Pretty sure even Early Plat is High 8-C, we don't have any statements of any of the crusaders getting drastically stronger as the part goes on (outside of the DIO fight, which lol everyone dead).
We do though? Plat gets stronger after
every fight.
Dio even calls Hermit Purple "The weakest stand." and then proceeds to merely FLEX and completely destroy his grip.
That is true, it is the weakest Stand of the main group.
We have HP listed as 8-C and HG did take a hit directly from The World (no idea where the casual part comes from, he was deadass just going straight for the kill on every crusader throughout the entire fight)
The former ain't staying brother, the latter, was casual as ****. Just because he was going to kill them doesn't mean it wasn't casual, at all. And see below.
I think taking a full beatdown from an early Plat (who should be 8-C minimum),
He is 8-C, issue is they EXPLICITLY NOTE he is holding back and if he wanted to, he could kill him instantly. The guides then double down on this and call HG weak. We are talking about Star Platinum, a Stand NOTORIOUS for holding back its strength as to not kill, in the same chapter Jotaro says he could easily kill him, goes on to showcase this physically by denting its skull with a light grip alone and say he won't kill him, merely knock him out and take him to Joseph for info, which is something he proceeds to do. And again, Plat, a Stand who can hold back so much, he can apply just enough force to incap a 10-C so weak it can't even move a hair.
absorbing enough of the impact to cause a 9-A explosion,
The 9-A explosion is the result of the beatdown. And it floored him.
and taking a hit from TW is pretty solid case for it imo.
A casual hit, at the maximum edge of its range mind you (Did you forget TW was 10m away from Dio when he punched HG? Doubly notable as TW is the Stand used in multiple instances of a Stand that gets weaker the further away it strays from the main body. As we know the power decrease is directly proportional to the distance, HG effectively got put on its ass by a low diff hit from a The World tens of times below standard strength).
Not only that, you'd be legit arguing that early Plat and Base TW doesn't have much of a difference given early Plat could manhandle HG.
Ya'll need to stop cooking and actually think this shit through.
As for speed.
Let me make this perfectly clear.
Kakyoin can not scale to Dio, he can not scale to Hol Horse, he can not scale to Armorless Chariot, he can not scale to Plat.
He arguably can not scale to Pol (has 3 instances of being slower than Pol).
He is noted to be on the lower end of stats.
He's blitzed constantly (Geb blitzed him for example, another case of him being slower than Jotaro or Plat).
HG is beaten out by lightspeed beams despite both Jotaro (who has a bunch of lightspeed statements, aka the thing Kak just got memed by) and Pol (has like two rel feats) warning him, immediately after, Chariot deflects 4 of those beams at the same time (Aka bro casually deflects attacks that just blitzed Kak and his best attack one page prior).
Also of course we have both Jotaro and Plat reacting to ES casually at the start of the manga and deflecting it (This is bad, this means ES scales below Chariot due to Set arc, ToG, Anubis, etc).
There's also Pol casually intercepting HG
mid-attack and ko'ing him.
The best feat he has is intercepting Emperor, but Araki himself kills that scaling by making it Hol who's fast and Hol didn't opt to control his Stand in that scene, and even if he did it'd create an issue as that'd make Kak scale to Armorless Chariot which blitzes him badly previously and is above Pol and Base Chariot who have 3 instances of being above that very same move.
Obviously, the Dio stuff where Dio treats HG as such a non-threat it isn't even funny, who is below Plat in speed.
Emerald is hilariously below Tower of Gray, who's below Anubis in speed (Guide stuff and Jotaro himself straight up says it's the fastest Stand he's fought yet), who is only a bit faster than base Chariot (not blitz worthy) yet still below Mid Plat in speed. Notwithstanding end of part Plat straightup upscales off ToG.
HG is shown twice to be equal in speed with Hermit Purple, a Stand noted to be, well, pretty bad in all stats.
And that's just
some of the issues.
