Wheel v. Mist

[spejoku]

Personally I think the terrain would factor in a lot more.  If the fight were in an open, flat field, then the channeler would probably be able to nuke the mistborn before they came within 100 feet (I think of it as Mistborn=ninja, and channeler=mage)

But if it were in a small space, then most likely the mistborn would be able to kill the channeler before they could weave anything, using coins and such.  Also, a city fight would figure a lot into the mistborn's favor, as there would be tons of pushing and pulling anchors to use, probably enough for the mistborn to stay consistently out of the channeler's sight and crosshairs.  you can't channel at what you can't see.

of course, there are things like if the channeler has wards or has time to make big fancy traps, but I think that a good pull on a peasant's coin pouch behind the guy (or just a nail for that matter) would be enough to kill most channelers, especially if you have them distracted.

This is assuming that no one fights an allomancer long enough to figure out some freaky weave to shield them.  they'd have to block the energy within the allomancer's body, rather than try to break them off from the source. (obviously, if they haven't fought them before, they'd assume that they fought using the source, and try to shield them while the mistborn stabs them in the face.)  that'd take way too long to figure out, even for the main, prodigy characters.

Besides, if the fight was in the mistborn world, then the channelers can't even use their magic because the Power is not there to use. 

[sporkify]

Besides, if the fight was in the mistborn world, then the channelers can't even use their magic because the Power is not there to use. 

In real life, neither would be able to use their powers.  So there.

May I point out that you seem to be viewing this through a bias if you view it only like that?

[spejoku]

Oh heck yes 

[Archon]

So what happens if the Allomancer gets a hold of Mat's necklace?

[Reaves]

I never really understood what Mat's necklace would actually do. The heat from a raging ball of fire would still instantly cook him even if it vanished as soon as it touched his skin. Or the channeler could just pick up a knife with the power and throw it at him...

[Archon]

The way I understand it, anything that is of the power is unable to affect the person wearing the necklace. So, in the case of the fireball, since the heat was made by the power, it couldn't hurt Mat. They could toss a knife and it would still kill the person, but if the person were a Mistborn, they could just Push the knife aside, or dodge it. Same thing goes for the shield of Air. The flows of Air would melt away if the person with the necklace passes through them.

[sporkify]

Any weave that touches him would melt.  However, he can still be affected/killed by the power.  Recall, Rand's assault on Rahvin-Mat got cooked by lightning.  (Which was an area targeting weave, as opposed to a person targeting weave)  So weaves that target him can't touch him, while weaves that target his area still get him.

[Archon]

Actually, I think Mat's amulet specifically shields against saidar, not saidin, which would be why he was affected by Rahvin's lightning. However, Cadsuane has a charm that shields against saidin, if I remember correctly.

Mod: Then again, you might be right. I just looked it up and Halima tried to channel at him too, and it didn't work. Either way though, if the channeler can't hold the Mistborn in one place, and can't channel directly at him, the channeler is going to have a rough time of it.

[Czanos]

The more I consider this debate, the more I realize that very little would be necessary to sway the fight one way or another.

If it's a freshly-Snapped Mistborn versus a Channeler who just discovered their powers? I'd go with the Mistborn, for sure.

The average Mistborn up against the average Channeler? Take a look at the terrain. (And miscellaneous other questions, such as how much a weave of air weighs and how well it holds up to a point-blank Steelpush. And do weaves give off Bronze pulses? And would a duralumin/nicrosil Riot/Soothe be enough to disturb any given Channeler?)

Rand or one of the Forsaken fighting Elend or one of the other Nine? I'd go with the Channelers here, as there are a lot of weaves to stop even a powerful Mistborn.

A good Forsaken or Shaidar Haran battling an original Allomancer savant?  I'd say the savant, if just because an unaided Steelpush of this magnitude is great enough to crush someone flat by the metals in their own bodies. If someone duralumin-ed the metals in someone else's body, I think they'd go pop.

Shaidar Haran or a really good Forsaken challenging The Lord Ruler? (In all his Allomancy/Feruchemy/Hemalurgy glory of course.) This I think is a game of "Who sees whom first?"

And, just for kicks and giggles, A linked Rand and Nynaeve using the Choedan Kal dueling God-Sazed in an epic battle of things gone too far? It doesn't matter who wins, everyone else is dead.

Aside from that, it's basically just terrain, and crazy odd combos of the two magic systems nobody but Brandon could know about. (Could a Tin savant sense weaves based upon the minute changes a weave would make in the matter around it? Do weaves give off Bronze pulses? Would Copper prevent a Channeler from warping the fabric of creation around a Mistborn?)

[Datakim]

Interesting discussion, I figured I would throw a comment here.

Based on what channeling could do, I would say that a (smart) channeler could easily beat any mistborn. There are so many things a good channeler who truly used his/her skills to their full potential could do that could be used to utterly crush a mistborn.

I will say however that I think from a literary viewpoint, allomancy is better than channeling simply because its more limited and so you dont have to make your characters look like idiots to keep the challenge up.

For example, consider the shield Rand creates in one of the books. It is explicitly said that its utterly indestructible with the only weakness being that its so solid that not even air can pass through. A shield like this would pretty much allow a single channeler to wipe out an army. Just create a coccoon like Rand did, then create a tiny gateway inside the cocoon through which air can flow and presto, you can kill everyone around you with no chance of being hurt.  Heck, even just creating the shield, using the air inside and then turning it off for a split second (to allow new air in) before creating it anew would make a channeler extremely difficult to defeat with only a tiny window where they could be hurt.  Ofcourse this would mean that Rand&Co would never really have to fear anyone again so the possibility is ignored and the shield itself is conveniently forgotten.

