Count Dooku vs. Asajj Ventress and General Grievous

@redheathen:

That fight was Dooku's death. Skywalker alone hammered Dooku. That fight began with Kenobi and Skywalker pretending to be clowns, but then driving Dooku back pretty rapidly, forcing him to distract Kenobi with his Battle Droids.

A full out Kenobi/Skywalker would have beaten Dooku pretty quickly- in fact, Kenobi would not have been needed at all.

Dooku, in order to clinch the victory, will have to heavily abuse the Force. If he's dumb enough to fight sabers only against Ventress+Grievous he is dead seeing as how Grievous has challenged Dooku and the Count only held a small advantage vs Ventress and S3 Savage who is clearly inferior to Grievous.

Im not expert on star wars but i’ve watched the cartoons and seen all the movies. Id say Dooku wins with high difficulty. Dooku could handle Anakin and Obiwan well before Anakins rage boost. Grievous and Ventress are inferior to those two

Dooku wins. If he hadn't taught both Grievous and Ventress most of what they know and kept knowledge from them in case they betrayed him ( which he's confirmed to have done ) then it might be more debatable but as it is Dooku wins rather easily if he relies on the Force and takes the duo in a tough fight if it comes down to sabers.

@whatamiseeing:

He definitely wasn't handling them before Ani's rage boost- Skywalker was hammering him in a duel. The rage boost gave Anakin the ability to annihliate Dooku, in like, fifteen seconds.

@killbilly:

Dooku wins rather easily

So I take it Pre-Prime Savage>>Grievous.

@dark-sith123: What?

@killbilly:

Dooku was, per Starwars.com, only holding a "slight" advantage over Ventress and Pre-Prime Savage. This actually was with Force being put into play.

Dooku can, according to you, beat Grievous and Ventress easily... why did he have so much difficulty with Ventress+Savage and S4 Anakin then? Is Grievous really that bad?

@dark-sith123: Try reading my whole statement next time before responding...

"Dooku wins rather easily if he relies on the Force"

I think that Ventress and Grievous are a weaker duo against a Force reliant Dooku then Ventress and someone who's actually a formidable Force user who can somewhat defend against Dooku's attacks ( Savage ).

Note also that he was fighting Ventress and Savage in a pretty confined space which wouldn't have helped his ability to maneuver and take control the situation. Key tenets of Makashi.

RE: The IH duel:

1. The dynamic duo (DD) began the duel "pretending to be clowns,"
2. They began driving back Tyranus after the clown suits were removed,
3. Kenobi was knocked out,
4. Anakin got ticked and began what appears to be losing,
5. Sidious instructs Anakin to harness his rage, and
6. it is only then that Anakin defeated Tyranus.

If you note, in my previous reply I specifically mentioned "pre-Anakin opening to the dark side":

#50 Posted by RedHeathen (1118 posts) - 4 hours, 36 minutes ago - Show Bio

There is no ragdolling, but Tyranus will defeat the duo. It is not an easy victory, but it won't be his most difficult, either. I think his fight on the Invisible Hand, pre-Anakin opening to the dark side, would have been more difficult for him. Ventress and GG are exceptionally skilled, and Ventress was enough of a threat to Sidious to have Sidious demand her execution (arguably there is another reason). However, combined, the two of them will not defeat the the duo of Inv. Hand Skywalker/Kenobi. I'm sure ABC logic isn't great to use, but I think it works here because we have ample showings for each combatant to use for comparison.

Before Anakin listened to Sidious, he could have been defeated by Tyranus, regardless of whether or not Tyranus abused the Force. I don't know why that is an issue because that is what Sith do. They command the Force as opposed to the Jedi who try to be in tune with the Force. The Sith abuse. They torture. They're just plain out not nice guys. Rarely are they considerate unless it serves a purpose.

