History Main / EliteTweak

** Dual classing can easily lead to this. Take the kensai kit for fighters, which has powerful attacks, no ranged capabilities and can't wear any armor or related, being a GlassCannon. Then, at level 9 (or 13 if you want to max his/her attacks per round), dual class into a mage. Mages can't wear armor too, but can cast defensive spells that can be really powerful, like stoneskin, globe of invulnerability, ghost armor, fire shield etc. and normally can't use any weapon besides staves, clubs or darts. A SquishyWizard after all is not expected to melee. Now you covered the weakness of both classes, and at high levels the kensai/mage becomes outrageously powerful: imagine casting the time stop spell and the improved haste spells while dual wielding enchanted katanas...

** This trend is broken occasionally, resulting in truly powerful abilities. Quina, the Blue Mage in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', can learn abilities by eating monsters. If you play his/her sub-game enough and eat the right monsters, you can have an attack spell that always hits for 9999 damage, and another spell that resurrects and fully heals everyone -- [[DiscOneNuke before the end of disk 2]].

* In the UsefulNotes/GameGear game ''Crystal Warriors'', Healers have very weak melee stats through level 8; get one to level 9 (the max) and suddenly he gains massive amounts of attack, defense, and hit points, becoming the most powerful melee unit in the game.

* Do not, do not, DO NOT miss the upgrade accessories for any character in the UsefulNotes/SuperNintendo RPG ''VideoGame/SailorMoonAnotherStory''. Particularly Sailor Mercury, who's pathetically weak even ''with'' the upgrades and absolutely useless without them. And you play as her solo for an entire chapter.

* ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' in general highly encourages this trope in both a tactical and RPG sense, especially in the more recent games as of late. Unlike many [=RPGs=] in general (which often have some characters simply unable to do another's job any better than it's party members), ''any'' unit - with some proper speccing and a little luck from the RandomNumberGod - can turn into a powerhouse monstrosity, which is [[DevelopersForesight deliberately designed]] on the basis of encouraging the player to use their favorite characters to play the game as well as outright ''encouraging'' min-maxing with [[RelationshipValues Support bonuses]] and general tactical synergy. [[NintendoHard Given how tough some of the games can get]], the game strikes a rather impressive middle-ground between tactical efficiency and [=RPG=] growth, to the point that the tier list generally agreed on by the fandom had to measure by ''how fast'' they can get to a point to be "good" and at what cost, not ''if'' they can be good, given that's a given even for the most seemingly-useless of units with enough stubborness.

** Evolved monsters have awakenings, which include both self- (two-pronged attack, bind resists, type killers, etc.) and team-boosting (skill bind/poison/jammer/dark resists, enhanced row element damage, element damage resists, extended time, etc.) enhancements, some of which are crucial for late and post-game dungeons. The more recent latent awakenings, while less potent at what they do, can be assigned to any monster[[note]]max. 5[[/note]], as opposed to the preassigned allotments of the standard counterparts, and are the only source of skill delay resists. Many players will use at least one dark latent to survive Hera's [[OneHitKill Zero Gravity attack]].

* Gau from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' gains new Rages by Leaping at monster parties in the Veldt. The game tells you this, but some of the better rages are quite obscure. Like the Stray Cat. How would you know that a little tabby gives Gau an ability that lets him hit for 4x his usual damage? Gau also ties in with the above in that he can imitate monsters that use blue magic, and if he uses such a Rage in a battle when Strago (the game's resident blue mage) is present, Strago will learn the spell. In fact, because the monsters with Mighty Guard (the best defensive buff spell in the game) and White Wind (potentially the best healing spell in the game) tend to die via health drain before they can use their powers, having Gau imitate them via Rage is the easiest way to teach those abilities.

* Dual classing in ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'' can easily lead to this. Take the kensai kit for fighters, which has powerful attacks, no ranged capabilities and can't wear any armor or related, being a GlassCannon. Then, at level 9 (or 13 if you want to max his/her attacks per round), dual class into a mage. Mages can't wear armor too, but can cast defensive spells that can be really powerful, like stoneskin, globe of invulnerability, ghost armor, fire shield etc. and normally can't use any weapon besides staves, clubs or darts. A SquishyWizard after all is not expected to melee. Now you covered the weakness of both classes, and at high levels the kensai/mage becomes outrageously powerful: imagine casting the time stop spell and the improved haste spells while dual wielding enchanted katanas...
** Assassins and blackguards can poison their weapons, including arrows, which is already a useful skill per se. Quite unobviously, explosive arrows can be poisoned too, affecting everybody in their blast radius. Yes, you can poison a group of enemy while firing bombs like Rambo. While they are very scarce, they make the difference in the occasions where you want to use them.

