History Main / LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards

* In ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'':

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic 6'' & ''7'' plays with this trope. Warriors tend to be better in the beginning until the mages get access to their stronger spells and enough mana to be able to use it reliable, at which point magic users outshines them. However at the end game you gain access to blasters which make both equals in damage dealing but the warriors come out on top again. Clerics and Sorcerers still have a fair few [[GameBreaker Game Breakers]], however.

** ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny2'' and ''VideoGame/TalesOfEternia'' feature extremely powerful magic. In ''VideoGame/TalesofDestiny2'' in particular, attacks have to pass an evasion/accuracy check in order to score clean hits. Spells usually bypass that check and cause humongous amounts of damage while serving as good crowd control. Your melee fighters are responsible for keeping your casters alive while spells dish out damage.

** ''LightNovel/FateZero'' has the Japanese Air Self Defense Force investigate a battle between Servants with two F-15J Eagles. One of the Eagles is quickly dispatched by the Servants. The other is forcibly commandeered by another Servant, who imbues it with mana and then uses it to beat ''Gilgamesh'' in an air-to-air duel.

* Both played straight and subverted in the ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' universe. Normal swordsmen such as Gourry and physical brawlers such as Prince Phil can only do so much in a land where magic is common knowledge and taught in schools (at least in one part of the world). Swordsman Gourry mainly gets by with supernaturally-powered swords, namely the [[ForgottenSuperWeapon Sword of Light]] for the first set of novels and throughout most of the anime, and the [[ForgottenSuperWeapon Blast Sword]] in the second half of the novels. The subversion comes in with the magic system. Humans can expand how much magic they can cast by increasing their stamina (Pool Capacity), but the actual strength of their magic (Bucket Capacity) is predetermined at birth. Zelgadis was a poor spell caster when he was a human, but thanks to the properties of the brau demon [[HeinzHybrid he was mixed with for his chimeric transformation]], both his Pool and Bucket Capacities are higher because brau demons, according to WordOfGod, have a lot of magical power. In other words, the non-divine can only do so much to increase their magical output. If they happened to get lucky with Bucket Capacity, like Lina did, it's played straight to a ludicrous degree as they get more and more powerful magic. One of Lina's main challenges is using her most powerful spells without accidentally ''destroying the universe''.

* The text-based RPG ''[[http://www.skotos.net/games/grendel/ Grendel's Revenge]]'' had a rather interesting relationship with this trope through it's history. At first it was inverted, magical monsters were fairly balanced with young fighter monster for the first 50 or so levels, but the fighter monsters could get a host of passive, always on {{Status Buff}}s as well as timed ones from Leader monsters, whereas magical monsters had very few ways to get a status buffs at all. This got progressively worse since fighter monsters could wear better armor, get skills to boost their weapon skills (and the weapons gotten improves) while magical monsters could only wear a small selection of non-armor magical gear.

** The [[Recap/DeathBattleS09E07HerculesVSSunWukong mythical fight]] between [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Hercules]] and [[Literature/JourneyToTheWest Sun Wukong]] [[spoiler:sees this trope in full force. Hercules relies on his godlike strength, intellect and simpler weapons in battle, while Sun Wukong relies on his TelescopingStaff, wits, and plethora of magic powers/tricks such as SelfDuplication, [[InASingleBound Cloud Somersault]] and [[VoluntaryShapeshifting transformation]]. This gave the Monkey King far greater versatility and options to overcome the God of Strength, whose only way to kill Wukong was Hydra venom arrows shot at faster-than-light velocities -- an unreliable method considering Wukong's even faster feat of somersaulting to the universe's edge in a single second]].

