Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
Ask the Tropers is for:
- General questions about the wiki, how it works, and how to do things.
- Reports of problems with wiki articles, or requests for help with wiki articles.
- Reports of misbehavior or abuse by other tropers.
Ask the Tropers is not for:
- Help identifying a trope. See TropeFinder.
- Help identifying a work. See MediaFinder.
- Asking if a trope example is valid. See the Trope Talk forum.
- Proposing new tropes. See TropeLaunchPad.
- Making bug reports. See QueryBugs.
- Asking for new wiki features. See QueryWishlist.
- Chatting with other tropers. See our forums.
- Reporting problems with advertisements. See this forum topic.
- Reporting issues on the forums. Send a Holler instead.
Ask the Tropers:
openExtremely small "Referenced By" page Videogame
So I recently discovered this 'Referenced By' subpage for the Halo franchise that appears on every single game's subpage bar as a redirect. It was created in February of this year by darkemyst and has only been edited three times since, with the last edit being in May of this year.
It also only has six examples and not all of them even seem to be valid, which has me thinking it should be cut. To list all the examples and my thoughts on them:
- Aldnoah.Zero: The Hypergate looks very similar to the African portal that leads to the Ark from Halo 3.
- This entry provides two image links on the page itself, one of which is broken and just redirects to the main page of Bungie's website (and they don't even own the Halo franchise anymore). I found a working image and frankly the similarities seem fairly superficial, though I suppose the argument could be made that it's a reference: Hypergate (Aldnoah)
◊, Gate at Voi (Halo)
◊
- This entry provides two image links on the page itself, one of which is broken and just redirects to the main page of Bungie's website (and they don't even own the Halo franchise anymore). I found a working image and frankly the similarities seem fairly superficial, though I suppose the argument could be made that it's a reference: Hypergate (Aldnoah)
- Guardians of the Galaxy: Peter's laser pistols bear more than a passing resemblance to the Covenant Plasma Rifle from Halo: Combat Evolved, or also the laser pistols from The Black Hole (1979).
- The Expanse: While at first glance the Ring's design is reminiscent of a lifeless Halo, Manéo Jung-Espinoza's attempt at flying through it reveals that it actually operates more like the Supergates built by the Ori.
- Both of these entries openly admit that the similarities are vague and limited enough that it could be a reference to something else entirely, which makes them invalid IMO.
- Marathon: The Eternal Level name "These Caves Can't Be a Natural Formation" is a line from Halo: Combat Evolved
- The Marathon series pre-dates the Halo franchise which made me seriously scratch my head at this. I had to dig through our page on the former to find out that this is apparently a reference to a fan-made total conversion mod called Marathon: Eternal that was released after Halo. Not sure if that's valid.
- Quake: The Blaster in Quake IV can fire either single, extremely weak shots or more powerful charged shots in a manner similar to the Plasma Pistol.
- This is an extremely basic and generic gameplay mechanic that many, many shooters have adopted for many, many weapons throughout gaming history. Edit history shows that it was also in the above category of "the entry outright admits it could be referencing something else" until the last edit on May 10th 2021 - specifically, pointing out that it's equally similar to the "Dispersion Pistol" from Unreal I.
- Minilife TV: In "Spirit in the Sky", Master Chief's helmet is one of the items in Chris's swag pile.
- This is possibly the only inarguably valid entry on the page and it's for a LEGO stop-motion web series sitcom I've never heard of.
openIs there a way to request a trope rename? Videogame
I feel like the trope "Self-Sacrifice Scheme" is a bit of a mouthful and sounds more underwhelming than it often is.
At the same time, the name "Hangman's Gambit" sounds mysterious and interesting, but is used for a very mundane purpose: literally just a game of Hangman in Danganronpa.
Hangman's Gambit always sounded like a phrase perfectly suitable for those times when a character sacrifices their life, or pretends to do so in the case of faking their death, in order to increase the chances of a desired outcome in a different endeavor. For example, dying to rile up a crowd of people, or faking their death to make a targeted individual/group focus on something else. This is, by my understanding, exactly what a "Self-Sacrifice Scheme" seems to be.
With this in mind, would it be possible to request that we rename "Self-Sacrifice Scheme" to "Hangman's Gambit"?
If not, could it be made as a subtrope specifically referring to situations where the goal is uncertain and the death is meant as a means of manipulation rather than a direct path to that goal?
Edited by illeatyourselfopenOnce again, a non-existant work wonk Videogame
I initially brought this up in the Complaining thread, but upon further investigation of the culprit's edit history, it was deemed mod attention may be warrented.
Galdodon 99 made some weird edits to YMMV.Paper Mario The Origami King earlier today.
- “Paper Mario: The Origami Nazi”. Explanation King Olly’s plan for getting rid of all the Paper Toads involves him wishing via the 1,000 Crane Technique that all the Paper Toads go away forever since they share the same face and are poisoning his “perfect world” similar to Adolf Hitler.
And
- Pandering to the Base: While many critics and fans alike praise the game for being a Surprisingly Improved Sequel to its predecessors, a few such as the Villain Army and its Supreme Leader, accuse it of pandering to the people who hated Paper Bowser and his Koopa Troop by having King Olly be the main villain throughout the entire game, while Paper Bowser doesn’t steal back the spotlight from him, though it could just be shock over the eradication of the Paper Toads via the 1,000 Crane Technique. Hell, a review of the game
even said this while bashing the game for holding back Nintendo's development of Mario And Luigi Paper Jam 2, despite its 8.5 review rating.
I expanded the spoiler in the second part myself, but aside from their carelessness or lack of respect for spoiling, other red flags include the memetic mutation being a triple bullet point, and frankly I've never seen that meme around as a meme at least in the relatively decent portions of the internet, and the pothole to a Darth Wiki work and reference to a game that has at no point even been hinted to being planned in the Pandering to the Base.
They also added a justifying edit to another entry, I'll just remove that myself when I'm not on mobile.
After making that initial post, it was observed that they had made edits pertaining to the Villain Army, an unpublished work on Darth Wiki, and Paper Jam 2, which as of yet has not even been teased by any development staff, on other pages as well. This whole thing feels like another episode of the Tropers Obsessed with Works that Don't Exist show.
openPreventing an edit war on Characters.NickelodeonAllStarBrawl Videogame
This is rather belated, but it's something I wanted some feedback on to prevent an edit war.
