What is stronger, a generic ki blast or a punch?

[nickzambuto]

Like which would be more meaningful in a fight?

Piccolo landed many basic punches on second form Freeza, but then Freeza pinned him to a mountain and landed many generic ki blasts. So who got the better of that round?

[theherodjl]

I'm fairly sure it might be ki blasts. Goku managed to keep Cell stationary and forcefully create a barrier from a barrage of Ki blasts, while Cell at least had the ability to move about as well as counterattack when engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand fight. A punch has basic force to deal damage but Ki blasts have force on top of intense heat to deal damage & cause burns, so I guess the Ki blast is stronger by a marginal amount.

[Galan007]

I mean, haven't ki blasts/energy attacks pretty much always been what has put the 'big bad' down for good?

[Godo]

I would vote for ki-blasts, since you can regulate how much power they have by regulating your chi.
Looking at the Goku and Piccolo vs. Raditz fight, it's clear that their ki blasts are much stronger than their punches (although not generic), just by going with the scouter readings (otherwise the scouter would have read an power increase from their flurry of punches).

[nineko]

Building on the post above, I too believe that ki blasts can be more powerful (but also less powerful if the ki user is skilled enough) than physical attacks, because of the inherent limitations of the latter ones.

The most suitable reference, in my opinion, is the aftereffect experienced by regular humans after they donated their energy to Goku for the genkidama used against Buu: as Vegeta himself noted, they felt like they went for a run, meaning that they instantly drained most of their their ki reserves, which would otherwise have lasted for hours.

The second most suitable reference comes from the Buu saga as well: at a certain point, Vegeta exploded by using all his ki at the same time, again proving that ki attacks aren't restrained by the same limitations as physical attacks. I don't think anyone ever died because they threw a particularly powerul punch.

tl;dr if your ki reserve is a dam, a punch is like a small faucet, while ki attacks can open all the flood gates at the same time (or destroy the dam).

[nickzambuto]

tl;dr if your ki reserve is a dam, a punch is like a small faucet, while ki attacks can open all the flood gates at the same time (or destroy the dam).

Good analogy.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

It mainly entirely depends on the kind of fighter one is.

Generic blasts can be weak enough that they can be blocked with ease, or powerful enough to blow away opposition.

But punches are a bit more consistent unless you specifically change up how you punch with special training and/or techniques (i.e. Jiren's focused strikes allowing him to exert far more power in his blows than his "power level" would suggest).

I imagine that, compared to generic Ki blasts, punches might hurt more simply because you're exerting a mixture of powerful Ki focused through a physical medium compared to needing to make Ki dense enough to fly off and hurt.