Merise hasn't been in the same room as Elayne or Egwene. I don't think there is a direct quote anywhere in the series comparing Egwene or Elayne to Cadsuane.

In TGS Melaine tells Aviendha that only Cadsuane would have been able to accomplish what Aviendha did with the water during the bubble of evil ... which illustrates that Aviendha has a significantly more potential than Cadsuane as we know she's probably not even as far along in her growth as Elayne.



You are correct ... I actually do have Nicola placed below Cadsuane on my list, around the same level as Mielyn and Karene.



I think Bode is stronger than Cadsuane. Egwene's quote makes it clear that Bode is very close to her in potential. No mention is made of the 1000 years comment because it's irrelevant now that they have Sharina, Nynaeve, Egwene, Elayne and Bode!




That actually makes my argument that Moiraine is less than a 50 stronger. 50 sisters ahead of her level ... given Bell Curves that means there would be even more than that of equal strength ... but she's right around that middle ground ... no doubt in my mind, I typically just assume she's about 50% of Nynaeve.



We're so close in how we see this it's not even an argument ... only real difference is I's just bump everyone except for Bode down about 5 points. Trivial.




I think when comparing women to women effective and raw are probably the same ... not when looking cross gender ... which is what makes me wonder how the "dexterity bonus" actually works ... is it universally the same for all women (i.e. a flat 25%) or does it differ from woman to woman like strength (i.e. Egwene has a 30% while Moghedien has a 22% etc...) it could very well be that the stronger the woman the more dexterity bonus she gets too ... we have almost nothing to go on from this only that it exists and is significant enough to offset several levels of strength between men and women.



I think we have a lot of strength generated based on different scales actually... IMO in the early stages when Elayne or Aviendha estimate strength they are talking in terms of full potential as it's likely what they immediately sense. But when an AS or other well trained women speak of it they are speaking in terms of the "at this moment" Strength... which is probably why there is some confusion in the text about who is stronger than who ... for instance, it's possible that Tamela and Viendre have equal or even less Potential than Elayne and are merely stronger at that moment in time since Elayne and Avi have not yet peaked. Elayne has had far more training at this point in the series so she is likely talking about "of the moment" strength (although this could also be a case of both potential and current level being higher). Much as Reanne almost certainly was comparing Alivia's strength to Nynaeve's current level... not to Nynaeve's potential which is a moot comparison if Nynaeve had not peaked yet.