Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[ankokudaishogun]

With every new chapter I find myself keeping a close eye on Beerus, wondering if anything is being hinted at in terms of a retcon in this regard. “Beerus never applies himself but trained off-screen following the TOP” seems a bit underwhelming, so I’m wondering if maybe the simpler fix will be that he polished his own UI technique and improved that way, as opposed to having simply become “stronger.”

yeah, an increment in Beerus' pure power-level would be likely useless at this point.
Him improving(up to mastery) UI would grant him greater improvements

confirming UI to be a static level of power, but now stabilized, thus preserving the former power scale.

I still think UI doesn't properly increase the owner's power-level by itself as much as brings it out to the absolute maximum while also maximizing the user's Martial Arts abilities

I thus don't think Goku's UI got much of a increment in pure power-level as much as his improvements in Blue were caused by him better accessing his own power due the training to access UI.

[Polyphase Avatron]

I might have said this before, but I think Sidra is underrated. Some people say he's weaker than Toppo and Golden Freeza, but I doubt it. Just because Golden Freeza was able to overcome some of his Energy of Destruction that was used through a weak intermediary doesn't mean he could do the same to an attack from Sidra himself. And in the manga, Sidra shielded all of the Gods of Destruction from Beerus' attack, and they even commented that he is very good with barriers. I think he could defeat Golden Freeza and Hakaishin Toppo at once if he went all out.

[Skar]

I hope not. I keep saying it, but if it somehow keeps at the rate that people want it to go, Beerus is gonna end up stronger than Whis just so his rematch with Goku could happen. And Beerus being capable of finger flicking the other Gods of Destruction is, at all, a ridiculous assumption.

It's pretty simple logic, unless Toriyama decides to screw with his own power ceiling for the sake of cheap writing: the Gods of Destruction are at a level that mortals rarely can surpass, and they are all more or less on the same weight-class. Beerus can't one shot Belmod, Champa, or even Sidra. Sidra can easily block a strong blast from Beerus. Belmod can easily trap every God of Destruction in energy prisons. Liquur can easily break free of it with enough power. Heles can easily pierce his skin with her arrows. Rumush can easily paralyze every one of them with his roar. Beerus, for his part, can more or less easily dodge them all with his incomplete Ultra Instinct.

I agree and I find it unlikely Beerus' power will be retconned again because both the manga and anime have shown that all the GoDs are relatively close in the few times we've seen them fight. There has been clear buildup for UI being the technique that few mortals have been able to achieve or maybe Goku is the first. The GoDs themselves were mortals at some point but apparently reached a limit unless they can master UI. There's also the fact that the last few antagonists were at some level near or above the GoDs. It's unlikely that it'll be revealed Beerus has been holding back against the other GoDs and statements about Jiren and Broly also end up being false as well just to prolong this revival a few more arcs. At most, I can see Beerus gaining better control over UI but I'm pretty sure fully mastered UI Goku and full power Beerus will remain weaker than Whis.

[Cipher]

Re: Goku (Sign) vs. Vegeta discussion:

I'm inclined to take the manga at its word that Vegeta has surpassed him in raw power. I understand the hesitance over that given their respective battles with Moro, but I can also reason that the Moro who has finished powering up throughout his fight with Goku--ultimately saying he was silly to have been so worried/conservative toward Sign--would be confident in his ability to take hits from Vegeta afterward. The verbiage Goku and Piccolo use toward Vegeta in Japanese is consistent with the way both DB and Super usually discuss needing to surpass someone in raw strength, if not exactly explicit.

As far as what exactly that means, given UI's unique abilities to overcome disadvantageous combat, I like the way someone laid it out last page in terms of comparing it to the UI vs. Jiren fight--it would be a battle of attrition, with UI perhaps providing the advantage in a short bout, but a great enough level of raw speed and power from the opponent being able to keep up and wear it out. In both Jiren outlasting and stressing the user of its complete form, and in Moro's rather traditional victory against Sign, the manga has given us multiple glimpses of what it means for an opponent to be be at a level "above" a UI-using opponent.

Such is, apparently, Goku and Vegeta's current relationship save for completed UI. It's pretty easy to swallow as well, since the manga presents Vegeta's new blue form as a personal alternative to UI. Wouldn't mean much if it actually had no hope of keeping up.

[Dragon Ball Daisuki]

Good points - Vegeta seems to do worse against Moro, but Moro was approaching his battle with Goku conservatively for much of the duration, so perhaps we shouldn’t judge Goku and Vegeta purely by their performances in battle, i.e. Vegeta can do worse against Moro initially and still be above UI Sign.

Following that line of thinking, how far ahead do you think Vegeta would be? Given that Goku utilizes what I assume we’re meant to interpret as a “UI Kaioken” towards the end of his battle to temporarily close the gap on Moro, I’m thinking it has to be a good bit lower than 2x.

Since Vegeta begins at a disadvantage, I’m thinking he would be around 125-175, if we put UI Sign at 100 and FP Moro at 200 or so.

[Xeno Goku Black]

Except we're talking about the manga, and in the manga, Hit is weaker than Goku, plain and simple. And his hax is overcome by raw power.

It being the manga doesn't make a difference for the example. Hit was weaker than Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta but he still surpassed them because of his technique. I'm not talking about what happened later with Kaioken and all that. Hit surpassed the two as soon as he used his technique.

Just as Dyspo who himself is not that strong still surpassed Super Saiyan God Goku and later Golden Frieza just through use of a technique.

The fact that Jaco declared that Goku would train to overcome Vegeta also makes it clear that he was not talking about techniques or performance against Moro.

Nothing clear about that. Words can have many different meanings.

The only thing that is clear is seeing that Goku was able to match Moro as they were on the same level whereas Vegeta was shown to be notably weaker.

Regardless of what entirely other characters may say or any interpretations people may choose to come up with, the fight that was shown was enough.

One character was powerful enough to overpower, match and hurt Moro. The other character was so much weaker that they started to question what was even going on.

If Vegeta couldn't have weakened Moro and fought him the same way Goku did, we know that he couldn't have hurt him unlike Goku.

[Koitsukai]

I hope not. I keep saying it, but if it somehow keeps at the rate that people want it to go, Beerus is gonna end up stronger than Whis just so his rematch with Goku could happen. And Beerus being capable of finger flicking the other Gods of Destruction is, at all, a ridiculous assumption.

It's pretty simple logic, unless Toriyama decides to screw with his own power ceiling for the sake of cheap writing: the Gods of Destruction are at a level that mortals rarely can surpass, and they are all more or less on the same weight-class. Beerus can't one shot Belmod, Champa, or even Sidra. Sidra can easily block a strong blast from Beerus. Belmod can easily trap every God of Destruction in energy prisons. Liquur can easily break free of it with enough power. Heles can easily pierce his skin with her arrows. Rumush can easily paralyze every one of them with his roar. Beerus, for his part, can more or less easily dodge them all with his incomplete Ultra Instinct.

I agree and I find it unlikely Beerus' power will be retconned again because both the manga and anime have shown that all the GoDs are relatively close in the few times we've seen them fight. There has been clear buildup for UI being the technique that few mortals have been able to achieve or maybe Goku is the first. The GoDs themselves were mortals at some point but apparently reached a limit unless they can master UI. There's also the fact that the last few antagonists were at some level near or above the GoDs. It's unlikely that it'll be revealed Beerus has been holding back against the other GoDs and statements about Jiren and Broly also end up being false as well just to prolong this revival a few more arcs. At most, I can see Beerus gaining better control over UI but I'm pretty sure fully mastered UI Goku and full power Beerus will remain weaker than Whis.

Agreed here. Let me just add that Beerus was never officially retconned, aside of BoG or the wacky anime with him being worried at the sight of KKx10. He just remained out of everybody's league until Vegito went full power for a second and then a couple of guys were stated to be in his unreachable realm of power, some implied or straight up stated to be above him... so he paciently waited for them up there in the hakaishin tier. I know he pretends to not be fazed by UI, Broly or Moro and seems like he is above all but I think that's just it, he is pretending.

So introducing a head-on retcon now would be plain awful writting as in fuck everything established up to this point, let's pump this cat up so he can fight Goku, people will love that, it'd be super easy, barely an inconvenience.
To me the out-of-universe reasons regarding retconning Beerus are more important than the in-universe ones, they involve bad writing and I know some people prefer the kind of bad writing that makes Beerus the top dog again, one that could finger-flick Moro and beat UI Goku, I just don't.

Following that line of thinking, how far ahead do you think Vegeta would be? Given that Goku utilizes what I assume we’re meant to interpret as a “UI Kaioken” towards the end of his battle to temporarily close the gap on Moro, I’m thinking it has to be a good bit lower than 2x.

Since Vegeta begins at a disadvantage, I’m thinking he would be around 125-175, if we put UI Sign at 100 and FP Moro at 200 or so.

I don't think it was UI Kaioken, there were little SSB aura sparkles IIRC, to me it was something more akin to that instead of KK, but I can see what you meant.

