Why do people 'cap out' the humans? A long rant/essay

[Michsi]

Well, not to me. Especially considering how much Goku gained in strength with the same training, training partners or not. To me it's simple. Traing with a ssj, with ssj Goku, was just that beneficial.

So if base Goku trained with Piccolo for 3 years after that, he'd now be as strong as a Super Saiyan in just his base form?

Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. If something like that did happen in the story, it would just be another case of DB power up to me and it seems like something plausible to me for this story.

[Toadster]

Anywhere from 5,000,000 to 90,000,000 is a fair (arbitrary) estimate for Tien, Yamcha, and Krillin in my opinion. I think Chaoz reaches Ginyu level.

Why the heck not? Most of them never stop training. The greatest measure we have to gauge their strength, sadly, is filler. Yamcha, Tien, and Chaoz easily owned the Ginyu Force on Kaio's planet. At that time, they were only training with Kaio for a couple weeks, if I'm not mistaken. That's a huge significant gain, considering they were only in their 1,000's when they got to the planet. Add more years of training, and it's fair to believe they reach the millions.

[Saiga]

It's also fair to say they never reached 100,000. We so little of them that anything is game, really.

[Rocketman]

Yamcha, Tenshinhan, and Chaoz easily owned the Ginyu Force on Kaio's planet. At that time, they were only training with Kaio for a couple weeks, if I'm not mistaken.

You are. They'd been there about five days.

In those same five days, Goku (training in gravity up to 10x higher and getting several zenkais) went from ~9000 to 90,000.

Yamcha goes from ~1500 to 60,000.

Tien, since he uses split-form, goes from ~1500 to 120,000. Really? You really think friggin' Tien can outdo Goku that badly in worse training?

[Toadster]

First off, we don't know how strong they got, so I'm not sure where you're getting those power levels from. Second, Piccolo got a major boost from just a few days of training... so much so, that he was able to match 2nd form Freeza after fusing with Nail. Now, you can argue that the fusion is what gave him most of the power, but he was confident that his training with Kaio gave him enough strength to match the tyrant Kaio warned him against. Obviously a bit arrogant, but it's reasonable to believe he got a significant gain from the training.

And hey, it's not like insane power boosts are unheard of in DBZ.

[Saiga]

First off, we don't know how strong they got, so I'm not sure where you're getting those power levels from. Second, Piccolo got a major boost from just a few days of training... so much so, that he was able to match 2nd form Freeza after fusing with Nail. Now, you can argue that the fusion is what gave him most of the power, but he was confident that his training with Kaio gave him enough strength to match the tyrant Kaio warned him against. Obviously a bit arrogant, but it's reasonable to believe he got a significant gain from the training.

And hey, it's not like insane power boosts are unheard of in DBZ.

A bit arrogant? He was completely wrong! Safe to say he didn't get close to Freeza seeing as he was shocked at how much power the fusion gave him. If he had gone from 3,500 (Daizenshuu number) to ~500,000 (able to fight first form Freeza) in 5 days, you'd think that would be a lot more notable than the boost Nail gave him.

And Tenshinhan being 120,000 is simple math, and a low estimate at that. That would make each of his clones 30,000 which is below what Vegeta was at against Recoome, and Tenshinhan didn't get smashed like Vegeta so he'd have to be even higher than 120,000.

Which is totally horseshit.

[Mystic Gohan]

My one and only PL list, i boost the humans with no real basis between the cell and buu saga just because it doesn't contradict anything LOL.

[Bussani]

The Ginyu Force members (minus Gurd) had to have been somewhere between 30,000 and 60,000, if you look at the comments from the manga. I'm okay with believing the characters made absurd gains at times, but the idea that they improved this much in only five days is a bit far-fetched, to say the least. Viewers are able to suspend their disbelief so long as a story is consistent with its own logic, even if that logic is absurd by real world standards, but some things just go too far. This particular piece of filler is one of those things, if you ask me.

[Mystic Gohan]

I think not believing someone can make an outrageous gain in short amount of time is ridiculous. Goku went from 8k to 90k in 6 days. Piccolo went from 1-2 million to well over SSJ tier in 3 years. The SSJ's made outrageous rosat gains in 1/2 years. Gotenks multi-folded his power in like 2 weeks. So it's not ridiculous really.

[Fox666]

When did Gotenks multiplied his power? I don't remember he doing anything significant.

First off, we don't know how strong they got, so I'm not sure where you're getting those power levels from. Second, Piccolo got a major boost from just a few days of training... so much so, that he was able to match 2nd form Freeza after fusing with Nail. Now, you can argue that the fusion is what gave him most of the power, but he was confident that his training with Kaio gave him enough strength to match the tyrant Kaio warned him against. Obviously a bit arrogant, but it's reasonable to believe he got a significant gain from the training.

Well, Piccolo himself called Freeza's first form a monster. So no matter how strong he was after training with Kaio, he was nowhere close to Freeza.

[CaBrPi]

It seems to me that assimilation increases the gains a Namekian experiences from training. Remember when Piccolo comes out of the RoSaT? After a year of solo training, he increases his power by quite a large margin, if I remember correctly.

Goku only increased from 8,000 to 90,000 because he was basically abusing the zenkai system. The manga specifically points this out.

