CaV: Darth Vader (AchillesSpawn) vs Count Dooku & Darth Maul (EpicStoic)

Stated to be light-years above them, implying a huge gap between them.

This is a laughable hyperbole statement as it exist many within the Star Wars universe, which should be expected when you have like two dozen of people who had/have a official saying on the material and who can write directly things in the canon as they see it, there is various canon sources contradicting each other about various characters and scenes. I don't think there is any reasonable feat or canon display suggesting that Vader is anything even close to "light-years" above either member of my team individually, let alone together when Vader have consistently struggled individually with people way below them in combat as I will showcase later.

Both Dooku and Maul have the scaling and accolades to suggest that they are capable to be to an extent a legit opponent against people on Sidious and Yoda tier, yes you heard me. In fact Count Dooku have an amount of quotes and feats suggesting that he was to an extent fighting evenly with AOTC Yoda, at the very least it was clear that he was capable to fight with Yoda closely. He was not winning, but he was clearly capable to hold his own , in fact various sources suggest that the match was mean to be even. I do think Yoda was superior, but clearly not as much as people argue him to be , here a few sources which are established as clear canon some of them are from George original intent itself and by his own words, they are supported by the scene in the movie, there is no direct debunking about the fact that Dooku is capable enough to hold his own against Yoda as of AOTC. It is crystal clear that George original intent is for Dooku to be not that far from original Yoda lvl and this is clearly the case in canon.

"I started out doing it fairly conservatively where he just came and fought, that really didn't work. And it was actually uh... much of the people sort of in editorial were saying 'y'know we gotta make more out of this, you gotta use Jedi powers, you gotta, you can't just go right into the swordfight.' So, I decided to go back to the Empire Strikes Back of throwing things at each other even though I knew they were equals of each other, so it was a hopeless gesture, they would have figured that out in two seconds. For the audience it actually, it's nice for them to go through this process of everyone throwing everything around."

~ George Lucas

According to Episode II's animation director, Rob Coleman, "George felt that Star Wars fans had been waiting a long time for this moment, and that they wanted to see Yoda in combat. He wanted us to show Yoda ferociously leaping and fighting, not just standing his ground and deflecting incoming attacks. The results had to be an amazing clash between the forces of good and evil with two ultimate masters of opposite sides of the Force in head-to-head combat." This is, of course, exactly what the audience got to see.

~ Star Wars: Adventures Magazine #1

"The two Force warriors attempted to defeat each other with displays of telekinesis and other Force abilities, but they were too evenly matched."

(Star Wars Lightsabers: A Guide to Weapons of the Force)

As they lay wounded, Jedi Master Yoda and Dooku engaged in a titanic struggle of Force powers, neither besting the other.

(Star Wars Insider Magazine #100)

While the fight end up with Dooku running away due to not being capable to win he was still capable to hold his ground against Yoda matching his blows when they fought, albeit as I said he was incapable to do more than forcing a inconclusive exhange in dueling, but this is still enough to showcase that Dooku and Yoda are far from being THAT much far apart, very far.As you can see various sources (and there is more) suggest that the fight was very close to be a stalemate. Even if you argue that Yoda was holding back (which I would agree with) the later was still actively trying to defeat him by non-lethal mean as supported by the quotes and logic itself, so even without killing intent from Yoda the fact that Dooku was capable to stand his ground in swordplay and not be overwhelmed by Yoda matching the later more or less blow for blows is a clear display that he is clearly not that much below him. In fact he was even able to hold a bladelock against Yoda directly the later struggling considerably against Dooku and Dooku managing to use the force while holding Yoda with his lightsaber in simultaneous , holding off Yoda with one hand and even turning his attention away from the bladelock to do his force move properly

Now let's get to the scaling about Sidious which as you know had considerable troubles on (barely) winning against Yoda as of ROTS .

"You have to be either Mace or Yoda to compete with the Emperor," Lucas says.

"On Attack of the Clones, I had to give them levels. Sidious is a level nine. In this film, Obi is eight -- he's moved up -- Anakin is a nine; Mace is a nine, Yoda is a nine. They're up with Sidious."

Now yes, Yoda as of ROTS is probably supposed to be stronger than his former AOTC self , but can you prove by how much ? Can you prove that he was anything close to be like twice stronger ? Because there is various source suggesting that Sidious was afraid of Dooku having the capacity to surpass and kill him, even with "only" the help of someone far below Maul, Ventress.

"Sidious knew that, should Asajj become any more powerful, the combined might of Dooku and Ventress could overthrow him."

-- The Official Star Wars Fact Files Relaunched #67

In fact individually Dooku was a direct treat to Sidious

Obviously, Dooku was never capable to reach a lvl in which he was able to beat Sidious nor Yoda by himself, but he was still considered to be close to their league even at their ROTS incarnations considering it was confirmed that Dooku improved considerably during The Clone Wars himself .

In any case you can't use a source especially one which don't have any support as an legit argument when other much more established topic have way more sources to back it up. I don't think Dooku was ever close to beat Yoda considering Dooku consistently was portrayed to be below the capacity to challenge Sidious by himself, yet finding arguments to argue that Dooku could be close to that lvl and have actually the capacity to match Yoda for a moment are much more easy to justify than this baseless "light years above" you used for Vader.

Likewise, stating that Vader is anything close to "light years" above Maul is outright ridiculous and baseless, especially in dueling abilities considering Maul while bloodlusted by his brother death was capable to match Darth Sidious blow for blows and only lost this lightsaber battle due to Sidious overpowering/outlasting him via superior force-amp

This Sidious should be just as powerful as the ROTS one or very relative to him considering Filoni himself draw a direct comparative between the brothers performance and the Jedi strike team performance , he wouldn't compare those two scenes if Sidious was anything close to a massive margin above as of ROTS

"You know, getting taken out by Sidious is pretty good, ranks up there. He puts up a better fight than the Jedi Council did, I'll say that much for him."

Source: Dave Filoni in Wrath of the Sith

Now , agree or disagree with this quote, wank or not wank, this is beside the point. The point is, there is no evidence that Sidious was masssively above his TCW self in ROTS because such comparative won't exist if it was the case.

