Trusk'our

Yes. Do it. Spoilers be screwed. Though, maybe put it in a spoiler box for the benefit of others.

I think it should be possible given Ishar using gems to spike Spren to walls and metals being the only known focus to excise Spiritweb fragments for the purpose of creating Hemalurgic spikes, but your statement is true, I don't know it's the case. I should have been a more careful in my wording. I apologize.

With the dismantling of the Highstorm and the formation of Retribution, Stormlight is almost an extinct resource. The Heralds appear to have access to it, the Unoathed technically have some in the form of their Blades and Plate, and the little pieces of Honor Splintered off before the combining of Shard exist somewhere. So, is there any practical method that can be used to get ahold of Stormlight now? I think so, actually, yes. Probably. We know that Radiant Plate, and what appears to be Unoathed Plate has a Connection directly to the SR to feed it. We also know that this Investiture radiation is enough to feed White Sand (Radiant Spren in general as well as Lightweaving does this). My thinking then is, what if you hooked up a gemstone and to Unoathed or Radiant Plate and used Intent and/or to move some of the Stormlight over to the gem? It would certainly still be a scarce resource, but it would be way better than only relying on Tetrabution's good graces (actually, would Radiant Spren themselves also have this function, maybe in Blade form? Might be worth considering). As a second, slightly more universal but probably less efficient option, I wonder whether Lesser Spren feeding on emotions or other phenomena count as pulling Investiture (either Stormlight or Lifelight depending on the type) in really, really small amounts from the SR, kind of like how an oath sworn by a Radiant gives their Radiants Stormlight- basically, using a Connection to something they align with to feed on. If possible, maybe you can functionally convert those things into Invested power, a bit like Feruchemy (as an example, if Flamespren can "feed" on fire, build a large furnace and try to hook them up to gemstones or White Sand, which is then moved to Gemstones. Or, maybe use Creationspren hooked up to a device on or next to an artist to harness their creative potential for Investiture). It would be much harder to build up a reservoir of Investiture, I'm thinking, but not impossible if what I assume is true- though, I suppose it is worth mentioning that Lesser Spren may not actually pull Investiture from the SR when their associated phenomena occurs, maybe they're just drawn to it Realmatically. It's just a hypothesis.

Eh, probably not infinite Investiture, I suppose. The Tower, like Dalinar's Perpendicularity, does seem to Invest a Radiant to their maximum in the blink of an eye though, which suggests that it's at least a pretty massive amount (also going off of feels since we don't have any solid measurements given to us yet). So, at the very least a limiting factor would be the full capacity of a gemstone or being, which I think could fit into my original hypothesis of perfect gemstones needing to have their Spiritweb expanded to fit more power over time. Did it? From what I remember (it's been a while, admittedly), Kel came to rather quickly after dipping in the Well, his essence no longer unravelling. He just couldn't leave until the Well was destroyed, since he was then bound to it.

Technically, isn't vanilla Feruchemy of both Ruin and Preservation? If you draw from natural Compounding, the resulting Investiture should be of Preservation, I believe. It's using Preservation's Art to fuel it, after all. Hemalurgically obtained Compounding is weirder, but my thinking is that Ruin's Intent changes the stolen Investiture to match its own, at least for the duration of its capture. If so, it's reasonable to assume, I believe, that Compounded attributes via Hemalurgy would use the Shard of Ruin as its true source of power and untapped Metalminds created through such a process would have a miniscule but measurable detraction from the Shard. You know, I'm not sure it would have an impact unless you specifically stole Ruinous pieces of Investiture within people's or creature's Spiritwebs and left the parts of Preservation untouched. The Shard of Ruin seems to facilitate the transfer of attributes in Hemalurgy, using metal as a focus, which I think could be compared to how Allomancy draws power from Preservation but then sends it back shortly thereafter, leaving the Shard largely unchanged. If the contents held in the spikes are another Shard's Investiture, just altered and warped to fit Ruin's Intent as I suspect, then keeping the spikes around should actually weaken the donor's parent Shard (likely Preservation in this case, as there's more of it in Scadrians than Ruin), not Ruin.

