Revising Dragon Ball Flight Speed (Dragon Ball + DBZ + DBS Manga)

[Qawsedf234]

Piccolo did not talked about that at all. He didn't said anything like "I can only use my power in short bursts". What he actually said is: "In battle we can amplify our energy in one tremendous blast".

Key word there amplify. They're not releasing hidden energy reserves, they're increasing what they do have to far greater levels.

 

[CloverDragon03]

Goku flying to escape Frieza's Death Saucer helps a lot with this argument I think

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

Well, a friend of mine sent me some examples of flight speed being above attack speed in... very continuous bursts

Goku vs Freeza

Goku vs Cell

Goku vs Piccolo

These scans seem pretty straightforward in proving Flight speed is comparable to combat/attack speed

 

[Gilad_Hyperstar]

Key word there amplify. They're not releasing hidden energy reserves, they're increasing what they do have to far greater levels.

Not really, He suppressed his ki before, meaning he didn't used much power before, and when Piccolo powered up, his power got amplified compared to before, it's really not difficult to understand

 

[Damage3245]

I hate to bring it up, but strictly speaking we don't exactly have confirmed attack speeds here. Almost all of the speeds of these attacks are derived from assumptions and one single root calc.

By comparison there would be many other opposing calcs.

 

[CloverDragon03]

I hate to bring it up, but strictly speaking we don't exactly have confirmed attack speeds here. Almost all of the speeds of these attacks are derived from assumptions and one single root calc.

By comparison there would be many other opposing calcs.

Are you insinuating that Frieza's Death Saucer just has a lower attack speed? Because that wouldn't make sense when he's trying to use that attack specifically to kill Goku.

 

[Damage3245]

Are you insinuating that Frieza's Death Saucer just has a lower attack speed? Because that wouldn't make sense when he's trying to use that attack specifically to kill Goku.

I don't know yet. It's late and I'm feeling a bit mentally drained. I'll not argue that point for now and just try to get back to this thread tomorrow. But by itself, I don't think these feats totally debunk the various other feats and statements.

At the very least, I still believe certain characters need revising for this, even if we don't apply it to all characters.

 

[CloverDragon03]

Get some rest then and we can return to this tomorrow (or whenever time that is for me, idk your timezone)

 

[DemonGodMitchAubin]

I disagree with the OP, flight speed and combat speed are constantly shown to be comparable

Just look at Goku vs Beerus

 

[CloverDragon03]

I disagree with the OP, flight speed and combat speed are constantly shown to be comparable

Just look at Goku vs Beerus

To be fair, Damage said he was only talking about the manga

 

[Damage3245]

To be fair, Damage said he was only talking about the manga

Indeed. Movie feats and anime feats aren't a part of this thread. Nor are characters like Beerua, Whis and Gas who have their own feats.

 

[DemonGodMitchAubin]

Indeed. Movie feats and anime feats aren't a part of this thread. Nor are characters like Beerua, Whis and Gas who have their own feats.

Well I still think the Death Saucer point stands at least

But I will admit I don't know the most about solely the Manga feats since most of my Dragon Ball knowledge comes from the Anime and Movies

 

[SirAlex09]

At the very least, I still believe certain characters need revising for this, even if we don't apply it to all characters.

I think at the very least this applies to early Dragonball Z till the middle of the Namek Saga.

 

[Gilad_Hyperstar]

I think at the very least this applies to early Dragonball Z till the middle of the Namek Saga.

There's still Goku VS Piccolo's feat, Raditz outpacing Goku's Kamehameha, and more

 

[Damage3245]

There's still Goku VS Piccolo's feat, Raditz outpacing Goku's Kamehameha, and more

Goku wasn't flying there.

 

[Gilad_Hyperstar]

Goku wasn't flying there.

Why is it important?

