Toriko vs. Jin Mo-Ri vs. Son Goku

[Farealmer]

But again. This is my own personal interpretation. Toriyama never once explained one way or the other iirc

I even mentioned something similar to what you say in your post to Nik before in a earlier thread or he responded to my post(I can't remember if the post he responded to was talking to him). When I was talking about One Punch man vs DBZ in terms of feat optics. When Saitama does stuff you feel the impact of it. Like when he punched Sea King so hard it stopped raining. Yet DB never really does those kind of things. The sad truth is if you watch a fight in early DBZ and a fight in DBS in a vacuum, you probably wouldn't even know they were stronger or, if you figured it out from the transformations, by how much. Toriyama just has an aversion to giving proper scale for abilities except in dramatic moments. And most of those are implied or have other problems that make them difficult to argue for. As you said, the problem is he is too whimsical. It's all the silliness of comic books without any of the proper scaling or attempts at quantification.

[Cody]

snippity snap

So..all of this has been addressed in the past, so I'll just link you to the posts:

On Friezas unique form of durability:

Nope, they were mutants. Here:
http://i.imgur.com/hmgZE6f.png?1

It was the reason why they were much stronger than anyone else.

Honestly, Ginyu was the only one who actually bothered to back his absurd power with actual skill at controlling his power level.

Honestly, the feat is pretty straightfoward.

Frieza survives a planetary explosion.

Now, Frieza doesn't take the full brunt of the explosion. That would be impossible for a variety of reasons, starting with him being too small.

That said, it's still a decent feat. Not as impressive as taking the Genki Dama or Goku's KKx20 Kamehameha is since those would be focused planet busters (planet buster>>>>Planetary explosion), but still impressive.

Really, the only remarkable thing is that the explosion cannot be explained with ki and that's just fine.

As an aside, Frieza's durability seems to be organic in addition to Ki-based as opposed to most characters; so him having or not having ki should not affect the end outcome as much. The only thing that matters is that he was in his final form while that happened.

Now whether he was hurt or not by the explosion doesn't really matter. The only important part is he survived. Even if he didn't survive unscathed, characters like 18 (who flat out no sells Trunk's sword) would do it.

Honestly it's a good middle point in between the vast gulf that is Gohan's Saiyan ship wrecking strength and Bills casual planet busting strength.

Yeah, the way I explained it before is that, while Goku has a certain amount of superhuman default durability, he and his crew rely almost entirely on using their ki to block stuff, including physical stuff. It's easier for physical to get through their defenses because they often can't prep themselves for surprise hits enough at times.

Freeza is kind of the reverse, he generaly contains his ki with transformations, but in his true form, seems to have a kind of constant defense on. Many of his crew are that way as well, since they don't understand ki manipulation. The androids definitely have high passive defense.

On the reverse side, Buu is like putty, and leaves his defense "off" most of the time since damaging his body doesn't really matter.

Too add on this for Buu; it wasn't just the planet blowing up that blew him apart, but that combined with the close proximity of his attack. The planet blowing up was mostly a problem for lack of air, and at the aspect of them destroying their home. There is also Vegetas fight with 18, which he outright states that if doesn't reign his power in, he would destroy the planet but mistake.

Ki and Strength:

See the DBZ feat thread. It's explained multiple times in the series that they basically charge and move their ki to attack/block/blast/speed, and do it on the fly. So, if they have a hypothetical 80 units of ki, they can spread it out as 20/20/20/20 or they could do 0/0/0/100, with it needing to be powered back up as it drains as they put it into stuff in general. As they get stronger and stronger, they get more "units" and thus doing a kamehameha that "drains 20" when weaker, won't drain as much out of them when they have 1000 "units" to work with as opposed to 80 or whatever. That's the best way to think about what they're constantly doing on the show/series.

There were multiple instances in Dragon Ball where it literally shows them drawing their ki into their kicks/punches and then hitting people (Gohan on Radditz, Nappa on Tien, for obvious examples), or putting it into defense before taking an attack. It's also stated that when they use it to power their long distance speed, it drains them extremely quickly as well.

Also, characters like Piccolo and Cell have to devote a whole lot of that energy to healing, and get drained ridiculously from that.

