Official Unofficial Power Level Discussion Thread

[TheMightyOzaru]

TheMightyOzaru: Freeza Powers up 2 times in his second form, those gaps don't work. Piccolo can't be at 1,200,000.

Well he can be but I probably will change that. Also, Kaboom, what do you think of my alternate list? It's on the previous page.

[Kaboom]

Where are the GTR power levels huh? I have been waiting for those since the Big Bang.

Just noticed this. I've only been posting power levels for GTR one arc at a time, after that arc is finished, to prevent spoilers. I mean, if I posted some big list and it had <Character> posted right next to <Character> and <Character> from the Shadow Dragons arc or something, that'd kind of give things away majorly.

I might have a fun "reader participation" thing for the Koum arc's power levels after this next chapter, though, so stay tuned for that. [/GTR-pimping]

Also, Kaboom, what do you think of my alternate list? It's on the previous page.

I saw 'em, I like 'em. Very similar to mine, and props for making the official multipliers work.

Either I'm blind, or you seem to be missing a level for Perfect Cell against Trunks and Vegeta. Also, no entry for poor Mr. Satan?

I tend to keep Gotenks' power level (and subsequently everyone on or above his level) a little more reigned-in compared to Goku's — both for the sake of a "compromise" between the manga and anime versions of events, along with my own fanon purposes — but that can hardly be called a fault for either one of us.

You certainly gave Beers, Whis, and SSj God Goku MAJOR overkill powers in your Battle of Gods section, huh?

[Zephyr]

Didn't Krillin and Gohan each beat up Goku-Ginyu at 23,000? They should be higher than Dodoria.

Fair point.

Piccolo should also probably be in Grade II tier, not the Perfect Cell tier. Back then he was quite a bit weaker than Vegeta and Trunks, and he probably only rose to the level of maybe a Cell Junior during the Buu arc. Cell Jr should also be in the same league as Grade II, as Vegeta and Trunks fought evenly with their Cell Juniors.

I'm assuming Vegeta and Trunks attempted to utilize the fpSSj state, rather than simply Grade II (though I could easily be mistaken). Piccolo's placement is kind of based around this. I've put Cell Jr. at least a sub-tier above all of them, because none of them seem at all exhausted or even slightly phased after the battle with the heroes. Again, I've yet to rewatch the Cell Games, but when I do, I'll have more concrete placements for the Cell Jr's, Piccolo, and Vegeta/Trunks.

Nail, Jeice, and Burter should all be purple; I believe that Krillin stated that Jeice and Burter had around the same ki as Recoome, and Jeice is the second in command of the Ginyu Force, so it's kind of fitting that he'd be slightly stronger than Recoome.

Where is Jeice said to be second in command? The three of them are indeed said to be in a similar realm of power (somewhere between 30 and 60k), and Nail is around 40k, so I'll likely revise the chart and make the 4 of them in the same sub-tier.

Also, any reason Janemba, Bojack, and Hirudegarn are the only movie characters you listed?

Only ones I've really given any thought to, so far. I'm sure I'll eventually add Coola, Slug, Tullece, etc.

On Omega Shenron being weaker than Vegito... I don't agree with that. Buuhan was at least stronger than Vegito's base, as Vegito had to go Super Saiyan in the manga. Even if he did godstop Buuhan, Buuhan wasn't fifty times weaker than him. GT base Goku is stronger than Kid Buu. Omega Shenron is way over 4000 times stronger than that, depending on how big of a multiplier SS4 is.

I don't follow the "GT base kid Goku > KId Buu" train of thought or interpretation of that line. As for the rest of the GT characters, their placement relative to the Z characters is mostly arbitrary. We've never seen any comparison between them, so there are no real concrete judgments to make.

Now when you say that the base saiyans post-Namek can't get any stronger than Goku was against Freeza, do you mean Goku using kaio-ken x20? Because if not, that would contradict the whole concept of one Super Saiyan being stronger than another. Also, is this 4th form Freeza at 70%?

Didn't really take any of that into consideration, don't see how if affects things all too much though.

