History Main / SlapOnTheWristNuke

** A lot of the [[HigherTechSpecies protoss]] weaponry is like this. Artanis' Purifier Beam is canonically meant for burning all life off of planets. In game, it chases a hero around at less than walking speed for a bit. Likewise, Fenix's Planet Cracker is supposed to - well, [[EarthShatteringKaboom guess]] - but it's just an easily dodged laser.
** Zig-zagged in regards to the actual nukes on Warhead Junction. These will appropriately rip through structures. If a hero gets caught in one, they take 30% of their max health in damage. Due to the nature of percent damage, tanks will get decimated by the hit while squishier heroes take the equivalent of any hard-hitting ability, effectively walking away from a blast that just razed the surrounding buildings.

** Probably the best example of this is Lion's Finger of Death. Yes, it does a ridiculous amount of damage, but considering how its description says that it ''turns the target inside out'', it probably ought to be more like a OneHitKill rather than something that all but the squishiest of {{Glass Cannon}}s can survive if they aren't already low on health.
** Necrophos' Heartstopper Aura. Apparently, stopping your enemies' hearts means passively inflicting slight DamageOverTime (albeit as a FixedDamageAttack based on your maximum HP) in a large radius.

* In ''Anime/{{Digimon}}'', Starmon's attack is called, and basically ''is'', a Meteor Shower... but is otherwise an average champion-level attack.

* The ''VideoGame/NarutoUltimateNinjaStorm'' games love this trope. Most Ultimate Ninjutsu really should shred the target's body, if not outright vaporize it. They take 3-4 hits to kill from full health. This one probably takes the cake:
-->'''Masked Man''': [[SummonMagic Summoning Jutsu:]] [[EldritchAbomination Nine-Tails!]] ''[Cue the FantasticNuke which explicitly decimates the terrain... and does about a quarter of the enemy's health at best.]''

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--> '''Saint of Killers''': Not enough gun.

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* In ''WebComic/EightBitTheatre'', Black Mage has the ''continent of Australia'' dropped on him. The resulting tidal wave wipes out a nearby village, but Black Mage himself is barely scratched.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E9SideshowBobsLastGleaming Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming]]", Sideshow Bob manages to set off a nuclear bomb inside Springfield's Air Force base - that releases an explosion about a foot wide. He then notices that printed on the side of the bomb is the disclaimer "Best before Dec 1959."
--> '''Bob''': ''[to himself]'' There were plenty of brand-new bombs, but you had to go for that retro '50s charm!

* Some of the spells in ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'' are like this--even though they might take away a significant number of HP, from the spell descriptions there ought to be no way the target can survive.
** And some of the weakest spells in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' include falling stars, a tidal wave and a tornado. Due to CompetitiveBalance, anything that disables opponents for a significant amount of time deals barely any damage regardless of what it is supposed to be. Ziggs' ''actual'' nuke is fairly powerful for an ultimate, but this means about 1/4th of a high-level character's health bar in an area that's half as wide as the river.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': The Finger of Death spell's own tooltip says that it turns the target unit inside-out, destroying it instantly. Accordingly, this isn't a spell available in multiplayer, and even in the campaign it's only used by the BigBad, can be used on units and buildings but not heroes, has a short cooldown and costs no mana... but the simple fact is that it does 500 damage, only enough to outright kill all but a single tier-one unit (the orc grunt) and severely inconvenience higher-tier ones, but nowhere near the instakill promised. The expansion has a watered-down but more widespread version called Finger of Pain, which does 250 damage (enough to kill a WorkerUnit) but costs mana, has a longer cooldown and can't target buildings.

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[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/HeartsOfIronIV https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rpyqf4u.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Don't worry. Germany's fine.]]

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/HeartsOfIronIV https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rpyqf4u.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Don't worry. Germany's fine.]]

