Vjun Dooku vs SWTOR Vitiate

Dooku being a good fight for Vitiate's canonical superior (When both were drawing on the nexus, ergo neither of them was benefitting relative to the other) suggests that he should win given the extra power being afforded to him that Vitiate doesn't have.

@ILS @NotAA3 Heading home today so will reply hopefully tonight.

Geistalt wrote:SWTOR Vitiate as in Valkorion? Ziost Vitiate? Dromund Kaas Vitiate? Voss Vitiate?

Even with his amp, Vjun Dooku couldn't beat Yoda. So it depends on if you mean Valkorion or any of his earlier iterations. Because the consensus is that Valk > prime Yoda.

I don't think that this is Valk. Yoda also had same amp as Yoda. So, this fight was fair.

Dooku put a good fight against Yoda who was same level as ROTS Sidious. Yoda also had same amp as Dooku. If Vitiate has prep, he probably wins. Otherwise, Dooku wins.

@BoD Every Force user drawing upon the nexus was either emotionally unstable or had used the dark side previously or currently. Scout was trying not to give into fear and despair during her time on Vjun, Whie had basically gone nuts and was happily tapping into it, Ventress and Dooku need no explanation, and Anakin has never been shy about using the dark side before. 

Uhhh... The nexus is what makes them tilt towards the dark side and become 'emotionally unstable'. They aren't amped because of their fear and anger, their fear and anger are a result of them being amped. Sean Stewart explains this;

To use a fanciful metaphor, Yoda and Dooku are both like surfers in a place with big waves. The more expert the surfer, the more they can do with that power. It is also more dangerous, and for the novice the cost of losing control is higher. 

Whie's dancing on the dark side's fault line because he's using the nexus too hard for too long; he's losing control, while Scout is wrestling for it. This is because they're Padawans who don't have Yoda's mastery and control. So Scout and Whie are only in this situation because they are greatly amped by Vjun in the first place, which goes against your point. You don't need to be a dark-sider or emotionally all over the place to use Vjun, it's just a byproduct of using the power without proper mastery. 

1. Yoda was actively opposing the nexus with every step.

Yoda was close by. He was moving carefully, quietly, hiding his presence in the Force; riding on its back like a leaf whirled gently down a stream. But on Vjun, the Force was bent mightily to the dark side, and every now and then the Master opposed its current. It was these moments Dooku was listening for. Once, several minutes ago, the old Jedi had misstepped, putting a foot against the current, and the shock of it had rumbled through the very bedrock beneath Château Malreaux, announcing the Master's coming like a distant groundquake. Or maybe it hadn't been a mistake. Maybe Yoda wanted Dooku to know he was on his way. Since then the world had been silent. The old Jedi was moving like a water-skeeter over the surface of the Force, with nothing to herald his coming but a faint sensation of heat on Dooku's skin, as if he were a blind man at sunrise, the dawn invisible to him but for a pale, spreading warmth.

Yoda is actively opposing the nexus, a nexus described as being "bent mightily to the dark side". You're basically arguing Yoda, a being utterly devoted to the light side, decided to go against every teaching he makes throughout the book and tap into the dark side:

Master Yoda is hiding his Force presence on the way to Château Malreaux, occasionally revealing himself to Dooku at different points and "every now and then" going against its current, therefore he's actively opposing the nexus with every step? And not only is hiding himself proof he's in active opposition now, but confirmation that he would be doing the same during his fight with Dooku later on? This is your counter to Sean Stewart stating that he is using the power of Vjun against Dooku? 

2. The novel explicitly states Yoda puts aside any emotions that might impact him or influence his decisions:

"I've hurt you!" Dooku cried. "Many times," Yoda said. He considered his pain: let it drop. Now he had nothing but Dooku to focus on, and his lightsaber gleamed with the same fierce green light that flickered from under his heavy-lidded eyes. "But killed me you did not, when you had the chance. A mistake, that was. More than eight hundred years has Yoda survived, through dangers you could not dream." "I know how to kill," Dooku hissed. Yoda's eyes opened wide, like balls of green fire. "Yes—but Yoda knows how to live!"

