History Main / SkillGateCharacters

** Lash is a fine example, being a CO who is seen as one of the best [[PurposelyOverpowered non-broken]] [=COs=] in the game by new players but discounted as trash by veterans and pros at the game. The reason being is at first glance she has a strong power, +10% attack for every terrain defense star, no weaknesses whatsoever, and apparently strong CO powers (no movement costs from her regular, and no movement costs AND doubled terrain stars for her super). However what cripples her is how lackluster her regular and super CO powers actually are and a hidden mechanic regarding terrain stars. The cost of her powers (4 for her regular and 7 for her Super) are rather high for what they do, costing the same as Kanbei, Olaf, and Drake's utterly ''devastating'' super powers and actually costing more than Andy, Sonja, and Rachael's downright savage super powers -- Lash's meanwhile will only significantly affect a small percentage of her units, those in forests, on properties, or infantry units on mountains, and won't affect air and most naval units at all. Furthermore, terrain stars scale with the HP of the unit: a unit at 5 HP will get only half the terrain stars it would normally get, meaning that while most boosts to attack and defense still make a difference -- even a 5 HP Max tank is notably more powerful, and a 5 HP Kanbei tank nigh-invulnerable, as they still enjoy full power boosts, while Lash's power boosts quickly melt away as her units suffer damage. At the end of the day, while she has a decent day-to-day power, her CO and Super CO powers are so comparably weak that she effectively loses all momentum the moment her opponent gets one good Super, and this ''will'' happen before she even gets her's: she is [[https://awbw.amarriner.com/co_tiers.php officially listed as Tier 3 on the competive league]], ''and'' seen as one who is too weak for Tier 3 but too strong for Tier 4, ''for a reason''. Ironically, despite this, they ''still'' saw fit to savagely nerf her in ''Dual Strike'', reducing her attack from +10% to +5% per star and designing Sonja to hard-counter her by reducing enemy defense stars by 1 and having stronger counter-attacks, which ironically makes her one of the worst [=COs=] in that game.

* ''VideoGame/NintendoWars'':

->[The Melodious archetype’s strategy is] ''...the TabletopGame/{{Yugioh}} equivalent of a middle schooler on [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty COD]] running around with a riot shield, and scream bloody murder when they lose to somebody who knows how to deal with it.''

** ''Black Hole Rising'' and ''Dual Strike'' have Max. His firepower bonus to direct combat units, which includes strong units like Neotanks and Bombers, allow him to easily sweep aside inexperienced players, especially while his CO Powers are in effect. But in high-level play, Indirect units like Artillery are extremely important (Grit, who specializes in Indirects, is considered a GameBreaker), and Max's indirect are not only weak, but have 1 less range. This essentially renders Artillery useless for him, which makes him very easy to out-manoeuvre. Note that this is not the case in the first game, where his 50% firepower bonus to direct units made him a GameBreaker.
** Hawke's 10% firepower bonus to all units for no apparent drawback often gets him labelled as overpowered by inexperienced players. In reality this isn't as much of an advantage as you'd think, and his very expensive CO Powers are a significant weakness, especially in longer matches. Not helping is that the Campaign missions against him tend to have him start with an overwhelming advantage, to hype him up as a KnightOfCerebus. With so many expensive pre-deployed units, players will be hit by his CO Powers far more than they'll be in a regular match.

** In the first generation's competitive scene, Machamp is a common sight in lower brackets due to it being the hardest-hitting Fighting-type in the game in a generation where nearly all teams run three Normal-types. Despite being slow, it's relatively bulky, even tanks like Snorlax and Chansey don't like switching into its
STAB moves, and even Tauros (a common candidate for the best Pokémon outside of Ubers) is hard-pressed to take on Machamp if it's been paralyzed. However, Machamp is incredibly vulnerable to paralysis itself, its typing gives it no useful resistances and a positively ''crippling'' weakness to Psychic (which is only slightly less common than Normal), making it far less bulky than it looks, and its strongest STAB move, Submission, is downright terrible, being inaccurate and doing recoil to Machamp. Add in the fact that Rhydon does its job as a MightyGlacier much better, and you have a Pokémon that is almost entirely unseen outside of those lower brackets.

