DETERMINING THE STRONGEST STRAW-HAT CREW MEMBER, LOOKING ONLY AT THEIR SKILLSETS

Matching up all straw-hats against each other, who wins and who loses?

Remember, this is just for fun.
I will look at each of the straw hats as they would logically fight given their set of skills and weaknesses, and I will completely ignore things that are hard to measure, like strength or speed. They are all equally fast, their haki (if they have it) is equally strong, and they have no sense of honor.

I am not taking Luffy’s emperor Haki into account, because it’s impossible to know which of the Straw-Hats have strong enough wills to resist it. Furthermore, since Franky’s strength is his robots, he starts every fight inside Franky Shogun, and Jinbe has access to an ocean.

Luffy

Zoro

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Defense

– Observation Haki

Attack

– Ranged slices

– More swords

– Armament Haki

Sanji

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Defense

– Fire resistance

– Sky Walk

– Observation Haki

Attack

– Fire kicks

– Armament Haki

Weakness

– Women

Robin

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Attack

– Unavoidable neck-snapping

Weakness

– Damage to clones carry back

– The sea

Nami

Defense

– Illusions

Attack

– Lightning

Usopp

Brook

Jinbe

Defense

– Hiding underwater

– Blubber

Attack

– Ranged Water punch

– Armament Haki

Franky

Defense

– Steel body

– Airtight

Attack

– General Cannon

Weakness

– Running out of fuel

Chopper

So this is how it turns out:

I’ll address this immediately: Luffy loses against Zoro because he’s weak against slice and pierce damage. He wins against Sanji because he’s strong against blunt attacks. He loses against Jinbe because Jinbe is a hard counter towards all devil fruit users.

I had to reluctantly give Zoro and Sanji a tie. I am not declaring a tie because they always tie in the manga! Sigh. It’s because the only difference between their abilities on paper is that Zoro has a ranged attack while Sanji has skywalk. So Zoro could try to keep a distance and pepper Sanji from a range, but Sanji’s increased mobility + observation haki means he’s almost impossible to hit from a range. So yes, this matchup is exactly like canon.

Jinbe wins against Zoro and Sanji, because while it’s much the same as the matchup between Zoro and Sanji, the difference is that Jinbe’s attack cannot be dodged because you can’t see the path of his punch, not even with observation haki. He also has the option of hiding in water, thus forcing the match to become ranged – or for his opponent to throw himself into the waves in an attempt to fight him. This demonic strategy is what earns him so many victories.

Sanji instantly loses against the girls because all they have to do is strip and he dies of bloodloss.

The poorest performance is Chopper who won no match-ups. His sensitive nose means he is weak to Usopp’s exotic attacks (remember rafflasia?), but even without that he probably wouldn’t have won, since he has no ranged options. Nami and Usopp can simply pepper him with attacks from a range until they win.

Brook wins a lot of matchups simply because very few straw hats are capable of resisting his illusions. I have taken into account that they can cover their ears, however, they cannot attack with their hands while doing that, so Sanji is the only one still capable of his strongest attack. Robin wins because she can snap his neck before he can use his illusions. He manages a surprising victory against Jinbe, despite Jinbe’s natural superiority against devil fruit users, because there is no water in Brook’s body, which negates Jinbe’s ranged water punch. In a matchup against Franky, Brook loses because Franky is inside the Shogun.

Usopp loses all matchup that sees him against a Haki user, because they can avoid his ranged attacks. Usopp can attack from a range with a host of exotic bullets, but if they avoid them it’s meaningless, and ultimately he can only get a few shots off before his opponent closes the gap.

Nami’s lightning ignores Armament Haki, but ultimately she loses most of her fights because both her attack and defense take a bit of time to set up, so if her opponent has a faster ranged attack, there is little she can do to defend.

Franky is pretty much invincible unless you can break steel, but it’s just his bad luck that a lot of his crewmates can do exactly that with the help of armament Haki. Furthermore, observation Haki can avoid bullets. He wins against Usopp, because Shogun is airtight, and Usopp’s exotic bullets would have little effect. He also wins against Nami, because the shogun works as a faraday cage.

Robin is another one who loses against armament Haki. Robin also loses against Franky, because of his steel body making it impossible for her to break his neck.

*Theory by Birdy