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It's-a me! The balanced one!
"Calo and Galdo are silver at all trades and gold at none."
Father Chains, The Lies of Locke Lamora

The Jack-of-All-Stats is a member of the Competitive Balance lineup who is competent but unremarkable in all areas. Strong but not The Strongest, Fast but not The Fastest, Tough but not The Toughest. Good at everything, the best at nothing. Their biggest strength is their lack of a glaring weakness, and their biggest weakness is their lack of an exceptional strength.

Quite often, this character is the baseline to get the hang of the controls, since they lack the extremes that might trip up a novice. They're also a solid choice for advanced players who want the flexibility to exploit an enemy's weakness, no matter what that weakness may be. Whether the character retains their usefulness as the player's skill grows depends on how much the game rewards versatility as opposed to pure power, but the Jack-of-All-Stats is almost never the best character in any given game or a Game-Breaker. They may have trouble dealing with characters whose skills are more extreme than theirs if they're allowed to press their advantages. Some games tout the Fragile Speedster as great for beginners, while the Mighty Glacier is for experts only. In other games, the Fragile Speedster can be tough to control while the Mighty Glacier is easier to handle. In either case, the Jack-of-All-Stats is an all-around safe bet for anyone.

In games with multiple playable races, it is often the case that Humans Are Average and are therefore the Jack-of-All-Stats race. It's common for humans to be a compromise, stat-wise, between the classic dichotomy of elves, who are graceful and fragile, and dwarves, who are strong and slow.

Another strength that helps the Jack-of-All-Stats is resistance to changes brought about by patches or Metagame discoveries that would reduce or remove the need for a specialist class. The Jack-of-All-Stats can, and often will, become a Master of All if given enough time and effort, although this is usual much more expensive in comparison to a specialist class. In some cases their versatility also overlaps in Confusion Fu, as their ability to fill a variety of roles with a wide range of techniques can make understanding their full capabilities much harder, but either way, they can also fall into their own category of Difficult, but Awesome due to the fact that because they are so balanced, they lack specialization. This in theory would mean more specialized characters can fall back on one thing the balanced ones can also do, only on a much more effective scale. This would mean this archetype have to rely on a lot more work to do well against said specialists, or even against themselves with a lot of fundamentals or out-of-the-box tactics. On the other hand, some of these characters can fall into the Skill Gate Character category since their versatility allows newer players to explore different gameplay styles as well as exploring the player's strengths and weaknesses.

See also Necessary Drawback, PVP Balanced, Always Someone Better, Humans Are Average, and Non-Elemental. Compare the Master of All and Lightning Bruiser, who can do everything better, and Master of None, who does everything worse (basically the same as this trope except it works against the character). Often overlaps with the Standardized Leader. Multiform Balance can let a character be this, but often they can only cover one area at a time. Compare Vanilla Unit, which can overlap with this, especially for beginner-friendly characters. Compare The Red Mage. Contrast Crippling Overspecialization.


Examples:

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    Mario 
Mario is the Jack-of-All-Stats in nearly every game he appears in that features some form of competitive balance. This is so common with Mario that he's the former trope namer for this kind of character.
  • Mario also is one of the most balanced characters in the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games titles. He is even classified as an "All-Around" character. He has decent strength, speed, and form, but he isn't the best at any of those categories, making him a safe bet for any event without being the best possible choice.
  • This is averted by Mario himself in the Mario Golf games, where Mario is Unskilled, but Strong, with a powerful swing, but little ball control.
  • In the Mario Kart series:
    • Mario is the Jack-of-All-Stats, as seen on the page image. While his stats are never exactly average across the board, he doesn't have any glaring strengths or weaknesses. Mario has decent acceleration, weight, handling, and top speed, without being exceptional in any area. Luigi usually joins him at varying degrees.
    • In Mario Kart games where the drivers and the karts can be selected separately, Mario's kart also has stats that boil down to "good but not great at everything", much like the man himself.
    • Super Mario Kart actually has two examples:
      • Mario and Luigi have middle-of-the-road acceleration, off-road performance, weight, and handling. Their top speed actually is better than Peach and Yoshi (and makes them a bit heavier), but not as much as DK Jr. and Bowser.
      • While their ludicrous acceleration also makes them Fragile Speedsters, Peach and Yoshi still fall into this trope: They are the same weight as the Bros. and their top speed actually is average, but their slippery traction makes them a good introduction to heavyweights' controls.
    • Mario Kart 64 subverts this: While lightweights are broken concerning acceleration, top speed, off-road and turbo, and while heavyweights at least have the power to push everyone to the side, Mario and Luigi only are middleweights and share their top speed with heavyweights but have a worse acceleration than them. Their only advantage is handling, which is practically useless in a game where you constantly have to drift, making them Masters of None by default. Heavyweights actually are closer to this trope than they are!
    • Mario Kart: Super Circuit allows every character to reach the maximum top speed, making the difference on other criteria. Mario and Luigi don't have exceptional acceleration, off-road and handling, but they are still good enough in these areas to compete. They also don't have exceptional grip, making harder for them to reach turbos on turns and stay stable on slippy tracks compared to heavyweights, but they are not as handicapped as lightweights in these areas.
    • Mario Kart DS has varied examples of this trope:
      • Every character has a standard vehicle with a standardized weight and whose stats are a compromise between balance and the character's strength and weaknesses. Pictured above, Mario is looking for the perfect balance, his stats being the closest to the middle.
      • Among all 36 karts available in the game, Mario's karts' stats are the most balanced. The other middleweights make the difference on other criteria: Luigi is balanced at a more advanced level, his strong areas being top speed, handling and acceleration, while its weak stats are weight and drift, which are nearly useless when you want to cross offroad and spam drifts on straight lines. Waluigi is on the heavy side, sharing Luigi's top speed on heavier but less nervous vehicles. Daisy's strong area is drift, which like stated above, actually is a handicap at a more advanced level.
    • Mario Kart Wii:
      • Tha game has a total of 36 vehicles, 6 karts and 6 bikes for each weight class who often mirror each other: karts are heavier and have a better top speed than their bike counterparts who are better everywhere else in comparison. Each weight class has one all-around kartnote  and one all-around bikenote  who won't be worse or better than any specialized vehicle in this area. Each weight class tries to find compromises regarding the general vehicles' stats and their respective size categories.
      • While the skill vehicle Classic Dragster can be considered the Fragile Speedster of middleweight karts, being their acceleration champion and having good drift and handling but a weak top speed, its other stats are still fairly balanced to enter in this specific category.
      • The starter vehicle Daytripper also falls into this category, as its disadvantages are not as pronounced as for lighter or heavier karts.
      • The game offers bonuses for each character. While Mario has 6 bonus points in weight and 2 in acceleration, handling and drift, the Miis fit this trope better. Whatever weight class they are, they will have 3 bonus points in speed and turbo, but also in categories where drivers of this size are handicapped: For example, lightweights will have bonus in weight while heavyweights will have it in acceleration.
    • Mario Kart 7, 8, and Deluxe allows any character to take the vehicle they want to with the tires they prefer and their favorite glider. More than cosmetic, all of these elements have strengths and weaknesses that impact your gameplay. However, that means you can take a heavy combo for a lightweight (or the opposite) and have this trope in action to varying degrees: this is the reason behind the popularity of the (in)famous "Waluigi on Wild Wiggler with Roller tires and Paper Glider" combo.
    • In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mach 8, Sports Coupé and Inkstriker are subversive in a special way: they are slightly heavier than Standard Kart and have more traction, but less acceleration and handling, while remaining balanced nonetheless. However, these are only the official stats: the game doesn't show their anti-gravity top speed which is more important than every other vehicle, including the officially most powerful ones like Circuit Special or B Dasher.
  • Mario Party 3: Snifit in the duel maps has 2 in Attack and Defense. The other partners who can help you in Duel Mode have values ranging from 0 to 4, excelling in one attribute (be it mildly or greatly) while failing in the other (again be it mildly or greatly).
  • In Mario Sports Mix, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Ninja and the Miis have an average skill on all stats, making them neither slow or fast, neither strong or weak, and so on. Mario gets the prize, though, as all three stats for him are just in the middle of the skill gauge.
  • The DS version of Super Mario 64 adds three new characters with different abilities. Yoshi can't punch and has his characteristic flutter jump, Wario is the Mighty Glacier, and Luigi jumps higher, again. Mario stays the same as always. His land speed does seem to be the highest of the four, though it's not reflected in the manual which gives him two stars out of a possible three for everything. However, one advantage Mario has is that he can wall jump, which is something the other three are unable to do.
  • Mario's balanced nature was codified by Super Mario Bros. 2. Luigi can jump the highest, Toad is the fastest at running and picking up items, and Peach can hover for short periods after jumping. However, Luigi is difficult to control precisely, Toad's jumping is awful, and Peach is exceptionally slow at picking up items. On the other hand, Mario is the second best jumper behind Luigi, the second fastest at picking up items and moving behind Toad, and his controls are very precise. He retains this pattern for Super Mario 3D World.
  • Super Mario RPG has Mario as the all-around party member by having balanced offense and defense physically and magically, while his speed is only slightly below average. This is necessary, as he's the only character you must always take into battle; if he had more significant weaknesses, he'd become more Pick-Me-Up sponge than ally and leader.
  • In Super Paper Mario, Mario is the only one who can flip, so that most of the game has to be played through him. Bowser is the strongest attacker and has flame breath, Peach has a big shield when crouching and can float down slowly with her parasol, and Luigi jumps higher along with an additional super jump ability. At the same time, Bowser is a bigger target, moves slower, and can't jump very high, Peach's parasol can't be used for defense while she's moving, and Luigi has lower traction. Mario has decent speed, attack, and jumping, but isn't the best at anything.
  • In the Super Smash Bros. series, Mario has decent mobility, average weight, mid-range damage, and mid-range launch power. His special moves and combos are quite varied, but none of them are as good as other characters' similar moves. And while his attacks aren't very flashy, they're also straightforward with no extra gimmicks to them, which makes Mario not need to worry about resource management like some other fighters do.

    Action Game 
  • Brotato: Well-Rounded is the first character on the selection screen, and has no real benefits or drawbacks outside of a few minor stat boostsnote , making them flexible. They can also start with one of several different melee or ranged weapons, so they can fit any build of your choice.
  • In-universe in CrossCode, Lea's class, the Spheromancer, is considered to be this. It bypasses the Fighter, Mage, Thief aspects of the other four by combining them. It's noted that most players ignore the class, because it doesn't provide the raw power of the others.
  • In Devil May Cry, the lightning sword Alastor is balanced in speed, range, and power. It's also the first unlockable weapon that has Devil Trigger, making it stronger than the starting weapon Force Edge, but weaker than Ifrit in terms of raw damage output.
  • Gundam Breaker Mobile has a massive spread of pilots available to select from. Their stats add to your Gunpla and their fighting styles offer a variety of attack/defense options. Their skill values will vary wildly. For instance, Domon Kasshu is a powerful fighter with high melee stats, while Graham Aker is a sniper that lacks defense but makes up for it with devastating shot power. In this system, the most middle-of-the-road, do-anything pilot is Norba Shino, who has a perfectly flat stat spread. His health, defense, and offense stats are all equal. His attack style also allows for a safe, traditional blend of melee and ranged combat without any real disadvantages. This means he can pilot almost any unit competently, but will never be a min-maxed monster.
  • Killer7 offers seven playable elite assassins through which players can freely toggle. Their resident Jack is Dan Smith, whose balanced attack, speed, waver and critical skills usually make him the players' weapon of choice. Every other character either moves or reloads too slowly, aims slightly off or is prone get one-hit killed. Dan has no weaknesses unless scripted otherwise.
  • Of the nine playable characters in Rampage 2: Universal Tour, Ruby's stats of run, punch, and climb are all shown to be even. It does help that she is one of the three available at the start.

    Action Adventure 
  • Bound by Blades have Teo the feline hero being the most balanced of the three playable heroes, having average stats, attack strength, speed, and other areas. Meanwhile the other two heroes of The Bound are the Fragile Speedster rabbit archer Guren and the Mighty Glacier bovine brawler Kota.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the amiibo-exclusive horse Epona is this. She has 4 stars in strength, speed, and stamina, as well as a gentle temperament. There are horses that outperform her, but the stats of those horses depend on luck of the draw.

    Beat 'em Up 
  • Battle Circuit: Cyber Blue fits the bill with balance in health, speed, and power. His power-up gives him and everyone else the ability for stronger attacks.
  • In the original Final Fight, Cody is not as quick as Guy or as powerful as Haggar, maintaining instead a balance between speed and strength. His real specialty is his ability to stab enemies with a knife at close range without tossing it; the other two characters can only throw the knife at enemies.
  • Arthur in Knights of the Round, smack dab in between Lancelot (Fragile Speedster) and Percival (Mighty Glacier).
  • In Streets of Rage 2, Blaze has two stars for all her stats. She is perfectly average. Axel also becomes one in the third game, though there's no real Mighty Glacier character, only a Fragile Speedster and a character that is just plain odd and relies on multiple hit techniques and range.
  • In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games, Leonardo often takes this role. Donatello has the longest reach but is physically the weakest, Michelangelo the strongest but slowest, and Raphael the fastest but has the shortest reach (some games switch these around but you get the idea). Leo, meanwhile, is in the middle across the board. For example, in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, each playable character (the TMNT, April, Splinter, Casey, Karai and Usagi) has their power, range and speed represented by one to three stars, and Leo is the only one who has two stars in every stat.
  • In Transformers: Devastation, Optimus Prime plays this role. Grimlock is the strongest but his playstyle is different from the others (playing more like a grappler), Bumblebee and Sideswipe are both Fragile Speedster-types, while Wheeljack is more suited for long range combat. Optimus is very close to a Lightning Bruiser and can equip any weapon in the game.

    Driving Game 
  • Crash Team Racing (Nitro-Fueled) has one subversion and an unusual example of this trope:
    • Despite being planned as the Jacks-of-All-Stats for the Good Side and the Evil Side respectively, Crash Bandicoot and Dr. Neo Cortex, who are shown with balanced stats in top speed, acceleration and turning, actually are Masters of None: their acceleration is actually worse than shown and their top speed is weaker than acceleration based characters. The unlockables Komodo Joe and Fake Crash are not better.
    • At a more advanced level, acceleration based charactersnote  are this: while they have the maximum acceleration, they also have the actual second-to-best top speed (the third in Nitro-Fueled after the introduction of the Drift class) and their weak handling stat gives them an advantage for drifts and turbo boosts, making them a good entrance for speed based characters.
    • In the original iteration, Penta Penguin is this in the PAL version of the game: he may have perfect stats all round, but Mighty Glacier computers playing against them will have a slightly better top speed, making him fall into this trope by default.
  • Diddy Kong Racing plays it straight with Diddy, naturally. In the remake, Dixie joins him in this regard. Timber is also one.
  • Captain Falcon in the original F-Zero (1990). In the later games, all four of the vehicles from the original F-Zero become only mildly differentiated as the range between the Fragile Speedster and Mighty Glacier widens considerably to include dozens of new vehicles. An even better example is the super all-arounder Octoman.
  • In Sonic the Hedgehog games, it tends to be a character other than Sonic himself (since he has an obvious focus on speed in one form or another):
    • Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing's Jacks-Of-All-Stats are Billy Hatcher and Amy Rose, whose cars have pretty middle-of-the-road stats. Sonic himself has high acceleration, average top speed, low handling, and crazy-powerful turbo.
    • In the Sonic Drift games, Sonic is not the Jack-of-All-Stats either—Sonic has a high top speed but bad acceleration. Tails is the Jack-of-All-Stats; the manual even states that Tails has no strengths or weaknesses.
    • In Sonic R, the Jack-of-All-Stats of the original racers is Knuckles as he's not as fast as Sonic and he doesn't have Tails' jumping ability and grip, making him perfect for starter racers. Tails Doll is also this for the unlockables.
    • In Sonic Riders, most of the character-specific default gears have the same balanced stats and accessories across the board with the differences coming from the added stats of the characters riding them. Additionally, there are gears such as the Cover series of gears that seek to counterbalance the weaknesses of certain types in order to balance things out.
    • Knuckles is also a Jack-of-All-Stats in the fanmade Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, being placed right at the center of the speed/weight stat grid. Sonic himself retains his stat distribution from the Sonic Drift games, with good speed but poor acceleration. Other characters are balanced in other ways: for example, Amy is on the light side of weight stat grid (controllable but extremely light), but on the center of the speed stat grid (perfectly balanced between acceleration and top speed).
  • In Star Wars Episode I: Racer, Anakin Skywalker has only average controls and average top speed. Sebulba's stats are virtually identical to Anakin's, but Sebulba has the special ability to shoot fire at his opponents, so he's more of a Mechanically Unusual Fighter.
  • Yellowjacket from the Twisted Metal series has average stats across the board in both of its appearances. In the first game they're all 3/5 while in Black it has a 6/10 in armor and special weapon power and a 7/10 in speed and handling.
  • WipEout - In between the raw speed of Qirex, the noob-friendliness of FEISAR, the high risk/high reward properties of AG Systems and the all-around perfection of Piranha, stands Auricom, occupying this place since 2097. In later games, this also includes the complete balance of Mirage with equal stats in all properties. Slightly averted in the Wipeout HD Fury expansion pack.

