How could Vegeta, without turning SSJ3, surpass Goku in BoG?

[Angelus]

Shouldn't he have turned SSJ3? I mean what the... a non-fused SSJ2 that could surpass a non-fused SSJ3?

[hleV]

He could not, BOG is full of shit.

[Kaboom]

Exactly the way he did. By gettin' his righteous fury on, and basically fast-burning all his ki for a large but momentary power boost.

"Rage boosts" that make the Saiyan several times stronger have happened before. Apparently now they can happen for Vegeta, too.

[Herms]

I think it's just part of the new approach Toriyama is taking with these things. It may not quite jive with traditional views of how Super Saiyan transformations work, but I think it's actually got a fairly consistent internal logic.

See, fans have gotten used to the idea of the different Super Saiyan forms working like multipliers, so that if regular Goku's X, then as a Super Saiyan he'll be 50X, then 100X as Super Saiyan 2, then 400X for SSj3. That's how the guidebooks described them, and while not all fans got behind those specific numbers, it's been pretty standard to think of the forms as working basically along those lines. A given transformation will make somebody Y times stronger, and the only way for a regular Super Saiyan character to be stronger than a Super Saiyan 2/3 character is if that character's base form is way, way stronger than the other guy's. And even if someone like Vegetto is vastly stronger as an ordinary Super Saiyan than Goku or Gotenks are as Super Saiyan 3s, he'd be even more ridiculously powerful as a Super Saiyan 3 himself. The higher Super Saiyan forms may burn through stamina faster, but overall they're huge improvements on regular Super Saiyan, and there will always be big gaps between the different forms.

...That was the standard view anyway, but it seems Toriyama doesn't see things that way, at least not anymore. BoG presents pissed-off regular Super Saiyan Vegeta as flat-out stronger than Goku, making him presumably stronger than even SSj3 Goku. Then after absorbing the power of Super Saiyan God, Goku holds his own against Beerus much better than he did before as a SSj3. Becoming a regular Super Saiyan again seems to give him a boost, but not really make him that much stronger, since he still can't manage to turn the tables against Beerus. In an interview after BoG's release, Toriyama clarified that from now on Goku will just stick to mastering his regular form and ordinary Super Saiyan, and probably won't bother with Super Saiyan 2 or 3 anymore since they sap too much strength. This of course makes little sense under the traditional view that Super Saiyan 2 is X times as stronger as regular Super Saiyan, and SSj3 is Y times as powerful as SSj2. With that way of thinking of things, 2 and 3 will always put you way above regular Super Saiyan. Who cares about a little lost stamina if you can now beat the other guy in a punch or two? But Toriyama's view these days is that 2 and 3 are just fancy "variations" on Super Saiyan, and that mastering one's regular form and ordinary Super Saiyan is the real way to the top. We've now learned that apparently Goku won't even be transforming into a Super Saiyan at all in the upcoming movie, which may very well be the ultimate expression of this new "basic is best" attitude.

So, long story short, even if it seems awfully inconsistent with the main series and guidebooks, the new movies and Toriyama's recent interviews are fairly consistent in the idea that the boundary between the different Super Saiyan forms and a Saiyan's regular forms is a bit fuzzy. At first a character might train to obtain higher and higher Super Saiyan forms, but in the long run if they train enough they apparently won't need to rely on any fancy higher forms, and in the end if they train even more they might not need Super Saiyan at all. It sure seems like the same idea behind Gohan's Kaioshin power-up, but while Gohan got the quickie fast track to that advanced Super Saiyan-free state, Goku's gradually getting there through years of training (with some help from the power of Super Saiyan God). On the flipside, we might rationalize Gohan's new-found need to go Super Saiyan again as proof that lack of training has caused him to slide from his enlightened "Ultimate" state back to being a regular dope who needs to rely on transformations again.

