Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[Alruneia]

I think assuming that Goku needed Super Saiyan God to beat SS2 Trunks is probably jumping to some pretty overblown conclusions. Based on Beerus and Whis calling it childish, it seems to me like maybe Goku was just showing off.

Yeah. That, or Goku wanted to seem superior instead of having an even match and looking bad (though that'd be kinda out of character for him).

One explanation could be that Trunks is the only one with a full-power SS2 (like the full-power SS of the Cell arc) which is why he is close/stronger than SS3 level.

I (clumsily) tried to suggest this in the manga thread. I don't see why Trunks can't have found an FPSSJ2 state which kicks him up to SSJ3 level.

Editing because I feel like it seems like I'm contradicting myself: I believe that Trunks has FPSSJ2 which brings him to the same level as SSJ3. However, I don't believe he's as strong as SSJ3 Goku going all out. Just close. So Goku jumped up another level to finish things quickly.

[Cipher]

I think assuming that Goku needed Super Saiyan God to beat SS2 Trunks is probably jumping to some pretty overblown conclusions. Based on Beerus and Whis calling it childish, it seems to me like maybe Goku was just showing off.

Yeah -- seems like a "quick" way to win, rather than necessarily the only one.

I'm all aboard the "if 'full-power' Super Saiyan can exist, Trunks can train Super Saiyan 2's power into higher levels" train though, especially if that's what he's been working with for the last decade.

[HeroR]

I don't get it, why do people have a problem with SS2 Future Trunks being close to SS3 Goku? He is the first Saiyan Halfling that trained seriously for over a decade after mastering Super Saiyan, and Saiyan/Earthling Halflings are supposed to have far greater potential than the full-blooded Saiyans.

But outside of Rage Vegeta, a inferior form never outpaced a superior form. And Trunks himself has never been presented as particularly gifted. He was on about even with Vegeta after training in the Hypobolic Time Chamber, and he fought the androids for years and was only as strong as Namek Saga Goku in the manga. Black kicking his butt for a year shouldn't have increased him that much, especially if getting nearly killed by the androids for over a decade didn't do it. Well, I guess Super Saiyan did outpaced Ultra Super, but that form had problems and wasn't really an upgrade.

And Master Super Saiyan didn't make the form stronger, just more efficient. In guide books Super Saiyan is always put as a 50x multipler.

[Lord Beerus]

I think assuming that Goku needed Super Saiyan God to beat SS2 Trunks is probably jumping to some pretty overblown conclusions. Based on Beerus and Whis calling it childish, it seems to me like maybe Goku was just showing off.

Yeah -- seems like a "quick" way to win, rather than necessarily the only one.

I'm all aboard the "if 'full-power' Super Saiyan can exist, Trunks can train Super Saiyan 2's power into higher levels" train though, especially if that's what he's been working with for the last decade.

I honestly think Future Trunks should have just become a SSJ3. I mean, if Super Saiyan 2 (at full power?) can match, and even surpass, Super Saiyan 3 in terms of strength, why even bother with Super Saiyan 3? Especially since Super Saiyan 3 has an infamous stamina issue, which still to this day, has never been truly conquered. If Super Saiyan 3 wasn't useless and redundant before, it sure as hell is now, at least within the manga.

[Bullza]

Does anyone know what Vegeta says after SSJ2 Trunks further powers up and Goku is all surprised?

[Cipher]

I think assuming that Goku needed Super Saiyan God to beat SS2 Trunks is probably jumping to some pretty overblown conclusions. Based on Beerus and Whis calling it childish, it seems to me like maybe Goku was just showing off.

Yeah -- seems like a "quick" way to win, rather than necessarily the only one.

I'm all aboard the "if 'full-power' Super Saiyan can exist, Trunks can train Super Saiyan 2's power into higher levels" train though, especially if that's what he's been working with for the last decade.

I honestly think Future Trunks should have just become a SSJ3. I mean, if Super Saiyan 2 (at full power?) can match, and even surpass, Super Saiyan 3 in terms of strength, why even bother with Super Saiyan 3? Especially since Super Saiyan 3 has an infamous stamina issue which still to this day, has never been truly conquered. If Super Saiyan 3 wasn't useless and redundant before, it sure as hell is now, at within the manga.

I don't think it would necessarily "surpass" Super Saiyan 3 for the same user, nor do I think Trunks is necessarily stronger than Super Saiyan 3 Goku here (just close enough to give him a fight). Super Saiyan 2 is a better form though, and I think it's probably easier to train and has a huge ceiling if the user becomes comfortable with it, just as we know to be the case with Super Saiyan Classic.

Super Saiyan 3 has always been a do-or-die form. It hasn't truly had a use since Super Saiyan God was introduced.

