User blog comment:Lord Zeref Dragneel/Top 25 most powerful characters/@comment-26451407-20150811032133/@comment-1153699-20150811044921

August felt he had to intervene when Laxus dropped the (casual) nuke while he chose not to when Azir was 1v3ing Natsu, Gray and Makarov. He thought there was an actual threat for Azir's life. Now obviously, I don't think Azir would have died / got taken out just from that attack alone but given both August's and Azir's reactions, the nuke would probably do a lot of damage.

Also, when Natsu first met a Spriggan, he started losing his shit (at first). Everyone did. But Laxus barely even paid any attention to Azir when he first saw him and negated his attacks effortlessly.

I think it's safe to say Laxus is still way above Base Natsu. Both of them have trained their asses off for a full year so I would say they improved at about the same rate.