http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CherryTapping

note A little on the nose , don'tcha think? Oh, sorry Chun Li. Dudley rose to the occasion of demonstrating this trope.

Man: Is there a name for this private little world of yours, huh? What happens there when we don't just run away? You'll kill us... with a soup cup?

Riddick: Tea, actually.

Man: What's that?

Riddick: I'll kill you with my tea cup. Riddick, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) Is there a name for this private little world of yours, huh? What happens there when we don't just run away? You'll kill us... with a soup cup?Tea, actually.What's that?I'll kill you with my tea cup.

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Winning feels good, and the more humiliating it is for your foe, the greater the satisfaction. Who cares about good sportsmanship and "being big about it"? You just wanna grind your enemy's head into the earth in the most soul-crushingly cheap way possible for all the grief he's caused you.

Enter Cherry Tapping, the video game equivalent of the Humiliation Conga. Cherry Tapping uses strange and/or weak "weapons", or powers that are lame, weak, and/or stupid looking to defeat powerful, fear-inspiring foes or even other players. It can be a way to show off crushingly superior fighting technique by using a Joke Character in a fighting game; a slow, weak melee weapon in a war game; or shameless abuse of Level Grinding to kill the Final Boss with a feather duster.

Cherry Tapping is sort of the opposite of strategies like Elemental RockPaperScissors which exploit the enemy's inherent weaknesses for massive damage. Even if it is a One-Hit Kill a la Revive Kills Zombie, Cherry Tapping is purposely using weapons others think of as weak to humiliate, ignoring other items in the arsenal that do damage at a more effective rate. Cherry Tapping is sometimes referred to as Woodpeckering, can (and often will) induce Death of a Thousand Cuts, requires being Willfully Weak. The Fake Special Attack is the Cherry Tapper's signature move.

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If humiliation isn't your goal, Cherry Tapping can be used to defeat or subdue an enemy with a lessened risk of killing them. This may be useful if the tapper wishes to capture their enemy, or maybe befriend them afterwards. Or at least, saving rare items that are plain Too Awesome to Use.

Compare

I Am Not Left-Handed, for when the attacking character suddenly reveals that what appeared to be an intrinsic weakness is a voluntary restriction they've put on themselves by discarding it.

The Man Makes the Weapon, where humiliation is not the goal.

Zerg Rush, where it's not a weak weapon or attack, but a large number of weak individuals used to inflict the damage. Humiliation may or may not be a result.

Finger Poke of Doom, for a seemingly-weak attack that actually masks a hell of a lot of power, and for the item equivalent of that, see Lethal Joke Item.

Advertisement: Player Archetypes, as "Johnny, the Combo Master" is strongly associated with this trope. A Johnny/Jenny kind of player deliberately uses options considered weak by competitive players in order to defeat them.

Contrast There Is No Kill Like Overkill, which is at the absolute opposite end of the killing spectrum.

A great metafictional display of being Weak, but Skilled.

Game Examples:

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Stellaris once had the Naked Corvette Spam, where you simply build a ton of corvettes with no upgrades and just Zerg Rush the opposing enemy. It is also used in-universe by the End of the Cycle (if you make a deal with him), where it strands you alone on a planet, kills everything, and then lets you waste away.

In Civilization IV and Civilization V, the player can choose the "one city challenge", in which case the game bars you from settling or annexing any city after your capital is founded while the AI opponents behave as they normally would. Venice in V plays with these restrictions by default, but they also get bonuses to offset it, so the one-city challenge instead removes those bonuses.

Fighting Games

First Person Shooter

Action

Role Playing Game

MMORPG

In EVE Online killing anything in a swarm of noobships (the basic free ship that everyone gets in the beginning or after loosing his ship and docking up) can be considered a cherrytap. On a more experienced level, corps such as Goon swarm used cheap tech I ships to destroy superior (and much more expensive) tech II ships.

In City of Heroes (and Villains), every player character has an attack power called Brawl. It usually manifests as a simple punch or kick, and does only minor damage. Once your character has a decent number of real attack powers, it serves two functions: it's an efficient way to down an enemy with only a few hit points remaining, and somehow it just feels better to take down that annoying enemy by simply punching his lights out. For some characters, like those using Bows or Dual Blades, the punch is replaced with a kick instead. It can be even more gratifying to finish off an archvillain/superhero with a solid kick to the groin. One invention-origin enhancement gives taunt powers a chance to do minor psionic damage, allowing characters to annoy people to death. Better yet, since all tanker taunts gain a short-range AoE, it's possible to kill an entire mob with a one-liner. Then there is the Rock power which can be obtained during the Halloween Event. Minor ranged damage, horrible accuracy, but so satisfying to end that Archvillain fight by hitting them with a rock. The game also allows for substantial after-market alteration to any class by way of optional generic powers; consequently, one can take a Controller archetype and outfit him or her for hardened brawling. The end-result - a 'Scraptroller' - is kind of like being beaten to death by Professor X. Enemies who slow your attack rates, while highly annoying, are more likely to be taken down this way simply because you start using cherry-tap attacks while your effective ones are still recharging. It makes for satisfying revenge. omg War Mace + Energy Aura so strong!

Phantasy Star Online has a whole variety of weak joke weapons seemingly designed for this which in themselves vary between Joke Item and Lethal Joke Item. However, a special mention goes to the Flower Bouquet which only has 1 ATP (attack power), 1 ATA (accuracy), no special ability and is literally a bouquet of flowers. It's very satisfying beating a semi-immortal God to death with your Valentine's Day present.

In World of Warcraft, using your melee weapon as a mage, priest or warlock (or alternatively for the warlock, using the imp or voidwalker). Wands are almost universally better for these classes and are ranged weapons. For Melee classes, utilizing Fishing poles or unequipping one's weapon achieves the same effect. Arguably the closest thing World of Warcraft has to Cherry Tapping is the concept of low-manning, i.e. taking on raid bosses (encounters designed for large, coordinated groups of players) with an understrengthed raid party. This is sometimes taken to ridiculous extremes, either for profit (less people to share in the loot), or - more often - for bragging rights. Famous examples include a warlock and a paladin killing the dragon Onyxia (a boss originally designed for 40 players), a four-man group besting Gruul the Dragonkiller (made possible by cleverly manipulating the combat stats on a rogue so that the boss had literally no chance of landing a hit) and a very determined warlock solo-killing Hydross the Unstable (a 25-man boss). actually, World of Warcraft has had some real Cherry Tap abilities. Particularly two classes: the paladin and the rogue. It's an old game though, so virtually every class at one point had a stupid gimmick power that was normally useless but occasionally overpowered. There have also been some items in this category. Some of the most famous in no particular order (not counting beta bugs either):

Reckoning-paladin. This ability allowed the paladin to do extra damage after getting critical hit. The gimmick was that it stacked infinitely. Inevitably, there was a paladin crazy enough to get critical hit repeatedly (backstabs were automatic critical hits at the time), and then go solo-kill a world boss. Windfury-shaman. Shamans have the unique ability to put enchantments on their weapons, and Windfury was one of them. Each weapon strike had a chance to knock an opponent back. The thing was, the Windfury effect itself had a chance to cause Windfury. So shamans could put you in an infinite chain of knockbacks. Cyclone-druid. It's a standard crowd control ability, except it can be used as transportation by the caster. At one point druids could use it to get into battlegrounds before they started. Since they also have stealth, this was a pain in the butt. Nowadays more esoteric methods are required to break into places players aren't allowed. Lockpicking-rogue. Not a combat ability, but it's a kind of Cherry Tap because of how it allows this class to exploit the game's economy. There are random loot boxes in the game. Most of the time they have useless stuff in them. Occasionally they have extremely good raiding gear, otherwise unobtainable items, or even legendary items in them. Only rogues, and characters with the jewelcrafting profession, can open them. Everyone else can auction the boxes, but their prices are modest. Spellsteal-mage. It's exactly what it sounds like: you can steal a spell that the enemy has cast on themselves. Some raid bosses have extremely powerful magical defenses. Occasionally Blizzard forgets to make them immune to spell-stealing. This is a chronically recurring problem. Most recently it is famous for causing an exploit in the Black Rook Hold dungeon (in combination with the ability listed below), used by serious Mythic+ dungeon running groups. Enslave Undead-Death Knight. Again, exactly what it sounds like: you can mind-control an undead creature. While this doesn't apply to bosses, it can be used on elites and other mobs found it dungeons. Some of which are ridiculously strong, or automatically cast useful spells on their allies. Or can be exploited by another party member as in the Black Rook Hold dungeon where an undead mage can be enslaved by the party's tank and then have their buff taken off them by the party's mage. Last Stand-paladin. Told you they were going to come up a lot. A talent that allows the paladin to absorb incoming damage, based on the number of enemies they are fighting. Only kind of a Cherry Tap because you can't kill anyone with it, and a protection spec paladin is not likely to kill anyone anyway, but in competitive pve it could be considered a Cherry Tap. The paladin essentially becomes invincible because the effect stacks infinitely: thus allowing them to stand for hours whittling down enemies. using wands is now considered Cherry Tapping, as they are generally useless in comparison to other weapons. However, with the right gear they can be very deadly. WoW's age also means that there's a lot of weirdly itemized gear, some of which can make certain underpowered weapons or abilities very good.

