Plagueis and Venamis's duel would have looked like lightning flashing through the forest, which is especially impressive given the obstructive environment.
Or, deflecting omni-directional blaster fire whilst orbiting Sidious, deflecting or dodging every single bolt. Him and Sidious alternate after each ring of droids die.
For power, atomizing a dozen armored assassins with a Force wave whilst heavily injured.
Which, while good, is by no stretch of the imagination a feat that makes Plagueis vastly above Vader speed-wise.
Vader himself has moved faster than thought, as well as imperceptibly and preternaturally fast, produced multiple afterimages, and woven shields of light with his lightsaber blade. Each of which he's done on more than one occasion.
A better speed feat to note for Plagueis is when he was nearly imperceptible to 11-4D, who could track blaster bolts. Even that, however, is not enough for him to overwhelm Vader through sheer speed--As Vader has on multiple occasions done the same to Jedi.
Again, extremely good. Perhaps even better than Vader is capable of. But by no means is it a feat that would allow him to "stomp" Vader through sheer speed. Vader himself has defended against omnidirectional fire from dozens of shooters, and more than once.
Common misconception, the text said that he "all but" atomized the Maladians. Still, this implies that he quite literally blasted a half dozen of them into pieces with a single wave, which is a high-end feat.
Still, Vader has literally collapsed a cathedral, "whilst heavily injured", and by my estimation that's just as if not an even more impressive display of power on Vader's part.
Even if Plagueis's feat were superior, it would not be by any great margin.
It kind of does. None of the feats you mentioned are as good as lightning up an entire forest whilst dueling someone, in an obstructive environment. Moving faster than thought is just about the best feat you mentioned, even then I'm not sure how to quantify it. Moving imperceptibly fast, or superhumanly fast alone is nowhere near comparable to the feats I've listed for Plagueis. Afterimages and shields are likewise not much better.
Yes, but he's never orbited someone whilst doing it. Plagueis was outpacing the blaster bolts.
There's also Plagueis and Sidious non-lethally incapacitating hundreds of Kursid warriors, without being hit by a single blow. I have never seen Vader come close to that level of speed or agility, never mind over the course of several hours.
I can agree they're comparable feats, but I'd still vouch for Plagueis being more powerful. To me, nigh-atomizing six beings twice in a row is more impressive than ripping down a cathedral, just due to the level damage being inflicted on the recipient of the attack. To cite another example of his power, though, Plagueis was capable of choking/ragdolling Sidious throughout parts of his training, and this iteration of Sidious could have easily collapsed a restaurant. In order to do this to someone you generally need to be a hell of a lot more powerful than them. Sidious' feat is comparable to Vader's in that whilst his feat has less results, it wouldn't have required any effort on Sidious part, whereas Vader's feat required substantial effort.
That restaurant was not even remotely comparable to an Atoan Cathedral, don't be silly. Vader has also collapsed the ceilings of small buildings with consummate ease, literally just pointing his fingers downward.
Besides, choking a force sensitive who does not have their defenses risen is no different than choking a non-force sensitive. As was the case with Sidious and Tyranus, for that matter.
This is true, but just being fast isn't going to be enough to take down a sith lord whose technical skill with a blade surpasses Plagueis's. Just because Palpatine, himself a consummate duelist, could pull it off, doesn't mean that Plagueis, an exceptionally skilled but nonetheless inferior duelist, could do it against Vader. The mere act of being fast doesn't mean much when all of these combatants can casually deflect blaster bolts.
Is he? Taking Lucas's statement at face value (seeing as how there isn't compelling evidence to suggest the contrary), Vader is 80% of the Palpatine we see in RotJ, and so the difference in raw power between him and Plagueis is likely slight.
Plagueis is much faster than Vader, to the point that the latter's superior skill would be negated. Plagueis would simply slash Vader over and over again, which would make the latter's durability irrelevant as well.
