Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[MR.Mark]

Just a quick question, please count up the number of times Goku held back AND got completely stomped simultaneously in DBZ? I'm just curious.

You always have great questions, and if I'm not mistaken, the answer is: zero times.

This is why people are pitching a fit.

This is DBZ Goku holding back"

[spoiler][/spoiler]

This is Super Goku "holding back":
[spoiler][/spoiler]

I won't deny that that's an awesome scene, but it's not really a valid comparison. Goku channeled his ki into his finger after Trunks warned him he'd attack at full power. Goku was far from holding back, he was blocking while using his full ssj power. He just made it look badass because it was with his finger after the same sword annihilated Freeza.

[DBZ Macky]

Since SS3 tier Goku Black was only a "little stronger" than SS2 Goku and SS2 tier Goku Black, that'd kinda sorta imply that SSB Goku was also SS3 tier when he let out a "little more power" than he was letting as a SS2.

Basically:
Full Power SSB Goku >> LSS Kale > Suppressed SSB Goku ~ SS3 Goku >~ SS2 Goku

I think Kale needs to be at least SS3 tier to impress Hit and the others the way she did.

Would that be enough, though? SS3 is nothing, compared to Hit and the Pride Troopers.

But they're like the only people who're stronger than that level. Only Goku, Vegeta, Hit, Toppo and Jiren are stronger than current Goku's SS3, with Gohan, Android 17 and Kahseral (judging from the preview) being debatable. Not to mention that if Beerus can get impressed by SSG Goku and SS2 Trunks, then I don't see why Hit wouldn't be impressed by Kale.

[Bullza]

That's easy to solved. Goku used SbG with Boo.

It makes no sense for him to be stronger than drugged Basil when he had trouble with just regular Basil.

Yeah but then Goku wouldn't have even needed to block Buu's attacks nor would he have been hurt by Buu if he's supposed to be so strong he can stand there and tank whatever SSJ3 Gotenks threw at him.

He only had trouble with Basil because they were all attacking him together.

Why would he have used Saiyan Beyond God during a little sparring session with Buu and then not use it when he was in trouble and surrounded by enemies in a Tournament where his Universe is on the line?

It's things like that which make the whole two base theory very hard to swallow.

[LowRyder2005]

This caught my eye in another thread. Props to the user dragon boss z for noticing:

[spoiler]
[/spoiler]

SS Caulifla is stronger than SS Cabba, SS Cabba is stronger than base Vegeta, and Napapa's strength isn't that far off from Super Saiyan Caulifla. Yet, Napapa seems completely helpess against Freeza, and fourth form Freeza has been long established as comparable to base Goku - before the latter had any training, to top it off.

We don't see the full fight between Freeza and Napapa, technically; writer's intent on the other hand looks clear. The alternatives at hand look like:

1. Inconsistency.
2. Fourth Form Freeza "somehow" became stronger than Super Saiyans ("many tens of times") in Hell?
3. Caulifla's holding back/ saving strength until completely cornered (?).
3. More probably, yet another case in which only a Base > Super Saiyan > Base framework can make sense of things.

[wolflonnie]

Maybe it's the fact that Napapa was charging and had momentum beforehand, while against Frieza he had none?

[TheSaiyanGod]

Since SS3 tier Goku Black was only a "little stronger" than SS2 Goku and SS2 tier Goku Black, that'd kinda sorta imply that SSB Goku was also SS3 tier when he let out a "little more power" than he was letting as a SS2.

Basically:
Full Power SSB Goku >> LSS Kale > Suppressed SSB Goku ~ SS3 Goku >~ SS2 Goku

I think Kale needs to be at least SS3 tier to impress Hit and the others the way she did.

But Black restrained himself in the fight against Goku. Neither of them used maximum power, for Goku SSJ2 was able to face him. Does not mean that SSJ3 was "a little stronger"

And there are several levels of "SSB suppression". Even using SSJ2 against Black, Goku was holding on and during the first fight and after saying that he's going to force Black to use all his power, Goku releases more Ki (SSJ2 only) and gains an advantage in the fight, even if she Was matched before. So it can hold much more power, even though it is being a powerful form

[Marlowe89]

He only had trouble with Basil because they were all attacking him together.

