Can we get technical on balefire, for a moment?

[Bob T Dwarf]

I think of it like firearms.

 

A little bit of balefire, quickly applied might be roughly equivalent to a 22 calber bullet. It can kill somebody but it's unlikely to punch through and do collateral damage.

 

A powerful weilder, putting everything into it might be like a 44 Magnum. It'll kill a bad guy, punch a hole clear through, punch a hole in the wall behind him, go through your neigbor's wall and kill him too.

 

With the hounds, Rand tried to throttle back. It wasn't quite fine enough or of short enough duration, he still did considerable damage to the structure behind where the hounds had been. In Caemlyn, with the Trollocs, he made it even finer and barely touched them with it. Got it down to 22 caliber size. That was just enough to kill them without punching through. He got a twofer. Disintegrated Trollocs and restored Aiel that they had most recently killed.

 

What implications all of that has for its continued use by others is impossible to say.