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Who is the man??
This poll is closed.
Goku 202 7.09%
Vegeta 279 9.79%
Krillin 208 7.30%
Piccolo or his nameks 212 7.44%
Gohan or Cool Gohan 135 4.74%
Yamcha 90 3.16%
Tien 120 4.21%
Muten Roshi 89 3.12%
Tao Pai Pai 71 2.49%
Frieza 69 2.42%
Cell or an android 86 3.02%
Buu 62 2.18%
Hercule "Mark" Satan 327 11.48%
Videl 90 3.16%
Bulma 104 3.65%
Yajirobe 99 3.47%
Ginyu or other Frieza squad guy 68 2.39%
King kai or another kai 53 1.86%
Chi-Chi 83 2.91%
Goten 43 1.51%
Trunks or Cool Trunks 112 3.93%
Bardock 48 1.68%
Other villain of DB,Z, or GT(please post about it!) 41 1.44%
Uub 42 1.47%
Oolong 90 3.16%
Zamasu 26 0.91%
Total: 1326 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
  • Locked thread
Andrast
Apr 21, 2010


Burkion posted:

He didn't just push him into a hole.

People love to downplay Tien because I'm not entirely sure why, but what Tien did was completely over power Cell in his Semi Perfect form.

Yeah he did it with a super dangerous technique that wrecked his poo poo, but that's like saying that Goku using the Kaio Ken means that he's not strong.

He did it with his own power, when Semi Perfect Cell was so far beyond Freeza at that point to be ridiculous.

Could he BEAT Freeza in a fight? Who knows, likely not, Freeza is really hard to kill.

But he was definitely in that weight class by that point. 18 could do dick all to Semi Perfect Cell, nor could 16, who were both stronger than SSJ Goku. 16 was little more than fodder against him. Tien actively kept Cell down and kept forcing him back down, even when Cell was struggling with all his power.

It's a good feat.

He just pushed him into a hole.

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Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



cell was completely unharmed by tien shooting his life at him. it just pushed him into a hole. it was a very deep hole, granted, but that's all that happened

Aurora posted:

I'm pretty sure they were leaving the humans out of it

the first post about it specified tien was def stronger and only yamcha might not have been

khwarezm
Oct 26, 2010

Deal with it.

Manatee Cannon posted:

what power levels do is break scouters and make freeza's henchmen look like idiots

How many times have scouters broke trying to read power levels anyway? I remember Frieza's overloaded and blew up while grappling with Vegeta and then all of the henchmen on Sorbet's ship probably got really nasty shards of glass stuck in their eyes when Frieza was Resurrected.

deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off

Manatee Cannon posted:

cell was completely unharmed by tien shooting his life at him. it just pushed him into a hole. it was a very deep hole, granted, but that's all that happened


the first post about it specified tien was def stronger and only yamcha might not have been

I'm basing this on how easily Trunks killed Frieza and King Cold, before proceeding to be clowned on by Androids/Cell, compared to how everybody else also got clowned on by the same people.

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



I mean, they easily beat trunks but 18 took some time to fight vegeta and I really doubt vegeta was massively stronger than trunks at any point. they all got equally clowned on because the androids were just that much stronger

it's like when freeza trashed vegeta. it's not like it would have taken him less time to do the same to krillin or w/e

Funky Valentine
Feb 26, 2014

Dojyaa~an

Burkion posted:

He didn't just push him into a hole.

People love to downplay Tien because I'm not entirely sure why, but what Tien did was completely over power Cell in his Semi Perfect form.
Because "Tien overpowering Semi Perfect Cell" only actually amounted to pushing Cell into a hole. Cell wasn't even hurt by it, just annoyed. Then Tien passed out, Cell got out of the hole, and would've iced Triclops if Goku didn't go in for the save.

Tien does not have any real accomplishments after Dragon Ball.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Funky Valentine posted:

Because "Tien overpowering Semi Perfect Cell" only actually amounted to pushing Cell into a hole. Cell wasn't even hurt by it, just annoyed. Then Tien passed out, Cell got out of the hole, and would've iced Triclops if Goku didn't go in for the save.

Tien does not have any real accomplishments after Dragon Ball.

He outlasted Krillin in the Tournament of Power.

Carlosologist
Oct 13, 2013

Revelry in the Dark

Tien opened a dojo, i think that's a pretty reasonable accomplishment

MagusDraco
Nov 11, 2011

even speedwagon was trolled

Carlosologist posted:

Tien opened a dojo, i think that's a pretty reasonable accomplishment


ImpAtom posted:

He outlasted Krillin in the Tournament of Power.

