How strong do you think Goku's base is (in Super)

[MaxZ]

Frieza in his first form is stronger than Gohan at max power, and final form Frieza is 200x stronger than first form Frieza, so Goku is at least 200x stronger than Gohan in base while utilizing God Ki

[Pocket-God]

Somewhere between Initial Perfect Cell and Super Perfect Cell I'd say.

[TheMikado]

Somewhere between Initial Perfect Cell and Super Perfect Cell I'd say.

Except we know he's stronger than that based on RoF

[Captain Strawberry]

Somewhere between Initial Perfect Cell and Super Perfect Cell I'd say.

Except we know he's stronger than that based on RoF

Well, we don't know how much stronger Final form Frieza and Golden Frieza are.

[TheMikado]

Somewhere between Initial Perfect Cell and Super Perfect Cell I'd say.

Except we know he's stronger than that based on RoF

Well, we don't know how much stronger Final form Frieza and Golden Frieza are.

But we do, Frieza said he was strong enough now to beat Buu and Gohan says compares them to his ultimate form.

[Pocket-God]

But we do, Frieza said he was strong enough now to beat Buu and Gohan says compares them to his ultimate form.

He also said that Planet Namek would blow up in 5 minutes, we all know how that turned out. As Mecha Frieza he also said he was strong enough to take out Goku but then he got stomped by Trunks who was weaker than Goku >__> saying something and being able to do it are two different things.

[TheMikado]

But we do, Frieza said he was strong enough now to beat Buu and Gohan says compares them to his ultimate form.

He also said that Planet Namek would blow up in 5 minutes, we all know how that turned out. As Mecha Frieza he also said he was strong enough to take out Goku but then he got stomped by Trunks who was weaker than Goku >__> saying something and being able to do it are two different things.

Except Gohan confirms it unless we think he's a chronic liar as well.

[Captain Strawberry]

But we do, Frieza said he was strong enough now to beat Buu and Gohan says compares them to his ultimate form.

Gohan said that during Frieza's final form?

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

He said that about Freeza's first form.

This was before he realized he could no longer tap into his Ultimate state.

[ZombieVito]

Somewhere between Initial Perfect Cell and Super Perfect Cell I'd say.

Except we know he's stronger than that based on RoF

We don't. Kuririn even implies Mister Boo > First Form Freeza.

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

If you take things out of context, maybe.

[LowRyder2005]

As far as Goku's and Vegeta's base forms are concerned, they are the biggest can of worms in Super. Speedster's post is pretty clarifying in that regard. Refer to the "as strong as the plot needs to be" argument.

The best conclusion is that Goku and Vegeta base can fluctuate very easily, and if you think they can do it willingly, then they can draw out massive strenght (enough to give a restrained Beerus some kind of trouble). I could, personally, see them being around Enraged SS2 Vegeta at their best.

On the "how strong is Gohan" issue, Gohan shouldn't be (possibly even nearly) as strong as his former self. While it's true that in ROF we have a pretty nebulous state of affairs, we know for a fact that the last time Gohan appeared before the universe tourney he still wasn't strong as he was at his supposed best; he says it himself that he's still getting back in shape, after all.

Plus, to me it very much looks like Gohan already knows that he can't go Chou before the battle against Freeza even starts ("I have been slacking, but I can still go Super Saiyan, I think"; Chou form > Super Saiyan, see Beerus' fight for reference, basically a weaker form looks already like the best card he can play to him).
So Gohan is not only weaker because he hasn't been training, but he can't even access his strongest form anymore.
Not only that, Mr. Buu is believed to be the only possible game-changer by Krillin other than Goku and Vegeta when Gohan is present. Therefore, this apparently dictates that Mr. Buu is already ahead of the Gohan that Krillin knows. The two excerpts (Gohan still getting back in shape and Gohan being weaker than Mr. Buu at the time ROF takes place) pretty much perfectly fit with each other.
True enough, Gohan suggests that Tagoma may be as strong as Gohan himself "at his best", I guess he could simply be talking about himself at that very moment while not being tired. Or if he could reach - purely in theory - his Ultimate state in his already weakened state (which is, according to Krillin, inferior to Mr. Buu... this would, in turn, imply a rather underwhelming Chou ROF Gohan < Mr. Buu, it would however be in line with BOG's feats though).
However, matter of fact is that feats and subsequent episodes do everything they can to disprove Gohan's estimation: Gohan wipes the floor with Tagoma as a simple Super Saiyan when ROF's Gohan, at his best, is supposedly weaker than Mr. Buu. Moreover, and that basically closed the deal for me, after ROF takes place Gohan says the he's still in the process of "getting retrained from scratch" to Goku, so he's implying that he can't be stronger than however strong he was at his all-time best.

