Stefano4444
He/Him- 6,797
- 6,046
Weaker than Dressrosa Boundman for sure, but Cracker? Not necessarily.
While Cracker could actually harm Boundman, that does not necessarily mean he was above him. At most, they were relative, and it could still be argued that Cracker was inferior to Gear 4th overall. The gap in strength and speed was just far smaller compared to Doffy, who could not even hurt Boundman and could barely keep up with him.
After all, I think the major issue that Luffy had against Cracker was not simply that he was strong or fast enough, but that his Devil Fruit was a particularly good counter against brute force or people who like fight into direct confrontation. He could create an endless number of Biscuit Soldiers, forcing Boundman to waste time and energy destroying them while also having to defend himself against Cracker directly.
Luffy even needed assistance from Nami to weaken the Biscuit Soldiers. Then he had to use Tankman so he could hold Cracker in place, prevent him from escaping, and charge an attack that knocked him out. Cracker himself admitted that he does not have very high pain tolerance, which, while it does not mean he is a glass cannon, does imply that his endurance is lower than that of other characters.
So I do not see any major contradiction. After all i never said that Doffy’s strings necessarily scale above Jozu, only that they should be somewhat relative. We never actually saw how Jozu freed himself, and I do not see a reason why Doffy would simply let him go. So it is more than likely that Jozu had the strength to free himself. However, since the strings were able to restrain Jozu without immediately breaking, it implies that Jozu likely had to put effort into escaping.
That would still validate the idea that the strings to at least scale from other Top Commanders in terms of Durability and Lifting Strength (as that its requid for the strings to restrain Jozu). Which in turn should put Dressrosa Boundman Luffy at least around if not above Jozu.
And while I did say that Cracker being able to harm Boundman does not necessarily make him stronger than or equal to Jozu, it does suggest that he and the rest of the Sweet Commanders should exist around the same tier as Whitebeard’s strongest crew members, such as Jozu, Vista, and Ace. Marco is the exception, since, as I said, he has actual feats that place him above the typical Top Commander.
The same can also apply to the All-Stars, including Jack, since he has his own scaling from the Nine Red Scabbards, which could give him a “possibly Low 5-B” rating. This is also supported by the fact that, logically speaking, he should be around Cracker as them are arguably the weakest Top Commanders. Of course, there would still be some exceptions and specializations, such as King having far greater Durability due to his Lunarian physiology, or Katakuri having greater Speed than most because of Advanced Observation Haki.
This also makes narrative sense, since it has been established multiple times that the Emperors are very bellicose. At least Big Mom and Kaido are, while Whitebeard and Shanks are more reactive, especially Shanks, who tends to focus on maintaining the status quo. Their crews have fought each other many times over the decades, only to repeatedly end up in a standstill. With Perospero mentionung in Wano how many times he wanted to kill Marco in the past, implying that they had clashed on several occasions.
And this kind of long-term stalemate would only be possible if Big Mom’s officers and Sweet Commanders were indeed capable of facing the top crew members of other Emperors, at least those from Kaido and Whitebeard’s crews. As Shanks's top officers be stronger than most doesn't cause contradiction as it was enstablish that they have higher bounties imply higher strong, plus Shanks be very passive would means that he likely fought far less than the other Emperors.
Sure, Doffy is weak, but compared to whom exactly? The All-Stars? Definitely. The Tobiroppo? That is more questionable, since most of them doesn't have any rest many significant feats in Wano beyond downscaling from Ulti and Who’s-Who and getting mid-diffed by Wano Straw Hats. And frankly, it is not unbelievable for Doflamingo to be around their level.
Despite being weaker than Gear 4th, it is not as if Boundman could one-shot him. Doflamingo survived multiple named attacks from someone who should have at least comparable strength to Jozu. This is somewhat similar to Perospero enduring a beatdown from Sulong Neko long enough for the moon to be covered by clouds, after which Perospero started gaining the upper hand and only failing to finish off as he return to his Sulong Form where he proceed to oneshot him.
And sure, Perospero was facing a heavily wounded Neko, but Jack himself stated that none of the Tobiroppo could hope to win against the Nine Red Scabbards, even in their weakened state after getting beaten by Base Kaido. That alone already portrays Perospero as stronger than most of the Tobiroppo (with Ulti and Who’s-Who being the only ones who have legitimate scaling that could potentially put them above him). The same logic can be applied to Doflamingo.
Besides, how literally are we supposed to take Kaido’s statement? When Kaido was hit by Post-Udon Base Luffy, he initially left shocked viewed him in the same league as Shanks, Oden, Whitebeard, Roger, and Rocks. Yet he only realize later that this was due to Durability Negation, and Luffy had to unlock Advanced Conqueror’s Haki to actually fight on par with Kaido. So it is likely that a drunk Kaido simply called Doffy “weak” because he lost, rather than because Doffy is genuinely weak.
Yet despite having access to his Hybrid Form (which to be honest i'm not completely sure about Hybrid Forms > Full Zoan Forms as a general rule) or his Germa abilities, he still couldn't do anything against an amnesiac Big Mom, who overpowered him with just her raw physical strength. He even believed that a sneak attack from a great height would work in this situation. Yet this only managed to make Big Mom recover her memories and return to her normal state, with Queen sensing the change and realizing that he stood no chance at that point.
Compared to Boundman, who actually managed to briefly clash (with a non named attack, no King Kong Gun or anything flashy) with a Big Mom not handicapped and fully conscious, without getting overwhelmed, its night and day. And sure, Luffy was forced to detransform, but it was still a far more impressive performance than Queen, no matter what one thinks about Big Mom overusing Haki. Also i'm impressive sure that none of Queen’s Germa abilities can make him physically stronger or more durable than normal, his cybernetic augmentations are already activated (whereas Sanji did not awaken his own enhancements until later).
So yeah Whole Cake/Dressrosa Boundman Luffy be physically far stronger than most Top Commanders its actually more than likely, as before Kaido nobody ever manage to trully overpower his Gear 4th, even Katakuri couldn't do it without rely on his Awakening. And if he was put against Queen then he would have been able to overpower him too.
To be honest the only Top Commanders who can be argue to be more powerful than this version of Luffy are Marco (due of what i mention before), Benn (due of Shanks's crew be stronger than the average Emperor's crew), King and Ace. Everyone else would get below Boundman Luffy in terms of physical power (with Katakuri match him with Awakening).
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