Revan's Combat Style -- Short Summary

August 23rd 2023, 8:18 pm Message reputation : 100% (1 vote)

(I made this blog as concise as possible so that people actually bother to read.)

This blog will explore: (A) Revan’s combat style and (B) Revan’s proficiency at combat. I’ve already written a lot on Revan’s combat abilities based on his feats and stats. This blog instead primarily examines a different source of information: his military strategies. Click the spoiler tags to read the referenced quotes.

Revan's Combat Style -- Short Summary Maxresdefault

Revan's Combat Style -- Short Summary Maxresdefault

I. Relevance of Revan's Military Tactics and Genius

In KOTOR, a brainwashed Revan is asked a series of military questions by the Star Map Guardian to see if he matched the character profile of Darth Revan. Below are the "correct" answers that match Darth Revan's character profile. If the brainwashed Revan instead provides other or light side answers, the Star Map Guardian sends droids to destroy Revan. The Star Map Guardian then scans Revan's emotions during the battle and says it matches the character profile of Darth Revan anyway and that Revan will follow the "proper course" -- i.e., the expected military answers -- "in time." This shows that Revan's deepest, unalterable characteristics are reflected in both his personal combat style and military strategy decisions as Sith and ("in time") Jedi.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

In KOTOR 2, the Handmaiden (daughter of Kreia and Yusanis, pupil of Atris -- basically a character whose life and family is defined by Revan) says that Revan spoke through battle and tactics in a way one could never do in words and said he did this both in the personal combat arena and military battle arena. She likens Revan's approach to battle -- and thereby self expression -- as like creating a great piece of art. She names notable battles Revan shared his feelings through -- the space battle of Malachor V and his personal duel with Malak. This again shows Revan's true self -- and brilliance -- is reflected in both his personal combat style and military strategy decisions as Sith and Jedi.

Spoiler:

Likewise, the Handmaiden says that the Echani art of battle precognition -- anticipating attacks before they happen and counter-attacking -- is foremost a skill for the personal combat arena. However, the greatest of the Echani can apply this ability to larger military battles and even wars. She says Revan was the greatest of all with this skill and slaughtered the Echani accordingly. So, obviously Revan would be unprecedently excellent at reading opponents on a personal combat arena as that is just a far less difficult and scaled down version of what he is the best at. This again shows Revan's brilliance is reflected in both his personal combat style and military strategy decisions as Sith and Jedi.

Spoiler:

In short, this means:

- We can inform Revan's proficiency level at personal combat by looking at his proficiency in military strategy.
- We can learn more about Revan's personal combat style by looking at his military strategy decisions.

II. Revan's Military Genius

In the Mandalorian Wars, Canderous Ordo says Revan is remembered as "the greatest single warrior the Republic has ever known" and that the actions of Revan alone allowed the Republic to beat the Mandalorians. He says the Mandalorians "didn't really have a chance" and that Revan "beat my people so easily in battle." Dorak remembers that Revan "won victory after victory" against the Mandalorians. Kreia says Revan's entry into the Mandalorian Wars marked its beginning and end. In the Jedi Civil Wars, Dorak says that Revan's Sith was "all but invincible" and only Bastila Shan's battle meditation kept them from "total triumph." The Handmaiden says that Revan had the ability to predict entire wars and both "slaughtered" and was "respected" by the Echani who had this same gift but not to the same extent.

In the Revanite War, Revan turned the Order of Revan -- a collection of normal Jedi and Sith loyal to him -- into a fighting force that Darth Marr labeled as the "fiercest adversaries we've ever faced." The battle between the Order of Revan and the joint Republic and Empire command fleets was described as "conflict on a scale we've never seen." The Outlander told Revan that his strategy was such that he "outdone" himself and that: "Have to hand it to you, Revan --you do know how to strategize." Revan led the Order of Revan to victory over the Imperial Guard's main base -- the Emperor's finest warriors, with one Imperial Guard stated to be worth a hundred soldiers. This led to comments like:

Spoiler:

In short, Revan is easily the greatest military strategist of his age and among the greatest ever. As established, the reasons why this is true is also applicable to his personal combat abilities.

III. Characteristics of Revan's Military Tactics

Revan employed feints, counterattacks, and mass deceptions. He abandoned worlds to further fortify others. And he made sacrifices to advance his goals.

Spoiler:

Revan's strategies and tactics were better than the Mandalorians. Revan's ferocity, tenacity, and subtlety took aback even Mandalore.

Spoiler:

Revan inflicted subtle, intelligent cruelties and accepted losses and sacrifices.

Spoiler:

Revan is remembered for his willingness to sacrifice his forces to achieve military objectives.

