Mistborn V.S. 3rd ideal Windrunner

NameIess · December 7, 2022

38 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

So does holding a perpendicularity open. It's a matter of skill, not power.

It's not about skill only. TLR could sooth more people than any normal allomancer, and Elend was able to keep control over more Koloss than Vin. I will admit that there is no proof that my speculation is accurate, but there also is no proof that yours is.

41 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

What signs?

It affects everyone that doesn't have a counter to it equally, and nowhere is it ever stated that invested people resist it, besides this one WoB:

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Questioner

Would a person holding a large amount of Breaths be less influenced by emotional Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That's book-signing canon on that one, if you understand that phrase.
Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

And 'large amount of Breaths' probably means more investiture than the average KR has.

Long story short, Brandon implies that it can affect the KR so long as they don't wear Shardplate. While this doesn't mean that the KR will be completely crippled by emotional allomancy, it will still likely be a useful tool in the battle, as soothing determination and courage while rioting fear and uncertainty takes almost no effort and will still harm the Radiant's combat capabilities.

Immortal Platypus · December 7, 2022

either way, no matter what you do, they have the spren to help them through it. it's not the perfect counter, but it helps at least a little.

Tamriel Wolfsbaine · December 7, 2022

11 minutes ago, Ookla the platypus said:

kind of related question, do we know what Shardblades are made of? are they just highly invested metal? if they're aluminum? Because if so, the KR can make it into something they can wear to block emotional allomancy. (maybe. depends on the limits of what SprenBlades can do.)

I believe spren are slivers of a shard which would make them, in the physical realm at least, a similar material to a god metal.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

And Windrunner can turn any rock or rubble into a shot from a sling.

This is a perfectly valid point which largely gets countered by bendalloy bubbles.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Medallions would not be included, as they require different magic system to create. If we included those, we would have to start including fabrials and other Rosharan inventions, and that way lies madness (or Scadrial vs Roshar thread post-TLM).

I agree with avoiding this at all costs as well. Devolving into fullborn vs 10 surges radiant full living plate and blade where everyone has infinite resources is absoultely brutal.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Typically I think most consider "basic" loadout, i.e. daggers (maybe a handgun if Era 2), clothing, mistcloak and belt with vials for Mistborn; clothing (i.e. basic uniform), some small dagger/weapon, and spheres sown into clothing, maybe pouches.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Well, most fights in Era 1 included Vin/Kelsier (where Kelsier stole atium from pits when he destroyed it, so he had outsized supply), Inquisitors (which get it directly from TLR, so directly from supplier) or scions of the richest houses.
No need to sell Kelsier shorts as Skaa thief, nor Vin, as she was member of his crew and only other Mistborn in it.
Typically they mention that having enough atium for a minute or two is a lot.

And again, that was Era 1, in Era 2 Mistborn get exactly no Atium.

If we wanted to get down to the real nittygritty we would say that there are no mistborn in era 2 anyways. We could also say that spook is the only known mistborn to have had access to all of the metals and era 1 mistborn wouldnt have access to leeching. As far as loadouts go in era 2 aluminum is well known and, while expensive, not out of reach for a mistborn. Potential aluminum vials and weaponry. Odds are mistborn have less worries on roshar and are more inclined to carry metal weaponry which would offer heavier projectiles to use and play with. Also guns... if a gun is allowed it shifts everything just as easily as atium. If that gun has aluminum bullets it is even more so shifted.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

That depends, who was faster reaction times?
But importantly, you don't have to touch an object for it to be affected by Reverse Lashing (see arrows in TWoK), so Windrunner could put down Reverse Lashing with Intent to pull in metal (or glass), and boom, vials are of the belt.

Now we run into the era and loadout issues again. There is a huge difference between 1000+ grain projectile traveling ~200fps and a 240 grain projectile (typical .44mag) traveling 1100+ fps. Out of a rifle you could say that is pushing 1600+ fps and with a 45-70 or 12 gauge you are talking 400grains - a full oz. That isnt talking about if they had aluminum weaponry which was not uncommon just expensive. (Though this leads to a question about how gravitation would work against aluminum anything.)

3 hours ago, therunner said:

At most they would have buttons and belts on uniform. And since the push goes only against metal, they would get torn of quickly, I doubt they are sewn on hard enough to carry the combined weight of Mistborn and Windrunner.
So, no Mistborn cannot keep them away like this.

If you jab a button into my body it will not tear off until it passes through my body enough to actually tear. So long as there is a backdrop for the metal piece the mistborn will be able to anchor with it. Even coins stuck to a shield with adhesion will beable to be used for anchors.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

No mobility is in Windrunners favor because

They are not dependent on external factor for directions in which they can move.

They can accelerate arbitrarily fast (multiple lashings, and they can be placed simultaneously), until they faint from the strain. Admittadly, here duralumin fueled push combined with pewter has advantage, but Mistborn is heavily limited in how often they can do it, and lack fine control.

Can use lashings to lower effective weight similar to F-Iron.

Mistborn is worse in every single way when it comes to mobility, with one single edge case exception.

I need to know more of how exactly gravitation works. Fighting in the storm was not an easy feat and both combatants were fighting against the storm. I assume momentum and inertia are laws that apply to some extent. Thus every turn would be more of an arch. This is the same for mistborn but with thrust as an option as opposed to just falling. A fall at terminal velocity in one direction would carry a certain amount of momentum while lashing oneself back the other direction only with gravitation there is no thrust to your fall. You can ramp up all of your lashings super duper fast but it costs more stormlight to do so (I dont remember how it is described if it is linear or exponential) where as a mistborn navigating their flight is limited by anchor points. More anchors means more fine tuned agility. That same anchor you just pushed on really hard can be pulled on softly (as your distance would also make your pushes and pulls weaker) to help fine tune high speed chases. Push and Pull in AoL put on an awesome chase against a crasher but even Wax notes and uses the way one metal was working vs another as an advantage. When you have both your movement options go through the roof.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Leeching is not instaneous, and Scadrial is low-investiture world compared to Roshar. It is entirely likely that it would take a second or two to fully drain Windrunner.
Even if not, getting close requires getting around Shardblade, and if for some reason they did not summon it, and Mistborn graples Windrunner, as long as Windrunner has literally any weapon on their person (or steals dagger from Mistborn), they can kill Mistborn with a single stab. Leading to mutual kill.

Our experience with all of the metals in that category have been instantaneous. We have a few WoB that say leeching a full metalmind would take a while but until we have units of measurement for investiture and what parts make up each thing this isnt something you can really rely on. We know sprenblades are more invested than a metalmind. Metalminds can block a sprenblade, Kaladin with a chest full of stormlight can't. Thus your radiant totally full of stormlight is less invested than the metalmind which is less invested than the spren.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

5 seconds would not be enough, if Windrunner has even basic information about Mistborn (which Mistborn seems to know the best way to kill Radiant, so they probably do too).
Also, heavily Invested objects behave similarly to aluminum (non-pushable, not visible to steal sight, block rioting/soothing, etc.) and aluminum is not visible for Atium, it is possible that Shardblade would not leave atium shadows. If so, that would be a bit of a handicap, thought not as large.

Info is worth its weight in gold. I dont know that the mistborn has all basic info of how to best kill a radiant. I just think mistborns toolkit offers more insight into thier enemies than the radiants does. The mistborn will see how invested that radiant is from afar and will notice that the blade is made of aluminum or some other highly invested metal. The mistborn will learn how well the radiant flies when it sees the radiant fly and that would be the same thing for the radiant in the other direction. Healing would be a surprise to the mistborn as would emotional assaults and just how hard and fast the mistborn would be to the radiant. But if I were in a fight for my life I say there is no such thing as overkill. The mistborn knows it can leech that glow and kill the magic... bronze picks up that it is being used even if it doesnt know what it does... zap that crap away when you can. That would be like a radiant not swinging his sprenblade because he is trying to hide it (never seen that scenario before right?)

