User blog comment:Lord Zeref Dragneel/Top 25 most powerful characters/@comment-25111584-20150812160455/@comment-3290324-20150813022248

@Anon I disagree with your assessment that Natsu/Gray/Gajeel are stronger than Mirajane/Kagura/Minerva and especially Erza. :/

@Lidor Characters in general get much stronger over timeskips. Especially main characters. So whether they had a good reason to train or not, I think it's a safe bet to assume that they'll be much more powerful. And Mashimas power scaling has always been erratic. Even more so than normal anime/manga, but the power tiers (for the main characters, at least) have always seemed pretty consistent to me. Could he have changed them? Sure, but I personally don't think he has. :/