That's also what's different with some characters. Freeza has no idea of what he's doing and basically kind of keeps his ridiculous power in a base spread all of the time. The androids aren't using ki, but have extremely durable bodies and are working from an unlimited energy source or suck the energy out of other people to use (cyborgs like 17/18 seem to mix the two and Cell is ki/biological). Buu also basically draws from some kind of magical unlimited source that allows him to never really drain from anything.

edit: Also that's why the humans to a large degree, and the Saiyans, to a lesser degree, can easily be hurt by things once drained or KOed. Saiyans have some default durability, but humans are "regular" when not putting ki into their defense, for instance.

The last movie had Goku accessing "god ki," which is an entirely different, more potent form of energy that he learns to access, that is preferable to the standard life energy regular ki is.

[Cody]

Except the characters are using said Ki to amp their physical stats. Are we simply to assume they can only put a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of their total power(which is contained in their body) into their limbs? The compartmentalized durability is fine for Wonder Woman(where it's a specifically stated thing for her) but every attempt to do so with DBZ comes off(to me) as just trying to be nit picky. Because it isn't done anywhere else unless it's flat out stated.

Fictional characters with "busting" force are allowed here all the time even when they themselves have never directly done so. To say nothing of the people who don't bust the city/country/planet every time they hit the ground even when fighting serious. Many people have commented on the forum how unrealistic punching out planets is, so it it right to punish DBZ for following that(despite the series other qualities)? Beerus is a notable exception but he specifically flew through them. He didn't bust Earth with a physical hit as a side effect of fighting Goku or the others despite clearly having that level of strength. No other character in DBZ flew through a planet like that. Beerus only did so by accident.

While I'am not nearly enough of an expert on DBZ to argue them specifically. I feel this issue is one that needs to get addressed for DBZ before any meaningful discussion on DBZ can take place. As it always degrades to the "compartmentalized durability" argument or a variation thereof. For the record I myself don't really think their physical attacks are entirely equal to their energy ones(or why bother using them most of the time) but the level of difference here would need to be in the trillions for that argument to hold water. And I personally cannot accept Goku's punches being 1,000,000,000,000 times weaker than his energy blasts.

It's because they are trying to actually hit their opponents, so they try and come up with creative ways of doing so. They develop strategic types of energy attacks to try to get around their opponents' speed and durability.

So, for instance, instead of putting all their ki into physical amping and letting a giant telegraphed haymaker fly. which could easily be dodged or something, they shoot a blast at the speed of relativity that explodes at a certain point.

Once characters started getting faster than those blasts, they got more creative with them. Goku "hid" when throwing a kamehameha at Freeza so he couldn't see it coming and dodge it, there were teleport kamehamehas, characters purposely aimed them at the planet so that the heroes couldn't just move out of the way, etc.

They also started fighting people that wouldn't die from hitting vitals and had to use larger, explosive blasts that would obliterate the entire body. Pre-that, people were getting their arms punched off, punched through their stomachs and hearts, etc.

It's simply a best tool for the job at hand situation. It's just that across the Internet, most people that talk about compartmentalized ki don't understand how ki actually works, although we at least now have a very popular game that shows exactly that, now, at least.

edit: Even late, there were still times when physical attacks were used, normally to show superiority. For instance, since Gohan had such a huge jump in stats with SSJ2, he could zoom over to Cell and punch the 18 out of him with an amped punch before he could even react.

I can give a quick rundown of their fights in Z:

Radditz - hurt by Gohan's headbutt more than any energy attack except for the makankosappo, which was the only way Piccolo/Goku could come up with to harm him (as Piccolo came up with a super fast drilling ki attack that focused a lot of energy into a small point)
Nappa - Back broken by Goku. COuld have been killed early by another "lot of energy into a small point" attack - this one that was focused on cutting as opposed to drilling.
Vegeta - hurt the most by a genki dama (which takes OTHER energy to power up) combined with a giant monkey landing on him.
Cui - punched in the stomach, launched, and blasted with a medium blast
Can't remember Dodoria and Zarbon. Probably blasted by Vegeta
Guldo - head chopped off by Vegeta
Recoome - knocked out by Goku punching him in the stomach, Vegeta blasted him once KOed
Burter - punched in the back by Goku, Vegeta broke his neck
Jeice - comboed into a blast by Vegeta
Freeza - pummeled into submission by SSJ Goku, then ends up chopping himself up, then his pieces get blasted in in response to him shooting energy at Goku, then he's put back together and chopped up by Trunks and then blasted
Cold - blasted by Trunks
19 - arms ripped off, then blasted
20 - killed by 17

