Sure.
Difference is that they are on completely different planes. You can say maybe August's country level destruction, or Eileen's country enchantment was a feat comparable to Merc's ocean flip, in terms of AOE at least. Difference is that Eileen needed prep time, and she just rearranged it, not destroyed. August's was destruction yes, but dude needed to sacrifice his lifespan for it.
Merc's ocean flip was a casual side effect of dude just powering up lmao. It's top 3 aura farm in the verse, along with Acno absorbing singularity (top 1 easy), and Selene's planetary effect.
Yes, AOE destruction isn't same as combat stats or overall power level.
And it is obviously expected for "Acno tiers" to have much better AOE than Spriggans or demons.
My main issue is with actual FEATS or overall power level
Well but if she can enchant a whole country what should prevent her to enchant the whole country in an element like she did with Mt. Zonia? U1 was a spell with that she wanted to nerf Acnologia (what she did) and to teleport Zeref to Mavis (what she also did), imo if she really wanted she could also use her power to turn anything into fire or so? At least I don't see why she could not do that? My point was also more that she has the MP for country spells, if she need time for it or not isn't so important. It's still impressive.
Yeah Mercs ocean flipp was only a side effect of his MP just like Selenes MP reached other worlds. Never said that the MP of the S12 are on the same lvl but for only "human" mages they had a lot of MP and they were island-country lvl characters.
Well the 3 aura feats were also not part of fights at least not used in the fight against the enemies.
Why should Aoe feats not be part of the overall power level? Imo Aoe feats are showing the overall power of a character like Irene, Mercs or Selenes feats with U1, the ocean and the worlds/moon. They only could do that because they have a high MP, higher than most characters from the whole franchise.
What is more important, most of the feats we saw also the ones which are the best and most impressive ones are the ones which we saw outside of a battle, it's imo nonsense to ignore them.
The issue isn't that they got rekt due to plot armour. Nothing defeats plot armour in this series.
The issue is that they were WEAK compared to their original hype and protagonists.
I completely disagree that they did better against the protagonists. In fact, my main issue, as I mentioned earlier, was that they were UNDERDOGS against the good guys.
Like, that is the main issue.
In the interest of keepings things not dragging a lot longer by addressing them individually, and while also addressing your overall argument regarding feats of Spriggans and demons.
Let's ignore all the aura farming, statements and what not. And just see how these characters fared in their actual battles, facing against the protagonists. What are their feats and portrayal, in direct comparison to our good guys.
Demons:
- LFD Natsu was outright stronger than Jackal, and in fact most demons (everyone aside from Mard Geer, Silver and Kyouka....maybe Sayla too)
This is a big issue, because back in x791, Natsu wasn't a top dog like he is now. There were many human mages stronger than him - FT S class (with Mira being debatable but still likely stronger), all wizard saints, Bluenote, etc.
- Laxus, someone ~ Jura, LOW DIFF'D Tempesta.
- Ezel: lost to Wendy. DF or not, it's just Wendy dude. Give Wendy DF and she still isn't touching base Natsu or Gajeel. It's just sad, more underwhelming than even Tempesta getting low diff by Laxus
Compare these, to the BENCHMARK set by DELIORA. Deliora SHITS on every demon of Tartarus except Mard Geer (and Silver, only due to slayer advantage). You clearly see the issue here??
Deliora was un unstoppable monster. A force of nature that just kept annihilating cities after cities, that couldn't even be stopped by standard WS caliber mages. While Tartarus demons, with all their legends and hype of "demons of book of Zeref", mostly amounted to being SCRUBS.
Standard spriggans.
There were multiple instances where Spriggans outright received INFERIOR portrayal to the protagonists. I'm addressing portrayal here, because their feats already are dogshit, and as we saw they all got defeated. I am using portrayal here, because that is what people still use to wank them.
- Ajeel against Laxus. August outright implied that Ajeel would get killed by Laxus. A nuke used by the dude with barely any prep time. Best case scenario for Ajeel is him surviving with severe injuries, nothing else makes sense from the context.
