Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[Bullza]

Piccolo did say that after Ultimate Gohan had regained his powers that he didn't think that was all he was capable of and that's why they continued training.

So he would be a stronger Ultimate Gohan than in the Buu Saga and like I said Vegeta did say that Gohan had the greatest potential of them all but how strong he is exactly I suppose we don't know for certain.

[Ki Breaker]

Piccolo did say that after Ultimate Gohan had regained his powers that he didn't think that was all he was capable of and that's why they continued training.

So he would be a stronger Ultimate Gohan than in the Buu Saga and like I said Vegeta did say that Gohan had the greatest potential of them all but how strong he is exactly I suppose we don't know for certain.

Him landing blows on Goku blue together with Freeza going golden as a response to his ultimate, he should sit somewhere between blue to god..

[Ziegander]

How DBS power levels now work:

Piccolo has a PL of, I dunno, 1 billion.

Base Goku has a PL of, say, 500 million.

Both train. Both double their battle power, but Goku also unlocks SSB!!

Now Piccolo has a PL of 2 billion and Base Goku a PL of 1 billion.

Piccolo has no higher form.

On the other hand, SSJ Goku now has a PL of 50 billion and is 25 times stronger than Piccolo. Goku can additionally go SSJ2 for PL 100 billion, even SSJ3 for PL 400 billion if he wants, and now he can also go SSB for a power level of 1 trillion maybe.

Okay, but Piccolo trains with Gohan. Base Gohan has a power level of like 1 million.

Piccolo doubles his battle power again, but Gohan regains his Ultimate Power (TM)!!!!

Now Piccolo has a PL of 4 billion and "Base Gohan" a power level of, I dunno, 40 million.

Piccolo still has no higher form.

On the other hand, full power Bang Gohan has a PL of like 500+ billion ROFLMAO.

Goku can train for a few days and essentially permanently increase his SSJ to what his SSJ2 was a week ago. And he can do this over and over (and has been shown doing so). It's out of control.

[TAF108]

I concur with the idea of the scaling having taken a definite dive.

It's clear that DBS is lacking in consistency when it comes to power-scaling, hence why I feel we sometimes grasp at straws in order to make things make sense. Because, putting it simply, they don't make sense as is.

Personally I plan on rewatching the Tournament of Power (terrible name since it's a battle royal) when it's over and then complying all of the inconsistencies in the order which they occur. But this arc is hardly the first one where these errors occur, it's just the arc where they try to cover it up by saying skill matters when more than half the characters in the ToP should be getting blitzed into utter oblivion as, ironically, the Freeza Saga showed.

I mean we could delve deeply into how power-scaling as failed from a increase standpoint. Being that Dragon Ball as a whole has an escalation problem. The stronger the main characters get, Goku for instance, the stronger the opponents need to be in kind even when Goku's current level of power is claimed to be one that cannot be reached by training. And from there you get a myriad of different issues. The constant question of if Goku is holding back in order to explain how easily he's beaten or how a character who's presumably much weaker than him. Or you get the opposite, wondering how that character is so strong or how they became so strong in such a short period?

This problem starts in the Universe 6 arc. You wonder how a Saiyajin from another universe can fight constantly, to the point where he's equal to base Vegeta (or at least that's what Vegeta tells himself), yet he has never become a Super Saiyajin and the legend doesn't even exist. We have Frost, who like Freeza has forms to restrict his power but never seems to acknowledge the need to regulate his power. He seems to out perform base Goku but has no chance against SSJ Goku and lacks an ultimate evolution. Magetta, a metalman, a race universe 6 has that even the Kaios are unaware of, yet tanks all of SSJ Vegeta's attacks, who at that point should be well above the power of a Super Saiyajin God. Trunks returns after fighting Black, well he's obviously gotten zenkai's or something to make him a match for Goku.

And from there we get the Two-Base theory. Based on the idea presented in the RoF film, and named in the DBH games, a godly base state for Saiyajins. However rather let that form go with the films, it's brought into DBS to explain away inconsistency with how his base strength is displayed. Base Goku lost to Frost? Well that's his weaker base. Saiyajin Beyond God Goku was trading blows with Hit. I know this theory is popular, so I have no intentions of belittling it. But to me that's how I see it.

There's the prodigy problem. Where any one can have an insane increase in power and it being explained by them being a prodigy or the fact that he trained in secret. Caulfila activates SSJ2 without even mastering SSJ? Don't worry about it, she's a prodigy. She unleashes USSJ in two days time? She's a prodigy. Freeza goes from a joke to God-tier in 4 months? He's a prodigy and a mutant. Freeza perfects his Golden form while in hell? A prodigy's mental training. Zamasu could rival a god of destruction as a Kaioshin? (Well really he's a Kaio like King Kai), well he's a prodigy. Roshi admitted his students had surpassed him in DB so he's been fodder since? Well he's been training in secret to reach new heights. Krillin stops training after the Cell Games to the point in DBS where he can be harmed by bullets? Well he's been training in secret and he's stronger than ever.

Then there's the God ki problem, where they try to make the concept seem incredibly important. But it only seems to matter, for the Saiyajins. All the Kaioshins had god ki and they were fodderized by Boo. Dende and Kami had god ki, or at least could sense it, and they're fodder. King Kai has god ki, and the same applies. Them introducing this concept, making all important and then making it irrelevant was a bad move.

Though the biggest one has to be PIS. Especially since people seem to not get the concept in this community. likely because it's more of a comic book thing. But to put it simply, PIS stands for plot induced stupidity. And it means that dumb things happen for the sake of plot. DBS is full of this. Mirai Trunks is able to fight Rose Black and survive a Kamehame-Ha that crippled Goku, due to plot. And then you have people legitimately saying SSJ2 Trunks is SSJB level just because he trained with Vegeta and then that episode happened. Goku over powers Gattai Zamasu when it took both Vegeta and Trunks before hand, because we need Zamasu to become corrupted. Goku and Vegeta use SSJB against universe 9 despite the fact that they should be weaker than base form because Caulfifla needs to be impressed. I think people need to recognize this as a real present thing in the anime. All of the other issues stem from this. Character will be as strong as the plot demands.

