PerhapsTheOtherOne wrote:
What we don't know is if either Saiyan truly needed to use SS during their fights with the dastardly space extortionist.
Currently, we have base Vegeta sucker-punching Frost and preparing to fight him without any clear intention of transforming, only turning into a SS to fight evenly with Magetta like the previous tournament. We also have a thematic "equal in power" exploration between Goku and Freeza in base and god-level forms, though if the actual factual content is like that is unknown.
Thus, it could go either way. After all, fighting opponents lower than one's normal state as a Super Saiyan, or at least expressing the desire to do so, isn't uncommon, especially for Goku, who wanted to do so with Krillin in-between the Future Trunks Arc and the current one.
Frost can be reconciled, of course... but for the record, I doubt seeing something one time makes something "not uncommon". I reckon it's the exact same contrary, in fact.
Besides, the Krillin episode clearly follows a very particular dynamic, I doubt it makes much sense to take it as evidence that Goku transforms randomly in the Tournament of Power -- somewhere it's stressed he needs to save energy and he'd have all the reason to avoid it, as Super Saiyans dissipate stamina more quickly. Meaning he shouldn't normally have transformed unless necessary. In more general terms, there's every indication that his "normal" base strength falls below Buu's and even Super Saiyan Gohan's.
Plus, I stress that this idea looks just as complicated as the Two-Base Theory if not way more, it's the same as claiming the writers show Goku as a Super Saiyan without rhyme or reason against the much simpler notion that when he transforms in SS during actual fights it's because he needs more power than what he'd normally have in base. The first at least handwaves the rationale, but keeps the form tidily above the rest as a separate tranformation.
I've
personally come to the conclusion that the strength of the base we saw in ROF (and vs. Beerus, even vs. Buu if you really don't want to see it as a mock fight) was a state in-between the maximum strength of base and SS, since at least originally (movie) looked slightly different than the regular form, with the yellowish reflections in the aurea, but I deem pretty obvious at this point that Gotenks
also got a huge nerf bat because of lack of training. This is, for the most part, because I have yet to see a statement or clear indication the base could perform at levels above, even the idea of a Saiyan Beyond God probably scrapped after ROF (Heroes did the same thing; still, it's absolutely clear that in ROF the base forms were supposed to be stronger than almost everything) and the more time it passes the least likely it becomes.
This soft retcon - going hand in hand with the very obvious retcon, imported from the manga, involving the existence of Super Saiyan God as a separate form - practically solved every contradiction, to me, and most importantly avoided making the TOP full of abysmal plot-induced stupidity. In short, you can easily have Goku around the level of #18 in base -- which is the safest assumption by now because of #18's ki-blasting feats compared to Tupper's physical strength, and of course Goku needing Super Saiyan to beat Universe 9 who are all below at least Good Buu. If you think Goku can still access the form, he can basically go from Android Arc's #18's to levels similar to Buu Arc's SS2; for anything above that he needs Super Saiyan. Which just multiplies his regular base form's strength 50-fold. To make it more concise, his Super Saiyan could basically just double the full extent of his "strong" base power or something -- while his normal, non-amped, non-post-Whis' base, still is 1/50's of that (to exemplify: the difference with the other common theory is that he can't multiply 50-fold his already SS 2.5-level base, basically).
Still, any form of base Goku being above the SS3 Gotenks as originally intended in the Buu saga - the same one who was implied to be at that same level when in Super Saiyan form, if not even in base(!) - looks like a very remote possibility by now. I'd go as far as saying he'd be treated like the Ultimate Gohan who was in top shape again or stronger than that: someone who can also land a hit or two on a (suppressed?) Super Saiyan Blue Goku before their demise.
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