slayne

@greysentinel365 said:

I have serious doubts about Mustafar Anakin's ability to direct this power given his atrocious mental state. Unless there's a new quote or argument I've missed that contends otherwise?

Absolutely top-tier post. Don't know how Ant's going to recover from this.

@arkhamasylum3:

Which is comletely contradicted by the actual text.

Thought you were referencing their skirmish in KotFE... where she was actually disarmed by Senya, as Amethyst said in his post.

Essentially using Lightsaber combat to determine Vaylin's strength in the Force is completely useless.

Not really. Senya - with all her skill and experience - was on the defensive for virtually the entire fight, and not by any choice of her own. Contrast this with their earlier battle in KotFE, where Vaylin was outright beaten, and it's rather evident the difference her available Force power made. Still, I agree this is an exception to the "parity" trend due to the massive skill disparity.

Or she could have just improved her technique?

It's made obvious that before her fight with Arcann Vaylin was an incredibly unrefined combatant so any improvement in Lightsaber combat doesn't prove her command over the Force increased.

Vaylin was an incredibly unrefined combatant when she lost to Senya in KotFE; Vaylin was still an incredibly unrefined combatant when she stalemated Senya in KotET. The key difference here being her applicable Force power in each scenario.

At least that we've seen so far, Vaylin's primary tactic concerning lightsaber combat is to substitute augmentation for actual technique, and there's no indication of this changing by the time of her fight with Arcann.

@arkhamasylum3:

Force Augmentation is key to Lightsaber combat but this most certainly doesn't prove an increase in power.

If X manages to match Y in a prolonged lightsaber duel, it's safe to assume that X is relatively close to Y in applicable Force power. Hence why Kao Cen Darach gets destroyed by Malgus despite possessing much greater skill and experience.

Following such, if Vaylin manages to contend with Senya in a duel for a large amount of time, we can assume that the two share some degree of parity in the Force. Similarly, if Vaylin matches blades with a much more powerful combatant than Senya in the form of Arcann, we can assume that she experienced enough of a power growth between the two instances to be able to hold her own.

In her fight with Senya Valyin was capable of killing the latter with a wave of her hand

Can you elucidate on this? I don't remember seeing anything from Vaylin that signifies such.

@arkhamasylum3:

Vaylin improving as a Lightsaber combatant doesn't mean she grew in Force Power.

Yes it does? Force augmentation is critical to any lightsaber duel, and her prolonged contention with Arcann signifies a relative parity in Force power anyway.

The facility with which Anakin dispatched Dooku aboard the Invisible Hand is more than enough to warrant him the victory here. And I don't see it being too close a contest, either.

A case could be made either way, but Vaylin probably swings it in the twins' favor.

@i_like_swords: Sorry for the late reply.

I'm saying they aren't mutually exclusive. The website advertising a team fight to people as "team up and go kill Malgus" is not the same as saying "Malgus can only be killed by this team" - it is clearly supported in the story that any 1 of the 8 classes can defeat him alone, the same way you can take any combination of light and dark side paths and them all be valid outcomes for the story.

It's not an advertisement for people to go and fight Malgus. It doesn't say "now, you must team up to overthrow him" or whatever, it literally states that "the Empire calls on its most powerful champions" to combat him. It's a descriptor of an event. You're right in that it doesn't say "Malgus can only be killed by this team", but it makes no difference if canon dictates he never fought anyone else.

It'd be kinda stupid if Malgus were capable of:

a) contending with but losing to the Smuggler in a one-on-one

b) contending with but losing to the Smuggler and three others who are more powerful than the Smuggler

at the same time.

There's evidence upfront of Malgus being blatantly superior to the four-man team he was supposed to face (choking three of them at once while battling the remaining one, bringing them to their knees with lightning, breaking through their defences with a single push, etc.) so I find it implausible that a quarter of this same team - and a non-force sensitive one, no less - would be able to best him in a legitimate one-on-one.

Originally, his opponent(s) won by simply cheapshotting him off a reactor shaft ledge with a Rakatan grenade. This could be a way to reconcile the two instances, but I'm not sure you'd buy into it given that it was removed in a later update. Personally, I just think that it was a purely game-related change to make the fight easier by removing a mechanic (which is supported by the game since you still get the message saying he's vulnerable to the grenade even after the patch) but make of it what you will.

for real?

I mean, I'd take a direct canon statement from the website about how the fight went down over a single piece of dialogue the developers put in to entertain a possibility (which itself was brought about by game mechanics). Considering the massive inconsistency it creates with regards to Malgus' power level, which one do you think is the more likely? You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

@i_like_swords said:

Can't Malgus be solo'd by the Smuggler, too? I wouldn't be too hasty to draw on solo mechanics to gauge character ability, especially since there are statements from the website and such that confirm a team of the Empire's "most powerful heroes" assaulted the station and killed him.