    Fighting Game 
  • In the Doujinshi Fighting Game Akatsuki Blitzkampf, The main character Akatsuki is like this. He is also a Shotoclone. This also plays into his guest appearance in Under Night In-Birth.
  • BlazBlue:
    • Bang Shishigami. While ninjas normally specialize in speed, Bang is more of an all-around character than anything.
    • Jin Kisaragi is more of a Jack-of-All-Stats than Bang due to the fact that he is easier for beginners to use. Being the Spiritual Successor to Ky, who is another Jack-of-All-Stats, counts as well. However, Jin also has a tendency to excel in about everything, making him either this or a slightly more balanced Master of All depending on what version the series' installment is; the most consistent weaknesses of his however, is his mixup game requiring meter to make use of, and his anti-airs being very slow.
  • In the Mascot Fighter Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion, there are multiple examples:
    • Blossom is the most balanced out of the three girls and most of the characters in the game with an amazing air recovery and decent power and range in her attacks. There is also Captain Planet.
  • Demitri and Morrigan from Darkstalkers are considered to be very well-rounded characters, with both of them focusing a lot on fundamentals and solid pokes (especially for the former, despite his lack of a high-low mixup game). They are also Shotoclones.
  • In the Dissidia Final Fantasy games:
    • The closest thing the Ensemble Cast has to a main protagonist, the Warrior of Light, is a shining example of a Jack-of-All-Stats. He moves fairly quickly but not fast enough to be a selling point, his Bravery damage output is middle of the road, his HP attacks are of moderate difficulty to land, he has a single BRV-to-HP attack, he has both ranged and melee options, he can fight in both the air and on the ground, and lacks any sort of gimmicks to his moves. And in Dissidia, this makes the Warrior a very solid choice; while he lacks big advantages, he also lacks exploitable weaknesses in match-ups, and doesn't have to worry about the stage he's fighting on. (This is more useful than it sounds—while sucky stages suck for everyone, some characters are severely disadvantaged by which stage is chosen; aerial fighters like Kain and Zidane struggle in the Phantom Train, ground-based fighter Firion has trouble in the sky-based Planet's Core, etc.).
    • In Duodecim, Shantotto calls out on Firion using this very trope, but replacing Stats with Weapons.
      Shantotto: Jack of all weapons, master of none?
  • In Final Fight, Cody is a Jack-of-All-Stats compared to Haggar, who is a Mighty Glacier. If Guy is in the game, he'll be a Fragile Speedster. Compared to them, Cody doesn't hit as hard as Haggar or move as fast as Guy, instead sitting in the middle for power and speed between the two of them.
  • Fire Pro Wrestling
    • The Orthodox fighting style gives 'C' affinity level for almost every move in the game, except for Rough moves (cheap, dirty, and/or illegal attacks, rated D) and Technical moves (rollup pins and surprise submissions, rated B). This means potential for have extremely varied offense, to the degree of Confusion Fu, but this isn't without its drawbacks — since affinity level determines how much stamina is drained by performing a move, Orthodox wrestlers tire much more quickly than those with specialized fighting styles.
    • The Shooter archetype is equivalent within the subset of MMA/shoot fighting styles (which includes Ground, Wrestling, Fighter, and Grappler). Shooters are equally skilled at punching, kicking, stretches, joint locks, suplexes, and clinched or grounded fighting — but they aren't the best at any of them.
  • In Godzilla Unleashed both the '90s (Heisei) and 2000 (Millennium) versions of Godzilla are the most balanced characters in the game in regards to their stats. The only difference between the two versions of Godzilla, in the game, is that one has a higher speed and/or attack than the other. King Caesar and Kiryu have the same and slightly better stats than Godzilla 2000, respectively.
  • Guilty Gear:
    • Ky Kiske is a balanced character, the reason why he's recommended to beginners and why many players find him boring to use, until he gains a new mechanic in Xrd, which still makes him a well-rounded character (and still a bit difficult to use as well as the other specialists).
    • While he's on the power-based side with more of an up-close game (and some powerful loops of damage but lacking in high-low mixups), series-protagonist Sol Badguy is also one as well when one takes into consideration his standard set of attacks and range.
  • Jago from Killer Instinct. His Combo Breakers are quite easy to pull off, but his special moves are pretty standard fighting game material, compared to the more specialized heavy-hitters like Fulgore or quicker characters like Orchid.
  • Marvel vs. Capcom:
    • Cyclops is a Shotoclone with a decent skillset, but has middle-of-the-road damage, health, and attacks. The only really exceptional thing about him are his Optic Blast eye beam projectiles, which have good utility as a zoning tool. However, he's not even the best at that, as characters like Tron Bonne, Iron Man, or Mega Man outdo Cyclops in the projectile and zoning game.
    • Captain America has slightly more power than Cyclops and the ability to double jump, but still fits this mold thanks to similar health and only one projectile by throwing his shield. Cap has a Level 3 Super Move which Cyclops doesn't, but it's one of the least useful Level 3 Supers in the series due to subpar damage for a move of its kind and the fact it's telegraphed pretty easily.
    • Iron Man has even more projectiles than Cyclops does, useful for keeping close-range fighters at bay. But once they're in close range, Iron Man doesn't have many ways to push someone back. Also, his combos and super moves have decent damage but predictable utility. Finally, he has slightly more health than Captain America, but not as much damage.
    • Ryu and Ken, the original Shotoclones, retain their stats and movesets from the Street Fighter series. Ryu's a little stronger and Ken's a little faster, but they both have a decent variety of special moves, attack power, and super moves without being the best at any of them.
    • Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has Taskmaster, who earns this title by Power Copying numerous moves from other fighters. Taskmaster has only two super moves: a Beam Spam by firing a variety of arrows at multiple angles, and a counterattack. The rest of his kit makes him decent at any range, but not great. He also falls into the middle of the pack in terms of health and overall damage.
  • Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat has fairly decent speed, projectiles, and power, as well as being the most accessible character to use.
  • Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl: SpongeBob SquarePants has average stats all across the board. His showcase outright calls him "a jack of all trades, but a master of none".
  • One Must Fall 2097 has two levels of statistics to deal with: pilots and their HARs. You can mix things up by putting a Fragile Speedster pilot into a Stone Wall HAR, though the result does not quite turn into a Jack of All Stats because of how the game treats the pilot's influence on the HAR's frame data and statistics.
    • In terms of actual well-balanced traits, Jean-Paul's stats are almost perfectly balanced with very little that makes him vulnerable (such as Milano's glass jaw) but also very little that makes him excel (such as Shirro's devastating striking power).
    • On the side of the robots, the Jaguar is extremely well balanced as a competent Shoto Clone type fighter with no overt weaknesses, while the Shredder is a close-range combo monster that slightly nudges Jaguar's basic stats down a notch for power and up a notch for speed.
  • In the Mascot Fighter PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Kratos is said to a balanced all-around fighter that is good for beginners. Although since this is Kratos, at higher levels he might end up as an Lightning Bruiser. More clear examples tend to be characters like Cole and Spike a.k.a. Kakeru.
  • In a rare example of the mascot character not fitting this role, Tails is the Jack-Of-All-Stats for Sonic Battle, using machinery to battle while maintaining decent offense and defense without excelling in any one area. Sonic the Hedgehog is the fastest character, but his damage per hit is among the lowest of the cast.
  • In the Soul series, Mitsurugi falls under this with exact-center range, attack, and speed. The only reason that he's still in the game is that he's the series's Jack despite being largely (entirely in later games) irrelevant story-wise.
  • Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter are the best examples of this when it comes to fighting games. They aren't as strong as Zangief, T.Hawk, or E.Honda or as Fast as Chun-Li, Cammy, or Vega, or as great at ranged attacks as Dhalsim or Sagat, but since they're competent in all of them, it makes them the most balanced characters in the series. They are also the easiest making them great for beginners. Comparatively speaking, Ryu is a Mighty Glacier compared to Ken and Ken is a Fragile Speedster compared to Ryu.
  • Super Smash Bros.:
    • Mario, as the former Trope Namer, is the most obvious example. Fast, but not as fast as Fox, with short reach but a spammable projectile making his close- and long-range games even out, middle-weight, with a decent recovery move and decent damage potential.
    • Luigi in the original 64 game, and for the rest of the series, is average in terms of stats (average reach, average speed, spammable projectile, middle-weight, etc.), but because of Divergent Character Evolution, he became more of a Fighting Clown who utilizes Confusion Fu, and thus is a nonstandard example of this trope.
    • Link also has fairly well-balanced stats all around, and both his long-range and close-range games are quite decent; generally, he's slightly slower and stronger than Mario, but still fits this trope. Brawl slows him down immensely and makes his attacks more powerful, turning him into more of a Mighty Glacier, while U/3DS speeds him up and keeps his power.
    • Brawl adds Pit from Kid Icarus who has decent attack speed, middleweight, great recovery, and can fight both close and long range.
    • U/3DS adds the Mii Swordfighter, a customizable swordfighter whose abilities and moveset lie in-between the other Mii classes in terms of speed, power, and versatility.
    • Also in U/3DS, Lucina. She's a Moveset Clone of Marth, a fast character who can either be a Lightning Bruiser or a weak character depending on what part of the sword he hits with, and has balanced stats otherwise. Lucina has balanced power and knockback all along her blade, making her this trope both in comparison to Marth and to other characters.
    • Ryu retains this status from his home series; his movement speed and the damage output of many of his individual attacks are similar to Mario. However, he can use Lag Cancel and special inputs to create traditional fighting game-style combos, which gives him unique abilities among the all-rounders in Smash.
  • Tekken:
    • In most appearances, both of Jin's forms (base and Devil) are this to his father Kazuya, who is more about punishment and 50/50 mix-ups coupled with a more defensive playstyle, and Heihachi, who is the most aggressive and damaging Mishima at the expense of punishment and safety. However, unlike most examples, both of Jin's forms aren't exactly beginner-friendly, requiring a fair bit of execution, matchup knowledge, and fundamentals to make the best of him.
    • Julia, when compared to other female characters in the series, most of whom either focus on evasion (Xiaoyu, Lili) or defense (Asuka, Alisa), is this. Throughout the series, she's always boasted some of the best wall carry and combo damage in the game (which very easily rivals those of the male characters), excellent reach on her pokes (which in themselves are also excellent), and is the closest the series has to a female pixie grappler (her [in]famous command grab, Mad Axes, being a prime contender for best command grab in the series next to King's Giant Swing) as the cherry on top.
  • Virtual-ON series: Temjin is not the king of ranged firepower, melee, speed or durability but it is good enough in each category to make it one of the best mecha in the game.
  • In War of the Monsters Robo 47, Togera and Congar play this role, with Congar being slightly faster, Togera slightly stronger, and Robo 47 in a comfortable middle ground.
  • In SmackDown!: Here Comes the Pain, a game released during John Cena's upper mid-card phase, he possesses a 7.5 out of 10 in every attribute, even strength.
  • In X-Men: Next Dimension, the very manual tells you that Cyclops is The Jack-of-All-Stats of the game. Experience tells you that The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard, only this time explicitly so.

    First-Person Shooter 
  • In Battlefield 3 the M16A3 (and its three-round-burst counterpart the M16A4) has a reputation for being almost a Game-Breaker due to the fact that it has the best reload speed of all the assault rifles but is very competitive with all the other assault rifles at all other statistics. If you were giving scores out of 10 for horizontal recoil, vertical recoil, rate of fire, first shot accuracy, reload speed, damage, handling and any other stat you can think of, it would have 9's across the board. It is competitive at any range.
  • BioShock 2 has the Rivet Gun, a versatile weapon that deals moderate damage with decent accuracy that acts as a decent backup weapon. This, however, works against it as other guns are more accurate but slower (the Spear Gun), better at tackling groups of splicers (the Machine Gun), or deals with Brute Splicers and Big Daddies quicker (Grenade Launcher) and rivets become harder to find later in Rapture. Overall the Rivet Gun is used primarily to help you learn your play style and pull you out of a bind if you need it.
  • Skyhammer and Stoker are the closest things Dirty Bomb has to a Jack of all Stats. Both have enough health to last in any engagement, and their assault rifles give them great accuracy and DPS at almost any range. Both of them also have enough movement speed to get to the fight in time to contribute to it, though they're also easily outpaced by almost every other dedicated Merc. They even form a hybrid with Stone Wall by providing infinite ammo for themselves and others! Bushwhacker and Sawbonez also qualify; though their submachine guns are less accurate at range and deal less damage, and they're slightly weaker and faster than Hammer and Stoker, they're still a good choice for frontline operations.
  • Doom: The shotgun fills this role, in an early aversion of Short-Range Shotgun. It doesn't excel at any given category, but there are very few situations it isn't at least useful, with short-to-medium range, reasonable ammo consumption, good damage, and its status as a hitscan weapon ensuring that few things can go wrong when you fire it. It is somewhat Overshadowed by Awesome in Doom II and Doom 64 when the Super Shotgun is considered, though, but the regular shotgun still beats it at range and is the more efficient option against individual low-rank enemies on whom the Super Shotgun would be overkill (and a waste of ammunition, as the Super Shotgun requires two bullets per shot).
  • In E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy, players who evenly distribute their XP will be given the class title of "Equilibrium Lord", which will eventually change into "Gray Master" with enough XP. Additionally, the weapons that start out unlocked are all very well rounded weapons, though generally a bit boring. For example, the BOSCO sniper rifle offers a large 25 round magazine, the ability to One-Hit Kill most mooks with a headshot, is silenced, and is a lightweight and relatively short weapon, making it usable indoors - but the weapon is worse than useless against enemies wearing heavy armor, and cannot penetrate walls (or multiple mooks) like the other two snipers, the Hunting Machine and the TRK A.D..
  • Half-Life: The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit (abbreviated as HECU) fill this role among the enemies you encounter. While they are not as strong as other enemies that the player will fight later on, they are still no slouches in combat, being some of the only enemies to use guns against you or to work as a team. They usually require the use of good enough tactics against them and prep time is required to take them down.
  • Halo:
    • The Master Chief fits this trope perfectly in-story. Whilst some of the other Spartan-IIs are superior to him in strength, speed, intelligence, marksmanship, etc., the Chief has the most balanced skill-set of the group outside of his second-in-command Fred-104, being good at everything rather than filling one specific niche. He's also the bravest and is a natural leader, and noted by Dr. Halsey (the architect of the SPARTAN-II program) to be the best of them all. Cortana chalks it up to something no one else ever saw but her: luck.
    • By contrast, Spartan-III Noble Six of Halo: Reach has the same versatility and "hyper-lethal" rating as the Chief, but not nearly as much luck. Or any luck at all, really.
  • In Hawken, the CRT-Recruit mech you start with is the most balanced class, with the assault rifle and TOW missile giving it decent firepower at all ranges.
  • Tobias from In Pursuit of Greed, the team's cyborg character, is the most well-balanced among the five playable protagonists. On the character stat screen, all his stats (Resistance, Speed, Jumping Height) measures at 60 / 100.
  • In Metroid Prime: Hunters, Samus herself becomes the Jack-Of-All-Stats. She's the only Hunter without a unique weapon (aside from the fact that her missiles can home), and her alt form's abilities are average.
  • The assault rifles in Modern Warfare's multiplayer fill this niche. Snipers have superior range and damage, SMGs have faster fire rates and more mobility, LMGs have more firepower and larger mags and so on. However, each of those weapons also have obvious drawbacks for their strengths - snipers have almost no utility at close ranges, SMGs have neither the stability to stay on-target past short range nor the power to do much more than tickle anyone you do hit, LMGs move and reload extremely slowly - while the assault rifles tend to be good if not exceptional in any situation.
    • Call of Duty: Black Ops has a more niche example with the Stoner 63. Based on a real-life "system weapon" that could be modified in minutes to fit the role of an assault rifle, carbine, squad automatic weapon or light machine gun, it's presented in-game in its assault rifle form but fits into the light machine gun class. In this case it ends up being a very good weapon because it almost universally gets the good points from one class instead of the negative points of the other - your movement is only slowed as much as by an assault rifle, your time to aim down the sights is quick, and your reload speed is relatively fast, but at the same time you have less recoil in full-auto than an assault rifle, the rate of fire is noticeably faster despite that, Extended Mags doubles the amount of ammo per magazine rather than only increasing it by 50%, it has higher penetration than any assault rifle bar the M14 and FAL, and it deals flat damage across any range rather than having damage drop-off at further ranges.
  • Overwatch has Soldier: 76, who was designed to be an easy to play and versatile character. His weapon is a decently accurate assault rifle that can do decent sustained damage at range as well as fire rockets for burst damage. He can also sprint for added mobility and drop a Biotic Field for group healing and his Ultimate is a straight-up aimbot that lets him automatically target enemies without aiming. However, in spite of how varied his moves are, Soldier: 76 isn't the best at anything he does compared to other heroes.
  • Rise of the Triad has five characters you could play the game with, one being fast but squishy, another being a tank but slower... Taradino Cassatt is The Jack-Of-All-Stats, as he is average in everything.
  • Team Fortress 2:
    • The Soldier is considered to be very well-rounded. He's designed for leading the offensive, but he's also vital for filling gaps while on defense. He has slightly below-average speed (that he can compensate for by rocket jumping), slightly above-average health (that he can sacrifice for more mobility via rocket jumps), and deals good damage at almost any range. His rocket launcher is designed for direct attacks at medium range, but its accuracy and explosive power allows him to improvise harassing at long range or saturation bombing until dedicated Snipers/Demomen can regroup. He also has the greatest number of weapons out of any playable class, allowing him to potentially fill other roles (group support with the Banners and Disciplinary Action, extreme-mobility scouting with the Gunboats, sentry busting with the Direct Hit, picking off targets with the Market Gardener). While he's effective at low levels of play, rocket jumping has enough of a skill curve that he requires some work to master. In fact, his greatest aspect is that he has no exploitable weaknesses when played correctly. He doesn't truly counter any class, but the closest thing he has to a counter himself is the Pyro (and even that requires the Pyro to have good timing and the Soldier to not have his shotgun).
    • A Pyro with a shotgun is an average speed, average health class with the most commonly appearing stock weapon (four classes out of nine use it, with the next most common weapon only appearing in two out of nine loadouts), reaching to medium range and doing moderate damage. Obviously not what the class was designed for, but remarkable in that it manages to actually define an 'average threat' in a Cast of Snowflakes. However, in higher levels of play, the Pyro is considered to be the Master of None with no real specialization in anything other than a very easily-countered gimmick.
    • While most defensive use of the Engineer involves turtling, some players use the Engy as a versatile combat class. Less agile than the Scout, but still faster than some classes. Not a dedicated healer, but can still dispense healing. Less imposing than the Heavy, but even mini-sentry-guns are good for area denial. He doesn't rocket-jump as well as the Soldier or Demo, but creative players can still "Sentry-Gun-Jump". Finally, his pistol and shotgun weapons give him decent close and mid-range damage output, but nowhere near the extremes of Pyro or Sniper.

    4X 
  • In Civilization: Beyond Earth, Franco-Iberia fits this trope in that their special ability simply gives them extra virtues that they can spend on any culture tree. Accordingly, instead of having a particular playstyle (aside from stacking culture), they can either get better at whatever playstyle they're pursuing or develop abilities to guard against their weaknesses.
  • In Master of Magic, the Orcs are the Jack-Of-All-Stats. Of the 14 races in the game, they are the only ones who can build every possible city improvement, they have no inherent bonuses or penalties that come with using them, and they have no exceptionally powerful military units (but no pathetically weak units either).
  • The U.N. Peacekeeper faction in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri has no major explicit advantages or disadvantages due to ideology as opposed to the other factions. Turns out, this actually can come in handy as they are extremely adaptable. Also, they are the least crazy. They have some subtle modifiers: they have a small efficiency penalty (being modeled on the United Nations, they're a bit too fond of legalistic bureaucracy), can't be a police state, have happy citizens, can cram more people into small places (being founded by liberal intellectuals, their people don't care as much about material things and can live in tighter quarters) and get extra votes at meetings (representing their leader's experience as a parliamentary maneuverer). Nice abilities, small drawback (only one or two depending on whether or not you intend to be a ruthless conquering dictator). They're less obvious than any of the other factions' modifiers. The expansions factions are even less average.
  • Stellaris features three weapon tech lines: kinetic, energy, and missile. Of the three, energy is strong against armor but weak against shields, kinetic is the other way round, and missiles are effective against both but not as much as their dedicated counters. (Missiles do have the schtick of being an Always Accurate Attack, but this gets countered by point defenses.)
  • In Sword of the Stars, the Humans and Tarka come closest to being The Jack-Of-All-Stats. Both have decent but unspectacular chances at high-end techs. Humanity has the 'average' values in things like population growth, research rate and ship toughness, but their strategic star drive is unusual - highest numerical speed but often forces a roundabout route that a skilled player may be able to take advantage of. The Tarka, meanwhile, has the hyperdrive, the most straight-forward FTL drive, but it isn't particularly fast in any era. They are of a more industrial bent and their ships edge more towards Glass Cannon than humanity.

    MMORPG 
  • In Battlestar Galactica Online, while Multirole ships are Lightning Bruisers in their own classes in terms of stats, where customizability through slots is concerned they are only this. As an example, an Interceptor may have 5 Engine slots. The other two types have only 2. The Multirole has 3.
  • In City of Heroes, the Scrapper is probably the truest Jack of All Stats around; it falls neatly between the Blasters and the Tankers. For some mysterious reason, this results in 'Scrapperlock', which varies in severity from axe-craziness to omnicidal mania, depending on the player and whether or not the targets in question have pissed them off.

    All of the villain archetypes in City of Villains fall into this to some degree in that they overlap with each other while many of the hero archetypes are overly specialized (aside from the Scrapper). While the hero archetypes tend to prioritize either defense or offense, all villain archetypes were designed with a emphasis on offense and then differing types of defense to back it up.

    The Mastermind was perhaps the master of being the Jack of All Stats; while the player would themselves have some useful buffs, debuffs and assorted weapons that could assist a team, the minions could provide firepower, melee abilities, tank, or act as distractions, or a combination of all of the above. Unlike many archetypes that really required a team because they had too few offensive/weak powers to solo, or archetypes that could solo but couldn't provide much support to other players on a team, Masterminds could solo easily while on a team their buffing abilities worked just as well on teammates as it did on their minions. A well built Mastermind could thus tank, blast, melee, and support all at the same time.

    Most of the time though, the Jack of All Stats has traditionally been the Epic Archetypes. Peacebringers and Warshades in human form mix Attack (both ranged and melee), Defense, and Utility in fairly even amounts, and can become psuedo-Tankers or Blasters through special shape shifting powers. They even become more powerful depending on team makeup. (Peacebringers fill in weaknesses, while Warshades accentuate strengths.) Spiders and Widows have a mix of Melee and Ranged attacks (with the exact ratio depending on your career path), and have the ability to buff their allies to astronomical levels just by being there. A few Spiders and Widows can Cap a team's stats without even trying.
  • In Dynasty Warriors Online, each weapon has different stat upgrade rates. There are a few weapons like this. Iron Halberd (Lu Bu) has surprisingly balanced stat growth for being the weapon of choice of the series's Dragon and, without modification, can dish out damage and take it quite well. The other weapons fitting this trope are Zhou Yu's Iron Sword (possibly the most balanced of the three, give or take a random stat bonus) and Zhuge Liang's Feather Fan (an unimpressive but useful support weapon with a PhD in beam spam and a minor in AoE). Those are the only weapons that you can get and build any growth from.
  • In EVE Online:
    • The Minmatar "Typhoon" battleship is billed via the in-universe description as being versatile and fit to deal with most situations. In-game, it's a trashcan with a mix of slots (but still awesome).
    • And, to a lesser degree, the Gallente Vexor. Though built as a drone boat, the low cost, combined with the sheer versatility of drone options makes this cruiser useful for combat, salvage, logistics.
    • Perhaps nothing more than the special edition Guristas Chameleon, which combines covert-operations cloaking, ECM capabilities, missiles, and drones into a ship capable of doing nearly everything.
    • The Society of Conscious Thought vessels, the Sunesis, Gnosis and Praxis, feature generous and balanced slot layouts and bonuses to all major weapon systems, leaving the choice of how to fit them entirely up to the pilot.
  • The Druid class in EverQuest is the Jack-Of-All-Stats among caster classes. The class is pretty good at fundamentals such as healing, buffing, and DPS, but not the best in any of these. Likewise they have some more specific masteries over movement and damage-over-time spells, but even in these the class is typically not the best. What Druids lose in specialization they gain in convenience at having such a variety of abilities.

