Steel Manning Grade 3 Trunks = 10x Androids Saga SSJ Trunks

[Dagon]

The Legend of Manga says Grade 3 Trunks "acquired a force ten times greater" but doesn't specify what it's 10x greater than. This is an attempt to steel man the argument that it is 10x Androids Saga SSJ Trunks, comparing new and former highest forms' overall power.

A benefit to this theory is that it preserves SSJ3 as the strongest yellow SSJ form as it is described in guidebooks.

Iteration 1

Androids saga:

Piccolo: 72.5

Trunks:
~Base: 1.8
~SSJ: 90

Goku:
~Base: 1.9
~SSJ: 95

Vegeta:
~Base: 2
~SSJ: 100

Android 18: 130.5

Android 17/Kamiccolo: 145
~Light Grenade: 174

Imperfect Cell Post/Android 16: 200

Semi-Perfect Cell: 287.5
~Full Power(Imperfect Cell Post + Android 17): 345

Perfect Cell Saga:

Vegeta(post-RoSaT):
~Base: 6.667
~SSJ: 333.33
~SSJ Grade 2(1.5x SSJ): 500

Trunks(Post-RoSaT:
~Base: 6
~SSJ: 300
~SSJ Grade 2(1.5x SSJ): 450
~SSJ Grade 3(3x SSJ): 900

Perfect Cell:
~Initial(S-P Cell + A18): 475.5
~Warm-Up: 720
~Power-Weigthed(x3): 2,160

Goku:
~Base: 23.04
~50% SSJ: 576
~Expected 100% SSJ: 720
~100% SSJ: 1,152


Goku ends up a little over 12x stronger than his pre-RoSaT self by the Cell Games here.

One problem with this theory is that it kind of works against the base Saiyans > Piccolo theory because even with base Goku equal to pre-RoSaT Piccolo here, his SSJ would end up almost 6.3x stronger than this quite minimalist scaling.

You could simply scale World Torunament/Babidi Saga base Saiyans extraordinarily high to get around that though.

Another issue is that tank gaps and attack amps for the necessary story beats need to be less than 1.5x. For tanks this can work ok due to Movie 5 implications(where 5th Form Cooler can tank x20 Kamehameha but SSJ Goku can tank 5th form Cooler) but for attack amps it kind of forces the multiplication of certain attacks not to work off of full power but something else. For example if Light Grenade were equivalent to Raditz Saga Kamehameha for a >2x increase over Piccolo's full power then it would break the scaling of this theory by pushing Imperfect Cell and others last the 10x pre-RoSaT SSJ Trunks threshold. If however attacks scaled from something else like a "base" Piccolo then it might work.

Scaling forwards:

Cell Games:

Goku:
~Base: 23.04
~50% SSJ: 576
~Expected 100% SSJ: 720
~100% SSJ: 1,152

Perfect Cell:
~vs Goku: 1,200
~Full Power: 3,750
~Giant: 11,250

Gohan:
~SSJ: 1,500
~Initial SSJ2: 3,000
~SSJ2 Full power: 15,000

Gohan Calculated post-SSJ2 base: 150

Initial post-fusion Piccolo: 145

Assuming Gohan kept his rage boost this theory isn't super far from allowing base Saiyans > Piccolo in the Buu arc. It just cuts it really close. Boosting Gohan further would fix it.

Iteration 2:

Goku:
~Base: 28.8
~50% SSJ: 720
~Expected 100% SSJ: 900
~100% SSJ: 1,440

Perfect Cell:
~vs Goku: 1,500
~Full Power(x2): 3,000
~Giant(x3): 9,000

Gohan:
~SSJ: 1,875
~Initial SSJ2: 3,750
~SSJ2 Full power: 18,750

Gohan Calculated post-SSJ2 base: 187.5

Initial post-fusion Piccolo: 145

Little bit more room for Piccolo to grow.

Iteration 3:

Goku:
~Base: 36
~50% SSJ: 900
~Expected 100% SSJ: 1,125
~100% SSJ: 1,800

Perfect Cell:
~vs Goku: 1,875
~Full Power(x2): 3,750
~Giant(x3): 11,250

Gohan:
~SSJ: 2343.75
~Initial SSJ2: 4,687.5
~SSJ2 Full power: 23,437.5

Gohan Calculated post-SSJ2 base: 234.375

Initial post-fusion Piccolo: 145


Iteration 4:

Goku:
~Base: 45
~50% SSJ: 1,125
~Expected 100% SSJ: 1,406.25
~100% SSJ: 2,250

Perfect Cell:
~vs Goku: 2,343.75
~Full Power(x2): 4,687.5
~Giant(x3): 14,062.5

Gohan:
~SSJ: 2,929.6875
~Initial SSJ2: 5,859.375
~SSJ2 Full power(10x SSJ): 29,296.875

Gohan Calculated post-SSJ2 base: 292.96875

Initial post-fusion Piccolo: 145(a little less than half new base Gohan)


It seems at least technically possible to scale Grade 3 Trunks to be 10x Androids Saga SSJ Trunks in addition to putting World Tournament base Gohan > World Tournament Piccolo, but it doesn't leave a lot of room for Piccolo to grow from his training without cranking up Gohan's rage boost and/or 50% Cell Games Goku by a lot.

One issue is the Daizenshuu saying Gohan's power hasn't changed since he was a boy. Depends on if we should include his rage powers since that was when he was a boy as well, or if it should be for his initial Cell Games power.

It was a nice experiment but I think I'm inclined to have Grade 3 be 10x SSJ, unless this argument can be steel manned better.

 

[Hector]

If we go by the "second-base" theory, it might be 10x greater than base.

Trunks
-base: 1
-SSJ: 2.5
-ASSJ: 5
-USSJ: 10

 

[Dagon]

If we go by the "second-base" theory, it might be 10x greater than base.

Trunks
-base: 1
-SSJ: 2.5
-ASSJ: 5
-USSJ: 10

 

[Natasha Romanoff]

Most of the gaps on here makes quite a lot of sense and this completely defeats the purpose of having a bloated list that doesn't make sense. Some numbers are hard to adopt, though.

 

[Dagon]

Most of the gaps on here makes quite a lot of sense and this completely defeats the purpose of having a bloated list that doesn't make sense. Some numbers are hard to adopt, though.

Such as?

 

[Natasha Romanoff]

Such as?

In my opinion:
18 should be closer to 17
Trunks should be closer to Vegeta 1st Rosat
Semi Cell gap over 16 should be greater than Perfect Cell over Super Vegeta
The Power Weighted forms in Cell shouldn't increase the same as from saiyans
50% Goku placement is weird (I can agree that there's no definitive evidence for him being stronger than G3 Trunks, but we are only told that he is a little bit weaker than Cell)

 

[Dagon]

In my opinion:
18 should be closer to 17
Trunks should be closer to Vegeta 1st Rosat
Semi Cell gap over 16 should be greater than Perfect Cell over Super Vegeta
The Power Weighted forms in Cell shouldn't increase the same as from saiyans
50% Goku placement is weird (I can agree that there's no definitive evidence for him being stronger than G3 Trunks, but we are only told that he is a little bit weaker than Cell)

Why for each of those points?

I did make multiple iterations to boost 50% Goku to account for different points of view.

 

[Natasha Romanoff]

@Dagon

Both androids are grouped together by 16 and Cell when it comes to say that Piccolo rivals/is able to fight the two of them and the only reason that establishes that 17 > 18 is that manga page in which is said that 18's power was suppressed in relation to 17. Other than that the story seems to treat them as equals.

Spoiler

Vegeta said by himself that Trunks is pretty close to him/almost as strong:

Spoiler

Chapter: 379 (DBZ 185), P11.4
Context: Vegeta talks to second form Cell
Vegeta: “Heh. I’ll tell you something that will really shock you! There’s a guy named Trunks over there. He’s not as powerful as me, but we’re pretty close…!”

In relation to that, Cell vs Goku is said to be close to an exent.

Chapter: 398 (DBZ 204), P14.4-5
Context: after Goku fights Cell at full power for a bit
Cell: “Excellent, Son Goku! This is it! Battles aren’t interesting unless [the fighters’] true power is close to a certain extent like this.”
Goku: “Yeah…I think so too.”

Vegeta/Trunks gap should be a 95 or 96 vs 100, same goes for 17/18.

Semi Cell is shown to be able to receive a punch from 16 without flinching while Super Vegeta made Cell's neck to move slightly. Also, the fact that Cell is able to send flying in one blast to 16 implies a massive gap. Vegeta wasn't defeated the way 16 was against Semi Cell.

Spoiler

Cell seems to treat his weighted forms in a different way than saiyans. He said that such a transformation is nothing, as if it were two concepts appart.

Spoiler

Well, 50% Goku doesn't have an exact placement for him. Only thing we know is him being ahead of Super Vegeta and maybe his Final Flash, but he requires to be at least many steps ahead of Super Vegeta for him to be greater than G3 Trunks is 100% and his 50% being just twice less powerful.

 

[Dagon]

@Dagon

Both androids are grouped together by 16 and Cell when it comes to say that Piccolo rivals/is able to fight the two of them and the only reason that establishes that 17 > 18 is that manga page in which is said that 18's power was suppressed in relation to 17. Other than that the story seems to treat them as equals.

