Will address this specifically, because it is relevant for all DGs.
Merc didn't do any damage because he wasn't allowed to.
You can ask, what did Acnologia do even, in the final arc. All he did was kill God Serena, a villain, cause that is all he was allowed to accomplish. Everyone else, including even utter fodder like Wendy, survived this dude. And this dude is the absolute strongest of the series, ever.
When we judge characters, especially antagonists, in fairy tail. It should be keeping in mind that the author is a clown like Mashima.
What did nerfed Merc show in the arc:
- casual continental feat of flipping an ocean.
- taking zero damage from combined effort of team Natsu (stronger version than in x792), enchanted with dragon slaying magic. Contrast that to dragon Eileen...
- Ignia commenting that Merc is just playing around: confirmation of plot armour (zero reason a rampaging dragon acting on instincts would play around).
It is very clear that Merc could've ended the fight whenever he pleased, within seconds.
This story is very evident for Aldaron as well. Main Aldaron seed kept playing around (with Natsu not even able to perceive his attack speed), until he got nerfed into the ground. Why??? We all know why lmao.
Similar story with Dogramag.
Characters, no matter how strong they are, can only have feats if the creator allows them to.
In the hands of an underwhelming author like Mashima, you can have a God like Acnologia, and he would fail to take down Wendy.....
Well that can also be said about Tartaros or the S12 members, all of them were hyped (some more than other but all of them were hyped) and all got the protagonist treatment.
Of course the DG could do much more, never said they couldn't and of course they never would be defeat without the plot. But again, the same can be said about most members of Tartaros or the S12 as well about Zeref and Acnologia.
Most of the things you said are feats what has nothing to do with their fight against the protagonists.
Mercs feat with the ocean or Selenes feat with other worlds/planets is similar to feats like Walls 400KM laser, Irenes country enchantment (U1), August Ars Magia magic, Invels snow storm spell, Silvers frozen village feat, Ezels town feat, Jackals town feat, Tempesters town feat, etc.
All of them did good feats and much better feats than in their battles against the protagonsist.
Imo almost all enemies are or were much stronger than the protagonists at least since Tartaros and they only won because of the plot....
My point was more that the S12 and most members of Tartaros were only servants and did many feats and destruction feats, while the DG are the main enemies and main bosses of each FT100YQ arc and so far nothing what they did had made a real damage to FT or the world.
What these characters did were mostly irrelevant stuff.
We know all dragon gods have destroyed cities and even countries. Selene was out there destroying planets across multiverse even.
Yes, Jackal taking down the council is more impactful as a reader, because they were slightly more relevant than nameless characters in unknown cities and planets. But it's just that - slightly more impactful, cause we didn't know anyone there except Lahar.
I can't speak for everyone. But honestly, when reading Tartarus arc, and especially Alverez arc, I was immensely disappointed with the villains' performances.
For me, Dragon Gods not living upto their hype is nothing new; in fact power level vise, they disappointed me less than the demons, Spriggans and Zeref.
The buildup the demons had was immense. Deliora had set an amazing benchmark for the demons of Zeref. A mage, who had hype of a standard wizard saint level power, was utterly helpless against Deliora and had to sacrifice her life to seal it (not even defeat).
Mashima made a great intro, with destruction of council. But then, as is now expected of Mashima nowadays (but not then yet since GMG was his only flop until that point), dude completely destroyed the credibility of the Tartarus. By having exposed Jackal as weaker than full power Natsu, and then having Laxus low diff another demon in Tempesta.
I just couldn't take the demons seriously, after those two massive Ls. And I was proven right, with most of them getting rekt in 1v1s like losers. Thankfully, Mard Geer managed to salvage that arc, dude is amongst the GOATs of the series.
Aside from Mard Geer, it was just Silver and Kyouka who kinda impressed me. Even Kyouka got rekt in the end, but that was just plotza.
Likewise, Spriggans had an unreal hype coming into the arc.
You mention Ajeel, Wahl, Brandish etc, like they were impressive. I'm sorry, high-extreme diffing Erza (something Ajeel would've done if Erza didn't get help), was a DOWNGRADE for the original Spriggan portrayal. Wahl admitting himself as the underdog against Laxus was a DOWNGRADE for the original Spriggan portrayal.
- Brandish was the resident meme of the group, most pathetic amongst them, competing with Neinhart and Jacob (I don't buy the organ burst thing in a real 1v1, just because she could manipulate organs of an unsuspecting Natsu, whose organ was ALREADY under her manipulation). Lets not use her "feat" against Merc by the way, at this point Mashima has thrown away all sense of reason. There is zero sense about what happened to "prime" Merc and Viernes.
