One Piece Power Level Discussion Thread

[goldb]

Ground Rules for the Power Level Discussion Thread
​

As always, please follow the guidelines set by the Forum Rules that apply across the board.

It's important that discussions from a current chapter are spoiler tagged until 24h have passed from an english release.

• For the sake of constructive discussion, where and when possible please quote/ source any information you provide. Particularly when it comes to conversations carried over from other threads.
• Avoid passive agressive posts, sly remarks or baiting/trolling. You can certainly have fun or disagree without it being at someone's expense.
• Only use anime examples that are canon and as means to provide clarity to pages in the manga. Any other anime material is otherwise non-canon and should only be referenced if it can be proved that the mangaka had approved it.
• We will strive to avoid repetitive discussions and any extensive battle topics will be guided to the Davy Back fight to existing threads or new ones can be made there.

As of now these topics are shelved due to repetitiveness or until the manga can present us with material to further discussions:

1. Shanks v Mihawk
2. Hand to hand fighters > Swordsmen
3. Zoro > Luffy
4. Zoro v Sanji
5. Is Smoker a top 30 character?
6. Mihawk's rank within the story
7. Law having CoC currently.
8. Katakuri > Kaido/Luffy/Etc.

If you wish to continue any of these discussion and remove it from the list, you will need to provide manga material as proof. If there's also anything you think we've covered numerous times, let me know and I'll update the list.

This is the only warning there'll be regarding these ground rules, anything no adhering will be removed. So please just check your posts before posting them.

 

[Rmstorm]

Also adding to everyone's point, Ace wasn't in his prime state in Marineford. Dude was beaten up by BB and not even recovered by being in ID (not like they treat him with all the food and heal him).

Magma fruit is superior to Ace's Mera no mi, so Akainu had that advantage on top of being stronger.

I completely agree that Ace is YC2 or higher. Oda couldn't show that because it was early in the series.

Main point is him holding off Jinbei at 17 years old. Something even Luffy couldn't do until recently and he is 19.

Ace Vs Smoker debate shouldn't even be a debate. Talk about being stubborn

How many times.do I have to tell you that Ace fought Jinbei at 18 years old. It took him 1 year to reach Saboady. This was stated im the Ace novel.

Not only that but Luffy at 18 years old was able to use all 3 haki, mastered his Gear 2 and 3 and was able to use Gear 4 as well.

Rayleigh left when Luffy was already able to use Gear 4.

So in fact Luffy has always been ahead of Ace at the same age.

Meanwhile Luffy at 17 had defeated 2 Warlords and 2 CP9 agents.

 

[M3J]

Can someone tell us what was the conclusion of Ace vs. Smoker, with evidence? Who won? Was it a draw? Or? I'm not asking for an opinion, but evidence/proof.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2021, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2021 ---

Rayleigh left when Luffy was already able to use Gear 4.

?? Where was this stated?

 

[Rmstorm]

Can someone tell us what was the conclusion of Ace vs. Smoker, with evidence? Who won? Was it a draw? Or? I'm not asking for an opinion, but evidence/proof.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 16, 2021, Original Post Date: Dec 16, 2021 ---

?? Where was this stated?

When he created King Kong Gun, Rayleigh was there.

Watch or Read Dressrossa. He told Rayliegh kong gun was not.enough for some animals on the island.

Rayleigh also left luffy 6 months before the timeskip was over. This was stated at the beginning of post timeskip.

Rayleigh even told.Luffy Gear 4 was too taxing on his body.

 

[M3J]

oh forgot about that, thanks

 

[thedude]

What level did you consider Blackbeard around that time, before he got Whitebeard's devil fruit? I mean, Ace was such a good fighter that even Blackbeard and Van Auger complimented his ability to fight, and especially as a user who couldn't use his devil fruit, while Blackbeard could.

How would you rate Jinbei's strength? Because despite having an advantage over a fruit user, a fire fruit user at that, he and Ace had a draw, which shows Ace's strength as well.

