...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Weak, but Skilled
- 1835 statements
- 332 feature instances
- 471 referencing feature instances
| Weak, but Skilled | type |
FeatureClass | |
| Weak, but Skilled | label |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled | page |
WeakButSkilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled | comment |
This is a character who, despite being physically weaker than their opponent, is able to beat them because they are more skilled than their opponent. They'll prove Hard Work Hardly Works is a false premise, and even exploit the stronger opponents' sloppy technique and Pride to win. It's not unusual for the Badass Bookworm, and less unusual for The Heart of any team. This is often a sub-trope of Badass Normal. If the Weak, but Skilled character is The Protagonist or The Hero, they'll usually be an expert at Deadly Dodging, a fast thinker, and generally win through cleverness and strategy that involve dirty fighting and Geo Effects to win. If they aren't, then they're like a Mentor, The Rival, The Lancer or The Smart Guy. They'll usually start out much stronger than the hero overall but won't keep up once the hero starts gaining skill himself in the use of his powers. They'll occasionally bail them out but force them to finish their battles, and urge them to train their power to stop the bad guy, whom this character can't take out because the bad guy is both Strong and Skilled (compare that trope). A character who grows old and weak will often become this, having decades of experience to compensate for their lack of youth, but this can still be the case if they grow Stronger with Age and thus have nothing to compensate for. This is a common justification for how Badass Normals can keep up with more powerful characters in a setting or inside an ensemble. Death of a Thousand Cuts may also come into play. It should be noted that "weak" (especially a Paper Tiger class) can be a relative term. The protagonist/hero might have a certain level of Super-Strength and Super-Toughness, but is completely outpowered by his opponent. In this case, the hero's own strength and toughness are what enable him to even hurt the villain and avoid being killed in a single shot, but he needs his brains and skill to ultimately win. If he's a Non-Action Guy, you're looking at a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Curiously, it is not uncommon for these characters to be the Cold Sniper or an Archer. Since they mostly succeed, at taking out their opponents by mere distance alone. Those with More Dakka or BFS would be wise to take cover, less they risk getting savagely shot down. Compare with David Versus Goliath, Combat Pragmatist, Difficult, but Awesome and, metafictionally, Cherry Tapping. Contrast Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training. Willfully Weak may be invoked to bring this about. One explanation for the power of a Badass Bystander. Despite their skill, may fall prey to I Don't Know Mortal Kombat. This can be an issue faced by a character that is Well-Trained, but Inexperienced. The rare villainous examples may fall into Villainous Valour, depending on their presentation. For characters with questionably useless powers within the superhero community proving otherwise, see Heart Is an Awesome Power. Contrast Bigger Stick and Unskilled, but Strong, the latter being the inverse trope. Often achieves Victory by Endurance; Stone Wall is a Downplayed Trope for them. |
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| Weak, but Skilled | fetched |
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| Weak, but Skilled | parsed |
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Dropped link to ADanceOnTheMats: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
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Dropped link to AdvanceWars: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
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Dropped link to BFS: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to Ben10: Not an Item - CAT | |
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Dropped link to MyFriendsAndZoidberg: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to OlderIsBetter: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to OneStatToRuleThemAll: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PersonOfMassDestruction: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PoisonousPerson: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PossessionImpliesMastery: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PowerLevels: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PoweredArmor: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PressurePoint: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PsychicPowers: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to PunyEarthlings: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to RageQuit: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to RobotGirl: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to SelfDeprecation: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to SelfDuplication: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to ShootEmUp: Not an Item - IGNORE | |
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Dropped link to SonicManiaPlus: Not an Item - UNKNOWN | |
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Dropped link to StarWars: Not an Item - CAT | |
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Dropped link to StoneWall: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to StrongAndSkilled: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to SubvertedTrope: Not an Item - CAT | |
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Dropped link to SuperEmpowering: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to SuperStrength: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to TaughtByExperience: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to TheBerserker: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to TheDreaded: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to TheEngineer: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to TookALevelInBadass: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to UnskilledButStrong: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to VillainForgotToLevelGrind: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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Dropped link to playingwithatrope: Not an Item - FEATURE | |
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A Dance On The Mats / Fan Fic | |
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DragonBones | |
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CuteButPsycho | |
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AdvanceWars | |
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GameMasterPlus | |
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SonicManiaPlus | |
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DBTropes | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_109f7814 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
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Sherlock: Despite being very short, John and Mary are good shots, and John had killed TWO villains, threatened actual freaking DEATH on one of them, grabs on to Moriarty, while having a bomb vest strapped to him, and tells his friend to run. Oh, and Mary's the one who shot Sherlock. | |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_1331990c | type |
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In Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Akemi Homura is eventually revealed to be a version of this. Her actual powers are fairly limited; her status as one of the most accomplished warriors in the series comes from her creative applications of them. As well as a lot of Dakka. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_1331990c | featureApplicability |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_1367cea0 | type |
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Worm: Deconstructed with Armsmaster. He is a pure Tinker with no innate physical enhancements or ranged attacks who can nevertheless beat "true" capes through gear and superior skill. However, to be this capable, almost all his free time is spent either training or working on his gear, and he still Can't Catch Up to those who have The Gift like Dauntless. This results in him becoming The Resenter and a Glory Hound. | |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_14afa9d | type |
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Sleepless Domain: Undine Wells, the water-wielding member of Team Alchemical, doesn't have as much raw power as her teammates, and her own non-combative nature means her powers lack the "oomph" factor of some other girls. However, her precision and control of her element are apparently well above the standard of most other magical girls. Plus, when it comes to elements, Water is one that is much better used skillfully than powerfully, something that training with Heartful Punch helps her realize. | |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_14c51337 | type |
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ST☆R: Strike it Rich: Nozomi, at least relatively to Hina: she doesn't have nearly as much strength, but she has experience, unlike her opponent. As such, she can capitalize on Hina's big openings to pin her leg to the ground. However, the sheer gap in raw strength means Nozomi couldn't win a real fight, something she is well aware of. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_14c51337 | featureApplicability |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_14cf013a | type |
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Buffy: Ethan Rayne can't take Giles in a fight, but he has a flair for magic-induced chaos. Giles, meanwhile, is only human, and is routinely punched out by vampires and creamed every time he tries a Training Montage on Buffy; on the other hand he's seemingly familiar with every melee weapon known to man and trained the supremely skilled Buffy in all of them. As far as credible villains go, Angelus is not on the same scale as the ascended Mayor but he's a Master Vampire who has been in the game for over two hundred years and is powerful enough to stalemate Buffy, an unusually strong Slayer. His greatest asset, however, (aside from a meticulous brand of viciousness that would make The Joker proud) is his inside knowledge of the Scoobies, which he uses to full effect. Among other things, he's got the malicious psychological insight of Hannibal Lecter. Spike is the youngest non-Villain of the Week Vampire the Scoobies have faced. He's just over a century old, which means while he's a lot stronger than the average human, he's on the low end of the raw strength scale as far as vampires and demons go. He's also killed two Slayers, can beat up the older, stronger, and bulkier Angel on occasion, and is considered one of the most dangerous threats around by the Watcher's Council, all because of his peculiarly sharp brand of insight, adaptability, and willingness to do his research - he understands exactly what makes Slayers tick, and he can cut straight through bullshit by being unsettlingly observant. Buffy outright admits that she can't really lie to him, to her own bemusement, and it makes him an exceptional manipulator when he actually bothers. This is probably true of all humans who hunt demons and vampires. Humans are the weakest beings in the Buffyverse, and every kind of monster is stronger than a human being. |
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| Buffy the Vampire Slayer | hasFeature |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_1869a077 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
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Samurai Jack: The eponymous protagonist of the show isn't very large or physically powerful, but he's one of the most badass warriors in the entire world because of his mastery of swordsmanship and martial arts from all over the world. One example is the episode where he meets the Scotsman's clan and is forced into a stone-throwing contest to test his worth. Unfamiliar with the sport, he did poorly in the first attempt, but after noting that his mocking opponent was much heavier than the stone, he used a martial arts move of redirecting balance and energy to fling him an equal distance. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_1869a077 | featureApplicability |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_186da02a | comment |
In Borderlands 3, Typhus DeLeon, the First Vault Hunter differs from his successors in that rather than simply being an extremely deadly mercenary he got by more on his luck and wits, stating that he's not that great in a fight. He credits his success to being smarter than his enemies, small enough to get into places others can't and being ugly enough that no one would bother paying him any attention. | |
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Other Digimon series have had humans who regularly engaged hands-on with Digimon. Digimon Fusion's Zenjirou used his kendo skills combined with a digimon-made sword, while Digimon Data Squad's Masaru went barehanded against other digimon. | |
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Dragon Age: Rogues in Dragon Age: Origins, like in the Dungeons & Dragons example above, can take a passive ability that allows them to base their damage with daggers off their Dexterity instead of their Strength. This usually results in an immediate damage increase out of the Rogue, as players usually build their Rogues with high Dexterity. In the sequel, Rogues have a few different skills they can take that do things like replace Dexterity with Strength for calculating damage, gain them a 1% bonus to critical hit damage per point of Cunning (high level rogues will easily have 30+ points of Cunning, before any armor bonuses), and increase the 'chance' of scoring a critical hit by 1% per each point of Cunning. Combine this with the fact that your characters no longer control like drunken yaks like in the first game, and a Rogue ability that moves them directly to the target's rear, thereby making flanking 'much' easier, a Rogue with 14 strength will really put the Cannon in Glass Cannon. |
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Ranma ½: Ranma defeated Prince Herb, who far outclassed him in every way possible, by using a technique to gather up all of the energy Herb was giving off and turning it against him. Subverted with Happosai: at first he seems just a frail old man who can easily toss far stronger opponents through walls or over the horizon by redirecting their momentum with a pipe, but at times he shows that he's just as powerful, and rarely shows his real power because it's funnier that way. |
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In Dark Rendezvous, Scout is a Jedi Padawan. The Force is weak with her; she makes up for it with determination, quick thinking, and endless training. She's got Heroic Resolve in spades and bloody-minded determination, and in a book full of concern about almost every other character maybe one day turning to the Dark Side, no one believes Scout will, not even herself, because she fights so hard to be the best Jedi she can be. Just to drive home the point of how good she was: she survived The Purge that killed most of the full Knights and Masters of the Jedi order. In her non-Dark Rendezvous appearance the author had other Jedi look down on her for having weak powers, but it only takes one line to see that that author was just not doing the research. It should also be noted that she won the Jedi Apprentice Tournament with Crazy-Prepared Refuge in Audacity tactics that would make Batman proud. |
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X-Men has a few mutants who fit this trope: Originally Emma Frost was one of these, being a minor telepathic talent compared to Professor X who nevertheless matched him in skill. As time went on and Frost graduated from her villainous White Queen persona, she began to acquire power along with her skill. Now, thanks to this Power Creep and some Character Shilling she's one of the top telepaths in the X-Men universe. Magneto has two lieutenants in his Acolytes. One is Exodus, a Superpower Lottery winner writ large, and the other is Fabian Cortez, a guy with the mutant power of... Super-Empowering. One would think on the face of it that Exodus would easily be the more capable leader, until they studied Cortez a bit more closely. Aside from being better educated (due to being a child of royalty), Cortez is also a gifted strategist (believably claims to have studied each and every X-Man), expert martial artist (so much so that he defeated Psylocke the first time they fought) and gifted politician (so much so that Magneto brought him on to be a part of his cabinet on Genosha after Cortez had betrayed and tried to kill him). Mastermind of the Brotherhood of Mutants is a mutant with weak psychic powers — unlike most Marvel psychics who are capable of telepathy and telekinesis, all Mastermind can do is make illusions. He is, however, extremely good at making illusions. X-23 is a short and slight teenage girl usually depicted as even smaller than Wolverine. She shares his mutation but only her claws are laced with adamantium, so though she heals faster she's less resistant to injury in the first place. She's still one of the most dangerous fighters in the Marvel Universe because of her extensive combat training (and not just hand-to-hand, either. "Target X" shows her sniping the pilot of a maneuvering helicopter with a perfect headshot). In fact she's such a dangerous fighter despite her physical shortcomings that Marvel: Avengers Alliance actually classifies her as a Bruiser. |
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While Bun-Bun from Sluggy Freelance is hardly weak, he is still a mini-lop rabbit, and relies on this trope when taking on particularly tough opponents like Mecha Easter Bunny, evil Aylee, Alien Santa Claus, or the dread pirate Black Soul. | |
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This is how the titular hunters of Monster Hunter prevail against the many, many large and life-threatening monsters they face. Even the strongest weapons still take dozens or hundreds of hits to kill one such target, while the monsters can easily kill hunters in one or two hits, but through skilled evasive maneuvers, exploitation of all the right weak points, and management of the items they carry in their pouches, hunters regularly come back in one piece with the bits and pieces of monsters that are tens of meters long as their victory trophies. Embodied best perhaps by the humble Sword and Shield. It doesn't have the strongest blows or the mightiest defences, and even compared to the Dual Blades it isn't particularly fast. Even the games advise this weapon as a beginner's choice. But it is still one of the best weapons for mobility and repositioning options, and thanks to the high rate of attack it's a more effective weapon for inflicting elemental damage and Status Effects even if the raw damage isn't so great. Best of all, World gives the Sword and Shield the unique ability to use items and the new Slinger while still unsheathed, giving a healer or trapper a lot of flexibility. |
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Bleach: Mayuri Kurotsuchi is not much of a physical fighter and even admits his zanpakuto works as a motion-sensor to compensate for his poor combat skills. What he is is a brilliant scientist with Crazy-Prepared skills on Batman's level. When he does have to fight himself, he proves himself as dangerous as you'd expect from a Captain by countering the opponents' tricks beforehand, using a variety of nasty poisons, setting traps, and generally doing everything possible to win the fight before it even starts. Uryu only manages to defeat him with a Dangerous Forbidden Technique that left him worse off than Mayuri in the long run (Mayuri's self-experimentation meant that he was able to pull himself back together, while Uryu lost his Quincy powers). Speaking of Uryu, he, as well as Orihime, fit this trope among Ichigo’s circle of close friends, lacking in power, but having unique abilities. Uryu is a Quincy, with the power to absorb and manipulate spirit energy. He’s capable of harnessing it in several creative ways, including creating energy weapons, energy cages, and even puppeteering his own body’s limbs after Mayuri rendered them immobile in their battle. For Orihime, she controls the Shun Shun Rikka, a series of spirits with unique abilities, allowing her to do things such as heal injuries and create energy shields. She's able to use it for attacks, but they're weak due to Orihime's naturally gentle demeanor. The Fullbring Arc reveals that she’s been improving in the versatility of her abilities, demonstrating powers she hadn’t had before, such as producing a shield that performs offense and defense. In the Blood War arc, she actually teams up with Ichigo to take on the Big Bad, Yhwach. Szayelaporro Granz, Mayuri’s direct counterpart in the Espadas. Granz is the 8th Espada, meaning, in terms of spirit energy, he’s the second-weakest of the team, the only one beneath him being Aaroniero. However, being a counterpart to Mayuri, Szayelaporro is a Mad Scientist who has a whole arsenal of deadly devices and traps at his disposal. His unique abilities and tools include creating minions that he can eat to heal his own wounds, creating voodoo dolls to torture and break his enemies’ vitals, taking direct control of other living beings, and even a method of self-resurrection via stealing an opponent’s life force. Even Mayuri, who became disgusted by the Espada’s claims of being perfect, admitted that he was impressed by his abilities. In comparison to their Captains, most Lieutenant-class Soul Reapers are this. Lieutenants like Shuhei Hisagi, Momo Hinamori, Izuru Kira, and Yumichika Ayasegawa, while lacking in raw power, all demonstrate good combat skill and Kido proficiency, meaning they’re able to keep up with and aid their Captains in larger conflicts. Yoruichi technically falls under this. Unlike most Soul Reapers, she lacks a Zanpakuto, and is generally shown to lack in raw power compared to the stronger characters in-series. Kisuke actually made special armor for her to compensate for her strength in the fight against Aizen. That said, Yoruichi is recognized as the “Goddess of Flash�, the fastest Shunpo user in the Soul Society. On top of that, she’s a master martial artist, as shown when she defeated all of the Onmitsukido (minus Soi-Fon) all by herself, and possesses impressive Kido proficiency. Rukia Kuchiki of Squad 13. She’s lacking in strength, but when it comes to being a warrior, she’s a lot more level-headed than her usual demeanor would suggest. Her Zanpakuto, Sode no Shirayuki, enables her to control ice through graceful, dance-like techniques. Additionally, like her elder brother Byakuya, Rukia is shown having high proficiency in Kido, and is shown using several varied spells to aid in her battle. Besides Hachi, Rukia's the only non-Captain character to kill an Espada, defeating Aaroniero, the 9th Espada. The kicker? She beat him all by herself. During the Fullbring Arc, Ichigo, in comparison to most of the Xcution members, becomes this. During his training with them to master Fullbring powers, he slowly starts regaining the use of spirit energy. As his powers were already depleted over a year before, Ichigo was now much weaker than he was before. However, unlike the Xcution members, save Ginjo and Tsukishima, Ichigo has spent several months in actual battles for survival. As such, his fighting experience allows him to keep up with them despite having much weaker powers. |
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In Monsters University, while Mike is incredibly skilled and has the technical knowledge needed to craft a unique scare for each child, he lacks the natural ability and instinct of a true scarer, making him better suited to coach and advise other monsters on how to do their job. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Lucas from Cyber Six, since the enemies in the show are Super Soldiers and monsters created in a lab and he's just a muggle who can box. He holds his own against a Fixed Idea, a creature that can smash bricks with it's bare hands, simply because he's an experienced enough fighter to dodge it's telegraphed moves. | |
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In The 13th Warrior, in order to get the scheming prince to back off, one of the thirteen picks a fight with a younger, bigger, stronger mook. He lets the mook beat him up for a while and very nearly win, then when the mook rushes in for a killing blow, the warrior casually sidesteps it and cuts off his head in one stroke. | |
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The Ashen One, the protagonist of Dark Souls III, is notable for being this even by comparison to the other protagonists - as an Unkindled, they have even less metaphysical 'oomph' behind them than the Chosen Undead or the Bearer of the Curse, and are fit only to be cinders to the First Flame. In case you were thinking this made them a pushover, bear in mind that the Ashen One's kill list has a guy who eats gods on it, and said god-eater isn't even the toughest target on that list. | |
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Team BUILD DiVERS have this going for them in Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE. Compared to many of the other teams in GBN, especially the heroes of the previous series, the team is pathetically weak. They have a hard time fighting Alus' One-Eyes army straight on, but once they start to realize their extremely-simplistic Attack! Attack! Attack! patterns, they're able to easily overcome them with skill. | |
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A Certain Magical Index hero Touma Kamijou only has his trusty Imagine Breaker when up against incredibly powerful Espers and Magicians. He still manages to hold his own quite well thanks to his wits, overwhelming tenacity, and the occasionally clever applications he employs with his limited arsenal. | |
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Beck from TRON: Uprising definitely qualifies. He has spent a lifetime roof-hopping, dueling, and racing bikes — thus is an exceptionally agile and fast enough to hold his own in protracted battles with Paige and Tesler, who are trained combatants with a lot more power to throw around. Beck rarely wins any battles, but he always gets away. And this all before he officially begins his uprising or gets any form of training. | |
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Rescue Me had strong, young firefighter Franco training as a boxer. His first sparring partner was a man with decades of experience, who was way over 70 years old. Guess who won? | |
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The Oarai and Jatkosota schools' sensha-do teams in Girls und Panzer are this, owing to their low numbers and lack of equipment compared to all the other schools. The latter especially, considering they have a limited tank selection and are mentioned as regularly stealing equipment and supplies from the other schools. They persist on the merits of their tank crews and have a fearsome reputation that makes even Kuromorimine's team wary. | |
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Fire Emblem: The Swordmaster Class tend to be this, but the class that epitomizes the trope would be the even rarer class, Assassin. Swordmasters have high speed and skill with a relatively low strength cap, but also gain a boost anywhere from 15% to 30%, depending on game, to their critical chance. Assassins tend to have the lowest strength cap in any given game they're in for final class promotions, but also have the highest skill cap, and are the only class with a one hit kill move that deals death even if they'd normally not even do damage with a normal attack. One specific character example is Luthier from Fire Emblem Gaiden and its remake, Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. He has a fairly low magic growth but the highest skill growth in the game, and he even gets an Unskilled, but Strong foil in his little sister Delthea. |
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Angel: Wesley is easily the physically weakest male member of Angel Investigations. Yet he managed to kill Skip, capture and cage up Justine, and he was the one to face Vail in "Not Fade Away". While testing Illyria's powers, Spike (who is usually no slouch in the strength department) gets knocked around the room constantly by her godlike strength, commenting that she hits "like a mack-truck". Over time he begins to adapt and dodge her blows and gets a few shots in. Illyria disparages him as being weak for adapting and compromising, to which Spike retorts that it is a strength because he is learning. Kate knows that she isn't strong enough to fight vampires head-on, so she uses pragmatic tactics to gain the upper hand. Happens only rarely, but when Fred pulls a fast one, her ingenuity will leave you dizzy. |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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RoboCop (1987) combines this with Weaksauce Weakness: The eponymous cyborg defeats ED-209 by knowing how to climb stairs. | |
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Like a Dragon: Tanimura from Yakuza 4 is the smallest and skinniest of the four protagonists, and this is represented with him having the lowest health and paltry damage output without upgrades. However, he can parry almost any move and has powerful grappling options thanks to his knowledge of taiho-jutsu, and upgrades allow him to use Heat Actions after every possible combo finisher, alongside the ability to build Heat via his signature parry and grapple. The result is a defensive fighting style where subduing the enemy and using their strength against them is key to unlocking devastating bursts of power. The Heroes of Tomorrow, aka the protagonists of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, are pretty low on the power-scale compared to the rest of the series' heroes, almost comparable to an Elite Mook in terms of individual power. Instead of relying on brute strength, a la previous protagonist Kiryu, the group instead makes use of teamwork and strategy to take down opponents that would otherwise be far out of their league. |
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Rosario + Vampire: The Doppelgänger criminal encountered early in Season II knows full well the value of this trope. A doppelganger's power is to copy the form of a person onto another person or themselves - which will get you pretty far if you grab someone like a vampire or a werewolf, but doesn't do you much good if you end up snagging a human or a witch. So the criminal trains himself in martial arts, which humans came up with because they're weak, and now he can hold himself against an entire Amazon Brigade with a human's form. | |
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Certain guns such as the Mozambique and Wingman in Apex Legends have become memes overtime, for being supposedly inferior to other weapons of their class. True their damage outputs aren't entirely game-breaking, but don't laugh too hard, for in the hands of a skilled player. It will be they who will laugh last. The same can be said for Wraith and Wattson. One can catch you from behind, the other will catch you in it's web...uh...fences. |
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Bloons Tower Defense has Boss Bloon Vortex, Deadly Master of Air. Unlike its brethren Bloonarius and Lych which have abilities that make them insanely difficult to destroy (massive health pool and periodic Zerg Rushes from Bloonarius and the ability to become invulnerable and leech lives and buffs for Lych), Vortex has no abilities that let it outlast or ignore damage. That said, Vortex can be far more brutal than either if not handled correctly; its periodic tornados blow away projectiles, it has a slipstream that makes bloons behind it move at unholy speeds, it's by far the fastest moving boss in the game, and every 25% of its health (12.5% for its Elite mode), it shocks and disables all nearby towers in its radius, including the normally resistant Paragons, and gains a far more powerful projectile shield that lets it block nearly all non-hitscan projectiles. Combined with its blisteringly fast speed and the duration of the stun, if you aren't properly prepared for Vortex, it is capable of absolutely crushing your defense and leaving you vulnerable to a fast death by either the regular bloons or the boss. Worse, because of how the game severly punishes you for attempting to sell stronger towers by forcing you to lose atleast 5% of the money you spent and removing any buffs (or paragon levels), a badly prepared defense can be absolutely unsalvageable, compared to the other bosses which give you some leeway. |
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A rare villainous example from Guild Wars — High level Charr are still not at a particularly high level compared to most enemies you face at maximum level, but still manage to be some of the hardest enemies in the game because they have better thought out combinations of skills than most enemies and being a lot more coordinated. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Miraculous Ladybug: Every akumatized villain, even the ones with weaker or less flashy powers, can put up a fight against the heroes. Case in point, Troublemaker (whose only power was intangibility) is one of the few villains who actually managed to steal an earring off of Ladybug. The titular heroes also count. Their Miraculous give each of them superhuman physical ability and their signature weapons, but these are usually eclipsed by the powers many of their opponents are given. While they have their own respective powers, they only get a single use each that puts them on a time limit before they detransform, meaning they have to get creative to make the most out of them. |
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In Mother of Learning, Zorian's mana reserves are much smaller than those of combat mages like Taiven, but as the "Groundhog Day" Loop he is stuck in continues he picks up enough finesse and trickery to hold his own against a lot of very dangerous opponents. | |
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You, in NetHack. Your only hope of survival is good tactics, but with proper preparation you can survive the wrath of a GOD. | |
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Adol from Ys series can't take a lot of damage, especially if he is underleveled or if he's up against a boss, so the key to survive as him is to learn how to dodge and counter attack. | |
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Lyrical Nanoha: Chrono Harlaown is explicitly mentioned in the first season to be weaker in power level compared to Nanoha and Fate, a comparison he scoffs at, stating there's more to magic than that. He then proceeds to prove his point during the penultimate episode of the first season where he pulls a One-Man Army in Precia's Garden of Time while everyone else needed to charge in as a team, and again in the manga volume set immediately before the second season where he effortlessly defeated an improved Fate in record time when she had to battle him for her Mage Exam. An even better example is Nanoha and Fate's Old Master, the original Head Trainer Fern Corrado of the Time-Space Administration Bureau. Despite being a lowly AA-ranked mage using standard bureau equipment, the third season manga revealed that she managed to beat the AAA-ranked, Bigger Stick-equipped Nanoha and Fate at the same time when they entered the TSAB training school. Yuuno Scrya is quite possibly the weakest — or at least just definitely the least well-armed — combatant in the series. However, his mastery of binding and barrier magics make him the most capable Non-Action Guy ever. He's also demonstrated the ability to force someone to be teleported against their will, which, when you think about it, is probably the single most lethal ability ever shown in the series. The unpleasant possibilities for it are endless, but sadly never explored. Shamal is in the same position as Yuuno, only she does have a powerful Device backing her up. She debatably has the most impressive record in the series at standoff combat, nearly paralyzing Nanoha from at least a half-mile away, and in every battle she's had a part in her opponents did not know she was there until attacked. Her skills with barrier, portal, and teleportation magic have endless tactical application that the series never explores, from making people run into instant magical walls at several times the speed of sound to portaling them off somewhere unpleasant. Yuuno would be capable of the same tricks if he had a copy of her Device. There is the part in the final battle of A's where she locates the defense program's core and, with the help of Yuuno and Arf, teleports it to outer space, where the Arc-En-Ciel can be fired at it without risk of vaporizing a good chunk of Japan; scrying, binding and teleportation magic succeeds where Wave Motion Guns can't completely do the job. Teana in StrikerS often worries about her own worth as a mage, noting that she has no unique skills and not that much magical power compared to the other members of Section 6. However, she eventually learns how to put her illusion magic to good use in conjunction with her sharpshooting skills, and defeats three of the Numbers Cyborgs by use of perfectly timed attacks and some help from Vice. She is apparently Nanoha's best student, as she is the only canon character whom Nanoha taught her signature Starlight Breaker spell (well, Reinforce also used it but she merely copied Nanoha). There is a subtle meaning to this fact: Starlight Breaker's quirk is that it isn't powered by the caster's mana but rather, the magical energy dispersed in the environment. In other words, it is the ultimate achievement for a weak but skilled mage, allowing her to unleash powers way over her head by skillfully managing the available resources. Veyron from Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force. In the mostly Unskilled, but Strong Hückebein family, he's the only one who cannot React. Nevertheless he can hold his own against Riot Force 6's operators and actually defeats a Reacted enemy Eclipse infectee in direct combat. Vivio in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid. After StrikerS, Vivio underwent a Redemption Demotion and now lacks both a Relic Core and had her Linker Core damaged from Nanoha's attack. She's notably weaker, lacking her Saint's Armor, pure magical power and the build for attack or defense. Multiple characters tell her that she's not meant for combat and she gets beaten by other martial arts competitors. Despite this, she develops a fighting style based around skillful dodging and careful attacks, one that lets her fight with her Nanoha-mama albeit in a practice match. |
