The Dragon Ball universe is full of exceptional characters who are powerful beyond comprehension and only get stronger as the series goes on. The franchise has done a good job at increasing the sense of danger as new threats arise, but at a certain point, the scale was thrown out of balance and now everyone is just extremely overpowered. Dragon Ball has learned new ways to generate suspense and intrigue its audience, but one element that’s still in full bloom is the series’ love for new transformations and hitting new plateaus of power.

Dragon Ball can get tunnel vision when it comes to the series’ longstanding rivalry between Goku and Vegeta, but another major character who has frequently saved the day is Trunks — whether it’s Future Trunks or the one from the normal timeline. Both of these versions of Trunks have been integral throughout Dragon Ball. They’ve also gone through plenty of transformations that highlight their journeys as fighters. However, when there are so many transformations present, it can be easy to lose track of which are the best and which are the duds.

With that said, here is Every Trunks Transformation In Dragon Ball Ranked From Weakest To Strongest!

Ball Form

One of the more unfortunate transformations that afflicts Trunks is one that he happens to have no control over. During Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Trunks: Xeno attempts to recruit Majin Buu to fight in the Hero Colosseum against the Future Warrior. However, Buu would much rather play ball than fight, so he uses his Transfiguration Beam to turn Trunks: Xeno into a bouncy ball.

Ball Trunks is rather helpless, but he can still communicate telepathically with people as well as bounce around on his own volition. Thankfully Buu turns him back to normal not long after.

Future Trunks In Ginyu’s Body

The Xenoverse games have a lot of fun with “What If?” scenarios and the alternate approaches that they take with some of their storylines. Xenoverse 2 features an occasion where Captain Ginyu switches bodies with Future Trunks and history gets altered so that when Goku first encounters the Ginyu Force on Namek, Ginyu is in Future Trunks’ body.

Future Trunks makes the most of his time in Ginyu’s body, but he’s still held back by the limitations of the character’s form. When Ginyu eventually tries to steal Goku’s body, Future Trunks gets in the way and history is set back to what it should be.

Ultra Super Saiyan Trunks

This is a very rare occurrence for Trunks, but when an increasing amount of Dragon Ball video games were released, more alternate histories and liberties were taken to give the titles something new and fresh. Accordingly, Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warrior 2 brings up a new storyline that involves Cooler. This features a somewhat grown version of Trunks who turns Ultra Super Saiyan during a battle against Cooler.

Trunks handles this bulky Super Saiyan stage much like how his future counterpart does and it fails to be effective in battle. Trunks eventually turns to other tactics, and this is likely the reason why this is the only time he uses this skill.

Ultra Super Saiyan (Super Saiyan Third Grade) Future Trunks

There was an exciting period in Dragon Ball Z during the Cell Saga when all sorts of half-stages of Super Saiyan were being discovered. Future Trunks becomes a big champion for the Ultra Super Saiyan stage, which offers a huge boost of power. However, the increase in muscle mass also results in a heavy loss in speed and mobility.

Due to these huge downfalls, the transformation is basically phased out and deemed useless. However, even still, Future Trunks pulls out this skill when he returns in Dragon Ball Super and gets rightfully mocked for it.

Super Saiyan Trunks

When your father is Vegeta, it only makes sense that he drills intense training habits into you and doesn’t hold back. Vegeta wants Trunks to be the very best and, because of this, he treats him like an adult when it comes to his training. As a result, Trunks becomes a Super Saiyan at an incredibly young age and much earlier than his future counterpart.

Trunks’ first appearance as a Super Saiyan occurs during a training session with Vegeta for the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament. It’s such a boost in power that it allows him to comfortably train in the gravity chamber at 150 times the Earth’s gravity.

Super Saiyan Future Trunks

Future Trunks undergoes a much more torturous process to tap into his inner Super Saiyan. It’s a transformation that is a much more traditional ascension into a Super Saiyan. It’s also built on pain and loss, which is similar to what Goku and Vegeta went through. When Future Trunks witnesses the loss of his mentor, Gohan, at the hands of the Androids, he’s finally pushed over the edge and taps into this new power.

Future Trunks makes his Super Saiyan status well known and his infamous first appearance in Dragon Ball Z is highlighted by his transformation. It is a signal that this character is a very big deal.

