Tenebrae/Vitiate/Valkorion VS. Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious

Merged the threads

With regards to PT Sidious vs. Vanilla Vitiate, I believe the question has been answered many a time now:





And as to how the two apply their power, look no further than Palpatine slaughtering three of the most celebrated sword masters in Jedi history and matching Yoda and Mace, and contrast that with Vitiate getting scared by a saber throw within his line of sight and walking directly into a lightsaber.

@Azronger At least Vitiate didn't get lobbed down a reactor shaft by an asthmatic cyborg.

@BreakofDawn

1. Not a combat situation

2. No need to bring snide salt here. If you have an issue with my argument, respond to it civilly, and preferably with actual substance.

look no further than Palpatine slaughtering three of the most celebrated sword masters in Jedi history

Two of which he caught off guard and the third he couldn't instantly overwhelm. 

and matching Yoda and Mace,

Noted.

and contrast that with Vitiate getting scared by a saber throw within his line of sight

It wasn't the saber throw he was scared of, it was Meetra's sudden intervention and his not expecting it. 

and walking directly into a lightsaber.

Low blow and you know it.

1. Not a combat situation

It wasn't a serious point, lol. 

2. No need to bring snide salt here. If you have an issue with my argument, respond to it civilly, and preferably with actual substance.

I was kidding. However, you did use that laserbrain animation to legitimately argue Sheev would win, so I felt it was merited. Sorry if I caused any offence. 

laserbrain animation

Depends on the iterations but Sheev is better as a whole tbh.

BreakofDawn wrote:Two of which he caught off guard and the third he couldn't instantly overwhelm.

Only true in the novel, and doesn't detract from the point I was making. The point being that Palpatine is very skilled and controlled with his power. The "off-guard" aspect of his kills was engineered by his use of a "dark side confusion haze", which only reinforces the argument for his mastery.

It wasn't the saber throw he was scared of, it was Meetra's sudden intervention and his not expecting it.

She intervened via a saber throw that successfully disarmed Vitiate and would have killed him if she had aimed it at his person per Scourge, despite her and her lightsaber being in his line of sight the entire time. This is what caused Vitiate to recoil. It's an abysmal blunder that reflects terribly on his skill no matter how you phrase it.

Low blow and you know it.

Perhaps, but it doesn't make it any less true. Vitiate is awful at close quarters combat, and his main advantage with his Force abilities is his reach. So if he, while in the process of firing lightning, decides to start walking towards his target until he is within the Hero's striking range, it's an indication of a horrendous inability to think logically in a fight.

I was kidding. However, you did use that laserbrain animation to legitimately argue Sheev would win, so I felt it was merited. Sorry if I caused any offence.

You didn't cause offense. I just detected butthurt, when I would rather have real arguments. Your use of the Emperor's death was hardly merited as the circumstances behind that and Vitiate's exhibit are markedly dissimilar. There's nothing inherently unfair about citing Vitiate walking into a lightsaber as an example of his poor combat awareness.

Only true in the novel, and doesn't detract from the point I was making. The point being that Palpatine is very skilled and controlled with his power. The "off-guard" aspect of his kills was engineered by his use of a "dark side confusion haze", which only reinforces the argument for his mastery.

He turned desperately to Saesee Tiin. "Master Tiin—you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?" Tiin frowned and cocked his head. His blade dipped. A smear of red-flashing darkness hurtled from behind the desk. Saesee Tiin's head bounced when it hit the floor. Smoke curled from the neck, and from the twin stumps of the horns, severed just below the chin.


It had nothing to do with a "haze", it was Tiin concentrating on reading his mind and lowering his defences in the process that led to his death.

She intervened via a saber throw that successfully disarmed Vitiate and would have killed him if she had aimed it at his person per Scourge, despite her and her lightsaber being in his line of sight the entire time. This is what caused Vitiate to recoil. It's an abysmal blunder that reflects terribly on his skill no matter how you phrase it.

It's no different from Sidious being blindsided by Vader. Neither expected an external intervention, and in both cases it would have led to their deaths. 

Perhaps, but it doesn't make it any less true. Vitiate is awful at close quarters combat, and his main advantage with his Force abilities is his reach. So if he, while in the process of firing lightning, decides to start walking towards his target until he is within the Hero's striking range, it's an indication of a horrendous inability to think logically in a fight.

