One Piece Power Level Discussion Thread

[goldb]

Ground Rules for the Power Level Discussion Thread
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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.

 

[shailks]

How am I trolling when you haven't debunked a single point of mine? Your the one picking and choosing and have yet to counter a single point of mine.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 31, 2022, Original Post Date: Jul 31, 2022 ---

No one is saying progresses as fast as Luffy only that 4 years is a massive gap to not fight someone who then went on to become a Yonko.

Presumably Mihawk was also not idling around, as we don’t know if he had already earned the title by then. And we also don’t know who he beat to earn the title, same as we don’t know who Shanks beat to become a Yonkou. Quality matters and we just don’t have enough information.

 

[Pirate Queen]

Presumably Mihawk was also not idling around, as we don’t know if he had already earned the title by then. And we also don’t know who he beat to earn the title, same as we don’t know who Shanks beat to become a Yonkou. Quality matters and we just don’t have enough information.

All we have seen of Mihawk is him attacking no bodies like Kreig or being so board he just chills on his island until something interesting happens. Yes he has most certainly being idling around.

And we know he because WSS by going around and fighting every strong swordsman until he got the title. That has already been proven. And because there is no one interest in to fight he doesn't make "waves" per the WG

As to your third point, we do know what it takes to be a Yonko because even after everything Luffy did at WCI he was only considered an unofficial Yonko but leading the army that overwhelmingly beat 2 Yonko got him the title, so we do see what it takes.

 

[shailks]

we have seen of Mihawk is him attacking no bodies like Kreig or being so board he just chills on his island until something interesting happens. Yes he has most certainly being idling around.

I know he idles around now, I mentioned it myself in the earlier post, lol. However, I don’t think he was idling around on his journey to be WSS. And we have also seen Buggy become a Yonkou so there’s that.

I am making the argument that we don’t have enough information to say definitely who is the stronger now. We however know who is the more ambitious, and has and will have bigger impact on the story. That matters more to me.

 

[kkck]

I'm mixed on Kaido's words.

Yes, the series has leaned heavily towards haki being the end-all be-all, but it seems weird for Oda to verbalize that through an antagonist whose entire worldview is shaped solely through one's strength and combat in general and has been implied to have been wrongheaded in a lot of his thinking. Nevermind that Kaido's own words were contradicted not even 10 chapters prior with Kid and Law managing to take down Big Mom with their fruit abilities and not their haki proficiency.

There is also the fact that Kaido ignores the fact that Roger didn't "conquer the world" alone. Roger's other source of strength was his crew and allies. Rocks, the individual who may have been closest to becoming King of the World, likely failed because his crew turned on him and left him for death.

So I'm not sure if Kaido is supposed to be completely correct in his assertions at the moment.

I don't think it's a contradiction. The fight was 2 vs 1 and one of the bigger issues they had to overcome about big mom was her monstrous haki. There's a pretty big difference between how kidd and law performed combined against bm and luffy at the end against kaido. Ultimately luffy and zoro were the ones in the battle with the most consistent means of hurting yonko which was attributed to haki. BB also clearly has a fairly different view on combat than kaido.

 

[grey matter]

WSS is simply that, he is the world's strongest swordsman as of now. If Mihawk just has the title, but the real WSS is actually Shanks, that is a completely meaningless and hollow title, and would render Zoro's entire goal pointless. This wouldn't be something Oda will do.
The vivre card also states that Mihawk is waiting for someone stronger than Shanks, so take it how you will.

Shanks stopped fighting Mihawk after losing his arm, because Mihawk simply wasn't interested any more. We don't know how strong Shanks got after that, but it would be a massive stretch to simply assume Shanks just surpassed Mihawk with one arm, and Mihawk simply stagnated. They are also around the same age, so why would Shanks just jump to another level while Mihawk not?
Why even assume Shanks got a lot stronger to become Yonko? Yonko isn't a title achieved by just strength. Crew strength, territory etc are also important. This is why Luffy got to become a Yonko - strawhat grand fleet and territories (fishman island, Wano, maybe Zou too). While those with similar bounties (Law and Kid) aren't, cause their crew isn't up there and because they have no territory

We can all acknowledge that one can be a sword user, and not be a straight up swordsman, if they engage is combat that isn't swordsmanship. Like for example, King and BM are sword users too, but they are mixed fighters who use their other abilities as well (such as DF, lunarian powers etc).
In contrast, characters like Roger, Rayleigh and Oden are definitely swordsmen (not making any point about Roger vs Mihawk, cause Roger dead. Obviously Roger >Mihawk)

We know Shanks doesn't have a DF, and till now hasn't shown a combat style that isn't that of a swordsman.
He very well could in the future, he could just pull up a kamehameha blast with conqueror's haki, and that wouldn't be a part of swordsmanship. But until something like that happens Shanks is implied to be a swordsman.


