Is Piccolo weaker than Base Saiyans in the Buu arc?

[Kid Buu]

I'm at the part of the Buu arc where they qualify for the tournament and Piccolo gets 210 while Goku gets 188.

Damn, numbers do not lie, I guess Piccolo has this.

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

Nah, I don't believe he is.

I know there's the Dabra quote, but these dudes can't sense Chi worth a damn.

[Hellspawn28]

Unless he slack off during the past several years then no. Piccolo without his weights in the Buu saga, could give the saiyans at SSj a good fight. I think he could beat Semi-Perfect Cell during the Cell games and Piccolo most likely got stronger over time.

[B]

My gut says "no" but I'd need to recall more details to dispute you.

[MDSTSSJ]

No!!!

According Toriyama, besides Goku and Vegeta Piccolo never stops his training!!!

[TheMightyOzaru]

Nope. Battle of Gods is under the impression that Goku is weaker than Freeza. If that's not enough, base Gohan, whom can't even be close to Piccolo's strength during the Cell Games, isn't THAT much weaker than Goku. It's highly unlikely Piccolo's weaker than the base Saiyans based on this information.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Hell no. The Goku, Vegeta, and Gohan are stated to be close in power (though Majin Vegeta = Goku > Vegeta > Gohan), while in the Cell arc, Gohan was implied to be not too much stronger than Goku, since Goku was counting on Gohan's rage boost. Piccolo on the other hand was at #17's level before RoSaT, and after RoSaT, he got a huge power-up, making him standing his own against a Cell Jr., a feat that only SS Vegeta & Trunks could achieve (though Piccolo seemed to have the hardest time of the 3), but not Tired SS Goku (and don't tell me that Tired SS Goku was below base Goku). So, in the Cell Games, Piccolo was below the 4 Super Saiyans, but above the base Saiyans. The fact that by Boo arc the 3 Super Saiyans are around the same level, and Gohan didn't get any stronger, it means that Piccolo is still in the same position: below the Super Saiyans, but far above the base Saiyans.

As for Kaioshin, who is stated to be stronger than Piccolo, Kaioshin isn't below the base Saiyans, Pui Pui, and Yakon. For Pui Pui & Yakon, he was only afraid that the Saiyans would be careless & take damage because Pui Pui & Yakon were supposed to be be very strong because Babidi only chooses strong warriors, which means that Majin Boo would get closer to his revival, and Kaioshin didn't want to give Boo any energy at all because he was paranoid about it. However, it turned out that Pui Pui & Yakon were weak. Plus, Kaioshin realized that the Saiyans surpassed him after he saw Super Saiyan in action.

And as for what Dabra said, all the heroes in the cliff (Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Piccolo, Kuririn, Kaioshin, and Kibito) where suppressed to zero, since they didn't want to be detected. The fact that Dabra could tell how many they were, and who have the most energy means that Babidi & Dabra could detect them through some magical ability, and could tell who had the bigger energy (Goku was hiding SS3, Gohan Raged SS2, and Vegeta SS2, and all those 3 make Piccolo look like trash), but they couldn't measure that power, since they believed that Pui Pui would be enough to handle them. So, he could tell that they had magnificent power, but not how much power.

[Vice]

I guess BoG hammers the nail in the coffin on this one despite Toriyama's best efforts at making this issue cloudy with shitty writing during the Buu Arc. If base Goku can't beat Freeza than he can't beat Piccolo.

[Nazi Cola]

Whoa, this issue again! Run, everybody, run!

Seriously, though, it's whatever you personally choose to believe. It isn't like the Pure Boo/Evil Boo debate where it's damn near laid out clearly, or the Krillin/Tenshinhan debate. It's murky and can go either way.

[Godo]

I'm at the part of the Buu arc where they qualify for the tournament and Piccolo gets 210 while Goku gets 188.

Damn, numbers do not lie, I guess Piccolo has this.

Then #18 is the strongest of the strongest with her 774 reading!
Or maybe the machines are reading sexiness. That would go fine with me. It would explain #18's reading, and it is a stated fact that Piccolo's mysterious sexiness trumps Goku's pretty unsexy goofiness.

I believe that the base Saiya-jins didn't even come close to 30% of Freeza's max power, hence the need to reach new SSJ forms.
Going by Battle of Gods, base Saiya-jins are weaker than Freeza. That's fine by me.

[Polyphase Avatron]

BoG base Goku < 100% Frieza < Kami merged Piccolo

[Godo]

BoG base Goku < 100% Freeza < Kami merged Piccolo

Probably the most informative post in the whole thread.

[Kid Buu]

I'm at the part of the Buu arc where they qualify for the tournament and Piccolo gets 210 while Goku gets 188.

Damn, numbers do not lie, I guess Piccolo has this.

Then #18 is the strongest of the strongest with her 774 reading!
Or maybe the machines are reading sexiness. That would go fine with me. It would explain #18's reading, and it is a stated fact that Piccolo's mysterious sexiness trumps Goku's pretty unsexy goofiness.
.

