Markus

On 11/6/2016 at 3:46 AM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Also worth considering is how often we get a cold. Every time that happens it put some wear on your body. The lack of those illnesses on Roshar - until Demoux introduced it - would likely lead to a longer life span.

And there is more to maturity than mere age; your average 12 year old today couldn't hand pregnancy and birth, but go back a few centuries and they did. In cultures where certain life stages are expected to occur earlier the mental ability to do so also does. At least one theory of psychology holds that mental age has more to do with social factors than physical ones. At the very least it is a combination of many aspects.

Wait Demoux introduced colds?  Is that a WoB?

Just now, The One Who Connects said:

Windrunners have Gravitation and Adhesion. Cohesion is Willshaper/Stoneward territory.

Lift didn't have that much Stormlight.  Now I'll have to rewatch that scene, but I believe that Lift could see her Stormlight going to the Larkin, so Rashek would notice that something is going from him to the Larkin, and if that something is his F-Atium, he'll notice immediately that his power was fluctuating.  Also, I found the statement that basically say draining a Compounder takes time to do.

 

Oh, I see.  My apolgies.  I mixed them up.

Yes, we really need a look at that scene.  It will be several hours before I can look at it, so if anyone has it on hand, that would be helpful.

13 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Rashek is arrogant, but he's also not an idiot. He knows how to plan and make contingencies, as he clearly showed during the Mistborn Era 1. He wouldn't throw everything away in an attack without preparing first.

Four normal people is well below a sliver with a ton of investiture circulating through him. The argument falls through. While we don't know how much more invested a fullborn sliver is to a person, nor how much more a fullborn sliver with that much kinetic investiture is circulating within, trivializing it like you are doesn't work. Also, Vin being able to steelpush his metalminds is not an argument as that was literally the power of a shard helping her. Just because stormlight is the gaseous manifestation of a shard's power doesn't mean it works in the same way, and we've seen no indication of stormlight working similarly to how mist do as you've described. 

Also, I find it odd that you're arguing that soulcasting would be relatively effective against TLR despite the amount of investiture he's got going on, but that emotional allomancy wouldn't be that effective against Heralds for the exact same reasons. Mind elaborating a bit on that discrepancy?

We have no indication that Heralds just casually carry around larkins. Nale was because he knew he was going to find Lift. Nothing has indicated that Heralds at the time when they could've actually fought Rashek carried around larkins as weapons, so this is a moot point. 

Nothing we have seen indicates that throwing investiture at a target interferes with the investiture they already have. Everything has only shown the opposite to occur, where the investiture already in place resists further addition of investiture. As such, I doubt this would actually happen and could count as a credible threat. 

Apparently darts can go up to 400 ft/s, or 439 km/h. Interesting. Still can be six times slower than a bullet.

 I'll note that while having a mainline to Honor's power means that they won't ever run out of stormlight, it doesn't mean that they don't have a limit on how much they can use at a given moment, so unlimited is incorrect.

We know next to nothing about what surgebinding cohesion would do so using it as an example is completely moot, and at best, speculation.

I still see no reason to think that any Heralds, with what powers we know them to possess pre-Aharetiam, could beat TLR one on one. All ten at once, I would doubt TLR's chance, but one on one I would bet on TLR every time. 

I see a lot of parallels between Vin and the Heralds.  Vin was assisted by a shard that was handicapped keeping another trapped.  Pre-Aharateim (probably mangled the spelling) Heralds are assisted by Honor, who is keeping Odium trapped!  The main basis of my argument this entire time has been that Heralds have a whole lot more investiture going on inside of them than Rashek.  Stormlight is powerful and easily accesible, which is why Vasher goes to Roshar.  Also, I'd suspect that Heralds have a lot of investiture going on (they do get killed and ressurected repeteadly, and that obviously takes a good amount of investiture).  

I think it would make more sense if both investitures interfered with eachother, but I don't have enough evidence to prove either way.

