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A pretty standard attack by heavy characters in video games, the Shockwave Stomp is where they smash on the ground and send out a wave of energy that causes damage to their enemies.
While often the side effect of the Ground Pound it can be done in various ways, using your fists, hammers ( or any other weapon for that matter), stomping or just by concentrating really hard. The attack is most likely to be seen as a coloured wave but sometimes you'll see the ground itself bubble over like somebody flipping a carpet.
The goal of the slam effect is usually to make distance between you and the opponent or to follow up with an attack which requires a charge-up time to perform while you are knocked down/back. The nastier video games can have the shockwave instantly kill you for failing to see it coming and moving out of the way.
Examples:
Action Adventure
- This is the first part of the team attack in Beyond Good And Evil—your partner creates a shockwave, sending all ground-bound enemies into the air. (The second half involves you attacking them, which allows you to throw them into the wall.)
- In the video game based on the fifth arc of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Diavolo's stand King Crimson creates shockwaves by punching the ground
 . As the video shows, you must use your own stand to block them.
- Ganondorf can do this with his fist in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Aside from inflicting damage, it causes parts of the floor to collapse.
- Prototype Alex Mercer can perform several variations of this, including a literal stomp. Dropping from sufficient heights, he automatically causes a shockwave on impact, but using special moves enhances the damage many times over. They can be most powerful moves in the game, but hellishly hard to aim.
- This is one of the first attacks gained by Eddie Riggs in Brütal Legend, and the attack/knockback radius and damage can be increased by switching to the Super Shakers for Clementine. Eddies' first real combo, it is done by using Clementine and the Seperator (A and X, respectively) simultaneously.
Action Game
- Rhino does this in the Ultimate Spider Man game.
- All of the bosses in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow seem to have this attack. Some harder more common enemies also occasionally like to do this too. This game really to do this to counter-attack spamming of the dodge-roll.
- The sumo dolls in Mendel Palace do this as a Counter Attack.
- An unlockable gadget in Batman Arkham City stores the kinetic energy when you dive-bomb into the ground to be released as a shockwave.
Beat 'em Up
Driving Game
- John Torque in Vigilante 8 does it with a large speaker in the boot of his car that creates a circular wave in the ground and invokes physics to flip cars into the air. It's a bit hard to use because if you're moving at any decent speed you overtake your own wave and get smashed up worse than your opponents.
Fighting Game
- In Super Smash Bros. Donkey Kong can clap against the ground, hitting nearby enemies.
- Yoshi and Bowser can do this with a Ground Pound attack, though the damage caused by the shockwave is a lot weaker then a direct hit.
- In almost any game starring The Incredible Hulk, the Hulk will have an attack that does this.
- Night Terror in Soul Calibur 3 does this when stabbing the ground. Several other characters' moves use tremors to stun the opponent as well.
- Potemkin's Slide Head in Guilty Gear. No fancy ground pounding here: he just stands rigidly and tips over face-first.
- Both Goro Daimon, and later, Chang Koehan of KOF are capable of this. Goro smashes the ground with a two-handed slap, while Chang stomps with a single foot. Interestingly, the move where Chang smashes his Iron Ball on the ground generally do not generate shockwaves(they still hurt, obviously).
- Satsuki in Melty Blood. Of particular note that her attack looks & sounds like she's having a tantrum and is pounding the ground.
- Jinpachi in Tekken 5 has a variety of this, which stuns you regardless of whether you're on the ground.
- The Big Daddy in Play Station All Stars Battle Royale has a Down+Triangle move in which is smashes its drill into the ground several times, stunning anyone within its surprisingly large range before sending any caught victims flying. This is derived from the Bouncer's namesake attack in which it knocks targets off balance this way in the first BioShock.
First-Person Shooter
- In Metroid Prime, Elite Pirates and the Omega Pirate have an attack that releases shockwaves the player must jump over. Meta Ridley also has a similar ability, where he jumps up and generates a shockwave. And the final boss produces flame waves that function the same way.
- Ingsmashers in Prime 2 also do this (not surprising as they're essentially Elite Pirates with a new skin). So does Quadraxis.
- Several bosses in Prime 3: Corruption also does this.
- The Gargantulas in Half-Life can do this. It moves in a linear fashion and is stopped by walls.
- In the Light Side ending of Jedi Academy, Tavion does this, although she hits the ground with the Staff of Ragnos.
- Sledge in Borderlands, with his Weapon Of Choice. His shotgun is also the only weapon in the game with bonus knockback on it, making him an example of the "creating distance" type (odd since he is a close range fighter).