Let's not forget the hunter soloing Azuregos!

With the onset of lvl 80 characters and items, this was no longer a big deal. 1-manning Onyxia was fairly commonplace, at least by certain hybrid classes - shaman, druid, warlock and paladin - who are capable of both melee power and self-healing (warlocks doing so using their pets).

Hogger is a level 11 "Elite" (a creature who has more health, attack power and defense than a normal creature of the same level) very near the human starting area. A "Hogger Raid" is the lvl 1 equivalent of an end-boss raid by max-level characters. Hogger Raids tactics are generally limited to Zerg Rush until he is dead. (And incidentally are stupidly fun/funny to participate in....) YouTube video here (but some profanity over voice-chat). "I've got aggr—oh, never mind." A PvP version is using a priest to Mind Control an enemy player in a duel. They can't hurt themselves and you likely can't access and waste their cooldown abilities. But if you're in the right position, you can make them jump off a very high cliff.

This video shows a Warlock (a casting class with virtually no melee power) using a Firestone-enhanced weapon to melee players to death in PvP. The Firestone was a Warlock-specific weapon enhancement that, aside from adding spell power, caused the Warlock's weapon to occasionally (frequently, in practice) hit the target for a burst of fire damage. A large burst of damage. Especially compared to the kind of melee damage a Warlock normally does. Unfortunately Firestones no longer exist.

shows a Warlock (a casting class with virtually no melee power) using a Firestone-enhanced weapon to melee players to death in PvP. The Firestone was a Warlock-specific weapon enhancement that, aside from adding spell power, caused the Warlock's weapon to occasionally (frequently, in practice) hit the target for a burst of fire damage. A large burst of damage. Especially compared to the kind of melee damage a Warlock normally does. Unfortunately Firestones no longer exist. One of the most well-known PvP video series of pre-Burning Crusade WoW was World of Roguecraft, in which someone displayed how overpowered rogues were by defeating well-geared players while completely naked aside from the weakest weapon in the game by "stun-locking" them for the entire fight, thus preventing them from hitting him more than once or twice, and utilizing an attack that did the same damage regardless of what stat bonuses the rogue had from gear. Stun-locking is still a major part of rogue PvP, but due to certain changes to stats and mechanics, it now takes some gear to pull off and the target has to be ungeared.

WoW also has a number of items that technically count as one-handed melee weapons such as large fish or mugs full of beer. They are not particularly useful as weapons, but imagine being defeated in PvP by someone wielding catfish...

RP walking (toggling off your character's default run mode so they walk slowly like an NPC) while in a PvP situation is a traditional way to imply a cherry tap, since speed and mobility are crucial in combat.

It's possible to humiliate allies similarly. With dual talent specialization, raiding healers can have a separate spec for questing and 5-man dungeons. A geared priest can create either a Holy or Discipline secondary spec which takes talents and glyphs for Smite and Holy Nova, queue as healer for random Heroic dungeons, and pull respectable damage for a DPSer while keeping the group healed with ease. You're almost guaranteed to have at least one DPS who can't keep up. If the DPS is not freshly level-capped, humiliation ensues — often in the form of someone asking "Uh, why is the healer outdamaging you guys?" You can pull off the inverse as a Retribution Paladin, a class who's main utility lies in it's ability to heal allies, if you outgear the healer enough, you can quite literally take over his role.

Naked fist-fights consist of well, two people dueling eachother with no gear whatsoever and just auto-attacking eachother to death. The Headshot skill in Urban Dead applies whenever you give a killing blow, no matter what weapon was used. It has become an accomplishment to deliver your final strike with a simple Punch, both because it has the lowest hit chance and only does 1 damage, and the image of socking someone so hard that their head explodes is frickin' awesome. This also applies to many other weapons and skills in the game. An update also allowed many other things to be used as weapons, so it's possible to kill people with gas cans, toolboxes, pool cues, pumpkins, Christmas Trees and even tinsel, as well as many other things. There are now entire groups built around kills with unusual weapons Through clever use of URL manipulation, it's possible to use the zombie skills Bite and Headbutt as a living survivor. This can lead to hilarity as human suvivors are seen biting zombies/people to death.