Granted I agree that Plagueis's superior power wouldn't give him the edge against Vader, that still doesn't prove that the difference in power is slight, as it is actually at least noticeable (though not vast).
Vader's precognition allows him to deflect blaster bolts; why would this old man moving really fast "negate" his superior skill? Palpatine was able to speedblitz the masters because he was a prodigiously capable duelist, and there's no evidence that Plagueis is anything beyond "really good" in that category.
Vader only has to move his blade a fraction of a distance Plagueis has to swing his. Precognition significantly increases the ease of blocking; and it's not as though Vader is literally a cripple. I'm not saying Darth Vader is going to win, but in a lightsaber duel he is not exactly folding as quickly as you think he is. It's probably the type of battle here where he has the best chance of victory.
In raw telekinesis, he may have an advantage. Everywhere else, Plagueis's knowledge of the dark side vastly surpasses Vader's, and he actually is probably better off preventing a lightsaber duel.
That was a product of speed, not skill. All those masters he blitzed are more than one tier below Palpatine in skill, but still not vastly. In spite of this, he killed them before Mace Windu, a duellist who is in Sidious's skill tier, could realize what happened:
Before Mace realizes what has happened, Kolar, Tiin, and Fisto have fallen to Sidious's blade.
-- The Complete Visual Dictionary
Conclusion: it was mostly a matter of speed, not skill.
And calling Plagueis an "old man" is just as stupid as labelling Vader as a "crippled half-droid half-man" and say he is slow because of that. Let's not lowball characters like that shall we?
And you know what determines precognition? Exactly, power, which in Plagueis's case supersedes Vader's. And have you even seen the feats ILS posted here? They far exceed Vader's feats, and even if you argue that Plagueis is only slightly more powerful than him, speed is also dictated by how much you specialize in augmenting your physical stats with the Force, which means that having approachable power (something I disagree with anyways) doesn't automatically grant you an approachable level of speed.
What is dark side knowledge supposed to have to do with this fight? And Plagueis would actually do better to engage Vader in a duel, for the reasons I have already explained, and because he isn't more powerful by such a degree that he could ragdoll him.
Last edited by Nargaroth on Oct 19th, 2014 at 11:52 PM
__________________ "Vader's pulse and breathing were machine-regulated, so they could not quicken; but something in his chest became more electric around his meetings with the Emperor; he could not say how. A feeling of fullness, of power, of dark and demon mastery -- of secret lusts, unrestrained passion, wild submission -- all these things were in Vader's heart as he neared his Emperor. These things and more."
You are forgetting the fact that Sidious's command of the dark side far surpassed the ability of any of the B team to detect or counter any of Sidious's attacks. In contrast, Vader's inferior "speed" is something that refers only to his physical movement speed, not to his precognition or his ability to rotate his lightsaber blade a few degrees. His command of the Force is likely lesser than Plagueis's, but not by the same extent that was needed for Sidious to pull off his speed-blitz.
Yet without his vapaad, Mace Windu's command of the Force rests below Sidious's by a far greater margin than Vader's rests below that of Plagueis. Windu's ability to "realize what has happened" has nothing to do with his ability to translate across a room very quickly, and Vader's ability to guard against a speed-blitz has nothing to do with his 100 meter dash.
I don't know what else I can call him when you haven't established that Plagueis is so far beyond Vader in the Force that he could pull off what his apprentice did, as though Vader's lack of physical mobility were somehow relevant to his ability to avoid an --old man-- leaping cross the battlefield really fast.
Yes, but not by such an extent that Vader is going to be sitting there like an Agen Kolar.
Why wouldn't Vader specialize more in augmenting his physical stats in the Force, if he sees infinitely more combat than the reclusive Plagueis?
For example, Plagueis's mastery of the Force has advanced to a point where he almost survived Palpatine's FL just by lying there. Vader will have a tough time killing him from a distance; Plagueis doesn't have as much of a chance against a lightsaber through his head, were that to occur.
So speedblitzing comes before ragdolling when Force powers become disparate? Says who, exactly?