I'd say:
Sign)) 100
Sign-blueish)) 110 (or perhaps lower because it isn't really Sign)
SSBE)) 150 (I don't think he is that much stronger than Sign but I'm going with your numbers)
Moro)) 200
Moro7-3)) 210
Moro7-3 FP)) 250
UI)) 400 (what Goku did to Moro wasn't done by anyone in this arc)

I'm not saying UI is 4x Sign, just running the numbers on them.

[TheSaiyanGod]

It being the manga doesn't make a difference for the example. Hit was weaker than Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta but he still surpassed them because of his technique. I'm not talking about what happened later with Kaioken and all that. Hit surpassed the two as soon as he used his technique.

Just as Dyspo who himself is not that strong still surpassed Super Saiyan God Goku and later Golden Frieza just through use of a technique.

Again, we're talking about the manga, in which Hit did not surpass Goku / Vegeta with his technique because it didn't even work against an SSB tier opponent (Goku literally broke the Time Skip during their fight). In the manga, Dyspo never faced SSG Goku or Golden Freeza (he only faced SSJ2 Goku), so both examples (which only happen in the anime) do not apply here. And even in the anime, Hit and Dyspo are never classified as characters that surpassed Goku/Golden Freeza.

Nothing clear about that. Words can have many different meanings.

Is this serious? I mean, you can say this to literally any other situation in an attempt to deny something you don't agree with, just because "words can have different meanings". And again you enter the territory of subjectivity by using your impressions of the fight as an argument instead of what the story tells you.

And so far nobody had looked at the Japanese version to be sure of the words used, but with Cipher's last post, it seems that Goku and Piccolo's statements are very clear

The verbiage Goku and Piccolo use toward Vegeta in Japanese is consistent with the way both DB and Super usually discuss needing to surpass someone in raw strength, if not exactly explicit.

So Xeno Goku Black, I really don't know what else to say, since you are ignoring the statements in the manga in favor of your personal interpretation

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Simple fix to accommodate both sides: the manga's version of Ultra Instinct Sign and Super Saiyan Blue Evolution are now equal in raw power, but UI Sign is unstable and cannot maintain that power while SSBE can.

UI Sign has better speed and reflexes, SSBE has better stamina and energy control.

UI Sign can potentially be evolved further into the vastly superior Ultra Instinct, SSBE is stuck at where it's at overall.

Easy solution to apply to the manga that respects the performances and statements behind both while still making a degree of sense from an outsider's perspective and not devaluing one or the other.

[FishermanJohnWest]

Which is irrelevant. It didn't stop Vegeta from still one upping Goku. He succeeded where Goku failed. He surpassed him despite being weaker. Why would it matter if it was useless against him or not when they're never gonna fight seriously anyway being that they're friends.

Complete nonsense, them fighting in the futrue is complete rubbish as an argument cause the history of DB is them trying to surpass each other in power and speed. Whether or not they fight in the future means nothing nor does it debunk anything.

And the end of Chapter 61 says otherwise. It makes the entire point worthless. Withstanding an amount of hits means little especially when Goku notably has an unstable form to begin with which he can lose much easier than Vegeta.

Bullshit, Chapter 62 happens after thus it shows in a fight, Vegeta took more to be put down. And his form being unstable doesn't stop him from handling or withstanding punches thus that's another garbage point.

SSJB Goku crushed Sanganbo, Sanganbo > Gohan, Piccolo, 18, 17 > SSJB Goku TOP

That's also an assumption.

Now your trolling, what part is it an assumption ?

Blue Goku crushed Sanganbo ? Yes

Sanganbo > 17, 18, Gohan and Piccolo ? Yes

Sanganbo > Blue Goku toP ? Yes

so what part are they assuming ? Nothing, your just grasping on straws

[Hugo Boss]

[...]
I know he pretends to not be fazed by UI, Broly or Moro and seems like he is above all but I think that's just it, he is pretending.

So introducing a head-on retcon now would be plain awful writting as in fuck everything established up to this point, let's pump this cat up so he can fight Goku, people will love that, it'd be super easy, barely an inconvenience.
[...]
I know some people prefer the kind of bad writing that makes Beerus the top dog again, one that could finger-flick Moro and beat UI Goku, I just don't.
[...]

Huh? For what reason would Beerus pretend that? What about Moro, who can’t even follow his movement when he saves Goku and company? How that would be bad writing, if it has been foreshadowed since day one of Super era?

[Koitsukai]

[...]
I know he pretends to not be fazed by UI, Broly or Moro and seems like he is above all but I think that's just it, he is pretending.