Dabura being weaker than Cell Junior? Yeah... just gonna say I disagree with that one. He should be more around Bojack's strength.

I'm following the idea that Dabura and the post-RoSaT SSj's are in a relatively equal realm of power. Since Cell Jr. > post-RoSaT SSj, they're also above Dabura.

[Saiga]

Going by the manga version, Vegeta and Trunks were Super Saiyans. When Trunks goes Back to the Future we see him with the FPSS aura.

[TheMightyOzaru]

Also, Kaboom, what do you think of my alternate list? It's on the previous page.

I saw 'em, I like 'em. Very similar to mine, and props for making the official multipliers work.

Either I'm blind, or you seem to be missing a level for Perfect Cell against Trunks and Vegeta. Also, no entry for poor Mr. Satan?

I tend to keep Gotenks' power level (and subsequently everyone on or above his level) a little more reigned-in compared to Goku's — both for the sake of a "compromise" between the manga and anime versions of events, along with my own fanon purposes — but that can hardly be called a fault for either one of us.

You certainly gave Beers, Whis, and SSj God Goku MAJOR overkill powers in your Battle of Gods section, huh?

I added the Cells and Mr Satan. Well I think Gohan and Gotenks should be a great deal stronger than Goku. At least 4x stronger for the both of them. Yeah Goku says he never even thought a realm of power was possible to attain so I made him quite a bit stronger than SSJ3 Vegetto would be.

[RandomGuy96]

I just had a thought. What if that V-Jump article that put Gogeta at 2.5 billion meant base Gogeta? It was black and white, we didn't see his hair color. Then those official numbers mostly work. People have made worse jumps to justify guidebook statements... like Kaboom.

If you do that and defy a few IMPLICATIONS from the manga, plus a few statements that can plausibly be false based on the circumstances (like android arc Vegeta > android arc Goku), everything can fit together just as well as some of the more questionable numbers that are held in higher regard, like Nappa, Saiyan saga Piccolo, and Cooler's Armored Squadron.

It doesn't really seem right to just ignore those numbers like that. I think I can make a list that makes those work tommorrow, assuming base Gogeta = 2,500,000,000

[TheMightyOzaru]

That's a promotional scan for Budokai 3. It's in no way official, not to mention it doesn't work. Cooler is 470,000,000 according to the same scan which would mean Ssj Goku is at least 500,000,000. The official Ssj3 multiplier is 8x Ssj which tells us that Ssj3 Goku is 4,000,000,000. Is Ssj Gogeta weaker than Ssj3 Goku? I don't think so.

[Kaboom]

I'm still just going to consider those Budokai 3 article numbers as a really questionable "take 'em or leave 'em" sort of thing. I don't think they need to hold as much weight as other numbers that have been directly correlated to the series itself. Especially since, like TheMightyOzaru pointed out, they have a hard time even fitting with each other, much less any other official numbers.

[RandomGuy96]

That's why I said it works if you assume that the 2.5 billion power level belonged to base Gogeta... hey, it's a stretch, but we didn't see what color his hair was. Without that upper ceiling, and if you assume that some statements and implications are false, like they can plausibly be (like android arc Vegeta > android arc Goku, as ) it can work. Though you can also not do the latter and just haxx Movie 5 Goku to hell, like the movie itself seemed intent on doing. I honestly think that, since this was meant to parallel the Freeza fight, Cooler and Goku really are dozens of times stronger than him.

That seems rather hypocritical of you Kaboom. They were in the same article hyping Budokai 3, but I still don't see why they wouldn't have as much legitimacy as, say, Shonen Jump numbers. You go out of your way to make other numbers work even if they're obviously near-impossible to make work (like Vegeta's level against 1st form Freeza and the numbers for Cooler's Armored Squadron) by making really bigs leaps, and change the meaning of statements from the guidebooks so they can't be declared discontinuity (like Goten has power "not the least bit inferior to even Gohan", which you take to mean that Goten's potential is as great as Gohan's, even though the statement was pretty clearly talking about current battle power).

Anyway, I'll just assume those things and try to make a mini power level list that follows that. It'll be a nice little experiment.

