Full Health Bonus

A Full Health Bonus is a passive skill, special attack, or item that can only be used effectively by someone who is perfectly healthy. This effect comes in two main types:

• The ability is completely unusable if the user is at anything less than full health. Some games give the player a bit of leeway when it comes to Scratch Damage and will only disable the ability after the character's health falls below a certain threshold, but more commonly, any damage at all will disable it.
• The ability can be used at less than full health, but its effectiveness is reduced when the character takes damage. This often works on a sliding scale, with the power of the attack being directly proportional to the amount of health remaining.

Where the Desperation Attack and Critical Status Buff are intended to help out the player if they're not doing very well, this kind of ability provides a means of rewarding the player for playing cautiously and avoiding taking hits instead of relying on their health meter to keep them alive while they plow recklessly through scores of weaker enemies. This might lead to an Unstable Equilibrium, though, if the player starts to rely on such an attack.

Unblockable Attack and Always Accurate Attack are generally effective means of knocking someone out of the threshold for this bonus, and thus tend to be effective counters to it.

A subtrope of Situational Damage Attack. Compare Breakable Powerup, an item that is lost when the player character takes damage; Cast from Hit Points, a technique that costs health to use and thus works best if the user can avoid getting hit; No-Damage Run, when the player receives a special reward for avoiding damage; Glass Cannon, a character who deals a lot of damage but can't take much of it; Percent Damage Attack, an ability that hits harder if the target, not the user, has more health; Injured Vulnerability, when low health makes the target more vulnerable; and Difficult, but Awesome, a character who requires a lot of skill to use effectively. Contrast Critical Status Buff and Desperation Attack, the inverse of this trope, and Critical Existence Failure, where characters aren't impacted by taking damage until their health reaches zero. Pain & Gain is when losing health gives a bonus instead.

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Examples:

• In 3D Dot Game Heroes, sword upgrades (enhanced length and width, sword beams, piercing, etc.) only take effect when the player is at full health.
• Afterimage: When upgraded, the greatsword "Stainless" increases Renee's physical damage and reduces her damage taken when her HP is full. Its Flavor Text mentions the belief that flawless combat would grant its wielder better strength.
• Assassin's Creed: Eagle Vision is only available at full synchronization. Future games dropped the synchronization as health mechanic and allow free use of Eagle Vision.
• Axiom Verge has the Bioflux Accelerator upgrade, which grants the player character Combat Tentacles that shoot out straight projectiles whenever he is shooting himself as long as he remains at max health.
• In The Banner Saga, a unit's attack power is the same as their current health, though lowered attack power does not affect armor removal or special abilities.
• Bloodborne has a class of blood gems (that can be kneaded into weapons) that boost your damage output while you are at maximum health. However, given that this is a soulslike and you lose health at the drop of a hat, this bonus only matters for the opening attack of an encounter, or if you are really, really good at dodging and parrying.
• In the Borderlands series, starting with Borderlands 2, Amp Shields provide a large boost to damage when your shield energy is full, but also deplete a significant amount of that energy when the boost activates, meaning you only get one shot and have to wait for your shields to recharge before using it again. In Borderlands 2, an exception is The Bee, a Legendary Amp Shield which provides the amp damage at no energy cost, allowing for multiple consecutive shots of boosted damage for as long as you can avoid actually getting hit. It proved to be such a Game-Breaker that not only was The Bee itself nerfed, but several of the weapons people would use with it also got nerfed, and shotguns as a whole got a major nerf when used with Amp Shields.
• In Dead Cells, one of the potential random attributes a weapon can have is a 50% damage increase while at full health.
• In Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, Kyoko and Asuka have Evilities that increase their speed and attack power, respectively, when they're at max HP.
• Divinity: Original Sin II: Characters who learn the "Hothead" talent gain bonuses to attack accuracy and Critical Hit chance while at maximum HP, which incentivizes ambushes, high Initiative scores, and plenty of Armor Points to retain the benefit.
• In Doom (2016), the "Rich Get Richer" rune grants the Doom Slayer Bottomless Magazines for all standard weapons as long as his armor is at 100 or higher (or 75 with the upgrade).
• Dragalia Lost has several equipabble wyrmprints that provide boosts when at full health, but they're usually disregarded because it's so easy to get hit with scratch damage that completely nullifies the boost. Fortunately there are plenty of wyrmprints which give essentially the same boosts but only require health to be at 70% or higher.
• In Dragon Ball Xenoverse and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, several of the rarest and/or most powerful Z-Souls (or Super Souls in the sequel) have effects that only trigger when the player is at full health.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Ultima Weapon, a Recurring Element in the series, is a sword (usually an Infinity +1 Sword) that deals damage based on the proportion of its wielder's current health to their maximum health. It was first introduced in Final Fantasy VI.
  • In Final Fantasy XII, "Serenity" is a passive ability which can be unlocked on the License Board and gives Black Mages substantially more magic attack power if their HP is full.
  • In Final Fantasy XIV, the Paladin's "Spirits Within" attack hits harder the closer the Paladin is to full health.
  • In Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Gria units can learn the Unscarred ability that boosts stats when the unit is at full health.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Subaki in Fire Emblem Fates has the personal skill Perfectionist, which increases his accuracy and avoid by 15 whenever he has full HP. Inverted with Xander, as his personal skill Chivalry, grants him 2 more attack and defense against enemies if their HP is full.
  • Ferdinand in Fire Emblem: Three Houses has the personal skill Confidence, which functions exactly like Subaki's skill. Dimitri gets an upgrade to his personal skill Royal Lineage 5 years later, increasing his avoid by 20 when he has full HP.
• Gacha World: Phoenix Ami's leader skill gives 3x multiplier to any attack the player makes if and only if they are at full health. This includes her own summon skill which both attacks and heals at the same time. Sure, the heal can get you back up to full to resume the bonus effect, but it would be weakened by the effect not occuring already due to not being at full health for the heal to be required in the first place.
• Hollow Knight has the Grubberfly's Elegy charm, which lets your nail produce sword beams but only as long as you are at full masks.
• Honkai Impact 3rd:
  • One of Mei's Valkyrie Suits has a leader skill (which is active when you put her in the lead) that grants increased critical rate if your party's average health is over 80%.
  • The individual pieces of the Elizabeth Bathory Stigmata have different effects that only occur when the user's health is over 80%.
• Into the Breach: The pilot Kai has an ability called "arrogant boost" that gives them increased attack damage as long as they remain at full health. This comes at the cost of a reduced movement speed while damaged.
• Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls: The Demon Fire upgrade:
  When at full health, you can shoot fire with your strong punch!
• Kirby:
  • In Kirby Super Star, the Sword ability fires out a sword beam when Kirby slashes while at full health. Given that the Sword ability also gives Kirby a green hat, this may be a direct reference to The Legend of Zelda.
  • Player attacks in Super Kirby Clash deal slightly more damage at full health.
  • In Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the Meta Knight Sword and Morpho Knight Sword will fire Sword Beams if Kirby is at full health. Having the extra healthbar power-up also counts as having full health, meaning that as long as Kirby doesn't lose this extra life bar, he's considered to be at full health even if he has taken damage.
• In Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, the wraith blade Soul Reaver only manifests while Raziel is at full health.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • In all of the 2D games, as well as The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Link's sword can create a Sword Beam when swung, but only if his hearts are full. In every game starting with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, finding a sword upgrade is required before this technique can be used.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games: The Noble and Master Swords can conjure sword beams at full health as usual, but there are rings that will keep the effect active while Link is missing up to three hearts.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: The Elixir Soup obtained from Link's grandma not only fully restores health and magic, it also doubles attack power until Link next takes damage.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess:
