History Main / DeathOfAThousandCuts

* ''Anime/AfterWarGundamX'' gives us the Correl, a MonsterOfTheWeek [[HumongousMecha mobile suit]] that was made ludicrously fast by stripping it of all non-essential parts ([[FragileSpeedster including most of its armor]]). Its only weapon is a [[LaserBlade beam knife]], which means this trope is its preferred method of attack (in fact, the pilot uses that very phrase to describe it). However, its complete lack of armor meant that Garrod Ran was able to destroy it using the Gundam's vulcan cannons, generally the weakest of a Gundam's armaments.

* In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', this is part of the reason Zeon wasn't able to fully conquer Earth even before the Gundam was completed. While the Earth Federation's Saberfish fighters, Fly Mantha fighter-bombers and Type-61 tanks were hopelessly obsolete against Zeon's Mobile Suits, the Federals used their superior numbers to target Zeon supply lines. A Zaku without ammunition and fuel is basically a gigantic statue, after all.

** The Piranha is outdone by the ''Bane'', a Clan design that carries ten Ultra AC-2 autocannons. Each of the cannons can fire twice but only deal 2 damage per hit, which means rolling twenty die and dealing, at most, 40 damage with it. The ''Bane'' also has a missile variant. It fires 150 missiles a turn, each dealing 1 damage per hit. Luckily, you will not be required to roll-to-hit for every single missile, though in between the to-hit rolls, cluster hit rolls and the cluster hit location rolls a single round of shooting with the ''Bane'' 3 will probably require close to twenty dice throws on average.

* In ''Fanfic/WishCarefully'', Harry's defeat of the Death Eaters plays out like this on a long-term and society-wide scale. The Death Eaters and Voldemort wanted to rule Wizarding England without having to deal with any muggles, squibs, muggleborns or blood traitors ever again, so Harry and his allies surrender control of the country to them while the Light Supporters [[StartMyOwn create their own seperate society]]. The Death Eaters then realize over time that [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor getting exactly what they wanted]] has [[PyrrhicVillainy utterly screwed them over]]. First off, [[FascistButInefficient their economy is completely ruined]] because most of the middle and working classes (aka, the people who ran businesses, produced complex goods, and provided skilled services that kept society's wheels running smoothly) were primarily made up of muggleborns and Light Supporters who left in the Light's exile. Trying to bring muggle money into Wizarding England won't work either, as the contract Harry and his allies created has a stipulation that forbids any contact between the Death Eaters and the muggles and the punishment for breaking the rule [[BroughtDownToNormal is the witch or wizard losing their magic]]. Meanwhile, years of pureblood inbreeding has caused future generations to become magically and intellectually weaker and the population is slowly dying off, and no one wants to immigrate to England (even {{mail order bride}}s won't be given to them), further exacerbating these aforementioned problems. Not to mention they are trapped under [[TheCaligula Voldemort's]] rule, who himself has only become even more unhinged and crueler, with no way to leave. Lucius Malfoy even calls Harry's plan [[GuileHero "Slytherin-like"]] and believes Dumbledore would've been horrified by this.

Do note that the [[TropeNamers Trope Namer]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi lingchi]][[note]], known in the Western world as "death of a thousand cuts"[[/note]], is not actually an example of this trope. It was a form of ColdBloodedTorture[=/=]PublicExecution, now outlawed, in which [[CruelAndUnusualDeath various parts of the condemned's body were methodically sliced off over a long period of time]].

* In ''Film/{{Fled}}'', a TortureTechnician gets very literal with the trope by using a scalpel to make small incisions on his victims while referencing the trope by name. [[UpToEleven Taken to the next level]] by Magic Box

A SubTrope of QuantityVsQuality. Compare TheLastStraw. See also CherryTapping, for defeating someone with a deliberately weak attack in general (whether it was used a thousand times, or only once). Can be delivered quickly through a SpamAttack or by the members of a ZergRush. Expect this to be part of any WeakButSkilled arsenal. Depending on how heavily protected the target is, MoreDakka may be involved. If it succeeds, the victim may suffer a RasputinianDeath. In general, this is the only way to defeat a DamageSpongeBoss, especially if it's a MarathonBoss.

A SubTrope of QuantityVsQuality. Compare TheLastStraw. See also ZergRush and CherryTapping. Can be delivered quickly through a SpamAttack or by the members of a ZergRush. Expect this to be part of any WeakButSkilled arsenal. Depending on how heavily protected the target is, MoreDakka may be involved. If it succeeds, the victim may suffer a RasputinianDeath. In general, this is the only way to defeat a DamageSpongeBoss, especially if it's a MarathonBoss.

** One mech that's built entirely like this is the Pirhana, a 20 ton FragileSpeedster that's armed with a pair of medium lasers and a staggering 12 machine guns. A single machine gun hit only deals 2 points of damage to an enemy battlemech, but it can run around behind a larger, slower target and open up on them with enough hits to have a good chance of chewing through their thinner rear armor.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'', Scratchy lifts weights to toughen up his body against Itchy's assaults. Itchy, seeing his massive chest, pokes it with a pin, to no effect. He then zips around at super speed, poking Scratchy countless times all over his chest, causing Scratchy to bleed profusely and allowing Itchy to commit further mayhem on the weakened cat.

Do note that the [[TropeNamers Trope Namer]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi lingchi]][[labelnote:*]], known in the Western world as "death of a thousand cuts"[[/labelnote]], is not actually an example of this trope. It was a form of ColdBloodedTorture[=/=]PublicExecution, now outlawed, in which [[CruelAndUnusualDeath various parts of the condemned's body were methodically sliced off over a long period of time]].

A SubTrope of QuantityVsQuality. Compare TheLastStraw. See also ZergRush and CherryTapping. Can be delivered quickly through a SpamAttack or by the members of a ZergRush. Expect this to be part of any WeakButSkilled arsenal. Depending on how heavily protected the target is, MoreDakka may be involved. If it succeeds, the victim may suffer a RasputinianDeath.

* As pointed out further down in the videogame examples, the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe makes a big deal of the danger posed to larger capital ships by missile warheads, usually mounted on much lighter fighter craft. Nowhere is this clearer than in one of the ''Literature/XWing'' novels, where a fearsome Super Star Destroyer threatens a planetary colony - and unexpectedly finds itself targeted by ''several hundred'' fixed torpedo placements, with the unimpressed enemy commander nonchalantly reversing the threat. The Destroyer's captain realises that for all of the mighty ship's shielding it can't hope to survive several hundred torpedo hits, and promptly craps her pants. [[spoiler:The enemy turns out to be bluffing - they don't actually have the torpedoes to carry through with the threat nor the emplacements themselves, just lots of ''targeting sensors'' - but the Captain doesn't know that, and it ends up costing her a smaller Star Destroyer right then and the SSD itself later on.]]

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM2rFZGujhk "The Ballad of the Noob"]]
* Referenced in the ''WebVideo/DragonballZAbridged'' parody of the [[Anime/DragonBallZLordSlug Lord Slug movie]]. When Gohan attempts to attack Slug's army of mooks, one of Slug's mooks warns Gohan that they'll shoot him with their blasters. Gohan confidently declares "[[ExactWords One of those does nothing]]!", prompting the mook to retort "[[ArmorPiercingQuestion How about a hundred]]?" followed by a whole mess of mooks doing a DramaticGunCock. Gohan suddenly seems much more worried. He's right to be, as the mooks blast Gohan out of the sky seconds later.

Compare TheLastStraw. See also ZergRush and CherryTapping. Can be delivered quickly through a SpamAttack or by the members of a ZergRush. Expect this to be part of any WeakButSkilled arsenal. Depending on how heavily protected the target is, MoreDakka may be involved. If it succeeds, the victim may suffer a RasputinianDeath. A subtrope of QuantityVsQuality.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* [[KillItWithWater Water]] behaves like this. A few droplets won't kill anything but ants. Stack the droplets into a storm and it can kill thousands as a flood or, [[MakingASplash as a precious tool]], kill anyone by the rain droplets outright with enough force.
* Attrition Warfare. Any conflict which is ''not'' decided by the outcome of [[StrategyVersusTactics a single Operation or Campaign]] is, by definition, a 'War of Attrition' of 'Attritional War'. Any conflict which ''is'' decided by a single Operation of Campaign is a 'War of Annihilation'. The most famous Wars of Attrition were, of course, the First and Second World Wars. The greatest theorist of attrition was Alexander Svechin, who in the 1920s asserted that any Total War would be of such a great scale and length that [[StrategyVersusTactics Operational victories would pale into insignificance, and tactical victories would be almost meaningless]]. [[note]] [[StrategyVersusTactics Svechin’s Strategic theories contributed to and did not oppose the theories of on Operational encirclement patronised by Mikhail Tukhachevsky]]. This was because, as a strategic principle, Attrition favoured Operations which would bring about the greatest possible destruction of enemy forces at the smallest possible loss to friendly forces [[/note]] The turning point of such a war would not come about as the result of a single operation’s capture of territory or prisoners, he asserted, but by the point after which one side could no longer keep replacing its losses:
** "In a war of annihilation, both the offensive culmination point and the ultimate defensive line are determined mainly by a spatial line [...] In a war of attrition, this line often shifts into a temporal category."
** Strategic Attrition can be efficiently prosecuted through numerous Operational and Tactical methods. The most famous Operational-level method is encirclement or envelopment such as those used in the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (albeit chiefly in Ukraine), and the most famous tactical method is probably HitAndRunTactics such as those used by the Communist guerillas of the UsefulNotes/VietnamWar.
*** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy The Fabian Strategy]], named after [[{{Cincinnatus}} Roman dictator Fabius]], was the UrExample of this trope. As UsefulNotes/HannibalBarca's forces were too mighty to face in open warfare, Fabius opted for hit-and-run tactics where Roman forces were never exposed for reprisal while whittling away at Hannibal's forces and, more importantly, his supply lines.
*** The German Army lost the bulk of its experienced Non-Commissioned Officers ([=NCOs=]) in the titanic ''Verdun'' campaign of February-December 1916 (French) and ''Somme'' campaign of July-November 1916 (French, British, British Commonwealth) and made a serious dent in its Category-A, B, and C manpower. The ''Passchendaele'' campaign of July-November 1917, the greatest campaign in British military history, finished off the last experienced [=NCOs=] and further at into Categories A-C. The Germans' own Spring Offensive Operation of March-June 1918 destroyed much of their stock of experienced officers (who had to put themselves at risk to compensate for the loss of the experienced [=NCOs=]) and expended their entire remaining stock of Category-A manpower. Finally, the British Commonwealth-Franco-American ''Hundred Days'' Offensive of July-November 1918 ate through Germany's experienced officers and Category-B manpower, leaving them with a poorly-led and badly demoralised force composed of Category-C and D manpower. Upon the armistice, the German Army teetered on the verge of total defeat.
*** The [[UsefulNotes/TheSoundOfMartialMusic Austro-Hungarian Army]] was also defeated through attrition. The battles fought in the defense of Galicia-Podolia through 1914 and the winter of 1914-15, the offensives into Russian Poland and Serbia in May-October 1915, and the Russian ''Brusilov'' Offensive of June-September 1916 ate through the Austro-Hungarian Army's stock of Austrian and Hungarian officers (who bore the burden of leadership roles, as even their pre-war [=NCOs=] had been of mediocre quality) and soldiers. After that point, they were increasingly reliant upon sub-par and ethnic minority (''not'' the same thing) officers and soldiers. The Austro-Hungarian ''Piave'' Offensive of the 15th-23rd June 1918 exhausted the last of its reliable officers and manpower, and in the 24th October to 3rd November ''Vittorian Veneto'' offensive the [[UsefulNotes/NewRomanLegions Royal Italian Army]] destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army. Not ''an'' Austro-Hungarian Army: ''the'' [[NotHyperbole Austro-Hungarian Army]]. Alexander Svechin himself argued that, whatever the state of the German Army, the capitulation of Austria-Hungary was what truly sealed the fate of Imperial Germany.
*** World War Two. The war was so vast that its 'turning points' were measured in ''months'' - and hundreds of thousands of military, and ''millions'' of civilian, lives. For instance, Germany is generally accepted as having been unable to win the war on its own terms after the failure of its October-November 1941 ''Operation Typhoon'' offensive to capture Moscow, unable to win the war after the failure of its June-November 1942 ''Case Blue'' offensive to capture Caucasia and Stalingrad, unable to prolong the war past 1947 after its defeats in the November 1942-October 1943 Ukrainian offensives (including the failure of the Germans' July 1943 ''Zitadelle'' offensive at Kursk), and unable to prolong the war past 1945 after the myriad defeats it suffered between February and October 1944 (including the loss of Romania and France).
* A common hacker attack involves sending thousands of small data packets hoping to invoke this trope. In general, this is how DDOS attacks work, overwhelming whatever it is they want to take down through millions and millions of requests and data packets in a short time. These attacks often need multiple computers to garner the necessary amount of requests per second.
* The Grand Canyon, or any other land mass sculpted by water or wind.
* The name "Death of/by a Thousand Cuts" originally referred to a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing Chinese method of execution better translated as "slow slicing"]] for the most treasonous of traitors to the state, eg. the leaders of rebellions against the Emperor. The condemned man was tied up and had strips of flesh slowly removed before being decapitated. The longest execution of this kind took [[CruelAndUnusualDeath 3 days and 3,357 cuts.]]
* During the Battle of Guandu between warlords Yuan Shao and [[UsefulNotes/ThreeKingdomsShuWeiWu Cao Cao]], the latter dispatched some of his best generals to launch multiple hit-and-run raids against Yuan's forces, specifically targeting their supply depots and convoys. These raids were so successful Yuan was forced to bring up more supplies and gather them at a central location at a place called Wuchao for distribution. After Cao personally led a raid on Wuchao that destroyed it, Yuan's forces imploded.
* The Persians were generally a merciful lot as imperial powers go, usually letting you run things the way you always had so long as you didn't rebel and paid your taxes on time. Even if you did rebel, only a select few leaders would be executed, usually by beheading, and they would generally give you something you wanted. However, they could be nasty when they had to be, and they had their own form of death by a thousand cuts: Scaphism. Replacing the knives with bees and bacteria, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism Scaphism]] (or "the boats") was reserved for the most grievous traitors--not mere rebels, but those who had personally betrayed the Shah for venal motives.
* A (supposedly) favored execution method of [[UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}} the original]] [[TheCaligula Caligula]], accompanied by words to the effect of 'Let him feel that he is dying.'
* Battle of Mišar of Serbian Revolution proved that if you have a good defense against your opponent and shoot at him constant line fire, you can defeat an army four times stronger than yours.
* In early UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, Zeppelin [[UsefulNotes/{{Airships}} airships]] were an absolute ''bitch'' to take out, contrary to the [[RealityIsUnrealistic common]] [[MadeOfPlasticine misconception.]] Zeppelins could withstand thousands of bullets[[note]]provided they weren't incendiary bullets, which were later invented to exploit their Hydrogen AchillesHeel, though even lots of those had to be spent to get enough air mixed to the hydrogen to cause a fire[[/note]], and barely noticed heavy artillery and autocannon fire. This is because it has immense volume and size, but is under no pressure. A single bullet hole in one of the ''thirty'' gas cells is like a single straw sucking a swimming pool- one that's two football fields long and seven stories deep. However, if enough [[MoreDakka dakka]] was directed at it at, it could sink. This RasputinianDeath is how several Army Zeppelins met their fate- one was shot down by a pair of battleships and a ''[[NoodleImplements submarine,]]'' another was ambushed by two separate fullisades of anti-aircraft guns in Ukraine, got its forward gondola blown up, and still made it all the way back to Germany, but imploded like a beached whale when the hydrogen leaked so much it could no longer support its weight on the ground.
* This can apply to finances as well. While the traditional saying is "penny wise pound foolish", it is possible for one to be cautious with large amounts but fritter away small amounts many times, such that at the end of the month you're wondering where your money went. Specific examples include:
** Video games. People are cautious about spending $60 on a new game, but every time UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} has one of their redonkulous sales (weekends, summer, holidays, and sometimes just because) where AAA titles that aren't even a half-year-old go for up to 80% off, and you buy them by the truckload thinking "Oh, it's only $10/$5".
** Smartphone apps. People often have a threshold where they start to become concerned with finances, most apps and other digital downloads (such as songs on iTunes) are often priced under it, making it much more likely to impulse buy them. If you're not careful, it can be easy to bleed your bank account 99 cents at a time.
* This is a known principle in government, business, and management; the best way to kill off an unwanted program is by denying it funding on an incremental basis, or what UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's followers referred to as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast "starving the beast".]]
* This has been invoked by news analysts to describe Al-Qaeda's strategy against countries like the United States who increase their airport security to extreme measures (such as the giant full-body scanners and thorough pat-downs of every passenger), these measures essentially bleeding away at American wallets and patience.
* Happened to the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun Japanese]] ''Kongo''-class battleship ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Hiei Hiei]]'', which has the dubious honor of being perhaps the only battleship ever to be lost to cruiser fire. The First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal was a night fight at close range, with the towering ''Hiei'' being the focus of American destroyers and cruisers, one of which -- ''San Francisco'' -- landed an 8-inch shell in the steering compartment, in addition to wrecking the superstructure. In fairness, the ''Kongo''-class were built to emphasize speed and maneuverability at the expense of armor.
* Edwardian-era naval doctrine emphasized this, using large numbers of quick-firing guns with high-explosive ammunition to overwhelm enemy ships, even battleships, with a "hail of fire", before utilizing torpedoes and heavy guns to finish off the crippled ship. Naval battles of the era, particularly Yalu River and Tsushima, verified the idea, only for developments in heavy guns and fire control to create the Dreadnought concept and push out ranges beyond what the light quick-firers were effective at.
* For quite a while, the idea of using attack planes or boats against large targets (such as battleships or major bases) took on this form. A single plane was unlikely to lay in a single hit without getting knocked out of the air, nor could it carry enough firepower to do any lasting damage to most major targets. But dozens of attackers working in coordination could overwhelm the defenders, and cause cumulative damage through repeated hits. Punch enough smaller holes in a big ship, and it will begin to take on water faster than the crew can pump it out. Hit an important subsystem, and a ship might lose fire coordination, or power to its gun turrets, or the ability to steer itself, or even cause it to leave a tell-tale trail of oil making escape impossible, leaving it far more vulnerable to repeated attacks.
** Somewhat more succinctly summed up as: "In the war between weapons and armor, weapons ''eventually'' win."
* In 2008, emerging superstar boxer Manny Pacquiao faced fading but seemingly still serviceable legend Oscar De La Hoya in a DavidVersusGoliath match. Being as De La Hoya was twice Pacquiao's size and possessed a formidable jab and left hook, it was nearly unanimous among boxing fans and observers that De La Hoya would use the jab to control the bout and probably KO Pacquiao with his killer hook. Unfortunately for Oscar, a combination of age, wear, and dropping to a lower weight class for the bout all combined to work against him. Instead of the expected outcome, where Oscar's jab would effectively control the distance and keep Pacquiao frustrated at long range, (and thus unable to land) Pacquiao endlessly zipped up close, landed a punch (or two or three) at a time and then moved away and out of De La Hoya's range before De La Hoya could respond. De La Hoya proved utterly unable to deal with Pacquiao's speed, and after the first couple of rounds, De La Hoya's drained body completely ran out of stamina. This made him a sitting duck with no hope of responding effectively while the beating from Pacquiao only grew more consistent and sustained as the rounds passed and Pacquiao realized he could pile on more and more punishment without having to worry about a counterattack. Even in that state, due to the size difference between the two men and De La Hoya's [[MadeOFIron iron jaw]], Pacquaio couldn't knock out De La Hoya, and even the hardest individual punches from Pacquiao could only sting the larger man. Those stinging punches, when thrown in combinations of six or more, however, left De La Hoya visibly cringing before the onslaught, and allowed Pacquiao to rearrange Oscar's face until the fight was (finally) stopped after the end of the eighth round. During the fight, commentator Larry Merchant explicitly referenced this trope, saying that De La Hoya was suffering "Death by a thousand left hands".
* Army ants embody this trope. Each column comprises well over a million ants. Whenever they run across anything living, the entire column will crawl all over it and bite it until it dies, then rip it to pieces to feed their larvae. There are reports of animals the size of horses being shredded by a single column.
* When you hear someone say "[[Film/{{Predator}} If it bleeds, we can kill it!]]", that person is likely referring to this trope.
* This can be seen in a less lethal light in ProfessionalWrestling -- many wrestlers have had their careers ended by the accumulated effects of multiple relatively minor injuries rather than one major injury.
** American football is the same way, with knees and shoulders among the first to go. Recent research has shown that the constant blows to the helmeted head very often leads to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy chronic traumatic encephalopathy]], which has led to a number of mental breakdowns in both football and [[Wrestling/ChrisBenoit wrestling]].
* This is a striking style in martial arts and striking sports. In boxing, this is called a swarmer. Generally swarmers don't punch especially hard with a single punch, but when they [[AttackAttackAttack completely disregard defense to come at you with all-out offense]], throwing a constant flow of punches, (sometimes over one hundred punches per three minute round) it results in a lot of opponents getting overwhelmed and gradually worn down. Examples include:
** Manny Pacquaio was this in his youth, fearlessly attacking opponents while drowning them in punches. As time went by and he began both facing a higher quality of opponent and moving up in weight, so he was fighting men naturally bigger than him, he adjusted his style and became [[MasterOfAll a much more well-rounded boxer]]. He still benefitted from being unorthodox, and able to surprise people by throwing many punches from unexpected angles.
** A rare brawler example is Rocky Marciano, however, Marciano could legitimately punch hard, so it was less death by constant CherryTapping and more MacrossMissileMassacre.
** In the early to mid-2000s a number of swarmers came to prominence in boxing, with the most notable probably being Paul Williams and Antonio Margarito. Both fit the profiles very well of overwhelming opponents with activity, (both were the type to throw 100 or more punches in a round, pretty impressive when you consider a round has only 180 seconds in it) and both eschewed defense and relied instead on the volume of their offense causing opponents to become too defensive to stop them.
** In UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts, the Diaz brothers have both developed a striking style of constant jabbing, with stronger punches mixed in.
* Wing Chun is known for its fast jabs, which are intended to substitutes for blocks. The idea is that [[AttackAttackAttack your opponent can't hit you if you're hitting him]].
* Many predators will tear off the flesh of their prey (while the prey is still alive) and follow the prey around until it dies of blood loss. Of course, this is isn't "death by tiny cuts" but more of "death by torn off chunks of flesh."
* Execution by stoning can invoke this.
* Radiation poisoning is the ultimate example of this. A few particles are harmless, but a few trillion can kill anything.
* Barring an allergic reaction, a single sting from an Africanized honey bee probably won't kill you. However, once the swarm comes out of their hive to attack you, you will quickly realize why they are more commonly known as "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast killer bees]]".
* Airsoft machine gun chewing a hole through a metal can, both sides[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bex1G7i83jw]].
* This is the principle behind the strategy used by ''both'' sides during the [[UsefulNotes/PunicWars Second Punic War]]:
** Thanks to their allies and subjects, [[UsefulNotes/TheGloryThatWasRome the Roman Army]] [[WeHaveReserves had an immense pool of manpower]], greatly surpassing that of Carthage. Knowing this, Hannibal resorted to wipe out a Roman army at a time and attack Rome's allies and subjects to try and destroy said reserves by either destroying the allies or getting them to switch sides. It had some success, but in the end it failed, as Rome's key allies (the Latins, the Aequi, the Marsians, the Hernicans, the Auruncians, the Umbri, the Volsci, and the Etruscans, constituting most of Rome's manpower and economic reserves, and living around Rome itself) stayed loyal;
** In the meantime, Rome attacked Hannibal's small but undefeatable army with a large number of small raids, whittling away his veterans (the key of his success) a soldier or two per weeks and trapping him in a valley. When he escaped that, the Romans copied his strategy and took down the rebels who had switched sides and his Gaulish allies one at a time, destroying any chance he had to replace his losses.
* Swarming insects and animals as a whole revel in this trope. One bee is a nuisance, while a swarm of bees can be painful and fatal. One blackbird will get slaughtered messily by an eagle, but when the ''other 300 blackbirds'' swarm it that eagle better fly and fast or it will be pecked to death.
* This is the main reason why shopkeepers, both chains and independent, prosecute all shoplifters to the full extent of the law no matter how little is taken. Skeptics or even the perpetrators themselves will argue shoplifting just one item will have no bad effects. While one item may not necessarily do so, several people taking just one item over time will add up and lead to losses for the shop.
* Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is caused by many small emotional traumas to a person such as bullying, rejection, and nitpicking, especially since childhood. These actions might not affect a person if standalone, but when they have to be dealt with on a daily basis, they can cause extremely negative mental effects on that person.
* Similarly, some people who are DrivenToSuicide are suffering from this - it's not a singular large event that pushes them to the brink, but the accumulation of smaller ones that they can't cope with, to the point that it feels as though there's no hope whatsoever. On the flipside, as [[https://www.cracked.com/blog/8-tiny-things-that-stopped-suicides/ this]] ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' article points out, this also means that all it takes to start demolishing that wall is a small act of kindness.
-->The point is that a person is driven to suicide by a whole bunch of different things, which build a wall around them, piece by piece, until the last piece falls into place and the wall is sealed so that there's no way out. Sometimes we look at all the problems that build up someone's wall of hopelessness and think there's no way any of the insignificant things we could do would be able to take it all down. But to break the illusion of there being no way out, you don't need to take down the whole wall, you just need to make one crack in it. One puppy lick, one phone call from Laila Ali, one corny song, one Internet stranger, one old Australian guy asking if you want to come in for a cup of tea. Just one ray of light. And one crack in that wall might be all it takes to turn things around and begin the long, tough job of tearing the whole thing down.
* This was one of the things that did in the original Creator/TelltaleGames. While the games they created were popular, they were made at a loss, effectively making them {{Acclaimed Flop}}s. The effect was accelerated by the success of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead: Season One'' and ''VideoGame/MinecraftStoryMode'' as the company attempted to tried to recapture their two real money makers, causing them to stagnate and burn money faster.
* Snails don't have jaws, but they do have a tongue-like structure (radula) covered by thousands of tiny "teeth". Predatory snails that consume mussels or other bivalves do so by rasping a hole in their shells, lick by lick by lick, then lapping up the flesh within, one tooth-scraping's worth at a time.
[[/folder]]

