Originally posted by Azronger
Dooku-level, tbh. I haven't put a lot of thought into this, but this some rough reasoning of my placement of him. You may correct me if I have some misinformation in my post.[B]The Force:
After killing Freedon Nadd's spirit, Exar Kun sensed a distant entity who rivalled him in power. This being turned out to be Ulic Qel-Droma, so he should rival Kun in raw Force power at this point.--The Old Republic: Codex Entry: Galactic History 55: The Ascension of Exar Kun
After they met, they became master and apprentice, both growing tremendously in power, yet neither growing more than the other, to my knowledge.
So Ulic should still be a rival of prime Kun in power. But how powerful is prime Kun? Well, he's stated to be the most powerul Sith Lord up to his time, and the darkest power in the same galaxy that included Emperor Vitiate and his Sith Empire.
So if Ulic is a rival of prime Kun, then he should logically also be a rival of Dromund Kaas-amped Vitiate, which would roughly place him on par with unhindered prime Revan (whether it's the novel or SoR os up to you), which is somewhat above Dooku's level.
Sabers:
I don't have a definitive ranking for Ulic as to who he compares to best, cross-era-wise, although he is stated to be able to fight for hours on end against opponents of equal caliber.-The Dark Side Sourcebook
As he rivalled Kun so closely, he gets some scaling from the latter, like being relative to Vodo-Siosk Baas and such. Baas happens to be a Jedi Weapons' Master, which connects him to the PT era by way of Anoon Bondara, another Weapons' Master. I know this scaling may be off-putting to some, but I honestly can't find a better way to compare TotJ characters to PT ones, skill-wise. If you have suggestions, feel free to post them. So Ulic should be around Bondara, skill-wise; arguably on par with Qui-Gon Jinn and even Darth Maul.
That's without factoring in Force augmentation. For speed, Ulic has blitzed five Naddists (all Force sensitive) in under a second, and then proceeded to defeated Warb Null in a matter of seconds also.
This was while Ulic was pre-prime, and hindered by Onderon's dark side nexus as well as Null's dark powers. Hypothetically, if we remove the hinderances, and replace Padawan Ulic with prime Ulic, I'd say he could outright speedblitz Warb Null. What makes Null impressive is that millenia earlier, a failed Jedi Initiate managed to defeat a full Jedi Master simply by donning Null's armor and lightsaber (I have seen this feat regurgitated a lot but I've never actually seen the relevant quotes, so this could be false). Judging by this, Null himself should be vastly above the average Jedi Master in terms of combative capability, and Ulic is still able to blitz him. This demonstrates speed roughly equivalent to Agen Kolar, who himself blitzed Quinlan Vos, another Jedi Master.
For strength, a collective of three Jedi had trouble holding Ulic down.
Two of those Jedi have notable feats of their own, which should translate to Ulic as well. Qrrrl Toq has pinned several men to wall, one-handed, and Cay Qel-Droma has punched through robots, again, one-handed.
To my memory, out of movie era characters, only Darth Vader has demonstrated the ability to tear through solid metal with his bare hands, and similarly Vader can hold multiple men in place. Based on that, I believe Ulic to be in the league of Darth Vader and RotJ Luke Skywalker in raw strength.
Overall as a duelist, while he may not be the most skilled or the fastest being, he does rank quite high. His most notable attribute as a duelist is his strength, which would be enough to press Dooku, but I don't think he'd make much progress beyond that. I'd say he's comparable to Dooku as a duelist, but still solidly his inferior.
Overall:
Ulic is below Dooku in dueling, but above him in the Force department. He is comparable to the Count in both attributes, however, and thus, I believe the Dooku-level is the right place for Ulic. [/B]
Kun's majority of power growth took place after he gained the Dark Holocron, which is after they both gain 'tremendous powers'.
Originally posted by SunRazer
What? I'm saying Kun grows more powerful after killing Nadd, then Ulic rivals him. Which is good for Ulic. Obviously the gap increases afterwards.
Yes, indeed.
Better yet, Kun was as powerful as Freedon Nadd was at the time he killed him per the Audio Drama.
Kun gains in power after that, and then faces Ulic. In the several years after that they enjoy gaining tremendous power until resurfacing. Exar Kun kills Odan-Urr and gains the most powerful Sith Holocron in the lore, becoming more powerful due to it and gaining power faster than he otherwise would have.
By the end of the war, he's the most powerful Sith Lord in history and far more powerful than anybody else in his time.