History Main / RocketTagGameplay

An InstakillMook with low health will always result in this. When this happens in a BossBattle, you have a RushBoss. Compare GlassCannon, OneHitKill, OneHitPointWonder and Type 2 MutualDisadvantage. Related to BeginWithAFinisher, where a character opens a fight with their most powerful attack.

* In ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars]]'', attacking first is crucial. Not only do good match-ups leave victims with 20% health left at best, but, because individual units are made up of several people or vehicles and damage is represented by them losing those people, [[UnstableEquilibrium the more injured a unit is, the less firepower it has]]. So the strategy is to never let yourself get attacked to ensure you do max damage and reduce the enemy's firepower considerably before they do that to you. Medium tanks and their heavier counterparts have higher defense, but even those have [[TacticalRockPaperScissors counters]] who can chop off 40% or more of their health/firepower. In ''Super Famicom Wars'', however, units attack each other simultaneously, so there is no advantage in attacking first (but firepower still decreases when you're injured).

** "[[Characters/MarvelComicsCarngae Carnage]] vs [[Manga/ElfenLied Lucy]]" overlaps this with PaddedSumoGameplay; the fight goes down to who would be the first to land a lethal hit due to Carnage's [[FromASingleCell ludicrous]] HealingFactor letting him tank all manner of damage short of complete bodily destruction and Lucy's [[SuperSpeed unbelievably-fast]] and [[NoSell incredibly durable]] [[CombatTentacles Vectors]] letting her block almost anything while one good shot from Carnage could easily kill her. [[spoiler:Lucy is deemed the winner since the hosts show her Vectors can not only [[SuperSpeed move much faster]] and [[LongRangeFighter reach farther]] than Carnage, but they can also hit with enough force and [[KillItWithFire firepower]] (as in, [[NukeEm nuclear explosion]]) to [[AntiRegeneration overcome Carnage's durability]] and healing factor while also exploiting his [[WeakToFire weakness to fire]] to kill him in one shot]].

* In ''Franchise/StarCraft'', open field battles tend to lead to units dying in quick succession, so to limit this, micromanagement is important such as protecting your spell casters and support units with expendables troops while they help turn the tide of battle with their abilities. Blindly rushing into battles without considering what you're facing is also ill-advised as even the strongest units in the game can be brought down in seconds with the right counter units.

* Open combat in ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' rarely lasts more than a few seconds before one side ([[MutualKill or both]]) is wiped out. Most [[DropTheHammer rollers]], [[SniperRifle chargers]], and [[GrenadeLauncher blasters]] -- as well as nearly every offensive [[SpecialAttack sub]] and [[LimitBreak special]] weapon -- are capable of a one-hit kill. Numerous other weapons, if they aren't strong enough to kill in two hits, compensate by having high fire rates that allow them to kill just as quickly anyway, so long as your aim is on-point. Thus, sneak attacks and hit-and-run tactics become an important and highly effective strategy.

** "Characters/{{Carnage|CletusKasady}} vs [[Manga/ElfenLied Lucy]]" overlaps this with PaddedSumoGameplay; the fight goes down to who would be the first to land a lethal hit due to Carnage's [[FromASingleCell ludicrous]] HealingFactor letting him tank all manner of damage short of complete bodily destruction and Lucy's [[SuperSpeed unbelievably-fast]] and [[NoSell incredibly durable]] [[CombatTentacles Vectors]] letting her block almost anything while one good shot from Carnage could easily kill her. [[spoiler:Lucy is deemed the winner since the hosts show her Vectors can not only [[SuperSpeed move much faster]] and [[LongRangeFighter reach farther]] than Carnage, but they can also hit with enough force and [[KillItWithFire firepower]] (as in, [[NukeEm nuclear explosion]]) to [[AntiRegeneration overcome Carnage's durability]] and healing factor while also exploiting his [[WeakToFire weakness to fire]] to kill him in one shot]].

** ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' lets you reduce unit HP as with [=WC3=], which will make casters in units that deal high burst damage very powerful. It's not used in serious matches as many units are heavily balanced around their specific amount of hitpoints, which plays havoc with GlassCannon units like Marines and Zerglings who already can't tank much abuse. This handicap setting also applies to custom maps like RTS or zombie survival games, for better or worse.

** ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' lets you reduce unit HP as with [=WC3=], which will make casters in units that deal high burst damage very powerful. It's not used in serious matches as the some units are heavily balanced around their specific amount of hitpoints which plays havoc with GlassCannon units like Marines and Zerglings who already can't tank much abuse. This handicap setting also applies to custom maps like RTS or zombie survival games, for better or worse.

** ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' lets you reduce unit HP as with [=WC3=], but this also applies to custom maps like RTS or zombie survival games.

* ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} 2'': Battleships have the most hitpoints of any unit in the game, however their attack damage is so obscenely powerful that it only takes two direct hits for a battleship to kill an enemy battleship.

* Very common in ''VideoGame/{{Onmyoji|2016}}'' [=PvP=], where the team whose accelerator or "puller" (usually Yamausagi or Kamaitachi) is faster will speed boost the rest of their shikigami, meaning their ''entire team'' gets to act before their opponents, usually resulting in the slower team being seriously crippled, or even [[CurbStompBattle completely wiped out without even getting a single action]]. If both player's pullers are similar in speed the enemy puller may be able to cancel out (or at least minimise) the lead gained by their enemy, but it's double down on with the popularity of using a ''second'' high speed puller, or combining pullers with high speed "pushers" (most commonly SP Shuten Doji) which push the enemy team back down the action bar, meaning that even if the enemy team survives the first round of attacks, they ''still'' might not get a single action before the attackers get pulled up to hit them again.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII''' skirmish mode lets you set all of a player's units' health to 50%, making GlassCannon units and casters far more powerful. It's a good AIBreaker as the computer will send its forces out against creeps as normal... except the creeps are now essentially dealing double damage.
* One of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'''s expansions, ''Wrath of the Lich King'', did this by accident. Due to a few miscalculations, gear scaled up so fast that the healers had effectively limitless magic for healing, so damage capabilities were increased to the point where any character could be killed in seconds, so that the healers had to be healing quickly and proactively to keep anyone alive. As a side effect, [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] combat became a game of rocket tag where any class could die or kill another in seconds with a lucky crit.

* Very common in ''VideoGame/{{Onmyoji}}'' [=PvP=], where the team whose accelerator or "puller" (usually Yamausagi or Kamaitachi) is faster will speed boost the rest of their shikigami, meaning their ''entire team'' gets to act before their opponents, usually resulting in the slower team being seriously crippled, or even [[CurbStompBattle completely wiped out without even getting a single action]]. If both player's pullers are similar in speed the enemy puller may be able to cancel out (or at least minimise) the lead gained by their enemy, but it's double down on with the popularity of using a ''second'' high speed puller, or combining pullers with high speed "pushers" (most commonly SP Shuten Doji) which push the enemy team back down the action bar, meaning that even if the enemy team survives the first round of attacks, they ''still'' might not get a single action before the attackers get pulled up to hit them again.

* ''VideoGame/MegaCityPolice: Given that the average character's starting health is around 20 and enemies are capable of doing around 5 damage at a time, either you kill the criminals before they hit you or you're already dead. And that's not even getting into the bosses, who have attacks that can do upwards of 12 damage in a single hit.

** The metagame, especially in earlier generations, has a role called the "Sweeper". The purpose of this monster is to one-shot the entire opposing team due to a high speed stat, insane damage, and good coverage on the ElementalRockPaperScissors table. The best counter for a Sweeper? A faster sweeper that can one-shot it. Barring that, a character tough enough that it can survive a Sweeper's attack, so it can retaliate. Many Sweepers focus purely on Attack/Sp. Attack and Speed, so they're likely to be a GlassCannon or a FragileSpeedster.

* In high-level play of ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'', players can reliably take half or more (or all) of their opponent's life in a single {{combo}}, with certain communities calling such health-draining combos a "Touch of Death". Thus the actually competitive part of the match is when both players are trying to land the "touch of death" that starts a combo, often flying wildly around the screen to do so.

* Because there's no actual stats system in ''VideoGame/AIDungeon2'', battles tend to be quick and brutal, with either the player [[CurbStompBattle curb stomping enemies]] or the enemies [[HeroKiller doing the same in toll]].
* In many older 3D fighting games like ''VideoGame/VirtuaFighter'' and ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'', individual hits do a lot of damage, so many rounds can be easily ended in a couple of seconds after one side lands three or four good kicks.

