Matthias

Because it didn't matter if Harold was cooperating or not. I don't think its implied that he could withhold from regenerating. That was something that happened automatically. Harold was just not fighting back when he was conscious. Still, we know of no other person that killed a god knight that had conquerors haki Also you forgot the clash of Harold and Xebec before Harold had the tatto. They clashed and were equal. It's just that with all the feats of Shanks in the series, Loki must be one of the strongest.

They say Mihawkwas the Genesis of his goal of becoming the best sword fighter. I mean we talk about a post time skip confrontation, with haki and both sides using 100% of their abilities. Which wasn't the situation in East Blue when they fiest fought against each other.

The thing is, the royal knights and gorosei introduced a new power ceiling. Even advanced haki users can not win against them if they dont have advanced conquerors haki that they also use to coat their attacks with. So only a handful of people can try it.

Jei well if you nerf all the people of thr original cast give ridiculous power ops to new enemies and only the new cast of course the old cast of Naruto looks weaker. Byron mode didn't make any sense, looks ugly as he'll and didn't achieve nothing, only needed Naruto, so he loses Kurama and was easily sealed by Kawaki of all people. The old cast is treated really bad, just look at Konohamaru. Only exception was Sasuke and Shikamaru.

Unlike Mihawk Shanks has the feats backing up the claims. Mihawk doesn't even have conquerors haki officially. Shanks has observation haki canceling, all types of haki and advanced, good copy Roger's strongest attack by just looking at it when he was only 15, a feat no one else could and divine departure requires conquerors coating and advanced haki. Time and time again Shanks is depicted as a genius. We have not seen anything on that level by Mihawk yet.

At this point in the story Luffy is still far from surpassing Shanks. And if you read the manga you would know there are ever more feats of Shanks. Saying that Shanks had stronger Hali than Luffy (right now) is justified. I mean on Egg Head the haki of Shanks was compared to Joy Boy and in Elbaf there are even crazier feats. Shanks is time and time again depicted as the strongest most gifted Haki user (until he no longer is)