Ranking the Spriggan 12 thus far would go something like this:
1) August
Self explanatory, considered the strongest mage past and present aka August > All mages in earthland history. The pinacle of the human race if you will. Knows more magic then an immortal genius who himself has lived for over 400 years and has magical power that trumps that of Invel/Serena/Dimaria/Brandish/Ajeel (according to Makarov). According to Brandish, who had just seen Natsu handily defeat Jacob, August would stomp Natsu. He also has a feat of creating a barrier sturdy enough to completely nullify an attack on the level of a dragons roar (Laxuses huge nuke). Dudes an absolute monster.
2) Irene
Second only to August, and only marginally weaker. Already has AoE that could be sensed from accross Ishgal and could change the very landscape itself. Most importantly, she is planning on taking on Acnologia head-on (in his dragon state no less), the same guy who effortlessly one-shotted God Serena.
3) Bradman
We haven't seen everything he has to offer, in fact, the fight has only just really began and by the end of it I wouldn't be surprised if Gajeel gets help from people beyond just Levy (who herself already has a perfect counter to Bradmans power), like maybe Rogue and Sting. In a sense I am putting him this high based on expectation (I already view Gajeel as someone who is or should be Spriggan level alone). Though what he has shown so far is impressive. He has a form of intangibility so all physical attacks are useless against him, on top of that he has poison that withers his opponents down over time, unlucky for him he is facing Gajeel who should be very resistent to said poison by now. His skull reaper attack also seems to be unavoidable and it did manage to injure Gajeel so it should be fairly powerful.
4) Dimaria
Age Seal is quite possibly the strongest magic in the manga but I believe it has its restrictions. For starters I don't think it works on characters above her weight class, Kagura for example was able to determine that time had stopped, granted it still worked on her but she was powerful enough to at least realize that time had stopped. Secondly I believe it has an AoE, she puts up a barrier that reaches out to a certain extent and time within that barrier stops whereas everything outside of it moves at a normal pace. With that said, I am honestly not even sure whether it would work on a Spriggan, let alone one that is more powerful so I'll just leave her here for now. Her God Takeover is powerful but not ubber powerful.
5) Brandish
Mass manipulation is OP but just like Age Seal I believe it has its restrictions. I want to see her in battle before putting her higher or lower. It could very well be that she's meant to be a support type rather then a direct confrontational fighter which would put her a lot lower on the list, though with a title like nation destroyer that's hard to imagine.
6) Wahl Icht
Heavily underrated accross the board. Dude is downright immune to a plethora of different types of magic, besides lightning he is also immune to every type of Sensorary distortion (such as Midnights magic and Kyoukas curse) as well as natural hazards such as poisons (from Cobra, Bradman, Torafusa etc......). On top of that he has an innate ability to determine his opponents weaknesses and create counter measures to them. His physical strength can match current Laxuses in a fight and he has an Etherion Gun which might just be the most powerful attack in the series used by a single Mage thus far (granted it needs charging). Even his casual attacks in assault mode are powerful enough to injure someone of Laxuses caliber and the attack that only grazed him managed to scorch the sky itself. His durability is actually fairly high, being able to come out of the receiving end of Laxuses blows unscathed. People seem to overlook the fact that Laxuses finisher against him was
super effective as it was
still a form of lightning, simply a form of it that he had never seen before and therefore never developed an immunity against. I'm not sure why I ain't even putting him higher in all honesty, I kinda convinced myself.
7) Ajeel
He is also fairly underrated. He doesn't have all that much direct fire power but he makes up for it with his haxxed abilities. He has sand body which basically makes him immune to all solid
objects. He can make different landforms of sand that could likely reconstruct themselves (like that golem) and one of the most powerful magics in the series is Sand World. Something which not only shuts down his opponents sight sense but enables him to merge with his sand, at which point the only way to defeat him is to hit him when he materializes to attack, but that's hard to do given that you wouldn't be able to see him and he himself is fairly fast. If not for his arrogance he could also be higher on the list, unfortunatly though his arrogance makes him do stupid things like grabbing his opponents rather then just kiting them from afar within sand world. He can also use his sand as a powerful shield (easily block Jupiter) and his Sand Pit and Sand Tsunami are impossible to counter for pure physical fighters.
8) God Serena
Unlike the above two this guy tends to be criminally overrated, and this is coming from a fan. I've seen people putting him on the same pedestal as the likes of August........just no. I suppose that's because he lacks feats. The only ones he has consists of spamming his opponents with multiple weak dragon slaying magic, magic which it took just under a handful of to defeat the already heavily injured Ishval Saints, whom all have durability and endurance comparable to that of Juras (aka not the highest in the series to say the least). Granted, those were likely basic attacks and he still has roars and secret arts under his belt but still. There is nothing overly special to him yet beyond being a decently hard hitter and having a degree of immunity to several types of magic. I really hope he gets to show us more magic that could make him stand-out.
9) Jacob
This dudes alright. Sure he is a good CQC fighter and he has a decent magic to match and aid/support his fighting style but nothing about him really stood out. His camouflage seems potent at first but really all you need to do is have something in your arsenal that has a large AoE to hit and reveal him. His physical strength and durability are high but that wouldn't get him overly far against his Spriggan peers or anyone in their level (like Natsu).
10) Neinhart
Inconsistency. His level of strength is solely dependent on his opponent because he didnt show anything worth while to show that he could fight for himself. With that said he
could go higher on the list depending on who it is that he's fighting and he's best against multiple people (because he gets more memories to pull from), but I can't put him any higher because of that one huge flaw in his Historia magic.
Why is Neinhart underestimated like this? He isn't even close to be the weakest Spriggan. I mean, he can summon all the leaders of the Balam Alliance with ease. These three together are already stronger than Wahl and a lot stronger than Ajeel.
You are forgetting just how circumstantial Neinharts power is. He can't just summon all the leaders of the Balam Alliance, he needs his opponent to have memories of all three said leaders for him to be capable of summoning them. If he faces someone like Gajeel who knows virtually no one impressive (comparatively speaking) that's dead who is Neinhart going to summon? On the other hand if he fights someone like Natsu he would have a ton of leverage over him.
For Sand World specifically a dragon can still fly in it, and by extension out of it. Even so, Ajeel probably doesn't have an offensive move that can hurt a dragon though. Others like Wahl would probably fair better, and we'll see August and Irene eventually, I imagine they'll have considerable firepower.
Yeah Ajeel doesn't have much in way of offence. The only thing I can see working is his moisture absorption but that would likely take time with a dragon, even if he gets contact.
I can agree DS magic levels the playing field. Even without knowing the exact mechanism, we know relatively speaking that DS magic > other magic against dragons. Whether it negates resistance, or is super effective, in the end it's the same thing. I agree if current Erza has DS magic she'll do well against a dragon, a slayer tech equivalent to Nakagami would be pretty effective.
We know that dragon saying magic is dragon magic so when a dragon slayer is fighting a dragon, its essentially dragon Vs dragon. I'd like to think that that indicates a level playing field.
A lot of things seem casual when we're talking really strong beings. I felt Igneel put a lot of power in it, like it was a serious roar. It's just he can't exhaust himself easily because he's really strong. I was using Igneel's power level and roar, to compare to IgNatsu and Zeref, the latter being the strongest character other than Acnologia right now. If the flames of Igneel are enough to rock Zeref, it speaks to the impressiveness of a dragons physical being imo, given Igneel's roar wasn't much of a thing to Acnologia. I'm not sure if my comparison is seamless, it's just the basis I find easiest to work with.
That's fair.