[Kaboom]

Sure, I like to defend some "controversial" numbers and figure out how they can work, but that's normally for the big, main, series-centric ones that Shueisha has repeatedly put out there themselves (such as re-listing Nappa's 4000 in the full-color volumes recently). But not all official numbers are created equal. Some older Jump articles have given numbers that are just as sketchy and haven't been reprinted since then, and I tend to put those and things like these Budokai 3 numbers in the same category. That being not paying them much mind.

And again, the main issue with them is not so much their individual validity, but their incompatibility with each other. Sure, maybe they could be made to work each on their own. But if i could only pick one of the three to work into my lists, then why bother using any of them? It's all three together or nothing.

Let me know when some future guidebook comes along and reprints that 470 million for Coola but then has completely different and higher numbers for Broly and Super Gogeta that can work with it.

[TheMightyOzaru]

It lists 2,500,000,000 next to Super Gogeta so I highly doubt it's for his base form. Plus 1,200,000,000 for LSSJ Broly is a bit small and 470,000,000 for Cooler is a bit large.

[Kaboom]

Yeah, that's my main point. The three levels can't work with each other, especially in light of more recent things like the official Super Saiyan boosts, and it'd be kind of faulty to try just picking one and dismissing the others. It's all or nothing.

[RandomGuy96]

Gogeta is the big problem here, but like I said, the number was listed next to Gogeta... we didn't see his hair color. It could just be base Gogeta. If it's not, then, well, I'll just assume it is for the purposes of this mini list.

Okay, trying to fit in the V-Jump numbers for Broly and Cooler for fun... but first:

Base Gogeta = 2,500,000,000
Super Saiyan Gogeta= 125,000,000,000

That's the upper wall here for any non-Vegito character in the Cell or Buu sagas. It's not that hard to fit if you assume that they were talking about base Gogeta. I'm just going to do a mini-list from Mecha Freeza to Broly.

Arrival of Mecha Freeza

Goku - 6,000,000
--Super Saiyan - 300,000,000
Trunks - 3,200,000
--Super Saiyan - 200,000,000
Piccolo - 5,000,000
Vegeta - 4,300,000

Mecha Freeza - 8,000,000 (suppressed)
--Full Power (unseen)- 160,000,000
King Cold - 6,500,000 (suppressed)
--Full Power (unseen)- 90,000,000

Most of these levels are the same as my "main" list... except Goku. I made him higher in part to justify his haxxed power in Movie 5. He did spend a year and a half on Yardrat...

EDIT: Since everyone's haxxed anyway, I just decided to go crazy and consider Mecha Freeza's statements and Trunks' statements accurate.

Cooler's Revenge

Goku (post-haxxed final zenkai) - 12,000,000
--Kaio-Ken x10- 120,000,000
--Kaio-Ken x20 - 240,000,000
--Kaio-Ken x20 Kamehameha - 305,000,000
--Super Saiyan - 600,000,000
--Super Kamehameha: 1,320,000,000
Piccolo - 30,000,000

Cooler (maximum true form power, "70%", non-bulked): 100,000,000
--Fifth Form: 470,000,000
--Supernova: 1,000,000,000
Salza: 170,000
Doore: 185,000
Neiz: 165,000

Cooler has his V-Jump number, which makes him absurdly beastly. Invisible kaio-ken x10 Goku (I assume he powered up to x10 right before attacking true form Cooler) is "enough to defeat [Freeza]", per Cooler's statements, in this case equal to him. Everything from there is simple math, and it all fits together. Salza, Doore, and Neiz have their Weekly Jump numbers for the lulz, even though they don't make sense. Since they don't make sense anyway, Piccolo gets logical android arc gains.

I assume that this took place a year into the android training. The zenkai Goku got in this movie would be chronologically his last major one; it pretty much took him to the limit of the Super Saiyan form, meaning that his training for the rest of the period was mostly for the benefit of Piccolo and Gohan. He only got tiny gains. He had to unlocked Grade II and eventually Full Power Super Saiyan to get stronger, and have a new upper limit.

