Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[DragonHermit]

It's made pretty clear in the story that base Goku, without the Kaioken, is superior to both Piccolo and Vegeta. Vegeta didn't manage to keep up with ONE of Freeza's attacks, and yet Goku can keep up, dodge, and deflect multiple of Freeza's, even the tyrant is surprised at his speed. It wouldn't make sense for him to be lower than one million, which is the absolute minimum level he has to be at. Denying this is just denying facts.

Did Toriyama ever mention the 50x multiplier for SS? Only Daizenshuu as far as I've seen has that. Toriyama said Goku was 10 times stronger than his "previous max". A 1.5 million power level wouldn't be too unreasonable. Also, by the time Goku used Kaioken x20, he was pretty beat up, so his power would have decreased...

[MaGyunia]

It's made pretty clear in the story that base Goku, without the Kaioken, is superior to both Piccolo and Vegeta. Vegeta didn't manage to keep up with ONE of Freeza's attacks, and yet Goku can keep up, dodge, and deflect multiple of Freeza's, even the tyrant is surprised at his speed. It wouldn't make sense for him to be lower than one million, which is the absolute minimum level he has to be at. Denying this is just denying facts.

Hmm, sheer power level is not the only thing that counts in a fight, a warrior's martial arts skills also comes to bear. A warrior can have an inferior power level than another and still manage to do better in some parts of a fight with the same enemy, depending on his way of fighting, his personality, his martial arts skills, his emotional state, etc. If Goku was anywhere near 1.000.000, when he went for a desperate x20 Kaio-Ken, it would skyrocket his power to 10.000.000, which was far above what Freeza was at at the moment he blocked it. He can't be that high in his base form when he comes out of the healing chamber, and since he can't be that high he's automatically below both Vegeta and Piccolo (who are, in their strongest against Freeza, close to 1.000.000).

[Doctor.]

It's made pretty clear in the story that base Goku, without the Kaioken, is superior to both Piccolo and Vegeta. Vegeta didn't manage to keep up with ONE of Freeza's attacks, and yet Goku can keep up, dodge, and deflect multiple of Freeza's, even the tyrant is surprised at his speed. It wouldn't make sense for him to be lower than one million, which is the absolute minimum level he has to be at. Denying this is just denying facts.

Did Toriyama ever mention the 50x multiplier for SS? Only Daizenshuu as far as I've seen has that. Toriyama said Goku was 10 times stronger than his "previous max". A 1.5 million power level wouldn't be too unreasonable.

Yes, he did.

Why does Goku’s hair turn gold when he becomes a Super Saiyan?
I decided on the design for the Super Saiyan for, to be honest… a simple reason that will leave you saying “What?”. I always have only a single person, Assistant-kun, helping me with my work. That Assistant-kun’s time was always taken up doing the black fill4 of Goku’s hair, so the biggest reason was in order to save time. Because when he became a Super Saiyan, we wouldn’t have to do the black fill. It also had the effect of making it easy to tell from his appearance that Goku had gotten stronger, so it killed two birds with one stone. Only, at the time, it was considered that his strength would increase 50-fold when he became a Super Saiyan, but that was a bit of an exaggeration. My feeling as the creator is that, while drawing it, I felt that it was about a 10-fold change from what it was up to that point.

Fifty times is what makes the most sense. Freeza was blocking Goku's Kaioken x20 Kamehameha with 50% of his power, Super Saiyan had to be at least 40 times in order to make sure Goku is equal to Freeza's full power.

I don't understand what you mean by 1.5 million, do you mean Goku's base power on Namek? Because if so, sure, nothing directly contradicts it, but this chain (Vegeta > 3rd form Freeza > Unweighted Piccolo >/= Second form Freeza full power > Weighted Piccolo > 2nd form Freeza powered-up > 2nd form Freeza) has to fit in between the 1 and 1.5 million mark, and it just sounds unreasonable.

