CT How strong was Sidious with a light saber

For me, Sidious has always stood out as the strongest force user we've ever seen in the films. However, seeing him wield a lightsaber in RotS ultimately just felt like fan service. He even refers to a lightsaber as a "Jedi weapon" in RotJ, always leading me to believe that Sheev felt sabers to be beneath him. Personally, I didn't like seeing Palpatine or Yoda wielding lightsabers in the PT, but oh well. That's just how I feel. As to how strong he would be with a lightsaber, I guess logically we could assume that he'd be pretty damn top tier as the lord of the Sith and essentially the embodiment of the dark side, but as such, I still personally feel that the embodiment of the dark would require no saber.

 

He would probably still be very good. By ROTS, I would assume he had made Dooku and Maul do all his work for him for a while and he was still very good.

 

Had he derided them with such a comment, the Jedi would not have been amused, but some in the audience would have been.

I think that Sidious preferred to use the Force only like she said by the time of ROTJ. Yes, and he definitely was enjoyin' the duel between Vader and Luke. I think this was due to his sadistic nature. Plus, it was father vs. son. I'm just glad that Vader took him by surprise and hurled him away to save his son.

 

I'm pretty sure he keep his skills.
He must keep himself higher than Vader.

 

The sad thing is, we tend to only view power as it would relate to us in a video game setting.

This does not translate to Star Wars, because the entire point of the story was not defeating Vader in a lightsaber duel. It was about defeating your own demons, and learning to do what was right.

Similarly, the true strength of the Force came from conquering one's lesser self and living in a way that flowed with the Force. It's really not even a difficult concept to grasp. Sidious defied everything good or right for the purpose of personal power. Vader emulated this when he saw how powerful Sidious had become.

Yoda, and Obi-Wan, understood that the Force transcended this life and the physical. Vader failed to comprehend this simple truth and was consumed by his base desires. We see that the Dark Side ended up destroying them, which was represented by their physical decaying. They were living in opposition that which binds the galaxy together. Life creates the Force, and they were destroying it.

Yoda never used a lightsaber because he was mentally and spiritually beyond the physical self. Sidious never used a lightsaber because he, too, was beyond the physical, but in a different way. He valued the power of the mind, the value of fear and manipulation over the physical. He never used a lightsaber because, as Jedi represent the Knights of yore, Sidious representing the evil warlock of yore.

No one ever won against evil by killing it with a lightsaber. Obi-Wan had defeated Vader long ago, and Vader really could not threaten him with anything. Obi was prepared to give his life for the Force, and this made him more powerful than Vader could ever be. Luke almost failed through his desire to defeat Vader. It was only by throwing away his lightsaber, giving up his physical self, that he was able to deny the Dark Side and provide the path to redemption for his father.

Sidious was terribly, terribly weak. This is represented by his powerlessness to stop Vader after he turned on him. Sidious relied on the weakness in others. His ally was fear. Without fear, he was basically nothing.