About the larkins- I don't think Nale can just pick up a larkin in the store.  They are incredibly rare.  Nale probably had that larkin for a long time, and either had to got one recently from a Reshi greatshell (or some other method), which I doubt, or have one from before.  I think it would be very sensible for a Herald to carry a larkin.  As they eat investiture, they could be very useful as a weapon against voidbringers.  

Darts are slower than bullets, yes, but Taln catches one without any stormlight.  We don't even know if the dart is his top non-stormlight capacity.  Even if it is, with stormlight, he's a lot faster.

Yes, I guess unlimited was incorrect.  But still, that gets rid of the run-out-of-stormlight risk.

I'm not sure where you're getting next to nothing about cohesion.  While I don't think we know it's full capacity, both Kaladin and Szeth use it.  Szeth glues a door to it's frame, and I believe that, when training in the chasm, Kaladin sweeps his leg across the ground and creates a sticky patch that one of the bridgemen gets trapped in.

2 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Spool already brought up that Nalan carried one for a purpose, rather than just to carry one. But I'm pretty sure that we've had a WoB that Chromium couldn't leech out of a Metalmind unless they were actively tapping it (I'll go search for that in a minute) Yes you could still drain some of his F-Atium, but Chromium doesn't drain it all at once. It drains at a high rate, but if there is enough power to drain, then they have to keep in constant contact. This makes me think that a Larkin would either

• Take several moments to drain all of it. (makes it a target in a 1v1, hard to defend and keep up the pressure on TLR)
• Drain until the Larkin was "full" which may/may not be enough to drain him completely
• (assuming TLR understands and taps less useful minds as filler) Drain a mix and doesn't damage his Atium that much

As I said above, he probably had a larkin beforehand.  I don't have WoR on me right now- I will check when I get home- but I think the Larkin abosorbed Lift's stormlight really fast (almost instantly).  In fact, it just occurs to me that Lift and a larkin are like opposites.  Lift turns food into stormlight, and a larkin uses stormlight for food.  The filling of the larkin is a good point.  I doubt Rashek would realize immediatly that the larkin was draining or come up with that idea, though F-Zinc might help him realize.  However, if it's almost instant as I said, that wouldn't be a problem.

7 hours ago, Weltall said:

Atium plus Electrum can show you going through the area where the fake boulder is without being harmed and can show you how Lightweaving illusions of people react or don't react like a real person should. And creating a mass illusion like that would take a huge amount of Stormlight and we already know that the Heralds burn through it faster than Radiants do. TLR shouldn't have much trouble waiting out a Herald if it really comes down to that since their Surgebinding, healing and enhanced (past whatever they can already do) reflexes all depend on Stormlight while TLR's powers each use an independent reserve. Even if a single coin or button doesn't do much more than inconvenience a Herald, each one requires healing and that will drain more Stormlight until eventually they run out.

Not sure how you're not seeing that he did indeed say that soulcasting a person is hard. Emphasis added:

Ergo, Soulcasting an ordinary human is harder than soulcasting nonliving matter and Soulcasting someone Invested is harder still because the two Investitures interfere with one another. Again, TLR is about the most Invested you can get aside from being a God-King, ergo TLR is about the hardest thing in the Cosmere to Soulcast.

Brandon implied that TLR did indeed know about Chromium. We know for a fact that he knew about other metals like Duralumin and Electrum that he kept secret and we also know that less than twenty years after his death, the Bands of Mourning were created with all sixteen metals, including by necessity Chromium's alloy Nicrosil. So yes, we have every reason to assume that TLR knew about Chromium.

Atium only shows you other's futures.  Electrum could be used but it throws out hundreds of shadows and would be very difficult to use.  A mass illusion would take a lot, yes, so they probably shouldn't throw out hundreds.  Ten or so would work just as well though.  Waiting out is possible, but I don't think Rashek is the kind of person who would do that.  He is arrogant (for good reason) and would probably attack.  If they fight, there are ways a Herald could win.  I'm not saying it's 100% in favor of the Heralds, but they have a decent chance.

