Good question. Aces bounty was around 500 million if I remember correctly but bounty doesn’t always mean strength. A Haki wasn’t really a factor pre time skip but as far as devil fruit abilities go he is still one of the best in my eyes but I think katakuri is stronger than ace and that luffy surpassed ace since dressrosa

I always imagined him on like Doffy’s level or at least upper-shichibukai

Ace was also scoped out as a shichibukai in his early days, before he joined Whitebeard.

And you got think about the Time Skip, it was 2 years after all ..

We all see how much they grown in this time, so nowadays Ace sure would be a monster

I doubt he would have pulled off becoming a Yonko, so to me he had his limits.

He was like his father Roger in many ways, but lacked some things that he needed like the charisma Luffy has. Roger had both the traits and the charisma to be the King of the pirates.

Ace joined the WB pirates instead of being an emperor himself. Serving under someone else put a restriction on him, since it capped his potential to succeed WB, instead os succeeding WB he wanted WB to succeed Roger.

But since he lost to WB in the first place it means Ace might not have succeeded him either. But had Ace come a pirate later or even now, Ace might have had a much more straight path to being near the top. With no Whitebear around and Yonko power struggling, the only cap here is Blackbeard whose going to be the power margin line for Luffy sooner or later.

I would not say Yonko, but he was already a commander level ..

Its hard to compare to someone but I pretty sure he could have been stronger than the commanders we have seen so far

(we didnt see King in action yet, and of course Ben would be stronger haha)

I think Ace 100% had the potential to become a yonkou given enough time. Usually, going under someone (as opposed to being your own captain) tends to put a cap on your success in the One Piece world. However, Whitebeard actually had plans of making Ace the PK and presumably would have had Ace take up the mantle as captain after WB eventually died if not for all the Blackbeard stuff.

Ace's potential was pretty insane. It took him at maximum 100 days to go from having no chance against a yonkou to causing some damage. That is unfathomable, Luffy couldn't even begin hurting BM and Kaidou coming off of Dressrosa and WCI respectively and besides BB (who has shown to be relatively poor with haki so far) I think the same would have went for any yonkou whether that be Shanks or Whitebeard.

Additionally, he had pretty good control of his fruit that was really shown when he was fighting Blackbeard. Once Ace stopped being a hardhead and decided to really learn how to implement haki properly, he would've easily reached at least 1st commander level. Most of what Ace learned concerning hak iwas instinctual, according to the Ace novels he first used armament by instinct when he was fighting a VC in Saboady right before Ace and his crew would go to the New World. Then his armament presumably got even better being that he was finally able to cause some damage to Whitebeard after 100 attempts to assassinate him. Unlike Luffy, Ace presumably never got a chance or at least made use his crewmates to learn haki in-depth. [Of course this is in large part due to the fact Oda hadn't fleshed out haki when Ace was directly relevant to the story.]

Even with all this said I am mostly referring to Ace's potential were he to continue living post-Marineford. Not everyone is Luffy and gets people to construct his foundation for haki and teaching them the advanced form on top of that. [Luffy and Sabo might be the only ones in the story tbh.] Given enough time Ace would have definitely become a yonkou (if BB didn't exist) like Kaidou and BM did eventually.

However, as far as how powerful was Ace at the time of his death, I'd say he was right on the cusp of 3rd commander level along with people like Cracker and Jack. 2nd commanders and people who I think could be 2nd commander level have shown too much for me to consider Ace a proper 2nd commander in terms of power despite his title. I won't mention Queen (since this is "in General"), but Jozu was actually able to damage Aokiji (even if it was off guard). Queen has shown some amazing stuff as well.

Then I don't think Ace having been 1st commander level should even be discussed in any serious manner. 1st commanders so far have some seriously broken traits that put them above everyone else in there crew so far save their captain. Katakuri has future sight and Marco has his broken DF. Sabo has possibly the final form of advanced armament in the form of Ryuusouken and now he has a DF on top of that. 1st commanders are monsters to everyone who isn't an admiral or a yonkou and Ace just wasn't that.

Depending on what you think of Vista you could rate Ace even lower to around Snack level. But, due to Ace not being a meathead (see his battle with BB) and being pretty versatile for my personal opinion I have him barely edging out a win over most any 3rd commander, but losing to a 2nd.

@Angel Emfrbl Ace was charismatic as shown in the war at Marineford many people were fighting to save him not just because they were ordered to by Whitebeard but because they cared for him. Not to mention that out of everybody in his crew Ace was the one man he decided to make the next Pirate King. There is also how much Tama has been shown to care about Ace. I guess you yourself can interpret that as something different than charisma but I don't personally

Also, I don't see why joining the Whitebeard Pirates put a restriction on Ace's potential. Every known Yonko was someone else's subordinate at one point in time. Being someone's subordinate doesn't limit your charisma, strength, or ability to grow.

