Registered: Mar 2014
Location: The Proud Nation of Kekistan
I agree with Joker. I'm pretty blootered atm, but her closeness with Vader than I'd expect from Maul honestly. Vader clearly had the upper hand in that duel, but it's pretty clear from Ahsoka holding her ground, managing to land a strike on Vader's head while he was slightly distracted but still cognizant enough to see her coming and react to her first strike, and her being able to meet him in a bladelock while turned around, that while she's clearly inferior that's some pretty impressive shit for her to be doing against someone of Vader's caliber. Then when you consider Ahsoka and Vader trading force blows, and Filoni stating that Vader has to put in some serious effort to dismiss her it's clear that had Vader relied on his force powers more it wouldn't have significantly altered the closeness of the fight.
So yeah, I'm overall more impressed with Ahsoka's obvious closeness with Vader (even if she is clearly inferior), than I am with Maul, so I'm backing her in a tough fight.
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There's also nothing stopping Ahsoka from taking Maul out with the force. Vader as of LOTS is pulling bigger freighters out of the air than the one Maul barely dragged a few feet. Vader, despite regularly using the force in canon only bothers using telkenisis on Ahsoka when she's thrown off balance and has her defenses down, on a ds nexus no less.
Ahsoka has closeness to Vader, SOD Maul has demonstrated nothing to indicate he's in Vader's stratosphere. What's stopping Ahsoka from shortening this fight with the forcre? Granted I'm sure Maul can prolong the fight with his offensive style and swordmanship, but Ahsoka certainly should wield enough power to end this when she gets the opportunity.
Registered: Jul 2015
Location: The Darkest Corner of your Mind
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Small details matter when combatants are this close.
Sabers:I don't think it's worth discussing any skill disparity between the two as other factors are more likely to influence the fight. Multiple sources hold both at a substantial level of skill.
Instead look at the small details. Tano has two sabers, SoD Maul has a single dark-saber. Tano is at an offensive advantage with Shien/Ataru but at an disadvantage defensively, stylistically speaking, from strength based attacks.
Maul, wielding only one saber, will have a better balance of offensive and defensive abilities.
In pretty much every fight we've seen with Maul, he is always the one to initiate the attack. Same with Rebels Ahsoka. At 20m starting distance it'd be a head-on charge. The question then becomes who's more likely to give up ground first?
Ahsoka has the higher strikes-per-second rate so to speak, so I believe she'd be the one driving back Maul in the beginning. Both are utilizing incredibly demanding forms requiring acrobatics and strength-based attacks.
From the physical advantage Maul might have an edge. His cybernetic legs mean half his body needs less augmentation/energy. Tano has also shown great endurance considering she managed the more powerful Vader for at least as long as Maul fought Sidious. I would say "Dathomirian" edge, but feat-wise, Ahsoka has survived many of the things Maul has (kick from Grievous, explosions, etc). When it comes to strength, both have respectable showings, but I'm inclined to believe Maul has a slight strength edge over Tano due to his anatomy and diversified strength showings.
Both have training in hand-to-hand combat, but I think it's fair to say that Maul has better incorporated it into his lightsaber move-sets than Ahsoka, who has mostly demonstrated it while disarmed.
Without factoring in environmental factors, I believe that a fight on neutral ground can certainly go either way but I would side with Maul 6 times out of 10. Maul's extensive training in multiple fighting disciples in addition to his barely superior physicals might edge it out for him.
In my mind, Ahsoka doing so well against Vader was due to his lack of mobility, that Maul doesn't suffer from, paired with Tano's acrobatics. A cat can leap around the bull but eventually the cat will tire out.
HOWEVER, in an all-out fight that doesn't take place in a "test-tube", I would side with Ahsoka 7-8/10 simply due to her wit. Maul has been shown to suffer from tunnel-vision while Tano always made use of her environment and exploited the enemy's weaknesses.
It really comes down to state of mind; and what I see is an all too neurotic Maul falling to a sound-minded Tano.
Filoni's quote about only Vader or Sheev matching Tano in combat comes to mind, though SoD Maul is the prime combatant in my and other minds.
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Growth referred to Obi-Wan vs Maul Only. In that they both must have learned something from all their previous long duels, and it wouldn't make sense for them to go through all that again.
