Best shot in the Cosmere?

[Lord Spirit he/him]

I remember a line from Tress, where Hoid claimed that Crow was one of the best shot he'd known, which I find to be a pretty interesting claim since Hoid has met some pretty skilled shooters like Wax or Kelsier. What do you think?

Edited June 3 by Lord Spirit
more accurate quote, Thanks Treamayne!

[Treamayne]

17 minutes ago, Lord Spirit said:

I remember a line from Tress, where Hoid claimed that Crow was the best shot he'd known, which I find to be a pretty interesting claim since Hoid has met some pretty skilled shooters like Wax or Kelsier. What do you think?

Not quite what Hoid says. Tress Ch 26:

Spoiler

It was the best shooting Tress had ever seen. It was the only shooting, granted. Nevertheless, I’ll admit Crow was one of the best shots I’d ever seen. And considering that primitive muskets handle like a snake being electrocuted, that is saying something.

So, "one of the best" - at least on par with the likes of Wax (unless he's playing with "seen" since I don't think he was present for any of the action scenes to watch Wax shoot). 

 

Edit: you are missing Baon (White Sand)

Edited May 30 by Treamayne
Ref

[Quantus he/him]

Atium sort of cheats for marksmenship, you can pretty much count on hitting exactly where you intend unless you arent physically capable of the shot (and Pewter helps there too).  So assuming access to Era1 metals and all else being equal I think Kelsier or Vin would take the prize.  

[Lord Spirit he/him]

22 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Not quite what Hoid says. Tress Ch 26:

  Reveal hidden contents

It was the best shooting Tress had ever seen. It was the only shooting, granted. Nevertheless, I’ll admit Crow was one of the best shots I’d ever seen. And considering that primitive muskets handle like a snake being electrocuted, that is saying something.

So, "one of the best" - at least on par with the likes of Wax (unless he's playing with "seen" since I don't think he was present for any of the action scenes to watch Wax shoot). 

 

Edit: you are missing Baon (White Sand)

Oh, thanks for the reference. i guess that makes this more interesting then.

added Baon!

[alder24]

C'mon, Wax hit a bullet, while shooting from a speed bubble and deflected it midair into Tarson's head. There is no competition here.

[Trusk'our he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

C'mon, Wax hit a bullet, while shooting from a speed bubble and deflected it midair into Tarson's head. There is no competition here.

100% agree. Wax pulled off a stunt that probably isn't even possible IRL, possibly due to his Resonance boosting that skillset.

[+hwiles]

42 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

100% agree. Wax pulled off a stunt that probably isn't even possible IRL, possibly due to his Resonance boosting that skillset.

If I remember the annotations and WoBs correctly offhand, it's generally implied that, due to having his spiked earing in at the time, he theoretically may have been indulging in performance-enhancing allomantic supercharging by way of the mists during that scene. (Which technically means Harmony may have been microdosing pure atium into his soul without his specific consent or awareness).

I still count it, but I think Wax deserves an asterisk for being a known agent of a God.

[CtrlAltDepressed]

On 5/30/2024 at 7:53 PM, hwiles said:

If I remember the annotations and WoBs correctly offhand, it's generally implied that, due to having his spiked earing in at the time, he theoretically may have been indulging in performance-enhancing allomantic supercharging by way of the mists during that scene. (Which technically means Harmony may have been microdosing pure atium into his soul without his specific consent or awareness).

Im going to need a lot more information on this please. 

 

So we already have this (in the text) unclearness around wether Wax is Mistborn or not. We know that he is from deduction but it isnt really mentioned in the books explicitly. Now we are adding this atium microdose after the fact as well? Why wasnt any of this mentioned in text - that would have made Era 2 so much cooler. 

[Lord Spirit he/him]

1 minute ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Im going to need a lot more information on this please. 

 

So we already have this (in the text) unclearness around wether Wax is Mistborn or not. We know that he is from deduction but it isnt really mentioned in the books explicitly. Now we are adding this atium microdose after the fact as well? Why wasnt any of this mentioned in text - that would have made Era 2 so much cooler. 

I don't wax becomes mistborn until TLM, when he and Wayne consume lerasium. I believe what hwiles was saying was that Harmony may have been boosting wax, similar to Vin helping Elend at the end of HOA. Technically speaking, if this involved atium, wax would have been able to before without being mistborn as atium is a god metal.

[Treamayne]

4 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Im going to need a lot more information on this please. 

So we already have this (in the text) unclearness around wether Wax is Mistborn or not. We know that he is from deduction but it isnt really mentioned in the books explicitly. Now we are adding this atium microdose after the fact as well? Why wasnt any of this mentioned in text - that would have made Era 2 so much cooler. 

