Discussion Main / TierInducedScrappy

Per TRS, Tier Induced Scrappy has been split between High-Tier Scrappy and Low-Tier Letdown

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Shouldn't we repair this trope, given many of the examples given in Fire Emblem and Pokemon's page aren't even loathed for gameplay reasons so much as covering why they're bad? It's accurate moreso in Smash Bros.' entry, but many games need clean-up as it reads moreso like a listing of the metagame than actually why each character would be disliked for it - Scrappy, after all, is a strong word.

Should we divide this into "Game Breaking Scrappy" and "Tier-Induced Scrappy", giving the high end and low end tier characters separate tropes?

Edited by RainingMetal

Can examples include ones outdated by newer, more practical alternatives in a game's meta?

Since Smogon created a tier called Anything Goes just for Mega Rayquaza and its the only one that's in Anything Goes, does it still counts as Tier Induced Scrappy?

Is it possible to update the description to specify that the "Scrappy-ness" of these characters only applies from a gameplay perspective? I've noticed that some examples are well-like for non-gameplay reasons and are even Ensemble Darkhorses in certain cases, like Palutena in Super Smash Bros. (I only bring this up because some guy is complaining about how Palutena is a contender on the SSB YMMV page despite being well-liked otherwise). We could have something like: Note that just because a character qualifies for Tier Induced Scrappy does not automatically mean that they qualify for any other Scrappy Tropes, and can even be Ensemble Darkhorses or Breakout Characters otherwise. This only applies to gameplay.

Edited by 104.34.219.208 If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with? Hide / Show Replies

Converted most of the page to the folder system and did a whole bunch of resorting:

Needs Clarification

• Street Fighter:
  • And any charge character. People will groan when you select them. (Are we talking about "Rapidly Press/Hold Down a single Button to Win? If so, we have two examples already listed.)
• The whole Moogle race in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance often gets a pass because they are focused mostly on enfeebling enemies rather than damage or support.
  • For those who recognize that this is one of the rare games where Standard Status Effects are actually useful (except on bosses, anyway) though, a good Moogle Gunner or Juggler is a valuable asset. And they're so cute!
    • There is some debate about this, as a Gunner with Ultima Charge from the Mog Knight skill list can use it from 8 tiles away, and even without Ultima, they can still Counter Attack, Stop, Blind, Silence, Confuse, and even CHARM enemies from 8 tiles away with a 95% hit rate just with their basic ability.
      • Jugglers, Gunners, and Mog Knights put Moogles somewhere between 1st and 2nd place for top race (with Viera undeniably holding the other slot do to the ridiculous stat growth of assassins, some truly insane movesets, and immunity to all status effects with a single piece of equipment). A Moogle class that does get a lot of hate for being the worst (bar none) class in the game is the Juggler.
    • Are you sure it was the Juggler class and not the Tinker Class? Juggler's saving grace is "Smile Toss", which gives the ally target a free turn right after the Juggler casts this. The Tinker, of course, is "Rafa/Malak 2.0". Their skills involve a party/enemy-wide buff or debuff and deciding who gets either on a random coin toss-esque mechanic. That is, hoping to cast haste on all your units? NOPE! The "coin" landed and it is tails. Now the enemy units have haste... Cue Ah hell naw!
      • Unless you equip Dream Rings that stop Sleep and Doom, then use the Sleep and Doom abilities.
  • The real character tier scrappy is the Bangaa race. 1.A race based around physical attacks in a game where anything that doesn't kill or disable the enemy in one hit is a waste of a turn 2.Has slow speed in a "tick" (opposed to alternate turns) based game.
    • Which ALSO varies, considering Bangaa have the highest damage output of any race, and a Haste or Quicken spell (or hell, leveling as a White Monk) means you can destroy most enemies in one hit. In fact, Dragoon + Weapon atk plus + Ultima Weapon has the most raw damage in the game, perfectly capable of one-shotting the final boss.

