And Big Mom said she needed Elbaf to defeat Whitebeard... who was stabbed by a Veteran tier with no problem... Whitebeard who admitted that he no longer was the strongest...
While Shanks became an Emperor 6 years ago (or 8), and Kaido before him and all of them being a rival to Whitebeard...
There is a difference with your overall power level and your AP. Whitebeard AP didnt became weaker, since he depends a lot on his DF. But his performance, mobility, speed, etc; was just High tier or even lower since Squardo con trick him.
Example is King Elizabeth, he has Yonko AP, but his overall level is Veteran.
A more damaged Whitebeard was keeping up with Admirals, Squad stabbing him wasn’t just due to Whitebeard being weakened, but also emotional ties.
Big Mom needing Giants to beat Whitebeard applies to Sick and Old Whitebeard.
Whitebeard was no longer the strongest, but the Yonko aren’t seen as exactly equal anyway, since Kaidou was the one to bet on 1v1, despite the other Yonko existing, the Yonko are just close enough in strength that it would be a close fight between them.
Whitebeard became weaker I agree, but the fact that he still remained relevant as a Yonko, and the balance of powers continued, means he was still strong enough despite this where the other Yonko couldn’t take him out without a close fight.
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So you wanna says before shanks become emperor 6 years ago? Yonko system of balance and stelemate doesn't exist beyond 6 years ago? Big mom said she become emperor before kidd even born and for decades. Wtf is this? Everybody knows WB is
old but not everyone knows he is sick. So everyone don't underestimate him. But still
kaido is very confident to beat that version of WB that old but not sick. Prime WB will give kaido extreme diff. "Prime" WB doesn't even want to engage with young kaido. He justified it with "civilian casualties" when onigashima has no civilian there and completely Seperate from rest of wano😂. Pretty much every top tier will give extreme diff fight with each other. WB is
strongest man in his era but that doesn't mean he mid diff Roger,garp ,sengoku. That's why pirate king tier and level is just a myth. WB,Roger, garp is not level above kaido,shanks and akainu. If they fight. It gonna be extreme diff fight.
Emperors existing doesn’t mean they were in a state of balance with each other. Right now there are 4 emperors, but they aren’t in a state of balance, which is why the world is entering a battle royal scenario that Oda talked about. The emperors existing in the past doesn’t mean they were balanced in strength, the story suggests the only reason Prime Whitebeard doesn’t progress beyond Emperor to Pirate King, is he had no ambition to do so, not him being unable to due to the balance of Emperors that exists in the first part of the story.
Whitebeard was on his ship in plain sight with IV drips and nurses, Shanks wasn’t surprised to see him in this state at all ether. It’s true people didn’t know quite how sick Whitebeard was but it’s unlikely they were unaware of him being sick at all, and they certainly knew he had gotten old. No matter what they knew he wasn’t Prime anymore, but still saw him as strong enough to not try to take him on, and maintained the balance.