Dragon Ball Daima Strength Discussion Thread

[PhantomSaiyan]

There’s a real chance that he wasn’t even stronger than Final Form Freeza.

Hmm, I don't know about that

[TobyS]

There’s nothing so far that suggests Shin was more affected than Goku, Vegeta, or Piccolo. If anything, his performance in Daima just reinforces that he wasn’t particularly overwhelming to begin with.

Besides, Shin being far stronger than Piccolo and the base Saiyans in the Boo arc was never outright confirmed. The idea of him being powerful always felt like a suspicion rather than something concretely backed by feats. There’s a real chance that he wasn’t even stronger than Final Form Freeza.

On the other hand, the Boo arc itself suggests that the base Saiyans were comparable to or possibly even stronger than Piccolo at that point. Dragon Ball Super further supports this, with base Gohan and Goku performing on par with him in multiple instances. So rather than Shin being nerfed harder, I’d say Daima just continues the trend of him not living up to the Supreme Kai must be crazy strong assumption that the characters initially had.

Except Piccolos quote has been dissected by JP speakers on this forum as being a generic strength statement and not a respect thing. It makes Piccolo look stupid if he was wrong. And Shin never comments like "damn that idiot Namek would have fucked me up, it's luckily he mistakenly thought I was stronger.

Dabra also Blitzes Kibito in both timelines, and Piccolo and Kuririrn despite being able to use their ki and not Shins.
Shin also isn't insta killed and is able to survive against both Fat Boo and Future Zamas quite well I just don't see Boo saga Piccolo doing.
There's too much putting Shin above Piccolo imo and there's waay too much putting Piccolo above base saiyans.

Some being nerfed more than others is pure headcanon sure, but the alternative is "ignore toei bullshit scenes didn't happen and were probably not in the OG outline" type deal.

[Hugo Boss]

I don’t doubt that Piccolo told Goku that Shin was far stronger than him, but that statement came from a gut feeling rather than actual analysis. He couldn’t even sense Shin’s ki, so his assessment was based more on instinct and perception than anything measurable. And Shin himself likely believed he was much stronger, but that doesn’t mean it was true. Nobody in that scene had a solid basis to make an objective power comparison.

For the record, Piccolo no-diffed Babidi, an opponent that Shin thought he would struggle against. That’s a pretty big discrepancy if Shin was supposedly far superior. I just don’t see anything actually putting Shin above Piccolo in terms of feats. ‘Surviving’ doesn’t mean much either, since stronger Kaioshins were outright killed by Boo.

Also, in Daima, Piccolo easily karate chopped Degesu, a full-grown Glind, while still a kid himself. That suggests he retained a significant amount of his power even in a weakened state. So if we’re going by showings rather than assumptions, I’d say the evidence leans more toward Piccolo still being above Shin rather than the other way around.

[Mr Baggins]

Also, Piccolo has a known history of almost constantly miscalculating shit from Namek all the way to Super Buu, the latter of which is especially notable because it was the story deliberately poking fun at him mixing up basic stuff about the time chamber.

His comment about Shin was likely no exception. Similar to the time chamber thing where he says he was too frazzled to think straight, he was so shocked about Shin's high status that he couldn't accurately assess how strong he actually was.

[PhantomSaiyan]

it was the story deliberately poking fun at him mixing up basic stuff about the time chamber.

I think that was Toriyama poking fun at himself for mixing up basic stuff, it was definitely a mistake that he didn't notice at first and course corrected by adding that scene, Piccolo just happened to be the one that said it, but it was definitely one of those cases of Toriyama speaking through his characters like he often did.

And to be honest I never got the vibe from the original story that Piccolo is bad at calculating other people's powers, in fact I always saw him as one of the wisest and most tactical Z Fighters.
I did however get that impression from him in the Super manga with the bullshit that Toyotaro makes him say sometimes lol like the infamous "Vegeta has never been one to miscalculate his opponent's strenght" but other than that, I don't really recall any instances of Piccolo severely miscalculating

[Mr Baggins]

I think that was Toriyama poking fun at himself for mixing up basic stuff

The mix-up I'm referring to happens just a few panels before Piccolo acknowledges it. There's a reason he also drops Mr. Satan when realizing he was wrong – that's the story jokingly telling people that whenever Piccolo isn't being calm, he's a goof. His excitement often betrays his own confidence, and competence.

There's no doubt that Toriyama tends to channel his extradiegesis through Piccolo as one of his favorite characters, but it's also just a part of the character. There's ultimately more evidence to point to him simply being wrong about Shin than being correct.

The most generous possible take I can give to the "Shin > Piccolo" reading is that Toriyama almost immediately backtracked on it in the same story arc.

[PhantomSaiyan]

The mix-up I'm referring to happens just a few panels before Piccolo acknowledges it. There's a reason he also drops Mr. Satan when realizing he was wrong – that's the story jokingly telling people that whenever Piccolo isn't being calm, he's a goof. His excitement often betrays his own confidence, and competence.