* In ''Franchise/StarCraft'', open field battles tend to lead to units dying in quick succession, so to limit this, micromanagement is important such as protecting your spell casters and support units with expendables troops while they help turn the tide of battle with their abilities. Blindly rushing into battles without considering what you're facing is also ill-advised as even the strongest units in the game can be brought down in seconds with the right counter units.
* The ''VideoGame/{{Unreal}}'' games have the [=InstaGib=] modifier, as described above, giving everyone a [[LawOfChromaticSuperiority red-colored variation]] of the Shock Rifle that [[LudicrousGibs reduces anyone you shoot with it to chunky salsa]].
* One of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'''s expansions, ''Wrath of the Lich King'', did this by accident. Due to a few miscalculations, gear scaled up so fast that the healers had effectively limitless magic for healing, so damage capabilities were increased to the point where any character could be killed in seconds, so that the healers had to be healing quickly and proactively to keep anyone alive. As a side effect, [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] combat became a game of rocket tag where any class could die or kill another in seconds with a lucky crit.
* ''VideoGame/EnchantedArms''. You could generally wipe out RandomEncounters in two to three rounds if you weren't ambushed. If you were, you were likely to have half your party dead by the time you regained control. As an amusing consequence of this, bosses actually did less damage than the {{Mook}}s you'd been killing to get to them.
* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'':
** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros64'': The game has an extremely high hitstun that allows for easy, frequent very long combos, that often end in a KO. Additionally, the entire cast has easily edge-guarded recoveries outside Pikachu, and most moves deal high damage while [=KOing=] early, especially throws. Then on top of that heavy offense, defensive options are very limited, and the only two dedicated defensive options in the game, shielding and rolling, aren't very effective (shields have such immense shieldstun when attacked that a competent player can keep a shielding opponent stuck in their shield through a flurry of attacks until their shield breaks, and rolls are slow and easily punished). This all results in a game where the entire cast dies ridiculously quickly and is heavily based on who can get the first hit, and is the reason why competitive ''Smash 64'' runs more stocks in their matches than all the subsequent ''Smash'' games do in tournaments.
** The subsequent ''Smash'' games has this as an optional feature. If the damage ratio is set higher than the default, characters will be sent flying even with a low damage percentage. Heavy characters like Bowser can also be sent flying easily with this set up, making power hitting attacks like smash attacks or throws become the major appeal to the fights instead of juggling.
** Sudden Death sets character damage to 300% and eventually starts dropping random Bob-ombs in the area if the stalemate keeps dragging on. The first person hit will almost certainly lose. Super Sudden Death in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee Melee]]'' and the 300% option in [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl Special Brawl]] are both exactly like Sudden Death, sans the Bob-ombs.
** You can also set up a match so [[PaddedSumoGameplay the opposite]] is true. Heavy-Metal-Slow-Mo Match, anyone?