True, "infinite" in the case of the Shards and their systems isn't 100% accurate in the way that we think of it. However, I don't see enough evidence for your counter proposal to agree with it yet. A hundred-billion BEUs (for example, since I don't know how much is actually available there) shining in the Spiritual Realm trying to push into any available outlet in the Physical during a Highstorm would seem infinite for most purposes, and would probably far exceed the mass of an Unmade, I'm guessing. Do you have any WoBs or quotes from the book to back up your take on the King's Drop and other gemstones rate of filling? (I don't have the books with me right now- they're at home and I'm at college- so anything would actually be really appreciated, as I'd love to explore and refine this topic a bit more)

In the conflict on Scadrial in Era 1, Ruin's balance with Preservation is of key importance. This made it extremely difficult for either Shard to act without the other opposing the action, or being able to poke holes through their plans in some other way. So, what if Rashek decided to do something to tip the scales in Preservation's favor? Technically, there's little humans could do to drain a Shard, though the Pits of Hathsin were enough to balance the scales so to speak, so they wouldn't have to sequester too much power to make a noticeable difference. With that in mind, let's say Rashek decides to spit in Ruin's face by Hemalurgically spiking a Feruchemist and an Allomancer for paired iron powers, then secretly implanting those spikes into a Koloss hidden away that can be broken in with his Emotional Allomancy. The Koloss is trained to Compound and Invest Ironminds over time, perhaps using Allomantic duralumin as well if Rashek wants to speed things up. These Ironminds are swapped out after being filled, then melted down into huge iron obelisks that can be shoved into Rashek's secret underground lair or be towed to the edge of the Final Empire to be buried in a secure location, far from where the large clumps of Investiture could conceivably do harm or otherwise be tweaked by Ruin to bring down Scadrial. Since Hemalurgic spikes are being used to Compound, I believe this means Ruin is being drawn from to fuel the process, not Preservation. Keep this up over the centuries (frequently swapping out Koloss or creating new spikes), bleeding away Ruin's Investiture bit by bit, and effectively dumping it in a way that can be kept away from Ruin's practical reach. It does make me wonder though, what if Preservation did have the Investiture advantage? Would Ruin be forever stumped despite Leras having broken his word? Well, okay, other Shards would eventually get involved still, but Preservation might have more room to directly act, maybe empower the people more.

We know from Shallan's dialog in RoW that if you take a perfect gemstone and leave it out in a Highstorm repeatedly that it will become far more Invested than other gemstones of its size (RoW chapter 87- sorry I can't quote it directly, I don't have the book on me right now). This is a bit curious to me, seeing as how gemstones seem to follow a rule of pressurization like Radiants, where the more you put inside the harder it is to put in more. Plus, the first time gemstones are Invested they are exposed to a functionally infinite pool of Honor's power- if they had more room for Investiture from the beginning, wouldn't they just reach maximum capacity on the first Storm? My thinking right now is that an Invested gemstone exposed to the Highstorm may allow in this extra Light by expanding or otherwise changing its spiritual aspect, a bit like how a Sliver has their Spiritweb expanded to hold a Shard or a Savant gets altered by excessive Investiture use. After all, you couldn't force more air into a compressed tank after a while, at least not without expanding the tank first. Going along this thread, I wonder, can other things undergo a similar process? We know that inanimate objects can undergo something akin to Savantism by having Investiture flowing through them for long enough. Could a Compounder's Metalminds potentially go through this? Like, if Miles had some gold earrings he was particularly fond of and neglected to burn them, only using them as a medium to hold and tap his health from, would they eventually become warped by the Investiture? Or, if you tried to Hemalurgically spike a really Invested being, like a Bondsmith Spren or a Prime Aether, would this influx of Investiture permanently alter the spike itself (yes, I know you probably wouldn't be able to hold all of the stolen Investiture in the spike unless it was insanely massive and cumbersome, but any other changes might be interesting to think about)?

Deadeyes were only a thing after Mishram's imprisonment, yes.

. . . Wouldn't Cadmium be a closer fit since it stores breath or possibly other gasses?