Don't teach a Pokemon Blast Burn. Give it a spread that will pick up the KOs it needs with Flamethrower or Overheat.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

Does anyone know what Vegeta says after SSJ2 Trunks further powers up and Goku is all surprised?

That he's powered up to the level Kakarotto has with Super Saiyan 3, without transforming again.

[Bullza]

Oh alright so for simplicities sake it's best to just say they're roughly equal.

It is starting to seem as though maybe in the manga Goku really didn't absorb the power of a God. Nothing ever said that he did but it just seems like a vital change to make but maybe it was done so that Toyotaro could reuse SSJG in the future or something?

SSJ3 Goku should be much more powerful here than he was in the Buu saga. This is like 7 or so years after that? He's spent a lot of time training with Whis aswell so perhaps SSJ3 Goku and SSJ2 Trunks are between SSJ2 and SSJ3 Gotenks from the Buu saga perhaps?

[TheMikado]

^ we've been telling you that for months now

[Cipher]

It is starting to seem as though maybe in the manga Goku really didn't absorb the power of a God.

This seems to be indisputably the case. It lacks dialogue addressing it and problematic character matchups like base Goku vs. Freeza.

SSJ3 Goku should be much more powerful here than he was in the Buu saga. This is like 7 or so years after that? He's spent a lot of time training with Whis aswell so perhaps SSJ3 Goku and SSJ2 Trunks are between SSJ2 and SSJ3 Gotenks from the Buu saga perhaps?

The manga might have taken the approach that characters more or less peak with the limits of their forms, which was what I've always thought the original run of the manga implied as well. If that's the case, their training with Whis in the manga might have focused solely on using godly ki and tapping into Super Saiyan Blue, and Goku might not be able to do much more with 3, given its limitations. Their base forms may have peaked long ago.

(Remember, after seven years of training in the Boo arc, and even at the start of Battle of Gods, the Saiyans' base forms aren't implied to have radically increased. This is why, until the modern material, I always assumed the series implied certain limits without major plot devices such as magical power-ups or new transformations. Toyotarou may have maintained this approach.)

[TheMikado]

I gotta say I love this FSSJ2 it simultaneously makes Rageta make sense and making everyone get SSJ3 pointless. Now SSJ2 is pretty much the default SSJ form which is great.

[Alruneia]

SSJ3 Goku should be much more powerful here than he was in the Buu saga. This is like 7 or so years after that? He's spent a lot of time training with Whis aswell so perhaps SSJ3 Goku and SSJ2 Trunks are between SSJ2 and SSJ3 Gotenks from the Buu saga perhaps?

6 years, it should be. And yeah, with the training with Whis and the three days in the time chamber with Vegeta, it's safe to say that Goku might even be as much as ten times stronger than in the Buu arc. This still puts him below Gotenks, as Gotenks is much, much more powerful than Buu arc Goku, but now Goku's SSJ3 should be somewhere between Gotenks' SSJ2 and SSJ3. (FP)SSJ2 Trunks, being roughly equal to SSJ3 Goku, is in that gap as well.

[Cipher]

I gotta say I love this FSSJ2 it simultaneously makes Rageta make sense and making everyone get SSJ3 pointless. Now SSJ2 is pretty much the default SSJ form which is great.

Yeah. Super Saiyan 2 being a surprisingly flexible form fits unexpectedly well with the series' lore.

It also makes sense that Trunks, with ten years of strife and no knowledge of other forms, would be the first to bring out its full potential.

[Chiki]

More evidence of FPSS2: Goku blocks an angry, Senzu-healed Trunks's punch with ease when both were at Base. So Trunks's mastery of SS2 might just be good enough to cover the difference between their strengths in Base.

Goku might get FPSS2 in the manga too and combine that with SSG to get SS2B. Would make sense. It'd explain his obsession with SS2 in the anime.

[Cipher]

So, like, until the anime does something crazy again, I might just assume that both versions quietly switched to a "their powers are roughly at Boo arc level outside of Super Saiyan Blue" approach at some point, but that, by design or by accident, only Toyotarou's manga managed to stay consistent.

Makes things less of a headache moving forward.

EDIT -- A plausible scenario:

Toriyama's movies and the opening arcs of Super seem very much to imply base forms were hugely powered up, and that Blue is the only transformation worth using. For scheduling reasons, Toyotarou's manga skips most bridging material that implies this, along with the Freeza fight, which shows it.

When notes from Toriyama/Toei/whoever come in that indicate vanilla Super Saiyan will be used against Frost (and that Frost will fight Piccolo, Vegeta against Cabba, etc.), Toyotarou, an attentive fan, says, "Ah, so this must be the approach now," and writes characters at their previous limits, with the reintroduction of Super Saiyan God as a usable form and dialogue in this chapter clarifying his approach. By coincidentally skipping the material that implied otherwise, his manga remains completely consistent with itself (though it was confusing to line up with outside material for a while).