Plagueis is more powerful than Vader in the Force, but by your own point he does not have the same demonstrated technical expertise with a blade. It stands to reason to confine the confrontation to a level that only involves his advantage.
Of course Sidious is vastly more powerful than them, who ever denied that? The point is that Vader is also vastly more powerful than those masters, yet they're all in his speed class. You could argue that it's at least partially because Vader is also hindered by his cybernetics (as per Lucas' word and Eu sources), but then you must explain why someone like, say, Malgus, is also in their speed class despite being far more powerful than them. Not only that, but Kit Fisto is actually faster than both Vader and Malgus:
To the rear of the car, where Grievous's pair of MagnaGuards had made the mistake of pitting themselves against Kit Fisto, the Nautolan's blade was a cyclone of blazing blue light. Resistant to the energy outpourings of a lightsaber, the phrik alloy staffs were potent weapons, but like any weapon they needed to find their target, and Kit simply wasn't allowing that. In moves a Twi'lek dancer might envy, he spun around the guards, claiming a limb from both with each rotation: left legs, right arms, right legs...
The speed of the train saw to the rest, ultimately whisking the droids into the canyon like insects blown from the windscreen of a speeder bike.
-- Labyrinth Of Evil
Having an even vastly superior command of the Force doesn't make you necessarily faster, and it' actually one of the unclear matters of the SW universe. My conclusion is that this should be judged according to the situation.
And having a lot of precognition isn't gonna save you if your speed isn't good enough anyways.
I'm not arguing that Vader would be blitzed by Plagueis, only that the former can defend himself for just a moderate time before being overwhelmed. His speed is still not enough to allow him to last very long against Plagueis, and Vader still has no chance to land a hit on him even if he could react, unless Plagueis is somehow caught off guard. Vader's precognition, again, won't save him here.
Again, just see the feats ILS posted in this thread and make a comparison with Vader's best showings. The latter doesn't lack mobility, and I never said he doesn't have impressive speed (though his agility is still nothing special). Only ignorant people or haters who want to lowball him would argue otherwise, despite evidence proving them wrong. No, the point is just that Plagueis's showings are much better, not that Vader is slow.
1. I don't know why, but Vader's feats are still not comparable. And Palpatine also deemed lightsaber duelling unnecessary, as well as something that is used by Sith just to mock Jedi. Do we want to say he is a bad duellist because of that?
2. Vader will never be able to kill him from a distance. So what? Vader withstood a more powerful Sidious's full power Lightning and still survived several minutes after that. You'd better choose another example, and I still don't see how this is relevant in a fight. Anyway, and just so you know, Starkiller is far less knowledgeable than Plagueis, yet he is well above him in power, and his speed is still just on par with Vader's.
In this case, yes, the difference in speed is greater than the difference in power. Two characters of approachable power (this is not the case, however) are not going to have the same speed (precog is meaningless) just because of that, otherwise Vader should be able to blitz Kenobi despite being interminably more powerful, yet he is only his equal in speed. Yes, I know, this probably doesn't make sense, but that's how SW works, and it's probably an inconsistency.
Last edited by Nargaroth on Oct 20th, 2014 at 02:09 PM
Plagueis will beat Vader sooner than Luke would beat the Emperor, and while Vader can indeed raise a shield against Plagueis's TK if he gets hit he's taking massive damage and a combination of Plagueis's superior speed/brutal force usage would take Vader out of the game.
__________________ "Happiness is a lie. Life is horror. The light is always dying all across the universe. The last star will flicker out someday, when it does, all that remains is shadow. And I will be its king!"'-Amahl Farouk
Registered: Oct 2014
Location: France/Rezée (near Nantes)
Is this a Joke?
Does we talk of Sidious before or after plagueis death? Are we talking of Luke the youth one with a lot of luck.... Or, or, the one who is the master of the academmy !?
I'm gonna to say plagueis and sidious anyway...
Oct 18th, 2014 01:27 AM
