Tien > Freeza?

[shinaobi]

Amiga, if memory serves, they weren't even that surprised when Goku popped up and went Super-Saiyan and such(though they got sweating when he proved to be tougher than them); the way they acted, I'm lead to believe that, after they let their bug go(which I'd say was the most impressive technology; it managed to follow a guy into and out of the afterlife!), calculations were made, and Yamcha's powerlevel was probably around where they expected Goku to be by that point, as was the result of their bout.

[Bussani]

As for speed, didn't it take SSJ Gotenks tnearly half an hour to fly around the world however many times he did? He dashed off as soon as he fused, and then when he and Piccolo landed at the bottom, he only had a minute left. Which would also mean in took Piccolo half an hour to get from the lookout to Earth.

He also claims that he took a nap while waiting for Piccolo, but we don't know how long that nap was, or even if it was true. Or exactly how many times he flew around the world, I suppose. But yeah.

To make an estimation though; I think Tenshinhan's power level is a bit lower than Goku's and Vegeta's base forms, but stronger than Gohan's and Trunks' base form. I base this mainly on the variation in dedication these guys have. Goku and Vegeta would be the most devoted and dedicated fighters in the DB universe, pushing themselves through extreme methods of training in order to get stronger. While Tenshinhan might not have trained in 400 G's of gravity or spent time in the RoSaT, his life still consists of training, just like with Goku and Vegeta.

Also, Tenshinhan may just have came up with amazing training methods who just didn't get any spotlights, because Tenshinhan isn's a main character anymore later in Z. Tenshinhan, with his split form could have done a variety of very effective training methods. Also, Tenshinhan always has had a training partner with Chiaotzu, who himself has mastery of some very rare techniques (ESP for example).

I think your estimation of where Tenshinhan's power lies is just about right (although by the Cell games, Gohan may have had the strongest base without realizing it). The problem I think is this part:

While Tenshinhan might not have trained in 400 G's of gravity or spent time in the RoSaT, his life still consists of training, just like with Goku and Vegeta.

Power doesn't just accumulate, like, "I'll do some sit-ups every day and that'll slowly add to my strength forever." You reach a plateau. Doing the same routine every day won't make you stronger, it'll eventually just keep you at that level of strength. In Dragon Ball, characters always find a way to go around these limits. The problem is that Tenshinhan was just training on Earth, the way he always had. He'd already mastered Kami's place, where else can you go from there?

I have no trouble imagining him perfecting new techniques and improving his skills themselves, but I'm not sure how he would have pushed himself (especially so quickly) considering what the other characters had to go through.

[Amigo Ten]

Amiga, if memory serves, they weren't even that surprised when Goku popped up and went Super-Saiyan and such(though they got sweating when he proved to be tougher than them); the way they acted, I'm lead to believe that, after they let their bug go(which I'd say was the most impressive technology; it managed to follow a guy into and out of the afterlife!), calculations were made, and Yamcha's powerlevel was probably around where they expected Goku to be by that point, as was the result of their bout.

Well #20 says that after the fight with Vegeta, they believed they had a perfect knowledge of Goku, and calculated that because of his age his power wouldn't grow much further.

They didn't appear surprised when he transformed because they still believed they were strong enough to take him down, even though they admitted he surpassed their calculations by far. I don't disagree that Yamcha could be as strong as the androids expected Goku to be, it just doesn't seem like they expected him to be that much stronger than he was when he fought Vegeta.

[Onikage725]

Amiga, if memory serves, they weren't even that surprised when Goku popped up and went Super-Saiyan...

I agree with this. While the facts that Amiga mentioned work in theory, there are a number of inconsistencies surrounding that conclusion. In addition to the above, we also know (from Cell's existence as well as comments made by Gero) that Gero's bug was at the scene when Freeza and his father landed on Earth. Gero had data on (and clone-worthy samples of) Freeza in action, as well as the vastly superior Super Saiyan Trunks. So it's not really fair to think Gero was expecting Saiyan Saga levels out of everyone.

