Strongest Five Elders in ONE PIECE, Ranked

1. Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro — the only complete Haki set

Nusjuro is first because his strongest claim is also his best-documented one, and it does not rest on a single panel.

All three types of Haki, in three separate scenes. Conqueror's: he clashed with Zoro — himself a Conqueror's user — and black lightning erupted from the collision, the effect the series reserves for two such users meeting (ch. 1117). Armament: he blocked and clashed evenly against Zoro's two Haki-infused high-grade blades (ch. 1117), and hardens his own blade with it. Observation: he read the life signs inside Egghead's Labophase (ch. 1115). No other Elder has more than two types cited, and none of the other four has an individually-cited Armament showing at all.

The sword is not a detail. He wields Shodai Kitetsu, the original blade of the cursed Kitetsu line and one of the twelve Supreme Grade Blades — the highest tier of sword in the world (ch. 1117). He has been shown polishing it himself.

The rest of the kit. In beast form he crossed Egghead's shore and disabled the Pacifista in rapid succession, freezing them from the inside without external damage — Marines on the island could barely register that he was there (ch. 1110). A ranged air slash split the Labophase layer of Egghead outright, and Bonney's read on him was that he could cut through anything (ch. 1115). His hind legs kicked a charging giant backwards (ch. 1113).

2. Topman Warcury — the measured one

Warcury is second by the narrowest margin on this board, and on one axis — how hard he is to hurt — he is first outright.

Sabo put a point-blank fire fist into him and it did not trouble him (ch. 1085). But the load-bearing evidence is Luffy. Luffy struck him with Gomu Gomu no Red Roc and hurt his own hand doing it while Warcury stood unfazed (ch. 1112, p. 14–16) — and that same technique had breached Kaidou's bodily defence (ch. 1000, p. 16–19), which is the cleanest benchmark available anywhere in this ranking. Later Luffy hit him again with an Armament-imbued giant fist in Gear 5 and hurt his hand a second time (ch. 1114, p. 14–15).

The counter-datapoint, which most rankings leave out. Warcury is not untouchable. The colossal Iron Giant struck him hard enough to break one of his tusks and draw blood (ch. 1119, p. 11–13) — as far as the record goes, the only time anyone visibly damaged him. It does not undo the Luffy panels, but a durability case that quotes only the Luffy panels is a flattered one, so it belongs here.

On offence he converts his tusks into blades, tackles hard enough to send the Iron Giant flying, and in full form his roars carry Conqueror's Haki (ch. 1111). Like his colleagues he stayed conscious through Joy Boy's Conqueror's Haki when Emet released it — the burst that knocked out every Vice Admiral in range (ch. 1125).

3. Marcus Mars — the only one who can leave

Mars transforms into an itsumade: a vast bird with a serpentine body and a human face (ch. 1110). Two things follow from that shape.

He flies freely — he reached Egghead's Labophase under his own power (ch. 1110) — and he fires energy beams (ch. 1112), the cleanest ranged offence of any Elder. He also took a point-blank fire blast from Sabo without difficulty (ch. 1085).

His Conqueror's Haki is cited to a single panel (ch. 1115, p. 4) on the group entry, and his own character entry carries no Haki section at all. We have kept it as confirmed and flagged the thinness rather than dropping it. He ranks below the top two because his defensive record is thinner — surviving Sabo is real, but it is not a top-tier attacker hurting themselves on you.

4. Shepherd Ju Peter — real, and thinly documented

Ju Peter becomes a colossal sandworm that burrows and, most distinctively, swallows whole stretches of his surroundings and expels them again later (ch. 1110, 1112). At that scale it is not a small ability.

He is fourth because his file is the shortest, and the audit made it shorter. His Observation Haki is attributed at group level, not individually. The Five Elders entry says "all Elders (sans Garling) have showcased Observation Haki" and cites three chapters between them; Ju Peter's own entry has no Haki section and no Observation citation of his own. So it is a group attribution we are passing on, not an individual showing we can point to. No Conqueror's Haki of his own has been shown, and he has no measured exchange against a named top-tier fighter. Fourth reflects the size of the record.

5. Why Garling is so hard to rank

Figarland Garling has the highest narrative ceiling of any Elder and the least published combat evidence of any Elder. Both are true at once, which is why rankings that pick one and ignore the other end up somewhere indefensible.