->[The Melodious archetype’s only viable strategy is] ''...the TabletopGame/{{Yugioh}} equivalent of a middle schooler on [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty COD]] running around with a riot shield, and scream bloody murder when they lose to somebody who knows how to deal with it.''

** In generation one, [[MightyGlacier Machamp]] was firmly this in competitive play. Generation one was defined by two types of Pokémon, one of which being Normal-types. Machamp, with its high attack stat and Fighting type, would seem like the best AntiMetagameCharacter. Plus, with gen one allowing for maxed out [=EVs=], Machamp could, on paper, have respectable physical bulk, and deal massive damage to the Normal-types (namely Tauros, Chansey, and Snorlax). Plus, the presence of Thunder Wave could allow Machamp to outspeed the Normal-types of the metagame and take them out. However, there's one major issue with Machamp: as a Fighting-type, it has to deal with tons of flaws that ruin any hope of viability for it. As a Fighting-type, resistances for it in the metagame were practically non-existent, with the Rock-type resistance almost never coming into play due to the premier Rock-type Rhydon preferring to use Earthquake, and the Bug-type resistance almost never being seen aside from the occasional Jolteon running Pin Missile, making it hard for Machamp to get in safely. Additionally, good Fighting-type moves are scarce in generation one, with the best one Machamp can learn being the mediocre Submission — a base 80 power move with 80% accuracy that has [[CastFromHitPoints recoil damage]], meaning that while Machamp ''could'' tear through Normal-types, it would quickly wear itself down as using Submission inflicted massive recoil damage onto it. Additionally, while Machamp appreciated Thunder Wave support, it was also vulnerable to the attack as well, and getting hit would guarantee it would never outspeed the Normal-types. However, the true nail in the coffin is Machamp's weakness to the second dominant type in the metagame: [[BrainsVersusBrawn Psychic]]. When there was a Normal-type on the field in generation one, a Psychic-type was sure to follow, and Machamp was completely helpless against Psychic-types such as Alakazam, Starmie, Jynx, Exeggutor, and Slowbro, who resisted Submission and completely destroyed it. Because of this, Machamp, while often used in lower level play due to its ability to take out Normal-types, is practically never used in high level generation one play.

** Armor knights are very commonly this, as their sheer MightyGlacier bulk is extremely helpful for players who are bad at minding hits. On lower difficulties, they can often border on invincibility, able to NoSell attacks left and right from weak starting enemies, and making them an excellent fallback option. Once a player gets better at keeping track of enemy damage, the tankiness of an armor knight becomes less necessary, and their signature poor mobility gives them little to do outside of soaking up damage. This often changes by the game, however, especially in the more recent games where the player's turn tends to mean more than the enemy's turn, where storms of incredibly weak cannon fodder have given way to small batches of strong singular units that practically require a tank to deal with.

** Ambipom in RU is a particularly extreme example, having the highest usage of all Pokémon legal in RU play...until those usage stats are weighted according to skill, and then its usage falls low enough as to drop out of the tier entirely. Its Fake Out move is, in theory, a completely free and powerful hit on something, allowing Ambipom to easily break through users of Focus Sash (a common item among newbies) or simply KO the mon it's facing with a second hit. In practice against experts, though, it's an easy switch in to a mon that resists both Ambipom's Fake Out and its most powerful moves at the same time - and there are many examples of such mons, due to Ambipom's heavily limited coverage. It doesn't help at all that Fake Out is literally the only thing it has over competition such as Cinccino, or even better yet, Tauros, which can do everything else Ambipom can conceivably do and better. Nowadays experts consider it the single worst legal Pokémon in RU play, which baffles many beginners who still lose to it frequently.

