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[sn00zer]

Glass cannon is basically a character with high damage and number of abilities, but very low defense. Easiest example would be stealth games, where you have plenty of options to take down enemies, but go down even faster.

I'd only heard the term glass cannon design recently and only found much more recently that I love it. KH2 Final Mix critical mode was the first game Ive played that exemplifies glass cannon design. In critical mode, youre health is decreased, enemies hit harder, BUT they give you around 20 offensive abilities right at the start. You're faster, stronger, but also go down faster than before. It something that sounded like shit on paper, but actually sitting down to play it, turned out to be one of my favorite game experiences in years.

There are very few games that do this, but its something Id love looking into the future rather than the traditional "hard" difficulty of enemies hitting harder and having more health, but no boosts to the player character.

So are there any good glass cannon games? Giving the player a ton of boosts/abilities, but they go down like a rock in only a few hits.

EDIT: I would say Darksiders 2 on apocalyptic difficulty is like this as well.

 

[Mike M]

Hotline Miami?

You die almost instantly, but you have a variety of means to dispose of mass numbers of enemies and are rewarded for doing so as quickly and smoothly as possible.

 

[Coffee Dog]

Characters with deep moveset and learning curves are rare for a reason.

 

[epmode]

I like to play glass cannon characters in the Souls games. Some of them have abilities that make you ridiculously powerful when you're at very low HP. One hit and you're gone. Get dodging!

 

[Laurentius]

fGKHo

 

[Deleted member 126221]

I think Little Mac in Smash 4 would be a good example (?)

 

[Unknown One]

I played a glass cannon build in Demon Souls. I find out that you have a better survival rate on bosses because you can kill them much faster.

 

[entremet]

I think Little Mac in Smash 4 would be a good example (?)

Yes.

He does have super armor on Side smashes, though.

I would say high risk/reward is another way to define it.

 

[Lihwem]

Yeah as you said, OP, stealth game are a perfect fit for this, like Hitman: Blood Money in the hardest mode; you had to go stealth or go down. I didn't know the term, btw, thank you!

 

[Earthpainting]

That's pretty much how I play Paper Mario. You have several badges in the game that make you become stronger and give better dodge chances when you're near death. You can pretty much play the entire game like that and so I use it to replay these games with a bit extra challenge. When you have mastery over the systems, it's a fun way to raise the stakes.

 

[sn00zer]

That's pretty much how I play Paper Mario. You have several badges in the game that make you become stronger and give better dodge chances when you're near death. You can pretty much play the entire game like that and so I use it to replay these games with a bit extra challenge. When you have mastery over the systems, it's a fun way to raise the stakes.

I would hate this in turn based games where I dont have full control of damage my character takes.

 

[Fandangox]

Muramasa: The Demon's Blade hard mode was pretty much this right? You leveled up, all your stats increased, but HP would remain at 1, I think.

 

[ClayKavalier]

I think it's the only version of the game that lets you do this, but in Persona 3 Portable you can break up your team in the dungeon and fight enemies alone (or with one or two allies if you want). Once you get a good team of Personas you can switch back and forth between them and exploit weaknesses so that enemies never get to move. Battles are really tense since you're the enemies' sole target.

Normally experience gets split up between party members, so you're getting four times the normal experience. By the end of the game my playable character was like 20 levels ahead of everyone else.

It's risky since death is always a couple missed moved away and dying means losing progress since you're last save, but I loved playing that game like this.

 

[cyrok]

The concept of being a Glass Canon has been around for a long time. Generally in a lot of RPGs the lighter the armor you have the more damage you deal but the damage you take is higher too. But the term Glass Canon is in regard to the highest amount of damage you can cause and the lowest resistances/higher damage you take.

For example, most casting "Mage" type of characters have a build that is a glass canon. In Diablo 3, one of the passive abilities is actually called Glass Canon.

