Unlike someone like Crocodile, who can turn into his element reflexively, Ace needs to be able to react, and Natsu is much faster than him, or at least had way more opportunities to demonstrate his speed. (plus, if Ace did change into his element, it would give Natsu the option of eating Ace)
What suggests that Ace needs to react? Are you judging off the RT (it says that, and I find that questionable)? I don't think anything suggests Ace is atypical as a Logia and can't automatically turn into flames to dodge.
While Natsu probably has better concrete feats for speed, I disagree with the assertion that he's straight up faster. Ace has a decent amount of scaling from characters who do have good speed feats. At the very least, the idea that Natsu could speedblitz Ace to hit him with lightning is laughable.
Finally, Natsu being able to eat the fire Ace turns into doesn't add up. Ace can exert control over his fire, and I have yet to see anything to suggest Natsu could supersede that control.
Luffy was able to hit Smoker in Alabasta because he caught Smoker off-guard (edit - he also hit Ace at the same time, in chapter 158), and Ace got his Devil Fruit fairly recently (somewhere in the three years before Luffy set out). Logia users turning intangible isn't automatic; it seems to take a lot of practice or having absurd Observation Haki like Enel does.
I don't know much about specific feats, so I can't comment on how scaling Ace to other characters would pan out. I just figure that Natsu gets stronger from Ace's fire attacks, and Ace didn't demonstrate much in the way of fighting without his Devil Fruit (he only demonstrated a single use of Conqueror's Haki, unconsciously and when he was a kid, and showed no signs of knowing the other two), so it didn't seem like there's much that Ace could do here.
i dont think it does though. is there any logia in one piece history that has had trouble becoming intangible? hell im pretty sure sabo figured it out almost instantly. logia fruits are canonically the easiest fruit to use after all (at least i remember reading that)
They don't have problems with becoming intangible, but doing so automatically (without thinking or reacting to it) seems to take practice. Ace doesn't have that, as demonstrated here, here, and here.
however i also disagree with that statement as well, thats literally the only time thats ever happened in one piece and it was a gag at that. Smoker should be very well trained in his devil fruit too since hes both a marine and of captain rank in that scene. i think its an outlier imo
True, but in Smoker's case, he spent most of his time in the East Blue dealing with pirates who would go to Logue Town (as opposed to someone like Crocodile, who spent his time on the Grand Line and was implied to be a rival/enemy of Whitebeard). The biggest active threat was Don Krieg, so he wouldn't have pushed himself, and Ace would have only gotten his Devil Fruit a year or two before the present day.
i mean that might be true had he not been a marine, i imagine the moment that a marine gets a devil fruit they are trained by someone to use it. iirc that Z guy from the movie actually existed and actually did train all the admirals in using their devil fruits, its just that the events of the actual movie didnt happen. i just cant see the military, especially one as huge as One Piece's world government, to see that one of their soldiers acquired a powerful devil fruit and was like "oh cool i guess". Smoker had to have been trained by some vice admiral or something to use his devil fruit.
has the SRS every had any topic like this? seems like something that would be asked there
edit: i mean this argument aside i think the idea that logias arnt auto intangible or that it has anything to do with their reflexes is kinda farfetched
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u/Megadoomer2 May 03 '17 edited May 03 '17
Unlike someone like Crocodile, who can turn into his element reflexively, Ace needs to be able to react, and Natsu is much faster than him, or at least had way more opportunities to demonstrate his speed. (plus, if Ace did change into his element, it would give Natsu the option of eating Ace)