StanLemon

No problem, I happened to have just logged on right after you posted.

Soul Stamps aren't made out of solid Investiture, they stamp design is a conduit for the Investiture. As for Taldain, the sand is actually a covered with a microscopic organism that metabolizes Investiture and when full of Investiture they turn white.

Possibly, but if a Mistborn held back and fired off coins in sprayed masses it would be hard for the Ferring to avoid that no matter how fast they think

Cool, I didn't see anything in that thread about gold but I must have overlooked it. Considering what Shai can do with Soul Stamping herself, gold may be more fairly useful indeed. I doubt it would be as effective as Forgery but it still could be quite useful if it can even approach that level

Lately I've been thinking about A-Gold. We know so little about the true capabilities of it and Electrum. Even the best example we have, Miles, thinks to himself about how he doesn't focus on it. He just used it to look back on how he's changed and reinforce his convictions. What A-Gold reminds me of though, is Soul Stamping. When burning it, the user looks at who they were and other lives they could have lived, and based on in character perspectives, they feel the world and think through their Gold Shadow's perspective as well as their own simultaneously. Has anyone else seen a parallel here?

My thoughts on it.

I think Harmonium is a clue as to Lerasium's power. Based on the WoB Honoerless had quoted, Lerasium's ability to Connect people to Shardic power as a side effect, Vin being supercharged by the Mists, Harmonium's ability to copy Allomancy and Feruchemy (and if my suspicion is correct, other forms of Investiture), and Lerasium's Hemalurgic power, I have a suspicion that Lerasium's true power is the ability to strengthen Investiture and Connection of the person who burns it. Edit: ah, didn't actually submit the post until late, but it's nice to see other people also view Lerasium the same way

Dalinar, he's my favorite Brandon Sanderson character

Interesting. To me though that sounds more like a capstone, so 5th Ideal territory

I personally think that the 4th Ideal has to do with accepting that you can't save everyone. It seems like that was what Kaladin was on the precipice of but failed to do in Oathbringer

Wile I still think a base Mistborn would lose against a 5th Ideal Radiant, with the exception of the Vin/Kaladin debate because I still think Vin definitely has shown greater combat abilities than Kaladin has so far, one very important tool a Mistborn would have is Bendalloy. They could make a time bubble, think about their next action for a moment and reposition as needed. That would be very confusing for a Radiant to deal with. Also, (this is a big hypothetical if so it shouldn't hold much weight in this debate) if aluminum works like some of us have hypothesized on the forums that cancel out unwanted Investiture with practice based on WoB. Then a Mistborn could potentially cancel out Surge effects applied to them. Edit: also one thing I'm curious about is why so many people think a Radiant is faster than a Pewter burning Mistborn. I cant remember any times a Radiant has shown greater feats of speed without Abrasion. Also having Stormlight doesn't confer all the same benefits as Pewter, it makes a Radiant stronger, faster and tougher like Pewter does and it allows healing, but it lacks the balance, dexterity, and precision of Pewter

The Push and Pull is what makes the Mistborn so deadly in confined quarters. As to your comment about Szeth, yes he was deadly against people who lacked mobility and couldn't reach him which a Mistborn could counteract. You're right, Szeth did have more experience in that role of an assassin. That's what Mistborn are trained as. Their fighting style is entirely built around being unpredictable and that gets maximized in certain environments. When you can obfuscate your attacks, the soldier you are facing gets put at a disadvantage. Also, not counting the time skip between Oathbringer and SL4 the "back then" you refer to is about a month. Also, you say Kaladin has the discipline, training, and battle experience to beat anyone? Are you saying Szeth lacks discipline? Lacks the training? And lacks experience? He trained with all the Honorblades save Taln's, he showed unbelievable discipline up until his ver worldview got upended. And he clearly knows how to fight against Shards and Surges. Frankly as far as accomplishments go, Szeth has shown the greatest combat feats so far in Stormlight. To put into example how much I think too many of you overstate Kaladin's abilities. I'm certain that Marsh as he was in HoA could crush Kaladin as he is in Oathbringer. And that was before Marsh knew how to Compound. Between all the physical allomantic metals, atrium, feruchemical steel and gold. Kaladin would not survive long unless he kept a distance in the sky. Vin went up against that and several other feruchemy enhanced Inquisitors and lasted a decent while. I fully acknowledge that Kaladin is impressive and has the potential to become possibly the best but as it stands in Oathbringer he has not demonstrated near enough to call him as strong as many of you on here do

We will have to disagree on that, having an attack plan is different than an actual attempt. That's still massively different than two people attacking you at the same time. Yes he fought both but never simultaneously. Its impressive that he was able to set up the situation where he could do that but it's not the same thing. He only got that hit in because he distracted Amaram by calling out his guilt and delusions. Yes he hurt Amaram, but it didn't take him out of the fight. That's like saying that someone who cracked and knocked over Shardplat "beat" them. Kaladin even thinks to himself that he needs to "press the advantage" and maybe the damage he did would have slid the fight into his favor, but up till then he was on the defensive fighting Amaram. Even before the Fuzed got involved. You're right but it more or less described the fight and he was pretty overwhelmed pretty fast. Maybe the best soldier but definitely not the best fighter, honestly we need someone to ask Brandon what he means by battlefield A claim clearly contradicted by the books, for example Szeth is a much better fighter than Kaladin. The only reason that Kaladin won is because he a- had better Stormlight efficiency and b- Szeth was going through a mental breakdown during their last fight

They only started doing that at the very end of the fight. So for the majority of the fight he had more than enough Stormlight to keep going. I agree he fought them, what I meant by it is he was usually only fighting one at a time while other enemies were distracted. Yes he was technically fighting multiple enemies during the majority of the fight but he primarily wasn't fighting multiple opponents until the end of the fight. As soon as that happened he was overwhelmed.

