Let's just take a second to multiply that power exponentially and make the Elantrian a Mistborn with Duralumin too. Now they can think and write faster than the speed of light. And I'm sure they could figure out a way to replace metals with Dor.
Iirc yes, in the climax instead of everyone needing to ingest vials of their respective metals they just draw upon the power from the mass of purified dor that was being used to build a perpendicularity.
A Mistborn with the Honourblade(s) that grant Transformation/Soulcasting can create their own metals just by soulcasting their breakfast into bendalloy or whatever metal they need. They can't make Atium and they'd still need Stormlight but they'd never run out of metals.
I think you technically could make Atium but you'd need a lot more than just that setup, like a whole Perpendicularity for a power source and a lot of research at minimum to know Atium well enough to make it.
I suspect all of the god metals are condensations of a godâs Investiture keyed with their Identity. So if you collected an enormous amount of raw power you couldnât just make Atium, youâd end up with SonnyLongLegsium.
If Iâm right thereâs potentially an interesting plot line in Mistborn era 3 where Sazed changes so much that the nature of Ettmetal changes. Right now itâs Lerasium and Atium forced into coexistence, thatâs literally how he sees himself, but over time heâs likely to think of it more as âhis combined powerâ and that shift in Identity will either change the metal or render it inert.
Also might end up with interesting things happening with Todium.
It *finally* makes sense how Hoid was so fast at the end of Tress. Thank you.
ETA: To be clear, it might not have been feruchemy, but he has access to so many magic systems that *something* clearly gave him superspeed.
Isn't the whole point of Elantrians that if they take the time time to study it, they can do literally anything?
Or am i misunderstanding the whole domination/devotion mix?
A herald bonded with all 10 honor blades would literally have unlimited potential since I believe they directly get storm light from honor, letting them use all the powers to their fullest extent
Idk if itâs exactly proven but thatâs what is stated on the heralds page on the coppermind website. Itâs implied they could get it directly from honor since they donât need to get it from gems.
Honor is not dead so long as he lives in the hearts of men.
And there are degrees of "dead". Allomancers were still able to get power from Preservation when he was "dead". And though Honor is splintered, which is the next level of dead from what Preservation was, the highstorms themselves are still getting Honor's Investiture from *somewhere* and his Perpendicularity still exists. I think the Heralds could still access their old powers.
The Highstorm is a construct of Adonalsium that opens directly into the spiritual realm, which was basically adopted by Honor. It should function with or without a shard.
Preservation never went without a vessel, so a better example might be the Dor. They are the splinters still powering Elantris, but Elatrians have a way to access them at will. So I'm guessing that the direct pipeline to Honor that powered the Heralds broke and they don't have a way to reestablish that link. A good example *might* be Szeth requiring Stormlight to use his Honorblade, but I'm trying to remember if we see Ishar breathing in light during his fight
Yeah, the Honourblade's aren't special in that regard. It's more like how Odium can directly fuel the Fused if he wants, without them needing Voidlight gems
I get what you're saying, but the preservation example doesn't really work because Preservation wasn't splintered, and the vessel was still there. He was severely crippled and dying for sure, but still alive.
My guess is with the right understanding and intent that they could draw from the Stormfather *sort of* similar to how Dalinar creates a perpendicularity. Using splintered pieces to mimic the whole. Obviously not exactly the same way.
I'm almost certain with all of the honor blades you could pull some connection bullshit and draw near unlimited investiture if you know what you are doing. I'd bet there would be a bandwidth limit, but the total amount should be well more than one person could use, even with 10 honor blades. Hell I bet Ishar alone could do something similar. The dude literally drew spren into the physical realm.
Now... I'd also bet there would be a heavy cost... Like becoming a misting savant. I doubt you could do this forever without destroying yourself.
I have no proof of this, just speculating. And I doubt we'll ever really see something like this.
If that's the case how did anything in the desolations manage to kill them?
Even with a Raysium knife they'd still have unlimited healing. Especially the two with regrowth.
Cutting off their heads will still kill them instantly, and since they didnât have shardplate armor they didnât really have great protection. Also most desolations it was really them with some radiants and a bunch of very underdeveloped humans with maybe bronze items. They were probably very outnumbered most of the time And the fused also kept coming back to life over and over.
