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Tier-Induced Scrappy: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''"I think [[Street Fighter IV (Video Game)|Adon]] is like one of the worst characters in the game."''|'''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8oj7mra-os&feature=related Justin Wong]''' at the EVO 2010. [[Laser
Two variations of [[The Scrappy]] specific to [[Video Games]] and/or [[Tabletop Games]].
The first, often seen in fighting games, concerns the best characters getting hated not out of a hatedom but for being overused and/or downright difficult to defeat due to their high power, gameplay-wise; understandably, those two points get on a [[Scrub|lot of people]]'s nerves and tend to be favored by [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|other people]]. Characters who are [[Difficult but Awesome]] tend to avoid this fate because they are hard to play well. A typical tier induced scrappy is a high tier character with next to no learning curve.
The other, more common to [[RPG|RPGs]], is a character who is widely hated because they just suck in gameplay terms. They might be the [[Nice Guy|nicest person in the world]], but if they're [[The Load]] in combat or gameplay, their fate is decided. A Low Tier Induced Scrappy has no [[Magikarp Power]]; they're bad from the start and there just doesn't seem to be any point in training them when there are other, more rewarding characters on hand.
Practically all characters you have to guard for an [[Escort Mission]] are like the second type. [[Spoony Bard]] is a subtrope of this that's specifically about a character that tries to do something "different" but ends up sucking because of it.
{{examples
=== '''High Tiers''' ===
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*** Ultimately, as of Extend the game is balanced enough that nobody has been put into this category as of yet.
* The ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' Series:
** Kurtis Stryker from ''[[Mortal Kombat 3 (Video Game)|Mortal Kombat 3]]''. At first, he was a regular Scrappy because he looks like Woody Harrelson, he's a cop in an era of "Fuck Tha Police", he has no backstory to speak of and he has a gun that he rarely uses. The developers eventually proved that they saw him as a [[
** Kung Lao's ''[[Mortal Kombat 9 (Video Game)|Mortal Kombat 9]]'' incarnation left a bad taste in the competitive scene's mouths. With a multi-purpose projectile [[Nice Hat|in the form of his hat]], a range of very fast moves including a spin attack that easily sets up his fairly simple yet effective combos, he got nerfed ''HARD'' in subsequent patches.
* There are quite a few of these in the ''[[Street Fighter]]'' series:
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** Goro Daimon was viewed as this by some in the original '''98'' because of his ridiculous priority with some moves. In the ''Ultimate Match'' [[Updated Rerelease|rerelease]], he was toned down and had his OTG glitch removed.
** In '''98UM'', Geese, Krauser, and Iori are currently considered three of the best characters in the game, so there's a large amount of tourney videos out there with this team, which can be annoying to some viewers. Even if a team has just ONE of those characters [[Hatedom|you'll find someone complaining about it.]]
** ''Maximum Impact 2'' contains a ''totally justified'' case with Armor Ralf. The developers [[Purposefully Overpowered|tried as hard as possible to make the most overpowered]] [[Game Breaker]] imaginable. Super armor, infinite priority, obscene damage, a taunt that damages, the inability to be thrown, and tank-like defense are just a handful of the traits that made Armor Ralf one of the most despised characters in the entire game. He was removed from the updated ''Regulation A'' version of the game... by bringing along [[
** ''KOFXIII'' gives us two scrappies: Raiden and K'. The former can obliterate an entire life bar with a combo that involves his fully-charged drop kick move - a bad boy that [[Game Breaker|chips, hurts bad AND shaves off 70% of the guard gauge]] at the most. The latter is just too damn versatile with his projectiles and zoning, his damage and comboability and how brain-dead simple half of his crap can be.<br />Oddly enough, most of those issues stem from the arcade version(s) [XII had two version of the arcade release, 1.1 was more or less a balance patch - with these two as it's major targets] of the game. In the case of Raiden, some very heavy changes to the drop kick and the mirror buffs in some notable area's where he had issues makes him much less of a [[Tier Induced Scrappy]] for the console. K', however.... it's hard to say if the changes effected him at all (in some cases it gives him more versatility and damage potential in combos), so this trope may still apply to him.
