How is that different?
Its the same arguement of potential. Honestly I didn't go back far enough. Remember when he spent 3 years in a drug induced coma while Oro altered him... See when you take these things away... he loses a ton of potential doesn't he? Just like you're saying without Kurama he stops at pain, for arguements sake... sure he stops there, but without Curse mark, Oro drug cocktails and Itachi's eyes...where would sauce be?
You really don't understand what we're even debating about.
Let me make this clear.
This is a debate about total potential. The claim was that
even without the Kyuubi, Naruto's potential to become strong at any costs surpassed Sasuke's. If you still don't understand somehow, I don't know what to tell you. This is the most simple way to explain it to you.
Without the Kyuubi, Naruto's potential stops at the Invasion of Pain. No other teacher on earth could take him past that level, and the only way he could exceed it was with the Kyuubi. Period. Of course he would natrally learn to better gather his chakra, but in the long run, this wouldn't place him much higher in the tiers.
Sasuke's total potential is EMS. As Sasuke is not being nerfed in any way for the purposes of this debate, his total power level continues up to the moment he fought Madara, meaning EMS, Enton, Kirin, Multiple Chidori Variants, Multiple Summoning Contracts etc.
I fear that you still don't understand. This isn't about borrowed power or brotherly eyes or anything of the sort.
This is simply Kyuubi-less Naruto's total power vs. Sasuke's unadulterated total power. Understand?