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.

 

[smokeesid]

I wonder how age affects the power of a person especially when he is a skilled haki user. As Reyligh said that he has got old so he might not have won against blackbeard. But what age has to do with his use of haki? I don't think age can affect a haki user by decreasing the user's power.

 

[DeadlyBeast]

I wonder how age affects the power of a person especially when he is a skilled haki user. As Reyligh said that he has got old so he might not have won against blackbeard. But what age has to do with his use of haki? I don't think age can affect a haki user by decreasing the user's power.

I think haki is made up of a persons physical energy and mental energy (similar to chakra in Naruto). Furthermore it's usage has two main components:

• Quantity - This is the amount of haki a person has independent of their ability to use it. For example Blackbeard commented on Luffy's haki in Impel Down even though Luffy didn't really know much about it let alone use it consciously.
• Application - This is all about haki skills. People with greater skill with haki can apply it in a myriad of ways, including but not limited to the advanced forms of all haki types.

Age and other health factors impact both components but in different ways & to a different extent. In Rayleigh's case it's likely impacted his quantity of haki since haki stamina is likely correlated to physical stamina i.e. he has lower physical energy in his old age so his haki quantity is lower than in his prime. I'm sure age has effected his mental energy but that's probably negligible since he overall still seems mentally/spiritually in a good state. I'm guessing his loss of phyiscal ability + lower haki quanity is what is making him question his ability todefeat BB. However, Rayleigh should still have all his haki application i.e. ever way he can apply it e.g. aCoA.

Another character we can see this with is Whitebeard. His old age + disease wore him down physically and mentally. That resulted in lower stamina and ability to concentrate. This greatly impacted his haki usage hence why he was so weak compared to his peak.

 

[albertwv]

We're nearing the End of the series, or maybe we're not. But to me if Oda decides to have SHP vs BBP. I don't see how half of the SHs can compete with ID level 6 opponents. Nami, Usopp, Brook, and Chopper have yet to receive a proper power up, (maybe Nami with Zeus).
I think Wano should have been the place where all of the crew would have received proper power ups. But only 4 of them received it if you count Robin.

 

[DeadlyBeast]

We're nearing the End of the series, or maybe we're not. But to me if Oda decides to have SHP vs BBP. I don't see how half of the SHs can compete with ID level 6 opponents. Nami, Usopp, Brook, and Chopper have yet to receive a proper power up, (maybe Nami with Zeus).
I think Wano should have been the place where all of the crew would have received proper power ups. But only 4 of them received it if you count Robin.

Their either going to get freak power ups, get situational wins, or we're wrong and its not going to be 1v1s against just the SHs. We'll know more once we are closer to the conflict with BB but if Oda is to have a battle as big as Onigashima more pirates will have to be involved.

 

[albertwv]

Their either going to get freak power ups, get situational wins, or we're wrong and its not going to be 1v1s against just the SHs. We'll know more once we are closer to the conflict with BB but if Oda is to have a battle as big as Onigashima more pirates will have to be involved.

Oh for the love of God, please not. I hated Onigashima raid. It was so misplaced and misconstructed.
The people who deserved the spotlight were off paneled, while those who will not be remembered took up more space than they should have.
Yeah the idea of a huge war where everybody will show up sound amazing, but it is not.
Marineford was awesome but also too short and it was just one panel clashes of strong individuals. Oda never went any further and it only left more questions than answers. Looking at you Crocodile.

I seriously just hope the war revolves around the main Straw hat crew. I do NOT care about the SH grand fleet.

 

[XXGenesis]

Just read the spoilers…Oda is about to start a fire storm in this thread next few days…tsk tsk tsk….Be prepared……I think it’s time for me to write how Oda takes Freedoms to a whole another level..to even his battle mechanics, that aren’t concrete but malleable to however he see fits…Way too much freedom Oda. We need definitive answers not speculative perspectives

 

[Lord Rayleigh]

We're nearing the End of the series, or maybe we're not. But to me if Oda decides to have SHP vs BBP. I don't see how half of the SHs can compete with ID level 6 opponents. Nami, Usopp, Brook, and Chopper have yet to receive a proper power up, (maybe Nami with Zeus).
I think Wano should have been the place where all of the crew would have received proper power ups. But only 4 of them received it if you count Robin.

