Re: Darth Maul vs Darth Wyyrlok III

October 29th 2019, 4:20 am

CuckedCurry wrote:Jinn caps out at 25bby Kenobi tbh

Any noticeable scaling to support that?

October 29th 2019, 4:38 am

Hmm, the issue has indeed been brought to my notice that MP is exactly considering that

Legit considering unleashing the TPM Kenobi>Jinn hype. I have always been a bit hesitant in it considering the authorial intent in TPM but considering that such a case might be needed someday, I have nonetheless coined it

October 29th 2019, 7:40 am

Lol at that Maul scan still being used to say he's massively above Obi-Wan.

Maul slaughters in sabers, Wyyrlok wins in the rest.

October 29th 2019, 8:44 am

dude jinn caps out at above pissed off TPM kenobi in power and skill if we go by the maul fight. while he did better, against a less tired maul, he didnt do that much better. for one, obi wan even hit him, something i dont think jinn did. jinn is much smarter, more exp, skilled with the force, etc etc, but thats about it.

October 29th 2019, 8:48 am

LOTL wrote:Hmm, the issue has indeed been brought to my notice that MP is exactly considering that

Legit considering unleashing the TPM Kenobi>Jinn hype. I have always been a bit hesitant in it considering the authorial intent in TPM but considering that such a case might be needed someday, I have nonetheless coined it

Darth Maul vs Darth Wyyrlok III - Page 2 Giphy

October 29th 2019, 10:17 am

Stop talking about it and actually show us.

October 29th 2019, 5:23 pm

@O-Siri @Meatpants

Darth Maul vs Darth Wyyrlok III - Page 2 Image0

Apologies for the sideways scans.

October 29th 2019, 6:21 pm

That last scan actually hurts Maul tbh

October 29th 2019, 6:31 pm

Maul's better overall tbh, though Wyyrlok can give him a great fight.

October 29th 2019, 7:07 pm

CuckedCurry wrote:That last scan actually hurts Maul tbh

How so?

October 29th 2019, 7:13 pm

means he is clearly worse with the force, and will try to fight an winnable, saber only fight, while wyyrlok will be fucking him up with the force. mauls wins sabers, just not any of the two.

October 29th 2019, 7:53 pm

Azronger wrote:

CuckedCurry wrote:That last scan actually hurts Maul tbh

How so?

Because it says he put all of his energy and ferocity into his saber skill. Basically means he puts all his power into his saber skill & effectiveness, yet he is still stated to have been stalemated by an enraged TPM Kenobi.

October 29th 2019, 8:16 pm

Azronger wrote:@O-Siri @Meatpants

Apologies for the sideways scans.

These are game mechanics

You sure they are valid? Because then there is a direct quote putting TPM Kenobi comparable to Plo or Gallia

October 30th 2019, 9:42 am

@CuckedCurry

Of course he was. The choke hold was that sudden that he had no time to prepare for it,

This is fallacious, Kenobi isn't a normal human being like me and you, his senses are much faster because he's a Force user. Maul's choke hold on Kenobi in Mandalore was also very sudden if we use your line of thinking, and yet Kenobi still tried to resist it, but ultimately failed (most definitely because he was exhausted from the crash). If an exhausted and confused Kenobi had the time to attempt to resist Maul's choke hold, then making the claim that a fresh Kenobi couldn't do the same in Sith Hunters is just being disengenious, and Kenobi has no reason to allow Maul to choke him in the Sith Hunters comic instance because this is the same Darth Maul who kiled his mentor and surrogate father, the same Darth Maul who Kenobi thought died on Naboo but returned, the same Darth Maul who Kenobi and the Jedi council have been chasing after around the galaxy to bring him to justice.

and had no strength left to resist it.

"had no strength left to resist it" meaning what exactly? You seem to be implying that Kenobi wasn't at full strength, but there's unproven and pretty dishonest given that he hadn't been in a recent fight with anyone before getting choked by Maul.

Iirc he had to receive medical attention afterwards.

What happened is that Maul was trying to slowly kill Kenobi with a Force choke, but had to prematurely release Kenobi because another Jedi attacked Maul and Maul was also holding onto a civillian with his other hand while he was choking Obi-Wan. But Obi-Wan required some time out for a while because of how hard Maul choked him, Plo Koon deemed him unfit to continue the mission because he was injured and needed to rest for a while:

Plo Koon: Injured, you would put us all at risk, Obi-Wan. Rest easy.

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/VDUtCGyc8N_AeQYQHvtbavvPhcQXKxqR5eftblOUd9gL1ZWehWZziqliBr0Gy7rBYLbWFnjdkBY9=s0

I don’t see this instance as being too dissimilar to Ventress’ own choke hold instance on the dreadnaught, where she caught Kenobi and Skywalker off guard with a sudden choke hold.

