Difficult but Awesome: Difference between revisions

''But!'' With enough practice and experience, it turns out they really ''are'' awesome as advertised; it's just that these characters have a high bar to entry, and their steep learning curve scares most players away from using them. Most commonly seen in fighting games, strategy games, and in general multiplayer.

 

 

Opposite of [[Skill Gate Characters]], who are easy to learn but easily defeated by skilled opponents. Compare [[Magikarp Power]], which is about the character gaining additional power rather than the player getting better at using them. Compare and contrast [[Lethal Joke Character]], who requires a ''specific'' trick or exploit to be awesome, rather than requiring the player to master the character over time. Also compare and contrast [[Awesome but Impractical]], where Awesome turns out to be a bit too Difficult.

 

{{examples}}

** ''3'' also has two types of [[Lag Cancel]] for its big guns Spiral and Kalina Ann. The easier one is switch-cancelling, where you switch to Ebony&Ivory, fire them and switch back. Little finesse is needed and anyone can do it. The harder one is to use Royal Guard to cancel. If you slip up on the rhythm, the cancel will fail and the refire rate will be as slow as if you never tried. If you get the rhythm correct, though, you can fire faster than what switch-cancelling offers.

* The Slylandro Probe in ''[[Star Control 2]]''. Its controls are very different from other ships' controls - it always moves at top speed at the direction it is facing (so turning it makes it automatically move that in direction, without the need to accelerate and ignoring any inertia) and the thruster key is used for reversing the ship's direction instead of acceleration. It is insanely difficult to control, but once mastered it becomes highly maneuverable and a very deadly ship.

** The Umgah Drone and Pkunk Fury have elements of this as well, especially the Drone.

* ''[[Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow]]'' has the Succubus soul. It has a ''very'' specific range it works at; half a pixel off, and Soma will just swipe at empty air, and most likely get hit by whatever he was trying to grab. If you can get the range down, however, you have an extremely powerful attack that also heals Soma greatly.

 

* ''[[God Hand]]'' has some of its apparently [[Awesome but Impractical]] moves turn out to be this. For example, Yes Man Kablaam has an awful startup time, a period immediately after it connects where Gene smiles at an imaginary crowd and none-too-stellar damage, but if you know how to use it properly - on a dizzied target, preferably with no one around to interfere, then dodge-cancel the delay - it fills up the Tension Gauge much faster. Granny Smacker has similar drawbacks, but helps dizzy an enemy much faster than most other moves would.

 

* ''[[Hydro Thunder Hurricane]]'' brings the Rad Hazard. The absolute best acceleration and air control in the game but also the absolute worst handling. Mastering the boat however has brought many players massive online success.

* The Jet Vermilion in ''[[F-Zero]] Maximum Velocity''. For being the coveted best car, it is incredibly awkward to use at first. But if you're insane enough to persist long enough to have gotten it (that is, without using the cheat code), you're probably disciplined enough to master using it.

** In ''F-Zero X'', the Blood Falcon has a horrible grip rating, but mastery of the physics system (such as grinding the wall for massive bursts of speed) makes his vehicle one of the ''best'' ones for setting world records. In fact, most of the machines with an E in Grip aren't nearly as bad as the parameters would imply, as they're able to exploit the same mechanics and access several shortcuts.

 

* Before anything else, fightsticks in general. Compared to regular controllers, they take quite a bit of getting used to. That said, the general consensus is that it's generally easier to get good at a fighter using a fightstick.

* In fighting games where they are available, infinite combos demand highly accurate positioning and timing, but for those who can master them they are [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].

** Iron Tager. A starting Tager is a slow piece of junk many rushdown-centric characters can take apart easily. A master Tager player like Mike Z, on the other hand, turns him into a monster that few can dismiss out of hand by recognizing the openings in others' combos, bringing out his powerful grabs as necessary and making smart use of his magnetism.

** And, to a lesser degree, Litchi. Combos that exercise crazy muscle memory are the main problem, with her movesets (with or without her staff) being easier to recognize, but can be hard to understand, nonetheless.

** While not as strong as the top, the team of [Strider] and Dr. Doom (also known as Clockw0rk, for Daniel Maniago, the player who developed the team). When played right, the team can pretty much keep their opponent from doing anything but blocking, all while taking chip damage the entire round.

