Apply DB Super's Logic Of Insanely Fast Power Increases To Ordinary DBZ.

[theherodjl]

Knowing that DB Super kind of says "F*ck it" when characters need to improve and then gives them disproportionately large increases in power from relatively short amounts of time, imagine if Toriyama & Toei had this mentality from the start.
How would the story play out?
The Saiyan arc?
The Namek/Freeza arc?
The Android /Cell arc?
The Tenkaichi/Majin Boo arc?

Would we see completely inane power increases that would muddle everyone's personal power level list and force everyone to concede that power levels are bullshit?

[precita]

Goku would discover Super Saiyan on King Kai's planet during the training for the Saiyans.

[DHM211]

Goku going from not bing able to beat Saiyan Saga Vegeta to being able to out class Captain Ginyu with a few days of training.
Oh wait.

[DBZ Macky]

Goku surpasses Majin Boo in the first 10 days of training with Kaio. He helps Kaio with some errands for the rest of the time he spends there and gets "rusty", essentially turning out to be as strong as he was in the original story.

[Akyon]

The Namek arc would remain the same since that was exactly the same thing as Super's logic.

Goku can't quite beat Vegeta on Earth?

One Senzu bean, a few push ups on a spaceship and one Ginyu fight later and he's able to fight Final Form Frieza.

Krillin goes from 1,770 to 75,000 with one quick Guru unlock.

Vegeta goes from 18,000 to being FAR stronger than his Saiyan Saga Great Ape form of 180,000 in base by getting his shit kicked in by the fight on Earth, Recoome and Zarbon.

[Lord Beerus]

Nearly all of Piccolo's increases in strength run on "Super's Logic". And the Namek/Freeza arc is full of bullshit power ups.

[dragonball0900]

But let's remember that the reason this power boosts happen during the Namek arc have their reasons (Zenkais, Guru's boost, Namekian fusion, training in gravity). However in Super, we have guys like Android 17 or Roshi to be able to get stronger with just doing "normal training". Who knows weather or not Android 18 might get the same treatment...

Krillin is also able to defeat with his best techniques guys that are like x1000 stronger than him. And he barely train for years before getting into shape again.

[Lord Beerus]

But let's remember that the reason this power boosts happen during the Namek arc have their reasons (Zenkais, Guru's boost, Namekian fusion, training in gravity). However in Super, we have guys like Android 17 or Roshi to be able to get stronger with just doing "normal training". Who knows weather or not Android 18 might get the same treatment...

Krillin is also able to defeat with his best techniques guys that are like x1000 stronger than him. And he barely train for years before getting into shape again.

Zenkai's were incredibly inconsistent on Namek. And Piccolo got at least 150 times stronger from how powerful he was on Namek from just three years of "normal training". Why can't guys like Android 17 and Roshi get the same treatment?

[dragonball0900]

But let's remember that the reason this power boosts happen during the Namek arc have their reasons (Zenkais, Guru's boost, Namekian fusion, training in gravity). However in Super, we have guys like Android 17 or Roshi to be able to get stronger with just doing "normal training". Who knows weather or not Android 18 might get the same treatment...

Krillin is also able to defeat with his best techniques guys that are like x1000 stronger than him. And he barely train for years before getting into shape again.

Zenkai's were incredibly inconsistent on Namek. And Piccolo got at least 150 times stronger from how powerful he was on Namek from just three years of "normal training". Why can't guys like Android 17 and Roshi get the same treatment?

Zenkais change in consistency, but they don't have to be consistent, they don't have to be the same increase all the time. All it tells is that they are boosts, and its amount can change with no problem.

I won't say Piccolo's x150 boost make sense, because it isn't. However, at least is more believable because he trained with SSJ Goku, a much stronger partner, and he also have a lot of determination and trained very very hard with him for 3 years. There's also a theory that Nail's fusion could've been part of this, with him probably having a Guru potential boost, making Piccolo's gains in training higher

Roshi and Android 17 however, just train, not as hard as Piccolo, they don't even had partners (don't know about Roshi though). Their boosts in training clearly don't make sense, and with those boosts, Android 17 could've easily been made to fight Buu.

