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Unnecessary Combat Roll: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"It is impossible to punch or kick someone while they are rolling. Try to time your somersaults so that you pass through your opponent's attempts to hit you. "''|Advice for a fighting game}}
For no apparent reason, the protagonist will tuck into a roll, coming out shooting. If this is during some sneaky activity, rather than outright combat, they may do the roll to cross any open space, for no apparent benefit. In [[Real Life]] of course, coming out of a roll into a shooting position puts the person in a less-stable stance, wastes a lot of time and energy, and is likely to be very disorienting. Often parodied, through sheer gratuity, through the rolling individual just being really bad at it, or through [[
Video games tend to fall victim to this as the negative consequences of rolling are often omitted as [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]. This often leads to repeated diving rolls being a better choice than flat-out running when moving from place to place, something especially evident in [[Speed Run
Closely related is the preferred method for passing through a [[Laser Hallway]], only in that case the flipping and rolling makes perfect sense, it's the layout of the lasers that doesn't.
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Not to be confused with [[Tabletop Games|Attack Roll]] or [[Rolling Attack]]. The [[Indy Hat Roll]] is a related trope.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Parodied in ''[[
{{quote|
* Subverted in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
*
* In the ''[[
* In ''[[
== [[Fan
* Dark of ''[[Light and Dark
== [[Film]] ==
* [[Lampshaded Trope|Lampshaded]] in the movie ''[[
* Trinity's unnecessary cartwheel through the subway turnstiles in ''[[The Matrix]]'' Revolutions. Later in the movie, Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph get into a fight with some guys who can bend gravity. Said guys do things like cartwheeling on the ceiling from cover to cover. [[Reality Ensues|They die.]]
* Subverted in the film version of ''[[
* Watch Ironhide in the '07 ''[[Transformers Film Series|Transformers]]'' movie, particularly when he and Ratchet are covering Witwicky in the big city battle. It's practically all he does.
* Parodied, hilariously, in ''[[Tropic Thunder]]''.
* Also parodied in ''[[
* [[James Bond (
* Used to hilarious effect in the film ''[[Burn After Reading]]'' by George Clooney's character, who is ostensibly using this technique on {{spoiler|a guy he killed 5 minutes ago.}} This is justified, since he was diving for a gun that was lying on the floor, and by the fact that the character lacks any proper combat training, in addition to being a moron (like most of the rest of the cast)
* See the diamond heist in ''[[Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back]]''.
* Senseless jumping and rolling makes up roughly half of the main character's fighting style in ''Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam,'' a.k.a ''[[Turkish Star Wars]]''. The other half consists of really inefficient flailing.
* In the 1973 ''[[The Three Musketeers (1973
* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Mr. and Mrs. Smith]]'' when John Smith does a dramatic dive roll into the bushes while trying to hide from his wife and rolls right into a tangled pile of branches with an appropriately annoyed hiss of ''"OW!"''
* A special move of Riggs in the ''[[
* ''[[National Lampoons Loaded Weapon]]'' parodies Rigg's rolling-gunfire trick.
* Parodied in ''[[Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny]]'' when Jack Black is trying to stealthily break into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. While he is doing a sequence of these rolls (in between areas of "cover"), it is revealed to the viewer that the security cameras are picking up ''everything''. Luckily, the guards match JB's level of competence by not noticing at all.
* Although not strictly a ''combat'' roll, ''[[Space Mutiny]]'' has Reb Brown [[Screams Like a Little Girl|screaming like a girl]] before jumping off an incredibly slow-moving floor-polisher-thing and rolling twice. The [[
** In another [[
* Parodied in the ''[[Land of the Lost (
* Used in the climax of ''Who Dares Wins'', a 1982 SAS film starring Lewis Collins of ''[[The Professionals]]''. Somewhat justified in that Collins uses the roll to take cover behind a table, although the enemy gunman reacts implausibly slowly to this (and is shot).
* [[Action Girl|Deunan Knute]] [[Rule of Cool|does this in mid-air to jump over her]] [[Battle Couple|boyfriend]] [[Cyborg|Briareos's]] [[Rule of Cool|machine guns to shoot up a gang of cyborgs]] in ''[[Appleseed Ex Machina]]''.
* ''[[Police Academy]]'' Tackleberry can't help but do one over the hood of a parked cruiser during his [[Leeroy Jenkins]] charge through the cadet shoot house.
* [[Mortal Kombat]] has Liu Kang do a half-assed semi-cartwheel over the side of some steps and whip around, combat ready, like it was the most spectacular move in the whole movie. Made even more jarring in that he was the only character on screen at the time and there was absolutely no reason for him to attempt the maneuver (i.e. nobody was attacking him on the steps and nobody attacked when he landed).
** In [[Mortal Kombat: Annihilation]], Shao Kahn does one of these to ''talk to his dad''. "[[
* 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
** Ford, for his part, opts to ''continue rolling around the room'' until a more intelligent option presents itself.
== [[Live
* Appears in the ''[[
* Used constantly in B-rated [[Sci Fi]] Channel movies, to be later imitated/satirized by Joel McHale on ''[[The Soup]]''.
