> To give the devil's advocate to my own response, Sengoku has to be the best strategist for the global wars/peace maintenance (vs. a specific war/battle). Context definitely implies he succeeded at this previously, and still succeeded to a high percentage/extent, but the "worst generation" added new layers of stress that led to his white hairs and retirement. Agreed. > There's breadcrumbs for the main Skypiea island too. How does Enel not notice the crew entering illegally? He completely misses Conis and the fluffy pet taking the Mugiwaras in (on top of them vacationing initially). Why have the old lady to charge toll fees? Why have the former Gan Fall subordinates enforce and police the main island? Considering Enel's laziness, I don't think he's the one taking care of all those things. The Skypiea police were notified that the Strawhats had entered illegally and there should have been other such pirate crews in the past as well. If Luffy and co weren't strong enough to resist, that would have been the end of it. > Since most of this thread is coming to a close, I can follow personal intrigues. Based on the discussions, do you see Enel as a "big fish in a small pond" in that he is overpowered relative to those around him? Because I do not take him at his word directly because of this, and this matches the excessive confidence that Oda probably associates with Eminem (which bothers me still since Enel looks nothing like Eminem to me). Yeah, that's an accurate way to describe him but to be fair, he had the potential to be a considerable sized fish in a big pond. It's just his god complex and laziness that are preventing him from reaching his full potential. > Then I would counter that Big Mom and Kaidou have already achieved this, with Kaidou doing it to a much higher count. A pretty significant percentage of the Charlotte kids have fruit abilities (much higher than the percentage of a normal pirate crew). Similarly, Kaidou has hundreds of Gifters (I forget the exact numbers from the recent chapter that gave the updates on the numbers of allies and enemies) that my brain says is rounded up to 500. Context says it was meant to be in the 300's (based on the tattoos of their number). Do you think Kaidou's crew is stronger than Blackbeard's crew (prior to the ability hunt for best context)? Or stronger than the Red Hair crew? Yes, strong allies/volume of powerhouses is important, but the tiers of combat capabilities make such astronomical jumps at the top tiers, everyone else is meaningless. This completely matches the Government's new power that makes a single Yonkou crew easily wiped out (even Whitebeard's crew would be easily wiped out since Marco and Jozu are pretty low ranking in the New World). Yeah, agreed that the high ranking members are the most important combat wise but even the weaker guys can make a difference. For example, the vice admiral who put the kairoseki handcuffs on Marco and allowed for Kizaru to shoot him with his lasers properly. Normally speaking, Marco should have been stronger than the vice admiral but he helped in bringing down Marco. And to give examples of devil fruits, Mr. 3 made keys out of wax to free both Marco and Ace. And let's check the most recent situation, Shinobu is one of the weaker members of the group right now but her healing abilities should be SSS-tier. You're looking at it from the perspective of pure power but devil fruits can be very versatile and helpful in a variety of situations. Information gathering, escaping, trasportation, there are a variety of uses. Imagine if Fujitora was a pirate, he'd be able to act like Golden lion Shiki for a bit. He could allow the ships to float over the enemy territory and slowly drop them on top of them. Even if we were to put their unique applications aside, there's literally no downside to stealing devil fruits even if the power up would be insignificant in the eyes of fighters like the Yonko or the Admirals. Well, that's if it were as simple as you're suggesting at least, which I still don't agree with. By the way, to answer your question, Kaido's crew should be stronger than Blackbeard's and weaker than Shanks' right now. But Blackbeard's crew will see further powers up prior to meeting Luffy's so there's room for it to grow. Also, Kaido didn't go about stealing devil fruits, like you're suggesting it's possible to do, he could only make a zoan army thanks to SAD. And Big Mom presumably went about it the normal way (either finding them or buying them), since there is nothing to suggest she stole them like Teach does. > So I'll catch my mistake that rebounding and pliability are the displayed properties of Wapolmetal. What is not displayed is the durability/combat related perks. seiryu Chapters 694-695. And to take it a step further, Baby 5 makes a comment in episode 621, stating that General Franky wasn't damaged by attacks that would have had an effect even on a pacifista. Since the marines presumably used a strong metal / alloy to build their pacifistas with, the fact that General Franky is more resilient should be a testament of the Wapometal's durability / resilience. > Do you think Franky Shogun is based more on Wapol or Vegapunk? That's probably the best question. So what would your percentages be? It 100% cannot be Franky because we already see the limits of Franky's technology with Enies Lobby. That depends on whether or not there is another memory shape metal / alloy in the world. If there is, then Wapometal was simply the best fit but not a necessity. If that were the case, I'd say 95%~ Vegapunnk / 5% Baku Baku no Mi (since its metal is still a class above the rest). If there isn't another memory shape metal and the very existence of General Franky is dependant on the existence of Wapometal, I'd say 60-70% Vegapunk / 30-40% Wapometal. I wouldn't disagree if someone said even 50-50 in the latter scenario but I'm biased towards Vegapunk's genius so I'd like to give him more credit. > Per my norm, everything in the right context. Wapol is a weakling, and this is by even East Blue standards. The ability to fuse and use weapons he ate is why he has somewhat comparable destructive capabilities/attack power (I'd rate Arlong higher for sure). However, just like Buggy, he is kept relevant through dumb luck. The monopoly on kiddie toys is how Wapol became the royal of the random country. You should already agree that declaring war against the Government is not something most people in the One Piece world can do. Even though most of the Government sees Wapol as a clown, they have to save face and retaliate if a royal is assassinated. Wapol is indeed an absolute weakling but I think you're missing the point. It's the world government that made him a royal to presumably secure a constant supply of Wapometal for their new "Iron Man" project (you read my theory about it). If stealing a devil fruit was as simple as you're suggesting, then they could have killed him before even making him royalty and they could acquire his fruit, give it to one of their loyal subordinates and save face all at the same time. The fact that it didn't happen supports the notion that stealing devil fruits isn't as easy as you say. > Kaidou and Big Mom's crews should address the last part. But potentially even more important is Shank's crew. I forget his name, but there was what I remember as a fruit ability user sent as the messenger boy as his initiation. Context of the fighter's ability is everything. Even the Government's new power could be completely useless in the hands of someone incapable/unskilled. Was there something suggesting Rockstar was a devil fruit user? > @Yuuzume Even Shanks sees that it is pointless to accumulate unskilled fruit ability fighters. I'm not arguing against the ability to carve out a small niche/territory in the New World (that would be immediately taken over once any Yonkou decides to visit so that is moot actually). It is small. And in relevance to the remainder of the plot, it is insignificant. Sure, it doesn't compare to acquiring skilled fighters as crewmates but there's absolutely no drawback to stealing devil fruits, only benefits, like I explained earlier and at previous times. And it's not only the Yonko who'd go about stealing fruits, there would presumably even be "devil fruit user hunters" who'd hunt the weakling devil fruit users, since selling evne the weakest devil fruit would make one rich.

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