The game of Perihelion included a turn-based combat system with action points and weapons doing like 30-120HP damage, that took either a fixed percent (30-70%) of AP or a fixed number, like 50 or 120AP. Finishing characters had about 120-200AP. But there was that one tiny puny knife to be found, that did puny damage but took only 2AP to hit. The end battle could be finished in two rounds with one character using only that knife, jabbing the UNBORN GOD sewing machine style with it.

sewing machine style with it. There are videos of Runescape players taking down Tz-Tok-Jad, one of the game's hardest bosses, with a rubber chicken. What makes this even funnier is that according to Word of God, Tz-Tok-Jad is allergic to chickens. This video features a player single-handedly taking down Kree'arra (level 580) with a sling, the weakest ranged weapon in the game. The Duel Arena, where players fight each other in one-on-one battles, has an option that only allows the players to use silly weapons that give negative combat bonuses, like the aforementioned rubber chicken and flowers. There is an achievement for killing the Corporeal Beast (a boss even stronger than the Jad) wielding only a bronze spear. To make it easier, you can cheat by using dreadnips, poison, and jewelry with damaging effect, but you cant deploy a cannon. You also can get this achievement in a group but only if everyone in the group uses a bronze spear. You also get an achievement for killing General Graardor using your fists. What may be one of the most insane achievements in the game is for defeating Araxxor and Araxxi, one of the most difficult boss fights in the game, while wearing bronze armor and a bronze weapon.

In Guild Wars, getting "wanded" in PvP is a humiliating form of defeat. Technically, a wand deals as much damage as a sword, but since there are no attack skills for wands, plinking away at someone's health with a wand (or a staff) is a vastly inefficient method of killing them, especially since every second spent wanding is one spent not casting spells (which are much more effective). Thus, dying to an enemy's wand or staff implies that you - and your team - are so completely incompetent that the opposing team doesn't even need to use skills to take you down.

Mabinogi features the "Deadly" status, where you (or a monster) is in negative HP and any hits landed will kill you. While it is incredibly rare for a boss monster to be put in Deadly, it doesn't change the fact that (given enough time and/or luck) you can potentially take down a main story boss with Rock Throw (which otherwise does no damage) In the case of the Banshee in Peaca Basic, one of the favoured ways of killing it is just to set up spiked barriers with alchemy, and then throw rocks at it to goad it into breaking the barriers, which bypass its immunities with small amounts of chip damage. It can take a while, but is generally far safer than trying to take the Banshee head-on.

Vindictus, the sequel/prequel to Mabinogi, is much more centered around effective strategy against the dungeon bosses, meaning that a skilled player can kill them while wearing only their underwear and using the starting weapon. There's even bonus points in some dungeons for completing it without armor.

On zOMG!, it was at one point possible, and a huge source of bragging rights, to have no attacking rings, but just layer on buffs and heal until major bosses KO'd themselves with reflected damage. Reckoning-paladin. This ability allowed the paladin to do extra damage after getting critical hit. The gimmick was that it stacked infinitely. Inevitably, there was a paladin crazy enough to get critical hit repeatedly (backstabs were automatic critical hits at the time), and then go solo-kill a world boss. Windfury-shaman. Shamans have the unique ability to put enchantments on their weapons, and Windfury was one of them. Each weapon strike had a chance to knock an opponent back. The thing was, the Windfury effect itself had a chance to cause Windfury. So shamans could put you in an infinite chain of knockbacks. Cyclone-druid. It's a standard crowd control ability, except it can be used as transportation by the caster. At one point druids could use it to get into battlegrounds before they started. Since they also have stealth, this was a pain in the butt. Nowadays more esoteric methods are required to break into places players aren't allowed. Lockpicking-rogue. Not a combat ability, but it's a kind of Cherry Tap because of how it allows this class to exploit the game's economy. There are random loot boxes in the game. Most of the time they have useless stuff in them. Occasionally they have extremely good raiding gear, otherwise unobtainable items, or even legendary items in them. Only rogues, and characters with the jewelcrafting profession, can open them. Everyone else can auction the boxes, but their prices are modest. Spellsteal-mage. It's exactly what it sounds like: you can steal a spell that the enemy has cast on themselves. Some raid bosses have extremely powerful magical defenses. Occasionally Blizzard forgets to make them immune to spell-stealing. This is a chronically recurring problem. Most recently it is famous for causing an exploit in the Black Rook Hold dungeon (in combination with the ability listed below), used by serious Mythic+ dungeon running groups. Enslave Undead-Death Knight. Again, exactly what it sounds like: you can mind-control an undead creature. While this doesn't apply to bosses, it can be used on elites and other mobs found it dungeons. Some of which are ridiculously strong, or automatically cast useful spells on their allies. Or can be exploited by another party member as in the Black Rook Hold dungeon where an undead mage can be enslaved by the party's tank and then have their buff taken off them by the party's mage. Last Stand-paladin. Told you they were going to come up a lot. A talent that allows the paladin to absorb incoming damage, based on the number of enemies they are fighting. Only kind of a Cherry Tap because you can't kill anyone with it, and a protection spec paladin is not likely to kill anyone anyway, but in competitive pve it could be considered a Cherry Tap. The paladin essentially becomes invincible because the effect stacks infinitely: thus allowing them to stand for hours whittling down enemies.

