Character speeches can sometimes give hints. Lucci made it sound like his on the same level as admirals when talking to Zoro about them having no chance.
That's a bit far lol.
Lucci got dominated by G5, while Kizaru went kinda even with G5 until the finale where he got downed with that punch.
Lucci took shots with no haki.
Kizaru took a shot with ACOC.
If Luffy hit Lucci with White Star Gun, he would literally be dead.
Maybe, but it's all headcanon and interpretations really.
At this point, I've given up trying to figure out what's no haki, advanced armament or advanced conqueror's in Egghead arc. It's upto guesses at this point, since Loda is very inconsistent when it comes to drawing haki. To the point we have to rely on headcanon to at least some degree, cause nothing is explained for shit.
As far as Loda is concerned, Luffy may very well be using advanced conqueror's in both fights, but just wasn't drawn. We don't know
We can at least assume Luffy was using advanced armament against Lucci, since well they had that clash with a lot of lightning showing up.
The only reason I don't presume Luffy used advanced conqueror's there is that I don't believe Lucci can clash equally with G5 Luffy using advanced conqueror's (i.e headcanon, a lot of headcanon is needed here cause Loda is shit with haki)
With Kizaru, probably the last attack was advanced conqueror's. Could be advanced armament as well, who knows?
I will just assume advanced conqueror's I guess, because it had thicker lightning, but also mainly because I don't think Kizaru would be down by one hit without advanced conqueror's haki.
we just overrated characters out buddy like Luffy and Admirals and sentomaru, and downplayed some of them like Oden and Old legends and 5 elders !
1/ Luffy was stated after wano by fandom to be someone who has surpassed Kaido now after this fight you can see His level to be below that , especially when he stated to be old Rayleigh level .
2/ ppl thought Admirals would beat Shanks , Kaido who are considered to be the two strongest yonko but after this fight you can see how things turned out Kizaru basically used all of his arsenal besides probably awakening while let's not forget that Luffy has BG and just used adv CoC ! and if he doesn't have awakening it's just down bad ; but we can confirm after Kuzan and Kizaru fought that they only have Advanced form of CoA and no CoC and basic CoO ! and basically they are mid top tiers with BM and Oden and Old Legends ... below Shanks , Kaido , Prime Legends ....
3/ who would have thought the ppl who we all stated to be low top tier would be enough to take a stalemate if not straight up gaining an advantage against admirals and this is Kizaru who ranks as No. 2 second only to Akainu based on portrayal ; Old rayleigh basically had him getting stopped on his tracks ; Old Garp made Aokiji his clown ; old Saturn showing crazy feats by low diffing a YC 1 in sanji ; Oden who is on old rayleigh Tier and who also ppl downplayed because he went out from a basic club attack ( Sanji went out from a scabbard hit in TB ) while it was just because Oden reached his limit while he was about to beat kaido in two hits .
Yeah Overall; I thank Oda for clarifying things out lol
I've always believe Luffy was mid top-tier. Amongst the Yonkos, I had him above Big Mom and Marineford WB, but below other Yonkos. And <= Oden, if that counts for anything.
But yeah, prior to this, I always had the OG admirals above current Luffy, while new admirals below him.
At this point, I guess only maybe Akainu is clearly above Luffy
Akainu > current Luffy ~ Kizaru ~ Aokiji > Fuji ~ GB
And quite honestly, it is arguable that someone like Kaido would not even need extreme diff to take down Kizaru,
high diff might be enough. Since well, Kaido can fight at the level of G5 Luffy without the time limit (once Kaido got used to G5's wack combat, he was fighting evenly or maybe even started getting the better of him in CQC).