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Introduction
The purpose of this CRT is to call Luffy’s regular punches scaling to his Golden Rifle, and by extension Usopp’s durability scaling to Golden Rifle, into question. There exists 5 major points that create skepticism regarding this scaling, as detailed below. Each issue will be thoroughly explained before drawing the final conclusion, in which hopefully everyone can understand the point being made here.Credit to @Arc7Kuroi for helping put this together and writing some of the sections.
Using Weapons to Enhance Attack Potency
The first main issue with claiming Luffy’s normal punches scale to his Golden Rifle lies with the fact that the Golden Rifle enhances Luffy’s punch with a giant golden ball. A simple anecdote to describe the issue with using this type of scaling can be found in comparing the damage someone can do with their normal punches as opposed to with a hammer. For example, if someone were to horizontally swing a household hammer at someone else’s head, it would deal a lot more damage than a regular punch to the head.In the original thread that got this scaling accepted, it was argued that the golden ball was only wrapped around Luffy’s wrist and not his fist. Therefore, Luffy’s fist is what’s doing all the damage, making his regular punches scale. However, this is not the case, we see that the golden ball slams directly into Enel and very likely connected with the bell as it shattered indicating some level of impact. All this means is that the analogy of swinging the hammer contrasted with a regular punch is a valid analog to Luffy’s Golden Rifle versus regular punches and kicks.
It should be rather intuitive that using a bludgeoning weapon enhances the amount of damage and attack potency of a strike when compared to a normal unaided strike. As such, Luffy’s regular punches scaling to his Golden Rifle should be called into question. The following points will elaborate on this:
The Force-Velocity Curve
The second main issue with the current Golden Rifle scaling can be explained with the Force-Velocity curve. This curve describes the relationship between the exerted force associated with moving weights (like say a giant golden ball attached to your arm) and the speed at which they can be moved. The relationship shows that speed changes exponentially as the force exerted to move a weight changes. The takeaway being that towards heavier weights, mass becomes the dominant factor in the force behind its motion as opposed to speed.Where this applies to Luffy’s Golden Rifle is best shown with a boxing anecdote. The idea of heavy hands vs speed when it comes to punching power. A great and popular example of this is comparing the slow powerful slugs of George Foreman to the rapid strikes of Muhammad Ali. Ali threw the faster punches but Foreman hit harder because he had more weight to put into his punches. That’s why we have weight classes in martial sports to begin with, when it comes to combat the mass behind a strike usually matters more than the speed behind said punch. And this is portrayed scientifically in that Force-Velocity curve.
Regardless, the main point here stands that Luffy adding more mass behind his punch would logically increase the power of his punches more easily than moving faster would. Which supports the notion that Luffy’s Golden Rifle should be stronger than his usual punches.
Luffy’s Punch Wind-Up and Elasticity
The strength of Luffy’s punches does not come from his muscle strength alone, but the elasticity of his body thanks to his Devil Fruit. When he throws his back his fist dozens or hundreds of meters to wind up a punch, that is going to produce a hit that is stronger than if Luffy had punched with no wind-up.When Luffy performs his Golden Rifle against Enel, he has a huge wind-up, throwing the Golden Ball forward from a distance so that it can gather momentum and deliver more kinetic energy.
In the manga, chapter 333, it is indicated that Luffy did not have any wind-up on his Gum-Gum Pistol that he hit Usopp in the face with as he starts the “Gum-Gum…” while he’s cartwheeling and dodging, then throws the “... Pistol” which hits Usopp. This is backed up by the anime version of the fight, Episode 236, which does not show any wind-up on the punch.
So the one direct hit that Usopp took from Luffy and continued to fight after that is already guaranteed to be weaker than his Golden Rifle attack due to the lack of wind-up for it.
This is corroborated by science as well with Hooke’s law. This law basically says that more force is required to stretch an elastic object over a longer distance. Which should be intuitive, as we see this in the layman example of stretching a rubber band. You can launch paper balls a further distance with a rubber band the more it gets stretched back. That is why, scientifically, when Luffy stretches his arms (or legs) back further, they have more force behind their strikes.