So, my conclusion.
I think Shanks ~ Mihawk, they are portrayed as being relative to each other. Who is stronger amongst them? I don't know.
If Shanks has some combat style which is clearly not swordsmanship (like for example a kamehameha haki blast), then Shanks may be stronger than Mihawk. Otherwise, Mihawk is stronger than Shanks

 

[shailks]

This gives me an idea. Although yonkou title doesn’t necessarily have a conflict with WSS, pirate king would, right. I mean it literally means the king of all pirates, Mihawk is a pirate. So now when he comes to know Shanks is planning to come for one piece, wouldn’t he think that his title is losing its shine? Maybe he wakes out of his slumber and does something for a change.

 

[Lord Traffy Law]

And we're back to the what makes a swordsman a swordsman in order to argue Shanks > Mihawk. I personally believe Shanks > Mihawk, but will not argue it because it will fuel this ongoing never ending discussion.

Spoiler

So we have kinda confirmed that Kaido > Admirals? Well at least Kaido > Green Bull, as GB himself said that if Kaido was still In Wano, he would not have come, therefore fearing the Yonko. I still believe Kaido > any admiral even Old Garp and even Akainu. only Prime Garp and Prime Sengoku would defeat current Kaido.

Shanks > Green Bull, that's for sure too. Kinda gives me hope that my theory of Yonko > Admirals is true. 2 cases we have seen where Shanks can make even an Admiral stand down. Though, given that GB was outnumbered.

I think it is crazy how Shanks was able to feel GB's presence from so far away. Unless the Flower Capital is close to the ocean, which I doubt, since Shanks wasn't even up in Wano, but rather below the waterfall, so that must have been something crazy or a typical Oda "Asspull" of a power.

GB could sense them too in return
i mean not even wb pulled up on kaido when he had ample reason too, wb worked with balance, none of the yonkou or WG enroach on each otheer's territories though

I'm mixed on Kaido's words.

Yes, the series has leaned heavily towards haki being the end-all be-all, but it seems weird for Oda to verbalize that through an antagonist whose entire worldview is shaped solely through one's strength and combat in general and has been implied to have been wrongheaded in a lot of his thinking. Nevermind that Kaido's own words were contradicted not even 10 chapters prior with Kid and Law managing to take down Big Mom with their fruit abilities and not their haki proficiency.

There is also the fact that Kaido ignores the fact that Roger didn't "conquer the world" alone. Roger's other source of strength was his crew and allies. Rocks, the individual who may have been closest to becoming King of the World, likely failed because his crew turned on him and left him for death.

So I'm not sure if Kaido is supposed to be completely correct in his assertions at the moment.

it almost feels like poor writing , emphasizes the importance of haki yet his crew is filled with ok df users, not one awakened df user,smile users and average haki fighters,if his goal was building the strongest armyy he was not working smart towards it

Mihawk likely has a bounty over 3 bil and is a yonko level fighter but he probably is weaker then shanks

ehhhh mihawk doesn't have on the record feats and influence to be greater than 2 billi , bb a whole yonkou and was 2.2

 

[LadyVados]

Haki

Yet you rate Law and Kidd above Zoro despite having vastly inferior Haki… hypocritical much.

 

[Moss Green]

How am I trolling when you haven't debunked a single point of mine? Your the one picking and choosing and have yet to counter a single point of mine.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 31, 2022, Original Post Date: Jul 31, 2022 ---

I have but I’ll try to be a bit clearer this time.