!!Examples

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' has this. In fact, "infantry spam" is a slow-but-effective strategy for succeeding in any ground war.
** The other advantage of an infantry swarm is that, at most, a unit can destroy one other unit per turn (there are ways to attack multiple units, but none of these in any game can actually destroy that unit). Only the most powerful units can one-hit an infantry unit from full health, so it can be quite tricky to fight back the wall. The only problem to using only infantry, as opposed to infantry meat shielding artillery and rockets, is that it takes just as much time and structures to build an infantry as a [=MegaTank=] (just much more cash). A Mechanized Infantry rush (Mechs can do considerable damage to any land unit if they strike first) is generally more effective (especially against very large units, where the mech can move up, do a small but notable amount of damage, and get gunned down to make way for more mechs).
* In ''VideoGame/{{Age of Empires|I}}'' and ''2'', a large enough number of guys with swords can storm a castle. ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII'' has all characters who can damage a building use a separate siege attack -- an inexhaustible supply of torches.
** Doesn't even need to be a large number - if the building can't shoot arrows at you (or sometimes even that, as towers need technology to shoot at their feet) one swordsman is enough!
*** There's even legends being passed around about an archer who was the only survivor of an invading army headed for the enemy's town. He was forgotten about and later discovered by the second wave of attackers, who have found that he shot arrows at the town's stone walls, dealing 1 damage per arrow. The wall had already started crumbling before him.
** Spearmen and Pikemen are ''more'' effective against War Elephants than Swordsmen; they get a bonus against cavalry, and the fact that in this case the "cavalry" are pachyderms isn't factored in. One will hurt an elephant pretty badly before he dies, and three or four will kill one.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology: The Titans'' makes this necessary, as nothing in the game can kill a Titan in one shot. Not even the instant-kill god power Bolt, which only takes out 1300 of the Titan's 8,000 HP. Typical human units do about 10 points of damage to the Titan and try to wear it down, heroes being better at damaging them.
** Even more so, fighting the enemy's army with your Titan will generally lead to your large titan being wasted. Target their buildings, or ''expect'' to lose your Titan to ScratchDamage. It bears reminding that, while very powerful and resistant, the Titans ''can not be healed''.
*** Especially so if your opponent is Egyptian, remember that heroes deal extra damage to mythical units, Titans ARE Mythical Units and that Egyptian priests are considered heroes... Add that to the fact that Mythological Age Priests have a very good range for attacks and a decent attack rating, as well as being decently cheap... Well, let's just say that an army of old dudes could very easily kill Cerberus.
* Sarevok, the BigBad from ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'', naturally takes quite a few hits to take down in the game. Well, in the cinematics at the beginning of [[VideoGame/BaldursGateII the sequel]], he's shown in a flashback as having died with about fifteen arrows and four larger implements still sticking out of his chest. These aren't small injuries, mind; presumably he was [[MadeOfIron just that tough]]. Poison weapons, which do repeated single points of damage, are also a good strategy for taking on spellcasters, whose spells are interrupted every time they take damage.
** General rule is that, in the same timeframe, having more attacks is always better than one devastating attack, both for pure damage dealing and to compensate missed rolls (unless we are comparing non magical clubs to an InfinityPlusOneSword). This is particularly true from mid-''Shadows of Amn'' onwards, when major enemies start to bypass anyway your armor class, shields become almost useless and pure damage dealing grows in importance. Besides class and weapon proficiency, there are three common ways of achieving high attacks per round (APR): 1) invest points in dual wielding weapons; 2) use spells like haste, potions like oil of speed or high level abilities like whirlwind; 3) wield weapons that grant one additional attack per round, mostly enchanted small swords. Now combine all these factors into one single character who dual wields in the off hand a weapon that increases attacks per round (the effect is applied to the main hand too which is big) like Kundane or Belm, then cast improved haste. Enjoy the sheer amount of damage you cause to your opponents in a room of seconds. While all the various instances and weapons in game are usually viable even with suboptimal battle setups, high level characters and their innate powers can be micromanaged to broken results, ending spectacularly into this trope when abusing of the greater whirlwind ability.
** It works also for missiles. The Tuigan Shortbow and the Light Crossbow of Speed are the ingame equivalent to machine guns and are regarded among the best ranged weapons in game - until very late game when you need at least +3 weapons to hit bosses.
* A sidequest in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' involves Connor being sent to find an Über-bear that has been terrorizing the locals. A normal bear takes three strikes from the hidden blade to bring down. This one takes ''six''. Of course, combat with dangerous animals boils down to PressXToNotDie.
* In ''VideoGame/Battlefield2142'', heavily-armored battlewalkers have a WeakSpot that can be attacked with everything but your combat knife. Unless it's an actual anti-vehicle weapon, each hit will do ScratchDamage. Fortunately for the walker pilot, no applicable firearm can wear down the walker in one salvo: all non-machine guns have limited rounds per magazine, and all machine guns suffer from overheating.
** A better example would be the Titan battleships. Once its shields have come down, its vital components can be attacked with, again, everything but knives. Granted, it takes more bullets than any one player carries at one time to wear down everything, but it's entirely possible to take down a Titan by shooting enough lead at its tender spots.
* ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'' suffers from this at times to time. For example the Undead faction has a unit called Walking corpse, which the main purpose is this trope.
** Plus, even though your unit can have a 100% resistance against a particular type of attack, the attack will always deal 1 damage. So you can nibble that target to death with 1 dmg, assume that there's no way for that target to heal and the attacker don't die first.
** The experience mechanic on the other hand serves to partially counter this. Trying to nickel and dime a tough enemy unit to death can backfire because the target gets a small amount of experience for each attacker engaging it, potentially resulting in a LevelUpFillUp undoing all the previous effort.
* ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite 2'' went out of its way to avert this by basing its combat on its physics engine, its developers specifically citing the "thousands of spears bringing down a brick wall" scenario as what they were trying to avoid.
* ''VideoGame/BlossomTalesTheSleepingKing'': Nothing in this game does more than a half-heart’s worth of ScratchDamage, but it is possible to get hit ''a lot'' in a ''very'' short period of time if you aren’t careful.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' you can knife any of the vehicles until it explodes. Hell, Brick can PUNCH a car to ''[[EveryCarIsAPinto make it explode]]''.
** In addition, a major part of boss fights is [[MarathonBoss making sure you have enough ammo to kill them]].
** On Mayhem 4 for ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'', any boss you could marginally take in a satisfactory time period gets 800% HP and 1000% Armor and Shields, so... you're gonna be shooting for a while. Those big numbers might as well lose a whole digit off the end for all that matters on 4.
* In ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'', the Iron Golem enemies have maximum defense and will only take one damage from any attack. At this point, strong techniques and spells are nearly useless because the enemies have such thick skin. [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Weaker moves that hit quicker, however, suddenly become much more useful.]]
** The Iron Golem in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow'' takes 9999 hits to kill... assuming you normal attack it. But using a certain soul can swap its monster HP with its almost nonexistent MP, killing it in well... one hit.
** The Knife item crash. Knives/daggers are usually pitifully weak and a waste of Hearts, but throw dozens of them... Some of the crashes don't even take Hearts, but use constantly regenerating MP. Very good in ''Harmony of Dissonance'' and ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight''; the latter features Richter Belmont shredding even [[ThatOneBoss Galamoth]] with it. ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' fittingly calls it something like "1,000 Blades".
** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaJudgment'' Grant has two attacks that launch several knives at your opponent.
** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair'', it's possible to kill [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever Menace]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmZsXlqy9Oc with paper airplanes.]]
* "One Thousand Cuts" is actually the name of the final power of the [[DualWielding Dual Blades]] powerset in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. Though the animation seems to indicate it is only a couple dozen slashes at most, and the power only deals twelve separate ticks of damage, those ticks of damage are individually lower than most other slashes in the powerset yet add up to become the strongest power in the set.
* In the original ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', one lucky roll could allow a warrior with a spear to beat an armored vehicle. Later games in the series expand the rules to make this far more unlikely, but it's still possible.
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' is the classic "Riflemen killing a tank" example, offset by the fact that a tank can usually save itself by [[CarFu running the infantry over]]. A particularly bad example is found in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]: Yuri's Revenge'', where the HeroUnit Boris is capable, when powered up, of killing heavy tanks in two or three bursts of his AK-47. Same for deployed GI troops who can in groups of 5 or more decimate pretty much anything non-air.
** One of the add-on packs for ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert Red Alert]]'' featured a mission with a Soviet SuperSoldier who was ridiculously tough and did twice as much damage to anything he fought as they did to him. This reached an absurd height when you had him take on a battleship and win easily.
** The Toxin General of ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals Generals]]'' - Zero Hour. Massing chemical troopers could wear down anything on the ground, especially with the Anthrax Gamma upgrade. Yes you read that right - it was possible to destroy steel-and-cement structures by shooting poison at them.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Clonk}}'', thrown objects such as rocks deal ScratchDamage. Throwing dozens at a monster from somewhere it can't reach you is a viable tactic.
* This is the basis of "A Thousand Deaths", a 50-hit Branch Combo belonging to one of the most powerful combo trees in ''VideoGame/CrossEdge''.
* This is almost always the fate of the player in ''VideoGame/CrushCrumbleAndChomp''; no matter how good you play, eventually the human forces will overwhelm you with attacks faster than your ability to heal/recover.
* In ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', every single enemy in game (with the small exception of [[HopelessBossFight A certain scaleless dragon the first time you meet him]]) can be killed even with the weakest of weapons, yes including your bare fists, meaning that if you have the skill and patience for it, literally every enemy, including other players can be eventually killed by a DeathOfAThousandCuts.
** One of the final bosses, Manus the father of the abyss was once a normal human being who was unlucky enough to be caught in an endless cycle of being agonisingly tortured to death and being revived and healed to perfect health so he can never have the mercy of death. Manus uses this to his advantage by desperately punching a foot thick solid brick wall with his bare hand until his arm was broken; being healed to perfect health every day and the faintest most desperate promise of escape meant that all it took was for him to keep doing it for years and years on end. Eventually the wall broke and Manus was free, [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil with nothing but an endless pit of hatred for humanity]].
* {{Implied}} in ''VideoGame/DeadlyRoomsOfDeath'' in which the Stalwart Captain nearly sentences Beethro to "die the death of a thousand stabs." This is superfluous of course, since almost everything in the game is a OneHitPointWonder.
--> '''Beethro:''' Wouldn't one stab be enough?
* ''[[VideoGame/FreeSpace Descent: Freespace]]'' allowed a player's guns to do damage to capital ships -- very slowly. ''Freespace 2'' didn't: fighter guns could only do a certain amount of damage to capital ships, which had to be killed by either torpedoes or other capital ships.
* Normally, you can't do this in ''VideoGame/DesktopDungeons''. If you injure an enemy, then retreat to heal up, the enemy will also heal. However, Poison in this game cancels regeneration. So a very viable strategy is to attack an enemy until the next hit would kill you, cast APHEELSIK (the Poison spell), then retreat until you're at full health and resume. This is how the Assassin (the class that unlocks APHEELSIK) works.
* In ''Videogame/{{Destiny}}'', this is usually how most bosses are brought down, with constant gunfire from your primary weapons, supplemented by secondary and heavy weapons. It usually takes at least a few hundred and upwards of thousands of bullets to down most strike bosses, at least once whatever defenses they have active are removed. Raid bosses [[PuzzleBoss often require more complex techniques]] to expose them before they can be taken down... but they still in general require lots of concentrated gunfire to bring down.
* In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', the toughest single standard enemy is likely the military bot. These are like fifteen feet tall, and have chainguns and rocket launchers. Destroying them usually requires multiple hits from a rocket launcher. But one thing: they can only shoot forward, and they turn slowly. So it's not only possible, but ''easy'' to destroy one with a combat knife, as long as no other enemies are around: stand behind it and attack continuously for a few minutes, walking in circles to stay behind as it turns to face you. Eventually it will blow up. If you're not careful you'll lose a limb, admittedly, but at least you won't have wasted any ammo.
* 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]].
* In ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'', certain characters (the Prinnies come to mind) perform multiple weak attacks instead of one regular-powered attack. But when linked into a combo, the attack value of each hit goes up. Put a Prinny at the end of a multi-character combo and watch every hit (and they land about ten) deal a squidload of damage...
** Same for the Ninja-class units, that see their evasion rate go nigh 100% against any attack from any enemy that isn't ''more than double their level''. A level 1000+ Ninja can easily clear a whole Item World on his own without getting hit once.
* This is the NecessaryDrawback of the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII Onion Knight]] and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX Zidane]] in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy''. Both of them are extremely fast and agile, but the majority of their Brave combos (unless they grossly outmatch, in levels, equipment, or both, the opponent) will deal single-digit damage per hit. However, their combos have a ''lot'' of hits, and they move ''really'' quickly, meaning that this isn't necessarily as nonviable as it may sound at first. Interestingly, despite both relying on the thousand cuts strategy, according to the people who make [[CharacterTiers tier sheets]] one is very high-tier while the other is extremely low-tier.
* 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/DragonAgeInquisition'', the Rogue class specialization Tempest has an ability literally called Thousand Cuts. It involves the rogue zipping around between all enemies in range, attacking them a number of times that depends on how high the Focus meter currently is. While not actually a thousand attacks are made, at tier 3 Focus, it's 38 attacks at 300% weapon damage which adds up to the equivalent of 124 regular attacks done in 2 seconds, enough to take about 1/3 off a High Dragon's health bar. Bonus points for the ability expending no Focus resource at all when combined with Flask of Fire, meaning it can be used about once every 30 seconds which makes it a complete GameBreaker.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' gives us the nightmarish player character, MEATGOD. Meatgod was a player who wore adamant armor, and carried a little bronze hammer. Because Meatgod liked to get to know his enemies as he slowly beat his enemies to death with a dinky little hammer, he became legendary for his horrible actions (there's a MEATGOD achievement on the forums, for killing a megabeast with a no quality weapon). He once took on seven giants over a period of several days. The first couple of days, the giants would go at him, and he'd pound them until they collapsed from exhaustion. Then he'd leave and come back the next day. After a couple of days, they started running away at the sight of him. A couple days after that, they couldn't run anymore, due to having broken legs. On the last day, they didn't even try to struggle anymore, either due to exhaustion, blood loss, and painful injuries, or perhaps just that after several days of slow and torturous beatings, they welcomed death with open arms.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** In series' lore, the province of Morrowind did not historically have the presence of [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] prior to their "[[NotSoExtinct extinction]]". Why? They were driven away by ''[[GodDamnBats Cliff Racers]]''... Yes, those weak but hideously annoying creatures that are the bane of players everywhere were able to drive out powerful [[DragonsAreDivine Aedric (quasi-angelic) beings]] who could [[RealityWarper command elements into existence]] with a [[LanguageOfMagic few words]] simply through [[ZergRush sheer numbers]] and persistence. Come the 4th Era, after Cliff Racers [[TakeThatScrappy had been driven away]] and after [[ChekhovsVolcano Red Mountain's eruption]], a surviving dragon finally came to lair in the smoking ruins of Vvardenfell.
** On a larger scale, this would be the downfall of Uriel Septim V's attempted invasion of [[{{Wutai}} Akavir]]. Due to space restrictions on his fleet, his forces were ''under''specialized except for the [[MagicKnight Battlemages]]. In nearly every direct confrontation with the [[SnakePeople Tsaesci]] forces, Uriel's legions routed them easily. However, he could not replace his losses and his army tended to suffer the heaviest losses to Tsaesci mounted raiders while they traveled or made camp due to his own lack of cavalry. Eventually forced to withdraw, Uriel would perform a HeroicSacrifice to cover the retreat of his legions.
* ''VideoGame/EnterTheGungeon'' has a weapon called the Origuni whose description is literally "Thousand Cuts" -- a reference to the related expression "death of a thousand paper cuts". Because that's what it does: hurl paper planes at enemies. It's only slightly more powerful than your starting pistol, so attempts to take out bosses with it are going to invoke this trope. And it has enough ammo to get the job done against nearly all bosses, provided you never miss. More generally, any low-damage weapon can do chip damage to any enemy, and it's at least theoretically possible to complete a run with just the starting pistol.
* ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey III'''s popular Ikkitousen / Warrior's Might skill allows for a great number of hits, and can be used to kill even bosses in one turn with the right setup.
* In ''VideoGame/EveOnline'', a large enough swarm of completely expendable small ships can destroy a flagship costing millions and billions of ISK.
** This is generally considered ''good strategy'' in the game: frigates (the smallest ships in the game) are also generally the fastest. Cruisers and larger ships have guns that are designed to track and shoot cruisers and larger ships...which move much more ''slowly'' than a Frigate. A properly piloted group of frigates can pummel a cruiser all day and not get hit. You need a lot of them in order to inflict enough damage, but...
*** Much of small gang gameplay revolves around this tactic. Although often it evolves into [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill a Death of a Thousand Nukes]] when [[TheCombatPragmatist both overwhelming force ''and'' overwhelming firepower]] is used against the poor unsuspecting victim.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fairune}}'' this seems to be what the protagonist, Hope Girl, does to (most of) her enemies.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}} [[VideoGame/Fallout1 1]]'', ''[[VideoGame/Fallout2 2]]'' and ''Tactics'', final attack damage is calculated first by subtracting any Damage Threshold offered by a character's armor from the attacker's rolled damage, then subtracting from any leftover damage the character's Damage Resistance, a percentile: for example, PoweredArmor in the first game had 12/40 protection against normal damage, making the sniper rifle the only weapon guaranteed to cause damage outside of critical hits. Bethesda's ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' eliminates DT and only uses DR for armor, meaning that even the toughest hombre wearing heavy-duty powered armor can still be stabbed to death with a kitchen knife.
** Though DT was reintroduced in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', all attacks now have a minimum percentage of damage that 'leaks' through armor, no matter the Damage Treshold. Thus one can still kill a Tougher-than-tough Alpha Male Deathclaw or a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin in shiny near impregnable armor, with a straight razor...
*** Speaking of which, 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.
** Given rather odd forms sometimes with the ability to target specific areas on your enemies. The Deathclaw's weakness (in the first game) are its [[GoForTheEye eyes]], but it's a tough enemy to beat even if you know that... so you'll end up shooting and hitting it in the eyes and severely damaging them again and again for several minutes before it actually has any effect (and the creature dies).
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** Nearly every installment from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' onward features a monster called the Cactuar. It uses a FixedDamageAttack called "One Thousand Needles" that deals ''exactly'' 1,000 HP damage to your character in really fast 1 HP increments. In some games, there also exists a ''Jumbo Cactuar'', which uses a "Ten Thousand Needles" attack that ''kills'' a character outright (since the HP {{cap}} in most FF games usually tops out at 9,999, and you take [[TheLastStraw one needle too many]]).
*** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', you can add "One Thousand Needles" to your arsenal of skills. As Fixed Damage Attacks ignore defense by their very nature, this skill is most helpful against enemies with high defense or defense-enhancing abilities.
*** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', you can contract the Jumbo Cactuar as a Summon Mon, and its attack (1,000 Needles) deals 1,000 HP damage ''PER 10 OF HIS LEVELS''. So by the end of the game, once you've finished leveling your Cactuar Summon to level 100, it can break the damage cap by dealing exactly 10,000 damage. Essential to killing some of the strongest bosses out there, including the Red Giant in the final boss castle. Plus, since this attack deals a completely fixed (and guaranteed!) amount of damage, getting Cactuar to level 100 is usually a '''VERY''' good idea.
*** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', a difficult-to-earn ability in the late game raises the HP cap of your characters from 9,999 to '''99,999'''. Alas, one Optional Boss, the Cactuar King, can nullify this advantage with its signature move: '''[[UpToEleven 99,999 Needles]]'''.
*** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'', Cactaur appears as a [[DownloadableContent DLC]] Summon with '1,000 Needles!' as its only summon ability and '10,000 Needles?' as its [[LimitBreak ultimate]] [[LastDitchMove attack]].
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'': [[BareFistedMonk Zell]] has a LimitBreak that involves inputting different commands to use a combo and then a finisher, which ends the LimitBreak. However, if you want to deal the maximum amount of damage possible, just keep inputting the same two starting combo commands over and over -- the attacks are the weakest out of all of his moves, but they can be implemented incredibly quickly and keep the combo going as long as possible, ultimately dealing far more damage total than the actual combo finishers. The FanNickname for this move is "Armageddon Fist", and with good reason: under favourable conditions, Zell can hit an enemy over 60 times and continually reach the damage cap, potentially dealing ''over 500,000 points of damage'' this way.
*** Similarly, Irvine's "machine gun ammo" limit break can do a lot of damage this way. The machine gun ammo is the weakest per shot, but it's cheap and easy to obtain and you can pump out a lot of shots per attack, ultimately doing more damage than you do with his more expensive and more powerful, but slower, types of ammo.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'': Dancers have an ability that does piddling damage (even in jobs that grant better attack stats than Dancer), but since it is activated based on its own speed and not player speed, this damage adds up over time, especially in battles where it takes a couple of turns for the enemy to reach the player.
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoqNnaBl5NE Fighting a dragon by slashing it over and over for 1 damage each.]]
** This is a good tactic for any weak unit going through the arena with a sleep sword. Anything that falls asleep stays asleep for a set number of turns -- but turns don't pass while in the arena. The only thing preventing this from becoming a downright game breaker is the fact that you can only do the arena so many times.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', it's not rare to find yourself taking out ''entire fleets [[OneManArmy by yourself]]'' with just your guns, enough repair supplies, and [[GodWasMyCoPilot the will of the Holy Spirit]], and this is thanks to each shot dealing at least a little bit of damage. In fact, a popular SelfImposedChallenge in one of the late missions involves destroying ''3 battleships, 5 cruisers and 6 gunships''.
* ''VideoGame/GinormoSword''. While the object (sorta) of the game is to boost your weapon of choice to levels at which it covers the entire screen, the strongest monsters can still take hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of hits to suffer any sort of dent in their HP -- even when your strength stat is in the thousands.
* In the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series, punching (with bare hands, no less), kicking and stomping on a car enough times will result in denting, windows breaking, doors and body panels falling off, and eventually, [[EveryCarIsAPinto the car exploding]]. In that order. Never mind that the characters should have bruised, cut and fractured hands doing so -- [[StrongFleshWeakSteel they're perfectly healthy even after punching three trucks to explosion]].
* In ''VideoGame/GratuitousSpaceBattles'', this is how fighters not armed with torpedoes kill cruisers, by swarming over them firing lasers and rockets at point-blank into their hulls. Heavily-armored cruisers can be nearly immune to this abuse, as their plating will be so thick that enemy shots will just deflect off, but every shot has a chance to inflict a "lucky shot" that does some damage to the enemy ship's armor. Once the armor is stripped away by enough lucky hits (or heavy weapons like torpedoes or cruiser beam weapons) the cruiser will be vulnerable to fighter weapons. At that point, watching the ensuing assault by fighters is akin to watching piranhas tearing a body to bits.
* 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.
** You ''can'' shoot down a helicopter with a machine gun, but only if you're extremely lucky. Such incidents did happen for example in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar.
* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
** In ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'', it is possible to bring down most Covenant vehicles simply by shooting them enough with small arms and grenades.
** You can also, at least in theory, do this to any vehicle in subsequent games, though getting enough ammunition to pull this off takes some time, and vehicles are ''much'' better at killing infantry than vice-versa. Of course, your own vehicles are vulnerable to this too.
** Ghosts are your friend. It's possible to take out EVERYTHING DESTROYABLE in that game with these nimble machines. Problem is, they're not too durable themselves... but you can take on a Phantom and disable ALL of its guns without dying.
** ''VideoGame/HaloWars'':
*** You can do this with the Elephant Tank. This tank can train its own infantry, allowing you to set up small bases of power independent of your main base. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your mood), most players just park a handful of Elephant Tanks near the enemy and use their production capabilities to feed cannon-fodder into the nearest battle, conveyor belt style.
*** Alternatively, it is possible to upgrade the standard marine squads into ODST squads at which point you can rain them from the sky onto any location not covered by fog of war.
* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfAnnihilatedEmpires'', this is a pretty good way of taking out hero units, since although they can have defenses of over a hundred, all attacks cause at least one point of damage (and you typically attack with several ''hundred'' at a time).
* In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}} 2'', several ships are built especially to inflict death of a thousand cuts, particularly the bombers and the Vaygr Laser Corvettes. Actually, most small ships can overrun the big guns when given time.
** The first game's expansion, ''VideoGame/HomeworldCataclysm'', has the drone frigates - ships that have no weapons themselves, but have onboard factories that quickly generate large numbers of drones. Each drone is armed but with one small gun and is practically insignificant by itself, but deadly in large numbers.
* Impa in ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriorsAgeOfCalamity'' absolutely fills this role. It's one thing that she's the game's kunoichi with lightning-fast combos and ninja signs, because then you'd expect her to be fast and impressive; but once you fill all three symbols to generate [[DoppelgangerAttack ''eight'' clones of herself]], she can wipe out entire battlefields just spamming the standard attack combo. You don't even need to focus on breaking the weakness-gauge, enemies just ''melt'' when she's on the field.
* In ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'', the PlayerCharacter can learn a style called "Thousand Cuts," which unsurprisingly emphasizes speed and many fast, light hits.
* It is theoretically possible to destroy a tank with small-arms fire in ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2 v1.13'' thanks to some armor-piercing rounds (like heavy sniper calibers) having the "Damage Tanks" flag. Fortunately, it is extremely unlikely to survive the tank's retaliation if it manages to interrupt any of your attacks.
* Blue Eco weapons in ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'' series. They have lower damage than Yellow Eco weapons per shot but their rate of fire allows them to defeat enemies quickly. This is especially true for Needle Laser in ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'', where one tiny laser doesn't do much, but an entire barrage of them is another matter. Too bad it eats ammo like there's no tomorrow.
* The ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' game averts this trope. If you continuously block hits while not having a Stand out, you will suffer ScratchDamage until your health reaches zero, at which point you will stop taking ScratchDamage. This prevents you from dying by this method, although it's relatively easy to get past one's guard in this game, so turtling is still not an option.
** Both of the ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' fighters do this as well. Making this even more annoying in the first fighter is the fact that certain moves explicitly cannot kill a blocking opponent even if that block is incorrect and the blocker is guard crushed.
* ''VideoGame/JurassicParkChaosIsland'' includes many playable characters from the movies, and also assistants you can recruit for menial tasks. If you face a T-Rex, you can send in your stronger characters, and risk getting them killed- or send an army of assistants, who all have weak attacks. If you do this, the T-rex will be confused and spin around without actually attacking anyone. It takes a while, but eventually the weak assistants will be able to kill it.
* This can end up being a default strategy for Disco Bandits and Accordion Thieves in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing''. Since these two classes focus on Moxie (the stat by which your chance-to-dodge is calculated), it's entirely possible to be so smooth as to be completely untouchable, but your own damage-dealing capabilities are somewhat under par, so it's just a question of whether or not you have the kind of time it takes to beat the bugger.
** [=DBs=] do have Moxious Maneuver to resort to, though.
* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' has this in all the games with blocking. You can block attacks, but many enemies (and all bosses) will do a tiny bit of damage through the guard, unless you have certain abilities. Depending on the duration of an attack, guarding can sometimes cause Kirby to take ''more'' total damage due to the lack of MercyInvincibility.
* In ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'', your weakest attack is a shove and is meant to be used as an emergency maneuver if you get swarmed by zombies (only the Tank and Witch can't be shoved). Each shove does a little bit of damage and you can eventually kill zombies this way with the exception of the Tank and Witch since they're immune to melee damage. The sequel added a shoving fatigue mechanic to discourage players from shoving everything to death.
* In ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'', a number of the weapons count (though the 20-turn limit prevents extreme cases), but the best example is Rin's cats. Although they won't hit for very much each, as the game goes on and she trains with them more and more, she can be hitting over 10 times every turn. It's precisely because of this that Rin becomes very hard to beat by the end of the battle segments.
* 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/MadWorld'', bosses that seem to not sustain much damage from regular attacks (including [[MadeOfIron being sliced with a goddamn chainsaw]]) can eventually be worn down if you just keep on punching them, although for most there's quicktime sequences you can initiate to damage them much more efficiently.
** Also, one of the finishers with the daggers has you literally [[LiteralMinded stabbing your enemy in the chest about a thousand times]].
* This is evident even in fighting games such as ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom2'', where certain characters can '''spam''' multiple-hitting special attacks repeatedly. Even if the attacks are blocked, they still inflict minor damage. After enough attacks, you may find yourself in a position to be [[CherryTapping cherry tapped]]. Most likely you will lose from '''cheese''' (death from block damage in ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' is evidenced by a cheese-wedge icon), as your opponent revs up a [[LimitBreak Super Combo]], because ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill.
* This is one of the core mechanics of ''Franchise/MassEffect''. Shields, which many, if not most enemies have at least a bit of, reduces each pellet of damage by a set procentage. This makes weapons like Sniper Rifles and Heavy Pistol less efficient against Shields, but fast-shooting weapons generally just ignore this percentage through volume of fire.
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' on Haestrom, Kal'Reegar mentions that standard procedure for fighting a geth colossus is to "kill it with bug bites".
* Wanna know what's the best short-range weapon in most if not all ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' games? The ''machine gun''. You're supposed to mount one or two to fight infantry, because they do piddling damage individually, but stats-wise (that is, considering ammo load, heat generation and damage) they're the most efficient weapon in the game. Take a large ballistic-weapon-based Mech and load as many machine guns as it can take, and you make it into the ultimate close-range brawler. If more range is needed, small autocannons like the [=AC2=] work well.
** Ironically, the heavy weapons are more effective on ''light'' mechs, as the things are often too agile to keep a bead on, but it's usually fairly easy to get them in your sights for the split-second necessary to hit them with a PPC or similar weapon.
** It usually doesn't pay to choose superheavy mechs (such as the Atlas) in the new ''VideoGame/MechWarriorOnline'' game, unless you're a pro who actually knows how to use them. They're powerful and heavily armored, but ''very'' slow both to move and turn, which means all that armor simply delays your death when, inevitably, a bunch of light scout Mechs start walking around you and peppering you with light lasers until they erode it all away.
*** On the other hand, said heavy mech's best weapon against light mechs is the ''same'' thousand cuts, by spewing out a constant stream of laser, or light autocannon fire, to simply make it so that ''at all times'' there's something firing, and to then wave the cursor in large sweeps, dealing minimal damage each time, but to a [[FragileSpeedster Light Mech]] they're still notable, and can't be dodged.
* Prior to getting the Mega Buster chargeable ArmCannon, several ''VideoGame/MegaManClassic'' games had a weapon that was no more ''effective'' in damage than the normal gun, but had such a fast rate of fire that players would use them exclusively unless they were out of power or not effective against a given enemy. Examples include the "Metal Blade" (''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', aimable) and "Needle Cannon" (''VideoGame/MegaMan3'', full-auto in three round bursts).
** Similarly, one of the Beast Out powerup forms gave you a rapid-firing buster, at the cost of not being able to charge your shots. While normal charged shots can deal around 10 damage at the beginning, Beast Out lets you fire more than 10 bullets in the same time it took to charge, resulting in a flurry of bullets raining down on your opponent (in some cases can even make certain battlechips obsolete).
** Model HX in ''[[VideoGame/MegaManZX ZX]]'' turned out to be a GameBreaker because of this. One of its moves is to create a tornado that sits in one place and attacks 16 times. The final boss was (of course) a OneWingedAngel, and its stationary [[AttackItsWeakPoint damage point]] was just ''asking'' to be tornado'd to death.
** Similar to Model H is the very first of ''VideoGame/MegaManX's'' PowerCopying attacks, Storm Tornado, considered a GameBreaker due to the fact that one use can score multiple hits on multiple enemies.
*** A literal example can be performed with Zero in the fourth, fifth, and sixth games in the series. The first hit of his basic [[LaserBlade Z-Saber]] combo, while weak, doesn't cause MercyInvincibility against most of the bosses and can be canceled with a dash then immediately performed again. The amount of hits you can land in the span of a second is practically limited only by how quickly you can alternate the attack and dash buttons (A fact that predictably gets abused to a hilarious degree in tool-assisted {{Speedrun}}s).
** ''VideoGame/MegaManZero 3'' has the 1000 Slash learned from Deathtanz Mantisk, which sees Zero performing countless stabs with the Recoil Rod so long as the button the Rod's equipped in is pressed several times (it has the drawback of Zero remaining immobile). In ''Zero 4'', the Ice Javelin can also score several hits due to the nature of the projectile.
* ''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.
** Not just possible - often required. Being rather NintendoHard for most players, it happens more often than not that a boss will kill at least one of your lives. When that happens, a replacement weapon for your new life is not at all guaranteed, often leaving you stuck with the pistol.
* Planet [[DishingOutDirt Forte]] from ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'' was {{Nerf}}ed heavily for ''Meteos Wars'', turning its competitive approach from LightningBruiser into a combination of StoneWall and this. ''Meteos'' is a FallingBlocks PuzzleGame where blocks removed from your side manifest as garbage blocks on the opponent's side, but Forte has by far the lowest garbage block output of any planet in proportion to the number of blocks cleared, meaning it can only send tiny amounts of garbage blocks at a time. However, Forte is also one of the fastest planets in which you can clear the screen, meaning in the hands of a skilled player, those tiny amounts will invade the opponent's side at a rapid rate. At the same time, the fact that Forte can clear the screen practically at will means it can shrug off opponents' garbage block attacks, making its strategy a slow but gradual death of the opponent.
* This is how [[RayGun blasters and blaster rifles]] end up working in ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' ''VI'' and ''VII''. Their base damage isn't ''that'' impressive for the latter part of the game (when you get them -- they're LostTechnology), especially since it can't be improved (the associated skill ''only'' increases the bonus to hit things with them, and unlike other weapons they can't be enchanted). Their rate of fire, on the other hand, is very high, and so is their ability to actually hit things (outside the blast being blocked by walls). Combine with a unique damage type that no monster is resistant or immune to, and bombarding enemies with dozens of blaster shots becomes a valid (even necessary, in one case) end-game tactic.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', it's completely possible to take down the Ender Dragon (200 HP) with snowballs (1 damage each).
* In {{MOBA}} games, there are some characters who specialize by CherryTapping people a bunch of times. Especially if they are dependent on Attack-speed or spamming their abilities really fast.
** Ezrael in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' basically does this with his abilities. He is capable of bursting, but oftentimes he does just this.
** Juggernaut and Fiora have [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Omnislash]] as their ults in ''[=DotA=]'' and ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', respectively. When there are groups, they jump from enemy to enemy rapidly striking them. When they are alone with their target, however, they stick to them like glue and grind them down with a rain of blows.
* The ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' series has the Dual Blades, DualWielding daggers; each individual hit might not do a lot of damage, but they're the fastest-hitting weapons in the franchise (especially when you're in [[SuperMode Demon Mode]]), which has lead to players nicknaming them "Murder Blenders". Sword and Shield is this to a lesser extent, being the second fastest weapon type.
* In ''[[VideoGame/NexusWar Nexus Clash]]'', attacks always do at least one point of damage, unless you're immune to the damage type. This makes mundane forms of damage something of a LethalJokeItem - it's easy to reduce damage from mundane weapons with armor, but impossible to become immune to them, so even the mightiest of characters can be pinged to death with a pipe wrench. It's especially dangerous when combined with SummonMagic, since summoners can throw so many damage-dealing pets into a fight.
* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'':
** D.Va uses a MiniMecha with a weapon that does, at best, 5 damage per pellet, and that's at point blank range... Good thing that those weapons are ''twin fully-automatic Gatling shotguns with infinite ammo.''
** [[ChildPopstar D.Va]] and [[CombatMedic Mercy's]] backup pistol looks meager and weak, but they have no damage fall-off and are 100% accurate, so even dedicated damage dealers can die from not taking them seriously.
** [[UpliftedAnimal Winston]] is the epitome of this concept. His Tesla Cannon does meager damage out the bat, but it's constant over a wide area and has a large magazine, so if you manage to stay around for long enough, most smaller heroes will break down under the cuts.
** The most damage [[CyberNinja Genji]] can do with a single hit outside of his ultimate is 50, but his strength lies in his ability to rapidly stack numerous hits on top of each other while his mobility and small frame make him an insufferably hard target to pin down.
* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': It doesn't matter how much HP that gargantuan monstrosity has, there's no foe that can't be vanquished by throwing more Pikmin at it and letting 20+ pairs of tiny fists do the work for you. Alternatively, you can attack enemies directly if your captain doesn't have any Pikmin available for tossing by punching them, which does only marginally more damage then a hit from the weakest of Pikmin. Regardless, it's actually a viable tactic against some foes (As long as you have time to spare), as a number of them are completely incapable of harming you, but can do a number on your Pikmin. ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'' even offers an upgrade to your captains' punching power.
* 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.
** Shedinja can safely use this as a valid tactic at times, due to its Wonder Guard ability making it immune to attacks that don't hit it for super effective damage, thus allowing it to potentially chip away at the health of a much higher leveled Pokemon that lacks a means of harming it. After gaining the ability to use Will-O-Wisp in later generations, it's not quite as tedious of a process due to the percent based damage the burn caused by said move inflicts.
** [[http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/kakuna This joke page]] detailing Kakuna's uses in the {{Metagame}} plays this trope for laughs.
-->"With Bug Bite, Kakuna is not walled by the likes of Steelix and Steel-type Arceus. As a matter of fact, Bug Bite's addition lowers max HP / max Def Steelix from a 94-hit-KO to a 36HKO. Max HP Steel-type Arceus is now a 25 HKO, while min HP/Def Psychic Arceus is a 22HKO."