I don't think it's possible to conclude anything from Ace vs. Smoker as we never saw them fight. Ace stayed behind to stop Smoker from going after Luffy, and the next time we see him is on the ship, completely fine and healthy. Why would Ace stay and beat Smoker when he wanted to meet Luffy again and didn't want to get in trouble with the Marines? Plus, Whitebeard himself said he was grooming Ace to be the next Pirate King, no? So that should mean Ace was a lot stronger than we thought.

Jinbei and Ace had a draw before Ace even joined WB's crew, and you'd expect his strength to have increased since that time as well.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Ace isn’t strong enough for aokiji, but he has a good fruit which makes him able to fight and clash and with him

wrong. some loser with ace's fruit will never match aokiji

literally in the episode of ace story they made a point to say ace was finally able to burn whitebeard after plenty of tries. so clearly the heat of the fire is different depending on your level. so basically ace was too weak to hurt whitebeard at first and then eventually improved enough to

ace vs aokiji was never a match up thing otherwise the author would have said so. it was purely the individuals skill with their fruit vs the other persons. and ace vs aokiji was to show that ace is in aokijis strength bracket

 

[catagon87]

This YC1, YC2, YC3... YCN system is so ridiculous.

I'm going to sprinkle some facts on this conversation and you can do what you will with them:

• Ace and Smoker cancelled each other out
• Ace matched blows with Aokiji
• Aokiji fought Akainu for days
• Akainu blew off a portion of Whitebeards face and killed Ace
• Blackbeard defeated Ace and finished off Whitebeard but ran away from Akainu and Shanks
• Doflamingo shook off an attack from Aokiji; An attack which caused Diamond Jozu to lose his arm
• Crocodile got taken out by Luffy after a few tries, sat in prison presumably not training to get stronger then held his own in Marineford and actually clashed with Doflamingo
• Kaido can't be cut by anyone, until he was cut by a guy who got easily defeated by Law
• Law got fucked up by Doflamingo but...
• Doffy couldn't handle Gear 4 Luffy (G4 Luffy was objectively stronger than Doffy, and the difficulty in Luffy's fight was based around the time limit)
• Gear 4 Luffy did 0 damage to Kaido, the same guy who Kinemon, the guy who was defeated by Law, took damage from. Kaido one-shot gear 4 Luffy
• Blackbeard was capable of invading Baltigo, Dragon's Stronghold, but forced to flee due to CP0 showing up
• Law, who was defeated by Doflamingo, and who defeated Kinemon (who was able to cut Kaido), easily defeated Smoker, who "cancelled out Ace"
• Vergo broke Sanji's leg, brutalized Smoker, and was one-shot by Law once the threat of his heart being crushed was taken away

The boolean logic behind "Yonko Commander Levels" is extremely broken, and thus it is an incredibly biased and poor system by which to rate any fighter. To go into more detail on why this is so ridiculous - we 100% lack context to make any comparison of "what is a strong YC" and "what is a weak YC."

It's not like we had some series of chapters where all the Yonko commanders entered a DBZ style tournament and we were able to determine who was stronger based on the results.. We haven't seen Katakuri fight King. We haven't seen Marco fight Katakuri. We haven't seen Cracker fight anyone other than Luffy. We saw Vista "spar" with Mihawk. We saw Izou shoot a sword out of King's hand, but other than that.. nil.

Yonko Commanders are quirky. That's it. The fucking power levels people seem to erotically prescribe don't mean shit.

• Katakuri can predict the future. That's his thing. It couples well with his "special paramecia" bullshit.
• Cracker can make soldiers who are very tough / durable. That's his thing. It works well against someone like Luffy. How would it handle Law's room? Or Jinbei's water flinging? Not so well. He's also a glass cannon who will lose the second he's hit.
• Marco is a phoenix with a lot of durability. He's versatile and combat-savvy, but he's never really been seen defeating anyone significant
• Queen is a tanky brachiosaurus who has modified his body. That's his thing. Hit harder, and be faster.
• King is a quirky flying dinosaur Lunarian. He
  Spoiler: don't click if you haven't read the spoilers for 1035

  moves faster and has less defense when he's not on fire, and moves slower with more defense when he's not on fire.
• Ace was a logia-user who was really promising and took on challenges he wasn't ready for
• Burgess got brutalized by Sabo

I swear the only time I see "YC1,2,3" come up is when someone is trying to put down a character they don't like or promote one they do. I have got to the point where I picture the South Park Cable Guys rubbing each other's nipples any time I see those terms in a post. The wildest thing is it has no basis in cannon / reality. It's all conjectural bullshit and nobody can even seem to agree on what a YC1 is vs a YC2, etc..