Tier 1. "Gohan at his best" (Chou Gohan from Buu Saga seems the most reasonable conclusion)
Tier 2. "Gohan at his best" (Universe 6 Arc; a Gohan who is still getting back in shape) [and Mr. Buu?]
Tier 3. Super Saiyan Gohan (Revival of F)


Tier 4. Ginyu-Tagoma (massively weaker than Tier 3)
Tier 5. Tagoma
Tier 6. Base Gohan and [tired?] Piccolo (massively weaker than Tier 5)

I suppose Ginyu-Tagoma could be Dabra/ Perfect Cell tier. You could in fact put him higher, but my opinion it'd become progressively trickier to justify.

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

My main issue with that is it's implying Gohan was only intending to fight Freeza in his Base form the entire time. That just seems rather strange to me. Super Saiyan seems to be something he doesn't believe his body can handle at this point, but he doesn't realize he can no longer turn Ultimate until after he fought Ginyu for awhile. Once he couldn't tap into that, he realized he had no choice but to change into a Super Saiyan. Gohan is said to be the strongest of the Earth team before he transformed, so he's most likely stronger than Piccolo or at least around his level. This already tells us that his Base isn't the same as Goku (weaker than Freeza six months ago) or Vegeta's. Super Saiyan apparently creates a huge strain on his body this time around, which is entirely different compared to how the form was portrayed throughout the series. Not training for seven yrs wasn't even enough to deter Gohan from using the form.

When Gohan said Tagoma was hiding power about equal to his best, didn't he just eat a senzu not too long before? Unless senzu beans just heal and no longer restore energy, it seems more than likely he'd be at full-power there. This would've been before he realized he could no longer become Ultimate, though. As for Mr. Boo, it would seem that Krillin is implying he's the only game-changer when they arrived at the site...if we forget about what he just said before arriving. Krillin told #18 that even though he wished Goku and Vegeta were there, Boo and Gohan being around to fight in their place was somewhat a relief or something along those lines. Gohan showed up, Boo didn't. That's the only reason why Boo was mentioned. There's no reason why Krillin's original opinion would suddenly change (being glad Boo and Gohan were fighting) to disregarding Gohan as a viable option when it hadn't even been revealed he was slacking.

Had Boo been there and Gohan been the absentee, Krillin would've surely questioned why he wasn't there, too. After all, Roshi said Boo's absence made things more difficult because they were expecting him to fight alongside them.

[LowRyder2005]

Well... for starters, I'll rectify, or - if I had already made a point about it - reiterate something: Super's writing is pretty inconsistent, phrases related to how one compares to another power-wise have been really lacking in exposure, so it can be really hard to see it eye to eye on a plethora of issues.

I'll put out some of my personal premises regarding the "how strong is Gohan" argument:

* I think we can all agree that the Chou form, historically, has always been labeled as a stronger form than Super Saiyan 3, mostly basing this on Shueisha's guide.
Therefore I end up being inclined to doubt that, by merely turning Super Saiyan, Gohan could reach a level comparable to his Chou form in any given scenario. Maybe he could tap into something like a 5% of his Chou form (Super Saiyan = * 50; Chou form = *1000)?
In any way, the Chou form should in theory be far stronger than his Super Saiyan already.
* This is reinforced to me by the fact that during Beerus' fight, Gohan chooses to go Chou and not Super Saiyan (they even felt the need to correct it in mid-production while keeping the "still can use Super Saiyan" aspect for the ritual, most likely because Gohan would have had no choice but to use his strongest form against Beerus).
In short, this gives me the idea that he prefers to go Chou whenever possible, with Super Saiyan 2 - if available - acting as an intermediate state between Chou and SS.
So I don't really know if you could have Super Saiyan = something even remotely resembling the Chou Form, because it would either mean Super Saiyan = Chou < Super Saiyan 2 or that Super Saiyan, Chou and Super Saiyan 2 are all interchangeable with only the strain posing a problem. Not impossible, but I don't really buy the idea.

