Is Blackbeard the top tier right now?

[SSJ2]

I still feel like we've seen him do nothing, but with the end of the manga approaching he must be getting pretty close at the very least.

 

[Future Warrior]

We have to judge by current feats, and he unfortunately lacks them.

 

[Warmmedown]

Zoro was stronger than shown all the way up to Wano, despite not showing feats. Going by feats he was way weaker than Sanji at the end of WCI, but he obviously wasn't really.

As for BB I assume he's top tier. He's not gonna be another joke/misunderstanding yonkou (Buggy) and I don't see Oda making him fodder for narrative purposes, eg having him be weak because he's conniving and reliant on DF powers and that makes him have extremely weak haki and get one-shotted by Shanks like Kidd did. He's also always been stronger than Luffy - he could beat Ace (who was a quite strong commander) when Luffy was nowhere near, he could handle being at Marineford with only his crew for support. He's probably still around Luffy's level, which is the bottom of the top tier. He's disliked by the Whitebeard Pirates and Shanks, yet nobody has taken his territory. If he was still Ace level, Marco and co would go kick his ass.

 

[SSJ2]

The reason I'm asking is because it might give an idea of how to scale Prime Rayleigh. Rayleigh makes it sound like the only reason he wouldn't be able to beat Blackbeard was because of his age. So Prime Rayleigh > Blackbeard at the very least.

 

[Future Warrior]

We really can’t say for sure. He doesn’t have the feats of Kaido or Luffy, and I personally don’t think he’s even meant to be portrayed as such. So I have him as the weakest of the original Yonko.

 

[Symbiote]

Not saying he's the strongest pirate ever but he's up there.

 

[Warmmedown]

Is Rayleigh much weaker than pre-skip? Pre-skip he clashed evenly with Kizaru. If BB's so much stronger than that that he's confident he couldn't beat him one on one, he's top tier. Idk how he can know BB's too strong though.

 

[SSJ2]

I doubt he's weaker at all. Scopper Gaban was just introduced as a powerhouse and looks to be about Rayleigh's age. I can't see Rayleigh declining further.

 

[sei'taer]

He has two of the strongest devil fruits, and advanced conquerors.

Everything about his presentation has screamed top tier. This is like saying Shanks wasn't top tier because all we saw him do on screen was stop Akainu's punch.

Sometimes you can't look at something from a power scaling mindset, and you have to look at what the story you're reading is telling you.

 

[SSJ2]

The thread is asking if Blackbeard is the top tier, not if he is top tier. Him being top tier is obvious.

 

[Warmmedown]

You mean if there's nobody stronger than him? (sans immortality hax)

At worst he'd be Garp level. Garp probably didn't decline as much as Rayleigh and probably started stronger. Plus BB is probs stronger than Aokiji, which Garp seems to be, very slightly (at least in a short fight).
My guess is he's slightly below Shanks-level. I think he'd chicken out of fighting Shanks, because it would be a close fight, but he'd be able to win if he had a couple crew members helping him. He's not the type to fight alone, so I think Oda would have him able to beat Shanks but only via an unfair fight. Don't have any evidence though. I just think he's still ahead of luffy as he always was, and that Shanks is close to old WB's level, but WB is ahead due to his fruit+haki. BB's not shown much haki and my guess is it's not that strong. So he's the top minus tier. With a good third fruit he'll surpass Shanks.