** The [[RecursiveAdaptation video game adaptation]] of the [[TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} Trading Card Game]] ran into a problem of this nature. Because the coin flips in the game have predetermined outcomes, nothing is actually random, and so chains of heads or tails come up far more times than chance allows. Thus, if a Pokémon has a [[StandardStatusEffects paralysis]]-inducing attack, there is a much greater chance that the player can paralyze the opponent every turn until the Defending Pokémon is knocked out -- even if the attack is very weak and the defense has a lot of HP.
** In a more traditional sense, there are moves like Fury Swipes, Icicle Spear, and Rock Blast that hit for small amounts of damage multiple times per turn. In most cases, these attacks are unreliable because they hit a random amount of times, between 2 and 5, per turn. [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Generation V]] introduced an Ability called Skill Link, however, that guarantees these attacks will always hit the maximum 5 times, making them useful when used by Pokémon with Skill Link.
* Human military soldiers have to do this in ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'', because they simply can't do that much damage. It's a different story if they have grenade or missile launchers, but generally the rifle-carrying soldiers will just pour bullets into you until you stop moving.
* This is one of Aht's two main methods of attack (the other being a TrapMaster) in ''VideoGame/RadiantHistoria''. Her physical attack is puny, but most of her physical skills involve throwing multiple daggers at an opponent. Unlike most examples, though, this isn't intended to kill an enemy by attacking it multiple times, but rather to set up {{Combos}} with other members of your party, since the more hits an enemy takes in a combo, the more damage they take from later hits in the combo (meaning Aht can hammer an enemy with multiple weak attacks to rack up the combo, then another character can use one massive attack to finish them off).
* ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'''s battle system takes into account how many enemies are attacking you at a given time. If the number of enemies you are fighting goes above a certain threshold, your DEF and FLEE get reduced by a certain amount per enemy. Therefore, it is possible to have a sufficient number of Porings handily trounce a level 99 knight.
* The [[GunsAkimbo Dual Vipers]] in ''VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked'' are this. They start with 200 ammo and 10 damage; compare to the [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter Magma Cannon]], the other starting weapon, which begins with 20 ammo and 60 damage. It's telling that while other weapons get at minimum a 20 damage increase when they level up (the Magma Cannon uses this number until the 8-9 transition; leveling to 9 and 10 give 50 damage each), the damage increases for the Vipers rarely leave the ''single'' digits (leveling to level 8 is a 12 damage increase and the level 10 upgrade also increases the damage by 10). In the end, the V99 Vulcan Cannon, the Magma Cannon at the highest level, has a damage stat of 567. The maxed Dual Raptors? 168.
** This is in general the case with the pistol weapons in the entire series, with the possible exception of [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002 the Blaster]], due to how damage system worked in that game. They all have ammo capacity in hundreds of shots, but single shot rarely kills anything than the weakest anklebiters (if even that). This rarely changes even when Mega-upgrades become available.
** This trope applies to other weapons as well, usually to sentry guns/bots before they upgrade. For example Miniturret Glove/Launcher places a turret that shoots at enemies, and which single shot does pitiful damage, but continuous spraying from one or more of them is capable of wiping out a small group of monsters. Not so much after it upgrades, when it starts shooting rockets or lasers, depending on the game.
* In ''VideoGame/Ready2RumbleBoxing'', it's possible to use any punch an unlimited number of times if you have enough stamina. If it's fast enough that the opponent can't block the second after the first connects, you can get a knockdown using only that one basic low-damage punch. This not only is the most effective strategy in the game, it's pretty much the ''only'' way to get knockouts in Gold class, as your opponents will simply block all your high-damage shots. The most blatant example is Damien Black, a huge demon with a pulverizing 5-hit combo and a simple right to the body that takes off a massive chunk of life. And a boring little jab. Guess what he's going to be doing all the time once everything else stops connecting. Ready 2 Rumble Round 2 subverts this somewhat, as it's no longer possible to do unlimited fast punches and Rumble Flurries are more effective, but you'll still get far more mileage out of simple jabs and straights than any of the specialties (many of which now do barely more damage than the basic punches anyway).
* With its pitiful damage output and painfully slow attack speed, the Combat Knife of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' fame is typically regarded as a JokeWeapon and tossed in an item box at the first available opportunity. The exception to this rule occurs in ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvilCodeVeronica Code: Veronica]]'', in which, for some reason, the knife registers multiple hits per swing. All those minor-damage hits stacking up over a short amount of time results in the knife becoming [[LethalJokeItem one of the most surprisingly effective weapons in the game]].
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', however, makes it possibly the most valuable weapon in the game since it doesn't take up inventory slots and it's a godsend against unshielded/helmeted Ganados. [[GoodBadBugs Plus it's a godsend against Krauser.]]
* ''VideoGame/RobotAlchemicDrive'' forces you to do this in one mission, where your giant robot is locked into its transformed mode and can't effectively attack. Thus, you're forced to chuck grenades at the enemy giant robot's ankles for 10 minutes before it goes down.
* 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/SpiralKnights'', there are several weapons lines that do this. One is the Autogun line, which shoots 6 weak bullets at a time. The fully upgraded Blitz Needle is considered one of the most powerful weapons in the game.
** Another is the Striker line, which consists of very fast hitting [[SerratedBladeOfPain jagged blades]] with weak attack power.
* ''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.
* ''VideoGame/StarRuler'': With enough guns and ships, you can take out planets and stars. Yes, swarms of very small ships with railguns can blow up a star. It will take a long time, but it's possible.
* This is effective in ''VideoGame/{{Stars}}!'' , a 16-bit 4X space empire game, due to limitations in the variable handling. An attack always causes at least 1/512th damage to a stack of ships, which means a full stack of huge battlecruisers can be destroyed by a large number of scouts with a single torpedo each. Invoking this intentionally is often considered cheating, but there's a fine line between abuse and effective use of small ship tactics. It's not terribly hard to defend against, however.
* In ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/EmpireAtWar'' you can take down [=AT-ATs=][[note]]The big, four-legged ones from Hoth.[[/note]] with squads of blaster-pistol-wielding infantry.
* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'': near the end of the game you fight Jojora (some kind of ice fairy) and her friend. You have to defeat the friend (a giant snow-doll creature), but it's not necessary to beat Jojora. Many players believe it is actually impossible to kill her; she has the highest defense in the game and every attack only does 1 damage (plus, if you knock her wand out, she leaves the fight for a couple of turns). However, the designers actually intended vigilant players to be able to beat her - she only has 50 HP. A multi-hitting attack will wear her HP down in no time, and she drops a rare item and gives decent experience for your trouble.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'' has the Gold Koopeleons, which also have the highest defense in the game. They only have 10 HP, and every attack, again, only does 1 damage, with the exception of counters and First Strikes, which can do considerably more, for some reason (even killing them instantly at high enough levels). These enemies have a high speed rating, so they usually move first at normal levels when you first reach them, and they have a high chance of running from battle. However, they drop the most coins of any enemy in the game (80 in most versions and 100 in the American version), which can be doubled, or even TRIPLED with a certain badge. They usually appear in groups of two or three, and if only two appear it is possible to run from the battle and re-engage them, and three might be present! A multi-hitting Bros. Item such as a Red Shell can defeat all three of them in one turn (in the hands of a skilled player); hence it is highly recommended to come back and defeat these creatures once the player's speed rating is high enough to always move first -- the rewards are very worthwhile. Using the aforementioned coin-tripling badge, this is easily the fastest way of earning money in the game.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'': Goombario's Multibonk attack only deals one damage per hit. However, it keeps hitting until the player misses an action command or the targeted enemy dies, and with good reflexes and a good bit of patience it can stack up enough damage to bring down even a powerful foe.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' averts this, as damage is small enough that the calculation by subtracting defense from attack (used in some other [=RPGs=] such as ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'') is a big deal, and thus attacks that do many weak hits (like Yoshi's stampede) do no damage to enemies with any defense unless their base attack value is boosted. Still, each multi-hit does less damage than the previous, but as long as the first one does damage, the rest will also do at least 1 [[HitPoints HP]] worth of damage.
** ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'': There is one room near the end of each Pit of 100 Trials that is filled with Goombas. This appears to be a breather, except that these are Headbonk Goombas, meaning that they'll jump and headbutt Mario as soon as they spot him. The Goombas are very weak, but their endless attack can KO Mario in seconds. In the Flipside Pit, they can be picked out by their irregular color, but in the Flopside Pit, they look the same as any other Goomba.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'':
*** The game makes use of this in the Sacred Forest -- the enemies have been shrunk, but blocking attacks in this game will still do at least 1 HP. Swarms of tiny Goombas will do a LOT more damage than you might expect.
*** If you're not prepared in Toad Trainworks, the group of passengers who take out their frustrations on Mario can also be this. [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath Yikes!]]
* In ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilation'', a fun but useless attack is to build hundreds of "Fleas" and sic them on the enemy. A more useful attack is the "Peewee rush" in which dozens of Peewees can obliterate a base in mere moments.
** Some players eschew building heavy bomber aircraft altogether and just build swarms of fighters. Their missiles do piddling damage to ground units, but enough of them *will* eventually destroy anything and they're so fast most defences will have a hard time targeting them. Indeed, if the battle conditions are set so that the death of the enemy Commander wins you the game, one of the most effective strategies is to just build as many fighters as you can - a couple hundred, preferably - and a bunch of scout planes. Send the scouts on suicide exploration runs and as soon as the Commander is spotted mass-select all your fighters and attack the Commander. Game over.
** Also, a couple of dozen Construction Aircraft given orders to recycle can quickly erase enemy structures and units from the map. About the only thing they can't wipe out is the enemy commander, and that's only because he can blow them all up with one shot from his Disintegration Gun.
* The modus operandi of Meta Knight in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros''. However, some of his moves have a lot of knockback, particularly his [[LimitBreak Final Smash]].
* An odd version was present in ''VideoGame/WarCraftII'', where gold mines could be destroyed, though their HP was as high as the game's engine would allow for a unit or structure. This led to interesting sights, such as a group of footmen hacking away at a mine... until it collapsed.
* In theory destroyers from ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' can take out dreadnoughts. In practice, it's not a good idea because you will lose many destroyers to the dread-user unless the other guy was TooDumbToLive by either equipping his dreads with only anti-capital weapons or rushed them out without getting better weapons. Furthermore, the dread is likely to [[MightyGlacier just lumber through the defensive fire to start glassing the colony behind]].
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'': If you dare to fight the Unicerous on Unknown Mode, your party will have this effect, even the ones who can use the kind of magic that the Unicerous is weak to (Dark). Jade is unquestionably the worst, doing one damage since most of his special attacks are wind-based and the Unicerous is immune to Wind and Light. It's not impossible, and it IS possible to do more damage, provided you're at a much, much higher level.
** This applies to most bosses on Unknown Mode. Arietta, Dist [[spoiler:all three times]], Abaddon, and many more can only have their tens of thousands of health slowly whittled down, one hit point at a time, even if you use 10x experience on NewGamePlus to be at a much higher level than normal.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces'', Cheria's level 3 blast caliber is this with knives.
* The Minimum Damage skill in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' forces this by reducing the damage of every hit to one. Equipping this skill to certain characters (Such as Yuri or Rita) along with other skills allows for infinite combo-chains with each hit only doing a single point of damage. Combos are a MAJOR factor in determining how much grade you get at the end of a battle. Equip these skills, go to an area with low level enemies, and gradually pummel the poor bastards into oblivion. In less than an hour you'll have more grade than you'll ever need.
* Every character in ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterIII Third Strike]]'' has a PracticalTaunt, but only a portion can connect as weak attacks. While such taunts can be used as a finishing move, they can also wear opponents down with enough hits. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OZiteIAJj0 For example, Necro's tongue.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', the hardest boss of the game has attacks that technically do only 1 damage. The trick is that the attacks completely ignore MercyInvincibility, meaning that they do 1 damage PER FRAME. And it's a BulletHell. And every hit applies a DamageOverTime effect. And he can attack you ''[[InterfaceScrew in the combat menu during your own turns]]''. [[SarcasmMode Have fun!]]
* ''VideoGame/VegaStrike'' has SubsystemDamage probability per hull hit, so once armor is broken, shield-piercing weapons become very efficient, even if weak on raw damage (and most are).
** [[MagneticWeapons Mini Drivers]] has good effective range and mediocre rate of fire, but lower damage per second than for any other Medium or even Light weapon, except Micro-driver (it's at least faster and thus useful against missiles). So low that the weakest DeflectorShields stop 2 hits at once and the shield-bypassing part needs ''100'' hits to breach the weakest armor -- then it's more likely to [[SubsystemDamage break shield generator]] than kill the hull outright. Even shuttles not armed with anything better got much stronger shields, while balls aren't very fast and miss anything maneuverable as often as not. The main weapon of "Redeemer" are two mini-drivers, the purpose of which seems to be inciting the hatred of [[EvilLuddite Luddites]]: an encounter almost always ends only in paying for armor repair. Yet the communicator logs show kill messages by Redeemers, sometimes against fairly good ships.
** In a less emphasized fashion, [[EnergyWeapon lasers]]: they are weak, but got long range and shield-piercing, so a ship opens fire earlier and kills gradually by strafes rather than going in for an overwhelming barrage.
* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000: VideoGame/DawnOfWar'', the armour types system means that most basic infantry are not supposed to scratch the toughest armour types. In practice, however, ScratchDamage still occurs. Nevertheless, fans have made mods that indeed make buildings impervious to small arms.
** In a later Relic game, ''VideoGame/CompanyOfHeroes'', rifles may indeed do light damage to armored cars or scout vehicles, they will do NOTHING to a tank, even attacking their weaker rear armor. Strangely, this doesn't carry entirely over to the critical hit table: infantry dealing enough [[MoreDakka dakka]] to the back of armored vehicles may eventually deal engine damage, even if the vehicle's HP is full.
** This trend was continued with the sequel to ''Dawn of War'', with the notable exception that some common weapons really are powerful enough to do light damage to tanks -- the SpaceMarine bolter fires high explosive rockets, and Ork weapons aren't too much weaker than that, especially since they bring MoreDakka.
** In ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000Spacemarine'', the most dangerous opponent in the game is the humble Chaos infantryman. Their lasguns don't do a lot of damage, but their numbers and rate of fire mean they can swiftly whittle your health down to nothing if you don't get rid of them quickly before you have to focus on the more individually threatening Chaos Marines and Daemons.
* In the original ''VideoGame/WingCommander'', it was possible for even the weakest fighter to destroy any capital ship if you could shoot it enough times. Later games alternated between large capital ships being invulnerable or vulnerable to everything except special "torpedo" missiles.
* Most high level raid bosses in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' die this way, especially those from before the expansions.
** Archimonde at the climax of ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII: Reign of Chaos''. He's killed by thousands of [[WillOTheWisp wisps]], nature spirits and the Night Elves' basic worker unit, with an ability called Detonate, which sends them suicide bombing on summoned units. Guess how Archimonde got into Azeroth?
** Back in the classic version of the game, Shaman had windfury weapon, a self-enchantment that had a chance to proc an extra hit instantly, though this has since been changed, it had no internal cooldown, thus with a stroke of luck, it was possible for winfury to proc off of windfury [[OverlyLongGag which procs off another windfury which keeps proccing]], if the stars aligned, a raid boss could be taken out in one hit by a storm of lucky windfury procs.
** Also from classic the Paladin talent reckoning can lead to this: each time you gain a critical hit, your next hit gains an extra attack. Now what happens if you don't fight back? The buff of reckoning just counted upwards. So a crafty player got a rogue friend to attack him with daggers for hours to receive as much critical hits as possible, that alone may count, but then he runs up to Kazzak back in the days one of the hardest bosses around and Unleashed the Reckoning Bomb in one Attack, also each Paladin attack procs another attack from his seal, doubling the attacks again: so he killed one of the hardest bosses in the game with 3600 hits within a few seconds. For reference [[http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4443506634239856545 see here]]. Also note this talent was hotfixed in the next day after this video to only stay for 8 seconds and can't build up for hours.
** This can also be invoked by players. One version happens when a high level player goes AFK with their PVP flag on. As long as the lower level player can do more DPS than the other's natural HP regen, it's only a matter of time before the higher level player dies. Another method is to send a swarm of noobs at the higher level player, in the form of a noob raid.
** Official in the Multistrike stat, which gives all abilities a chances to hit for a second time. This includes healing abilities.
** The concept of kiting strong enemies relies on this, particularly for hunters, frost mages (which slow enemies), and fire mages (which have the best mobility of all casters). Simply hit the enemy and keep running in a circle until they eventually die.
* 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.
** The player risks being on the receiving end in Kha'ak and Xenon sectors. Such sectors will spawn enemies without end, which ''will'' eventually wear you down.
** [[AttackDrone Drone]] {{spam|Attack}}. Stuff a freighter or frigate with fighter drones (you can fit thousands in a small freighter, and ''tens of thousands'' in a large), then eject them all at once. There is [[AIBreaker no way for the computer to respond to that]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}}'', this trope is the default tactic used against stronger Sebillians, especially before advanced weaponry is researched.
* In the ''VideoGame/XWing'' series, a fighter can kill any capital ship with just its laser blasters, though avoiding the capital ship's own turbolaser turrets is a problem. A fighter's ion guns can disable even a Star Destroyer in a few shots, if the shields are down. ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'' and later installments even allow you to destroy subsystems on capital ships, so once you clear away enough guns and disable the engines you can literally park your fighter beside the ship, put a rubber band around the trigger, and go get coffee while the Star Destroyer or Mon Calamari Cruiser slowly dies.
** In the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe, fighters are considered a major threat to capital ships if they use mass-fire tactics with missile weapons. In fairness to the trope, their lasers are usually depicted as too weak to deal any major damage to a capital ship, but the point stands that Rebel fighters were such a threat to Imperial capital ships that a special ship design composed mostly of a hull and a metric buttload of laser cannons, the ''Lancer''-class frigate, was made just to kill fighters.
*** [[AwesomeButImpractical Which proved too slow, costly, and manpower-intensive for wide deployment,]] [[CripplingOverspecialization and was helpless against other capital ships.]] Most admirals eschewed it in favor of expendable TIE screens.
*** Having a TIE screen around was pretty much ''vital'' for most Imperial ships. Without their fighter screens, they were vulnerable to Trench Run Disease--the types of tactics that eventually destroyed the first Death Star. Granted, most Star Destroyers didn't have an exhaust port that led straight to the reactor core, but they did have exposed shield generators and the same type of turbolaser batteries. The tactics that win in the video game above? While not as effective in the EU, given enough time and the right conditions, they ''would'' eventually kill a Star Destroyer.
[[/folder]]