Spoiler

View attachment 3068View attachment 3069

Vegeta said by himself that Trunks is pretty close to him/almost as strong:

Spoiler

View attachment 3070

Chapter: 379 (DBZ 185), P11.4
Context: Vegeta talks to second form Cell
Vegeta: “Heh. I’ll tell you something that will really shock you! There’s a guy named Trunks over there. He’s not as powerful as me, but we’re pretty close…!”

In relation to that, Cell vs Goku is said to be close to an exent.

Chapter: 398 (DBZ 204), P14.4-5
Context: after Goku fights Cell at full power for a bit
Cell: “Excellent, Son Goku! This is it! Battles aren’t interesting unless [the fighters’] true power is close to a certain extent like this.”
Goku: “Yeah…I think so too.”

Vegeta/Trunks gap should be a 95 or 96 vs 100, same goes for 17/18.

You don't have to consider my numbers exact, they are more of approximations.

I standardized "almost as strong" to mean 90/100 gap. You could just narrow that for personal taste.

For Androids saga Super Saiyans, the commonly accepted scaling from weakest to strongest is Trunks < Goku < Vegeta. There's not much to go on for exact figures so I just had to pick something.

For 17 and 18, Dr. Gero was scared of losing control after making 17 so he reduced 18's power. I'm including guide statements in this assessment which further reiterates that point. They should still be "rivals" or "comparable" to each other so I thought 90/100 would suffice. If Gero was truly scared of 17 then reducing 18's power by only 4-5% is a little odd to me.

For post-RoSaT Vegeta and Trunks you could again just shrink the gap.

Semi Cell is shown to be able to receive a punch from 16 without flinching while Super Vegeta made Cell's neck to move slightly. Also, the fact that Cell is able to send flying in one blast to 16 implies a massive gap. Vegeta wasn't defeated the way 16 was against Semi Cell.

Spoiler

View attachment 3066View attachment 3067

Cell seems to treat his weighted forms in a different way than saiyans. He said that such a transformation is nothing, as if it were two concepts appart.

Spoiler

View attachment 3071

Well, 50% Goku doesn't have an exact placement for him. Only thing we know is him being ahead of Super Vegeta and maybe his Final Flash, but he requires to be at least many steps ahead of Super Vegeta for him to be greater than G3 Trunks is 100% and his 50% being just twice less powerful.

The Perfect Cell saga had challenges for this steel man argument as it was tricky to find suitable gaps that would accommodate Grade 3 Trunks being 10x Androids Saga SSJ Trunks.

For Semi-Perfect Cell I tried making his initial power be Imperfect Cell Post humans + Android 17 and then his full power somewhat higher than that, but it brought him too close to Grade 2 Vegeta.

Semi-Perfect Cell has wobble lines drawn around him and the vibration is easier to perceive in the anime. In the anime, damaged 16 is able to subtly shake Semi-Perfect Cell later on when Cell comes for 18. I like to consider this as Cell being nearly able to nullify all of 16's force. In my scaling initial Semi-Perfect Cell is 1.438x stronger than 16 and warm-up Perfect Cell is 1.44x Grade 2 Vegeta. I can see your point about Perfect Cell moving more than 2nd form Cell did against 16, and you could reasonably swap the gaps. However, warm-up Perfect Cell was completely casual while 2nd form Cell appeared perturbed. In addition to the neck being a weak point, that's why I have Perfect Cell a slightly bigger gap over Vegeta than 2nd form Cell over 16. Cell's head moving more against Vegeta could be from it being harder to hold your head still from force applied to the side. I think Cell's complete lack of discomfort from Vegeta's kick indicates more about the power gap than the movement itself.

I tried making Grade 3 be 2.5x SSJ but then that made a small gap to fit warm-up Perfect Cell between Grade 2 Vegeta and Grade 3 Trunks, which makes Cell's tank of Vegeta's kick the outlier in the scaling.

Perfect Cell said Grade 3 Trunks surpassed his power by a wide margin. At first I tried a 75/100 gap but they gave the same problem as Grade 3 at 2.5x SSJ. I settled on 80/100 because gaps smaller than that tend to have fighters perform more and more evenly so I figured it would suffice for being a "wide margin."

The way I view Grades 2 and 3 are not exactly as Saiyan-exclusive things but as combining two concepts, Super Saiyan and "power-weighting" or the bulked up forms we see from Roshi, Freeza, and Bojack. It would effectively be "power-weighted Super Saiyan." Therefore Cell is not strictly using a Saiyan transformation by using the grade 3-like state because Grade 3 isn't exclusively a Saiyan concept as Grades 2 & 3 are combining a Saiyan ability with a common power-up method. That in addition to Cell having Saiyan traits I think the same multiplier is just fine to use.

