Super has the right idea, but it doesn't work at this point: strategy's place in battle

[VegettoEX]

Agreed. The show would be much better if they went on a two-episode journey to planet Zuputo to find the divine alien recuse who'll give them the super ultra divine seeds they can use to power them up to SSG levels.

While I agree with the sentiment behind it, it would have been nice to include something beyond JUST sarcasm here to add to the conversation .

But yeah. Shame on the show for doing what several people in the thread concede should have been done long ago...? I mean, the alternative is... have Goku and Vegeta continue doing everything. If you just want top-tier status quo, more power to you, I guess...? I'll take the experimentation and use of the resources (i.e., other characters) at the franchise's disposal for a more interesting story! Let them try! If everything falls apart in the end and it's a total disaster, OK sure, everything fell apart in the end and it was a total disaster. I'm not willing to write it off this early, though.

[Hirovoid]

Agreed. The show would be much better if they went on a two-episode journey to planet Zuputo to find the divine alien recuse who'll give them the super ultra divine seeds they can use to power them up to SSG levels.

While I agree with the sentiment behind it, it would have been nice to include something beyond JUST sarcasm here to add to the conversation .

Serious mode then.

The majority of power-ups in the franchise have always been mostly for plot convenience and not really earned.

Goku couldn't beat Piccolo, so he got the divine water.
Goku and Vegeta got zenkai in the Namek saga (which became useless once they were no longer needed)
Krillin and Gohan got the Guru powerup to try and match them up.
The Time Chamber was introduced to allow characters to gain power in an ultra short amount of time with appropriate rules, so it couldn't be abused TOO badly.
Elder Kai gets introduced to allow Gohan to reach higher than Buu levels in the Buu saga.

In general, power-ups have always been sorta the result of writing on-the-fly since proper gains weren't made in the time between arcs. As such, I don't mind characters getting powerful enough in training to be able to hold their own in their own ways since the alternative is some random plot device to gain power.

[Doctor.]

The problem here is that they could be executing it much better. Just give these characters powerups already. Even if it's a bullshit one, people would get over it eventually. But I don't think they'll ever get over them consistently trashing the power scale.

That's just doing what the series has done right up to this point: give them power-ups and fuck everything else; only raw power matters.

Not necessarily. With powerups, their use of tactics to win would make more sense than now. Right now, no type of tactics should put them anywhere near Goku and Vegeta.

They did power-up Kuririn. He had two episodes dedicated to him getting stronger. People are still complaining he shouldn't be this strong.

[TheMikado]

Super has been emphasizing tactics, strategy, sneak attacks, teamwork, unique abilities and so on in favor of raw power. Now, I find this commendable. Toei's writers, Toriyama, Toyotaro or whoever decides to implement these aspects in the stories they write is doing a fantastic thing; raw power being the only deciding factor in a fight limits the series way too much.

The problem is... it doesn't work at this point. The series has gone for far too long proving that raw strength is the only win that will eventually win you a fight (and it's not even a Z thing, contrary to popular belief, DB displayed the same mentality countless times too). Even if you get some sneak attacks in, it's still pretty much useless in the face of overwhelming strength. Even if you fight as a group, it's useless. The series has strutted this mentality that raw power is the most important thing, above everything else, that deviating from it and doing the exact opposite now just seems unbelievable and inconsistent with what was previously shown.

And the fanbase seems divided. You've got one side who thinks this is great and couldn't care less about powerlevel debates as long as characters can get to do cool stuff. And you've got the other side, who's so completely blinded by numbers that they can't accept anything other than their meticulously calculated outcome. Both sides are looking at things without understanding the other side, but I really can't say one is more correct than the other.

Consistency and variety are both needed in a series and it seems that you can't have both. Which one's more important to you?

Thank you, this is so timely and my thoughts since the beginning of BOG. The power scaling to the point of universe levels makes the idea of tactics so out of place when you watch Krillins performance against Perfect Cell. They 100% should have given the other characters power ups and the way to do it have been readily available for literally forever. If they were actually serious about making the other characters relevant again they would have done exactly what I've been saying.

Teach every Non Saiyan Kaioken!!!

Goku was doing x20 kaioken at lower power levels.
They could BS Krillin to below 100% Frieza levels and then force kaioken to x50, x100 levels. It would be BS but the long term effects is that no matter what power ups the Saiyans got they can always make the other relevant by saying they started training and figured how to up the multiplier further. Hell they could say something like Krillin learned how to push kaioken to x1000 levels for 30 second periods but it leaves him physically crippled. They had the perfect plot device from the very beginning that that has built in methods to prevent abuse and they've been ignoring this for forever. I'll be honest, to me it's clear they aren't looking to actual advance the series because I don't believe they are trying to make any long term lasting changes to the lore. To me that's the biggest evidence that they aren't going past EoZ.