That shouldn't particularly matter if we're comparing him to Buu. Goku gets hurt by Basil, yet Buu can just shrug off Basil's attacks like nothing and also force him to consume drugs even though that wasn't enough either? The Trio De Dangers are the strongest in their universe, yet characters beneath them can individually give the base Saiyans trouble (such as Hop)? That doesn't add up at all if we assume base Goku is as strong as fat Buu.

Why would he have used Saiyan Beyond God during a little sparring session with Buu and then not use it when he was in trouble and surrounded by enemies in a Tournament where his Universe is on the line?

Buu was told almost from the outset that they were just practicing ring-outs. It wasn't remotely as serious as, say, Goku vs. Gohan or even Goku vs. 17, so I don't see why we'd need to assume Buu wasn't restraining himself or that Goku was even using Saiyan Beyond God.

[superfan2024]

You know, there wouldn't even be that much controversy if Goku just used SSJ3 on Kale instead of Blue. I may be wrong about what i'm about to say, but I believe that the SSJ transformations between the manga and anime are very disconnected. And this all started with the inclusion of the SSJB Kaioken. Here's a comparison between how I think how strong each form is compared between the anime to the manga:

SSJG (manga) = SSJB (anime)
SSJB/Full Powered SSJB (manga) = SSJB Kaioken (anime)

Like I said, this is only a prediction based upon how events unfolded between the two. With this, I believe that Goku would use SSJG on Kale instead of SSJB in the manga. Same thing goes for Goku/Vegeta vs the Trio De Dangers.

And, this may also be why people think that SSJB is weaker than it actually should be.

[Bullza]

That shouldn't particularly matter if we're comparing him to Buu. Goku gets hurt by Basil, yet Buu can just shrug off Basil's attacks like nothing and also force him to consume drugs even though that wasn't enough either? The Trio De Dangers are the strongest in their universe, yet characters beneath them can individually give the base Saiyans trouble (such as Hop)? That doesn't add up at all if we assume base Goku is as strong as fat Buu.

Well Buu can regenerate so maybe that's a big part of it. He did come back from Beerus' attack and even Goku couldn't do that.

Goku fought Buu and said he was faster than before so Goku must also be faster than Fat Buu. So he probably should be more powerful than Buu.

If Bergamo was also more powerful than Basil with drugs then that could point to it as well. It's possible, he didn't seem too concerned in what had happened until then.

[ZombieVito]

This caught my eye in another thread. Props to the user dragon boss z for noticing:

[spoiler]
[/spoiler]

SS Caulifla is stronger than SS Cabba, SS Cabba is stronger than base Vegeta, and Napapa's strength isn't that far off from Super Saiyan Caulifla. Yet, Napapa seems completely helpess against Freeza, and fourth form Freeza has been long established as comparable to base Goku - before the latter had any training, to top it off.

We don't see the full fight between Freeza and Napapa, technically; writer's intent on the other hand looks clear. The alternatives at hand look like:

1. Inconsistency.
2. Fourth Form Freeza "somehow" became stronger than Super Saiyans ("many tens of times") in Hell?
3. Caulifla's holding back/ saving strength until completely cornered (?).
3. More probably, yet another case in which only a Base > Super Saiyan > Base framework can make sense of things.

There's nothing wrong here.

Final form Freeza is as strong as Saiyan beyond God in the RoF arc.

[supercat]

I love how SSB Goku getting completely wrecked by Kale while not being able to do anything in return means "he's just holding back, so it's probably not a good source for power scaling" but Caulifla, getting pushed back a bit, but actually winning the match against Napapa means she struggled and is weaker than people thought.

The first scenario clearly supports how powerful these newer characters are, so once again, it must be hard on the fandom to just accept, much like how people continue disregarding SSJ Goku = SSG, despite it being indicated in BoG.

As for the second scenario, well it supports further downplaying characters like Caulifla and Cabba, and helps keep nobodies like Buu relevant on the power scale, so I guess it's much easier for lots of fans to go with.

[DBZ Macky]

Just my 2 cents on the Napapa vs Caulifla stuff:

Napapa- 90,000,000

He's able to withstand Basil's
attack easily and even push back
SS Caulifla (who should at least be
a bit stronger than base) before
she visibly powers up and knocks
him out of the stadium.

