I was going to do an extra lengthy post involving all aspects on DBZ such as striking and durability, and speed and yadda yadda, but Ki is the most debated topic in regards to DBZ

Ki, a metaphysical energy that is made of many things, and can be used in several ways from making barriers, to creating swords and discs that can cut through almost anything even the most incredibly durable foes, to the formation of abilities such as clone creation, size manipulation, stat boosts, telekinesis, specific abilities like stopping time, etc. Considering the several uses for the energy, Ki Control has been a hotly debated topic in regards to DBZ. Further emphasis has been made on it during the events of DBS.

Why exactly am i doing this?

Before my views on AOE control or Ki Control overall was that it's a load of crap, but as the series went on and as Akira made more comments on Ki or had the characters rising in power, many questions were constantly asked. Here's two questions in particular that i had.

1. Why is it that when characters do more casual attacks they level cities, countries, continents, or whatever it may be, but when they focus and sit there for hours charging an attack their attack barely leaves damage on their surroundings? Example: "That was my strongest attack" (this same attack barely destroyed the area came from the same random Villain who was laughing while casually destroying a city with no effort.)

2. Why is it that some characters are naturally fantastic at Ki manipulation to the point of outputting energies enough to easily destroy planets, whereas some characters show little to no Ki manipulation, but only use it for their stats? Basically, why did some characters have DC feats where others barely didn't or were not able to, or simply had no feats whatsoever in that regard?

1. Controlling damage??? Shooting blasts that look unimpressive in terms of damage and output?

Quite honestly this is the biggest issue with Dragon Ball, lack of AOE damage to understand levels of power. I could quite easily get into the striking strength argument and the huge double standards in that regard, but that's too simple and anyone with fairness and common sense won't try to lowball the characters so hard as to say the top tiers cannot hurt beings like WW or Superman, Thor etc. due to such issues. Destructive Capacity is the most widely discussed thing about DBZ so that's way easier. If thanos randomly blasted a top tier character like Silver Surfer or Strange, or Hulk, Thor, etc. would your first question be: "Why is this impressive?" or "how powerful are his blasts?" if you asked the former the simple solution would be to show durability feats for the person Thanos hit with his blasts to discuss why it may be impressive, if you asked the latter you would simply show another showing of Thanos using his energy in a far more destructive manner(with the intention to destroy and destruct.)

For example, where's the (insert level of busting here) when Thanos blasted Galatacus of all people???

Now would you say, "wow that blast must have been weak, it barely destroyed anything, all it did was send him flying"? Does the lack of area damage immediately discredit how impressive this feat is in its own right? We know who both combatants are, we know where Galactacus ranks in Marvel so we know Galatacus getting hit by this and actually getting sent flying(regardless of how powerful/hungry he was at this very moment) is indeed impressive.(can you honestly say he wasn't going all out here?) Now let me do a parallel with DBZ.

Everyone knows Piccolo right the non-saiyan Z-fighter with the most feats and credibly with said feats? Well his weaker and lesser developed father along with other people of his namekien race have shown to be bullet proof.

As Piccolo Jr. slowly developed in power, he became able to contain and channel energies capable of destroying a country sized island, tanked Goku's super kamehameha which all things considered was likely on par with Roshi's kamehameha which destroyed a large mountain and the castle on top of it(which wouldn't be out of the question considering Piccolo himself could do this with far less effort and Goku beat him in a beam struggle.) he was capable of trading blows with Goku who has class 100 strength, being capable of pushing 20-40+ ton boulders as a child(with a weight on his back) the same goku with enough leg strenght to jump above the clouds at high speeds comparable to the world's fastest jets, and was even able to kick away nuclear missiles(if anyone doubts anything i am saying here i can provide scans but that's not the point of the parallel) then went on to fight Frieza who was a planet destroying tyrant, and even in his final form was capable of at least landing good enough attacks that could send him flying several hundred feet then eventually fighting beings supposedly even stronger than Frieza in physical strength. And blah blah blah you know where i am going with this.

This same piccolo had his neck broken by a single punch from Imperfect Cell, and a basic blast which did little to no damage on their surroundings put him near death and left him with a hole in his stomach.