* [[Doctor Doom]] of ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom 3]]'' is arguably this. He has some of the best assists in the game, multiple beam specials for keepaway, and great combo and zoning options by canceling his foot dive into his air dash, but his limited maneuverability and relatively slow normal moves means that time needs to be spent learning all of his options to be effective

** [[Street Fighter IV|C.Viper]], [[Strider]], [[Resident Evil|Jill]], [[Doctor Strange]], and [[Guardians of the Galaxy|Rocket Raccoon]] all require a high level of execution to use effectively. They're also all high or mid tier at minimum.

** Being such an oddball type of character, MODOK fits this trope to a tee. With a 'pseudo' flight mode instead of a jump, normals that possess strange hitboxes, his unique 'Intelligence' mechanic that enhances his projectile and barrier moves, there's a reason why he's rarely selected in the character select screen...besides [[The Scrappy|other]] [[Troll|reasons]].

** Amusingly enough, as the metagame advances, this seems to be reversing itself due to Meta Knight requiring a very sophisticated understanding of spacing and zoning in current top level play due to having hitboxes with very short duration while Snake's metagame has stagnated to a degree.

** The [[Ice Climbers|Ice]] [[Fan Nickname|Grabbers]], with insane amounts of practice, can [[Game Breaker|chaingrab]] virtually any character to death. You can count the number of people who can do it consistently in tournament on one hand.

* Shinnok in ''[[Mortal Kombat (video game)|Mortal Kombat]] IV'' has the ability to [[Ditto Fighter|steal the movelist]] of ''every other character in the game'', except Goro, who isn't playable to begin with. He is literally as good as every other playable character combined. The problem? First, you need to [[Some Dexterity Required|enter the command]] to actually take on another character's movelist. Then, you need to have that character's movelist memorized. And since there's no point to picking Shinnok if you're only copying one character (since then you may as well just pick that character), you'll need to memorize multiple movelists, making for a metric fuckton of memorization. On top of that, there is a time limit on how long Shinnok can copy another character; it is almost unheard of for one battle to be over within this time limit. While nothing is stopping Shinnok from copying the same character multiple times, the sudden timeout often translates to a broken combo since a character special failed to work by virtue of Shinnok not ''having'' the special at the moment. The short of it is that Shinnok is portrayed as the best fighter in the game, and he certainly is...provided you're one of the very, very few players with the patience to actually use him.

 

* The Baur in ''[[Battlefield (series)|Battlefield 2142]]'', high recoil, low magazine count, but dealt out high damage, and if you could pop off quick headshots, and stay out of most close quarters combat, you could drop enemies with ease.

** To a lesser extent, the Scar-11, which was a watered down Baur (which makes sense, as the in-game description says that the Baur is a bulked-up edition of it.) It had higher recoil compared to the Krylov and the Voss, but dealt out more damaged and preformed better at range.

** The GES Bio-Rifle belongs here too. It shoots... balls of glowing green spooge. That arc to the floor. Almost useless in a gun duel. In the right hands, a devastating rear-guard and ambush/assassination weapon, dealing 255 damage on a full charge in a game where default health is 100.

** The Impact Hammer/Shield Gun qualify as well. To get an idea, set up a bot to favour the hammer and make it insanely aggressive. Suddenly it goes from 'idiot bot' to 'crazed lunatic who kills you on contact' and it becomes a #1 priority to kill it.

* All of the combat in [[Mirror's Edge]]. Faith's combat maneuvers are mostly ''not'' [[All There in the Manual|spelled out]] and difficult to master. Once you get her in hand, however, she becomes a grand-master ninja practitioner of [[Waif Fu]], literally running circles around the enemy.

 

* Many [[4X]] games have a faction like this. ''[[Alpha Centauri]]'' has a borderline example with the Morganites. To expound, the Morganites have a natural +1 to Economy, giving them +1 energy production per base for free. While that's certainly nice to have(energy giving you money and research), it's pretty underwhelming compared to other Civs. Add on a painful limitation on population limits(their bases can only reach size 4 without a pop-limit boosting facility, compared to 7 for the other Civs), and you have a faction that's profoundly weak in the early game on paper. Until you realize that their +1 Economy lets them run Wealth to get them up to +2, which increases their energy bonus to +1 per square, sending your research and income through the roof. Most Civs have to run Free Market to get that, which comes with prohibitive Police and Planet penalties. Add in the fact that the pop-limit boosting facility is learned from the same tech as Wealth, and you get a faction that revels in [[Magikarp Power]], and uses their hordes of cash to mind-control your units out from under you and sabotage your hard-built bases.