Similarly, this is why the series is thrown the asspull accusation, because characters strength is entirely dependent on the plot and they can pull whatever out of there ass in order for them to suit the nature of the current plot.

Son Gohan has grown weaker to the point where he can barely hold the Super Saiyajin transformation (one he mastered as a child), yet he's still stronger than Piccolo who has been training non-stop since the Cell Games barely made any progress apparently. Now in a twist turn of events Gohan does regain his Ultimate form by training for a few years, but Piccolo finally surpasses SSJ2 after a decade of trying. Then Gohan in a day becomes monumentally stronger. Even if he's not Blue tier, his jump was insane.

Super Saiyajin God comes back because reasons. It's just the inherent nature of the show to do what needs to be done for episode to episode progression. No reason to pretend they have levels all planned out. More likely than not they just receive general notes and alter each episode based around them. Going back to Frost, he was presumably stronger than base Saiyajins, but now according to Champa he's no match for Freeza despite his early standing, Hit claiming he made him get serious and him fighting SSJ Vegeta for a bit. Early Freeza was torturing Napapa but at the same time Napapa nearly knocks off SSJ Caulfila, which isn't inherently bad unless later they try to tell us U6 Saiyajins can still contend with their Universe 7 counterparts. Jimeze was fighting SSJ Goku but gets knocked aside by base Caulfila and Freeza stomps him. Again, not inherently bad, but it's something. Base Cabba one-shots Nigrisshi, the greatest modified warrior, but Maji Kayo was the one they expected to properly assess Jiren and man-handled Dyspo. The only explanation there is that he's not modified.

Then there's the holding back issue. Another way to explain inconsistency is the idea that certain characters are holding back, again to suit the needs of the plot. This can be obvious, and ergo no big deal. Or it can be an interpretation, which is to again explain the difference in character's strength becoming nonexistent. Personally, I kind of hate this one the most. As the Tournament of Power uses it the most, once again because it likes to pretend the events of Z didn't occur.

That's a long tirade, I know. But the point of my comment is that some things need to be taken at face value. And are subject to change, because they will change when the plot needs them to.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

You can call me a bad fan, or a "sheeple" fan, but personally, I could never see why power-scaling has to be such a big deal.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually DO like to power-scale myself, but only for the fun of it and seeing if I can work things out myself. I don't know, seeing people deride the inconsistencies and flaws and generally getting upset with how little flow there is makes me shake my head in confusion. I guess I'm just not seeing the inconsistencies as a deal-breaker, because it has been awhile since I experienced Dragon Ball. Nearly 15 years, I think, before I got reintroduced with the release of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods.

After watching that film, I realized that, hey, I still love Dragon Ball! And then I came here, looked at some interesting threads, and saw the power-scaling. i thought, "Huh, that's interesting, people putting numbers and logic equations to this fun Shonen series, but sure, why not?", and lurked around before officially joining Kanzenshuu's community. But then I saw the precursor to the heated discussion we now regularly have today.

Explain it to a fan that got reintroduced only a few years ago, and who just rolls with the flow. What gets everyone's heebie-jeebies in a bunch?

[TheMikado]

You can call me a bad fan, or a "sheeple" fan, but personally, I could never see why power-scaling has to be such a big deal.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually DO like to power-scale myself, but only for the fun of it and seeing if I can work things out myself. I don't know, seeing people deride the inconsistencies and flaws and generally getting upset with how little flow there is makes me shake my head in confusion. I guess I'm just not seeing the inconsistencies as a deal-breaker, because it has been awhile since I experienced Dragon Ball. Nearly 15 years, I think, before I got reintroduced with the release of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods.

After watching that film, I realized that, hey, I still love Dragon Ball! And then I came here, looked at some interesting threads, and saw the power-scaling. i thought, "Huh, that's interesting, people putting numbers and logic equations to this fun Shonen series, but sure, why not?", and lurked around before officially joining Kanzenshuu's community. But then I saw the precursor to the heated discussion we now regularly have today.

Explain it to a fan that got reintroduced only a few years ago, and who just rolls with the flow. What gets everyone's heebie-jeebies in a bunch?

This is my forte.
What is Dragonball about at its core?
Well initially it was about adventure. New discoveries and the unknown.
Characters adventured into new areas/scenarios, getting stronger along the way. However the power scale was never dramatically vertical at this stage, more horizontal with different techniques.
However into the latter stages of Dragonball after Goku had grown up a bit and in the precursor to the "Z" era in the anime, the dynamics began to shift. It became far less about adventure and more about "POWER" in what was to be the blueprint for all shonen in the future.
We will start in the "Z" era of the anime. I'm even going to highlight the words power so that it's less subtle that the premise of the Z era is centered around power.
A mysterious being appears searching for someone. He happens across Piccolo who we know to be an enemy of Goku. His means of locating Piccolo?? Not a genetic scanner... but a POWER level scanner... Further Piccolo is fearful of Raditz because he senses his POWER. Piccolo attempts to fire off a blast at Raditz only to discover his blast is completely ineffective because he's not "POWER"ful enough. Raditz then flies off looking for another large "POWER" level. Finds Goku and easily defeats him. Raditz mocks Gokus "POWER" Then further mocks him for losing his tail because that is his "true POWER". Raditz takes Gohan and leaves. Roshi, Krillin, Goku talk about how to take on Raditz although they aren't "POWER"ful enough. Piccolo shows up. He wants to team up with Goku because they are the only two "POWER"ful enough to take him on. Meanwhile Raditz is relaxing with Gohan and senses a high "POWER" level seeming to come from Gohan and assumes his scouter is broken. He then senses the incoming "POWER" levels from Goku and Piccolo and realizes Gohan may actually be that "POWER"ful. Goku and Piccolo arrive and increase their "POWER" by removing weighted clothing. They can further increase their "POWER" by charged attacks. However it is still not enough to defeat Raditz resulting in Gohan bursting out of the spacepod and attacking Raditz with his raw "POWER". Goku manages to get Raditz in a lock and Piccolo charges up for a "POWER"ful attack that kills both Raditz and Goku. Before Raditz dies he says there are two more saiyans headed to earth more "POWER"ful than he is.

