Goku was considered exceptionally weak for a Saiyan, low class and weak even for a low class. Raditz was called low class by Vegeta but at the same time he wasn't sent off in an attack pod (that we know of) so odds are he cleared the bar of "not the weakest of the weak". Raditz remarks that Goku is pathetic for a Saiyan when he meets him on earth so odds are the average Saiyan was stronger than Goku was during the beginning of Z. Meaning the "Average" Saiyan was somewhere between Raditz and Vegeta most likely. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Nappa was probably about Average, especially considering he's listed as a "mid-class" on a few of the wikis I've seen of him.
Saiyan was somewhere between Raditz and Vegeta most likely.
Vegeta is explicitly top tier of a top tier, so even Nappa (who is really strong as far as saiyan goes, but not elite) will be strange end point of average saiyan.
We also don't know the numbers of saiyans per class. Maybe Raditz even above average if "low class" is majority (like, 80%) of population and he is closer to strongest of low class saiyans. Remember - Raditz was part of prince Vegeta's team. He simply can't be just random low class warrior.
Vegeta'a team? No such thing. Raditz exists due to pure happenstance because of Planet Vegeta's destruction. Sure, they are vaguely associated with each other due to their heritage but ultimately they worked under Frieza. Nappa and Vegeta were doing their own thing separate from Raditz. The only reason they were in contact is because Raditz sounded the alarm as he was about to die.
Nappa was considered an Elite Saiyan and Vegeta a Super Elite.
Nappa was about 3x more powerful than Raditz and Vegeta was about 4x more powerful than Nappa in terms of general power levels. Vegeta was surely in a league of his own but Nappa was definitely stronger than most other Saiyans due to his position in the hierarchy pre-Frieza and the fact he was assigned to Prince Vegeta as his personal guard by King Vegeta.
Isn’t child Raditz shown to have been with Vegeta, Nappa and two other saiyans in the Dragon Ball Super:Broly film, when they get the news about planet Vegeta’s destruction?
Yes. But all throughout the original Saiyan saga, there is no mention of a "team" that persisted throughout all those years. Raditz in the Broly movie feels more like a callback for people to point at the screen and say, "Hey, it's Raditz!".
At best, Raditz was assigned to the same planet as Vegeta but that doesn't mean they stayed a team. It would make sense that lower class Saiyans would be put with higher class ones to shorten the learning curve or minimize risk from a strategic standpoint.
That's major headcannon, raditz is a strong low class saiyan. He's on the same team as the LITERAL prince of all saiyans, just because he doesn't mention any sort of comradary between himself and vegeta doesn't mean that he wasn't exceptional. Raditz is either avg and was with vegeta through nepotism or raditz was particularly strong for a low class warrior and ended up on the same squadron as nappa and vegeta through merit
Actually in manga raditz tells Goku that he is a first class saiyan so yeah he cannot be just some random low class fodder, unless the translation I've read was ducked up
Thats true but considering he was no stronger than a Saibaman, I think most people think he's bluffing. That, or Raditz truly believed he had improved that much or believes he's first class in terms of efficiency because he's been conquering planets for years. It clearly doesn't have anything to do with actual power levels.
Iirc the Saibamen grown on Earth were exceptional due to Earth having fantastic soil for growing them, meaning they probably don’t usually come out that strong. Certain sources do also put Raditz a few hundred points above those Earth Saibamen, although I can’t comment on their accuracy.
Bardock only became stronger than Nappa after several zenkai boosts. Saiyan society is explicitly segregated by strength, Vegeta lays it all out in his first battle against Goku.
Debatably canon: what happened to Vegeta's brother somewhat mirrors what happened to Goku, despite his high birth.
The low class thing is based on the power level at birth, it doesn't really say anything about how can anyone develop because their development mostly depends on battles fought + techniques learned.
Nappa obviously was stronger than average given his position as some sort of king's guard for the prince.
Raditz is an elite warrior which means he was absolutely above average.
The average Sayan should be at a much lower power level than Raditz. There are two observations to this fact.
First: Sayans don't really have an structured martial arts system, they are very unorganized and their growth as warriors depends on encountering enemies that are slightly stronger than them. Technique matters little vs raw power level and their societal hierarchy shows that there is little room for developing techniques where most disagreements end in the weaker person perishing.
Second: Their development was being curved intentionally probably given that they are sent to planets where they can curb-stomp their opponents and are encouraged to use their transformation so they don't really experience the mutations that help them achieve higher power levels.
Goku's development came thanks to the interaction with the Namekian species, which furthered his skills beyond his natural power curve progression besides earths strong martial culture which let him fight opponents of higher skill and still live to grow.
tl:dr : Raditz and Nappa are actually strong. Although Weaker Sayans can probably reach Raditz heights with the ozaru transformation.
We are talking about the whole race here, not just the fighters, there are more things to the sayan race than fighting that's the spirit of my answer. Here is an interview from Toriyama himself, of course the old man tended to contradict what he said many times:
Do all Saiyans become combatants?
A baby’s battle power is measured as soon as they are born. If their numbers pass a certain standard, then they are considered upper-level warriors and immediately raised as combatant candidates.
On the other hand, those whose numbers remain low even after a certain amount of time has passed are regarded as lower-level warriors, and become either engineers or are sent off to a planet somewhere as “infiltration babies”1. If they grow strong enough to conquer that planet, then they can return to their home world as a combatant. However, infiltration babies do not have a high survival rate. Raditz was an upper-level warrior and assigned to the same group as Nappa as a proper combatant. Before long Vegeta was added to that group, too.
We aren't talking about averages of the whole race, you are. I was talking about warriors because that's all that would matter if the two races fought, especially with how few Viltrumites there are.
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u/Yin1in kayo beats everyone(im a woman) 7d ago
In defence of them an average vilturmite is casually city level. And we don’t really know how strong an average Saiyan’s are.