When Gohan was conceived Goku's power level was lower than a Saibaman

>When Gohan was conceived Goku's power level was lower than a Saibaman
>When Trunks was conceived Vegeta was close to being a Super Saiyan

How come Trunks has never had as much potential as Gohan?

>I don't have a fucking clue how genetics work

this is you

Why the fuck did Toriyama ever think the Saibaman powerlevel comparison was a good idea?
I mean Piccolo destroyed the moon shortly after Raditz shows up and likely wasn't stronger than him yet. So a Saibaman could destroy the moon?

They are tied, really. Both were central to the climactic victory of ONE arc each (Cell, Zamasu) but required a shitload of help to get anything done.

Gohan and Trunks are in the same boat as potential goes since the less saiyan blood you have the greater is your power ceiling(this was discredited by Dragon ball super already desu).

However, Gohan is kind of the chosen one.Only he could have pulled the Z-sword,not even SS Blue Goku could have pulled it

Trunks was trained by Gohan

Is Gohan the strongest character in the series?

Toriyama has always sucked ass at depicting a power scale. He just gave up at this point and wrote it based on whatever looks cool for the narrative.

Trunks literally did the same thing in his own timeline. He was literally seconds from releasing the old kai when babidi appeared.

He was in the Buu saga,6 months after and Goku goes autista and becomes SSgod

>Stopped the Androids
>Killed Cell
>Prevented Majin Buu from resurrecting
>Killed Zamasu

>Killed Cell after getting his father killed first and only because of an assist from Vegeta
>Too cocky and stupid to kill Majin Buu when he had the chance, resulting in Earth being destroyed

>Potential

Come on dude you know what he meant Gohan was the strongest character at the age of 11 he obviously has a lot of potential

Trunks exists to suffer

pretty much

Fucking what? Have you seen the shit Trunks pulled out of his ass in the Goku Black arc? He has just as much potential as Gohan since he's also a human/saiyan hybrid.

>Gohan was a freaking Super Saiyan 2 at like 13 years old!
>He manhandles Super Buu like it was nothing after getting his potential unlocked by Elder Kai

Gohan has always had the potential but he just squanders it most of the time.

honey.....

Power levels never made sense. Planet buster power levels are on the order of 1000. All of the important characters are now literally millions of times more powerful than that—how can the planet survive their missed attacks?

I think the first attack that was confirmed to be a planet buster was from Vegeta when he was at about 20k.

I'm waiting for the dub to come out so I've only seen a little bit of that arc.

Nice headcanon, where in any source ever has the Z-Sword thing you said ever been stated?

>Only he could have pulled the Z-sword,not even SS Blue Goku could have pulled it
Did you forget the part where base form Goku starts swinging the sword around like a madman? The thing was just incredibly heavy, there was nothing special about it.

He's confusing Gohan with King Arthur or something.

It's already been mentioned that Piccolo could destroy a moon at a much lower level than that. Vegeta was 18,000 when he landed on Earth; he effortlessly destroyed a planet before that. Maybe 10,000 is a better estimate, but the point still stands. What's one order of magnitude in the era of Super Saiyan Blue?

We don't know for sure who has more potential, they had different circumstances.

Gohan in the future wasn't nearly as strong as he could have been. the training they got really matters.

>I mean Piccolo destroyed the moon shortly after Raditz shows up
Fucking Roshi destroyed the moon in Dragon Ball. Power level around 200 maybe? A Saibamen is 6 times stronger than that.

How did the moon come back anyway?

>Gohan in the future wasn't nearly as strong as he could have been. the training they got really matters.

But Gohan got a massive power boost when Elder Kai unlocked his potential in the Buu saga. That wasn't training. That was pure potential unleashed.

Kami fixed it.

I'm pretty sure that it was supposed to be a very obvious hint to not take the power level thing seriously when vegeta crushed the scouter and everyone stopped paying much attention to them after.

the point of power levels was to have new enemies that captured the same level of shock and surprise when dealing with the heroes as the red ribbon army.

