Force User Tiers

Place the Force-wielders of the official Star Wars canon in a Nick Gillard-esque tiering system (or, come up with a better one if you see fit). 

Some tentative/spitballing rankings:

Tier Ten:

The Ones

Tier Nine:

Darth Sidious
Yoda
Anakin Skywalker
Darth Vader 
Mace Windu (?)

Tier Eight:

Mace Windu (?)
Count Dooku
Luke Skywalker
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Darth Maul
Ahsoka Tano

Tier Seven:

Asajj Ventress
Savage Opress
Kylo Ren (?)
Rey (?)
Kit Fisto
Luminara Unduli (?)

Tier Six:

Luminara Unduli (?)
Adi Gallia
Eeth Koth (?)
Barriss Offee

Tier Five:

Kanan Jarrus
The Grand Inquisitor
Ezra Bridger
Seventh Sister

----- ----- -----

Unknowns:

Snoke
The Force Priestesses 
Bendu

----- ----- -----

Add your own lists and some suggestions to mine, as I may edit depending.

I'm guessing Rise of Skywalker could change this. Not ordered within tiers.

Tier 10: The Ones, the Force Priestesses (?)
Tier 9:  Darth Sidious, Yoda, Mace Windu, Luke Skywalker (?)
Tier 8: Darth Vader, Anakin Skywalker, Count Dooku, Obi Wan, Darth Maul, Ahsoka Tano, Snoke
Tier 7: Ventress, Oppress, Grievous
Tier 6: Kylo Ren, Rey

Tier 10 is self explanatory - the Ones are supreme, the Force Priestesses are probably not as powerful as the Ones, but above everyone else in Star Wars, so they should probably be in a tier in-between
Tier 9 has the usual heavy hitters - in Canon it seems like Mace Windu is outright Palpatine tier by RotS. Luke Skywalker in his prime should be on this tier too, given that his potential is presumably still extremely high and he already defeats Vader in RotJ.
Tier 8 has Vader, who random quotes aside isn't realistically on Palpatine's tier, Anakin, who doesn't have the Stover / etc. quotes for him in Canon (and going by the films is clearly below Yoda/Sidious), Dooku, etc. Obi Wan in Canon likely grows in power after RotS at least for a while, and matches Vader. Maul and Ahsoka are on the lower part of the tier. Snoke is probably below Palpatine, and seems to admire Vader, but IDK where exactly to put him.
Tier 7 seems pretty self-explanatory.
Tier 6 has Kylo Ren, who is indicated to be beneath Vader, while Rey is not as skilled as Kylo yet but is a match for him in power, and I think they're still going with the "PT duelists pwn ST duelists" thing. Otherwise, they could move up to tier 7 (and in Rise of Skywalker will probably surpass Vader). Granted, I'm kind of factoring in the dueling disparity here, and it's possible that in terms of sheer Force power they're higher.

This isn't very concrete though.

Yeah, my ranking of Luke was as of RotJ. I imagine sometime before his self-imposed exile (perhaps even during) he is well-above his 23-year-old self, and thus in tier 9. 

What are Snoke's best feats? Mind-probing Ren? Ragdolling Rey?

Creating a force projection across the galaxy definitely puts Luke in tier 9 at the minimum

Yeah, it's one of the most OP feats in Star Wars history, tbh.

As I know, Luke is the strongest non-celestial entity in canon. Force Projection is an insane feat, even in Legends.

Tier 10 (Nigh Unstoppable): The Ones, Mortis Anakin

Tier 9 (Formidable, could feasibly halt an army): Luke Skywalker (Jedi Master), Darth Sidious, Yoda, Snoke, Talzin, Darth Vader

Tier 8 (Daunting, could turn impossible odds into a victory): Count Dooku, Mace Windu, Lord Momin, Kirak Infil'a, Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker (Return of the Jedi), Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi

Tier 7 (Powerful, could sway a close battle into an easy victory): Quinlan Vos (Dark Disciple), Savage Oppress, Ahsoka Tano (Fulcrum), Asajj Ventress (Dark Disciple), Kylo Ren, Kit Fisto, Eeth Koth, Plo Koon, Ima Gun Di, Adi Gallia, Qui-Gon Jinn

