Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

The two base theory was confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt in ep 101, there's nothing to debate about anymore. You forgot to consider ep 101.

Android 18 > Base Goku (since Goku could not lift the weight guy but 18 could)

But 18 = her Android saga self since she never trained.

Base Vegeta = Base Goku >>> SSJ3 Gotenks >>>>>>>> 18 > Base Goku

Only way to reconcile this is with the two base theory.

SBG Vegeta = SBG Goku >>> SSJ3 Gotenks >>>>>>>> 18 > Base Goku

OR................. no such thing was ever mentioned or implied at any point in the series, and Tupper wasn't glowing when he was lifted by 18, indicating that he hadn't shifted weight. Also, physical lifting strength has never been correlated with striking strength from Ki-enhancement, which is why we don't see these guys lifting planets and pushing suns. They can blow these things up with punches or blasts, but they sure aren't lifting any of this crap.

As well, every being is affected by his/her home world's home planet. Android 18, being a modified Human, would be pushing against Earth's gravity, whilst Goku could potentially be dealing with Vegeta's gravity, 10 times that of Earth. The crushing forces on such a planet are significantly greater than Earth, thus any significant shifts in weight would be drastically more powerful, especially with a being who can specifically shift his weight like Tupper can.

It could also be that 18's physical strength, without her artificial Ki but with her physical modifications, is greater than that of Goku's conditioned Saiyan body, thus allowing her to physically lift more, since Ki usage doesn't correlate with lifting strength to my knowledge.

[Marlowe89]

Well he'd just be matching Gohan's power in the same form. He'd power up to Super Saiyan but it would still be suppressed. I suppose it'd be similar to how in the manga Future Trunks matched Goku with their Super Saiyan 2 power but he was still suppressing himself.

Goku wasn't suppressed against Gohan. Gohan asked him not to hold back and then Goku went Super Saiyan, and then the two were tearing up the field to the point that they weren't aware of the subsequent destruction they were causing because Goku was getting into the fight so much. It wouldn't make any sense whatsoever for the writers to insert these visuals and statements into the scene if Goku was just suppressing himself.

The writer's intent was clear there and even if in some parallel universe it wasn't, presuming the characters are holding back even during instances where they're not implied to be doing so really kind of veers into headcanon territory. It's unnecessary.

They're not old though. It was only a couple months ago where we had an episode where Base Goku and Final Form Frieza punched each other in the gut and hurt each other equally like back in the Resurrection F saga.

Simple gut-punching hardly qualifies for an explicit power comparison in a series where Magetta can just casually clash fists with Toppo. We'd need to see an actual fighting scene -- complete with context-driven dialogue and explicit feats -- between the two to properly compare them.

The same argument applies to the other examples you've mentioned. Surviving Sidra's Hakai energy doesn't tell us much because even Golden Frieza had trouble with it, and Golden Frieza is on par with Super Saiyan Blue Goku who is far stronger than Super Saiyan 3 who is stronger than Super Saiyan 2 and so on and so forth until finally, we get to base Goku's strength. Again, there's an absolutely colossal power differential there, so that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to begin with unless you presume there are two bases. Likewise, keeping pace with Golden Frieza's speed in a fight against characters who are leagues and leagues weaker than Final Form Frieza's power doesn't really tell us much either.

[LowRyder2005]

@Perhaps: I don't have much against all of that. I actually feel like it's reflective of Super's framework at least on some level (I mean, it looks like a "many-bases-with-many-Super Saiyans theory"); it's still like giving in to the point of Goku acting irrationally, though, isn't it?

I mean, what's the point of turning Super Saiyan - still treated like something that deprives you of your stamina, apparently - when you could just power up however much you want in base, hassle-free? Are we supposed to reach the conclusion that powering up in base (in the anime) may have some other drawback or that Goku is just hesitant because of some other, unspecified reason?

When you reflect about it, I'd be more inclined to conclude he lost the aforementioned ability at some point (in-universe) -- which still leads you at the "it's been retconned" conclusion all the same. Krillin's fight also ends up making a little more sense - though, truthfully, not much overall - in that regard.