Harder than a rock isn't neccesarily "very hard."  A rock might just be very easy to soulcast.  Again, Jasnah soulcasts four people.  Vin pushes (maybe pulls?  I forget) on Rashek's bracers with only a little bit of mist.  IIRC, Stormlight is the gaseous manifestation of Honor, as mist is of Preservation.  We're assuming that the Elsecaller/Soulcasting Herald has a bunch of spheres and stormlight with them.

Okay, chromium probably does take other forms of Investiture.  And according to that, Rashek probably has it.  However, Heralds have larkins:

Quote

QUESTION

Is a Larkin capable of pushing Stormlight into someone as well as pulling out ?

BRANDON SANDERSON

An excellent question, they actually eat on Investiture, as some other people and things that you see.

QUESTION

so this is a NO

BRANDON SANDERSON

This is more a NO than a Yes

This could probably take Rashek's investiture or maybe even the investiture out of his metalminds.  That would be seriously crippling.

Constantly tapping F-atium is a good point.  However, I think it would be more crippling for Rashek than helpful.  Investiture interferes with investiture, and throwing a bunch of Stormlight at him might cancel out the atium for a second.  In that case, he would age incredibly and die.

To the speed question: Heralds are fast.  As I said before, Talenel manages to catch a dart without any stormlight.  We know that stormlight enhances, perfects.  He won't be as fast as Rashek, but he's going to be fast.  Really fast.  And if @Spoolofwhool is right, and the Herald has unlimited stormlight, then, he's going to be even faster and stronger.  Add this to other surgebinding powers and they're really powerful.  Cohesion, for example would hurt him.

I think that the right Herald could beat Rashek, and that all ten would easily destroy him.

12 hours ago, Dunkum said:

Ok, a few main things I see:

1. Syl seemed to think that the honorblades required "a dangerous amount" of stormlight in order to surgebind, ie there is such a thing as a dangerous amount.  so while it is likely true that enough stormlight could overcome TLR's innate investiture, that much stormlight might be too much for a person to actually hold  a presumably enhanced person like a herald.  this also doesn't account for copper, which likely could offer further protections against outside investiture, like it does against emotional allomancy (we know bronze could, in theory, detect other investiture use outside of scadrian ones, so it stands to reason that copper could protect against the same)

2. are you assuming the herald would be wearing no metal items themselves?  even something as simple as a button or belt buckle or even an earring or other jewellery would be usable by TLR.

3. TLR can compound pewter.  that is potentially an enormously powerful offensive attack.  add in compounding steel and he can hit like a freight train faster than an eyeblink.  stormlight enhances, but not nearly to that degree.  all he needs is to land a single blow to the head.  even a small amount of Atium makes that an almost certainty.

edit to add: and when I say he can hit like a freight train, that is literal.  compounding iron plus compounding steel means he could hit with the weight and speed of an actual freight train.

I meant Stormlight in the form of spheres.  I don't really see the Heralds as the type to wear jewelry, but stormlight could heal a belt buckle through the stomach.  Copper resists emotional allomancy, and may resist other forms of investiture, but I think it resists coginitve effects.  Stormlight might not enhance a regular person enough, though we've only seen three-oaths-level stormlight.  Talenel, however, catches a blowdart without any stormlight.  I'm not sure of the speed of a blowdart, but I'd imagine it's pretty fast.  Again, he catches this without stormlight.  Imagine him with stormlight!  He is moving fast.  Not as fast as Rashek perhaps, but he has a Shardblade and surgebinding.  Atium would be a problem, but it has limits.  If they go in without knowledge of eachother's powers, Rashek would not see the risks of touching a gravitation Herald.  He wouldn't see the patch of glowing ground as a threat (cohesion).  Atium wouldn't show him that the boulder flying at him is fake, or tell him which of the thousands of people surrounding him is real, or let him see through the blackness that has suddenly surrounding him (Illumination)

