Cute

@TexasUberAlles  
That does seem to sum it up…

@DAPLR  
I forget who originally pointed out that what they were doing wasn’t quite what we’ve seen the others’ actual special talents to be, but the whole episode makes so much more sense in light of it. Look at how Dash got her mark– it didn’t have anything to do with weather, it was all about the speed. But what does Rarity mostly see Dash doing every day? …Weather Patrol.

@TexasUberAlles  
Excellently put, very interesting take on the characters for that episode :D

@Magister Bee  
As far as raw power goes, MMC is the episode that most clearly shows you’re on the right track about Rarity; while it was a one-off in the sense that the conditions in it were highly unusual and unlikely to be repeated, none of the other mixed-up Other Five had anything approaching her level of ability-decoupled-from-skill. Personally I think the problem was that she didn’t get any actual weather controlling ability at all, only the overwhelming desire to control the weather, and the reason it wasn’t working (aside from her even more fundamental desire to make it pretty) was that she was trying to just force clouds around by brute force instead of the targeted persuasion of the Pegasi, and the clouds were being surly and obdurate about it. It still takes a heck of a lot of brute force to move all the clouds in the sky into unnatural shapes and hold them in position.
 
I still think that the deal with MMC wasn’t that they got the destinies and abilities that their friends actually had, but rather the rooted-by-destiny desire to do what they individually thought their friends’ abilities were. Fluttershy thought that Pinkie’s talent was being funny with generic jokes and gags, when it’s really more about making other Ponies happy by finding the things they like and planning parties and whatnot based on that; Pinkie deals with Dash a lot differently than she deals with Twilight, for example. Applejack thought Rarity’s special talent was for the physical acts of making and assembling fancy dresses and such, when in fact it’s more about finding many different parts and assembling them into a fancy whole that’s greater than their sum; simply finding gems wasn’t her entire deal and wasn’t what earned her mark, it was finding the gems and making fancy outfits from them that perfectly suited the school play. Dash thought Fluttershy’s talent was just a glorified pet shop owner, simply “taking care of” animals, when it’s really about having a much deeper understanding of them and being able to communicate with them on their level to meet their needs rather than just making them behave. Pinkie clearly thought AJ’s talent was for the chores themselves, when it’s really more about holding all the million different tasks of a farmer together and making the entire operation run smoothly for the good of The Family; focusing on one task at a time was disastrous, as it canonically has been for AJ herself in most of her focus episodes.

Considering the rest of the Mane Six’s stellar abilities, an unremarkable or merely well above average unicorn would be rather incongruous. Of course, they are highly powered. Magic Mystery Cure cannot be written off as merely a one-off – it is as canon as every other episode, and it established that Rarity has the necessary power to perform weather magic (if not the practical sense to use it for more than decorative purposes ^^).

@Scrounge  
The show does suffer pretty bad from the classic The Main Characters Do Everything trope; there are a lot of things about Equestria for which we have no real baseline with which to compare, because we really only ever see the Heroes of the story doing anything of note, and there’s nothing to indicate whether that means everyone is that amazing or if they’re effectively the only superheroes in the world.

@Background Pony #7365  

 
The show has never indicated that she isn’t, either. There’s no actual indication of where the curve is, other than Twilight (and implicitly Sunset) being near the top and Sweetie Belle only recently starting to master the basics, which would put her at the bottom. The only unicorns other than them whose abilities we have any real picture of at all are Rarity and Trixie.

@Magister Bee
 
I don’t agree. The show has never indicated Rarity is unusial for an unicorn at all.
 
As others said, light and telekinesis are basic, the weather magic was a plot necessity and only happened when she was messed up by the spell.
 
Asside from Twilight (who is an anomaly magic-wise) we have not seen many unicorns in he show, so that may make or comparisons skewed, but I think anything unusual Rarity did is more likely carelesness on the writer’s part than anything concrete.

@Background Pony #C2BB
 
Still, we have not seen any unicorn (outside of Twilight Sparkle and her brother) demonstrate magic abilities at Rarity’s level. As for her magic being useful for her chosen profession, of course she would use her abilities for that. But it hardly qualifies as just “a little magic” – her talent is manifestly multi-faceted, which apparently, according to the quote from Boast Busters, is unusual.
 
(Oh, and let’s add ‘metamorphosis of living things’ to the list (Look before you sleep)).

@Magister Bee  
Levitation and light seem to be basic spells that most, if not all, unicorns can perform (Snails did the light spell, for pity’s sake); the gem-finding, metamorphosis of materials, and arguably illusion spells are all magic that relates to her fashionista talents. That leaves her weather talents, something that she displayed only when messed up by Starswirl’s incomplete destiny spell; while she does have the raw ability to pull of something like that (albeit poorly), it doesn’t seem part of her normal skill set.
 