* In generation one, [[MightyGlacier Machamp]] was firmly this in competitive play. Generation one was defined by two types of Pokémon, one of which being normal types. Machamp, with it's high attack stat and fighting type, would seem like the best AntiMetagameCharacter. Plus, with gen one allowing for maxed out EV's, Machamp could on paper, have respectable physical bulk, and deal massive damage to the normal types (namely Tauros, Chansey, and Snorlax). Plus, the pressence of thunder wave could allow Machamp to outspeed the normal types of the metagame and take the, out. However. There's one major issue with Machamp. As a fighting type, it has to deal with tons of flaws that ruin any hope of viability for it. As a fighting type, resistances for it in the metagame were practically non-existent, with the rock type resistance almost never coming into play due to the premier rock type, Rhydon preferring to use Earthquake, and the bug type resistance almost never being seen aside from the occasional Jolteon running pin missile, making it hard for machamp to get in safely. Additionally, good fighting-type moves are scarce in generation one. With the best one machamp can learn being submission. A base 80 power move with 80% accuracy that has [[CastFromHitPoints recoil damage]], meaning that while Machamp ''could'' tear through normal types, it would [[SelfDamagingAttackBackfire quickly wear itself down as using submission inflicted recoil damage onto it]]. Additionally, while Machamp appreciated thunder wave support, it was also vulnerable to the attack as well, and getting hit would guarantee machamp would never outspeed the normal types. However, the true nail in the coffin is Machamps weakness to the second dominant type in the metagame: [[BrainVersusBrawn psychic]]. When there's a normal type on the field in generation one, a psychic type was sure to follow, and Machamp was completely helpless against the psychic types of Alakazam, Starmie, Jynx, Exeggutor, and Slowbro, who resisted submission and completely destroyed it. Because of this, Machamp, while often used in lower level play due to it's ability to take out Normal types, is practically never used in high level generation one play.

** The Heavy's attack plan boils down to revving up the Minigun, point at an enemy, and watch them die. He has large enough health that even if the enemy shoots first, there's good chance he'll survive to shred them with his tremendous damage output, and the fact Medics naturally flock towards him will greatly extend his durability. He also lack advanced mobility tricks such as explosive jumping, forcing him to remain grounded and predictable. That being said, a Heavy's presence in a battlefield simply cannot be ignored, and he's often the lynchpin of many engagements.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'', low-gravity planets, like [[UnderTheSea Oleana]] and [[OneGenderRace Starrii]], are good for novices because their slow movements give them time to think. At higher levels of play, however, they start falling behind against higher-gravity planets that can score and attack faster than they can. Most low-gravity planets can still win matches through flawless or near-flawless play (even in high-level play, low-gravity planets still have the advantage of a greater margin of error ''because'' of their slower pace) and, in ''Meteos Wars'', well-timed Planet Impacts.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'', Mordecai's special ability, unleashing his pet hawk Bloodwing, can wipe out most low-level non-boss enemies, turning it into an "I Win" button in the early game. As the game progresses, though, the enemies increase in strength more quickly than Bloodwing does, reducing its effect and making the late game far more difficult.
** Axton in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' has an easy to use Action Skill in the same vein as Mordecai's, with his turret providing easy damage at range, and his specialty in increasing grenade damage pairs wonderfully with Torgue guns. After Normal difficulty, however, the turret drops off in power and becomes much easier for enemies to destroy, and the importance of elemental damage on higher difficulties makes most Torgue guns useless, while Axton's over-emphasis on the turret and lack of bonuses to his own damage output causes him to fall behind all of the other characters.
** Gaige, from the same game, has an extremely frontloaded skill tree that provides the overwhelming majority of its good skills immediately. Her Anarchy and Close Enough skills cause her to do large amounts of damage and often hit even when she misses, making her easy for even novice players to be effective with, her Action Skill is a pet type like Mordecai's, and her entire "Best Friends Forever" skill tree was specifically designed with ease of use in mind. Lead designer John Hemingway referred to it as "the girlfriend skill tree," i.e. the mode that your newbie girlfriend can play without being overwhelmed. This skill tree structure makes Gaige an unusual example of this trope: while the sheer power of Anarchy ensures Gaige's performance remains excellent through all difficulties, she's one of the most ''boring'' characters to level up past 30 because nothing waiting further up her skill tree is as good as what she receives at the beginning.

