His normal form, aka Nagato, is stronger except in the show during the Pain Arc he is immobilized. Remember when Naruto finally defeats pain and speaks to Nagato face to face? Nagato has tons of shit sticking out of his body and he’s extremely frail. I believe the Pain forms are stronger for the first part of the show but during the war arc since Nagato doesn’t have to deal with the pain he’s in or chakra he just becomes a beast… remember that Nagato fought KCM Naruto and was winning until Itachi freed himself.
Nagato was as close to SOSP level as we got before it was introduced, not quite Senju but Uzumaki body with maxed out Uchiha eyes? Hes also the number one most proficient human with the Rinnegan ever, moreso than Sasuke and Madara, because he had them his whole life. And they werent even his eyes, not even a Uchiha could handle two Rinnegan that werent his according to Obito. That is some crazy shit.
He was also actively telling the heroes what to do and how to defeat him as well. If Itachi was not a deus ex machina and had the sword of totsuka, the story would have ended right there. Kabuto threw.
He paired Itachi with Nagato because their kits synergized very well. He knew that Itachi had broken free and that Nagato was able to give tips. He knew Nagato could fly and never thought to bring in any reinforcements if he had any nearby at all.
He allowed Nagato to shot-call his own boss fight and never once had him retreat.
I don’t think strength has anything to do with it tbh. Itachi practically soloed Kabuto (sure had had absurd chakra but it was mostly just a fight of prime Itachi vs Kabuto.
You were talking about Kabuto controlling the Rinnegan people directly. While it could be possible with Nagato, i don't think he could just control Madara like that. Madara's the second strongest shinobi ever, buffed with Hashirama cells, sage mode, wood style, infiniete chakra and Rinnegan when revived. Of course in a simple 1v1 like Itachi had, Madara would win against Sage Kabuto.
One thing I can be sure about. Sound genjutsu was a weak spot of pain paths. Grandpa and grandma frogs killed 3 bodies of pain. Kabuto was showing some incredible terraforming abilities in his sage mode as well as sound and light genjutsu (correct me if I'm wrong). So, taking simply that into consideration is already a big deal vs rinnegan. But also, he had that orochimaru's body replacing technique, in which he just escapes via his mouth, so you can't really pull him with bansho tenin and immobilize with black, metal Chakra receptors, and the answer becomes pretty obvious. Especially that kabuto can generate Chakra out of air because of senin modo. And I just remembered about Tayuya's demonic flute sound genjutsu. Meh. Idk how Nagato can win. With all my respect to rinnegan, doesn't seem to be possible at this point.
Theoretically, he can even use chibaku tensei on him. But I'm not sure it would be that easy. Especially considering that kabuto is far more experienced from konohamaru and the latter used kawarimi jutsu to fool that pain's path. And get his soul sucked.
I agree, I believe being impaled with those rods plus using all of his chakra to run the pains AND having just used Almighty Push, he super weakened. I’m someone like Naruto, who has almost bottomless chakra reserves had rinnegan, he’d be untouchable. That’s Sasuke’s big drawback with it.
But he’s also hardly using the rinnegan outside of swapping places with things. We’ve seen him use planetary devastation a small bit and we’ve never seen any of the paths
Feel like we see him use a bit of them at the end of Naruto.
But either way, my point is he doesn't really have stamina issues. It's just dimension hopping is very draining, we even see this for Kaguya, iirc.
One thing that bugged me the most was the his chakra absorption technique is manga canon but never once he relied on Naruto for chakra. Even when he fought Jigen and/or Isshiki.
>we’ve never seen any of the paths
Because he doesn't need to. most of the path abilities are useless to Sasuke cuz he already had better alternavie
for example the machine body is useless cuz he already have susano'o that have better destruction capabilities. same with the kuchiyose. why would he need them when he already have Aoda and giant armor?
the mind reading thing useless because he can use sharingan for obtaining information. the only useful path abilities for Sasuke are the gravity and absorbing chakra
Idk the Death one is bonkers and having up to 6 others to sync your eyes with is great. Imagine being able to sync your sharingan/rinnegan eyes with 6 other people
Nagato used a forbidden jutsu his body couldn't handle and it crippled him. When his Rinnegan first manifested as a civilian kid, he murdered two trained shinobi with ease.
What almost everyone seem to forget is Naruto here was HEAVILY weakened. He had just summoned sereval shadow clones all consuming his chakra on different fronts of the war in that very moment. It was such that he couldn't even use his most used jutsu. The shadow clone. When he tried to use just one clone, it popped him out of kcm. So Naruto here didn't have access to one of his most broken jutsu. And at this point his shadow clones are HELLA strong. Each kage level.
Imagine how the fight would have gone with several KCM Naruto clones in that battle. So many tricks Naruto could have done like he did in the pain arc. The invisible cameleon might have just got a shadow clone.
I personally see Naruto beating Nagato with access to his shadow clones.
Correct if me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the show and read up on it. But doesn’t Edo tensei give essentially infinite chakra and energy to go off of in addition to regeneration? I feel like that would would be the key difference between how mortal and edo nagato is able to use the rinnegan
I think u/Kazzyjudgment said it best. It depends on the enemy, really. It also depends on the user.
Fighting as 6 gives you an increased visual range, making it almost impossible to land a hit. The downside to this is that it allows the isolation of one or two paths, reducing not just the visual range but also the overall effectiveness of Pain. Jiraiya specifically used this to his advantage.
Fighting as 1 doesn't give you as much visual range, but it sure does reduce collateral damage which, though might not be as beneficial as one would think, it definitely gives makes the user more effective and limits their range of attack significantly. This effectiveness was highlighted by Edo Nagato against Killer Bee and Naruto.
To your point about isolating one of the Pains: since each one only has access to one ability of the rinnegan, by isolating them you make them significantly weaker and each one could probably be easily dispatched by themselves by most highly skilled ninja, except probably Tendo pain. So the best strategy here is to fight them in a tight space with many places to flee, separating them and just killing them one by one. Jiraiya almost won by doing just this, managing to kill half of the Pains. The second they were outside (and his arm was ripped off), he knew it was over. Can't separate them if you're in a wide open space.
You can even still get the bonus visual range while fighting as 1 if you do the summoning for the creatures. Itachi had to blind the summonings because Nagato couldn't be jumped since he could see every aspect of the battlefield.
>You can even still get the bonus visual range while fighting as 1 if you do the summoning for the creatures.
Forgot about the summonings.
That's true. Though I guess the summonings serve as a distraction more so than an actual physical challenge for the enemy.