What I was saying was that the DD was a pair who would have defeated GG + Ventress, although it would have been a close fight. They would have lost to Tyranus, and were until Anakin opened himself to the dark side. A fight ranking would look thus:

1. Pre-Anakin opening to the dark side: Tyranus > DD > GG + Ventress
2. Post-Anakin opening to the dark side: DD > Tyranus > GG + Ventress

Please note, as you have stated, that it doesn't matter if Kenobi was there or not. The only point I was making by pulling in the DD was that the DD-pre-dark side Anakin could defeat GG and Ventress and that Tyranus could defeat them.

You can read more about this duel in the novelization of the movie, but you also see it in the movie itself.

@greysentinel365:

That's Force Power only. In an overall fight (physicals, lightsabers, Force) Dooku only held a slight advantage.

Even when disarmed and cornered neither Ventress or Savage can touch him.

They can keep coming at him though, and Dooku wasn't tooling them- he couldn't take either of them out. Just knock them out for two seconds and then they would come back at him right away. Dooku was keeping them at bay but he was locked in that situation. Hence the "slight" advantage.

@greysentinel365:

Someones Force power determines their augmentation, precognition etc etc. Force power is everything. It determines the other aspects you just listed. And Dooku far outrips the duos combined powers.

Savage was far stronger than Dooku physically though, and the Count nearly died when he was thrown against the wall- lucky him that Savage couldn't deflect Lightning because if he did Dooku would be dead meat.

It won't do any good. Ventress can't even take out Dooku when he's unarmed and Savage was helpless.

They weren't in a position to take him out (unless Savage became intelligent and pushed Dooku when he was off guard) but it's not like he could easily take them out or quickly get out of that situation. His tactic was to outlast Savage with Lightning blasts.

Dooku wasn't even trying to take them out. He was literally screwing with them for the last portion.

Any citation?

@dark-sith123: He was handling them at the same time and managed to defeat kenobi rather easily while fighting Anakin. You wouldn’t call that doing well?

@whatamiseeing:

He was barely handling Skywalker. The ROTS novel states how Dooku couldn't even meet his blows head to head and how each parry "aged him a decade." When he managed to exploit a little weakness in Anakin that drove him back for a second or two, he attacked Kenobi who effortlessly deflected his strikes. Then he cheated by calling his Battle Droids. Then he took the still distracted Kenobi out with a kick but proceeded to get destroyed by Skywalker.

He did well given it's Kenobi/Anakin but was hardly handling them.

@dark-sith123:

Okay. Yea you’re right

I do agree with you and proof's in the puddin', but just to follow up with a point and a question:

• There were two shots. Savage choked them both at the same time and also force burst them at the same time. Whatever you want to call it.
• What do you think about the fact that SW used the season 3 footage, but afterward, Dooku said that Savage was growing more powerful every day? He then later had training under Maul. I am not arguing any point here and am simply asking for opinion because this can be nothing but opinion.

My personal opinion is that this is time sensitive, but I don't think that Savage would be able to defeat Dooku.

^^^

Did you read my reply to you above?

@redheathen:

I did, and honestly it's a bit incomplete. You said driving back Tyranus, but Skywalker was doing more than that. Dooku felt himself blanch and he aged a decade while parrying the attacks that made him age a decade. Kenobi also effortlessly defended against the Count's assault.

Kenobi was knocked out, but Dooku only managed to do that and recover due to the droids interrupting the fight.

Anakin only defeated Tyranus when he tapped into the dark side (he stomped Tyranus, actually) but he was beating him prior.

I dont' have access to my book so cannot properly reply, but this has previously been discussed. If you notice, though, I used the words "appears to be losing" and not that he was losing, and it briefly does read that way. Very briefly. Would you please be willing to hold off on this until I have access to my book again? I would like to continue this conversation but cannot until I reinstall my OS (thankfully my books are on my other drive but are inaccessible until I can get my laptop running). I will do this sometime in the next few days after limited internet access becomes unbearable to the point that I'll get off my butt and walk a few steps to grab my copy of windows. That or I could go through old posts and find the ten threads where we discuss this...

I'll prob reinstall my OS first...

