Which series has better powerscaling, GT or Super?

[SupremeKai25]

I don't believe inconsistent powerscaling is a big issue. It can be annoying when it's so in your face, but overall I think powerscaling should just bend to the plot. I can tolerate an asspull if it serves to develop the themes that the story is trying to tell.

That being said I enjoy powerscaling debates too, if only because I like seeing if something that I thought was an asspull or a deus-ex machina can be explained or rationalized in some way.

To answer the question, Super doesn't really have too many problems with powerscaling until the ToP arc, where it is very in your face. I can't really remember a lot of issues aside from the Freeza's 4 months thing (which was explained as him being a prodigy of his species), Rage Trunks (which was basically never explained), or the whole Trunks Spirit Sword thing (which can be explained).

[ABED]

if something that I thought was an asspull or a deus-ex machina

Aren't those one in the same?

[Toxin45]

Meh power scaling is nuts anyways this got and super both are equally inconsistent

[SupremeKai25]

if something that I thought was an asspull or a deus-ex machina

Aren't those one in the same?

Not really. Deus-ex machina is literally a god-like character helping the protagonist, like in the case of Zeno erasing Zamasu. An asspull can be a deus-ex machina, or it can even be something more grounded like a character knowing a bunch of vital information to the plot that they shouldn't be able to know.

[ABED]

if something that I thought was an asspull or a deus-ex machina

Aren't those one in the same?

Not really. Deus-ex machina is literally a god-like character helping the protagonist, like in the case of Zeno erasing Zamasu. An asspull can be a deus-ex machina, or it can even be something more grounded like a character knowing a bunch of vital information to the plot that they shouldn't be able to know.

I'm aware of the origin of the term, but it's meaning is broader. It's simply something that isn't set up or breaks the rules in the narrative that solves the characters' big problem. For instance, Superman turning back time after Lois is killed due to Lex Luthor's hijacked nuke causing a massive Earthquake. His ability to change time was never established. It comes out of nowhere and magically solves all his issues.

[Lord Beerus]

Shouldn't we talking we talking more about which series has better character writing, voice acting, musical score, animation and/or stronger martial arts atmosphere? As supposed to whether one persons feats can be comparable to the other?

That's not to say having an understanding of who is stronger than who can have an importance in how invested you can get in the story, but with how fast and loose Dragon Ball is when it comes establishing whether Character A can feasibly defeat Character B, and how Character C became as strong/stronger than Character D, it really shouldn't concern you that much.

[WittyUsername]

There actually was setup to Zen-Oh showing up to defeat Zamasu. His present counterpart gave Goku the button earlier. With that being said, him being able to conveniently wipe an immortal being from existence always seemed like a lazy and anti-climactic resolution to me.

[SupremeKai25]

There actually was setup to Zen-Oh showing up to defeat Zamasu. His present counterpart gave Goku the button earlier. With that being said, him being able to conveniently wipe an immortal being from existence always seemed like a lazy and anti-climactic resolution to me.

I find it more ridiculous that the button was still in his pockets after the hell he went through after episode 55 (when he gets the button) versus Black and Zamasu.

[KBABZ]

Dude I react to everything not just frieza

There's your problem, that's not really how you use forums. You reply to posts and topics that interest you and which you feel you can make a meaningful or at least interesting and positive interaction with. You may not have noticed but I pretty much stick to the General Franchise Discussion board because it contains all the topics that interest me (and I haven't watched Super yet), so I don't waste everyone else's time by trying to insert myself into topics I have no interest in.

Also I have issues with the way ABED conducts himself around here as well but that is NOT the way you talk to somebody about it.

[Toxin45]

Dude I react to everything not just frieza

There's your problem, that's not really how you use forums. You reply to posts and topics that interest you and which you feel you can make a meaningful or at least interesting and positive interaction with. You may not have noticed but I pretty much stick to the General Franchise Discussion board because it contains all the topics that interest me (and I haven't watched Super yet), so I don't waste everyone else's time by trying to insert myself into topics I have no interest in.

Also I have issues with the way ABED conducts himself around here as well but that is NOT the way you talk to somebody about it.

