KMC Forums - Attack Of The Clones Anakin Skywalker Vs Taron Malicos

Canon AotC Anakin isn't nearly as capable as he was in Legends. Sure, he fought Dooku for like a minute, but then he got his arm lobbed off. Not exactly the best showing. And looking past AotC to get a better look at his level of power is pretty telling. He severely struggles against Asajj Ventress in Brotherhood, consistently loses to Dooku over and over again, is repeatedly struck by Magnaguards in duels, even when he's only fighting 2 at a time, and he displayed outright inferiority to Adi Gallia. Not exactly the most powerful Jedi around at the time.

That said, Malicos really doesn't have much going for him either. Cal displayed clear superiority as a swordsman, and Malicos only won through Nightsister magics, which he explicitly mentioned was empowered by the Zeffo tomb on Dathomir. Take him out of his place of power, and he likely can't replicate a lot of the Nightsister spells.

To try and scale where Malicos is as a swordsman, I'd say he's comparable to the Second Sister. Cal fought the Second Sister very shortly after his duel with Malicos, since there wasn't really much time or room for any meaningful growth between the encounters. And in both cases, Cal was only marginally superior as a duelist, with Cal arguably having an easier time with the Second Sister.

This puts Malicos pretty close in relation to the Grand Inquisitor, considering it's been confirmed that the Second Sister was the second most powerful Inquisitor. So the real question is, how would a Grand Inquisitor-level combatant stack up to Anakin by Attack of the Clones?

And honestly, it's a close fight. The Grand Inquisitor is supposed to be in the same league as Asajj, with her only being slightly more powerful. Considering Anakin severely struggled against Asajj in Brotherhood, this implies that anyone close to the level of the Grand Inquisitor would be able to give Anakin major pause as well.

As swordsmen, I'm inclined to give Anakin the advantage. Lightsaber combat was Anakin's bread and butter, while Malicos was clearly more concerned with unlocking secrets of the Force, implying a more Consular mindset to me. This is backed up by Malicos' apparent lightsaber form. His standard attacks tend to either be sweeping strikes like Shii-Cho's or acrobatic maneuvers like Ataru. He employs some Makashi-like finesse during the mid-fight cutscene, and he dual-wields, as well as integrating Force attacks into lightsaber sequences. All together, a clear Niman specialist. And while Niman is a jack-of-all-trades fighting style, it doesn't really stand out in any regard. A dedicated warrior like Anakin should be able to dominate the flow of the fight, even with his less dueling-focused Shien instead of the Djem So he would later develop. Anakin is simply too aggressive for Malicos' generalist fighting style to keep up, which is the same reason I attribute to Cal's victory over him.

When it comes to Force powers, there's an interesting dilemma. Anakin is obviously more powerful in the Force, being the Chosen One and all. And while Malicos uses Nightsister magics, he explicitly stated he controls the power in the Zeffo ruins, implying he's far more powerful as we saw him in the boss fight than he otherwise would be outside of the Zeffo tomb. However, even with this power disparity, I'm inclined to give Malicos the edge as a Force wielder. Anakin very, very seldom integrates Force attacks into his combat sequences, while Malicos did so frequently, and with extremely lethal intent. Force throws, bringing down heavy stones on his opponents, powerful grips. Malicos seems to have primarily been a Force wizard, with lightsaber skill taking a secondary focus. Granted, he'd still struggle to meaningfully affect Anakin with the Force due to the power difference, but his integration of Force throws and lightsaber throws would still give Anakin trouble.

Hand to hand, I don't really have anything to say. Neither Malicos or Anakin are prominent H2H combatants.

All out, Anakin's got this. His aggressive fighting style is going to keep Malicos on the back foot, and Anakin can basically shoulder his way through most of what Malicos throws at him through the Force. A stray lightsaber throw might catch Anakin off-guard, but I doubt Anakin would fail to defend against it. It'd definitely be a hard-fought battle, but it just winds up being the classic scenario of the Jedi Guardian stomping the Jedi Consular in a head-to-head fight.