SoD Maul vs Count Dooku

Let's settle the Maul vs Count Dooku debate( temporarily, since nothing stays settled though)

All out, combatants in character but battling seriously, battle takes place on the fields of Dantooine

Cite the candidate that wins:

1. Basic raw power

2. Complete package in terms of the force

3. Technical skill

4. Complete combat

1. Maul

2. Dooku

3. Maul

4. Dooku

Basic raw power means applicable raw power, not potential. Just in case you thought that

Dooku wins in 2, 3 and 4, but Maul makes Dooku work hard for his victory. 1 is hardsd to say because we don't know how much potential Maul lost, pre-bisection Maul has PT Sidious+ potential, but cybernetic Maul has lost a good amount of that raw potential.

LOTL wrote:Basic raw power means applicable raw power, not potential. Just in case you thought that

In that case I back Dooku for all rounds.

^

@Archibald: Is Maul's superior technical skill based on that infamous list?

Dooku

Dooku takes the applicable raw power but Maul's potential is greater than Dooku's.

Dooku's training as a Sith Lord and Jedi Master regarding the Force also far surpasses Maul's abilities in the Force.

Can't really comment about technical skill. Maul has more talent than Dooku but Dooku is a better combatant due to years of experience. Had Maul possessed the time, he'd most certainly become a way better swordsman IMO.

Regarding the complete combat, Dooku should be superior in all categories, except for physicals.

If they fought, Dooku should win in a scathing fight. Both have unique edges and insights the other lacks. Dooku's just a bit more powerful and bit more effective generally speaking. The differences between them are marginal but just enough to grant Dooku a noticeable edge most of the time.

ILS wrote:If they fought, Dooku should win in a scathing fight. Both have unique edges and insights the other lacks. Dooku's just a bit more powerful and bit more effective generally speaking. The differences between them are marginal but just enough to grant Dooku a noticeable edge most of the time.

Which choice of weaponry would be more effective against Dooku?

1. Maul with his single bladed lightsaber (the surviving half of his saberstaff).
2. Maul with a double bladed lightsaber.
2. Maul with dual blades i.e. his red blade and his darksaber.

Latham2000 wrote:

ILS wrote:If they fought, Dooku should win in a scathing fight. Both have unique edges and insights the other lacks. Dooku's just a bit more powerful and bit more effective generally speaking. The differences between them are marginal but just enough to grant Dooku a noticeable edge most of the time.

Which choice of weaponry would be more effective against Dooku?

1. Maul with his single bladed lightsaber (the surviving half of his saberstaff).
2. Maul with a double bladed lightsaber.
2. Maul with dual blades i.e. his red blade and his darksaber.

Saberstaff would be an extremely poor choice due to the wide movement arcs it requires. Jar'kai or single are both acceptable; the former is good if your tactic is more speed based, single more strength based. The best way to get around Dooku's guard historically, as rarely as it has happened, is some combination of overwhelming aggression, speed, power and unpredictability. Dooku's whole style revolves around maintaining an advantage of leverage and positioning over the opponent so that he can dictate the terms of the fight; anything that throws a wrench into that has historically been quite successful; Anakin's an obvious example, Vos in Dark Disciple, Savage Opress (although he's kind of a freak of nature). That's not to say anyone with some measure of these qualities will have an advantage over Dooku (Windu and Grievous haven't exactly bowled him over in their respective duels), it's just that if any tactic was going to work it would be those.

@ILS What do you make of the Force clash argument?

Azronger wrote:@ILS What do you make of the Force clash argument?

Not familiar with that.

@ILS In SoD, Maul (a fresh Maul) adds his power to the Talzin vs Sheev stalemate, and a near dead, tired Dooku adds his as well. The clash immediately becomes a stomp in sheev’s favor, to the point where grievous can rip through talzin’s barrier unabated.