* In ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' the Morrigi have below-average population growth, terraforming ability and industrial capacity. Their ships are fast tactically but sluggish strategically, fragile, prohibitively expensive and barely above those of the Liir in turret placement. Their tech-tree, while one of the most inclusive in the game, favours 'trickery' tech like [[Stealth in Space|cloaking]], shielding, mines, drones, AI, and short-ranged beam weapons, and they have one of the poorest natural research rates in the game. However, they have a 50% bonus income from trading compared to all other species; moreso when conducting foreign trade, and their fleets get faster the bigger they are. Mastering the Morrigi requires hefty use of trade, diplomacy and planning on a strategic level, and dedicated large-sized fleets using alternate ship sections instead of all-purpose battlefleets. A player who masters these aspects will turn the Morrigi into an economic powerhouse that can out-buy, out-tech and outwit most opponents by the end of the Fusion era.

** The Zuul appear to be a [[Crutch Character]] at first glance; see that page for a rundown of their apparent advantages. However, they are closer to this, if taking a different approach to Morrigi [[Magikarp Power]]. Zuul players must subscribe to the blitzkrieg way of war, always on the [[Attack! Attack! Attack!]], keeping enemies on the defensive and pushing ever forward. Being unable to avoid overharvesting means their planets "burn out" comparatively fast, and taking slaves is something of a compensation for not being able to use trade or having civilians to bolster their income. Their strategic speed comes at the cost of having a limited number of connections to each system. Their research speed is also the worst. All this forces the Zuul player to aim for quick victory, for he who loses momentum and lets the enemies build up to antimatter and/or dreadnoughts is Doing It Wrong and defeat will come soon. However, if you know how to carry out this aggressive playstyle, you can win games comparatively quickly.

 

* During the BC expansion in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', affliction warlocks were generally seen like this in PvE. On top of the normal shadowbolt spam, you also had to keep up five different dots, most of which had different lengths and cast times and generally required at least a dot timer for maximum efficiency. Many warlocks complained it was too complicated and went for the easier and almost as effective (until late BT where destro just outscaled affliction and was probably overpowered) destruction tree. If you could play it right, topping damage was incredibly simple even in mediocre gear.

** In Wrath, they were simplified by merging two of these and making another one more powerful but exclusive with a 4th one, effectively cutting the spec down to three over time spells, one of which is refreshed by other spells. They are still one of the more demanding specs in that regard (on par with shadow priests and subtlety rogues), but in fact most specs are now fairly difficult to play at their maximum potential. The main difference is that these examples have a terrible output if played wrongly. By contrast, Beastmaster hunters deal most of their damage ''automatically'' and many of their management inputs have fairly little impact on it (apart from keeping their pet alive).

** Subtlety Rogues have taken that role recently. Although their basic combat style is rather simple, they have a lot of cooldowns and other factors to manage. One of their most defining traits is the ability to generate combo points based on critical strikes performed by other groupmembers, which is every bit as random as it sounds. And even under best circumstances, they don't deal a lot of damage themselves but increase the damage other melee combatants deal. In general, they are still considered to be weaker than their easier alternatives.

*** [http://azeroth.metblogs.com/files/2009/10/catdps.jpg JOHN FUCKING MADDEN]

** Death Knight DPS'ers have some of the hardest spell/ability rotations in the game, so much so that blizzard is having to change the classes resource mechanics work in Cataclysm just to make them easier and require less precision button mashing. To clarify, [[D Ks]] have to manage 6 runes (3kinds, 2 of each) that regenerate ever 10sec, their runic power meter that increases when you use abilities and needs to be emptied or you will be losing DPS, 2 damage over time effects that need to be refreshed because they increase the damage of your strikes. In addition their attacks have a global cooldown that prevents them from using any attack for a second and a half giving you a small (less than a second) window to use what ever attack is in your incredibly complex rotation or you will lose DPS and get messed up.

