Goku's kaioken is the worst thing ever for dragonball series

[SupremeKai25]

The Kaio-ken is an OP ability, that much is clear, but Goku shouldn't be the only one to have it. It's a shame that the producers didn't have the balls to give Kaio-ken to Goku Black too. I mean, why shouldn't he have that ability? Zamasu was a North Kai, and he already had the Instant Transmission technique that was taught to Goku by the Yardrat species. I suppose that Super Saiyan Rosé Kaio-ken would have simply been unstoppable (Black didn't even need the Kaio-ken to stomp effortlessly his opponents), but at least they could have adressed the fact that Black hadn't unlocked Kaio-ken yet or something like that.

Did you know that, in Xenoverse 2, there is an unused voice clip for Rosé Kaioh-ken? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiAAEPLhKCo

Indeed, I was thinking about that video when I wrote my post.

There is no logical reason why Black couldn't use Kaio-ken. Zamasu was a North Kai just like King Kai, the one who created that technique. In addition, Black already knew all of Goku's signature moves and transformations, so he should have known about the Kaio-ken too, especially since Goku himself had already learned and used that technique several times and Black inherited all of Goku's memories. The good guys clearly had plot armor so Black never even mentioned the Kaio-ken.

[Simere]

There is no logical reason why Black couldn't use Kaio-ken. Zamasu was a North Kai just like King Kai, the one who created that technique.

Is that supposed to be logical? Seems awfully spurious to me. It's just a position. Do you think that King Kai should be able to do all of Zamasu's techniques?

In addition, Black already knew all of Goku's signature moves and transformations, so he should have known about the Kaio-ken too, especially since Goku himself had already learned and used that technique several times and Black inherited all of Goku's memories. The good guys clearly had plot armor so Black never even mentioned the Kaio-ken.

Just because he didn't use it doesn't mean he didn't know about it. Maybe it was too difficult for him. Maybe he thought it wasn't worth the danger—they have different approaches to fighting; Goku might be comfortable skirting disaster with risks like KK, maybe Black wasn't. Even Goku at the time wasn't ready to use it so I don't see why the expectation for Black to.

[SupremeKai25]

Is that supposed to be logical? Seems awfully spurious to me. It's just a position. Do you think that King Kai should be able to do all of Zamasu's techniques?

If he became a Supreme Kai? Then yes. These positions usually come with certain powers. For example, all Supreme Kais are able to use the Healing technique and have the ability to travel through time using the Time Rings.

Besides, we have never seen most of the other Supreme Kai fighting, so who knows, maybe they can use Zamasu's techniques such as the Heavenly Arrow.

Just because he didn't use it doesn't mean he didn't know about it.

Certainly if he knew about it he would have used when he was struggling against Vegeta? Just like Goku did when he was struggling against Fused Zamasu.

Maybe it was too difficult for him.

Given how Zamasu is a fighting genius and a prodigy, I doubt that.

Maybe he thought it wasn't worth the danger—they have different approaches to fighting; Goku might be comfortable skirting disaster with risks like KK, maybe Black wasn't.

But Black doesn't care about danger, in fact he needs to get in danger so that he can become more powerful. He grows even stronger only through pain, that's why he tends to laugh maniacally when people hurt him. Plus he always has Future Zamasu by his side to heal him if he really needed to.

[FiReFTW]

I wouldn't single out kaioken for power scaling issues, there were many others things, and super saiyan was easily worse as kaioken had big drawbacks. My problem with kaioken is that Toei put great effort into showing the effects of it at x3 with Goku's massive body and all the details showing the pain and damage it causes to user, it truly felt like a very risky, last-ditch effort, so Toriyama ruined the concept by watering it down.

How is Super Saiyan worse than Kaioken?

Theres no problem with Super Saiyan, or Super Saiyan 2 etc...

Just like there would be no problem with Kaioken... if it stayed at a reasonable level, x2, x3 or maximum x4 (but that would destroy ur body extremely fast).

The problem is

1.Kaioken seemingly has no limits... its basically an attack that raises everything without any limitations, the writers can bring it back whenever they want and make it bigger.. Kaioken x50, Kaioken x100, kaioken x500, kaioken x1000 lol.. its lazy writting and its extremely problematic, because it has limitless potential.

2.Its not even exclusive to base form, this is even more horrible, goku being able to use it as super saiyan blue, and get 20 times stronger and faster than his rival or opponent he is fighting lol... so kaioken is not even limited to form, so you can use it even in mastered ultra instinct, goku getting beat by a stronger villain in mastered ultra instinct? No problem; KAIOKEN TIMES 20... gets beaten... KAIOKEN TIMES 50...

How do you not see how ridicilous this is?

[shadowfox87]

No, Blue in the movie is just regular Blue.

It really doesn't look like a regular initial SSB. People will say, "different art style" as a defense. However, we shall see in the Galactic Prisoner arc in the manga, whether the aura matches. It already matches the aura from Vegeta in the ToP.

[Simere]

Is that supposed to be logical? Seems awfully spurious to me. It's just a position. Do you think that King Kai should be able to do all of Zamasu's techniques?