Both of these are true. He also was the only human to dodge Super Buu's Humanity Extinction Attack or whatever that thing was called. Mr. Satan wasn't being aimed at.

Namnesor
Jun 29, 2005

Dante's allowance - $100
Tien recovered from Shoulder Cap Engorgement Disease, a previously thought-to-be terminal condition.

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

ImpAtom posted:

He outlasted Krillin in the Tournament of Power.

Mostly because the tournament seems to have forgotten that he's there.

deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off
Anyway,

So, here's what makes me think the Tournament of Power is about to go sideways:
They already did the setup for Goten, Trunks, and Marron vs. the poachers. Think about it- there's no way that can get resolved in like the 5 minutes or less that each episode of the tournament seems to be taking.

edit: Or probably even 48 minutes, since they promised not to make a mess of the place.

IWW Online Branch
Apr 20, 2016

by Nyc_Tattoo
What do power levels even measure? How much you can lift? How fast you are? And what about skill? Can a more experienced fighter have a higher PL than a less experienced one, even if they're not as physically strong? I mean Freeza wasn't as skilled as Goku, but his PL was way higher. So is it just how much ki you can produce?

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



remember how piccolo's power level went up as he charged his special beam cannon against radditz? it's probably just ki

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

Covok posted:

I mean a lot of people don't know anything about the series besides people scream and lasers are shot.
Reminds of this podcast I listened to once where one of the hosts clearly didn't know much about Dragon Ball Z but tried to compare it to Resident Evil 4 of all things.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Spiritus Nox posted:

Mostly because the tournament seems to have forgotten that he's there.

Are you insulting the Nether Gundam tactic?

Caros
May 14, 2008

TrilliontonNixon posted:

What do power levels even measure? How much you can lift? How fast you are? And what about skill? Can a more experienced fighter have a higher PL than a less experienced one, even if they're not as physically strong? I mean Freeza wasn't as skilled as Goku, but his PL was way higher. So is it just how much ki you can produce?

Ki. It goes up and down as fighters raise and lower their Ki. A fighter with a higher Ki will have stronger attacks, move faster and so on and so forth, even if there are variances between different people (Burter being the fastest man in the universe, for example). Skill doesn't seem to play any role in it, though to be honest overall skill at fighting was a very tenuous concept at best in early dragonball, and a totally ignored one in Z.

IWW Online Branch
Apr 20, 2016

by Nyc_Tattoo

Manatee Cannon posted:

remember how piccolo's power level went up as he charged his special beam cannon against radditz? it's probably just ki

Caros posted:

Ki. It goes up and down as fighters raise and lower their Ki. A fighter with a higher Ki will have stronger attacks, move faster and so on and so forth, even if there are variances between different people (Burter being the fastest man in the universe, for example). Skill doesn't seem to play any role in it, though to be honest overall skill at fighting was a very tenuous concept at best in early dragonball, and a totally ignored one in Z.


Isn't ki just life force? Seems pretty weird to be able to measure something like that. "Your soul has 9001 strength points."

Caros
May 14, 2008

TrilliontonNixon posted:

Isn't ki just life force? Seems pretty weird to be able to measure something like that. "Your soul has 9001 strength points."

It is clearly more than just life force though. You can compress it into an energy beam that can vaporize mountains. Seems like that is the sort of thing that you could probably measure.

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

TrilliontonNixon posted:

Isn't ki just life force? Seems pretty weird to be able to measure something like that. "Your soul has 9001 strength points."

People have been doing rough measures of how powerful someone is by sensing ki as far back as Dragon Ball.

Like even without hard power levels you always have Krillin or whoever chiming in about 'holy poo poo, that ki signature is bigger than Goku as a Super Saiyan!!!'

Also Ki lets you fly and shoot lasers so its clearly not just life force.

BizarroAzrael
Apr 6, 2006

"That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."

Manatee Cannon posted:

cell was completely unharmed by tien shooting his life at him. it just pushed him into a hole. it was a very deep hole, granted, but that's all that happened


Don't forget, it also left Cell severely nettled.

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

Cell came back from blowing himself up into a tiny chunk, so if anything Tien did as good a job at killing Cell as Cell did.

Ekusukariba
Oct 11, 2012

Funky Valentine posted:

Because "Tien overpowering Semi Perfect Cell" only actually amounted to pushing Cell into a hole. Cell wasn't even hurt by it, just annoyed. Then Tien passed out, Cell got out of the hole, and would've iced Triclops if Goku didn't go in for the save.

Tien does not have any real accomplishments after Dragon Ball.