    The Human race in general in all Everquest games have completely average racial stats. They are intentionally the race by which all other races are compared to in terms of stats. In Everquest 2, they also happen to be the one race who has the most influence in the survivability of the other races in Norrath as well.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has The Red Mage fulfill this role, which the job is one to do in other Final Fantasy titles. Red Mages are a ranged magical DPS class, but have abilities that can cover any area without excelling at them. A Red Mage's spells can be double-cast on both single targets and groups, but without matching the damage of a Black Mage or a Summoner. Their melee attacks are decently strong, but not as good as a Ninja or a Dragoon. They've got Magic Barrier to buff their allies, but it pales in comparison to a Tank's damage mitigation abilities. They have Vercure to restore HP, but it's not as good as the healing from a dedicated Healer class. Red Mages can double-cast Verraise to restore two of their KO'd allies to life at once, which is something no one else can do. But this takes almost half of their MP to do it, and there are few situations in which a Red Mage's revival skill will be needed in such a way except at high-level play. So while a Red Mage can't do anything as well as a class dedicated to something, they can cover any holes in a party line-up in a decent but unremarkable manner.
  • In Guild Wars 2:
    • Celestial gear (and Runes of Divinity) are this, providing a boost to every stat. Most high-level gear provides a large bonus to one stat and a medium bonus to two others, while Celestial gear provides a somewhat smaller boost to all of them. The exception is Critical Damage, where Celestial gear provides as much as anything else in most cases. "Good for everything, perfect for nothing" is the general view of this.
    • The Ranger profession does not have as much damage output as a Warrior, nor as much survivability as a Guardian, nor as much support as a Mesmer or an Elementalist, nor as much control as an Engineer, but competent in all those categories nevertheless.
  • In Star Trek Online, the Fleet Support Cruiser Retrofit (re: the Ambassador-class), compared to its other Enterprise siblings, doesn't have the hit points the Fleet Exploration Cruiser Retrofit hasnote , the firepower strength of the Fleet Assault Cruiser Retrofitnote  or the maneuverability of the Fleet Advanced Heavy Cruisernote , it more than makes it up in flexibility, having a Lt. Comm Science BOFF slot, allowing the Cruiser to have Science powers its siblings can't use, a Lt. Universal BOFF slot, meaning it can expand its usage between more Science, Engineering and Tactical powers and extra Engineering Console slots, allowing it to add extra defenses to your ship.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • The Druid class is a variation on this, a jack-of-all-trades but only a "master of one" based upon the specialization chosen. This class can transform into a range of exotic creatures, becoming a stealthy assassin as a cat, a tank protecting the rest of the group as a bear, a powerful nuking spellcaster as an owl...thing, or they can heal as their normal humanoid self. Each form can perform roughly as well as the class it mimics, so it's not exactly Master of None, but generally with fewer "utility" abilities. A cat druid might have the raw DPS of a rogue but will not be able to keep opponents crowd controlled or constantly stunned as well as a rogue, the two caster forms have the raw spellpower of a priest but lack some key "panic buttons", and the bear will have the armor and stamina of a warrior but will have trouble tanking against multiple foes.
    • The Paladin is also a twist on this with their specific capabilities depending on the expansion. They lack a transformation mechanic like the Druid and are therefore more straightforward to play, but also follow a "master of one" philosophy. Their specialization roles are healing (Holy), tanking (Protection), and damage-dealing (Retribution), but all Paladins will have access to some baseline healing, defensive, and offensive abilities for flexibility, with the Retribution specialty having surprisingly good support healing in the hands of a skilled player. As expansions were released, new abilities were added to give each specification added utility, such as improving Holy's Area of Effect-healing tools, Protection's ability to handle sudden damage spikes, and Retribution's ability to deliver competitive damage-per-second.

    MOBA 
  • In Awesomenauts:
    • Sheriff Lonestar is the most well-rounded of the 'nauts. Depending on the items he's using, he's easily capable of sustaining, fast lane-clearing, turret-razing, harassing from afar, or even bursting and ganking enemies. His health is middle-line and his movement speed is rather low, but he can buy Barrier Magazine (a permanent shield upgrade usually reserved for tanks) and buying his Rocket Boots provides a source of uniquely-exceptional mobility. His Dynamite Throw is a good source of damage while his Hyper Bull's innate utility is excellent for helping himself or allies out of trouble.
    • Chucho Krokk's main gimmick is getting on and off his flying hyper bike, granting an exceptionally unique form of versatility. He can easily break up teamfights or execute weak targets with his Sticky Bomb, he can apply plenty of pressure with his blasters, and in a pinch he can easily chase with his bike. His clearing power is only rivaled by Lonestar. But his sticky bomb damage isn't as high as assassin burst skills, he has less DPS than a normal brawler (and is considerably squishier), and he doesn't have any escape aside from his bike.
  • Dota 2 has quite a few examples as well:
    • Wraith King has a simple yet effective moveset consisting of a standard-issue fire-and-forget ranged stun with low cooldown, a Life Drain aura, a powerful Critical Hit, and an Auto-Revive ultimate that also slows enemies nearby when it goes off. This grants him excellent sustain, damage, initiation, and support potential, letting him fill just about any role on the team.
    • Alchemist's main schtick is earning craptons of gold very quickly, which logically pushes him towards carrying. However, he also possesses the unique ability to gave his team slotless Aghanim's Scepters. Combined with his powerful stun and reliable early game zoning from Acid Spray, there's nothing stopping Alchemist from playing support early on and then six-slotting himself after his team's carry gets farmed.
    • Tiny, a mid-laning ganker who relies on massive point-blank burst that later takes on the role of a base-pusher and carry through items as his nukes fall off.
    • Doom can can gain various skills by simply eating the corresponding neutral creep, which also earns him a bit of bonus gold for good measure. This alone lets Doom customize his abilities and items for any situation. Add on some innate tankiness, respectable damage output, and an ultimate which translates to "neuter target hero for an entire teamfight" and you've got a particularly versatile hero.
    • Lone Druid gets to summon a bear as his personal meat shield/farm enhancer/harasser/tower redecorator and the ability to switch between a fast but squishy ranged druid form and a slower but far more durable melee bear form. He also comes with decent damage output and a soft disable, letting the Druid adapt to most lineups. It also helps that he gets twelve item slots to work with between him and his bear as opposed to the usual six and can farm up quickly enough to take advantage of them.
    • Naga Siren: Pushing, scouting, and farming with Expendable illusions, Engaging or Disengaging Teamfights with her ultimate, and just dogpiling people with all five of her.
    • Leshrac has a solid mana pool, a spammable multi-target slow, and an area stun, making him a decent support. However, if Leshrac gets farmed, the other half of his skillset allows him to vaporize anyone who so much as approaches him, making him a workable carry as well.
    • Nature's Prophet: Like Doom and Alchemist, his only real unique "Skill" is getting gold. Summonable meatshields to ward off creeps and eat tower shots, rings of trees to hide him or trap an enemy, global teleportation that has a seperate cooldown from TP scrolls, and a good auto-attack let him push, carry, support, jungle or gank.
    • Silencer: An area of effect Damage Over Time ability that punishes the opponent for casting spells, a single target one that punishes opponents for not casting spells, and a massive manapool make him a brutally oppressive lane opponent that can solo the hard lane or tyrannize the enemy one, his Global Silence is one of the most powerful ultimates in the game and practically wins a teamfight by itself, no positioning required, irreversibly stealing 2 intelligence from anyone that dies near him, and gaining up to 90% of his intelligence as un-counterable pure damage while his over-the-top agility growth gives him further damage. He can support, counter-initiate, and Carry all in the same game without giving up any of those.
    • While his abilities are specialized for support, Bane is notable for having a perfectly even set of base stats and stat growth.
  • Heroes of Newerth:
    • Valkyrie, based on Mirana from Dota, has good ranged autoattacks that makes laning not difficult, has a Difficult, but Awesome skill shot with a big payoff and strong burst damage, and two abilities that can be used either as a gap closer or an escape ability. She's an effective ganker and carry with the right amount of skill:reward ratio and basically set the gold standard of balance for future heroes.
    • Master of Arms comes with a versatile set of skills. He has a long-range skill shot that splits to cover a large area on hit and stun/slow enemies, an acid bomb that covers a large area and deals damage over time, making him good at farming lane creeps and harassing the lane, and a damage-boosting/shield ult that can be used on himself or any other ally anywhere on the map. He has two guns that he can switch between, one that has extra range and damage, and another that rapid-fires a couple of shots, making items with proc effects very effective. His versatility makes him work well as a carry, ganker, or support.
    • Aluna is a hero with a set of skills with a high skill ceiling, but makes her extremely versatile when mastered. Her first skill is a chaining stun that steals attack speed. Her second skill is a Windrunner Power Shot-like skill shot with a very long range and startup time. Her third skill is a multi-stage skill that gives her bonus movespeed, which can be activated to send a mirror image that slows nearby enemies back to where she activated the skill, and then again to teleport to the image's location. She can enhance all her abilities with her ultimate to steal more attack speed, gain 100% evasion chance, and multiple 0-cost global range shots. All these combined makes her a powerful laner who can gank and support with a very fast autoattack speed to let her persist late-game.
    • Solstice is a melee strength hero with a day/night Stance System with a skillset that covers a wide area of uses. One of her skill gives her autoattacks bonus damage and lifesteal every 3rd strike, which deals splash damage in day form, allowing her to be played as a jungler. She can close in and charge at enemies to gank, scout for enemies hidden in fog, and initiate teamfights with a Charged Attack that covers a large cone AoE. While she doesn't have the best scaling, the fastest jungle clear speed, nor is the most effective ganker or initiator, she's very flexible, not difficult to play, and will always be useful in some way in any point of the game.
    • Shadowblade can become a Jack of One Stat with his ultimate, which lets him changes his primary attribute, letting him be a Lightning Bruiser strength hero, a Glass Cannon agility hero, or a Squishy Wizard intelligence hero with powerful ranged attacks. While he was designed as a carry in mind, he was rebalanced to have much higher base stats and some extra utility with lower stat growth, allowing him to more comfortably fit other roles.
  • Heroes of the Storm:
    • Tassadar is "good at everything, best at nothing". While he's classified as a Support and is indeed decent at keeping allies alive by granting them shields, he's the only Support in the game with no healing ability, and the closest thing he gets is a talent that lets his shields persist indefinitely. He can push down towers and minions quickly, but not as quickly as a dedicated Specialist. While normally something of a Squishy Wizard, his Archon Heroic Ability allows him to tank and deal a significant amount of damage, but he's not as good at dealing damage as a dedicated Assassin nor is he as tanky as a typical Warrior. He lacks a hard disable, but partially compensates with talents that let him slow enemies and the Force Wall Heroic Ability, which lets him block off enemies. Finally, he can turn invisible and invulnerable briefly, which gives him a way to get out of trouble, but it's not quite as effective as some of the other repositioning/escape abilities in the game. All things considered, Tassadar's main outstanding quality is that almost no other hero has a kit as versatile as his.
    • Raynor is the starter character for a reason - With a simple and versatile kit that includes a simple knockback, movement speed and attack buff, and a completely passive self-heal (sans talents), strong basic attacks that require no more than a right click, and a trait that simply lets you kick ass from further away, he is the quintessential "Easy to use, hard to master" jack of all trades. Most if not all starter characters, especially for Blizzard games (I'm looking at you, Soldier 76), are characters with boring but practical skill sets that are viable in every tactical scenario. The nature of his ultimates exacerbate this theme - Hyperion is a multi-use pushing/zoning/area of effect damage tool, while Raiders rounds things out by providing strong single target focusing power, much to the dismay of many invisible heroes. He may be labelled "Assassin", but he can also push and self heal in the vein of specialists and healers in a pinch as well (he shouldn't tank, but that's about all he can't do). Plus, he's so stupidly simple and cheap to buy at 2000 gold, that anyone can use him.
    • Varian Wrynn's Charge has to target an enemy player or minion and slows them, Lion's Fang also slows enemies, his Parry blocks attacks directed at him for a second, and his passive lets him do double damage at set intervals. He can be built to tank, do burst damage, or deal sustained DPS depending on talent choices. That all said, he lacks a reliable escape tool, having only his Parry or the ability to Charge an enemy minion behind himself to get out of trouble, making his tanking build more about stunning and slowing enemies and drawing their attention temporarily as compared to other tanks. The only stuns or interrupts he has are Taunt, and if you picked the right talents, his Charge, so there's limits to just how much he can stop opponents from doing what they want. In addition, this lack of escapes requires him to pick his battles much more carefully than other DPS assassins in those two builds, who often have some form of teleport, dash, or leap to get to safety in a pinch. The biggest strength of Varian, in fact, is that he can be built three different ways and the opposing team can't counterpick based solely on the fact that they're fighting him.
  • The League of Legends:
    • Karma was likely designed with this concept in mind, being a Martial Pacifist Combat Medic whose backstory is all about trying to find balance. Very well-rounded stat-wise, less squishy than most wizards, with spells that work for both attack and support and a versatile R ability that can power up any one of her other spells. Unfortunately, since she doesn't really fall into any particular dedicated role in the metagame, she is a rather unpopular champion - a common joke among the playerbase is people not knowing who she is. Her lack of a flashy ultimate or interesting gimmick doesn't help either.
    • Cho'Gath is feared primarily for just how many roles he can effectively play on a team.
    • Irelia's play history has been very volatile (ranging from a Game-Breaker to considered awful), with developers citing her retrospectively having nearly every kind of tool a character could be given save for being a ranged character likely playing a major part in this.
    • Described as "a ranged melee tanky DPS assassin mage tank support jungler. He excels at everything." in a joke spotlight, Lee Sin really is a very versatile champion with good base damage, mobility and utility that can be expected to be able to hold his own in many different environments with a high skill-cap that let him pull off some very impressive things with good hands using him. His major weakness is poor damage-scaling.
    • The character Jarvan IV contains a good amount of range in his abilities, a lot of utility and mobility and great innate burst damage to let him serve his team in numerous capacities. His main drawback is his poor base stats causing him to require some time to obtain levels and items for these traits to overtake his weakness.
    • Kayle. Like Mordekaiser, her power meters in all three areas are mid-range. Her kit includes armor shred, melee attacks, ranged attacks, physical damage, magic damage, burst damage, sustained damage, a slow, a speed boost, a heal, and an invincibility spell. She can play support, AD carry, AP carry / assassin, hybrid damage carry, bruiser, or tank. Her only real weakness is that she's not as good at any of those roles as the champions that specialize in one of them.
    • Gangplank is also notoriously versatile in his builds and his skill kit. He's got a single target ranged poke that can become a nuke if built for damage, an AoE buff that's great for initiation or a disengage, a heal that can remove crowd control and debuffs, and a barrage of cannonballs for an ultimate that, because of its global range, can be used to help allies from anywhere with damage and a notable slow. He can be a bruiser, a ranged AD caster, a tank, a jungler and (as crazy as it sounds) a support. Like most everyone on this list, his weakness is that he can never quite reach the levels of efficiency that other, more specific champions do.
    • Taric can do some crowd control, but not as well as Blitzcrank, some sustain, but not as well as Soraka, some buffing and debuffing, but not as well as Lulu. Taric's main distinguishing feature is a low skill requirement compared with other supports- two of his skills simply hit anyone nearby, while the other two are single target clicks.
    • Among junglers, Zac has long-range initiation, area of effect CC, sustained damage, is manaless, has strong natural sustain, and scales really well on tanking stats. There are others who are better at one or two of these aspects, but Zac's stuff ranges from "decent" to "second best" across the board. Of course, this can also be his weakness—because he's a generalist, not a specialist, he's passed over for champions who do that one thing much better than he does.
    • Aphelios is a twist on this — on the surface, he has five different guns (a long-range Sniper Rifle, a scythe pistol that heals on hit, a black hole cannon that pins enemies in place, a flamethrower with large area of effect, and a chakram that shreds through enemies up close and combos with other guns), all of which are useful for a marksman, just about the only consistent weaknesses being his lack of mobility and defense. The catch is that he only has access to two weapons at a time, and he cannot pick them at will, instead rotating through a cycle that turns as he expends his ammo whether he likes it or not.

    MUD 
  • In InfernoMOO, this is a possible character type to play. You will be sufficient in most things that you do, but players who specialize will dominate you in those areas.

    Platform Game 
  • The wooden ball form in Ballance ballances, er, balances the two extremes of the paper and the stone form: it's light enough to be easily maneuverable, but heavy enough to manipulate some lighter mechanisms and move most obstacles quite easily.
  • In Broforce, Rambro, the first Bro gained, has a machine gun that has okay range and damage, grenades to pull crowd control, a combat knife to handle foes at short range, and average speed and maneuverability. None of his abilities are excellent and they're all very straightforward, but he can handle just about any situation.
  • In Bubble Symphony (Bubble Bobble 2), Bubblun is described on the selection screen as "The most average one of the bunch".
  • In the Jaleco Arcade Game Psychic 5, Naoki's stats are all equally middling.
  • In the Sly Cooper games, Sly is statistically a middle-ground between Murray and Bentley as far as durability and combat prowess goes, with the added bonus of being far more agile than either and the primary character used for platforming segments (Murray's sections tend to be focused on brawling or vehicles while Bentley focuses more on gadgets and hacking).
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • In most games with multiple playable characters, either Knuckles or Amy Rose tend to be this when they aren't the Mighty Glacier or Fighting Clown respectively. Knuckles thanks to his gliding and climbing skills, variable combat abilities and middle-of-the-road stats and Amy thanks to her agility and unique acrobatic and hammer techniques giving her a boost to her otherwise weak stats.
    • In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic becomes the Jack of All Stats. Tails can fly, Knuckles can glide and climb walls, but Sonic is more well rounded, plus he can make energy shields do neat tricks like give him a second jump. Sonic does have one major advantage over the other two: When unshielded, Sonic is the only character who can hit spiked enemies from any angle, using his 1 second extended range attack. Players with good timing can completely ignore the intended weak points of each boss, particularly turning the Goddamned Boss of Carnival Night Act 2 into a ten second beat-down.

    Puzzle Game 
  • Planet Geolyte in Meteos, with average stats in everything and the easiest set of colors to work with. Naturally, this planet is the Earth analogue, whose appearance, inhabitants, civilizations, and cultures resemble those of Earth. In a truly rare instance, Geolyte is also a Game-Breaker in Meteos Wars: Designed for beginners, it's very easy to clear blocks off the field. It's so easy, a sufficiently skilled player can cause bonuses to stack and loop around each other to entirely overwhelm opponents.
  • Arle in Puyo Puyo. When later games started differentiating types of Puyos between characters, Arle was assigned the most basic set by virtue of being the first protagonist of the series: All of Arle's Puyos fall 2 at a time. (All other characters can have 3 or 4 fall at a time.) This makes her the slowest character but the most consistent and thus easiest to practice chaining with.
  • The 'T' Tetrimino in Tetris is the most versatile piece in the game as it can fit anywhere a vertical 'Z' or 'S' piece or a flat 'L' or 'J' piece can but cannot adequately fill spaces that those pieces can fill in their other orientations.
  • Wheels, the main character, in Tetrisphere. His Speed (speed that the cursor moves) and Strength (speed at which one drags pieces) is right in the middle. In modes without a choice of character, you are Wheels by default.

    Real-Time Strategy 
  • Age of Empires II: The Byzantines, the Chinese, and (in the African Kingdoms expansion) the Malians are civilizations noted to a have versatile tech tree with reasonable civilization bonuses with a variety of unit options that would allow them to open up for different strategies and gameplay styles, especially with the Byzantines, where the civilization is noted to have a low learning curve that is easy for a newer player to pick up.
  • Age of Empires III:
    • The British. Their specialty unit is The Musketeer, decent at both close and long-range combat while being relatively cheap. They also get Settlers more easily and don't suffer from any Crippling Overspecialization in their unit selection.
    • In terms of units themselves, Musketeers in the third game are very much this trope. They're your basic ranged unit, but due to their Bayonets they're pretty good in close combat too (and in fact get an effectiveness bonus against Cavalry in melee). In later ages, however, it becomes clear that they're not the best at long range combat: their comparatively short range means they generally lose firefights to Skirmishers and even Longbowmen.
  • In The Battle for Middle-earth II Game Mod Age of the Ring, this role falls to Gondor. Their early fiefdom troops aren't as cheap as the Misty Mountains goblins, their rangers aren't as good at bowmanship as Lothlorien's marchwardens, their elite Anórien infantry doesn't stack up to Rivendell's elves, their mounted knights aren't as good on horseback as Rohan's Rohirrim, their farms aren't as crazily productive as Isengard's furnaces, their trebuchets can't bring down bases as well as Mordor's arsenal of beasts and siege equipment, and even fully-armored, their troops aren't as tough as Erebor's dwarves. However, none of the above factions can do all these things as well as Gondor can.
  • Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 gives us The Empire of the Rising Sun. Unlike Guerilla/Technical Allies and Spammer/Brute Force Soviets, the Empire has many versatile mecha units, well-armored tanks, various infantry, the best navy of the game and overall good expansion abilities to back them up. Do note Red Alert 3 is gimmick-heavy so you still need to use their abilities often to win.
  • Command & Conquer: Tiberium Wars' factions are easier to define in terms of Faction Calculus, but in the Expansion Kane's Wrath, various sub-factions are available. The baseline factions GDI, Nod, and Scrin may be considered the Jack-Of-All-Stats of each of the three armies, having a well-rounded arsenal in terms of their calculus without going to relative extremes in strengths and weaknesses. These primary factions have a great amount of strategies available for the most variety in game play.

    For a simple example, the "Black Hand" is a Church Militant faction of Nod prohibiting access to Nod's stealth technologies in favor of more overt "shock and awe" with more units that can be outfitted with Flamethrower technologies and a unique upgrade that changes their flames to a more-damaging blue flame. However, they can't build regular aircrafts.