IG wrote:@ILS In SoD, Maul (a fresh Maul) adds his power to the Talzin vs Sheev stalemate, and a near dead, tired Dooku adds his as well. The clash immediately becomes a stomp in sheev’s favor, to the point where grievous can rip through talzin’s barrier unabated.

The simple refutation to that is twofold:

1. It was stated that Talzin would be weakened immediately following the ritual,
1.2 IIRC the ritual was interrupted prematurely to make matters worse, because Dooku was meant to be drained dead.

2. If you are making the argument that Talzin and Sheev are capable of stalemating, then surely, if Talzin was weakened as the comic indicated, this would have a much larger impact on the result of the duel than if Dooku or Maul, both much weaker than Sheev, were to come into the fight drained. Because they are weaker, their contributions (or lackthereof) count for less and have less of an influence.

We have it on pretty good authority that Maul and Dooku, normally, are pretty damn comparable. If Dooku was drained, but Talzin weakened from the ritual and weakened further from having it interrupted prematurely, than Talzin being drained is going to be a much bigger cost to her side than Dooku: Sheev's main opponent is weakened, which is a lot worse than Maul's main opponent being weakened. The argument entirely ignores the possibility that Sheev is just more powerful than Talzin normally, never mind when she is in a weakened state.

dooku

R1: Dooku ragdolls

R2: Dooku via actually being willing to use his esoteric skills. 

R3: Dooku

R4: Dooku. It'll be intense but short.

ILS wrote:

IG wrote:@ILS In SoD, Maul (a fresh Maul) adds his power to the Talzin vs Sheev stalemate, and a near dead, tired Dooku adds his as well. The clash immediately becomes a stomp in sheev’s favor, to the point where grievous can rip through talzin’s barrier unabated.

The simple refutation to that is twofold:

1. It was stated that Talzin would be weakened immediately following the ritual,
1.2 IIRC the ritual was interrupted prematurely to make matters worse, because Dooku was meant to be drained dead.

2. If you are making the argument that Talzin and Sheev are capable of stalemating, then surely, if Talzin was weakened as the comic indicated, this would have a much larger impact on the result of the duel than if Dooku or Maul, both much weaker than Sheev, were to come into the fight drained. Because they are weaker, their contributions (or lackthereof) count for less and have less of an influence.

We have it on pretty good authority that Maul and Dooku, normally, are pretty damn comparable. If Dooku was drained, but Talzin weakened from the ritual and weakened further from having it interrupted prematurely, than Talzin being drained is going to be a much bigger cost to her side than Dooku: Sheev's main opponent is weakened, which is a lot worse than Maul's main opponent being weakened. The argument entirely ignores the possibility that Sheev is just more powerful than Talzin normally, never mind when she is in a weakened state.

Not sure I follow this exactly?

Even if she were weakened, she was weakened to a degree that she were still capable of stalemating Sheev. Which means that all the energy by those two released would have conceivably been equal in that exchange. You can make sense of this as you like; Sheev was holding back, Talzin was only slightly weakened, or she just wasn't weakened, or she was amped in her place of power etc, but in the end it doesn't matter much.

Basically, no matter what level the two were operating at, they were canceling each other out. If you're going for incredikillbilly in this instance, then sure I can see that - Weakened Talzin stalemates SHEEV so let's not count it - but I don't feel there was enough emphasis in well... anything in that series to start making decrees on what was or what wasn't. For example, one could make the argument that Sheev started ramping up when Dooku came, but due to the nature of the comic we have no emphasis on that as a possibility. It also seems very convenient to argue that as well; why wait until Dooku got up? I know you're not arguing that at the moment, but these sort of things didn't seem to be the intention at the time.

And on the incredikillbilly angle, does that not work in reverse? Are we to believe that Talzin would need anything less than full power to tackle Sheev? You feel comfortable in assuming that we're ignoring the possibility that Sheev is just outright more powerful, indicating that this is the more logical approach, so why can't it be that Talzin had to be at full power to engage him? Her being weakened was only a possibility afterall that he seemed to think would be combated with rest afterwards. Yet when she regained her form, we had no indication that she was actually weakened. All she said was that she were "Whole" and proceeded to engage in a lengthy force battle with the most powerful Sith Lord of all time. Surely she didn't seem weakened in that instance. And it wasn't fact at the time either, just like Dooku didn't have to die to make her whole again. Again, not definitive enough.

