Is Krillin Stronger than Tien?

While the causal Dragon Ball fans want to know who is stronger out of Goku and Vegeta, the hardcore Dragon Ball fans ask the important questions, like is Krillin Stronger than Tien?

Krillin is stronger than Tien for some of Dragon Ball, and Tien is stronger than Krillin for some of Dragon Ball as well. Tien starts off stronger, then Krillin catches up on Namek, then Tien becomes stronger in Dragon Ball Super until Krillin catches him up.

Tien is stronger than Krillin in Dragon Ball.

When we first meet Tien is a fully grown adult, and Krillin is only a child, so it makes sense that Tien would be stronger than Krillin.

Tien manages to give good fights to both Master Roshi, and Goku who we know are both stronger than Krillin. Krillin only just manages to beat Chiatzou, who is considered one of the weaker fighters.

We can even see from Daizenshuu 7 that Goku and Tien have the same power level of 180. So Tien is definitely stronger than Krillin in the original Dragon Ball series.

Krillin is stronger than Tien in Dragon Ball Z.

Fast forward a few years when Tien and Krillin are both adults, and it’s much more of a fairer contest. This was back when Dragon Ball Z still used power levels, so it’s clear to see who is stronger.

In the Vegeta Saga we are told, in Vol. 18, #209, that Krillin has a power level of 206 while Tien has a power level of 250. Even after training for a year, Krillin has a power level of 1,770 while Tien has a power level of 1,830, according to Daizenshuu 7.

It’s not until the Frieza Saga where Krillin gets some real fighting experience and his potential unlocked by Guru that he overtakes Tien. We know that Krillin has a power level of 75,000, from V-Jump, during the Frieza Saga while Tien is dead.

So at this point, Krillin has overtaken Tien and would remain stronger than him for the rest of the series. It’s been stated at the end of Z that Krillin is the stronger human, meaning he was probably the strongest during the Android, Cell and Buu sagas.

So Dragon Ball Z, the victory goes to Tien.

Is Tien stronger than Krillin in Dragon Ball Super?

In the small break between Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super, both Krillin and Tien take different paths. Krillin becomes a cop while Tien opens his own Dojo.

While being a cop requires regular humans to be fit, for Krillin, it would have been effortless, and he wouldn’t have tested any of his strength or powers while working.

Tien, on the other hand, would have constantly been training and improving his power level. So if we take into account Krillin’s decline and Tien’s improvement, it’s fair to say Tien is probably slightly stronger than Krillin at the start of Dragon Ball Super.

However, when Krillin starts training again, sparing with Gohan, SSB Goku and Android 18, it seems he gets a lot of his old strength back, and then some while Tien doesn’t really improve that much over Dragon Ball Super.

During the Tournament of Power, Krillin helps out a lot more and deals with tougher opponents than Tien does, which further indicates that Krillin has probably taken over Tien’s power level once again.

So at by the end of Dragon Ball Super Krillin is probably the strongest human again.

Is Krillin Stronger than Tien? – Final Thoughts.

Looking back, it’s potentially more of an exciting rivalry than Goku and Vegeta. Goku is almost always stronger than Vegeta after he overtakes him, but with Krillin and Tien, there is a lot of back and forth.

Perhaps it would have been interesting if more was written about their rivalry, as they were initially enemies belonging to separate martial arts schools.

A cool idea for fanfic would be if Tien were to seek the Namekian Guru to get his potential unlocked, and then he challenged Krillin to a fight!

Credit to https://www.deviantart.com/trachta10/art/Dragon-Ball-Z-Kame-House-746355638 for the Kame House background I used as the featured image on this post.

And as always a big thank you to the Dragon Ball fandom page for the power level list.