Okay fine

[superfan2024]

GT of course has the better powerscaling because Goku's almost always the only one in the show to have any importance regarding threats to the main villains, and almost always only uses SSJ4 for like the second half of the series.

Baby Arc: No one stood a chance against Baby except for SSJ4 Goku

Super 17 Arc: No one stood a chance against Super 17 except for Goku and even he lost while using SSJ4

Shadow Dragons Arc: No one stood a chance against Omega Shenron except for SSJ4 Goku and SSJ4 Vegeta (this one time) where they weren't enough individually.

Aside from Goku and Vegeta that one instance, the rest of the Dragon Team are pure fodder and the series keeps this entire aspect consistent from beginning to end.

This contrasts with Super where multiple characters fight different characters and those characters fight each other but show different results compared to when another character fights another character who fought another character who fought the other character and gets all weird and complicated and sometimes confusing because everything is all mixed up and sometimes defeats what was initially established in earlier arcs or the original 42 volumes whereas GT keeps these things consistent although it's dull as hell in that regard.

[Tai Lung]

If there's one thing the DB fanbase is never going to stop talking about it's power levels. There are so many debates in the community about who is stronger than who, and this is all because of the powerscaling. Both Super and GT had.. questionable powerscaling to say the least, but which one do you think had better powerscaling? Please tell me, i'm really interested in your thoughts.

In any case, I would say that the first super wins it on the other depends ... the errors in the anime were taken out of context in several cases .. if we compare it with the original manga
I feel that the saiyans of the u6 are consistent if you compare them with goten and trunks simply the fandom exaggerates too much with hate
also take into account things like the anime is lengthened and has to fill with inconsistent "moments" mr popo vs goten and trunks or krillin vs goku but in the end the logical thing is to think that it is stuffed or contained as always since
I feel that the main errors of super were those related to future trunks and 17 being the first one too exaggerated and with a resolution too strange almost as much as when the idea of ​​"god ki in base form" was abandoned due to the fact that it would bring future problems but That would be all

the tournament of power (anime) is the most coherent in reality they are simply from other universes the characters can be more powerful by not working with the same logic of the U7 that limits them ... goku says this in his fight with Bergamo
golden frieza has more consistency in retrospect if it has been declared that it was born with its power
while zamasu / black is the perfect mix between the potential of a Saiyan and a divine ki + absolute immortality

I would also say that the fusion metamoru has errors but it is already serious apart with the movies

in gt you have problems explaining the power of goku after having changed his age ... sometimes he loses abilities (ssj3 and teport) but sometimes he is stronger than in z
Too many powerful characters come out of nowhere with the excuse that the universe is very big ... terrible excuse by the way
piccolo is literally crap
uub had a high increase but then was a filler character being more powerful than goku ssj3
17 He also suffered problems with his power while the justification of the evil dragons is really very poor considering that it was created by the original kami

being that the most consistent in gt were baby and the mutant warriors

[goku the krump dancer]

Shouldn't we talking we talking more about which series has better character writing, voice acting, musical score, animation and/or stronger martial arts atmosphere? As supposed to whether one persons feats can be comparable to the other?

That's not to say having an understanding of who is stronger than who can have an importance in how invested you can get in the story, but with how fast and loose Dragon Ball is when it comes establishing whether Character A can feasibly defeat Character B, and how Character C became as strong/stronger than Character D, it really shouldn't concern you that much.

Power Scaling is part of the experience though, so its just as worthy of a discussion like all those other categories you mentioned. I mean is it really more ridiculous to discuss who was consistently supposed to be stronger than who as opposed to whether or not the color of the sky on certain home releases is the right shade of blue? It's all part of the experience.

Yeah the NUMBERS dont matter, as in Gohan's full power after Elder Kai's ritual could be 500 million or 500 billion, the point we're supposed to take away is that he's stronger Super Boo and in turn once Boo absorbs Gotenks and Piccolo he becomes stronger than Gohan regardless of what his numbers might say on an energy reader.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

Shouldn't we talking we talking more about which series has better character writing, voice acting, musical score, animation and/or stronger martial arts atmosphere? As supposed to whether one persons feats can be comparable to the other?

Wouldn't it still be GT?