Maul as of SoD prove that even without the rage amp he is easily extremely capable as a duelist clearly becoming stronger after his brother death by Sidious as he was driven by the objective to take revenge under his mother (Talzin) guidance against his former master ,he was able to fight Windu and hold his own while dealing at the same time with Aayla Secura a established Jedi Master, securing his superiority over her as he fight Windu at the same time

Windu within the same period of time established his superiority over Dooku and forced him to run away in their duel , Dooku willingly choose to retreat despite having no reason to do so, it's clear that Windu is at least a margin better as he is himself totally confident that if he actually fight for the kill he could beat Dooku and Dooku answer "I'm sure you would"

This mean that Maul at his prime (Son of Dathomir) is clearly more than capable to be a match for a duelist like Dooku and in turn Vader, invidually. Regardless of how you consider the canon fight between Dooku and Yoda , the point is that Yoda was not capable to stomps Dooku not in sabers nor in the force and Yoda in AOTC is not that massively weaker than in ROTS absolutely nothing prove this concept in canon especially when adressing lightsaber combat.

May I add that Maul was directly compared to be relative to Vader tier/lvl before and Dooku also was, both by Filoni and Lucas himself.

Dave Filoni: ''Maul is a super dangerous threat. Because he has been trained for years. He’s really adept. So he’s kind of in the Vader realm. He’s well trained by Sidious in all types of Sith ways. Not the least of which is manipulation.''

George Lucas: "But Obi-Wan screwed that up by cutting off his arms and legs and burning him up. From then on, he wasn't as strong as the Emperor -- he was like Darth Maul or Count Dooku. He wasn't what he was supposed to become. But the son could become that."

Now let's get with the rest of your quotes.

Vader is stated to be the most powerful sith.

Clearly contradicted by the fact that Vader consistently admitted inferiority to Sidious and was never capable to overthrow him. He literally conceded without a fight his inferiority in one of his most recent arc despite moment prior to that wanting to kill Sidious and claiming to his face that he is not his master anymore and openly confronting him for a fight.

I don't think it is necessary to bring more quotes and comparative but as I already referenced above, Lucas original intent was that Vader was never capable to beat Sidious individually, he was closer to Sidious apprentices than Sidious himself unlike his son Luke who actually was capable to surpass Sidious given time.

From then on, he wasn't as strong as the Emperor -- he was like Darth Maul or Count Dooku. He wasn't what he was supposed to become. But the son could become that."

(Which is supported by the fact that Vader despite challenging Sidious was never capable to really fight him)

Palpatine compares Vader to Maul and Dooku, and calls him as the apprentice he wanted, showing that he's more powerful than them

Your reasoning is kind of strange here, albeit I understand the idea, some stuff should be clarified however. Sidious literally stated that Maul was a "loss" he is literally saying that Maul was his supposed heir before Anakin was part of the picture, Maul was supposed to be much more which is supported by every canon source even by Sidious own sincere thoughts in the matter , he considered that Maul was supposed to be what Vader was '"the ultimate weapon against the Jedi".

Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith

Obviously Vader original potential is far superior to Maul own potential due to being "The Chosen One" , however it was clear that Sidious position over Maul as a first choice was sincere and legit, before Anakin was part of the picture. It should be considered that Vader Post-Mustafar is not necessary above TPM Maul before his defeat by Kenobi, in terms of potential. Sidious could very well, had he been with the choice, favorized TPM Maul over crippled Vader, considering Vader injuries (both mental an physical) prevented him to ever surpassing Sidious, when Maul was confirmed to be able to possibly surpass Sidious powers with the proper training and without his forced exile post-defeat, considering Sidious view him as a legitimate heir before prime-potential Anakin was part of the picture.

He is only comparing Vader directly to Dooku stating that the later was neven mean to be his heir or a true Sith, which is true. But this isn't a power or skills comparative, other factors are included here as I said.

Any my apprentices ? Darth Maul was a loss, but Darth Tyranus... He was a proton torpedo. He served his purpose and was gone... I had a superior candidate in mind.

Yes Vader is more powerful than both (as individuals, he is never beating them together) but in this quote Sidious is clearly refering to something more complex than a direct power scaling. Sidious is not directly adressing combat capacity or powers here and even if he was saying "You are better than both as of now" he would be talking as of them individually, not together.

Vader is Palpatine's most powerful emissary.

Well obviously Dooku was dead and Maul was no more with Sidious lol. No but seriously, yes I agree that Vader is more powerful in 1vs1 as I said.

He was the greatest enemy of the Jedi Order:

Because he was in the position to be, this was not only due to his own powers. Maul during the Empire times was not a Jedi treat, he was a crime lord and then was in exile for various years and supposed dead. Vader was the greatest enemy of the Jedi Order because he brought the said Order to an end via his actions when he allowed 66 to happen and leaded Sidious armies and followers into eradicating the remaining Jedi, Maul never had the same opportunities or powers.

While these quotes are comparing him to Maul and Dooku individually. It clearly shows that there is a massive gap between them. Especially the one that states that he's light-years above them.

Not as much as you try to make it, certainly not as much as Vader would be above them together (in combat, in the force he probably is) but this won't be the decisive factor. I already debunked this nonsense light-years quote.

5 years after ROTS, Vader had surpassed KFV. This has been confirmed numerous times

In the force yes, certainly not in lightsaber combat. None of your quote refer to lightsaber abilities or Vader capacity to use the force in dueling which is totally different from direct force scaling and TK. Vader was a superior force user, there is no doubt about this much, but he wasn't superior in his swordplay or in combat, it is confirmed by numerous sources that Vader original defeat made his body and his physical capacities including his swordmanship limited and weaker, it was confirmed by numerous source that Vader body was damaged and weakened. Including source which are very recent such as "Skywalker a Family at War"

"Yet still, Palpatine had treated him as nothing more than a weapon; and for more than twenty years, Vader had submitted, too damaged to defy him."

