Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship: Difference between revisions

*** Amy, Raphael's adoptive daughter, gets a unique move set in Soul Calibur 4 to replace her generic style in the prequel. Many of her attacks actually do focus on thrusting and stabbing, though she too has quite a few "slash attacks". Her swords are fully edged though.

* Scorpion seems to use his spear to slice a victim in one of his ''[[Mortal Kombat]] 2'' fatalities.

** However, despite being ''technically'' averted, the attack patterns don't change, meaning that your hero will usually still be slashing about with his rapier anyway--it just won't do as much damaage as stabbing.

* ''[[Persona 3]]'' has three physical damage types: slashing, piercing, and strike damage. Mitsuru uses rapiers but the rapiers deal slash damage, not piercing damage. Somewhat subverted, though, in that most of Mitsuru's attack ''animations'' are thrusts. However, the nameless protagonist can use her weapons too, and he tends to play the trope straight.

** the one handed sword class of weapon does include some slashing type swords, but the animations never change. Two handed swords (Dai-katanas) always slash, though.

* Gwendolyn from ''[[Odin Sphere]]'' wields a spear, and while she DOES stab on occasion, she's mostly slashing with it.

* This happens with the Rapiers in [[The Last Remnant]], even if they appear to be useless as a slashing weapon.

* Did you notice Marth's Shield Breaker attack changed from a Slash to a Thrust between [[Super Smash Bros]] Melee and Brawl? That's because his weapon is primarily a thrusting weapon. His moveset still has plenty of slashes to it, though.

* In ''[[Avalon Code]]'' rapier is one of your weapon. You use it to slash enemies, just like any other sword.

* Each game in the ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' series avert this trope either partially or completely. Most often, daggers are used exclusively as thrusting weapons, while swords are either used to thrust only or a mix of thrusting and slashing.

* The earliest ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games show all melee weapons as making over-the-shoulder slashes, rather like axes. This gets somewhat comical when Kain does it in the fourth game with spears that were clearly designed to pierce rather than cut. By the sixth game, however, spears get a special thrusting animation, and later games give each weapon and/or character a different attack animation (though they all do the same damage.)

** Khimari in [[Final Fantasy X]] only ever uses his spear to stab when using a jump overderive. The rest of the time he swings it pointy end first.

* ''[[City of Heroes]]''' sword sets (Katana, Broadsword, [[Swords Akimbo|Dual Blades]]) let the player customize what kind of weapon(s) their character uses. The animation stays the same no matter what weapon is chosen (katana, rapier, sai...).

* Averted in ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'', where stabbing and slashing are separated by a different contact area and penetration power which both vary by the weapon. You cannot slash with a spear or pike, or thrust with a ax, you can only do a shaft bash and a flat slap respectively.

* Completely averted with [[Demons Souls]]. While the normal short sword-type weapons can both slash and thrust (and indeed, the unique [[Awesome but Impractical]] Penetrator Sword has bonus damage on thrusting and has a very wide slash range due to its long blade), slash weapons like Falchion, Kilij and Uchigatana can only slash while straight swords like Rapier and Estoc can only thrust. Same goes with thrust-only spears, while weapons like Halberd primarily slash. The thrusting weapons are very efficient against armor (as it pierces) and can be used while blocking; slash weapons inflict Bleeding status effect, which is basically a weapon-induced Poison effect, with reduced healing capability thrown in.

** Also averted with its [[Spiritual Successor]] ''[[Dark Souls]]''. Curiously played straight with the Estoc's strong attack that makes a wide slashing motion despite Estocs being only sharp at the end. The Balder Side Sword also averts this trope, due to the fact that the weapon it is based on, the side sword/arming sword is sharpened along its edges, allowing for slashing attacks as well as a piercing attack (like the in-game strong attack portrays).

* Can be played straight in ''[[Runescape]]''. Each weapon has several attack styles, and for a given weapon most will be either stabbing, slashing, or crushing-type attacks, each of which has a separate defense bonus provided by the target's armour that it has to penetrate. However, most weapons offer an attack style that allows the player to deal a secondary damage type (for example, crushing damage with a battleaxe instead of the usual slashing damage) in order to exploit the weaknesses of the target's defenses, at the cost of the weapon having a lower accuracy bonus with its secondary attack type. However, the trope is usually averted as people [[Complacent Gaming Syndrome|often ignore attack styles altogether]] in favour of simply choosing to use [[Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors|magic attacks against melee armour, melee attacks against ranged armour and ranged]] [[Complacent Gaming Syndrome|(or melee)]] [[Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors|attacks against magic "armour"]] for maximum [[Armor-Piercing Attack|armour bypass.]]

* Subverted, inverted and played stright in ''[[Arx Fatalis]]'', where type of melee attack depends upon your movement at the moment you start charging the attack (if you are backpedaling, you will prepare to a thrust, if strafing - a side swing, and if running forward - an [[Sword Over Head|overhead slam]]; if standing still, you make a hacking move). This, however, doesn't save you neither from slashing with the rapier-like sword nor from much more interesting things like stabbing a full-plated foe with ''a hammer''. {{spoiler|Or with HUGE one-handed machete thing with long side-pointed spike on its already blunt tip.}}

* Lampshaded in [[Epic Battle Fantasy]]: [[I Like Swords|Matt]] yells at a sword using enemy using [[Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship]] that he's holding a thrusting weapon.

** [[Katanas Are Just Better|Kenjutsu]]

** Sabre fencing

*** Note that Medieval and Renaissance swordsmanship was nowhere near as clunky and slow as is usually depicted. There was a wealth of techniques that were both well-considered and well-tested, directly comparable to their Eastern equivalents.

*** Conversely, ARMOURED longsword fencing inverts the trope.