[PerhapsTheOtherOne]

@Perhaps: I don't have much against all of that. I actually feel like it's reflective of Super's framework at least on some level (I mean, it looks like a "many-bases-with-many-Super Saiyans theory"); it's still like giving in to the point of Goku acting irrationally, though, isn't it?

I mean, what's the point of turning Super Saiyan - still treated like something that deprives you of your stamina, apparently - when you could just power up a little in base, hassle-free? Are we supposed to reach the conclusion that powering up in base (in the anime) may have some other drawback or that Goku is just hesitant to power-up in base because of some other reason?

When you reflect about it, I'd be more inclined to conclude he lost the aforementioned ability at some point (in-universe, at least) -- which still leads you at the "it's been retconned" conclusion.

Believe me, I'm aware that to certain folks, it doesn't look great. Of course, being a fictional world where the rules are completely out of whack compared to our own, that's to be expected. As well, given how much of a minority opinions on Kanzenshuu seem to occupy compared to the rest of the watchers of Super right now, I generally don't take these opinions as seriously as I maybe should.

Acting irrationally depends on the user not being able to see any other, more sensible options. Turning SS to clearly power-up against a friend? Not irrational by any means, since it's a much better visual indicator of one's power from an animation and narrative standpoint. That's the Doylist reasoning at work. For a Watsonian answer, like I said earlier, Goku seems to just really like powering up into a SS, even when he doesn't need to. People like to think that characters HAVE to demonstrate everything in a logical and consistent manner, but they themselves often don't if it's not an absolutely serious matter.

When Goku's truly serious, he has no compunctions and doesn't hold back. The problem is that he often needs more than his base form to do that, so he doesn't really have any chances to show off that full power in a serious bout. Against the newly trained Freeza, before he transformed? Yeah, that's a good time to use your full power seriously. Against a copy of Vegeta that will cause the original to disappear, before he transformed? Yeah, that's a good time to use your full power seriously.

Most other instances are relatively friendly bouts between family and friends, with the occasional serious measuring stick used.

[Loputousu]

Tupper wasn't glowing when he was lifted by 18, indicating that he hadn't shifted weight.

Doesn't matter, he had his mask on, which is the main indicator since the stage collapsed and he fell to his death anyway while he wasn't glowing.

Also, physical lifting strength has never been correlated with striking strength from Ki-enhancement, which is why we don't see these guys lifting planets and pushing suns.

The burden of proof is on you to explain why 18 has greater physical strength than Base Goku. Why would the writers take their time thinking about the intricacies of physical lifting weight and striking strength from Ki-enhancement?

As well, every being is affected by his/her home world's home planet. Android 18, being a modified Human, would be pushing against Earth's gravity, whilst Goku could potentially be dealing with Vegeta's gravity, 10 times that of Earth. The crushing forces on such a planet are significantly greater than Earth, thus any significant shifts in weight would be drastically more powerful, especially with a being who can specifically shift his weight like Tupper can.

Tupper had the same weight for Base Goku and Android 18 since he's affected by the weight of his own home planet, not by the weight of Goku's home planet.

It could also be that 18's physical strength, without her artificial Ki but with her physical modifications, is greater than that of Goku's conditioned Saiyan body, thus allowing her to physically lift more, since Ki usage doesn't correlate with lifting strength to my knowledge.

No evidence for this claim.

Seems to me you're just overly complicating things; the writers wouldn't think about it this deeply lol. The plain conclusion you can make from watching the ep is 18 > Base Goku.

[Marlowe89]

Believe me, I'm aware that to certain folks, it doesn't look great.

That's assuming all of us have an issue with it. I'm quite glad that Goku's base strength is portrayed at more reasonable levels now, and it certainly feels more in line with the manga.

It still makes no sense at all for Goku to be holding back in a scene that rather explicitly implies he wasn't holding back. These assumptions aren't particularly reasonable in the face of authorial intent.

[avasatu]

How do you know 18 never trained?

[Bullza]

Simple gut-punching hardly qualifies for an explicit power comparison in a series where Magetta can just casually clash fists with Toppo.