And this is just the first few episodes/chapters of the "Z" era.
EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS PLOTWISE IN Z ERA DRAGONBALL IS DRIVEN BY POWER.

Gohan is trained by Piccolo to become more powerful to fight the even more powerful saiyans. Goku goes to King Kai's place for special training to become more powerful. Bunch of people die, they head to Namek to get dragonballs to wish everyone back and its only a problem because of all the POWERFUL enemies on Namek. Then they get back and new SSJ appears who is more POWERFUL than Frieza, and tells them about a future where POWERFUL androids kill everyone and the cast needs to get MORE powerful than them to survive.

Literally NONE OF THE PLOT IN Z ERA WORKS WITHOUT A CONSISTENT POWER TIER! If they were stronger than Raditz none of this would have happened or if the Z crew could easily take out Nappa they may not have even gone to Namek, or fought frieza. If the Krillin and Gohan were stronger than Frieza's henchmen or Frieza Namek would be no problem. If the androids were actually weak it would have played out just like 19/20. Even in the Buu saga, Goku and Vegeta didn't think Buu was going to be that strong at all, and really he wasn't he just has crazy abilities than make him indestructible.

Again, POWER is the number one driver of the plot of Z era Dragonball. We watch the characters struggle and train for years in increasingly incredible methods to obtain new levels of power. Its a struggle, a journey, and an experience. The problem with Super is that all falls apart. The power structure isn't there, so the process to obtain it becames meaningless, therefore the plot has no clear direction other than a few bullet points. The characters don't grow meaningfully because they don't have to. When you have literary piece centered around a specific theme you need to at the very least get that theme correct.

Making a shonen focusing on power without proper power levels/tiers is like making a romance anime without realistic, believable, and well written/defined relationship dynamics. Its just going to be poorly written and not well thought out.

[Lord Beerus]

You can call me a bad fan, or a "sheeple" fan, but personally, I could never see why power-scaling has to be such a big deal.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually DO like to power-scale myself, but only for the fun of it and seeing if I can work things out myself. I don't know, seeing people deride the inconsistencies and flaws and generally getting upset with how little flow there is makes me shake my head in confusion. I guess I'm just not seeing the inconsistencies as a deal-breaker, because it has been awhile since I experienced Dragon Ball. Nearly 15 years, I think, before I got reintroduced with the release of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods.

After watching that film, I realized that, hey, I still love Dragon Ball! And then I came here, looked at some interesting threads, and saw the power-scaling. i thought, "Huh, that's interesting, people putting numbers and logic equations to this fun Shonen series, but sure, why not?", and lurked around before officially joining Kanzenshuu's community. But then I saw the precursor to the heated discussion we now regularly have today.

Explain it to a fan that got reintroduced only a few years ago, and who just rolls with the flow. What gets everyone's heebie-jeebies in a bunch?

I've talked about this in length in the past, so I'll just rephrase myself:

Dragon Ball Super doesn't go down the conventional route of power scaling and battle powers like Z did. But this approach is very much a double edged sword because it's gonna can create issues with determining how strong certain characters may be. And that's a fundamental aspect in show like Dragon Ball as that can take you out of moment or the narrative as a whole, because if you can't tell who is stronger than who, especially in a grand narrative like Dragon Ball where the story is centred around fighting and power, then you're gonna feel conflicted with how much you can get invested into events with the story.

For me personally, power consistency doesn't matter much to me if the story itself is uninteresting and doesn't experiment with other members of the cast to bring something unique to the plot. If a shake up of the status quo is needed to make the narrative more intriguing and have we have to break some non-established and already contradictory power hierarchy "rules" to give the supporting cast their moment in the sun, while also bringing back an essence of the teamwork and strategy that has been lost in Dragon Ball for so many years, then so be it. The Tournament Of Power has/is currently doing this for me and has made Dragon Ball Super all the more entertaining for me.

I'd much rather have an interesting show with an unorthodox approach to power, strategy and teamwork, where all the cast feel worthwhile, than just a run-of-the-mill fighting show where you know the supporting can't do anything and the main character(s) are untouchable and do most of the heavy lifting. We already went down route during a large portion of Z and practically all of GT. So having guys like Roshi, Tenshinhan and Krillin being brought back into prominence is a very welcome direction to me. Super wants everyone in the team to be super strong and awesome and not feel like jobbers or dead weight compared to Goku and Vegeta and contribute something of importance to the plot. For me, it make things way more interesting, and props to Super for being bold with this approach. But there's nothing wrong with wanting consistency in power strength and everyone has to right to call bullshit on Dragon Ball Super's power level shenanigans.

[TheMikado]

You can call me a bad fan, or a "sheeple" fan, but personally, I could never see why power-scaling has to be such a big deal.

Now don't get me wrong, I actually DO like to power-scale myself, but only for the fun of it and seeing if I can work things out myself. I don't know, seeing people deride the inconsistencies and flaws and generally getting upset with how little flow there is makes me shake my head in confusion. I guess I'm just not seeing the inconsistencies as a deal-breaker, because it has been awhile since I experienced Dragon Ball. Nearly 15 years, I think, before I got reintroduced with the release of Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods.

After watching that film, I realized that, hey, I still love Dragon Ball! And then I came here, looked at some interesting threads, and saw the power-scaling. i thought, "Huh, that's interesting, people putting numbers and logic equations to this fun Shonen series, but sure, why not?", and lurked around before officially joining Kanzenshuu's community. But then I saw the precursor to the heated discussion we now regularly have today.