** Spies also fall victim to this trope, as it's tough to use their one-hit kill when the enemy is competent enough to check behind them regularly; the only reason they're useful in comp play at all is because nobody expects you to use a Spy. This is especially true in Highlander matches, where each team has one of each unit: while most units are at least somewhat useful within their niche, the Spy not only has to deal with the near-impossibility of backstabs, but the fact that there's always an enemy Pyro on the field.

** Talonflame, in [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Generation VI]] of ''Pokémon''. This Pokémon comes with the ability Gale Wings, which gives it priority to all of its flying type moves.[[note]]On later generations, Gale Wings was nerfed so it only gives priority if Talonflame is at full HP.[[/note]] That, coupled with a very high Speed stat and a decent Attack stat, means it can get [[FragileSpeedster one hit KOs]] against the majority of Pokémon in the game, without even giving them the chance to strike back. Less experienced players have a lot of trouble dealing with it. But veteran players, after the initial shock, have learned to deal with it, and the metagame has adapted to it by having people use Pokémon with better defenses to counter its mediocre attack and limited coverage. Nowadays it's still a pretty good Pokémon, but it's only flawless against new players.

** [[HornyDevils Evelynn]] used to be an assassin type with invisibility and a stun attack. Against newbies she tends to get about 30 kills and carry the game. Anyone clever enough to figure out you need to buy an anti-invisibility potion will own her.

* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilOutbreak'', you can pick from a number of survivors trying to get through the T-Virus outbreak that destroyed Raccoon City. Of these, Kevin the cop [[LightningBruiser is the fastest character with the second-highest HP, he starts with a powerful pistol and the ability to "aim" his shots to do more damage, and he has a powerful kick]]. His only real weakness is a relatively short virus gauge.

** The Aerospray RG. This is a main weapon with a very short range but a very high fire rate and high running speed when firing. In addition to having, unsurprisingly, the Inkstrike as its Special Weapon, its absurd capacity for inking large amounts of ground in a short period of time is offset by how it will invariably be useless if an opponent with a longer-range weapon (that is, all of them except a few) spots an Aerospray user. Low-level rooms in ''Splatoon 1'' often have multiple Aerospray RG users, though there are some highly skilled users who have learned how to hide and ambush with one.
** The Carbon Roller and the Carbon Roller Deco have become this due to the balance patches landing a series of {{nerf}}s to rollers in general. The Carbon Rollers are oversized paint rollers, tracing a wide path of ink behind them as long as it's held to the ground, and they have the highest running speed among all traditional rollers. This means that, like the Aerospray, they are very good at inking a lot very quickly. However, they have a harder time eliminating enemies in their way than any other roller, as Carbon Rollers lack most one-hit splat moves all other rollers have, and any time spent rolling out ink is time spent exposed to enemies. Popular at first, both Carbon Rollers eventually fell to the wayside when they attracted the attention of snipers who could safely remove them from a secure location.

** In fourth-generation competitive play, [[ShockAndAwe Electivire]] was considered one such example. It's got a good movepool, awesome offensive stats, decent speed, and alright defensive typing, which makes it dominate in the in-game and casual departments... But in the advanced {{metagame}} it starts to really fall apart. In a metagame where something with that kind of power is essentially required to be quick enough to be a LightningBruiser (no pun intended) or ''very'' strong defenses, its "decent" base speed of 95 is questionable in competitive play (Especially since it's pre-evolution, electabuzz, [[PowerUpLetDown is faster than electivire with base 105]]. Combined with the ubiquity of Earthquake, its GlassCannon nature, and the fact that "super-effective" does not equal "OneHitKill" as is often sought for in the metagame, it doesn't fare well competitively. It also doesn’t help that in generation 4, it's main physical STAB (same-type attack bonus, which increases attack damage if the attacks type matches the type of the user), Thunder Punch, wasn’t strong enough to punch holes in the enemy team, as it's best used as a ''coverage move'' due to it's meager base 75 power, a move run by pokémon to hit pokémon that resist it's main STAB for super effective damage. While it could learn thunderbolt, it's special attack was the same medicore special attack as electabuzzes, and running it would force it to divy up it's effort values between it's attack stats, weakening it's coverage, typically cross chop and ice punch, and leaving the latter pitifully weak. Later generations gave it a base 90 power physical electric attack in wild charge, which sounds good…[[SelfDamagingAttackBackfire until it was revealed at have recoil]], meaning using it made Electivire even MORE frail, and the attack wasn't nearly strong enough to warrant recoil (more useful recoil moves typically have base 120 power, but the slot of 120 base power physical electric move was taken up by Volt-Tackle, the Raichu lines SignatureAttack), meaning that gaining wild charge did practically nothing to help electivire.

