Kokujo Ou Tatsumaki has a radius of several hundred metres and the offensive prowess to completely overwhelm Kaido's Tatsumaki and cut him up. It oneshots Katakuri, and he has no counter for it.
Zoro has outreacted FS Luffy on several occasions:
- He reacted to Batman's arrows first.
- He warned Luffy about Apoo's attack.
- He intercepted Heavenly Fire
- He intercepted Boro Breath
- He intercepted Hakai
- Kokujo Ou Tatsumaki
- Flying slashes
I don't think current Zoro can contend with Awakened Logia admirals yet, but he deals with it however the other DFless top tiers deal with it.
- Attributing it to Advanced COC is highly unwarranted.
- Many top tiers lack comparable Devil Fruit abilities:
- Roger
- Rayleigh
- Garp
- Shanks
- Oden
Stats I think Mihawk has over Zoro:
- COA
- A black blade
- Apex of swordsmanship
- COO
- His epithet was originally clarivoyant
- Stamina
- Top tiers can fight for 10 days
- Zoro is winded after fighting for a few hours at best.
- Offensive Prowess
- Superior COA
- Superior sword
- Superior sword technique
- Defensive Prowess
- Superior COA
- Superior sword
- Superior sword technique
- CQC ability
- Superior COO
- Superior COA
- Superior sword
- Superior sword technique
I also think Mihawk is a high/top top tier though. If I'm right on where Mihawk stands in relation to Zoro, then he is probably the strongest current top tier.
Other than stamina, I think Zoro's other stats are still in the top tier range (maybe comparable to mid top tiers).
On my phone so I'm not quoting all the different parts one by one:
First the ones I disagree on:
1. Reaction speed: Batman: Dude seriously, that's something powerlevel based for you?
That's imo some random ass story scene.
Imo that goes back to personality traits and simple characterization. Nothing power level based for me entirely.
And in that Apo scene Luffy knew just aswell something's coming- How's that suppose to indicate any form of superiority?
For the two known rooftop scenes:
Similiar to Law he just has Luffy's back.
They keep an eye on him and help him out, while he's in the middle of the Yonkou trouble. That certainly does not indicate any form of superiority either for me.
Easier job to observe from a safe distance and anticipate than dealing with that stuff directly.
Or do you think Law also has superior reaction speed compared to Luffy, which you would have to assume if you base your analysis on such scenes, cause he helped him the same way.
In that one scene he even just came out of a a half dodged Thunder Bagua, an attack no one besides him is factually able to dodge, cause they lack exactly that one ability that makes you even able to react to it somewhat in the first place. It's actually a positive feat for Luffy.
Which would also by my stance on that matter. FS just as the name says, is the golden standard here. By default everyone is inferior in reaction speed, logically.
As further noticed at hand of the hakai scene where Luffy reacts the first aswell this chapter.
2. I don't see how Tatsumaki or air slashes deal with that environmental effect as they spawn right below your feet.
That stuff still means trouble imo.
The guys you named are pretty much the only ones that don't have anything I named as a counter-besides Garp and his Geppou.
I personally assume that Roger and Shanks would have something CoC based for that.
But that's only headcanon for now, obviously.
But I expect it to be one aspect that might later really pull down those guys' overall levels a little, cause they might not really have a real solution for it.
But wait and see like you mentioned aswell.
That Tatsumaki argument is a nice one though. I will add that to my arsenal.
Especially when Zoro learns to control those max flow haki techs even w/o Enma and bumps the power of three blades full of overflowing haki into it.
Tatsumaki then gets even much more powerful.
Indeed diffiuclt to see how guys below top tier would be able to deal with it.
Nice one, didn't think of that.