Ha, you may be the first person to notice the joke in the first post!

[rereboy]

Please... Vegeta's reading totally destroyed 18's.

[Vice]

BoG base Goku < 100% Freeza < Kami merged Piccolo

Probably the most informative post in the whole thread.

Isn't that what I just said?

[Pantalones]

There's basically no way for the base Saiyans to pass Piccolo unless you completely ignore everything that's said about the Saiyans' power growth between the Cell Games and Buu saga (and beyond.)

We know from the Cell Junior fight that Vegeta, Trunks, and Piccolo are not all that far apart from each other (Vegeta probably at least a bit stronger than Trunks, and the Super Saiyans probably at least a bit stronger than Piccolo... but all still within the "can fight a Cell Jr. without being immediately stomped to the ground" range, unlike worn-out Goku and everyone who hasn't reached the hundreds-of-millions.) He was already on the same level as #17 before his pre-Cell Games training (which apparently gave him a huge boost, just not enough to get up into a range of power that would give him a chance against Perfect Cell), so he should at the very least be somewhere beyond 2nd-form Cell afterward.
So the base Saiyans can't be anywhere near Piccolo's level during the Cell Games (let alone stronger), because Super Saiyan is a 50x boost and Piccolo is close to the Super Saiyans in power. The only way to get "Cell Games base Saiyans > Piccolo" to work is to ignore the Super Saiyan multipliers, and even if you do that you'd have to make them drastically lower than 50x to get it to work.

We also know that Goku and Vegeta never got that much stronger than the level Gohan was at during the Cell Games, if they got any stronger than him at all--Majin Vegeta is only "perhaps" stronger than SSj2 Gohan back then, and he and SSj2 Goku are equal. Piccolo has been stated to be pretty much always training (seriously, it's basically all he does during those in-between-major-events times when nothing is going on, and unlike the non-green characters he doesn't even need snack breaks!), so he would've gotten stronger over the 7-year gap too.
If all of the base Saiyans were weaker than Piccolo during the Cell Games (and they had to be), there's no way they could surpass him during the 7-year gap, because Goku only caught up to Gohan's Cell Games power (or went slightly above it) and none of the others even got (or stayed) that high, at least not until Vegeta got the Majin power-up. Especially when considering that Piccolo would've gotten at least slightly stronger from his own training during all those years.

Finally, Battle of Gods. Beers flat-out says that base Goku, even a few years after Buu (and he's been training), wouldn't have been able to beat Freeza. Goku doesn't argue, he just shows Beers his ability to go Super Saiyan (which by this point of course would be well beyond "able to beat Freeza") as proof that he really could do it.

So basically... to make Piccolo weaker than the base Saiyans, you have to ignore Beers' "you couldn't beat Freeza like this" no matter what explanation you use for how Piccolo can be weaker than the base Saiyans.
On top of that, you also have to either change the Super Saiyan multipliers during the Cell Games to be much lower than 50x, or ignore the statements pointing toward SSj2 Goku and Majin Vegeta being similar in power to SSj2 Gohan back at the Cell Games (...meaning their base forms >= base Gohan at the Cell Games) and have them both get an insanely huge boost during the 7 years of training pre-Buu. And if you go with "Goku and Vegeta just got that much stronger" as your explanation, then either there's going to be a huge gap between them and Gohan (which makes the "Goten and Trunks are close to Gohan" thing more plausible, at least) or you have to ignore the whole "Gohan got weaker" thing, too.

[ThePrinceOfSaiyans]

Kami fused Piccolo is more powerful than 17.

Kami fused Piccolo easily held his own against Cell Jr, despite getting a bit beat up.

I don't think Piccolo is weaker than a base Saiyan.

[Hugo Boss]

Before arriving at the ground, Vegeta said he would win the tournament even without transforming to Super Saiyan. I think it's enough to say that in base form he is at least stronger than Cell Games Piccolo. However, I don't know how much stronger Piccolo was after 7 years of training. I recall Dabura's quote only referring to their supressed forms, that were not far weaker than Pui Pui. Well, Piccolo and the others can still power up a lot. Personally, I have him stronger than base Saiyans, but I don't have any prove.

[Kakashi]

SSjins Adultts >> SSjin Kids >> Piccolo >> Base Adults

Boo Saga Base Gohan: 6
Boo Saga Vegeta: 7.7
Boo Saga Base Goku: 10
Boo Saga Piccolo: 25
SSjin Kids: 60
SSjin Teen Gohan: 300
SSjin Vegeta: 385
SSjin Goku:500

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

Not trying to take over this thread or anything, but does anyone believe there's an actual limit to the power of the Base Saiyans? I mean, I know we see Vegeta and Goku training hard in Base. Could this just be the Saiyans keeping their overall skills in peak condition? Or do you believe they're simply increasing their powers?