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'':
** In high-level ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' play, especially in multiplayer, there is really only one stat: [[OneStatToRuleThemAll speed]]. Thanks to a series of [[GameBreaker balance-annihilating skills]], first strike generally wins. The amount of damage a character can take or deal is irrelevant with Viera Assassins covering half the battlefield in a single turn and instantly killing their target 85% of the time or more, or Moogle Gunners blasting insanely powerful Ultima Shots at ludicrous ranges.
** Likewise, the original ''Final Fantasy Tactics'' lends itself to this sort of thing. By the end of Chapter 3, it's a common strategy to stack damage-boosting equipment in every slot, and it's very difficult to build a character that can survive more than a round or two against a high-level Ninja or Summoner. And that's before you start dual-wielding Knightswords, driving your Brave stat as high as it can go and making your attacks ignore evasion.
* ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami''. The protagonist is a OneHitPointWonder (though there are a few masks that change this), but very few enemies can endure more than a single armed hit.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'':
** Destroyer-on-destroyer battles. Their guns are powerful enough that if both ships are A.I.-controlled, the one that gets off the first salvo usually wins. Averted in ''Albion Prelude'' (and in many {{Game Mod}}s for earlier titles) due to a significant buff in the hull strength of all ships.
** The same is true at the fighter level for scout ships. Or heavy fighters if both sides are mounting Plasma Burst Generators. (Flamethrowers).
** ''VideoGame/XRebirth'': Fighters are capable of blowing each other to bits pretty quickly, but [[PaddedSumoGameplay capital ship combat is slow]].
* The ''VideoGame/{{Achron}}'' metagame has gone through this at various points with strategies such as chronorushing (rushing chronoporting tech, which lets you send an army back in time, to hopefully wipe out the opponent before they can even do anything). It is possible to defend against, but it's usually easier to just counterrush and try to wipe them out even faster.
* ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' is like this, at least towards the start of the game. The first enemy aliens you will encounter are Sectoids; only 3 HP, unglamorous stats, and instead of a highly useful grenade they have a relatively weak Psionic ability to support one another. However, they wield Plasma Pistols- doing the same damage per hit as your own assault rifles, but without the need to reload. Your own forces' vitality varies on difficulty- in Classic, they have 5 HP to start, and in Impossible it's just FOUR (enough for a single lucky-rolled non-critical attack to kill them). On high difficulties, such as Classic and Impossible, kills will be determined by who hits whom first- making abilities such as Hunker Down and using frag grenades utter necessities to survive. Ditto the original ''X-Com'', especially when the player first gets their hands on a plasma rifle: Enemies are still weak enough to die from a single hit, and so are your troops.
* Many ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' games, including the ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' spinoffs:
** You get extra turns for attacking enemy weaknesses, and lose them if you attack an enemy with something it's resistant to. They play by the same rules. So the turn-based battles revolve around either annihilating the enemy on the first turn or getting your HP wrecked by the demons if any survive your initial assault. Especially notable is ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'''s Merciless difficulty level: critical hits and weaknesses do three times as much damage as normal, meaning that they're extremely likely to be one hit kills against everything but bosses.
** Exaggerated in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' and [[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse its sequel]], where there is '''no defensive stat'''. Defensive buffs and elemental resistances become even more important, and damage from single attacks that exceeds health bars quickly becomes the norm.
** Special mention goes to the "Berserk" mechanic of ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga 2'', which triggers when battling during full solar noise. The characters lose access to all magic, their defence significantly weakens, their attack skyrockets, they do not have their elemental affinities, and any attack is miss or critical.
* ''VideoGame/SwordOfPaladin'': Even on the highest difficulty, the party's endgame damage is high enough to defeat most mobs and bosses very quickly. However, the enemies can just as easily wipe out the non-Paladin party members if they get lucky or if the player is careless. This is especially true when fighting Miasma-using enemies, since everyone in the party is weak to Miasma damage.
* ''VideoGame/{{Divekick}}'' takes this to the extreme, with every character able to win with only one well-placed dive kick. The only way to not die is to avoid that kick.
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'':
** Every class has amazing damage output, bar TheMedic, whose primary weapons range from mediocre to okay in that regard. Either they have a rapid-fire weapon which has pretty good per-hit damage (Heavy, Pyro), a usually-weak weapon that has the potential to instant kill if one is skilled enough (Sniper, Spy), or a mildly slow weapon that will almost always two-shot on close-range direct hits (Scout, Soldier, Demoman, Engineer). In contrast, most classes have low HP, and even the toughest can be taken out with a few good shots. This is where the Medic comes into play, with his ability to temporarily increase a teammate's max health allowing them to survive some more damage, but even a fully overhealed heavy can die surprisingly quickly (most notably to charged headshots and backstabs).
** One popular mod for the game is "Rocket Tennis" (sometimes also called Dodgeball), where everyone plays as the Pyro, trying to deflect a Critical rocket for as long as possible. Since the rocket moves faster as the game goes on (and the rocket ''starts'' out capable of a OneHitKill), it's a mad frenzy to reflect like your life depends on it (which it sort of does, since the maps of this mod are Arena-based: one life, no respawning).
** Modded "100% CriticalHit'' servers turn the gameplay into this trope and can end up being either frustrating or hilarious (depending on respawn times) due to the fact that almost all explosive type weapons deal considerable SplashDamage. Rocket launchers are one of the simplest weapon types to use in the game, and a critical rocket from the basic rocket launcher will instantly turn all but two classes into a rain of bloody body parts, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard including the Soldier using it if he's too close to the explosion]].
** Another popular mod are "10x servers" (based on a forum concept, then turned ''VideoGame/GarrysMod'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPjvF-WqRuA video]] by Blood_Wraith), where everything in the game is multiplied by a factor of 10. This includes damage. [[MacrossMissileMassacre And the number of rockets]] [[LethalJokeWeapon a Beggar's Bazooka shoots.]] Of course, the inverse is also true in these servers, as "everything" includes damage debuffs. Since nearly every weapon in Team Fortress 2 is not an upgrade, but a sidegrade by way of a SituationalSword, you'll either be decimating the opposition or be doing jack crap to any of them.
* The Djinn system is a major part of ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'', as they allow for class changes, summons, and stat boosts. However, when you use several of them to prepare a more powerful summon, it lowers your stats accordingly (and depending on which Djinn are on which character, their class. Going from StoneWall to SquishyWizard is a nasty surprise for the unprepared). Against most bosses, the best strategy is to go into battle with lowered stats, fire off all your summons and survive, gaining back the stats one turn at a time until your Djinn are ready to be used again.
* Played straight in theory, but averted in ''Monster Girl Quest''. While Luka's defence stat stays at a fixed 5 (25 when you get the only armour in the game), damage stays consistent with what you would expect to receive if Luka's defence went up.
** The game gets more strategic depth as Luka gains spirits that let him resist or negate several types of attacks, either by deflecting them ([[BlowYouAway Sylph]]), making his body tougher ([[DishingOutDirt Gnome]]) or making him too fast to hit ([[MakingASplash Undine]]). This, at least, until he loses control of them [[OhCrap and the monsters start using their own...]]
* In ''VideoGame/StarRuler'', ships can often annihilate each other in their opening salvos, especially at higher tech levels. The speediness of annihilation is often accelerated by [[DesignItYourselfEquipment some ships mounting subsystems]] that [[MadeOfExplodium explode when destroyed]], like AntiMatter reactors. However, larger ships (such as the MileLongShip or PlanetSpaceship designs favored by many players) are generally very resistant to being instagibbed.
* In ''VideoGame/TetrisTheGrandMaster ACE''[='=]s versus mode, clearing 20 lines is one possible victory condition. To put it in perspective, 20 lines is only five Tetrises.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' has a one-shot one-kill weapon (the golden gun), but players can also unlock and set various game settings to increase enemy damage, reaction time, health, etc (nicknamed [[VideoGame/PerfectDark Dark]] License To Kill) to make the levels NintendoHard. There's also the Licence to Kill multiplayer mode, which makes every character into a OneHitPointWonder. This leads to tense pistol duels where quick reflexes win the day and {{mutual kill}}s run rampant.