Radditz gets a battle power reading from goku and finds it ridiculously low. Then he takes off his weighted clothes, and his power goes up.

Wait, what?

What could it POSSIBLY be reading? Ki output wouldn't change, strength wouldn't change.

That's because battle power level was NEVER a measurement, it was a calculation. That's why they needed tech to do it. It was reading all sorts of things and calculating how much of a threat they'd be based on that.
Goku taking off his weights meant his body could relax. Then when he powered up for his attack, the power shot sky high. Saibaman level.

Saibamen have that battle power WITHOUT charging an attack.

Ginyu says later what we already knew, which is that MOST people don't know how to fluctuate their battle power (but he and frieza does)
Which means that Piccolo blasting the moon with a 1200 pl beam is wildly different than a Saibaman with a power level of 1200 even self destructing
Frieza and all his henchmen fought far below what their power level was, because that's how normal people work. Every punch you throw isn't the strongest punch you can throw.

This is also why Frieza was held off by so many inferior opponents. Krillin's power level is so far below frieza it might as well be zero. But in a pinch, he can shoot it high, and on top of that the kienzan takes an attack and condenses it so it's relative power level (plpi, if you will) is much higher

Frieza, on the other hand, may have been fighting him at about 1 million pl, but none of his attacks ever reached that mark.

We have just forgotten because ever since Goku arrived on namek, the only real fights included people who could vary their power levels, or didn't even have them (androids).

But Trunks was able to become a SS earlier than Gohan in the present and the future. Even future gohan said he was gonna catch him up in no time.

>What's one order of magnitude in the era of Super Saiyan Blue?
The fight between Goke Super Saiyan Red and Bills almost destroyed the entire universe

Pretty much just shows present trunks potential is insane

>How come Trunks has never had as much potential as Gohan?
super made it where he does
Trunks pretty much matched or surpassed Gohan in power.
The main reason Gohan had so much potential was because of his calm nature. It meant he bottled up his anger until it explodes.
Trunks, like his father, gets pissed all the fucking time

Well that's why Goku used the Instant Transmission Kamehameha, because if he shot it down it would've blown the planet to bits. I can't think of any other instance where that has come into play though.

I get that, and sometimes it works. But I think using total grunts who never deliver (killing Yamcha doesn't count), and telling you they are EACH as strong as the villain who required Goku to do a suicide run with Piccolo to defeat... well that does a lot more to deflate the seriousness of the previous scenario, not make the new grunts seem strong.
I can accept a central threat completely outclassing the previous one. Even when it's not THE main badguy of the arc. But Saibaman being as strong as Raditz EACH was the dumbest shit, and felt more invalidating to previous encounters than anything else.

Technically in the future, Gohan learned to go Super Saiyan well before Trunks did. He has every reason to be able to, all of his loved ones die horribly. Present Trunks has optimal living conditions, magic beans, gravity chambers, and Vegeta making him stronger.

Basically this

Unlike Jobhan, Gohan isn’t potential but actually does shit, also, in DBS he actually gets stronger

SSIkari Trunks > Unlocked Potential Jobhan

Even if that were true, doesn't take away the fact that Gohan said he was about to get as strong as him with little amount of time. Goten also was SS with little to no effort in the present. Saiyans born with no tails have the most potential

Future Gohan isn't as weak as we think he is, if you go by the manga
A) future Gohan lost his arm at some unspecified time before Trunks was 14 (this makes Gohan around 23 years old). Losing an arm definitely effects your power.
B) Gohan had been fighting the androids alone. Both of them. For years
C) Trunks' comment about the modern day androids being "stronger" might actually just mean the future androids had been playing with him the whole time, and thus were stronger.

When you consider that 17 had been using half his energy fighting Gohan until their last fight, and we know Gohan was strong enough that he thought he stood a chance against both, that would suggest he was likely stronger than Goku or Vegeta were when they first met the androids.
I think that puts him just under Kamicolo
That's pretty high when you consider THIS Gohan had 4 years less training than the SS Gohan we know, and had no one to teach him after the androids showed up.