(The other 2 races were added as "High-Tier")

Cut for extended OTOH:

• In the DS remake of Final Fantasy III, the Geomancers are actually pretty good mid-game until they are overshadowed by the endgame classes such as Sages and Master Mages. Unlike their incarnation in other FF games, they can deal decent steady damage and many of their abilities dealt magic damage but were not subject to the laws of Reflect, or how mages could only use a certain # of spells per day.
• In Final Fantasy V Geomancers are worth using for a short while in order to learn the skill that prevents your party from taking damage from hazardous floor tiles. This comes in handy in ExDeath's castle, where some floors are covered in lava, and you still get into random encounters while trying to walk across them. On the other hand, Earth is a highly useful secondary command that can do decent damage for no mana. It's perfect to slap onto your White Mage and use to attack (or heal, if you're on the right terrain) free of mana. The randomness can be offputting, but in most situations, at least 3 of the 4 moves are useful.

  • The Geomancer Job is acquired early in the game and may, in fact, be overpowered until other magical jobs catch up, since some Earth attacks are equivalent to second- or even third- tier magic spells long before such magic can be purchased or found for the other mages and casting them is entirely free.

• In Final Fantasy Tactics they have decent physical and magic attack values, making them well suited for work as makeshift Magic Knights or Combat Medics. They also have the game's largest attack-power stat growth, so you can level your Monks or Knights as Geomancers for some major kick-butting later. The downside is their low defense, and the (again) relative uselessness of their inherent ability, which puts off a lot of people.

• Phantasy Star
  • Hahn gives you access to healing early on, faster and stronger than Chaz, and his gaining Wat early on completes the Triblaster combo, which will wipe out everything on the screen. Gryz is a straightforward fighter but has lots of hit points and stamina and instant death attacks, which levels your party fast before you fight Zio. For the part of the game where you have Kyra, everything is weak to her bottomless bucket of fire spells, and Warla is pretty much the only thing that's going to keep you alive if you plan to level grind against Sandworms or tackle the Three Witches before level 35 or so.
  • And Hahn learns Vol very, very early on. Being the only instant death attack with a 90%+ success rate, and with Hahn's technique point pool being second basically only to Rune's, Hahn is very likely to remain more lethal than your melee fighters until the last third of the game. And by then he has Astral.
• Tales Of Symphonia
  • Colette does have the saving grace of having some unintuitive uses and effects for her techs, which can turn her into the easiest boss killer in the game when player-controlled. (Poison your foe, run away while the poison takes effect, deal some Scratch Damage and do your Victory Pose.) Her AI is too stupid to use any of them, though. And then, there's her Para Ball.
• Pokemon
  • But don't get too cocky. With the right setup, no Pokemon is harmless.
• Fire Emblem

  • It should be noted that the Thani tome can ramp up Micaiah's offensive usefulness vastly, given that its super-effective to armor and horse units, who make up most of the bosses of Part I and who are often harder for the physical attackers to take down (the armor units moreso).

Seems to belong on Creator's Pet instead:

• Warhammer 40 K
  • The 2011 Grey Knights codex combines some absolutely awful fluff (GodModeSues everywhere, "holy" Grey Knights butchering allied Battle Sisters to use their blood as a holy unguent - and getting away with it. And blood sacrifice does not work that way- that's chaos stuff.), a model line which draws very mixed reactions, a number of confusing rule interactions, and some of the most insanely powerful options in any codex at the time of its release. The Tyranid and Blood Angels codices released about a year earlier received similar, but not as damning, complaints. Daemons of Chaos (above) and both Grey Knights and Blood Angels codices were by Matt Ward, whom The Other Wiki calls controversial and much of the fan base dislikes for altering the fluff of armies he writes about and making armies he writes for much more powerful than the other factions.
    • There is also a factor of Hatedom. The original codex for Grey Knights was actually substantially worse in terms of how powerful they were supposed to be (it almost outright says that normal Space Marines, compared to Grey Knights, may as well be Imperial Guardsman) and individual Grey Knights were generally more powerful (for example Fearless on most units was downgraded to the less powerful They Shall Know No Fear). Overall, the only army Grey Knights metagame wise destroy more than any other MEQ is Demons, an army that was widely considered to be absolutely terrible and shouldn't have its own codex in the first place. Matt Ward has written some bad fluff, but most of the stuff he has written fits within the lore, its just people don't want to acknowledge them.
      • Except, y'know, the Grey Knights suddenly being Champions of Khorne in all but name.