Hmm, sheer power level is not the only thing that counts in a fight, a warrior's martial arts skills also comes to bear. A warrior can have an inferior power level than another and still manage to do better in some parts of a fight with the same enemy, depending on his way of fighting, his personality, his martial arts skills, his emotional state, etc. If Goku was anywhere near 1.000.000, when he went for a desperate x20 Kaio-Ken, it would skyrocket his power to 10.000.000, which was far above what Freeza was at at the moment he blocked it. He can't be that high in his base form when he comes out of the healing chamber, and since he can't be that high he's automatically below both Vegeta and Piccolo (who are, in their strongest against Freeza, close to 1.000.000).

It would be "far above" what Freeza was because...? The Daizenshuu puts Goku at 3 million, which logically would make Goku's Kaiokenx20 60 million, and it also puts full power Freeza at 120 million, and that would give 60 million to 50% Freeza, which was the percentage he was using the moment he blocked the Kamehameha. Seems like equal values to me. You're denying stuff the story makes pretty clear. Goku was faster than Vegeta in his normal state. This normally, and most of the times, translates to having a higher battle power. Goku and Vegeta's skill are almost equivalent, so it wouldn't make such a difference if Goku was over 3x weaker.

[Sora Saiyan]

Thanks for posting all that doctor. You saved me a lot of time.
The only thing I'll add is that Goku only seemed to use the kaioken once they started "getting serious". It's very noticeable when he first used it, he has the aura and everything. Nothing like that was shown prior. Toriyama made it quite obvious for us to understand when he started using it.

[Pannaliciour]

The claim that freeza was only using 1% of his full.power, wasn't that only stated in anime and not in the manga?

Maybe off topic but what about this (spoiler):
Gohan in base in revival of f, in the situation he helped krillin in the forest against those freeza soldiers. These soldiers started to attack Gohan en while they where heading to Gohan, Gohan blitzed these soldiers while they where completed frozen (didn't move). That have to be at minimum light speed if I am not mistaken?

[MaGyunia]

Hmm, sheer power level is not the only thing that counts in a fight, a warrior's martial arts skills also comes to bear. A warrior can have an inferior power level than another and still manage to do better in some parts of a fight with the same enemy, depending on his way of fighting, his personality, his martial arts skills, his emotional state, etc. If Goku was anywhere near 1.000.000, when he went for a desperate x20 Kaio-Ken, it would skyrocket his power to 10.000.000, which was far above what Freeza was at at the moment he blocked it. He can't be that high in his base form when he comes out of the healing chamber, and since he can't be that high he's automatically below both Vegeta and Piccolo (who are, in their strongest against Freeza, close to 1.000.000).

It would be "far above" what Freeza was because...? The Daizenshuu puts Goku at 3 million, which logically would make Goku's Kaiokenx20 60 million, and it also puts full power Freeza at 120 million, and that would give 60 million to 50% Freeza, which was the percentage he was using the moment he blocked the Kamehameha. Seems like equal values to me. You're denying stuff the story makes pretty clear. Goku was faster than Vegeta in his normal state. This normally, and most of the times, translates to having a higher battle power. Goku and Vegeta's skill are almost equivalent, so it wouldn't make such a difference if Goku was over 3x weaker.

Ok, I see where the problem is. You're viewing and basing yourself on the Daizenshuu guides as if they were the Dragonball bible. It really depends on the source you get your information from. I'm not devaluing it, far from it, I'm just saying that not everything there needs to be taken literally or as fact.

The Daizenshuu guides basically place Freeza's power level in his first form at 530.000, his second form at nearly 1.000.000, his third form at 2.500.000 and then, in his fourth form, it basically skyrockets to insane amounts, tens of times the previous stage(s), and that's exactly where I beg to differ. I've seen other sources putting Freeza's power level in his fourth form, using a third of his power, then 50%, then 70%, and then ultimately 100%, at much lower numbers, and based on that, which I think makes much more sense, my logic is still sound. If you place Freeza's power level in his fourth form at 12.000.000 (and there's more than one source doing it), it means he's at 6.000.000 when using 50% of his power, which happens to be just a little above Goku's desperate Kaio-Ken x20 if you base yourself on the numbers I've specified (base Goku being at around 250.000, Kaio-Ken x10 being 2.500.000 and x20 being 5.000.000), it makes sense.