- Jacob got one shot by FDKM Natsu.
- Neinhart got one shot by Jellal.
- Bradman vs Gajeel was a competition only because Gajeel was a pure physical guy fighting against a physical immune opponent, and the moment Gajeel bypassed it, Bradman ended in one page. At least Ajeel showed city level intangibility with his "sand world".
- Larcade got taken out by a weaker version of Sting than future Rouge (future Rouge = x792 Sting + mastered dual mode + 6 years training). I wouldn't shit on Larcade too much tho, since he faced someone built to hard counter all his magic (light, pleasure, hunger, sleep)......but his stats were shit regardless.
- Eileen "survived" a playful Acno who couldn't smell her being a DS cause Mashima is a fraud - her real fight involved getting her human form pushed to limits by Erza, and dragon form getting one shot by enchanted Erza....
These dudes were hyped to be WS no1 God Serena level (the source of their hype). August, Eileen and Larcade even more special. They shouldn't have been defeated or matched by the likes of team Natsu and co....
Their portrayal (or at least my expectation coming into the arc) suggested that each of them require a team up to be taken down, with exception of maybe powerhouses like Gildarts, Laxus and Jellal taking them down in 1v1 after a very tough fight.
Only Spriggans who was truly impressive was August. Absolutely broken dude, fitting of the strongest Spriggan (his defeat was still nonsensical by the way).
God Serena was impressive too, destroyed 4 GOI and acknowledged by Gildarts - but Mashima wasted him by feeding him to Acno. Easily the worst case of wasted potential in the series, of a buildup that began in the very beginning of the series (WS no1).
Invel and Dimaria were kinda impressive too. Though Dimaria was a hax merchant with shit stats, don't like that.
TL;DR
I think most demons and Spriggans were trash tier.
Like I said what you said about the DG can also be said about the S12 and the 9DG. In their fights against FT they must lose, altought they had much better feats before they fought against them.
Well at least like you said Mard Geer had some fight feats, he fought against CSK and against 3 DS at the same time.
Jackal had also a good fight feat, Natsu used all of his power to defeat him (LDFM).
Silver wanted to lose against Gray
Tempester was a hype tool for Laxus and Gray (with DeS magic)
Kyoka like you said plot victim
To the S12
Many of the S12 had good feats, most of them only lost because of the plot.
Ajeel
- tanked Jupiter with his hand (one of the most powerful weapons in the FT world)
- created a large sandstorm and sandwave
- can create large sandmonsters
- Erza needed the help from Bisca plus her Nakagami armor to defeat him and he was one of the weaker ones amomg the 12.
Wall
- his 400KM laser
- he used a spell with that he "burned" the sky above Hargeon, what surised mages like Kagura.
- he can use Etherion
- he can create soldiers with the counter magic of his opponents
- he can analyse the weakness points of his enemies
- he lost to Laxus, imo because of plot, like why did he used lightning against him? wy didn't he used his laser or Etherion? etc
Brandish
- she shrank a whole island and can shrink a whole town/city if she wants
- she can manipulate blood and organs (Mirajanes case, after August shot her throught her heart)
- she isn't a brawler but pure hax user and if she wanted she could easily defeat/kill 95% of the Ishgar mages alone, but thanks to the plot, she was an ally.
Dimaria
- her time abilities are broken af, only mages who have time magic too or who have more MP can walk in her time magic
- she also can use her god form
- she only lost because of Ultear, third origin and Sherria who was a God slayer. We saw that with Wendy, she used her DF mode and was even buffed from Ultear and she couldn't even scratch Dimaria, but she could indeed scratch/hurt Irene (who is stronger than Dimaria, but a dragon, so her DS power worked against her). That alone proofs that Dimaria lost only because of the bad luck that her opponents were the perfect encounters.
God Serena
- Well you already said it, he stomped the GOI
- He was the victim of Acnologia and Gildarts
- He was able to overwhelmed Natsu, Gray, Juvia, Erza etc, at the same time.
Larcade
- Another plot victim
- we saw that he had enough MP to defeat many of them, if Zeref hadn't stopped his lust magic, Gildarts and many others would be dead.
Invel
- he created a large snow storm
- he makes Gray who has an immunity to the cold, shiver from the sheer coldness of his magic
- he "killed" Gray and Juvia
- he can use his ice armor with that he almost froze Gray to death.