- Wahl against Laxus. Straight up admitted that he is the underdog against NERFED Laxus, and that the nerf was the only reason he could compete even.
- Neinhart shitting his pants from Jellal flexing his magic power. You don't freak out from sensing a magic power inferior or comparable to you. This outright shows that Jellal's magic power was on a different level from Neinhart's
- Natsu basically outright admitting that he could've ended Jacob whenever he pleased, with him massively holding back only due to not wanting to destroy the guild
Compare this to God Serena, the BENCHMARK. Serena destroyed 4 GOI in a 1v4 with raw stats, and is basically confirmed to be equal of x792 Gildarts. He no diff'd CURRENT ISM Gajeel (who scales above all forms of x792 Natsu except DF), and pushed CURRENT Jellal (>> x792 Laxus/Jellal) to a high diff (in a fight where Serena dominated for the most part). Mashima even outright confirmed Serena > Laxus and Natsu (two characters who got clear superior portrayal to other Spriggans), though it isn't clear whether he was referring to x793 or x792 versions (likely x792 versions).
Standard spriggans SUCK compare to their original portrayal. Only Dimaria and maybe Invel lived upto their hype. And Dimaria too only because her hax is that broken (her combat stats otherwise suck too), no different from Signiario sisters who have broken hax with shit stats.
Special Spriggans:
- Eileen. Lets just consider raw combat feats in a real fight, ignoring stuff like rearranging a country with prep time (great showcase of magic power but irrelevant in a real fight), or her "surviving" against casual Acnologia (a feat that was considerably upstaged by JELLAL).
Her true fight in the series was against Erza and Wendy. Many of her enchantments were countered by Wendy. Human Eileen was pushed to her limits by fire pants Erza after Wendy went down temporarily, she had advantage yes, but she was so pressed by fire pants Erza that she got frustrated and transformed to dragon form. Mind you, this was Erza before the broken bones and PoF bullshit.
Dragon Eileen, well........got one shot by DS enchanted Erza
- Larcade
Yes, dude had hax and could've taken down Gildarts and Laxus. But considering his portrayal, someone surviving his hax shouldn't take him down if he's basically Future Rouge minus dual mastery and 6 years.
Larcade is basically someone who would be LOW DIFF'D by future Rouge, just because he can survive his hax.
It simply isn't acceptable for a "special Spriggan" to be some hax merchant. Most of the average Spriggans being trash tiers with hax was bad enough already.
Compare this to August, the BENCHMARK for "special Spriggans". Solo'd crime sorciere (whose stronger members like Cobra and Midnight are comparable or close to standard Spriggan level) and Jellal (above all standard Spriggan except God Serena). Was low diffing Gildarts. He instantly learns any magic and becomes immune to it - the ultimate hax till date in the series after maybe Acnologia/Zeref ability (use any ability on him and it doesn't work, and he just instantly learns it. WTF).
Not even that, remove his hax and you get a mage with raw combat stats on or above Gildarts level. Imagine that, remove all his main abilities and you get Gildarts lmao!! And when Gildarts hit him with the only move that could damage him, he TANKED it with just a bloody lip. You know someone is truly respected by the author when the character deals with attacks meant to counter him, while regular villains get a mental breakdown and gets one shot in the same scenario.
Well imo it's useless to judge about a character from a battle where the author uses plot armor or other things to nerfe the characters. If we know that a character has the MP/power lvl to use spells which can manipulate or destroy whole cities, islands or countries but instead of that use a spell which only makes damage to the ground or a building and gets defeated because of that, why should we judge this? ^^
But I will still answer to some examples
Were they really "underdogs" compared to the protagonists?