* People who play ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy]]'' often sigh whenever they find another player using [[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|Squall]], as they know that the Squall will often do little more than use Beat Fang over and over again. While not top tier, his ability to make your Bravery disappear with little effort gets on the nerves of people who try to avoid such play. Also, Squall is one of the few characters who can overcome any and all of [[Final Fantasy V (Video Game)|Exdeath]] counters (specially while in [[Super Mode|EX Mode]]). And when the game was released outside Japan, he got a new aerial attack that doesn't make sense with his abilities (from the original game) nor he needed more than Firion (whose abilities fitted more to that type of attack).
** Exdeath is another one; mastering him means you can block almost any attack in the game and counter instantly for critical damage. [[Difficult but Awesome|He takes real skill to master though.]]
** Since the release of the sequel, ''Duodecim'', another such [[Scrappy]] has emerged: Sephiroth. Because of the general overhaul of the game and the addition of the [[Assist Character|assist system]], he's suddenly emerged as a very powerful character, all because of Shadow Flare. It was a good move to start with--fast, pressuring, little lag, great range, so on and so forth. But with the assist system introduced, Shadow Flare now has all of those thing and will build assist gauge easily and quickly, even with whiffs! The practical upshot is that matches with Sephiroth tend to involve the Sephiroth spamming Shadow Flare until his assist gauge is full (if the opponent tries to rush or punish him, well--that's what the character was originally designed to deal with), and then Sephiroth uses that assist gauge to land a combo--rinse and repeat. Even if this strategy weren't so effective, it would still be scrappifying, as Shadow Flare is an extremely [[Boring but Practical|boring move]].
* Pet Shop in ''[[Jo
* At one tournament for ''[[Naruto]]: Ultimate Hero 2'', Itachi was outright banned for having a game-breaker special move which slowed time down for the victim and made them take much more damage for about a minute.<br />Itachi was elevated to down right broken in ''Ultimate Hero 3''. He's the second fastest character in the game, one of his jutsus creates a clone next to the opponent no matter where they are which then explodes, he still retains his time manipulation, and just to add a cherry on top, he has an infinite. If the opponent is out of chakra he can spam his air grab over and over again without the opponent being able to ever tech out of it. The Fourth Hokage, the fastest character in the game, also gets this for being down right untouchable in the hands of a good player.
* ''[[Soul Calibur|Soul Calibur IV]]'':
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{{quote| [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7U5pyqmsT8 "Step one to having no friends."]}}
* ''[[Soul Calibur]] V''
** This time around, a majority of your online matches will be either against Natsu, Xiba, or Nightmare. Natsu is basically Taki, but 10 times better. Her combos and juggle ability do a ridiculous amount of damage: all reward and no risk. Nobody liked Kilik, so nobody likes Xiba either. When Nightmare players in ''IV'' grumbled that their character was terrible, he came back with a vengeance thanks to the [[Powers That Be]]. Now he can deal up to 50-70% of your lifebar's worth of damage with just one bar of meter, and his ring-out game became even better. Oh, and if he gets a Counter Hit off of a Critical Edge it's an [[One
** One could make a case for Mitsurugi as well. Fast moves, good pokes, great mixups, and nice damage all in one package, and makes up one of the three most common characters online ( Mitsurugi, Nightmare, Xiba ).
* ''[[Tekken]]'':
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== [[First
* The ''[[Call of Duty]]'' series is home to a few Equipment examples:
** The grenade launcher in the ''[[Modern Warfare]]'' games, which is nicknamed the "noob tube".
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== [[MMORPG|MMORPGs]] ==
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', each expansion tends to start off with a single class being ridiculously overpowered. In early ''Wrath of the Lich King,'' this was the retribution paladin. At the moment, it's the frost mage.
