Power Ball

The Power Ball is one of the Saiyan race's most cunning techniques. By combining personal ki with a planet's atmospheric gases, a Saiyan can create a condensed sphere of Blutz Waves that mimics the light of a full moon. Any Saiyan with a tail who looks at it will undergo the Great Ape transformation, even in broad daylight or on a moonless world.

The catch is that generating a Power Ball is physically exhausting. Only elite warriors have the ability to produce one, and even they prefer to schedule their invasions around natural full moons when possible. Vegeta himself timed his arrival on Earth to coincide with a full moon, resorting to the Power Ball only after Goku proved more resilient than expected. The artificial moon lasts approximately 90 minutes before dissipating.

Vegeta creates the first on-screen Power Ball during his legendary battle with Goku in the Saiyan Saga. Battered and bleeding after Goku's Kaio-ken x4 Kamehameha overpowers his Galick Gun, Vegeta realizes he needs a decisive advantage. He launches the glowing sphere into the sky, transforms into a Great Ape, and begins rampaging. The irony is that Goku later tells Gohan to look at the same Power Ball, turning Vegeta's own weapon against him when the young half-Saiyan transforms and crushes the ape-form prince.

In The Tree of Might, Turles uses the technique with a more calculated cruelty: he creates a Power Ball to force Gohan into Great Ape form, then aims the berserk child at Goku. After Gohan does enough damage, Turles destroys the Power Ball to prevent himself from transforming, though Gohan remains in ape form long enough for the transformation's effects to linger.

The technique resurfaces dramatically in Super Dragon Ball Heroes when the ancient evil Saiyan Cumber produces a Power Ball to transform into a Golden Great Ape during his fight against Vegito. This marks a significant escalation, since Golden Great Ape is a form normally associated with Super Saiyan 4 progression, and Cumber achieving it through a Power Ball demonstrates both his elite status and the sheer danger of the technique in the wrong hands.

In the Ocean Group English dub, Vegeta claims Goku's father invented the Power Ball, calling Bardock "a brilliant scientist." This contradicts basically everything else about Bardock, who is consistently portrayed as a frontline soldier. Cumber, an ancient Saiyan who predates Bardock by millennia, can also create one, further disproving the dub's claim.