But that was Vader not long after ROTS when he was still adapting to the armor, so not really surprising that Sidious was able to dominate him like that. This was Vader WAY before his prime.
Also like the explanation Sidious gives for sabers- they are just a symbol of power for a Sith. Their primary "weapon" is the dark side itself.
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Last edited by Sheev on Jul 22nd, 2022 at 12:24 PM
Vader's armor was an absolute hindrance until he acclimated to it and fully embraced the dark side (this was established in Lords of the Sith novel). Point being, he was nowhere near his peak during this sparring match.
Obviously Sidious would still wreck Vader in an all out battle, like we've already seen in the comics. But I feel like peak Vader would be very close to (if not above) his level in pure sabers at least.
Hard to pin down what level Vader was operating at back then. As mentioned, Vader was still using Kirak's hilt, so I'd say his 'fight' with Palpatine took place a few weeks after RotS... So well before he was accustomed to the suit, well before he began fully embracing the dark side, well before he started hitting his 'prime', etc.
But given n00b-Vader's showing against Kirak(who was stated to be more powerful than any Jedi he'd ever faced, which would include Kenobi), I'd say he was still probably above Ventress-level, but below Dooku-level at the time. Prime Vader is obviously a MUCH different story, though.
Okay so I looked at the comic and the next one. Vader didn't tank a planetary drainer. He tanked which was the same ]kind[/I] of technolgy. The "extent" of the forcer drain with that gun was much much smaller.
Addtionally, the actual planet drainer, shown in the next comic was, besides being much bigger, draining the planet over a lengthy period of time.
So saying Vader tanked planetary level drain is just off by several orders of magnitude
With the added context established in the following issue, we now know that Vader did not soak a literal planet-draining blast. Thank God. He just soaked an energy-draining blast of unknown magnitude.
But Vader's showing against Kirak was pretty lackluster. He was easily defeated by the jedi master, and then managed to force-choke him only because Kirak was distraught at the sight of the city being flodded and wasn't focused on him anymore. We can't really use that fight to scale Vader above the likes of Ventress, who would've surely put up a better fight against the jedi master.
You're not wrong, as Kirak definitely seemed to be above Vader. Though it is worth mentioning that Vader's armor was heavily compromised during both of his fights with Kirak, and he also didn't have a proper lightsaber... So yeah, probably not the best way to gauge his level at the time.
Although, a fresh Vader did stomp GI with ease(along with a few other members of the Inquisitorius off-panel), almost immediately after his battle with Kirak. Perhaps that is a better way to try and gauge him?
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Last edited by Galan007 on Jul 25th, 2022 at 12:04 AM
Filoni did imply that the best Inquisitors are at least in Asajj's ballpark, so noob Vader curbing GI like he did is probably the better way to scale him.
But I agree that putting noob Vader somewhere between Asajj and Dooku (probably closer to the former then the latter) is logical, and would still account for a HUGE power gimp compared to where he was at during ROTS.
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Last edited by Sheev on Jul 25th, 2022 at 12:09 AM
Jul 16th, 2022 05:54 PM
