Dragon Ball Super Saiyan tier list: Super Saiyan 2 ranks top

I ranked the Saiyan transformations from Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super and Dragon Ball GT in a tier list, and my favorite of them all is Super Saiyan 2. Right alongside it in the top tier is the Golden Great Ape.

This list is for fun, and it has nothing to do with power. I'm not ranking how strong these forms are. I'm ranking them on what I like personally: the design, how each one was used in the series, and how cool it is in my eyes.

Why Kaio-ken and Ultra Instinct made a Super Saiyan tier list

The person who built the tier list template chose to include Kaio-ken and Ultra Instinct. Both are closer to techniques than transformations. Mastered Ultra Instinct is a form of transformation, but it's also a state of being. Still, he chose to include them, and I thought, why not? I went along with it.

His reasoning for Kaio-ken is that it has a different visual look, and that makes sense. I do think one form is missing from the template, and I come back to it further down. So I ranked the forms that were available to me and gave my reasons for each.

The Great Ape and Broly's Wrath form sit at the bottom

The forms at the bottom aren't forms I hate. They're the ones I don't favor as much. Here I have the Great Ape and Broly's Wrath form. That's his angry form, which is basically the Great Ape inside him.

I don't hate either of these, but they're my least favorite. To be honest, I'm thinking about moving Broly's form up a little, because the way he was able to pull it off was great.

Rosé, Ultimate Gohan and Trunks' Rage form land in C tier

C tier holds forms I also like, but that I kept lower for specific reasons. Super Saiyan Rosé is like a cool villain version of Super Saiyan Blue. It still isn't very original to me, even though it suits Goku Black.

Ultimate Gohan is a form they could have done more with. I think that's why it's down here. Then there's Trunks' Rage form from Dragon Ball Super. I put it here because we know nothing about it. We don't know how Trunks got it, and we know almost nothing else about it. At the time I made this list, we had only seen it the one time Trunks used it, two or three times during his story in Super, and nothing had been seen or heard of it since. What it really is remained a big mystery.

Ultra Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan Blue and Super Saiyan 3 round out C tier

The Super Saiyan Third Grade, also known as Ultra Super Saiyan, is the form Trunks used against Cell. It has huge power and huge energy. It burned the sky, so I like it. For me, though, its impact wasn't strong enough. It didn't resonate with me the way I hoped it would.

Super Saiyan Blue is next, and again, I don't hate any of these transformations. I just feel Super Saiyan Blue looks a bit lazy. It's a color change on Super Saiyan, and I think it was overused. That said, I think Super Saiyan Blue Goku is the official mascot of modern Dragon Ball. If we think about Dragon Ball Z, the mascot is base Goku or Super Saiyan Goku. For Super, I think Blue Goku represents the series more than anything, because we saw it more than any other transformation.

Super Saiyan 3 sits right next to it. I don't hate it either. Many fans hate it, but for me it has problems similar to other forms, and it's a strange look on Goku. It's not among my favorites at all.

Mastered Ultra Instinct, Super Saiyan God and Full Power Broly in the next tier

Moving up a tier, Mastered Ultra Instinct is here. I love the silver hair, but at the time we hadn't seen enough of it. Then there's Super Saiyan God, which I like more than Blue because of its aura. I love that fiery aura. It looks great, especially in Battle of Gods.

Then there's Broly's form, now referred to as Full Power Broly. It's called that because Tatsuya Nagamine, the director of the film, didn't want to call it Legendary Super Saiyan, so people wouldn't confuse it with the original Broly from Z. The form is directly inspired by that earlier one, and it's more like a tribute to the old Broly.

This form didn't exist when Toriyama handed in the initial Broly designs and the film's script. It wasn't Toriyama's creation. It's a tribute from Nagamine to his mentor, who worked on the original Broly films. In fact, Broly's Wrath form is the highest form he reached in Toriyama's script, and Nagamine added this one to raise his power. Many people may not know that. I like this form, don't get me wrong. It suits Broly, but it isn't among my favorites.

Vegeta's Blue Evolution and Super Vegeta, plus Blue Kaio-ken and classic Super Saiyan

In the same tier are Super Saiyan Blue Evolution and the Grade 1 form. These two are updated versions of Vegeta's transformations, Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan Blue, and I like them. I prefer Vegeta's transformation to Trunks', because I enjoyed his fight with Imperfect Cell. "I am Super Vegeta" was a moment I enjoyed, and of course, let's not forget the Final Flash.

Next is what I think is called Super Saiyan Blue Kaio-ken. I put it here because it was a great scene, but I don't consider it one of the best transformations. It's also not a transformation in the literal sense. It's a technique.

Then there's the classic Super Saiyan. I don't hate it at all, of course. It's just middle of the road for me compared with some of the other transformations we've seen.

The missing form: Full Power Super Saiyan

What's notably missing here is Full Power Super Saiyan. Not Full Power Broly, but Full Power Super Saiyan, the form Goku and Gohan were in when they left the Room of Spirit and Time. It's also known as Super Saiyan Fourth Grade.

Ultra Instinct Omen, Super Saiyan 4 and Kaio-ken in A tier

Now to the A and S tiers. I love Ultra Instinct Omen. Episode 110 of Super is still my favorite episode. The first person perspective, what Goku did, the idea behind it, his mastery of his own body's movement: these are beautiful things.

In some ways, I feel the mastered version isn't necessary. I know they added it to mark the different levels of Goku's power and control, but the Omen scene is beautiful to me. Much of my feeling for it comes from episode 110 of Dragon Ball Super.

Super Saiyan 4 is many people's favorite transformation, and I personally love it. Notice how Dragon Ball GT ranks high on this list. GT has some problems, but it has some great transformations.

Then there's Kaio-ken, maybe because of nostalgia. I love Kaio-ken, going back to when Goku used it against Vegeta. He also used it in Dragon Ball Z movies 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and briefly in 7. I love the flame aura, the power of it, and the moment he yells "Kaio-ken times" whatever. As I mentioned, it's a technique rather than a transformation, a visual representation of the difference. I've always loved it.

The Golden Great Ape takes a place in S tier

S tier holds my two favorite forms in Dragon Ball. The first is the Golden Great Ape. The idea of a Super Saiyan version of the Great Ape takes us back to the start of the series. It ties into a plot point Vegeta raised on Namek, where he hinted, without saying it outright, that the original Super Saiyan could only sustain its power in Golden Great Ape form. That turned out to be untrue later, but it's what we heard at the time.

I really like that they went back to that idea and gave us the Golden Great Ape, with Goku looking at the moon and transforming. To this day I'm still upset that we never saw two Golden Great Apes fight like in the Godzilla movies. That would have been great. The form appears for only a second, but it's special to me because I love it.

Super Saiyan 2 is my favorite Dragon Ball transformation

Super Saiyan 2 is my favorite transformation. I love the buildup to it. I love how the entire Cell saga is about gaining more and more power. We see Vegeta, Trunks and Goku evolve, and then finally Gohan, the son Goku always hoped would be like him, and even better than him, better than he thought. Goku isn't a bad dad, by the way. When you pay attention, he really isn't.

Super Saiyan 2 Gohan is great in every sense. There's the transformation scene with the music playing behind it in the Japanese version, what he did to the Cell Juniors, and his final defeat of Cell. I love that transformation, and I also love Goku's and Vegeta's Super Saiyan 2 later in Dragon Ball Z.

It's a lot like Super Saiyan 1, but better, with more lightning effects and thinner hair. I simply adore it. Super Saiyan 2 is my favorite in Dragon Ball.