Why IS Android 17 So Strong???

[theherodjl]

We're honestly expected to believe that Android 17, who was once weaker than Imperfect Cell, can grow to ToP-SSJB-tier just by training in the wilderness for 10 years? With the feat of being able to fight back a very-weakened Jiren(who is still above ordinary SSJB) to his name: I dare say that Android 17 is not only stronger than his GT counterpart, Super 17, but everyone else in GT. What kind of training could he possibly do to rival Goku's power??? On top of having a family & spending his days looking after animals? Is it like he said in the flashback of Cell's timeline?
""Ultimate Android?" I'm standing right here!"
Headcannons, conjecture, and all other forms of anecdotal evidence are welcome in figuring out this phenomenon.

[shadowfox87]

In the manga, Android 17 was shown to spar with SSJ3 Goku instead of SSB Goku. Power scaling is messed up in the anime with a SSB bargain sale. Goku used SSB multiple times, vs Trio De Dangers and even Ribrianne. To think that Android 17 training by himself achieved up to SSB is ridiculous. It means that Beerus would have had a greater challenge fighting Android 17 when he first arrived to Earth rather than SSG Goku.

[SupremeKai25]

I don't know why he was so strong. While we are on this subject, I also don't know how the energy of 30 wounded civilians, 2 exhausted base Saiyans and 1 cat was enough to completely overwhelm Fused Zamasu.

Don't question. Just roll with it.

[theherodjl]

In the manga, Android 17 was shown to spar with SSJ3 Goku instead of SSB Goku. Power scaling is messed up in the anime with a SSB bargain sale. Goku used SSB multiple times, vs Trio De Dangers and even Ribrianne. To think that Android 17 training by himself achieved up to SSB is ridiculous. It means that Beerus would have had a greater challenge fighting Android 17 when he first arrived to Earth rather than SSG Goku.

Android 17 in the manga is even strong. SSJ3 Goku was rather fearful of 17's power & shouted out to him that he wasn't looking to fight him quite that rough. If manga Android 17 is not on par with SSJB Complete Goku then I would at least put him on par with SSJG; that's still a ridiculous power-up from his Cell-arc self.

[shadowfox87]

Android 17 in the manga is even strong. SSJ3 Goku was rather fearful of 17's power & shouted out to him that he wasn't looking to fight him quite that rough. If manga Android 17 is not on par with SSJB Complete Goku then I would at least put him on par with SSJG; that's still a ridiculous power-up from his Cell-arc self.

Yet, Goku never used SSG against Android 17 so it's difficult to say. All we can say is that Android 17 is at or above SSJ3 Goku level (Post-Buu Saga). I don't believe he's at SSG level. He has infinite stamina and can keep using ki blasts forever which is an advantage in the ToP. SSJ3 depletes stamina quickly.

I don't know why he was so strong. While we are on this subject, I also don't know how the energy of 30 wounded civilians, 2 exhausted base Saiyans and 1 cat was enough to completely overwhelm Fused Zamasu.

Don't question. Just roll with it.

Yea, another event that happened in the anime that doesn't make sense. In the manga, that never happened. There was no Marty Stu Trunks that suddenly learned the Spirit Bomb, Mafuba, and SS Rage. If Freeza survived a full on spirit bomb from all the life remaining on Planet Namek and from stars, moons, around it, hard to say that energy did anything. The anime adds entertainment effect. In the manga, Trunks cut Merged Zamasu in half because his 1 hour for fusion was over so they were already partially splitting. Since Black and Zamasu were technically the same person with different bodies though, they didn't split completely. Trunks just swooped in and helped.

[theherodjl]

Android 17 in the manga is even strong. SSJ3 Goku was rather fearful of 17's power & shouted out to him that he wasn't looking to fight him quite that rough. If manga Android 17 is not on par with SSJB Complete Goku then I would at least put him on par with SSJG; that's still a ridiculous power-up from his Cell-arc self.

Yet, Goku never used SSG against Android 17 so it's difficult to say. All we can say is that Android 17 is at or above SSJ3 Goku level (Post-Buu Saga). I don't believe he's at SSG level. He has infinite stamina and can keep using ki blasts forever which is an advantage in the ToP. SSJ3 depletes stamina quickly.

Goku's unmistakable look of panic says otherwise; he did the same thing when first encountering Pure Boo. Goku couldn't handle Pure Boo's blast as a mere SSJ so its why he & Vegeta fled instead of trying to stop it. Goku knew SSJ3 was not enough to stop Android 17's serious power so its why he alerted 17 that he wasn't an enemy.

[Desassina]

17 lowered his level until the wild creatures were strong enough to challenge him. It's kinda like Vegeta dropping his guard against Krillin for a Zenkai.