He killed one Saibamen in DBZ, I think its his only real victory IIRC

The Ninth Layer
Jun 20, 2007

deadly_pudding posted:

:chloe:

They inform the fights up through Frieza. You could argue that they still matter a bit in Cell, except that at that point the power creep is so insane that you're getting into "everybody here is stronger than Goku was when he turned SSJ on Namek, even Tenshinhan, with the possible exception of Yamcha".

They go out the window completely the second 4 year-old Goten and Trunks turn Super Saiyan with minimal effort, even though The Serpent, Toriyama muddies the waters again during the tournament when Babidi's goons are measuring peoples' auras with that meter.

The Cell Saga is literally Power Levels The Saga to a greater degree than anything else in the series besides the Freeza fight. The whole saga is the Saiyans and Piccolo and Cell trying to boost themselves into more and more powerful states so that they can compete.

Even the Buu saga is all about power levels right up until Goku's spirit bomb.

Power levels as expressed by numbers stops being a factor yes but power levels as an underlying plot mechanic is present all the way through Z.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Raxivace posted:

Reminds of this podcast I listened to once where one of the hosts clearly didn't know much about Dragon Ball Z but tried to compare it to Resident Evil 4 of all things.

If you don't mind, do you remember how he was trying to compare those two franchise? Like, that's like saying "Star Wars is exactly like Beybale" to me. In the sense that it's an utter nonsense sentiment to have.

deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off
The main thing with power levels (the numeric ones) that made them interesting as a narrative mechanic for a little while, is that it's strongly implied that being able to conceal, raise, or otherwise manipulate your overall amount of Ki is relatively rare in the galaxy. Like, Ki is basically psychic force generated from your rock-hard muscles and YELLING, so for most life forms that can shoot energy blasts and fly, it's just the direct result of their superior physique. It's Namekians and humans (who arguably may have learned it from Kami) who can generate additional force from that through mental discipline and mysticism, and later some Saiyans learn that, too.

So, the Power Level as a "thing" in the world is interesting for a little while because none of these super-powered monsters out in space can figure out what the deal is with these loving earthlings (and nameks). Once Vegeta figures out the one weird trick, though, it stops mattering, and it only becomes kind of fun for nerds to note that Vegeta was impressed by "Over 9000" like several weeks ago, and Frieza is like over a million.

But yeah, I agree that "power level" as a nebulous concept remains important in a lot of cases, but the power creep is super real. We poo poo on Tien a lot, but it's still worth noting that Cell has stood perfectly still through attacks that should, by all rights, be way deadlier than a Kikoho.

Manatee Cannon
Aug 26, 2010



tien put all his skill points into knockback

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

ImpAtom posted:

Are you insulting the Nether Gundam tactic?

Hells yeah I am. No guts no glory. :colbert:

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

Covok posted:

If you don't mind, do you remember how he was trying to compare those two franchise? Like, that's like saying "Star Wars is exactly like Beybale" to me. In the sense that it's an utter nonsense sentiment to have.
I'd have to go back and double check to be sure, but it was something about RE4's second half being more "anime" than the first half, and then Dragon Ball Z being used as the point of comparison because of how people in RE4 stare at each other or something during conversations or something.

It was otherwise a good podcast (It was the Watch Out For Fireballs episode on RE4 btw) but that comparison stood out as strange to me.

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Raxivace posted:

I'd have to go back and double check to be sure, but it was something about RE4's second half being more "anime" than the first half, and then Dragon Ball Z being used as the point of comparison because of how people in RE4 stare at each other or something during conversations or something.

It was otherwise a good podcast (It was the Watch Out For Fireballs episode on RE4 btw) but that comparison stood out as strange to me.

That makes so little sense. Even more so when you consider that "staring at each other to build tension" is a dramatic technique popularized in Asian media by the world respected film director, Akira Kurosawa.

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

A large part of power levels mattering is also because of antagonists becoming increasingly resilient more than anything. Freeza's deal initially was just being leagues ahead in terms of power but he shrugged off being cut in half like it's no thing. Then we got androids who never tire so you either win in the first thirty seconds or lose a war of attrition, Cell who can survive as long as a speck of him is left and Buu being able to shrug off anything short of complete and total annihilation. Zamasu arguably is taking this to its logical conclusion of just being so impervious to anything that just getting even huger power levels isn't going to change things so all that's left in is bringing a baby to toss him out instead.

Obviously power levels are a thing, but they're not the most important thing so long as your opponents can shrug off the planet exploding. Hell if we know what Hit's power level is but there's a case to be made it's lower than Vegeta Blue's but since Vegeta is just a normal flesh-and-blood person Hit can just punch him in the heart until he drops, while that woudn't work as well on, say, Buu.