I think your estimation of where Tenshinhan's power lies is just about right (although by the Cell games, Gohan may have had the strongest base without realizing it).

The coolest thing about movie 9, I think, is the fight between Tenshinhan and Trunks. They cross blows on seemingly even ground until Trunks goes Super Saiyan and completely dominates.

Power doesn't just accumulate, like, "I'll do some sit-ups every day and that'll slowly add to my strength forever." You reach a plateau. Doing the same routine every day won't make you stronger, it'll eventually just keep you at that level of strength. In Dragon Ball, characters always find a way to go around these limits. The problem is that Tenshinhan was just training on Earth, the way he always had. He'd already mastered Kami's place, where else can you go from there?

I agree with this in a realistic sense, but don't necessarily from an in-universe sense. It seems like a common thing in Dragon Ball (and Shounen in general) that characters do improve at unrealistic rates off screen. Sometimes they have a new master or some training gimmick. Sometime's they've just been said to have been working hard. One example- Goku and Piccolo between the Ma Junior and Saiyan Sagas. They seem roughly even. In the years between, Goku engages in normal training while also getting married, settling down, and raising a young child. Piccolo, on the other hand, supposedly trains with intensity for the sole purpose of killing Goku, and develops a new technique in the process. Yet Goku winds up being the stronger of the two. Also, Kuririn doesn't seem to undergo any special training, but his level over 200 means he's improved himself to somewhere between where Goku and Ten where at the 22nd Budokai and Piccolo Daimao.

That sort of thing happens all over the series too. Like Vegeta in the Buu Saga. He's said to be stronger (some fans even guess that he's achieved Super Saiyan 2) and all we know is that he kept his regular training. Granted, his "regular" training is pretty intense. But one would assume that at some point he would plateau. The nature of hitting ones limits seemed more a plot device to justify RoSaT for the Saiyans than a hard and fast principle Toriyama held to.

[Amigo Ten]

So it's not really fair to think Gero was expecting Saiyan Saga levels out of everyone.

That's pretty much what he says though. They stopped collecting data on Goku after his battle with Vegeta, and didn't expect him to get much stronger.

The bugs still being present to collect data from Cell is a plothole that comes about because Cell wasn't thought of when #20 is giving this speech, and yeah, they do conflict. All I can say is that Cell explains Gero abandoned his work on him and left it to the computer. Everyone was on Namek for a while so Gero took his research up to that time and set about building the androids, ignoring everything else (I assume), but the computer was still keeping tabs on things to develop Cell.

And the fact that Trunks was there when the bots that collected data for future Cell were at the scene is a massive inconsistency in itself.

[Rocketman]

Gero had data on (and clone-worthy samples of) Freeza in action, as well as the vastly superior Super Saiyan Trunks. So it's not really fair to think Gero was expecting Saiyan Saga levels out of everyone.

No, Gero's computer did. Gero wasn't involved with Cell's creation much at all, and he didn't know anything about a 'Super Saiyan'.

[Bussani]

The coolest thing about movie 9, I think, is the fight between Tenshinhan and Trunks. They cross blows on seemingly even ground until Trunks goes Super Saiyan and completely dominates.

Agreed. I loved that part and I'm happy with that level of power between them, really.

I agree with this in a realistic sense, but don't necessarily from an in-universe sense. It seems like a common thing in Dragon Ball (and Shounen in general) that characters do improve at unrealistic rates off screen. Sometimes they have a new master or some training gimmick. Sometime's they've just been said to have been working hard. One example- Goku and Piccolo between the Ma Junior and Saiyan Sagas. They seem roughly even. In the years between, Goku engages in normal training while also getting married, settling down, and raising a young child. Piccolo, on the other hand, supposedly trains with intensity for the sole purpose of killing Goku, and develops a new technique in the process. Yet Goku winds up being the stronger of the two. Also, Kuririn doesn't seem to undergo any special training, but his level over 200 means he's improved himself to somewhere between where Goku and Ten where at the 22nd Budokai and Piccolo Daimao.

