Fades are too Over Powered

[Jsbrads2]

Fades basically are top 2% of fighters, but they can appear anywhere at any time and the Dark Army has thousands of them. 

[2RiversFan]

If RJ had not made any enemies strong, there wouldn't have been a real story.  Imagine if all of the 'bad guys' were literally only rats, for instance.  Would you have been as interested in a 14 book "epic" series where the worst enemy was a huge number of rats?

 

I find it somewhat of an ironic complaint since most readers complain that the Forsaken were under-powered and too tame.  They didn't get taken to anywhere near their potential is typically the complaint that I've read. 

[Effete]

How are you quantifying their rank amongst fighters? "Top 2%" is an oddly specific conclusion.

 

Besides, I think I would disagree. There isn't much evidence that ALL Fades are exquisite fighters. We've seen them killed fairly easily by a number of characters. I think it's the Fade's other abilities that make them formidable to the uninitiated. Their fear gaze can cripple even the stoutest warrior, making them perform under their potential. And Fades are fast and wiry, which can surprise someone accustomed to fighting only other humans.

[Sabio]

It's the fear and their speed are their main benefits, not to mention just a scratch from their blade could be fatal.  I wouldn't say their sword fighting ability is awesome, it's more they are quicker than most humans is how I saw it.  

[Jsbrads2]

1 all fades are exactly the same (Demandred said that when he first met Shadar Haran.

2 five Aiel vs 3 fades, maybe Lan can ignore fades, but for almost everyone else it is far from forgone that victory is inevitable.
3 even fades super speed and poison sword pales in comparison to Fades ability to appear anywhere via shadow traveling. The are a couple of scenes where Luc/Isam used his assassin superpower, but all fades can do the same thing via shadow travel. The fades never used shadow travel like that.

 

Unrelated, Forsaken have a mix of powers, all can balefire, torture, pretty good in world of dreams, maybe Lanfear highest stats there. Wards, generaling, taking over monarchies is as easy as falling out of bed...

admittedly they are also terrible at working together, finding angreal, fighting one on one even if they pick the ground to fight on and keep running away from combat (maybe due to being born as wimps in a world where people don’t fight). 

[Sabio]

Fades still need a shadow/darkness to do their travel.  You saw Fain stop one from leaving.  

[Jsbrads2]

True. How he got him chained up is a whole nother question. I ain’t saying it is impossible to stop a fade, merely there are always shadows in the natural environment, I’ll even give you all of daylight, but unlimited night travel? The Shadow having 1 assassin that can enter a room from the dream world is fair. Having thousands of shadow travelers that can assassinate anyone with impunity... they never use this power, they still have it. 

[Sabio]

The shadow didn't have endless amount of Fades and the Fades were needed to keep the Trollocs under control.  No one knows how their power works so we will never know if there is a limit to their ability.  Not to mention we have no idea how many fades there really are.  Fades aren't assassins, their main purpose is to command trollocs and spies.

[Jsbrads2]

Obviously I didn’t think all fades should be used for assassinations. Merely it was a power they had (op). Shadow had thousands of fades. At one point, the shadow used 50? 100? Hundreds? In one attack at Shayol Ghul, right?

[Kalessin]

IIRC, RJ doesn't give us a percentage of how many Trolloc births versus Myrdraal births from each hundred Trolloc matings. So I get the feeling that they are not as many as the Dark One would like. And that is why he can't randomly throw them into every situation he would like fixed to suit him. For that he has to have the human Darkfriends - and if there's enough of them for Trolloc cookpots courtesy of Fain, there's a lot more of them than there are of Myrdraal.

 

Judging from the books, they were "special forces" troops, except at the last throw of the dice, when they could be wasted at Shayol Ghul itself.

[Sabio]

Fades top job was to keep Trollocs under control.

[TheSociopath]

well, yeah, that is what the fades job has been described as, but that doesn't mean that its the most effective use of them. As a random thought: during the trolloc wars, what would be more effective? A fade leading a battalion as a sneak attack? or a couple fades shadow-teleporting into camp, and even if all the commanders happen to have perfect protection, the fades could still kill all the watchmen pretty easily.

[Thrasymachus]

Fades are good, but not good enough to take on multiple trained defenders on the watch for them.  And they don't, strictly speaking, pass through shadows, but through the border of shadows.  As long as those borders are kept small enough to keep them from passing through, they can't get through.

[Orderofolde]

We see in Demandred's POV of his visit to SG that the Fades have limitations to their power.  Their power lies in their ability to freeze people by the waves of fear they promote in others, and in their blade.  The blades wear out and captives are required to give power to the blades with their souls which we see in the forgers scene with the handful of captives and D's POV of how the halfmen had to be gnashing their teeth at so few captives and so few new swords being produced.  

 

As a note, the fades are far more effective than the forsaken.  This is probably why the DO creates Shadar Haran as his vessel rather than trusting a flawed human/forsaken.

[Jsbrads2]

A single Fade can slip into any room, there is room without shadow, more light more shadow.

The objective is to enter a room which only has one participant and that person sleeping to achieve a 100% kill ratio with zero loses. 

[Sabio]

Shades are defenseless against channelers and stands to reason places like the WT would be warded to detect any shadowspawn who came near.

[Jsbrads2]

Not really, there are limits to wards and you can’t have multiple wards.

besides, fine assasinate Aes Sedai when they sleep in an inn.

Fades do have a defense against channelers if they can find a shadow, they can disappear in front of the channelers very eyes and reappear behind them.