Folks are complaining about nepotism being a major factor in the story, it most certainly helps, but it isn't everything.

>Naruto
Sure he is the son of the 4th Hokage, Minato and the student of the 6th, Kakashi, but Minato and Kakashi didn't teach him about Rasengans, Sage mode, summoning & tailed beast mode, & Shadow clones.... He was rather behind the other Jonins when he got to Shippuuden.

>Kakashi
Didn't get shit handed to him, Sakumo did an ass job of training him because he killed himself early. No one taught him Chidori before setting out to WW3.

>Tsunade
lived on outside Konoha for years, didn't get any special sage training and got a shitty genetic lottery of not using Wood style instead. Had to create inferior version of Senju healing. Honestly she could have begged Orochimaru to inject her with Hashirama cells, but still.

>Shikamaru
Shikamaru isn't shit wholesale. All he does is stay still and paralyze people for 2 minutes. Also his father, Shikaku, was a good shadow manipulator, but didn't have much hand to hand combat prowess nor did he educate his son on combining hand to hand with shadow manipulation.

>Minato
None of his jutsus are original besides the rasengan.

>Tobirama
His brother was the 1st hokage. But He climbed up on his own by creating shadow clones, Flying Raijin, Water style, Edo Tensei, darkness genjutsu and other anti-Uchiha counter jutsus. But he fell because he didn't have man power against 20 cloud ninjas.

>Same with Hiruzen
Got pretty far, but he didn't have man power and chakra even with Enma against Orochimaru, weakened 1st Hokage, & weakened 2nd Hokage, and fell flat.

>Gaara
He ain't shit, even with his dad's sand genes inside him. He Jobbed to a one armed terrorist.

>4TH Raikage
Same with Gaara. No special training. He was born with an inferior version of his dad's metal body and lightning Chakra but he can't even beat 8 tails.

Nepotism isn't as big of a deal as folks are making it out to be.