If you go by Freeza being 120.000.000 at his full power, then yeah, of course Goku needs to have a huge power level in his base form after he comes out of the healing chamber. HOWEVER, don't you find it a little strange that just because of a Zenkai his base power level jumps/skyrockets from 60.000 against Ginyu to 3.000.000 (!)? Zenkais do provide great power ups to Vegeta and Goku here and there, but going from 60.000 to 3 MILLION is pushing it a little, no?

If you follow the Daizenshuu guides as the absolute, untouchable factual truth, then your numbers apply and Goku's base power level must be in the order of 3.000.000 - which, for the reasons I've just stated in the previous paragraph, I find a little far-fetched -, but if you follow other sources' numbers, then the numbers I specified both in this and, more in-depth, in the previous post apply.

[dbgtFO]

If you go by Freeza being 120.000.000 at his full power, then yeah, of course Goku needs to have a huge power level in his base form after he comes out of the healing chamber. HOWEVER, don't you find it a little strange that just because of a Zenkai his base power level jumps/skyrockets from 60.000 against Ginyu to 3.000.000 (!)? Zenkais do provide great power ups to Vegeta and Goku here and there, but going from 60.000 to 3 MILLION is pushing it a little, no?

Goku was at 90,000 against Ginyu, not 60,000 and really Goku getting such a huge increase in power was probably another factor in why Toriyama discontinued the numbers. It just got too ridiculous to keep up with.

If you follow the Daizenshuu guides as the absolute, untouchable factual truth, then your numbers apply and Goku's base power level must be in the order of 3.000.000 - which, for the reasons I've just stated in the previous paragraph, I find a little far-fetched -, but if you follow other sources' numbers, then the numbers I specified both in this and, more in-depth, in the previous post apply.

What are those other sources then? The only official DB product that uses the 12/15 million numbers is DBZ sagas, but that's because they went with the mistranslated Daizenshuu numbers.

[Doctor.]

Ok, I see where the problem is. You're viewing and basing yourself on the Daizenshuu guides as if they were the Dragonball bible. It really depends on the source you get your information from. I'm not devaluing it, far from it, I'm just saying that not everything there needs to be taken literally or as fact.

The Daizenshuu guides basically place Freeza's power level in his first form at 530.000, his second form at nearly 1.000.000, his third form at 2.500.000 and then, in his fourth form, it basically skyrockets to insane amounts, tens of times the previous stage(s), and that's exactly where I beg to differ. I've seen other sources putting Freeza's power level in his fourth form, using a third of his power, then 50%, then 70%, and then ultimately 100%, at much lower numbers, and based on that, which I think makes much more sense, my logic is still sound. If you place Freeza's power level in his fourth form at 12.000.000 (and there's more than one source doing it), it means he's at 6.000.000 when using 50% of his power, which happens to be just a little above Goku's desperate Kaio-Ken x20 if you base yourself on the numbers I've specified (base Goku being at around 250.000, Kaio-Ken x10 being 2.500.000 and x20 being 5.000.000), it makes sense.

If you go by Freeza being 120.000.000 at his full power, then yeah, of course Goku needs to have a huge power level in his base form after he comes out of the healing chamber. HOWEVER, don't you find it a little strange that just because of a Zenkai his base power level jumps/skyrockets from 60.000 against Ginyu to 3.000.000 (!)? Zenkais do provide great power ups to Vegeta and Goku here and there, but going from 60.000 to 3 MILLION is pushing it a little, no?