[Pantalones]

I always figured that since #17's modifications are mostly not of the "robot parts" sort, his power source probably actually works by amplifying his own natural ki and changing it to a different, more efficient, and undetectable form of energy (coincidentally, we found out thanks to Whis that learning to develop godly ki as a mortal involves keeping one's ki concentrated inward and makes it undetectable to mortals, so there's a precedent for "undetectable ki = more concentrated/better ki" in the series.)

So every little tiny bit of power increase he gains by training means the "infinite energy reactor" inside him now has even more "fuel" to amplify and convert to concentrated, undetectable "Android energy" rather than leaving it as normal human ki. And when you consider that he was just an ordinary teenage punk before undergoing Dr. Gero's procedure, well... you can imagine just how massive his gains from training are going to be.

If he goes from a normal-human power level of 5 to... let's say something in the range of 400 million... just from Gero's modifications alone and no training whatsoever, that means every single power level point he gains through training equals an increase of a whopping EIGHTY MILLION to his enhanced power level. If he trained to a point where his "natural" power level rose into the teens, he'd be rapidly approaching the 1 billion mark. Training hard like Goku and Krillin did back at the beginning of Dragonball would probably push him ahead of Super Perfect Cell. Hell, maybe he's trained with Korin since if I'm remembering right the park he watches over is located not far from his tower -- that would push him into the realm of Buu Saga characters for sure. After that, years of gradual increases from the infamous "mountain training" is all he'd really need to surpass SSj3 level. And if he learns regular ki control techniques instead of relying entirely on Gero's enhancements and starts mixing meditation/image training/etc. in with the purely physical methods, all bets are off -- if he was able to raise his "natural" power level up to the 430 mark like beginning-of-Z Goku and Piccolo, he'd end up with an "enhanced" level of more than 33 BILLION. And we know for a fact that regular human martial artists can reach the 400-some mark, every single one of the human fighters (even lazy-ass Yajirobe and weak-ass Chiaotzu! hell, even Roshi suddenly pulled power at least on that level out of his ass!) had far surpassed that level years ago.

#17 only has to get his "natural" level as high as Saiyan Saga Krillin to get into the hundred-billions.

I also don't know how the energy of 30 wounded civilians, 2 exhausted base Saiyans and 1 cat was enough to completely overwhelm Fused Zamasu.

That cat must've been LOADED with genki. Get three or four more cats like that and you wouldn't even need the Zen'oh button. XD

[Logania]

He cheesed the game. He grinded lvl 5 poachers for 10 years to get huge EXP jumps, it's quite genius.

[Lord Beerus]

#17 has infinite stamina, barely needs to sleep, eat or drink, add in the fact he's mostly human, means that he can train for a long as he wants without ever getting tired. And considering Gero amplified his strength to be much more power than Mecha Freeza, his gains in training could potentially be substantial.

[ToshioWrites]

Because the need to train under angels or even in the most intensive settings to reach ssg level let alone ssb level stopped being a thing once Revival F started out.

A17 was far above Mecha Freeza in power when we first met him
Trains for a dozen years
Stated by toriyama to have high potential

There you go, also his feats in the ToP would put him at ATLEAST ssg level and thats probably a signifcant downplay, i'd say he was legitimately rivaling ssb goku in the anime at the start of ToP.

In the manga, i highly doubt he will be close to ssg level. Toyo is much more conservative with the strength of other characters than the anime is.

Trunks was ss3 goku level
17 is above ss3 level but probably far below ssg level
m zamasu was only fpssb level
hit at u6 tournament was about ssg level if not a bit higher at his own max

[theherodjl]

I wonder how the community would have responded even just 6 years ago: that Android 17 would be stronger than SSJ4 Gogeta & that we would all be totally justifying such an increase in power for him just because the writers said so. There use to be dirt kicked up over how absurd Goku's Zenkai on Namek had increased his power; DBS made that increase the norm just for the human characters and its quite insignificant at this point.
My, how times have changed.

[Hugo Boss]

I think questions like “why 17 is so strong” or “is Jiren stronger than Beerus” are well suited for an already existing Dragon Ball Super Strength-orientated thread. I’m not sure why they would deserve their own thread.

Doing a little research, you can find this interview from 2014 in which Toriyama explains he can get stronger and that his cells deteriorate slowly. Perhaps it has some relation to this as well.

[shadowfox87]

[Goku's unmistakable look of panic says otherwise; he did the same thing when first encountering Pure Boo. Goku couldn't handle Pure Boo's blast as a mere SSJ so its why he & Vegeta fled instead of trying to stop it. Goku knew SSJ3 was not enough to stop Android 17's serious power so its why he alerted 17 that he wasn't an enemy.