He walked towards the HoT as a final attempt to overwhelm him after being heavily injured. Vitiate was also at a fraction of his full strength at the time. 

You didn't cause offense. I just detected butthurt, when I would rather have real arguments.

Not at all. Just felt like making a joke. 

Your use of the Emperor's death was hardly merited as the circumstances behind that and Vitiate's exhibit are markedly dissimilar.

To his fight with the HoT, yes. To Meetra's intervention, definitely not.

There's nothing inherently unfair about citing Vitiate walking into a lightsaber as an example of his poor combat awareness.

Of course there is. He was heavily weakened and heavily injured at the time, struggling to get back onto his feet and stumbling as he moved towards the HoT. It was a desperate suicide attack.

Wankatine

low key think sheev might stomp this. 

1. tenebrea wins imo.
2. tenebrea imo, but much harder than before. i think there is big diff here between previous sheev to this sheev. actually, sheev may win, but ill leave at that for now.
3. sheev. he seems to have some low end power proximity to plagueis in his prime. while not as experienced (not even close), he is still likely more skilled.
4. sheev whoops this vitiate imo. the power creep/up is pretty karking high imo. he is treated as the supreme lord of all dark siders by this point. more skilled, faster, smarter, more skilled, etc. 
5. valk might have a chance in this one, but 15 or so years of growth for sheev is hella dangerous. he could still pretty much tank galen's oneness attack blast thingy. using oneness makes a light sider like, waaaaay more karking powerful than before, and its pretty much TFU vader if he became the hulk while his normal vader ass is casual bruce banner lol

my conclusion- sheev already won just 5 fights into this. he still has DE and ROTJ sheev into this, and they stomp the first two tenebreas.

BreakofDawn wrote:He turned desperately to Saesee Tiin. "Master Tiin—you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?" Tiin frowned and cocked his head. His blade dipped. A smear of red-flashing darkness hurtled from behind the desk. Saesee Tiin's head bounced when it hit the floor. Smoke curled from the neck, and from the twin stumps of the horns, severed just below the chin.


It had nothing to do with a "haze", it was Tiin concentrating on reading his mind and lowering his defences in the process that led to his death.

When I say it's only true in the novel, it really doesn't make sense to post the passage from the novel as proof that I'm wrong when we were already on the same page regarding the contents of that specific adaptation.

The movie portrays a different picture, wherein Sidious just launches behind his desk and corkscrews through the air to one-shot Kolar and Tiin and dispatch Fisto a few seconds later. The ease with which this was achieved was later credited to Palpatine's use of the dark side to discombobulate his opponents.

It's no different from Sidious being blindsided by Vader. Neither expected an external intervention, and in both cases it would have led to their deaths.

Vitiate was facing in the direction of his assailant and still couldn't see the saber throw coming. Vader, by contrast, was standing next to Sidious and attacked from behind when he betrayed his Master. Vitiate's failing is much more egregious and more applicable to a combat situation.

He walked towards the HoT as a final attempt to overwhelm him after being heavily injured. Vitiate was also at a fraction of his full strength at the time. 

Of course there is. He was heavily weakened and heavily injured at the time, struggling to get back onto his feet and stumbling as he moved towards the HoT. It was a desperate suicide attack.

Being weakened and/or injured has no relation to poor tactical decisions. His main advantage over the Hero remained his reach irrespective of his condition, and he chose to toss it away.

Tbf these tactical blunders Valk makes against saber users probably won't be an issue against sheev. Since sheev only uses sabers to humiliate jedi, if Valk attempts to engage Sheev in with a force assault, Sheev will likely return in kind.

Sure, but they are still a window into his tactical mindset in general, and saber combat is heavily dictated by one's mastery of the Force. Ergo, Sidious's dueling feats still translate to his combative Force mastery, which far exceeds that of Vitiate. Sidious is also more powerful, period, so his victory seems assured, here.

Well due to the ambiguity of whether or not Vitiate is a sith, I'm more interested in feat comparisons/scaling over feats between the two characters. And if you do that I think Vitiate is superior.

KingofBlades wrote:Well due to the ambiguity of whether or not Vitiate is a sith

Azronger wrote:

I'm more interested in feat comparisons/scaling over feats between the two characters. And if you do that I think Vitiate is superior.

