That is actually a good point. However, I would like to note the contrast that Tano only gained an edge over Vader by TKing him, whereas Ti simply overwhelmed Galen with strength. But that's irrelevant.
There's one point you're missing here, it is Ti driving him back with a series of fast strikes that was what initially knocked him down and thus gave her the height advantage, hence the wording "driving him back down". This means they were on even footing until Shaak simply drove him back and regained the high ground.
He didn't push Ti, he damaged the Sarlaac and that made her right foot slip and she "flipped elegantly out of reach of his blade" as he came swinging at her:
"In desperation, he summoned a bolt of Sith lightning and sent it down, into the flesh of the sarlacc. The beast roared and shook, giving him the opening he needed. Shaak Ti's right foot slipped, forcing her to flip elegantly out of reach of his blade. He leapt after her, swinging as he came."
The fight also isn't an impasse, it just notes the two drove each other closer to the center ring, and it details how they did it(Marek threw things at Ti and blasted the Sarlaac with lightning, Ti commanded the Sarlaac's tentecles to attack Marek and he deflected it). It should also be noted that Galen was the one making the terrain more trecherous:
" The apprentice was running out of teeth to sever, so he resorted more and more frequently to Sith lightning and random slashes of his lightsaber to keep it twitching underfoot. Thick ichor leaking out of the wounds made the footing even more treacherous."
So there's nothing noting an impasse. In fact, later on neutral ground, after Galen tries to use Dun Moch on Shaak Ti, he barely deflects a blow to the head from Ti:
""Your strength is prodigious," she admitted, "but that is your doing. Light, dark..." She paused to aim a blow at his head that he barely deflected. "They are just directions. Do not be fooled that you stand on anything other than your own two feet.""
Clearly, it's not a stalemate. Now as for the very last part of the duel, Ti easily tags Galen twice and would've tagged him a third time had it not been for, again, a desperate telekinetic push to the side:
"On her last three words, she struck three blows that each partially found their mark. The first burned a sizzling line down the apprentice's left shoulder. The second scored diagonally across his chest. The third would have skewered his right eye had he not held her back at the last minute with a desperate telekinetic block that stopped her lightsaber barely a millimeter from his skin. He could feel his eyelashes and eyebrows burning. The right side of his sight was entirely blue."
And then what happened? Well since that attack failed, Ti got pierced by a reflexive lightsaber attack from Galen:
"He could feel his eyelashes and eyebrows burning. The right side of his sight was entirely blue.
She gasped and staggered backward. Her lightsaber and her gaze dropped. A full half meter of red blade emerged from her stomach, then the rest came free with a hiss.
He backed away, shocked by how close he had come to death and how lucky he had been to defeat her. He had raised his lightsaber by reflex."
Please draw your attention to how he could feel his eyelashes and eyebrows burning at one point, but then Ti gasps and drops her blade down once she got pierced, indicating had it not been for that desperate Force Push she would've cut his head off before he could pierce her. Ti being "desperate" is only from Marek's perspective.
It really is that simple. Galen as of his mission to Felucia isn't up to stack with Shaak Ti and that's all there is to it, but Marek later on is definitely more than a match and is her considerable superior. But at this point? Nah, not really.
A mistake. Actually he was struggling to keep up with her speed.She doesn't knock him down, he leaps down, them leaps up, then Ti drives him back down from higher ground.Which allowed him to push the offensive yeah.Exactly, whereas if Ti had the advantage then she would be driving Marek down alone. In other words the tides and the battle were constantly shifting. And that's just an extract from the fight, they obviously weren't doing that on a loop.In response to Ti using the sarlaac against him, and I doubt he intended to make the terrain disadvantageous, which would harm him more than Ti for reasons explained.One blow is hardly indicative of the mood of the entire fight, lol. What evidence is there that Ti wasn't struggling also?I've addressed this already:And I see nothing more to add.And yet succeeding in killing her anyway, despite Ti having every advantage, because he was better. It is indeed, quite simple.
@ Syndicate, I will be adding letter values to these points, assuming you won't be quoting in an orderly fashion, please reciprocate.