All that is fine, Goku of course will be "surprised" because he never expected Android 17 to be that strong. Regardless, there is no proof that he would be anywhere near SSG or SSB level. The same exact fight and scene in the anime showed an SSB Goku. The anime showed SSB Goku again fighting Gohan. SSB Goku was being spammed everywhere and then fans used the logic that SSB is controlled ki so Goku can be as strong as he wants to, even fighting Krillin in SSB. The manga didn't have any of this nonsense.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

Because the plot required him to be. I don't know what the real answer is. Maybe he got to SSB level after years of fighting poachers with power levels of, like, 6. Maybe he lied to Goku and he's the real reason the minotaur is an endangered species, because he developed an absorbtion ability like Cell's and absorbed most of them. Maybe he stumbled upon a dying gnome in some forest on the island, and the gnome gave him the enchanted MIR shirt which boosts his power an untold amount.

[Polyphase Avatron]

What kind of training could he possibly do to rival Goku's power??? On top of having a family & spending his days looking after animals?

100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and 10 km running every day.

Or alternatively, lots of push-ups and sit-ups and drink lots of juice.

Either way, you can bet it involved push-ups and sit-ups.

[sunsetshimmer]

DBS 17 is obviously stronger than GT 17, but i don't think he is anywhere close to Super 17 lol.
DBS has completely broken scaling. Especially anime.

Manga does it a lot better. Goku and Vegeta in Super aren't overall much strong without their god forms, so 17 being equal to SSJ3 is acceptable.
Still, Hell Fighter 17 was equal to base GT Vegeta who was surprised and said that he "powered-up beyond belief". So even then it was consired to be sick for him to be that strong and that is 10 years after ToP arc in Super.

But GT boosted base forms a lot, so it's obvious that GT's SSJ3 forms would be way too much for HF 17 or DBS 17 (manga).
So DBS 17 might be a bit stronger than Hell Fighter 17. Makes even less sense, but it's still acceptable.

17 having an chance against SSJB is not acceptable in any way.
But it might be just that SSJB in anime is weaker than it should be. Sometimes SSJB seemed to be just regular SSJ power-wise. The gap between SSJB and non-god forms should be enormous, yet it seem pretty small sometimes.

[Zephyr]

Pantalones and Lord Beerus essentially said what I would have.

#17 was a normal human punk, who, through enhancements alone, was stronger than Freeza. Freeza. That Herms quote that RandomGuy96 has in his sig sums it up the absurdity surrounding Freeza's strength perfectly:

The fact that the ridiculous power inflation is presented so earnestly makes me just roll my eyes and snicker. Like with Freeza, where he starts off over 10 times stronger than all his henchmen except Ginyu (because...well, just because), then we find out he can transform and get even more powerful, and then he reveals he can transform two more times, before finally coming out with the fact that he hasn't even been using anywhere near 50% of his power.

After that 100% power comes out, Goku reaches a state even stronger. And then some enhancements were able to make some normal human punk stronger than that. These were able to make someone essentially on the level of Lunch stronger than a Super Saiyan. For all of the complaints about "asspulls" and "bullshit scaling" and "my precious rigid suspension of disbelief in a Toriyama wuxia comic" that this fandom seems to collectively throw around at everything that violates their headcanons, this is a case from the original story itself that seems like it should be extremely egregious were these needlessly-rigid standards applied consistently.

So, in short, Gero's enhancements were "bullshit" in the first place. They're OP, plz nerf. And then a guy with this absurd amplification cheat in him has 13 years of obscurity? Honestly, it doesn't really matter what kind of training he did, if he's improving his human body, then that improvement should yield wild fucking growth. I don't know if crunching the numbers would show that he should be on this level or that level, but I honestly don't think it matters either way. I don't think we need to establish any hard or concrete rules for what kind of "multiplier" Gero's enhancements would give in order to safely conclude that it's a lot.

Only wrench to throw in this, really, is that the #17 and #18 from Trunks' timeline didn't grow that much, and they were given much more time. So, naturally, the "grinding on a bunch of low level enemies" can't be sufficient to make them improve. But, since it isn't shown what he did, we aren't given anything tangible to take issue with. Like with Freeza's training (in the film, at least), this is a case of "less is more". All we have is "well, if he pushed himself, he should grow a lot". Thus, we can conclude that, whatever it is that he did, he must have pushed himself.

[Cetra]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhMsboqMMzs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRL4uIVzVWI

[theherodjl]

Damn, so I guess you just gotta have unlimited stamina, train real hard, and have a healthy family & career then you can reach ToP-tier strength. That might explain why most of the Z-Senshi are so weak by the time the DBS anime rolls around; everyone has limited stamina, trains not hardly enough, and are total basket cases on a social & personal level. Who would've thought that Goku & Vegeta only needed to be better husbands & fathers in order to become thousands of times stronger?