Immortal Platypus · December 7, 2022

10 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I believe spren are slivers of a shard which would make them, in the physical realm at least, a similar material to a god metal.

i think technically they're splinters, slivers are beings that used to have the power of a Shard, but they're similar enough and the terminology is confusing.

10 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

leeching a full metalmind would take a while

if that would take a while, and we know per WOB that scadrial is poor in terms of Investiture, it would stand to reason that it would take a while to leech a Radiant.

10 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Metalminds can block a sprenblade...

...Thus your radiant totally full of stormlight is less invested than the metalmind which is less invested than the spren

when do we see a metalmind block a Sprenblade? or is that just WOB? and would the leeching target the spren first as it targets the most Investiture rich thing first (right?)?

10 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

emotional assaults

why would a mistborn even think to try that? i probably wouldn't.

10 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

That would be like a radiant not swinging his sprenblade because he is trying to hide it

i mean, if I were the KR, I would hide the Sprenblade because it gives me an advantage. I'd make it seem like i was trying to kill the Mistborn with Lashings and when they come in for the kill/leeching, i'd skewer them with my Blade.

I respect what you're saying, some of it makes sense, but other parts i don't agree with. it's very good logic though. have some rep

Edited December 7, 2022 by Ookla the platypus

Werewolff Studios · December 8, 2022

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Our experience with all of the metals in that category have been instantaneous. We have a few WoB that say leeching a full metalmind would take a while but until we have units of measurement for investiture and what parts make up each thing this isnt something you can really rely on. We know sprenblades are more invested than a metalmind. Metalminds can block a sprenblade, Kaladin with a chest full of stormlight can't. Thus your radiant totally full of stormlight is less invested than the metalmind which is less invested than the spren.

Just a quick thought on this point - I believe the main reason Kaladin (or any Radiant) can't block a Shardblade strike is more to do with the fact that he's living, rather than how much Stormlight he has. Shard and Sprenblades fuzz when they cut through living matter. No one living can 'block' a Shardblade, not unless they pull a Dalinar and catch the Blade. Which, in this battle, would put the Mistborn in a very precarious situation as the Blade could elongate and skewer them.

I'm digging all the points about Leeching though - it's a lot more viable than I initially thought. However, because we don't know exactly how it reacts with other forms of Investiture, it's a bit harder to pin down. It clears metals instantly, but that's likely because the metal it's clearing isn't Invested, while Stormlight is Investiture. Plus, Intent could possibly be a factor. If they are Intending to Leech a Metal specifically, they may have trouble as it's specifically Stormlight (that is conjecture though - they might be able to drain it off the bat).

There is one point of comparison that's possibly worth considering when discussing Leeching though. Nightblood.

Brandon has stated that Larkin, Leechers and Nightblood are all working off of the same general principles from a cosmere perspective. We've seen that Nightblood drains Investiture (Breaths and Stormlight) alarmingly quickly, but not instantly. I could be wrong, but I don't believe a Leeching would be at the same level as Nightblood, not without duralumin. That's my main reasoning for why I believe that a Mistborn Leeching a Radiant wouldn't be instantaneous.

therunner · December 8, 2022

9 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I believe spren are slivers of a shard which would make them, in the physical realm at least, a similar material to a god metal.

They are precisely god-metal, some alloy of Tanavastium and Koravelium, ratios depending on type of spren.

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This is a perfectly valid point which largely gets countered by bendalloy bubbles.

And here we run into, how much bendalloy does Mistborn have?
Because reverse lashing is the "cheapest" Surge of Windrunner, while bendalloy burns fast and is expansive on top of that. Wayne typically has what, minutes at best? So Windrunner can defend better against ranged attacks then Mistborn can.

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If we wanted to get down to the real nittygritty we would say that there are no mistborn in era 2 anyways. We could also say that spook is the only known mistborn to have had access to all of the metals and era 1 mistborn wouldnt have access to leeching. As far as loadouts go in era 2 aluminum is well known and, while expensive, not out of reach for a mistborn. Potential aluminum vials and weaponry. Odds are mistborn have less worries on roshar and are more inclined to carry metal weaponry which would offer heavier projectiles to use and play with. Also guns... if a gun is allowed it shifts everything just as easily as atium. If that gun has aluminum bullets it is even more so shifted.

Now we run into the era and loadout issues again. There is a huge difference between 1000+ grain projectile traveling ~200fps and a 240 grain projectile (typical .44mag) traveling 1100+ fps. Out of a rifle you could say that is pushing 1600+ fps and with a 45-70 or 12 gauge you are talking 400grains - a full oz. That isnt talking about if they had aluminum weaponry which was not uncommon just expensive. (Though this leads to a question about how gravitation would work against aluminum anything.)

Yeah, but then we are discussing that guns are dangerous weapons, not that Mistborn are stronger then Windrunners don't we? Regular person with aluminum gun and bullets could shoot Mistborn dead quite easily, but that has no bearing on combat abilities of Mistborn vs regular human.

Also reverse lashings are strong enough to bend bullet paths (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3523 the quote has Full lashings, but that makes no sense, as you cannot touch a bullet in flight + we have seen how strong Reverse Lashings can be when it tore off head of Pursuer).

Surges would not affect aluminum anything, aluminum is investiture inert/opaque, so Aluminum bullets would help in the sense they would have to be dodged or just move around too fast to get hit easily.

(Sidenote: Windrunner could Invest their own Shards, https://wob.coppermind.net/events/478/#e15130 , so Sprenblade with Reverse lashing is viable strategy).

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If you jab a button into my body it will not tear off until it passes through my body enough to actually tear. So long as there is a backdrop for the metal piece the mistborn will be able to anchor with it. Even coins stuck to a shield with adhesion will beable to be used for anchors.

And how long before they notice the button/belt is behaving weirdly and strongly pressing against their skin, and decide to remove them?
Or they could just turn sideways, and the button would tear off.

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I need to know more of how exactly gravitation works. Fighting in the storm was not an easy feat and both combatants were fighting against the storm. I assume momentum and inertia are laws that apply to some extent. Thus every turn would be more of an arch. This is the same for mistborn but with thrust as an option as opposed to just falling. A fall at terminal velocity in one direction would carry a certain amount of momentum while lashing oneself back the other direction only with gravitation there is no thrust to your fall. You can ramp up all of your lashings super duper fast but it costs more stormlight to do so (I dont remember how it is described if it is linear or exponential) where as a mistborn navigating their flight is limited by anchor points. More anchors means more fine tuned agility. That same anchor you just pushed on really hard can be pulled on softly (as your distance would also make your pushes and pulls weaker) to help fine tune high speed chases. Push and Pull in AoL put on an awesome chase against a crasher but even Wax notes and uses the way one metal was working vs another as an advantage. When you have both your movement options go through the roof.

Gravitation works exactly as the name implies, you redirect the direction of the gravitational pull, and its magnitude.

So momentum, inertia applies (just like for Mistborn). Thrust/being pulled there is no difference for the object, all that matters is the resulting acceleration and the potential directions, and Windrunner has more potential directions to choose from (every single one) and arbitrary acceleration (Multiple lashings, semi-linear cost increase if on one-self or partial lashings).

Mistborn with push/pull has more options than just Coinshot or Lurcher, but compared to Windrunner they are horribly limited. Windrunners causally levitate, walk on walls/ceilings, outrun hurricanes etc.

9 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Our experience with all of the metals in that category have been instantaneous. We have a few WoB that say leeching a full metalmind would take a while but until we have units of measurement for investiture and what parts make up each thing this isnt something you can really rely on.

And that was experience on Scadrial (low-Investiture world, https://wob.coppermind.net/events/152/#e2801), against Metalborn with a couple of metal flakes inside them (so very little).
We know non-invested metals go before Invested ones and Chromium burns about as fast as Duralumin (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/101/#e881), that full metalmind would take a while to leech. And as @Werewolff Studios pointed out Szeth was wielding Nightblood for a while before it sucked him dry of Stormlight, and Nightblood would be working faster.