What about Super, then? My personal conclusion is that there is a fairly good chance that Gohan has already become weaker in the five years that pass from episode 1 to episode 2.
Gohan does, in fact, perform pretty poorly compared to Mr. Buu against Beerus, and I personally can't bring myself to believe that it was only because of Buu's regeneration given the kind of resistance that Buu puts against Beerus.
However, in the anime Buu saga, which is the holy mother of all contradictions, Mr. Buu is supposedly capable of trading blows with the reportedly strongest Buu, so, while most likely still weaker than Gohan, so he shouldn't be already that far off from a Super Saiyan 3.
Let's say Gohan is a 8, Mr. Buu is a 3 and SS3 Goku is a 10 to simplify things, then.
In those five years Gohan, again, most likely doesn't train or doesn't put his heart into it, so they could be pretty much equal by that point (Gohan drops from a 8 to a 3, Buu stays the same, Goku goes from 10 to 12), with Buu's regeneration allowing him to stand against Beerus for a prolonged time.
One could object by arguing that both Goku - stronger than Buu - and Gohan were defeated in one hit, but while I can buy the karate chop on the cerebellum sending an opponent sleeping, Gohan in the anime isn't even touched by Beerus, he gets slapped by Beerus using Buu an improvised weapon right and K.O'd. In short, given how poor Gohan's performance is compared to even Goku's, I think there are grounds to possibly argue that Gohan was already far weaker than Buu Saga's Chou Gohan way before ROF took place (the other thesis would be that Goku became far stronger than Gohan). We know that one of his character traits is that he doesn't usually feel the urge to get stronger unless there is an immediate threat, after all, so I would find it reasonable to say that Gohan can't be, at the very least, much stronger than Mr. Buu during ROF.

Regarding Krillin, to me it's again mostly significant that he chooses to put Buu and Gohan in the same bracket. Although, again, he puts them in the same bracket of Goku and Vegeta, so it's pretty clear that he's just implying that there's a gap between the weaker of that group (Gohan/ Buu), and Piccolo.
However, afterwise, you have both Gohan saying that he is still in the process of getting back in shape (again, implying that he lost power, we see him physically training, so it's not like he needs meditation to unlock his Chou form, so we have a confirmation of "Gohan not training = Gohan getting weaker") and Goku saying Buu and Uub should be their first choice (I mean, Vegeta doesn't say anything about Gohan until Goku brings up Piccolo, so I take that as Vegeta pretty much agreeing on Buu being the best candidate there: it very much feels like a "why are you skipping the next in line" kind of observation); this pretty much reconfirmed Gohan was the weakest of the "big four" during ROF in my eyes.

Going back to Gohan vs. Freeza, I don't think he specifically had intended to fight him in base, but that he simply was very unsure that he could go Super Saiyan in the end and ending up fighting him in base was more of a consequence than anything ("the problem is how long can I sustain the form").
This is way more apparent in the manga than the anime, mind you (in the latter, Gohan says something like "oh, well, I can still go Super Saiyan, sure!" IIRC),but since the first is directly supervised panel-by-panel I usually favor that as the original author's intent. In the manga Roshi asks him "well, Gohan, Buu is not here have you been training again, at least (so that you can compensate for his disappearance)?". Immediately after, Gohan, meekly: "N-No, but I can still go Super Saiyan, I think".
To me it had always sounded like he was saying, "no, but I'm not totally useless here". Others, in turn, interpreted as "I can be stronger than what I'd be with training by going Super Saiyan/ stronger than Buu" and later quoted the outcome of the fight against Tagoma as an indicator that Tagoma was a Chou Gohan-tier opponent, beaten by a "Super Saiyan Ultimate-ish Gohan".

However, this would later contradict the information at our disposal during the U6 Arc:

A. Goku's and Vegeta's overall thoughts about booking the strongest fighters for the tournament (Mr. Buu and a "Kid Buu equivalent" being better than a "motivated" Gohan being better than Piccolo being better than the "lazy" ROF Gohan).
B. Gohan specifically speaking like he is still "getting back in shape" to Goku himself. This heavily suggests that he's still striving to reach his old plateau.
(Eventually, another question would be "if he could go Super Saiyan and become stronger, why wouldn't he have done it against Beerus).

