Goku could outsmart people, but most of the time, he just powered up till he was too strong to fight.
You couldn't outsmart him either (with the exception of the first encounter with Pilaf where he did just that) because he had a bad habit of being Too Dumb to Fool or so strong whatever sneak attack you tried just failed.
And as Devilman showed, even having a guaranteed One-Hit Kill didn't help.
One Strip! One Strip!I mean, in the beginning Goku was simply a dozen Battle Points or so higher than all the humans in terms of power level, up until he was maybe a hundred points above them by the time of the Piccolo Jr. fight and a couple hundred for the Raditz fight. Then the gap went up to a couple thousand points, then a few thousand points, then several thousand points...then a few million...then several million....then finally several billion to several trillion points higher than everyone else, and that's not even including the Kaioken or Super Saiyan forms that just make that divide even larger.
edited 6th Jul '17 4:46:03 PM by Ssj3Gojira
Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!I mean, it's not like clever tricks or tactics weren't ever used, but the complaint usually seems to be phrased as if people who were clearly overall weaker than their opponents were often able to beat them by outsmarting them. To my knowledge, that just wasn't the case.
edited 6th Jul '17 4:54:38 PM by LSBK
As far as I can recall, the only time that's ever kinda sorta been the case is the Vegeta fight but that was just a constant string of miracles more than anything else. Vegeta's rematch with Zarbon might also be an example but we don't have any proof of it.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!![]()
Indeed. In fact, anytime someone tried to use clever tactics to get around a superior opponent, it often failed...unless you were a villain.
Then it was more likely to succeed. Recall Ginyu swapping bodies with Goku (though that worked in Goku's favour later) and Cell consistently evading Piccolo until he'd powered up enough to mop the floor with him.
So tactics were only relevant for keeping the plot going.
edited 6th Jul '17 4:53:18 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!I think Goku was actually supposed to be somewhat stronger than Jackie Chun when they fought, and that it was merely his centuries of experience that kept him in the game for so long, though the fact he never tried going Max Power against Goku, even the 50% version, might have been a factor in that case.
Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!Of course not, Karrot would've been stomped by the disguised turtle-hermit.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.He wasted most of his max power on destroying the moon.
Roshi had a lot of techniques that would have put Goku down. There was the hypnosis that put the kid to sleep and would have won him the fight then and there if not for Bulma yelling that there was food around and screwing things up.
And then there was the Thunder shock Surprise...shit, that guy had the devils luck at times.
One Strip! One Strip!Also, I still find it weird how Tien wanted to be as great of an assassin as Taopaipai, despite the fact that he spent the last battle of his introductory tournament matching up to a guy who had, in the previous arc, wiped the floor with Tao's face in their second fight.
Let's see if you can get past my Beelzemon. Mephiles, WARP SHINKA!He didn't know he was already stronger...
He didn't have any instant kill moves...
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Just because he was a stronger fighter doesn't mean he was as good an assassin.
Plus, Tien himself didn't realize he'd surpassed Tao Pai Pai until he faced the even stronger Cyborg Pai Pai, so it's possible he wasn't aware that he'd left his old teacher in the dust 6 years earlier.
Edit: Murasaki'ed.
edited 6th Jul '17 5:07:50 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!Yeah, they hype Tao up a lot in that arc despite Goku and Ten being waaaaaaaaaaaay beyond him at that point.
The level of tactics/strategy used remains pretty level throughout the series. It's rarely completely absent, but never so prevalent to be the main factor in fights.
Which is honestly how it should be when you're dealing with superpowers. The most skilled RL martial artist is fucked again a tank - skill alone can only take you so far. You need to be strong enough to actually use it.
Make the tank useless, alright.
That's not what strength + skill should do.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Maybe this explains why most of my contempt for the series lies mostly on Goku's lap. Goku is just irritating in general compared to his previous appearances. So anyone wants to watch Funi dub where Goku has been stripped of his personality and just became Captain America?
"Mai waifu."Roshi outright tells Goku at the very beginning of the second arc that the stronger fighter wins in 99% of cases and the weaker one may as well not bother showing up in those cases. The fans should have known what kind of series they were in for.
"It is very easy to be kind; the difficulty lies in being just."Roshi can see the future.
Well, Baba can, and she didn't say anteing because no one paid her.
She predicted the obvious at the end of the DB Anime...
So why not?
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Humans have been useless for over 30 decades if you watched it from Japan, and over 15 years if you grew up on Z. You'd think people would get tired of repeating the same complaints and move on, but no...they parroting them. Maybe this is why Toei just caved, because they got tired of hearing it all of the damn time.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.

It's human nature to go for the most visible target of your displeasure, regardless of how little sense it makes.