History StoryBreakerPower / DragonBall

** Ironically, one of the purest examples of this takes place during the Android Saga when Goku has one of his biggest absences. After Trunks defeats Frieza, he waits for Goku to arrive. During a quick sparring match it's established that Goku is not only stronger than Trunks (who effortlessly trounced Frieza by the way) but that Trunks isn't even in his league. After Goku gets [[WorfHadTheFlu sick with the heart virus]], everything that happens afterwards comes with the caveat that if Goku were around, healthy and fighting with his friends none of this would be an issue.

* Frieza. The monster Goku and the others fought on Namek was ''[[TheGift naturally]]'' that powerful. Without training a day in his life, Frieza was the most powerful mortal in the universe. [[Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF When he did train]], he surpasses Goku in pure power after he ascends past godhood in just ''four months''. His biggest failing is that he didn't bother to master his GoldenSuperMode, causing his stamina to tank after only a short time of fighting, [[spoiler:although he fixes this problem when he's temporarily revived in the Universal Survival Saga]]. He truly would have been unbeatable on Namek if he had Goku's work ethic. There is also Frieza's species extreme survivability. He can survive in a vacuum and even live if he's chopped to pieces. This rigs many battles in his favor since, while any fighter stronger than Namek Saga Frieza can survive a planetary explosion, only a select few can survive in outer space. [[spoiler:He actually kills Vegeta this way after the latter had him completely beat, but Whis reverses time on him.]] [[Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly The Broly movie]] has him get a power boost from training a bit more, with that and him being MadeOfIron allowing Frieza to be able to survive fighting ''an hour'' against a rampaging [[spoiler:Super Saiyan]] Broly (see the ''Super'' section below), when Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta scampered very quickly. And that's assuming [[spoiler:there weren't more failed attempts at the FusionDance beyond the two shown on-screen]]; it's entirely possible Frieza survived an ''even longer'' beatdown. This is to say nothing of the manga-only [[Recap/DragonBallSuperGranolahTheSurvivorArc Granolah arc]], wherein [[spoiler:Frieza conquers a planet with the same YearInsideHourOutside properties as the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and trains there for the equivalent of a decade, unlocking a new transformation (Black Frieza) that makes him ''magnitudes'' stronger than Granolah (who made a wish on the Cerealian Dragon Balls to become the strongest fighter in the universe), Goku (who had already mastered Ultra Instinct and was in the process of honing a new version of UI to better match his fighting style), and Vegeta (who follows the path of a God of Destruction to obtain a new transformation known as Ultra Ego). The only reason they survive is because of some serious PlotArmor]].

* The absolute king of this trope in regards to raw strength alone is Jiren. According to Whis, there are rumors of a mortal existing who's even stronger than a God of Destruction. This mortal is Jiren, a member of the Pride Troopers and resident of Universe 11. Jiren's power level is simply ''colossal'', being so high in both the manga and the anime he does not so much as ''budge'' when Super Saiyan Blue Kaio-ken Goku and Super Saiyan Blue Evolution Vegeta both lay into him with everything they have--and he proceeds to knock them out in two hits each. This was at his ''restrained'' level, by the way. Even when Goku mastered his Ultra Instinct form mentioned above, he could only fight evenly with Jiren's full power for a time,[[note]]Though he was able to [[HeroicSecondWind quickly recover]] from the damage Jiren inflicted on him before demonstrating even greater power and speed, and this was before Jiren targeted the spectators, [[ItsPersonal earning him Goku's ire]] and [[CurbStompBattle a subsequent drubbing]].[[/note]] and he still ''lost'' (albeit largely due to the aforementioned PowerStrainBlackout of Ultra Instinct taking its toll on Goku [[DiabolusExMachina at an inopportune moment]]).[[note]]By this point, Jiren had been thoroughly beaten by Goku, having taken a vicious assault ending in a Supreme Kamehameha that severely weakened him, with the Pride Trooper [[GracefulLoser acknowledging his defeat at the hands of the Saiyan]].[[/note]] Even Hit's Time Skip abilities were useless against Jiren, and Hit's Time Cage trap simply fell when Jiren flexed his raw power. The only reason Jiren didn't just eliminate every other fighter right away was that nobody up until Mastered Instinct Goku had given him any trouble and he figured his team would be able to win without him. In the end, he's only "beaten" by the technicality of being forced out of the ring (Goku admits they'd have lost terribly if they couldn't exploit that rule). What makes him so broken is that, unlike Ultra Instinct Goku, Jiren doesn't ''need'' to unlock a form to be stronger than the Gods of Destruction, he's [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower that strong naturally after a lifetime of hard training]]. In his last appearance, he swore to ''keep'' training, so we can expect him to become even more ridiculous. Notably, unlike other "rival" characters like Piccolo and Vegeta, Jiren was hastily written out of the series following the conclusion of his arc. Like Ultra Instinct Goku, he only shows up in ''Heroes'' from then on, where he's shown to be stronger than a Goku-Vegeta Super Saiyan Blue fusion, and so formidable that Hearts refers to him as "without a doubt, [[WorldsStrongestMan the strongest being in all the universes]]."
* Ultra Instinct grants hyper-awareness of the user's surroundings and the ability to automatically dodge any and all attacks without conscious thoughts slowing them down. When Goku learns it, it completes eclipses his Blue Kaioken combination in power. For the duration he is able to use it, his power doesn't drop as his energy depletes (although once he does drop out of the form, he is almost completely drained of energy, and the strain it puts on his body means he can't use it for that long). When Goku gains full mastery of Ultra Instinct, he manages to hold his own against ''Jiren'' (see above), a being stronger than or at the bare minimum on the same level as the mightiest Gods of Destruction. For a frame of reference, when Goku first met Beerus, a very small amount of the latter's power left Goku convinced ''Fusion'' wouldn't do the trick -- in fact, in the anime even the incomplete Ultra Instinct form allowed Goku to defeat Kefla, a fusion of two individually respectably strong Saiyans. After the Universe Survival Arc is finished, it is even pointed out Goku can't consciously access the form -- probably just to prevent the writers from having to come up with foes that make Beerus irrelevant, like the aforementioned Jiren. Indeed, during [[Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly the follow-up movie]], Ultra Instinct is nowhere to be seen and it can be easily inferred Broly wouldn't have been able to [[spoiler:force Goku and Vegeta to fuse]] if Goku could just use it (in the following [[Recap/DragonBallSuperGalacticPatrolPrisonerArc Moro arc]] in the manga, Vegeta even asks why he didn't use it, and Goku just shrugs and says he still can't). ''Anime/SuperDragonBallHeroes'', which while not canon is still an officially licensed ''Dragon Ball'' product, actually puts MUI Goku as ''stronger'' than a Super Saiyan 4/Blue fusion of Goku and Vegeta. [[note]]MUI Goku defeated SS Cumber, who was holding his own against SSB Vegito.[[/note]]