So, duralumin-Leeching might take away the Stormlight immediately, but then the Mistborn is also left with A-pewter (as they needed the strength for grappling) and any other metal they were burning.

Regular Leeching would take some time, based on various information.

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We know sprenblades are more invested than a metalmind. Metalminds can block a sprenblade, Kaladin with a chest full of stormlight can't. Thus your radiant totally full of stormlight is less invested than the metalmind which is less invested than the spren.

Full metalminds are better at blocking Sprenblade (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/75/#e4363), and living matter interacts differently with Sprenblade that non-living one (i.e. you can swing Sprenblade through a spren in 'human' form, but when they are blade they resist).

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Info is worth its weight in gold. I dont know that the mistborn has all basic info of how to best kill a radiant. I just think mistborns toolkit offers more insight into thier enemies than the radiants does. The mistborn will see how invested that radiant is from afar and will notice that the blade is made of aluminum or some other highly invested metal. The mistborn will learn how well the radiant flies when it sees the radiant fly and that would be the same thing for the radiant in the other direction. Healing would be a surprise to the mistborn as would emotional assaults and just how hard and fast the mistborn would be to the radiant. But if I were in a fight for my life I say there is no such thing as overkill. The mistborn knows it can leech that glow and kill the magic... bronze picks up that it is being used even if it doesnt know what it does... zap that crap away when you can. That would be like a radiant not swinging his sprenblade because he is trying to hide it (never seen that scenario before right?)

They will see Radiant, and notice that he is Invested yes the moment he breathes in Stormlight. They won't notice the blade until they summon it, and won't know it cannot be blocked by regular items.

And when Mistborn comes in close, to Leech they would have to overcome the blade first, where if they decide to block it with their daggers, they would get nasty surprise. And afterwards they might be shocked to discover that leeching does not remove all Investiture immediately, unfamiliar situation they were not counting on.

Meanwhile Windrunner is seeing an enemy that can weirdly and poorly fly (seen that), shoots metalbits from distance (weird, but ok, they know ranged projectiles are a thing), and maybe that their emotions are acting a bit weird (partially familiar, Stormlight has cognitive effects, some may have experience Thrill, some may have been messed with by Odium).
They can use reverse lashing to defend against projectiles, maybe fire a few things using Lashings and then try and move in close for a kill with a Blade.

They could see enemy sometimes blurring, and appearing a few feet sideways (ok, teleportation we have dealt with Fused like that), so could try and fire multiple projectiles at once in a cluster, i.e. shotgun approach.

At the end of the day, Windrunner only has to either hit Mistborn with Shardblade anywhere in a spine, or deliver deadly blow with a Lashing and they win. Every hit they land will hinder Mistborn for the rest of the fight (they might ignore pain and work a bit better then they should, but A-pewter is not healing), so in prolonged fight (i.e. half an hour) they have advantage, as Stormlight is keeping them fully healed and ready. Additionally, Windrunner are used to dealing with enemies that can heal (Fused) so they know they must inflict as much damage as possible to exhaust their stores, every Invested enemy they fought has healing, so they would probably assume Mistborn does as well.
Comparatively Mistborn has to first drain the Windrunner or outlast them (with worse mobility, and limited ways to get away not a great chance), then either get close to finish them or (if they still have metals) use A-steel to pepper them with whatever metal they still have.

It seems to me that one side has more and more easily achievable win conditions, while also having superior defensive options (healing, ranged defense), so that side should win much more often. Similar outcome is pointed to in the WoBs https://wob.coppermind.net/events/4/#e1432 , https://wob.coppermind.net/events/35/#e5018 .

Edited December 8, 2022 by therunner
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Immortal Platypus · December 8, 2022

like those WOB say, windrunner wins on the battlefield. they are on a battle field. even if Mistborn was to sneak up at night, the spren could probably warn the KR making it a little harder for mistborn to win, but mistborn still probably wins there. but that doesn't matter since they're on a battlefield.

Tamriel Wolfsbaine · December 8, 2022

I found this fun Reddit response. I know it was from back in The Way of Kings days but we do see Szeth fighting Kaladin as a 3rd ideal windrunner so I think this is relevant to this discussion. Q&A with Brandon Sanderson! : Fantasy_Bookclub (reddit.com)

7 hours ago, therunner said:

So momentum, inertia applies (just like for Mistborn). Thrust/being pulled there is no difference for the object, all that matters is the resulting acceleration and the potential directions, and Windrunner has more potential directions to choose from (every single one) and arbitrary acceleration (Multiple lashings, semi-linear cost increase if on one-self or partial lashings).

Mistborn with push/pull has more options than just Coinshot or Lurcher, but compared to Windrunner they are horribly limited. Windrunners causally levitate, walk on walls/ceilings, outrun hurricanes etc.

I have relistened to the entire Szeth vs Kaladin fight and the words lashing come up a lot. With that in mind is not a need to restart your new lashings in a new direction every time? It seems like each time Szeth wanted to walk on walls in the very beginning he would have to lash in a direction. This would suggest that there is an ever increasing amount of stormlight needed for each turn as if you are going full speed and need to make a 90 degree turn or even a full 180 degree turn you would need to relash yourself and overcome the momentum and inertia that is already happening. Gravity is always pulling on a ball that gets thrown straight up but that driving force and momentum behind that ball require it to get pulled back. In this case to make that turn you have to stack as many lashings as is necessary to slow you down and then make you fall in the new direction you want to go. It may be possible to keep up pace with the mistborn but the nature of pushing and pulling are more like a string being tied to the cork of a cork gun. You shoot out one direction and then instantly stop moving that way and move the new way so long as the anchor is strong enough. I know in terms of an open field with little metal this doesn't apply, but change the setting and I believe the entire mobility discussion would change. How do you think a windrunner would fare in a chase through the low streets of Elendel vs a mistborn?

7 hours ago, therunner said:

At the end of the day, Windrunner only has to either hit Mistborn with Shardblade anywhere in a spine, or deliver deadly blow with a Lashing and they win. Every hit they land will hinder Mistborn for the rest of the fight (they might ignore pain and work a bit better then they should, but A-pewter is not healing), so in prolonged fight (i.e. half an hour) they have advantage, as Stormlight is keeping them fully healed and ready. Additionally, Windrunner are used to dealing with enemies that can heal (Fused) so they know they must inflict as much damage as possible to exhaust their stores, every Invested enemy they fought has healing, so they would probably assume Mistborn does as well.
Comparatively Mistborn has to first drain the Windrunner or outlast them (with worse mobility, and limited ways to get away not a great chance), then either get close to finish them or (if they still have metals) use A-steel to pepper them with whatever metal they still have.

I agree that the windrunner needs only a spine shot against the mistborn. Again, after relistening to Szeths fight against Kaladin at the end of WoR we see non-stormlight infused characters moving in and out of attacks. (Plot armor? I would say so given and entire squad of men came in and got killed in a flash while Adolin and Dalinar were both able to narrowly escape death over and over again.) I whole heartedly disagree with the arguments that pewter burning mistborn is the same as a normal Alethi, and I think a mistborn with tin and pewter would have significantly faster reaction times toe to toe with Dalinar and Adolin at this time.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

And here we run into, how much bendalloy does Mistborn have?
Because reverse lashing is the "cheapest" Surge of Windrunner, while bendalloy burns fast and is expansive on top of that. Wayne typically has what, minutes at best? So Windrunner can defend better against ranged attacks then Mistborn can.

Reverse lashing a bunch of metal to rocks or a shield or whatever is also going to give the mistborn that many more magically enhanced anchors to use as well. Bendalloy burn rate is a good point but stormlight is always leaking and doesn't last forever either.

