Saga Who Is the greatest lightsaber practitioner in the Star Wars saga?

Dooku and Mace, for entirely different reasons.

Dooku was skilled for his age and was especially talented with the older fencing style of the ancient old republic.

Mace was multi talented with a lot of styles and could even temporarily channel energy from the dark side to enhance his skills.

 

I always got the sense that Mace's defining trait was that he was unstoppable with a lightsaber. I mean, he defeated Sidious himself, for crying out loud!

Not sure why so many people are saying Maul, given that he was basically given one win for free and lost the other one.

 

I will say I like Dooku's a lot mostly because of its elegance though I'm not sure who the most skilled duelist is. That might have to be Yoda, then a tie with Mace and Anakin.

 

Anakin Skywalker is raw talent. Give him a few more years to polish rough edges, focus his anger and calm his mind - he would be unbeatable. Anakin was a mess in ROTS - he was all over the place. You can see him holding back against Dooku, before he just decides to take him down. Obi-Wan could stand his ground on Mustafar for a while, simply because he was the one who trained Anakin. Dooku, Windu or any other Jedi (maybe except Yoda) wouldn't stand a chance.

I don't know if this necessarely makes him the greatest practitioner. According to Obi-Wan Anakin wasn't the most dedicated practitioner. He could've potentially rivaled Yoda in AOTC if he'd been more dedicated to his training. I think Count Dooku might've been a greater practitioner - he seems like someone who takes great pride in his perfromance and hence he'll be more dedicatede to his Jedi training.

 

Mace Windu... He was the only one able to soundly defeat Palpatine. Even Yoda couldn't seem to do that. Besides, George Lucas said that Mace was supposed to be the best duelist in the saga.

 

Yoda

Edit: Anomaly 6572-02 He did? If that's the case then my answer changes to Mace. It's just that I've never heard that before.

 

No Jedi can even be considered.... They need 2,3 and 4 Jedi to fight 1 Sith Lord and still get beat. The top 3 are...
#3 Darth Maul
#2 Count Dooku
#1 Darth Sidious and easily
Mace only survived his duel against Sids, because Sids kept Mace alive. Mace was used as a tool to turn Anakin to the Darkside. If Mace was even half the duelist people say he is, surely he could have landed a fatal blow on Sidious while he was fighting all 4 Jedi masters. Lets see... 4 JEDI MASTERS VS 1 SITH LORD in close quarter combat with lightsabres resulting in 4 dead Jedi ... 2 things happen.
1. Sidious is a greater duellist than Mace and his posse combined.
2. All 4 of those Jedi masters simply fail to meet the criteria.

Yoda only survived against Sidious, because Yoda turned tail and ran away.

 

I say Darth Sidious.

 

Mace Windu, Darth Maul and Darth Vader (He never really wanted to kill his son, even before he turned on the emperor) are the contenders IMO, I would edge toward maul, but I suspect that I am biased.

PS. sidious is the best combatant, followed by yoda, but both had limitations in a duel, and while Sidious was pretending, he wasn't in the saber duel, only in his force powers (which would've at least saved him, sans anakin)

 

I say Yoda at number 1, with Mace Windu his runner up, those two were the best in my opinion so far in lightsaber dueling.

 

I'll quote this old post for visibility if any of the newcomers haven't seen it yet. I think it perfectly summarizes the whole situation.

 

Apparently it's Rey

 

Lucas basically said anyone who's not Yoda or Mace going up against Sidious is dead meat. I think between those 3 you are splitting hairs to say who was the best. He also said:

"On AOTC, I had to give them levels," he says. Sidious is a level 9(out of 10). On this film Obi is 8-he's moved up-Anakin is a 9 (in ROTS): Mace is a 9, Yoda is a 9. They're up there with Sidious." - The Making of RotS

So in the saga there are four "9's" as far as light saber combat, in no particular order:

Yoda
Mace
Sidious
Anakin/Vader (pre-suit)

Since Obi Wan is an 8 and Dooku seems to consistently beat him (but lost to Anakin) I'd say Dooku is about an 8.5. Slightly less skilled in light saber combat than the big 4. Darth Maul was probably about an 8 or 8.5 too.

Vader would eventually be #1 (a 10) if he wasn't hampered by the suit.

 

See I think Maul is clearly a 9 to 9.5 in TPM (although I think a rating system is probably flawed, at least if you are including the force).

 

If we are looking only within the films themselves, and not any other material, I would still say Mace. Yes, Palpatine had potentially expended a lot of energy to take out the other 3 masters, but Mace was still on the top of his game. I do think Palpatine was in control of the fight, but I still think Mace managed to do extremely well regardless.

 

I think Yoda, Mace, Sidious, Anakin/Vader in ROTS, and Dooku could all defeat Maul one on one.

 

Could? yes. consistently? no. although if you add in the force, maybe we don't really know how good his force defenses are. but just lightsabers, I would say he would win more often than not vs everyone but mace and Anakin/Vader (ESB too, just cause he goes easy on his kid doesn't mean he forgot how to fight). And anakin has a bigger weakness than vader imo, and that is massive amounts of prideful arrogance (similar to maul, although i never bought the end of that fight unless I pretend Qui Gon force froze maul like

Spoiler

Ren

does).

 

There's nothing to support Maul being a 9 to a 9.5. That would make him better than his master Sidious who is described as a 9. Also note that Obi Wan had more problems with Dooku than he did with Maul. That makes Maul about an 8 to 8.5 since Sidious (9) > Maul and Dooku (8.5ish) > Maul. Each of Sidious' apprentices got more powerful. That's kind a theme of the prequels. Ie... Pre-suit Vader > Dooku > Maul.

 

Interesting suggestion, Shaak Ti. Next time I watch TPM I'll have to consider that. I'd like to have some way to think about that fight-ending move so that it makes more sense than Maul just standing there and getting bisected.

 

Luke, without a doubt. Just look.




But really I think it's supposed to be Windu. At least the PT Jedi seem to think so. Maybe Anikan or Obi-Wan surpassed him in ROTS but i'm not so sure.

 

I go with suited Vader as the top contender, and by a fair margin (yes I've heard Lucas's comments).

I really like a lot of what has been said here. It is hard to know by what we are presented with in the text of the films (and this comes up a lot on these boards) about how much of lightsaber fighting is training/skill and how much is force sensitivity/power? TFA seems to come down on the force sensitivity/power side, but I wouldn't discount the training/skill element either (which I think it was clear that Maul had to a high degree).

Other high-placed duelists: Yoda, Obi-Wan, Sidious, Dooku, Mace, Luke post-RotJ (though we don't have a lot of information on this yet) are certainly no push-overs. I think it's clear from the films that there is a significant measure of "Any Given Sunday" to the high placed duelists, which I believe is referrenced in the films in lines such as: "Obi Wan is here, the force is with him," implying that the force waxes and wanes within an individual (probably due to myriad factors including circumstance, focus, training, and innate force-sensitivity). I don't think match-ups between the best lightsaber duelists would be a foregone conclusion, but rather something more along the lines of "Vader would win 7 of 10 duels against Yoda, 9 of 10 against Obi-Wan," and so on.