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What are you talking about? That time luffy's conqueror haki was just a burst that had no effect on the rest of the fight. Luffy started overwhelming the boa sisters when he used gear two.
The bit with conqueror haki overpower people only works out against much weaker people. If conqueror's haki does anything at all in fights where the people involved are of comparable strength, the manga has yet to evidence it or otherwise explain it.Can you imagine luffy intimidating doflamingo or vice versa? I don't see how that makes a shred of sense.
I agree with this.![]()
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Why would opponents who having just overwhelmed their target suddenly feel threatened by their opponent JUST because he let out an outburst of Conqueror's Haki which you claim to be a pretty insignificant power?.
Pretty clear it is the power to intimidate. It's not a mere power just for show to highlight greatness. This is even the ability that's going to play a huge role in determining Pirate King. It makes no sense to really assume it's just a fodder weeding device that just tips off people that someone has potential to be great whene everyone does regardless of Conqueror's Haki - it has to have a distinct application in order to be feared.
- They lost their confidence in themselves after already establishing beyond a doubt that they were superior to begin with.
- But only regain their confidence when they realise he has no control over this power? Meaning if he had control of this power, even with his inferior ability to combat them, he would have become a problem which suggests their fighting capability may or would have been handicapped.
- More so, why would they state nothing to be afraid were they not afraid in the first place? and why did they even obey his orders when he's a man without approval from their empress? It's quite clear that the ability to intimidate is what Conqueror's haki is, and it can have an impact on fighting ability, or else, they'd have no reason to lose confidence in themselves after proving at that point that they were superior.
I think the main issue when talking about katakuri's ability is that his ability to see a little into the future is treated as a separate ability from regular observation haki. I would argue the whole thing is more easily and reasonably explained by it being the generic observation haki we have already seen except that it is taken to an extreme. Basically, the exact same thing we have seen luffy done a few times except more advanced.Some of these ideas will be reaching for OP but I think the next levels for Haki are as follows:
Observation Haki: We already have been told that Katakuri can use it to see into the future a little bit. Since this Haki is about Observation, I think it can go into the next level in multiple ways.
Armament Haki:
- One way is in its ability to predict others actions, the way Katakuri can see into the future. Perhaps this ability can be used to also predict even things that are done without intent, since during Skypea we were shown that a limit of this type of Haki is if the user does not know there actions, e.g. Luffy's randomly ricocheting his punches preventing Enel from using Observation to predict it. We'll see if Katakuri can predict things like explosions, or if there is a limit of sensory overload too in the case of too many opponents.
- Another form of advancement to me is if a user hones it to be able to sense a person's emotions very accurately. This can be used in battle for people who use strategy very well. I think someone like Akainu can possibly be good at this, the way he manipulated Squardo. He knew the history and attacked him where he was emotionally weak. Someone with this ability can taylor their words/actions to make the best of their opponents psychology.
- We've also seen that this type of haki can be used to know an opponents strength. Rayleigh so far is the only one who was able to accurately say someone is stronger than someone else, in this case when he said 500 beasts were stronger than Luffy.
Conquerors Haki: First I think the nature of this type of haki is so far the most ambiguous since we have few explicit examples of its uses. However, I have always thought of it in the same way as @Hannibal Psyche in that it is used to intimidate/enhance the other two haki in general. In light of those views its next steps to me are:
- One advancement to Armament is the type of armor itself. For example so far people have been using it only to harden their body but no one has actually taken advantage of the shape itself. If Armament is supposed to be a fluid armor, then I would think it natural that a master can manipulate the size and shape of it. Imagine someone having spiked Armament instead of just the generic flat kind we have now. It not only would act as a powerful defense but it would add extra damage in both defense and offense.
- Stemming from the previous advancement, I think it should be plausible that a master of Armament should be able to create solid physical forms of it. Suppose a person made the armor into a rod, sword, javelin et cetera. This would have the advantage of allowing the user to phase it in and out of existence which a physical object can not do. This would could be used for surprise attacks and bypassing opponents defenses and a whole bunch of other stuff.
- Lastly, as @kkck suggested Armament haki should be able cover large distances. A user should be able to for example make themselves larger than they are just be making the haki armor around them bigger. I've always wondered, if it is armor why only cover your skin? Why not make it thicker? And if users can imbue it to objects we know it can be thrown, so why not make haki shuriken etc and throw them. I think these types of advanced abilities would provide a way for some people to be super strong without having to have DF abilities, which I would welcome.
- Providing users the ability to actually exert it as a physical force on their surroundings. By this I refer to how Shanks was able to damage WhiteBeard's ship just using haki. We've already seen physical force in the form of shock waves during clashes between Conqueror haki users, e.g. Luffy/Chinjao and Luffy/Doflamingo. We've had other haki users clash using just Armament, e.g. Vergo/Smoker and more recently Zoro/Pika but they never produced shock waves. So the next step to me is users exerting this on their own and in a continuous fashion instead of just in bursts.