[fadeddreams5]

I honestly stopped caring and just see Super as its own thing. The variety will be fun and we get to see human characters actually be useful. Sure, they could have been consistent with DB/DBZ and made them useful in other ways (to answer your question, I would have preferred this), but I've accepted that Super will never be a faithful sequel. I will never like it as a sequel to DBZ, but if I watch it as its own thing and shut down my brain enough to ignore the myriad inconsistencies, this arc is really fun so far.

[Totamo]

It can't work. You can give them all the power ups but isn't that doing what Z did? Just making the hole deeper.



It was established long ago, Power beats Technique. Now it wants to undo that to make human characters useful again and truth be told, I don't see any other way you can make strategy and teamwork useful without throwing out the power scale, making villains stupid like Raditz or giving everyone power ups.

[Simere]

I'm still convinced the tournament is going to ultimately come down to who's more powerful.

[TheMathemagician]

I'm still convinced the tournament is going to ultimately come down to who's more powerful.

I could easily see it coming down to that as well.

[WittyUsername]

You might have a point there. As much as I appreciate the franchise actually emphasizing skill over raw power for a change, there's really no logical in-story way of explaining how Kuririn was able to have a beam struggle with Goku as a Super Saiyan Blue, or how Muten Roshi could possibly hope to land a scratch on any of the other fighters in this upcoming tournament. Skill can only get you so far if you're a mouse going up against an rhinoceros.

While I would love for people to stop placing so much emphasis on which character is physically stronger than the other, the stuff we've seen in Super only seems to be dividing the fanbase even further.

[HybridSaiyan]

I honestly stopped caring and just see Super as its own thing. The variety will be fun and we get to see human characters actually be useful. Sure, they could have been consistent with DB/DBZ and made them useful in other ways (to answer your question, I would have preferred this), but I've accepted that Super will never be a faithful sequel. I will never like it as a sequel to DBZ, but if I watch it as its own thing and shut down my brain enough to ignore the myriad inconsistencies, this arc is really fun so far.

That's how I'm trying to see Super. Put it on another table away from DB/DBZ/GT and just see the craziness it offers. It'll end up like Heroes soon enough lmao. I put my faith in Toyotarō to make things a little more consistent power level wise. I hope he doesn't fall under the same idiocy when writing this arc.

[TheMikado]

You might have a point there. As much as I appreciate the franchise actually emphasizing skill over raw power for a change, there's really no logical in-story way of explaining how Kuririn was able to have a beam struggle with Goku as a Super Saiyan Blue, or how Muten Roshi could possibly hope to land a scratch on any of the other fighters in this upcoming tournament. Skill can only get you so far if you're a mouse going up against an rhinoceros.

While I would love for people to stop placing so much emphasis on which character is physically stronger than the other, the stuff we've seen in Super only seems to be dividing the fanbase even further.

I don't feel like you can put this on the fans though, this isn't fairy tail where a true power scale hasn't really be established and any character stands a chance of the enemy isn't paying attention. Dragonball literally established that if the gap is significant enough the enemy doesn't even have to be paying attention for your attack to be completely nullified. There's nothing you can do when this is established lore and its not the fans fault for asking what things don't work the same in universe or of it changes.

[PsionicWarrior]

I honestly stopped caring and just see Super as its own thing. The variety will be fun and we get to see human characters actually be useful. Sure, they could have been consistent with DB/DBZ and made them useful in other ways (to answer your question, I would have preferred this), but I've accepted that Super will never be a faithful sequel. I will never like it as a sequel to DBZ, but if I watch it as its own thing and shut down my brain enough to ignore the myriad inconsistencies, this arc is really fun so far.

Completely agree, but what I find infuriating is it would be so easy to avoid the inconsistencies sigh lol

[kinisking]

That's just doing what the series has done right up to this point: give them power-ups and fuck everything else; only raw power matters.

Not necessarily. With powerups, their use of tactics to win would make more sense than now. Right now, no type of tactics should put them anywhere near Goku and Vegeta.

They did power-up Kuririn. He had two episodes dedicated to him getting stronger. People are still complaining he shouldn't be this strong.

Dude, that was one training session. And it was just to control his mind. It shouldn't have given him a huge power boost.

