Needs Help: Lightning Bruiser

Yeah, and that's exactly why I strongly opposed that image back when there was an Image Pickin' thread for it. But looks like nobody believed me.

So the Fragile Speedster trope is the one that needs a split now?

That seems to be the current trend. We could probably keep the Fragile Speedster trope name and description as is, and make another trope about high attack powered speedsters. I think Assault Speedster would make a good name.

One for low defense, high speed, low offense; and one for low defense, high speed, high offense? Not sure that is a splittable distinction. (Also Assault Speedster sounds like a synonym for Lightning Bruiser, doesn't say "low defense" and that's important.)

Why not? It's just as splittable as Stone Wall and Mighty Glacier. And I chose Assault Speedster because "mighty" and "bruiser" are used to refer to both offense AND defense, while "assault" ONLY refers to offense.

The Mighty Glacier sacrifices speed for power, the Stone Wall sacrifices power for defense. So they're pretty different. Whereas both versions of the Fragile Speedster are sacrificing defense for speed—the other stats aren't really important to the trope.

edited 8th Jun '12 4:06:34 PM by troacctid

Not quite. You used power for two different things. The Stone Wall sacrifices offense for defense, the Mighty Glacier sacrifices speed for power. Fragile Speedster sacrifices power for speed, Assault Speedster sacrifices defense for speed. I don't see how the comparison is different.

I don't like those triangles, they invite weird analogies.

They're putting together weird things. Powerful but slow and fast but weak. However, stuff like Glass Cannon and Stone Wall popped up where it was a different way to balance something.

Shouldn't we link the crowner to this thread?

Sorry, I don't know how to do so...

Having that crowner sort of takes for granted that said trope needs a split in the first place.

This crowner is for FastAndFragileBruiser, the trope which is currently in YKTTW. I see no good reasons to discard it (it is different enough from other tropes to be recognizable, and the usefulness of a trope is a completely foreign notion to me) and very good ones to keep it that I gave here and received no rebuttal.

However, I am against making splitting Glass Cannon or Fragile Speedster, the first one because it is a preexisting term, the second because it was originally about good speed, bad offense and defense build and was extended to accept any build which has good speed and bad offense (in large part because nothing in the name suggest anything about offense). Changing it again may cause some confusion and will require a lot of work to purge the bad examples.

edited 9th Jun '12 12:07:56 PM by VioletOrange

But if Fast And Fragile Bruiser became a trope, would that mean that it would become a subtrope of Fragile Speedster if its description wasn't changed? In that case, Fast And Fragile Bruiser would simply be a redundant trope referring to half of the Fragile Speedster description.

If nobody wants to change Fragile Speedster, Fast And Fragile Bruiser should be dropped; but if it becomes a trope, I think Fragile Speedster should be changed back.

edited 9th Jun '12 12:38:37 PM by shiro_okami

Not only a subtrope of Fragile Speedster but also a subtrope of Glass Cannon. And by definition, subtrope examples always work for their Super-Trope( and popularity of the subtrope compared to the supertrope doesn't matter). While it is better to remove examples of the Super-Trope which are also example of the subtrope, doing a clean up isn't as imperative in this case as when you make a split.

What's with all the subtropes here? We don't need any. I'd say the only thing we need is to re-define the description of Lightning Bruiser.

edited 15th Jun '12 1:18:55 PM by Serocco

Why would we need to do that? The description of Lightning Bruiser is fine as is.

Fragile Speedster means high speed, low defense. Attack power isn't really part of the definition.

The image unfortunately implies it is; if anything that "spoke" of the triangle should be at the midpoint, not slightly below the middle. But a triangle is very misleading there; Fragile Speedster (+speed/-defense), Stone Wall (+defense/-offense), and Glass Cannon (+offense/-defense) are each defined by two stats, not three. They are not balanced with Mighty Glacier (+offense/+defense/-speed) or Lightning Bruiser (+offense/+defense/+speed) and don't need to be. Those are pretty common Competitive Balance archetypes. Could factor in range, cost, magic, flight, hair color... there are virtually infinite "unit type" attributes to consider, trying to "cover all the bases" is futile (and unnecessary anyway). Variations on the most-common combinations can be described in the entry on the appropriate, existing page.

FS employ various kinds of offense, often (but not always) using hit-and-run tactics. Hard-hitting FS aren't a different trope, I don't think. A hard split is certainly not warranted, although the description could elaborate on the attack style point. It does have the sentence "If a Fragile Speedster has lots of offensive power, this trope can overlap with the Glass Cannon", which is accurate.

edited 16th Jun '12 3:24:37 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Example from Ground Control with the planes : the light one (traditional Fragile Speedster, with no offense whatsoever) is the fastest unit in the game and also one of the worst in term of offensive ability (his only redeeming feature in combat is that unit that can't fight air unit can't harm him, but any unit with low or medium Anti-Air will destroy him in a one on one fight and destroying any unit with him will take a lot of time). Despite this he is very useful because he provide a good line of sight to Glass Cannon unit (in a game where some unit can hit thing which are 6 or 7 times their line of sight, and in which the position from which you strike a unit can provide huge bonus) and his speed means that as long as you don't do anything reckless, he will stay alive. The heaviest of all is still very vulnerable to enemy fire (in fact any good Anti-Air will destroy him before he can launch his short ranged attack). If he can launch his attack, he will destroy anything which can't evade him in a few second (and if your troop are concentrated, you won't be able to make them all evade him).

