Monkey D. Luffy has one of the most versatile Devil Fruits a pieceAnd this has given him many unique forms or transformations. However, since Gear 5 was introduced, it has become Luffy's most reliable form. As such, the likes of Gear 4 and many others have been forgotten, but a piece Elbaf Arc has done a wonderful job of fixing this. This arc not only brought back the power of the Gear 4, but also significantly upgraded it in many ways to make it reusable. Despite being Gear 5, Luffy now has a new advanced form of Gear 4 that Oda will use on him in battle many times from here on out.
One Piece: Luffy's 5 most powerful attacks that can defeat Yonko, ranked
Luffy is powerful, and his super powerful attacks can even take down Yonko in one piece.
How the latest arc improves Gear 4 with a small upgrade
One Piece's Elbaf arc gave fans a big surprise when Luffy tapped into Gear 4th at the beginning. When the Elbaf arc begins, Luffy and the East Blue Straw Hats, along with Chopper, find themselves in Road's diorama. Believing it to be the real Elbaf, the group can't find their way out until Luffy hits a wall with an improved version of Gear 4. Luffy calls his upgraded Gear 4 'Mini Gear 4' and sees it tap into this power without ever receiving a full transformation, making it incredibly usable and less taxing. It fixed one of the biggest bugs that the Gear 4 suffered from when it followed the introduction of the Gear 5.
Why Sun God Nick made Gear IV obsolete
When Gear 5 was introduced in the Wano Country arc, Gear Four was automatically made obsolete due to its incredibly taxing stamina drain and lack of firepower. Gear 2 and 3 may not be as strong, but they don't consume much of Luffy's stamina. He could continue to use them in battle for a long time, so they were still usable for him, but Gear 4 was a different question entirely.
It required a lot of hockey to put it to use, and above all, it didn't even remotely compare to the Gear 5 in terms of overall power output. As such, using Gear 4 was absolutely unnecessary for Luffy, and Gear 5 essentially killed it. But now it has been brought into play once again.
Unique application of Luffy's upgraded abilities
When Luffy used his fourth gear on Egghead, it was clearly insufficient, but Elbaf has completely fixed this by introducing Mini Gear 4. This little upgrade is important, because now, Luffy can tap into it using parts of his body. For example, Luffy can use the power of Kong Gun without wearing Gear Four on his entire body. Instead, his hand only transforms into Gear 4. He can use powers like the King Kong Gun or any other ability without using Gear 4 to spread through his body.
3 Yonko level female characters in one piece
One Piece has many powerful female characters, but few of them are of Yonko level.
I call it…Mini Gear 4! – Luffy, Elbaf
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This eliminates the stamina drain issue and more than that, allows him to retain this power for an extended battle, giving him more access to additional abilities in his base form. Mini Gear 4 has completely revived this transformation and made it one of the most versatile figures in the story.
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Evaluating Straw Hat Yonko's overall power level
At this point, Luffy is a much better user of Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika than before. His control in Gear 2 and Gear 3 is absolutely incredible. At this point, there are no weaknesses that he suffers from when it comes to these two gears. Gear 4 is now fully mastered by him where he can tap into parts of his body in the blink of an eye. Gear 5 still suffers from a small stamina drain, but it's clear that Elbaf is slowly working it out, Luffy hasn't suffered from any drain issues yet.
On top of that, Luffy is upgrading his Haki significantly during this time. He's finally learned the secret to hurting the Immortals of a fragmented world, and by the end of this arc, he'll probably even strike out with an emu, making him stronger than ever. It may not be obvious on the surface, but Luffy is slowly making progress when it comes to using his Devil Fruit.
His body is also adapting to awakening, and it is clear that he is much stronger than before. Following Elbaf, Luffy may be ready for bigger challenges, like Shanks, and fans can't wait to see that.
One Piece Chapter 1177 will be available to read on Manga Plus on March 22, 2026.
- Release date
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October 20, 1999
- network
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Fuji TV
- directors
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Hiroaki Miyamoto, Konosuke Uda, Junji Shimizu, Satoshi Ito, Munehisa Sakai, Katsumi Tokoro, Yutaka Nakajima, Yoshihiro Ueda, Kenichi Takeshita, Yoko Ikeda, Ryota Nakamura, Hiroyuki Kakudou, Takahiro Noimauji, Tokahiro, Enoji Maudo Shishido, Hidehiko Kadota, Sumio Watanabe, Harume Kosaka, Yasuhiro Tanabe, Yukihiko Nakao, Keisuke Onishi, Junichi Fujise, Hiroyuki Satou
- The authors
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Jin Tanaka, Akiko Inoue, Junki Takegami, Shinzo Fujita, Shouji Yonemura, Yoshiyuki Suga, Atsuhiro Tomioka, Hirohiko Usaka, Michiru Shimada, Isao Murayama, Takuya Masumoto, Yoichi Takahashi, Momoka Toyoda
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Mayumi Tanaka
Monkey d. Luffy (voice)
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Kazuya Nakai
Roronoa Zoro (voice)