    The "Marked of Kane" might be considered a polar-opposite of the "Black Hand", losing out on anything that shoots flames. This is in favor of greater availability of EMP attacks via trainable Cyborg infantry. This can conveniently off-set an enemy's numerical advantage in vehicles or disrupt an enemy's structure operations.

    The standard Nod faction is somewhere in between the two sub-factions, having access to a well-rounded arsenal including Flame-Troopers and Flame Tanks and stealth technologies, which enables them to flexibly switch between stealth attacks and harassing an enemy's base with flamethrowers. A good balance of frontal offense and surgical capability.
  • Crying Suns:
    • Fighters are slower but stronger than the Fragile Speedster Drones, and faster but weaker than the Mighty Glacier Frigates. They trump the former and are trumped by the latter in the game’s Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors system.
    • The default Excelsior class battleship is balanced compared to the other battleship classes. Its base stats include at least one level of everything, while its maximum values for every stat are high but not the highest. It doesn’t excel at any one thing, but it has no glaring weaknesses or deficiencies either.
  • In the Dawn of War video game series, and also to a much greater extreme in the tabletop strategy game progenitor, Warhammer 40,000, the Space Marine faction is the most balanced of all, and many players consider playing Space Marines both a rite of passage for newbies who want a safe army to learn to play with, and a tactical crutch for veterans who should know enough tricks of the trade to play one of the more specialized races. Specifically, Marines aren't as good in melee as Tyranids, as good at taking hits as Necrons, as good at ranged combat as Tau, as psychically powerful as Eldar, as speedy as Dark Eldar, as good with vehicles as Imperial Guard, or as numerous as Orks, but they're above-average or at least capable in all those categories, and they can become competitive with any of the above when geared up properly. And given the presence of Space Marine legions that do specialize (for instance, Space Wolves and Blood Angels focus on melee) and get special tricks for doing so, a Space Marine army could potentially be based on any strategy. Chaos Marines are also this, but generally trade being a bit weaker all-around for special gifts from their gods.
  • In Lords of the Realm 2, Swordsmen are these. They are average in speed, defense, and attack. There are other units that are better in one or two of those areas, but the swordsmen make up a good backbone for your forces.
  • Starcraft I
    • The Goliath ground walker unit for the Terrans. Good HP, starts off with modest armor, has decent DPS weaponry, has both ground and air attack capability, and has a good cost ratio for its combat value, though it is somewhat inefficient for its cost against ground units.
    • The Zerg Hydralisk is similar to the Goliath as a good-against-everything unit, but leans towards being an Anti-Armor specialist. Their chief weakness is light melee, light air, or light ranged units such as Zerglings, Zerg Mutalisks and Terran Marines respectively. Hydralisks may also learn how to morph into Lurkers which are good all-round stealth attackers with Splash Damage to give opponents without detection a big problem.
  • Starcraft II:
    • The Goliath's successor, the Viking, which adds in some Transforming Mecha power that allows it to become an air unit on the fly. However, in exchange for better anti-air capabilities, the Viking loses some versatility: it cannot attack air units while on the ground and vice versa, and costs more than its predecessor. In practice, the Viking has essentially become something of a specialized Boring, but Practical, decently-protected anti-air unit. Legacy of the Void helped them stand out by giving their ground mode a 66% increase in damage against mechanical targets and 10 additional hitpoints (135 up from 125) allowing grounded Vikings to be more efficient against Protoss and Terran robots and vehicles.
    • The Cyclone replaces the Goliath as the mid-grade attack-everything unit from the Factory. Their stats are well balanced with good hitpoints and a missile system that can engage both ground and air targets. However, micromanagement is what really brings out their potential; their lock-on ability lets them Lock-On outside of their regular range and fire upon a target up to a very long range, while an upgrade doubles their damage when locking onto armored targets. Lock-On is necessary to get the most out of them due to their mediocre performance when you attack-move with them, and moderate resource cost of 150 minerals and 100 gas.
    • The Zerg Hydralisk is this once again. It now deals full damage against all targets assuming equal upgrade levels, but it remains more on the frail side of the spectrum. They cost the same as the Starcraft I Goliath (100 mineral & 50 gas) and are used in similar roles but are equally efficient against ground and air targets.
    • The Protoss Photon Cannon certainly fits compared to other turrets. It's not as good at anti-air as a Terran Missle Turret or as good at dealing with multiple foes and anti-ground as a Bunker. It can't relocate like Zerg Spine Crawlers and Spore Crawlers. But it's the only turret that can attack air and land units while also functioning as a detector.
  • Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon has the Fast Frigate, which is a mid-priced ship available to the Royal Navy that is fast and decently armoured, with mediocre firepower for a ship of its size, being armed with 1 heavy, 6 medium and 2 light guns.
  • Tzar: The Burden Of The Crown has European Footman, a basic military unit available as soon as you get Barracks up. For merely 50 food it offers 65 hp (15 more than Arab Footman and 20 more than Ronin, Asians' counterpart). 6 attack (same as AF and one less as Ronin) and 3 defense (compared to 1 and none respectively). It has no weaknesses and deals bonus damage to Archers, Pikemen/Spearmen and Jihad Warriors. It should go without saying that they remain a backbone of any sensible European army through the game.
  • In Warhammer Fantasy, The Empire generally fills the position of being well-rounded with access to basically any kind of unit or strategy, although arguably they do still have some notable strengths and weaknesses, lacking many large monstrous units while having a good range of powerful ranged and artillery options. Lizardmen are also sometimes described this way, although again they do have some notable strengths (lots of big dinosaur monsters, powerful spellcasters) and weaknesses (relatively few, short ranged ranged units)

    Roguelike 
  • The Scholar in The Consuming Shadow is your default character. He starts with 60 hours to stop the invading Ancient. All of the other characters' attributes are centered around him.
  • Humans in The Drop have average Body, Mind, and Soul stats, while the other playable races get a bonus in one of them and penalty in one of the remaining two.
  • Fish in Nuclear Throne has a normal amount of health, a simple ability (he can roll) and a passive that gives him more ammo. A perfect starter character.
  • Gnolls in Dungeon Crawl are an enforced version. Unlike other races, Gnolls cannot selectively train skills and instead have their XP distributed to train every skill at once. They can make effective use of pretty much any weapons or spells they find, but will never be as good as a specialist character.

