Shaak Ti vs Kit Fisto Post 2 Part 1

Dropping in here to respond to this debate once again. Not because I have any particular stake in it, but rather because I can tell Omni spends a lot of efforts on his post and I don't want them to go to waste. I don't expect to win, but I do genuinely believe Fisto is superior to Ti and Omni did not convince me, so I'll still do my best to explain why even if Omni is definitely more knowledgeable than me with regards to the PT era. Before I start, I want to thank HT Ethan Durin etc., since I got a lot of the scans in this debate from them/reading their old posts.

***IMPORTANT***

My last post was created rather lazily and has a lot of cheap and not well-thought-out points. If anything from this post seems inconsistent with my initial argument, take what's in this post and discredit the initial argument.. Similarly, if there are responses from Omni I didn't respond to, that might be because I conceded the point. Omni can point out the arguments I didn't respond to, and in my next post I'll either acknowledge them as concessions or just stuff that I missed.

With that aside, let's get started:

I. B-TEAM:

A) The Quotes Themselves:

I don't know if it's intentional or not, but Omni cherrypicked 2 of my multiple quotes and discredited them in an attempt to show that all B-team quotes are invalid. I don't know if he genuinely missed them or is being dishonest, but either way, not nice! As a reminder, here are the other quotes, after which I'll give my analysis:
_{"Anakin, why? The Masters are the best of the Order. What can you possibly do?"}




Unlike the quotes Omni tried to cherrypick from my initial post, these quotes are not worded as "four of the best' or "four of the finest warriors", they plainly call the B-team the "finest warriors of the order", "[Mace's] finest warriors", the "three more experienced Jedi", the "best of the order", and once again, the "finest warriors of the order". Given the context in which these quotes are stated, as they are all in reference to the B-team's combative abilities to take down Palpatine, there are no reasons to believe they are in reference to these Jedi being the "finest" and the "best' in any areas other than combat. These quotes are not vague, they just plainly state that the B-team are the best and the finest at combat, end of discussion.

Further, Omni might bring up the fact that the council has similar hype as the best of the order, however, everybody in the council being the best doesn't preclude a more specific clique being further beyond. I.e., everybody on the council being the best of the order doesn't preclude Yoda to also be individually the absolute best even among the council, the fact that the council has similar quotes doesn't mean the B-team aren't the best combative masters of the order. These quote states they are the supreme combatants of the Jedi order verbatim, and their validity is further shown by other quotes, that might not be as direct, but also point toward a general narrative of superiority:
<sub>Now Obi-Wan did face him. "Palpatine faced Mace and Agen and Kit and Saesee - four of the greatest swordsmen our Order has ever produced. By himself. Even both of us together wouldn't have a chance."

Forget not the existence of Sidious. Anticipate your action, he may. Masters will be necessary, if the Lord of the Sith you must face."
"I have chosen four of our best. Master Tiin, Master Kolar, and Master Fisto are all here, in the Temple. They are preparing already."
"What about Skywalker? The chosen one."
"Too much of a risk," Mace replied. "I am the fourth."</sub>


Omni might be right that these quotes only state the B-team are "four of the greatest swordsmen our order has ever produced" and "three of his strongest comrades", or "four of our best", but the fact that the B-team keep getting grouped as the best of the Jedi, the most capable combatants possibly in the order's history, as well as some sources that states they are the finest warriors verbatim, is very telling of a general narrative of supremacy. The fact that Shaak Ti was relegated to be a guard of the temple instead of one of the warriors actively undertaking in perhaps the most important mission in the republic's history is not great for Ti either. Moreover, this is not the first time Mace chose this exact team. The same team was also chosen to be a "show of force" of the Jedi when they were tasked with dismantling a Bounty Hunter Stronghold (Republic #65-66: Show of Force). These are not things you can debunk by simply pointing out that each quote on fact value might not be INDIVIDUALLY enough at proving superiority.
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Omni said:
Yoda tells Mace he will need masters if he is to face Sidious. Mace answers by saying that he have chosen “four of our best”, which just means that they are 4 of the best, but again, not the best 4. He names the members of the B-team. Notice how Yoda’s follow up is “What about Skywalker?”. So Yoda is assuming this “four of our best” team consists of Anakin, Kit, Tiin, and Agen. Does Yoda think B-team members > Mace??? There isn’t any justification given for why Mace would be left in the temple, which is your argument for why the statements don’t apply to Yoda, Obi, Plo and Anakin. So either the B-team are above Mace, or this team isn’t based on “who is the 4 strongest available”

this doesn't discredit B-team supremacy in any way. Strictly grammatically speaking, the phrasing of Mace's statement doesn't imply that he would personally be a part of the strike team, as he stated he has "chosen" 4 of our best, which would imply that he chose 4 other masters and not himself, so him clarifying is definitely necessary. Yoda assumed it's 4 not including Mace because Mace's original statement phrased it as if he is choosing 4 other people, as "I chose myself" obvious sounds weird on a semantics perspective.
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But honestly this isn't that out of the picture considering Agen Kolar is noted to be almost as skilled as Mace:


And Kit Fisto performing better than Kolar is a canonical mandate and not a coincidence:
_{Since the shooting script called for Kit Fisto to last longer than the other two Jedi who accompany Mace, a stunt performer was cast in the role of the Jedi warrior.}

Moreover, remember the LoE quote that says Fisto is of the same calibre of a duelist as Mace, as I will make frequent callbacks to this quote:
_{Perhaps if Palpatine had been intelligent enough to have surrounded himself with real Jedi - - Jedi of the caliber of Windu and the tentacle-headed Kit Fisto - - the engagement might have gone differently. Fencing with his four adversaries - - for that's all the fight amounted to - - Grievous saw six of the soldiers and three of the Red Guards jolted to spasming deaths by the MagnaGuards' double-tipped scepters.}
That's not to say I think Fisto is actually Mace's equal in combat... but his case to be one of the strongest Jedi warriors is much better than Ti's.
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Omni said:
So Anakin can’t support the B-team, he’s below them? Even though the introduction to Anakin in this novel is literally all about hyping up as the best Jedi combatively. Agen, a member of the B-team, even thinks that even if Anakin isn’t the chosen one he is the one who would have the best chances of surviving an encounter with a sith. Perhaps this quote doesn’t mean what you think it does

No, the argument wasn't that Anakin can't support the B-team*, he was not selected due to his unpredictability not his power levels, but rather that Shaak Ti cannot support the B-team. She thinks that these masters are the best of the order and thus further assistance is unwarranted and likely not that useful considering they're not at their calibre. Furthermore, if Shaak Ti is really as powerful and useful as you say, I see no reason why Mace Windu would not place her on the strike team as well. Shaak Ti would probably be a net-positive, but not to the extent that her presence would improve the already stacked team's combative capacity to a significant degree. Your response was wildly off the mark, I'll count this as the first time you misinterpreted my argument. I'll keep a counter through-out the debate:

*Missed my argument counter: 1
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Omni said:
15-year old, puberty Anakin accolade, really showing just how impressive this B-team must be. Again, being one of the best is just not impressive when talking about the mainline Jedi characters. In terms of Obi saying Yoda + Obi < Mace + b-team, well, Yoda goes on to fight an even stronger Sidious than the one that team fought, even disarming the guy, so either Obi is vastly underestimating his and Yoda’s abilities or severely overestimating the B-team
The rest of the statements posted are just similar to the ones already brought up or countered. Now, let’s look at what Revanist has to say about this quotes

Wait, how exactly does this discredit B-team supremacy in any way? Nobody argued that the B-team are beyond Anakin*, the argument was always that logically speaking, the B-team are superior to other available Jedi who were not chosen for the paramount Jedi task. The use of that Obi Wan post doesn't have to prove B-team + Mace > Yoda + Obi Wan, but rather the status that the B-team hold even relatively in the council, which was the entire point of the argument. You taking all statements literally makes you miss the forest of my argument for the trees:

*Missed my argument counter: 2

Moreover, 15 year old Anakin supremacy doesn't have nearly the same amount of consistency the B-team gets across the sources. I provided multiple quotes that states their superiority verbatim, a single 15 year old Anakin accolade doesn't change that.
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Omni said:
That is just blatantly not what Obi said. The era ever produced? So not of all time, just in this era? Also, again “four of our” so it’s out of a larger group, not the 4 best ever
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So these 4 > everyone else, if not, then they are simply among the best, just like the rest of the council
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I agree, these statements are very ingrained within in the lore, they are among the best, no question about that, but those statements are not concrete evidence for anything beyond that
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Useless is a strong word that I did not see her use, at all. In what world would a council member, let alone the strongest Jedi of all not make the team stronger. No, this is something else. We will come to this later

I really feel like your obsession with micro-analyzing every single quote and debunking the hyper-literal definition is making you miss the underlaying narrative ingrained beyond just the quotes, and that level of supremacy and potency inscribed for the B-team members is something that exists regardless of whether or not they are the best ever produced. None of the quotes have to hold up concretely for the overall bigger picture that they are the best of the order to hold up
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The same Vos? That is not the same Vos, Vos underwent dark side training by Dooku for months, and according to himself had gotten “so much stronger”, this boost being after the Agen fight.
Furthermore, Agen’s goal was to capture this much weaker Vos, something in which he failed to do. This also all being a plot arranged by Tholme and Vos, to convince Dooku of Vos’ allegiance, so that he can infiltrate the seps. The only other Jedi being privy to this is Mundi, Mace, and Yoda
So Vos is not trying to fight Agen, but has to make his escape convincing enough, so that Dooku will accept him as an acolyte. Vos can not dominate Agen, otherwise him not finishing Agen off could compromise Vos. Meanwhile, Agen doesn’t know a thing. So Vos might have an incentive to hold massively back, while Agen does not, he is here to arrest. I do think Agen is supposed to be stronger, but this fight is simply not under normal circumstances, and the Vos that fights Aayla can not be locked under him. So then, who does Agen even scale to?
Also thank you for acknowledging that Aurra is a challenge to multiple council members, you know, the ones who represent the best of the order. One of these being Adi, whom I have multiple chains putting her below Ti, who in a team including Trebor lost to Aurra and a high pitch in Head-to-Head tag teams.
Aayla didn’t just stalemate Aurra, she beat her

I will concede on my original Agen chain, but that's a minor point and just a random sidenote that is convenient for B-team wank. But I have no idea what you seek to prove with your Secura chain? Agen failing to capture Vos is not proof that he is below him, and you can't quantify that with Vos' growth. Agen still defeated Vos even though Vos didn't get captured, you don't quantify Vos' growth to the extent that you prove that he can now beat Agen. Even worse, Aayla lost to Vos and got TK dominated like a ragdoll. So...

Agen > (unquantifiable gap) pre-growth Vos < (another unquantifiable gap) post-dooku training Vos > (unquantifiable but bigger than first gap) Aayla

Furthermore, you have yet to prove Adi Gallia > Kit Fisto. Essentially what you have done is basing your case on comparing very unquantifiable factors, and then piggybacking your original scaling and making it seem like a new one.
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Omni said:
So Shaak is vastly above Aayla. This does not bode well for Fisto. Grievous could not penetrate Shaak’s defense for 11 seconds, yet Aayla can’t even block one grab. If 03 Grievous had tried that on Ti, he would have lost his leg. So, this shows us that Ti is massively faster than Secura, Secura being able to stalemate for an extended time a much stronger Vos than the one Agen failed to capture. With this Agen should be massively faster than the non dark side trained Vos, speedblitzing him, Vos having no way of running away. At least if Agen is actually supposed to be Ti’s superior. Unless Agen has something else going for him, he is simply a part of the “best of the order” group, just like all the other council members, so there isn’t even a reason for him to be above Aurra], in fact, since he does worse against Sidious, wouldn’t he then also be below Aurra, just like Adi, and Fisto? You are really making a strong case for the b-team to be the best here, I must say

I'm sorry I have no clue what you're trying to say here. Agen not having explicit scaling beyond Aurra... means Aurra is beyond him now? Why will Agen performing worse against Sidious than... Fisto/Mace/Yoda imply she's below Adi Gallia (who lost to vastly pre-prime Savage prior to gaining massive growth prior to getting blitzed by Palps while having Maul with him) or Aurra Sing (who as you said lost to Aayla Secura who lost to DS Vos who got ragdolled by Dooku who's far below Palps). Everybody you mentioned so far will get obliterated by Palpatine in the same speed as Kolar, honestly at a slower speed.
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Omni said:
Pretty sure this never happened. Did you make this up, or am I crazy? If this did happen, please show some evidence for it

Meant Vos
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Omni said:
Anakin’s statement of being one of most powerful ever within a few short years is better than this statement. So, 15 year-old Anakin > Tiin?

Citation needed that the quote is only a reference to 15 year old Anakin. Given the surrounding context, it definitely implies the quote includes ROTS Anakin as well since it explicitly mentions his fall to the dark side. I'm gonna need more context of the quote, like maybe the picture next to it.
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Omni said:
Having one on screen sparring match does not equal being the exclusive dueling partner of someone, the amount of detail given of the duel definitely doesn’t tell us anything about their relativity
None of these statements or feats are anything close to Ti

Tiin's spar with Mace definitely displays parity to an extent, they are exchanging blows and neither seems particularly pressed (CLICK)(CLICK). You can't handwave this and the intent behind it to be meaningless just because of its status as a spar. Moreover, similarly as spars, Mace Windu was deflecting Vos' blows with blatant ease he doesn't display against Tiin, remarking that he is "off balance", lecturing him about his lackluster force control abilities, all the while Vos is sweating (CLICK). While both are spars, Tiin performs infinitely better against Mace than Vos does.

Moreover, here’s Fisto stating he has beaten Mace Windu in spars in the past
<sub>“I am honoured to be one of the small number of Jedi who have bested you in lightsaber combat, Master Windu.”

“I can count on my tentacles the number of times I have beaten you.”</sub>


In terms of statements/feats, you have provided NOTHING for Ti so far other than sub pre-TPM Kenobi feats, holding back Grievous for the totality of 11 seconds, or some random hype statements about her tactical brilliance.
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Omni said:
Why is her being on Coruscant bounding her? No statement talks about them being the best available, that it isn’t taking every Jedi into account, that there are exceptions to the statements. They are either called the best, which they aren’t, or some of the best. Ti has excuses too, as I’ll get into in a bit, but even without them, you have no way of proving that these statements mean what you are claiming. To me, the main interpretation that this community has of the B-team statements symbolizes an overall problem I think scalers often have. Taken statements and given them arbitrary definite meaning, trying to pass statements off as concrete, when in fact multiple interpretations can be made, forgetting to look at what context the statement was made in, what is the character’s mindset, what is the narrative implications, just ignoring a lot of context and inferring one’s own bias. So many characters have insane hype, putting them as the absolute best, better than anyone before them or the best of their time, but when you actually start scaling these characters, other results are sometimes given. Mace, Yoda, and Anakin can’t all be the strongest at the same time, and Maul can’t be Sidious equal in TPM. Context and narrative analysis matter. Taking these statements as holy word actively hinders the discourse around the powerscaling of a lot of these people, Ti being one of them, she has been stuck as below B-team do to arbitrary inference of meaning to statements, that don’t concretely hold that meaning within them, like at all. This has most clearly been seen in this example. People didn’t stop up to examine what Ti defending against Grievous for that luck, because the community has been stuck in a mindset of “well, we know where she is, she is below B-team”, turning their usual analytical prowess off whenever looking at her.

I completely agree the methodology of taking a singular supremacy quote and using it as absolute is suspect at best, which seems ironic given your brandishing of that Anakin quote :wut:. But that is not what I am doing with the B-team. I count at least 5 sources stating they are the best verbatim, multiple sources putting them up there with the best, as well as generally ingrained narrative intent. Note that if you have any links that indisputably place Shaak Ti beyond ROTS Fisto, or if Shaak Ti has any supremacy quote ingrained nearly to the extent of the B-team, I am completely willing to consider them. However as it is, you provided nothing with merit that concretely place Shaak beyond the B-team, nevermind its strongest member, and neither did you provide supremacy quotes for Shaak that characters like Anakin/Yoda/Obi Wan has under their belt. I see no reason from your case to exempt Shaak for the B-team bind, your unsourced tangent about the current state of SW debating noted.
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Omni said:
She never even refers to herself, she only refers to Anakin. The quote has been taken massively out of context, and as I just talking about previously, meaning inferred into it. I’ll go into it in just a bit.

Yes but if she is helpful, why isn't she there?
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B) Whether B-team bind make sense IU:

Reminder of the initial argument:

Darthor wrote:
I'm sorry but this is absolutely baffling to me. Yes, there are no explicit quote saying "the b-team supremacy quotes only apply to people who are available", and yes, you can go technical with every quote, but consider this: Why wouldn't the B-team be the strongest? Mace Windu and Yoda had feared the power of the master ever since TPM, and by AOTC are scared of just how much power did the mysterious Sidious Dooku mentioned is. Through-out TCW, Yoda has adopted nearly a defeatism to the power of Sidious, and fears his power greatly from stuff like his vision of a fight against Sidious. By ROTS, Mace even finds out that this Sith with absolute power also has a political domination over the republic he loves. So... Why would Mace Windu INTENTIONALLY hold back his strongest Jedi and let 3 other inferior ones go instead? Is Shaak Ti somehow unique to the defense of the Jedi temple? If so proof?

I'm basically saying even without the quotes directly affirming B-team supremacy, the fact that they were picked before Shaak still proves their supremacy. Let's go over Omni's responses:

Omni said:
Despite all of this, according to Obi, Shaak and Mace are MORE than capable of capturing Sidious, someone who Mace and Yoda apparently fear

If we trust Obi's intuition, we might as well believe B-team > Obi Wan + Yoda. Anakin's attitude toward Shaak is telling of what a less humble character thinks:
_{“If only he'd been here, instead of Shaak Ti and Stass Allie, Council members or not. If he had been here, Chancellor Palpatine would be home and safe already. Instead, Anakin had been stuck running around the Outer Rim for months like some useless Padawan, and all Palpatine had for protectors were Jedi who were clever and subtle.
Clever and subtle. He could whip any ten clever and subtle Jedi with his lightsaber tied behind his back.
But he knew better than to say so.”}
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Omni said:
According to your logic, Mace would of course take the strongest one available. Mace even being glad to have her with him

She would certainly be an asset. This isn't proof that Mace would not be glad to have any Jedi master with him. To the contrary, something similar was said about Kolar:
_{“Given the strain on our current resources," Mace Windu said, "I recommend we send only one Jedi-Master Kenobi."
Which would leave Mace and Agen Kolar-both among the greatest blades beings the Jedi Order had ever produced-here on Coruscant in case Sidious did indeed take this opportunity to make a dramatic move. Not to mention Anakin, who was a brigade's worth of firepower in his own right.
Obi-Wan nodded. Perfectly logical. Everyone would agree. Except Anakin. He leaned forward, red climbing his cheeks. "He wasn't so successful the last time he met Grievous!”}
Back then, Obi Wan believed Shaak + Mace is enough to take down Sidious yes, Mace also believed, and Obi Wan agreed, that Agen Kolar is ALSO capable of doing so. Kolar an explicit inferior to Fisto.
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Omni said:
Even Yoda. So… Why would Mace Windu INTENTIONALLY hold back his 4 strongest Jedi and let one other inferior one go instead? Are those four somehow unique to the defense of the Jedi temple (at a point where there should be absolutely no threat to it)? If so proof? Interesting that you started your post out by claiming my arguments indirectly support Fisto > Ki (I don’t know why you referred to Mundi there).