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Revan would abandon some of his worlds to gain long-run strategic advantages over his enemy and drew on the sacrifices for further motivation. Revan also would allow for enemies to attack his stagnant empire to reenergize it.

Spoiler:

As aforementioned, Revan expressed his commitment to destroy the Jedi in battle, but did so subtly, in a way akin to creating a great piece of art: Revan attacked like weaving threads in a tapestry, or strokes on a canvas.

Spoiler:

The Mandalorians taught Revan much through battle. The war defined Revan and turned him into a weapon against the Republic.

Spoiler:

Revan adopted Mandalorian tactics in battle.

Spoiler:

In short, Revan is repeatedly described as:

- A practitioner of feints, counter-attacks, and mass deceptions
- Extremely ferocious and tenacious
- Remarkably subtle
- Very accepting of losses and sacrifices to secure long-run advantages
- An adopter of Mandalorian aggressive tactics

And this applies to both his military strategies and personal combat style.

IV. Interpretation of Revan's Combat Style by Other Works -- and Me!

Given all that, let’s look at how Revan’s combat style has been abstracted in different gameplay. I will mainly look at Revan's lightsaber combat style — analysis of Revan's Force abilities requires a much longer and different blog.

Star Wars Miniatures:

Revan is given a string of unique character-related abilities. "Triple Attack" suggests that Revan is a very fast striker. "Lightsaber Duelist" compounded with Revan's base defensive abilities means he is tied with Dooku as having the highest combat defense in the game. Revan also has a "Master Tactician" ability that allows him to influence his team to move before enemies can attack.

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes:

As a redeemed Jedi, Revan is a powerful team player. As a Sith, Revan is "ferocious" and focusing on achieving his goals regardless of the cost.

Spoiler:

Darth Revan is repeatedly described as "ruthless," "very aggressive," and focused on and effective at destroying the leader of an enemy team. He is an "exceptional strategist" and a "master fighter." His main gameplay gimmick is a "different approach than most": "sacrificing defensive capabilities for more offense." This "debuff" is said to be "beneficial" and "actually makes the team stronger."

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Star Wars The Old Republic - Shadow of Revan:

The resurrected Revan fights with two lightsabers. Most of his unique attacks are Force-based, but there's still some neat lightsaber-specific stuff. Most notably, Revan is the only prominent NPC in the game given "Force Speed." He runs around the battle arena for bursts at a time at "400% movement speed" -- far faster than any PC can do. This enhanced combat speed might be a game representation of battle precognition. Charles Boyd noted he spent time devising Revan's gameplay mechanics, and there's lots of KOTOR 2 references throughout them.

Spoiler:

In the SOR trailer, Revan is shown taking a lightsaber strike point-blank from Satele Shan without breaking stride. This is due to being established as an animated corpse fueled by willpower. The fruits of this haxx when coupled with Revan's aforementioned personal combat style cannot be overstated: Revan is all about accepting sacrifice in battle for long-run advantages. In his resurrected iteration, Revan should -- and demonstrably has -- accept lightsaber strikes so that he can set-up future attacks that devastate his opponent. For example, imagine Revan baiting Dooku into striking his heart -- only for Revan to take that attack in stride and then chop off Dooku's head. A move like that -- a combination of deception and sacrifice -- is wholly in-character for Revan.

Spoiler:

Although Force-based, Revan's teleportation tactics speaks to his aforementioned master at feints and deceptions. Specifically, Revan favors the tactic of abruptly teleporting and then Force grappling his opponents from his new position before they can adjust. How will another opponent know to instantly re-position and block Revan’s attack as Revan suddenly vanishes in front of him? The shock and unexpectedness will almost certainly leave them vulnerable. Revan’s used this method to successfully ‘ragdoll’ a strike team including the Outlander, Darth Marr, and Satele Shan, all of whom had "greatly increased" "combat effectiveness” (including Force powers, lightsaber skills, and, of course, the ability to anticipate attacks). The tactics effectiveness is demonstrated well by prime, all-out Luke struggling to break free from a Force choke because he doesn’t know where the attack is coming from in Crucible.

Spoiler:

V. Conclusion

Revan is one of the greatest military strategists ever and this mastery is explicitly translatable to his personal combat abilities. Thus, Revan should realistically be one of the best pure fighters in the verse. He can literally anticipate duels many minutes in advances. And specifically, Revan has a uniquely very aggressive yet subtle combat style that is all about deception and sacrifice. He's a big picture guy. In his prime resurrected form, Revan also can and does combine his haxxes like immortality and teleportation with his brilliance and characteristics to do really clever and combat-optimized attacks.

"Revan's a master tactician, and he's kind of a genius, and an incredible lightsaber wielder."
- Chris Avellone, KOTOR 2 creator