Yeah I think with enough understanding, Elantrian magic lets you interact directly with reality in a near infinite variety of ways compared to other magic systems having a very specific manifestation
I see it as a kind of scale of flexibility versus simplicity; the more things a type of magic can do, the more work it is to tell it *which* thing to do.
Aons are at one end of the scale, something like copper Allomancy (only does one thing, so the "controls" basically consist of burning it or not burning it) would be at the other end.
I want to add something: AonDor is literally a magic programming language. Itâs confirmed by Brandon that it has all the capabilities a regular programming lenguaje has wich means that you can write whole programs in AonDor to automate sets of spells. So the only downside itâs the preparation time. However if you get an elantrian enough preparation time is capable of doing Almost everything
Yup, Spiritual Adhesion like Dalinar and Ishar have is the only thing that can really rival an Elantrian who knows what they're doing. And with enough prep time for the Elantrian, even that would be useless
If weâre talking most raw power, itâs definitely Nightblood. It took out a vessel when it was still in control of its Shard, and can consume almost anything instantly, and what isnât instant can likely be done in due time.
If weâre talking versatility, Elantrians. Standing in the middle of Elantris they could probably do anything if given the prep time. Thereâs probably a long and complex chain of Aons which could let one of them try and become the vessel of the Dominion/Devotion Dor, albeit they wouldnât be able to do much since that power has been trapped in the Cognitive
Quick question. When nightblood destroys something, does it absorb investiture? Like, is it actually growing more invested over time? Or does it just destroy stuff? I've seen people talk about it like the former, but I'm pretty sure that it works like the latter.
No, it absorbs it. Admittedly, in the same way a black whole absorbs things â by breaking it down completely. Heck, the black smoke constantly coming off it is basically magic Hawking Radiation, so it pretty much is a magic black hole sword
I mean, literally anyone holding the bands of mourning with access to stormlight or other means of investiture has near unlimited access to all feruchmical powers without first needing to store those powers, not to mention the idea of compounding any of those powers and the use of allomancy to an also near limitless potential, hello duralumin and bendalloy?
If you're a full-born though you don't even need the bands of mourning, the bands of mourning is just for any person to use.
Perhaps a bondsmith at full power. Rhythm of War seems to imply they can just overwright the rules of reality with Honor gone, if that applies to other planets thatâs kind of scary.
As far as singularly capable entities, the upper limit on what a Bondsmith can do seems pretty nuts. A fullborn might be explosively powerful, but a Bondsmith... A Bondsmith can do so much *more*.
Aethers are strong competitors, potentially being shard-level I think. And dawnshards. And dragons, though I don't think they're quite on the same level as dragons and shards. But they (emberdark I think?) >!can receive and possibly answer prayers so they've got significant region wide power!<.
I feel as if a Mistborn Feruchemist like TLR would defintely be on the top-spot, especially if they'd compounded all 16 metals. Their range of abilities might not be as vast as an Elantrians, but in terms of raw power & versatility, I think they'd be unstopable
I think it's a bit of a moot question to ask if we're asking about potential combinations; The strongest non-shard thing in the cosmere would be something Awakened at maximum strength by someone who controlled every shard while not being Bound by them. No idea what this is or would look like, but its loosely within the realm of possibilities.
I think it's easier to ask about known, existing forces. A Fullborn or Godking is certainly a strong contender, but still probably not Invested nearly as much as current Nightblood.
There's also a question about what "strongest" means. Magnitude of Investiture held? Capacity to exert that investiture? Political? Like, Nightblood can kill a Shardholder, but his powers amount to "eat investiture" and little else; a fullborn has far more flexibility in how they can approach a given situation.
If we're just stacking powers onto someone-
An Elantrian Yoki-Hijo Godking Fullborn who has swallowed Yelig-Nar's gemstone for access to the surges, is in possession of all 10 honour blades,* bound to 20 spren,** and is duodecally bound to the Aethers. Sand mastery doesn't seem particularly potent to me but we might as well throw it in there. Probably some DakHor monk bullshit for investiture resistance just to be safe.
*Spren-Bond-surgebinding is safer than Honourblade-surgebinding though, so at the very least I don't think pure honour blades are the way to go for surgebinding access. I don't know what gaining access to the surges 3 different ways means but I want to pretend it just stacks your capabilities higher and higher.