    Role-Playing Game 
  • The Human race in Monster Girl Quest: Paradox has balanced stats and no weaknesses or resistances to elements or status effects. It does have one specialty: learning abilities that manipulate experience gain. Human characters become Master Of Nones later on due to not being able to switch to more advanced races, unlike the monster and angel characters. However, there are sidequests that unlock additional races that humans can advance to, making them useful again.
  • Virgil, the first follower you can recruit in Arcanum. He has enough dexterity to reliably hit things in combat, but his relatively low strength means he can't deal damage as quickly as a pure melee/dodge character. He has some skill with lockpicks, but there are other lockpicking characters in the game who will surpass him, and unlike those he doesn't develop his prowling skill so he's likely to be discovered if he attempts to pick locks for you. His biggest asset to the party is his magic, since he focuses on healing and can be invaluable for keeping your party alive during long dungeon crawls, without having any of the fancier tricks that pure mages who specialize in other colleges can have.
  • In Baldur's Gate and its sequel Baldur's Gate II, this trope is zigzagged. Since you can combine characters of different extractions, your party is likely to always be this, with different strengths in synergy that compensate each other's weaknesses. However, specific classes can still fall in this trope compared to other classes, particularly if you play solo.
    • Multiclassing partially fit this. Usually you can combine two, but it's also possible to combine three classes among Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Thief. This can give your main character the flexibility required to deal with virtually any occasion, particularly during solo walkthroughs. The counterbalance is that your xp are split among your two or three classes, thus leveling up is slower, particularly with a full party. This also means that you reach the xp cap earlier, since the combined points of all your classes determinate when you reach the cap. Therefore, multiclass characters are generally at lower levels compared to single class characters. This is more relevant in the first game, where the difference between a level 8 mage and a level 7 mage makes a lot of difference since you unlock a new tier of spells; if you don't know what you are doing you risk to have a Master of None character. By Throne of Bhaal you will achieve Power Creep and Empty Levels, where the differences between a level 30 mage and a level 25 mage are negligible, and a F/M/T can really be a Master of All.
    • Another downside of multiclass characters is that they can't specialize in kits, and they can't belong to special classes such as paladins or bards, which are usually considered together with fighters (as warriors) and thieves (as rogues) respectively, but have peculiar abilities. For example, if you want to wield Carsomyr, the best sword in the game, you can't but play a paladin (or a thief that reaches level 19, which grants the ability "use any item"). If you want instead to use powerful abilities such as kai or berserk, you must necessarily use the kensai and berserker kits respectively for the fighter single class.
    • Dual classing though offers a partial alternative route. You basically stop to progress in your starting class, and you advance in a new class. This way you can start as a kensai or berserker and then dual class to mage for example. If done at the right time, you can get a powerful character with the best of both classes, while if done at the wrong moment, you can handicap your playthrough for a long time. Only humans can dual class.
    • The Cavalier kit for the Paladin class is this trope compared to the other kits of this class. Not as good against the undead as the Undead Hunter (and the game throws at you tons of powerful undead creatures), but still powerful enough to hold them off, and can use a lot of items that neglect such differences. Not as good against spellcasters as the Inquisitor, but its innate abilities compensate and again it can use items that neglect such differences or travel with companions that cover the issue. Can't use ranged weapons, but the limit can be bypassed through magic throwable axes, and you won't use it at range often anyway. As a paladin, won't be as effective in melee as a dedicated fighter with 5 proficiency pips, but the ability to wield the mighty Carsomyr far outpasses anything but dual wielding katanas. Its inherent resistances are useful against spooks, vampires, demons and dragons.
    • Generalist mages are this compared to specialist mages. The latter gain some powerful bonuses in spellcasting, but can't learn magic of the opposite school, reducing their freedom of choice (granted, certain schools are less useful and you don't lose much).
    • The trope can effectively come online when you assign skill points to your character. This is not useful though: the game itself recommends to privilegiate specific attributes for your class, like fighters focusing on strength and constitution, wizards on intelligence, clerics on wisdom. Creating a Jack of All Stats character might more usually than not result in a Master of None, not good enough with his/her relevant stats because many points were expended in others that aren't used at all by this class. The game ultimately induces Min-Maxing and the usage of Dump Stats - there isn't much to do with wisdom besides learning more cleric spells, for example, and even the very few dialogues with a wisdom check can be dealt by a cleric character rather than your fighter or thief protagonist.
  • The Shining Fighter in the Custom Robo series is the Jack of All Stats; average speed, effective in both land and air, you can basically equip this guy with about any weapons and he'll be effective. Fighters can actually be specialists depending on the other parts equipped; they just don't directly lend themselves to a particular strategy.
  • Dragon Quest: The "Hero" of most games is basically this, where they have good physical stats, can equip nearly anything, and dabble in both damaging and healing magic. They are decidedly second-fiddle to characters more dedicated to their roles, but the fact that they can pivot effortlessly between roles each turn means that the party can better handle the twists and turns of a fight. However, if a turn calls for the hero to be two places at once...
    • Dragon Quest: Inasmuch as this game had stats. The Hero has to be pretty good at everything, by DQ standards, since he fights alone.
    • Dragon Quest II does this with the Prince of Cannock, the second member of the party. The one you start with, Prince of Midenhall/Lorasia specializes in fighting physically (he is unable to use magic) while the third, Princess of Moonbrooke specializes in magic. The Prince of Cannock fights with a mix of both.
    • Dragon Quest III: In addition to the Hero, Merchants qualify for this early on, with well-balanced stats that can out-Jack the main character during the early game.
    • Dragon Quest IV:
      • The Hero/Heroine have many of the best aspects of their fellow party members. Hard-hitting? Check. Can take a hit? Check. Good source of healing? Check. Powerful spells? Check.
      • As a party member, Psaro is well-balanced all around. He is powerful on his own as a physical attacker, but he also has access to the most powerful healing and offensive magic, as well.
    • Dragon Quest V: Out of all potential brides, Bianca has more physical strength and health than Nera/Flora but is weaker than Debora, and she is the only who learns the full Frizz and Sizz families of spells.
    • Dragon Quest VI:
      • The main character has well-balanced states, although his early access to the Hero class makes him become a Lightning Bruiser towards the end of the game.
      • Terry's stats are pretty similar to the Hero's, though he lacks early access to the Hero class.
    • Dragon Quest VII:
      • Auster has nice, balanced stats that make him well-suited for pretty much any job you stick him in.
      • Aishe has a moldable stat line that can make her usable in a variety of roles.
    • Dragon Quest VIII: Eight doesn't have the speed or the magic of Jessica, but he has above-average health and attack.
    • Dragon Quest IX, being even more dedicated to horrible puns than other entries in the series, prominently features Abbot Jack of Alltrades Abbey, who through job switching can help your characters become this (or even Master of All with enough grinding). You later fight him possessed by a demon calling himself Master of Nu'un.
    • Dragon Quest XI:
      • The Luminary learns a wide variety of skills but for each area, he falls behind the party member who is designed to be the specialist in it.
      • Among the melee-oriented characters of the party, Jade is not as hard-hitting as the Luminary, as fast as Erik, or as durable as Hendrik, but she hits very high marks in all three of those areas and has a wide variety of special attacks that allow her to adapt to almost any situation, making her a very customizable frontline warrior.
  • The Elder Scrolls
    • Throughout the series, as race/class merely makes certain skills start higher and level faster than the rest (rather than determine which skills are available), many Player Characters of all races wind up as this—if a warrior casts some spells or sneaks around a bit, he can get pretty good at the mage and/or thief type skills too. Can go into Master of All territory if the player employs efficient leveling.
    • Out of the playable races, the Dunmer (Dark Elves) and Imperials are the most balanced overall. To note:
      • The Dunmer are equally proficient in various Combat, Magic, and Stealth classes. They get bonuses to assorted skills in each class type which don't overlap or conflict. They are highly adaptable and make for good cross-class builds as well, especially offensively oriented ones.
      • Imperials are outclassed in just about every skill category by at least 2-3 other races each, however, they also lack the deficiencies of those races as well, making them a very diverse and accessible race to play as. Their bonuses make them good diplomat-style characters who can back that up with solid cross-class combat ability.
    • In terms of classes (prior to Skyrim at least), Spellswords are described as the Jack of All Stats among classes. Spellswords combine skills from the Combat, Magic, and Stealth categories in roughly equal number. Dunmer make the best Spellswords according to canonical lore, and game mechanics support it with a good balance of their skills, making them the best suited from the earliest levels.
    • In-universe, this is one of the strengths of the Imperial Legion, along with being Boring, but Practical. Specialists aside, the bulk of the Legion is made up of Imperial soldiers. They lack the magical prowess of the Altmer or Bretons, the physical strength of the Nords or Orcs, the propensity for stealth of the Khajiit, the propensity for marksmanship of the Bosmer, and the strength in guerilla warfare of the Argonians. However, the Legion also lacks the weaknesses of those other races as well. The only one that compares to the adaptability of the Legion are the Dunmer, who lack the unity and sheer numbers possessed by the Legion.
  • Fable: The sharpening augmentation of the five augmentations that boost damage. Silver, piercing, fire, and lightning all boost damage more than sharpening does but only against a few types of enemies. Meanwhile the sharpening augmentation boosts damage by a flat 10% against all enemies, making it ideal for your main weapon (though keeping backups filled with the other augmentations is a good idea).
  • In Fable II, the game's plot involves recruiting the three Heroes of Strength, Skill (marksmanship/agility/speed/etc.) and Will (Magic), who are implied to be the master of each discipline. However, your character is a rare exception who can learn all three disciplines, and given that he/she is descended from a near-demigod who could do the same, so by the end of the game, you can surpass the other three Heroes and master each discipline, shedding your Jack of All Stats status and becoming the most powerful person alive.
  • In the meta of Fate/Grand Order, Waver Velvet/Zhuge Liang tends to look like this. There are four other powerful support casters in the game: Tamamo-no-Mae and Altria Caster, who supports Limit Break-heavy Arts teams, Merlin, who supports the high-damage Buster teams, and Scathach-Skadi, who supports crit-killing Quick teams. Waver, on the other hand, does not support any specific team composition, as all his skills merely provide regular boosts to damage, defense, and NP charge. However, this also means that while he isn't as good as any of the above in their specific team composition, he also fits into any team composition, because there isn't a team in the game that doesn't want what he provides.
  • Most Final Fantasy games have a Jack of All Stats, often the lead character. This character is typically near but not quite at the top of the heap in fighting ability and somewhere in the middle of the pack in magical ability, and any special abilities they have will be fairly general-purpose and not push them to the top of either of these categories. Examples include:
    • Vaan in Final Fantasy XII has very good stats all around. Most of them are the 2nd highest out of the party, allowing him to fit neatly into any role you need fulfilled. Ashe and Fran are also examples of this, with the former having similar stats to Vaan with an edge towards magic and MP compared to his leaning towards strength and HP and the latter having average stats on all areas with the highest vitality of the party.
    • Lightning and Sazh, from Final Fantasy XIII. They both have even strength and magic, and their capabilities with all 6 roles are good, but the two go about the trope differently:
      • Lightning has high strength and magic & acts fairly quickly, allowing her to multitask effectively. However her health is quite low, forcing her to remain quick, and her weapons don't really pack much of a punch, so she can't really specialize.
      • Meanwhile Sazh has high health and his weapons have very high and lopsided stats, allowing him to shift into whatever role is needed. Unfortunately his strength and magic are the lowest when not factoring in weapons, so his weapons practically are what determines his effectivness.
    • In Final Fantasy, the Red Mage class definitely fits the bill. They can equip quite a few different weapons, but not as many as the dedicated fighters. They can cast both white and black magic spells, but they don't get as many magic points as the dedicated wizards. Their statistics fall right about in the middle of the pack. This also makes the Red Mage by far the best character for a Solo-Character Run. The Red Mage's access to both kinds of magic and lots of good weapons is a huge advantage that no other class shares.
    • Building a character as a Red Mage in Final Fantasy II will result in this: greater stats on average, but lower stats individually compared to more focused characters. Of the starting characters, Firion has this predisposition; Gordon is a Magikarp Power example and Scott fills this role in the Soul of Rebirth bonus mode.
    • Final Fantasy IV's main character Cecil fills this role after his class change from a Dark Knight to a Paladin when compared to the rest of the endgame party. He's a Magic Knight who gets all the best equipment, but he can't quite reach the damage levels of Mighty Glacier Kain's jump or Fragile Speedster Edge's throwing stars. And while he can use white magic, it's nowhere near as good as Squishy Wizard Rosa's, and the black magic is left exclusively to Glass Cannon Rydia. The only real notable thing about Cecil is his ability to take a hit with the best Defense, but since he can't be switched out, this is kind of a necessity.
    • Final Fantasy V
      • The Blue Mage and Red Mage have average, subpar stats, somewhat mitigated by the fact that they can equip most of the sword-based weapons in the game at that point. It helps that the Blue Mage can grow severely overpowered in the early game, with spells like White Wind, Death Claw, and others - and while the Red Mage starts and finishes weak, their ultimate ability, Dualcast, synergizes with other classes to provide a boatload of pain... if you want to grind long enough to get it.
      • The Jobless class is able to equip any weapon or armor, and use any ability which that character has mastered. While this can result in some of the strongest combinations in the game, it relies on mastering most of the late-game abilities, and it results in a character that's good at only one or two things and nothing else. Most of the time, the Jobless class is average across the board, since they get average stats in everything without any boosts or penalties, resulting in a character that is versatile but not as good as a class dedicated to any one area.
      • When it comes to characters Faris fits the bill nicely, having the 2nd or 3rd highest stat in all areas.
    • Final Fantasy VI: Terra and Celes are examples of this, though Terra has a higher emphasis on magic with her stats and Trance ability while Celes is more of a general all-rounder. Gogo could also be an example of this though they lean more towards being a Master of None by having below average stats on most areas to compensate for their ability to equip the command abilities of any of the party members.
    • Final Fantasy VII:
      • Cid. He's designed to be a toned-down version of the Master of All Cloud, with similar great, offensive Limit Break skills and equivalent weapons (both the only characters to get Triple-growth Materia weapons), but lower stats in general. Since he becomes party leader when Cloud is absent, this allows the player to use him in whatever way they had been using Cloud.
      • Red XIII is the fastest character in the game but is middle-of-the-road in all other stats. He's not as tough as Magically Inept Fighter Stone Wall Barret, he's not as magical as Squishy Wizards Aeris and Vincent, but he can do everything OK, and has a mixture of offensive and support Limit Breaks that make him an effective attacker or healer depending on what you want.
    • Final Fantasy X:
      • Kimahri is completely in the middle of the road in terms of stats. However, his path on the Sphere Grid is noticeably shorter than any other character's, meaning he can cross into other characters' paths, giving him a little bit of everything and making him a very versatile and useful character if raised properly.
      • Wakka also has fairly balanced stats, decent in about every category and with a much longer grid. What sets him apart are his unusual tricks that allow him to inflict status and his long-range attacks. If a character just needs stat-buffing in general, send them to Wakka's grid.
    • Jusqua in Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light has all of his stats - Strength, Intelligence and Spirit - cap out at the exact same level of 65.
  • Clavats in the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles games that let you pick your race. They have moderate to good stats in everything, with no glaring weaknesses or strengths. Conversely, Selkies have quick charge attacks and longer range; Yukes have the fastest spell casting and can become intangible (but with low defense when not defending); and Lilties, the Cute Bruiser race in an already Puni Plush series, have the highest normal attack of the 4 races. Clavats have above average defense and moderately fast spell casting, but nothing special compared to the other 3, specialized tribes.
  • Finding Light: Mari has the most balanced stats of the party and can fill both fighter and mage roles easily.
  • In Freedom Force, the Minuteman fits this trope, which is probably why he's the first character you get in the first game. He's not as strong as Supercollider, not as tough as Microwave, not particularly fast, and he can't fly. However, his basic mix of abilities makes him useful in almost any situation, making him more versatile than most characters.
  • In the Geneforge series:
    • Creations of the Fire Shaping school are generally Jacks of All Stats. They have more health than the squishier Magic Shaping creations but less than those of Battle Shaping. All have both a potent Breath Weapon and a decent melee attack.
    • Interestingly averted with player characters; over the course of the series, the available types expanded to every combination of Competitive Balance except for the Jack of All Stats.
  • In Golden Sun, Isaac (and to a lesser degree Felix, due to the less rigid roles the sequel's party members have) in his default classes is a decent healer, good attacker/meatshield, and good with offensive magic, while Mia, Garet, and Ivan are best restricted to doing just one of those in their default class.
  • Inazuma Eleven has Handa, whose stats are thoroughly average across the board and will remain roughly equal to each other as he levels up (unless you train a specific stat, of course). His short bio even points out the fact that he's a jack-of-all-trades.
    • The third game has Toramaru, who initially says his position is "anything but goalkeeper." His stats are also fairly even across the board, except his Kick stat is slightly higher and also grows a bit faster as he levels up. However, the story eventually reveals that he's actually a very talented forward, but he hides his talent because he's shy and afraid his teammates will think he's hogging the action. After he overcomes his shyness, he subverts this trope and starts to specialize as a forward, and the remainder of his hissatsu techniques are all shoot techniques.
  • In Indivisible, Ajna has three stars out of five in every category. She's not the strongest hitter, the toughest tank, the best healer, or the fastest striker. However, she's still good at everything, and her attacks are very straightforward. Since she's the main character, she also gets the best iddhi super moves, but this is balanced by her one-and-only healing move also requiring full power to cast. So while Ajna is an overall solid character, all of her abilities can be outdone by someone else.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days:
      • Roxas, Xion, and Sora have an average 5/10 in every stat. This makes them the most versatile characters due to the minor stat customization given by the Panel System, but far from the strongest or most specialized.
      • Axel has his stats ranging from a slightly below-average 4/10 to a slightly above-average 6/10, while his chakrams give him both decent ranged and melee options without specializing in either. This gives him a good amount of flexibility without being dedicated to one style.
    • Kingdom Hearts χ:
      • The starting Starlight Keyblade provides boosts to all three Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors types of medal by equipping them in the right slot, in contrast with the next three Keyblades, which all boost the same single medal type in every slot.
      • The Bad Guy Breaker Keyblade provides slots for Power, Speed, and Magic Medals, without focusing on any one of them. In addition, it's the only Keyblade that has slots that don't factor in whether a Medal is Upright or Reversed, allowing any Medal of the same type to get its boost. As a tradeoff, Bad Guy Breaker's variety can be a hindrance against more specialized enemies, its Medal slot system's boost is lower than most other Keyblades, and the boosts that the equipped Medals get aren't as high as Keyblades that focus on only one Medal type. So while the Bad Guy Breaker can do anything decently, it isn't the best at anything.
  • One option in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning when assigning skill points is to spread them out evenly between the Might, Finesse, and Sorcery skill trees. This eventually unlocks the Universalist destiny ("Destinies" in this game act like character classes, but can be changed at any time if the player has the requisite skill points in the applicable disciplines). The Universalist doesn't get the flashier special abilities given to other Destinies, but gets 20% bonuses to all attack and defense types, has skill point requirements for armor greatly reduced, and gains access to every weapon-mastery skill. Slightly averted in that a carefully done Universalist build can max out (master) all the non-combat skills.
  • Knight Eternal: Primrose has the most balanced stats of the party, though the skill tree system means the player can build her however they want.
  • Knights of the Old Republic had three different Jedi classes: the Guardian, who focuses on lightsabers and combat; the Consular, who focuses on negotiation and Force powers; and the Sentinel, who seeks a balance between the two. The Sentinel was actually, theoretically, not supposed to fill the role of this trope. The Sentinel specialized in skills, which were almost pointless, since essential skill checks were few and far between, they weren't very important to pass and your party members were much better at them in most situations anyway. They were closer to Master of None as a result, since their physical combat was only marginally better than Consulars (who were the archetypal Squishy Wizard) and their force powers were only marginally better than the Guardians (who were almost pure fighters).
  • Dart and Haschel in The Legend of Dragoon. Both have decent speed physical and magical attack and defense stats though Dart is more rounded whereas Haschel is a bit more offensively based.
  • Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals: The main character Maxim has average physical and magical stats, when compared to other characters.
  • In Luminous Arc 2, Roland, Althea and Fatima have high stats in every department, good AO and movement, and are neither a Glass Cannon nor a Squishy Wizard.
  • Mass Effect franchise:
    • In Mass Effect 2, the Sentinel class. With access to both tech and biotic powers, but not the strongest of either, and decent but not exceptional combat ability (at least provided you picked a good ammo power as your bonus), Sentinels fare about equally well in all situations. They are also the only class with countermeasures for every kind of enemy protection (shields, barriers and armor) right out the gate.
    • Miranda fulfils this role among the squadmates, being a Sentinel herself minus the Tech Armor. She's decent with weapons, has fairly good tech abilities, and is a competent biotic. Her passive ability doesn't just boost her own stats, but adds a small bonus to the health and weapon damage of the entire squad.
    • Kasumi, unusually for a tech-focused squad member, can also fill this role. Her Shadow Strike ability does extremely high damage to all defense types, incapacitates enemies if she damages their health, and allows her to act somewhat as a tank (she distracts enemies into attacking her, but she is only vulnerable for a very short period of time, so she rarely takes any noticeable damage). Flashbang Grenade is the most multipurpose crowd control ability in the game (it disables weapons and hampers both biotic and tech power usage), has a massive AoE, and works normally regardless of whether or not enemies have defenses. Overload gives her the ability to remove shields on multiple enemies or as a multipurpose anti-synthetic skill with enough points in it.
    • The Sentinel class gets even more versatile in Mass Effect 3, where every class can use all the weapons now, but only the Soldier gets damage bonuses with them all, and the weight system means that carrying too many will cause your cooldowns for powers to suffer. However, the Sentinel has mid-tier weight capacity (lower than the Soldier but higher than the Adept or Engineer), and Tech Armor helps with durability greatly. In addition to this, the Sentinel has gained the very powerful Lift Grenades, and their tech powers are now even more capable of mezzing enemies and stripping their defenses (Cryo Blast hits through defenses and Overload, in addition to doing more damage against shields, can be evolved to knock down and paralyze enemies) whereas their biotic powers can now cause rapid biotic explosions with the Warp/Throw combo. So now it's equally viable to have a Sentinel build that paralyzes, stuns, and cripples enemies with tech powers so their teammates can take them out, pelts enemies with rapidfire biotic explosions while ignoring tech armor and good weapons, goes out and blasts everything with high-tier guns and grenades while shrugging off damage, or more likely, a combination of all of the above
    • In 3, Kaidan takes over this role in Shepard's party, having access to an assault rifle, biotic and tech attacks, and two different ways to make him more survivable (Reave and Barrier).
  • Medieval II: Total War has the Holy Roman Empire faction, and its strength is "strong all-around". Decent light and heavy infantry, decent crossbowmen, decent cavalry, etc. but no particular advantage in any area.
  • Monster Hunter: The Sword and Shield weapon was originally a Fragile Speedster but over time it's evolved into this trope, being able to do a little bit of everything, albeit not as well as weapons that are more specialized. The shield lets you defend, but not as well as defense-oriented weapons like the Lance; it hits fast, but not as quickly as the Dual Blades; it's good at mounting, but not as good as the highly mobile Insect Glaive, and so on. The S&S's main quirks include having both slashing and blunt damage (via Shield Bash), good movement speed, and the ability to use items like potions, bombs, and World's Slinger without having to completely sheathe the weapon, making it an ideal choice for Support builds.
  • Mother:
    • The Jack-Of-All-Stats of EarthBound (1994) is not (quite) the main character Ness, but Poo, who has a mix of Ness's strength and healing PSI plus one big attack, and Paula's elemental and status-effecting PSI.
    • Ninten, Ness's equivalent in Earthbound Beginnings, is The Jack of All Stats of that game, having both Ana's healing PSI (but not her attack PSI) and Teddy's physical might. Which just goes to show how relative this trope is.
  • Octopath Traveler
    • Tressa's physical and magical stats are dead even as her default Merchant class. Her skill list also has a decent variety of physical, magical, healing, and support skills. However, all of Tressa's skills have effects that can be done better by someone else. That is unless a player finds the secret Runelord class, which gels with her Merchant class almost absurdly well.
    • Alfyn has a slight edge towards physical skills, but his stats are very even-keeled as an Apothecary. His magical skills are rather lacking in variety rather than power, and his Concoct skills that affect enemies deal pitiful amounts of damage. However, they're useful for reducing Armor Points, and his Concoct mixtures that heal are still useful.
  • In Path of Exile, the Scion sits in the very center of the game's massive skill tree. As a result, the Scion can be built into any type of character, but can end up being less strong than other classes that are more specific. She takes her Jack-of-All-Stats role into becoming an Ascendant. All other classes have three different classes with different specialties, but the Ascendant's has just one, with the main skills giving a little bit of everything of another Ascendancy Class. She can even choose to gain a second starting point in a skill tree to spread out her skill point even more efficiently. Ironically this makes her consistently one of the best at builds that focus entirely on improving a single stat.
  • Pokémon - Many Pokémon have the same (or nearly the same) value for all their stats. They can have above or below average stats, but they're not strong or weak, slow or fast...
    • Applies especially to Mew, Celebi, Jirachi, Manaphy, Land Forme Shaymin and Victini, who have 100 in all stats. Arceus itself has 120 in every stat. And then there are Pokémon like Glalie and Phione, which have 80 all around.
    • Lots of Generation I Pokémon fit this trope to a T, not only having stats across the board that all hover around 80 or 90, but also learning a wide variety of offensive and defensive attacks. Nidoking and Nidoqueen are the best examples of this; they both can learn a wide number of special and physical attacks (enough to cover about 13 of the 17 types in the game, and two of those were useless offensively), and have the stats to use the moves reasonably well. Though a bit more specialized move-wise, the starting Pokémon from Generations I and II also qualify.
    • Clefable, being originally designed as a "protagonist" Pokémon, shows many traits of this: a generic Normal typing, no truly high stats but also no truly low stats (highest is 95, lowest is 60) with a lean towards Mighty Glacier, and a very wide movepool (in Generation 1, it could learn 32/50 TM moves and two HM moves). Later generations had it move increasingly towards Master of None due to Power Creep, though being turned into a Fairy-type moved it closer to this again. In the modern metagame, Clefable is known for being rather unpredictable, due to its ability to play offense, team support, setup, stall, or some mix of any of the above.
    • Water-types tend to be these in general, having decent defensive stats along with decent offensive stats and offensive typing; only three types can resist Water, two of which can be countered by Ice-type attacks that a vast majority of Water-types can learn. As a bonus, it's one of four types that can deal neutral damage to Steel. It's tied only with Dragon in terms of neutral coverage. Its only real shortcoming statistically is that Water-types tend to be on the slow side.
    • Seismitoad in Generation V is very middle of the road, with a decent typing but a somewhat lack of moves, and almost all of its stats are close together.
    • Kingdra. It's got a good defensive typing (Water/Dragon) with only two weaknesses, a double resistance to Water and Fire, and it's not weak to Ice, Electric, or Grass. Its stats are all right together, with a pretty good 95 in physical and special Attack and Defense as well as an above-average 75 base HP and alright 85 base speed that can double under the effects of heavy rain with the proper ability.
  • Radiant Arc: Linky has a balanced stat distribution compared to the other playable characters. His unique passive stat-boosting skill, Radiant Arc's Spirit, increases all of his stats equally while everyone else's unique passive focuses on stats they already have high growths in.
  • In Shadow Hearts:
    • Yuri tends to be this role, although similar to Druids in World of Warcraft he has to shapeshift to gain these roles. In the first game, Halley really fits this role because he is like these all in one. However, he doesn't have the variety of Yuri, and his special attacks require a lot of MP. Yuri's final form is also like this, too but it's hidden for a reason.
    • Shania in From the New World has the same gimmick, albeit less...broken, which lets her teammates shine a bit better while she boosts whatever aspect you need.
  • Each Shin Megami Tensei game tends to have at least one human who fits this role.
    • In Megami Tensei II, the Friend starts with 8 in all stats.
    • In Shin Megami Tensei I, the Heroine will join the party at the Hero's level, with her stats distributed fairly evenly with a slight focus on Magic and Intelligence.
    • In Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, all characters favour one specific stat except for Tatsuya, who enters the party with a more or less even stat distirbution and continues growing along these lines. Combined with the fact that he joins the party at a significantly higher level that the rest of the members, this meanns that he can wield just about every Persona in the game except for some unique ones (or ones he has no arcana compatibility with) much earlier than they're supposed to be wielded. However, further along the game he can get overshadowed by other party members, especially Maya whose stats can be distirbuted the way the player wants.
    • In Persona 3:
      • Akihiko has heals, debuffs, a strong physical attack with Fist Master, and strong lightning spells. That is if he isn't a quite literal Lightning Bruiser; due to the fact that his single-target physicals are the best of the eight party members, his support skills are tied with Aigis for best, his magic is exceeded only by Glass Cannon Mitsuru and Fragile Speedster Koromaru, and his healing is tied with Mitsuru for third.
      • In the FES Updated Re-release, Metis has no weaknesses or resistances, and has an assortment of strong physical, ice and wind skills. Her only downfall is her lack of decent support skills.
    • In Persona 4 Yosuke's abilities are a combination of strong Magic, good physicals and a useful buff with a decent but rapidly outclassed heal.
    • Persona 5:
      • Makoto Niijima, aka Queen. The only really exceptional thing about her is a massive SP pool; otherwise, she has decent healing that's not as good as Morgana's, some decent physical skills that aren't as good as Ryuji or Yusuke's, and a defense buff spell for the party that many of Joker's personas can learn. None of Makoto's stats are more than middle of the road except her below-average Luck, and she learns the Frei series of spells, which not many enemies are weak against.
      • Haru Okumura, aka Noir. Haru has a very diverse movepool, specializing in Psy magic and being the only one aside from Joker who can use Gun skills, but she can also use Attack Reflector spells, has the best status effect removal spell, and the best single-target buff with Heat Riser, which improves every stat. The downside is her HP and SP aren't that great, and the limit of eight skill slots means solely focusing on Psy, Gun, or Status Buffs to make her truly effective; trying to focus on more than one leaves Haru as a Master of None.
      • Goro Akechi, aka Crow. He only joins the party for one Palace, but his stats are decent all around, with a slight edge to his Strength. He learns Bless and Curse spells, as well as decent Physical and Almighty moves, along with good healing and Status Buff spells late into his growth. Akechi's most notable weakness is that his spells take a lot of HP or SP to cast, and his health and magic pools are both rather small, so he'll be draining his reserves pretty fast. Even when he rejoins the party in Persona 5: Royal, Akechi retains this mold in spite of learning a few different moves.
  • The Balanced class from Sinjid: Shadow of the Warrior benefits from both physical and magic attacks, and its stats are well-rounded. Balanced characters tend to be Crutch Characters; they start out good due to said abilities, but become Masters Of None lategame because they have no glaring strengths unlike the other available classes. When he's not activating his Rage mechanic, which doubles his strength but reduces his speed by 35%, Mad Lord Yuji from Sinjid is well-balanced.
  • The Tales Series tends to go down the "Magic Knight" route when it comes to its Jack-of-All-Stats characters.
  • Temtem:
    • Tateru has the highest base stat total of all Temtem because its stats are relatively high and close together, but only its stamina and attack stand out.
    • All of Mouflank's stats are just-above-average except for its low special defence.
    • Innki's stats are all above-average and close together. Its attacking stats are identical, allowing it to specialise in either; its Physmaster trait powers up physical techniques, while its Specmaster trait powers up special ones.
    • Venx's base offensive and defensive stats are all a respectable 81, higher than many full-evolved Temtem. Oddly, they decrease when it evolves.
  • Total War: Shogun 2: Naginata Samurai can reasonably handle infantry and cavalry, though they are not as strong against the former as Katana Samurai and not as strong against the latter as Yari Samurai (or better, Yari Ashigaru). However they are better armoured than any ashigaru unit too, so archers are less of a threat.
  • Riesz in Trials of Mana. Her physical attacks are weaker than Bare-Fisted Monk Kevin's, her speed is lower than Trap Master Hawkeye's, her defense is worse than Stone Wall Duran's, and her magic spells aren't as powerful or varied as Glass Cannon Angela's or White Magician Girl Charlotte's (even after class changes). However, Riesz is still good at everything, with decent stats and offensive spells. The only really exceptional thing about Riesz is that she can have the best buff or debuff spells among the party, but that depends on which class change she goes through.
  • Riki from Xenoblade Chronicles 1. He has the highest HP, third highest ether, third highest agility, and fourth highest strength out of the seven member cast, while his defenses can be equal to the others. He also has an art that can temporarily boost a random one of his stats by a huge degree, making it vastly exceed that of any other character for the duration (with the exception of strength, where Reyn can still beat him). This coupled with a potent heal and wide variety of offensive and supportive arts make him extremely useful in any team formation.
  • Noah in Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Each of the other party members has one stat they specialize in, Agility for Mio, Healing for Eunie, Dexterity for Taion, HP for Lanz and Attack for Sena. Noah isn't the best in any stat, but isn't the worst at any either, and lands at 2nd best in several. This is a useful stat build to have in a game with a Character Class System.

    Shoot 'em Up 
  • In Touhou Project, Reimu tends to have the most balanced shot types in terms of both power and range.