Or what about opening a gateway to space near the enemy and sucking him in. Or flooding an army by opening a gateway under the ocean and letting the water literally wash them away. Also whats the point of all those cool fireballs and such when we have seen that a channeler can just slice someones head off with a single sharp weave of air. And we have seen that you can literally grasp the one power and weave such a thing in a tiny fraction of a second. In one the books some guy surprises Rand by throwing a knife at him with no warning from a short range, only to have Rand capture the knife in such a weave practically as a reflex. There is no written reason given why a channeler could not use that to literally slice the Mistborn into pieces the instant the channeler saw the mistborn. Infact the same technique could be used on anyone other than opposing channelers and yet we see it only once in WoT (and conveniently never again).

Given the way the channeling system is built up, all these and so many other techniques would be possible and would pretty much make the channelers godlike in comparison to normal people (or allomancers for that matter). And yet having godlike main characters would be boring so RJ deliberately gimped his characters to keep things exciting, the downside of this being that Rand, Forsaken and generally all the channelers end up looking like blind morons who cannot seem to grasp how easily they could devastate their enemies if they simply used channeling in clever ways.

While I am a great fan of WoT, I will say that this is actually one of the things that bugs me the most. There are so many times in the books when I wish I could yell at someone for doing something stupid, when a proper and smart use of the power would easily solve everything.

[VegasDev]

I'm really trying to stay out of this discussion because I have tons of work and don't want to get drawn into a no-win argument.

This is what I gather from the discussion. A channeler can lift up a mountain and bring it down on the Mistborns head, yet for some reason they never do it in the books. Heck, the only thing I see with regular constistency in these books are these infinitely powerfull beings being taken down time and again by regular folk. There's a reason they run around with Warders and it's not for the physical contact when they have pillow-friends at home.

Sure, a Mistborn will lose if you assume that they are standing out in the open facing the most powerfull channeler of all time. But that's taking both characters out of their normal roles. The Mistborn isn't going to expose himself/herself. He will kill you from a distance with a penny through your skull, and see where the blood will splatter minutes before it happens. The channeler meanwhile will drink some tea and fall asleep.

Anyway, back to the original discussion. I prefer the Mistborn because their magic system has limits that they are constantly pushing it, whereas the channeler who evidently has all this power at their disposal, does nothing with it.

[darxbane]

Interesting comments, Vegas.  WoT's channelers are quite vulnerable when they don't hold the power.  There is really nothing special about them at all without it.  In fact, this was discussed in another thread some months ago, and I believed a Soother could simply dampen the concern for the pain felt when channeling too much power, causing them to burn out or even kill themselves.  A rioter could do something similar.  There would certainly need to be some adaptation to Mistborn abilities in order for Aes Sedai to protect themselves from super assassins.  Being killed by your own coat buttons would be quite embarrassing.

[melbatoast]

A channeler can lift up a mountain and bring it down on the Mistborns head, yet for some reason they never do it in the books.

I'm pretty sure that no channeler is strong enough to pick up a mountain with the power...there are limits.

[maxonennis]

A channeler can lift up a mountain and bring it down on the Mistborns head, yet for some reason they never do it in the books.

I'm pretty sure that no channeler is strong enough to pick up a mountain with the power...there are limits.

Rand could/did, but it would kill him...again.

[CharlesMahan]

I've seen mostly a focus on third age channelers.  Let's back it up to second age channelers for a moment to add some perspective.

Accomplishments from the Age of Legends for your consideration:

• A utility grid consisting of standing flows of the One Power which specially created devices could tap much the way modern electronics plug into the electrical grids during our age.
• Devices which made use of the standing flows of the One power to do all sorts of things including change the weather, create fabric etc.  Some of these devices did not even need the power grid as they had their own inate ability to do whatever it is they do
• Some form of flying transport which could be used by non-channelers.
• Weapons which used the power to allow non-channelers to function much like modern soldiers, complete with flying attack vehicles, and rifle like weapons.
• Interstellar travel
• An understanding of the multiverse, and quite probably an undersanding of string theory
• The ability to instantly travel from one location to another on the planet, and quite probably anywhere
• Medical care which was considerably more advanced than our own
• Genetic engineering
• The ability to create a substance which was quite literally unbreakable by any and all means native to our dimension
• The ability to literally affect continental drift on an alarming and rapid scale.
• The ability to raze a mountain range and create new ones
• The ability to drill down through the crust of the earth and reach the magma beneath
• The ability to travel to other unniverses and return with species which are not native to our own.
• The ability, with the right Sa'angreal, for two channelers to destroy the world.
• The ability to drill through to the Dark One's prison(probably a pocket universe of some variety or other outside the usual realm of the multiverse)

All of these things were possible in the age of legends, although some of them required channelers to link or make use of angreal and sa'angreal which allowed channelers to wield more of the one power than they could otherwise.  With the right Sa'angreal a powerful male channeler probably could pick up a mountain, but almost certainly wouldn't bother as a mountain is hardly the right weapon for the task at hand.

The list goes on and on.  It's not that Saidar and Saidin are "better" than Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemalurgy.  They are just on a different scale.  Perhaps given a couple of thousand years of time to advance the sciences of Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemalurgy, some of the accomplishments mentioned above could be replicated, but it is unlikely that this magic system could ever equal the flexibility of channeling.

Now as for someone writing a fanfic to explore the idea.  Good luck.  Getting it right would be very tricky, but as for how Channelers could encounter Allomancers, setting it in the Age of Legends during one of the offworld expeditions a small group of channelers could stumble upon the Final Empire.  A smaller number of channelers means that despite their advanced knowledge, skill and power, they'd still have to tread carefully in a strange world with odd people with the ability to do confusing weird things.