About three weeks ago, I saw an example on Characters.Nickelodeon All Star Brawl without a citation:
The game in question still hasn't been released yet, so I commented it out
since it lacked a citation, along with a small tag explaining this (in addition to the edit reason). At the time, I did not remember the source.
Twelve days later
, ravioliluigi uncommented it out and slightly altered it with the following edit reason:
- Citation? What citation, the proof is right there in the trailer lol its a legit reference, that said I'm pretty sure that's his taunt
In spite of this, they did not add a citation in the example itself, going against the guidelines explained in Administrivia.Creating A Work Page For An Upcoming Work:
- When writing an example, make sure you are noting the source. Because the finished work is not available yet, it is not your source of information. Your source is [Trailer A], [Poster B], the open beta, the E3 demo, etc., so your example should cite that: "In [Trailer A]..."
I sent them a notifier explaining the policy not long after their edit. However, in the interim, I remembered where the animation in question can be seen: this short teaser for a Gamescom character reveal
. I could add the necessary citation to the example, but I wanted to make sure that this would not constitute an edit war.
openAkiba's Trip H&D trope page editing please Videogame
Hey Y'all,
So Akiba's Trip H&D has been released after a few weeks now and I think its about time someone a bit more capable than me(I am but a measly and lazy troper who is both a little shitty at describing and getting myself to actually do something) can actually try to take a look and update the page a little more if possible. That being said, kindly also take a look at my edits(especially in the character page) and edit them as required because I'm pretty sure I didn't get them entirely right.
Let me know when any one of you who have actually played the game and take a look at it!
I'm also currently collecting Akiba's Trip extra materials to add in extra information that's All in the Manual stuff that elaborates more on the characters themselves and designer stuff(along with a few bits of Word of Saint Paul). When I get that stuff translated(...eventually, I'm having a hard time looking for someone to translate them), I'll prolly let those who help out with editing know.
openTierInducedScrappy/HeroesOfTheStorm Videogame
On July 19th I remove most of the entries on the Heroes Of The Storm because of the nature of how the page was setup, as it didn't follow other examples such as High/Low/Both, the entries are about 75% of the cast, and the entries don't really explain where they fit in the Tier Induced Scrappy besides saying things like "Their uber low tier", plus the entries seem like they are all over the place in terms of how they are ranked. Is it quick match, ranked, etc.
After I did so, MurlocAggroB readded everything with the following reason: "I know this is non-standard, but there's no rule against non-standard page layouts. You can't just delete 90% of a page's content. Also, not to be elitist, but those entries about Butcher and TLV are laughably wrong."
Firstly I find the "laughably wrong" unnecessary and rude, no explanation was given how this is wrong. Secondly, the entries need seriously evaluation because how the entries are. They are below:
The Butcher
- The Butcher is an aggressive all-in burster, with the ability to 100-0 lots of heroes, especially late game. However, he's also the best example of a Skill Gate Character. He's a pubstomper who thrives on bad play, which you don't see a lot of in the higher leagues. And if he doesn't snowball, he becomes The Load, with not enough damage to be relevant in the lategame and no way to catch up. Dying is easy with his kit, and is extremely punishing as he loses his precious meat. Not to mention, he's the most easily outdrafted hero in the game, being butchered by Blinds, Shields, and strong escape. He's gone through four reworks to attempt to balance his kit, more than any other character, all met with general failure. Out of all the reworks, only one made him competitively viable (the one that came with the Garrosh patch), with the small downside of making him an all-around completely broken character. He was promptly nerfed and is still basically a Quick Match hero only.
Gazlowe
- Gazlowe had been considered an uber-low-tier character for the longest time. He was an overly defensive character that wasn't able to do much except defending an area... and even that doesn't do much compared to bringing your team there. He was also very squishy and didn't push as hard as other choices. 'Hoping Gazlowe gets a buff' was pretty much a Running Gag to the community. This eventually led to Blizzard doing a massive rework of his talents in the Dehaka patch, but it still wasn't enough to fix it. In late 2020, he was given a huge update that reworked him into a bruiser, making him much more useful.
Illidan
- Not even Memetic Mutation can save Illidan from being this trope. He's very squishy and not capable of big burst damage; and while he definitely can chip away the enemy HP slowly, he's also very squishy for someone who demands to be in the middle of combat at all times. He's taken a dive to the lower tier and picking him can elicit Big "NO!"s from your team. He got better after a lot of his talent reworks, but still isn't considered very viable.
Maiev
- Maiev gets a lot of flak for a very specific reason - she failed to deliver on her promises. Despite being advertised as an anti-mobility hero, Maiev did little to fix any of the mobile terrors haunting the meta. Instead, her kit let her join in on it, punishing backline squishies with powerful CC, preventing them from running and often pulling them into her team. She was just another in a long line of heroes suffering from mobility creep.
Murky
- No one likes babysitting Murky. Thanks to his crazy waveclear and general pushing power, Murky needs a constant lane opponent to discourage him from knocking down forts. But, thanks to Murky's non-existent respawn time and measly kill worth, killing him isn't enough to make him leave. Add in Safety Bubble making him shockingly hard to kill in the first place, the fact that Slime and his respawn lets himy win a war of attrition, and his Octo-grab + Pufferfish combo chunking all of Murky's best counters for most of their health, and you have a recipe for possibly the most annoying hero in the game.
Valeera
- Valeera suffers from the same problems as Nova, but has an even worse reputation in Quick Match. On top of being far too focused on hero killing, she is melee and has very little in terms of escape (only a short dash and a rarely-chosen immunity Heroic), making her worthless in any serious game. But all of her low-league infamy comes from one of her abilities: Cheap Shot. It allows her to stun an enemy for a fairly lengthy period and is used in stealth. This gives her unbelievable ganking abilities against enemies caught out of position.
- As of her late 2017 rework, Cheap Shot is no longer frustrating, as it became an anti-AA blind. However, Garrote is her new "cancer" ability. A combination of the second-longest Silence on a basic ability, decent damage and talents that pump even more damage from it, and a blink-strike move if she stays Vanished for long enough, it's simply a death sentence, totally shutting off a hero your choosing for over 2 seconds.