Well, we've seen the TSM that weight can be forcibly tapped and heat can be forcibly stored, which alone is pretty powerful. Steel, as you mention, could be scary because forcibly storing could reduce someone to a snail's pace, pewter could weaken you too much to let you stand or otherwise lift your own bodyweight, iron when tapped makes you too heavy to move effectively and tapping could make you a bit weaker and definitely more clumsy, and brass can freeze you into unconsciousness. All very good to immediately rendering a person's physical resistance irrelevant. Bronze might be similar, but more enduring, as you can knock them unconscious more humanely and keep them asleep, plus if kept for prisoner transfer prevents them from scheming or being able to act pretty much at all. Zinc is probably best just for keeping a planner under wraps, Taravangian style. Tin could be interesting, as you could forcibly heighten a specific sense like hearing to easily overwhelm a person, though storing could automatically blind or deafen an opponent. Chromium storing might make someone more susceptible to others' plans, since their innate ability to sense good or poor situations is a bit messed up. Aluminum makes you more susceptible to "all kinds of things" in the Cosmere, and combining it with nicrosil might let you steal their power(s) for yourself. Speaking of which, nicrosil might be the best when disabling powerful Invested, since it literally focuses on removing their power. Even those like Nomad that could normally resist other attributes could probably be countered with a hostile Nicrosilmind combined with another attribute dampener. A hostile Duraluminmind covertly placed on a person might be able to force friendly Connections away from someone, making them unlikable or unnoticeable to specific individuals, or maybe force a friendly internal response like Emotional Allomancy can without an Allomancer needing to be present. Gold and cadmium are just evil, where gold would probably have a lot less of an immediate effect (other than preventing regeneration on enemy Invested and stealing it for yourself) and if used continually would slowly kill a person via illness. Cadmium is basically a manual breathing spell. Which just sucks and while it can absolutely knock your enemies out, other attributes would probably be just as effective (like bronze). Bendalloy could specifically counter Lift or Sandmasters and Aetherbound, but other than that I don't see being amazingly powerful as an offensive weapon. Copper is particularly devious, as you could take much of what makes a person them. Or, implant a false memory to trick them into an action, maybe even fully brainwash a person better than any Emotional Allomancy could. This one at least may have some checks put on it though, as it might be too OP without such (though some extra tampering might negate this limitation). So, I think most of them could be good for neutralizing enemies in different, somewhat redundant ways, but a few might have other interesting capacities. You could probably also make use of the stolen Investiture if you could blank it with aluminum, which is quite useful.

Technically, couldn't Scadrian Hemalurgy be used to thieve Surgebinding? I feel like if they got into a prolonged conflict that both sides would realistically begin taking on aspects of their foes, be it through spies snatching schematics for Fabrials or Metalmind tech, Spren being spiked or harnessed in new Fabrials, Metalborn mercenaries or immigrants being swayed by Retribution, or rouge Spren bonding Ghostblood agents. Realistically, I don't think either side would stick purely with their own planetary or cultural resources indefinitely with such a large scale of interaction. There probably wouldn't be enough blurring to make them the same, but still.

I forgot about that dadgum Rusting spearhead. That's a really good point, but I'm not entirely convinced they have the same limits as regular medallions. For one, they actually drain their Nicrosil stores while medallion tech doesn't seem to, relying more wholly on a bonding mechanic. Plus, if you actually pull the Soulbearing power of the Metalmind into yourself, perhaps this eliminates the previous non-adaptive disadvantages, albeit with the cost of more finite Nicrosil. Or at least that's what I'm currently proposing to prop up my strawman theory. I mean, yeah, efficiency is a big deal. It's already important limitation with Hemalurgy, which has a lot of other things going for it. But I'm not sure I'm personally comfortable with the idea of just handing a common weight medallion to any Coinshot off the street to make a building-crushing Crasher, or allowing a Pewterarm to Steelrun their way through all their problems. Having some extra limitations would be beneficial, and could even enrich the overall setting by allowing more thoughts on how to eventually bypass Unsealed Metalminds' limits. I suppose I can be on board with that idea too, though maybe with some extra caveats. Pretty much any time I sit down to think about how to hypothetically mess with things on Scadrial I tend to think in terms of a Mistless Skaa. I find it a lot more interesting to think of paths to power and innovation when you have the play the underdog roll and work without fate lending you supernatural genetics. A fair point. I don't think this is terribly different from current Unsealed tech, which also uses a bonding mechanism to gift people access to Investiture. So, perhaps using "mechanical Investiture" when I spoke about Metalminds wasn't terribly accurate. True mechanical Investiture is probably closer to using a Fabrial clock, heating Fabrial, or Spanreeds. Still, I believe that the use of Unsealed Metalminds, at least in their current iteration, have notable pros and cons compared to the innate Metallic Arts.

