Ranking of the Strawhats' Strength

[EddyBob15]

Even if Zoro and Sanji do have Haki, I doubt they're at Luffy's level. Besides that, I don't think they have Conqueror's Haki.

[kkck]

Well, both of them did seem to have appropriate teachers for the whole thing. MIhawk should be more than capable of haki considering he easily meets the strength and experience requirement which was described by the marine doctor and he is one of the stronger guys around. Ivankov was a pretty strong guy and on top of that sanji spent a decent deal of time fighting other 99 okamas, enough for him to get some decent experience. I maintain that haki in itself is not such a big deal in the new world for the most part, it should not be weird for pretty much any strong guy to have some measure of it. As long as zoro and sanji are able to implement it into their atacks then they should be good basically. Luffy does seem to have some specialized use of haki however that is not necessarily proof of mastery considering the use is only possible because of his DF.

[shionoro]

i am quite realistic here.

Just because oda always lets luffy fight the bosses does not mean zoro could not do the same.
So far there is no indication that zoro is any weaker than luffy.

Moments like the ending of thriller bark imply to me, that zoro is in fact a tad stronger than luffy.

And also, why wouldn't he be?

He trains nonstop.
Also i doubt that he hasnt developed haki yet.

---------- Post added at 06:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:48 PM ----------

on robin:

I think in the timeskip oda fixed her overpoweredness and will be able to make her fights interesting in the future.
Also, moving that giant ship, keep in mind, she used her DF in saltwater which greatly weakened it and was still able to do that

[kkck]

Well, I do believe zoro could have fought most of the enemies luffy fought however even then I don't think he would actually defeat luffy. Specially early on, if he had had the chance I do believe he would have been able to defeat buggy, kuro, arlong or krieg. Heck, he was actually hurt during those fights hence why he could barely get involved. Luffy was plain lucky against enel or crocodile for that matter. Zoro would have perhaps not won against lucci but it is worth noting that with no powerups he was able to keep up with kaku's transformation and won with a significant margin once he used kyotoryu. I think he would have done a great job at least against lucci with his kyutoryu. I think in general sanji and zoro are actually fairly close to luffy in terms of overall strength however luffy will always have a slight margin over them.

[zelllogan]

Yeah, and Sanji gave the fodder treatment to Jyabura with even less efforts than Zoro (vs kaku) ...
And he did against an opponent who had his DF for a long time ...

[kkck]

Kaku did much better use of his fruit that jyabura though. What use did jyabura give to his fruit? He used it in a pretty standard manner and lost. Kaku had one insane trick after the other which he basically made up on the spot and in spite of the absurdity most tricks were actually pretty effective. I don't think how long each had their fruit is relevant when objectively kaku was able to do far more with it.

[zelllogan]

Kaku spent his fight "trying" his DF. Jyabura already knew what his fruit was able to do. Jyabura used his fruit in a similar way as Lucci. The goal of a regular zoan is not to be original ... it's mostly to increase athletic abilities

[kkck]

Jyabura never did anything special with his fruit. The most elaborate use he ever gave it was using shigan with his claws... which is not saying much. Tekkai kempo was completely unrelated to his fruit for that matter. Ultimately, it is a fact that a decent bit of the damage and trouble zoro had was from kaku pulling random stuff. And even then, even if jyabura and kaku had virtually even physical capacities, I would argue kaku was still the better fighter overall. Its not about being original, kaku was effectively deadlier than jyabura.

[EddyBob15]

Zoro had his hands full battling Kaku. I doubt he would've had much of a chance against someone like Lucci. Remember, even Luffy was exhausted after that battle.

[shionoro]

as i said, i am pretty sure zoro is stronger than luffy, at least by the end of the first half.
i also think zoro could have beaten lucci.
he has at least as much willpower as luffy, he trains nonstop and can take a crazy amount of pain.

luffy is the captain, but zoro is the strongest fighter.
it may be luffys duty to battle the big bad of the arc, given, but that does not mean zoro is weaker than him.

Unfortunately, oda wont let us see fights of zoro vs the main bad guy cept for the rather unfair zoro vs enel and some fights early on when he is injured

[EddyBob15]

If I recall, Zoro and Sanji both got beaten by Arlong while Luffy was able to take him down.

[Tonix]

If I recall, Zoro and Sanji both got beaten by Arlong while Luffy was able to take him down.

If I recall, Zoro had just been cut almost in half by Mihawk, that might have been what shionoro was talking about when he mentioned injuries.

[Ero-Sanji]

as i said, i am pretty sure zoro is stronger than luffy, at least by the end of the first half.
i also think zoro could have beaten lucci.
he has at least as much willpower as luffy, he trains nonstop and can take a crazy amount of pain.

luffy is the captain, but zoro is the strongest fighter.
it may be luffys duty to battle the big bad of the arc, given, but that does not mean zoro is weaker than him.

Unfortunately, oda wont let us see fights of zoro vs the main bad guy cept for the rather unfair zoro vs enel and some fights early on when he is injured

Nah, imo that's just fan talk. There's nothing that states or even hints at Zoro being stronger than Luffy. He's Luffy's natural enemy, but not stronger. Zoro was exhausted after Kaku who was slightly stronger than Jyabura. Lucci on the other hand was far beyond them and Luffy barely won that struggle. They were equal in the beginning of grand line, but after Alabasta Sanji was the one who got closer to Zoro while Luffy got to a whole new level. It's clear that Zoro and Sanji are the new rivals of the SH, in what used to be Luffy and Zoro. Just look at the Douriki level of their opponents and how both of them defeated, together, a pacifista, while Luffy did it alone. That's a pretty decent hint made by Oda, imo.

Also, yes, Zoro can take a crazy amount of damage, but so can Ussop and he's the weakest of them all. Remember Alabasta?

[kkck]

As far as how zoro would fare against lucci, for me its an issue of how exactly giraffe kaku would compare against base lucci. We know the numbers in their human form, kaku 2200 and lucci 4000. What we saw is that at large zoro was basically equal to a transformed kaku and his azura gave him a large margin over him. I can't imagine a transformed kaku being overwhelmingly weaker than base lucci honestly. same thing for jyabura. Add in the large margins given by either kyutoryo or diable jambe and I do think zoro and sanji would do some damage against lucci. Of course, the boost each of those gives is different but there is still a huge increase in fighting capacity overall.

[Tonix]

Nah, imo that's just fan talk. There's nothing that states or even hints at Zoro being stronger than Luffy. He's Luffy's natural enemy, but not stronger. Zoro was exhausted after Kaku who was slightly stronger than Jyabura. Lucci on the other hand was far beyond them and Luffy barely won that struggle.

I understand that you don't think Zoro is stronger than Luffy, but there have been plenty of hints through out the story that Zoro is at least of equal strength to Luffy. Are you forgetting the end of Thriller Bark? That at least hinted at Zoro being stronger. People don't seem to realize that he took all of Luffy's pain in addition to all the pain and injuries he had already suffered himself, which means Zoro is capable of withstanding more damage than Luffy, which is a remarkable feat seeing as Luffy's fruit is designed to reduce damage from most attacks.