History Main / InfinityPlusOneElement

* In ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'', Bomb is this in the third game. There are huge stretches of the game where almost every enemy is weak to it, and almost nothing actually resists it except a few fire enemies; most importantly it is the weakness of every clay and golem enemy, who otherwise rarely match in the elements they aren't immune to, and all three monoliths, which each are immune to all but two or three types. Lance gets two bomb weapons and two bomb specials regardless of weapon, and they'd all be solid choices even without the element. In the hands of enemies it's nothing special, except that only four items resist it and it can be hard to recognize.

** Don't forget about the campaign-only Divine armor type used by some bosses. Whoever has it is invulnerable to everything except chaos damage. When it appears, either the boss in question isn't supposed to be killed or (in one instance) something else is needed to gain the ability to kill it; so yes, Divine armor is a honest-to-God PlotArmor.

** The ElementalPowers of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air as the only things that could be bended, other bending arts were simply adaptations of one of the four (plant- and bloodbending were just bending the water that are contained in those, metalbending uses the minerals contained in the imperfections of the metal...). However, the last episode introduced energybending, which Aang came up with as a way of not killing the BigBad after having a conversation with a lion-turtle the size of an island. ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' expands on it further--the Avatar can bend the energy within themself in the form of an AstralProjection, and can also channel ''and'' manipulate spirit energy in the same way they would other elements. Another advantage that it has over the four classical elements is that the Avatar doesn't need their physical form to bend energy.

* Void and Demon Chi in ''WeaponsOfTheGods''.

* The Sky Flame from ''Anime/KatekyoHitmanReborn''. Of the [[spoiler: original]] seven Dying Will Flames, the fewest people can produce Sky Flames, and those that do [[BornWinner usually go on to become leaders and Bosses]]. It can also [[SkeletonKey open any Box Weapon]], and can use its Harmonization property to [[AllYourPowersCombined fuse with other Flames]], which is the principle behind Xanxus's Flame of Wrath[[labelnote:*]]Sky + Storm[[/labelnote]] and [[spoiler:the Oath Flame[[labelnote:*]]Sky + Earth[[/labelnote]]]].

** The ElementalPowers of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air as the only things that could be bended, other bending arts were simply adaptations of one of the four (Plant and Blood bending were just bending the water that are contained in those, metalbending uses the minerals contained in the imperfections of the metal...). However, the last episode introduced Energy Bending which the Aang came up with as a way of not killing the BigBad after having a conversation with a lion-turtle the size of an island. ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' expands on it further--the Avatar can bend the energy within themself in the form of an AstralProjection, and can also channel ''and'' manipulate spirit energy in the same way they would other elements. Another advantage that it has over the four classical elements is that the Avatar doesn't need his or her physical form to bend energy.
** Airbending itself counts, as the limited number of airbenders means no one is prepared for enemies that can fly and turn the very atmosphere against you [[spoiler:and as the Earth Queen found out, remove the air from your lungs]]. Perhaps best demonstrated in Season Three of ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', when the nonbender Zaheer suddenly gets airbender powers (admittedly, no one would have seen that coming) to easily escape his TailorMadePrison.

** Dragon types were supposed to be this for Generation I as it resists Fire, Grass, Water, and Electric, so no matter which starter you picked you were at a disadvantage. Add to it, there was only one dragon type family and only the FinalBoss used them. (Until at least the TrueFinalBoss / TheRival was revealed.) Throughout the series a number of [[OlympusMons Legendary]] and pseudo-legendary powerhouses are part-Dragon. As new games were introduced, dragons became more and more commonplace (though they generally weren't encountered until midway through the games) and came to a head in [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Gen V]] where dragons were edging into GameBreaker territory by virtue of most Dragon-types being a solid choice regardless of power level (even "lower tier" monsters like Druddigon were powerful by virtue of being a Dragon-type). It retains the highest average base stat total of all types, with the average BST of fully-evolved Dragon-types being over 600 (600 being the common BST for Legendaries). ''VideoGame/PokemonXAndY'' had to [[{{Nerf}} introduce a new type]] ([[OurFairiesAreDifferent Fairy]]) to ease off the growing power of the Dragon type.

* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness''. Mantorok-aligned spells. The other three ancients had a clearly defined ElementalRockPaperScissors deal going on. Mantorok's rune was hidden in a secret area halfway through the game, and casting your spells with it had some very game-breaking effects such as [[spoiler:turning your character completely invisible]] or, even better, [[spoiler:giving you a constant regeneration effect for ALL of your vital stats at once via the Magick Pool spell]].
** According to the plot, the as-of-yet-unrevealed yellow ancient is this, as it can counter all four of the others.

* A BonusBoss of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has a special "untyped" elemental attack. Of course you can protect yourself against it [[GoodBadBugs with the right materia configuration]].
** The Alexander materia is the only [[HolyHandGrenade holy elemental]] attack available in the entire game, and is also [[GuideDangIt difficult to find]].

* Similar but not identical: In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'', every unit has a zodiac symbol; each unit will take less or more damage from other units at various places along the zodiac. And then there's the BonusBoss Elidibus, who is the only unit with the Serpentarius zodiac symbol (an actual pseudo-zodiac constellation more commonly known as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiuchus Ophiuchus]]) which has no affinity with any other. In addition, he has a special summon called Zodiark, which is NonElemental.
** Zodiark, representing the thirteenth zodiac symbol, also shows up in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' and its sequel.'' VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIIRevenantWings''. They don't have the same gameplay effect there, though.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' features the Scathe spell, a non-elemental KamehameHadouken attack that usually deals close to the damage cap, even without Faith status. It has a high mana cost and medium cast time, but with skills like Warmage (gain MP from dealing magic damage) and Channeling (reduce casting time by 10%, stackable), you can offset it and turn it from AwesomeButImpractical to GameBreaker. Certain bosses that put up physical damage palings and absorb elemental damage require this to be beaten.
* Most ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games have a "[[HolyHandGrenade holy]]" element that works like this. Generally speaking next to nothing will resist, absorb, or be immune to it, a number of enemies will be weak to it, and it'll only be available through a end-game spell, one or two summons, and maybe an InfinityPlusOneSword.
** One notable exception is ''VideoGame/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 WhiteMagicianGirl, 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. Even the ninja has access to the Throw command, so he can just chuck the spears, knives, and swords that the other party members aren't using anymore, sometimes for massive damage since ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks.
** Most FF games also feature the "Ultima" spell, which often deals the Damage {{Cap}} on casting. Like Holy, it's an end-game spell, but there are no known examples of Ultima-resistant monsters. Its prodigious power is often offset by a [[AwesomeButImpractical ridiculous mana cost]].
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', all elements follow ElementalRockPaperScissors, but the ''distribution'' of elemental spells and abilities is highly skewed. Light and Darkness-elemental abilities that ''actually deal damage'' are rare among players, as per typical Final Fantasy thoroughfare.
** 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 for a substantial amount of damage, and is only wielded by one boss in the entire game. It ''currently'' cannot be executed by players. It also has an additional effect of ejecting your party from the fight, resulting in an automatic loss.

* ''VideoGame/TheBattleCats'' [[ParodiedTrope parodies]] this. In addition to the other types, represented by [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience flat colours]], [[spoiler:the Cat God]] has his own unique type not shared by anything else in the game: [[spoiler:Cool Dude]].

[[quoteright:250:[[Webcomic/BrawlInTheFamily https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/weapontriangle_7111.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:250:[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Frederick]] laughs... er, ''scowls'' at your silly [[Franchise/FireEmblem Weapon Triangle]].]]

** Zodiark, representing the thirteenth zodiac symbol, also shows up in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' and its sequel.''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIIRevenantWings''. They don't have the same gameplay effect there, though.

* ''VideoGame/TheBattleCats'' [[ParodiedTrope parodies]] this with [[spoiler:The Cat God]]. Normally, enemies are listed as White, Red, Black, or other simple colours. This enemy? [[spoiler:Cool Dude]].

* Played with in ''Anime/YuGiOh''. The Egyptian God Cards (and in the [[Anime/YuGiOh5Ds 5D's]] anime, the [[Myth/NorseMythology Aesir]]) are DIVINE-Attribute and Divine Beast-Type, which more reflects on their status as PhysicalGods than conferring any innate gameplay benefit. In fact, even though the Egyptian God Cards now have official tournament-legal counterparts, they're not very playable ''because'' of their unique Attribute and Type, which means they have ''no'' support whatsoever (unless you count [[{{God}} Horakhty the Creator of Light]], a [[InstantWinCondition game winner]] which can only be summoned by Tributing the three).