* In ''[[Ace Online]]'', three of four classes seem attractive from the get-go. The B-Gear is a bomber; using the right type of advanced weapon, it can blow most opponents apart in one shot. The A-Gear is the literal tank; it uses its unrollable cannons to do massive DPS. The I-Gear is the fighter; aim, fire, do acrobats and survive. The M-Gear, however, is... a healer. Unlike the rest of the class, the M-Gear has the innate disability of having a low stat growth for attack which makes leveling it very difficult. However, with the right skills (M-Gear is the most micromanagement intensive class in the game), stats and equipments, the M-Gear can wreak absolute havoc by the virtue of its naturally high defense that can hold its own against literally an entire nation, sapping them of firepower trying to kill a virtually unkillable character while others move in for the kill. Of course, there are less strenuous ways to play the M-Gear such as being a buffslave or healbot, but it's the players who can master its intricacies who gain a lot of respect.

** In some ways, the I-Gear as well. The B-Gear's an undisputed [[Lightning Bruiser]], the A-Gear possesses pure DPS-dishing and while the M-Gear is still the hardest to master, it is still possess an unparalleled maneuverability at point-blank ranges coupled with nifty healing powers. Unlike the others, the I-Gear has no flashy gimmicks and while it does make it easy to get used to, it gets harder and harder to keep up at higher levels, much less master it. The choice is either make it an offensive class and risk dying lots due to its low defense (innate) and low evasion (due to build), or make it survival evasion build by trading its ability to kill, which are neither cost-effective nor foolproof. However the recent episode 3-2 update gives a major boon to I-Gears which somewhat alleviates this problem.

 

* The Jet, Ninja, and Suplex abilities in ''[[Kirby Super Star]]''. Jet's abilities revolve around an awkward charge up time, Suplex requires you to grab an enemy first, and Ninja has a bunch of close range attacks. However, all three have throwing moves. Due to the mechanics of a Kirby game, a boss might take several dozen hits from a normal ability, but only need a couple from the stock inhale-spit out combo that you default to without an ability. Throws use this damage formula while being massively easier to hit with, and in the cast of these three abilities, each one can hit multiple times in one move. Jet, especially, where its fully charged throw will cover the entire screen, is capable of one and two hit killing most things in the game. Suplex and Ninja aren't far behind. But ''damn'' the deaths you will take from screwing up the motions for the moves before you master it.

** Suplex is also [[Wrestler in All of Us|very fun to use]].

* The frequently-mocked Top Spin in ''[[Mega Man 3]]'' is regarded by many players as a joke weapon. Most will try it out once or twice before dismissing it as useless. A player who knows how the Top Spin works and what enemies are vulnerable to it however, can twirl and spin through good bits of the game, taking out most enemies in one hit.

 

* Classic Rule in ''[[Tetris the Grand Master]] 3''. Its "firm drop"<ref>a type of hard drop in which the piece drops, but doesn't lock, allowing you to still move the piece. Standard hard drop locks the piece immediately.</ref> has a bit of a learning curve, and you can't climb over pieces like in World Rule, but once mastered it's actually less annoying to use than World Rule due to its far simpler piece kicks, and the firm drop lets you take care of overhangs like they're nothing.

 

* The same applies in ''[[Dawn of War]]''. The Eldar and Dark Eldar require micro management and specific match ups. The Imperial Guard can easily crush all enemies with a properly built army, but you can't just build a crap tonne of regular troops and steam roll the map like the Space Marines and Necrons.

* Cyrus in ''[[Dawn of War]] 2'' is a very micro intensive character, but with proper tactics and war gear can make most boss fights (even the Avatar) a joke.

** With proper wargear and skill allocation, Cyrus can clear ''entire maps'' single-handedly!

* Many heroes in ''[[Defense of the Ancients]]'' are like this. Perhaps the strongest example is the Invoker, the hero with the most spells by far, but also the one who has to memorise come combos to "invoke" the spell he needs. To top it off, his skills don't even look particularly impressive written down, but in the hands of an expert, an Invoker can completely turn the tides of a battle.

* [[The Phoenix|Anivia]] in ''[[League of Legends]]'' has historically always been this. Most obviously a burst caster, Anivia suffered in comparison to other burst mages. Due to her comboriffic nature and her reliance on aiming and timing she was very unpopular due to her difficulty, when for a fraction of the effort required you could easily achieve the same damage on, say, Annie. Then recently she was picked in the finals of a high-profile game tournament, by one of the best players in the game. Wreckage ensued.