Two units, both Fragile Speedster, and both are as different in their role and in the Competitive Balance section as the Glass Cannon / Mighty Glacier couple). Most traditional Fragile Speedster which are effective in one on one battle will be Gradual Grinder who will slowly wear down their target whereas Fast And Fragile Bruiser will generally specialized in all or nothing attack.

edited 17th Jun '12 5:37:57 AM by VioletOrange

And a Fragile Speedster in Pokemon is going to play very differently from a Fragile Speedster in Mario Kart. So what?

Consider where the trope originates. If you're wearing armor, you move more slowly because armor is heavy. If you take off your armor, or if you wear lighter armor like leather, you can move more quickly than an armored opponent, but it means you're not as well-protected.

The Fragile Speedster trope is about, essentially, taking off your armor to move faster. It doesn't matter what weapon you're using. A Fragile Speedster can attack with a sword, a dagger, a bow, a crossbow, a pistol, or even bare fists. Different tactics would be required for all of those, but the point is there's a direct relationship between defense and maneuverability, and the Fragile Speedster is sacrificing the former for the latter.

Firstly, they are no Fragile Speedster in Mario Kart, everyone get the same defense against attack, and has access to the same weapon and protection. The only compromise is between acceleration and maximum speed. From the main page of Mario Kart.

Fragile Speedster: Averted. The Light vehicles, because of their lack of weight, are easily bumped aside by larger karts and bikes...and because they logically won't have very big engines, they're also the slowest weight class.

Secondly, I took example from the same game to show you that they are different enough to be considered trope worthy.

Thirdly, a number of problem have been showed here and in the former TRS, which the creation of this new trope should solve. What do you suggest to do to solve these problem ? That would be the third time I ask you this without receiving any answer. If you don't have one, I think that you should approve of a non perfect solution rather than no solution at all.

And to follow your metaphor, the Fast And Fragile Bruiser would be about sacrificing your armor to gain maneuverability and put more gun on your unit. You can use the fact that removing armor will make you lighter to focus only on speed, to put more gun and stay at the same speed, or to do a mix of both (just as Mighty Glacier is putting armor and guns to the detriment of speed). Said mix is easy enough to distinguish from his parent, is popular and isn't a random association of unrelated trope: the offense/defense/speed triangle is so natural that not using it cause confusion.

That is Not An Aversion. The small racers in MK accelerate fast but are affected more by various elements including larger racers. ^note Also that is not "logical"; engine size is not the only determinant of speed. Among other things, there is also vehicle weight. And increasing engine size also increases vehicle weight. Striking a good balance between power to move and the weight that needs moving is a complex engineering problem. Mixing real life analogies with video game mechanics like that is an odd way to make a point.

The arguments aren't that adding tropes wouldn't solve the problem, they are that there is no problem.

Adding a Fast Glass Cannon trope implicitly changes the definition of Glass Cannon because it suggests the latter means slow only. Actually it makes no comment on speed. It is just high offense, low defense. Fragile Speedster is just high speed and low defense, no comment on offense. The triangle is not "natural". It would be changing the definitions of those terms.

edited 17th Jun '12 1:35:43 PM by rodneyAnonymous

The arguments aren't that adding tropes wouldn't solve the problem, they are that there is no problem.

Watch the picture for Glass Cannon, Fragile Speedster and Stone Wall. They are all wrong. It is a problem. Watch the discussion about it and you will notice where this problem come from.

Watch this thread, the older TRS about Lightning Bruiser and you will see some confusion about what trope is what. It is another problem.

I have recently have to correct two other example confusing Lightning Bruiser for any build with lot of offense and speed, despite the previous TRS.

Now, making Fast And Fragile Bruiser won't solve the bad picture of Stone Wall (another trope/subtrope could be created for that, but I don't think that there is enough example of it to be worth it), but it will solve every other problem/confusion mentioned here.

Tropes do not get their definitions from the image. The image is wrong, not the description.

What's up with the campaign to over-categorize these? [1] That is creating problems, not solving them, as I and others have explained.

"Every other problem/confusion mentioned here" are things you see, not things that exist. The support has been "no I really really see them" when it should be "no they really exist".

edited 18th Jun '12 12:49:28 PM by rodneyAnonymous

I think the problem is that there are at least some examples that are being shoehorned onto the current pages, and that they have enough commonality that they could be spun off into their own tropes instead.

If only the picture were the only problem, I would agree with you that the solution is just to change the pictures, even if they were from a recent image picking discussion. But are you really blind to the fact that there are people (at least a significant minority) who naturally assume that every trope mentioned here work under a speed offense defense triangle for reasons that I won't mentioned again, and that it is a problem, especially for Lightning Bruiser who had recently a significant part of his examples wrong ?

edited 18th Jun '12 3:39:03 PM by VioletOrange