Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[ChiefWamsutta]

In fact, I watched the episode back and I have concluded that a good portion of the Troopers, if not all of them are also in the Base-God range.

...

18 is Base-God Tier and so are the Troopers.

...

Prove it. Your disbelief argument isn't going to fly I'm afraid. Find me statements contradicting it. In fact, try your very best to explain away all of the proofs, please.

Most of us here have dedicated a few hours after each episode airs to come on this thread and discuss the current Dragon Ball strengths.

There have been 835 pages and 16,680 comments going back and forth about Goku's Base power. There is a lot of evidence and ideas to sift through back there, but I don't think anyone wants to try and prove that #18 is God tier.

For the people who have delved into the depths of Super's power levels there are a few axioms that have arisen after 101 episodes: 1) Base Goku has been nerfed down to his Z days; 2) Anything pre-Zamasu arc will have some contradictory information to what is currently being shown; 3) Goku has six forms as of now: Base < SS1 < SS2 < SS3 << SSB < SSB KK; 4) Not as many people are god tier as was once thought; 5) Beerus's power level is much higher than initially thought.

So, no, the Pride Troopers and #18 are not SSGod tier and neither is Goku's Base. I have been over this so many freaking times I can't count it. I know you are new here to this forum, but trust me, this has all been discussed and thought through.

[Marlowe89]

Yeah, almost nobody in this thread believes that base Goku and other characters within his tier are as strong as Super Saiyan God. Episode 81 completely dispelled that notion altogether.

So, how strong do you guys have 18 compared to base Goku?

Base Goku wasn't powerful enough to break free from Tupper's weighted form, even after an extended period of time being caught up in that lock. 18 WAS powerful enough, casually breaking free and even lifting him up quite easily to boot.

18 is just stronger than base Goku. Probably much stronger, actually.

[ChiefWamsutta]

18 is just stronger than base Goku. Probably much stronger, actually.

You know, if we follow that idea, this is so similar to DBZ. Base Goku < Android 18 < SS1 Full Power Goku.

Piccolo in Z was weaker than SS1 Full Power Goku/Vegeta/Gohan, and that could be basically why in RoF he was thought to be weaker than Gohan by Frieza, as well as why he was weaker than Frost in the U6 tournament.


Base Goku/Vegeta/Gohan < Android 18 < Piccolo (RoF and U6) < Final Form Frost (U6) < SS1 Full Power Goku/Vegeta/Gohan

[ZombieVito]

Yeah, almost nobody in this thread believes that base Goku and other characters within his tier are as strong as Super Saiyan God. Episode 81 completely dispelled that notion altogether.

So, how strong do you guys have 18 compared to base Goku?

Base Goku wasn't powerful enough to break free from Tupper's weighted form, even after an extended period of time being caught up in that lock. 18 WAS powerful enough, casually breaking free and even lifting him up quite easily to boot.

18 is just stronger than base Goku. Probably much stronger, actually.

Yeah, no doubt she is stronger. I just wonder how much.

Do we know if she trained with Kuririn besides her training in preparation for the 25th TB?

[MainJPW]

Yeah, no doubt she is stronger. I just wonder how much.

Do we know if she trained with Kuririn besides her training in preparation for the 25th TB?

We saw them training in episode 88 and Kuririn mentioned that the tag team energy attack from Ep.99 was something they practised together.

[Zamasu55]

Grand Priest said all the weakest fighters have been eliminated. Guess that confirms Tien>Krillin yet again.

[DBZ Macky]

Grand Priest said all the weakest fighters have been eliminated. Guess that confirms Tien>Krillin yet again.

I knew Kame-sennin was stronger than Bergamo. I mean, the guy trained off screen, that should put him above some random fucking furry. Amirite? [/sarcasm]

[Zamasu55]

Grand Priest said all the weakest fighters have been eliminated. Guess that confirms Tien>Krillin yet again.

I knew Kame-sennin was stronger than Bergamo. I mean, the guy trained off screen, that should put him above some random fucking furry. Amirite? [/sarcasm]

He's also stronger than those Pride Troopers. Way to go Roshi!

[God Movement]

In fact, I watched the episode back and I have concluded that a good portion of the Troopers, if not all of them are also in the Base-God range.