* In ''WebComic/Eatatau,'' an Eldar warband nukes a force of Necrons assaulting their position. Due to the Necron Lord's timely application of Orb of Ressurrection, they get right back up and continue the assault. Of course, they should have been at least melted into slag, if not outright vapourized. There's also no fallout (although Eldar are made of sterner stuff than humans, so maybe they could just ignore it).

** You know what's awesome? Rexflame in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Radiant Dawn]]''. Turn off animations, and you'll still see the river of freaking lava swallow up the entire screen, but the only thing hurt is the enemy you were aiming at. Singular.

* The ''VideoGame/NarutoShippudenUltimateNinjaStorm'' games love this trope. Most Ultimate Ninjutsu really should shred the target's body, if not outright vaporize it. They take 3-4 hits to kill from full health. This one probably takes the cake:

* ''VideoGame/NarutoShippudenUltimateNinjaStorm3'' loves this trope. Most Ultimate Ninjutsu really should shred the target's body, if not outright vaporize it. They take 3-4 hits to kill from full health. This one probably takes the cake:

** Madara Uchiha drops a meteor on someone's head, and then ''another'' meteor on top of ''that'' one. [[spoiler: Edo-Nagato]] forms a floating planetoid with his enemy crushed in the center, then blows the whole thing up with his ArmCannon. Etc, etc...

** This can be even funnier in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': Gilgamesh is playable, and Ea (in his Archer version) is his [[LimitBreak Noble Phantasm.]] However, in the game, attacks that affect multiple targets (like, say, an attack that destroys the planet) deal less damage than single-target hits, so many enemies are capable of surviving it. Add in TacticalRockPaperScissors, and Gil's planet-nuking blast can be outdamaged by [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower a technique from Sasaki Koujiro]] that's pretty much three katana swings (near-undodgeable katana swings happening simultaneously, but still).

** Some non-finishing moves in Mortal Kombat would be extremely deadly in normal circumstances. Particularily JustForFun/{{egregious}} are the X-Rays in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', where you get to see in vivid detail how the move causes all sorts of gruesome injuries like getting their skull crushed, their organs punctured, their spine shattered or their ribcage broken. More often than not, these attacks also involve getting sharp weapons or claws going through the head or chest. Even though it takes away a huge chunk off a fighter's health, the opponent on the receiving end just stands up and keeps fighting after the attack, like the whole ordeal was about as inconveniencing as scraping your knee.

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** The nukes in the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlertSeries'' always were relatively weak for nukes, but those in the first ''Red Alert'' game are the worst of the bunch, having barely enough yield to take out a pair of power plants and being unable to even completely destroy a Medium Tank with a direct hit. If you see the white flash of a nuke in the Allied campaign, though, your base just disappeared. Only in multiplayer, though; in single player, the nuke can literally destroy ANY building, including construction yards. Can be used to great effect in some missions of the Covert Ops.

** Considering that the Strike Cruiser and Battle Barge are optimized for orbital bombardment and are using their secondary weapons, they probably just turned they power down a bunch.
** In the sequel, the Orbital Bombardment is tweaked; it now does even more damage on those it hits, but each individual blast has pitiful splash damage range, and has an overly long build-up time. You will ONLY successfully pull it off if you can use scouts' infiltration successfully, or call it down [[WeHaveReserves on top of your own troops]], at which point your other forces still have to mop up at least 50% of the enemy units. Then, in the ''Retribution'' expansion, we see that what we thought were godly cannons from the stars were overgrown point-defense weapons, as an Exterminatus fleet arrives to [[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt perform its designated function]].

*** The Espers' final attacks often fall into this category. They all have long elaborate movies that typically show the Espers creating all kinds of natural disasters such as tornadoes, tsunamis, a meteor from space, and even an ion canon. Zodiark gets the best though, since his final attack seems to be an explosion on the scale of the ''big bang''. Espers themselves are basically useless as allies in this game, dealing nowhere near the amount of damage your regular party would deal in the same amount of time.