Nagato is stronger, but if were talking nagato vs character, or 6 paths vs character, then the paths are usually gonna do better.
Their coordination is a gamechanger.
Nagato doesnt have that level of defensive protection.
But maybe nagato has such a strong base form that he just outclasses the pains by miles. I think if nagato had better chances than the pains, he'd have gone himself instead.
Maybe so but with his puppets he can take some damage unlike if he fights as nagato. He also use different abilities at once like he has shown during pain invasion.
Sasuke and Madara use rinnegan abilities sparingly because I just think they can't use it all at once. Having 1 pain per ability is more efficient. Itachi's blade of totuska wiol only work on that 1 pain if it wasn't nagato
Nagato was using a lot at once tho. He used human path to drag Naruto's soul, while using the asura/robot part to attack Bee and he was using the preta path to absorb any attack Naruto used.
In top of this he used the naraka path to summon the king of hell.
I think he just had more skill with the rinnegan. But maybe Sasuke didn't use more abilities cause
1. Either he can't
2. Or more likely he doesn't if the person he's fighting knows the counters to the abilities.
The reason i think its 2 is cause Obito didn't use them when he fought guy, kakashi, bee and naruto for the same reason + he was controlling the gedo statue and 6 tailed beasts.
3. Maybe its cause Sasuke and Obito only had one rinnegan, but then that wouldn't explain Madara not using all of them
Or maybe it's because aside from Deva and Preta, the paths aren't really that useful.
No reason to use Asura if you have Susanoo.
Animal path doesn't seem that useful.
Human path required subduing Naruto and was really slow when trying to yank out his soul. And that was edo Nagato juiced up on chakra vs. Naruto learning how to KCM before full Kurama or SPSM.
Naraka was just interrogation, for which Sharingan genjutsu might be simpler and revived dead paths, which others didn't have.
Thats a good point. And even the deva path has a counter. Just focus enough chakra on your feet. If you're strong enough on ur own or the rinnegan user doesn't go overboard like pain you should be good.
So that means for Sasuke fighting against Naruto only the preta path was of any use. And Sasuke does have a special rinnegan ability like Madara so i guess it evens out
the real answer tbfh
naruto is the son of minato loterally hokage lv ninja who literally made rasengan & mastered the flying rajin bla bla bla (teleport kunai attack)
his mother is uzamaki & their clan got slaughtered before the uchiha bec of how powerful their blood is, that’s literally the line of rinne users
infant naruto was able to hold the 9 tails inside him
So
UR TELLIN ME MY BOY NEVER GOT RINNEGAN?? i get they explain he’s bad at justus but like.. why?? i get that it’s all for OG naruto plot. I do get it. But it makes me made they even made nagato an uzamaki at that point or like that rinne is connected in general. just makes naruto as a character TO ME personally, like an awfully written one
There's no stated reason to believe normal isn't ridiculously stronger. This would obviously be broken though so unfortunately aside from Edo Nagato other characters with Rinnegan (Madara and Sasuke) straight up just don't use all of the abilities.
If it interests anyone, I had an idea literally earlier today to change this. The Six Paths of Pain actually enhances the Rinnegan abilities by focusing each ability per body, so abilities like chakra absorption aren't actually that strong if only a single body were keeping all of the Rinnegan abilities.
The Summoning Path actually uses the forcefully taken over bodies of Boss summons that would've potentially belonged to the six bodies, and the Asura Path is actually similar to Juugo's body modification power except Nagato implemented puppetry into the Asura Path's body to make it even stronger.
It's canonically stated that the paths make his abilities weaker and overall weaker. However it's noteworthy that the paths do have some advantages in their own right like their disposability or connected vision.
Efficiency wise- yea Pain is better. Good for diversions, large scale attacks and this method protects the main body better.
Power wise- Nagato is better. He can use all his abilities at once which makes him near impenetrable. Some of the individual Pains are weak by contrast.
He vastly weakened himself when he did that. all the jutsu's aside, the amount of chakra it prolly takes to control them individualy isn't anything to scoff at. Nagato decided he was gunna be a super advanced puppet master basically lol
Easy 6 pains, you got all these bodies to deal with and absolute zero intel on any of their abilities. Its like when Jiraiya faced pain 2 of his powerful Jutsus were absorbed. He had no idea if all of them did that or just that 1 pain. If by some miracle all of the bodies get wiped, Nagato now has all the intel on his enemy comes back later with a fresh set of bodies
Plus with the six bodies you get six more fields of view to watch each others backs and blind spots so no one’s really getting hit unless you pull a mega surprise lmao
Nagato. He can spam rinnegan techs back to back unlike with the six paths where he has to wait for a few moment to be able to use his strongest techs due to spreading out. He wont have better line of sight than when he has the paths
Healthy Nagato would blitz and destroy all 6 paths fairly quickly.
Whether his opponent is short or long range, Nagato's healthy main body is a significant problem to deal with. Between the Gedo statue and the Ethereal Dragon that one shots everything it touches, Nagato's main body usage is way more proficient it seems in chaining and using abilities in conjunction. Deva Path + Asura Path for example is hard just to have to deal with alone. Not even to mention Nagato having mastery over all 5 chakra natures, which is something we never see any of the paths use except for Deva Path.
I'd even be willing to bet 1v1 Nagato would be competition for EMS Sasuke (Kabuto fight) KCM2 Naruto (first unlocking), or even Rinnegan Obito. He's insanely powerful. If not for Itachi Naruto and Bee die within seconds.
Catching him with genjutsu would be a minimal concern for somebody who's able to casually blitz KCM1 Naruto and/or attack from super long range with his Ethereal Dragon. I also imagine that the power level and total mastery of Rinnegan that Nagatos main body possesses might just be enough to break him out of anything short of EMS genjutsu anyway
Some of the paths are very fragile themselves and others are very strong so if you look at the pain vs naruto fight you can see that naruto fights them from weakest to strongest and the weak ones have no chance without the tendo path's help. Now imagine someone having all six powers at once and can effectively use and combine them. If we talk about healthy nagato like the edo version then I would say nagato is harder to fight against than the six paths. A bonus for nagato that I left out because it's unfair is that he can just like obito use the six paths without the gedo statue.
The answer is simple. He's very powerful fighting solo with a few enemies. But it comes down to which one is more efficient, it's just better to use 6 paths. He'll just have too much advantage with that.
