History Main / MinmaxersDelight

*** Small Frame grants one stat point (which is keyed to Agility, but points can be manually redistributed anywhere) in exchange for reduced carrying capacity. Not so great in ''Fallout'' (followers aren't too bright and can't level up or equip better armor), but in ''Fallout 2'' you can get an NPC/Permanent Companion/pack mule in the very first town you enter.

** The Quickstep and Bloodhound Step skills give [[VideoGameDashing dashes]] as alternates to the usual dodge roll, which cost a small amount of FP, but have much better distance, invincibility, and recovery--enough that just spamming them lets you avoid some otherwise ''extremely'' difficult to dodge attacks. They even work the same regardless of your equip load. Whether you fight up close or at range, magical or physical, essentially any build benefits greatly from putting their respective Ashes of War on your weapon--if not on your primary, then a lightweight {{Stat Stick|s}} you can easily switch to.

*** Skilled gives you a +5 to all skills right off the bat. In previous games, the downside to this was that you would get fewer perks, [[ThatOneDisadvantage which was absolutely awful and made this trait one to avoid at all costs]]. In this game, however, the downside is a mere [[ExperiencePenalty 10% penalty to XP gain]], which is barely even noticeable. Also, due to a bug, if you take the trait during initial character creation, then remake your character when given the option after the tutorial and ''don't'' take it, you keep the points but lose the penalty. Or you can take it again and get another +5 to everything at no extra penalty.

*** And of course there's the [[MemeticMutation meme]] of every character eventually ending up as a stealthy archer no matter what the player originally intended them to be, because that playstyle is just that much more effective than any other. Anything you don't kill in one hit with a sneak attack critical will likely just look around for a couple of seconds before concluding that [[TooDumbToLive they must just be imagining that arrow sticking out of the side of their head]] and returning to their business, allowing you to kill them with a ''second'' sneak attack critical. It's a lot better than charging in with sword swinging or spells flying only to have some jackass [[OneHitKill instantly]] [[FinishingMove killcam]] you.

*** The crafting professions, period. Your main build doesn't matter, it's basically impossible to have an optimized character or to play on the higher difficulties without getting all three to max level and putting some points into them.
*** Alteration, Illusion, and Conjuration. Not because they are very powerful, but because they can be leveled up quite easily (if you can bring their spell costs down to zero with enchanting) with no combat at all simply by standing in place and casting one spell over and over (Telekinesis, any Calm spell, and Soul Trap, respectively) at something. Even people who don't use these magic schools at all will want to level them up just for the easy levels and perk points. Alteration also contains the invaluable Atronach perk (above), while Illusion, after you obtain its Master spells, is amazing for LevelGrinding. Make the skill Legendary, then simply stand in the center of any big populated area and cast Harmony over and over again. You can max out the skill in about a minute (gaining level-ups as you do so), then make the skill Legendary again and repeat the process ''ad nauseam''. Conjuration is also very useful for levelling up other skills. Want to level up your weapon or Destruction skills? Simply kill all enemies in an area, revive them one by one as your zombie thralls, and kill them again! You can do this with summoned creatures as well. This is also a good way to grind Conjuration itself, since if you use a weak enough weapon/spell so that you don't kill them too quickly, they will turn hostile against you after hitting them enough, which gives you a bunch of Conjuration experience since your zombie/summon just engaged in combat with something (you). Hell, use Bound weapons to level up your Conjuration even faster! Want to level up your armor and Restoration skills? Make your zombie/summon hostile and then just stand there soaking up its attacks while you continually heal yourself.

*** Havel's Ring increases equipment load by 50%, which is equivalent to at least 20 levels of Endurance (more if your Endurance is high, [[OneStatToRuleThemAll which it usually will be]]) in a game where each level gives one stat point and most people get to the endgame at level 80. This is tremendously useful, because it lets you get better protection from armor in terms of damage and [[ImmuneToFlinching hitstun resistance]] without losing mobility or vice-versa. Most of the other rings not affecting magic have effects that are much more situational (like increasing a single defense by an amount heavier armor would almost cover for all types) or have significant drawbacks (like the Ring of Favor and protection, which boosts several stats but is [[PermanentlyMissableContent lost forever]] if you take it off). Because of this and its early availability, the majority of players not focused entirely on magic have Havel's Ring on for most of their playthrough. Future installments in the series nerfed the amount increased to 10-20% (though partially because both allow four rings instead of two), on top of making armor itself less powerful.