** Though, at least in 7, fighters are still quite impressive assuming you're willing to get in close range with that Blaster-spamming Robot. There are plenty of impressively powerful artifact weapons that will let you hit for hundreds of damage.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': A tip from Bioware staff:
-->''Tip 52. Adepts and Biotics start slow. There is no denying this. It may seem frustrating, but if you work at it, it is beneficial to play a character who can constantly juggle any enemy. No one, not even a high-class soldier, can touch a master adept.''
** The real problem (or benefit, depending on your point of view...) was that biotics bypassed shields in the first game (and armor/barriers didn't exist); virtually any enemy could therefore be affected by biotics... up to and including the final boss, who becomes a cakewalk when immobilized by biotics. In the later games, the most powerful biotic powers only affect enemies with no shields/armor/barriers, [[ObviousRulePatch to ensure this would not happen again]].
** While quadratic wizards are in fact, part of the game, Warriors, rather than stay linear, have evidently decided to [[GameBreaker go vertically upwards]] once they reach higher levels and gain a God Mode button, whose cooldown can later be reduced to be shorter than it's duration, even further cakewalking the game.
* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' it depends on the difficulty.
** At easier difficulties, mages (Adepts) rule, when you can take down hordes of space zombies without firing a single shot.
** At harder difficulties, everything is pretty much immune to those abilities until their primary defense is stripped, making the direct damage classes (Infiltrator and Soldier) the best. That said, leveling the Warp power, by taking Energy Drain as your secondary power and picking the Assault or Sniper Rifle on the Collector ship, it is possible to build an Adept that can deal death at all levels.
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' introduces the weapon weight system, where carrying more/heavier weapons introduces a power recharge penalty. Savvy power-based classes equip their character with a light pistol (that may never get used at all) so they can use their powers more frequently. A Linear Soldier will take the heaviest and most powerful weapons they can at the expense of infrequently activating Adrenaline Rush, while a Quadratic Adept (or Engineer) will forego all but one weapon to spam powers/combos.
** Furthermore, the number of ways a Biotic explosion can be set up has greatly increased a Biotic's damage output such that even if no single biotic power can strip shields, a combo can take care of that.
** Exacerbating this even further, it is possible for an Adept to mod and upgrade the basic pistol to the extent that they can carry it and still have a [[MoreDakka +200% power recharge time]], allowing them to use [[BlownAcrossTheRoom Throw]] almost once a second and Warp every three. This results in a [[MacrossMissileMassacre massive]] amount of biotic attacks, only counteracted by the fact that assigning points in a way that allows this means little can be used for Fitness, making your Adept VERY [[SquishyWizard squishy]], which is a problem, as the entire series employs WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou—if Shephard dies, your game is over, so a squishy Shephard is always a liability, at least to some extent.
** Furthermore, and compounding WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou above—the player has constant access to the abilities of their teammates. A player with a soldier Shephard can still throw biotic powers around at will, as if they were Shephard's abilities, provided they have a biotic on their team.

** Not so much. Planescape is full of monsters who can laugh-off the mage's best spells due to Magic Resistance, or a flat percentile chance the character has to laugh-off any spell, regardless of the caster. (It works differently than ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' or D&D 3.X's Spell Resistance.) Nothing can out-damage a fighter Nameless One, and since he keeps all of his fighter abilities even when acting as a mage, and because the mage can wear items that boost AC very high, a Nameless One who is classed mage, has fighter levels, and uses mage buffs with the InfinityPlusOneSword,—er, dagger—to turn his fighter abilities up to 11 is a death-dealing god on legs who can solo even the BonusBoss and still get the golden ending thanks to Wisdom.

** Later Durkon finally got to use ''Holy Word'' and deafened three members of the Linear Guild, banished another (an evil Outsider), leaving only one high-level member to battle effectively (and he retreated to save the rest of the Guild). The only one who could have taken him on? The guild's absent-from-that-fight cleric.

** [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html Later]] in the same battle it's invoked by Redcloak and an Azure Cleric, both squaring off against their opposite number to spare their own followers and exchanging their most powerful combat spells. Thanks to said spells being save-or-die and Cleric saves being excellent, it's the ''least'' exciting battle in the entire strip as they just take turns poking each other.

** Mages of various levels occupy the entire spectrum. On one end, you have season one Callum capable of a handful of spells that are marginally useful. In the middle you have Viren, who is capable of massacring a team of the greatest warriors in Xadia without breaking a sweat. Then at the far end you have Aaravos, who is so feared that his potential return is treated as a ‘‘world-ending event’’.