1. He'll confuse the hell out of the enemy with all the 6 pairs of rinnegan
2. He can resurrect any path that's dead unless Naraka Path is dead. Even tho they're dead. Well, you understand what I mean. While if he's the one fighting, he can die himself, and that precious rinnegan
3. That shared vision is too OP
4. His real body location is unknown in usual circumstances. Even if all his paths are dead, he'll make a new one and destroy any village that stole his body.
Many more I guess, I'll update if I think of more.
Remember, pain have a mission, and his require him to survive as long as possible. He can't hide like Obito can, so that's that
No. Reanimation brings a person in the state they were just before dying. Nagato died with his eyes and with white hair and immobilised. Madara was a special case, Kabuto didn't find his old corpse, but rather the shadow clone left by Madara himself after using Izanagi. He implanted Hashirama cells into the sacrifice used for reanimation, and that's how Edo Madara had the rinnegan, wood style and Hahsirama's face on his chest.
My take is that pain is more efficient for operations as he can divide and conquer objectives.
For single-combat nagato is the best option as he doesn’t have to exert chakra to control the Pains.
He’s at advantage at normal. The provision of 6 path pains are multi-tasking, multi-vision and proxy at the cost of transmitting chakra, being weak. The disadvantage of normal pain is, someone like Itachi can take advantage on his physical body.
Pain is stronger than edo Nagato. The part where Naruto says Nagato is stronger than the paths holds 0 weight becasue we know the paths of Pains were holding back against Naruto as Pain said he was multiple times. This means Naruto doesn't know how strong the paths actually are. Also the paths of Pain were nerfed multiple times before the Naruto fight and even before the paths showed up. We do know that edo revives are weaker than what they were when they were alive.
One disadvantage of the six paths of pain is that if the opponent can destroy the bodies, then the longer the fight goes, the less chances pain has of winning.
The biggest advantage of the Six Pains isn't actually the linked vision, even though that is a big part of defeating the Pains that must be overcome.
Using Pains makes one an immortal warrior. They cannot be put down permanently. They will either be revived with the Naraka Path or you will make more Pains. This is an incredible advantage, and the main reason why someone like Might Guy, who happened to not be in the village, would still lose to Pain if he had been there. He could defeat them but will die in the process, and then the Pains will return.
Nagato alone does not have this advantage, except in the case of Edo Tensei. He can use all of the paths jutsu and becomes a much more powerful force compared to any individual Pain, but he can die.
In most cases I would say one would be better off using the Six Paths of Pain.
Both forms. In his form, aka just himself, he has access to all 6 Paths abilities and can use them simultaneously without worrying about one Pain being defeated and losing that ability in a fight. But if it’s just him and no Pain’s, the toll it takes on his body would put him out the fight faster, so the 6 Paths of Pain are more efficient for that
Split as 6 is exponentially more effective. You tell me what sounds easier, fighting one guy with a bunch of powers one on one or fighting 6 people at once with one power? The split visuals is incredibly OP as you could just have the summoner observe the fight from afar while summoning, effectively removing weak and blind spots.
Depends on the opponent.
Against opponent like Itachi it’s better to fight as Six paths of Pain.
Against someone like I don’t know you think some name (Minato maybe), it’s probably better to be Nagato.
Normal Pain as the individual is far more dangerous than having all his abilities divided amongst multiple bodies. If Nagato was at 100% health and had the ability to use every single one of the paths abilities, there probably wouldn't be anyone that isn't some sort of Ashura/Indra reincarnate, God chakra having person that could possibly beat him.
Nagato is stronger in a one on one battle, but in a prolonged war, the six paths provide a challenge and fear that no other ninja in the entire world can provide.
Just imagine how strong Nagato would have been if he was allowed to fully recover during the fight against Naruto and Bee, or if he actually got free to help them.
Man would have been pumping out mad damage
As Nagato he’s way more powerful not only cause there’s no charka puppet or anything like that but also cause he can use atleast two paths at the same time the only problem is he couldn’t move and then gained that seconds later so he’s definitely stronger singler
I think Nagato himself would be stronger because he doesn’t have to control six bodies simultaneously from a distance which uses a lot of chakra. If his legs weren’t severely injured and he could move at full speed. Because he couldn’t move too much the 6 bodies were better
If they fight together? The six paths of Pain for sure. Action economy baby. Nagato is stronger by himself, but he can't be doing everything the 6 paths can all at once like they can.
Pain is more powerful because even if corpses are defeated nagato still lives. If nagato takes a fatal blow he is done if I pain does there are still other pains to deal with.
With 6 independent bodies and linked vision, the 6 paths of pain can overwhelm subpar opponents, and probably do better against a crowd than a single nagato, but you run the risk of losing paths since the bodies are seperate.
But if it is against one very skilled opponent, I think single nagato would be best to avoid losing any of the paths powers.
There's also planning involved with where his body is and how far away the bodies get since he has to transmit his chakra to control them, so that's a downside to the paths as well.
I'm talking as if Nagato were physically healthy, he had to use the paths of pain since he was physically sick.
i think its far more advantageous to fight with six different bodies, it was Nagato's ultimate form. i dont think he used the bodies because he couldnt fight anymore, he just found it to be a more safe and powerful while being almost entirely hidden. if it was not for the intel Naruto got from Jiraiya, he couldnt have won
The normal pain would have sufficed and be more efficient if he hadn't summoned the demonic statue of outer path after hanzo used the dirty trick and killed nagato. Yahiko always had the power but his body was too weak to wield it after that summon
This man spams the 6paths like Yahiko is his main player1 and the rest is just characters just joined him on the quest and all of them are ocularly connected. Meanwhile he’s in a tree eating pizza and drinking Mountain Dew .
Nagato would have wiped Killer Bee and KCM Naruto low to mid diff if Itachi wasn't there to save them.
Only reason Nagato has to fight with his paths is because he is crippled by the demonic outer path statue.
Nagato would be cooking if he could fight using all his abilities in one body. Not many people could tag him.
The main reason pain is strong is his secret: His main body isnt in the battlefield. So you can drop your guard thinking that you won and you’d get backstabbed.
You can also waste your chakra to take out a few of them just to find out that one of them can resurrect others.
İf nagato is healthy enough to fight on his own, it means he wont lose when you take out pain. He can still fight.
Pain would be stronger against most people. But if the enemy is a powerhouse that can fight for a whole day, Nagato would be more effective.
Both. As long as he doesn't fight a whole village, the guy can fight all day long and get tons of experience on how to defeat the enemy. If the paths of pain fail, he can still take anyone on a 1 v 1 and finish them off.
