Ultimate Gohan or SSJ Gohan (RoF)?

[supercat]

I firmly disagree. There's no "mentality" or crazy agenda behind arguing for what a direct statement entails, and the broader scope of the series doesn't suddenly change its authorial purpose. Even if it could, there's nothing anywhere in your three counterpoints that would automatically contradict the idea of Future Trunks arc Gohan being weaker than Cell arc Gohan as he was stated (and indeed, intended) to be.

I wasn't saying that there was some kind of "crazy agenda" or anything of the like. The broader scope of the series does not change its authorial purpose but it does allow you to see the authorial purpose more clearly if you are looking at the statement within the grand scheme of things. Actually all three of my counterpoints contradict the idea of FT arc Gohan being weaker than the Cell Games. They simply cannot coincide with each other and make sense within the story.

Gohan's base cannot be stronger than Piccolo but still be weaker than Cell Games SSJ2 Gohan as a SSJ.
SSJ Gohan>Base Goku cannot be implied immediately after this arc for Gohan to be simultaneously weaker than his Cell Games iteration.
Gohan cannot defeat Lavender prior to his serious training while his FT arc iteration being weaker than his Cell Games iteration.

These things do not just disappear because you say so.

There are two opposing viewpoints in this thread, both of which stray from a simple face-value interpretation and fail to logically reconcile Trunks' statement with the narrative. If you're having trouble with this, I'll draw an analogy to fully illustrate my point:

See the problem with your viewpoint/argument, aside from the condescending undertone, is that it ignores contradicting statements and feats elsewhere in the series and it overstates how explicit this statement is. But while we are doing petty analogies:

Now this analogy may seem oddly specific but that is kinda because this is pretty "close to home" for me and easiest for me to come up with something.

Let's say that Jimmy is in a Statistics course on Probability.

On the first day of class, the professor says on his syllabus that there wouldn't be any programming on any of the exams and that they won't be asked to learn it. On the study guide for the first exam, Jimmy sees that the professor mentions that they must "show the coding that you used." Jimmy realizes that the word "coding" is closely associated with programming! A classmate tells Jimmy that because the syllabus said that there wouldn't be any programming on any of the exams, that he probably meant something else. Jimmy tells his classmate that it OBVIOUSLY means what it directly says.(programming goes hand in hand with Statistics) Jimmy decides he is going to study programming intensely before the exam. Then, he takes the exam only to find out that there was no programming or anything that required programming of any kind! Actually, the professor was referring to "coding" as being the "encoding" you do to define your variables. Jimmy failed his exam because he studied the wrong material.

Here, you are Jimmy. Because you only consider the words in a vacuum as though nothing else established before or after can influence the meaning of the statement.

Trunks was obviously surprised by Gohan's shift in priorities and how his lifestyle changed. In that particular moment, he had less power than the last time Trunks had seen him. That is what the statement is saying, to say anything about Gohan's current transformed state being weaker than his Cell Games self is pure speculation. The best we can do from this scene is deduce that Base Gohan<Cell Games SSJ2 Gohan. In that moment, Trunks realized that Gohan was not wearing a fighting gi and he was clearly not even concerned with fighting or training at the time. Trunks is surprised by this, he also notices that it appears that Gohan's strength at that specific time, and at at that specific time he was in his base form.

Looking at this from an authorial perspective, it is clear the main focus is to show Trunks seeing Gohan in his current domain and how different that is from the last time he saw him. The main point is to show this interaction and show how things have changed irrespective of battle power or anything of the like. But as more of a secondary point, there is a reference to power possibly or even probably referring to the fact that Base Gohan<SSJ2 Cell Games Gohan. I think things look something like this:

SSJ2 Cell Games Gohan: 10
Base Gohan FT arc: 5
SSJ Gohan FT arc: 250
Ultimate Gohan Buu Arc: 600

I 100% agree with all your points. The numbers seem fairly close to what I have in mind. I personally think SSJ Gohan (RoF) could be as weak as 25% of Ultimate Gohan and as high as 75% or higher; depending on what Piccolo meant. Either way, it works for me whereas this whole Gohan is weaker than his Buu saga self makes no sense to me. If on the low end SSJ Gohan (RoF) really was 25% of Ultimate Gohan (Buu saga), that would be a huge regression either way. I mean losing 75% of his power is huge; I'm not sure why he has to be weaker than his Cell Games / Buu saga self for this to make sense.