12 hours ago, Weltall said:

We have WoB that soulcasting an ordinary person is very hard and soulcasting someone with Investiture is even harder (here). Now factor in that TLR is one of the most heavily-Invested people we know about (along with the God-Kings) and you've got someone much harder to soulcast than an ordinary Mistborn, who's already noted as being harder to soulcast than a human. Brandon doesn't flat-out say that it's impossible but... it's probably impossible. Especially when that person is not only invested to the gills but has had a millenia worth of built-up Cognitive self-perception to overcome.

On Chromium, we don't have firsthand evidence that it works on other forms of Investiture (Brandon RAFOs questions like that) but if we can take any part of the Nicki Savage story in the BoM broadsheet at face value, then one can indeed Leech other Investiture, as the titular character temporarily disables a gun used by Nazh which appears to be powered by/employ Shades from Threnody. Whether a Larkin could absorb other Investiture or if its biology is keyed to only certain manifestations, we can't say.

As for what TLR can do offensively, bear in mind that with both forms of Pewter going he doesn't need any flashy abilities, he just needs to get close enough to punch you in the head. We know from the Jasnah chapter released online that a crushing blow to the head will still kill you even if you've got Stormlight healing and while that chapter doesn't sound like it's going to ultimately be in Oathbringer, there's no reason to doubt that bit of mechanics trivia. And unless the Heralds are somehow inherently immune to emotional manipulation (the fact that they're all various degrees of insane suggests not) Duralumin-boosted Zinc or Brass can shut them down pretty effectively too.

That WoB doesn't say that soulcasting an ordinary person is very hard.  If there is one that says that please post it.  Again, Jasnah soulcasts four people, right in a row.  I don't think she's sworn all five oaths anyway.  According to that, only a Mistborn burning metal is harder.  TLR is probably burning only pewter.  He is heavily invested anyway, but Stormlight is easily accessible and powerful.  That's why Vasher goes to Roshar.  I think that, with enough Stormlight, you could soulcast him.

Chromium-  this may be a stupid question, but does Rashek even have Chromium?  I'm not sure it had been discovered yet.  I think that most forms of investiture are interchangable (i.e. stormlight substituting for Breath), so a larkin could probably take other forms as well.

Yes, the pewter-enhanced punch again.  Again, Heralds are fast, and two can fly.  Another two could slide away at incredible speeds (though they would probably lose).  Rashek wouldn't be sure which figure to hit when attacking someone with illumination.  Two more could teleport away. Again, getting stuck to the ground wouldn't help him.  And if I knew more about Division and Tension, I suspect those would be effective as well.

Duralumin-enhanced emotional manipulation was not something I had considered.  But, as you said, investiture interferes with investiture, and holding Stormlight would probably block or at least limit the effects.  Even if it worked, I doubt it would do much.  It would only go for a second (duralumin) and might confuse or disorient the Herald, but ultimately do little.

33 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I don't mean tapping Identity. I'm talking about why Shallan couldn't Soulcast the stick. She couldn't overcome its natural identity of "being a stick."

The Lord Ruler has had 1,000 extra years of thinking "I am the Lord Ruler" and I'm not sure that even some of the more experienced practitioners have the mental strength to overcome that. If he taps Identity(assuming he actually stored that) then it'll be even harder.

Ok, you've lost me here. Why would he be launched away screaming? What have I missed?

He has steel compounding. He can quite literally run faster than they can fly unless they put a fair number of Lashings on themselves. That would go through their Stormlight reserve quite quick though, especially since the Honorblades are less efficient. He can simply follow them until they have to land and deal with them there, now without any Stormlight to help them. [same point as below, but only 2 of them can fly since only 2 of them have Gravitation]

The Heralds have been killed by something as mundane as Thunderclast Claws so people on here have assumes that while they can heal from great wounds, a killing blow is a killing blow. Additionally, only 2 of the Heralds can heal, as the other Honorblades do not have the Regrowth Surge. Meaning that the other 8 are fair game for killing blows.

