Darth Malgus Vs. Darth Nihilus

Fight takes place on Mustafar. Nihilus does not have his "eat" ability or essence transfer. In terms of feats, this is what we have for Nihilus:

Curbtomping Darth Sion (Cut content, but it has been rendered canon)

Able to do some mild acrobatics in his duel with Meetra Surik and Visas Marr

Force Stasis, which he used to trap Mandalore, Meetra, and Visas. He also used Force Stun (different power) on Meetra at a different point.

Force Drain (something of a specialty of his)

Capable of lifting a shattered capital ship off of a broken planet (The Ravager). Evidence points to Nihilus holding it together through his own sheer force of will. He was also the cause of the ship's travel through hyperspace, as well as a source of life for his minions on the ship. Notably though, he tends to not use TK in combat as much, but he has few combat showings anyway. He did use it on Darth Traya.

Force Choke-Used it on Visas and Sion

Now for Darth Malgus:

Force Lightning that took down three Jedi who had their lightsabers up

In the epilouge of Deceived, he breaches Lord Adraas' stronghold, kills everyone in the complex, and takes down Lord Adraas with his lightsaber disarming him with no harm to his person, and then strangling him to death with his bare hands.

Killing both Kao Cen Darach and Ven Zallow, the latter of whom was the Temple Swordmaster at the time

Force pushed Ven Zallow with enough force to blast him through rubble

Doing quite well against Satele Shan, albeit as both a Padawan and a Knight, and not as Grandmaster.

Special Thanks to Silver and JediXMan's Nihilus Vs. Exar Kun debate for his feats.

Who wins the duel?

Versus

Darth Malgus, he is the better duelist, stronger and is faster.

I'm not expert. But Nihilus seems more powerful

@Nelomaxwell: In terms of force ability yes, I agree. However in terms of saber combat it isn't even a contest. Malgus wins hadily in a duel. I also believe he wins overall for two reasons:

1. Malgus can keep up with Nihilus in terms of Force ability, but Nihilus can't keep up in terms of saber skills

2. Silver (the leading SW expert on these forums) and JediXMan both agreed that Exar Kun (who I view as roughly equal to Malgus) could beat Nihilus, so I fail to see why Malgus couldn't do the same.

It would be a nice fight though.

@shroudofsorrow said:

@Nelomaxwell: In terms of force ability yes, I agree. However in terms of saber combat it isn't even a contest. Malgus wins hadily in a duel. I also believe he wins overall for two reasons:

1. Malgus can keep up with Nihilus in terms of Force ability, but Nihilus can't keep up in terms of saber skills

2. Silver (the leading SW expert on these forums) and JediXMan both agreed that Exar Kun (who I view as roughly equal to Malgus) could beat Nihilus, so I fail to see why Malgus couldn't do the same.

It would be a nice fight though.

As I said I am not an expert as a matter of fact I only know the two sith in passing. Thanks for the lesson though.

Here are some feats for Malgus all taken from Decieved Novel.

Credit to @andy_steven_summers

Malgus Force lighting is strong enough to over power Jedi and burn flesh.

Malgus held forth his hand and the rage within hm manifested in blue veins of lightning that discharged from his fingertips and slammed into Adraas. The power stopped Adraas's charge cold, blew his lightsaber from his hand, caught him up in a cage of burning lightning. He screamed, squirming in frustration and pain.

-Taken from page 247 of Deceived

As Aryn prepared to leap at Malgus, he held forth a hand, almost casually, and lightning sizzled through the space between them. Aryn interposed her lightsabers, but the power in the lightning exceeded anything she had felt from Malgus before. It blasted through her defenses and both lightsabers flew from her hands. The lightning seized her, lifted her up, and threw her from the top of the shuttle.
As she flew toward the deck, she smelled burning flesh, heard screaming, realized that it was her flesh, her screams. She hit the ground hard and her head bounced off the ground. Sparks erupted om her brain, pain, and everything went dark.

-Taken from page 231 of Decieved

Malgus, not to be outdone, picked a Jedi Knight at random, a human female ten meters away, held forth his left hand, and discharged veins of blue lightning from his finger tips. The jagged lines of energy cut a swath through the battle, harvesting two Padawans as they went, until they caught up to the Jedi Knight and lifted her off her feet.

Taken from page 32 and 33 of Deceived

She screamed as the lightning ripped into her, her flesh made temporarily translucent from the dark power coursing through her. Malgus savored her pain as she died.