Real-time Strategy

The Metagame of Starcraft II is constantly evolving, with individual units falling in and out of favor as the builds change. However, the usage of "builds" and metagaming only truly applies to players that understand the basic game mechanics well enough to begin with. One pro player, Destiny, compiled a series of videos where he utilize Zerg Queens (normally only used spawn extra larvae and creep and not an effective combat unit) as his main army unit of choice. In StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm's first campaign mission, the game calls you out if attack the labs without using zerglings. Valerian Mengsk: Kerrigan, call off your... Kerrigan, call off your... drones . You're attacking with drones

where he utilize Zerg Queens (normally only used spawn extra larvae and creep and not an effective combat unit) as his main army unit of choice. In the original Starcraft: Brood War, the Protoss Scout is generally regarded as being the one unit in the game whose use is never worthwhile. Aside from rare instances where it can be used to combat Carriers and Battlecruisers, Scouts are considered too cost-ineffective for much of anything. As a result, some players will build Scouts and throw them at their opponent simply for the humiliation factor.

Turn Based Strategy

Other Video Games

Collectible Card Games

Many of the more out-there combo decks in Magic: The Gathering can be used to savage an opponent in the most humiliating ways imaginable. This was particularly prevalent during initial playtesting, before all the rules were finalized. One story goes that, before the "only four of any card except basic lands" rule was instituted, one player loaded his deck with bunches of Swords to Plowshares and Llanowar Elves . Eventually, his opponent would be out of creatures and at a ridiculous life total. So in went the elves...60...59...58...57... Another story involves a character playing Lord of the Pit against a Clone deck. The cloning player could die from it or Clone it...but had no way to pay for it... The designers even slip in the occasional obviously terrible card specifically to please the cherry-tappers (scroll to "Issue # 2"). Creatures that are unblockable could count as well, since the fact that they can't be blocked is usually balanced by giving the creature a low Power (rarely going higher than 2 without other effects to increase it). Creatures like Invisible Stalker especially, since they're difficult to remove on top of dealing almost-guaranteed damage.

and Llanowar Elves . Eventually, his opponent would be out of creatures and at a ridiculous life total. So in went the elves...60...59...58...57... Another story involves a character playing Lord of the Pit against a Clone deck. The cloning player could die from it or Clone it...but had no way to pay for it... There's a Pokémon TCG deck called the "No Energy Stall." It contains a bunch of high-HP Pokémon, healing Trainers, and no energy whatsoever - which means you can't use any attacks. The point is to hold out as long as you can until the other player runs out of cards. A similar deck is the Mulligan Mewtwo deck. 56 Psychic Energy, 4 Base Set Mewtwo, which have Barrier and Psychic. Odds are you won't get any starting Pokemon for your first few starting hands (you MUST draw a Basic Pokemon, or you reshuffle and draw a new hand), so your opponent might lay on the extra cards (they can draw 0, 1, or 2 each time you reshuffle) until s/he catches on. Once you get one, attach a Psychic energy each turn until you can use Barrier, then just keep using it until your opponent decks out, building up the other Mewtwo as a precaution for things like the old Gust of Wind.