--- Regenerators ---
Cell - punched out of his perfect form, comes back as super perfect, blasted to atoms by Kamehameha
Buu - Genki dama-ed to nothingess

So the vast majority of canon enemies were actually beaten by physical attacks. It's really Toei that adds in all the "energy attacks are everything" stuff, and overemphasis on blasts:

Garlic Jr - blasted into the dead zone
Willow - kamehamehaed
Turles - can't even remember
Slug - can't even remember
Cooler - kamehamehaed into the sun
Cooler 2 - overloaded with energy by two half dead SSJs which made no sense
Android 13 - SSJ Goku eats a genki dama and he disintegrates when punching him
Brolly - punched in his magic spot or something, comes back, kamehamehaed into the sun, heart explodes, kind of comes back, kamehamehaed
Janenba - magic sparkly stuff expells his evil
Hildegarn - B.S. dragon comes out of Goku's fist

So yeah, while Toriyama writes most fights being about the physical, Toei makes them about beams (also, within the fight), which skews perception a whole lot when taken as a whole.

Probably a soft majority of the board has put Goku's striking strength as quite a bit above Post Crisis Superman's ever since we downgraded the latter to ramming the moon as hard as he could to bust it, and still feeling it when he did (due to contextually throwing out some of his higher feats).

On the flip side, there's just too much evidence that high tier DBZ striking strength is on a much higher plane than that:

1) High tier characters can physically hurt people with the default durability to tank planetary explosions (Freeza/Cell/probably 17/18 since they know nothing about ki control when they show up).

2) A high tier character bapped a blast straight back through Earth in one panel.

3) A high tier character can punch through Kai's planet.

4) 1/3 of the highest tier characters casually goes through planets effortlessly.

That's outside of knowing that the mythology that the series is based on pretty much says that ki can be used to amp striking power as one of the most popular applications of it.

And that's enough of the quotes. In addition to what the other posters have said, I wish to address something more specific:

For me that ignores that DBZ was and is a kung fu battle manga where punches and kicks are meant to be relevant.

You are absolutely right. They still are, but on a much higher scale. Their striking power works in the same way as the likes of Karate Kid, Mantis, and the Fist North Star crew. These guys can hit hard enough to harm beings well above normal durability. Val in particular could make Pre-Crisis Kryptonians feel his hits, while his post-crisis version could rip the arms off guys that could take hits from Supergirl. He does this, because those are the types of martial arts he can do. All of that, including his judo tossing a speeding Daxamite lightyears away towards a red sun, is attributed to his martial art abilities. Mantis; on a lower scale, is the same deal, she can hit pressure points on the likes of Thor and other class 100 bricks, despite her lack of ability to even shatter a mountain. They are martial artists, their punches can do as much damage as the likes of Superman, but do not cause as much collateral. They did that even in Dragonball. Yamcha was just a street leveller when he first appeared, a skilled martial artist, but he was not even a CBPH in terms of strength and speed. Yet he knew a technique that can hit someone so hard they are sent through several thick stone pillars. Nam is another, despite zero training in the use of ki, his martial arts capability was at a level that he could make Goku feel his hits, and even give him a bit of a fight. Even Yajirobe, prior to being trained by Kami, was just another master martial artist that could keep up with the likes of Goku. The same rules still apply, as their ability to manipulate ki is also a martial art. Everything is just on a higher scale now.

What Goku, Val, Mantis, and whats his name from Fist of the North Star all share in common is their ability to hit a lot harder than the collateral damage around them(or lack there of at times) would entail.

[sunofdarkchild]

The main threat DBZ characters face from being on a planet that is blown up is that they can't breathe in space.

