History DeathOfAThousandCuts / VideoGames

* In ''VideoGame/FTL'', the first variant of the Kestral starts with 4 single-shot lasers. Nothing fancy, no missiles or bombs, just four laser blasts per barrage. You won't need to replace those lasers until you start running into enemies with 3 shield layers; as it turns out, getting hit four times by four rapidly recharging weapons that inflict a single point of damage each is ''devastatingly effective''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'': This trope is the whole point of Zerglings. One Zergling? Not a threat to anything, really. One hundred Zerglings? A significant threat to ground troops even very late in the game. There's a good reason that there's a [[ZergRush tactic named after them]].
** For the Co-Op mode of ''VideoGame/Starcraft2'', most Co-op commanders like Alarak, Zeratul, Kerrigan, or Nova have decent attack values in the 50s to 100s that can sometimes be further augmented, which makes Tychus and his piddly 18 seem very weak... until you realize his fire rate is 0.3, meaning he deals 18 damage every one/third of a second, which can be further dropped to 0.18 if you spec him correctly. This means within a single second, with no attack upgrades and just fire-rate upgrades, Tychus can deal 100 damage a second in comparison to most commanders who will deal that much with an attack cooldown of sometimes 1.5 to 2 seconds.

* In the ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'' series, the Kha'ak Destroyer is one of the most fearsome ships you can face, having a whole lot of shields and hull points, and a full loadout of nigh-{{hitscan}} beam weapons. However, there's a small spot behind the engine where its turrets can't reach. You can't kill it with a light fighter, because the shields recharge faster than light weapons can bring them down, but a suitably armed heavy fighter can park itself behind the behemoth and pour laser - or better yet, bring a load of [[ArmorPiercingAttack Mass Driver]]s and their ammo - fire in it until it dies. Assuming, of course, other enemy ships have been dealt with beforehand.

** You can kill Champion Lance's Dragonites this way with a low level Mankey in Gen 1 because due to ArtificialStupidity, the A.I. will only use super effective moves. The Dragonites only have Barrier and will spam it against fighting-types.

* You can kill Champion Lance's Dragonites this way with a low level Mankey in Gen 1 because due to ArtificialStupidity, the A.I. will only use super effective moves. The Dragonites only have Barrier and will spam it against fighting-types.

* One strategy for beating some Gym Leaders in the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games, especially with underleveled Pokémon, is to spam moves like Growl or Sand Attack with one's lead Pokémon, or Defense Curl, etc. with the strongest (though still underleveled) {{Mon|s}} on the team, or perhaps X Attack or X Defend. After that, it's usually a matter of slooooooowly taking down the leader's first Pokémon, and repeating Attack-stat debuffs when the next one comes out. This is notably used on the first Gym Leaders who use Rock-types: Brock, Roxanne, and Roark.

* Time consuming as it may be, it is possible to kill a Cyberdemon in ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' with nothing but your bare fists (and without resorting to the Berserker pack). Very difficult due to the Cyberdemon's persistence combined with its HP. ''Doom II'' on the UsefulNotes/{{Xbox 360}} recognizes this feat and will actually award the player an [[BraggingRightsReward Achievement]] for doing so[[note]]Though it actually doesn't care how you get there, just that the killing hit is scored by a punch.[[/note]].

* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', you can shoot down helicopters using machine guns. In the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2-only ExpansionPack ''Half-Life: Decay'', you ''have'' to. ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' was much more sensible about this, with vehicular enemies only vulnerable to explosives.

* The early UsefulNotes/PlayStation game ''VideoGame/LoneSoldier'' has the eponymous beefslab soldier being able to destroy tanks, walls, armoured bunkers and the like with the default infinite ammo-laden Uzi. By spending several minutes firing at anything destructible in the game (and making it flash to make the player aware of it's status of being hurt) a torrent of 9mm bullets could make buildings not only be destroyed, but destroyed ''in a giant plume of flame''.

* In ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'', the PlayerCharacter can learn a style called "Thousand Cuts," which unsurprisingly emphasizes speed and many fast, light hits.

* ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'': Included in the ''Triad Enforcer'' DLC pack is a bonus mission of the same name. It consists of an endless wave of enemies (the ''Definitive Edition'' caps the number of enemy kills needed to win at 30) wielding cleavers that inflict a poison debuff that gradually lowers Wei's health, accomplishing the nature of this trope. In exchange, Wei is given an indestructible golden cleaver, and with every 10 kills, he regains some health. Death (original) / Victory (DE) nets some money and Triad XP.

*** The ''Gun Runners Arsenal'' DLC adds an optional challenge that can be done for an XP reward. It involves killing ''five'' Deathclaws using Silenced .22 Pistols, Boxing Tape, Recharger Rifles, Switchblades, or Dynamite. All of these are the weakest weapons of their respective categories, so a Death of a Thousand Cuts is inevitable unless you have some kind of ridiculous sneak attack bonus and/or take enough drugs to OD the entire population of the Mojave. Even then, these weapons are so weak that this would probably only lower it to Death of 750 Cuts at best.

* In ''VideoGame/UnleashTheLight'', Peridot uses her Ferrokinesis by firing 20-25 tin cans at multiple enemies, each dealing 1 damage.

* ''VideoGame/SystemShock'' has the Flechette, a game which fires pellets that are weak individually (dealing even less damage than the needle gun you find at the beginning of the game), but it makes up for that with high armor piercing capability and a truly ridiculous firing speed. It's quite good at killing even heavily armored cyborgs and robots for this reason.

* One of the more ''resilient'' examples occurs in the Battle of Skyhook in the ''VideoGame/ShadowsOfTheEmpire'' game. At one point in the battle, a Star Destroyer shows up and starts unleashing TIE fighters. It is possible to damage the Destroyer with your single ship's lasers and ''unlimited'' missiles, but the damage is hardly noticeable. It takes pounding on it for hours before the damage registers from 100% to 99%. Compare that to how quickly they go down in the movies. Likewise, trying to take down an AT-AT in the first level with your Snowspeeder's lasers alone ''can'' be done, but it'll take a long time (especially on higher difficulty levels) and you'll have no choice but to do so if you happen to run out of harpoon cables.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', it's completely possible to take down the Ender Dragon (200 HP) with snowballs (1 damage each).

* ''VideoGame/MetalSlug'': Sure, there are weapons like the [[MemeticMutation Rawket Launcha]] and the Heavy Machine Gun, but it's definitely possible to take down any boss (be it tank, alien, robot, or even a ''battleship on treads'') with enough shots from a regular pistol.

* Nero's gun in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'' allows you to do this against most bosses. Yes it will take bloody '''[[DamageSpongeBoss forever]]''' and no you won't get any stylish points, but constantly spamming bosses with your infinite ammunition handgun will eventually take them down. Notably, this is a valid option against [[WakeUpCallBoss Credo]] who is very difficult to land hits on with anything else (and counterattacks) but is completely indifferent to the damage taken from gunfire. Of course, trying this against [[ThatOneBoss Dante]] will have him [[ImprobableAimingSkills shoot your bullets out of the air with his]].