So Yoda is giving himself back over to the usual Jedi mentality, so the idea that he'd be tapping into a nexus fuelled by emotions associated with the dark side - fear, anger, hate - when he explicitly lets these emotions drop is frankly quite bizarre.

Yoda isn't tapping into a nexus fuelled by those emotions; he's a conduit, and per your own words "is giving himself back over to the usual Jedi mentality" so he should be channelling the power perfectly. When we see Yoda use the nexus later, drawing off it far more heavily than one would in a fight, he's perfectly fine. This will be touched on more below;

3. Yoda is actively resisting the nexus:

Yoda is actively opposing the nexus, a nexus described as being "bent mightily to the dark side". You're basically arguing Yoda, a being utterly devoted to the light side, decided to go against every teaching he makes throughout the book and tap into the dark side:

"No! Wrong she is! As wrong as she can be!" Yoda snorted. "Grief in the galaxy, is there? Oh, yes. Oceans of it. Worlds. And darkness?" Yoda pointed to the starscape on the projection table. "There you see: darkness, darkness everywhere, and a few stars. A few points of light. If no plan there is, no fate, no destiny, no providence, no Force: then what is left?" He looked at each of them in turn. "Nothing but our choices, hmm? "Asajj eats the darkness, and the darkness eats her back. Do that if you wish, Whie. Do that if you wish." The old Jedi looked deep into the starscape, suns and planets and nebulae dancing, tiny points of light blazing in the darkness. "To be Jedi is to face the truth, and choose. Give off light, or darkness, Padawan." His matted eyebrows rose high over his swamp-colored eyes, and he poked Whie with the end of his stick. Poke, poke. "Be a candle, or the night, Padawan: but choose

Yoda makes a point of condemning the dark side, pointing out how using it goes against what a Jedi is meant to be. Arguing he'd tap into this nexus is incredibly out of character for him.

Would it?

With a snort, Yoda turned his eyes to the sky and picked out the glowing dot racing in from the horizon. Below him, Dooku landed softly on the ground and melted into the rose gardens. The missile was coming in with terrible speed and power: too much coming at Yoda too fast ever to wholly stop it, even if he had time and perfect peace. But he reached out to pull up the Force binding even Vjun's bitter green moss and twisted thorn-trees, and let it flow through him like a wind: the breath of a world, gathered and released in a push-feather game with all their lives on the line, not to oppose the missile's force with force, but to touch it gently on the side-just enough to send it screaming by the broken window casement to plunge a kilometer offshore into the cold and waiting sea. A long instant later, water fountained from the ocean in a blaze of light three hundred meters tall, and then fell back. The chateau and all those inside it had been spared: but Dooku was gone.

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

Is Yoda drawing off Vjun to hinder himself? Master Yoda can actively vacuum up large amounts of power from Vjun with only positive effects, but he can't passively leech off much less energy during a lightsaber duel? Why would Yoda go out of his way to neglect a power source that does nothing but increase his potency? Is Yoda deliberately hamstringing himself against an extremely dangerous enemy, or is he utilizing the power present, as writer Sean Stewart states? I imagine using Vjun is similar to Vaapad; the Jedi on the planet are conduits for tremendous power but if touched by it, can 'lose control' as Stewart says;

To use a fanciful metaphor, Yoda and Dooku are both like surfers in a place with big waves. The more expert the surfer, the more they can do with that power. It is also more dangerous, and for the novice the cost of losing control is higher. 

This is why Whie almost turns to the dark side but Master Yoda, being the better surfer and having far superior mastery than a Padawan, can use more of the power without being corrupted. So no, it's not out of character for Yoda; he does use Vjun, and has the capability to utilize it to a much greater extent than everyone barring perhaps Dooku. 

So we're ignoring established lore regarding light and dark side nexuses because one author said so (actively contradicting the lore, I might add)?
Nexuses have historically weakened the abilities of Force users of the opposite alignment. That doesn't change just because Stewart - a single author - says it when every source (including, apparently, his own novel) contradicts it. 