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This Trope is played very straight in the Shin Megami Tensei series. With a proper usage of status buffs, instant death spells and exploiting your opponent's weakness, you can easily triumph over a more powerful opponent. That, being Nintendo Hard, the same principle applies to your enemies. | |
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Cuphead: The titular character, as well as his brother Mugman, are, on their own, extremely weak and fragile, with three direct hits from the enemy being enough to shatter them into pieces. However, they are also very agile and persistent, constantly dodging their adversaries' attacks and continuously barraging them with their Finger Gun projectiles until the enemy is defeated from all the continuous injuries. | |
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Naruto: Shikamaru Nara lacks raw power and stamina (by ninja standards) and is initially too lazy to even put in much training, but his sheer intelligence means that he can consistently hold his own against opponents who are not only stronger, but older and more experienced than him. As he was wonderfully described by some troper, "Watching Shikamaru fight is like watching an acrobat work without a net." Amusingly, Sakura Haruno is this in after the Time Skip despite possessing Super-Strength and juggernaut-esque healing, as her power and healing abilities are almost solely derived from her excellent chakra control. In terms of her chakra capacity, she's a drop in the ocean next to her far more powerful teammates. Tsunade (her mentor) is much the same. Haku is this in spades. His best attacks come from zipping around at high speed, nailing people with senbon needles in their pressure points, and using his ice mirrors to get faster. Not once does he ever use a truly destructive technique, and yet he would have beaten both Naruto and Sasuke without even trying to kill them, had Naruto not gone berserk when Sasuke went down. Itachi Uchiha is known to have been severely weakened by keeping his Sharingan activated permanently throughout the series, yet still manages to completely obliterate his perfectly healthy genius brother in their proverbial duel of fate. Even before the diminished capacity derived from his illness is brought up, he is said to have less than average power/endurance, which his partner Kisame Hoshikagi hints at by reminding Itachi that he shouldn't use his exceptional ocular powers more than a few times a day, lest he be completely drained. What Itachi lacks in quantitative power, he more than makes up for in qualitative. For that matter, Neji Hyuga is one of the most dangerous of the Konoha 12 and the first to make Jonin, despite having relatively low physical strength. His mastery of the Gentle Fist, Byakugan, and Heavenly Spin render him capable of crippling opponents far physically stronger than him while blocking, dodging, or redirecting most attacks. For instance, he was able to fight on equal terms with Naruto during the Chunin exams and was favored to win that fight, even when Naruto drew power from the Nine Tailed Fox, allowing Naruto to completely outclass him in terms of raw power, stamina, and quantity of attacks (thanks to Naruto's Shadow Clones). Rock Lee plays with this trope. He's immensely strong, fast, and durable, and has mastered the Eight Celestial Gates, which makes him exponentially more powerful. However, he also has only his physical skills because he can't use chakra other than for the gates. His sensei Might Guy is much the same way, though he can use conventional chakra techniques (but just chooses not to). The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, was this as well, at least compared to his peers. His most destructive technique shown was the A-Rank Rasengan... which at full power, can destroy maybe a twenty-foot area. Compared even to most equivalent elemental jutsu, that's pretty underwhelming (for comparison's sake, the A-Rank Giant Waterfall Jutsu can splinter and flood an entire forest in the hands of a Jounin-level user). And yet his speed, brutally efficient combat style, and mastery of sealing techniques (not to mention his teleportation powers) made him one of the deadliest shinobi in all of history. Tobi, at least in comparison with other members of Akatsuki. His space-time abilities make him one of the most powerful tactical fighters of the series, but he almost never uses large scale ninjutsu, whereas the rest of Akatsuki relies on several highly destructive techniques. It's because of this deficiency in raw power that Itachi was convinced that "Madara" was a shadow of his former self; at the time, Tobi was masquerading as the real Madara Uchiha, who was tied with the First Hokage (aka the second "God of Shinobi") in strength. It should be noted that his ability to control several tailed beasts with his eyes makes up for his lack of personal firepower. And this is not to mention when he became Jinchuuriki of the Ten-Tails... Konan is a subversion. At first glance, her paper ninjutsu seems fairly underwhelming, as she mainly uses it to travel around, capture or bog down opponents, and avoid taking hits via flight or splitting into sheets of paper. It's effective enough to get the better of multiple Konoha shinobi, and even Jiraya for a while, but ultimately doesn't amount to much. That is, until she faces the above-mentioned Tobi and breaks out the explosives. Six-hundred billion explosive tags, in fact. Tobi only escapes by using the Reality Warper Izanagi and sacrificing his left eye in the process. Kakashi Hatake is this as well. Though he lacks in stamina compared to other top-level ninja, he's considered the equal of the unbelievably powerful Might Guy by virtue of having learned literal hundreds of jutsu and being a master tactician who rarely fights his enemies head-on until he's ready to destroy them. Despite still being way more powerful than the average Jounin, he's also way outclassed in strength by most of the Kage-level fighters he's compared to as an equal. It's perhaps no surprise that Kakashi was a student of the aforementioned Fourth Hokage. One of the most interesting things about Kakashi's case is that his strength is so obviously displayed. He's known internationally as "The Man Who Copied a Thousand Jutsu", but that in and of itself both hides and reveals his true strength: not that he can copy your techniques with his Sharingan, but that he has thousands of them and thus likely has a counter to everything you can do. And yet he consistently makes people fall for variations on the same tricks, time after time. He basically subverts his own combat style at will just to screw with his enemies. Kabuto Yakushi during Part 1, in a similar vein to Sakura above. Sure, he can't destroy much himself, but he can sever muscles and tendons and even damage internal organs with his Chakra Scalpels (which are normally impossible to use in combat because they require such intense focus; they're a technique intended for surgery). And he can also heal himself from any injury he takes, up to and including having his stomach puréed by Naruto's Rasengan, by using that same unreal chakra control to heal the individual cells of his body. It has limits, though, as he lacks the chakra capacity to completely recover from large enough hits; Naruto's attack still takes him out despite not killing him like it should have. He became Strong AND Skilled during Part 2, thanks to assimilating his old master Orochimaru's remains and mastering the techniques of him and several of his strongest minions while losing none of the brilliance he had already, which allows him to become one of the few beings capable of defeating Itachi Uchiha, only losing thanks to Sasuke's interference. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, had become this by the end of his life. While undeniably still strong enough to hold the title of Hokage, Sarutobi's incredible raw power had degraded over time, as age sapped his stamina and chakra capacity. In his prime, Sarutobi was capable of using Ninjutsu of all five elements simultaneously basically at will, but by the time he's in his 70's, he can really only use one or two at a time, and he can't spam them with impunity either. Instead, he focused on his bojutsu, fuuinjutsu, and combination attacks, as well as a greater reliance on strategy and working with his Summons than in his youth. His age doesn't stop him from going toe-to-toe with Orochimaru and two (imperfectly) reanimated Hokage during Operation Konoha Crush and holding him to, at best, a Pyrrhic Victory, though Sarutobi admits that if he'd been at his full strength, he could have taken Orochimaru out via his Shiki Fuuin. |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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You, in Mabinogi: A good player with half-decent skill ranks can annihilate mighty bosses while taking only Scratch Damage, while an incompetent player with mighty stats will be curb-stomped in short order. | |
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In Half-Life, the player character Gordon Freeman is a scientist who theoretically isn't cut out for the kind of mayhem caused by the resonance cascade. He has to make do without any firearms at first, and, given a skilled player controlling him, could be said to either take a quick, practical level in badass or just discover that he's naturally skilled as a fighter. The second game lampshades it with a speech by Breen to the troops: |
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The Genius Prince's Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt (Hey, How About Treason?): Wein convinces Earthworld's ambassador to have the empire's troops train Natra's troops. While the training makes Natra's troops able to match and surpass soldiers from other countries on an individual basis, they still have lower numbers and barely any military budget, forcing them to rely on clever tactics to win most battles. | |
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Darkwing Duck: The title character is a master of the martial arts and beats other lightweights around with ease, but every time he tries to use his skills against a large, strong character, he might as well be punching a stone wall. Then he says Let's Get Dangerous!. | |
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In the Gentleman Bastard series, Locke Lamora is supposed to be a really bad fighter. The end of the first book mitigates this since he is able to defend himself decently against Capa Raza, who is described as "deadly" with a sword. This is more than compensated by his considerable skills as a con artist, thief, smooth talker and gambit planner. | |
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RealityMinds: Rasheed and Reffian cannot stack their offensive buffs as high as the main trio, but they have other subtle advantages that make up for their lack of damage output. Rasheed can lower enemies' resistance to stat down effects and has access to the burst series of chain skills, which have higher chances of inflicting stat downs. Reffian has the highest base agility, which means she has an easier time casting her healing spells before enemies can move. | |
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In Jupiter-Men, Nathan has no superpowers and relies entirely on his technology and rigorous training. He's the only member of the team with any superhero expertise prior to the events of the story, making him the de facto leader and the one everyone looks to for guidance. This is perhaps best demonstrated in Episode 33, where his measured reason and experience lets him instruct the team on how to dismantle the chaos they accidentally caused. | |
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In The Fifth Elephant Vimes takes on three werewolves, one with an axe, and two more, not more than minutes apart, with his bare hands, either of which could have easily killed him had it not been for his absolutely awesome brawling. | |
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Legacy of the Dragokin: Benji inherits his mother's superpowers and the skill to use them but he doesn't have her stamina or her strength. He compensates with guile. | |
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RWBY: Oscar Pine has all the memories of Ozpin, including his fighting skills. However, he doesn't have the muscle memory to put these to effective use, and thus has to train to build up his skill. | |
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Katniss in The Hunger Games is physically an average 16 year old girl who has to fight older and much stronger males and females, but she is a very skilled archer and has excellent survival skills due to years of experience hunting in the wilderness. | |
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From Fist of the North Star: Toki is this, after contracting radiation poisoning during his efforts to save his brother Kenshiro and Ken's fiance Yuria during a nuclear attack. Due to the sickness, while he is no longer stronger than his Hokuto Shinken disciples/brothers Kenshiro and Raoh, he is far more adept at Hokuto Shinken than either of them. In fact, before the nuclear war, it was he, not Kenshiro, who was going to be the successor of Hokuto, and everyone agreed it was how it should have been and that, had he been in perfect health, neither Kenshiro, nor Raoh, would have been able to touch him. | |
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Dragon Ball Z Elsewhere: With no human transformation, Yamcha focused on learning Kaioken and then mastering it with his gravity training. In a fight with Goku, Yamcha showed his Kaioken Kamehameha x40, forcing Goku to go Super Saiyan (a 50x multiplier) to withstand the attack. Even then, Yamcha outright says he can't beat a Super Saiyan. He also loses a sparring match against Piccolo when they train together. | |
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unOrdinary: Despite John Doe being a "cripple" and having no special ability of his own, he is still able to defend himself from and defeat low and mid-tier individuals with his superior hand-to-hand fighting ability. He's actually faking his "cripple" status, though his father truly has no powers, so he was being willfully weak after government agents essentially crippled his mind to force him to behave after he drew their attention at his old school. Evie is one of the weakest powered characters, but knows how to use her mild "Illumination" ability to its fullest extent by powering up after clapping her hands over the eyes of her attackers. She's also taking the time to learn martial arts, which she picks up very quickly. |
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In The Gone-Away World, Wu, the Master of the Voiceless Dragon, is a "soft form" martial artist who does not rely on overwhelming physical strength. The narrator describes him as about 80-years-old and with a limp, yet it's implied that he could easily defeat anyone. The narrator learns the same martial arts style. He's pretty miserable at "hard form" martial arts, yet becomes quite skilled at the Voiceless Dragon style. | |
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Initial D gives us Takumi and his AE86 Trueno. Although his Trueno pales in comparison to more powerful cars like the RX-7s and Skylines, his skill with the Trueno is what allows him to, to the shock of those who haven't seen him in action yet, hold his own against such more powerful cars. | |
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Wonder Woman: Hippolyta, Diana's mother was able to best Heracles through nothing but pure fighting skill and superior tactics. Really, any Amazon that isn't Diana, Donna or Cassie would qualify, at least in theory. Artemis, Diana's rival, originally wasn't as strong as Diana but can still match her in fighting skill. She served as Diana's replacement for a time following The Contest and once was able to injure the demon lord Neron by making a weapon out her hair and one of the silver skulls on her outfit. Her depiction in the DC Rebirth continuity shows her as much stronger than her original incarnation and retaining her combat training, allowing her to hold her own against Bizarro. Steve Trevor and Etta Candy have no superpowers instead relying on their military training to help Diana in fighting evil. |
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Dragon Ball: In the original Dragon Ball, there's a bit where Goku goes back in time and meets Master Roshi's old teacher, Mutaitou. By this point Goku is far stronger than the Old Master, including having killed the monster that wiped out both the master and all of his dojo except Roshi and his Evil Counterpart rival, Tsuru. However, when they spar, Goku's moves are so reckless and sloppy that Mutaitou manages to counter all his attacks with ease. Goku's first meeting with Mr. Popo prior to this went much the same way. Compared to the Saiyans at the beginning of Z, Goku was this. Since he was raised on Earth, which had weak fighters compared to the rest of the universe, Goku lacked real strength when Raditz came looking for him. However, Goku was able to sense energy, hide his power, and had great control of his ki, something that surprised Raditz when Goku bent his Kamehameha and powered up at various points. King Kai in a nutshell. When he debuted during the Saiyan Saga, he was weaker than Vegeta at the time, and didn't get any stronger. He also trained Goku from weaker than Raditz to way stronger than Nappa in a mere six months, most of the Z Warriors from weaker than Nappa to strong enough to beat the Ginyu Force in a month and half, and invented the Kaio-ken and the Spirit Bomb, two techniques that left in awe even the Gods of Destruction. This trope is the bane of the human protagonists' existence. It's entirely possible that Krillin, Yamcha, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu might be able to keep pace with the Saiyans in terms of actual fighting skill, but the uber-powerful foes the protagonists face mean that the humans typically end up as benchwarmers, or are simply beat up as per The Worf Effect. In Dragon Ball Z, Tenshinhan, Yamcha, and Chaozu faced the Ginyu Force while being trained by King Kai. King Kai's training methods, which were so good they allowed Goku to utterly thrash Nappa when he returned to Earth, proved just as effective for the humans in that it allowed them to keep pace with Freeza's elite troops, and come out on top. The reason this rarely works in Dragon Ball is because generally powerful characters are simply incapable of being harmed by anything that isn't at least somewhat close to their power level. They will just laugh it off. Even if a weaker opponent has the skill to get around their defense and hit them 100 times before they can react it doesn't matter, because none of the those 100 blows will hurt them. Krillin struggled to hurt Vegeta when Vegeta was deliberately standing there wide open so Krillin could injure him so he'd require healing because Vegeta was that much stronger. When it comes to ki attacks, it's the humans among the protagonists that have the creative attacks with special properties (geometry-breaking beams that can be supercharged with life energy, remote controlled projectiles that can turn on a dime, ki buzzsaws that seem to be able to metaphorically punch well above their weight class), while the Saiyans mostly just have increasingly large orbs and lasers to throw around. It's not always enough to even the power gap, but sometimes the results can be surprising... The humans and Nameks also have the ability to sense people's life force energy, or ki. They can also manipulate their ki to seem less powerful than it is, either surprising an ignorant opponent or hiding from someone trying to pinpoint their location. The Saiyans and Frieza's army don't even realize this is possible before they see it, relying on machinery to do the same thing. The 23rd Tournament arc also makes a really big point of this trope: Krillin and Yamcha are absolutely curbstomped, but the crowd still cheers wildly for them because their skills were still top-notch. Piccolo gets this during the fight on Namek with Frieza. Though his power level was slightly lower than Frieza's even after his fusion with Nail, Piccolo's fighting skills nonetheless allow him to go toe-to-toe with Frieza's second form. Vegeta, of all people, gets this treatment more than once: In his second battle with Zarbon he found out that, even with the recent Zenkai boost, he was still weaker than his opponent. However he was a battle hardened fighter and Zarbon had grown rusty due being around Frieza for years, so Vegeta managed to get around his defenses and land two crippling blows. No-Holds-Barred Beatdown ensues. During his fight with Recoome, Vegeta showed much more skill than his opponent... And not enough power to actually hurt him, something Recoome mocked him for. When dealing with Perfect Cell, Vegeta found himself just as outmatched in terms of power as he had been against Recoome, something Cell mocked him for just like Recoome. Then, much to Cell's horror, Vegeta revealed the Final Flash and nearly killed him-Cell had to dodge, and even then he received what would have been crippling damage against anyone without his immense regenerative power. After Vegeta was defeated by Cell, Trunks stepped in with his newly revealed Ultra Super Saiyan form, powerful enough to overcome Cell... But too slow to actually hit him, in addition to drain his energy and stamina far faster than normal. Cell promptly revealed that Vegeta could have done it too, he just hadn't bothered because, being far more skilled than Trunks, he had not needed to use it in combat to notice the drawbacks. In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, he has the best showing against Beerus because of his good fighting sense, outperforming the far stronger SSJ3 Goku, Gohan, and Gotenks. Beerus even laments that he's "highly skilled, but lacks the power to match it." Gohan (who could be the poster child for Unskilled, but Strong) lampshades this when he trains with Krillin. When Krillin congratulates him on how strong he is, Gohan says Krillin kept surprising him just because of how many different techniques he knew. Unbelievably, Mr. Satan: in his fight with Cell he attacks with great skill and in such a way that he would have destroyed a normal opponent (indeed, the first attack had a good chance to kill a normal human), but as his opponent was the far stronger Cell he didn't even scratch him. He later proves it again in the flashback of his fight with Spopovich and then when going against two gunmen - and as these opponents were normal humans he annihilated them. Jaco has shown his skills again and again, proving that his bragging of being a super elite for being a member of the Galactic Patrol is well-founded, with feats that include instantly calculating how much strength he needed to kick a falling giant rocket away from East City without blowing it up and noticing things that escaped Beerus and Champa. In his solo series he also flat-out admits any adult Saiyan would destroy him (he's gotten better by Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', enough to fight a small army of Frieza's soldiers and come out on top, but he's still far from the big guys). Dragon Ball Super has many examples of how power alone does not win one a fight, and there are plenty of times where an comparatively weaker fighter manages to defeat or hold his own against a stronger one, using unique skills or greater experience: Although Jaco didn't fight like in the movie, he is able to see Goku and Frieza's battle, something only Gohan is able to do. He was also the first to see that Goku was unharmed from Frieza's energy blast. He also catches Frost cheating when no one else did. When Goku drops his guard, it makes even his powerful body vulnerable to light attacks. Sorbet manages to pierce his heart with a common ray gun after attacking Goku In the Back. Vegeta effortlessly overpowers the drained Frieza and knocks him out of his golden form, but still loses when Frieza blows up the planet as Frieza can survive in the vacuum of space, while Vegeta can't. Piccolo is this to almost everyone at the Universal tournament. This nearly costs Frost his match since he could have easily put Piccolo away. Piccolo nearly beats him using smart tactics and his own quick thinking. He only loses because Frost poisons him. Master Roshi was one of the strongest people on the planet, but he fell badly behind before the end of the original Dragon Ball. He's still, however, a highly skilled and trained martial artist. He manages to take down Frieza's army thanks to his greater experience and he teaches Goku the Evil Containment Wave. In the Universal Survival Saga, he is chosen to be on U7's team over Goten and Trunks because of his greater experience and moveset, while the kids had proven themselves inefficient fighters. Hit is anything but weak, but he falls behind Goku and Vegeta in terms of pure power. Still, he defeats Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta with ease, despite only using a low amount of power. He can do this because he can jump 0.1 seconds ahead in time and aim for his vital spots, which Vegeta can't figure out since to him it looks like Hit is moving so fast that he seemingly disappears. When Goku successfully figures out how to counter Hit's fighting style, he fares better against Hit in his base form than Vegeta did even at full power. Hit also completely defies Villain Forgot to Level Grind, as he levels up his time-leap mid-fight and has several more time techniques in his arsenal in the Universe Survival Arc. When he fights, he usually has to be stuck with Worf Had the Flu (he's an assassin fighting in tournaments where he isn't allowed to kill) to keep things fair, and when he fights Goku without any limitations, he quickly kills him (It didn't stick, of course, but still). A trait among every version of Zamasu, barring Black. While he's by no means "weak", his power falls behind Goku, Vegeta, later Future Trunks, the angels, and Gods of Destruction. However, being a Supreme Kai, he posses abilities that are exclusive to his race. He also knows Instant Movement. His future counterpart adds Complete Immortality to that list, and it effectively means he can tank anything Goku or Vegeta dish out and still come out unscathed. Krillin actually manages to defeat Gohan and stand his ground against Goku in tournament-ruled sparring bouts. Krillin's vast arsenal of techniques such as the Solar Flare X100 and the remote-controlled Destructo Discs definitely give him a solid chance. During the Tournament of Power, thanks to the intensity of the battles and opponents he meets this time around, in particular the Universe 6 Saiyans and Jiren, Goku ends up being met and even surpassed in raw power more than once. The fact that he has to engage in such fights in quick succession also means that Goku ends up greatly weakened more than once in the Tournament. As such, he has to rely more on his fighting skills and experience to survive. When he fought Caulifla and later Kale in a 2-on-1 match, Goku had already spent a lot of his strength in his first confrontation with Jiren. However, he's still a master martial artist with tons more experience over the two girls, and as such, is able to keep pace with them even when he's double-teamed. In his second confrontation with Jiren, Goku's shown using more creative uses of his techniques against him, such as creating tiny ki landmines and using Krillin's Destructo Disc to slice out the arena right under Jiren, a tactic that Krillin had used against him beforehand. Towards the climax of the Tournament of Power, with the ranks being whittled down to the strongest fighters left, Androids 17 and 18 become this in comparison to most of the other participants. While they don't match up to them in raw power, as Androids, their energy and stamina is actually limitless, so they can fight without ever becoming tired or fatigued. At the same time, they're also quite clever and pragmatic in combat. Android 17 stands out with many creative uses of his energy barrier, and, even more impressive, he becomes the actual winner of the Tournament. Played with regarding Dyspo of Universe 11. While his strength is lacking, the threat he poses comes from his Super-Speed. Namely, he’s arguably the fastest fighter in the Multiverse. He’s able to threaten both Ultimate Gohan and Golden Frieza simply because he’s too fast to keep up with, with Gohan having to resort to Taking You with Me to defeat him. However, beyond his speed, when it comes to fighting skill, Dyspo’s moves are noted as being simple, straightforward, and ultimately predictable. Goku and Frieza (at first), after getting used to his speed and reading his moves were able to counter him, and Hit nearly defeated Dyspo twice, only failing to do so because of his teammate Rum’shii. Ultra Instinct is this as a Power-Up. Ultra Instinct isn't a racial trait (though all Angels seem to know it) or even a technique, per se, but a state of mind; it boosts the user to a state of physical Ludicrous Precision (with maybe a touch of Hyper-Awareness), making even vast chasms of difference in Power Levels almost a non-issue. Jiren's power is leagues above everyone else at the tournament, but Ultra Instinct Goku is able to put him on the ropes because he perfectly dodges all of Jiren's attacks and every one of his blows are disproportionately powerful. In the Moro Arc, we discover that this is the principle behind the Yardratians' Spirit Control. Being a race that's weak in power, to compensate, they have learned to become so skilled with their ki that they basically became efficient on ki alone. Vegeta trains with them for a while, learning to make much more powerful energy blasts at a lower cost, becoming more powerful with the implication that Goku did the same. Additionally, he learned some techniques Goku hadn't learned, mainly Forced Spirit Fission, which allowed Vegeta to restore the ki Moro stole. Other tricks include duplication, gigantification and even Healing Hands. |
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Harry Potter: According to Word of God this is how Professor Quirrell started out. As a kid (and a teacher) he was extremely intelligent but constantly picked on and teased. As an adult, with his self confidence really low he sought out Lord Voldemort to try and defer him and earn some respect, only for it to backfire and for him to become possessed with the undying soul of the dark Lord, subsequently allowing Voldemort to gather in strength and allow for the next seven books to occur..., however, he is shown to be extremely skilled in magic. He's able to use wandless magic, a rare skill among wizards. Though Hermione is incredibly skilled with spells, she tends to be overwhelmed when she duels more powerful and experienced wizards. Peter Pettigrew is an interesting example, as there seems to be nothing wrong with his magical skills yet he himself is a wimp. |
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This trope is how Cutey Honey can fight Dark Kingdom youma and win in Venus Flash: while far weaker than any serious youma, let alone Sailor Venus, she's an experienced fighter that would not hesitate to throw a flamethrower-wielding enemy into an open fire or strip herself as a distraction and used to fight stronger enemies, allowing her to keep up with creative use of her powers. | |
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Toriko has Shuu, who uses a knife skill similar to the main character's. However, while Shuu's "Petty Knife" lacks the raw, destructive power of Toriko's, he more than makes up for it with ludicrous precision, capable of using it to slice an individual's blood vessels open in the blink of an eye. | |
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Alita in Alita: Battle Angel, at least initially. Her body is more ornamental than anything else and while she is agile and retains her skill with the Panzer-Kunst fighting style, she has no built-in weapons of any kind. Dyson expresses surprise that she was able to harm the mountain-sized Grewishka in their first clash. This body falls apart in their second fight because it's too fragile to reach the limits Alita needs it to, and gets replaced by the extraordinary, Martian-built Berserker body afterwards - so she is still a master martial artist, but also the most advanced and powerful cyborg in the whole city. When she meets Grewishka again in the finale, she kills him with ease. | |
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Black Panther is stronger and more agile than a normal human, but is significantly weaker than many of his fellow Avengers. Despite this, he's a Crazy-Prepared tactical genius and one of the few heroic examples of The Chessmaster archetype, making him very effective. He's managed to get the drop on many more powerful opponents, including Mephisto himself. | |
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A similar situation occurs in Gundam 00, early in the series there are a few veterans that can completely outmatch the Gundam pilots as far as skill is concerned, and best the Gundams in one on one combat. But the Gundams are so strong they can just shrug off the attacks. | |
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Ruby Rose in BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant is incredibly adept in scythe combat and is very fast, but her attacks usually lack much force without wind up and she can be knocked out pretty easily. This comes up in her scythe spar with Ragna, where she lands far more hits and dodges many of Ragna's attacks, but Ragna manages to take them all and only needed a few of his attacks to connect for him to win the fight. | |
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Sword of Paladin: Before becoming a Paladin, Nade combat style focuses more on countering an enemy's attack than raw power. Once he masters the Iai Blade, he's able to singlehandedly defeat Theseus, the current strongest Einherjar, simply by countering the latter's multihit attacks. He becomes Strong and Skilled as a Paladin, since he retains his more technical sword skills while getting a massive stat boost. Eventually, his Paladin powers are weakened because he has to use a portion of it to preserve Sophie's life, but he's still surprisingly capable due to his sword skills and wide variety of skills from Paladin souls. This trope becomes a problem for many of the guest characters. While they all have decent skillsets on paper, stats are heavily affected by equipment, which can only be changed through story events. Story events almost never give upgrades to guest characters, leaving them in the dust compared to main characters. However, they can still change their ornament and skills gems, giving them a fighting chance as long as the enemy isn't too strong. Brigid and Zash in particular can use the Tactics skillset without having to equip the Commander gem, giving them a fighting chance despite being outclassed by the enemies in their side story. |
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In Chronicle, Matt has weaker telekinesis than Andrew, but he's a lot more creative in applying it and takes advantage of the environment more often, allowing him to get the upper hand. | |
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Discussed Trope in Under Night In-Birth: In Linne's arcade ending, Hilda notes with frustration that Linne's EXS abilities aren't even that strong, especially compared to Hilda's screen-filling blades of raw darkness. Linne just has thousands of years of experience and technique, and her swordplay is incredibly dangerous as a result. | |
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Harvey Korman, a patient in Scrubs, is obese, nonathletic, and a hypochondriac, but his tennis swing managed to send a doctor that promised to play a round with him flying into the fence behind him. | |
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Attack on Titan: The only way the inherently much physically weaker humans can survive multiple Titans encounters is to be very, very, very skilled. Annie Leonhart nearly effortless tosses both Eren and the much larger Reiner on their asses. Eren is amazed at how strong she is, but Annie explains that she is not that strong. She uses techniques that can turn an opponent's superior size and weight against them. Eren later takes a page from Annie's book against Reiner, in Armored Titan form. He quickly realizes that Reiner's armor makes brute force a non-option, so he starts using Annie's techniques to get the Armored Titan in joint locks and grapples, which are effective even with the armor. |
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In Game of the Generals, the Privates are the only pieces that can capture Spies, who are capable of taking out even the 5-Star General. | |
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In Blue Moon, this basically applies to the Slayers in their conflict with the Volturi; the Volturi's forces have the advantage in terms of raw power, but many of the key Volturi haven’t actually done much fighting for years, whereas Slayers are trained to face a range of enemies. | |
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Calvin and Hobbes features a strip where Calvin says to Moe, "You're so dumb you probably never thought about how a sparrow's smaller size and greater maneuverability is an advantage in fighting off big crows." Calvin is then punched by Moe. | |
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Karrin Murphy of The Dresden Files. While not exactly physically weak, she's a tiny Badass Normal up against a lot of supernatural creatures who could in theory mop the floor with her. She's an expert martial artist and marksman, makes sure to remember and implement any weaknesses she learns, and is willing and able to improvise — at one point she takes down a chlorofiend (read: plant monster) with a chainsaw. Anastasia Luccio, the Captain of the Wardens, is this by necessity, due to a body swapping incident with a necromancer. Her new body just doesn't have the same magical talent her old one did, forcing her to constantly conserve her energy with her spells. That being said she can use the same fire spells as Harry as needle-thin beams of extremely precise and intense heat and cast mass-concealing veils to hide people. Harry says that even with the decrease in power he wouldn't want to fight her. In Ghost Story Harry's apprentice Molly has gotten in on the act—again, she doesn't have nearly Harry's raw destructive power, but she's gained enormous skill in illusions that let her evade and fool multiple attackers at once, sometimes tricking them into killing each other. The Archive is a human receptacle for all human knowledge, and it is also hereditary, passing from mother to daughter when the previous one dies. The previous Archive died while her daughter was still young, meaning that a young girl is one of the most knowledgeable beings in existence. However she is still physically a child with all the limits that come with that, so she is usually seen in the company of her half-demon bodyguard/chauffeur. However in terms of magical power, Ivy has both skill and power; the Denarians trap her in a circle that cut her off from using more than a tiny fraction of her power and she still held her own against several of them without apparent difficulty. The only way they beat her is by taking advantage of the fact that her small size makes her more vulnerable to things like poison gas. Some of the Denarians. Their human hosts may not have as much magical potential as a full White Court wizard, but given a few hundred years of practice and the backing of a Fallen Angel, they can use the power they do have VERY effectively. |