It definitely is dissimilar because that was S3 Kenobi and Skywalker, Ventress was rage amped in that instance because Count Dooku, her mentor, betrayed her and tried to kill her, and even in those circumstances, Kenobi and Skywalker weren't injured by her choke hold. Maul's choke hold over Kenobi was much more conclusive than what Ventress did because Maul's choke hold so serious and severe that Kenobi was injured, needed to rest by taking time out of the mission of chasing Maul and Opress until he recovered.

And we know 100% Kenobi, even at that era, would be able to resist Maul’s hold, as he says he would in Shadow conspiracy.

In universe opinions aren't aren't fact and infallible, so don't dishonestly argue that "we know that 100%" that S4 Kenobi can sucessfully resist Maul's choke hold. Are you referring to this passage:

"Maul stretched out his hand and Obi-Wan gagged, feet kicking uselessly as Maul held him in midair. He tried to break Maul's Force grip, but didn't have the strength." -- Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy.

This passage shows Kenobi trying to resist Maul's choke hold, but failing because he wasn't strong enough. Kenobi however, in this instance, was exhausted and dazed because he had spent the day running away from mandalorians and survived a blast radius, so I'm not going to argue that this is an indication of Maul being able to choke S5 Kenobi.

@LOTL:

You literally have an image that has his back to Maul as Maul is gripping him

He is obviously caught off guard lol

Strawman. I wasn't referring to their S5 duel.

I assume you are referring to Sith Hunters in which case it is an emotionally fucked Obi Wan

Per Filoni, he is focused and ready to face Maul only in S5, a version of Maul far superior to S4 Maul and is arguably better than him in the episode, the book and per creators intent.

Filoni never said that Kenobi was only focused and ready to face Maul only in S5, he just says that Kenobi is more focused and ready in Revival than he was in Revenge, because Kenobi has fully accepted that Maul survived his bisection and is back for real, whereas in Revenge, Kenobi was initially sceptical about the idea of Maul being alive because he got cut in half, and thought some nutcase was just pretending to be Maul, but then finds out that his doubts were completely wrong when he finally sees Maul on Raydonia, and then at the worst moment, discovers that not only Maul has returned, but that he has teamed up with the same monstrous zabrack, Savage Opress, that he encountered in S3, and was confused by all those bizarre revelations. And Filoni made this statement in the TCW S5 premiere, which occured before the Sith Hunters comics got published, that premiere's audience were people who were getting an early screening of the episodes of S5, so Filoni's only addressing what the animated episodes are showing the audience, which makes sense given the Sith Hunters comic does actually show us that Kenobi has fully accepted the reality that Maul survived being cut in half because of his Dark Side knowledge, and the fact that he has teamed up with Opress, hence why he and several Jedi chase after them, so the "Obi-Wan is emotionally fucked" rhetoric just fails to withstand scrutiny.

But yes I agree that S5 Maul is much better than S4 Maul because S4 Maul had to go through the process of recovering his TPM skill set (lightsaber combat specifically) because of his cybernetic lower half, but finished that recovery process by Revival.

This line of thought has long been debunked. Also the fact that he is TPM level in of itself debunks the argument, it is not possible to argue that S4 Obi Wan is inferior to enraged TPM Kenobi lol

No it doesn't debunk the argument because it doesn't even prove that S4 Kenobi is inferior to rage amped TPM Kenobi. Obi-Wan was of TPM, was always a level 7 fighter, in fact in one source Gillard says that he's a "6 or 7" and speaks about how the Dark Side is a "cheat" and likens it to an "LSD high", but either way, he's a 7 at best, so being rage amped didn't elevate him all the way up to level 8, which is the level that Maul's at. Heck, even by AotC he's still a level 7. Jedi Battles also says that it's clear that Maul is more powerful than Kenobi in their 1v1, so rage amped Kenobi is not on par with TPM Maul. TPM novel does say that they fought evenly, but the explanation behind that is that Maul was very used to the temp that standard TPM Kenobi fought at and his instincts and tactics were adjusted to fighting a much slower and less aggressive Kenobi, and he had to adjust and adapt his tactics and instincts to fighting a much faster and more aggressive Kenobi when they had their 1v1. In fact the same novel says that Maul was caught off guard by Obi-Wan's "wild assault".

October 30th 2019, 10:47 am

@Latham2000

Filoni never said that Kenobi was only focused and ready to face Maul only in S5, he just says that Kenobi is more focused and ready in Revival than he was in Revenge, because Kenobi has fully accepted that Maul survived his bisection and is back for real, whereas in Revenge, Kenobi was initially sceptical about the idea of Maul being alive because he got cut in half, and thought some nutcase was just pretending to be Maul, but then finds out that his doubts were completely wrong when he finally sees Maul on Raydonia, and then at the worst moment, discovers that not only Maul has returned, but that he has teamed up with the same monstrous zabrack, Savage Opress, that he encountered in S3, and was confused by all those bizarre revelations. And Filoni made this statement in the TCW S5 premiere, which occured before the Sith Hunters comics got published, that premiere's audience were people who were getting an early screening of the episodes of S5, so Filoni's only addressing what the animated episodes are showing the audience, which makes sense given the Sith Hunters comic does actually show us that Kenobi has fully accepted the reality that Maul survived being cut in half because of his Dark Side knowledge, and the fact that he has teamed up with Opress, hence why he and several Jedi chase after them, so the "Obi-Wan is emotionally fucked" rhetoric just fails to withstand scrutiny.

