Hitiro wrote:I'd establish the dead-bottom of the difference between SSJ Gotenks and SSJ3 Goku as SSJ Gotenks being half as strong as SSJ3 Goku, or 2 times stronger than SSJ2 Goku, which gives us enough leeway for Fat Boo to outclass the SSJ2 adults yet still have SSJ3 Goku be able to handle Fat Boo with the relative ease we saw in the manga and the anime. As such. the absolute dead-bottom minimum is that SSJ3 Gotenks is 4x stronger than SSJ3 Goku. Not 2x.
You say x4, but x3.5 would work about as well (nor is there any set rule requiring a whole number). You could say x3.3, and I could say x3.12 would work just as well, and we would both have as much claim to being right. You could say x2.6, and I could say x2.3. Same thing.
That's what I mean. Being stronger than SSJ2 Goku by an unspecified amount means "at least as strong as SSJ2 Goku". At least 2.00(and-on-and-on)0001x. Maybe 2.1x, maybe 2.6x, maybe 3x, maybe 4x, maybe more. But the bottom is 2.0(bar)1x. That's the bottom. The absolute minimum of "Super Gotenks must be stronger than SSJ2 Goku" is "Super Gotenks is not weaker than SSJ2 Goku". Without anything saying by how much, that's the bottom.
Tell me Gotenks IS 4x stronger than Goku again, and I will ask you why exactly 3.9x is under the bar. Possibly, likely, probably? I have no problems with. But IS? Says who?
Hitiro wrote:Considering Goku and Vegeta were exactly even during their fight they both took damage and the battle wasn't short. Fat Boo hit Vegeta only a few times which severely injured Vegeta. You put Fat Boo at 2? You realise that would put Fat Boo as SSJ2 Goku and SSJ2 Vegeta, right?
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Let's look at the injuries Goku and Vegeta inflict on each other. Torn clothes, bruises, cuts and blood. Both to the same extent, so we call them even. Now, what sort of injuries does Vegeta inflict on Buu (before Buu regenerates them away)? Dents and a misshapen skull. And also a gaping hole in his stomach. More than what Goku suffered. In fact, the last time Goku had an injury like that was when he fought Raditz and died.
So Vegeta's doing more to Buu than what he did to Goku. Making Buu either weaker than SSJ2 Goku or equal to Goku (pre-regeneration, of course). I'm not arguing Fat Buu being weaker than Goku, so what accounts for the difference in hurt? Was Vegeta holding back against Goku?
Well, no and yes. No, Vegeta was fighting Goku with his fullest ability. But, yes, Vegeta's tactics were different against Buu than they were against Goku. Vegeta knew Goku was going away in a day and wanted to savor the battle. Moves and attacks of the same order as the stomach-piercer he hit Buu with would end the fight early (not what Vegeta wants). With Buu, on the other hand, Vegeta had no desire to prolong the battle and thus used more lethal moves.
And then let's look at what Buu does to Vegeta. The big explosion disables Vegeta's arm (which does not regenerate), and then Fat Buu traps him with a blob of his flesh and lays into him with a series of punches until Trunks kicks him away. So at this point I'm seeing dents and blows to the skull vs a series of punches, and a pierced gut vs a disabled arm. Besides the regeneration, what's the difference?
And then we get to the last part of the fight. Vegeta lets loose a massive explosion that kills him and disintegrates Buu, who then comes back. Like I said, Buu's saving grace is the regeneration. Because Goku wanted to tag-team Buu with Vegeta and Gohan's help and because he later says his SSJ2 self wouldn't stand a chance, I'm fine with "above SSJ2". As long as we understand that that just means "not below SSJ2". 2.1, 2.5, 3, 3.4, 4, anywhere on that scale makes as much sense as anywhere else on that scale. But there's no bottom to the scale other than the lowest number, 2.
Hitiro wrote:I'm also talking about minimum. There is no way Vegeta would have received that much damage from a character who is close to him in strength. Vegeta would have not suicide if he thought there was another possible way to defeat him. The fact that Vegeta only saw a suicide bomb as a way of defeating Fat Boo clearly points to him being severely out-matched by Fat Boo. And I feel 2x is a reasonable mount for this, allowing Goku to be 2x stronger than Fat Boo and being able to take him easily. Like he did.
Which puts us at an impasse. I don't call something besides the bottom the bottom. Possibly, likely, probably? Sure. But there's a difference between what we call a reasonable number and what its minimum is.