That sort of thing happens all over the series too. Like Vegeta in the Buu Saga. He's said to be stronger (some fans even guess that he's achieved Super Saiyan 2) and all we know is that he kept his regular training. Granted, his "regular" training is pretty intense. But one would assume that at some point he would plateau. The nature of hitting ones limits seemed more a plot device to justify RoSaT for the Saiyans than a hard and fast principle Toriyama held to.

I think at the lower end of the power scale those things make sense. The characters were still so (relatively) week that they hadn't reached the limit of what Earth-level training could give them. It's after they've gone far beyond that (Goku doing x100 gravity training, everyone else training with Kaio for however long) that I think they've outgrown the sort of training you can find on Earth.

What I'm saying is that eventually they're so strong, that training on Earth just isn't enough. Goku gets stronger by doing insane training in Other World, and Vegeta struggles to keep up by having Bulma make him the gravity chamber and whatever. No doubt Tenshinhan found a way to push himself further too, and it would be interesting to know how, but the extent must be limited.

[temujin]

I forget which he beat, but it was filler. The fact that they hadn't been training at Kaios for that long (not even as long as Goku did) makes it a bit hard to believe, especially considering everyone else who had been through more (Vegeta, who was already stronger than Kaio trained Goku as well as getting some zenkais, and Kuririn and Gohan with unlocked potential) had a lot of trouble against them. I have no problem with Cell saga Tenshinhan being that strong though.

While it was filler, I don't have as much of a problem with it as a lot of people do. It maybe requires some suspension of disbelief, sure. But Tenshinhan was much stronger than Goku was when he started Kaio training. Growth seems to be somewhat exponential in Dragon Ball. Goku trains with Popo and Kami, goes from Daimao's level to Ma Juniors's (low hundreds all around, and Ten, numerically, isn't *that* far behind). Ten and the others train for less time (right? how much of the time skip was direct training for Goku?) and go from comparable to Goku before the Daimao saga to stronger than Raditz. And Goku, being a Saiyan, should have been gaining greater increases- but perhaps the difference was on account of having multiple sparring partners. On Kaio's this is including (at least in the anime, as the manga isn't specific) Piccolo. And we know that having sparring partners on your level or above will yield you greater benefits than training solo.

Still, it wasn't a lot of time. However, Piccolo seemed to gain a good deal of power. My take away from Piccolo's conversation with Nail was that Piccolo was stronger than him. Assuming that after a fusion, Nail would've had the ki necessary to heal himself, if he'd felt himself to be vastly stronger than Piccolo he probably would have at least suggested himself as the base. And post-fusion they are on par with 2nd form Freeza, when Nail's power was likely around Reacoom's. Not bad at all.

Also, unless the Ginyu had experience with higher G environments, I would imagine that simply being on Kaio's planet would impede their performance somewhat. Remember, Babidi seemed to think that a 10g difference would completely reverse a very one-sided fight (not knowing that A) Vegeta was holding back and B) Vegeta had done intense gravity training).

So if you take a precedent for characters to follow behind Goku's training and get comparatively better results, add the effect of sparring partners, compare to Piccolo's (arguably) large power gain, and possibly factor a diminishing factor due to gravity on the Ginyu... and I think the fight is feasible enough.

All I'm going to add is that it took Krillin all of his life up until a specific point to get the strength and power level he attained on Namek. The same goes for Tenshinhan, and then Krillin got his power boost from the Guru, making him vastly stronger than Tenshinhan. The amount of power they were gaining throughout all those years isn't even 1% of Freezas power.

Y'know, it irks me how much the aliens get to cheat in this regard once we learn that they are in fact aliens. Most of what you described applied to Goku before his death. And Piccolo was weaker than him. Tenshinhan was dead even with Goku until Goku visited Karin and got some magical help (Ten and possibly Kuririn were probably tough enough to survive drinking that too, if they had been there). The humans, as I mentioned above, improved much more from Kami's regimen than Goku did. On Namek, Kuririn, without ever dying or adjusting to a higher gravity, is stronger than your average soldier in Freeza's army. With his potential drawn out, he's almost as strong as Vegeta was on Earth. That's fricken' phenominal! Yet he can't catch a break or any praise because he's outclassed by a 5 year old, and Goku gets a nifty gravity machine, and Vegeta abuses the hell out of his Saiyan body's Doomsday (DC Comics) mechanism. Oh, and Piccolo absorbs another Namek.