 

[Fallou]

This YC1, YC2, YC3... YCN system is so ridiculous.

I'm going to sprinkle some facts on this conversation and you can do what you will with them:

• Ace and Smoker cancelled each other out
• Ace matched blows with Aokiji
• Aokiji fought Akainu for days
• Akainu blew off a portion of Whitebeards face and killed Ace
• Blackbeard defeated Ace and finished off Whitebeard but ran away from Akainu and Shanks
• Doflamingo shook off an attack from Aokiji; An attack which caused Diamond Jozu to lose his arm
• Crocodile got taken out by Luffy after a few tries, sat in prison presumably not training to get stronger then held his own in Marineford and actually clashed with Doflamingo
• Kaido can't be cut by anyone, until he was cut by a guy who got easily defeated by Law
• Law got fucked up by Doflamingo but...
• Doffy couldn't handle Gear 4 Luffy (G4 Luffy was objectively stronger than Doffy, and the difficulty in Luffy's fight was based around the time limit)
• Gear 4 Luffy did 0 damage to Kaido, the same guy who Kinemon, the guy who was defeated by Law, took damage from. Kaido one-shot gear 4 Luffy
• Blackbeard was capable of invading Baltigo, Dragon's Stronghold, but forced to flee due to CP0 showing up
• Law, who was defeated by Doflamingo, and who defeated Kinemon (who was able to cut Kaido), easily defeated Smoker, who "cancelled out Ace"
• Vergo broke Sanji's leg, brutalized Smoker, and was one-shot by Law once the threat of his heart being crushed was taken away

The boolean logic behind "Yonko Commander Levels" is extremely broken, and thus it is an incredibly biased and poor system by which to rate any fighter. To go into more detail on why this is so ridiculous - we 100% lack context to make any comparison of "what is a strong YC" and "what is a weak YC."

It's not like we had some series of chapters where all the Yonko commanders entered a DBZ style tournament and we were able to determine who was stronger based on the results.. We haven't seen Katakuri fight King. We haven't seen Marco fight Katakuri. We haven't seen Cracker fight anyone other than Luffy. We saw Vista "spar" with Mihawk. We saw Izou shoot a sword out of King's hand, but other than that.. nil.

Yonko Commanders are quirky. That's it. The fucking power levels people seem to erotically prescribe don't mean shit.

• Katakuri can predict the future. That's his thing. It couples well with his "special paramecia" bullshit.
• Cracker can make soldiers who are very tough / durable. That's his thing. It works well against someone like Luffy. How would it handle Law's room? Or Jinbei's water flinging? Not so well. He's also a glass cannon who will lose the second he's hit.
• Marco is a phoenix with a lot of durability. He's versatile and combat-savvy, but he's never really been seen defeating anyone significant
• Queen is a tanky brachiosaurus who has modified his body. That's his thing. Hit harder, and be faster.
• King is a quirky flying dinosaur Lunarian. He
  Spoiler: don't click if you haven't read the spoilers for 1035

  moves faster and has less defense when he's not on fire, and moves slower with more defense when he's not on fire.
• Ace was a logia-user who was really promising and took on challenges he wasn't ready for
• Burgess got brutalized by Sabo

I swear the only time I see "YC1,2,3" come up is when someone is trying to put down a character they don't like or promote one they do. I have got to the point where I picture the South Park Cable Guys rubbing each other's nipples any time I see those terms in a post. The wildest thing is it has no basis in cannon / reality. It's all conjectural bullshit and nobody can even seem to agree on what a YC1 is vs a YC2, etc..