...

18 is Base-God Tier and so are the Troopers.

...

Prove it. Your disbelief argument isn't going to fly I'm afraid. Find me statements contradicting it. In fact, try your very best to explain away all of the proofs, please.

Most of us here have dedicated a few hours after each episode airs to come on this thread and discuss the current Dragon Ball strengths.

There have been 835 pages and 16,680 comments going back and forth about Goku's Base power. There is a lot of evidence and ideas to sift through back there, but I don't think anyone wants to try and prove that #18 is God tier.

For the people who have delved into the depths of Super's power levels there are a few axioms that have arisen after 101 episodes: 1) Base Goku has been nerfed down to his Z days; 2) Anything pre-Zamasu arc will have some contradictory information to what is currently being shown; 3) Goku has six forms as of now: Base < SS1 < SS2 < SS3 << SSB < SSB KK; 4) Not as many people are god tier as was once thought; 5) Beerus's power level is much higher than initially thought.

So, no, the Pride Troopers and #18 are not SSGod tier and neither is Goku's Base. I have been over this so many freaking times I can't count it. I know you are new here to this forum, but trust me, this has all been discussed and thought through.

No, I do not believe you are more well versed on whether Base Goku is God Tier or not or Super powerscaling in general really. I may be new to Kanzenshuu, but I am not new to debating this issue or powerscaling in general, in fact, I'm known for it elsewhere.

Since you want to argue that Base Goku is no longer God Tier, then I want you to explain in the simplest possible way how he was not immediately erased by Sidra's Hakai energy. Take your time. It was only 10 or so episodes ago. Then, explain how he was able to keep up with Golden Freeza's speed perfectly fine in his Base Form.

All I can see is arguments from disbelief everywhere, is that how things are done in this thread or what?

[DBZ Macky]

Since you want to argue that Base Goku is no longer God Tier, then I want you to explain in the simplest possible way how he was not immediately erased by Sidra's Hakai energy. Take your time. It was only 10 or so episodes ago. Then, explain how he was able to keep up with Golden Freeza's speed perfectly fine in his Base Form.

All I can see is arguments from disbelief anywhere, is that how things are done in this thread or what?

SSB Goku is evenly matched with True Golden Frieza. If the original SS multipliers (50/100/400x) still apply, Base Goku would at least probably be 500x weaker than his SSB form, which is a HUGE gap. Either:

1. Goku doesn't need to actually be God Tier to keep up with Frieza's speed (maybe Frieza didn't really go all out against those scrubs?) and to survive Sidra's Hakai Ball (Even Roshi survived Tagoma's attacks. so I doubt survival feats are a good point).

2. Goku can access power close to his Super Saiyan Blue's power without actually transforming. Essentially, the gap between Base and SSB seems to be less than 2x.

Most of the guys here go with the latter interpretation, you may know this as the "two-base theory".

[God Movement]

Since you want to argue that Base Goku is no longer God Tier, then I want you to explain in the simplest possible way how he was not immediately erased by Sidra's Hakai energy. Take your time. It was only 10 or so episodes ago. Then, explain how he was able to keep up with Golden Freeza's speed perfectly fine in his Base Form.

All I can see is arguments from disbelief anywhere, is that how things are done in this thread or what?

SSB Goku is evenly matched with True Golden Frieza. If the original SS multipliers (50/100/400x) still apply, Base Goku would at least probably be 500x weaker than his SSB form, which is a HUGE gap. Either:

1. Goku doesn't need to actually be God Tier to keep up with Frieza's speed (maybe Frieza didn't really go all out against those scrubs?) and to survive Sidra's Hakai Ball (Even Roshi survived Tagoma's attacks. so I doubt survival feats are a good point).

2. Goku can access power close to his Super Saiyan Blue's power without actually transforming. Essentially, the gap between Base and SSB seems to be less than 2x.

Most of the guys here go with the latter interpretation, you may know this as the "two-base theory".

Yeah, but I also know it as the "made-up theory" because there's absolutely no proof of it besides disbelief that supporting characters in Super have growth far, far beyond what you would expect of them in Z.