As for the humans, I don't really think they ever surpassed Freeza's first form, but it's impossible to say for sure. If they'd been given the same opportunities as the Saiyans, such as Gohan having his powers drawn out by the Elder Kaioshin, then they'd definitely grow in power, but they just never were.

[Saiga]

I think not believing someone can make an outrageous gain in short amount of time is ridiculous. Goku went from 8k to 90k in 6 days. Piccolo went from 1-2 million to well over SSJ tier in 3 years. The SSJ's made outrageous rosat gains in 1/2 years. Gotenks multi-folded his power in like 2 weeks. So it's not ridiculous really.

1) Goku abused his near death boosts and gravity training.

2) Piccolo's gain is so ridiculous there have been many fan theories trying to explain away the ridiculousness.

3) Vegeta and Trunks' RoSaT gains weren't ridiculous, they did it specifically to gain new forms though. Goku's and Gohan's ridiculous gains come from mastering the Super Saiyan form.

4) We have no idea how much Gotenks improved in those 2 weeks, except for gaining SS3.

And having ridiculous strength increases happen a few times in the series wouldn't justify more ridiculous power ups anyway.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Piccolo went from 1-2 million to well over SSJ tier in 3 years.

He what?!

[Michsi]

I'd say it's more like 4 years. There is something like a year gap between Namek and Goku's arrival on earth where it has been clearly stated he had been training hard, so the difference might be somewhat smaller.
Anyway, I still say that there is nothing hard to believe about his power growth. It was well established that his race was capable of creating super powers too and the most important thing ,that I keep repeating, he was training with Goku for 3 long years with the one and only purpose to reach that level of power too. Why shouldn't he succeed? The reason he never makes another great leap like that again is simple, he never again has another training partner of that caliber for that amount of time. Who knows, this could well mean that if he trained with SSJ2 for an extended period of time he could well come close to their level too and so on.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Is there any proof that Piccolo was at Super Saiyan tier?

[Michsi]

No, nothing clear as far as I remember, but he seems to be at least close to that power, since he was compared to Vegeta, handled Nr. 20 as easily as Vegeta did Nr. 19 and so on....

[Shenlong]

I'll be honest, I've read the first page and part of the second page, but I can't be bothered to read the rest.

The humans that showed up to fight the androids are at least stronger than Suppressed Mecha Freeza IMO.

Firstly, I think we can agree that Mecha Freeza wasn't using his full power when he initially came to Earth, supported by Goku asking if it was Vegeta or Piccolo who defeated Freeza. For all Goku knew, Freeza was chopped up and had just taken on the explosion of a planet head-on in the middle of space. If anything, he was expecting Freeza to be weaker than the last time he met him, not stronger.

So secondly, the humans that sensed Supressed Mecha Freeza's power knew the Artificial Humans would be much stronger than Mecha Freeza, and Goku specifically told them not to come if they thought they were too weak, Chaozu being left behind because he was. And I believe the starter of this thread already addressed the 'they just wanted to fight as hard as they could before they died' argument:

You could argue, "they heard they will die in the future so they might as well fight even though they are totally totally irrelevent" but then why not bring Chaozu? Heck why not bring Yajirobe and Chi-chi and Roshi through the kitchen sink at them if desperation is the only reason.

So the humans, having sensed Mecha Freeza's power and King Cold's power, knowing the Artificial Humans were stronger than them, came, with the exception of Chaozu, who they deemed too weak.

Furthermore, even putting them at Mecha Freeza is a minimum; it's debatable whether or not Freeza used his full power in creating the Death Ball [was that the name?] to use against SSj Trunks, and Ten and the humans had sensed the power of SSj Trunks and SSj Goku Post Yardrat. So at minimum:

Third Form Freeza < Suppressed Mecha Freeza < Humans at Androids

I don't know if my logic is a bit fuzzy, but I'm certain that:

~ The humans knew the Artificial Humans were stronger than Mecha Freeza
~ Goku told them not to come if they thought themselves too weak, hence Chaozu not coming
~ The humans who came, therefore, were stronger than the Mecha Freeza they sensed

[DBZGTKOSDH]

No, nothing clear as far as I remember, but he seems to be at least close to that power, since he was compared to Vegeta, handled Nr. 20 as easily as Vegeta did Nr. 19 and so on....

I can agree that he was close to the Super Saiyans, but not that close.

[Bussani]

Furthermore, even putting them at Mecha Freeza is a minimum; it's debatable whether or not Freeza used his full power in creating the Death Ball [was that the name?] to use against SSj Trunks

Well, the Death Ball wasn't used in the manga, so it's possible not everyone is considering that.

Goku told them not to come if they thought themselves too weak, hence Chaozu not coming

I think what he said was, "You don't have to come if you don't want to," but I'd have to check how it's worded in Japanese. It was Tenshinhan who decided Chaozu shouldn't come.

*the rest*

I think that's all well and good, but isn't the discussion about why people have trouble believing the humans got stronger, rather than how strong we think they should be? Even if you're right, it's still so far-fetched when I think about it that it kind of pulls me out of the story, and I'm a person whose suspension of disbelief can stretch pretty far.

[Michsi]

I can agree that he was close to the Super Saiyans, but not that close.

Well, just how close he was is anyones guess, but the fact he is in that range of power alone is what some people consider to be ridiculous.