Gildarts in Tenrou-Arc:
He fought against Bluenote who was on ws-tier and defeated him with high diff because of Azuma's interference ( without that probably low or mid diff win for Gildarts)
Tenrou Arc power ranking of the ws: Gildarts>Laxus>Makarov>Bluenote (btw; Hades is on GoI level, imo)
Gildarts in GMG-Arc:
He was mentioned by Makarov to tell how strong Jura is and to hype Jura as well as a strong opponent. We had a little timeskip in this arc ( 3 months) so it's unknown if Gildarts was even training at that time. All we know is that he went on a journey ( he needed to disappear because ft would be to op with 2 mages on ws-level partic in the tournament)
GMG power ranking: Laxus>Jura>Makarov / Gildarts and Jellal (didn't show much) ????
Gildarts in Tartaros-Arc:
He appeared in a silent chapter and showed that he is still much more powerful than Natsu and destroyed a whole mountain with his crash-magic so during his journey he was training too
Tartaros power ranking: Gildarts>Jellal>Jura>Makarov>Laxus ( because he was nerfed with mbp!) (btw, Mard Geer on GoI-level as well, imo)
Extra notes: During the key of starry heaven-arc ( filler arc in anime) he fought with Byro who was even stronger than Bluenote and defeated him with bare fists, although Byro was an expert in close combat. He also survived an encounter with Acno ( dragon form) and that fact gives him a lot of credit!!!
Btw the argument with "his prime" doesn't rly exist in ft because Makarov,Warren and Hades/Precht became much stronger nevertheless their high age, compared to their youth and middle-age times!
Gildarts in Alvarez-Arc:
He wasn't mentioned by anyone and didn't show himself until now. It's questionable if he will even appear because to me, Hiro kinda hates Gildarts, otherwise Gildarts would have appeared and fought Mard Geer ( that would be so cool
) who was strongest character in tartaros-arc ( excluding Acno and the dragons).
Based on his hype and character potrayal and if he rly was training a lot during the timeskip he could be on spriggan tier at best ( slightly stronger than Laxus and Jellal) but that's only speculation so far! That is the reason why he cannot win, otherwise he will win this tournament because he will always receive due to his huge hype the necessary power up to beat all his competitors in this tournament!!!!
Because of his lack of feats in the current-arc at the moment we can actually only compare Tartaros Gildarts (wizard saint tier) vs Wahl and this clearly would end up in Wahl's victory!!!!! I do hope that Gildarts finally appears again
he doesn't need to take Cana lol. for all we know he can just summon some hot chick and he will be distracted while Wahl charges up his Etherion and Gildarts cannot crush every magic otherwise he would beat Acnologia.
Nice idea xD, but do macchina girls look hot so that they could seduce Gildarts
!?