So, how the fuck, exactly, are these guys supposed to "balance out" the Emperors?
2 of them lost to pre-skip SH, Jinbei and Doffy are strong but certainly not strong enough to stand against an emperor, Kuma is an X-factor but I doubt he's too much stronger than Jinbei or Doffy, Hancock is likely about the same, and Mihawk, even if he can stand up to an emperor, has no other allies and would be overwhelmed if he tried to face the Emperor and their crew.
Not only are the Emperors stronger individually, They all seem to have crew members who are, themselves, on the same level as the high-tier Warlords.
And Oda insists they form a "triangle" with the navy, which is also ridiculous as the navy would beat them too.
I honestly see no reason for the warlords to exist, outside of just being a cool pirate group. That's all fine and good, but to have them depicted as part of the world's power balance is just stupid. They're a moderately useful tool for the WG, thats about it.
>I honestly see no reason for the warlords to exist, outside of just being a cool pirate group They're based on the real life concept of privateers, of which the real Blackbeard was one of them.
And the point is that all 7 of them + Admirals is enough to balance out against at least one Yonko at a time.
Andrew Gray
That's not the way it's depicted at all. it's depicted as a triangle, each of the 3 powers opposing the other.
If it's simply meant to be "the warlords just backup the navy", then why would they be considered their own separate, competing power?
the whole situation makes no sense.
James Martinez
>it's depicted as a triangle, each of the 3 powers opposing the other. Where the fuck are you getting this from when it’s the Navy who hired them in the first place.
Juan Foster
Incorrect, the WG hired them. They're not the same organization, they're just ruled over by the same people.
Google "one piece power balance", the 3 groups are considered separate entities each balancing the other(supposedly)
The WG is not the navy. Cipher Pol are agents of the WG, they are not members of any naval force. It's the same for the Warlords.
There is certain overlap, since the WG has authority over them both, but they are neither the same group nor do they consider themselves allied with each other. This should be obvious in the way Warlords will casually attack marines without a second thought(Doffy, Hancock and Moria have all done this, among others)
The Warlords showed up to the war simply because the WG basically said "you either do this or we revoke your status". They were neither called by, nor under the command of, the navy.
Matthew Rodriguez
>the 3 groups are considered separate entities each balancing the other The three groups are separate power entities. That is correct, but they are not all opposing each other. It's the marines and warlords when put together are the equivalent to a yonko. Marineford made this very clear. It's true that the warlords don't always follow orders, but that's not the point. They are there for when the WG needs them to fight against a yonko otherwise they serve as a show of power to the world.
The "balancing of powers" doesn't necessarily means military strength. It's definitely a factor, but someone like mingo would have more use to the world government as a middleman to the underworld where they can make trade deals or other such services. Being able to control the flow of weapons being sent and fro the various nations of the world is huge for example.
Lincoln Hall
“That's not the way it's depicted at all”
What is ennies lobby then?
Jack Perez
The concept that the Shibhibukai hold the Yonkou in checks and balance is a concept that Oda didn't think through and later on completely abandoned. Otherwise he would never have made Doflamingos battle as ambiguous as it was. We don't even know if he was fighting at 10% deminished power, or 90%. Could be virtually any amount, really. All Oda did was show use Gamma Blade as a narrative tool to nerf him. He honestly did the same mistake with Croc and then reintroduced him later.
Gavin Jones
Influence, that is all. Why do you think buggy got an invitation? It was supposed to influence young pirates ( like Bellamy) to follow a shichibukai( who is in "good" terms with the Navy) instead of following a yonkou and made them even stronger. Remember that in one piece, power level matter, but strategy is overall preferred over absolute force.
Brody Howard
The whole thing reeks of power scaling issue, and Oda not really having a firm grasp of where he wanted later enemies to be.
Anyone who could lose a fight to pre-skip Luffy, especially pre-gears luffy, would be utterly useless at the new world level. Crocodile's DF power was treated like a huge deal back then, but as we know by modern standards having a logia is mostly irrelevant unless you have the basic combat ability to back it up
The way he was depicted in Alabasta, Crocodile was utter fodder who'd not have even been on the WG's radar. Moria too.
Charles Sullivan
>but strategy is overall preferred over absolute force. Kek
Ethan Brown
Buggy DOES have power. specifically, he has an army of badass super criminals escaped from Impel down under his total command.
Colton Brown
They wanted him mainly due to his connections with rogers and being on friendly terms with shanks.
Nathaniel Gutierrez
warlords do more harm than good for the navy anyway. soon the warlords system is gone.
Owen Sullivan
And his literal army of hundreds of hardened notorious criminals. Also they were kinda desperate, there really weren't many pirates of any real worth left to choose from, which is why even Law got in despite being a rookie.
Ryan Price
>one piece has a shit show of a story that doesn't make sense No! Gasp! Shock!