Luffy vs. Usopp in Water 7
Usopp took one more hit from Luffy during that fight, in chapter 333, where Luffy does use a wind-up to build up momentum for his Gum-Gum Bullet… which knocks Usopp down and ends the fight.That is a total of two attacks that Usopp took from Luffy during their entire exchange; two hits for Usopp to go down. It is exceedingly generous to say that Usopp’s durability fully scales to an all-out Luffy, when the very depiction of their fight showcases how Luffy outclasses Usopp in every way. The fact that Usopp goes down so easily is just additional evidence that goes against him scaling to Golden Rifle calc even if we generously assumed that Luffy’s attacks were anywhere near as strong as the full value of that calc. Furthermore, Enel had taken far more damage and attacks prior to getting one shot by Luffy’s Golden Rifle. So the notion that Usopp required more power to take down than Enel, and thus his durability should scale higher, is a false notion as well.
Luffy’s Regular Attacks vs. Golden Rifle
There is additional reason to suspect that Luffy's regular attacks don't scale in potency to his Golden Rifle when you consider that Golden Rifle is the finisher in his fight against Enel and is clearly portrayed as being on another level when it soundly defeats him. Luffy's regular attacks are certainly capable of injuring Enel during their fight, and knocking him down [although he can get back up again] - but while a barrage of Luffy's regular attacks just knock Enel down and that's it, the Golden Rifle completely demolishes Enel in his amped-up Aimaru form, shatters the top of his ship and keeps going without faltering so that Luffy can ring the giant golden bell.Even when Luffy kicked Enel in the face while he had the golden ball attached to his arm, and Enel was in his transformed state, Luffy didn't send Enel flying hard enough to smash everything in his path... By all visual evidence of Luffy's attack effectiveness, the Golden Rifle that he threw at Enel as his final move had a bigger impact on Enel and did more damage than anything he was capable of previously. So this makes it highly dubious that his regular punches would be equal to this monumental attack.
Conclusion
It should be clear to see that Usopp shouldn’t be scaling to Golden Rifle based on the information provided above. However, the Golden Rifle scaling isn’t to be removed entirely, rather it will just need to be re-worked. A proposed new means of scaling is portrayed below, based on Kaku and Lucci’s Shigan scaling above the Golden Rifle.Proposed New Scaling
My proposal for the new scaling is relatively the same; however, instead of scaling Usopp’s durability and Kalifa above the Golden Rifle, only Kaku and Lucci’s Shigan will scale above the Golden Rifle. The scaling itself with Doriki, Hody’s pill multipliers, and other multipliers will remain the same for the time being. The reason only Kaku and Lucci should scale above Luffy’s Golden Rifle is because of the context added to the Shigan statement. The technique is hyped up as the strongest yet because it was able to defeat Luffy and Zoro, and not every CP9 member is the same strength. So, nothing indicates that the statement applies to every Shigan. The interpretation of the least assumptions would follow the above interpretation, and this is commonplace here as we treat statements contextualized by further text or image to inherently only apply to said context (as seen with Mifune’s speed of light sword slashes). Furthermore, with Usopp no longer scaling to the Golden Rifle, there’s nothing to imply the statement should apply to Kalifa outside of a generous high-end interpretation.Doriki Scaling (w/ only Kaku and Lucci > Golden Rifle):
- Kalifa (630): 4.9 MT (Low 7-B+)
- Fukurou (800): 6.22 MT (Low 7-B+)
- Kumadori (810): 6.3 MT (7-B)
- Blueno (820): 6.37 MT (7-B)
- Jabra (2180): 16.94 MT (7-B)
- Kaku (2200): 17.1 MT (7-B)
- Lucci (4000): 31.1 MT (7-B)
Based on the OP Verse Page Scaling Notes:
- Thriller Bark Usopp and Franky: 15.55 MT (7-B)
- Usopp’s Dura and Enies Lobby Sanji: 16.94 MT (7-B)
- Nitoryu Enies Lobby Zoro and Yontoryu base Kaku: 20.73 MT (7-B)
- G2 Enies Lobby Luffy and Hybrid Lucci: 62.18 MT (7-B+)
- G3 Enies Lobby Luffy and Tekkai Hybrid Lucci: 124.36 MT (7-A)
- Overdosed Hody: 542.23 MT (7-A)
- Dressrosa Law and Busoshoku Doffy’s Dura: 1 GT (High 7-A)
- Monster Hody: 2.17 GT (High 7-A)
- G4 Early WCI Luffy, Charlotte Cracker, Tobiroppo: 8.68 GT (6-C)
- Golden Wrath of God: 17.35 GT (6-C)
- Gold Splash: 25.14 GT (6-C)
- G4 Post-Kata Luffy’s King Kong Gun: 34.7 GT (6-C)
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