Thanks for the Malachor quotes, don't really know what they have to do with Vjun though. Your point is that such dark side sites should hinder Jedi, even listing an example... but not from the place relevant to this debate, where you could have had over half a dozen that prove you wrong;

"I love this planet. It's just steeped in the Force. I could feel it the moment we touched the atmosphere. I'm usually a good pilot-"

"Great pilot," Obi-Wan admitted.

"-But here it was like the ship's hull and my skin were the same thing. I could feel exactly how much heat she could take, how much torque, how many rolls..."

"Clearly you weren't using the Force to commune with my stomach." Obi-Wan, still looking a little green, picked up a blaster rifle and a couple of concussion grenades.

"The difference between Coruscant and here is like the difference between swimming in fresh water and in the ocean. I feel so buoyant."

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

Anakin hung in the air for an impossibly long time, let himself fall at last into a shoulder roll, two more shots at a droid trying to sneak up behind him, taking off its weapon hand and blowing out a knee, and then he was standing, perfectly balanced, with the blaster pistols steaming in the thin Vjun rain.

"I could walk on water," he said.

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

"Just having a little fun," Whie said, appearing. "Scout, it's incredible. There's something about this place-can't you feel it? I've never felt the Force so strongly. Normally I would have to concentrate just to hold all these bones in the air, but here..."

He hummed, waving his lightsaber like a conductor's baton. The two skeletons joined hands and began to dance. 

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

"The Force is strong here," he said, and he laughed with the pleasure of it. He was right about the Force. Even Scout could feel it…

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

"It frightens me," Scout said. "The Force is very strong here. If even I can feel that, I can only imagine what it must be like for you.

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

Usually the Force only helped Scout predict her enemies' moves when they were face-to-face, but the air of Vjun was rich even for her, and a prickling premonition had danced over her skin seconds before the caves started to collapse.

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

A cabinet exploded in a shower of debris. Ventress was swinging for the girl, but the Force was strong in Scout, too, in this place and hour, and her parry was there before the killing blow could fall.

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

With a snort, Yoda turned his eyes to the sky and picked out the glowing dot racing in from the horizon. Below him, Dooku landed softly on the ground and melted into the rose gardens. The missile was coming in with terrible speed and power: too much coming at Yoda too fast ever to wholly stop it, even if he had time and perfect peace. But he reached out to pull up the Force binding even Vjun's bitter green moss and twisted thorn-trees, and let it flow through him like a wind: the breath of a world, gathered and released in a push-feather game with all their lives on the line, not to oppose the missile's force with force, but to touch it gently on the side-just enough to send it screaming by the broken window casement to plunge a kilometer offshore into the cold and waiting sea. A long instant later, water fountained from the ocean in a blaze of light three hundred meters tall, and then fell back. The chateau and all those inside it had been spared: but Dooku was gone.

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

Vjun empowers Jedi, so could it be that certain dark side nexuses are different? Dathomir, the Font of Power, and Vjun have a history of amping light-siders, so it would be silly if someone tried to cancel them out with Malachor quotes and a passage from the Jedi Academy Training Manual right?

Dooku even believed Vjun would give him an edge:

"I notice I am no longer your apprentice," Dooku said between breaths. "There was always a chance you could overpower me, of course." Yoda attacked: Dooku parried. "So I put a missile in high orbit, slaved to this location. It's falling now. Gathering speed."

I see no mention of Vjun being the reason for this. Dooku attributes his increased chances to having "waxed" as Yoda "waned", leading to him claiming that he has "great powers of my own that could overwhelm even you." Trying to put this all on the nexus is pure snakery.

Dooku also noted Yoda to be "terrible to behold" a few minutes (at best) after seeing a glimpse of a dark side aligned Yoda that made him shit himself. It was also noted to be in the "in the dark, drunken Vjun air" which could be why Dooku is seeing Yoda as this monster, as the nexus stokes whatever emotions he's feeling (which at this point, were fear and hatred). 