@greysentinel365 While I agree that Savage would lose to Tyranus, I don't agree that he didn't grow more. I think he grew immensely under Maul, and Dooku even says he was growing more powerful every day. He says he thinks Savage will someday rival Maul. I do think that Savage did display more feats such as force blasting an army and something else, but I can't access my books and comics right now to reference (or to double check what I'm thinking). I would like to get back to the convo if you would be willing to wait. I give an explanation in my previous post, which is addressed to darksith123.

Actually, your reply to ds123 goes to show how messed up SW is and how you can't really scale based on feats. I think it's sometimes better to use accolades. PIS is everywhere, and it's rare to have the ability to rely 100% on feats. I would now no longer place Tyranus 10/10 > Vos. I'd put it at fifty-fifty, and upon doing this, I'm not so sure that Vos could beat Savage more times than not. Now that we are discussing this, I'm not even sure that Tyranus > Savage more times than not. I am not positive that prime Savage, which is not Savage when he apprenticed under Dooku, would would lose to Tyranus if they use the Force at all. If sabers only, then Dooku.

along with other statements about savage, there is no reason to think that dooku was lying. he had no need to do so. there was nothing for him to gain. he was just happy to have savage as an apprentice, which i can better discuss after i get my hands on resources. so until then, i need to table this portion of the convo, however, as to the last portion regarding the tag team...first, i'd like to point out that it has been argued several times and brought into more than a few versus battles that it is difficult for a weaker force user to "ragdoll" a more powerful force user-albeit not impossible. on average and seemingly well accepted, yes? do you agree or not?

I don't have time to wait for a reply, but hopefully if this is an issue then we can tag people and oh god help us start this ish all over again, but barring that, there was a second incident. this one involved savage's force scream that sent the mean guy's army, a jedi master, and maul flying:

from death sentence 2. it doesnt' matter whether or not he was amped or raged or just being a plain ol' dark side user because the fact of the matter is that the horned cat did it meaning he can do it again.

@greysentinel365: The force is not everything in regards to a force users strength. Its something, but not everything. Its everything to someone as proficient in force valor as Yoda, mediating his deficiencies in size and age.

Dooku has never countered another being muscle to muscle as far as I know and his dark rage never gave him much of a strength edge.

Dooku should stomp as long as he uses the Force. Ventress gets pretty much ragdolled and Grievous is defeated by a combination of lightning and telekinesis.

In sabers, Ventress gets taken out fairly quickly. Dooku and Grievous then fight until Dooku eventually disarms (literally) him or strikes him down.

Dooku 8-9/10.

@penguinlover: The force takes concentration. I dont really doubt that Dooku wins but I believe it to be a miniscule 5.5 to 6 edge. The starting distance would play a considerable factor. I dont see opportunity for Dooku to apply any game changing force attacks against such a ravenous duo.

Dooku isnt contending with 4 lightsabers able to compete and surpass Kenobis speed and 2 lightsabers that have at least moderate knowledge of his fighting style.

Accidently hit send before finishing lol..

Greivous speed and strength alone would keep Dooku pressed as well as neutralize his force powers. Any momentary lapses from greivous would be mitigated by Ventress's bladework.

Considering neither of the team are passive fighters, I dont see teamwork being a monumental factor of hampering their success. In order to abuse the force he would need to knock ventress aside first. He will have to break off from Greivous's barrage of attacks beforehand however.

@greysentinel365:

What from S3-S5? Then yeah sure. But by how much? Also proof as to how much?

Some amount, I guess? I've not looked into specifics.

Which is all well and good. But we shouldn't be basing every fight of his on "well he rages and wins" especially when there are scenarios where he doesn't rage for whole fights.

Indeed.

I don't imagine Maul's increase to be that large. He's restored to TPM level and stalemates a beaten up mentally unbalanced Kenobi. Cinching it with an application of Dun Moch. Which gets Kenobi to unleash his anger. An act that has historically weakened him.

He was also rustier than TPM because he had to adjust to brand new legs, per Filoni.

Then maybe two months-ish passes and Maul stalemates a fresh S5 Kenobi. So Maul's growth would come down to fresh S5 vs battered S4 Kenobi. How big do you think that gap is?