Explain it to a fan that got reintroduced only a few years ago, and who just rolls with the flow. What gets everyone's heebie-jeebies in a bunch?

I've talked about this in length in the past, so I'll just rephrase myself:

Dragon Ball Super doesn't go down the conventional route of power scaling and battle powers like Z did. But this approach is very much a double edged sword because it's gonna can create issues with determining how strong certain characters may be. And that's a fundamental aspect in show like Dragon Ball as that can take you out of moment or the narrative as a whole, because if you can't tell who is stronger than who, especially in a grand narrative like Dragon Ball where the story is centred around fighting and power, then you're gonna feel conflicted with how much you can get invested into events with the story.

For me personally, power consistency doesn't matter much to me if the story itself is uninteresting and doesn't experiment with other members of the cast to bring something unique to the plot. If a shake up of the status quo is needed to make the narrative more intriguing and have we have to break some non-established and already contradictory power hierarchy "rules" to give the supporting cast their moment in the sun, while also bringing back an essence of the teamwork and strategy that has been lost in Dragon Ball for so many years, then so be it. The Tournament Of Power has/is currently doing this for me and has made Dragon Ball Super all the more entertaining for me.

I'd much rather have an interesting show with an unorthodox approach to power, strategy and teamwork, where all the cast feel worthwhile, than just a run-of-the-mill fighting show where you know the supporting can't do anything and the main character(s) are untouchable and do most of the heavy lifting. We already went down route during a large portion of Z and practically all of GT. So having guys like Roshi, Tenshinhan and Krillin being brought back into prominence is a very welcome direction to me. Super wants everyone in the team to be super strong and awesome and not feel like jobbers or dead weight compared to Goku and Vegeta and contribute something of importance to the plot. For me, it make things way more interesting, and props to Super for being bold with this approach. But there's nothing wrong with wanting consistency in power strength and everyone has to right to call bullshit on Dragon Ball Super's power level shenanigans.

You know what my biggest gripe about Super is.. I actually don't mind them trying to level the playing field. The problem I have is they can't seem to decide whether want to bring characters UP to a certain level or DOWN to a certain level. It's like MAKE UP YOUR MIND!!!

You have them bring Cabba, Califa, Kale, Roshi, Krillin, etc up. While simultaneously reducing characters like Goku, Frost, Vegeta, etc. It's the weirdest thing because you can't gauge if someone is going all out, hit their limit, outclassed, or holding back at any given time. You really have no idea if a character is actually in over their heads or performing really well at any time. If they just made Goku and retconned most of his power to where he in base, Roshi, Tien, Krillin, Cabba, Califa, Kale, etc. were all pretty equal and stuck with it. I would be ok with that.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

From what I've gathered, it seems as though explicit statements in-universe about these sorts of things would at least satiate folks around here.

However, I can understand why the anime staff wouldn't go that route. It would require a lot of scripting work, re-working the animation done months ahead of time, and doesn't leave as much room for the creative animation process and accompanying dialogue when everything has to revolve around specific statements. I can see how this would be frustrating for power-scaling folks like in this thread, but at the same time I can see why the anime staff wouldn't want to touch this kind of stuff with a 100-foot pole except in the most narrative-appropriate instances.

The balance is hard to achieve, especially in the kind of work environment that Toei's production staff have to work with for this show.

[TheMikado]

From what I've gathered, it seems as though explicit statements in-universe about these sorts of things would at least satiate folks around here.

However, I can understand why the anime staff wouldn't go that route. It would require a lot of scripting work, re-working the animation done months ahead of time, and doesn't leave as much room for the creative animation process and accompanying dialogue when everything has to revolve around specific statements. I can see how this would be frustrating for power-scaling folks like in this thread, but at the same time I can see why the anime staff wouldn't want to touch this kind of stuff with a 100-foot pole except in the most narrative-appropriate instances.

The balance is hard to achieve, especially in the kind of work environment that Toei's production staff have to work with for this show.

It's more than that though. It robs the story of their substance. The power levels don't just show how "strong" a character is. It represents an entire journey.
Gohan's SSJ2 form represents a period of time in which he needed to overcome self-doubt.
Piccolo fusing with Kami and gaining that power represents a growth of that character from being an enemy to aligning with good.
When Piccolo gains this power it is a representation of the growth he's experienced as a character from back with his interaction with Gohan, and that without those key aspects and growth Piccolo would have never have been able to reach those heights of power because he wouldn't have the heart or desire to fuse with Kami.
The power levels are not isolated in a vacuum. They mean something about the journey they experienced. Or at least they use to...
Caulifa turning SSJ1 vs SSJ2 means absolutely nothing at all for the character. Kale going LSSJ tells of nothing of her past or why.
Vegeta being Majin Vegeta was a MAJOR character revelation and source of character growth. When we see Majin Vegeta we align it with that entire development he undertook during that arc.
It's so much more than just power.

[Bullza]

Caulifla turning Super Saiyan isn't supposed to mean anything for the character just like it didn't mean anything for Trunks or Goten. It's just a form they tapped into it so they can fight stronger characters, like how most forms worked in Z.

[TheMikado]

Caulifla turning Super Saiyan isn't supposed to mean anything for the character just like it didn't mean anything for Trunks or Goten. It's just a form they tapped into it so they can fight stronger characters, like how most forms worked in Z.

Again why do people take the WORST aspects of Z that have been universally panned and then take a similar situation which is several magnitudes worse than the worse grievances of Z as a means to excuse it.

Taking something that was considered garbage and then comparing something to it while it being quantifiably worse would make that thing worse than garbage correct?
Something being bad doesn’t give license to do the same bad thing 100x worse and more often.

[lord turbo]

Piccolo did say that after Ultimate Gohan had regained his powers that he didn't think that was all he was capable of and that's why they continued training.