At least it is in my book. It wasn't perfect. In fact a lot of it was plain bad. But it absolutely managed to capture the feeling of a dying era. The heroes are getting older, the cost of so many narrowly averted catastrophes getting more apparent, and even Goku "leaves the world" after seeing the Diablo Desert and his first real enemy (Yamcha. The Poorest of Dolts) one last time. Canon or not, I still love it. Almost invokes a Lord of the Rings feel with Frodo leaving Middle Earth with the other Ring Bearers.

[ikaos]

If it's looked at critically, numerical power-scaling doesn't really make sense going all the way back to the beginning of Z, and it's clearly a complete joke once the Androids show up. Piccolo goes from around 400 when Raditz shows up, to around 3500 vs. Nappa, dies, goes to Kaio's planet for 3 days where all he does is mediate, and somehow is strong enough to take be able to take on 2nd-form Freeza after fusing with Nail?

The difference between DB, Z, GT and Super, is that the first two get around the BS of power-scaling by having an interesting story and characters that have clear narrative arcs and have to battle against high-stakes opponents. Super's lack of stakes, flanderization of main characters, and over-commitment to fan service make its flaws with power scaling all the more obvious.

[KBABZ]

If it's looked at critically, numerical power-scaling doesn't really make sense going all the way back to the beginning of Z, and it's clearly a complete joke once the Androids show up. Piccolo goes from around 400 when Raditz shows up, to around 3500 vs. Nappa, dies, goes to Kaio's planet for 3 days where all he does is mediate, and somehow is strong enough to take be able to take on 2nd-form Freeza after fusing with Nail?

The difference between DB, Z, GT and Super, is that the first two get around the BS of power-scaling by having an interesting story and characters that have clear narrative arcs and have to battle against high-stakes opponents. Super's lack of stakes, flanderization of main characters, and over-commitment to fan service make its flaws with power scaling all the more obvious.

I think the "fanservice" thing is important because while that itself can be done well, Super kinda doesn't. My go-to is Roshi, who with very little justification is able to catch up and compete with the protagonists despite having retired in the Piccolo Jr arc and being outclassed two arcs before. It's all well and good to do that but the script fails to realize how much of a gargantuan pull that is. A power-up like that can happen, but it's a pretty big task to achieve and there damn well better be a good reason for how it happened.

And you can't do it that often. But Super does it a lot, such as bringing back Frieza and Future Trunks for storylines rather than relying purely on new content set up by Battle of Gods.

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

I think the "fanservice" thing is important because while that itself can be done well, Super kinda doesn't. My go-to is Roshi, who with very little justification is able to catch up and compete with the protagonists despite having retired in the Piccolo Jr arc and being outclassed two arcs before. It's all well and good to do that but the script fails to realize how much of a gargantuan pull that is. A power-up like that can happen, but it's a pretty big task to achieve and there damn well better be a good reason for how it happened.

And you can't do it that often. But Super does it a lot, such as bringing back Frieza and Future Trunks for storylines rather than relying purely on new content set up by Battle of Gods.

The Roshi power up is especially annoying because it comes at the expense of the rest of the old guard. Tenshinhan, Chiaotzu, Krillin, and Yamcha all come out looking like even bigger jokes than before. In a few years he's managed to outclass all of them despite all the supposed promise they'd had back in Dragon Ball.

Not to get too negative but I really wish they'd all just die for good so they stop getting turned into such clowns. It's ruining what few positive memories of the old gang I have left and makes me actively want to avoid the new material. If they had a specific goal or arc in mind while doing this stuff I'd be all for it (the Twin Peaks revival, for example, is some of my favorite stuff of the last few years because it deliberately forced the audience to reconsider what they liked about the characters and what we even wanted out of a revival) but that's not what the series is doing.

[Rory]

Can people stop whiffing their own farts over their opinions on powerscaling? The topic thread isn't "is powerscaling important", we all know you're all very well versed in media, you're way smarter than most fans and you've read Joseph Campbell's work. It's about the characters, not the minutia of their verb-set, we get it, but It's getting really boring seeing people putting other people down cause of their opinions on (or even their curiosity of) a subtopic regarding a fucking manga.
Maybe consider that the pendulum can swing the other way, and you're really contributing to a negative atmosphere here.

