if he sucks at sage techniques, then his face shoulda been all frog like and ugly since jiraya turned froggy cuz he was barely able to hold it together, naruto's about the only perfect sage, where just his eyes turn bars (and a hint of eye shadow). (and also the first, but he's perfect at everything) naruto also used his shadow clones, multiple experience cheat basically, his own dbz time parabolic chamber.