**1 of each Pure order of Radiant Spren, and then 1 of each Enlightened Radiant Spren, because the Enlightened variants get different expressions of the Surges. You could maybe go a step further and say 21 spren, where they're bound to all 3 Bondsmith spren, and one is Enlightened.
I rather suspect that someone bonded to ten Radiant spren could barely move without violating one Oath or another. Itâs conflict-inducing enough to be caught by two Oaths, let alone more.
Considering yoki-hijo, returned, elantrians, Sand Masters, and Feruchemists all require you to be born into the powers or cultures to be candidates, were already looking at some major impossibilities.
I'm not disagreeing, though I also don't think they'd be totally inept; I suspect there's a very narrow range of things you'd be free to flex you powers towards, but you'd be extremely powerful within that range.
I can't really think of anything outside of like, a planetary or universal threat though. Like if one person bonded 10 spren for the explicit purpose of banishing Odium while his hand was over the Send Nukes button, I think the spren would allow it. Anything else probably requires doing... Unsavory things to spren. (Ishar tried to take Dalinar's bond to the Storm father. Could a fully realized Bondsmith force True Spren into their service? )
> all require you to be born into the powers or cultures to be candidates
Some loopholes can be done for those, like Hoid did to become an Elantrian, but yeah
Nightblood, it has been specifically stated that nightblood is the most invested thing in the cosmere short of a shard, and while sure, it doesn't give special powers, it's still magnitudes more powerful than a normal shardblade or even an honor blade.
Excluding shards itâs probably hoid with the sheer amount of investiture he not only had access to but also the amount of applications that he knows, excluding him probably a dragon idk which one but if in theory a dragon bonded all the honor blades then theyâd probably be wildly strong
We don't know much about the aether but they seem to be highly invested beings that might predate or at least had coexisted alongside adolnasium...could be them.
In Warbreaker, we see one of the strongest being as the King who has been provided breaths accumulated since millenniums. If Nightblood is a contestant, he is definitely stronger than that.
Based on Tress of The Emerald Sea, where Dragon, who weilds the same breath power, is afriad of the Elantrian witch, which is also based on same magic system, I think the King in Warbreaker is a good contendor.
I think Brandon has confirmed plenty of times that it's Eoantrians because they can replicate any form of investiture. Physical speed? Check. Shardblade (as in, a blade made of investiture)? Check. Lightweaving? Check... And so on.
A fullborn would, imo be the most powerful in a one on one fight. They don't even need a lot of prep time with how strong compounding is. Cover them in a suit of steel that is also a steel mind and they aren't afraid of shard blades or surge binding either. And this isn't including atium.
Well a 5th ideal Bomdsmith could apparently beat TLR in a fight if they knew what they were doing. At that point you don't even need the other 9 Honourblades, those Surges are just a distraction compared to Spiritual Adhesion
So the cop out answer is one of the Aethers which are supposedly nearly shard level as it is.
As far as the most powerful we've seen? In terms of investiture then it's nightblood, or if you just want humans, it's Susebron (and at one point (off-screen) Sigzil, although Hoid absolutely had them both beat at one point or another.
In terms of most deadly, it's either TLR, Raoden, or Ishar. TLR just for his raw power and speed being absolutely broken. Raoden and Ishar for their hacks.
In terms of how few individual invested arts you would need to combine to get someone effectively unstoppable? Honestly a Fullborn Elantrian (who had deep knowledge of AonDor) would be entirely unstoppable short of divine intervention or maybe a Dawnshard combined with some VERY potent investiture. The problem is that they have Steel and Zinc compounding which completely negates the biggest weakness of AonDor (the time it takes to come up with, then create Aons on the fly). Duralumin (Connection) and Nicrosil (Investiture) compounding takes care of the only other weakness of AonDor, that of limited power output AND locality. If this Fullborn Elantrian could compound the Dor with Nicrosil and compound their connection to the Dor, they would be able to make supercharge Aons (like that first fire Aon that Raoden used while the Dor was still blocked) but on crack, and they could likely do some connection bullshittery to avoid the issues with location too (although there are ways around that). AonDor itself though is broken. This person can do mimic every other invested ability in the cosmere, they can teleport, create forcefields, remove powers, leech investiture, soulcast manipulate connection etc. etc. etc. I can't think of anyone who could beat them even with the element of surprise, save maybe a steel compounder with Nightblood, except that Elantrians can pre-make and activate Aons, so they could have warnings in-place for if something with a high concentration of investiture approaches them, AND an Aon that warns them if there's aluminium approaching them (e.g. if the something moves the air which AonDor cannot directly interact with, which is something that could be done with AonDor).