1a) Her form is better than his because it has the inherent edge in duelling, and of course, the prior knowledge would explain why he lost, but not why he got destroyed in in a fictional excerpt lasting no more than two sentences. Now we can assume that the edge in styles played some sort factor, but really, form advantages are a tenuous concept when Assaj Ventress can compete with, and hold of Anakin Skywalker's much stronger Djem So on every given Sunday. In the end, the Fisto-victory is owed to an inherent duelling disparity. Other factors are mere detail.
1b) One should question the value of having prior knowledge against a style marked for it 's "unpredictability" and "randomness". For starters, she can hardly plan in advanced for a set of predictable sequences he might use in a duel. Form I was based on simplistic fencing principles, and defining the types of attacks, parries that could be utilized with the lightsaber. In the hands of a master, the style would become a randomised set of attacks bereaved of foreseeable patterns. At best she can observe his principles as a fighter and broadly prepare herself for what to expect. On another note, and as far as I'm aware, the intel Ventress received was based on a recording of Obi Wan and Fisto's orchestrated "fight" where latter refrained from using his full power. So it's significance is certainly in question, while the swiftness in which Fisto was beaten is made evident. You are correct in lamenting Ventess' power growth under the tutelage of Dooku as confirmed by canon sources. But what can be said for Fisto? Not much other than floundering speculation. In any case, her victory over the Nautolan is better than anything found in the scrounged fragments of Ti's failings, and the Nightsister widens the gap further by becoming more powerful.
1c) As for Fisto's skill superiority to Shaak Ti, it's inferred when he was handpicked as part of the pulp fiction intervention to thwart the chancellor. I suppose Windu thought she'd be me more useful flicking her bean in the temple. A wise decision, considering it takes Palpatine to treat Fisto in the same way Grievous would sweep aside Shaak.
2) That is baseless, at best you can argue that Tinn was busy playing Charles Xavier and got distracted, but we know that there are two very different depictions of the fight, and the Novel is contradicting events in more than a few ways. Apparently, Sidious' office has a balcony now – it's just invisible in the movie where his window leads directly into bottomless darkness. Kit Fisto has two heads now, one being attached to his dead body and the other lying on Sidious desk after being cut off. So what the text notes, is pretty much irrelevant, as the text itself is not depicting the action. It's pretty simple. One can not convey the ideas presented in the novelization and the Visual Dictionary to the event the movies shows. The situation presented in the novel is entirely different from what we saw in the films, The attack of Sidious is presented in a different way, and in any case, both versions make Fisto look better than his fallen comrades. In the movies he's actually reacting to a few of Sidious' strikes. In the Novel, Sidious first distracts Tiin and then blitzes the Jedi with his previously concealed lightsaber, proceeds to kill Kolar before Tiin's body even hits the ground and then faces Fisto and Windu - with the former, apparently, surving longer than in the movie. The conclusion is that either way Fisto comes out smelling of roses, the irony being that dying against Palpatine is still better than any one of Shaak's "accomplishments".
3a) In regards to Grievous fighting the Jedi on Hypori, the possibility of a disparity in their stamina is not a rebuttal. You have to prove that Shaak Ti would be worse off than the other Jedi. You then have to prove that the difference would be significant enough to change the pecking order. What we are shown on-screen is a group of retreated Jedi fighting a cyborg man, with Kiadi performing decisively better than his peers - ergo, making him the superior combatant of the group. Simple.
3b) If you're arguing that there's a disparity in how exhausted each of the Jedi are compared to one another, one can just say that Shaak Ti appears to be the most rested, while k'kruhk is only performing worse because he's showngasping for breath.