Sorry, I don't think I communicated my idea very well. I was thinking more along the lines of supercharging the gemstones used to fuel the Plate, replacing the typical ones with perfect gemstones. Since perfect gemstones are supposed to hold much more than normal ones when repeatedly exposed to Highstorms (as per Shallan's hearings in RoW, chapter 87), my thinking is that this extra Investiture plugged in may boost their typical abilities. If not, oh well, at least there's more Investiture to hold onto when the Plate cracks, allowing it to maintain its functions longer than normal. Huh. That's an interesting idea. I never considered that before. Maybe use zinc with extra Stormlight to get empowered Plate, or pewter to exhibit some element related the the Platespren? Honestly, I'm not sure gem "spikes" are necessary. Moash's spikes may very well just capture Spren as normal, they just happen to pierce his Spiritweb in the right bindpoints along with the correct Intent. Needs more evidence before it can be conclusive, obviously. You know, why don't Shardbearers just hold big bags of gems with when they go into battle? We've seen that Plate can absorb Stormlight in nearby sources (Dalinar's army providing just enough Light in WoK to keep Dalinar's and Adolin's Plate together for the confrontation with Sadeas and Kaladin's Light being absorbed by his helmet-gauntlet in WoR), and its not like the weight would be an issue for their incredible strength. Is it just not cost effective? Too easy to lose their extra spheres? Regardless, Tomor's conjoiner flight Fabrial would be fun to pair with Plate, even without some bonding mechanism to directly improve the Plate or the wearer through the Plate's bond with them. The mechanical effects are plenty powerful in their own right.

Shardplate is awesome. It enhances your speed and greatly expands your strength and durability. However, this is basically even across all Deadeye Plate as far as I can tell, with no unique abilities or improved functions. So, if you were on Alethkar and were tasked by your Highprince to improve their Shardplate, what could you do to empower it more greatly? First, I think it's a good idea to start simple. Deadeye Plate uses Stormlight infused gemstones to fuel its abilities, so what if you took perfect gemstones repeatedly filled by Highstormes to supercharge them? Would the extra Stormlight increase the enhancements you get? At the very least, I imagine it would make the Plate more durable, as it can repair itself more before draining completely. Moving to something more complex, could you weld Hemalurgic spikes to your Plate to empower the Spren composing it? You probably can't spike the metal due to its physical properties, but if fusing it to the Plate works I wonder if you could have the Plate grant you the spikes' power like it does its own? Or, could you perhaps merge the plate with a Hemalurgic spike granting it access to Feruchemy, then allowing the Plate to feed off its bearer? Maybe fuse on a large Metalmind you could further Invest the Plate, allowing it to resist an extra hit or two from a Shardblade in placed. Or, since Plate can fuel its abilities via Stormlight, maybe you could use this as a roundabout method to convert Stormlight into Feruchemical Investiture? Attach a Bloodmaker's power to a Plate gauntlet, or some other smaller part, allowing whoever wears it to heal via Stormlight (maybe do this with a Deadeye Blade too)? If we're going along the concept of Hemalurgic spikes enhancing Plate, could slotting Fabrial Spren into Plate enhance it beyond just giving it more Stormlight to run off? I don't know how the two would interact, but it would be interesting if the Plate acted as an intermediary between the bearer and the added Spren, maybe allowing an easier and more universal way to bond Lesser Spren.

Is this it?

My two clips are that there are two primary reasons for Shardblades being more durable than Plate. First, it does seem that Blades are slightly more Invested than Plate, most likely giving them an edge. Secondly, I think the real biggest reason is really that the Plate's Investiture is routed into physical enhancements rather than its own protection. A Shardblade only has to give it a super keen edge and resist damage, while Plate increases the strength and speed of the user a lot. Pewterarms have a very quick burning metal because it's so costly to use- and they're only increasing strength by like twice their standard level (not including some other enhancements like dexterity, speed, or health) while Plate gives you just ridiculous amounts. I feel like Plate (seeming to) not actively using up its Stormlight unless regenerating is also important, as to me passive Investiture uses feel like they should be less powerful, though more sustainable. Apply that to Pewterarms actually using up their reserves while Plate seems to just keep going unless cracked, and I think Plate's enhancements just become more expensive to grant.

Chromium isn't instantaneous either being burned or draining a target, and the more Invested they are the longer it takes, with Compounders potentially taking several seconds to fully Leech. I imagine that Radiants, Fused, and other highly Invested Rosharans would take more effort to Leech than a most Metalborn, so you'd probably have to crank up Leeching cubes to compensate. Also, yes, chromium shouldn't have to be done in a burst, it's just generally more convenient and efficient to do that when dealing with what Leechers typically handle. It depends a bit on whether it counts as being kinetic. Metalminds don't seem to be vulnerable unless tapped, so maybe gemstones are the same. Personally, I think the Leeching would probably drain them like it would a Surgebinder, pushing the Investiture back into the SR until another Highstorm, Bondsmith, or Blade/Plate/Spren draws it back since it's already trying to escape there. It might just not be instantaneous, but more comparable to a very quick "leaking" that is normally seen in infused gemstones due to the amount present.