We know already that Super's growth rate is ridiculous. It's time to accept that and not attempt to head-canon every single thing away. BASE GOKU survived Sidra's Hakai. SSJ3 Goku back in the BoG Arc was pushed by a heavily limited Beerus and was left inches away from death. There's no way around this. It was only 10 or so episodes ago, there's no retcon. Base Goku is God Tier, and from what it looks like 18 probably is now too, although on the lower end, but I'll need to see a bit more before I completely make my mind up.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

Once again, people are arguing about how the powerscaling works, and I continue to go with the simplest and least popular side.

It's a tournament, and a real fight. A real fight doesn't care about power levels, it cares about who does what and how.

From a writing standpoint, Occam's Razor would tell us that the emphasis is on how all these fighters are in intense matches where unique abilities and skills are being thrown around left and right, and our heroes are having a tough time keeping up with them.

Precedence from the original manga run would tell us that power levels determine how effective all of the above would be, whereby certain power classes are simply untouchable by lower ones.

This is still true to an extent in Super, but it has been heavily de-emphasized for classes that are below the top-tier in favour of bringing back elements of true martial arts skill and intensity into the fights. This is the current precedent set by the anime as of this comment. The tournament setting means that, until the top-tier fighters bring out their best in the climax, everything else is fair game in terms of how a fight progresses, (and I DO NOT regret saying this) power-scaling be DAMNED.

[buutenks]

Seems everybody and their mother r above Buu saga now, which i guess goes with DB tradition of leaving previous arc power in the dust.

Tho, this kinda makes the whole universe busting scene in BoG arc a one time thing. Since no one even mentioned that the universe might blow up if these high level fighters fight. Atleast in Z, blowing up planets was mentioned left and right.

[Bullza]

That argument doesn't quite hold. Were that the case, Jiren would be massively holding back either way if he's to fight base Goku regardless of wherever you place the latter.

He'd be holding back but it'd be far fetched for someone much stronger than Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken to hold himself back to any Buu saga Base levels and still have an intense fight out of it.

It's like how Base Goku matched up against Hit and landed a punch on him and cut him even though he was stronger than Super Saiyan Blue or like how just a few episodes ago he kept up with Golden Frieza zipping around. That's the real Base Goku, like the one who also fought Monaka-Beerus and gave him some trouble.

He won't fight like that against scrubs just like he didn't against Botamo or Frost in the other Tournament. What will happen is he will eventually fight Jiren in Base form, put up an admirable performance and then again people will start saying "Oh he must be using Saiyan Beyond God now" even though once again there will be nothing said or shown to indicate it.

The difference between all those examples you've cited and what's happening in this episode is that Goku was established to be holding back in those instances.

Well they have established in the past a few times that he is a slow starter and he was shown to be one in the last Tournament. In every Tournament in Dragon Ball he's held back from the start, he never went full power until he fought the main guy.

It's not like there's anything in particular to even say he's a weakling, he was caught off guard by Nink, was teamed up on against the people of Universe 9 whose Ki he couldn't sense and they actually said in this episode that Goku let his guard down and that was why Vuon grabbed him.

Goku was caught in the bear grip, the one that allowed Goku to hold Raditz, Android 16 to hold Cell and Nink to hold Goku. Android 18 was not in that position, plus she didn't let her guard down.

Goku is on par with Frieza in his Final Form, that was shown all the way back then and more recently when they punched each other and look how easily Frieza is mopping people up, no effort whatsoever because he's not making the same stupid mistakes that Goku is.

This notion that base Goku is far above the Pride Troopers and all these other fighters in the tournament doesn't jibe at all with everything that's been consistently conveyed in the show.

Base Goku probably isn't far stronger than them. The Pride Troopers are probably pretty strong. The one Android 18 threw out kinda lost by bad luck. Kahseral put Android 17 on the defensive. Kettol beat up Caulifla. Kahseral along with the other three Pride Troopers were overpowering Super Saiyan Caulifla and Kale and they had to transform into Super Saiyan 2 and Super Saiyan Berserk in order to win and even that took a bit of a effort and Kale had no problem walking through Super Saiyan Blue Goku's Kamehameha last episode.

The female Pride Trooper had a barrier strong enough to withstand it. She lost because Android 18 threw her out but anyone could have done the same.