3c) You have no legitimate reason to dismiss this fight as evidence other than glaringly unconcealed bias. For instance, we could just add various uncertain circumstances to Galen's boss battles. We don't know how exhausted Rham Kota was after engaging the stormtrooper complement above Nar Shadda, shall we dismiss all of Galen's feats against him as circumstantial performances? The problem here Syndicate, is that you don't understand the principals behind statistical uncertainty. When scientists are uncertain of one measurement they make an estimate against all the other observable factors. For the Jedi team against Grevious, we know the following: they had all fought as a group in the same battle and became exhausted as a result of it. Kiadi Mundi, out of all the fighters, fought Grievous and lasted the longest. Grievous used 3 lightsabers against him, opposing classical Jarkai seen against everyone else, increasing the number of options of attack and the general level of unpredictability. A direct hit from Grievous, couldn't incapacitate Mundi - click, yet when Shaak Ti attempted to stifle his strike with the Force, she gets carried out off on a stretcher - click. Now I don't like to argue from authorial intent, usually because it involves external opinions that may or may not have been conveyed properly in the source material, but with this fight we have a crystalline message that's is screamed in our ears - Kiadi was simply better than his peers at fighting the cyborg monstrosity, and decisively so.
4) They had a short, interrupted battle, that all feats considered, would have seen Ventress on winning end if it lasted any longer. And really, I'm being disparaged for showing the comic panels of Flailen getting bandied about by a random Shadow Gaurd before reverting to trickery, when this inconclusive battle is revered as a stalemate? That's laughable.
5) Correction, she retreated because she knew that sticking around would be a fruitless effort on her part. There was no advantage to be had on either end, no hits conceded, pierced defences nor was she driven off the edge of a cliff. Ventress could tell, or perhaps sense that Mace was a fighter she couldn't win against, yet it took all his skill to demonstrate that. For a reason, maybe?
6) I don't need to clarify Nick's idea of where certain characters rank on the power stratum. But if we're are discussing levels, than if Kenobi is a tier 8 along with Maul, Grievous and most likely Ventress, than it's only logical that the B-team, along with Mundi, are probably resting on the level below that' "7's", if you will. In which case, Shaak is a solid 6 and no higher. What you have yet to demonstrate, is why she ascends past that designated plateau by the time she fights Marek.
7) First of all, that excerpt says nothing about them working better in tandem. Second of all, and I do think that this is a point you'll agree with, it's pretty hard to place trusted thought in a text claiming not only that Magnagaurd's are relativistic in speed, but also that they're beyond Obi Wan's ability to defeat. Both are blatant mistruths used to amalgamate tension where a screen and hours of special affects are absent. Of course, what we're reading is not a fact based text, but rather the narrative perspective of Obi Wan(?) flawed and fail-able as it is, and certainly less reliable than a detailed account of their capabilities from the head of Count Dooku(?) If I may :
"Grievous was fast, and so were his IG 100-series sparring partners. They had the advantage of size and brute strength. They executed moves almost faster than the human eye could follow. Their thrusts and lunges demonstrated a singular lack of hesitancy. Once committed to a maneuver, they never faltered. They never stopped to recalculate their actions. Their weapons went exactly where they meant them to go. And they always aimed for points beyond their opponents in order to slice clear through.
Dooku had taught Grievous well, and Grievous had taught his elite well. Coupled with Dooku's coaching, their programming in the seven classic forms of lightsaber dueling - - in the Jedi arts - - made them lethal opponents. But they were not invincible, not even Grievous, because they could be confused by unpredictability, and they had no understanding of finesse. A player of dejarik could memorize all the classic openings and countermoves, and still not be a master of the game. Defeat often came at the hands of less experienced players who knew nothing about the traditional strategies. A professional fighter, a combat artist, could be defeated by a cantina brawler who knew nothing about form but everything about ending a conflict quickly, without a thought to winning gracefully or elegantly. Enslavement to form opened one to defeat by the unforeseen. This was often the failing of trained duelists, and it would be the failing of the Jedi Order."
- Labyrinth of Evil
Which explains why there's such a varying difference between Shaak engaging one Maganguard with her lightsaber, to when she starts using their own weapon against several of them. Clearly this was not a threat they had been programmed for yet, as they became metallic statues when presented with such a radical change in methodology, and given the vast disparity in performance, I do believe the inherent defectiveness of finesse and inflexible programming allowed her to contend with so many.
8) So in other words, nothing special?