** Although it's useful to keep in mind that with ''[[World of Warcraft]]'s'' [[Unpleasable Fanbase]] "ridiculously overpowered" can mean anything from "maybe 5% better in an ideal situation that never happens" to a [[Million
** It should also be noted that in the 7 or so years [[WoW]] has existed, ''every single class'' has been this ''at least'' once.
** One case of this put Hunters in an unusual bind balance-wise. They got nerfed several times due to complaints that they were overpowered in [[Pv P]] play, which ended up making them all but useless in [[Player Versus Environment|PvE]] raids while ''still'' getting complaints of being overpowered in [[Pv P]].
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* Pretty much all sports games have one (or more) of these overpowered "cheese" teams/players/whatever. Although one could argue this is justified, as some teams actually ARE that dominant in real life.
== [[Third
* Non-character example in ''[[Gears of War]] 2'', where both of the starting rifles to choose from are a [[Tier Induced Scrappy]] to at least one section of its very, very [[Broken Base]]. You have the Lancer users who think that the Hammerburst is the overpowered noob weapon because of its incredibly powerful and accurate semi-automatic fire (with almost no recoil with actives). You have the Hammerburst defenders who say that the Lancer is the overpowered noob weapon because of it's one-hit-kill chainsaw bayonet (which tends to either let you tank bullets without flinching and suck people in with a vacuum or not work at all and get you killed), and then the third group who agree that the Lancer is underpowered and use the Hammerburst anyway.
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== [[First
* Jones from Clive Barker's ''[[Clive Barkers Jericho]]'' ([[Zero Punctuation|by Clive Barker]]). In spite of his fairly decent weaponry, his lack of combat-worthy supernatural abilities (they're mainly used to pass through areas, and as a plot point) means that he tends to get ignored a lot by those who play the game.
* The missions where you play as Billy in ''[[Call of Juarez]]'' were rather reviled. The Prequel replaces him with his stepfather Thomas, who fulfills a bit of Billy's [[Fragile Speedster]] properties with a more Sharpshooter-based gameplay than Ray.
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* Arguably Salsa from ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]''. His attacks are quite weak and he relies on the NPC Party member with him to do most of the damage (and the NPC's attacks are completely random), his special abilities are not really that great,<ref>although knowing about Monkey Mimic can make the [[That One Boss|Pork Tank]] a bit easier</ref> and he has the misfortune of being placed in what is essentially a full chapter of grinding due to the fact he's so underpowered. He is playable briefly later on, but by that time he is [[Can't Catch Up|tragically underleveled to the point of being useless]]. However, Itoi makes him such a tragic character that most players end up rooting for him anyway, making Salsa something of a deconstruction.
* Rainer Hofstedt's only role in ''[[Albion]]'' is his ability to provide useful advice during the first part of the game, but he's almost completely useless in combat. He's later replaced by Harriet, who has the same stats, and the ability to cast healing spells, and a spell that can wipe every single opponent off the battlefield<br />There are exactly three other things Rainer is good for. The first is that he's good at picking locks, though not as good as Khunag. The second is that he's harder to hit than Tom and wears better armor than Drirr, so until you get Siobhan he's the closest thing you have to a [[An Adventurer Is You|blink tank]]. The third is that until you get Joe in the final dungeon only he and Tom can use the [[Disc One Nuke|pistol]], which has an attack power of 30 and can be found when you'd have to [[Money Grinding|Money Grind]] excessively just to afford a spear with a power of 18. Incidentally, have you noticed that all of these traits are redundant?
* Xigbar in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358 Days Over 2 (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2]]'', despite being a great character in the story mode of the game (both in terms of both usefulness and entertainment value), is considered quite weak in the multiplayer aspect of it. The main problem with Xigbar is that a lot of people solo the mission mode-- and Xigbar isn't meant for soloing. He's meant to be standing back providing back-up damage while someone tanks the enemies. Having to reload ''does'' hinder him, though.