@Aurius-Blood I don't really agree with your assessment of Big Mom's and Kaido's Top 3. Bounties are kind of like power levels in Dragon Ball in that the fact they are kind of bull, but Jack does have a higher bounty than Smoothie which means he is considered a bigger threat than her and since I haven't really seen a difference in strength between Big Mom's and Kaido's cannon fodder I see that as evidence of Jack being stronger than Smoothie and Cracker but weaker than Katakuri.

I don't think we have seen enough of Ace to determine how strong he was before he died, he didn't have enough opponents that we can use to compare with, and the bounty system takes into account more than just strength so without more information we can't even use that to determine strength.

@Dimension Creator Oof, taking bounties as measures of power scaling is one of the literal worst things you can do Oven and Daifuku's bounty is 300 million, Snack's is 600 million, and Perospero is 700 million, yet none of them likely come to people like Sabo (sitting at a clean 600 million) and would likely lose pretty badly to Ace at Marineford (550 million).

To be honest those 4 on BMs crew I usually scale around the same (4th commander or right under 3rd commander).

Furthermore, you have Luffy's top fleet commanders which are pretty close to Zoro and Sanji. Cavendish and Sanji are tied at 330 million both 10 million higher than Zoro. Bartolomeo is sitting at 200 million and Sai at 210 million. All 3 of Luffy's top 3 fleet commanders are pretty close to Zoro and Sanji in bounty, but would all get absolutely demolished if they ever had to fight one of those two.

Then there is the fact Kaidou's calamities seem to literally be made for mass destruction and would definitely destroy an island on a whim. Queen's plague bullets and Jack's tendency to be reckless and go overboard. Meanwhile, while BMs children do destroy islands they only do it on her orders when someone slights BM in some way (i.e. not showing up to her tea party).

So, not only are bounties pretty unreliable as measures of power, but Kaidou's calamities are bigger threats because Kaidou isn't very structured. Meaning, Kaidou's pirate members are pretty much free to do whatever they want and the calamities have specialties that are literally designed to take out swaths of a population. Meanwhile, BM's kids strictly only act on her orders.

I'm not going to blame you if you were coming from a DBZ mindset where you could just look at a number and determine how strong a character was, but that is NOT how One Piece operates. Bounties are honestly mostly for the Strawhats, where after every arc or so their bounty increases and we begin to understand how our main character's notoriety is perceived throughout the One Piece world.

Just take a second and think about the Cracker fight with Nami and Luffy. Even with a counter (Nami) that fight went on for hours on end and Cracker was even able to cut G4. Keep in mind Cracker was an 860 million bounty, and Luffy pretty much needed help otherwise the fight would've taken even longer to finish. That same Luffy went up against Katakuri later in the arc with a bounty barely higher than Cracker's (1.056 billion) and was getting absolutely wrecked. Coming off beating Cracker, Luffy couldn't even be taken as a real threat during the first half of the Katakuri fight.

And now you're telling me Jack who is reckless enough to go up against a former fleet admiral, a current admiral, and a vice admiral legend in Tsuru, and get absolutely demolished (as most anyone would in that situation), as well as getting injured by Ashura Doji pretty easily is comparable to Katakuri. Their bounties only have a 56 million difference? But, in actuality I severely doubt Jack would even be able to land a hit Katakuri much less be anywhere near Katakuri in terms of battle prowess.

Also, what about poor Sabo who is sitting at 600 million, but is seemingly the one who injured Fujitora coming off of the Reverie? You're telling me he's weaker than all of BMs commanders and Kaidou's calamities? Definitely not.

The point is if you have some actual evidence for Jack being anywhere near Katakuri based on their fights and portrayal throughout the series I'll listen to it and promptly refute it. But, looking at numerical bounties isn't going to get you anywhere in One Piece power scaling.

Matchups are very important. Take Jinbei his bounty is 438 million I believe and yet he has a very good matchup against someone like Cracker with an 860 million bounty. Given what Jinbei was able to do to BM, and what he has been able to be shown to take (Akainu's magma back in Marineford) he should have a good chance. Unfortunately, that wasn't a very in-depth analysis, but I'm running out of time. But, I hope you were able to see my point.

So many other factors are at play: haki ability, devil fruit mastery, and battle traits (intelligence, versatility, stamina, defense, offence, and speed.) Bounties don't take all those factors into account. They are simply a measure of perceived threat by the World government. Not battle prowess, which while somewhat related definitely are not the same thing.