Do you wish Dragon Ball had more diverse powers?

[Seekeroftruth]

Outside of time manipulation, character's growing big and Moro's passive ability to absorb energy, most of dragon ball combat base abilities are all standard energy blast attack, ki shield, speed/strength durability amplifier in the form of transformations and fusing of characters. When we look at other mangas they provide far more interesting and unique abilities that we find lacking in Dragon Ball.

For example, In bleach there is a quincy who has a unique ability that allows him to calculate the perfect lethal dose (the amount that will cause death without fail)—of any substance he takes into his body (primarily by ingestion) and then raise or lower that value as he sees fit, inducing a lethal dosage of that substance in those around them. In order to facilitate the lethal dose, he needs to consume a great amount of whatever it is he wants to manipulate into his body. For example by consuming blood, he can decrease the lethal dosage of the blood in his opponent's body, thus making it fatal to them

And by using this ability, he basically forces his opponent to either continue fighting him while the blood inside them is poisoning them or force them to purposely lose blood in their body in order to bring down the lethal dose needed to keep them alive.



For example, if the person has 4l of blood in their body and the lethal dose needed to kill them is 2l, then that person would have to lose at least 2+ L of blood in order to not die from their own blood (which is now poisoning them). However, they now face the problem of dying from blood loss.

It just feels like one of the many reason the series feels stale and fans are moving away from it has to do in lack of innervated ideas. With other animes providing new hax, and interesting abilities to characters, changing the hair colour of established transformation and reusing past abilities is not going to cut it anymore.

[Yuji]

No. Often these complicated abilities in other Shounen either bog the pace down with monologues and explanations by the peanut gallery (since the abilities are too complex to be explained visually) or they're too aesthetically cluttered and busy to be appealing to the eye. Dragon Ball's appeal lies in its simplicity of movement, which Toriyama's great choreography lets shine. Everyone gets martial arts, I don't think theresa craving for more diverse abilities considering Super has introduced a lot more hax abilities than the original series did and most people would take the Z fights any day.

I would enjoy if the series borrowed more moves and stances from actual martial arts, however. Grappling is sorely lacking for such expert fighters, for example.

[JulieYBM]

I'm always excited to see creators expand on their ideas and improve on their battle scenes. One of my favorite things about having Tomioka Atsuhiro involved with writing the 2015 animated series was how they specifically employ unique battle strategies that combine the signature techniques of a character with the environment that they are fighting in. We see this specifically in Dragon Ball Super Episode #123 where Gokuu first lays down ki-powered landmines to distract Jiren and then lures him into nearly falling out of bounds. This reminds me of how Tomioka would have done something similar for Pocket Monsters during the 26 years that he wrote for the Satoshi-led series.

In terms of more unique abilities, I think a great thing about involving more people in the creative process of creating Dragon Ball is how these new people can break the rules set-up by Toriyama to do new and unexpected things. I don't think that Dragon Ball has necessarily reached the degree of freedom in range of expression that you might see from NARUTO or BLEACH, but Dragon Ball did have things like Freeza employing telekinetic powers in the animated series as well as First Form Cell in general using his tail as a core part of his battle style. Or heck, remember Giran? Nobody quite ever battled like him.

[Grimlock]

I mean, there's a clear reason as to why, to this day, Janemba is still highly regarded in terms of abilities, right? Sure, most of what he does is pretty common in Western comic books, it is still very unique as far as Dragon Ball is concerned, though.

So yes, I wished Dragon Ball had more diverse powers, even if they are borrowed from other sources. Seeing certain characters spamming their signature techniques is boring. Fusions should always combine their moves. Some more elemental powers would be nice too.

[Kendamu]

It's usually fun when the villain has a strange ability that adds challenge, but I'd rather our protagonists mainly stick to incredibly exaggerated divine Kung Fu abilities like what they're already known for.

[Soppa Saia People]

Powers in specific? Not totally, but I wish the fighting characters, specifically post Namek, had like, actual different roles ? A big issue with the Cell and Boo arcs for me, is that every character who isn't the one to beat the bad guy, feels kind of pointless in a fighting role. I think it would've been cool if in the Cell arc for example, Piccolo, Vegeta, Trunks, etc, each brought something different to the table in terms of fighting, that made them beating with dealing with specific threats or obstacles, through their fighting style and techniques. They don't need to be the heros, they don't need to get their "Moment", but I'd like if it felt like there's a reason for someone like Tenshinhan to be there outside of just being another body who's not strong enough, it makes the characters feel rather aimless and not very engaging. It's not an issue for me in the Saiyan arc and Freeza arc because those arcs fights mostly revolve around a strategy, even if they won't win, it feels like most have a purpose, as opposed to like, Ultimate Gohan, who's strategy is "Win", and then when he doesn't win it's just kind of another toy thrown in the pile. It's why I really like the first two tournament arcs and Red Ribbon, it feels like the cast of heros and villains each bring something new to the story thru fighting, and aren't just distractions.