[TheMikado]

But let's remember that the reason this power boosts happen during the Namek arc have their reasons (Zenkais, Guru's boost, Namekian fusion, training in gravity). However in Super, we have guys like Android 17 or Roshi to be able to get stronger with just doing "normal training". Who knows weather or not Android 18 might get the same treatment...

Krillin is also able to defeat with his best techniques guys that are like x1000 stronger than him. And he barely train for years before getting into shape again.

Zenkai's were incredibly inconsistent on Namek. And Piccolo got at least 150 times stronger from how powerful he was on Namek from just three years of "normal training". Why can't guys like Android 17 and Roshi get the same treatment?

Zenkais change in consistency, but they don't have to be consistent, they don't have to be the same increase all the time. All it tells is that they are boosts, and its amount can change with no problem.

I won't say Piccolo's x150 boost make sense, because it isn't. However, at least is more believable because he trained with SSJ Goku, a much stronger partner, and he also have a lot of determination and trained very very hard with him for 3 years. There's also a theory that Nail's fusion could've been part of this, with him probably having a Guru potential boost, making Piccolo's gains in training higher

Roshi and Android 17 however, just train, not as hard as Piccolo, they don't even had partners (don't know about Roshi though). Their boosts in training clearly don't make sense, and with those boosts, Android 17 could've easily been made to fight Buu.

I've said this before and I'll say this again, there's nothing that states that 19&20 were stronger than final form Frieza. Especially in the manga. In fact Piccolo says that's is possible they are weaker than they thought they would be. If they were expecting them to be stronger than final form Frieza and they weren't his comment would make sense.

Anyway, the key difference has always been "plot device" this is a key literal tool specially designed for "BS" this includes things like zenkais which is something Goku should have been experiencing as far back as the original DB but never to this extent. The device is we have things like fusion, Zenkais, and SSJ which all expand the lore of the world and universe vs. generic off screen training in the woods.

At the end of the day inventing a full on plot device had taken more creativity, effort, and expanded the universe far far far more than any amount of "off screen training in the woods".

[Lord Beerus]

But let's remember that the reason this power boosts happen during the Namek arc have their reasons (Zenkais, Guru's boost, Namekian fusion, training in gravity). However in Super, we have guys like Android 17 or Roshi to be able to get stronger with just doing "normal training". Who knows weather or not Android 18 might get the same treatment...

Krillin is also able to defeat with his best techniques guys that are like x1000 stronger than him. And he barely train for years before getting into shape again.

Zenkai's were incredibly inconsistent on Namek. And Piccolo got at least 150 times stronger from how powerful he was on Namek from just three years of "normal training". Why can't guys like Android 17 and Roshi get the same treatment?

Zenkais change in consistency, but they don't have to be consistent, they don't have to be the same increase all the time. All it tells is that they are boosts, and its amount can change with no problem.

I won't say Piccolo's x150 boost make sense, because it isn't. However, at least is more believable because he trained with SSJ Goku, a much stronger partner, and he also have a lot of determination and trained very very hard with him for 3 years. There's also a theory that Nail's fusion could've been part of this, with him probably having a Guru potential boost, making Piccolo's gains in training higher

Roshi and Android 17 however, just train, not as hard as Piccolo, they don't even had partners (don't know about Roshi though). Their boosts in training clearly don't make sense, and with those boosts, Android 17 could've easily been made to fight Buu.

Nothing indicates Piccolo trained with SSJ Goku. As a matter of fact, Piccolo usually trains on his own and it's usually through meditating that he becomes stronger. And even if he did train with SSJ Goku, then this creates an issue with why the hell Kid Gohan didn't get any noticeably stronger after three years? Surely Gohan of all people would have been become much stronger after training with father, who's also a SSJ, but he doesn't. And who says you can't become powerful from training on your own. Vegeta became much stronger from training on his own in space and Future Gohan became a SSJ with no-one's support.