    Simulation Game 
  • Ace Combat:
    • The DLC Gryphus Emblem F-22 in Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation breathes this trope. So much, that on the (five-point) stat chart it looks like a perfect hexagon. The MiG-29 has also tended to be like this: a decent dogfighter with passable but nothing-to-look-at air-to-ground special weapons, eclipsed in both fields by the specialised birds, and once you get the proper Lightning Bruisers in your inventory there's little point in using the Fulcrum any more.
    • The F-18 Hornet tends to be this throughout the series due to its decent speeds and maneuverability, supplemented by a versatile weapons loadout that allows it to fight anything on any terrain, and it usually has the added bonus of being one of the few planes that can be used on aircraft carriers. It eventually gets outstripped by faster and more powerful late-game planes, but serves as a pretty reliable workhorse whenever it becomes available (usually) midgame.
    • In games which use a classification system for planes, this is the purpose of Multiroles: they tend to have both anti-air and anti-ground weapons, have moderate scores in all stats allowing them to both dogfight and ground pound decently, and in Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation they all have four special weapons instead of three like Attackers or Fighters. In some cases they actually outpace Attackers, since they can simply take a moment to pick off any fighters chasing them rather than having to either evade or tank their attacks.
  • APICO: While some bees have middling stats all around, the Common Bee is noted in Beelia's Almanac to be a well-rounded species.
  • Destroyers in Battlestations: Pacific, mirroring their real life employment. Fast enough to keep up with carriers and outrun cruisers, packing enough dakka to fend off fighters and bombers, enough guns to kill PT boats, depth charges to hunt submarines, and torpedoes powerful enough to kill battleships. A skilled destroyer player is a forced to be reckoned with.
  • FreeSpace:
    • In the first game of the series, there's the GTF Apollo, a space superiority fighter that combines good missile bank capacity and durability with a high level of agility. It's not hard to see why it happens to be the very first fighter you start off in, since its combination of characteristics make it quite easy and forgiving to play with. Its main shortcoming is its slow default speed, although this can be partially overcome by increasing engine power output at the expense of guns and shielding.
    • The second game starts you off in the GTF Myrmidon, a newer space superiority fighter with six gun ports instead of the usual four. On paper, the Myrmidon seems to be a good overall fighter due to its above average firepower and balanced stats, but it actually suffers from being a Master of None. It can't carry the best anti-fighter missile and has a level of manoeuvrability that is only just better than most heavy assault fighters and bombers, making it a mediocre dogfighter at best. Moreover, due to its balanced stats, it can't do particularly well in the assault role because its durability and missile capacity are nowhere close to that of a true heavy assault fighter. Its only saving grace is its ability to carry the Helios Bomb, a heavy anti-capital ship weapon that is otherwise reserved for bombers only, though there are no single player missions where it is available as a weapons option.
    • Given the choice, most players would opt for the GTF Perseus, which is indisputably one of the best fighters in the game and a true spiritual successor to both the Apollo and the Valkyrie interceptor. It's not the fastest or most agile fighter in the game, but it manages to have a high level of both without compromising durability or missile capacity. In spite of its interceptor classification, the Perseus is a superb dogfighter and can be kitted out to perform multiple roles at once.
  • Hardwar has the Hawk Moth. It has a well-balanced combination of speed, maneuverability, toughness, cargo carrying capacity, and weapons capacity - all in one package in the above average territory. This makes it the most versatile Moth in the game and is by far the most popular one out of all the others among the pilot classes in Titan who aren't looking for a specifically combat-oriented Moth so much that the vast majority of Moths flying around in the city of Misplaced Optimism are Hawks.
  • Kikuchi Makoto in The Idolmaster. Although proud of her dancing skills her skills are actually very average. For those unable to play the game, check out this video here. You can see how average she is at 1:53.
  • MechWarrior:
    • In Mechwarrior Online, the standard 50-ton Centurion is explicitly regarded in its introduction video as a simple and balanced generalist 'Mech, being middle-of-the-road for size, speed, firepower, and armor. It's even well balanced in its weapons profile, with a 10-damage long-range missile launcher for support fire, a 10-damage medium-range autocannon for skirmishes, and two 5-damage close-range lasers for brawls.
    • Throughout the series, Medium 'Mechs in general are viewed as middle of the road, an acceptable tradeoff between the speed and agility of light 'Mechs and the thick armor and firepower of heavy and assault 'Mechs. Midweight 'Mechs won't provide the greatest speed or the most power, but will have just enough of both factors to contribute meaningfully in battle.
  • The Mocchi species in Monster Rancher is generally an entire breed of Jacks of All Stats— their stats are typically well-balanced, and they make a good beginner's monster. Due to the nature of the games, this may not always be to their advantage.
  • In MySims Agents, Lyndsay is the closest to this when it comes to Dispatch Missions, having a point each in Nature, Charismatic, and Smarts, and two in Athletic. All the rest have 2-2-1, 3-1-1, 3-2, 4-1, or 5 in their Interests, but Lyndsay has something of a spread, making her of very limited usefulness in any given mission... but at least she's guaranteed to contribute something to any mission you send her on.
  • Rimworld: Among the firearm weapons in the game, the assault rifle is always outclassed by at least one weapon in terms of stopping power, range, accuracy, and firing speed, but it's generally the second or third best at all these things at once and is much cheaper to make than weapons which are objectively better than it in most/all categories (like the charge rifle).
  • In Shepherd's Crossing, the Shepherd dog breed can learn to collect every type of game except for cattle, they learn several support skills, and can also use the Distract/Surprise combo that is very efficient in taking down large game.
  • Star Wars:
    • All of the various space sims give the iconic X-Wing Jack of All Stats status: the Y-Wing is tougher, the A-Wing faster and the B-Wing packs more guns, but the X-Wing gets adaptability and with it the top billing.
    • On the other side of the coin, there's the TIE Interceptor. The TIE Fighter is faster overall, and the slower TIE Advanced gets shields, while the TIE Bomber has the most raw destructive power. The TIE Interceptor, however, falls right in between the three—only marginally slower than the TIE Fighter, but far better armed and armored while being significantly faster than either the TIE Advanced or the TIE Bomber.
  • War Thunder:
    • Spitfires are among the best all-around planes you can fly. Balanced to effectively face most opponents, while not as maneuverables as a Zero nor as fast as a Typhoon, not as destructive as a G.55 nor as sturdy as a P-47, they can keep all of them at bay with ease. Enough agility, enough top speed, enough acceleration, outstanding climbing rate, good structural resistance, firepower from decent to punching depending on the model. Later variants don't become a Master of All simply because they start to engage jets.
    • Yaks for the Soviet tree also fall into this category. Good at turnfighting and boom&zooming, depending on your enemy, they can prove a worthy stallion for many different engagements, but depending also on the model they are less forgiving, more prone to breaking wings during excessive dives, they have less ammo and are best effective used at low altitudes rather than as climbers (otherwise they risk to fall into the Master of None category).
    • American tanks are fairly well-rounded enough to fulfill most roles like flanking, brawling and sniping. Granted some nations have tanks more suitable for sniping (Germany), brawling (Soviet), or flanking (France), given the dynamic nature and randomness of ground battles, the versatility of American tanks allow them to remain fairly competitive.
  • World of Tanks
    • As a general rule, medium tanks are this; not quite as tough as heavy tanks, not quite as mobile as light tanks, not quite as gun as tank destroyers, but tough enough, mobile enough and gun enough.note 
    • Compared to the tanks of other nations, American tanks are some of the most rounded. Their tank guns in particular strike a balance between damage (a specialty of the Soviets), rate of fire (a specialty of the British), and accuracy (a specialty of the Germans). Also, they are less armored and more nimble than German or Russian tanks though not to the extent of the late-tier French tanks.
  • World of Warships in general has the cruiser: destroyers are faster, stealthier, and typically aim and fire their guns faster, but don't have as much firepower and no armour to speak of. Battleships have bigger guns that can obliterate a smaller ship with a single salvo, much tougher armour, but are less maneuverable and are slower to aim and fire. The typical cruiser neatly fits in between, being tougher than a destroyer and carrying heavier guns while being faster and more maneuverable than a battleship.
  • In the X-Universe series:
    • M4 interceptors among fighter craft combine good speed and agility with slightly above average shielding and firepower. They tend to be more ubiquitous than other craft below M6 corvettes. Among the technological scale of the races, Argon ships fit this trope as a whole, being neither good or bad in either area; Terran and OTAS ships are the upscale variants of Argon ships, moving them more into Lightning Bruiser territory. The only drawbacks with Terran ships are the limited weapon selection and the scarcity of their weapons, which makes it particularly frustrating for their fighters and frigates.
    • Among capital ships, frigates tend to be the most balanced in general stats, combining the speed and agility of a corvette with the firepower of a carrier, in addition to having a balanced cargo capacity. The drawback of frigates is the somewhat lacking capability to mount certain capital ship weaponry, and one particular weapon compatible for frigates as well as the larger capital ships must be bought in a factory belonging to the local Space Pirates population, which the player might already have unfriendly relations with, thanks to the tendency to make enemies with them whether in or out of particular side quests, and their economy being in a sorry state.

    Sports Game 
  • In Mutant League Hockey, teams are rated on a scale of 6-0 skulls; the more skulls, the better the team. Most of the 3-skull teams are very much middle-of-the-pack, with average stats among their starting lineup and no outstanding strengths or weaknesses. This is especially true of the teams that don't have a notable All-Star on the roster — namely the Deathskin Razors, the St. Mucus Ooze, the Montroyale Cadavers, and the War Slammers.
  • In 2020 Super Baseball, the Naples Seagulls are the only "Balance"-type team, broadly efficient but without special strengths. The Aussie Battlers, a "Chance" team, have middling-to-low stats except for ???/Luck, which means they have a pretty good chance of making freak plays.
  • Arc Style: Baseball!! 3D:
    • Normal type characters are decent at everything. They are specially good at fielding, though: when the games prompts you to press the A button to catch a ball, the sign will appear sooner than with other characters, giving you more reaction time.
    • Team Hamstars is in the middle of the spectrum both in ERA and batting average, and having all female players, so the stats are the same for everyone; they don't have any specialist for power or speed.
  • The Backyard Sports series provides a meta-example, as the reason the neighborhood kids are always overshadowed by the pros is that the pros specialize in their respective sports, while the neighborhood kids play many different sports.
  • Human teams in Blood Bowl are the Jacks-Of-All-Stats. Elves are fast, agile and fragile, Dwarves are slow and bruising - humans are a middle ground.
  • In Mutant Football League:
    • Mutant Humans don't stand out in any particular statistical category the way the other species do — they can't jump as high as demons, hit as hard as orcs, take hits like robots, come back for more like skeletons, etc. They also lack those species' drawbacks, making them a good fit at any position.
    • In Dynasty mode, you have to develop a team of rookies into contenders. The entire team starts with a 40 overall rating and 40/100 in every stat, meaning the floor for their development is being able to do a little of everything; many other players with double the overall or more have stats in the 30s, 20s, and even 10s in categories less essential to their position (e.g. linebackers who can't intercept the ball, wideouts who can't block for the RB).
  • Snowboard Kids has Slash, with 2 stars in Speed, Corner, and Trick. Made even Jack-er with the 'All Around' board type, which has equal values in all three board stats. Shinobin is also a Jack, with 2.5 stars in his stats.

    Survival Sandbox 
  • Don't Starve:
    • Wilson has average health, hunger and sanity, with no weak points, but no strengths aside from growing a magnificent beard.
    • Wigfrid is described as excellent in combat. However, Wolfgang has higher damage and health, Woodie in Werebeaver form has higher resistance and Maxwell has higher sanity regeneration and starting equipment. She is the only character to have all those bonuses, though.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In Arkham Horror 3rd Edition, "Ashcan" Pete has balanced 3s in every stat except Influence (which is only used in certain encounter cards most of the time) and has 6 in both Health and Sanity, making him the most statistically balanced character.
  • BattleTech has this in medium 'Mechs, being neither the strongest nor the fastest, but providing enough of both to mean something. Some designs are basic all-rounders useful for almost any purpose and several 'Mechs are considered troopers, that is, able to fit into almost any lance assignment decently enough. In the early days of the franchise, the Wolverine was considered a trooper medium 'Mech, possessing a basic but capable array of weapons for long and short range combat, respectable armor, and decent speed and agility. As a result it could fill most roles with reasonable competence. It was fast enough to do well in scout troops, but was still tough enough to be found alongside heavier forces as support, or even on the line of battle. While it did not excel at any particular area, its utility was such that it became one of the best medium-weight choices of the era. Contrast the Master of None Shadow Hawk, which was the same size and even shared a few weapons with the Wolverine yet did not compare in overall capability.
  • In Betrayal at House on the Hill, Jenny LeClerc's base stats have a near-perfect distribution of might, speed, sanity, and knowledge, with each stat starting in the median of their respective ranges.
  • In Blood Bowl, most races' linemen have the standard stat spread of 6 MV, 3 St, 3 Ag, 7-8 AV, and no inherent skills. On an 'individual models' level, Amazons are the closest to this trope as *all* their models have the above stat block (7 AV) and the dodge skill. Empire teams fulfil this on a team level, being good if not great at all strategies (running, throwing and blocking), but their individual models have some deviations from the baseline and they have a Big Guy (the ogre).
  • France in Diplomacy is the power closest to this trope, being a power that can be pretty good both on land (if they ally with England against Germany) and at sea (if they ally with Germany against England), and with the latter they can immediately access both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It is statistically the best-performing power in the game, with the second-best win-rate after Glass Cannon Russia (whose average is dragged down by the fact that if they don't win they are often eliminated outright).
  • Dungeons & Dragons:
    • Starting around 4th Edition, races became more specialized. As a result, the game became an example of Humans Are Average by making humans the Jack-of-All-Stats among races. Most races get +2 in specific ability scores and specific perks; by contrast, humans either get +1 to all ability scores, or +1 to two ability scores, a proficiency, and a feat of the player's choice. In addition, whereas most races lean towards specific sides of the lawful/chaotic or good/evil spectrums of Character Alignments, humans can be any one of the alignments, with sourcebooks saying that "the best and the worst are found among them".
    • The Factotum was introducted in Dungeonscape as a deliberate Jack of All Trades character class, with access to every skill, a decent base attack bonus, some spells, and, at higher levels, the ability to copy class features from other classes. The problem with multiclassing is often that either the abilities have no synergy or, perhaps more problematically, that everything comes from different ability scores (melee from Strength, ranged from Dexterity, magic from Intelligence or Wisdom, etc), which nobody can max out all of. They solved at least the latter problem for this class by tying almost everything to Intelligence.
    • Rangers have decent damage capacity with their archery and two-weapon fighting feats, they can take a few hits and dodge a few hits, they get enough skill points to cover utility roles like scouting, tracking, or determining information, and they can cast enough spells to fill out occasional roles. None of their abilities truly beat a specialist, but they can perform adequately at most jobs and they have enough alternate class features that making variations is pretty easy. Most tier lists place them in the very middle of the list.
    • Binders are the Multiform Balance variant of this. Their signature trait is being able to bind spirits to themselves that allow them to fulfill pretty much any potential role decently, including blasting, melee or ranged combat, tanking, stealth, healing, social skills, battlefield control, or buffing and debuffing. Binders can also spec into vastly different roles through Prestige Classes, such as becoming a Knight of the Sacred Seal to become a better warrior, or an Anima Mage to be a better caster. One of the vestiges, Naberius, allows them to use any skill as if they were trained in it, but doesn't provide any bonus to it. All of this makes Binders pretty good at everything, though they'll never be as good as a character dedicated to something.
    • Bards fulfill this role in Fifth Edition. As Magic Knights, Bards can use light armour and a few martial weapons to give them passable capability in offense and defense, and also use their Magical Secrets class feature to pilfer spells from other classes' spell lists. Sword and Valour Bards can gain medium armour and shield proficiency to become more capable in the frontline, though not as capable as the dedicated martial classes like Barbarians and Fighters because of a lack of Extra Attacks or buffs to critical hits. The Lore Bard can get bonus proficiencies in skills and Additional Magical Secrets to round out their array of spells, though their spells don't reach the same level of power as dedicated casters like Wizards and Sorcerers, nor do they get any additional perks to buff these spells. Finally, the Bard's "Jack of All Trades" class feature allows the Bard to add half their Proficiency bonus to any check or ability they aren't already proficient in (including some things that normally can't get bonuses, like Initiative). So while a 5e Bard can be good at everything, they're never the best at any one thing when compared to another class.
    • Clerics are the most versatile class in Fifth Edition, to the point that Jack of Any Stat might be a more fitting title. Clerics have seven different Domains in the Players Handbook, and additional material more than doubles that number. While they're always a full spellcaster, the Cleric can also choose basically any other role to dip into as well role. A War or Forge domain Cleric can throw down in the frontline just like a dedicated martial character, wear heavy armour and wallop an enemy in close; a Knowledge domain Cleric can have an impressive array of skills and specialized knowledge. An Arcana or Light domain Cleric can pack enough magical firepower to give a Sorcerer or Warlock a run for their money. A Trickery domain Cleric has a potent illusion magical toolbox to give the party Rogue a buddy on a sneaking mission. And while all Clerics are capable healers, nobody comes close to the Life Cleric. Plus, Clerics are a "spells prepared" class, meaning they have access to their entire spell list and can change which spells they prepare every day. With all that said, Clerics don't fall into Master of All because they'll be specializing in something that gets focused on with their domain. If the Cleric doesn't focus on what their domain enhances, they'll be left as a character who can do anything, but can't do anything well. All of this means Clerics can be very good at one or two things and just okay in everything else.
  • MarsCo in Hc Svnt Dracones, every other MegaCorp gives you a choice between eight proficiencies when selecting them as a background education source. MarsCo has training for everything, but you can't raise a proficiency past 2 dots with them.
  • In Necromunda, House Orlock falls into this compared to the other gangs. House Orlock gang members get access to the Combat, Ferocity, and Shooting skill trees, allowing for individual fighters to be either ranged or melee combatants, or some combination of both. House Orlock isn't the best at any of those areas, as other more specialized gangs get Combat, Ferocity, and Shooting skill trees that focused on one stat or ther other to get skills that Orlock's skill trees can't get. However, this also means House Orlock gang members can never be really caught off-guard, since they're flexible and good at everything (even without being the best), allowing House Orlock to exploit more glaring weaknesses in the other gangs.
  • Pathfinder:
    • It has humans as the Jack race. They gain a +2 bonus to one stat of the player's choice, making humans as viable as any race in their field. Half-elves and Half-orcs were modified to make them Jack races as well. Bards and Inquisitors are both Jack classes, with Bards receiving upgrades to make them much more useful than they were in D&D 2-3. Bards in D&D 1 worked in a completely different manner.
    • The Pathfinder Rogue class is very much a jack-of-all trades class, with a variety of special abilities which can grant it minor spellcasting, extra feats, etc.
    • The Pathfinder Magus class. Though not as strong in direct combat as a fighter or as good a spellcaster as a wizard, it can do both fairly well being able to attack, do some battlefield control, some stealth. Normally, a fighter-caster has to choose between fighting and casting in any given round meaning their diluted abilities make them a Master of None and many spellcasting classes can't cast in armor but a Magus can cast in armor and can attack and cast spells in the same around (with a few drawbacks). The can also augment their magical weapons temporarily to help make up for their lack of combat prowess relative to fighters.
  • The Prism archetype in Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution has some basic ability with telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and psychokinesis and decent stats and skills, but doesn’t excel or lag in any particular area
  • Rifts, much like D&D, has Humans as the Jack-Of-All-Stats. They are the only class who rolls the same number of die (3D6) for every attribute, and get no special skills or abilities to start off with. Their only advantages are that they have almost no O.C.C. restrictions (only O.C.C.s made for a specific race are unavailable for them), and that if they roll a 16, 17, or 18 on an attribute roll, they get to roll a bonus die.
  • Star Fleet Battles has the Orion Pirates, who have ships that range from the unremarkable to the rather flimsy, but do have two potentially devastating advantages (if used correctly): They can double engine power (at the cost of engine damage), and they can switch out some of their weapons for whatever is best for the target at hand. They aren't really much good at anything (except raiding minimally armed freighters), but you can get away with being mediocre if you can be mediocre at something your enemy can't handle at all.
  • In Star Wars Rebellion, there's Lando Calrissian. He has one of every skill icon in the game, meaning he can take part in every mission (though not necessarily by himself), and he has a 2 in both Ground Tactics and Space Tactics, which is exactly middle-of-the-road for both combat theaters. In addition, his specialized mission, Contingency Plan, lets him re-attempt any failed mission undertaken by any other leader, but with guaranteed successes no matter the mission's type.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The Space Marines. Their 5th Edition Codex allows you to create almost any type of list you want. Want to head a small army of elite warriors? Take Terminators and Land Raiders. Want to lead a fully mechanized force? Put everything in Rhinos/Razorbacks. Like close combat? So do your Assault Marines. Prefer to shoot the enemy off the table? They have an app for that. Want to be a sneaky git? Take some Veterans and Infiltrate like a boss.
    • Within the Imperial Guard, this is the Cadian's hat. Cadian regiments focus more on discipline and tactical versatility than regiments from other worlds. A Cadian armoured regiment won't be better than the Armaggeddon Steel Legion, and a Cadian close-quarters guerilla regiment won't be better than the Catachan Jungle Fighters or the Tanith First and Only, but you won't see those forces being fielded as anything else. The Cadian way of fighting war is pretty much the Imperial standard.
    • Eldar Dire Avengers are reasonably well-armoured (for Eldar), decent at shooting and passable at melee. Other Aspect Warriors are highly specialised towards one kind of war - Fire Dragons are for blowing up fortifications and are atrocious at ighting everything else, Dark Reapers mow down even the heavily armoured Space Marines but can't melee for shit, and Swooping Hawks are good for hit-n-run tactics but die when the enemy sneezes on them.
    • This tends to be how Titans are built in the Adeptus Titanicus spinoff game. A Warhound with paired Vulcan mega-bolters will be amazing at stripping void shields...but as soon as the shields drop, it's on its less-than-amazing Strength value vs. Titan heavy armour, and even outflanking and Coordinated Strike benefits can only do so much, which can leave you with a virtually useless Titan. On the other hand, weapons designed to pierce Titan armour tend to put out low numbers of hits, making them relatively ineffectual at ablating those same shields. The Legio Gryphonicus, in particular, tend to favour hefty generalist Titans; their special Legio rules emphasise one-on-one combat instead of mugging a single enemy until it dies, but give them hefty bonuses against their nominated targets, meaning that to take maximum advantage of their jousting bonuses a Titan should have some way to deal with both shields and hull armour.

    Third-Person Shooter 
  • The Ranger class in the Earth Defense Force series lacks the fancy special abilities or specialized equipment of the other classes, but they have good durability, are relatively fast even on foot and have a wide selection of weapons and support items that make them useful in almost any situation.
  • Assaults in classic Monday Night Combat are deliberately designed to be all-rounders. Of the six classic pros, the Assault has more defensive ability than the Assassin or the Sniper, but is faster than the Gunner or Tank. The Support falls in slightly below the Assault in terms of stats, but due to his focus on being The Turret Master he is less suited to direct combat than the Assault, who can fill most offensive and defensive roles until a more specialized pro is available.
  • In the original Splatoon, Shooter class weapons are firmly this, being automatic water-gun-type weapons that are fairly boring when compared to the other two types of weapons available. Chargers excel at covering long lines of territory in your team's ink and insta-splatting enemies; however, they're only powerful if you take the time to wind up their Charged Attack — otherwise they're a joke. Rollers can cover tons of ground in a short space of time and can also instantly take out any enemies they runs over, but their ability to attack at range is limited to a cumbersome "splatter" attack that is hard to aim. Shooters, meanwhile, are mostly decent midrange choices, and the nature of their projectiles means that they can paint up walls and slopes with ease, while still being able to mix it up with anything the enemy can throw at them.
  • Sniper Elite 5: The game lists the pros and cons of all available weapons. For the SREM starter rifle it just says "Pros: All rounder" with no cons. It's pretty good at everything, but best at nothing.
  • Fox in the multiplayer game of Star Fox: Assault. He has 3 stars in all of his stats except his Pilot, Arwing, and Landmaster stats, which have 4 stars each.
  • Leader-class Transformers are this in Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. Scouts are the Fragile Speedsters, Soldiers are Mighty Glaciers, and Scientists edge into Glass Cannon. Leaders, however, are faster than Soldiers, tougher than Scientists, and better-equipped than Scouts. The end result is that, contrary to their class names, you will likely see more Leaders than Soldiers in an 'average' multiplayer game.
  • Warframe: Excalibur has a rounded set of stats and a decent mix of damage and utility moves. There are better "casters", better tanks, better damage-focused frames and better utility-focused frames, but most of those require a fair bit of skill to use well, and Excalibur's rounded loadout makes him good for beginners.