Here Malgus was able to duel and beat multiple Jedi

Before he could locate the Jedi Master, three more Jedi swarmed him. He parried the chop of a human male, leapt over the low slash of an orange-skinned Togruta female, severed the hand of the third, a female human, disarming her, then grabbed her by the throat with his free hand and slammed her into the floor with his Force-enhanced strength.
"Alara!" said the human male.
Leaping high over the male's cross-slash, Malgus landed behind the Togruta, who parried his ligthsaber strike but could not defend herself against the Force blast that sent her skidding across the hall and into a pile of rubble.
He ducked under a slash from the male, lunged forward, and took the Jedi by the throat. He lifted him from his feet and held him suspended in the air, gagging. The Jedi's brown eyes showed no fear, but did show pain. Malgus roared, squeezed hard, then dropped the body and stood over it, blade at his side, breath coming hard.

Taken for page 32-33 of Deceived.

He was able to take on and defeat a skilled Jedi master in Zallow ( the Jedi order had him held as one of the best)

Page 33-34

Anger refilled him, overcame him. A shout of hate, raw and jagged, burst from his throat. Power went with it, shattering a nearby column and sending a rain of stone shards through the room.

Page 34

Another Jedi stepped in front of him, blue blade held high. Malgus barely saw him. He simply extended a hand, pushed through the Jedi's insufficient defense, seized his throat with the Force, and choked him to death. Tossing the body aside, he moved towards Zallow.

Page 34-35

Malgus spun into a high, Force-augmented kick that hit Zallow in the chest and sent him flying backward ten meters.

Page 35

Malgus, burning with hate, flung his lightsaber at Zallow. He guided its trajectory with the Force, and it spun a sizzling path through the air as Zallow's neck. But Zallow, riding the momentum of his attack on the second Sith, leapt into the air and over the blade.

While Zallow was still in the air, Malgus unleashed a blast of energy that caught the Jedi unprepared and send him crashing downward into a pile of rubble.

Malgus did not hesitate. He mounted the column of his anger, shouting with hate, and leapt twenty meters into the air toward Zallow. Mid-jump, he used the Force to recall his blade to his hand, took a reverse two-handed grip, and prepared to pin Zallow to the Temple floor.

Page 35-36

Seeing an opening, Zallow stepped forward and crosscut for Malgus throat.

As Malgus knew he would.

Malgus turned his blade vertical to parry the blow and spun out of the blade lock. Reversing his lightsaber during the spin, he rode it into a stab that pierced Zallow's abdomen and came out of the other side.

Page 36

When the crowd did not respond to his demand, he slammed a fit into his palm and let anger-fueled power explode outward from his body. Screams sounded as the blast shoved everything away from him in all directions.

Bodies flew backward, slammed into one another, into the walls, against and through windows. The transport he'd rode in on lurched from the blast. The doors of the medical facility flew from their mounts and crashed to the ground.

Here Malgus uses Force Push to break the bones of guards.

The last word hung in the air, frozen in time, as Malgus drew on the Force and augmented his speed. The hilt of his lightsaber filled his hand and its red line split the air. He crosscut the guard before him, putting a black canyon in his chest, continued the swing through the guard on his left, and with his left hand used a blast of power to drive the third guard into the Temple wall hard enough to crush bones and kill him.

-Taken from page 23 of Deceived.

Malgus felt the sudden surge of terror in the two soldiers up on the ledge to his left, felt them take aim in sweaty hands, start to squeeze triggers. He flung his lightsaber at them, guided it with the Force in a flickering red arc that cut both of them down, then recalled the blade to his hand. He deactivated it and hunt it from his belt.

Here Malgus displays saber throw

Malgus felt the sudden surge of terror in the two soldiers up on the ledge to his left, felt them take aim in sweaty hands, start to squeeze triggers. He flung his lightsaber at them, guided it with the Force in a flickering red arc that cut both of them down, then recalled the blade to his hand. He deactivated it and hunt it from his belt.

Uses the Force choke to kill a Jedi

Another Jedi stepped in front of him, blue blade held high. Malgus barely saw him. He simply extended a hand, pushed through the Jedi's insufficient defense, seized his throat with the Force, and choked him to death. Tossing the body aside, he moved towards Zallow.

-Taken from page 34 and 35 of Deceived

Here flings crowd of people and moves transport he rode in with the Force.

When the crowd did not respond to his demand, he slammed a fit into his palm and let anger-fueled power explode outward from his body. Screams sounded as the blast shoved everything away from him in all directions.
Bodies flew backward, slammed into one another, into the walls, against and through windows. The transport he'd rode in on lurched from the blast. The doors of the medical facility flew from their mounts and crashed to the ground.

Taken from page 36 of Deceived.

Malgus is also very fast he has displayed amazing speed.

Malgus, nested deeply in the Force, perceived the dozens of bolts and their trajectory with perfect clarity. Without breaking stride he whipped his blade left, right, angled it ten degrees, and turned three bolts back on the soldiers who'd fired them, killing all three.

-Taken from page 24 of Deceived

Here Malgus shows that he can move his lightsaber so fast it looks as if he has a shield.