2 hours ago, Ookla the platypus said:

like those WOB say, windrunner wins on the battlefield. they are on a battle field. even if Mistborn was to sneak up at night, the spren could probably warn the KR making it a little harder for mistborn to win, but mistborn still probably wins there. but that doesn't matter since they're on a battlefield.

In this case I have concieded that most of the time the Windrunner wins. No atium for the mistborn in an open rock field with only the metal it carried and the metal the windrunner may be wearing... I still dont think it is a 100-0 win. I can move further than even a 4:1 ratio in favor of the windrunner in these circumstances but you can't count out the agility of pewter being able to dance around the blade and it goes higher with guns or aluminum loadouts (which are time appropriate for the mistborns loadout).

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Full metalminds are better at blocking Sprenblade (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/75/#e4363), and living matter interacts differently with Sprenblade that non-living one (i.e. you can swing Sprenblade through a spren in 'human' form, but when they are blade they resist).

I can't disagree with this. There is WoB where Peter says that aluminum foil would not be magically cut but that the blade itself would still blow through the foil. That said, looking at other systems for a minute, an awakened piece of cloth would be susceptible to the blade of a shardblade but not the magical cutting abilities as well. WoB on royallocks and the shardblade are that the locks would not be treated as dead like other hair. So investiture is interesting in how it reacts and different investiture reacts differently. Lots of RAFO answers in regards to all of this as well.

14 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Just a quick thought on this point - I believe the main reason Kaladin (or any Radiant) can't block a Shardblade strike is more to do with the fact that he's living, rather than how much Stormlight he has. Shard and Sprenblades fuzz when they cut through living matter. No one living can 'block' a Shardblade, not unless they pull a Dalinar and catch the Blade. Which, in this battle, would put the Mistborn in a very precarious situation as the Blade could elongate and skewer them.

Relistening to the Szeth and Kaladin fight Syl doesn't change shapes from short to long otherwise she would have just instapoped Szeth. She fuzzed out and then reappeared as a new weapon. If leeching stops you from summoning then the shape she was in would be the only shape she can be in while being leeched. In the case of a longer spear once you are past the pointy bit you would only need to start leeching and they would either have a stick to fight you with or they would have no blade at all because once she tries to change shape she wouldnt be allowed back into existance until you broke free.

14 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Brandon has stated that Larkin, Leechers and Nightblood are all working off of the same general principles from a cosmere perspective. We've seen that Nightblood drains Investiture (Breaths and Stormlight) alarmingly quickly, but not instantly. I could be wrong, but I don't believe a Leeching would be at the same level as Nightblood, not without duralumin. That's my main reasoning for why I believe that a Mistborn Leeching a Radiant wouldn't be instantaneous.

The Nightblood point is interesting and I have a lot of questions about nightblood (metal isnt investiture so would nightblood kill an allomancer with full stomach but not burning at the time to access the investiture?) Nightblood is also very full. He wasnt able to consume a shard and just stopped feeding at one point. We know investiture still resists investiture and metalminds hit a point where they are too full also. Is it possible Nightblood leeches slower given how full he is already than other sources? The larkin barely looked at Lift and she was drained... Szeth holds Nightblood for a while without being emptied. Have we seen other interactions between Larkin and other radiants? I imagine until we do it returns to the fact that we do not have a measurable unit for investiture nor any math to calculate these times. Which leads, unfortunately or fortunately, to endless devils advocate posts to help everyone pass the time away thinking about fun fantasy worlds colliding.

Back to the Szeth being beaten by a "fullblown mistborn" and Szeth and Kaladin going toe to toe. I know Szeth wasn't a radiant with op healing or a living blade but he was the better duelist and I believe he only lost because of emotional trauma and total distraction... his world view was being destroyed before his very eyes and he died in his efforts to stop fighting kaladin and go back for his intended target. I think this points out a few things... pewters strength in terms of the average alethi and the stormlight infused fighters and the potency of emotional highs and lows in a fight for life.

Truly the #1 factor in who would win given any situation is who does Brandon award plot armor because he needs the story to move this direction or that direction. Plot armor is the real OP

Edited December 8, 2022 by Tamriel Wolfsbaine

Immortal Platypus · December 8, 2022

36 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

pewter burning mistborn is the same as a normal Alethi

i would not say that. i would agree with you that those do not equate. However, i do think that a alethi with stormlight is at least equal to a pewter-burning mistborn.

39 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I still dont think it is a 100-0 win

i don't think it is either, but i think it is close, at least 90-10, maybe 95-5. unless aluminum can be reverse lashed, which i don't think it can, it's probably 99-1 or 100-0.

40 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

If leeching stops you from summoning then the shape she was in would be the only shape she can be in while being leeched

i don't think that leeching stops a spren from changing form unless you are specifically leeching the spren, not the Windrunner

42 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Plot armor is the real OP

true. assume that neither has plot armor.

Tamriel Wolfsbaine · December 8, 2022

10 minutes ago, Ookla the platypus said:

i would not say that. i would agree with you that those do not equate. However, i do think that a alethi with stormlight is at least equal to a pewter-burning mistborn.

i don't think it is either, but i think it is close, at least 90-10, maybe 95-5. unless aluminum can be reverse lashed, which i don't think it can, it's probably 99-1 or 100-0.

i don't think that leeching stops a spren from changing form unless you are specifically leeching the spren, not the Windrunner

true. assume that neither has plot armor.

I question the wording of Syl fuzzing out of existence and then back to existence turning into a new weapon. The fact that the weapon never morphed like a transformer in his hand says that something happened to where she had to dismiss and then reappear there as something else. It is in this very fine hairs worth of a second that I base my theory off of... while being leeched you can't summon your blade. She had to leave kaladins hand to become something else in his hand again. This would not be able to happen while being leeched. Get past the pointy end. Take a hold of him and don't stop leeching until the job is done.

Pewter and stormlight can go on and on. Szeths punch to Dalinars ribs only breaking them is not so far outside of normal human capability. Swatting the blade out of Adolins hand and breaking his wrist is a more compelling argument that there is some enhancement beyond just the normal humans capabilities. I still don't think it overshadows or is even on the same level as a thug.

8 hours ago, therunner said:

They can use reverse lashing to defend against projectiles, maybe fire a few things using Lashings and then try and move in close for a kill with a Blade.

Firing a few things is an interesting idea. How much stormlight would the radiant be willing to devote to ranged attacks of their own in this way? I have worked on people battered and pummeled by baseball sized hale... it is only so much force that can be generated by a single lashing. How many do you have to use to make it happen? I can say Szeth lashed the wall onto that guard in the very beginning of WoK but again here we have WOB saying he thought a mistborn would beat Szeth.

In this scenario mistborn loses a lot more than windrunner. Where and what do you all think the mistborn needs to win? Atium? Guns? Aluminum bats? I honestly think an aluminum rod with or without anything sharp or pointy would be the breakpoint with or without atium. Give the mistborn 1 tool to be able to block and parry the shardblade and we would be back to the 60/40 split between the two that I initially said.

Side note: I found an AMA with Brandon where the question was about a blind mistborn and if they could use gold to see the spiritual shadow of everything. He agreed but mentioned it would sort of mess with the person (savantism). With this any sort of spiritual sight could give the mistborn 360 degree vision like a byakugan.

Immortal Platypus · December 8, 2022

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Where and what do you all think the mistborn needs to win?

atium or knowledge of how to kill the Windrunner and all their abilities without the Windrunner knowing about them or a very strong aluminum sword or perhaps feruchemical speed. if they had F-speed they could out speed the Windrunner's Blade and leech. I still think that leeching won't affect the Blade in the way you say because when we see deadeyes summoned, they don't need Light to be summoned, so I don't see why Living Blades (better in literally every way) would have to have Light/Investiture to be summoned.

Frustration · December 8, 2022

3 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Where and what do you all think the mistborn needs to win?

A way to recover from shardblade wounds. Or any other life threatening wounds during the course of a battle. A way to block shardblades, and probably a decent increase in power as well.