I also think the nature of planet busting attacks starts to change as the characters get more. For the likes of Frieza, their attacks have to hit the planet's core to blow it up. So he has a specific attack which is mean to burrow down to the core. By the time we get to Perfect Cell, the biggest attacks are so much more powerful that their very proximity to the planet risks blowing it up. Hence why Vegeta's Final Flash and Goku's warp kamehameha had to be directed upwards. When Cell fired a kamehameha at Goku, both he and Goku thought it if exploded on the surface it would blow up the earth. It may be more of a risk than a definite result, as the earth survived the Gohan/Super Perfect Cell beam struggle, but the entire planet shook from the stress, and dialogue from those watching suggests the earth would have blown up if the beam struggled continued much longer.

So Frieza saga attacks have to destroy the core to blow up the planet. Late Cell-saga attacks can destroy a planet by detonating in proximity to the surface or beneath the surface of a planet and have no need to get anywhere near the core, and it goes on from there. This might also explain why not every attack blows up a planet by this point, as by then the smaller attacks may be more powerful than Frieza's planet-busting attack, but they detonate on the surface, far from where they'd cause the planet to blow up. If the same tiny energy blast was used at the core, it would be bye-bye earth.

[Nik Hasta]

I'm going to preface what will probably be a couple of posts made throughout today while I am at work with the following statement:

There is a propensity, however unconscious, in Rumbles circles to assume consistency and planning where there often is none. Most authors do not work on "what the feats say," as a basis for their plotting. As a board we have PIS and CIS as terms because they are things that large amount of things run on. Stories are, by and large, not about creating a perfect thesis on illustrating the power of a singular character or group of characters, they are about communicating narratives.

I don't say this as judgement of anyone but I do think it speaks to a bit on my feelings of the "wood for trees" aspect of this argument.

And that's enough of the quotes. In addition to what the other posters have said, I wish to address something more specific:

I'm going to litigate some of the statements you've put forward in subsequent post. (As noted I am at work today and I don't have a huge amount of time to devote to this per say).

But I will address the below, since you brought up my guy Kenshiro, who is one of the few guys I can claim to be something of an authority on around here, and are using him incorrectly in service of a point that doesn't actually hold water.

You are absolutely right. They still are, but on a much higher scale. Their striking power works in the same way as the likes of Karate Kid, Mantis, and the Fist North Star crew. These guys can hit hard enough to harm beings well above normal durability. Val in particular could make Pre-Crisis Kryptonians feel his hits, while his post-crisis version could rip the arms off guys that could take hits from Supergirl. He does this, because those are the types of martial arts he can do. All of that, including his judo tossing a speeding Daxamite lightyears away towards a red sun, is attributed to his martial art abilities. Mantis; on a lower scale, is the same deal, she can hit pressure points on the likes of Thor and other class 100 bricks, despite her lack of ability to even shatter a mountain. They are martial artists, their punches can do as much damage as the likes of Superman, but do not cause as much collateral. They did that even in Dragonball. Yamcha was just a street leveller when he first appeared, a skilled martial artist, but he was not even a CBPH in terms of strength and speed. Yet he knew a technique that can hit someone so hard they are sent through several thick stone pillars. Nam is another, despite zero training in the use of ki, his martial arts capability was at a level that he could make Goku feel his hits, and even give him a bit of a fight. Even Yajirobe, prior to being trained by Kami, was just another master martial artist that could keep up with the likes of Goku. The same rules still apply, as their ability to manipulate ki is also a martial art. Everything is just on a higher scale now.

What Goku, Val, Mantis, and whats his name from Fist of the North Star all share in common is their ability to hit a lot harder than the collateral damage around them(or lack there of at times) would entail.

Val, Mantis and especially Kenshiro all operate on entirely different metrics for how their offensive game functions compared to Goku so this point is somewhat moot.

To illustrate, FotNS as a series works primarily on the basis of /durability bypasing pressure points to kill individual people./ Hokuto Shinken is built on the notion that you don't need to be able to punch someone's head off when you can tap them and make it explode just as easily.

Kenshiro, nine times out of ten, doesn't create much collateral damage when he fights because he isn't using aspects of his strength which do that.

Now the key difference between FotNS and DBZ is that there are instances when Kenshiro and other characters in the setting have other significant strength feats which illustrate how hard they can hit through raw physical strength but there is an in-universe reason why they don't do it all the time.