 

[sn00zer]

Heaven or Hell mode in the Devil May Cry series sounds right up your alley

I love DMC4, havent played this mode before, but the hard mode I did play on it just took forever to kill enemies and wasnt too fun.

 

[Dr. Buni]

I think Little Mac in Smash 4 would be a good example (?)

I think Jigglypuff is a better example. It can be devastating and can kill considerably early with Rest, but it can be launched to death at very low %s

Speaking of Jigglypuff, the Pokémon series have its fair share of glass cannons. Examples are Gengar, Infernape and Greninja. They hit hard, but can't take hits.

 

[StarVigil]

Risk of Rain with the glass artifact + Mercenary is one of the most satisfying things ever.
Just watch this speedrun("spoiler", if you haven't played through the game yet)

 

[etrain911]

Any character with a high level of Faith in FFT also fits this description. As Faith dictates how much magic affects the character but also the character's magic damage.

 

[Nvzman]

I love playing Scout in TF2 for this reason.

 

[Mike M]

I love DMC4, havent played this mode before, but the hard mode I did play on it just took forever to kill enemies and wasnt too fun.

In Heaven or Hell mode, both you and enemies die in a single hit.

I forget the number of other modes you need to beat to unlock it, though.

 

[Kysen]

Heaven or Hell mode in the Devil May Cry series sounds right up your alley

I loved this, then decided to try Hell and Hell mode. Got wrecked.

 

[Winterfang]

Did someone called Mega Beedrill?

 

[Professor Lich]

In Binding of Isaac, there are a few characters that could be seen as Glass Cannons. I personally enjoy Judas and Eve. Judas only has one health but the highest starting damage. Eve has really low damage but if you can set her to one health container or lower, her damage goes pretty high.

 

[lord_of_flood]

Rosa in Bayonetta 2 is a great example of a good glass cannon. On Infinite Climax most enemies can kill her in two or three hits even with all of the health upgrades, and she doesn't have the 1 HP defense Bayo and Jeanne have, but she can also quickly chew through enemies without much effort because Unforgiven is extremely powerful. Lots of fun to play the game as her.

 

[Guerrillas in the Mist]

Hotline Miami?

You die almost instantly, but you have a variety of means to dispose of mass numbers of enemies and are rewarded for doing so as quickly and smoothly as possible.

This immediately came to mind. You can clear out dozens of enemies in under a minute, and then fuck up an attack and have one guy take you out instantly.

 

[Maintenance]

Did someone called Mega Beedrill?

Deoxys attack form: *laughs*

 

[Seven Force]

Heaven or Hell mode in the Devil May Cry series sounds right up your alley

Yep. If you liked KHIIFM's Critical Mode, HoH in DMC4's just the thing you need to try.

Edit: Speaking of DMC:

Granted, MvC3 has a handful of notable glass cannons (Zero, Strider, Phoenix), but Vergil's the first to come to mind.

 

[TheRedSnifit]

Prototype is this to a degree. You can obviously tank through everything if you're good, but enemies hit hard, so you'll probably end up fleeing most encounters with the military (especially before you're able to hijack helicopters).

The Crysis games do this pretty well, too. Even a single enemy can do a ton of damage if he catches you in the open.

 

[Kresnik258]

Arcane Mages in World of Warcraft. At least when I used to play!

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

I want to say Knack sadly.

The last of us

Souls games

 

[jon bones]

Love playing as glass cannons.

 

[njean777]

Glass cannon builds are typical in mobas. Vayne in LOL is the very definition of glass cannon. She hits super hard late game but is super fragile. At least that was true when I played, don't know about now.

 

[Head.spawn]

Is Mario the OG glass cannon?

 

[TeRey09]

Glass Cannon - So many examples!!

 

[Randam]

never played a game that came with glass connon game design from the get go.
would consider TLoU such game.


Liked to play in hyper mode with buffed weapons in dark souls.