As for the topic at hand, I'd say they both have their pros and cons. GT's is more consistent, but due to how Dragon Ball's story left off, that leads to more predictable, boring fights that utlise an ever-shrinking cast of characters doing pretty much the same thing over and over.
Super's, as others have already mentioned, is all over the map. It makes it hard to really buy into the fiction when characters are pulling off stunts they have no right pulling off, in the laws set out by the fiction (especially if it's not implied they're breaking any kind of rules, or cheating the system). This is however, one way of dealing with the problems we were left with at the end of the manga, allowing players to compete again when the rules are stripped. The reason it's a perceived problem is liekly due to how Dragon Ball prior created such solid, consistent fiction in regards to its powerscaling previously, and how this now just 180's on that, it feels like a different show as a result a lot of the time (almost a parody of what came before, or fan fiction).

Ideally you'd have a bit of column A, a bit of column B. Keep the consistency of the previous story while having characters play a new role, or introduce something to the fiction (like I dunno, God Ki?) which allows for previous players to rubber-band back to the front runners. Instead of using it to just keep powering up already powered up characters.

[ABED]

Can people stop whiffing their own farts over their opinions on powerscaling? The topic thread isn't "is powerscaling important", we all know you're all very well versed in media, you're way smarter than most fans and you've read Joseph Campbell's work. It's about the characters, not the minutia of their verb-set, we get it, but It's getting really boring seeing people putting other people down cause of their opinions on (or even their curiosity of) a subtopic regarding a fucking manga.
Maybe consider that the pendulum can swing the other way, and you're really contributing to a negative atmosphere here.

As for the topic at hand, I'd say they both have their pros and cons. GT's is more consistent, but due to how Dragon Ball's story left off, that leads to more predictable, boring fights that utlise an ever-shrinking cast of characters doing pretty much the same thing over and over.
Super's, as others have already mentioned, is all over the map. It makes it hard to really buy into the fiction when characters are pulling off stunts they have no right pulling off, in the laws set out by the fiction (especially if it's not implied they're breaking any kind of rules, or cheating the system). This is however, one way of dealing with the problems we were left with at the end of the manga, allowing players to compete again when the rules are stripped. The reason it's a perceived problem is liekly due to how Dragon Ball prior created such solid, consistent fiction in regards to its powerscaling previously, and how this now just 180's on that, it feels like a different show as a result a lot of the time (almost a parody of what came before, or fan fiction).

Ideally you'd have a bit of column A, a bit of column B. Keep the consistency of the previous story while having characters play a new role, or introduce something to the fiction (like I dunno, God Ki?) which allows for previous players to rubber-band back to the front runners. Instead of using it to just keep powering up already powered up characters.

No, the pendulum isn't swinging the other way and the negative atmosphere isn't because people are pointing out the absurdity of getting caught up in things like powerscaling. I don't even see the negativity here. It's all pretty civil from where I'm sitting. The powerscaling "consistency" and the shrinking cast weren't what made the fights in GT boring. What made them boring is the lack of cleverness and brutality. None of the characters looked or felt like they went through the ringer. That's a big factor in what makes a fight good.

I think the power scaling is only an issue when it's glaringly bad like in the case of Muten Roshi in Super or in RoF when one of Freeza's henchmen is boasted as being on par with Dodoria and Zarbon and yet can take on Piccolo. The case of Muten Roshi is even worse because his inclusion ruins his arc from decades prior.

[ankokudaishogun]

There actually was setup to Zen-Oh showing up to defeat Zamasu. His present counterpart gave Goku the button earlier. With that being said, him being able to conveniently wipe an immortal being from existence always seemed like a lazy and anti-climactic resolution to me.

I did actually liked it because Zen'oh killed a whole timeline... basically showing they cannot rely on the Gods for anything and estabilishing Zen'oh as a complete monster in a way.

That said, Power-scaling _IS_ important, especially in a battle-focused series, as it's tied directly to the development of the characters.

The issue in Super was less people getting suddenly stronger as much as them alternating between being GoD-class to Namek-level in base at random without explanations.

More specifically: the general lack of explanations in Super.
The manga helped a lot with it, like with the explanation for Black's power-ups, but not everything had appliable explanations.