Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

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Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by theherodjl » Wed Aug 16, 2017 3:28 pm

They exist not as in-story gauges of strength but as numerical rules put upon by guides and fans, as a result of battle power being introduced as numbers when scouters made their initial appearance.
Never once does Goku or any other Saiyan make some kind of statement in context that their battle power after SSJ is multiplied by 50 or that the ratio is 50:1 exactly by anyone's estimate, or SSJ2 is doubling their power, or SSJ3 is quadrupling their power and so forth.
As far as we really know, the activation of SSJ by whatever means is just their latent power unleashed and that the amount of latent power a Saiyan can bring forth varies between individuals, by whichever means they require.
The argument for a 50 fold increase in power can only be attributed to Goku in his fight with Freeza, simply because of the fact that a Kaio-ken x20 only seemed to somewhat harm the tyrant using half of his maximum power. There however is little reason to believe that every instance of a Saiyan unlocking the transformation afterwards is evidence of a set multiplier, Gohan seems to be a defining example of this due to the fact that his battle power while as SSJ is not necessarily due to acute control like his father, but how well he can trigger his rage.
Goten & Trunks are further examples of this change, despite not having been triggered by intense rage or the whole pure heart/pure evil concept as Saiyans before them they still can tap into their latent power and draw it out as SSJs. Enough so to combat a SSJ Teenage Gohan despite a obvious power gap in ordinary form, what with them being small children after all.
A more recent example in-story is Vegeta pushing his SSJ power to a level beyond SSJ3 with his own mastery of the form and burst of rage, it may not be the case of him just having more power in his base from anger and that translating to his SSJ form.
I don't mean to sound like a Captain Obvious or a buzzkill for power level discussions but isn't this really how it is, at least in a strictly in-universe sense?
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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by Duo » Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:23 pm

I wish this were the general opinion that is held, because the overall story suffers from applying a strict interpretation of the various Super Saiyans. Way, way back in 2003, my "head canon" was that the Super Saiyan multiplier decreased over time due to the Saiyan normal state growing more accustomed to higher levels of power without transformation. That at least attempts to accommodate Babidi's power reading of Goku transforming while fighting Yakon. DBS followed this up by having two separate occasions of a Super Saiyan 2 being nearly as or more powerful than a Super Saiyan 3.

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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by TheZFighter » Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:20 am

Yeah but one thing I've learned about this series in my 18/ 19-odd years of following it is that lots of people like to be able to list characters in order of strength for some reason.
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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by nickzambuto » Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:34 am

You're absolutely right, and this is the same idea that a lot of the non-power scaling fans subscribe to. There's no dispute, Toriyama never treated the Super Saiyan form as a multiplier in the story. Being a multiplier actually creates a lot of inconsistencies, considering the saiyans often train in their transformed states. The biggest error this creates is with Goku's Full-Power Super Saiyan form, which within the story, was obviously meant to increase the power of the form, but the multipliers mean that Goku somehow found time to buff his base state up to incredible levels, even though he effectively wasted 90% of his training time just to gain more stamina.

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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by LightBing » Fri Aug 18, 2017 9:43 am

The moment Goku went the route of mastering SSJ is the moment multipliers should have been thrown away. It's strongly implied, if not outright stated in this quote:
Chapter: 391 (DBZ 197), P7.2-7
Vegeta: “Are you an idiot?...You don’t seem to think things over…They’ve judged that state as the best! If they get used to that as a matter of habit, then even if they raise their battle power, the strain on their body is very small! [ ] They’ve thought this through…”


The underline part is the key, Super Saiyan went from static to flexible. It could go as low as everyday affairs and increase significantly, to the point it dwarfed the static versions from Vegeta and Trunks.
There's a few more reasons based on logic but I'll stop here.

Unfortunately the guides gave structure for people to hold on to. People prefer something palpable to discuss. It's easier to use or claim Mr.Toriyama is forgetful/didn't care than to tackle the questions.

