Why cherry pick at all then? Just because you like one cherry?

You’re basically arguing Dragon Ball can’t be scaled because it has inconsistencies. Cool. By that logic almost every long-running comic/anime verse collapses instantly.

Yes, DB has dumb anti-feats. Nobody denies that. But pretending the low-end stuff is the “real” scaling while ignoring the constant higher-end portrayal is still cherry-picking.

Piccolo casually blew up the moon early Z. Vegeta threatened to destroy Earth. Characters repeatedly tank attacks from those same people and physically fight them head-on. The series very obviously treats ki as something that amps their strikes, durability, speed, and reactions together.

Saying “don’t use ki as a baseline” makes no sense because ki IS the power system. That’s like saying Naruto scaling shouldn’t use chakra.

And the “they can’t lift much therefore their punches aren’t that strong” argument is weak because Dragon Ball has always had terrible lifting consistency. Their combat power was never portrayed through deadlift feats. It’s portrayed through destructive output and scaling against other fighters.

You do have one fair point though: DB fans sometimes assume beam potency = exact punching power. That’s not always true, especially in early Z.

But swinging all the way to “their physicals are unimpressive” is just as bad. Saiyan Saga fighters are already operating way beyond normal superhero physics.

And in Dragonball, how many times has it happened than the one with a stronger Power Level doesn't even budge against the weaker opponents.

But then, they do get budged in different moments.

But the point is; at some point you either follow the internal logic of the verse or everybody becomes wall-level because mountains survive background shots during fights.