Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-1018594-20150217173857/@comment-1458758-20150217205940

Orochimaru is rather underplayed.

Pain noted that without the element of surprise, he wouldn't of won against Jiraiya, and even then he got critical information that later alllowed Naruto to defeat the 6 paths, something that no one else was seeingly capable.

Tsunade was not only Hokage, but her Strength of One Hundred ability, is effectively immortal for a time, even taking mortal blows from Madara's Susanoo and surviving.

Orochimaru fought Sasuke and Naruto in the forest, where despite being surprised, he was still basically playing with them.

He then fought evenly with Hiruzan, a man noted to be strongest Hokage ever, but because the fight sequences hadn't quite reached ridonkulous proportions, it seemed rather tame compared to later fights. After this, Orochimaru's arms were sealed until his 'death' at the hands of Sasuke, meaning every fight up until then is still him with less power than he should have.

Then when he appeared against Itachi with his Eight Branches, he was almost immediately sealed, not because he's that much weaker, Itachi struck him pretty quickly and Orochimaru didn't realise he had the Totsuka Sword, so his quick defeat here is more a matter of surprise than anything else.

After his revival, he notes his power is lessened and he couldn't take Sasuke if he wanted.

Then, finally, after taking over a Zetsu clone and retrieving his soul arms, he's finally back on par, but he pretty much delegates himself to support at this point. So over all, of the three Sannin, the best showing of Orochimaru at his full power, is before the battle scales were the sort of all out city destroying battles that we see later.