* In [[Company of Heroes]], the British and Panzer Elite factions are sometimes considered this.

** The British are very slow to get going, with very expensive starting units which move extremely slowly outside their own territory. They also have a bizarre tech-tree that is unlike that of any other faction (not to mention their veterancy system). However, once a player learns to fight their urge to expand rapidly and instead build a solid defensive line quickly, the British can become nigh-invincible - vulnerable only to heavy artillery.

** The Panzer Elite have a wide variety of light, fast vehicles which will not survive long in any fight. Many are completely unarmed! Even experienced players can end up producing and losing a lot of vehicles by the time they get a grip on the situation. On the other hand, expert Panzer Elite players can win the game extremely early on with rapid and relentless assaults all over the battlefield.

 

* Not a character, but a skill in ''[[Guitar Hero]]'' and ''[[Rock Band]]'' guitar: tapping. You have to take your right hand off the strum bar and bring it up to the fret buttons, hitting the buttons with your strumming hand. It seems like a stupid move, since if you miss, it breaks your combo and you have to strum to get it going again (except in certain sections in some [[Guitar Hero]] games), but it is one of the most important skills for a top player to learn. Why? Adding in another hand allows for much faster fretting and makes complicated sections easier to hit. It's probably also the hardest skill in the game to master, due to the low margin of error between hitting a section and almost failing out of it.

** This is how people actually pass the intro to [[That One Level|Through the Fire and Flames]].

** Tapping is easier to pull off on a Rock Band guitar (due to the second set of frets lower down the neck), and '''much''' easier in [[Rock Band]] solos (tapping on the smaller frets during solos does not require strumming). The two sets of frets can be also operated simultaneously, which is occasionally useful (some "solos" are actually duets, with two guitars playing in harmony reduced to one track within the game) but always awesome.

* [[Dance Dance Revolution]] in the higher difficulty levels requires pattern recognition for two deceptively easy moves: the crossover and spinning. A crossover is a pattern of left, up/down, right, up/down, left (or vice versa). A spin is a clockwise/counter-clockwise pattern of the arrows. Crossovers are easy to pull off, since you can always face the screen. Spinning however, unless you know the note setup, will require you to do a full 360, and is the harder of the two to do. These are very easy to do in a slow, easy to medium level song, but pick up the pace and it gets very hard.

** For example, ''Candy'' requires knowing when to spin. Candy's difficulty ramps up a notch unless you can spin, and trying to do them without spinning is awkward to the note setup.

* ''[[Frequency]]'' and ''[[Amplitude]]'' both provide two alternate control sets, one using L1-R1-R2, and the other using Square-Triangle-Circle. Most players pick one or the other (or a hybrid of the two, such as L1-R1-Circle). At higher levels, however, it becomes useful and eventually necessary to start using both sets at once.

 

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' is practically ''built'' out of this trope. The entire game has a steep learning curve, but oh the things you can pull off when you get the hang of it...

** An ingame example: It's incredibly tricky to build an effective trap, but if you can pull it off you can build [http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-1675-semi-automaticorcsiclemaker a trap which locks the enemies in, pours water on their heads and flash freezes them.]

* Mindcrafters in ''[[ADOM]]'' are very difficult to keep alive, as all but two of their offensive [[Psychic Powers]] don't work on undead or golems. However, since this is a [[Roguelike]] game that rewards lateral thinking in battles, you can, with caution and a bit of luck, take on just about anything else with their Confusion Blast and Mind Blast. Said attacks do not miss and ignore armor. [[Magikarp Power|Reaching lvl. 15 grants Telekinetic Blast]], which works on everything.

* The roguelike ''[[Nethack]]'' has a several classes, a few of which qualify.

 

* Colette in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' is considered very powerful, but unless you know how to use her (Basic attack only with a neutral control stick and only 2 attacks at a time, spam Paraball) she is awkward to control and slow to attack.

** She also gets two extremely powerful attacks to chain off of it - Triple Ray Satellite and Hammer Rain, and one less powerful, but more practical - Whirlwind Rush. Triple Ray Satellite requires a wide target, while Hammer Rain just needs a huge target to get their hits in (however, they're the strongest non-Hi Ougi attacks in the game). Whirlwind Rush is much less damaging (it's weaker than Paraball), but very consistent, working on just about anything.