Tier 6 (Middling, could strongly bolster one side of a battle): Jocasta Nu, Grand Inquisitor, Luminara Unduli, Prosset Dibs/Tenth Brother, Nadhar Vebb, Kanan, Aayla Secura, Rey (While she's as powerful as Ren, she isn't nearly as skilled)

Tier 5 (Capable, will have a meaningful impact on a battle): Ferren Barr, Fifth Brother, Seventh Sister, Barriss Offee, Ahsoka Tano (Padawan)

Tier 4 (Average, provides little more benefit than a highly capable non-Force sensitive): Ezra Bridger, Luke (Pre-ESB)

Tier 3(Will likely provide a meaningful benefit): Typical Padawan

Tier 2 (Has some level of skill that might come in handy): Typical Youngling

Tier 1 (May as well just be an ordinary, albeit lucky, person): Untrained Force sensitive

This is all pretty tentative, as a lot of these characters have very few showings, and most displays of power in the Force tend to be rather circumstantial. More prominent characters, I'm far more confident in placing where they are. There are, of course, circumstances where a character performs way above or below their normal level. For example, Kanan during the moment before his death, where he stops an explosion and also pushes a shuttle at the same time, is easily Tier 8, if not 9. But overall, he's far below, sitting at around 6 in Seasons 3 and 4.

The way I'm deciding where I place them in tiers is based off of how much difference I feel the characters would make in a large-scale combat scenario, between augmentation, telekinesis, or other Force abilities. For instance, Vader, Yoda, and Talzin have all demonstrated army-level feats in some form or another, putting them all solidly in Tier 9. Meanwhile, Luke (post ANH) and Ezra could, more often than not, simply be replaced with a highly trained soldier and the battles they took part in would play out in the same fashion. Of course, not every character has an actual large-scale combat showing, so I had to do quite a bit of placement using scaling as well.

Underachiever599 wrote:The way I'm deciding where I place them in tiers is based off of how much difference I feel the characters would make in a large-scale combat scenario, between augmentation, telekinesis, or other Force abilities. For instance, Vader, Yoda, and Talzin have all demonstrated army-level feats in some form or another, putting them all solidly in Tier 9. Meanwhile, Luke (post ANH) and Ezra could, more often than not, simply be replaced with a highly trained soldier and the battles they took part in would play out in the same fashion. Of course, not every character has an actual large-scale combat showing, so I had to do quite a bit of placement using scaling as well.

That's an interesting idea, though I'm not sure if army-busting scales are perfectly consistent.

I'm not sure if I buy that Vader is in the same tier as Palpatine, even in Canon. Aside from some random quotes that suggest that, it doesn't seem to fit with the story all that well. And just going from Canon, shouldn't Mace Windu be in tier 9?

The Ellimist wrote:

Underachiever599 wrote:The way I'm deciding where I place them in tiers is based off of how much difference I feel the characters would make in a large-scale combat scenario, between augmentation, telekinesis, or other Force abilities. For instance, Vader, Yoda, and Talzin have all demonstrated army-level feats in some form or another, putting them all solidly in Tier 9. Meanwhile, Luke (post ANH) and Ezra could, more often than not, simply be replaced with a highly trained soldier and the battles they took part in would play out in the same fashion. Of course, not every character has an actual large-scale combat showing, so I had to do quite a bit of placement using scaling as well.

That's an interesting idea, though I'm not sure if army-busting scales are perfectly consistent.

I'm not sure if I buy that Vader is in the same tier as Palpatine, even in Canon. Aside from some random quotes that suggest that, it doesn't seem to fit with the story all that well. And just going from Canon, shouldn't Mace Windu be in tier 9?

I'll definitely agree that army busting isn't necessarily consistent, but very little in Canon really is. Scaling most definitely isn't consistent, so I went for something a little easier to judge. Considering how much of current Canon focuses on mass combat, in either the Clone Wars or the Galactic Civil War, it's not too hard to evaluate performance of characters by their wartime showings.