* This is a staple of the entire TowerDefense Genre, which has increasingly strong monsters walk past your towers, which continuously attack them, towards your base. Towards the end of the game, it is typical for a tower to deal 200 damage against monsters with 6 or 7 digit HP.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', the hardest boss of the game has attacks that technically do only 1 damage. The trick is that the attacks completely ignore MercyInvincibility, meaning that they do 1 damage PER FRAME. And it's a BulletHell. And every hit applies a DamageOverTime effect. And he can attack you ''[[InterfaceScrew in the combat menu during your own turns]]''. [[SarcasmMode Have fun!]]
* In ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'', your weakest attack is a shove and is meant to be used as an emergency maneuver if you get swarmed by zombies (only the Tank and Witch can't be shoved). Each shove does a little bit of damage and you can eventually kill zombies this way with the exception of the Tank and Witch since they're immune to melee damage. The sequel added a shoving fatigue mechanic to discourage players from shoving everything to death.
* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'':
** D.Va uses a MiniMecha with a weapon that does, at best, 5 damage per pellet, and that's at point blank range... Good thing that those weapons are ''twin fully-automatic Gatling shotguns with infinite ammo.''
** [[ChildPopstar D.Va]] and [[CombatMedic Mercy's]] backup pistol looks meager and weak, but they have no damage fall-off and are 100% accurate, so even dedicated damage dealers can die from not taking them seriously.
** [[UpliftedAnimal Winston]] is the epitome of this concept. His Tesla Cannon does meager damage out the bat, but it's constant over a wide area and has a large magazine, so if you manage to stay around for long enough, most smaller heroes will break down under the cuts.
** The most damage [[CyberNinja Genji]] can do with a single hit outside of his ultimate is 50, but his strength lies in his ability to rapidly stack numerous hits on top of each other while his mobility and small frame make him an insufferably hard target to pin down.
* Planet [[DishingOutDirt Forte]] from ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'' was {{Nerf}}ed heavily for ''Meteos Wars'', turning its competitive approach from LightningBruiser into a combination of StoneWall and this. ''Meteos'' is a FallingBlocks PuzzleGame where blocks removed from your side manifest as garbage blocks on the opponent's side, but Forte has by far the lowest garbage block output of any planet in proportion to the number of blocks cleared, meaning it can only send tiny amounts of garbage blocks at a time. However, Forte is also one of the fastest planets in which you can clear the screen, meaning in the hands of a skilled player, those tiny amounts will invade the opponent's side at a rapid rate. At the same time, the fact that Forte can clear the screen practically at will means it can shrug off opponents' garbage block attacks, making its strategy a slow but gradual death of the opponent.
* In ''Videogame/{{Destiny}}'', this is usually how most bosses are brought down, with constant gunfire from your primary weapons, supplemented by secondary and heavy weapons. It usually takes at least a few hundred and upwards of thousands of bullets to down most strike bosses, at least once whatever defenses they have active are removed. Raid bosses [[PuzzleBoss often require more complex techniques]] to expose them before they can be taken down... but they still in general require lots of concentrated gunfire to bring down.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** In series' lore, the province of Morrowind did not historically have the presence of [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]] prior to their "[[NotSoExtinct extinction]]". Why? They were driven away by ''[[GodDamnBats Cliff Racers]]''... Yes, those weak but hideously annoying creatures that are the bane of players everywhere were able to drive out powerful [[DragonsAreDivine Aedric (quasi-angelic) beings]] who could [[RealityWarper command elements into existence]] with a [[LanguageOfMagic few words]] simply through [[ZergRush sheer numbers]] and persistence. Come the 4th Era, after Cliff Racers [[TakeThatScrappy had been driven away]] and after [[ChekhovsVolcano Red Mountain's eruption]], a surviving dragon finally came to lair in the smoking ruins of Vvardenfell.
** On a larger scale, this would be the downfall of Uriel Septim V's attempted invasion of [[{{Wutai}} Akavir]]. Due to space restrictions on his fleet, his forces were ''under''specialized except for the [[MagicKnight Battlemages]]. In nearly every direct confrontation with the [[SnakePeople Tsaesci]] forces, Uriel's legions routed them easily. However, he could not replace his losses and his army tended to suffer the heaviest losses to Tsaesci mounted raiders while they traveled or made camp due to his own lack of cavalry. Eventually forced to withdraw, Uriel would perform a HeroicSacrifice to cover the retreat of his legions.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fairune}}'' this seems to be what the protagonist, Hope Girl, does to (most of) her enemies.
* 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]].
* ''VideoGame/EnterTheGungeon'' has a weapon called the Origuni whose description is literally "Thousand Cuts" -- a reference to the related expression "death of a thousand paper cuts". Because that's what it does: hurl paper planes at enemies. It's only slightly more powerful than your starting pistol, so attempts to take out bosses with it are going to invoke this trope. And it has enough ammo to get the job done against nearly all bosses, provided you never miss. More generally, any low-damage weapon can do chip damage to any enemy, and it's at least theoretically possible to complete a run with just the starting pistol.
* ''VideoGame/BlossomTalesTheSleepingKing'': Nothing in this game does more than a half-heart’s worth of ScratchDamage, but it is possible to get hit ''a lot'' in a ''very'' short period of time if you aren’t careful.

