Stats Dissonance

"The easiest enemy. Can only deal 1 damage."

— Enemy Scan for a secret Final Boss, Undertale

Gaming Stats usually follow clear cut archetypes. For convenience, this wiki has even categorized how those stats are typically arranged into character archetypes such as the Mighty Glacier, Fragile Speedster, Glass Cannon, Jack of All Stats, and several others. Usually, one can tell how a character works by paying attention to these statistics and builds.

But sometimes, you can't.

This trope describes cases where gameplay directly contradicts what the given stats state or imply: the stats are, at best, deceptive...and at worst, an outright lie. Usually, this is because of something that stats can't quantify or the game can't tell you. For example, the Squishy Wizard may only have 100 HP compared to everyone else's 500, but he also has a barrier that absorbs infinite damage for a short time, making him actually more resilient than a Stone Wall that has 800 HP. And sure, the Mighty Glacier may only be able to move one space a turn, but they also have access to traps and gadgets that keep a player locked in place for four turns, meaning that they can actually catch up to the Fragile Speedster quickly enough to deliver a One-Hit KO.

This is often referred to as "effective" stats and properties — that is, properties that a character has in effect, not in theory.

Sometimes, this is an intentional design to teach players not to overly rely on numbers or brute force and to study more obscure mechanics of the game. Sometimes, it's done to make a character that must be out-smarted instead of simply beaten normally.

But, needless to say, if the game devs did not intend for it, this can lead to massive Gamebreakers and cause some characters to become Scrappies if their statistical strengths or abilities cancel out their weaknesses, and vice-versa. It might also be a case of Artificial Stupidity or Good Bad Bugs, where an AI opponent's scripted actions are flawed — for example, using a Fragile Speedster to try to outrun the Mighty Glacier, except the player gave the Mighty Glacier a Homing Projectile.

NOTE: for a character (or unit/item/etc.) to count as this trope, the end result must be that the player (or CPU/Gamemaster/etc.) does not use the character in the manner that their numerical stats indicate. If a Glass Cannon is hard to kill while they're hiding behind their Stone Wall Tank, that's not this trope — that's exactly how you'd expect such a character to be played. However, if the Glass Cannon is standing right on the front lines and is still hard to kill because they're equipped with an item that makes them impervious to all harm, that is this trope.

May be a form of Gameplay and Story Segregation if a character's stats/archetype are described or defined in the story but their functional performance differs significantly from their intended archetype from both a gameplay and story perspective. See also Informed Ability.

Compare and contrast Statistically Speaking, where the character's stats and abilities aren't consistently represented in gameplay.

Also compare One Stat to Rule Them All, where one stat is so good that it cancels out the need to bother with the others.

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Examples:

Fighting Games

• Street Fighter:
  • In the games she appears, the character Elena is listed as having lower health than most characters. However, she has access to Healing as her Super ability, which can recover up to a quarter of her full health. This means that she has far more effective health at her disposal depending on how many times she can build her meter in one round.
  • Abigail is one of the hardest-hitting characters in the Street Fighter V roster and is tied for the most health at 1100 (later reduced to 1075). However, in a game where most characters have some sort of invulnerable Dragon Punch or a Counter-Attack that lets them survive pressure, Abigail has none of that, so he will be forced to take risky guesses and eventually, he will guess wrong. In addition, his large size makes it hard for him to get around characters with ranged projectiles or normals, meaning he'll also eat a lot of damage trying to get in. The result is that a character who on paper looks like a Mighty Glacier is instead played more like a Glass Cannon, trying to avoid being put on the defensive at all costs.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Mario is meant to be the Jack of All Stats; balanced in all areas and lacking any major strengths and weaknesses that over-centralize his game-plan. However, the range on his attacks is perpetually one fist short, and he often lacks any reliable kill options. Later installments would see him develop a new niche reliant on edgeguarding and ladder combos to score KOs.
  • Peach in Melee was, according to her in-game information, intended to be a "good for beginners" character due to her excellent recovery options. In practice, her incredible air game and her Smash Attacks being far better than one would expect made her a deadly character in high-level play.