- I also think its ability to intimidate can be taken a step further. Instead of just overpowering the wills of the weak resulting in loss of consciousness, Conquerors haki should be used to decrease the haki of opponents in battle. This goes with @Hannibal Psyche train of thought. We learned from Luffy and Doflamingo's fight that haki is a limited resource that can/needs to be recharged through rest. And since haki in its very nature is a physical manifestion of a users will, if a user has little will to take an action this should be reflected in their haki reservoir and how quickly they are able to replenish it. So in battle if a user can use Conquerors haki to bolster their own will to act hence their haki in general which will enhance the other two forms strength. Additionally, it should be able to weaken an opponents will to act, which should have the effect of weakening their reserves and ability to use their haki. This type of use will be more subtle but should have huge impact in battles between strong individuals.
- This last one is a bit radical but I think Conquerors haki should have the ability to "conquer wills." In its simplest form so far it just knocks fodder out. However, I can imagine it making opponents so dejected that they are just unwilling to battle while conscious like the homies won't fight someone who has Lin Lin's vivre card. In addition, I think the way people use Conquerors haki to make allies is actually them subjugating their will. So far this has been used/depicted in a positive light but I think someone who is more malicious should be able to use Conquerors haki to forcefully subjugate people through fear. This way Conquerors haki would actually live up to its name in that it "conquerors" the will of those around you, whether through alliance bread from positive or negative relationships.
So on one hand you have the useful skill to knock out people. On the other hand, the skill only works when there is an overwhelming difference in power between the people involved. And to boot the setting and circumstances are very important as well. Which is what I think makes this skill unreliable as a whole.In exactly the same place and exact same situation as Luffy, Shanks or Rayleigh may have been capable of knocking out all 100,000. In a different setting, you can't really compare just by asking "how many people". Being able to knock an enemy out with haki depends entirely on having an overwhelming power gap between the two. In Luffy's case the point is the number of people that were so weak that they were not even worth him fighting. If there were 100,000 to-some-extent-strong-willed pirates before him, it's possible that he wouldn't even be able to knock out a single one. On a related note, as one's proficiency with haoshoku advances, it's even possible to target a few people in a crowd to NOT knock out.
I feel it is the same as the generic like you say but just pushed to the extreme. However, as long as Oda is providing the first example of an advanced form of Observation haki, I think this is when he should set the clear limits of this type of haki in general. What I'm going to be looking out for is if Katakuri can still forsee things like bombs exploding that know person knows about et cetera. So far in all its uses Observation haki has been used to predict actions of beings with intent or find the location/sense the intent of other living beings. I think this will be a good opportunity for Oda to either break away from that established norm or reconfirm it even at the highest levels of use of this type of haki.I think the main issue when talking about katakuri's ability is that his ability to see a little into the future is treated as a separate ability from regular observation haki. I would argue the whole thing is more easily and reasonably explained by it being the generic observation haki we have already seen except that it is taken to an extreme. Basically, the exact same thing we have seen luffy done a few times except more advanced.
Yeah it definitely feels like part of the predicting from Observation haki comes from sensing peoples emotions. I want someone to use it in combination with just wit to play with people emotions, but perhaps we've already been seeing that already with people like Akainu and Doflamingo who have proven themselves master manipulators. Not sure if this ability will ever be explicit or if its just going to stay assumed. I think other than actually hearing what people are saying, someone strong can have the range with just the haki alone. Rayleigh I feel already showed ability on par with Enel's when it comes to this.Feeling emotions and whatnot perhaps fits reasonably well into what we have seen with the ability. We know it does not require haki (at least not an advance form of it) to feel killing intent. Observation haki taking this a step further is not a stretch. Enel was able to use his fruit and haki combined to great effect but perhaps what enel did could be done (to an extent) by simply compensating with skill.