Oh yea, Fabrial healing... those have a finite amount of Stormlight they can hold, so that's my counter: he can outlast the healing reserves. As for Steelpushing, who says he has to push something at them? He can just as easily pull something sharp/heavy towards them from behind. He doesn't need to touch the items, so there wouldn't be a visual cue for the Herald to notice and try to dodge.

Sorry, the capitalization tripped me up.  I don't think that a thousand years of thinking that is that important.  More obstructive would be the whole rest of the final empire thinking he was the Lord Ruler.  However, I hold that stormlight could override it.  Shallan's stick isn't a very good comparison either.  The elsecaller idea was of an experineced elsecaller who had sworn all five oaths.  Jasnah can soulast a person with realitve ease, for example.  Clearly Shallan hadn't said enough truths, have enough stormlight, or was missing something else.

Jeziren and Nale could lash him away.  With enhanced reflexes and speed, this shouldn't be too difficult.  He can run faster than they can fly, but if they're in the air, and he's on the ground, it's hard to hit them.  I don't think the Heralds would go around without a huge reserve of spheres and stormlight.

Healing- I meant sormlight healing, I think regrowth is mainly healing other people.  Stormlight healing is very poweful- Kaladin stuffs the sould back into his arm.  A thunderclast claw.  Yes, that could kill a Herald, but Rashek coudln't really crush them with anything.  I suspect a fabrial could heal them from anything short of crushing them, though as I type it, I realize that Rashek could push the fabrial away.  Still, Stormlight healing is strong and Rashek doesn't actually have any really destructive offensive attacks.

Pulling something- that's a possibility.  What, though?  It's unlikely that the Herald would get positioned exactly between a source of metal and Rashek.  I see this battle invoving a lot of moving around quickly.  A successful Ironpull attack would have to be planned and executed perfectly.  The timing and acuraccy would be almost impossible to get right, even with superspeed.

I think that this battle depends on the Herald.  In my opinion, a Soulcasting Herald would win, a Gravity Herald would draw, an Edgedancer Herald would lose, and I can't really judge the ones whose surges we don't know a lot about.

19 minutes ago, TheKittyOfAtlantis said:

...in which case the audience didn't, either.

 In the prologue of Steelheart, David describes Epic weaknesses thusly:

By this definition, an Epic whose weakness is in effect should be unable to use their powers in any way whatsoever, as if they were no longer an Epic at all. Being attacked by or being in the presence of a person who does not fear him does not appear to have this effect on Steelheart. Although an attack from a person who does not fear him is shown to be able to bypass his defensive power, he is able to use his other abilities within seconds of suffering such an attack, as seen when he mortally wounds Blain Charleston with a super-strength-enhanced punch just after the latter's bullet grazes him. I suppose it is possible that Steelheart's other powers simply do not work while he is being attacked by someone who doesn't fear him, but upon consideration, another explanation presents itself.

In Firefight, the Reckoners confront the Epic Sourcefield, whose weakness is Kool-Aid. While fighting her, David notices that different degrees of exposure to her weakness seem to affect her powers in different ways. Pouring it over one of her forcefields causes that particular field to disappear, and splashing it on her body causes her personal protective field to momentarily flicker and weaken. However, only when David removes her mouth guard and forces her to drink some do her powers shut down completely. Sourcefield's true weakness, the condition that makes her functionally an ordinary person, is drinking Kool-Aid; having it touch her body or her forcefields is what we might call a "pseudo-weakness", a related condition that dampens an Epic's powers but doesn't entirely stop them.

Another example of this phenomenon is a major plot point in Calamity.

