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{{trope}}
[[File:nerf-illustration.png|link=Visual Pun|
{{quote|''
''[[Competitive Balance|That shit got balanced,]] so you'd best learn to cope!"''
|'''Futuristic Sex Robotz''', "Don't Make Us Kick Your Ass"}}
A change to a game that weakens a particular item, ability or tactic. It's usually done to fix something perceived as a [[Game Breaker]], and is almost always a subject of controversy in gaming communities. Occasionally, it's not a change in one game, but rather a change in an equivalent item, ability, or tactic between one game and its sequel.
In the past, Nerfs for console games were all but impossible due to lacking the ability to patch them. Modern consoles however provide this ability, so they now join computer games in this. Many games, especially [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s and other online multiplayer games, are constantly adjusted to maintain balance. Sometimes, that requires taking something powerful down a peg or two. Of course, [[Munchkin|users of that item]] will not be amused, and will inevitably flock to the forums to complain, resulting in a [[Flame War]] about whether or not the nerf was justified. On the other hand, rants from [[Scrub|poor players]] that something ''should'' be nerfed are just as common. Either way, the subject is a touchy one.
A Buff is a change for the better. These are as controversial as Nerfs; a Buff to one unit's [[Hit Points]] is effectively a Nerf to the damage of anything attacking it. A [[Flame War]] can even develop on whether a given change is a Buff or a Nerf, much less an improvement in the game as a whole.
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Games with [[Fake Balance]] often causes [[Flame War]] due to nerfs and buff implemented.
Has no relationship to "Narf" from ''[[Pinky and The Brain
{{examples}}
* ''[[Ultima Online]]'' is an early example. Developers made a change early in the game's life that turned all melee weapons down to a bare fraction of their former strength. Players compared fighting with the end result to hitting the enemy with a Nerf bat and disdained them for years afterward, heralding the age of archer/mage PKs.
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** Just remember, one man's nerf is another man's finally balanced the game...
** Paizo's ''[[Pathfinder]]'' nerfed a great many things spammed by 3.5 players, including metamagic feats (especially Quickened Spell) and the ubiquitous spiked chain. They also nerfed some options indirectly, by improving everything, but improving some things less. For example, all Pathfinder base classes and monsters got upgrades compared to 3.5, but spell-casters generally got less new crunchy bits, effectively nerfing the casters by not buffing them as much. Likewise, letting players choose any base class as their character's favored class and giving them a bonus for sticking to it, then giving each base class a powerful bonus at max level made base classes more attractive. The effect was a nerf to Prestige Classes. Players are not ''always'' thinking of their first five levels as "filling in the checklist for my Prestige Class." Finally, eliminating [[Empty Levels]], the high level bonus, and the favored class bonus nerfed 3.5's ubiquitous "dipping" into classes. How successful these changes are is entirely up to each gaming group.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'', which emphasizes cooperative play more than the average [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]], any perceived "nerf" of a job class can grossly affect that class's invitation rates for years to come, often far out of proportion to the actual impact of the change. The most infamous was the "Dragoon nerf", actually a nerfing of multi-hit [[Limit Break|weaponskills]] in general that prevented them from being spammed, which happened to hit the Dragoon's most famous weaponskill particularly hard. For years, despite the introduction of enemies that a Dragoon would work well against and some shoring up of the job's most glaring weaknesses, Dragoons had a very hard time getting invited to experience point parties; this state of affairs only changed with a controversially large [[Buff]] to ''all'' two-handed weapons.
** Now there recently{{when}} has been a change to the game that "fixed an issue" where Beastmaster pets would be able to benefit from a Dancer's Samba effects. The players, oddly enough, were unanimously [[Unpleasable Fanbase|not amused]]. The actual problem people had with this is simply because the Samba effect would, at best, heal a monster pet's HP by maybe a couple hundred or so at the highest levels... out of ''thousands''. True, it was a glitch, but the players had no problem with it.
** The ranger class was ridiculously overpowered to the point where even the most pathetic ranger could out damage the best equipped of another offensive class. All bosses and big monsters essentially only used rangers for their damage since they were by far the best damage for any situation. They got nerfed with, of course, much whining from players who now say that rangers were now one of the weakest damage dealing classes even though they still remain one of the most expensive and one of the biggest hate magnets (due the fact that even though they do weaker damage overall, they do a lot of spike damage). There is, arguably, much truth to these complaints.