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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by LowRyder2005 » Fri Aug 18, 2017 12:19 pm

LightBing wrote:The moment Goku went the route of mastering SSJ is the moment multipliers should have been thrown away. It's strongly implied, if not outright stated in this quote:
Chapter: 391 (DBZ 197), P7.2-7
Vegeta: “Are you an idiot?...You don’t seem to think things over…They’ve judged that state as the best! If they get used to that as a matter of habit, then even if they raise their battle power, the strain on their body is very small! [ ] They’ve thought this through…”


The underline part is the key, Super Saiyan went from static to flexible. It could go as low as everyday affairs and increase significantly, to the point it dwarfed the static versions from Vegeta and Trunks.
There's a few more reasons based on logic but I'll stop here.

Unfortunately the guides gave structure for people to hold on to. People prefer something palpable to discuss. It's easier to use or claim Mr.Toriyama is forgetful/didn't care than to tackle the questions.
I'm not against the idea of flexible multipliers, but that type of conclusion is pretty much unrelated. Trunks and Vegeta are talking about Goku: Trunks met him in a suppressed state and, visibly distressed, wonders if he can raise his battle power at all -- since it's their only card against Cell, supposedly. Vegeta states that they're suppressed because by getting accustomed with keeping the state at all times they will not be as strained as usual when they fight at full power (i.e. under equal conditions, they can fight at their peak for much longer). So, it's a testimony they can raise and lower their power alright, but it's not hinting, like, at all at the fact that they can now raise their Super Saiyan multiplier above a supposed limit -- since no previous limit is mentioned in the first place.

What's expressly stated is that through the mastered Super Saiyan they could control their power near perfectly, and keep it at levels lower than their maximum for extended periods at time. Goku's strength can in turn very easily be justified with his base power increasing.

The only thing I've felt like questioning in the past is "why couldn't Trunks and Vegeta achieve similar results" by the time the Cell Game started, which could possibly hint to Goku's multiplier being higher overall; however, I've always envisioned Goku as someone with a possibly smarter and more balanced approach to training compared to Vegeta and Trunks, so... yeah, I think it had something to do with. What also always made me entertain the idea of the flexible multipliers less and less is that the Daizenshuu goes out of its way to give you the *50 in detail in the description (without mentioning improved states with increased power overall), and then literally every Saiyan in the series is put under the "users" tab. Even those who are arguably "full power" right off the bat: people like Goten, Trunks, Gotenks and especially Vegito. Can't really act as conclusive proof that the multipliers are static, understandably ("absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"), but it's always been what made me see very few reasons to think about alternative scenarios.

With that being said, I always had a very cool personal theory that a Saiyan multiplier could go from 50 to 100 and from 100 to 400 the moment they had unlocked a Saiyan unlocked Super Saiyan 2 and 3 (it always helped a lot making sense of some parts of the Buu arc and especially GT, where one would most likely end up with pretty whacky gaps; i.e. base Goku being 2,500 times stronger than base Goten or base Goku becoming ten times stronger between the Baby fight and the Super #17 one).

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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by LightBing » Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:17 pm

LowRyder2005 wrote:I'm not against the idea of flexible multipliers, but that type of conclusion is pretty much unrelated. Trunks and Vegeta are talking about Goku: Trunks met him in a suppressed state and, visibly distressed, wonders if he can raise his battle power at all -- since it's their only card against Cell, supposedly. Vegeta states that they're suppressed because by getting accustomed with keeping the state at all times they will not be as strained as usual when they fight at full power (i.e. under equal conditions, they can fight at their peak for much longer). So, it's a testimony they can raise and lower their power alright, but it's not hinting, like, at all at the fact that they can now raise their Super Saiyan multiplier above a supposed limit -- since no previous limit is mentioned in the first place.