Spoiler

 

Tia tells David that Prof's weakness is being attacked with his own powers. Just as Steelheart's impervious skin can be breached by someone who does not fear him, Prof's accelerated healing can't repair an injury inflicted by one of his own forcefields. However, being attacked in this manner doesn't prevent Prof from using his other abilities or even healing himself from injuries that are inflicted by other means at the same time. As David eventually realizes, this is because Prof's true weakness is something else entirely: failure. Although the connection between Prof's true weakness and his pseudo-weakness is not as concrete as it is for Sourcefield, there is still a clear relationship. Weaknesses are rooted in fear, and Prof's fear of failure is one of the reasons why he fears and despises his powers.

So, if being attacked by someone who doesn't fear him is a pseudo-weakness for Steelheart, what might his true weakness be? Perhaps his powers would shut down if no one in the world, or at least no one within a certain distance of him, feared him at all? We will probably never know.

 

(Does this post need to be in the Calamity subforum? It's not specifically about Calamity, but it does mention Calamity spoilers as part of its argument. Apologies if I've misplaced it.)

Quote

“I’m sorry,” my father said, sounding anxious. “He was reaching for you. I—” Steelheart’s eyes went wide, and he raised his hand before him, looking at his own blood. He seemed completely astounded.

He sounded anxious.  He was probably already fearing him.  And right before Steelheart attacked him, he was definitely terrified.  He didn't fear him while shooting Deathpoint, but when Steelheart turned on him, he was afraid.

If I am wrong, a possibility for his real weakness is someone who believes that he is a good person or doing good.  Steelheart probably thought that he was good, and so did David's dad.

35 minutes ago, Weltall said:

@Markus Hoid appears incapable of intentionally harming anyone so no, he wouldn't be terribly good at fighting TLR though he could probably survive anything the latter could dish out.

As far as the others go, Heralds are known to be as killable as anyone else, they just don't stay dead and while Taln does show enhanced speed and presumably senses, that's nothing TLR doesn't have as well. And if you take away their surgebinding then TLR's atium trump card once again rears its ugly head. It's awfully hard to stick a pointy bit of metal in a man who knows exactly where you're going to be several seconds in advance and has the mental processing power to deal with that knowledge (without the additional benefits that would be gained from F-Steel and F-Zinc). As for Soulcasting him, that's a slightly better option except for two things. One, TLR might be able to neuter Stormlight reserves with Chromium (we have reason to suspect it would work on other forms of Investiture) so as long as he can get in range first, you've got no powers. Second and more importantly, remember how Investiture interferes with Investiture? It's unlikely one could throw enough Stormlight into their Soulcasting to convince TLR that he really wants to become smoke, or even just his metalminds.

You're right, I had forgotten that about Hoid.  I'm not sure about that "Heralds are known to be as killable as anyone else."  They're not immortal, but Stormlight can heal from very dangerous wounds and Heralds likely have a multitude of incredible powers, due to the legends about them.  Quoting from memory but "heal with a touch, destory cities," etc.  Most of these probably come from fabrials, which are probably incrediby poweful (Nale heals Szeth from a shardblade would).  Atium would hurt the Herald's chances, but Rashek doesn't really have that many abilites that could kill a Herald.  Anything that Rashek could steelpush at a Herald wouldn't hurt them due to stormlight and fabrial healing.   If he touched Jeziren or Nale he would get launched away, screaming.  Undoubtebly he would recover, but it wouldn't be fun for him.  Also Rashek can't fly (at least not at the speed a Surgebinder can), so if they were losing, they could just run away.  It would probably fight to a standstill.  He might beat other Heralds, like the Edgedancer one.  As for the chromium, has it been confirmed that it can take other forms of investiture?  If so, then I would suspect that a larkin can as well.  Again, Jasnah sucessfully soulcasts the theives, so Stormlight can probably override that.