Trunks' Bad Future

Future Gohan- 2,600,000
--Super Saiyan: 140,000,000
Future Android 18- 240,000,000
Future Android 17- 250,000,000

This doesn't need to change... the difference between the future androids and the present androids will be a lot smaller in this list, though. Though it's always possible they aren't weaker at all...

Arrival of the Androids

Goku- 13,000,000
--Super Saiyan- 650,000,000
--Sick: >150,000,000
Vegeta- 5,500,000
--Super Saiyan: 250,000,000
Trunks- 4,000,000
--Super Saiyan- 200,000,000
Piccolo- 150,000,000 (full power)
--Kamiccolo- 300,000,000

Android 20- 80,000,000
--Vegeta and Piccolo's ki: 92,000,000
Android 19- 73,000,000
--Vegeta and Goku's ki: 155,000,000
Android 18- 300,000,000
Android 17- 310,000,000
Android 16- 530,000,000
Imperfect Cell- 250,000,000
--Post-Human Meal- 530,000,000

EDIT: Trunks was never stated to gain any power in between Mecha Freeza's death and the android arrival, so he didn't gain any power. Even if he did, he'd just have MOUNTAIN training for eight months with no partners, senzu beans, gravity rooms, et cetera. And it's shown that training the way Trunks would have to gets you next to nothing in terms of gains.

Lots of changes here. Most of them are actually pretty consistent... except Goku remains insanely haxxed to justify his defeat of Cooler. As I explained earlier, he hit the upper Super Saiyan limit, and only had the capacity to get slightly stronger. You'll also notice that he's much higher than Vegeta. That's mostly because he never actually loses a fight in a healthy state to prove otherwise. From the beginning Piccolo and Gohan knew that Goku was at a fraction of his full power. It is implied that Vegeta is stronger, even with healthy Goku, but let's look again at those statements, per Herms Strength Checker:

Goku: “Vegeta is a genius…He ought to be able to surpass the Super Saiyan wall, but…”

Goku: “The way I am now, I definitely can’t beat the androids or this ‘Cell’ guy.”

Piccolo: He really had lost a lot of stamina…when he confirmed that the androids sucked out energy with the palms of their hands…He ought to have lost if he had fought that No.20 guy…But he talked as if he still had something up his sleeve…Vegeta really is a fighting genius…He might have sur-surpassed…Goku…

Goku: Don’t worry…I won’t fight them yet…After all, if even Vegeta couldn’t beat them as he is now, then I can’t beat them either

Tenshinhan: “[Trunks] is the man who took down Freeza…And he was helpless before these androids…I’ll be frank…! No matter how strong Goku may be, he shouldn’t be that different from Trunks or Vegeta…He definitely can’t win…! Not even Goku…”

Okay. That's all Herms has for Android Arc Vegeta vs Android Arc Goku, besides Vegeta's typical boasts about being the strongest. The first quote doesn't have to mean Goku < Vegeta; it simply means that Vegeta is a fighting genius who CAN go higher than a normal Super Saiyan. It doesn't have to mean that he can do that now. During the second quote, Goku hasn't been cured of his heart disease, so he's probably not at full power. Cell would go on to absorb the androids later that day. In the third quote, Piccolo says this before he fights 20... but pay close attention. He doesn't mention power, he mentions Vegeta's cunning and fight mastery. If he WAS talking about power, then you can plausibly say that Piccolo doesn't truly know how powerful Goku is, since he wasn't around to see Goku beat Cooler, and Goku probably never brought out his full 100% power in training, since Piccolo was so much weaker. In the fourth quote, again, Goku is sick- or, if you REALLY want to stretch it, you can say Goku's just lying or doesn't know how strong he is. The fifth quote is by Tien, a guy who was AWED by sick Goku and never saw Goku's full power against Cooler; he was freaking out of over "the power of a Super Saiyan" while Piccolo was commenting on how unusually weak Goku was.

Or, if ALL of that doesn't work... just assume that Goku's heart virus was actually progressively making him weaker since beating Cooler. He just reached his lowest point when the androids showed up. Hey, it actually makes some sense, since Future Goku was dead by that time.

