History Main / KillSteal

* In ''Webcomic/UberQuest'', just as Sesame and Kibbles have reduced the King Slime to a small blob, [[TheRival Dante]] shows up and stomps on it, stealing the [[NinjaLooting loot drop]] too.
* ''Webcomic/VGCats'': Happens to [[AuthorAvatar Pantsman]] while playing ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' in the strip [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=106 "Super Friends"]].
* In [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0453.html "this"]] ''WebComic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' panel, a couple ninjas attempt a kill-steal.

* ''Literature/KentuckyFriedPolitics'': [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_von_Brunn James von Brunn]] plots to assassinate President Lee Iacocca, due to viewing the man as a "traitor" to von Brunn's racist and conservative views. He infiltrates the crowd at a public appearance, gets close, and is about to pull out his gun... when [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynwood_Drake Lynwood Drake]] opens fire from a sniper's nest on a building across the street. Afterwards, von Brunn is shown to be pissed that someone else managed to kill Iacocca right before he could.

* ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' allows you to configure equal XP share or damage proportional XP share for all party members. [[CompletelyMissingThePoint Loot is still dropped on the ground.]]

** One problem with kill steals that HotS ''does'' have is in regards to Mercenaries. It doesn't matter who actually killed the Mercenary, all that matters is you claim the kill by standing in the activation circle. This means you can get royally screwed by taking a mercenary camp, get forced off by an attacking enemy team overpowering or killing you, and then said team just nonchalantly takes the mercenaries despite doing none of the work.

* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatShaolinMonks'' during the boss battle with Goro no matter which character you control after he's defeated and you're about to deliver the killing blow Johnny Cage steps in and kicks a hole through his chest.

* ''LightNovel/DoYouLoveYourMomAndHerTwoHitMultiTargetAttacks'': Mamako keeps killing monsters before Masato can because of her drive to protect him, not noticing how this upsets him.

* On ''Series/{{Angel}}'' Fred is about to get revenge on her former teacher who condemned her to a hell dimension, when Gunn steps in and kills him for her. Subverted in that Gunn wanted to stop her from becoming a murderer.

* Gimli accuses Legolas of this in ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers]]'' during the fight with the warg-riding orcs.

** In many cases it's considered better to take a kill then risk even a small chance of an enemy getting away because you were trying not to still a kill, as one enemy escaping a death does more harm then multiple situations of the wrong member taking a kill. However, this won't stop some players complaining about kill stealing no matter what the situation sadly.
** [[AnAxeToGrind Darius]], from ''Videogame/LeagueOfLegends'', in particular seems designed for this. His ultimate is especially effective at last hitting enemy players and has its cooldown reset when it scores a kill; even though Darius is a melee fighter and susceptible to getting kited or stunlocked to death and therefore not a good basket to put all of a team's eggs into. Axe and Necrolyte in ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'' have the same problem, being respectively an early game tank with [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards no carry potential]] and a mage with no spell damage scaling from items; so while their ultimates can easily score tons of kills, doing so in front of other players with heroes that actually benefit from gold will probably result in a loss. Zeus however is well known in the fandom for being able to steal kills from ''anywhere in the map'' by using his ultimate ''Thundergod's Wrath'' to deal high magic damage to every enemy hero on the map. While others have global-range abilities to do such a thing with, they're all more delayed in action than ''Thundergod's Wrath'', which is nigh-instant in execution.

* Also from ''Videogame/LeagueOfLegends is Pyke, a support whose ''designed'' around kill-stealing: if Pyke executes an enemy with his ultimate, full kill gold is rewarded to whatever allied champion last damaged the enemy.
** League also has neutral objectives: the Red Brambleback, Blue Sentinel, Elemental Drakes, Baron Nashor, and Elder Dragon. Because the benefit of these buffs goes to the team/player who dealt the last hit, if one team/player is fighting one of these , the enemy jungler and/or mage may go for a "miracle steal" by unloading their Smite summoner spell or full combo onto the neutral objective in question to steal it from the enemy team.
** Meanwhile ''VideoGame/HeroesOfTheStorm'' explicitly subverts this by making sure that all xp rewards are shared evenly with all team members (there is no gold so gold sharing is a non-issue). This is partially due to blizzards attempt to make a more casual-friendly game, however, this does remove a lot of kill stealing complaints and general hostility that the old games used to have.
** [[Myth/HinduMythology Ganesha]] as he appears in ''VideoGame/{{Smite}}'' has a passive to counter this. If he manages to kill an opponent and there's a nearby God, said God will get the Kill count, while Ganesha just gets an assist. The reason this is less likely to snowball is that Ganesha is a Guardian God, not meant to farm himself, but to support his allies in farming.

** The only way to join [[spoiler:The Dark Brotherhood]] is to pose as one of their operatives and steal one of their contracts, which their leader refers as "Our kill, a kill you stole."

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', Seifer Almasy invokes this trope during the tutorial. He orders his comrade (you) to leave him the last hit on all monsters, because this way he gets more XP. Classy. Helpful, though, both because EmptyLevels are a thing, and a LowLevelRun is the ''easy'' way to play. Later on, other [[GuestStarPartyMembers guest party members]] fill the same purpose, even up to leaving the rest of the party dead in order to get that much more nutritious GF experience.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', Seifer Almasy invokes this trope during the tutorial. He orders his comrade (you) to leave him the last hit on all monsters, because this way he gets more XP. Classy.

* In Manga/AttackOnTitan while the 104th Trainee Squad are doing an exercise, Connie leaps in to steal a kill from Jean. Subverted though, in that Sasha then goes and steals it from Connie.

[[folder:Videogames]]

Compare TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou, NinjaLooting. Contrast HelpingWouldBeKillStealing. See also VengeanceDenied in case of the avenger reacting to this.

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