For example:
- Kenshiro literally kicking dudes so hard that they vanish into the sky team rocket style.
- Raoh and Toki throwing down, using specific strength based techniques rather than softer skill based techniques (just noting that the series differentiates), causing the mountain they were fighting on to shake and fall apart to the degree where Kenshiro was having to shatter building sized rocks by tapping them to stop them from falling on him while he watched the fight.
- Kenshiro and Souther shaking/damaging the entire massive fortress they were fighting nearby and the mountain it was standing on from the force of their hits on each other.
- Kenshiro and Lord Han razing a multistory castle to its foundations and below into the bedrock mostly by dint of throwing hands and suplexing each other through it.
- Kenshiro lifting gigantic rocks above his head with little effort.
- Kenshiro smashing a giant cyborg guy through the walls of a nuclear bunker by punching him.

So, we know that Kenshiro is stronger than the majority of his combat feats would illustrate and none of those are based on the implied durability of people he has hit; they are things he has destroyed, stuff he's lifted and so on.

Val is noted as being an aberration in the setting he resides in, it's practically a memetic thing that his feats don't make that much sense if you think about them for more than a few seconds. It is inkeeping with the spirit of the text that he can just do things like that. Also, of note, his actual power is the ability to sense weaknesses and pressure points in people and objects which allows him to hit with precision in a way that, again, bypasses conventional durability.

Mantis vs Thor is using pressure points which are, in most settings they are deployed in, supposed to bypass conventional durability so it is not an indication of Mantis being in the weightclass of Class 100.

On the flip, Goku punches dudes real hard. That's pretty much the sum total of his arsenal when it comes to breaching physical durability with his hands and feet. These dudes, according to the thesis dictated above, have been able to be all but completely undamaged by planet-sundering energies going off in their faces in the Sayain Saga which means that Goku and everyone even like... freaking Cui is punching harder than planet destroying energies despite never showing any kind of physical strength on that level outside of "the inferred durability of a person this strong is blahblahblah,"

This is why I don't buy that they have that level of durability because there is nothing to show that they have that strength.

Now, I should actually do some work this morning but I'll return in a number of hours on my lunch break to continue with my breakdown of how I see it. Feel free to respond to this if you want but there's more actual DBZ-centric stuff in the offing.

[Nik Hasta]

On a brief break, to dig into this a bit;

Proviso: I am going to be arguing from the perspective that Roshi and Piccolo busting the moon in DB and early DBZ respectively are SMvsFL, make no sense in the power curve of the story and should not be counted as indicators as the power level of the series.

Alright.

The in-canon explanation for durability in DBZ is - as noted in the Goku vs Recoome fight - that superior offensive chi trumps defensive chi and allows damage to be delivered. Chi is not static, chi can go up or down on command with suitable training. Chi can used to enhance strength as noted with the full body weights sequence with Goku going Super Sayain to lift some 25 ton weights with ease where he struggled previously. This has been noted on the board as being extremely weird as Goku's strength feats mean that he's a lot stronger than this even in base form but that's neither here nor there.

What this means is that, like Goku's strength, normally passive stats like durability can go up and down, which makes consistency hard to pin down.

Colossus has static durability stats, Superman has static durability stats. Goku and co by definition of how the system is supposed to work, do not.

Sidebar: This does throw up even more red flags for me over Frieza surviving Namek exploding because, whether he was aware of it or not, his durability is tied to his level of chi and, post being cut in half and having been given enough power to live on, blasted it out at Goku and then getting his **** blasted by Goku again he should have been in no state to survive much of anything so I honestly would file that under SMvsFL because he got hurt by attacks that did so much less when at a higher level of power.

Continuing:

Given that, as I noted earlier, there is a /complete lack of strength feats/ that would indicate anything remotely approaching planetary level physical strength outside of Super - my view is that their ability to hurt one another is more about the level of chi they bring to an attack relative to their opponent rather than there being a set level of durability to overcome to hurt an opponent or the strength that said chi provides because there's nothing to support it.