There 2 sides your portrayal argument, one that makes sense and one that doesn’t. What makes sense, yes Shanks has been given the opportunity to demonstrate that top tiers are hesitant to start a conflict with him and his crew and that he could clash even with a post-prime WB. His background and purpose are much larger to the wider story than Mihawk, who is simply a narrative device to give Zoro’s dream have a clear target, so he gets the big moments because his fatherly relationship to Luffy and his history as a pirate in the Pirate King’s crew. In fact thanks to the very same Buggy that you mentioned we could make the argument that his reputation is INFLATED based on his tenure in Roger’s crew. But we know that ISN’T the case because we’ve seen his actual strength.

With Mihawk, because his purpose in the story is sorely Zoro + the fact that he’s only a pirate in name, his appearance doesn’t have the same weight as Shanks. So at Marineford where we’re seeing WB, all the admirals, Ace, Luffy, etc. Oda still made it clear that Mihawk sees himself next to WB and not the likes of Vista & co. Oda then acknowledges the existence of Shanks as a swordsman but revealing that they fought each often in the past like all the rivalries I stated above. To say that Mihawk doesn’t have “portrayal” in the manga is dishonest. He doesn’t have “feats”, yes, but the only people he’s ever been associated with are the tippiest of the top.

A little thought experiment. Do you think Dragon is a top tier? Would love to hear your rationale for either side.

And not everyone is gonna progress at the same rate as Luffy. Luffy’s progress is mind boggling, followed only by his teammates (zoro and sanji). For fighting purposes Mihawk is same tier as Shanks but as I mentioned before Shank’s impact to the story is very different to Mihawk’s. It doesn’t matter if you are the strongest if you are just going to roam around idly. This is why I want Zoro to beat some top tier non swordsman (admirals may be), more than him becoming the strongest swordsman, which doesn’t seem as big a goal as it used to be.

100% and it’s why Zoro’s path to the top has been almost exclusively “non-swordsman”. Zoro just beat the last tier of fighter that leaves him out of the top. The only people stronger than YC1’s are admirals and the Yonkou and he just fought two of them and clearly belonged. There’s only 1 place for Mihawk to be, whether he’s stronger or weaker than Shanks is just semantics.

 

[grey matter]

We can argue that haki is the most important/consistent way to get to top tier, which does seem to be the case. But it is not the only way. Demonstrably so, in the manga.

Yes, BM has great haki too. But, she is quite a lot reliant on her DF powers as well, considering her combat style is based on the three homies she carries around all the time.
BM vs Law/Kid was thematically also a devil fruit battle, in contrast to Kaido vs Luffy which was more haki focused. Where Law and Kid took her down primarily using their DF powers.

Blackbeard is about to become the strongest character alive, and he is pretty much exclusively relying on devil fruits.

Even consider base Luffy vs base Kaido. IMO base Kaido will mid diff the current base Luffy. The fight becomes extreme diff, only after both devil fruits are taken into account, with Luffy having the stronger DF. So clearly, having a top tier DF helps a lot.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 31, 2022, Original Post Date: Jul 31, 2022 ---

The only people stronger than YC1’s are admirals and the Yonkou and he just fought two of them and clearly belonged. There’s only 1 place for Mihawk to be, whether he’s stronger or weaker than Shanks is just semantics.

This 100%

Even if people aren't convinced by Mihawk's portrayal and want to argue semantics of when and why he was portrayed with Shanks, by process of elimination, he has to be Yonko tier for sure. Because Zoro has already demonstrated capability to tank attacks from Yonkos and damage Yonkos. Even though Zoro is overall not up there for sure, he has demonstrated at least attack power than can threaten the Yonkos, and has defeated a YC1.

There is just one place to go for Mihawk if he is still considerably stronger than current Zoro, it's the Yonko tier.

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 31, 2022 ---

This gives me an idea. Although yonkou title doesn’t necessarily have a conflict with WSS, pirate king would, right. I mean it literally means the king of all pirates, Mihawk is a pirate. So now when he comes to know Shanks is planning to come for one piece, wouldn’t he think that his title is losing its shine? Maybe he wakes out of his slumber and does something for a change.

Mihawk admitted in Marineford already, that title of PK > WSS

 

[Pirate Queen]

A little thought experiment. Do you think Dragon is a top tier? Would love to hear your rationale for either side.