    Turn-Based Strategy  
  • Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Final Fantasy Tactics A2 has the human race as the Jack of All Stats. With no outstanding strengths or weaknesses and having a big pool of jobs to choose from, they are very flexible to have in any strategy.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • The main Lord character of each of the games usually fulfills this role, though a particularly strong one such as Sigurd or Ephraim may be a Lightning Bruiser instead. Eliwood, as the most standard Lord among the cast of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, is a pretty typical example, with stats and growths that don't have any clear strong points or weak points.
    • Across the series, the Cavalier and Mercenary classes tend to sport the most evenly balanced stats across the board, rarely excelling in any particular stat barring maybe the all-important Speed, and several of the former are often given to the player fairly early in the story. (Its upgrade is also the traditional class of "Jagens.") Usually, you will have two cavaliers that slightly specialize (usually one leaning towards Mighty Glacier and the other towards Fragile Speedster), but are still well-rounded overall. The tradeoff is generally that the cavaliers have horses, making them more mobile and versatile, while mercenaries have higher base stats, making them stronger in head-to-head fights. Archers also tend to fill this role among the bow-using classes, especially if the archer joins early (though, given how many archers have abysmal statlines, they often fall into Master of None instead).
    • Anima Magic in the GBA titles is balanced in comparison to the light and accurate but weak Light Magic and the strong but heavy and inaccurate Dark Magic. Lance weapons follow much the same pattern, slotting in between swords and axes.
    • In Awakening the Avatar's Magic Knight classes Tactician and Grandmaster are this statistically; their maximum stats before character-specific modifiers are applied are a uniform 25 and 40 respectively. Furthermore, the skill the Grandmaster learns at level 5, Ignis, takes full advantage of the class's Jack Of All Stats nature - it randomly activates with odds equal to your skill stat, and adds half your magic stat to the physical damage you're attacking with, and vice-versa for magic attacks. On any other class, this skill would be useless.
    • In Fates, the Spear Fighter and its promotion are this, which is fitting as lances/naginatas are this among the physical weapons. Oboro, the main playable Spear Fighter, enforces this, with the majority of her growth rates lying in the 50-55% range.
      • Kaze is a Fragile Speedster while Kagero is a Glass Cannon. Saizo is sturdier but otherwise his growth rates are very similiar to Oboro's, although he does have an unusually high Magic stat for a physical unit, which lets him use the Flame Shuriken more effectively than the other two.
      • Furthermore, Camilla fills this role among the royal siblings in Conquest, with fairly equal stats in strength, defense, speed, and resistance. And not only can she attack physically with axes, but she can also wield tomes, although her magic growth is generally too low for her to use them in the long-run. The magic Bolt Axe fixes this issue, though.
      • Takumi would fill this role within Birthright's royal family were it not for his unique and very powerful bow. His stats and growth rates are actually very evenly balanced, even gaining good defense for an Archer (although his Resistance is problematic), but his Fujin Yumi is so powerful that he ends up becoming a Game-Breaker when he otherwise would be this.
    • Fire Emblem: Three Houses:
      • Leonie has low Magic and Resistance, plus a poor spell list, but has decent to high growths in every other stat and some of the highest base stats in the game. While she leans into Bow Knight due to her proficencies in lances/ bows, and riding, she also has no skill weaknesses, allowing her to take up any non-magical class to some degree of success.
      • Sylvain's only truly low growth is in Resistance, and his only skill weakness is in bows. He has passable to good stats in every other category plus a budding talent in reason, allowing him to become a good Magic Knight. As a magic class, he learns mostly fire magic, which is balanced between power and accuracy; and he's the only male character to learn the monster-killing Seraphim.
      • Ferdinand has similar growths to Sylvain, trading some Defence and being a Magically Inept Fighter for Dexterity and Luck. Like Leonie, he has no skill weaknesses, but he also has four proficencies (swords, lances, axes, riding) and a budding talent in heavy armor, allowing him to slide into most physical classes. That being said, compared to Leonie and Sylvain, he's also a bit of a Glass Cannon, not helped by his personal skill encouraging fast but frail classes.
      • Byleth has no low growths and no skill weaknesses, making them flexible. While they lean into physical classes, their plot-related personal class, Enlightened One, allows them to use magic and offers a good modifier. This is good, as Byleth is force-deployed on every map in the game.
  • The Heroes of Might and Magic series generally treats the Human faction (Castle, Life, Haven etc) as balanced, not overly brutal with the troops or magic spells handed out in the Guild buildings. Then again, they're the ones with access to the Archangels.
  • In Lords of Magic, the Big Bad Balkoth is the Jack-Of-All-Stats, since he's a combination of the three classes of Lord, with the physical stats of a Fighter, the spellcasting abilities of a Mage, and the ranged attack of a Thief.
  • Nintendo Wars:
    • Andy, which has no effect on his troops, be it positive or negative, as well as a repair power that has an average charge time and is useful for all units. In the reboot Days of Ruin, the closest is possibly Carter/Forsythe, who has no CO power and a universally useful (and friggin' huge) CO aura, or Isabella/Catleia, who also has a universal (and pretty fair-sized) CO aura and a universally useful CO power (+2 movement to all direct combat units, +2 range to all indirects).
    • Several other COs also hit this formula of having minimal drawbacks and small advantages that affect all troops. Hawke, for instance, can be seen as an evil version of Andy, with a universal small boost on the attack strength of all his units and powers that heal his troops while draining his enemies (he is balanced compared to Andy, as he doesn't heal for as much and his power charges slower). That said, the nature of the game means that even characters who seem to be generalists have places they do well or poorly in; for instance, Andy is a natural counter to characters like Olaf, Drake, and Hawke, which have mass-damage powers.
    • As far as units go, Tanks. Not as fast as Recons, not as powerful or tough as their cousins (Medium Tank and higher), and not as cost-efficient as Mechs but still remain the dominant ground unit on small maps and are a staple of early gameplay.
  • In Sunrider, the Black Jack has the second most health and armor after the Paladin, ties with the Liberty for having the second highest speed after the Phoenixnote , has the second highest evasion after the Phoenix, and has better flak than anything but the Sunrider, a capital ship. The Black Jack is also a Walking Armory equipped with almost every weapon type in the game, allowing it to take on nearly any enemy.
  • Worms Revolution has four classes of worm: Soldier, Heavy, Scout, and Scientist. The Soldier plays the same as worms in previous Worms games, being slower and less agile but doing more damage than the small, fast moving Scout, while also being faster, more agile and doing less damage than the big, slow-moving Heavy.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum, Water and Wood monsters have well-rounded stats.

    Visual Novels 
  • The Bishop class in Coμ - Black Dragon in a Gentle Kingdom is ultimately this, when push comes to shove. It's normally a Master of None, as its flat 7s in everything are forgettable when an average team is able to have a 9 in three of the four stats, which is usually enough to at least retreat. However, when stuck in a fight to the death without a party member or fighting solo (which is normally suicide), a Bishop is able to at least perform serviceably enough that they can live to fight another day.
  • Both Archers of Fate/stay night.
    • Archer One (EMIYA) is able to create lesser copies of Noble Phantasms for melee or spamming and imitating the skills of their owners, in addition to a natural talent for archery, he is capable of defense and all ranges of combat, but doesn't specialize in any particular one like the other Servants. Stat-wise, however, he is balanced but is also on the lower end of what servants are capable of, and it's his versatility and wide, unpredictable arsenal that gives him an edge.
    • Archer Two (Gilgamesh) is a higher-end example of this trope, bordering on Master of All. He has a Noble Phantasm that gives him the original, strongest version of every Noble Phantasm and generally has enough skill and knowledge to use them effectively, but his proficiency with them is not remotely on par with the many Servants who have spent their lives becoming absolute masters of their weapons. His stats, meanwhile, are rather high and balanced for an Archer and clock in at B all-around when powered by a proper master note  , with the exception of his Mana (A) and Noble Phantasm (EX) stats. Meaning that, until he whips out his big guns, he is more than capable of holding his own against the heavy hitters for some time.
  • In Little Busters!, Kyousuke isn't the highest in any one stat, but they're all very good. Riki, on the other hand, is more of a Master of None, having stats that could be best described as 'Kyousuke's but not as good'.
  • Discussed in Muv-Luv Unlimited. Takeru, the main character, brings up how some works of fiction have a team of specialists that all have a certain role to fill. He's told that's a horrible idea in an actual war, as the death of one person can very easily spell death for the rest of them if the thing they're supposed to deal with comes up. It's then stated that having a squad of soldiers who can instead do everything well is better, since the team doesn't fall apart when only one person dies.
  • Galaxy Angel: Milfeulle Sakuraba's Emblem Frame, the Lucky Star, is the most balanced in firepower, mobility and defense. Her missile/homing lasers have good attack power during pass-through attacks and her Hyper Cannon bursts combined with her machineguns do inflict quite a bit of burst damage. Simply put, out of all units, hers requires the least micromanagement.
    • Similarly, in the sequel trilogy Galaxy Angel II, Apricot's Cross Caliber is also the most balanced of the NEUE Emblem Frames, with decent offensive capabilities and above average range and movement.


Non-Game Examples:

    Anime and Manga 
  • Attack on Titan
    • Eren. He has no extraordinary skills, but still placed 5th in the top 10 of his squad. Subverted with him being a Glass Cannon as the Attack Titan due to being having a more offense style of fighting and lacking defense. That is until Eren drank the Titan serum containing Armor for added defense and then eating the War-Hammer to create weapons.
    • The Female Titan is actually this by design. She is not the strongest, fastest, or toughest of the special Titans. Instead, she is a highly-versatile fighter that can quickly adapt to different conditions which Annie is suited for it as she is ranked 4th above Eren. She also shares the Hardening and Coordinate abilities that the Armored and Founding Titan respectively have. The Female Titan's versions of both abilities are weaker however.
  • Baby Steps: The main character is skilled enough in all areas in Tennis so as to be able to adapt to any opponents style. However, it's pointed out that most characters have to have a few special weapons to capitalize on in higher levels of play. Eventually he discovers that his is control.
  • Bleach: The databooks reveal that Gin Ichimaru, Byakuya Kuchiki and Toushirou Hitsugaya are noted for being good all-rounders with no weaknesses. They aren't the best in any one field, but they have no weaknesses and that makes them very proficient fighters. In-universe, Byakuya has been implied to be an all-rounder and both Aizen and Yamamoto have been stated to be all-rounders, in fact defeating Yamamoto's extraordinary proficiency in all areas becomes Aizen's overriding strategy when facing him in battle. Urahara may be the most established example of an all-rounder, however, having shown great proficiency in areas but with no known specialization stated.
  • Captain Tsubasa:
    • The protagonist, Tsubasa Ozora, straddles the line between this trope and Master of All. Other players surpass him at certain aspects, such as Hyuga being a better striker whose shots to goal are more powerful, Matsuyama and Misugi being better at defending and/or directing the defenders, or Nitta being a faster runner for quick attacks, but Tsubasa is good enough at every position, and can even shift his playing style mid-game should he need to adapt.
    • Genzo Wakabayashi is also this when it comes to goalkeeping. His playing style is the least flashy of all the goalkeepers, as he is not an acrobat like Wakashimazu, a mountain like Nakanishi or a Hercules like Mueller, but he makes up for it by being the most adaptable and effective of all of them. His only notable weaknesses are his somewhat limited mobility, and the fact that super shots can power their way through his hands.
  • Subverted in Claymore; when hunting Teresa, the former Number One of the Organization, Irene conjectures that her nickname, Teresa of the Faint Smile, is because there are warriors beneath her who are better than her at individual skills, so the only thing noteworthy about her is the chilling serenity she displays in battle. She's quickly proven very wrong.
  • In Dragon Ball Super, the main strength of Universe 7 during the Tournament of Power arc is that while the other universes have fighters who are either stronger than most of the group, or have gimmicky abilities, Universe 7 has the all around strongest team in the tournament. Each fighter has years of experience, vast arrays of attacks, and the knowledge to keep fighting for longer periods then any other universe. For example Master Roshi, the weakest member of the team, is stronger than the top warriors of Universe 4, while Goku, their strongest member, is stronger than all but roughly two people in the tournament. It's telling that in most cases, the only reason they lose a fighter is because an opponent takes advantage of a moment of weakness to knock them out.
  • Hajime no Ippo gives a statistical breakdown of the Kamogawa boxers. While World Champion Takamura Mamoru has excellent stats in all categories, the Jacks of All Stats are Aoki and Kimura, who do not excel in any category. This is especially true of Kimura, who is noted as a stylish and effective boxer with no weaknesses, but also no strengths. Kimura invents a finishing blow to help him with this issue, but even still he is considered (and considers himself) the most balanced of the crew.
  • This becomes a Deconstructed Trope in HuGtto! Pretty Cure. Cure Yell has no real defining feature to her and, according to the villains, her stats as a Precure are completely average. Compared to her teammates, who are a former child actress and a former ice skater respectively, she's just flat out plain. This depresses her so much that she ends up temporarily losing the ability to transform.
  • In Kengan Ashura, Naoya Okubo is an MMA fighter whose main styles are freestyle wrestling on one end and boxing on the other. He is inferior to the dedicated strikers and grapplers in the tournament on their own terms, but not by that much, and he has the best "balance" of skills of anyone in the tournament (there are characters who know a wider range of techniques, but they aren't as good at using them together). His fighting style is to rapidly switch between his two styles, depending on whichever one is best suited for the scenario, leaving the opponent off-guard thanks to Confusion Fu.
  • Kuroko's Basketball: Kise Ryota is this compared to his fellow members in the Generation of Miracles. He is not the strongest (Murasakibara's physical strength is the best in the group), the fastest (Aomine's physical speed is the highest in the group), the smartest (Akashi's intelligence is top in the group} nor is he the best shooter (Midorima's shooting is number one in the group). However, he is still at a high enough level in all of those skills to stand with them.
  • In databooks for Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, the infamous Mobile Suit Leo is the Jack of All Stats as they all boast stats off a flat 100. Essentially, if you want to see where other suits stand up, you turn to this thing.
  • My Hero Academia:
    • Tsuyu Asui, whose Quirk grants her frog-based traits and abilities. She isn't the strongest in Class 1-A in any given category (except swimming) but her agility, ability to cling to walls, and the power and range of her tongue give her well-rounded capabilities with almost no obvious weaknesses.
    • More conventionally, the databook puts Eijiro Kirishima as this, with a set of balanced stats ranging between power, speed, technique, intelligence and cooperativeness. This is also invoked with Manual, a minor character, who intentionally builds himself as a "normal" hero.
  • Naruto:
    • Kakashi Hatake is practically the trademark of this... he's not the fastest shinobi (Naruto, Minato, and A comfortably outspeed him), the strongest (Naruto, Tsunade, A, Onoki and Gai outperform him here), the best with genjutsu (Itachi and Kurenai are better), or the best at Taijutsu (Gai, A, and Tsunade are better). Despite mastering 1000 ninjutsu due to his Sharingan, he's not the best in any element or clone use, and he's not the smartest (Shikamaru and Shikaku are smarter, Minato goes without saying), but he's got a balance of all these skills to be one of Konoha's best (if not the best) Jonin, Hokage Candidate, third general of the Fourth Shinobi World War, AND the Sixth Hokage.
    • Sasuke Uchiha was also this in Part 1, especially during the Chuunin Exams. He wasn't the fastest (Rock Lee), the strongest (Choji), the smartest (Shikamaru, Sakura, Shino), the best at chakra control (Sakura, Hinata), the best at Taijutsu (Rock Lee, Neji, Hinata), the most perceptive (Kiba, Shino, Hinata, Neji), he wasn't the most skilled with weapons (Tenten), and he didn't have the greatest chakra reserves (Gaara, Naruto), but he had good aptitude in all these areas, making him one of the most dangerous students in the Chuunin Exams.
  • In Red Eyes, the ASP-175 Bardiche powered armor that's Regium's standard issue. Decent performance in all aspects, it's outclassed by many powered armors with more specialized stats.
  • Nariyuki in We Never Learn is a pretty decent student, scoring above 80 percent in all of his subjects, but he's not a match for Rizu in science and maths or Fumino in literature. On the other hand, he's much better than Rizu in literature and Fumino in science and maths, which allows him to tutor them in these subjects.

    Comic Books 
  • Marvel Universe:
    • Spider-Man is not the strongest, fastest or smartest super-hero of the Marvel Universe, but his combination of strength, agility and Spider-Sense has got him through fights with the Hulk.
    • Captain America was given a serum that grants him peak human ability. While he isn't anywhere close to as strong as many of his Avengers teammates (some of whom have been known to bench-press mountains), he's able to do anything that a human being can do, better than any other human being can do it.
    • Triathlon/3-D Man has abilities three times what a human in peak condition would have. Thus, he is three times as strong, three times as fast, heals three times as quickly, has senses that are three times as acute, etc. None of these things matches the top-tier guys in each of those areas (Say, Hulk, Quicksilver, Wolverine, Daredevil, etc.) but putting it all together makes him pretty potent.
  • The DCU:
    • Supergirl has all powers of Superman (supposedly she has an edge on speed whereas he is stronger), but while she should be one of the strongest, fastest and toughest heroes, her youthful inexperience always puts her at a lower level because Superman can do everything she does.
    • Captain Marvel is, point-for-point, an exact match in all abilities for Superman (minus not having Heat Vision and Freezing Breath), but completely lacks Supe's weaknesses (Kryptonite and Magic). So, while you have a case of having TWO Marios of the DCU, Superman still comes out as the leader of the DCU because of one very important quality: Superman has the charisma of a leader and the willingness to take on that burden.
    • Batman foe Two-Face occupies that solid "middle ground" in terms of abilities. He's a fairly big strong guy around the size of his main opponent and is stronger than the likes of Joker, Penguin, or Riddler, but he lacks the sheer brute superhuman power of Killer Croc, Bane, or Clayface. He can be a smart planner, just not on the level of Riddler, Hugo Strange or Scarecrow. He can be a decent brawler, and can occasionally learn some martial arts in some stories, when he wants to be but isn't in the same skill league as Hush, Ra's al-Ghul, or Lady Shiva. His marksmanship is also solid but both Deathstroke and Deadshot far surpass him in this field. While he's a master of none, Two-Face is still above average in all these fields, although his main strength in any confrontation is that Bruce still feels guilty over the circumstances that led to Harvey becoming Two-Face in the first place.
    • Icon, being a Superman Expy is an exact copy of Superman's skills, along with being a brilliant lawyer. The two can be seen as minor opposites of one another, however, as Superman is very much an all-around liberal while Icon is a social conservative. While he was fairly unique in the Dakotaverse, the folding in of the Milestone line into the DCU led to another notch in the Uniqueness Decay of every character operating at Kryptonian-levels of power, making New Gods and Kryptonians more the average than the extreme.

