User blog comment:IamJakuhoRaikoben/Chapter 457: Naked Battle, Review./@comment-24039234-20151019192313/@comment-76.161.172.226-20151020162834

@anon & Demotivator: As I said before, both Laxus and Erza should be up around top tier wizard strength at this point. They were already low wizard saint tier at the start of the series. Three month training and second origin respectively moved them up to mid wizard saint tier. Now they've both had an additional year to train, and plenty of incentive to train in that year. With that, both of them should quite readily be up at the raw power of the top wizard saints.

Really, a lot of people complaining about how no one should be at the level of the Spriggans, etc. seems to be forgetting that Erza and Laxus should have been much of the way there at the end of the Tartaros arc. And that the claims a cocky person like Ajeel makes about themselves should be taken with a grain of salt.