I do believe Dragon is a High Tier, but in the same breath I view Mihawk. Both above YC1 yet below Yonko (excluding Buggy for obvious reasons)

Reasoning being what little portrayal we have gotten for both of them is that they are very capable of holding their own against powerful world forces be it other Pirates or Marines. I think Dragon is stronger than Sabo, who can at least hold his own against an Admiral, for the simple fact that leaders of factions are usually the strongest in said faction. But with time, Sabo now has the Mera Mera no mi so I think Sabo will prove to be stronger than Dragon by the Mangas end.

Because of what we know of Dragon, which is very little, this is all speculative. Mihawk, we, or to be fair "I", have just enough to know he isn't on the same tier as Shanks.

 

[Fox666]

I do believe Dragon is a High Tier, but in the same breath I view Mihawk. Both above YC1 yet below Yonko (excluding Buggy for obvious reasons)

Reasoning being what little portrayal we have gotten for both of them is that they are very capable of holding their own against powerful world forces be it other Pirates or Marines. I think Dragon is stronger than Sabo, who can at least hold his own against an Admiral, for the simple fact that leaders of factions are usually the strongest in said faction. But with time, Sabo now has the Mera Mera no mi so I think Sabo will prove to be stronger than Dragon by the Mangas end.

Because of what we know of Dragon, which is very little, this is all speculative. Mihawk, we, or to be fair "I", have just enough to know he isn't on the same tier as Shanks.

 

[Pirate Queen]

I would like to know who the strongest person it is that they sent after Mihawk. If it's an Admiral, I will confidently say Mihawk is an Admiral level threat, if it's just a bustercall with 5 VA's it's going to have a huge impact on portrayal.

We know Kizaru is looking CLEAN with Akainu so i doubt he went after Mihawk and Fujitora seems to be with Coby to have gone after Hancock just given the context clues.

Alternatively if Mihawk's biggest fight in the story is against Zoro and he loses without a single CURRENT feat to his name then his portrayal also suffers.

 

[grey matter]

I do believe Dragon is a High Tier, but in the same breath I view Mihawk. Both above YC1 yet below Yonko (excluding Buggy for obvious reasons)

Reasoning being what little portrayal we have gotten for both of them is that they are very capable of holding their own against powerful world forces be it other Pirates or Marines. I think Dragon is stronger than Sabo, who can at least hold his own against an Admiral, for the simple fact that leaders of factions are usually the strongest in said faction. But with time, Sabo now has the Mera Mera no mi so I think Sabo will prove to be stronger than Dragon by the Mangas end.

Because of what we know of Dragon, which is very little, this is all speculative. Mihawk, we, or to be fair "I", have just enough to know he isn't on the same tier as Shanks.

Sabo isn't surpassing dragon.

His father was amongst the strongest in the verse in his prime, relative to prime WB and Roger.
His son is about to become the strongest ever in the verse.
His will was is implied to be one of the strongest, similar to Shanks.

You think Oda will have Sabo surpass Dragon, considering all this? Sabo likely doesn't even have Conqueror's haki.

 

[john ellis]

When did Oda say that? Mihawk is basically a nihilist. He is no danger to the WG unless provoked. He doesn't seek out trouble, he doesn't break the law, nor does he seek the One Piece. He chills on his island waiting g for strong opponents to emerge for him to challenge.

I do not expect a 180⁰ turn first his character where he is suddenly breaking laws and going on ramages

He said the top 10 bounties are likely to change heavily with the last arc in the 4 weeks of filler. Sabo, dragon, Mihawk and rocks are only candidates. Plus his bounty has to be higher then kings atleast. Also the hype around Mihawk and shanks duals are yonko level clashes according to whitebeard. To shake the grand line it would have to atleast be a Haki exchange that covers an entire island. Also whitebeard is giving credit to this feat which is a good source of power.

also one of your statements is rather silly. Yes pre yonko shanks fought against Mihawk but clearly to shake an island shanks was Near or at yonko level at the time. Stated by whitebeard who would know what’s yonko leve feat is. So while shanks is not a yonko at the time a yonko was giving him a yonko level feat. Also kaido fought against pre yonko luffy. Does that make kaido not yonko tier. Because your logic implies it would. And yes pre yonko luffy fought against buggy but they weren’t shaking entire islands with there Haki.

 

[Pirate Queen]

Sabo isn't surpassing dragon.