Also added a "Mixed Examples By Scenario" category where one is hated for being so good in some conditions and so bad in others. If you think this falls under Crippling Overspecialization, please inform such before moving.

Edited by DonaldthePotholer Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck. Hide / Show Replies

One example baffles me:

• In Injustice Gods Among Us Aquaman is shaping up to be this, with his ease of use, excellent zoning tools, and fantastic normals. Conspiracy theories that Tom Brady, a tester for the game and a tournament player who bodied a tournament with Aquaman, deliberately molded him into this during testing don't help any.

What the heck does it mean to "body a tournament"? A Google search reveals nothing except for this page and another one quoting it.

Hide / Show Replies

The picture looks like Just A Face And A Caption. Does anyone have a better one?

Edited by BrendanDRizzo Hide / Show Replies

Removing

• To show how invulerable in close-combat: medieval mode proves demoknights are just as unbalanced, OHKO Scouts in one swipe, and the only reason no one call out on his longer melee range and high damage is that the Heavy with KGB can easily pwn demoknights, while Snipers are spamming arrows (and the mode is basically designed for demoknights)

For atrocious grammar.

Hide / Show Replies

Can someone help me with this? I'm not very savvy with the Yu Gi Oh TCG metagame, and I fear that if I fix it, I might screw the facts up.

• Blackwings. Basicaly, they are one of the most powerful archetype in the game ever created with all around great support, fast swarming capabilities, and powerful effects. The Yugioh metagame has an updated ruleset called format. A format is updated every March and September. Blackwings take 7 formats, each one weakening both their key plays, one devastating support that nearly guarantee win on first turn, searcher, further weaken their searcher, and finally their biggest support that destroy 2 card and card that increase attack during battle. They still dominate the Japanese metagame for that straight 7 format and is one of two complete Base Breakers that separate Japan and Western metagame the most.
• Legendary Six Samurai. The most dangerous oppening first turn play ever, swarms even faster than you can blink, have even more broken tutors than the Blackwings, can easily fill the field just by summoning 1 monster to start the deal, have a nerfed version of Pot of Greed... the list goes on.

"Stealing is a crime and drugs is a crime too BUT if you steal drugs the two crimes cancel out and it’s like basically doing a good." Hide / Show Replies

So I was looking down the page and saw this...

• Sonic. Sonic was somewhat of a last-minute addition to the game, and so his Final Smash is an almost-guaranteed Instant Kill to everyone in the game. Basically, he can fly anywhere on the screen at high speed, but he doesn't have the excessive momentum to worry about like Pikachu, doesn't have to even attack like Wario, and cannot be run away from like Mr. Game and Watch. Final Smashes usually play into character balance, but it nearly throws the game in Sonic's favor when they're turned on. When it comes to tournament games, this usually means "ban Sonic" or "ban Smash Balls."

The example actually does match the Tier Induced Scrappy position, but... "Tournament games" with final smashes? I don't think those exist.

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

Removed FFXII non-example again:

• Fighting-style Tier Induced Scrappy-ness in an RPG: Final Fantasy XII has the Decoy Protagonist Vaan, who is loathed by the majority of players, usually for story reasons. His stat growth is pretty much the hands-down BEST in the game. Funnily, Balthier and Fran, the best-beloved characters of the entire game, have horrible stat growth and extra frames—working out to a speed penalty—when using their signature weapons (guns and bows, respectively, which are actually some of the shoddier weapons in the game).

Loathed for story reasons, therefore NOT tier-induced!