Totally true. I expect Haki to bloom for all SH Pirates in Egghead island. The most rationale way for this to happen would be for Vegapunk to have some kind of tech to accelerate Haki awakening.

 

[XXGenesis]

What is the Point of Yami Yami No Mi if Oda has finally decided to show that Haki can Nullify DF powers…

 

[Nie Li]

What is the Point of Yami Yami No Mi if Oda has finally decided to show that Haki can Nullify DF powers…

I get you, but the Yami Yami no Mi is still special. On top of its darkness powers, it has:
- The power to entirely turn off Devil Fruits while he touches or grabs his opponent. That's a much bigger nerf than what haki does.
- The power to suck their DF-user enemies right onto his hand, making it very easy for him to grab them.

It's still as dangerous a fruit as it ever was in my opinion.

 

[XXGenesis]

I get you, but the Yami Yami no Mi is still special. On top of its darkness powers, it has:
- The power to entirely turn off Devil Fruits while he touches or grabs his opponent. That's a much bigger nerf than what haki does.
- The power to suck their DF-user enemies right onto his hand, making it very easy for him to grab them.

It's still as dangerous a fruit as it ever was in my opinion.

Yes, it still has exclusive abilities. I guess my issue is more with Haki than BB DF. You are correct.

Haki nullifying DF as it’s been shown. Is an inconsistency of One Piece. As Surgar’s ability shouldn’t have worked on someone like Chinjao…

Or even the perspective of Doflamingo used Haki to break out of Akoji’s attack…I personally believe he did but Akoji was not serious or interested in pursuing a fight:

Haki imo on Oda’s fault isn’t such a good battle mechanism. He’s left it too ambiguous for too long within the series. Which gives him freedoms that lead to more ambiguity..I really don’t like a battle mechanism left unofficially explained only to slowly be revealed as it serves the battle part of the story…..

 

[albertwv]

In regards to Law's statement about haki. It seems fair and clears up a lot of misconceptions towards Haki vs DF's. I always favored Haki btw.
As we noticed how Law and DD (back in Punk Hazard), stated that if a person's haki is weak compared to another one's haki, then the stronger Haki will prevail even including the use of DF. Law vs Vergo, is when it was first hinted and stated. DD was confident that Vergo's Haki would be superior and bypass Law's cutting DF, meaning that Haki could overcome certain DF powers. Although it was shown that Law was indeed able to cut Vergo's full body clad haki. Then during DD vs Law, Law was able to switch DD places with "Shambles" but for whatever reason, Law was never able to cut DD into pieces. Law did try to but DD was able to block it with strings (and haki I presume). IMO, I didn't think Law was able to cut through DD's haki like he did with Vergo, since DD >> Vergo.

Arcs later, we see Law state that he could not "Shambles" and maybe even "cut/operate" the Yonkos Kaido and BM because they're Haki was too great, more powerful than his. Not until his awakening was Law able to use his DF vs Big Mom, but take note that it was only operating inside of BM's body was he able to harm her. Even with his awakening, Law was still not able to use Shambles or cut/operate on BM, at least he never tried.

IMO, Haki, specifically CoA, has been able to counter DF users. This kinda clears up Hancock and Sugar's nearly unstoppable DF powers. It always bugged me that Hancock had an insane DF power that could not be stopped and also Sugars. I highly doubt Oda would give those 2 insane DF powers that could topple a Yonko in one shot. It would destroy the balance of the OP world.
I never saw Hancock as a Yonko level or even YC1. I actually see Hancock YC3, below DD. But it was only thanks to her DF that she was able to "contend" with Yonko level fighters. Yes, Yonko BB feared he might get turned to stone, but as we saw, BB definitely would have won that match real quick if it wasn't for Rayleigh.

Also it seemed stupid that Sugar would be able to turn Kaido or any Yonko into a toy. I do see how Sugar was able to turn Don Chinjao since he was weakened by Luffy and even lost his haki and will thus losing to Lao G.