* Colette Brunel and Regal Bryant in ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]''. Colette, despite being [[The Chosen One]], is largely useless when AI-controlled due to [[Artificial Stupidity]]<ref>Can be overcome by a creative player ''directly controlling'' her</ref>, and Regal because his controls are odd - while most of the characters control like [[Super Smash Bros]] characters, Regal's controls are more like classic fighting game combos. This frustrates a lot of players into hating a character who is otherwise quite likable.
* In ''[[Tales of Graces (Video Game)|Tales of Graces]]'':
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* ''[[Pokémon]]'' also has many Low-Tier Scrappies, such as Spinda and Farfetch'd, who are in the NU (Never-Used) Tier because of their relative uselessness in competitive battling.
** Luvdisc has the joke made of it that in a timed battle (via battle simulator or otherwise), it can cause you to win by ''[[Epic Fail|causing the other player to laugh so hard they forget to select their next move.]]''
** Albeit more of a Tier Induced [[The Woobie|Woobie]], [[Playing With Fire|Flareon]] is this of the [[Fan Nickname|Eeveelutions]]. Unlike its bretheren, whom all have designated roles to fulfill, Flareon has trouble finding one with its bizarre stat distribution combined with its bad movepool. It has high Attack and Special Defense, but poor general defenses and poor Speed, meaning it can't tank nor sweep. In addition, it has a sparse physical movepool to work with, being forced to work off its lesser Special Attack, or even support moves, both which the other Eeveelutions do better. [[Yank the
** Electivire is a cross beetwen this and high tier. The hate mainly comes from [[Hype Backlash]], its movepool gives it insane super effective coverage, good offensive stats and ability that make it a good offensive partner to Gyarados make it seems to be a powerful threat. And then, its found that Super Effective is not the same as [[One
* The ''[[Golden Sun]]'' series is known for its Djinn and Class system, which allows the player to toy with the attributes and abilities of the characters by allocating the Djinn set to the character. The same holds true in ''[[Golden Sun Dark Dawn|Dark Dawn]]'', but not everyone freely utilizes it, which makes two characters stand out.
** [[The Medic|Rief]] is capable of learning Ply and Wish, just like [[White Mage|Mia]], as well as combat Psynergy to round out your options. Sadly, attack Psynergy loses its effectiveness mid-game, which is a recurring problem, but Rief doesn't last ''that'' long before he's benched due to [A] Karis being able to use the Fresh Breeze group from the word go ''at the time he arrives'' and [B] physically-oriented [[Warrior Prince|Amiti]] showing up just an hour or two later. Due to most players not having the patience to play with the aforementioned system, Amiti's arrival usualy means Rief is permanently benched. And the sink for those Dijinn that don't make it onto the main party, causing him to be a bit of a mongrel if he ''does'' have to save the others' tails...
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** Outside of the core classes, the biggest scrappy class is the Truenamer from ''Tome of Magic''. The Truenamer is great in concept: Someone who uses the language of creation itself to rewrite reality. That is until you realize that not only are their powers rather limited, they also become [[Low Level Advantage|less effective as they level up]]: the DC of a Truenaming effect equals a constant + double the target's level. This includes allies. A Truenamer in combat spends most of his time shouting in Truespeech only for it to ''not do anything''.
** Rivaling the Truenamer in sheer player hatred is the ''Complete Warrior'' Samurai, essentially a [[Nerf|Nerfed]] and more restricted version of the already average Fighter. While the Truenamer is mechanically unplayable, the Samurai is just useless. He has weak features, a poor skill list, bonus feats which mainly border on detrimental, and very little versatility. His [[Eleventh Hour Superpower]], Frightful Presence, is virtually useless from the start and only gets weaker from there. Just about the only good thing about him is he helped bring about the much more well-liked Ronin prestige class, which he's not really needed for. One of the most well-known tier lists places him on the same level as the Warrior and Aristocrat, noncombatant classes not meant for actual player use. Ouch.