[dragonball0900]

Zenkai's were incredibly inconsistent on Namek. And Piccolo got at least 150 times stronger from how powerful he was on Namek from just three years of "normal training". Why can't guys like Android 17 and Roshi get the same treatment?

Zenkais change in consistency, but they don't have to be consistent, they don't have to be the same increase all the time. All it tells is that they are boosts, and its amount can change with no problem.

I won't say Piccolo's x150 boost make sense, because it isn't. However, at least is more believable because he trained with SSJ Goku, a much stronger partner, and he also have a lot of determination and trained very very hard with him for 3 years. There's also a theory that Nail's fusion could've been part of this, with him probably having a Guru potential boost, making Piccolo's gains in training higher

Roshi and Android 17 however, just train, not as hard as Piccolo, they don't even had partners (don't know about Roshi though). Their boosts in training clearly don't make sense, and with those boosts, Android 17 could've easily been made to fight Buu.

Nothing indicates Piccolo trained with SSJ Goku. As a matter of fact, Piccolo usually trains on his own and it's usually through meditating that he becomes stronger. And even if he did train with SSJ Goku, then this creates an issue with why the hell Kid Gohan didn't get any noticeably stronger after three years? Surely Gohan of all people would have been become much stronger after training with father, who's also a SSJ, but he doesn't. And who says you can't become powerful from training on your own. Vegeta became much stronger from training on his own in space and Future Gohan became a SSJ with no-one's support.

Gohan was way weaker than both Piccolo and Goku, they were like 15 times stronger than him, obviously Piccolo would've kept getting much stronger than him, specially since Piccolo is more dedicated to train than Gohan. Also, it wouldn't make sense for Piccolo to train on his own this time, he would surely do it from time to time, but knowing the threat of the Androids, it would be useless for him to just simply train on his own and having no partners.

Don't forget there's also a manga cover with Gohan and Piccolo training with Goku in his SSJ state.

I have to agree though that Piccolo did increase more than what he should've to.

Comparing Android 17 and Roshi's training with Vegeta's training in space is useless. Vegeta trained in a x300 gravity, and achieved the SSJ transformation. Roshi and Android 17 simply did normal training, with not even a threat on their minds, they were just training because they like it.

Future Gohan only increased like 20 times his power in base (since he's not that much stronger than SSJ Goku from Namek, so naturally Gohan's base would be over 3,000,000 but not by much), which is far less than what Android 17 increased. And Roshi increased a lot of power too that seemed to even surpass Tien (unless that tweet from one of the writers was true), that's even crazier than any Z power up (though Piccolo's one is still questionable).

I've said this before and I'll say this again, there's nothing that states that 19&20 were stronger than final form Frieza. Especially in the manga. In fact Piccolo says that's is possible they are weaker than they thought they would be. If they were expecting them to be stronger than final form Frieza and they weren't his comment would make sense.

Anyway, the key difference has always been "plot device" this is a key literal tool specially designed for "BS" this includes things like zenkais which is something Goku should have been experiencing as far back as the original DB but never to this extent. The device is we have things like fusion, Zenkais, and SSJ which all expand the lore of the world and universe vs. generic off screen training in the woods.

At the end of the day inventing a full on plot device had taken more creativity, effort, and expanded the universe far far far more than any amount of "off screen training in the woods".

Yeah Android 19 and 20 might not be stronger than Frieza, but Piccolo also considered the possibility that the Z fighters were the ones being much stronger. Android 19 also hold his own against SSJ Sick Goku (before the Kamehameha absorption), a Goku that was stated to be stronger than Goku when he returned from Yadrat (Tien, Krillin and Yamcha thought Goku was stronger than before). That's why I think 19 and 20 could've probably been stronger than Frieza, though we don't know that. However, Piccolo should be stronger than Frieza, that's indirectly stated (he has to be stronger than SSJ Future Trunks if he was confident in defeating someone stronger than Trunks).