* Peco of ''[[Breath of Fire III]]'' as a [[Magikarp Power]] based example.

* Whips in ''[[Secret of Mana]]''. Hard to use right, but when mastered they become your most effective way to fight bosses when your MP runs out.

** [[Final Fantasy VI]] has several characters of this trope. There is Mog who joins the party with no spells or any of his dances and his dances make him uncontrollable and often fail wasting a turn. But Mog gets the best armor in the game and easily maxes out his defense taking zero damage from even bosses and if given dragoon equipment he can multi jump and break the damage limit long before you get the game's ultimate weapons. There is also Relm who has the buggy and more often than not useless sketch ability. But Relm has the highest magic attack in the game surpassing both Terra and Celes and easily hits the damage cap with ultima. And finally there is Gogo who has lousy equipment and bellow average stats for every category. But Gogo can pull off impossible combinations of skill sets, you can have someone with Blitz (one of the strongest movesets) and Mighty Guard(one of the best buffs) in one character while making room for others.

* The non-Soldier classes in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' are all this to some degree. Playing as a Adepts means awesome crowd control skills and a shield power but little to do while your powers recharge. Engineers can easily nerf the opponents but have similar problems. Vanguards are high risk high reward as they mix a few offensive Biotic powers with close range weaponry. Infiltrators are especially tough as their powers aren't as effective at crowd control as Biotics and they have to rely on weak pistols or the sniper rifle which starts off very difficult to aim with until you get stabilizers and accuracy upgrades as well as not being useful at close ranges. A hybrid of Biotics and Tech means you have no weapons or armour training, making you incredibly fragile. It is the most versatile character at later levels though.

** Not really as much the case as it might seem. Pistols are actually quite good in the game, but most people never bother to level the relevant skills and worry about equipping and upgrading the pistol. Pistols are the only weapon that never has any real range limitation. Assault rifles need to be leveled before being effective beyond a fairly short range, and shotguns and sniper rifles never really completely lose their limitations. The damage pistols do is, shot for shot, not much less than the other weapons (and given you should be landing almost every shot, means there is reasonable DPS), and is fairly slow to over heat. It is probably the easiest weapon to use, since it really doesn't require that much more aiming ability than the more basic assault rifle.

** Basically, this trope is only invoked if the troper builds their character a certain way. All the characters could, to some extent, be played like a Soldier, albeit in a few cases needing Barrier or Electronics to help with defenses.

** Several classes in ''3'''s multiplayer are difficult to get a handle on, but the crown has to go to the [[Fragile Speedster|Drell Vanguard]]. Drell are the most physically fragile race, offering incredible mobility and speed in exchange for very low barriers. A well-played drell vanguard zips around the map too fast for anything to get a bead on; an inexperienced one needs to be revived frequently.

* Slaking from ''[[Pokémon]]'' is this. It has an extremely high Attack stat [[Lightning Bruiser|in addition to very high HP, decent Defense, and high Speed]], and is capable of [[One Hit KO|OHKOing]] all but the sturdiest [[Mons]] in the game, but only moves every other turn. However, if your prediction of your opponents moves and timing of when you switch in and out is good, it can end up taking out half the opponent's team.

** To illustrate: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9NYYewCSxo&list=FLX0j1EfCVuw_XkO3y7TDNPw&index=69&feature=plpp_video GOTCHA BITCH!]

* ''[[Baten Kaitos]] Origins''' combat system is made around this trope. As the game goes on, it focuses more and more on combo building and less on blindly attacking. Inexperienced players will get knocked around by basic enemies and struggle with bosses, but experienced players can kill the [[True Final Boss]] in ''one turn'' with a bit of luck.

 

* The ''[[Touhou Project]]'' games have several, particularly in terms of [[Scoring Points|high scores]]:

** ''Perfect Cherry Blossom'' has SakuyaB, whose knives swing around depending on where you move, and whose bomb only clears very specific areas of the field. It takes some getting used to the aiming process, but when used right, she's by far the best in terms of scoring (the current SakuyaB world record is ''half a billion points higher'' than all other records).

** Youmu solo in Imperishable Night is difficult to use well, with an option that swings around depending on how she moves, but she has an easier time swinging the phantom gauge around for better time orb collection. Her margin of advantage over other teams is much smaller than SakuyaB in PCB, but it's noticable.

