This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Servbot: Removed Dan Hibiki. The reason he's a morale crusher is because he is a Joke Character, and using him is the character equivalent of Cherry Tapping. Losing to someone who uses him means the Dan user is that good, or you're that bad.
Pteryx: Moved the Chu-Chu example to Magikarp Power where it belongs, as making her useful (aside from the healing aspect) specifically involves going out of your way to power her up.
- Yata-Garasu, an incredibly weak Spirit monster (who rebounds back to your hand at the end of each of your turns) with the power to skip the opponent's draw phase when it did damage. No one gave it a second look, until the Game-Breaker Envoys came out, then it became a vicious little annoyance that was axed pretty quickly.
- Are you serious? Yata-Garasu was a Game-Breaker when it was released. Pretty much everyone played with one, and everyone knew that if your opponent got Yata on the field, it was game over unless you could either kill it before it returned to the hand or run out the clock before your opponent took the lead in LP. The only reason it wasn't banned until Chaos Emporer Dragon was released is that the publishers had flat out refused to ban any card up until that point.
- Yata-Garasu, an incredibly weak Spirit monster (who rebounds back to your hand at the end of each of your turns) with the power to skip the opponent's draw phase when it did damage. No one gave it a second look, until the Game-Breaker Envoys came out, then it became a vicious little annoyance that was axed pretty quickly.
Some Guy: I see this wasn't storyboarded through YYKTW. It shows, too. Nearly all of these examples are completely subjective. There's hardly any entries that anyone even agrees are this rather than regular old Joke Character. Does anybody have a defense for why we have this trope?
Servbot: Actually, it did have a YKTTW topic. Had a lot of responses, quite a few name suggestions (originally named The Jigglypuff after its Melee incarnation, then Killer Joke Character but that name was too close to The Killing Joke and thus gave the wrong image, so we settled for Lethal Joke Character), had a sizable discussion on how this was not only common in Fighting Games but in Magic The Gathering as well due to the constantly shifting Meta Game turning shitty cards into candidates for banning, then it was launched with everyone's best wishes including a member of the Old Guard or two.
Then The Great Crash happened, and while the trope was saved, the YKTTW topic got eaten <<
And the only thing I see that's having problems is the Brawl example, and that's mostly because it's a new game that people feel need to be shoehorned in as many tropes as possible. Well, and the Soul Calibur example, but even the YKTTW topic was wondering if it fit or not.
Basically, these things are easier to spot with games that have been around for a while (whereupon people will look back at old topics and have a good laugh at how stupid they were for thinking so-and-so character was useless) or those that have casual fans that just play the game and hardcore fans that look into the minutae of the system (whereupon, if the casual fan looks into a FAQ created by the later, they would go "wait, useless, silly character so-and-so is considered top tier!?")
- Final Fantasy III on the DS takes the basic class "The Onion Knight" and turns it into a really insanely powerful and difficult to obtain class... that sucks until it gets up to class level 90. Most players who DO manage to get the class may be disappointed, but if they put in the time, they have all of their stats maxed.
- Doesn't that fall under Magikarp Power? - Skarmory The PG
- In the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, a class called the Super Novice can be obtained if one creates a regular Novice and keeps it from obtaining a class until base lv 45. The Super Novice at first seems to have a great deal of potential, being allowed to acquire almost all the skills the 1st class Jobs can use, and having a collective pool of 99 points (instead of the usual 50 1st class Jobs usually have) to allocate them to. However, Super Novices can only use the same crappy gear novices have, and along with their abysmally low HP/SP gains from leveling up, can easily be killed in one or two hits. Their real strength shines if built like a Mage class, as, since casting time for spells is determined by the game's DEX stat, using the right gear, maxing their base DEX stat, and using all the DEX skill buffs available to them, the Super Novice can nearly be able to instantly cast spells. If coupled with a Bard skill that even further lowers casting time and after-cast delay, players and effectively make efficiently-leveled Super Novices into living, Fire Bolt-spewing maching guns...as long as their puny SP holds out, anyway. This troper fondly remembers using his super novice in PVP areas and throwing down even the toughest classes, much to their surprise.
- Same - Skarmory The PG
- Dungeon Explorer, a Gauntlet-type game for the Turbografx-16 console had the bard - a weak character that did low damage and had crappy spells (one of them changed the background music.) However, midway through the game he could be transformed into a hermit - the most powerful character in the game.
- Strike three - Skarmory The PG
Masami Phoenix: Removed the following entry because this isn't an actual Lethal Joke skill it's a Roullette Power
- The Whimsical Ring in the Oracles Zelda games reduced your attack power to one damage… except for a one-in-256 chance of giving you an attack with enough damage to kill just about anything in one hit.
R Taco: I took out this, due to Yoda being almost universally considered overpowered and therefore not a joke character:
- Yoda. Oh God, Yoda. Once you get over seeing a Star Wars character in Soulcalibur IV, once you get a hang of his Force powers, he's deadly. That, and like Gon, his short size means that most high and mid attacks from the regular characters will whiz over his green head.
- Another decent combo is with Woodland Sprite. A useless little monster....with the ability to destory one equip spell card attached to it to do 500 damage to the opponent. With the Butterfly dagger.....it's basically a 2 card Exodia.
Curtmack: Wrong. Woodland Sprite's ability is specifically listed as a sacrifice, not a destroy effect. That's a significant distinction in Yu-Gi-Oh; being sacrificed doesn't activate Elma's effect.
Ack Sed: Like the picture,but it'd fit 'Heart' even better.
- We already have a perfect picture for Heart. I'd love to see the source for this article's picture, though.
lumber_of_the_beast: Removing the following due to not actually being a Lethal Joke Character.
- In the Guilty Gear series. We have Dr. Faust, who is 9ft tall, uses a 2m scalpel and wears a paper bag over his head. This guy has weird attacks, such as taking off his own head and throwing it at the opponent, teleporting through doors, throwing items such as a miniature version of himself and a swarm of meteors, and ramming his scalpel up your...butt. However, Faust is difficult to approach due to his insane range and his huge numbers of anti-air moves. He can also overwhelm you with his items and (if done right) can do a split second overhead via canceling his drill move by Faultless Defending and then kicking while in midair.
- In MUGEN, he's nigh-unbeatable both due to this and the crazy-ass AI. Good luck trying to get a hit on him without Chuck Norris.
