Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[Beyond]

Is 18 supposed to be on par with 17? It feels like they're treating her like she's stronger than she should be. I doubt they make her stronger than Gohan though, so I'm betting both androids are right under current Gohan. Piccolo is probably reduced back to RoF strength as well. If Piccolo was allowed to be as strong as he was in 88, then he would have easily been stronger than Lavandar. He should also know Botamo's weakness. I'd say Krillin would also be pretty good with his showings against Goku.

[TheDipDap1234]

Is 18 supposed to be on par with 17? It feels like they're treating her like she's stronger than she should be. I doubt they make her stronger than Gohan though, so I'm betting both androids are right under current Gohan. Piccolo is probably reduced back to RoF strength as well. If Piccolo was allowed to be as strong as he was in 88, then he would have easily been stronger than Lavandar. He should also know Botamo's weakness. I'd say Krillin would also be pretty good with his showings against Goku.

I hope so. I know people would be mad about it, but I always liked how the androids were so close to eachother in terms of power. Making one of the androids far more superior than the other one just feels a little off to me.

[Bullza]

Nobody has really talked about #18 here. I'd imagine she was stronger than before because we did see her train a little but she shouldn't be as strong as #17.

At least with #18 we know that she's not so super strong as of the Buu and Battle of Gods sagas.

Going by the preview for the Krillin episode I'm expecting her to be the first U7 member out, maybe the Female Pride Trooper beats her. To which then I wonder if Krillin is gonna explode like they say and then defeat the Female Pride Trooper in turn making Krillin appear stronger than #18.

A lot of assumption for now though.

[Marlowe89]

Piccolo is probably reduced back to RoF strength as well. If Piccolo was allowed to be as strong as he was in 88, then he would have easily been stronger than Lavandar.

You have to remember that the presence of Piccolo's weighted clothing generally indicates whether or not he's going all-out, and he was definitely unweighted in Episode 88. He's clearly conserving his full power for later in the tournament like Goku, Toppo, Gohan, Vegeta and a handful of other fighters who could have effortlessly swatted away tons of opponents from the get-go if they really wanted to. Toppo in particular should have been overwhelming Magetta, but that's clearly not what happened.

[TheDipDap1234]

Nobody has really talked about #18 here. I'd imagine she was stronger than before because we did see her train a little but she shouldn't be as strong as #17.

At least with #18 we know that she's not so super strong as of the Buu and Battle of Gods sagas.

Going by the preview for the Krillin episode I'm expecting her to be the first U7 member out, maybe the Female Pride Trooper beats her. To which then I wonder if Krillin is gonna explode like they say and then defeat the Female Pride Trooper in turn making Krillin appear stronger than #18.

A lot of assumption for now though.

There's no preview for the Krillin episode. The only thing we know about it is the title, nothing else.

[BWri]

Any streamlined approach has (unfortunately) the problem of crushing against a complete brick wall of nonsense, courtesy of Super's sloppy writing and lack of foresight. I edited out the post from one pages ago with some of the most glaring issues, but - in short - Gohan's standing in comparison to Goku's strength even before Piccolo's single training session in ep. 94 is an inescapable monkey-wrench.



tl;dr
Basically, if we assume that Super Buu and Gotenks are more or less equal and Buutenks is around two times stronger than SS3 Gotenks, Super's writing and promotional material plainly contradict themselves in regards to Gohan's strength. He's advertised and portrayed as having "less strength" (even more literally, promotional material uses a phrasing akin to "he trains with Piccolo in order to regain his lost strength"), while as a Super Saiyan 2 he already needs to have more strength than usual.

The other glaring problems are: Super Saiyan Goku vs. Super Saiyan Gohan in the spar match. Goku goes Super Saiyan, then powers down to some level vastly below his regular base's power (something like six, ten, or dozens of times weaker if you apply the Daizenshuu multipliers religiously) against Gohan and still proceeds to get the tar beaten out the vastly inferior Super Saiyan Gohan.
Then we have Gohan. He would need to somehow become at least about four or five times stronger than everyone in Z off-screen in-between the Buu saga and BOG, proceed to slack off, almost forgetting how to turn Super Saiyan, while still being overwhelmingly stronger than the Goku and Vegeta who had constantly trained in the Buu arc - again, four or five times.

Lastly, do note that in any passage there's some extreme form of low-balling: wanna disregard the multipliers? Wanna say Super Saiyan Gohan is just Base Goku + 1? Still doesn't add up.

The diagram above also ends up with Piccolo becoming at least about a thousand of times stronger than his old self from the Buu saga (who was inferior to the East Kaioshin of all people and was training routinely already on his own), which other than being kind of absurd, is not really something Super tried to portray in any shape or form. Well, I wouldn't go as far as saying Piccolo is still behind Kaioshin, obviously... but I'd say that even arguing he got overall two or three times from his training these days sounds generous.

I have nothing relevant to say, I just love this image! That's Super in a Nutshell really, Piccolo too since his power jumps have always been some of the craziest barring Frieza.

[Bullza]

If I was to compare Piccolo to anyone it'd be around Super Saiyan 2 Goku and Vegeta level from the end of Z. Maybe a little high.

Certainly not thousands of times stronger than he was before and well below Ultimate Gohan from Z.

Goku
Vegeta
Frieza
Gohan
Android 17
Piccolo
Android 18
Krillin
Tien
Roshi

That's the order I'd go with too.

[Marlowe89]

I'm mostly in agreement with Bullza (I have Piccolo a bit higher than Super Saiyan 2 level), although I want to caution than Android 17's strength in particular is very tricky to gauge currently. Toshio implied that Goku was only going Blue in the recuitment episodes to encourage his opponents, and in the actual 17 vs. Goku episode it was stated that both Goku and 17 were holding back to some degree -- possibly very differing degrees, so we ultimately weren't given very much to go by when categorizing where 17 might stand in relation to actual God-level characters. The dialogue clarified that 17 would be a terrifying opponent if he were still an enemy and Goku said he had no intention of going Blue, so he could be anywhere between Super Saiyan 3 and Blue. Could he have become thousands of times stronger between the Cell Saga and now? And does it have anything to do with his physiology as an Android? Like many things in the Super anime, those questions remain unanswered and have to be inferred based on whatever was officially suggested.

In any case, Piccolo jumping to above Super Saiyan 2 doesn't sound terribly implausible in comparison to the notion of him becoming stronger than Super Saiyan God, and in the case of Frieza, it's important to note that we were given a real explanation for that power jump: Frieza never trained before RoF and naturally had a power level far above what most characters in the series (even freakishly strong Toei-only creations like Broly) were born with, so it makes sense that with training, he would exceed transformations like Super Saiyan Blue.

[ZombieVito]

If I was to compare Piccolo to anyone it'd be around Super Saiyan 2 Goku and Vegeta level from the end of Z. Maybe a little high.

Certainly not thousands of times stronger than he was before and well below Ultimate Gohan from Z.

Goku
Vegeta
Frieza
Gohan
Android 17
Piccolo
Android 18
Krillin
Tien
Roshi

That's the order I'd go with too.

I suppose you are counting Kaioken for Goku there right?

Maybe it's my bias but I think Piccolo and 17 are on the same level again. Where do you have Boo?

[Bullza]

I suppose you are counting Kaioken for Goku there right?

Maybe it's my bias but I think Piccolo and 17 are on the same level again. Where do you have Boo?

Yeah I'm counting Kaioken. I suppose Vegeta and Frieza could be even as well.

Buu I'd have below Android 17 and above Android 18. Is he above or below Piccolo? Ehhhh I really couldn't say. Piccolo looks to be Super Saiyan 2 level, we don't know exactly where Buu was supposed to be except he was likely above him a year ago. It seems most kinda assume he's a little above Super Saiyan 2 level so maybe I'd give him the edge, especially with the better hax too.

That one writer made a tweet about how he thought Android 17 was the third strongest but he said something about how Gohan and Piccolo were still training so it could change? I can't remember exactly. Gohan was capable of Super Saiyan 2 before his training though which makes me think that Android 17 was at least above that level and Buu (and probably Piccolo).

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Honestly, I've always just liked going with the assumption of putting Piccolo, the 3 base Saiyans, Majin Buu, and base Freeza in the same ballpark as of this current arc, all thanks to their training.

In doing this, all you have to account for afterwards is transformations for the Saiyans and Freeza, which could actually allow us to properly scale how much stronger low-tier god-level (i.e. SSG, SSB, Golden Freeza, etc.) is than the original benchmark, Majin Buu. And how can we do this? Simple: current Ultimate Gohan. Let's just assume that he was approaching power that could rival SSB Goku, and let's assume that my first statement above is indeed true.

Whatever level of Majin Buu this ballpark range is at, it's below the original Ultimate Gohan. Based on my own guesstimates, Ultimate Gohan looked to be around 20 times stronger than SS3 Goku, based on the notion of SS Gotenks possibly being at or slightly above SS3 Goku. So, to simplify, the Ultimate power-up is a potential unlock of about 8000 times the user's original power.

That would place the current god-range (True Golden Freeza, current SSB, etc.) at about 8000 times above a form of Majin Buu that's below the original Ultimate Gohan, with the lower god-range (SSG, original Golden Freeza, original SSB, etc.) at a few times lower, maybe 800-4000 times above a <Ultimate-level Majin Buu.

[DBZ Macky]

I really just think that Piccolo and co. were just testing the level of their opponents with their attacks (which Roshi does comment on later, stating that these guys really are hella strong). After all, no one wants to kill their opponents and get disqualified.