Cassia
- Cassia was hated because she was the ultimate anti-Basic Attacker. With her release, her trait initially gave her 65 Physical Armor, meaning that she had more hp than some tanks against Basic Attack heroes, on top of that she has a Blind and one of the highest dps, especially with Charged Strikes, which gave her not only a damage boost, but made her Basic Attacks splash to every other hero close to the target as well (that included structures initially). On the other hand, she was extremely gimped against ranged heroes and those who rely on spell damage, as her range was much shorter (4.0 vs standard 5.5) and her trait didn't work against spell damage at all.
- Cassia's rework in 2020 aimed to make her more of a generalist and update her talent tree. Her Armor is now gained over time while moving and has a lower cap but also protects from Spell Damage, and there were quality of life improvements for all of her abilities. However, Blizzard overnerfed her in return, which unfortunately left her very underpowered. She was promptly buffed, which, like Zarya below, proved to be a disastrous idea. Her combination of extra flexibility and incredible tankiness via her new trait made her the de facto Ranged Assassin, propelled by an extremely overtuned talent called Surge of LightEffect After absorbing enough damage with her trait, it could be activated to damage all enemies around her. It otherwise had no cooldown and dealt 300 damage originally, potentially dealing a thousand burst by itself in an AoE in one team fight. She was nerfed in almost every patch for nearly a year, finally settling down (but still remaining viable) around October of that year.
Fenix
- If you need proof on how power level can warp how characters are seen, look no farther than Fenix. He went from one of the most beloved and highly requested Starcraft characters to one of the most raged-about heroes in a long time. Thanks to his shield and teleport, he is nearly impossible to damage in the early game, letting him out value every single hero in lane. He has two very powerful AAs as well as a strong uninterruptible damage and CC tool. Fighting against him feels oppressive and one-dimensional - either you break the shield and sneak a CC to break that very brief channel on Warp, or he gets away scot free. While he's no longer the overpowered monstrosity he was at launch, his release version still sticks in players' minds.
Genji
- Genji is one of the only heroes to singlehandedly rewrite an entire meta, even after being nerfed into a balanced state. His Swift Strike is the most powerful dash in the game, bar none. It has almost a screen's length of range, ignores terrain, deals decent damage, and resets its cooldown if Genji scores the kill within a brief window after hitting a target. That, a second dash with his trait, and Genji's on-demand Protected via Deflect made him the strongest dive hero in the game, able to duck into the backlines (even into forts) with extreme efficiency to score a kill, then escape unscathed. He was no slouch in teamfights either, with his Dragonblade cleaving through teams with ease. He was so oppressive, the entire meta reconfigured around to either counter or support his playstyle, seriously lowering the value of backline squishies in either case, and forcing the transition into Double Support compositions to minimize the windows in which Genji could score kills. He's been heavily and repeatedly nerfed as a result, with no signs of slowing down even a year after his release.
- Seven months after his release, Blizzard deliberately nerfed every Support in the game to lower the inherent strength of the Double Support comp which Genji prompted.note Given that Blizzard thought this an appropriate response rather than just nerfing Genji, one could argue that he's not responsible for Double Support Winter, but it's just as clear that he was a major influence on it. Of course, that still left him running rampant, so when Maiev was released, two months after that, she was explicitly positioned to hard-counter him and his ilk. If that's not proof that Genji has warped the meta, nothing is.
Greymane
- Greymane dwelled as a sort of "sleeper OP" all throughout 2017. While he wasn't performing insanely well at anything in particular, he is a Jack of All Stats who can do basically anything an Assassin is supposed to: he has good poke, burst, dive, escape, lane clear, mercing, and even tank busting. His only real weakness is a lack of self-sustain, which is made up for by his ability to stay at a safe distance until he needs to hop in and significantly greater health pool than his rivals bar Zul'jin, who needs to be at low health to do heavy damage. There is no situation where a Greymane is a bad Assassin pick... but, because he wasn't technically overperforming, he slid under the radar. Having said that, just one nerf — increasing the cooldown on his wolf!Q from 3sec to 4 — was enough to break his viability, and he appeared rarely during the 2018 competitive season.
Li-Ming
- As stated in Game-Breaker, Li-Ming can destroy almost an entire team herself and keep fighting with no difficulty; as a result, she has landed on the high end of this trope. Blizzard's Nerf was met with praise from the majority of the fandom since it made her much easier to fight. However, it would seem that the fandom will not shut up unless some nerf is given to her Trait, which completely resets her cooldowns if she was just nearby when an enemy got killed. As such, she maintained a high ban rate in Ranked for a long time.
- ...until 2017, when enough viable dive heroes (Genji and Tracer being the biggest examples) showed up to give her a headache. In addition, double tank comps are also popular, which Ming has trouble bursting down. Because of this, she's drifted to the other end of this trope, although only mildly.
Nova
- Nova gets hit with both ends of this. At low tiers she's the quintessential pubstomping hero that can kill someone before they can react. At the high end she's considered almost useless because she isn't very good at doing anything besides killing heroes — IE, all the things that actually win the match — and people are savvy to her tricks. (While she can provide an acceptable laning presence or work on objectives, she can only do this if someone babysits her, which is a big ask at that level.) After her changes in the Li-Ming patch, she more or less became entirely useless in both low and high levels of play.
- ...Until the Hanzo patch, when Stealth was updated. She was given a new activated skill that dropped a clone and stealthed her instantly. Despite the 60 second cooldown, it made up Nova's prime weakness - escape. Keep in mind that the clone literally switches with her, taking the hit for point-and-click abilities heading her way. Couple that with improved clone AI, and Nova suddenly became extremely safe. Not only was she a viable pick in higher leagues, she was one of the highest performing mages. Of course, that wasn't allowed to last, and Nova was nerfed into obscurity once again.
Probius
- Probius had a fairly poor launch, with low-range skills, too much setup needed, and not enough health to justify it. After some cooldown and range buffs however, Probius earned his niche as a Difficult, but Awesome area-denial mage/pusher hybrid that could pump out Chromie levels of burst. That was until two things; Pylon Overcharge receive a barrage of nerfs to help make Null Gate attractive, and Genji was released, ushering in a dive meta era that his squishy body couldn't take. Throw in his extreme reliance on Pylons and their setup time, and Probius could simply no longer keep up, reverting basically back to his launch status except without even the high impact Pylon Overcharge gave him.
