Whelp, I'm officially disgusted. Washing my hands of this in 3...2...1...

Are you saying that Jango Fett, who disarmed Obi-Wan and dropped him off of a cliff, checked to see if he was alive, found no evidence of such, and calmly walked back to his ship was the loser of that fight and Obi-Wan who barely escaped with his life by catching a railing with a cord was the winner? Furthermore, are you arguing that Vitiate, who has killed the populations of entire planets multiple times, who had one physical body among the thousands that it is possible for him to control killed by an attack to the back, quite possibly by his own design and whose consciousness is still very much alive and directly capable of affecting the physical world with displays of power Palpatine never demonstrated on his best day isn't any more powerful than Palpatine, who died via a professional wrestling move off of a balcony that he clearly didn't anticipate and failed to adequately react to despite eight entire seconds between being lifted off of his feet and being dropped down the shaft?

I realize that lots of people would argue that fight was a draw, but you seem to be implying that Obi-Wan won, which is a bit of a stretch for my taste. In any case, the rule of whoever dies lost the fight is applicable when one party dies, however it is not a prerequisite to determine a winner. I would contend that Jango accomplished his tactical objective by dropping Obi-Wan off of a cliff and his strategic objective by managing to leave the planet unscathed. As for the could do/would do argument, Palpatine was killed by being gorilla pressed of a balcony. Not only would that most definitely not kill Vitiate, I can't fathom a situation where it would inconvenience him, or even happen for that matter.

My original post kind of threw out the stuff performed by Force-users in SWTOR as too far out there, so I'm not really looking at Satele Shan using her hand to block a lightsaber as a great example. Once we got to Vitiate killing entire planets, it kind of got ridiculous. We've already seen Vaylin do feats surpassing what Yoda or Palpaltine could do in the movies, and her power is being limited right now. Looking at Jango Fett from the movies, I never understood where the idea that no non-Force user could hold there own against a master Force-user. Barring the loss to Windu, which Lucas says was due to an equipment malfunction, Jango Fett beats Obi-Wan, states to be one of the most powerful Jedi in the Order, in a 1-on-1 fight and kills a Jedi Council Member in the same movie. I think the EU has exaggerated people's perceptions of what Jedi and Sith are capable of, which is the only good thing to come out of it not being canon anymore.

I don't have the book in front of me unfortunately. I'm going on faith that the citation is accurate, which admittedly wouldn't pass muster in an academic forum, but this isn't exactly a high stakes discussion.

"Darth Vader: A 3-D Reconstruction Log" and "Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties" both state that his right gauntlet is made from Mandalorian Iron, enabling it to block blaster bolts. But again, I feel we're getting off topic, the main thrust of the article was not about the efficacy of blasters.

According to "The Essential Guide to Warfare", the visible bolt is the actual bolt. I'll take your word for it on the speed thing, as I haven't watched the animated show. Regardless, I worry this thread is turning into "How fast are blaster bolts?" rather than addressing the point of the thread.

1. What? 2. Blaster bolts are explicitly not lasers.( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blaster) 3. We've seen Bounty Hunters defeat Jedi Masters in the movies and SWTOR in straight fights.

The guy who walks away alive is the winner. I can't think of an example of someone using the force to move quickly, although they do use it to jump really high; flinging people out of windows would be filed under moving things, precognition I'll grant you, but it is far from perfect. You're points on blasters being slowed for stylistic reasons confuses me, they travel how fast they travel.The reality depicted in the medium is the only reality, disregarding what happens in the films is fanon. Vader can block blaster bolts with his hands because they are prosthetic limbs made of metal covered in armored gauntlets. Whether or not you know they're coming, bullets travel way too fast to be reacted to, particularly when they're coming at you at a rate of ten per second.