So introducing a head-on retcon now would be plain awful writting as in fuck everything established up to this point, let's pump this cat up so he can fight Goku, people will love that, it'd be super easy, barely an inconvenience.
[...]
I know some people prefer the kind of bad writing that makes Beerus the top dog again, one that could finger-flick Moro and beat UI Goku, I just don't.
[...]

Huh? For what reason would Beerus pretend that? What about Moro, who can’t even follow his movement when he saves Goku and company? How that would be bad writing, if it has been foreshadowed since day one of Super era?

-People lie to themselves everyday, they believe things that aren't true, what's so weird about that? Vegeta lied to himself most of his life. Who wants to accept they are no longer unrivalled?

-You are assuming Beerus is so fast that Moro can't even see that, like they couldn't be momentarily out of his sight while Merus draws his attention with a serious blast or that Whis didn't help at all. What is there that makes you so sure that what I just mentioned couldn't happen? IDK, too many assumptions to even consider that a comparison between Moro and Beerus. It'd be a thing if Jaco who was facing Moro also got saved but they explicitly had Whis call him out on it. So I'm not buying that as a definitive measurement between them.

-Retconning something just to fit whatever you vaguely planned years ago overriding everything established BY YOURSELF like it was just wrong or never happened is bad writing, if you are gonna shit all over it, why put it in there in the first place? What can I say? that it'd be good writing to bring in contradicting stuff? They wrote the dialogue and draw the scenes having Broly, Vegito, Gogeta above Beerus, not me.

Now, I don't mean you can't have a stronger Beerus, you can say he's been secretly training, he's gotten better with UI, he's learned KK, he unlocked a form of is own race, or whatever, that wouldn't be a retcon and we know so little about Beerus that it wouldn't be crazy either.
But having a guy already rivalled by many and surpassed by at least 3, just casually still be the strongest, well, forgive me but I'm calling bullshit.

[Thani]

Just saying it right now: if Moro is to be considerably weaker than Beerus, than by necessity he has to be that much weaker to pretty much all the others Gods of Destruction as they are all roughly equal. That means he is equally weaker than Jiren and Broly, who are explicitly at GoD level.

[Miracles]

It's funny how some have come to the conclusion that all the gods of destruction are near each other in power. Yet the story completely contradicts such fiction. Jiren was only stronger than Belmond in both continuities. Not all the gods, proving all their powers vary. Besides, A battle royal, which is a free for all, can not determine scale. Since cheap shots and double teams [even 11 on 1 in Beerus case] take place. Therefore it does not give one a fair comparison. Despite the fact that the majority was off-paneled. Not to mention, the bout got so ferocious, Goku and everyone else lost track of the gods fights and couldn't tell who is fighting who. So it's very contradictory for the audience to say the gods are equal/near each other, even tho the story showed or stated no such a thing.

[Skar]

It's funny how some have come to the conclusion that all the gods of destruction are near each other in power. Yet the story completely contradicts such fiction. Jiren was only stronger than Belmond in both continuities. Not all the gods, proving all their powers vary.

I know you're sticking to Toriyama old interview but you can't keep assuming every piece of evidence of Beerus' power is intentionally false just so it might be retconned again later. Beerus and Champa have had a sibling rivalry and it wasn't clear if there was ever a winner during their fights. All we know is that Beerus is slightly stronger but it's apparently not a big enough gap for him to easily win. In the GoD battle royale, only three of them were still conscious by the end and badly injured which could indicate that the difference between them and Beerus is even less than between Beerus and Champa. Beerus could still be the strongest GoD but I think all the evidence points to them all being relatively close.

[Hugo Boss]

-People lie to themselves everyday, they believe things that aren't true, what's so weird about that? Vegeta lied to himself most of his life. Who wants to accept they are no longer unrivalled?

-You are assuming Beerus is so fast that Moro can't even see that, like they couldn't be momentarily out of his sight while Merus draws his attention with a serious blast or that Whis didn't help at all. What is there that makes you so sure that what I just mentioned couldn't happen? IDK, too many assumptions to even consider that a comparison between Moro and Beerus. It'd be a thing if Jaco who was facing Moro also got saved but they explicitly had Whis call him out on it. So I'm not buying that as a definitive measurement between them.

-Retconning something just to fit whatever you vaguely planned years ago overriding everything established BY YOURSELF like it was just wrong or never happened is bad writing, if you are gonna shit all over it, why put it in there in the first place? What can I say? that it'd be good writing to bring in contradicting stuff? They wrote the dialogue and draw the scenes having Broly, Vegito, Gogeta above Beerus, not me.
[...]

