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  1. #1

    Default Does Dragon Ball Super Powerscaling hamper the enjoyment of the series?

    DBS has (mostly) great animation, great fight scenes and a really good soundtrack. On the other hand, there are severe problems with the plot and the consistency is just thrown out of the window. And the powerscaling is just nonsensical to a point that it hampers my enjoyment of the series. DBZ at least tried to deliver (shaky) explanations for power jumps (fusion, zenkai, training, ect); DBS just doesnt care, or thinks the fans are stupid.

    So SSG is millions if not billions of times stronger than SSJ3 - yet Frieza reaches this power after 4 months of training? What? Had he reached SSJ3 level in 4 months it would allready have been bad enough, but SSG?
    Piccolo has problems fighting Shisami who was around the level of Zarbon/Dodoria?
    Tagoma increases his strenght from Zarbon/Dodoria level to Perfect Cell level after beeing a punching bag for 4 months?
    Vegeta as a SSGSS gets seriously hurt by Hits punches, yet Goku in his base takes a few hits without dying right away?
    Hit just magically increases his time skip tenfold in a matter of minutes.
    SSJ2 Trunks was equal to SSJ2 Goku; yet in another episode copy Vegeta in his base was stronger than SSJ3 Gotenks?
    The entire Zamasu time travel arc is basically one big mess. How did the original Zamasu know about Goku if in that timeline they never met? How can Trunks compete with Zamasu as a SSJ2 if SSGSS was beaten to a pulp by him?
    Previous rules concerning fusion get thrown out of the window.
    Piccolo went from weaker than a Cell Jr. to stronger than Mystic Gohan?
    Mystic Gohan got like a million times stronger within a few weeks and can compete with SSG?
    Android 17 just magically got like a billion times stonger within a few years (without any training) and can compete with SSG?
    Kale..........
    Base Kefla can compete with SSG?
    Broly is weaker than base Vegeta, closes the power gap within a few minutes. Vegeta goes SSJ, Broly closes the power gap within a few minutes. Vegeta goes SSG and Broly closes the gap within a few minutes. WTF?

    As for the manga: For the most part it was better untill the tournament of power. After that... Gohan was suddenly stronger than LSSJ Kefla because he believed in his human half? Roshi could dodge Jirens punches? Namekian Fusion is suddenly a thing? Why didnt they do this against Frieza? Moro is just one big asspull.

  2. #2
    Uncanny Member XPac's Avatar
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    I can still enjoy the show, but I find the power scaling a bit much.

    It's a part of the shows formula though. New villain shows up more powerful than Goku, so he gets some new power up to beat them. Rinse and repeat. And a select few people get to keep up with Goku somehow someway so that he and Vegeta don't completley leave everyone else in the dust.

  3. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by XPac View Post
    I can still enjoy the show, but I find the power scaling a bit much.

    It's a part of the shows formula though. New villain shows up more powerful than Goku, so he gets some new power up to beat them. Rinse and repeat. And a select few people get to keep up with Goku somehow someway so that he and Vegeta don't completley leave everyone else in the dust.
    Well I wouldnt mind if people catch up with Goku/Vegeta. If there is an explanation. Goku/Vegeta trained their entire lives and unlocked two/three transformations that greatly increased their power, yet they still were outmatched by Majin Buu. During 7 years of hard training, they managed to increase their power from much weaker than Perfect Cell to much stronger than Super Perfect Cell.

    Frieza got from weaker than the Androids to stronger than Vegito within just 4 months….
    Piccolo who couldnt reach Perfect Cell Level suddenly jumps to Mystic Gohan Level….
    Android 17 can suddenly compete with Gods....
    SSJ2 Trunks is far superior to SSJ3 Gotenks...
    All the new enemies are superior to Vegito and many of them are equal to SSGSS.....
    Last edited by Celestialbeyonder; 04-10-2020 at 12:01 PM.

