[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

Originally Posted by cheese4u

Bounty is not entirely indicative of the strength of a character but it doesn't mean it should be dismissed. Clearly, most bounties give you a good indicator of what that person's strength is. But even going by other measures such as relative strength it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I never claimed bounty should be dismissed. I said Bounty isn't an accurate reflection of one's fighting power; it's primarily reflects on the person's threat level. The examples I provided you sufficiently prove this.

Originally Posted by cheese4u

Honestly, what percentage chance would you give pre time skip Luffy of defeating Jozu, Doflamingo, Mihawk, Akainu, or Whitebeard? I'd say pretty close to zero for all of them. Having said that would it shock you if Luffy got owned in one hit by any of these guys? I don't think it would. And yet Crocodile came out of all of those fights unscathed. Luffy went toe to toe with some of those guys but thats only because he had help (namely from Crocodile!).

Many of the war's fights were brief skirmishes that were interrupted at some point. Not exactly good indicators as to who would emerge victorious in a fight.

Croc tanked a brilliant punk from Jozu, but he most certainly would have lost were it not for Doflamingo's interference. Jozu outclasses Croc in all physical aspects.

Doflamingo was more of annoyance than anything. He wanted to make Croc his underling, to which the latter replied no. Croc retaliated with a sandstorm which appeared to have no effect on Doflamingo. Later on, we see Doflamingo's decapitation is ineffective on Croc (since he's a logia user). Subsequent to that, the two warlords clash. This skirmish, too, was inconclusive.

Mihawk was only intercepted by Croc's hook. We don't see anything else beyond that altercation. Hardly evidence to say Croc's on par with the master swordsman.

Akainu was sliced by Croc's desert sparda, but the attack had no effect. Croc then teams up with WB's division commanders to deal with the admiral. Again, this doesn't establish any equality between the two in question.

Croc didn't even fight WB. Obviously he would have gotten destroyed if he tried. His assassination attempt was thwarted by Luffy. He never made physical contact with WB.

The point is, brief, inconclusive clashes don't definitively determine tiers.

Originally Posted by cheese4u

You can say what you want about how Crocodile wasn't taking Luffy seriously but in that final fight he clearly was. I'd think if Crocodile was reasonably this strong to begin with, once the gloves came off in Alabasta don't you think he'd be able to one hit KO Luffy as well? Especially when you consider how much weaker Luffy was then as opposed to now, it doesn't make sense. I mean he was fresh out of East Blue for crying out loud!

No he wasn't. I don't see how you can possibly think that when Croc deliberately chose to handicap himself in the final round. He refrained from using his sand powers (his greatest and most dangerous tool in battle) and resorted to using only his hook. How is that taking someone seriously?

KO Luffy in one hit? Yes, he was a rookie, but I think you're greatly underestimating his resilience. Luffy's will power and rubber defenses keep him going. That's been shown time and time again.

Originally Posted by cheese4u

But I put a huge emphasis on the word "new." Meaning this clearly isn't a power that they had before. Both Crocodile and Daz are showing a strength that is at least several times greater than what they showed in Alabasta. Of course I myself have felt for a long time Crocodile was stronger than Luffy, but by this much? He lost to Luffy with no 2nd or third gears a few arcs back and now he looks like a Yonkou. There is clearly a large unexplained gap in Crocodile's power that needs to be explained. I'm sorry but no matter what the circumstances there's no logical reason for one to be able to go from being pwned by a gearless Luffy to fighting on equal terms with Mihawk.

Of course if Oda were to explain all of this logically I'd happily accept it. Like for instance, maybe Crocodile and Daz know Haki but just weren't using it in their fights. That would explain a lot. But so far no explanation has been given and its left me a bit dumbfounded.

With the replies from myself and the other members, I don't see how you can still be in denial. I think the problem here is you're looking at One Piece much like Dragon Ball. In Dragon Ball, the characters get progressively more powerful in each subsequent arc. However, in One Piece, things don't necessarily work that way. There's a lot of "rock-paper-scissors" match ups and much less linearity in power progression. You feel that because Croc was defeated way back in Alabasta that he should have performed much worse during the war; but as already explained, Oda employed the use of special circumstances to make our hero prevail over him. That is good writing, unlike the sudden power boost BS seen in many other shonen manga. Oda has stayed consistent with his power levels.