You’re example with Jackal is more an example how impressive he was imo. ^^
Natsu one of the stronger mages (not among the strongest at that time but still one of the strongest overall in Ishgar) needs his LDFM and went all out (without DF) only to defeat one of the weaker members of Tartaros who was able to destroy a whole town and make people to bombs. Plus he also had a little bit help from Lucy, Wendy and Happy. Like if Happy wouldn’t have safed them, Natsu etc would be dead or at least defeated.
Natsu didn’t even need his LDFM in his battle against the twin dragons, so he used this mode the first time again since his battle with Hades and F. Rogue. One thing more what makes Jackal a strong opponent.
If this wasn't impressive at that time I don't know what do you expected?
Plus, Tartaros was never hyped. This was my bad too, but if I remember correctly, they were never hyped?
They were only hyped to be demons from Zerefs books and that END was their master and strongest demon. It was never said that the 9DG are the strongest demons or amomg the strongest demons or something like that.
Gajeel who was on the same lvl like Natsu at that time, need a new power up to defeat Torafuzer.
Gray only won because his opponent was his own father who wanted to die.
Even Mirajane one of the strongest mages Ishgars need help from her siblings and Erza only won because of plot, under normal circumstance she would have lose her battle.
Ezel was one of the weaker demons too and Wendys DF was so strong because she ate the ethernano in the area where Face was, thus gave her even more power, thats why she could even destroy one of the Faces, what other mages couldn’t do not even Jura. So Wendy->Jura?
Imo these examples are showing us how strong they were and the protagonists need either help or went all out to win against them.
Silver would probably defeat Deliora, he had enough power to froze a village of giants together with Atlas Flames MP.
But overall Deliora was more hyped than the 9DG like I said I don’t remember that the 9DG get hype from the FT world/Mashima like he did with Deliora, Grimoire Heart, S12, Zeref, Acnologia, Dragon Gods. All of them were more hyped than Tartaros.
Imo the readers hyped Tartaros much more than the manga or author did.
You’re example with the S12
You are saying that Laxus could nuke Ajeel? Maybe but no one can be 100% sure about this.
In his battle against Natsu etc and in his battle against Erza he showed us much better feats, maybe he was suprised that Laxus appeard and immediately used a strong spell, so he couldn’t react so fast? Who knows.
But his sand creations, sandstorms and sandwaves which he used in his battles are showing that he is impressive, he even blocked Jupiter with his hand a weapon that was still strong enough to injure him badly after he was hit with that weapon later and even then Erza need her Nakagami armor to defeat him finally.
In a case he tanked more and stronger hits from Erza than Irene, so Ajeel -> Irene? What is illogical, so again this shows only that Mashima didn’t care about the second half of the arc aymore, he rushed it. So the potray of most of the spriggans in the second half were terrible and didn’t make sense.
Dimaria was defeated from 3 mages (Ultear (time magic power), Sheria (god slayer magic) and Wendy) and later from END.
Brandish lost on purpose.
To defeat Invel, Gray need a power boost from Juvias "death"...
Bloodman even „killed“ Gajeel but thanks to Irenes spell he survived, while Bloodman died (why?) and tbh this guy not even used the most dangerous and most impressive curses from the Tartaros members, if he would have used all curses from Tartaros and in a better way he would not have lost against Gajeel. The way Mashima potrayed Bloodman was really stupid and terrible....
Wall was "nerfed“ too or rather Mashima did’t let him use his full power, like Etherion etc.
But overall sure, Laxus was stronger, but Laxus was always a monster too. This will not change the fact that in a way he was potrayed bad too but at least he fought a monster too.
Neinhart has only high MP but is weak overall. But even with his low physical stats Neinharts downfall was caused from 3 top mages.
In Larcades case, he had bad luck that his opponent was someone who can counter his magic plus Sting had help from Rogue, Minerva and Kagura during the battle. He also blocked Kaguras sword with his fingers and slashed Kaguras body with his hands. So he has at least some physic stats plus high MP and hax magic.
The way he was potrayed was really terrible and I will never say that this wasn't the case, but well it's a shounen thing and the second half was rushed anyway.
