Piccolo claimed that 17 didn't punch as hard as him, a claim that the notoriously cocky 17 never disputed. Instead, he played up his stamina versus Piccolo's.GreatSaiyaman123 wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2024 2:16 pm The difference in power between Piccolo and 17 was unnoticeable, they were matching each other blow for blow.
There's no measurable difference between Piccolo and Vegeta's fights other than a single line on 17's lip that could be interpreted as a bit of blood. Both budge and launch their respective androids and leave those generic scratches (that are probably supposed to be welts/light bruising) and both fight for about a chapter before they start to gas. Most of this is purely subjective perception of how much a stoic character was "hurt" (and she definitely seems hurt here to me, going by her body language, groan, facial expression, and how slowly she gets up). Except official materials straight-up say that Vegeta and 18 were on par in terms of power, but one drains stamina much quicker...On the other hand, while Vegeta was keeping up with 18, his attacks were doing nothing; now that's a noticeable difference. These two fights aren't comparable at all.
Let's put it this way: Piccolo is much stronger than Vegeta. Piccolo equals the Androids. Therefore, the Androids are much stronger than Vegeta. Infinite stamina was just the cherry on top.
If I was sparring someone in MMA and they went full blast and gassed themselves after one minute of a five minute round, and were able to match me for that minute but I just easily controlled them for the next two minutes and toyed with them for the two after that, I wouldn't consider us equals even if "peak output" is technically similar. On that note, Piccolo is slightly stronger than 17, who is slightly stronger than 18, who is slightly stronger than Vegeta. The three "slight" jumps still leave enough room for Piccolo to be more than slightly stronger than Vegeta, especially considering the already-mentioned point that Super Saiyans drop stamina quickly, and continuous output is part of how you measure power, not just peak. Piccolo doesn't have infinite android stamina but he has better stamina than a base Super Saiyan.
It read to me that Tenshinhan knew about the technique's weakness himself, he's just shocked that Goku picked up on it. He even says that he didn't expect Goku to find that flaw so easily, implying he knew there was one to be found. Which is still pretty dumb but whatever. The main point is that this indisputably demonstrates that the characters at this point don't accurately gauge each other's ki just from sensing it and any and all "X was confident they could beat Y and they were in the same room when they fought three years ago" claims for power scaling are essentially bunk.I agree with your placement of Tao and that their ability to sense Ki was very rudimentary back then, but that scene was just making the others stupid so Goku could look smart. Tenshinhan should've known he was weaker regardless of sensing Ki, and he showed the ability to sense Ki in the last saga anyway. Kuririn and Yamcha clearly can't sense Ki, however. They're always clueless about everything.
To be honest, this may also explain why Tenshinhan thinks he's stronger than Piccolo Daimao by the 23rd Budokai, when official power levels state the opposite. He can tell when a ki is big or evil, but he's not that precise about it. He can't put a mental number on it and compare that recollection to another level three years later. He'd only have some sense of what that big ki actually meant if he fought it himself at full power and got to actually feel it physically, which he did not. Actually, even if he did do that... again, it's hard to get anything specific out of such an experience other than "it was a lot stronger and faster than me." If I threw you in the ring with a prime Muhammad Ali and a modern #15 ranked fringe heavyweight contender I really really doubt that you, a presumably untrained and normal person, could meaningfully tell the difference (unless you already knew Ali's name and face but that's beside the point).