Tamriel Wolfsbaine · December 8, 2022

29 minutes ago, Ookla the platypus said:

atium or knowledge of how to kill the Windrunner and all their abilities without the Windrunner knowing about them or a very strong aluminum sword or perhaps feruchemical speed. if they had F-speed they could out speed the Windrunner's Blade and leech. I still think that leeching won't affect the Blade in the way you say because when we see deadeyes summoned, they don't need Light to be summoned, so I don't see why Living Blades (better in literally every way) would have to have Light/Investiture to be summoned.

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

If a Leecher was holding a Shardbearer and burning [chromium], would the Shardbearer be able to summon their Blade?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No.

Warsaw signing (March 18, 2017)

Spoiler

Questioner

Is there a limit to what the spren can become, like we've seen them become a blade or a spear or a shield, can they become, like-- I've heard hints of a bow and arrow. Can they become a sword and a shield or just one main thing?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, it is more expansive than people guess it is, but it is limited.

Oathbringer release party (Nov. 13, 2017)

I think both of these help me thought process. There are limits to the blades hence why Syl doesn't simply chase down Kaladins enemies as an instakill noodle of death zigzagging to and fro to find her targets. This is another case of weird interactions with investiture but syl herself is a pure form of investiture. Perhaps the leeching is simply stopping the sprens connection to the radiant.

On the brightside it is infinitely easier for a radiant to have 0.000000000000000001 seconds of time the mistborn isn't leeching them for the spren to hop back and stab them in the gut compared to 10heartbeats worth of breaking a grapple that a normal shardbearer would need.

8 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

A way to recover from shardblade wounds. Or any other life threatening wounds during the course of a battle. A way to block shardblades, and probably a decent increase in power as well.

We agree that the mistborns life would be way easier with healing. An aluminum weapon or half shard shield would make life way easier too. I just don't see a need for the increase in raw power. I believe you underestimate pewter or overestimate the power of stormlight in the physical enhancement department.

Frustration · December 8, 2022

1 minute ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I agree that the mistborns life would be way easier with healing. An aluminum weapon or half shard shield would make life way easier too. I just don't see a need for the increase in raw power. I believe you underestimate pewter or overestimate the power of stormlight in the physical enhancement department.

I haven’t worked out the numbers on that exactly. I have an instinct that says thatburning pewter, healing goes a bit faster but I have to look in the books and see what we’ve done in the past and then kind of canonize it.

Calamity Philadelphia signing (Feb. 20, 2016)

Immortal Platypus · December 8, 2022

59 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Hide contents

Questioner (paraphrased)

If a Leecher was holding a Shardbearer and burning [chromium], would the Shardbearer be able to summon their Blade?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No.

Warsaw signing (March 18, 2017)

okay, yeah, i asked if there was a WOB about blades being summonable without light that I had missed earlier, so thanks. It might be different with a living blade, but i'll assume that it isn't. also, it might still be possible because a KR probably wouldn't be leeched instantly so they would still have the chance to summon their blade before the leeching fed off their connection (your theory there seems likely) to skewer the mistborn. that's definitely just a theory though, and not a super thought out one either.

Quote

We agree that the mistborns life would be way easier with healing. An aluminum weapon or half shard shield would make life way easier too.

healing and a way to block the Blade are pretty much essential.

Werewolff Studios · December 8, 2022

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Truly the #1 factor in who would win given any situation is who does Brandon award plot armor because he needs the story to move this direction or that direction. Plot armor is the real OP

Ha ha! Absolutely correct. At the end of the day, not accounting for plot armour, it really is a match of likelihood and skill. I think you've hit the nail on the head with the 4:1 ratio, and I reckon that flips when the Mistborn has atium - 4:1 their favour at least. Might be closer to 90%.

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

The Nightblood point is interesting and I have a lot of questions about nightblood (metal isnt investiture so would nightblood kill an allomancer with full stomach but not burning at the time to access the investiture?) Nightblood is also very full. He wasnt able to consume a shard and just stopped feeding at one point. We know investiture still resists investiture and metalminds hit a point where they are too full also. Is it possible Nightblood leeches slower given how full he is already than other sources? The larkin barely looked at Lift and she was drained... Szeth holds Nightblood for a while without being emptied. Have we seen other interactions between Larkin and other radiants? I imagine until we do it returns to the fact that we do not have a measurable unit for investiture nor any math to calculate these times. Which leads, unfortunately or fortunately, to endless devils advocate posts to help everyone pass the time away thinking about fun fantasy worlds colliding.

Yeah, that's a valid point. I think he'd still kill a Mistborn, because a single nick with Nightblood turns regular people to smoke, eating through their innate Investiture.

I re-read that Lift scene too, and Lift wasn't really full of Lifelight - she made a mention of how hungry she was prior to Nale pulling out the Larkin. With Szeth, he was brimming with Stormlight, and Nightblood ate that wickedly fast. Still though, you are correct. The only interaction with Larkin I can think of is Chiri-Chiri eating the Fused Lightweaving in Oathbringer, but we know that Illusions themselves don't take a ton of Investiture to create or maintain. It isn't reliable to know the rate that Leeching, Larkin and Nightblood drain at, only that it's comparable.

One other thing to consider, even with Leeching, is that the Radiant could replenish Stormlight from their pocket spheres, similar to a Mistborn replenishing metals. And it's quicker to breathe in than it is to uncork and swallow a vial. Though that's only really relevant if the Mistborn can't follow up their Leeching with an instant-kill attack which, if they're at the point that they're utilizing Leeching, they would be more likely to do.

This is such a terrifically deep discussion! Love all of the different thoughts and theories about how the power sets would interact.

therunner · December 8, 2022

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I found this fun Reddit response. I know it was from back in The Way of Kings days but we do see Szeth fighting Kaladin as a 3rd ideal windrunner so I think this is relevant to this discussion. Q&A with Brandon Sanderson! : Fantasy_Bookclub (reddit.com)

Typically it is taken that later WoBs overwriter earlier ones (as Brandon can change his mind on things of course), so later WoB on Windrunner vs Mistborn would take precedence.
Of course, Kaladin does beat Szeth as completely fresh 3rd Oath Windrunner, so based on that WoB you quoted all we can say is that both Mistborn and 3rd Oath Radiant beat experienced wielder of Honorblade.

Of course later WoBs then give us that Windrunner 3rd Oath beats Mistborn in a straight up fight.

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I have relistened to the entire Szeth vs Kaladin fight and the words lashing come up a lot. With that in mind is not a need to restart your new lashings in a new direction every time? It seems like each time Szeth wanted to walk on walls in the very beginning he would have to lash in a direction. This would suggest that there is an ever increasing amount of stormlight needed for each turn as if you are going full speed and need to make a 90 degree turn or even a full 180 degree turn you would need to relash yourself and overcome the momentum and inertia that is already happening. Gravity is always pulling on a ball that gets thrown straight up but that driving force and momentum behind that ball require it to get pulled back. In this case to make that turn you have to stack as many lashings as is necessary to slow you down and then make you fall in the new direction you want to go.

It may be possible to keep up pace with the mistborn but the nature of pushing and pulling are more like a string being tied to the cork of a cork gun. You shoot out one direction and then instantly stop moving that way and move the new way so long as the anchor is strong enough.

I know in terms of an open field with little metal this doesn't apply, but change the setting and I believe the entire mobility discussion would change. How do you think a windrunner would fare in a chase through the low streets of Elendel vs a mistborn?

There is a need to manage Lashings, but Windrunners do that all the time in a fight, look at start of RoW. Also you can cancel Lashing and reclaim the Stormlight from it, so it is not too wasteful.
And they can simply Lash themselves at first, and then use half-Lashing to just continue to move while in effective zero-g.

Also, Mistborn movement does not work like you describe, they don't instantly stop. They can stop quickly if pushing hard enough, but that is also because they are not moving all that fast typically, so the required acceleration is smaller. And they could exactly cancel the momentum only if there was suitable anchor (or set of them) in place.

