History Main / InfinityPlusOneElement

Naturally, the ability to be strong against ''every single element'' makes these types of things more or less an intentional GameBreaker, so they're generally hidden at the end of {{Bonus Boss}}es or ThatOneSidequest. Sometimes overlaps with NonElemental, though NonElemental monsters tend more toward being TheMario--{{Infinity Plus One Element}}als tend to be [[MarySue better at everything.]] Sometimes takes the form of an EleventhHourSuperpower. Compare ElementNumberFive, which may overlap.

* "Shadow" element in ''AzureDreams.'' Belongs only to the legendary monster that becomes available in the epilogue. It is denoted by a picture of a triad containing the three conventional elements that apply to every other monster in the game. Technically, it is neither strong nor weak against anything, but its only spells are ridiculously overpowered, rendering you invulnerable or allowing you to autokill enemies of any strength.

* {{Persona}} has the Almighty elemental attacks, which bypasses all resistances and does heavy damage, this is invaluable in a game series where ElementalRockPaperScissors is the biggest point of the comabt system.

* {{Persona}} has the Almighty elemental attacks, which bypasses all resistances and does heavy damage.

* Persona has the Almighty elemental attacks, which bypasses all resistances and does heavy damage.

* In the original ''LostKingdoms'' (Rune in Japan) the four traditional Elements were Fire, Water, Wood and Earth. The fifth Element, Neutral, was quite hard to find until you'd finish roughly 60% of the game (give or take) - the type as you can imagine is not actually weak or strong against any other type.
** And in the second game, Mechanical Monsters were introduced. The new element and the Neutral one were both given the same status of being no weaker to other elements - the difference being that Neutral has higher attack power and Mech has higher defences. Mech cards are generally quite difficult to come by, but not as hard as Neutral was in the previous game.
*** Mech was also very weak to electric-based attacks, which oddly enough was not an actual element. In-story it's almost the inverse of this; Mech is capable of being mass-produced and is thus one of the most common elements, and frequently used by mooks.

* The Almighty element in the ShinMegamiTensei series that can't be resisted, repelled, or negated. However, by the same token, nothing is ''weak'' to it, either. It's both this and NonElemental. Almighty spells also tend to be a horribly inefficient use of your MP, as they deal less damage for a far higher MP cost.

* Legend of Dragoon has two of these. One is literally Non-Elemental, which is neutral to everything and exists mainly in item form, except for one battle. The other is Thunder, which is also neutral to everything, but has a Dragoon associated with it by the end of Disc One.

* The Disciples line of games has the standard elements (Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Physical, Mind), and various creatures have resistances to each of these. There are 2 more elements however. Death is an Infinity-Plus-Or-Minus-One element. It's only available to 1 of the factions, which is almost entirely Undead, and thus immune to Death attacks, the Minus-One comes in when you have Undead vs. Undead fights where it's worthless. There is NOTHING immune to the last element Life, and only the capital guardians and the odd campaign boss use it. (The healing units technically use Life, but they heal your guys, they can't cause any damage)

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** Perhaps the best example of this trope would come in the form of skillchain properties. As skillchains increase in level, they take on more elements and become more devastating. The ultimate skillchain, Cosmic Elucidation, represents all 8 elements simultaneously, hits ForMassiveDamage, and is only wielded by one boss in the entire game. It ''currently'' cannot be executed by players.

** Steel-types also count, due to the fact that they resist ELEVEN out of the 17 types (and are inmune to one of the most redundant attacking types, to add injure). In fact, they are the only to resist the aforementioned Dragon, and payed an equally important role at bringing Psychics down to earth as the Dark type. There are some PurposefullyOverpowered Pokemon that are not seeing the expected usage because they have no reliable way of dealing with this type.
** XD only - [[TheCorruption Shadow power]] is explicitly this on an offensive level. Shadow moves aren't very effective on Shadow Pokemon (the only Pokemon that can use Shadow moves, natch), but super-effective against ''everything else!!!'' Due to Shadow Pokemon being exclusive to Cipher and its affiliates, not a soul outside of Orre is aware of this. [[FridgeHorror Maybe it's better that way.]]

** Dragon types have also gotten a reputation as this, thanks to the number of [[GameBreaker psuedo-legendary powerhouses]] that are part-Dragon, it's large spread of resistances and relatively few (and hard-to-find) weaknesses.

* The Almighty element in the ShinMegamiTensei series that can't be resisted, repelled, or negated. However, by the same token, nothing is ''weak'' to it, either. It's both this and NonElemental.

* ''{{Pokemon}}'' has had several throughout its existence. The most notable is probably Psychic in the original generation games, thanks to characteristically ''monstrously'' huge Special stats, powerful attacks, and lack of any real threat from opposing elements. With the introduction of the Dark typing, the Special Attack/Defense split, and better viability of already-existing super-effective elements in the second generation, it was [[{{Nerf}} thankfully taken down a few notches.]]

* ''{{Pokemon}}'' has had several throughout its existence.
** In Gen I, we had Psychic-types. Even though they were relatively common compared to most examples, they were general {{Game Breaker}}s overall, having only 1 weakness to a then-rather-shitty type (Bug,) their own move only being resisted by their fellow Psychics, and guess what-Gen I's only true {{Olympus Mon}} Mewtwo, as well as the also rather powerful easter egg Mew, were both Psychic-typed. So the two best mons in the game were both Psychic-typed. So even though the Psychic-type wasn't really rare, the best mons in the game WERE Psychic-types!
*** They've been nerfed a great deal since Gen I, however, not only gaining a type immune to them in Dark, but also being now resisted by another arguable {{Infinity Plus One Element}} in Steel. Additionally, the type chart shifts caused Psychics to be hit super-effectively by Ghost-type moves (previously they were immune to Ghost-type attacks,) Dark-type attacks that could hit Psychic-types for super-effective damage came into existence, and both Ghost-types and Bug-types got better attacks.
*** However, most legendaries are still Psychic-types, and Psychic does still work reasonably well in-game. Also, one of the famed "pseudo-legendaries," Metagross, is part-Psychic, and Psychic-types are still the most numerous legendary type. While Psychic has probably lost Infinity+One status, it still exhibits a few characteristics of it.
** Steel-types, since Gen II. They have absolute tons of resists, are immune to one of the game's two damaging statuses, and they almost always have a dual type that covers at least one of their otherwise common weaknesses. Additionally, they tend to be rare. In competitive play, despite their relatively often-used weaknesses, people still use them-''they're so good at sponging everything else that nobody cares.'' Additionally, they have the only resistance to arguably the best example Pokemon has to offer.
*** Since Gen III, at least one legendary has been Steel typed or partially steel-typed. Steel is also one of the two types of the powerful pseudo-legendary Metagross.
** Ghost has always been fairly rare as a type. It's also the only type with two natural immunities, and it's only weak to Dark and itself. It's also fairly useful competitively.
** If there's one {{Most Triumphant Example}} for Pokemon, though, it's the Dragon-type, especially after Gen IV.
*** In Gen I there were only three, and they were all in one evolutionary line. The Dragon-type had 4 resistances, all of which were relatively common. Their only two weaknesses (outside of the part-Flying Dragonite) were Ice (which wasn't common in-game,) and Dragon (which only had the fixed-damage Dragon Rage in Gen I, making the weakness a nonissue) They weren't that good in Gen I (outside of a rather nasty Agility+Wrap set Dragonite, the strongest Dragon of Gen I, could use) offensively, though, at least compared to the REAL Donphan in the room of that gen, Psychic.
*** In Gen II, they were still rare, but they gained actual damaging moves (event though they only hit Dragon super-effectively, their ability to hit all types barring Steel for neutral damage meant good things), and the only new dragon was typed such that it was only weak to Dragon. One certain Dratini additionally got ExtremeSpeed, which to this day has always been the best priority move in the game. Additionally, the champion uses Dragon-types (at least the game SAYS he does this...in reality he uses multiple Dragonite and three mons that are somewhat draconic in appearance but aren't Dragon-types themselves.)
*** In Gen III, they became a bit more common, but the dragons released were stronger, they tended to have great secondary types, and for the first time we had Dragon-typed legendaries in Latios, Latias and Rayquaza.
*** In Gen IV...this is probably the best example for several reasons.
**** Due to the physical/special split, pretty much ALL the Dragons suddenly gained the ability to hit things SE off their better stat. While the rest of the game felt it too, Dragon also got two of the best attacks in the game. The first was the now-physical Outrage, which was buffed into a move with very good base power and whose only drawback is that it locks you into the move. However, as Dragon hits every type except Steel and itself neutrally (Steel resists Dragon, Dragon is weak to Dragon,) and every Dragon that uses it tends to have good physical attack, Outrage could STILL deal massive damage against most other Mons, and the Steel-types that resist Dragon could be dealt with by the coverage moves Earthquake and Fire Blast. The other move they got was a special attack called Draco Meteor, which ''summons a meteor to hit the opponent.'' It has one of the highest base powers in the game, and the only drawback was that your special attack got cut in half...until you switched out, of course. Add the neutral coverage, coverage moves like Surf and Fire Blast, and the fact Draco Meteor's abusers tend to have high special attack, and you suddenly
***** Two of the three-non-legendary Pokemon banned from standard play are Dragon-types. The third is a special case that doesn't operate like a conventional mon. You do the math.
**** And that's not all: Even in-game Dragon was relegated to this status. in Diamond/Pearl Sinnoh only had one non-legendary dragon family, the Gible family, and that family was not only found in a hidden area, but they are VERY good in-game. Then we get the three legendary Dragons of Sinnoh, who all have secondary types of their own that are arguably the best types in the game (Water is not considered Infinity+One because it's the most common type in the game,) have epic stats, are important to the story, and control freaking '''Time, Space, and ''Antimatter.''''' In Platinum you can access the area where Gible is found much more quickly than in Diamond/Pearl, which basically makes him a {{Disc One Nuke}}. Finally, the champion uses a Garchomp (i.e. the only non-legendary fully-evolved Dragon-type introduced in Gen IV) in all three Sinnoh games-and it is widely considered the hardest mon to beat in the game.
***** An exception to the rule is Altaria, who is the only "subpar" Dragon in the games, and which was introduced to Sinnoh in Platinum. That being said, Altaria only evolves from the otherwise unremarkable Normal/Flying Swablu, so it's still going to be somewhat rare.
***** HeartGold and SoulSilver have Lance as champion once again. In the rematch he gets a Garchomp himself, along with a Salamence and an [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Altaria]].
*** Gen V really just continues Gen IV. The three new primary legends are Dragon-types with secondary types reflecting {{Fire Ice Lightning}}. The new dragons are all very powerful, one of which has the best attack of all non-legendary Pokemon of Gen V, the other being the first special attack-oriented pseudo-legendary ever.
*** An example overall is that so far, Dragon has had the most pseudo-legendaries of any type yet, with Dragonite, Salamence, Garchomp, and Sazandora all under the Dragon-type banner.