Dooku was absolutely terrified of a potential dark side Master Yoda - he recoiled - but here he is freely taunting Yoda, mocking him;

Then their blades clashed together in a lace of fire, green and red: but the green burned hotter. Slowly, slowly, Dooku gave way: and in the dark, drunken Vjun air, Yoda was terrible to behold.

"Yes," Dooku whispered. "Feel me. Feel the treason. All those years of teaching me, raising me. Trusting me. And here am I, the favored son, butchering your precious Jedi, one by one. Hate me Yoda. You know you want to. "

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

Combat is well underway and Yoda is terrible to behold, but the Count is no longer afraid, so is he seeing the scary monster, or is Yoda just a particularly potent combatant in the dark Vjun air? Seems pretty clear to me.

In fact, Dooku seemingly struggles much more against a calm Yoda, barely holding him off and with sweat running "in streams" and "his lips were white" as he counters him. The descriptions here point to the idea that Yoda was hindered earlier, not amped by the nexus, since a calm Yoda is now performing better against Vjun Dooku than before. So throughout the Dooku and Yoda confrontation, we have Yoda actively opposing the dark side with his mere presence, actively resisting the nexus, and Yoda being calm throughout most of the fight. The basis for him being amped rests on a quote by an author contradicting established lore and several (note that they were unstable) Force users benefiting from it. The best you could argue here is that Yoda was somewhat amped, albeit not nearly to the same extent as Dooku. The first act of the fight has Dooku being pushed back by Yoda. In fact, Dooku seemingly struggles much more against a calm Yoda, barely holding him off and with sweat running "in streams" and "his lips were white" as he counters him. The descriptions here point to the idea that Yoda was hindered earlier, not amped by the nexus, since a calm Yoda is now performing better against Vjun Dooku than before. 

The bolded sentences are all framing tricks that have been dealt with in other sections, but from what I can see here your point is; Dooku does much better at the start, fighting nearly evenly but later, is sweating and white and 'barely holding Yoda off.' You might be shocked to find out that Dooku was already in this state before the fight;

A light blinked on the comm console. A special, red light. Dooku stared at it, then tore his eyes away. "Message," Yoda said helpfully. "Answer it, should you?" Sweat was running freely down the Count's face. "Or maybe someone it is you do not want me to see. Your new Master calls. Dooku, ask yourself: which of us loves you better?" "I serve only Darth Sidious," Dooku said.

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

"You had a fine house, wealth, everything a person could desire, and you gave him up," Dooku said. "The Jedi arrived like beggars on your doorstep and asked for your firstborn, your heir, your precious Baby... and you gave him up." The Count's face was white. His traitorous hand was shaking and shaking. "You sent him away to a distant planet, never a letter or a message, sent him from the only home he had ever known and let them lock him up in the Temple and steal everything that should rightfully have been his, and now you have the impudence to come here and say you loved him? Loved him?" the Count shouted.

Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

I know you like definitions, so here's one if you try and separate 'lips' from 'face', because you're the type to do just that; the front part of a person's head from the forehead to the chin. Dooku's face is white; lips, nose, cheeks and all. All it took for the man's face to lose blood was Whirry reminding him of the Jedi's infant-stealing policy, imagine what it looked like when he saw dark side Yoda, and refused the call from Sidious, after which he started sweating and trembling uncontrollably. Is Dooku's face returning to its natural colour as he's quivering for minutes and having electrolytes flee his forehead in rivers? Is Dooku shaking, sweating, and pale everywhere except his lips? Count Dooku was as white as a Klansman and sweating bullets before he even raised his blade, a state he's also in at the end of the fight, which is proof that Master Yoda was hindered at the beginning? Remember, this is what you said earlier;

"I've hurt you!" Dooku cried. "Many times," Yoda said. He considered his pain: let it drop. Now he had nothing but Dooku to focus on, and his lightsaber gleamed with the same fierce green light that flickered from under his heavy-lidded eyes. "But killed me you did not, when you had the chance. A mistake, that was. More than eight hundred years has Yoda survived, through dangers you could not dream." "I know how to kill," Dooku hissed. Yoda's eyes opened wide, like balls of green fire. "Yes—but Yoda knows how to live!"