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Anime Version

Now with the context of who he blasted it's obviously a more impressive feat right? If you knew nothing of DBZ or didn't know the characters, you would just assume this is some low-mid tier garbage, at the very least you would ask things like "why is this impressive?" or "what's piccolo's durability like for this to be impressive?" etc., right? But if you know of the characters, the background of their verse they are in, their feats, it makes it much more legit and credible.

Here's another DBZ parallel. Raditz absolutely outright tanked an energy blast from Piccolo.

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Why is this impressive?

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Well to be fair, Piccolo with a blast that although made him a bit winded, was for the most part done without too much effort, vaporized a moon. 1. The blast is done in a similar fashion as when Piccolo destroyed the moon. 2. he clearly seemed to put effort into the blast 3. he was relatively shocked when Raditz came out unscathed.(this shocked Piccolo, a man who can not only destroy cities and islands, but even the moon) Did Piccolo use the same exact attack with the same exact potency and destructive potential? Well i can't prove that, but you now know why it's impressive.(piccolo's own feats and level of power make this feat impressive if you think outside the box and think of other things aside from details of this specific fight such as how he didn't destroy the ground they stand on) His blasts have a lot of power behind them.

Let me post my most recent mini-essay on AOE control and Ki and what not. I'll add some comments and scans to it.

AOE Control and Ki Control in general and my current stance.

AOE control is something that has been around for awhile, and there are characters in other forms of fiction capable of doing it, heck any of you voters can correct me if i am wrong about this, but doesn't Darkseid do the same with his Omega Beams? Or Sentry with his energy blasts?(Seriously, Strange was amped on some serious demonic magic which allowed him to put the hurt on hulk, barely any destruction, barely any craters or explosions, same applies to Sentry when he was fight WWH. He packs the "force of a million suns", but he barely grazed the city they were on level alone the planet) Characters are capable of making their attacks smaller but the potency of the blast is still there. For example, Raditz even mentions something of that nature here. Speaking of which, Nappa casually busted an entire city/region with a lift of his finger, but when he used the same exact technique it was far smaller in terms of range and AOE, it barely did any form of damage on their surroundings, same applies for what Nappa considered his best technique

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When Vegeta was fighting Buu and other characters he caused far more devastation than he did when he sacrificed himself in an attempt to kill Buu.

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This explosion was felt by Bulma, Roshi, Yamcha etc. from the other side of the planet. Take note, Vegeta can bust a planet, and he's way more powerful than a character who can casually do so, and by the time we reach the end of the Buu Saga, Goku and Vegeta reached a level where they could stop casual blasts from Kid Buu from destroying the planet, with a basic blast themselves:

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Despite the fact that they canceled out the blast, there was no humongous explosion. Anyway, my point is, Vegeta is way past the point of planet busting, and yet he had to tell Piccolo and the kids to leave and in an attempt to kill Buu, self-destructed. Considering his level of power, and the fact he was attempting to basically save earth, don't you think it's reasonable that he would be able to, or would TRY to control the amount of damage done to the planet?? I mean he was trying to kill Buu, a being far more powerful than Frieza who could survive a planet explosion to the face while practically half dead and KO'd. That alone should tell you something.

Can you honestly claim that its simply inconsistencies and that's the end of it? Not really And you can't say something like Nappa is inconsistent, literally every single DBZ villian has busted a city or continent, island, etc. Even Piccolo in his younger days cleared out an entire country sized island when he was far weaker. So why is it that "stronger" attacks are far more focused and concentrated? Even Roshi, the man who destroyed a mountain was genuinely impressive with Tien's Kihoho technique despite the attack not having near the potency of his own kamehameha. There are many examples of a smaller scaled attack having more force than a bigger scaled attack in DBZ and in other series. Look at Vegeta's fight with Zarbon. click on the link and look at 2:18 watch till 2:32, then skip to 7:13 and watch till 7:27. Huge difference in scale yet the latter managed to hurt him. Ki compression has been a thing in DBZ even back in Goku's kid days.....

Even if not all characters can control the damage of their attacks, we don't always see massive destruction whenever someone takes a hit or throws a blast. For example if i lowballed hulk and said he cannot bust a mountain because he didn't do so in this scan,would you take me seriously? In many of Clark's fights with doomsday they weren't cratering cities nor destroying large landmasses, can we assume that they can't?