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In Deadpool 2, Colossus is once again facing this... but on the opposite side, as he's fighting The Juggernaut. Against this opponent, Colossus is the weaker one, forcing him to fight smart and dirty, eventually ending with him shoving an electrical wire up his opponent's backside and shoving him into a pool to incapacitate him. | |
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In the Supernatural episode "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One" (S02, Ep21), Jake and Sam tower over Andy. Andy is not a fighter, but has Mind Control. | |
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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has a seriously flawed Level Scaling system in which avoiding Empty Levels is extremely difficult without resorting to being a full-blown Munchkin. Enemies level scale based purely on your level, but your actual strength in combat involves many factors besides just level (health gain per level, attributes, equipment, and skills). As such, leveling up with too many non-combat skills is likely to result in an insignificant bonus to your abilities, but all enemies still increase in strength. One way to combat the issue is to combine this trope with a Low-Level Advantage by increasing skills but never sleeping (which is required to actually level up). Though this severely limits your ability to make use of NPC trainers, as you can only use them five times per level, your skills will still increase naturally through use and by finding skill books. This ultimately leads to the world being saved from a horde of feeble monsters by a strangely competent insomniac. | |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_43f52aa9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_43f52aa9 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_44715363 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_44715363 | comment |
Yugi Mutou, from Yu-Gi-Oh!, seems an ineffectual wimp who, in spite of being a gutsy little mite, would be about as much use in a fistfight as a squashed watermelon. But in a universe where Card Games are Serious Business, Yugi reigns supreme. (Regular Yugi fits this trope better since the Other Yugi has Hard Work Hardly Works going for him, whereas Yugi slowly but surely develops his abilities to the point at which he can and does actually defeat the pharaoh. The Pharaoh is a prime example of this trope regarding the games. In Capsule Monster Chess, he defeated Mokuba's strong monsters with a single weakling. And in the card game Duel Monsters, he's so good that he defeated Obelisk the Tormentor with his three Magnet Warriors. And in the 10th Anniversary movie, his deck is actually very old and weak in comparison to his two partners Judai and Yusei and the opponent Paradox, yet he manages to destroy the Malefic Paradox Dragon (4000 ATK) with his freaking Dark Magician, who doesn't have even an effect. Haga/Weevil likes to affect this image, as he plays a deck of mostly weak Insects supplanted with powerful cards and abilities, and tends to make more tactical plays than other Duelist Kingdom players. However, this is subverted later on, as it turns out he's actually in many ways just as reckless as his fellows; whenever he gets his hands on something powerful, he blunders right into a trap. He also cheats, which he considers skill. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_44715363 | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_44715363 | featureConfidence |
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| Yu-Gi-Oh! (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_44715363 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4522fd1 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4522fd1 | comment |
Sensei Ito, the aikido instructor at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. He is this trope. He's a little old man with NO superpowers who starts each term by demonstrating this point. By picking the most powerful mutant in the class and then beating the crap out of him in front of everyone. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4522fd1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4522fd1 | featureConfidence |
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| Whateley Universe | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_4522fd1 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_454bf826 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_454bf826 | comment |
The titular protagonist of Sable's Grimoire is, like all human mages, a lot less powerful in his magic than the various demihuman races of his world. However he is a savant when it comes to designing new spells, something most mages don't even think about. Sometimes he needs his more powerful friends to actually put his magical ideas into practice. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_454bf826 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_454bf826 | featureConfidence |
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| Sable's Grimoire (Visual Novel) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_454bf826 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_45599333 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_45599333 | comment |
Hatz from Tower of God is a human swordsman in a setting where Great Family members and Princesses of Jahad are naturally much stronger than everyone else. But through constant gruelling training, he has developed enough skill with his blades to competently go toe-to-toe with people that far outstrip him physically. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_45599333 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_45599333 | featureConfidence |
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| Tower of God (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_45599333 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_468bebb0 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_468bebb0 | comment |
Discworld has Cohen the Barbarian (and the rest of the Silver Horde). It says a lot about his skills that Cohen is in his eighties, has been a barbarian hero his entire life, and is still alive. Whenever you have five centuries of combat experience distributed among half a dozen guys, expect a lot of this. Always remember Rule 1: Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man. In "The Sea And Little Fishes" Mrs Earwig, saying Granny Weatherwax shouldn't enter the Witch Trials because she always wins, suggests Granny should be grateful for her natural talent. Nanny Ogg quickly replies, "I'm the one with natural talent, Esme just works bloody hard." Granny doesn't enter the Witch Trials. Of course, everyone else (except maybe Nanny Ogg) is so widdling-in-their-knickers scared by Granny acting nice that they can't manage to do their own tricks right, and at the end of the day it's just silently acknowledged by everyone that Esme won by using the most subtle Headology trick ever: doing absolutely nothing. In The Fifth Elephant Vimes takes on three werewolves, one with an axe, and two more, not more than minutes apart, with his bare hands, either of which could have easily killed him had it not been for his absolutely awesome brawling. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_468bebb0 | featureApplicability |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_468bebb0 | featureConfidence |
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| Discworld | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_468bebb0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_47090560 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_47090560 | comment |
When taking part in a baseball game in Charlotte, Misa falls into this because, while she has the athletic skill, she can only act by possessing the body of her non-athletic sister, Yusa. This leaves her with a body that can't keep up with her actual ability. Despite this she's a key player in the baseball game against a telekinetic pitcher. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_47090560 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_47090560 | featureConfidence |
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| Charlotte | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_47090560 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_47ef1aa1 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_47ef1aa1 | comment |
Chiko, of The Daughter of Twenty Faces. Being just a pre-teen girl, she's physically weaker than everyone else she ever fights. However, she possesses impressive agility, quick wits, and clever resourcefulness, having been trained by a Gentleman Thief. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_47ef1aa1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_47ef1aa1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Daughter of Twenty Faces (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_47ef1aa1 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_483044b3 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_483044b3 | comment |
Shimon Izuna of Gundam Build Fighters Try has a basic Destiny Gundam, built straight out of the box by his younger brother. Both Yuuma and Mr. Ral are convinced that it's going to lose, especially when his teammates' suits, equally built Murasame and Jet Windam, are taken out. Instead, Shimon's boxing skills end up making the suit a powerhouse, tearing apart a team based on the Crossbone Vanguard, but also fighting the Build Burning to a standstill. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_483044b3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_483044b3 | featureConfidence |
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| Gundam Build Fighters Try | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_483044b3 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_494e9479 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_494e9479 | comment |
The Soulmate Timeline, like in canon Homura who is easily the weakest Magical Girl among her circle, with even Hitomi's potential magical power being greater than her own. However the power she does have, to stop and manipulate time, combined with her massively accumulated arsenal and experience from over a decade of time loops, leaves her more than able to compete with any opponent short of a city-destroying super-witch and win. A less moral reflection of this is the Serial Killer Akasuki Suzembachi, whose also a rather weak Magical Girl, but she's refined how to use the powers she has to have survived as a Magical Girl for decades by grooming and eventually mind controlling younger Magical Girls and harvest them for Grief Seeds. However unlike Homura, her skillset isnt' geared to let her directly fight a stronger Magical Girl, like Mifuyu or Kyoko, one on one. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_494e9479 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_494e9479 | featureConfidence |
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| The Soulmate Timeline (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_494e9479 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_49aa2aa4 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_49aa2aa4 | comment |
Certain Ace Combat bosses display the ability to kick your ass despite using statistically weaker planes (such as Espada Team using a starting fighter and a "multirole" fighter-bomber in a pure air-to-air mission)... to an extent that might be considered the computer Cherry Tapping you. On the other side, you have, canonically at least, Mobius One in his Raptor against up to six Wyverns and Gryphus One against the Fenrirs, as well as Cipher and Talisman in (Strike) Eagles against Solo Wing Pixy's Morgan and Ilya's Nosferatu respectively. While neither the Raptor nor the Eagle are objectively "weak" in-game, they are statistically outclassed by these superfighters. Nevertheless, the protagonists still pull off wins. Then you get to the Cherry Tapping examples... |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_49aa2aa4 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_49aa2aa4 | featureConfidence |
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| Ace Combat (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_49aa2aa4 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4dada054 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4dada054 | comment |
In The Duel of Sorcery Trilogy, Serroi succeeded as a meie by way of quick reflexes and sheer determination. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4dada054 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4dada054 | featureConfidence |
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| The Duel of Sorcery Trilogy | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_4dada054 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4e549f11 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4e549f11 | comment |
Dreamscape: Dylan barely has any powers to speak of and isn't physically imposing at all, but his cleverness and determination is what gets him out of trouble. He explains this to Melissa in 'Confronting the Dark'. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4e549f11 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4e549f11 | featureConfidence |
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| Dreamscape (Web Animation) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_4e549f11 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4e7cac32 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4e7cac32 | comment |
In Supergirl (2015), Alex Danvers is a mere human with no powers or physical strength, but she's still a Badass Normal DEO agent with combat experience and can even take on more powerful aliens by redirecting their own strength against them. She even teaches Kara to do do the same. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4e7cac32 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_4e7cac32 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Supergirl (2015) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_4e7cac32 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_507dfb6a | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_507dfb6a | comment |
Likewise, in EarthBound (1994) Jeff Andonuts is to Ness and his party. He used the Bad Key Machine to free Ness and Paula from underneath the Threed graveyard. Despite his lack of PSI, he proves himself invaluable with his heavy bazooka, neutralizer, and especially with his bottle rockets which is an insane Game-Breaker (Even crazier is when you equip with the Rabbit's Foot). | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_507dfb6a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_507dfb6a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| EarthBound (1994) (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_507dfb6a | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_51455a02 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_51455a02 | comment |
Clare from Claymore, despite being in theory the weakest of all the warriors, has learned every trick and tactic there is to kill Awakened Ones. Normally, she's cripplingly overspecialized, but as the series progresses, Awakened Beings start coming out of the woodwork. And then subverted horribly when she finally meets up with Priscilla after years of searching. Priscilla is by far the strongest character currently in the series and all the skill in the world can't put a scratch on her. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_51455a02 | featureApplicability |
-0.3 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_51455a02 | featureConfidence |
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| Claymore (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_51455a02 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5261d625 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5261d625 | comment |
Samurai Champloo: While Jin is definitely not physically weak, he's a lot more reliant on technical skill than his rival Mugen. This trope is most evident in the fight against Kariya; Jin's actually very close in skill with him, but outclassed in sheer power and Ki-Attacks. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5261d625 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5261d625 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Samurai Champloo | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5261d625 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_526d4c5c | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_526d4c5c | comment |
Knights of the Old Republic: Mission Vao and T3-M4 have the lowest hit points in the party, but they're the best when it comes to disabling mines, hacking computers, picking locks, or turning the security systems against your enemies. Mission also has a nasty sneak attack ability while T3-M4 can be equipped with stun guns and flame-throwers in addition to blasters. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_526d4c5c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_526d4c5c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Knights of the Old Republic (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_526d4c5c | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5293b208 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5293b208 | comment |
In Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, the Kamen Rider Chronicle Gashat lets average folks transform into Kamen Rider-like warriors called Ride Players, but compared to actual Riders like Ex-Aid they have absolutely abysmal stats, a weak gunblade weapon, and no Finishing Moves. The Riders' ally Nico Saiba, however, modified her Ride Player suit and is such a talented gamer that she's on par with other Riders' Mid Season Upgrades and can perform improvised finishers fully capable of taking down a Monster of the Week. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5293b208 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5293b208 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Kamen Rider Ex-Aid | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5293b208 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_53b30902 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_53b30902 | comment |
From Valkyria Chronicles, Engineers. In combat, they're Masters of None who lack the speed and movement range of Scouts, the toughness of Lancers and Stormtroopers and the long-range fire-power of Snipers. However, given the fact that they can repair the Edelweiss and Shamrock, rebuild sandbags, replenish ammunition and grenades, carry three grenades instead of one, defuse mines, and heal squad members at double efficiency, means that Engineers are some of the most versatile squad members in the game. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_53b30902 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_53b30902 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Valkyria Chronicles (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_53b30902 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_53f9ae8a | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_53f9ae8a | comment |
I Woke Up As a Dungeon, Now What?: With just two floors, one containing a handful of "Small Lesser" bug varieties, the other containing tiny fragile pixies, Taylor's dungeon should be a cake-walk for any experienced adventuring party. That is, if the cake were poisoned, explosive, filled with sharp objects, and actually just a distraction from the ants sneaking up behind you to push you into a 200' pitfall with giant spiderwebs at the bottom, after which a swarm of giant wasps will drop home-made napalm on you. She hasn't lost her canonical multitasking ability, letting her manage every single minion at the same time, and as a dungeon core, she now also controls the terrain, letting her build cliffs, pits, mobile false walls, bugs-only shortcut tunnels, and a host of other tricks and traps that would make Tucker's Kobolds give a respectful salute. Add in her pixies' ability to create short-lived illusions, and her own ability to coordinate a swarm of pixies to cast them in sequence so they're effectively permanent...even individuals as powerful as Ulfric and Karjn quickly conclude that her first floor is a nightmare they never want to experience again. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_53f9ae8a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_53f9ae8a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| I Woke Up As a Dungeon, Now What? (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_53f9ae8a | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5921531a | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5921531a | comment |
Persona 3: The Michael Persona has a full-team heal, two ma-dyne spells, repels his weakness, and learns the unique move Heaven's Blade, which has the highest critical rate in the game and will do almost as much damage as Brave Blade. However, he has very low stats that don't grow easily. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5921531a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5921531a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Persona 3 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5921531a | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_59267e0f | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_59267e0f | comment |
Inverloch gives us an unintentional Crippling Overspecialization subversion. Raul is the smartest headmaster ever at the Wizarding Academy, but he has almost no magical strength. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_59267e0f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_59267e0f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Inverloch (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_59267e0f | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_59da62aa | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_59da62aa | comment |
It makes a comeback in Fallout: New Vegas where it instead means that you get 10% less experience points, but instead gain 5 experience points in every skill. Here it becomes a trait to cherish, as while it takes more time level up, a low level character with Skilled can be more effective than a high level character. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_59da62aa | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_59da62aa | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Fallout: New Vegas (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_59da62aa | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5a0daa35 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5a0daa35 | comment |
In Iron Kingdoms the dragon Everblight is the weakest of his kind, but has unmatched skill. While his mighty father relies heavily upon undead because his mere presence sickens and kills the living, Everblight's armies are almost all creatures that he has created or corrupted through his own blight, and is capable of subtle changes such as increasing the birth and maturation rates of his minions. He's even made himself weaker by splitting his athanc into pieces and giving the shards to his commanders, forgoing having a body in favor of improved coordination between his forces. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5a0daa35 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5a0daa35 | featureConfidence |
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| Iron Kingdoms (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5a0daa35 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5a1e517c | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5a1e517c | comment |
The eponymous Nodwick has no magic, no fighting talent, and no special abilities that don't relate to carrying stuff. His companions are a warrior, mage and cleric of considerable power. But he's responsible for more of their victories than not. The dark god Baphuma'al wants vengeance on the three conventional adventurers, but he just wants to avoid Nodwick. Vengeance there isn't worth the risk. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5a1e517c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5a1e517c | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Nodwick (Comic Strip) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5a1e517c | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5afbc0cb | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5afbc0cb | comment |
Undertale has some examples: This is a base requirement for any monster that intends to fight a human and hopes to survive, due to their incredibly weak souls and even weaker bodies. The only advantage a monster brings into battle is its attunement to magic. On the other hand, the Human Child is this if you do a Pacifist run. Sparing all the monsters means that you never get EXP. As a consequence, you always keep 20 HP and your ATK and DEF stay at 0 (aside from the boosts your items give you, and not counting the extremely costly Temmie Armor it's never a big boost). Their skills rest less on fighting than convincing their opponent that they don't want to fight, then befriending them. Therefore, some of the opponents during the last parts of the game may be able to deplete a quarter of your life with just one hit, meaning that you have to be very good at dodging their attacks if you want to survive. If you take the No Mercy route, however, you will face a Final Boss who applies this trope in a brilliant way. If you "Check" them, the scan says they're the easiest enemy in the game and that they only have 1 AT and 1 DF, which seems to support this. However, this character, while the weakest, is also the single most difficult battle in the game by an enormous margin. Sure, all of their attacks only do 1 HP damage, but they don't trigger your Mercy Invincibility, meaning they chip off 1 HP per frame, they come at you so fast and densely that there's little time to react and even less room to dodge, and on top of that they inflict a Damage Over Time effect that stacks with every hit you take. And sure, the character has only 1 HP, but they get around this by simply dodging every single attack you throw their way. When they get serious, the character even starts abusing the game's battle system itself by attacking out of turn, switching from one attack to another in the middle of the attack animation, or even just never taking any action, and therefore never ending their turn, never allowing you to take any actions. This character's name is Sans... turns out he's Brilliant, but Lazy. This of course, leaves one interesting implication that the game teases at, but never answers. If this is what Sans can do, then how powerful is his brother, Papyrus, who has way better stats than Sans, actually? You might fight Papyrus earlier in the game, but is made blatantly clear that he is holding back against you in this battle, because he is an extremely good-natured guy who doesn't actually want to seriously harm the player. When you face Sans, however, he is giving you absolutely no quarter whatsoever and applying himself to his fullest, because he sees no reason to hold back against a genocidal monster like you. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_5afbc0cb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5afbc0cb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Undertale (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5afbc0cb | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5b3356f8 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5b3356f8 | comment |
In the Turning Red fic Turning Red: Secrets of the Panda, Jason Vaugn is not the strongest character in the story, but he's still a fairly skilled fighter who can easily go toe-to-toe with the giant red pandas. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5b3356f8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5b3356f8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Turning Red | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5b3356f8 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5b408b1f | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5b408b1f | comment |
In The Walking Dead, Clementine is not very strong physically, but she's pretty handy with a pistol after Lee teaches her how to shoot. In the first episode of Season 2, at least, she doesn't have a gun so she has to use the environment to her advantage whenever she's caught in a confrontation to survive. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5b408b1f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5b408b1f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| TheWalkingDead | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5b408b1f | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5bfa9c98 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5bfa9c98 | comment |
Warframe: Teshin is practically a Badass Normal compared to the Tenno he trains, but what he lacks in amazing and powerful abilities, he more than makes up for with his centuries of experience. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5bfa9c98 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5bfa9c98 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Warframe (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5bfa9c98 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c541a85 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c541a85 | comment |
Kage: Jade fits this, at least in comparison to her foes. She only has Casting a Shadow powers, enhanced physical abilities, and an unlimited amount of kunai and shuriken. Her main foes are the Guardians, who all have Elemental Powers. During the capture of Vathek, she is able to keep Irma and Hay Lin too busy dodging her attacks to be able to actually fight. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c541a85 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c541a85 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Kage (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5c541a85 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c600b17 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c600b17 | comment |
Puppetmon from Digimon Adventure is one of the physically weakest Mega levels of all, but his special skills means he's able to keep pace with the physical powerhouse Wargreymon and even take control of him. Note, that he's only weak for his level, he'd beat most ultimates physically. Other Digimon series have had humans who regularly engaged hands-on with Digimon. Digimon Fusion's Zenjirou used his kendo skills combined with a digimon-made sword, while Digimon Data Squad's Masaru went barehanded against other digimon. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c600b17 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c600b17 | featureConfidence |
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| Digimon Adventure | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5c600b17 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c66fff9 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5c66fff9 | comment |
In Neverwinter Nights 2 this is a fundamental part of the conflict between Sand and Qara. It is implied that Sand has no extraordinary aptitude for magic, and yet though training and dedication, he's an accomplished wizard when you meet him, knowing both the theory and practice of magic. As a sorceress, Qara comes by her power naturally, but doesn't bother to learn to do anything with it beyond the apparently all-purpose application of "Blow Stuff Up". | |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_5c66fff9 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5d78cbd2 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5d78cbd2 | comment |
The ObsCure series of Survival Horror games features multiple playable characters, and they fall into either this trope or Unskilled, but Strong. In the first game, Josh, Stan, and Shannon fall into this trope, with Josh able to more easily find items in a room, Stan able to pick locks far more quickly and skip the Lockpicking Minigame, and Shannon able to use first aid kits (on herself or her partner) more effectively and offer puzzle tips. Kenny, meanwhile, gets a sprint, and Ashley gets a rapid-fire attack. Notably, using Josh and Stan as one's main characters is recommended for getting through the game quickly, especially on normal difficulty, where Kenny's sprint and Ashley's rapid fire attack aren't as necessary. Stan, Shannon, and Kenny return in the second game. This time, Stan is the only character able to pick locks at all, while Shannon's unique ability is now that she can suck dangerous dark auras out of the environment without harm to herself (a power she gained after the events of the first game, going hand-in-hand with her goth makeover). Of the new characters, Mei can use her PDA to hack computers and locks, and Amy gets Shannon's old puzzle-solving abilities. Kenny, meanwhile, has greater strength that allows him to push heavy objects and do more melee damage to enemies, abilities that he shares with Sven, while Corey is a daredevil who can climb across high ledges. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_5d78cbd2 | featureApplicability |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_5d78cbd2 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e092dbd | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e092dbd | comment |
Kindred Spirits on the Roof: There's a variation with Kiri when she ends up being chased by her teacher Tsukuyo and her yearmate Yuna. Kiri doesn't have the speed or stamina to outpace Yuna, much less Yuna's friend Hina(a member of the track team), so she resorts to clever ruses like opening doors to mislead her pursuers into thinking she's gone into various classrooms and forcing them to search each one. It works until Hina jumps out a second-story window while Kiri is on the ground below and quickly closes the gap. Miyu Inamoto, vice-captain of the track team, is highly skilled at running and has a good grasp of technique, but isn't as fast as her girlfriend and the team captain, Matsuri Amshima. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e092dbd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e092dbd | featureConfidence |
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| Kindred Spirits on the Roof (Visual Novel) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5e092dbd | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e16d550 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e16d550 | comment |
Black Clover: The Black Bulls who don't have large amounts of magic power like aristocrats make up for it: Finral doesn't have the large magical power of other nobles and his kind nature makes him unable to Tele-Frag. However, he still makes his rare Spatial Magic useful, quickly creating portals to close large distances, forcibly warp enemies, and help comrades avoid attacks in the midst of battle. As Magna states himself, he doesn't have the large magical power that nobles have, and needs to use his magic wisely as a result. Thus, he uses aim, proper timing, and tricky pitches to make the most of his fireball spells. Vanessa tells Noelle that she specializes in magic control, which is seen in how she fights. Her magic isn't powerful, with even her fate manipulation only used for evasion, but she controls her threads to bind enemies and wrap around their wrists and ankles to make them her puppets. Grey's Transformation Magic doesn't have much outright offensive use, but she can use it to change other spells' attributes, essentially making enemies' attacks useless or changing the environment to suit the situation. The guidebook gives her a 3/5 in Magic Amount but a 5/5 in Magic Control. Zora's Trap Magic isn't overtly strong and like other peasants he doesn't have as much mana as nobles. Instead, he uses planning and trickery to make the most out of his counter traps. Nero's Sealing Magic isn't offensively powerful, ranking her a Stage Six in combat ability, but it has a variety of effects like sealing damage and imprisoning enemies that make it very useful. In general, any human being pitted against an Elf or Devil, Royal or not automatically become this because these non-humans have way stronger magic than humans. However, because non-humans are prideful and look down on humans as inferior, most throw powerful spells semi-haphazardly (and if you're the World's Strongest Man you don't really need to do anything else). This means that weaker humans can catch a few off guard and outmaneuver them with their strategic use of weaker magic. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e16d550 | featureApplicability |
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| Black Clover (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5e16d550 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e59ce49 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e59ce49 | comment |
Hrathen from Elantris is hardly weak, being a Badass Preacher par excellence, but he's nowhere near as physically powerful as a magically-enhanced Dakhor Monk. He's still able to hold his own against them because he's an incredibly skilled swordsman, while their power has made them arrogant and sloppy. | |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_5e59ce49 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e88d233 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e88d233 | comment |
Invoked in Chrysalis (RinoZ) when Anthony alters his colony's Queen to produce slightly weaker but noticeably smarter hatchlings. He believes that in the long run, intelligence will trump raw power, and he's proved right over and over, as the ants learn to use tactics and strategy, coordination, metalworking, diplomacy... | |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_5e88d233 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e91c7d | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e91c7d | comment |
Resident Evil 4: Leon S. Kennedy — particularly if the player does a knife- or no-upgrades-handgun-only run. He's more agile than he was as a rookie in the RCPD, and he's gotten advanced combat training since then, too — which are the only things keeping him alive against a literal army of parasite-powered villagers, cultists, soldiers, giants, giant bugs, Regenerators, and chainsaw nuts with sacks over their heads — not to mention the obligatory freakshow bosses, every single one of which is capable of killing him in one hit. Sure, he has superior firepower for most of the game — but a gun isn't much use to someone who can't put the bullets where they need to go. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5e91c7d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_5e91c7d | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5ec72b29 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5ec72b29 | comment |
