Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-4010415-20170717151617/@comment-4010415-20170718061044

Octavia's fire did travel farther away from Octavia.

I think that one reason Weiss' fire attack in volume 1 wasn't as powerful is because she was trying to keep it weaker and controlled to make absolutely sure she wouldn't burn the forest down - y'know, being smart enough to be cautious with fire while surrounded by flammable objects. And it only moved in one thin line because she slashed vertically, not horizontally.

And yeah, Weiss drawing her finger down the blade for the fire Dust does make it seem that she was less advanced because she had to physically coat the blade with her hand, rather than channeling the Dust onto the blade like she later did in the White Trailer and, I assume, the Emerald Forest.

Yes, every time she has done anything more than a straight line of ice spikes, she has used a glyph to shape the ice, which means she's still not advanced enough to control Dust with Aura alone, unlike people like Cinder and Dew. I can't help but wonder if Weiss simply hasn't bothered to further her Aura training enough to do that simply because her Semblance can allow her to manipulate Dust in the same way. If that's the case, she fails to realize that her method using her glyphs is more limited than Cinder's method with Aura, since Weiss' method is limited to the boundaries of the glyph's reach.