Caulifla- 85,000,000
Super Saiyan- 4,250,000,000

While she's pushed back by
Napapa at first, it ends up working
in her favour as she's moved closer
to the ring, allowing her to use her
full power and defeat Napapa with
ease. It seems she was suppressed.

[LowRyder2005]

I candidly admit I don't remember: whichever universe did Napapa belong to?

Oh, all right, looks like it's Universe 10. I was hoping he belonged to some universe in which we had more concrete benchmarks. Still, bar other showings, I'd feel safer at putting him at least at around 60 or 70% of Super Saiyan Caulifla. If the type of gap was anything similar to the one between Gohan and Kibito, transforming should've already made Caulifla untouchable.
With that being said, I'd like to see watch his performance against Basil a second time: we know the Trio is below the base Saiyans and that Basil is far below Buu, so it might be a much more suitable comparison to shed light on Caulifla's and Cabba's power.

Still pretty interesting that Freeza is shown mopping the floor with him, regardless.

EDIT: All right, I glanced over the Napapa vs. Basil a second time. I share the sentiment that the show portrays them as evenly matched. Of course, following the notion that the writers made them go all-out (for, well, nothing more than simplicity's sake) it might just appear safer to conclude that Napapa is in the range of the current base form of "our" universe's Saiyans. I'd still tentatively lean towards the idea that Super Saiyan Cabba and Kale are on the lower end of the scale, closer to base Goku and Vegeta than to their respective Super Saiyan forms.

Basil: 1.75
Base Goku: 2
Napapa: 2.2 (has the show made him use ki blasts, now that I think about it?)
SS Caulifla: 12 (using 20% of her SS power looks like a believable energy-saving mode)
SS2 Caulifla: 24
SS Goku: 100
SS2 Goku: 200 (following the general idea he goes SS2 for no reason but to show the form)

[Bullza]

I just wish I could make sense of all the information from the early/mid part of the Resurrection F saga because I'm sure that's where the answer is.

Base Vegeta after six months of training was stronger than Enraged Super Saiyan 2 Vegeta from before as was pretty much said by Goku and Whis. Base Goku was also this strong because he had powered up after fighting Beerus.

From what was implied Vegeta got so strong from doing hellish training and that was it, not because he was any Saiyan Beyond God. It also seemed like he hadn't experienced God Ki at all until he was thrown into the staff and commented on its pressure.

Where do two bases play into this?

They trained, they grew enormously strong, they could still turn Super Saiyan, they were thrown into the other dimension with God Ki and by the time they came out they both knew how to turn into a Super Saiyan God on their own.

That's all that it looks like to me.

[TheMikado]

I just wish I could make sense of all the information from the early/mid part of the Resurrection F saga because I'm sure that's where the answer is.

Base Vegeta after six months of training was stronger than Enraged Super Saiyan 2 Vegeta from before as was pretty much said by Goku and Whis. Base Goku was also this strong because he had powered up after fighting Beerus.

From what was implied Vegeta got so strong from doing hellish training and that was it, not because he was any Saiyan Beyond God. It also seemed like he hadn't experienced God Ki at all until he was thrown into the staff and commented on its pressure.

Where do two bases play into this?

They trained, they grew enormously strong, they could still turn Super Saiyan, they were thrown into the other dimension with God Ki and by the time they came out they both knew how to turn into a Super Saiyan God on their own.

That's all that it looks like to me.

The problem is you have a completely different set of rules and power scale for the manga. The question that should be asked isn't what is Super presenting, but what SHOULD it be?

I.e. Should their SSJ forms be similar in strength their Buu saga selves or not? That's the key question and once that's answered everything would fall into place. Not completely neatly but more so than currently. Remember the manga answers a dozen questions for us. It states that SSG is a precursor to SSB, so there is no argument on that forms strength. We also know it drains stamina so there is no argument on when or why they use it. We also know exactly where it is in the hierarchy with all SSJ forms being well below SSG. So the question of what the heirarchy should be needs to be answered first and right now Toei, Toriyama, and Toyotaro are the only ones who can answer that question. Toyotaro has already answered for himself through his work.