  4. #4
    Put a smile on that face Immortal Weapon's Avatar
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    What always annoyed me about dragonball is how it doesn't give a **** about the supporting cast. Characters like Piccolo can't get a win against the goons or have a meaningful moment. Having everything be preserved for Goku hurts the writing in my eyes.

  5. #5
    Ultimate Member Sacred Knight's Avatar
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    For me, no. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I was more happy that they found ways to reincorporate some meaning to supporting characters who no longer kept up with the sliding Saiyan scale. The multiverse concept helped them be able to actually fight something again even if it isn't the big gun that's exclusively for Goku and sometimes Vegeta. When Master Roshi gets to actually play a role again, gets to actually fight, and actually gets some cool moments after some thirty years on the sideline, you've done something right.
    "They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El

  6. #6

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    I stopped worrying about that sort of thing a long time ago.

    I really enjoyed the Tournament of Power arc because, even if the power levels were all over the map and made almost no sense, just about every noteworthy character got a chance to shine. I like the new Saiyans they introduced, so I don't mind them catching up. Broly's power jumps might have bothered me if it was just an excuse for Vegeta to get punked out so Goku can save the day, but I thought they handled all that really well (Frieza took a beating, but that was played for laughs and actually pretty funny).

    For me, as long as the characters get to still have cool moments and not get left in the dust by Goku, I really don't care about power levels anymore.

  7. #7
    Extraordinary Member Cyke's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Immortal Weapon View Post
    What always annoyed me about dragonball is how it doesn't give a **** about the supporting cast. Characters like Piccolo can't get a win against the goons or have a meaningful moment. Having everything be preserved for Goku hurts the writing in my eyes.
    This is primarily why the Tournament of Power is perhaps my favorite arc in almost all of Dragon Ball. Finally, the supporting characters get their moments to shine. A lot of it is glossed over (they pay the slightest of lip service to Roshi's growth, only saying that he's "been training," and that's it), but the other side of me is like, that's fine, just as long as there's more to play with.

    Do I wish Dragon Ball were more consistent? Sure, but I don't know how much consistency we can expect from a franchise that started out as a martial arts Looney Toons, essentially. but if other characters are shown to grow proportionate to Goku (like, say, Tien being just like 10% as strong as Goku at any given time means he's still growing, yet still far behind Goku. If Goku over six months has grown, Tien also grows but never surpasses being a tenth as strong as Goku), that would be fine by me, because then at least we'd know the characters' limits, and how much they can participate based on those limits, without being so far behind that they're obsolete. I've always wanted a giant battle scene where Goku and Vegeta fight a Big Bad, while Piccolo and Gohan take on his second in command, and Krillin, Tien, and all the weaker ones have to team up to fight a single minion (and, frankly, the current manga is giving us just that).

    The only other thing I'd add is...

    ...this franchise needs more Yamcha.

    ----

    And, let's be clear here, Toriyama's big on taking shortcuts, both in story and in art. He'll have Goku defeat Recoome in a blink of an eye when he's decimated Vegeta, Gohan, and Krillin all because it's one less fight scene to worry about. He'll keep making more Super Saiyans because if he's drawing (as opposed to Toyotaru), that's less coloring and shading he has to do. And he kept making the main cast smaller in DBZ because it meant fewer characters to write and draw. So that affects consistency plenty.
    Last edited by Cyke; 04-10-2020 at 08:37 PM.

  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sacred Knight View Post
    When Master Roshi gets to actually play a role again, gets to actually fight, and actually gets some cool moments after some thirty years on the sideline, you've done something right.
    But doesnt it bother you at all that he suddenly has the power to compete with opponents he couldnt reach before? After training his entire life he had a fraction of the power of Radditz. During the few years of Super he suddenly jumped to Ginyu Level? Android Level? Without any Explanation. Its just ridiculous.

  9. #9
    Uncanny Member XPac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Immortal Weapon View Post
    What always annoyed me about dragonball is how it doesn't give a **** about the supporting cast. Characters like Piccolo can't get a win against the goons or have a meaningful moment. Having everything be preserved for Goku hurts the writing in my eyes.
    I think that's part of the problem.

