Originally posted by carthageWhere is it explicitly stated that Vader is more powerful than Dooku/Maul in canon?
Vader kills a guy who stomps Maul in secondsAnd was stated as being more powerful than Maul/Dooku. He's also so far above Mace in the force it's not even a comparison. He can gesture and shred Windu
Again, what suggests that Vader "can gesture and shred Windu" in canon?
Originally posted by Rebel95Are author's opinions canon now? What might Christie Golden say about Ventress's level? Does thinking about that make you cringe? If so, authorial opinions have little bearing outside of clarifying misunderstandings within their work.
The author of SoD says that Maul isn’t on Vader’s level, or even Dooku’s. Implying that Vader>Dooku>Maul
If you exclude Legends and go only by Canon, the setting is quite weird. Rebels, for instance, goes great lengths to demonstrate Vader as superior to Anakin incarnation, or at least, it doesn't seem like Vader is diminished noticeably from allmighty RotS Anakin. That would make it plausible to place Vader above Windu.
But then again, if you exclude Legends, much of the material used to argue that Anakin > Mace goes away, and we are left with very solid material to pin Windu as the better of the two, simply because so many details are left out, especially about Windu vs. Sidious and Anakin vs. Dooku. That still allows to place Windu on top.
If we were to include Legends, though, Anakin > Mace (discounting Windu's state from Palpatine fight obviously) is solid as hell. But so is the fact that Vader, even by RotJ, is far from the unstoppable might of RotS Anakin, really far. Effectively Anakin > Mace > Vader.
Vader.
He's still not as powerful as Anakin, but defenitely much closer than he was in legends. And though we don't have much evidence for "Anakin is superior to Mace" in canon, the Revenge of the Sith film, Nic Gillard, and George Lucas all wanted that to be the case. And Anakin is defenitely superior to Dooku, who (I think) is still the greatest duelist of his era (barr Sidious).
Also, the only real feat showing how powerful Mace is in canon is his fight against Sidious, and even that might have been staged.
Originally posted by DarthAnt66
Both Anakin and Mace are better than Vader in both Legends and Canon.Issue with Vader in Canon is his relatively weak portrayal in the Vader comics.
WEAK potrayal in the comics? Are we forgetting how he stopped the downward force of an atat from stepping on him? And how he was in the process of ripping it to shreds? How he picked up debree big enough to hurl at aircrafts to destroy them?
Are we forgetting his Vader Down feats where he took on an entire army of rebels by himself? Including a bunch of tanks? Who else in canon took on armies by themselves? I can think of Yoda in Cline Wars and Windu in the legends cartoon. There might be other legends examples I'm not thinking of. That's a pretty elite group.
We know in terms of power he no longer has his full potential, but he has grown more powerful since rots. Lots and rebels recon make that clear. However, in terms of lightsaber abilities it's a bit unclear. We know he's greater than Ben Kenobi, Ahsoka, and Maul, but they are all sub-Dooku in my opinion. As Anakin, he has greater feats than Vader by dominating Dooku, who is on par with Mace.
There is nothing in canon that would point to Vader's saber skills improving. However, there's nothing to indicate they have diminished either. We know from lots his suit does not inhibit him in any way. In fact, he made full modifications to his suit personally.
I would say Vader is more skilled with a blade and is more powerful than Mace with the force. However, styles make fights as they say. I can't see Vader ragdolling Mace with tk and although Vader is more skilled with a blade, he doesn't match up well with Mace's vapaad. Mace wins 6-7 out of 10.