* Creator/SquareEnix in general seems to like the trope. In ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'', all three of [[RuleOfThree the Level Three fusions]] qualify. Shiki's summons a Franchise/{{Godzilla}}-like cat monster, Beat's summons a huge tsunami out of nowhere, and Joshua's ''[[ColonyDrop drops the freaking moon]]'' on the battlefield. It's actually justified that it doesn't damage the real world, since the FightWoosh took you to a different plane of existence -- but then you want to know why the Noise plane was also unaffected.

** Same could be said for the Meteor summon. Also done with the final boss's most powerful attack in the sequel, but the damage seems to be random, though deadly most of time.

** Daedalus: a giant robot that starts with a MacrossMissileMassacre, then fire a huge missile. The first wave deals moderate damage,and on the next turn, a missile the size of the screen turns up and still fails to atomize the enemy.

** Also subverted in ''VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness''. Don Joaquin's Galactic Power summons a meteor [[spoiler:which is pathetically weak, and is accompanied by a sound affect which sounds something like "plop"]].

** Not only do nearly all of these "nuke" powers consume all of your endurance to use them and have some of the longest recharge times in the games, they can also MISS your foes completely and leave you exhausted and defenseless in the middle of a pack of angry foes.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfDragoon'' gives you the ability to summon dragons capable of dealing far more damage than any other single spell, but given the mana requirements only one of them is actually any better then spamming the next most powerful spell, or the non-magical dragoon additions. Hell even entering dragoon mode at all means you'll deal less damage than with your strongest regular additions. Some bosses even impose further penalties on the use of these powers. They are still the most visually impressive moves in the whole game. though. Also, a select few bosses need the defense boosts of that dragoon mode gives to be even remotely beatable.
* Certain powerful spells in ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' games, especially those used by late game bosses, tend to have impressive animations involving planets, black holes, six foot pillars of light and other such eye candy. However, even if after all that your opponent doesn't outright ''dodge'' it, it may or may not be fatal and is guaranteed to only affect one person on the entire battlefield at a time.

* In the ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' series, the nuke spell (also called Armageddon) will do tremendous damage to ''everything'' in the same area, including the caster, and will kill all civilians instantly. Due to engine limitations it has no effect on buildings and terrain, though.

*** Technically, at least if we're talking black dragons, dragon-scale is magic-proof. They ignore anything magical, whether it's a puny magical arrow, a conjured lightning bolt, or a spell that, in the role playing games, would lay waste to entire regions (man, but that was a fast way to rack up those evil points).

* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', [[spoiler:[[TrueFinalBoss Asriel Dreemurr]] has "Hyper Goner" for his ultimate attack of his first form, where the dodging space expands to cover the entire screen (''[[DramaticDisappearingDisplay even the status bar]]'') and he forms a black hole like suction that sucks you and several damaging diamond shaped projectiles towards it. Despite the incredible animation, it can only leave you at 1 HP. After that, though, he transforms into his second form where you're unable to use items at first and you're forced to dodge several tricky volleys of projectiles, though thankfully DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist during the entire fight]].

* Many weapons in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' fall into this. The Soldier's rocket launcher, for instance, requires at least two shots to kill any given class (unless it's the Direct Hit, which still only one-shots the weakest classes, or a CriticalHit). Either they're uncommonly weak rockets, or everyone, even the ones without armor, is MadeOfIron.

* Used constantly on a smaller scale in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' and its various adaptations, with weapons that should cause incredible amounts of damage, if not merely instantly killing the target, causing rather standard damage instead. A lot of the time it's justified by the target being equally incredibly resilient, but when Bolters (firing a [[{{BFG}} .75 caliber rocket assisted shell meant to explode a split second after penetrating the target]]) is used against normal humans without them exploding it gets a bit puzzling.

