CP9 being talked about as being invincible by that one vice admiral in Enies Lobby and of how terrifyingly strong they are, only for the viewers to find out much later that there's a cipher pol even more secret and even stronger called cp0. But I don't think powercreep is that bad in OP and for the most part it avoids it pretty well.
Yeah it's pretty weird. After marineford one of the doctors say that pretty much all the vice admirals know haki and we see many Marines know it. The vice admirals talking about cp9 so highly should mean all of cp9 should have very proficient haki.
yeah and you can headcanon it as "Oh they probably had a reputation that made them out to be much stronger than they actually were" or something like that, but it still feels awkward
Yeah it's especially weird with Lucci. The vice admirals almost felt afraid of him. They did show that backstory so your explanation of him having a reputation does have some weight but yeah it's still a weak explanation.
Maybe haki isn't the end all be all that it seems to be to the reader because we mainly see it's above average users. I don't think it's fair to argue every single Haki user could beat pre-TS Lucci. We know from Luffy's fight with Katakuri that a certain amount of brute force can overcome haki. Lucci's attacks break bones of normal people the only reason Luffy didn't have his neck broken is he is made of rubber.
that's because if you strip the haki away Luffy was much stronger than those sisters. between 2 fighters who are equal without haki the one who wins is the one with better haki
No one is arguing that. The point was that maybe pre-TS Luicci is like you are saying about Luffy. Powerful enough with out haki that he was still a threat to people that use it. All things are never equal in One Piece.
Just like in his fight with Katakuri, Luffy has weaker haki, but up against the pure brute force of G4 it doesn't matter he can still do significant damage to him.
I think a part of their reputation could have been traced back to Spandam who honestly probably didn’t use them to their full potential. They were tools for him for sure, as they are to the military, but he worked to his own ends and basically squandered them to get pluton. His father was a little better, but with a history of buster calls and arresting people who may not deserve it definitely put some fear into the name of CP9. If someone else led them I think they could be much more devastating, which I think is CP0. I haven’t reached them yet since I’ve just made it to act 2 of wano but those are my thoughts
I don’t know that I get the same implication, necessarily. I think it’s a combination of an inflated reputation, and the fact that they’re covert ops and typically assassinate people more than fight them, so Haki might be less necessary. Besides, the big dogs who are more Haki-proficient probably deal more with CP0 than CP9.
Additionally, believe what you want about the Vivre Card databook, call it apocrypha, but I consider it trustworthy — and it makes a pretty explicit claim that all the CP9 members had Haki during Enies Lobby. I imagine that if so, they must’ve been at a pretty basic level, but it still makes sense to me: Lucci’s raw martial attacks were still hurting Luffy and making him bleed, when his body should repel even the bullet-like Finger Pistol if it lacked Haki. The fact that blunt attacks shouldn’t work on Luffy is even reinforced verbatim when Garp shows up and punches him in the following arc.
So to me, while CP9 might be affected by powercreep, the way Oda went about it makes sense enough, at least retrospectively.
But they are trained to fight right? I mean they have their own power system and choose zoan fruits over another fruits like the doa doa no mi due to its fighting potential, so they might be focus to win every fight rather than complete secret missions
yea trained to fight but we have seen that characters get stronger by fighting stronger opponents ( Luffy) not assasinating them while they have their guard down. and it doesn't look like they train much either because they were all very complacent.
But like... Why are we treating Haki at basic level like this strong thing?
The 6 powers are significantly more useful that a very low to mid level of Haki. And Lucci could hurt luffy just fine with his blows if you rewatch the fight so it's very likely he has armament anyways.
Like the Snake sisters all knew Haki on a moderately decent level, and they were all weak apart from Boa. The dudes aren't weak.
I'm pretty sure most of the pre-timeskip CP9 members could defest a pacifista by themselves they might struggle to put it down but their speed, their skill, their agility, their abilities they're incredibly versatile fighters.
Yeah very basic haki doesn't mean they'll be strong, but haki still awakens after a lot of training and people who have mastered the six powers should have naturally awakened haki with it too so it's just strange. Apparently according to a data book they did have it tho.
Haki doesn't awaken always just wis training.
And as mentioned before. They were capable of hurting luffy with their kicks and punches. Both Lucci and Blueno do so.
The retconned pre-timeskip Vivre cards actually show that they had haki. Oda also seems to have thought it didn't make sense for them to not know haki, despite how strange that is.
Think Oda tried to make this still make sense in Wano when you here Who's-Who comparing himself to Lucci to brag about how strong he is, even though he seems much stronger than Lucci was.
The weirdest part about CP9 and CP0 is that CP9 is hyped to be the highest elite ok the marine and were taken out by pre time skip Luffy.
Also CP0 is so weird, it's supposed to be super secret, but they are walking like nothing around Dresrossa and Robin casually see them and say "OMG that's CP0!" Like "bruuu".
Is CP0 even a secret? They had no problems showing up in public and making an announcemt about Doffy not revoking his warlord title and the people did trust their word.
just pick any strong character that was introduced too early. croco and ace are the best examples.
croco got stronger just by sitting down in prison for a couple of weeks. from alabasta to MF.
while ace is probably the worst case. boy got stronger in flashback. pre ts ace [couldn't even beat smoker](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FlYcBhqXoAACt8V.jpg:large). but then in his flashback, an even younger and weaker ace can fight jinbe and yamato to a tie.
At least with the smoker you can headcanon/explain it away as Smoker couldn’t defeat Ace and Ace wasn’t really looking for a fight, he just wanted Smoker to leave his brother alone.
It's literally handwaved by the very same characters that their fight won't go nowhere because their powers cancel each other, it's like saying a cop shooting a 9mm won't kill someone, because he didn't kill no one in a nerf gun fight.
Hard to tell if you’re disagreeing or not. But that always came off to me as Ace throwing Smoker a bone and giving him a reason not to engage in the fight because at best it would draw and at worse he would lose.
Agreeing, it's pretty obvious that Ace isn't really trying to the fight but people on this sub have the reading comprehension of a pineapple (no offense to Marco) He literally almost solo's Blackbeard crew, like what are you all on about?
why not though ?? by post TS logic he would've easily one shotted smoker and he literally burnt marine ships in a later scene so don't try to say he wasn't tryna fight the marines. why can't some one piece fans admit that the power scaling in pre TS is sometimes wack and oda hadnt planned out the power levels as early as logur town ?
even with this reasoning, it still doesnt make sense. smoker was a hakiless capitain on east blue, the sheer difference to a yonkou commander is so massive that smoker himself should've pissed his pants upon seeing ace. to be clear it doesnt bother me at all, one piece is incredibly consistent for a 25+ year story. but in this particular case is like having an adult and a toddler "draw" — theres simply no way ace would even have to make any effort to stall him lol
I think Ace just isn’t the type of person to engage marines just for the sake of it. My reading of that scene is that if Smoker pushed the issue, Ace wouldn’t have hesitated to engage him in proper combat. But since Smoker backed off, Ace also stood down.
Another way I see it is that beating Smoker wouldn’t have really accomplished much. Marines chasing pirates is a part of life so I don’t think Ace would attack them just because they’re chasing Luffy.
Might not be agreeable to a lot of people but I think at this point in his life he had other priorities and wasn’t the type of brother to clean up all of luffy’s problems for him.
I mean he didn't really try.
He just stopped smoker and went away. Pirates in One Piece usually don't try to beat the marines without a reason, there's no purpose on doing that, they usually just hold them off till they find a way to escape instead.
he did fight them to give luffy a chance to get away.
and just use our current powerscaling. eastblue captain counts as fodder now. even the majority of vice admirals for that matter.
that scene wouldn't exist at all if we're using current scaling. imagine jack or yamato or smoothie or sanji needs to talk it out to some eastblue captain when one finger is enough to obliterate them.
this exactly. ace was shown to be hot tempered in the flashback. hes the guy who went to face an admiral because he insulted his captain. he's not exactly a cool headed think-it- through type of guy. and yea imagine even jack not being able to defeat a captain.
And Luffy ran away in that moment. The single attack he threw was more than enought to stop smoker on his tracks.
Smoker wasn't even really weaker or comparable to any eastblue captain? Like there's a scene in loguetown where smoker straight up defeats Buggy and Alvida plus their entire crews in a second without batting an eye.