** Another class that's looked down upon for lack of power is the Healer from ''Miniatures Handbook''. It heals better than a Cleric<ref>by way of adding their Charisma modifier to damage healed by spells</ref>... but that's all it can do. No offensive abilities whatsoever (unless fighting [[The Undead]], because [[Revive Kills Zombie]]). Just slinging healing spells to patch up allies (in a game where in-battle healing is completely useless). To add insult to injury, the same book deputed the Warmage (who has issues out of the box, but is quite solid when pimped out), who introduced a much loved system for "focused casters" (who know their entire spell list, and can cast any of them as long as they have the spell slots) that the Healer would fit in perfectly in (limited, single purpose spell list), but it casts ''exactly'' [[Vancian Magic|like a Cleric]] instead, [[Dissimile|except it can't convert other spells]] to raw healing if needed. They do get a Unicorn, though, [[
** The Soulknife is occupies the position of being one of the most well-liked and most-hated classes in 3.5e. The idea of creating a [[Laser Blade]] out of psychic energy and going to town on your foes earned fans for its [[Rule of Cool|cool factor]], but mechanically the class was a worse combatant than an ordinary fighter and didn't have much else going for it, dooming it to be an ineffective novelty combatant. But its sheer coolness meant that players would continually try to come up with [[House Rules]] to fix the class and make it more like the awesome warrior they envisioned.
* In the [[Magic the Gathering]] corner, we have the colors Green and, to a lesser extent, White.
** Green's main problem is that it's the creature-focused color, and for many years, creatures sucked- you'd run out a horde of Elves, only to walk right into a [[Kill
*** With the shift to move some card drawing into Green (Garruk, Primal Hunter; Hunter's Instinct; Lead the Stampede), some creature kill (in the form of the Fight keyword and Ambush Viper), and some particularly powerful keyword abilities (Hexproof, Undying), Green is starting to make a turn out of this. Of course, when cards like Primeval Titan around, Green might be heading in the other direction...
** White had its own time being lousy. White is pretty much the [[Jack of All Stats]] of colors, meaning that it does almost everything, but it does nothing particularly well. It occasionally interacts with the stack, but not to the crushing level that Blue does, and it's creatures don't have green's quality or red's breakneck speed. White, like green, has started to improve with the focus on creatures.
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** The Trial Map Characters, which are clearly much bigger examples than the ones listed above. Other than (arguably) Glen, Lyon, Riev, and Ismaire all of these characters have terrible stats, terrible growths, or characters in the party who are far superior to them (i.e. Gerik to Caellach), or have poor pontential due to their high levels.
* Most mage characters fell victim to this in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius (Video Game)|Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]'', the exception being Soren (and even then, he's pretty average). Pretty much all of the non-royal laguz did as well.
** Micaiah is a light mage (lowest damage spell type), is the main character (until Ike [[
** Micaiah's group, the Dawn Brigade, has several units in this category too. They range from units whose growths are not efficient for their class<ref>Meg having high speed and poor strength and defense in a [[Mighty Glacier]] class, Leonardo having poor skill and speed when being the group's only [[The Archer|archer]]</ref> to units who come at unreasonably low levels or are otherwise hard to train <ref>Laura starts at level one and can only level by healing, Fiona comes at level 7 when the rest of the army is probably more than twice her level</ref> to units who would actually be useful if it wasn't for certain attributes that weaken them considerably <ref>Ilyana being forced to use the badly-nerfed Thunder tomes until she promotes, Volug being stuck in half-shift for all of Part 1</ref>. A few other units have these problems as well, but it's not quite as pronounced for them because they tend to show up in far more balanced armies and they aren't starved for experience like the Dawn Brigade.