In games where you get multiple characters with various abilities and classes, this will take the form of taking a select few characters and focusing on specific combos that only they can pull off. The end result can be that out of a large roster of characters, only one particular line-up is ever used, because it is possible to make their powers to work together in such a way that ever using anything else is sub-optimal. In games where the characters are more interchangeable or customizable, the small differences in innate abilities like {{Limit Break}}s may be what are seized upon, or it could be that any character can be brought to the point of being all-powerful just by using the right elite methods.

* The difficulty of ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VI'' can be reduced to nothingness if you take a party of three Sorcerers and a Cleric (or two and two) if you know what you're doing. While they are [[SquishyWizard Squishy Wizards]] and the beginning of the game can become hell, if you teach every Sorcerers Sparks - good spell dealing electric damage (to which not many enemies are resistant in early parts of the game) that can be learned right at the beginning if you have cash (which you can get with no combat if you know where to look). Once you finish first dungeons and associated quests in New Sorpigal, you can move to promotion quests of Sorcerers which can be done before reaching Free Haven and which shouldn't be too difficult once two or three of your party members know Sparks at expert level. Before getting to Free Haven, you can grab Chalice from The Temple of The Sun for the second Cleric promotion quest, which does have difficult enemies but in low number, so you should be able to handle it. Once in Free Haven you can go to Stone City to get both Cleric promotion quests and complete them. Now you have fully promoted party with each member having access to both Light and Dark magic, and you didn't even properly start the mainline quest. After that, you can get to shops with Light and Dark magic spells and power them up right away if you saved skill points, and after that there is really nothing that can stop you anymore.

* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' encourages homogeneous armor sets by [[SetBonus having armor parts' skill points sum up such that they form a set of active skills if all armor pieces of the same design are used together]]. However, some players take to building custom sets that can achieve skill combinations that are not possible with conventional armor-building, resulting in some extremely powerful sets, [[RainbowPimpGear fashion sense be damned]]. Many players who build custom sets use tools such as [[https://www.facebook.com/AthenasArmorSetSearch/ Athena's Armor Set Search]] to look up the necessary armor pieces for their sets.

* Advancing normally though Sphere Grid in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' will make your characters more than powerful enough to finish the game. However, if you want to beat high-end [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]], such as Penance, you'll ''have to'' retrace the Sphere Grid while filling blanks with spheres that create stat bonus nodes [[GuideDangIt that fall from specific monsters in]] MonsterArena [[GuideDangIt each with different unlock conditions]]. Then, after you beat Penultimate Arena Boss, Ultima Buster, you'll unlock Clear Spheres, which allow you to ''clear'' stat nodes in Sphere Grid (removing also corresponding stat bonus), needed to eliminate nodes that don't offer maximum possible stat boost, and replace them with new ones (which always create a node with maximum stat boost), which you then activate again with each character separately. That allows you to ''almost'' maximize stats of your characters and maximize out, with a bit of MinMaxing, their real efficiency. Same goes for armor, which doesn't have ultimate version like weapons and through customization, [[GuideDangIt if you know what monster to bribe for necessary items]], you'll be able to get far better stuff than anything that is readily available within the game, treasure or drop.

** Then there's the Dark Assembly and vote buying. A player can simply [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority literally beat the Dark Assembly to force bills through]], but another option is [[BribingYourWayToVictory bribing them all]]. The Dark Assembly remembers what you've previously done, though, so if you attempt the bribe route, one common way to tweak it out is to hold off on passing several of the easier bills (as the game determines the base likelihood of a bill passing on your stats) until the bill would pass easily anyway, then bribe the heck out of as many senators as possible. Once several senators have been bribed [[{{Pun}} to Hell and back]], they become much more likely to vote for a player in the close-call bills, several of which open up valuable options (and in some cases, alternate endings) to players.

