Ah.

I spotted this one YKTTW called "Fast and Fragile Bruiser" once. Here's a link to it.

@20, then your post 18 is talking about redefining Competitive Balance. That can be done without a rename of Lightning Bruiser.

"I'll admit, even as a hardcore gamer, I've never been totally confident about what this trope is supposed to be. Is it about someone who is like a Jack of All Stats but with really absurdly good stats instead of average ones"

Yes, Jack of All Stats (Average, but well balanced stats all around) is the in-between of Lightning Bruiser (Above average stats all around) and Joke Character (below average stats all around)

edited 31st Mar '12 1:02:08 AM by VeryMelon

About the Fragile Speedster and Glass Cannon overlap, we've been listing examples of characters, units and factions that fulfil both for a very long time. I don't see why we need to create a child trope.

I'm not quite sure we even need a Glass Cannon meets Fragile Speedster trope, as both tropes already say that the tropes overlap very frequently. I only linked to that YKTTW as a suggestion.

,

two reasons :

read the first post of the old TRS
read the first post made here by 32 Footsteps.

Names like Glass Cannon and Stone Wall are very misleading when it comes to speed (because usually, cannon and wall are not the first thing that come to mind when you think at something which is fast). This create confusion, which can be removed by creating a new subtrope.

To be more accurate, actually, the list made by 32 Footsteps should have been like that

• not really related : Joke Character
• Good attack, bad defense : Glass Cannon
• Good defense, bad attack : Stone Wall, toughness-based
• Good speed, bad defense: Fragile Speedster
• Good attack and defense, bad speed: Mighty Glacier
• Good attack, defense and speed : Lightning Bruiser
• not really related : Jackof All Stats
• not really related : Masterof None

The new subtrope would do something like that

• Good attack, bad defense and speed: Glass Cannon
• Good defense, bad attack: Stone Wall
• Good speed, bad attack and defense: Fragile Speedster
• Good attack and defense, bad speed: Mighty Glacier
• Good attack and speed, bad defense: Fast and Fragile Bruiser
• Good defense, good speed, bad attack : missing trope
• Good attack, defense and speed : Lightning Bruiser

edited 30th Mar '12 2:25:57 PM by VioletOrange

There's no need to shoehorn in unnecessary extra stats.

We could just as easily have a fourth stat. Then we'd have even more permutations. Would we then need an additional subtrope for high attack, high speed, low defense, high attack range, and another for high attack, high speed, low defense, low attack range? And then high/low range versions of Mighty Glacier and Stone Wall?

And then we could add a fifth stat too. Maybe then we'd need to have additional variations of each of these for how expensive they are to use.

Eventually you start talking about "High speed, high attack, low defense, low range, high cost, blue hair, and brown eyes!" It's just The Same But More Specific.

edited 30th Mar '12 3:10:49 PM by troacctid

Agree, the existing tropes describe at-least-somewhat-common archetypes. There are potentially infinite advantages and disadvantages to "unit type", say range or cost. There is no need to "cover all the bases", so to speak, and that is impossible anyway.

edited 30th Mar '12 4:04:22 PM by rodneyAnonymous

I am not shoehorning anything. The offense/defense/speed relationship isn't something recent, and certainly not something I came by alone:

• Watch the picture for the basic three and you will note that they are all about a Speed Offense Defense triangle. Worst, the Glass Cannon picture reject the existence of fast character, and the Fragile Speedster one reject the offensive one. There is a gap which should be filled, and this could be a good way to fill it.
• Originally, Fragile Speedster opposed Mighty Glacier and thus lacked any offense ability.

And speaking of what new trope might be launched if this one is launched is a Slippery Slope Fallacy. This trope has largely enough examples and the combo of Glass Cannon + Fragile Speedster is distinct and remarkable enough from his parent that no confusion is possible.

edited 30th Mar '12 4:48:58 PM by VioletOrange

And the picture is actively misleading. That's why I opposed it in Image Pickin.

The point is adding additional unrelated characteristics to the trope definition is a textbook case of The Same But More Specific. Glass Cannon doesn't care about speed at all; it's about sacrificing defense for offense. Fragile Speedster doesn't care about attack power at all; it's about sacrificing defense for speed. And Jack of All Stats actually doesn't care about any of them—it just requires that everything is about average.

The combination of Glass Cannon and Fragile Speedster isn't really a notable variation because with a Glass Cannon, speed is just a subset of offense—pushing up the speed on a Glass Cannon isn't all that different from any other way of improving its offense.

edited 30th Mar '12 5:53:16 PM by troacctid

They are not balanced with each other, nor are they supposed to be. There are no gaps that need to be filled.

