Darth Bane vs. Arcann

Peak versions, standard setup, yada yada, everyone knows the deal.

Give reasons or your post will be deleted. Explain why and how Bane and Arcann's respective showing elevate them above their competition. If you don't have reasons, don't post.

Arcann handily. Besides scaling off KOTFE Outlander (who he ragdolled), he's also competed with chained Vaylin, who even here has superior TK and combat feats to Bane. He's also as skilled if not moreso with a lightsaber.

I'm giving it to Bane via Kaan scaling and superior physical capabilities.

I don't see Arcann being far above someone who can mentally persuade hundreds of strong willed Sith Lords simultaneously, years before gaining substantial knowledge and power.

Where along the Arcann -> HoT scaling chain do we see feats that match Kaan TP'ing hundreds of Sith Lords and thousands of lesser Sith together? Because Bane scales above that - not just implicitly by being stronger than Kaan, but by casually resisting Kaan's TP decades before his prime. Now you could argue that TP is a disproportionately strong ability for Kaan (probable) and TP defense is a disproportionately strong ability for Bane (less justifiable), but the second part seems unwarranted.

A massively pre-prime Bane (who had basically the training time of a youngling) could also outright ragdoll through the Force barriers of the strongest Sith of Kaan's Brotherhood. While it's true that they weren't as powerful as the top Ancient Sith, the notion that they were all trash weaklings is just a meme unless if you're comparing them to the top eras - Dark Forces Kyle Katarn, who was able to match some of Jerec's dark jedi, thought that even the weakest of Kaan's surviving Sith made him look like a novice (and Kaan could oneshot even relatively powerful ones like Githany).

What feats does Arcann have to compare? He does block a weakened Valkorion's lightning, which disabled a bunch of ships' circuitry, but I'm not sure how quantifiable this is - the environmental part isn't necessarily beyond Ban'e temple feat, and Valkorion wasn't near full power. Maybe he can co-opt the HoT defeat of a weakened Vitiate? But again, we have no idea how weakened Vitiate was.

I'm not sure who wins this, despite all that. You can probably draw a scaling chain that puts Arcann far, far, far beyond the average Jedi/Sith of his time.

BreakofDawn wrote:Arcann handily. Besides scaling off KOTFE Outlander (who he ragdolled), he's also competed with chained Vaylin, who even here has superior TK and combat feats to Bane. He's also as skilled if not moreso with a lightsaber.

Why is he more skilled and why is Vaylin's power generator feat better than Bane's temple feat? And why does ragdolling the Outlander matter?

Deronn_Solo wrote:I'm giving it to Bane via Kaan scaling and superior physical capabilities.

I don't see Arcann being far above someone who can mentally persuade hundreds of strong willed Sith Lords simultaneously, years before gaining substantial knowledge and power.

Why don't you see Arcann being above that?

Arcann claim to fame is ragdolling The Outlander; I don't think the Outlanders power at the start of KotFE, outweighs Kaan by any noticeable amount, if at all. Kaan was arguably in ragdoll range for a neophyte Bane [given the text explicitly notes he'd be no match for Bane in a Force or physical fight] and this is before he gained considerable knowledge and power throughout the trilogy. DoE Bane >> PoD Bane >>>> Kaan.


Granted, I'm not the most well versed on ToR, so maybe one of the Force wielding protags have an insane scaling chain on there own, but looking over the respect thread, and from what I know of their showings, I'm not buying them being above Kaan by the margin needed for Arcann's ragdoll of them to outweigh Bane's potential ragdoll of Kaan, before getting very noticeable gaines in knowledge and willpower.

Arcann due to scaling from the HOT. Bane's got nothing on that.

Deronn_Solo wrote:Arcann claim to fame is ragdolling The Outlander; I don't think the Outlanders power at the start of KotFE, outweighs Kaan by any noticeable amount, if at all.

Why not? If it's his telepathy feats, then how do you know the Outlander to be incapable of those feats, or incapable of mustering the power required for those feats?