What's expressly stated is that through the mastered Super Saiyan they could control their power near perfectly, and keep it at levels lower than their maximum for extended periods at time. Goku's strength can in turn very easily be justified with his base power increasing.

The only thing I've felt like questioning in the past is "why couldn't Trunks and Vegeta achieve similar results" by the time the Cell Game started, which could possibly hint to Goku's multiplier being higher overall; however, I've always envisioned Goku as someone with a possibly smarter and more balanced approach to training compared to Vegeta and Trunks, so... yeah, I think it had something to do with. What also always made me entertain the idea of the flexible multipliers less and less is that the Daizenshuu goes out of its way to give you the *50 in detail in the description (without mentioning improved states with increased power overall), and then literally every Saiyan in the series is put under the "users" tab. Even those who are arguably "full power" right off the bat: people like Goten, Trunks, Gotenks and especially Vegito. Can't really act as conclusive proof that the multipliers are static, understandably ("absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"), but it's always been what made me see very few reasons to think about alternative scenarios.

With that being said, I always had a very cool personal theory that a Saiyan multiplier could go from 50 to 100 and from 100 to 400 the moment they had unlocked a Saiyan unlocked Super Saiyan 2 and 3 (it always helped a lot making sense of some parts of the Buu arc and especially GT, where one would most likely end up with pretty whacky gaps; i.e. base Goku being 2,500 times stronger than base Goten or base Goku becoming ten times stronger between the Baby fight and the Super #17 fght).
My conclusion isn't unrelated, I'm taking the whole context of the struggle Mr.Toriyama created for the Super Saiyans during the arc; this line from Vegeta ties it all together. I'll try to clarify the best I can.

At the start of the arc and after training for years in Super Saiyan, they get destroyed by #18 and #17. What then do Vegeta and Goku immediately think about, surpassing SSJ. This tell us that SSJ is limited and/or the Saiyans can't increase their bases enough to compete with the Androids.
[spoiler]Chapter: 366 (DBZ 172), P1.1-2
Kame-sennin: “Aim even higher than Super Saiyan, you say? Is that possible…?!”
Goku: “I dunno…But it looks like I definitely won’t be able to beat these opponents without doing at least that…I’ll train for about 1 year, and if it’s no good, I’ll give up.”[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Chapter: 375 (DBZ 181), P1.3
Trunks: “Dad seemed to have surpassed the limits of Super Saiyan about 2 months after entering…Even so, he still didn’t seem satisfied, and so we ended up taking all this time.”
[/spoiler]

Grades are introduced, stronger versions of SSJ. Still they suffer from the same problem as SSJ, they are limited, Grade 3 even has further weaknesses.
Goku realizes this and decides to master SSJ, which like Vegeta said allows him to raise their power. Not powering up during battle because of any stamina issues, literally raise their power. Before they only could get stronger in SSJ because their base increased.

If it was all about simply increasing their base, why would the strain matter? It was never a problem before, if it was a problem why not use Grade 2 which supposedly has a higher multiplier than SSJ and isn't that unbalanced proven by Super Vegeta's fight against Cell.

To add, Mr.Toriyama's insistence that the Base Saiyans didn't surpass Freeza. Further pointing towards how hard it was for them to increase their base post-Namek.

To conclude what I believe happened is that mastering SSJ allowed the Saiyan to increase their SSJ form power by training in it. Which is why Goku and Gohan got a crazy increase compared to Trunks and Vegeta, the last ones trained mostly alone, while the others trained together. Which like we know in Dragon Ball is a recipe to success.

To illustrate with arbitrary numbers.

Before Mastering:
Goku
Base - 10
SSJ - 500
Total - 500

After Mastering:
Goku
Base - 10
SSJ - 500
Mastery - 250(from training)
Total - 750

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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by LowRyder2005 » Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:45 pm

Uh, you literally stated that in the exchange it's "heavily hinted" Goku and Gohan can now raise their Super Saiyan above a previous limit... except that no one ultimately talks about raising their power above any previous limit at all. What's "implied" at that point is just that they can suppress and raise their power freely and that, by learning to control their power for very extended periods of time, their Super Saiyan will sap less strength in battle.

