My point is that Irene usually fights from a distance, I was simply adding that even if she tried to get in CQC range Jellal can just use Meteor to create distance.
Acnologia wasn't serious against Serena? That's the most serious Acnologia we've seen since his fight with Igneel. He wasted no time in just straight up blitzing Goddy, and he flat out stated that his mission was to eliminate him. If casual Acnologia was fighting anywhere near as hard against Irene she wouldn't have known what hit her. Also pay attention to the fact that Acnologia made sure to rip Goddy's lower torso apart, the same thing he did to Igneel and Gildarts. That move almost killed Gildarts and flat out destroyed Igneel. Going by that alone we can tell he was serious/put in far more effort than he did against Irene or Jellal.
@Atomicus Would you agree with this?
Acnologia wouldn't use more force than necessary? Usually I'd agree with you, but Acnologia outright stated he went there to kill God Serena, and he wouldn't want to waste any time considering that if he spent any more time there he would end up fighting August and Jacob too, something which would slow his hunt for the Dragon Slayers.
Needed help against Neinhart? Jellal one-shotted him, Kagura being there is what saved Neinhart from getting insta-one-shotted, had Jellal not jumped into the nuke to save her, he could have gone straight to the one-shot.
Going by those standards you shouldn't be using Irene's performance against Acno as a indicator of superiority over Jellal. Acno was just as casual against her.
Having enough power to one-shot a low-tier Spriggan is proof enough, not to mention the fact that he can chain that in with two other decently powerful spammable attacks. He's also got the advantage of speed and agility.
Besides, do you think anyone below mid-S12 level could push casual Acno back? I don't.
The only times Lucy knocked Jacob back was when she blindsided him and when she hit him together with Natsu.
And I wouldn't call Jacob top-tier when he's not using Transport as anyone who is top-tier should have the AoE to hit him in Stealth.
My bad on the Kagura part, I thought Jellal was further back then he actually was.
About Neinhart though, he still managed to get between his nuke and Kagura before it hit her, which is fairly impressive considering that's his base speed.
When he used the spell against Erza and Wendy? He was stationary, I'm saying it's impressive that Jellal managed to get in between Acno and Erza + Wendy because he was nowhere to be seen in the panel beforehand.
He didn't get KO'd by the blast, he clearly makes a sound of pain as he's getting hit by it, what likely knocked him out was getting chucked through a boat and getting trapped under a heavy metal chain. But again, this doesn't even matter since he voluntarily jumped into Neinhart's nuke, had Neinhart launched that at Jellal he could have easily avoided it.
Jellal was pinned
under the chain, and more importantly, he was face down.
It's the worst posture to be in since lifting requires back strength, so his back being pretty much crushed under a massive chain would stop him from lifting it. And Kagura didn't necessarily have to lift it off either, she could have dragged Jellal out from under it, which would be the much easier option.
No one outside of team Natsu knew Irene vs Wendy + Erza was going on until Deus Sema was cast, and team Natsu only knew because they were there at the start. August vs CS could have gone on for as long as Irene vs Wendy + Erza for all we know, especially considering how beat up CS were.
He landed a solid hit with his Crash magic at the start, after that Gildarts dominated him despite Cana being there. He got another hit in right at the end, but that hardly scratched August.
Top-tiers wouldn't get tripped by August's magic? Well then Gildarts isn't top-tier going by your standards, he had immense skill in CQC, an ally that highlighted August's weakness and a magic attack that August couldn't nullify or copy. Despite all of this, he was still getting slaughtered. But this isn't a slight against Gildarts, August is basically unbeatable unless you're Zeref or Acnologia. What I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't use Jellal's fight against August to claim he isn't top-tier or on par with Gildarts because had Gildarts vs August continued Gildarts would have suffered the same fate as CS.
Going by those standards then only Acnologia, Zeref, Dragon Irene and E.N.D (assuming it lives up to the hype) are top-tier. August's magic basically screws over every other top-tier since they all use Caster magic.
Proof of her attack power being higher than Jellal's?