[DBZ Macky]

Yeah, but I also know it as the "made-up theory" because there's absolutely no proof of it besides disbelief that supporting characters in Super have growth far, far beyond what you would expect of them in Z.

We know already that Super's growth rate is ridiculous. It's time to accept that and not attempt to head-canon every single thing away. BASE GOKU survived Sidra's Hakai. SSJ3 Goku back in the BoG Arc was pushed by a heavily limited Beerus and was left inches away from death. There's no way around this. It was only 10 or so episodes ago, there's no retcon. Base Goku is God Tier, and from what it looks like 18 probably is now too, although on the lower end, but I'll need to see a bit more before I completely make my mind up.

Do you honestly believe that? Do you really think Super is trying to tell us that 18 is God tier? Do you really think Krillin is anywhere near God Tier just from lifting some weights?

You're just taking everything at face value, you're not supposed to do that. It's the easy way out, but not necessarily the best. It might save you the trouble of coming up with a reasonable explanation of your own (what you call "head-canon"), but it's kind of silly.

Everyone keeps bringing up the argument that the Two-Base Theory is "too complicated" and that "Toei wouldn't confuse the kids like that". But the thing is, kids aren't gullible enough to actually believe that 18 is God Tier, especially if they've seen how hard Goku and Vegeta had to work to reach that level. You're going out of your way to take things at face value, kids won't do that.

We've already had so much stuff that does support something akin to a two-base theory. I'm not trying to sound like an arrogant powar levuls expert or something, but we really have discussed Goku and Vegeta's base at length here.

Everybody (including "the kids") knows something's up. If it isn't the "two-base theory" then it's the "Goku's holding back!" theory.

[LowRyder2005]

Since you want to argue that Base Goku is no longer God Tier, then I want you to explain in the simplest possible way how he was not immediately erased by Sidra's Hakai energy. Take your time. It was only 10 or so episodes ago. Then, explain how he was able to keep up with Golden Freeza's speed perfectly fine in his Base Form.

All I can see is arguments from disbelief anywhere, is that how things are done in this thread or what?

SSB Goku is evenly matched with True Golden Frieza. If the original SS multipliers (50/100/400x) still apply, Base Goku would at least probably be 500x weaker than his SSB form, which is a HUGE gap. Either:

1. Goku doesn't need to actually be God Tier to keep up with Frieza's speed (maybe Frieza didn't really go all out against those scrubs?) and to survive Sidra's Hakai Ball (Even Roshi survived Tagoma's attacks. so I doubt survival feats are a good point).

2. Goku can access power close to his Super Saiyan Blue's power without actually transforming. Essentially, the gap between Base and SSB seems to be less than 2x.

Most of the guys here go with the latter interpretation, you may know this as the "two-base theory".

Yeah, but I also know it as the "made-up theory" because there's absolutely no proof of it besides disbelief that supporting characters in Super have growth far, far beyond what you would expect of them in Z.

We know already that Super's growth rate is ridiculous. It's time to accept that and not attempt to head-canon every single thing away. BASE GOKU survived Sidra's Hakai. SSJ3 Goku back in the BoG Arc was pushed by a heavily limited Beerus and was left inches away from death. There's no way around this. It was only 10 or so episodes ago, there's no retcon. Base Goku is God Tier, and from what it looks like 18 probably is now too, although on the lower end, but I'll need to see a bit more before I completely make my mind up.

The latter half of the show goes directly against this very notion. I'm surprised nobody mentioned it yet, at this point: if base Goku was "God tier" he wouldn't have needed to go Super Saiyan against a Gohan who's overall labeled as weaker than "Ultimate Gohan" from the Buu arc (through official synopses, in-universe statements etc.). His base form would've sufficed at extremely contained levels. It takes something akin as simple math and some very basic assumptions (like where Super Buu, Gotenks and Ultimate Gohan all stood compared to each other in the Buu saga).

I also question, as usual, what I feel like is a strange tendency to ignore basic narrative world-building. Super's also did not make such a big deal of whatever level Krillin/ #18 had reached (Krillin is literally stated to have trained with some weight machines he presumably bought somewhere), while Goku and Vegeta were heavily implied to have basically hit their limit with conventional training methods (7 years of training later in the Majin Buu saga and they still are about as strong as they were in the Cell Games). I mean, I don't quite understand how would anyone not feel like it's extremely counter-intuitive, especially after you realize it's gratuitous and at least as confusing as out-of-universe theories about the writing team changing their portrayal of this or that character.