Well that's not so absurd. Super Saiyan Goku fought with Toppo for a bit, even kicked him so hard that he had to let go of him and Magetta is around that general level of power.

We'd need to see an actual fighting scene -- complete with context-driven dialogue and explicit feats -- between the two to properly compare them.

Well that's exactly what happened in the Resurrection F saga. The two fought and they were practically on par with one enough. There'd be no reason to believe they just happened to nerf Base Goku afterward especially when he was still portrayed as being extra strong in two fights just prior to the Future Trunks saga.

Fast forward to much later and they both punched each other and hurt each other indicating they would still be about on par with each other.

Surviving Sidra's Hakai energy doesn't tell us much because even Golden Frieza had trouble with it, and Golden Frieza is on par with Super Saiyan Blue Goku who is far stronger than Super Saiyan 3 who is stronger than Super Saiyan 2 and so on and so forth until finally, we get to base Goku's strength.

Well Golden Frieza stopped it and Base Goku couldn't. It's that he survived it at all is what's impressive. That Hakai energy wouldn't be weak, like I said these Gods of Destruction are that powerful that even little taps when they're heavily suppressed wiped out top tier Z characters.

Yet Base Goku withstood it which sorta fits with how back in the Resurrection F saga he survived being blasted at point blank by Beerus' blast.

So it also wouldn't have made any sense for Sidra to have given that dog assassin so little energy it wouldn't even kill Android 18 when he saw how powerful they all were at the Zen Exhibition.

[Marlowe89]

Well that's not so absurd. Super Saiyan Goku fought with Toppo for a bit, even kicked him so hard that he had to let go of him and Magetta is around that general level of power.

The point is that Toppo wasn't using anything close to his full power in that small exchange, so why make presumptions on behalf of characters that would engage in an even smaller exchange than that? We've seen weaker characters harming much stronger characters before. It's certainly nowhere nearly as explicit as those very clear implications of, say, Goku not holding back against Gohan in an extended brawl, 18 accomplishing a strength feat that base Goku couldn't, the base Saiyans having a difficult time fending off characters confirmed to be weaker than members of the Trio De Dangers (one of which was vastly inferior to Buu) and so on and so forth.

We'd need something more substantial between the two characters that isn't reliant on old arcs that most likely weren't even adapted from one of Toriyama's DBS outlines and were instead just retellings of the films. Goku struggling (and failing) to handle some unspecified amount of Hakai energy doesn't really dispel this.

So it also wouldn't have made any sense for Sidra to have given that dog assassin so little energy it wouldn't even kill Android 18 when he saw how powerful they all were at the Zen Exhibition.

Except Goku didn't actually completely survive or withstand that energy on his own -- Beerus had to bail him out and did so with very very little effort on his part, which wouldn't make a ton of sense if it was anywhere close to Beerus' own strength. We don't know how long it would have taken to erase Goku either, and since the passage of time is certainly loose in the series, it's never really implied that he would have survived if no one was there to save him.

Either Sidra's just weaker than the other Gods of Destruction OR he wasn't using much of his power there, yet it was still suggested to be enough to threaten Goku's life, so either way it's not an example of what I'd call a clear-cut feat. If anything, it too implies that base Goku isn't as strong as people are making him out to be.

[Lord Beerus]

- Ribrianne fought evenly with SSJ Vegeta
- Kakunsa was speed blitzing Android 17 get caught by Android 17's barrier and is tossed outside of the ring only to be save at the last moment by Bikal and is then propelled to Android 17 who gets sent into a mountain by Kakunsa but is unharmed.
- Logi battles Base Goku and they seem even.
- Kakunsa and Android 17 skirmish for a while but Android 17 is unfazed, get the advantage and eliminates Sanka like she's nothing.

[Hakaishin Liquir]

- Ribrianne fought evenly with SSJ Vegeta
- Kakunsa was speed blitzing Android 17 get caught by Android 17's barrier and is tossed outside of the ring only to be save at the last moment by Bikal and is then propelled to Android 17 who gets sent into a mountain by Kakunsa but is unharmed.
- Logi battles Base Goku and they seem even.
- Kakunsa and Android 17 skirmish for a while but Android 17 is unfazed, get the advantage and eliminates Sanka like she's nothing.