[Marlowe89]

That doesn't make sense. Trunks would have no reason to compare Gohan's base form to his previous Super Saiyan 2 form. If Trunks travelled back in time to the Boo arc, would he think how Goku got weaker because his base form wasn't as strong as his Super Saiyan form at the Cell Games?

The fact that this is lost on him is both hilarious and completely baffling at the same time, honestly. It just comes across as a weird attempt to dance around the whole purpose of Trunks' dialogue, and I'm amazed there are people that actually find it debatable.

*snip*

What's amusing about this whole counter-"analogy" (which honestly epitomizes a petty attitude on your part, not mine) is that it's not just wildly inaccurate to our discussion, since those things that you claim somehow change the direct meaning of Trunks' statement are actually external to their interaction (unlike your example) but that the crux of that argument is also directly addressed by the analogy you're attempting to respond to, since my previous post demonstrated exactly how those "alternative interpretations" are logically ruled out by the situation surrounding the statement in question. You're just talking in circles at this point.

Yeah, I'm just not seeing any reason to continue the discussion anymore. You're making this more complicated than it needs to be, injecting needless conjecture into a simple assessment of Gohan's power emphasizing his lifestyle, and simultaneously ignoring why the standpoints you're advocating for fail to reasonably account for the whole reason Trunks would bring it up in the first place. Your attempt at a rebuttal has regressed so much at this point that you're having to look for things outside the whole episode just to support your interpretation, which is absolutely ridiculous.

I really don't think this is worth addressing anymore, to be honest. I think I've made my point clear enough that almost everyone else besides yourself and supercat will probably understand what I'm getting at, so you're free to believe whatever you want.

Tagoma was also caught off guard

Not really. Gotenks was practically right in front of Tagoma since he entered the scene. He was more or less just blitzed into submission.

For that matter, I still don't understand why certain people want Tagoma to be a bigger deal than he actually was in the story. Performing favorably against Piccolo and an incredibly rusty Gohan isn't that impressive at all, and Gotenks comically reduced him to fodder.

[Saturnine]

Well there is one problem with these numbers. Gohan was said to only equal his Buu arc power by Piccolo when reachieving the potential unleashed state - further gains were only made during his training afterwards. So if SSj Gohan is 250 and Ultimate is 600, that only means SSj2 Gohan would be 500, making the potential unleashed state only 1 1/6 times stronger than SSj2. This wouldn't have given him enough of an advantage against Piccolo, like the one that he demonstrated.

As For Gohan's base power at the time of the potential unleash (his strongest one before re-unlocking it, mind you) we've got good clues towards that in the manga itself. After Gohan was done with the Z-sword training, he wielded it with much more power and finesse than Goku. He said he felt strong enough to defeat Majin Buu (we assume he meant his full power, which was SSj2), to which Goku said he wasn't so sure he'd be able to. Goku himself had a comfortable advantage against Fat Buu in SSj3, to the point of a 15-20% power advantage - he did not put in all his effort in that fight. So if Gohan being able to defeat Majin Buu in SSj2 was debatable in Goku's eyes, he'd need to be around 20% weaker than SSj3 Goku for an even fight (and we know Buu always has an advantage in those). That gives us:

Base Goku: 1
Ssj3 Goku: 400
Ssj2 Gohan: 320
Fat Buu: 320
Base Gohan: 3.2

The potential unleashed state could be 400x, could be much more, so i'm not even getting into that :p

It would seem y'all are operating under the assumptiom that Gohan gettimg rusty worked off the potential unleashed pool, treating it as Gohan's base power. That is problematic, because augmenting even 2/50s of the potential unleashed power by SSj would already make SSj Gohan stronger than Ultimate, and we know it's false. Since Gohan was said to only be getting weaker after the Buu arc, I don't think there ever was reason to believe he was ever stronger in base than 3.2. Yes, he was shown to be stronger than Piccolo, which is a major contradiction. But before the always-valid 50x multiplier for SSj was sanctioned by the SEG, base Saiyans being stronger than Piccolo in the Buu arc was a very popular and heavily debated theory :p

[PFM18]

Trunks was obviously surprised by Gohan's shift in priorities and how his lifestyle changed. In that particular moment, he had less power than the last time Trunks had seen him. That is what the statement is saying, to say anything about Gohan's current transformed state being weaker than his Cell Games self is pure speculation. The best we can do from this scene is deduce that Base Gohan<Cell Games SSJ2 Gohan. In that moment, Trunks realized that Gohan was not wearing a fighting gi and he was clearly not even concerned with fighting or training at the time. Trunks is surprised by this, he also notices that it appears that Gohan's strength at that specific time], and at at that specific time he was in his base form.