His father was amongst the strongest in the verse in his prime, relative to prime WB and Roger.
His son is about to become the strongest ever in the verse.
His will was is implied to be one of the strongest, similar to Shanks.

You think Oda will have Sabo surpass Dragon, considering all this? Sabo likely doesn't even have Conqueror's haki.

Yes a do i dont think its too much of a stretch, Dragon is basically featless until shown otherwise. It would not be out of the realm of possibility at this point. Anyone familiar with shounen manga understand how much of a bs end of series power creep is so I would not be surprised

--- Double Post Merged, Jul 31, 2022, Original Post Date: Jul 31, 2022 ---

also one of your statements is rather silly. Yes pre yonko shanks fought against Mihawk but clearly to shake an island shanks was Near or at yonko level at the time. Stated by whitebeard who would know what’s yonko leve feat is. So while shanks is not a yonko at the time a yonko was giving him a yonko level feat. Also kaido fought against pre yonko luffy. Does that make kaido not yonko tier. Because your logic implies it would. And yes pre yonko luffy fought against buggy but they weren’t shaking entire islands with there Haki.

Luffy was doing Yonko level feats prior to being Yonko as well. The Buggy comparsion was simply to show that we do not equate past feats to current feats.

We know Shanks went on to become a Yonko, and common sense tells us he got stronger between his last battle with Mihawk and becoming a Yonko. A lot happens in 4 years. And alot of people argue "well mihawk grew in those 4 years as well" okay sure that's entirely possible but the narrative that they are currently equivalent is just not true. They WERE equivalent in the past, but not currently.

 

[Lord Traffy Law]

One piece is very big on lineage and inherited strength garp and luffy are both top tiers it’d be an outlier that the mystery dude of dragon would be anything less of yonkou/admiral maybe even touching the helm of peak roger/garp

 

[M3J]

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

Just a reminder

If Rayleigh got tired relatively quickly while not going all out, what happens when he is going all out? Safe to say he gets tired even faster.

Swimming across the sea and taking care of fodder sea monsters doesn't take as much effort as fighting at a high level with haki.

I think we have seen enough to scale Rayleigh's combat stats too Kizaru, at least until shown otherwise. If both were going all out, the fight would look pretty much the same with Rayleigh eventually running out of gas.
Same for Rayleigh vs Shanks

That doesn't really indicate much to me. Other than Whitebeard, when have we seen old people get gassed so quickly in a serious fight? Wasn't Chinjao able to fight in a battle royale without a stamina issue despite being around the same age as Garp and Whitebeard? Besides, if it was easy enough to tire out Rayleigh and beat him, Kizaru would have likely done that.

Takes enough effort that it impressed Law's crew, if I recall correctly, despite seeing some strong people as well in their travels. Nothing really indicates Rayleigh would get tired quicker or run out of gas much quicker.

I’m not sure how you can say “titles don’t matter” when the actual purpose of the story is obtaining a title. They’re a narrative device used to tell us how we should scale a character that’s just not up for debate. They’re only 3 strength related titles and 2 of them were held by Yonkou. Yet I’m to understand that the 3rd should be different?
QUOTE]

Most titles are made up by people based on what they observe, which can be true or isn't true. Buggy could be weak, and he'd still be considered a Pirate King without beating anyone just by getting to Raftel and making people think he's strong as a result.

 

[Pirate Queen]

Just a reminder


That doesn't really indicate much to me. Other than Whitebeard, when have we seen old people get gassed so quickly in a serious fight? Wasn't Chinjao able to fight in a battle royale without a stamina issue despite being around the same age as Garp and Whitebeard? Besides, if it was easy enough to tire out Rayleigh and beat him, Kizaru would have likely done that.

Takes enough effort that it impressed Law's crew, if I recall correctly, despite seeing some strong people as well in their travels. Nothing really indicates Rayleigh would get tired quicker or run out of gas much quicker.

There is new material that furthers this discussion of Shanks and Mihawk.

Shanks being strong enough to paralyze an Admiral for 10 miles away is incredibly relevant to powerscaling, don't you think?

 

[M3J]

wait, new chapter came out? I thought the latest one was on Ryokogu confronting the enemies and Yamato talking about leaving???

It really isn't though, until we see what Mihawk can do. I've not seen any new argument in here?