He explicitly used the word "only" on one of his interviews( not the premiere one, because that follows the statement you make) so this entire text block becomes pointless tbh. I'll try to track it down

Not to mention, force based attacks are confirmed to be force users exploiting gaps in the opponent's technique and catching them off guard in most cases in the PT era based on the vision of Lucas and Filoni and the story group( and literally every example you can imagine) unless it is confirmed that the opponent actively blocked the attack( via gesture for eg.) so even then, it doesn't mean anything other than the fact that Maul can react slightly quicker than Obi Wan in that event

No it doesn't debunk the argument because it doesn't even prove that S4 Kenobi is inferior to rage amped TPM Kenobi. Obi-Wan was of TPM, was always a level 7 fighter, in fact in one source Gillard says that he's a "6 or 7" and speaks about how the Dark Side is a "cheat" and likens it to an "LSD high", but either way, he's a 7 at best, so being rage amped didn't elevate him all the way up to level 8, which is the level that Maul's at. Heck, even by AotC he's still a level 7. Jedi Battles also says that it's clear that Maul is more powerful than Kenobi in their 1v1, so rage amped Kenobi is not on par with TPM Maul. TPM novel does say that they fought evenly, but the explanation behind that is that Maul was very used to the temp that standard TPM Kenobi fought at and his instincts and tactics were adjusted to fighting a much slower and less aggressive Kenobi, and he had to adjust and adapt his tactics and instincts to fighting a much faster and more aggressive Kenobi when they had their 1v1. In fact the same novel says that Maul was caught off guard by Obi-Wan's "wild assault".

What are you even saying? The point here is that S4 Kenobi>TPM Kenobi

October 30th 2019, 10:56 am

@LOTL

Dave Filoni: When you get to this Episode Obi-Wan is much more focused and ready. Not only that but when Adi Gallia dies he gains even more focus and has to kind of right that wrong.
Source - Star Wars Celebration Clone Wars Season Five Premiere

Interviewer: So Obi-Wan Kenobi loses Qui Gon to Darth Maul and is suddenly just empowered to defeat him, Obi-Wan loses Adi Galia and the same thing kinda happens. Is this sense of loss kinda empowering or is it just...
Dave Filoni: Not really, it's a lot of focus, and being a hero, and kindness.
Source - Star Wars Celebration Clone Wars Season Five Premiere

Dave Filoni: He is a very skilled swordsman so he is not going to lose that fight in that situation.
Source - Star Wars Celebration Clone Wars Season Five Premiere.

One of these?

October 30th 2019, 10:57 am

@LOTL:

He explicitly used the word "only" on one of his interviews( not the premiere one, because that follows the statement you make) so this entire rant becomes pointless tbh. I'll try to track it down

OK, I'll just wait to see what he says.

Not to mention, force based attacks are confirmed to be force users exploiting gaps in the opponent's technique and catching them off guard in most cases in the PT era based on the vision of Lucas and Filoni and the story group( and literally every example you can imagine) unless it is confirmed that the opponent actively blocked the attack( via gesture for eg.) so even then, it doesn't mean anything other than the fact that Maul can react slightly quicker than Obi Wan in that event

Obi-Wan actively tried to block Maul's attack in Mandalore, even while being heavily exhausted and confused, so it's just contrived to insinuate that he wouldn't try to block Maul's grip in Sith Hunters.

What are you even saying? The point here is that S4 Kenobi>TPM Kenobi

I was saying that even if you did concede that Maul's feat of Force choking S4 Obi-Wan was a result of telekinetic superiority, that doesn't prove that S4 Obi-Wan is less powerful than enraged TPM Obi-Wan because rage amped TPM Obi-Wan is not as good as Maul because he caught Maul off guard with his aggression, was stated to be less powerful than Maul in their 1v1, and was stated to be a level 6-7 fighter by Nick Gillard in Lucas's system as of TPM, the same Gillard says that using the Dark Side can cheat your power into being elevated, and yet rage amped TPM Kenobi wasn't able to elevate himself to being a level 8 fighter.

October 30th 2019, 11:49 am Message reputation : 100% (3 votes)

Sabers: Wyyrlok can likely hold out for a long time, but I'm not convinced he has the means to beat Maul for 1 win out of 10. It's not his wheelhouse.