*** Ascending a weapon down one of the elemental paths (Fire, Lightning, or Chaos) significantly increases its base damage at the cost of eliminating all stat scaling (how much bonus damage the weapon gets from your stats). This means the weapon hits just as hard whether you've maxed out your Strength and Dexterity, or wherher you only have the minimum amount required to use the weapon in the first place. Sure, a normal weapon with the right stats leveled will be ''more'' powerful, but elemental weapons are still plenty strong, and you have that many more levels you can dump into Vitality and Endurance in order to tank yourself up. For proof of their effectiveness, just ask everyone's favourite meme build, the JustForFun/GiantDad.

** Putting a Cerulean Hidden Tear in your Flask of Wonderous Physick [[ReducedManaCost reduces all FP costs to zero]] for fifteen seconds. If you're a mage, that's still enough time to launch a bursts of magic that can take a huge chunk of life off strong enemies, especially if you use equipment that boosts damage at the cost of FP cost (which the tear's ability overrides). If you ''aren't'' a mage, you only need a few seconds of the buff to [[SummonMagic summon powerful spirits]] that would otherwise require dozens of points in the Mind stat (because even your max FP wouldn't be enough to use them). Either one is quite a step up from the much milder {{Status Buff}}s most of the other Tears provide.

* ''TabletopGame/StarTrekAdventures'': The Quick to Action talent. During the first round of combat, the players can keep initiative for zero cost to their momentum. Since STA runs on a Players-Opponents-Players turn format this quickly results in the players essentially being able to do major damage to the opponent before they even get to start. A very common houserule amongst STA [=GMs=] is to limit it to one time.

** Traits an flaws from Unearthed Arcana make a comeback in ''TabletopGame/D20Modern''. So for a character whom isn't a tech guy/gal, technophobe is a real bargain. By taking penalties to technical skills, most of those cannot be used untrained, you gain a free feat.

*** Hoarder grants +25 lbs to your carry capacity but has the drawback of -1 to all attributes if your carried weight drops below 160 lbs. Given the [[KleptomaniacHero nature of the game]], it's rare that you'll be carrying below 160 lbs worth of equipment unless you're going for a low strength build. The fact that there's 160 lbs worth of VendorTrash conveniently laying around in the starting house allows you to offset the weight difference in mere minutes after picking the trait up, effectively giving you a free carrying capacity boost for the rest of the game.

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall'', you can set various advantages and disadvantages when making a custom class. Taking advantages makes you more powerful, but slows the rate at which you level up. Taking disadvantages does just the opposite. As such, it is possible to take disadvantages that your race or class cancels out, while still getting the boost to level up rate. One prominent example is to play as an [[WitchSpecies Altmer (High Elf)]], who have a natural immunity to paralysis, then take "Weakness to Paralysis" as a disadvantage. The game considers it a significant disadvantage, greatly boosting the speed at which you level up, but you never actually experience the consequences. Further, taking all of the various "Weakness to Fire", "Weakness to Frost", etc. disadvantages grants you a greater boost to your level up rate than taking the "Immunity to Magic" advantage penalizes you. Immunity to Magic makes all of these weaknesses completely moot.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' has the Sedentary species disadvantage, which reduces the odds of populations moving from a full planet to an emptier one while also making resettlement more expensive. Ultimately this winds up not mattering to almost anybody since you generally don't want your populations moving around in the first place and in the event you do resettlement isn't that expensive, penalty or not. This disadvantage is thus rendered so meaningless some people consider it borderline cheating to take it.