[TheMikado]

Nah Piccolo only gets confident after seeing sick SSJ Goku take whip their tails. And even following that he didn't man handle them on his own. It's seems to imply he's stronger than the androids but weaker than sick SSJ Goku. There's not really a reason to assume they are stronger than Frieza. I feel like if they were Toriyama would have said something to that effect.

[Lord Beerus]

Zenkais change in consistency, but they don't have to be consistent, they don't have to be the same increase all the time. All it tells is that they are boosts, and its amount can change with no problem.

I won't say Piccolo's x150 boost make sense, because it isn't. However, at least is more believable because he trained with SSJ Goku, a much stronger partner, and he also have a lot of determination and trained very very hard with him for 3 years. There's also a theory that Nail's fusion could've been part of this, with him probably having a Guru potential boost, making Piccolo's gains in training higher

Roshi and Android 17 however, just train, not as hard as Piccolo, they don't even had partners (don't know about Roshi though). Their boosts in training clearly don't make sense, and with those boosts, Android 17 could've easily been made to fight Buu.

Nothing indicates Piccolo trained with SSJ Goku. As a matter of fact, Piccolo usually trains on his own and it's usually through meditating that he becomes stronger. And even if he did train with SSJ Goku, then this creates an issue with why the hell Kid Gohan didn't get any noticeably stronger after three years? Surely Gohan of all people would have been become much stronger after training with father, who's also a SSJ, but he doesn't. And who says you can't become powerful from training on your own. Vegeta became much stronger from training on his own in space and Future Gohan became a SSJ with no-one's support.

Gohan was way weaker than both Piccolo and Goku, they were like 15 times stronger than him, obviously Piccolo would've kept getting much stronger than him, specially since Piccolo is more dedicated to train than Gohan. Also, it wouldn't make sense for Piccolo to train on his own this time, he would surely do it from time to time, but knowing the threat of the Androids, it would be useless for him to just simply train on his own and having no partners.

Don't forget there's also a manga cover with Gohan and Piccolo training with Goku in his SSJ state.

I have to agree though that Piccolo did increase more than what he should've to.

Comparing Android 17 and Roshi's training with Vegeta's training in space is useless. Vegeta trained in a x300 gravity, and achieved the SSJ transformation. Roshi and Android 17 simply did normal training, with not even a threat on their minds, they were just training because they like it.

Future Gohan only increased like 20 times his power in base (since he's not that much stronger than SSJ Goku from Namek, so naturally Gohan's base would be over 3,000,000 but not by much), which is far less than what Android 17 increased. And Roshi increased a lot of power too that seemed to even surpass Tien (unless that tweet from one of the writers was true), that's even crazier than any Z power up (though Piccolo's one is still questionable).

The gap between Gohan and Piccolo was nowhere near that large when they started to train in the three years to preparing for the Androids. Piccolo was just over 1 million while Gohan was in the mid to low hundreds of thousands. And Gohan had far greater potential to get stronger than both Piccolo and Goku. We see that with how much stronger Gohan gets from training in preparation for the Saiyans and how much stronger he gets when get some of his hidden power awoken by Guru and not to mention how much his battle power spike every time he got really angry. It really does't add up all that well that after three years of training he's not as powerful as Goku or Piccolo. Honestly speaking, he should have been a SSJ by the time Android 19 and 20 arrived. It's all the more baffling considering that Future Gohan was able to become a SSJ with far less support.

Manga covers mean nothing of importance, and really don figure at all into this debate.

What does it matter if Android 17 and Roshi just trained because they like it? Goku and Vegeta train just because they like it and get much stronger as a result. Why should we single out Android 17 and Roshi? It must be stressed that we have no idea how much gains Androids make when they train. All we know is that they can get stronger through conventional training methods. For all we know, Android 17 could make/could have made Golden Freeza level gains. It's possible. The concept of an Android training has never been explored before. So it's not like it's breaking any established lore or "head-canon". They can literally do whatever the hell they want at this stage with the battle power of Android 17. Android 17 just did some light training over the the last decade or so and his power just unexpectedly creeped to an insane height. Again, it's a rational possibility. There nothing established that it can't happen. It been more than 10 years. Goku wasn't fighting seriously as a SSJB against Android 17 and was trying to make sure he didn't kill Android 17 when they were sparring, so I don't think he became SSJB level right off the bat. We also have no idea just how much stronger SSJB is compared to the other SSJ forms, so we can't come to a rationale as to just how much stronger Android 17 got.