None of your source refer to lightsaber combat or swordplay or dueling abilities. Your sources are a reference about Vader mental improvement (more focused and experienced) and his grow in the force. The first quote you used is telling of the fact that Vader is clearly weakened compared with his former self in terms of dueling as it made clear the distinction between his ruined and weak body and his spirit and force grow.

He stared at his reflection a long time. His injuries had deformed his body, left it a ruin, but they’d perfected his spirit, strengthening his connection to the Force. Suffering had birthed insight.

The second quote doesn't refer to a grow in sabers compared to KFV Vader or even a comparative at all in terms of skills and swordmanship, it just state that Vader was stronger due to his hatred and "thirst for revenge" clearly indicating that Vader was bloodlusted by cold rage toward Kenobi and thus was pressing him via superior power and agression, not skills.

This duel was very different from their last. Obi-Wan was older and weaker while Vader was even stronger, fueled by hatred and thirst for revenge.

As we know dark side users get constantly more capable and considerably stronger in combat and in the force when they are under bloodlust or strong emotions such as hatred , it was the case for Maul against Sidious which allowed the Zabrak to match the Dark Lord in sabers despite losing a 2vs1 previously against a holding back Sidious and beng incapable to tag him with punch and kicks (which he did after his bloodlust with Savage death) It was the case for Anakin against Dooku despite Dooku dominating the fight 1vs2 before that , it was the case for Vos against Dooku which allowed Vos to outright beat the Count during the first lightsaber battle between them (Dark Disciple) it was the case for Savage when he was able to get such amp that Dooku and Ventress were forced to ally against him despite Dooku dominating them in 1vs2 previously.

Those are well known examples and I can bring sources and evidences for each of them if you disagree with any of those. Either way, Vader skills grow or lightsaber improvement is not noted or proved anywhere here.

Many years later, Obi-Wan and Darth Vader duel a second time. The Sith Lord is now more experienced and powerful.

Same for this quote. Experience on what ? Just like other quotes none of this support a grown in lightsaber combat and skills, but yes he improved in the force.

In ROTS, KFV was capable of stomping Dooku

Dark Side Anakin never stomped Dooku, not in a direct and legit manner anyway. First of all Dooku was not fresh , he fought a fight 2vs1 with two of the strongest Jedi in the whole order, a match that despite being challenging Dooku was clearly winning, ragdolling and breaching the guards of both Kenobi and Anakin and even knocking out Kenobi thus defeating him.

Secondly Dooku was clearly confident in his victory against Anakin and was clearly winning their bladelock while taunting him to his face

Dooku was clearly assured that he could win this match, then Anakin got a sudden rage boost which massively changed his fighting abilities and style (more agressive, faster, stronger, more reactive) which obviously totally surprised Dooku who had no way of expecting such change, allowing Anakin to take the decisive advantage.

Dooku appeared, engaging both Jedi at the same time. He first defeated Obi-Wan, Force choking him and nearly crushing the Jedi Master with a heavy railing. An enraged Anakin continued the fight, unleashing a strength Dooku had not anticipated. The young Jedi cut off the Sith Lord’s hands, drew Dooku’s lightsaber to him, and the Separatist leader fell to his knees.

Source: http://www.starwars.com/databank/count-dooku

Thirdly, Dooku was capable to defend himself for a moment and continue the fight for a moment (defensively) albeit he was clearly overhelmed by this unexpected and imprevisible sudden power boost.

So yeah. While the victory is to Anakin credits you can't dismiss the fact that Dooku WAS disadvantaged by various factors playing against him.

but more importantly KFV is confirmed to be at ROTS Sidious/Yoda level.

He is confirmed to be close to them in force powers not in skills, not in mastery, not in knowledge.. having the raw power doesn't translate to have the same skills or the same mastery.

There is various quotes and statements which make clear that mastery of the force and power are NOT THE SAME THING

For example Dooku said this to Yoda in AOTC

"It is obvious that this contest cannot be decided by our knowledge of the Force... but by our skills with a lightsaber."

Source: Attack of the Clones

Clearly considering skills and knowledge as different to brute force power, there is more quotes like this if you want them.

Not to mention that Sidious could be very well refering to potential and basically "non mastered powers" in the first scan as Anakin doens't have the capacity to use them in TCW before his fall to the dark side, and was never able to match Dooku in the force before ROTS. In fact it's very likely that Sidious is refering to "potential" and not direct power considering he is talking about Anakin as a whole and his machination to bring him under his wing and not ROTS Anakin/KFV specifically. Sidious often refer to a individual potential while using the word power to describe it , he did the same thing with kid anakin before the later was even a Padawan, clearly using the description of "power" as Anakin potential and not the power he does possess at the moment and can use in battle.

The second quote is refering about Anakin having a superior strength yes, but again strength and mastery are not the same thing. Anakin could be very well just as strong as Sidious in pure powers (or stronger) but so much below in skills and mastery that he would still get stomped in a force battle at this point. Finally, the last scan you used only state that Anakin is stronger than the rest of the Jedi Order Yoda not included, considering Yoda bring the point as such and clearly doesn't include himself in the statement, he state that "Anakin was strong in the force, stronger than any Jedi Yoda had known" he doesn't state" Anakin was strong in the force, stronger than any Jedi Yoda had known including himself".

This means that KFV is equal to the people who are well above Dooku and Maul

Again, KFV is not the same person as Suited Vader. They don't have the same fighting style and they don't use the force the same way, every source suggest that. There is no proof that Vader is more capable in sabers than KFV Vader, so this scaling even for the parts which are semi-legit, simply doesn't work. Not to mention that you have no evidence about KFV being able to take on both Maul and Dooku at the same time, even Sidious or Yoda would certainly have troubles in doing so and their capacity to do it is clearly debatable as explained above.

Vader had already surpassed KFV as of LOTS, and since then his power had continued growing.

Yes, in his force power, knowledge and mastery only. Not in lightsaber combat and dueling capacity . Literally every single quote you used refer to an improvement in the force, both in skills and in power, it doesn't adress a comparative between KFV and Suited Vader on their swordmanship and fighting style.