Yata-Garasu lockdown did this for Yu-Gi-Oh!. Basically the combo wipes the field and both players hands, except for the lone Yata Garasu left in the controlling player's hand. He can then play this and Yata forbid his opponent from drawing if the card causes any lifepoint damage. Yata only has 200 attack points (as opposed to the 8000 players start with), meaning the opponent will get cherry tapped to death as he does not have any cards in his hand, nor the ability to draw any more cards. Since Yata returns to the hand after the turn ends, this also means that cherry tapping will likely be the only viable way to finish the game (as you can only make one summon per turn, unless another card is used to bypass this). What's even more of a Cherry Tapping is countering a Yata Garasu lockdown: play a deck focused on building life points and use as many of your cards' effects as possible before your enemy summons YG. If done properly, you can put your life points in the five-digit range before your opponent locks down, and then just sit back and watch your opponent run out of cards before you run out of life points. However, it will only work if the opponent has a completely clear field otherwise and no remaining means of Special Summoning, which is very unlikely unless you're playing against an utterly incompetent opponent. Sparks, a spell card that does a measly 200 points of damage to the opponent, has basically no use other than this. Some video game versions of Yu-Gi-Oh! give you a bonus if you can ever manage to successfully finish off the opponent with a Sparks card. Particularly nasty players have been known to take it further, using loops (for instance, Primal Seed/Banisher of the Radiance) to kill an opponent using just Sparks, played forty times in a row. Video games that provide a Sparks bonus also often give one for winning with Skull Servant, a Normal Monster infamous for having only 300 ATK - slightly more damage than Sparks, but only slightly. As Skull Servant is something of a Lethal Joke Character, along with being possible to power up with things like equips, this is a fair bit more feasible. For a good while, there was "Cowboy For Game" - a term for summoning the easily-made Xyz Monster Gagaga Cowboy whenever the opponent was on low LP, and then using its effect to deal 800 damage and end the game. Even after it stopped being as feasible, packing a monster with some kind of burn or direct-attack effect in the Extra Deck to finish off a limping opponent has become pretty popular. The Gravity Bind trap prevents all monsters level 4 and higher from attacking. For a time, a very efficient deck could be build around this trap and direct attack monsters, which are generally weak and low level.

In the Aliens vs. Predator card game, it was entirely possible to weaken the fearsome Predator with a barrage from your heavily armed Colonial Marines, such that the final killing blow could come from a rescued pet cat.

In Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, killing someone with something that deals one damage. Whether it's the Mage's Hero Power, a weak minion like Wisp or Murloc Tinyfin, or a 1 damage spell like Razorpetal or Frost Shock, it's pretty humiliating. There's also a common practice of self-cherrytapping. When a player knows he's going to lose, he can get style points by using his cards to set up an elaborate suicide (perhaps by ridiculously overbuffing one of the enemy's minions, then attacking it). It's also possible to grind an opponent down to 1 health and then keep them alive while maintaining board control and making sure they can't wear down your health. Depending on how late you are in the game, you can keep this up until they run out of cards and lose.



Tabletop Games

Warhammer 40,000 The C'tan are really, really hard to take down. We're talking a maximum 25% chance for a direct hit from an anti-tank missile to hurt them. Slightly. So how can you take them down? Sniper rifles, which are usually only used to force enemies to take Pinning tests. Using a psychological weapon to punch out Cthulhu. The lasgun is considered to be universally the worst weapon in the game, with less than 16% chance to even cause a wound (and that's before armor saves are involved) per shot. So how do you kill anything with it? Just shoot a bunch of them at the enemy. A guard player using the First Rank Fire Second Rank Fire on a combined platoon of Guardsmen can feasibly roll 150 dice, Cherry Tapping anything and everything to hell in but a handful of turns. One lasgun does diddly. Fifty lasguns do a whole shitload of diddly. The Baneblade superheavy tank is known for its heavy weapon loadout (and those are the lighter weapons on that tank). In Codex: Astra Militarum, the Hellhammer is a variant of the Baneblade, that's designed to kill enemies in hiding. Of all the weapons in the 40k universe, guess what's one of the unique built-in weapons for the Hellhammer is..., yup the humble lasgun - a weapon so puny that the optional storm bolter or heavy stubber that gets bolted on the turret hatch is far deadlier than it. They couldn't even get a hot-shot lasgun. That lasgun is only there to try and pick off a straggler that somehow survives everything else the Hellhammer throws at an enemy. Tyranid Hormagaunts operate on the same principle, namely in that with the Toxin Sacs upgrade they can harm every non-vehicle model in the game, but at a very low chance. Good thing they cost a pittance to field, so expect anyone who uses them to field waves of them. In 6th edition, due to the vehicle damage table revamp and the introduction of the Hull Point system, the easiest way to kill anything short of a Land Raider or Monolith (which have the highest armor values possible) is to spam a lot of medium strength, high volume shots at it. The new Vehicle Damage Table doesn't contain any method for a Penetrating hit to kill a vehicle unless it had special modifiers (usually by AP or some other rule) but both Penetrating Hits and Glancing Hits will shave off a Hull Point, which will destroy the vehicle when they run out. Cue entire mechanized armies being cherry tapped to death by what is essentially a disco-light show (Multi-Lasers and Scatter Lasers) Anything with a 2+ armor save or an Invulerable save better equal to or better than 3+ will result in the opponent resorting to this; anti-tank weapons, the intended counter, don't fire enough shots to reliably kill anything with those saves (they either come in units or have ridiculous amount of wounds) so most people resort to the above disco light show to deal damage. After all, if you're already going to have a pisspoor chance at killing it with one shot, why not go with a few hundred slightly more pisspoor chances that also have a chance at wiping them out in one go?