Now how far will i take this argument? The flaws of this theory(although supported by evidence) are incredibly evident as soon as we get to the cell saga.(even then these flaws apply to characters with similar powers outside of DBZ) Even i still find it weird for Cell to be able to destroy a solar system. There are reasons why i consider this inconsistent, and there are reasons why i can consider this credible, but the thing about it is, if AOE control allowed him to control the force of something that can destroy a solar system, that would be pretty ridiculous. However, this theory to a degree is supported by the characters, supported by AT, and there are other instances that prove that it may just actually not be a fairy tale. Beerus' fight with goku, as inconsistent as it you could argue it to be, Beerus and Goku were threatening the entire universe, and in one final clash, the energy that was threatening the entire universe, Beerus controlled and tamed it, he nullified it and turned it into nothing. If beerus could control energies to such an extent, who's to say weaker characters cannot do it with the energies they are tasked with channeling? Cell and his solar system busting(??) Practically most of the competent and non-fused elder saiyans(planet busting and beyond) Human Z-Fighters(below planet busting) etc.

Powerlisting even has a power on their wiki for it.

http://powerlisting.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_Manipulation

Although Jiro from Toriko is the only one who officially has such an ability, comic book characters like Silver Surfer can manage not to destroy planets in his fights despite wielding the power of cosmic.

The reasons why my views changed on the DBZ universe as a whole is the same reason why my view changed on certain Video Game Characters like Sora, Dante, and the like. I try to understand where people come from with their arguments and why they believe certain things. Even characters that are considered wanked, i try to give a chance and understand why certain arguments are made. For instance, the reason why the AOE argument actually exists, is because there's evidence in the series that cannot be ignored, this evidence is the contrast of smaller scaled attacks and larger scaled attacks. Like i showed with Nappa, his strongest attack was clearly focused and primarily targeted at Goku.

Now to further talk about Ki Control let's look at a certain thread made by @mysticmedivh: this thread discussed whether or not DBZ characters like Goku could destroy the planet just by powering up.

http://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/dragon-ball-universe-1775304/could-goku-destroy-the-planet-by-powering-up-1846732/

In the OP he posted an interesting clip of Goku causing devastation and shaking the entire planet, causing earthquakes all over the entire planet and climate changes.

https://youtu.be/9OAjySzGiBw?t=52

Here's some of the comments that responded to the OP's questions, take note of their detail:

The most detailed response ended up being from a user called @nemesisreloaded:

When you think about this guy's analysis i want you to look back on Beerus and his fight with Goku. He contained and controlled a blast of great magnitude and does this all the time whenever he's off destroying planets.

A good example of Ki Control is Vegeta's Final Flash. Vegeta in this particular instance charges a blast that was highly emphasized to destroy the planet if it hit. Vegeta at the last second Narrowed the blast and made sure the damage didn't go past the island Cell was on. This barely did any damage to their surroundings but it hit Cell like a train. Something to note is that Vegeta has had planetary blasts before at far weaker levels.

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Something to note is Goku's Kamehameha against Cell. Goku exhibited more Ki Control than Vegeta. He shot a planetary blast at Cell and did less damage to his surroundings, to add he ended up doing more damage than Vegeta did with the final flash. And cell and goku both acknowledged that Cell has lost a lot of Ki surviving and regenerating from the damage.

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In both instances Goku and Vegeta respectively, made their attacks smaller and directed the blast in a way where it would do less damage to the planet. Vegeta manipulating the size to avoid damage to the earth, while Goku teleported at a different angle to hit cell to also avoid damage to the planet.

The characters can even control the direction of their blasts, maniplating it to take different forms, or to make it essentially home in on a target manually like in Goku's fight with Piccolo.

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A no brainer is that the characters are perfectly aware of how much power they push out. This explains the situations above with Cell, the fight with Buu, and etc. etc. There are other examples of this such as the scans below of Vegeta talking of destroying the planet if he doesn't keep his power in check.