, Vader continues to expand his knowledge and the power of the dark side.”

Vader has advanced in his ability to manipulate the dark side of the Force,

the Sith's powers grew even stronger."

See ? All of this refer to Vader improvement in the force, not as a fighter.

Then after ESB and before ROTJ, he got a large amp.

Yes, still not applicable in any sort of way to dueling and ligthsaber skills and combat ability. May I remind the voters that this very same Vader had troubles with Darth Maul apprentice Qi'ra, a rookie who doesn't possess the force and have no combat experience against opponents anywhere close to the lvl of a powerful force-user, yet she was able to not only tag him in combat, clearly damaging decently the spot but even more impressively she was able to force him to abuse the force to take a decisive advantage against her, before that she was evading all his blows and keeping up with his lightsaber skills and speed just fine via abusing her superior mobility and acrobatic along with her combat form.

Not only was she capable to keep up with Vader and tag him in combat, but she was competent enough to force Vader to abuse massively the force in order to defeat her without a prolonged duel. Vader even state that despite her very impressive skills (which he praised several times in this fight) her lack of force is the reason that she can't compare.

This is a prime example of Vader lack of mobility and agillity being a huge disadvantage for him in combat , he was forced to abuse the force to win a armed fight against a non-force user using Darth Maul training, in other words he was having troubles with basically an opponent massively inferior compared to Darth Maul in every sense of the word , Qi'ra doesn't have the force, the experience and the same lvl of abilities in combat as Maul and she doesn't have a saber form and yet she was more than a decent match for Vader in skills and dueling.

This is the prime proof that even at his prime or close to it, Vader fighting ability is considerably limited ,which will be my main argument for my duo winning this battle for a majority.

Now in this section I will explain why Vader isn't even close to being able to fight Dooku & Maul simultaneously in sabers, let alone take the majority . He is considerably outmatched here for a number of reasons which I will explain and everything will have a reference/proof supporting my stance.

First of all, Vader have a massive weakness against mobile and acrobatic duelists, it was proved time and time again and in a consistent manner in Star Wars canon. Vader is not anywhere close to be overwhelmingly quick or unpredictable in swordplay, in fact his dueling skills are basically about overwhelming his opponent with superior strength and outlasting him, at least when he is facing anyone which is actually a established powerful opponent and not people way below him.

For example in the episode "Twilight of the Apprentice" Vader was having considerable troubles in overwhelming Ahsoka despite the later being massively below himself in the force considering she doesn't have any accolades or showings suggesting she is even close to Vader tier in the force, yet she was more than capable to be a fight for him, even breaching his guard and landing a effective force push despite her inferiority by several tier in the force.

In the two gif above you can clearly see that having superior combat mobility and aglity is a massive advantage against Darth Vader. Ahsoka was able to hang with him and even land direct attack and breach his guard, when she was pressured she was also capable to retreat and dance around him, thanks to her superior moblility and fighting style based on accrobatics and agility.

The "muh Vader wasn't in his prime argument" won't work as a defence here. Because as I said above there is no evidence that Vader improved considerably between Rebels timeline and basically the years after that, I am talking about lightsaber combat here not the force. I say this because even Post-ESB Vader was consistently having difficulties in overwhelming or even beating opponents far below his tier due to his lack of mobility in combat, when facing a skilled fighter Vader swordplay is clearly predictable because of the suit limitations and thus they can fight him despite the tier difference.

Vader fight with Karbin is actually a prime example of that ,Vader fought Karbin for several panels without being able to defeat him and was forced to call for Aphra intervention in order to finish this fight (which he wasn't able to do by himself) and Vader tried everything to defeat Karbin , including abusing the force against him but Karbin was able to retreat in a cave and escape a killing blow and then their duel resumed.

Ultimately Vader was not able to defeat Karbin after one of the longest duel in canon, despite Vader not being in disadvantage or in danger of losing at any point of the fight except for a small moment of distraction due to entering the Jedi cave and having a connection with the force which hindered his attention, allowing Karbin to land a blow. This is a prime example of an opponent below Vader tier holding him off and doing well against him despite Vader fighting seriously and going actively for the kill.

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Vader was not holding back against Karbin. He himself stated right away that Karbin will die and he won't show mercy or restrain against him.

Source: Vader (2015)/ Vader Down part VI

Now let's get back with some things you said in your post in regards to Vader and his dueling feats, with all due respect I don't see nothing but wank from your part here.

Vader stomped commander Karbin, who was regarded by his maker as an improved version of General Griveous.

.... Sorry but are you serious ? Please, how can you consider fighting for various minutes seemingly evenly in sabers and not landing a single blow via swordplay superiority but by abusing the force to surprise the opponent and crush him a stomps ? Especially when even then Vader wasn't capable to finish him and the duel resumed anyway. Vader by all mean had considerable opposition with Karbin in lightsaber combat, the later was able to hold him off in duel for various minutes and the duel could have lasted a lot longer without Aphra intervention. Karbin is not anywhere confirmed to be above Grievous lvl, the fact that he is with superior cyborg enhancements doesn't make him a better fighter by any mean as Grievous have far superior training as he was trained under Count Dooku himself. Source :

General Grievous: You fool! I've been trained in your Jedi arts by Count Dooku!

Karbin have superior technology but Grievous have far superior combat training as he was instructed and formed by one of the best duelist in the whole canon. There is absolutely no reason for Karbin superior enhancements making him better than Grievous possibly considerable superior skills. In fact, even Sidious himself doesn't believe the statement about Karbin>Grievous and basically is saying that Karbin superior enhancements doesn't make him a superior warrior and he require a real showing.

Vader duels the twins, Aiolin and Morit, easily stomping them. Aiolin also claims that she and her brother can't beat Vader,.

Sorry mate, but with due respect this is not even close to be impressive. Those twins would get destroyed by either Maul or Dooku and very easily they won't break a sweat, you want the proof ? Vader basically state that they are low second-rate duelists with a very basic bladework.

Vader call their swordsmanship "rudimentary" , let's look at the definition of rudimentary when refering to skills, shall we ?