** Likewise, in Fire Emblems ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]'', ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Fates]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'', players can unlock later game child units based on who they choose to pair up out of their original cast of characters. These units have a base form tied to one gender of parent, but can inherit stats and some other things (skills and classes in the former two, and weapons/accessories in the latter) from their other parent. Min-maxing this process isn't necessary to complete the game as the easy pairings still usually work out fine and you should have enough unit options to get by. But players who ''do'' plan out inheritance ahead of time will see their efforts rewarded with some astonishingly powerful units that can blow their parents straight out of the water.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVI'': The job system is even more hilariously broken than IX's: when you level up a job (not by experience, but by number of battles against enemies above a certain level), you learn new spells... ''and keep those spells across all jobs''. Want a wizard who can throw punches as well as fireballs? Give every character a 0-mana HerdHittingAttack? An entire team of hard-hitting gladiators with only enough mana to, say, fully heal themselves and each other when their HP finally drops to the double digits? A single character with multiheals, buffs out the wazoo, magic and resurrection? Hell, take four! And that's without getting into the Hero class, which automatically heals HP every turn and is unlocked by mastering the other classes.

* VideoGame/MagicTheGathering: Tribal decks are a straightforward example. A 2/2 rat zombie for 2 mana can be ludicrously more useful than a 2/2 human zombie for 2 mana,

* A key part of competitive ''VideoGame/CounterStrike'' is being able to manage your team's cash. While a casual group will usually buy whatever suits their playstyle (or an [[ComplacentGamingSyndrome an AWP]], organised teams will share weapons and gear.

This usually comes in two flavors: acquiring new abilities through NonStandardSkillLearning and using them to create some kind of overpowered synergistic effect, or [[StatGrinding leveling a stat]] past its usual {{Cap}} using an alternative method to truly optimize your character.

For the former, the game's system offers a variety of set of abilities or stat combinations, like an equipment set or {{Mons}}, that are kept balanced within their own ecosystem, but the game allows you to mix and match abilities from other sets to break that balance. Sometimes, this is intended by the creators, but often, it is due to a combination they didn't consider, which then blows the [[GameBreaker game balance to pieces]]. But knowing exactly what skills and equipment you need to do this can require a lot of trial and error, or going to a game site and copying their strategies wholesale.

Instead of blending abilities, the game may instead give you a sub-system which lets you increase your stats beyond the standard leveling system. It may be some sort of dedicated StatGrinding mechanic or something that lets you turn excess ExperiencePoints past your level cap into some kind of additional stat bonus. In almost every case, this gets hit hard with DiminishingReturnsForBalance. Going from 100% to 101% power can take as long as getting from 1% to 100%, if not more.

In either case, prepare to spend a lot of time getting there. It may involve a lot of grinding, a lot of [[LuckBasedMission tries to get the exact combination of skills you want]], or both. It will also involve a lot of trial and error [[GuideDangIt if you don't know what you're doing]]. If the game uses microtransactions, expect it to offer you [[BribingYourWayToVictory an easy way to optimal power]].

In either case, prepare to spend a lot of time getting there. It may involve a lot of grinding, a lot of [[LuckBasedMission tries to get the exact combination of skills you want]], or both. It will also involve a lot of trial and error [[GuideDangIt if you don't know what you're doing]]. If the game uses microtransactions, expect it to give you [[BribingYourWayToVictory an easy way to optimal power]].

Strategy and some patience creates characters that are much more powerful than if a simpler method was used.

Usually this is achieved by creating synergistic effects between various abilities, which can allow killer combos that make even the toughest enemies trivial to defeat. Sometimes, this is intended by the creators, but often, it is due to a combination they didn't consider, which then blows the [[GameBreaker game balance to pieces]]. But knowing exactly what skills and equipment you need to do this can require a lot of trial and error, or going to a game site and copying their strategies wholesale.

In {{MMORPG}}s the tweaking gains an additional dimension. Due to the grind-based requirements for most of the good stuff, the best upgrades can be freakishly hard to get even if the player knows the exact items and stats needed. The 'strongest' combinations are often set in stone and only available through BribingYourWayToVictory or sinking huge amounts of time into a game.