Heeeh, well, I have to agree that we (and I’m the first to do it on occasion ) are too obsessed with power levels and stuff. However, I doubt it’s abnormal for a shonen fandom, I mean come on

-The crews do have a hierarchy, that is manifest in bounty levels and illustrated by the position of right-hand man, which IS a thing

-One Piece is also about strength, wether we like it or not: I doubt Oda would be surprised that the fandom discusses power levels, when half of his manga is fighting the bad guys and beating them.

-YC position are fan constructs indeed, but just cause they are doesn’t mean they’re fake or useless: they put words on what is perceived to be a reality by a lot of the fandom

-We discuss it to that extent because it’s part of what the audience of a battle shonen does and always has done

-We discuss it because OP hasn’t given us much more to focus on in terms of story and worldbuilding lately

 

[Lord Traffy Law]

This YC1, YC2, YC3... YCN system is so ridiculous.

I'm going to sprinkle some facts on this conversation and you can do what you will with them:

• Ace and Smoker cancelled each other out
• Ace matched blows with Aokiji
• Aokiji fought Akainu for days
• Akainu blew off a portion of Whitebeards face and killed Ace
• Blackbeard defeated Ace and finished off Whitebeard but ran away from Akainu and Shanks
• Doflamingo shook off an attack from Aokiji; An attack which caused Diamond Jozu to lose his arm
• Crocodile got taken out by Luffy after a few tries, sat in prison presumably not training to get stronger then held his own in Marineford and actually clashed with Doflamingo
• Kaido can't be cut by anyone, until he was cut by a guy who got easily defeated by Law
• Law got fucked up by Doflamingo but...
• Doffy couldn't handle Gear 4 Luffy (G4 Luffy was objectively stronger than Doffy, and the difficulty in Luffy's fight was based around the time limit)
• Gear 4 Luffy did 0 damage to Kaido, the same guy who Kinemon, the guy who was defeated by Law, took damage from. Kaido one-shot gear 4 Luffy
• Blackbeard was capable of invading Baltigo, Dragon's Stronghold, but forced to flee due to CP0 showing up
• Law, who was defeated by Doflamingo, and who defeated Kinemon (who was able to cut Kaido), easily defeated Smoker, who "cancelled out Ace"
• Vergo broke Sanji's leg, brutalized Smoker, and was one-shot by Law once the threat of his heart being crushed was taken away

The boolean logic behind "Yonko Commander Levels" is extremely broken, and thus it is an incredibly biased and poor system by which to rate any fighter. To go into more detail on why this is so ridiculous - we 100% lack context to make any comparison of "what is a strong YC" and "what is a weak YC."

It's not like we had some series of chapters where all the Yonko commanders entered a DBZ style tournament and we were able to determine who was stronger based on the results.. We haven't seen Katakuri fight King. We haven't seen Marco fight Katakuri. We haven't seen Cracker fight anyone other than Luffy. We saw Vista "spar" with Mihawk. We saw Izou shoot a sword out of King's hand, but other than that.. nil.

Yonko Commanders are quirky. That's it. The fucking power levels people seem to erotically prescribe don't mean shit.

• Katakuri can predict the future. That's his thing. It couples well with his "special paramecia" bullshit.
• Cracker can make soldiers who are very tough / durable. That's his thing. It works well against someone like Luffy. How would it handle Law's room? Or Jinbei's water flinging? Not so well. He's also a glass cannon who will lose the second he's hit.
• Marco is a phoenix with a lot of durability. He's versatile and combat-savvy, but he's never really been seen defeating anyone significant
• Queen is a tanky brachiosaurus who has modified his body. That's his thing. Hit harder, and be faster.
• King is a quirky flying dinosaur Lunarian. He
  Spoiler: don't click if you haven't read the spoilers for 1035

  moves faster and has less defense when he's not on fire, and moves slower with more defense when he's not on fire.
• Ace was a logia-user who was really promising and took on challenges he wasn't ready for
• Burgess got brutalized by Sabo

I swear the only time I see "YC1,2,3" come up is when someone is trying to put down a character they don't like or promote one they do. I have got to the point where I picture the South Park Cable Guys rubbing each other's nipples any time I see those terms in a post. The wildest thing is it has no basis in cannon / reality. It's all conjectural bullshit and nobody can even seem to agree on what a YC1 is vs a YC2, etc..