Hitiro wrote:If you read the story it was Boo's plan to absorb Gotenks because he felt he couldn't beat Gohan without the absorption. But Evil Boo never felt that way with Gotenks. He thought he could deal with him without additional help. Boo naps when the kids lose the fusion instead of out-right killing them to get rid of a threat, if they were more powerful than him. He then spends his time hiding from Gohan to wait out the time period for the boys to be able to re-fuse so he can use their strength to defeat Gohan. All of this paints a picture to me that he wasn't bothered by SSJ3 Gotenks strength as much as he was Gohans. If they were that much of a threat to him he would have gone and hid from the kids until the fusion wore off. He wasn't against fighting them like he was Gohan. Which just goes to show that Gohan is stronger than the kids by enough that it worried Evil Boo. I honestly feel that Gohan is around 2x stronger than SSJ3 Gotenks. If you look at the fight between SSJ3 Gotenks and Evil Boo, Evil Boo could get hits in and do damage. But he was severely out-classed by Gohan.
Super Buu had no qualms about fighting Gotenks because by now, he's got the measure of just how experienced and serious Gotenks is (not very). This is also how he's able to harm Gotenks when he can't touch Gohan. He also knows Gotenks has a time limit (a key factor because after Gotenks smashes him into the earth with the volleyball attack, Buu does indeed hide until he learns about the time limit; granted, he learns this in short order because Gotenks can't shut up). If the two are close to even, then the one with the regeneration will have the edge, like how Fat Buu beat Vegeta. Also, when the boys are unfused, he knows (1) it'll be an hour before they fuse again (they tell him) and (2) that he can interrupt the dance before they finish (heck, he did so by accident the first time they met).
Again, the story allows Gohan to be stronger than SSJ3 Gotenks. The story also allows Gohan to not be very much above Gotenks, if at all, and his clear superiority is accounted for in other ways. In looking for the minimum numbers, where Gohan could well be 2x Gotenks's power and just as well be 1x his power, one of those is smaller. It's the same argument as above. I agree that it is possibly, likely, probably true that Fat Buu is a 3, Super Gotenks is a 4, and Gohan is above SSJ3 Gotenks. Not "is".
Tectorman wrote:True, SSJ3 Gotenks's power was on par with Buu's. I think slightly over, given that Super Gotenks (sporting an eighth of that power) was completely getting mauled by Buu.
I mistyped here. Super Gotenks was NOT getting mauled by Super Buu, so for Super Gotenks to not get decimated by Super Buu and then fight him with eight times that power, I think it reasonable to give SSJ3 Gotenks the edge and any evenness between the two is due to the twin factors of his regeneration and Gotenks's inexperience.
Hitiro wrote:This is subjective. I put SSJ3 Gotenks below Evil Boo's power but has the advantage in terms of Ki based attacks. We see throughout the story that characters can amplify their Ki through the use of Ki techniques. This allows them to take on enemies much more powerful than themselves. Key examples would be Piccolo against Raditz, Tenshinhan against Cell and Vegeta against Cell. All these characters were severely out-classed by the enemies they were fighting but their techniques which amplified their Ki made up for it. SSJ3 Gotenks is slightly better than Evil Boo because of his Ki based techniques. Even when SSJ Gotenks was up against Evil Boo his Ki based techniques proved extremely effective despite SSJ Gotenks being 8x weaker than Evil Boo.
Yep, it is subjective. As long as we recognize "in the ballpark of each other" as the only confirmed fact and allow for them to actually be slightly weaker or slightly stronger, then we're in agreement.
Hitiro wrote:Trunks statement as far as I'm concerned is a reserved one. He doesn't want to admit that Gohan clearly out-ranks their Gotenks. He is being extremely prideful about it. Just like Vegeta refuses to admit that Goku is stronger than him up until the end.
DBZ ch. 286, page 7. Goten and Trunks have just defused from Fat Gotenks. In the fifth panel, it implies that defused dance-fused characters don't necessarily remember everything about their time fused. And this was when they did nothing but wait out the half-hour with no distractions. So I had doubts about Trunks's comparison of SSJ3 Gotenks and Gohan and they're still there.