* Schrodinger the Cat in ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'' is taking out [[spoiler:Kain]]'s 9999 hit points one by one.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Oglaf}}'' a swordmaster instructs his apprentice on how to defeat a larger, stronger opponent by seeking victory over one limb at a time.

* In ''WebAnimation/EpithetErased'', Sylvie has an attack called Counting Sheep, which summons many sheep, each doing 1-2 damage. One alone isn't deadly, but the massive herd that he summons in episode 2 is very dangerous.
* Referenced in the ''WebVideo/DragonballZAbridged'' parody of the [[Anime/DragonBallZLordSlug Lord Slug movie]]. When Gohan attempts to attack Slug's army of mooks, one of Slug's mooks warns Gohan that they'll shoot him with their blasters. Gohan confidently declares "[[ExactWords One of those does nothing]]!", prompting the mook to retort "[[ArmorPiercingQuestion How about a hundred]]?" followed by a whole mess of mooks doing a DramaticGunCock. Gohan suddenly seems much more worried. He's right to be, as the mooks blast Gohan out of the sky seconds later.

* 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.
* Sarevok, the BigBad from ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'', naturally takes quite a few hits to take down in the game. Well, in the cinematics at the beginning of [[VideoGame/BaldursGateII the sequel]], he's shown in a flashback as having died with about fifteen arrows and four larger implements still sticking out of his chest. These aren't small injuries, mind; presumably he was [[MadeOfIron just that tough]]. Poison weapons, which do repeated single points of damage, are also a good strategy for taking on spellcasters, whose spells are interrupted every time they take damage.
** General rule is that, in the same timeframe, having more attacks is always better than one devastating attack, both for pure damage dealing and to compensate missed rolls (unless we are comparing non magical clubs to an InfinityPlusOneSword). This is particularly true from mid-''Shadows of Amn'' onwards, when major enemies start to bypass anyway your armor class, shields become almost useless and pure damage dealing grows in importance. Besides class and weapon proficiency, there are three common ways of achieving high attacks per round (APR): 1) invest points in dual wielding weapons; 2) use spells like haste, potions like oil of speed or high level abilities like whirlwind; 3) wield weapons that grant one additional attack per round, mostly enchanted small swords. Now combine all these factors into one single character who dual wields in the off hand a weapon that increases attacks per round (the effect is applied to the main hand too which is big) like Kundane or Belm, then cast improved haste. Enjoy the sheer amount of damage you cause to your opponents in a room of seconds. While all the various instances and weapons in game are usually viable even with suboptimal battle setups, high level characters and their innate powers can be micromanaged to broken results, ending spectacularly into this trope when abusing of the greater whirlwind ability.
** It works also for missiles. The Tuigan Shortbow and the Light Crossbow of Speed are the ingame equivalent to machine guns and are regarded among the best ranged weapons in game - until very late game when you need at least +3 weapons to hit bosses.
* 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.
** Shedinja can safely use this as a valid tactic at times, due to its Wonder Guard ability making it immune to attacks that don't hit it for super effective damage, thus allowing it to potentially chip away at the health of a much higher leveled Pokemon that lacks a means of harming it. After gaining the ability to use Will-O-Wisp in later generations, it's not quite as tedious of a process due to the percent based damage the burn caused by said move inflicts.
** [[http://www.smogon.com/dp/pokemon/kakuna This joke page]] detailing Kakuna's uses in the {{Metagame}} plays this trope for laughs.
-->"With Bug Bite, Kakuna is not walled by the likes of Steelix and Steel-type Arceus. As a matter of fact, Bug Bite's addition lowers max HP / max Def Steelix from a 94-hit-KO to a 36HKO. Max HP Steel-type Arceus is now a 25 HKO, while min HP/Def Psychic Arceus is a 22HKO."
** The [[RecursiveAdaptation video game adaptation]] of the [[TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} Trading Card Game]] ran into a problem of this nature. Because the coin flips in the game have predetermined outcomes, nothing is actually random, and so chains of heads or tails come up far more times than chance allows. Thus, if a Pokémon has a [[StandardStatusEffects paralysis]]-inducing attack, there is a much greater chance that the player can paralyze the opponent every turn until the Defending Pokémon is knocked out -- even if the attack is very weak and the defense has a lot of HP.
** In a more traditional sense, there are moves like Fury Swipes, Icicle Spear, and Rock Blast that hit for small amounts of damage multiple times per turn. In most cases, these attacks are unreliable because they hit a random amount of times, between 2 and 5, per turn. [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Generation V]] introduced an Ability called Skill Link, however, that guarantees these attacks will always hit the maximum 5 times, making them useful when used by Pokémon with Skill Link.
* Human military soldiers have to do this in ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'', because they simply can't do that much damage. It's a different story if they have grenade or missile launchers, but generally the rifle-carrying soldiers will just pour bullets into you until you stop moving.
* In ''VideoGame/Ready2RumbleBoxing'', it's possible to use any punch an unlimited number of times if you have enough stamina. If it's fast enough that the opponent can't block the second after the first connects, you can get a knockdown using only that one basic low-damage punch. This not only is the most effective strategy in the game, it's pretty much the ''only'' way to get knockouts in Gold class, as your opponents will simply block all your high-damage shots. The most blatant example is Damien Black, a huge demon with a pulverizing 5-hit combo and a simple right to the body that takes off a massive chunk of life. And a boring little jab. Guess what he's going to be doing all the time once everything else stops connecting. Ready 2 Rumble Round 2 subverts this somewhat, as it's no longer possible to do unlimited fast punches and Rumble Flurries are more effective, but you'll still get far more mileage out of simple jabs and straights than any of the specialties (many of which now do barely more damage than the basic punches anyway).
* With its pitiful damage output and painfully slow attack speed, the Combat Knife of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' fame is typically regarded as a JokeWeapon and tossed in an item box at the first available opportunity. The exception to this rule occurs in ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvilCodeVeronica Code: Veronica]]'', in which, for some reason, the knife registers multiple hits per swing. All those minor-damage hits stacking up over a short amount of time results in the knife becoming [[LethalJokeItem one of the most surprisingly effective weapons in the game]].
** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', however, makes it possibly the most valuable weapon in the game since it doesn't take up inventory slots and it's a godsend against unshielded/helmeted Ganados. [[GoodBadBugs Plus it's a godsend against Krauser.]]
* "One Thousand Cuts" is actually the name of the final power of the [[DualWielding Dual Blades]] powerset in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. Though the animation seems to indicate it is only a couple dozen slashes at most, and the power only deals twelve separate ticks of damage, those ticks of damage are individually lower than most other slashes in the powerset yet add up to become the strongest power in the set.
* 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.
** The player risks being on the receiving end in Kha'ak and Xenon sectors. Such sectors will spawn enemies without end, which ''will'' eventually wear you down.
** [[AttackDrone Drone]] {{spam|Attack}}. Stuff a freighter or frigate with fighter drones (you can fit thousands in a small freighter, and ''tens of thousands'' in a large), then eject them all at once. There is [[AIBreaker no way for the computer to respond to that]].
* Normally, you can't do this in ''VideoGame/DesktopDungeons''. If you injure an enemy, then retreat to heal up, the enemy will also heal. However, Poison in this game cancels regeneration. So a very viable strategy is to attack an enemy until the next hit would kill you, cast APHEELSIK (the Poison spell), then retreat until you're at full health and resume. This is how the Assassin (the class that unlocks APHEELSIK) works.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' gives us the nightmarish player character, MEATGOD. Meatgod was a player who wore adamant armor, and carried a little bronze hammer. Because Meatgod liked to get to know his enemies as he slowly beat his enemies to death with a dinky little hammer, he became legendary for his horrible actions (there's a MEATGOD achievement on the forums, for killing a megabeast with a no quality weapon). He once took on seven giants over a period of several days. The first couple of days, the giants would go at him, and he'd pound them until they collapsed from exhaustion. Then he'd leave and come back the next day. After a couple of days, they started running away at the sight of him. A couple days after that, they couldn't run anymore, due to having broken legs. On the last day, they didn't even try to struggle anymore, either due to exhaustion, blood loss, and painful injuries, or perhaps just that after several days of slow and torturous beatings, they welcomed death with open arms.
* ''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.
** Not just possible - often required. Being rather NintendoHard for most players, it happens more often than not that a boss will kill at least one of your lives. When that happens, a replacement weapon for your new life is not at all guaranteed, often leaving you stuck with the pistol.
* This is almost always the fate of the player in ''VideoGame/CrushCrumbleAndChomp''; no matter how good you play, eventually the human forces will overwhelm you with attacks faster than your ability to heal/recover.
* It is theoretically possible to destroy a tank with small-arms fire in ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance 2 v1.13'' thanks to some armor-piercing rounds (like heavy sniper calibers) having the "Damage Tanks" flag. Fortunately, it is extremely unlikely to survive the tank's retaliation if it manages to interrupt any of your attacks.
* This can end up being a default strategy for Disco Bandits and Accordion Thieves in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing''. Since these two classes focus on Moxie (the stat by which your chance-to-dodge is calculated), it's entirely possible to be so smooth as to be completely untouchable, but your own damage-dealing capabilities are somewhat under par, so it's just a question of whether or not you have the kind of time it takes to beat the bugger.
** [=DBs=] do have Moxious Maneuver to resort to, though.
* This is one of the core mechanics of ''Franchise/MassEffect''. Shields, which many, if not most enemies have at least a bit of, reduces each pellet of damage by a set procentage. This makes weapons like Sniper Rifles and Heavy Pistol less efficient against Shields, but fast-shooting weapons generally just ignore this percentage through volume of fire.
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' on Haestrom, Kal'Reegar mentions that standard procedure for fighting a geth colossus is to "kill it with bug bites".
* 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]].
* This is the NecessaryDrawback of the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII Onion Knight]] and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX Zidane]] in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy''. Both of them are extremely fast and agile, but the majority of their Brave combos (unless they grossly outmatch, in levels, equipment, or both, the opponent) will deal single-digit damage per hit. However, their combos have a ''lot'' of hits, and they move ''really'' quickly, meaning that this isn't necessarily as nonviable as it may sound at first. Interestingly, despite both relying on the thousand cuts strategy, according to the people who make [[CharacterTiers tier sheets]] one is very high-tier while the other is extremely low-tier.
* ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite 2'' went out of its way to avert this by basing its combat on its physics engine, its developers specifically citing the "thousands of spears bringing down a brick wall" scenario as what they were trying to avoid.
* ''VideoGame/RobotAlchemicDrive'' forces you to do this in one mission, where your giant robot is locked into its transformed mode and can't effectively attack. Thus, you're forced to chuck grenades at the enemy giant robot's ankles for 10 minutes before it goes down.
* In theory destroyers from ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheStars'' can take out dreadnoughts. In practice, it's not a good idea because you will lose many destroyers to the dread-user unless the other guy was TooDumbToLive by either equipping his dreads with only anti-capital weapons or rushed them out without getting better weapons. Furthermore, the dread is likely to [[MightyGlacier just lumber through the defensive fire to start glassing the colony behind]].
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'': If you dare to fight the Unicerous on Unknown Mode, your party will have this effect, even the ones who can use the kind of magic that the Unicerous is weak to (Dark). Jade is unquestionably the worst, doing one damage since most of his special attacks are wind-based and the Unicerous is immune to Wind and Light. It's not impossible, and it IS possible to do more damage, provided you're at a much, much higher level.
** This applies to most bosses on Unknown Mode. Arietta, Dist [[spoiler:all three times]], Abaddon, and many more can only have their tens of thousands of health slowly whittled down, one hit point at a time, even if you use 10x experience on NewGamePlus to be at a much higher level than normal.
* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfGraces'', Cheria's level 3 blast caliber is this with knives.
* The Minimum Damage skill in ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'' forces this by reducing the damage of every hit to one. Equipping this skill to certain characters (Such as Yuri or Rita) along with other skills allows for infinite combo-chains with each hit only doing a single point of damage. Combos are a MAJOR factor in determining how much grade you get at the end of a battle. Equip these skills, go to an area with low level enemies, and gradually pummel the poor bastards into oblivion. In less than an hour you'll have more grade than you'll ever need.
* In ''VideoGame/GratuitousSpaceBattles'', this is how fighters not armed with torpedoes kill cruisers, by swarming over them firing lasers and rockets at point-blank into their hulls. Heavily-armored cruisers can be nearly immune to this abuse, as their plating will be so thick that enemy shots will just deflect off, but every shot has a chance to inflict a "lucky shot" that does some damage to the enemy ship's armor. Once the armor is stripped away by enough lucky hits (or heavy weapons like torpedoes or cruiser beam weapons) the cruiser will be vulnerable to fighter weapons. At that point, watching the ensuing assault by fighters is akin to watching piranhas tearing a body to bits.
* Impa in ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriorsAgeOfCalamity'' absolutely fills this role. It's one thing that she's the game's kunoichi with lightning-fast combos and ninja signs, because then you'd expect her to be fast and impressive; but once you fill all three symbols to generate [[DoppelgangerAttack ''eight'' clones of herself]], she can wipe out entire battlefields just spamming the standard attack combo. You don't even need to focus on breaking the weakness-gauge, enemies just ''melt'' when she's on the field.
* In ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'', the PlayerCharacter can learn a style called "Thousand Cuts," which unsurprisingly emphasizes speed and many fast, light hits.
* In {{MOBA}} games, there are some characters who specialize by CherryTapping people a bunch of times. Especially if they are dependent on Attack-speed or spamming their abilities really fast.
** Ezrael in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' basically does this with his abilities. He is capable of bursting, but oftentimes he does just this.
** Juggernaut and Fiora have [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Omnislash]] as their ults in ''[=DotA=]'' and ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', respectively. When there are groups, they jump from enemy to enemy rapidly striking them. When they are alone with their target, however, they stick to them like glue and grind them down with a rain of blows.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', it's completely possible to take down the Ender Dragon (200 HP) with snowballs (1 damage each).
* This is the basis of "A Thousand Deaths", a 50-hit Branch Combo belonging to one of the most powerful combo trees in ''VideoGame/CrossEdge''.
* ''VideoGame/VegaStrike'' has SubsystemDamage probability per hull hit, so once armor is broken, shield-piercing weapons become very efficient, even if weak on raw damage (and most are).
** [[MagneticWeapons Mini Drivers]] has good effective range and mediocre rate of fire, but lower damage per second than for any other Medium or even Light weapon, except Micro-driver (it's at least faster and thus useful against missiles). So low that the weakest DeflectorShields stop 2 hits at once and the shield-bypassing part needs ''100'' hits to breach the weakest armor -- then it's more likely to [[SubsystemDamage break shield generator]] than kill the hull outright. Even shuttles not armed with anything better got much stronger shields, while balls aren't very fast and miss anything maneuverable as often as not. The main weapon of "Redeemer" are two mini-drivers, the purpose of which seems to be inciting the hatred of [[EvilLuddite Luddites]]: an encounter almost always ends only in paying for armor repair. Yet the communicator logs show kill messages by Redeemers, sometimes against fairly good ships.
** In a less emphasized fashion, [[EnergyWeapon lasers]]: they are weak, but got long range and shield-piercing, so a ship opens fire earlier and kills gradually by strafes rather than going in for an overwhelming barrage.
* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'' has this in all the games with blocking. You can block attacks, but many enemies (and all bosses) will do a tiny bit of damage through the guard, unless you have certain abilities. Depending on the duration of an attack, guarding can sometimes cause Kirby to take ''more'' total damage due to the lack of MercyInvincibility.
* A sidequest in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' involves Connor being sent to find an Über-bear that has been terrorizing the locals. A normal bear takes three strikes from the hidden blade to bring down. This one takes ''six''. Of course, combat with dangerous animals boils down to PressXToNotDie.
* In ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'', a number of the weapons count (though the 20-turn limit prevents extreme cases), but the best example is Rin's cats. Although they won't hit for very much each, as the game goes on and she trains with them more and more, she can be hitting over 10 times every turn. It's precisely because of this that Rin becomes very hard to beat by the end of the battle segments.
* [[SuperSpeed Speedsters]] in {{Fighting Game}}s with particularly open-ended combo systems can invoke this. Once they get their {{Combo}} going, [[DiminishingReturnsForBalance damage scaling]] will mean that even heavy attacks will deal almost no damage, with the character's damage output being determined more by how long the combo lasts rather than how hard they actually hit. The best example of such a character in recent memory is probably [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry Dante]] in ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'', as seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR_C367v2rQ here.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'': It doesn't matter how much HP that gargantuan monstrosity has, there's no foe that can't be vanquished by throwing more Pikmin at it and letting 20+ pairs of tiny fists do the work for you. Alternatively, you can attack enemies directly if your captain doesn't have any Pikmin available for tossing by punching them, which does only marginally more damage then a hit from the weakest of Pikmin. Regardless, it's actually a viable tactic against some foes (As long as you have time to spare), as a number of them are completely incapable of harming you, but can do a number on your Pikmin. ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'' even offers an upgrade to your captains' punching power.
* This is effective in ''Stars!'' , a 16-bit 4X space empire game, due to limitations in the variable handling. An attack always causes at least 1/512th damage to a stack of ships, which means a full stack of huge battlecruisers can be destroyed by a large number of scouts with a single torpedo each. Invoking this intentionally is often considered cheating, but there's a fine line between abuse and effective use of small ship tactics. It's not terribly hard to defend against, however.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}}'', this trope is the default tactic used against stronger Sebillians, especially before advanced weaponry is researched.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Clonk}}'', thrown objects such as rocks deal ScratchDamage. Throwing dozens at a monster from somewhere it can't reach you is a viable tactic.
* This is how [[RayGun blasters and blaster rifles]] end up working in ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' ''VI'' and ''VII''. Their base damage isn't ''that'' impressive for the latter part of the game (when you get them -- they're LostTechnology), especially since it can't be improved (the associated skill ''only'' increases the bonus to hit things with them, and unlike other weapons they can't be enchanted). Their rate of fire, on the other hand, is very high, and so is their ability to actually hit things (outside the blast being blocked by walls). Combine with a unique damage type that no monster is resistant or immune to, and bombarding enemies with dozens of blaster shots becomes a valid (even necessary, in one case) end-game tactic.
* In ''[[VideoGame/NexusWar Nexus Clash]]'', attacks always do at least one point of damage, unless you're immune to the damage type. This makes mundane forms of damage something of a LethalJokeItem - it's easy to reduce damage from mundane weapons with armor, but impossible to become immune to them, so even the mightiest of characters can be pinged to death with a pipe wrench. It's especially dangerous when combined with SummonMagic, since summoners can throw so many damage-dealing pets into a fight.
* Every character in ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterIII Third Strike]]'' has a PracticalTaunt, but only a portion can connect as weak attacks. While such taunts can be used as a finishing move, they can also wear opponents down with enough hits. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OZiteIAJj0 For example, Necro's tongue.]]
* In ''VideoGame/SpiralKnights'', there are several weapons lines that do this. One is the Autogun line, which shoots 6 weak bullets at a time. The fully upgraded Blitz Needle is considered one of the most powerful weapons in the game.
** Another is the Striker line, which consists of very fast hitting [[SerratedBladeOfPain jagged blades]] with weak attack power.
* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', the Rogue class specialization Tempest has an ability literally called Thousand Cuts. It involves the rogue zipping around between all enemies in range, attacking them a number of times that depends on how high the Focus meter currently is. While not actually a thousand attacks are made, at tier 3 Focus, it's 38 attacks at 300% weapon damage which adds up to the equivalent of 124 regular attacks done in 2 seconds, enough to take about 1/3 off a High Dragon's health bar. Bonus points for the ability expending no Focus resource at all when combined with Flask of Fire, meaning it can be used about once every 30 seconds which makes it a complete GameBreaker.

Generally speaking, any game with a straightforward HP system allows for this, unless the enemy is simply too effective at fighting back to pull off the technique with your own HP intact.
* ''VideoGame/StarRuler'': With enough guns and ships, you can take out planets and stars. Yes, swarms of very small ships with railguns can blow up a star. It will take a long time, but it's possible.

* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** Nearly every installment from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' onward features a monster called the Cactuar. It uses a FixedDamageAttack called "One Thousand Needles" that deals ''exactly'' 1,000 HP damage to your character in really fast 1 HP increments. In some games, there also exists a ''Jumbo Cactuar'', which uses a "Ten Thousand Needles" attack that ''kills'' a character outright (since the HP {{cap}} in most FF games usually tops out at 9,999, and you take [[TheLastStraw one needle too many]]).
*** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'', you can add "One Thousand Needles" to your arsenal of skills. As Fixed Damage Attacks ignore defense by their very nature, this skill is most helpful against enemies with high defense or defense-enhancing abilities.
*** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', you can contract the Jumbo Cactuar as a Summon Mon, and its attack (1,000 Needles) deals 1,000 HP damage ''PER 10 OF HIS LEVELS''. So by the end of the game, once you've finished leveling your Cactuar Summon to level 100, it can break the damage cap by dealing exactly 10,000 damage. Essential to killing some of the strongest bosses out there, including the Red Giant in the final boss castle. Plus, since this attack deals a completely fixed (and guaranteed!) amount of damage, getting Cactuar to level 100 is usually a '''VERY''' good idea.
*** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', a difficult-to-earn ability in the late game raises the HP cap of your characters from 9,999 to '''99,999'''. Alas, one Optional Boss, the Cactuar King, can nullify this advantage with its signature move: '''[[UpToEleven 99,999 Needles]]'''.
*** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'', Cactaur appears as a [[DownloadableContent DLC]] Summon with '1,000 Needles!' as its only summon ability and '10,000 Needles?' as its [[LimitBreak ultimate]] [[LastDitchMove attack]].
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'': [[BareFistedMonk Zell]] has a LimitBreak that involves inputting different commands to use a combo and then a finisher, which ends the LimitBreak. However, if you want to deal the maximum amount of damage possible, just keep inputting the same two starting combo commands over and over -- the attacks are the weakest out of all of his moves, but they can be implemented incredibly quickly and keep the combo going as long as possible, ultimately dealing far more damage total than the actual combo finishers. The FanNickname for this move is "Armageddon Fist", and with good reason: under favourable conditions, Zell can hit an enemy over 60 times and continually reach the damage cap, potentially dealing ''over 500,000 points of damage'' this way.
*** Similarly, Irvine's "machine gun ammo" limit break can do a lot of damage this way. The machine gun ammo is the weakest per shot, but it's cheap and easy to obtain and you can pump out a lot of shots per attack, ultimately doing more damage than you do with his more expensive and more powerful, but slower, types of ammo.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'': Dancers have an ability that does piddling damage (even in jobs that grant better attack stats than Dancer), but since it is activated based on its own speed and not player speed, this damage adds up over time, especially in battles where it takes a couple of turns for the enemy to reach the player.

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'': near the end of the game you fight Jojora (some kind of ice fairy) and her friend. You have to defeat the friend (a giant snow-doll creature), but it's not necessary to beat Jojora. Many players believe it is actually impossible to kill her; she has the highest defense in the game and every attack only does 1 damage (plus, if you knock her wand out, she leaves the fight for a couple of turns). However, the designers actually intended vigilant players to be able to beat her - she only has 50 HP. A multi-hitting attack will wear her HP down in no time, and she drops a rare item and gives decent experience for your trouble.
** ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPartnersInTime'' has the Gold Koopeleons, which also have the highest defense in the game. They only have 10 HP, and every attack, again, only does 1 damage, with the exception of counters and First Strikes, which can do considerably more, for some reason (even killing them instantly at high enough levels). These enemies have a high speed rating, so they usually move first at normal levels when you first reach them, and they have a high chance of running from battle. However, they drop the most coins of any enemy in the game (80 in most versions and 100 in the American version), which can be doubled, or even TRIPLED with a certain badge. They usually appear in groups of two or three, and if only two appear it is possible to run from the battle and re-engage them, and three might be present! A multi-hitting Bros. Item such as a Red Shell can defeat all three of them in one turn (in the hands of a skilled player); hence it is highly recommended to come back and defeat these creatures once the player's speed rating is high enough to always move first -- the rewards are very worthwhile. Using the aforementioned coin-tripling badge, this is easily the fastest way of earning money in the game.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'': Goombario's Multibonk attack only deals one damage per hit. However, it keeps hitting until the player misses an action command or the targeted enemy dies, and with good reflexes and a good bit of patience it can stack up enough damage to bring down even a powerful foe.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' averts this, as damage is small enough that the calculation by subtracting defense from attack (used in some other [=RPGs=] such as ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'') is a big deal, and thus attacks that do many weak hits (like Yoshi's stampede) do no damage to enemies with any defense unless their base attack value is boosted. Still, each multi-hit does less damage than the previous, but as long as the first one does damage, the rest will also do at least 1 [[HitPoints HP]] worth of damage.
** ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'': There is one room near the end of each Pit of 100 Trials that is filled with Goombas. This appears to be a breather, except that these are Headbonk Goombas, meaning that they'll jump and headbutt Mario as soon as they spot him. The Goombas are very weak, but their endless attack can KO Mario in seconds. In the Flipside Pit, they can be picked out by their irregular color, but in the Flopside Pit, they look the same as any other Goomba.
** ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'':
*** The game makes use of this in the Sacred Forest -- the enemies have been shrunk, but blocking attacks in this game will still do at least 1 HP. Swarms of tiny Goombas will do a LOT more damage than you might expect.
*** If you're not prepared in Toad Trainworks, the group of passengers who take out their frustrations on Mario can also be this. [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath Yikes!]]