*** Built to Destroy increases critical hit chance (which there aren't many other ways to increase) at the cost of having your weapons degrade faster. Thing is, if you care about your critical hit chance ''at all'', you're probably [[CriticalHitClass basing your entire build around it]], which means limiting yourself to certain weapons that themselves have an increased critical hit chance, almost all of which are high damage-per-shot weapons like sniper rifles. Since you'll be obliterating everything in one or two shots, the faster degradation won't hit you as hard as if you were using something with MoreDakka. Also, a crit build means you'll have maxed-out Luck, which means you'll be able to clean house at gambling. In ''Dead Money'', earning enough winnings at the Sierra Madre Casino will get you a complimentary voucher worth 1000 chips for use in the vending machines, which sell Weapon Repair Kits for 20 chips each (provided you found the holotape that adds them to the machines' inventory). Then, after completing ''Dead Money'', 100 chips and a new voucher will be sent to the Brotherhood of Steel Bunker every three in-game days[[note]]This is true even if you do not win the initial voucher. However, winning the initial voucher is what enables the machines to actually accept vouchers in the first place, so you still need to do it.[[/note]], which basically means you'll never run out of Weapon Repair Kits again. Finally, you can simply use Raul as your follower, whose follower perk ''slows'' weapon degradation. If you convince him to retire and become a repairman at the end of his personal quest, his perk improves to the point that it will counteract the faster degradation from the trait completely.

*** Skilled gives you a +5 to all skills right off the bat. In previous games, the downside to this was that you would get fewer perks, [[ThatOneDisadvantage which was absolutely awful and made this trait one to avoid at all costs]]. In this game, however, the downside is a mere 10% penalty to XP gain, which is barely even noticeable. Also, due to a bug, if you take the trait during initial character creation, then remake your character when given the option after the tutorial and ''don't'' take it, you keep the points but lose the penalty. Or you can take it again and get another +5 to everything at no extra penalty.

*** Alteration, Illusion, and Conjuration. Not because they are very powerful, but because they can be leveled up quite easily (if you can bring their spell costs down to zero with enchanting) with no combat at all simply by standing in place and casting one spell over and over (Telekinesis, any Calm spell, and Soul Trap, respectively) at something. Even people who don't use these magic schools at all will want to level them up just for the easy levels and perk points. Alteration also contains the invaluable Atronach skill (above), while Illusion, after you obtain its Master spells, is amazing for LevelGrinding. Make the skill Legendary, then simply stand in the center of any big populated area and cast Harmony over and over again. You can max out the skill in about a minute (gaining level-ups as you do so), then make the skill Legendary again and repeat the process ''ad nauseam''. Conjuration is also very useful for levelling up other skills. Want to level up your weapon or Destruction skills? Simply kill all enemies in an area, revive them one by one as your zombie thralls, and kill them again! You can do this with summoned creatures as well. This is also a good way to grind Conjuration itself, since if you use a weak enough weapon/spell so that you don't kill them too quickly, they will turn hostile against you after hitting them enough, which gives you a bunch of Conjuration experience since your zombie/summon just engaged in combat with something (you). Hell, use Bound weapons to level up your Conjuration even faster! Want to level up your armor and Restoration skills? Make your zombie/summon hostile and then just stand there soaking up its attacks while you continually heal yourself.

*** Skilled slightly increases all of your skills right off the bat. In previous games the downside to this was that you would get fewer perks, [[ThatOneDisadvantage which was absolutely awful and made this trait one to avoid at all costs]]. In this game, however, the downside is that all of the XP you get is reduced by 10%, which is barely a downside at all since you'll still hit the level cap ages before the end of the game anyway.
*** Built to Destroy increases critical hit chance (which there aren't many other ways to increase) at the cost of having your weapons degrade faster. Thing is, if you care about your critical hit chance ''at all'', you're probably [[CriticalHitClass basing your entire build around it]], which means limiting yourself to certain weapons that themselves have an increased critical hit chance, almost all of which are slower-firing weapons that deal high damage per bullet like revolvers or sniper rifles, so the faster degradation won't hit you as hard as if you were using something with MoreDakka. Plus, you can use Raul as your follower of choice, whose follower perk ''slows'' weapon degradation. If you convince him to retire and become a repairman at the end of his personal quest, his perk improves to the point that it will counteract the faster degradation from the trait completely.
*** The Jury Rigging perk allows you to repair any weapon or armor with any other weapon or armor in the same category (for example, you can repair any one-handed gun with any other one-handed gun), rather than needing an exact copy of the item to take parts from. That means you can repair things like an incredibly powerful and expensive anti-tank sniper rifle with parts from a BB gun. It also means that if you find an expensive gun for sale in very poor condition, you can buy it plus a few cheap guns in the same category, use them to repair the expensive one to full condition, and then sell it for a huge profit. This is why Jury Rigging is [[BoringButPractical probably the best perk in the game]].
*** Old World Blues introduces [[Film/LogansRun Logan's]] Loophole, which lets you take chems with zero chance of addiction and doubled duration (very powerful if you can find a good supply), but fixes the level cap at 30 (as you'll likely have all the DLC if you have one of them, the limit will probably be 50 otherwise). The thing is, Old World Blues ''also'' adds a one-time ability to change which traits you have, so you can just have Logan's Loophole until you reach level 30, then get rid of it.