First-Person Shooters

• Memoirs of Magic: Your character's starting stats only mean something early on in the game - later, you'll have enough gold to be able to buy enough upgrades, totally negating any and all of their shortcomings. This can result in scenarios where Zandro can eat enemy damage without any defensive spells just like Baradus, or William being able to tear apart enemies like Phazar. Of particular note is Baradus, whose stats, description, default kit and appearance would lead you to believe he's a Stone Wall incapable of doing much on his own. In practice he's a Master of All Lightning Bruiser who can fly near-infinitely by the midpoint of the adventure.
• Overwatch: Everything in Overwatch is heavily based on context, with a virtually incalculable number of circumstances that can alter how much health someone has or how much damage they can take. For example, most characters' damage drops sharply with distance, meaning an attack that would normally be a One-Hit KO may be easily survived at the right range. Also, some characters have abilities that allow them to soak up more damage than expected; although Lucio is generally considered a Fragile Speedster due to only having 200 HP, he also possesses a constant health regeneration which can be temporarily boosted to make him more resilient. Thus, in a real match, it's almost impossible to take into full account exactly how much damage it will take to put down a character, which is why high level players generally opt for "burst" damage, as it has the highest chance of killing a character before they can be healed or protected.

Real Time Strategy

• Tanks in Command & Conquer deal a pitiful amount of damage to infantry. But this isn't an attempt to create balance, they're just encouraging you to run them over instead.