Not sure.

you keep guessing and using your opinions. that just doesn't cut it. it's like you deciding that tyranus lied to savage about becoming like the great sith lord darth maul. that does nothing at all to help you. if anything, it does the opposite.

savage was meant to be a beast in the force. tyranus was excited to get him as an apprentice as opposed to ventress. he talked to a third party and said savage was becoming more powerful daily.

to assume that maul didn't become much more powerful is to your detriment because there is nothing to back that up as opposed to official sources stating that maul did become more powerful, some say very. we also know that he was supposed to have the potential to become more powerful than talzin.

i completely agree with @i_like_swords assessment about savage's baseline. he and i are probably the top maul aficionados and can back up what we say with official sources. i'm sure he's probably as sick as i am about posting the same ish repeatedly, but we don't make up what we say about maul and his brother.

unfortunately, i don't have access to my personal resources so can't do that atm, but we aren't using opinion as proof. guesses such as "dooku was probably" have been thrown around in threads, and i've used that as well when there is something to back it up. an example would be sidious lying to plagueis about maul's training as a sith. sids said that maul would be trained as an assassin only, but later in the book it actually says that sids secretly trained maul as his apprentice. there is evidence of other lies that sidious says, and then other books declare maul as sids apprentice and yet other books have plagueis acknowledging maul as sids apprentice. i am confident in saying that sidious lied to plagueis because there are facts to back up that statement.

back to saying that dooku lied to savage:

1. there is nothing to support this idea
2. dooku was actually excited about savage becoming his apprentice
3. there are indications in the show that savage did indeed have the potential to become like his brother with the help of nightsister majick just as talzin said he would be
4. there was a reason the Jedi as well as others thought savage was a monster
5. he does have feats to suggest that he could work up to be equal to TPM maul, which would have been the last known version of maul at the time dooku makes the statement
6. and later we, again, we have dooku's statement to third party that savage was becoming more powerful every day.

now, back to savage's force scream: please tell me why we can't accept what savage did in The Sith Hunters. i think you say we can't because it doesn't support your answer. i had to reassess the character myself and then changed my mind saying that savage will not always lose to dooku if he gets upset enough. i think it is important to take into consideration the timeline placement of the SW website databank entry that you shared, as well, which is another opinion of mine that i changed after thinking about this more.

@greysentinel365:

The Savage Dooku fought is, to be blunt "prime Savage".

Except he has been stated to grow stronger multiple times and recieved further training from Maul.

Ventress=Savage

No. Not at all.

Even massively pre-prime, Savage could easily have killed Ventress with a Choke.

He threw her around like a ragdoll during the fight where, apparently, Ventress demonstrated equality to Savage.

He knocked her down with a single punch later on in that same fight where she "proved to be his equal".

Savage is much stronger than Ventress.

She blocks a full overhand from a Savage who has supposedly been growing "every single day" since the last fight.

They were even in a blade lock. Blade locks are horrible indicators of strength- Dooku beat Anakin in most blade locks they had in TCW but Anakin floored him with a kick and nearly choked him to death in Season 4 and absolutely pummeled him in RotS. Savage has dominated her with a casual one hand choke before receiving any training whatsoever in the Force and in the fight they had Savage was throwing her around like a child.

Dooku>Ventress

Yes, but Savage>>>Ventress so this really doesn't change anything.

Savage>Dooku>Vos>Ventress=Savage

Makes perfect sense don't it?

Savage>Dooku>Vos>Ventress, I'm OK with that.

The little flaw in your logic is: Savage is far superior to Ventress who has done nothing to suggest she is his equal (apart from being dominated by a non trained Savage and flung around like a ragdoll, lol) so Savage can still be perfectly superior to Dooku who is Ventress' superior.

So no. What Savage did is a hilarious outlier.

How so? Dooku has done nothing to suggest he can match Savage, nor has Savage been outmatched/rivaled by someone who could not do that to Dooku.

Never replicated

Considering they never clashed sabers again, no wonder this is a thing. When they did clash sabers though, it happened.