I'm the first person to say that Superman would beat Batman in any kind of conditions in seconds, so believe me when I say that I'm not one of those people who always stands up for normal people against superpowered ones, but the "Non-Force users should be obliterated" idea has a couple of holes: 1. Jedi/Sith are grotesquely overpowered in the game and other EU sources compared to how they are in the movies. In the movies, the combat applications of the Force are limited to "push people, move small things kinda quickly or relatively large things very slowly, slowly choke people and shoot painful but decidedly non-lethal lightning while remaining completely stationary." That's it. No one is ever depicted as using these abilities on someone they cannot directly see. In the EU, the Force can allow you to catch missiles out of the air, become immortal and kill entire planets simultaneously. Vitiate must be 1,000 times more powerful than the strongest Jedi/Sith alive in the movies. Compare Jango Fett's performance against Obi-Wan in Episode II with how Vader/Maul did against him. Jango did better than either of the two Sith Lords, either defeating him or fighting him to a standstill, depending on who you ask. He also killed a Jedi Council member on Geonosis. Yeah, Windu killed him quickly, but Lucas says in the commentary for Attack of the Clones that Fett's jetpack malfunctioned after being stepped upon by the Reek, leaving him unable to fly out of Windu's path. With a functioning jetpack, the fight might have turned out differently, and almost certainly would have lasted longer. 2. Man-portable weapons technology and infantry tactics in the Star Wars universe suck. Stepping out of the universe for a moment, a lightsaber is a totally ridiculous weapon to bring to a fight, especially since 99.9999% of combat Jedi engage in is against opponents who are armed with ranged weapons. It's only usable within a 6-foot radius unless you want to throw your only weapon, and God help you if you are on the receiving end of sustained automatic fire from more than one direction simultaneously. Luckily, for Force-Users the blaster is an even dumber weapon. Blaster bolts seem to only fire on semi and move slower than MLB pitches at only 78 MPH (http://www.wired.com/2012/05/star-wars-blaster-speed/). Any faster in rate or velocity and someone with a lightsaber would probably die really quickly, at least if you could hit anything, considering blasters seem to be incredibly inaccurate. Besides the accuracy issue, it's also worth pointing out that any projectile moving that slowly is worthless for sniping, as even a non-force user would be able to dodge a glowing, easily visible blaster bolt coming at them, at 78 MPH, forcing pretty much all combat with blasters in Star Wars to take place at what looks like less than 50 meters like an eighteenth-century infantryman, which is exactly where you don't want to be fighting someone with a lightsaber. Basically, the non-force users are going into combat with a semiautomatic Revolutionary War Rifle. Give a platoon of Navy Seals with their standard issue gear shooting tiny, almost impossible to see 5.56 rounds at 600 rounds per second against an equivalent number of Jedi/Sith and I'd put my money on them every time. 3. The BH at least should still have a good chance against force-users (Spoilers) Caveat: Vitiate/Valkorion is excluded from this as he is basically God, and no one should have a realistic chance against him. Barring the fact that the Bounty Hunter has the most impressive list of Force-User kills of the non-Force classes, including a Jedi war hero, Jedi Battlemaster (who canon says was the overarching one, whose position was later taken by the JK PC), and possibly Darth Tormen, he's basically space Batman without the compunction against killing. If I was the only one who was wondering why my Bounty Hunter didn't fly away with his jetpack and blow up the platform he was fighting Arcann on with his missiles and rockets, or better yet just use his flamethrower when his opponent was standing two feet away, I'd be surprised. Instead, he just remained in place, used nothing but his blasters, and politely allowed Arcann to stab him. Even then my BH still managed to shoot Arcann twice with his blasters. Tragically, Arcann seems to have Wolverine's healing factor and adamantium bones because he recovered almost instantaneously and continued to use his lightsaber with the arm he was shot in, ignoring the fact he was also shot in the chest all the while. The Trooper, with an arsenal almost as good as the BH, should do pretty well too. I grant you that the IA and Smuggler should probably get killed.

I have noticed that the Imperial Agent usually has circumstances working to his favor in the storyline when he defeats a powerful force user. The Bounty Hunter pretty much beats really powerful Sith and Jedi straight up. I haven't finished the Trooper and Smuggler storylines but I understand their battles works similarly to the agent. So ultimately I think the Bounty Hunter is the best non-force user fighter in the SWTOR era universe and can take pretty much any Jedi or Sith in a one-on-one fight.