 

[SirAlex09]

There's still Goku VS Piccolo's feat, Raditz outpacing Goku's Kamehameha, and more

I just watched the manga panels. Goku was outspeeding them via running and in the air he used a beam to propel himself out of harms way. Damage is strictly talking about Flight speed

 

[Gilad_Hyperstar]

I just watched the manga panels. Goku was outspeeding them via running and in the air he used a beam to propel himself out of harms way. Damage is strictly talking about Flight speed

Goku VS Frieza, Frieza VS Vegeta, Goku VS Cell, Goku VS Vegeta and more. Gohan VS Cell too as Gohan is able to travel fast enough to prevent Super Perfect Cell from harming Vegeta

The ones I mentioned are just a few examples of flying speed keeping up with travel speed

 

[SirAlex09]

Goku VS Frieza, Frieza VS Vegeta, Goku VS Cell and more

I think at the very least this applies to early Dragonball Z till the middle of the Namek Saga.

But this doesn't seem to apply in the scond half of Z since they start blitzing and attacking in the sky as well.

Their was indeed a gap between Flight speed and Combat speed / Running speed but it was clearly closing in the second half of the Namek Saga with Burter.

 

[Gilad_Hyperstar]

Their was indeed a gap between Flight speed and Combat speed / Running speed but it was clearly closing in the second half of the Namek Saga with Burter.

There's no gap, and I referred to Saiyan Saga Goku VS Vegeta

 

[SirAlex09]

I referred to Saiyan Saga Goku VS Vegeta

Weird, didn't see that one and it wasn't edited either. Well you convinced me

 

[Bernkastelll]

Well, a friend of mine sent me some examples of flight speed being above attack speed in... very continuous bursts

Goku vs Freeza

Goku vs Cell

Goku vs Piccolo

Yeah, I disagree with this thread.

 

[Damage3245]

Why is it important?

Because this is about flight speed?

And almost all the instances you've linked are flying over short distances; it clearly clashes with the multitude of long distance feats and statements in the OP.

You seem to be fine with using examples of flight speed when it benefits you, but does not one single from the opposing side look relevant to you? Is every single one of them invalid?

 

[Damage3245]

Their was indeed a gap between Flight speed and Combat speed / Running speed but it was clearly closing in the second half of the Namek Saga with Burter.

Yeah, I can't believe some users are acting like there is zero gap at all between combat speed and flight speed.

Like, even if you don't think they should be acknowledged on the profiles, we still have to admit that there are unmistakable instances in a gap between flight speed and combat speed.

EDIT: Has anyone noticed that we actually have this note on the verse page?

There have also been numerous showings of fighters in the series, having demonstrated significantly higher combat speeds and reactions than their own flight speeds.

Clearly I'm not the first person to have actually noticed this in the series if we already acknowledge it.

 

[Gilad_Hyperstar]

Because this is about flight speed?

And almost all the instances you've linked are flying over short distances; it clearly clashes with the multitude of long distance feats and statements in the OP.

Goku VS Vegeta in the Saiyan Saga had another example for that, Goku VS Frieza did too when he flew a considerable distance, same goes for Vegeta VS Frieza and also Goku VS Cell

Also, distance doesn't matter since a character flying at Hypersonic speeds would be instantly caught by a Relativistic blast coming at them, and as a calc group member, you should be well aware of that

You seem to be fine with using examples of flight speed when it benefits you, but does not one single from the opposing side look relevant to you? Is every single one of them invalid?

How ironic for you to say that when you do the exact same thing and then complain when I find counter examples

You also still didn't explain how them not flying is relevant when they're consistently dodge and outpace their ki blasts with both running and flying

 

[Damage3245]

@Gilad_Hyperstar I'll get back to this tomorrow.

I'll try and do a breakdown of some of the points I feel haven't been addressed yet, and try to respond to some of the counter points that have been brought up.

 

[AppleLord]

No idea what you're referring to. Either way it seems irrelevant to this thread.

Why not? Can you point out a time where the characters had an active aura on and were stated to be suppressing their powers?



Gohan and Krillin suppressing their Chi = No aura.

Gohan and Krillin speeding up = Aura.

----

Dende and Krillin flying while holding back = No aura.

Krillin flying all-out = Aura.

I don't have to prove that they were at 110% maximum all-energy-concentrated in one go... I just think that this is them unsuppressed and not holding themself back.

We see in the Dragon Ball series several times when characters stop holding themselves back and power-up, they gain an aura.



You could say that, but I think you'd have even less basis then me.