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Or when Piccolo sensed that Vegeta's blast was going to bust the planet. Frieza is unable to sense Ki unlike everyone else. and it shows when he only realizes that is is a planetary blast after Piccolo explicitly states so.

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So now we know that certain characters like Buu or Frieza aren't as trained in Ki Control as other characters are, which explains why they case more devastation or have more feats than others. Most characters can determine how more power they need to use, and control the size, shape and direction of their blasts. This perfectly explains why Vegeta's Sacrifice or his other powerful attacks are smaller than what we have seen him accomplish before. Planetary attacks would seem much smaller in scale and effect when compared to lesser attacks, due to characters purposefully making sure their blasts don't destroy the planet.

2. Why do some characters have better Ki feats than others?

My theory on this is simple and short. Here's an old post i made back when i basically was a hater of the series, surprisingly enough i think it still applies in a way:

One of the theories i had was that Ki output in a way for certain characters is equivalent to their Ki "input" Some characters can have more Ki stored up that's used for CQC or more simple attacks like Ki Swords, instead of using up their Ki to form destructive attacks. So one character can have a higher Ki Input so they could prioritize higher stats, while another has higher Ki output so they can prioritize on destructive Ki attacks, or Ki attacks in general. That's the difference between characters like Frieza or Broly and people like Guldo, Hit and weaker characters like Chaoitzu. This makes scaling a little more simple instead of automatically saying one character has the exact Ki Output feats another character has.

@emperorthanos@sirfizzwhizz@pope052@lvenger@those_eyes@neongamewave@106me@caped_baldy@cosmic_lantern@mudamudamuda@lukehero@mysticmedivh@solomonthenotsowise@ratava

What do you guys think?

@deathhero61: No. I never will accept it till it is stated outright this is how it works. But that is me.

Meh, there's no statements or clarifications from author's in comics on why all these planetary+ characters can fight and the planet stays perfectly intact in DC nor Marvel comics...... and i said this before in that tourney match, NNT practically does the same thing..... the characters can bust mountains, cities and the like yet in their skirmishes barely touch their surroundings. Whether it's with their long range projectile attacks or their own strikes..... and you are perfectly fine with saying random things like Escanor is island level..... but i understand.

@nemesisreloaded

ONE OTHER THING

So now we know that certain characters like Buu or Frieza aren't as trained in Ki Control as other characters are, which explains why they showcase more devastation or have more feats than others.

This also explains why Buu is so fragile, he doesn't bother putting up Ki defenses which is why bullets easily pierce him or actually touch his skin and why he can be cut in half by basic attacks and why a multi-planet busting explosion messed up his body. He didn't bother defending himself from the explosion or attacks in general. His regen is too great so he doesn't really care.

@deathhero61: Mabel and DC are inconsistent. That's why. Same with DBZ.

excellent post

i'm glad someone pointed out the double standards of "busting"

Kind of a silly excuse if you think about it.....literally most fights between these planetary characters end up with at most a city destroyed or the planet shaking..... maybe some continent ravaged or something, but the planet is usually perfectly fine. So if they are inconsistent 100 percent of the time, kind of defeats the purpose of attempting to discredit feats from any form of fiction.....

@deathhero61: Good post man, you clearly put a lot of effort in it! :P Kudos to you

Interesting reading.

The difference is nobody goes around saying every random punch thrown by "planet busters" in comics is always on that level.

Eh, but they do go around saying things like "this feat is impressive because character A hurt character B" or "character A one shotted character B so he must be [insert level of tier] casually" Which was exactly my point with the piccolo/cell comparison. The point is that the issues people have with DBZ is evident in the high and mighty comics and in SOOOOO many other anime, a lot of them being inspired by DBZ.

It makes sense to me. Personally I have always seen it in terms of diminishing returns. In the Frieza saga the powers and destruction are so great, how do you make it look bigger without being So vast that it no longer really means anything to the viewer? Well, you go back a few steps and start again, building back up to the same level of destruction and calling it something new.

DBS with casual planetary destruction and Zeno's multiverse bust bucks this trend, but it's a thrice used device in DBZ. 1) Saiyan to Frieza saga, 2) Trunks to Cell Games & 3) World Tournament to Kid Buu. They all repeat the same process of lowering ki blast capability and gradually amping it up to the planetary scale.