Heeeh, well, I have to agree that we (and I’m the first to do it on occasion ) are too obsessed with power levels and stuff. However, I doubt it’s abnormal for a shonen fandom, I mean come on

-The crews do have a hierarchy, that is manifest in bounty levels and illustrated by the position of right-hand man, which IS a thing

-One Piece is also about strength, wether we like it or not: I doubt Oda would be surprised that the fandom discusses power levels, when half of his manga is fighting the bad guys and beating them.

-YC position are fan constructs indeed, but just cause they are doesn’t mean they’re fake or useless: they put words on what is perceived to be a reality by a lot of the fandom

-We discuss it to that extent because it’s part of what the audience of a battle shonen does and always has done

-We discuss it because OP hasn’t given us much more to focus on in terms of story and worldbuilding lately

I mean good points on how wonky power system and ranking gets
But in regard to Luffy and law consider it protagonist tax , the sttawhats just consistently get stronger from arc to arc
Law got beat 200 chapters ago , he's no longer the same guy , it's like comparing Alabasta Luffy to ennies lobby Luffy
I do agree on comps being off at times
But you gotta factor in mental factor , Blackbeard wanted whitrbeard fruit and he was much more wore down , Blackbeard had no reason to fight akainu
Next I think it's kinda clear crocodile was more powerful than Luffy imo , he scarily out classed him in the first two fights
There's an elements to styles make fights ,doffy strings allow him to break free , jozu had no techique for that ,, but it's likely that doffy can't cut jozu
Also gotta factor in how tired and other factors , the blackbeard pirates only fight when necessary and with motivation cp0 was of no interest and maybe they were still worn down from fighting the revolutionaries

 

[LaGOAT]

Nah I disagree marco is yc1 the rest were below

imo I think luffy surpassed ace when he beat DD I think ace>=DD it’s unfortunate that we didn’t see alot of feats to support that. But rather people like or not their is a power structure in the series

 

[grey matter]

... what? I know that coming misconception but look at the panels of these fights. Especially in the end. Ace is bloody, beaten and at his limit, while BB is playing around and doesnt have a scratch.

That is kinda reaching man. BB's face was only half shown, Ace's was fully shown.

And again, before this. We actually saw the fight. After BB surprised him with dark fruit's power with a couple of attacks, they were basically trading hits.
Ace was shown to make BB scream in pain (though this was partly because of a side effect of dark fruit dealing double damage) and bleed from his attacks

And the final attack looks like they are about even. Two attacks which engulfed the island.

It shows they are close in PL and that these are two strong characters

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 17, 2021, Original Post Date: Dec 17, 2021 ---

Nah I disagree marco is yc1 the rest were below

imo I think luffy surpassed ace when he beat DD I think ace>=DD it’s unfortunate that we didn’t see alot of feats to support that. But rather people like or not their is a power structure in the series

Vista likey is YC1 too.
He fought equally with a casual Mihawk and got his respect

Marco, IMO, is a cut above the two YC1s we've seen.
He 1v2'd King + Queen for hours while spending energy healing up thousands of soldiers. And it wasn't like he was holding them off relying on his heals. On most of the panels we were shown, he was the one who was on offense, and hits hard enough to make King bleed (maybe he knew the trick, IDK)

Ace was close to Doflamingo level when he was 17-18
Cause Jinbe is near Doflamingo level, and Ace stalemated him 2-3 years
The dude then grew under the inputs of the strongest living pirate and some of the other top pirates of the verse. Him being YC2 tier is a minimum, considering his potential.
He just got unfortunate facing the strongest admiral who also had a DF advantage. I mean, what could he have done LMAO

 

[albertwv]

No, one happened and one didn't. What type of logic is that?

They BOTH happened, but people choose to ignore the Smoker battle. There was no outcome for either battle. Both attacks canceled each other out.
Your logic seems to choose one over the other. LOL.