** In the third generation, the ??? type (which only existed for Curse by legal means) became this due to the use of Shadow moves in XD. Unlike most examples, it's more of an offensive example, as Shadow moves aren't too effective against other Shadow Pokemon (the only Pokemon that can use Shadow moves, natch), but super-effective against ''everything else''. Also, unlike most other examples, it's quite prolific in XD, but there are more than enough downsides to encourage the player to abandon it at some point.
*** Only in XD though.
** Due to the various two-type combinations for pokemon, there's also a few combos that provide exceptional defenses. For example: just about any pokemon that is part Steel type will generally have a whole ''slew'' of resistances, plus inherent immunity to poison. Spiritomb is also notable in that its typing, Ghost/Dark, gives it two immunities, one resistance and ''no weaknesses whatsoever''.
*** It's possible to get around Spiritomb's typing advantages with a one-two combo of Foresight/Odor Sleuth (which removes Ghost's immunity to Normal and Fighting type attacks) and a strong Fighting move though.

*** In Gen II, they were still rare, but they gained actual damaging moves (event though they only hit Dragon super-effectively, their ability to hit all types barring Steel for neutral damage meant good things), and the only new dragon was typed such that it was only weak to Dragon. Dragonite additionally got ExtremeSpeed, which to this day has always been the best priority move in the game. Additionally, the champion uses Dragon-types (at least the game SAYS he does this...in reality he uses multiple Dragonite and three mons that are somewhat draconic in appearance but aren't Dragon-types themselve.)

*** Gen V really just continues Gen IV. The three new primary legends are Dragon-types with secondary types reflecting {Fire Ice Lightning}. The new dragons are all very powerful, one of which has the best attack of all non-legendary Pokemon of Gen V, the other being the first special attack-oriented pseudo-legendary ever.