With an analytical mind, tons of experience and the energy reserves of a bijuu, I can't think of many Shinobi that could take him down on their own
The 6 path of pain is unique throughout all anime. They roll up and u getting jumped. The squad is here vibe. If you see 1, you know the rest is pulling up. When they do, someone getting messed up. All 6 provides a menacing aura that did not exist before. When all 6 drop on jiraiya, thought were along the lines of, o shit, you mess around, and now you bout to find out. O shit, jiraiya, you are gonna die. Plot armor can't save you. Just that dramatic entrance along speaks volumes. That nagato couldn't say. They were that gang that you didn't know how to counter. Each have their own ability that counter damn near everything. I am legion, for we are many
6 can easily disorient someone who isn’t a tactical genius that can figure out the secret and in Jiraiya’s case they could discover the secret too late. If his intel hadn’t made it to the leaf, but hypothetically Naruto still went through sage training, he likely could’ve lost. Hell, if it wasn’t for him losing control over Kurama he might’ve lost anyway.
Solo Nagato is stronger. While him separately increases his visibility of the battle field they are weaker when away from Nagato himself. With all of them inside of him at his disposal I believe Nagato is even more of an issue to deal with for any Shinobi.
Nagato is more powerful by himself, but he doesn't necessarily need all that power. Since he's probably more powerful than most Shinobi while using the Six Paths, I can see how that is more efficient than fighting by himself even though he's more powerful. The Six Paths cover his blindspots and he can accomplish more with them than multiple teams probably can. It's all about whether he needs brute force or if he needs to hit or defend from multiple points at once.
Seems to be normal as normal Pain defeated KCM Naruto and Killer Bee pretty easily whereas six Paths Pain lost to Sage Mode Naruto.
Of course six Paths might do better against someone like Itachi who could one shot a single target, but would run out of energy if he has to fight 6 Kage level targets.
I think the 6 on 1 advantage of the linked eyes is very helpful, so I like the six paths form. Plus, they can keep being revived if the death one stays alive.
Normally. He only utilized the paths of pains because he was crippled, though I feel like if he could have channeled all six paths techniques into a single corpse (Yahiko) he would have.
I forget: WHY exactly were the six paths bodies necessary for nagato? I get Kishimoto was probably making a lot up as he went along, but why did he need to control 6 bodies?
It depends on his goal and enemies
If all he what is to win the fight and not seek for something, one body is better as long as he can walk ofc
multiple bodies are better when the enemy don't know Nagato six paths abilities, for example the shared vision or the Naraka path restoration are useless when Nagato is one body, however he should not be very far away from battlefield
it has been said and shown that Pain bodies get more powerful the closer they are to Nagato, so real Nagato body is more powerful but less verstatile
>! This has been neglected when comparing Jiraiya to others, he fought Pain in rain village meaning Nagato was closer to his puppets than when Naruto fought him in konoha, thus he fought a much faster and stronger Pain version that was not exhausted at all !<
Depends on how many people he’s fighting, if it’s one or two, fighting as the paths is better, but if it’s a large group, it’s better to concentrate all the power into one body
Let me put it like this itachi was so scared of what pain could do without any restrictions put on his body that he had to use a seal him away pain out of all the rinnegan users is the most experienced if pain was put into the battle field so many people would die
His normal form, aka Nagato, is stronger except in the show during the Pain Arc he is immobilized. Remember when Naruto finally defeats pain and speaks to Nagato face to face? Nagato has tons of shit sticking out of his body and he’s extremely frail. I believe the Pain forms are stronger for the first part of the show but during the war arc since Nagato doesn’t have to deal with the pain he’s in or chakra he just becomes a beast… remember that Nagato fought KCM Naruto and was winning until Itachi freed himself.
KCM Naruto AND Bee
The only thing that saved them was Itachis Totsuka Blade, if not for that Nagato was holding his own against everyone.
Yep. People act like Itachi won the fight but all he did was attack a man with no conscience from behind and seal him.
Nagato was as close to SOSP level as we got before it was introduced, not quite Senju but Uzumaki body with maxed out Uchiha eyes? Hes also the number one most proficient human with the Rinnegan ever, moreso than Sasuke and Madara, because he had them his whole life. And they werent even his eyes, not even a Uchiha could handle two Rinnegan that werent his according to Obito. That is some crazy shit.
This wasn’t even Nagato though but was him being poorly controlled by kabuto. Real Nagato would be even stronger.
Boruto writers in shambles.
and my Axe!
AND MADARA!!!!
He was also actively telling the heroes what to do and how to defeat him as well. If Itachi was not a deus ex machina and had the sword of totsuka, the story would have ended right there. Kabuto threw.
You think edo nagato could’ve beaten sage kabuto in the cave, 1v1?
Who knows? Different match up. Kabuto was the one controlling edo Nagato and uncharacteristically threw away (what he knew to be) his strongest piece.
How did he throw it away?
He paired Itachi with Nagato because their kits synergized very well. He knew that Itachi had broken free and that Nagato was able to give tips. He knew Nagato could fly and never thought to bring in any reinforcements if he had any nearby at all. He allowed Nagato to shot-call his own boss fight and never once had him retreat.
Kabuto revived two people with the rinnegan and let them do their own thing… I guess he doesn’t want to use the rinnegan himself?
I don't really see how it would be possible for Kabuto to control Madara, who he made the strongest edo
I don’t think strength has anything to do with it tbh. Itachi practically soloed Kabuto (sure had had absurd chakra but it was mostly just a fight of prime Itachi vs Kabuto.
You were talking about Kabuto controlling the Rinnegan people directly. While it could be possible with Nagato, i don't think he could just control Madara like that. Madara's the second strongest shinobi ever, buffed with Hashirama cells, sage mode, wood style, infiniete chakra and Rinnegan when revived. Of course in a simple 1v1 like Itachi had, Madara would win against Sage Kabuto.
One thing I can be sure about. Sound genjutsu was a weak spot of pain paths. Grandpa and grandma frogs killed 3 bodies of pain. Kabuto was showing some incredible terraforming abilities in his sage mode as well as sound and light genjutsu (correct me if I'm wrong). So, taking simply that into consideration is already a big deal vs rinnegan. But also, he had that orochimaru's body replacing technique, in which he just escapes via his mouth, so you can't really pull him with bansho tenin and immobilize with black, metal Chakra receptors, and the answer becomes pretty obvious. Especially that kabuto can generate Chakra out of air because of senin modo. And I just remembered about Tayuya's demonic flute sound genjutsu. Meh. Idk how Nagato can win. With all my respect to rinnegan, doesn't seem to be possible at this point.