If you remove the Saiyan conflict from the story, but still put the second-string heroes under Kami's care, they would have come out *much* more powerful than Goku pre-death. Even Chaozu.

I agree with you 100%.
Fine analysis.


About the thread,i don't think Tenshinhan surpassed ever 100% Freeza.
However,A-20 and A19 were created by Toriyama to be stronger than Freeza 100%.
Plus,Goku's progress during those 6 months leading to the sayan battle (416 to 32.000+Ozharu form) would make Gero believe that Goku would have a pl in the millions after 5 years and then we have Gero
who says that Yamcha would be a good source of energy.
Well, i don't think someone bellow 1 million would be a good source of energy to someone stronger than Freeza i guess.
About the SK,it is just a stronger version from Kikoho,i would say that there is always a certain proportionality between power level and ki attacks in the manga,so i don't see why Tenshinhan should have a special favor on this one.
The problem is that we don't have a single reference about pl after the Freeza's saga
meaning that it would be easy to solve this doubt and SK would have a logical multiplier.
About the earth training,we know that Tenshinhan mixed up Kaio's principles with his own meaning a lot of weight training.
I suppose kaiô would give him that material used by goku after the cell saga.
Toriyama seems to clearly choose Tenshinhan to do useful things in the cell saga,maybe cos he was the one apart form the sayajins and Piccolo to achieve an impressive and respectable level.

[Teclo]

I still think it's hard to compare things empirically within DB. I mean, I was going to say "But can Tien do an attack than can destroy a planet in one shot like Frieza can?" but then I realised that even though the "that move will destroy the planet" is used later on as some dramatic, tense revelation, Vegeta could do that from the very first moment you see him. Piccolo also blows up the moon just after starting to train Gohan.

When Vegeta/Piccolo blow up a planet/moon, it isn't made out to be a big deal - it's meant to imply his power but it's not given the weight of "Five Minutes!" or anything - there's no build-up to it and it seems to happen instantly. So you can see what comparatively low PLs are capable of destroying a planet - yet Tien seems to be at no risk of doing that even when he fires off nearly all of his ki at the floor. Tien can go toe-to-toe with Cell for a bit and also with Trunks in movie 9.... So are those two weaker than Saiyajin Saga Vegeta and early Piccolo, who can both blow up celestial bodies in one hit? Obviously not.

There's no real comparable logic going on between the different moves and between characters at different points of the story - the Chō Kikōhō knocks Cell down, yes, but it doesn't damage him. It just make holes in the ground, it doesn't destroy the planet. Early DBZ Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon blew up the moon in one hit. It doesn't add up, so you can't really make these comparisons.

(Thinking about it, maybe when you see Vegeta blow up a planet, it's anime filler. Still, doesn't he say something about how he could get back into his ship and destroy Earth from space or something?)

[Amigo Ten]

Plus,Goku's progress during those 6 months leading to the sayan battle (416 to 32.000+Ozharu form) would make Gero believe that Goku would have a pl in the millions after 5 years

But he says, he actually straight up spells it out, that they didn't think Goku would get much stronger after his fight with Vegeta. Being very generous, I'd say they expected a PL of a couple hundred thousand at the very most.

[Rocketman]

Plus,Goku's progress during those 6 months leading to the sayan battle (416 to 32.000+Ozharu form)

That was from training in the afterlife, which could never be repeated, as the Dragonballs couldn't bring Goku back to life a second time.

[Onikage725]

The bugs still being present to collect data from Cell is a plothole that comes about because Cell wasn't thought of when #20 is giving this speech, and yeah, they do conflict. All I can say is that Cell explains Gero abandoned his work on him and left it to the computer. Everyone was on Namek for a while so Gero took his research up to that time and set about building the androids, ignoring everything else (I assume), but the computer was still keeping tabs on things to develop Cell.

