I don't think Jellal did any better than what we were shown at all against August. He used spells,August nullified them and probably hit Jellal with harder versions. August basically low diffed Jellal. But the thing is...Jellal isn't a brawler and only uses CQC while magically coating himself in Meteor so that's out as well.He had no holder mage with him to allow him to figure out August's spell and simply...No chance to win whatsoever
With the exception of Acno,August has the most haxx in the series.
But that hardly means a thing when Gildarts vs August was a different kind of match-up.
Why? Because August didn't use one proper spell..Just some casual blasts,his stick and that one instance where he used Gildarts own magic against him. But Gildarts won..How? He had two things Jellal did not..1)A prosthetic arm 2)Cana,who by just being there,allowed Gildarts to figure out and exploit August's weakness.
Oh....And August tanked his attack and committed suicide for some reason
It was a convenient and PiS/CiS filled fight that hardly gives Gildarts an impressive standing.
And on the same subject,we didn't even have a panel of Jellal/August engaging in combat,just Jellal's comments and the aftermath. So it's a bad comparison in the first place.
But let me put aside portrayal for now and be objective about on-screen feats
1)Laxus showed better durability and endurance this arc. He simply has the better feats, there's no denying. But Jellal wasn't actually shown to take damage this arc so it goes to Laxus by default because Jellal is featless. Neinhart's spell didn't knock him out,it was the anchor..(There is a reason why the anchor was shown..Not just decoration) and we don't know how August downed him.So we can't say Jellal has poor durability but we can't say he has Laxus level or above durability as well...We just don't know
2)They have comparable speed(Meteor vs Lightning body),hype and feat wise.. Meteor was top tier since ToH,that's a fact but Laxus showed impressive speed this arc and that puts him on a similar level imo
3)Agility and reaction time is Jellal's turf. Dodging Racer without magic and actually surprising Acnologia(who speed blitzed God Serena so hard,made August sweat in fear) in 528 is top tier. Laxus can't come close to that for now.
4) Physical strength is obviously Laxus's playground. The dude showed some devastating CQC feats due to his lightning-CQC moves. Contrary to popular belief however,Jellal is no slouch either..He did slam Racer and Cobra into each other pretty well in Tartaros arc and did it with relative ease. With Meteor,he is even better. Laxus still outclasses him in this though
5)Defensive spells...Jellal hands down. He stopped Acnologia's casual attack with a casual barrier. I say casual barrier because the time he had to prepare that barrier and intervene in the fight was as long as Acnologia lifting his arm and attacking. So any long range attacks by Laxus can be stopped. Laxus doesn't actually have anything defensive so Jellal hands down
6)Long range spells. Before the time skip,Jellal was the supreme human nuker and was far better than Laxus. Sema is enough. Laxus had an advantage because he had no prep time unlike Jellal. Both situations changed however with Jellal's two new spells and Laxus's nuke. Now Jellal has two impressive spells with almost no cast time and Laxus has an impressive looking nuke. But since that nuke is featless and we are talking about feats,then it doesn't count. Jellal takes this as well
To wrap it up,here's my opinion on Jellal/Laxus/Gildarts..
Hype/Portrayal:Jellal>Laxus/Gildarts
Feats:Jellal/Laxus>Gildarts
Who wins this match with feats? Jellal is the better mage where Laxus is the better brawler. It can go either way in different situations and no one is taking it with less than High difficulty.
Who wins portrayal wise? Jellal hands down.Portrayal is subjective but there are some small nuances that give us some clues. Laxus defeated a low-mid tier spriggan and even though he had handicaps, we can only say that Laxus is better than the average spriggan...God Serena level at best...Whereas Jellal one-shotted a low-mid tier spriggan with a mid tier spell when the CiS/Kagura stuff was resolved and faced off against Acnologia and showed some impressive stuff..And that warrants at least Human Irene level portrayal.
Laxus can however still do something and change all this and receive better portrayal than Jellal but then again...Jellal can still use that damn Abyss Break
