Steel Speedster

Fenna, Smokestack, Constabulary Building The Radiant crashed into the monster, slamming a length of wood through its body. It fell to the ground, but continued to twitch. Rusts! Fenna thought. Can this thing even die? The Radiant continued on, shouting over his shoulder for her to follow. ”You go that way!” Fenna replied. “We’ll split up, cover more ground.” I don’t need a Radiant watching me this whole time. She backed up to one side of the hall, then flaring pewter and tapping weight, threw herself into the opposite wall, smashing through to the room beyond. The walls shook, dropping debris to the ground. Fenna frowned up at the ceiling. Hopefully this isn’t compromising the structural integrity of this building, she thought. Eh, it’s a police station, I’m sure it can handle it.

How would all the metals discovered since TFE change the strategies of a full Mistborn? Obviously, we've seen some Mistborn using duralumin and electrum in WoA and HoA, but those weren't yet commonplace. With Era 2, we've also got chromium, nicrosil, bendalloy, and cadmium. From the get-go, the metals that stand out as real game changers are chromium and electrum. Against another Mistborn, atium becomes essentially useless. Even against Mistings, you would have to watch out for Oracles. But even more than electrum, chromium would give Mistborn a massive advantage against Mistings. Thugs would be essentially impotent, as attempting to fight the Mistborn close range would result in being leached. Mistborn would of course have to worry about accidentally trying to leach a Leacher and getting leached themselves, but if you only tried to leach Mistings who you had identified, then you wouldn't have to worry about that. Nicrosil wouldn't be very useful for a Mistborn, as the only thing they could really use it for would be using it in place of chromium to mess up other Allomancers. Tineyes would be particularly vulnerable to it, although they're not a very big threat in the first place. Mistings might be able to use this for suprises, like a powerful steelpush, or letting a Thug become stronger than the Mistborn momentarily, (We saw in WoA what duralumin-pewter can do, even to someone burning pewter themselves), or even trap them in a super slow bubble. Lastly, we've got bendalloy and cadmium. When fighting Mistings, a Mistborn could use bendalloy to isolate small groups and pick them off. In era 1, we see Mistborn getting overwhelmed by groups of Mistings (e.g. Coinshots shooting at them while they're trying to fight Thugs, or Thugs attacking them while they're trying to take out the Coinshots.) Bendalloy would essentially negate this weakness. Mistborn would probably not have much use for cadmium, but the Mistings fighting them would. A Pulser could trap the Mistborn in slow motion, giving their allies extra time. They could also negate a speed bubble if the Mistborn put one up. In Mistborn vs. Mistborn fights, chromium would make hand-to-hand combat inviable, as they would just end up leaching each other and needing to refill on metals. If you had more metals (or maybe just more chromium) you might be able to win a leaching contest and clear out your opponent before running out yourself. If you could time it right, a duralumin chromium flare might also be enough to wipe out their metals first. You could also do a sort of feint and allow yourself to get leached, while stabbing (or shooting) your opponent. If we're talking era 2 technology, then Mistborn vs. Mistborn fights would probably just end up as shoot-outs, because the only sure way to kill your opponent would be to use guns with aluminum bullets. However, there's even a counter to this. Time bubbles cause bullets to ricochet, which offers decent protection. If you do a speed bubble, it will also force your opponent to do likewise (or risk being at a disadvantage), which will make it so that the bullets need to pass through two bubbles. It seems like Mistborn with all 16 metals would effectively neutralize each other in pretty much every situation. The best way to end the fight would probably be to try for a close-range shot, close enough that a speed bubble can't deflect it.

True enough. In my opinion, it's difficult enough that I would rather be a different Compounder if I had a choice. Yeah, good point. I wasn't thinking about the fact that you would need it to compound F-gold. It is on its own pretty much useless as far as we've seen though. I'm not sure Harmony would want someone turning themselves into a Fullborn. Also, any group that tried to recruit you to turn you into a Fullborn would have to be very cautious, because they would have to worry about being betrayed. They would probably want to find some way to control you, which wouldn't be ideal for you. All in all, like I said before, this wouldn't be one of my top picks (especially if we're talking about having it in the real world, where there aren't other magic users and it would be pretty much useless), but it does have some pretty powerful potential. It could make for an interesting story to nave a nicrosil compounder trying to become a full Metalborn.