"Wyyrlok is a diplomat rather than a warrior, and smoothly manages the intricacies of Krayt's galactic reign." -The Ultimate Visual Guide, Updated and Expanded

Now, that quote was very early in Legacy's publication. It was before we saw Wyyrlok's solo issue or his fight with Reborn Krayt. But it's enough to tell us that saber combat is the least of his priorities. That's actually a point in his favour, though, because it means proportionately his other Force abilities must be much stronger than his saber skill, and despite that, he did better against a much more lethally motivated Krayt than Cade did against a pretty lax Krayt, and Cade is first and foremost a warrior. I don't know if that necessarily means Wyyrlok is a better overall duelist or if he is just very strong defensively (in part due to his extreme Force power) while lacking much of a trained offence. In any case, even if it's hard fought, I feel much safer siding with Maul in this case.

Force: Happy to side with Wyyrlok here. Reborn Krayt is somewhere between RotS and OT Sheev as an overall combatant, so given how well Wyyrlok did against him he seems a safe choice here. He's shown more variety in terms of how he applies his Force powers, and to my own chagrin, I have to admit that Memory Walk would prove effective against Maul.

All out: Could go either way but more often than not I'll side with Wyyrlok, thanks to Memory Walk primarily. Both have ways of winning which are equally valid, but Memory Walk is a pretty distinct edge.

October 30th 2019, 12:15 pm

@ILS What makes Reborn Krayt > ROTS Sidious in the Force, let alone sabers? Not knowledgeable on him.

October 30th 2019, 12:43 pm Message reputation : 100% (2 votes)

WalkingInCircles wrote:@ILS What makes Reborn Krayt > ROTS Sidious in the Force, let alone sabers? Not knowledgeable on him.

Three main things for me:

1. A'Sharad did very well against EoRotS Kenobi, a guy who has the best speed feat in SW when he sprinted so fast he nearly disintegrated, and was "deflecting and countering" Force blasts from Mustafar Vader, who is on RotS Sidious' tier. There is a world of difference supported by many quotes between A'Sharad Hett and Vong Krayt, and there is a quantifiable and significant jump between Vong Krayt and Reborn Krayt.

2. Krayt, while lets face it probably not on Luke's level, did very well alongside him vs. Abeloth. Specifically, he demonstrated a comparable well of Force reserves in Beyond Shadows, and him draining Abeloth was possibly the most damaging attack she experienced in the series - and was the major turning point in the fight. Now because Abeloth's own reserves are gargantuan (worth Luke's own reserves many times over), you could argue that Krayt draining her that much was the equivalent of him draining a top-tier Force user near to death, which regardless of how you try to split hairs over him and Luke, on it's own, is extremely impressive. Also, I've had a think about Troy Denning's commentary on Krayt vs Luke vs Caedus, and I think when you consider that Luke ragdolling Caedus did rely on a surprise factor, it's possible that in a fair, prepared fight, Luke can't actually ragdoll Caedus. Because before, when Denning said that "Caedus or Krayt vs Luke is a toss up that depends on circumstances, because the three of them are so close", we all dismissed that as a non-answer because we operate from the basis that Caedus can be ragdolled by Luke. But if we challenge that premise, and look at how resourceful Caedus was in his fight with Luke, it is true that, depending on the circumstances, Caedus can possibly eek out a win against Luke, and thus the same seems to be true for Krayt according to the same author.

3. The way Reborn Krayt handled Cade was even more dominant than how Sidious handled Maul in TCW, and for my money, Cade is at least Maul level if not more powerful.

So I think if you chart what Krayt is capable of doing at various stages in his career, it paints a clear picture of his power growth. If you are starting out giving a great fight to EoRotS Kenobi (who is able to give tier 9s a solid fight), before growing massively... there isn't really anywhere else to go apart from Sidious level at that point. It would be hard to argue that the gulf between EoRotS Kenobi and Sidious is so large that it can encompass the massive multi-faceted 100+ years of growth and overcoming limitations that Krayt went through.

October 30th 2019, 12:53 pm Message reputation : 100% (2 votes)

As a footnote to the above: if you operate on the premise that TCW Sheev could have ragdolled Maul casually whenever he wanted to, without needing a defensive lapse, then of course, Sidious' performance seems better, and that was my belief for quite some time. However, according to Shadow Conspiracy, Sidious actually needed to create an opening just to Force blast and concuss Maul, and in pure saber combat, him and Savage were doing quite well - Sidious' mastery of the Force made a world of difference. So if we disregard the idea of Sidious ragdolling whenever he feels like it (which doesn't seem to be supported anywhere at this point), then what we're left with is Krayt two-panel stomping Cade while holding back at least as much as Sidious did with Maul... the fact is you would need to do an extreme amount of hairsplitting to try and argue that Sidious' performance was leagues better than Krayt's, at the very least, the two were comparable. But, as I am inclined to believe based on how Krayt won more easily against a naturally more potent enemy who "had a new mastery of the Force", it actually seems like Krayt's fight was a better feat.