August
- he played with Gildarts
- he destroyed Jellal and his guild
- he was able to destroy the whole country (if he wanted)
Irene
imo she had the best and most feats in this arc
- she enchanted the whole mountain from winter to spring
- she created Juiet and Heine
- she enchanted a whole country (U1)
- she was able to survive against Acnologia
- she enchanted 1 mio soldiers into berserks who made even Erza and Gildarst some struggle
- she enchanted Neinharts MP so that not even a S12 member like Brandish could affect him with her magic anymore
- she enchanted herself into Wendy
- she used wendys DS magic even bette than Wendy (Irene could fly, something Wendy never did, not even in the 100YQ)
- she can even enchant the armors and weapons of her enemies like she did with Erzas swords or with her armor (Wendy stopped the armor enchantment)
- she enchanted a meteor in her df, so her MP was so big that she could reach the space?
- she can even use some sort of space/teleport magic, she teleported herself from the castle to the place where Mirajane defeated her girls and later she warped/teleported the sword with that she stabbed Erza back to her hands, to make sucide.
- she was a Erza/plot victim
Zeref and Acnologia..... I don't want even start...
But you can see almost everyone had good/powerful feats but in most of their battles they can't used their fullpower or lost because of plot.
I completely agree that they could've done more.
But I don't see how this is different from Mard Geer performed later in the arc, after he matched CSK - a reality warping God throwing city level slashes, in his suppressed base form, while being disappointed at how weak CSK was.
Or how Zeref performed in the entire Alverass arc, after having massive buildup since first arc of the series. Dude was basically revered as a dark God, with cults and legends built around him.
Or how Acnologia managed to have no death count aside from Serena (a villain without plot armour), in spite of being the absolute strongest ever in the series.
Mard Geer, Zeref and Acnologia were all plot victims too, I never said they were potrayed good (the whole time).
You said it already, Mard Geer was able to fight the CSK in his base form, he even crushed Sting, Rogue, Natsu at the same time until Gray comed with his new plot power, something I hate the most in the whole manga, DeS magic is one of the most useless and stupid idead Mashima ever had.
Dragon Slayer magic? Okay, makes sense, so far, all (real) dragons were only defeated because of the DS power.
God Slayer magic? Okay, makse sense too, Dimarias case proved it.
But Demon Slayer magic? For what reason you need that? Most of the demons were defeated from characters who can't use DeS magic, so there is no reason for this magic, it was only a plot device with that Mard Geer and END can be defeated....
Yeah. They each got layers of nerfs stacked on them, along with the protagonists powering up, to be taken down.
My point isn't that they don't suck (they absolutely do), but that they were incredibly powerful. However, there isn't anything one can do against plot armour MCs.
Spriggans and demons, for the most part, failed to live upto my expectation of their power level. Dragon Gods, for all their faults, didn't fail to live upto my expectation of their power level. I never brought them being Acno's equals, clearly it was hype and indication that they were close in power, and they proved it considering how much nerfs had to be stacked on them for their defeats.
I see it different imo the DG and also the S12 and Tartaros had good feats had a huge PL, not to forget that Tartaros was 2 years ago (FT time), during that time, town busters was a huge feat, only dragons were stronger.
Same with the S12 besides the dragons, only few characters were able to do more destruction than the S12.
The initial punch. It was a city level explosion IIRC
Ah okay. Well at least Natsu can use this kind of lvl, but again a thing I hate, besides that, we never saw this kind of spells from Natsu or others like Erza etc.
Yeah, the hype that the ecplise dragons got was unreal back in the days.
IIRC they even managed to kill Gray, Gajeel, Laxus and Natsu (this was Future Rouge tho) in the time Ultear reversed.
The casual mountain buster roar from Motherglare till date remains one of the top 10 destructive feats in the series, which is insane given how much time has passed since then.
Even Laxus couldn't scratch them, inspite of slayer advantage.
That time, I instinctually knew that these weren't "average dragons", cause if the "average dragons" were so strong that characters like x791 Laxus couldn't scratch them, then DS magic was basically pointless with rare exceptions like Acnologia 400 years back.
It is good to have it confirmed.
But Eclpise dragons was back when Mashima at least cared a little.
I doubt he will deliver on great executions like he did in Eclipse. Current Mashima is a massive fraud. I just hope Mashima is sane enough to realize that the grand plan executed by two dragon gods lasting 400 years, shouldn't amount to sub Zeref level scrubs
If Mashimas ruins them, then the manga is lost....
Besides...