Looking at the examples you cited of DBZ striking being on a planetary level in abmccray's post:

1) High tier characters can physically hurt people with the default durability to tank planetary explosions (Freeza/Cell/probably 17/18 since they know nothing about ki control when they show up). - Already addressed above. Cell got his head blown off by planetary level attacks more than once and survived through dint of regeneration. Frieza surviving Namek has so many weird facets that I class it as SMvsFL as noted above and neither 17 or 18 ever took a planet busting explosion to the face so that's not a point.

2) A high tier character bapped a blast straight back through Earth in one panel. - Mystic Gohan in the Buu Saga as I recall. I don't think redirecting a self-propelling projectile made of destruction juice is remotely the same as hitting something through the planet under your own power.

3) A high tier character can punch through Kai's planet. - SSJ3 Goku in Super as I recall and, as I said, I'm not addressing Super because I think the feats start to show up there a bit.

4) 1/3 of the highest tier characters casually goes through planets effortlessly - Beerus, again Super, not relevant here.

Ack, this ran long.

I'll attempt to summarise in points.

- I don't think that DBZ characters can't bust planets, obviously. Late Frieza Saga to Cell Saga is when the capacity to do that is firmly established given how many "Oh no, the planet," incidents there are in the Cell Saga. My contention is that it's only specific focused techniques that allow them to access those levels of destruction. Radditz noted that Goku and Piccolo could make their power levels much higher than their normal states through technique and I think that holds true. It's not until the Buu Saga, specifically with Kid Buu and latter era Super Sayain 2s that you get into point and click planet busting when they have a whole sequence that spells that out which results in Goku and Vegeta running away from an planet buster++ attack.

- I don't buy the whole compressed explosion things. Destructo Disc and Special Beam Cannon are exceptions to this as specific techniques that in text work on the compression theory but those also don't planet bust because they don't explode. I think that when a fighter sends out random blasts and the like, it does the damage that we see it do. Frieza Saga era Frieza and Goku are still in the healthy category that they are able to blow away small landmasses and the like with normal blasts and can reach into planet busting with techniques but I don't think they always put that level of power into every shot because why would they.

- Physically, by the time of the Frieza Saga, Goku is like... Class... 60 - 70ish in terms of his strength feats. He busts through small mountains easy enough, smacks people through islands and the like but those attacks hurt both him and Frieza when he takes them. This is how their strength is shown to be and it makes more sense for that to be the case rather than secretly everyone from Cui to Guldo is able to chill in exploding planets no issue.

This got a bit rambling but I hope it articulates my issues with the presentation of DBZ that people are putting forward.

Anyhow, back to work! ^_^

[The Arbiter]

On a brief break, to dig into this a bit;

Proviso: I am going to be arguing from the perspective that Roshi and Piccolo busting the moon in DB and early DBZ respectively are SMvsFL, make no sense in the power curve of the story and should not be counted as indicators as the power level of the series

Why? As in why not? Roshis first showing was mountain busting when he was tremendously out of shape. Some training later and zap goes the moon. But he has to put effort in. Piccolo, a much stronger guy, puts in way less effort to do the same.

Also the "damage we see is what we get" theory is bonkers. Zarbon was vaporizing islands and creating enormous mushroom clouds that parted the clouds in the sky. These explosions were way smaller than blasts freaking Raditz tossed out that dwarfed mountain ranges. Raditz has more powerful ki than Zarbon? Again, final form Frieza with some actual emphasis on charging his attacks was creating blasts the same size as Zarbon's. They the same strength? More unimportant, is Friezas blast weaker than Raditz'? I mean if what we see is what we get...

You admit that ki compression attacks are a legit thing in DBZ but don't accept that maybe just maybe then can use it outside of just a few attacks? At least in a simplified form? I mean piccolos first "compressed drilling beam" caused WAY more collateral damage then the makkankosappos (sp? lol) he tossed out later when he was vastly more powerful.

[Nik Hasta]

Why? As in why not? Roshis first showing was mountain busting when he was tremendously out of shape. Some training later and zap goes the moon. But he has to put effort in. Piccolo, a much stronger guy, puts in way less effort to do the same.

The orders of magnitude don't add up to me and the curve stops making sense.

Roshi blowing away a small mountain is all well and good, he's out of shape so it takes him significant charge time but it makes sense in the context of the series.

However, even if we were to pretend that Fire Mountain was the size of Mr Everest, which it isn't, the moon is literally billions of times larger. That's Billions with a b.