Lol. The Count didn't "nearly die". Just like Ventress in close quarters on the Turtle Tanker and Dooku evading Ventress herself seconds later. Dooku has shown he can easily sidestep Savage.

I was referring to when Savage charged Dooku who was still on the floor recovering from the impact. Dooku then preyed on Savage's inability to deflect Lightning to blow him away at the last second- imagine if it had been Ventress. Dooku cannot sidestep Savage when he's lying down on the floor recovering from pretty brutal impact.

The episode itself. Dooku shows minimal effort. Just look at the gifs above. He has one hand behind his back easily dispensing Ventress repeatedly and has Savage well under control.

So he's stalemating Ventress in a blade lock and keeping Savage from attacking him with Lightning. This is not minimal effort. And he's not in an easy situation. If he ignores one of them he's dead- if he focuses solely on Savage, Ventress would impale him from behind- and if he focused solely on Ventress, Savage would either cut him down or push him against a wall when he's occupied.

@keencraft said:

Even before that, he was using small openings in his fight with Ventress to subdue Savage with lightning. All it takes is a little bit of space, and Dooku can just throw Ventress back and spam lightning at Grievous.

I never doubted his ability to use force mid fight. However note that in the inception of the duel before he abuses any openings, there is a moderate amount of PIS prohibiting both Savage and Ventress from attacking him together. Also this iterations of Savage is considerably weaker than his progressed self. Yet he was still able to ragdoll Tyranus through strength alone (not saying greivous could but he notably closer to Savage in strength than any character excluding yoda, sidious, or Vader)

By feats Dooku is faster than Kenobi, and I've yet to hear of a sparring practice where Dooku has been bested by Grievous. The closest Grievous has come is pressing Dooku, and that's in a purely saber to saber confrontation.

I never stated otherwise. But Kenobi is able to fend off Dooku's saber attacks with ease due to his impeccable defenses which frightened Dooku extremely, holding back or otherwise. I doubt Dooku could penetrate Obi Wans defenses through speed alone as they are at least comfortably comparable. Yet Greivous literally broke Obi Wans.

If Greivous managed to best Dooku via saber combat the match the majority would be a lot more one sided in favor of Ventress and the General. About 6 or 7 out of ten Team. This is not the case however. Pressing Dooku and Obi Wan is enough to make this team matchup extraordinarily difficult for the Count. Neither a weaker Savage or Ventress alone could even come close to Tyranus, yet PIS included they can contend and make Dooku struggle.

It didn't really help Anakin, who held Dooku in a saber lock at one point and was choking the life out of him with his other hand. Dooku was still able to call upon the Force to blast Anakin with lightning and then push him a fair distance.

A saber lock is the only time he is able to truly abuse lightning during the 'Ventress vs Savage' duel as well. Saber locks are always shown to be prime opportunity for force concentration, especially if the opponent is staggered. The fact that Dooku accomplishes this against Anakin while being choked is a point in his favor however. I never refuted that Dooku could utilize the force mid combat though.

If he finds himself dealing with a saber lock vs Greivous's strength he would be pinned though. He would have to utilize all of his concentration on keeping the General at bay. This would be advantageous to the team as I doubt the Count is one-handing a lock with GG. He can win if he manages to get Ventress in a saber lock as he did with Savage however. Her strength is considerably weaker than all previous mentions but she was able to hold Savage in a saber lock before, as well as stagger Greivous with a kick. Also I cant see Greivous getting momentarily KO'd long enough for this to happen as often as with an untrained Savage.

That's a fair point, but Ventress has been shown to be easily disarmed by Dooku once he calls upon the Force, and that's with only a couple of metres or so distance between them.

This makes Greivous the determining factor. Greivous should be quick enough to intercept Dooku before he can absolutely KO Ventress with the force. If he does manage to disarm her, he would need to deal with Greivous, providing her with at least enough time to recover her poise.

Honestly, Dooku could probably dispatch Ventress before Grievous even reaches him. If Grievous reaches him before that, then yes I could see him being hard pressed to defeat them, but he'd probably still win.