In Irenes case you are saying we should ignore all other feats like her main abilities overall? Okay, she need time to prepare a spell like U1 but she showed us other feats too which wasn’t used in her battle against Erza and Wendy. Like for example, she could easily enchant the ground or the air among them like she did before (Mount Zonia), she could easily enchant Erzas weapons and armors like she did before (even in that fight). She could easily enchant herself or her opponents like she did before (Beserkers), she could enchant Erzas weapons into something else, maybe to people too like she did with Juliet and Heine? Wendy encounters „most“ of her spells? The few weak ones she used before she changed her body with Wendy?
Thats what I meant with I will not judge about a character only because the character was potrayed in a bad or terrible way during the battle against the good guys.
People even forget that she fought and defeat many real dragons in the past where she was weaker and now she lost too two girls and was injured from a DS spell? She fought dragons in the past, she knows real dragon spells....a reason more why I will never accept her fight against Erza and Irene.
So far we know Acnologia and Irene are the only ones who defeat many dragons in the past. I don't count George because we only know that he defeat 2 or 3 dragons but among them was at least a dragon king.
These are impressive feats from all 3 of them and in the end they where defeat in a terrible way.
Jellal against Acnologia is now a proof that Irene vs Acnologia is not impressive anymore?
Jellal -> Acnologia?
I know that Acnologia played with him and that he had plot armor but still the potray of Acnologia was really lame too.
The fights from the S12, Zeref and Acnololgia and the second half of the arc were so terrible that most of them are not making even sense and I will never accept them too.
If we ignore many feats which are not part of the battles they had then you could say that Hades was one of the most immpresive characters in the whole franchise. And even his downfall was only because of the plot.
It's easy to compare "better" potrayed battles with the "worse" ones.
Agreed. It isn't a fair comparison to compare underlings with bosses.
This is why I compared the performance of Dragon Gods, to Mard Geer, Zeref and Acnologia.
The only reason I even made the comparison was because many people here compare them to DGs. Well, we can do that, and see that even relative to the expectations, DGs mostly lived upto their hype of raw combat prowess at least.
But it isn't fair to compare underlings to bosses, so I am even willing to let it slide. Just putting it out there for those who care.
Raw combat power and MP wise the DG are the strongest indeed but the point is also that even with that power they showed us, how the protagonists "easily" defeat them, while they had more struggle against the older enemies with more consequences.
Plus imo only raw combat power is not enough to show how powerful someone is, imo many things are important and not only raw combat power.
When we discuss power level, it has to be relative to the protagonists, for obvious reasons.
And this is where Tartarus demons and Spriggans failed for the most part.
I am not impressed by destructive capabilities alone at this point. Yes it's hype, but they say nothing about how characters compare to the good guys, which is ultimately what matters. Characters like Jellal had city level AOE as early as back in x784
You're right but at the same time like I also said it's useless if the enemies hold back or didn't use everything they can do. Thats what happened with most of the S12 members and with some of Tartaros like Silver and Mard Geer.
If the protagonists can defeat them only because the enemy is holding back so that the good guys can win is not really fair imo.
It's also not fair to compare fights where the enemy did show more than other enemies because of plot or other reasons and didn't show the same "feats" in a battle.
Natsu used a small country level attack at the end of the fight with Aldaron. When he combined Atlas flames and Ignia flames with his dragon force. The attack resulted in blowing a hold through dragon Aldaron's torso, and dragon Aldaron is a country sized dragon.
It is till date the biggest destructive attack from a human in the series, with August's Ars magia potentially being bigger if completed (at the expense of his life)
Erza never had high AOE, she is all about lethality and attack power.
Beside Natsu and August I would also add CSK sword spell, this spell went thought a big part of the country and Irenes U1, it wasn't a damage spell but she was able to enchant a whole country with it. Laxus too, his thunder nuke was one of the biggest attacks too.