As for Vegeta? Well, if Gohan can go beyond the need for Super Saiyan thanks to a quickie power-up, and Goku can train to the point where he can manage with just regular Super Saiyan and not bother with 2 or 3, then it's surely not totally nonsensical to think that anger could push Vegeta straight to the point of not needing Super Saiyan 3 either. Back in the Cell Games, Gohan's anger made him jump straight to Super Saiyan 2, while Goku and Vegeta only reached that point through a few years of training. On the same principle, in BoG anger makes Vegeta go straight to a point where he doesn't need the higher Super Saiyan forms, and can utilize power beyond Super Saiyan 3 while still just an ordinary Super Saiyan. It doesn't seem to be permanent, just as Gohan didn't quite master Super Saiyan 2 even after the Cell Games. Meanwhile, Goku achieves a more permanent form of the same state by absorbing the power of Super Saiyan God and training afterwards, similar to how following the Cell Games both Goku and Vegeta trained to the point where they could become Super Saiyan 2 whenever they wanted.

OK, so what about that x50/x100/x400 stuff? Well, it can still be true, but only up to a point. Strict multipliers like that can be how things work for Saiyans who are just starting out, only reaching these forms for the first time. That's typically how things were for most of the main series, with only Gohan surpassing them thanks to his Kaioshin power-up. Then with these new movies, Goku and Vegeta are finally to the point where they can go beyond traditional SSj3 power as just an ordinary Super Saiyan, or even just in their base state. So the old multipliers don't apply anymore.

Makes sense? Maybe? Well, that's what I've got.

[Kaboom]

It sure seems like the same idea behind Gohan's Kaioshin power-up, but while Gohan got the quickie fast track to that advanced Super Saiyan-free state, Goku's gradually getting there through years of training (with some help from the power of Super Saiyan God). On the flipside, we might rationalize Gohan's new-found need to go Super Saiyan again as proof that lack of training has caused him to slide from his enlightened "Ultimate" state back to being a regular dope who needs to rely on transformations again.

This part just blew my mind a li'l bit. I had yet to connect Gohan and Goku's different Super Saiyan states in that way.

OK, so what about that x50/x100/x400 stuff? Well, it can still be true, but only up to a point. Strict multipliers like that can be how things work for Saiyans who are just starting out, only reaching these forms for the first time. That's typically how things were for most of the main series, with only Gohan surpassing them thanks to his Kaioshin power-up. Then with these new movies, Goku and Vegeta are finally to the point where they can go beyond traditional SSj3 power as just an ordinary Super Saiyan, or even just in their base state. So the old multipliers don't apply anymore.

This too. So it seems like achieving the higher transformations is a good way to gain that power at first, but then training to pretty much dissolve the walls between them like you said is the best way to actually use that power in the long run.

[RandomGuy96]

He could not, BOG is full of shit.

[dbzfan7]

I do like your way of trying to make sense of all this herms...but I'm gonna wait and see how things play out in the movie before getting my hopes up. Til then...this is my thoughts summed up from a saved quote

Vegeta: “Unfortunately, it seems he got carried away in peace and didn’t do any significant training. Our powers are higher than his now…Though I suppose there’s no telling what would happen if he snapped and went into a frenzy… though we can do the exact same thing, just like anybody, so never mind, this statement had no point. Heck, I can get like five or ten times stronger from rage at a minor offense, way more than that little punk Gohan. Actually, my rage boost totally makes his look like shit. But I'm not going to use it until like five years from now."

[Tectorman]

Ultra Super Saiyan was originally stronger than Super Saiyan, hence Vegeta used it against Semi-Perfect Cell. But later, Goku revealed that SSJ, given enough mastery, can surpass USSJ, which first surpassed it.

So I'm of the view that SSJ3, this whole time, was nothing more than Ultra Ascended Saiyan, the USSJ or the SSJ2 transformation. What we've been calling SSJ2 has been Basic SSJ2, I guess you'd call it. SSJ3 is actually UASJ (since I can't really call it USSJ2, as it gets confusing. Which makes what Vegeta did essentially Full Power Super Saiyan 2.

USSJ and SSJ3 are actually rather alike. Both are energy-inefficient, dramatically (at the time, but only at the time) increase the users abilities, are accompanied by the hair getting way longer, and slightly deform the body (one adds on a whole bunch of muscle mass, the other has a brow ridge).