Roshi blowing away something on that scale with minimal charge time while being somewhat in better shape and tired from fighting Goku doesn't make sense in the curve of the narrative. In the same arc, we have Piccolo Jr "going all out" and the explosion he makes doesn't even destroy the island he's standing on. It is absolutely ridiculous to pretend that Roshi busting the moon makes any sense in the arc of Dragonball.

Similarly with Piccolo doing it later on with a casual handzap. No one in the series had shown that level of comparable destruction at that point, neither inferred or otherwise. It makes zero sense and is an abberation in the power curve which had been pretty stable up until that point.

Neither make sense, ergo I don't count them.

Also the "damage we see is what we get" theory is bonkers. Zarbon was vaporizing islands and creating enormous mushroom clouds that parted the clouds in the sky. These explosions were way smaller than blasts freaking Raditz tossed out that dwarfed mountain ranges. Raditz has more powerful ki than Zarbon? Again, final form Frieza with some actual emphasis on charging his attacks was creating blasts the same size as Zarbon's. They the same strength? More unimportant, is Friezas blast weaker than Raditz'? I mean if what we see is what we get...

I find the notion that Toriyama lost track of sense of his sense of scale more convincing than "Oh no, that explosion would have destroyed way more stuff but didn't because of conjectural theories about Frieza goons holding back for some reason,"

I don't see why DBZ should get a pass on its feats being inflated in scale when the text doesn't reflect that.

You admit that ki compression attacks are a legit thing in DBZ but don't accept that maybe just maybe then can use it outside of just a few attacks? At least in a simplified form? I mean piccolos first "compressed drilling beam" caused WAY more collateral damage then the makkankosappos (sp? lol) he tossed out later when he was vastly more powerful.

As I said, Destructo Disc and Special Beam Cannon don't, in most of their presentations, just bore/cut through things and don't destroy entire planets. That's were the compression things makes sense because it is compressed into a blade/nail type of effect. The big explosion techniques, whose entire remit is making a big kaboom, not doing that but apparently it was stronger because conjecture says so? Yeah, I think WYSIWYG in this case.

Frieza blows up an island with a finger beam. Cool, that's a feat.

Piccolo blows up a city by waving his hand at it. Go ham, good feat.

Nappa blows away a city by gesturing. No prob bob.

Vegeta fires a beam that does nowhere near planetary level damage when it hits Recoome but Recoome can eat planet busting energy now because... umm... well... um this other attack that he threw out was supposed to bust the planet but he contained the energy of an explosion that is exterior to him because... ummm...

I don't buy it.

[The Arbiter]

Similarly with Piccolo doing it later on with a casual handzap. No one in the series had shown that level of comparable destruction at that point, neither inferred or otherwise.

Except Roshis feat.

I find the notion that Toriyama lost track of sense of his sense of scale more convincing

Convenient and dismissive considering the universe "in text" has compression techniques already and a habit of pointing out "this guys holding back" and so on.

As I said, Destructo Disc and Special Beam Cannon don't, in most of their presentations, just bore/cut through things and don't destroy entire planets. That's were the compression things makes sense because it is compressed into a blade/nail type of effect. The big explosion techniques, whose entire remit is making a big kaboom, not doing that but apparently it was stronger because conjecture says so?

Based on "what we see damage is what we get" is Piccolos first ever special beam way more powerful than say his hellzone grenade on Cell? I mean, despite being a boring/drilling compressed attack, it caused 100x as much environmental damage. Hellzone Grenade not being a specific drilling maneuver and also having considerable charge time and coming from a dude 1000x more powerful than he was at the time of Raditz notwithstanding.

Nappa blows away a city by gesturing. No prob bob.

Again with a gesture and no charge time, he did way more damage here than with his explicitly charged up and angry attacks vs the z fighters. Was Nappa holding back massively? Or just maybe, the dude can control his ki a bit in a universe where ki control is sort of a big important thing. You talk about "ignoring the text" but I feel it's going the other way here tbh.

[The Arbiter]

https://goo.gl/images/h54rp8

Nappa creating an explosion visible from space, and creating shockwaves strong enough to shake landmasses and and affect Z fighters hundreds of miles away with a gesture.