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** At around the same time, agro limits and AoE target caps were introduced. Before, one could herd/damage every enemy on a map, provided they stayed in range. Afterwards, you could't damage, mez, or affect more than 16 foes with the most massive AE power (caps usually ranged from 5-12 on most powers, though), and a single player couldn't have more than 16 AI trained on him/her. (This could actually be an advantage in extraordinarily large fights, though.)
*** Some of the endgame Incarnate powers added toward the end of COH's life explicitly ignored this limit -- for instance, the Tier 4 Ion Judgments could hit 20 or more targets at once.
* While ''[[Champions Online]]'' goes through the same regular nerf and buff cycles as other [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s, particularly notable was the Gadgeteering On-Next-Hit debacle. Developers weren't happy with the moves [https://web.archive.org/web/20130903174719/http://champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Sonic_Device Sonic Device], [https://web.archive.org/web/20130902103224/http://champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Toxic_Nanites Toxic Nanites], and [https://web.archive.org/web/20131111053316/http://www.champions-online-wiki.com/wiki/Miniaturization_Drive Miniaturization Drive], because players could combine all three into a single, overpowered attack, and the abilities were too effective against multiple opponents. So, in a single patch, the two weaker abilities had their cooldowns raised to match the stronger Sonic Device, all three were given a shared cooldown (effectively removing any point in getting more than one), and they no longer triggered on attacks that hit multiple opponents(destroying their usefulness with numerous players, considering the emphasis CO puts on multitarget fights). Needless to say, '''no one''' liked any of these changes, much less getting hit with ''all three'' at once. Amusingly though, the announcement of these changes weeks earlier wasn't met with [[Internet Backdraft|vitrolic hate]], but with pages and pages of calm, rational discussion about much ''smarter'' ways they could've solved the same problems without rendering the three abilities completely worthless. Fortunately, it wasn't long before developers realized what a moronic move they made, and redid the changes, using some of the same suggestions users had provided, but [[What an Idiot!|had gone ignored.]]
* Akuma has been nerfed repeatedly since his first appearance in ''Super [[Street Fighter]] II Turbo'', but this was beneficial, as he was brought down from a [[SNK Boss|nigh-invincible boss character]] to a powerful regular character.
* In ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Star Wars: Dark Forces]]'' the Imperial Repeater Rifle is arguably the game's best weapon, shooting very accurate blasts machine-gun style and pushing enemies back farther than any other weapon. Did we mention you can fire three barrels at once? The only drawback is you'll get so addicted to it you'll wonder where the heck your ammo went. The version seen in ''Jedi Outcast'', though, is utterly useless: accuracy is lost, and the shots it fires are much, much weaker than they once were. The secondary trigger fires stronger blasts from a sort of underslung grenade launcher, but they're nigh impossible to aim. It even changed the Repeater from an [[Energy Weapon]] to a slugthrower (projectile weapon).
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** Likewise, in ''Terran Conflict'' a properly flown [[The Battlestar|Split Panther]] frigate could solo a [[Standard Starship Scuffle]] against ''heavy capital ships'' (it ''does'' take fancy flying, mind you), since it has excellent weapons coverage and selection, average shields, more fighters than some full size carriers, and maneuvering and power generation stats equal to its fighterless sister design the Tiger. The weapons generators were nerfed in ''X3: Albion Prelude'', to the annoyance of Panther-lovers.
* ''[[Asteroids Deluxe]]'' nerfed [[Asteroids|the original game]]'s weakness (you could rack up points by leaving a large rock remaining from the first wave, sit in one spot and just pick off the saucers one by one) by having the saucers shoot at the rocks as well as the player ship.
* ''GU Comics'', being mostly about MMO, touch it a lot. Including [http://www.gucomics.com/20010201 this] gem:
{{quote|''Well''… what does it do?
Before the ''nerf'', it had a right-click ''complete heal''.
And ''now?''
''Now'' when I right-click it… it just ''laughs'' at me.}}
* Bosses were much harder in version 1.0 of ''[[Rockman 6: Unique Harassment]]''. Their patterns and attacks were made easier in v. 1.1. In addition, Mega Man gets a health refill by the second phase.
{{reflist}}
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