History Main / SquishyWizard

** ''Literature/HomeroomsAndHallPasses'': The party's magic-user, Albiorix, is weak and a poor fighter by Bríandalörian standards. Subverted when he is transported to Suburbia and ''kicks ass'' in gym class; since Bríandalör is a StandardFantasySetting with all the hard labor and foot travel that entails, even the squishiest Bríandalörian wizard is in better shape than a modern suburbanite.

* While most of Creator/TamoraPierce's mages are skilled in combat as well as weaponry, in the fourth ''[[Literature/TortallUniverse Protector of the Small]]'' book, the villain Blaise relies on his seven-foot bodyguard for protection.

* Marcille from ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'' is not much of a physical fighter, but let her get to a safe distance to work her magic and watch her mow down monster after monster with her spells.

In terms of characterization, this trope creates a duality and contrast with the [[DumbMuscle strong, stupid guy]]. Since Squishy Wizards [[AnAdventurerIsYou tend to focus on powerful offensive attack spells ("Nuking")]], they are also contrasted by TheMedic, a form of Squishy Wizard who focuses on [[HealingHands healing and defensive magic]] to stand in for their frail defense instead[[note]]The medic may not necessarily be physically weak, but the Medic is often simply forbidden from even carrying weapons, let alone engaging in combat[[/note]]. Squishy Wizards, because of their fragility, are often paired up with fighters in a SwordAndSorcerer ensemble or part of a full-blown adventuring party.

In addition, in combination with the concept of [[DrawAggro Drawing Aggro]], this was one of the biggest contributors to the standard DamagerHealerTank party formation as seen in many {{M|assivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame}}MORPGs -- because characters that can nuke the hell out of the opposition and heal allies are usually the squishiest members of the party. The StoneWall, who can withstand aggro and keep it off the others, was created to keep these squishy party members alive during those big battles.

In game mechanic terms, the Squishy Wizard is usually a GlassCannon, being able to dole out big hurt but generally dying if a tough monster looks at it funny. Although the Squishy Wizard is sometimes not completely a GlassCannon. They can have decent, or even good magical defense, to tank other wizards' (or a monster's) spells, but fall quickly to a single punch. On the other hand, some Squishy Wizards skip out on the 'cannon' part, providing powerful party utility (by empowering/healing allies, weakening/disrupting enemies, and so on) instead. This further encourages you to keep them out of the line of fire by making other people better at taking it/dishing it out for them.

Contrast MagicallyIneptFighter, who are strong physically but weak with magic, and MagicKnight, KungFuWizard, and sometimes MageMarksman when mages are capable of holding their own without magic. Compare ArmorAndMagicDontMix, BlindSeer, WaifProphet, BlackMage, WhiteMage, and ShootTheMageFirst, and WeakButSkilled. Compare and contrast GeniusBruiser, who can be a mage and also have tons of muscles. Corollary to MagicIsMental.

** Lelouch has a MagicalEye and an excellent sense of strategy but is one of the weaker cast members. This is usually played for comedy. In one example, during the school festival in R2, he was outrun by Suzaku, Shirley, Kallen in a walrus mascot suit, and even Milly, [[PimpedOutDress dressed as a dead ringer for Little Bo Peep.]] During actual combat however, while his strategies can make or break battles, his combat abilities are subpar, and will usually lose in a one-on-one fight.

* ''Blandia'' a 1992 Japanese fighting game set in AncientGrome has various demihuman sorcerers as miniboss enemies. Their magic is impressive and one of these sorcerers uses a spear that gives them greater range than anything your characters might have. But unlike your characters who have breakable armor that greatly reduces damage while intact, those sorcerers are unarmoured and every attack you use on them does tremendous damage.

* ''Blandia'' a 1992 Japanese fighting game set in AncientGrome has various demihuman sorcerers as miniboss enemies. Their magic is impressive and one of these sorcerers uses a spear that gives them greater range than anything your characters might have. But unlike your characters who have breakable armor that greatly reduces damage while intact, those sorcerers are unarmoured and every attack you use on them does tremendous damage.

*** In ''VideoGame/Persona3'' and ''VideoGame/Persona4'', the protagonist's squishiness depends entirely upon the persona he has equipped, but usually is more of a MagicKnight. Yukari is more of a Squishy Wizard in P3, while Yukiko is similarly so in P4.

** Fittingly [[FortuneTeller Rose and Menat]] focus on range instead of close combat and their defenses are lacking compared to other fighters.
** Dhalsim counts as well having poor defense but some of the best range and special moves in the games to point of a GameBreaker, averted In-Universe as Dhalsim tanks a punch from [[SuperPoweredEvilSide Satsui no Hado Ryu]] in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterV''.
** F.A.N.G is a villainous example his [[PoisonousPerson poison powers]] are meant to keeps opponents at bay while his actual close quarters strength is pitiful. However his V-Trigger, Dokunomu puts a poisonous aura around him upping his defense greatly.
* ''{{VideoGame/Suikoden}}'' series:

*** Played completely straight in the ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' with Aerith's ranged support gameplay. Whilst Cloud, Barret and even Tifa (once you buff her up) can take hits, Aerith cannot having the lowest HP and Vitality in the party, requiring her to be protected constantly in battles. Aerith more than makes up for this with the best Magic and Spirit stats though, and in the story she can even defend against Sephiroth’s attacks with her magic.