Downplayed in the Detective's Story in Dan Simmons' Hyperion, where the protagonist notes that while this is sometimes good enough, it can't stand up to Strong And Skilled. | |
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1.0 | |
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| Hyperion | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5ec72b29 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5f1fd3c7 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5f1fd3c7 | comment |
DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything: Dongtae and Mio shows Team Charlie that even with their stats reset, they aren't A-rankers for nothing. They outmaneuver them and take them out one by one with Improvised Weapons. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5f1fd3c7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5f1fd3c7 | featureConfidence |
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| DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5f1fd3c7 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5f4a4c59 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5f4a4c59 | comment |
Ka-Zar: Although at the peak of ordinary human strength, Ka-Zar is much weaker than most of the heroes he teams up with and villains he fights. It's his superior skills and training that set him apart. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5f4a4c59 | featureApplicability |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_5f4a4c59 | featureConfidence |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_5f4a4c59 | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5fea5dfc | comment |
Any human in Beet the Vandel Buster capable of threatening a high star Vandel, including the main characters. Slade in particular fits this, he is small but quick, his special weapon is invisible rather than being an obvious representation of power like usual, and he is fond of advanced techniques involving intricate timing. He is nearly killed when fighting Beltorze's puppet since Beltorze is just as intelligent a fighter and has a ton of raw power to boot. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5fea5dfc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_5fea5dfc | featureConfidence |
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| Beet the Vandel Buster (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_5fea5dfc | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_60156176 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_60156176 | comment |
This is the entire premise of the Vorkosigan Saga: Miles is crippled, but consistently wins through brilliance and sheer force of personality. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_60156176 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_60156176 | featureConfidence |
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| Vorkosigan Saga | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_60156176 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_610a694a | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_610a694a | comment |
Pokémon Adventures: Red and Blue's main Pokémon have levels that range from the 80s to 90s, while only Green's main powerhouse Pokémon has the level of 80 and everyone else is around 60-70 (her Granbull is only in its 20s). However, she rarely engages in direct combat as her victories are contributed to her skilled use of gambits. Yellow counts too, when she's not using her level-booster powers. By base level alone, she is by far the weakest of the Dex Holders. She can think up of a few sound strategies during battle to make up for her lack of strength (since overusing her powers rapidly exhausts her), but the flaws of this trope are pointed out to her when she works out a complicated scheme to counter Lance's offense but is unable to actually break through his defense due to simply not having enough power. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_610a694a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_610a694a | featureConfidence |
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| Pokémon Adventures (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_610a694a | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_624523ec | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_624523ec | comment |
Sargon in Black Legion, especially compared to his fellow sorcerer. While Khayon has tremendous edge in raw power and experience, Sargon can achieve much more subtle effects and has greater control over his power. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_624523ec | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_624523ec | featureConfidence |
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| Black Legion | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_624523ec | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_625cdb0c | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_625cdb0c | comment |
A similar example occurs in Mario Tennis, where Mario is the Jack of All Stats: Technique characters like Peach or Waluigi don't have a powerful smash, but can lead the ball wherever they want. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_625cdb0c | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_625cdb0c | featureConfidence |
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| Mario Tennis (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_625cdb0c | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_629cd094 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_629cd094 | comment |
Rogues in Dragon Age: Origins, like in the Dungeons & Dragons example above, can take a passive ability that allows them to base their damage with daggers off their Dexterity instead of their Strength. This usually results in an immediate damage increase out of the Rogue, as players usually build their Rogues with high Dexterity. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_629cd094 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_629cd094 | featureConfidence |
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| Dragon Age: Origins (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_629cd094 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_630755ab | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_630755ab | comment |
Tavi from Codex Alera has no access to fury power, while everyone else in Aleran society does. It forces him to become very skilled at kicking people's butts all on his own power. The teacher even has him deliberately pretend to be horrible at it so he can serve as a counterexample for the other students in fight training. Then he starts developing his furycraft powers... The Canim Ritualist Morak. Unlike Sarl he follows the old way and uses his own blood to fuel his spells rather than taking the blood of others. This gives him a lot less power than Sarl but he demonstrates a much higher level of efficiency and is able to accomplish a lot more with the power he has than Sarl could. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_630755ab | featureApplicability |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_630755ab | featureConfidence |
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| Codex Alera | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_630755ab | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_631805af | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_631805af | comment |
In Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Solid Snake has aged considerably but is still able to fight effectively against physically and technologically superior opponents using his elite covert warfare skills. This is in fact a major theme of the first and fourth games: experience and skill trumps pure strength. Snake repeatedly triumphs against the Genome Soldiers of the first game, and the PMCs of the fourth game, because he knows what he is doing and has the confidence and ability to pull it off, while the other side is relatively unskilled but has a significant numerical and technological superiority. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_631805af | featureApplicability |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_631805af | featureConfidence |
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| Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_631805af | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6348f5cf | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6348f5cf | comment |
Vivio in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid. After StrikerS, Vivio underwent a Redemption Demotion and now lacks both a Relic Core and had her Linker Core damaged from Nanoha's attack. She's notably weaker, lacking her Saint's Armor, pure magical power and the build for attack or defense. Multiple characters tell her that she's not meant for combat and she gets beaten by other martial arts competitors. Despite this, she develops a fighting style based around skillful dodging and careful attacks, one that lets her fight with her Nanoha-mama albeit in a practice match. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6348f5cf | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6348f5cf | featureConfidence |
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| Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_6348f5cf | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_65aabcf0 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_65aabcf0 | comment |
Buso Renkin: Gouta Nakamura's Moter Gear is noted as having the lowest attack power of all the offensive buso renkin in the series but he is able to make up for it with the weapon's versatility and his own intelligence. As a result Gouta has one of the most successful on-screen battle records of the Alchemist Warriors in the series. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_65aabcf0 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_65aabcf0 | featureConfidence |
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| Buso Renkin (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_65aabcf0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6673d40b | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6673d40b | comment |
Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: The lower-ranked Espada The Smooze, Squirk, Grogar are counted less for their strength so much as their unique powers and skills. The Smooze in particular notes that even with his rank as the 10th Espada there are quite a few Fraccion who have more spiritual power than him but his powers and true form give him an edge, and Tirek concedes that Squirk after he's killed during the battle between Hollows and Quincy in Hueco Mundo would have held the title of 10th Espada if Smooze didn't insist on holding it when Chrysalis notes that Guto's protégé Gilda is likely stronger than Squirk, but notes his tactical advantages in his Garganta creation make him invaluable even if he was demoted off the Espada. With few exceptions, the Quincy are on the lower end of the power scale between the three factions, with even the Sternritter struggling against the power of Soul Reaper Captains or the Espada. They make up for it with their training and the unique abilities of their Schifts. The Kraken that attacked the beach was not very powerful compared to the Equestrian Luna and Celestia magically speaking, but it had a lot of versatility, which combined with its size and strength made it a tough opponent. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_6673d40b | featureApplicability |
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| Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_6673d40b | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_684610 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_684610 | comment |
BlazBlue has two examples: Bang Shishigami is one of the few pure humans in the series (i.e. having no genetic or eldritch empowerment). He also lacks an empowered weapon with which to do battle with these beings, though he actually possesses a powerful Nox Nyctores, but has no idea how to use it and it has been in its dormant state. However, his long years of ninja training, which include various ninja skills (including the hidden technique "Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan" note yes, that can be attained through training), and most importantly creative uses of them (especially the last one), enable him to survive against both members of the game's super-powered Big Bad Duumvirate, and with all those skills, he can handle himself just fine against various superpowered other characters in the game. Jin Kisaragi lacks most of the raw power that most characters have in their fighting styles, instead relying mainly on his skills as a swordsman in conjunction with his ice abilities. This is especially obvious when contrasted with the Unskilled, but Strong Ragna; Ragna attacks in a rather simple style of or vertical slashes as well as punches and kicks to overwhelm the opponent. Jin however has much more precision and speed as well as different horizontal attacks to fit different situations, and a more refined looking style compared to his brother. This also extends to gameplay as he's a Jack of All Stats. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_684610 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_684610 | featureConfidence |
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| BlazBlue (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_684610 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6a4c8f1b | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6a4c8f1b | comment |
One-Punch Man: Three years prior to the series, the titular character was able to kill a monster despite being a Muggle at the time through skillful maneuvers and clever use of his tie. In comparison to her sister and Psykos, Fubuki's Esper abilities don't have the raw power to match their feats, but she's a capable Esper in her own right and can use what she has well enough to fend off Psykos. Zombieman doesn't have freakish strength, or much offensive capacity at all, but his main skill is being unable to die, ever; and since he can practically regenerate from everything, with a skill like that you don't need to be terribly strong when you can simply outlast the strength of your enemy. For extremely relative values of "weak", but Gar� is noted as posing a particular threat because, while previous monsters relied on brute strength to overwhelm heroes, Gar� fights with actual martial arts and specializes in redirecting his opponents' attacks instead of just countering them. Basically, his fighting style is geared specifically towards defeating heroes. Once he goes One-Winged Angel, he becomes this especially in comparison to Saitama, as while he's still much weaker (something he himself admits), he completely surpasses him in terms of martial arts and even manages to force him to fight "Semi-Seriously". |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_6a4c8f1b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6a4c8f1b | featureConfidence |
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| One-Punch Man (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_6a4c8f1b | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6ac55ec7 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6ac55ec7 | comment |
Rogues in Dungeons & Dragons are practically the patron saints of this trope. Not only can they apply their dexterity to weapon skill instead of strength like most classes, but they also learn much more quickly than their counterparts. Even low intelligence rogues will have a healthy set of skills, while a high intelligence human rogue will quickly become the team's ninja historian animal taming demolitions expert. The rogue's signature sneak attack ability was also changed from a damage multiplier in 2.0 to deal consistent bonus regardless of the rogue's strength or size of his or her weapon in 3.0 so that rogues do not particularly suffer from low strength or lightweight weapons. A Rogue-friendly prestige class in v3.5 called Invisible Blade applies this trope more narrowly to combat. The rogue becomes incredibly skilled at fighting with daggers, and can now apply his Intelligence bonus to armor class as well as to skill points. As a trade-off, the Invisible Blade cannot wear any armor. To qualify for the prestige class the rogue must defeat a Worthy Opponent in single combat using nothing but a dagger. In 3rd Edition Wizards could cast fewer spells per day than sorcerers but knew more spells. Giving them more versatility but they couldn't put out as much raw magic. Clerics had a similar relationship to the non-core Favored Soul class. Fighters are this compared to Barbarians, though this is a rather relative comparison. Fighters have slightly fewer hitpoints, move slower, and can't use Rage, but they can equip heavy armour and tower shields as standard, they have more combat feats, and they are at least literate - Barbarians Never Learned to Read. Lore Bards in 5th Edition are quite literally weak, but skilled. They are rather poor direct combatants due to their D8 hit die and lack of access to heavy weapons and armour, but they have by far the most skill proficiencies of any available class, the chance to get expertise (double proficiency) in four of them at max level and the aptly-named "Jack of All Trades" feature lets them add half their proficiency bonus to any skill they aren't already proficient in - including Initiative. They can also borrow spells and cantrips from other classes' spell lists. In 5e, monks are an excellent choice for this, their Martial Arts ability allowing them to attach their dexterity bonus to melee attack and damage rolls. Feel free to put Strength as your dump stat while remaining on the frontline. Tucker's Kobolds, ladies and gentlemen, embody this trope more than any Player Character ever could. Normal kobolds are Cannon Fodder for even 1st level novice adventurers. Tucker's Kobolds are devious masters of guerrilla warfare who use fire and Vietcong-esque ambush and Booby Trap tactics to send veteran 12th-level parties packing. They're no stronger than regular kobolds, they're just very clever. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_6ac55ec7 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6ac55ec7 | featureConfidence |
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| Dungeons & Dragons (Tabletop Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_6ac55ec7 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6c6852c8 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6c6852c8 | comment |
Tanimura from Yakuza 4 is the smallest and skinniest of the four protagonists, and this is represented with him having the lowest health and paltry damage output without upgrades. However, he can parry almost any move and has powerful grappling options thanks to his knowledge of taiho-jutsu, and upgrades allow him to use Heat Actions after every possible combo finisher, alongside the ability to build Heat via his signature parry and grapple. The result is a defensive fighting style where subduing the enemy and using their strength against them is key to unlocking devastating bursts of power. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6c6852c8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6c6852c8 | featureConfidence |
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| Yakuza 4 (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_6c6852c8 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6cd819eb | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6cd819eb | comment |
Skulduggery Pleasant: Valkyrie finds herself in this position for the early parts of the series. Being a teenager who has not yet had her Surge, she is magically and physically weaker than most of her assailants. However, she's had some of the best training from some of the magic world's finest teachers, and is able to use that and her wits to hold her own. Tanith Low, one of the aforementioned teachers. She lacks direct combat powers, instead possessing a bag of tricks like walking on walls, and opening locks. She compensates by being one of the finest sword-wielders in Britain and Ireland. Of all people, Lord Vile ends the series at this point, in comparison. While eyewateringly-powerful and more than a match for almost every Mage alive, Vile ends up outclassed by the other major players at the end of the series. Kitana's gang, Argeddion, and especially Darquesse are all orders of magnitude more powerful than Vile, but Vile compensates with centuries of combat experience, complete mastery over his own powers, and sheer ruthlessness. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_6cd819eb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6cd819eb | featureConfidence |
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| Skulduggery Pleasant | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_6cd819eb | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6e1d5f36 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_6e1d5f36 | comment |
Farscape — D'Argo is huge, strong, used to be a Luxan warrior, and has the ability to knock people out with his tongue. Aeryn Sun is slender, smaller, female, with a species weakness which means she starts dying whenever it gets too hot. But in any battle where D'Argo doesn't surprise her, guess who's tougher?! | |
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Joseph Joestar, from Part 2 of Battle Tendency, never fully masters the way of Hamon like his grandfather, Phantom Blood protagonist Jonathan Joestar. What he lacks in mastery over Hamon, he more than makes up for in creativity and guile, defeating his opponents by outwitting them rather than simply overpowering them. In Stardust Crusaders, he does get a Stand, Hermit Purple, but unlike the punch ghosts his companions have, it's just purple vines, and its special powers revolve around information gathering. He's still able to get a lot of use out of it as Combat Tentacles, it conducts Hamon, and he's still good at coming up with plans on the fly. The Empress stand targets him because of Hermit Purple's relative weakness, only to find out that its divination powers can be used to make maps to the exact thing (in this case, a barrel of tar) he'd need to defeat her. | |
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In the Myth Adventures series, Skeeve is just an apprentice magician and his mentor Aahz has been completely Brought Down to Normal. Nevertheless, thanks to each being quite the Guile Hero, they regularly trounce or otherwise deal with vastly superior foes, leading to Skeeve enjoying a public reputation as a sorcerer with an almost godlike power level. This trope gets deconstructed in one Myth novel by Guido when he infiltrates the army and has to fight a Drill Sergeant Nasty in drills. The sergeant is a tiny guy, especially compared to Guido (who's a walking wall of muscle), and in Guido's internal monologue he points out that this only works if the strong guy isn't terribly skilled. Guido happens to be very skilled and flattens the sergeant with a single punch. |
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Gray Yeon from Weak Hero. In a series about fighting amongst high school delinquents, he's 5'2 and much skinnier than the other characters. But what he lacks in physicality he makes up for it with brains, and being a Combat Pragmatist. He uses the knowledge he's studied on fighting techniques and human anatomy to give himself an advantage in battle. As well as reading his opponents' movements and employing psychological warfare. | |
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Avatar: The Last Airbender: For Sokka, In a World… where most of the main characters can control the various elements, he's still the most Normal of the Badass Normal characters. To deal with that, Sokka often uses strategies and his weapons to bring down his enemies. He's also very resourceful and a fast learner — see 'Sokka's Master' and how quickly he picks up swordsmanship despite having not been shown to have any prior experience in that particular weapon. He has, also, grown up in a tribe which relied on non-bending forms of combat for decades and picked up a lot on his own before being formally trained. That would have helped a lot when he met Piandao. Aang could be considered this, especially before he learns the other Bending skills. Airbending itself mostly relies on evading. Bumi taunts him with this; Though "weak" is a relative term, and applies more to the Air Nomad philosophy of (technical) pacifism than their power. The Fire Nation waited until Sozin's Comet to move on them for a reason. Season Three of The Legend of Korra showed how broken Airbending truly is, in the hands of an aggressor. This is eventually Azula's undoing against Zuko: at first, she appears more powerful thanks to her raw talent at Firebending, but once he matches her in their final fight, she's a fourteen-year-old against an opponent who's sixteen, more used to physical strain, and that has recently learned a style that employs very little movement, and she gets tired much faster. Her recent spectacular Villainous Breakdown isn't helping her any, either. In Legend of Korra Pro-Bending competitors tend to fall into this when placed into a proper no-holds-barred fight. Due to the restrictions and rules in place during Pro-Bending tournaments, Pro-Bending oriented styles tend to focus on using smaller amounts of bending material to deliver fast, precise attacks over relatively small distances with emphasis on the basics of attacking and dodging at a distance rather than learning bigger, flashier techniques. While this gives them the advantage when fighting in close quarters or in locations where bending material is less readily accesible, it also makes them weaker in hand-to-hand combat or longer distance battles due to them often still fighting as if they're in a Pro-Bending match and being too conservative to keep up with benders who are able to use more material and apply more force. |
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Lord Peter Wimsey is particularly this, when it comes to a test of strength he'll get taken out, but there's been several a villain who's been surprised that the short, thin, well-dressed man in spats has insanely fast reflexes and a considerable knowledge of martial arts that will make an opponent's bulk a disadvantage. | |
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Halo: The Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, or ODSTs. While they lack the physical upgrades or the Powered Armor that the Spartans possess, they're just as rigorously trained for combat and more than prove their worth. Halo 3: ODST has you, as a mere rookie in the ODSTs, playing as this trope to survive. Alone and stranded in the ruins of New Mombasa, the only weapons available at the start for you are a submachine gun, pistol, and frag grenades. Using these, along with whatever weapons, ammo, and medical supplies you manage to scavenge along the journey, you have to take on literally hundreds of Covenant troops, several of whom are comparable in strength to Spartans, and eventually reunite with the remaining ODSTs. Edward Buck, from the same game mentioned above, also qualifies. He later becomes Strong and Skilled by becoming a Spartan-IV. The UNSC in general is this during their war with the Covenant. They're at a major numerical and technological disadvantage throughout the franchise, yet continually manage to prevent humanity's extinction (and the extinction of all other life in the galaxy via the Halo Array) through strategy, pragmatism, and sheer determination. |
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Noob sometimes puts high-level players in control of low-level avatars. Having to start over again after losing the high-level avatar is Arthéon's backstory and Fantöm's fate after the first Wham Episode. Ystos has a so far webseries-only second character that he once used during a tournament. Watching the replay of all the battles in which he took part in a row takes about thirty seconds. | |
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Shepard in Mass Effect was a regular, ordinary human, who still managed to take down Krogan, Thresher Maws and Reapers. Technically, this makes them more badass than they are in the sequels, as the Lazarus Project turns them into an Empowered Badass Normal. | |
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Doctor Mordin Solus in Mass Effect 2 was a member of the Special forces of his Race. He's small, but can take out several mercenaries by himself. Most salarian soldiers do this. The salarians are not a strong race, so they use their heads to fight. Shepard in Mass Effect was a regular, ordinary human, who still managed to take down Krogan, Thresher Maws and Reapers. Technically, this makes them more badass than they are in the sequels, as the Lazarus Project turns them into an Empowered Badass Normal. |
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Teana in StrikerS often worries about her own worth as a mage, noting that she has no unique skills and not that much magical power compared to the other members of Section 6. However, she eventually learns how to put her illusion magic to good use in conjunction with her sharpshooting skills, and defeats three of the Numbers Cyborgs by use of perfectly timed attacks and some help from Vice. She is apparently Nanoha's best student, as she is the only canon character whom Nanoha taught her signature Starlight Breaker spell (well, Reinforce also used it but she merely copied Nanoha). There is a subtle meaning to this fact: Starlight Breaker's quirk is that it isn't powered by the caster's mana but rather, the magical energy dispersed in the environment. In other words, it is the ultimate achievement for a weak but skilled mage, allowing her to unleash powers way over her head by skillfully managing the available resources. | |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_76e539c2 | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Always remember Rule 1: Do not act incautiously when confronting a little bald wrinkly smiling man. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Saito in Zero no Tsukaima: Saito the Onmyoji notes that he's roughly half as strong as the average student in the academy but because he's a fully accredited mage and the way his magic (called mysticism) works, he's considerably more dangerous. | |
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Steven Universe: Pearl admits that she wasn't built for fighting. She is not as scrappy as Amethyst and can't touch Garnet on the power scale, but will still hold her own alongside them or against them with her spear thanks to technique and practice, and a Homeworld gem calls her a "terrifying renegade" thousands of years after her rebellion. The fusions that include her add her finesse to the power of her partner(s), making them very impressive in battle. Likewise, her student Connie Maheswaran is a human child, far weaker and more fragile than even the least combat worthy gem. She's made up for this for being extremely fast and agile, and with Rose's Sword (which is a One-Hit Kill weapon on Gems) her lack of strength doesn't matter. Again like Pearl the fusion she's involved with (Stevonnie) is the physically weakest one so far, yet humiliated the very powerful Jasper with far superior skill and tactics. Peridot joins the Crystal Gems after a Heel–Face Turn and admits that, due to Homeworld's dwindling resource supply, she (like all the other Peridots of her generation) has to be given bionic "limb enhancers" to give her the ability to fight. However, Steven and Amethyst help her discover that she has the ability to psychically control metal. Though it takes Peridot a while to master the art, and she never quite reaches the raw power of the other Gems, her skills quickly grow to the point where she's able to stand alongside the Crystal Gems in battle armed with nothing but a trash can lid and cans of soda. Even in her first proper fight with ferrokinesis, she was able to defeat the Corrupted Jasper using nothing but a large jagged piece of steel. |
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Zootopia: Judy Hopps is a bunny officer on a police force full of large megafaunas like rhinos and bears. She survives by using her speed and agility to turn her opponents' size against them. | |
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Shaman King: Yoh's father tends to say "It matters not who has the most furyoku, but who uses it properly". He can defeat his overpowered son and friends with his technique alone, but then again, Yoh and friends don't seem to understand that in the anime. To stop Lee Bai Long after he goes berserk once Jun's spell tag is destroyed, Anna summons the ghost of Bai Long's deceased master, who possesses Yoh in order to put the raging zombie down. Bai Long's master died a decrepit old man — and still kicks Bai Long's ass. |
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Keychain of Creation: Ten Winds (an air-aspect Terrestrial) is, in terms of raw power (or in Secret's case, potential power), the weakest of the group. But he's also a former member of what's essentially an Exalted Seal Team 6; an extremely skilled fighter, frequently shown taking on Exalted who should (in theory) be able to steamroll him. Nemen Yi (a Sidereal Exalted) mocks the Messenger Gods for their inability to fight, since "they don't even get perfect attacks". She is immediately knocked out cold by something they do get: Perfect Delivery... of a letter wrapped around a rock. |
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Counterpart (2018): Baldwin is a slim woman of average female height, without visible muscle buildup. Due to this, it's played realistic that when she fights a man sent to kill her, she shows some impressive moves, but she's still clearly in trouble unless she can get hold of a weapon since he outweighs her significantly (she does, killing him). Usually she doesn't attempt hand to hand combat, but relies on her skill with guns and other weapons while fighting. | |
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Crying Suns: The Void class has the lowest health of all battleships, many of its other base stats are incredibly low, and even its better stats are just on par with other ships in the same categories. The one area where it excels is in system support: it can have more officers assigned to its systems than any other ship, and the total number of officers it can have is six rather than five. It also comes with a Pirate Transponder that gives you a 20% discount at shops and makes neutral units friendly toward you during space battles. | |
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In IWA Mid-South, this was the stated reasoning for moving Jimmy Jacobs from the light heavyweight division to the heavyweights, even though he was not very big. He was simply too much better than everyone else in that weight class and good enough to beat heavyweights...though another light heavyweight, Delirious, rose up the ranks not long after Jacobs did. | |
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Castlevania RPG: Alec's magic is far weaker than Katrina's, but he has much finer control of it, allowing him to use an area-of-effect Turn Undead while specifically not hitting Darkmoon, his vampire ally and later friend. | |
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Jushin Thunder Liger is not a large man, and in fact was refused by Japan's dojos when he went looking for a place to train because of his stature, forcing him to go to Mexico. Yet, once he actually got training he gradually became one of the most famous professional wrestlers in the world, because he was good at it and dedicated. He even lecture's Ring of Honor's locker room, insisting strong technique is more important than physical strength alone and decided to train the petite Cheeseburger to prove his point. | |
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In The Flash (2014), Jay Garrick is not as fast as Barry Allen and eventually loses his powers, but he's a lot more experienced and had several tricks with speed that Barry had never thought of. Jay teaches Barry his tricks, making him much more effective. | |
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Epithet Erased: Giovanni is less effective in a straight fight than the other Inscribed, but he's learned enough variety in his powers to give him some advantages they don't have, such as a high level of mobility. | |
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In Traveller, characters take an old age roll at the end of each four-year career term starting with the one ending at age 34 when generating the character's backstory. Failing this roll (which gets increasingly likely as the character gets older and the penalties become increasingly severe) will drain physical attributes, but staying in a career for longer will, among other things, increase the character's skills. | |
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In The Lord of the Isles the wizard Tenoctris has very little power, but has a huge understanding of how magic works. This is a world where several civilizations have been wiped out because their own wizards cast mighty spells without properly understanding what the effects would be. Her spells do what she wants, and she often knows exactly how a spell will backfire when the caster doesn't even know there will be side effects. She'd lose to almost anyone in a Wizard Duel, but as an adviser she's invaluable. | |
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In the first two Fallout games, it's possible to take an at-creation trait called Skilled, that makes your character into one of these. You gain perks (miscellaneous, but potent benefits) less often but get a bonus to all your skills (medicine, gun skills, etc). It's generally considered inferior to its counterpart trait since skills are easy to raise and specialize in, but perks come only with level gains. It makes a comeback in Fallout: New Vegas where it instead means that you get 10% less experience points, but instead gain 5 experience points in every skill. Here it becomes a trait to cherish, as while it takes more time level up, a low level character with Skilled can be more effective than a high level character. New Vegas actually has another example, in unarmed combat. Since (excepting the ballistic fist) most unarmed weapons only require 2 strength to be used properly, a character can have only 2 strength (pitifully low) but still have vast unarmed combat abilities, capable of punching people across rooms. The learnable combat moves take this up to eleven, allowing enemies to be knocked down, disarmed, and countered without "strength" factoring into it at all. Possibly averted in that unarmed combat is based off of "endurance", a measure of how resistant you are to attacks, which could be thought of as "strong" If Raul Tejada is inspired to be the Vaquero that he once was, he states that while he's an old man who's eyesight and body aren't what they used to be, his brains can make up for that and he's still quick with a gun. His Old Vaquero perk lets him fire revolvers and lever-action rifles 33% faster. |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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The main character from Red River (1995) herself, Yuri Suzuki. She's a complete weakling physically speaking and can't do a thing when she's being sexually assaulted, but being from the future has its advantages. She is revered as Ishtar because she rode a horse, something that's common nowadays, but in ancient Turkey was unheard of. She also recognized an iron sword and used it against Zuwa, ignoring the other, weaker swords available. Back in the Bronze Age, iron was a Game-Breaker, so the fact that she knew what iron was and how effective a weapon it is causes the people to see her as very intelligent. | |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_8022008b | |