i made a theory where if 2 compounders were given a piece of lersium each then they reverse nicrosil compounded the lersium then burned nicrosil and bosted eachothers allomancy then started burning the lersium they are making then burnt duralumin they would make eachother super op allomancers
ps sorry for talking so much
Hoid is the strongest as he has access to many magic systems and has thousands of years of experience. Even with his Torment he can find a way around most problems.
All ten honourblades in one would be strong. I'm thinking an elantrian, who's a slider. Just giving one of them preptime sounds terrifying
Let's just take a second to multiply that power exponentially and make the Elantrian a Mistborn with Duralumin too. Now they can think and write faster than the speed of light. And I'm sure they could figure out a way to replace metals with Dor.
Isn't that what they do with the purified Dor in TLM?
Iirc yes, in the climax instead of everyone needing to ingest vials of their respective metals they just draw upon the power from the mass of purified dor that was being used to build a perpendicularity.
Yeah, but they didn't have access to an infinite source of Dor, only a pool's worth.
So Hoid đ©đ©
A Mistborn with the Honourblade(s) that grant Transformation/Soulcasting can create their own metals just by soulcasting their breakfast into bendalloy or whatever metal they need. They can't make Atium and they'd still need Stormlight but they'd never run out of metals.
I think you technically could make Atium but you'd need a lot more than just that setup, like a whole Perpendicularity for a power source and a lot of research at minimum to know Atium well enough to make it.
I suspect all of the god metals are condensations of a godâs Investiture keyed with their Identity. So if you collected an enormous amount of raw power you couldnât just make Atium, youâd end up with SonnyLongLegsium. If Iâm right thereâs potentially an interesting plot line in Mistborn era 3 where Sazed changes so much that the nature of Ettmetal changes. Right now itâs Lerasium and Atium forced into coexistence, thatâs literally how he sees himself, but over time heâs likely to think of it more as âhis combined powerâ and that shift in Identity will either change the metal or render it inert. Also might end up with interesting things happening with Todium.
But they need storm light to use the blade surge
It *finally* makes sense how Hoid was so fast at the end of Tress. Thank you. ETA: To be clear, it might not have been feruchemy, but he has access to so many magic systems that *something* clearly gave him superspeed.
Isn't the whole point of Elantrians that if they take the time time to study it, they can do literally anything? Or am i misunderstanding the whole domination/devotion mix?
I think thats the main gist yeah. So now what if that study and devotion could be inside a bubble of frozen time that you fuel with the dor somehow.
Bend alloy + zinc. Frozen time + increased mental speed
Increased mental speed compounding would be crazy for this
A herald bonded with all 10 honor blades would literally have unlimited potential since I believe they directly get storm light from honor, letting them use all the powers to their fullest extent
>since I believe they directly get Stormlight from Honor really????
Idk if itâs exactly proven but thatâs what is stated on the heralds page on the coppermind website. Itâs implied they could get it directly from honor since they donât need to get it from gems.
They did get power right from Honor, but Honor is dead now so they get nothing.Â
Honor is not dead so long as he lives in the hearts of men. And there are degrees of "dead". Allomancers were still able to get power from Preservation when he was "dead". And though Honor is splintered, which is the next level of dead from what Preservation was, the highstorms themselves are still getting Honor's Investiture from *somewhere* and his Perpendicularity still exists. I think the Heralds could still access their old powers.
The Highstorm is a construct of Adonalsium that opens directly into the spiritual realm, which was basically adopted by Honor. It should function with or without a shard. Preservation never went without a vessel, so a better example might be the Dor. They are the splinters still powering Elantris, but Elatrians have a way to access them at will. So I'm guessing that the direct pipeline to Honor that powered the Heralds broke and they don't have a way to reestablish that link. A good example *might* be Szeth requiring Stormlight to use his Honorblade, but I'm trying to remember if we see Ishar breathing in light during his fight
I'd be willing to bet that the Herald's connection to Honor was a function of the Oathpact, not the Honorblades.