*** For Paladins and some martial-oriented Bards, just one level into a Hexblade warlock can greatly increase viability, as it immediately grants both Hexblade's Curse, which massively increases your damage potential against a single opponent, and Hex Warrior, which grants proficiency with shields, medium armor, and all martial weapons, and most importantly allows you to use Charisma instead of Strength or Dexterity for weapon attack and damage rolls. This is a huge game changer, as it allows you to cast and attack off the same stat, making it much easier to max out your might and your magic at once to end up with a MasterOfAll instead of a MasterOfNone. You give up your ability to use two-handed weapons unless you sink '''three''' levels into Warlock to get the Pact of the Blade, but if you simply want to go [[KnightlySwordAndShield sword-and-board]], you're golden.

* Since the third generation of ''VideoGame/{{Pokemon}}'', every Pokémon has one of 25 natures, with each lowering one non-HP stat and raising another (except the five of that twenty that raise and lower the ''same'' stat, effectively doing nothing). Natures that lower an attack stat a given Pokémon [[DumpStat will not use]] are easily the most popular, in particular Adamant (+Attack, -Special Attack), Modest (+Special Attack, -Attack), Jolly (+Speed, -Special Attack), and Timid (+Speed, -Attack). Natures that lower Speed are a close second. While Speed is an important stat for most Pokémon, there are some who are very unlikely to outspeed anything anyways, and actively lowering their Speed even further makes tactics such as Gyro Ball and Trick Room that much more viable.

* ''Videogame/{{Arcanum}}'' has the "Beat with the Ugly Stick" background trait. Your character is extremely ugly and has a -6 to their Beauty... but Beauty is a DumpStat which only affects initial reaction modifiers, so while most characters will dislike you when you first talk to them, nearly every dialogue has an option to ask them to tolerate you, thereby allowing the conversation to continue as normal. The trade-off for this is +2 to both Strength and Dexterity and a slight boost to all combat skills, resulting in your character being more than capable of dealing with many of the early-game combat encounters.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', the most powerful Blood Gems (gems that you slot into your weapon to boost its stats) are "cursed" and come with a random negative effect. Some of these negative effects are far more desirable than others. For instance, your serrated fire-damage weapon you carry explicitly for killing beasts isn't going to be too terribly disadvantaged by "attack vs. the kin down" since you aren't going to be fighting kin with it anyway, and "attack vs. beasts down" is likewise a non-issue for a specialized kin-killing weapon. And neither one will matter in [=PvP=] since other players aren't beasts or kin. For general [=PvE=], "increased stamina consumption" is typically the way to go since even stacking three of this disadvantage on the same weapon amounts to ''maybe'' one less swing before you run out of stamina, if that, and has no effect at all on guns since they cost no stamina to fire anyway. Likewise, "durability down" has no effect on guns since they never lose any durability in the first place.

** The [[MoneyMultiplier Scrap Recovery Arm]] always pays for itself, so there is never any reason not to get it.

*** The Natural Spell feat allowed a druid to cast spells while in [[{{Animorphism}} wild shape form]], making it an easy pick.