Wheel v. Mist

[firstRainbowRose]

So I have not read the wheel of time series. Is it good? Right now I am finishing up the Drizzt series while waiting on mb3, but the WOT series seems like it may be interesting, I may have to give it a shot.

It's really long, and you have to make sure that you pay attention to what's going on, or else you get lost on some stuff, but I thought it was worth the read... although, it did get kind of hard to get into at around book 7-9.  If you're looking for something that's really detailed and will take a while (but is so worth the effort you put into reading it) then it's great.  If you want something that you can just polish off quickly and be done with, then it's not for you.

[Vintage]

Well, I would have love to be an Elantrian... nice balance between Aes Sedai and Mistborn...

[SarahG]

I think Elantrian magic is a lot closer to Aes Sedai than to Mistborn, in that it doesn't require materials, simply skill.  Also, Elantrians look different, as do Aes Sedai (female, anyway).  There's nothing physical to indicate whether someone is Mistborn.

[bhthomas]

I would like to be an Inquisitor.Even a weak Inquisitor is stronger then some of the other mistborns. You wouldn't be able to be really sneaky because everyone would recognize you but no one would every try to pick a fight with you.

[Czanos]

Hello all, this is a first time post, but I decided to throw in my two cents this time instead of just lurking around the boards. (Like I have for the past week or two.) Have to say it's a wonderful community, with plenty of knowledge to go around. Anyways, a few points. . .

Gotta be a channeler. It would be cool to be a mistborn, but you can only do so much with allomancy. You can do ANYTHING with the one power if you can find the right weave. Besides, it'd be easy for a channeler to kick a mistborn's trash. Just hold him still with air and balefire the heck out of him/her.

It might not quite be that easy for a channeler to fight a Mistborn though, especially if said Mistborn was either really rich, or had abilities such as feruchemy and hemalurgy to supplement their allomancy.

For example, if the Mistborn had a large enough cache of atium and other metals at their disposal, then I'd have to give them the edge in any fight. Being able to see what your opponent is going to do before they do it is something no Aes Sedai or Asha'man could counter, and you could probably tell at least if the channeler was going to balefire you via some combination of gold, electrum, and atium.  (Though that makes me wonder if gold, electrum, and malatium shadows throw off an atium shadow if you burn both. Hmm.)

Or supposing the Mistborn had feruchemy and hemalurgy to increase their abilities, (like the Lord Ruler,) then they could burn a whopping load of speed and wakefulness, in addition to atium, to create a body that is fast enough to take out the opposing channeler before they have a chance to react. Or supposing they were really powerful, they could just use a huge steelpush to separate each individual molecule in an opposing force, by pushing on the iron in their blood and tissues. (Messy way to go though. Ick.)

I guess in the end it mostly comes down to surprise. Either the channeler is going to get a net of air around the Mistborn, or the Mistborn (if they're competent or lucky enough) is going to get to the channeler before they can react.

But back to the topic at hand, I would probably go with a Mistborn. While it's true Aes Sedai and Asha'man can do a much larger range of things, and would probably be a more versatile and worthwhile choice, Mistborn just strike me as more, well, striking. And Mistborn can do several things channelers can't, such as burn temporal metals and "fly."

Well, I think that's all I've got for now, but hopefully I'll think of some good content to add to the other discussions as well.

[darxbane]

Without necessarily saying which one is better, Atium would not help a Mistborn against a channeler, because the flows can't be seen by a non-channeler, so the Mistborn would not be able to predice where the flows of air will grab them.  The Mistborn's advantage would be in stealth and surprise. 

[AvalonDreamer]

That, and what good would atium do against a channeler like Rand? So what, you can see seconds into the future? He can pull a mountain down on you... Granted that mistborn could deff take a hit better though, as channelers can't heal themselves and don't have the advantage of Pewter.

[Czanos]

That's what the use of electrum and such would be for. If the metal works in a similar way to atium, you could just watch to see where the flows of air caught you before they actually were flown. I suppose the way I wrote that came off as if the Mistborn would use atium and the other temporal metals to see what the channeler is going to do directly, but the best strategy would be to use it's added mental capacities to see what would happen to you, and use that information to prevent it. Kind of like what Vin does with Zane I guess.

I have to concede the point that in a one-on-one fight, with both parties knowing about the other, a channeler would have the edge in a fight, or pretty much anything. But I think a Mistborn's unique abilities could allow him/her to catch many a channeler unaware. With atium speeding up mental processes and rendering physical combat useless, duralumin and steel or iron to move around, electrum to gain at least marginal warning of any attacks against you, with the other metals throwing in their quirks, a Mistborn who was trying to say, assassinate an important channeler could stand a viable chance of it.

[bhthomas]

What about Brass and Zinc.A mistborn or inquisitor skilled in soothing or rioting could just blast them with it making them either really submissive or so angry they wouldn't be able to think strait. A channeler has to have there wits about them if they are going to win and if they cant think strait they are easy prey.

[AvalonDreamer]

Well, emotional allomancy is only influencing emotions, not controlling them, and thats only as long as the affected doesn't know about it. The sensitivity of a channeler when wielding the Power would make them aware of something affecting them, and they'd fairly quickly start taking measures against.

I do agree that while they are very superior in a head to head battle, a Mistborn could whoop up on a channeler assuming that they could sneak up on them. Mistborn are creatures of stealth and shadow, channelers are blatant and powerful.

[Faster Master St. Pastor]

Has balefire entered this equation yet?  I mean yeah, channelers can't afford to go around blasting things with balefire, but mistborn can't exactly afford to go around burning atium either.  The long and short of it is balefire would eliminate several of the advantages the mistborn have, which aren't really stacking up in the first place.

[VegasDev]

A mistborn would just pull Matt's foxhead medallion and be immune to most attacks. Game over man.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Hmm, considering balefire's unique properties, how would a balefire blast look to an atium user?

[AvalonDreamer]

A Mistborn with Matt's amulet would only have direct immunity to channeling, we know that dropping something like a large rock, or a flaming building, on them would still be fairly lethal. As for what would happen, it would be awesome...

[Pygmalion]

Hmm, considering balefire's unique properties, how would a balefire blast look to an atium user?

Ooooh.... good question. One would assume they could see it coming.

That being said, I would MUCH rather be a Mistborn. Granted, if I was an Aes Sedai, I could heal people, and that would be awesome. But Allomancy is a cooler magic system, IMO. To me, it has more style and... finesse than channeling.