What about Gohan's best vs. Tagoma, then?
We know for sure that Gohan is off base anyway, because even after Tagoma gets upgraded to Tagoma-Ginyu he is still no match for "Gohan's best" (I mean, he gets one-shotted by a Super Saiyan 1, when Gohan's all-time best was stronger than a hypothetical Super Saiyan 3 Gohan, but it would stand true even if Gohan's Super Saiyan 1 was, factually, his best).
So, again, it is not sure what Gohan intended with his best in the first place: base, Super Saiyan or Chou?

1. During all of ROF Gohan shouldn't be able to go Chou anymore, because Chou > Super Saiyan and Gohan doesn't even bother to mention his Chou form anywhere.
2. Gohan (anime) is sure that he can go Super Saiyan, but knows that he can't sustain the form for too much time. Gohan (manga) is unsure on being able to go Super Saiyan in the first place.
3. Gohan estimates Tagoma being his equal to his best.
4. Gohan fights Tagoma in base and says that he can't draw out his full power, probably because he lacks training.
5. Gohan beats Tagoma with a single punch while in Super Saiyan form.

Conclusion:
A. His best at the time is "his base". Which sounds somewhat like poor wording in itself, but it's at least consistent with the idea that he doubts he can go Super Saiyan. Plus, Tagoma and Base Gohan are, in fact, evenly matched with Tagoma having a slight edge ("he has power at least equal to my own").
B. His best at the time was "his Super Saiyan". So Gohan's prediction was incorrect, because he ends up stomping him as a SS without even being able to draw out "his full power".
C. Gohan as a Super Saiyan is stronger than "his best = Chou form's peak condition = Tagoma". But this is contradicted by Gohan, Goku and Vegeta after ROF: Gohan is still re-training from square one to get back "to his best"; Goku and Vegeta favor Buu over Gohan and agree about that, Vegeta disagreeing only after Goku thinks of bringing Piccolo and not Gohan.

That being said, I feel compelled to apologize for the tiresomely long post. I'm afraid I may have been unnecessarily lenghty over something which could have been schematized more efficiently.

[dbgtFO]

That being said, I feel compelled to apologize for the tiresomely long post. I'm afraid I may have been unnecessarily lenghty over something which could have been schematized more efficiently.

I read it all. It helps that I completely agree with you

As far as topic is concerned, Goku's base in the anime is much stronger than any power demonstrated by a Saiyan before Super Saiyan God.

Gohan in RoF is much weaker than Ultimate Gohan and enters the battle acknowledging he hasn't trained and might be able to go Super Saiyan to at least not prove completely worthless.
I personally have it like this:

Piccolo < Base Gohan(actual) < Base Gohan(expected by Gohan) =< Tagoma-Ginyu (Full Power) < Super Saiyan Gohan.

So Gohan states Tagoma might be on par with his best, but Gohan can't bring out that power and so he goes Super Saiyan, which destroys his body.
Given Gohan already knew Super Saiyan would be bad for him, it makes sense he'd consider his expected base power his best, as it doesn't come at the cost of destroying his own body.

[HAIKEN-00]

He is as strong as the plot needs him to be.

This has to be the most accurate answer.

[Cipher]

It has to be stronger than Super Boo, right? I'd say end-of-Boo arc Gohan at a minimum, but likely much higher.

I rewatched the end of the Freeza arc recently, and it does lay out a neat little hierarchy, albeit one with a lot of wiggle room. Gohan, who is ... some unspecified amount weaker than his end-of-Boo-arc self, but still quite strong, is no match for first-form Freeza even as a Super Saiyan. Freeza then goes into his final form, which if it works anything like it did on Namek, is an exponential increase, and base Goku then outclasses him.

That's ... really damn strong, which would work if his Super Saiyan form is equivalent to Super Saiyan God after that form's time limit ends. There's tons of room for varying interpretations here, but Goku and Vegeta's base forms, if they're even, seem to be well above what we saw in the Boo arc outside of Vegetto and possibly Gohan-Boo.

Goku's base is as weak as it needs to be to (i) get temporarily stopped by Chaozu's psychic ability or (ii) fight evenly with 3rd form Frost but is simulateusly as strong as it needs to be to (a) punch and destroy that giant sphere of the merged Beerus' blast and SSJ Goku's Kamehameha, (b)be able to somewhat spar with Whis, (c)take unrestrained blasts from Beerus and surviving, (d)be superior to 100% form RoF Freeza that even in his first form was much stronger than Piccolo and SSJ Gohan,(e) do better against Hit than SSB Vegeta and (f)hold his own while sparring against Beerus disguised as Monaka.