Ah, yeah. It would be pretty hard to counter those with something like Surgebinding. True. That could prove pretty powerful, especially if you catch a Radiant off guard.

Welcome to the Shard! You may want to tell us about what books you've read in the introduction forum so we know what books we can talk to you about without spoiling things. The terms of End-Positive, Neutral, and Negative don't necessarily mean that you're creating something new or destroying something. It just refers to how the flow of Investiture goes for the practitioner's internal system. End-Positive means that their is more Investiture flowing into the practitioner's system- Allomancy increasing the practitioner's total Investiture by pulling it from the Shard of Preservation, leaving their personal, internal system in a net positive state. Neutral just means that there is no extra Investiture flowing into the system. Feruchemy does save up Investiture for later use, but only by diverting it first from the Feruchemist themselves. There is (in practical terms) no extra Investiture added or lost to the Feruchemist's personal Investiture levels, it's just moved around to be more advantageous. End-Negative is rare, but means that there is an actual net loss of Investiture in the given system. A Hemalurgic spike doesn't just transfer or save attributes like with Feruchemy, there is a decay, a loss of power if you were to count both the individuals involved. True, the person bearing the charged spike will have a positive addition to their internal system, but more is lost when taking both the donor's and the recipient's systems into account (instead of having a full 200% Investiture divided into two Allomancers, the one Allomancer may have something like 180% of their base level while the remaining 20% is lost via decay). There is definitely some weirdness with this though, as there is technically a tiny bit of extra Investiture added from the Spiritual Realm for the purpose of overcoming the loss of energy in moving the Investiture around. Plus, the Positive, Neutral, and Negative systems really fit mostly within the Scadrian magic systems better than most others. I hope this is helpful to you! Please feel free to ask anything else if you have questions.

Wouldn't Harmonium-enhanced Leechers or aluminum Gnats function very similarly? I suppose they'd have to figure out how to make it target Surgebinders only, but still, a pistol to a temporarily non-Invested Radiant's head while your Pewterarm is just a normal person should be plenty worth it. You might even argue the advantage goes to Scadrial in this regard then, as it (to me at least) seems easier to create a primer cube and slap it in an Allomancer's hands than to find and capture whatever "rare" Spren power suppressor Fabrials require. Guess we need more solid info to actually determine that, but that's my hunch at least.

As Scadrial's ability to produce Unsealed Metalminds advances, I worry that the innate abilities of Metalborn and the niche of Hemalurgy may lose their validity. Why care if your Pewterarm/Bloodmaker Twinborn bodyguard was a natural Misting with a gold spike or just a decently trained dude with a Metalmind he bought from the store? Well, I did have that worry, but I actually think Unsealed Metalminds may have more severe restrictions than previously assumed. It is my current belief and theory that the ways to access the Metallic Arts can be roughly categorized into three groups along a spectrum. On the far right, we have Metalborn who have overused their Investiture, becoming Savants. The power begins to permeate and transform the rest of their Spiritweb to conform to its Intent, allowing the practitioner to be highly efficient in their energy use and giving them far greater control over the Investiture. However, this comes at the cost of irrevocably binding them to the Investiture (at least in most cases), making them dependent upon it for functioning "normally", and even then it will warp individuals in undesirable ways (i.e. Tineye Savants feeling overwhelming sensitivity and pain and Pewterarm Savants running themselves into the ground because they can no longer feel pain or exhaustion enough). On the far left, we have Unsealed Metalminds. These are kind of the opposite of Savants, I think: they can much more easily remove their power and swap it out or abandon it. However, their are more "restrictions" on how they can be used and like their ancient cousins, the Honorblades, I believe they'd be far less efficient with their Investiture use. But, what advantages do natural Metalborn or Hemalurgically derived powers have then? A little extra efficiency is great, but in the grand scheme of things not too massive. Well, I think that Unsealed Metalminds, at least as they currently exist, are too far removed from the Spiritual Aspect of their wielders to provide them with the same level of protection that Hemalurgically or innately derived powers would. @Sythrin asked a question about Nomad's weight-enhancing shackles in TSM and why they seemed to restrict him so much since Feruchemy is supposed to shield the user from that sort of thing. My initial thought was that it was simply a matter of the Spiritual Aspect not adapting as quickly as the added mass racks up, which is still true when tapping a lot. However, Nomad was only a few times heavier and still had the advantage of inhuman strength, if I recall, which doesn't fit his struggle. This leads me to believe that the weak bond between Metalmind and user isn't deep enough to properly adapt the Spiritweb to the Investiture being used, at least not conventionally. Heck, Radiants can heal spiritual injuries that Honorblades without the Surge of Regrowth because their bond is stronger, which I believe supports this idea. All of this together makes me think that other powers granted via Unsealed Metalmind would face similar limitations. Steelminds may not speed up the mind of the user or fully protect them from the Gs of moving so quickly, forcing the user to tap much more slowly. Brassminds may be able to cool or heat you within regular human bounds, but try pushing it beyond that and you might hurt yourself. Zincminds may not only drain calories faster, but perhaps oxygen, making you lightheaded or faint if you tap too quickly. TLDR my overly long post, I believe that we don't have to worry about Unsealed Metalminds replacing innate Metalborn or Hemalurgically granted powers because I think that they will function as a foil to Savantism- something more removed from the practitioner with less overall efficiency, less control, and less protection. However, they will be easier to get ahold of, can stack/overlap with innate powers, and can be modified or automated in ways natural powers cannot. (I also want to briefly mention that I did not forget about Soulcasting Savants, which use a mechanaical form of Investiture usage but still can be warped by it. I think this kind of falls into its own category, as they still have real limits to them and don't have the same versatility that Radiant Soulcasters have. Perhaps this is also a danger of using mechanical Investiture, where it might have an easier time corrupting your Spiritweb than innate abilities that could perhaps have some natural buffers in place.)