Tucker's Kobolds . Most Game Masters use Kobolds as Mooks and Cannon Fodder for low-level PCs, but Tucker provided a perfect example of how to use low level monsters to scare the shit out of PCs. This method of handling them was made canonical in 3e/3.5e... but ignored by many GMs and most Dungeons & Dragons video games because it's easier to use them as cannon fodder than to play them as devious users of traps and ambushes that are a serious danger to even fairly powerful Player Characters if fought on their home turf.

. Most Game Masters use Kobolds as Mooks and Cannon Fodder for low-level PCs, but Tucker provided a perfect example of how to use low level monsters to scare the shit out of PCs. Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Fell Animate Acid Splash coup-de-grace. Killing a helpless enemy with a tiny spray of acid that deals only 1d3 damage... but causes anyone killed by it to rise as a skeleton under the caster's control. Playing as an NPC or otherwise low-tier class is either this or somebody being very insistent on not powergaming. Some, like the Adept, can actually hold their own pretty well in a low-power group, as a balanced alternative to the stronger casters. In other cases, though, it's clearly someone with something to prove - for instance, a player who entered an "arena battles" challenge using a commoner and relying solely on buyable magic items.

Often a very valid tactic in BattleTech, especially if you're using a fast mech armed with a long range energy weapon (energy weapons in BattleTech don't require ammo) while your opponent is a mech that's slow enough that it can't catch you and doesn't have any weapons with enough range to hit you. Provided there's enough room to maneuver without getting pinned against an obstacle or the edge of the map and nothing to obstruct your line of sight, you can keep running away and firing- eventually you're going to take him down. Some light mechs are even built with this exact tactic in mind, such as the OTT-11J Ostscout, which is blindingly fast and maneuverable but mounts only a pair of Light PPCs as weapons. There are other mechs built with such tactics in mind, but they tend to have weapons that are more powerful and thus don't fall as readily into this trope. Autocannon/2s are extreme-range tank guns that do as much damage as machine guns against the usual heavy-armored giant robots and combat vehicles in the setting. Discounting artillery and some later high-tech gizmos, they're the longest-ranged weapon in the game so their purpose is to annoy people at range... though some players swear by them en masse as a way to seek out through-armor criticals. Autocannon/5 as well, since they mass eight times as much as a Medium Laser and do just as much damage for a third of a heat and twice the range. Usually Large Lasers or PPCs are better choices, but a curiosity of the 3025 era is that the AC/5 is considered in-universe a viable main gun for medium 'Mechs. Likewise, anything relying on the smaller autocannon, like the Jager Mech—a heavy 'Mech easily bested by mediums due to its combination of slow speed, paper-thin armor, and anemic arsenal. The Rifleman also, since it has these problems and is easy to overheat. Infantry. In a game of giant robots, having two dozen dudes with rifles take one down can be most embarrassing. This said, infantry are dangerous in cities and forests exactly because two dozen dudes with rifles can use cover and easily run through ground clutter while giant vehicles... well... can't.

Exalted The main structure of ping-spam attacks. Especially nasty when your opponent doesn't have a flurrybreaker. There's also a charm for Abyssals which allows the character to use any object (playing cards are used as one example) as an effective weapon. It seems to be designed mostly for Jackie Chan style improvisation, but allows for very humiliating cherry tapping as well with the right specs.

In Blood Bowl, this is the main appeal of playing Halfling or Goblin teams. Nothing says 'humiliating' quite like being trounced by a team of midgets.

High-level Chess is usually played with a restricted number of viable openings. An opening that is not viable and is usually not found in manuals, opening databases and theory books is the Bongcloud (also known as Ke2) and its many variations (like the much more seriously-named King David's Opening). Against a player with any semblance of skill, the only thing this family of openings does is waste time and bring your king ahead into danger and unable to castle. Born as a joke and eventually becoming a meme in the Chess community, the opening has restricted uses: as a handicap for the stronger player (in a didactic setting or otherwise), for confusing your opponent (especially at an amateur level), as a viable strategy in variants such as King of the Hill, or this trope. Here is GM Hikaru Nakamura demonstrating its potential for humilitation.