* Rafa and Malak in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' (or "Rapha and Marach" in the [[Video Game Remake]] for the PSP). Their unique class skills hit 4 squares out of 5 ''at random'' (possibly including doubles) and do pretty lousy damage even when they hit: Rafa's multiply with the target's "Faith" stat (which is essentially Magic Vulnerability) but not enough to be impressive; Malak does increased damage to athiests with low FA, but are aren't a whole lot of those in the game. Rafa is also infamous for an [[Escort Mission]] in which she can get herself killed ''before you've been allowed to take a turn''. Their redeeming qualities come in their natural Brave and Faith stats: Rafa has low BR, making her good at being a white mage or using Move: Find Item; and Marach's low FA means he takes almost no damage from magical attacks, making it that much easier to turn him into an invincible steamroller. That said, it's a lot of work for marginal reward, compared to other characters (even [[Player Mooks]]). And their unique class skills are still the absolute worst in the game.
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* Oddly, [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] himself is sometimes considered the scrappy amongst his woodland friends, if only because he doesn't have any truly unique abilities like the others. This is particularly prominent in the Sonic Advance series, where the levels are really designed to take advantage of the other characters' abilities, and Sonic's ability to grind rails feels mostly tacked on.
== [[Shoot
* Reco-Abnormal in ''[[Mushihime-sama]] Futari''. Her shots have a difficult learning curve, and in a defiance of usual [[Bullet Hell]] conventions, her speed when using her focus shot is ''faster'' than her normal speed (it's also the weakest if you haven't locked-on with any of the beetles which requires going in close-range, 2nd strongest if you have). Palm Normal also suffers from this to a lesser extent; his rapid shot's fairly reliable, but his focused shot is quite weak in version 1.5, especially compared to Reco Normal or Palm Abnormal.
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== [[Fighting Game|FightingGames]] ==
* In [[Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Video Game)|Marvel vs. Capcom 3]], Phoenix (of the [[X-Men]], not the [[Ace Attorney|lawyer]]) is an example of both a High- and Low-Tier Scrappy, due to her [[Glass Cannon]] traits. Her vitality is the lowest out of anyone's in the game, so a handful of hits and she's down for the count. ''Unless'', she has 5 full bars on her Hyper Combo meter. ''Then'' she becomes [[Super
** Then you have Phoenix ([[Ace Attorney|yes, the lawyer]]). He's low because his attacks have pitiful range, and the fact that he has to gather evidence before being able to do anything noteworthy. But if he gathers enough evidence and lands his ''[[Weapons Grade Vocabulary|OBJECTION!]]'', then he enters Turnabout mode, which is every bit as overpowered as Dark Phoenix, and gains access to his level 3 hyper combo, which is like the aforementioned Magneto's, but ''significantly more powerful''.
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== [[MMOPRG|MMOPRGs]] ==
* Every class in [[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]] gets this one way or another, but two stand out:
** Pyro, due to the fact that Pyro is overpowered in casual play, but underpowered in competitive play - sadly, the very definition of a [[Scrub]] class. Recent updates have turned Pyro into less of a close-range beast and given it more of a support role, at least without the Backburner. [[Broken Base|This went]] [[Internet Backdraft|about as well]] [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|as can be expected.]]
** The Spy gets it for being the very definition of [[Difficult but Awesome]]: Either he's one of the 1% of players who can play a spy well (and he's on the other side, terrorizing your team) or the player is one of the other 99% who should have the class disabled from their character select screen. Naturally, this sort will always be on your team.
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', retribution paladins, enhancement shamans, beast mastery hunters (as previously mentioned), and fire magi (among others) have all been Tier Induced Scrappies at some point or another.<br />Then you've got warlocks, who've been juggling forth between the two types of Tier Induced Scrappy ever since the game was released. On the release they were extremely weak and generally considered free kills in pvp. Later on itemisation (warlocks had easier time getting gear with lots of stamina and damage due to their pve gear also having stamina) and buffs to the class made them extremely powerful, allowing them to "drain tank" most other players. In the next expansion increased burs damage and survivability of all classes made drain tanking less viable, while the warlock's primary crowd control suffered several nerfs, making them sub-par in pvp. They were buffed again later on, and currently they are not horrible but not especially powerful either.
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