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII''' skirmish mode lets you set all of a player's units' health to 50%, making GlassCannon units and casters far more powerful. It's a good AIBreaker as the computer will send its forces out against creeps as normal... except the creeps are now essentially dealing double damage.
* ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' lets you reduce unit HP as with [=WC3=], but this also applies to custom maps like RTS or zombie survival games.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

** TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}} eliminated most of the damage loops and frank abuses of 3.5, buffed melee and ranged physical damage so the warrior classes do most of the damage, and still results in this trope due to the prevalence of "Save or Suck" spells. In short, casters can shut down the enemy with spells that inflict status ailments so severe the warriors simply cut down the enemy like butter. For example, failing a save versus Blindness seems like an inconvenience by itself, but if it happens while a Barbarian is in the room, your life expectancy can be measured in seconds. Not to mention that the aforementioned buffed up damage on warrior classes can reach the point where a full attack from a martial character will one-round kill most level-appropriate enemies.

** Parodied in [[https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2022/08/24/cards-for-the-card-god this]] ''WebComic/PennyArcade'' strip where Gabe optimistically tries to play the game against a veteran adult player. His opponent goes first, makes some weird noises while he runs some mental calculations, then declares he's won the game. He offers to explain how, but a dispirited Gabe just takes his word for it.
* The fan-made system ''TableTopGame/PokeRole'' was largely designed to emulate the [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} actual video games]], where fast sweepers are largely dominant. This is especially true with multiple actions, with combat rarely lasting one or two rounds.

* The arcade versions of ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyoTsu'' and ''[[VideoGame/PuyoPuyoSun Sun]]'' use a different damage formula in single-player than in multiplayer, one in which way more garbage is generated on average. This is especially noticable in ''Sun'', where the higher damage formula, series-low 48-second margin time, and Sun Puyos combine to make it possible to have your day ruined by a couple of lowly 2-chains.

** [[ArmorIsUseless And don't even think about decking yourself out in heavy armor.]] Plate the belt, you're still vulnerable to high explosive antitank heads that don't care much for armor, composite or not, and missiles using a popup attack in the terminal phase to simply smash into the deck, or hit some other vulnerable component.