On the contributions angle, you're thinking of it like mega TOR/DBZ scaling and that you need overwhelming power to overpower a beam - mind you, not sure how that helps you in that case - and that the side characters are irrelevant because they're not as powerful as the main. To put this theory to the test, who would win these force battles if they engaged in a "beam struggle?"

Obi-Wan/Yoda vs Yoda
Sheev/Xanatos vs Sheev
Maul vs TPM!Kenobi/Maul
Dooku vs Dooku/Ahsoka

Would it be a perpetual stalemate or would one side edge or stomp the other? Surely these characters aren't that infinitesimal that their contributions would be only 0.0 percents. Let alone Dooku/Maul.

If we can judge two characters to be equal powers purely off beam struggles, then we can judge one side to be more powerful based off of winning said struggle, no? If Talzin and Sheev are stalemating and Maul helps Talzin and a weakened Dooku helps Sheev, we would expect both parties to continue the stalemate if they were of equal powers, no? In that event it seems more like it's a case of Maul vs Dooku to me, and who can contribute more to the ongoing stalemate.

Sheev vs Talzin = stalemate
Sheev/Dooku vs Talzin/Maul = Talzin put entirely on the defensive to a point where she stops getting Maul to help and throws him away so he lives

You could argue outlier or whatever, but if you're accepting that it was power vs power, then in that instance Dooku looks much better than Maul. Of course that's not accurate to how a duel would go but it does bode well for saying Dooku is decidedly above Maul in sheer power. The degree is not something I care about. I'm not into quantifying tired/weakened gaps.

However, Mace Windu after getting EFFORTLESSLY held off by Darth Maul - when he had Aayla on his side - still thought Dooku was the master in the Maul relationship. Which would help reinforce that Dooku was indeed a bit above Maul.





So you have the example, and you have a Master/Apprentice thought between the two. Combined it creates a comfortable gap between the two from that comic.

Mace wasn't effortlessly held off by Maul. The idea that people can deduce that from a single panel where he was also fighting with a vastly inferior opponent who's basically fodder to Maul is ridiculous.

He wasn't being serious, as indicated by the exclamations.

Thank God.

BoD wrote:Mace wasn't effortlessly held off by Maul. The idea that people can deduce that from a single panel where he was also fighting with a vastly inferior opponent who's basically fodder to Maul is ridiculous.

Yes, Maul fighting two Jedi doesn't count because both one was fodder to Maul. Mace would stomp Mace and Aayla at the same time. Inverse Jedi law.

In any case, here's Maul with his back turned casually backflipping like a graceful diver faster than Mace can react.



Maul can do sick feet-tucked-in gainers 10 feet in the air faster than Mace can move.

The best way to describe this match is as follows:

Dooku dismantles Maul, every move, every step, every single thing Maul tries is rendered pointless. As he looks Dooku in the eyes he sees a crimson shaft sweep through his neck and it is over, before it even begins, Dooku ends the fight

We have no way of knowing how Dooku will deal with Maul's off-beat rhythm. Either it will befuddle his footwork and take Dooku out of his comfort zone or it will leave Maul exposed to precision counters if Dooku can give him the slip and out position him, via making him miss and making him pay, as is his wont. It's up for debate as to who has the style advantage. Neither have fought anyone like the other.

 I think Dooku is more powerful and more technically sophisticated but Maul has more athletic and martial ability and it goes without saying the zabrak has all the physical advantages. Dooku probably holds the edge early but if it drags on Maul is only going to get sharper and more fired up and Dooku is just going to get weaker. As good as Dooku is I don't think he can manage an early win. Even TPM Maul can likely give Dooku all he can handle.