*** It also becomes an aversion of the [[UselessUsefulSpell typical status ailments]] - most weapons that have a status ailment will usually inflict it once, ''maybe'' twice on a monster during a fight, plus some monsters may be resistant or even immune to the standard status ailments. Blast, however, has almost ''no'' monsters who're resistant to it.

* The online RPG ''VideoGame/AdventureQuest'' has Element X as well as Void. Element X and Void damage each ignore the target's resistances to the eight main elements. Perhaps subverted in that Void-element monsters are typically weak against all of said eight elements.

* Zigzagged in ''Videogame/PathOfExile'' with chaos damage. Its only direct benefit is that it ignores energy shield (which most enemies don't have anyway) and deals damage directly to an enemy's health, and it doesn't apply status effects like elemental damage. However, it has the immense endgame advantage that there aren't any effects that [[AttackReflector reflect]] chaos damage, which given a players comparative health and damage output can often result in near-instant death if a reflecting enemy is encountered unexpectedly. To counteract this chaos damage has far fewer ways to penetrate the resistance of the few enemies that do resist it, gems good for supporting chaos spells often have an attached drawback, and most chaos spells are awkward to use. There are also a couple of way to get supplemental chaos damage, namely chaos damage conversion and poison, which deals chaos damage over time based on base physical and chaos damage.

** The ElementalPowers of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air as the only things that could be bended, other bending arts were simply adaptations of one of the four (Plant and Blood bending were just bending the water that are contained in those, metalbending uses the minerals contained in the imperfections of the metal...). However, the last episode introduced Energy Bending which the Aang came up with as a way of not killing the BigBad after having a conversation with a lion-turtle the size of an island.

* Universal spells/creatures/relics in ''MagiNation.'' All Magi can use them without extra cost, all Magi can use Universal relics, and they tend to be pretty powerful, too. As you can imagine, actual Universal ''Magi'' (who can use ''everything'') are really, ''really'' rare--and all promotional, to boot.

** Airbending itself counts, as the limited number of airbenders means no one is prepared for enemies that can fly and turn the very atmosphere against you [[spoiler:and as the Earth Queen found out, remove the air from your lungs]]. Perhaps best demonstrated in Season Three, when the nonbender Zaheer suddenly gets airbender powers (admittedly, no one would have seen that coming) to easily escape his TailorMadePrison.

[[caption-width-right:250:[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Frederick]] laughs... er, ''scowls'' at your silly [[VideoGame/FireEmblem Weapon Triangle]].]]

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'', while dark magic always factors into ElementalRockPaperScissors, it is the most damaging form of magic, and very few playable units can use it. Especially in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Radiant Dawn]]'', where the only 2 characters that can use it are available only from the second playthrough onward, and even then only [[EleventhHourSuperpower during the last part of the game]]. Some games even go so far as to make it enemy-exclusive, and ''Path of Radiance'' completely left it out.

** ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemJugdral Fire Emblem IV - Genealogy of the Holy War]]'' had Fire, Wind, and Thunder as the three rock-paper-scissor elements that made up the magic triangle. However, it also had the rare Light and Dark elements, which beat all 3 common elements and were neutral to each other. Only 4 Light tomes exist in the game, one of which can only be used by one character for the very last boss. Dark tomes were enemy-exclusive.
** Dark magic may be back on top with ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening''. There is no rock-paper-scissors for magic, and Light magic no longer exists. Each element simply has its own attributes. Wind is accurate but weak, has a spell that hits twice, and one that boosts spd. Fire is balanced, has a spell that boosts mag. Lightning is inaccurate, but the most powerful, and has a critical chance. Its top spells boost skl and have high critical rates. Darkness is powerful but inaccurate, like Lightning, but some tomes also have powerful side effects. You can steal enemy HP, attack twice, have a huge chance at a critical, attack from 3-10 spaces away, or just bring the power. To use it, you have to be a Dark Mage or Sorcerer (which also means you're locked into ''only'' using Tomes), or have a rare skill called Shadowgift, which lets other magic users wield it, too. [[note]]The only units who have Shadowgift are Aversa, Morgan if Aversa is her mother, and some of the [=Spotpass/DLC=] characters.[[/note]] The Book of Naga is treated as a Wind tome, even though it was a Light tome in past games and in this game it has anti-dragon properties instead of just anti-flying. It's extremely rare and incredibly powerful, so it could be considered the Infinity+1 element too.