Kaan was arguably in ragdoll range for a neophyte Bane [given the text explicitly notes he'd be no match for Bane in a Force or physical fight] and this is before he gained considerable knowledge and power throughout the trilogy. DoE Bane >> PoD Bane >>>> Kaan.

What do you mean by ragdoll? Do you mean straight up ripping through his Force barrier, or exploiting lapses in his defenses? The consensus in the community is currently that breaking a Force wall is disproportionately difficult and the gap must be ginormous. Kaan being woefully outmatched against Bane doesn't mean Bane can just tear through Kaan's barrier on a whim (I don't think even Arcann can do that to the Outlander).

DC77 (Reborn) wrote:Arcann due to scaling from the HOT. Bane's got nothing on that.

Why is that scaling relevant?

Doesn't Arcann scale massively over Lord Vivicar who could telepathically dominate hundreds of jedi?

KingofBlades wrote:Doesn't Arcann scale massively over Lord Vivicar who could telepathically dominate hundreds of jedi?

No. The feat's been blown out of proportion and I'm not even convinced anyone scales off of it.

HOT has comparable feats and scaling to Bane by the only real metrics we have to compare them (Not Kaan or Vivicar as I don't think telepathy is a good proxy for power) such as telekinesis and combative performances. Arcann is above him by a solid margin as of KOTFE so my money's on him.

Why not? If it's his telepathy feats, then how do you know the Outlander to be incapable of those feats, or incapable of mustering the power required for those feats?

I can't know for certain that the Hero, or Nox, or whatever Force wielding protag the Outlander is incapable of matching Kaan's feat [since feats itself is only what a character has done, not what they are in fact capable of, or capped at] only that the measure of Force power that I would estimate goes into the mental soning of hundreds of strong willed Sith Lords, outweigh what we have seen from HoT [isn't his best showing ragdolling a half dead Vitiate] or Nox [ragdolling Thanaton]. To contrast Kaan TP with another powerhouse - look no further than Joruus C'baoth. Joruus is, someone who was easily a "Darth Vader level threat" per Luke, and someone who's telepathic abilities were is claim to fame [like Kaan is assumed to be], was exhausted just by controlling 40,000 Imperial workers. Albeit, Joruus controlled more bodies, but these were people with no Force sensitivity, and their will power is obviously in question.

If we have a powerhouse like Joruus, whom also specializes in TP, struggling to perform feats analogous to Kaan, that gives us an idea on just how immensely insane the feat, and the power that goes into it is.

What do you mean by ragdoll

In the same way Arcann "ragdolled" the Outlander, I guess.

Deronn_Solo wrote:I can't know for certain that the Hero, or Nox, or whatever Force wielding protag the Outlander is incapable of matching Kaan's feat [since feats itself is only what a character has done, not what they are in fact capable of, or capped at] only that the measure of Force power that I would estimate goes into the mental soning of hundreds of strong willed Sith Lords, outweigh what we have seen from HoT [isn't his best showing ragdolling a half dead Vitiate] or Nox [ragdolling Thanaton].  To contrast Kaan TP with another powerhouse - look no further than Joruus C'baoth. Joruus is, someone who was easily a "Darth Vader level threat" per Luke, and someone who's telepathic abilities were is claim to fame [like Kaan is assumed to be], was exhausted just by controlling 40,000 Imperial workers. Albeit, Joruus controlled more bodies, but these were people with no Force sensitivity, and their will power is obviously in question.

If we have a powerhouse like Joruus, whom also specializes in TP, struggling to perform feats analogous to Kaan, that gives us an idea on just how immensely insane the feat, and the power that goes into it is.

If I recall, C'baoth completely dominated the soldiers, made them into his puppets, while Kaan used suggestive telepathy in tandem with his rhetoric and charisma - I don't think the feats translate perfectly to one another. And how do we quantify whether mind-controlling 1 Sith is equivalent to controlling ten muggles, or a hundred muggles, or even a thousand? There are variables here that make it difficult to compare the feats.

