Niman is an interesting one for me because on the one hand, it makes a ton of sense for Anakin? We have more raw potential with the Force than basically anyone alive. A lightsaber style which is designed to help us use the Force more easily while fighting is a pretty potent force-multiplier of one of our biggest strengths!
The one wrinkle here is... the other Force users we're likely to be fighting are:
(1) Ventress
(2) Maul
(3) Everyone Else (Random Dark Jedi, possibly even hardliner factions of the Jedi Council if the Order ends up fragmenting.)
(4) Dooku
(5) Palpatine (If we want a different ending to canon, then I think we need to at least seriously consider what that fight migjht look like, even if we end up winning through love or self-sacrifice or something.)
Now against (1), and most of (3), I think that Niman would work great. Against someone like Ventress or Bariss Offee, I think Anakin by the time of RotS could straight-up pull a "Stop Hitting Yourself!", or other total domination tactics like turning off their lightsaber. Even against Maul, arguably and with greater difficulty, I think an Anakin who had focussed more on using the Force in combat could simply overpower him, although Maul is not to be overestimated.
But what happens if we try to use a style that relies on greater mastery of the Force against guys who have multiple decades of experience on us, are immensely strong, and often use the same thing themselves? Anyone who has watched The Clone Wars will have seen Dooku's signature move which he uses to compensate for his advancing years when the sheer finesse of Form II will suffice. Palpatine... can throw the Senate at us. Anakin has greater raw potential, no doubt, but can we actualise it in time?
An entirely valid answer is "we don't", and instead we pick up another Form later on. Form V would be the obvious choice here given Anakin's natural proficiency, plus it is the form that most lets him leverage being a fit young man in his 20s whilst fighting octogenarians. Alternately, if we pick Form V now, we could then perhaps branch out into Form VI later on. The challenge then becomes, can we make the whole greater than the sum of its parts?
I think it is probably more challenging to hybridise something like Form VI and Form V, which have quite different strengths and philosophies, than it would be to say, develop a hybrid of Form II and Form III, or Form VI and Form II/III, or Form I and anything else. But challenging is by no means the same as impossible!
Personally I'd like to try Form III later on to get closer to Obi-Wan, and I think we need the raw power of Form V at some point, so I'm voting for Form V now. But there's a lot of interesting options here.
The one wrinkle here is... the other Force users we're likely to be fighting are:
(1) Ventress
(2) Maul
(3) Everyone Else (Random Dark Jedi, possibly even hardliner factions of the Jedi Council if the Order ends up fragmenting.)
(4) Dooku
(5) Palpatine (If we want a different ending to canon, then I think we need to at least seriously consider what that fight migjht look like, even if we end up winning through love or self-sacrifice or something.)
Now against (1), and most of (3), I think that Niman would work great. Against someone like Ventress or Bariss Offee, I think Anakin by the time of RotS could straight-up pull a "Stop Hitting Yourself!", or other total domination tactics like turning off their lightsaber. Even against Maul, arguably and with greater difficulty, I think an Anakin who had focussed more on using the Force in combat could simply overpower him, although Maul is not to be overestimated.
But what happens if we try to use a style that relies on greater mastery of the Force against guys who have multiple decades of experience on us, are immensely strong, and often use the same thing themselves? Anyone who has watched The Clone Wars will have seen Dooku's signature move which he uses to compensate for his advancing years when the sheer finesse of Form II will suffice. Palpatine... can throw the Senate at us. Anakin has greater raw potential, no doubt, but can we actualise it in time?
An entirely valid answer is "we don't", and instead we pick up another Form later on. Form V would be the obvious choice here given Anakin's natural proficiency, plus it is the form that most lets him leverage being a fit young man in his 20s whilst fighting octogenarians. Alternately, if we pick Form V now, we could then perhaps branch out into Form VI later on. The challenge then becomes, can we make the whole greater than the sum of its parts?
I think it is probably more challenging to hybridise something like Form VI and Form V, which have quite different strengths and philosophies, than it would be to say, develop a hybrid of Form II and Form III, or Form VI and Form II/III, or Form I and anything else. But challenging is by no means the same as impossible!
Personally I'd like to try Form III later on to get closer to Obi-Wan, and I think we need the raw power of Form V at some point, so I'm voting for Form V now. But there's a lot of interesting options here.