Super Saiyan Second Grade Future Trunks

After the bulk of the Saiyans had the basics of transforming into a Super Saiyan under their belt, there was obviously the temptation to push them further. However, the writers didn’t want to bring on the next official stage of Super Saiyan quite yet. The advent of Super Saiyan Third Grade turned out to be a dud, so a compromise between that stage and a regular Super Saiyan was reached.

Super Saiyan Second Grade still features an increase in strength and muscle, but it’s it doesn’t negatively impact speed. This transformation requires a mastery of the form and pushes the powers to their limit without losing anything in the process.

Baby Infected Trunks

Dragon Ball GT was met with a lukewarm reception from many Dragon Ball fans due to some of the questionable decisions that it makes and Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama’s lack of involvement. Nevertheless, the series still does a lot of fun things and, regardless of whether it’s seen as canon or not, it provides some unique transformations.

The evil, vengeful Tuffle, Baby, is on a mission to take down the Saiyans and become a king. Before he settles on Vegeta as his prime host, though, he hops into a few other bodies, one of which is a grown Trunks. Baby Trunks poses some problems for Goku, but Baby soon moves on to greener pastures.

Villainous Mode Future Trunks

The original Dragon Ball Xenoverse features a conclusion that goes all out and sees the demon Demigra gain possession of Future Trunks and corrupt him. This Villainous Mode that Future Trunks undergoes is a lot like the Majin spell, but it is even stronger.

For instance, Future Trunks has zero control over his body while Demigra possesses this hold over him. That being said, while his body is helpless, Trunks can still mentally fight off Demigra’s powers and manages to get through to the Future Warrior. If nothing else, it’s interesting to see Future Trunks act as a villain for once and it makes for a worthy battle.

Future Gohanks

Future Trunks also experiences some truly interesting fusion transformations throughout the ancillary series in the Dragon Ball universe that also deserve some attention. Dragon Ball Fusions is a game that’s all about the exploitation of absurd fusion combinations, but one of the combinations that actually makes some sense is Future Gohanks.

Future Gohanks is the fusion dance result of protégé and mentor, Future Trunks and Future Gohan, and it feels like the next step in their training. Future Gohanks exhibits Future Gohan’s scars but also retains Future Trunks’ sword. The character was also popular enough to return in a mission in Dragon Ball Heroes.

Vegenks: Xeno

Another unusual fusion that stands out is the combination between Trunks: Xeno and Vegeta: Xeno, creating Vegenks: Xeno. Vegenks: Xeno is a last-ditch effort to take down the Demon God Towa in Super Dragon Ball Heroes. Trunks: Xeno and Vegeta: Xeno utilize Chronoa’s Potara earrings here and this fusion between father and son makes a lot of sense. They’re the perfect team and it’s easy to picture these two resorting to such measures to save the world and those around them.

For what it’s worth, there’s a regular Vegenks that appears in Dragon Ball Fusions, but Vegenks: Xeno just looks so much better. The design is fantastic and this is the most recent interpretation of the character.

Gotenks

Dragon Ball Fusions and Dragon Ball Heroes may provide plenty of strange, new fusion combinations to have fun with, but when it comes to Trunks fusions, everyone knows that Gotenks is the most popular, reliable transformation of the lot. Trunks and Goten have become an incredible fighting team and that beautifully translates into their fusion dance byproduct, Gotenks.

Gotenks has a ton of ridiculous attacks, but he even can become Super Saiyan 3, which, beyond Goku, no one else achieves in the main Dragon Ball Z anime. This is a testament to the power of this fusion and the character still lends his talents to the Z Fights in Dragon Ball Super.

Super Saiyan 2 Future Trunks

When Future Trunks returns in Dragon Ball Super, he primarily uses his Super Saiyan 2 form and never returns to the normal base level. It’s revealed in Dragon Ball Super’s manga that Future Trunks attains this skill after he witnesses Future Dabura take down Future Kibito. Super Saiyan 2 Future Trunks eliminated all of Buu’s disciples after this and ended the problem for his timeline.

Future Trunks masters Super Saiyan 2 so well that it’s said to be as powerful as Goku’s Super Saiyan 3 level. Goku even has to briefly become a Super Saiyan God to take down Future Trunks at this stage.