* Wendell Vaughn and Phyla-Vell, the first and second ComicBook/{{Quasar}}s. Both possessed the Quantum Bands which were basically the Marvel Universe's answer to the Franchise/Green Lantern power ring but their approach to using these weapons was very different. While Wendell tended to be versatile and creative with his constructs, Phyla's use was mostly limited to energy blasts and [[SpontaneousWeaponCreation forming swords]]. This was a reflection of their backgrounds and personalities; Wendell was [[ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} S.H.I.E.L.D.]] Academy graduate who was deemed unfit for field work due to [[ThouShaltNotKill his refusal to use lethal force]] and he followed a standard operating procedure of "contain, drain and attack". Phyla by contrast was a trained Kree soldier who had no problems with lethal force but lacked Wendell's versatility.

** ''[[TabletopGame/AdvancedDungeonsAndDragonsSecondEdition Second Edition]]'' included many of the same balancing factors as the last one. Less powerful classes progressed through levels faster, and fighters enjoyed benefits such as Exceptional Strength, more hit points for high Constitution, and more followers at high levels, but still wind up getting seriously outpaced in power at higher levels. All of this depends on one's attributes, though: a fighter needs STR 18 and CON at least 17 in order to benefit from those specific perks. And even though wizards and clerics need high INT and WIS respectively to be able to utilize their best spells, they're still ''a lot'' better with their main stat being lower than 16.

** When it was first introduced, it would deal damage for every gold collected, making it even more overpowered than its current iteration.

* {{VideoGame/Peglin}} introduced the Molten Mantle (Boss Relic) shortly after the Shop update. In exchange for no longer being able to collect gold from pegs, for every second gold collected, the current damage of the orb on the board is dealt to the currently targeted enemy, allowing the player to blitz through battles in seconds. Most other relics in the game, Boss or otherwise, only give flat damage bonuses to your various attacks, making this Relic an exceptionally powerful example of the trope.

** ''[[TabletopGame/AdvancedDungeonsAndDragonsFirstEdition First Edition]]'' has a basic premise where a common man is a fighter and would be more powerful at low levels, but someone who performed magic (a cleric or a magic-user) would make sacrifices at low levels to become more powerful at high levels. This was further balanced by fighters getting the best followers at high levels (and at the time, henchmen were quite valuable even if they were low-level), and by fighters being the only ones who could use magic swords, which were often very powerful. Fighting Men also progressed at a faster rate than Magic Users.

** [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html Later]] in the same battle it's invoked by Redcloak and an Azure Cleric, both squaring off against their opposite number to spare their own followers and exchanging their most powerful combat spells. Thanks to said spells being save-or-die and Cleric saves being excellent, it's the ''least'' exciting battle in the entire strip as they just take turns pointing at each other.

* Manga/FairyTail references this trope in one of it's early chapters with a pair of Assassins against [[TheHero Natsu]]. The Assassins assume that he's a typical SquishyWizard and plan to overwhelm him with their superior physical strength...until Natsu reveals that he's not only a powerful magical user, but is physically stronger than both Assassins. Cue CurbStompBattle. Fairy Tail in general kind of averts this trope, as most of the major characters are just as capable in a physical fight as they are at using powerful magic. The only exception to this are [[SummonMagic Celestial Wizards]], who have access to powerful magic, but are generally helpless without access to it. This is why [[TheChick Lucy]] [[spoiler:Learned the Star Dress]] technique, so she can finally be up to par with the rest of her team.

* {{Zigzagged}} in ''Manga/{{Jujutsu Kaisen}}''. Technically, everyone is a mage, since in order to fight curses, you need to wield [[{Mana} Cursed Energy]] (barring people like Maki and Toji who are abnormal due to lacking Cursed Energy, in exchange for superhuman bodies). How far you'll go as a sorcerer is determined by your innate potential, and no amount of training will change that. However, characters who have Cursed Techniques can get much stronger and are more versatile than those who do not.

* {{Zigzagged}} in ''Manga/{{Jujutsu Kaisen}}''. Technically, everyone is a mage, since in order to fight curses, you need to wield [[Mana Cursed Energy]] (barring people like Maki and Toji who are abnormal due to lacking cursed Energy, in exchange for superhuman bodies). How far you'll go as a sorcerer is determined by your innate potential, and no amount of training will change that. However, characters who have Cursed Techniques can get much stronger and are more versatile than those who do not.

