The series builds toward bigger threats and bigger powers. This list counts down from skilled veterans to godlike beings, based on clear feats, portrayed abilities and on-screen outcomes. It covers Naruto, Shippuden and story material tied to that era. Where sources are thin, the placement leans on what the narrative shows and what major battles actually resolved.

Power alone does not tell the whole story. Tactics, stamina and team support matter. Still, by the time you reach the top five, you are looking at characters who bend space, time and reality. The last entries are close and some matchups are opponent dependent, but the final two sit above everyone else by design.

Kakashi Hatake

Kakashi’s peak comes during the war when Obito’s chakra grants him dual Mangekyo Sharingan for a short window. In that state he wields double Kamui, forms a complete Susanoo-like construct and punches through Kaguya’s defenses. The boost is brief, but the ceiling is very high.

Even without that burst, Kakashi is a top strategist with deadly precision. His Lightning Blade, clone feints and timing around Kamui let him land hits many miss. He reads opponents fast and builds counters mid fight, which is why he holds his own against stronger raw power.

His best quote sums him up:

“Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum.”

That resolve keeps him moving when others fold and it often turns sharp plans into decisive wins.

Minato Namikaze

Minato is the master of the Flying Raijin, a space-time technique that makes him a nightmare to tag. He chains marks, throws kunai and reappears with lethal accuracy. He outpaces most enemies and turns the battlefield into a map he alone controls. One mistake is enough for him to end it.

As Edo Tensei, he also shows a Bijuu Cloak with the Yin half of Kurama. That raises his speed and durability even further, letting him trade with top-tier threats. His sealing skill is elite and his barrier work saves squads from wide-area attacks, which is a rare toolkit for a speedster.

Minato dabbles in Sage Mode and admits it is not his strength. The form still boosts his sensing and power for short bursts. The key is his blend of teleportation and seals, which let him redirect tailed-beast bombs and snipe high-value targets with instant repositioning.

His main limit is sustained power against god-tier enemies. He can stall, rescue and land clean hits, but against reality-warping foes he needs a partner. In a team, though, Minato’s presence raises the entire squad’s win chance.

Nagato

Through the Rinnegan, Nagato spreads his strength across the Six Paths of Pain, turning one fighter into six coordinated bodies. Shinra Tensei levels a village. Chibaku Tensei can trap a Jinchuriki. Preta Path shuts down ninjutsu by absorbing chakra. This is battlefield control on a huge scale and it is terrifying.

When revived as Edo Tensei, Nagato fights mobile and whole. He drags Naruto and Killer B in with the Human and Asura Paths, absorbs Bijuu chakra and forces a desperate counter. It takes Itachi’s timing and a combined push to break his Chibaku Tensei, which tells you how high his ceiling is.

Gedo Statue summons and control extend his reach further. He can rip souls, repair bodies and spam wide-area force waves that make normal defense useless. The only reliable answers are speed that bypasses his setup or seals that shut the Paths down at once.

Nagato’s flaw is mobility and strain. Direct damage to the main body, or forcing him to overuse Shinra Tensei and Chibaku Tensei, creates openings. Still, with intel and prep he can route whole squads, because each Path covers a different angle of combat.

His legacy is the idea of pain as a path to peace. The Rinnegan gives him the tools to impose his will and for a time he uses them to reshape an entire nation’s fate.

Hashirama Senju

Hashirama’s Wood Release and Sage Mode define early top-tier power. He restrains tailed beasts, heals without hand signs and summons colossal wood constructs that trade with Perfect Susanoo. The First Hokage is both a tank and a finisher.

His best feat is beating Madara and a Kurama-enhanced Susanoo. He overpowers and contains, then seals. That blend of sustain, control and burst is rare. In the war, even as a reincarnation, his clones help hold lines against threats only a few can face, which shows his depth.

Hashirama is not the fastest and he lacks pocket space-time tricks, but once he sets the field, few break out. If he reaches Sage Mode and raises the “thousand hands,” most foes get buried under sheer force.

Might Guy

With the Eighth Gate, Guy becomes pure offense. “Night Guy” bends space with a kick that nearly kills Ten Tails Madara. The cost is his life, but the output is unmatched burst damage. For one minute he is a top-three threat to almost anyone, which is absurd.

Guy’s base kit is already strong. His speed, taijutsu form and pattern reading let him keep up with high tiers. The Seventh Gate gives him range with Afternoon Tiger and defense-busting pressure. He wins clean if you cannot stop his approach or survive his combos.

His weakness is obvious. The Eighth Gate is a last play and even the Seventh burns his body. He also needs someone to set angles or distract god-tier foes long enough to land. With that help, he creates the opening that decides wars.

Guy says it best when he commits:

“A real man forgives a woman’s lies.”

Humor aside, he lives by action over talk. When the gates open, the fight changes at once.

Obito Uchiha

Obito’s base kit is already broken. Kamui gives phased intangibility and warp capture. He controls fights by choosing when attacks can touch him. With perfect timing, only the fastest or the smartest can tag this defense.

As Ten Tails Jinchuriki, he jumps tiers. He gains Truth-Seeking Orbs, huge regeneration and crushing raw power. Only the combined efforts of multiple legends push him back. Space-time plus god-level chakra makes him both untouchable and unstoppable if you play by normal rules.