What is confirmed for him. He is Supreme Commander of the God's Knights, an order the head of the Revolutionary Army treats as a serious threat. ONE PIECE.com credits him as a champion at God Valley and notes his authority to judge Celestial Dragons — which he used to execute Mjosgard for shielding a fish-man. At the Native Hunting Competition he was the Nobles' favourite and took the lead despite starting at minus ten thousand points. And in chapter 1125 (p. 9–10) Imu appointed him to the Five Elders as Warrior God of Science and Defence, without telling the others, who were visibly shocked when he took the seat.

That is a formidable résumé. None of it is a fight.

What is assumed, and keeps being lent to him. He has no confirmed Haki of any type — the group entry excludes him by name. He has no confirmed monstrous form. He did not inherit Saturn's combat record along with Saturn's title; a portfolio transferred, not a power set. His sons being formidable is a fact about his sons.

And the regeneration, which needs separating carefully. This is the sharpest thing the audit turned up, so it is worth splitting into what is established and what is only reasonable.

Established: Garling already displayed regenerative recovery thirty-eight years before he became a Five Elder — at God Valley, in chapter 1162, where Rocks' Haki-infused swordsmanship is described as making that healing "take significantly longer than usual". The ability is his, and it long predates the seat.

Inference: that makes an Elder-specific grant an unlikely explanation for it, and it is consistent with the regeneration later associated with the God's Knights. We stop there. We have not seen the manga connect his regeneration to any particular covenant, so we are not naming a source for it — only ruling out the one that the timeline already excludes.

What we will not pass on is the Elder-tier covenant itself: the reference we are using asserts it with no citation attached, and the group regeneration scene (ch. 1111) predates his appointment and cannot include him.

And the one fight we have seen. At God Valley, Garling and his fellow Knights came to blows with Rocks D. Xebec, and were defeated — Garling personally overpowered and grievously injured (ch. 1162, p. 6–7, 15). He did kill Rocks, after Rocks had already been brought down. Finishing a beaten opponent is a real event; it is not a win over Rocks.

So: fifth, tier A, Low confidence, and the low confidence is doing as much work as the placement. One Conqueror's burst or one transformation moves him a long way. Until then, ranking him first means ranking a chair.

Historical comparison: where would Saturn rank?

Jaygarcia Saturn is not in the ranking above because he is dead. He is worth placing anyway, because he is the only Elder we have watched fight a Straw Hat at length.

On what he showed, Saturn would sit around second or third — inside this group, not above it. He had Conqueror's Haki and Observation Haki (ch. 1114, 1115), a gyūki form, and he engaged Luffy directly without hesitation. He did not meaningfully hurt Luffy; what he did was shrug off everything Luffy threw at him, including an attack that had incapacitated a Marine Admiral. He was over two hundred years old and unaged.

Now the part that gets over-generalised. In chapter 1125, after Luffy escaped Egghead, Imu had Saturn killed and granted his seat and title to Garling in the same scene. What the chapter shows is that Saturn's apparent immortality simply fails — he withers where he stands, begging, and leaves a skeleton.

The reference we are using goes further and says Imu stripped his standing and revoked his immortality. That is a reasonable reading and it may well be exactly what the scene states — but all three places it appears trace back to one citation, chapter 1125 pages 3–13, and we have not read those pages. So we will put it no more strongly than this: the scene strongly implies that the protection sustaining Saturn was withdrawn rather than beaten.

Either way, the load-bearing point is unchanged and worth stating plainly. Saturn did not lose a fight. And one Elder dying at the hand of the person who granted his standing does not establish that Imu can drop any Elder at will, nor that these five share a combat weakness. It establishes a dependency on Imu, which is a political fact, not a fighting one — and it says nothing about how any of them would fare against an opponent who is not the source of their protection.

Frequently asked

Who is the strongest of the Five Elders? On what the manga has shown, Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro, with Topman Warcury level with him. Nusjuro has the only complete Haki set; Warcury has the only durability measured against a named benchmark.

Who is the strongest Gorosei? Same answer — Gorosei (五老星) is simply the Japanese name for the Five Elders. VIZ renders their individual title 武神 as "Godhead"; a closer reading is "Warrior God".