The aura meaning full power characters debunk you asked for. Krillin doesn’t have an aura here so his base form is stronger than SSB Goku who wasn’t holding back according to your argument.

 

[Vizer04]

3-A Krillin???

 

[GodlyCharmander]

3-A Krillin???

Unironically, it wouldn't be absurd.
17 became 3-A by punching poachers for a few years. DBS is trash on powerscaling.

 

[AppleLord]

3-A Krillin???

yep no wonder he doesn’t want to use anime footage in his OP, either way manga and anime are threaded as different pages or keys I can’t remember and too lazy to check. So the anime shouldn’t be downgraded together with the manga if the arguments aren’t allowed to be used here as counter arguments.

 

[Qawsedf234]

17 became 3-A by punching poachers for a few years. DBS is trash on powerscaling.

I thought that was handwaved by him fighting constantly amped Cell Jrs.

So he became 3-A vs grinding an exploit

 

[GodlyCharmander]

I thought that was handwaved by him fighting constantly amped Cell Jrs.

So he became 3-A vs grinding an exploit

That's manga, and Manga 17 ain't 3-A

 

[Damage3245]

yep no wonder he doesn’t want to use anime footage in his OP, either way manga and anime are threaded as different pages or keys I can’t remember and too lazy to check. So the anime shouldn’t be downgraded together with the manga if the arguments aren’t allowed to be used here as counter arguments.

Yes, the anime pages are not the subject of this thread. I've said this multiple times by now.

 

[Damage3245]

Okay, I'd like us to focus on just the Saiyan Arc and the Namek Arc for now, and I'll do my best to prove to you that there is a meaningful difference in the series between Flight Speed and typical Combat Speed.

For this breakdown of feats, I'm only looking specifically at characters are flying through the air, both long distance and extremely short distance. To begin with, I'll just go over the Saiyan Arc first.

Saiyan Arc

Long Distance Flights

1) Raditz flying an unknown distance across the Earth to get to Goku on Roshi's island. It takes Raditz at least multiple minutes to get there. [Chapter 2]

• Raditz regards Goku's velocity as "high" despite Goku riding on the Flying Nimbus which has a maximum speed of Mach 1.5 according to the Daizenshuu.

2) Goku and Piccolo fly to where Raditz pod had landed from Roshi's island. [Chapter 3]

• Goku has to check if Piccolo can keep up with his Flying Nimbus, which Piccolo does.
• Raditz again regards them as approaching "quickly."

3) Goku starts his journey on the 1 Million kilometer-long Snake Way by flying... and almost immediately he is out of power and has to start running. [Chapter 11]

• What does this tell you? Well, even if we assume that Goku was capable of flying high speed there for a moment... he obviously cannot sustain it. He still has to complete the remainder of his journey over 6 months of travel.

4) For his travel back along Snake Way, King Kai estimates that it would take Goku two days to travel 1 million kilometers. [Chapter 18]

• It's a big improvement from the 6 months of running, flying and sleeping that Goku did on his first trip to King Kai, but obviously still not insanely fast.

5) The Saiyans arrive at 11:43 AM, and the Z Fighters like Tien, Chaozu and Yamcha begin flying towards Piccolo and Gohan shortly afterwards. They don't arrive until after 12:20 PM. Same applies for Vegeta and Nappa who started flying towards Piccolo and Gohan shortly after they arrived. [Chapter 19]

6) The whole time the Nappa vs. Z Fighters fight is going on, Goku is still flying across Snake Way... not suppressing himself, not holding back. He's in a hurry. And he still takes hours to fly the remaining distance. [Chapter 25]

7) King Kai regards Goku's travel across Snake Way as "unbelievable speed". [Chapter 26]

8) After Goku returns to Earth, he gets on board the Flying Nimbus and flies straight towards his friends. After covering some distance while Nappa fights Krillin, Gohan and Piccolo, Goku is finally sensed by Piccolo and Vegeta who deduces that Goku will arrive in four minutes. [Chapter 26 - 28]

• Let's be real here; Goku is in a hurry. He's urging the Flying Nimbus to go as fast as he it can possibly go. If he could blitz ahead of the Flying Nimbus and arrive to where his friends are at in a second, he would... and yet Vegeta senses it will take him multiple minutes to fly there despite Goku's urgency.

