History Main / ShedArmorGainSpeed

* Erza Scarlet of ''Manga/FairyTail'' is known for her "Equip Magic," which lets her [[HyperspaceArsenal summon weapons and armor out of thin air.]] She also has a {{Sarashi}} form with no armor that greatly boosts her speed and attack power in exchange for almost no protection (in this case, it's because she's focusing all her magic power into offense, and by the point she uses this her enemy has likely proven they can tear through her defensive armors anyways).

Compare DidntNeedThoseAnyway, which often overlaps with this trope when it comes to video game enemies. If it happens to a boss, it's probably a sign that he [[TurnsRed Turned Red]]. Compare also DisposableVehicleSection; sometimes overlaps when the thing being shed is the vehicle's protective armor.

** Similar to the above example is King. [[spoiler:King being a Lunarian grants him several powers, including a flame on his back that he can extinguish and reignite at will. While the flame is burning, King is ludicrously tough, to the point of being NighInvulnerable. When the flame is out, King becomes much faster, but loses his insane resilliance to attacks. Zoro figuring this put is the key to allowing him to defeat King.]]

** ''Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' and ''Videogame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' have a milder example, with Iron Knuckles gaining movement speed after losing their armor, but not attack speed.

* A Spartan saying admonished soldiers to "come back with your shield or on it," defying this trope. Spartan shields were large and sturdy enough to carry a human body, and thus they were extremely cumbersome; to run at full speed (i.e. to flee from a battle), a soldier would have to throw away his shield. Hence the command to "come back with your shield," i.e. victorious, "or on it," i.e. dead. To be clear, a field army was allowed to make an orderly TacticalWithdrawal upon its leader's command if the situation turned against them; what they would not tolerate was men dropping their weapons and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere abandoning their comrades]] in an "every-man-for-himself" fashion.

* A Spartan saying admonished soldiers to "come back with your shield or on it," defying this trope. Spartan shields were large and sturdy enough to carry a human body, and thus they were extremely cumbersome; to run at full speed (i.e. to flee from a battle), a soldier would have to throw away his shield. Hence the command to "come back with your shield," i.e. victorious, "or on it," i.e. dead. To be clear, a field army was allowed to make an orderly TacticalWithdrawal upon its leader's command if the situation turned against them; what they would not tolerate was men dropping their weapons and [[ScrewThisImOuttaOfHere abandoning their comrades]] in an "every-man-for-himself" fashion.

* A downplayed example, at the climax of ''Film/ThreeHundred'', Leonidas discards his shield and his helmet both to lull his enemy into a sense of security and give him the mobility he needed [[spoiler: to have a DefiantStoneThrow at the Persian king and wound him before Leonidas and the rest of the Spartans are killed]].

* A Spartan saying admonished soldiers to "come back with or on your shield," defying this trope. Spartan shields were large and sturdy enough to carry a human body, and thus they were extremely cumbersome; to run at full speed (i.e. to flee from a battle), a soldier would have to throw away his shield. Hence the command to "come back with your shield," i.e. victorious, "or on it," i.e. dead.

* In ''VideoGame/ShiningForceResurrectionOfTheDarkDragon'', promoting Zuika to the Terminator class gives him a chitinous armor. When his health drops below 30%, the armor breaks, dramatically increasing his movement speed and replacing his normal attack with a FlashStep strike that has increased range and deals double damage.
* In ''VideoGame/RobotechBattlecry'', you can choose to pilot an armored version of any given Veritech fighter in multiplayer--you start in your humanoid HumongousMecha mode and are forced to stay that way due to the heavy armor and numerous missile pods installed on your legs, chest, and shoulders disabling the Veritech's ability to [[TransformingMecha change modes]]. This leaves you in the slowest possible form, as the additional armaments and protection hamper the Battloid mode's mobility, but provides an exceptional defense boost as well as a ''lot'' of [[MacrossMissileMassacre missiles to throw around]]. In an emergency, however, you can execute the 'purge' command, which ejects all that extra armor and weaponry, reverting the Veritech to its standard model and re-enabling transformation.

* ''Junkworld'' has the Junk Mutt enemies, fast-moving psionically animated scrap in the form of dogs. When they lose all their health, their out armor breaks off and they turn into a Nimble Hound that's weaker but ''even faster''.

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* A variant in ''Toys/{{BIONICLE}}'': During the Bohrok arc, the Toa discovered armor suits called "Exo-Toa" that boosted their durability and physical strength. However, they soon discovered this came at the cost of reduced elemental powers, and ended up shedding the armor in order to defeat the Bahrag queens.
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* In the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime, specifically ''Sun and Moon'', Kiawe's Turtonator knows, and has used, Shell Smash. See the video game section below for more.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''LightNovel/FateZero'', Saber discovers during her fight with Lancer that his weapon can ignore magical objects (like her armor), so she removes it to gain a boost in speed with little cost since it wasn't actually protecting her. [[spoiler: Which he'd planned for, he actually had a second weapon that causes much more dangerous wounds but could be blocked by armor.]]