[Koitsukai]

It's more interesting to see the MC deal with weird, diverse powers rather than having the ability to make the villain's spleen burst by snapping their fingers.
Hit and Moro were like that, in the latter case he became another brawler unfortunately.
Black and Zamasu, while not having anything particularly new, had a dynamic that was interesting. One was the unbreakable shield, the other one was the sword that kept getting sharper and sharper.
Being a kung fu series, the new techniques (autopilot and pain-is-growth) are really good and consistent with its origins. There's no need to have so convoluted techniques when you can make it work in much simpler ways.

And no, DBS relied on recolouring and whatnot, and it still broke the internet when another recolour was fighting a really jacked up grey, boring character. So it seems that actually was enough to cut it.

[Shaddy]

Dragon Ball has a wide variety of powers, it just isn't interested in using any of them. Toriyama got tired of having to think further than "big ki blast" at some point and now we've locked ourselves into a pattern where anything else is going to be considered too weak to be viable.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Dragon Ball has a wide variety of powers, it just isn't interested in using any of them. Toriyama got tired of having to think further than "big ki blast" at some point and now we've locked ourselves into a pattern where anything else is going to be considered too weak to be viable.

Ironically Ki Blasts have also been rendered Obsolete, other than the Kamehameha and Genki Dama NO OTHER KI ATTACK has ever killed a villain. I know those are still Big Ki Blasts but what little variety there used to be also died for good.

[Yuji]

Dragon Ball has a wide variety of powers, it just isn't interested in using any of them. Toriyama got tired of having to think further than "big ki blast" at some point and now we've locked ourselves into a pattern where anything else is going to be considered too weak to be viable.

Ironically Ki Blasts have also been rendered Obsolete, other than the Kamehameha and Genki Dama NO OTHER KI ATTACK has ever killed a villain. I know those are still Big Ki Blasts but what little variety there used to be also died for good.

Villains don't tend to die in Dragon Ball but Freeza was defeated on Namek and on Earth with two generic Ki blasts, Trunks also would later kill Cold, future Androids and Cell with Ki blasts, Yakon was beaten with an aura, Dabra was beaten with the chocolate beam, Jiren was defeated with the death ball (in the manga).

[Zephyr]

Dragon Ball's a fantasy kung fu story, so I think characters training to make better use of their ki is fine. I'm not really thirsting for new systems or mechanics, but I do think it'd be cool if new and interesting things got done with ki, or if any of the already-existing interesting things with ki got used more.

Ironically Ki Blasts have also been rendered Obsolete, other than the Kamehameha and Genki Dama NO OTHER KI ATTACK has ever killed a villain. I know those are still Big Ki Blasts but what little variety there used to be also died for good.

Cell Max was killed with a Makankosappo just last year.

[ClutchBangstrip]

Lord, No. Just fight. I think that's a major reason why it's still so successful.

I don't wanna see boxers have different powers and spend half their time explaining it, instead of boxing. And what do you know, boxing events rank higher than every other event on PPV. That includes Wrestlemania (with all that extra stuff).

Sometimes, simplicity wins and Dragon Ball is the ultimate example of it. They're already pushing it with all the blasts and beams.

[DragonBallFoodie]

I admit that whenever I see something cool in a recent shonen show (Jujustu Taisen, Fate, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) I almost always wonder if it could be used in a DB story and who would wield it (ally/enemy), and whether it'd work.

But on the whole, I think those powers don't really work in DB. I've felt that each show's powers work best within their own show, and their own internal logic/context. Fate is about heroes and their legends, Jujutsu involves curses and exorcisms. DB is generally about martial arts and chi energy, similar to Street Fighter; it's fairly simple combat compared to the more advanced and creative shonen works in the genre, and I think that suits it just fine.

[ChronoTwigger]

It's all relative to the kind of story.
JoJo is totally based on the complex interaction of uncanny powers.
Saint Seiya have just slight variants, but for the most is a linear shoot 'em up, more straightforward than DB.
Both are juicy stories that drag you in by their specific profluency.