They are pretty much as capable as a Inquisitor.

And the twins had plenty of training

This doesn't hold any value. They have 20 years of training but don't have any proper master, lightsaber form, combat style.. they just learned to fight with their lightsaber with basic applicable skills. Training doesn't translate to quality or to capacity, The Grand Inquisitor have a extensive training and of high quality but due to his limited potential he was never very impressive (he was first trained as a Jedi Knight, then by Darth Vader himself and studied every Jedi lightsaber forms of combat) I am sure you will agree that the GI won't last twenty seconds against anyone here.

Simply put, you can't use the information that they possess extensive training to argue about them being "highly skilled fighters."

Grievous is also incredibly impressive

While injured, Grievous duels Kit Fisto to a stalemate. Grievous had more disadvantages than just the injury.

There is no proof that Karbin is superior to Grievous as I explained above, if you disagree feel free to bring your arguments. In any case Vader was not capable to defeat Karbin and never in a million of years was he stomping him as you argued, the fight in sabers was consistently not conclusive, it was a attrition warfare as Vader was not able to win via skills or brute strength and even the force. A attrition warfare which would have lasted a LOT longer without Vader cheating by using Aphra to defeat Karbin.

He dueled Maul to a standstill before Maul used TK to BFR him.

Not only the scaling is invalid as I proved, but this argument is not acceptable. Maul and Grievous duel lasted at best 20 seconds, you can notice this easily by the fact that Sidious very quickly defeat Talzin using Dooku body in sabers, then he use force lightning which interupt the duel between Maul and Grievous. A 20 seconds duel isn't anywhere close to be a legit proof of parity when the majority of Star Wars duel are one minute or so

And Vader casually stomped an upgraded version of him. This proves that Vader is a significantly better duelist than Maul, and I doubt Dooku can make up for that gap.

With my scaling and corrections on Vader weaknesses and feats I proved that he is far from being that impressive as a duelist and debunked your own reasoning for his sabers skills. Now I am going to establish why Maul by himself will be a very hard match for Vader in sabers. If you add Dooku to the fray Vader get killed 10/10 every time. Ready to hear the facts ?

First of all we know that Vader had troubles with Qi'ra fighting style as I proved above, he went so far to say that it will be a "pity" for her to die considering how highly skilled she was, he also stated that her fighting abilities are credits to Maul own superior skills and teaching.

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Qi'ra form of combat is known as Teräs Käsi a form of combat which Maul mastered perfectly and teached to her.

Vader: ''You have... Training. I recognize the lineage of your instruction.''

Qi'ra: ''Do you, Lord Vader? Then you know you're in trouble.''

Vader: ''Your skill does credit to your teacher. But you do not have the Force. And your Teräs Käsi will not save you.''

Source: War Of The Bounty Hunters (2021)

This form of combat is a martial art designed to fight Jedi but in reality it apply to any lightsaber wielder and opponent using weapon for armed combat and CQC. Dryden Vos, Maul lieutenant and another apprentice of Maul state the following ;

Dryden Vos: ''Have you ever heard of the art of Teräs Käsi? It was designed to counter the Jedi,but I find it works quite well on anyone with limbs to break.''

Source: Solo - A Star Wars Story Expanded Edition (2018)

We know that this form of combat is efficient against Vader because we literally saw it on paper. Now Maul hudge advantage compared to Qi'ra would the fact that not only he is much more skilled than her as he is the master of this fighting style but also that he is a very powerful force-user capable to amp his speed and blows with force-amp, as you probably know. Which mean that on this basis alone Vader will have a very hard time fighting Maul, but there is more. Maul Teräs Käsi is only his secondary fighting skill, Maul massive advantage compared to Qi'ra is the fact that he is a excellent high tier lightsaber duelist, mastering perfectly his form of combat which is stated to be the most agressive and unpredictable

''Juyo/Vaapad: The most aggressive and unpredictable form.''

Source: Star Wars - Absolutely Everything You Need to Know (2015)

Similar to Vader Maul is considered to be one of the most skilled and capable Sith in the whole Sith history

''One of the most skilled and deadly warriors in Sith history, Darth Sidious's apprentice was to be the First Sith openly encountered by the Jedi Order for more than 1,000 years.''

More importantly , Maul have a massive advantage over Vader, similar to Ahsoka or Qi'ra he is considerably based around overwhelming his opponent with agility and acrobatic attacks albeit to a lesser extent. In either case his combat-agility is noted to be one of the main skills of Darth Maul when fighting.

''A deadly, agile Sith Lord trained by the evil Darth Sidious, Darth Maul was a formidable warrior and scheming mastermind.''

Something which he proved to be a fact, displaying his acrobatic combat skills and insane mobility more than once in various battles and situations

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Maul was able to have a inconclusive considerably long duel with Ahsoka they fought most of it off-screen but the fight lasted quite a time. They fought for more than one minute to visibly a stalemate, when we see them fighting no one have a real advantage, they are keeping up with each attacks and lightsaber form.

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It is important to consider that this Darth Maul is clearly Post-prime as he was out of pratice and in exile for many years as he was alone on Machalor since a very long time, possibly around a decade. It is a canon fact that lack of pratice affect lightsaber skills and force powers as you know, if you disagree I can bring plenty of evidences.

“You came for the same reason, I did, years and years ago.”

Source: SWR S2 Episode 21

In short, post-prime Maul and out of pratice= Ahsoka in Rebels, the same Ahsoka who offered a challenging fight for Rebels Vader, Prime (SoD) Maul is not only considerably above his Rebels self but he is a clearly very bad matchup to Vader due to his mastery of both Teräs Käsi and a lightsaber form/fighting style which proved to be Vader weakness (fighting style which have basis centered around agility and overhelming combat mobility and which the core is about agressiveness and unpredictability )

Likewise, Vader will have a very hard time with Dooku alone , with Maul there this is a overkill and honestly something very close to a mismatch. I already presented how skilled and strong Dooku was supposed to be in verse above, but here I will brought some additional arguments as to why he is more than capable to give a run for his money to Vader on his own in terms of sabers.