* In ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'' Bomb in the third game. There are huge stretches of the game where almost every enemy is weak to it, and almost nothing actually resists it except a few fire enemies; most importantly it is the weakness of every clay and golem enemy, who otherwise rarely match in the elements they aren't immune to, and all three monoliths, which each are immune to all but two or three types. Lance gets two bomb weapons and two bomb specials regardless of weapon, and they'd all be solid choices even without the element. In the hands of enemies it's nothing special, except that only four items resist it and it can be hard to recognize.

* The ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' series has the Almighty element. Partial resistance is extremely rare on enemies and available to the player only in [[VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2 one spinoff title]], while full immunity is relegated to bosses with StoryDrivenInvulnerability or ThatOneAttack. To offset the overall lack of targets that can resist Almighty, most Almighty attacks will carry a high MP/[[VideoGame/{{Persona3}} S]][[VideoGame/{{Persona4}} P]] cost.

* ''[[InfinityBlade Infinity Blade II's]]'' Holy element (separate from its Light element, funnily enough) does not have a separate resistance associated with it. The only resistance offered against Holy is provided by Prism Defense.

* Zigzagged in ''Videogame/PathOfExile'' with chaos damage. Its only direct benefit is that it ignores energy shield (which most enemies don't have anyway) and deals damage directly to an enemy's health, and it doesn't apply status effects like elemental damage. However, it has the immense endgame advantage that there aren't any effects that [[AttackReflector reflect]] chaos damage, which given a players comparative health and damage output can often result in near-instant death if a reflecting enemy is encountered unexpectedly. To counteract this chaos damage has far fewer ways to penetrate the resistance of the few enemies that do resist it, gems good for supporting chaos spells often have an attached drawback, and most chaos spells are awkward to use. Two prominent chaos builds work by finding items that allow them to convert all of their fire or lightning damage into chaos damage, so they can reap the benefits of chaos without having to use its spells.

* Before ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter 3 Ultimate'', the elements were water, fire, ice, thunder and dragon. ''[=MH3U=]'' introduced [[LightningBruiser Brachydios]] as its flagship monster and along with it, the new Slime element. It does well against all elements, [[StuffBlowingUp it explodes]] and it's overall considered to be overpowered, although you don't encounter Brachydios until high rank missions. ''4'' renamed it to the more intuitive "Blastblight" and [[{{Nerf}} reined its power in a bit]]. It's still useful for breaking off monster parts, but it's not "never use any other element ever again" levels of broken anymore.
** Dragon element is an example of this trope being used without being overpowered. Dragonblight can cripple a hunter's effectiveness, and Dragon-element weapons tend to be rare and hard to forge, but very few monsters resist Dragon, and the more powerful they are, the more vulnerable they tend to be.

** Psychic types in Gen I had functionally no weaknesses as the only types (Bug and Ghost) that did double damage to them were laughably weak. Furthermore, nothing resisted psychic attacks except other Psychic types. Combine with the Special stat counting for both Special Attack and Special Defense and Psychic types were nigh unstoppable. Gen II [[{{Nerf}} introduced two new types]] Steel and Dark to counter it, the former resisting Psychic attacks and the latter being outright immune; combined with the split of Special Attack and Special Defense and Psychic went from GameBreaker to "Pretty good".

* The Bulbmin in ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} 2'' are resistant to ''all'' overworld hazards, instead of just the standard one the rest of the colored Pikmin are. The game {{Nerf}}s them, however, by making it so you can't take them out of the dungeon you find them in.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has its magic attacks split to schools by damage type. There's fire, frost, nature, arcane and shadow. While no enemy is really weak against a particular school (barring some special cases, like one boss in one of the very first raids that needed to be hit by frost damage to freeze it), many have resistance or immunity to their own type (so fire is ineffective against black dragons or fire elementals etc.), and there are items and spells that boost resistance to a school. Holy damage, has no resistance score. To compensate for this holy spells mostly deal less damage. It is very important for paladin [[StoneWall tanks]], who rely on being able to damage everything to keep opponents focused on them.