Gohan was Cell tier in the Buu saga

Right, he wasn't weak, but he was nowhere near even Teen Gohan. The opportunity to train with Goku was important. It was a huge leap for Trunks to train with Vegeta, too- thought not as big, probably because Vegeta sucks at training people.

Radditz wasn't a threat because he was strong. He was a threat because he had a hostage
based on how strong Piccolo got in that year, if he was a regular type of villain, where they had even a week to prepare, goku or Piccolo would have been able to beat him on their own

Remember, Piccolo's beam WAS stronger than radditz from the get go. Radditz' speed was the problem.

Technically Trunks did go Ikari after training with Vegeta

why do people get autistic about it instead of just reading it as "this guy is the new strongest guy". Toriyama obviously wasn't doing the math.

Raditz was stronger than both of them combined. Piccolo's beam was only stronger with massive charge time.

Yeah he got strong enough. Part of the reason might be that he never got Guru unleashed.

Not just that, but training in the RoSaT itself was a huge help.
Gohan telling Trunks he would pass him soon enough demonstrates the key
super saiyans training super saiyans make the latter get stronger faster

SS Gokus power BARELY climbed in the 4 years after he became a super saiyan
It wasn't until Gohan became a SS that he could really start making advances
Similarly, the next 6 years in the afterlife he barely grew in power. Same issue.

Now that Goku and Vegeta train together, they keep breaking new ground.

well, they're more being trained by superiors, literally angels. A consistent theme is fighting against stronger people makes you stronger, if you have the room to grow (RIP humans and Piccolo)

reread my first post
Piccolo was stronger
Because that's how earthlings fight. They reserve their strength for big attacks, where Radditz puts it all out there constantly, meaning none of his attacks get THAT strong.
The fact that a headbutt from Gohan wrecked him pretty hard proves it.

If they had a little time to train, and Piccolo knowing how tough and fast Radditz is since he faced him briefly before, Piccolo would have trained his technique specifically to fire faster.

It was a new technique, he was getting ready to use it on Goku.

we have more or less strict powerlevel numbers telling us who's stronger, though.

Yes, Piccolo can output higher max power, but he's not "stronger".

>Yes, Piccolo can output higher max power, but he's not "stronger".
please read
specifically
>That's because battle power level was NEVER a measurement, it was a calculation. That's why they needed tech to do it. It was reading all sorts of things and calculating how much of a threat they'd be based on that.
Piccolo was stronger, but didn't have as great battle power because battle power is a calculation, not a measurement of strength.

If I can lift 200 lbs but suck at throwing a punch, I'm still stronger than someone who can only lift 100 lbs but can throw a good punch.

We should keep bumping this just to remind OP what a dumbass he is.

trunks has way more fucking potential than gohan, he fucking slashed an immortal god and reached a fucked up state between regular ssj and blue

Gohan is all hype and no delivery
Trunks is the one who actually gets shit done

>gets potential unlocked on Namek
>gets potential unlocked again by Old Hai
How much potential does he have Sup Forums?

Gohan wasn't as strong as he was during the fight with Cell, which probably puts him around Perfect Cell level considering he was equal with Dabura who was stated to be as strong as Cell. However, after gaining Ultimate he reached retarded levels of power above even Super Saiyan 3. I always thought Goku and Vegeta were retards for not simply having Gohan come to the Kai Planet and fuck Buu's ass.

>I always thought Goku and Vegeta were retards for not simply having Gohan come to the Kai Planet and fuck Buu's ass.
They didn't need him.

Gohan power up was insane. Think about it.

Around cell arc before training with his father in RoSaT, he was around Krillin tier. There are several tiers above it

>weakened SSJ Goku
>android 19/20
>SSJ Vegeta
>Android 18
>Android 17/Kamicolo
>First Form Cell after sucking a lot of human/Android 16
>Nigger Cell
>Super Vegeta/Trunks on Steroids
>Mastered SSJ
>Perfect Cell

After training for barely one year with Goku, he shoots up all the way up to Perfect Cell. Toriyama in the interview stated that even without going SSJ2, Gohan could actually defeats Cell.

