History Main / PowerfulButInaccurate

* In ''Nitrome Must Die'', there is a power-up called "Mini Gun" that allows your SwissArmyWeapon to fire at a faster rate than the "Machine Gun" power-up, but this comes with apocalyptic recoil and inaccuracy even at short ranges. No two shots fired when the Mini Hun power up follow exactly the same path.

* ''WebComic/EightBitTheatre'', [[HeroicComedicSociopath Black Mage's]] Hadoken is like this. Early in the series, he shoots it at an ogre and destroys the entire Giant's Forest. Later he uses it to DungeonBypass the [[DeathCourse Four Hundred Bearded Trials of Strength]]. Every other time he uses it, he misses. At his worst, he managed to miss an entire volcano.

* The Mecromancer from ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' can be built around this trope with the "Ordered Chaos" skill tree. Killing enemies and reloading builds up "anarchy" which increases damage at the cost of accuracy.
** To elaborate 600 stacks of Anarchy (maximum you can get with a certain class mod) will give 1050 % bonus/debuff to damage/accuracy respectively, meaning you can and will miss at point blank, but kill every {{Mook}} in one hit if you land it.

Sometimes a character has an attack that's really powerful. [[EarthShatteringKaboom Maybe it can destroy a planet]], OneHitKill [[PhysicalGod physical gods]], or perhaps it can blast apart things MadeOfIndestructium. If it lands, whatever is on the receiving end is screwed, HealingFactor, SuperToughness, MadeOfIron, and NighInvulnerable be [[GoshDarnItToHeck danged]].

A SubTrope of NecessaryDrawback. Compare DifficultButAwesome, with which this may overlap if the inaccuracy can be overcome with sufficient skill. Contrast AlwaysAccurateAttack, which is often weak to compensate.

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* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' has the Hero's Spear skills Thunder/Lightning Thrust and Yangus' Axe skills Hatchet Man and Executioner, which have a higher miss rate, but also a higher CriticalHit rate, than their standard attacks. These are very useful when fighting {{Metal Slime}}s, since {{Critical Hit}}s [[ArmorPiercingAttack ignore Defense]] and will always OneHitKill them. Angelo also has the Bow skills Needle Shot/Rain, which either deal 1 damage (functionally equivalent to a miss) or a OneHitKill (if he "hits a vital area"), but their low hit rate plus ContractualBossImmunity to instant death makes them {{Useless Useful Spell}}s.

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* Many missile systems, both historical and modern, suffer from this; unintentional civilian casualties are common in times of war and often [[{{Handwave}} spun]] as "acceptable losses" or "collateral damage". One of the more infamous examples from modern times was the R-300 Scud-B used in many wars throughout the Middle East.

* ''VideoGame/MonsterRancher'' has techs that have high Force ratings that your monster can learn when sending it in a special training quest, depending on the game. These techs, obviously, are very powerful and, if your monster is trained well enough, can one-hit KO an opponent. However, these techs are counter-balanced by their low Hit Percentage ratings (i.e. low accuracy), meaning that unless your monster is trained to have high numbers in its Skill stats, you will find your monster not being able to land a good hit with these big moves.

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* SpreadShot attacks tend to release large numbers of bullets at once, but those shots are spread over a wide radius, making them more suited for crowd control than blowing away a single target.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': A great many Pokemon moves have low accuracy for balancing reasons. Either for having high power like Blizzard, Thunder, and some fighting type moves, or for having extra effects such as instant death with Sheer Cold, and Sleep Powder's sleep effects. There are some ways to increase accuracy though such as weather conditions, and stat boosting moves.

* Ershin's Risky Shot in ''Videogame/BreathOfFireIV'' guarantees a critical hit if it connects, but only has 40% accuracy.

* Deathblow Materia in ''Videogame/FinalFantasyVII'' will cause your character's attacks to either score a critical hit, or miss completely.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' has the Hero's Spear skills Thunder/Lightning Thrust and Yangus' Axe skills Hatchet Man and Executioner, which have a higher miss rate, but also a higher critical hit rate, than their standard attacks. These are very useful when fighting {{Metal Slime}}s, since critical hits [[ArmorPiercingAttack ignore Defense]] and will always OneHitKill them. Angelo also has the Bow skills Needle Shot/Rain, which either deal 1 damage (functionally equivalent to a miss) or a OneHitKill (if he "hits a vital area"), but their low hit rate plus ContractualBossImmunity to instant death makes them {{Useless Useful Spell}}s.

A SubTrope of NecessaryDrawback. Contrast AlwaysAccurateAttack, which is often weak to compensate.

* One of the ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'' books featured a unit of rocket artillery. The technological limitations of the era meant that the rockets were extremely inaccurate and field commanders deemed them to be only fit for scaring horses. However, if one of the rockets actually hit a target it could demolish a wall or massacre a unit of infantry.

** Warthog's special attack is an interesting variation: a cluster of missiles that increase in power the farther they travel before hitting the enemy, making them PowerfulButInaccurate at long range and the inverse at close range.

* ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal2'':

* ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawlStoneSoup'' has the appropriately named [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Bolt of Inaccuracy]]. As expected, it is both very powerful and very inaccurate. Most players use it on slow DemonicSpiders, as it won't hit anything else.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' has a black magic spell called Poison which has the effect of instant death, but doesn't hit its target very often.

* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar''
** The Squiggoth's melee and ranged attacks do damage in the ''thousands'', but have anywhere from 75 to 50% accuracy.
** Artillery in general (except the Eldar and Sisters of Battle) can only hit something if they can see the target and it's not moving. In earlier games, this could be compensated for by spamming them.
* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars''. Flak's power makes his units hit harder but less accurately.
* The {{MMORPG}} ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'': The phaser spinal lance on the Galaxy Dreadnought Cruiser. It's a WaveMotionGun that can do a lot of damage if it actually hits, but it's a FixedForwardFacingWeapon on a ship with a horrendous turn rate so even bringing it to bear is a chore unless the target is standing still. And that's before you get to where the thing has a massive accuracy penalty.
* The Mecromancer from ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' can be built around this trope with the "Ordered Chaos" skill tree. Killing enemies and reloading builds up "anarchy" which increases damage at the cost of accuracy.
* In ''Nitrome Must Die'', there is a power-up called "Mini Gun" that allows your SwissArmyWeapon to fire at a faster rate than the "Machine Gun" power-up, but this comes with apocalyptic recoil and inaccuracy even at short ranges. No two shots fired when the Mini Hun power up follow exactly the same path.

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Contrast AlwaysAccurateAttack, which is often weak to compensate.