So basically as strong or as weak as the plot demands.

While I'm willing to make more scene-by-scene concessions than most fans, it would seem, I think there's been a fairly reasonable internal consistency so far?

Re: Chaozu: Ignoring the playful nature of that scene, why can't he be stopped for a few seconds if he's not walking around at full power? Yes, the technique failed against Nappa, but that was in the heat of battle. He breaks out of it anyway, so like, whatever?

Re: Frost: Why would going toe to toe with third-form Frost be a "weak enough to" moment? If Frost is around Freeza's level, that'd be enough so that he's not an absolute pushover in his third form. But even then, Goku's well in control of that fight and trying to hide his full power from Hit/save energy. He and Vegeta acknowledge as much later, when Beerus is angry at Vegeta for not using all his strength against Magetta.

The latter two are as typical Dragon Ball "warming up" moments as we've ever had. Hit's not giving his all against either Vegeta or Goku at first--this is a big point in his fight against Goku that comes up repeatedly. I'm just totally okay with base Goku taking and dishing out a few blows early in the match? And Whis stops the Beerus("Monaka")-Goku fight when it appears both are getting more serious. Goku never starts friendly fights going straight for the KO, and Whis establishes that Beerus is only getting serious (and unrestrained) toward the end. He's also fighting in a cumbersome costume and essentially winning.

I just don't get this stance some people have that if a character doesn't cold-cock their opponent immediately in Dragon Ball, a series about super-powered adrenaline junkies that leans so heavily on concepts of hiding true power that it's been an accurate source of parody, they can't be significantly stronger. I also don't get the attitude that even if there is an enormous power difference, weaker characters can't still take blows or get in a few good licks--when as far back as Namek you have moments like Piccolo, Gohan and Kuririn successfully knocking back and interrupting Freeza as Goku gathers energy, or Trunks and Goten knocking Boo away, or Vegeta managing to hang in against Pure Boo. Or Piccolo and Kuririn against Nappa. Or other moments I can't think of, I'm sure. So I don't understand why, say, third-form Frost not immediately folding against Goku in a tournament setting suddenly throws everything off.

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

Great post, LowRyder. I need to rethink a lot of things.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Base Goku would get demolished by Beerus as well.

We saw the fight in episode 31, and base Goku did better than Enraged SS2 Vegeta, SS3 Goku, and Ultimate Gohan combined. Beerus was using less than 10% of his power against SS3 Goku and kicked his ass so effortlessly he didn't have to actually fight him, while he had to visibly power-up against base Goku and put at least some effort with him.

[Speedster]

What about Super, then? My personal conclusion is that there is a fairly good chance that Gohan has already become weaker in the five years that pass from episode 1 to episode 2.

There is only one timeskip and this is at the start of the first episode (6 months after the defeat of kid Buu plus 'some time') and that is it. Between episode 1 and 2 (actually between 1 and 14) there is no timeskip. Watch episode 3 again. Elder Kaioshin says this: “After waking up Beerus-sama destroyed 8.5 planets in just half a day”. And the half of a planet is the one he destroyed in ep. 1.

Now was the timeskip at the start of episode 1 five whole years? Personally I don't buy it. I mean Mr Satan would have received the award before they wished for Buu's memories to be erased. Am I supposed to believe that it took him 5 years to give it to Goku? And what about Gohan and Videl? Were they unmarried for 4-5 years too? And what about Goten and Trunks not aging? To me it makes far more logical sense to assume that BoGs is probably 1-2 years since the defeat of Buu and that Pan's age at the EoZ is simply retconned.

* I think we can all agree that the Chou form, historically, has always been labeled as a stronger form than Super Saiyan 3, mostly basing this on Shueisha's guide.

This is in from Akira Toriyama’s interview in Daizenshuu 4: World Guide released in October 1995.

Question: Out of all your characters, which one is the most cool?
Toriyama: "I think it’s Goku". The always pure strongest in the universe. Goku is #1 after all!

What I quote in blue seems to not be part of Toriyama's answer (unless the quotation marks were misplaced) but it is nonetheless in Daizenshuu 4 -- something that even if not part of Toriyama's answer is something the editorial stuff felt confident to comment next to the original author's response (and if you see the rest of the interview there are very few such unquoted comments in the answers). The other unquoted comments are that Roshi is a pervert and Bulma is a genius i.e. things we know are true.
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/translations/ ... yama-best/