Same thing happened in Buu arc. Not saying Trunks does not has the same potential, it just that Gohan just has more impressive feats relatively compared with Trunks 'SSJ Ikari form.

Having Gohan kill Buu would have been a hell of a lot less shaky than relying on the Spirit Bomb. If it hadn't been for their insane luck with Kid Buu spitting out Fat Buu, Mr. Satan being Mr. Satan, and the Namekian Balls having one final wish to give Goku enough power to push the Spirit Bomb into Buu, they'd have been fucked more thoroughly than an Amsterdam whore.

>Nigger Cell

Rather, Goku thought about that. Vegeta said something about earthlings need to have their share of contributions. In hindsight, if they actually brought Gohan and Gotenks, they would have pulverized Kid Buu in no time. Even if they somehow fucked up, that would have bought enough time for Genki Dama.

They still managed to defeat Buu without relying on someone incompetent, so he clearly wasn't needed.

t. Gohan-hating plebeian

If Gohan was competent, he would've defeated Buu when he had the chance but he just fucked everything up.

Sup Forums mod is a fucking dick that won't let us talk about super even though every other anime gets a thread, so let's make this the new general.

Was it really entirely Gohan's fault? I read the manga, Buu shows up, taunts Goten and Trunks, Gohan said no, Piccolo says nothing, they take the bait, fused and get absorbed. If anyone have been in Gohan's shoes, same things would happened.

He was beating Buu's ass and then Buu cheated.

Careful, they'll absolutely ban you for bitching about them.

He fucked around with Buu instead of killing him right away, which eventually led to Gotenks getting absorbed.

Everybody blame Gohan and Vegeta's fuck ups which lead to perfect cell and goku dying. But why did no one in universe blame Krillin?

He didn't fuck around in the mango.

He didn't fucked around though. He was prepared to kill Buu before Gotenks insisted of fighting.

Regardless of Krillin not shutting down 18, Cell wouldn't have become complete if Vegeta hadn't been a bumbling fucktwat.

Krillin was still at fault.

Yes, he was, but I think the blame for that entire situation would rest largely on Vegeta's short, arrogant shoulders. Krillin's heart was in the right place, Vegeta was literally just being a selfish shithead.

>Krillin's heart was in the right place

Not saying Vegeta did any better, but Krillin was going to put the entire earth in jeopardy just for some android prime pussy.

I would have done the same.

He did. He still wasted his time talking and being cocky around Buu.

That was before the fight even started.

There are more moments like that during the fight.

...

Gohan gets his abnormal powerlevel and rage boost from his mother.

Trunks got...cool hair and common sense from his mother.

So....that and Gohan is a litteral mutant.

Krillin was ruined for me after that, he was thinking with his dick the entire time.

Then he proceed to trash buu. I'm not saying Gohan didn't do any wrong, i think it's unfair to put it 100%. This situation is completely different during Cell in which Gohan fucked around. Here it's a combination of Gohan, Gotenks, Piccolo and Buu having absorption powers. Unlikr cell where it was stated that he would have to absord 17 and 18 to obtain perfection, here there are no indications that Buu could do the same. Shin could have told them, but didn't due to plot reasons.

>J

>amerifat

If he never met videl, had a male voice actor, and goku never trained him....he'd be more powerful then Jiren.

No, the editors wanted Goku and Vegeta to beat him. That's it.

You mean Toriyama.

>He fucked around
>instead of killing him right away
DBZ ina nutshell.

Yes.

No, the editors.

How is someone who is meant to be a scholar so stupid when it comes to fighting? He had to be babied his whole life and had to been giving a lecture on how much a retard he is for his fuck ups

>I intended to put Gohan into the leading role. It didn’t work out. I felt that compared to Goku, he was ultimately not suited for the part.
Definitely Toriyama.

>Krillin has an attack that can cut through anything
Powerlevels are immeasurable when it comes to attacks, I like to think it's more about durability.

The moon is just a big rock. The earth is molten.

Who the hell is Kami?

There is still epigenetics