Raynor
- Even being the game's poster boy and tutorial hero couldn't save Raynor from the bottom tier. As an AA assassin, he was outclassed in damage and utility by Valla, Greymane, and Zul'jin. As a pusher, he was outclassed by every specialist under the sun. He has the same health pool as Chromie, and his skills are nowhere near powerful enough to justify that. Maybe the most comical is his "trait", which gives him extra attack range... something that Ana, Nova, and Hanzo all get without using up a trait spot. Hero reworks usually result in split opinions, but everyone has been begging Blizzard to take a look at Raynor, which Blizzard finally agreed to do in 2018. Said rework made him go from trash tier to godlike, with busted amounts of damage pumped out with his AA (which, thanks to his new trait, works double-time as sustained damage and burst), a free powerful heal, and a combat stim that doubles as an escape. Additionally, he not only has all that damage and safety, but he kept his 6.5 range, giving him a massive edge over melee heroes and a significant way to outplay other ranged ones. While Blizzard eventually lowered practically all of Raynor's numbers, he's still a serious meta force due to his sheer versatility.
- Patch Notes: Raynor's pepper was bringing a bit too much salt.
Sgt. Hammer
- Sgt. Hammer is arguably the best siege hero in the game. She will probably make you rage - either because she can't get herself set up in a good spot (thanks to the other team making sure to always harass her away, as siege mode is a big "Kick me" sign) or because your team can never keep an eye on her until she tears your buildings to shreds. She also has been able to make people playing solo range for the fact that seeing a Sgt. Hammer more or less flat out forces you to babysit her, and sure enough, any Sgt. Hammers on the other team will have people glued to her, while yours will run away from her like she spews poison.
Sylvanas
- While Sylvanas has always had game balancing problemsnote Go read the gamebreaker page for that, she headed full-on into this trope during the Hanzo patch. With the buffs to minions and the weakening of structures, she pretty much became a win-harder hero. She was able to push more efficiently than she ever had before, especially when her team manages to get an objective, and making it almost impossible to come back.
- At very high levels, Sylvanas sits on the other end of this trope. Her ability to push down lanes is unrivaled... but she can easily be stopped by the simple decision of going to fight her. At higher levels, someone always comes to defend against them, which hampers her effectiveness. Despite how easy she is to counter, her "power pie" is almost entirely eaten by her trait just because it has such snowball potential. She's not a strong solo-laner due to a lack of sustain, she's not good at mercs or objectives thanks to low damage, and she's not good in teamfights because of her low-impact abilities. All she can do is lock down structures for her team to rip apart. Her later rework fixed her to be more of an actual Assassin, fixing that issue of her playstyle.
Tracer
- Launch Tracer was the next 'most annoying hero to fight'. Skillshots were practically impossible to land on her, as she can zip through the battlefield three times in a row if she has her charges; her auto attacks, while weak, can be done while moving to avoid any lost DPS. And she has that Recall skill, basically the Reset Button skill possessed by many other MOBA characters as ultimates on a basic skill* Granted, it doesn't restore health without a Storm Talent, but it's still an escape + Cleanse. Fighting Tracer can easily result of a failed Benny Hill chase gone wrong while she's killing you, and she's a lot more of a bane for immobile or skillshot-heavy heroes. Tracer single-handedly dethroned Li-Ming from the Game-Breaker status by being such a hard counter to her.
Anub'arak
- Anub'arak for the longest times was considered one of the worst tanks in the game. While he did have some decent utility with his ult and stuns, it didn’t make up for the fact that he was squishy and didn’t really put out that much damage. He was especially hurt when his Burrow Strike ability lost its invincibility which made him even worse. And then Blizzard added the armor mechanic, giving him 25 spell armor. This one simple change made him go from one of the worst tanks to one of the best tanks, making him the best counter against any team with a spellcaster, and launching him to the high-end of this trope. He’s been slowly nerfed since then and now his spell shield is tied to his W but he still one of the top tanks.
Artanis
- When it comes to Artanis, most people will agree that he's a very scary hero on paper when it comes to the late game, but he has a few key problems that put him under this trope. A couple examples are his problems sticking to targets due to his incredibly low attack range, how easy it is to kite him, and, as mentioned above, it's almost necessary to reach the late game before he has any sort of impact. His problems getting his basic attacks off also leads to him being surprisingly squishy, since his main source of survivability, his trait, is made more effective if he's actually able to attack his targets. He received a buff to his Twin Blades that will allow him to have a mini-version of his Zealot Charge as baseline, allowing him to close gaps on his foes a lot more easily. Come the Lucio patch, he's much more viable and scarier than ever, with a rework in his talents and abilities, such as being able to use Warp Prism during Blade Dash (allowing him to abduct enemy heroes from 2/3rds of the screen away), and several shield abilities which make him last a lot longer than usual. He's constantly pick-banned in ranked and unranked on larger maps as a result.
Arthas
- Arthas was one of the first major balance issues to hit Heroes of the Storm, thanks to a few generic talents that Warriors really shouldn't have had. Namely, Envenom, Heroes of the Storm's Alternate Company Equivalent to League of Legends' Ignite, which combined with his base kit, gave him far too much burst for a warrior, combined with his extreme resilience in teamfights thanks to Army of the Dead and Immortal Coil plus his extremely powerful crowd control, made his only weakness (a lack of mobility) largely an afterthought in the face of his ability to turn anyone who got within reach or caught by his root into cold cuts. Needless to say, Envenom was nerfed into the ground and later removed from Arthas entirely.
Chen
- More than any other hero, Chen has been a victim of the changing meta. He relies on his Brew to use abilities, which he has to recover by standing still and drinking. Doing this grants a large regenerating shield, but he's unable to take any actions while he does this, and any stuns or knockbacks will break the channel early. Originally he was a strong anti-backline tank that was hard to kill, with a major weakness to stuns. However, as the game evolved, stuns (and especially knockbacks) became more common, and Chen fell behind. He simply no longer filled a niche and was too easily countered. On top of that lot of underwhelming builds and generally weak Heroics have made Chen kinda boring, and he sits one of the most unpopular heroes in the game, with less play than Cho'Gall, an underpowered hero that requires two people in a party to even play. Thankfully blizzard finally reworked him in the June 18, 2019 patch, making him at last playable.