* Used a lot in ''[[Andromeda]]''. On the other hand, when the characters were using the "Force Lances", they were firing "smart bullets", which were demonstrated to be able to make 90-degree turns in flight, negating the inaccuracy inherent in a roll.
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** Mal also pulls one during the fight in "Heart of Gold".
* Played for laughs in the pilot episode of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'', when Barney does a combat roll in the midst of a Laser Tag game.
* Used with numbing frequency on ''[[Star Trek:
* In [[Star Trek:
* Played for laughs in ''[[Spaced]]'' when Mike does a combat roll when leaving Brian's flat ''for absolutely no reason at all''. And then Brian instinctively copies him.
* Bear Grylls in ''[[Man vs. Wild]]'' did this during the episode in Copper Canyon, Mexico. The reason this is here is because he did it off a helicopter that was ''sitting on the ground''. This might've been some sort of technique to get clear of the blades quickly.
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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!
== [[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 (Video Game)|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 (Video Game)|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]] ==
* Played with in ''[[Max Payne (
* Late 1990s Bruce Willis vehicle ''[[Apocalypse]]'' theoretically allows the player to spend the game's entire duration as a computer-generated, soundbyte-hurling, constantly-revolving Bruce Willis, which may be the most absurd example possible.
* In ''[[Flashback (
* ''[[
* ''[[Gears of War]]'' and ''[[Army of Two]]'' allow your characters to roll, generally to avoid being hit and to quickly move in a direction. In ''[[Gears of War]] 2'', this is actually the fastest way to move, roadie-running (essentially sprinting while crouching) when you're not rolling and attempting to roll as often as possible.
* Subverted in ''[[
** Its sequel, ''[[Overgrowth]]'', continues to subvert this in that if you don't time your roll right, you can end up injuring yourself in some situations and breaking your own neck.
* Link from ''Zelda'' series has been able to do this in most of the games. In some of the 2D games he could roll forward to move faster. The 3D games also allow this (the action to do so is labelled "attack" on the context sensitive display) as well as (in various iterations) dodge to the left or right (he can also backflip) or counter by rolling forward and slashing as he rises.
** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 3
* The player can do it in ''[[Oni]]'' - though it actually is justified in that most [[Frickin' Laser Beams|weapon fire is slow-moving]] and most combat is hand-to-hand.
* Players can also do this in the online game ''[[Gunz]],'' which is one of the primary defensive techniques of the game. Also in ''[[
* The Jaden Korr from [[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy]] can do both forward and backward rolls, and add a lightsaber stab at the end of a forward roll. Justified in the early stages of the game because a forward roll into stab is one of the few reliable ways to kill enemies with lightsabers (Reborn mostly, though it can work on cultists).
** Given how painful a lightsaber to the crotch is, you'd think they'd learn to guard low when you crouch or roll. The slash marks left by this attack are somewhat buggy, because no other saber attack actually stabs your enemy. After one successful hit, it's possible for [[Memetic Mutation|9001]] slash trails to appear, centered on where you hit them. Averted with later enemies in the game, who will attack you mid-roll or dodge your attack, making
* Sora from ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' could do this in the first game. In the sequel it was removed in favor of a new ability called the Quick Run, which had a somewhat different feel to it and minor lag issues. In the [[Updated Rerelease]] [[Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition]], [[No Export for You|Japanese gamers]] saw the beloved rolling maneuver return as well and rejoiced.
** Sora could do this in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]: Chain of Memories'' and doing so allowed one to avoid certain attacks. Riku had the much preferred dodge jump, where he jumps... and lands behind the opponent, facing his back letting you unleash hell.
** Lampshaded in the [[Chain of Memories]] manga where when {{spoiler|Marluxia}} takes away all of Sora's skills, Sora comments, "So dodge roll is just a somersault now?"
{{quote|
** ''358/2 Days'' gives the Dodge Roll to Roxas. In addition to the normal roll, you could upgrade it to: stagger enemies on contact, reflect projectiles, or activate automatically in response to attack. Made funnier in Mission Mode where you can choose to play as any of the Organization, and watch them roll about with weapons such as a shield, a book, a tomahawk, a claymore and a scythe.
** ''[[Birth By Sleep]]'' goes back-and-forth on this. Ven can use Dodge Roll just like Sora and Roxas (he can even upgrade it with a magic attack), while Terra gets a more reasonable forward charge. [[Action Girl|Aqua]], however, gets a [[She Fu|dodge]] ''[[She Fu|cartwheel]]''.
* In the [[Time Splitters]] series computer controlled characters sometimes do this (they can't even fire, so god knows why). [[Secret AI Moves|There is no way for actualy players to do so however.]]
* In ''[[Too Human]]'', you are COMPLETELY invulnerable during the roll, including windup and winddown, making for a fairly long period of safety. Thus, it's not only quite useful despite making you unable to attack for the duration, you don't even have to worry about what DIRECTION you're rolling in.