Obviously meant Ti. Anyways, he didn't hold back his 4 strongest Jedi, Shaak Ti just happened to be in a mold that they believed ANY of the B-team, even Kolar the one who died first, can fit. That is not the same as choosing the B-team over Shaak when it comes to confronting somebody they now know controls the entire politics of the republic.
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Omni said:
Now, let’s look at why Ti was not with the B-team but stayed back. Firstly, she fulfills your prerequisite of being an exception, as she was put in charge of temple defense
Why is this important? Well, as you yourself mentioned, the sith that they have been looking for, is the most powerful man in the entire galaxy politically. He has control of both the republic and the separatists. He has ultimate sway over the entire political sphere. Let’s send out our 4 strongest, making the temple completely defenseless, even though we have knowledge that the one who is in control of two galactic scaled armies is our archnemesis. You yourself post a scan talking about almost all the able-bodied Jedi Knights being deployed far from Coruscant. So, wouldn’t it exactly make sense to leave behind your two strongest, Cin Drallig and Ti, behind to defend this temple? The temple that houses the entire future of the order, all the younglings, the padawans and senile members like Jocasta. Let’s move on to the statement that allegedly claims Ti is useless compared to the B-team, not just look at the statement in a vacuum, but in what context it was made in

Firstly, the prerequisite is that she is UNIQUE to the temple defense, i.e., she has an irreplaceable role. Secondly, temple defense is ONLY necessary in the case that the B-team fails to arrest Sidious, who then retaliates. The Jedi would obviously prioritize defeating him in the first place, hence Mace choosing "his strongest comrades", or the B-team. Shaak Ti's role is a backup that will only come into play if the starter fails.
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Omni said:
Ti only ever questions what Anakin can do, so she isn’t talking about herself. Anakin is clearly not in a good mindset to make decisions. Ti tries to sway him into stay at the temple, saying “If Palpatine retaliates is not your place here, to help with our defense?”. However, in Anakin’s mind, he has to be involved in the confrontation with Palps, because, well, he is the chosen one, prophecy can’t be changed, he has to be there. Ibn response to this, Ti says “Anakin, why? The Masters are the best of the Order. What can you possibly do?”. Ti want Anakin to stay do to two reasons
To help with the defense
To keep him from battling a sith in the condition he is in
To accomplish, she tries to sway him, by questioning why he needs to be there. Not whether or not he is as strong as them. After all, isn’t it better to keep this guy here, where he can get help, and help in case of an attack. The masters already have this, they are some of the best, no reason to go there, when you are more needed here. It is not a statement of superiority, but one of strategy. Why send someone out to help a team, which should already be enough. Defend the temple, defend the future of the Jedi. If the belief was that Mace and Ti were enough to capture Sidious, why would this mindset change. They haven’t seen Palps making any new power displays since that point in time, that mission was just before the battle of Coruscant began. So Mace + Ti is enough in the Jedi’s mind, why wouldn’t Mace + B-team be? Send out some of the best to capture Sids, keep others back to defend the temple. Mace simply allocated his forces to accomplish two different tasks.

I mean, if she is explicitly tasked at keeping Anakin at bay, then why did she allow him to leave? There are no proof that a fight took place, so she just allowed Anakin to leave? That doesn't seem consistent with your conjecture of her role?
Further, you also need to prove her UNIQUENESS, i.e., she is the only one who can mediate with Anakin and calm him.
Lastly, I would definitely posit that beating the threat that controls the republic is more important than keeping the temple safe in case they fail and mediating with Anakin, so she is still being sidelined for the most important role.
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Nothing changes: Shaak Ti was sidelined for the most important role of beating Sidious and relegated to a backup. Not consistent with her superiority to Kit Fisto, and by extension Kolar and Tiin, that you are pushing for.
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C) That Weird Side tangent: Drallig:

Omni said:
Have no problem with that. Anakin pre IH is already the strongest Jedi. He then grows on the IH
Then again just before Operation: Knightfall
So, Knightfall > IH > Pre IH > Yoda
In the video game Cin Drallig is able to fight this Anakin for a little bit
So, Knightfall > IH > Pre IH > Yoda >~ Senate Palps > Office Palps >>> Any of the B-team

Not what your quote states. It says he is "the most powerful Jedi of his generation. Perhaps of any generation." Given that Dooku, who is a tier 8 per Gillard, is capable of fighting him and Obi Wan at the same time (link), even KO'ing Obi Wan while keeping him at bay, and also given that Yoda is a tier 9, which would signify an "enormous" gap between Yoda and Dooku, we can know for sure that baseline IH Anakin is nowhere near Yoda. Mace Windu is also a tier 8 bordering 9, and explicitly has skill that eclipses that of Dooku (link). Office!Sidious is capable of contending with Mace Windu despite Windu drawing on Palps' dark side emotions in an endless loop to fuel his vaapad, so pre-IH Anakin doesn't scale beyond Office!Sidious either. Moreover, Gillard noted that Anakin became a 9 in ROTS, and also noted that among level 9s, "it comes down to individual fighting styles as well as the circumstances of the surroundings that make a difference.", making any perceived stomp gaps between KFV and Palpatine, who are both tier 9s, laughable. To put the nail on the coffin, George Lucas has explicitly stated that KFV is "as strong as the emperor" (link), so there are no considerable gap here.
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Comparing Drallig's and B-team's performance, I agree that the movies has him dying in around 6 seconds, but noticeably part of that time is used by Palpatine to dispatch Serra Keto. Moreover, given that the movies are the "absolute canon" of Star Wars, we can also dismiss his performance in the ROTS game. Fisto was killed in 4 seconds due to "his [Palpatine's] innocent appearance as Chancellor Palpatine, along with an application of a concentrated dark side confusion haze", and this "enabled" him to "take down Agen Kolar, Kit Fisto, and Saesee Tiin." These are compounding factors that allows, or as the text stated, enabled, Palpatine to take down Fisto, as well as his comrades. You can't objectively quantify that Drallig's performance is better than Fisto. Moreover, in dark nest, we also got a description of the Drallig vs KFV duel, and we get more context of the fight:
_{A huge Jedi with stooped shoulders and a gnarled face backed into view, anchoring the line of teenage defenders, his lightsaber sending bolt after bolt back at the attackers, lashing out to cut down one trooper after another. A pair of Padawans stepped in to support his flanks, and the entire line stopped falling back, the lightsabers of the young Jedi weaving an impenetrable wall of energy that—for a few short moments—allowed nothing past, not a blaster bolt, nor a clone trooper, nor even, it seemed to Han, a stray glance.
A blue lightsaber appeared at the edge of the holo, beating down the defense of the first Padawan and slashing through his torso, then slipping past the guard of the other one and cutting him down as well. The back of a blond head and a pair of caped shoulders appeared behind the blue blade and began to carry the attack to the stoop-shouldered Jedi.
The two stood battling toe-to-toe for only an instant before the caped figure slipped a strike and brought his own blade down on the defender’s stooped shoulder, cleaving him deep into the torso. The Jedi’s gnarled face paled with shock, and he collapsed in too much pain to scream.}

In reality, Drallig stood against KFV for "only an instant" before he was hacked down, in additional with the dark side confusion haze and Palpatine taking the b-team by surprise, Fisto's performance is coming out looking better.
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B-team is stated verbatim by multiple quotes without multiple other quotes in support, it makes sense IU, and the attempt to overcome the seal with Drallig is invalidated from the highest canon. B-team definitely stands as the only objective comparison between ROTS Fisto and Ti in this debate.

II. HYPE AND FEATS

A) Feat comparisons:

Before we start, it's important to remember that feat comparisons only work if you establish an upper bound. Kit Fisto doing "normal Jedi stuff" while storming the bounty hunter stronghold isn't proof that he can't do more, but rather that he chose not to.

Omni said:
Ti speedblitzes several droids coming from across the room, before the droids can even fire, despite getting explicit orders to kill her and stop Bail. She then is able to use a saber throw behind her, force push forward, and recalls the saber at the same time as dong the push.

Since when did defeating fodder get impressive? I mean, here's pre-tpm Obi Wan holding against an "endless" amounts of at least "dozens" of draigons that are "twenty meters wide". Obi Wan slaughters them en masse as their corpses "piled on the ground around him". This is a far more impressive display than Shaak TI's:

<sub>Qui-Gon fought to control the draigon’s mind, bring it safely to the ground. He was worried. As far as the eye could see, draigons flocked toward the caves. Their roars were deafening as they called to each other.

Qui-Gon had seen the giant trees in the Silver Forest of Dreams on the planet Kubindi. Some of their vast leaves could be twenty meters wide, and when they fell in the autumn, they floated like giant rafts through the sky. That is what the draigons reminded him of. They dropped through the leaden skies, just as the leaves floated from the Kubindi forests.

Yet these creatures were deadly; and like Qui-Gon, they were headed toward the caves.

Qui-Gon called with his mind, warning young Obi-Wan Kenobi again of the danger. Then he waited as the draigon wafted downward, close to the narrow ledge outside the caves. Qui-Gon chose his moment, then sprang off the back of the beast. He landed on the ledge, steadying himself with a hand against the outside wall of the cave. The draigon flew off with a soft confused cry, his mind released.

Qui-Gon had taken two steps toward the cave when he saw Obi-Wan race from its mouth, lightsaber held high.

Obi-Wan ran from the cave only to stop short. He stared at the sky in horror.

At first, he’d thought it was just dark clouds. But now he realized that scores of draigons were blocking the sun. And they were all winging toward the caves.

Never in his young life had he imagined such terror. His legs went weak, and his mind was suddenly blank. He didn’t know what to do.

The he saw Qui-Gon heading toward him. Relief flooded him. The Jedi looked battered and bloody, and he was holding one shoulder stiffly. Still, he was alive.

“Did you get the dactyl?” Obi-Wan called.

Qui-Gon nodded. “The Arconans?”

“Still alive, but barely. Go, Qui-Gon. I’ll hold the mouth of the cave.”

....

Draigons hurtled from the sky by the dozens, converging on the lad. Even Grelb had to admire the young Jedi’s skill. His lightsaber struck again and again, and the boy showed no sign of tiring. It was almost a pity to kill him.

....

The battle was like none Obi-Wan had ever imagined. He felt no fear. He had accepted his death. The odds were just too great against him. Now he only fought to protect the Arconans. He felt no anger. He did not hate the hungry beasts that dropped endlessly from the blackened skies.

The Force was his ally.

He could feel it moving him, moving through him, and through the draigons. He leaped and somersaulted. He spun and slashed through muzzles and claws. The battle became a dance of sheer survival.

As he danced, Obi-Wan changed. He felt subtle promptings he’d never felt before. He saw attacks before they came. He sensed the flail of a tail before it happened. The muscles of the draigons seemed incredible defined, so that he could read tiny flickers of movements that revealed which way a draigon would turn. Dead draigons piled on the ground around him. He gave himself entirely to the dance.

After several long minutes, he began backing toward the mouth of the cave. He had an idea. If he could kill the draigons at the very mouth of the cave, the bodies would block the entrance. If enough entrances were blocked, they might have a chance.</sub>


A much stronger Obi Wan is beaten back by TPM Maul, who you conceded to being below Fisto, despite having (1) the backup of his superior in Qui Gon and later (2) with a significant rage amp. An even stronger Obi Wan in Cestus Deception was getting outmatched by a vastly holding back Kit Fisto in their spars, proving that he is the "better swordfighter":

<sub>Obi-Wan and Kit had been engaged for an hour now, each seeking holes in the other’s defense. Obi-Wan swiftly discovered that Kit was the better swordfighter, astonishingly aggressive and intuitive in comparison with Obi-Wan’s more measured style. But the Nautolan gave himself deliberate disadvantages, hampered himself in terms of balance, limited his speed, emphasized his nondominant side to force himself to full attention, the kind of full attention that can be best accessed only when life itself is at risk. To relax and feel the flow of the Force under such stress was the true road to mastery.

For hours the two danced without music, at first falling into a preplanned series of moves and countermoves learned in the Temple under Master Yoda’s tutelage. As they grew more accustomed to each other’s rhythms, they progressed into a flowing web of spontaneous engagement. Slowly, minute by minute, they increased pace, stuttered the rhythm, increasing the acuteness of attack angles and beginning to utilize feints and distractions, binds, rapid changes in level, and to introduce random environmental elements into the interaction:, furniture, walls, slippery floors. To an observer it would have seemed that the two were trying to slaughter each other, but the two knew that they were engaged in the most profound and enjoyable aspect of Jedi play, lightsaber flow.</sub>
---

Omni said:
Meanwhile Tiin and Fisto...They both get jumped by thugs. There is a massive difference of speed depicted here. Plo even reprimands Fisto of his Jedi mind powers, there or not that being from getting surprised or failing to mind trick the thugs into standing down. Especially bad for Tiin not to sense the thugs, as his specialty is supposed to be telepathy.

...
Both were obviously cheapshotted - Fisto turned his head around last second with a "!?" symbol, and Tiin was facing the complete opposite direction. Very powerful and skilled combatants in Star Wars frequently get stomped and cheapshotted, and Fisto's performance against Magnaguards in LoE (substantiated later) who per your admission are Jedi knight level combatants, more than prove his ability to deal with fodder. Maul was hold down by Embo's dog in the same medium in which he stomps Savage, and Anakin struggles with Rush Clovis while beating Ventress. You shouldn't judge a character's overall power levels due to them getting cheapshotted by fodder.
---

Omni said:
Shaak is able to dodge omnidirectional fire while also saving another individual from that fire using the force. She later survives a blaster shot to her chest
Fact file stating that it takes more than a blaster bolt to kill a Jedi Master as strong as her
She then wakes up, defeating a zeltron who had killed Ti’s previous padawan, and another capable combatant, even though Ti had been shot by what her enemies thought were a killing blow

An impressive display, not one that is necessarily beyond Fisto. TPM Maul was literally bisected, relied on his rage and knowledge of the dark side to survive a massive fall headfirst into corrosive acid, melting his legs, and then force shields himself to survive in said acid for hours to days. He then retains the ability to manipulate TK to junk crawler. Afterwards, he retains the force power to make new legs for himself and hold it together using pure will for 12 years. Per your own admission, Fisto is superior to TPM Maul, thus scaling beyond his level of power. This doesn't necessarily mean that Fisto can replicate Maul's pain tolerance feat btw, but you're the one who's using a pain tolerance feat to demonstrate Shaak's general combative superiority, so this fits into your methodology regardless:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Q7H_Zpigqvg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=E1bpARPB3h0&t=10m10s

https://imgur.com/a/pXyCcZc
---

Omni said:
Just do standard Jedi feats against thugs and small time bounty hunters. Agen does have that one fight with Vos though, but there are several circumstances to that fight, and the scaling from it doesn’t really lead anywhere.

I don't have the effort to do a detailed analysis of the comic, so I'll be leaving off that for my next post. Regardless, this doesn't establish an upper-bound for the B-team, and we know Mace is capable of doing stuff like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF3ocZu4cZo
BTW, you have to accept 03 feats as real feats characters can do in-continuity given that you are taking Shaak Ti kicking the head of magnaguards literally, so you can't rely on exaggerated mediums as a response.
---

Omni said:
Shaak fights a dozen magnaguards on her own. Magnaguards being above destroyers, being Jedi-killers. Magnaguards can learn from combat experience making them better over time, and they are made to fight in groups. This is at the tale end of the war, so some of the strongest Magnaas we’ve seen, even at the beginning of the war being tough opponents for Jedi knights. So Ti had to fight 12 Jedi Knight+ level fighters, tanking hits from there electrostaffs, that can not only stun but kill

Let us first establish that within the very same video, Shaak Ti consistently struggles with a lesser amount of magnaguard, taking minutes to deal with 1 or 2. Failing to beat 2 of them (4:43-4:49), struggling with a single magnaguard for 25 seconds (5:06-5:31), keep struggling with a single magnaguard until a second joins in (6:07-6:15), continue failing to defeat a single magnaguard (6:27-6:32), taking 14 seconds to actually beat one (6:42-6:56). Notice that there are many cutscenes where the film shifts to other Jedi in combat, and Shaak is still engaging with the magnaguards in the cutscenes as well. But I only quoted the parts where we SAW her struggle with them on screen.

So let's reconcile this discrepancy with her performance against the multiple magnaguards. Firstly, Shaak Ti is explicitly "at her best in group combat" with many quotes alluding to her specialization in group combat:

_{Shaak Ti fights at her best in group combat as she is biologically adapted for moving in dense crowds. She darts with ease through chaotic melees, where others struggle amidst the complexity of the movements.
Ti is a highly skilled lightsaber duelist backed by a group of Force-using natives of the planet, as well as a sarlacc.
Shaak Ti is one of the best Jedi fighters in group combat.}

Other characters with lesser specialization in group combat don't necessarily function better as a group. Magnaguards might get in each other's way and Shaak Ti is an expert at navigating the magnaguards, making it impossible to coordinate, and often making it harder for them to function as a group compared to individual combat. We saw her do this here, and she also jumps around navigating around the magnaguards.

Secondly, Magnaguards are slave to style. They are lethal particularly because they are designed and programmed to counter Jedi, and are explicitly bred to be Jedi killers. They have an entire style revolving around countering Jedi using lightsaber combat, which is why Shaak Ti managed to kill 5 magnaguards after she switches to using a staff, one that they are not designed to counter:
_{Dooku had taught Grievous well, and Grievous had taught his elite well. Coupled with Dooku's coaching, their programming in the seven classic forms of lightsaber dueling - in the Jedi arts - made them lethal opponents. But they were not invincible, not even Grievous, because they could be confused by unpredictability, and they had no understanding of finesse. A player of dejarik could memorize all the classic openings and countermoves, and still not be a master of the game. Defeat often came at the hands of less experienced players who knew nothing about the traditional strategies. A professional fighter, a combat artist, could be defeated by a cantina brawler who knew nothing about form but everything about ending a conflict quickly, without a thought to winning gracefully or elegantly. Enslavement to form opened one to defeat by the unforeseen. This was often the failing of trained duelists, and it would be the failing of the Jedi Order.}

Which is why immediately after Shaak Ti reuses her lightsaber, the magnaguards immediately stop getting destroyed by Shaak (link). Both this AND the fact that Shaak is specialized toward group combat is the best reconcile i can find for the gap between this behavior.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Omni said:
All of Fisto’s feats are performed underwater and he uses force abilities that only works in those conditions. Tiin moves and slashes a few droids, but that is again, basic Jedi showings. Agen gets captured and is, along with two others, saved by pre-scar Anakin, who himself is below Ti per my scaling chains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SexF39oiEtg

LIES

Here is Kit Fisto one-shot blitzing a pair of Magnaguards, a very positive performance compared to Shaak Ti's. Even if you don't think this feat eclipses Shaak Ti, the fact that he can instantly blitz 2 end-war magnaguards, who per your admission are Jedi knight tiers, still destroy your attempts to bind him by him getting cheapshotted by fodder:

<sub>To the rear of the car, where Grievous's pair of MagnaGuards had made the mistake of pitting themselves against Kit Fisto, the Nautolan's blade was a cyclone of blazing blue light. Resistant to the energy outpourings of a lightsaber, the phrik alloy staffs were potent weapons, but like any weapon they needed to find their target, and Kit simply wasn't allowing that. In moves a Twi'lek dancer might envy, he spun around the guards, claiming a limb from both with each rotation: left legs, right arms, right legs...

The speed of the train saw to the rest, ultimately whisking the droids into the canyon like insects blown from the windscreen of a speeder bike.</sub>

Since we're on the topic, let's talk more about Fisto's speed. Fisto's combat was described as "a cyclone of blazing blue light" (LoE), his blade described as "a web of lightsaber light" (CD). In his duel with Sidious and Anakin, his blade was described as a "fan" and a "green flame", notably the duel with so fast that the duel was described as a "spur of speed" to Anakin Skywalker (ROTS). In his duel with the JK droids, Kit Fisto's acceleration was stated to be "enough to baffle even Obi-Wan’s experienced gaze" (CD), and in his duel with Asajj Ventress in the same novel they were described as a "blur of light that seemed impossibly fast, unbelievably deadly. The two leapt and swerved, collided and bounced away. Single against double lightblades. Hands, knees, feet, all in a mind-numbing blur."

<sub>To the rear of the car, where Grievous's pair of MagnaGuards had made the mistake of pitting themselves against Kit Fisto, the Nautolan's blade was a cyclone of blazing blue light. Resistant to the energy outpourings of a lightsaber, the phrik alloy staffs were potent weapons, but like any weapon they needed to find their target, and Kit simply wasn't allowing that. In moves a Twi'lek dancer might envy, he spun around the guards, claiming a limb from both with each rotation: left legs, right arms, right legs...

The speed of the train saw to the rest, ultimately whisking the droids into the canyon like insects blown from the windscreen of a speeder bike.

“How could they think they still mattered?
Their blind lives meant nothing now. None of them. Because ahead, on the vast cliff face of the Senate Office Building, one window spat lightning into the rain to echo the lightning of the storm outside-but this lightning was the color of clashing lightsabers.
Green fans, sheets of purple-And crimson flame.
He was too late.
The green fire faded and winked out; now the lightning was only purple and red.
His repulsorlifts howled as he heeled the speeder up onto its side, skidding through wind-shear turbulence to bring it to a bobbing halt outside the window of Palpatine's private office. A blast of lightning hit the spire of 500 Republica, only a kilometer away, and its white burst flared off the window, flash-blinding him; he blinked furiously, slapping at his eyes in frustration.”

“Anakin blinked and rubbed his eyes again. Maybe he was still a bit flash-blind-the Korun Master seemed to be fading in and out of existence, half swallowed by a thickening black haze in which danced a meter-long bar of sunfire. Mace pressed back the darkness with a relentless straight-ahead march; his own blade, that distinctive amethyst blaze that had been the final sight of so many evil beings across the galaxy, made a haze of its own: an oblate sphere of purple fire within which there seemed to be dozens of swords slashing in all directions at once.
The shadow he fought, that blur of speed-could that be Palpatine?
Their blades flared and flashed, crashing together with bursts of fire, weaving nets of killing energy in exchanges so fast that Anakin could not truly see them-But he could feel them in the Force.”

This Cestus affair grows uglier by the moment, Kit Fisto thought bitterly. Then regrets and second guesses dissolved as a web of lightsaber light filled the air around him, and guards crumpled to the ground. He flirted with battle fever, the howling demon in his mind trapped behind the bars of discipline, but guiding him as he slid down Form l’s razor edge

Now, finally, Kit drew his lightsaber. Ventress drew a pair of blazing, red blades. She inclined her head, breathing more quickly, lips curling into a smile. “Finally,” she said. “Your pleasure,” Kit hissed, and went at her. He was like fire, Ventress like smoke. The dance had substance but not form, a blur of light that seemed impossibly fast, unbelievably deadly. The two leapt and swerved, collided and bounced away. Single against double lightblades. Hands, knees, feet, all in a mind-numbing blur. Obi-Wan would have given his right hand to join. Or even to watch such a display.

Kit’s emerald lightsaber blade was here, there, everywhere: unpredictable, irresistible. The spinning energy disks no longer absorbed the strikes: now they merely deflected them, sparks raining in all directions. Kit accelerated into a blur of motion complex and rapid enough to baffle even Obi-Wan’s experienced gaze. The Nautolan Jedi’s lightsaber wove between the energy shields, descending on the JK’s housing for the first time. The droid emitted a painfully thin shriek. Its gleaming legs shivered.It collapsed to the sand. It twitched, struggling to rise. And then then spilled onto its side spewing smoke and sparks.</sub>

What's notable are the reaction speed of the individuals Fisto can blitz on a daily basis. He instantly blitzes LoE Magnaguards who have lightspeed reactions:

_{Three MagnaGuards, each with a double-ended weapon that generated an energy field impervious to lightsabers, each with reflexes that operated near light-speed, each with hypersophisticated heuristic combat algorithms that enabled it to learn from experience and adapt its tactics instantly to any situation, were certainly beyond Obi-Wan's ability to defeat, but it was not Obi-Wan who would defeat them; Obi-Wan wasn't even fighting. He was only a vessel, emptied of self. The Force, shaped by his skill and guided by his clarity of mind, fought through him.}


He can also baffle the gaze of Obi Wan, who has a combative speed showing far more impressive than Shaak Ti:

_{Only ten thousand to go. Give or take. An instant later the Force had him hurtling through a storm of blasterfire as every combat droid in the control center opened up on him at once. Letting go of intention, letting go of desire, letting go of life, Obi-Wan fixed his entire attention on a thread of the Force that pulled him toward Grievous: not where Grievous was, but where Grievous would be when Obi-Wan got there... Leaping girder to girder, slashing cables on which to swing through swarms of ricocheting particle beams, blade flickering so fast it became a deflector shield that splattered blaster bolts in all directions, his presence alone became a weapon: as he spun and whirled through the control center's superstructure, the blasts of particle cannons from power droids destroyed equipment and shattered girders and unleashed a torrent of red-hot debris that crashed to the deck, crushing droids on all sides. By the time he flipped down through the air to land cat-footed on the deck once more, nearly half the droids between him and Grievous had been destroyed by their own not-so-friendly fire. He cut his way into the mob of remaining troops as smoothly as if it were no more than a canebrake near some sunlit beach; his steady pace left behind a trail of smoking slices of droid."}

In one of Kit Fisto's most impressive displays, he manages to defeat and blitz a JK series droid in Cestus Deception. The entire passage before I offer my analysis:

<sub>Master Fisto’s lightsaber flashed in his hand, and its emerald length rose from the hilt, scorching the air as it blossomed. The droid emitted a hum that climbed in pitch and intensity until Obi-Wan’s skin crawled. It remained motionless except for its surface, which once again segmented into an arachnid configuration. It seemed to sniff the air. Its insectile whine changed, as if it were wary of its new opponent. It extended tentacles again, but this time they wiggled in an oddly sluggish fashion. Strange indeed. Although previously appearing flexible and alert, was it now about to use the same tactics it had used against the commando? Perhaps the droid was not so advanced as he had initially feared … Kit’s lightsaber swatted the first tendril from the air with contemptuous ease. Obi-wan found his attention straying from the JK, focusing instead on Kit admiring the strength of his stance, the clarity of his angles as he chose lines of engagement. Kit favored the Form 1 style of combat, a fierce-

The JK’s repetition of previous patterns had lulled him into complacency. The tendrils were only a feint. Where, then, was the real attack? He leaned forward, examining the droid more carefully. Its feet. The spiky protrusions were sunken in the sand. And projecting outward from the treads themselves, burrowing under the surface … Were more tendrils, color-camouflaged to resemble sand. This thing attacked on two levels simultaneously, a strategy beyond most living warriors. Even more disturbing, it was deliberately misleading Kit by performing at multiple levels of tempo and efficiency, literally juggling its tactics, luring him to overconfidence

The sand tendrils were within centimeters of their target before Kit sensed them. His lidless black eyes grew wider still as the sand erupted. A stalk snaked around his foot, trying to yank him onto his back. Other vines raced to assist the first group. The onlookers gasped in amazement as they realized that they were about to see the unthinkable: a mere droid defeating a mighty Jedi! But Kit was far from vanquished. As if he, too, had merely been playing a game, he crouched and leapt forward, spinning on his body’s vertical axis like some kind of carnival acrobat, surging directly at the JK. He rode the JK’s yanking motion instead of fighting it, slipping between the tendrils, the Nautolan’s sense of timing faster and more precise than conscious thought.

Whatever its powers, the droid had not anticipated such an assault, nor could it adjust in time. It released him and retreated up a step, all tendrils lashing at the Jedi. Kit’s lightsaber rained sparks. Tentacles flopped onto the sand, some of the larger pieces twitching, more like separate creatures than severed limbs. The Nautolan hit the sand, rolled, and bore in again instantly, his face tightened into a fighting snarl.

But Kit had entered lightsaber range. At this more intimate distance, the droid was at a disadvantage. Now Kit was the predator, the JK reduced to the role of prey.

Hissing, it retreated on its slender golden legs, tentacles wavering, as if it couldn’t crunch data fast enough to counter the unorthodox attack.

Kit’s emerald lightsaber blade was here, there, everywhere: unpredictable, irresistible. The spinning energy disks no longer absorbed the strikes: now they merely deflected them, sparks raining in all directions. Kit accelerated into a blur of motion complex and rapid enough to baffle even Obi-Wan’s experienced gaze. The Nautolan Jedi’s lightsaber wove between the energy shields, descending on the JK’s housing for the first time. The droid emitted a painfully thin shriek. Its gleaming legs shivered.It collapsed to the sand. It twitched, struggling to rise. And then then spilled onto its side spewing smoke and sparks.</sub>

The JK series droid adjusts its strategies midfight to adapt to Fisto's Shii-cho strategy, but Kit Fisto is too fast, outright speeding past the JK's precognition, using an unorthodox style the JK is incapable of adapting to, and there blitzing him with a "blur of motion complex and rapid enough to baffle even Obi-Wan's experienced gaze". What's notable is that a JK is built with the power of precognition, speed capable of blitzing trained clone troopers, and firepower capable of obliterating a destroyer droid instantly.

<sub>More than superb: it had been perfect. What kind of programming made such precision possible? Obi-Wan could swear that the aim had been almost precognitive, almost …

But there was another aspect of the affair that most eyes had missed, a strange phenomenon that had manifested first with the trooper, but seems even more pronounced with Kit Fisto: the JK had anticipated the Nautolan’s responses.
...
In the next instant the destroyer droid rolled within five meters of the JK, and all questions were answered. In a single moment the JK divided into segments, assuming a spiderlike configuration. In that instant its pose seemed less of a cowering leaf eater than one of those cunning creatures that mime helplessness to lure their prey into range. The destroyer droid spat red fire at its adversary. The sand rippled as the JK projected not a single force field, but a series of rotating energy disks that absorbed the blasts with ease. That was a surprise: typically a machine required less sophistication to deflect energy than to absorb it. This display implied some kind of advanced capacitance or grounding technology
...
Jangotat threw himself to the rear, firing as he did, riding it out and rolling backward, coming to his feet in a single smooth motion, turning in the same motion, switching his rifle to maximal energy pulses. Too fast! The JK was a marvel, zigging this way and that, its narrow treads blurring far too quickly to track. Three shots, four. The rifle’s barrel pulsed white as its blasts furrowed walls and floor, always missing the skittering machine.</sub>

These are feats of speed that Shaak Ti has nothing on, and outright obliterates the speed feats provided by Omni. But Omni also brings up Shaak Ti's ability to blitz through fodder droids... well here's Fisto "effortlessly carving his way through wave after wave of combat droids”:

_{“Bodies in Jedi robes.
On Palpatine's desk lay the head of Kit Fisto, faceup, scalp-tentacles unbound in a squid-tangle across the ebonite. His lid-less eyes stared blindly at the ceiling. Anakin remembered him in the arena at Geonosis, effortlessly carving his way through wave after wave of combat droids, on his lips a gently humorous smile as though the horrific battle were only some friendly jest. His severed head wore that same smile.
Maybe he thought death was funny, too.
Anakin's own blade sang blue as it slashed through the window and he dived through the gap. He rolled to his feet among a litter of bodies and sprinted through a shattered door along the small private corridor and through a doorway that flashed and flared with energy-scatter.”}

And here's him fighting through a group of super potent X'ting combatants:

<sub>Kit Fisto snarled, surrendering to the pull of Form I’s unarmed techniques. His attack was absolute fluidity, one motion flowing into the next without a wasted effort. Heads cracked, limbs twisted against their joints, and X’Ting flipped howling into the lake.

From the corner of his eye he saw that Kit had made his way almost to Ventress, and what he saw as the Nautolan increased his efforts almost broke Obi-Wan’s concentration. His companion was a living, martial hurricane, his body moving in two and three directions at once, joints flexing, unlimited by human vertebral restraints. Who he touched went down. And those who went down, stayed down. Ventress might have gathered a rabble, but the youthful X’Ting were fearless, and fought as if for their lives</sub>

You also bring up Shaak Ti's strength feats... well here's Fisto disabling a huge X'ting warrior with a kick and another one with a pressure point attack:
_{He slipped into the room, and the single guard didn't have time to turn around before Kit hurled him self forward. The guard managed to level his sidearm as Kit sliced it from his hand. The Nautolan continued the motion into a kick to the head, disabling the hapless Cestian before he could make a sound.
...
n the way a huge technician swung a pry-bar at him. Sick at heart, the Jedi spun to the inside of the aggressive spiral and twisted it out of his hand.
He shifted his attacker against the wall as his eyes rolled up, voluntary nervous system paralyzed by a strike to the nerve plexus beneath his arm. “Sleep,” Kit Fisto whispered as the technician slumped. “All life is a dream".}

Even if you ignore Fisto's very potent combative feats, his impressive strength feats, and his speed that blows Shaak out of the water, Fisto is also definitely capable of dealing with combatants stronger than Shaak. Per your admission, Fisto is capable of dealing with TPM Maul in combat, as proven by H2H that you brought up. Here's some feats of pre-tpm Maul in the category of strength... if Fisto is skilled and powerful enough to deal with somebody with Maul's level of strength, he can certainly do so to Shaak Ti too:

Here's Maul dragging a dragon slug's tail and tying it in a knot. Notably dragon slugs are over 20 meters long:

<sub>But the dragon-slug didn't pass. It slithered around the stalagmite, found Maul's concealed position, and opened its maw. Maul knew he would have to defend himself. He ran toward the creature, jumped over its back, and wrapped his arms around the end of its tail. As the dragon-slug twisted to bite his attacker, Maul dragged the dragon-slug's tail toward its stomach and tricked the creature into forming a loop. Before the dragon-slug realized what was happening, Maul pulled the tail around its looped body. The creature was instantly tangled by its own elongated form.

Maul left the writhing dragon-slug to untie itself and advanced through the cave.</sub>

https://imgur.com/a/ibu2SV8
―Shadow Stalker

In the same novel, he physically abuses a massive mammoth spider:

<sub>Maul was considering whether to jump the chasm or scale the ceiling when he noticed a mammoth spider clinging to the cavern wall behind him.

The spider had nine long, powerful legs. It appeared to be asleep, with its thick, hair-covered abdomen slowly rising and falling with each breath. Still, Maul kept his eyes on it as he clambered up the chamber wall to the stalactites. Maul gripped a stalactite, then swung to grip another. The conical deposits were moist from dripping mineral water, and Maul was careful not to lose his grip on the slippery formations. He was halfway over the chasm when the giant spider suddenly scurried up the wall and across the vaulted ceiling. It was not sleeping after all. The spider was not even tired. The spider's mouth opened and closed, revealing many rows of sharp teeth. Darth Maul had no doubt the creature wanted him for dinner. He also knew if he let go of the stalactites he would fall into the chasm. As the spider crawled closer, Maul felt his fingers begin to lose their grip. When the spider was within range, Maul swung both of his legs forward and kicked the creature in the head.

The injured spider screeched and sprayed a thick web at Darth Maul. The Sith Lord released his right hand, grabbed the sprayed strand, and gave a sharp pull. The spider did not sever its connection to the web in time and suddenly found itself being torn from the ceiling by Maul's tug.

Maul let go of the strand and watched the spider plummet into the chasm.</sub>

Here's Maul physically dominating and choking a Vong warrior - Vong strength feats can come later if requested:

<sub>Close enough now that he could smell the corpse-stink pouring off it like rotten meat, he fell into a reflexive series of moves. Both hands shot out and grabbed the creature by its throat, hoisting it up over his head and squeezing until he felt the deep tendons of its neck beginning to give and weaken in his grip. There was a wet, muffled click from somewhere inside the thing’s chest and a sudden glut of warm, thick, sticky fluid began spurting up from its throat.

Blood.

Jet black.

The sight of it gave Maul no satisfaction, only the vaguely annoying realization that it never should have taken him this long to turn the battle to his advantage. Still, ending his opponent’s life quickly would restore a certain necessary balance to the encounter—if not honor, at least vindication. He tightened his grip, and the screaming sound got louder, becoming a broken, birdlike squawk. More blood leapt up, inky black and viscous, and started pouring from its mouth and eye sockets.
Enough.

Executing a perfectly balanced spin, Maul swung the creature around and slammed it to the floor with a sharp clang, connecting hard enough that he felt the steel plates reverberate under his feet. The thing’s head drooped on its broken neck, lolling sideways to expose the throbbing vessels beneath its gray flesh.</sub>

In the same novel, he physically dominates a 15m long Varactyl without using the force:

_{“A varactyl?”
“Intriguing creatures, have you seen them, brother? Fifteen meters long.” The Chadra-Fan grinned. “You see, it’s a fascinating thing, the way the sinuses in their armor-plated skulls are designed to funnel and amplify sound, to create a certain specific type of noise when the air passes through—”
Maul nodded. “It’s done.”
[...]
“What if—” he began. But that was as far as he got before the hatchway to his immediate right exploded off its hinges.
Strabo leapt back with a cry of surprise. What he saw defied all expectation—an orange-skinned Deathspine varactyl, four meters high, came bursting forth into the concourse, its tail thrashing and whipping the air. The bird-lizard was shrieking and hooting wildly, slamming its body against the far wall, and immediately Strabo understood why. The Zabrak, Jagannath himself, was sitting astride its back, clutching its beaked face with both hands, jerking it right and left.
[...]
Directly in front of him, the bird-lizard bucked and swung itself 180 degrees around, braying all the louder as it tried to throw Jagannath from his perch. Its hind leg came forward, hooking one clawlike foot into the Zabrak’s torso and slashing his skin. But the red-skinned inmate hung on with a kind of brute-force determination that Strabo had never seen before in any species.
[...]
A blur of activity snapped Strabo’s attention forward again. Jagannath had managed to grip the varactyl by its crest and wrenched its armor-plated skull hard to the right, slamming it directly into one of the steam pipes along the far wall.
The creature shrieked again—a wailing mournful cry that turned out to be its swan song. The steam pipe burst apart, shooting a thick, scalding blast of focused heat directly into the thing’s face, boiling its flesh and scalding its eyeballs in their sockets. The effect was immediate. Strabo’s nostrils stung with the stench of burned feathers and flash-fried skin as the varactyl’s flesh peeled back to expose the thickly plated vault of its cranium. Its body collapsed with the Zabrak still astride it.
[...]
In front of him, Jagannath had taken hold of the varactyl’s boiled skull. With a final jerk, he snapped it completely free from its neck and yanked it upward. The scorched gray rag of the thing’s tongue tumbled free and dangled from its mandible like a limp rag of surrender.
Silence fell through the hallway. Dismounting, the Zabrak hoisted its massive skull up over his head, the inmates and even some of the guards taking a step back as he carried the grisly trophy forward down the length of the concourse.}

Here's him breaking a lightsaber-resistant blade using his pure strength:



Maul would be significantly stronger in TPM, growing constantly in strength from every fight:

_{“Jagannath,” he said. “You’re looking surprisingly well, all things considered.”
Maul said nothing. In the twelve hours since his last fight, he’d recovered almost completely from the wounds that the Wampa had inflicted on him. His face still bore the blood-encrusted slash marks from its claws, but he’d regained full use of his arm, and his strength actually seemed to have intensified in response to the attack, like an organism that had thrived from being pruned down close to the taproot.}
---
Now that's not to say Fisto is stronger than Maul necessarily, but rather that Omni conceded Fisto can deal with Fisto in combat, so he can clearly deal with strength far superior to that of Shaak Ti. So when you say:

Omni said:
Shaak Ti is a lot faster, stronger and has really good durability when compared to Fisto.

You have certainly not substantiated this in any way. Fisto's speed feats shit on Shaak's, and he can deal with combatants with vastly stronger strength feats to Shaak.
--- --- ---

B) Hype:

I'll reiterate the 3 quotes in favor of Fisto, all of which are hype far beyond anything Shaak has ever received, all of which potentially binds Shaak:

(1) Fisto having "unmatched lightsaber skills":

_{With his large, unblinking eyes, and a tangle of flexible dreadlock-like tentacles, the amphibious Nautolan Kit Fisto is a unique Jedi Master with unmatchable lightsaber skills and a disarming smile. He fought bravely not only against the Geonosian and battle droid forces in Attack of the Clones but also was a key player in the Clone Wars, often leading clone troopers to victory. Unfortunately, the Jedi met an early demise at the hands of Chancellor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith.}

(2): Fisto being in Mace Windu's calibre:

_{Perhaps if Palpatine had been intelligent enough to have surrounded himself with real Jedi - - Jedi of the caliber of Windu and the tentacle-headed Kit Fisto - - the engagement might have gone differently. Fencing with his four adversaries - - for that's all the fight amounted to - - Grievous saw six of the soldiers and three of the Red Guards jolted to spasming deaths by the MagnaGuards' double-tipped scepters.}

(3): Fisto being among "the greatest warriors of the Jedi":

_{Even the greatest warriors of the Jedi - Mace Windu, Kit Fisto, even Yoda - could not defeat the Sith. So what made him think that he could? I know I can't defeat them.}

Let's look through Omni's pathetic valiant attempts to debunk them:
---
(1):

Omni said:
I’m lying? Coming from the guy claiming Agen beat up Sora. I wasn’t lying, I genuinely was not aware of any such statements. The one you uses still aren’t as good as Ti’s as I’ll get into. Fisto being an unmatched with lightsaber skills can’t be true, when we have other statements claiming the same for Anakin, Yoda, and Mace. It is pure hyperbole.

Once again, your endless quest of taking every quote hyperliterally is causing you to misunderstand my case*. Fisto doesn't need to literally have unmatched skill for him to be among the very top tiers, and your obsession with debunking the notion that he is the BEST in the order means that you failed utterly to debunk the notion that he is up there with the best, which is all he needs to beat Shaak.
Purely semantically speaking though, the existence of other supremacy quotes doesn't invalidate this one. All it means is that Fisto beats the Jedi who DON'T have unmatched quotes, i.e., Shaak Ti.

*Missed My Case Counter: 3
---
(2):

Omni said:
This is in comparison to fodder Jedi, who has no feats or scaling. Of course Kit would be closer to Mace than to those losers
note that this would be a comparison directly to Shaak Ti, who utterly failed to save Palpatine from Grievous, likely because she isn't a Jedi on his calibre of skill
Dude, what are you talking about? He is directly speaking about the four Jedi present, none of whom are Shaak Ti. And I’m the one who’s lying? Furthermore, the last two Jedi Grievous saw fighting was Fisto and Mace, so it makes sense for him to compare this fodder to the two guys he latest saw. Meanwhile Ti’s hype is unpromted.

I concede the direct comparison to Shaak Ti, was a dumb point made by lazy Darthor.
Regardless, the fact that Fisto and Mace happened to be the last guy Grievous saw doesn't discredit the fact that he views them as being combatants of the same calibre. In fact, none of your responses deal with the fact that Fisto was grouped into Mace's level as a combatant, all you responded to is a minor point while disregarding the actual argument*.

*Missed My Case Counter: 4
---
(3):

Omni said:
Now the next quote is unpromted as well, but it’s made by Ferus Olin. Olin left the order pre-aotc when he was still a padawan, so it's doubtfull how much much knowdlegde he would really have on the strength of individual council members
Even the greatest warriors of the Jedi - Mace Windu, Kit Fisto, even Yoda - could not defeat the Sith. So what made him think that he could? I know I can't defeat them.
Fisto is also just generally popular amongst youngsters, so coming from someone who left the order over 3 years ago when he was still a padawan, it isn’t surprising that he thinks of Fisto instead of other, more powerful Jedi

....
Do you read your own quotes? Let's post it because it is so good for my case it deserves to be (4):



Fisto is indeed popular among the younglings, but the quote explicitly states they are "unaware that he's also among the order's fiercest fighters", meaning that they actually underestimate his combative capability. So:

Kit Fisto >> Student's perception of Kit Fisto ~ greatest of Jedi warriors

furthermore, your quote further add credibility to (3) because it states verbatim that he is "among the order's fiercest fighters", but to further add credence, remember that this was stated about Agen Kolar, Fisto's explicit inferior:
_{“Which would leave Mace and Agen Kolar-both among the greatest bladesbeings the Jedi Order had ever produced-here on Coruscant in case Sidious did indeed take this opportunity to make a dramatic move. Not to mention Anakin, who was a brigade's worth of firepower in his own right.”}

So it's definitely not out of the picture for Fisto to be among the order's greatest combatant.
--- --- ---
Now let's address Shaak Ti's hype:

Omni said:
Fisto has advanced control of the force and should not be underestimated in the dueling ring. This is nothing compared to Ti having legendary strength in the force, only the most skilled of the Order can even stand against her. She is also unlocked a lot later than Fisto

Being unlocked later doesn't necessitate superiority, and one of Fisto's quotes being less impressive than one of Ti's doesn't indicate his hype in general are weaker.
---

Omni said:
So you think she ”deceived” her way on to the council. Being the shining ligt of the council
Image
Doesn’t sound very deceitful to me

What a blatant strawman of my response*. What I said was she might've been chosen for the council due to her tactical abilities and the fact that she's cunning. Those are undeniably beneficial qualities for a Jedi but not necessarily directly correlated with combative prowess. My case was NOT that she "deceived" her way on to the council.

*Missed My Case Counter: 5
---

Omni said:
Being one of the great swordsbeings is not combative? Senior council members also have a stronger connection to the force than the other members
Although there were often some members of the Council considered to be senior to the others, these in fact had no more power, and all important decisions were always made with consultation of all 12 members. Jedi were regarded as senior only due to their connection to the Force and wisdom in interpreting its will.
So Ti being the 4th to be named after the 3 most senior is not unsubstantial. Her being one of 6 to judge Tano is not unsubstantial, same as for her being the light of the Jedi. This all speaks to a higher standing within the council. Higher standings within the council always being attributed to senior councilors

???
She was named after them... for her stylish grace, not her combat skills. I didn't say being one of the great swordsbeings is not combative*, but that she is not one of the great swordbeings, yet is merely graceful. A dancer is very stylish and graceful compared to an MMA fighter, but that doesn't mean the dancer will win in a fight. Ultimately, the fact that she was named alongside the 3 senior members doesn't mean that she is as combatively capable as them. In the same setting, Fisto is named next to Mace Windu and Yoda by Ferus Olin, and next to Windu by Grievous, so Fisto is superior to Shaak Ti?

*Missed My Case Counter: 6
---

Omni said:
The senior council members are the greatest Jedi masters, Ti being described in the same passage as having unquestionable greatness, being one the council members to judge Ahsoka over Tiin and Fisto who were also on planet. All of this is simply to showcase the possibility of Ti being one of these senior members

Once again, the greatest skill in debating is simply... reading your own quotes. In the very quote you provided for Shaak and Fisto's age, Fisto is also noted to have greater authority (5 to Shaak's 4).




So Fisto reached higher authority and seniority despite ascending on the council later? Which actually make sense since Obi Wan ascended on the council later than them both yet still is present at the hearing. Also citation needed that being the council members to judge Ahsoka is based on seniority? Arguments without evidence can be dismissed without evidence
--- --- ---
Here's an alternative interpretation of the hype being said on both sides. Kit Fisto is more of a 'pure warrior' archetype character, who doesn't have Shaak's subtle wills and her cunningness that gets her named as a "great Jedi" alongside Mace and Yoda as well as being chosen for Ahsoka's interrogation. He will never be selected for jobs like Ahsoka's interrogation because he isn't wise or cunning, he's just a warrior who is utterly devoted to martial arts. But he WILL be mentioned alongside Yoda or Mace as a warrior, as he did several times. To further steelman this, he was one of the last to leave the Geonosis arena alongside Yoda, Ki Adi Mundi, Mace Windu... the 3 Jedi conveniently listed alongside Plo Koon as the most senior members. The last who left are specifically noted to be the most physically able:





_{Three gunships in all settled closely around the Jedi survivors, and they gratefully leapt on board. Immediately, the more able-bodied Jedi such as Mace Windu and Ki-Adi-Mundi turned to deflect further fire from the hordes of droid forces, while clone troopers continued to mow down the scattered mechanical soldiers.}

Kit Fisto is consistently listed alongside the most combatively capable figures of the Jedi order whenever it comes to actual fighting prowess, while at best, Shaak Ti is noted for her subtle wiles and her cunningness. Now let's get into the crux of Omni's case.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

III. SCALING THRU GRIEVOUS:

A) Shaak Ti's performance:

Omni massively hypes up Shaak's performance against Grievous, so let's be clear what's actually happening here. It took Grievous 11 seconds to completely disarm Shaak Ti, knocking her completely unconscious and required healing in bacta tanks. Remember that it took Shaak Ti 14 seconds to defeat a single magnaguard (6:42-6:56). Reminder that Fisto blitzes a pair of magnaguard instantly:

<sub>To the rear of the car, where Grievous's pair of MagnaGuards had made the mistake of pitting themselves against Kit Fisto, the Nautolan's blade was a cyclone of blazing blue light. Resistant to the energy outpourings of a lightsaber, the phrik alloy staffs were potent weapons, but like any weapon they needed to find their target, and Kit simply wasn't allowing that. In moves a Twi'lek dancer might envy, he spun around the guards, claiming a limb from both with each rotation: left legs, right arms, right legs...

The speed of the train saw to the rest, ultimately whisking the droids into the canyon like insects blown from the windscreen of a speeder bike.</sub>

So surviving against Grievous for 11 seconds isn't indicative of anything. But let's add some *sauce* to this feat. For one thing, General Grievous consistently hold back against Jedi in fights, prolonging their demise and granting them the opportunity to land a few hits on him to protract his sadist enjoyment and award them "some measure of dignity":

<sub>Grievous enjoyed going against so many Jedi simultaneously. If time wasn't of the essence, he might have protracted the fight. Feinting with the blade in his right hand, he removed the head of one Jedi with the blade in his left.

Fear blossomed in the Twi'lek Jedi's dark eyes as she backed away. He had her on the run, poor thing. But he awarded her some measure of dignity by allowing her to land glancing blows on his forearms and shoulders. The burns did little more than add a new odor to the room.

As the Supreme Commander of the droid armies, cyborg General Grievous became an infamous threat... While his military tactics are brilliant, his own pride gets in the way of winning against Jedi in the end</sub>

This was shown in the fight here.

This is further backed up by the fact that he destroyed the strike team with "frightening ease" (Insider 83), "relative ease" (Insider 77), an ease that "none of them were prepared for" (The New Essential Chronology), and ultimately, "none of them stood a chance" (Insider 77):




Doing something with ease defined by collins dictionary as "easily, without difficulty or effort", and the state of ease is defined by dictionary.com as "a relaxed condition with an absence of effort or pressure". Grievous destroyed the Jedi while being in a state with an absence of effort, which by definition means he's holding back (i.e., not putting in full strength or effort). Moreover, the fact that Grievous allows his victims to prolong their defeat means that your specific quantification of the time it took for Shaak to lose is invalidated.

Just to zip it up, Shaak Ti is a user of Makashi, a form specifically created to prevent the user from being disarmed:

_{Sun djem is the ancient term for "disarming." Because relieving an opponent of his weapon or destroying it could win victory without causing injury, sun djem was particularly consistent with Jedi conduct and was the primary goal of early Form I masters. However, advances in Form II made sun djem extremely difficult in lightsaber-to-lightsaber combat, as all Form II masters trained to prevent themselves from being disarmed.}

So despite having a style specifically catered toward preventing the user from being disarmed, Shaak Ti was disarmed and KO'ed by a holding back GG with frightening ease despite GG holding back, while it takes Shaak Ti 14 seconds to kill a single magnaguard. :NO: :NO: :NO:

Weigh this performance against other characters as you consider their respective fights against Grievous.
---
Let's also discuss their second fight in 03 (link). Omni tried to debunk it:

Omni said:
Unhindered? Ti had just been fighting over a dozen Jedi Knigth+ level oppenents, taking hits that can kill or stun, and then after had to run an insane distance using force speed. Notice how she catches up to the bunker way faster than what the transport Palps and his protectors were using. Look at how fast the transport moved, then think about how much time it took for it to get to the bunker compared to Ti. She say she is unhindered is entirely untrue. Grievous even outright says “You are tired, Jedi”. Yet I’m the one who made a blatant lie?? You then cite a passage that allegedly says they didn’t stand a change, though all it in reality really tells us, as I covered before, that Anakin is beyond Shaak and Stass and that he feels he should have been there instead of them.

Great argument, I'm sure none of these circumstances apply to Grievous, who previously in the episode, tanked several force pushes from Shaak Ti, tanked the force bellow stated to be as powerful as any force blast, ran the same distance as the Jedi (including running down a wall while the Jedi were in the escalator), and then fought and slaughtered two elite Jedi. He would certainly be in the best of states. Force blast quote BTW:

_{"An Ithorian Jedi Master trained by Yarael Poof, he had two throats which generated a deep guttural language. Combined with his mental skills, his voice could be as powerful as any Force blast."}
--- --- ---

B) GRIEVOUS' GROWTH:

I want to preface this by saying that this is not a point of dispute: Omni has agreed with Grievous' massive growth and alludes to it in his own post:

Omni said:
Revanist goes on to talk a lot about a bunch of TCW Grievous’ fights, however none of these matter, as the two Grievous are not the same strength at all. As shown in the Mace fight, Grievous grow at an incredible rate, and 03 Grievous is beyond the Rots Grievous that TCW grew massively to reach, so none of these fights shown matter. Also, once again

So the purpose of this section is just to put an argument on the record and make sure the judges know the extent of his growth. Grievous grows stronger after every right, having the ability to analyze his opponent's skillset and counter them, as well as incorporating them into his own:

<sub>The loss of his confederates was noted by whatever computers were slaved to Grievous's organic brain, but the loss neither distracted nor slowed him. His sole setting was attack. Successful at analyzing Mace's lightsaber style, those same computers suggested that Grievous alter his stance and posture, along with the angle of his parries, ripostes, and thrusts.