Cho'Gall
- Cho'Gall is on both ends of this. In professional play he's seen as the one of the weakest heroes (at one point having a 20% win rate, and only hovering around the bottom 40s at the highest). This is because Percent Health damage abilities absolutely wreck him, on top of only having 4 total bodies being a huge downside in competitive. The problem comes in when you meet him in the quick match where you can't counter pick; if you don't have any of the abilities that counter him and don't have optimal rotation skills, he may as well be named Game'Breaker. Not only does his abilities do stupid damage even at low levels, he has THE highest HP pool, meaning they can shirk off even ultimate abilities and not even lose half of their gigantic health bar, and if he has a Lt. Morales or Auriel, you might as well not even attempt to kill him.
D.Va
- D.Va tends to gather a lot of hate because of her obnoxious base mechanic: hopping in and out of her mech, effectively granting her 3 health bars in a fight while only granting 50% of a kill. Her standard rotation is "nearly die then pop Self Destruct at the last moment, any damage done to you as the pilot doesn't matter, hop back into your mech if they start to focus on you, die in your mech and escape on foot". Beyond that though, D.Va's kit is fairly underwhelming. Her AA is meh, she moves at 85% speed, her boosters are only average peel, and it's debatable whether Defense Matrix is that amazing. It awkwardly leaves her annoying to face, but never that scary.
Deathwing
The leader of the Black Dragonflight is a full-fledged playable raid boss. He is easily focused down by coordinated fire, but he is permanently Unstoppable, meaning that crowd-control effects do not work on him. These things make him a quintessential pubstomper, as "coordinated fire" basically does not occur in Quick Match, and what little CC he might face, he can shrug off. Additionally, while he cannot be healed by his allies, this is a very small downside in comparison to the vast amounts of damage he can put out, and the fact that, the more crowd control a character has, the more useless they are against him; his trait can reduce enemy characters to complete uselessness, giving his side a numerical advantage that can prove insurmountable. In general, a Deathwing only dies to their own overconfidence.Garrosh
- Garrosh is one of the oddest cases of a Scrappy in the game. Remember that comment at the top about how people ban new Heroes because they simply don't want to deal with them? Garrosh is the poster boy for this behavior. As released, he sat at around a 42% winrate, low but not criminal, but had a nearly 90% ban rate in draft modes across all leagues. The reason for that is simple; Garrosh was a serious one-trick pony. All of his skills were underwhelming, but combining Groundbreaker and Wrecking Ball together was essentially an unbeatable One-Hit Kill unless you threw a highly mobile hero or are fighting Medivh. Because of this, he was beyond frustrating to face, but also kinda boring to play. Nobody wants to deal with him, and no one is sad if they have to give him up. Unlike the D.Va example above, while he wasn't overall strong, he was scary to fight since you had to dodge every Groundbreaker or instantly die. The Groundbreaker was instead reworked into a stun and slow, making his Wrecking Ball take a lot more active planning and risk on Garrosh's part. It is telling however that Garrosh received a total rework of a skill in only six months. Keep in mind that Blizzard has shown to be stingy about completely reworking skills in general, nevermind so quickly.
Mal'Ganis
- Overloaded kits, thy name is Mal'Ganis. He's the ideal tank - a big health bar, high sustain, lots of easy-to-land AoE crowd control, solid mobility, an invulnerability button, and even plenty of damage - he has it all. The worst part is just how hard he is to punish; Night Rush is a crapshoot on whether he gets stunned or he stuns you, and Fel Claws has such a huge window that it doesn't matter if you play sloppy. To top it off, he's got an Awesome, but Impractical Heroic (Dark Conversion) that pretty much exists only to make the enemies rage. For some reason, Blizzard has been rather conservative in how they nerf him, chopping off small numbers here and there every few weeks but rarely affecting his overall power level. The combination of his ridiculous kit, high popularity, and Blizz's slow response has not bred a happy reaction to him.
Ragnaros
- Ragnaros the Firelord was a pure pain when he was first released. Interestingly it was not just because he was overpowered but because he could prolong game to ridiculous lengths. With his lava wave (that can clear an entire lane and soak XP without any bodies needed) and Molten Core (which allows him to absorb the damage applied to an allied building) he could make entire pushes or even objectives basically do nothing. This could prolong games to twice or more their normal length. Molten Core is so impactful, he had a nerf (major or minor) in every single patch from his release until it slowed down around Garrosh - ten heroes later.
Sonya
- Similar to Greymane, Sonya spent months as a top meta pick - not as a Warrior, but as an Assassin. Despite lacking the bulk and peel of a main tank, she deals lots of damage and is still tanky enough to avoid getting melted. She has no real weaknesses in a Bruiser role. She gets a lot of flak for overshadowing other heroes, basically being the sole viable Bruiser. It doesn't help that she has a strong gap-closer that's also an interrupt, usually delivering enough damage to one-shot squishies.
- In Quick Match, she is counted as a Bruiser, and is by far the tankiest of the sub-category. While she's nothing compared to a proper Warrior, against a team with Thrall, Ragnaros, or even Alarak, she's more than enough to make the game essentially "tank vs no tank". This was thankfully rectified in the 2018 Gameplay Updates, which gave Quick Match's algorithm a sweeping rework.
Varian
- Varian has had some balance complaints concerning his Level 4 talents. On release, Warbringer was a talent that replaced the slow on his Charge with a brief stun. Sounds fine, until you realise that not only was it a powerful engage tool, it could be used to interrupt channeled abilities or begin easy stunlock chains. On Taunt Varian it paired with his Heroic to do a lengthy stunlock on his own, while on the other two it was simply too reliable of an interrupt for a high-damage Assassin. Blizzard eventually nerfed it to death... but the only other Talent at that rank is Shield Wall, which makes his Parry block all damage. While technically not "overpowered" (it's really the only thing keeping Varian relevant in the meta), it's annoying as hell. Parry is a short-cooldown skill with two charges, making Shield Wall the most spammable Protected in the game. This allows him to constantly No-Sell major damage at no risk or loss. Eventually, the Fenix patch made Shield Wall remove Parry's second charge, though in compensation it halves the cooldown to 5 seconds. Warbringer was also made more appealing by reducing Charge's cooldown to 1/3 of its previous duration, and allowing Varian to target allies with it, solving the "I have no way to disengage" problems that afflict many melee damage-dealers.