[Gyt Kaliba]

Odd how the 'BOG was full of shit' response just doesn't quite hold up very well in comparison to Herms' well thought out and elaborate post...hmm...

Sarcasm aside, I really like the way that Toriyama seems to be approaching the forms now, honestly. It was an unexpected way to take things, and Toriyama to me is always at his best when he does things unexpected. And it's not like Vegeta got to keep the power, so I really don't see why there's such an issue with this.

[Low Tone G]

Odd how the 'BOG was full of shit' response just doesn't quite hold up very well in comparison to Herms' well thought out and elaborate post...hmm...

Sarcasm aside, I really like the way that Toriyama seems to be approaching the forms now, honestly. It was an unexpected way to take things, and Toriyama to me is always at his best when he does things unexpected. And it's not like Vegeta got to keep the power, so I really don't see why there's such an issue with this.

Satisfaction here too. I appreciate Toriyama's effort to keep made up idea to not leave without a fair expalanation. It never has ben stated Pure-blooded Saiyan can not exprerince rage boosts. It really makes sense that it was Vegeta who got it this time. Why? Gohan was always portrayed to be a person who can not really control his emotions, but Goku was also portayed to keep calm in almost every situtation, and rahter rely on his martial art judgements, which is rally based on self-control, more than anything else. Vegeta, on the other hand, it's not just like Goku he can keep calm too long, and now has a familiy to care about. This the Vegeta who could resist to a spell of a wizard in Buu saga, we are talking about.

[rereboy]

"Rage boosts" that make the Saiyan several times stronger have happened before.

Only for Gohan who is explicitly stated to be a special case with massive amounts of potential power that he can access when he becomes emotional due to his human-saiyan nature.

I have to agree that BOB is full of shit regarding this.

As for Goku and the others starting to rely more on the base form or basic SSJ, I see no problem with it as long as its explained that they managed, with effort, to achieve the same level of power, or even better, without transforming. Meaning that transformations are a shortcut to that level of power but that its possible to achieve it without transforming, making the need to transform obsolete since it would start to only bring about disadvantages.

However, this is clearly different from a rage boost. It would be done with training and enlightenment, not because someone got mad. If it could be done simply by getting mad, Vegeta would have stumbled upon this years ago.

[DBZAOTA482]

He could not, BOG is full of shit.

I guess Toriyama-sensei wasn't as involved as I've believed.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

I'm gonna put it in the "to be explained" list. We have no idea what happened, and that was something new for Vegeta, so I'll wait for the next movie.

He could not, BOG is full of shit.

I guess Toriyama-sensei wasn't as involved as I've believed.

Almost everything in BoG is because Toriyama was involved.

[Angelus]

I think it's just part of the new approach Toriyama is taking with these things. It may not quite jive with traditional views of how Super Saiyan transformations work, but I think it's actually got a fairly consistent internal logic.

See, fans have gotten used to the idea of the different Super Saiyan forms working like multipliers, so that if regular Goku's X, then as a Super Saiyan he'll be 50X, then 100X as Super Saiyan 2, then 400X for SSj3. That's how the guidebooks described them, and while not all fans got behind those specific numbers, it's been pretty standard to think of the forms as working basically along those lines. A given transformation will make somebody Y times stronger, and the only way for a regular Super Saiyan character to be stronger than a Super Saiyan 2/3 character is if that character's base form is way, way stronger than the other guy's. And even if someone like Vegetto is vastly stronger as an ordinary Super Saiyan than Goku or Gotenks are as Super Saiyan 3s, he'd be even more ridiculously powerful as a Super Saiyan 3 himself. The higher Super Saiyan forms may burn through stamina faster, but overall they're huge improvements on regular Super Saiyan, and there will always be big gaps between the different forms.