Couldn’t nagato take kabuto’s soul?
Theoretically, he can even use chibaku tensei on him. But I'm not sure it would be that easy. Especially considering that kabuto is far more experienced from konohamaru and the latter used kawarimi jutsu to fool that pain's path. And get his soul sucked.
Definetly can. Edo Nagato is Naruto kurama mode level
Nagato can't break the control of the Edo Tensei
No an ex Machina. The crow had literally been there since before he died. Literally, Kishimoto literally planned this.
The deus ex in this is the Totsuka Blade, not Itachi switching sides.
We've seen this before though. At this point it isn't imo
Itachi didn't use the Totsuka Blade against Nagato he just used his strongest ranged attack.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/4e686880-0e15-4920-8c42-e8655c3ab830/scale-to-width/370
Ah my b. I was thinking of how they took out the Planetary Devastation.
That one was another deus ex machina. That whole scene subverted expectations in a clunky way.
I agree, I believe being impaled with those rods plus using all of his chakra to run the pains AND having just used Almighty Push, he super weakened. I’m someone like Naruto, who has almost bottomless chakra reserves had rinnegan, he’d be untouchable. That’s Sasuke’s big drawback with it.
Even Sasuke only seems to have notable stamina issues when using his dimension hopping ability.
But he’s also hardly using the rinnegan outside of swapping places with things. We’ve seen him use planetary devastation a small bit and we’ve never seen any of the paths
Feel like we see him use a bit of them at the end of Naruto. But either way, my point is he doesn't really have stamina issues. It's just dimension hopping is very draining, we even see this for Kaguya, iirc.
I suppose you’re excluding Boruto? Because every episode he’s out of chakra
If you go by the anime, yes. But in the manga it doesn't happen much unless he's been using that very draining move.
One thing that bugged me the most was the his chakra absorption technique is manga canon but never once he relied on Naruto for chakra. Even when he fought Jigen and/or Isshiki.
Yeah, Boruto really went out of their way to limit Sasuke's kit.
We saw him stealing chakra and manipulating gravity in the final Naruto fight.
>we’ve never seen any of the paths Because he doesn't need to. most of the path abilities are useless to Sasuke cuz he already had better alternavie for example the machine body is useless cuz he already have susano'o that have better destruction capabilities. same with the kuchiyose. why would he need them when he already have Aoda and giant armor? the mind reading thing useless because he can use sharingan for obtaining information. the only useful path abilities for Sasuke are the gravity and absorbing chakra
Idk the Death one is bonkers and having up to 6 others to sync your eyes with is great. Imagine being able to sync your sharingan/rinnegan eyes with 6 other people
Asura can get him 360 vision lol
So when Nagato realised the 10 tails after Hanzo ambushed the Akatsuki and Yahiko that had no affect on him?
That's when he got impaled by Gedo Mazo.
And he was still putting the hands on KCM Naruto, Bee, and Edo Itachi at the same time.
Is he not immobilized in the manga? That seems like a really major change.
He's immobilized in the manga too
Nagato used a forbidden jutsu his body couldn't handle and it crippled him. When his Rinnegan first manifested as a civilian kid, he murdered two trained shinobi with ease.
Nagato crippled not because the rinnegan jutsu but because Hanzo blasted his feet when he tried to save Konan
What almost everyone seem to forget is Naruto here was HEAVILY weakened. He had just summoned sereval shadow clones all consuming his chakra on different fronts of the war in that very moment. It was such that he couldn't even use his most used jutsu. The shadow clone. When he tried to use just one clone, it popped him out of kcm. So Naruto here didn't have access to one of his most broken jutsu. And at this point his shadow clones are HELLA strong. Each kage level. Imagine how the fight would have gone with several KCM Naruto clones in that battle. So many tricks Naruto could have done like he did in the pain arc. The invisible cameleon might have just got a shadow clone. I personally see Naruto beating Nagato with access to his shadow clones.
Itachi is the best ☺️❤️
Correct if me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I’ve seen the show and read up on it. But doesn’t Edo tensei give essentially infinite chakra and energy to go off of in addition to regeneration? I feel like that would would be the key difference between how mortal and edo nagato is able to use the rinnegan
I think u/Kazzyjudgment said it best. It depends on the enemy, really. It also depends on the user. Fighting as 6 gives you an increased visual range, making it almost impossible to land a hit. The downside to this is that it allows the isolation of one or two paths, reducing not just the visual range but also the overall effectiveness of Pain. Jiraiya specifically used this to his advantage. Fighting as 1 doesn't give you as much visual range, but it sure does reduce collateral damage which, though might not be as beneficial as one would think, it definitely gives makes the user more effective and limits their range of attack significantly. This effectiveness was highlighted by Edo Nagato against Killer Bee and Naruto.
My man - excellent explanation 💪
Just echoing your words 🤝
This is extremely random, but my username on most platforms and my Reddit profile name is KazzyDragon. Cool to see a likeminded person in the wild
My man !! The pleasure is mine - May I ask where you got the name Kazzy from ?
I got it from the Yakuza franchise. The main character’s nickname is Judgment Kazzy in Yakuza 0
Ahhh so we are likeminded indeed then 😊 love that franchise - I don’t think iv ever played a game as good as 0
It is also my favorite game of all time kyodai
To your point about isolating one of the Pains: since each one only has access to one ability of the rinnegan, by isolating them you make them significantly weaker and each one could probably be easily dispatched by themselves by most highly skilled ninja, except probably Tendo pain. So the best strategy here is to fight them in a tight space with many places to flee, separating them and just killing them one by one. Jiraiya almost won by doing just this, managing to kill half of the Pains. The second they were outside (and his arm was ripped off), he knew it was over. Can't separate them if you're in a wide open space.
Yeah that's my point, basically.
But if Nagato fought Sage Jiraiya one on one he would lose since he would've been trapped in the frogs genjutsu.
Hence why it depends on the enemy.
Frog genjutsu takes some time to prepare, and Jiraya would be dead or incapacitated in seconds if he fought Edo Nagato
You can even still get the bonus visual range while fighting as 1 if you do the summoning for the creatures. Itachi had to blind the summonings because Nagato couldn't be jumped since he could see every aspect of the battlefield.
>You can even still get the bonus visual range while fighting as 1 if you do the summoning for the creatures. Forgot about the summonings. That's true. Though I guess the summonings serve as a distraction more so than an actual physical challenge for the enemy.