That doesn't make sense. Trunks would have no reason to compare Gohan's base form to his previous Super Saiyan 2 form. If Trunks travelled back in time to the Boo arc, would he think how Goku got weaker because his base form wasn't as strong as his Super Saiyan form at the Cell Games?

See Trunks wouldn't think that Goku in that situation got weaker like he wouldn't think that Gohan got weaker here. In this scene he doesn't even use the word "weaker" or anything similar to it. Gohan getting weaker quite literally cannot be the implication of this statement because it blatantly contradicts ROF, the episodes immediately after the FT arc, and the Zen exhibition match.

It can be rationalized as Trunks would expect that Gohan's base would have surpassed his SSJ2 self from the Cell Games in the thirteen years since he has seen him last. Trunks's base had certainly surpassed his SSJ self by this time so I would imagine Trunks would expect the same of Gohan.

What's amusing about this whole counter-"analogy" (which honestly epitomizes a petty attitude on your part, not mine) is that it's not just wildly inaccurate to our discussion, since those things that you claim somehow change the direct meaning of Trunks' statement are actually external to their interaction (unlike your example) but that the crux of that argument is also directly addressed by the analogy you're attempting to respond to, since my previous post demonstrated exactly how those "alternative interpretations" are logically ruled out by the situation surrounding the statement in question. You're just talking in circles at this point.

Yeah, I'm just not seeing any reason to continue the discussion anymore. You're making this more complicated than it needs to be, injecting needless conjecture into a simple assessment of Gohan's power emphasizing his lifestyle, and simultaneously ignoring why the standpoints you're advocating for fail to reasonably account for the whole reason Trunks would bring it up in the first place. Your attempt at a rebuttal has regressed so much at this point that you're having to look for things outside the whole episode just to support your interpretation, which is absolutely ridiculous.

My analogy is certainly not any less accurate than yours was. Understanding the story surrounding this statement does and should change the meaning of Trunks's words to you.

I can certainly see why you would discontinue the discussion considering you have made absolutely no counterpoints to how this can be rationalized within the story considering the collection of events that contradict this. I don't see in any way how it is ridiculous to use things outside the episode to support my interpretation, adding context is important.

Well there is one problem with these numbers. Gohan was said to only equal his Buu arc power by Piccolo when reachieving the potential unleashed state

I believe that the "power" being referred to was the "Ultimate" transformation. Since that episode established that it was a transformation. Otherwise, you would have to conclude that he got thousands of times stronger in a matter of a couple hours. I think the former rationalization makes more sense.

So if SSj Gohan is 250 and Ultimate is 600, that only means SSj2 Gohan would be 500, making the potential unleashed state only 1 1/6 times stronger than SSj2. This wouldn't have given him enough of an advantage against Piccolo, like the one that he demonstrated.

Those numbers weren't meant to be extremely accurate, I was just trying to show that Gohan's base could be weaker than his SSJ2 self while his SSJ is stronger than that and still weaker than his "Ultimate" state. Regardless, that would mean that Gohan's power would only have regressed about 17% which doesn't seem too bad considering in the 7 years since the Cell Games he probably regressed around that amount.

base Saiyans being stronger than Piccolo in the Buu arc was a very popular and heavily debated theory :p

Well we know that this popular and debated theory must be wrong since the Base Saiyans during the Buu arc are weaker than Namek Freeza. and Buu Arc Piccolo>>>>Namek Freeza.

I 100% agree with all your points. The numbers seem fairly close to what I have in mind. I personally think SSJ Gohan (RoF) could be as weak as 25% of Ultimate Gohan and as high as 75% or higher; depending on what Piccolo meant. Either way, it works for me whereas this whole Gohan is weaker than his Buu saga self makes no sense to me. If on the low end SSJ Gohan (RoF) really was 25% of Ultimate Gohan (Buu saga), that would be a huge regression either way. I mean losing 75% of his power is huge; I'm not sure why he has to be weaker than his Cell Games / Buu saga self for this to make sense.

I didn't really put much thought into those numbers, I was just trying to show that Gohan's base could be weaker than his SSJ2 self while his SSJ is stronger than that and still weaker than his "Ultimate" state. If I had taken more time to look at it I would probably come with something else but it would still fit that:

Base Gohan FT arc<SSJ2 Gohan Cell Games<SSJ Gohan FT arc<<Buu Arc Ultimate Gohan<<<<<<<<ToP Ultimate Gohan

[Saturnine]

You do realize that people base this "base Saiyans weaker than Freeza" thing on a vague statement by Beerus which is open to interpretation, do you?