Mace had told him how the computers slaved to Grievous's brain had apparently analyzed even Mace's unconventionally lethal Vaapad and had been able to respond in kind after a single exchange.

"He must have been trained by Count Dooku," Mace had said, "so you can expect Makashi as well; given the number of Jedi he has fought and slain, you must expect that he can attack in any style, or all of them.</sub>

As Omni noted, GG can do this midfight against Mace's incredibly unpredictable Vaapad, so the extent of this growth is massive. By the end of the TCW, GG has murdered hundreds of Jedi, so by his S5 fight against Obi Wan for example, he probably would've gotten dozens already. Aside from this, he also has endless spars with Dooku, doubtlessly improving his combative collection as well:

<sub>In his wake, Grievous left a trail of dissected Jedi, as many as 100 whom he personally killed, including several of those who originally cut short his havoc at the Huk colony world Tovarski.

GRIEVOUS: I’ve lost count of how many Jedi I’ve killed.
GRIEVOUS: My lightsaber collection grows larger by the day.

GRIEVOUS: I will not rest until I perfect my lightsaber skills.
GRIEVOUS: Your endless training sessions grow tiresome, Count.
DOOKU: The Jedi never stop training, and neither will you.</sub>

The likes of Adi Gallia and Obi Wan would be fighting an infinitely stronger GG than Shaak Ti did on Hypori.
--- --- ---

C) Kit Fisto's performance

Nothing much to say here. I agree Grievous was weakened in their fight, and I agree that Fisto barely won. But I want to stress that despite the circumstances, Fisto is still the only one who won out of the fights mentioned. You can't quantify which is more impressive: barely beating a weaker Grievous VS losing to a stronger Grievous - I see no reason to think Adi Gallia's performance against Grievous is more impressive than Fisto's. Multiple sources allude to Fisto overpowering GG or pushing him back:

<sub>Grievous extends all four arms and spins a quartet of lightsabers into deadly fanblades of energy. Fisto holds off the general, using the fog to his advantage as he disappears into the mist between blows. Fisto shears off one of Grievous' hands, reclaiming that lightsaber. He then begins to overpower the general, at which point Grievous' bodyguards enter the fray.

Kit smiled as he ignited the second lightsaber and attacked Grievous with dual strikes. The Jedi Master’s expertise began to drive Grievous back. He maneuvered quickly, flipping and blocking Grievous’s attacks with great skill. Grievous was on the retreat when the MagnaGuards appeared on the landing.</sub>

For another, Vebb, who by all intents and purposes is far below Fisto, manages to hold up against Grievous for 20 seconds and only lost due to Grievous surprising him with his other limbs. On a pure performance impressiveness basis (i.e., excluding outside context), his performance is far more impressive than Shaak Ti's. (2:10-2:30)
--- --- ---

D) Adi Gallia

** IMPORTANT **

Before we start, Leland Chee has established that all parts of Obsession surrounding the Grievous/Gallia duel are rendered N-canon due to T-canon retconning Gallia's death. To be clear, the scaling between Shaak Ti and Adi Gallia is entirely based on the Obsessions duel, the fact that it was retconned means that Shaak doesn't scale above Gallia... but what about the other way around?
---
Omni provided these quotes but let's provide them again. In their first fight, Gallia managed to gain an upper hand, pushing Grievous back and lands a kick that that knocks him over. Multiple OOU sources allude to the fact that Grievous was forced away by Adi Gallia's skill, stating that Gallia "gains the upper hand in their duel" (The Clone Wars: New Battlefronts Visual Guide), "Her skills with a lightsaber sends the cyborg running" (Jedi Heroes), and that Grievous "managed to escape" (Relaunched Fact File 25). This duel is undoubtedly a superior performance to Shaak Ti getting obliterated after 11 seconds.

https://streamable.com/f1d23m



---
In their second duel, Adi Gallia was dispatched and kicked to a wall after briefly pushing Grievous back, clashing multiple times. While this is not as impressive as Fisto outright winning their fight, she still retains the ability to continue fighting afterwards, so it's still far more impressive than Shaak Ti.

https://streamable.com/9aciop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XQjY_GI8hw&pp=ygUeYWRpIGdhbGxpYSB2cyBnZW5lcmFsIGdyaWV2b3Vz

Let's go over the excuses commonly used against this argument.
---
A) 03 Grievous > TCW Grievous

Omni's go-to response. Unfortunately, Grievous Intrigue, the episode where Gallia dueled Grievous, is exactly the video where they decided to combine GG's caution Post-ROTS with his combative prowess Pre-ROTS:



B) Shaak Ti was weakened

This is valid, but Grievous was also juggling between the strike team of 6 Jedi before 1v1ing Shaak Ti. While there's no way of objectively quantifying her exhaustion, I don't think it offsets Grievous' massive IU growth and Gallia's infinitely better performance.

Both of Adi Gallia's duels against Grievous are better than Shaak Ti, and this is against a vastly stronger Grievous as well.
---
As an addendum, the fact that S2 Adi Gallia is vastly superior to Hypori!Shaak Ti also invalidates the Savage scaling, as Savage defeated Gallia (link) with it being stated that "all her skill no match for his enormous strength" (Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy), so S5 Savage > S5 Gallia > S2 Gallia >> Hypori!Shaak Ti
--- --- --- --- ---

E) Durge

Omni said:
So that line still may hold
You then go on to claim that my analysis of Grievous versus Durge and Ventress is narrow, however you only post Durge punching Grievous once and out of context. Let me explain how Durge was able to land that hit
Durge and Asajj runs at Grievous. Grievous literally swipes Asajj aside, so, a speedblitz
Image
Image
Then Durge throws an electrocuting rope at Grievous
Image
First off, objects thrown tends to move a lot faster than the person doing the throwing, so not much of an anti-feat. This electrocution doesn’t just hit some of his electronics, but also his brain. Ventress then slashes his back
Image
She came from behind, Grievous isn’t force sensitive, so he can’t exactly detect. Again, not an anti-feat. Grievous makes a sound of pain. And then, and only then, does Durge punch him. This Grievous has just taken a beating, and therefore Durge managing to hit this incapacitated Grievous is not an anti feat. Right after getting punched across the room
Image
Grievous has a change to recover and then completely speedblitzes Durge
Image
Image
So I find your analysis of their fight very narrow

Grievous was indeed taking a beating... that ignores the beating he already gave Durge prior to the fight even began:








It definitely seems disingenuous of you to cite the fact that Shaak Ti got electrocuted as one of the justifications for her getting one-shotted by Grievous in 03, yet gloss over the fact that Durge got electrocuted, choked, and then thrown with such kinetic energy that it cracked several statues. Hypocritical that you take some beatings as important context that can change the dynamic of duels (i.e., Grievous' injuries against Fisto, Shaak Ti's exhaustion in Hypori, her injuries against Grievous in their final duel etc.), but outright ignore other context of characters like Durge suffering beatings far more potent than the ones listed above yet slander me for having a narrow analysis of their duel. Not very nice :heh:. Regardless, let's quantify the extent of Durge's injuries! For one thing, the electrocution he suffered is per your admission a game-changer for Shaak Ti getting one-shotted by Grievous' face grab, as you yourself pointed out that they can stun or kill. For another, Grievous grabbing Durge by the neck and throwing him really hard is the same move that utterly sodomized Tarr Seir in the Hypori duel. Obviously Durge is more tanky than fodder like Seir, but the fact that he is damaged by 2 attacks that you yourself throw around as some game-changer definitely means that you can't objectively quantify whether Shaak TI's performance is as impressive as Durge's. Remember that you need to prove definitively that Shaak Ti's performance is indicative of combative supremacy over Durge for your scaling to stand. Moreover, the comic itself didn't treat the injuries he took at the start as some random context either. You can clearly see his eyes smoking (which continued after GG threw him) and after landing his entire body is smoking.

https://youtu.be/64-3talVkUA?si=bETPPPHRWtqK-5_F&t=595



Despite the context listed above, Durge is still capable of landing hits on GG. Like the electric line move or the punch he got on him. GG was indeed distracted by Ventress, but Shaak Ti landed zero hits on GG despite the fact that GG is also juggling other combatants like Ki Adi Mundi, so that excuse is going nowhere as well. Shaak Ti relying on Makashi to hold against GG purely defensively for 11 seconds is NOT better than Durge taking a beating before the fight starts and yet still cause substantial damage to Grievous. And Durge isn't a lightsaber user and doesn't have the means of defending against GG's blitz move. It's also worth noting that GG didn't reveal his lightsaber until he blitzes Durge, so Durge was not expecting to be facing a lightsaber-wielding foe. Note that similarly Kit Fisto is also capable of slicing off Durge's arm, so it does prove that Durge has a stylistic disadvantage in the kind of scenarios.

Just to zip it up, Kit Fisto and Plo Koon just went through an extensive process of quelling a massive prison uprising before their duel with Durge, so not in the best conditions either:





And at the very best, this argument, like many others you have thrown around, can simply be dismissed by "Muh Fisto grew!!" :wut: :wut: :wut:
---
Now let's do some counter-scaling. Obi Wan a few months after AOTC was capable of beating Durge in a relatively short duel, blocking and deflecting all his attacks, disarming him (literally), and cutting his head off. A few months after that Kit Fisto was beating Obi Wan in spars despite intentionally hindering himself, and proves that he is the superior swordsfighter. He also moves fast enough to baffle Obi Wan's gaze:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knGGP-kUIQQ

<sub>Obi-Wan and Kit had been engaged for an hour now, each seeking holes in the other’s defense. Obi-Wan swiftly discovered that Kit was the better swordfighter, astonishingly aggressive and intuitive in comparison with Obi-Wan’s more measured style. But the Nautolan gave himself deliberate disadvantages, hampered himself in terms of balance, limited his speed, emphasized his nondominant side to force himself to full attention, the kind of full attention that can be best accessed only when life itself is at risk. To relax and feel the flow of the Force under such stress was the true road to mastery.

For hours the two danced without music, at first falling into a preplanned series of moves and countermoves learned in the Temple under Master Yoda’s tutelage. As they grew more accustomed to each other’s rhythms, they progressed into a flowing web of spontaneous engagement. Slowly, minute by minute, they increased pace, stuttered the rhythm, increasing the acuteness of attack angles and beginning to utilize feints and distractions, binds, rapid changes in level, and to introduce random environmental elements into the interaction:, furniture, walls, slippery floors. To an observer it would have seemed that the two were trying to slaughter each other, but the two knew that they were engaged in the most profound and enjoyable aspect of Jedi play, lightsaber flow.
......
Kit’s emerald lightsaber blade was here, there, everywhere: unpredictable, irresistible. The spinning energy disks no longer absorbed the strikes: now they merely deflected them, sparks raining in all directions. Kit accelerated into a blur of motion complex and rapid enough to baffle even Obi-Wan’s experienced gaze. The Nautolan Jedi’s lightsaber wove between the energy shields, descending on the JK’s housing for the first time. The droid emitted a painfully thin shriek. Its gleaming legs shivered.It collapsed to the sand. It twitched, struggling to rise. And then then spilled onto its side spewing smoke and sparks.</sub>

So CD!Kit Fisto >(>) CD!Obi Wan Kenobi > 03 Chapter 8!Obi Wan Kenobi > 03 Chapter8!Durge
--- --- --- --- ---

F) Obi Wan Kenobi

Let's preface this argument with that single quote that debunks your case:


- Fact File Relaunched 69

Self-explanatory quote. They "often fought to a stalemate" because they are "so equally matched...as warriors" until Obi Wan "eventually" learn how to "best the cyborg". The implication of this quote is that the two have similar growth rates and remained as equals all the way till ROTS where Obi Wan finally got the upper hand. This is supported by the fact that they "[fought on] several occasions. Each time proved to be inconclusive" (The Official Star Wars Fact File Volume 2 #3). The OOU commentary on their various duels support this as well. Their S1 duel on the Malevolance was described as a "dramatic duel atop a moving supply train." (The Official Star Wars Fact File Relaunched #72), where Grievous' "Brute force is nearly a match for Kenobi's skills" (The Clone Wars - Ultimate Battles). In their duel in Grievous Intrigue, "Kenobi fought Grievous to a standstill" (The Official Star Wars Fact File Relaunched #69). Their duel on Utapau was described as "epic, explosive and ferocious". It is clear to me that aside from the cherrypicked duel picked out by Omni, Kenobi matches Grievous in every single duel they fight. Here is a link to all of their fights for anyone interested. If Omni objects to this idea, I will do a hyper-analyze on every single duel to evaluate who does better if needed.

<sub>Obi-Wan and Grievous often fought to a stalemate when they clashed, so evenly matched were they as warriors.


Kenobi fought Grievous to a standstill, while Skywalker and Gallia rescued their comrade.


Obi-Wan would cross blades with the cyborg leader General Grievous a number of times during the conflict.


Aboard the cyborg Separatist commander General Grievous' wounded flagship the Malevolance, Obi-Wan and Grievous fought a dramatic duel atop a moving supply train.</sub>






Obi Wan consistently performs better than Shaak Ti against vastly stronger Grievous thru-out TCW.
---

Omni said:
Meanwhile an inferior Grievous’ speed forces Rots Obi-Wan to shift from pure defense, to use his defense offensively, as his defense had been overloaded. This defense was overloaded in less than 10 seconds
https://youtu.be/xaBiygfkudk?t=75
So Obi-Wan’s defense is overloaded faster than a weakened Ti by a lesser opponent through speed, while it was the strength of one of Grievous’ blows that gave her the loss, not the velocity, which gives us.
-
My argument for Ti here is about speed not dueling skill. Obi has the skill to turn his defense into offense when his defense get’s broken. My argument is simply that Ti defended herself when weakened against a stronger Grievous in a similar amount of time that Obi did, defending better against Grievous than Crystal Crises or s5 Obi, which means she has insane strength and speed. Revanist goes on to talk a lot about a bunch of TCW Grievous’ fights, however none of these matter, as the two Grievous are not the same strength at all. As shown in the Mace fight, Grievous grow at an incredible rate, and 03 Grievous is beyond the Rots Grievous that TCW grew massively to reach, so none of these fights shown matter. Also, once again

This is, for the lack of a better word, retarded. Obi Wan is capable of turning defense into offense and overpower Grievous, Shaak Ti is capable of desperately holding against him for a brief amount of time before getting KO'ed. They are not feats on the same level and you're just reaching. As previously covered, Obi Wan can contend with Grievous just fine.
--- --- --- --- ---

G) Sum-up:

Shaak Ti:
Manage to defend against Grievous for 11 seconds while fighting purely defensively, then got disarmed and knocked out and would've died if not for a bacta-tank, landed NO attacks on Grievous

Kit Fisto:
Actually won against Grievous, overpowering him, taking out his salvos and managed to escape when his magnaguards joined in

Nahdar Vebb:
Defended against Grievous' assault for 20 seconds before he was cheap-shotted by Grievous' additional limbs

Adi Gallia:
Gained an upper-hand in their first fight, manage to defend against Grievous yet was kicked to a wall in their second, doesn't lose conscious, can still fight afterwards

Durge:
Got pummeled by Grievous at the start of their fight yet still landed some shots in before losing

Obi Wan Kenobi:
Consistently fights Grievous to in-conclusion and stalemate, which is constantly attributed to the fact that they are equal warriors

There are a lot of other circumstances at play here, Shaak Ti's exhaustion/the prior injuries and exhaustion of other combatants, Grievous' insane IU growth, specific stylistic match-ups etc., but purely commenting on their performance, Kit Fisto is the only one who actually won, while Shaak Ti is the only one who landed no shots and completely lost the capacity to fight afterwards, while defending against him for the shortest time span. I personally think any and all definitive scaling based on performance against Grievous is utterly unquantifiable due to external factors, but on a pure impressiveness unit Fisto is definitely coming out looking much better than Shaak Ti.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

IV. OTHER SCALING:

A) AOTC Anakin:

Omni said:
When it comes to padawan Anakin, Fisto is only able to win against Maul by keeping his cool and wearing Maul down, as Maul is relentless and his attacks are frantic, when padawan Anakin in comparison, per Gillard, would cream Maul

Gillard says all sorts of things, but one of the most consistent ones is that AOTC Anakin is out of Maul's tier. On one hand he has stated that Anakin is a tier 7 in AOTC, but for another he thinks Anakin jumps 4 level from AOTC to ROTS, meaning he would be a tier 4/5 in AOTC:

_{"Obi-Wan has gone up one level from Episode I to Episode III, but it’s a huge jump from one level to another. It’s not just about a style of fighting—it’s mental as well. Anakin has gone up probably four levels from Episode II to Episode III. So he’s gone beyond Obi-Wan, but he hasn’t gone beyond him mentally."}

So clearly Gillard's tier system doesn't reflect Anakin "creaming" Maul. That's not to say I consider everything Gillard say to be binding facts, but you bring him up, so I wanted to clarify his intent. Gillard has Anakin surpassing Obi Wan in ROTS but not above him mentally, but as you pointed out also says Anakin is more skilled, so it really is a whole lot of inconsistent mess. Gillard's tier would yield Maul being 3-4 tiers beyond AOTC Anakin and AOTC Obi Wan 2 tiers beyond as well. Trying to base your case on the obvious inconsistency of Gillard doesn't work well for any definitive arguments. Moreover, Anakin's growth rate along the TCW should absolutely shit on Obi Wan, since he is the chosen one with unparalleled midichlorian counts as well as having went up 4 levels thru-out TCW while Obi Wan only did 1. So the notion that AOTC Anakin would "cream" Fisto isn't really consistent with the quotes alluding to Obi Wan being on similar levels with Anakin thru-out TCW ("Years of fighting side-by-side left these warriors evenly matched, and their exhausting duel crossed the fiery landscape of a Mustafar refinery.") (Lightsabers: A Guide to the Weapons of the Force). How is AOTC Obi Wan significantly below AOTC Anakin but operates on similar levels with him in ROTS despite Anakin growing significantly faster? Shouldn't the gap between them be multiple stomp gaps now? Using Gillard intent just doesn't make sense.

Omni said:
In-game dialogue is not the same as game mechanics. Revanist posts this clip to debunk me:
https://youtu.be/AnZ4U8lumrI
However this is in the context on whether or not Obi is ready for the Jedi trials, so in this context it is something other padawans has to go through as well. It is a simple test, not an actual all out duel from Mace’s side. And even if it is

Once again you misunderstand my case*. Your response actually supports it, as it indicates that sparring sessions are not necessarily an indication of actual skill, and can be used as tests or trials, so thank you for supporting my I guess?