Jellal showed in 528 that his spells are pretty damn destructive. his Kyuuraishin pushed Acnologia back, so that alone in comparable to one of Irene's atmospheric enchantments. Then you have Grand Chariot which has great AoE, has one-shot a Spriggan and destroyed the area around Jellal and Acno. I'd say that alone makes their attack power seem comparable.
We only know that she fought in the war, we don't know whether she solo'd any dragons or whether she had help from other dragons like Belserion.
You say he wasn't just sitting there when he was stood perfectly still aside from the arm movement:
In comparison, Acnologia actually got hit by Kyuuraishin after having dodged Pleiades, so Jellal hit a more mobile Acnologia than Irene did.
Then what are the exclamation marks for? It's been used before to show shock and surprise in this arc:
Had Deus Sema really been that fast then the fodder who talked about it shouldn't have been able to see it and hold a conversation whilst it was still in the sky. Either wind/atmospheric resistance slowed it down dramatically, or it was never that fast it the first place.
Zeref says that he didn't think Gray would be the first to arrive, he wasn't thinking about their reasons for being there, he was talking about speed of arrival.
Zeref was clearly talking about speed there, it wasn't about whether they were a threat to him or not, especially seeing as how the only threat to Zeref is Acnologia or E.N.D (if his hype is accurate).
I was speaking specifically about speed here. It was Irene's magic that impressed Acno, not her speed. And even so, Zeref is the second strongest character in the series, so the hype is still considerable.
Jellal didn't try and block Neinhart's nuke, he tried to get Kagura out of the way. And as for bringing August up again, the dude is ahead of all of the top-tiers (bar the ones mentioned earlier) by miles and we never saw the fight, so for all we know August could have just gone around it via Meteor.
Also the Erza incident is far more dubious since she'd broken every bone in her body (bar the ones in her right arm) and was surrounded by "master's strength". In comparison, Jellal didn't try to block the Neinhart nuke, he tried to outspeed it in base so he could get Kagura to safety, and he almost succeeded.
Feats like getting murked by three fodder historia?
Could I see the scans of her blitzing Erza? I can't remember that happening, haven't read that fight fully recently.
Zeref praised Jellal's (and Laxus') speed as he expected them to get to the guild first ahead of any other Ishgarian Mage. How is that wank? You asked for speed feats/hype and I gave you evidence.
That isn't wank, the bit I called wank was you saying Irene won their encounter. She activated Universe One and BFR'd him, that's only a win in the sense that she survived.
She kept him at bay because she had the magic to do so. August doesn't have anything in his arsenal that's like Universe One, and as far as we know neither does Zeref, her having Universe One doesn't mean she's above them (claiming Irene > Zeref is ludicrous), it just means she had a spell which was suited to the situation.
Don't get me wrong, it's a
really impressive feat, but saying she won their encounter? She BFR'd him because she knew he'd win. That's not a win IMO.
And she's lucky she didn't go into her Dragon Form, if a half-dead Erza can one-shot her out of her dragon form with every bone in her body broken, Acnologia would absolutely massacre her.
Where did I say Acno cared about the fight? I've outright stated numerous times that Acnologia was casual. My point is simply that Jellal pushed Acnologia back with Kyuuraishin, which is comparable to Irene pushing him back with her atmospheric enchantment.
In addition, the Christina blindsided Acno whereas both Jellal and Irene sent him flying with a direct attack. Also, if you're going to use the Christina against Jellal then it's only fair to use it against Irene, since their feats against Acnologia are comparable.
It can't have been that pathetic, we know that Acnologia only gets excited in battle when his opponent is even somewhat worthy, so whilst he might not have got praise for it, I don't think it's as bad as you're making it out to be.
How is it out of the window? She's only transmuted Hisui, and different hax have different thresholds, it would be a hefty assumption to assume she can change Jellal because she changed Hisui.
Amping someone and transmuting something are completely different, the former is just giving them more power, the latter is changing their mass and form.
What has Irene shown to say she could? As I mentioned above, she's only transmuted Hisui and it's far different to any other of her techniques. Saying she could transmute Jellal is nothing but pure NLF.