Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[BlueBasilisk]

When did he ever say that? Because I didn't see that.

I'm wondering that too, because I keep hearing this repeated but I've watched the fight start to finish 4 times with Crunchy's subs and he never says that.

[ChiefWamsutta]

Wouldn't it be much easier to simply say that Goku was using his SSG Base during his fight with Buu?

SSG is stronger than Slim Buu and Good Buu. Buu's power probably jumped a large amount from the training.

[TheMikado]

Pretty much what I expected.

[Bullza]

It's all just so much more complicated then it ever needed to be.

While it's a half decent theory that he has two bases I would find it hugely unlikely that it was the reality. Almost impossible really because it would have taken all but 30 seconds to explain it.

A Post Universe 6 saga retcon...seems more likely. I don't know if it's a coincidence or not that the anime portrayed Base Goku as being God level from the Beerus fight all the way through to the Copy Water arc in June 2016 and then later that same month was when the manga chapter showing Goku could still turn Super Saiyan God came out.

Because ever since then Base Goku has never appeared to be as strong as he was before and now it's implied he's not God level as a Super Saiyan nevermind Base.

I have no idea where he stands now. Buu level? God level? Inbetween?

Buu level wouldn't make sense because Base Future Trunks was implied to be above SSJ Kid Trunks and Base Goku has gotta be at least as strong as that. He definitely doesn't look like he's God level anymore. He's gotta be somewhere in between but it's such a wide gap that it doesn't really narrow it down much at all.

[BWri]

I don't think we'll figure out how strong 17 is until the tournament. There's some decent enough clues but both end up saying that they're holding back power in the end. 17 was nonchalant throughout the whole fight too, so I'd say that he is indeed strong. Logical power scaling would put him in the godly realm of power, but the plot (conveniences) might put him above everyone except Goku, Vegeta and maybe Gohan and Buu. I think he's a tier below Goku and Vegeta, but above everyone else cuz ... cool factor. Toei thinks he's cool, fans think he's cool, he looks cool fighting, so why not make him #3 on team universe 7? In the intro he gets a big spot to himself and he's actually standing nearest to Goku and Vegeta in the promotional materials.

I think the tiers of power for universe 7 role like this:

God Tier:
Goku
Vegeta

High Tier (S):
Android 17

High Tier (A):
Gohan
Slim Buu

Mid Tier High:
Piccolo
Android 18

Mid Tier Low:
Krillin (in light of recent evidence)
Tien

Low Tier:
Roshi

There's a case that Krills might be high mid as well.

[RedRibbonSoldier#42]

Is Gokuu "holding back" the solution to all power level debates from now on? What's the point of transforming if you aren't going to raise your battle power any?

[YajirobiTheGreat]

This really feels weird to me.

17 was apparently justified in believing himself to be the real threat, not Cell or 16.

17 could have taken out Buu but chose not to do anything and eventually let himself die when the world blew up.

If Future 17 and 18 had just trained for a few weeks Trunks would have been no match for them.

18 had the potential to takeout Buu if she trained during the 7 years in between the Cell and Buu Arc, or even if she just went into ROSAT.


What is weird to me about this and not Frieza is just what a footnote 17 feels like in comparison to the stories most iconic villain. Frieza has always been heavily promoted and inuniverse he was known as the strongest. 17 meanwhile was overshadowed throughout his brief role in the story by others and was constantly shown or implied to be overestimating himself relative to the others. I don't think I will ever be able to watch the Cell Arc the same way again if 17 really became close to Goku's level through conventional training on his own.

[emperior]

So 17 has been training a lot during all this time, which is fine and he learned how to use ki because we saw him having a white aura.
Goku was holding back against him as a SSB but 17 > SSJ Goku. I think 17's full power would be around 50% Super Saiyan Blue Goku. Which is still pretty fucking high but at least it was implied he is not a match for Goku at his full power, unless he is SSJB tier and Goku's full power would be his Kaio-Ken, but 17 would have no way to know Goku was holding back such a technique.

[BWri]

This really feels weird to me.

17 was apparently justified in believing himself to be the real threat, not Cell or 16.

17 could have taken out Buu but chose not to do anything and eventually let himself die when the world blew up.

If Future 17 and 18 had just trained for a few weeks Trunks would have been no match for them.

18 had the potential to takeout Buu if she trained during the 7 years in between the Cell and Buu Arc, or even if she just went into ROSAT.


What is weird to me about this and not Frieza is just what a footnote 17 feels like in comparison to the stories most iconic villain. Frieza has always been heavily promoted and inuniverse he was known as the strongest. 17 meanwhile was overshadowed throughout his brief role in the story by others and was constantly shown or implied to be overestimating himself relative to the others. I don't think I will ever be able to watch the Cell Arc the same way again if 17 really became close to Goku's level through conventional training on his own.

These points are what annoys me about the Super power level increases, because they are always so extreme and plot convenient. It also makes previous arcs trivial. No one on staff seems to have the forethought to plan these things in advance or even offer satisfying explanations for these massive increases. First off, why have only 2 days to prepare for the tourney? They easily spent nearly ten episodes on half a day. That could've easily been several months to give a more believable period for them to get stronger. Then they could take the time to explain Android 17 and 18s infinite energy and expand on that. I wouldn't mind them jumping several tiers of power if it were properly explained. From what we've seen in the past, I think characters like #17, #18, Buu, and Piccolo could get massively stronger, but it needs buildup.