@M3J. I did mistake the anime with the manga, as the anime shows them battle a little bit more, but I take that back. Since I do not count anime, this is the evidence of Smoker vs Ace, there was no winner or loser, say a draw. Just like Ace vs Aokiji.
But we have more clear evidence on how Aokiji handled somebody that easily handled Ace (Akainu). It is RIDICULOUS to claim Ace is near Aokiji because he cancelled his attack. Then I can claim Smoker is near Ace because of the same.

Like I said Im dropping the Smoker vs Ace if y'all drop the Ace vs Aokiji as a compliment to Ace's strength.
Ace vs BB, as I mentioned before and will keep mentioning, BB was not taking him fully serious, because BB does not take anyone serious at the beginning.
I would consider BB with Dark DF to be near YC3 level.

@grey matter did you seriously say Ice can do better versus magma than fire? Lol. Even if we throw out the "pokemon standards", Ice DOES NOT fare at all with magma. We've seen it on the manga, when Akainu melts the iceberg with ease. Aokiji's ice should do better vs Ace's fire.
BB vs Shanks, reread my post and reread it again. Seriously. I DID NOT claim that feat of Shanks' scar ever happen. I said I acknowledged it happen.
What I am questioning is WHEN, I say again, WHEN it happened. We do NOT know when it exactly happened. We know it happened between Roger's execution up to Shanks being introduced in Chapter 1.
At that time, Shanks was NOT a Yonko, not until 6 years later (we learned thanks to the MANGA, not VC).
Ultimately, we have no idea how strong BB or Shanks were at the time of the scar. Not claiming they were weak, but Shanks was not Yonko level.

@LaGOAT Yeah I agree, I think Luffy surprassed Ace when he reached G4 (YC3). Also, I find it hard to see both Ace or Jimbei defeating Doffy. Obviously it would be a high diff for Doffy but I still see Doffy beating them. Doffy is extremely skillful, moreso than Jimbei or Ace.

 

[grey matter]

@grey matter did you seriously say Ice can do better versus magma than fire? Lol. Even if we throw out the "pokemon standards", Ice DOES NOT fare at all with magma. We've seen it on the manga, when Akainu melts the iceberg with ease. Aokiji's ice should do better vs Ace's fire.

Of course ice fares better against magma than fire.

What can fire even do to magma? That thing is already on fire lmao. Unless you can reach sun level temperature with your fire or something, you aren't cancelling out the magma (like through vapourizing it)

At least with ice, you can cool down the magma and turn it into rock/mud
Not an equal matchup by any means, since equal amounts of even low temperature ice cannot negate same mass of magma. But there are other stuff you can do with Ice, like deflect incoming magma attacks (something which fire can't do), weaken the incoming magma using just same mass of ice etc

Point being, ice is a far better matchup against magma than fire

Magma is a complete mismatch against fire, unlike against ice

BB vs Shanks, reread my post and reread it again. Seriously. I DID NOT claim that feat of Shanks' scar ever happen. I said I acknowledged it happen.
What I am questioning is WHEN, I say again, WHEN it happened. We do NOT know when it exactly happened. We know it happened between Roger's execution up to Shanks being introduced in Chapter 1.
At that time, Shanks was NOT a Yonko, not until 6 years later (we learned thanks to the MANGA, not VC).
Ultimately, we have no idea how strong BB or Shanks were at the time of the scar. Not claiming they were weak, but Shanks was not Yonko level.

Ok.
Regardless, it did happen when Shanks was powerup enough to the point Shanks had respect for BB's power.

I don't see Shanks having such respect for characters who aren't commander levels.

And we should also remember that BB grew since then as well, it wasn't just Shanks who did

 

[M3J]

Heeeh, well, I have to agree that we (and I’m the first to do it on occasion ) are too obsessed with power levels and stuff. However, I doubt it’s abnormal for a shonen fandom, I mean come on

-The crews do have a hierarchy, that is manifest in bounty levels and illustrated by the position of right-hand man, which IS a thing

-One Piece is also about strength, wether we like it or not: I doubt Oda would be surprised that the fandom discusses power levels, when half of his manga is fighting the bad guys and beating them.

