@Nubtro:
Sanji: "There´s gotta be a better way to break through his dino toughness."
I thought his fire imbued kicks (adding a special property to a physical hit) could penetrate strong physical defenses, like against Jabra in the past.
During the timeskip, he also learned Armament Haki, so his attack power must be way higher than before.
But even that doesn´t seem to be enough, Dofla blocked his kick barrage with his arm, now Queen just shrugged off a named special attack of his a couple of times.
We´ve yet to see Hells Memories, would that work? Would be hilarious if Queen had a built-in fire extinguisher…
Sanji awakening a Terminator/Wolverine body helps a lot with his tankiness, but I do wonder, does it really improve his attack power?
I think there are two possibilities here for how Sanji could tackle this.
1. Since he mentioned specifically "There's gotta be a better way to break through his dino toughness." The answer I feel staring us in the face is Ryuo. Ryuo is a possible solution to this question, but I think it's unlikely he will develop this on the spot. I'm not ruling it out, but due to Oda's past portrayal of Sanji's Armament Haki skills I'm unsure of a large development like this taking place. My reasoning being is that, as far as I can tell Oda has purposefully never shown Sanji using COA Hardening on panel to this point. It's really odd when you think about it, he's never set aside a panel where Sanji stands and uses it, compared to almost everyone else. He also wasn't present at Luffy's lesson or display of Ryuo because he wasn't at the jail/on the roof to witness Luffy smashing Kaido, so he didn't get to have a moment like Zoro, Kid, Killer and Law did, where he recognizes that there is another level of Haki.
!
Oda has his reasons for placing characters in different places and letting them see or comment on things, but I feel like if Sanji was supposed to use Ryuo, he would have some kind of acknowledgment of it like these characters.
2. The other possible solution is a hotter form of Diable Jambe. Now, we know through Luffy that, in order to defeat Yonkou Commander level opponents, you do not necessarily need Ryuo. (Doffy, Cracker, and Katakuri). However you do need to be able to hit considerably hard. I was always curious on how Oda was going to take characters like Zoro and Sanji to the next level, because Gear 4th was such a massive step up that anything less comparable for Zoro and Sanji to take on commanders would seem odd. Now we know he has his latent genes awakened now, and is still reluctant to use the suit. But maybe there's a possibility that his "metal" exoskeleton allows his Diable Jambe to burn considerably hotter and not damage him, and that leads a new way of doing more damage. As interesting as having an exoskeleton is, which drastically buffs his defense, we've seen first hand that offensively it's negligable, with Katakuri being able to damage Ichiji relatively quickly.
And because we are in the endgame of One Piece now, there's a lower chance that Oda might combine both Ryuo and this new Diable Jambe, which is really unlikely, but hey I didn't expect Sanji to even be able to fight Queen at this point, but here he is. I look forward to seeing how both Zoro and Sanji win their fights.