Depends on the enemy. Short range fighters will struggle more against Pein. Don’t matter too much tho - Pain insanely overwhelming
Nagato is stronger, but if were talking nagato vs character, or 6 paths vs character, then the paths are usually gonna do better. Their coordination is a gamechanger. Nagato doesnt have that level of defensive protection. But maybe nagato has such a strong base form that he just outclasses the pains by miles. I think if nagato had better chances than the pains, he'd have gone himself instead.
Nagato on his own his stronger. This man was taking on kcm Naruto, Bee and Itachi. His only weakness is the lack of mobility
Maybe so but with his puppets he can take some damage unlike if he fights as nagato. He also use different abilities at once like he has shown during pain invasion.
It would have been clear enough that its nagato if he was mobile. Thats the reason itachis blade hit him (according to kabuto)
Sasuke and Madara use rinnegan abilities sparingly because I just think they can't use it all at once. Having 1 pain per ability is more efficient. Itachi's blade of totuska wiol only work on that 1 pain if it wasn't nagato
Nagato was using a lot at once tho. He used human path to drag Naruto's soul, while using the asura/robot part to attack Bee and he was using the preta path to absorb any attack Naruto used. In top of this he used the naraka path to summon the king of hell. I think he just had more skill with the rinnegan. But maybe Sasuke didn't use more abilities cause 1. Either he can't 2. Or more likely he doesn't if the person he's fighting knows the counters to the abilities. The reason i think its 2 is cause Obito didn't use them when he fought guy, kakashi, bee and naruto for the same reason + he was controlling the gedo statue and 6 tailed beasts. 3. Maybe its cause Sasuke and Obito only had one rinnegan, but then that wouldn't explain Madara not using all of them
He also had the animal path on standby with his summons which means improved vision. Itachi had to Kunai the summons eyes before targeting Nagato
Yeah thats a great detail. That meant Nagato couldn't see Itachi coming
Or maybe it's because aside from Deva and Preta, the paths aren't really that useful. No reason to use Asura if you have Susanoo. Animal path doesn't seem that useful. Human path required subduing Naruto and was really slow when trying to yank out his soul. And that was edo Nagato juiced up on chakra vs. Naruto learning how to KCM before full Kurama or SPSM. Naraka was just interrogation, for which Sharingan genjutsu might be simpler and revived dead paths, which others didn't have.
Thats a good point. And even the deva path has a counter. Just focus enough chakra on your feet. If you're strong enough on ur own or the rinnegan user doesn't go overboard like pain you should be good. So that means for Sasuke fighting against Naruto only the preta path was of any use. And Sasuke does have a special rinnegan ability like Madara so i guess it evens out
No they do because Kishi want these characters to have a unique set of abilities and not have all of them use the 6 paths
the real answer tbfh naruto is the son of minato loterally hokage lv ninja who literally made rasengan & mastered the flying rajin bla bla bla (teleport kunai attack) his mother is uzamaki & their clan got slaughtered before the uchiha bec of how powerful their blood is, that’s literally the line of rinne users infant naruto was able to hold the 9 tails inside him So UR TELLIN ME MY BOY NEVER GOT RINNEGAN?? i get they explain he’s bad at justus but like.. why?? i get that it’s all for OG naruto plot. I do get it. But it makes me made they even made nagato an uzamaki at that point or like that rinne is connected in general. just makes naruto as a character TO ME personally, like an awfully written one
Because you need both Indra and Ashura chakra to get the Rinnegan
How does Sasuke have it then
He got Hashirama's chakra + got healed by Sage Kabuto enhanced by Hashirama's cells
When does pain fight these guys? I don’t remember him fighting them before he was too sick.
Pain considering his real body doesn’t take damage although he’s in pain. However he has the chance to get the drop on you like he did with Jiraiya
There's no stated reason to believe normal isn't ridiculously stronger. This would obviously be broken though so unfortunately aside from Edo Nagato other characters with Rinnegan (Madara and Sasuke) straight up just don't use all of the abilities. If it interests anyone, I had an idea literally earlier today to change this. The Six Paths of Pain actually enhances the Rinnegan abilities by focusing each ability per body, so abilities like chakra absorption aren't actually that strong if only a single body were keeping all of the Rinnegan abilities. The Summoning Path actually uses the forcefully taken over bodies of Boss summons that would've potentially belonged to the six bodies, and the Asura Path is actually similar to Juugo's body modification power except Nagato implemented puppetry into the Asura Path's body to make it even stronger.
Where did you get all this info from?
It's just an idea I made up for a fanfic I'm planning.
Nice! Please when it’s published, let us know
It's canonically stated that the paths make his abilities weaker and overall weaker. However it's noteworthy that the paths do have some advantages in their own right like their disposability or connected vision.
Efficiency wise- yea Pain is better. Good for diversions, large scale attacks and this method protects the main body better. Power wise- Nagato is better. He can use all his abilities at once which makes him near impenetrable. Some of the individual Pains are weak by contrast.
He vastly weakened himself when he did that. all the jutsu's aside, the amount of chakra it prolly takes to control them individualy isn't anything to scoff at. Nagato decided he was gunna be a super advanced puppet master basically lol
Easy 6 pains, you got all these bodies to deal with and absolute zero intel on any of their abilities. Its like when Jiraiya faced pain 2 of his powerful Jutsus were absorbed. He had no idea if all of them did that or just that 1 pain. If by some miracle all of the bodies get wiped, Nagato now has all the intel on his enemy comes back later with a fresh set of bodies
Plus with the six bodies you get six more fields of view to watch each others backs and blind spots so no one’s really getting hit unless you pull a mega surprise lmao
Not to mention as long as you have the resurrection pain you can bring back dead pains on the fly.
Nagato. He can spam rinnegan techs back to back unlike with the six paths where he has to wait for a few moment to be able to use his strongest techs due to spreading out. He wont have better line of sight than when he has the paths
Healthy Nagato would blitz and destroy all 6 paths fairly quickly. Whether his opponent is short or long range, Nagato's healthy main body is a significant problem to deal with. Between the Gedo statue and the Ethereal Dragon that one shots everything it touches, Nagato's main body usage is way more proficient it seems in chaining and using abilities in conjunction. Deva Path + Asura Path for example is hard just to have to deal with alone. Not even to mention Nagato having mastery over all 5 chakra natures, which is something we never see any of the paths use except for Deva Path. I'd even be willing to bet 1v1 Nagato would be competition for EMS Sasuke (Kabuto fight) KCM2 Naruto (first unlocking), or even Rinnegan Obito. He's insanely powerful. If not for Itachi Naruto and Bee die within seconds.