*Missed My Case Counter: 7?

But if you want an example of a *real* sparring session, here's Fisto beating Mace in spars (hinted to be more than once?):

<sub>“I am honoured to be one of the small number of Jedi who have bested you in lightsaber combat, Master Windu.”

“I can count on my tentacles the number of times I have beaten you.”</sub>
---

Omni said:
When was Obi ever relative to Anakin? Notice how Anakin performs way better against Dooku when fighting him alone than when fighting him alongside Savage. There is a statement from the UK magazine talking about Jedi sometime getting in each other’s way, showing their fight against Savage specifically

They were relative here (1,2) where they fought as equals in a spar which you take as absolute evidence. Obi Wan also matched Mustafar Vader despite that Vader being beyond BO ROTS Anakin in raw power ("he was still a nine) because he is beyond him mentally.

So AOTC Anakin doesn't scale above Fisto, and if he does, that's fine since Shaak Ti doesn't scale above Anakin anyways.

--- --- --- --- ---

B) TPM Maul:

I want to preface this by noting that the Fisto > Maul case is not built entirely on the H2H quote. Kit Fisto's acceleration is enough to "baffle baffle even Obi-Wan’s experienced gaze" (Cestus Deception) while a vastly weaker Obi Wan can react to and track Darth Maul's attacks (The Phantom Menace). Moreover, Kit Fisto is also capable of defending against and tracking ROTS Sidious' attacks in their duel in the office, while a vastly weaker SIdious in TPM "moves faster than my [Maul] eye can follow" and giga-blitzes him to the extent that Maul noted "One flinch, one involuntary twitch of a muscle, and I am dead" (Star Wars: Episode I Journal - Darth Maul)

<sub>Suddenly, my lightsaber is gone. It flies from my hand across the room. It lands in the hand of my Master.

I never see him enter. Not if he doesn't want me to.

The smile of triumph fades from my face.

"Do you think, " Lord Sidious says, walking toward me, "you can ever relax your guard?"

"No, Master. " What a clumsy, weak mistake. I should be prepared for him to enter at all times. How could I have forgotten that, even for a moment?

The lightsaber whirls in the air, twirling, held in my Master's hand. I can't track it, it moves so fast. But I know it's heading for me.

Lord Sidious moves faster than my eye can follow. I smell heat and smoke. The laser traces the outline of my body, my face, my hands. The buzz is loud in my ear. One flinch, one involuntary twitch of a muscle, and I am dead.

I do not flinch.

At last, Lord Sidious deactivates my weapon. He tosses it toward me. The sweat on my palm almost causes me to drop it.

"Do not let me see you relax your guard again, " my Master says. His eyes burn. "You are valuable, yes. But you are not indispensable, Lord Maul. I can do without you."

A flick of his robe, and he is gone.

Kit’s emerald lightsaber blade was here, there, everywhere: unpredictable, irresistible. The spinning energy disks no longer absorbed the strikes: now they merely deflected them, sparks raining in all directions. Kit accelerated into a blur of motion complex and rapid enough to baffle even Obi-Wan’s experienced gaze. The Nautolan Jedi’s lightsaber wove between the energy shields, descending on the JK’s housing for the first time. The droid emitted a painfully thin shriek. Its gleaming legs shivered.It collapsed to the sand. It twitched, struggling to rise. And then then spilled onto its side spewing smoke and sparks.</sub>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsAEdblcqU4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv4oiZ8aoCM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bld5_wD-Vjc

That is not accounting for Palpatine's innocent appearance and his dark side confusion haze, which is noted in the novelization where Fisto and Mace were taken by shock and only had time to raise their sabers before getting attacked by Sidious

<sub>His innocent appearance as Chancellor Palpatine, along with an application of a concentrated dark side confusion haze, enabled Darth Sidious to take down Agen Kolar, Kit Fisto, and Saesee Tiin.

“He pitched forward onto his face, and lay still.

Palpatine stood at the doorway, but the door stayed shut. From his right hand extended a blade the color of fire.
The door locked itself at his back.

"Help! Help!" Palpatine cried like a man in desperate fear for his life. "Security-someone! Help me! Murder! Treason!"

Then he smiled.

He held one finger to his lips, and, astonishingly, he winked.

In the blank second that followed, while Mace Windu and Kit Fisto could do no more than angle their lightsabers to guard, Palpatine swiftly stepped over the bodies back toward his desk, reversed his blade, and drove it in a swift, surgically precise stab down through his desktop.
"That's enough of that."

He let it burn its way free through the front, then he turned, lifting his weapon, appearing to study it as one might study the face of a beloved friend one has long thought dead. Power gathered around him until the Force shimmered with darkness.

"If you only knew," he said softly, perhaps speaking to the Jedi Masters, or perhaps to himself, or perhaps even to the scarlet blade lifted now as though in mocking salute, "how long I've been waiting for this..."</sub>

Despite Palpatine's confusion haze and Fisto's shock at the death of his comrades, he still manages to defend against Sidious and block several of his attacks, while Maul is incapable of tracking a single one.
---
1. TPM Maul's Scalings:

Omni said:
Barely? I think you may have highlighted the wrong parts of this passage
Maul had grown more powerful since the last time he’d been in Sidious’s presence, before the Neimoidian invasion of Naboo had turned disastrous and Obi-Wan had bested him inside the Theed power core. His hermitage on Lotho Minor, his lessons on Unbara, his restoration by Mother Talzin, and his training of Savage had all strengthened him, made him a more worthy vessel for the Dark Side to fill with its power.
Maul is now more powerful than in TPM, “his hermitage on Lotho Minor, his lessons on Umbara, his restoration by Mother Talzin, and his training of savage”, all of these events had made him stronger than TMP , “made him a more worthy vessel for the dark side”. So, what about this is barely. Also, this is talking about Revival Maul, not season 4
“But we do get that ultimate dark warrior that we were hoping to see back” and “Maul is fully recovered in the timeframe of the story”, even if this limits s4 Maul to TMP it does not apply to Revival Maul. You then cite sources that says Maul is a bit broken and can’t instantly be the badass from TMP, however that doesn’t matter to me, as that is talking about s4 Maul, who is not the same as Revival Maul, despite your claims

I'm sorry this is absolutely baffling to me. In your case, you stated that:

Omni said:
Savage lost his arm when fighting Obi earlier in the season. Losing your limbs makes you weaker
"Anakin, as Skywalker, as a human being, was going to be extremely powerful," George Lucas explained in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2005. "But he ended up losing his arms and a leg and became partly a robot. So a lot of his ability to use the Force, a lot of his powers, are curbed at this point, because, as a living form, there’s not that much of him left."
We don’t know if the daily growth statement made by Dooku is still applicable at this point, or even if that daily growth closed the gap made by the loss of an entire arm, that had been enhanced by nightsister magicks. So that gives us Revival Savage > late s5 Savage > B-team members. Throw this into my previous chains involving Savage

In your post, you agreed that losing your limbs makes you weaker, and you posit that Savage is incapable of growing further because he lost his limbs, and that power loss outweighs potential growth. Despite this, you seem to think that Maul lost NO power despite being CUT IN HALF and that he can grow past his TPM state by revival? What a hilarious double standard. But just to nip that in the bud here, I'm glad you bring up Vader. George Lucas has confirmed in nearly a dozen sources that Vader lost a significant amount of power due to his injuries on Mustafar:


<sub>The Emperor saw in Luke Skywalker a better servant than his father. Luke was young and powerful, while Darth Vader had become a shadow of the man he once was. Palpatine played the two Skywalkers against each other, and in the end, Luke defeated his father.

Strikingly, in the story of Anakin Skywalker, the hero must fall from grace -- then later redeem himself -- in order to fulfil the prophecy. Thus, Darth Vader becomes a 'fallen angel' figure. From being the most powerful Jedi, a 'fearless hero ' of the Republic, Anakin falls to the lowest possible point because of his desire for power and security.</sub>

As I kid, I had always imagined that whatever transformed Anakin into Vader had actually made him more powerful... But when we were working on The Force Unleashed at LucasArts, George Lucas told us that after Revenge of the Sith the Emperor views Vader as "broken" and believes that

Anakin's physical transformation into Vader has left him weaker and less useful. The idea that Vader is somehow less powerful than Anakin

really depressed me

<sub>Vader would’ve become infinitely more powerful if he hadn’t ended up his suit, if he hadn’t become half man, half machine which diminishes his powers considerably.

This notion was driven in part from conversations with George Lucas. He explained that after Anakin's devastating defeat in Episode III, the Emperor views Darth Vader as broken, his once formidable connection to the Force weakened by the fact that his body is largely cybernetic and inorganic. Thus, it made sense to us that the Emperor would find and train a replacement.

Now he's half-machine and half-man so he's lost a lot of the power of the Force and a lot of his ability to become more powerful than the Emperor.

Obi-Wan trained Anakin in the ways of the Force, but Skywalker was impatient with the Jedi’s painstaking methods. Skywalker let himself be embraced by the rapturous power of the dark side into the Sith Lord Darth Vader. Kenobi tried to draw him back to the light side, but they engaged in a duel on Mustafar that ultimately ended with Skywalker’s body being consumed by flame. The shell of a man who emerged was sustained by specially built armor and a breathing apparatus.

Darth Vader was encased in sinister black armor. The man underneath was mortally wounded in a lightsaber duel, and the dark suit includes extensive machinery to keep Vader alive. The sounds of his mechanical lungs accompany his every step. Such injuries greatly diminished his ability to use the Force, but Vader is still very powerful.

And when he finds out Luke is his son, his first impulse is to figure out a way of getting him to join him to kill the Emperor. That’s what Siths do! He tries it with anybody he thinks might be more powerful, which is what the Emperor was looking for in the first place: somebody who would be more powerful than he was and could help him rule the universe. 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.</sub>

This is important because Dave Filoni explicitly compared Darth Maul's fall to Vader's stating that Maul was "broken", "kind of in the Vader realm", and "a bit severed from what he knew". Much like Vader, Maul getting cut in half would also result in him losing a significant part of his power, which is why after Talzin's ritual, he was explicitly "restored to his former powers" (Sith Hunters), meaning that post-ritual!Maul just got back the powers he lost in TPM. This makes sense given every source regarding the ritual calls it a "restoration" or a "revival", which isn't consistent with the theory that they made him blow past his former TPM powers. Moreover, despite regaining his powers, S4 Maul is still a weaker overall combatant per Filoni, stating he "still wasn't quite Phantom Menace Maul, flipping all over the place – and he didn't have a double-sided lightsaber. Was that something else where you thought, "He can't just instantly be that badass again"". What is important though is that immediately after Sith Hunters stated that he was restored to his former powers, he placed a combat ready Kenobi in a force choke. The same Kenobi btw, who is consistently stalemating a Grievous who is much stronger than Hypori!Grievous who stomped Shaak Ti.

<sub>And then Savage is a very poorly trained Dark Side wielder. He's all... He's all aggression and power. He's kind of like the Hulk - but he doesn't have a lot of discipline, he doesn't have a lot of know how. Maul is a super dangerous threat because he’s been trained for years, he’s really adept, but he’s broken. So he’s kind of in the Vader-realm, and he’s a bit severed from what he knew, which was having a master, but he’s well trained by Sidious in all types of Sith ways, not the least of which is manipulation.

IGN: With Maul, I felt it was a bit like you approached Boba Fett. Maul got rebuilt, he got back his sanity and focus – but he still wasn't quite Phantom Menace Maul, flipping all over the place – and he didn't have a double-sided lightsaber. Was that something else where you thought, "He can't just instantly be that badass again"?
Filoni: Definitely. In my opinion, he did really well for being out of the business for about ten years. To come back in and take down Obi-Wan, leaping around on velociraptor legs, he did pretty good. It's an interesting dilemma having him on these weird legs, because he can't instantly fight in the style that you remember Maul fighting in. So Sam really had to bring it through voice and through expression of animation in the face. But there's some twists coming up for Maul, that's for sure. He's far more cunning and well-trained in how to be a Sith than people think. He's not just all about being an enforcer. He got a good education from his master, and we're going to put that into effect next season for sure.</sub>





This... doesn't seem very consistent with the notion that S4 Obi Wan is stomp gaps beyond TPM Maul? Even if I grant you that this doesn't necessarily put Maul beyond Obi Wan combatively, it still disproves your scaling chain and arguably puts TPM Maul far beyond Shaak Ti as well.

2. TPM Maul's aesthetics

Beyond just the scaling mentioned above, I don't think you can handwave TPM Maul's aesthetics either. He is a killing machine trained from birth to be the ultimate Sith warrior, who is exposed to the grand totality of the Banite knowledge and supposed to inherit the Rule of Two. Savage is a random tool in the tool box by Dooku and is an illegitimate apprentice. I would argue that when considering Maul vs Savage, the vast majority of authors would default to this fundamental aesthetic behind the characters and not some obscure Insider comparisons. Maul's narrative intent is just much higher than your Savage/Ventress. Some quotes affirming Maul's aesthetics:

Maul has fought Sidious many times, bearing the scars of the past duels:

<sub>Maul had fought his Master many times, starting when he was little more than a child and continuing through his apprenticeship. His body bore innumerable scars from those duels—lessons in the peril of being too slow or two quick, too weak or too distracted. During Maul’s apprenticeship he had always known that Sidious had been willing to kill him. The Sith had not survived their centuries of exile by being sentimental, and a student who couldn’t stand against his Master in a mere training exercise was worse than useless—he was a waste of valuable resources better used elsewhere. But Maul had never faced his Master when he was actually trying to kill him.

“As a Sith apprentice, Maul trained against many foes, from combat droids and savage beasts to the toughest adversary of all―Darth Sidious himself.”</sub>

Was trained from birth to perfect the art of the lightsaber combat, to make his weapon an extension of his limb, to be the blade that cuts down the Jedi order, the inheritance of the Banite line, etc.
<sub>"Where Darth Sidious was a strategist, his fearsome apprentice Darth Maul was a blazing lightsaber aimed directly at the heart of the Jedi Order. A Zabrak born on the world of lridonia, the child who would one day be known as Darth Maul was taken offworld and indoctrinated into the ways of the Dark Side, trained by Darth Sidious in not only Sith lore, but in the Jedi arts. Any display of fear on his part was punished with vicious retribution. Any hint of mercy in his character was rewarded with severe cruelty. One those rare occasions when he relaxed his guard, his master nearly killed him to remind him that a Sith can never afford a moment of rest. After years of this kind of treatment, Darth Maul was absolutely ruthless - a perfect Sith weapon. By the time he reached adolescence, Darth Maul was already a hardened, remorseless killer."

"You have made him fearsome," Plagueis remarked without turning from the recording, as the athletic Zabrak cleaved a Colicoid Eradicator droid down the middle and whirled to cut two others in half. The yellow-eyed humanoid's hairless head bore a crown of small horns and geometrical patterns of black and red markings.

"Fearless, as well," Sidious said.
[...]
Plagueis spent a long moment observing the holorecording. The Zabrak's fists and legs were as lethal as his lightsaber, and his speed was astounding.

“He is a prideful one, the Zabrak, is he not? As excellent as he is in combat, it must be incredibly difficult for him to show restraint in not using the Force.”

"A deadly combatant and powerful Sith Lord, Maul spent his entire life in servitude to the dark side of the Force. Taken from his home at a very early age by Darth Sidious, Maul was trained mercilessly in all forms of the Sith arts, becoming the living embodiment of evil."

A weapon forged by the hateful energies of the dark side to ensure the victory of the Sith over the Jedi Order. A creature of pure evil, Maul had no personality beyond his ultimate devotion to his master, Darth Sidious. His goal was singular-to exact revenge upon the Jedi for the decimation of the Sith ranks.

No one knows how Darth Sidious came across his young and deadly apprentice. He was raised from a young age to be a weapon, tempered by harsh, abusive training to become an incredible warrior.</sub>

Noted thrice to be the ultimate Sith warrior in the galaxy, proving that they are back deadlier than ever:

<sub>"Thus far your apprenticeship has been impeccable. You have never wavered in your intent, and you have executed your tasks flawlessly. Your skill as a sword master is peerless."

Alone in his secret chambers, Darth Sidious meditated on this latest set of circumstances.
In many ways Darth Maul was an exemplary acolyte. His loyalty was unquestionable and unshakable; Sidious knew that, if he were to command it, Maul would sacrifice his life without a second’s hesitation. And his skills as a warrior were nonpareil.

“The battle began in the hangar. Darth Maul activated his double-ended lightsaber, a weapon he fashioned himself under my supervision. In his hands this weapon was flawless - or so I thought.”</sub>



Savage/Ventress are second-rate Sith treated as tools by Sidious' schemes. They are never supposed to inherit the Banite line, never supposed to become true Sith. In fact this was directly stated:

_{None would be trained sufficiently to be a threat to Darth Bane's insistence that there only be two Sith, nor would they be a threat to Darth Sidious or his apprentice Darth Vader. The most powerful of these agents were 'only' Sith adepts but would appear to be almost as dark Jedi - the likes of Asajj Ventress, Mara Jade or Inquisitor Valin (in fact a fallen Jedi). The lesser agents were reduced to still-deadly faceless minions. Amongst their ranks were the Shadow Guard.}

Sith adepts like Savage Oppress and Asajj Ventress are not threats to the Banite Sith simply because they are not powerful enough. The gap between a 'true sith' and a secondary 'Sith adapt' is massive, you simply cannot ignore that gap as well as all the intuition stuff between somebody trained to perfection from birth VS somebody who got trained for a few months? weeks?

