@Shishou:
You all seem to assume if Lucci fought Crocodile, he wouldn't know his weakness. Lucci is a World Government person. He would know of who Crocodile is, and what his abilities are. If worst came to worse, he could use a Seastone weapon like Smoker does, and use his speed to get Crocodile with it. But I am sure, someone as smart as Lucci and being in the World Government where I am sure they do lots of Devil Fruit research. He would know right when fighting Crocodile, that Sand element's weakness would be water or fire. Either turn sand into mud, or glass.
Croc being a shichibukai, would probably know of the CP organization. And would have an idea of what to expect from Lucci.
Luffy didn't even know who Crocodile was when he fought him. He is simply the guy who's ass he needs to kick. Luffy beats Crocodile in the end, when he finally finds a way to hit him, and then it is pretty down hill for Crocodile. The only real threat he posed at that point, was his poison hook.
Luffy found out how to beat Croc after his first encounter, and even with Luffy attempting to keep himself wet and hyrdated, Luffy still almost died. Luffy quite frankly got lucky and that was only due to the fact that he's this stories hero.
-Lucci would be TOO FAST to be touched by anything of Crocodiles.
-Lucci could possibly hit Crocodile before Croc could even react fast enough to turn into sand, if Logia users don't automatically do it.
-Lucci can hit harder, much harder, than Luffy could when Luffy beat Crocodile.
-Lucci is smart, unlike Luffy. He would discover Crocodile's weakness much faster, if not know it beforehand.
-Did I mention non of Crocodile's attacks could actually touch Lucci? Who can dodge them all, move to fast to be caught, or even "fly" in the air. And even his poison can't scratch Lucci if it did hit him, with Tekkai?
there are multiple threats to a sand storm, Croc could imoblize Lucci with a series of sand storms. Lucci may be fast but he can't predict when and how the sand storms will react. After Lucci is imoblized within the sandstorm, Croc could use his sand body to go into the sandstorm to where lucci is and suck him dry. Heck Croc could simily remain in his intagiable state within a sand dune and keep pummeling Lucci with storms and whatever he wishes.
Also what could would a soaked Shigan do? Doing so requires speed, speed creates friction. Thus most of the moisture on the finger of the shigan would either be blown away in the wind (from moving in for the kill), or be evaporated dry. Much less when it hits croc, if there isn't enough moisture on the finger then it won't hurt him anyway (otherwise sweat would be enough to hurt croc). And using shigan gets Lucci within Crocs grasp from between his hand of death and his poisoned hook. Tenkai while it would make his body like iron, it won't be iron. And poison being a liquid, it will get into any cuts and scratches that lucci has on his body and that'd be it.
But once a logia's weakness is found, they are pretty weak.
And? How is this different from other DF users? It took luffy two attempts at knowing Crocs weakness to be able to take him down. And what of Luffy's weaknesses? Heat, slicing, freezing, and using your brain. With more weaknesses than Croc has, why hasn't the WG taken him out yet?
Heck most likely the WG already knew Crocs weakness before he became a shichibukai, if exploiting it was so easy then why couldn't they do it?
Ace is a different story. He has always been stronger than Luffy pre
-Devil Fruit. Plus he isn't a complete idiot. So even without his Logia DF powers, he would still pose a big threat to someone. Crocodile posed little threat once Luffy actually found a way to hit him. Enel found a way around it, with the Gold, but in the end, Luffy still chased him down and beat him down hardcore.
I disagree, Luffy was only really able to defeat Croc and Enel is because he's has stupid power, aka he doesn't know when to give up and no matter how much he shouldn't win, he keeps on trying til he gets what he wants. If Luffy wants, he could probably beat Smoker too, or White Beard or whomever else that gets in his way if he is motivated enough.
Look at Ao Kiji…. Robin sure did wet herself when she saw him, but was fine trying to kill Crocodile.
You forget her mind setting. Nico resigned herself to death after he didn't discover the true history when she worked under Croc. When she meet Ao Kiji again, she didn't want her newly made friends to suffer. She at that point had something to lose. And since she hasn't found a way to beat him yet, you damn will bet that she'll be scared. Especially when she has a young and somewhat naive group of friends with her that never encountered Ao Kiji before and haven't had any time to come up with a plan.
Man, you all really underrate Lucci, and the growth of the Strawhats since Alabasta. Crocodile was a good villian, and had a strong devil fruit. But his bounty was still less than 1/3 of Donflamingo's. And bounties tend to be what Oda gives to us to compare strengths of pirates. And high bounties are used, to put fear into other pirates.
Remember the quote about the bounties. Crocs bounty was the affective bounty before he became a shichikukai. Who is to say that the WG offers the shichibukai at the same point in time for a said pirate. Perhaps they asked Croc eariler in his pirate career to join than Bear or MiHawk. Perhaps one of the former shichibukai had become underarrest (similar to Croc) and they needed a replacement and Croc was the most feared pirate at the time that was interested in the deal. Heck, look at Sanji. He's able to deal with people with bounties over 50k, but doesn't have one himself yet. Its possible that at that point in time Croc didn't have as much of a chance to do damage to the WG as other Shichibukai members have.
