TL;DR at the bottom
A popular saying among the armies of Roshar (The setting of The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson), is that “shardbearers don’t hold ground.” This is a simplification of the fact that Shardbearers (those who wield both Shardblade and Shardplate) cannot stand alone against an enemy army. This is for several reasons.
- Shardblades, while able to kill in one stroke, have limited range.
- Shardbearers are still men and can tire even with the Plate’s enhancements.
- Any man can get lucky, and either tip the Shardbearer (allowing the army to surge upon them) or strike them in an area that the Plate leaves unprotected, such as they eyes (and subsequently the brain.)
Do similar rules apply to Cursebearers, I would say yes. Now some may argue, that Cursebearers are able to wipe out entire nations, and I would agree. However, that’s obliterating resources that could have been used to benefit the Cursebearer’s army or nation. So let’s suppose that a lone Cursebearer is attempting to hold land and not raze it to the sea bed. Can they do it? I would argue that they couldn’t. With at least caveats, which I shall list first. Obviously they could easily hold ground against those without magic manipulation, as such enemies wouldn’t be able to damage the user.
So the question can a Cursebearer stand alone on land that they wish to protect, while up against a sizable number of competent mages (Mage is just a person who can use magic, I’m not talking about classes anywhere in here, since this is from a lore perspective.)
I would have to say no, this is for several reasons.
- Cursebearers are not omniscient. While they seem to have heightened/passive reflexes due to their abilities, they could still be surprised and with an entire army the opportunity of a sneak attack is increased an innumerable amount.
- Their elements (from what I understand/have seen) come from themselves, they aren’t able to summon their element anywhere in the world. This means, that while they have a near infinite range it has to spread out from themselves, thus giving those in the back lines time to dodge.
- The Cursebearer’s ability comes from their physical endurance, which against a large enough army will sapped rather quickly. Even against a well trained team, this could be exploited. This means that as the fight goes on they will slow down as their energy is drained.
- Devourers, granted these blades are rare however a few scattered amongest an army could prove fatal to the Cursebearer as the fight goes on or if one of wielder’s is trained in stealth.
Overall, Cursebearers are like WMDs. Overwhelmingly destructive, and when deployed all but ensures a decisive if often Pyrrhic victory. However, for holding land that you wish to use (and not just raze to build a really crappy fort on that will get destroyed by Chaos in like two decades,) a standard infantry of mages and soldiers is far more effective and practical.
Tl;Dr:
Cursebearers, despite their overwhelming power, when faced with the task of holding ground (any area that they’ve fought for and wish to use for practical purposes: housing, farmland, trading, ect.) Fall short due to their inability to react to an entire armies actions (without just razing the area,) their powers emit from themselves and thus have only a small range where their attacks are entirely unavoidable, their powers draw from their physical energy thus making them ineffective at battles of attrition, and finally the existence of devourers allows for the possiblity that any lucky blow could prove fatal.