The real reason is probably because the attacks were BANK animation and weren't supposed to matter much anyways.

I'll ask once more if someone's willing to answer, given the fact that he survived Sidra's Hakai energy, how does Base Goku compare to Golden Freeza?

[dbgtFO]

I'll ask once more if someone's willing to answer, given the fact that he survived Sidra's Hakai energy, how does Base Goku compare to Golden Freeza?

He probably already has the base strength that Black did, so his SS forms are probably not big multipliers anymore, but instead tiny power increases like the good ol Budokai games with their 10% increases per power up.

Goku: 1
-SS1: 1.1
-SS2: 1.2
-SS3: 1.3
-SSBlue: 2

True Golden Freeza: 2.05.

[ZombieVito]

I really just think that Piccolo and co. were just testing the level of their opponents with their attacks (which Roshi does comment on later, stating that these guys really are hella strong). After all, no one wants to kill their opponents and get disqualified.

The real reason is probably because the attacks were BANK animation and weren't supposed to matter much anyways.

I'll ask once more if someone's willing to answer, given the fact that he survived Sidra's Hakai energy, how does Base Goku compare to Golden Freeza?

I have SSB be a 2 times multiplier for SbG so Goku is close to Freeza. He did managed to make the ball small for a few seconds after all.

Goku: 30
-- SSB: 60

Freeza: 12
-- Golden: 60

I believe Freeza is exactly the same strength as RoF but with an improved Golden form.

[wolflonnie]

I'll ask once more if someone's willing to answer, given the fact that he survived Sidra's Hakai energy, how does Base Goku compare to Golden Freeza?

He probably already has the base strength that Black did, so his SS forms are probably not big multipliers anymore, but instead tiny power increases like the good ol Budokai games with their 10% increases per power up.

Goku: 1
-SS1: 1.1
-SS2: 1.2
-SS3: 1.3
-SSBlue: 2

True Golden Freeza: 2.05.

You know what, I'm starting to think this as well. If we assume SSJ multipliers are tiny, everything falls in place. It's the impression I have anyway, many times Goku would first battle as base, then SSJ, then Blue, and the gap between them should be enormous.

[LowRyder2005]

It's not like it wouldn't make sense for the infamous many, many times Goku switched to Super Saiyan 1/2/3 in Super and yet managed not to have any visible advantage over the opponent.

Unfortunately, the anime also has Zamas stating Super Saiyan 2 increased base Goku's ki "many tens of times", supposedly harkening back to the renowned multipliers of old (fact which could theoretically be justified with something like "Goku was suppressed", or through some hardcore in-universe theory; out-of-universe, though...).

[Bullza]

I'm still not fully convinced on this whole Saiyan Beyond God thing being a separate form at all. I'm sure he was supposed to be that in Xenoverse because they made a mention of how Demigra couldn't control him because of it and Goku could still turn into a Super Saiyan 3 there.

At least with Final Form Frieza we know his strength was comparable and it shouldn't really be much different at all so I'm hoping that ends up being the key somewhere.

I really could not place Base Goku at all, he's all over the place.

[DBZ Macky]

He probably already has the base strength that Black did, so his SS forms are probably not big multipliers anymore, but instead tiny power increases like the good ol Budokai games with their 10% increases per power up.

That's a really good idea. I'm definitely using something like this now. But a 10% increase is more than enough to have a significant advantage over opponents, and if I'm using such small multipliers, then they might as well be even smaller.

I'm still not fully convinced on this whole Saiyan Beyond God thing being a separate form at all. I'm sure he was supposed to be that in Xenoverse because they made a mention of how Demigra couldn't control him because of it and Goku could still turn into a Super Saiyan 3 there.

Speaking of Xenoverse, IIRC, it has even smaller increases for the SS forms, which I think fits well with Super's power scale. I'd be grateful if someone can tell me exactly how much the SS forms change the characters' powers.

[Marlowe89]

I'd be grateful if someone can tell me exactly how much the SS forms change the characters' powers.

According to Zamasu, tens of times. I think it's safer to assume that the standard multipliers are still intact unless it's officially noted otherwise.

As for Xenoverse, Goku speculated that he was immune to Demigra's magic because he too became a God once. But because a past event was referenced in lieu of anything to do with Goku's strength directly, it's ambiguous as to whether Goku's immunity had anything to do with his power level or "Saiyan Beyond God" per se. It may have just meant that all Gods and former Gods are unaffected by it.

[avasatu]

I really like this idea of using small multipliers, but that is canonically not true as per Zamasu's statement. Instead, I have adopted the notion that as the average power level of the show increases, it takes a wider margin of power dominance to have a substantial edge over an opponent. For example: in the early Namek saga, you could have a 20ish% edge on someone and one shot them, but in the current DBS, it would take a 2-5x margin to have the same effect.