- Varian had the problem of being largely useless for the first nine levels of a match. While there are certainly Heroes who aren't fully functional until they unlock their Heroic, Varian less needs the spell(s) and more the stat boosts; and, until he gets them, he's pretty much unable to contribute to his team. This led to him basically disappearing from high levels of play. The fix to this also came in the Fenix patch: his Heroics were moved to Lv.4, trading spots with the (extremely powerful) talents that previously resided there. Varian players now have a much shorter waiting period before they're able to get into the fight. This has led to him showing up at HGC again, though not frequently (and with a pretty poor winrate).
- The fact that Varian is a Multi-Class hero has given the matchmaker fits. In Quick Match he was not counted as a Warrior but instead an Assassin, but that meant he could end up being the only (potential) tank in a 10-person match, giving his team an unfair advantage. When this was changed with the D.Va patch, this also caused the opposite problem, where people would choose his Assassin Heroics and leave their opponents with the only tank. Even worse, there is no statistical way for the matchmaker to place Varian correctly, as (according to the replay-analyzing website hotslogs.com) players split roughly down the middle
in terms of choosing his tank ability versus the two DPS Heroics. Either Blizzard must nerf one of his two classes into oblivion or must live with the fact that, if he is properly balanced, he by definition cannot be sorted properly by a matchmaker. (They appear to have decided that the real lesson is to never again release a multi-class Hero; when the classes were reassigned at the end of 2018, he became a Bruiser.)
Xul
- Xul is an amazing hero capable of doing almost everything well, to the point where he ended up holding the highest winrate in the game in the span of a week. Understandably, many people were asking for him to be toned down, but he tended to get a pass from some people due to being a fan favorite from Diablo II. Blizzard eventually brought down a pretty heavy Nerf on him, which brought him in line with the other heroes while keeping his strengths, meaning that going up against him no longer meant a near auto-loss, though he is most certainly still viable.
Abathur
- While each Hero gets a difficulty rating (from "Easy" on Raynor and Li Li to "Very Hard" on Medivh), there are two real difficulty tiers in the game. Simple Heroes shine if their player understands how said Hero works. Complex Heroes require the player's entire team to understand those things. Abathur is definitely one of the latter. While good Abathurs can be game-changing, he's incredibly unorthodox — everything he does, he does in weird, indirect ways, and he can only be played to maximum effect if all five players are leaning into his strengths and playing around his weaknesses. If that isn't happening, you'll have 4v5 teamfights all day long, which is a major disadvantage when Heroes is tilted so heavily towards teamfights. Besides, Sturgeon's Law applies to Abathur players, giving the haters more reason to be vocal about his state. If a gameplay hate topic isn't about Murky or Nova, it'll definitely be about Abathur.
Ana
- Ana players, especially ones in Quick Match, tend to get a lot of flak. That's because all of her skills (including her healing) require precise skillshots, something not every player can consistently do. Despite high theoretical numbers, many factors can render Ana useless: not just missing her heals, but allies deciding to dodge them (which happens all the time). She also had almost no ability to heal herself. That was fine in Overwatch, where two healers on a six-person team was and is a pretty normal team-comp... but in Heroes and their teams of five, the second healer is typically the first to go, which led to Ana being extraordinarily easy to bully off. Blizzard eventually gave her some self-sustain via auto-attack lifesteal, but even so, people who enjoy playing Ana because of her skill ceiling admit that she needs more buffing.
Auriel
The Archangel of Hope was released as a true Combat Medic, having an AoE heal which could be fired every four seconds but only being able to charge her heal's Energy Meter by doing combat damage (a bit like to the original FF7 Limit Break). To aid this, and for flavor reasons, she can also use her trait Bestow Hope to channel an ally's damage into her meter as well. The only problem was that the Energy she gained was incredibly low; she needed a strong hyper-carry, pumping out absurd amounts of DPS, to function at maximum capacity — or a Cho'gall, allowing her to cheat by charging herself with two players' worth of damage at once. As such, she languished in obscurity and niche team comps (I mean, Cho'gall??) for several years. Finally, Blizzard buffed the amount of Energy she gained, almost doubling her charge rates and allowing her to take a place in the Nexus that amounted to more than "Joke Character."The Lost Vikings
- Speaking of unconventional gameplay, The Lost Vikings are the mother of Difficult, but Awesome. Their strength is the ability to have three bodies, all of them soaking each lane and gaining constant XP without the need to rotate. They require a large amount of micro-management and constant awareness of not only your team and your enemies, but also where all of you are. Naturally, most beginner players will skip this entirely, instead grouping them as three and controlling them like an inefficient brawler hero. Even players who do split them tend to lack the required care, feeding far more XP than they're soaking. Quick Match Vikings are something of The Dreaded for many just due to the high chance they're not going to do anything useful.
Lt. Morales
- Lt. Morales maybe one of the most unique samples of this trope. She is pretty much the best support when it comes to healing and can efficiently heal her team right back up to full health in the middle of a fight. Her tradeoff is being a Squishy Wizard: she can’t put out damage, has very little health, and has only one self-peeling ability that is quite difficult to use. The end result is that she can easily be scared off or killed if her defenders don't position right. The problem is the tactics of positioning and outmaneuvering opponents isn't really a skill that newer players have a great grasp of. As such, Morales is practically invincible to them; they'd either duel the enemy she's healing, to no effect, or chase after Morales like it's Benny Hill time, to no effect. She is, despite being a dedicated healer, a quintessential pubstomper — someone who is only effective against an uncoordinated opposition. But then you get to higher levels of play and her effectiveness drops off dramatically, because people have figured out how to divorce her from her team and leave her vulnerable.
Lúcio
- Lúcio's been on both ends of this several times. On launch, Lúcio provided him and his entire with team endless sustain and great chase or escape. It wasn't unusual to see an entire team hanging around on the enemy's backdoor for the whole match after they got even the slightest upper hand, just off of how much AoE healing Lúcio could pump out. After that, he was slaughtered by a series of nerfs, cutting his healing by 33% and leaving him gimped and unplayable. A few months later however, Blizzard gave him a several hundred health buff that brought him back into the meta full-force. No longer a healer monster, Lúcio is instead used to set up crazy ganks with Speed Boost and make them unpunishable with Sound Barrier. He can also shake up teamfights with Sound Barrier, since it might as well be a teamwide Divine Shield if the targets aren't bursted through it. While not the most popular or powerful Support, he is one of the most impactful, and ergo frustrating to face.
