Originally posted by Pwned61
As far as the ancient sith are concerned, it's a bit of a toss up. On one hand I want to say that they appear, to me anyway, to be far more interested in the arcane aspects of the force. That is to say the use of sith alchemy and dark side rituals in particular. that being said the ancient sith we see really don't come off as being particularly dangerous combatants. I mean haven't we always said the the most amazing thing we've ever seen an ancient sith do on their own is throw a brick?
That would be if one refuses to take the relevant knowledge, feats, and possessions of later beings into account, and extrapolate from
those what the ancients should have been capable of.
Take, for example, the usage of Ragnos's staff by Tavion. A relative weakling in the mythos - being possessed and then shortly abandoned by the spirit of the aforementioned Dark Lord actually killed her - she is nonetheless able to knock Force-sensitives into unconsciousness, destroy lightsabers, and collapse large rooms upon themselves. She also manages to drain the tainted energy from temples and at least one Force-nexus, even going so far as to render Hoth barren to the Force-sense of Jaden Korr.
Now, take a look at Ragnos himself. "The most powerful of the most powerful; the Dark Lord of the Sith." Described, IIRC, as possessing "terrifying" power in the Force and immense physical strength, held in the utmost respect and fear by individuals who would at his funeral enter a duel for the throne. Having lived for - at the very least - well over a century, and considering that he had to defeat a Sith who was the reigning ruler and presumably the most powerful man alive at the time, Lord Simus, in personal combat, one can assume that Ragnos would've wielded his own staff and sword to greater effect than Tavion.
On the other hand however, the knowledge they possessed is sought after by sith thousands of years after their death. And anyone lucky enough to get their hands on one of their holocrons is usually rewarded with great power that can be directly attributed to said holocron.
This is the other thing. Aleema Keto was capable of easily creating illusions in the Force that could
kill lesser beings. She eventually had her ass handed to her with laughable ease by Exar Kun, who gloated that Nadd had taught him "everything." Kun, by the way, had had a few months on Yavin 4 at
best as of that point, and from Naga Sadow's leftover notes and artifacts he'd learned to utterly dominate everyone from Massassi warriors to Aleema Keto to Odan-Urr, never with more than a motion of his hand. His alchemical experiments created massive mutants that could literally slap aside Jedi Knights - the Night Beast was the culmination of these - and he was also apparently responsible for the creation of the dreaded "Jedi-killing" terentatek.
Now, Kun's own prodigious power and affinity for the dark side accounts for his rapid ascent, but the fact that he was capable of doing all the above - ignoring the multitude of other techniques at his disposal - with, in total, not much more than a year of study, says a lot about the quality of Sadow's "teachings." To say that Naga Sadow himself - who was at least seven hundred as of the time of his death - would know far more and be able to apply it more effectively, although a presumed gap in raw power should be accounted for.
what I'm left with is this, obviously the Ancient sith were powerful and knowledgeable in the dark side of the force in all it's facets. However, I also believe that the most powerful of the race were far less interested in one on one combat and thus aren't necessarily as dangerous an opponent as some later, more martial sith, would be.
They were incredibly violent, actually. Ragnos decapitated Simus in personal combat in a bid for the throne, Sadow and Kressh would later fight inconclusively for the same thing, and simple Sith warriors were capable of going toe-to-toe with Jedi Knights.