 

[Fox666]

What is the Point of Yami Yami No Mi if Oda has finally decided to show that Haki can Nullify DF powers…

These powers are indeed a bit redundant

On theory, the Yami Yami no Mi can completely turn off a Devil Fruit ability

 

[Lord Rayleigh]

What is the Point of Yami Yami No Mi if Oda has finally decided to show that Haki can Nullify DF powers…

That is not the exactly the same way of working. Haki creates a protection on the Haki user so the DF powers that can’t break the Haki barrier won’t work on the target, however DF user is still using his power meaning that a stronger Haki enhanced DF attack would break the Haki barrier and the DF powers would be effective on target. That was the entire point of Law vs. Vergo, and that is also what BB implies when talking about a 3B bounty pirate able to offset Doc Q’s DF attack.

Yami Yami no Mi is completely different. It prevents the DF user from using his DF meaning that there would not even be a DF attack. Even if WB had a stronger Haki than BB’s he couldn’t use his DF nearby BB. Hence Luffy would be throwing a Haki punch to Blackbeard instead of a Gomu Punch. It doesn’t matter that a Haki Gomu Punch would be stronger than BB’s Gura Punch, Luffy would only be throwing a Haki punch which means that it significantly decreases Luffy’s attacks.

 

[DeadlyBeast]

That is not the exactly the same way of working. Haki creates a protection on the Haki user so the DF powers that can’t break the Haki barrier won’t work on the target, however DF user is still using his power meaning that a stronger Haki enhanced DF attack would break the Haki barrier and the DF powers would be effective on target. That was the entire point of Law vs. Vergo, and that is also what BB implies when talking about a 3B bounty pirate able to offset Doc Q’s DF attack.

Yami Yami no Mi is completely different. It prevents the DF user from using his DF meaning that there would not even be a DF attack. Even if WB had a stronger Haki than BB’s he couldn’t use his DF nearby BB. Hence Luffy would be throwing a Haki punch to Blackbeard instead of a Gomu Punch. It doesn’t matter that a Haki Gomu Punch would be stronger than BB’s Gura Punch, Luffy would only be throwing a Haki punch which means that it significantly decreases Luffy’s attacks.

While the mechanism of effect and level of impacts differ between the Yami Yami no Mi and the use of haki against DF powers there is no arguing that the Yami Yami no mi has lot some specialness. Yes the Yami Yami no mi has a whole bunch of powers like black hole etc that make it a very powerful fruit. But at the end of the day what made it special and the reason Blackbeard went after it was the DF power nullification.

Using your example of Blackbeard vs Luffy the recent advances in haki abilities have opened up a couple of questions:

• Can Blackbeard even reasonably grab Luffy enough to make a difference? Luffy now has future sight and has aCoA which acts as a barrier that even Kaido's lava powers couldn't get past. If Blackbeard can't make physical contact with Luffy he can't exactly nullify the DF powers
• Can't haki be used to nullify the power of the Yami Yami no mi? At the end of the day its still a DF power so if haki can nullify them, stands to reason that a strong haki user can potentially ignore the Yami Yami no mi DF canceling power.

The reality of the situation is that Blackbeard gathered a whole bunch of powers in order to get an advantage. When the Yami Yami no mi was introduced it had an edge on other DF users. But the more we get into haki those advantages have been going away. Haki allows hitting the real body of any DF user so now people like Luffy already can physically handle hits to their actual body with just haki defenses alone. Then there is the Gura Gura power of massive impact on punches etc with the quake bubble. That is now countered by aCoA+aCoC which essentially create their own quake bubbles and potentially even worse when you consider the internal damage from haki. This is by no means making Blackbeard weak, he just no longer has a special edge or "cheat".

Personally I like this development since its much more believable for him to lose to Luffy. It also is a nice parallel by Oda where the two characters serve as foils to each other. Both have special fruits with amazing powers but only one of them has trained extremely hard to both master that fruit and haki on top of it all. Blackbeard has spent his life waiting for short cuts instead of training his core abilities. Frankly I'd be surprised if Blackbeard even has awakened powers. This is sort of like OFA v AFO in MH since one just gathers powers to get stronger while the other uses the powers to their utmost efficiency.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 16, 2022, Original Post Date: Oct 16, 2022 ---

Oh for the love of God, please not. I hated Onigashima raid. It was so misplaced and misconstructed.
The people who deserved the spotlight were off paneled, while those who will not be remembered took up more space than they should have.
Yeah the idea of a huge war where everybody will show up sound amazing, but it is not.
Marineford was awesome but also too short and it was just one panel clashes of strong individuals. Oda never went any further and it only left more questions than answers. Looking at you Crocodile.