*** Maximizing stat growth, however, requires late game gear like the Robe of Lords which is '''very''' hard to get. Some perfectionists players Elite Tweak by keeping the characters as close to level one as much as possible until they can Robes for at least four of their characters. Quina, ironically, is the worst example as s/he has an option between being a melee character (strength), a spell using character (magic), or balanced.[[note]]All of these options have pros and cons apparently.[[/note]] Some HundredPercentCompletion players have problems with that.
*** Even at level 1 it's possible to have powerful characters. Way, way before you get Eiko in the party, you can power her up by letting Marcus go to town with the HP-absorbing Blood Sword during the Alexandria escape. Any stat bonuses he accrues from equipment will be transferred to Eiko when you get her, and she also enjoys an increase in ability-enabling Magic Stones. Freya's Dragon Crest powers up according to how many dragon-type enemies are killed, and you can kill one dragon-type in an encounter and then run away from the other to avoid gaining XP.

** Then there's the Dark Assembly and vote buying. A player can simply [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority literally beat the Dark Assembly to force bills through]], but another option is [[BribingYourWayToVictory bribing them all]]. The Dark Assembly remembers what you've previously done, though, so if you attempt the bribe route, one common way to tweak it out is to hold off on passing several of the easier bills (as the game determines the base likelihood of a bill passing on your stats) until the bill would pass easily anyway, then bribe the heck out of as many senators as possible. Once several senators have been bribed [[IncrediblyLamePun to Hell and back]], they become much more likely to vote for a player in the close-call bills, several of which open up valuable options (and in some cases, alternate endings) to players.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' can be cracked and broken like an egg with careful stat and equipment choices. Start a character with 9 INT and then go ''immediately'' to Rivet City to pick up the INT Bobblehead from Dr. Li's office. You now have maxed INT and are at level 2. INT directly affects how many skill points you get per level, at a rate of 2xInt, plus there is a Perk that increases this amount. In the space of four or five levels - an incredibly short time, as the first handfuls of levels are really easy to get - you can have Sneak and Small Guns maxed at 100, by which point you can also have picked up Lincoln's Repeater and a Dart Gun and if you have the DLC, the Chinese Stealth Suit. Congratulations, you are now a God of Death and you haven't even started the story quests. As you progress, you can pick up several perks that increase VATS accuracy, ''and'' VATS ''headshot'' accuracy. By this point, there is no longer any kind of difficulty curve and we have not reached the max level of 20. At level 20, there is a perk called Grim Reaper's Sprint. This perk refunds all of your AP, which is used in VATS, if you got any kills while in VATS. Adding all of this up, you now can effectively eradicate all life on the planet in one uninterrupted VATS chain of head-popping magnum rounds.
** Smart players also go to Tenpenny Tower immediately after Rivet City to pick up that Dart Gun schematic, and have been collecting parts for it in preparation. The Dart Gun instantly cripples both legs of any organic target on hit. There is no living creature in the game immune to this. In addition to being ''permanently slowed,'' Yao Guai and Deathclaws with crippled limbs ''cannot lunge''. This means that while they retain their lethalness at point-blank range, they are laughably helpless beyond it.
** A certain Perk gained at a relatively low level doubles the amount of Skill Points gained from reading books. It is thus highly advisable to hold off on reading any books until this Perk is gained.
** Likewise, it is highly ''inadvisable'' to take any Perk that directly increases Skill Points, unless the Perk also includes a valuable additional affect, such as Cyborg, which increases several Skills, but also adds Damage Resistance.
** It's also inadvisable to put any points into Big Guns whatsoever, since there is a Big Guns skill book that is carried by a particular Raider boss. Most enemies respawn a few in-game days after being killed. You can see where this is going.
** The ''Broken Steel'' DLC introduces a whole new level of tweaking with the Almost Perfect perk, which can only be taken at the new max level of 30, but raises ''all'' SPECIAL stats to ''9''. Start with INT 4 and any other stats you like, take Comprehension when it's available and read ''all'' the skill books (there are 25 per skill, so you don't need to have high INT), take Almost Perfect at 30 and ''then'' get the stat increasing bobbleheads. Now you have [[MasterOfAll 10 in all stats and 100 in all skills]] and are essentially God.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout|1}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' allow you to pick a special Character Trait at creation time. One such trait is "Fast Shot", which lets you trade the ability to make aimed shots for a 1 point reduction on the number of [=APs=] it takes to fire a gun. Given that you really need to use aimed shots to get criticals (which are [[LudicrousGibs awesomely effective]]) there seems little incentive... but then at level 12 you can get extra [=APs=] and then at level 15 you can get Fast Shot which gives a further 1AP reduction in firing time. Suddenly dangerous weapons like the Alien Blaster or Gauss Pistol become super-accurate super-efficient machineguns, popping up to 6 guys a turn. And then you get the Sniper perk at level 24 to make almost every one of your shots a critical anyway. Incredibly devastating.