DB is stagnant by the fact it aged badly. The tension of DBZ should have matured into a dramatical sequel for the sake of profluency, but for reasons (probably new gen kids) they decided to shift into a neutral reiterative container, that repeat his tropes in a desertified happy place. Pokemon.
Namecc arc was *very complex* by shonen standards. Excellent timing, growing tension, dynamic plot, it was a masterpiece of action narrative. Cell and Buu escalated the conflict, creating even more intricated situations.

From that point, you expect for the story to expand on such ground. More complexity, more situations to exploit, and so new ideas to solve the issues (and so, more powers). BoG could have been such a prompt: a triad of Goku vs Frieza vs Beerus. It could have been a fantastic plot drive.
After fighting aliens, time stuff and magical stuff, maybe scaling up to divine scale (Goku the Sayan God vs other gods [the Frieza Unholy God vs Beerus vs Zamasu the Fallen God vs Daishinkan the Law...]) could have been proper. Harder to manage, but proper. Beat Zamasu and Daishinkan win, but his Law will enslave the universe, so tag with Beerus, but the goal of Beerus was instead... and so on.
You expect for a mature character to face more mature plots, not easier ones XD.

DBS made a regression instead. The tension and complexity is totally gone. The scale is lower, the enemies have no hook in Goku past, they just pop up. The active cast is limited to one character + Vegeta (that's just an extension of Goku actions).
As the situations are so bland, you don't have to come with stuff like Genkidama, Fusions, you can just pop in the new form that solve everything..

So, it's not a matter of having more or less powers, is the fact there's no narrative ground to come with new ones. What exactky does UE? Stronger punches. As delivering punches is the whole space left and needed by the actual narrative.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Dragon Ball's a fantasy kung fu story, so I think characters training to make better use of their ki is fine. I'm not really thirsting for new systems or mechanics, but I do think it'd be cool if new and interesting things got done with ki, or if any of the already-existing interesting things with ki got used more.

Ironically Ki Blasts have also been rendered Obsolete, other than the Kamehameha and Genki Dama NO OTHER KI ATTACK has ever killed a villain. I know those are still Big Ki Blasts but what little variety there used to be also died for good.

Cell Max was killed with a Makankosappo just last year.

I knew I would be corrected and look like a moron. I. KNEW. IT! Still I stand corrected and I am glad it happened.

[Seekeroftruth]

It's usually fun when the villain has a strange ability that adds challenge, but I'd rather our protagonists mainly stick to incredibly exaggerated divine Kung Fu abilities like what they're already known for.

How do you think Goku and vegeta would handle the following abilities:

1. A user who every time he strikes/makes contact you, he doubles your weight until you are too heavy to move.


2. A user who every time they strike someone it begins to paralyze their opponent and slow down their movement until they can't move at all.


3. A user who alters the direction of movement of those within their field (up becomes down, left becomes right etc)



4. A user who can swap all the damage they receive and give it to their opponent



5. Probability manipulation that basically makes impossible or near-impossible events happening when they are needed most. Damage empowerment that increases the users size and power whenever they are physically damage which includes lethal.

[Yuji]

How do you think Goku and vegeta would handle the following abilities:

[Zephyr]

1. A user who every time he strikes/makes contact you, he doubles your weight until you are too heavy to move.

2. A user who every time they strike someone it begins to paralyze their opponent and slow down their movement until they can't move at all.

Don't get hit.

3. A user who alters the direction of movement of those within their field (up becomes down, left becomes right etc)

Acclimate to it.

4. A user who can swap all the damage they receive and give it to their opponent

5. Probability manipulation that basically makes impossible or near-impossible events happening when they are needed most. Damage empowerment that increases the users size and power whenever they are physically damage which includes lethal.

Seal them away.

[Kendamu]

It's usually fun when the villain has a strange ability that adds challenge, but I'd rather our protagonists mainly stick to incredibly exaggerated divine Kung Fu abilities like what they're already known for.

How do you think Goku and vegeta would handle the following abilities:

I expect all of these to be defeated with chi-powered Kung Fu taught to them by some of the most important and powerful deities in their universe.

Pretty much like this and I love it!!

[nineko]

It would be interesting to see some unusual powers in Dragon Ball, such as Shikamaru's shadow control thing (from Naruto), or Kaito's taboo territory (from YuYu Hakusho). How would Goku and Vegeta fare against those powers?