on this.

I suck at searching for them too haha which is why I always ask someone else to look it up for me! So, two men with four arms hammer is lifted by one arm with shardplate? This is a weird word problem but I think that means shardplate would, using this forumla, quadruple your strength? (4arms to 1arm). Actually, we do not know if a shardbearer could wield a heavier hammer with one arm so 4to1 is the low end for shardplate. E.g. what if a hammer that took three men to wield could be lifted with one arm by a shardbearer but they don't do that because [reasons]? Also, Vin used duralumin with pewter to explode a head. I am not sure of the exact math with duralumin but I would make a rough, wild and inaccurate guesstimate that duralumin gives you at least a 5 times boost over what a regular burn of the same metal would do without duralumin.

I did make a note of that being possible. I am not sure if the "catch the claw" incident involved proto-Radiant stuff or not. I am still very unclear as to how shardplate fits in to the Radiants as Szeth noted that shardplate interfered with his lashings while holding the Honorblade and yet Dalinar's visions clearly showed Radiants, in shardplate, using graviation. As such, I do not know if Dalinar wearing shardplate would interfere with his proto-Radiant abilities or not. Probably not given the hints in the scene but I am not confident enough to make a definitive statement. The main thrust of the question was if we have a WoB correlating the power of pewter burning to shardplate or not.