Basic Trope: A boss with an attack that leaves it vulnerable... and that it stubbornly insists upon using.
- Straight: Centipex rears up to attack the player with a body slam, which is the only time he exposes his weak spot. He's otherwise invulnerable.
- Exaggerated:
- Centipex has several attacks that expose the weak spot, and all them leave him wide open to attack.
- Centipex can suffer a One-Hit Kill if he uses the attack.
- Downplayed: Centipex is always vulnerable, but it takes more damage if hit after the body slam.
- Justified:
- It's Centipex's only attack, and the player character doesn't take Collision Damage. If he doesn't use it, the fight will just stalemate forever.
- Centipex only gets one chance to attack before he's destroyed, and so doesn't survive to learn from his mistakes.
- Centipex is a dumb beast, and it would take a while for him to learn not to do that.
- Centipex needs to vent energy or heat every once in a while via giant beam blast, but this also opens his internals up to attack.
- Centipex believes that winning the fight will be boring.
- Centipex is suffering from Demonic Possession, is Fighting from the Inside, and is deliberately exposing himself so you can Beat the Curse Out of Him.
- Centipex's true goal is to Hold the Line. If he didn't do the body slam you could get past him and thwart the plan of the Big Bad.
- Centipex would like to just spam his most powerful attack constantly. However, it takes a certain amount of time to recharge after each use.
- Centipex has a condition that compels him to use the body slam every now and then, or else he's unable to fight at all.
- Centipex's tactics are geared toward its natural enemies that can't make use of the openings he leaves, we however are not one of his natural enemies.
- Inverted:
- Centipex is invulnerable during his body slam.
- Centipex is so reluctant to use his body slam it is otherwise treated as a Hopeless Boss Fight. It is very difficult but possible to kill Centipex.
- Subverted: Centipex exposes his weak spot, but hitting it doesn't deal any damage to him, instead spawning minions.
- Double Subverted: ...Minions which can be thrown at him to hurt him.
- Parodied:
- Evulz rants and raves at Centipex to stop using the attack, but he doesn't listen.
- Centipex is required to use it due to union rules.
- Zig-Zagged: Centipex has a bunch of attacks that let you hurt him, but he learns each time and you need to hit him on a different way each time.
- Averted: No boss uses an attack that leaves them open like this, or otherwise has their petard hoist them.
- Enforced: The developers wanted to make the boss beatable, and didn't want the player attacking the boss all the time.
- Lampshaded: "...why do I keep DOING that?" "Yeah, why do you do that?"
- Invoked:
- Centipex leaves himself open there in order to give his foes a fighting chance.
- Centipex is a Death Seeker who knows exactly what he's doing.
- Exploited:
- Centipex uses his weak spot to taunt the player, and then lead them to a position it can Counter-Attack.
- The player is given a very powerful blast that leaves them open for punishment... by Evulz. It's Evulz' one weakness, but it is also very slow and punishable and gives Evulz plenty of opportunity to kill you.
- Defied:
- "I'm invulnerable unless I do that. So why WOULD I?"
- In the rematch with Centipex, it never uses the attack that let you beat it in the first fight. A scripted defeat is inevitable.
- Discussed: "This is one of the video game bits where you use a dumb attack that lets me kill you, right?"
- Conversed: "Well, that was a predictable boss."
Please don’t use that suicidal attack on your way back to Tactical Suicide Boss. We kinda like you here.