First of all while Dooku isn't a strength based duelist he is just as capable as Maul to use force amps to have ridiculously superhuman lvl of combat strength, possibly more than Maul in fact.

He is capable to match Yoda enhanced force-amped blows in AOTC, Yoda is the strongest force-user in the Jedi Order even at this point

With a sudden burst of sheer power, Master Yoda flew forward, his blade working so mightily that its residual glow outshone even those of both of Anakin’s lightsabers when he was at the peak of his dance. Dooku held strong, though, his red blade parrying brilliantly, each block backed by the power of the Force, or else Yoda’s strikes would have driven right through.

Which is supported by the first canon source, the movie, I already showcased the following feat above, Dooku manage to hold off Yoda (who is struggling) while he himself use the force at the same moment taking off his focus from the bladelock and holding strong with one hand.

Dooku coupling his skills and his own superhuman strength enhanced via the force-amps, was capable to match and even overpower the massively dark side amped Jedi Master Quinlan Vos, when the later let his guard down for a second. Quinlan was able to defeat him twice in combat due to his superior Dark Side usage , amping him to a ridiculous degree.

He should've been prepared for Dooku's next move, but he wasn't. The man who had a second before been cowering now seized Vos's wrist as the green lightsaber descended. A sharp tug, and the roles were reversed. Now it was Vos who sprawled on the ground. Dooku had a knee planted firmly in Vos's back, using the Force to augment his own not-inconsiderable strength. Vos couldn't move. The count twisted the arm with which Vos still clutched his humming lightsaber, squeezing down with inhuman strength on the webbing between thumb and forefinger. Vos willed his hand to obey, but it was useless. The lightsaber fell, and the green glow vanished.

Source: Dark Disciple

Dooku despite being on the defensive was holding strong and parrying almost casually dark-side amped Vos saber assault, albeit Vos wasn't at his strongest dark side connection/usage here.

For a heartbeat he stood frozen. Then, with a roar, he attacked. Never had his blows been as strong as now, when he was fueled with white-hot fury. His lightsaber was a blur as he struck. Dooku retreated under the assault, but to Vos it seemed as though the Count didn't have much trouble parrying the blows.

Source: Dark Disciple

So yeah, contrary to a popular belief here, Dooku hold age is far from being that much of a problem. He is perfectly capable to put intensity in his attack and in his defense almost just as much as some of the strongest and most agressive Sith warriors and what he lack in pure force amp he make up with his skills.

Now as I have already portrayed above Dooku lightsaber skills are something rarely seen. For reference he is able to consistently defeat or take the majority against Anakin and Kenobi when they meet him as duo. Even as of season 6 he was able to dominate the duo in lightsaber combat, using his insane dexterity to abuse his superior skills and mobility and clearly overwhelm the duo

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As you can see Dooku dexterity is excellent he is able to totally control the battle despite facing two of the strongest Jedi by himself. He use footwork to dance gracefully around his opponents as he prevent them from flanking him or attacking him simultaneously by considerably outmatching them with his lightsaber form and combat skills, allowing him to keep them at range an have the control.

Dooku combat mobility is also simply excellent albeit vastly different than the one Maul use. Below you can see Dooku totally controlling the range of the fight and keeping his two opponent under his control by literally "dancing" around and thus making his combat style very hard to counter or simply follow for them, displaying insane mobility , acrobatics and lightsaber skills with this "dance" allowing him to be both offensive and defensive while in constant movement and taking on two opponents from two fronts

You can see that Dooku lightsaber form and combat style allow him to very easily fight two opponents even when they are attacking him behind his back or in his flanks, he is clearly not overwhelmed from the duo having the clear positioning advantage and is easily able to predict, react, or prevent attack aiming the weak spots of his stance.

Since you used Grievous as the core for your scaling which doesn't make sense, let me do the same with a scaling which actually make sense. I already explained why Grievous is very possibly better than Karbin despite the disparity in enhancements.

Kenobi was always a peer to Grievous, their fights going back and forth and only ending in ROTS after a good battle. Dooku was consistently considerably superior to Kenobi always kicking his ass even in ROTS and always before that as I just showcased.

Dooku brutalizing Kenobi and establishing his superiority both in sabers and in the force.

As for Anakin he was a extremely powerful duelist clearly more impressive than Kenobi overall, he was capable to be a very hard fight for Dooku in season 6individually and during Dark Disciple due to his very agressive fighting style and his incredible skills. Their fight in Dark Disciple which happened only a few months before ROTS was actually a stalemate, and they fought for a very long time, one of the longest fight in canon actually.

Skywalker, however, wasted no time in banter. He leapt at once for Dooku. Blue and red lightsabers clashed and sizzled.

...

She spared a glance for Dooku, one level down. The fight between him and Anakin was close and constantly shifting. Ventress felt a brief flash of amusement as she realized that for the first time, she was actually rooting for Skywalker.

...

"You two go on!" called Anakin. He dodged a strike from Dooku's red lightsaber that whizzed past the top of his head and brought his own blade up for a counterstrike. "I'll take care of him!"

"Insolent whelp," snapped Dooku, parrying Skywalker's strike.

Source: Dark Disciple

In fact in this scene Obi-Wan and Ventress leave Anakin ALONE to fight Dooku and even more than that they literally trap the both of them inside the place, this way Dooku droids can't interupt their duel, Obi-Wan is confident that Anakin can beat Dooku by himself and isn't worried about letting him duel Dooku ALONE.

Together Ventress and Kenobi cut down the remaining droids. Debris toppled everywhere, legs and arms, heads and parts of torsos. When they reached the door and raced through it, Ventress took a moment to pierce the controls with her lightsaber. “Anakin’s still in there,” Kenobi said. “So is Dooku,” she retorted. “And this way, he can’t summon droids to improve his odds.” “Excellent point,” Kenobi conceded. “The brig is—” “On the level below us,” Ventress said. “Come on!”