So Yoda is giving himself back over to the usual Jedi mentality, so the idea that he'd be tapping into a nexus fuelled by emotions associated with the dark side - fear, anger, hate - when he explicitly lets these emotions drop is frankly quite bizarre.

This is at the very start of the fight, where you say Yoda expelled all emotion and was ready to go. Where is the hindrance coming from? Yoda starts off hindered and then just jumps to being amped? How does that work? Yoda is only now boosted because the Count is in the same condition he was in prior to even igniting a saber? Master Yoda and Count Dooku are drawing from Vjun, with the fighting starting nearly evenly, but Yoda starts to push Dooku back. This is how fights go; we know Yoda is better than Dooku, so it makes sense he'd get into a winning position... this isn't indicative of some big hindrance, then jump up to an amp.

The writer says that Yoda is tapped into the place, but YOU know better. You take issue with the fact that someone would use these Sean Stewart words, so you go into the novel that he created to copy sentences put there by him, in order to explain just how foolish he is for not matching your interpretation. Who is wrong? Is it Stewart, who wrote the whole thing, adding in multiple Jedi using the nexus and clarifying that Yoda was, in fact drawing off it during the duel when asked? Or is it Suspect Insight user BreakofDawn? When you're not desperately trying to force author contradictions, you're saying that Jedi are hindered on Malachor and post a source that states dark side sites suppress Jedi... as Scout, Whie, Anakin, and Yoda all pull from Vjun to greatly empower themselves. 

YOUR POINTS
• The Padawans are losing control of the great power they drew from Vjun, which is proof that you have to be dark-leaning or emotionally unstable to use the nexus.
• We should ignore Stewart because your interpretation of his own novel contradicts him. This is apparent when Yoda hides his Force presence and sometimes lets Dooku know he's still out there(?).
• Vjun is shown amping the protags, but Malachor hinders Jedi and a WotC Sourcebook says dark side nexuses reduce their power. 

MY POINTS
• Writer Sean Stewart confirmed that Master Yoda was using the power of Vjun during his fight with Count Dooku.
• Whie Malreux, Scout, Anakin Skywalker, and Master Yoda are all shown using its power to boost themselves before any weird emotional state.
• Not every single dark side nexus is the same, and like Vjun, other sites have increased a light-sider's strength.

There is absolutely nothing radical about this stance, and the debate should be shifted more towards quantifying the amps of each character, not arguing something as ridiculous as a Yoda hindrance or no benefit. Special credit to @KingofBlades, for resurrecting and advancing this argument when everyone else had turned the other way.

Excellent post Jake.

Yeah Dooku wins.

@Jake Great post. Will have a response up in the next few days.

Quality contribution as per usual, HP.

@Jake

Vjun empowers Jedi, so could it be that certain dark side nexuses are different? Dathomir, the Font of Power, and Vjun have a history of amping light-siders, so it would be silly if someone tried to cancel them out with Malachor quotes and a passage from the Jedi Academy Training Manual right?

I didn't know that Dathomir had a history of empowering Light Siders, could you please give the quotes?

Well I opened the thread expecting for their to be a rebuttal for me to have to respond to, but nao no point anymore since Based Jake has already ragdolled them.

waiting for BoD's response

Regardless of Vjun arguments, it doesn't change the fact that Act II Vitiate wins here.

Base Dooku wins honestly

BoD wrote:@ILS @NotAA3 Heading home today so will reply hopefully tonight.

BoD wrote:@Jake Great post. Will have a response up in the next few days.

Damn, Jake and ILS are really in for it now! It reminds me of the common Dr Who trope where they say "It's bigger on the inside than the outside" when they see the TARDIS. On the outside they were just quick responses, but much like Dr Who, once they were properly excavated they became much bigger responses than anticipated. We could be seeing the downfall of Dooku gents, hold onto your butts.

Sub Act 3 HoT one loses

IG wrote:Sub Act 3 HoT one loses

Vitiate isn't < Act 3 HoT. Different power level Vitiate.