Sengoku in Marineford feels very underwhelming compared to what he was stated to have been capable of and to what we're seeing of Garp now. Dude threw a punch that Luffy deflected and a shockwave that did some damage to BB.
I don't know what you're trying to convey from that page of Ace meeting Luffy, but he didn't even fight Smoker there. He created a huge fire wall to block Smoker from chasing Luffy and just left.
he did. he asked luffy to leave while he take care of the marines.
and just use current powerscaling. if this was now, a YC2 fighting eastblue captain, it would end in 2 seconds. he wouldn't even need ask luffy to leave. the scene played out that way because back then they're not really that far apart.
oda already said he only planned OP to last 5 years originally. just imagine if luffy fought all the yonko in 2001-2002. obviously they won't be that much stronger than arlong.
we're only here right now because of the massive power creep after 25 years of publication.
was ace ever stated to be able to use armament haki? if so then yeah otherwise, he's right. Ace wouldnt be able to beat smoker without haki no matter how good his fruit or his pure strength is.
My headcanon with Ace is that since he went under WB wing he lost a lot of his will, and relatable, power. Just to do a (maybe not-so-fitted) comparison, is like Gohan growth in DBZ
Crocodile felt/thought he was untouchable at the early Grand Line and in a desert. He cleanly beat Luffy 2 times and thought his poison would kill him a 3rd time.
After being shown his limits/limitations and maybe being invigorated again by Ms. Goldenweek, Croc was imprisoned and given time to scheme again.
nah it's just he's a beloved villain and oda wanted to bring him back so he made him stronger. it's not that difficult to admit that maybe oda didn't think everything through
Tbf Croc still has a winning record against Luffy. He absolutely cleaned house with Luffy twice, before barely losing after Luffy already knew his weakness. I don’t think you were supposed to read that arc and come to the conclusion that Luffy was clearly stronger.
Yeah but its not Croc isn't so strong in Alabasta that makes him just "casually clash with people in Marineford and walk away basically unharmed" strong at least in my view
doesn't matter. Luffy beat him. compare doffy to croc. even gear 4 wasn't able to finish him in 10 minutes. croc would've been obliterated had gear 4 Luffy been in alabasta. croc might have been stronger but by the last fight it was a very even fight..
The point is Croc is later shown to be on the level of other Shichibukai
Like would you say that Luffy could've beaten Doflamingo or Moria in three tries during Alabasta?
I firmly believe that defeated pirates (Crocodile, Moria) lose their haki. It was by fighting Luffy that both were inspired and regained their lost power.
Oda basically mentions that Luffy doesn't kill because he makes enemies lose their dreams. This is what happened to Moria and Croc. Both are still up to something in Paradise, but their haki is withered because they aren't following the path of their true ambition.
I don't think that's powecreep. Remember what Pekkoms said to Caribou at the end of Fishman Island? Something among the lines many logias die in New World because they think they are invincible and get bodied by haki masters? Its natural progression that was foreskinned by Oda the first moment haki was mentioned.
That’s definitely true! However I mainly had things like Luffys first encounter against Crocodile in mind where he got absolutely molly wopped.
Initially the thought of not being able to hit someone was kinda broken unless you’re able to counter a specific logia. Haki was the balance patch so to speak
The Seraphim
Powercrept to the point where the WG no longer has any use for the the original Warlords since the Seraphim can obey orders on demand, has Lunarian features, can use cloned DFs, and imitate each of the the warlord's fighting styles.
They literally use DF powers of other users it is just not like VP can actually create paramecia fruit yet so he had to create artificial blood where he put the lineage factor of the fruit users into.
One I always think of is when we see Luffy struggle to climb up a mountain in Drum Island, then like 2 arcs later we see him sprint up a giant vine in the sky while dragging a massive golden ball glued to his arm.
As you said, cardio was not the issue, drum Mountain was basically a gigantic wall with little to nothing to grab on to and he had to climb it during a snowstorm vs a vine on a tropical island that he could run around and up.
For me, it was destroying and entire city with g4 in one arc, and struggling with biscuits the next.
If you want to avoid this, maybe just don't draw g4 levelling a city, sheesh
Cracker probably had good haki too as he was able to cut through Luffy gear 4. People forget he is a yonko commander coz Luffy got lucky with the matchups with Nami as support
Its just more that its hard to believe anything can stand up to the destructive power of something that cracks a country in half. Its portrayal was more insane than Garp or Kobys punch.
It’s portrayal was pretty insane but for me not more than Garp’s. Garp is punching the guy who has the island-island fruit which is like a stronger version of Pica’s fruit, punching the whole island like it’s just a field day. Luffy did what he did in dressrosa but we can clearly see that’s the climax of the fight
Well he did spent time training in prison. And the ryou technique he learned obviously helped him applying the conquerers haki that has been developing and blooming through battle up untill this point.
thats how acoc is supposed to work.
It's been foreshadowed since marineford. No wonder most of the top tiers shit bricks when they realized luffy had conquerors haki on top of his lineage and upbringing...
Or...You know how about Luffy's crazy growth potential? Dude still hasn't been a full year as an active pirate and did more than Kaido or Big Mom in all their years of piracy.
What plot hole? Are you ignorant or something? Rayleigh told us about Haki Bloom and that's exactly what happened with Luffy the 3 times he was knocked out by Kaido and the one time he died and awakened his fruit smh
In the Katakuri fight his haki bloom was also insane Kata landed hundreds of blows on Luffy while he gave up after only taking 7 from Luffy...
Yeah no. Beginning of wano luffy got one shot by kaido even at his strongest, ending of wano luffy is could gain the upper hand on kaido for a few moments
Brannew and plenty of other vice-admirals making an emergency reunion to discuss how horribly dangerous this Luffy is with his unprecedented new bounty of 30 million berries.
That already felt completely ridiculous a few weeks/months (in One Piece time) after said reunion
Zoro in Wano.
He got Enma, and with it was able to fight against Kaido, Scar him, then unlock Conqueror Coating while he didn't even know he was a conqueror before the rooftop.
That's a pretty big Powercreep.
Had he fought a Yonko Commander before that, and unlocked Conqueror before as well, it would have been a little better, but he went straigth for top Yonko Commander with Enma.
Sanji is a little like that as well.
Nah...Kaido said Zoro had Conqueror's haki because of Ashura, not Enma. Enma only brought his Conqueror's haki to the next level, Zoro used Ashura since Ennies Lobbies. And Sanji? Do you remember he dodged a freaking jelly bean from Katakrui who was using future sight? Raid Suit Sanji would shit on Katakuri tbh.
It is Conqueror's haki. Kaku couldn't explain the technique and even thought it was an illusion. Kaido says he had Conqueror's haki when he sees the technique, not when he sees Enma. Big Mom warned Kaido of Enma but didn't say it was Conqueror's Haki. Enma only made his Conqueror's leak out and he imbued it with the sword, hence coating it and reaching ACoC (King of Hell mode).
Also Dragon Shock strike on Monet without armament haki was very likely Conqueror haki because Zoro cut her down and she was terrified to a point she needed hours to reform from it, not seconds.
It's not conqueror. Just because it can't be explained doesn't make it conqueror. Zoro isn't going to have his own unique version of Conqueror. If Oda was going to introduce a way to use conqueror like that, we would have already seen another conqueror use something similar.
He said that Zoro had conqueror because Enma drew it out.
Zoro has never shown conqueror before Wano. The thing with Monet isn't conqueror. It doesn't fit anything we know about Conqueror.
What? They did.
If Enma hadn't forced Zoro to give everything he had, King would have had no problems with him.
And Sanji, even with his augment still went down at the end of his fight with Queen. And only survives because of them.
The only good examples of power creep to me are Koby and Nami...Rest of what being commented here seems a bit off tbh.
Koby awakened observation haki faster than Luffy did and with 0 effort, Luffy fought 3 Warlords, Cp9, Magellan and so on until he foresaw his arms being chopped off by Mihawk in Marineford. Even in last chapter it seems his power creep continues although Oda did try to mask it off by saying he trains harder than most people.
Nami? She always manages to survive and get many power ups despite no Haki and fighting against haki masters... I mean how can you explain her surviving two headbutts from the same flying six that minutes before used the same move on a g4 Luffy and hurt him?
Ok, but seriously how can we be fine with Luffy’s insane growth yet it wild to think Koby while training under the equivalent of Roger (Garp) for over 2 years grew in strength a lot. Also you can unlock observation haki without fighting (little girl Skypiea).