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* In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', Gilgamesh possesses a sword said to be bound with the creation of the world. Its main attack is described as 'anti-world' in strength and thus presumably capable of destroying the world -- except that whenever it is used, it never seems to do worse than knock the main characters around a bit and put a few dents in the local concrete. The reason being that while it's ''capable'' of destroying the world, its wielder has zero interest in doing that (kind of a dumb thing to do when you're planning on ruling the world). The only times we see a hint of Ea's real power is in ''LightNovel/FateZero'' and ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia'', where Ea is used in alternate dimensions, and thus those dimensions are the "world" that is destroyed by it. At its full strength it's shown ripping holes in reality and annihilating entire armies with a single swing.

** This can be even funnier in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': Gilgamesh is playable, and Ea (in his Archer version) is his [[LimitBreak Noble Phantasm.]] However, in the game, attacks that affect multiple targets (like, say, an attack that destroys the planet) deal less damage than single-target hits, so many enemies are capable of surviving it. Add in TacticalRockPaperScissors, and Gil's planet-nuking blast can be outdamaged by [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower a technique from Sasaki Koujiro]] that's pretty much three katana swings (near-undodgeable katana swings, but still).

** This can be even funnier in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': Gilgamesh is playable, and Ea (in his Archer version) is his [[LimitBreak Noble Phantasm.]] However, in the game, attacks that affect multiple targets (like, say, an attack that destroys the planet) deal less damage than single-target hits, so many enemies are capable of surviving it. Add in TacticalRockPaperScissors, and Gil's planet-nuking blast can be outdamaged by [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower an unusually good katana technique]] from Sasaki Koujiro (who isn't even a proper Servant).

* In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', one character possesses a sword said to be bound with the creation of the world. Its main attack is described as 'anti-world' in strength and thus presumably capable of destroying the world -- except that whenever it is used, it never seems to do worse than knock the main characters around a bit and put a few dents in the local concrete. The reason being that while it's ''capable'' of destroying the world, its wielder has zero interest in doing that (kind of a dumb thing to do when you're planning on ruling the world). The only times we see a hint of Ea's real power is in ''LightNovel/FateZero'' and ''VisualNovel/FateHollowAtaraxia'', where Ea is used in alternate dimensions, and thus those dimensions are the "world" that is destroyed by it. At its full strength it's shown ripping holes in reality and annihilating entire armies with a single swing.

** Some non-finishing moves in Mortal Kombat would be extremely deadly in normal circumstances. Particularily JustForFun/{{egregious}} are the X-Rays in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', where you get to see in vivid detail how the move causes all sorts of gruesome injuries like getting their skull crushed, their organs punctured, their spine shattered or their ribcage broken. More often than not, these attacks also involve getting sharp weapons or claws going through the head or chest. Even thought it takes away a huge chunk off a fighter's health, the opponent on the receiving end just stands up and keeps fighting like the whole ordeal was about as inconveniencing as scraping your knee.

** Some non-finishing moves in Mortal Kombat would be extremely deadly in normal circumstances. Particularily JustForFun/{{egregious}} are the X-Rays in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', where you get to see in vivid detail how the move causes all sorts of gruesome injuries like getting their skull crushed, their organs punctured, their spine shattered or their ribcage broken. More often than not, these attacks also involve getting sharp weapons or claws going through the head or chest. But after the attack, the oponent just stands up and keeps fighting like the whole ordeal was only mildly inconveniencing.

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** The Z-Moves, originating in ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'', can also come across as this trope due to their nature as cinematic attacks. The best example is Guardian of Alola, which only the [[OlympusMons Island Guardians]] can use: It depicts the Island Guardian climbing onto the magical equivalent of a HumongousMecha, which then pounds its fist on the target, but it is incapable of knocking out any Pokémon with more than 3 HP. Other examples include Inferno Overdrive, in which the user creates a fiery SphereOfDestruction the size of a building; and Continental Crush, which involves throwing a rock the size of a hill at the target; both of which can only hit one target and will leave other Pokémon alone even if they're standing right next to the target (let alone the Trainers). For Black Hole Eclipse, the user actually creates a black hole and sucks the target in, but again, nothing is harmed except for the single target.