* In ''LightNovel/UndefeatedBahamutChronicle'', this is a formal technique called Break Purge. By removing most of their armour and concentrating energy to the remaining pieces, a Drag-Knight can increase their offence and speed at the expense of defence. Celis is a specialist in this technique and often uses it against tough opponents.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', whenever Samus uses her Final Smash, she sheds her [[PoweredArmor Varia Suit]] and fights in the [[VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission skin-tight Zero Suit she wears underneath]], becoming lighter and much, ''much'' faster, as observed by Snake in his Codec conversation with Mei Ling. If you choose to start a battle as Samus in her Zero Suit form, she emerges on the stage with pieces of her power armor falling off of her, which can be picked up and thrown at opponents right from the start of the match. ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU Smash 4]]'' does away with this quirk and made both forms of Samus separate characters.

** Similar to the abpve example is King. [[spoiler:King being a Lunarian grants him several powers, including a flame on his back that he can extinguish and reignite at will. While the flame is burning, King is ludicrously tough, to the point of being NighInvulnerable. When the flame is out, King becomes much faster, but loses his insane resilliance to attacks. Zoro figuring this put is the key to allowing him to defeat King.]]

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': Although he doesn't shed actual armor, Rob Lucci's use of the Life Return technique is essentially this trope. Using the technique in his half-leopard hybrid form, he turns his bulky and resistant body into a much slimmer form. What he loses in power and defense, he gains in agility and speed.

* Shurikenger from ''Series/NinpuuSentaiHurricaneger'' (and his American counterpart, the Green Samurai Ranger from ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm''), have this transformation as their SuperMode. In their default morphed form. they appear to wear a large golden vest that acts as armor and weighted gear, when entering SuperMode they quickly discard the vest, which granted them - among a new visor (by the top part of the helmet spinning around) and a samurai saber - extra speed.
** Impressively when the golden vest hits the ground, it ends up ''shaking, cracking and leaving a crater'' from it's ''sheer weight''. Alongside that, discarding the vest reveals that [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/powerrangers/images/a/a1/Prns-supergreen.png/ the diamond logo on the suit actually has wings on it's sides]] ([[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/powerrangers/images/c/cf/Prns-samurai.png/ that the vest covers up]]). Which emphasizes the [[SuperSpeed speed boost]] the SuperMode gives.

** Subverted in ''Series/KamenRiderAgito''. The manmade G3 system has a function which allows the user to shed his armor to allow for more speed. However, it's more or less an emergency switch that allows the user drop the cumbersome armor to make a quick getaway from a dangerous situation, not a form of MultiformBalance. It's only used once in the series by DirtyCoward Toru Hojo.

** An organic version happens in ''Series/KamenRiderFaiz'', where the Dragon Orphenoch sheds most of his skin and muscle mass to turn into a sleeker skeletal looking form, which is fast enough to keep up with the Faiz Accel form that's reputed to be as fast as the speed of sound.

** ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'' has Kamen Rider Geiz's MidseasonUpgrade Geiz Revive Shippu trades the thick armor and enormous strength of Revive Goretsu for Super Speed so great that even being able to predict the future isn't enough to reliably dodge Geiz's attacks.

** The move Scale Shot, available via move tutors [[spoiler:or naturally learned by Roaring Moon]], is a multi-hit attack that drops its user's Defense by one stage but increases its Speed by one stage after each hit.

** The move Shell Smash is inspired by this trope. All of the user's defensive stats drop by one, but their offensive stats (including speed) increase by 2. Gen 9 introduced the ability version of Shell Smash called Angry Shell, which only happens when the user has half or lower health. Additionally, the move Fillet Away (unique to the Pokémon Veluza) is a variant in which, rather than dropping their defenses, the user sheds surplus ''[[CastFromHP flesh]]'' to increase their speed and offensive capabilities.

** Shelmet and Karrablast exhibit this when they evolve. They only evolve when one is traded for the other. Effectively, mid-trade, Karrablast swipes Shelmet's metal shell. Karrablast slows down and becomes the MightyGlacier Escavalier, while the newly-unencumbered Shelmet evolves into Accelgor, the second fastest non-legendary non-Mega Pokemon ever released.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', whenever Samus uses her Final Smash, she sheds her [[PoweredArmor Varia Suit]] and fights in the [[VideoGame/MetroidZeroMission skin-tight Zero Suit she wears underneath]], becoming lighter and much, ''much'' faster. ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU Smash 4]]'' does away with this quirk and made both forms of Samus separate characters.
* In ''VideoGame/GodOfWarIII'', Hercules is decked out in armor that makes him move slowly, and which Kratos knocks off bit by bit. When the armor's gone completely, Herc becomes much faster, but can be defeated in only a few more hits. Unfortunately it also becomes tougher to get those hits in, because for the first time in the fight Herculus will be trying to dodge.

* In ''VideoGame/GodOfWarIII'', Hercules is decked in full armor that makes him move slowly, which Kratos knocks off bit by bit. When the armor's gone completely, Herc becomes much faster, but can be defeated in only a few more hits.