Obito also commands Jinchuriki and uses the Gedo Statue to anchor plans that span years. His clone work, traps and long game show rare patience. He turns small wins into big ones, which is its own kind of strength.

His undoing is emotional. Naruto’s words land, Kakashi’s resolve holds and Obito’s will shakes. Once his focus slips, the team breaks through and strips away power. That arc matters because it shows how fragile perfect plans can be when belief wavers.

At his peak he is almost impossible to finish. The key is forcing him to commit his body to the field or baiting Kamui’s windows. If you fail, the next touch is a one-way trip to his dimension.

Madara Uchiha

Madara with Eternal Mangekyo is already a monster. Add the Rinnegan and he gains Limbo clones that exist in a parallel plane, plus wide-area control. As Ten Tails Jinchuriki he becomes a near final boss, blitzing Kage and rewriting the field at will.

Perfect Susanoo gives him giant-scale reach and defense. He shrugs off armies, splits mountains and stacks abilities in ways few can handle. Only a handful of characters force him to adapt. When they do, he escalates with new layers of power.

His limits show against reality-breaking counters and coordinated seals. He dominates almost everyone below the top two, but the very top can out-hack or out-scale him. Even then, beating Madara takes timing, knowledge and numbers as well as raw force.

Hamura Otsutsuki

Hamura stands beside Hagoromo in the fight to stop Kaguya. He carries the Byakugan and the lineage that leads to the Tenseigan. His power level is sketched more than shown, yet the story places him on the sealing team that saves the world, which says a lot by itself.

He later leads a branch to the Moon, where his line watches over the sealed threat. This role implies massive chakra and fine control, the kind needed to manage celestial-scale seals. Few characters are trusted with that duty in the lore.

We do not see many solo battles from Hamura, so direct feats are thin. Even so, cooperation with Hagoromo to bind Kaguya puts him above almost every shinobi-tier fighter. When the stakes go cosmic, he is part of the answer.

Think of Hamura as a specialist with world-level credentials. He might not have the same range of techniques shown on screen, but the pedigree and the sealing role keep him in the top group comfortably strong.

Sasuke Uchiha

Sasuke’s leap comes with the Rinnegan and six-tomoe pattern in his left eye. Amenotejikara swaps positions in an instant, which breaks normal defense and sets up clean hits. He pairs this with Eternal Mangekyo skills and a devastating Susanoo.

His best shot is “Indra’s Arrow,” a massive lightning release powered by tailed beast chakra he steals mid battle. He fights evenly with Naruto at the Valley of the End, which places him on the short list of world-enders. Few can survive his full volley.

Beyond power, Sasuke reads fights fast. He layers genjutsu, uses shadow clones as bait and makes quick work of long setups. Against slower tanks, he cuts angles and finishes before they lock him down. The mix of speed, hacks and burst is a nightmare.

His weakness is stamina when spamming top-end jutsu and the risk that Amenotejikara timing gets predicted. Still, give Sasuke intel and he answers almost any style, from giant summons to chakra monsters.

At his peak in Shippuden, only the cosmic tier sits above him. That is why he stands this high, with wins and near-wins against the strongest alive.

Naruto Uzumaki

Six Paths Sage Mode plus Kurama puts Naruto on another plane. He gains speed, sensing and Truth-Seeking Orbs that erase targets on contact. He heals allies, shares chakra and fights across multiple fronts at once.

Naruto trades with god-tier threats and keeps up for the entire war. Massive Rasenshuriken variants, tailed beast coordination and clone warfare turn every map into his map. He wears opponents down while landing clean, decisive blows.

His power grows with his will. When the chips are down, he lifts everyone around him and finishes the job. Only the founders of chakra can claim a clearer edge and even then he pushes them with everything he has.

Hagoromo Otsutsuki

The Sage of Six Paths is the source of modern ninjutsu. As the Ten Tails Jinchuriki he stands at the top of earthly power. He and Hamura seal Kaguya and create the moon. Later he divides the Ten Tails into nine beasts to stabilize the world.

Hagoromo’s gifts to Naruto and Sasuke show his scale. He shares Six Paths chakra across distance, guides them in spirit form and rewrites a war with one choice. That is control and reach few can imagine, let alone match.

He fights with the Rinnegan’s full kit and more. Creation of All Things, massive seals and reality-shaping techniques sit in his set. If he entered the field in his prime body, almost no one below Kaguya could stop him.

His one gap is that we see more of his influence than his long battles. Even so, the outcomes tied to him place him right under the final boss, with power that defines the entire world.

Kaguya Otsutsuki

Kaguya is the source of chakra on earth and the highest threat. She warps dimensions, fires bone attacks that kill on contact and forms an Expansive Truth-Seeking Ball that would erase everything. It takes seals prepared by Hagoromo, wielded by Naruto and Sasuke, to end her.

She mixes Byakugan perception with the Rinne Sharingan. That gives her all-seeing vision and space-time control at once. She shifts landscapes, changes gravity and splits teams in an instant, which breaks most coordination and plans.

Kaguya also tanks and regenerates through brutal hits. Standard attacks barely matter unless they carry special chakra or hit precise angles. The heroes need teamwork, misdirection and perfect timing just to create a sealing window.