User blog comment:FairyRaven/Fairy Tail Chapter 360:The White Inheritance, Review and Commentary/@comment-2214433-20131115111355/@comment-5668006-20131116001656

No, I mean they definitely are strong but they are facing off against the strongest known guild in the land... so just because they are losing to strong opponents means they are weak. That comparison is like taking two prof weight lifters and saying the one who benches 280 is weak because the other can bench 315. No 280 is still a lot to push. The same goes for the 9 ghost gates... tempesta faught laxus who (no matter what any of you say) clearly beat Jura, and jackal fought someone who literally eats his attacks (fire based magic) on a casual basis... If jackal were to square off against gray and natsu were to face tempesta iimsure natsu and gray would have lost quickly. Laxus beat tempesta because he can become lightning(therefore dodge all of tempestas aattacks and hit with over 2000lbs of energy) and natsu beat down jackal because he can eat his magic. In the end however the o ghost gates still won their fights because of their magical secondary effects, which is still combat. Is a sniper less of a soldier because they complete missions without being seen? Nooo in fact snipers are the amaost important human targets to incapacitate in a fire fight.