The anime, with many more hands in the pot, remains muddled. I suspect some writers are attempting to remain consistent with the films and earlier arcs, while others have been assuming that the way forward is more like what Toyotarou has implied since the tournament. Toriyama has probably remained mum either way, and I suspect the reintroduction of lower forms at all was intended to aid marketing and introduce some tension and visual flair into fights with weaker opponents as the story continues (so, basically taking Toyotarou's approach, but being hugely inconsistent with it).

[Bullza]

^ we've been telling you that for months now

Yeah but to be fair it is an incredibly odd change to make if it's not only contradicting what Toriyama has said and wrote but if it's also supposed to be adapting Toriyama's outline which is written as a continuation of Resurrection F.

It's a completely unnecessary change but it appears to be what Toyotaro went with for some reason. The anime is definitely more in line with what Toriyama wrote anyway.

Either way, absorbed God or not, they established that Trunks powered up significantly in both versions, which is understandable. It just appears to be more so in the anime along with everyone else.

[LightBing]

So, like, until the anime does something crazy again, I might just assume that both versions quietly switched to a "their powers are roughly at Boo arc level outside of Super Saiyan Blue" approach at some point, but that, by design or by accident, only Toyotarou's manga managed to stay consistent.

Makes things less of a headache moving forward.

Pretty much this. Altought their bases at the tournament are at about Piccolo level. If there's no fix multipliers, like SSJ2 Trunks points towards there's flexibility for all to fit.

The reasons for the change, lack of the RoF might have helped Toyotarõ not to mess up. While in the anime they didn't modify it and actually continued with that idea in the Copy-Vegeta mini-arc.

[TheMikado]

So, like, until the anime does something crazy again, I might just assume that both versions quietly switched to a "their powers are roughly at Boo arc level outside of Super Saiyan Blue" approach at some point, but that, by design or by accident, only Toyotarou's manga managed to stay consistent.

Makes things less of a headache moving forward.

EDIT -- A plausible scenario:

Toriyama's movies and the opening arcs of Super seem very much to imply base forms were hugely powered up, and that Blue is the only transformation worth using. For scheduling reasons, Toyotarou's manga skips most bridging material that implies this, along with the Freeza fight, which shows it.

When notes from Toriyama/Toei/whoever come in that indicate vanilla Super Saiyan will be used against Frost (and that Frost will fight Piccolo, Vegeta against Cabba, etc.), Toyotarou, an attentive fan, says, "Ah, so this must be the approach now," and writes characters at their previous limits, with the reintroduction of Super Saiyan God as a usable form and dialogue in this chapter clarifying his approach. By coincidentally skipping the material that implied otherwise, his manga remains completely consistent (though it was confusing to line up with outside material for a while).

The anime, with many more hands in the pot, remains muddled.

Exactly this, furthermore we know the outline was vague enough where we knew that vs Hit, Goku's SSB had to be x10 stronger than Vegeta's despite their bases being equal. The actual reasons for that were never given in the outline so each made something up. I've said it before and I'll say it again, due to so many differences in the versions I have to think that Toriyamas outline was written on a paper napkin and arguably has as much involvement in Super as he did with GT. The exceptions being the stuff he obviously directly wrote with the movies.

[TheMikado]

So, like, until the anime does something crazy again, I might just assume that both versions quietly switched to a "their powers are roughly at Boo arc level outside of Super Saiyan Blue" approach at some point, but that, by design or by accident, only Toyotarou's manga managed to stay consistent.

Makes things less of a headache moving forward.

Pretty much this. Altought their bases at the tournament are at about Piccolo level. If there's no fix multipliers, like SSJ2 Trunks points towards there's flexibility for all to fit.

The reasons for the change, lack of the RoF might have helped Toyotarõ not to mess up. While in the anime they didn't modify it and actually continued with that idea in the Copy-Vegeta mini-arc.

I really don't see how they are going to quietly switch power levels in the Anime as nothing is going to make sense. Base Goku being SSG level then suddenly trash tier while looking the same with no explanation isn't going to work.

[Cipher]

The reasons for the change, lack of the RoF might have helped Toyotarõ not to mess up. While in the anime they didn't modify it and actually continued with that idea in the Copy-Vegeta mini-arc.

Yep; way with you on this. I edited my post above to hypothesize a bit more. I think somewhere along the line the approach changed (most likely as Toei realized it was a better one for a visual ongoing story), but not everyone got the memo (if there was even a memo to be gotten). Toyotarou lucked into not adapting the material that implied the first approach, and had the wherewithal as a personal fan, and sole author, to more consistently introduce the latter.