In simpler terms, Vegeta's "raising their battle power" most likely equates to "going from the power they are showing at that point in time (suppressed, with basically no energy consumption) to full power (as in, in battle)". It's much clearer in context, because he's answering Trunks, who's confused about whether Goku can power up as a Super Saiyan in that state feasibly or not.
At the start of the arc and after training for years in Super Saiyan, they get destroyed by #18 and #17. What then do Vegeta and Goku immediately think about, surpassing SSJ. This tell us that SSJ is limited and/or the Saiyans can't increase their bases enough to compete with the Androids.
It doesn't really tell us anything that concrete. I've always chalked up Goku's little gains as a product of training with vastly inferior partners, compared to something as intense as Vegeta's gravity regime; the moment Gohan unlocks Super Saiyan and Goku gains some insight about how the Super Saiyan works is where they really started to grow stronger, together.
Whatever the case, it doesn't really tell us if he can increase any given multiplier, though.
To add, Mr.Toriyama's insistence that the Base Saiyans didn't surpass Freeza.
Which is something... you know, Mr. Toriyama never directly stated, never mind insisted upon. Actually, I can't help but find a little peculiar you would argue against the "sanctity" of the Super Saiyan multipliers before going off something which, all in all, is just another commonly accepted interpretation of us fans and not much more.
Last edited by LowRyder2005 on Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by Captain Strawberry » Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:08 pm

I think about the strength as a save game rather than a consistent multiplier from base
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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by LightBing » Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:26 pm

LowRyder2005 wrote:Uh, you literally stated that in the exchange it's "heavily hinted" Goku and Gohan can now raise their Super Saiyan above a previous limit... except that no one ultimately talks about raising their power above any previous limit at all. What's "implied" at that point is just that they can suppress and raise their power freely and that, by learning to control their power for very extended periods of time, their Super Saiyan will sap less strength in battle.

In simpler terms, Vegeta's "raising their battle power" most likely equates to "going from the power they are showing at that point in time (suppressed, with basically no energy consumption) to full power (as in, in battle)". It's much clearer in context, because he's answering Trunks, who's confused about whether Goku can power up as a Super Saiyan in that state feasibly or not.
At the start of the arc and after training for years in Super Saiyan, they get destroyed by #18 and #17. What then do Vegeta and Goku immediately think about, surpassing SSJ. This tell us that SSJ is limited and/or the Saiyans can't increase their bases enough to compete with the Androids.
It doesn't really tell us anything that concrete. I've always chalked up Goku's little gains as a product of training with vastly inferior partners, compared to something as intense as Vegeta's gravity regime; the moment Gohan unlocks Super Saiyan and Goku gains some insight about how the Super Saiyan works is where they really started to grow stronger, together.
Whatever the case, it doesn't really tell us if he can increase any given multiplier, though.
To add, Mr.Toriyama's insistence that the Base Saiyans didn't surpass Freeza.
Which is something... you know, Mr. Toriyama never directly stated, never mind insisted upon. Actually, I can't help but find a little peculiar you would argue against the "sanctity" of the Super Saiyan multipliers before going off something which, all in all, is just another commonly accepted interpretation of us fans and not much more.
Did you miss my quotes, like the one Trunks directly uses the words Super Saiyan limits? I also like to point out that in Vegeta's quote there's nothing about sapping less strength in battle. You added the bold part like I saw a lot of people do, it's an assumption like my interpretation is an assumption of the same quote.

Mr.Toriyama went out of his way to insert that line in the movie he wrote, insistence is misused by me but directly stated isn't. Unless you want to get pedantic.
If people argue that line is open to interpretation, good for them. To me it's direct and clear.

Nothing is concrete what I have is theories, like you. I made my case, agree to disagree I have nothing to add.