October 30th 2019, 12:53 pm

Latham2000 wrote:@LOTL:

He explicitly used the word "only" on one of his interviews( not the premiere one, because that follows the statement you make) so this entire rant becomes pointless tbh. I'll try to track it down

OK, I'll just wait to see what he says.

Not to mention, force based attacks are confirmed to be force users exploiting gaps in the opponent's technique and catching them off guard in most cases in the PT era based on the vision of Lucas and Filoni and the story group( and literally every example you can imagine) unless it is confirmed that the opponent actively blocked the attack( via gesture for eg.) so even then, it doesn't mean anything other than the fact that Maul can react slightly quicker than Obi Wan in that event

Obi-Wan actively tried to block Maul's attack in Mandalore, even while being heavily exhausted and confused, so it's just contrived to insinuate that he wouldn't try to block Maul's grip in Sith Hunters.

What are you even saying? The point here is that S4 Kenobi>TPM Kenobi

I was saying that even if you did concede that Maul's feat of Force choking S4 Obi-Wan was a result of telekinetic superiority, that doesn't prove that S4 Obi-Wan is less powerful than enraged TPM Obi-Wan because rage amped TPM Obi-Wan is not as good as Maul because he caught Maul off guard with his aggression, was stated to be less powerful than Maul in their 1v1, and was stated to be a level 6-7 fighter by Nick Gillard in Lucas's system as of TPM, the same Gillard says that using the Dark Side can cheat your power into being elevated, and yet rage amped TPM Kenobi wasn't able to elevate himself to being a level 8 fighter.

Clutching his throat is not blocking. Not only that but he only makes any move on it after Maul has put him in the choke

And yeah, the second block of text is meaningless too. Maul is obviously better than TPM Kenobi but certainly it is a solid fight and Maul is nowhere close to being powerful enough to just choke Obi Wan on a whim. TPM Kenobi is a 7 by the way, in published material he clearly cites that Kenobi goes from 7 to 8 between the first and third movies so him citing that Obi Wan is a 6 probably is an oversight( he cited prime Kenobi as a 7 and Yoda as an 8 once) by him that is not uncommon. But on topic, even though Maul is better than Obi Wan in TPM, the margin is not that big and Kenobi can certainly put up a solid fight.

As for the minutiae, they certainly favor Kenobi but I'll analyze that in the contest with MP

October 30th 2019, 12:54 pm

ILS wrote:

WalkingInCircles wrote:@ILS What makes Reborn Krayt > ROTS Sidious in the Force, let alone sabers? Not knowledgeable on him.

Three main things for me:

1. A'Sharad did very well against EoRotS Kenobi, a guy who has the best speed feat in SW when he sprinted so fast he nearly disintegrated, and was "deflecting and countering" Force blasts from Mustafar Vader, who is on RotS Sidious' tier. There is a world of difference supported by many quotes between A'Sharad Hett and Vong Krayt, and there is a quantifiable and significant jump between Vong Krayt and Reborn Krayt.

2. Krayt, while lets face it probably not on Luke's level, did very well alongside him vs. Abeloth. Specifically, he demonstrated a comparable well of Force reserves in Beyond Shadows, and him draining Abeloth was possibly the most damaging attack she experienced in the series - and was the major turning point in the fight. Now because Abeloth's own reserves are gargantuan (worth Luke's own reserves many times over), you could argue that Krayt draining her that much was the equivalent of him draining a top-tier Force user near to death, which regardless of how you try to split hairs over him and Luke, on it's own, is extremely impressive. Also, I've had a think about Troy Denning's commentary on Krayt vs Luke vs Caedus, and I think when you consider that Luke ragdolling Caedus did rely on a surprise factor, it's possible that in a fair, prepared fight, Luke can't actually ragdoll Caedus. Because before, when Denning said that "Caedus or Krayt vs Luke is a toss up that depends on circumstances, because the three of them are so close", we all dismissed that as a non-answer because we operate from the basis that Caedus can be ragdolled by Luke. But if we challenge that premise, and look at how resourceful Caedus was in his fight with Luke, it is true that, depending on the circumstances, Caedus can possibly eek out a win against Luke, and thus the same seems to be true for Krayt according to the same author.

3. The way Reborn Krayt handled Cade was even more dominant than how Sidious handled Maul in TCW, and for my money, Cade is at least Maul level if not more powerful.

So I think if you chart what Krayt is capable of doing at various stages in his career, it paints a clear picture of his power growth. If you are starting out giving a great fight to EoRotS Kenobi (who is able to give tier 9s a solid fight), before growing massively... there isn't really anywhere else to go apart from Sidious level at that point. It would be hard to argue that the gulf between EoRotS Kenobi and Sidious is so large that it can encompass the massive multi-faceted 100+ years of growth and overcoming limitations that Krayt went through.