If you follow the Daizenshuu guides as the absolute, untouchable factual truth, then your numbers apply and Goku's base power level must be in the order of 3.000.000 - which, for the reasons I've just stated in the previous paragraph, I find a little far-fetched -, but if you follow other sources' numbers, then the numbers I specified both in this and, more in-depth, in the previous post apply.

I'm not using the Daizenshuu as undeniable truth. I used it in this particular instance because it makes sense and contradicts nothing. Like I said in a previous post, Goku has to be above 1 million at the absolute MINIMUM in order to make sense.

I've already told you the problem of putting Goku at 250k. He seems confident on taking on Freeza after sensing second form Freeza's battle power which was in the millions, and he was MUCH faster than Vegeta or Piccolo before using Kaioken. This is undeniable, this is not a theory, this is a fact, Goku is stronger than Piccolo and Vegeta who, in turn, are stronger than 2nd form Freeza who has more than 1 million in battle power. This is what the story makes clear and what you keep ignoring, if he was at 250k he wouldn't be faster, he wouldn't keep up with Freeza, and that's it. To me, the 12 and 15 million battle powers are completely preposterous.

Goku was at 90,000 and yes it's a great jump, but so is Vegeta jumping from "nearly 30,000" to being equal to Freeza's first form. Or from that to being stronger than Freeza's third form. And like dbgtFO asked, what sources?

[MaGyunia]

No point in continuing this debate anymore, we could go back and forth on it, I could present my theory, you could present yours countless times and still no one would agree with each other.

I could continue arguing that the reason why Goku, in his base form, manages to avoid Freeza's attacks is because of the fact that sheer power alone isn't the only thing that counts in a fight, and Goku is extremely confident, careful, martial arts-skilled and balanced in the fight prior to try Kaio-Ken x10 or Kaio-Ken x20, while Vegeta was totally outclassed despite having a slightly stronger power level in his base form because he was factually emotionally unbalanced, and in fact panicking over the entire fight and circumstances, to the point of being almost delusional about the whole Super Saiya-jin issue.

I could continue arguing that jumping from 60.000, or 90.000, to 3 MILLION is just too high a Zenkai (Vegeta's Zenkai from 35.000 to something that could rival with Freeza's first form doesn't compare to it, you're basically saying Goku, after coming out of the healing chamber, was about ten times stronger than that, and almost thirty times stronger than Ginyu (!), and that Freeza, in his very strongest, using his full power in his fourth form, is a THOUSAND times stronger than Ginyu and almost a thousand times stronger than in his first form, and I could carry on saying I just don't believe that).

You, on the other hand, could point out the potential "flaws" in my logic/theory just as you did, and we're obviously not going to back down, so it's just better to stop here.

Unless Toriyama comes along and presents us with the numbers, which obviously will never happen, different theories exist and none of them will ever be proven 100% accurate or right. Let each one keep basing their thoughts on what they want and defend their theories, unless they contradict facts and are just too ridiculous to postulate, which isn't the case neither in mine nor in yours.

[Doctor.]

I'm not trying to sound rude here, but the reason I'm continuing this conversation is because your theory does contradict facts. It contradicts Goku being stronger than Piccolo and Vegeta, so I can only interpret it as you being in denial, you say it yourself "I don't believe it", "I can't believe it". Is it a ridiculous jump? Yes, yes it is. But it is what the story presents us with.

[dbgtFO]

Come on, the least you could do is providing the sources for those numbers.
As it stands they were mistranslated from the Daizenshuu and DBZ Sagas is the only official product to have used them as far as I know.