Yeah, but acquiring each ability even once is still really difficult. Even if you don't bother with some of the useless abilities like A-aluminum and A-gold, there's still over 25 to get, and some of them are supposed to be really rare, especially spiritual Feruchemical powers like F-nicrosil and F-aluminum, which you need several of for the operation to work.

Yeah, I guess it could be as simple as that!

Is that physically possible with F-iron? Even at minimum weight, you have to be carrying heavy pieces of iron.

From my understanding of F-nicrosil, that would require you to get an unkeyed metalmind containing each of the other powers. So, that will require a bunch of nicrosil Ferrings with F-aluminum spikes. Then the nicrosil Ferrings will also need the other 29 Allomanticic and Feruchemical powers. So, it would be really, really difficult. Also, I don't think you would even need to be a compounder--an ordinary nicrosil Ferring should be able to do it too, at least temporarily.

As a follow-up to the previous poll, which Misting/Ferring name is the best?

I guess it refers to what you do when you eat? Eating food makes it “a part of a comprehensive whole”, that is your body. It is a bit odd, but then again, coming up with a cool sounding name for a power that revolves around eating must have been difficult. Subsumer sounds decent, even if its definition doesn’t fit too well. Could anyone explain to me why an iron Ferring is called a Skimmer? It’s not a bad name, but I’ve never quite understood what it’s referring to.

I agree that most of them are good, (although Pulser, Slider, and Sparker are actually some of my favorites.) I personally don't like the term 'Coppercloud' for a copper Misting, because that's already the name of the thing that their power creates. It would be like calling a steel Misting a 'Steelpush.' I also think that 'Windwhisperer' doesn't sound very good, and it's also a bit ambiguous in my opinion. I guess it's saying that they can hear whispers in the wind? (Although the phrasing makes it sound more like they're the ones doing the whispering, which doesn't really make sense.) Admittedly, F-tin must have been difficult to name, mainly because it has at least five separate applications.

Which Misting/Ferring name do you think is the worst? It can be the name that you like the sound of the least, or that you think least fits the power that it goes with. You can also reply with your favorite names. That part wouldn't fit in the poll. Edit: Also vote for the best name here.

That would be pretty cool. One interesting effect of doing that is it should let you identify which electrumshadow was the "original" that the others split off of, because that would be the only one that your opponent's atiumshadow could interact with

Thanks for the answers, everyone! That definitely helps! That makes sense. So, would that mean that atium does give you awareness of your surroundings (probably subconsciously)? Does atium even work on non-visual information? We know it can't predict emotional Allomancy, but can it predict a sound-based attack? The way I understood that WoB was that Brandon meant that the Mistborn in question would have to burn a lot of metal (tin, steel/iron, and atium) a lot in order to make up for lack of sight, and that he might become a Savant in the process, not that he would have to become a Savant first. So, you couldn't "see" shadows behind you at all? I imagined that it might be sort of like seeing something out of the corner of your eye--you can't really see it unless you focus on it, but it's there. But I could see it going either way--we barely know anything about electrum.

@Scars of Hathsin

We know that atium even lets you react to attacks from behind, and we have this WoB that states that you could see atiumshadows even if you were blind. So, it seems natural to assume that atium and electrum let you see shadows out the back of your head. However, for atium, there's a serious problem with this. Atium shows you future shadows for all objects, except yourself and aluminum ones. You don't see shadows for stationary objects, presumably because they are in the exact same position as the real object. But if you can't see the real object (e.g. you're blind, your eyes are closed, or the object is simply behind you) shouldn't you be able to see its shadow? This would mean that an atium burner would have full 360-degree vision. However, we see no mention of atium burners being able to see anything behind them except for the shadows of their opponents. They don't seem to see the terrain or environment with atium. So why is this? I have a few possible explanations, but none of them are completely satisfying. The first is that pieces of terrain are simply too big for atium to work with. This seems the least likely to me, as I wouldn't expect physical size to impact how much work the Investiture has to do to show an atiumshadow. Furthermore, small separate objects that make up the environment should still appear. The second is that non-moving objects simply don't appear. The problem with this is that even if an object is moving a miniscule amount, it should still appear. The third is that there are some cognitive shenanigans going on here. Perhaps objects that the atium burner percieves as stationary do not cast atiumshadows. If this is the answer, then that would imply that this could be overcome and that an atium burner probably could train themselves to see the shadows of all objects, including those behind them. Thoughts? Any other possible explanations.