26 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I'm not sure anyone(Save Hoid/the Shards) has the mental strength to overcome 1,000 years of personal Identity in order to Soulcast him. Also, unless they know how Feruchemy works, they wont see the value of his Metalminds, given that many of them were disguised as common jewelry to begin with. Odds are, they'd see them as a cognitive part of him, like clothing is.

They would also have to overcome his innate investiture, which is increased a fair bit due to his more or less eternal active tapping of Atium. Which, to the Original poster's question, the investiture from burning metals/tapping Metalminds count as a valid source for Nightblood to consume.

A Gold Compounder can heal through decapitation, but I am not sure if Shardblade spine severing is on the same level.

Yes, but I doubt that TLR would tap all (or any) of his Identity at that moment.  Good point about the metalminds, but if he's smoke, the metalminds aren't going to do much.  Again, I think innate investiture could be overriden by enough stormlight.

2 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I don't think soulcasting would work that well against Rashek, since he's got a stronger innate investiture than normal, even regular mistborns, or fullborns, due to having ascended at one point. Soulcasting metalminds would probably be fairly difficult as well since they're invested, and they would resist other investiture-based attacks, not to mention that the ones piercing his skin would have added spiritual protection. 

The others you mentioned, Hoid and the Heralds, aren't good examples for trying to argue that he's not extremely powerful, considering those entities are extremely powerful and regarded as being well-above anyone else around them in strength. 

I did not mean that he wasn't incrediby poweful.  (See: "While Rashek has massive amounts of incredible power").  I was simply saying that there were characters that would be good in a duel against him.  I don't think that the innate investiture should be much of a problem.  Forging, for example, needs a boost to change an object that is invested, but has no trouble (power-wise) changing a person.  The extra boost that might be needed because of Rashek's innate investiture and status as a sliver would be easily countered by enough stormlight.  Stormlight could probably also override the metalminds, but that woud probably require even more stormlight than Rashek himself.  There is such a proliferation of easily accesible investiture on Roshar (which is why Vasher went there) that it would easiy override the innate investiture.

46 minutes ago, Kurkistan said:

More concerningly TLR really isn't a good candidate for a Versus match, since at the top of his game he simply wins. Functionally infinite Feruchemical steel alone is probably enough to one-shot essentially anyone without some special immunity, not to mention literally everything else TLR can do.

27 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Yeah, it helps to remember that TLR wasn't really trying when we see him in The Final Empire; we get a better idea what he could do if he was actually going full-out from Bands of Mourning and even that was without making use of atium aka the 'I Win' button for any fight where the opponent lacks an appropriate countermeasure. I'm not sure we've seen anyone at this point that could face him at his peak and win in a fair fight. Well, Hoid is described as ridiculously unkillable so maybe he could survive and annoy Rashek to death but that's about the only thing that comes to mind.

I think you're both overestimating Rashek's power (or maybe everyone else's power compared to his).  While Rashek has massive amounts of incredible power, other characters have great power, as well as trump cards.  An elsecaller could (I think, we don't have too many details on the powers) simply go to Shadesmar and soulcast Rashek and his metalmids into smoke.  I think a Herald would have a pretty decent shot, even without soulcasting.  Hoid has investitures from lots of other planets.  I think he would have a good chance of fighting Rashek, not just annoying him.  We don't know the full extent of his allomantic and feruchemical powers (remember the lerasium), or most of his other powers for that matter.

There is a thread discussing this here:

I had a similar idea to yours but not nearly as well thought-out.

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

Ruin and Preservation haven't been Splintered, so yes, by definition they weren't shattered the way Odium shattered other Shards. The Vessels were killed by their direct interaction, but the Shards themselves were still whole. I'll disagree with @Shardbearer's suggestion (acknowledging that it was made over a year ago); although bad things would happen because the powers aren't being held by a mind, Splintering a Shard is something that requires knowledge and intention (the Ire didn't think Ruin knew how to Splinter Preservation, although he proved them wrong), so I don't think it would have happened on its own.