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General Protection Fault: Fooker while protecting Ki from Sam, who is a football player, as he apparently had been "moonlighting with the UGA" at the time and knew martial arts well enough to win. This also comes up when he fights his counterpart in the Nega-Verse; he doesn't fare quite as well in this case, but manages to gain the upper hand when his opponent gets distracted. | |
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Weak, but Skilled / int_8197ebd8 | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Super Mario Bros.: Mario himself applies this trope to varying degrees in platforms games. In 2D games, when he lacks his transformations, he can only stomp weak enemies like Goombas and Bullet Bills, while others like Koopas and Bob-Ombs are only paralyzed for few seconds or ready to explode. However, in this state, he can still kick and hold them so he can use their strength to defeat other enemies or break some walls. In 3D games, Mario can do amazing acrobatics and is more resistant, but he still has to defeat bosses this way: while they are often strong but imprecise, he can avoid their attacks at ease and wait for the opportunity to counterattack. While Mario is the Jack of All Stats in Super Smash Bros., his special moves focus less on power than keeping the enemy at distance while keeping maximum control: these moves consist of cutting an opponent in its tracks with fireballs, reflecting projectiles with a cape, or propelling other players out of stage with a water jet. Even his most powerful special move, the Super Jump Punch, only makes minimal damage and leaves him powerless until he falls on the ground, but remains at the same strength (while Luigi's equivalent goes from ridiculously weak to absurdly strong) and after Mario falls on the ground, he recovers instantly (while his brother is powerless for a few seconds as he falls on his head). In Super Mario 3D World and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Captain Toad is only able to walk or toddle, and is unable to jump. This doesn't stop him to solve complex puzzles and to fight powerful monsters. While Mario is an Unskilled, but Strong character in Mario Golf, other characters like Luigi, Peach or Toad are this, as they don't hit the ball hard but have much more control over it. A similar example occurs in Mario Tennis, where Mario is the Jack of All Stats: Technique characters like Peach or Waluigi don't have a powerful smash, but can lead the ball wherever they want. |
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In Brave10, Rokuro is one of the smallest, lithest dudes on the team and gets thrown around like a ragdoll more than once, but he has his sonic techniques, later Blood Magic, and is fast and precise with suntetsu and his chain whip. | |
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Deconstructed in The Acts of Caine. When Talann fights Berne, she initially holds out, but Berne has some mean skills of his own too, even if not to the same level, and her inability to close the power gap gets her killed. | |
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Bugs Bunny. He managed to win a heavyweight wrestling match against the aptly named Crusher through sheer pluck and, admittedly, a lot of cheating. | |
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Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson and the Olympians also qualifies. As a child of Athena, she does not have many of the powers that other demigods have. In fact, the children of Athena, and also the children of other, lower deities, are among the weaker demigods. When fighting monsters or other opponents, Annabeth almost always relies on her wisdom and tactical skills. However, even weak demigods are still much stronger than humans. | |
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Vinland Saga: Thorfinn fights like this when he's got his head on straight. When he doesn't, he turns into a Screaming Warrior and proceeds to lose rather spectacularly. Askeladd fights like this as well, all the time, but with him there's a slight subversion. Despite the tactics he employs physically he's still one of the strongest characters in the series. | |
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Infinite Stratos: Maya Yamada, the assistant homeroom teacher, goes up against two students in Ace Customs, using a training IS... and effortlessly curb-stomps them. In the same vein, Charles a.k.a. Charlotte Dunois. Having explicitly stated to pilot an outdated 2nd Generation IS Rafale Revive II (the same type that Yamada-sensei uses), albeit customized, she can and has gone toe-to-toe with more modern 3rd generation machines such as Blue Tears and Schwarzer Roegen. |
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Finral doesn't have the large magical power of other nobles and his kind nature makes him unable to Tele-Frag. However, he still makes his rare Spatial Magic useful, quickly creating portals to close large distances, forcibly warp enemies, and help comrades avoid attacks in the midst of battle. | |
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Gundam: Mobile Suit Gundam: Char Aznable. While Amuro has greater Psychic Powers, Char is a much more experienced pilot, so the two are evenly matched. Amuro's eponymous Gundam is also much stronger than Char's re-painted mook units, at least at first, but as Char receives more powerful mobile suits, Amuro's piloting skill increases proportionally. Eventually, Char receives a Gelgoog, which is an even match for the Gundam, and finally the Zeong, which ends up reversing their roles by being more powerful than the Gundam. When they return in Char's Counterattack, Amuro had significantly more experience in Char's Counterattack than Char had in the original series, and stronger Psychic Powers to boot. (Char was only 20 when he faced off against Amuro for the first time. Amuro was 29 in CCA.) Once he answers Char's Sazabi with the Nu Gundam, The Red Comet Can't Catch Up. Hayato. He piloted the Guntank, a pretty sub-par Mobile Suit that had horrendous mobility, slow reaction time, and was useless in terms of close combat; yet he still managed to use it well, and survive the One Year War. A similar situation occurs in Gundam 00, early in the series there are a few veterans that can completely outmatch the Gundam pilots as far as skill is concerned, and best the Gundams in one on one combat. But the Gundams are so strong they can just shrug off the attacks. Gundam fans also ascribe this quality to 0080's Bernard "Bernie" Wiseman. By his own admission, he's only ever piloted once and he got shot down very quickly, but in the final episode he uses strategy, tactics, and traps to defeat a Gundam superior to Amuro Ray'snote albeit with a less skilled test pilot behind the controls. And he does all this in a Zaku II, which is the poster child for Mecha-Mooks. Ricardo Fellini and his Wing Gundam Fenice from Build Fighters. It's been pointed out that his gunpla is of an old make, one he's had since he was a kid, so his kit could be considered inferior from the outset, but he's introduced as the Italian Champion. As well, it has no Plavsky Particle manipulation gimmicks whatsoever, but that didn't stop him from fighting the Star Build Strike to a draw after the latter went Super Mode in episode 15, or trouncing them before then. To note, he's the first person we see to cause Team Nemesis to worry and overclock Aila's Embody System and, unlike Sei and Reiji with the Star Build Strike's RG Mode, he didn't have anything to help even the odds after that happened. Shimon Izuna of Gundam Build Fighters Try has a basic Destiny Gundam, built straight out of the box by his younger brother. Both Yuuma and Mr. Ral are convinced that it's going to lose, especially when his teammates' suits, equally built Murasame and Jet Windam, are taken out. Instead, Shimon's boxing skills end up making the suit a powerhouse, tearing apart a team based on the Crossbone Vanguard, but also fighting the Build Burning to a standstill. Team BUILD DiVERS have this going for them in Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE. Compared to many of the other teams in GBN, especially the heroes of the previous series, the team is pathetically weak. They have a hard time fighting Alus' One-Eyes army straight on, but once they start to realize their extremely-simplistic Attack! Attack! Attack! patterns, they're able to easily overcome them with skill. |
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The Prince of Tennis: Syuusuke Fuji. He eschews physical fitness and outright strength in favor of counter techniques that require outrageous (impossible) amounts of skill to perform. He later gains some strength in a filler training camp in the anime, but this never happens in the manga. Either way, it stops being addressed as the series delves into further ludicrousness. Also Eiji Kikumaru, who has a flashy and fun style of playing yet is plagued by low stamina. Unlike Fuji, his Training from Hell that makes him go from Fragile Speedster to Lightning Bruiser happens in both the anime and manga. |
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A New Hope exemplified this at several points; Vader's Star Destroyer vastly outgunned Leia's vessel, but she tricked them by hiding the plans in a droid; the Rebel Alliance was outgunned by the Death Star, and Luke by Vader's ship & escorts in partciular in the final scene, but they used highly maneuverable ships to nullify the battlestation's firepower, while Luke used the force to aim the death blow at the Death Star, while Han Solo swept in to help at the last moment using his superior flying skills and his "modified" Millenium Falcoln to aid Luke despite the massive firepower arrayed against him. | |
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Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman. He's old, blind, feeble, and homeless. He practically hobbles up to his opponents, and then cuts them down. | |
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Ben Linus from Lost hardly looks dangerous, but he is fully capable of taking you down. He managed to destroy two Middle Eastern guys on horseback and armed with machine guns using only a telescoping baton and the element of surprise as weapons. There there's the fact that he's also The Chessmaster and a Magnificent Bastard and can play Gambit Roulette like few others... | |
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The Wheel of Time: Mat Cauthon outfights two stronger and more practiced opponents at the same time, while recovering from a serious illness. He's really good with the quarterstaff. Sorilea can barely channel enough to light a candle, but is one of the oldest and most experienced Aiel Wise Ones, and has such a sense of authority about her that when she says "jump" even other Wise Ones ask, "How high?" Androl is probably the weakest channeler in the Black Tower, but has an unmatched talent for making gateways, which normally requires great strength in the One Power. He normally uses them for such everyday tasks as cutting leather and preparing tea. Then he starts developing new and awesome ways to weaponize them. Be'lal is one of the weaker channelers among the Forsaken, but he makes up for it by being a Master Swordsman, one of the Shadow's three top generals, and a politician savvy enough to earn the nickname "Netweaver". Unfortunately for him, it doesn't save him from being the first Forsaken to be Killed Off for Real. Egwene briefly has this role when she is captured by Elaida's faction of Aes Sedai and demoted to novice, with her channeling almost completely suppressed with forkroot. What little of the One Power she can channel, she uses with a level of finesse that awes her instructor. |
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In PAYDAY 2, the Ghost class can be this. They have fewer damage dealing skills then their Enforcer or Technician allies, they will typically wear less armor in order to be faster and harder to see, and will also use smaller guns/silenced guns to increase their concealment. But a good Ghost can open every door, slip in and out undetected, and steal every single loot bag on the map without any guards knowing what the fuck is going on. The Fugitive class could arguably be considered this, as well- most of their skillset revolves around seemingly minor tricks, like a little extra concealment or extra movement speed, and at face value a pure, focused Fugitive doesn't seem like a good fit for the game. Then you pair the appropriate skills with other classes and you see how much better they are for it. Fugitive Medic Bags may not reset the Downed count, but it still heals to full health and he carries alot of them, allowing the Mastermind's Doctor Bags to be saved for real emergencies, and a fleet-footed Mastermind with the Inspire skill Aced can run around the field reviving the entire team and have the healing supplies to salvage a potentially doomed heist, while pairing the Fugitive's Akimbo Aced skill with the Mastermind's pistol perks will make him a dual-wielding force to be reckoned with. An Enforcer with the Fugitive's Thick Skin can make them tankier than they already are while giving them a much-needed movement boost, with healing options to help them last longer. A Ghost with Low Blow, Sneaky Bastard, Sixth Sense and silenced weapons with the right perks can solo some of the hardest stealth missions in the game quickly, and still be able to put up a good fight when things go south. A Technician can make use of the Fugitive's movement boost to set up turrets and mines quickly before an assault starts, and pairing with the Tech's sniper perks with the Fugitive's Run-and-Gun perk will make them an accurate yet fleet-footed marksman, with both the former and latter setups thinning out assaults before they get too close while allowing them to quickly reach and reactivate stalled drills, or reload empty turrets. |
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Hunters (both kinds) even more so. The majority of Mages may never have the direct combat prowess of beatsticks like Vampires or Werewolves, but their immensely flexible Reality Warper abilities give them options that even the strongest Empowered Badass Normal of Hunters can't match. Through cunning, fighting dirty and planning, however, Hunters can and many times do put down the things that go bump in the night. | |
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One specific character example is Luthier from Fire Emblem Gaiden and its remake, Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. He has a fairly low magic growth but the highest skill growth in the game, and he even gets an Unskilled, but Strong foil in his little sister Delthea. | |
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My Hero Academia: The Pro Hero, "Eraser Head"; is this due to his Quirk, "Erasure". While effective by neutralizing the activation of Quirks of others, it can't affect those that are "mutant" types (since they're always activated) or are naturally Quirkless. However, Aizawa makes up for it with his wits and being skilled in combat, capture equipment, and stealth to win a fight. His stats give him an average 3/5 in Power and Cooperation, but a good 4/5 in Speed and Intelligence, and an overwhelming 6/5 in Technique. The "Hero Killer" Stain also falls into this if you judge purely by Quirk. Stain's Quirk, "Bloodcurdle" allows him to paralyze a person by ingesting their blood, with certain blood types being more susceptible than others. Not much compared to powers like Super-Strength, Playing with Fire, or being An Ice Person. He makes up for it by Dual Wielding knives and honing his raw physical combat ability to high levels to make the most out of his Quirk in combat. His stats give him an excellent 5/5 in Technique and a whopping 6/5 in Speed. When using Full Cowl. Izuku Midoriya's overall power at 5% is only marginally stronger than he was without using it, and he lacks the explosive power of a full powered Smash. However, by increasing his overall power, even at a smaller percent, he is capable of fighting longer, is much faster as a result, and is capable of working in strategies better since he no longer needs to fear breaking his limbs. Furthermore, because he is limiting his power, he can gradually utilize more of it as he improves, allowing him to steadily increase his power, thus improving his abilities naturally. However, as he increases his power with One For All in certain percentages, he reverts back to Unskilled, but Strong as he has to train to master higher the higher increase in power into his skill. Hitoshi Shinso has excellent control over his Quirk, "Brainwashing", and is very good at tricking people into answering his questions in order to activate it, but as noted by Aizawa during his match against Midoriya, his combat skills are relatively poor and once Midoriya is able to break free of Shinso's Mind Manipulation, he overpowers him in minutes. His stats reflect this very well, with his Technique and Intelligence both being 4/5, but Power, Speed, and Cooperation being an underwhelming 1/5. Neito Monoma's Quirk allows him to copy the abilities of others' quirks, but he could only use them one at a time and up for 5 minutes. Due to these limitations, he will never be able to rigorously train them like his peers do. But he's listed as having a 5/5 in both Technique and Intelligence, and can use the different quirks creatively. Best Jeanist is the No. 4 (later promoted to No. 3 after All-Might's retirement) Pro-Hero who's quirk "Fiber Master" gives him control over fibers, denim being the most effective. In-spite of its strange nature, it is an incredibly versatile quirk that is good for offense, defense, and capture, him being able to overpower and capture an entire league's worth of Nomu's and being able to block a direct attack by All-For-One. All-For-One himself makes an observation that his super-abilities are almost completely reliant on skill and thus rejects it for its low power level, implying that while "Fiber Master" is versatile, it relies on practice and technique for it to be the least bit useful. Mirio Togata, AKA Lemillion, possesses the quirk "Permeation" that makes him intangible at will. This came with a laundry list of drawbacks (complete loss of sense and an ability to breathe due to all light and matter slipping through him, his clothes falling off, his body mass weighing him down and causing him to fall through the floor, etc.) that made him fall behind the rest of his peers, but with extensive training in both physical combat and practice with his Quirk under Sir Nighteye's supervision, Mirio became one of UA's most promising students. Sir Nighteye chose Lemillion as a potential candidate for One-For-All and Aizawa (famous for his high-standards) claims that he is good enough to become the next No. 1 hero even among active pros. Himiko Toga's Quirk allows her to copy the looks of someone whose blood she drunk but not their Quirks at first, so in combat she relies on a knife and being fast and skilled enough to get the drop even on Heroes in training. To an extent, Hawks also qualifies, having a Quirk which allows him to control the feathers of his wings with his mind. His direct attacks against the Hood do not cause much damage, but he can still demolish ordinary Nomu through pure speed compensating for his average strength. His wings also provide him various forms of utility. Using almost all of his feathers, he was able to telekinetically evacuate everyone in a collapsing building alongside those on the ground, and he can use the feathers to complete multiple tasks at once from a distance, as well as pick up on conversations covertly. In fact, he is one of the few heroes with multiple 6/5 scores in the Ultra Analysis Data Book — both Speed AND Technique. Surprisingly, All For One himself proves superior with this trope alone. Unlike All Might who relied purely on his brute strength, All For One survived merely by the grotesque collection of Quirks he stole. Furthermore, the villain was fighting in a much weaker state than before. It's terrifying to think how overpowered he was in his prime. |
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Chiaroscuro: Shikamaru and Kakashi manage to take down Orochimaru by tricking him into attacking himself. Sakura manages to beat Neji due to a combination of greater planning and Neji being foolish enough to monologue during a fight. He might have been faster, stronger, and more skilled, but she took that time to set up a flashbang genjutsu. Shikamaru again, when he distracts Itachi by messing with his mind instead of trying to compete against his technique. |
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DC Extended Universe: In Man of Steel, the Kryptonians haven't adapted to Earth like Superman has, so they're vulnerable to the same Power Incontinence he got over and have had less time to gain strength from Earth's sun. Unfortunately for Superman, they were bred to be soldiers and are much more experienced and better fighters and learn the basics of their new abilities extremely fast, so him being stronger than them doesn't mean much as they are still powerful enough to be a serious threat and combined by their skill, he ends up being in a hell of a tough fight. Even the power-based and aggressive Nam-Ek can give Superman a good fight, while Faora proves to be impossible to beat without a surprise attack as she easily stomps Superman, being the best fighter among the Kryptonians. By the end, Zod has learned to control both his flight and his heat vision, worsening things for Superman, to where he only beats Zod due to Zod being essentially a Death Seeker at that point and even then only with surprise attack and not without causing some serious damage. Batman is currently the most prominent example. While he can wipe the floor with Mooks easily, who aren't even strong much less skilled, fighting super-powerful aliens are way out of his depth. That said, he is still a Badass Normal with 20 years of crimefighting experience and great martial arts, firearms, and tactical skills under his belt, so he has repeatedly shown with the proper means, he is still able to threaten them. While even with Powered Armor, Batman is no match for a fully-powered Superman, he is able to repeatedly expose Superman to Kryptonite, during which he can easily beat him down he's no match at all for Batman until it wears off, and ultimately wins. He's also the one who comes up with the tactics used to take down Doomsday and even manages to play a real role by hitting him with a Kryptonite grenade, along with briefly fighting him with his ship. In Justice League, he's able to take on Parademons in a straight fight and win. |
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Rob Roy: Archibald Cunningham, the fencing master and foppish fashion enthusiast. His introduction scene has a burly Scottish swordsman mock Cunningham's puny physical frame before getting his ass handed to him in a sword fight. The even burlier Rob Roy manages to physically manhandle Cunningham on several occasions, but in a straight swordfight, the tables are turned. In their duel, Cunningham easily dodges Rob Roy's heavier, slower swings while slowly slicing Rob to pieces. | |
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Kuroko of Kuroko's Basketball. He doesn't have the talent or the build for basketball, but because of his highly refined and practiced skill at Misdirection (which requires enhanced tactical acuity and play-reading, foresight, and an iron-clad rationale dedicated to performing his specific role), he was able to be considered the "Phantom Sixth Player" of the legendary Generation of Miracles, his middle school team which took the national championship three years in a row. Serin's Izuki Shun is this as well. Among the point guards of the national-level teams, he's physically the weakest by a sizeable margin. However, his Eagle Eye, polished fundamentals (particularly passing and stealing), and his ability to read plays and predict upwards of three to four moves ahead allows him to go toe-to-toe with players like the expert Kasuga Ryuuhei of Seihou, Badass Normal Kasamatsu Yukio of Kaijou, and even Uncrowned King "Thunder Beast" Hayama Koutaro. Hayama in particular recognizes him as a "first-rate player", and admits he can't beat him unless he plays at his absolute best and plans his attack first. |
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Dragon Ball Super has many examples of how power alone does not win one a fight, and there are plenty of times where an comparatively weaker fighter manages to defeat or hold his own against a stronger one, using unique skills or greater experience: Although Jaco didn't fight like in the movie, he is able to see Goku and Frieza's battle, something only Gohan is able to do. He was also the first to see that Goku was unharmed from Frieza's energy blast. He also catches Frost cheating when no one else did. When Goku drops his guard, it makes even his powerful body vulnerable to light attacks. Sorbet manages to pierce his heart with a common ray gun after attacking Goku In the Back. Vegeta effortlessly overpowers the drained Frieza and knocks him out of his golden form, but still loses when Frieza blows up the planet as Frieza can survive in the vacuum of space, while Vegeta can't. Piccolo is this to almost everyone at the Universal tournament. This nearly costs Frost his match since he could have easily put Piccolo away. Piccolo nearly beats him using smart tactics and his own quick thinking. He only loses because Frost poisons him. Master Roshi was one of the strongest people on the planet, but he fell badly behind before the end of the original Dragon Ball. He's still, however, a highly skilled and trained martial artist. He manages to take down Frieza's army thanks to his greater experience and he teaches Goku the Evil Containment Wave. In the Universal Survival Saga, he is chosen to be on U7's team over Goten and Trunks because of his greater experience and moveset, while the kids had proven themselves inefficient fighters. Hit is anything but weak, but he falls behind Goku and Vegeta in terms of pure power. Still, he defeats Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta with ease, despite only using a low amount of power. He can do this because he can jump 0.1 seconds ahead in time and aim for his vital spots, which Vegeta can't figure out since to him it looks like Hit is moving so fast that he seemingly disappears. When Goku successfully figures out how to counter Hit's fighting style, he fares better against Hit in his base form than Vegeta did even at full power. Hit also completely defies Villain Forgot to Level Grind, as he levels up his time-leap mid-fight and has several more time techniques in his arsenal in the Universe Survival Arc. When he fights, he usually has to be stuck with Worf Had the Flu (he's an assassin fighting in tournaments where he isn't allowed to kill) to keep things fair, and when he fights Goku without any limitations, he quickly kills him (It didn't stick, of course, but still). A trait among every version of Zamasu, barring Black. While he's by no means "weak", his power falls behind Goku, Vegeta, later Future Trunks, the angels, and Gods of Destruction. However, being a Supreme Kai, he posses abilities that are exclusive to his race. He also knows Instant Movement. His future counterpart adds Complete Immortality to that list, and it effectively means he can tank anything Goku or Vegeta dish out and still come out unscathed. Krillin actually manages to defeat Gohan and stand his ground against Goku in tournament-ruled sparring bouts. Krillin's vast arsenal of techniques such as the Solar Flare X100 and the remote-controlled Destructo Discs definitely give him a solid chance. During the Tournament of Power, thanks to the intensity of the battles and opponents he meets this time around, in particular the Universe 6 Saiyans and Jiren, Goku ends up being met and even surpassed in raw power more than once. The fact that he has to engage in such fights in quick succession also means that Goku ends up greatly weakened more than once in the Tournament. As such, he has to rely more on his fighting skills and experience to survive. When he fought Caulifla and later Kale in a 2-on-1 match, Goku had already spent a lot of his strength in his first confrontation with Jiren. However, he's still a master martial artist with tons more experience over the two girls, and as such, is able to keep pace with them even when he's double-teamed. In his second confrontation with Jiren, Goku's shown using more creative uses of his techniques against him, such as creating tiny ki landmines and using Krillin's Destructo Disc to slice out the arena right under Jiren, a tactic that Krillin had used against him beforehand. Towards the climax of the Tournament of Power, with the ranks being whittled down to the strongest fighters left, Androids 17 and 18 become this in comparison to most of the other participants. While they don't match up to them in raw power, as Androids, their energy and stamina is actually limitless, so they can fight without ever becoming tired or fatigued. At the same time, they're also quite clever and pragmatic in combat. Android 17 stands out with many creative uses of his energy barrier, and, even more impressive, he becomes the actual winner of the Tournament. Played with regarding Dyspo of Universe 11. While his strength is lacking, the threat he poses comes from his Super-Speed. Namely, he’s arguably the fastest fighter in the Multiverse. He’s able to threaten both Ultimate Gohan and Golden Frieza simply because he’s too fast to keep up with, with Gohan having to resort to Taking You with Me to defeat him. However, beyond his speed, when it comes to fighting skill, Dyspo’s moves are noted as being simple, straightforward, and ultimately predictable. Goku and Frieza (at first), after getting used to his speed and reading his moves were able to counter him, and Hit nearly defeated Dyspo twice, only failing to do so because of his teammate Rum’shii. Ultra Instinct is this as a Power-Up. Ultra Instinct isn't a racial trait (though all Angels seem to know it) or even a technique, per se, but a state of mind; it boosts the user to a state of physical Ludicrous Precision (with maybe a touch of Hyper-Awareness), making even vast chasms of difference in Power Levels almost a non-issue. Jiren's power is leagues above everyone else at the tournament, but Ultra Instinct Goku is able to put him on the ropes because he perfectly dodges all of Jiren's attacks and every one of his blows are disproportionately powerful. In the Moro Arc, we discover that this is the principle behind the Yardratians' Spirit Control. Being a race that's weak in power, to compensate, they have learned to become so skilled with their ki that they basically became efficient on ki alone. Vegeta trains with them for a while, learning to make much more powerful energy blasts at a lower cost, becoming more powerful with the implication that Goku did the same. Additionally, he learned some techniques Goku hadn't learned, mainly Forced Spirit Fission, which allowed Vegeta to restore the ki Moro stole. Other tricks include duplication, gigantification and even Healing Hands. |
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In World of Tanks, the match making can place very low tiers in matches with the bigger, nastier high level tanks. A skilled pilot, however, will stay hidden, reveal the enemy to his artillery, manage to destroy the enemy artillery and capture once the dust has settled down. In fact, a pilot that is good at this will do more to help win than his strongest teammates without firing a single shot. | |
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Sano from The Law of Ueki has two powers: to turn towels to steel and his Level 2 make the towel steel supermagnetic. From this, towel-boomerangs, towel-swords, towel-gags and at one point charging at extreme speeds using a towel MAGLEV TRAIN. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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In the Dragon Ball GT fic God's Gift To Women, Master Roshi is able to get the better of Bra in a sparring match despite the vast difference in their power because he is so much more skilled than her. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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The title character in Mulan is a teenage girl serving in the last remnant of the Chinese army. She gets the better of the Huns by applying small amounts of force where it will get a much larger return (like using a cannon on an unstable mountain slope to trigger an avalanche). | |
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In Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods, he has the best showing against Beerus because of his good fighting sense, outperforming the far stronger SSJ3 Goku, Gohan, and Gotenks. Beerus even laments that he's "highly skilled, but lacks the power to match it." | |
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In the Shrek movies, Puss in Boots is an excellent fencer, but when he loses his sword he can easily be manhandled by humans or ogres. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish deconstructs this when he's on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle by the much bigger and stronger Wolf, traumatizing him enough to run away every time he sees him | |
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This is especially prominent in Ordinal Scale where the Augmented Reality game requires players to use their real bodies. Kirito initially struggles against early bosses, even tripping over during battle which results in a Face Plant. | |
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Amy from Sonic the Comic. She never gains the raw power of Sonic or Knuckles, but her smarts and ranged combat abilities allow her to be almost as effective under the right conditions. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Kekkaishi's Tokine builds her combat style on this trope. Comparatively speaking, the barriers she can create have nowhere near the explosive power as those made by Yoshimori, nor can she make them as big. The solution? Just use the barriers you have in really awesome ways... | |
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In Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, Jun Manjoume conquers the North Academy with a mix of random weak cards. Later, his brothers challenged him to a duel where Manjoume must only use monsters with maximum 500 ATK. He wins anyway (in fact, he took the challenge further by using 0-ATK cards). Also, Manjoume's final deck has the Ojama trio as his core cards besides his Armed Dragons. | |
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Frantic 3: The Tactician ship. It's weak with its 4 weapon slots and 3 hit shield, plus its speed is average. However, it has 12 accessory slots allowing for the most customisability and a high energy bar with recharge rate. | |
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In Incarnation of Legends, Kojiro doesn't possess the sheer superhuman speed and strength of a Servant as he's been incarnated as a human. But his skills remain untouched aside from getting used to once again having a flesh-and-blood body. As such, he, despite not having a falna, is able to fight on par with Level 1 and 2 adventurers, something that's supposed to be practically impossible. | |
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A Song of Ice and Fire: Features this trope regularly in a very plausible way. The series has loads characters who are too old (Barristan Selmy, Syrio Forell) or too thin (Loras Tyrell) to be considered "strong" but are extremely capable fighters, usually because they are both naturally skilled, very well trained, and unusually brave. This is realistic since there is no use being a bag of muscle if you are clumsy, untrained or just too weak-minded to hold yourself on a battlefield or in another life-or-death situation. In other words, being strong and resilient may make you a good soldier (since much of soldiering is enduring months of underfeeding, sleeping in camps, forced marches, exhausting work and generally horrible life conditions) but it does not automatically make you a good fighter. (The reverse is true: many a Knight in Shining Armor is a capable fighter but could never endure the life conditions of the rank and file.) Handily demonstrated in the duel between Gregor Clegane, a giant of a man strong enough to wield a greatsword in one hand, and Oberyn Martell, a regular sized man. Oberyn, while severely outclassed in the strength department, is quick and agile, and uses a spear (coated with poison) to keep out of reach of Clegane's BFS. Subverted, however, by Syrio Forel, who gives a very impressive account of himself when he is outnumbered six to one and armed with a wooden sword while his opponents have live steel. He defeats and possibly maims or kills five of them, but falls to the sixth, who has (as the Hound memorably puts it in the TV adaptation), "armor and a big fucking sword." |
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Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple: Creepy Child Chikage Kushinada (and her teacher, Mikumo) adheres to this trope. She's a grade school girl but is shown to be at least on par with the teenage characters because she has enough skill to fight and defeat normal adults. She is a fighter of 100% skill, 0% power, rather than split between the two. What is actually meant by this is that Chikage applies no force of her own during a fight, but uses the enemy's force against them, a tactic used in multiple martial arts. While most fighters are a combination of strength and skill (strength being striking power, skill being throwing power or technique-related ability) Chikage is all skill—she only throws her enemy in such a way as to use their own weight, momentum, etc., against them, rather than create an impact herself. As usual, this stems from the manga taking a martial arts concept to its absolute extreme. Also Miu, as pointed out to Kenichi at the beginning of his training. |
