How powerful was Salza, Neiz, and Dore really?

[Angelus]

I keep seeing on wikis and powerlevel guides that they're weaker than first form Frieza. But how the heck can Dore even manage to bear hug base Goku and keep him there even for a second? Or even put up a bit of a fight against Piccolo when Piccolo was kicking 2nd form Frieza's butt?

[Pantalones]

Yeah, it's a case of wacky "official" power levels. The levels given for them really can't work at all if you assume the movie comes after the Freeza saga as we know it and everyone is on the same level they would've been after returning home from Namek -- so you have to either write off their power levels as wrong and assume they're actually much stronger than that, or assume that the Z-fighters in the movie are much weaker than they were in the main series (maybe it's another timeline where Piccolo never fused with Nail? though that wouldn't explain Gohan or Goku being weaker too...)

[Angelus]

Yeah, and why would the 3 of them even be confident to stand a chance against Goku, who reportedly killed Frieza? I'm assuming that the 3 of them are aware of first form Frieza's power level already. I doubt they know of Frieza's other forms.

[Ssjcell]

Less than one million battle power because of piccolo's makansuppo (I don't know how to spell it) killing salza

[Kaboom]

The official power levels for them work fine, because they weren't really as much of a threat as they seemed to be. Daizenshuu 6 points out that "Goku definitely can't lose with the three of them as his opponents," suggesting he was playing around and trying to give them a chance to leave Earth peacefully, like he tends to do with movie henchmen. Sauzer in turn only managed to survive against Piccolo longer than Dore and Neiz because he was mostly running away, and D6 also says that his close-range combat technique "isn't effective" against the green machine.

So long story short, the Armored Squad were never actually a threat to Goku or Piccolo. It's more of an issue that they beat Gohan, but the flow of the plot can explain that well enough. Gohan's top measured power from Namek was 200k, and it's plenty believable for a group of almost-200k powers to overcome that, especially given the circumstances of how it kept happening.

[Ssjcell]

Yeah Gohan not being able to fight them effectively was the biggest issue with that movie

[Kaboom]

On top of all that... I mean, it's Gohan we're talking about here.

The more of a power advantage he has over an enemy, the less likely he is to win.

[dragon boss z]

They are all weaker than first form Frieza. Narratively that pretty much has to be the case. Base Gohan was not that strong without a rage boost, at best he would be around Ginyu force tier without it imo so them beating on him makes sense. I don't agree with the power levels given by V-jump due to the fact Salza was clearly stronger than the other two, but for some reason they put Dore as the strongest. Neiz and Dore are probably weaker than Captain Ginyu tbh, but stronger than the other Ginyu force members, with Salza being stronger than Ginyu but weaker than first form Frieza.

[Hulk10]

Wikis are not reliable sources for power levels.