So he would be a stronger Ultimate Gohan than in the Buu Saga and like I said Vegeta did say that Gohan had the greatest potential of them all but how strong he is exactly I suppose we don't know for certain.

If I understand correctly the Ultimate form is a state that brings out all of Gohan's latent potential to the surface as noted by Elder Kaioshin. Vegeta (He has SSJB by this point) mentioned Gohan has the highest potential out of all of them (Goku didn't disagree) so its possible for Gohan (Whatever it is) do some meditating to bring out all that potential and bam, he's SSJB or possibly higher. I mean the writers did leave themselves and out so it doesn't seem entirely improbable. I mean this is the same series where Goku got much stronger from climbing essentially a tall ladder and chasing an anthropomorphic cat for 3 days to the point he went from significantly weaker than Tao Pai Pai to significantly stronger. the Saiyans' NDPU trait allowed Goku to go from 90,000 in power level to supposedly 3 million, Piccollo in 5 days went from over 1,200 to supposedly near half of Freeza's first form level according to Nail (its mentioned by Guru that splitting himself halved his power) who states Piccolo might have been strong enough to beat Freeza if he had come back joined, then you have Gohan go from the weakest compared to Vegeta and Goku in the Buu Sagag to not only making up 7 years of neglect, but surpassing those two in the same equal saiyans forms from essentially doing weight training for a few hours with the Z-sword.

Dragon Ball's abnormal growth record has never been really logical and seems to be consistently continuing that trait in Super so should we really be surprised at this point in time?

[spoiler]

I concur with the idea of the scaling having taken a definite dive.

It's clear that DBS is lacking in consistency when it comes to power-scaling, hence why I feel we sometimes grasp at straws in order to make things make sense. Because, putting it simply, they don't make sense as is.

Personally I plan on rewatching the Tournament of Power (terrible name since it's a battle royal) when it's over and then complying all of the inconsistencies in the order which they occur. But this arc is hardly the first one where these errors occur, it's just the arc where they try to cover it up by saying skill matters when more than half the characters in the ToP should be getting blitzed into utter oblivion as, ironically, the Freeza Saga showed.

I mean we could delve deeply into how power-scaling as failed from a increase standpoint. Being that Dragon Ball as a whole has an escalation problem. The stronger the main characters get, Goku for instance, the stronger the opponents need to be in kind even when Goku's current level of power is claimed to be one that cannot be reached by training. And from there you get a myriad of different issues. The constant question of if Goku is holding back in order to explain how easily he's beaten or how a character who's presumably much weaker than him. Or you get the opposite, wondering how that character is so strong or how they became so strong in such a short period?

This problem starts in the Universe 6 arc. You wonder how a Saiyajin from another universe can fight constantly, to the point where he's equal to base Vegeta (or at least that's what Vegeta tells himself), yet he has never become a Super Saiyajin and the legend doesn't even exist. We have Frost, who like Freeza has forms to restrict his power but never seems to acknowledge the need to regulate his power. He seems to out perform base Goku but has no chance against SSJ Goku and lacks an ultimate evolution. Magetta, a metalman, a race universe 6 has that even the Kaios are unaware of, yet tanks all of SSJ Vegeta's attacks, who at that point should be well above the power of a Super Saiyajin God. Trunks returns after fighting Black, well he's obviously gotten zenkai's or something to make him a match for Goku.

And from there we get the Two-Base theory. Based on the idea presented in the RoF film, and named in the DBH games, a godly base state for Saiyajins. However rather let that form go with the films, it's brought into DBS to explain away inconsistency with how his base strength is displayed. Base Goku lost to Frost? Well that's his weaker base. Saiyajin Beyond God Goku was trading blows with Hit. I know this theory is popular, so I have no intentions of belittling it. But to me that's how I see it.

There's the prodigy problem. Where any one can have an insane increase in power and it being explained by them being a prodigy or the fact that he trained in secret. Caulfila activates SSJ2 without even mastering SSJ? Don't worry about it, she's a prodigy. She unleashes USSJ in two days time? She's a prodigy. Freeza goes from a joke to God-tier in 4 months? He's a prodigy and a mutant. Freeza perfects his Golden form while in hell? A prodigy's mental training. Zamasu could rival a god of destruction as a Kaioshin? (Well really he's a Kaio like King Kai), well he's a prodigy. Roshi admitted his students had surpassed him in DB so he's been fodder since? Well he's been training in secret to reach new heights. Krillin stops training after the Cell Games to the point in DBS where he can be harmed by bullets? Well he's been training in secret and he's stronger than ever.

Then there's the God ki problem, where they try to make the concept seem incredibly important. But it only seems to matter, for the Saiyajins. All the Kaioshins had god ki and they were fodderized by Boo. Dende and Kami had god ki, or at least could sense it, and they're fodder. King Kai has god ki, and the same applies. Them introducing this concept, making all important and then making it irrelevant was a bad move.

Though the biggest one has to be PIS. Especially since people seem to not get the concept in this community. likely because it's more of a comic book thing. But to put it simply, PIS stands for plot induced stupidity. And it means that dumb things happen for the sake of plot. DBS is full of this. Mirai Trunks is able to fight Rose Black and survive a Kamehame-Ha that crippled Goku, due to plot. And then you have people legitimately saying SSJ2 Trunks is SSJB level just because he trained with Vegeta and then that episode happened. Goku over powers Gattai Zamasu when it took both Vegeta and Trunks before hand, because we need Zamasu to become corrupted. Goku and Vegeta use SSJB against universe 9 despite the fact that they should be weaker than base form because Caulfifla needs to be impressed. I think people need to recognize this as a real present thing in the anime. All of the other issues stem from this. Character will be as strong as the plot demands.

Similarly, this is why the series is thrown the asspull accusation, because characters strength is entirely dependent on the plot and they can pull whatever out of there ass in order for them to suit the nature of the current plot.