His Force-enhanced reflexes moved faster than their trigger fingers. Without slowing his pace, he pulled his lightsaber into his hand and activated it as he blasters discharged. The red line of his weapon spun so fast in his hand it expanded into a shield.
Two of the blaster shots ricocheted off his weapon and into the ceiling. He deflected the other four back at the troopers, putting black holes through two chests and two face masks. Another two strides and a lunge brought him upon the surviving two troopers before they could fire again. He crosscut, spun, and crosscut again, killing both.

-Taken from page 224 of Deceived.

@dccomicsrule2011: All of this serves to confirm to me that he is very much the better swordsman. In terms of force ability though Nihilus is still his better. Just not by a large amount. So Malgus wins.

I never knew Malgus was such a badass, i'm thoroughly impressed! Intro's don't compare his powers to the novel above, but they are awesome!

@LubeMan: Yes, his showings there are decent. His novel is where he shines though, especially since it gives Ven Zallow something resembling a backstory, namely as the Temple Swordmaster or somesuch. Makes Malgus' killing him just a bit more impressive I guess.

Malgus wins this. Nihilus really was kind of a one trick pony. A very nice trick, yes. But him not being able to feed on Malgus here puts him at a disadvantage.

Malgus is by far the better swordsman. Meetra was an average duelist for someone of her rank, and she gave Nihilus plenty of trouble on Ravager. Granted, he was fighting three people, but neither of the other two combatants, Visas and Mandalore the Preserver, have done anything of repute. If anything, that's a feat showing that Nihilus isnt that great of a duelist.

Malgus has also displayed better speed, reaction, and strength feats than Nihilus has.

Nihilus is the better Force User, but not by enough of a margin that it is going to influence the outcome of this fight. Malgus was a pretty strong Force User as well.

Not to mention, at respective stages in their training, Malgus has gotten the better of Satele Shan in both of their confrontations.

First on Korriban, where they were both in the early stages of their training (Padawan/Apprentice status), Malgus would have decapitated Shan if not for Cen Darach's intervention.

On Alderaan, Malgus once again had Satele dead to rights, her saber destroyed and either cortosis laced gloves/ Energy Absorption standing between Satele and being killed. Again, a soldier intervened to save her life.

Granted, Satele is likely beyond his abilities as a GrandMaster, but the point remains. Satele has never been able to defeat Malgus in a straight up fight with no outside interference, while both are around the same levels of Mastery.

I'll take beating the future GrandMaster of the Jedi Order over getting beaten by an average Jedi Knight and two featless combatants, one of whom isn't even Force Sensitive.

Malgus 8/10

@steelhound56: All fair points, except that it wasn't cortosis that saved Satele but a very rare Force technique. I wouldn't necessarily say she was dead to rights there. Also, Padawan and Knight Satele are every bit as featless as Meetra and Visas are. Other than that though I agree with your general assessment.

This is very true. I give this to Malgus for another reason on top of these. He can use the force to essentially tank up and withstand more abuse than most force users, not to mention he is a far superior duelist than Nihilus. I think that Nihilus' force abilities outmatch Malgus' more so than you say, he has no feats anywhere near that of Nihilus' with the Ravager. But in a duel, Malgus wins due to insane strength, speed and reflexes, all cybernetically fueled to superhuman levels. On top of that, in a duel, the force doesn't play as big of a role.

Also, Malgus has TONS of dueling experience, more than 20 years worth, as a front line fighter against dozens to hundreds of Jedi, whereas Nihilus, although I'm not entirely sure, can't possibly have as much.

This didn't need to get bumped.....

Minus Drain, Malgus wins.

Nihilus.

Nihilus may be a one-trick pony, but he doesn't really need more than that for this fight. Far as I know, Malgus has not shown resistance to Drain.

That's because no one, to my knowledge, has ever used drain on malgus. Malgus is a really powerful Force User. I don't think that drain will take him out of the fight easily.

Nihilus

The post says he doesn't have access to that anyways. Not to mention, Malgus is essentially a tank, and immune to almost any force ability thrown at him, and with that in mind, he would quickly overpower Nihilus with a barrage of supercharged lightsaber blows, and exceptionally powerful force lightning, and telekenesis.

Wow, I didn't know this was bumped!

Perhaps I should elaborate: I said Nihilus does not have his "eat" ability in the sense that he cannot simply devour Malgus' essence the way he does every other Force Sensitive he runs into. He CAN however use basic Force Drain, which he used in conjunction with Choke and Lightning to curbstomp Sion.

Bump (again)

He doesn't devour people's essences. That was more... Vitiate's ritual. Nihilus simply killed people with Drain, he didn't take their essences with him.

He CAN however use basic Force Drain, which he used in conjunction with Choke and Lightning to curbstomp Sion.