Source: Dark Disciple

In conclusion Dooku is capable to defeat and outskill a fighter which is constantly closing the gap with him and able to almost defeat him TWICE before ROTS (he literally stalemated him in Dark Disciple) and at the same time he can K.O Obi-Wan who is himself a Grievous-tier combattant and who surpassed Grievous as of ROTS.

Dooku should honestly be a better duelist than Suited-Vader by all mean, when we are refering to dexterity and blade prowess, Vader could still win in 1vs1 due to his capacity to outlast Dooku eventually , but this isn't something he can hope for when he have to fight Maul at the same time.

I'm bringing this up, because most people believe Vader to be slow, when that's far from the truth

Wrong. Vader is indeed slow when we are talking about movement speed and pretty much anything related to mobility. I proved above that basically any highly skilled fighter who abuse mobility or acrobatics in combat is capable to evade Vader lightsaber attacks and even dance around him, Vader only viable strategy to defeat them is outlasting them or trying to abuse the force. Here this is something which will be nearly-impossible for him to do, he is facing two duelists which can give him a impressive run for his money in duel individually but who have fighting styles and lightsaber forms which are very hard counters for Vader restrained fighting ability and lack of mobility.

He's a casual lightning timer:

No he is not. You are not talking about natural lightning here or anything close to it , but about electricity coming from a machine in a highly SCI-FI universe. There is absolutely no proof that those electric beams are similar to real lightning in speed as they are totally different in nature. The "lightning" is described from coming from MACHINERY not anything close to natural lightning.

Someone hidden among the machinery gave a startled-sounding shout. But it was too late. Even as the lightning weapons shifted their full fury to Vader, he strode toward them, deflecting the bolts into the ceiling as he used the Force to twist their weapons off target, hurling his lightsaber to bring down sections of machinery onto the enemy,

Lastly he casually keeps up with Lylek queen's, who is as fast as lightning, further backing up the other feat shown above:

She is not as fast as lightning. This is just a very common way to describe someone fighting very fast, this is a figure of speech you can see often in Star Wars and other verse to make the reader understand that the move is very quick or sudden. Because if I go by your logic to take those words literally, well.... Vos when he is not even using the force and holding back to keep his cover is a casual lightning timer as well, Ventress can punch casually at lightning speed when she is just testing Vos in a sparring session.

Ventress “let him catch his breath,” and they circled. “Quick reaction, grabbing my foot,” she said, grudgingly. Inwardly, he grimaced that it hadn’t escaped her notice. Kenobi had said she was sharp. He smirked, hoping he looked overconfident. “See? I’m better than you th—” He blocked the lightning-fast punch, but pulled his own. This was turning out to be more challenging than he’d expected. How hard was too hard to punch her? Should he really try to knock her out? While Vos was pondering, drawing his fist back for another blow, Ventress seized his other arm and pulled. Vos decided to let the whole mess conclude and permitted himself to be thrown. Honestly, he had to admit, it wasn’t that hard; Ventress was unobtrusively using the Force. An ordinary opponent would never have noticed it.

Dark Disciple

So, should I conclude that being a lighting timer is something Dooku (and thus also Maul) can do far better than Vader in combat speed, considering he is able to literally destroy Ventress in this story and decisively win against Vos when the later doesn't use the dark-side to amp himself and even then he was keeping up with Vos lightsaber blows speed and his movements.

The only real feat you brought up would be this one below

Vader deflects point-blank blaster fire from multiple droids at the same time.

Which is the sort of feat a Jedi Master like Qui-Gon Jinn should be capable to replicate , he deflected several dozens of blaster fire from a whole force of opponents while not even looking at them and using a force jump at the same time. Mind you, unlike Vader he was capable to deflect the attacks coming from his back and his flanks and just like Vader move the lightsaber faster going by the blur afterimages we see

TPM Maul was capable to duel both this Qui-Gon Jinn and TPM Kenobi at the same time and clearly control the battle, he was even able to press Jinn during the 2vs1

Sorry Vader, not impressive.

Just to be clear, I agree that Vader is fast enough to duel with his lightsaber either Dooku or Maul just like he did against Ahsoka, but dueling BOTH OF THEM when he have a ridiculous mobility and style disadvantage and when their combat speed is just as fast as his own while their movement speed surpass his own due to Vader lack of mobility and restrained movements via his suit ? Not a chance man. Vader die horribly after a brief fight.

While as I said, I agree that Vader is more powerful than my duo in the force if we refer to his raw power and the most impressives feats, however, this certainly isn't enough to grant him victory in such battle. Before adressing your feats I will explain why, in my opinion, superiority in the force is for some reason hilariously wanked in Comicvine, it's far from being as black and white as people want it to be. First of all using a very powerful amount of force in combat is something very difficult even for the high tier of force-users in canon. Using even very basic force movements such as force push or force-chocke ask for concentration , obviously the more skilled and powerful you are in the force the quickly you can use it in combat and the better.

This being said when you are fast enough and you know how to recognize force gestures and to prevent them, you can absolutely prevent a force-user to abuse this superiority. Grievous despite being no force-user did it all the time by overwhelming his opponents in lightsaber combat and jumping on them immediatly to engage, forcing them in duel as such they won't be able to use the force on him as they have no time to take focus and find the proper opening to do the move and call on the force

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Of course, Grievous is often tagged by force-push during his fights with force-users, Kenobi did it (various times) Kit Fisto did it, and Maul did it. However it is important to understand that he is tagged when the force-user find a clear opening on Grievous guard or when Grievous is distracted, this is exactly what Maul did in SoD

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.... Grievous and Maul broke-off from their duel both were distracted by Sidious attack on Talzin which was possessing Dooku body, Maul used that to immediatly attack Grievous with the force instead of engaging in sabers again.

My point is, being more powerful in the force doesn't mean you can use it in combat. You need timing, speed, opening, and skills to use effectively your force superiority in combat, if you don't possess this you are simply going to fail or be countered by the weaker force-user or the non force-user opponent. We see this very clearly in the duel between Vader and Karbin, Vader tried to crush him by using the force but he had no time to use enough power to simply stomps him with it and after this failed attempt he wasn't able to do anything bare a force push which did nothing to Karbin. Why ? Because Karbin was on his guard.