Why do they have to makes so many universes in this tournament weak?

[Bullza]

So Ribrianne was it? Yeah she seemed to be on par with Super Saiyan Vegeta. Maybe she powered up more at the end when she was mad. Looks like she fights Android 17 in the next one.

Android 17 stomped that one fodder. Was it Sanka or Suu? Kept up a little bit better but was also kinda stomped without too much effort.

Goku didn't even bother to transform for the one he fought, didn't seem like he was having too much trouble either.

In the next episode Gohan uses his Ultimate form just against one of the scrubs. I was expecting he'd save that power for a big name but doesn't look like it.

[Lord Beerus]

- Ribrianne fought evenly with SSJ Vegeta
- Kakunsa was speed blitzing Android 17 get caught by Android 17's barrier and is tossed outside of the ring only to be save at the last moment by Bikal and is then propelled to Android 17 who gets sent into a mountain by Kakunsa but is unharmed.
- Logi battles Base Goku and they seem even.
- Kakunsa and Android 17 skirmish for a while but Android 17 is unfazed, get the advantage and eliminates Sanka like she's nothing.

Why do they have to makes so many universes in this tournament weak?

The only universe that has really seemed weak in battle is Universe 9, but they were horribly mismatched when they went up against Goku and Vegeta. They had no chance of winning. Universe 10 have also looked terrible. But Universe 11, despite their heavy losses, still have the big hitters in Jiren, Toppo and Dyspo. And Universe 2, 3 and 4 still have good amount of fighters left. Most of the Universes have actually done okay in battle when you think about. There are still a lot of fighters yet to come and some of which we haven't even seen in action yet.

[Marlowe89]

I'd guess Ribrianne was supposed to be Super Saiyan level while Logi is perhaps closer to the base Saiyans, if not somewhat below. Not terribly surprising I suppose; Brianne is the leader of the Kamikaze Fireballs, so that sort of makes sense.

Hard to tell where Kakunsa would be, 17 seemed to be toying with her the entire time. Maybe somewhere between the other two?

That whole episode was kind of painful to watch.

[Zamasu55]

So Murichim wasn't the strongest fighter of U10. The green guy is. Weird.

[Hakaishin Liquir]

- Ribrianne fought evenly with SSJ Vegeta
- Kakunsa was speed blitzing Android 17 get caught by Android 17's barrier and is tossed outside of the ring only to be save at the last moment by Bikal and is then propelled to Android 17 who gets sent into a mountain by Kakunsa but is unharmed.
- Logi battles Base Goku and they seem even.
- Kakunsa and Android 17 skirmish for a while but Android 17 is unfazed, get the advantage and eliminates Sanka like she's nothing.

Why do they have to makes so many universes in this tournament weak?

The only universe that has really seemed weak in battle is Universe 9, but they were horribly mismatched when they went up against Goku and Vegeta. They had no chance of winning. Universe 10 have also looked terrible. But Universe 11, despite their heavy losses, still have the big hitters in Jiren, Toppo and Dyspo. And Universe 2, 3 and 4 still have good amount of fighters left. Most of the Universes have actually done okay in battle when you think about. There are still a lot of fighters yet to come and some of which we haven't even seen in action yet.

I'm not expecting much from the other universes anymore.

Universe 2 had Bikura get completely trashed by 17, and one of their three strongest warriors (Kakunsa) couldn't even make 17 act serious or give him any noticeable injuries. Another one of their top 3 (Logi) had all her attacks blocked by base Goku, who wasn't even serious. Their strongest warrior seems to only be SSJ Vegeta level.

Universe 3 had their strongest modified warrior get knocked out by one kick from base Cabba, and Narirama, who was hyped up in the recruitment arc, got trashed 10 seconds after the tournament started and then got torn apart by Hit. That professor guy was ignored by 18 like he was nothing, and none of the other U3 fighters have any hype around them.