I'd also like to know how Vader relates to the Outlander. For what it's worth, he could resist Vitiate's mind control in Act III, and in general Vitiate was "no match" for him in the same vein Kaan was no match for Bane, while he was weakened by the aura of the Dark Temple, which was potent enough to drive a thousand slaves and some Imperial soldiers mad. Lord Scourge conceded he would not be able to resist the Emperor's telepathic influence like the Hero could, and that Scourge has 300 years of growth and having his powers enhanced by Vitiate's Sith alchemy on his novel counterpart, who managed to endure Nathema better than the Jedi Exile could. Since willpower correlates heavily with one's overall Force strength, it's likely the Hero is far more powerful than the Jedi Exile as of Act III, and received an additional boost from confronting and overcoming his traumas under the Sith Emperor's thrall in Rise of the Hutt Cartel. The Jedi Exile defeated Darth Traya on "a colossal geyser of dark energy" - Traya having one-shot 7 or 20 (depending on whether you go by the game or the script) Sith Assassins with a single attack, and ragdolled three Jedi Council Masters, each of whom could individually reconstruct the Jedi Enclave in minutes, were stronger than dark side Bastila Shan, and were lauded as having "perfect mastery of the Force" or something akin to that.

The Hero was also stated to be the only one capable of standing against Vitiate on Ziost per swtor.com, and since it was Theron and Lana who formulated and executed all the more intricate schemes to stop him, the Hero's accolade likely refers to combat. Despite being weakened, Vitiate was able to control a large enough chunk of Ziost's populace to spark a global war due to all the slaughter, and spawn monoliths that were a direct extension of his power and "beyond Sithspawn" and "virtually unkillable." And again, the Hero of Tython could stand up to that Vitiate in combat.

And Arcann was manhandling that Outlander. For the record, I'm not saying he's stronger than Vader, Bane or even Kaan, just contextualizing what he did to the Outlander.

In regards to TP, The HoT could resist Vitiate, who while far, far weaker, could completely dominate the likes of Scourge and MW Revan (the latter of which scales above Nihilus, Traya, Sion, and pretty much anybody that Meetra Surik has ever met). Granted, Vitiate was weakened in this state, but the point remains, that he was still an extremely powerful Telepath. Nox, who has feats like casually being able to backhand Thanaton's lightning and stomp him, the Barsen'thor, who is able to defeat the First Son, who is able to hide hundreds of Act II Barsen'thor level force users from the entirety of the Jedi Order, and the second Wrath (who I can't actually give any really impressive feats for, but has an accolade of being around equal to the HoT, I think). The second Wrath and Nox are also capable of beating Tuk'ata, and massive Terentateks, the former of which gave slightly post AOTC Anakin and Obi Wan a lot of trouble, and the latter of which is regarded as a "Jedi Killer". 

Via Banite scaling, we can determine that Sith Lords of the caliber of (Maul, Dooku, Tenebrous, Tenebrous' Master, Plagueis, etc), are far beyond the abilities of Bane. Now, AOTC Kenobi is likely >, or >> than his TPM self, and said TPM self is capable of defeating Maul (with a rage amp, but he still won, and 10 years of growth is likely enough to offset the rage amp). So, as far as Banite scaling goes, on a scale from Bane to Sidious, Bane being a 1, and Sidious being a 32, we can assume that Maul, as of TPM should be around at least 20 (no actual statements for this, just an estimate), given that he was a viable apprentice for Sidious (Maul was viewed as a tool by Sidious later, but keep in mind that when training Maul, Sidious had no idea Anakin existed, and likely planned to keep Maul around after killing Plagueis). 

So after this, we have a scaling chain that puts Arcann reasonably above Bane: Arcann >> KOTFE Chapter VI Outlander > SoR Outlander > Ilum Outlander > Act III force using protags > Act II force using protags > Act I force using protags > Prologue Wrath II & Nox > Terentatek >> pack of Tuk'ata >= AOTC Anakin and Obi Wan > Maul >> Bane.

^^
whew chile.
..
Nice post as always, Az. Gonna get to it when I get off from work

Arcann should win because of the scaling chain of the Gravestone lifting.

