Originally posted by FreshestSlice
I mean, to be fair, Labyrinth of Evil ends just before RotS.
And in that Novel he doesn't get a significant advantage against Grievous in sabers. Which hints to me that his Sidious feat might be an outlier in Legends.
There is however another example that comes to mind in the realm of canon.
Originally posted by Rockydonovang
Proof the boost was a temporary one. Especially considering the novel has Mace mastering his distress regarding the revelation before the fight took place.
what do you mean by boost?
Vaapad relies on the fury of said opponent. Mace's Vapaad will only work at his opponents level.
Why would it remain afterwards.
There was a mountain of context and circumstances that went into Windu performing that well against Sheev, which was what I was referencing. The superconducting loop happened literally once and it happened because of his mentality, the contexts of what he was fighting for, and more importantly, against.
Originally posted by slayne
Can you post the quote?
But because he is Mace Windu, he takes this blow without a change of expression. Because he is Mace Windu, within a second the man of sand is stone once more: pure Jedi Master, weighing coldly the risk of facing the last Dark Lord of the Sith without the chosen one--"Revenge of the Sith
Originally posted by Rockydonovang
Proof the boost was a temporary one. Especially considering the novel has Mace mastering his distress regarding the revelation before the fight took place.
You could certainly make the case, but that quote is far from proof that Mace was operating outside of his normal limits. All it actually says is that he was able to keep his composure despite the situation.
He is declared to be as powerful as Yoda by countless sources, and more powerful by many sources so yeah, the "exceptional" circumstance is nothing "exceptional". He outright shrugs off the so called "emotional impact" of Sidious's revelation, and the novel makes it explicit that he is back to his usual frame of mind.
The evidence: his performance level outside of the fight. His other battles allude to some special circumstance against palp, one can be explained by a super conducting loop allowing him to become as strong as Sidious while fighting him.
1) Against Grievous, he can't beat him in the saber portion of the battle, despite the latter being virtually pinioned to the roof of shuttle. Supposedly restricting Grievous' movement is a big deal, which is why Kenobi lead their battle to a rather confined catwalk, aiding his victory.
2)
Compare that to a fairly evident struggle against Talzin for at least a minute. There's a little more than a small gap in performance when Sidious disarms her in three panels.
3)
He doens't incapacitate Maul and reacts slower to a missile inspite of the earning warning
Based on the evidence we have, the following potentially circumstantial factors were at play in the RotS duel:
- lack of "Jedi restraint"
- immersing "fully in vaapad"
- redirecting / drawing on Sidious's energies
- peak mindset / motivation
- exploiting Sidious's shatterpoint
The last one isn't that important here because Mace was already stalemating him before that and few contestants would have fewer weaknesses than Sidious.
I think that peak mindset and the lack of Jedi restraints go hand in hand - Mace sheds the latter because of the former, but can he do so on a whim or does he need some extraordinary circumstances? I think the tipping point for me is the number of quotes that say Windu rivals Palpatine/Yoda at that point, which seem to suggest that this isn't some sort of involuntary Zone moment.
Immersing in vaapad therefore should be something he can do if he really wants to, though there is the question of how long that would take, given that he doesn't seem to be fully immersed at the beginning of the fight where it's possible the B-team bought Windu time. To really exploit this the combatant would have to take Windu out extremely quickly, which I don't think many people would be able to do.
That leads us to him "drawing on" Sidious's energies. What we can guess about no-Sidious Windu is that:
- he is an equal for Dooku by Dark Rendevous, but this may be with those Jedi restraints
- Nick/Lucas think he's an "8 bordering on 9"
- he "rivals" Palpatine in power, the language of these quotes not indicating that it's just a trick where he siphons his energies
- he may not have been able to counter Sidious's lightning had Palpatine not stopped to feign weakness
So I'd guess:
Windu w/restraints >= Dooku
Windu without restraints can rival Sidious but can't get past his lightning, so I'd eyeball Plagueis level (overwhelming someone with uncharged lightning implies a pretty non-trivial gap)