Poor snowclone, no YKTTW: Critical Existence Assistance

Guess That Trope.

Contrary to what it sounds like, Critical Existence Assistance is not a contrast to Critical Existence Failure.

There's no apparent YKTTW for this trope, no idea when it was created, no edit history before November 2010.

So what do we do with it?

edited 12th Jan '11 12:27:24 PM by Stratadrake

*Reads page. Scratches head in bewilderment.*

I have no idea what it's supposed to be, except "a supertrope", but then it says it's the other things that aren't the supertrope...

edited 12th Jan '11 12:43:56 PM by Madrugada

Yeah, I don't get it. Some sort of supertrope for things that happen at low HP? Do we even need that?

It doesn't have any wicks except for two indices and a contributor page.

edited 12th Jan '11 12:46:39 PM by troacctid

Bad snowclone, bad. Go to your room.

Yeah, I'm thinking Near Death Bonus. Or Near Death Buff.

edited 12th Jan '11 12:46:23 PM by Deboss

So basically, we're stuck playing Guess That Trope even after reading the page?

I think it's just "upgrades at low health," but phrased horribly.

Cutlist, then. There doesn't even appear to be anything here concrete and distinct enough to YKTTW.

Basically it sounds like it's any ability or skill that only activates when the character or player is wounded or close to death. By that metric it is indeed a Super-Trope of Desperation Attack and Limit Break with the addition of covering passive abilities (like increased defense or attack).

Yeah, it's benefits that a PC gets when near death, in order to help them avoid Critical Existence Failure. Bad name, but seems tropable. Plenty of games have abilities that buff stats when at low HP. I like Near Death Buff for a rename.

edited 13th Jan '11 6:34:58 AM by NativeJovian

Lets just cut it and send it back to YKTTW. It sounds like this is already covered by other tropes anyway.

I think it's definitely tropeable, but the name is terrible. Calling it a supertrope to Limit Break is somewhat misleading though.

Seconding the "Cut and return to YKTTW" suggestion.

Needs A Better Title, description seems okay, but could use some more to help distinguish it from the existing tropes it claims to be a supertrope of...

Needs to turn into something closer to Last Chance Ability.

It's not inherently about abilities. In fact, the abilities that it theoretically covers are the parts that are also covered by other tropes. Most basically, it's about giving you any kind of bonus when your HP is low. The non-overlapping examples of these would be passive things like increasing your attack power or making your turn come faster.

edited 13th Jan '11 9:29:46 AM by Clarste

Last Chance Boost? Last Gasp Bonus?

The trope seems to me to be about abilities that increase your survivability when HP is low. Like if it took you two hits to get down to 20% when a certain ability activates which drastically ups your defense, requiring three more of the same attack to take you down. An exaggerated example, but that kind of thing.

*bump*

Let's check the Wiki Magic — or should I say, lack thereof:

As of July 22, 2011

• 4 wikilinks
• 1 inbound

edited 22nd Jul '11 8:11:00 AM by Stratadrake

Kill. If the creator wants to YKTTW something, that's in his court.

Oh, this. Terrible name, but I understand the trope just fine.

Agree that it needs to go back to YKTTW. It's a valid trope and I can think of tons of examples, but the lack of YKTTW and the horrible name are not helping it.

Cut-and-YKTTW.

There's a trope in here somewhere, but the page doesn't know what it is. Cut and YKTTW.

So...do we need a crowner, or do we have agreement?

Someone needs to take it back to YKTTW, and then I'll cutlist it. I don't have time to watch another one atm though.

I wrote a YKTTW up, but for some reason it's not letting me post it there. I click "send" and it just kicks me back to the main YKTTW page with nothing to show for it.

Here's what I wrote, maybe someone else can post it:

YKTTW of Critical Existence Assistance, as per this Trope Repair Shop thread. As such, it's Up For Grabs.

A mechanical implementation of Heroic Resolve, a Near Death Buff is when a character becomes more powerful as they get closer to dying. Similar to a Desperation Attack, it gives the player one last chance to pull themselves together and turn the fight around. You may only be able to activate a Near Death Buff when low on Hit Points (or it may activate automatically when you go below a certain threshold), or it may be a normal ability with its effectiveness tied to health (being most powerful just before you die).

Sister trope to Desperation Attack. When an enemy does this, it Turns Red.

Examples (activate when health low):

• Paper Mario: Quite a few badges give these kinds of abilities. The Danger Mario setup milks this for all its worth by piling on as many of them as you can equip and then deliberately keeping Mario at 1 HP.
• Kingdom Hearts: Defender increases defense at critical HP, Berserker/Striker increases attack power, Damage Control halves damage taken, and Grand Slam boosts critical hit rate.
• Metal Gear Solid: Main characters gain a slight defense boost at critical HP. They can also regenerate health by crouching and resting, but it stops as soon as you leave critical status.
• Dragon Quest IX: A handful of abilities work like this, notably a Minstrel buff that "raises evasiveness in a pinch".
• World Of Warcraft: Affliction warlocks get a healing bonus to their Life Drain when at 25% health or lower; subtly rogues have Cheat Death, which gives them a Last Chance Hit Point and massively reduces damage taken for three seconds.
• Magic The Gathering: The Near-Death Experience card instantly wins the game, but only if you start your turn with only one life point. The Avatar of Hope is a powerful creature that deploys for nearly free if your health is low.
• Final Fantasy is fond of this:
  • Final Fantasy VII has the Final Attack support materia, which cast the linked materia when the character equipping it died. It was possible to automatically revive yourself by linking it to Revive or Phoenix.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics has abilities to grant a character things like Regen, Reraise, or Haste when their HP is critical.
  • Final Fantasy VIII has Limit Breaks that work this way; you can use them over and over, as long as your health is low enough to trigger them.
• Disgaea2: Some abilities activate at less than 25% HP, such as the male ninja, which gains such a large evasion bonus that they're almost impossible to hit.
• Fallout3 and Fallout New Vegas: The "Nerd Rage!" perk maxes out strength and gives a sizable boost to damage resistance when your health is less than 25% of max.

Examples (effectiveness increases as health decreases):

• Pokemon: Numerous, both active attacks like Reversal and Flail and passive abilities like Blaze and Torrent that boost attacks of the appropriate type.
• Super Smash Brothers Brawl: Lucario gets stronger as his damage increases.
• Final Fantasy VIII is a partial example: Limit Breaks only activate at low health, but the lower your health, the greater chance that they'll activate.
• Team Fortress 2: The Equalizer, an alternate melee weapon (a pickaxe) for the Soldier, boosts its attack power and the Soldier's speed as the Soldier's health decreases.

edited 16th Sep '11 7:21:13 PM by NativeJovian

Got it. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=2ksa34zfowxue7b4jgl2p1g4

BTW, I don't think examples are worth soft-splitting here.

edited 16th Sep '11 7:49:16 PM by Stratadrake