And the fact that Trunks was there when the bots that collected data for future Cell were at the scene is a massive inconsistency in itself.

Oh I agree, especially because he says that Trunks was taken into consideration and ultimately disregarded as a non-factor. But, looking at it from an in-universe perspective and factoring in all retcons, I generally just assume that Gero was being a typical villain and was talking big. The one legit defense I can think of is just that #19 and #20 were first meant to be the big bad, and as such were likely stronger than Freeza. #17 and #18, that much more so. If Gero was expecting characters with levels comparable to the Ginyu Tokusentai... well... overkill much? I think it works towards consistency a bit to assume that he amped things up after seeing the likes of Freeza and Trunks (and Goku, if the bot stayed around that long).

No, Gero's computer did. Gero wasn't involved with Cell's creation much at all, and he didn't know anything about a 'Super Saiyan'.

Like I mentioned above, Gero notes that Trunks had been considered. And Trunks' only prior appearence involved him going Super Saiyan (and Goku shortly thereafter- and just Goku in the original timeline). So there's a bit of a plot inconsistency there, and I guess it's just a matter of "pick your ignorable fact."

What I'm saying is that eventually they're so strong, that training on Earth just isn't enough. Goku gets stronger by doing insane training in Other World, and Vegeta struggles to keep up by having Bulma make him the gravity chamber and whatever. No doubt Tenshinhan found a way to push himself further too, and it would be interesting to know how, but the extent must be limited.

I agree, but whatever he's doing must *work.* I seriously doubt his training on Kaio's planet took him from being able to blow away Saiyan armor to being able to delay someone of Cell's caliber. And his training options weren't that special, so that must of his been his regimen. Maybe he trains like filler-Piccolo, with himself. As he grows stronger, so too would each split form, and so the ultimate results would be exponential (given how good training against a tough sparring partner tends to be).

Plus,Goku's progress during those 6 months leading to the sayan battle (416 to 32.000+Ozharu form)

That was from training in the afterlife, which could never be repeated, as the Dragonballs couldn't bring Goku back to life a second time.

That's assuming Gero would know/give a shit about that. We're debating whether a guy who tells us he saw a Super Saiyan actually factored Super Saiyan into his calculations. I really don't want to start speculating on whether or not Gero had figured out the conditions of the Dragon Balls or the training regimens of the dead. He was a man of science, damnit! He didn't have time for that malarkey.

[Amigo Ten]

Like I mentioned above, Gero notes that Trunks had been considered. And Trunks' only prior appearence involved him going Super Saiyan (and Goku shortly thereafter- and just Goku in the original timeline). So there's a bit of a plot inconsistency there, and I guess it's just a matter of "pick your ignorable fact."

Huh? Cell mentions Trunks, but Gero has no idea who he is.

As for consistency, I just go with the overkill on Gero's part.

[Bussani]

I agree, but whatever he's doing must *work.* I seriously doubt his training on Kaio's planet took him from being able to blow away Saiyan armor to being able to delay someone of Cell's caliber. And his training options weren't that special, so that must of his been his regimen. Maybe he trains like filler-Piccolo, with himself. As he grows stronger, so too would each split form, and so the ultimate results would be exponential (given how good training against a tough sparring partner tends to be).

That's a good idea. It would at least be better than training alone.

[alakazam^]

Manga-wise, it goes like this:

- #19 and #20 sense an abnormally high human energy approaching them. #19 thinks it's Son Goku.

- They see Yamcha and #19 says that he isn't Goku because their data doesn't match and that, by a probability of 96%, he is the human called Yamcha. #20 says that, in any case, he'll obtain lots of energy.

- Goku arrives, they change places and then #20 explains that Goku has been spied on during the Tenkaichi Budoukai and the fights against Piccolo and Vegeta.

