MARTIAL ARTS
Originally trained by Kyle Narec, but mostly self taught, I doubt Ventress originally practiced any of the classical sveen lightsaber forms. However, after her instruction under Dooku, it is heavily implied she became a forme II specialist, with some knowledge of Jar'kai and possibly forms IV and VI. As Dookus main "hand", Ventress was often involved in lightsaber duels against all kinds of Jedi, from padawans to masters. She pretty much trounced Kit Fisto and Luminara Undulie, held her own against several Jedi knights at once, overwhelmed Grievous (possibly with the aid of a dark side nexus and managed to hold her own against Savage Opress, Darth Maul and Count Dooku, at least briefly. On the other hand, she was completely outclassed by Mace Windu, incapable of beating Ki-adi Mundi and a Wounded Plo Koon, and was beaten on a near regular basis by Obi-wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Although I do not think of Ventress as highly as most Star Wars fans, i still believe she presents a challenge to (most) High council members.
P.s was originally a member of M/W, a shadowy guild of sorcerers. As such, her primary focus was on supernatural powers, at the expense of her more mundane abilities, such as martial arts. However, after joining the Crusaders allies she gained a much greater level of skill, thanks to constant training and combat experience. P.s was exceptionally skilled at un armed combat, with physical blows featuring heavily in her dueling style. On the topic of such, she was a swift and acrobatic fighter, dodging about the battlefield and releasing a wide variety of agile strikes. She was also skilled at redirecting enemy moves. Although not the best duelist of her group, she was quite skilled, defeating both the crazed M/W agent Thang and lord Viiper, as well as holding her own against the Hand and Lord Leam. Her most impressive feat however was near the end of her career as an adventurer, where she went head to head with Fredrickson and, even though she was eventually defeated, performed the third best against the dark Crusader, with only Andrew and Fredrick himself doing better.
Going back to my Fredrick vs Shaak Ti video, on a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate P.s a seven in terms of martial arts, a better than average duelist, but with a rather standard fighting style and incapable of truly contending against top tiers such as Ahab and Fredrickson. Ventress on the other hand, basically made a career out of doing this, and although she was similarly outclassed by grandmasters and Sith lords, anyone capable of holding her own against Skywalker and Kenobi at the same time has earned my respect as a martial artist. Asajj Ventress gets the edge, for being more experienced, varied and in general more skilled.
SUPERNATURAL POWERS
The best way to sum up Ventresses power in the Force would be to call it Innately powerful, let unrefined and ruled by hatred. Her telekinesis was probably her greatest asset, as it was powerful enough to easily toss around large objects and stagger even the best Jedi knights, and yet it was her most refined and advanced ability, with her repeatedly showing great accuracy and subtlety via this power. She had no experience in force lighting however, and her stealth and necromancy wont come into play in a pitched lightsaber duel. Her force defense definitely left something to be desired, as Grandmaster Yoda and even Barriss Offee were able to beat it with practical ease.
As described several times already, P.s was most skilled in the use of sorcery, it being the driving focus for most of her early life after all. Although her telekinesis was powerful and precise, it wasn't exceptionally so. Instead, her true power lay in the area of energy manipulation/creation, capable of diverse and powerful abilities, ranging from waves powerful enough to destroy legions of enemies to nearly impenetrable defensive shields and everything in between. She also had a high degree of knowledge in the use of stealth (although she could not become outright invisible) and healing trances, using the later to survive mentally and physically over months of torture.
Asajj Ventress has a good degree of raw power, and she knows how to use it very effectively. However, she had demonstrated herself to be outmatched by other duelists in terms of the supernatural. And the simple fact is, that here she is facing a fully fledged sorcerers. Ventress has enough trouble with force lighting and telekinesis, I have a hard time imagining how she would deal with abilities that a force user would simply be completely unfamiliar with. I give the edge to P.s in terms of the supernatural.
PHYSICAL SKILLS
Ventress was originally a Rattataki from Rattatak, although she has now been retconned into a nightsister. However, unlike what SOME people would have you believe, changed just about NOTHING physically speaking, and for that matter back story wise, but thats a topic for another day. Back to the point, Ventress had a slim build, but remained physically strong and enduring, as well as swift.
P.s, as with her allies, was an Eternal, a humanoid species with a centuries long life span and natrual ability with telekinesis. P.s was in reasonable condition, not being very physically strong, but having a good degree of speed and swiftness. In addition, her tolerance for pain was exemplary, managing to survive being impaled even without the option of a healing trance. That being said, she was in recovery for about a month afterwards.
No real edge here, as both are very similar physically speaking. I call it a tie.
WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT
Asajj Ventress was armed with a set of paired lightsabers: capable of being used as dual sabers and/or a saberstaff. Ventress was highly skilled with the use of the dual blades (to the point she was somewhat over reliant on it), although she only rarely used a saberstaff. In addition, both weapons were powered with synthetic red crystals and had curved hilts, adding to there precision and unorthodoxy.
Mostly relying on her supernatural powers, P.s was not as heavily equipped as her allies. However, she still knew her way around most melee weapons and was a expert markswoman, carrying a standard energy pistol. She rarely used it, but she was in possession of a suit of mark 4 Delta power armor. When dueling, her weapon of choice was a dark purple bladed phase blade, a rare color associated (naturally) with Crusader sages.
This edge is actually surprisingly hard to call. P.s definitely has a wider arrange of weapons and skills, but she only has a limited amount of them on her person at any one time, and even fewer that would actually be useful in one on one combat. On the other hand, P.s has combated dual wielders before and even has some experience with staff weapons, limiting Ventress's advantage. Technically lightsabers are superior weapons to Phaseblades, being able to slice threw many more materials and having a longer lasting source of energy. However, Phaseblades do have a long enough battery life to stay functioning throughout even a lengthy duel, leaving it a contest between P.s and her simple blade and ventress's paired weapons. Ventress gets the SLIGHT edge in equipment.
THE VERDICT
Okay, on the surface this looks like its just going to be another "there even in physical skills and equipment, leaving the superior duelist to overcome the magicien." However, I should explain WHY I almost always give the edge to martial artists over force users: I simply believe a gap between force skill is easier to overcome than one between duelists. For example, most people believe Yoda is a much more powerful force user than Dooku (a view I disagree with, but to each his own) and yet all Dooku needed was a basic understanding of force lighting and telekinesis to force the Grandmaster to resort to the blade. On the other hand, the large gap between Dooku and Quinlan Vos lead to the Jedis constant defeat. However, this does NOT come into play here for a very good reason: Whereas any Jedi or Sith can use telekinesis or bloke lighting with a lightsaber, these tactics simply wont work here: P.s is not only bringing powers that Ventress has no knowledge of, but even if Ventress was, there isn't really anything she could do about it. Her energy attacks not be blocked with a lightsaber, her defenses can not be penetrated by one, and although her power with stealth and healing, as well as other abilities that can not be mentioned do to time constraints, are not LIKELY to be used here, if P.s gets the chance, Ventress will Similarly be outclassed. This is not to say (of course) that this fight is one sided, far from it. Vnetress IS the much better martial artist after all. However, if and/or when P.s resorts to her supernatural powers (which would be very likely, she IS a sorceress after all) Ventress will have a very limited amount of options to stay standing, much less strike back. I declare P.s the victor, at least in seven out of ten battles.
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