We've seen thicker armor but that was only when it was still invisible. Ever since we have started showing Armament haki with the black color no one has used it other than to coat themselves or objects they are holding. I want to see people using a thick version of this. Similar with what the admirals did during marineford, it would be cool to see someone actually creating shields out of haki so not only can they protect themselves but also others. So far it feels like all of the creativity haki had when still invisible was somewhat lost once we started visibly seeing it. Haha I don't think anyone wants to see kamehame here, at least I certainly don't. We've seen people like Sentomaru use it to create shock wave like attacks with his dokai attack. It didn't appear his hands made actual contact with Luffy so people sending extended blasts/shocks would be cool. I also want to seem people using the black Armament to form physical objects that they can use as weapons too. I guess at the end of the day, Oda has will either continue having every strong person we meet having DF powers or he'll introduce other powerful people that are only haki users.Well, as for the armor being thicker I would think we have already seen that. Rayleigh did use the armor to repel the elephant and a number of people have used it to repel luffy without touching luffy. If we consider what rayleigh did and that haki can be imbued into stuff and thrown (such as arrows) then it seems like perhaps the more extreme form of this ability should be to be able to throw haki without a medium. Basically long range haki blasts or balls. I wouldn't go as far as suggesting a kame hame ha is possible or even too practical (such an ability strikes me as one that would have insanely high energy requirements to begin with) but it could prove deadly still. And perhaps we have already seen variations of this. We saw for instance the admirals protecting the marineford from WB presumably using haki. For that to work their haki would have had to extent well beyond their bodies. And we also saw zoro cut monet with haki from a distance. I guess the air slash could count as a medium in a way but it is still haki that travels without a solid medium.
Finally, there is a possibility that haki could be transmuted into elements. We have seen a few cases of people arbitrarily using fire to attack against all logic. The most notorious case would be sanji but we also have zoro, luffy with red hawk and kinemon who specializes in that. With sanji there is a possibility that his fire is a result of the modiciations he was subjected to by his father but that would obviously not apply to the others. And of course, fi fire is possible then we can't rule out other elements. Perhaps not any element, sand haki would be weird for instance, but using haki to create a chill or electricity would perhaps fit alongside fire. Basically convert haki, life energy, into actual energy.
When it comes to Conquerors haki, we really don't have any direct/explicit uses other than the knocking fodder out. However, I think there is enough for people to infer things. At this point in the story we have nothing to do other than theorize what it can do. For it to be the special type of haki and only be capable of knocking fodder out, it would be a disappointment. There has to be more to this type of haki itself, but we'll have to wait for Oda to reveal it.As for conqueror's haki, I don't see any real evidence that it does or even can do anything beyond what we have seen. Even what little oda has said points to it not only not doing much beyond affecting weak people but on top of that it being a very unreliable skill. This is from the SBS:
So on one hand you have the useful skill to knock out people. On the other hand, the skill only works when there is an overwhelming difference in power between the people involved. And to boot the setting and circumstances are very important as well. Which is what I think makes this skill unreliable as a whole.
Another important moment is when rayleigh used it against everyone at the auction house. Everyone felt the haki but the ones that weren't knocked out barely felt it. We saw a couple of law's nameless crewmembers be somewhat dizzy or something but that is not much of an indication of usefulness. And then, we have nami and ussop. They certainly felt it but they were not impaired in any way by the blast. And at the time they were extremely weak. So if a blast from Rayleigh did not affect them while being that weak, why should we have any reasonable expectations of conqueror's haki having a meaningful effect in a battle beyond what we have already seen? Now, maybe rayleigh could have taken ussop out if rather than doing a wide area blast he could focus every single ounce of his haki into ussop. But that does not make this a useful skill overall. Imagine mihawk does not have conqueror's haki and he faces rayleigh. Does it make a shred of sense that he would be overpowered by the haki? At least what we have seen suggests there is no more than 0% chance of mihawk being taken out by this.
Now, it is possible that when two people with conqueror's haki clash there is an effect. Through this type of haki their wills would literally clash. Though the effects of this, if any, remain unknown. And they might not even properly apply to someone who does not have conqueror's haki and if it does apply they would resist it just as anyone else we have seen. Since the timeskip we have seen luffy fight a number of people without conqueror's haki but who were clearly strong enough to resist it. He had fights or confrontations with hyozu, hodi, decker, ceasar, several people at colloseum... Most of those except for chinjao did not have conquerors haki or perhaps any haki at all. And yet there was never a single mention of luffy's conquerors haki even though luffy got serious to different degrees with all of them. Basically we saw no evidence whatsoever of conqueror's haki doing anything beyond what we have already seen through god knows how many fights. The most I could imagine plausible here is that luffy uses his conqueror's haki in battle which continually targets his enemy and it has a extremely small effect that adds up over time. Kinda like pressuring them over time. And even that is a stretch considering the lack of evidence here.
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When it comes to translations I'm not sure. Even if the official translation is "Haki of the Supreme King", I can't say if that is the most accurate. That's the difficulty of languages. However, the fact that after years of the term being out there and many different people having had the chance to translate it, the fact the term "Conquereor's haki" stuck around already speaks volumes to me.Come to think of it. How did it ever get translated as Conqueror's Haki? The official translation goes with "Haki of the Supreme King".
When it comes to translations I'm not sure. Even if the official translation is "Haki of the Supreme King", I can't say if that is the most accurate. That's the difficulty of languages. However, the fact that after years of the term being out there and many different people having had the chance to translate it, the fact the term "Conquereor's haki" stuck around already speaks volumes to me.
