Talk:Bumi vs. Toph, Round One/@comment-176.240.66.31-20120628030104/@comment-3338975-20130114182224

Yes, Aang was able to beat Toph with Airbending rather quickly, but then again she had no idea what she was going to be up against, having never had to fight against an Airbender before. Generally having been on his side after that point, it's kind of hard to determine whether she wouldn't have been able to compensate for her weakness against Aang's light-footedness by altering her tactics in some manner. And as for Katara, the fights the two of them got in two were really more of petty squabbles, than they were serious battles; if Toph had to pull out all the stops in a potential battle to the death with Katara for whatever reasons, it's hard to tell whether she wouldn't seriously overwhelm her Waterbending ally (remember, Toph tends to wait and listen before striking, so we very rarely see her at her full power level).

And as for metal being a good conductor of heat, that would really depend on the metal one is talking about. It would only make sense that the Fire Nation would choose a metal which is a better insulator than a conductor to construct their ships out of, as they're hardly going to want to risk accidentally melt down the superstructure of their own ships, now are they? They just had no idea that this thinking could be turned against them, before Toph jumped them in Sozin's Comet. At the very least, it ought to offer her bare skin and clothes some minimal protection from spontaneously combusting, whatever else it might do with the heat problem.