- Deus Ex Human Revolution: Adam Jensen can pull this off when falling from great heights with the Icarus Landing System.
- In Turok 2, some of the Purr-Lin can do this.
- The final boss of Return to Castle Wolfenstein is armed only with a BFS. Well... no good against the hero, who is basically a walking WWII firearms store at the moment. So the villain periodically slams his sword into the ground, causing a small earthquake that sends PC flying towards him (immediately followed by a terrifying slash) and makes stones rain from above. This qiute dangerous attack can be countered by a well-timed jump, which either negates its effect or, vice versa, makes you leap over the boss.
Hack And Slash
- Diablo III's barbarian will have this as an attack.
- "Earthquake", one of the best special powers in Ninety Nine Nights II, does this spending out multiple shock-waves in all directions.
MMORPGs
- Multiple bosses in World of Warcraft have an ability like this. Usually melee classes have to run out of range when the boss starts casting it. Sometimes the shockwave deals no damage but instead interrupts spellcasting of targets hit by it.
- Also the Tauren racial Warstomp, albeit only in a small radius and it doesn't deal damage by itself.
- Protection Warriors get this spell as their final ability. A cone shaped wave that stuns and damages enemies in front of the warrior.
- All warriors get Thunder Clap, which is a stomp that damages the mobs/players around them.
- Phantasy Star Online the Dragon type boss does this.
- Both City of Heroes and Champions Online have this as a staple of super strong characters. The former lets its players represent it with a Shockwave Slam, the latter may be charged up to a Ground Pound.
- Guild Wars 2: The elementalist skills Churning Earth and Earthquake, and the warrior skill Stomp.
Platform Game
- Bowser in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy. The Koopalings in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. The Shake King in Wario Land Shake It.
- Roy and Ludwig shake the screen when they jump in SMB3.
- Two of the koopalings do this in Super Mario World. Yoshi can do a miniature version of this if he's a yellow shell or is yellow and has any shell.
- Mario himself can also do this with a cape feather, by diving into the ground after gliding with it.
- Baby Bowser can do this in Super Mario World 2: Yoshis Island. You can as well during that battle.
- In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Queen Bean will send out three in quick succession.
- It's possible for the players to do this in New Super Mario Bros Wii multiplayer. If two or more players ground pound at the same time, it sends out a shockwave that kills everything on-screen.
- Donkey Kong 64: Army Dillo and the boss of Gloomy Galleon (red/jump and blue/outrun, respectively); the Kasplats have shockwaves color-coded to whose blueprint piece they guard; even the Kongs themselves can do it (without the jumping part) once you've learned how.
- In Iji, the final boss does this all the time, but one is deadlier than the others, putting Iji in range for his One-Hit Kill Wave Motion Gun.
- A boss in one Spyro game did this.
- Egg Walker in Sonic Adventure did this.
- In Psychonauts, this is one of Kochamura's skills: The "HARD TO AVOOOOID... AREA ATTACK!" So, instead of avoiding it, which really is hard, you can just block it with your recently-found Shield power.
- This is also actually one of Raz's basic attacks.
- In Scaler, the Dragon War-Beasts punch the ground to create knockback shockwaves.
- Murray's 'Thunderflop' in the later Sly Cooper games starts off as just a simple belly-flop Ground Pound. An upgrade later on in the games allows him to add a ring of fire on landing.
- The final boss in Wario Land Shake It can do this. He can also do it by simply punching the ground hard enough.
Real Time Strategy
- The Warcraft 3 Shockwave spell goes in a straight line, but otherwise fits the requirements for this trope. Also Thunder clap (slows enemies all around) and War Stomp (stuns enemies all around).
- Dawn of War 2 has a few examples, most notably the Ork Warboss (who stomps the ground real hard like) and the Space Marine Dreadnaught (who slams its mighty fist into the ground).
Role-Playing Game
- Frequently used by bigger enemies in the Kingdom Hearts series. The first game alone has Cerberus, Dragon Maleficent, the Rock Titan and possibly others.
- Most of the Armor family in 358/2 Days. Also the Cubes, Darkside, and couple of the Tailbunker types. Oh, and most of the Dual Blades. Yeah, 358/2 Days is big into this.
- Kingdom Hearts 3 D has numerous player examples of this in the form of the various Dive commands, and the very abusable Shock Dive flowmotion attack. There's also Riku's Meteor Crash command, which is the most devastating one of all, bringing meteors down on nearby opponents in addition to creating a large shockwave.