It also kinda goes the other way with opponents like Botamo and Magetta who have the resilience of DBZ villains but not the fire power, so they wouldn't be universe-ending threats but could beat Vegeta anyway.

What I'm saying is the invincible Bota Magetta will win this tournament and save the day.

deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off

a cartoon duck posted:

What I'm saying is the invincible Bota Magetta will win this tournament and save the day.

:yeah:
Invincible Bota Magetta is the new ultimate Dragonball Power Couple.

Raxivace
Sep 9, 2014

An old hero will rise again to defeat Bota Magetta.

Raxivace fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Jul 20, 2017

Caros
May 14, 2008

a cartoon duck posted:

A large part of power levels mattering is also because of antagonists becoming increasingly resilient more than anything. Freeza's deal initially was just being leagues ahead in terms of power but he shrugged off being cut in half like it's no thing. Then we got androids who never tire so you either win in the first thirty seconds or lose a war of attrition, Cell who can survive as long as a speck of him is left and Buu being able to shrug off anything short of complete and total annihilation. Zamasu arguably is taking this to its logical conclusion of just being so impervious to anything that just getting even huger power levels isn't going to change things so all that's left in is bringing a baby to toss him out instead.

Obviously power levels are a thing, but they're not the most important thing so long as your opponents can shrug off the planet exploding. Hell if we know what Hit's power level is but there's a case to be made it's lower than Vegeta Blue's but since Vegeta is just a normal flesh-and-blood person Hit can just punch him in the heart until he drops, while that woudn't work as well on, say, Buu.

It also kinda goes the other way with opponents like Botamo and Magetta who have the resilience of DBZ villains but not the fire power, so they wouldn't be universe-ending threats but could beat Vegeta anyway.

What I'm saying is the invincible Bota Magetta will win this tournament and save the day.

I really hope the end result of that fight is Vegeta pantomiming insults at Magetta.

RBX
Jan 2, 2011

New thread

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3827518

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

a cartoon duck posted:

A large part of power levels mattering is also because of antagonists becoming increasingly resilient more than anything. Freeza's deal initially was just being leagues ahead in terms of power but he shrugged off being cut in half like it's no thing. Then we got androids who never tire so you either win in the first thirty seconds or lose a war of attrition, Cell who can survive as long as a speck of him is left and Buu being able to shrug off anything short of complete and total annihilation. Zamasu arguably is taking this to its logical conclusion of just being so impervious to anything that just getting even huger power levels isn't going to change things so all that's left in is bringing a baby to toss him out instead.

Obviously power levels are a thing, but they're not the most important thing so long as your opponents can shrug off the planet exploding. Hell if we know what Hit's power level is but there's a case to be made it's lower than Vegeta Blue's but since Vegeta is just a normal flesh-and-blood person Hit can just punch him in the heart until he drops, while that woudn't work as well on, say, Buu.

It also kinda goes the other way with opponents like Botamo and Magetta who have the resilience of DBZ villains but not the fire power, so they wouldn't be universe-ending threats but could beat Vegeta anyway.

What I'm saying is the invincible Bota Magetta will win this tournament and save the day.

Sheer resilience being the key to everything is also the reason why all the assholes were so desperate to wish for immorality. Even someone as arrogant as Namek saga Vegeta knows that he's a total wiener compared to Freeza, but if he's immortal he can literally just outlast Freeza and eventually win. Freeza wanted immortality in part to shield himself from the potentiality of the super saiyan prophecy, because while he's like 99% sure that no stupid monkey will ever beat him, there's no harm in hedging your bets.

lezard_valeth
Mar 14, 2016
Power levels were the lazy way to write fights back in the 90s.

"Oh no, Goku's power level is 1000 and Frieza's completely trashing him with his 50000 power level!

...

Oh! Goku's power level is now 50050! The battle is decided!"

Like seriously just check the official list. Whenever a good guy is getting curbstomped, it's due to a huge gap in said power levels, but when suddenly the hero power ups and starts delivering said rear end beating, the power level difference is less of 5%

CharlestheHammer
Jun 26, 2011

YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!
Power levels aren't a thing of the 90s. They are a shonen standard the will stay with the genre until death

Mordaedil
Oct 25, 2007

Oh wow, cool. Good job.
So?
Grimey Drawer
That were defined in the 80's by shows like this one.

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deadly_pudding
May 13, 2009

who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off

CharlestheHammer posted:

Power levels aren't a thing of the 90s. They are a shonen standard the will stay with the genre until death

They are, but I think it's been a while since we had such granular numbers for it outside of actual RPGs :v:. Usually it's like ranks or classes, nowadays.

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