So Zoro's been mentally nerfing himself?
How does that even make sense for his character to think oh that's just a power for captains... From a man who desires to be the strongest swordsman in the world. So Zoro genuinely thought he'd become the strongest without CoC.
This writing is so ass.
And so all of Zoro's good feats since Wano have been due to him inadvertently using ACoC, i.e., pushing back Venus, bodying Lucci after being triggered... and all of his ass feats have been the moments where he wasn't accidentally using ACoC, i.e., being matched by Lucci/the seraphim etc...
And now he can consistently use ACoC at will and send haki bolts at people. Aight man.