9) After Goku and Vegeta begin their battle, Gohan and Krillin start flying back towards Roshi's house. Despite travelling for some time while Goku and Vegeta have been fightng and it becoming sunset, the two of them still haven't made it to Roshi's house. [Chapter 33 - 39]

10) Gohan and Krillin then fly back towards where Goku and Vegeta have been battling, and again it takes them some time because the battle between Goku and Vegeta continued, with Goku even having enough time to form the Spirit Bomb and then lose it, before Gohan and Krillin get there. [Chapter 39 - 41]

Short Distance Flights

1) Nappa evades Piccolo's and Krillin's Ki blasts in midair after being stunned and recovering. [Chapter 24]

2) The Flying Nimbus saves Gohan from Nappa's stomp, surprising Nappa. [Chapter 29]

3) Goku tries flying after Nappa to stop him from attacking Gohan and Krillin, but realizes he won't make it in time. He uses the Kaio-ken to boost his flight speed and catches up to Nappa. [Chapter 32]

4) Goku and Vegeta battle each other whilst flying in short bursts. Goku can only use the Kaio-ken briefly at this time. [Chapter 34]

5) Vegeta's after powering-up surprises Goku and he headbutts him by flying at him. [Chapter 35]

6) After Goku powers up with Kaio-ken x 3, he overwhelms Vegeta with short bursts of speed, flying around him, evading a thrown Ki blast and attacking him from unexpected angles. [Chapter 36]

7) A weakened Vegeta dodges a weakened Gohan's Ki blast in midair. [Chapter 43]

My Thoughts Overall

We have to admit that there are plenty of times where Toriyama gives us reason to believe that his characters are travelling much slower than Relativistic speeds in the Saiyan Arc.

He gives us explicit timeframes, he gives us distances the characters travel, he's given us several instances where travel speed/flight speed is actually relevant to the plot and cannot simply be ignored. If you're going to ignore every single example of long distance travel speed I've presented to you from the manga itself, then what good reason is there not to just ignore every speed feat in the series, good or bad?

So how do we reconcile the apparent difference between what we currently scale the character's combat speed to be, and the numerous instances of travel speed/flight speed that contradict that?

Well, personally I think part of the issue is in how we approach the scaling for Ki blasts.

Piccolo shot a Ki blast at the Moon in roughly 3 seconds. Because of that, we rate his Ki blast as being 0.54c, and because we make a correlation between the power of a character and their attack speed, his charged up Special Beam Cannon must also be at least 0.54c. Therefore when Raditz dodged the attack by sidestepping it (whilst being grazed) we rate Raditz as being 0.54c too and then it all carries on from there...

But just because Ki blasts get faster in general as the user gets more powerful, this doesn't necessarily mean every Ki blast will be that way.

When Krillin uses his Scattering Bullet attack, it is noted by Piccolo as being powerful but has "no speed". This attack is done by a Krillin more powerful than Piccolo's charged Special Beam Cannon, yet the Saibamen (equals to Raditz) have an easier time dodging it. Krillin then redirects that attack to go into the sky before splitting it apart into multiple smaller Ki blasts that are seemingly faster. So Ki attacks are not necessarily all one consistent speed. It may be counterintuitive but if Ki blasts can vary in speed and be "slow" even from a character who was more powerful than Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon, then it isn't exactly a fact that Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon had to be as fast as his attack which blew up the Moon.

But I know, this probably won't be a popular perspective. We like scaling to be simple and easy. "Ki blast = 0.54c = Special Beam Cannon = Raditz' speed." That's simple... Even if it isn't necessarily true to begin with. After all, Raditz only side-stepped the beam. He may have only "travelled" 30 cm in the time it took the Special Beam Cannon to cross 3 meters. There's no good way of using that though as it becomes a matter of calc stacking due to our assumption of the Special Beam Cannon being as fast as the other calced Ki blast.