* The [[GunsAkimbo Dual Vipers]] in ''VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked'' are this. They start with 200 ammo and 10 damage; compare to the [[ShotgunsAreJustBetter Magma Cannon]], the other starting weapon, which begins with 20 ammo and 60 damage. It's telling that while other weapons get at minimum a 20 damage increase when they level up (the Magma Cannon uses this number until the 8-9 transition; leveling to 9 and 10 give 50 damage each), the damage increases for the Vipers rarely leave the ''single'' digits (leveling to level 8 is a 12 damage increase and the level 10 upgrade also increases the damage by 10). In the end, the V99 Vulcan Cannon, the Magma Cannon at the highest level, has a damage stat of 567. The maxed Dual Raptors? 168.
** This is in general the case with the pistol weapons in the entire series, with the possible exception of [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2002 the Blaster]], due to how damage system worked in that game. They all have ammo capacity in hundreds of shots, but single shot rarely kills anything than the weakest anklebiters (if even that). This rarely changes even when Mega-upgrades become available.
** This trope applies to other weapons as well, usually to sentry guns/bots before they upgrade. For example Miniturret Glove/Launcher places a turret that shoots at enemies, and which single shot does pitiful damage, but continuous spraying from one or more of them is capable of wiping out a small group of monsters. Not so much after it upgrades, when it starts shooting rockets or lasers, depending on the game.
* Blue Eco weapons in ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'' series. They have lower damage than Yellow Eco weapons per shot but their rate of fire allows them to defeat enemies quickly. This is especially true for Needle Laser in ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'', where one tiny laser doesn't do much, but an entire barrage of them is another matter. Too bad it eats ammo like there's no tomorrow.
* This is one of Aht's two main methods of attack (the other being a TrapMaster) in ''VideoGame/RadiantHistoria''. Her physical attack is puny, but most of her physical skills involve throwing multiple daggers at an opponent. Unlike most examples, though, this isn't intended to kill an enemy by attacking it multiple times, but rather to set up {{Combos}} with other members of your party, since the more hits an enemy takes in a combo, the more damage they take from later hits in the combo (meaning Aht can hammer an enemy with multiple weak attacks to rack up the combo, then another character can use one massive attack to finish them off).
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' is the classic "Riflemen killing a tank" example, offset by the fact that a tank can usually save itself by [[CarFu running the infantry over]]. A particularly bad example is found in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]: Yuri's Revenge'', where the HeroUnit Boris is capable, when powered up, of killing heavy tanks in two or three bursts of his AK-47. Same for deployed GI troops who can in groups of 5 or more decimate pretty much anything non-air.
** One of the add-on packs for ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert Red Alert]]'' featured a mission with a Soviet SuperSoldier who was ridiculously tough and did twice as much damage to anything he fought as they did to him. This reached an absurd height when you had him take on a battleship and win easily.
* The Toxin General of ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals Generals]]'' - Zero Hour. Massing chemical troopers could wear down anything on the ground, especially with the Anthrax Gamma upgrade. Yes you read that right - it was possible to destroy steel-and-cement structures by shooting poison at them.

* ''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 original ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', one lucky roll could allow a warrior with a spear to beat an armored vehicle. Later games in the series expand the rules to make this far more unlikely, but it's still possible.
* In ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilation'', a fun but useless attack is to build hundreds of "Fleas" and sic them on the enemy. A more useful attack is the "Peewee rush" in which dozens of Peewees can obliterate a base in mere moments.
** Some players eschew building heavy bomber aircraft altogether and just build swarms of fighters. Their missiles do piddling damage to ground units, but enough of them *will* eventually destroy anything and they're so fast most defences will have a hard time targeting them. Indeed, if the battle conditions are set so that the death of the enemy Commander wins you the game, one of the most effective strategies is to just build as many fighters as you can - a couple hundred, preferably - and a bunch of scout planes. Send the scouts on suicide exploration runs and as soon as the Commander is spotted mass-select all your fighters and attack the Commander. Game over.
** Also, a couple of dozen Construction Aircraft given orders to recycle can quickly erase enemy structures and units from the map. About the only thing they can't wipe out is the enemy commander, and that's only because he can blow them all up with one shot from his Disintegration Gun.
* This is evident even in fighting games such as ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom2'', where certain characters can '''spam''' multiple-hitting special attacks repeatedly. Even if the attacks are blocked, they still inflict minor damage. After enough attacks, you may find yourself in a position to be [[CherryTapping cherry tapped]]. Most likely you will lose from '''cheese''' (death from block damage in ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' is evidenced by a cheese-wedge icon), as your opponent revs up a [[LimitBreak Super Combo]], because ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill.

* An odd version was present in ''VideoGame/WarCraftII'', where gold mines could be destroyed, though their HP was as high as the game's engine would allow for a unit or structure. This led to interesting sights, such as a group of footmen hacking away at a mine... until it collapsed.
* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' has this. In fact, "infantry spam" is a slow-but-effective strategy for succeeding in any ground war.
** The other advantage of an infantry swarm is that, at most, a unit can destroy one other unit per turn (there are ways to attack multiple units, but none of these in any game can actually destroy that unit). Only the most powerful units can one-hit an infantry unit from full health, so it can be quite tricky to fight back the wall. The only problem to using only infantry, as opposed to infantry meat shielding artillery and rockets, is that it takes just as much time and structures to build an infantry as a [=MegaTank=] (just much more cash). A Mechanized Infantry rush (Mechs can do considerable damage to any land unit if they strike first) is generally more effective (especially against very large units, where the mech can move up, do a small but notable amount of damage, and get gunned down to make way for more mechs).
* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoqNnaBl5NE Fighting a dragon by slashing it over and over for 1 damage each.]]
** This is a good tactic for any weak unit going through the arena with a sleep sword. Anything that falls asleep stays asleep for a set number of turns -- but turns don't pass while in the arena. The only thing preventing this from becoming a downright game breaker is the fact that you can only do the arena so many times.
* In the original ''VideoGame/WingCommander'', it was possible for even the weakest fighter to destroy any capital ship if you could shoot it enough times. Later games alternated between large capital ships being invulnerable or vulnerable to everything except special "torpedo" missiles.
* Similarly, ''[[VideoGame/FreeSpace Descent: Freespace]]'' allowed a player's guns to do damage to capital ships -- very slowly. ''Freespace 2'' didn't: fighter guns could only do a certain amount of damage to capital ships, which had to be killed by either torpedoes or other capital ships.
* 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 the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series, punching (with bare hands, no less), kicking and stomping on a car enough times will result in denting, windows breaking, doors and body panels falling off, and eventually, [[EveryCarIsAPinto the car exploding]]. In that order. Never mind that the characters should have bruised, cut and fractured hands doing so -- [[StrongFleshWeakSteel they're perfectly healthy even after punching three trucks to explosion]].
* In the ''VideoGame/XWing'' series, a fighter can kill any capital ship with just its laser blasters, though avoiding the capital ship's own turbolaser turrets is a problem. A fighter's ion guns can disable even a Star Destroyer in a few shots, if the shields are down. ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'' and later installments even allow you to destroy subsystems on capital ships, so once you clear away enough guns and disable the engines you can literally park your fighter beside the ship, put a rubber band around the trigger, and go get coffee while the Star Destroyer or Mon Calamari Cruiser slowly dies.
** In the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe, fighters are considered a major threat to capital ships if they use mass-fire tactics with missile weapons. In fairness to the trope, their lasers are usually depicted as too weak to deal any major damage to a capital ship, but the point stands that Rebel fighters were such a threat to Imperial capital ships that a special ship design composed mostly of a hull and a metric buttload of laser cannons, the ''Lancer''-class frigate, was made just to kill fighters.
*** [[AwesomeButImpractical Which proved too slow, costly, and manpower-intensive for wide deployment,]] [[CripplingOverspecialization and was helpless against other capital ships.]] Most admirals eschewed it in favor of expendable TIE screens.
*** Having a TIE screen around was pretty much ''vital'' for most Imperial ships. Without their fighter screens, they were vulnerable to Trench Run Disease--the types of tactics that eventually destroyed the first Death Star. Granted, most Star Destroyers didn't have an exhaust port that led straight to the reactor core, but they did have exposed shield generators and the same type of turbolaser batteries. The tactics that win in the video game above? While not as effective in the EU, given enough time and the right conditions, they ''would'' eventually kill a Star Destroyer.
* In ''VideoGame/MadWorld'', bosses that seem to not sustain much damage from regular attacks (including [[MadeOfIron being sliced with a goddamn chainsaw]]) can eventually be worn down if you just keep on punching them, although for most there's quicktime sequences you can initiate to damage them much more efficiently.
** Also, one of the finishers with the daggers has you literally [[LiteralMinded stabbing your enemy in the chest about a thousand times]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}} 2'', several ships are built especially to inflict death of a thousand cuts, particularly the bombers and the Vaygr Laser Corvettes. Actually, most small ships can overrun the big guns when given time.
** The first game's expansion, ''VideoGame/HomeworldCataclysm'', has the drone frigates - ships that have no weapons themselves, but have onboard factories that quickly generate large numbers of drones. Each drone is armed but with one small gun and is practically insignificant by itself, but deadly in large numbers.

* Prior to getting the Mega Buster chargeable ArmCannon, several ''VideoGame/MegaManClassic'' games had a weapon that was no more ''effective'' in damage than the normal gun, but had such a fast rate of fire that players would use them exclusively unless they were out of power or not effective against a given enemy. Examples include the "Metal Blade" (''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', aimable) and "Needle Cannon" (''VideoGame/MegaMan3'', full-auto in three round bursts).
** Similarly, one of the Beast Out powerup forms gave you a rapid-firing buster, at the cost of not being able to charge your shots. While normal charged shots can deal around 10 damage at the beginning, Beast Out lets you fire more than 10 bullets in the same time it took to charge, resulting in a flurry of bullets raining down on your opponent (in some cases can even make certain battlechips obsolete).
** Model HX in ''[[VideoGame/MegaManZX ZX]]'' turned out to be a GameBreaker because of this. One of its moves is to create a tornado that sits in one place and attacks 16 times. The final boss was (of course) a OneWingedAngel, and its stationary [[AttackItsWeakPoint damage point]] was just ''asking'' to be tornado'd to death.
** Similar to Model H is the very first of ''VideoGame/MegaManX's'' PowerCopying attacks, Storm Tornado, considered a GameBreaker due to the fact that one use can score multiple hits on multiple enemies.
*** A literal example can be performed with Zero in the fourth, fifth, and sixth games in the series. The first hit of his basic [[LaserBlade Z-Saber]] combo, while weak, doesn't cause MercyInvincibility against most of the bosses and can be canceled with a dash then immediately performed again. The amount of hits you can land in the span of a second is practically limited only by how quickly you can alternate the attack and dash buttons (A fact that predictably gets abused to a hilarious degree in tool-assisted {{Speedrun}}s).
** ''VideoGame/MegaManZero 3'' has the 1000 Slash learned from Deathtanz Mantisk, which sees Zero performing countless stabs with the Recoil Rod so long as the button the Rod's equipped in is pressed several times (it has the drawback of Zero remaining immobile). In ''Zero 4'', the Ice Javelin can also score several hits due to the nature of the projectile.
* Wanna know what's the best short-range weapon in most if not all ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' games? The ''machine gun''. You're supposed to mount one or two to fight infantry, because they do piddling damage individually, but stats-wise (that is, considering ammo load, heat generation and damage) they're the most efficient weapon in the game. Take a large ballistic-weapon-based Mech and load as many machine guns as it can take, and you make it into the ultimate close-range brawler. If more range is needed, small autocannons like the [=AC2=] work well.
** Ironically, the heavy weapons are more effective on ''light'' mechs, as the things are often too agile to keep a bead on, but it's usually fairly easy to get them in your sights for the split-second necessary to hit them with a PPC or similar weapon.
** It usually doesn't pay to choose superheavy mechs (such as the Atlas) in the new ''VideoGame/MechWarriorOnline'' game, unless you're a pro who actually knows how to use them. They're powerful and heavily armored, but ''very'' slow both to move and turn, which means all that armor simply delays your death when, inevitably, a bunch of light scout Mechs start walking around you and peppering you with light lasers until they erode it all away.
*** On the other hand, said heavy mech's best weapon against light mechs is the ''same'' thousand cuts, by spewing out a constant stream of laser, or light autocannon fire, to simply make it so that ''at all times'' there's something firing, and to then wave the cursor in large sweeps, dealing minimal damage each time, but to a [[FragileSpeedster Light Mech]] they're still notable, and can't be dodged.
* In ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000: VideoGame/DawnOfWar'', the armour types system means that most basic infantry are not supposed to scratch the toughest armour types. In practice, however, ScratchDamage still occurs. Nevertheless, fans have made mods that indeed make buildings impervious to small arms.
** In a later Relic game, ''VideoGame/CompanyOfHeroes'', rifles may indeed do light damage to armored cars or scout vehicles, they will do NOTHING to a tank, even attacking their weaker rear armor. Strangely, this doesn't carry entirely over to the critical hit table: infantry dealing enough [[MoreDakka dakka]] to the back of armored vehicles may eventually deal engine damage, even if the vehicle's HP is full.
** This trend was continued with the sequel to ''Dawn of War'', with the notable exception that some common weapons really are powerful enough to do light damage to tanks -- the SpaceMarine bolter fires high explosive rockets, and Ork weapons aren't too much weaker than that, especially since they bring MoreDakka.
** In ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000Spacemarine'', the most dangerous opponent in the game is the humble Chaos infantryman. Their lasguns don't do a lot of damage, but their numbers and rate of fire mean they can swiftly whittle your health down to nothing if you don't get rid of them quickly before you have to focus on the more individually threatening Chaos Marines and Daemons.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', it's not rare to find yourself taking out ''entire fleets [[OneManArmy by yourself]]'' with just your guns, enough repair supplies, and [[GodWasMyCoPilot the will of the Holy Spirit]], and this is thanks to each shot dealing at least a little bit of damage. In fact, a popular SelfImposedChallenge in one of the late missions involves destroying ''3 battleships, 5 cruisers and 6 gunships''.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Age of Empires|I}}'' and ''2'', a large enough number of guys with swords can storm a castle. ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII'' has all characters who can damage a building use a separate siege attack -- an inexhaustible supply of torches.
** Doesn't even need to be a large number - if the building can't shoot arrows at you (or sometimes even that, as towers need technology to shoot at their feet) one swordsman is enough!
*** There's even legends being passed around about an archer who was the only survivor of an invading army headed for the enemy's town. He was forgotten about and later discovered by the second wave of attackers, who have found that he shot arrows at the town's stone walls, dealing 1 damage per arrow. The wall had already started crumbling before him.
** Spearmen and Pikemen are ''more'' effective against War Elephants than Swordsmen; they get a bonus against cavalry, and the fact that in this case the "cavalry" are pachyderms isn't factored in. One will hurt an elephant pretty badly before he dies, and three or four will kill one.
* ''VideoGame/GinormoSword''. While the object (sorta) of the game is to boost your weapon of choice to levels at which it covers the entire screen, the strongest monsters can still take hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of hits to suffer any sort of dent in their HP -- even when your strength stat is in the thousands.
* ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'''s battle system takes into account how many enemies are attacking you at a given time. If the number of enemies you are fighting goes above a certain threshold, your DEF and FLEE get reduced by a certain amount per enemy. Therefore, it is possible to have a sufficient number of Porings handily trounce a level 99 knight.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}} [[VideoGame/Fallout1 1]]'', ''[[VideoGame/Fallout2 2]]'' and ''Tactics'', final attack damage is calculated first by subtracting any Damage Threshold offered by a character's armor from the attacker's rolled damage, then subtracting from any leftover damage the character's Damage Resistance, a percentile: for example, PoweredArmor in the first game had 12/40 protection against normal damage, making the sniper rifle the only weapon guaranteed to cause damage outside of critical hits. Bethesda's ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' eliminates DT and only uses DR for armor, meaning that even the toughest hombre wearing heavy-duty powered armor can still be stabbed to death with a kitchen knife.
** Though DT was reintroduced in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', all attacks now have a minimum percentage of damage that 'leaks' through armor, no matter the Damage Treshold. Thus one can still kill a Tougher-than-tough Alpha Male Deathclaw or a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin in shiny near impregnable armor, with a straight razor...
*** Speaking of which, 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.
** Given rather odd forms sometimes with the ability to target specific areas on your enemies. The Deathclaw's weakness (in the first game) are its [[GoForTheEye eyes]], but it's a tough enemy to beat even if you know that... so you'll end up shooting and hitting it in the eyes and severely damaging them again and again for several minutes before it actually has any effect (and the creature dies).

* In ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', the toughest single standard enemy is likely the military bot. These are like fifteen feet tall, and have chainguns and rocket launchers. Destroying them usually requires multiple hits from a rocket launcher. But one thing: they can only shoot forward, and they turn slowly. So it's not only possible, but ''easy'' to destroy one with a combat knife, as long as no other enemies are around: stand behind it and attack continuously for a few minutes, walking in circles to stay behind as it turns to face you. Eventually it will blow up. If you're not careful you'll lose a limb, admittedly, but at least you won't have wasted any ammo.
* In ''VideoGame/Battlefield2142'', heavily-armored battlewalkers have a WeakSpot that can be attacked with everything but your combat knife. Unless it's an actual anti-vehicle weapon, each hit will do ScratchDamage. Fortunately for the walker pilot, no applicable firearm can wear down the walker in one salvo: all non-machine guns have limited rounds per magazine, and all machine guns suffer from overheating.
** A better example would be the Titan battleships. Once its shields have come down, its vital components can be attacked with, again, everything but knives. Granted, it takes more bullets than any one player carries at one time to wear down everything, but it's entirely possible to take down a Titan by shooting enough lead at its tender spots.
* The ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' series has the Dual Blades, DualWielding daggers; each individual hit might not do a lot of damage, but they're the fastest-hitting weapons in the franchise (especially when you're in [[SuperMode Demon Mode]]), which has lead to players nicknaming them "Murder Blenders". Sword and Shield is this to a lesser extent, being the second fastest weapon type.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology: The Titans'' makes this necessary, as nothing in the game can kill a Titan in one shot. Not even the instant-kill god power Bolt, which only takes out 1300 of the Titan's 8,000 HP. Typical human units do about 10 points of damage to the Titan and try to wear it down, heroes being better at damaging them.
** Even more so, fighting the enemy's army with your Titan will generally lead to your large titan being wasted. Target their buildings, or ''expect'' to lose your Titan to ScratchDamage. It bears reminding that, while very powerful and resistant, the Titans ''can not be healed''.
*** Especially so if your opponent is Egyptian, remember that heroes deal extra damage to mythical units, Titans ARE Mythical Units and that Egyptian priests are considered heroes... Add that to the fact that Mythological Age Priests have a very good range for attacks and a decent attack rating, as well as being decently cheap... Well, let's just say that an army of old dudes could very easily kill Cerberus.
* In ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/EmpireAtWar'' you can take down [=AT-ATs=][[note]]The big, four-legged ones from Hoth.[[/note]] with squads of blaster-pistol-wielding infantry.
* Turn-based strategy games in general tend to have this as a strategy: Go up to a unit. Attack it. You do some damage, it kills you. Pick your next guy. Go up to a unit... In ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'' it's actually such a prevalent strategy for the Undead that many fans of the game use the term "Walker-corpsing" to refer to this strategy in ''other'' games.
* In ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'', the Iron Golem enemies have maximum defense and will only take one damage from any attack. At this point, strong techniques and spells are nearly useless because the enemies have such thick skin. [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman Weaker moves that hit quicker, however, suddenly become much more useful.]]
** The Iron Golem in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow'' takes 9999 hits to kill... assuming you normal attack it. But using a certain soul can swap its monster HP with its almost nonexistent MP, killing it in well... one hit.
** The Knife item crash. Knives/daggers are usually pitifully weak and a waste of Hearts, but throw dozens of them... Some of the crashes don't even take Hearts, but use constantly regenerating MP. Very good in ''Harmony of Dissonance'' and ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight''; the latter features Richter Belmont shredding even [[ThatOneBoss Galamoth]] with it. ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' fittingly calls it something like "1,000 Blades".
** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaJudgment'' Grant has two attacks that launch several knives at your opponent.
** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDespair'', it's possible to kill [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever Menace]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmZsXlqy9Oc with paper airplanes.]]

* In ''VideoGame/HeroesOfAnnihilatedEmpires'', this is a pretty good way of taking out hero units, since although they can have defenses of over a hundred, all attacks cause at least one point of damage (and you typically attack with several ''hundred'' at a time).