-> Stretching the facts.
-> Also debunked. And pretty silly a guy who wants to dismiss actual written source material, but take vague oral quotes from one person involved in writing Canon as some kind of Canon fact.
Last edited by Darth Thor on Sep 9th, 2017 at 05:13 AM
Yes Ashoka definitely performed very well against her former Master. But allow me to just make a case for Maul here based on Ahsoka vs Vader.
Firstly let's not forget all of Filoni's talk pre-fight about how Ahsoka won't go down easy due to knowing a lot about how to fight Vader. Making it clear this was always going to be closer than it probably should.
Second let's not forget that despite being "so close" to Vader, that she made little to no progress in defeating Old Maul after fighting him for a fair amount of time.
And finally let's speculate for a second how SOD Maul might reasonably perform against Vader. Is it not reasonable to assume he could put up just as good a Saber fight against Vader as he did against Sidious in their final 1 v 1 after Savage died? I think that's a perfectly reasonable assumption personally given Sidious is > Vader. Now if he does that well before getting BFR'd/KO'd by a Force attack similar to how Ahsoka was initially defeated, then I think that would classify doing as well against Vader as Ashsoka did. Or at least pretty damn comparable.
-> As usual you keep harping on something that isn't essential to the argument
-> the context of the statement repeatedly refers to swordfights.
-> And they became very good compared to their prior incarnations.
How the hell are you getting that they didn't grow as swordsmen here?
I'm using what is explicitly stated
Where? Do tell please. Where was it stated Malachor wasn't a nexus?
Your interpretation of source material does not outweigh the authorial intent behind it. Nowhere does the source material explicitly indicate Maul has grown weaker, that is an assumption which you have failed to substantiate.
Where did I say it wasn't referring to sword fights?
I suggest you read my interpretation of Filoni's comments on "growth" again, and then get back to me.
Because it's been explained to you many times by myself and others, including on your own thread on the issue on comic vine.
You should probably think carefully about what is stated and by who.
Pablo Hidalgo clearly stated he can't confirm if Malachor amped Vader's and Maul's performance over the Jedi. And yet miraculously you seem to know something the head of the canon group doesn't.
Now sure you could argue that it's a possibility that we should all be aware of, so Maul and Ahsoka stalemating probably favours Ahsoka more, but stop making out it's some kind of fact that Ahsoka was clearly disadvantaged in her fights against Maul and Vader.
LOL, so my interpretation of pretty clear cut source material quotes should be dismissed, but your interpretation of vague director comments are somehow canon? Okay buddy, but I think you're gonna have to up your game if you actually want to convince people that Ahsoka is factually > Maul, or that Rebels Mau is factually > SOD Maul Lol.
I never said it's stated Rebels Maul has grown weaker. But Maul thinks he's past his prime, Witwer talks of Maul's prime being in his past, Filoni and Witwer both call Rebels Maul "broken" and "stuck in the past". And sure that's all speculative and not evidence. But then you do excel using vague comments as evidence.
Fact is though most people here just don't believe SOD Maul would be as clumsy and desperate in combat as we've seen Rebels Maul be, and we all know SOD/The Lawless Maul has far far better feats going for him.
Last edited by Darth Thor on Sep 9th, 2017 at 02:33 PM
Registered: Jul 2015
Location: The Darkest Corner of your Mind
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Because Maul is more mobile than Vader. Ahsoka only did as well as she did because of Vader's immobility. At the beginning of their fight she was able to dodge and perform acrobatics around Vader to avoid his power-strikes, but as it cut to the later scene she remained planted—and if I had to guess it was because of fatigue from his sheer force. Notice how Tano began to stagger more with Vader's blows after the cutaway than in the beginning.
Like Ahsoka, Maul is capable of matching any acrobatic move she throws at him; and we saw some of this during their Rebels fight. So she's not going to be out-maneuvering his attacks like she did with Vader.
SoD Maul is in his physical prime and combined with his anatomy, he's simply stronger than Ahsoka. Remember how he man-handled Kenobi with one-hand, tackled Grievous, temporarily over-powered Sheev, and even held back a Rathtar (look it up).
Maul's not as strong as Vader, but strong enough to where Ahsoka will fatigue before he will.
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Sep 9th, 2017 12:46 AM