** Youmu is ''Ten Desires'' has access to the strongest spread and concentrated attacks... but she's a reverse shot-type, meaning that unless you're very good you won't be able to make full use of her strong unfocused shots. And the charged nature of her focused shots can be a problem if you don't get it's rhythm down, while the unfocused shots have trailing options that punish you for moving wildly.

** SanaeA in the fangame Marine Benefit also qualifies for this, as her unfocused shot by itself is fairly weak and her bomb only clears the area to her sides; however, she has Kanako's virtue spheres hovering around her and spinning around the field, killing most non-boss enemies they touch almost instantly (and doing good damage to bosses). While it takes a lot of getting used to aiming the virtues, knowing when to unfocus to activate them, and learning to see through them so they don't distract you from the bullets, using them wisely helps tremendously in killing off enemies in places other shot types would almost require a bomb to kill, and thus reducing a lot of the difficulty of some sections. And it helps that SanaeA's focused shot, while it lacks the virtues, has plenty of forward power for boss killing.

* ''[[Guns of Icarus]]'': The cannon (and the super cannon) take some practice to aim correctly because of their slow-moving shots, but if you can master [[Lead the Target|Leading The Target]], they deal twice as much damage as the standard gatling, and they have massive range.

 

* The games of the ''[[Thief]]'' series in general, particularly if you choose to play them in a [[Stealth Run]] style as much as possible (to the extent of not even knocking out enemies even if you would have the opportunity).

** This is doubly true in the first game, where the Hidden Blade didn't even block, meaning you had to get it right or take damage. However, get it right and even the final boss is vulnerable.

** A better example is using stealth, even when it isn't a mandatory part of your current mission. You can reach a point where the only enemies that will ever attack you are the ones actually scripted to do so, which is a very small subset of the guards. You one hit kill virtually every unaware enemy, even the rare ones that might be able to avoid being counter killed.

 

* In ''[[Dead Rising]]'', the regular chainsaw is like this, especially in Infinity Mode before you get the [[Game Breaker|Small Chainsaw]]. The standard swing is awkward as hell and leaves you vulnerable to attack after each swing, and you drop the weapon if you take a single hit from anything (forcing you to pick it up and rev it up again). However, the running attack absolutely scythes through zombies and bosses as long as you make absolutely sure never to stop moving.

 

* ''[[Global Agenda]]'' has the Recon class, which functions like this to at least some degree: there's a glut of players who have absolutely no business taking on the stealth-based mantle, but those who have practiced to a reasonable point are absolute nightmares to deal with. Certain varieties of [[The Medic|Medic]] are similar, if less pronounced.

 

* Several weapons in ''[[Worms]]'', but perhaps the poster child for this is the [[Animal Superheroes|Super]] [[Baa Bomb|Sheep]].

 

* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (Tabletop Game)|Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', there are some cards that require you to jump through a number of inefficient hoops to summon, but are nigh-unstoppable when you do. But one example: ''Vennominaga The Deity of Poisonous Snakes'' requires a specific trap card to be activated, and then only in response to the destruction of its predecessor, ''Vennominion the King of Poisonous Snakes.'' Both cards have zero attack, but are boosted by the number of Reptiles in your graveyard (fortunately, there's specifically a card for sending Reptiles to the grave from the deck), but once it actually gets summoned, Vennominaga is all but invincible, since it cannot be affected ''at all'' by other card effects and if it attacks the opponent three times, it's an automatic win.

** There's also Shooting Quasar Dragon, which requires 1 Tuner Synchro Monster + 2 or more Non-Tuner Synchro Monsters, a somewhat hard to fulfill condition. However, when you manage to summon it, you get a 4000 ATK beatstick that gets a minimal of 2 attacks per turn(Yes a minimun, as in, it can get more than 2 attacks depending of how many non-tuner monsters you used for its synchro summoning)and that can negate a card effect once per turn. Add to that the fact that it brings a "Shooting Star Dragon" to the field when it gets removed from the field and you get one hell of a [[Game Breaker]].