* ''VideoGame/PuzzleAndDragons'' has quite a few. [[FanNickname Hypermaxing]] is the art of ultimate evolving and max leveling a monster with all of the first 3:

* Standard issue in ''VideoGame/{{Dota2}}''. Every hero has certain synergies with items, varying from the extreme to simply being particularly good with them. Combining these items with particular heroes and then with eachother is ''far'' more powerful than building in a straightforwards manner towards a single "Goal" (Contrast ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', where it literally ''is'' just about building one number up for the vast majority of characters, with "gimmicks" generally being extra scaling based on one number such as armor or speed). For example, Ember Spirit has an ability that attacks all enemies in a large area for increased damage. The common build is a Battlefury, which grants him a HerdHittingAttack.....on ''all of those attacks'', letting him to massive cumulative damage to grouped up enemies. Further boost this by teaming him up with Magnus, who grants an even ''stronger'' HerdHittingAttack to his allies with one of his abilities, and has another to group them up and stun them. [[TotalPartyKill Do the math]].

* Advancing normally though Sphere Grid in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' will make your characters powerful enough to finish the game if you unlock at least some [[InfinityPlusOneSword Celestial Weapons]]. However, if you want to beat high-end [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]], such as Penance, you'll ''have to'' retrace the Sphere Grid while filling blanks with spheres that create stat bonus nodes [[GuideDangIt that fall from specific monsters in]] MonsterArena [[GuideDangIt each with different unlock conditions]]. Then, after you beat Penultimate Arena Boss, Ultima Buster, you'll unlock Clear Spheres, which allow you to ''clear'' stat nodes in Sphere Grid (removing also corresponding stat bonus), needed to eliminate nodes that don't offer maximum possible stat boost, and replace them with new ones (which always create a node with maximum stat boost), which you then activate again with each character separately. That allows you to ''almost'' maximize stats of your characters and maximize out, with a bit of MinMaxing, their real efficiency. Same goes for armor, which doesn't have ultimate version like weapons and through customization, [[GuideDangIt if you know what monster to bribe for necessary items]], you'll be able to get far better stuff than anything that is readily available within the game, treasure or drop.

* Many Tactical [=RPGs=] feature characters that can be grown to truly terrifying strength through delayed promotion -- for example, Bleu from ''VideoGame/ShiningForce'' and quite a few characters in the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series.

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' for the PSP, [[MechanicallyUnusualClass the Onion Knight doesn't gain job levels like any other class]] - instead, it gains a job level for every ''two other jobs'' a character has ''mastered.'' At job level 8, the class becomes very powerful - but characters still can't gain EXP. The only way to enjoy the stat bonuses of gaining a level as an Onion Knight is by the use of a skill that is [[GuideDangIt only present on a friendly monster unit that you can't find in the wild, and only when using another character with a passive ability that enables hidden skills on nearby monster units.]] Oh, and then the monster unit is [[FinalDeath killed permanently.]]

** Likewise, in Fire Emblems ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Awakening]]'', ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemFates Fates]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar Genealogy of the Holy War]]'', players can unlock later game child units based on who they choose to pair up out of their original cast of characters. These units have a base form tied to one gender of parent, but can inherent stats and some other things (skills and classes in the former two, and weapons/accessories in the latter) from their other parent. Min-maxing this process isn't necessary to complete the game as the easy pairings still usually work out fine and you should have enough unit options to get by. But players who ''do'' plan out inheritance ahead of time will see their efforts rewarded with some astonishingly powerful units that can blow their parents straight out of the water.