I’m not getting the impression Beerus is in denial at all. He is calmly observing Goku’s movements and making objetive claims, even Whis is surprised by that. He talks like a pro-fighter watching another pro-fighter. Not sure how exactly you think he is lying to himself, like Moro is... It’s a totally different attitude.

By the way, even if Merus draws his attention, Moro can still feel the energy of Goku and company getting far away, if he could follow them escaping. For me, it’s very clear that Moro couldn’t sense those energy signatures getting away. Unless you assume his other senses were affected as well. Fair enough.

I’m not seeing how it was established that Beerus has been surpassed, there isn’t a single conclusive statement about it. Only achism from Shin and Goku.

[Skar]

I’m not seeing how it was established that Beerus has been surpassed, there isn’t a single conclusive statement about it. Only achism from Shin and Goku.

Let's say Shin and Goku were wrong and that Beerus was holding back in every instance we've seen him fight another GoD. How much stronger do you think Beerus will be compared to Jiren, Broly, and the other GoDs? It could be revealed that Beerus was motivated to train again with Whis after witnessing MUI to gain better control of UI but at best I could see them being equal once Goku fully masters it.

[GodVegetto91]

It's funny how some have come to the conclusion that all the gods of destruction are near each other in power. Yet the story completely contradicts such fiction. Jiren was only stronger than Belmond in both continuities. Not all the gods, proving all their powers vary.

I know you're sticking to Toriyama old interview but you can't keep assuming every piece of evidence of Beerus' power is intentionally false just so it might be retconned again later. Beerus and Champa have had a sibling rivalry and it wasn't clear if there was ever a winner during their fights. All we know is that Beerus is slightly stronger but it's apparently not a big enough gap for him to easily win. In the GoD battle royale, only three of them were still conscious by the end and badly injured which could indicate that the difference between them and Beerus is even less than between Beerus and Champa. Beerus could still be the strongest GoD but I think all the evidence points to them all being relatively close.

That will simply be retconned in the future when the plot demands Beerus to be the strongest and not Champa anymore as a close second. Mark my words!

[Xeno Goku Black]

Again, we're talking about the manga, in which Hit did not surpass Goku / Vegeta with his technique because it didn't even work against an SSB tier opponent (Goku literally broke the Time Skip during their fight).

Yet again it doesn't matter whether it's anime or manga, it's a simple example. Hit was physically weaker than Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta yet he still surpassed them because of his technique.

This is no different from how Vegeta is physically weaker than Goku, as was shown, but he still surpassed him because his Spirit Control techniques were far superior to Goku's Ultra Instinct Sign.

And so far nobody had looked at the Japanese version to be sure of the words used, but with Cipher's last post, it seems that Goku and Piccolo's statements are very clear

Nobody needs to look at the Japanese version, the fight could not have made it any more crystal clear than it was.

Spoiler:

That's one character who was able to match and even overpower Moro, who only lost because his speed was failing him.

Spoiler:

And this is a character who was too weak to even do any actual damage and was of no physical threat whatsoever until Vegeta lowered his power beneath his own.

Spoiler:

[Koitsukai]

I’m not seeing how it was established that Beerus has been surpassed, there isn’t a single conclusive statement about it. Only achism from Shin and Goku.

Whether we like it or not, Gogeta trashed Broly, who THEY, not me, chose to compare to Beerus in quite a lenient way. So even if you don't want to believe what the show is telling us, Gogeta certainly is beyond our preferences. And that makes Shin's statement true, it's just natural progression for a SSB fusion to have surpassed that milestone two arcs later. Toriyama is backing up Shin's statement.

Jiren was like a GoD that got to break his limits mid-fight, so imagine if one of them(already stronger than at least another) during the Battle Royale got a power boost that allowed him to outlast an unstable UI. Wouldn't that place him at least pretty close to Beerus? now imagine a stronger, more stable version of the UI that beat up said powered-up hakaishin. You really think Beerus remains stronger? based on what? what chapter hints at this?

Manga Jiren is debatable, yes, but Broly and Vegito got statements written by the authors, what's more conclusive than that? they weren't words that got unintentionally thrown into the final product, they were not outliers or misprints, they weren't addressed by the authors later to tell us we should discard them. The idea was to have Broly and Beerus relative giving the edge to the former.
And Gogeta got even something more conclusive than statements, he fucked up the guy said to be probably stronger than Beerus, two arcs after being compared "himself" to the guy.

And that is regarding the OLD versions of those fighters, because after Broly's zenkai(he should have plenty of those left) the PROBABLY part of the statement should be out the window.
After Jiren got owned, probably has trained his ass off to surpass UI, and if Goku and Vegeta fuse now, Gogeta Blue would be even stronger than the one that kicked Broly's ass.