Brandon Sanderson

Shadows of Self chapter four out.

Hmmm, to read or not to read.

Waiting should improve the experience when I read the book, but also I WANT MORE MISTBORN NOW!!!

edited 17th Sep '15 4:01:29 PM by 32ndfreeze

Just think of it as reading the book very slowly.

Ooookay. I think a Bendalloy Allomancer and Steel Feruchemist combo would be mean?

Also. Steel Compounder? Human Machine Gun?

.....I wonder how much a GM would hurt me for playing a Steel Compounder Vigilante clad in a red bodysuit?

edited 18th Sep '15 2:03:59 PM by 3of4

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I doubt bendalloy is involved. It costs too much, plus the problem with shooting out of speed bubbles. Definitely a Steelrunner, but the precision implies a sparker (zinc, mental speed) as well. That would be a potent combo, but so would just a steel Compounder.

The ease with which the entire party was taken out initially made this feel like a Compounder to me, but on second thought, no. If he had infinite speed, he wouldn't need to turn anyone against each other, or be let into the saferoom. He'd just crank his speed as high as it would go and kill everyone at his leisure.

Though steel only stores physical speed; mental speed is zinc. Maybe the Set used hemalurgy to combine steel and zinc Feruchemy? But mistings are more common than ferrings, so if you have someone with Feruchemy, giving them Compounding feels like the natural first step. Especially the speed metals, which don't really have an upper limit like some of the other ones do.

Discar, fun thought. Couldn't you use Hemalurgy to create a double compounder? Steel and Zinc Compounding combined would be a Game-Breaker

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I think if you do that Old Ironeyes personally descends to slap your shit down and maintain copyright.

Most Compounders are broken as fuck. I wonder, did Ironeyes get all Allomantic and Feruchemical powers? Because that'd make him like, the strongest non-Shard being in the Cosmere. The Lord Ruler fighting in earnest could've stomped basically every other character we've seen.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Although, if you use Feruchemy to increase your speed, does that also give you added resistance to things like friction? Or is there an upper limit on how fast even a Steel Compounder can run before they start setting their feet on fire?

Considering that increasing your weight with iron gives you resistance to the harmful effects, and same with pewter, I'd say Required Secondary Powers are provided.

edited 19th Sep '15 9:11:07 AM by Ninety

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

There are some limits, though. Tapping pewter for strength increases your muscle mass, and Word of God confirmed that if you tap it too much you'll have so many thick muscles you won't be able to move. So you can be scary strong, but you can't throw buildings around. Compounding tin is practically useless, since if you tap any sense too much you'll get overload (and you can't use it to gain abilities you don't already have, like seeing in complete darkness). Really, the biggest benefit of tin/tin isn't compounding, but just the ability to burn tin, then use tin metalminds to store all the enhanced senses you don't need, helping to reduce the vulnerabilities to bright flashes and loud noises. And so on. But yes, the Lord Ruler was a beast regardless. And Marsh is the same, if less skilled.

The biggest limit with hemalurgy right now in the story is that ferrings are rare, like I said earlier. The Terris don't marry outside their own people much. But if they're too insular, then it's possible that the Set has been kidnapping ferrings and no one noticed.

The Lord Ruler was a beast, yes, but I think off Scadrial he'd run into some things that could have beat him.

Like, I am reasonable sure not even he would be able to shrug off a Shardblade cut, especially if it hits the sweet spots of heart or spine. A full Shardbearer could also probably take enough punishment of him if fought smartly to hit him. Especially since I am reasonably sure neither counts as metal.

Though. Maybe not. Maybe thats why Hoid (who we know has Feruchemy and quite likely Allomancy and thus would be able to Compound just like the Lord Ruler) is so...dismissive of Jasnah's Shardblade

edited 19th Sep '15 9:56:19 AM by 3of4

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Invested objects in general are very difficult to push or pull. It's the same reason anything piercing the flesh is largely immune to allomancy. So yes, that major advantage would be gone, but he would still hardly be helpless. Gold compounding might be able to heal a Shardblade hit, though we don't know enough about the precise nature of how it works to be sure. We know Shardblades do cognitive damage, we don't know if gold heals that. I'm guessing not, since the point is that it's stacking ordinary healing, and people can't ordinarily heal from a Shardblade.