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One Piece: Usopp and Nami are the crew's Lovable Coward and token girl respectively, and have little ability in physical combat. Word of God has even stated that Usopp will always be the weakest fighter of the crew. However, both are highly skilled in their specific fields of sharpshooting and navigation. Usopp, an amateur Gadgeteer Genius, has also built various weapons for himself and a Weather-Control Machine for Nami with the specific intent of using their brains over their brawn to win battles. And he has proved that he's no pushover; when he goes all-out, he's capable of giving Luffy a run for his money while his entire body is injured and bandaged up. And as for Nami... she's an expert meteorologist with a Weather-Control Machine. Robin would also qualify. While her physical strength is minuscule compared to the majority of foes that come her way, her extensive experience as an assassin as well as having two decades to work out the uses of her powers ensure that she's still very much a serious threat to most people. Furthermore, the nature of her powers allow her to apply what strength she has almost infinitely, limited only by the surface area of what she is grabbing. She has used this to twist a giant's arm behind its back with a giant arm made of other arms. Through smart use of her powers, she's one of the most dangerous Straw Hats and often lumped in with the far physically stronger 'monstrous trio.' For a villainous example, Foxy. He's not exactly "weak" per se, but he's a total joke compared to Luffy when it comes to raw power. He makes up for it with surprisingly clever use of his Devil Fruit power, as well as cheap tactics and low blows. Another villainous example is Ain from the twelfth movie One Piece Film: Z. She may be far from weak, but her physical strength still pales in comparison to her captain and several of her foes. To make up for it, she is very fast and uses her Devil Fruit powers in creative ways to gain or regain the upper hand in fights. Amongst the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Gekko Moriah is the least physically fit and the most rusty from slacking off his training due to his Dark and Troubled Past, but his complete and utter mastery of his Devil Fruit's powers and having a shit-ton of zombies of varying strength serving with absolute loyalty allows him to take on the entire Straw Hat crew at once and still have a decent chance of winning. Unfortunately for him, the World Government saw his poor performance as too much of a hassle to justify keeping around and attempted to have him killed though he escaped with his life and went into hiding. Rebecca from the Dressrosa arc may very well be the physically weakest fighter in the Corrida tournament, but she still makes it to the finals because she is the master of a fighting style that lets her use her opponents' strength against them and knock them out of the ring, and because she is the only one whose Haki is good enough to anticipate Cavendish's/Hakuba's attack and dodge it. That said, she is very fast, so she's not entirely without physical skills. This is usually a trait of the more successful Paramecia-type Devil Fruit users. While they lack the straightforward abilities of Logia or Zoan fruits, they often make up for it with the most outside-the-box thinking and diversity in the application of a single fruit's powers. While a few Paramecia Fruits provide massive destructive power (the category is simply a catch-all for anything that's not Logia or Zoan), most are far from impressive. Even the main character Luffy became far weaker as a child when he ate the Gum-Gum Fruit and became a Rubber Man; it took years of training before he could even regain the ability to throw a punch. While he's become monstrously strong since then, he's had to come up with truly bizarre ways of utilizing his Devil Fruit power to do so (thus, he personally doesn't fit this trope, but his Devil Fruit power pretty much does). There are also some clear example of Zoans like this, because the inherent combat potential varies greatly depending on which specific animal the Zoan can transform into. Being able to become a leopard or a king cobra or a T. rex provides very obvious strength, but transforming into a giraffe? Not so much. But after eating that Devil Fruit, Kaku is able to use both his assassin training and his innate creativity to come up with an amazing variety of deadly attacks using his giraffe transformation, and does so on the fly in the middle of battle. |
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Record of Ragnarok: While many of the human warriors are definitely strong by normal human standards, such as Lü Bu and Adam, when compared to the gods they end up facing in the Ragnarok tournament, they are far outclassed in the strength department. However, they make up for this in the skill department, having honed their techniques and fighting styles to their absolute limits, allowing them to face the gods on equal ground. Sasaki Kojiro makes up for being physically weaker than other characters by spending his entire life (and afterlife) honing his skills with a sword, his training eventually putting him on the same level as other, much stronger characters. In fact, it's this skill that ends up as the deciding factor in his victory over Poseidon. While Jack the Ripper may be even weaker than Sasaki, his sheer intelligence, trickery, and mastery over weapons puts him on an even playing field with even a powerful god like Heracles. |
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Pokémon: Several Pokémon qualify as this. For example, Sableye is a Pokemon with a base stat total of merely 380. However, it has only one weakness with three immunities, and has the ability Prankster which gives priority to non-damaging moves, allowing Sableye to cripple your opponent's team with several very annoying moves. Sableye got some love from a Mega Evolution, making it much more bulky to compensate for its fragility, and giving it Magic Bounce instead of Prankster, returning pesky traps and status effects back to sender. Whimsicott is seen as a better choice stats wise, but due to its Grass/Fairy typing, it's vulnerable to many other types, however, its high speed and Sableye's Prankster make it a lethal threat in Battle Spot and Nintendo's VGC format. Nidoking has mediocre stats all-round, but in later gens the Sheer Force ability turned it into one of these. This grants a 33% power boost to moves with a secondary effect, and Nidoking learns a lot of these, from both sides of the physical/special spectrum. It also allows it to use Life Orb without any drawbacks. Combined, this means it hits surprisingly hard for only having 85 base Special Attack and 92 (or 102 from Gen 6 on) base Attack. The ability Technician provides a 50% boost to all moves with a base power of 60 or less, which (more often than not) have useful secondary effects such as increased priority, hitting multiple times or bypassing accuracy; putting them on par with the more common "STAB spam" moves such as Thunderbolt or Flamethrower. The move Foul Play runs on this trope, allowing the user to turn its target's strength against it instead of using its own. It uses the target's Attack stat rather than the user's, allowing even Stone Walls or Fragile Speedsters to deal hefty damage to the right target. |
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Punch-Out!!: Little Mac, particularly in his NES incarnation. Pint-sized guy vs. title holders who are many times bigger and more muscular than him, anyone? His Star Punch is only acquired by hitting the opponent at a moment of opportunity, and tends to be less powerful than many later game opponents' punches, which clearly shows how much the players must rely on tactics and be more efficient than their opponents. | |
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Fate/Zero: One of the 'viewpoint' protagonists in the light novel series, Emiya Kiritsugu, is presented as this. While he is an expert marksman, most of his successes come from exploiting his targets' weaknesses and generally fighting very methodically. Whenever he is in a direct confrontation, he will always be the one running away, while waiting for the best time to put his plans into action. Waver Velvet ended up as this as he grew older: much like Kiritsugu, he would have no chance in a serious fight with a truly powerful mage, and so he relies on his cleverness, his knowledge of magic, and his allies, particularly the students he's trained over the years. |
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To highlight this, one of the truly unique things a mage can do that no other splat can in The World of Darkness is to rewind time, allowing them effectively a few extra moments and some foreknowledge in combat. In the New World of Darkness, this is replaced by the ability to selectively rewrite his past, declaring that he spent the last ten years studying lock-picking and escape-driving instead of riflery and science, allowing him to retroactively have prepared mundane defenses and learned appropriate skills. | |
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There's a magic style built around this principle in Game Theory. | |
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The Heroes of Tomorrow, aka the protagonists of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, are pretty low on the power-scale compared to the rest of the series' heroes, almost comparable to an Elite Mook in terms of individual power. Instead of relying on brute strength, a la previous protagonist Kiryu, the group instead makes use of teamwork and strategy to take down opponents that would otherwise be far out of their league. | |
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From Golden Wind, Mista's Stand, Sex Pistols, is the weakest in terms of power out of Bucciarati's group (including Moody Blues, which isn't even meant for combat), and he's pretty much helpless if he doesn't have a gun with bullets. But with his talent as a marksman, skill in commanding his Stand, and identifying the weaknesses of his enemies, he can hold his own against much stronger Stands. Considering that his enemies are still human, they are still vulnerable to gunfire like any ordinary person. | |
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This is Ikki's entire Shtick in Chivalry of a Failed Knight. His magical ability is best described as "barely". Nonetheless, he manages to hold on through skill, endurance, the ability to read his opponent's fighting style, and a technique that pools all his meager magic into one single attack. | |
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Kamisama Kiss gives us Nanami, an ordinary human turned Physical God. She has plenty of divine power and she's both intelligent and cunning, but she is still only a human in terms of physical strength and endurance. | |
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In Man of Steel, the Kryptonians haven't adapted to Earth like Superman has, so they're vulnerable to the same Power Incontinence he got over and have had less time to gain strength from Earth's sun. Unfortunately for Superman, they were bred to be soldiers and are much more experienced and better fighters and learn the basics of their new abilities extremely fast, so him being stronger than them doesn't mean much as they are still powerful enough to be a serious threat and combined by their skill, he ends up being in a hell of a tough fight. Even the power-based and aggressive Nam-Ek can give Superman a good fight, while Faora proves to be impossible to beat without a surprise attack as she easily stomps Superman, being the best fighter among the Kryptonians. By the end, Zod has learned to control both his flight and his heat vision, worsening things for Superman, to where he only beats Zod due to Zod being essentially a Death Seeker at that point and even then only with surprise attack and not without causing some serious damage. | |
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Jesse Custer from Preacher is this compared to Cassidy, whom he has beaten. As Jesse puts it, "Fella taught me to fight was the same piece of shit shot my daddy dead in fronta my eyes. That'll tend to focus your concentration". One of Jesse and Cassidy's fights hilariously subverts this. Cassidy throws a punch in a rage, which Jesse blocks; Cassidy is cowed and leaves. Jesse immediately asks Tulip and Amy to drive him to the hospital, as the punch broke every bone in his hand. Tulip also fits this trope, being an excellent markswoman who routinely goes up against both normal humans several times her size/strength and supernatural creatures. In particular is the time she shoots Cassidy out of a window and into the sunlight. Bonus points for doing it with a hangover. |
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Lelouch Vi Britannia of Code Geass uses his intelligence and tactics as counter his Ace Pilot rival, all while being an average pilot and outright pathetic ground-pounder himself. | |
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Oddworld: In Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Stranger decidedly qualifies as a badass, despite being "kinda shrimpy for a Steef". Abe as well. As the (very snarky) manual puts it, he's "the skinny guy with no weapons". You want to win, you need to be smart and not fight fair. |
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David from The Bible (in his fight against Goliath) is the quintessential weak but skilled character; one stone slung in the right place and the fight was over. | |
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Odysseus from The Iliad and The Odyssey exemplifies this in his use of trickery to sneak soldiers behind Troy's impregnable walls in the Trojan Horse, and later in his tricking of the Cyclops so he and his men can escape the giant's cave. | |
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In Magic: The Gathering, weak but skilled tends to be an advantage. A creature having high power or toughness stats and no other special traits or abilities is utterly unremarkable (after all, the most common creature-removal spells simply kill or otherwise remove creatures without looking twice at their size). However, some of the most valuable creatures to have are small ones (in terms of power and toughness) with useful abilities like the ability to retrieve any Equipment from your deck, and put any Equipment in your hand into play for a low, fixed cost or the ability to give you extra mana just for putting more lands onto the battlefield, especially in formats where the ability to do so more often is commonplace. | |
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Mother Hen: Ladybug and Chat Noir are this by the standards of most Miraculous holders, who are normally able to use their special ability multiple times without detransforming, as is the case with Hawk Moth and later Mother Hen. Since Ladybug and Chat Noir are teenagers instead of adults, their bodies can't handle using their Miraculous's powers more than once. However, the duo make up for this with their experience and teamwork, which lets them take on opponents who are much stronger than them. | |
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The Witch of Knightcharm: A rookie witch named Gelila who attends an evil Wizarding School is shown to be this. Gelila reads a lot and has a wide breadth of knowledge, but while she's thus able to craft spells which perfectly match the ones in her textbooks, she's unable to put much power into those spells. During the first exam of hers that's depicted in the text, she creates a ward which is theoretically perfect but fizzles out because it has almost no energy to speak of. However, despite her weakness, her skills were still sufficient to get her through orientation when much stronger students failed. | |
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Karura is definitely weaker than her son Gaara in Eroninja given that she can only control about as much sand as his gourd holds and has to manipulate it with hand gestures, unlike Gaara who can control hundreds of tons while barely moving. However, she's much faster with it and can manipulate sand more finely than Gaara can. | |
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Mages count as this trope in The World of Darkness. Vampires have their Disciplines, which grant them supernatural strength and resilience, as well as blood pools that can be used to heal their wounds at a moment's notice. Werewolves have sheer strength on their side, being perfect killing machines created by Gaia, in addition to their spiritual gifts, feral Rage, supernatural resistances, a healing factor, and pack tactics. Mages are comparatively squishier, having to use Magick to replicate any of that—and even then, a Mage needs to be careful, in order to avoid gathering Paradox. However, Magick also allows Mages a degree of control over any facet of reality: it's possible for a well-prepared Mage to develop completely coincidental counter-measures that can neutralize any other Supernatural's abilities. To highlight this, one of the truly unique things a mage can do that no other splat can in The World of Darkness is to rewind time, allowing them effectively a few extra moments and some foreknowledge in combat. In the New World of Darkness, this is replaced by the ability to selectively rewrite his past, declaring that he spent the last ten years studying lock-picking and escape-driving instead of riflery and science, allowing him to retroactively have prepared mundane defenses and learned appropriate skills. The unofficial national sport of Mage players is negation of other supernaturals, seeing how few ranks in a magical discipline one needs to render a massively stronger opponent mortal, such as using a low-level mental power to prevent a werewolf's rage or remove the friction from the ground beneath a speed-based vampire. Hunters (both kinds) even more so. The majority of Mages may never have the direct combat prowess of beatsticks like Vampires or Werewolves, but their immensely flexible Reality Warper abilities give them options that even the strongest Empowered Badass Normal of Hunters can't match. Through cunning, fighting dirty and planning, however, Hunters can and many times do put down the things that go bump in the night. |
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Jasmine from Deltora Quest is tiny, and has this as her fighting style throughout the series, even winning a fighting tournament with it in the fourth book. Lief also uses it to an extent, he's at least average in size and strength, but most opponents are still bigger and stronger. | |
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Luanne Lui from Backyard Sports, mostly due to her speed. She's as fast as Pete Wheeler, but lacks his hitting power, mostly hitting infield. | |
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Prayer of the Faithless: Amalie has high Skill growth to make her attacks more accurate, make her more likely to crit, and more likely to graze enemy attacks, but her Power and Armor growth are mediocre. She also lacks the Miasma abilities and telepathy of other Manna, so she has to fall back on combat skill to compensate. | |
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The titular character's schtick in Ender's Game. He wins a mock battle in Battle School in which the enemy has a 2:1 advantage, wins every battle in Command School aka the Third Invasion against even worse odds, and kills two older and larger boys with his bare hands when he feels his personal safety is threatened. | |
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This is a common recurring motif in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, especially once Stands are introduced in Stardust Crusaders. Stand abilities after often towards the wacky end of the spectrum, but in the hands of a skilled user, even seemingly innocuous Stands can be deadly. A Stand's strength is inversely proportional to how far away from its user it can operate, making this trope common among long-range Stand users. Despite lacking a lot of raw power, creative use of their abilities allow long-ranged Stand users to threaten the heroes every bit as effectively, if not more so, than short-ranged fighters who get up close and personal. Often enough, most of a Stand fight is attempting to catch a long-range Stand user while they hide somewhere and use their Stand to hassle the protagonists, who can't effectively fight back until they pin down the user. Joseph Joestar, from Part 2 of Battle Tendency, never fully masters the way of Hamon like his grandfather, Phantom Blood protagonist Jonathan Joestar. What he lacks in mastery over Hamon, he more than makes up for in creativity and guile, defeating his opponents by outwitting them rather than simply overpowering them. In Stardust Crusaders, he does get a Stand, Hermit Purple, but unlike the punch ghosts his companions have, it's just purple vines, and its special powers revolve around information gathering. He's still able to get a lot of use out of it as Combat Tentacles, it conducts Hamon, and he's still good at coming up with plans on the fly. The Empress stand targets him because of Hermit Purple's relative weakness, only to find out that its divination powers can be used to make maps to the exact thing (in this case, a barrel of tar) he'd need to defeat her. Jotaro throughout most of Stardust Crusaders is a bizarre fusion of this and Unskilled, but Strong. His stand, Star Platinum, has excellent stats, but since Jotaro has only had it for a few days at the start of its adventure, he has absolutely no idea what it can actually do. So unlike the others on his team, he has to make do without use of a special ability throughout the whole trip. He manages with tactical skill, innovative techniques (like focusing all his power into Star's fingertips to allow them to stretch beyond his normal range, or inhaling a stand that took the form of mist), and some good old fashioned Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs. During the final battle, he figures out that his power is Time Stands Still. Stardust Crusaders has multiple villains with this characteristic: Oingo's stand Khnum is essentially a weaker version of the earlier Yellow Temperance, as they both allow the user to disguise themselves as others, but Yellow Temperance could also defend against attacks and absorb people, while Khnum is just the disguises and doesn't even change Oingo's clothes. However, Oingo is better at utilizing his disguises than Yellow Temperance's user Rubber Soul; while Rubber Soul blew his Kakyoin disguise by acting ridiculously out-of-character, Oingo is able to fool the Crusaders when disguising himself as Jotaro (even replicating a cigarette trick Jotaro liked to do). The D'Arby brothers, Daniel and Terence, work in an organization filled with assassins who have incredibly dangerous and lethal stand powers (and Oingo and Boingo), while their stands have no combat potential at all. What their Stands can do is steal souls of those who lose to them (in bets or video games, respectively), which does absolutely dip if they can't get people to play against them in the first place. Daniel D'Arby uses a lot of careful preparation and some incredible cheating skills with his knowledge of where Dio's mansion is as bait to nearly win all of the Crusaders' souls, only failing because Jotaro psyched him into being Hoist by His Own Petard. Terence, meanwhile, also made a very difficult roadblock to the crusaders with his Stand Atum's ability to read minds with yes-or-no questions. In Diamond is Unbreakable, Shigekiyo "Shigechi" Yangu is a greedy middle schooler with a Colony Stand called "Harvest", which appears as a swarm of 500 robotic bee-men. Each individual Harvest is only a few inches tall and proportionally strong... but a swarm of them can gruesomely rip victims apart piece-by-piece, inject purloined chemicals (such as liquor) into them with stingers, tear out sinews or tendons, rip off ears and tongues, gouge out eyes and sever major artories. And Shigechi is ruthless enough to be aware of and explot all of these abilities if pressed. In his debute, he takes on both Josuke and Okuyasu, who both have more conventional "Power Type" Stands (with Okuyasu having a Story-Breaker Power in his "Erase Anything" ability), simultaneously, and almost wins. He even comes close to defeating the story's Big Bad, Mad Bomber Serial Killer Yoshikage Kira, on his own before being fatally tricked. Josuke even describes Harvest in all seriousness as one of the most powerful Stands he's ever seen, characterizing it as "practically invincible". Not bad for a preteen with a Stand most obviously intended for Mundane Utility! From Golden Wind, Mista's Stand, Sex Pistols, is the weakest in terms of power out of Bucciarati's group (including Moody Blues, which isn't even meant for combat), and he's pretty much helpless if he doesn't have a gun with bullets. But with his talent as a marksman, skill in commanding his Stand, and identifying the weaknesses of his enemies, he can hold his own against much stronger Stands. Considering that his enemies are still human, they are still vulnerable to gunfire like any ordinary person. |
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Ricardo Fellini and his Wing Gundam Fenice from Build Fighters. It's been pointed out that his gunpla is of an old make, one he's had since he was a kid, so his kit could be considered inferior from the outset, but he's introduced as the Italian Champion. As well, it has no Plavsky Particle manipulation gimmicks whatsoever, but that didn't stop him from fighting the Star Build Strike to a draw after the latter went Super Mode in episode 15, or trouncing them before then. To note, he's the first person we see to cause Team Nemesis to worry and overclock Aila's Embody System and, unlike Sei and Reiji with the Star Build Strike's RG Mode, he didn't have anything to help even the odds after that happened. |
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In the Warlord of Mars comics, one arc has Dejah Thoris transported to the future where Mars is invaded by Earthlings. The Red Men are shown able to overpower the humans physically, despite humans being as strong as the mighty Green Men. However, the Red Men are also expert swordsmen and the humans come from a time period when hand to hand combat is rarely used (additionally humans don't have the great height and 4 arms, so they're not as big a melee threat to the Red Men). | |
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Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy Rose may lack the raw speed and athletic ability of pretty much anyone else within Sonic's circle, but she's able to make use of her hammer, acrobatics and tarot magic to keep up. Notably, she actually spends a lot of the side-games of the Dreamcast era working to avert this in order to earn Sonic's respect and become a true hero like him. After spending time doing things like boxercising with weighted training gear, throwing herself into more and more of Sonic's adventures and slowly adding more and more tricks to her book, by the time Sonic Heroes comes around, she's made herself strong enough to perform to roughly the same standards as everyone else while still retaining all the same techniques and tricks she had before. Being one of the youngest in Sonic's crew, Cream the Rabbit is obviously going to be very physically weak. However as many a foe (and player) has come to find out, when Cream teams up with Cheese, her chao companion, she can shred through enemies just as easily as anyone else. In Sonic Mania Plus, Ray the Squirrel can't fly like Tails, he glides instead. While he can't reach up areas by simply smashing a button, he can still do it if he takes enough distance and a good angle to glide upper. Also, unlike the little fox, he's never exhausted meaning that you have more control on where you land. The Fan Game Sonic Robo Blast 2 gives us an interesting case with Fang the Sniper. He can't spin like most characters can and is barred from being able to destroy breakable walls as a result, but his tail bounce is great at building up both horizontal and vertical distance, and his popgun lets him take out enemies with ease. The unusual part is that his tail bounce can also break some floors with it, a feature exclusive to him and Amy Rose (who's the opposite of this trope in this game). The Wacky Racing Spin-Off Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart has characters with low weight and top speed, which are the equivalents of Mario Kart lightweight characters. Tails is the slowest and lightest of the default characters, but his high acceleration allows him to quickly recover from spinning out, and his excellent handling makes it easy to zip around corners while chaining boosts. Bonus characters that also fit the role include Chao, who takes Tails's stats to their extreme, Dark and Hero Chao, who are a single point lower than Tails in speed and weight respectively, and Motobug, Ray (Rouge in 1.0.2), and Ulala, who are similarly slow but are heavier. |
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Spider-Man: Spider-Man himself qualifies. Sure his powers are pretty impressive to a normal person, but he's a lightweight compared to the some of the guys he normally hangs out with. However, by using his brains, all his powers, and absolute refusal to give up he can, and often does, take down even literal Physical Gods. Most of his villains are stronger than him, making it necessary for him to rely on his brains over brawn much of the time. One of his favorite tricks is to hit an enemy with a strand of web, even though said villain is physically stronger and heavier so Spider-Man cannot throw him. When the enemy tries to yank Spider-Man towards them, he uses the momentum to deliver a nasty kick or punch. It also doesn't hurt his physical abilities are some of the most well balanced around. There are stronger opponents, but they usually have nowhere near his speed and agility, conversely, opponents who are more agile and faster are nowhere near as strong. Interestingly enough, he has been written as Unskilled, but Strong in some story arcs. During the Big Time arc he was temporarily stripped of his Spider Sense, and his fighting ability took a hit as a result, as he tended to rely on the early warning of his Spider Sense to anticipate his opponent's attacks. To compensate for the loss of his Spider Sense, he accepted an offer to learn martial arts from Shang Chi, one of the top martial artists in the Marvel Universe. Once Shang Chi taught him the basics, they perfected a unique fighting style called The Way of the Spider, which exploited Spider-Man's physical strength, speed and agility to maximum effect. The Black Cat has been both a Badass Normal and an Empowered Badass Normal depending what direction a writer wants to take her in. Specifically, she has had the ability to affect probability and has also possessed cat-like strength, speed, agility, claws and senses; the former still leaves her with the regular physical stats of a normal human and the latter isn't all that impressive compared to even Spider-Man. What is consistent is that the Black Cat is an excellent martial artist and cunning thief who can defeat or hold her own against deadly opponents by fighting smart. This was deconstructed earlier into her and Spider-Man's relationship as she felt that her lack of powers made her a liability. This is what led to her undergoing the procedure that granted her superpowers, not knowing it was actually a scheme set up by the Kingpin until it was too late. Silver Sable has no superpowers, but is a formidable hand-to-hand combatant trained in use of various close range and long range weaponry. |
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The Incredible Hulk: Hideko Takata was a member of the Hulkbusters in the late 1980s. She's a normal, overweight, middle-aged woman, who managed to throw the Hulk to the ground, by expert use of judo. Variations of this apply to the "Joe Fixit" and "Professor" incarnations of the Hulk; Joe Fixit is the name adopted by the grey-skinned Hulk. In terms of raw strength, Joe Fixit can only lift about seventy tons where Hulks normally top out at around 100 tons, but he makes up for this comparative weakness by having superior problem-solving skills to Bruce Banner and being a Combat Pragmatist, finding solutions ranging from tossing the stronger Abomination into barrels of acid to taking people by surprise even when he's stuck in Bruce Banner's form. By contrast, the Professor Hulk is essentially Bruce Banner's mind in control of the Hulk's body. The Professor has the greatest base level strength of any of the Hulks, but due to psychic failsafes created after he became active, if he gets angry he will revert to "Savage Banner", a persona where the enraged mind of the Savage Hulk is in control of Bruce Banner's body. As a result, while the Professor is the smartest and most heroic of the known Hulk personalities, he lacks the Hulk's ability to get stronger as he gets angrier, putting a limit on how strong he actually is. |
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Ree, and Scra as well, from The Croaking: Ree is a kestrel and thus smaller and lighter than many of her peers, but she is the fastest and most agile flyer, good at fighting, and excellent in shooting. Scra, a crow, is also smaller than many of his classmates, and can't fly due to a clipped wing, but he makes it up with great skills in hand-to-hand-combat. |
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Kaku Kaioh in the Baki the Grappler series. Was once very physically strong, until he came to believe that this was the superior way to fight, as his strength would fade with age, but skill would not. | |
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Miles Kilo from Syndicate (2012) is a downplayed version. While he has none of the truly super abilities of the other Agents, he's technically still a Super-Soldier by normal human standards. Nevertheless, as his In-Universe dossier notes, he is unusually creative and independent, which enables him to come up on top against better-empowered foes. Indeed, he was specifically chosen for the DART 6 chip because he had sufficient skills and abilities to fully make use of it, but if the prototype failed, he was only a physiologically barely-above-average agent who could be easily replaced. His creative thinking and independence, however, makes him a nightmare for Eurocorp when he turns on them. | |
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Bioborg villain, Easel from Skysurfer Strike Force is the shortest, least imposing and most human looking of the borgs, but his Mad Art Attacker powers are invaluable to Cybron's plans. | |
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Arguably Mystogan from Fairy Tail. Despite not possessing his own inherent magic like the rest of Earth-land inhabitants, he is still considered one of the strongest mages of Fairy Tail. Meaning he uses nothing but his skill and ingenuity with his magical staves in order to take down and dominate his foes. For no greater proof, these abilities were enough to make him an S-Class Mage of Fairy Tail and even Laxus pre-Character Development considered him the only person in Fairy Tail worth his time to fight (yes, even over Natsu or Erza). | |
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Fate/stay night: Lampshaded with the comment that fighting technique is used to compensate for weakness. The context, however, is an inversion, pointing out that Berserker, consumed with magical bloodlust, is so damn fast and strong that he doesn't need skill. Archer has one of the worst statistics of all the servants in the Grail War and has no divine blessings or the like. However, he is immortal, and has spent a lot of the time he has fighting and devising tactics that maximize his strengths thanks to creating copies of Heroic Spirits' legendary weapons. Consequently he's able to stand up to epic legends and demi-gods like Saber and Berserker, and when Shirou borrows Archer's power in one bad end, he even beats Saber Alter in a sword fight. In spite of his Servant class designation, Archer is actually closer to being a Jack of All Stats than the Glass Cannon that would otherwise be implied. First off, Archer specifically says that he wasn't originally a warrior or a hero or anything like that; he's actually a mage, the most fragile class there is. Whereas other mages have all sorts of cool tricks or spells they can pull out for most everything, Archer only knows two types of spells, though what spells they are! Moreover, unlike virtually every other participant in the Grail War, Archer is not actually a traditional Heroic Spirit. This makes him virtually inscrutable since he has no notable weaknesses or famous Achilles' Heel for others to exploit, save, as shown other media like Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA or Fate/Zero an enemy that's fast and skilled enough to catch and use his forged Noble Phantasms can easily turn them against him. Assassin is fast but not very strong and is wielding an essentially normal sword. His magical energy is not only low, it only declines because it cannot be restored. However, he fights on more than equal terms with Saber herself and only loses because his sword is bent from blocking an attack of hers. Even Lancer, who thinks nothing of fighting several other Heroic Spirits at once so long as he is on the defensive, highly dislikes the idea of having to fight Assassin. Let's put it in perspective: Assassin's secret technique allows him to strike thrice in the same exact instant. This is NOT a Noble Phantasm, magic spell, or of divine origin; he simply trained a lot. Then reality itself gave up and gave him what he wanted... a form of Second Magic. Which should be impossible to replicate. This is the central idea of the Assassin class. In a direct confrontation it is unlikely Assassin could win against any of the other Heroic Spirits. However, their skill in assassination and their Presence Concealment ability make Assassins extremely adept at eliminating enemy Masters. Souichirou. He trained in a martial arts style so strange that when people fight him for the first time they have no idea what he's going to do next. Because of this he is able to almost kill Saber (second strongest Servant in the Grail War) during their first encounter, unarmed with a strength-boosting enhancement given to him by Caster. Caster herself is also unskilled but strong. Physically she is weak enough to literally get beat up by a teenage girl, and her Noble Phantasm is easily the weakest one of the eight Servants, however she is able to use guile, pragmatism and outright cheating on several occasions to become a major threat to our protagonists. The fight between Shirou and Gilgamesh is a contest between weak but skilled and Unskilled, but Strong. Both use the same weapons, but while Shirou's are weaker copies than Gilgamesh's, he has more skill wielding them. The result is that in a direct clash they are evenly matched with only the rate at which they can grab a new weapon making the difference, and in his Reality Marble Shirou can grab a sword instantly. Gilgamesh's trademark arrogance also worked in Shirou's favor, since the former deliberately refused to use his armor or his ultimate weapon at the beginning of the fight, thinking that his opponent wasn't worthy. By the time he realized he might actually need them, it was too late. Generally, because Older Is Better in the Nasuverse, most Servants from "recent" history (around the 1500s onward) kinda have to be this, otherwise they would constantly be getting Curb-Stomped by their older and more straightforwardly powerful opponents. |