- Trolls do this attack in Fable II but more of the straight line attack.
- A number of artes in the Tales Series like Destruction Field and Demonic Circle create these by having the user strike the ground with their weapon. Large monster types like golems and dragons frequently use them a means of offense, as well.
- The elephants from The World Ends With You. Repeatedly. And it will interrupt whatever you're doing.
- In many of the 3-D Pokémon spinoffs, this is how the attack "Earthquake" is shown as working.
- In Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, Regigigas creates damaging shockwaves with every step.
- Regigigas does the same thing in Guardian Signs. This is even more annoying now that, rather than simply fighting it as a Bonus Boss, you must fight Regigigas during the main story.
- You get the impression that Phase bosses from the first four .hack//G.U.'' games are doing this. It's an area of effect spell cast when they slam into the ground (the first Phase gets a minor reprieve as his first form has a staff which he pounds; the others play it straight, and the last one does it three times in a row).
- Ogres and golems use this frequently in Dragon Age.
- The animation for the 'Earth Tremor' Star attack in Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door shows it using this.
- This is one of Queen Bean's attacks in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. It actually destroys her flunkies.
- In the flash game Battle for Wayland Keep, one of the hero's abilities is to create a shockwave that pushes back and damages enemies.
- Used for the Devastator class' heavy melee in Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. Seriously, it has the range and damage of a grenade!
Shoot 'em Up
- Hong Meiling does this as one of her attacks in Touhou Hisoutensoku. She also does this quite often during her cutscenes with other characters, mainly as a Shout Out to more mainstream fighting games.
- It says in the skill description that she is manipulating chi to do this.
Survival Horror
- The fat monsters in The Suffering can do this with their flails, in somewhat of a surprise to any player who's just encountered them and is wondering how they can damage him even when they miss. You can avoid the effect by jumping right before the flails hit the ground.
Third Person Shooter
- Happens in Fracture with the Bull Fight Boss.
- One of the most powerful attacks that Captain Titus can pull off with a chainsword in Warhammer 40000 Space Marine is a massive stomp to the ground that stuns everyone around him. In the case of other, more powerful melee weapons however he simply slams the weapon to the ground. It's also available to Devastators/Havocs in multiplayer, useful for stunning and disorienting enemies. Perks can increase the speed of the animation, and/or the range and damage.
- In Mass Effect 3, the Vanguard now has the fist slam variety with the class-specific power "Nova". For one with less power (and less dangers of use), the Vanguard's sprinting heavy melee attack also does something similar.
- P.N.03 has the Griffin energy drive.
Wide-Open Sandbox
- Bad Girl, a dainty little thing with a penchant for hitting men around the head with a baseball bat, does this in No More Heroes. Jeane can also do this despite being very lightweight.
Non-video game examples:
Anime and Manga
- A favorite attack of Accelerator from To Aru Majutsu no Index is this. Ranging from stomps that send the earth in front of him, and any enemy, into the air to the traditional wide-range earthquake types that cause anyone nearby to fall or get hit with debris.
- Gaoh from Toriko did this with it's paw, it created a massive crater and the shockwave went on for 4 kilometers.
- Medaka Box: One of the main characters, Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, uses this as his finishing move twice, once against a weapons specialist Munakata to knock all his weapons from the ceiling, another against Kumagawa knocking them both to their deaths in a Snake Pit.
Comics
Film
Literature
- Morgan does this in one of the Dresden Files books via earth evocation, sending an entire mob of zombies flying.
Live-Action TV
- Kamen Rider OOO gains this power when he uses the Zou (Elephant) Core Medal. Even better, the Finishing Move for his SaGoZou (Rhino-Gorilla-Elephant) Combo uses a Shockwave Stomp to trap the enemy in the ground, then pulls them close for a double punch and headbutt.
- In Power Rangers Jungle Fury, the elephant-based Green Ranger can do this.
Tabletop Games
- The Stomp psionic power from Dungeons & Dragons knocks enemies prone and does nonlethal damage to them.
- Some Charms in Exalted can do this, but the ones with the biggest oomph come from the Yozis.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- This is Blackout's specialty in Transformers Animated - he can knock out electronics by stomping (and bring them back online by stomping again), hence the name.
- G1 had the virtual poster child for this trope: "Rumble! Activate pile drivers!" BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! For a little punk, Rumble could do a lot of damage.
- Sludge from the Dinobots could do a seismic stomp, too.
- The Scotsman's wife from Samurai Jack can do this.
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