- Goku asks if they spied on him in Namek. #20 says it wasn't necessary since Goku's power and techniques were completely understood from the fight with Vegeta and Nappa and that it would be impossible for him to have a drastic power up even if he did improve more.

- Goku transforms, Tenshinhan is surprised at his ki and #20 comments that Goku did achieve a considerable power up, greater than (Dr Gero's) calculations but both he and #19 were in an high enough level where they could defeat him.

- Goku clearly has the upper hand as he fights #19 and #20 starts getting worried that #19's energy will run out before he can absorb Goku's power. Tenshinhan says they are dimensions apart and Piccolo notices something's wrong.

- Goku fires a Kamehame Ha, #19 absorbs it and then is when Goku starts losing.

- Vegeta comes and destroys #19; #20 runs away, absorbs a blast from Vegeta and absorbs most of Piccolo's energy; Piccolo removes his weighted clothing, fights #20 and is winning easily explaining that they amplify their energy during battle and that the energy he absorbed from him was a "relaxed state" energy.


With this, it's safe to say that both #19 and #20 aren't stronger than 100% Freeza and probably weren't meant to be since it seems obvious that Goku would still lose and Vegeta would come and turn into a Super Saiya-jin, destroying #19 and probably make #20 pull a "Cell".

Yamcha still wasn't a match for them (even having a high energy reading in their perspective) and both Super Saiya-jin Goku (not 100%) and Piccolo were defeating them easily. I don't know where that leaves Tenshinhan, though.

The whole Shin Kikouhou scene isn't commented in the manga and Cell just looks bruised.

Like I mentioned above, Gero notes that Trunks had been considered. And Trunks' only prior appearence involved him going Super Saiyan (and Goku shortly thereafter- and just Goku in the original timeline). So there's a bit of a plot inconsistency there, and I guess it's just a matter of "pick your ignorable fact."

Neither Dr. Gero nor #16, #17, #18 and #19 knew what a Super Saiya-jin was. Past Vegeta, Dr. Gero didn't check on Goku so Dr. Gero probably wasn't aware of Freeza's existence (even when he came to Earth).

Although, Cell saying that Trunks' cells were considered might be a plothole if he wasn't refering to the Trunks he killed, meaning another Future Trunks killed Freeza and Cold in Cell's timeline.

[rereboy]

You think that Goku trained for 3 years for the androids and almost 2 years before that in space and didn`t improve at all compared to himself on namek?

I highly doubt that, and it was stated that Vegeta was as strong or more than Goku while fighting the androids, so Vegeta didn`t just reach SSJ. He did more.

100% freeza was already not a match for Goku when he first turned into a SSJ. He would be even more easily defeated if he fought Goku or Vegeta after almost more 5 years of training. I dare say, he would be even more easily defeated than #19 and #20 were.

That`s why I consider them with similar power.

However, the androids (#19 and #20) had the advantage of absorbing ki and could not be sensed, and that`s why they were not as easily defeated as Freeza would have been, despite their similar power.

[Amigo Ten]

I think #19 and #20 are stronger than Freeza for a few chapters, because at the time they were the only villains AT was going to introduce, and if they were weaker it'd be a bit odd. They could be weaker with the potential to grow stronger through absorption, but I think they started out stronger.

Until the time of Vegeta's arrival, or around that point, when AT decided he would bring in #17 and #18 as well. #19 and #20 suddenly get weaker and #17 and #18 are made stronger than #19 and #20 initially were.

[Takuy]

Can we just agree that Tien is kick-ass?

[Rocketman]

You think that Goku trained for 3 years for the androids and almost 2 years before that in space and didn`t improve at all compared to himself on namek?

Yeah, because almost all his power after fighting Vegeta came from the near-death powerup, which goes away after Super Saiyan.

[Amigo Ten]

You think that Goku trained for 3 years for the androids and almost 2 years before that in space and didn`t improve at all compared to himself on namek?

Yeah, because almost all his power after fighting Vegeta came from the near-death powerup, which goes away after Super Saiyan.

That doesn't mean his Super Saiyan form can't get stronger.