WoBs:

Spoiler

2016 (post BoM):

Quote

Questioner

Has Wax drawn on the mists at some point?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

Post TLM:

Quote

WhiteKyu

Will Wax find out that he is a Mistborn during his lifetime? This is assuming we won't see him again.

Brandon Sanderson

Wax suspects it already. There's a piece of him that knows by the end of this book. He will know pretty soon. He's a detective, right? 

Wax is used to getting a little extra help from the mists, which is clouding his ability to put his finger exactly on what's happening, but there's a piece of him that expects [suspects]. And you can anticipate that even in the year between, in the prologue [epilogue], soon after his recovery, he went and tested and found out what's going on, and is keeping his lips sealed about what that implies.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

4 hours ago, Lord Spirit said:

Technically speaking, if this involved atium, wax would have been able to before without being mistborn as atium is a god metal.

 

17 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

WoBs:

Thank you both for the extra context. I know Wax wasn't Mistborn until the very end, and that Harmony was giving him some help with the mists. My confusion was coming from saying that Wax was being given Atium, as I think that is distinct from ruin's mist. I dont think we would expect consuming preservations mist to turn you into a mistborn like the godmetal does so im not sure what @hwiles means here. Were they just saying atium to mean ruins mists? 

[Treamayne]

53 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

My confusion was coming from saying that Wax was being given Atium, as I think that is distinct from ruin's mist. I dont think we would expect consuming preservations mist to turn you into a mistborn like the godmetal does so im not sure what @hwiles means here. Were they just saying atium to mean ruins mists? 

I cannot speak for @hwiles, but my interpretation of that comment is (basically):

• In Era 1 we specifically see that Vin drawing on P-Mist acts much like a Duralumin Burn of the metal
  • Since we know that Wax has burned Mist
  • And it was implied this was on of those times (but without any of the known Duralumin like effects)
  • Therefore, it may be possible that it was Ruin's mist - and (unlike Era 1 Atium) instead of seeing actual Atium Shadows, he simply "knew" where and how to shoot to hit Tarson (due to Pure-Atium Foreknowledge)

I'm not sure if I buy into that, but we do know that Pure Atium is similar to Elend's Duralumin-Atium in HoA; and we know that when Elend burned them together, he no longer saw Atium Shadows, he instead had a peak into the Spiritual Realm. So we cannot confirm or deny the possibility with current data. 

Edited June 3 by Treamayne
SPAG

[+hwiles]

1 hour ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

 

Thank you both for the extra context. I know Wax wasn't Mistborn until the very end, and that Harmony was giving him some help with the mists. My confusion was coming from saying that Wax was being given Atium, as I think that is distinct from ruin's mist. I dont think we would expect consuming preservations mist to turn you into a mistborn like the godmetal does so im not sure what @hwiles means here. Were they just saying atium to mean ruins mists? 

Yeah, that's essentially all I was getting at: wax is implied to be superpowered by the mists a couple times when he makes some of his most incredible feats. I probably should've chosen my words more precisely; sorry for any miscommunication from my side! I think yall have got it though

[Ninth of the Night]

I mean the answer is clearly Wax, even aside from his feat of deflecting a bullet with another bullet, he has so many instances of expert marksmanship throughout Era 2. He rarely if ever misses and casually headshots foes on multiple occasions. Even when in full motion either on ground or flying through the air.

To be fair there hasn't been many other shooters in the cosmere with as much exposure to accurately compare. Kelsier is a contender if we're not talking solely about guns. I believe once we get to the age of shardguns we'll have more to discuss. Can't wait!

[Nogo]

I'm not surprised that Wax has the majority of the votes.  I, however, went out on a limb with Taln.  I can't really back up my vote a lot because we don't really know his skills... but I imagine the best of the best of the heralds would be pretty amazing.  Especially considering the whooping the middle of the road herald gave some pretty good fighters.   However, who knows if he ever even shot anything ever... I just don't know.  But I wouldn't bet against him.

There's my two cents.

[Lord Spirit he/him]

1 hour ago, Nogo said:

I'm not surprised that Wax has the majority of the votes.  I, however, went out on a limb with Taln.  I can't really back up my vote a lot because we don't really know his skills... but I imagine the best of the best of the heralds would be pretty amazing.  Especially considering the whooping the middle of the road herald gave some pretty good fighters.   However, who knows if he ever even shot anything ever... I just don't know.  But I wouldn't bet against him.

There's my two cents.

To be fair, I added Taln and Raoden after a decent amount of people voted, so they might have gotten some more votes if they were there earlier. 

