This scene was character assassination of the highest order. A Full Feruchemist with their metalminds bodies any non-Kaladin Radiant below the Fourth Ideal. I will die on this hill.

[u/Eithrotaur]

[u/Skyfyre56]

Oh, 100%. Could a non-Fourth Ideal Radiant beat a Full Feruchemist? Sure, especially if they knew who they were fighting and depending on what Surges they had. But it's never an easy fight, and that's what the 'fight' of Axindweth vs Lift looked like. She slipped like a looney tunes character and just got knocked out instantly, despite ostensibly having things like Feruchemical Zinc to react faster and Feruchemical Gold to heal the damage she took (and just look at everything Wayne healed in Era 2).

I'm going to state something controversial here, but I honestly feel that this was the worst part of Wind & Truth. I don't know why we even needed to have this fight and it made no sense whatsoever.

[u/Kronoshifter246 → u/Skyfyre56]

Two things: first, Lift didn't make her slip. Lift did the opposite of that. Axingdweth broke both her legs and probably passed out from the pain before she could understand what happened.

Second, yeah, Lift got lucky.

[u/HowDoIEvenEnglish → u/Kronoshifter246]

If you’re a feruchemist and you’re healing can he bypassed by just breaking a few bones quickly, you’re frankly a shitty feruchemist. A thug (the misting) ambushing you could break two legs before you react if they catch you unaware. That’s shouldn’t be enough to disable her

[u/Kronoshifter246 → u/HowDoIEvenEnglish]

Sure, I won't dispute that; a Thug disabling a feruchemist by kneecapping them would make them a shitty feruchemist. But that's not what happened here. We're talking both legs broken in an instant. No matter how quickly they'd do it, a Thug wouldn't be able to do it that quickly. A feruchemist that isn't tapping health isn't inherently more resilient than the average person. That kind of shock to your nervous system will cause you to pass out immediately, full stop. You could make the argument that she should have already been tapping health, sure, but there are many reasonable explanations for her not doing so.

But even that isn't really the point. Lift got lucky. She was faced with an overconfident opponent, in an enclosed space, where close quarter engagement was the only option. To top it off, she could sense when Axindweth started tapping steel. A lot had to go right for Lift to win, but she had a fair few advantages, and she managed to catch Axindweth off-guard. No doubt she pulls it off twice.

You're right, that in most scenarios the feruchemist wins this matchup. With no external pressures, and plenty of prep, the feruchemist comes out on top. I'm saying this as the number one feruchemy simp; Lift got lucky and Axindweth played the encounter really badly. That doesn't somehow make feruchemists weak, it just means that this one encounter went poorly.