Windrunner can replicate what Mistborn does, by applying multiple Lashings at first, and then cancelling them all/in small batches (i.e. getting a big initial push/pull, and then moving under effect of gravity), of course while not limited by presence of metals. If they then need to change directions, they could do the same, exactly like Mistborn does.

So, Windrunner can do everything Mistborn does and much more. Experienced Windrunner would catch Mistborn, even in low streets of Elendel.

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I agree that the windrunner needs only a spine shot against the mistborn. Again, after relistening to Szeths fight against Kaladin at the end of WoR we see non-stormlight infused characters moving in and out of attacks. (Plot armor? I would say so given and entire squad of men came in and got killed in a flash while Adolin and Dalinar were both able to narrowly escape death over and over again.) I whole heartedly disagree with the arguments that pewter burning mistborn is the same as a normal Alethi, and I think a mistborn with tin and pewter would have significantly faster reaction times toe to toe with Dalinar and Adolin at this time.

Well, Adolin and Dalinar are among the best melee fighters in Cosmere, so...yeah of course they put up a fight. And they are used to fighting Shardbears so they know what to expect on top of that.

Pewter burning Mistborn would definitely have faster reaction times, but they would lack some experience + living blade can shapeshift.
On how better would Mistborn reflexes be, we don't really have exact numbers, but it is not as pronounced as the strength improvements (that is the main benefit), so it is not like they have halved reaction times.
Tin won't do anything for reaction times.

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Reverse lashing a bunch of metal to rocks or a shield or whatever is also going to give the mistborn that many more magically enhanced anchors to use as well. Bendalloy burn rate is a good point but stormlight is always leaking and doesn't last forever either.

It will give some anchor temporarily, until the Reverse Lashing runs out (or is dismissed), and then it will be suddenly removed, which could have disastrous consequences.

As stated previously, Radiant can easily have 12 hours worth of permanent flight of Stormlight on a person, even when burning fast, they have hours of it easily. And they don't have to draw in all of it at once, some can be kept in a sphere. So, far more than Bendalloy.

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

In this case I have concieded that most of the time the Windrunner wins. No atium for the mistborn in an open rock field with only the metal it carried and the metal the windrunner may be wearing... I still dont think it is a 100-0 win. I can move further than even a 4:1 ratio in favor of the windrunner in these circumstances but you can't count out the agility of pewter being able to dance around the blade and it goes higher with guns or aluminum loadouts (which are time appropriate for the mistborns loadout).

If there is no metal (only what MIstborn carries), they have such limited mobility they are basically sitting duck. Windrunner could kill them just by lashings items at them and waiting till they run out of Bendalloy and Electrum for dodging those. Or throwing sprenblade lance at them, and summoning as needed.
And don't discount Stormlight enhancements, while not to the same extent as pewter they are still considerable (as far as reflexes, agility goes).

In this scenario Windrunner looses only if they make some horrible mistake, or intentionally don't fight as hard as they could.

Gun would improve chances, but that is a statement about gun not Mistborn.

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

The Nightblood point is interesting and I have a lot of questions about nightblood (metal isnt investiture so would nightblood kill an allomancer with full stomach but not burning at the time to access the investiture?) Nightblood is also very full. He wasnt able to consume a shard and just stopped feeding at one point. We know investiture still resists investiture and metalminds hit a point where they are too full also. Is it possible Nightblood leeches slower given how full he is already than other sources? The larkin barely looked at Lift and she was drained... Szeth holds Nightblood for a while without being emptied. Have we seen other interactions between Larkin and other radiants? I imagine until we do it returns to the fact that we do not have a measurable unit for investiture nor any math to calculate these times. Which leads, unfortunately or fortunately, to endless devils advocate posts to help everyone pass the time away thinking about fun fantasy worlds colliding.

Assuming fully drawn Nightblood.
If Nightblood works closely enough like Leechers, then it would pretty much immediately burn through the flakes in Mistborn's stomach (even when not burning) and then kill them. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/390/#e12749

Nightblood being 'full' is not related to him being invested, he only stops feeding when he gets full, which apparently is when he kills Vessel (so, consumes more Investiture then we have ever seen any person hold, well maybe Vin when she wielded Well or was Ascending). In fact Nightblood is effectively over-Invested all the time, the black smoke he leaks is 'degraded' Investiture he consumed (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/452/#e14511).

Nightblood is a thing Shards and Hoid are afraid of, sentiment that is not replicated for either Leechers or Larkin. Also, unlike Leechers or Larkin, Nightbloods feeding is powerful enough to consume Innate Investiture of a person (that is what would end up killing the wielder). Additionally, the speed with which Nighblood consumes Investiture increases the longer he is drawn. And finally Lift barely had any Lifelight at that point (she did not eat in a while, and that is how she creates her Light), whereas Szeth was full of Stormlight. So I think we can comfortably say Nightblood consumes more, and faster then both Larkin and Leechers.

And again, Scadrial is low-investiture world, so if Nightblood takes a while to eat through Szeth stores of Stormligh, he would eat through Mistborn far faster.

4 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

In this scenario mistborn loses a lot more than windrunner. Where and what do you all think the mistborn needs to win? Atium? Guns? Aluminum bats? I honestly think an aluminum rod with or without anything sharp or pointy would be the breakpoint with or without atium. Give the mistborn 1 tool to be able to block and parry the shardblade and we would be back to the 60/40 split between the two that I initially said.

I don't think just being able to parry the blade would be enough, there are techniques to get around that, 'skipping' the blade. And if Windrunners are training among themselves, they would have experience with weapon getting blocked, so it would not make much difference.

Enough Atium is definitely an 'I-win' button, even smaller amount (i.e. ~30 seconds) would be enough if the Windrunner does not know about it.

Outside of Atium, Mistborn needs at minimum F-gold and bunch of metalminds to be able to heal at least some Shardblade severed limb. Then they need either something to consistently keep Windrunner away to waste their Stormlight, or that would allow them to get closer in a safe manner, and the only thing from Scadrial that would do that is F-steel, which is broken on its own (with large enough stores).

So I think Mistborn with F-gold would have better chances, but Windrunner would still edge them out (unless Mistborn had ridiculously large amount of health stored). If Mistborn also had F-steel and stores that would allow them to ~3 their speed comfortably for a minute, that would do it for their victory.

4 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Side note: I found an AMA with Brandon where the question was about a blind mistborn and if they could use gold to see the spiritual shadow of everything. He agreed but mentioned it would sort of mess with the person (savantism). With this any sort of spiritual sight could give the mistborn 360 degree vision like a byakugan.

Could you link that WoB? The only one I found (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/190/#e4072) mentions that he would see atium shadows, not gold ones (gold is internal metal), which well, that is what atium does normally as well.

Immortal Platypus · December 8, 2022

19 minutes ago, therunner said:

Could you link that WoB? The only one I found (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/190/#e4072) mentions that he would see atium shadows, not gold ones (gold is internal metal), which well, that is what atium does normally as well.

look at the one directly below that, that might be what he is talking about.

Tamriel Wolfsbaine · December 9, 2022

3 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Pewter only doubles strength. Triple if flared. That isn't enough to make them an offensive threat unto itself.

Hide contents

Sandastron

I’m very curious about pewter. How much Feruchemical pewter, steel, and gold would you have to take in in order to be equal to burning pewter and flaring.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh…um, okay. So you wanna...ok, let’s back this up. So you wanna know feruchemically what would it take to match burning?

Sandastron

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

Okay. So burning pewter, I kind of imagine...roughly doubling. Roughly.

Sandastron

Double your strength?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. But without the muscle mass change, it’s a magical boost. So because of that it has some pretty dramatic effects, like when Vin jumps and things like that.

Sandastron

So it’s only a double, so would flaring it bring it any higher?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Flaring would go higher.

Sandastron

Would it be like triple?

Brandon Sanderson

Maybe like triple.