Role-playing Games

• Final Fantasy: Infamously, the Intelligence stat in the NES and PS versions of the game is bugged and doesn't work at all. As a result, magic spells don't get stronger, meaning that at the endgame, Squishy Wizards are just "squishy" without much "wizard". Another result is that the Red Mage, who is supposed to be a Master of None, instead becomes one of the best classes in the game; while their damage is mediocre, their spell-casting is just as good as the White and Black Mages, who were both supposed to have higher Intelligence to compensate (that said, there are some spells that only White and Black Wizards can learn).
• Fire Emblem:
  • A common trend in most games, that led to a serious shift in the Metagame once it was discovered, is that the actual stat benchmarks for being good at combat in Fire Emblem are lower than you might think. For example, in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, enemies are weak and slow throughout most of the game, and late-game enemies are slower due to heavier weapons, so only about 12 Speed (the Cap is 30) is necessary to double-attack most of them. This leads to Marcus, intended as a Crutch Character, becoming a Lightning Bruiser capable of trivializing the entire game, even on the highest difficulty, and Fragile Speedster characters like Lyn being a lot weaker than intended.
  • Caeda in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon is a Fragile Speedster in terms of raw stats, but in practice is one of the most brutal damage-dealers in the game, due to her exclusive Wing Spear weapon. It's strong, but more importantly it's effective against Armored and Calvary units, which make up a disproportionate amount of enemies in this game, and forging is exponentially effective on weapons like this due to every extra might point effectively meaning 3 when hitting a weakness.
  • In the same game, there's Draug. He starts as an Armor Knight, with the Mighty Glacier build you'd expect... except much of his high Strength and Defense comes from his class. His growth rates lean more towards Fragile Speedster, and he tends to do better when reclassed to something like Cavalier.
  • Rinkah in Fire Emblem Fates is infamous for having a very low Strength stat (both at base and the growth rate) that doesn't match her muscular portrait or starting class. Her intended role is more of a Stone Wall, as the Hoshido route lacks the traditional Armor Knight class.
  • Anna in Fire Emblem Engage has this as her gimmick. She starts in a physical class, but has a default Magic growth of 50%, one of the highest in the game. You can reclass her to a magic class to take advantage of this, or promote her to Warrior and focus on the magical Shining Bow.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure:
  • Lloyd Bannings has stats and an Orbment setup implying a Jack of All Stats role, and while this is mostly true, he's best used as an evasion tank. This is because many of his weapons come with passive Evasion boosts (something rare among the party), and he gains an attack in Azure that pulls enemies towards him, which is useful for drawing them away from the rest of the party.
  • Wazy Hemisphere in Azure has mostly physical Crafts, fights as a Bare-Fisted Monk with increased critical rates on his melee weapons, and his initial Master Quartz favors Speed and is weak in everything else. These traits don't make it obvious that Wazy is arguably the best Black Mage of the party: his ATS (magic) might not be as high as Tio or Elie, but he later gets the strongest S-Craft in the game and it deals magic damage, meaning he benefits from a magic-focused build far more than anyone else. And his high Speed shortens his casting time, letting him put out much more magical damage than someone with slightly more ATS but less Speed.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel:
  • Fie, given Foresight and the proper Quartz setup, along with her natural Evasion, effectively gains Super-Reflexes, being impossible to hit by dodging every attack. But that was unintentional on Falcom's part. She was intended to be a Fragile Speedster, having low HP and Defense, and high Speed. The greater potential that "dodge tanking" allows makes Fie more practical to bring into tough battles to absorb enemy punishment than the traditional Mighty Glacier Laura.
  • In the fourth game, Crow's stats, weapons and abilities aren't geared towards magic in the slightest, but many consider him the best caster in the game due to his Azure Destiny buffing skill, which gives a huge boost to Strength, ATS and Speed, something very rare on dedicated casters.
• Pokémon:
  • Shedinja looks terribly weak with 1 HP, but its ability protects it from all but super effective damage, so when the enemy can't deal such damage, it's effectively a wall.
  • Several Pokemon like Diggersby, Azumarill, Medicham, and Mega Mawile have the ability "Huge Power" or "Pure Power", both of which double their attack stat from the stated value.
    • Tyranitar has a base Special Defense stat of 100, but its ability summons the Sandstorm weather condition automatically whenever it is sent out, and Sandstorm multiplies the special defense of Pokemon of Tyranitar's type (Rock) by 1.5. This also applies to Gigalith, which is also a Rock type and can sometimes have Sand Stream.
    • Furfrou and Alolan Persian have the ability Fur Coat, which doubles their Defense from its stated value. Bewear and Dubwool have the ability Fluffy, which is similar, reducing damage taken from moves that make contact, except that they get a new weakness to Fire attacks.
    • Lots of Pokemon have the ability Intimidate, which lowers the physical Attack stat of the opposing Pokemon and thus tend to take physical hits far better than one would expect from their stats. Incineroar is the premier example, whose highest stat is Attack but is instead played like a Stone Wall, using U-Turn to switch out and come back to trigger Intimidate over and over.
• Undertale:
  • The Final Boss of the Genocide Route is a One-Hit-Point Wonder who can dodge all the player character's attacks, and whose own attacks deal a measly one point of damage per frame they touch the PC.
  • The game is notable for nearly every boss's CHECK stats being an outright lie — both Toriel and Asgore are reported as having 80/80 ATK/DEF, but the data shows their stats to actually be 6/1 and 10/-30 respectively (yes, that is a negative sign). This has lead to all kinds of Fan Wank about the characters in question being Willfully Weak.
• Xenoblade Chronicles X has the "Tyrant" enemy types. While most Tyrants are simply enemies with much higher levels and stats than other enemies in the same area (for example, a Level 80 wandering around areas where the mobs are usually Level 10 or below), Elma warns the player early on that a Tyrant's level and stats mean nothing. Some Tyrants have special properties, immunities or abilities that can make them harder to defeat than enemies much stronger than them statistically. For example, Agnes the Divine Scaled can reflect all Thermal-type damage, and Blaudolch the Chalcedony can make the player's party freeze in place for a while, rendering them helpless to its attacks.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons
  • This trope can apply to a large number of creatures, as with the right tactics many monsters can be much, much harder to deal with than their stats would suggest. One famous example of this is "Tucker's Kobolds", a tale told of kobolds utterly destroying a high-level party. Kobolds are bottom-tier Mooks in statistical terms, but Tucker's Kobolds make extensive use of traps, mass ambushes with ranged weapons, heavy armour, and carefully designed lairs to make sure they never face an enemy in a fair fight.
  • One of the factors that makes Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards so prevalent throughout many editions is that low HP and a lack of armor doesn't really matter to a Barrier Warrior who can just block every attack (assuming they don't choose to make themselves impossible to find in the first place), so once spellcasters get enough juice to reliably keep up their defenses they become far better tanks than the armor clad warriors.
  • This is a big problem with the Challenge Rating system in third and fifth edition. Each creature is assigned a challenge rating meant to indicate how powerful the creature is, with a creature being a decent fight for four PCs whose levels average out to the creature's CR. The problem is that the creature's CR is calculated on the assumption that the creature is engaging in a fair one-on-four fight where the PCs don't use up any consumable resources and the creature doesn't run away or use any tricky tactics. Because of this, any combat in a real game is probably going to be much harder or easier than the CR would suggest, depending on the creature, the composition of the party, and the area the fight is taking place in.
    • This post on Reddit outlines why a 5e Night Hag (which has a fairly low Challenge Rating of 5) is an incredibly hard-to-kill nightmare of an enemy even to higher-level parties. The hag's relatively low CR is accurate, as in a straight-up fight they aren't that hard to kill. The problem is that Night Hags have several ways to travel to other planes of existence and the ability to negate the effect of long rests on other creatures without putting themselves in almost any danger, meaning that if the party starts to win a fight against a hag then the hag can just escape in a way that's very difficult to stop, and then come back to haunt the party every night until they die of exhaustion.
• Warhammer 40,000: The "DISTRACTION CARNIFEX" meme and tactic involves having a single scary-looking unit to draw fire (combat ability optional), allowing the actual damage dealers behind to fire relatively unchallenged.

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