 

[Steel]

Reminds me. There's a sigil in Soul Sacrifice that increases your attack damage by something like 150%, put gives you "Deaths door curse" which puts your HP permanently at zero. Ironically, this also makes it so there's no disadvantage to using most black rites(insanely high damage spells that you sacrifice a piece of your body to cast, which can do things like decreasing your max health or lower defense, etc.)

 

[Grayman]

This can be really fun if the game balances it well, or just makes it flat out more powerful. I like it best when its an option of how to build a character in a party based game.

I love DMC4, havent played this mode before, but the hard mode I did play on it just took forever to kill enemies and wasnt too fun.

It has been awhile since I played but on harder difficulties i think I had to mix in tons of just frame sword revving and devil trigger cancelling for extra high damage hits in combos. It probably doesn't fit glass cannon though because the enemies are still going to take a decent amount to down. It more makes the enemies lightning bruisers that have good defence and kill the player in one hit.

Whoops I was thinking of hell or hell mode mentioned above

 

[CHC]

Counter Strike. Super rapid death, massive amounts of strategy involved to make it all go right. You might be the best AWPer in the world but if your bases aren't covered a single guy with a pistol can easily bring you down in seconds.

 

[Valygar]

I love glass cannon characters. It is a high risk - high reward combination, and if you have a lot of skill you can deal more damage than anyone else while not getting hurt.

Beating Dark Souls with a light weight - 2hand character was really fun. I also tend to get glass cannons in MOBAS, though there they scale and end doing TONS of damage but also a bit of survival.

In RPGs, I prefer a more balanced aproach but my main character tends to be a mage / high dps dealer.

In my experience, it is usually more fun and you play the game faster. If you are dying too much, you suck and you will improve! It is like playing those old games from the 8 bit era.

 

[TI82]

All MOBAs have some super glassies like that.

 

[DarkKyo]

Dota 2 : Outworld Devourer

 

[StoneFox]

Shedinja in Pokemon has exactly 1 HP. The catch is that it can only be hit by super effective moves or indirect moves like Stealth Rock. So in some cases it can be considered a powerful glass cannon, given it's respectible attack stat.

 

[HypnoDarkrai]

Dark Arm Avalon Sorcerers in Soul Sacrifice Delta.

 

[Toxi]

Deoxys attack form: *laughs*

It cannot be overstated how bad Deoxys-A's defenses are. Breathing on it will probably kill it. And it exchange, you get a blisteringly high speed with two of the largest attack stats in the series.

 

[bobbychalkers]

Bayonetta 2 unlockable character spoiler

Spoiler

Bayonetta's mom goddamn!!!!

when I killed Gommorah before it even got to the top of the skyscraper in the prologue, I knew shit was about to get real.

 

[nowarning]

Drell Adept from Mass Effect 3's multiplayer.

 

[ThatStupidLion]

i actually loved my glass cannon demon hunter back when D3 first came out....

 

[Daouzin]

I think Little Mac in Smash 4 would be a good example (?)

Agreed. The Melee glass cannon was Roy. Before I knew the term for it I used to call him a glass dagger. Sharp and effective, but breaks easily.

 

[BPoole]

i actually loved my glass cannon demon hunter back when D3 first came out....

This was going to be my example as well.

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I'll add Nova from Warframe. She can kill a shitload of enemies but on higher difficulties she can be destroyed pretty damn fast. A lot of noobs like to use her on lower tier defense missions but get their asses wrecked on higher tier missions if they don't know how to maneuver around properly.

-

Also, Corvo in Dishonored is kind of that way. You have tons of different skills to tear enemies up, but you can die really fast once you start eating bullets and not parrying sword attacks.

 

[Maintenance]

It cannot be overstated how bad Deoxys-A's defenses are. Breathing on it will probably kill it. And it exchange, you get a blisteringly high speed with two of the largest attack stats in the series.

8th worst Defense among the 710+ pokemons that exist right now, and tied in 1st for the worst Special Defense.