I do think she is more proficient in magic than most unicorns; at a guess, I’d say she’s in the top 20% in terms of magic ability and skill, maybe as high as the top 5%. But if there were a Wonderbolts equivalent among unicorns, while I think Rarity might be considered for such a group, ultimately I don’t think she’d quite make the cut.

@Background Pony #7365  
Obviously Rarity is not going to be manipulating the weather again. What it showed however was that she possesses the raw wattage to pull it off.
 
Another point in Rarity’s favour: We learn in Boast Busters:
 

 
But Rarity is versatile in her magic. We have seen her perform gem finding, levitation, light, illusions (Suited for Success), metamorphosis of materials (cloth several times, a wooden wheel in Manehattan), and of course, weather magic. This points to her being exceptionally talented. Unlike Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer, she does however not seem to find magic in itself interesting as she has not pursued it as a career.

@DAPLR  
Well, when talking about Sunset Shimmer, the movies at least have to count, or there is no Sunset Shimmer.
 
The comics, of course, are where the real bickering starts.

@Scrounge  
OH yeah! It’s probably Sunset Shimmer now. Even though we don’t have any actual proof, she is the only other unicorn that we know of that was able to teleport. And she is quite astute in the MLP Annual, if we can use that. She was able to use growing magic (on plants at least), and was in complete control too!  
And all the other unicorns in this elite academy praised her so she is likely in Twilight’s league.  
But as you say, due to the fact she isn’t currently a pony, if the Equestria Girls movies count and if the comics based on THEM counts….?

From Suffrajitsu’s Guide To Practical Self Defense For Proper Unicorns:

Cut to Rarity a few seconds later midway through an apple-bucking hips frankensteiner.

“Be a dear and scratch behind my horn while you’re up there, would you?”
 
@DAPLR  
Sunset Shimmer seems implied to be somewhere in Twilight’s old ballpark, though we don’t see much of it on screen. Though I guess she’s technically not a unicorn any more either.
 
So who’s left to compare to? Trixie? Most unicorns we don’t see a whole lot of their magic in the first place.

@Magister Bee
 
Nah. Rarity’s weather magic was a one-time thing because of that plot, I’m pretty sure.

Rarity also picked up Twilight without much apparent trouble during the Hearth’s Warming Eve episode.

@Magister Bee  
Shining Armor hasn’t done anything spectacular to my immediate knowledge. The shield was impressive, but seems to be the only string to his bow. When amplified with Cadance’s love, sure, he’s a force to be reckoned with, but otherwise we have little reference. He lost to Sombra, couldn’t fight against Discord or Tirek and after that, we don’t have much.  
Since Twilight isn’t technically a unicorn anymore, could it be said Rarity seems to be the most powerful currently? If only by our exposure to her compared to the little we see of other unicorns?  
If I’m wrong, please correct me :)

Magic Duel was odd, considering it appeared that lifting a few animals were a challenge to a unicorn we have seen lift much, much more. My head canon dictates that the difference is that lifting living creatures is harder than lifting dead weight, and that the difficulty increases exponentially with the number of individuals.  
As for Rarity, it should not be forgotten that she during Magical Mystery Cure demonstrated that she was capable of manipulating weather, a feat that Twilight Sparkle indicated in Magic Duel was high level stuff. (While Rarity had inherited RD’s cutie mark and thus desire towards weather manipulation, I do not think she inherited any ability (one, while she had the raw power to pull it off, she did not possess any finesse that might have come with inclination; two, none of the others inherited anything but desire to perform a certain thing)).  
Apart from Twilight Sparkle and her brother, Rarity remains the strongest unicorn in the show.

@DAPLR  
Agreed on the strength vs. dexterity issue. Consider how much effort it took Twilight to get the woodland animal choreography going.
 
As for this, Rarity may be cheating being clever by using multiple gripping points. As long as she treats something like a set of multiple objects…

@Nightweaver20xx
 
No, I think you made a very good point: Rarity’s magic is not the heavy-lifting or powerful type. I think she’d at least struggle carrying a pony.
 
“The showrunners never even think about half this stuff anyway”
 
NONSENSE
 
CLEARLY THE WRITERS SPEND SLEEPLES NIGHTS THINKING ABOUT EVERY DETAIL AND MECHANISM OF THE UNIVERSE. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR MISTAKES!

@Background Pony #92E4  
Eh it’s fine, I know I’m probably wrong about a lot of the stuff I say. The showrunners never even think about half this stuff anyway.