Universe 4 had one of their more hyped up members (Majora) get taken out by the likes of Krillin. Ganos seemed weaker than base goku. That princess girl is probably going to get beaten by Roshi in an upcoming episode. Damon and the other hidden fighter are the only ones imo who have a real chance of being impressive, but I wouldn't put my hopes up on them.

Universe 9 got eliminated less than 5 minutes

Universe 10 is self-explanatory

Universe 11 had 6 members wiped out in the span of an episode. That polka dot guy has no hype around him. The only ones who will be impressive are Jiren, Toppo, and maybe Dyspo (he didn't look very impressive in his introduction episode).

So far only U6, U7, and 30% of U11 are the only universes that actually seem important, and the others feel like hype tools for the main cast.

[Lord Frieza]

While I've always preferred haveing Frieza....... Buu vs Ribrianne will for ever be the one fight I wished happend. Thats would be a brawl made out of pure comedy and action gold.

[Lord Beerus]

That whole episode was kind of painful to watch.

In terms of plot or power scaling. Because I found it handled both elements very well.

Why do they have to makes so many universes in this tournament weak?

The only universe that has really seemed weak in battle is Universe 9, but they were horribly mismatched when they went up against Goku and Vegeta. They had no chance of winning. Universe 10 have also looked terrible. But Universe 11, despite their heavy losses, still have the big hitters in Jiren, Toppo and Dyspo. And Universe 2, 3 and 4 still have good amount of fighters left. Most of the Universes have actually done okay in battle when you think about. There are still a lot of fighters yet to come and some of which we haven't even seen in action yet.

I'm not expecting much from the other universes anymore.

Universe 2 had Bikura get completely trashed by 17, and one of their three strongest warriors (Kakunsa) couldn't even make 17 act serious or give him any noticeable injuries. Another one of their top 3 (Logi) had all her attacks blocked by base Goku, who wasn't even serious. Their strongest warrior seems to only be SSJ Vegeta level.

Universe 3 had their strongest modified warrior get knocked out by one kick from base Cabba, and Narirama, who was hyped up in the recruitment arc, got trashed 10 seconds after the tournament started and then got torn apart by Hit. That professor guy was ignored by 18 like he was nothing, and none of the other U3 fighters have any hype around them.

Universe 4 had one of their more hyped up members (Majora) get taken out by the likes of Krillin. Ganos seemed weaker than base goku. That princess girl is probably going to get beaten by Roshi in an upcoming episode. Damon and the other hidden fighter are the only ones imo who have a real chance of being impressive, but I wouldn't put my hopes up on them.

Universe 9 got eliminated less than 5 minutes

Universe 10 is self-explanatory

Universe 11 had 6 members wiped out in the span of an episode. That polka dot guy has no hype around him. The only ones who will be impressive are Jiren, Toppo, and maybe Dyspo (he didn't look very impressive in his introduction episode).

So far only U6, U7, and 30% of U11 are the only universes that actually seem important, and the others feel like hype tools for the main cast.

Universe 2, Universe 3 and Universe 4 still have several fighters left. Some of which we haven't even seen throw a punch yet. I do agree that Nigrisshi and Narirama were utterly wasted. And the Pride Troopers definitely suffered big time from "Ginyu Force Syndrome". And Universe 9 and 10... yikes. Total jobber and fodder universes.

[Marlowe89]

In terms of plot or power scaling. Because I found it handled both elements very well.

I'm sort of referring to the plot, at least if we extend that aspect to the episode's pacing which I felt was pretty mediocre and slow in the first half. Lots of reused shots and what seemed to be repeated dialogue during the heart montage. It went on for way too long for my tastes.

I hesitate to call it a bad episode because there were plenty of entertaining moments, but I did get the impression it dragged its feet for a bit.

[Bullza]

Ribrianne will probably be stronger than Super Saiyan level. She'll probably give Android 17 some trouble and he looks like he could be about as strong as Ultimate Gohan according to Toshio.

Is it Obni who seems to be giving Ultimate Gohan trouble?

So far outside of Universe 6, 7 and 11, almost all of the characters have been fairly unimpressive, Base level at best. So Ribrianne and Obni could be far ahead of the pack possibly.