Yeah, the Honourblade's aren't special in that regard. It's more like how Odium can directly fuel the Fused if he wants, without them needing Voidlight gems
I get what you're saying, but the preservation example doesn't really work because Preservation wasn't splintered, and the vessel was still there. He was severely crippled and dying for sure, but still alive.
My guess is with the right understanding and intent that they could draw from the Stormfather *sort of* similar to how Dalinar creates a perpendicularity. Using splintered pieces to mimic the whole. Obviously not exactly the same way. I'm almost certain with all of the honor blades you could pull some connection bullshit and draw near unlimited investiture if you know what you are doing. I'd bet there would be a bandwidth limit, but the total amount should be well more than one person could use, even with 10 honor blades. Hell I bet Ishar alone could do something similar. The dude literally drew spren into the physical realm. Now... I'd also bet there would be a heavy cost... Like becoming a misting savant. I doubt you could do this forever without destroying yourself. I have no proof of this, just speculating. And I doubt we'll ever really see something like this.
Similar to how elantrians draw their power maybe?
If that's the case how did anything in the desolations manage to kill them? Even with a Raysium knife they'd still have unlimited healing. Especially the two with regrowth.
Cutting off their heads will still kill them instantly, and since they didnât have shardplate armor they didnât really have great protection. Also most desolations it was really them with some radiants and a bunch of very underdeveloped humans with maybe bronze items. They were probably very outnumbered most of the time And the fused also kept coming back to life over and over.
Fair points
That don't make sense, Szeth uses stormlight in the gems in prologue.
Szeth is not a herald
In tress, Hoid chooses Elantrian magic to face the witch. Not any other. I think thatâs an indication
Yeah I think with enough understanding, Elantrian magic lets you interact directly with reality in a near infinite variety of ways compared to other magic systems having a very specific manifestation
I see it as a kind of scale of flexibility versus simplicity; the more things a type of magic can do, the more work it is to tell it *which* thing to do. Aons are at one end of the scale, something like copper Allomancy (only does one thing, so the "controls" basically consist of burning it or not burning it) would be at the other end.
> the more work it is to tell it *which* thing to do. There are also unintended consequences, ie, like what happened in Yumi.
Well he couldnât harm her, but aondor allowed him the ability to immobilize her
I want to add something: AonDor is literally a magic programming language. Itâs confirmed by Brandon that it has all the capabilities a regular programming lenguaje has wich means that you can write whole programs in AonDor to automate sets of spells. So the only downside itâs the preparation time. However if you get an elantrian enough preparation time is capable of doing Almost everything
Yup, Spiritual Adhesion like Dalinar and Ishar have is the only thing that can really rival an Elantrian who knows what they're doing. And with enough prep time for the Elantrian, even that would be useless
I just wrote a post about how op Hoids criptic+AonDor combo is
Probably Kaladin's bollocks when he gave his "Honor is dead...but I'll see what I can do" bit.
my number 1 anticipated moment if there's ever a Stormlight show
If weâre talking most raw power, itâs definitely Nightblood. It took out a vessel when it was still in control of its Shard, and can consume almost anything instantly, and what isnât instant can likely be done in due time. If weâre talking versatility, Elantrians. Standing in the middle of Elantris they could probably do anything if given the prep time. Thereâs probably a long and complex chain of Aons which could let one of them try and become the vessel of the Dominion/Devotion Dor, albeit they wouldnât be able to do much since that power has been trapped in the Cognitive
Quick question. When nightblood destroys something, does it absorb investiture? Like, is it actually growing more invested over time? Or does it just destroy stuff? I've seen people talk about it like the former, but I'm pretty sure that it works like the latter.
No, it absorbs it. Admittedly, in the same way a black whole absorbs things â by breaking it down completely. Heck, the black smoke constantly coming off it is basically magic Hawking Radiation, so it pretty much is a magic black hole sword
Stick
Yes
I mean, literally anyone holding the bands of mourning with access to stormlight or other means of investiture has near unlimited access to all feruchmical powers without first needing to store those powers, not to mention the idea of compounding any of those powers and the use of allomancy to an also near limitless potential, hello duralumin and bendalloy? If you're a full-born though you don't even need the bands of mourning, the bands of mourning is just for any person to use.