Senya with the help of Lana was able to lift the Gravestone. But we know that minutes before, Lana wasn't able to open a door with the force. So we can say that Senya done most of the feat.
The interresting part of it was the fact the Gravestone wasn't only on the ground but instead trapped inside the swamp (so with a huge amount of mud, water, trees and so on,... around and in). We are far from simply lifting a ship of this size.
For the Gravestone itself, I think that based on this picture we can at least say that he have a lenght of 150m and a height of 60m (I'm taking the smallest size possible).

This same version of Senya was ragdoll by the Scion leader Heskall who was himself dominated by Arcann with an insane ease. And this wasn't prime Arcann.

So we have this scaling chain:

Arcann (prime) > Arcann >>>>>>> Heskall >>> Senya ~lifting the Gravestone out of the swamp of Zakul.

This is objectively better than anything that Bane have shown.

xolthol wrote:Arcann should win because of the scaling chain of the Gravestone lifting.

Senya with the help of Lana was able to lift the Gravestone. But we know that minutes before, Lana wasn't able to open a door with the force. So we can say that Senya done most of the feat.
The interresting part of it was the fact the Gravestone wasn't only on the ground but instead trapped inside the swamp (so with a huge amount of mud, water, trees and so on,... around and in). We are far from simply lifting a ship of this size.
For the Gravestone itself, I think that based on this picture we can at least say that he have a lenght of 150m and a height of 60m (I'm taking the smallest size possible).

This same version of Senya was ragdoll by the Scion leader Heskall who was himself dominated by Arcann with an insane ease. And this wasn't prime Arcann.

So we have this scaling chain:

Arcann (prime) > Arcann >>>>>>> Heskall >>> Senya ~lifting the Gravestone out of the swamp of Zakul.

This is objectively better than anything that Bane have shown.

The bit about Senya doing most of the work in lifting the Gravestone is actually a fair point I hadn't considered before since Lana does indeed struggle with opening a door earlier in KotFE. However, I'd like to see Heskal ragdolling Senya - I don't remember that happening. And as for Arcann choking Heskal, we don't know what happened prior to that, so I'm not sure it's a valid showing. Regardless, I think you have more concrete scaling with Senya conceding chained Vaylin could crush her skull her at any moment, since Arcann in KotET matches Vaylin in a duel, so it's likely he could also one-shot Senya at his leisure - which is insane considering Senya's telekinetic strength and how difficult it is to actually rip through another person's Force barrier.

Anyway, I don't see why is this objectively better than anything Bane has. I can show feats for Bane in the lightning, telepathy resistance, and Force augmentation department Arcann hasn't matched. Simply because Arcann boasts better telekinesis scaling doesn't make him more powerful by default.

Should we use the size of the temple destroyed by Bane in the specified 20 meters or orient ourselves by its new images from SWTOR? If we take the new data, Bane’s feat is actually very impressive. At SWTOR, this temple seems to be really huge. This is especially noticeable when we see it against a dreadnought, whose length was 800 meters. I would appreciate the size of the temple at a couple of hundred meters at least, based on this. We must not forget about the durability of the structure. The temple stood the bombing of Harrower-class Dreadnaught (link). Jedi Civil War time ships could destroy cities, and one shot was enough to destroy a skyscraper (link). I don't think Harrower-class should give way to Interdictor-class. After the bombing, the temple was practically not damaged. PoD Darth Bane in one attack destroyed a building that withstood several shots of a dreadnought capable of destroying huge buildings, and, accordingly, the destructive power of Bane's telekinesis is much higher than that of a ship. It can be assumed that for a couple of millennia the integrity of the temple could have suffered, but before that the building stood for tens of thousands of years, and during the bombing it was unnoticed that it was dilapidated.

Speaking of the feat itself, many cite the assumption that all that Bane did was shook the foundations of the temple, but "the walls exploded into great chunks of rubble" clearly indicates that the building was destroyed by Bane's attack, and not its consequences. And it should be noted that Bane’s attack was partially blocked by Kas'im. Was Bane amped by dark side nexus? Right, but this does not compare with the growth that Bane had later. If we take a size of 20 meters, the feat will become less impressive, but the bombing is a historical fact, and the durability of the building still needs to be taken into account. I think this feat is underestimated. For early Bane, it was a great indicator.