Fenna, Smokestack Constabulary Fenna flared pewter and pushed herself upright, slamming her fist into the creature’s face, just as it turned away to face the Radiant. Its head snapped backwards, then it retaliated with a clawing swipe. A glowing chunk of wood flew by, and Fenna grabbed on, storing weight. She dodged the attack, pulled by the beam, the tapped weight halting the wood. Flaring her pewter, Fenna tugged on the wood and pulled it forwards, slamming the improvised weapon into the monster’s head. It stumbled backwards into the path of the Radiant as he fell down the hallway like a glowing spear. @Scars of Hathsin

Okay, sure. I'm just very doubtful that that would be the case, because we haven't seen any other metals have different uses for different beings.

Koloss, Kandra, and Hemalurgic chimeras don't use the same metals for their spikes as Inquisitors. Inquisitors only use spikes that steal Allomantic and Feruchemical powers, while Koloss use iron spikes (which steal strength), Kandra use iron (strength), tin (senses), zinc (emotional fortitude), and copper (intelligence) spikes, and chimeras use trellium. I'm pretty sure that when it says it is focused on Inquisitors it just means the placements it shows, but that the metals still do the same thing, because it has a lot of metals on it that Inquisitors didn't use.

I think that's a bit extreme (we haven't seen Inquisitors go insane even with 20+ spikes piercing their Spiritwebs Under the Lord Ruler, Inquisitors had 9 - 11 spikes, but Ruin gave them more. I believe Marsh has 22 to be exact.

Thanks for the reminder. I was thinking that the vampire was trying a bite as a quick killing option, since it obviously doesn’t have time to feed on anyone at the moment. I’m also assuming that it’s going for Arranis after Fenna knocked herself through the wall.

Normally the Intent is required when you make the spike (by killing someone), but as this would be a special case I'm willing to concede that this could be possible. Yeah, I'm just saying that you can't get a different effect by using a different bindpoint--it either removes all the powers or does nothing. Interesting. That seems completely pointless then. If you have enough lerasium to make a big ol' spike, you're much better off just burning it than using it to steal all the attributes. Although, I suppose that even if it stole powers, it would still be a waste unless the person you were spiking was a Fullborn or something.

Do we know that that's only for a medallion? If it did work like a normal metalmind, then I don't see how you could make a medallion that doesn't run out. Don't get me wrong, I would much rather that F-nicrosil works like other powers, since that makes it very useful instead of essentially useless.

I don't fit any of the orders particularly well. I'm very logical, but not exactly scholarly, and I'm also an artistic person, but don't fit the Lightweavers at all. I consider myself a Skybreaker and that is usually what I get whenever I take the quiz. Elsecaller is always in second place, even though I don't feel like I fit that order super well. The top four orders I think fit me are Skybreaker, Truthwatcher, Elsecaller, and Bondsmith (in that order), but usually I get some weird results like this:

It depends on what you mean by "useful," but steel is really good. Like strmblsd said, both powers are good on their own, and speed is one of the most ridiculously OP attributes you can compound. Aside from being great for combat, you could also just use it for travelling. It might not really work for mundane tasks, as it seems to increase your reaction speed but not so much your general processing abilities, so I don't think you could use it to, for example, complete a puzzle really quickly. That's the main downside of that one--not a ton of everyday applications. But on the other hand, it would also just be really fun. Zinc is good to, and probably more useful in everyday scenarios than steel, but less potent overall. The hunger side effect would also get pretty annoying, although if you just ate more, you could probably fix that pretty easily. As you can see by my profile pic, my favorite non-Compounding Twinborn is the A-electrum/F-steel Twinborn. I wish that were how F-nicrosil worked, but I don't think it is. We have a WoB that says that it works like a coppermind, which implies that you can only put things in and take them out--you don't get any extra when you tap.

I would assume that it removes all powers regardless of bindpoint. It seems that they were pretty careful with the wording on the hemalurgy table, so I don't think it would be a mistake that aluminuum says "all" and not "any." Does the use of "ability" for lerasium instead of "power" imply that lerasium steals all the basic attributes like strength, senses, etc. as well as all Invested powers?