For tank gaps in general I try to come up with a universal system that can apply for canon and non-canon. Cooler's Revenge offers a way to interpret tank gaps by showing Form 5 Cooler unaffected by a Kaio-Ken(probably x20) Kamehameha and then Super Saiyan Goku can tank a punch from form 5 Cooler. So Form 5 Cooler should be somewhere in the range of 1.4-1.5x x20 KHH and the same for Super Saiyan Goku over Form 5 Cooler. Applying this to the Androids and Cell sagas appears to turn out fairly well.

 

[Natasha Romanoff]

@Dagon

Well you have brought fair points as far as I'm concerned. Nail could also move Freeza's neck despite of being abysmally weaker than what Vegeta was to Cell. It would also explain some non canon stuff such as Goku or Vegeta being able to move Broly's neck with knees and punches, even though, he can completely tank their blasts.

Only thing I want to clarify is that I wasn't refering to Android Saga SSJs, I can see your point, regardless, Vegeta and Trunks have the same gap both before Rosat and Post Rosat. You have make me change my mind in some things and reflect about others.

 

[GreatSaiyaman123]

Piccolo: 75
SSJ Trunks: 90
SSJ Goku: 96
SSJ Goku: 100

Android 18: 140
Android 17/Kamiccolo: 150

Cell: 250
~ 2nd form: 400

Super Vegeta: 600

Perfect Cell: 900
SSJ Trunks: 1,200

Almost there. I wouldn't mind going a bit over 10x though. Like why can't we take the guidebook numbers as being approximations? Who would ever say "Trunks obtained power 13.3333...x higher"?

Anyway, I agree just taking it as the form being a 10x multiplier makes more sense. Just wanted to give this one a try.

 

[Dagon]

@Kenshi what do you think of this?

Androids saga:

Piccolo: 72.5

Trunks:
~Base: 1.8
~SSJ: 90

Goku:
~Base: 1.92
~SSJ: 96

Vegeta:
~Base: 2
~SSJ: 100

Android 18: 130.5

Android 17/Kamiccolo: 145
~Light Grenade: 174

Imperfect Cell Post/Android 16: 200

Semi-Perfect Cell: 287.5
~Full Power(Imperfect Cell Post + Android 17): 345

Perfect Cell Saga:

Vegeta(post-RoSaT):
~Base: 6.25
~SSJ: 312.5
~SSJ Grade 2(1.5x SSJ): 468.75

Trunks(Post-RoSaT:
~Base: 6
~SSJ: 300
~SSJ Grade 2(1.5x SSJ): 450
~SSJ Grade 3(3x SSJ): 900

Perfect Cell:
~Initial: 450
~Warm-Up: 675
~Power-Weigthed(x3): 2,025

I lowered the gap between post-RoSaT Trunks and Vegeta by lowering Vegeta. The gap between Grade 2 Vegeta and Semi-Perfect Cell is now less than what I'd like because I'd want enough overhead that Vegeta can tank Galick Gun for anime scaling.

Making Androids Saga Trunks 92% of Androids Saga Vegeta seems to help:

New iteration, Trunks goes from 92% of Vegeta to 96%:

Androids-Imperfect Cell sagas:

Piccolo: 72.5

Trunks:
~Base: 1.84
~SSJ: 92

Goku:
~Base: 1.92
~SSJ: 96

Vegeta:
~Base: 2
~SSJ: 100

Android 18: 130.5

Android 17/Kamiccolo: 145
~Light Grenade: 174

Imperfect Cell Post/Android 16: 200

Perfect Cell Saga:

Semi-Perfect Cell: 287.5
~Full Power(Imperfect Cell Post + Android 17): 345

Vegeta(post-RoSaT):
~Base: 6.3888
~SSJ: 319.444
~SSJ Grade 2(1.5x SSJ): 479.166667
~SSJ Grade 3(for reference): 958.333

Trunks(Post-RoSaT:
~Base: 6.1333
~SSJ: 306.6667
~SSJ Grade 2(1.5x SSJ): 460
~SSJ Grade 3(3x SSJ): 920

Perfect Cell:
~Initial: 480
~Warm-Up(No Aura, Manga/vs Vegeta): 690
~Warm-Up(Aura, Anime/vs Trunks): 736
~Power-Weigthed(x3): 2,208

This is definitely a lot easier with Grade 3 = 10x SSJ.

Almost there. I wouldn't mind going a bit over 10x though. Like why can't we take the guidebook numbers as being approximations? Who would ever say "Trunks obtained power 13.3333...x higher"?

1/3 overhead is considered a big deal in-universe, so making power statements variable by a 1/3 degree is a huge amount for interpretive leeway that when applied universally would make any power scaling deductive process a crapshoot. I wouldn't go that far.

 

[SIAD]

@MikaelHarding

 

[MikaelHarding]

@MikaelHarding

Maybe