How well did Caedus do against Luke / how big is the gap between them?

?

BIG

Yeah so looking at the fight,

Luke got in 2.5 lightsaber hits, 6 unarmed hits, and a TK hit (and was ultimately in the winning position, as well as once before).
Caedus got in 0 lightsaber hits, 4 unarmed hits, and 2 from environmental traps he had more knowledge than Luke of (but one from a clever illusion).

Also:
- Luke did have the element of surprise, though Ben kept warning Caedus for some reason, so it was probably a minor one if anything as Caedus had spun around into a defense position before Luke's strike
- Luke was angry, which may or may not have actually helped him since he did not appear to be trying to draw on the dark side
- Luke's strikes appeared to have not crippled Caedus as much as they otherwise would've because of Caedus's insane pain tolerance/feeding
- 2 of Caedus's 3 attacks were targeted at a lingering injury Luke still had
- Luke's physical strikes seemed to consistently drop Caedus and/or significantly hurt him, while Caedus's seemed to do less damage to Luke
- Caedus seemed to escape one of Luke's attacks by pulling himself to a Vong device, which some take to mean that Luke would've threeshotted him; I suppose that's possible, though we don't know if that was the only way out for Caedus
- Luke was in a winning position early in the fight (probably like...15 seconds at most?), but Ben distracted him.
- This was pre-prime Caedus, though it came after his biggest boost

Caedus quite clearly lost, and while he wasn't utterly helpless, he wasn't really a peer either. He ran away from Luke for most of the fight and his only significant edges came from pre-set environmental traps. Without those, he'd have potentially died in the first few seconds, and his hits weren't really putting Luke down while each of Luke's blows were making Caedus scream/shattering bone/putting him on the ground. Luke's also the only one to have gotten saber damage in. In a fight without Vong equipment, Caedus would've been done within seconds.

But then again, he still did do physical damage against a Luke that wasn't holding back (though he may not have been really clear-headed either).  He was closer to Luke than, say, Maul was to Sidious or AotC Kenobi to Dooku, but much further than, say, Dooku to Yoda (questions of whether Yoda was fighting at his best aside).

In a pure Force battle, Luke would probably completely clown Caedus given that he does it at least twice in LotF: pinning him to a chair and TK'ing him through his starfighter. In the latter situation, Caedus notes when he tries to counter that he gets a glimpse of just how much power Luke can muster, which suggests that he hadn't seen it in their duel. Perhaps in that sense, an all-out but less angered (and uninjured) Luke would've done better.

HUGE

As much as Kylo's love for Vader

But it is an impressive showing for Caedus, as Luke was pissed as hell with Mara’s death.

It’s a big gap, but I don’t think it’s so huge Luke can ragdoll him with no effort. Keep in mind he was taken off guard the first time.

The Ellimist wrote:Yeah so looking at the fight,

Luke got in 2.5 lightsaber hits, 6 unarmed hits, and a TK hit (and was ultimately in the winning position, as well as once before).
Caedus got in 0 lightsaber hits, 4 unarmed hits, and 2 from environmental traps he had more knowledge than Luke of (but one from a clever illusion).

Also:
- Luke did have the element of surprise, though Ben kept warning Caedus for some reason, so it was probably a minor one if anything as Caedus had spun around into a defense position before Luke's strike
- Luke was angry, which may or may not have actually helped him since he did not appear to be trying to draw on the dark side
- Luke's strikes appeared to have not crippled Caedus as much as they otherwise would've because of Caedus's insane pain tolerance/feeding
- 2 of Caedus's 3 attacks were targeted at a lingering injury Luke still had
- Luke's physical strikes seemed to consistently drop Caedus and/or significantly hurt him, while Caedus's seemed to do less damage to Luke
- Caedus seemed to escape one of Luke's attacks by pulling himself to a Vong device, which some take to mean that Luke would've threeshotted him; I suppose that's possible, though we don't know if that was the only way out for Caedus
- Luke was in a winning position early in the fight (probably like...15 seconds at most?), but Ben distracted him.
- This was pre-prime Caedus, though it came after his biggest boost

Caedus quite clearly lost, and while he wasn't utterly helpless, he wasn't really a peer either. He ran away from Luke for most of the fight and his only significant edges came from pre-set environmental traps. Without those, he'd have potentially died in the first few seconds, and his hits weren't really putting Luke down while each of Luke's blows were making Caedus scream/shattering bone/putting him on the ground. Luke's also the only one to have gotten saber damage in. In a fight without Vong equipment, Caedus would've been done within seconds.

But then again, he still did do physical damage against a Luke that wasn't holding back (though he may not have been really clear-headed either).  He was closer to Luke than, say, Maul was to Sidious or AotC Kenobi to Dooku, but much further than, say, Dooku to Yoda (questions of whether Yoda was fighting at his best aside).

In a pure Force battle, Luke would probably completely clown Caedus given that he does it at least twice in LotF: pinning him to a chair and TK'ing him through his starfighter. In the latter situation, Caedus notes when he tries to counter that he gets a glimpse of just how much power Luke can muster, which suggests that he hadn't seen it in their duel. Perhaps in that sense, an all-out but less angered (and uninjured) Luke would've done better.