I debated whether or not to put Mace in Tier 8 or Tier 9. He's definitely powerful, but he hasn't demonstrated anything on the scale of Vader, Talzin, or Sidious, outside of duels where no Force powers were seen being used. His best feat was taking out 11 droids with a Force push, and toppling a door onto an AAT. Vader has casually thrown around AT-STs, faced down an entire army of Rebels at once, and in general, has just outperformed Mace in every way, Force-wise.

As for Vader being in the same tier as Palpatine, I absolutely believe this to be the case in Canon. Going by a statement in Lords of the Sith, canon Vader is greater than Anakin. We've seen him throw Palpatine with the Force in the Charles Soule 2017 comic. And his displayed feats are insane in Canon, compared to pretty much any other Force user. Palpatine is definitely above Vader, but I feel they're still solidly in the same tier. I'd put Sidious at the peak of Tier 9, bordering 10, and Vader at the bottom, just above Tier 8.

Underachiever599 wrote:I debated whether or not to put Mace in Tier 8 or Tier 9. He's definitely powerful, but he hasn't demonstrated anything on the scale of Vader, Talzin, or Sidious, outside of duels where no Force powers were seen being used. His best feat was taking out 11 droids with a Force push, and toppling a door onto an AAT. Vader has casually thrown around AT-STs, faced down an entire army of Rebels at once, and in general, has just outperformed Mace in every way, Force-wise.

Well, I think the Vader comics give Vader a big feats advantage over Mace, who in Canon has primarily appeared in the films and TCW.

Do you think Mace Windu is just a disproportionately good duelist, and not as good of a Force user? Because he defeats Sidious outright - something that, even in just a duel, would be tough to do without some measure of parity in the Force - and overpowers his lightning (and IDK if there's anything in Canon suggesting that Sidious held the lightning back).

As for Vader being in the same tier as Palpatine, I absolutely believe this to be the case in Canon. Going by a statement in Lords of the Sith, canon Vader is greater than Anakin.

Palpatine seemed to greatly outmatch Vader in that book AFAIK, and Anakin may not be as powerful in Canon, since he doesn't get a lot of his accolades or Stover interpretations.

I mean, you can compare Sidious's fight with the Maul brothers with Vader's fight with Ahsoka, for example. I guess Ahsoka had some sort of style advantage, but I still think Sidious is portrayed as a far more dominating figure (Rise of Skywalker will almost certainly cement this, but I guess we're sticking with what we have so far).

But I suppose it's always possible.

The Ellimist wrote:I guess Ahsoka had some sort of style advantage,

Ahsoka had a speed advantage, not a style advantage. Everything she had in quickness was nullified or overcome by Vader's size and strength.

King Joker wrote:

The Ellimist wrote:I guess Ahsoka had some sort of style advantage,

Ahsoka had a speed advantage, not a style advantage. Everything she had in quickness was nullified or overcome by Vader's size and strength.

Didn't someone OOU say that Ahsoka had an advantage against Vader because she had been his student or something?

And is Rebels Maul weaker than TCW Maul? Because if Vader >= Ahsoka ~< Rebels Maul, and TCW Siidous >>>>> TCW Maul + Savage, it would be hard to argue that Vader is on Sidious's tier.

Underachiever599 wrote:As for Vader being in the same tier as Palpatine, I absolutely believe this to be the case in Canon. Going by a statement in Lords of the Sith, canon Vader is greater than Anakin. 

Let's take a look at the supposed statement:


Pain fed his hate, and hate fed his strength. Once, as a Jedi, he had meditated to find peace. Now he meditated to sharpen the edges of his anger. 

He stared at his reflection a long time. His injuries had deformed his body, left it a ruin, but they’d perfected his spirit, strengthening his connection to the Force. Suffering had birthed insight.

Do take note that this is not an absolute statement as SW novels almost never have an OOU narrator. This is what's called a third-person narrator.

More to the point, let's focus at the part in bold text: "His injuries had deformed his body, left it a ruin, but they’d perfected his spirit, strengthening his connection to the Force. Suffering had birthed insight."