So, personally I see a few different options, not all of them equally good:

1) Piccolo's Attack Speed when he blew up the Moon is an outlier; the event obviously happened but for the sake of the plot and speeding up events on-screen, Toriyama just had Piccolo blow up the Moon without intending this to be a consistent speed that characters should scale to. After all, in this Saiyan Arc we have ONE non-scaling Relativistic feat, and SEVERAL non-scaling feats which go against it (assuming we cannot truly split flight speed and combat speed). If we care about consistency (and there is no AOE Fallacy here that makes this feats invalid) then the SEVERAL should take higer priority than the ONE.

2) Piccolo's Attack Speed is only that fast for that actual attack he used to blow up the Moon. I admit it may be counterintuitive; why would he not attack that quickly all the time? There's no good reason aside from PIS and typical Dragon Ball inconsistency. But we know Ki blasts can vary in speed. In this case, he may be rated as "X speed normally, up to Y attack speed."

3) Characters can only move extremely quickly over short bursts, so we separate out their short-range combat speed and their long-range travel/flight speed. We see Yamcha and the Saibamen fighting at "super speed" according to Piccolo, and we have the statement from Piccolo in later arcs that the Z Fighters can increase their power tremendously in one enormous burst. In this case, we rate the characters as having "X combat speed, Y flight speed". Even if characters can move very quickly over short distances, Goku's numerous instances of failing to cross huge distances in a short span of time shows that it cannot be sustained and isn't applicable to their normal speed.

I know, it's heretical to suggest downgrading Dragon Ball, but I think some people are too quick to gloss over some of these very real and relevant feats. If we're talking about Consistency and Accuracy, then we shouldn't hold onto the notion that Piccolo's attack on the Moon is the sole defining feat of the verse's speed.

I'll go over Namek Arc later today when I have time.

EDIT: Just in case people think I'm being completely unreasonable by even suggesting that Piccolo's attack speed feat be treated as an outlier, here's my quick look at the 5 guidelines supplied to us on the Outliers page.

1) Is it a big jump in speed? (Yes, the only prior calc remotely close to this was Master Roshi's own Moon-busting feat which is about 5.5x slower, and everything else in the verse beforehand and in this arc is significantly slower)

2) Is it a unique or exceptional incident? (Yes, in the Saiyan arc it is the only feat of this level of speed. In the series overall, it is the second time the Moon has been destroyed.)

3) Is the event unexplained and unjustified? (Yes/No; there is no reason given for Piccolo's attack to be this fast compared to everything else other than just us shrugging and say "It's just that fast.")

4) Does the event break the previously established power-scaling? (Yes; in regards to the speed demonstrated by everyone else. This is only an issue if we cannot split Combat Speed and Flight Speed)

5) Does the event break with the narrative of the work? (No, I wouldn't say so. The narrative required Piccolo to blow up the Moon and it's not like it was stated he couldn't do it. The event is consistent with the narrative... the speed of it inconsistent with everything else in the series up to that point.)

Again, I'm not suggesting treating Piccolo's speed this way is the only option, I'm just saying it's not baseless as an option.

 

[AKM sama]

Krillin was not suppressing himself after he got a power boost. He has his aura active.

Krillin was suppressing himself for Dende, but Dende himself did not appear to be holding back.

And Gohan didn't say it would take a couple hours for Krillin to get to the Great Elder and back only if he was holding back.

I know when the characters were travelling purposefully slowly and it was when it was taking Gohan and Krillin days to get to the Great Elder's house. Not when it was taking them hours.

Aura being active is not an indication of full strength. And there can be different levels of suppressing oneself. I could walk slowly to reach my friend in 1 hour, I could walk at my usual pace to reach there in 20 minutes. I could walk a bit faster to reach there in 10 minutes. I could run slowly to reach there in 3 minutes. I could run faster to reach there in 2 minutes. And I could run at my full speed to reach there in 1 minute.

The thing to note here is that they are surrounded by enemies so at every step they are taking calculated risks. Sometimes they move slowly to take less risks. Sometimes they move faster to take more risk. But they can't just go full power and let everybody know of their locations.

Right, but Vegeta's reaction to the confirmation that Goku didn't use speed seems to suggest that Vegeta and Goku would be incapable of doing such a feat. Goku travelling 10,000 km and back in an instant is regarded as proof that he's using teleportation, not speed.

Or it was because if Goku had used speed there would be some indication in the environment which it clearly wasn't which convinced Vegeta that he didn't fly there at all. We can't rule out them not being that fast simply because Vegeta was shocked to hear that.