9) The fact that his disposal tactic was rooted in theatricality and deception implies one of two things; that he can't defeat these blackfaces via conventional means, or it's simply a rather hefty challenge for him to do so. What's worse, is that the comic indicates this guy being better than Flailen in a traditional sword fight. As another point, the guard is made invulnerable to direct telekinesis in both versions of the game, the Wii-theme literally highlighting that concept in text assisting the player, so Galen's imminent challenge rising from these pitch-forked lackeys can literally be found everywhere in clear attempt to define his limits. He can't stomp anyone and he never will. Ultimately this means Galen can be challenged by randoms, people who aren't even worthy of a few character's purpose of distinction, and his other preliminary foes are not that much better - Maris Brood, Kota. Shaak was perhaps the only person that worthy of the breath it takes to say her name, because there is some indication of her skills, and while she clearly wasn't batting in the top echelons in her era, she could at least be named in among a horde of alien Jedi as someone of note. I hope you get what I'm saying, the Slayin Marek could be seen as something detracting from her abilities, not complimenting them, especially if we're to accept the idea that she woz amped on Nexus. The whole ordeal makes me think she became weaker much like Kenobi, Yoda and Maul (yeah, sorry he sucks worse now than ever) than that she grew in power, and there's too many comparisons cementing that idea.
10) I believe the quote states, that he all but perfected lightsaber combat. Which is certainly no accolade worthy of Obi Wan and Anakin as a part of the "greatest duelists ever" group, but given that the entire council is sorted in the having mastered lightsaber combat tier, which would be whats given to Gay-len, is a testament to the rather vast sampling group the respective author is utilizing. Unless you want to tell me that, let's say, Coleman Trebor is on par with Galen Marek?
Not unintentionally either.
11a) Yeah, a shadow of their former selves is referring specifically to their former selves, not their potential selves or a shadow of what they could have been under the right circumstances. This point is ignorant of English Language and wishes to confuse the meaning of former, when there's nothing to be confused. As for the master and apprentice dialogue, Obi Wan's comments on the matter can be immediately disregarded as he certainly is not referring to power in a combative sense, a lewd mistake that goes against the most classical grain of Star Wars, given the iconic line of becoming more powerful than ever in death is figurative, and not something that can be gauged in versus thread. Clearly Obi Wan's philosophy and concept over the word power isn't synonymous with someone capable of dealing massive amounts damage to the physical realm. May I enlighten you.
"Your powers are weak," Vader noted emotionlessly. "Old man, you should never have come back. It will make your end less peaceful than you might have wished."
"You sense only a part of the Force, Darth," Kenobi murmured with the assurance of one to whom death is merely another sensation, like sleeping or making love or touching a candle. "As always, you perceive its reality as little as a utensil perceives the taste of food."
11b) Ben-Wan is certainly weaker than he was in ROTS, and according to the Fightsaber article, weaker than possibly his AOTC self, given that the article was released before the third and final prequel was produced. I don't see that as being too unreasonable. His ability to command the force in a physical sense is diminished, and his skill with a blade taken him from being the aforementioned master of a fighting style, to just being formidable with said style. Secondly, the comment made in Beware the Sith does not state that Vader's become more powerful, just more experienced and powerful, rather than more experienced and more powerful. I don't think anyone's going to argue that he's less experienced, seen as the word experience is defined as a process of doing and seeing things or having things happen to you over time. Given this fact, he can not be less experienced than his younger and more powerful self, unless there's an episode of amnesia that permanently affected his memory, something I don't seem to recall. What Vader does have, is the loss of living tissue and the obstruction of metal appendages making it harder to call on the Force in a fight. The post-suit groupies regularly lament Telekinesis as something that's seen a stock increase after loss of limb and mutilation. To that, I say look at the infamous dreadnought feat, if combat is decided on grand-scale manipulations than Jedi-Learner Anakin takes all, as does Obi Wan, as does Ventress.