...That was the standard view anyway, but it seems Toriyama doesn't see things that way, at least not anymore. BoG presents pissed-off regular Super Saiyan Vegeta as flat-out stronger than Goku, making him presumably stronger than even SSj3 Goku. Then after absorbing the power of Super Saiyan God, Goku holds his own against Beerus much better than he did before as a SSj3. Becoming a regular Super Saiyan again seems to give him a boost, but not really make him that much stronger, since he still can't manage to turn the tables against Beerus. In an interview after BoG's release, Toriyama clarified that from now on Goku will just stick to mastering his regular form and ordinary Super Saiyan, and probably won't bother with Super Saiyan 2 or 3 anymore since they sap too much strength. This of course makes little sense under the traditional view that Super Saiyan 2 is X times as stronger as regular Super Saiyan, and SSj3 is Y times as powerful as SSj2. With that way of thinking of things, 2 and 3 will always put you way above regular Super Saiyan. Who cares about a little lost stamina if you can now beat the other guy in a punch or two? But Toriyama's view these days is that 2 and 3 are just fancy "variations" on Super Saiyan, and that mastering one's regular form and ordinary Super Saiyan is the real way to the top. We've now learned that apparently Goku won't even be transforming into a Super Saiyan at all in the upcoming movie, which may very well be the ultimate expression of this new "basic is best" attitude.

So, long story short, even if it seems awfully inconsistent with the main series and guidebooks, the new movies and Toriyama's recent interviews are fairly consistent in the idea that the boundary between the different Super Saiyan forms and a Saiyan's regular forms is a bit fuzzy. At first a character might train to obtain higher and higher Super Saiyan forms, but in the long run if they train enough they apparently won't need to rely on the any fancy higher forms, and in the end if they train even more they might not need Super Saiyan at all. It sure seems like the same idea behind Gohan's Kaioshin power-up, but while Gohan got the quickie fast track to that advanced Super Saiyan-free state, Goku's gradually getting there through years of training (with some help from the power of Super Saiyan God). On the flipside, we might rationalize Gohan's new-found need to go Super Saiyan again as proof that lack of training has caused him to slide from his enlightened "Ultimate" state back to being a regular dope who needs to rely on transformations again.

As for Vegeta? Well, if Gohan can go beyond the need for Super Saiyan thanks to a quickie power-up, and Goku can train to the point where he can manage with just regular Super Saiyan and not bother with 2 or 3, then it's surely not totally nonsensical to think that anger could push Vegeta straight to the point of not needing Super Saiyan 3 either. Back in the Cell Games, Gohan's anger made him jump straight to Super Saiyan 2, while Goku and Vegeta only reached that point through a few years of training. On the same principle, in BoG anger makes Vegeta go straight to a point where he doesn't need the higher Super Saiyan forms, and can utilize power beyond Super Saiyan 3 while still just an ordinary Super Saiyan. It doesn't seem to be permanent, just as Gohan didn't quite master Super Saiyan 2 even after the Cell Games. Meanwhile, Goku achieves a more permanent form of the same state by absorbing the power of Super Saiyan God and training afterwards, similar to how following the Cell Games both Goku and Vegeta trained to the point where they could become Super Saiyan 2 whenever they wanted.

OK, so what about that x50/x100/x400 stuff? Well, it can still be true, but only up to a point. Strict multipliers like that can be how things work for Saiyans who are just starting out, only reaching these forms for the first time. That's typically how things were for most of the main series, with only Gohan surpassing them thanks to his Kaioshin power-up. Then with these new movies, Goku and Vegeta are finally to the point where they can go beyond traditional SSj3 power as just an ordinary Super Saiyan, or even just in their base state. So the old multipliers don't apply anymore.

Makes sense? Maybe? Well, that's what I've got.

Wow! I never thought of it that way. So Elder Kai's advice was true... transformations aren't the right way.

However... another thing that makes me go "Whhhhaaattt?" though is... VEGETA WAS JUST A SSJ, NOT SSJ2, when he surpassed Goku?? WHOA!

Also, based on Goku's statements... post-angered Vegeta has surpassed pre-SSJG Goku right? Meaning, had Goku not been activated into SSJG, he would now be weaker than Vegeta? Note that Goku makes that statement during the end of the film.

[Ajay]

As someone who gives no fucks about power levels or in-universe things like that, I have to say a huge thank you to Herms for writing the first thing I've found genuinely interesting in this area.