Hitiro wrote:In terms of fighting ability I would actually rank Goten and Trunks higher than Gohan. Why? Gohan slacked for 7 years. Meanwhile Goten was sparring with his mother. So he obviously learnt a lot about fighting from her. And Trunks was also with his father in the Training room. I believe in the story Vegeta said he even give Trunks some lessons ready for the Tournament so Trunks could beat Goten, in spite of not like Goku. We also see that Trunks managed to land a hit on Vegeta who is actually a decent amount stronger than Gohan at this point. Gohan also struggled against Goten when they were sparring. So I honestly think Goten + Trunks > Gohan in terms of fighting ability. Vegeta also makes the statement when Gohan is fighting Dabra that he is fighting sloppily and that he had a much better combat form as a kid. In the 7 years due to not training his combat form has gotten much worse. So the fact that Gohan was picking apart Evil Boo was not due to fighting ability. It was just superior power.
I agree with every bit of that up until Gohan trains with the Zeta Sword. He slacked off for seven years, and spent a month training for a martial arts tournament with nothing more than prize money at stake. On the Supreme Kai's planet, he had a much greater need to push himself and commit to his training. But even if that only puts his fighting ability at equal to Goten and Trunks, he's still much more serious and more battle-hardened (after all, except for each other, their respective teacher/parents, and Gohan, they haven't done much actual fighting, unless we're counting Broly; Gohan on the other hand has been to another planet).
Hitiro wrote:Anything that influences power debat in these forums I feel should reference the manga only. Because the manga follows the author's view on the characters strength. Even though he has probably forgotten everything about the universe he's created. I'm not opposed to any material added to lengthen the story. I just believe it belongs in the discussion because anime filler paints a different picture from the manga. In the anime Goku actually calls Pure Boo(Kid Boo) the strongest of the Boo's. If that was the case then Goku wouldn't be able to beat him. The people who added the filler clearly had a different view of the characters strengths compared to Toriyama.
Actually, the manga briefly mentions the same thing. Super Buu regresses to Kid Buu, but when he briefly becomes Bulked Buu, Goku comments that he's getting stronger. Again, the anime is just illustrating in depth what we see in the manga. So it's not necessarily a different view from the author's.
Hitiro wrote:Regarding Bootenks it doesn't matter if you just say Bootenks was as strong as Evil Boo. He still wouldn't have been able to dodge because we know that 2x would outclass a enemy enough for them to not be able to do anything. SSJ3 Goku should not have been able to avoid any of Bootenks attacks. If he can then, somewhere, Goku has become stronger for some random reason. Only way to look at it.
Goku was able to dodge a few of Raditz's attacks, including one that took Piccolo's arm. So, that's another way to look at it.
Hitiro wrote:Kuririn, Gohan and Piccolo didn't instantly die because Freeza was toying with them. When final-form Freeza arrived Gohan was actually going to die until Vegeta shoved Gohan out of the way saving his life. Gohan was going to insta-die. But Bootenks was taking it seriously. Goku blurts out that Gohan needs to find the Potara so they fuse and from the Viz translation Bootenks says "Fuse? Undoubtedly futile. But why take the chance? I'll kill you first." Bootenks rushed Goku to kill him before they could fuse because he doesn't know if he could take a fused Goku and Gohan and doesn't want to risk it. So yes, he did attack seriously to prevent a fusion that could possibly rival him and yes the anime filler of him dodging Bootenks serious attacks was contradictory.
You mean like how Goku offered zero opposition to Raditz and couldn't even dodge him?
Hitiro wrote:Considering Evil Boo said he was going to kill them right there. I doubt he was toying with them. And considering Evil Boo is around 16x stronger than both of them they should not have been able to kill him off with the blast they did. The blast wouldn't have done any damage.
How many times did we hear Frieza swearing death on someone? How many times do we hear that in THIS series? Considering Buu was so much stronger than the two of them put together, the only explanation for them not getting beat down is that he was toying with them.
Hitiro wrote:Like I said, I do not object to people including storylines in what they perceive the universe to be. What I object to is using storylines that aren't part of the original authors material because they will paint a different perspective on the things. Especially when we talk the strength of characters. Because the person including the filler might be of the mind that Bootenks > SSJ3 Goku > Gohan > SSJ3 Gotenks. When we know that Toriyama wrote it in the way that Bootenks > Gohan > SSJ3 Gotenks > SSJ3 Goku. As I said earlier on there is a filler piece where Goku out-right states Pure Boo(Kid Boo) is the strongest Boo. But we know in the manga that isn't the case. Like I don't see how you can drag in the whole "Well SSJ3 Goku took out Hirudegarn so he must be stronger than Gotenks and Gohan now." Goku is the main character of the franchise. Of course they are going to make Gotenks and Gohan weaker than him. But that doesn't make it true from Toriyama's perspective, whatever that may be.