[PFM18]

You do realize that people base this "base Saiyans weaker than Freeza" thing on a vague statement by Beerus which is open to interpretation, do you?

It is a pretty explicit statement by Beerus And it isn't contradicted anywhere so I believe it.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Gonna post the same tirade here as the Super manga thread. A handful of people in this thread need to step back and reflect on how they're approaching discussion here.

If you can't be bothered to converse without being condescending and bordering on the edge of being blatantly insulting to each other as a person, then stay out of the thread. This will be your only free warning here. Account strikes will be levied against your accounts from here on out for each infraction. As per the usual spiel, they will lead to bans from the entirety of the website. So I suggest you review the community guidelines before contributing further. Especially within this thread.

[Grimlock]

It is a pretty explicit statement by Beerus And it isn't contradicted anywhere so I believe it.

If you really paid attention while reading the manga since the very beginning, you would know that "Movie 14 base Saiyans are weaker than Freeza saga Freeza" contradicts E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G in Dragon Ball. The whole premise of getting stronger each fight, the whole point of keep training over and over throughout the years in order to achieve new level of power, all the zenkais... Even Goku's personality... Everything is affected as soon as you misinterpret Beerus' line wrong by thinking he was referring to the Goku of that moment.

Beerus learns from Whis what is Super Saiyan, and he thought that Goku only defeated Freeza because of that power, without it, he would lose. Which is a fact, Goku needed the Super Saiyan form in that era in order to defeat Freeza. Hence his comment upon meeting Goku. Now, many years later of training and enhancement, the Super Saiyan is no longer needed to beat that Freeza and one would only think that Movie 14 Goku is weaker than Freeza saga Freeza if they don't know much about Dragon Ball.

Hell, in Tarble's OVA we see Goku getting upset upon learning that Abo and Cado have a power level close to Freeza. This tells us that Goku had already and obviously surpassed Freeza.

[PFM18]

It is a pretty explicit statement by Beerus And it isn't contradicted anywhere so I believe it.

If you really paid attention while reading the manga since the very beginning, you will know that "Movie 14 base Saiyans are weaker than Freeza saga Freeza" contradicts E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G in Dragon Ball. The whole premise of getting stronger each fight, the whole point of keep training over and over throughout the years in order to achieve new level of power, all the zenkais... Even Goku's personality... Everything is affected as soon as you misinterpret Beerus' line wrong by thinking he was referring to the Goku of that moment.

Beerus learns from Whis what is Super Saiyan, and he thought that Goku only defeated Freeza because of that power, without it, he would lose. Which is a fact, Goku needed the Super Saiyan form in that era in order to defeat Freeza. Hence his comment upon meeting Goku. Now, many years later of training and enhancement, the Super Saiyan is no longer needed to beat that Freeza and one would only think that Movie 14 Goku is weaker than Freeza saga Freeza if they don't know much about Dragon Ball.

Hell, in Tarble's OVA we see Goku getting upset upon learning that Abo and Cado have a power level close to Freeza. This tells us that Goku had already and obviously surpassed Freeza.

The premise of getting stronger each fight, the training, the zenkais etc etc....are not contradicted by Beerus's statement. If anything the "statement" by Trunks contradicts Dragon Ball more than this. Goku would have to be 40x stronger in order to even equal Namek Freeza. Considering that anything from a 10%-30% advantage could mean complete domination in a fight, it makes sense that Goku got less than 40x stronger.

The only thing in the source material that could remotely contradict this is the comment about Vegeta during the Tenkaichi Budokai that he could win without SSJ. He was being cocky, so he can't be taken seriously.

[Grimlock]

The premise of getting stronger each fight, the training, the zenkais etc etc....are not contradicted by Beerus's statement.

Yes, they are. Otherwise you would just be ignoring years of a character getting stronger through many methods only because/in favor of a misinterpretation and would be ignoring established information as well.

I highly suggest you to take a time to read the manga, since the very beginning, paying attention as to what happens to Goku and others after each fight, at what happens at the end of a saga, to Vegeta's lines throughout the series about the increase in power that Saiyans get and how it works. Interviews and guidebooks will also help you.

[PFM18]

The premise of getting stronger each fight, the training, the zenkais etc etc....are not contradicted by Beerus's statement.

