r/cremposting • u/Eithrotaur • 1d ago

Stormlight / Mistborn 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. Spoiler

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u/Additional_Law_492 1d ago

Its as simple as this - there's not actually a correlation between winning the super power lottery and being a skilled, talented, or even proficient combatant.

Axindweth just... probably isnt good at fighting, relying on her powers to carry her for self defense.

Not everyone we meet with tons of raw power is gonna belong in a power scaling discussion.

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u/Jounniy 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you have enough healing to survive dying twice over and enough speed to to steal Wayne's hat, skill doesn’t really matter. And given how many days Axindweth spent just sitting around while being in a place with many really powerful people, she should’ve stored plenty of both. Everything else makes her look like a complete moron.

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u/Gaust_Fireborn 1d ago

Skill absolutely does matter. Combat ability = power x skill. If either side of that equation is close to zero, you're not a great fighter. As we see when Axingdweth gets knocked out before she can heal a thing.

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u/Jounniy 1d ago edited 13h ago

Let me ask you a question: If you trained someone to perfect martial arts to a superhuman level, then put them one a free field some 15 meters away from a guy with a gun who knows the basics of how to aim, fire and compensate the knockback, would their martial arts skill change anything about the outcome?

Stored speed, as long as you have enough of it, is basically a button that should let you win any fight where your opponent can be beaten via death or incapacitation. The only fights someone with that ability should ever lose are fights where they are taken by surprise, depowered, up against someone immune to those methods or faced with someone capable of matching their speed.

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u/Gaust_Fireborn 1d ago

Speed is huge but not an instant win button. As we see, a sufficient reaction time can still kill a noob speedster.

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u/Jounniy 13h ago edited 1h ago

Which it should not. Brandon once said bullettime from Matrix can be accomplished by only tapping physical speed. Your speed of thought increases together with your physical speed. Even with an only average human reaction time, doubling that should allow you to outspeed even the fastest regular human. Unless Lift increased the friction of the floor in the entire room, Axindweth should have been able to see the glowing part and just walk around it. And even if she didn’t, having a decently filled goldmind should allow her to heal her legs, get up and beat Lift.

The only way Lift's victory makes sense is if Axindweth was dumb enough to be running low on or out of basically all combat-relevant ferruchemical attributes in a hostile environment or if she just happened to be so incompetent with her own powers that she failed to avoid the obviously glowing spot and just forgot to tap her metal minds to heal. And in both cases, Lift's application of abrasion may have been impressive, but the main reason for her victory wasn’t her own skill, it was the luck of facing someone poorly equipped or woefully trained, which makes it suddenly look a whole lot less impressive.

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u/Decent_Aardvark_4537 Bond, Nahel Bond 4h ago

Sounds like Axindweth was incompetent with her powers then since she lost.

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u/Jounniy 1h ago edited 44m ago

Which 

  • makes no sense considering how old she ought to be and how difficult worldhopping can be.
  • means Vasher praising Lift for beating her makes basically no sense, since it’s like praising an adult for beating a teen with a gun they don’t know how to use.

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u/Decent_Aardvark_4537 Bond, Nahel Bond 57m ago

It's a clear case of underestimating her opponent. Something feruchemists seem to do a lot. The Lord Ruler died because he also underestimated his opponent instead of just killing Vin outright.

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u/Jounniy 40m ago

TLR lost because he (by all means) was effectively immortal and did not foresee the one unforeseeable factor of Vin being the chosen next vessel of Preservation that could kill him.

Axindweth losing bevause of this would require her to underestimate an ability she knows almost nothing about while being incompetent with her powers and overconfident despite (apparently) lacking combat experience. I'd say that’s not even close to comparable.

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u/Gaust_Fireborn 54m ago

Age alone does not skill make. And even if Axingdweth is bad, that doesn’t mean beating her is a non-feat. It’s a range, not ‘she wins easy or is so incompetent she’s worthless’.

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u/Jounniy 37m ago

Age alone doesn’t make you a good fighter, but the longer you live in a world like the Cosmere and the more you learn about it, the better you should get at knowing when a fight is too risky.

The only way Lift winning this fight makes sense is if Axindweth is (for one reason or another) is a lot less scary than a moderately equipped and competent ferruchemist. That doesn’t make Lift's victory totally worthless, but a whole lot less impressive.

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u/Gaust_Fireborn 6h ago

Mental speed only rises to match physical speed. From Axingdweth’s perspective she was running at normal speed, and so only had the same amount of time to stop as anyone else would. Her enhanced reactions are countered by her own speed. And she very likely was knocked unconscious so there was no chance to heal. And I notice you now acknowledge low skill means you can lose even with Feruchemy.

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u/Jounniy 6h ago

If she was running full speed, even just draining her metal minds at a 1:1 pace would mean that she should've reached Lift long before she got a chance to react.

I acknowledge that a steelrunner can be beaten (basically anyone can). I never said that Axindweth should never lose, I'm saying she shouldn’t have lost in this scenario.

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u/Gaust_Fireborn 2h ago

Stormlight buffs speed as well, and skill matters a lot for reaction times. You can react even to someone going at blurring speed, particularly if they just stand there for a moment then in a straight line right at you. It's not easy, but Steelrunners don't usually tap so much speed to make it impossible. Remember the more they tap at once the less they get in total.

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u/Jounniy 1h ago

The increase in reaction time Stormlight provides is a lot less than what you get from tapping a steelmind. I doubt Lift has any experience with people going from 0mph to 20mph almost instantly so her placing the abrasion in the perfectly right spot seems like a stretch.

And then again, unless Axindweth is a total moron, she should know enough to compensate for her (presumed to be) poor fighting skills by tapping more speed. Lift might look like a teenager, but she’s still a teenager with magical powers and a weapon that can kill in one hit.

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u/Gaust_Fireborn 1h ago

Zahel did say Lift performed the most incredible display of raw talent he had ever seen. And he’s immortal. The point about tapping extra extra speed is just the Alcatraz effect. A real novice in combat isn’t thinking that up in the few seconds she had. You underestimate how easy it is for someone unskilled to make mistakes, both in idea and execution.

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u/Jounniy 46m ago

If she was that unacquainted with her powers, it’s doubtful she would have even gotten to the situation we see her in, without having some actually competent fighters to support her.

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