That's interesting - except that is only S-Canon, and Sion has no durability feats even remotely touching Malgus's level. If anything, Sion has no feats at all minus the resurrecting.

Oh, and in some versions of the cutscene, Nihilus used just Lightning (and some TK).

You also shouldn't post so much irrelevant stuff for Nihilus. His corrupting aura and concealment are absolutely worthless in a fight. If anything, the "I don't know where he is" is simply because he travels in dark places of the galaxy nobody treads - and anybody who attempts to sense him via the Force would get his attention and well..... die.

A combat ability he does have that wasn't mentioned is Force Stun, which he used on the Exile. No, not the stasis in the cutscene.

Oh. My mistake.

Really? I thought in Silver and JediXMan's discussion it was considered acceptable evidence of Nihilus' power...guess not

I just thought it necessary to list everything. Didn't mean to post anything irrelevant.

Noted. I'll list that too.

@shroudofsorrow: I accept that myself. I'm just saying.

@shroudofsorrow: His mild acrobatics are game mechanics and shouldn't be canon.

@shootingnova: Well the way I see it, those "game mechanics" are not something that is dependent on individual player choice. He'll do them no matter what. So why shouldn't they be considered canon? I mean I understand disregarding game mechanics that are overly subjective, but what's wrong with using stuff less subjective? After all, video game cutscenes count do they not? Why can't this?

@shroudofsorrow: Except video cutscenes are always the same. I remember I vsed him once and I killed him so quickly he didn't have the chance to use any acrobatics :P

Silver and I consider Concealment a legitimate ability of Nihilus' however. A planet full of Force Sensitives, including Jedi Masters, did not sense Nihilus' arrival.

@jedixman: Ha ha! So I was right to post that feat! I knew it!

You can always cheat via Crush.

Force Crush is OP in that game. It makes every fight trivial once you get it.

It has no bearing on most combat scenarios, but yes, I do think that Nihilus demonstrated Concealment.

@jedixman said:

Yeah, I beat Atris just by using it ONCE.

Though having said that I did still struggle against all of the Sith Triumvirate members, especially Traya. That old lady was tough as nails.

Fighting Sion was hilarious with Crush. I did nothing but, and he never landed a hit on me.

@jedixman: Whereas with me I preferred carving into him with my lightsaber...and then failing every single persuasion check I tried to make during the conversations in-between. Go figure.

@jedixman: You could think of it as that. However, it isn't Concealment - Kreia said the Sith Triumvirate have all masked themselves from the Jedi via creating small wounds in the Force.

I thought you only had to fight him five times, regardless of dialogue options which would only lower his stats.

@shootingnova: That's what I meant. And I only ever succeeded on the very first one. All of my other persuasion checks where failures, which was particularly sad given that Persuasion was one of the skills I liked to put a lot of points in

@shroudofsorrow: He isn't hard at all though. He starts off being pretty easy and eventually becomes as easy as a regular.

@shootingnova: Are you referring to the Persuasion checks or the fight itself? Because the latter definitely wasn't that hard if memory serves me right, nowhere NEAR as hard as Traya. But the persuasion checks I simply could not make for whatever reason

@shroudofsorrow: I don't think any of them were hard. Traya was certainly hardest, though. And Sion was simply not hard at all, even if you didn't lower his stats.

Which, if memory serves, we also said.

It still has the same end result: they can't be sensed through the Force.

@jedixman: Silver disagreed with me when I said that before.

And it's still useless in a combative situation.

I think that Nihilus' case has to do with being a wound. Not the other members of the Triumvirate, because Traya and Sion were not like Nihilus and Meetra.

@jedixman: I'm pretty sure Traya said they all learnt some concealment technique, anyways, including those assassins.

... what are you saying? Being a wound =/= concealment. I'm saying that Nihilus' abilities might not be true concealment - rather, he's a wound in the Force which makes him undetectable, but it has a similar effect. The others know Concealment.

@shootingnova: Actually I think the generic Sith Assassins just use standard stealth field generators, at least it seems that way in the game proper.

@shroudofsorrow: I'm not sure.

I meant Kreia said they could create wounds in the Force to mask their presence, and she also said they knew concealment techniques.

Apologies for my horrendous lack of clarity.

NIHILUS OBVIOUSLY!!!!!!!!!

@magnificentstorm: ....were those capitals really necessary?

I'm not sure what is so obvious about Nihilus winning. He has a slow mindset and reaction time, whereas Malgus is notably faster, significantly stronger, has much better TK application in combat, etc.

Without the potential to utilize Drain I don't see Nihilus winning 1 out of 10. Well, maybe.

@shootingnova: The 1 out of 10 is Malgus trips and Nihilus decapitates him as he's getting back up

@shroudofsorrow: LOL. That's zero though :P