Yes, they are. Otherwise you would just be ignoring years of a character getting stronger through many methods only because/in favor of a misinterpretation and would be ignoring established information as well.

I highly suggest you to take a time to read the manga, since the very beginning, paying attention as to what happens to Goku and others after each fight, at what happens at the end of a saga, to Vegeta's lines throughout the series about the increase in power that Saiyans get and how it works. Interviews and guidebooks will also help you.

I am well aware of the process and the many methods by which the characters increase in strength. You don't have to ignore the years of a character getting stronger. Of course they got stronger, just not 40x stronger in their Base form. Considering that Gohan's doubled strength against Cell was a huge deal, keeping Goku's gains below 40x is perfectly reasonable. On Namek his base was 3M and in the Buu Arc it is probably like 90 or 100M.

Just because I disagree with you does not mean I have read the manga or paid attention to what has happened in the series.

[Grimlock]

Just because I disagree with you does not mean I have read the manga or paid attention to what has happened in the series.

No, this is not a matter of disagreeing with me/my opinion. I'm not stating what I think, I'm stating what truly happens in the series. This is a matter of you ignoring what's right in front of you, it is a huge point/issue in the franchise and one of the most notable characteristics about Saiyans.

Even in a hypothetical scenario where Goku from AGE 778, after Cell saga (and the increase in power during its events), after seven years of training, after Majin Buu saga (and the increase in power during its events), after other four years of training, was not enough to surpass a mere Freeza from Freeza saga, AGE 762 (that had never trained, by the way), you would have to explain this Goku's reaction. Why would he be upset upon learning Abo and Cado were at Freeza's level? And why would Goku himself state that Freeza was not much of a foe?

[Marlowe89]

I can certainly see why you would discontinue the discussion considering you have made absolutely no counterpoints to how this can be rationalized within the story considering the collection of events that contradict this. I don't see in any way how it is ridiculous to use things outside the episode to support my interpretation, adding context is important.

I'm choosing to discontinue this discussion because it seems like an exercise in futility to me. To be clear, things outside of an episode have no bearing on its context as an episodic story, so they don't influence an intended statement one way or the other -- this is the same point I brought up with you in the other thread while we were discussing base Goku's power in RoF. Retroactive continuity is a real thing, and different writers can in fact have conflicting interpretations. I'm not saying that's definitely the case here, but the very possibility suffices to address your counterpoint.

I'll even draw a second, much shorter analogy to illustrate that point as well: John says that he has it on good authority that his employer's stock value increased. The next day, Jill claims that the stock value decreased. Jill may or may not be correct, and John may or may not be correct, but that doesn't change John's intended assessment.

In any case, that's just the broader principle. Like I said, the examples you brought up certainly don't necessarily contradict the meaning behind Trunks' statement; neither Lavender nor base Goku have to be stronger than Cell arc Gohan given other things I've previously outlined in the strength thread, for example.

This is likely going to be my final post on the subject. Trunks' assessment is expressed clearly enough that it doesn't really leave room for other interpretations that don't sound disingenuous to me, and I've outlined why I believe that to be the case in excruciating detail. We're just not going to make any headway, so in accordance with what supercat said earlier, it's probably better to agree to disagree in peace at this rate.

[PFM18]

Just because I disagree with you does not mean I have read the manga or paid attention to what has happened in the series.

No, this is not a matter of disagreeing with me/my opinion. I'm not stating what I think, I'm stating what truly happens in the series. This is a matter of you ignoring what's right in front of you, it is a huge point/issue in the franchise and one of the most notable characteristics about Saiyans.

Even in a hypothetical scenario where Goku from AGE 778, after Cell saga (and the increase in power during its events), after seven years of training, after Majin Buu saga (and the increase in power during its events), after other four years of training, was not enough to surpass a mere Freeza from Freeza saga, AGE 762 (that had never trained, by the way), you would have to explain this Goku's reaction. Why would he be upset upon learning Abo and Cado were at Freeza's level? And why would Goku himself state that Freeza was not much of a foe?

Honestly, I don't see how this is a good example. Goku likes to fight strong people, he gets excited to fight people that can challenge him and push him to his limit. Somebody like Kid Buu is a "foe" in his eyes. When Goku says "not much of a foe" because as soon as he goes SSJ then he can one shot Freeza with utmost ease. And he has two further transformations beyond that even. Goku wanted a challenge and so he was disappointed to find that they were not a challenging opponent. This is when he realized it would be perfect for the kids.