Ryan Edwards
>powerlevelfags Do you people ever bother to read the story and try to understand the narrative? Croc was stationed in Paradise and considered a hero by the nation. He is strong enough to handle himself for the area he is in and he has influence and notoriety under his name.
Caleb Wilson
Of course it's a power scaling issue. Croc jobbed to pre Gear Luffy but during the way suddenly blocked and matched Admirals and fleet generals. Oda even admitted that making Croc lose in Alabasta was a mistake. The problem is that he had to throw in some big fish to have the readers continue. Which is also why Doflamingos arc was so shit. When you go for this approach, you need to throw away cretain characters at a lower level than you might want to. I can't imagine that Oda seriously wanted Dressrosa to happen the way it did. The character was depicted as a one man genocide, the smartest schemer walking the planet who had everyone in his pocket. Yet he lost to someone who one arc later suddenly starts to struggle against Yonkou admirals. There is no actual system and he writes these battles on the go, utilizing cheap narrative tools to make the powerlevel come off as ambiguous, like he did with Doffy using Gamma Blade.
Carter Thompson
The story itself makes perfect sense, this is more just a matter of power scaling issues, which can mostly be explained with Oda not really having a firm grasp of what he wanted "strong" to be yet, way back when the warlords were first introduced.
Oda has had the overall storyline in his head from the beginning, but more specific stuff like that is smoothed over as he goes
Levi Ward
>implying he was Alabasta's hero at the time he became a warlord
He was only even accepted in Alabasta because he was already a warlord. Do you think the nation would tolerate a notorious pirate openly living there otherwise?
and he wasn't "stationed" anywhere. It's not like warlords have some posting like they're navy. They go wherever the fuck they want.
Croc was in alabasta because he was interested in Pluton, as well as taking over the country. he wasn't "stationed" there, and he already had his position prior to arriving.
Do you even read this series?
Hunter Ramirez
The WG having a previous Rogers pirate under their command is HUGE and makes them look really good to the world. It's a show of power not to fuck with them if they can get former roger pirates working for them. Strength was irrelevant in Buggy's case, but having underlies under his command helps. They wanted Weevil for the same reason. He is supposedly whitebeard's son and whether that is true or not doesn't matter. As long as the world views it that way, they are willing to turn a blind eye to him destroying nation after nation.
Julian Roberts
Hmm I can agree with this really. Oda didn't think the power scale would go this far. All I'm thinking now is how Roger ended up being able to go toe to toe with Whitebeard. I'll just headcanon it to Croc didn't get hit by someone in a while, and he never thought he would get hit in Paradise. I can use this same headcanon to explain Katakuri's loss too, sadly.
David Nguyen
In fairness though, a lot of Doffy's true danger is his ability to organize and manipulate, which has nothing to do with his combat strength.
If anything, he is INCREDIBLY strong for the type of character he is(a manipulator who likes to control things from the shadows) and it's really surprising he was so powerful even in a head to head battle.
Also, it's not like guys like Katakuri are weak. He's the strongest member of one of the 4 strongest pirate crews on the planet, and Luffy was able to beat him.(even though Katakuri had several inate advantages over him)
Doffy wasn't depicted as being weak at all, he was depicted as incredibly powerful. There is probably only a handful of people on the entire planet who could match or beat him in a fight, Luffy just happened to be one of them.
Though it should also be noted that, TECHNICALLY, Doffy won that fight. Luffy ran out of time and became helpless before he could finish Doffy. if it was just the two of them alone, Luffy would have been killed.
Parker Garcia
>I can use this same headcanon to explain Katakuri's loss too, sadly. Reread it again and this time take off your powerlevel goggles.
That's the point, retard. Oda is forced to throw away strong character all the time to continue with his "friendship and flowers" theme. Which is why Doflamingo is being beaten because of 1) Gamma Blade 2) the help of 10000 people and 3) asspulls. It's a powerscaling issue in disguise, because doing this he leaves himself the room to reintroduce the characters later. However, in Crocs case it was fucking retarded. You can't tell me that noone ever thought of water being his weakness. Albeit I still think that Doflamingos superiority still wasn't made clear enough. Half the readers will still claim that Luffy won, despite the aforementioned narrative tools being pushed into focus. The audience clearly is still too retarded to keep up.
James Sullivan
Could have phrased it better. I didn't mean to imply that the WG put him there. He ran back to paradise after getting his ass handed to him in the NW and the WG know that so him being super strong is not a requirement as he is already overkill for paradise.
>He was only even accepted in Alabasta because he was already a warlord. Do you think the nation would tolerate a notorious pirate openly living there otherwise? I could be wrong, but I vaguely remember him already being well known prior to being a warlord, which is the point I was trying to make.
Mason Clark
How was Doffy "thrown away"?
He had an entire arc dedicated to him, he was shown as this huge monstrous threat, he had a long ass, drawn out fight where he was shown to be super powerful and have tons of awesome tricks, etc.
