But if we're holding Neinhart to that standard then I think everyone including Irene/August should be held to it.
I'd like to believe that Irene and August are superior to Dimaria. Otherwise they wouldn't have been so overhyped. But let's remember some characters have been hype to unheard extents, such as the GoI, and then they were shown to be a disappointment. I HOPE August and Irene are truly more powerful than anything Dimaria can offer!
Also, Jacob's Transport is practically on par with DiMaria's Age Seal... so I can't hold everyone to the standard of dealing with the others abilities.
When we're talking of hax that can immediately kill you, we must see which ones can be activated the quickest.
For example, Dimaria only needs to click her teeth. As a matter of fact, I do believe she can activate it whenever she wants with no lag whatsoever, so it activates instantaneously. Hax-wise, it's the fastest and most efficient magic in the whole manga, so far.
Brandish should be able to shrink anything instantaneously as well. But I think stopping time implies 0 time to activate because in Brandish's case, you have to actually think what you're going to shrink and then locate it. I think the "thinking" takes more time than just activating age seal.
As for Jacob, if we regard his spatial technique as haxy as age seal or shrinking anything (we cannot be sure for we don't know what happens in his dimension), that is to say, if we consider that anything he sends to his dimension can be killed effortlessly, then he'd be the third slowest in that list since he needs to join the palms of his hands. Besides the activation of the technique takes a little bit longer, as it's not instantaneous that everyone disappears when he joins his hands, but there's like 2 seconds time in which the characters were in the blink of disappearing, but actually realizing 'something was going on'. Maybe this hax can be avoided somehow.
For example Wahl can oneshote Bradman by cancelling anti-magic particles, but this doesn't mean they're tiers apart.
In this case, there's the counter factor. I think the counter factor does not apply, it's an exception and shouldn't be taken into account when classifying characters into tiers.
For example, TO Shelia beat Dimaria just because of Ur's time magic. Imagine Ur wasn't there. Even if Shelia didn't need TO because she was in her prime. Shelia cannot counter age seal, therefore, Shelia is vastly inferior to Dimaria. TO Chelia is still arguably inferior than Dimaria, and she arguably only won thanks to Ultear and Wendy being support characters. But even if Chelia proved to be superior in terms of Cqc or general magic spells to Dimaria, Dimaria would still wreck her with age seal as she would any other character (save, I'd like to think, August, Irene, Zeref and Acnologia).
So, Wahl is actually below Bradman, because the amount of people Wahl and Bradman can beat is different. IMO, Bradman is more powerful, he has a wider variety of magic (curses for that matter) and he can potentially kill more people. But Wahl is limited to cqc, flashy attacks and explosions. So, Wahl beating Bradman doesn't make him stronger, it makes him a counter, or an exception.
I'm pretty loose with tiers because it depends how much range of power there is in the manga. With the Spriggans I think 2 tiers is convenient enough. If I had more people to it, then maybe an extra tier is better.
I understand your reasoning. As a matter of fact, I think this was Mashima's initial reasoning. But then he had to make hax specialists, cqc specialists and hybrids. And hax specialists are always superior to cqc because hax can go as far as you want, but cqc has some limitations. Unless you're as fast as Goku, there's no way that a FT cqc specialist can be faster at knocking down an opponent like Dimaria, than her activating age seal. The moment she activates age seal, you're probably dead, and unless we apply the NLF here, she should objectively beat pretty much anyone. I'm going to give August and Irene the benefit of the doubt because 1) they were portrayed to be more powerful (not like this matters much, we know how Mashima hypes characters, then fodderizes them) and 2) I assume, given the diversity of magic styles they've shown or implied to posess, they can counter it.
Like...
August Irene
Laxus Natsu Jellal DiMaria
God Serena Wahl Ajeel Brandish Jacob Bradman Neinhart
The difference with adding the extra 3 characters is their feats put space between the others, so I can afford to split the Spriggans up if I want to. (note I'm giving Jellal and Laxus a benefit of the doubt with more magic to show, but I'm not allowing this for DF Natsu which I think will put him above August).
I like this. Still, I cannot see God Serena losing to Wahl, but I can see him losing to Jacob for his hax, so in my head there are still tiers. Although, yeah, you could say they belong to the same tier and classify them from more powerful to less and it'd still make sense to me :P Besides, I'm one of those who's still reluctant to accept God Serena below the likes of Laxus, Natsu or Jellal, but again, Jacob should beat GS, Natsu, Jellal, Laxus... given his hax.
Well I don't rate the GoI that high either, but I leave the possibility open for them to have been soloed if Serena is a Laxus+ tier. Imo I rate Erza higher, for now at least.
Yeah, I get it. The GoI were so overhyped and then sooooo vastly downplayed that it's difficult to place them. Some will argue they're vastly inferior to current Erza, while I believe each of them to be around her level. If we go by that logic, they, together, should've beaten GS, if we consider GS to be on the same tier as Ajeel. This is why only two opinions can be had on that topic:
1. That GS is vastly superior to Ajeel
2. That the GoI+Jura are vastly inferior to Erza
) and it was stated several times as well that August is in general the strongest among them!
My point was just that pretty much every magic has a limit but you're right it hasn't been shown yet, I think most of us are assuming it's about Magic Power.