There's quite literally nothing that contradicts Beerus's statement and we have no other specific indication as far as where the base Saiyans stand so it only makes sense.

[Saturnine]

The premise of getting stronger each fight, the training, the zenkais etc etc....are not contradicted by Beerus's statement.

Yes, they are. Otherwise you would just be ignoring years of a character getting stronger through many methods only because/in favor of a misinterpretation and would be ignoring established information as well.

Nah, I actually think he's right. Getting from 3 million to say, 100 million in the years between the Namek arc and the BoG arc just through training and no significant Zenkais that we know of is still rather impressive. I personally don't have any serious problems with it, but I was just pointing out how before that statement, base Saiyans vs Piccolo was heavily debated. Base Gohan being stronger than Piccolo would mean he'd have to be around Cell Jr. level, and I don't think he was at that level in base even after his Z-sword training (nothing indicates that he was). There were always two ways of going about things as far as calculating character powers was concerned: very high bases and small SSj multipliers (LegendarySSj7's approach), and low bases with 50x for SSj (the most prevalent approach today). Making Gohan stronger in base than Piccolo, only to make him weaker in SSj2 a couple months to a year later just shows the ineptitude of Super's writers. Hell, even back in the Buu arc - SSj Gotenks meant to be only somewhat stronger than SSj3 Goku, while in base he was already better than SSj2 Majin Vegeta is complete bollocks, and utterly disregards the 50x multiplier.

[PFM18]

The premise of getting stronger each fight, the training, the zenkais etc etc....are not contradicted by Beerus's statement.

Yes, they are. Otherwise you would just be ignoring years of a character getting stronger through many methods only because/in favor of a misinterpretation and would be ignoring established information as well.

Nah, I actually think he's right. Getting from 3 million to say, 100 million in the years between the Namek arc and the BoG arc just through training and no significant Zenkais that we know of is still rather impressive. I personally don't have any serious problems with it, but I was just pointing out how before that statement, base Saiyans vs Piccolo was heavily debated. Base Gohan being stronger than Piccolo would mean he'd have to be around Cell Jr. level, and I don't think he was at that level in base even after his Z-sword training (nothing indicates that he was). There were always two ways of going about things as far as calculating character powers was concerned: very high bases and small SSj multipliers (LegendarySSj7's approach), and low bases with 50x for SSj (the most prevalent approach today). Making Gohan stronger in base than Piccolo, only to make him weaker in SSj2 a couple months to a year later just shows the ineptitude of Super's writers. Hell, even back in the Buu arc - SSj Gotenks meant to be only somewhat stronger than SSj3 Goku, while in base he was already better than SSj2 Majin Vegeta is complete bollocks, and utterly disregards the 50x multiplier.

Exactly. It still aligns with the premise of a Saiyan and the narrative within the series for Goku's base to go from 3M ->100M. Thats a pretty huge boost especially when you only really need a 1.5x difference to dominate your opponent.

[Saturnine]

Yes, they are. Otherwise you would just be ignoring years of a character getting stronger through many methods only because/in favor of a misinterpretation and would be ignoring established information as well.

Nah, I actually think he's right. Getting from 3 million to say, 100 million in the years between the Namek arc and the BoG arc just through training and no significant Zenkais that we know of is still rather impressive. I personally don't have any serious problems with it, but I was just pointing out how before that statement, base Saiyans vs Piccolo was heavily debated. Base Gohan being stronger than Piccolo would mean he'd have to be around Cell Jr. level, and I don't think he was at that level in base even after his Z-sword training (nothing indicates that he was). There were always two ways of going about things as far as calculating character powers was concerned: very high bases and small SSj multipliers (LegendarySSj7's approach), and low bases with 50x for SSj (the most prevalent approach today). Making Gohan stronger in base than Piccolo, only to make him weaker in SSj2 a couple months to a year later just shows the ineptitude of Super's writers. Hell, even back in the Buu arc - SSj Gotenks meant to be only somewhat stronger than SSj3 Goku, while in base he was already better than SSj2 Majin Vegeta is complete bollocks, and utterly disregards the 50x multiplier.

Exactly. It still aligns with the premise of a Saiyan and the narrative within the series for Goku's base to go from 3M ->100M. Thats a pretty huge boost especially when you only really need a 1.5x difference to dominate your opponent.

Hell, 1,2x is enough. Unless there's a "no killing" rule, in which case it might not be if you are on the cautious side.