...hey, a stretch, but not as much as of a stretch as assuming that Freeza powered up, got pissed off, tried to kill Vegeta, and yet still left himself suppressed at half power for no reason, like another V-Jump number would have you believe...

If you think that it's not necessary to make Movie 5 Goku stronger than android arc Vegeta, then I disagree, since there's simply not enough room otherwise. There's barley enough room as is. It requires stretching, I admit. But it seems to be going okay so far One last note: the gap between Cell and Kamiccolo isn't nearly as big as I'd like it, but it's not impossible to fit; tanking is rather inconsistent in this series. See Old Piccolo at 220 tanking Kid Goku's Kamehameha, even though Kid Goku was at 180.

The ROSAT and the Birth of Perfect Cell

Imperfect Cell- 250,000,000
--Post-Human Meal- 530,000,000
--Semi-Perfect- 800,000,000
--Initial Perfect- 1,300,000,000

Vegeta- 13,300,000
--Super Saiyan- 665,000,000
--Super Saiyan Grade 2- 1,000,000,000
--Final Flash- 2,100,000,000
Trunks: 12,000,000
--Super Saiyan- 600,000,000
--Super Saiyan Grade 2- 900,000,000
--Super Saiyan Grade 3- 1,560,000
Piccolo (post-ROSAT)- 940,000,000 (Cell Games)

Numbers are again much lower. Vegeta hit the normal Super Saiyan limit, like Goku. Semi-Perfect Cell is stronger than Vegeta's normal Super Saiyan form, yet weaker than his Grade II form. Trunks is simply slightly weaker than Vegeta. Initial Perfect Cell is way stronger than both of them, yet weaker than Trunks' Grade III form.

Screw The Rules, I Have Green Hair

Legendary Super Saiyan Broly- 1,400,000,000

Goku- 22,000,000
--Full Power Super Saiyan- 1,100,000,000
Piccolo, Vegeta, Trunks- same as above.
Gohan- 16,000,000
--Full Power Super Saiyan- 800,000,000

Okay. Finally got here. Legendary Super Saiyan Broly is his V-Jump level, Piccolo/Trunks/Vegeta are the same as they were last time, and Goku is stronger than any of them but hasn't fully gone through his ROSAT training, so he's much weaker than he would be at the Cell Games. This is either an alternate universe or set during the ten day wait. For further power level oddities, Gohan is treated as the weakest in this movie, while at the Cell Games he was the strongest.

Now, as for why Broly can work: some of you may be saying that those gaps are absurdly small, given Broly's tanking. You'd be partly right. But I see your power level as basically the offensive power of your overall ki- not your durability or speed. It explains how Trunks was slower than Cell, how Burter was faster than Recoome and, more importantly, how Nappa at 4,000 could keep getting up after hits from Goku at 8,000. With Nappa vs Goku taken into consideration, it doesn't seem all that weird that Broly can't even feel hits from people weaker than him, because Nappa didn't take much damage from people way stronger than him. His Legendary Super Saiyan form may not even boost his power level, just up his durability and stamina to insane levels. Notably, despite the gap being seemingly large, Broly can't make any of the Z-fighters explode with a single punch like Gohan could with the stronger Cell Juniors, and actually has to exert effort to hit them, and occasionally charge blasts. With Nappa-level durability and a big gap on all of the Z-fighters (Goku's the closest and he's only 78% of Broly), pwnage was assured.

[Kaboom]

I've got to applaud you for the effort, but it still just strikes me as a LOT of unnecessary logic-twisting for something that's not worth it.

Goku gets some huge, multi-fold power increase from one not-even-necessarily-existent healing boost, but then the miraculous Room of Spirit and Time training doesn't even double his power? And holding everyone else back compared to him when Vegeta's supposed to be stronger than him in the Androids arc? Prety much all the reasoning you cite is EXTREMELY flimsy, and some of it is even just making stuff up with no support.

Really, again... admirable effort, but three arbitrary numbers from a video game ad are just never going to be worth the time, trouble, or attention for me.