I seriously just hope the war revolves around the main Straw hat crew. I do NOT care about the SH grand fleet.

Yeah it's annoying to have such long drawn out battles with so many characters but that's where we are headed. I don't know how long it will take for the pieces to all fall together but we can be certain there will be a very large battle with all the strongest pirates, revolutionaries, marines, wg folk all in the same place. It will mean that all the non top tier characters (this to me isn't just fighers but also people with specific skills like Chopper) are unlikely to get big moments to shine. There probably will be a lot of team fights too since Oda can't have that many one v ones.

 

[Pirate Queen]

BB is a CONFRIMED Advanced CoC user with this latest chapter reveal.

That being establish, that he was still sure Hancock could still turn him to stone simply proves she deserves to be among the top tiers.

Biased or unbiased, as of this chapter... it's proven Hancock has top tier DF and Haki

 

[DeadlyBeast]

I can believe BB has aCoC but nothing from this chapter is proof of that. The only black lighting looking thing we saw in this chapter didn't even show a character nor did it indicate haki. For all we know that was just regular CoA haki combined with Gura Gura.

 

[Pirate Queen]

I can believe BB has aCoC but nothing from this chapter is proof of that. The only black lighting looking thing we saw in this chapter didn't even show a character nor did it indicate haki. For all we know that was just regular CoA haki combined with Gura Gura.

You can literally see the black lightening tendrils.

CoA are thin black lines. ACoC are thicker intertwined black lightening strikes

ACoC

Vs


CoA

 

[HereNThere]

On theory, the Yami Yami no Mi can completely turn off a Devil Fruit ability

That's not much of a theory, more exactly what it does, which is why it's unique. BB stated that the Yami Yami no MI is the ability to reduce everything to nothingness and that extends to Devil Fruit abilities. Haki mitigates while the Yami Yami no Mi erases.

In terms of Law's statement, that was always been the general assumption in terms of the relationship between DFs and Haki, however, there are clearly limitations to that application. As we saw with Kaido and Big Mom, they were able to mitigate basic the basic attacks of Law's Ope Ope no Mi, such as Shambles or Tact, however, when he pulled out different attacks like Counter Shock or Gamma Knife, their haki didn't do anything about it or adapt to it. Further proof of this is shown with Luffy, Kid, and Law's awakenings being able to affect Kaido and Big Mom still.

In my opinion, all this means is that certain characters aren't going to get insta-stomped by certain fruits, while still being vulnerable to them. Haki has always been the great equalizer and this just furthers that concept. Also, look at the amount of effort it took Law to break Doc Q's contagion. Blackbeard and Doc Q were rightfully impressed, but Law still had to put in work to focus his haki to cure himself of one of his diseases.

 

[albertwv]

Yeah its hard to tell if BB does indeed have ACoC as of yet. I saw that as a Gura Gura Punch, not an ACoC attack. I'll wait before I pass judgement and make statements.
If anything with that Law mentioned about Haki overpowering the DF power, I think it lowers Hancock's presumed level of YC1+. Although I never saw her as that powerful.
So Im sure Kaido, Shanks and BM could overpower Hancock's DF stone power and defeat her easily. Just because BB stated he would turn to stone doesn't necessarily mean he is weaker than her or that she is near peer to him. He did manage to capture her kinda unscathed and could have killed her if Rayleigh didn't show up.

I see Hancock as a YC3 comparable to DD, with actually DD having better feats and overall power. Hancock unfortunately hasn't shown us her overall strength but so far I see her as strong or weaker than DD. I know this will piss off many fans.

 

[DeadlyBeast]

You can literally see the black lightening tendrils.

Yes I see tendrils but that alone isn't enough to conclude that BB has aCoC.

This is basic CoA and still looks more haki like then the example from this current chapter

Spoiler: Katakuri uses zangiri mochi

CoA are thin black lines. ACoC are thicker intertwined black lightening strikes

ACoC

Vs


CoA

Since when did we have these rules about the lighting width and pattern? I haven't seen evidence of this type of consistency by Oda.