All of that said, to use a terrible phrase...

It is what it is. I believe what you have done is provided an explanation as to the (not inconsistencies, but) artistic necessities for visual effect that combat the law of diminishing returns.

So in that regard, good job. Because it is an answer to a problem, and a good one at that.

Btw, I appreciate your use of my post.

Yes there is ki control. Though some people go crazy and thin every small ki blast is planet level.

What a nice read. I agree with this.

Except they often do. Many times you here stuff like character A has planetary because he tanked character B's punch. And Character B once busted a planet. A lot of character's in comics, villains especially are dependent on that to determine their strength and durability.

what do you mean by small planet? Are you talking about King Kai's planet

I mistyped. I meant small ki blast. If fixed my post.

Ah ok.

I have no problem accepting ki control on instances like Beerus' small ball of energy obviously destroying a planet. That's ki control. The problem I have with ki control is when DBZ fans claim an energy blast that was obviously not planet busting, such as Trunks' blast on the androids, was planet busting when it didn't bust a planet.

@lvenger:

"an energy blast that was obviously not planet busting, such as Trunks' blast on the androids"

Elaboration?

@princearagorn1: Here's the anime version of what I'm talking about. SSJ Trunks blasting the Androids with, in his own words, his strongest blast.

It's probably in the manga too though I'm not sure of it.

What you guys never take in to consideration is context. Everything is always black and white and taken at face value instead of properly considered. For example, take a fight between Superman and Wonder Woman. In fight A, Superman punches Wonder Woman and she flies through a mountain. No one is going to argue that that punch was planetary. In fight B......the mind control fight where he punches her from the sun to the earth, yeah, that can be argued as an example of WW having planetary durability. Why? Because the context fits.

If we switch out Superman and WW for Goku and Vegeta, you both would be saying that the punches/ki blast in fight A were planetary, and when challenged you throw out the arbitrary, dismissive "ki control" counter even though the series itself has never expanded or touched on it in that way.

And the fact that literally every blast that was explicitly described or shown as planetary was either deflected away from the planet or killed the target.

@buttersdaman000:

What you guys never take in to consideration is context. Everything is always black and white and taken at face value instead of properly considered. For example, take a fight between Superman and Wonder Woman. In fight A, Superman punches Wonder Woman and she flies through a mountain. No one is going to argue that that punch was planetary. In fight B......the mind control fight where he punches her from the sun to the earth, yeah, that can be argued as an example of WW having planetary durability. Why? Because the context fits.

Except it doesn't. Post crisis Superman has moon level striking. Punching someone from the sun to the earth doesn't give you the planetary durability. But that is not I was saying or my point. What I was saying is that people(not you just from what I have seen) do say that the Supermans punch through the mountain is planetary. You say no one does this and only dbz fans do but that is false. Atleast with DBZ you have an explanation as to why. This is no me saying that every single blast in DBZ planetary. I agree with you on that front.

If we switch out Superman and WW for Goku and Vegeta, you both would be saying that the punches/ki blast in fight A were planetary, and when challenged you throw out the arbitrary, dismissive "ki control" counter even though the series itself has never expanded or touched on it in that way.

I agree with you. DBZ characters do not have planetary striking until Super. And yes not every blast they fire is planetary. But that doesn't mean they can't fire planetary blasts with ease. Atleast by the time we reach Buu saga, Kid buu's casual blast would have planet busted and Vegeta easily deflected it an SSJ.

@lvenger: That dialogue doesn't exist in the manga and it's pure hyperbole. If it was his strongest attack, why does he look completely fine as if he didn't do anything? This is the same guy who stopped a planet busting attack and carried it with one hand. I'd post the scans but CV is being utter crap and won't let me upload. For reference, the scene happens in chapter 350, pages 12-15.

Bingo, several times a planet busting blast was supposed to be fired, it ended up getting deflected.

Possibly but there are a lot of DBZ fanboys who would vehemently deny this yet wholly believe in Cell's solar system busting claim which I find much more hyperbolic. It would be stupid if that was his most powerful attack but for those who consider the anime equally canon, they use stuff like King Vegeta and Vegeta & Nappa destroying planers in filler episodes. Which sounds equally hypocritical to me. I'll take a look at that in manga fox.