Then why do we have Bow and Sword in Accord as a trope when we have a trope for sword fighter and a trope for archer ? And sorry, but you don't play a fast glass cannon the way you play a normal one. For instance, in RTS, the first one is usually very good on his own, he can harass the economy and forced you on the defense. The second one is generally used in balanced assault with other unit to assist it.

Well people balanced them with each other. I supposed we could tell them to stop, but they are unlikely to do so:

• Fragile Speedster is balanced with Mighty Glacier, and Glass Cannon is balanced with Stone Wall. The first pair use the speed offense defense triangle, and the second has misleading name which suggest this same triangle (it is supposed to be offense defense only, but both names and pictures implies low speed. In case you are wondering, these trope can't be renamed, and based on Troaccid remark, the picture are also here to stay).
• There is another trope, Lightning Bruiser, which also use this triangle.

Both TRS have shown that there is confusion. The first one was about a whole set of example on Lightning Bruiser which contains Speed + Offense trope, a clear misuse of this trope which show the need for a new trope.

edited 31st Mar '12 9:25:17 AM by VioletOrange

I have a suggestion:

Make Glass Ninja a separate trope. That way, it can describe characters with good attack and speed but bad defense. As for characters with good defense and speed but bad attack, how about Steel Horse?

I thought Stone Wall used the triangle as well.

Yes, it used the triangle, but there's no trope to differentiate a REALLY tough guy from say, a guy who's practically Made Of Air, can still take hits but still can't do squat.

So IMO, there are missing tropes for:

• good speed AND defense, bad attack
• good attack and speed, bad defense (the hard-hitting speedster variety of the Lightning Bruiser)
• good attack, bad speed and defense (the slow variety of the Glass Cannon)

The general usage of the Lightning Bruiser so far is a subversion of the Mighty Glacier or the Fragile Speedster. Although, hard-hitting speedsters almost always overlap with Glass Cannon if they still can't take hits despite being fast and strong.

Which is probably the reason for the split and clean up request.

edited 22nd Apr '12 9:49:39 PM by judasmartel

Yeah, the overlap with Glass Cannon with the hard-hitting speedster section makes much of that section rather questionable. Also, much of the examples aren't really subversions at all, they are shown to be strong, fast, and durable from the getgo.

So how about this:

• good speed and defense, bad attack: Steel Horse, the only difference from Intangible Man and Made Of Air is that he can't phase through attacks and thus, he can still get hit.
• good speed and attack, bad defense: make Glass Ninja a different trope from Glass Cannon.
• good attack, bad speed and defense: this must be the definition of Glass Cannon.

edited 29th May '12 1:09:07 AM by judasmartel

Again, that level of granularity just isn't necessary. Those are covered by Glass Cannon and Stone Wall.

So how about having two types of Stone Wall and Glass Cannon?

• Stone Wall type 1 - Made of Iron
• Stone Wall type 2 - Intangible Man or Super Speed + Made of Iron, but he still sucks at offense just as much as Stone Wall type 1.
• Glass Cannon type 1 - Good attack, bad speed and defense. Can overlap with Squishy Wizard if the Glass Cannon is a mage.
• Glass Cannon type 2 - Good attack and speed, bad defense. Can overlap with Lightning Bruiser, except that the latter is a little tougher than this type of Glass Cannon.

edited 29th May '12 3:46:20 AM by judasmartel

That looks exactly the same as the other one.

I don't think any split is necessary here.

First Tier

• High attack, low defense: Glass Cannon
• High defense, low attack: Stone Wall
• High speed, low (attack &) defense: Fragile Speedster

Second Tier

• High attack & defense, low speed: Mighty Glacier
• High (attack &) speed, low defense: Fragile Speedster
• High speed, high defense, low attack: none

Third Tier

• High attack, defense, & speed: Lightning Bruiser

Looking at the trope description, a Lightning Bruiser is clearly supposed to be good at ALL THREE stats. The Glass Cannon and Stone Wall tropes are fine as is. If anything, Fragile Speedster probably needs a split.

edited 3rd Jun '12 5:07:49 PM by shiro_okami

Yeah, I've noticed that there's two very different versions of the Fragile Speedster, they tend to be used as a harass or scout unit when they have weak attacks and for a very mobile attack force when it's speed+firepower. The speedster being soft if a very intuitive build because most people think of thinness and lack of armor when thinking of speed.

False, the Fragile Speedster isn't currently defined by his offence power at all. When it was, it was supposed to have weak offence power.

You obviously didn't understand my post then. Of course I know that Fragile Speedster isn't currently defined by attack power, which is why I put the attack power in parentheses and why I listed it for both attack stats.

Besides, the Competitive Balance category and its sub-trope images at least imply all three stats for each sub-trope, even if they speak in only terms of two. For instance, the Fragile Speedster image implies low attack power.

edited 4th Jun '12 3:05:35 PM by shiro_okami