Son Gohan has grown weaker to the point where he can barely hold the Super Saiyajin transformation (one he mastered as a child), yet he's still stronger than Piccolo who has been training non-stop since the Cell Games barely made any progress apparently. Now in a twist turn of events Gohan does regain his Ultimate form by training for a few years, but Piccolo finally surpasses SSJ2 after a decade of trying. Then Gohan in a day becomes monumentally stronger. Even if he's not Blue tier, his jump was insane.

Super Saiyajin God comes back because reasons. It's just the inherent nature of the show to do what needs to be done for episode to episode progression. No reason to pretend they have levels all planned out. More likely than not they just receive general notes and alter each episode based around them. Going back to Frost, he was presumably stronger than base Saiyajins, but now according to Champa he's no match for Freeza despite his early standing, Hit claiming he made him get serious and him fighting SSJ Vegeta for a bit. Early Freeza was torturing Napapa but at the same time Napapa nearly knocks off SSJ Caulfila, which isn't inherently bad unless later they try to tell us U6 Saiyajins can still contend with their Universe 7 counterparts. Jimeze was fighting SSJ Goku but gets knocked aside by base Caulfila and Freeza stomps him. Again, not inherently bad, but it's something. Base Cabba one-shots Nigrisshi, the greatest modified warrior, but Maji Kayo was the one they expected to properly assess Jiren and man-handled Dyspo. The only explanation there is that he's not modified.

Then there's the holding back issue. Another way to explain inconsistency is the idea that certain characters are holding back, again to suit the needs of the plot. This can be obvious, and ergo no big deal. Or it can be an interpretation, which is to again explain the difference in character's strength becoming nonexistent. Personally, I kind of hate this one the most. As the Tournament of Power uses it the most, once again because it likes to pretend the events of Z didn't occur.

That's a long tirade, I know. But the point of my comment is that some things need to be taken at face value. And are subject to change, because they will change when the plot needs them to.

[/spoiler]

Excellent post my friend, well said.

Caulifla turning Super Saiyan isn't supposed to mean anything for the character just like it didn't mean anything for Trunks or Goten. It's just a form they tapped into it so they can fight stronger characters, like how most forms worked in Z.

Again why do people take the WORST aspects of Z that have been universally panned and then take a similar situation which is several magnitudes worse than the worse grievances of Z as a means to excuse it.

Taking something that was considered garbage and then comparing something to it while it being quantifiably worse would make that thing worse than garbage correct?
Something being bad doesn’t give license to do the same bad thing 100x worse and more often.

I totally agree with you, I can't stand the "It was thrash back in then, so its fine for it to be even worse thrash now".

[GodVegetto91]

I concur with the idea of the scaling having taken a definite dive.

It's clear that DBS is lacking in consistency when it comes to power-scaling, hence why I feel we sometimes grasp at straws in order to make things make sense. Because, putting it simply, they don't make sense as is.

Personally I plan on rewatching the Tournament of Power (terrible name since it's a battle royal) when it's over and then complying all of the inconsistencies in the order which they occur. But this arc is hardly the first one where these errors occur, it's just the arc where they try to cover it up by saying skill matters when more than half the characters in the ToP should be getting blitzed into utter oblivion as, ironically, the Freeza Saga showed.

I mean we could delve deeply into how power-scaling as failed from a increase standpoint. Being that Dragon Ball as a whole has an escalation problem. The stronger the main characters get, Goku for instance, the stronger the opponents need to be in kind even when Goku's current level of power is claimed to be one that cannot be reached by training. And from there you get a myriad of different issues. The constant question of if Goku is holding back in order to explain how easily he's beaten or how a character who's presumably much weaker than him. Or you get the opposite, wondering how that character is so strong or how they became so strong in such a short period?

This problem starts in the Universe 6 arc. You wonder how a Saiyajin from another universe can fight constantly, to the point where he's equal to base Vegeta (or at least that's what Vegeta tells himself), yet he has never become a Super Saiyajin and the legend doesn't even exist. We have Frost, who like Freeza has forms to restrict his power but never seems to acknowledge the need to regulate his power. He seems to out perform base Goku but has no chance against SSJ Goku and lacks an ultimate evolution. Magetta, a metalman, a race universe 6 has that even the Kaios are unaware of, yet tanks all of SSJ Vegeta's attacks, who at that point should be well above the power of a Super Saiyajin God. Trunks returns after fighting Black, well he's obviously gotten zenkai's or something to make him a match for Goku.

And from there we get the Two-Base theory. Based on the idea presented in the RoF film, and named in the DBH games, a godly base state for Saiyajins. However rather let that form go with the films, it's brought into DBS to explain away inconsistency with how his base strength is displayed. Base Goku lost to Frost? Well that's his weaker base. Saiyajin Beyond God Goku was trading blows with Hit. I know this theory is popular, so I have no intentions of belittling it. But to me that's how I see it.

There's the prodigy problem. Where any one can have an insane increase in power and it being explained by them being a prodigy or the fact that he trained in secret. Caulfila activates SSJ2 without even mastering SSJ? Don't worry about it, she's a prodigy. She unleashes USSJ in two days time? She's a prodigy. Freeza goes from a joke to God-tier in 4 months? He's a prodigy and a mutant. Freeza perfects his Golden form while in hell? A prodigy's mental training. Zamasu could rival a god of destruction as a Kaioshin? (Well really he's a Kaio like King Kai), well he's a prodigy. Roshi admitted his students had surpassed him in DB so he's been fodder since? Well he's been training in secret to reach new heights. Krillin stops training after the Cell Games to the point in DBS where he can be harmed by bullets? Well he's been training in secret and he's stronger than ever.

Then there's the God ki problem, where they try to make the concept seem incredibly important. But it only seems to matter, for the Saiyajins. All the Kaioshins had god ki and they were fodderized by Boo. Dende and Kami had god ki, or at least could sense it, and they're fodder. King Kai has god ki, and the same applies. Them introducing this concept, making all important and then making it irrelevant was a bad move.

