<em>Reposted from her character sheet:</em><br/><br/>In combat, Darth Simetra is a strange mixture of foolhardy and cautious.  Her techniques center on the oddly passive (for a Sith Lord) Niman techniques, but she has a very good understanding of all the techniques.  Her apparent age hides a wealth of knowledge, and the use of a Force imbued staff rather than a light saber gives her a slight advantage in combat - most of the vaunted forms of light saber technique are designed for fighting other light sabers and allowing the combatant to use the force to guide and open up channels of attack.  Since her hands may be placed anywhere on the staff and she can use the entire staff to block with, this gives her options light saber wielders must consciously adapt to, rather than intuitively understand.  The other reason she prefers this is because she can use the staff, in combination with Force Sorcery, to infect the Universal Force in an area with the Dark Side energies within herself and that her opponent uses.  This is largely obvious yet seemingly meaningless when it is first done - an odd flourish here, a burst of Force sparks there, an particularly brutal thrust that damages a wall here, and pulses of her seething anger and contempt.<br/><br/>If she is in danger of being defeated, she will then discard her staff - usually in an advantageous manner - and switch to her light saber, which is disguised as the Force imbued crystal knife an her side.  This is where her Tràkata techniques become evident.  If she can, she will try and coerce the enemy into their previous battleground, where her influence on the force has already been laid like a deadly minefield.  The opponent will have to deal with a light saber flicking on and off at unpredictable intervals, a dagger which is incredibly sharp and can block light sabers, and her attempts to deflect and redirect blows rather than simply parry and stop them; and all this is in addition to trying to work his way through a series of Force guided blows that cause his desires and hatred to flow into specific patters of destructive behavior.  Not the ones he desires to indulge in currently, but the ones Simetra and he have created in their previous battle - where she was using an entirely different weapon.  Note that this specialized technique will not be available to her if they do not fight in previously used battlegrounds - although any place where the force is present in great strength will be equally dangerous to her opponents.<br/><br/>Naturally, Darth Simetra does not like engaging in such battles: they are wasteful of time and energy, and she knows all too well how hatred and anger can be thieved from another and used against them; after all, she does it to others almost constantly.  It is the basis of all Sith relationships.  If she can set up a battlefield before hand, she will make every effort to do so.  Fighting her on her own terms is suicidal, even for other Dark Lords of the Sith.  Her main weaknesses in combat are that she does not think anything of suffering a wound or injury - or even an arm or leg - in combat, leaving her open to foolhardy maneuvers.  She will also be unable to block or parry direct blows with her light saber without taking the risk of it shorting out - another reason she relies so heavily on the Tràkata techniques, because if it is shorted out, then it takes several seconds before she can reignite the blade....seconds in which she has only her knife to defend herself with.  Her greatest weakness, however, is her reliance on her manipulation of the Universal Force; if she is in a situation where she cannot manipulate or control her opponent's movements at least some of the time, she is at a great disadvantage simply because her techniques are reliant on NOT using a weapon constantly AND influencing her opponents maneuvers as she needs them to go.<br/><br/>Essentially Darth Simetra suffers the same weakness as many Jedi do - her control must be absolute, so she cannot simply loose herself to the passion of warfare as other Sith do.