Super Saiyan 3 Trunks

The Dragon Ball Heroes series is notorious for not only introducing plenty of new fusions into the mix, but also allowing various versions of the same character to intermingle with one another. For example, there’s Future Trunks as well as GT Trunks, who is the grown version on Trunks in that series, even though they look nearly identical.

GT Trunks attains Super Saiyan 3 status in Dragon Ball Heroes, but it was a popular enough transformation that the character even returns in the series’ spin-off manga, Dragon Ball Heroes: Victory Mission. Clearly this character has many fans.

Super Saiyan 3 Future Trunks

A Super Saiyan 3 version of the Trunks from Dragon Ball GT may seem like a bit of a stretch considering how much the character has been slacking on his training, but a Super Saiyan 3 Future Trunks sounds about right. Dragon Ball Heroes lets Future Trunks have some fun in this state, and if any character can successfully rock the caveman brow look, it’s him.

Super Saiyan 3 Future Trunks is some fun wish fulfillment, but the game’s accompanying manga provides a little more context. Apparently, Future Trunks can only utilize the transformation for ten seconds when he takes down heaps of Demon Realm and Shinigami Soldiers.

Ultra Fusion Trunks

Gotenks may be Trunks; most consistent fusion form, but it’s likely that his Ultra Fusion form may be slightly more powerful due to the sheer amount that it packs in. Dragon Ball Fusion introduces a Five-Way Fusion technique that the Ginyu Force puts together.

Trunks can perform this five-way with Goten, Kid Goku, Pan, and Tekka, with the combination resulting in a powerful Ultra Fusion. Ultra Fusions are rare occurrences in the game, but it goes without saying that this character is extremely strong. Trunks has a wealth of resources at his disposal when in this Ultra Fusion state.

Sword Of Hope Future Trunks

Future Trunks goes to some incredible places over the course of Dragon Ball Super. Future Trunks goes through tons of huge transformations throughout the show and many of these have been translated to recent Dragon Ball video games with much care. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 tried to remain as current with Dragon Ball Super as possible and, thankfully, a number of DLC additions made that very possible.

DLC Super Pack 4 brings Future Trunks’ Sword of Hope into the mix. To be fair, the Sword is just a byproduct of Future Trunks’ Spirit Bomb Super Saiyan maneuver, but Xenoverse 2 treats it like an actual transformation that takes over the character since his sword transforms.

Super Saiyan Rage Future Trunks (Super Trunks)

Arguably the strongest story arc out of Dragon Ball Super is the Goku Black Saga and the terrors of Fused Zamasu. The villain is unstoppable in a way that’s never been present in the series before and it’s extremely satisfying when Future Trunks gets to be the one who solves the problem and takes him down.

During the climax of the Fused Zamasu battle, he taunts Future Trunks by telling him that all of this damage is his fault for travelling through time. This pushes Future Trunks into a colossal rage that allows him to hold off both Fused Zamasu and Goku Black. He’s basically as strong as a Super Saiyan Blue in this state.

Super Saiyan Blue Future Trunks

Future Trunks doesn’t achieve Super Saiyan Blue status in the anime or the manga, but Dragon Ball Fusions writes a few new chapters during Dragon Ball Super’s Goku Black Saga that push the character in that direction. In a bonus story, Goku and Vegeta decide that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to train Future Trunks and Tekka’s teams to turn Super Saiyan Blue. While it’s never explicitly shown, Future Trunks comments on how he’s learned the technique.

Super Saiyan Blue Future Trunks would likely be more stable than Super Saiyan Rage Future Trunks, but it seems like a slim difference in power.

Spirit Bomb Super Saiyan Future Trunks

The coup de grace in the final showdown with Fused Zamasu comes from Future Trunks. After already doing tons of damage in his shiny, new Super Saiyan Rage form, Future Trunks turns up the heat a little higher. Future Trunks uses this new strength to call upon all of the energy from the planet — just like with Goku’s Spirit Bomb — and channels it into his sword.

As a result, the sword grows and becomes consumed with energy, which finally gives Trunks enough of an advantage to defeat Fused Zamasu. It looks like truly the apex of power and achieves what both Goku and Vegeta were unable of doing.

What do you think? Which Trunks transformation is the most powerful in Dragon Ball? Let us know in the comments!