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Another villainous example is Ain from the twelfth movie One Piece Film: Z. She may be far from weak, but her physical strength still pales in comparison to her captain and several of her foes. To make up for it, she is very fast and uses her Devil Fruit powers in creative ways to gain or regain the upper hand in fights. | |
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Quentyn of Tales of the Questor scored very low on everything he tried out, in particular those based on physical or magical strength. But because he tried and trained for practically everything he is practically a Jack of All Trades, incidentally very useful for a Questor. Racconans in general are apparently this in comparison to human mages. Almost all Racconans are lux sensitive thus they have well-established schools of magic while the few humans who have the talent have little to no opportunity for formal training (thanks mainly to religious prohibitions) but all those that have appeared either can barely even see lux or have enough raw power to send Racconan mages running. |
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Legion of Super-Heroes: This is Karate Kid's entire schtick: although he technically doesn't possess any super-powers, he can still hold his own against Superman thanks to his knowledge of every martial art in existence. Triplicate Girl also counts. While she does have a superpower, she's still only as tough as the average human. However, her skill in Tri-Jutsu, a martial art that works in the twelve points of attack and unique method of dodging her power grants her, along with her talents in infiltration and information gathering, make her a valuable member of the Legion |
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She-Ra: Princess of Power: A stock and trade for the Twiggets, one of the major allies of the Rebellion. Individually they're no match for the Horde, but they're extremely crafty, very resourceful, and expert marksmen who have no problem using strike and run tactics against more powerful opponents. Similarly, Hordak's minion Imp is on the low end of the power scale where the Horde is concerned, but he is an expert at espionage and saboutage. He is also proficient enough at evasion that he's near impossible to catch when he's found. |
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SpongeBob SquarePants. The guy is so weak he can't even lift a barbell with stuffed toys, yet he is an expert in karate, and one training session with Sandy Cheeks had the park cut in half from the practice they had. | |
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Alice Quinn of The Magicians ultimately turns out to be one of these when it comes to magical gifts, for most of her friends are more obvious combat powerhouses than her: Eliot has The Gift of natural magical talent, Penny has battle magic and dimensional travel, Josh has Stout Strength and raw magical muscle that makes up for him being an Inept Mage... and Alice? She's small, shy, and nervous, reluctant to fight and lacking in physical strength... but she makes up for it in sheer intellect and magical knowledge, not to mention superhuman determination. It's for this reason that Alice is the only member of the Physical Kids that can last in a fight with the Unskilled, but Strong Big Bad, for while she's nowhere near his power level, Alice has learned and mastered enough spells and techniques to keep him on the ropes. | |
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Contrary to traditional, mostly-equal power levels, the Autobots of Transformers: Animated are almost universally weaker than all but the lowliest Decepticon. They manage to get around this through a combination of team-based tactics and resource management that, while not entirely closing the gap, grant them some measure of advantage over their better-armed-but-less-organized counterparts. This applies not just to the main cast, but the Autobots on a larger scale as well: while the Autobots used the Omega Sentinels to actually win the Great War, the reason they got that far in the first place was because their logistics were vastly superior to the Decepticons thanks to their Space Bridges. True of the original generation 1 Transformers as well. Autobots were ordinary citizens, while Decepticons were the military caste. What's more, Decepticons could fly, and the first Autobots could not. |
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Unsounded: Bastion was born to a caste with a weak link to the Background Magic Field, so he can only handle small magnitudes of Aspects and has to be touching his target. However, he has an exhaustive education in magic theory and complementary sciences from the Black Tongue Ancient Conspiracy, so he's phenomenally effective with his power and can wipe the floor with trained Magic Knights. | |
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Arrowverse: In The Flash (2014), Jay Garrick is not as fast as Barry Allen and eventually loses his powers, but he's a lot more experienced and had several tricks with speed that Barry had never thought of. Jay teaches Barry his tricks, making him much more effective. In Supergirl (2015), Alex Danvers is a mere human with no powers or physical strength, but she's still a Badass Normal DEO agent with combat experience and can even take on more powerful aliens by redirecting their own strength against them. She even teaches Kara to do do the same. |
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Team Fortress 2's various classes include a few of these. The Sniper has only his rifle, his wits, and his marksmanship to take down his opponents. And more often than not, he does. The Engineer is rather weak, but displays incredible skill around his machines. The Medic is also pitiful in offensive and defensive capabilities, but the entire game is said to revolve around his abilities. The Spy has one of the weakest melee weapons in the game, but his Guile Hero skills make up for it, giving him the ability to instant-kill anything that isn't invulnerable. Except for snipers with the Razorback. The Scout, while fast, isn't strong enough for front-line combat. Instead, the player has to be extremely skilled in using his speed and mobility to get in close and harass the enemy with some of the game's highest-damage guns. |
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In Super Mario 3D World and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Captain Toad is only able to walk or toddle, and is unable to jump. This doesn't stop him to solve complex puzzles and to fight powerful monsters. | |
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Jaco has shown his skills again and again, proving that his bragging of being a super elite for being a member of the Galactic Patrol is well-founded, with feats that include instantly calculating how much strength he needed to kick a falling giant rocket away from East City without blowing it up and noticing things that escaped Beerus and Champa. In his solo series he also flat-out admits any adult Saiyan would destroy him (he's gotten better by Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', enough to fight a small army of Frieza's soldiers and come out on top, but he's still far from the big guys). | |
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This Bites!: Cross and Soundbite. Cross has a good tactical mind and knowledge from another dimension, but even with Zoro's Training From Hell to increase his stamina, Kureha's miracle vitamins to increase his durability, and Usopp's custom-made armor to increase his strength, his physical capabilities remain at the point where the only enemies he can reliably fight on his own are Mooks. Soundbite's Noise-Noise Fruit powers make him masterful in bluffing out and disabling his opponents, as well as mustering reinforcements in seconds, and he's developed a few genuine attacks. But without his powers, he's only a snail. With their wits combined, however, and Lassoo as the main source of firepower, they're easily formidable enough to have a place with the Straw Hat Pirates. | |
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Stardust Crusaders has multiple villains with this characteristic: Oingo's stand Khnum is essentially a weaker version of the earlier Yellow Temperance, as they both allow the user to disguise themselves as others, but Yellow Temperance could also defend against attacks and absorb people, while Khnum is just the disguises and doesn't even change Oingo's clothes. However, Oingo is better at utilizing his disguises than Yellow Temperance's user Rubber Soul; while Rubber Soul blew his Kakyoin disguise by acting ridiculously out-of-character, Oingo is able to fool the Crusaders when disguising himself as Jotaro (even replicating a cigarette trick Jotaro liked to do). The D'Arby brothers, Daniel and Terence, work in an organization filled with assassins who have incredibly dangerous and lethal stand powers (and Oingo and Boingo), while their stands have no combat potential at all. What their Stands can do is steal souls of those who lose to them (in bets or video games, respectively), which does absolutely dip if they can't get people to play against them in the first place. Daniel D'Arby uses a lot of careful preparation and some incredible cheating skills with his knowledge of where Dio's mansion is as bait to nearly win all of the Crusaders' souls, only failing because Jotaro psyched him into being Hoist by His Own Petard. Terence, meanwhile, also made a very difficult roadblock to the crusaders with his Stand Atum's ability to read minds with yes-or-no questions. |
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Cao Cao in High School D×D is this trope. He's just a normal human who admittedly has the strongest spear (and weapon created in the entire series) that can kill a god, but all it takes is just one hit from any character in this series and he's down for the count since the protagonists are devils who are a lot more durable than he is. It should be easy to take him down, right? NOPE. | |
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My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Trixie's a stage magician by trade, yet when her power was tested by an Ursa Minor it proved rather inadequate. Later her power output was boosted by an artifact to around Celestia or Luna's level, she was capable of using, with ease no less, spells which Twilight considered far outside her range. And she's just a performer. That same episode shows that Zecora, who can't even use magic since she isn't a unicorn, knows more about the subject than Twilight. Scootaloo might have weak puny wings, but on the ground, she gets serious horsepower out of them. Especially with a fully loaded little red wagon attached. Sunburst possesses great knowledge of spells, but lacks the raw power necessary to apply most of them. |
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Doctor Who: The Doctor, aside from a handy screwdriver, a parlor trick regarding kinda-sorta-not-really dying, and varying degrees of vague (and usually very limited) Psychic Powers is for all intents and purposes, a mortal being no more powerful than a sharp-witted human. And yet, they have engineered the downfall of entire races by being merely smarter than them. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c4b82575 | comment |
Underworld (2003) has such a moment at the end, during Viktor's fight with the newly hybridized Michael Corvin. Though Michael clearly outmatches Viktor in raw strength and speed and initially has the upper hand, Viktor, having 600+ years of combat experience under his belt, eventually manages to turn the tide, with Michael only being saved from death by Selene making a Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind. Of course, it's only compared to Michael that Viktor can be considered weak but skilled; earlier in the film, he effortlessly Neck Lifted a fully transformed Lycan, and then performed a Neck Snap. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c4b82575 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c4b82575 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Underworld (2003) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_c4b82575 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c644f18 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c644f18 | comment |
Luffy's Renewed Adventure: Nojiko. She’s nowhere near as strong as some of the crew, but she makes up for it with exceptional agility and precision with a knife and pistol. The first fight we see her in, she takes on six Baroque Works bounty hunters at once in Whiskey Peak, and wins without a scratch. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c644f18 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c644f18 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Luffy's Renewed Adventure (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_c644f18 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c72021c5 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c72021c5 | comment |
You, in Deus Ex. Even when you get the laser sword, super speed and inhuman damage soaking. You'll still get taken down by most enemies if you don't think carefully. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c72021c5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c72021c5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Deus Ex (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_c72021c5 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c774f793 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c774f793 | comment |
In Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Stranger decidedly qualifies as a badass, despite being "kinda shrimpy for a Steef". | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c774f793 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_c774f793 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_c774f793 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cabcfc35 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cabcfc35 | comment |
In Captain America: Ghosts of HYDRA, Sharon Carter is this. She assists Steve Rogers/Captain America and Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier in taking down the remnants of HYDRA. While she has not taken a Super-Soldier serum like her companions, she more than makes up for it with sheer combat ability in CQC (whether hand-to-hand or her electric batons) and firearms. It is because of this that she is able to mow down HYDRA agents, keep up with Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, hold off both Crossbones and another one of the Winter Soldiers, Josef for awhile and kill Josef by shooting him in the head. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cabcfc35 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cabcfc35 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| MCU Rewrites (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_cabcfc35 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_caf902ee | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_caf902ee | comment |
A staple of The Games We Play. Even as Jaune makes leaps and bounds in his power over the course of the story, almost every serious fight he gets into has him going up against someone or something that is statistically even more brokenly strong, forcing him to use skill and quick thinking to win. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_caf902ee | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_caf902ee | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Games We Play (The Gamer/RWBY) (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_caf902ee | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cba48b98 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cba48b98 | comment |
You as Gene in God Hand. Sure, between the Unleash and the Reel/Roulette you do have a lot of power, but the other 80% of the time when you're building up to the former, even simple mooks can tear you a new breathing hole very fast. Dodging and knowing when and how to retaliate are very important. It's a Nintendo Hard game, folks. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cba48b98 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cba48b98 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| God Hand (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_cba48b98 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ce50887e | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ce50887e | comment |
In the original Dragon Ball, there's a bit where Goku goes back in time and meets Master Roshi's old teacher, Mutaitou. By this point Goku is far stronger than the Old Master, including having killed the monster that wiped out both the master and all of his dojo except Roshi and his Evil Counterpart rival, Tsuru. However, when they spar, Goku's moves are so reckless and sloppy that Mutaitou manages to counter all his attacks with ease. Goku's first meeting with Mr. Popo prior to this went much the same way. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ce50887e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ce50887e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dragon Ball (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_ce50887e | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cecf4edb | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cecf4edb | comment |
Tombstone (1993) has Doc Holliday, a Southern Gentleman and dentist turned gambler and vagabond due to tuberculosis, which was basically incurable at the time. Knowing his days were numbered, Doc lived every day of his life as if it were his last, and he gained a reputation as being one of the fastest draws in the West. His ailment was no secret; fellow gambler Ed Bailey described him as "nothing but a skinny lunger" without his guns, yet, despite this, Doc could handle himself just fine in physical altercations. When it came to gunfights, however, Doc's reputation preceded him. So much so that even Doc's rival and The Dragon, Johnny Ringo, who is an equally feared gunslinger, is visibly shaken when he realizes that he's about to fight Doc and not Wyatt Earp. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cecf4edb | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_cecf4edb | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Tombstone | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_cecf4edb | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d037040 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d037040 | comment |
Cassie from Hack/Slash is a Badass Normal always fighting against undead monsters many times stronger than her. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d037040 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d037040 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Hack/Slash (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d037040 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d0744832 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d0744832 | comment |
The Avengers have a couple of these among their ranks: Black Panther is stronger and more agile than a normal human, but is significantly weaker than many of his fellow Avengers. Despite this, he's a Crazy-Prepared tactical genius and one of the few heroic examples of The Chessmaster archetype, making him very effective. He's managed to get the drop on many more powerful opponents, including Mephisto himself. Then you have the Black Knight (Dane Whitman). Compared not just to the team powerhouses but even to guys like Black Panther and Captain America he seems underpowered, being a completely normal human with a sword and a grab-bag assortment of gadgets and enchanted weapons to fight bad guys with. He is, however, a Master Swordsman who has bested the likes of Captain America and Wolverine with his blade, a skilled martial artist, and a gifted scientist who started out as a physicist and has since acquired a wide range of scientific disciplines. He is also fairly familiar with magic, giving him a leg up on most of Marvel's scientific community. |
|
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d0744832 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d0744832 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Avengers (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d0744832 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d0dce607 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d0dce607 | comment |
In Bumblebee, while he towers over humans, every Decepticon Bumblebee fights is significantly bigger than him. This forces him to do things like target weak points, build up momentum in car form or taking advantage of the environment. When up against Shatter who can match him move for move while being almost twice as big as him, he can't hold out for long. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d0dce607 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d0dce607 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Bumblebee | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d0dce607 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d20d7367 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d20d7367 | comment |
Abyss Crossing: Mikoto has a mediocre stat distribution compared to all other characters, but she has passive TP regen, making it easier for her to use TP skills. She also comes with multihit skills by default, which makes up for her low offensive stats. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d20d7367 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d20d7367 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Abyss Crossing (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d20d7367 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d24b61b8 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d24b61b8 | comment |
A Darker Path: Physically, Taylor is a fit but baseline human, which is a big part of why her foes keep underestimating her. But with Combat Clairvoyance as just the start of her precognitive planning abilities, she consistently trounces everyone she faces. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d24b61b8 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d24b61b8 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| A Darker Path (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d24b61b8 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d2cb10af | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d2cb10af | comment |
Tarzan, although enormously strong by human standards, is much weaker than the apes who raised him. It is his superior skills and reason that set him up as their ruler. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d2cb10af | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d2cb10af | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Tarzan | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d2cb10af | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d31cdea | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d31cdea | comment |
Katniss Everdeen, from The Hunger Games, is what happens when this meets Glass Cannon. Her short and thin frame leaves her at a disadvantage in a fight when all of the men and most of the other women are larger and stronger, and haven't starved a day in their lives. Her sole combat ability relies on her skill with a bow, which the Gamemakers play up by only putting one bow and twelve arrows into the Arena. Only once she's gotten that bow does she even think about mounting an offensive against the Careers, but it is her skill with wilderness survival, tendency to ration and plan ahead, and speed and agility that allow her to hold out long enough in the meantime. It also seems she's pulled a Batman and tried to recall what worked in previous Hunger Games to help decide her course of action. If a natural charisma also counts as a skill, it certainly helps her get much-needed assistance. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d31cdea | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d31cdea | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Hunger Games | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d31cdea | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d3a377b2 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d3a377b2 | comment |
While at first glance, it would seem absurd to look at the 196 cm 104 kg Chris Hero and call him "weak", his record in Pro Wrestling NOAH's Global Tag League has seen him fail to advance from the opening round for several years in a row. In his fourth year in, he and Colt Cabana were officially recognized as having the best technique of any participants, despite their low showing, suggesting that Chris Hero and his partners simply aren't strong enough or that they're lacking something else... | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d3a377b2 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d3a377b2 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Chris Hero (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d3a377b2 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d461f757 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d461f757 | comment |
The Battlestar Galactica is a 50 year old bucket which was being turned into a museum when the Cylons hit, having been rendered obsolete by newer battlestars. Yet, thanks to its Commander, (eventually) hardened pilots and a True Companions mentality, they were able to survive the holocaust and the four years of ordeal. There is a reason why many fans believed Galactica could take out Pegasus despite the former being heavily outgunned by the latter. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d461f757 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d461f757 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Battlestar Galactica (2003) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d461f757 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d57d722e | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d57d722e | comment |
In Ōkami, Waka fights Amaterasu twice, and though he loses he urges her to get stronger. It's clear that he's far stronger than Ammy through most of the game's beginning and middle because he shows up to help in the very final fight, and manages to block a full strength blast from Yami long enough to deliver a Final Speech. It helps he's been awake and active for 100 years while Amaterasu was weakened Sealed Good in a Can, but he's still just a mortal and survives fighting gods. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d57d722e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d57d722e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Ōkami (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d57d722e | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d5c2a7a3 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d5c2a7a3 | comment |
Garrett from the Thief series is very much like this. He's reasonably athletic (he can run and mantle with the best of them, although he's no ninja), but in strength and combat is no match for the muscular bruiser guards or straight-out superhuman monsters he's regularly faced with. Instead, he relies on smarts and stealth to outmaneuver and outwit them all. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d5c2a7a3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d5c2a7a3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Thief (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d5c2a7a3 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d62356da | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d62356da | comment |
Ume from Sugar Plums is a Self-Insert protagonist who is actually at her default weaker than the average shinobi. She just naturally has less chakra than a normal person, and the longer a fight goes on the more likely she is to be killed because she has to draw from the chakra shinobi use to make them physically stronger and tougher than a normal person. Which is why she never let's her fights last that long. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d62356da | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d62356da | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sugar Plums (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d62356da | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d7626bdd | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d7626bdd | comment |
While the version of Angel Dust seen in Deadpool has Super-Strength and Super-Toughness, she's still in this position when she takes on Colossus, who far exceeds her in both those categories while also being considerably larger. However, Colossus fights with a fairly simple, brute force style, while Angel Dust has obvious martial arts and combat experience that lets her somewhat negate or redirect Colossus' strength. That, along with the fact that she fights very, very dirty while Colossus is too nice and honorable for his own good, allows her to fight him on relatively even terms. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d7626bdd | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d7626bdd | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Deadpool (2016) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d7626bdd | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d803ecde | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d803ecde | comment |
Rook from Ben 10: Omniverse is one of the few aliens in the franchise to lack any ability that could qualify as a superpower, and his weapons, while extremely versatile, is pointed out to lack power. Yet, he is skilled enough to stand against much more powerful enemies and defeat them. Predators And Prey even have him defeating one of the major antagonists in a hand-to-hand fight. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d803ecde | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d803ecde | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Ben 10: Omniverse | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d803ecde | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d8cc5e2a | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d8cc5e2a | comment |
Sonic In X Minutes: Infinite has the ability to create illusions thanks to his Phantom Ruby. However, everyone is aware that Infinite's illusions are just that - illusions, and so they deride him as "weak." However, Infinite is very clever and creative in the ways he uses his illusions, such as disguising himself and Eggman to sneak into the rebel base. This is the opposite of Infinite's portrayal in the original game, where he was Unskilled, but Strong. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d8cc5e2a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d8cc5e2a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sonic In X Minutes (Web Animation) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d8cc5e2a | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d908efc | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d908efc | comment |
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Shinobu Kocho is physically the weakest Hashira, as she doesn't even have the strength to decapitate a demon. But her speed and arsenal of poisons make up for it. One extra tidbit of information for a volume release showed the pure physical strength rankings of all Hashira by using arm-wrestling as a gauge, Obanai was on the bottom rankings along with Shinobu who had already proclaimed herself to be the physically weakest Pillar; he however protests that physical strength isn’t everything, having great confidence in his sword skills and that is validated by him being chosen as the swordsmanship mentor during the Hashira training regime. Tanjiro's father, Tanjuro, looks outright ghastly due his illness in flashbacks, yet his Breathing techniques allowed him to perform physical feats that his body shouldn’t be able to handle, like performing his ritual of the Hinokami Kagura in the snow for hours upon hours without getting tired. Humans in general are especially this, compared to even the weakest of Demons. The final fight between Kyojuro and Akaza highlight this, even at his strongest the Flame Hashira narrowly failed to behead his brutal opponent. However, Akaza didn't escape unscathed with both his neck, chest and pride severely damaged. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_d908efc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d908efc | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d908efc | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d98508dc | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d98508dc | comment |
Jason in the Walkyverse is exactly this. He once said he grew up a "mortal among gods". | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d98508dc | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_d98508dc | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Walkyverse (Webcomic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_d98508dc | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dab32e3 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dab32e3 | comment |
Mega Man X fits even more than Mega Man, considering the fact that he's almost always smaller and less technically able than the opponents he faces, but he's goddamn unstoppable once he starts. Add the fact that every game still manages to have That One Boss even after he gets his 'Ultimate' armor. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dab32e3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dab32e3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mega Man X (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_dab32e3 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_daff6a21 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_daff6a21 | comment |
Yusei Fudo from Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds has a deck full with weak monster cards. However, since his deck is built for Synchro Summoning and is prepared for almost every situation, he never loses on-screen. This goes away later on as he displays more and more Synchros, though. Team Taiyou is probably the biggest example in the franchise. "Budget" doesn't begin to describe their decks, which are mostly made up of Com Mons, random Speed Spells, and Traps that would have been subpar in Duelist Kingdom. They're so lacking on offense that their main source of damage is a Field Spell exclusive to the tournament they played in. Even their D-Wheel is basically The Alleged Car. In spite of all this, they managed to reach the WRGP quarterfinals, give Team 5Ds an incredibly close match, and bring out a card so Awesome, but Impractical that it was thought to be unsummonable, all by playing to their strengths and eking out a near-unbreakable stall. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_daff6a21 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_daff6a21 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_daff6a21 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dbce0953 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dbce0953 | comment |
Pikmin: The captains are tiny astronauts that, if on their own, could be defeated with little difficulty by almost any enemy in the series. But by commanding and utilizing the skills of the titular Pikmin, they're capable of handling anything that comes their way. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dbce0953 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dbce0953 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Pikmin (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_dbce0953 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dc48bcf | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dc48bcf | comment |
Rey Mysterio is the smallest and physically weakest regular male competitor on the WWE roster, usually outweighed by a good 30-40 pounds even in the Cruiserweight division. Yet he competes almost exclusively in the Heavyweight division and he's won more titles than 90% of the other guys. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dc48bcf | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dc48bcf | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Rey Mysterio Jr. (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_dc48bcf | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dc72c82f | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dc72c82f | comment |
Fallen London: Tomb-Colonists. Their bodies are ravaged by injuries so horrible they stuck even after dying and getting back up, and continued to degrade after that from both age and wear. But since the kind of person that gets so horribly damaged usually leads a dangerous life to begin with, and because the Tomb-Colonies are horribly dull, they usually pass their days challenging each other to deadly duels (or at least, deadly for others that aren't as ragged as them). Thus, their mangled bodies can't put out much strength, but they have more experience than anyone else and can easily kill much livelier and stronger fighters in seconds. Fittingly, they're one of the three factions who can teach you how to be Dangerous (with the heavily-armed Revolutionaries and the muscular, brawl-happy Dockers being the other two). | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dc72c82f | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dc72c82f | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Fallen London (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_dc72c82f | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dcdb5ca9 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dcdb5ca9 | comment |
The Nanaya Clan is revealed in Kagetsu Tohya to have next to no supernatural abilities at all nor superstrength or anything but pure assassin skills. The most badass of them all, Nanaya Kiri, only has the ability to sense the thoughts and emotions of others. Normally, they go up against horribly dangerous monsters at the likes of Vermillion Akiha or worse. Akiha's who actually know how to fight, that is. And they win. Just think if Shiki had actually grown up with them before they were wiped out and then gotten his Mystic Eyes. How much training can a six year old really have received anyway? Yet he still takes out Nero Chaos, Roa, Walachia, Satsuki and at least one more of the 27 top Dead Apostles before they even notice he's there. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dcdb5ca9 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dcdb5ca9 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Tsukihime (Visual Novel) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_dcdb5ca9 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_de225c0a | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_de225c0a | comment |