Tassadar
- Another one of those memetically worthless characters, Tassadar has been in the dust for ages. An uneasy compromise between a High Templar Squishy Wizard and a Sentry White Mage, he did some damage on his own but was best used to babysit heroes like Valla and Tracer, whose weaknesses he could easily compensate for. He is, in that sense, not really a hero in his own right but rather a hero-enabler, which makes him basically impossible to balance. The end result was a total rework; he was shifted to the Assassin pool and reconfigured as a genuine offensive threat (which also pleased StarCraft fans who disagreed with his flavor) instead of the weird half-and-half he was before. Despite this, he sunk even further into the Scrappy heap: a lot of people realized they actually enjoyed his old playstyle, which was now gone.
Whitemane
- While her kit looks fairly straightforward, when played out it becomes a much different story. Whitemane boasts assassin-level damage, all of which is directly converted into health for allies. Spreading Zeal is simple thanks to its long duration, and Desperate Plea can function as that spreading tool or as a major single-target heal depending on the situation. Diving her is essentially out of the question, since she'll be recovering tonnes of health as you're trying to kill her, giving her team plenty of time to converge and end you. While nerfs have brought her closer in line, she's still one of the most detested healers.
Zarya
- Zarya might be the most insane version of this trope. When she was first released, she was considered probably one of the worst characters in the game with a win-rate around 30%. It was so bad she was actually buffed just a few days later (It usually takes two weeks before a hero gets a patch). After that, she went on to achieve a 71.5% win-rate, surpassing the previous Game-Breaker Xul, which was formerly the highest of any hero ever. Blizzard nerfed her only a day later, and she's been middle-tier ever since.
openJust Dance (No Name Given Trope) Videogame
Although I would like to add the trope itself since every single coach (not counting the collaborated ones) comes with no names at all, I also notice that some of the coaches have been given names, either by the directors of the game, concept arts or posts from official accounts. If it is to be added, will it be counted as a Subversion or Aversion?
openSpecific image won't upload Videogame
I've been adding images to Characters.Temtem, and today I wanted to add images of Hidody and Taifu. Problem is, the Hidody image
I downloaded from the Wikia wouldn't upload; when I clicked "submit", it cancelled itself before it could load the popup with the URL and formatting in it. I chalked this up to the uploader not working... but a few hours later, I tried again, and it still didn't work, but an image of Taifu
that I downloaded from the same site uploaded just fine. Is the file corrupted?
openCan Trivia be played with? Videogame
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: I'm wondering if Trivia can be played with. Specifically, I'm asking in regards to Trivia.Super Smash Bros, as the Unintentional Period Piece has two bullet points; one which explains how the first three games are this (due to them being Museum Games that released before games could be regularly updated, and as such are limited to what existed at the time of development), and one which explains how the fourth and fifth games avert this by adding in new content from games which were concurrent to and/or released after Smash itself.
I looked at What Goes Where on the Wiki and Trivia and they don't mention it at all; compare to YMMV.Home Page, which does.
openCharacters.SeriousSamBosses - Regarding ZumZum: BeeAfraid or WickedWasps? Videogame
So, basically, more than two weeks ago, I was busy prowling through Bee Afraid wicks to clean them up (since Bee Afraid now covers only dangerous/antagonistic bee characters or species; the original definition is covered by Scary Stinging Swarm). One of these wicks was located in Characters.Serious Sam Bosses, describing a boss called ZumZum. Here's the entry that contained the wick:
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: A freaking huge wasp.
Naturally, I replaced the wick with a wick for the Wicked Wasps trope. But later, a troper called AM_NK added the separate Bee Afraid wick, describing ZumZum as "a giant mook-making bee" (yet, surprisingly, not rewriting other wicks and not even removing the Wicked Wasps wick), and then added ZumZum as an example in the main Bee Afraid page.
Now, that's when the confusion rises. I was very hesitant to remove the Bee Afraid wick (since it would count as an example of edit-warring), but the page now simultaneously calls ZumZum a wasp and then contradicts itself by calling it a bee. And as far as I'm aware, no insect can simultaneously be a bee and a wasp.
To settle this, I decided to browse the internet for the information regarding ZumZum. The wiki page on Serious Sam Wiki
calls ZumZum a hornet-like creature (and its Russian counterpart outright refers to it as a mutated hornet). Also, judging by how the character looks
◊, it looks more like a wasp to me. However, [[https://serioussam.fandom.com/wiki/ZumZum_Jr
. the mooks it spawns]] definitely resemble bees more, which would make ZumZum itself a weird-looking bee by association.
I've never played Serious Sam game series in my life, so I have zero understanding about the game's lore, characters, and stuff. So I'd like to ask, what should be done here? Should we rewrite the entry to call it a wasp (therefore, removing the Bee Afraid wick), or a bee (therefore, removing the Wicked Wasps wick)? Or should we just Take a Third Option and call it a "bee/wasp thing", keeping both wicks?
Oh, and should we bring AM_NK to this thread? I'd like to hear what they have to say on this stance.
Edited by I--Vanya--IopenWhat is this bullshit Videogame
Alright, who the hell decided it was a good idea to add a page image to Awesome.The Binding Of Isaac? The page itself is shoehorning a lot.
Edited by SpideyopenVideo examples for Let's Player without a page? Videogame
I have a potential video example I want to upload, but it's from a Let's Play by HawkZombie
, who doesn't have a page here. His channel isn't very big yet (he has 359 subscribers right now), and I don't know enough about him to start a page for him.
What's the best way to handle this? Is it okay to only use the game itself as the video source? Can I link to the original video, or the player's channel, in the description?
It has to be from this Let's Play because the trope depends on the player's reaction.
Edited by DrNoPumaopenConcern over Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby Videogame
While helping with the That One Boss and That One Level cleanup
, I came across some questionable examples on Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby, and in the process I've found myself concerned about the page and its subpages in general.
I had no doubt the reason the game even had a page was because of the general Surprise Difficulty reaction it gets, but the memes of how hard it is - and the demonization the pitchers got as a result - have bled into all but one subpage, even though difficulty aside, it's a simple Winnie-the-Pooh game with no plot.