Kit Fisto scales above TPM Maul who's above Savage/Ventress narrative wise and at least peers with Sith HunterMaul scaling wise
--- --- --- --- ---

C) Ahsoka Tano

I'm sorry this argument is so bad that the thought of debunking it is making me physically sick. So I'll save it for the next post. A short TL;DR of upcoming rebuttals that will be sourced later is:
1. The act of saving somebody is lingered through-out Star Wars and doesn't indicate superior speed
2. Superior speed is not indicative of superior power
3. Ahsoka is not below Shaak Ti

Expanding on point 3 right now, the original chain scaling Shaak Ti beyond Ahsoka is based entirely on the premise that Shaak Ti is above Crystal Crisis Obi Wan. Given that Obi Wan scales massively beyond Shaak via stalemating vastly stronger Grievous consistently, that scaling chain falls. Ahsoka's own performance against Grievous (link) has her lasting for nearly a minute, landing force pushes on Grievous, and then maneuvering around him to escape. Factor in Grievous' growth and Shaak Ti's own lackluster performance against Grievous and I'm gonna need a lot more convincing that Shaak Ti is the better Togruta.
--- --- --- --- ---

D) Fisto's Growth

Omni said:
1. If Fisto and Ti doesn’t grow through out the war, which we can’t exactly prove they did, then Ti has many chains putting her above Fisto
2. If you believe they do grow, then Ti scales above later iterations of Fisto, all the way to at least s3 Fisto, all the way to Rots with my new Savage chain
3. If you just look at the scaled versions of each character as early war, then Ti would grow at a faster rate, removing the possibility of Fisto closing the gap
4. Almost all of these chains and win-cons are about a weakened Ti, not the full power Ti, who would be even higher

These are the common excuses for a character not growing:
--- They reached their biological cap
No indication this happened to Fisto

---They are past their physical prime
Fisto is only 40, but even characters post-physical prime can grow more powerful (ala RoT Bane grew past his physical prime, developed a tumor, and lost a bunch of raw power due to not having the armor, yet grew stronger in DoE because of more wisdom experience and willpower)

--- There are no avenues of growth, i.e., being in stasis
Impossible since Fisto was actively participating in the clone wars

So can you then explain to us why a warrior will not grow despite being an active general of the largest scale war in galactic history? Growth is basically an axiom in Star Wars that expect from every character over time, yet somehow Fisto wouldn't get war growth despite actively participating in a war? How does that make sense?

But that's not good enough. For one thing, let's establish the concept of war growth, i.e., characters growing significantly stronger due to war

Spoiler:

Virtually every available character in Star Wars experiences war growth, the entire KOTOR order are the "Jedi in their prime" because they "do battle with evil Sith, and defend the galaxy against the mandalorian hordes" (KOTOR Campaign Guide). The TOTJ order are the Jedi in their "summit" (KOTORCG) because "violence was a frequent way of life" (Power of the Jedi). For the collective NJO council, the Vong Wars "made them more powerful than they ever dreamed possible" (link). Virtually every known force user grows significantly from wars, entire orders grow vastly superior with wars, but Kit FIsto didn't grow at all through-out the clone wars? Give me a break.

Anyways, Kit Fisto was confirmed to have grown, and at a similar rate with Plo Koon:
_{“Every time I think my saber skills are improving, yours get that much better.”}
---
But let's take a page from Omni's book. Let's have a chronology debate! Obi Wan was confirmed to be 57 years old in ANH (Star Wars Timeline), which is 0BBY. ROTS is in 19 BBY (Star Wars: Galactic Atlas), so Obi Wan is approximately 38 years old in ROTS. Per the stat card you provided, Kit Fisto is 40 in ROTS. So the age gap between them is only 2 years. Yet, when Obi Wan Kenobi is still a Padawan, Kit Fisto was already a Jedi Master. So per your very own methodology, Kit Fisto would grow at a faster rate than somebody who per your admission grows stomp gaps every few weeks. You might say this methodology implies Shaak Ti grows faster than both, but unlike Shaak, Fisto isn't noted for his subtle wiles, nor his tactical cunningness. He is above all else a warrior, so his ascension to the council should be entirely based on his combative prowess.
--- --- ---

Omni said:
Despite being 10 years younger, she was put on the council 4 years before him, becoming a council member at the age of 26, likely making her one of the youngest people to ever be named to the council, so not sure how you would show him having growth at a bigger rate, and even if you are able to argue he has, then how it would be able to get past this huge speed gap between the two.

Fisto actively refused to go on the council MULTIPLE TIMES until the council FORCED him to go on the council because he is too damn combatively capable:



Your comparison only stands if the council only allowed Kit Fisto to go on the council at an age older than Shaak Ti, when they likely would've accepted him MUCH MUCH SOONER, yet he refused. So this comparison doesn't stand.
---
Neither did Omni engage with Shaak Ti's other, non-combative, qualities that are only considered on her resume. Her tactical cunningness, her subtle wiles, both of which are noted in multiple sources. Overall, the council considers your entire resume, combining combative and non-combative. I would argue a larger portion of Kit Fisto's resume is combative since that's his number-one quality, while multiple other aspects exist for Shaak Ti. So aside from the above, this comparison still doesn't stand.

Kit Fisto experiences vast growth through-out TCW, and there are no indication Shaak Ti grew at a faster pace.

Addendum:

Comrade DARTH DURIN BANELING created a chart highlighting the seat placement of the Jedi on the PT council. Let's take a look:



Shaak Ti is noted in red. As you can see, her position on the council keeps slipping through-out the clone wars, coincidentally the same time when the council started valuing combative prowess. This fits with the theory that her growth is at a much lower pace than the rest of the council, and that as non-combative quality get valued less, Shaak Ti also gets valued less among the council.
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- —

V. THE FODDER UNLEASHED:

A) TFU SHAAK TI:

I have seen a number of excuses made to oppose TFU Shaak Ti > ROTS Shaak Ti, I have never seen any that is valid. One of the most common that gets brought up is the emotion shock Shaak Ti must've experienced after ROTS. I have, however, never seen any proof that said shock is necessarily permanent. Jax Paven was "more powerful than ever" shortly after ROTS (Coruscant Nights). Mere hours after ROTS, "Still physically and emotionally exhausted from his death duel with Anakin," which "expended him to his mental and physical limits," Obi Wan Kenobi was "scrubbed clean" of his trauma and "found clarity".

<sub>A curve of knuckle, skinned, black scab corrugated with dirt and leaking red-The fringe of fray at the cuff of a beige sleeve, dark, crusted with splatter from the death of a general-The tawny swirl of grain in wine-dark tabletop of polished Alderaanian kriin-These were what Obi-Wan Kenobi could look at without starting to shake.

The walls of the small conference room on Tantive IV were too featureless to hold his attention; to look at a wall allowed his mind to wander . . .

And the shaking began.

The shaking got worse when he met the ancient green stare of the tiny alien seated across the table from him, for that wrinkled leather skin and those tufts of withered hair were his earliest memory, and they reminded Obi-Wan of the friends who had died today.

The shaking got worse still when he turned to the other being in the room, because he wore politician's robes that reminded Obi-Wan of the enemy who yet lived.

The deception. The death of Jedi Masters he had admired, of Jedi Knights who had been his friends. The death of his oath to Qui-Gon.

The death of Anakin.

Anakin must have fallen along with Mace and Agen, Saesee and Kit; fallen along with the Temple.

Along with the Order itself.

Ashes.

Ashes and dust.

Twenty-five thousand years wiped from existence in a single day.

All the dreams. All the promises.

All the children . . .

"We took them from their homes." Obi-Wan fought to stay in his chair; the pain inside him demanded motion. It became wave after wave of tremors. "We promised their families-"

"Control yourself, you must; still Jedi, you are!"

"Yes, Master Yoda." That scab on his knuckle-focused on that, he could suppress the shaking. "Yes, we are Jedi. But what if we're the last?"

"If the last we are, unchanged our duty is." Yoda settled his chin onto hands folded over the head of his gimer stick. He looked every day of his nearly nine hundred years. "While one Jedi lives, survive the Order does. Resist the darkness with every breath, we must."

He lifted his head and the stick angled to poke Obi-Wan in the shin. "Especially the darkness in ourselves, young one. Of the dark side, despair is."

The simple truth of this called to him. Even despair is attachment: it is a grip clenched upon pain.

Slowly, very slowly, Obi-Wan Kenobi remembered what it was to be a Jedi.

He leaned back in his chair and covered his face with both hands, inhaling a thin stream of air between his palms; into himself with the air he brought pain and guilt and remorse, and as he exhaled, they trailed away and vanished in the air.

He breathed out his whole life.

Everything he had done, everything he had been, friends and enemies, dreams and hopes and fears.

Empty, he found clarity. Scrubbed clean, the Force shone through him. He sat up and nodded to Yoda.</sub>

There are no indication that Shaak Ti declined after ROTS. She is a warrior in her physical prime, who is still actively calling on the lightside and training the shamuns of Felucia. I see no reason to assume she would decline, and unless Omni provides damning proof, this evidence stands.

B) Galen Marek

I'll only be analyzing the novel version since it is the true canonical path per Chee (link)

Context and Circumstances:

Felucia is a massive light-side nexus, one that would significantly hinder Galen and amp Ti:

_{"She had taken a world enjoying the normal flows between the light and the dark sides of the Force and twisted it out of balance. There was still darkness on Felucia, but it was stifled, frustrated, weakened. He strained to awaken it."}

Prior to fighting Shaak Ti, Starkiller had to fight through an army of Felucians and shamuns, who are capable of performing basic telekinesis, force heal, energy attacks, and has lightsaber-resistant weapons:

<sub>"He dispatched them calmly and without fuss, saving his energy for the real enemy waiting for him. Getting to her, however, was proving to be something of a problem. Although he had sensed her clearly from orbit as a deformation in the Force, much like a body of mass deformed the fabric of space-time, he hadn't anticipated the dense flows he would encounter on the surface. The entire jungle was alive with tin Force, from the tiniest spore to the mightiest rancor, and the Felucians themselves were alive with it, too-so alive, in fact, that they tapped into the Force as naturally as humans breathed an oxygen-rich atmosphere. That made them dangerous to him, the Sith apprentice who had come to crush the regime Shaak Ti had nurtured on Felucia."

"The bone swords were resistant to his lightsaber, but his skill with the Force far exceeded theirs."

"The warrior dropped dead to the ground but two more leapt out of the bushes behind him, waving their bone swords and howling in their strange, guttural language. He recognized the largest as one he had injured previously, but he moved now with perfect grace and aggression; the shaman he had spared several minutes earlier must have doubled back and healed the warrior's injuries. He vowed not to make the same mistake again."

"The apprentice ducked another bolt of Force energy hurled by the Felucian warrior to his right and sent a jagged line of Sith lightning crackling across the distance between them."

"Dodging their clumsy telekinesis and unwieldy blows, he dispatched them calmly and without fuss, saving his energy for the real enemy waiting for him."</sub>




These are all just random inhabitants, he also fought shamuns, who are significantly stronger than their normie counterparts:



The Fight:

I'll post the full fight first, and then provide my analysis at the end
<sub>He didn't believe that for a second. With a flick of one wrist, he ripped a mushroom out of the sarlacc's skin and threw it at her head.

She flicked it away with the Force, barely moving an eyebrow.

"You reek of that coward Vader," she said, unfurling her legs and standing in one smooth movement. Her horn-like montrals framed her red-skinned face like an elaborate headdress. The white oval patches around her eyes gave her a slightly startled look, but the apprentice was under no illusion that he had surprised her. She was dressed in the fashion of the Felucians, in a garment made of vegetable material-some still living, judging by the mossy sheen on her belt - and bone. Her striped lekku hung well out of the way down her back, adorned by ribbons and decorative tassels.

He raised the tip of his lightsaber in challenge, but still she didn't reach for hers.

"My Master is not a coward," he said.

"Then why are you here in his place?" she asked with a knowing smile. "Welcome to the Ancient Abyss, a place of sacrifice since time immemorial."

He smiled, letting anger fuel his hatred for her and for all that the Jedi represented. With the dark side behind him, he reached out for the mind of the sarlacc and goaded it to lash out at her.

All the creature did was roar. It resisted him, he realized, with her help.

She smiled in mockery. "Are you prepared to meet your fate?" Then her lightsaber was lit and she was spinning through the air toward him, striking downward as she fell.

The apprentice simultaneously backflipped and blocked her opening blow. The force of it surprised him, and the recoil threw him backward. His hood caught on one of the sarlacc's teeth, and he tore it impatiently away before the snag could interfere with his defense. Shaak Ti's lightsaber was a jagged blue blur between them. He blocked her as best he could until he had his balance again.

Then he jumped. Over her he spun and fell down two layers of teeth toward the mouth of the sarlacc. From there he jumped up again, angling away from her to avoid giving the Jedi the advantage of height, but she was there ahead of him, driving him back down with a series of blows so rapid he barely caught them all.

In desperation, he summoned a bolt of Sith lightning and sent it down, into the flesh of the sarlacc. The beast roared and shook, giving him the opening he needed. Shaak Ti's right foot slipped, forcing her to flip elegantly out of reach of his blade. He leapt after her, swinging as he came.

The fight progressed around the sarlacc's center rings, blow and counterblow accompanied by the roaring of the beast. The apprentice cut off teeth and threw the fragments at his adversary's head. In return she took tighter control of the beast's distributed intelligence and sent its food-seeking tentacles flailing for him. He repulsed them and fought on.

Down they drove each other, closer and closer to the very lip of the creature's enormous mouth. The air was foul down there, heavy with digestive by-products and the stink of rotting meat. Ghastly exhalations rolled over them as the sarlacc roared on. The apprentice was running out of teeth to sever, so he resorted more and more frequently to Sith lightning and random slashes of his lightsaber to keep it twitching underfoot. Thick ichor leaking out of the wounds made the footing even more treacherous.

"You can't keep this up forever," he taunted Shaak Ti as they dueled.

"Neither can you," she said. "You are wasting your strength too quickly."

"The dark side is inexhaustible."

"Your strength is prodigious," she admitted, "but that is your doing. Light, dark..." She paused to aim a blow at his head that he barely deflected. "They are just directions. Do not be fooled that you stand on anything other than your own two feet."

He slashed at her own feet as they spun by overhead and sent one of her ribbons twirling down into the sarlacc's gaping mouth. "Spare me the philosophy lesson, Jedi," he snarled. "I'm only here for your blood."

"And you may yet have it, or I yours."

On her last three words, she struck three blows that each partially found their mark. The first burned a sizzling line down the apprentice's left shoulder. The second scored diagonally across his chest. The third would have skewered his right eye had he not held her back at the last minute with a desperate telekinetic block that stopped her lightsaber barely a millimeter from his skin. He could feel his eyelashes and eyebrows burning. The right side of his sight was entirely blue.

She gasped and staggered backward. Her lightsaber and her gaze dropped. A full half meter of red blade emerged from her stomach, then the rest came free with a hiss.

He backed away, shocked by how close he had come to death and how lucky he had been to defeat her. He had raised his lightsaber by reflex. She had, in the desperation of her final assault, practically thrown herself on the blade. Perhaps she had meant for the two of them to defeat each other at the same time.

Her weakening fingers let go of her lightsaber, which deactivated with a click as it spun away into the sarlacc's mouth. She didn't look angry, just weary and in pain. Her red skin was suddenly very pale.

He feinted toward her, but she didn't react in any way, except to look at him.

"You are Vader's slave," she breathed, "but your power is wasted with him. You could be so much more."

"You'll never convince me to betray my Master." He was shocked that she would try such a weak gambit again. Were these the depths to which the Jedi had sunk?

"Poor boy." She winced. "The Sith always betray one another - but I'm sure you'll learn that-soon enough..."

There was pity in her eyes as they rolled up into her head. She went limp and fell back into the mouth of the sarlacc. The apprentice reached out halfheartedly to catch her body, but was too slow. A second later, he wished that he had tried harder.

A huge explosion of Force energy threw him bodily off his feet. The sarlacc went berserk. Its tentacles lashed out at him and its surface quaked violently, trying to toss him into its waiting maw. He dodged the tentacles' frenzied lunges as best he could and dived for safety onto the town street.</sub>

Now let's analyze. Shaak Ti was able to hold the initial advantage solely due to her height advantage at the start, allowing her to having greater striking strength that threw Galen off-balance. This factor is repeatedly noted in the novel and probably is a crucial aspect of her initial advantage:

_{She smiled in mockery. "Are you prepared to meet your fate?" Then her lightsaber was lit and she was spinning through the air toward him, striking downward as she fell. The apprentice simultaneously backflipped and blocked her opening blow. The force of it surprised him, and the recoil threw him backward. His hood caught on one of the sarlacc's teeth, and he tore it impatiently away before the snag could interfere with his defense. Shaak Ti's lightsaber was a jagged blue blur between them. He blocked her as best he could until he had his balance again."
...
"Then he jumped. Over her he spun and fell down two layers of teeth toward the mouth of the sarlacc. From there he jumped up again, angling away from her to avoid giving the Jedi the advantage of height, but she was there ahead of him, driving him back down with a series of blows so rapid he barely caught them all."}

Afterwards, Galen Marek used a lightning bolt thrown at a sarlacc to put them on equal footing, which caused them to start fighting evenly:

_{"He summoned a bolt of Sith lightning and sent it down, into the flesh of the sarlacc. The beast roared and shook, giving him the opening he needed. Shaak Ti's right foot slipped, forcing her to flip elegantly out of reach of his blade. He leapt after her, swinging as he came."
...
"The fight progressed around the sarlacc's center rings, blow and counterblow accompanied by the roaring of the beast. The apprentice cut off teeth and threw the fragments at his adversary's head. In return she took tighter control of the beast's distributed intelligence and sent its food-seeking tentacles flailing for him. He repulsed them and fought on. Down they drove each other, closer and closer to the very lip of the creature's enormous mouth. The air was foul down there, heavy with digestive by-products and the stink of rotting meat. Ghastly exhalations rolled over them as the sarlacc roared on. The apprentice was running out of teeth to sever, so he resorted more and more frequently to Sith lightning and random slashes of his lightsaber to keep it twitching underfoot. Thick ichor leaking out of the wounds made the footing even more treacherous."}

After awhile, Shaak Ti admitted that she was tiring, while also admitting that Galen Marek wasn't tiring due to his prodigious powers with the dark side. She then tried to sacrifice herself to kill him yet failed, indicating that Galen was doing better in the fight despite his initial disadvantage:

<sub>"You can't keep this up forever," he taunted Shaak Ti as they dueled.

"Neither can you," she said. "You are wasting your strength too quickly."

"The dark side is inexhaustible."

"Your strength is prodigious," she admitted, "but that is your doing. Light, dark..." She paused to aim a blow at his head that he barely deflected. "They are just directions. Do not be fooled that you stand on anything other than your own two feet."

He slashed at her own feet as they spun by overhead and sent one of her ribbons twirling down into the sarlacc's gaping mouth. "Spare me the philosophy lesson, Jedi," he snarled. "I'm only here for your blood."