Now let's take a look at what Vader has to say about Anakin and his past life (Vader's bibliography, taken from Darth Vader: Sith Lord):



Vader's bias against Anakin is evident. 

Vader thinks that Anakin was weak because Anakin uses the light-side. He believes that the Jedi way was weak, how there is a direct correlation between "anger and pain" and power. So it makes sense that he is under the impression that the pain and suffering he had endured on Mustafar made him stronger, how he now "burns in the Force brightly" after the fires of Mustafar "purified" him (Darth Vader: Sith Lord), which is why he thinks "his injuries perfected his spirit, strengthening his connection to the Force."(Lords of the Sith) Vader's view on "growth" also refers to the fact that he feels stronger dark-side emotions running through him, which is why "he never felt more connected to the Force than when his fury burned."(Lords of the Sith)

Vader's personal reflections are cool and all but he's obviously not an objective and infallible source. We also know that his connection to the Force was curbed as he is unable to live up to what Sheev saw in him, which is why Sheev wants Luke.

Underachiever599 wrote:We've seen him throw Palpatine with the Force in the Charles Soule 2017 comic. 

Yet a couple of issues later, we see Vader failing to immediately subdue Kirak Infil'a with telekinesis.

So that feat can easily be attributed to Sidious being caught off-guard. Unless of course you believe Kirak is > Sidious?  

We also know for a fact that Sidious absolutely wasn't defenseless. Even when Vader was ungodly pissed at Sidious he backs down immediately once Sidious threatens him.



And outright acknowledges that Sidious would have no trouble of killing him even in such a position.




At best, the feat is just as impressive as Maul landing a kick on Sidious. I don't really see how that feat is supposed to be indicative of Vader being in close proximity to his master.

The Ellimist wrote:Didn't someone OOU say that Ahsoka had an advantage against Vader because she had been his student or something?

I believe you're referring to this quote from an interview with Ashley Eckstein: One thing, when it comes to Ahsoka's fighting style and also being able to even fight with Darth Vader, you realize, who trained her? Anakin Skywalker trained her. So this is explained to me by Dave - there's probably no one better to go up against Darth Vader. And I've also been told that if she goes against Vader, it might not be good for her. [Laughs] So I don't know how this is going to turn out, but if anyone is prepared to fight against Vader, it is Ahsoka, because she was trained by him. So she's very skilled. And so it will [also] be an interesting confrontation because if anybody knows her weaknesses, it's Darth Vader. If anyone knows his weaknesses it's Ahsoka. So it'll be interesting, that's for sure.

The main takeaway from this is that Eckstein says Vader and Ahsoka had a sort of mutual familiarity with each other, so the idea of a onesided advantage in favor of Ahsoka is unfounded. The normal degree of intimacy one has with their master or apprentice's fighting style would have also been watered down in their confrontation, as Vader was fighting with three new cybernetics, a massive suit, and a retooled fighting style. On top of that, neither of them had seen each other fight in nearly twenty years.

Another rather important note is that Ahsoka literally didn't know she was fighting Anakin until the very end of the fight, so the familiarity argument is watered down to an even greater order of magnitude. The same can't be said for Vader, though.

The Ellimist wrote:And is Rebels Maul weaker than TCW Maul? Because if Vader >= Ahsoka ~< Rebels Maul, and TCW Siidous >>>>> TCW Maul + Savage, it would be hard to argue that Vader is on Sidious's tier.

We'll probably get a relatively conclusive scaling chain between Vader/Maul/Ahsoka after TCW S7. But yeah, you're probably right about Palpatine and Vader not being in the same tier, tbh.

The Ellimist wrote:I'm not sure if I buy that Vader is in the same tier as Palpatine, even in Canon. Aside from some random quotes that suggest that, it doesn't seem to fit with the story all that well. And just going from Canon, shouldn't Mace Windu be in tier 9?

So far the only evidence of that is Mace's duel with Sheev himself. Other than that, a comparison of Mace and Sheev via their performances against the same opponents doesn't bode well for Mace.