Though the biggest one has to be PIS. Especially since people seem to not get the concept in this community. likely because it's more of a comic book thing. But to put it simply, PIS stands for plot induced stupidity. And it means that dumb things happen for the sake of plot. DBS is full of this. Mirai Trunks is able to fight Rose Black and survive a Kamehame-Ha that crippled Goku, due to plot. And then you have people legitimately saying SSJ2 Trunks is SSJB level just because he trained with Vegeta and then that episode happened. Goku over powers Gattai Zamasu when it took both Vegeta and Trunks before hand, because we need Zamasu to become corrupted. Goku and Vegeta use SSJB against universe 9 despite the fact that they should be weaker than base form because Caulfifla needs to be impressed. I think people need to recognize this as a real present thing in the anime. All of the other issues stem from this. Character will be as strong as the plot demands.

Similarly, this is why the series is thrown the asspull accusation, because characters strength is entirely dependent on the plot and they can pull whatever out of there ass in order for them to suit the nature of the current plot.

Son Gohan has grown weaker to the point where he can barely hold the Super Saiyajin transformation (one he mastered as a child), yet he's still stronger than Piccolo who has been training non-stop since the Cell Games barely made any progress apparently. Now in a twist turn of events Gohan does regain his Ultimate form by training for a few years, but Piccolo finally surpasses SSJ2 after a decade of trying. Then Gohan in a day becomes monumentally stronger. Even if he's not Blue tier, his jump was insane.

Super Saiyajin God comes back because reasons. It's just the inherent nature of the show to do what needs to be done for episode to episode progression. No reason to pretend they have levels all planned out. More likely than not they just receive general notes and alter each episode based around them. Going back to Frost, he was presumably stronger than base Saiyajins, but now according to Champa he's no match for Freeza despite his early standing, Hit claiming he made him get serious and him fighting SSJ Vegeta for a bit. Early Freeza was torturing Napapa but at the same time Napapa nearly knocks off SSJ Caulfila, which isn't inherently bad unless later they try to tell us U6 Saiyajins can still contend with their Universe 7 counterparts. Jimeze was fighting SSJ Goku but gets knocked aside by base Caulfila and Freeza stomps him. Again, not inherently bad, but it's something. Base Cabba one-shots Nigrisshi, the greatest modified warrior, but Maji Kayo was the one they expected to properly assess Jiren and man-handled Dyspo. The only explanation there is that he's not modified.

Then there's the holding back issue. Another way to explain inconsistency is the idea that certain characters are holding back, again to suit the needs of the plot. This can be obvious, and ergo no big deal. Or it can be an interpretation, which is to again explain the difference in character's strength becoming nonexistent. Personally, I kind of hate this one the most. As the Tournament of Power uses it the most, once again because it likes to pretend the events of Z didn't occur.

That's a long tirade, I know. But the point of my comment is that some things need to be taken at face value. And are subject to change, because they will change when the plot needs them to.

Man i really enjoyed your post, you should write a book about it, i would definitely read it! Anyways, yeah i agree with all these points. It just.. doesn't make sense. That's the central point. We can try to defend it all we want, but it doesn't matter and would be pointless, because in the end, the writers criminally just don't care. Hence why everything is plot related.

[Marlowe89]

No reason to pretend they have levels all planned out. More likely than not they just receive general notes and alter each episode based around them.

Given some of the insights we've gleamed from Toshio's Twitter account, it's more than likely true that Toei doesn't actually dictate Super's power-scaling on their own; rather, the writing staff simply tries to abide by the scaling provided in Toriyama's general outlines as closely as possible, and given the variance in subjective interpretation for individual writers, that could very well lead to a number of outliers and smaller inconsistencies within the general macro framework of the show.

I actually don't believe that the current arc has been terribly inconsistent when viewed in isolation (although that's not to say there haven't been a few head-scratchers, namely Ribrianne for example) but some pretty noticeable problems start to pop up when you compare some of these sequences to the earlier arcs in Super, particularly the ones that weren't supervised by Toriyama. That's honestly one of the biggest reasons I subscribe to the retcon interpretation for Goku and Vegeta, personally -- after taking everything we know about the out-of-universe creative process and reconciling that with the in-universe facts, it just seems to be the most intuitively apparent explanation at the moment.

[Zeru14]

Then there's the God ki problem, where they try to make the concept seem incredibly important. But it only seems to matter, for the Saiyajins. All the Kaioshins had god ki and they were fodderized by Boo. Dende and Kami had god ki, or at least could sense it, and they're fodder. King Kai has god ki, and the same applies. Them introducing this concept, making all important and then making it irrelevant was a bad move.

Yeah the introduction of God Ki is irksome, when you realize that the Kai and Supreme Kai had it all along but it doesn't make them super powerful, despite being natural born Gods. Like you said it only seems to matter for the Saiyans, who developed a ritual to gain access to it, where others races like the Namekians who are more spiritual didn't.

[Bullza]

Again why do people take the WORST aspects of Z that have been universally panned and then take a similar situation which is several magnitudes worse than the worse grievances of Z as a means to excuse it.

Taking something that was considered garbage and then comparing something to it while it being quantifiably worse would make that thing worse than garbage correct?
Something being bad doesn’t give license to do the same bad thing 100x worse and more often.

That's just over exaggerating, people didn't particularly like or care for Trunks and Goten being able to turn Super Saiyan but it was never universally panned or considered garbage. Even the series itself acknowledged how everyone was able to become Super Saiyan so easily.

Caulifla and Kale are not main characters, there doesn't need to be some journey for it be acceptable that they can turn Super Saiyan when they will likely end up dead in the same saga they were introduced into. They are there to be adversaries to the actual main characters and so they were suitably powered up enough for it.