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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by Kaboom » Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:33 pm

Why does "being honest" about the Super Saiyan multipliers equate to holding that they're false?

Sure, it's not like Toriyama wrote the original story around them. But there's no actual problem with them or reason not to believe them, at least just as a nifty bit of trivia if nothing else.

Plus, as has already been pointed out, whatever from the story might be cited as proof against the notion of multipliers is pretty shaky and can easily be explained in less complicated ways.
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Re: Let's Be Honest About SSJ Multipliers.

Post by LowRyder2005 » Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:46 pm

LightBing wrote:
LowRyder2005 wrote:Uh, you literally stated that in the exchange it's "heavily hinted" Goku and Gohan can now raise their Super Saiyan above a previous limit... except that no one ultimately talks about raising their power above any previous limit at all. What's "implied" at that point is just that they can suppress and raise their power freely and that, by learning to control their power for very extended periods of time, their Super Saiyan will sap less strength in battle.

In simpler terms, Vegeta's "raising their battle power" most likely equates to "going from the power they are showing at that point in time (suppressed, with basically no energy consumption) to full power (as in, in battle)". It's much clearer in context, because he's answering Trunks, who's confused about whether Goku can power up as a Super Saiyan in that state feasibly or not.
At the start of the arc and after training for years in Super Saiyan, they get destroyed by #18 and #17. What then do Vegeta and Goku immediately think about, surpassing SSJ. This tell us that SSJ is limited and/or the Saiyans can't increase their bases enough to compete with the Androids.
It doesn't really tell us anything that concrete. I've always chalked up Goku's little gains as a product of training with vastly inferior partners, compared to something as intense as Vegeta's gravity regime; the moment Gohan unlocks Super Saiyan and Goku gains some insight about how the Super Saiyan works is where they really started to grow stronger, together.
Whatever the case, it doesn't really tell us if he can increase any given multiplier, though.
To add, Mr.Toriyama's insistence that the Base Saiyans didn't surpass Freeza.
Which is something... you know, Mr. Toriyama never directly stated, never mind insisted upon. Actually, I can't help but find a little peculiar you would argue against the "sanctity" of the Super Saiyan multipliers before going off something which, all in all, is just another commonly accepted interpretation of us fans and not much more.
Did you miss my quotes, like the one Trunks directly uses the words Super Saiyan limits? I also like to point out that in Vegeta's quote there's nothing about sapping less strength in battle. You added the bold part like I saw a lot of people do, it's an assumption like my interpretation is an assumption of the same quote.
Well, compared to the Super Saiyan seen before, the Dai Ni Dankai is overall a "stronger" form -- a form which should theoretically have its own custom multiplier, since Cell's reaction suggests quite visibly that it made Vegeta much stronger than good ol', probably 50-fold thingie. Your argument goes both ways, still: what's important is they got back to regular Super Saiyan in the end, which might also suggest that increasing the multiplier wasn't as efficient as it appeared initially.
Regarding my claim, realistically speaking, where else would Vegeta imply they'd use their Super Saiyan if not in battle? I mean, "they wouldn't strain themselves (strain, like, when you exert your body's strength) by using their Super Saiyan form (something they use to battle the stronger foes)".

Although, more than that, you kinda lost me: what exactly would change if I didn't add "in battle" to Vegeta's phrase? I mean, how does it reinforce your claim that it's supposedly referencing a previous, supposed multiplier being increased to a new level?

I'm not against the theory, to clarify. It simply striked me as a little... well, odd, that one would present the pre-Cell Game statements as indicative of anything; the general undertones of Goku's dramatic emergence from the ROSAT most certainly give enough leeway, if not plainly nurture, concepts akin Goku's Super Saiyan being possibly stronger than the Super Saiyan seen before. Regarding the dialogues, though, I'd have a really hard time interpreting them as anything different than "readers, Goku is perfectly using his energy all the time".

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