[Doctor.]

Dude, that was one training session. And it was just to control his mind. It shouldn't have given him a huge power boost.

No, we know he has been training since and months passed in-universe. Why shouldn't it have given him a big power boost (it wasn't even big)? Releasing his potential was fine back in the Namek arc.

[WittyUsername]

I kind of think that "well he trained" is a bit of a lazy excuse for a character becoming significantly stronger. It was ridiculous enough when Freeza did it, but even that at least had the justification that Freeza had previously never trained a day in his life, which meant that he had a ridiculous amount of untapped potential.

Kuririn has trained numerous times in the past. There's no reason to assume that him getting back into shape now would suddenly cause his power to skyrocket, especially if he's just using regular training equipment that you can get from Academy Sports. As far as we know, Kuririn is on par with the Ginyu Force at best in terms of raw strength. That's why episode 84 seemed to do its best to emphasize that there's more to fighting than brute strength.

[HybridSaiyan]

Dude, that was one training session. And it was just to control his mind. It shouldn't have given him a huge power boost.

No, we know he has been training since and months passed in-universe. Why shouldn't it have given him a big power boost (it wasn't even big)? Releasing his potential was fine back in the Namek arc.

I think everyone just fails to see just how strong Goku is in the present day though. His base easily took out final form frieza after he trained for 4 months, Krillin was pulling out some godly shit to be able to stand up to SSB Goku's kamehameha. Remember Goku and Vegeta also took more trips in the HBTC...

[Akyon]

Power Levels are limiting as hell. That's one thing we should have all realised. Hell, I'm assuming that's why Toriyama took the official Power Levels out the manga because it's such a limiter. The guy with the biggest digit count wins. Maths is not story telling though, and formula is made to be broken in narrative lest it become repetitive and dull.

Honestly the battles between Krillin and Gohan and yes, even Krillin and Goku today were the most excited I've been watching any fight in Dragonball.

Tactics such as cutting a hole under Goku using a fourth mini disc had me wondering what the heck was coming next. The beam struggle was easily the dumbest part of the series, but only because it didn't fit Krillin's tactical fighting style.

In fact that was one of my biggest hates about Goku vs. Hit's rematch. Has Goku managed to come up with a strategy to defeat Hit's tricky assassination powers? Nope! He just powers up and gets stronger to beat himwith yet more raw power. Creative. Goku the fighting genius everyone.

What we saw today has me excited to see what Roshi and Tenshinhan have to offer, whilst before I figured everyone below Buu and Gohan was going to get fodderised, I'm now feeling like every single team member MAY be able to bring something special to the tournament.

[Totamo]

I'm still convinced the tournament is going to ultimately come down to who's more powerful.

The universe 6 arc didn't do that. 4 fighters used gimmicks against Vegeta and Goku.


Hell, in the manga, Hit was weaker than Goku yet his technique put them on edge.

[PsionicWarrior]

Power Levels are limiting as hell.

No, they are a reference point and the only limit it imposes to the writing is to keep coherence which is hardly a bad thing when you want to make sense. Creativity is truly made within constraints, all the greatest works were made within constraints, because that is what gives structure and foundation to develop, build and expand upon.

Honestly the battles between Krillin and Gohan and yes, even Krillin and Goku today were the most excited I've been watching any fight in Dragonball.

Gohan and Krillin was OK IMO because it was truly strategic and there was not much powerscaling involved and Gohan is still rusty and all that, but the moment I saw Goku turn SSJB I started to facepalm, and that's pretty much a normal reaction?

[Totamo]

Power Levels are limiting as hell.

No, they are a reference point and the only limit it imposes to the writing is to keep coherence which is hardly a bad thing when you want to make sense. Creativity is truly made within constraints, all the greatest works were made within constraints, because that is what gives structure and foundation to develop, build and expand upon.

Honestly the battles between Krillin and Gohan and yes, even Krillin and Goku today were the most excited I've been watching any fight in Dragonball.

Gohan and Krillin was OK IMO because it was truly strategic and there was not much powerscaling involved and Gohan is still rusty and all that, but the moment I saw Goku turn SSJB I started to facepalm, and that's pretty much a normal reaction?

It's limiting because you know who is going to win. The guy with the bigger number.


That's kind of one the biggest things dragon Ball z was criticized for and still is to this day or did you not know that?

The power bloat was atrocious after the 23rd budokai and it never happened naturally or consistently. We saw first hand in that saga that skill means nothing and it's all about the race you are born to.