-YC position are fan constructs indeed, but just cause they are doesn’t mean they’re fake or useless: they put words on what is perceived to be a reality by a lot of the fandom

-We discuss it to that extent because it’s part of what the audience of a battle shonen does and always has done

-We discuss it because OP hasn’t given us much more to focus on in terms of story and worldbuilding lately

One Piece is also about matchups. Enel could beat a Pacifista with ease but still lose to Sabaody Luffy because Luffy's rubber. It's also about how the fighters win, which may not be pure strength. Just look at how Moria used shadows to get stronger.

@M3J. I did mistake the anime with the manga, as the anime shows them battle a little bit more, but I take that back. Since I do not count anime, this is the evidence of Smoker vs Ace, there was no winner or loser, say a draw. Just like Ace vs Aokiji.
But we have more clear evidence on how Aokiji handled somebody that easily handled Ace (Akainu). It is RIDICULOUS to claim Ace is near Aokiji because he cancelled his attack. Then I can claim Smoker is near Ace because of the same.

Like I said Im dropping the Smoker vs Ace if y'all drop the Ace vs Aokiji as a compliment to Ace's strength.
Ace vs BB, as I mentioned before and will keep mentioning, BB was not taking him fully serious, because BB does not take anyone serious at the beginning.
I would consider BB with Dark DF to be near YC3 level.

What's with the comparison though? Akainu being able to handle Ace (went for Luffy, which Ace blocked) doesn't mean Aokiji can win easily just because he almost tied with Akainu. Match-ups matter, and fire can melt ice as well. Again, we don't know how the fight between Aokiji and Akainu went, other than conjectures.

Blackbeard took Ace seriously enough to compliment him.

 

[XXGenesis]

These discussions are becoming redundant. I know we can’t all agree on everything but WTF is the focus so much on Ace DF vs w/e….I’ve been reading old don’t explain just wish we would move on.

Ace was a solid YC2+-YC1 Lv Pirate. He had all forms of Haki & was a logia. His best feats from the manga is fighting Warlord Jimbei.

Manga shows Ace DF cannot clash with Akainu’s….We also saw Ace easily counter Akoji. Then we get info that Akoji fought with Akainu for days, both scarred each other…This proves Akoji could overpower Ace DF…The simple logic is because Akoji is stronger, more skilled, and probably has a awakened fruit…

Ace got owned by BB…BB praising Ace doesn’t make him anywhere comparable with the showings we saw….BB low Diff Ace with 2 physical attacks…While Ace only got in a few DF attacks.

 

[Lord Traffy Law]

One Piece is also about matchups. Enel could beat a Pacifista with ease but still lose to Sabaody Luffy because Luffy's rubber. It's also about how the fighters win, which may not be pure strength. Just look at how Moria used shadows to get stronger.



What's with the comparison though? Akainu being able to handle Ace (went for Luffy, which Ace blocked) doesn't mean Aokiji can win easily just because he almost tied with Akainu. Match-ups matter, and fire can melt ice as well. Again, we don't know how the fight between Aokiji and Akainu went, other than conjectures.

Blackbeard took Ace seriously enough to compliment him.

Yup styles make fights alot
Crocodile and enel could probably one shot pre timeskip pacifistas
Monster trio could barely best one

I think pre ts Blackbeard is underestimated, he was strong enough to be considered a commander pre gaining the strongest logia fruit and ultimate DF counter , shanks considered him very strong
Plus ace and Blackbeard final clash was even
Akainu is much stronger than ace , however how ace died shouldn't be used a combat feat and judgement , ace threw himself to protect Luffy

 

[Sachsenhesse]

Ace got owned by BB…BB praising Ace doesn’t make him anywhere comparable with the showings we saw….BB low Diff Ace with 2 physical attacks…While Ace only got in a few DF attacks.

That fight is so missunderstood it really is special. Ace let out everything while BB was just playing around and somehow its "a close fight!".