I could see both scenarios resulting in Dooku's victory. Which is why he still takes the majority imo. The team has enough in their arsenal to defeat Dooku especially if the fight drags on for too long. Both are considerably stronger than Dooku and Greivous has at least comparable speed to Dooku as well. (Im not well versed in Ventress speed feats as of now but I know she could contend with both Fisto and Kenobi simultaneously, as well as pressing Windu in a fight. She also fought relatively evenly with a bloodluted Quinlan Vos).

@greysentinel365:

All his best feats are here though. And the amount he increased is minimal.

He's clearly stated to grow more powerful, and Dooku says it's every day so I can hardly see how it is minimal.

An off guard Ventress who didn't even try to fight back.

She was yelling for him to let her go and hitting his hand, though to no avail. If Ventress was equally strong then she'd actually have given Savage trouble keeping her- something which he had none of.

And how much damage did that do? Oh right none. She just got right back up.

"Got right back up" after a few seconds.

Yet he can't finish her. Let's also ignore that she's unarmed or deprived of one of her blades while Savage isn't.

He didn't kill her but the brothers were on the solid winning end of the fight and she would have died had they not gotten aboard escape craft.

Let's also ignore that Filoni stated it was a stalemate with Ventress and Kenobi being at a environmental disadvantage.

Oh yeah. Such a clear stalemate. Yeah, couldn't agree more.

We're outmatched

Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 4: Episode 22

Though I guess I am forced to disagree with you when two sources+Obi-Wan disagree with you.

Physically? Possibly. But not to the degree you think otherwise every single block would have sent her flying. Which it clearly didn't.

He can't send her flying all the time, no, but he's still clearly much stronger than her.

So either Ventress is stronger than Dooku, or what Savage did to him was a hilarious outlier.

I don't see him doing that every single time to Dooku but he did it once. It's not an "outlier". He didn't send Ventress flying with saber strikes but he did dominate her multiple times strength wise.

Yeah and Dooku broke out of that choke with physical strength.

He actually caught Anakin off guard with Lightning. Still, Anakin nearly killed him. Dooku was very hard pressed.

And then held him with a one-hand blade lock later.

Blade locks are, sometimes, very unreliable. Dooku pushed Anakin back but prior to that Anakin had floored him with a kick+nearly killed him with a choke. We see the same thing in RotS where Dooku "aged a decade" parrying Anakin's blows but could still match him in a blade lock.

She's done plenty. Including actually stalemating him when at a disadvantage.

She "stalemated" him once. She got dominated on three other occasions. One stalemate and three defeats=inferiority.

Prove it. He does it with no sign of strain. He's not panting etc etc.

He's not panting but that does not mean he's not strained- in Revenge of the Sith Dooku is being hammered by Anakin yet in his face you cannot see marks of strain. If he could deal with them "minimal effort" then he'd have a bit more than a slight advantage.

I'll only be able to reply tomorrow so just telling you beforehand you won't get a response in quite a few hours.

Dooku would win in an all-out battle, and there is more than enough evidence supporting the notion that he'd win a pure lightsaber duel as well.

@greysentinel365:

And the thing stopping him from growing an infinitesimal amount each day is?

Not much, really. However, even an infinitesimal amount each day for what would end up being at least a few good months can result in some good way. I really doubt it's infinitesimal though, since Dooku actually sensed it from across the galaxy, said Savage was growing stronger and stronger which each day, and the use "stronger and stronger" really makes me doubt it is infinitesimal. Furthermore, Dooku concludes that Savage is a threat to everyone in the galaxy, which he wasn't in S3 where he was barely trained and naive.

Ventress isn't trying to fight. To wrench his hand like that would be challenge to him and would make him want to fight. Which is not the point.

She doesn't want him to fight but by her tone she's pretty desperate and only manages to let him go when she gets calmer which only happened due to Mother Talzin motivating her.

Good. Dave Filoni agrees with that too. And I'm taking the guy that directed/wrote the episode over what those.

He said they are kind of stalemating them but that they were losing and would eventually die. Two canonical third person sources stating the brothers clearly won the fight also help my case.