I mean this is the same series where Goku got much stronger from climbing essentially a tall ladder and chasing an anthropomorphic cat for 3 days to the point he went from significantly weaker than Tao Pai Pai to significantly stronger. the Saiyans' NDPU trait allowed Goku to go from 90,000 in power level to supposedly 3 million, Piccollo in 5 days went from over 1,200 to supposedly near half of Freeza's first form level according to Nail (its mentioned by Guru that splitting himself halved his power) who states Piccolo might have been strong enough to beat Freeza if he had come back joined, then you have Gohan go from the weakest compared to Vegeta and Goku in the Buu Sagag to not only making up 7 years of neglect, but surpassing those two in the same equal saiyans forms from essentially doing weight training for a few hours with the Z-sword.

Dragon Ball's abnormal growth record has never been really logical and seems to be consistently continuing that trait in Super so should we really be surprised at this point in time?

Exactly. There are times when they do train very hard to achieve the power that they have and then there's also time when they're just flat out given power. Goku drank a bit of magical power and all of a sudden he gained more power than he ever had from hard work. Same thing with Krillin training hard throughout the whole series, trained with Roshi, Korin and Kami on top of all his own training to get to a power level of 1,500 and then Guru touched his head for a few seconds and now his power level is 13,000.

They get as strong as the story needs them to be.

[gofishus]

Again why do people take the WORST aspects of Z that have been universally panned and then take a similar situation which is several magnitudes worse than the worse grievances of Z as a means to excuse it.

Taking something that was considered garbage and then comparing something to it while it being quantifiably worse would make that thing worse than garbage correct?
Something being bad doesn’t give license to do the same bad thing 100x worse and more often.

That's just over exaggerating, people didn't particularly like or care for Trunks and Goten being able to turn Super Saiyan but it was never universally panned or considered garbage. Even the series itself acknowledged how everyone was able to become Super Saiyan so easily.

Caulifla and Kale are not main characters, there doesn't need to be some journey for it be acceptable that they can turn Super Saiyan when they will likely end up dead in the same saga they were introduced into. They are there to be adversaries to the actual main characters and so they were suitably powered up enough for it.

I mean this is the same series where Goku got much stronger from climbing essentially a tall ladder and chasing an anthropomorphic cat for 3 days to the point he went from significantly weaker than Tao Pai Pai to significantly stronger. the Saiyans' NDPU trait allowed Goku to go from 90,000 in power level to supposedly 3 million, Piccollo in 5 days went from over 1,200 to supposedly near half of Freeza's first form level according to Nail (its mentioned by Guru that splitting himself halved his power) who states Piccolo might have been strong enough to beat Freeza if he had come back joined, then you have Gohan go from the weakest compared to Vegeta and Goku in the Buu Sagag to not only making up 7 years of neglect, but surpassing those two in the same equal saiyans forms from essentially doing weight training for a few hours with the Z-sword.

Dragon Ball's abnormal growth record has never been really logical and seems to be consistently continuing that trait in Super so should we really be surprised at this point in time?

Exactly. There are times when they do train very hard to achieve the power that they have and then there's also time when they're just flat out given power. Goku drank a bit of magical power and all of a sudden he gained more power than he ever had from hard work. Same thing with Krillin training hard throughout the whole series, trained with Roshi, Korin and Kami on top of all his own training to get to a power level of 1,500 and then Guru touched his head for a few seconds and now his power level is 13,000.

They get as strong as the story needs them to be.

I think out of everything in Super, Copy-Vegeta, SSJ Rage Trunks and Android 17 bother me the most for some reason. I'm actually semi-ok with Golden Frieza, Ribrianne, Caulifla and Berserker Kale...

[Bullza]

I think out of everything in Super, Copy-Vegeta, SSJ Rage Trunks and Android 17 bother me the most for some reason. I'm actually semi-ok with Golden Frieza, Ribrianne, Caulifla and Berserker Kale...

I don't have a problem with Copy Vegeta because it was really just a monster that took all of Vegeta's power. Trunks is bothersome but yeah in particular Android 17 is the one that is the most weird.

If we're supposed to believe that since the Cell Games saga he's trained and so now he's about as strong as Super Saiyan Blue Goku then with that rate of improvement wouldn't he have beaten Buu easily if he'd shown up in the Buu saga? Would he have been the strongest being on Earth at the start of Super? Couldn't he have even possibly have beaten Golden Frieza when he showed up on Earth?

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

I think out of everything in Super, Copy-Vegeta, SSJ Rage Trunks and Android 17 bother me the most for some reason. I'm actually semi-ok with Golden Frieza, Ribrianne, Caulifla and Berserker Kale...

I don't have a problem with Copy Vegeta because it was really just a monster that took all of Vegeta's power. Trunks is bothersome but yeah in particular Android 17 is the one that is the most weird.

If we're supposed to believe that since the Cell Games saga he's trained and so now he's about as strong as Super Saiyan Blue Goku then with that rate of improvement wouldn't he have beaten Buu easily if he'd shown up in the Buu saga? Would he have been the strongest being on Earth at the start of Super? Couldn't he have even possibly have beaten Golden Frieza when he showed up on Earth?

I remember that Geekdom101 brought up an interesting point similar to this with regards to the Future Trunks Arc and the current Universal Survival Arc, that being the existence of individuals like Toppo and Jiren in Future Trunks's timeline when Goku Black and Future Zamasu were on their quest to destroy all Mortals.

This is an issue of writing things after establishing one thing prior and not knowing the potential ramifications. Geekdom101 basically made a video discussing the possibility of the Pride Troopers in the Future Trunks timeline learning of Goku Black. Him and Future Zamasu killed ALL of the gods in that timeline, which would mean Universe 11 as well. Knowing that Toppo and Jiren were approaching the level of a God of Destruction in the main timeline and surely stronger than Goku Black before he returned to the main timeline and became stronger, they wondered how Goku Black could've achieved what he did in killing off the gods.

Most likely, Toriyama and the other writers didn't think these ramifications through when making the next arc. The same could be said of Android 17's power boost.