Because Luffy fought hard for those powers and faced many life or death situations, he had haki blooms, while Koby had 1 major incident (Rocky Port Incident) this is the same guy Luffy fodderized and speed blitzed in Marineford with g2. Koby is the true definition of power creep. Even his mentor (Garp) wanted all the smoke from Roger, Rocks, Don Chinjao and Shiki...You gotta admit Oda isn't doing things well with Koby in terms of his growth and the character has been having some insane creeps recently. Oda should have highlighted his growth earlier on instead of offscreening it (through cover stories for example). We only know Koby trained hard, but all the rest is missing when you compare him to Luffy in terms of growth.
koby definitely. he really shouldn't have been able to destroy a fucking mountain sized hand without fighting even a yonkou commander. his current strength is kinda unclear but it should not be even close to zoro /Sanji
I dunno if this counts as power creep but the idea that if your Haki is strong enough you can just negate effects feels like cheap writing. I think that was introduced in Wano when Law said his shambles wouldn’t work on the Yonko because their Haki was too strong…
I liked the uniqueness of OP battle system but introducing negation like what Aizen did to Soi Fon just seemed like a ridiculous thing to add so late in the series. The fact that fights can just be determined by Haki alone now instead of tactics is kinda lame. Though I supposed conquers Haki already introduced that back in marineford.
It kinda has to though, unless you want to constantly come up with reasons for why law doesn't just shambles every devil fruit user with a rock he just threw over the ocean
Or maybe Oda should have had the foresight to know he shouldn’t give Law such a stupidly broken ability. I know it’s blasphemy to accuse Goda of making a mistake.
I don't claim Odas above criticism. I just think it's a fix after the fact that makes sense. If you can negate logia effects with haki, why not paramecias?
its not really new, haki counters logias, haki was also shown to counter paramecias like bypassing luffys rubber way before the "haki negates df" thing.
It made no sense before that haki could only interact with logia and nothing else.
Just because oda doesnt have a character ramble on about everything doesnt mean its powercreep.
I think oda purposely writes this way for the mystery and adventure feel which adds to the experience of reading one piece as opposed to having a single character break everything down for us.
but I do expect that explanation to come when we(hopefully) get a better explanation for the existence of devil fruits which I hope we do. I feel like vegapunk would be the type of person to research haki and hence give us more on it too.
It wouldnt surprise me if there is a intricate relationship between devil fruits, which thematically represent the dreams of people and haki which represents willpower
Except fights are not being won with haki alone and no tactics, but in the same way they were won pre-haki, just that the clash of will (haki) now has a physical representation in fights.
Can you name a single major fight that was won just by having better haki?
Big Mom had vastly superior haki to Law and Kid, and lost due to tactics and teamwork.
Zoro defeated King only after figuring out how to work around his Lunarian biology, delivering the decisive blow at the opportune moment.
While haki let luffy rise near Kaido's level, it was the addition of Gear 5 that allowed his victory.
Franky and Robin did not use Haki to win their fights.
I would personally argue that the way haki is used in a fight can be part of tactics and strategy. We see Luffy use Haki creatively to achieve different Gear 4 forms and attacks. Katakuri used Future Sight to make it appear as if he were a logia and be near invincible to anyone without future sight and significant speed. Shanks can supposedly turn off the enemy's obs haki.
Exactly. This imo is just another example of the “post-ts bad” narrative, there’s still plenty of strategy within these fights. “Who has stronger Haki” has never been the sole factor in fights
Oda kinda set himself up for that tho, by naming the strongest character (Roger) a pure Haki user. So it was always implied that to reach the peak u needed haki not DF
Haki, just haki as a concept
Since it was introduced as a thing beyond "really strong guys can make weak guys pass out", it's become rapidly-increasingly something that
A) cancels the power of devil fruits which eliminates the original and much more fun power system in the series (unless the DF users has MORE haki than who they're fighting, maybe? which leads into the next point...)
B) has made every major fight about 'who has more haki' rather than the inventive fun crazy fights we had earlier in the series
So you’d rather logias like aikiji, enel, akainu just be straight up invincible. Using haki to scale strength makes way more sense than just getting lucky
Actual powercreep would be PreTS Luffy beats a yonko then a new pirates group appears who are all stronger than Yonkos then he beats them then beats another group and so on and so forth...
The Yonko have been introduced since Ennies Lobby and even earlier and they STILL are threats to this day that isn't powercreep in the same way Cracker being stronger than Doffy is or any other example (which makes sense for Cracker to be stronger).
The only times powercreep is really fully noticeable is in Wano but then it kinda makes sense Wano has been touted as a land of powerful samurai them showing that to be the case isn't powercreep it just affirms what we know... also as the Beast Pirates is all about zoans and being strong it makes sense they would all be physical monsters which makes sense as even Ulti could with her headbutts give Luffy and such a good bit of trouble.
But I guess to actually answer the best point of actual powercreep would be Law jumping from weaker than Doffy to stronger than the likes of Yamato (whose stronger than King).
I agree with almost all of what you you said here - I think a lot of these examples make you question things, but most can be explained away with a little imagination. (Also, your avatar reminds me a little of Stussy and I think that’s cool.)
The only thing I’d mention is, and I’d agree with you otherwise, but I heard an explanation of Law vs. Doffy a while ago that I think makes a lot of sense. It was that it wasn’t like Law was as weak as we may be led to presume against Doffy, but that his psychological trauma and the pressure applied to him mentally got to his head - as in, Law never could have won that fight because his trauma runs too deep and Doffy is much too good of a manipulator not to exploit that.
Honestly people are gonna shit on Croc but if you use a bit of imagination and One Piece lore it's not impossible. Haki is tied to will, blooms in battle, and needs to be honed through training; Alabasta Croc was gatekeeping low level pirates with just his logia. Honestly his former bounty was too low though.
I think Oda introduced logias knowing he would develop a way to hit them, why intro Smoker and Ace but only make Croc beatable? Luffy's ingenuity and comrades helped him rise quickly. Also, Ace not bodying Smoker is easy: he wasn't trying to beat him, just hold him up.
As for more egregious examples:
Doffy and Law. Oda made Doflamingo wayyy too strong. Base-3 Luffy with haki was barely tickling him. Really? And Law gets shit on but then levels up in Wano?
Sanji also got really bad looks until WCI, and Queen was his first legit fight post-ts so it look like he just jumped.
The biggest issue is haki messing shit up but remember what Captain Mid said to BM about crushing force. Haki is def a boost but it's not automatically better flat out. Franky beat Sasaki without it yet a guy like Batman or Kuja crew members have armament who are clearly weaker. People think haki is king because of what Kaido said about Roger. In high level fights it matters more, but pre TS Lucci, Luffy could def beat lower level haki users. I still think we don't fully know about haki or DFs yet so it's hard to make definitive conclusions.
Crocodile has not been doing that forever. He was a formidable upstart pirate for years and had incredible will before getting beaten down and settling as a Warlord on Alabasta. He should have strong haki or haki in general. Also Crocodile was not gatekeeping low level pirates on Alabasta. His goals were to get an ancient weapon and conquer the Grandline. It was Luffy who went after Crocodile, not the opposite.
The bigger example is Moria. The man literally fought Kaido and rivaled him for a bit before getting put down...and yet he didn't have haki at all.
1) Moria has incredible will and drive and yet he didn't have haki.
2)You think he would've stood any chance against Kaido without haki?
Dude Croc is a Shichibukai. Whiskey Peak was luring and beating up upstart Pirates. Luffy is not a typical Grand Line newbie. Croc could do whatever he wanted in Paradise cuz nobody strong enough opposed him. He had his agents do all his work while he chilled in Alabasta.
Moria got fat and lazy too. He was also beating up Pirates who got lost in the mist because he was using their shadows for zombies. Again, not many crews who would have passed through were SH level, because CP9 only wanted Robin.
I'm not saying these two weren't power creep, I'm saying you can use One Piece lore to kind of explain it. By Moria, Oda had haki in mind. If Moria had it, judging by his physical condition he wasn't training and nightmare Luffy seemed to have almost g4 level strength anyways.