Note FIloni constantly emphasising the context. In that space, in that mindset.

Why would that space and that mindset affect one of the teams? Why would the environment give the brothers any type of advantage? What mindset helped the brothers?

You're attempting to remove the context of the event by using quotes. Were they overwhelmed? Sure. But only due to several environmental and situational circumstances. And despite said circumstances they were stalemating them for a time beforehand.

What environmental circumstances were those though? How did they affect team Ventress/Kenobi in any particular way? What were those "situational" circumstances?

They were "stalemating" them, yeah, but got pretty clearly overwhelmed towards the end to the extent Kenobi said they were clearly outmatched and they ran- instead of staying there and neutralizing two enemies of the Jedi (for Obi-Wan) and an old grudge (Ventress/Savage).

Wrong. If you watch the clip and pay attention you'd notice that Dooku rips Anakin's hand from his throat and then hits him with lightning.

After viewing it again you might actually be right. Still, Anakin was pushing his saber to his face, had floored him decisively with a kick, and was squeezing his throat with Dooku only managing to break out at the very last second.

Also this was Anakin with Palpatine in the room. Which is a near entirely different beast.

So he was rage amped? Was Palpatine Force amping him?

Anyway, good finds. It's still a bit inconsistent because Palpatine was still onboard Dooku's ship when Dooku beat him the blade lock. Blade locks are not reliable.

Then why are you using one from Savage that's contracted by all his other ones.

It isn't contradicted because he always fought other people, not Dooku. If he had fought Dooku again and not done that, good, it's an outlier. He didn't so we cannot be 100% sure. Do I believe Savage can do that all the time? No. Did he do it once? Yes. Is he stronger than Dooku? Yes.

It's usually a pretty damn good indicator though. If he can only hold a "slight edge" then this should be taking everything he has. He should be panting, grunting with every effort, visibly strained.

That's not what we see though.

It's in a good indicator of when proving someone is strained but its absence is not a good indicator of proving that someone is not strained. Dooku wasn't panting or grunting in his duel with Anakin in Revenge of the Sith yet he was clearly on the losing end. Dooku just doesn't show that many signs of strain during a fight. He was being pressed in Attack of the Clones by Anakin (he actually wasn't far from losing to Ani per the AOTC novel) yet he didn't show any signs of strain.

@greysentinel365 you do realize that filoni says stuff off the cuff that is contradicted elsewhere. In the case of the video, you can see that he contradicts the SW website screen cap that was provided above. Another example that is unrelated is Vader and Tarkin. He said that Tarkin was ranked above Vader, which is not correct and is contradicted by so much else in Legends and canon. He said that in regards to season 2 when Vader and Tarkin were in the show Rebels, which he is the supervising director of. He screwed that one up real bad. Lucas was in charge of TCW, so I'm not sure if we should take 100 percent of what he says as accurate if it contradicts what was reviewed and officially published on the website. These aren't the only two instances that he's done this; however, this is nothing more than my personal opinion. It's how I've tried to get through contradictory information, but I began doing this based on what Chee said years ago about using what was last published or what is shown to be the preponderance of evidence to set precedence. He actually said that for the EU before the Disney acquisition, but canon seems to provide a conundrum or two at times, which makes it difficult to know what to rely on-hence me relying on what Chee has said. What do you think???

Anyway, you didn't get back to me above. Would you, please?

(I wonder if my phones gifs work here)

I noticed Ventress managed to react faster than Dooku could when he attempted to return his lightsaber to his possession.

Dooku more often than not. He could one-shot either without drawing his lightsaber. If it does come down to a duel, the only way I see Dooku losing is by virtue of the sheer number of lightsabers against him. He would be overwhelmed.

Dooku oneshots Grievous with lightning because I doubt he knows how to deflect it

Dooku then stomps Ventress again. Who is not a threat to Sidious

The Count of Serenno stomps, lmao.

Dooku pretty much stomps the moment he decided to abuse his Force abilities(as soon as he gets bored of dueling them).