Bringer of Death

Bringer of Death Special: Power Levels from Frieza to Cell

As promised, this special bonus chapter provides an exhaustive and detailed list-complete with explanations-for all canon power levels from Frieza's first form up to the beginning of the Cell Games.

What's the difference? 

What makes our model better or more useful than other systems or lists? It's simple: limits. Most power level systems, whether they use addition or multiplication, simply guess at a difference based on the margin of victory in each battle. There's a problem with that...there's often no way of knowing whether the winner of a given fight is 50% stronger or 100% stronger of 10x stronger. Once a warrior surpasses his opponent by a certain margin, it's usually impossible to tell how far above that margin he is. 

Our model is better because it provides both upper and lower limits for each form, whether it's base, SSj, ASSj, USSj, or FPSSj. Those limits define a set range for determining each power level. Because of this, a lot of the guesswork is eliminated. Numbers don't get randomly inflated; they maintain a lot more comparative value. That's the biggest difference...without comparative value, a "power level list" is nothing but a big meaningless ranking with arbitrary numbers attached.

Estimating differences within certain limits 

We are often asked about the minimum power level advantage necessary to completely overwhelm an opponent (assuming things like tactical skill and technique are equal). The answer is...10%. In canon, Namek-saga Vegeta had an average 10% advantage over base Zarbon, Dodoria, and Cui, and he defeated them all easily, so that's what we use. 

10% doesn't seem like much of an advantage at all! But we can make sense of it. We know senses and reaction time correlate to power level. So: if your opponent is 10% faster and your reaction time is 10% slower, then your opponent has a 21% net advantage. He'll be able to hit you 21% faster than you can react. Plus, your defense is 10% lower and his attacks are 10% harder, meaning each blow will be 21% more damaging. In the end, he'll be able to do damage to you 46% faster than if your power levels were equal. You, on the other hand, will be able to do damage 46% slower than him. The difference between your rates-of-damage will be almost 100%...definitely cause for concern. 

If that's too math-intensive, here's the sanitized version. Because power level determines offense and defense, the attack advantage is amplified when someone stronger attacks someone weaker. Because power level determines speed and reflexes, the frequency of blows is amplified when someone faster attacks someone slower. And because this imbalance goes both ways, the fighter with the lower power level will have more of a disadvantage in both speed and force. Even if one person has a very slight advantage in power, they'll be able to deal a lot more damage in a lot less time. 

Incidentally, this overall relationship can also be used to estimate how many warriors at a given power level it will take to overwhelm and wear down a single more powerful opponent (for example, Goku and Vegeta fighting King Cold). Just sum the rate-of-damage and see which side comes out on top. Of course, if the single opponent is much stronger than any of the warriors, then he can simply speedblitz and incapacitate them each individually before they have a chance to react. That's why team battles against overwhelmingly powerful enemies are rarely successful unless there is a way to do a beam struggle where raw power levels stack. 

In conclusion: if the power level difference between two fighters is less than 10%, the battle will come down to technique, skill, and stamina, with the advantage going to the stronger fighter. If it is 10-20%, the weaker fighter will put up a fight, but will inevitably lose unless there is some dramatic tactical advantage like instant transmission or regeneration. If it is substantially greater than 20%, the stronger fighter will absolutely curbstomp even against multiple opponents. The one exception is a combined beam struggle, where power levels can simply stack.