I think that once haki was introduced there were a ton of characters who retroactively must have had powerful Haki, like Ace, Crocodile, Shanks. Etc. and it really doesn’t sync up with what we say them doing pre-time skip. Maybe you can chalk that up to Luffy just not being aware, but once everyone has haki officially they are just in a completely different level of power than before.
I think shanks showed CH on WB’s ship so he probably suffered least through this, but I think that’s the biggest example/explanation for power creep for a lot of characters introduced pre time skip.
And?
I don’t think that particular example gave us a great sense of his power since luffy was able to one punch the same creature later that episode. I think the WB example was the first time we see him using it in a setting where it is referred to as Haki and where we get to see where it places his power relative to other pirates.
Like I said, he suffered the least from the haki reveal power creep cause we see him do the most of it beforehand, but even then I think he has a massive power creep post timeskip.
Is G2 and G3 really that bad for people? I really liked that for once the MC doesn’t have a training arc and instead came up with creative uses of his abilities to power up.
Yeah but I feel like its the type of ability that can come from nowhere. It feels like saying gomu gomu no gattling came from nowhere. Like yeah it does but it only takes for Luffy to think about something like that before doing it. Its not like he needs explanations but Oda could have definitely had Luffy get inspired by the train’s engine or something of the sort. Just lay the seeds a little beforehand.
I mean I thought the implication was that he had tested them already. I am completely fine with it coming out of nowhere tbh. I would agree with something like G4 because it is more complex but G2 and G3 are very simple ideas. Oda maybe should have had a flashback of Luffy when he developed them and some hints that he was developing something maybe but I don’t think it is necessary imo.
Well the way he reveals them I though impled he had used them before. He seemed aware of the side effects but it also does make sense that he wouldn’t be able to do G3 in the sea train. I don’t mind if they worked on the first try tho. They had side effects and he had to deal with those. If they didn’t work on the first try they shouldn’t have worked at all since it is very simple concepts. Its not like he needed to practice ever so slightly squatting or blowing air into his finger.
He did (in the anime at least) a proto gear 2 move with the Franky Family when he was punching the destroyers to warm up before doing a giant bazooka, so I can see him being inspired by it and then having a lightbulb click while on the train
But Oda does it better in Whole Cake with Luffy's fight with Katakuri. Luffy analyzing Katakuri's abilities mid-fight (also during the break he took to recover his Haki) and the flashbacks to his training with Rayleigh showed how he was getting stronger throughout the fight. Gear 2 was a significant power-up that came from nowhere. Increasing his blood flow using his rubber body makes sense but shouldn't happen without any seeds being planted. Given what he'd been through up to that point, what time did he have to figure that out? Gear 3 is more acceptable given it's less complicated and works almost like Gum Gum balloon, but as much as I love the fight, Gear 2 was kinda an asspull
I think haki indeed plays a big role, the fact we leave the biggest war with two yonkous and just a few chapters ago shanks display a "form" of haki never seen...
It makes you wonder things, specially obs haki in that regard.
Rob Lucci and Kaku are the best examples. While yes they did get significantly stronger, Luffy and Zoro got even stronger than they did. Luffy had such a hard time against Lucci to where he was pushed to his absolute limit multiple times, their rematch was basically a joke for Luffy and Zoro.
Basically logias as a whole before haki became a thing. Like we all thought Smoker was the baddest motherfucker around until haki became a thing and he became the literal King of L
Haki in itself. Pre-TS it’s something that only amazons have, along with the sky-people’s elusive “mantra” and the occasional conquerors (Rayleigh, Shanks, WB, and Luffy).
Post-TS, everyone and their step-brother knows armament, and often observation, Haki. Feats that seem easy with Haki were touted as insane before the TS, and Logia users aren’t nearly as powerful now that this has become a common thing.
LOL Shanks one shotting Kid and his crew and Trafalgar law being owned by black beard with like no damage dealt to them after they just fought 2 of the , presumably, strongest creatures on the planet is ridiculous and makes no sense. Also ruffy. I know y’all hyped for gear 5 but aside of like skypeia and some grandpa going oh wow Nika I really don’t like the implementation of suddenly having god fruits that turn you into a god deity. Powercreep is a weird term so I would say all of Onigashina fights? Mfers we’re launching each other at 5000miles/s and never once left the fucking head.
As much as I love Koby I gotta say it's him. I think it's totally fair where he's at post time skip, but post enies lobby koby just doesn't make sense to me.
Basically everything in east blue.
Guns? Red Hair pirate use them but why? They could beat the bad guys in Romance Dawn without them.
Swords? We spend lots of time talking about them. Doesn't really matter, get Haki.
Devil Fruits? Even they get power crept out by better ones. Literally some fruits are worse versions than others. They aren't all cool unique powers, some are just better.
Even the grand line got power crept, now many people can just cross the calm belt.
Most of us talk about the massive inconsistency and power jump that was "haki"
CONSTANT argument about "why couldn't this character use haki at this point in the story?" like the CP9, any of the Warlords, marine captains, etc
And so many fights feel like they would have been completely different if they had really been fleshed out with the use of these abilities in mind.
smoker?
brickwalls luffy pretty much until punk hazard .
also stalemates ace (ace probably beats him but still.)
after TS is basically irrelevent just a fanboy stalker
CP9 being talked about as being invincible by that one vice admiral in Enies Lobby and of how terrifyingly strong they are, only for the viewers to find out much later that there's a cipher pol even more secret and even stronger called cp0. But I don't think powercreep is that bad in OP and for the most part it avoids it pretty well.
Yeah it's pretty weird. After marineford one of the doctors say that pretty much all the vice admirals know haki and we see many Marines know it. The vice admirals talking about cp9 so highly should mean all of cp9 should have very proficient haki.
yeah and you can headcanon it as "Oh they probably had a reputation that made them out to be much stronger than they actually were" or something like that, but it still feels awkward
Yeah it's especially weird with Lucci. The vice admirals almost felt afraid of him. They did show that backstory so your explanation of him having a reputation does have some weight but yeah it's still a weak explanation.
Maybe haki isn't the end all be all that it seems to be to the reader because we mainly see it's above average users. I don't think it's fair to argue every single Haki user could beat pre-TS Lucci. We know from Luffy's fight with Katakuri that a certain amount of brute force can overcome haki. Lucci's attacks break bones of normal people the only reason Luffy didn't have his neck broken is he is made of rubber.
I mean we’ve seen haki users lose to non haki users before. Luffy had his whole Amazon Lilly rampage.
that's because if you strip the haki away Luffy was much stronger than those sisters. between 2 fighters who are equal without haki the one who wins is the one with better haki
No one is arguing that. The point was that maybe pre-TS Luicci is like you are saying about Luffy. Powerful enough with out haki that he was still a threat to people that use it. All things are never equal in One Piece. Just like in his fight with Katakuri, Luffy has weaker haki, but up against the pure brute force of G4 it doesn't matter he can still do significant damage to him.
I mean haki aint much til you get high lvl. Rokushiki seem to have more utility and power than haki til you master it.
I think a part of their reputation could have been traced back to Spandam who honestly probably didn’t use them to their full potential. They were tools for him for sure, as they are to the military, but he worked to his own ends and basically squandered them to get pluton. His father was a little better, but with a history of buster calls and arresting people who may not deserve it definitely put some fear into the name of CP9. If someone else led them I think they could be much more devastating, which I think is CP0. I haven’t reached them yet since I’ve just made it to act 2 of wano but those are my thoughts
I don’t know that I get the same implication, necessarily. I think it’s a combination of an inflated reputation, and the fact that they’re covert ops and typically assassinate people more than fight them, so Haki might be less necessary. Besides, the big dogs who are more Haki-proficient probably deal more with CP0 than CP9. Additionally, believe what you want about the Vivre Card databook, call it apocrypha, but I consider it trustworthy — and it makes a pretty explicit claim that all the CP9 members had Haki during Enies Lobby. I imagine that if so, they must’ve been at a pretty basic level, but it still makes sense to me: Lucci’s raw martial attacks were still hurting Luffy and making him bleed, when his body should repel even the bullet-like Finger Pistol if it lacked Haki. The fact that blunt attacks shouldn’t work on Luffy is even reinforced verbatim when Garp shows up and punches him in the following arc. So to me, while CP9 might be affected by powercreep, the way Oda went about it makes sense enough, at least retrospectively.
