User blog comment:Arnab16/Some totally crazy ideas and predictions that I know will sound insane./@comment-26451407-20151116063515/@comment-1153699-20151116111104

August is pretty much the Bluenote of this arc. I doubt he would turn out to be stronger than FT's strongest member. If he turns out to be stronger than Laxus, Gildarts would beat him.

There has never been a 2nd strongest villain in an arc who was stronger than Laxus except maaaybe Bluenote and I don't think Hiro would change things now, 460+ chapters into the series.

The 4 Ishgal Gods were the strongest Mages before the current timeskip (during the GMG/Tartaros arcs). They're not anymore though.

2nd strongest villains were never close in power to arc bosses (Ikaruga and Jellal, Midnight and Zero, Bluenote and Hades, Kyouka and Mard etc). August only rivals and maybe surpasses Zeref in terms of the amount of Magic and spells he knows. In a 1v1 fight though, Zeref would probably crush August pretty comfortably.