My main concern is how I should deal with this. Like I said, the issues are quite prominent, but I'm worried about if the pages aren't big enough to warrant a thread on Projects: Short Term, and what I should do instead if they aren't.
Edited by BrashBusteropenSlightly suspicious troper Videogame
jamesalan
added a link to an unofficial web port of Five Nights at Freddy's 1 (hosted on y9freegames.com) on the Five Nights at Freddy's Franchise page. This edit strikes me as a bit odd because:
- It's an unofficial link, on a page about the official work.
- The link itself just reads "Online gameplay link" and is thrown in the middle of the spin-offs section of the page, on top of using the wrong formatting (a dash instead of asterisk for a bullet point), which has a bit of a spammy feel.
- Almost all of that troper's edits consist of adding links to web games.
I removed the link since it was out-of-place, but this incident makes the whole y9freegames site seem suspicious to me. The troper added another link to that site on Happy Wheels, which I'm not sure if it's OK or not.
openSafe to recreate cut page for a Cars game? Videogame
This is kind of a silly question, but I'm here to ask if it's okay to recreate Cars: Race-O-Rama, the page for a semi-obscure tie-in game for Pixar's Cars. It was apparently cut for reading "Like a Wikipedia summary of the games" and not actually listing any tropes.
Since the issue seems to be that the original page was badly written to the point of being useless, I imagine it would be fine for me to make a proper page for this game. I do have a list of tropes pertaining to Cars Race O Rama. I just wanted to ask before doing anything, per the warning on the cut page itself.
Edited by JoestarRunneropenWhat kind of page do mods and fanmade songs for Friday Night Funkin go into? Videogame
So, I'm the main guy who launched and frequently checks the Friday Night Funkin' page, and as I've been looking around the edit histories, it's become evident that a few tropers would like to add examples of mods/fan created songs to pages like Awesome Music and Nightmare Fuel. I for one think that FNF has a healthy modding community ripe with lots of examples and I was hoping that these would breath new life into the page during the lulls of waiting for the game itself to be updated, so I tried making a fan works page, since you can't add examples of mods to main pages. Unfortunately, I used the page incorrectly (Accidentally. My bad.) and it got cut. I can only assume that we should use the Fanfic Recs option? I'm a little confused on the matter since I wouldn't really consider game mods fanfics.
Edited by GraysonBaueropenReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming and a Halo franchise example with possible spoilers Videogame
My main concern is how to write this so as to avert creating a Self-Fulfilling Spoiler. The Flood in Halo is very clearly named after the Genesis flood narrative, but how would I go about adding this in to the page without creating a Self-Fulfilling Spoiler since in the backstory, the Flood were effectively created as a means to purge the Forerunners, who retaliated by creating an Ark to preserve most species?
Edited by EclipseMTopenDoes having your memory erased and replaced with FakeMemories count for BrainwashedAndCrazy. Videogame
So there's a character in Fire Emblem Awakening, whose backstory involves her being kidnapped as a teenager by people she hates, having her entire memory and personality erased to the point she no longer remembers her parents or even her name, and then all this being replaced with a Fake Memories magically implanted into her mind. She is then used to carry out her kidnapper's bidding.
The character describes herself as a ""A girl enslaved mind, body, and soul"
and the official sources use "pawn" and "puppet to describe her, with the Fire Emblem wiki(link
, ) describing her with the word, "brainwashed."
The reason I put this here is someone keeps contesting this example and saying she wasn't brainwashed, even though there is a similar character listed from Sailor Moon. I wanted to know what ATT thinks? Does that count as an example of Brainwashed and Crazy?
Edited by Monsund

(Very thorough post below, apologies for length)
Dear Ask the Tropers,
I want to discuss how Sonic the Hedgehog Big Bad Dr. Eggman might be better off as an example of Faux Affably Evil as opposed to Affably Evil, the latter of which is what most descriptions of him I've seen on this site describe him as (including some trope subpage-only cases, hence why I've come over to Ask the Tropers). Spoilers unmarked for ease of reading.
Here are the main entries regarding him:
Here's my counterargument.
He loves being what he thinks is the most civilized and enlightened guy in the room, plain and simple, and the trope subpages of quite a few different adaptations have already described their Robotniks/Eggmen as "Faux", despite how two of them (AoStH and the movie) were heavily comedy-focused.
Now, I'm sure there might be a couple cases out there of game-universe!Eggman being genuinely affable (maybe just during Olympic season or something, the Twitter Takeovers are more of a different kind of portrayal altogether), but these are too few and far between to be a defining trait.
Let's look at the alleged examples being most frequently cited:
- Sonic Adventure 2:
- The Misaimed Fandom entry I put on the game's YMMV page explains the "Gerald" bit in detail. Long story short, he looked up to his grandpa as a brilliant scientist rather than because of anything benevolent, and he's disappointed that Gerald went crazy trying to destroy the world since he takes pride in his own Pragmatic Villainy.
- The "admirable adversary" scene has him send Sonic to his death via explosive escape pod and then lowering his head out of respect… before immediately getting over it and pointing his gun back at Tails. His Dark Story recap also has him gleefully proclaim, "I finally did it! I've defeated Sonic! That annoying hedgehog is gone forever! He's nothing but floating chunks in space now!"
- He did get along with the heroes during the Last Story, but, y'know, no world means no empire so necessity and all that.
- The somber "you're right" response he gives to Tails' "we all did it together" was meant to fit with the equally somber tone of Shadow's death and Gerald's tainted legacy. As sincere as it sounds, it's just Eggman acknowledging the facts after being briefly lost in a moment of thought.
- Here's a Dummied Out exchange that was meant to happen after that, anyways:
Tails: "Where are you going?"
Eggman: "Next time, I will pull this off without anyone's help! I will use my own power to take over the world! Next time we meet, all bets are off! Tails: "Same here!"And considering how he's a very Opportunistic Bastard willing to pervert anything to get what he wants (e.g. Little Planet, Angel Island, an ancient pyramid, a planet, five planets, time and space, a guy's very reason to live, etc.), I think it's safe to say he'd even exploit a Draco in Leather Pants situation like this one if he existed in the real world.
Hence, why I think we should change this. My proposed plan here is to edit the main pages that matter and then edit those linked to it in some way. I'll deal with the latter once I've gotten the go-ahead for the former.
Thank you all for listening.
Many regards, Blurry