As far as I know, Ruin didn't know how to splinter Preservation.  It was simply the opposition of the powers, combined with Preservation having far less power than he did.  He didn't survive the encounter, while Odium clearly survived all of his splinterings.  Also, Odium isn't an oppisite to Dominon, Devotion, Ambition, and Honor.  We can't compare Harmony to Adonalsium, because they were (probably) shattered differently.

On 2/1/2016 at 11:34 AM, Shardbearer said:

The shards for Vin and Ati were only fine because someone was able to quickly take up the power. They probably would have shattered if not for Sazed.

30 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Ruin and Preservation are intermingled sufficiently that, if Sazed died, he would drop Harmony as a single Shard. It appears that something is required to Shatter in addition to the death of the Vessel.

We're forgetting that Ruin and Preservation were shattered by a different method than Honor, Devotion, and Dominon.  They only shattered because their powers were so perfectly opposite and reaced like matter and antimatter.  Odium didn't do this with those three.  As far as I'm aware, we're not sure which method Adonalsium was shattered by (or by a completely different method).

On 2/16/2017 at 9:48 AM, Themasterhunter said:

So compounding doesn't give you any other allomantic abilities? like even a little? No copper cloud piercing? no pushing on metals inside a person? 

 

From what i understand, I thought it upped both abilities, but maybe I'm just thinking you could invest in a metal mind and then grind and burn it. 

I don't know. 

We have seen Feruchemical abilities used to increase Allomantic abilites.  For example, when increasing his weight, Wax can Push incredibly hard.  I don't think that would fall under compounding though.

I'm doing these not counting flashbacks, because that would be very, very hard, as you said.

WOR spoilers:

He did need somewhere to dump the extra Ruin power, right?  Maybe that's it.

I'm confused.  Where did Enlightenment and Enigma come from?  Are they just guesses, or am I missing something?

Could a Parshendi heal by changing forms?

Ok, thanks.

I was rereading Mistborn and a question accured to me about Lerasium alloys.  

If you were to burn a lerasium alloy, then burn another lerasium alloy, what do you think would happen?  Would your new ability replace the old one?  Would you get all Mistborn powers?  Or only the two?

I think it's reasonable.  We don't really have much evidence to prove otherwise.

The prevailing theory about Shardplate is that it forms from the windspren/creationspren that flock around Kaladin/Shallan.

The rest of the theory seems pretty good.

I found another quote, this one from The Diagram, that supports the idea that the Honorblades were spren:

Quote

"AhbuttheywereleftbehindItisobviousfromthenatureofthebondButwherewherewherewhereSetoffObviousRealizationlikeapricityTheyarewiththeShinWemustfindoneCanwemaketouseaTruthlessCanwecraftaweapon"

Clarification:

"Ah but they were left behind. It is obvious from the nature of the bond. But where where where where? Set off. Obvious. Realization like apricity. They are with the Shin. We must find one. Can we make to use a Truthless? Can we craft a weapon?"

The "they" seems to refer to the Honorblades, because they were left behind with the Shin.  It also mentions truthless, who hold honorblades.  It then mentions a bond, which probably refers to a spren bond.  The way I read it, it seems to imply that they were left behind because of something to do with the bond, which supports what I said above.

Fortune-compounding.

5 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

I mean... I don't think my theory made a single claim about the radiants. The radiants are a natural result of honor investing, and yes, inspired by the heralds (but still basically something that unintentionally occurred). My theory addresses the heralds, not the radiants. The Oathpact, as I understand it, refers only to the situation the heralds were in where they came to Roshar every desolation and fought, then suffered torture in the in-between times.

But Honor was still alive at the time the Heralds quit.  The Oathpact had been broken by then.  Wouldn't he, seeing that they had abandoned the oaths, given the powers to other people?  And why wouldn't he set up a heir to his power like

Mistborn 1 spoilers: