Enquiring mind wants to know. In his first appearance, Discord appeared to be a demigod like being with nearly omnipotent powers. He was able to bend reality to his will. Aka like Q from Star Trek which inspired him, except more malicious. He was so powerful that he ruled all of Equestria all by himself back in the day.

It took two alicorns the first time, and the mane six the second time to imprison him. Plus they were armed with the most powerful magic artifacts the world had ever seen.

Fast forward to the present season when Discord is hassling Starlight and all she has to do is cast a banishing spell on him to make him go away. Wow, if only the ponies under his tyrannical rule back in the day had thought to do that. Especially the really powerful students of Starswirl. I don't recall Captain Picard using the transporter to get rid of Q.

Clearly Discord is oftentimes nerfed or neutralized (the changeling hive's anti magic barrier is a good example). This is because the writers needed him to be less powerful than the threat of each episode, that way he couldn't just snap his fingers and get rid of it. But for a writer this poses a YUGE problem. In a story I'm writing I need Discord to be much more powerful than Starlight Glimmer, because he plays some shenanigans on her. But apparently her magic is powerful enough to banish him. What do I do? Mark my story alternate universe because it contradicts the newer episodes? Or just go with the season 2 portrayal of Discord who could make Starlight his plaything like he did to the mane six?

EDIT: Removed the section on Tirek. That wasn't a good example.

A banishing spell ignores conventional durability, and Discord was still able to technically come back. I'd say he's between 2 and 3x stronger than Starlight.

Tirek triked Discord if you recall Discord had him in chains at his mercy but Tirek talked his way out of it. And as for starlight... Sorry haven't seen the episode. And personally I don't see anything bad with the au method.

6553575
Thanks for pointing out that, it's been a few years since I have watched that episode. I removed it from the OP.

The AU method is isnt bad, but usually readers are expecting just a few major details of the show to be changed. Ie Nightmare Moon won. Otherwise though they expect most things to be the same. Including character personalities and power level. I dunno, I just like it better when I can confirm to canon as close as possible.

I think of Discord as an anthropomorphic personification, which is to say that when acting in the name of chaos, his power is vast. Acting against his nature causes his power to wane.

As far as raw power? I see him as equal to the alicorns. So why can't they hurt him? The obvious answer is his hax. He can warp reality to his whim, and do all kinds of crazy stuff. The only things that seem to actually bother him are the EoH (which are his opposites), and sufficiently powerful magic absorption (which would naturally keep him from using his powers in the first place).

Who cares about being stronger when you can rend the fabric of reality? It's not very common to overpower RWing with pure strength.

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Oh and keep in mind this magic stealing throne had enough power to store all the magic of the alicorns and the mane characters. You can't really argue It was a nerf since it already had absorption powers near Discord's power level.

Also, the banishing spell did nothing anyways, as Discord wanted her to do it. He let her win. Plus, negating someone's power and turning them into a lawn ornament for 1000 years >>>>> banishing someone from the local area (and only because they allowed it to start with)

Whoa, I was wondering about this just before I read this, weird. Anyway, I’d say that he is an absolute powerhouse, especially when considering the things that Celestia and Luna had to do and later on the mane six like you said.

I haven’t seen the new episode but I’m only guessing that she was just able to teleport him away for a while. Even if it was a true ‘banishing’ spell I’m sure he could get through. The only reason he probably didn’t is because he’s reformed and doesn’t want to lose his friends.

6553549
The solution I took in my fics on The Last Spirit of Chaos was a mix of different points:

-Spirits are beings of pure magic, being matter and energy at the same time; damaging their physical bodies hurt them, but not counting some exceptions, it's not fatal or lethal, so they are unkillable under most circumstances. If a battle lasts too long, they outlast you.

-What makes Discord so dangerous is not his power, but his skill. Chaos magic gives him an almost infinite amount of possibilites to do, and he both how to do them and the most efficient way to achieve the effect he desires.

-He has milennia of practice in the art of magic, so he doesn't waste even a single spark of arcane power. He also knows almost everything there is to know about magic, things mortals haven't discovered yet; though that tends to make him arrogant and cause him to be taken by surprise.

-There's more, but that would be spoilerish to my fics.

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With in mind he can also open portals to other dimension and all else what we have seen, he is nearly almighty from powerlevel... But he isn't so much into using his powers to be real evil and so he simple doesn't think of the stuff he needed to do to rule everything.
For example, you wrote it took two alicorns and later the mane 6 with the element to imprison him, well, if he had really wanted to he could have snapped his fingers and banish them all to the moon, other dimension (threehuger episode) and all that. In case of the changeling hive, using magic directly is forbitten? Just use a real stone, not a summoned one (like the pig in that episode) and threw it magical towards the hive. The magic will vanish but phyisics will handle the rest.

So I would say Discord is nearly almighty, but simple not clever/serious enough in using it.

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What would a stone do? A stone big enough to do the job would risk crushing the hive and everyone in it.

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Spirits are beings of pure magic, being matter and energy at the same time; damaging their physical bodies hurt them, but not counting some exceptions, it's not fatal or lethal, so they are unkillable under most circumstances. If a battle lasts too long, they outlast you.

That's actually true to some extent. At one point Fluttershy refered to Discord as being literally made of chaos.

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It was an example for power and how far you he could can go.

If he wanted to, he just could have teleported the whole royal guard at the boarder of the hive and let them hanlde it. Or The storm king army and use his powers to convince the Storm King to help him.

It seems to me that Discord is only as powerful as his opponent(s) believes him to be.

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Yeah, haven't seen that episode yet, to be honest.

Writer of the Matter of Principals said that Discord provoked Starlight and she coudn't do anything to him so Starlight isn't more powerfull than Discord. His only weakness is still Element of Harmony, Tirek/antimagic stone and Fluttershy