[Discussion] The Big Mom Pirates have been a disappointment

[Gladius]

All of them except for the Sweet Commanders have been a disappointment so far.

It took several attacks from Big Mom to put down Brook, and Brook actually managed to damage Prometheus

Randolph, Brulee, and Diesel got fodderized by Carrot and Chopper.

Opera got one-shot by a low level attack from Jinbe.

Bobbin never got to do anything. He did get ambushed by both Sanji and Capone, but he got several bruises from Sanji's kick and his bounty is really low. The only thing I wouldn't count against him is getting shot by Capone since he had no reason to expect Capone to attack him.

Wtf is Oda doing with them? Is he just trying to rush through fights?

 

[Punk Hazard]

All of them except for the Sweet Commanders have been a disappointment so far.

It took several attacks from Big Mom to put down Brook, and Brook actually managed to damage Prometheus

Randolph, Brulee, and Diesel got fodderized by Carrot and Chopper.

Opera got one-shot by a low level attack from Jinbe.

Bobbin never got to do anything. He did get ambushed by both Sanji and Capone, but he got several bruises from Sanji's kick and his bounty is really low. The only thing I wouldn't count against him is getting shot by Capone since he had no reason to expect Capone to attack him.

Wtf is Oda doing with them? Is he just trying to rush through fights?

To be fair, blows from Sengoku and Kizaru hit Luffy head on, and didn't take him down instantly. Kizaru was hitting Supernova multiple times at Sabaody, and he didn't take them down with one shot, and he's easily on the level of the Emperors. I don't know why the hell you'd expect them to be able to take down these guys with just one hit.

Secondly, Brook has a unique interaction with Promotheus. It has nothing to do with his level of combat prowess, but his Devil Fruit. There's a reason Brook is the only person in history to harm the Big 3 Homies despite Big Mom being active during Roger's era. Unless you think Brook is just that better than Roger and the Emperors now.

Thirdly, Brook barely did any damage to them. Promotheus literally needed one band-aid and Big Mom noted he was being a little crybaby and it was nothing serious. You're acting like Brook put Promotheus in a wheelchair.

 

[Rikudou Tobi]

Brook's devil fruit was the perfect counterattack to Big's devil fruit and whatever Sanji, Luffy, and Jinbei did to the enraged army is just a testament to how strong they are and not how weak Big mam pirates are.

Put any other non yonkou pirate in that situation and things would've been over a lot sooner.

 

[Love Cook]

So your problem is with Brulee, Randolph and Diesel.

When you look at the Big Mom hierarchy then you have Big Mom on top as the emperor.

followed by 3(or 4) sweet commanders

Then you have bishops like Bobbin, Brulee, Amande, Opera, Mont D'or and those 2 small giants who gave the final blow to Luffy.

And even those have henchmen like Diesel and Randolph.

So at the very very bottom you have the henchmen, of the henchmen of the henchmen. Who got taken out by carrot and Chopper.

Opera was only a double henchman, enter Jimbei.


But even if you take all that into account, they barely chipped away at big mom or her military force. They are still in very bad shape, running and hiding in the mirror world. 2 chapters ago Bobbins got a title, a bounty and saw a glimpse of his devil fruit. If you really think he is down and out now, you're mistaken. He is being used to introduce a new plot twist.

Big Mom has an armada of allies and wedding guests heading her way, there is a squad of strong ability users on the island and a small army of canon fodder.

Against 5 Strawhats, 2 minks and a fishman.

So it's only natural that the SH's got handed some small victories because otherwise they would get wiped on that island. Look at how much trouble they already gave the SH's. Nami and Luffy were captured, Chopper and Carrot were captured, Pedro was about to get beaten, Brook got beaten. Jimbe was playing games with big mom.

They were all down and out already, I think it is too easy to say that the Big Mom pirates are a disappointment. They came as close as beating the main character as you're going to get. The real fight is about to start, and it is not in Luffy's favor.

 

[Olorin]

I saw this complaint a lot the last few weeks :/

I, on the other hand, think this is exactly what we should have been expecting. We already saw a Yonko crew ... in an actual war. Of the WB pirates only the commanders up to Vista were in the higher tiers, the rest weren't anything special. And that is to be expected. For some reason people don't see that the characters we frequently see in the manga are almost all in the small percentage of outlandishly strong, keep in mind that even the average marine (who liffy could easily one shot at the beginning) is stronger than a normal human in OP. Losing to Chopper or Carrot certainly doesn't make you weak, far from it, farther still if you lose to Jinbe, who is one of the strongest characters in the OP world.

 

[Kushina89]

i agree tbh
the opponents and the way oda is doing the arc is as disappointing as dressrosa..

 

[Caliburn]

Tbh this seems to more of a rant for the sake of ranting rather than having anything substantial supporting it.

Most of this has already been said, but anyway none of the highest-tier fighters are continuously one-shotting people. Putting aside that that would get quite boring after a while, why would any Yonkou or admiral be serious about every single opponent that's obviously far below their level? Also don't forget where BM and Brook were fighting as even a loose cannon as BM wouldn't be so stupid to go all out in her own precious treasure room right in the middle of her own castle. Not to mention she expressed genuine interest in Brook as a must-have addition to her collection, so she definitely held back to make sure Brook wouldn't be damaged too severely. There's also much more to a fight than mere strength and power, compatibility as in important factor likewise and Brook happens to be highly compatible with BM's DF powers. Luffy shouldn't have been able to beat Enel either, but his rubber cancelled out Enel's lightning.

Randolph and Diesel were originally just a rabbit and a locomotive. Because of being inserted with a soul, they became (more) sentient and stronger, but in the end they are really not part of BM's elite fighting force. They're useful to let them to jobs and tasks that will only involve mediocre opponents, but that's about it. BM also has over a hundred children. Did you now expect that all of them would be introduced and that they would be über-powerful? As far as we know characters like Opera and Brulee don't even have bounties, but somehow Opera should have been able to take on Jinbei?

And in regards to Bobbins, the truth is people hyped him up for no reason whatsoever. Just because he was shown having a short convo with BM when the latter was shown for the first time in the flesh, people assumed he was one of her strongest subordinates. Now we learned that that is really not the case, which disappointed a lot of people. That however was not Oda's fault as he never did anything in particular for Bobbins to receive such hype.

Personally I like how Oda handled this arc as it's different from how it usually is. There's also no shortage of characters here, so it's impossible to give all of them enough battle screen time.