** Completely averted in ''[[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne Nocturne]]'' though, as there, magic attacks actually get weaker the higher your level is, whilst physical attacks get stronger with level. Along with this, physical skills are the only types of skills you can charge up (This game only has Focus and not Concentrate). Plus, if you're going for the True Demon Ending, physical skills along with [[ArmorPiercingAttack Pierce]] blow through the entirety of the endgame up to and including the TrueFinalBoss, and this strategy is the only way you can do reliable damage against the boss.

** In [[Recap/DeathBattleS08E02ShadowVsRyuko "Shadow VS Ryūko"]], [[spoiler:{{Franchise/S|onicTheHedgehog}}hadow is the Quadratic Wizard this time, to [[Anime/KillLaKill Ryūko Matoi's]] Linear Warrior: In their base forms, Ryūko was much physically stronger and tougher than Shadow, enough to potentially kill him in one hit. However, Shadow being much faster than Ryūko as well as being able to [[TimeStandsStill slow down and]] [[TimeMaster stop time with Chaos Control]] made landing that hit unlikely. Additionally, Shadow possessed far more destructive power with his Chaos abilities through removing his [[PowerLimiter Inhibitor Rings]] which, combined with the aforementioned Chaos Control, meant that he could reliably damage Ryūko faster than her Life Fibers could {{heal|ingFactor}} her. What's more is that [[SuperMode Super Shadow]] was vastly faster and more powerful than Ryūko while in Senketsu-Kisaragi and has the benefit of NighInvulnerability.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', Civs with lots of military bonuses such as the [[BarbarianTribe Huns]], [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy the Aztecs and Japan]] tend to be much more powerful in the early eras and gradually fade out in later eras, while Civs with bonuses to science, commerce or culture (such as [[ProudMerchantRaceGuy Holland]], [[ProudScholarRaceGuy France]] and [[LethalJokeCharacter Polynesia]]) start off much weaker but their bonuses and special units stay useful for much longer. The ultimate quadratic Civ would be [[InjunCountry the Iroquois]] in ''V'', as they are crippled early on as clearing forests to build improvements deprives them of their late-game production and their "roads", but once they unlock lumber mills and longhouses, their production sky-rockets and few Civs can match them.

** Played relatively straight in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''. Picking the Magic-based build during the introduction segments will be a disadvantage early on (especially since you start with absolutely no spells), but sticking with it will make your magic noticeably more powerful toward the end of the game. Conversely, choosing the offense or defense builds don't make a huge difference in the damage you give/take in the long run. If you DO pick Magic as your main focus, you'll be able to shave off multiple health bars from endgame Nobodies in a magic combo, your Explosion finisher (which bases damage on Magic) becomes even ''more'' of a GameBreaker than it is with a physical build, and [[BeehiveBarrier Reflega]] [[MoreDakka turns anything foolish enough to challenge you into Swiss cheese in a single cast]]. Should you use Magic while in Final form with a Magic build, [[KillEmAll you'll see this trope at it's prime]].

Thirdly, there's more than a bit of WishFulfillment here. Gamers, and by extension game designers, tend to be {{nerd}}s by definition. The notion that a wizard (generally something of a brainy bookworm) may start out weaker than the DumbMuscle, but surpass them entirely in the endgame, proving that knowledge is power that can modify the environment itself, thus making large muscles redundant in comparison? This account holds a lot of inherent appeal to them.

** In [[Recap/DeathBattleS08E02ShadowVsRyuko "Shadow VS Ryūko"]], [[spoiler:{{Franchise/S|onicTheHedgehog}}hadow was the Quadratic Wizard this time, to [[Anime/KillLaKill Ryūko Matoi's]] Linear Warrior: In their base forms, Ryūko was much physically stronger and tougher than Shadow, enough to potentially kill him in one hit. However, Shadow being much faster than Ryūko as well as being able to [[TimeStandsStill slow down and]] [[TimeMaster stop time with Chaos Control]] made that unlikely. Additionally, Shadow possessed far more destructive power with his Chaos abilities through removing his [[PowerLimiter Inhibitor Rings]] which, combined with the aforementioned Chaos Control, meant that he could reliably damage Ryūko faster than her Life Fibers could {{heal|ingFactor}} her. What's more is that [[SuperMode Super Shadow]] was vastly faster and more powerful than Ryuki while in Senketsu-Kisaragi and has the benefit of NighInvulnerability.]]