I couldn't find any WoBs directly related to your question. Sorry. I will say though, I don't believe we've actually seen Hoid absorbing Investiture the way Nomad does. Nomad has at least one ability that Hoid himself doesn't (Skipping), so I think it's possible Nomad's ability to consume Investiture is also unique to him. Now, whether Nomad could just loaf around on Taldain to become highly Invested- yeah, that should work. I think it would be on the slower side, kind of like how he was able to absorb Invested light from Canticle's sun, but he might also be able to speed it up by drawing it from the sand, maybe getting it wet to release the stored Investiture first (funnily enough, he might be able to feed on Autonomy's sunlight even off world in the right places, though the effect would probably be extremely weak). We know for a fact he can become more Invested than just the bare minimum to Skip, as he has fifteen hundred BEUs left over from his Skip to Canticle. Further more, it seems that he can become significantly more Invested than it, as he has the potential to exceed the God King's fifty thousand BEUs in the right circumstances. Just how high Nomad's ceiling is, I don't know. Maybe he could Ascend to become something of a Vessel, but part of me doubts that- the concentration of Investiture required may demand a Shard's will, perhaps similar to how dragons are too Invested to make use of most other Investitures- but not Invested enough to bypass this limitation. Hope this helps answer a similar line of questions at least!

About having a Blade and armor from the same spren, I guess you could do that? The handle would probably have to be glued to a gauntlet though. But again, if having a Blade out already drains a moderate amount of Light, having full plate armor manifested at the same time would probably need about 10 times the amount, mass-wise. Better have a Bondsmith by your side then. I don't see why this wouldn't work (unless maybe there's some weird cognitive limitation, which if asked Brandon may have to extend lest it break the balance of the setting). Also, even though Shardblades can't directly give physical enhancements like Plate, why couldn't a fourth oath Radiant wear their Plate, then overlap their Blade on top for more durability? The best of both worlds, all speed and power of Plate, but the indestructibility of a Blade. Well, I do feel like this is a Nomad/Aux only ability, as we have yet to see true Radiants increasing their Blades' mass with an influx of Investiture. Might be possible with practice, but I'm skeptical. Technically, Nomad was able to make Aux translucent on demand, so it might be possible for other Radiant Blades to do so and keep their faces even safer, seeing as their normal Plate helmets can (but it might be another unique Nomad ability).

I'm curious as to why you think human Fused would be easier to create. True, Ishar gives us an example of it, but he can't actually do it with the power of Honor despite being a Bondsmith and Stormlight freely floating around Roshar. Only with the Well of Control and becoming something of an Avatar of Odium did he have the power to do so- which makes me think the process is just too expensive to realistically pull off without some massive Investiture at your disposal.