I REALLY HATE THIS FACT, if characters are strong enough to use this kind of spells, why they never doing it? Same with characters who are showing such feats outside of an battle but not in the battle. Why? Because the protagonists are so weak that the enemies are always nerfed and holding back?
Yeah, last chance.
I am willing to ignore the travesty that was F&F, if eclipse dragons dominate.
************
I hope it....
Addressing this separately cause this annoyed me a lot in the past as well.
VERY CLEARLY, Mashima changed plans sometime in the future.
During Tartarus, DeS magic had a very clear path forward, when END was established as one of the three main endgame powers, alongside Acnologia and Zeref.
He was very clearly intended to be an actual demon that existed in the past. Igneel knew of him, and Acnologia was clearly implied to be threatened by him. Mard Geer had true loyalty, zeal and admiration for him; he was such a giga fanboy of END that he apologized to the book when he had to place it down in order to fight seriously.
All that, and Mashima RETCONNED the entire thing; basically boiled it all down to "Mard Geer lied". Yeah righ, Mard apparently just got the creator's brother's book "randomly". Dude was ready to die for him and was lying....I'm supposed to believe that. Utterly shameful writing, truly disgusting. I guess Aconolgia and Igneel were delusional too lmao. Ohh right, and every other demon is from the book (either the book exists or it transforms to the demon, with Natsu conveniently being the one exception who is separate from his book)
This is similar level of gaslighting that he used to retcon Selene - biggest psychopath amongst the dragons, the only truly evil dragon god IMO, and he expects us to believe she just wants to help humans all along! He thinks the readers are stupid.
Yeah this was so lame, what he did with END, like you said, he diffently wanted that END is among Zeref and Acnologia one of the 3 big bads but changed his plans.
Too say Mard Geerd lied was so stupid and lame.
Selene.....I will never forget how he retconed her lol so fucking stupid was that....
He is stupid or his editors but not the readers
My point right here @Shiki_Dragneel
Strongest ever, who would potentially solo the DGs in that state. And dude had building level destructions....
You can be as strong as you want, nothing matters when plot is restricting you from using it.
Acnologia's best feat was in his human form, one shotting Serena while August couldn't even perceive what had happened and looked straight. Guess that's what happens when you put him against characters without plot armour, he can actually use his true powers!
Till date the best combat feat from a non dragon, with only competition even remotely close being Suzaku one shotting Erza and Natsu back to back in his intro with his raw power.
That was my whole point too, thats why imo the enemies are always stronger than the protagonists. They can only win with plot armor.
Of course many enemies suffered from plot fights and could never show their true power (raw combat power, MP power, hax abilities or magic abilities overall).
But if I must compare them then the most disappointed battles, battle feats, downfall and potray had Acnologia and Zeref after them the DG, then the S12, Diabolos and then Tartaros.
Imo all 3 groups are impressive but the older ones were better in different ways, they were only "humans/demons" at least most of them and they showes us "better" more "impressive" feats because they were only "humans" and "demons" and at that time they were among the strongest, before other characters appeared who are on the "same"lvl like Acnologia.
- They also showed us more spells/attacks
- The hype of them were not so high like the hype to be on the same lvl like the strongest character
- The characters went all out against them or defeat them in team battles.
- They did more damage to the FT world/characters and more side characters were part of the battles or arcs overall.
- We saw other dragons who showed us how powerful they can be and compared to the DG they were better potrayed than the DG.
My biggest problem with the DG is that they are the most powerful dragons, so they are the most powerful characters in the FT verse, only Acnologia and maybe FH Zeref are stronger than them.
But so far they were defeated in a "easy" way if you need 2-4 strong mages to defeat a S12 member then you should need at least 10 powerful mages with DS magic to defeat a dragon god.
Only team Natsu was enough to defeat them. In some battles they had help from other characters too but overall they were defeated from team Natsu. Something I also will never accept just like with the S12 and later Diabolos, the way the DG lost was stupid and rushed too.
Imo Enemies in FT/shounens------------------------------> protagonists in FT/shounens