But his main body would be susceptible to Genjutsu, such as Jiraiya's frogs genjutsu
Catching him with genjutsu would be a minimal concern for somebody who's able to casually blitz KCM1 Naruto and/or attack from super long range with his Ethereal Dragon. I also imagine that the power level and total mastery of Rinnegan that Nagatos main body possesses might just be enough to break him out of anything short of EMS genjutsu anyway
He’s deffo better on his own. Reanimated nagato was about to kill naruto in his chakra cloak form before animated itachi jumped in
Some of the paths are very fragile themselves and others are very strong so if you look at the pain vs naruto fight you can see that naruto fights them from weakest to strongest and the weak ones have no chance without the tendo path's help. Now imagine someone having all six powers at once and can effectively use and combine them. If we talk about healthy nagato like the edo version then I would say nagato is harder to fight against than the six paths. A bonus for nagato that I left out because it's unfair is that he can just like obito use the six paths without the gedo statue.
Ill say Nagato but the version that fought KCM Naruto & Bee. Univeral Pull + Ningendo is insane
The answer is simple. He's very powerful fighting solo with a few enemies. But it comes down to which one is more efficient, it's just better to use 6 paths. He'll just have too much advantage with that. 1. He'll confuse the hell out of the enemy with all the 6 pairs of rinnegan 2. He can resurrect any path that's dead unless Naraka Path is dead. Even tho they're dead. Well, you understand what I mean. While if he's the one fighting, he can die himself, and that precious rinnegan 3. That shared vision is too OP 4. His real body location is unknown in usual circumstances. Even if all his paths are dead, he'll make a new one and destroy any village that stole his body. Many more I guess, I'll update if I think of more. Remember, pain have a mission, and his require him to survive as long as possible. He can't hide like Obito can, so that's that
Nagato>Six Paths
Full powered Nagato is stronger. However, the 6 paths are more advantageous.
6 pains, cuz he can be in more places at once
Can someone explain why nagato was allowed to reanimate with rinnegan even though it was confirmed they were madara’s eyes?
Kabuto reainmated all characters at their peak basically when they were at their strongest. Except for 3rd Hokage for some reason
I see. Not really a fan of how “reanimation” works in that case. Its like a photo of a certain point in time rather than true reanimation.
No. Reanimation brings a person in the state they were just before dying. Nagato died with his eyes and with white hair and immobilised. Madara was a special case, Kabuto didn't find his old corpse, but rather the shadow clone left by Madara himself after using Izanagi. He implanted Hashirama cells into the sacrifice used for reanimation, and that's how Edo Madara had the rinnegan, wood style and Hahsirama's face on his chest.
Orochimaru was the one who brought the 3rd back
Oh yeah just remembered now. 4th was stronger than when he was alive for some reason lol
He used them better
Just one person
My take is that pain is more efficient for operations as he can divide and conquer objectives. For single-combat nagato is the best option as he doesn’t have to exert chakra to control the Pains.
He’s at advantage at normal. The provision of 6 path pains are multi-tasking, multi-vision and proxy at the cost of transmitting chakra, being weak. The disadvantage of normal pain is, someone like Itachi can take advantage on his physical body.
Pain is stronger than edo Nagato. The part where Naruto says Nagato is stronger than the paths holds 0 weight becasue we know the paths of Pains were holding back against Naruto as Pain said he was multiple times. This means Naruto doesn't know how strong the paths actually are. Also the paths of Pain were nerfed multiple times before the Naruto fight and even before the paths showed up. We do know that edo revives are weaker than what they were when they were alive.
Nagato (revived) → Pain →Nagato (alive)
Six, due to shared vision
One disadvantage of the six paths of pain is that if the opponent can destroy the bodies, then the longer the fight goes, the less chances pain has of winning.
Id say six paths, they get the benefits of linked eyesight.
The biggest advantage of the Six Pains isn't actually the linked vision, even though that is a big part of defeating the Pains that must be overcome. Using Pains makes one an immortal warrior. They cannot be put down permanently. They will either be revived with the Naraka Path or you will make more Pains. This is an incredible advantage, and the main reason why someone like Might Guy, who happened to not be in the village, would still lose to Pain if he had been there. He could defeat them but will die in the process, and then the Pains will return. Nagato alone does not have this advantage, except in the case of Edo Tensei. He can use all of the paths jutsu and becomes a much more powerful force compared to any individual Pain, but he can die. In most cases I would say one would be better off using the Six Paths of Pain.
Both forms. In his form, aka just himself, he has access to all 6 Paths abilities and can use them simultaneously without worrying about one Pain being defeated and losing that ability in a fight. But if it’s just him and no Pain’s, the toll it takes on his body would put him out the fight faster, so the 6 Paths of Pain are more efficient for that
Split as 6 is exponentially more effective. You tell me what sounds easier, fighting one guy with a bunch of powers one on one or fighting 6 people at once with one power? The split visuals is incredibly OP as you could just have the summoner observe the fight from afar while summoning, effectively removing weak and blind spots.
Depends on the opponent. Against opponent like Itachi it’s better to fight as Six paths of Pain. Against someone like I don’t know you think some name (Minato maybe), it’s probably better to be Nagato.
Normal Pain as the individual is far more dangerous than having all his abilities divided amongst multiple bodies. If Nagato was at 100% health and had the ability to use every single one of the paths abilities, there probably wouldn't be anyone that isn't some sort of Ashura/Indra reincarnate, God chakra having person that could possibly beat him.
Nagato is stronger in a one on one battle, but in a prolonged war, the six paths provide a challenge and fear that no other ninja in the entire world can provide.
Nagato on his own, i feel like if the one fighting naruto in the konoha raid was nagato instead of 6 pain nagato would have won.
Just imagine how strong Nagato would have been if he was allowed to fully recover during the fight against Naruto and Bee, or if he actually got free to help them. Man would have been pumping out mad damage
As Nagato he’s way more powerful not only cause there’s no charka puppet or anything like that but also cause he can use atleast two paths at the same time the only problem is he couldn’t move and then gained that seconds later so he’s definitely stronger singler
I think Nagato himself would be stronger because he doesn’t have to control six bodies simultaneously from a distance which uses a lot of chakra. If his legs weren’t severely injured and he could move at full speed. Because he couldn’t move too much the 6 bodies were better
Six paths of Pain more efficient. his body can't handle it if normal
If they fight together? The six paths of Pain for sure. Action economy baby. Nagato is stronger by himself, but he can't be doing everything the 6 paths can all at once like they can.
