Quantifying Lightning Feats

What are some ways we can quantify the impressiveness of Force Lightning? Some notes:

Force Lightning behaves like regular electricity in many ways, and it can be used to power energy generators. It also shuts down electronics and causes muscle spasms and burn injuries in its victims. However, it also has a life-force draining component to it, which is probably part of why in the Alter-Control-Sense categories of Force power it is in the same sub category of Alter, Body.

I'd guess the three main ways to compare feats would be:

1. Damage to environment, e.g temperature, impact force

2. Damage to other Force users,e.g overpowering their lightsaber guard, or breaking their Force bubble or tutaminis

3. Use as an energy source, e.g Galen Marek and Xesh powering up dead ship batteries or weapons

length of duration, the circumstances it killed someone (how fast, how much effort, how strong they were, were they defending themselves, how much damage was dealt, etc), how far and wide it is

4. Size of the lightning. Valkorion and Darth Plagueis have conjured storms of immense proportions.

1. Range.
2. Size.
3. Impact/effect.
4. Effective counters. 

Factors that have to be considered:

1. User's state (physical/mental condition, emotions that might enhance/hinder the lightning, focus, etc.). 
2. Victim's readiness. 
3. Victim's knowledge of countering lightning (e.g. Luke not knowing how to block lightning properly). 
4. Setting (nexus, area of personal significance to the user/victim, etc.).

What are some feats we can use to compare?

Azronger wrote:4. Size of the lightning. Valkorion and Darth Plagueis have conjured storms of immense proportions.

Vastly pre-prime Plagueis casually producing a storm that covered the entire landscape is insane tbh.

ILS wrote:What are some feats we can use to compare?

As far as effects on the environment go, I'd cite Palpatine overpowering lightsaber plasma, Darth Bane charring the orbalisks, and some of Starkiller's feats as the premier displays of lightning.

I'm not sure Sidious literally bent the lightsaber. Text suggests that it's him forcing the lightsaber back towards Mace's face, so he overpowered an exhausted Mace's strength, not the blade itself.

He did bend it. The movie supports this.

Azronger wrote:He did bend it. The movie supports this.

Show me the screen shot of the blade bending in the movie.

https://streamable.com/5de5n

The blade is wobbling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0r4jNhG9Z4&t=180s

The movie shows it in higher quality, but it's easy to miss.

Environmental damage (to the extent that one accepts environmental feats) can be a lower bound of the potency of the lightning, but it isn't an upper bound because a lot of extremely powerful Force attacks aren't tailored to have proportional environmental effects. The most environmentally damaging lightning feats are probably Starkiller's in TFUII and perhaps some of Sidious's, as well as Valkorion's vs. the ships.

In terms of combat, it seems like against a prepare opponent with a lightsaber the Force lightning user needs a noticeable power gap to overpower them, but not as large as would take to ragdoll them (Sidious is an exception, it seems). Against just tutanimus, "two hands" full powered lightning seems to be 1-1 with the defender's power, maybe with the defender having a modest advantage. Single handed or two-handed bursts of lightning seem to be something that a weaker opponent can deal with (e.g. Revan vs. Vitiate).

Azronger wrote:https://streamable.com/5de5n

The blade is wobbling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0r4jNhG9Z4&t=180s

The movie shows it in higher quality, but it's easy to miss.

Just watched frame by frame. At no point does the blade ever "bend." It's straight, even when it "wobbles." That's not the blade bending, that's SJ's grip wobbling.

His grip doesn't look wobbly to me.

Azronger wrote:https://streamable.com/5de5n

The blade is wobbling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0r4jNhG9Z4&t=180s

The movie shows it in higher quality, but it's easy to miss.

...That's Mace moving the lightsaber from side to side. Look at his wrist movements.

I did. Doesn't look like he's moving his wrist to me.

In the ROTS Novel:

Now Anakin was at Mace's shoulder. Palpatine still made no move to defend himself from Skywalker; instead he ramped up the lightning bursting from his hands, bending the fountain of Mace's blade back toward the Korun Master's face.


It states that the blade itself bent; the fountain of energy emitted from the hilt bent.


Although, the senior ROTS novel is the only source that describes or shows Mace's blade bending.