Longer reach comes at the expense of less manoeuvrability. In the case of what appears to be a lightsaber-pike, the movements one is restricted to requires the full contortion of their torso, as a oppose to the standard-issue lightsaber that can execute a full arc with a flick of the wrist. Which do think is more important when handling a weightless sword? The advantages of greater reach are obvious, you can keep an uninitiated foe at fair distance, assuming they're not skilled enough to come inside your guard. And this is why a literal spanking is a befitting consequence for Galen - because he's too shit for to breach their defences. For everything else, their accolades are nothing of note, once again. Nothing past the mindless henchman-status one can assume for adepts bereaved character, names, and apparently assigned numerical value, which would be far too honouring of such common and lackluster warriors. This is a bad showing, and yes, they exist Wolf.
Yeah bad showings exist, but getting hit once doesn't mean the character sucks. If that's true, then every single character that got hit by anything other than another character sucks.
__________________ "Commence primary ignition."
Last edited by Zenwolf on Oct 10th, 2016 at 03:44 AM
Wrong Zenwolf, for someone who's latent dialect is regurgitating poorly formatted and respect threads without context or clarification, you certainly know how to Strawman the living crap out of other peoples arguments. If Flailen could flail his lightsaber half as well as the Force Unlasher's daydream he can, then he would have near-instantly breached shadowman's stark-rigid guard, that requires his full body to pivot in the vain effort to cut a semi-circle. My guesses is that Gaylen's only attempt at such straight forward tactics was answered with by blunt end of Phrik-based hilt to the face, so he needed to find another way round him.
Finished my tests, for now. I found time to respond.
I was more referring to her strength off-balancing him, but yeah also speed.
Yeah, she drives him from higher ground when he already ascended it, which means she was at the advantage when the two were on neutral ground.
An offense Ti dodged elegantly, apparently, and then reduce the fight in, at best, an impasse.
They obviously weren't doing that in a loop, but it seems to note how that's the primary reason they achieved driving each other closer down.
Additionally, Ti only resorted to using the Sarlaac when Marek started throwing objects at her with TK. Nothing here notes the two were even. Marek used TK, Shaak used Beast Control, Galen then used lightning and that's about it.
Actually, he used lightning in response to having no more teeth to throw at Ti. And I don't think Ti wouldn't be affected by the sudden change of terrain, since it became more treacherous in ways even Shaak couldn't predict.
I counted one blow he barely blocked and two more he couldn't block. Seems to set the mood in Ti's favour, especially when every time Galen tries to tag her she either blocks or dodges(well, besides the last blow, but we've been over that already).
And I've also addressed it. There was nothing desperate about it. If he hadn't pushed the blade aside, Marek would've been decapitated before Shaak could get pierced. The only thing you could argue is "desperate" about it is Ti overextended herself, but that happens often to superior combatants(I can cite Tano pushing Vader, Sora Bulq getting sliced by Quinlan Vos, Stryfe and Sazen killing each other in one blow).
The point is the risk would've payed off if Marek didn't use a lucky Force Push. This means Galen was challenging Ti, but I never doubted that.
Also, besides knowledge of terrain, Ti really didn't have much of an outside advantage.
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Are you ****ing kidding me?! The text makes it blatantly clear that Shaak would've been impaled regardless of whether or not Marek stopped her blade with TK.
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Shadilay my brothers and sisters. With any luck we will throw off the shackles of normie oppression. We have nothing to lose but our chains! Praise Kek!
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Oct 9th, 2016 09:06 AM
Actually he was struggling to keep up with her speed.She doesn't knock him down, he leaps down, them leaps up, then Ti drives him back down from higher ground.Which allowed him to push the offensive yeah.Exactly, whereas if Ti had the advantage then she would be driving Marek down alone. In other words the tides and the battle were constantly shifting. And that's just an extract from the fight, they obviously weren't doing that on a loop.In response to Ti using the sarlaac against him, and I doubt he intended to make the terrain disadvantageous, which would harm him more than Ti for reasons explained.One blow is hardly indicative of the mood of the entire fight, lol. What evidence is there that Ti wasn't struggling also?I've addressed this already:And I see nothing more to add.And yet succeeding in killing her anyway, despite Ti having every advantage, because he was better. It is indeed, quite simple.