** Ana in ''VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings'' is the only party member capable of using offensive PSI and has huge library of PSI abilities (both offensive and healing). Her attack and defense are abysmal however, her non-PSI attack does one maybe two damage and while her PSI attacks are useful in battle she's typically knocked out before real use can be made of them. She can make a great healer but can't use her powers if knocked out (which is often) ironically she learns the PSI to revive knocked out members far before anyone but being unable to use them on herself means lots of expensive hospital trips. Made worse is the fact she joins the party at Level 1 while other party members are typically between the Level 18-30 mark meaning lots of level grinding to get her to the point were she can survive.
** Similar story with ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound|1994}}'''s Paula who also starts out at level 1 when you get her and you have to travel through an area that has monsters that tend to one shot her. Although unlike Ana, she doesn't stay as that squishy and she isn't totally incompetent in physical damage as is the norm for this trope.

** Sugar fits the part, too. Her powers were incredibly lethal, able to transform and enslave someone with simply a touch, making it hard to get close to her. (Even Robin, as mentioned above, was only able to hold her for a few seconds before succumbing.) Sugar herself, however, was rather fragile, given that she was locked at the biological age of 9[[note]]WordOfGod gives her real age as 22[[/note]] when she ate her Devil Fruit. The whole plan to take her out revolved around tricking her into eating a spicy berry and hoping she'd pass out. It didn't work, but ''scaring'' her with a WildTake did the job.

** Basil Hawkins is pretty squishy. Despite his powerful Devil Fruit, he outright admits to Luffy and Zoro that he wouldn't be able to take the pair in a straight fight. However, the nature of Hawkin's VoodooDoll powers means that no matter how hard you hit him, the damage will pass on to one of his {{Mooks}}, leaving him unharmed. However, Admiral Kizaru's LightEmUp Devil Fruit completely negated Hawkins's advantage. [[spoiler:Also, [[TheSmartGuy Law]] and Killler were able to decisively overpower Hawkins once they bypassed the latter’s defenses.]]

** Black Maria of Kaido’s EliteMooks the Flying Six counts: while [[GiantWoman big]] and powerful enough to capture Sanji and put Robin through the ringer, she herself has little to tolerance for pain compared to rest of the Flying Six. Her fighting style besides brass knuckles and a polearm is primarily trickery and illusions in order to get an advantage over her opponents. Once Robin was able to get hold of Maria with her SuperMode, the fight ended decisively.

* Played straight in ''Manga/DragonBall'', the few cases we see of magic tends to not be directed towards combat. The one time a magician tried to fight was [[BigBadWannabe Babidi]] fighting Piccolo, and Piccolo quickly [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe cut him in half]] (though it was a bit longer in the anime). Later, Buu easily kills Babidi by gagging him so he couldn't use any spells.

* A major factor of Stand Users in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure''. Stands are powerful, come in many flavors and a representation of a person's fighting spirit. However many of the users are fairly weak physically and likely to go down easily once one finds a way around their powers. The BigBad and TheDragon of ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Stardust Crusaders]]'', (Dio Brando and Vanilla Ice) are an exception; even without their Stands they are still superhumanly powerful vampires.

** Sugar fits the part, too. Her powers were incredibly lethal, able to transform and enslave someone with simply a touch, making it hard to get close to her. (Even Robin, as mentioned above, was only able to hold her for a few seconds before succumbing.) Sugar herself, however, was rather fragile. The whole plan to take her out revolved around tricking her into eating a spicy berry and hoping she'd pass out. It didn't work, but ''scaring'' her with a WildTake did the job.

*** [[SpoonyBard Edward]] can use his instruments to put status effects on opponents, but suffers from low HP, weak defences, and subpar attack strength (to the point where Edward would lose a purely physical fight with Rydia, ''a seven-year-old-girl''). In the GBA version, this is inverted beyond level 70, as his stats undergo the greatest gain potential; but that's only if he's taken into TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon combined with a lot of LevelGrinding.

** Inverted with Selene Gallo of the Hellfire Club, she's a mutant sorceress who is eligible to be selected as Earth's Sorcerer Supreme but physically so superhuman that she's defeated the original and Hydra versions of Captain America - Steve Rogers. And both fights against the SuperSoldier (who's more superhuman than before to reflect the MCU movies) were melee brawls.

* ''ComicBook/XMen'' has many:

* The Molecule Man, at least until he discovers his full potential. For example, in the ''ComicBook/{{Secret Wars|1984}}'' he is able to drop an entire mountain range that dwarfs the Appalachians on the heroes but is dropped by a single stab from Characters/{{Wolverine|JamesLoganHowlett}} who had spent most of the series to this point getting swatted around by lesser villains.

* Mages in all ''TabletopGame/TheWorldOfDarkness'' games are by far its most powerful and versatile supernatural creatures in general -- but since they're physically human, they're still Squishy Wizards compared to vampires, [[TabletopGame/PrometheanTheCreated Prometheans]], werewolves, and [[TabletopGame/DemonTheFallen demons]], and need time to set up their more impressive feats, not to mention the risk of a [[WeirdnessCensor Paradox backlash]] if any {{Muggles}} see them working "magick."