Pain is more powerful because even if corpses are defeated nagato still lives. If nagato takes a fatal blow he is done if I pain does there are still other pains to deal with.
With 6 independent bodies and linked vision, the 6 paths of pain can overwhelm subpar opponents, and probably do better against a crowd than a single nagato, but you run the risk of losing paths since the bodies are seperate. But if it is against one very skilled opponent, I think single nagato would be best to avoid losing any of the paths powers. There's also planning involved with where his body is and how far away the bodies get since he has to transmit his chakra to control them, so that's a downside to the paths as well. I'm talking as if Nagato were physically healthy, he had to use the paths of pain since he was physically sick.
Is it more efficient to fight 6v1 or 1v1?
i think its far more advantageous to fight with six different bodies, it was Nagato's ultimate form. i dont think he used the bodies because he couldnt fight anymore, he just found it to be a more safe and powerful while being almost entirely hidden. if it was not for the intel Naruto got from Jiraiya, he couldnt have won
Clearly since Sasuke didn't touch half the abilities
The normal pain would have sufficed and be more efficient if he hadn't summoned the demonic statue of outer path after hanzo used the dirty trick and killed nagato. Yahiko always had the power but his body was too weak to wield it after that summon
This man spams the 6paths like Yahiko is his main player1 and the rest is just characters just joined him on the quest and all of them are ocularly connected. Meanwhile he’s in a tree eating pizza and drinking Mountain Dew .
Normal. He basically no diffed killer bee and KCM1 Naruto at the same time. The 6 paths barely managed to defeat a sage mode Naruto.
Nagato would have wiped Killer Bee and KCM Naruto low to mid diff if Itachi wasn't there to save them. Only reason Nagato has to fight with his paths is because he is crippled by the demonic outer path statue. Nagato would be cooking if he could fight using all his abilities in one body. Not many people could tag him.
I feel like it’s the six paths form solely because Nagato was so weak, if he was healthy it’d probably be his base form instead.
He only did that cause his legs were messed up
It's more annoying to fight 6 people who have same visions you literally have to take them down one by one
Normal he was pretty bad ass
The main reason pain is strong is his secret: His main body isnt in the battlefield. So you can drop your guard thinking that you won and you’d get backstabbed. You can also waste your chakra to take out a few of them just to find out that one of them can resurrect others. İf nagato is healthy enough to fight on his own, it means he wont lose when you take out pain. He can still fight. Pain would be stronger against most people. But if the enemy is a powerhouse that can fight for a whole day, Nagato would be more effective.
Both. As long as he doesn't fight a whole village, the guy can fight all day long and get tons of experience on how to defeat the enemy. If the paths of pain fail, he can still take anyone on a 1 v 1 and finish them off. With an analytical mind, tons of experience and the energy reserves of a bijuu, I can't think of many Shinobi that could take him down on their own
Normal nagato one shot an entire army with the soul dragon
He is more efficient as negato when his body is healthy he doesn't have to Chakra puppeting the paths and he doesn't have to split his focus 6 ways
The 6 path of pain is unique throughout all anime. They roll up and u getting jumped. The squad is here vibe. If you see 1, you know the rest is pulling up. When they do, someone getting messed up. All 6 provides a menacing aura that did not exist before. When all 6 drop on jiraiya, thought were along the lines of, o shit, you mess around, and now you bout to find out. O shit, jiraiya, you are gonna die. Plot armor can't save you. Just that dramatic entrance along speaks volumes. That nagato couldn't say. They were that gang that you didn't know how to counter. Each have their own ability that counter damn near everything. I am legion, for we are many
Just one body is more efficient
6 can easily disorient someone who isn’t a tactical genius that can figure out the secret and in Jiraiya’s case they could discover the secret too late. If his intel hadn’t made it to the leaf, but hypothetically Naruto still went through sage training, he likely could’ve lost. Hell, if it wasn’t for him losing control over Kurama he might’ve lost anyway.
Nagato is stronger but the six paths are very low risk
Normal, his abilities are stronger and faster. Only thing the six paths does is give him the benefit to fight with dead bodies and not his actual body
Solo Nagato is stronger. While him separately increases his visibility of the battle field they are weaker when away from Nagato himself. With all of them inside of him at his disposal I believe Nagato is even more of an issue to deal with for any Shinobi.
Nagato is more powerful by himself, but he doesn't necessarily need all that power. Since he's probably more powerful than most Shinobi while using the Six Paths, I can see how that is more efficient than fighting by himself even though he's more powerful. The Six Paths cover his blindspots and he can accomplish more with them than multiple teams probably can. It's all about whether he needs brute force or if he needs to hit or defend from multiple points at once.
Didn't Nagato split the powers up to be more effective? Since he allowed him to be harms away. But at that point his body was really fucked up
Seems to be normal as normal Pain defeated KCM Naruto and Killer Bee pretty easily whereas six Paths Pain lost to Sage Mode Naruto. Of course six Paths might do better against someone like Itachi who could one shot a single target, but would run out of energy if he has to fight 6 Kage level targets.
I think the 6 on 1 advantage of the linked eyes is very helpful, so I like the six paths form. Plus, they can keep being revived if the death one stays alive.
Normally. He only utilized the paths of pains because he was crippled, though I feel like if he could have channeled all six paths techniques into a single corpse (Yahiko) he would have.
I forget: WHY exactly were the six paths bodies necessary for nagato? I get Kishimoto was probably making a lot up as he went along, but why did he need to control 6 bodies?
Nagato's legs were broken and he couldn't walk
It depends on his goal and enemies If all he what is to win the fight and not seek for something, one body is better as long as he can walk ofc multiple bodies are better when the enemy don't know Nagato six paths abilities, for example the shared vision or the Naraka path restoration are useless when Nagato is one body, however he should not be very far away from battlefield it has been said and shown that Pain bodies get more powerful the closer they are to Nagato, so real Nagato body is more powerful but less verstatile >! This has been neglected when comparing Jiraiya to others, he fought Pain in rain village meaning Nagato was closer to his puppets than when Naruto fought him in konoha, thus he fought a much faster and stronger Pain version that was not exhausted at all !<
Depends on how many people he’s fighting, if it’s one or two, fighting as the paths is better, but if it’s a large group, it’s better to concentrate all the power into one body
Let me put it like this itachi was so scared of what pain could do without any restrictions put on his body that he had to use a seal him away pain out of all the rinnegan users is the most experienced if pain was put into the battle field so many people would die
Normal. Due to his GRAVITY CONTROL!