Being one of the legendary Sannin, as well as a former member of the S-rank criminal organisation Akatsuki, Orochimaru is an extraordinarily powerful ninja, being Kage-level in his own right. Even among the Sannin, he was the one who originally stood out for individual ability. He was considered as a child prodigy that appeared only once a generation. His skills were so great that during the time of his invasion of Konoha, the Third Hokage feared no one in the village would be able to defeat him or even fight on equal footing with him, even himself, and that Orochimaru was strong enough to take down an entire small nation on his own. Even Kakashi Hatake, one of Konoha's greatest shinobi, was filled with tremendous fear when he met him during the Chūnin Exams, and himself admitted that he wouldn't even stand a chance against his level of power. Sasuke Uchiha and Suigetsu Hōzuki also stated that the former's victory over Orochimaru was only because the latter was already severely weakened prior to their confrontation. Due to him rarely being shown fighting, he has only displayed a limited amount of techniques, though his fighting style is very fluid and it stands to reason that in his efforts to learn all existing techniques, his array of abilities has probably become larger than any other single person and that he has vast knowledge on all forms of techniques.
During his battle against the Third Hokage, his arms were sealed by the latter, preventing Orochimaru from forming hand signs and effectively stripping him of most of his technique arsenal. Despite this, he remained a formidable opponent, still able to hold his own against both Jiraiya (albeit greatly weakened by poison) and Tsunade simultaneously. In Part II with his hands physically restored, he was able to toy with Naruto in his three-tailed form while his body was greatly weakened. Even with the danger Naruto later imposed in his four-tailed form, Orochimaru could still battle evenly against Naruto and found great entertainment from the transformed Naruto's considerable power, later even expressed regret that he couldn't complete the battle as his body finally began to give in.