Sandastron

Maybe like tripling...that’s fascinating. So I always thought normal burning would triple it and flaring would quadruple.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I always felt kind of double. You won’t see people burning pewter and lifting a car.

Sandastron

Right, exactly.

Brandon Sanderson

You see people burning pewter and delivering a really solid punch.

Sandastron

Gotcha, thank you. That is fascinating…and would it be about doubling speed and healing ability?

Brandon Sanderson

I haven’t worked out the numbers on that exactly. I have an instinct that says thatburning pewter, healing goes a bit faster but I have to look in the books and see what we’ve done in the past and then kind of canonize it.

Calamity Philadelphia signing (Feb. 20, 2016)

Perhaps we read into that differently. Specifically when double strength in Vins case. It wasn't her doubling her base strength. When she and Ham were working out and both of them had pewter they were a match for eachother.

The increase in strength also is shown outside of just the gym on a persons interactions with the world around them. I don't want my talk of pewter to simply be a strength measurement. Doubling the strength of something is fine and dandy but it is what that does to the world around it physically.

Its strength lb for lb. A 300grain arrow works great for my kids 30lb bow but if I shot that with a 60lb barebow I would likely be destroying my bow. Likewise if I have a 500 spine arrow that is 24 inches long it will be stronger for that arrow than a 500 spine arrow that is 32 inches long. There is so much more that goes into strength than just double or triple.

You need more and more mass to move more and more mass. Pewter eliminates that. Eddie hall deadlifts 501kg at 190kg. We have Lamar Gant who deadlifted 305kg at just 60kg. Eddie hall lifted 2.6x his weight in a world record lift and it was the most any human had deadlifted in recorded history. Meanwhile Lamar lifted 5.08x his weight with that lift.

Lamar may have lifted less weight but his body did so much more and could do so much more. Look at fighters and athletes who just do calisthenics. Having lower mass that is enhanced to support that extra strength is a huge difference.

Shooting ballistics can further demonstrate the point. I am comparing the dangerous game rounds for 45 colt vs a 45-70 government at 300grains each for bullet weight from good ole Buffalo bore ammunition. I chose these 2 because I can compare on their site as evenly as I think is possible. The only difference is the 45-70 I chose to use their shorter barrel length which was 2 inches shorter and actually skews these numbers in the 45 colts favor. The 45-70 can hold just under double the amount of powder (roughly 70grains for 45-70 and roughly 40grains for the 45 colt) shooting the same bullet we get this:

The 45-70 shoot 2263 muzzle speed offering 3410 foot pounds of energy. The same sized bullet with just over half the powder traveled 1480fps producing 1458 foot pounds of energy.

That is 2.3x the energy from 1.75x the "strength". This is just a demonstration with the equal mass. If the powder is our strength and the size of our bullet is the size of our person then we get a bit better picture of what pewter seems to actually do in the books. Say we jack up the size of these bullets with the same powder behind them. They all slow down and the energy is lower. This is why size matters for kinetic energy. (The effect of size actually effects momentum more and in flight a smaller mistborn will benefit from the lack of momentum in a flying chase with tight turns in a city).

Vin may only get boosted to equal power with Ham but given her size she is able to do far more with that power.

I hypothesize that the increased density and toughness and healing are increased not based on a linear number but that they are the side effects of pewter allowing the allomancer to perform based on their size to function. Hence Vin's head not exploding while the other persons head did. It also explains why she was able to build up so much power with a headbutt... a punch or possibly even a slap would have been far more devastating due to smaller surface area to an extent... maybe not though. You can't measure overkill as easily as you can measure underkill (like a full pass through on an arrow... only way to know how much further it would have penetrated is if you have more tissue to penetrate through).

Again 1.75x power in a bullet produces 2.3x more energy, it could well be more than that given all of the variables for ballistics and barrel lengths and such. (I doubt it would be less given that I purposefully hamstrung the 45-70 with a shorter barrel).

Then take all of that and apply it to our fight... which if on Roshar allows the mistborn to take off 30% of their trained weight (if we were on scadrial the radiant would be fighting with a vest equal to 142% of their normal weight).

Why does any of this matter? Because it is functional strength. Look at a navy seal working out with Brian Shaw. The big guy lifts more and would likely hit harder but the little guy is built to do more at his fighting weight. More pull-ups more pushups more agility and longevity why? Because of his power lb for lb not necessarily raw strength.

This is the mistborns advantage. Running faster jumping further packing more force into a punch. Szeth broke ribs with his punch on stormlight. I see people with broken ribs from punches in the ER on a not so infrequent basis. If Vin were to punch a person in the ribs flaring pewter I dare say much more damage would occur to that poor persons chest.

Of course none of this gets us past the magical sword thing... but as illustrated again with szeth vs dalinar / adolin / kaladin you don't need magic reflexes to avoid a shardblade cut. You need to be quick and dexterous. I believe the grace Vin moves in and her increased balance and proprioception on pewter and tin come in at least equal with the perfected movements and fluidity of a radiant on stormlight. The differences are stormlight heals and let's you push past your natural levels by mending muscle tears as they happen and pewter simply makes you tough enough to not tear your muscles with all of the doubled (or tripled or duralumin enhanced exponentially based on pewter mass in ones system) strength you have.

Side note: This was my biggest issue with antman... why didn't he jump around like a grain of rice traveling half the speed of sound blasting holes through his enemies (or crawl up Thanos' nose and then become massive in his upper sinuses.)

Frustration · December 9, 2022

45 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Perhaps we read into that differently. Specifically when double strength in Vins case. It wasn't her doubling her base strength. When she and Ham were working out and both of them had pewter they were a match for eachother.

The increase in strength also is shown outside of just the gym on a persons interactions with the world around them. I don't want my talk of pewter to simply be a strength measurement. Doubling the strength of something is fine and dandy but it is what that does to the world around it physically.

Its strength lb for lb. A 300grain arrow works great for my kids 30lb bow but if I shot that with a 60lb barebow I would likely be destroying my bow. Likewise if I have a 500 spine arrow that is 24 inches long it will be stronger for that arrow than a 500 spine arrow that is 32 inches long. There is so much more that goes into strength than just double or triple.

You need more and more mass to move more and more mass. Pewter eliminates that. Eddie hall deadlifts 501kg at 190kg. We have Lamar Gant who deadlifted 305kg at just 60kg. Eddie hall lifted 2.6x his weight in a world record lift and it was the most any human had deadlifted in recorded history. Meanwhile Lamar lifted 5.08x his weight with that lift.

Lamar may have lifted less weight but his body did so much more and could do so much more. Look at fighters and athletes who just do calisthenics. Having lower mass that is enhanced to support that extra strength is a huge difference.

I see people with broken ribs from punches in the ER on a not so infrequent basis. If Vin were to punch a person in the ribs flaring pewter I dare say much more damage would occur to that poor persons chest.

I'd note that Vin is allomantically stronger then Ham, so her pewter is doing more.

And while true pound per pound strength of pewter is perhaps on an athletic standpoint more impressive than the more minor strength increase of stormlight, the fact remains that 501 is more than 305.

Edited December 9, 2022 by Ookla the Frustrated.

Werewolff Studios · December 9, 2022

Not specifically responding to any discussions here, but wanting to pass on the following info I found on the Arcanum.

Quote

Karen Ahlstrom (paraphrased)

3. Highstorms move at about 370 miles per hour. The Everstorm moves at about 120 miles per hour. Those are variable of course, and shouldn't be taken as official, definitive numbers.
JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

We've seen 3rd Ideal Windrunners routinely travel in front of a Highstorm without a ton of difficulty.

In fairness, their Stormlight is consistently been replenished, but I think this information is worth considering when discussing the differences in speed.

Tamriel Wolfsbaine · December 9, 2022

3 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

I'd note that Vin is allomantically stronger then Ham, so her pewter is doing more.

