Board Thread:Versus Debates/@comment-43403813-20190805194702/@comment-43403813-20190805224054

My point was that Pain would defeat Sage Naruto flat out. Using the Kyuubi as a scale to gauge Obito and Nagato's strengths against each other is not fair as the Kyuubi creates a situational way of dealing with it. Obito could only control the Kyuubi because of an inherent ability to do so with the Sharingan, he is not the first to do this. Madara, Fugaku (itachi's dad) have been stated to do this/to be able to do this same task without difficulty. Pain attempted to subdue the 9 tails with brute force, and his efforts would be miles better than Obito's efforts to subdue the 9 tails with brute force. As Obito cannot cast the same genjutsu on Pain that he did on the 9 tails, it is illogical to use that as a comparison.

Even if Kakashi could use Kamui on the core of the Chibaku Tensei, nothing prevents Pain from simply casting another black orb, as chakra exhaustion only occurs as a result of the Chibaku Tensei building up, rather than the production of the initial black orb. Also you underestimate the disorientation that would occur when being pulled into Chibaku Tensei, KCM Naruto stated for it to be impossible to focus and aim on such a thing. Kakashi falling down in Kaguya's dimension is a vertical line compared to a spiraling confusion of gravity with debris and rocks swarming around you.

After all of the fighting Pain did, he was still able to create a huge Chibaku Tensei, so one can surmise that if he had only fought Naruto he could have made a much more powerful Chibaku Tensei or even multiple Chibaku Tenseis. Furthermore, Pain even said he would enlargen the Chibaku Tensei when 8 tails broke out, meaning that Chibaku Tensei may not have even failed if Minato didn't redo the seal!

The main thing to bare in mind is that all of Pain's screentime excluding his fight with Jiraiya involves him at a disadvantage in numbers and preparation. Pain knew practically nothing about Naruto whilst the hidden leaf had weeks of analysing the Pain corpse and had informed Naruto on practically everything about Pain. Hence, the Pain we have seen in combat is a Pain where the odds are stacked against him, and he still delivered on what he intended to do for the most part.

We're beginning to sidetrack, but what I have said proves that Pain is capable of keeping up with single-sharingan Obito in combat (not beating him, but resulting in a stalemate), as he can nullify a chunk of Obito's arsenal and overwhelms him with linked vision, spammable animal summonings, and the Deva path's disruptive abilities, not to mention his notably higher reserves of chakra as an Uzumaki.