* In the first generation of ''{{Pokemon}}'' games, Dragon-types were like this. There were only three, they were all one family, and they had a whole ''crop'' of resistances to most of the most common elements. (Fire, Water, Grass, and Electric, if you're curious.) Their only weaknesses were other dragons (which [[UselessItem was meaningless]], as the only Dragon-type move did [[OneThousandNeedles set damage]])... and Ice, which was a relatively uncommon element. Later games made more dragon types, though. (And made Ice more common.)
** Psychic-types, while more common, fit the strong-against-everything-else bill quite nicely. The only type that resisted Psychic was itself, and Psychic's weaknesses were virtually nonexistent due to their crap move distribution. This isn't the case anymore, though.
** In the first generation, the Ghost-type might also count. Like the dragon-type, it was exclusive to one family. It was immune to the Normal-type, the game's most common attack type, as well as Fighting-types, it was weak only to itself (although this was countered by giving all members a secondary type) and had only two damaging moves. They were very common and easy to catch though.
*** However, they were part poison, which made them weak to Psychic attacks (contributing to the Psychic type being a GameBreaker because Ghost was one of its few weaknesses). They were weak against Ground as well, until the remake where they gained the Levitate ability which let them ignore Ground attacks.

** It's worth noting that many of the fully evolved Dragon type pokemon gain a secondary type that hinders their defensive abilities. For example, Dratini and Dragonair are pure Dragon, but the fully evolved (And thus more statistically powerful) Dragonite is Dragon/Flying, negating the Electric resistance, adding weakness to Rock and doubling its Ice weakness, all in exchange for semi-useful Ground immunity, increased Grass resistance, and resistance to Bug and Fighting.

** Can an element combo count as an InfinityPlusOneElement? If so... [[MightyGlacier Bron]][[StoneWall zong]]. Two weaknesses, and 100% certain to have levitate or heatproof. Levitate makes it immune to one, and Heatproof makes it neutral to the other. Of course that means it's always got a weakness to one major element or the other, but it's got huge defense stats.
*** For combos, some other particularly strong ones are Steel/Dragon (Dialga, but he's considered too strong for the standard metagame), which picks up some more weaknesses than standard Dragon, but also gains a LOT more resistances and nullifies Dragon's weaknesses, Water/Dragon (Kingdra, who's not known for being a powerful defensive 'Mon but is devastating on Water and Rain themed teams, since he's TheMario statwise but gets his speed DOUBLED in rain)... most Dragon dual-types are damn strong.
*** Speaking of elemental combos, Ghost/Dark has one resistance (poison) and three immunities (psychic, normal, and fighting), and ''no'' weaknesses. However, this means that everything else is neutral against it.
**** Though that specific combo can have a weakness to fighting exposed through the use of the Scrappy ability or the Foresight or Odor Sleuth moves.

* In FinalFantasyXI, there are only a handful of damaging Light-elemental spells and abilities that can be wielded by players, and even fewer Darkness-elemental ones. Skillchains (elemental damage produced by "chaining" Weapon Skills in a specific order) extend this concept even further; skillchain levels 1 and 2 represent one or two elements each, deal less damage, and are limited for spellcasting purposes by the element(s) they represent. Level 3 Skillchains produce far more devastating compound skillchains, Light (Fire, Wind, Thunder, Light) or Darkness (Water, Ice, Earth, Dark), though enemies with a particular resistance or immunity to one or more elements of these skillchains can still resist or even absorb the skillchain. The theoretical Level 4 Skillchain, Cosmic Elucidation, is speculated to represent all 8 elements simultaneously and hits ForMassiveDamage. It is only wielded by 1 boss in the entire game.

* Is [[NintendoHard hard as sin]] [[TheRidill to get]], and usually unavailable until near [[InfinityPlusOneSword the end of the game.]] If it ''is'' [[UnusableEnemyEquipment available at all.]]

** One notable exception is ''FinalFantasyIV''. After he becomes a Paladin, quite a few of Cecil's weapons have the Holy element to them. Likewise, the Holy spell returns and forms most of the offensive output of the StaffChick, and even the BlackMagicianGirl can get in on the sacred action with her Dragon [[SummonMagic summon]], stronger than most of her other elemental summons and available once she permanently joins the party. Holy-elemental arrows for the bow users are available very early on, and even TheLancer finds himself with a holy spear as well. About the only endgame party member without access to a HolyHandGrenade is the ninja.
*** Actually, since the ninja has access to the Throw command, he can just chuck the spears, knives, and swords that the other party members aren't using anymore (excepting, of course, the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Excalibur2]]), sometimes ForMassiveDamage. A clear example of ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks, if ever I saw one.

** Can an element combo count as an InfinityPlusOneElement? If so... [[MightyGlacier Bron]][[StoneWall zong]]. Two weaknesses, and 100% certain to have levitate or heatproof. Levitate makes it immune to one, and Heatproof makes it neutral to the other. Of course that means it's always got a weakness to one major element or the other, but it's got huge defense stats, SoYeah...