[QuantumAce]

14 hours ago, Nogo said:

I'm not surprised that Wax has the majority of the votes.  I, however, went out on a limb with Taln.  I can't really back up my vote a lot because we don't really know his skills... but I imagine the best of the best of the heralds would be pretty amazing.  Especially considering the whooping the middle of the road herald gave some pretty good fighters.   However, who knows if he ever even shot anything ever... I just don't know.  But I wouldn't bet against him.

There's my two cents.

My take is that Wax is the best shot we have seen in the Cosmere, while Taln may have the potential to be better. But if we are judging based on pure potential, my money would be on Rashek. Fullborn with peak allomantic strength provides an extensive degree of control. I am disqualifying Hoid based on him being Hoid. 

[Nogo]

1 hour ago, QuantumAce said:

My take is that Wax is the best shot we have seen in the Cosmere, while Taln may have the potential to be better. But if we are judging based on pure potential, my money would be on Rashek. Fullborn with peak allomantic strength provides an extensive degree of control. I am disqualifying Hoid based on him being Hoid. 

Wow!  I didn't think about that.  Rashek can probably maximize shooting beyond what any non-shard entity could.  With all 16 metals plus compounding... Rashek could expand maximum range of a weapon far beyond its natural distance using a push.  Plus, he could calculate exactly where that bullet would land by tapping his mental acuity (which is basically unlimited because of compounding).  So do that, plus add mass amounts of fortune when he shoots... plus pewter to stabilize, duraluminum steel push on the bullet (which his brain already takes into account for).  Yeah, I agree Rashek's potential is king.  The dude could probably hit the head of a needle with a pistol from 10 miles away.

ADD tangent... edgedancers would probably make great shooters as well as they could take friction off of the bullets and completely avoid wind resistance.  They can make objects awesome... right?  The fuzed did with the Drop in OB didn't they?

I think Hoid probably gets disqualified at every opportunity anyone can find 

[Forts Board]

My bet would be... Harmony or Autonomy

[+Child of Hodor]

Rock because he doesn't practice with it anymore and he is still an excellent shot. 

[Duxredux he/him]

Wax, because we've seen him tested in a huge number of scenarios with incredible results, not just a single miracle shot.

• As has been mentioned before, shooting a bullet out of air and deflecting it.
• Shot Miles in the eye when both were on the roof of a moving train. That kind of motion for both the marksman and the target would be really hard to anticipate.
• When fighting the small army when breaking out of the Set's compound in BoM, he was identifying and selectively targeting those shooting ammo that he couldn't see and hitting those with Aluminum in a hailstorm of bullets. That's a huge amount of distractions that he was able to filter out for his shooting, which is also nothing to sneeze at.
• Possibly the furthest shot simply by gut instinct was in TLM when he A-Duralumin Pushed himself and Wayne somewhere in the ball park of 30-50 miles away to reach the set ship. First time he had ever used A-Duralumin, had to calculate the proper amount of Steel on the fly, the angle, account for the speed of the ship etc. without any prior ranging shots.
  • It is worth noting that we have seen this kind of stunt before when Vin hit Straff Venture while riding a Koloss sword from Luthadel. Not sure on the comparative distance though. Tin would have helped her too (yes Wax was technically a Mistborn, but I'm pretty sure he would have noticed if he was subconsciously getting a full burn out of Tin). On that score, Vin was aiming for a much, much smaller target and got him dead center.

So... of the rest, for me Vin gets honorable mention, though that's one of the more precise shots we see from her. Otherwise she generally just throws out a handful of coins and uses spread shots. Wax as a my vote is somewhat unfair because he see him trying to make trick shots more than anyone else, so he simply has more exposure.

 

I'm thinking for the non-Cosmere I might go for that Rithmatist, Adelle Choi. It's much smaller scale, but for a Grand Melee, we're talking about being able to see multiple chalk lines from probably 5-15 feet away if not further, calculate the angles not from a top down view, but from a kneeling vantage point, bounce a sine wave off multiple straight lines made set up by other Rithamtists to hit a weak point probably mostly obscured by an enemy Rithamtist still in their circle sending chalklings or Lines of Vigor at you. Oh, and you not only have to calculate all the angles properly, you need to calculate the distance so that the Line of Vigor is in proper phase to hit the desired weakened section. That kind of angle calculation seems supernaturally good. 

[StanLemon]

On 5/30/2024 at 5:05 PM, Trusk'our said:

100% agree. Wax pulled off a stunt that probably isn't even possible IRL, possibly due to his Resonance boosting that skillset.

This. I will die on my theory hill that Crasher Resonance is instinctively understanding of force vectors