Hoid (in addition to being a full Mistborn with feruchemy) also has enough Breaths to reach at least the Second Heightening and Yolen-style Lightweaving. Even if we assume those are the only abilities he has (which we honestly shouldn't), those abilities probably interact with each other in weird and powerful ways we are unaware of. For example, if he uses nicrosil to compound Investiture, does that give him unlimited Breath? At ten thousand Breaths, can he survive a Shardblade without permanent damage? Or is it something completely unrelated? Hell, it could be as simple as using his compounded steel to dodge the blade until Jasnah gives up.

We know that shardblade cuts can be healed — Kaladin does it by throwing stormlight at it until the problem goes away, for one. The exact mechanic of how that works isn't entirely clear, but it's possible that it's an Investiture thing and the Lord Ruler would be able to fix a shardblade wound by, say, draining a hemalurgic spike or something.

Of course, even without that, I think that the Lord Ruler would be a stronger opponent than your average surgebinder. While he likely wouldn't be able to heal from shardblade wounds via standard gold compounding, he'd still be ridiculously fast and strong, and have access to standard allomantic powers like steelpushing. He probably couldn't push or pull shardblades or shardplate directly, but he could use it to shoot things at opponents and fly around like mistborn do.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

...Lord Ruler vs All Words Bondsmith ? (I assume bonding a Godspren gives some fun extra boost to powers)

I'll bring the Popcorn.

edited 19th Sep '15 11:24:22 AM by 3of4

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Fighting in earnest, Lord Ruler just stomps any Surgebinder we've seen. If nothing else, Compounded speed and some strength are enough to speedblitz any Radiant and kill them before they can react.

About Hoid, maybe he can Compound Investiture and translate it as Stormlight to heal any non-lethal Shardblade cut? Then again, WOG says that if you cut off Hoid's head a new one would spring up in its place so who knows.

And I really wanna know what it is that Bondsmiths do. It isn't 100% confirmed, but I believe it's been pretty heavily implied that each Order can do something no other can, even if they share Surges. Perhaps for the Lightweavers it's the mnemonic thing? Although one has to wonder why they're named after their ability to make illusions if there's one other Order that can do it as well.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Lord Ruler:"I have the power of all the metals at my disposal! What do you have!?"

Dalinar:".....Summon Highstorm."

Stormfather:"......Fiiiiine." *THUNDER*"

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Hoid's so old that he's probably picked up like, every ability from everywhere. Being immortal (not affected by aging, that is) in the Cosmere basically just lets you accrue badass points – same with worldhopping.

edited 19th Sep '15 3:14:14 PM by majoraoftime

Hmm, yeah. Tellingly the place with the easiest access to immortality so far seems to have the lowest power cap.

edited 19th Sep '15 4:17:53 PM by 32ndfreeze

Warbreaker world, whatever it's called (Nalthis?)? Fifth Heightening is immortality, right? To think of all the trouble the Lord Ruler went through for his.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.

Might be they're named for the conjunction or commonality of their two powers. Elsecallers have a pair that both deal with the Cognitive Realm, meaning they call on forces from elsewhere. Skybreakers have Gravitation and Division, letting them fall into the sky and presumably break things.

Well, its not true immortality. If you run out of Breath....Not to mention the...questionable morality at the end.

Which might just be why Vasher moved to Roshar

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It seems to just be what they were most known for. Lightweavers share soulcasting with Elsecallers and lightweaving with Truthwatchers, while Elsecallers share elsecalling with Willshapers. But they were the ones best known for their particular abilities.

It also seems to me that each Order gets a passive ability in addition to the two Surges, which helps cover a few apparent inconsistencies. Windrunners get windsense (which helps both with flight and combat), Lightweavers get literally Photographic Memory (which helps with both soulcasting and lightweaving, in addition to mundane uses), Truthwatchers presumably get some sort of future-sight (with their lightweaving being a way to show others what they've seen), and I suspect Elsecallers get some sort of directional sense, judging by Hoid noting in the epilogue of Words that Jasnah pointed straight to the nearest town with zero trouble. This would obviously help with elsecalling, and help explain why they're best known for it.

Word of God didn't state that outright, but just said that he could get something easier on Roshar.

Didn't Brando later just straight up say, "Yeah, Stormlight is easier to do than Breath". I seem to remember him explaining the logistics a bit (stockpiling Stormlight for Weepings, etc).

Brando? What's half a VGM rap duo have to do with anything?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.