"And you may yet have it, or I yours."
...
On her last three words, she struck three blows that each partially found their mark. The first burned a sizzling line down the apprentice's left shoulder. The second scored diagonally across his chest. The third would have skewered his right eye had he not held her back at the last minute with a desperate telekinetic block that stopped her lightsaber barely a millimeter from his skin. He could feel his eyelashes and eyebrows burning. The right side of his sight was entirely blue. She gasped and staggered backward. Her lightsaber and her gaze dropped. A full half meter of red blade emerged from her stomach, then the rest came free with a hiss. He backed away, shocked by how close he had come to death and how lucky he had been to defeat her. He had raised his lightsaber by reflex. She had, in the desperation of her final assault, practically thrown herself on the blade. Perhaps she had meant for the two of them to defeat each other at the same time.</sub>

Overall, Galen Marek is certainly superior to TFU Shaak Ti despite being on a massive LS nexus and having fought through an army of Felucians.

C) Shadow Guards:

Following his duel with Shaak Ti, Galen Marek grew stronger, which makes sense given his insane potential:

_{Use the fear, he wanted to tell her. Use the fear to make you angry, because anger makes you strong. I killed your Master. She tried to kill me and I am stronger for it. You could be, too, if you would only realize that simple truth!}


Despite this, a singular shadow guard matched him in the novelization, and outright was physically abusing him in the comic:

<sub>The black guard deflected every bolt he sent his way. When the last of the troopers fell, the black guard stepped forward with his saber-staff lowered to charge.

"Stay away from the dock!" the apprentice warned both Juno and Kota. "We need another rendezvous point!"

"There's a shipping balloon dock not far from you," Juno responded as his lightsaber clashed with his new enemy's. "What's that noise? You're not fighting Kota, are you?"

"Too hard to explain," he grunted, not sure what the explanation even was. "Get to the balloon dock and wait for me there."

He broke off communications to block a downward slash that almost knocked him flat. Glancing around for Kota, he was relieved to see that the general was nowhere nearby. Now he could summon the full power of the dark side. Drawing on the sense of betrayal and shock he had felt on seeing the figure waiting for him - this deadly, dark assassin who might or might not have something to do with Darth Vader - he pushed with all his might.

His ears rang, such was the energy he released. The dock buckled underneath him; rivets popped and welds tore. His assailant went flying across the wide space, arms spread wide apart. The saber-staff cut a long, twisting line in the metal floor as its owner rolled and came up standing.

A bolt of Sith lightning shot from the hand not holding the staff. The apprentice grinned, having anticipated that tactic. He met the lightning bolt with one of his own. They collided in a spit-ling, tackling ball of pure energy that danced crazily from side to side. The air filled with the sharp stink of ozone.

The hooded assassin grunted and applied more effort. The apprentice met that effort and exceeded it. The ease with which he drove his assailant's lightning back surprised him. For one wielding a Sith blade, the man he was fighting had less power than he should have.

The ball of energy where their crackling bolts met drifted closer and closer to the black guard. He grunted audibly and leaned physically forward with both hands upraised, one in a shaking claw and the other stabbing the saber-staff into the beam, adding its energy to his desperate attack. To no avail. The ball inexorably approached, driven by the dark power of the apprentice's will. When it touched the hilt of the black guard's saber-staff, all its pent-up energy was drawn into him.

With a truncated shriek the guard flew out the open dock and buttered away, dead before his feet even left the ground.

[...]

Out of the cloud of metal fragments leapt a second of the Emperor's Sith assassins, saber-staff upraised. The apprentice met him with a clash of sparks and lightning.

Sith against Sith, they fought backward and forward through the broad, metal-lined space. This assassin was more proficient than the first, wiry and strong with a good reach and penchant for telekinetically throwing items from inside the apprentice's blind spot. He proved to be tough work until the apprentice wrenched the next giant fan off its gimbals and sent it spinning through the air. The black guard seemed so stunned by the sight of it that he didn't jump until it was too late. One spinning blade took his right leg off at the knee. From then, the fight was over.

[...]

Stepping out into the open air, he found himself facing another squad of troopers, two more of the Emperor's assassins, and no less than six Uggernaughts. Two transport balloons heavily weighted with supplies hung overhead, motors whirring to keep them on station, presumably waiting to land. Kota was nowhere in he seen. The apprentice bent his knees and adopted a fighting stance.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked his gathered foes.

The answer came in the form of blasterfire from the troopers, a barrage from the Uggernaughts, and a combined charge from the two assassins. He whirled and leapt, filling the air with reflected energy. All thought ceased; his connection to the Force became deeper than it ever had been before. He moved with grace and pure reflex, ducking under saber-staff blows, hurling troopers bodily at their Ugnaught allies, tossing walkers off the dock, and even raining supplies from one of the balloons above.

The crew of the balloon bailed out in a small speeder. Seeing it abandoned gave him an idea. When his enemies regrouped for a second combined charge, he wrenched the balloon physically downward from the sky, crashing its entire weight down on them all - and then, when the petals of the explosion were at their peak, sweeping the entire mess off the dock with one cathartic flexure of telekinesis.</sub>

D) TFU Darth Vader:

Darth Vader is a superior to shadow guards:
_{None would be trained sufficiently to be a threat to Darth Bane's insistence that there only be two Sith, nor would they be a threat to Darth Sidious or his apprentice Darth Vader. The most powerful of these agents were 'only' Sith adepts but would appear to be almost as dark Jedi - the likes of Asajj Ventress, Mara Jade or Inquisitor Valin (in fact a fallen Jedi). The lesser agents were reduced to still-deadly faceless minions. Amongst their ranks were the Shadow Guard.}

Note that this would also put TPM Maul, another true Banite Sith, beyond Shadow Guards as well

Which makes sense, given that he was defeating Galen in their first duel prior to Galen understanding a new way to kill and unbalanced him mentally, after which Galen defeated him using lightning:
<sub>The Dark Lord was already moving. The red blade of his lightsaber flared into life, casting bloody shadows across the room. There was no discussion. He offered no threats. It was clear he intended only to complete what he had failed to finish on Corellia.

The apprentice knew exactly what to expect. They had dueled many times before. He had learned how to fight at the hands of the man in the black suit - the man whose face had been forever hidden from him. He knew the intimacies of his refined version of Djem So, a fighting style that incorporated elements of Ataru, Soresu, and Makashi. He had fended off many wild, slashing attacks that would have overwhelmed even an extraordinary Jedi Knight. He had borne the brunt of many psychological battles.

He thought he was ready - and so the sheer severity of the opening blow took him by surprise.

A simple double stroke, up and then down, it contained enough power to jar his wrists and shoulders and very nearly disarm him completely. The collision of their lightsabers was blinding. He staggered backward and found himself at the center of a telekinetic storm. His Master seized on his momentary weakness and hurled missiles at him from all sides, hoping to keep him off his guard. For a moment, it worked.

Then the apprentice straightened and, with a sweep of his left arm, blew the missiles away. He blocked a savage slash that would have cut him in two and another that would have lifted his head clean from his shoulders. Ducking low, he stabbed for his Master's belly then flicked the tip of his lightsaber upward, hoping to catch the chin of Darth Vader's helmet and spear him through the throat. The red lightsaber blocked the blow, but only barely. They parted for a moment to assess the brief exchange and circled each other warily.

The apprentice understood that, until this moment, they had never truly fought as equals. His Master had either held back, or he himself had capitulated. Now, for the first time, they would see each other's true potential. Where Darth Vader was strong and relentless, he was fast and sly. And there were ways to fight that didn't involve lightsabers. Loose objects, accelerated to killing speeds by the Force, became projectiles that converged from all directions. Invisible fists clutched for throats or punched with the power of pile drivers. Floors tipped underfoot; severed beams stabbed like javelins; overloaded circuits exploded.

"You are weak," the apprentice said as his former Master launched a second series of bone-crushing blows, each one of which he blocked with elegant precision.

Darth Vader fought brilliantly, never employing anything less than a killing stroke. His intention was lethal. All he needed was one slip, one tiny gap in his opponent's defenses.

The apprentice vowed not to give him one. He whirled and danced around his Master's defenses, testing them to their limits.

"You thought I was dead," he said, letting that small triumph spur his determination to new heights. Their lightsabers danced, blurring and sweeping and shedding sparks in a way that would have been beautiful had their intent not been so deadly. The apprentice felt the wild, joyous energies of the dark side flowing through him and he resisted its call, seeking a better way to finish the job.

They fought back and forth across the observation dome.

"I understand you now," he said, still trying to goad his former Master into breaking his concentration. "You killed my father and kidnapped me from Kashyyyk, not just to be your apprentice, but to be a son to you. Was that how your father treated you?"

The intensity of Darth Vader's attack redoubled. "I have no father."

The apprentice fell back under the rain of blows. The sizzling of fabric and a faint stink of burning skin told him that at least two of Darth Vader's misses had been horribly near, but he felt no pain. He, on the other hand, had definitely struck a nerve.

Glancing over Darth Vader's shoulder, he saw the Emperor watching the duel, his face screwed up in malevolent delight. And the apprentice understood. A better way to kill. . .

Not out of hatred. Whatever lay beneath that black mask, it wasn't beauty or happiness. Only ugliness and pain would hide itself away for so long. Hatred would not be enough to turn the tables on Darth Vader.

Reaching out with his left hand, he blasted his Master with Sith lightning. That broke the momentum of the furious onslaught, enabling him to stand and catch his breath.

"I don't need to hate you in order to beat you," he gasped. "That's something I will teach you now."

"You can teach me nothing," Darth Vader's leaden voice intoned. One black glove clenched, and for a moment the apprentice's throat closed tight.

He beat back the telekinetic attack with one of his own, shoving his Master in the chest with the force of a small explosion, throwing Darth Vader backward across the room.

For all his size and occasional clumsiness, the Dark Lord was sure on his feet. He landed upright and launched himself back into the fray.

"I don't hate you," the apprentice went on, blocking him blow for blow. "I pity you." With a new strength of his own, he forced Darth Vader onto his back foot. "You destroyed who I was and made me as I am now, but this wasn't your idea. It was the Emperor's, and it's what he's already done to you." A strip of Darth Vader's cape fluttered away, smoking. The two came closer together until they were face-to-mask. The apprentice stared directly into the black eye guards of his former Master. "You are his creature just as I was yours - but you've never had the strength to rebel. That's why I pity you. I will no longer serve a monster, and if I have my way I'll make sure you don't, either."

Vader tried to pull away, but the apprentice followed him, keeping him on the back foot.

"I will kill you," he said, "to set you free."

The lightsabers flashed again - and it was the apprentice who found the chink in the armor that both of them had been waiting for. Vader's lightsaber moved too slowly to block a blow to his chest, allowing the apprentice's blade to slash deeply across his armored throat. Vader staggered backward, gloved hand upraised to the smoking wound.

There was no blood. Instead of pressing the attack, the apprentice stood his ground. Despite himself, he was as surprised as his former Master clearly was.

For a moment, the only sounds were the twin humming of the lightsabers and the wheezing of Darth Vader's respirator.

Then the Dark Lord laughed.

It was an awful sound, empty of humor and full of mockery. In it, the apprentice heard a decade and a half of torture and abuse.

Anger flared. He lunged forward. His former Master barely blocked the blow. A second scored a deep wound across his black-clad shoulder. A third stabbed deep into his thigh.

Darth Vader reeled backward, servos whining in his injured limbs and lightsaber shaking.

The apprentice gripped his lightsaber in both hands and held himself back. Anger was familiar and powerful; it also clouded his eyes when he most needed to see clearly.

Vader prepared for combat again. His power over the apprentice, however, was gone. His lightsaber went skittering and sparking across the floor, twisted out of his grip by telekinesis. The Force wrenched him into the air, as he had once lifted the apprentice's father, and a barrage of missiles struck at him with increasing strength. He raised his gloved hands to defend himself, but the battery continued until, with a crash, the apprentice ripped the energy field generator in the center of the room right out of the floor and hurled it at his former Master.

The generator exploded with greater force than he had expected, throwing him and everyone else to the floor. The transparisteel dome shattered. Debris rained everywhere. The sound of the explosion rang in his ears for an unnaturally long time afterward.

He was the first to his feet, striding across the rubble to where Darth Vader lay face-forward, gravely wounded and stripped of his armor in places. Flesh and machinery showed through the gaps. Finally, some real blood was flowing.

The apprentice stood over him with his lightsaber upraised and ready to strike. His former Master was trying to stand, feebly willing his massive bulk to move as it was supposed to. Servomotors whined and strained. When he rolled over, the apprentice froze.

Darth Vader's helmet had been ripped away by the blast. Beneath was the face of the man who had stolen and enslaved him, a pathetic, hairless thing covered in wrinkles and old scar tissue. Only the eyes showed the slightest signs of life: blue and full of pain, they stared up at him with undisguised weariness.</sub>

E) ESB Luke Skywalker:

Insider noted that Luke Skywalker is a superior to Starkiller. Given that you were previously using insider comparisons to prove Savage > Maul, this is perfectly valid:

F) ROTJ Darth Vader

In ESB, Darth Vader defeated Luke, and Lucas called it a "slightly one-sided fight".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYwUsPJfkVo

Vader is also a "far more formidable foe" on ESB than he is in ANH:

_{Within the armed forces Vader now holds absolute power over the higher Imperial officers who scorned him earlier in his career. This situation reflects Vader's greater mastery over himself and over the Force in the time since the Battle of Yavin, an improvement that is readily apparent in his lightsaber style during the duel with Luke Skywalker on Bespin. Vader has largely freed himself of pain through the Force in the years since the Battle of Yavin and, by practice with living opponents both willing and unwilling, he has advanced his lightsaber technique. Baron Orman Tagge serves as testament to Vader's technique by this era, precisely blinded in both eyes by Vader's blade in a duel. Vader is thus a far more formidable foe on Bespin than he was against Ben Kenobi on the Death Star.}

Logic dictates he would continue growing until ROTJ.

G) The TPM titans:

By a lot of sources, Vader is below TPM Maul and Qui Gon Jinn, many of which are from Lucas himself:

https://youtu.be/RIefj6dOhnM

_{Then when we move to the Prequel, where there were Jedi and they were full flower and fighting as they were in the past, you know, well trained Jedi, then we had to make the sword fights much much faster, much more sophisticated and much more aggressive in terms of the way they’re fought.}

https://youtu.be/liEtSzWZPFo

<sub>I was looking for a kind of sword fighting that was reminiscent of what was in the movies that we’d already done, but a more energized version of it. Because we’d never seen real Jedi’s at work, we’d only seen, you know, old men and crippled, half-droid, half-men and young boys that had learned from these people. So, to see a Jedi fighting in the prime of the Jedi, I wanted it to be a much more energetic and faster version of what we’ve been doing.




Since George Lucas set Episode I at a time when the Jedi Knights were are the height of their powers, Gillard ramped up the action, stunt work and, of course, lightsaber duels for the new film.

“But before the prequels, when all we had were Expanded Universe stories more closely tied to the era of the original trilogy, we really had no idea what being a Jedi Knight or a Jedi Master in their prime was really like until George Lucas presented the characters of Qui-Gon Jinn and young Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

"We're trying to go much more classical for some characters," says Gillard, "Some of the characters are real master swordsmen, better than anything we've seen so far. So we're using an old, classical European style for a couple of the characters."

We've actually never seen real Jedi at work, we've only seen crippled half-droid half-men and young boys that have learned from these old people. So to see a Jedi in his prime fighting in the prime of the Jedi, I want it to be a much more energetic and faster version of what we've been doing

Will the action in Star Wars: Episode I surpass the previous trilogy of films? "by a million miles" promises Gillard.


It was very important in the beginning here, of the film to establish that the Jedi were invincible. I’ve kinda reversed the classic monster coming through the door motif, and make it where the aliens and the droids and all the villains are faced with these two sort of invincible creatures, you know? Jedi Godzillas that nothing can stop.|

Doing this next trilogy, and starting off with Phantom Menace gave me a chance to introduce things that are only hinted at in the later movies, 4,5 and 6, which is the Jedi Council, how does it operate. You get to see, rather than just 1 or 2 fallen Jedi, or half trained Jedi, or exiled Jedi, you actually get to see the Jedi in full operation, their Temple, where they operate out of, this was a challenge to make this all concrete and real.</sub>

I) Kit Fisto:

As previously substantiated and Omni conceded to, Fisto is superior to TPM Maul who is the strongest of the TPM trio.

VI. CONCLUSION:

B-team Hype:
1. Is supported by multiple quotes calling them the best verbatim
2. Fits into the narrative for them being selected for the most important role while Shaak Ti was sidelined. Previously they were chosen for the Jedi "show of force" as well
3. Are backed up by their feats, like Agen Kolar being "slightly less skilled than Mace", being one of the greatest Jedi duelist the order ever produced, and stomped Vos. Saesee Tiin having one of the Jedi's best abilities and matched Mace in spars (which Fisto also did)

Speed:
1. Fisto blitzed two end-war magna-guards who have near-lightspeed reflexes
2. Fisto blitzed a JK series droid who are built with precognition and fast enough to blitz clones
3. Fisto moved so fast that he baffled the gaze of Obi Wan Kenobi, who is very fast in his own right
4. Fisto matches and reacts to ROTS Sidious while a weaker version giga-blitzes TPM Maul

Strength and combative abilities:
1. Fisto has one-shotted large X'ting with singular kicks and point-attacks
2. Fisto can deal with Maul, somebody with very insane strength feats
3. Fisto has effortlessly carved a bloody path through battle droids on Geonosis
4. Fisto has obliterated an entire group of X'ting
5. ***Fisto one-shots a pair of magnaguards in LoE while it took Shaak Ti 14 seconds to defeat a single one in OCW ***

Hype:
1. Fisto is one of the greatest warriors of the Jedi and one of the fiercest combatants, in Mace's calibre with unmatched skill
2. Shaak Ti is consistently noted for her subtle wiles and other non-combative qualities

Grievous comparisons:
1. Virtually all of the combatants alongside TCW are fighting progressively stronger Grievous as he performs mega-growth
2. Shaak TI is the only one who landed no hits on Grievous and got stomped after 11 seconds despite having a stylistic advantage
3. Fisto is the only one who actually *defeated* Grievous, albeit a weakened one

Other Comparisons:
1. AOTC Anakin doesn't scale above Fisto
2. Fisto's scaling to Maul makes him super insane in TCW
3. Ahsoka isn't below Shaak Ti
4. Fisto performed massive growth thru-out TCW, not necessarily at a slower pace than Shaak Ti

TFU Scaling:
Read the above

Now the most important part:

Omni said
Shaak Ti is way hotter and would speedblitz Fisto’s dumb smile with her knee

I challenge you to find a single Shaak Ti image as hot as this one:



Failed? Concession accepted.