Gradual Grinder: Difference between revisions
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The [[Glass Cannon]] uses powerful attacks to quickly blow his enemies to smithereens, but the Gradual Grinder sneers at such a lack of patience. Instead, the Gradual Grinder prefers to use [[Death By a Thousand Cuts|abilities that deal damage over time, steadily wearing his enemies down]], leaving them too crippled to be much of a threat to him - which is good, because typically he [[Squishy Wizard|isn't much tougher]] than the [[Glass Cannon]]. (though [[Stone Wall]]/[[Fragile Speedster]] Grinders are not unheard of)
Most commonly, Gradual Grinders are spellcasters who specialize in curses, hexes, or other [[Standard Status Effects]]. Some [[Fragile Speedster|Roguish]] characters also fight like this, poisoning or literally bleeding their foes to death while they nimbly dodge their increasingly feeble counter-attacks. More rarely, some heavily-armed and -armored fighters prefer to defeat their foes through blood loss, or debilitating spells if they are [[Magic Knight
Gradual Grinders are rarely good guys, probably because a slow, agonizing death due to blood loss or [[Liquid Assets|drained]] [[Life Energy]] is viewed [[Bad Powers, Bad People|less favorably]] than a quick and comparatively clean kill. Apply this mentality to the battlefield and you likely have a case of [[We Have Reserves]].
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* Quite a few [[Pokémon]] use this kind of strategy ("Annoyer" in metagame parlance). Poison types are almost nothing but this - they all have moves to inflict various status effects, stat debuffs, anti-escape moves, accuracy decreasing moves, evasion increasing moves, and so on. Ghost types use abilities like Hypnosis, Confuse Ray, Perish Song, and Destiny Bond to inflict slower but painful KOs.
** Stall in the metagame is pretty much this. The point is to use defensive Mons with every possible residual damage such as weather, Toxic (gradually increasing residual damage), and the combination of entry hazards (Spikes, Stealth Rock) + moves that force the opponent to switch out (Roar, Whirlwind, Dragon Tail, Circle Throw).
** Hoppip/Skiploom/Jumpluff is capable of applying [[Standard Status Effects|poison]], [[Energy Absorption|Leech Seed, Mega Drain]], and [[Heal Thyself|self-healing]]
** Shuckle is also similar, since it's attack is worthless. Though it's got a nice hard shell to hide behind.
*** The big TM for enhancing Shuckle is Toxic, except against Steel types and Zangoose (against which you are pretty much stuck on "get hit").
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** A few real life examples can be found in the worlds of martial arts. The Gracie family and numerous wrestlers have been known to build up their stamina to the extent they would commonly have matches lasting into the hours waiting for the right moment to land a pinfall/submission/etc
*** Body punching and leg kicking in boxing/kickboxing/MMA is an underrated part of a fighter's strategy to wither his opponent down to a point he can be taken out. Leg kicks severly reduces a guy's mobility, while body punches sap stamina and flat out just hurt more over the long run than a blow the head. The old saying applies here: "Kill the body, and the head will follow."
*
** Some ships, captained by your arch-rivals, cannot surrender nor be sunk. This puts
** Ridiculously, the same exact tactic is also useful in the much-more realistic ''Empire: [[Total War]]'', using a lone 5th-Rate Frigate. This ship is fast enough when going with the wind, and maneuverable enough to swing left and right while chain-shooting the enemy's sails off, and unlike smaller ships it also packs enough firepower for the job. Just shoot until their masts break, at which point most ships will surrender without a fight. [[It Gets Worse]] when the enemy ship refuses to surrender after being rendered immobile, in which case you switch to Grape-Shot and park yourself right in front or behind the enemy to slowly whittle down their crew. The whole process can take anywhere up to 10 minutes to force a large enemy ship to surrender (at normal game speed). Naturally, this only works against AI opponents, who are too stupid to stop chasing you. A lone frigate can [[Game Breaker|beat extremely unfavourable odds]] this way.
* Ultimecia from [[Dissidia Final Fantasy]] has a playstyle that lends itself well to drawing out battles until the opponoent to loses patience. Her brave attacks take a while to start up, but hit many, many times for non-lethal damage. As well, her HP attacks all have a painful amount of start-up time and awkward properties, making it hard to spam them for quick victories.
** However, for Ultimecia's part, her main selling point is her absurdly humongous range. Out of all the characters in the game, Ultimecia is the only one that can reach the other side of an absurdly large map with certainty. Also, her vertical HP range is infinite so if your game is in the air, Ultimecia WILL kill you. Really, the entire point of her battle is that you can't touch her so no matter how much damage she deals, as long as she can consistently hit you, you won't win.
** [[It Makes Sense in Context]], because she is the #1 Time Mage of [[Final Fantasy]].
* The [[Kill It with Fire|Pyro]] from ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' is a clear example of this, setting his enemies on fire and either keep burning them or leaving them for dead. The Scout is probably ''designed'' this way, ideally hitting enemies when they aren't looking, then dodging while bleeding them to death with the pistol or a second close attack shortly afterwards when they've forgotten about him.
* In ''[[Sailor Moon: Another Story]]'', each senshi's chapter ends with a boss fight against their [[Evil Twin]]. In most cases this is a fairly standard fight. The first such chapter, though, is [[Scrappy Level|Sailor Mercury's]] ... the boss has no real attacks but Poison and you have no real attacks period. Optimum equipment and a LOT of [[Level Grinding]] are required, and even then it [[That One Boss|takes forever]].
* This is the way that Controllers defeat enemies in ''[[City of Heroes]]''. Unlike their Dominator counterparts, Controllers have no actual attacks but do have access to a large number of debuffing powers that can be combined with status effects that cause damage over time. A Gravity Controller crushes you to death, an Ice Controller freezes you to death, etc...
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** Cassiopeia, although against an immobile target the "gradual" part goes out the window, dealing about 1500 damage per second with Twin Fang spam.
** Vladimir the [[Our Vampires Are Different|hemomancer]], with only two offensive spells that don't do much damage but a mountain of health for a mage, life steal and the ability to melt into an invulnerable pool of blood. The latter factors contribute to drawing out a fight for an eternity while his moderate but constant spell spam slowly chips you down. Especially in lane where his entire strategy consists of buying boots first so he's ''slightly'' faster than you, then just casting transfusion on you and running away. Between his lack of a mana resource and transfusion's life steal, he will merrily do this over and over so you gradually take damage and he remains at full health. Once you're at 1/4 health or so he towerdives you for the kill.
** On a more general level, the Ignite summoner spell. You thought you got away from a gank with 200
* This is a very successful strategy in professional fighting; kickboxer Daniel Ghita is legendary for steadily destroying his opponents by targeting their legs and body until they can't walk, much less fight. Boxer Micky Ward had a devastating body attack that would wear opponents down until they were too tired to fight, and even MMA fighters like Jose Aldo and Pat Barry are known for obliterating their opponents without even having to hit them in the face.
* Elemental Summoners and Bot Engineers in ''[[Hellgate:London]]'' can summon swarms that gradually tear up opponents. Both are ranged attackers without much more strike damage than their minions.
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