Naruto Official site, though I will say after looking at the raws it seems to be saying something different.
I mean, not the most solid source in the world, and certainly wouldn't supersede the manga, but it's fine ig.
Anyway, what does it actually say? Cause I've seen a lot of the raws for the Sannin statements, and most of them pretty much say that the three of them are held in the same esteem, or occupy the same rank, things along these lines. Basically, it speaks to their status as the Sannin, rather than being a power thing necessarily. At least from what I've seen for the most part.
But no I wasn't comparing Oro to 100H Tsunade as there's no evidence she even had that jutsu until P2 (she had the 2 separate jutsu that formed it in P1), and I doubt it's about WA versions as Jiraiya was dead.
The difference that people like to claim with that is Kishimoto hadn't thought of/introduced Sage Mode yet.
I know you weren't
or well, I was 95% sure at least. the other 5% was pure hopium lol. But that's just my point, these statements can be contorted in any way you want to mean whatever you wanna argue. Without knowing Kishimoto's intent and inner thoughts, you can't really prove much one way or another. So we go with the simplest interpretation that requires the least leaps in logic. I remember your arguments from the Bijuu thread well, and the fact that you needed to type out, like, the second longest portion of your post after Minato's to justify your argument should be a great indication that it's not the simplest conclusion we can reach here.
We've had this exact conversation before and didn't you end up agreeing with me that the 3T part is iffy? Anyways there's no doubt that Orochimaru scales in terms of speed, he reacts too many times to deny that. Obviously KN4 Naruto's AP/Durability is greater, it's just not so much greater that Orochimaru can't even budge him or disperse his attack enough for his body to remain intact.
I remember. We decided to make a compromise to move things along, which was to add that "Orochimaru wasn't all that concerned about Nard until he reached KN4", or something along those lines iirc. While that is true, it really doesn't mean a whole lot on its own. Orochimaru is arrogant as hell, and I can pull several examples of him not being very "concerned" about someone, only for him to get absolutely shat on later lol. It also doesn't change that we only see him get physically outclassed by Naruto, and absolutely nothing else. A punch that did zero damage doesn't change that fact.
As for speed, I don't see the relevance this even has to the discussion. Most of these people scale to the same level of speed, more or less, and speed isn't really always linear in a 1:1 fashion with AP. So, yes, Orochimaru can be in the same speed tier as KN4, while still getting his shit kicked in by him in terms of physical strength.
Also, bringing up him surviving the Bijuu dama is funny. We know for a fact that he would've died had he been hit by it directly, he said so himself after all. He used the Rashomon gates (which are summoned objects that have zero bearing on Orochimaru's own durability) to eat up most of that blast, or at least a significant portion of it.
Like, yeah, Orochimaru was able to "fight" KN4 and "hang with him", but the fact of the matter is that he's much weaker physically, which is why he doesn't scale to him.
Well, it seems worthwhile to turn them into specialised references, but it would require some work to apply.
I can try working on that when I have more time.