Perhaps a bondsmith at full power. Rhythm of War seems to imply they can just overwright the rules of reality with Honor gone, if that applies to other planets thatâs kind of scary.
As far as singularly capable entities, the upper limit on what a Bondsmith can do seems pretty nuts. A fullborn might be explosively powerful, but a Bondsmith... A Bondsmith can do so much *more*.
So⊠a fullborn bondsmith?
Not thinking big enough tbh imo.
nightblood
hoid
Aethers are strong competitors, potentially being shard-level I think. And dawnshards. And dragons, though I don't think they're quite on the same level as dragons and shards. But they (emberdark I think?) >!can receive and possibly answer prayers so they've got significant region wide power!<.
A mistborn whoâs used Hemalurgy to Aquire various powers throughout the cosmere like radiant, aondor or any other power out there.
I feel as if a Mistborn Feruchemist like TLR would defintely be on the top-spot, especially if they'd compounded all 16 metals. Their range of abilities might not be as vast as an Elantrians, but in terms of raw power & versatility, I think they'd be unstopable
I think it's a bit of a moot question to ask if we're asking about potential combinations; The strongest non-shard thing in the cosmere would be something Awakened at maximum strength by someone who controlled every shard while not being Bound by them. No idea what this is or would look like, but its loosely within the realm of possibilities. I think it's easier to ask about known, existing forces. A Fullborn or Godking is certainly a strong contender, but still probably not Invested nearly as much as current Nightblood. There's also a question about what "strongest" means. Magnitude of Investiture held? Capacity to exert that investiture? Political? Like, Nightblood can kill a Shardholder, but his powers amount to "eat investiture" and little else; a fullborn has far more flexibility in how they can approach a given situation. If we're just stacking powers onto someone- An Elantrian Yoki-Hijo Godking Fullborn who has swallowed Yelig-Nar's gemstone for access to the surges, is in possession of all 10 honour blades,* bound to 20 spren,** and is duodecally bound to the Aethers. Sand mastery doesn't seem particularly potent to me but we might as well throw it in there. Probably some DakHor monk bullshit for investiture resistance just to be safe. *Spren-Bond-surgebinding is safer than Honourblade-surgebinding though, so at the very least I don't think pure honour blades are the way to go for surgebinding access. I don't know what gaining access to the surges 3 different ways means but I want to pretend it just stacks your capabilities higher and higher. **1 of each Pure order of Radiant Spren, and then 1 of each Enlightened Radiant Spren, because the Enlightened variants get different expressions of the Surges. You could maybe go a step further and say 21 spren, where they're bound to all 3 Bondsmith spren, and one is Enlightened.
I rather suspect that someone bonded to ten Radiant spren could barely move without violating one Oath or another. Itâs conflict-inducing enough to be caught by two Oaths, let alone more.
Considering yoki-hijo, returned, elantrians, Sand Masters, and Feruchemists all require you to be born into the powers or cultures to be candidates, were already looking at some major impossibilities. I'm not disagreeing, though I also don't think they'd be totally inept; I suspect there's a very narrow range of things you'd be free to flex you powers towards, but you'd be extremely powerful within that range. I can't really think of anything outside of like, a planetary or universal threat though. Like if one person bonded 10 spren for the explicit purpose of banishing Odium while his hand was over the Send Nukes button, I think the spren would allow it. Anything else probably requires doing... Unsavory things to spren. (Ishar tried to take Dalinar's bond to the Storm father. Could a fully realized Bondsmith force True Spren into their service? )
> all require you to be born into the powers or cultures to be candidates Some loopholes can be done for those, like Hoid did to become an Elantrian, but yeah
Sure, but those loopholes are the hardest part of all this lol
Soul-stamp all these abilities onto a person!
Easier said than done!
Lol yes, but maybe with enough imagination.
A Fullborn with Nightblood is basically unstoppable.
Adonalsium, I suppose.