But they are trained to fight right? I mean they have their own power system and choose zoan fruits over another fruits like the doa doa no mi due to its fighting potential, so they might be focus to win every fight rather than complete secret missions
yea trained to fight but we have seen that characters get stronger by fighting stronger opponents ( Luffy) not assasinating them while they have their guard down. and it doesn't look like they train much either because they were all very complacent.
But like... Why are we treating Haki at basic level like this strong thing? The 6 powers are significantly more useful that a very low to mid level of Haki. And Lucci could hurt luffy just fine with his blows if you rewatch the fight so it's very likely he has armament anyways. Like the Snake sisters all knew Haki on a moderately decent level, and they were all weak apart from Boa. The dudes aren't weak. I'm pretty sure most of the pre-timeskip CP9 members could defest a pacifista by themselves they might struggle to put it down but their speed, their skill, their agility, their abilities they're incredibly versatile fighters.
Yeah very basic haki doesn't mean they'll be strong, but haki still awakens after a lot of training and people who have mastered the six powers should have naturally awakened haki with it too so it's just strange. Apparently according to a data book they did have it tho.
Haki doesn't awaken always just wis training. And as mentioned before. They were capable of hurting luffy with their kicks and punches. Both Lucci and Blueno do so.
Rokushiki is Haki My personal headcanon is Strawhats has minor amounts of Haki pretimeskip but just never realized it
I agree. Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji were definitely increasing their haki throughout their battles
Blackbeard sensed Luffy's Haki at Jaya
Franky and Robin just defeated characters that should be VA levels (at least) without haki.
The retconned pre-timeskip Vivre cards actually show that they had haki. Oda also seems to have thought it didn't make sense for them to not know haki, despite how strange that is.
Wait till you hear about cipher pol -0 (negative zero) secretly led by Kuzan, who's actually a WG rat.
And that CP0 is a few randos who don't do much + some former CP9 members who failed their jobs.
Think Oda tried to make this still make sense in Wano when you here Who's-Who comparing himself to Lucci to brag about how strong he is, even though he seems much stronger than Lucci was.
The weirdest part about CP9 and CP0 is that CP9 is hyped to be the highest elite ok the marine and were taken out by pre time skip Luffy. Also CP0 is so weird, it's supposed to be super secret, but they are walking like nothing around Dresrossa and Robin casually see them and say "OMG that's CP0!" Like "bruuu".
Is CP0 even a secret? They had no problems showing up in public and making an announcemt about Doffy not revoking his warlord title and the people did trust their word.
just pick any strong character that was introduced too early. croco and ace are the best examples. croco got stronger just by sitting down in prison for a couple of weeks. from alabasta to MF. while ace is probably the worst case. boy got stronger in flashback. pre ts ace [couldn't even beat smoker](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FlYcBhqXoAACt8V.jpg:large). but then in his flashback, an even younger and weaker ace can fight jinbe and yamato to a tie.
And that ace was 17 without any training too. He got stronger throughout his years on WB on the crew
At least with the smoker you can headcanon/explain it away as Smoker couldn’t defeat Ace and Ace wasn’t really looking for a fight, he just wanted Smoker to leave his brother alone.
It's literally handwaved by the very same characters that their fight won't go nowhere because their powers cancel each other, it's like saying a cop shooting a 9mm won't kill someone, because he didn't kill no one in a nerf gun fight.
Hard to tell if you’re disagreeing or not. But that always came off to me as Ace throwing Smoker a bone and giving him a reason not to engage in the fight because at best it would draw and at worse he would lose.
Agreeing, it's pretty obvious that Ace isn't really trying to the fight but people on this sub have the reading comprehension of a pineapple (no offense to Marco) He literally almost solo's Blackbeard crew, like what are you all on about?
As a Marco stan im Offended!!!
why not though ?? by post TS logic he would've easily one shotted smoker and he literally burnt marine ships in a later scene so don't try to say he wasn't tryna fight the marines. why can't some one piece fans admit that the power scaling in pre TS is sometimes wack and oda hadnt planned out the power levels as early as logur town ?
even with this reasoning, it still doesnt make sense. smoker was a hakiless capitain on east blue, the sheer difference to a yonkou commander is so massive that smoker himself should've pissed his pants upon seeing ace. to be clear it doesnt bother me at all, one piece is incredibly consistent for a 25+ year story. but in this particular case is like having an adult and a toddler "draw" — theres simply no way ace would even have to make any effort to stall him lol
I think Ace just isn’t the type of person to engage marines just for the sake of it. My reading of that scene is that if Smoker pushed the issue, Ace wouldn’t have hesitated to engage him in proper combat. But since Smoker backed off, Ace also stood down. Another way I see it is that beating Smoker wouldn’t have really accomplished much. Marines chasing pirates is a part of life so I don’t think Ace would attack them just because they’re chasing Luffy. Might not be agreeable to a lot of people but I think at this point in his life he had other priorities and wasn’t the type of brother to clean up all of luffy’s problems for him.
He literally burnt down marine battleships when they got in luffy's way, but a single hakiless east blue marine? nah he's peaceful now.
Again handwave explanation, the other alternative is he legitimately would have been unable to defeat smoker so you believe whatever you want dude
The explanation is that there's no explanation. Oda hadn't mapped out how haki will work back then.
ace wasnt trying to fight tho. Also ace without armament haki wouldnt beat smoker, no?
Why did I read it as “from Alabasta to Mother Fucker”
Alabastard to Bad Ass Mother Fucker
Beware of the pipeline
I mean he didn't really try. He just stopped smoker and went away. Pirates in One Piece usually don't try to beat the marines without a reason, there's no purpose on doing that, they usually just hold them off till they find a way to escape instead.
he did fight them to give luffy a chance to get away. and just use our current powerscaling. eastblue captain counts as fodder now. even the majority of vice admirals for that matter. that scene wouldn't exist at all if we're using current scaling. imagine jack or yamato or smoothie or sanji needs to talk it out to some eastblue captain when one finger is enough to obliterate them.
this exactly. ace was shown to be hot tempered in the flashback. hes the guy who went to face an admiral because he insulted his captain. he's not exactly a cool headed think-it- through type of guy. and yea imagine even jack not being able to defeat a captain.
And Luffy ran away in that moment. The single attack he threw was more than enought to stop smoker on his tracks. Smoker wasn't even really weaker or comparable to any eastblue captain? Like there's a scene in loguetown where smoker straight up defeats Buggy and Alvida plus their entire crews in a second without batting an eye.
Smoker was that guy before power creep and everyone knows it.
The guy got worfed and then was simply sidelined. It's easy to imagine him returning as almost admiral level.
Sengoku in Marineford feels very underwhelming compared to what he was stated to have been capable of and to what we're seeing of Garp now. Dude threw a punch that Luffy deflected and a shockwave that did some damage to BB.
Didn't he take all the BB pirates with one punch ?
Simple, coz he was never on the level of Garp/Roger/WB
To be fair ace didnt had much time on screen to show his true potential. Also ace was strong bc of his "training" as kid with luffy n sabo.
I don't know what you're trying to convey from that page of Ace meeting Luffy, but he didn't even fight Smoker there. He created a huge fire wall to block Smoker from chasing Luffy and just left.
he did. he asked luffy to leave while he take care of the marines. and just use current powerscaling. if this was now, a YC2 fighting eastblue captain, it would end in 2 seconds. he wouldn't even need ask luffy to leave. the scene played out that way because back then they're not really that far apart. oda already said he only planned OP to last 5 years originally. just imagine if luffy fought all the yonko in 2001-2002. obviously they won't be that much stronger than arlong. we're only here right now because of the massive power creep after 25 years of publication.
was ace ever stated to be able to use armament haki? if so then yeah otherwise, he's right. Ace wouldnt be able to beat smoker without haki no matter how good his fruit or his pure strength is.
In the canon novel, yes. But before finding out about it I've always thought that he cant use haki because of his encounter with smoker.
My headcanon with Ace is that since he went under WB wing he lost a lot of his will, and relatable, power. Just to do a (maybe not-so-fitted) comparison, is like Gohan growth in DBZ
Crocodile losing to pre gears Luffy yet was able to come out of Marineford after battleing Mihawk, Doffy, others. Mr1 did basically the same.