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* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' [[DiscussedTrope references this trope]] when Negi's inferiority complex causes him to imagine various gaps between himself and, in this case, a small cat. Because a single cat has a mere 0.5 in power to his 500, he reasons that at least [[http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7037/1001catsrk2.png 1001 cats working together would easily overpower him.]]

* Manga/{{Naruto}}'s [[spoiler:Rasenshuriken]] attack does this also quite literally, cutting and killing [[spoiler:Kakuzu]] with so many cuts that Kakashi's Sharingan couldn't count them all (it counts really fast). If [[spoiler:Kakuzu]] wasn't [[MadeOfDiamond highly durable]], [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill nothing would have been left]] of him (like it's later shown with another foe). You could define [[spoiler:Rasenshuriken]] as "death of a thousand cuts ''all at once''".
** To clarify just how many tiny cuts we're talking here, the attack sliced up ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill every cell in the target's body individually.]]''
* Pretty much the only way to kill [[spoiler:a homunculus]] in Manga/FullmetalAlchemist. Because they have an exceptionally powerful healing factor, the only way to actually kill them is to keep hurting them until they use up all their energy healing themselves. This can take a ''long'' time.

* ''[[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Gundam X]]'' gives us the Correl, a MonsterOfTheWeek [[HumongousMecha mobile suit]] that was made ludicrously fast by stripping it of all non-essential parts ([[FragileSpeedster including most of its armor]]). Its only weapon is a [[LaserBlade beam knife]], which means this trope is its preferred method of attack (in fact, the pilot uses that very phrase to describe it). However, its complete lack of armor meant that Garrod Ran was able to destroy it using the Gundam's vulcan cannons, generally the weakest of a Gundam's armaments.
* In ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam]]'', this is part of the reason Zeon wasn't able to fully conquer Earth even before the Gundam was completed. While the Earth Federation's Saberfish fighters, Fly Mantha fighter-bombers and Type-61 tanks were hopelessly obsolete against Zeon's Mobile Suits, the Federals used their superior numbers to target Zeon supply lines. A Zaku without ammunition and fuel is basically a gigantic statue, after all.
* In one early volume of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'', Ryōga trains a technique with the side effect of making him almost invulnerable to normal attacks, something Ranma wasn't expecting and thus only trained his speed. Ranma's tactic? He hits Ryōga a hundred times in the same spot so fast it looks like just one punch, getting past the augmented endurance by essentially ''tenderizing'' him.
* ''Manga/AttackOnTitan'': [[spoiler:This tactic becomes necessary when fighting Human Titans, which have intelligence and additional weak-spot protection to help them out. The tactic Squad Levi uses on the Female Titan is [[EyeScream gouge out its eyes]] and force it to remain defensive. They then try to hack off its arms then neck in a series of successive strikes.]]

* Franchise/SpiderMan often uses these tactics when up against stronger, slower opponents. His first fight against the Rhino back in the '60s was probably the earliest example.
* In a ''ComicBook/SpirouAndFantasio'' story, the Franchise/{{Marsupilami}} gets a grudge against a 10-meters high dinosaur and smacks it on the head with a big stick, to absolutely no effect. The Marsupilami then proceeds to repeatedly hit the dinosaur's head for ''two days'', after which the giant is finally KO'ed.

* ''ComicBook/BakerStreet'': At the end of the "Honour Among Punks" arc, Davenport and Boxe fall into the ratting pits at the Baskervilles, and bitten hundreds of times by rabid rats.
* In ''ComicBook/JonSableFreelance'' #4, Jon leaves one of the mercenaries who killed his family [[NailedToTheWall nailed to tree]] above a colony of army ants. As the ants start swarming up the man, Sable leaves him and tells him, if he tries hard enough, he can die, before the ants get to him.

* In the ''Fanfic/TamersForeverSeries'' Patamon manages to destroy a wild Clyclonemon by using a barrage of hundreds and hundreds of ''Wing Slaps''
* In the ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4639786/1/Fragmentation Fragmentation]]'', this was a doctrine Executive Outcomes was pushing for Periphery states. One 'Mech can be expensive. One Pike battletank, carrying three long ranged but very weak autocannons is cheap. A 'Mech's price worth of Pikes, on the other hand, could very quickly devour you at ranges your expensive 'Mech couldn't retaliate at. [[ZergRush A half company of Pikes for]] [[OhCrap every 'Mech you bring on the field...]]

* In ''Fanfic/WishCarefully'', Harry's defeat of the Death Eaters plays out like this on a long-term and society-wide scale. The Death Eaters and Voldemort wanted to rule Wizarding England without having to deal with any muggles, squibs, muggleborns or blood traitors ever again, so Harry and his allies surrender control of the country to them while the Light Supporters [[StartMyOwn create their own seperate society]]. The Death Eaters then realize over time that [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor getting exactly what they wanted]] has [[PyrrhicVillainy utterly screwed them over]]. First off, [[FascistButInefficient their economy is completely ruined]] because most of the middle and working classes (aka, the people who ran businesses, produced complex goods, and provided skilled services that kept society's wheels running smoothly) were primarily made up of muggleborns and Light Supporters who left in the Light's exile. Trying to bring muggle money into Wizarding England won't work either, as the contract Harry and his allies created has a stipulation that forbids any contact between the Death Eaters and the muggles and the punishment for breaking the rule [[BroughtDownToNormal is the witch or wizard losing their magic]]. Meanwhile, years of pureblood inbreeding has caused future generations to become magically and intellectually weaker and the population is slowly dying off, and no one wants to immigrate to England (even {{mail order bride}}s won't be given to them), further exacerbating these aforementioned problems. Not to mention they are trapped under [[TheCaligula Voldemort's]] rule, who himself has only become even more unhinged and crueler, with no way to leave. Lucius Malfoy even calls Harry's plan [[GuileHero "Slytherin-like"]] and believes Dumbledore would've been horrified by this.

* In ''Film/{{Them}}'', the giant mutant ants can shrug off individual gunshots, but finally succumb when the characters turn Thompson submachine guns on them.

* In ''Film/{{Fled}}'', a TortureTechnician gets very literal with the trope by using a scalpel to make small incisions on his victims while referencing the trope by name. [[UpToEleven Taken to the next level]] by Magic Box
* The first Kaiju in ''Film/PacificRim'' were killed using massive amounts of conventional weapons , taking several days each to die. Nuclear weapons were faster, but more dangerous, and ultimately the desire to avert this trope and kill the Kaiju quickly and efficiently was what led to the [[HumongousMecha Jaeger]] program.
* In the climactic [[DuelToTheDeath duel]] of ''Film/RobRoy'', the villainous Archibald is both more skilled and much faster than Rob, but also considerably smaller and weaker. As such, his strategy during their SwordFight is to keep his distance and repeatedly inflict light wounds on Rob, until the combination of all those wounds and blood loss weaken Rob enough that Archie can safely finish him off. It ''almost'' works perfectly, as numerous shallow cuts on his arms and torso, an injury suffered earlier in the film, and his own exertions all work together to gradually exhaust Rob, leaving him wounded, on his knees, and gasping for air. Archie makes a grave mistake at the end however, as he delays the CoupDeGrace a few seconds too long due to EvilGloating and checking for approval from the [[AristocratsAreEvil antagonistic Marquess]]. In that time Rob [[BareHandedBladeBlock grabs ahold of Archie's blade]], immobilizing both the sword and Archie just long enough to score a single, massive, and [[OneHitKill very fatal]] blow on Archie.

* Since ''Literature/JudgeDee'' takes place in Imperial China and the protagonist is a magistrate [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingchi lingchi]] appears from time to time. In the original book he sentenced a woman who murdered her husband and drugged her daughter to keep her telling anyone.

* In Creator/DaleBrown's books, while [[PoweredArmor Tin Men]] usually cannot be damaged directly by anything smaller than anti-tank weapons, they can be drained of power, after which they become vulnerable to small arms. This has to do with the unique material they're made of that hardens when something hits it, or something.
* The ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'' had a literal example take place in the execution of Mad Emperor Yuri. Aral Vorkosign got to take the first cut.
* Used realistically in ''Literature/TheSwordOfTruth'' to fight the Empire in that the large force they were going up against was a seemingly endless army. Kahlan leads an army of 1000 against this force using guerrilla warfare and citing this trope. This is really more of a MillionMookMarch and ''Film/ThreeHundred'', though. Otherwise, every army vs. lesser army would qualify for this trope.

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Crysis}} Crysis: Legion]]'': ''I can’t outrun the monster but I can outmaneuver it, dip and weave and jump from ground to rooftop and back again. It would have slaughtered me a dozen times if I hadn’t gotten out of the way a split second before it let loose''. ''And all the time I’m bobbing and dodging and running between its legs, I’m scratching the paint on the hood ornament. After a while, the hood ornament falls off''. ''I start scratching other parts''.
* ''Literature/SnowCrash'': Uncle Enzo combines this with CombatPragmatist when fighting [[spoiler:[[TheDragon Raven]]]], after getting hamstrung by the enemy, who uses glass knives. Enzo sets off a sonic pulse, which fragments all of his opponent's knives, which he has secreted on his person.

* In the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' universe, Superdreadnoughts are the biggest existing Ship Type (only non-Hyper capable and very slow moving mobile Fortresses are bigger) and are designed to exchange direct energy fire with other Superdreadnoughts. This means they are incredibly tough though armored, and unless you get really lucky and hit a reactor it takes a lot of hits to kill them... like those provided by [[MacrossMissileMassacre the heavy missile salvos]] that characterize most engagements between the Manticore Alliance and the (People's) Republic of Haven during the series.
* In Creator/MichaelMoorcock's ''Literature/TheElricSaga'', the hero is confronted with an unkillable Big Bad. The sentient [[EvilWeapon dark sword Stormbringer]] recognises his need and summons the help of a ''million'' multiversal manifestations of itself. All the alternate selves of Stormbringer lay into the Big Bad and subject it to this death.
** Elsewhere, Elric finally catches up with his nemesis Yyrkoon, who grovels and begs for a quick clean death. Elric grins and then lets Stormbringer take his soul - over a protracted period, a tiny little bit at a time...
* The reason for [[FragileSpeedster Zip's]] strike in ''Literature/ThePosterChildren''. She had attacked her sister's boyfriend for hitting her.
-->''The ER nurse said it was somewhere between two and three hundred times.''
* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', Kay muses that, while pretending to be a civilian, he is forbidden from purchasing "red level" weapons, limited only to the less-than-lethal "yellow level", which he claims are, at most, capable of stopping some hoodlums on the street. He ends up getting a Convoy laser pistol, which is only supposed to deliver painful nonlethal burns to scare away an attacker. However, being a professional bodyguard, he knows that the pistol has a full-auto mode and a fairly decent charge in a single power pack, which means that, by holding down the trigger, he could easily cut through a human body in about 2 seconds.
* In ''Literature/HurricaneGold'', Strabo gets eaten alive by army ants.
* In ''Literature/TheLastAmericanVampire'', Henry Sturges explains that vampires actually CAN be killed by normal bullets, it just takes a whole lot of them and quickly enough to overcome their HealingFactor. During the centuries when firearms were limited to single-shot, this wasn't a concern to vampires. Then not too long ago, the machine gun was invented...
* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'': When Gruffle attracts the ire of dozens of protestors at the [[Literature/ManaMutationMenace Mana Mutation Summit]] he knows they can't defeat him; his power as a necromancer is too great. But there are dozens and dozens of them and all of them are firing [[HandBlast mana bolts]]. "Behold the power of the people!"
* ''Series/TheXFiles'' novel ''Whirlwind'' features a small tornado summoned with Native American magic, that strips its victims from their skin due to the pieces of small debris within it.
* As pointed out further down in the videogame examples, the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe makes a big deal of the danger posed to larger capital ships by missile warheads, usually mounted on much lighter fighter craft. Nowhere is this clearer than in one of the ''Literature/XWing'' novels, where a fearsome Super Star Destroyer threatens a planetary colony - and unexpectedly finds itself targeted by ''several hundred'' fixed torpedo placements, with the unimpressed enemy commander nonchalantly reversing the threat. The Destroyer's captain realises that for all of the mighty ship's shielding it can't hope to survive several hundred torpedo hits, and promptly craps her pants. [[spoiler:The enemy turns out to be bluffing - they don't actually have the torpedoes to carry through with the threat nor the emplacements themselves, just lots of ''targeting sensors'' - but the Captain doesn't know that, and it ends up costing her a smaller Star Destroyer right then and the SSD itself later on.]]
* An InUniverse example in ''[[Literature/CiaphasCain The Traitor's Hand]]'', when an Imperial captain out-thinks the commander of a Chaos warship. He lures the Chaos ship into chasing his vessel into the middle of a fleet of civilian ships, then blows away the Chaos ship's primary weapons. The Chaos captain then discovers 1) he's got too much momentum built up to change course easily, 2) all of those civilian ships are armed, and 3) there's a thousand of them. The historian Vail is quoting compares the result to a grox being stung to death by firewasps.

* While King Osbert's army in ''Literature/GrentsFall'' has higher quality troops and better leadership, no victory is without casualties.

* More generally, static modifiers add up with each separate application.

* In'' TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'', all objects have a durability rating. Only damage in excess of that rating will count against the object. For example, if six damage is done to an object with durability five, only one damage is done to the structure. But damage rolls are open-ended, and so even the weeniest attack has a nonzero chance of beating any given durability. If you keep hacking at a brick wall with spoons you'll eventually grind it to dust. ''Eventually''.
* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}: Powers'' introduces Damage Reduction which divides damage a few fold but can't drop it below one. As a result, a mob of totally normal people can beat a superhero to death. Players rectified this by also giving such characters a couple of points of Damage ''Resistance'' which allows a character to ignore a specific amount of damage.
** The game also uses this to reduce the utility of cover. A person with a lot of ammunition can shoot their way through a stone wall.
** GURPS 4th edition has rules for building custom abilities with PointBuildSystem and then apply enhancements/limitations to it which adjust the point costs by positive/negative percentages. This could lead to some ridiculous combinations if a very cheap ability was married to a large stack of enhancements or an expensive ability to a stack of limitations. One possible combo is to take an Innate attack ability, reduce its base damage from d6 to 1(0,25x base cost), then enhance it with Rapid Fire(300 shots per round) +300% and Cosmic(irresistable attack & always hits[from Powers book]) +600%. The result is basically a BB Machine gun from Hell which causes 300 automatic hits for 1 damage each which always penetrate armor while costing only a handful of points, available even to a starting character. For comparison an unenhanced innate attack made with same amount of points would only cause 2d6+2 damage(9 average) and still requires a to hit roll to boot.
* Embodied in ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' by such things as short-range missiles, LB-X autocannons firing cluster shot, or most infantry attacks, all of which randomly scatter small damage packets across the target's hit location chart. Even if this doesn't hit a preexisting gap in the target's armor or score a lucky critical hit straight through it, said armor is almost universally ablative and ''will'' eventually be worn down, exposing the vulnerable internal structure and components underneath. And regardless of how heavy a 'mech is or how beefy its armor is, ''every'' mech (outside of non-Tourney-grade rule sets) can only take a light amount of damage to the head, and each successful plink attack has a 1 in 36 chance of [[BoomHeadshot hitting the head]]. Even if head armor is not pierced, the scant armor is still reduced, and the pilot themselves is injured and can only take 5 such "injuries", each making it harder to resist or come out of a blackout, before being completely incapacitated by the sixth. At the opposite end of the hit location roll table is the "[[ArmorPiercingAttack thru-armor crit]]", which has the potential to inflict internal damage even if armor isn't completely ablated, and also has a 1-in-36 chance for every scratch damage hit. If it's the conventional "always center torso" rule, the engine and gyro can become damaged. If using the elective "floating crit" rule that means "reroll the hit location and now also do a crit chance roll", then it can potentially hit an [[MadeOfExplodium ammo bin]].
** One mech that's built entirely like this is the Pirhana, a 20 ton FragileSpeedster that's armed with a pair of medium lasers and a staggering 12 machine guns. A single machine gun hit only deals 2 points of damage to an enemy battlemech, but it can run around behind a larger, slower target and open up on them with enough hits to have a good chance of chewing through their thinner rear armor.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has a feature called hardness, where if something does not defeat hardness it doesn't affect the character (hardness is normally abysmally low, but it prevents things like rocks). On the other hand, if an attack overcomes hardness, it does at least your Essence rating in damage, even if the enemy's soak would otherwise negate it.
** Nerfed in the 2.5 errata down to just one die of ping damage, two or three if wielding an Overwhelming weapon, as part of the lethality revision. Given how quickly wound penalties set in and start causing a downward spiral, nibbling foes to death one to three damage dice at a time is still fairly viable post-2.5th edition errata. It's not much fond of regeneration and martial artists caring deeply about their enemies[[labelnote:Huh?]]the form/stance charm of Victorious Concession Style, AKA Compassion Style since of the four virtue styles it's the one focused on Compassion, reduces ping damage (among other effects) and is notably the only ping damage reducer that can actually allow for a total NoSell of this trope by way of not having the usual "minimum one" clause of most ping damage reduction options[[/labelnote]], though.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}} 2020'', if your character takes physical damage they will take at least one point of damage after subtracting damage reduction. So, you can be in (serious) trouble after receiving one point of damage after another point of damage and so.
* In ''TabletopGame/PsionicsTheNextStageInHumanEvolution'' a successful attack always deals at least one damage, so heavily armored opponents can suffer this.

* Referenced in ''Creator/TeamFourStar'''s take on [[DragonballZAbridged the Lord Slug movie]], when Gohan attempts to attack Slug's army of mooks and one of said mooks yells at his comrades to get him with a blaster. Gohan retorts, "One of those does nothing!", prompting the mook to retort, "How about a hundred?" followed by a whole mess of mooks doing a DramaticGunCock. Gohan is blasted out of the sky.

*** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_strategy The Fabian Strategy]], named after [[{{Cincinnatus}} Roman dictator Fabius]], was the UrExample of this trope. As UsefulNotes/HannibalBarca's forces were too mighty to face in open warfare, Fabius opted for hit-and-run tactics where Roman forces were never exposed for reprisal while whittling away at Hannibal's forces.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}''. It doesn't matter how much HP that gargantuan monstrosity has, there's no foe that can't be vanquished by throwing more Pikmin at it and letting 20+ pairs of tiny fists do the work for you.
** Alternatively, you can attack enemies directly if your captain doesn't have any Pikmin available for tossing by punching them, which does only marginally more damage then a hit from the weakest of Pikmin. Regardless, it's actually a viable tactic against some foes (As long as you have time to spare), as a number of them are completely incapable of harming you, but can do a number on your Pikmin. ''Pikmin 2'' even offers an upgrade to your captains' punching power.

* ''[[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Gundam X]]'' gives us the Correl, a MonsterOfTheWeek [[HumongousMecha mobile suit]] that was made ludicrously fast by stripping it of all non-essential parts ([[FragileSpeedster including most of its armor]]). Its only weapon is a [[LaserBlade beam knife]], which means this trope is its preferred method of attack (in fact, the pilot uses that very phrase to describe it).