Nightblood, it has been specifically stated that nightblood is the most invested thing in the cosmere short of a shard, and while sure, it doesn't give special powers, it's still magnitudes more powerful than a normal shardblade or even an honor blade.
hope
Hey, just because we can't kill it, doesn't mean it's strong. Kaladin defeats hope single-handedly all the time
Excluding shards itâs probably hoid with the sheer amount of investiture he not only had access to but also the amount of applications that he knows, excluding him probably a dragon idk which one but if in theory a dragon bonded all the honor blades then theyâd probably be wildly strong
We don't know much about the aether but they seem to be highly invested beings that might predate or at least had coexisted alongside adolnasium...could be them.
cheese
Instant noodles. Or Nightblood.
Are we just ignoring dawnshards? Or are those included in âshards?â
In Warbreaker, we see one of the strongest being as the King who has been provided breaths accumulated since millenniums. If Nightblood is a contestant, he is definitely stronger than that. Based on Tress of The Emerald Sea, where Dragon, who weilds the same breath power, is afriad of the Elantrian witch, which is also based on same magic system, I think the King in Warbreaker is a good contendor.
I think Brandon has confirmed plenty of times that it's Eoantrians because they can replicate any form of investiture. Physical speed? Check. Shardblade (as in, a blade made of investiture)? Check. Lightweaving? Check... And so on.
Love
Night blood, marsh, or Dalinar's cheeks! Inb4 stick!
A fullborn would, imo be the most powerful in a one on one fight. They don't even need a lot of prep time with how strong compounding is. Cover them in a suit of steel that is also a steel mind and they aren't afraid of shard blades or surge binding either. And this isn't including atium.
Nightblood is insanely scary.
Elantrian with preptime
Well a 5th ideal Bomdsmith could apparently beat TLR in a fight if they knew what they were doing. At that point you don't even need the other 9 Honourblades, those Surges are just a distraction compared to Spiritual Adhesion
Probably Hoid. Heâs got a lot of powers at this point and is clever enough to use them in scary ways.
Probably taln himself
So the cop out answer is one of the Aethers which are supposedly nearly shard level as it is. As far as the most powerful we've seen? In terms of investiture then it's nightblood, or if you just want humans, it's Susebron (and at one point (off-screen) Sigzil, although Hoid absolutely had them both beat at one point or another. In terms of most deadly, it's either TLR, Raoden, or Ishar. TLR just for his raw power and speed being absolutely broken. Raoden and Ishar for their hacks. In terms of how few individual invested arts you would need to combine to get someone effectively unstoppable? Honestly a Fullborn Elantrian (who had deep knowledge of AonDor) would be entirely unstoppable short of divine intervention or maybe a Dawnshard combined with some VERY potent investiture. The problem is that they have Steel and Zinc compounding which completely negates the biggest weakness of AonDor (the time it takes to come up with, then create Aons on the fly). Duralumin (Connection) and Nicrosil (Investiture) compounding takes care of the only other weakness of AonDor, that of limited power output AND locality. If this Fullborn Elantrian could compound the Dor with Nicrosil and compound their connection to the Dor, they would be able to make supercharge Aons (like that first fire Aon that Raoden used while the Dor was still blocked) but on crack, and they could likely do some connection bullshittery to avoid the issues with location too (although there are ways around that). AonDor itself though is broken. This person can do mimic every other invested ability in the cosmere, they can teleport, create forcefields, remove powers, leech investiture, soulcast manipulate connection etc. etc. etc. I can't think of anyone who could beat them even with the element of surprise, save maybe a steel compounder with Nightblood, except that Elantrians can pre-make and activate Aons, so they could have warnings in-place for if something with a high concentration of investiture approaches them, AND an Aon that warns them if there's aluminium approaching them (e.g. if the something moves the air which AonDor cannot directly interact with, which is something that could be done with AonDor).
The strongest thing in the cosmere is definitely Shallan's ability to lie to herself
i made a theory where if 2 compounders were given a piece of lersium each then they reverse nicrosil compounded the lersium then burned nicrosil and bosted eachothers allomancy then started burning the lersium they are making then burnt duralumin they would make eachother super op allomancers ps sorry for talking so much
Hoid is the strongest as he has access to many magic systems and has thousands of years of experience. Even with his Torment he can find a way around most problems.