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Unnecessary Combat Roll: Difference between revisions

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Not to be confused with [[Tabletop Games|Attack Roll]] or [[Rolling Attack]]. The [[Indy Hat Roll]] is a related trope.
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Parodied in ''[[Yotsubato|Yotsuba&!]]'' (seen above) when the title character, after watching one too many Japanese gangster movies, decides to take out her neighbors on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] with a water pistol: she kicks open Ena's bedroom door, stops to crouch down, does an awkward somersault, and comes up gun squirting.
{{quote|'''Yotsuba''': Freeze! [[Gratuitous English|Nonstop]]!}}
* Subverted in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS]]'': During a training session, Teana tries to avoid Nanoha's shots by making some rolls on the ground, and Nanoha criticizes her action ("Now, if you move like that, it's all over") and the point of the lesson is to teach her how to [[Shoot the Bullet]] instead as a way of defending without having to move.
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* During one of the training sequences in [[How to Train Your Dragon]], some of the students evade a Deadly Nadder by dodge rolling from one piece of cover to the next. When Hiccup tries it, he gets stuck and attracts the Nadder's attention. Oops.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* In ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Mostly Harmless|Mostly Harmless]]'', Ford does this to enter his editor's office, as his editor tends to greet lazy writers with laser fire. It turns out to be unnecessary, as his editor has been replaced, taking his temper and his drinks-trolley (handy as a mobile shield) with him. The trolley's absence is the first thing that throws Ford off his rhythm, but definitely not the last.
** Ford, for his part, opts to ''continue rolling around the room'' until a more intelligent option presents itself.
 
== [[Live -Action TV]] ==
* Appears in the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "The Girl in the Fireplace", although there's no shooting involved, it's done using a fire extinguisher and it's obviously [[Played for Laughs|for a laugh]].
* Used constantly in B-rated [[Sci Fi]] Channel movies, to be later imitated/satirized by Joel McHale on ''[[The Soup]]''.
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* ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'': Wolowitz does one to Raj when they're "wrestling" (i.e., dancing around each other in a gym wearing spandex) while trying to prove who would be the hero and who would be the sidekick.
* [[Seth Green]] was on ''Punk'd'' where he had been tricked into believing that a craps game he was at was being raided by cops. One of them did a roll on the floor after crashing though a glass door. After learning it was all a prank Green commented about the guy doing the roll which he thought was "completely unnecessary" at the time!
 
== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] ==
* The [[World of Warcraft]] expansion "Mists of Pandaria" adds the Monk as a playable class. One maneuver a Monk can perform is a forward roll. This somersault miraculously propels the Monk 20 yards forward at a pace far faster than the Monk's normal running speed.
* In ''[[Star Trek Online]]'', the player character can throw themselves into a roll to get behind cover or away from an enemy (useful) or diveroll to a aiming crouch from a run (very useful). The player character's AI companions will put the Unnecessary in Unnecessary Combat Roll.
* ''[[Champions Online]]'' has an unnecessary roll during the Holdout Shot maneuver. The character rolls to one side, pulls a gun from the lower leg and comes up firing a final shot. If executed in flight, the roll will be replaced by [[Everything's Better with Spinning|a mid-air pirouette.]]
* In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons Online]]'' any character with ranks in the tumble skill can hold SHIFT while pressing move, to do a roll instead of normal movement. There is no limit to how much you can do that and it is as fast as regular movement. The downside is that you suffer a penalty to attack rolls shortly after moving, even by rolling, and you can't attack while rolling. You can also use it for Necessary Combat Rolls, when surrounded by a kobold horde to leave safely. Likewise, if you have the Mobility feat, such tumble rolls can offer a +4 bonus to Armor Class. And finally, if you have enough ranks in Tumble, the rolls turn into flips that take the character -just- enough distance from their starting point to be [[High-Speed Missile Dodge|out of the radius of a Fireball, or similar spell]].
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* A technique found by the titular character in the first [[Sly Cooper]] game is a skill that lets you roll through stages. Lampshaded when Bentley says that the creator of the technique could roll faster than she could run.
 
=== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]] ===
== Webcomics ==
* The [[World of Warcraft]] expansion "Mists of Pandaria" adds the Monk as a playable class. One maneuver a Monk can perform is a forward roll. This somersault miraculously propels the Monk 20 yards forward at a pace far faster than the Monk's normal running speed.
* In ''[[Star Trek Online]]'', the player character can throw themselves into a roll to get behind cover or away from an enemy (useful) or diveroll to a aiming crouch from a run (very useful). The player character's AI companions will put the Unnecessary in Unnecessary Combat Roll.
* ''[[Champions Online]]'' has an unnecessary roll during the Holdout Shot maneuver. The character rolls to one side, pulls a gun from the lower leg and comes up firing a final shot. If executed in flight, the roll will be replaced by [[Everything's Better with Spinning|a mid-air pirouette.]]
* In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons Online]]'' any character with ranks in the tumble skill can hold SHIFT while pressing move, to do a roll instead of normal movement. There is no limit to how much you can do that and it is as fast as regular movement. The downside is that you suffer a penalty to attack rolls shortly after moving, even by rolling, and you can't attack while rolling. You can also use it for Necessary Combat Rolls, when surrounded by a kobold horde to leave safely. Likewise, if you have the Mobility feat, such tumble rolls can offer a +4 bonus to Armor Class. And finally, if you have enough ranks in Tumble, the rolls turn into flips that take the character -just- enough distance from their starting point to be [[High-Speed Missile Dodge|out of the radius of a Fireball, or similar spell]].
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [[Karate Bears]] love doing [http://www.karatebears.com/2010/12/somersault.html unnecessary flip/flops] before doing most activities.
* [[Homestuck|YOUTH ROLL]]
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* One story had a highly-trained, government-sponsored superhero enter the lobby of a hostile-held building by ''cartwheeling'' through the door. She then walks across the lobby and executes a "tactical manoeuvre" by jumping, skipping, rolling, jumping again, then hiding behind a pillar. It becomes impossible to take the story seriously from that point on, especially since said lobby was completely empty. Did she know the lobby was empty? Was the point of the manoeuvre that no-one ''watching'' could take it seriously?
* Rorscarch in ''[[Watchmen: The High School Years]]'' does this ''badly'' when enters a room to interrogate Adrian Veidt. And it gets absolutely hilarious when he trails Dan- by doing nothing but combat rolls.
 
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
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