Dooku vs. Starkiller

Starting distance of 30 meters

I think this thread existed.

Nah it was Dooku vs TFU 1 Galen. Anyway, 'Killer wins.

Dooku. More skilled and comparably powerful.

Starkiller.

I’ll go with Starkiller

Fucking mental. It’s Dooku

Starkiller shreds

SithSauce wrote:Starkiller shreds

I would love to know why?

I'm inclined to say that Starkiller's incredible feats put him above Dooku in raw power, but he doesn't have the same skill with a blade or overall mastery. 

If they're fighting on flat plains at relatively short range, I think Dooku wins. The gap in power isn't enough for Starkiller to just outright dominate him with the Force. On an environment like the Senate Rotunda, given enough distance Starkiller should win.

Starkiller

Dooku

Good fight, leaning Starkiller

A hella close fight, my money's on Galen though.

The Count.

Blade_of_Dorin wrote:The Count.

Raisins?

Bump

Would you like to lay out your case first or would you prefer I do so?

I'm on my phone rn so if you would go first that'd be great.

Mine's likely to a bit more elaborated than your own so you'll probably be back at your comp before I finish. I just want to establish who's going first so I don't begin typing an opener only for you to post one when I'm halfway through my own.

Nah, you can go first.

Starkiller.

KingofBlades wrote:Nah, you can go first.

Edit: For anybody watching this thread for me and KoB's debate, we've decided we're going to move it over to this thread: https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t219-dooku-vs-arcann-vs-caedus-vs-starkiller

I'll be responding to one of his main posts on there after he's had some time to edit it to his satisfaction.

Syndiciate wrote:

KingofBlades wrote:Nah, you can go first.

Edit: For anybody watching this thread for me and KoB's debate, we've decided we're going to move it over to this thread: https://www.suspectinsightforums.com/t219-dooku-vs-arcann-vs-caedus-vs-starkiller

I'll be responding to one of his main posts on there after he's had some time to edit it to his satisfaction.

Why not just bring it over here? Since Arcann and Caedus have nothing to do with Dooku and Starkiller?

Dooku, great fight. One of Starkiller's greatest claims to fame - his domination of Vader - is often glossed over contextually. Warning: This is going to be a brief overview - albeit with lots of extracts - and probably quite flawed as I'm tired and doing this very quickly. I'll reformat and expand upon it another time.

“I understand you now,” he said, still trying to goad his former Master into breaking his concentration. “You killed my father and kidnapped me from Kashyyyk, not just to be your apprentice, but to be a son to you. Was that how your father treated you?” The intensity of Darth Vader’s attack redoubled. “I have no father.” The apprentice fell back under the rain of blows. The sizzling of fabric and a faint stink of burning skin told him that at least two of Darth Vader’s misses had been horribly near, but he felt no pain. He, on the other hand, had definitely struck a nerve. Glancing over Darth Vader’s shoulder, he saw the Emperor watching the duel, his face screwed up in malevolent delight. And the apprentice understood. A better way to kill … Not out of hatred. Whatever lay beneath that black mask, it wasn’t beauty or happiness. Only ugliness and pain would hide itself away for so long. Hatred would not be enough to turn the tables on Darth Vader. 

Here, Starkiller enrages Vader, who not only nearly kills Galen but drops his defences in the process. 

Reaching out with his left hand, he blasted his Master with Sith lightning. That broke the momentum of the furious onslaught, enabling him to stand and catch his breath.

SK had to exploit his lightning advantage to stop Vader overwhelming him. 

“I don’t need to hate you in order to beat you,” he gasped. “That’s something I will teach you now.” “You can teach me nothing,” Darth Vader’s leaden voice intoned. One black glove clenched, and for a moment the apprentice’s throat closed tight. He beat back the telekinetic attack with one of his own, shoving his Master in the chest with the force of a small explosion, throwing Darth Vader backward across the room.

Galen manages to knock Vader backwards while Vader is concentrating on breaking through his passive barrier to choke him. Note that when it says he threw Vader across the room, this is an incredibly vague measurement of distance. It obviously wasn't meant literally, else Vader would have smacked right into Sidious or right at his feet. Most likely Galen knocked him back a few metres. 

For all his size and occasional clumsiness, the Dark Lord was sure on his feet. He landed upright and launched himself back into the fray. “I don’t hate you,” the apprentice went on, blocking him blow for blow. “I pity you.” With a new strength of his own, he forced Darth Vader onto his back foot.

To actually put Vader on the defensive, Galen had to acquire a new mindset, force Vader to cease his attacks with a lightning blast, and knock him back so he could gather himself. 