 

[M3J]

Yup styles make fights alot
Crocodile and enel could probably one shot pre timeskip pacifistas
Monster trio could barely best one

I think pre ts Blackbeard is underestimated, he was strong enough to be considered a commander pre gaining the strongest logia fruit and ultimate DF counter , shanks considered him very strong
Plus ace and Blackbeard final clash was even
Akainu is much stronger than ace , however how ace died shouldn't be used a combat feat and judgement , ace threw himself to protect Luffy

He was also able to hurt Shanks badly enough that Shanks still feels pain when he remembers that moment, and it's apparently impressive enough that Shanks was worried enough to meet Whitebeard face to face.

Agreed, it's not like Ace was fighting, he was shielding Luffy from a kill blow. If you said Akainu >>>>>>> Ace by miles, I wouldn't argue that because the manga showed Ace doing badly against Akainu in that short skirmish.

That fight is so missunderstood it really is special. Ace let out everything while BB was just playing around and somehow its "a close fight!".

Playing around? Wasn't most of the fight off-screened?

 

[Sachsenhesse]

Playing around? Wasn't most of the fight off-screened?

No. It was its own chapter even. https://w2.1piecemanga.com/manga/one-piece-chapter-441/

 

[Crimson Ice]

They BOTH happened, but people choose to ignore the Smoker battle. There was no outcome for either battle. Both attacks canceled each other out.
Your logic seems to choose one over the other. LOL.

@M3J. I did mistake the anime with the manga, as the anime shows them battle a little bit more, but I take that back. Since I do not count anime, this is the evidence of Smoker vs Ace, there was no winner or loser, say a draw. Just like Ace vs Aokiji.
But we have more clear evidence on how Aokiji handled somebody that easily handled Ace (Akainu). It is RIDICULOUS to claim Ace is near Aokiji because he cancelled his attack. Then I can claim Smoker is near Ace because of the same.

Like I said Im dropping the Smoker vs Ace if y'all drop the Ace vs Aokiji as a compliment to Ace's strength.
Ace vs BB, as I mentioned before and will keep mentioning, BB was not taking him fully serious, because BB does not take anyone serious at the beginning.
I would consider BB with Dark DF to be near YC3 level.

@grey matter did you seriously say Ice can do better versus magma than fire? Lol. Even if we throw out the "pokemon standards", Ice DOES NOT fare at all with magma. We've seen it on the manga, when Akainu melts the iceberg with ease. Aokiji's ice should do better vs Ace's fire.
BB vs Shanks, reread my post and reread it again. Seriously. I DID NOT claim that feat of Shanks' scar ever happen. I said I acknowledged it happen.
What I am questioning is WHEN, I say again, WHEN it happened. We do NOT know when it exactly happened. We know it happened between Roger's execution up to Shanks being introduced in Chapter 1.
At that time, Shanks was NOT a Yonko, not until 6 years later (we learned thanks to the MANGA, not VC).
Ultimately, we have no idea how strong BB or Shanks were at the time of the scar. Not claiming they were weak, but Shanks was not Yonko level.

@LaGOAT Yeah I agree, I think Luffy surprassed Ace when he reached G4 (YC3). Also, I find it hard to see both Ace or Jimbei defeating Doffy. Obviously it would be a high diff for Doffy but I still see Doffy beating them. Doffy is extremely skillful, moreso than Jimbei or Ace.

Peope don't bring up Smoker because it's not note-worthy. You CLAIMED ACE FOUGHT SMOKER AND WERE USING ANIME FILLER TO POINT THAT OUT. Ace never fights Smoker, he blocks one attack puts up a firewall and then leaves. You were bringing up Ace vs Smoker and was implying that Ace tried to beat him and couldn't, which was not the case. While people bring up the Kuzan feat because it was impressive, nobody brings up blocking Smoker because Smoker is trash. The problem I had was you trying to compare Ace vs Smoker and Doffy vs Smoker, both scenarios were different.

See there's that stupid logic. How is Ace easily negating an attack from Smoker a feat for Smoker? LMAOOOOOO. Smoker was brushed off, both Smoker and Kuzan were the aggressors in both situations, him blocking Smoker isn't a good feat for Smoker. The only way Smoker is impressive in the slightest is if you use the anime filler for that fight, which would be stupid. In both scenarios Ace wanted to block and attack from an aggressor, he was successful both times.