[RandomGuy96]

Eh, just an experiment. Also, after Goku's zenkai made him 33 times more powerful in preparation for the battle with Freeza, I stopped caring about trying to apply logic in power progression. A zenkai makes the character as strong as the plot says they need to be. Anyway, another topic: why do you guys think it is that people with higher power levels can be slower than people with lower ones, when a higher power level supposedly makes you faster? I see "character X could follow character Y's movements" used as an argument a lot about power levels.

[Bussani]

Anyway, another topic: why do you guys think it is that people with higher power levels can be slower than people with lower ones, when a higher power level supposedly makes you faster?

I suppose it's the same as how putting a more powerful engine in a car will obviously make it faster than it was, but under the right conditions, a car with a less powerful engine can still end up being faster than a car possessing a more powerful one. That is, power is a factor--maybe even a big factor--but it's not the only factor. How well you can put that power into speed and how suited your body is for speed also matter (e.g. Grade III Trunks's body is not suited for speed).

All that said, most if not all characters in Dragon Ball seem fairly balanced when it comes to speed and power, so this is more of a "I don't see why someone couldn't be faster despite being weaker" than anything.

[TheMightyOzaru]

Yeah, that's my main point. The three levels can't work with each other, especially in light of more recent things like the official Super Saiyan boosts, and it'd be kind of faulty to try just picking one and dismissing the others. It's all or nothing.

Oh hey Kaboom I added the 13 films to my list if you wanna check them out. Movie 12 and 13 were a bitch .

[RandomGuy96]

I suppose it's the same as how putting a more powerful engine in a car will obviously make it faster than it was, but under the right conditions, a car with a less powerful engine can still end up being faster than a car possessing a more powerful one. That is, power is a factor--maybe even a big factor--but it's not the only factor. How well you can put that power into speed and how suited your body is for speed also matter (e.g. Grade III Trunks's body is not suited for speed).

All that said, most if not all characters in Dragon Ball seem fairly balanced when it comes to speed and power, so this is more of a "I don't see why someone couldn't be faster despite being weaker" than anything.

I always saw your power level as simply being the offensive aspect of your overall power, with durability and speed being distinct. Sure, having scouters to detect someone's offensive power will usually also give you a good reading of their overall power, since most people are fairly balanced, but it's not full proof. A good example are the Ginyus; according to Krillin, Burter and Recoome have the same ki. I believe that when read through a scouter, they'd both have a power level of around 40,000, but their overall power is being used on different things outside of that- Burter's on speed and Recoome's on durability. It explains really weird tanking feats if nothing else, and why speed seems to be something distinct from power level.

[Bussani]

I suppose it's the same as how putting a more powerful engine in a car will obviously make it faster than it was, but under the right conditions, a car with a less powerful engine can still end up being faster than a car possessing a more powerful one. That is, power is a factor--maybe even a big factor--but it's not the only factor. How well you can put that power into speed and how suited your body is for speed also matter (e.g. Grade III Trunks's body is not suited for speed).

All that said, most if not all characters in Dragon Ball seem fairly balanced when it comes to speed and power, so this is more of a "I don't see why someone couldn't be faster despite being weaker" than anything.

I always saw your power level as simply being the offensive aspect of your overall power, with durability and speed being distinct.

I suppose that's possible, but it seems like their ki must at least be able to enhance those things. For instance, Vegeta had to suppress his ki before Kuririn could do any significant damage to him. We know that characters have to power up to move at their top speed as well, but that might not be such a good example since bukujutsu is different from simply moving.

A good example are the Ginyus; according to Krillin, Burter and Recoome have the same ki. I believe that when read through a scouter, they'd both have a power level of around 40,000, but their overall power is being used on different things outside of that- Burter's on speed and Recoome's on durability. It explains really weird tanking fits if nothing else, and why speed seems to be something distinct from power level.

Sounds logical to me.

[Kaboom]

I just think that while other "stats" like speed and durability USUALLY go hand-in-hand with your raw power level, it's entirely possible for someone to have deficiencies or specialties in one thing or another.