All fair, but I just want to raise some objections:

1. Obi-Wan was fighting on uneven terrain that Hett had a lot of experience with, and Obi-Wan's performance was against a hindered Mustafar Vader whose technique and attacks he knew as well as his own.

2. I'm really not sure about the Abeloth feat. IIRC she was focused on Luke when he was draining her. Feel free to correct me on that. As for Caedus, even when Luke pinned him to the chair and the surprise wore off Caedus was completely unable to free himself from the Force hold, and Luke wasn't really having much trouble holding him there. Plus, that "factors" thing probably refers to a situation like their other duel, where Caedus did pretty well against a Luke hindered by a multitude of factors. To be fair, Maul or Dooku for example could beat GM Luke under the right circumstances.

3. Meh, Sheev was toying with Maul per several sources, including Filoni. Once he'd had enough, he effortlessly disarmed Maul and ragdolled him.

I also don't think Kenobi could replicate his Mustafar feat against Yoda, Mace, the Outlander, Vaylin, Sheev, etc simply because he doesn't know their fighting techniques nearly as well as he knows Anakin's

October 30th 2019, 1:17 pm

LOTL wrote:

Latham2000 wrote:@LOTL:

He explicitly used the word "only" on one of his interviews( not the premiere one, because that follows the statement you make) so this entire rant becomes pointless tbh. I'll try to track it down

OK, I'll just wait to see what he says.

Not to mention, force based attacks are confirmed to be force users exploiting gaps in the opponent's technique and catching them off guard in most cases in the PT era based on the vision of Lucas and Filoni and the story group( and literally every example you can imagine) unless it is confirmed that the opponent actively blocked the attack( via gesture for eg.) so even then, it doesn't mean anything other than the fact that Maul can react slightly quicker than Obi Wan in that event

Obi-Wan actively tried to block Maul's attack in Mandalore, even while being heavily exhausted and confused, so it's just contrived to insinuate that he wouldn't try to block Maul's grip in Sith Hunters.

What are you even saying? The point here is that S4 Kenobi>TPM Kenobi

I was saying that even if you did concede that Maul's feat of Force choking S4 Obi-Wan was a result of telekinetic superiority, that doesn't prove that S4 Obi-Wan is less powerful than enraged TPM Obi-Wan because rage amped TPM Obi-Wan is not as good as Maul because he caught Maul off guard with his aggression, was stated to be less powerful than Maul in their 1v1, and was stated to be a level 6-7 fighter by Nick Gillard in Lucas's system as of TPM, the same Gillard says that using the Dark Side can cheat your power into being elevated, and yet rage amped TPM Kenobi wasn't able to elevate himself to being a level 8 fighter.

Clutching his throat is not blocking. Not only that but he only makes any move on it after Maul has put him in the choke

And yeah, the second block of text is meaningless too. Maul is obviously better than TPM Kenobi but certainly it is a solid fight and Maul is nowhere close to being powerful enough to just choke Obi Wan on a whim. TPM Kenobi is a 7 by the way, in published material he clearly cites that Kenobi goes from 7 to 8 between the first and third movies so him citing that Obi Wan is a 6 probably is an oversight( he cited prime Kenobi as a 7 and Yoda as an 8 once) by him that is not uncommon. But on topic, even though Maul is better than Obi Wan in TPM, the margin is not that big and Kenobi can certainly put up a solid fight.

As for the minutiae, they certainly favor Kenobi but I'll analyze that in the contest with MP

This is not base Obi Wan but the one that battles Maul, just saying

October 30th 2019, 1:25 pm Message reputation : 100% (2 votes)

WalkingInCircles wrote:

All fair, but I just want to raise some objections:

1. Obi-Wan was fighting on uneven terrain that Hett had a lot of experience with, and Obi-Wan's performance was against a hindered Mustafar Vader whose technique and attacks he knew as well as his own.

2. I'm really not sure about the Abeloth feat. IIRC she was focused on Luke when he was draining her. Feel free to correct me on that. As for Caedus, even when Luke pinned him to the chair and the surprise wore off Caedus was completely unable to free himself from the Force hold, and Luke wasn't really having much trouble holding him there. Plus, that "factors" thing probably refers to a situation like their other duel, where Caedus did pretty well against a Luke hindered by a multitude of factors. To be fair, Maul or Dooku for example could beat GM Luke under the right circumstances.

3. Meh, Sheev was toying with Maul per several sources, including Filoni. Once he'd had enough, he effortlessly disarmed Maul and ragdolled him.