Why?

To pre-emptively address something, Vitiate being a mask, the argument commonly touted by TOR crew, is irrelevant, Palpatine was also a mask for Sids, yet you wouldn't say he's not a politician. Mask or not, Vitiate was, in essence a sith. Valk is a different matter though.

@Azronger while the argument is unoriginal, I think the ziost feat that was performed is more impressive than anything RotS sheev has done. While I admit the nature of the feat is different than anything sheev has done, I still think intuitively it's more impressive. Much in the same way tping a jedi is different than Tking a small rock. The nature of the feats are completely different, but we know intuitively, that the TP feat is more impressive.

I'll still never understand why it was written the way it was with Meetra's saber throw, because aiming it at him would have also stopped Vitiate from killing Revan, yet they had her throw the saber not even directly at him...to save Revan. That scene could have been written better.

Zenwolf wrote:I'll still never understand why it was written the way it was with Meetra's saber throw, because aiming it at him would have also stopped Vitiate from killing Revan, yet they had her throw the saber not even directly at him...to save Revan. That scene could have been written better.

I think his coup-de-grace was already at the level where Vitiate could've just let the saber fall post-mortem and it would've killed Revan anyway.

All of Palpatine's quotes aren't usable against Tenebrae, even if you contradict the blatant fact that Vitiate was Valkorion for centuries.

Valkorion feats and scaling straight up dwarf what Sheev has.

There's no winning here for Sheev.

KingofBlades wrote:@Azronger while the argument is unoriginal, I think the ziost feat that was performed is more impressive than anything RotS sheev has done. While I admit the nature of the feat is different than anything sheev has done, I still think intuitively it's more impressive. Much in the same way tping a jedi is different than Tking a small rock. The nature of the feats are completely different, but we know intuitively, that the TP feat is more impressive.

Quite a poor analogy. We have enough examples from the lore to know that telepathically influencing another Force-user is more demanding than lifting a small rock. It's empirically true, not merely intuitively. With the Ziost feat, it's purely subjective gut feelings. But that works both ways. I might just as well say Tenebrous's Master's feat of penetrating the galactic light side bubble is more impressive than Ziost because it's "intuitively true" in my mind and you'd have absolutely no way to refute that. I think it says a lot about Vitiate's chances here is that the arguments for him essentially boil down to "I want this to be the case, so it is the case" even in the face of clear-cut statements about who is more powerful between him and Palpatine. Disappointing.

And with Ziost, it's not even the fact that it's inherently different from the Banites' cosmic feats that makes it problematic, but that it's different from any other feat in the mythos, period. There's no reference point, no way to quantify it. If you take and concentrate the energy needed to devastate a planet's biosphere into a regular blast of Force lightning, how potent would it be? No way to know. It's practically a useless feat outside of the context of the Old Republic era.

DC77 (Reborn) wrote:To pre-emptively address something, Vitiate being a mask, the argument commonly touted by TOR crew, is irrelevant, Palpatine was also a mask for Sids, yet you wouldn't say he's not a politician. Mask or not, Vitiate was, in essence a sith. Valk is a different matter though.

Indeed. Vitiate's title is a Sith Lord and the Sith Emperor. Whether he himself believes in Sith ideology is beside the point; he is officially recognized both in-universe and out-of-universe as a Sith until his departure from the Empire. If ranks don't matter, then Darth Nihilus wasn't a Sith Lord either because he didn't care for Sith philosophy; Palpatine wasn't the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic because he secretly despised democracy; and so on. Heck, if we stretch this line of logic to its conclusion, then even a carrot is technically not a carrot because it has no internal monologue about its state of being as an orange vegetable. Or, if a person in psychosis believes themselves to be a lettuce wrap, do they taxonomically stop being a human because they themselves believe otherwise?

DE Sidious > Valkorion ~> RotJ Sidious >> RotS Sidious > Darth Vitiate (Novel) ~> TPM Sidious, imo

EmperorCaedus wrote:DE Sidious > Valkorion ~> RotJ Sidious >> RotS Sidious > Darth Vitiate (Novel) ~> TPM Sidious, imo

Even TPM Sidious has two quotes putting him as the strongest Sith ever