And while true pound per pound strength of pewter is perhaps on an athletic standpoint more impressive than the more minor strength increase of stormlight, the fact remains that 501 is more than 305.

Look at Eddie Hall being 6'3" and Lamar being 5'2". If numbers like these are the peak of physical performance. The current WR for deadlift is Hafthor and the guy stands right at 6'9" 204kg was only able to lift 1kg more than Eddie hall. So if you have 2 players at their peak... one from Roshar at 6'9" and the other at 5'2" there starts to become a big difference. 501 is bigger than 305. Its not bigger than 610 or 915. Stormlight doesn't double your strength and we don't have anything quantifiable by which to say it does X to strength (nor anything saying it improves strength at all). All we have people going off of is that szeth dropped Dalinar with a single blow breaking ribs with a punch to the side. I would say the most notable stormlight + strength we have seen is Rock and the shardbow. But wait there is this WoB which pretty well dispells the idea that it was the stormlight doing it for him.

Spoiler

NotBurtReynolds

Can Stormlight give enough extra strength that a humanoid could use a Shardbow w/out Plate?

Brandon Sanderson

Not normally.

General Signed Books 2018 (Feb. 21, 2018)

According to the coppermind Rock is just shy of 7 feet and he is large to the Alethi. I'm gonna go on a limb and say by the description Hafthor is as close to Rock as we are gonna get... especially being among the strongest men in the world. If we had the 132 lb Lamar from the previous example on pewter he would be outperforming Hafthor by 21% already on a normal burn and that increases to 182%, while flaring, of the amount lifted by a man who weighs nearly 450lbs.

Take those weights and put them into the gravitational hodgepodge and apparent weight it gets even more disgusting.

(Sorry for switching between KG and LBS so much I will try to keep it consistent for the rest of this).

Both parties have pulled off their world records on their respective planet with Roshar being roughly 0.7 gravity to Scadrial 1.0 gravity according to coppermind (30% lighter from scadrial to Roshar and 42.86% heavier from roshar to scadrial)

On Roshar we have Hafthor at 6'9" weighing in at 204kg and makes that worlds largest lift of 501kg.

Take him to Scadrial. We have Hafthor at 6'9" weighing in at 291.4kg and his muscles adjusted for life on Roshar see the same mass of plates but he can't pick it up. In fact he has to take plates off to make up for the gravitation differences here. He can only lift 70% of what that same stack of plates was on his home planet. 350.7kg.

Lamar the 5'2" 60kg boy wonder picks up 305kg on his native Scadrial. (Still lower than that of the mountain.) But on Roshar the maths turn the man into a myth and a legend where he is a 42kg man asking the natives to toss more plates onto his tray and is able to lift an incredible 435.7kg.

Now you have stormlight not adding actual strength but pewter doubling and, when flared, trippling it... you have this 5'2" man lifting 871.4kg (74% more weight than Hafthor on his own planet) on a normal pewter burn and 1307 (160% more weight than Hafthor) on a flare of pewter.

Given Brandon has felt it worth noting exactly how much pewter increases strength and given than Brandon has not chosen to give us any indication that stormlight actually increases strength (in fact Kaladin says it himself that it doesn't and stormlight healing and endurance / perfection can explain all other examples in the books) I would have to say that the pewter burner is in fact going to come out on top in strength no matter what planet the fight is on. The gravitation surge would certainly help in a strength contest as you could negate all physics but the point isn't about gravitation. It is that pewter is magically enhancing that thing and the strength between a pewter arm and a taller Alethi isn't really a factor.

These are 2 guys at total opposite ends of the size spectrum and they are obviously in their absolute prime. That isn't to say either of them is at fighting weight (in fact Hafthor lost nearly 60kg for his fighting weight since then) and the size limitation and difference would actually be smaller than this if you had an average alethi and an average scadrian (is that the term) which would make the difference in strength even more noticeable between the 2 combatants.

I know I know it isn't enough to make up for magic blade but think about the agility, speed and power able to be generated in a person who is smaller and 174% stronger than you. Pewter is stronger given the WoB quoted than I originally believed and I always thought it was a factor worth looking into more.

Immortal Platypus · December 9, 2022

pewter does give agility, speed, and power, but Light gives at least two of those, probably three. Kaladin might have said that Light didn't give him strength, but we know he is pretty ideal. it might give others strength because they aren't in as much of an amazing strengthwise position so perfecting them might involve giving them strength.

Tamriel Wolfsbaine · December 9, 2022

1 hour ago, Ookla the platypus said:

pewter does give agility, speed, and power, but Light gives at least two of those, probably three. Kaladin might have said that Light didn't give him strength, but we know he is pretty ideal. it might give others strength because they aren't in as much of an amazing strengthwise position so perfecting them might involve giving them strength.

I think Rock being able to draw the shard bow was more about his bloodline... perhaps mixed more than just Rosharan? Perhaps it is from his swimming in the pools. What he does should be about as useful for drawing comparisons for stormlight as Lift is. They both have something else happening we just haven't received his novella yet.

Is stormlight perfecting what you have or what you could have? Why would Kaladin train at all if he had stormlight. If anything the ability to taste stormlights effects has made him want to become better itself. I don't think his training is chasing the dragon but perhaps said dragon just gets better as he himself improves.

I don't much think that stormlight provides as much speed or agility either. Those stem from that functional strength... improved by stormlight but not necessarily increased by it.

In the running competition the members of bridge 4 with stormlight soundly won the race... they also didn't seem to be so out of breath. This was at least somewhat contributed to the fact that they were also testing partial lashings and running speed. They carry the bridge and it feels lighter... or are they just being constantly healed by the stormlight so they can run and lift like they are totally fresh until their stormlight runs out? If it actually gave them more speed in a longer race as well as not letting them feel tired or winded at all don't you think they would have had better times than just a few minutes faster than the non stormlight users?

Meanwhile Vin is able to maintain speeds even with a galloping horse for hours during one pewter drag. The reflexes and proprioception (though this is perhaps more tins thing) allow the allomancer near perfect control of all of these changes. Cat like reflexes while moving somewhere in the 36-40mph range (at their 1.0 gravity. Likely higher on Roshar).

Other than constant healing any damage done by pressing past your natural limits without being harmed by it... that still isn't the same as flat out magically doubling and tripling your abilities. I don't see stormlight actually coming that close to pewter in any of these except that it perfects you and heals you passively.

Again I don't know that the pewter vs stormlight argument will change the outcome of glass daggers vs shardblade. The shardblade in this match-up is as much an upgrade as atium is for the mistborn and noone disagrees that atium is the trump card even there and atium doesn't fall off until radiants get their version of pewter in shardplate.

I think if we took away the shardblade and put stormlight and surges at a strength and efficiency equal to that of a 3rd ideal radiant and put it up against a mistborn with just the metals at the end of HoA the radiant would lose more often than not. It isn't that stormlight is weak it is just not as good as pewter for the close quarters match maybe you can heal 99% of hits taken but this isn't a punch from Szeth into the ribcage. This is a punch with smaller surface area packing 2-3x the energy. You aren't taking about broken ribs we are talking about concaved chests with hemo/ pneumothorax and damage even deeper. We aren't talking broken nose... we are talking shattered skulls.

The blade is the fallback in this and without atium I concede that it is pretty well a 1 sided battle. Without the blade, talking just, about surges and stormlight vs metals and allomancy the mistorn and pewter are king all day long. It is a good thing the windrunner can fly so high and so far.

Immortal Platypus · December 9, 2022

2 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

improved by stormlight but not necessarily increased by it

the way I see it improved is equivalent to increased because if you have improved capability you are able to do more.

5 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Meanwhile Vin is able to maintain speeds even with a galloping horse

as was previously discussed, the horses were weaker there.

without shardblade mistborn wins, I agree. but with it, I don't think it's very much of a competition. sorry for the short reply, I'm in school right now and the teacher is coming to check how my group is doing

Mistborn V.S. 3rd ideal Windrunner