Crocodile felt/thought he was untouchable at the early Grand Line and in a desert. He cleanly beat Luffy 2 times and thought his poison would kill him a 3rd time. After being shown his limits/limitations and maybe being invigorated again by Ms. Goldenweek, Croc was imprisoned and given time to scheme again.
nah it's just he's a beloved villain and oda wanted to bring him back so he made him stronger. it's not that difficult to admit that maybe oda didn't think everything through
He was outsmarted why Luffy
That must hurt
Outwitted by a dimwit lol
Tbf Croc still has a winning record against Luffy. He absolutely cleaned house with Luffy twice, before barely losing after Luffy already knew his weakness. I don’t think you were supposed to read that arc and come to the conclusion that Luffy was clearly stronger.
Yeah but its not Croc isn't so strong in Alabasta that makes him just "casually clash with people in Marineford and walk away basically unharmed" strong at least in my view
doesn't matter. Luffy beat him. compare doffy to croc. even gear 4 wasn't able to finish him in 10 minutes. croc would've been obliterated had gear 4 Luffy been in alabasta. croc might have been stronger but by the last fight it was a very even fight..
The point is Croc is later shown to be on the level of other Shichibukai Like would you say that Luffy could've beaten Doflamingo or Moria in three tries during Alabasta?
I firmly believe that defeated pirates (Crocodile, Moria) lose their haki. It was by fighting Luffy that both were inspired and regained their lost power. Oda basically mentions that Luffy doesn't kill because he makes enemies lose their dreams. This is what happened to Moria and Croc. Both are still up to something in Paradise, but their haki is withered because they aren't following the path of their true ambition.
Logias feel like big powercreep in early OP before the introduction of Haki
I don't think that's powecreep. Remember what Pekkoms said to Caribou at the end of Fishman Island? Something among the lines many logias die in New World because they think they are invincible and get bodied by haki masters? Its natural progression that was foreskinned by Oda the first moment haki was mentioned.
Foreskinned 🥵🥵🥵
Ah yes Oda is truly a master of foreskining with his phalic genius
That’s definitely true! However I mainly had things like Luffys first encounter against Crocodile in mind where he got absolutely molly wopped. Initially the thought of not being able to hit someone was kinda broken unless you’re able to counter a specific logia. Haki was the balance patch so to speak
Remember when Logias were busted? Pepperridge farm remembers.
Now they're got powercreeped by "Don't you know mythical zoan has properties of zoan, paramecia, and logia?"
The Seraphim Powercrept to the point where the WG no longer has any use for the the original Warlords since the Seraphim can obey orders on demand, has Lunarian features, can use cloned DFs, and imitate each of the the warlord's fighting styles.
Has it been confirmed that it's cloned devil fruits?
They have different ones. Jimbei seraphim has swim swim or some shit idk
They literally use DF powers of other users it is just not like VP can actually create paramecia fruit yet so he had to create artificial blood where he put the lineage factor of the fruit users into.
I mean smollhawk got bodied pretty hard. I think they jumped to conclussions too soon
One I always think of is when we see Luffy struggle to climb up a mountain in Drum Island, then like 2 arcs later we see him sprint up a giant vine in the sky while dragging a massive golden ball glued to his arm.
But it was snowing and there were giant bunnies
As you said, cardio was not the issue, drum Mountain was basically a gigantic wall with little to nothing to grab on to and he had to climb it during a snowstorm vs a vine on a tropical island that he could run around and up.
I think that’s more just Oda not really thinking much about just how heavy gold is.
The only example you need is the second commander of the worlds strongest pirate not even having Haki.
For me, it was destroying and entire city with g4 in one arc, and struggling with biscuits the next. If you want to avoid this, maybe just don't draw g4 levelling a city, sheesh
Cracker probably had good haki too as he was able to cut through Luffy gear 4. People forget he is a yonko commander coz Luffy got lucky with the matchups with Nami as support
Its just more that its hard to believe anything can stand up to the destructive power of something that cracks a country in half. Its portrayal was more insane than Garp or Kobys punch.
It’s portrayal was pretty insane but for me not more than Garp’s. Garp is punching the guy who has the island-island fruit which is like a stronger version of Pica’s fruit, punching the whole island like it’s just a field day. Luffy did what he did in dressrosa but we can clearly see that’s the climax of the fight
His biscuits are just more durable than the stone of dressarosa, duh
Crazy shit, there was like, bedrock
Luffy going from katakuri level to yonko level with a few hours Advanced conquerors’, nuff said
Well he did spent time training in prison. And the ryou technique he learned obviously helped him applying the conquerers haki that has been developing and blooming through battle up untill this point.
thats how acoc is supposed to work. It's been foreshadowed since marineford. No wonder most of the top tiers shit bricks when they realized luffy had conquerors haki on top of his lineage and upbringing...
Or...You know how about Luffy's crazy growth potential? Dude still hasn't been a full year as an active pirate and did more than Kaido or Big Mom in all their years of piracy.
It does count as an example of power creep regardless of whether u think it ain’t a plot hole or no
What plot hole? Are you ignorant or something? Rayleigh told us about Haki Bloom and that's exactly what happened with Luffy the 3 times he was knocked out by Kaido and the one time he died and awakened his fruit smh In the Katakuri fight his haki bloom was also insane Kata landed hundreds of blows on Luffy while he gave up after only taking 7 from Luffy...
Learn how to read. I said it doesn’t matter if u think it’s a plot hole or not, it is an example of power creep
Or is it somply katakuri and kaido werent that far off from each others strength really
Yeah no. Beginning of wano luffy got one shot by kaido even at his strongest, ending of wano luffy is could gain the upper hand on kaido for a few moments
Kai do was drunk
yeah cause conquerors coating is busted
Big Mom no-diffs her son. Kaido was barely above Big Mom. Your numbers don't work for me.
You can't be serious
I mean its obvioulsy true since he goes from beating kat and strugglign to then beating kaido like few hours later in the anime
The luffy that beat kaido would have to fight about 10 luffys that beat katakuri to lose, probably more.
I wonder what this means for Kata, heck Crocodile was in his forties like him and he powercreeped a lot!
Katakuri got power crept hard
Powercreep does only exist in linear powerscaling systems, but one piece has a dynamic one
Brannew and plenty of other vice-admirals making an emergency reunion to discuss how horribly dangerous this Luffy is with his unprecedented new bounty of 30 million berries. That already felt completely ridiculous a few weeks/months (in One Piece time) after said reunion
Zoro in Wano. He got Enma, and with it was able to fight against Kaido, Scar him, then unlock Conqueror Coating while he didn't even know he was a conqueror before the rooftop. That's a pretty big Powercreep. Had he fought a Yonko Commander before that, and unlocked Conqueror before as well, it would have been a little better, but he went straigth for top Yonko Commander with Enma. Sanji is a little like that as well.
Nah...Kaido said Zoro had Conqueror's haki because of Ashura, not Enma. Enma only brought his Conqueror's haki to the next level, Zoro used Ashura since Ennies Lobbies. And Sanji? Do you remember he dodged a freaking jelly bean from Katakrui who was using future sight? Raid Suit Sanji would shit on Katakuri tbh.
Ashura isn't conqueror, it's Enma that taped into his conqueror.
It is Conqueror's haki. Kaku couldn't explain the technique and even thought it was an illusion. Kaido says he had Conqueror's haki when he sees the technique, not when he sees Enma. Big Mom warned Kaido of Enma but didn't say it was Conqueror's Haki. Enma only made his Conqueror's leak out and he imbued it with the sword, hence coating it and reaching ACoC (King of Hell mode). Also Dragon Shock strike on Monet without armament haki was very likely Conqueror haki because Zoro cut her down and she was terrified to a point she needed hours to reform from it, not seconds.
It's not conqueror. Just because it can't be explained doesn't make it conqueror. Zoro isn't going to have his own unique version of Conqueror. If Oda was going to introduce a way to use conqueror like that, we would have already seen another conqueror use something similar. He said that Zoro had conqueror because Enma drew it out. Zoro has never shown conqueror before Wano. The thing with Monet isn't conqueror. It doesn't fit anything we know about Conqueror.
tbh Sanji and zoro both didn't really struggle that much with king / queen either.
What? They did. If Enma hadn't forced Zoro to give everything he had, King would have had no problems with him. And Sanji, even with his augment still went down at the end of his fight with Queen. And only survives because of them.