The Ellimist wrote:

King Joker wrote:

The Ellimist wrote:I guess Ahsoka had some sort of style advantage,

Ahsoka had a speed advantage, not a style advantage. Everything she had in quickness was nullified or overcome by Vader's size and strength.

Didn't someone OOU say that Ahsoka had an advantage against Vader because she had been his student or something?

And is Rebels Maul weaker than TCW Maul? Because if Vader >= Ahsoka ~< Rebels Maul, and TCW Siidous >>>>> TCW Maul + Savage, it would be hard to argue that Vader is on Sidious's tier.

Rebels Maul is confirmed to be past his prime by Matt Martin.

Tier 10 - The Ones
Tier 9 - Luke Skywalker>Emperor Palpatine>Darth Vader>Yoda
Tier 8 - Ben Kenobi>Mace Windu>Darth Maul>Darth Tyranus>Lord Momin
Tier 7 - Ahsoka Tano>Quinlan Vos>Asajj Ventress
Tier 6 - Rey>=Kylo Ren

HellfireUnit wrote:Tier 10 - The Ones
Tier 9 - Luke Skywalker>Emperor Palpatine>Darth Vader>Yoda
Tier 8 - Ben Kenobi>Mace Windu>Darth Maul>Darth Tyranus>Lord Momin
Tier 7 - Ahsoka Tano>Quinlan Vos>Asajj Ventress
Tier 6 - Rey>=Kylo Ren

Couldn't you make the arguement for Kylo being >=Rey because of his Praetorian Guard feat, and on the basis that he "should" have more experience and training than her.

Tier 10:

Mortis Anakin Skywalker
The Father
The Son | The Daughter

Tier 9:

Darth Sidious | Snoke
Bendu
Yoda
Talzin
Darth Vader

Tier 8:

Mace Windu
Obi-Wan Kenobi
Darth Maul
Darth Tyranus
Ahsoka Tano

Tier 7:

Asajj Ventress
Savage Opress (base)
Qui-Gon Jinn
Kit Fisto and etc.

SithSauce wrote:

HellfireUnit wrote:Tier 10 - The Ones
Tier 9 - Luke Skywalker>Emperor Palpatine>Darth Vader>Yoda
Tier 8 - Ben Kenobi>Mace Windu>Darth Maul>Darth Tyranus>Lord Momin
Tier 7 - Ahsoka Tano>Quinlan Vos>Asajj Ventress
Tier 6 - Rey>=Kylo Ren

Couldn't you make the arguement for Kylo being >=Rey because of his Praetorian Guard feat, and on the basis that he "should" have more experience and training than her.

Noone is a match against powah of the Mary Sue

Based on what is Vader on the same tier as Sheev? Let alone > Yoda? 

HellfireUnit wrote:Tier 10 - The Ones
Tier 9 - Luke Skywalker>Emperor Palpatine>Darth Vader>Yoda
Tier 8 - Ben Kenobi>Mace Windu>Darth Maul>Darth Tyranus>Lord Momin
Tier 7 - Ahsoka Tano>Quinlan Vos>Asajj Ventress
Tier 6 - Rey>=Kylo Ren

 

DoA wrote:

HellfireUnit wrote:Tier 10 - The Ones
Tier 9 - Luke Skywalker>Emperor Palpatine>Darth Vader>Yoda
Tier 8 - Ben Kenobi>Mace Windu>Darth Maul>Darth Tyranus>Lord Momin
Tier 7 - Ahsoka Tano>Quinlan Vos>Asajj Ventress
Tier 6 - Rey>=Kylo Ren

 

Reason I put Vader above Yoda is because Canon Vader became much stronger unlike his EU counterpart. Canon Vader is a Kaiju buster, he was confirmed to be a better swordsman than Palpatine which puts him above Yoda IMO.

@HellfireUnit: you can’t have Darth Vader above Yoda while still maintaining that Ahsoka is Ventress tier. It makes no sense, lol.

The thing is Ventress has an insane power growth. Yoda's showings against her was against the weakest incarnation of Ventress. During the TCW, she performed well against Jedi Masters. Being able to match Obi-Wan and Maul shows how strong she had become.