Some say that Android 17 shouldn't become this strong... but... since when was it stated that he can't? Why put a literal glass ceiling on how strong a character, who's never trained before, can get? I'm not saying that people don't have the right to criticize a scenario were certain character get explicitly stronger and the show doesn't go into more depth into how he/she got stronger. There's nothing wrong with wanting a bit more detail. But's it's far from lore breaking or story breaking.

Plus, Future Gohan becoming as strong as he did is a bit of a miracle considering he had nobody to help him get to that stage in power in his base form, let alone become a SSJ.

It's the same deal with Rishi. Why can't he get stronger from training? And besides, the best he was able to do was fight evenly with Base Goku. Plus, we also have no idea how strong Tien is after training with King Kai. So making a comparison with Roshi and Tien is a bit moot.

Dragon Ball runs a simple premise: People train and get stronger. The fashion in which most cast, especially the Saiyans, got strong in the show is the exception not the set stand and rule that must be obliged by every other character that trains. There's no universal gradient that must be abided to when a character grows in power. Especially for a character that's never trained before like Android 17. Some people make small gains through training for a very long time and others make great gains from training for a much lesser amount of time. Some do it on their own with basic tools and others do it with the aid of others or unique enhancements. It's all really dependable on... well... what the plot demands. Some use gimmicks and get special treatment to take shortcuts in get stronger while other just do it the old fashioned way. That's just how Dragon Ball has been since day one. Not every character needs to jump through hoops to become insanely strong.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

A lot of Super's power-ups are off-screen, training done in secret with unknown methods but clear time intervals.

Compared to Z, it's usually only a bit faster and actually has other characters catching up. As well, the differences between individual power levels are lessened when it comes to mortals and lower gods, so only in the most serious of serious fights are weaker characters entirely useless.

[Ki Breaker]

Goku unlocks SS3 against raditz because he wanted to look the same as his brother to make his decision on raditzs offer..

Goku spends the rest of z holding back and the story plays out the same

[MR.Mark]

Nearly all of Piccolo's increases in strength run on "Super's Logic". And the Namek/Freeza arc is full of bullshit power ups.

This.

Power increases got a lot less believable after this.

[ekrolo2]

Freeza becomes stronger than Boohan by deciding to get out of his chair and pacing around his ship for a while, meaning everyone dies on Namek.

And before someone tells me "Well Piccolo gets stronger from BS even in Z!" yeah and bad writing from the past doesn't excuse bad writing now. Fuck. Off.

[MR.Mark]

I've seen all the current eps of super and I don't recall Freeza or anyone getting stronger simply by pacing around. you don't have to like Super's logic behind power-ups/training whether they be on screen or off, but there's no need to exaggerate.

People hating on Freeza's power-up when all Gohan did to get Ultimate was sit on his ass. At least in Super he actually had to work to get to that stage again.

[theherodjl]

I've seen all the current eps of super and I don't recall Freeza or anyone getting stronger simply by pacing around. you don't have to like Super's logic behind power-ups/training whether they be on screen or off, but there's no need to exaggerate.

People hating on Freeza's power-up when all Gohan did to get Ultimate was sit on his ass. At least in Super he actually had to work to get to that stage again.

Its not over exaggeration when Freeza lightly punched a guy(he HAD to hold back because he was more than 20x Togoma) everyday for four months and then somehow got a golden form just because light to moderate exercise yields legendary potential. Its merely a step above pacing around for four months.
It may as well be said that light to moderate exercise counts as training at this point because if 17 and Roshi just need to stay active to keep up then Super's logic has the right to be exaggerated.