But, to play devil's advocate, it took 17 a while to amass this level of power, perhaps as long as it took Goku. Maybe his own training gains worked parallel to Goku's or better yet Vegeta's since #17 was starting behind them. If that's the case then he was never a match for Buu so he wouldn't have shown up or maybe his family was killed and he lost the will to fight. His power growth could have spiked around the same time Goku and Vegeta's did rather conveniently.

[precita]

17 could have taken out Buu but chose not to do anything and eventually let himself die when the world blew up.

17 was obviously nowhere as powerful during the Buu arc as he is now. At best he might have been around SSJ2 level, so he still would have failed against Fat Buu like everyone else. By the time Super Buu started killing everyone on Earth he would have been no match for him.

[namekiansaiyan]

Let's just hope that Toei were just try to make 17 look as 'cool' as possible and that he is not as strong as this episode indicates unless others get this strong as well.

17 might have power but he lacks experience along and I dont see him having much strategy as he has had only real fight.

[Bulma's Foot Masseur]

The conversation implies 17 was holding back in the same capacity SSJB Goku was. Not that it's true, but the story suggests they're in the same ballpark (your definition may vary) and at this point there's no reason to believe otherwise.

If it is true, current 17 will be stronger than Golden Frieza in the same way Android-saga 17 was stronger than Fourth Form Frieza. Not exactly weird. If anything I'm starting to think this is less about every character in the show becoming God level and more that Super Saiyan God and Super Saiyan Blue aren't as strong as we were led to believe they were.

[AvatarReiko]

Is just me or is anyone getting sick and tired of the constant "Goku is holding back" excuses? It's like people keep using this argument to justify Super's bad writing at times. I've seen people say Goku is wasn't going all out while completely neglecting the fact that neither was 17

[Baggie_Saiyan]

Is just me or is anyone getting sick and tired of the constant "Goku is holding back" excuses? It's like people keep using this argument to justify Super's bad writing at times. I've seen people say Goku is wasn't going all out while completely neglecting the fact that neither was 17

Well it's clear as black and white in the episode not really sure it's an excuse. And 17 holding back doesn't change anything, don't exactly see the issue here, other than we can't properly gauge 17 and Goku's strength.

[Lord Beerus]

So can we confirm that Android 17 far stronger than SSJ Goku, but not a challenge to full power SSJB Goku? Because that's what the episode pretty much implies. We have no idea how much he held back against SSJB Goku and how much SSJB Goku held back against him to come to a conclusion in regards to just how strong he is. For all we know SSJB Goku dropped his battle power to just above SSJ3 tier. and Android 17 may have been using 70-80% power. It's made incredibly vague, and purposely done so on Toei's part.

[TheMikado]

Is Gokuu "holding back" the solution to all power level debates from now on? What's the point of transforming if you aren't going to raise your battle power any?

I swear to God I said and predicted this last week after the same Krillin argument. It's literally the go to now for everything and it's annoying. Would enjoy football if every game the team is "holding back" and that's why they under performed...

[TheMikado]

So can we confirm that Android 17 far stronger than SSJ Goku, but not a challenge to full power SSJB Goku? Because that's what the episode pretty much implies. We have no idea how much he held back against SSJB Goku and how much SSJB Goku held back against him to come to a conclusion in regards to just how strong he is. For all we know SSJB Goku dropped his battle power to just above SSJ3 tier. and Android 17 may have been using 70-80% power. It's made incredibly vague, and purposely done so on Toei's part.

I think the narrative was trying to imply 17 is much weaker than SSB if at all. 17 says he probably would have lost, not definitely. Why go SSB and hold back to SSJ3 levels? It's not like 17 even knows what that is or the significance of it.

[namekiansaiyan]

If Goku was holding back that much then 17 is still bottom half to me out of the 10.

[HybridSaiyan]

I bet ya'll would try and justify if Master Roshi suddenly became god tier and be "But he trained every day after Raditz so of course he could match SSJB"

[Marlowe89]

So can we confirm that Android 17 far stronger than SSJ Goku, but not a challenge to full power SSJB Goku? Because that's what the episode pretty much implies. We have no idea how much he held back against SSJB Goku and how much SSJB Goku held back against him to come to a conclusion in regards to just how strong he is. For all we know SSJB Goku dropped his battle power to just above SSJ3 tier. and Android 17 may have been using 70-80% power. It's made incredibly vague, and purposely done so on Toei's part.

The problem more than anything is just that Toei's writers aren't particularly good at justifying some of the things they put into script. Blue Kaioken was already used way more than it needed to be despite being a supposedly dangerous life-risking transformation, and now Blue is getting carelessly inserted into random sparring plots with the lousiest of excuses because it's popular with viewers even though the show has repeatedly established that it's a special transformation reserved chiefly for the most serious of fights.

There certainly seems to be a lack of sincerity here, as if Toei wants to drive up viewership but doesn't necessarily have the writing ability to back up what they're doing. I don't know if 17 is actually as strong as Super Saiyan Blue, but with the vagueness and subtle implications of the episode it's obvious that the writers don't necessarily want us to jump to that conclusion. They just wanted a reason to show off the form again and that's that.