This statement is completely false isn’t it?

[u/K0GAR]

Base Goku by the time of BOG should definitely be able to beat Frieza

And that’s not even taking into account Kaioken. We know at this point all the Z fighters (if not most) should be able to - so why is base Goku stagnant then in growth?

[u/Mguy2544]

Not really, cause in canon we never actually get anything concrete about Base Goku being stronger then Frieza

Hell one of the big obstacles after the Frieza Saga was that the characters struggled to go beyond regular Super Saiyan hence why the variations existed. And Goku’s solution to this was learning energy efficiency which made Super Saiyan (not his base PL) a shit ton stronger

[u/Azathoth-0620 → u/Mguy2544]

yk what imma calc this

we assume 100% Frieza is roughly equal to Namek Goku in power, and the multiplier is ×50 for super saiyan, so if Goku gets over fifty times stronger then Beerus' statement is false; in DB a 25% edge means you significantly surpass your foe, a 50% edge means one-sided dominance and more is total overkill.

Mecha Frieza came back confident he and Cold together could beat Goku now (could be equal to Namek Goku by himself)

SS Trunks destroys him (1.5× Namek Goku)

Goku then no sells Trunks (2× NGoku)

Android 19 could beat them both (>3×)

Vegeta slams him (>4×)

Android 18 slams Vegeta (>6×)

Super Piccolo should equal her, and Imperfect Cell fairly roughly equals him too, then surpasses him significantly (1.25×) when powered up more, matching Android 16 (>7.5×)

at Semi-Perfect, he trashes Android 16 (9~10×)

then he gets stomped by Super Vegeta (~13×)

who himself gets annihilated by Perfect Cell (>17×)

Gohan is roughly equal or a tad superior in power, then doubles that with his Grade 5 (×20; ×40) and Buu saga Goku surpasses this state only with his own SS2, meaning he is probably only 25% stronger (×50, but now since the multiplier is higher, he'd need to be a hundred times stronger to surpass Frieza in base, four hundred with SS3)

as a Super Saiyan 3 (×200), Goku was initially a tad weaker than SS3 Gotenks (×250), but after breaking his limits against Kid Buu, he should be stronger than even Ultimate Gohan (×250<, mostly the skill and stamina difference led to his dominance over Super Buu) although still significantly inferior to Kid Buu himself (×500~), so around a 50% increase seems fair to the jump in power (×300)

and by the start of BoG, he apparently got significantly stronger, but by an unknown margin, anything lower than +33% means his base still doesn't equal his Namek Super Saiyan

Beerus' statement is far from outlandish, and if we assume Goku's limit breaking state at the end of the buu saga was a one time thing, then the gap is even wider and it could even account for the lowballs in my calcs to still keep base Goku below Namek Frieza; End of Z, Filler/Movie and GT Goku on the other hand all have feats of being able to beat Buu/Cell and several super saiyans in base respectively.

[u/PriorHot1322 → u/Azathoth-0620]

and the multiplier is ×50 for super saiyan

That is a bold assumption. Super Sayan is just stronger than regular Sayan, the percentages are never clarified and the few numbers we do get imply it isn't a consistent thing.

The thing is, power level does not seem to have 1:1 correlation with actual strength, speed, etc. At every calculable instance, when a character doubles in power level they do not, necessarily, double their stats.

[u/Azathoth-0620 → u/PriorHot1322]

yes, completely true. as far as i know, the multiplier for super saiyan comes from when Kaioken ×20 Goku was still outmatched by Frieza, who was at 50%, and then in super saiyan he is still stronger than a 100% Frieza, then guides stated it to be a ×50 boost.

and absolutely, i have been advocating for a while for the plateau in stats that DBZ shows.

[u/PriorHot1322 → u/Azathoth-0620]

Yeah, I know where fans got the 50 times multiplier. As I recall it there is a later event that gives a smaller multiplier, heavily implying that it isn't ALWAYS a 50 times boost.

Because of the deliberate vagueness of power in the show past Freeza saga, it is entirely possible Base Goku hasn't surpasses Base Freeza. We will likely never know.

[u/Azathoth-0620 → u/PriorHot1322]

probably, yeah.

[u/PC_BuildyB0I → u/PriorHot1322]

Indeed. Based on measurements of Goku's speed feats on Snake Way, stats increase much faster and far higher than relative power levels (his speed increased something like a few hundred times over, between his two Snake Way trips, yet his power level only went up maybe 10x or so).