[emperior]

I just wish I could make sense of all the information from the early/mid part of the Resurrection F saga because I'm sure that's where the answer is.

Base Vegeta after six months of training was stronger than Enraged Super Saiyan 2 Vegeta from before as was pretty much said by Goku and Whis. Base Goku was also this strong because he had powered up after fighting Beerus.

From what was implied Vegeta got so strong from doing hellish training and that was it, not because he was any Saiyan Beyond God. It also seemed like he hadn't experienced God Ki at all until he was thrown into the staff and commented on its pressure.

Where do two bases play into this?

They trained, they grew enormously strong, they could still turn Super Saiyan, they were thrown into the other dimension with God Ki and by the time they came out they both knew how to turn into a Super Saiyan God on their own.

That's all that it looks like to me.

It wasn't exactly outright confirmed by Goku that Vegeta had grown that strong in his base form. Though he obviously made some gains, Goku still couldn't teleport to Vegeta from Earth, so he must still have been weaker than SSJ Gohan/Kid Trunks at that point unless Goku can teleport only to sudden spikes of power (which is possible considering he couldn't just teleport to Freezer)

Anyways, there's no way to make any sense out of all these inconsistencies created by Super. It just seems like Toriyama retconned Goku and Vegeta's power after RoF, even though he had them training for 3 years. Only Toyotaro's version makes sense in this case, but that's because he skipped RoF and also gave Goku and Vegeta the ability to go SSG whenever they want, which is something that could make some sense out of RoF if we believe Goku was able to further improve his SbG state to become SSG (so God Ki instead of mortal Ki)

[Bullza]

The problem is you have a completely different set of rules and power scale for the manga.

I don't know if it's as different as people think that it is.

In the manga Base Goku and his Super Saiyan forms are weaker than Super Saiyan God. How strong is Base Goku in the Super manga? Well we don't know exactly but we could assume that it was stronger than he ever was in Dragon Ball Z.

Maybe the events of Resurrection F played out exactly the same in the manga. I've already mentioned about Base Goku's speed in the manga being impressive.

This could be the exact same with the anime. We know for sure there is a Base Goku and his regular Super Saiyan forms are weaker than Super Saiyan God. We also know there's a Base Goku stronger than he ever was in Dragon Ball Z.

So the only part that people might have wrong is that there's two different Base Goku's when there's probably just the one the entire time.

It wasn't exactly outright confirmed by Goku that Vegeta had grown that strong in his base form.

Well he saw Vegeta fight Beerus so knew how strong he was but still said he couldn't believe how strong Vegeta had gotten and that he couldn't even recognize him.

Whis said that Vegeta had never sparred with him before because he just wasn't at the necessary level before. So if Base Vegeta was finally at that level to fight Whis then he must have been at his strongest otherwise he could have just sparred with him as a Super Saiyan 2 instead.

As for Goku not teleporting to Vegeta, again it could have been because Vegeta was so different that he didn't really know what he was looking for or he just wasn't powered up at the time.

[apex_pretador]

Can someone post the reactions of all big fighters shown exactly when Kale transforms?

[dragon boss z]

Can someone post the reactions of all big fighters shown exactly when Kale transforms?

[apex_pretador]

Can someone post the reactions of all big fighters shown exactly when Kale transforms?

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Great

Here it is clear that everyone except Jiren is either impressed, worried or tensed, but Freeza is smiling.
I guess that should be a decent hint that she is not SSB level

[spoiler]

Herms answered me on Twitter and confirmed that Goku said he would release a LITTLE bit more of his power (after turning into SSB). That '' a little '' should be compared to his SSJ2 form.

This confirms that the power used by Goku at that time was not much in comparison to the total power of the SSB. It was only a small release of power.

So, I do not really see Kale at the level of Goku SSB. We have already had other clues such as the fact that Goku did not even get scratched or bruised after all and act as if nothing had happened.

[/spoiler]

And this should confirm her not being on the same level as SSB.

I'd say it is safe to put her in the same realm as Gohan who is above the likes of #17 and Piccolo but below SSB Goku. This also fits well with (presumably) KKSSB level Jiren one-shotting her like Goku did to Gohan.