Is Orochimaru the strongest Sannin

Answer 1

I will not be marking spoilers in this answer, too lazy.

Depends on the way you look at it:

Tsunade: Obviously not the strongest Sannin, but she is not supposed to be a warrior, she is their for support, to heal, as she is said to be the best medical-nin alive, which is amazing, and how many she saved when Pain attacked Konoha, just look at the Naruto Chapter 449 page 03, see all those people that died? May seem like alot, but then look at chapter 450 page 02, look at the number of Konoha residence and compare it to chapter 449 03 people died. Her taijutsu is alright too, considering her obvious strength, and she trained Sakura as a weaker double, Sakura vs. Sasori's 100 puppet thing, she took out a big chunck using taijutsu, considering she is the weaker double of Tsunade, I wonder how well Tsunade would have done, although her strikes are obvious and easy to Dodge, I wouldn't put her at the front lines for combat.

In conclusion she is not meant for battle, she is meant for support.

Jiraiya: Many, many of people think he is the strongest Sannin, for good reason. His summons are obviously the strongest out of the three. For taijutsu his strength in Sage Mode is amazing, and for ninjutsu is also amazing when combined with Ma and Pa. His Sage Mode is amazing, but it takes some time to use and in that time his opponent could get a good shot in, though in his fight vs. Pain he was able to summon Ma and Pa, even though an incredibly fast summon was chasing him.

He is the obvious winner in terms of raw strength.

Orochimaru: He is obviously the quickest of the three (not sure if he is quicker then Jiraiya when he is in Sage Mode), with just opening his mouth he could release 400 snakes, he is also said to have great knowledge of many techniques, but his lack of fighting scenes made it not show his other techniques. His strength in combat is obviously amazing, but it isn't the most amazing thing about him, his will to live is. Spending his life to find immortality (he should have just done the easier thing and be a Jashinist like Hidan haha), he could even regenerate lost limbs and stuff by just opening his mouth, infact he could survive being cut in half! His "death" wasn't even fair, as he was in his weakest state, like soooooo weak at that moment, but Sasuke was afraid to face Orochimaru so he did the coward way out and wait for this one moment to kill him. Sasuke failed to kill Orochimaru however, even when Orochimaru was on his bed barfing out blood, he failed to utterly destroy Orochimaru, as Orochimaru lives on in Kabuto! For all we know, he could have tooken over Kabuto completely and got all of Kabuto's abilities from it, making him, argueably, stronger then Pain himself! His greatest feat however, was able to fight Four-Tailed Naruto, Four Tailed Naruto was able to wound Jiraiya so badly he almost died, Orochimaru however was able to fight on par w/ Naruto, even though he was in a weakend state! Although I do know Jiraiya wouldn't want to kill Naruto, well neither would Orochimaru as he wanted them to hunt for Akatsuki to kill some, although Orochimaru would be more lenient than Jiraiya. Orochimaru has one big weakness though, genjutsu. He is always open for genjutsu, he always falls for it! If he got caught by Ma and Pa's genjutsu then he would be screwed COMPLETELY.

Orochimaru's greatest strength is his will to live, he wont let himself die.

Complete Conclusion: They all have their advantages, and their disadvantages. But if they all went at it in a fight, Tsunade would definitely not win, she isn't meant for combat, and Jiraiya vs. Orochimaru would be to hard to deduct, if Jiraiya managed to summon Ma and Pa Orochimaru would probably get screwed up, but if my Orochabuto theory is correct, his strength would be overwhealming.

Not true.. orochimaru can use genjutsu too hes only weak against the sharingan. Fighting itachi the mangekyou surprised him and against sasuke (part 2) he was weak and probably only focusing on possesing sasuke. He isnt afraid of kakashi on the other hand even though he got the mangekyou and Orochimaru probably only wanted the sharingan because SPOILER

of the rinnegan :) But hes not screwed against genjutsu. He can repel it aswell and can use it too as seen in Chuunin exams

Answer 2

Opinions on who is the strongest Sannin vary. Orochimaru is highly skilled in various jutsu and is a formidable opponent, but Jiraiya and Tsunade also have their own strengths and abilities that make them strong in their own rights.