“You destroyed who I was and made me as I am now, but this wasn’t your idea. It was the Emperor’s, and it’s what he’s already done to you.” A strip of Darth Vader’s cape fluttered away, smoking. The two came closer together until they were face-to-mask. The apprentice stared directly into the black eye guards of his former Master. “You are his creature just as I was yours—but you’ve never had the strength to rebel. That’s why I pity you. I will no longer serve a monster, and if I have my way I’ll make sure you don’t, either.” Vader tried to pull away, but the apprentice followed him, keeping him on the back foot. “I will kill you,” he said, “to set you free.” The lightsabers flashed again—and it was the apprentice who found the chink in the armor that both of them had been waiting for. Vader’s lightsaber moved too slowly to block a blow to his chest, allowing the apprentice’s blade to slash deeply across his armored throat.

Note that throughout this, Galen (with his new mindset) has been taunting Vader, keeping him on the back foot and enraging him, something that has consistently screwed Vader over throughout Legends. 

Vader staggered backward, gloved hand upraised to the smoking wound. There was no blood. Instead of pressing the attack, the apprentice stood his ground. Despite himself, he was as surprised as his former Master clearly was. For a moment, the only sounds were the twin humming of the lightsabers and the wheezing of Darth Vader’s respirator. Then the Dark Lord laughed. It was an awful sound, empty of humor and full of mockery. In it, the apprentice heard a decade and a half of torture and abuse.

Side note, but this is really interesting. It's at this point that it appears that Vader starts to lose his will to fight (more on that later). 

Anger flared. He lunged forward. His former Master barely blocked the blow. A second scored a deep wound across his black-clad shoulder. A third stabbed deep into his thigh. Darth Vader reeled backward, servos whining in his injured limbs and lightsaber shaking. The apprentice gripped his lightsaber in both hands and held himself back. Anger was familiar and powerful; it also clouded his eyes when he most needed to see clearly.

At this point, Galen becomes enraged and badly wounds Vader, slicing his shoulder and stabbing him in the thigh, with the injuries leaving him at a point that he's barely standing and his lightsaber is shaking, either from pain or from exhaustion (or both). 

Vader prepared for combat again.

Unlike Galen, Vader is both wounded and exhausted, and also doesn't have the time to prepare himself. 

His power over the apprentice, however, was gone. His lightsaber went skittering and sparking across the floor, twisted out of his grip by telekinesis. The Force wrenched him into the air, as he had once lifted the apprentice’s father, and a barrage of missiles struck at him with increasing strength. He raised his gloved hands to defend himself, but the battery continued until, with a crash, the apprentice ripped the energy field generator in the center of the room right out of the floor and hurled it at his former Master. The generator exploded with greater force than he had expected, throwing him and everyone else to the floor. The transparisteel dome shattered. Debris rained everywhere. The sound of the explosion rang in his ears for an unnaturally long time afterward.

This is self explanatory. It's at this point that Galen ragdolls a badly wounded, exhausted, and losing the will to fight Vader, who can barely raise his lightsaber. 

He was the first to his feet, striding across the rubble to where Darth Vader lay face-forward, gravely wounded and stripped of his armor in places. Flesh and machinery showed through the gaps. Finally, some real blood was flowing. The apprentice stood over him with his lightsaber upraised and ready to strike. His former Master was trying to stand, feebly willing his massive bulk to move as it was supposed to. Servomotors whined and strained. When he rolled over, the apprentice froze. Darth Vader’s helmet had been ripped away by the blast. Beneath was the face of the man who had stolen and enslaved him, a pathetic, hairless thing covered in wrinkles and old scar tissue. Only the eyes showed the slightest signs of life: blue and full of pain, they stared up at him with undisguised weariness. 

Vader has basically given up as the duel goes on. The moment Galen's mockery and pity starts to affect him (most likely causing another case of remorse or self-hatred on Vader's part), his willingness to win appears to decline, to the point that all he tries to do is defend himself instead of trying to counter-attack with TK or his physical/cybernetic strength. At this point, Vader is done. He's ready to die, and he's waiting for the end. I highly doubt it was just the explosion that did this, as previously stated.

All in all, Starkiller's domination of Vader is pretty circumstantial. Not only did lightning and Dun Möch prove instrumental to Galen's victory, but the only time he managed to even dominate Vader was at the very end of the fight, when Vader had been emotionally hindered, exhausted, and heavily wounded.

Unlike Vader, Galen has no way of using Dun Möch effectively against Dooku, and the Count is far too disciplined to fall for it anyway. Throw in Dooku's power advantage (being on the same level as ROTJ Vader, if not higher) and his vastly superior lightsaber skills, and he takes it.