I guess he is way more powerful than Recoome? Or Captain Ginyu? Based on damage seen. He Was clearly holding back against the Z fighters.

Alternatively, Thanos sometimes breaks planets with his punches that arent even aimed at the planet. But when he punches Surfer or whoever, none of that happens. I guess Thanos is holding back?

[Farealmer]

By your logic Nik, can these guys even take city busting attacks? The physical attacks that hurt them are, by your take, no where near even city busting. If we go by the physical attacks or low levels explosions can harm them theory you are putting forward, then even a nuke should be able to kill these guys for a good part of the series or at least until Freiza. That seems...problematic.

[The Arbiter]

By your logic Nik, can these guys even take city busting attacks? The physical attacks that hurt them are, by your take, no where near even city busting. If we go by the physical attacks or low levels explosions can harm them theory you are putting forward, then even a nuke should be able to kill these guys for a good part of the series or at least until Freiza. That seems...problematic.

Actually, Vegeta was standing right next to Nappa when he mega nuked that city with his arms crossed. He was fine.

[Nik Hasta]

Except Roshis feat.

A feat that makes even less sense.

"Oh, this one thing makes literally zero sense but it makes this other slightly less nonsensical thing slightly less nonsensical so I'll allow it,"

Dude, point to anything in the series at that time that even remotely poked at damaging celestial bodies. Those two feats are so out of place it's bewildering to me that more people don't see them as SMvsFL.

"Master Roshi did a thing that was impressive with some effort and then did something literally billions of times more impressive under worse circumstances. What a lot of sense this makes,"

Convenient and dismissive considering the universe "in text" has compression techniques already and a habit of pointing out "this guys holding back" and so on.

Where did they say that say Zarbon was holding back? Or Dodoria? Or Nappa? Or... friggin' Recoome?

All of those dudes threw out attacks with nothing in the text indicating that this was the case. It is entirely conjecture that they were holding back.

Based on "what we see damage is what we get" is Piccolos first ever special beam way more powerful than say his hellzone grenade on Cell? I mean, despite being a boring/drilling compressed attack, it caused 100x as much environmental damage. Hellzone Grenade not being a specific drilling maneuver and also having considerable charge time and coming from a dude 1000x more powerful than he was at the time of Raditz notwithstanding.

I don't recall Piccolo doing Hellzone Grenade on Cell. He did it on Android 17.

Hellzone Grenade is an attack based on throwing tons of little blasts and doing chain explosions on them.

Do you mean Light Grenade? He did that on Cell and that's more a single big explosion type attack.

Again with a gesture and no charge time, he did way more damage here than with his explicitly charged up and angry attacks vs the z fighters. Was Nappa holding back massively? Or just maybe, the dude can control his ki a bit in a universe where ki control is sort of a big important thing. You talk about "ignoring the text" but I feel it's going the other way here tbh.

Sayains hadn't even really figured out what ki control was at that time in the setting. Remember when Raditz showed up and he was all "BWHA? CHARGING ATTACKS? POWER LEVELS BEING VARIABLE? WHAT WITCHCRAFT IS THIS?"

People often forget that ki control is a somewhat unique phenomena in the DBZ mostly localised on earth. Cody even quoted posts pointing this out earlier in this thread.

[Nik Hasta]

By your logic Nik, can these guys even take city busting attacks? The physical attacks that hurt them are, by your take, no where near even city busting. If we go by the physical attacks or low levels explosions can harm them theory you are putting forward, then even a nuke should be able to kill these guys for a good part of the series or at least until Freiza. That seems...problematic.

Depending on who you're talking about by "these guys," I think they can take that. People have been futzing around with city-destruction in DB for yonks. I have no issue with that being within their tolerances.

My issue is more people saying; "Oh no, everyone can soak planet busters because no reason,"

EDIT: To remind people, because Arby not seeming to understand my objections to Roshi moon busting being problematic. The difference between blowing up a city and blowing up a planet is difference in scale on the order of billions.

[The Arbiter]

Sorry, yes I meant Light Grenade.

So. Just to clarify.... do you believe Nappa, with a look of strain and charge time, was actively deciding to throw out weaker attacks against the Z fighters?