Furthermore the "Goku was using Kaio-ken x10 the whole time" theory simply has no basis. It only came about, because of the aforementioned mistranslated numbers and the Funi dub wording it not so clearly.
If Goku was so much weaker than Vegeta and Piccolo and needed Kaio-ken x10 to surpass them, this would have been pointed out by everyone relevant. Instead everyone agrees, that Goku's newfound power is enough to take on Freeza and this is before anyone mentions Kaio-ken.
Both Piccolo and Freeza flat out state, that Goku wasn't fighting seriously and that he still was hiding far more power. Goku agrees and that's when they both decide to fight seriously, Freeza claiming he'll use 50% of his power.
Once the real battle commences, Piccolo states, that there was too big a gap between the power they were hiding and Kaio clarifies to Tenshinhan, that Goku is already using Kk x10. If Goku had been using KK x10 from the very beginning, then he wouldn't have more power to hide and Piccolo's statement would have reflected this like "Wait.. Goku didn't hide more power, he was bluffing the whole time!". Instead Piccolo confirms that Goku did hide more power and that power was Kaio-ken x10.

[MaGyunia]

I'm not trying to sound rude here, but the reason I'm continuing this conversation is because your theory does contradict facts. It contradicts Goku being stronger than Piccolo and Vegeta, so I can only interpret it as you being in denial, you say it yourself "I don't believe it", "I can't believe it". Is it a ridiculous jump? Yes, yes it is. But it is what the story presents us with.

Well, if you go with my theory, from a certain point of view, yes, Goku still IS stronger than Vegeta and Piccolo, but with a catch: only by resorting to Kaio-Ken (just like he was weaker than Vegeta in his base form when they first fought on Earth and was able to keep up with/surpass him only with the usage of Kaio-Ken x3 and then, ultimately, x4). Doesn't make him weaker than Vegeta and Piccolo at his strongest, Kaio-Ken is just as much a fair technique/power-up as any other. If that's what you're thinking, I've got nothing against Goku, just because Vegeta and Piccolo happen to be my favorite all-time characters; I don't let emotions cloud my judgment that way, don't worry. I'm just obviously setting my theory on an entirely different basis than you are, hence the completely different results.

Come on, the least you could do is providing the sources for those numbers.
As it stands they were mistranslated from the Daizenshuu and DBZ Sagas is the only official product to have used them as far as I know.

Furthermore the "Goku was using Kaio-ken x10 the whole time" theory simply has no basis. It only came about, because of the aforementioned mistranslated numbers and the Funi dub wording it not so clearly.
If Goku was so much weaker than Vegeta and Piccolo and needed Kaio-ken x10 to surpass them, this would have been pointed out by everyone relevant. Instead everyone agrees, that Goku's newfound power is enough to take on Freeza and this is before anyone mentions Kaio-ken.
Both Piccolo and Freeza flat out state, that Goku wasn't fighting seriously and that he still was hiding far more power. Goku agrees and that's when they both decide to fight seriously, Freeza claiming he'll use 50% of his power.
Once the real battle commences, Piccolo states, that there was too big a gap between the power they were hiding and Kaio clarifies to Tenshinhan, that Goku is already using Kk x10. If Goku had been using KK x10 from the very beginning, then he wouldn't have more power to hide and Piccolo's statement would have reflected this like "Wait.. Goku didn't hide more power, he was bluffing the whole time!". Instead Piccolo confirms that Goku did hide more power and that power was Kaio-ken x10.

I never even said anything about Goku using Kaio-Ken through the entire fight, it was never my point, I never, ever defended that neither here nor anywhere else. Don't know where you got that from. I simply stated that, in my view, and based not only on the mentioned sources (which I can't provide you, because I no longer have access to them and I can't find them anymore, but they could have been official or not) but also on mere reasoning, I just find it hard that Goku's base power level would skyrocket from 60.000/90.000 to 3 MILLION in one Zenkai, that there's more to winning/being able to keep up with a fight than sheer power level and that one can potentially do better than others against the same exact enemy depending on the circumstances in which he fights/they fight, and that in my opinion Goku comes out of the healing chamber with a power level below that of Vegeta and Piccolo in his base form (as in, without resorting to Kaio-Ken, which doesn't in any way diminish him as a warrior, since the technique is just as honest as any other and was in fact the only reason why he also managed to keep with/surpass Vegeta on Earth); since after immense training on his way to Namek his body is already able to put up with a 10x and even a 20x desperate Kaio-Ken, I was simply doing the math and placing Goku's power level when using Kaio-Ken x10 and then his desperate 20x Kaio-Ken in comparison with Freeza's power level in each of his forms and especially when he fights Goku at 50% of his power, then 70% and then, ultimately, 100%. Moreover, I ALSO find it hard to believe that Freeza in his first form has a power level of 530.000, 1.000.000 in his second form, about 2.500.000 in his third form and then it simply skyrockets insanely to reach up to 120.000.000 in his fourth form at 100% (meaning 60.000.000 during most of his fight with non-Super Saiya-jin Goku).