[Marlowe89]

Yeah, no doubt she is stronger. I just wonder how much.

I'd wager that the writers are placing her on the Super Saiyan pedestal like in DBZ. That's not to argue that she's as strong as current Super Saiyan Goku, but I do think she might be somewhere in that general tier.

He'd be holding back but it'd be far fetched for someone much stronger than Super Saiyan Blue Kaioken to hold himself back to any Buu saga Base levels and still have an intense fight out of it.

Again, it'd be far-fetched for Jiren to get an intense fight out of it regardless of wherever you place base Goku -- he'd be holding back hundreds and hundreds of times either way. You could have Goku on par with Ultimate Gohan in Z or maybe even above and yet the gap between that and Blue (especially Blue Kaioken) is still completely monumental. It's literally four or five transformations away.

As for Frieza, none of those examples are battle feats on Goku's end. Even then, we honestly have no idea where the writers are placing Final Form Frieza now if he was supposed to be equal to base Goku in RoF; the assassin schmucks from Universe 9 aren't even stronger than Final Form Frieza, so it's pretty unlikely that Golden Frieza was using anything close to his max power/speed just going by how effortlessly he mopped the floor with him.

For the record and just so we're on the same page here, this specific point (and post) of mine isn't a defense of the two base theory.

Android 18 was not in that position, plus she didn't let her guard down.

18 was in a much worse position than any bear hold, having been pinned down by Tupper's entire body weight. That didn't stop her from easily lifting Tupper like he was some paperweight and then just throwing him off the stage. Goku couldn't manage anything close to that even after a decent amount of time getting caught in that lock. Whether they had their guard down is irrelevant to how much strength they were capable of outputting.

His base is just plainly inferior to 18 in raw strength to a considerable degree. I really don't know how much more clearly that could have been expressed in the episode.

[AvatarReiko]

One last thing. At the end of the episode, Goku says he'll let Caulifla and Kale leave, because the two would get even stronger.
And with that the real battle will still happen.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

That is, he wants them both to become even stronger so he can face them, showing more evidence of Goku really had not been serious in the previous fight and that he is still much stronger

I didn't get this. leave? leave where? They're supposed to be in the middle of battle royal. Are the participants even allowed yo take breaks mid-fight? It's also annoying that we constantly have characters standing around chit-chatting. It doesn't take much for one of the other competitors to sneak up behind and knock them out of bounds

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

One last thing. At the end of the episode, Goku says he'll let Caulifla and Kale leave, because the two would get even stronger.
And with that the real battle will still happen.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

That is, he wants them both to become even stronger so he can face them, showing more evidence of Goku really had not been serious in the previous fight and that he is still much stronger

I didn't get this. leave? leave where? They're supposed to be in the middle of battle royal. Are the participants even allowed yo take breaks mid-fight? It's also annoying that we constantly have characters standing around chit-chatting. It doesn't take much for one of the other competitors to sneak up behind and knock them out of bounds

Fights take a lot out of people. 48 minutes is a LONG time to be fighting non-stop, so of course one would expect that not everyone will be fighting at every single moment. Hell, Daishinkan himself highlights this, as he explicitly says that a lot of the fighters are starting to grow tired at this point.

That, and the terrain being uprooted after Kale's rampage means that teammates were separated and must re-group after all the confusion, as team Universe 7 did.

Plus, it's a BIG fighting arena, meaning fights could be happening just around the corner, and it still wouldn't be anywhere near where our protagonists are.

[TheMikado]

You know the whole thing that makes this Base Goku situation in this episode many times worse is that not only does he know FSSJ but he developed and invented the concept to the point where he could do it completely subconsciously and it was as "natural as his normal state".

Goku should be in FSSJ this whole tournament, he spent literally days and weeks as a SSJ just fine I would think he could hold it for 48 minutes just so he stops getting caught off guard by weak foes. There's not really any excuse for him to at least not go FSSJ but at the same time we did see him have I break a hold using SSB so I don't know what to think.