What else would you do with him, exactly? Does it only count if like, Kaidou randomly showed up and beat him?
Also, Doffy wasn't superior to Luffy. Gear 4 completely overpowered him, he couldn't beat it. He only "won" because of the silly time restriction mechanic oda shoves into Luiffy's shit to make fake drama.
Without the "power of friendship bullshit", it just would have been G4 luffy pounding Doffy into unconsciousness from the start. the "saved by people" thing was only made possible because oda designed a mechanic to make it happen.
Evan Price
Literal retard. Gamma Blade was literally introduced as a narratively tool to nerf Doflamingo. There was no other reason for it to even exist. He's shown multiple times throughout to still suffer from it. The only thing that was overpowered was your mental capacity to keep track of all the information provided, it seems.
Jordan Butler
>Oda is forced to throw away strong character all the time to continue with his "friendship and flowers" theme. I don't know what you are trying to say here.
>It's a powerscaling issue in disguise No. It makes perfect sense for luffy to need help to win against doffy. It would be a issue if luffy somehow became strong enough to solo him.
>doing this he leaves himself the room to reintroduce the characters later It's a way to avoid showing the power ceiling that oda does often and it works. We were never shown the absolute max power of all the admirals in marineford which gives him room to work with later. It's a good thing to avoid the powercreep other battle manga fall into. I don't see the problem here.
>However, in Crocs case it was fucking retarded. You can't tell me that noone ever thought of water being his weakness. Even after luffy found out, he had to struggle. Just knowing the weakness wasn't enough to win. Not saying it's justified, but it's not as bad as you think it is.
>Half the readers will still claim that Luffy won Because retards can't understand a children's manga unless it is spelled out to them. Most westerners fail to understand the katakuri fight as well. The nips I have talked to get it no problem. It's only in the west with their huge hardon for powerlevels that they fail to understand the story.
Jonathan Davis
>but it's not as bad as you think it is. It is worse than I say it is because during Marineford Croc suddenly blocks admirals and generals. If water turns him into such a wuss that pre Gear Luffy can beat him, then you can't tell me that noone smarter than Luffy (which accounts for 98% of the main fighters in this series) would have been able to figure that out and instantly reduce Croc as a threat by throwing water at him.
Brandon Price
the only bullshit there, was how Doffy was able to save himself from death by stringing up his insides. that shit was as retarded as enel's "I shock my own heart to revive myself from death"
Just because Doffy was injured doesn't mean he was weaker than usual. Luffy fights badly injured all the time, so is he just never at 100% when he wins?
Gamma blade isn't why Luffy was able to snap right through Doffy's strings, it's not why Doffy's attacks didn't work on him.
the only asspull of Dressrossa was the fact that Oda kept pulling total BS uses for Doffy's string s entirely out of his ass, every time Doffy got into trouble.
Aiden Scott
He could have trained and gotten stronger. He's a prideful person so getting humiliated by luffy would have been a good motivator. As for the water thing, people don't generally have water available on hand to throw at opponents unless you wanted oda to draw panels of people running to the ocean to scoop some up and throw it at croc. I don't really see it as a huge issue myself.
Cameron Lopez
>He could have trained and gotten stronger. During their escapte Luffy specifically balckmails Croc and says that he knows his secret, so he better not think of betraying him. His reaction wasn't "lol I don't care", but rather serious. So no, I'd say that's rather unrealistic.
I am not gonna go through the chapters because I know that Luffy said it aswell.
Ethan Bennett
That's the only time croc's weakness was ever referenced.
Eli Robinson
They're all pretty strong. If we consider them all 100% working together, putting in the current official Warlords you've got:
>Mihawk A master swordsman that can be argued to be the strongest one there.
>Boa Hancock Strong haki user with a useful DF to boot.
>Kuma EXTREMELY hax DF user that is extremely tough alone and has another arsenal such as a laser.
>Buggy Weakest of the Shichibukai but easily the most feared and has strong guys working under him anyway. His reputation alone may be enough to scare people away from him and that's enough.
>Edward Weevil Arguably the strongest Shichibukai, if not, then the 2nd strongest. Is considered to be an absolute monster and nothing has shown to be able to stop him, not even the remnants of the fierce Whitebeard pirates were able to put him down.
So even with these 5 left(counting out Doflamingo and Law since they're no longer part of it), they are still able to collectively put up a hell of a fight against whatever emperor is facing them. Not only that, but you've got people like Garp and the rest of the Admirals and Akainu backing them up. So if you're facing all of them it will definitely be an uphill battle that'll make an Emperor actually have to do some big thinking before facing the WG directly. Not only that but they ALSO have to worry about the chance that another emperor will attack them from behind as they're battling them.
So all in all, it is all perfectly balanced. There was a reason why things were an effective stalemate.