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* In ''[[Fable]]'' this is the fastest way to move around the game world that many speed runs make use of. You're also invulnerable to 99% of enemy attacks other than few special boss moves when rolling. It is also not only possible to keep your bow drawn, but to keep drawing your bowstring ever tighter to increase damage, all the while rolling to dodge counterattacks. Even if you're wielding an endgame bow that's as long as you are.
* In the [[King of Fighters]] series, rolling allowed all fighters to bypass attacks and go behind opponents, adding another layer of movement in a 2D fighting game and subverting this trope.
** ''[[Street Fighter]]'': [[Joke Character]] Dan Hibiki actually teaches people to use
** Vega both optimizes and subverts this at the same time.
** In general, rolling is often used in the [[Street Fighter]] series to bypass projectile attacks; particularly for characters who lack a projectile of their own. Simply ducking, however, is more common.
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* In ''[[Sin and Punishment]]'', you can use a roll attack to dodge enemy attacks, and are invincible for the duration of the roll animation. However, you're unable to attack during the animation.
* The Elite Guard in ''[[Return to Castle Wolfenstein]]'' roll around a lot. It really doesn't help.
* The [[Elite Mooks]] in ''[[Freedom Fighters (
* ''[[Halo]]: Combat Evolved''
** The human marines would roll away from gunfire and grenades. It didn't really help much. In later games they would trade the rolling for actually useful combat behavior, such as firing while taking cover behind objects.
** Elites would roll away from grenades as well, though one can consider the necessity of it considering Elites had energy shielding. Sometimes they [[Artificial Stupidity|would roll off cliffs too]].
* As seen in the Multiplayer Beta, when ''[[Halo]]: Reach'' comes out, the "Evade" armor ability available to Elites in multiplayer means that now players will be able to do this trope as often as they'd like! It's a good way to cover ground quickly, too.
** The evade, both useful and practical, can save your butt if you run into too many enemies at once, is about to get hit by the games different [[BFG
* The Skaarj in ''[[
* Trilby in ''[[Chzo Mythos|The Art of Theft]]'' can roll to make his way through vents and other openings. It's also useful for getting across open areas quickly. Since the guards take a few seconds to register Trilby's presence, it can be used to get past a guard you're standing close to right after they turn around.
* In the ''[[God of War (
* In ''[[
* Player characters (and, technically, enemies) in ''[[The Elder Scrolls|Oblivion]]'' who are skilled in acrobatics can perform rolls and flips in order to dodge attacks. Now, much more useful is to engage in the traditional use of rolling in a video game: an unbroken series of Unnecessary Noncombat Rolls that scoot you around the countryside at a pace rivaling that of ''riding a horse.''
* Traditional ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' games invert this trope. Makes sense, as rolling up is an effective technique for real-life hedgehogs.
* ''[[Metroid]]'''s Samus Aran does unnecessary combat rolls... in midair. At an RPM to make your average Ferrari jealous. Kind of annoying as it makes her hard to control compared to her straight jump, and throws off her aim. But it does activate the SCREW ATTACK when you get that powerup.
* In ''[[Quake
* Enemies gain the ability to do this in ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops
* It looks like Vayne the Night Hunter, the newest champion for [[League of Legends]], is going to have this as one of her abilities. Far from being disoriented, it gives her first attack after the roll a damage bonus.
* [[
* Like Volnutt, [[Spyro the Dragon]] could roll evasively to the left or right in his first game. He wasn't invincible during it, but he could do it as long as he wanted. Most players didn't use it though and it was removed from all future games.
* [[
* Adam Jensen Of [[Deus Ex: Human Revolution
* 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]] ===
▲* 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
▲* ''[[
▲* In ''[[
* [[Karate Bears]] love doing [http://www.karatebears.com/2010/12/somersault.html unnecessary flip/flops] before doing most activities.
* [[Homestuck|YOUTH ROLL]]
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[
* As the website [[
* Any attempt by [[You Suck|Ron Stoppable]] to do one of these usually results in loss of pants, or at least some kind of painful fall. Unsurprisingly, Teen Cheerleader, [[Kim Possible]] can do these and include doing the splits for a finish.
* Parodied in ''[[The Boondocks]]'' when Ed Wuncler the III, after a vicious attack on a bookstore, uses an
* When Chief Wiggum of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' wanted to look cooler while making arrests, he did an
* In ''[[Transformers Animated]],'' Sentinel Prime did this, as one more sign of just how much of a walking ego he is.
* Done by [[Adam West]] in ''[[Family Guy]]'' (the episode where Peter establishes the country of Petoria) so he can get to his desk.
* ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'': 21 becomes [[Took a Level
* Attempted once by Finn in ''[[Storm Hawks]]'', which led him to faceplant into a rock wall.
* Done by Zak Saturday in the first episode of ''[[The Secret Saturdays]]''; entering a room after the combat had finished. Forgivable because he is ''11''.
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== [[Web Original]] ==
* 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:
== [[Real Life]] ==
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Fight Scene]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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