When have we called Hardening a technique? Why add that useless word when all Haki applications are techniques? Why do it with Goken only?Really! So we basically reject what the Manga states.
Again... So we basically reject what the Manga states.
There is no problem with that at all. We will simply use Goken until we get a general name for it outside of Wano. I dont see why the big deal with it?Remember Goken is the technique Hyo said he learnt. Since he's in Wano, the name of the technique is definitely not what it's called outside Wano, just like Haki.
Seclusion, sedentary, and relative danger most likely.Why does some islands have their own haki versions and others are cluesless like a newborn?
Goken was never defined that way. That's just headcannon.Why is the focus of Haki a thing you can accept while the focus and release of Haki is something you can't accept?
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Because hardening isn't a technique. Hardening is CoA itself (just condensed).When have we called Hardening a technique? Why add that useless word when all Haki applications are techniques? Why do it with Goken only?
Yes, headcanon but an obvious one. Hyo literally focuses his Haki and turns black(Hardening) and then releases it into a blast. Can it get more obvious than that?Goken was never defined that way. That's just headcannon.
I have no problem accepting what has been stated clearly by the Manga. Can you say the same?
You said Goken is Haki. I say Goken isn't. Manga's clarified it and you're still in denial.
Now you're comparing Goken to hardening and Future sight.
You're only trying to make things easier for your comprehension but it wasn't difficult in the first place.
Goken is not hardening, Goken is not CoA, Goken is not Haki.
What is Goken then?
A technique that requires one to will the flow of Haki to their fist letting it out as a powerful propulsion.
It's like asking what is Zoom?
Zoom is not CoO, zoom is not future sight.
Zoom is a technique that enables a future CoO user to slow down the future they are seeing as much as they want.
Goken is CoA itself as much as Hardening is, it is the same thing, an invisible armor. Hardening is technique of condensing Haki while Goken is condensing and releasing, I know it's my headcanon but it is like that. Why make it complicated when it isnt...Because hardening isn't a technique. Hardening is CoA itself (just condensed).
Future sight/Future CoO is not a technique.
It is advanced CoO.
No where in the Manga were these called techniques.
We do it with Goken only bcos Goken was called a technique.
It is (at least from my own perspective). I choose to look at it this way.Goken is no different than Hardening and FS, all 3 are different techniques of Haki usage.
We are basically saying the same thing but I think you are unnecessarily making it hard for yourself by choosing to look at Goken in the way you do without realizing that Hardening is in the same spot. I will explain.Both Goken and Hardening are techniques of using Color of Armament. You do know that CoA can be used without Hardening? Regular, invisible CoA that Sanji used against Judge and that Luffy used against Pacifista and Caesar.It is (at least from my own perspective). I choose to look at it this way.
Yes Goken requires hardening/CoA. This is why it is a Haki based technique.
Thanks for that @kcd
Perhaps I'm not making myself very clear.
Goken is not Haki itself, Ryou is.
Goken is a technique based off of Haki. It is based off of CoA/hardening. Goken is not one of the colours of Haki (itself) but is based off of one of the colours of Haki, CoA. This is why it's regarded as a technique.
So technically Goken is Haki. Literally, no it is not Haki.
If I use Goken of course I have used Haki.
If I use CoA, I've certainly used Haki.
But then, there's a slight difference in these two things. CoA is a colour of Haki, Goken isn't. It's just a technique based on that colour.
If you agree with this then we are basically saying the same thing but not understanding each other's perspective well.
Of course this is well known. I'm not confusing hardening for non-hardened Haki.Your confusion comes from thinking that Hardening is the ground Zero of CoA
This is clearly where we differ. Hardening isn't a technique AFAIK. Goken is.Both Hardening and Goken are techniques based on Color of Armament
A-Ha! Gotcha! You just contradicted yourself by making this example.Of course this is well known. I'm not confusing hardening for non-hardened Haki.
What I'm getting at is anyone who can use regular CoA can harden it (hence the name hardening).
You won't find one instance of someone who can use regular CoA and cannot use hardening in the Manga/Anime (Sanji included). Thus hardening isn't a technique since it comes stock with regular CoA.
The same cannot be said for Goken. Hence only a few people have been shown to use it. The strongest proof of why it's a technique (I'll go ahead and say it's a hard difficulty to learn it).
This is clearly where we differ. Hardening isn't a technique AFAIK. Goken is.
You don't need to learn how to harden your Haki once you have obtained it. But you do need to learn Goken.
Edit: Whoever possesses regular CoA can harden it.
Whoever possesses regular CoA cannot just use Goken. They must learn it.
That's the difference!
FS is not a technique while Goken is while both dont come included in the package when you purchase CoA/CoO?Future sight/Future CoO is not a technique.
It is advanced CoO.