I also don't think Kenobi could replicate his Mustafar feat against Yoda, Mace, the Outlander, Vaylin, Sheev, etc simply because he doesn't know their fighting techniques nearly as well as he knows Anakin's

1. These are true observations, and ones I factored into my post. At the end of the day, MFV was a tier 9 and his Force blasts were being "deflected and countered" by Kenobi. No amount of familiarisation with fighting style can mitigate that. As for the sand, I think you would be inclined to agree with me that, much like how the sand didn't bother Jinn or Maul, it would be quite insulting to Obi-Wan's skill to suggest he was being severely hampered by sand. The novel notes that Obi-Wan is glad he kept up his Jedi training due to Hett's "considerable skills", not because they're on the sand.

2. Luke held Abeloth in place while Krayt drained her. Defeating her was very much a two-man job. Re: Caedus. I think it's true that once you are locked into a Force-hold, it's harder to break out than if you were trying to block it to begin with. There's too many situations, not just with Luke and Caedus but with other characters (Obi-Wan vs Maul or Dooku), where ragdolling the opponent would have been extremely useful, but it was never done, which can only really mean they couldn't. Bart once said that these characters know better than us what they are capable of, and I still agree with that premise.

As for Maul or Dooku vs. Luke, I don't think you could say that Maul and Dooku are so close to Luke in power and skill that those categories are negligible compared to "strategy" and "circumstances" - but that is how close Denning thinks Caedus and Krayt are to Luke. I think it's safe to say that Luke is very noticeably more skilled and powerful than Maul or Dooku and could dispatch them even in pretty terrible circumstances.

3. As a quick note, no source says Sidious disarmed Maul "effortlessly". In the episode, Sidious visually strains to overpower Maul, and in the novel, he ramps up his speed immensely, and Maul meets his strikes that are "too many to count, and then even more than that" before he is disarmed.

The "toying" quote, which to my knowledge is just one quote, refers to when he was ragdolling him at the end, once the fight had ended. Most quotes suggest that Sheev had the advantage throughout, but none suggest he could ragdoll, or end the fight whenever he wanted to, or was toying with them the whole time. Shadow Conspiracy contradicts that several times, and we have one TCW magazine quote which suggests the brothers had an initial advantage, which is some counter evidence to the quotes saying Sheev always had the advantage.

Maul saw that Savage was startled by the seemingly frail man’s enormous strength. Maul stared at his Master’s face. He saw the strain as Sidious called upon the Force to keep the brothers at bay. But there was something else there, too—a terrible pleasure. Sidious began to grin.

So for the above quote, it shows that Sidious straining and putting effort into the fight is not mutually exclusive from him enjoying the fight, any more than him experiencing "lascivious pain" against Oneness Galen Marek means he defeated him no effort whatsoever. Sidious enjoys pain and fighting, he even cackled during the fight of his life with Yoda. So that deals with Filoni's quote that Sidious was "enjoying" himself. I also underlined the part where Savage shows how surprised he is at how strong Sidious, which ties in later...

Maul had fought his Master many times, starting when he was little more than a child and continuing through his apprenticeship. His body bore innumerable scars from those duels—lessons in the peril of being too slow or two quick, too weak or too distracted. During Maul’s apprenticeship he had always known that Sidious had been willing to kill him. The Sith had not survived their centuries of exile by being sentimental, and a student who couldn’t stand against his Master in a mere training exercise was worse than useless—he was a waste of valuable resources better used elsewhere. But Maul had never faced his Master when he was actually trying to kill him.

Just to reinforce the idea that Sidious is not screwing around here: Sidious was always willing to kill Maul during his training if he didn't measure up, and we even have one instance on Hypori where Sidious goaded Maul into a Force rage. And in that fight, Maul "nearly bested"/"nearly killed" Sidious. Now, Sidious was only fighting defensively there, but the point is, the Sidious Maul is fighting in Shadow Conspiracy is fighting on a totally different level (not power-wise, but in terms of him trying to kill Maul) than he had ever experienced before. I think this flies in the face of Sidious "toying" with Maul.

Maul tried to slash past Sidious’s guard, only to find his Master had given ground, causing Maul to extend his arms too far and leave himself slightly unbalanced. It was the smallest stumble, easily corrected, but Sidious saw it—and pounced before Maul could draw himself back. Snarling, he reached out with the Force and slammed Maul against the wall, leaving him lying stunned in a heap.

So, Sidious manufactured a small gap, a small overextension in Maul's defence, and then "pounced" on it to land a Force blast. That does not exactly scream to me that he was "toying" with the brothers and could TK them at will.

Savage knew the dangers of facing the Sith Lord alone, and pressed his attack before Sidious draw his hand back from Force-shoving Maul into the wall. Teeth bared, Savage windmilled his double saber, hoping to disarm Sidious or force him to give ground. If he did, that would allow the yellow-and-black Zabrak to follow his initial attack with a lightning-quick thrust that would penetrate Sidious’s defenses and wound or even kill him.