Sorry, I know this is an utterly worthless contribution to the discussion but I found it fascinating and a good read. Interesting to see how Toriyama's thought process has potentially changed over the years. It certainly freshens things up a lot.

[Tectorman]

However, this is clearly different from a rage boost. It would be done with training and enlightenment, not because someone got mad. If it could be done simply by getting mad, Vegeta would have stumbled upon this years ago.

Well, we see Vegeta training at the start of the movie, so I think we can assume that he has been training steadily for the last five years. We have nothing to indicate that he was frustratedly beating his head against an insurmountable wall, so presumably he was making some form of progress in his training.

So it's plausible that he was already working on this new level of power (whether Full Power SSJ2 or whatever you want to call it) the whole time, and he simply intuited the last 20% of the method in response to Bulma being slapped.

[rereboy]

However, this is clearly different from a rage boost. It would be done with training and enlightenment, not because someone got mad. If it could be done simply by getting mad, Vegeta would have stumbled upon this years ago.

Well, we see Vegeta training at the start of the movie, so I think we can assume that he has been training steadily for the last five years. We have nothing to indicate that he was frustratedly beating his head against an insurmountable wall, so presumably he was making some form of progress in his training.

So it's plausible that he was already working on this new level of power (whether Full Power SSJ2 or whatever you want to call it) the whole time, and he simply intuited the last 20% of the method in response to Bulma being slapped.

That's a rage boost. Something he never had. Its different from being able to use his power in his basic forms.

[Hitiro]

Well, we don't even know where Vegeta's strength falls in BoG. Because when the Boo arc ended both Vegeta and Goku were equals in strength. The only reason Vegeta was behind Goku before the hidden potential unlock was because Vegeta was already massively behind Goku in the Cell Games. Even if they both trained and gained the same amount of strength towards the Boo arc then Vegeta is going to be behind Goku. Now that they are back at equal footing it all comes down to whether Vegeta pushed himself harder than Goku did in these 5 years. And if Vegeta is superior to Goku in strength, without including SSJ3 of course, then SSJ2 Vegeta would need a 4x boost to surpass SSJ3 Goku's power. Frankly I think that rage boost is kind of small in comparison to some of Gohan's rage boosts which have allowed him to hurt and put down Freeza who, if you believe Gohan was at 14,000 like the Daizenshuu 7 says, was almost 100x stronger than him.

[Zephyr]

If the end of the Buu arc and Battle of Gods' characterization of Vegeta are any indication, he seems to have mellowed out and gained some better perspective on life. Maybe that helped his training out? Maybe this actually allowed him to finally do what Gohan was previously only able to do?

I'm sorry, but saying "nah, Battle of Gods is just full of shit because it doesn't bend over backwards to jive with the Frankenstein's Monster that is the story's 1995 status quo, cherry picked EU information, and my head-canon!" just comes off as lazy, stubborn, and unwilling to accept the story moving forward.

[rereboy]

Well, we don't even know where Vegeta's strength falls in BoG. Because when the Boo arc ended both Vegeta and Goku were equals in strength. The only reason Vegeta was behind Goku before the hidden potential unlock was because Vegeta was already massively behind Goku in the Cell Games. Even if they both trained and gained the same amount of strength towards the Boo arc then Vegeta is going to be behind Goku. Now that they are back at equal footing it all comes down to whether Vegeta pushed himself harder than Goku did in these 5 years. And if Vegeta is superior to Goku in strength, without including SSJ3 of course, then SSJ2 Vegeta would need a 4x boost to surpass SSJ3 Goku's power. Frankly I think that rage boost is kind of small in comparison to some of Gohan's rage boosts which have allowed him to hurt and put down Freeza who, if you believe Gohan was at 14,000 like the Daizenshuu 7 says, was almost 100x stronger than him.

The problem is him having rage boosts at all. NOBODY had rage boosts in Dragon Ball besides Gohan and Fat Buu and both were explained (gohan tapping into his potential, Fat Buu letting his true self emerge). And Vegeta has been angry more times than any other character. Him suddenly having one doesn't make sense. Him being more powerful than he should be in his SSJ can be explained with that whole mastering the basic forms things, but not the rage boost.