    Fan Works 
  • In Amazing Fantasy, Izuku's spider-based powerset makes him this in 1-A. He's the physically strongest in class, but lacks the widespread destructive ability of Bakugou and Todoroki. He's superhumanly fast, but still outpaced by Iida. He's tough enough to take continual beatdowns, but not bulletproof like Kirishima. He's stealthy, but not outright invisible like Hagakure. His Venom Strike is a powerful tool for subduing foes, but it lacks the same usability, range, and power as Kaminari's Electrification.
  • The Bridge presents the grown up Godzilla Junior as this amongst the kaiju. He's reasonably fast, but slower than Rodan; he's quite durable, but less so than Anguirus; he's very strong, but Destroyah is stronger; and he has a powerful projectile attack, but Mothra Lea has better. However, he's far stronger than Rodan, has a much better projectile than Anguirus, is much more durable than Mothra; and is faster than Destroyah. It's implied this is why he's one of the most powerful kaiju of all time, having no real exploitable shortcomings.
  • The Naruto fanfic Catch 22 posits that of the four main team leaders, it's Asuma who fits this. Whereas Kakashi specializes in ninjutsu, Guy in taijutsu and Kurenai in genjutsu, Asuma is "second best at everything".
  • The Omnitrix is considered this in Dark Mirror. It's stated that there are aliens and weapons far superior in terms of raw power (such as the Null Void Projector, but it's considered Awesome, but Impractical because of its instability) but Gwen says that what it lacks in firepower, it makes up for in versatility.
    Ben: Well, I mean… Turning into aliens is cool and all but there are entire planets of them out there. Billions of Heatblasts and Stinkflies and XLR8s… What does it matter if one more is added? I really don’t get why everyone wants the Omnitrix so badly. It just doesn’t seem worth the trouble.
    Gwen: Even if it’s not straight-up powerful, do you know what the Omnitrix has that those other aliens don’t? Versatility. Speed? You have it. Flight? It’s there. Strength, invisibility, ranged attacks? You name it, you have it.
  • Naruto notes in A Leaf's Aimless Journey that while master benders can do things with their element that most shinobi never even dream of, shinobi are the only ones (barring the Avatar) who can use every element. Combined with their non-elemental techniques and shinobi like Naruto are more versatile than any bender.
  • In Leviathan (My Hero Academia), while his legs are fully transformed, Izuku is fast, but not as fast as Iida. His claws give him mobility and considerable offensive ability against humans, but he still doesn't hold a candle to Bakugou or Todoroki. His scales can protect him from minor scratches and shrapnel, but he's nowhere near as tough as Kirishima. His ability to detect heat signatures helps him dodge attacks more easily, but it's not as great for scanning as Jirou's Earphone Jacks.
  • Metagaming?: Harry Potter on a magical level isn't as outright powerful as most of the big names like Jaina, Thrall, Medivh, and Gul'dan. But unlike them, he has at least some ability as a mage, necromancer, shaman, druid, and warlock. Combined with the fact he's a master blacksmith, alchemist, and enchanter, and Harry can generally come up with a solution to pretty much everything.
  • Nutricula: Izuku has several powers similar to other students, though weaker. His explosions are less versatile than Bakugou's, his Super-Speed is slower than Iida, his hardening only covers his head unlike Kirishima, and his temperature control is less powerful than Todoroki's. But combined with his other powers, Izuku has a power for nearly any situation he might face.
  • In Of Mares and Magic, Trixie fits this role. She's better than Twilight at magic that requires dexterity and a showy flair, but not as good at it as Rarity. On the flip side, she can't match Twilight's raw power, but is considerably stronger than Rarity.
  • In Of Quirks and Magic, Dr. Strange considers this to be preferable to suffering from Crippling Overspecialization, training Izuku in a variety of spells to prepare him for a wide array of situations. As a result, Izuku is able to adapt when facing more experienced and specialized fighters through clever use of basic spells like portals, fire whips, and mandala shields.
  • In Pony POV Series, Elements of Magic have this. They can perform any spell and copy them fairly easily, but ultimately a pony with a special talent in the area of such a spell will be better than them at it. Of course the trade off is they're much more varied overall. The exception seems to have been Queen majesty, who was immensely powerful and capable of a broad variety of magic.
  • In Princess of the Blacks, Soul Mages like Voldemort can perform any type of black magic but not as well as specialized black wizard (i.e. they can perform necromancy but not as well as a dedicated necroancer). Their real strength is combining forms of black magic such as using flesh crafting and necromancy to make an army of chimeric zombies.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Joe in Idiocracy. The Army Researcher's powerpoint shows that Joe's stats are so average he's exceptional in how average he is.
  • The Jaegers from Pacific Rim had wide variations in designs because the Kaiju they fought were never exactly the same twice. The main hero Jaeger Gipsy Danger is a pretty standard robot in design, using an Arm Cannon and Blade Below the Shoulder as deployable weapons transforming from the mech rather than fixed. Striker Eureka is similar in that regard. Other Jaegers went more esoteric in their designs. Crimson Typhoon has three arms and reverse legs allowing for some unorthodox strikes and quicker movements. Cherno Alpha has several additional layers of armor and larger hands for more grappling and harder punches.
  • The X-Wing fighter in Star Wars. It's fast, but not as fast as the A-Wing or TIE fighter, it's got weapons that are effective, but no match for a dedicated bomber like the B-Wing or TIE Bomber, and its shields are on par with the older Y-Wing while sharing none of its disadvantages. This is one of those cases where lack of weaknesses is a strength; notably, while statistically the X-Wings had the same poor survival rate as the Y-Wings in the Battle of Yavinnote  they did much better in the actual attack, managing to make the entire trench run twice while the Y-Wings were all wiped out shortly after entering. The Imperial equivalent is the TIE Advanced, but its expense ran contrary to the preferred Imperial strategy so it was never widely used. In the expanded universe, later generations of the X-Wing became full-fledged Lightning Bruisers.

    Literature 
  • Corwin of Amber is strong, but not so strong as Gerard, a great swordsman, but not so great as Benedict, Familiar with Magic, but not so much as Brand or Bleys, Cunning, but not so cunning as Caine, and a great leader, but ultimately not so great as Random. This is contradicted in the Role Playing game, where it's pointed out that Corwin had the best Endurance: After his brother put his eyes out and threw him into the castle dungeon, he regenerated them through sheer willpower, drew a mystic portal on a wall, and walked out of the prison. Bleys is called this in the RPG. Ranked second or third among all the siblings in all or nearly all of the stats.
  • Bazil Broketail: As a leatherback dragon, Bazil is neither particularly strong nor particularly fast among his kin, just equally gifted in all areas. It's his skill with the sword that makes him stand out.
  • Gentleman Bastard: The Sanza brothers. Chains says that they are "silver in all trades and gold in none." They have none of the strengths or weaknesses of the other Bastards. The closest thing to a professional specialty we get is when Locke says that they're good with knives. They tend to play the "catch-all" roles in the Bastards' various heists.
  • Harry Potter: Hufflepuff is defined by hard work and fair play, and this same ethic makes them good enough in other house specialties (bravery, ambition, and smarts) to hold their own.
  • Alicia DeVries from In Fury Born discovers that once she joins the Imperial Cadre that the characteristics that made her an exceptional Marine don't make her, for the first time in her life, the best among the exceptional men and women who make up the unit, so much so that she's initially considered as a somewhat average candidate. It eventually becomes noted, however, that while there's Always Someone Better so she's not the best in any one category, she's remarkable for being so good in so many.
  • Westley in The Princess Bride beat all the best, but every single time the best is stated to be at some form of disadvantage (using the wrong sword, specialized in fighting groups, etc.). Being second best at everything works if you are never on even footing.
  • To quote Lazarus Long in Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love:
    "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
  • In Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note, it's quite impossible to surpass Uesugi in math, or Kozuka in science. Tazuku's claim to top grades is he's being even, unlike the other two, who are lopsided in different ways.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Heisei-era Kamen Rider series tend to make the starring Riders Swiss Army Heroes, and their default forms are usually the most balanced ones. Some series feature lots of Riders rather than lots of versions of a single Rider, but the title characters are still the most balanced ones of the ensemble. Though occasionally this gets played with, as a form that would be comparable to another series' Jack-of-All-Stat Riders actually ends up as something else when compared to its Rider's other forms:
    • In Kamen Rider Kabuto, most Riders usually start in the heavily armored Masked Form, and can then "Cast Off" the armor into Rider Form, which has a "Clock Up" Super-Speed function. On paper, the forms are a contrasting Mighty Glacier and Fragile Speedster; except the Monsters of the Week can Clock Up as well. Rider Form just levels the playing field and is treated as the standard in all other respects, while Masked Form ends up as only good against Mooks.
    • Kamen Rider OOO has extensive Combo Platter Powers, and his default TaToBa Combo form is comparable to other Jack-of-All-Stat Riders. However, it's a combination of powers from different categories, and any such combo comes off as a Master of None when compared to a matching set. It's the first full set he achieves, GataKiriBa Combo, that appears to be the true Jack of OOO's forms (though its ability to use a Doppelgänger Attack pushes it closer to a Magic Knight).
    • Kamen Rider Drive is another series where the main form isn't actually a balanced one; as Drive's default is Type Speed, a speedster whose attack capability is decent but lower than his other forms. The form that comes closest to being balanced is Type Technic, whose stats are between Type Speed and the Mighty Glacier Type Wild; though it has a focus on technical abilities rather than straight combat stats that, like OOO's GataKiriBa, make it lean towards a Magic Knight.
  • In the Red Dwarf episode "Gunmen Of The Apocalypse", Bret Riverboat, Lister's character in the Western VR game Streets of Laredo is the Jack-Of-All-Stats, with stats of 100 across the board. Since the others just happen to have stats that reflect their real characters (Cat is The Riviera Kid, with a high Charm, but low Intelligence, for example), this may indicate that Everyman Lister is himself the Jack-Of-All-Stats. It may also have represented Lister's mental state: personal hygiene issues aside, he's the most content with who he is out of the main cast. Compared to the Cat's vanity and Rimmer's insecurity, his only delusion is that he can play the guitar (he really can't).
  • Starfleet ships in general in the Star Trek universe are said to be middle ground on a lot of things. The Federation prefers an image of being explorers, so while the typical Starfleet ship is well armed they also have space for emergency relief, scientific surveys and diplomatic missions. The Galaxy class is functionally a moving city, with families on board, plenty of recreation space and an arboretum. After the Borg attack, Starfleet started skewing their ship designs a little more utilitarian and combat ready, with the Sovereign class a militarized update of the Galaxy class. And this period is exemplified by the Defiant, a dedicated warship suffering from Crippling Overspecialization because it was overpowered and couldn't do anything but fight. This is in contrast to the Klingons, whose ships may not be versatile but are meant to attack a target hard and fast.
  • Both Super Sentai and Power Rangers also do this. If the team members clearly show a difference in fighting style, the Red Ranger will end up being this trope most of the time. This trope also applies to most of the initial Combining Mecha each team receives. The mecha almost always end up being swordfighters with average speed and mild ranged capabilities.

    Music 
  • Klayton, the man behind Celldweller, rather than learning one instrument and becoming an expert, learned several instruments well enough to play his unique blend of rock and electronic music.
  • Many Swedish metal musicians learn various different instruments since their childhood, and end playing in many bands switching roles or covering more than one depending on the album. While they are not generally considered examples of virtuoso (with due exceptions), they are quite competent enough to record great albums. They also range into different genres, not only within metal (where they can blend different genres and take inspiration from many sources), but also covering fields like progressive rock, ambient or folk. Singers are also quite competent with clean vocals, growls and screaming. Some people, like Dan Swanö or Mikael Åkerfeldt, are considered music polymaths for their versatility and the many projects they started. They even participated in programming and sound engineering for their albums at some point.

    Myths & Religion 
  • Lugh, a hero of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Irish myth, was specifically noted as being a Jack-Of-All-Stats. He goes to the court of Nuada, King of the De Danann, but is stopped at the door and told that anyone who enters the court must bring a certain skill to the aid of the King. Lugh lists of a broad variety of skills, asking the doorguard whether anyone at the court has mastered them, and each time the guard answers yes. Finally Lugh asks whether or not the Court has anyone who can do all of the things he mentioned. They let him in, and give him the name Ildánach, which means "man of many arts."

    Poetry 
  • Earl Rognvaldr Kali, Viking poem Hnefatafl
    "I can play at Tafl,
    Nine skills I know,
    Rarely forget I the runes,
    I know of books and smithing,
    I know how to slide on skis,
    Shoot and row, well enough;
    Each of two arts I know,
    Harp-playing and speaking poetry."

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Chris Jericho has been said to have very evened attributes. He is an adept high-flyer, a decent brawler and well-versed in technical submissons. He has an average build (not too big, not too small) and average speed/agility. Throughout his career, he's been seen to have bested the best, and has been bested by the best.
  • Lance Storm was also noted to have very even attributes. Although he never won a World Heavyweight Championship, he did hold 3 undercard titles (WCW United States Heavyweight Title, WCW World Cruiserweight Title, WCW Hardcore Title) at once during his WCW run. Ironically, Storm and Jericho were tag team partners early in their careers as The Thrillseekers.
  • In terms of the Big Man-type wrestlers, The Undertaker fits this to a T. There are larger big men (The Big Show and the Great Khali), stronger big men (Mark Henry), faster big men (Vader), and more agile big men (Kane) in the business. Undertaker, however, is good at each category.
  • Homicide was described in such terms by the Warriors Of Wrestling commentary. He's good on the mat, in the air, in a brawl and can literally carry men much bigger than himself. Unfortunately he's spent a good deal of his career against men who can do it all better like Bryan Danielson and AJ Styles, but even they can't turn given objects into deadly weapons as efficiently or conceal forks as well as Homicide.
  • Mercedes Martinez has been described as "rangy" and "powerhouse" in the very same paragraph, "langy" and "heavyweight" by different observes describing the same encounter.

    Toys 
  • Rokton from Star Monsters has six points in all its stats (exploration, balance, and power).

    Webcomics 
  • Awful Hospital: Conversing with Dr. Man implies that the staff at the hospital are trying their best to cure their patients; in fact, they're some of the most talented medical professionals inside their native zones. It's just that they deal with patients from ALL zones, and they're unfamiliar with the biology of most of them, making mistakes constantly in their attempts to treat them. Dr. Man likens it to a human neurosurgeon who has to operate on an octopus.
  • Kiwi Blitz: Word of God calls the Kiwibot "a Midweight mid-range unit. The Mario of mechs.", after Mario's tendency to be the Jack-Of-All-Stats in his spin-off games.
  • Elan in The Order of the Stick ends up here by the later arcs. He's not as good at fighting as Roy or Belkar, as good at directed casting as Vaarsuvius, as good at healing or buffing as Durkon, or as tricky as Haley, but he is capable of all those things, and can back any of them up in their field or replace them if things are going particularly poorly.

    Web Original 
  • Door Monster has "Character Creation", in which Kyle manages to roll 10 in every stat for the D&D game, opting to create "Dave the Average Human" as a result.
  • The Noob has this with elementalists that start out and those that don't choose to specialize in an element or another later on. Otherwise, it's water to become a Combat Medic, air to become a Fragile Speedster, fire to become a Glass Cannon or earth to become a Stone Wall.
  • Gordon fills this role for the Lambsbridge Gang in Twig, letting him operate in a supporting capacity for any other member of the group, be it Mary (the combat specialist) Sy (The Social Expert) or Helen (The Master Actor).

    Western Animation 
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • Aang can control all 4 elements, but he is only a master of airbending, as he is the last one alive. He is still a child and new to all 3 other forms of bending (the entire series taking place over about 3/4 of a year). Once he has had more time to practice and master them, it is expected that he will in fact be a Master of All and capable of outshining individuals from any school in their own specialty. While Toph and Katara both demonstrate mastery of their own schools which may edge out Aang at times, they have both been focused on just one bending practice while Aang has to juggle multiple forms. In the Avatar State he can overcome just about any conventional bender, but by the end of the series it's explicitly said that he is exceptional at Waterbending but only novice at Firebending, while his Earthbending "could use some work".
    • Zuko's as quick and dexterous as Aang (without airbending), but not faster; he can't plan on the fly as quickly as Sokka, but is the best at improvising; he's as agile and acrobatic as Suki and Aang, but not more so; his firebending naturally lacks the offensive/defensive versatility and dynamics of Katara's waterbending, but he's shown using his firebending far more creatively than any other firebender in the show; he's not the most powerful in the bender in the group, but he's one of the best benders in the world by the end of the series; he can't compare to Toph's seismic senses, but his hearing and eyesight are unusually good; and he's highly capable in hand-to-hand martial arts, but not more so than Suki. Overall, he doesn't have a definitive edge at anything in the Avatar's group, save for swordplay, knifeplay, and sheer physical strength, but he seems to tie for number one or two at everything. He also has no major weaknesses, unlike the the other Gaang members. He doesn't have Toph's blindness and can easily take care of airborne enemies, he doesn't need to rely on his bending or a steady supply of his element to be effective like Katara, he's got hand-to-hand skills and bending unlike Sokka and Suki, and he's a disciplined, focused fighter, unlike Aang.
    • Aang's successor, Avatar Korra of The Legend of Korra, is proficient in three elements (all four since the Book 1 finale) but lacking access to advanced and specialized techniques like metalbending, bloodbending, or lightning generation. This seems to be par the course for Avatars in general; they're expected to master all the elements, but they have a lifetime in which to do it, meaning they take some time to reach mastery of all of them.
  • In Code Lyoko, Yumi's Lyoko avatar doesn't quite have Odd's range, Ulrich's close-combat superiority, or Aelita's ability to manipulate the environment, but can preform reasonably well in all three areas.
  • The Loud House has Lincoln Loud. His 10 sisters will generally be better at everything than he is, from leadership and music to intelligence and creativity. However he is acceptable at all their skills and can perform well at any of these skills when it is necessary.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Sunset Shimmer is contrasted with Twilight Sparkle (especially in the expanded universe) as this. Both of them are highly talented mages and students of Princess Celestia, and both excel academically. Sunset Shimmer however is also athletic, musically talented and confident socially, all things Twilight has been shown to struggle with. The human Twilight (and almost certainly Pony Twilight) was shown to be more intelligent overall however, and ironically Sunset Shimmer has also repeatedly been tripped up by her own self reliance and unwillingness to trust in others.
    • Twilight herself is working towards this, now being able to fly, having developed her physical talents and progressing as a leader and socialiser. She’s still most reliant on her smarts and magic however.
    • Rarity is also very balanced, being capable of magic, smart and roundedly atheletic, but not nearly as capable in any of these areas as one of the others. Her main talents are her charisma and attention to detail, in which she does excel.
    • Trixie falls into this role as the series goes on. She's decent at magic and intelligent but does neither of these things nearly as well as Twilight Sparkle, she's artistic and creative but but not as much as Rarity, she's loyal but not as much as Rainbow Dash, she's an entertainer but not as good at it as Pinkie Pie is, she's honest and keeps promises but not as well as and is far more unpleasantly blunt than Applejack, and she has compassion but not nearly as much as Fluttershy. She's also not bad at any of these things though, and the main thing that causes her problems is her often obnoxious, oblivious, and careless attitude rather than any real incompetence — in fact Road To Friendship showed that when she's doing what she does best, traveling the road, she's incredibly competent at rationing money for her trip and finding the best places to resupply.
  • Optimus Prime from Transformers tends to be a mid-sized robot in a franchise that has characters vary from appliances to battleships (and some planet-sized), but his tenacity and nobility lets him pound the typically much larger Megatron almost every time.

    Real Life 
  • Renaissance men/polymaths.
  • The scout rifle concept, conceived by former US Marine and firearms instructor/historian Jeff Cooper, is designed to be a general survival gun suited for anything that wasn't specialized hunting, capable of taking down humans and big game up to a thousand pounds while being small enough that it won't encumber a lone scout or survivalist out in the wilderness. It was to be a carbine under one meter in length and three kilograms in weight, chambered in a high-caliber round like .308 Winchester or 7mm-08 Remington (with .243 Winchester recommended as an alternative for younger or smaller shooters, albeit only with a 22-inch barrel), and capable of putting down a four-inch group on a target from 200 meters away. A 2x or 3x telescoping scope was optional, but recommended, paired with ghost ring iron sights in case the scope was damaged; said scope was to be forward-mounted to increase peripheral vision, make it easier to clear jams, allow the loading of rounds from a stripper clip (in a bolt-action rifle), and make it so that the recoil wouldn't push the scope into the shooter's face.
  • Firearm calibers:
    • For handguns, the 9x19mm Parabellum round, often abbreviated to just "9mm", is practically synonymous with "pistol ammo" for this reason. It's not a Hand Cannon round, but it can reliably take down a target at the close ranges that handguns are normally used at more effectively than "pocket pistol" rounds, all while being small enough that it has relatively low recoil and most full-size handguns can hold fifteen or more rounds in one standard magazine. In The '90s, questions over its stopping power led many law enforcement agencies to switch to the larger .40 S&W round as a happy medium between it and a true Hand Cannon, but that round's own deficiencies earned it a reputation as a Master of None instead, and advances in ballistics technology led to a revival of the 9mm in the 2010s.
    • In the former Eastern bloc, the 7.62x25mm Tokarev round, and its post-World War II replacement the 9x18mm Makarov, had a roughly similar status to 9mm in the West, albeit with some differences in performance.
    • Back when revolvers were the most common type of handgun, the .38 Special was the weapon of choice for law enforcement. Again, not a Hand Cannon like the .44 Magnum, but powerful, accurate, and wrist-friendly enough for police to get the job done. What's more, any .357 Magnum revolver could also shoot .38 Special because that round was based heavily on it, meaning that many law enforcement agencies adopted .357 Magnum revolvers but still mostly used .38 Special in those guns for its lighter recoil, saving the magnum ammo for when they needed more firepower. To this day, it's still the go-to choice for snub-nosed revolvers.
  • Wildlife:
    • The cougar or puma, a large generalist species, may qualify as a "jack-of-all-trades," at least in the cat family. While not the strongest, hardest-biting, or fastest feline, it lives in various habitats from hot to cold, hunts many kinds of prey from big to small, and swims and climbs proficiently. It also does well in stealth and fighting, jumps 18 feet high and 40 to 45 feet far, and runs at speeds of 50 mph.
    • The grey fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) may qualify as a balanced carnivoran even more. While larger than most domestic cats but smaller than large dogs, it has multiple adaptations for survival such as speed, vocal abilities, an omnivorous diet, swimming, night vision, and even cat-like climbing as it's the only canid with semi-retractable claws. So it's effectively a perfect cat-dog mix even compared to other foxes.

Alternative Title(s): The Balanced One, Jacks Of All Stats

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