Maul tried to shake off his attack, rocketing up from the floor. Sidious neatly side-stepped Savage’s assault, drawing back as the massive Zabrak raised his double-bladed saber high to try to pummel him with it. Savage didn’t think Sidious was fast enough to take advantage of the brief opening in his defenses, but he was wrong.

Even Savage is quite underrated here. Savage had to fight Sidious alone for a spell, and according to Shadow Conspiracy, he tried to break through a brief opening in Sidious' defence after he blasted Maul - the problem is, Savage underestimated how fast Sidious is. And this makes sense, because unlike Maul, he has never fought anyone on this tier before. Maul has fought Sidious countless times, and still thinks he is "unknowable" according to Death Sentence, but nevertheless he has some measure of his master's power. Savage, as shown at the start when he was shocked at his strength, has no idea what to expect from Sidious, he's never fought on this level before. So Sidious actually capitalised on a tactical error on Savage's part, which is actually forgivable for Savage because he was doing his best to take the initiative in a situation where he was totally out of his depth - what other option did he have than to seize the advantage when he knows he's fighting a superior opponent?

According to Gillard, Sidious' style revolves around "suckering" the opponent in, letting them think they have the advantage and then punishing them for it. That's basically all that happened here. So when Filoni says Savage put up a "better fight" than Mace's Jedi strike team, I take that quite literally - I don't think Sidious can just blitz Savage.

Darth Maul vs Darth Wyyrlok III - Page 2 A9rvUWKEVq1uAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC

Darth Maul vs Darth Wyyrlok III - Page 2 A9rvUWKEVq1uAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC

Then we have this from one of the TCW magazines. Now, while there's certainly more pro-Sidious quotes, I think you can strike a balance between the two. We saw at the start of the fight Maul is pushing Sidious back down a narrow corridor before Sidious drags the brothers down from the balcony. So to me, it may have seemed like the brothers had the upper hand, but really Sidious purposely gave ground and was still in full control of the fight. I don't think he was in much danger of losing...

...but none of that even comes close to saying Sidious "toyed" with them or could ragdoll them at will. I think in large part due to Silver's blog and a lot of chinese whispers over the years we have built up an embellished perception of what actually happened in this fight. Sidious was winning, he was in control, he was enjoying himself - but he was still in a serious fight, he was still there to kill his "rivals", and it's not at all evident he could end the fight whenever he wanted.

So with that in mind... look at Krayt vs Cade.

Darth Maul vs Darth Wyyrlok III - Page 2 NjQxWUc

Darth Maul vs Darth Wyyrlok III - Page 2 NjQxWUc

Darth Maul vs Darth Wyyrlok III - Page 2 YPhGk2H

That's... one of the shortest fights in Star Wars. In the context of Legacy, and John Ostrander's other series Republic and Dawn of the Jedi, that is barely worth calling a fight - most of his serious duels last between 3-7 pages or even more. This was in the climatic final comic issue of the entire run, so the excuse that Cade was giving Krayt hell off-panel seems to be quite silly - why would they leave the most important part of the duel off-panel, when Ostrander has never done that in the dozens+ of other duels he has written? They have 20 clean pages to show us Cade giving Krayt hell, instead they gave us barely a page and a half. And Krayt did not want to kill Cade, in fact, he specifically wanted to transform him into a dark side vassal so that he could one day take him over and extend his life. And the way Krayt won - by reaching out awkwardly and palming Cade's chest - is actually extremely dangerous tactically. I remember back in the day when I would argue that Krayt could end fights easily with Dark Transfer, people would always reply "Yeah, but that's only if he doesn't get his hand cut off trying to use it!" - well, that's a fair point, because a lightsaber gives you an extra metre of range, and Krayt being a Jar'kai user, could have used his second saber to cut Cade in half there - but he didn't even use his second saber, something he has never done before, even against Wyyrlok or the fodder Imperial Knights.

So yeah... not sure what else there is to say. I've not seen any counter arguments to this which are satisfying, so I don't see a better place for Krayt than RotS Sidious+ tier. Even if Sidious has more natural power than Krayt, Sidious was pre-prime by many decades in RotS, whereas Krayt was a dark side master who has literally been to hell and back a few times with over 100+ years of experience. It's not inconceivable that he is better than Sidious very early in his career. Same with Yoda - Yoda might naturally have more midichlorians than Krayt, but according to Dooku in Dark Rendezvous, Yoda could be far more powerful when using the dark side - he actually thought Yoda would "annihilate" Sidious if he used the dark side. And, Yoda was near the end of his life span, and past his prime in RotS. Krayt, on the other hand, had used Dark Transfer to fully maximise his physical potential (he even regrew a missing arm), and is completely steeped in the dark side, so it's not as if there is a hard and fast rule that post-prime, non Sith Yoda is above every maxed-out dark sider like Krayt.