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction wrote:There was nothing subtle about Bane's attack: the massive shock wave shook the very foundations of the great Rakatan Temple. The concussive blast had enough power to shatter every bone in Kas'im's body and pulverize his flesh into a mass of pulpy liquid. But at the last possible instant he threw up a shield to protect himself from the attack.
Unfortunately, he couldn't shield the Temple around him. The walls exploded into great chunks of rubble. The archway collapsed in a shower of stone, burying Kas'im beneath tons of rock and mortar. A second later the rest of the roof caved in, drowning out the Twi'lek's dying screams with a deafening rumble.
Bane watched the spectacle of the Temple's implosion from the safety of the ground at the foot of the stairs. Billowing clouds of dust rolled out from the wreckage and down the stairs toward him.

@Shioz Do we know the temple in TOR is the same one as in KotOR and PoD?

Based on extensive email exchanges with Drew Karphysyn and the descriptions in the novel, Sasukedc and I created a rather accurate visual of the Temple of the Ancients (note the physical temple shown below is the one Drew specifically used as a reference). Bane's telekinetic blast would have destroyed some of the upper-half (e.g. the top ten meters) of the structure, and Kas'im was crushed from the top rocks. The ruins and smoke then crumbled and rolled to the bottom.



Of course, KOTOR offers a totally different depiction of the Temple of the Ancients, and SWTOR even more so. The issue with the "intent" argument is that authors do not always intend characters to be as powerful as we do. For example, when writing Mace Windu vs Asajj Ventress, the author likely didn't intend Windu to be more skilled and powerful with Dooku. On the other side, the text is very specific about the schematics and explicitly notes there is no damage or weathering (i.e. no orbital bombardment), so rather than force a retcon perhaps we can instead say this was another temple under the same name or the temple was completely remodeled.

DarthAnt66 wrote:Based on extensive email exchanges with Drew Karphysyn and the descriptions in the novel, Sasukedc and I created a rather accurate visual of the Temple of the Ancients (note the physical temple shown below is the one Drew specifically used as a reference). Bane's telekinetic blast would have destroyed some of the upper-half (e.g. the top ten meters) of the structure, and Kas'im was crushed from the top rocks. The ruins and smoke then crumbled and rolled to the bottom.



Of course, KOTOR offers a totally different depiction of the Temple of the Ancients, and SWTOR even more so. The issue with the "intent" argument is that authors do not always intend characters to be as powerful as we do. For example, when writing Mace Windu vs Asajj Ventress, the author likely didn't intend Windu to be more skilled and powerful with Dooku. On the other side, the text is very specific about the schematics and explicitly notes there is no damage or weathering (i.e. no orbital bombardment), so rather than force a retcon perhaps we can instead say this was another temple under the same name or the temple was completely remodeled.

Yeah, in the novel, the Temple is noted to be undamaged, without vegetation growing on it, twenty meters tall, and the entrance being at the top of a staircase - that's wildly different from how TOR depicts it. I would have otherwise gone with the reconciliation it's a different temple, but the issue arises in that the depiction in KotOR aligns much more closely with how it is in TOR, and we do know that is the same temple that Bane visited. That makes it much more debatable and nebulous.

Dammit, why can't Karpyshyn just have used his own game for reference instead of looking up some fan art?

 but the issue arises in that the depiction in KotOR aligns much more closely with how it is in TOR, and we do know that is the same temple that Bane visited. That makes it much more debatable and nebulous.

Perhaps some Rakata completely rebuilt the temple after the events of SWTOR? We only ever see the start of the bombardment, but Theron notes Revan "laid waste" to it.

DarthAnt66 wrote:

 but the issue arises in that the depiction in KotOR aligns much more closely with how it is in TOR, and we do know that is the same temple that Bane visited. That makes it much more debatable and nebulous.

Perhaps some Rakata completely rebuilt the temple after the events of SWTOR? We only ever see the start of the bombardment, but Theron notes Revan "laid waste" to it.

Does he? Quote?