If you're referring to Freeza's Supernova attack, that never actually happened in the manga either.

It was in reference to the anime which was what we were talking about (regarding his video post).

@darthaznable: Fair enough. You said something about posting scans, so I figured you were talking about the manga.

Eh? Did you not get the parallel i mentioned in regards to Raditz?(where Raditz shrugged off an energy attack from Piccolo who has the feats he does for energy projection) Or Cell?(when he bodied piccolo despite his power and durability?) Trunks may not have planet busted, but do you really think that anyone that wasn't in his tier would tank that? For example, do you think Thing or Namor would have tanked that blast? Or Ironman? If you take it at face value, the blast coming from SPECIFICALLY Trunks is impressive considering he is a good level above Frieza at his best.....I'm not saying every single blast tossed out by a character is a planet busting attack or anything like that, my point is that you know which feats are impressive despite looking somewhat the same. This applies ESPECIALLY in Superman Comics. The example you were giving with Superman's punches not being planetary in some instances, that's fair, but you know specifically that the feat is impressive because the punch in a specific instance like when Superman punched wonderwoman through a mountain, is impressive,(for wonderwoman that is) because Superman who has really good striking strength and lifting strength was the one who did it, if supergirl or someone weaker did that, would the feat be as emphasized or as impressive in the context of a debate?

The scans were for comparison to his video since he didn't know if the statement was the same.

@darthaznable: I see. My apologies for the mix-up.

@deathhero61: I got the comparison you were making, though thanks for clarifying. It doesn't change my criticism of ki control in claiming attacks that don't destroy planets are planet busting because they're in the same tier as other plant busters. That's the issue with abusing power scaling that a lot of people, not you in this context, argue falsely. To address your example, Thing or Namor wouldn't be able to tank that blast, but someone like Supergirl or Power Girl would based on its destructive output. That means it's not going to do much to Superman/Hulk/Thor level characters. If Superman punched WW through a mountain compared to Supergirl, maybe it would be taken out of context but Supergirl is not depicted as able to hurt Wonder Woman like Superman can.

@lvenger: Interesting, fair enough. I'm going to look into this more.

I think a lot of you are missing the point here. The whole idea of planet busting is to gauge the upper limit of energy output from a character. That doesn't necessarily mean a planet busting attack is going to do more damage than a smaller area attack. Think of it like pressure. A punch by itself isn't a lethal hit, but take that same force from the punch and put it behind a bullet and then it could kill someone. Ki should follow the same concept. Look at Frieza: He blew up namek without an issue and was later caught in the blast. The blast did nothing to him. However, he put significantly less energy into his death saucer and that was able to slice him clean in half. The difference? Ki control. His ki was focused into a much smaller area which increased its potency.

Well looks like we agree for the most part from what I can tell. However, since you agree that not every blast they fire is planetary what do you think about their durability?

@buttersdaman000:

Well looks like we agree for the most part from what I can tell. However, since you agree that not every blast they fire is planetary what do you think about their durability?

Well I believe they should be able to tank planetary energy attacks by Namek saga. There are several examples of them doing so with Vegeta, Recoome and Frieza.

Cell and Buu don't seem to have great durability likely due to them just having regen instead.

I disagree in regards to cell, in Buu's case it seems like he just doesn't bother defending himself, look at his fights, he barely puts up a defense, most characters usually have Ki Shielding, i don't believe Buu does this

Many good points. I've always felt that ki control was the best explanation for inconsistent AoE damage in DBZ. Loved that you pointed out the double standards in comic book scans. Great work @deathhero61.

That said I do feel that the true explanation is simply that Toriyama did not give even the slightest crap about consistency in that respect.

Good

I recall there being an interview where he quite literally said that the reason why he made the characters fight in wastelands or simple fighting arenas is because it takes less effort than to have the characters fight in cities where he would constantly have to draw the damaged buildings and the residents and etc.

@lvenger:

I was asking about the "obviously not planet level" part.

Ftr the instance is in the manga as well, with a bit of change in dialogue.

Ah the memories.....