There's no doubt that Toriyama tends to channel his extradiegesis through Piccolo as one of his favorite characters, but it's also just a part of the character. There's ultimately more evidence to point to him simply being wrong about Shin than being correct.

The most generous take I can give to the "Shin > Piccolo" reading is that Toriyama almost immediately backtracked on it in the same story arc.

I don't know if we're talking about the same one because it's been a while since I've read the majin buu saga, so I'm not even sure if there actually was a mistake that Toriyama corrected a few chapters later, I might be mixing things up myself lol if we're talking about the same scene then you're right and I'm misremembering.

But regardless of that, I fundamentally agree that Piccolo wasn't weaker than Shin, and even if was, I don't think the gap is that big. I always saw him backing out of the fight as a sign of respect more than an admission of inferiority.

[Koitsukai]

I've said this before, the context of that scene is about Shin being the highest deity to date, not about power, it's Kami speaking. Not everything is a powerscaling case.
When Goku offers to say a thing or two about a thing or two to Shin, Piccolo is going nuts, and not precisely because Shin is strong enough to kill everybody (that's Beerus) but because he would be disrespecting the actual, one and only (after the other 4 died), real slim shady god.

[Zephyr]

Piccolo is shook before he knows who Shin is.

[Mr Baggins]

Piccolo is shook before he knows who Shin is.

Piccolo is shook explicitly because he knows who Shin is. He doesn't know his exact title at first, but concludes he's a higher god and places his standing at least on rank with the Grand Kai.

Any strength inference is based purely on that or vague assumptions, and not from actually sensing his power. Even Goku and Vegeta seemed to misjudge his power initially.

[Zephyr]

Re: Sequence of events

Piccolo is shook before he knows who Shin is.

Piccolo is shook explicitly because he knows who Shin is. He doesn't know his exact title at first, but concludes he's a higher god and places his standing at least on rank with the Grand Kai.

Any strength inference is based purely on that, and not from actually sensing his power. Even Goku and Vegeta seemed to misjudge his power initially.

No, he is explicitly shook before even concluding that Shin must be some non-specific divinity above Kaio.

The first thing he thinks to himself after entering the ring is translated by Viz as: "What a foe this is...though I've never seen nor heard of him before!" (followed by a "Who is this man?!"). This is translated by Herms as: "Wh-why…is it so hard for me to fight him?...Ev-Even though I've only just met him…" If Piccolo had already concluded that Shin was a non-specific higher god, then he would know why it's so hard to fight him.

I guess you could say he's frozen out of some divine instinct that his mind hadn't caught up to yet. I think that would be a straightforward reading of the scene. But my point that he was shook before reaching any knowledge-based conclusions stands.

---

Re: Context: Rank vs. Strength

What Herms says in the Strength Checker is also pretty illuminating:

Chapter: 439 (DBZ 245), P12.3-4
Context: after Piccolo resigns from his and Kaioshin's match
Goku: “That much, Piccolo?...”
Piccolo: “Yeah…Our dimensions…are too different…”
Kuririn: “Yo-you’re kidding, right? Stop joking around! I-I’ve got to fight him next.”
Note: Piccolo’s line is a pretty standard way of saying that someone is stronger than you. You can find a lot of instances of people being described as in “a different dimension” throughout these quotes, like Tenshinhan talking about Super Saiyan Goku, or the narrator describing final form Freeza. In Viz the line is made vaguer (“He is a different order of being”), which makes it sound like Piccolo could just be talking about how Kaioshin is a super-god, rather than about his strength per-say. Anyway, though Piccolo is pretty much flat-out saying Kaioshin is way stronger than him here, you could still argue that he's either mistaken or lying...I guess.

So Piccolo is making a judgment about strength here. And, sure, we can reasonably infer that Piccolo doesn't necessarily have justification for extrapolating strength based on position in the cosmic hierarchy. But two things. First, perhaps that's not all he's going off of. He's already sensing one thing from Shin that others can't, why not another? It's not as if being stronger and being higher in rank are necessarily mutually-exclusive. Second, I would wager that Toriyama's speaking through Piccolo here.

So, I think it's a mistake to paint the scene as only being contextually about rank or strength. To me, it seems to be pretty clearly about both at the same time.

[Mr Baggins]

I guess you could say he's frozen out of some divine instinct that his mind hadn't caught up to yet. I think that would be a straightforward reading of the scene. But my point that he was shook before reaching any knowledge-based conclusions stands.

Okay, but that's more semantic than the point I was making.

Yes, his conclusion springs from some vague gut feeling. I don't really qualify his first bit of confused commentary as "explicitly shook"; that doesn't seem to come until after Shin reads his mind. The most straightforward reading of the scene is that he discovers he's a higher deity while facing Shin and it's specifically this that lends to his "different dimensions" comment.