** The Koa'ki Meiru Archetype. Unlike any other Archetype in the game, Koa'ki Meirus require constant maintenance and resource management. Sure, you'll need monsters on the field to beat your opponent, but you also need to use the [http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Core_of_Koa%27ki_Meiru Iron Core of Koa'ki Meiru] or another specific monster in hand to keep your monsters alive. Then, almost every single Spell and Trap also need the Iron Core to work - except sometimes, those need the Core in the ''Graveyard'' - meaning you won't be able to use them all unless you keep recycling the Core which will cost you resources. There's more - the Koa'ki Meirus also have powerful effects that can stop your opponent's moves, but to do so you will have to correctly predict ''what'' your opponent's going to do. And of course, your opponent is still trying to kill you. But damn it certainly pays off: Koa'ki Meiru monsters are absurdly strong, both ATK-wise and effect-wise, and their Spell and Trap Cards are free and unlimited versions of some of the strongest Spells and Traps in the game (like [http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Koa%27ki_Meiru_Shield this], which is basically [http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Mirror_Force this], one of the most popular Limited cards ever).

** [http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Sophia_the_Creator Sophia the Creator] is considered this for having harsh summoning requirement of banishing one Fusion, one Ritual, one Synchro and one Xyz on the field. However, once it hits the field, ''all other cards on the field, graveyard and hand are banished except itself''. Not to mention its summon and effect cannot be negated.

 

** The Land Speeder. Fragile and many people write them off as garbage due to that, but in the hands of a competent player, they are quite nasty. What doesn't help its case is that many veteran players are aware of this and kill the speeder first.

** Generally, the trickier factions to play are Eldar, a [[Glass Cannon]], the woefully out-of-date Dark Eldar, and the Tau Empire, a [[Faction Calculus|Ranger faction]] with no close combat ability in a game where every enemy will be in your face by turn 3. Imperial Guard, Space Marine, and Chaos Marine armies can be tricky or not based on build. Daemons, Orks, and Tyranid armies usually just [[Attack! Attack! Attack!]], but can show some complexity in their builds. Inquisitional armies can be very difficult to play mostly due to out of date codices rather than mechanics, and so don't fit this trope.

*** Related is the Ravenwing build of the Dark Angels army. Like normal Space Marine bikes, but a little more expensive and with a few more special rules, with the addition of a lot more Land Speeders.

** Deathwing and Paladin armies. Sure, everyone in your force has a power fist and the best armor possible, but at 1,500 points you'll seldom have more than thirty models on the table (compare to an Imperial Guard army that could potentially run two good-sized infantry platoons and assorted tanks at that points level). If you can manage to bring the full brunt of your force to bear on a segment of the enemy army, however, you'll probably roll over anything in your way.

** Special mention to the Artificer. While building one is not entirely complex (aside from needing to constantly reference a minimum of three books just to play), it takes hours of time and math to create one even at 2nd level (a 1st level Artificer is fairly straightforward). Leveling up is a nightmare, and it has the dubious honor of being one of the [[Character Tiers|Big 6]], meaning it takes serious skill to not screw up and become a liability during encounters.

*** The bright side? Even a novice player using an Artificer can turn random treasure into actually useful equipment, meaning even if the player screws up constantly during combat, they can at least make up for it out of combat.

** More generally, pawns are the least mobile piece in the game, as well as the only one that not only captures differently from it moves but also has no less than two special moves. Because they are so difficult to move, however, the way they become arranged (called the "pawn structure") becomes one of the most important aspects of the board. In modern games, many professional games revolve around trying to put your pawns in a favorable position while screwing up your opponent's formations, and if you go all the way to the endgame, the focus becomes using what's left of your more powerful pieces to escort one or more of your pawns so that it can be promoted. Pawn structure is subtle, however, and most casual players don't bother taking it into consideration.

 

* The ''vi'' text editor. It is very [[Nintendo Hard]] to learn, as you rely entirely on keyboard macros to do things that aren't typing. Once mastered, however, vi is a very efficient editor.

** vi's "opponent", emacs, is similar: like vi, it uses key combinations for all editor control. It's practically impossible to learn, but capable of doing ''anything''.

** The interface and the ability to customize your UI lets a user get fairly close to an Autodesk layout.

* Scoped rifles require learning how to properly sight and adjust your scope before you even get to the point where you have to keep your arms steady (often while trying to hold up a 10 pound rifle with little or no support) as you VERY slowly squeeze the trigger. After figuring out the range and wind and compensating for both of those, of course. When you've learned how to use it, you can hit targets hundreds of yards away regularly.

 

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