Yes, a person can take certain material a certain way. But an impression of what that material is conveying is not what the material is conveying. I saw Goku being a distraction for his superior-strength son to get the earring for them to fuse. He already has his so Gohan is who needs to be looking for the other one (and he was closer to where it dropped).
As for Hirudegarn, I mention that because either God Mode's power is a direct comparison to Goku's Buu Saga ability, or it's in comparison to some later improvement, if such later improvement can be shown. Hirudegarn shows that it can. Indeed, this may not be what the author intended, but considering the movie later shows Vegeta doing better than Gohan or Goku did and being compared to Goku, not Gohan, it seems like Goku had indeed taken the edge by the beginning of BoG. Does Hirudegarn illustrate this in more detail? Yes. Can we say Wrath of the Dragon was written specifically to illustrate this? Not without time travel. Can we say that Toriyama saw WotD and decided to go with what it established as far as Goku v Gohan as of the beginning of BoG? Seems like it.
Hiriro wrote:As far as we know SSJ3 Goku is still weaker than Gotenks and Gohan in BoG until he goes SSJGod and that is how Toriyama wanted it.
As far as I know it, when Vegeta surpassed Goku, he put Goku in second place, not Gohan.
Hitiro wrote:I don't believe that is implied whatsoever. The way it is worded could basically mean that two characters who attempt to outdo each other would be a good fusion because they will continually strive to outdo one and another. Therefore the new character made from the fusion would be a sum of their best parts. In comparison to Gotenks who doesn't take things seriously because there is no rivalry between the two kids. If Goten and Trunks were proper rivals then the result would lead to a serious Gotenks who would actually get something done. Because neither side of the personalities that make Gotenks would accept defeat from the other one.
Sure, it's implied. Kibitokai is in amazement of Super Vegetto's power and attributes it to the Potara until the Elder Kai tells him it's because of the rivalry. Ergo, their rivalry is considered to be as significant a factor as the Potara. That being a substitute for Gohan's mystic power-up is very plausible.
Hitiro wrote:Is Vegetto strong enough to defeat Boohan in base? Possibly.
But Vegetto turns SSJ straight away to fight Boohan in the manga. So is it possible he needed to turn SSJ? Yes.
Therefore there is a difference between the manga and the anime. Vegetto is definitely painted as a lot stronger in the anime than he is in the manga because Toriyama made him go SSJ straight away in the manga.
He goes SSJ for the extra breathing room. Because merely beating Buu is not The Plan.
Vegetto's plan: rescue his friends.
How? Get absorbed.
Possible complications: Buu might try something besides absorbing him. A great many somethings. He might scream and tear down the dimensions. He might combine attacks such as the Kamikaze Ghost and the Kamehameha. He might liquefy himself and plunge into Vegetto's body. He might do any number of things before he thinks of absorption.
Could Vegetto beat Buu in base? Maybe. But when the fighting got serious, he'd probably have to go all out and doing things like leaving openings or manipulating Buu's tactics would be risky. Much less leeway to not just win, but win a specific way.
He needed to be a brick wall for Buu to bang his head against with strategy after strategy until he was left with the one option. So Vegetto needed to make sure that he could be a brick wall. He didn't need superiority, he needed outright dominance.
Did he know SSJ would be enough to guarantee not being defeated? No. He had no idea his Super form would be able to handle being candy the way he did. But would his base form have had a worse time of it? Most likely.
So we come to a cost-effectiveness analysis. Effectiveness: 50x normal. Cost: since both Vegeta and Goku by this point are, presumably, capable of FPSSJ, it follows that Vegetto is as well. And the Elder Kai's warning against Super Saiyan only pertained to being SSJ pre-fusion. Ergo, no real cost.
Sure, if just killing Buu and wishing the boys back to life were the goal, he may well have just used his base form. Considering that his plan took the Elder Kai by surprise, it's likely the Elder Kai wasn't thinking about rescuing the boys either. If he had, he probably would've suggested to Goku that Gokan would definitely need to go SSJ to force Buutenks's hand to rescue the boys and Piccolo.
That's why Vegetto uses SSJ. The reason he starts out using his base form is just the anime's way of illustrating further the manga.
Twilight: My library?! My library!! Do you have any idea how many books I had in there?!
Lord Tirek: How many, little princess?
Twilight: Over NINE THOUSAND!!!