I'm glad people are recognizing Piccolo's gains now. I've seen such downplay of his character even after he threatened to blow Moro away inside his barrier. Like how can you be anything lower than a BOG SSG to inflict that level of destruction to Moro. Piccolo isn't one to mindlessly boast these days, so you better believe he was capable of this damage. He likely wouldn't have succeeded, but the fact that he thought it would hurt Moro is enough to show me that he's a contender now behind Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan like it should be at this time. Frieza would likely still be much higher as well, above him and Gohan.
Lionel wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:16 pm
Piccolo must have really benefited from working alongside Gohan. Since the Buu arc everyone's favourite Namekian has been visibly stagnant in his progression of strength. Several arcs portray his degeneration in such a questionable light that people debated if he was inferior to the base Saiyans.
At least here there's some push back to give Piccolo a hand up. Fans may question its plausibility but Gohan alone can help to rationalise the growth. It's at least more effective than Goku's sporadic image training at the beginning of the BOG arc.
There's always been a little pushback. The Super anime has been doing wonky stuff to "protect" Piccolo in some ways. For instance, he fought Tagoma in his weighted clothing and was able to bypass him and Frieza's (already in motion) Death Beam to save Gohan while still in his weights. That by itself doesn't seem like much to pay attention to, but then in the U6 tourney vs Frost, despite being stated to be completely outclassed, he was shown to block Frost's attacks one-handed and bind him with his arm before nearly defeating him. Again, not much to write home about but we can see that he isn't as weak as every thinks he is. Then they gave him the SBC/barrier feat. The manga played it straighter than that and showed us that he was on par with Frost when he exerted himself. Then his offscreen powerup in the anime put him above SSJ2 Gohan and they trained a bit more and he was somewhere between SSJ2 and Ult. Gohan. In the manga they made it clear that he was below the SSJ3 level of strength of #17. And now we have this arc where all of his crazy training has reached its apex.
In comparison to fighters from past arcs, the Piccolo of now would likely be quite the opponent. Dragon Ball's ever increasing stakes model would encourage it. Would it sound crazy to suggest that Moro arc Piccolo could take the likes of Dyspo in the manga?
Exactly. I personally think he's stronger than BOG SSG Goku. I think he's cresting the initial SSB tier from RoF, but much of the evidence points to him surpassing it. I just prefer to lowball.
One thing I will mention is that it's likely that Piccolo wasn't that far behind Dyspo in the manga
during the ToP, since Dyspo wasn't even close to his anime counterpart in power or speed. Dyspo was probably comparable to #17 and I think that's being generous unless I'm missing something.
dragonball0900 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 8:57 pm
I believe training with someone far stronger than himself gives Piccolo crazy gains. Back then, when training with SSJ Goku for 3 years for the arrival of the androids, Piccolo went from way weaker than Base Goku to close to SSJ Goku. After the Cell Games, Piccolo only trained by himself or just meditate on the lookout, and barely got any stronger. That happened from the Buu Saga to the Tournament of Power.
I can't tell you how many times I bring this up on these forums. This is just the latest example of Piccolo's remarkable training gains. Give him a stronger partner and the guy will nearly match that person and all without a transformation of his own.
Now that he had a way stronger partner like Ultimate Gohan. His gains would be far bigger than any gains he had since Post Cell Saga.
I think if he and Gohan had been able to train for more than two days before the ToP, like if they were given two months to train back then, I think Piccolo would have been just as strong as he is now. Either just under it, or even a little over it depending on how motivated he was.
Piccolo is clearly no longer just mere SSJ tier now. Goku complimented his strength. Him being mere SSJ tier would be pointless, given Goku's statement, as well as the fights against Saganbo and Moro, where he performed far better than anyone not named Goku, Vegeta or Gohan, who are clearly the ONLY ones from the group that were stronger than Piccolo.
And I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw this. The Piccolo downplay is horrendous, especially with all the evidence on display.
Piccolo at this point should far surpass SSJ3 tier by miles.
SS3 is an extremely safe place to put him, since no one can argue this and he seems so capable of fighting above his limits, but realistically it's as you've said. He's well above the SS3 tier we saw Goku use against #17.
Big fan of the characters of Dragon Ball, all of them, especially formerly prominent sub-characters. -__-