And other than being more shocked and having a better grasp of his identity than Goku or Vegeta, Piccolo's reaction isn't markedly different from that of the Saiyans. Goku shakes Shin's hand and then assumes he wouldn't be a cakewalk to beat. Vegeta's shown sweating when Kuririn mentions he doesn't look all that tough, but then two chapters later admits he has no idea how strong he is.

Contextually, Herms is right. The scene is about "both" in the sense that strength is being inferred from either rank or a general feeling, depending on which character you'd ask and at which point in time. That does not, however, make their inference accurate.

[ZombieVito]

I side with Herms and the Daizenshuu.

Shin > Piccolo.

Mini Shin being weaker than base Mini Goku can easily be explained away by him being more nerfed by the wish. Nothing contradicts it and it makes sense in my head that different species got hit differently by the wish.

[Kaboom]

I've got a fun headcanon explanation for Mini Shin being weaker than everyone else: god-ki.

I like to think that god-ki is something you can only gain and use if you're already substantially powerful by mortal standards. That's why "lower" gods like Dende and the four Kaio can't use it (even though they can sense it), but "higher" gods like the Kaioshin can. Any given Kaio can train to get stronger and learn to use god-ki and become a Kaioshin.

The bulk of Shin's stronger-than-Piccolo power came from his god-ki. But in Daima he got reverted to a much younger and less powerful state where he was incapable of using it. So he not only got his mortal strength reduced by the same proportion as the others, but he also lost his "power enhancer" of god-ki on top of it.

Almost like if Goku and Vegeta had lost their ability to go Super Saiyan when they got mini-fied. Or even more apt, imagine if Goku got magically reverted from his Ginyu-arc power back down to his Saiyan-arc power, and his maximum Kaio-Ken likewise got downgraded from 10x to 4x at the same time. Same type of thing with Shin here.

[ZombieVito]

I've got a fun headcanon explanation for Mini Shin being weaker than everyone else: god-ki.

I like to think that god-ki is something you can only gain and use if you're already substantially powerful by mortal standards. That's why "lower" gods like Dende and the four Kaio can't use it (even though they can sense it), but "higher" gods like the Kaioshin can. Any given Kaio can train to get stronger and learn to use god-ki and become a Kaioshin.

The bulk of Shin's stronger-than-Piccolo power came from his god-ki. But in Daima he got reverted to a much younger and less powerful state where he was incapable of using it. So he not only got his mortal strength reduced by the same proportion as the others, but he also lost his "power enhancer" of god-ki on top of it.

Almost like if Goku and Vegeta had lost their ability to go Super Saiyan when they got mini-fied. Or even more apt, imagine if Goku got magically reverted from his Ginyu-arc power back down to his Saiyan-arc power, and his maximum Kaio-Ken likewise got downgraded from 10x to 4x at the same time. Same type of thing with Shin here.

God Ki could very well be the reason he became weaker than base Goku as a Mini and there is a precedent with Dai Kaioshin in the DBS manga becoming much weaker once he used up almost all of his God Ki to seal up Moro.

Kudos to you.

[GreatSaiyaman123]

For what it’s worth, Goku can sense Kaioshin’s Ki and teleports to him in Daima.

[ZombieVito]

For what it’s worth, Goku can sense Kaioshin’s Ki and teleports to him in Daima.

He never does it in the Boo arc right?

[LightBing]

God Ki is never mentioned in Daima. As far as it is concerned, it doesn't exist.
Goku estimating Nahare's power can only be, if the latter doesn't have God Ki.

Better not to force terms and ideas from branching Dragon Ball iterations that don't exist in this one.

[super michael]

I wonder how much stronger the Z fighters got after the Boo Saga. We know Vegeta gained SSJ3 and Goku was working on gaining SSJ4, which he gained once he battled Gomah with the help of Neva.

I know Daima happened some months after the Boo Saga, the evidence is that the Dragon Balls wasn't ready in Daima, which normally takes 1 years for it to be ready. But we know Goku and Vegeta are always training hard.
As for Piccolo, we know that he trains hard. As for Goten and Trunks, they are completely unknown in Daima.

[fadeddreams5]

I wonder how much stronger the Z fighters got after the Boo Saga. We know Vegeta gained SSJ3 and Goku was working on gaining SSJ4, which he gained once he battled Gomah with the help of Neva.

I know Daima happened some months after the Boo Saga, the evidence is that the Dragon Balls wasn't ready in Daima, which normally takes 1 years for it to be ready. But we know Goku and Vegeta are always training hard.
As for Piccolo, we know that he trains hard. As for Goten and Trunks, they are completely unknown in Daima.

If the Buu arc itself is any indication, not much stronger, outside those new forms. After 7 years of training, it took Goku going SSJ2 for Vegeta to acknowledge that he had become stronger than SSJ2 Gohan during the Cell Games, so it's not like he's SSJ2 level as a SSJ1 or something crazy like what was shown in GT. After the Buu arc, they should be stronger after healing from their injuries and training, but nothing substantial after only a few months.

It's ridiculous Vegeta and Goku got new forms from basic training, but that's besides the point.