I have the book right in front of me as I'm typing. And you are incorrect and overstating Kaladin. First off, from the beginning of the fight, Kal was on the defensive. He then disengaged when he noticed a Fuzed go after Dalinar and warded off the Fuzed by cutting through one of their Lance's with Syl. He disengaged them in order to fight Amaram again after Amaram started firing arrows at him. He did keep an eye toward the Fuzed in case they attacked Dalinar so he was somewhat distracted, but he still was on the defensive during this part of the fight. He did Lash a stone to distract a Fuzed, but only after he used gained distance from Amaram. All of this while thinking to himself about how good it was that the field was flush with Stormlight. Then he had Syl to warn him of the Fuzed that attacked him. He was planning to attempt to try to stab Amaram in the face which is a far cry from being about to. As Amaram had already seen Kal do the face stab once before, I personally doubted it would work. He didn't fight the Fuzed at the same time as Amaram, not really. He fought for a moment with the Fuzed, temporarily disabled it giving him time to fight Amaram, and the moment the Fuzed did start fighting, Kaladin retreated. The Fuzed followed him and Kaladin let the Fuzed hit him so he could face Amaram alone by Lashing the Fuzed away. While fighting Amaram, he once again was on the defensive during the fight. The only reason Kaladin managed to hurt Amaram at all was because he was able to take advantage of Amarams guilt and distract him. That's a far cry from beating him as you say he did. After that, half a dozen Fuzed showed up, he defended himself for a moment before Dalinar stopped the Thrill and they ran away. Amaram walked up to finish Kaladin off and that's when Rock killed him. This is all while Kaladin had far more Stormlight than he has ever had before, more than he could likely carry into a fight with him. So Kaladin was able to take advantage of Stormlight healing more than he usually would have been able to. But the end result is this, Kaladin was always on the defensive against Amaram, whether it was 1v 1 or against a group. He only started to gain the upper hand because he was able to make Amaram lose his composure. I think a lot of people's assumptions on how skilled Kaladin is, is because they remember him doing better in that fight than he actually did. That isn't to say what he did wasn't impressive, it was extraordinary. But it isn't Vin level, I would concede that it is probably Kelsier level though.

It also doesn't mean a straight fight, an attack in an alley in the dark is still a straight fight. I interpret battlefield as being a traditional image of a battlefield such as an open field where the Mistborn's mobility would be severely hampered while simultaneously increasing a Windrunner's mobility. That's why the location of a fight is so important to this discussion. The more open the area is the more it slides toward the Windrunner, the more filled the terrain is the more the fight slides to Mistborn He wasn't really fighting the Fuzed, mostly distracting them from their goals of attacking Dalinar. If you reread the fight, it's pretty much Kaladin vs Amaram and Kaladin was at best only keeping even with Amaram. Perhaps his performance against Amaram would have been better had he not let himself be so distracted by the Fuzed, but then you also have to take into account that Amaram was brand new to his Surges

I personally like to imagine it as a Rubiks Cube

And I have said, under most circumstances I think a Radiant of the 5th Ideal would defeat a Mistborn with all the metals. This conversation though had progressed into a Vin vs Kaladin direction and based on their fights in the books, I am sure that Vin would have the higher chances of victory. I have already specified as to why. Vin is better at thinking outside the box, she has shown on page much greater combat accomplishments, she's frankly more experienced at beating people stronger than her than Kaladin is, and so on. Maybe once Stormlight gets further down its story and Kaladin gets more experience and swears more Ideals my opinion on that will change, but as it stands now Vin would likely win.

There is no such thing as a neutral terrain. All terrain gives an advantage to one party or the other.

Technically Brandon has said that a naturally occurring Fullborn could happen, it would just be very unlikely. I'm actually curious what kind of magic system would develop on Scadrial if Odium Invested himself there

The issue it seems is what Brandon means by "battlefield." That doesn't necessarily mean a straight up fight. As @Gisaku75 posted with his WoB, a simple Atium Misting could beat Kaladin unless Kal could get the Misting to use up all his Atium. In a wide open area? Yeah Kaladin would probably have the advantage. But an area with lots of buildings for a Mistborn to Push/Pull and hide and sneak up on Kaladin with? That would play to Vin's advantage.

With A-Bendalloy, F-Zinc, F-Steel, a Fullborn could easily avoid the explosion

@Llstml I've seen that WoB before, and I have doubts that he put much consideration into it. Based on their feats shown in the books, I would argue that Vin has shown more. Sure Kaladin is a soldier but compare both of their fights against large groups, Vin was the one who killed hundreds in mere minutes. Now admittedly this was before Kaladin got control of his Surges or had a Shardblade but his fights we've seen since don't argue much of an overwhelming boost. For example, Vin fought against nearly a dozen Feruchemy enhanced Inquisitors and held her own fairly well, while Kaladin barely could outmatch Amaram. Sure Amaram had two Shardblades, Surges (which he clearly wasn't skilled with), and Kaladin had to distract some Fuzed, but Vin fought against so many Inquisitors (each about as strong as any Radiant we have seen except perhaps Szeth) for quite a decent amount of time before she fell. While what Kaladin had to face was definitely a challenge, I consider not as big of one as Vin went up against and Kaladin still was on the losing end of that fight.

In a fight between Vin and Kaladin, I would bet on Vin for one very very important reason. She is significantly better at thinking outside the box and coming up with atypical solutions to deal with her enemies than Kaladin is. Kaladin is an excellent combatant for sure and is capable of decent adaptability as his fight with Amaram shows bit Vin is very experienced at fighting people above her weight class and win.

Stick