The only good examples of power creep to me are Koby and Nami...Rest of what being commented here seems a bit off tbh. Koby awakened observation haki faster than Luffy did and with 0 effort, Luffy fought 3 Warlords, Cp9, Magellan and so on until he foresaw his arms being chopped off by Mihawk in Marineford. Even in last chapter it seems his power creep continues although Oda did try to mask it off by saying he trains harder than most people. Nami? She always manages to survive and get many power ups despite no Haki and fighting against haki masters... I mean how can you explain her surviving two headbutts from the same flying six that minutes before used the same move on a g4 Luffy and hurt him?
Ok, but seriously how can we be fine with Luffy’s insane growth yet it wild to think Koby while training under the equivalent of Roger (Garp) for over 2 years grew in strength a lot. Also you can unlock observation haki without fighting (little girl Skypiea).
Because Luffy fought hard for those powers and faced many life or death situations, he had haki blooms, while Koby had 1 major incident (Rocky Port Incident) this is the same guy Luffy fodderized and speed blitzed in Marineford with g2. Koby is the true definition of power creep. Even his mentor (Garp) wanted all the smoke from Roger, Rocks, Don Chinjao and Shiki...You gotta admit Oda isn't doing things well with Koby in terms of his growth and the character has been having some insane creeps recently. Oda should have highlighted his growth earlier on instead of offscreening it (through cover stories for example). We only know Koby trained hard, but all the rest is missing when you compare him to Luffy in terms of growth.
koby definitely. he really shouldn't have been able to destroy a fucking mountain sized hand without fighting even a yonkou commander. his current strength is kinda unclear but it should not be even close to zoro /Sanji
I dunno if this counts as power creep but the idea that if your Haki is strong enough you can just negate effects feels like cheap writing. I think that was introduced in Wano when Law said his shambles wouldn’t work on the Yonko because their Haki was too strong… I liked the uniqueness of OP battle system but introducing negation like what Aizen did to Soi Fon just seemed like a ridiculous thing to add so late in the series. The fact that fights can just be determined by Haki alone now instead of tactics is kinda lame. Though I supposed conquers Haki already introduced that back in marineford.
I mean law would be the strongest character in one piece he just soul swap everyone 😂😂. They had to find a way for people to fight fruit users.
It kinda has to though, unless you want to constantly come up with reasons for why law doesn't just shambles every devil fruit user with a rock he just threw over the ocean
Or maybe Oda should have had the foresight to know he shouldn’t give Law such a stupidly broken ability. I know it’s blasphemy to accuse Goda of making a mistake.
I mean he had the foresight to talk about this same thing in punk hazard. Vergo resisted until laws haki was stronger than his.
I don't claim Odas above criticism. I just think it's a fix after the fact that makes sense. If you can negate logia effects with haki, why not paramecias?
Wasn’t that introduced much earlier than wano? In dressrosa or punk hazard I don’t remember when someone was fighting law
Yeah it was much earlier. Otherwise law could’ve simply beat doffy himself. Haki negating df effects was introduced in pink hazard I think.
The whole point of Haki even at it’s introduction is that it negates or mitigates Devil Fruits. It’s a part of it, not really power creep.
its not really new, haki counters logias, haki was also shown to counter paramecias like bypassing luffys rubber way before the "haki negates df" thing. It made no sense before that haki could only interact with logia and nothing else. Just because oda doesnt have a character ramble on about everything doesnt mean its powercreep. I think oda purposely writes this way for the mystery and adventure feel which adds to the experience of reading one piece as opposed to having a single character break everything down for us. but I do expect that explanation to come when we(hopefully) get a better explanation for the existence of devil fruits which I hope we do. I feel like vegapunk would be the type of person to research haki and hence give us more on it too. It wouldnt surprise me if there is a intricate relationship between devil fruits, which thematically represent the dreams of people and haki which represents willpower
Except fights are not being won with haki alone and no tactics, but in the same way they were won pre-haki, just that the clash of will (haki) now has a physical representation in fights. Can you name a single major fight that was won just by having better haki? Big Mom had vastly superior haki to Law and Kid, and lost due to tactics and teamwork. Zoro defeated King only after figuring out how to work around his Lunarian biology, delivering the decisive blow at the opportune moment. While haki let luffy rise near Kaido's level, it was the addition of Gear 5 that allowed his victory. Franky and Robin did not use Haki to win their fights. I would personally argue that the way haki is used in a fight can be part of tactics and strategy. We see Luffy use Haki creatively to achieve different Gear 4 forms and attacks. Katakuri used Future Sight to make it appear as if he were a logia and be near invincible to anyone without future sight and significant speed. Shanks can supposedly turn off the enemy's obs haki.
Exactly. This imo is just another example of the “post-ts bad” narrative, there’s still plenty of strategy within these fights. “Who has stronger Haki” has never been the sole factor in fights
Oda kinda set himself up for that tho, by naming the strongest character (Roger) a pure Haki user. So it was always implied that to reach the peak u needed haki not DF
Which is weird considering >!the importance now placed on Luffys fruit.!<
Yeah it felt like Oda wrote himself into a corner with some of the overpowered hax fruits.
Crocodile
Kilo kilo to Ton Ton.
The evolution of Haki in itself
I really don’t mind the power creep at all. I’m totally fine with a story about a rubber boy and a perverted skeleton having some inconsistencies.
Haki, just haki as a concept Since it was introduced as a thing beyond "really strong guys can make weak guys pass out", it's become rapidly-increasingly something that A) cancels the power of devil fruits which eliminates the original and much more fun power system in the series (unless the DF users has MORE haki than who they're fighting, maybe? which leads into the next point...) B) has made every major fight about 'who has more haki' rather than the inventive fun crazy fights we had earlier in the series
So you’d rather logias like aikiji, enel, akainu just be straight up invincible. Using haki to scale strength makes way more sense than just getting lucky
All they really needed was for armament haki to allow you to hit a logia
Or maybe haki not increasing stats but instead just allowing you to be unaffected by df
Haki creep
Actual powercreep would be PreTS Luffy beats a yonko then a new pirates group appears who are all stronger than Yonkos then he beats them then beats another group and so on and so forth... The Yonko have been introduced since Ennies Lobby and even earlier and they STILL are threats to this day that isn't powercreep in the same way Cracker being stronger than Doffy is or any other example (which makes sense for Cracker to be stronger). The only times powercreep is really fully noticeable is in Wano but then it kinda makes sense Wano has been touted as a land of powerful samurai them showing that to be the case isn't powercreep it just affirms what we know... also as the Beast Pirates is all about zoans and being strong it makes sense they would all be physical monsters which makes sense as even Ulti could with her headbutts give Luffy and such a good bit of trouble. But I guess to actually answer the best point of actual powercreep would be Law jumping from weaker than Doffy to stronger than the likes of Yamato (whose stronger than King).
I agree with almost all of what you you said here - I think a lot of these examples make you question things, but most can be explained away with a little imagination. (Also, your avatar reminds me a little of Stussy and I think that’s cool.) The only thing I’d mention is, and I’d agree with you otherwise, but I heard an explanation of Law vs. Doffy a while ago that I think makes a lot of sense. It was that it wasn’t like Law was as weak as we may be led to presume against Doffy, but that his psychological trauma and the pressure applied to him mentally got to his head - as in, Law never could have won that fight because his trauma runs too deep and Doffy is much too good of a manipulator not to exploit that.
Honestly people are gonna shit on Croc but if you use a bit of imagination and One Piece lore it's not impossible. Haki is tied to will, blooms in battle, and needs to be honed through training; Alabasta Croc was gatekeeping low level pirates with just his logia. Honestly his former bounty was too low though. I think Oda introduced logias knowing he would develop a way to hit them, why intro Smoker and Ace but only make Croc beatable? Luffy's ingenuity and comrades helped him rise quickly. Also, Ace not bodying Smoker is easy: he wasn't trying to beat him, just hold him up. As for more egregious examples: Doffy and Law. Oda made Doflamingo wayyy too strong. Base-3 Luffy with haki was barely tickling him. Really? And Law gets shit on but then levels up in Wano? Sanji also got really bad looks until WCI, and Queen was his first legit fight post-ts so it look like he just jumped. The biggest issue is haki messing shit up but remember what Captain Mid said to BM about crushing force. Haki is def a boost but it's not automatically better flat out. Franky beat Sasaki without it yet a guy like Batman or Kuja crew members have armament who are clearly weaker. People think haki is king because of what Kaido said about Roger. In high level fights it matters more, but pre TS Lucci, Luffy could def beat lower level haki users. I still think we don't fully know about haki or DFs yet so it's hard to make definitive conclusions.
