Base Goten and Trunks (Pre) vs. Piccolo

quote Kaboom

Yeah, keep in mind that as per the rules of the tournament, Eighteen would be disqualified if she killed her opponent, and thus not get her precious prize money. It'd make sense for her to be pulling her punches somewhat while trying to gauge how powerful "Mighty Mask" was.

She knew from the outset that the 'Mighty mask' was a formidable opponent.

No.18: “…That weird long-torso freak isn’t anyone ordinary…His small arms had surprisingly powerful punches.”

Lets face it. I'm pretty sure c18 would consider someone like Freeza as 'ordinary' considering she could probably kill him with a nudge.

quote

Not to mention that she is acting totally nonchalant and not stressed in the slightest during the battle, whereas Goten and Trunks are clearly struggling; not an indication of an "even battle." Even after going Super Saiyan, they still think they're at a disadvantage, but if they were already truly on-par with her in base, then once they're now 50x stronger than her there's no way the suit would matter at all.

Trunks and Goten were really only struggling slightly because of the suit imo. If you look at the panels where they didn't actually have to move much, they could block her hits quite 'nonchalantly'. She doesn't even look like she was holding back much hence the multiple 'blow marks' in single panel (bottom of Kanzenban Vol 31, p 009). Those usually depict someone going all out in an attempt to drive their opponent back (Vegeta vs Fat Boo etc). Also they just got back up again after getting knocked through the floor of the arena with only a messed up costume and some dirt on them. Doesn't seem like they had much of a disadvantage power wise.

Also, that's assuming they were actually '50x stronger' as SSjins. If you go down the practical route and follow the 10x boost that AT suggests he followed when writing the manga then Trunks needing to fire a [heavily suppressed] blast to knock c18 out makes more sense.

Anyway, considering the manga was written for kids, simply from a narrative standpoint, I think the clear message is that Goten and Trunks rival c18 in their regular forms while they match SSjin Gohan in their SSjin forms.

quote

I'd consider 18 to measure up to the kids about the same as Piccolo compares to the adult Saiyans; smack dab right in-between their base and full Super Saiyan power.

Uh... That said, to be on-topic, the base kids don't stand a chance against Piccolo. Though after their stint in the Room of Spirit and Time, they'd be able to put up a good fight working together... as Super Saiyans.

As I said before, nothing really suggests c18 is significantly above base Trunks and Goten let alone their SSjin forms being weaker than Piccolo.
I mean, you need to really argue Piccolo>SSjin Teen Gohan for that to make any sense. SSjin Gohan literally shit himself when he was attempting to block Goten's hits so I don't see how it makes any sense for Goten to be less than/around half of Gohan's power

But here's the thing folks. If you're going to argue Piccolo>kids(preRoSaT) then you're going to have to argue Piccolo>Teen Gohan. Simple as that.

But Kaboom the reasoning behind the kids rivalling SSjin Gohan doesn't come from them simply 'impressing' Gohan. It comes from Gohan having to put in what appears to be the utmost effort to just block Gotens' hits. Like I have seen Goten and Trunks being put as low as imperfect Cell or even as low as Freeza. It is simply absurd to have them that low as the manga contradicts it so heavily.