If he became a Supreme Kai? Then yes. These positions usually come with certain powers.

Kaio-ken itself, though, is something we know he created, and even he couldn't use it.

Certainly if he knew about it he would have used when he was struggling against Vegeta? Just like Goku did when he was struggling against Fused Zamasu.

As you gladly pointed out, he didn't need to. Struggling is the right word to describe Vegeta against Black, they had barely even gotten into it. When you're merely struggling it's not the time to risk it at all. Struggling is definitely not the right word for the fight against Fused Zamasu; Goku had tried everything and was completely out of other options. He couldn't even use his arm(s?).

Given how Zamasu is a fighting genius and a prodigy, I doubt that.

There's a lot of supposed geniuses who aren't using the Kaio-ken. In universe there has to be an explanation. It seems obvious to me that difficulty is the most likely one, and I don't really see why so many reject the idea whenever I propose it. Even if they were every bit the genius, a genius isn't always going to be able to do everything in their field. Some things are going to come easier than others, and some never come at all.

But Black doesn't care about danger, in fact he needs to get in danger so that he can become more powerful. He grows even stronger only through pain, that's why he tends to laugh maniacally when people hurt him. Plus he always has Future Zamasu by his side to heal him if he really needed to.

Good point, but we're still talking about pretty different levels of danger here. The Kaio-ken can do a lot more than just quirk your muscles or incapacitate you, it can outright kill you. Zamasu can't heal that.

[Rubens]

Kaio-ken is a great technique with a great concept, I just think it's unfortunate that it didn't stick with only "doubling one's battle power" - allowing it to reach 3, 4, 10, 20 times its level only made it silly and by extention, made further power ups seem absurdly huge in comparison.

I liked its return in Super, but again they could not resist using ambiguous levels of it and way too often, trivializing a technique that was inicially deemed as dangerous and a last ditch effort.

I don't think it was not the worst thing, just exaggerated.

[Lukmendes]

Kaioken, and it's respective multipliers, was created in response to Toriyama realising he made the antagonists to fucking powerful for it to seem believe for Goku to beat them without some kind of ace up his sleeve.

It's Power Creep 101.

Personally, I'm happy that the Kaioken made a comeback in the anime. It's sudden disappearance from the plot has always bugged me. It's a free boost in strength and speed. Stack that shit on top of any SSJ transformation, and you're at an automatic advantage in battle.

Always wondered why Goku didn't consider to try Kaioken with SS against Cell, since the SS form was specificaly said to be used like base form, so theoricaly he could do it.

On the other hand, and I probably say this a lot, Cell should be able to do it too, that could be interesting to see, maybe without too many multipliers since he got saiyan saga Goku's DNA.

What's even more unforgivable is how Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Yamcha and Piccolo don't learn the Kaioken (or the Genki Dama for that matter). It's made even more jarring by the fact that all four of them reached King Kai's planet quicker than Goku did and even states that all four of them went through even tougher training than Goku did.

Not to mention that Tien said that he was going to learn everything Kaio had and "add a few twists of his own" (He says it in a chapter when Goku was still traveling to Namek), so him returning in Cell saga and just doing a kikoho is less interesting if you had an expectation for something different.

If he became a Supreme Kai? Then yes. These positions usually come with certain powers. For example, all Supreme Kais are able to use the Healing technique and have the ability to travel through time using the Time Rings.

Besides, we have never seen most of the other Supreme Kai fighting, so who knows, maybe they can use Zamasu's techniques such as the Heavenly Arrow.

Unless retconned later, Kaioken and spirit bomb are specificaly said to be Kaio's own moves he created, not a set power for that can be achieved if you're in a specific rank, so Black or Zamasu shouldn't know about those moves because of their rank, Black should know about them however, since he could do the kamehameha in the anime.

[Majin Buu]

Personally, I'm happy that the Kaioken made a comeback in the anime. It's sudden disappearance from the plot has always bugged me. It's a free boost in strength and speed. Stack that shit on top of any SSJ transformation, and you're at an automatic advantage in battle.

There's the major drawback of it wrecking your body the higher you go with it (unless Super has retconned that out). I always figured it never returned after the Freeza arc because Super Saiyan made it obsolete, since you've got a power up that can destroy your body if you go too far with it vs. a power up that doesn't have such a dangerous drawback.

[Lionel]

Kaioken should have been handed off to Piccolo and the humans after Freeza. Such an invaluable technique getting discreetly brushed under the carpet to never be seen or heard of again is almost outrageous in my opinion.

The mechanics of Kaioken encompass the amplification of internalised ki which enhances musculature, strength, mobility, ect. We've seen technique amplifiers reach pretty substantial plateaus of concentrated power before. Besides power level, I might liken a tolerance to higher Kaioken multipliers to people's haematological and respiratory adaptation to higher altitudes. It's difficult at first but the longer your body has time to experience and adjust accordingly, the more natural it becomes. High altitude's impact on red blood cell volume has even been known to help bolster athletic capability at lower elevations. Perhaps Kaioken could be described as having an adaptational learning curve like that?