Examples of "reverse the matchup" items/weapons/attacks?

[John Cribati]

This seems like the right place for this thing.

Over at TVTropes I'm building an article that's tentatively named "Paper-Breaking Rock." It's basically when you have any kind of type matchup system, and within that system there are things you could do to go "against type." So I'm looking for examples of:


Attacks or weapons that create an advantage where normally there is a disadvantage.

Example: The Fire Emblem Weapon Triangle is a Rock-Paper-Scissors deal where Axes are "Rock," Swords are "Paper," Lances are "Scissors." However, there is a Lance called an Axereaver that is Strong against axes, but in exchange weak to Swords, a Sword called the Lancereaver that beats Lances but loses to Swords, and an Axe called a Swordreaver that loses to lances nut is strong against swords.
Items or scenarios that remove an inherent disadvantage, or negate it entirely.

Example: Steel, Rock, Poison, and Electric-Type Pokémon take double damage from Ground type moves. Many Steel and Electric types have access to the move Magnet Rise, which makes the Mon in qyestion immune to Ground Type attacks for one turn. Levitate is an ability that basically acts as a permanent Magnet Rise.


As you can tell, I have pretty much every Pokemon and Fire Emblem example in the article, but I'm looking for more, since those are the only games I know enough about.

And so, I look to you, dear Playground, to assist me.

[Mando Knight]

Your post... kinda broke the forum's formatting, at least on Chrome. Use nested list tags to get indented bullet points, not the indent tag (which seems to have caused the issue).

[VoxRationis]

In Age of Empires II, pikes and spears, appropriately enough, serve as anti-cavalry units. The Byzantine cataphract, however, gets bonuses against infantry and takes less bonus damage from anti-cavalry units, to the point where it is cost-effective (although not build-time-effective, since it can only build from comparatively rare castles, whereas pikes are built from barracks) against pike units.

[Knaight]

In Age of Wonders 3, spears generally have a big advantage over cavalry (and flying), which have a big advantage against archers. Then there's the Harpoon Thrower, which is very much an archer unit, that does get anti-cavalry spear bonuses.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Um... in Etrian Odyssey, which runs on a six-type system (cut/bash/stab and fire/ice/volt), War Magi have cutting attacks that ignore any resistance.

D&D has that Scorching Spell feat or whatever it's called to let fire spells damage enemies immune to them.

[OracleofWuffing]

Magnet Rise lasts for 5 turns, not 1. :smallwink:

In Game Dev Tycoon, how well your topic matches your genre is figured in to how successful your game performs. During a "Strange Combos" marketing trend, the topic and genre matchups are inverted, so games that normally wouldn't perform well can be successful, and your ratings are negatively impacted if you stick with a normally successful topic and genre match.

I know it sounds incredibly simple, but are Pac-Man's Power Pellets such an item? For incredibly loose definitions of types, it changes Ghosts > Pac-Man to Pac-Man > Ghost.

How about Laws and Anti-laws in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance?