I'm fine with the calcs as they are, so I'd like to tackle the remaining scaling point so we can get this CRT wrapped up:
@DarkDragonMedeus @LordGriffin1000 @Elizhaa
Calling on other staff members to lend their perspective on a scaling point between Monkey D. Luffy and Charlotte Cracker as KingTempest and I currently have different interpretations on an interaction between them.
The important context is that in his Gear 4 state, Luffy has access to 'compression attacks' where he compresses his limbs back into his body
like this, and
Doflamingo's explanation is that the tensile force can increase the strength of Luffy's attacks several times, so it's currently accepted that there's:
1) Gear 4 Luffy's base level of strength
2) Gear 4 Luffy's compressed strength (which is a 4x multiplier over his base strength)
When it comes to the fight between Cracker and Luffy, we're currently in disagreement about whether or not the two of them clashes
before the decompression of Luffy's attack or
during it.
The clash between Cracker's Pretzel Roll attack and Luffy's Kong Gun takes place in Chapter 838 over these two pages
here and
here.
As we can see on the last panel of the first page, there is a moment where Cracker's sword and Luffy's fist are in contact with each other and clashing before Luffy's fist ultimately rips through both his sword and the biscuit soldier wielding it.
KT's argument is that while they were making contact, Luffy's attack had yet to decompress so it was a clash of Luffy's base level of strength against Cracker's sword, and then his attack decompressed and a 4x higher amount of power smashed through Cracker. (So since the Biscuit Soldier scales to 1.85 Gigatons, Gear 4 Luffy's base level of strength is 1.85 Gigatons and his compressed Kong Gun is therefore 7.4 Gigatons.
My issue though is that while I acknowledge the Kong Gun as being superior to Cracker as it ultimately broke through the biscuit soldier, I think the clash took place
during the decompression of the attack.
My reasons for thinking this are two-fold:
1) In the manga panel where their two attacks make contact, we can see that Luffy's fist is not recessed into his arm.
I've added a highlighting arrow there to point it out and you can zoom in for clarity. If Luffy's arm were still compressed, then his fist would be surrounded by the rest of his arm. It is difficult to tell from the angle we're viewing it at, but Luffy's arm looks like it is extended straight in a punching motion to me. His arm isn't fully extended as it will be in the next page as he can still stretch it further to go through the Biscuit soldier, but this is not taking place
before the attack decompresses.
2) In the anime adaptation linked and timestamped
here, for Episode 799, we can see that when Luffy calls out his "Kong Gun" his arm is extended and decompressing
before he clashes his fist against Cracker's sword. The anime is accepted as Secondary Canon for clearing up potentially difficult to interpret scenes from the manga so there is precedent for this.
To me, the anime version of the scene lines up with what I'm seeing in the original manga panel above. Luffy launches his 'Kong Gun' and his arm is already decompressing as he clashes against Cracker's Pretzel Roll. Cracker's sword holds up for a moment before Luffy's attack completely overpowers him.
So we should scale Gear 4 Luffy as being superior to Cracker's Biscuit Soldiers, but not 4x greater than them. I hope I've provided enough context and evidence for why I interpret the scene the way I do.