Clearly ,when we are talking about a fight between trained force-users the notion of "superiority in the force" is far more complex and hard to establish on how much it is an advantage when skills, speed, mobility and combat abilities are on the same tier or superior, because surprise surprise you can easily prevent a superior force-user to use the force in combat or even use the force against him yourself.

For example during the duel between Vader and Ahsoka, despite his vast superiority in the force Vader suffered from a force-push because he wasn't able to counter it due to being overwhelmed by Ahsoka superior mobility and thus being caught off-guard and thus having no time to use the force to counter it.

Maul was capable to use the force in the vastly more powerful Sidious via surprising him by attacking him immediatly with the force after breaking free from his lightning pressure

Those are prime examples of vastly weaker force-users using effectively a force-attack on a superior force master due to attacking first or surprising them. There is no reason on why such situation couldn't happen here because Vader will be overwhelmed by those two mobility and speed as I explained above, thus such opening are very likely to happen even if Vader is more powerful than them. And even if Vader manage to use the force on them this isn't a established victory far from it, Vader will need extreme concentration to use a force attack powerful enough to knock out Maul as Maul best feat is very close to some of Vader most impressive showings albeit Vader did more impressive with the high-ends.

In fact Maul and Dooku should be able to match Vader in the force long enough to allow them to break from the contest and jump-out of the way, Maul alone would be able to hold off Vader for a moment allowing Dooku to attack Vader in sabers or with lightning. The magnitude of his best feat is extremely impressive.

Just so you get a proper idea on how large and how impressive was Maul feat and destructive consequence

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Dooku albeit not as powerful as Maul would be more than capable to help him to fight off Vader superiority in the force as he was able to ragdoll and overwhelm totally Dark Side Vos and Ventress in Dark Disciple , the most interesting part is the fact that he did it without efforts. He almost very nearly killed Ventress as you can see in the last part of the text

He stood tall, imposing, and as Vos raced toward him, Dooku didn't flinch. He lowered his sword and extended his hand. Vos rose in the air and then Dooku shoved, sending the Jedi slamming into one of the pillars. The count turned, almost nonchalantly performing the same maneuver with Ventress. The wind was knocked out of her and she couldn't breathe. Stubbornly, using her hate the way she had taught Vos to do, she summoned energy to to push herself up to a kneeling position, still clutching her lightsaber.

Dooku's lip curled in a manner that might have been a smile or a snarl. Abruptly, Ventress found herself dangling in in the air as he whirled her around behind him and then threw her down like a spoiled child discarding a disliked toy.

The pain was excruciating, but Ventress remained conscious long enough to see that Dooku wasn't yet done. She could only watch helplessly as she slid, headfirst, into the unyielding stone of a meticulously carved bench. Then the world went white, and she knew nothing more.

Dark Disciple

The text went so far to state that Dooku threw down Ventress "like a spoiled child discarding a disliked toy" This is a lvl of applicable force-combat abuse that Vader never showed against impressive force-uses as far as I recall. He never ragdolled anyone that powerful like this let alone casually and when they are two fighting him at the same time.

As you know Ventress is very powerful and massively skilled, both in the force and in combat and Vos was even more powerful than her even at the moment in which Dooku did this ragdoll and humiliation to them.

Asajj Ventress had indeed once been Count Dooku’s Sith apprentice—and pet assassin. Kenobi and Anakin had crossed lightsabers with her on more than one occasion. Tall, lithe, exceptionally skilled in the Force, the former Nightsister was a formidable foe.

Dark Disciple

So while Vader is surely more powerful than Dooku, Dooku have better feats on ragdolling and overwhelming very powerful force users in combat than Suited Vader ever did as far as I know. One could not possibly compare destroying fodder and vehicles, buildings and whatever with actually brutalizing force-users with the force. Context matter, Dooku feats are clearly more applicable in this debate.

I won't adress your feats because I agree with their impressiveness, but they are not out of Maul caliber, if you disagree I can explain in details why the hyperdrive feat compare or surpass the majority of the feats you showed. The difference between Maul and Vader is that Vader can do this sort of feat much more casually, so yes he is more powerful and superior. I will just debunk one of your feats very quickly as this one is clearly wank and false.

Vader uses a force push, and blows apart two Lyleks:

Vader extended a gloved hand and loosed a blast of power that blew apart two of the lyleks rushing toward him, showering those behind with gore and chunks of carapace.

-- Lords Of The Sith

Their carapace was stated to be sturdier than Vader's body armor:

Within the half hour they found the first of the lylek carcasses. The huge body lay in the undergrowth, its head missing. Isval eyed the body, which seemed all edges and spikes and points, covered in a dry, chitinous exoskeleton, that looked like weather stone and was probably sturdier than his armor.

-- Lords Of The Sith

And Vader is incredibly durable:

Here he no sells the explosion of the Empire's biggest weapons factory

Except he actually did not "no sell" anything, he did not even tank or suffered anything from this explosion , did he ? He used directly the force to protect himself , he probably simply used a force barrier. Like he did various times in the comics

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Regarding the rest of the feats you used albeit impressive, Vader didn't do any of those force-crush and force-destruction feats instantly either, just like Maul with the hyperdrive it required concentration and a moment of focus and power pressure to do it, you can very clearly see it in the first feat you used for example.

Vader is slowly using the force to damage and destroy parts of the AT-AT, it clearly took him a legit moment to do it as you can see by the reactions of Han and Leia who are feeling the attack as it progress , it's very clear that he didn't do anything close to instantly or very quickly here

In conclusion Dooku and Maul can not only prevent Vader from abusing the force to any massive extent but they can ragdoll him themselves as they can attack from two different position or wait for an opening in his defense which will appear very quickly in dueling considering Vader left openings in his stance against an opponent considerably below Maul or Dooku tier in the force or sabers (Ahsoka) and he was successfully pushed back by her. Here Vader won't be able to keep up and his defense against lightsaber attacks and prevention of force-abuse are both going to be overwhelmed, he is simply outmatched.