You're entitled to your position, I'm entitled to mine, we've defended our points of view, however - and don't take it personally - if you're thinking I'm going to say "you're right" just to end the discussion, you're mistaken because I simply won't do it, and I'm not going to keep blabbering about a point which I've already made in the previous posts.

Doctor. and dbgtFO, I respect you as members and I value your opinions as knowledgeable Dragonball fans, but there simply is nothing else to be gained from this particular debate. We have presented two different theories with enough sense to each of them to make them credible, but in the end NONE of them will be proven right or wrong. As a result of that, let's just leave it at that and move on.

[Sora Saiyan]

MaGyunia you should bear in mind that Freeza made forms to regulate his power, so it's not unreasonable to think that the power of Freezas true form even in the low percentages would be higher than his restricted forms.
Hell, just look at RoF. Freeza trained for four months and became thousands upon thousands of times stronger than he was before hand.
This guy is the king of power increases.

In regards to Goku's power at that point, he was the only one capable of tracking the blasts (bar Vegeta), and he swatted them away like they were nothing, even Vegeta couldn't do that, and the amount Goku deflected was ridiculous. Also, in the manga we get to see the first instance Goku uses kaioken, it's shown when the warm up is over and they decide to get "serious". Toriyama actually makes it pretty clear.

[ZombieVito]

Is anyone else terrified at what will Beerus say in Ep.7 about Gohan and Gotenks power?

[Doctor.]

Is anyone else terrified at what will Beerus say in Ep.7 about Gohan and Gotenks power?

He'll probably just one shot them without saying anything about their power or compare it to Goku, and probably say it's lower.

[Blackstripe]

Is anyone else terrified at what will Beerus say in Ep.7 about Gohan and Gotenks power?

"Oh, that's quite an impressive power the two of you possess. It's almost on the level of that Son Goku fellow I met earlier..."

I can see it now.

[Hugo Boss]

Is anyone else terrified at what will Beerus say in Ep.7 about Gohan and Gotenks power?

I don't have much expectations, since he casually treat them as one-shot material in the movie, but I wish Beerus will say someone in the party has interesting stuff, compared to the likes of Son Goku or even better. In Ep.5 at least, there we have a bunch of comments in that regard.

[Bullza]

I just want Super Saiyan 3 Vegeta. It should have happened in the movie, it makes more sense why he surpassed Goku and this is probably going to be the last chance to ever see it.

[singsing]

If Goku was weaker than Vegeta in base, then damn, he made like 10x gains in a year while learning the IT in order for his SSJ form to be on par/stronger than Vegeta's SSJ form, considering Vegeta was undoubtedly at least 2 million in base. Since he, you know, doesn't know "invisible kaioken".

Base Vegeta (Namek): 2.5 million
Base Goku (Namek): 300k
SSJ Goku (Namek): 15 million
SSJ Vegeta (Hypothetical Namek): 125 million????

It literally makes no sense. Unless you wanna argue that throughout this entire series Goku uses invisible kaioken... or he made another ridiculous and unbelievable training gain that you're trying to say is impossible by limiting Goku's zenkai gains. Either way, it doesn't work out from where I'm standing.

[nickzambuto]

It appears that Vegeta still trains on a regular basis in Super whereas Goku needs to get permission from Chi Chi and spends most of his time farming. I'd like to think that Vegeta might actually have an edge on Goku in their normal states now.