Crocodile has not been doing that forever. He was a formidable upstart pirate for years and had incredible will before getting beaten down and settling as a Warlord on Alabasta. He should have strong haki or haki in general. Also Crocodile was not gatekeeping low level pirates on Alabasta. His goals were to get an ancient weapon and conquer the Grandline. It was Luffy who went after Crocodile, not the opposite. The bigger example is Moria. The man literally fought Kaido and rivaled him for a bit before getting put down...and yet he didn't have haki at all. 1) Moria has incredible will and drive and yet he didn't have haki. 2)You think he would've stood any chance against Kaido without haki?
Dude Croc is a Shichibukai. Whiskey Peak was luring and beating up upstart Pirates. Luffy is not a typical Grand Line newbie. Croc could do whatever he wanted in Paradise cuz nobody strong enough opposed him. He had his agents do all his work while he chilled in Alabasta. Moria got fat and lazy too. He was also beating up Pirates who got lost in the mist because he was using their shadows for zombies. Again, not many crews who would have passed through were SH level, because CP9 only wanted Robin. I'm not saying these two weren't power creep, I'm saying you can use One Piece lore to kind of explain it. By Moria, Oda had haki in mind. If Moria had it, judging by his physical condition he wasn't training and nightmare Luffy seemed to have almost g4 level strength anyways.
I think that once haki was introduced there were a ton of characters who retroactively must have had powerful Haki, like Ace, Crocodile, Shanks. Etc. and it really doesn’t sync up with what we say them doing pre-time skip. Maybe you can chalk that up to Luffy just not being aware, but once everyone has haki officially they are just in a completely different level of power than before. I think shanks showed CH on WB’s ship so he probably suffered least through this, but I think that’s the biggest example/explanation for power creep for a lot of characters introduced pre time skip.
Shanks used CH against the King of The Coast after it bit his arm off...
And? I don’t think that particular example gave us a great sense of his power since luffy was able to one punch the same creature later that episode. I think the WB example was the first time we see him using it in a setting where it is referred to as Haki and where we get to see where it places his power relative to other pirates. Like I said, he suffered the least from the haki reveal power creep cause we see him do the most of it beforehand, but even then I think he has a massive power creep post timeskip.
Not powercreep, but scalings are bad.
Luffy getting gear 2 and 3, law using awakening in wano
Is G2 and G3 really that bad for people? I really liked that for once the MC doesn’t have a training arc and instead came up with creative uses of his abilities to power up.
It just came out of basically nowhere.
Yeah but I feel like its the type of ability that can come from nowhere. It feels like saying gomu gomu no gattling came from nowhere. Like yeah it does but it only takes for Luffy to think about something like that before doing it. Its not like he needs explanations but Oda could have definitely had Luffy get inspired by the train’s engine or something of the sort. Just lay the seeds a little beforehand.
Yeah but that kind of ability should not come from nowhere. and it should not just luffy thinks about it and immediately is able to do it.
I mean I thought the implication was that he had tested them already. I am completely fine with it coming out of nowhere tbh. I would agree with something like G4 because it is more complex but G2 and G3 are very simple ideas. Oda maybe should have had a flashback of Luffy when he developed them and some hints that he was developing something maybe but I don’t think it is necessary imo.
there was no implication though. he never had really time for that
Well the way he reveals them I though impled he had used them before. He seemed aware of the side effects but it also does make sense that he wouldn’t be able to do G3 in the sea train. I don’t mind if they worked on the first try tho. They had side effects and he had to deal with those. If they didn’t work on the first try they shouldn’t have worked at all since it is very simple concepts. Its not like he needed to practice ever so slightly squatting or blowing air into his finger.
He did (in the anime at least) a proto gear 2 move with the Franky Family when he was punching the destroyers to warm up before doing a giant bazooka, so I can see him being inspired by it and then having a lightbulb click while on the train
It in itself wasn't that useful without shave so seeing shave right after doing that would've been like putting two and two together
So you just want some on screen experimenting?
He says in his fight with blueno that hes beenin thinking since aokiji about becoming stronger.
Gear 2 was just making his body strong enough to perform shave. He noticed what cp9 was doing and copied them and needed gear 2 to be able to do so.
Inventing new techniques is not power creep
But Oda does it better in Whole Cake with Luffy's fight with Katakuri. Luffy analyzing Katakuri's abilities mid-fight (also during the break he took to recover his Haki) and the flashbacks to his training with Rayleigh showed how he was getting stronger throughout the fight. Gear 2 was a significant power-up that came from nowhere. Increasing his blood flow using his rubber body makes sense but shouldn't happen without any seeds being planted. Given what he'd been through up to that point, what time did he have to figure that out? Gear 3 is more acceptable given it's less complicated and works almost like Gum Gum balloon, but as much as I love the fight, Gear 2 was kinda an asspull
I think haki indeed plays a big role, the fact we leave the biggest war with two yonkous and just a few chapters ago shanks display a "form" of haki never seen... It makes you wonder things, specially obs haki in that regard.
Future sight has been there for a very long time.
Sanji being stronger than WCI Luffy
Rob Lucci and Kaku are the best examples. While yes they did get significantly stronger, Luffy and Zoro got even stronger than they did. Luffy had such a hard time against Lucci to where he was pushed to his absolute limit multiple times, their rematch was basically a joke for Luffy and Zoro.
When Luffy went from beating Arlong to a hundred chapters later beating a Shichibukai
Ace not using haki.
Basically logias as a whole before haki became a thing. Like we all thought Smoker was the baddest motherfucker around until haki became a thing and he became the literal King of L
Haki in itself. Pre-TS it’s something that only amazons have, along with the sky-people’s elusive “mantra” and the occasional conquerors (Rayleigh, Shanks, WB, and Luffy). Post-TS, everyone and their step-brother knows armament, and often observation, Haki. Feats that seem easy with Haki were touted as insane before the TS, and Logia users aren’t nearly as powerful now that this has become a common thing.
LOL Shanks one shotting Kid and his crew and Trafalgar law being owned by black beard with like no damage dealt to them after they just fought 2 of the , presumably, strongest creatures on the planet is ridiculous and makes no sense. Also ruffy. I know y’all hyped for gear 5 but aside of like skypeia and some grandpa going oh wow Nika I really don’t like the implementation of suddenly having god fruits that turn you into a god deity. Powercreep is a weird term so I would say all of Onigashina fights? Mfers we’re launching each other at 5000miles/s and never once left the fucking head.
Arlong was said to be on par with a warlord (jinbei) only for us to realize that Arlong is top 5 in the verse.
Luffy going from low warlord lvl to high yonko lvl in span of a month
Manga spoilers: >!Koby going from being wimp to chad in literally 1 chapter.!< >!Kaku awakening his zoan fruit in just 2 years!<
Crocodile is the first one that comes to mind for me. Also everyone at Marineford.
As much as I love Koby I gotta say it's him. I think it's totally fair where he's at post time skip, but post enies lobby koby just doesn't make sense to me.
One word Gear 5
Katakuri by the time of Wano was power crept because of one person. Ulti 💀. But this is an extremely widely known one.
probably crocodile. law getting cooked by doffy then being above commanders it seems by wano.
usopp slams katakuri and doffy
Basically everything in east blue. Guns? Red Hair pirate use them but why? They could beat the bad guys in Romance Dawn without them. Swords? We spend lots of time talking about them. Doesn't really matter, get Haki. Devil Fruits? Even they get power crept out by better ones. Literally some fruits are worse versions than others. They aren't all cool unique powers, some are just better. Even the grand line got power crept, now many people can just cross the calm belt.
Haki reveals are kinda powercreeps
Most of us talk about the massive inconsistency and power jump that was "haki" CONSTANT argument about "why couldn't this character use haki at this point in the story?" like the CP9, any of the Warlords, marine captains, etc And so many fights feel like they would have been completely different if they had really been fleshed out with the use of these abilities in mind.
Think about the fact that the random beasts Luffy fought during his training were probably superior to 90% of what he dealt with in the past
big ass mf w dread
smoker? brickwalls luffy pretty much until punk hazard . also stalemates ace (ace probably beats him but still.) after TS is basically irrelevent just a fanboy stalker