Characters that are easy to use effectively for an amateur, but also easy to counter for an expert. Some circles call them pub stompers or scrub stompers. They often are [[MightyGlacier extremely slow]], so that a faster character can bash them around without ever getting hit, or [[GlassCannon extremely frail]] (and possibly [[FragileSpeedster fast]]), with sturdier characters demonstrating that the most important HitPoint is the [[CriticalExistenceFailure last]]. CripplingOverspecialization may also be at play. However, these characters may sometimes stay solid past the end of their "glory days" if used well enough and not have their once powerful weapon expected to be a GameBreaker. And in some instances, [[TakeAThirdOption none of the following applies]]: the character is [[JackOfAllStats simply ''good'' without necessarily excelling in any area]] and typically has a fairly straightforward gameplan and playstyle that's designed to make them easy to use for new players; however, they are outshined by the rest of the cast in various areas (whether it's offence or defence). In fighting games, this is heavily associated with TheGrappler, where most of the difficulty in facing one is being able to keep them from reaching you; players who struggle with this tend to fall right into an InstantDeathRadius.

** In fourth-generation competitive play, [[ShockAndAwe Electivire]] was considered one such example. It's got a good movepool, awesome offensive stats, decent speed, and alright defensive typing, which makes it dominate in the in-game and casual departments... But in the advanced {{metagame}} it starts to really fall apart. In a metagame where something with that kind of power is essentially required to be quick enough to be a LightningBruiser (no pun intended) or ''very'' strong defenses, its "decent" base speed of 95 is questionable in competitive play. Combined with the ubiquity of Earthquake, its GlassCannon nature, and the fact that "super-effective" does not equal "OneHitKill" as is often sought for in the metagame, it doesn't fare well competitively.

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* In ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'', the [[LimitBreak Special Weapon]] [[DeathFromAbove Inkstrike]] allows the user to create a large circle of ink of his or her team's color anywhere on the stage that he or she wants. Also, any opponents caught in that circle when it lands is [[OneHitKill instantly splatted]]. As the objective of ''Splatoon'' is to ink more ground than your opponents, the Inkstrike comes off as very attractive to newcomers, and indeed, they are effective against those who don't take advantages of its weaknesses: It has a very long startup time beforehand and a cooldown time afterwards that's almost as long, meaning anyone who uses Inkstrike becomes a sitting duck to any opponents who can get in close. It also comes with a warning signal to opponents that shows exactly where it'll land about three seconds before it does, so experienced players will rarely get hit by one. The Inkstrike is by far the most common Special Weapon in the lower ranks and among people below Level 30, but it drops off sharply above Level 30 and in the A and S Ranks, becoming near-nonexistent towards the top, even after the buffs in the 2016 balance patches. That being said, the Inkstrike is still valued at every level of play for being the only means of inking a lot of ground after time runs out--any Inkstrikes still in progress when time runs out will still explode ink with opponents unable to do anything about it, making it great for tipping the scales in an otherwise even match.
** Alongside that is the Aerospray RG. This is a main weapon with a very short range but a very high fire rate and high running speed when firing. In addition to having, unsurprisingly, the Inkstrike as its Special Weapon, its absurd capacity for inking large amounts of ground in a short period of time is offset by how it will invariably be useless if an opponent with a longer-range weapon (that is, all of them except a few) spots an Aerospray user. Low-level rooms often have multiple Aerospray RG users, though there are some highly skilled users who have learned how to hide and ambush with one.