Another Anti-King thread? Seriously, how many of these threads do we need. We get it. Some don't like King because he was Zoro's opponent and beat the same Zoro that outperformed every other rooftop SN and bested Kaido.
The closer we get to ZKK the more anti-Zoro threads appear.
King has a strong durability/defense, even out of flame mode. It doesn't disappear when his flames are off.
Non-flame mode King clashed with Zoro's ultra tiger hunt attack with his wing/body and took some of the attack to the face without sustaining any damage.
Some need to go back and re-read what I just wrote and chapter 1027 because they don't
understand the manga.
While Kaido was cut by Zoro's dragon twister.
Non-flame mode King wasn't cut or injured by Zoro's ultra tiger hunt, a stronger attack than dragon twister.
Anyone who claims King doesn't have a strong durability/defense outside of flame mode is clearly pushing headcannon and going against Oda and manga facts.
The evidence doesn't stop there. The only time we saw Zoro hurt King once you figure out King's flame mode power was with ACoC attacks.
Example, Zoro cut King with a ACoC version of Bird Dance.
That further supports King's durability/defense outside of flame mode since Zoro only hurt King with ACoC.
King is fast in and out of flame mode and has invincible speed. The manga doesn't have to literally write everything out for us.
The scene shows King can use invisible speed by having him move so fast he becomes invisible to Zoro.
It's funny how some thing Sanji is incredibly fast and one of the fastest characters because his speed allowed him to become invisible to Queen, who has zero high speed feats. Yet, King's speed allowing him to become invisible to Zoro, who has several high speed feats against fast characters isn't impressive.
Ok
Just because a character is incredibly fast and can use invisible speed doesn't mean he will use that speed all the time. Sanji doesn't use his invisible speed all the time. King didn't use that level of speed until after Zoro was able to hurt him. Naturally, that makes sense since he didn't need to use that level of speed earlier.
CQC wouldn't have worked against Zoro since Zoro has the power to cut through King blackened haki coated sword.
If King tried that against Zoro he would have still lost.
The reason King exited his flame mode or entered his faster mode was because he believed Zoro could hurt him in flame mode so by becoming faster it increased his chances of evading Zoro's attack. He then increased the distance between him and Zoro, he moved away from Zoro and the island, to decrease the chance of Zoro hitting him as well.
Here's the scenes where Zoro calls King out about changing his fighting style and asked King if he is afraid Zoro could hurt him.
King's avoids the question and respond saying Zoro is not capable of beating him. Then increases his distance from Zoro.
If Zoro couldn't hurt King in flame mode he wouldn't have avoided the question.
Unfortunately for King it wasn't enough and he was blitzed by Zoro.
That was because ACoC is a buffer and can increase the user speed. Zoro used it to increase his speed and blizted King.
Anyone who don't believe me just need to look at base Luffy vs hybrid Kaido where Luffy kept up with hybrid Kaido thanks to his ACoC.
Anyone can see there was no plot hole just people who can't comprehend the manga.