    • The final sword technique is an upgrade to the basic Spin Attack that increases its range, but it only works if Link is at full health.
    • The Great Fairy's Tears act much like Wind Waker's Elixir Soup, restoring Link to full health and doubling attack power as long as he remains so.
  • Hyrule Warriors: In addition to the Master Sword working as usual, the Heart-Strong weapon skill will increase the attack power of any weapon it's on as long as the wielder can avoid taking any damage.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: The Master Sword’s beam takes the place of throwing it, as you can’t get rid of the Master Sword once you’ve obtained it. The beam only works if you have full hearts or yellow extra hearts.
• Mega Man X:
  • The Hadouken and Shoryuken secret moves from the first and second games respectively will defeat virtually any enemy in the game in a single hit, but X must be at full health to use them.
  • In Mega Man X: Command Mission, Zero's Red Lotus Sword deals damage proportionate to how much health and armor he has remaining. When his armor and shields are topped up, this is the strongest weapon he has access to. At low health, it does piddling damage. It also offers no defensive bonuses, so any hits Zero does take will hurt.
• In Monster Hunter: World, the Peak Performance skill increases your attack when your health is full, whereas Maximum Might increases your affinity, the chance to land a Critical Hit when your stamina is full instead.
• In NieR: Automata, the four "Virtuous" weapons — the Virtuous Contract small sword, Virtuous Treaty large sword, Virtuous Dignity spear and Virtuous Grief combat bracers — all get the "Holy Blessing" improvement when upgraded to the maximum level, which gives a 15-20% attack boost when HP is full.
• Path of Exile has the Damage on Full Life Support skill gem, which increases the damage of any linked weapon attack skills by up to 49% (or more, if its level is increased beyond 20) while the skill's user is at full health. This pairs well with the Chaos Innoculation keystone, which relies purely on Energy Shield as their life pool as it sets their max life to 1, which means you'll always have 1/1 life while you're not dead.
• In Phantasy Star Online 2, the Gunner class's Perfectionist skill offers a whopping 20% bonus damage at maximum rank for as long as the Gunner's health stays above 75%. But given that Gunners are Glass Cannons whose health drops like a rock after taking a single hit, it might as well be a "do not get hit at all if you want to keep this" skill. Their High Time skill also rewards them with gradually increasing damage for not getting hit while Showtime (which causes the Gunner to Draw Aggro) is active.
• Pokémon:
  • The moves Water Spout, Eruption, and Dragon Energy deal proportional damage based on the user's remaining health. At full power, they can rival the strongest moves in the game like Hyper Beam and Overheat, but they quickly fall off once the Pokémon using them takes a few hits. The move Final Gambit deals damage equal to the user's HP. Works amazingly well if the user has high HP and at full health but if the user is at low health.... Expect minuscule damage.
  • The Multiscale ability halves the damage of any hit taken at full health.
  • The ability Gale Wings grants increased priority to the user's Flying-type moves. In Pokémon Sun and Moon, the ability was nerfed to only work while the user is at full health.
  • The item Focus Sash and, starting from Pokémon Black and White, the ability Sturdy allow a Pokémon at full HP to survive an attack that would knock it out in one hit, leaving it at 1 HP, whether through doing more damage than it's max HP or from a "One-Hit KO" effect. A Focus Sash will break after the protection is used, so healing the Pokémon to full HP again will not allow it survive another hit, while Sturdy will always be in effect allowing a Mon to stay in the game as long as its HP is kept topped off. A tricky strategy involves skill swapping Sturdy onto Shedinja (who always has 1 Max HP) to make it invulnerable to direct damage — by always being at full health and now being one-shotted by anything that hits it, Sturdy will trigger each time.
• Prayer of the Faithless: Mia's Guiding Light passive boosts her when everyone's fully healthy:
  Always on the lookout for others, Mia is filled with Joy at the end of each turn that the party's HP levels are max.
• The Exalted God's Horn in Realm of the Mad God grants the user +10 Dexterity (which determines fire rate) as long as their HP is above 90% of its maximum.
• Enemies in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice regenerate Posture faster the higher their health is. At full health, almost a full bar will dissipate in seconds if you don't keep up constant attacks. At less than 25% health, Posture won't regenerate at all.
• Shovel Knight has the Drop Spark upgrade which, once bought, allows Shovel Knight to flick a long-ranged spark across the ground while at full health. Beating a boss with the spark, which would require you to take down most of its health without getting hit (or downing an Ichor of Renewal before the last hit), nets you an achievement.
• Slay the Spire had the Runic Dodecahedron, which grants an extra Energy at the start of each turn as long as you're at full HP. This relic was eventually deprecated because it turned out to be too difficult to remain at full HP for long, especially on higher Ascensions (not only are you more likely to take damage at a higher difficulty, but by Ascension 6 you only heal 75% of your max HP and you start each run damaged), so the bonus would often go to waste.
• Star Trek Online has the Superfluous Emitters ability from the Command Specialization tree which gives a 2% damage bonus per team member above 95% health or hull capacity.
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate:
  • Certain Support Spirits grant increased attack power, movement speed or both while at 0% damage. The Super Shadow spirit is the only primary spirit to have this as a trait.
  • Much like in all the 2D games in his home series, Link's forward smash creates a Sword Beam if he's at 0%.
• In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Driver Arts are cooldown-based attacks with a variety of effects. Some of them (such as Rex's ether cannon art Daring Shot, his twin knives art Wind Slicer, or Nia's megalance art Vulture Peck) gain a damage boost of up to 75% (depending on the art's level) if the Driver using them has at least 90% of their maximum health. There are a few Blade Special Attacks that have this effect as well, such as Sheba's level 1 special Dessert Bomb or any of Poppi's specials with a Vital Charge RAM chip.

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