Is Garling the strongest Gorosei? Not on published evidence. He has no confirmed Haki, no confirmed transformation, and his only shown fight ended with Rocks D. Xebec overpowering him. He has the highest ceiling of the five and the least proof, which is why we rank him fifth at low confidence rather than first.

Warcury vs Nusjuro — who wins? Genuinely unsettled, and we are not going to invent a number. Warcury is the harder to hurt; Nusjuro has more Haki types shown, a Supreme Grade Blade, and freezing range. The narrow reason Nusjuro is first is that his advantages are each individually cited, while Warcury's case leans on one axis that the Iron Giant has already dented.

Do the Five Elders have Devil Fruits? They transform into named folklore creatures, and that is confirmed. No fruit behind any of those forms has ever been named in the manga, an SBS or the VIZ release, so we do not call them Mythical Zoans.

Who is the weakest of the Five Elders? By record rather than by ability, Figarland Garling — because there is barely a record. By demonstrated kit among the four with fuller files, Shepherd Ju Peter.

Who is above the Five Elders? Nerona Imu, who occupies the Empty Throne. The Elders swear absolute loyalty to Imu and are among the few permitted an audience, per the official character entries.

How did Saturn die? In chapter 1125, at Imu's decision, after Luffy escaped Egghead. His immortality failed and he withered on the spot. He was not defeated in combat by anyone, and his seat passed to Garling in the same scene.

Ratings

What could change this ranking

• One Garling showing. A single Conqueror's burst or a transformation moves him from fifth to contention immediately. He is the most volatile entry on the board.
• Any named Devil Fruit. The moment a chapter or SBS names one of these fruits, the transformation section here becomes wrong and gets rewritten.
• Warcury taking or landing something new. His case rests on two Luffy panels and is dented by one Iron Giant panel. A third datapoint in either direction settles the top two.
• Ju Peter showing Conqueror's, or an Observation panel of his own. Either would close most of the gap between him and Mars.
• Elbaf. Imu is there in person and the Elders are divided about it. Whatever happens is likely to produce the first fresh Elder combat data since Egghead.

Our call

The reason competing rankings put Garling first is not carelessness — it is that he is written like a final boss. Supreme Commander of the God's Knights, hand-picked by Imu, feared by the Revolutionary Army, father to two of the most dangerous men in the story. If you rank on how a character is presented, he is an obvious number one.

We rank on what has been printed, and we have tried to say honestly how close to the print we could get. On that measure the top of this board is a skeletal horse carrying one of the twelve greatest swords in the world and every colour of Haki, with a boar demon who broke Luffy's hand twice a half-step behind him. Garling is a chair with a very good story attached to it, and the chapter that turns that story into evidence has not been published yet.

When it is, this page will say so.

For the Marine who fought the pirate these five answer to, see what is Garp's strongest attack?. For the order Garling still commands, see the strongest God's Knights, ranked. For the arc Imu is currently standing in, see the strongest Elbaf characters and what chapter 1191 put on Imu's arm.

Change log

• 2 September 2026 — Evidence tiers renamed to match what this audit actually achieved. The top tier is now OFFICIAL PRIMARY VERIFIED (material we read ourselves); the layer carrying the placements is CHAPTER-REFERENCED, meaning traced to a chapter and page but not read. MANGA-CONFIRMED is reserved for panels read directly and nothing here currently holds it. Garling's regeneration is also split into fact and inference: that it predates his seat by 38 years is established; where it comes from is not, and we no longer attribute it to the God's Knights covenant.
• 2 September 2026 — Source audit before lock. Every claim carrying a placement now names the chapter its citation points to, and the piece states that volumes 107–115 were not re-read. Four changes came out of it. Nusjuro moves to first, because his three Haki types each trace to a separate scene while Warcury's case rests on one axis. Warcury's entry now includes the Iron Giant breaking his tusk (ch. 1119), which an earlier version omitted. Ju Peter's Observation Haki is marked as a group-level attribution rather than an individual showing. And Garling's regeneration is separated from the Five Elder seat: it is cited to God Valley in ch. 1162, thirty-eight years before his appointment, which makes an Elder-specific grant unlikely — though we stop short of naming its source, because the manga has not connected it to one. The Elder-tier covenant attributed to him carries no citation at all. Saturn's death is now stated as his immortality failing, rather than as a described revocation we have not read.
• 2 September 2026 — First published, current through chapter 1191.