User blog comment:Lord Zeref Dragneel/Top 25 most powerful characters/@comment-26451407-20150812051416/@comment-1776824-20150813222306

@Luminous: Back of Volume 46.

@Lidor: Again, Mashima gave them stats. In terms of speed, strength and defense, yes, Keyes was the weakest of the 9DG. However, he was very smart and calculated, and had the largest amount of Curse Power. He was your, in terms of classes, your typical mage-class character. It doesn't make him the weakest by far. And if you want to prove a further point, Keyes was only defeated from the inside out. It was literally, as we've seen by people trying to hit him through various means, the only way to kill him. That doesn't make him weak. It makes him unconventional.

Overall, from what Hiro has given us, Franmalth is fundamentally the weakest of the 9DG, and he was pretty difficult to take down. None of these Gates were easy to take down, and the two that were literally OP bullshat on were done in by folks who were just too strong.