    THe Saiyans level up so often and so quickly that it often means the rest of the Z fighters are just spectators. The Human fighters in particular became useless by the first third of Dragonball Z. And while it made sense storywise, I liked some of them and would have liked them to play a larger role in the story as it progressed.

    Course the recent tournament arguably changed that to some degree... though it didn't quite make sense. If the humans weren't buried so much prior it might have been less jarring.

    Piccolo is at least is often leveled up enough to handle a sub-boss half of the time ... or save Gohan from an actual boss. But that's about it. Ideally I'd like him to be right up there with Goku and Vegeta even though it's obviously Goku's show and he should be the main event.

  10. #10
    Astonishing Member Kusanagi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Immortal Weapon View Post
    What always annoyed me about dragonball is how it doesn't give a **** about the supporting cast. Characters like Piccolo can't get a win against the goons or have a meaningful moment. Having everything be preserved for Goku hurts the writing in my eyes.
    This, it's not so much the power scaling so much of the "Can't keep up" syndrome that happens throughout the series that bothers me. Super, amazingly, has actually been a bit better about giving supporting characters moments than late Z.
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  11. #11
    Ultimate Member Sacred Knight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celestialbeyonder View Post
    But doesnt it bother you at all that he suddenly has the power to compete with opponents he couldnt reach before? After training his entire life he had a fraction of the power of Radditz. During the few years of Super he suddenly jumped to Ginyu Level? Android Level? Without any Explanation. Its just ridiculous.
    I don't recall if the levels of the opponents he faced were ever revealed. That was the thing about the tournament and the multiverse, it featured a bunch of characters whom we didn't know much about. Again I don't recall if there was anything to suggest the ones he took on were supposed to be way above his weight class in the first place. Others on the field certainly were, but the way it played out, he never took those types on. Same idea with the likes of Kuririn and Tenshinhan.
    "They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El

  12. #12

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    During the ROF arc he fought against the Frieza Force - all these soldiers should have been somewhere around Radditz Level - perhaps a little weaker - perhaps a little stronger. Roshi was fighting and winning against dozens of them.

  13. #13
    Astonishing Member jetengine's Avatar
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    Freiza is explicitly stated to be a mutant who's power is all natural. Dudes never trained a day in his life because he's not needed to and was still one of the strongest non deity figures in the Universe

  14. #14
    Incredible Member Robotech Master's Avatar
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    I'd argue Super had to do away with careful power scaling in order to tell interesting stories because of what Toriyama left Z with. The jumps from transformation and fusions were too massive, and leave too few options for non-fusing, non-transforming characters to catch up, and your sources for good antagonists shrinks too quickly.

    Like, you question how Android 17 got so strong in Super, but way back when I was already questioning how a retconned Red Ribbon scientist on Earth made a cyborg so much stronger than Freeza.
    Last edited by Robotech Master; 04-11-2020 at 02:11 PM.

  15. #15
    Ultimate Member Sacred Knight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celestialbeyonder View Post
    During the ROF arc he fought against the Frieza Force - all these soldiers should have been somewhere around Radditz Level - perhaps a little weaker - perhaps a little stronger. Roshi was fighting and winning against dozens of them.
    If it had happened during Freiza's height of power I would have followed that mindset. But what Freiza returned with was just remnants. He'd been gone for a decade or so, what was left was nothing impressive and they held zero sway within the galaxy anymore. No one was particularly noteworthy so I think its very much in the realm of possibility that many of those forces were well below even Raditz's level. We're not given exact levels or anything but it is at least established that the crew is a major shell of its former self.

    I'm not arguing the power scaling is great or anything. Its been flawed and it will probably remain flawed. But I do think Super found some grounds for at least semi-logical compromises to fit old faces back in without being wildly out of place.
    Last edited by Sacred Knight; 04-11-2020 at 02:17 PM.
    "They can be a great people Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you. My only son." - Jor-El

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