On the point of their flight speeds and combat speeds, keep in mind that these characters revolve around fighting. They tend to expend a great amount of energy in very short bursts. It's like comparing Usain Bolt with a marathon runner. If you ask these characters to fly or fight in a close range of maybe a few hundred meters, they'd operate at their full speed because these fights normally take place in very short durations. But they probably won't demonstrate the same if you ask them to go travel to another planet or whatever.

I can agree that their combat speed is demonstrated as much higher than their flight speed, but as others brought up some scenarios where they outpace attacks, it would be probably more accurate to say that their flight speed over short distances and for smaller duration is much higher than their flight speed over longer distances for longer durations.

 

[Damage3245]

The thing to note here is that they are surrounded by enemies so at every step they are taking calculated risks. Sometimes they move slowly to take less risks. Sometimes they move faster to take more risk. But they can't just go full power and let everybody know of their locations.

Except for the times when they did not do that. Krillin wasn't holding himself back, and Vegeta sensed his "great power" and caught him.

Don't worry, I'll do a complete breakdown of the Named Arc, just like the Saiyan Arc above to show this.

Aura being active is not an indication of full strength. And there can be different levels of suppressing oneself. I could walk slowly to reach my friend in 1 hour, I could walk at my usual pace to reach there in 20 minutes. I could walk a bit faster to reach there in 10 minutes. I could run slowly to reach there in 3 minutes. I could run faster to reach there in 2 minutes. And I could run at my full speed to reach there in 1 minute.

Yes, but if a character is holding themselves back and it takes them days to get somewhere, and then they stop holding themselves back and it takes them hours, then that still says something about their flight speed.

And what about Frieza? Who is he holding himself back for?

Or it was because if Goku had used speed there would be some indication in the environment which it clearly wasn't which convinced Vegeta that he didn't fly there at all. We can't rule out them not being that fast simply because Vegeta was shocked to hear that.

Fine. It's not the strongest point anyway on the whole flight speed topic, just a supporting point.

On the point of their flight speeds and combat speeds, keep in mind that these characters revolve around fighting. They tend to expend a great amount of energy in very short bursts. It's like comparing Usain Bolt with a marathon runner. If you ask these characters to fly or fight in a close range of maybe a few hundred meters, they'd operate at their full speed because these fights normally take place in very short durations. But they probably won't demonstrate the same if you ask them to go travel to another planet or whatever.
I can agree that their combat speed is demonstrated as much higher than their flight speed, but as others brought up some scenarios where they outpace attacks, it would be probably more accurate to say that their flight speed over short distances and for smaller duration is much higher than their flight speed over longer distances for longer durations.

That's sort of what I've been saying in this thread. I just want it acknowledged on the profiles and for us to stop ignoring all these other feats.

 

[SirAlex09]

Concerning the Aura thing: Having an Aura simply means that you raised your ki level to a point , at which your Ki control can't keep up resulting in Ki leaking out. (Example: Completed SSJB which has perfect ki control with no Ki leaking out. )

It's not neccassrily an indicator of strength , but rather of your Ki control in relation to your strength.

 

[Damage3245]

Concerning the Aura thing: Having an Aura simply means that you raised your ki level to a point , at which your Ki control can't keep up resulting in Ki leaking out. (Example: Completed SSJB which has perfect ki control with no Ki leaking out. )

It's not neccassrily an indicator of strength , but rather of your Ki control in relation to your strength.

You're right. Just because a character has an aura doesn't mean they can't boost themselves even higher, but it's also true that almost every time we see the characters flying at their full or unrestrained speed, it's been with an aura active.

 

[GodlyCharmander]

then it isn't exactly a fact that Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon had to be as fast as his attack which blew up the Moon.

I can't...

 

[Damage3245]

I can't...

Yes, Piccolo was impressed with Raditz' speed (though Raditz himself would still be slower than the Special Beam Cannon). By itself that is not a confirmation of anything unless you've got some kind of additional proof that Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon is the fastest attack he has. No need to act baffled and shocked in your posts.

EDIT: Also, out of the entire post that's the one thing you respond to? Nothing else for the rest of it?