[itachi-san314]

Originally Posted by ZGoten

Whether or not you can count Kyuubi's power in that fight as Naruto's own or not is irrelevant though. It is as simple as that: Without Minato's seal, the ninetails would walk the earth again and Naruto would be pretty much dead. I don't see anyone being able to reseal Kyuubi's eighttailed mode, not even Yamato. And that's why without help, Naruto wouldn't have won that battle.

good point and i totally get where you're coming from, but its a very grey road to go down to say that naruto is less powerful than pain because minato sealed the kyuubi back in place. those 2 ideas aren't directly related. i agree that minato helped during the fight, but i dont think that makes naruto weaker than pain. for instance, kakuzu helped hidan fight asuma, does that mean hidan was weaker than asuma? i think not. a lot of 'helping' went on in that fight and its convoluted, but if you just think about asuma fighting hidan, hidan would destroy him and he did. the helping had nothing to do with it

one of the main point's of the fight, in my opinion, was to show that naruto and pain were pretty much equal in power/mental fortitude at that specific time, but naruto was just a tiny bit better and like always had that final push left when his opponent was spent. its very similar to when naruto fought with gaara in the first series.

Well, it's one reason anyway . . . another one being that without the slug's information about Pain, Naruto would have probably been captured within seconds.

this i totally disagree with. i dont think knowledge has anything to do with naruto's (or anyone's) power for good or bad. everyone knows about itachi's sharingan but that doesn't really matter when thinking about itachi's and his opponents' power

Looks like there are many different ways you can interpret this manga.

yea it's pretty sweet. a modern day illiad

Originally Posted by Akashin

Pretty much. And in the same way that Shikamaru wouldn't perform as well without his battle planning, Naruto wouldn't have done as well without preparing those clones to recharge his Sage Chakra.

and pain wouldn't perform as well if he never trained... just saying that this doesn't really have a point

mostly everyone prepares for battle in some way. there are intel divisions in every village for this exact purpose.

Personally, I don't think the difference in power between Naruto and the Six Paths is nearly as drastic as some have said (and Sage Mode does indeed make Naruto a relatively fair match for Pain, for as long as it lasts), but I would put Pain above Naruto in overall power.

fair enough. he certainly wasn't out of pain's league as others have said.