Aliens in Mutant Football League have high speed and high intelligence, giving them an inherent edge in reaction time, evasiveness, field awareness, self preservation, and adapting as the play unfolds. This makes them ideal quarterbacks and defensive backs, and desirable at wideout and RB. They're also the weakest species in the game, with low tackling ability, hitting power, and durability. The all-alien Galaxy Chaos team has an electric offense and a solid secondary, but struggles to stop the run because they can't bring down the ballcarrier. They can't injure or kill key players on the opposing offense, either. Compare Orcs and the (nearly) all-orc team, the Orcs of Hazzard, who have all of the exact opposite strong points and weaknesses. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_de225c0a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_de225c0a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mutant Football League (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_de225c0a | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dfc9fe1d | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dfc9fe1d | comment |
Gundam fans also ascribe this quality to 0080's Bernard "Bernie" Wiseman. By his own admission, he's only ever piloted once and he got shot down very quickly, but in the final episode he uses strategy, tactics, and traps to defeat a Gundam superior to Amuro Ray'snote albeit with a less skilled test pilot behind the controls. And he does all this in a Zaku II, which is the poster child for Mecha-Mooks. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dfc9fe1d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_dfc9fe1d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_dfc9fe1d | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e05a2543 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e05a2543 | comment |
Hajime no Ippo: Compared to Ippo, Kenta Kobashi is a weakling, and he's got no badass knockout techniques. In fact, he's never scored a knockout in his career... and yet, Kobashi gives Ippo a run for his money by playing mind-games, making frequent use of clinches, and using a stance that allows him to easily reach with point-getting jabs, while sacrificing his ability to score heavy blows. Definitely not badass, and the audience hates him, but by playing with the rules, Kobashi manages to win most of his matches. He would've beaten Ippo too, if he hadn't tried to finish him with a knockout. Also Ichiro Miyata. His own physical strength is pathetic when compared to other boxers, and he has a Fatal Flaw in the form of a glass jaw... but he also has huge speed and does what he can to use counters to his benefit. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_e05a2543 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e05a2543 | featureConfidence |
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| Hajime no Ippo (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e05a2543 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e0ede500 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e0ede500 | comment |
Hunters in Sinjid are this. Their base attacks are weak, they can't regain Focus as well as the other classes, and if they run out of Focus during a fight, they're toast. On the other hand, they can be devastating if the right strategies and combos are used. Out of all the available classes in the game, they're the most difficult to master, but are the most rewarding. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e0ede500 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e0ede500 | featureConfidence |
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| Sinjid (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e0ede500 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e144ba19 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e144ba19 | comment |
In the sequel, Rogues have a few different skills they can take that do things like replace Dexterity with Strength for calculating damage, gain them a 1% bonus to critical hit damage per point of Cunning (high level rogues will easily have 30+ points of Cunning, before any armor bonuses), and increase the 'chance' of scoring a critical hit by 1% per each point of Cunning. Combine this with the fact that your characters no longer control like drunken yaks like in the first game, and a Rogue ability that moves them directly to the target's rear, thereby making flanking 'much' easier, a Rogue with 14 strength will really put the Cannon in Glass Cannon. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e144ba19 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e144ba19 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dragon Age II (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e144ba19 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e1e175b1 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e1e175b1 | comment |
White Sand: Kenton is ridiculously weak compared to his fellow Sand Masters, but thanks to that he's learnt to control the little he has with far greater precision. Even though he can only control a single "ribbon" of sand at a time, he passes a test designed to challenge and flaunt the abilities of people who can control two dozen. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e1e175b1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e1e175b1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| White Sand (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e1e175b1 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e2cb4c1 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e2cb4c1 | comment |
Doctor Strange (yes, really), when up against the caliber of threat that will get a Sorcerer Supreme involved, is almost always overpowered and outclassed. He still wins through a combination of luck, knowledge, and the clever use of what he has. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e2cb4c1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e2cb4c1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Doctor Strange (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e2cb4c1 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e542bff1 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e542bff1 | comment |
The Secret Return of Alex Mack: Terawatt has less raw power than many of her opponents; her two hundred pounds of telekinetic force is tiny compared to Azure Crush throwing cars. But she has excellent fine control, giving her the versatility to adapt to all kinds of situations, and a number of tricks up her spotlessly white sleeves, like pinching carotid arteries shut, enhancing her punches to bluff having Super-Strength, blinding super-tough enemies with lightning to the eyeball, and telekinetic guide parries to divert bullets. Her skill and creativity consistently see her coming out on top of her fights, and being recognised as the world's premier superhero. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e542bff1 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e542bff1 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Secret Return of Alex Mack (Fanfic) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e542bff1 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e5bcaba6 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e5bcaba6 | comment |
The Fruit of Grisaia: Makina quite literally. Makina is physically even weaker than you’d expect for someone that looks about twelve, but she picks up on anything Yuuji teaches her regarding exercise, sniping or martial arts almost immediately. Her endurance is still terrible, though. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e5bcaba6 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e5bcaba6 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Fruit of Grisaia (Visual Novel) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e5bcaba6 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e7410020 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e7410020 | comment |
Empowered has shown signs of this. While her supersuit really is pretty powerful, it is easily damaged and rendered useless, making her an extreme Glass Cannon. However, unlike 99% of the other superheroes in her universe, she actually thinks, and this has allowed her to beat villains that others were not able to. She also notes that as cool as throwing a car looks, you'll do much more damage by just driving it into them. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e7410020 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e7410020 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Empowered (Comic Book) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e7410020 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e7e37776 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e7e37776 | comment |
Despite being a "ninety pound girl" River Tam from Firefly is skilled enough to accomplish such feats as sharp-shooting mooks with her eyes closed, single-handedly beating to a pulp a bar's worth of low lives with nothing but her hands and feet, and, last but not least, massacring a contingent of Reavers with whatever she could find lying around. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e7e37776 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e7e37776 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Firefly | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e7e37776 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e89f120b | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e89f120b | comment |
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char Aznable. While Amuro has greater Psychic Powers, Char is a much more experienced pilot, so the two are evenly matched. Amuro's eponymous Gundam is also much stronger than Char's re-painted mook units, at least at first, but as Char receives more powerful mobile suits, Amuro's piloting skill increases proportionally. Eventually, Char receives a Gelgoog, which is an even match for the Gundam, and finally the Zeong, which ends up reversing their roles by being more powerful than the Gundam. When they return in Char's Counterattack, Amuro had significantly more experience in Char's Counterattack than Char had in the original series, and stronger Psychic Powers to boot. (Char was only 20 when he faced off against Amuro for the first time. Amuro was 29 in CCA.) Once he answers Char's Sazabi with the Nu Gundam, The Red Comet Can't Catch Up. Hayato. He piloted the Guntank, a pretty sub-par Mobile Suit that had horrendous mobility, slow reaction time, and was useless in terms of close combat; yet he still managed to use it well, and survive the One Year War. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_e89f120b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e89f120b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mobile Suit Gundam | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e89f120b | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e9c7b01b | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e9c7b01b | comment |
In Dissidia Final Fantasy, the characters Onion Knight and Zidane qualify. For the former, due to still being young, his bravery attacks aren't very strong or as varied as the other Cosmos warriors, but makes up for it by attacking and moving quickly, having both short and long range options as well as all of them having branching attacks that deplete HP. For the latter, Zidane hits slightly harder than Onion Knight and just as fast, but his strength lies in dominating at aerial combat, and he is very good at getting his opponent up in the air quickly to get pummeled by aerial combos. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e9c7b01b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_e9c7b01b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dissidia Final Fantasy (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_e9c7b01b | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ea505892 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ea505892 | comment |
Having low trion causes low powered weapons and brittle shields in World Trigger. Despite this, Kitora and Yoneya managed to bring their teams to A-rank. To make up for their low attack and defense, Kitora supplements her skillset with traping skill, while Yoneya opts for higher reach by mounting his spear. Series protagonist Osamu also has the problem. And being a rookie at the start of the series, he has to work on that "skilled" part, too. Border as a whole effectively ends up as this in the Invasion arc. The vast majority of Border members can't match the raw power and advanced triggers of the Aftokratorian invasion team, and have to beat them though tactics, skill, numbers, and outright trickery. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_ea505892 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ea505892 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| World Trigger (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_ea505892 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ea58a77 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ea58a77 | comment |
Big Windup! -– Invoked - Momome points out that despite Tajima's exceptional speed and accuracy, he just doesn't have the build to be a power hitter in baseball. While he has been holding his own so far, there are signs that as the series goes on he will struggle to progress as a result of this handicap while the other players like Hanai overtake him in usefulness by virtue of their superior power and range. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ea58a77 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ea58a77 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Big Windup! (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_ea58a77 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eb0c9938 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eb0c9938 | comment |
In Diamond is Unbreakable, Shigekiyo "Shigechi" Yangu is a greedy middle schooler with a Colony Stand called "Harvest", which appears as a swarm of 500 robotic bee-men. Each individual Harvest is only a few inches tall and proportionally strong... but a swarm of them can gruesomely rip victims apart piece-by-piece, inject purloined chemicals (such as liquor) into them with stingers, tear out sinews or tendons, rip off ears and tongues, gouge out eyes and sever major artories. And Shigechi is ruthless enough to be aware of and explot all of these abilities if pressed. In his debute, he takes on both Josuke and Okuyasu, who both have more conventional "Power Type" Stands (with Okuyasu having a Story-Breaker Power in his "Erase Anything" ability), simultaneously, and almost wins. He even comes close to defeating the story's Big Bad, Mad Bomber Serial Killer Yoshikage Kira, on his own before being fatally tricked. Josuke even describes Harvest in all seriousness as one of the most powerful Stands he's ever seen, characterizing it as "practically invincible". Not bad for a preteen with a Stand most obviously intended for Mundane Utility! | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eb0c9938 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eb0c9938 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_eb0c9938 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ec5544b3 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ec5544b3 | comment |
Orange Cassidy usually lacks the raw power and toughness of his opponents, which often results in him getting tired in matches with them very quickly. However, with his maneuverability and the tactical mind games he plays on them, he's often more than capable of pulling off a come from behind win, no matter how dire the situation seems for him. This is emphasized by his ability to do some moves and athletics such as kipping up while his hands are in his pockets in response to getting knocked down. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ec5544b3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ec5544b3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Orange Cassidy (Wrestling) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_ec5544b3 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ed2a7866 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ed2a7866 | comment |
Kirito and Asuna in Highschool SAO are the weakest members of Rias' Peerage, but due to their time fighting in SAO, they have the skill to fight almost all of Raiser's Peerage and come out victorious. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ed2a7866 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ed2a7866 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Sword Art Online | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_ed2a7866 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ed41a1b | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ed41a1b | comment |
Perpetual Grace Ltd: The small-statured Manchild Paul explains that he intends to "master the eleven major forms of martial arts" so that he can protect himself from Prison Rape. The ex-con Newleaf asks how much he weighs, and Paul replies, "One-forty." After a moment, Newleaf states, "Yeah, you're gonna need all eleven." Paul then reveals that he's already got one of the eleven down when he gives a flawless demonstration of kung fu. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ed41a1b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ed41a1b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Perpetual Grace LTD | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_ed41a1b | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eedac02b | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eedac02b | comment |
Durarara!!: Played with in Vorona's case. By most measures, she is Strong and Skilled, being an excellent martial artist with strength and speed enhanced by training and knowledge of a body's weak points. But she keeps comparing herself to Shizuo Heiwajima, who is the epitome of Unskilled, but Strong. In their first encounter, Vorona shot a knife at a vulnerable nerve cluster in Shizuo's shoulder. He ignored it, threw her motorcycle at her, and chased her truck on foot while repeatedly kicking a car in front of himself as a shield against her gun. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eedac02b | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eedac02b | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Durarara!! | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_eedac02b | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eef5470a | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eef5470a | comment |
Kenshin Himura of Rurouni Kenshin fits this trope. Kenshin is a short, skinny and relatively weak man, so much so that he eventually has to give up swordmanship because his kenjutsu style is meant to be used by stronger men and overusing it damaged his muscles. Despite this handicap, he is able to take down the most powerful warriors in the series (aside from his own master) because he's just that damn skilled. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eef5470a | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_eef5470a | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Rurouni Kenshin (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_eef5470a | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ef661e97 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ef661e97 | comment |
Street Fighter: Old and ill and all, Gen can still pack quite a punch against younger, healthier and physically stronger fighters than himself. If Akuma is to be believed (and why shouldn't he be?), Gen's age and illness are the only things that make it remotely fair (in-story) for him to fight any of the other characters. Many of the female characters fit this trope, but arguably ninja girl Ibuki fits this for the girls of the game the most. She is a fragile speedster who has some of the weakest special attacks in the game and in universe many of the bulkier characters call her out for her "soft punches". She does make up for her generally low damage for having among the best knockdown or reset games in the game and being able to extend her combo's and juggles with precision and execution. Despite being considered a Joke Character both in and out of universe, Dan Hibiki possesses a surprisingly comprehensive knowledge of martial arts. Gameplay wise, he’s always been dangerous in the right hands and upgrades he’s received over the years have given him several unique skills. It’s worth noting that his status as this trope is only in comparison to the other playable characters, as supplementary materials have shown him taking down a group of armed thugs without breaking a sweat. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_ef661e97 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ef661e97 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Street Fighter (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_ef661e97 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ef8bd4a5 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ef8bd4a5 | comment |
Mega Man: In the games where he is playable, Proto Man is an example of this. Due to a defect in his power system, he is in constant pain, and ingame tends to take fewer hits because of it. Avoiding hits and fighting smart is his only option to take on enemies. Mega Man, himself, at least to begin within his games. His Mega Buster is vastly inferior in terms of power to his opponents. Only by the end of the game, when he's a walking arsenal of doom, does he go to the other side...and then still requires skill, because he's still just a small robot facing huge massive weapons of destruction. His buster's ability to adapt weapons is also an interesting case of this. He's instantly able to use new weapons, but because he lacks the specialized bodies of the masters he took them from he tends to end up with similar, often limited versions of the weapons as he's limited to using only what he has to utilize it. While Top Man could spin and shoot all around the arena due to the wheels on his feet Mega Man can only spin in the air, yet for projectile-only weapons like Search Snake he gets a version identical to that of the robot master. Mega Man X fits even more than Mega Man, considering the fact that he's almost always smaller and less technically able than the opponents he faces, but he's goddamn unstoppable once he starts. Add the fact that every game still manages to have That One Boss even after he gets his 'Ultimate' armor. It's stated in canon that adherence to this trope is entirely voluntary for all incarnations of Mega Man. With their signature adaptability and intellect, any Mega Man could easily become powerful enough to wipe the floor with the rest of the cast combined and quite rightfully fear the corruption this could lead to. This doesn't explain Bass' tendency to lose his copied weapons too despite that his sole purpose is to defeat Mega Man and become the most powerful robot in existence. One would guess he wants to do it on his own merits instead of relying on other, "inferior" robot masters' weapons. Zero from the same franchise is also this, he doesn't have the same adaptability as X nor does he have armor upgrades to compensate for his less than great durability, thus making him a Glass Cannon, but his skill with a sword is second to none, even learning techniques to gain advantages for his weaknesses. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_ef8bd4a5 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_ef8bd4a5 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Mega Man (Franchise) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_ef8bd4a5 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f0e0a169 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f0e0a169 | comment |
Ned Flanders in The Simpsons Wrestling is the weakest character in the game, save for his Lightning Bolt attack, which does the greatest damage in the game. All you have to do is survive so you can use it. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f0e0a169 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f0e0a169 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| The Simpsons Wrestling (Video Game) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_f0e0a169 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f15f622e | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f15f622e | comment |
MacGyver lived and breathed this trope. He generally loses straight-up fistfights with larger or stronger opponents. He always needed to attack from advantage, throw sand, or use some gadget to win. What keeps him from being a Combat Pragmatist is that he Doesn't Like Guns and never uses them. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f15f622e | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f15f622e | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| MacGyver (1985) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_f15f622e | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f31ebb02 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f31ebb02 | comment |
Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Prince Nuada is a rare villainous example, pitting his incredible agility and speed against Hellboy's sheer size and brute strength. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f31ebb02 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f31ebb02 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Hellboy II: The Golden Army | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_f31ebb02 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f39c217d | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f39c217d | comment |
In Aldnoah.Zero, the villainous Martians pilot physics-breaking Super Robots, while the heroic Earthlings can only field pathetic Mecha-Mooks, which allow the Martians to completely massacre the Earth forces. However, protagonist Inaho Kaizuka repeatedly dominates the Martians through clever application of physics to exploit weaknesses in the Martian machines, often taking advantage of the Martians' arrogance at their invincibility, and he does this while piloting a basic training unit. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f39c217d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f39c217d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Aldnoah.Zero | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_f39c217d | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f4857d3 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f4857d3 | comment |
Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai: Hyunckel. At the beginning of the series he is portrayed as relatively strong and extremely skilled, but in the last chapters he's actually one of the weakest characters in the main cast, power-wise (though his skill level remains above average). He even develops a special technique allowing him to use his life as a weapon, in order to compensate his lack of sheer power. It quickly becomes one of the strongest skills in the series. Also Aban, as near the end of the manga he's nowhere as strong as the other cast members, but still useful because of his skills. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_f4857d3 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f4857d3 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_f4857d3 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f565604d | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f565604d | comment |
Eyeshield 21: Kisiragi is a weak pretty-boy with little stamina and only average speed. Yet he manages to be Co-Dragons with Marco alongside the Unskilled, but Strong Gaou due to his ability to knock the ball out of a receiver's hand just after they get their hands on it. With only this skill, and his own stubbornness, Kisiragi shuts down Monta, the best Wide Receiver in-series, and helps his idol, Gaou, take down Hiruma, possibly the smartest Quarterback around. Compared with his junior teammates, who are very large and powerful, quarterback Osamu Kobanzame from the Kyoshin Poseidons is a pushover. He's short, he's not particularly fast or strong, and he's a coward. However, because he don't want to become a burden for his teammates, he strives to perform to the best he can. As result, he became quarterback with great short-pass precision, with no interceptions during the tournament thanks to his cautious playing. And despite his own misgivings, his junior teammates actually greatly valued him. The Devil Bats have Manabu Yukimitsu. He's only about as strong as Sena, and slightly faster than Kurita. What he does have is the brains to be a master of the option route with Hiruma as his quarterback, and the determination to pull it off. Akira Nakabou, AKA "Chuubou", is a junior high student with a lot of passion and ambition who joins Team Japan in the World Youth Cup arc. He's a fairly average athelete, but his mastery of the three-point block ("Delta Dynamite") makes him able to take down linemen much bigger and stronger than he. |
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| Weak, but Skilled / int_f565604d | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f565604d | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Eyeshield 21 (Manga) | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_f565604d | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f5a9f859 | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f5a9f859 | comment |
Queen of All Oni: When Jackie fights Blankman in the Vault of Endless Night, he notes that he has Hak Foo's level of skill, if not power. | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f5a9f859 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f5a9f859 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Queen of All Oni / Fan Fic | hasFeature |
Weak, but Skilled / int_f5a9f859 | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f5c643da | type |
Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_f5c643da | comment |
Carol Reed from Ouke no Monshou has zero fighting skill, but her almost encyclopedic knowledge of Ancient Egypt comes off very handy when she needs to get the upper hand in the middle of constant power struggles in Pharaoh Memphis's court. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Kingdom Hearts: Master Xehanort, the series’ Big Bad, is this. In the past, he was one of the most powerful Keyblade Masters in history. In the present…not so much, something he bitterly acknowledges, knowing how old age has sapped away his strength and stamina, to the point where he becomes exhausted after a single fight with the much younger Terra. That said, Xehanort still is a Keyblade Master, and he has the skills to prove it, being a very proficient mage, possessing magic strong enough to overwhelm Mickey’s Ultima. Outside of battle, he’s also shown to have retained his cunning, having spent much of his elderly years as a master manipulator working to orchestrate a new Keyblade War. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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In EarthBound Beginnings Loid is first found hiding from bullies in a trash can. He is extremely skilled with weaponry however, and is able to use beams, flamethrowers, and many other tools in to aid in combat. When R7038 defeats the party on Mt. Itoi, Loid comes in with a tank to rescue them. Likewise, in EarthBound (1994) Jeff Andonuts is to Ness and his party. He used the Bad Key Machine to free Ness and Paula from underneath the Threed graveyard. Despite his lack of PSI, he proves himself invaluable with his heavy bazooka, neutralizer, and especially with his bottle rockets which is an insane Game-Breaker (Even crazier is when you equip with the Rabbit's Foot). |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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YuYu Hakusho: After The Beautiful Suzuka was humiliated by the super strong Younger Toguro, he became obsessed with proving that skill is superior to strength, so he spent all his time working on special techniques instead of his strength. However, Genkai pointed out strength and skill are equally important and mocked him for not building up his strength before beating the shit out of him. Sniper more or less fits the trope. Physically, he's a normal human who could easily be knocked out from a mere tap by any of the main characters, yet he's dangerous enough of a psychic and marksman to give Genkai the chills. And sure enough, Yusuke stood no real chance against him during their "fight." Fortunately for Yusuke, Hiei was lurking about. Kuwabara also fits this trope to an extent. He's the weakest of the main cast by a fair margin, and his overall skill isn't as great as the others. Despite this, he is incredibly gifted in energy manipulation, winning or coming close in a great many of his fights through his many impromptu variations of his Spirit Sword, even managing to defeat somebody roughly two spirit classes above him. In a surprising moment, Shinobu Sensui, the Big Bad of the Chapter Black story arc. He admits that Yusuke is every bit his physical superior in almost every way, but he has him completely outclassed when it comes to skill in real combat, and though they both use the same tactics of analyzing their opponents fighting style he's done it for far longer and can predict his every move, and finally concludes with the fact he's far more skilled and powerful with his spirit energy. |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Veyron from Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force. In the mostly Unskilled, but Strong Hückebein family, he's the only one who cannot React. Nevertheless he can hold his own against Riot Force 6's operators and actually defeats a Reacted enemy Eclipse infectee in direct combat. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
| Weak, but Skilled / int_fa738078 | comment |
Sailor Moon: Among the physical combat-inclined Sailor Senshi, Sailor Venus and Uranus are this compared to Sailor Jupiter: Jupiter is the physically strongest of the Sailor Senshi, but the other two are so much more skilled that Uranus handed her a Curb-Stomp Battle, and in the manga the (untransformed) fight between a Brainwashed and Crazy Jupiter and Venus was over in one kick. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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The pitches of the tall and female pitchers from Arc Style: Baseball!! 3D don't have a whole lot of speed, but they make up for it with a wide array of breaking balls that can make the CPU's life a hell. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Sabermetrics, the attempt to use modern scientific statistics to understand baseball, values one particular stat for hitters above all others. No, not average. Not RBI. Not homers. That statistic, On-Base Percentage, is simply how often a hitter gets on base, regardless of power. Slugging - a measure of power - is nice, but OBP is king; the rule of thumb is that OBP is about three times as valuable as Slugging. Sabermetrics doesn't care how you get on base, but that you get there. As depicted in Moneyball (both the film and book), this led to the Oakland A's discovering Kevin Youkilis, a player who was overlooked in the draft because he had a wonky stance, decent but uninspiring average, and less-than-stellar physique. The A's took a special interest in him because they realized his decent batting average masked a stunningly good on-base percentage. He had the plate patience and self-control to battle pitchers deep into the count, wearing their arms out and getting to first base on ball 4. The book jokingly called him "Euclis, the Greek God of Walks". Youkilis went on to be an All-Star, an expert defender, and while his career .281 average is good, it's not great. His career OBP of .381, on the other hand, is outright impressive. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Sagara Sousuke from Full Metal Panic!. Both when in hand to hand combat (with men who are a lot more muscled, no less), and when he's fighting in his AS (although this trope is more pronounced when he's in an inferior AS). There have been numerous times where he was piloting an old, worn down model of AS while fighting against new, far superior AS. And while everyone underestimates him and thinks he'll never win, he ends up taking down the opponents easily by using his skill and strategies. It also helps that he's a Combat Pragmatist. (On the other hand, in sister series Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu, his skills as applied to every day school life is clearly overkill.) | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Adventures of a Screwed Up Clone: The time she spent on the verge of melting due to her instability means that Dani, even after being cured, rarely transforms if she can help it, preferring to use her powers only when necessary and through her human body. She's still pretty crafty when doing so though. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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In Happy Heroes, Sweet S. is shown to be much weaker than the other Supermen physically speaking, but her intelligence and superpower prevail against monsters during fights. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Re:Kuroi: Remy is the weakest of the party offensively and she never goes on missions alone because of her defensive specialization. However, she has a lot of military experience compared to the other party members. In battle, she's has an autopassive that allows her to use the Mercy mechanic without taking up an entire spell slot, showing that she's the most skilled at non-lethally subduing human opponents. She can also turn an enemy's attack against themself by inflicting Misfire, effectively using their own strength against them rather than using her own middling offensive power. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Starting with the second season of Cobra Kai, Sam (who was years out of practice) and Demitri (who was not shown to have any such skills to speak of) personified this trope. Neither is exactly a physical powerhouse, but the school brawl of "No Mercy" showed that nor do they get frustrated by multiple shots in succession. She was able to capitalize on Tory's dissipating patience while he capitalized on Hawk's sloppiness to get in the final blow for their respective fights. It's also the key to his Character Development and her She's Back arc. | |
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Weak, but Skilled | |
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Grendel especially the Hunter Rose and Christine Spar versions. Hunter Rose was a slight man and not particularly tall, but he was a teenage fencing champion. And of course, he was intellectually brilliant. Christine Spar was a tall, thin woman who, however was said to practice kendo. She was good in tracking and spying but physically, she couldn't handle more than petty thugs or not so bright animal cops like Dominic Riley. Also, because she was the least malevolent Grendel, her body count was quite small compared to other Grendels as she didn't really seek to kill anyone except her son's kidnappers. She didn't even think to finish off thugs that she maimed, such as Tujiro stooge Niccolo. Of the handful of people she killed, two were killed by a carbomb, not direct physical combat. The only heavyweights that Christine fought were Tujiro and Argent. However, Tujiro escaped and she died fighting Argent. | |
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