Pinball

The "walk-off" is basically this: In multiplayer for pinball, players take turns, and the player with the highest score wins. If you are the last player to go, it's your last ball, and you are already ahead of the other players, you can just plunge the ball to start it and walk off to win, hence the name. Whereas in most other cases, such a display is an insult, it's actually the other way around in pinball competitions: When you do a walk-off, you are keeping it simple and to the point (and thus a show of humility), whereas playing the last ball is to rub it in to the other players that they've already lost as the gap in score gets wider and wider (and thus a show of bragging), with a few exceptions. note There are a few games where doing the wrong thing can cause you to lose points, such as The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends and Whodunnit? ?, meaning you can lose your lead by playing the ball instead of terminating it as quickly as possible.

Non-game Examples:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

In Issue #23 of Batgirl, the eponymous heroine has called in support from the Teen Titans during her battle with the Reapers, a group of college students with advanced combat armor that have been running around Gotham for a few weeks. The fight is a Curb-Stomp Battle as a whole, and it seems that some of the Titans are only there to pass the time. When Supergirl is fighting Slipstream he remarks that this is something of a fantasy for him, only for Supergirl to defeat him with an Offhand Backhand while checking her nails.

Spider-Man: Spider-Man once knocked out the Walrus with simply a flick of his finger. (Note that the Walrus could likely be at least a moderately competent villain if he tried... he just doesn't.) Spidey actually does this quite a bit. He often takes down foes who are a lot stronger and tougher than he is by bouncing around them, avoiding their attacks, while getting in hits whenever he can, until his opponent just plain wears down. Given how much Spider-Man is exerting himself by jumping around as much as he is, it also ventures into Victory by Endurance.

At one point during Dark Reign, the Sentry knocks out the captive Hawkeye as gently as possible — the sound effect is actually "TAP".

In Immortal Iron Fist, Dog Brother #1 once killed a man with a mere "Standard Issue Punch" after slicing his head into three perfect segments but leaving him momentarily barely alive.

Fanfic

Film

Literature

In the X-Wing Series book Starfighters of Adumar, Wes Janson gets into a duel with a pompous and arrogant native noble using "blastswords," basically blasters on a stick, the prefered weapon for such things. First, he hurls a bunch of insults, prompting a hasty attack from the noble, which ends with the noble disarmed. Then, Wes throws his own blastsword away and proceeds to deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown all the while explaining what it means to be a real warrior. It ends when they guy is so beaten down and disoriented that he doesn't even know where Wes is (standing right in front of him) who then knocks him out with a slap to the face, specifically for this purpose. Wes : At least you could say you were struck down with a good blow of the fist. If I were going to be nice to you, that is. [raises up open hand, waits for his opponent to focus on it, then...SLAP!]

The climax of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Voldemort, the Dark Lord, has his Killing Curse deflected back to him by Harry's Expelliarmus. Basically, Voldy is killed by a spell also known as the Disarming Spell, a spell specifically chosen by Harry as his signature attack because of its non-lethality . Also - not exactly non-lethal, but definitely primitive compared to a wand: in the final phase of the Battle of Hogwarts, Neville fights the entire time using only the Sword of Gryffindor - no magic.

. The Heroes of Olympus: Bacchus technically pulls one of these on the two giants after spectating Percy and Jason beating them down for him. He simply steps in after they're done and, after a brief appeal to the crowd of ghosts whether he should or shouldn't, he simply bats them on the nose with his pine-cone staff, finishing them.

The Wheel of Time: Discussed by Semirhage in the prologue of Lord of Chaos. In New Spring Moiraine kills Merean with a knife. Mundane weapons in general could be considered Cherry Tapping when they're used to kill a channeler. The fact that they wield such immense magical power leads some non-channelers to forget that even the strongest Aes Sedai or Asha'Man can die just as easily to an injury as a normal person.

There's one Animorphs book where Marco gets to spend a week or so harassing one of their enemies in an attempt to make him snap on live TV - while disguised as a toy poodle. No blood, no killing - just ripped pants legs, nips, puddles, and endless, nonstop yapping twenty-four hours a day. The rest of the book is pretty rough on Marco, so he admits that the toy poodle stuff starts giving him way too much pleasure - just making someone absolutely miserable and not even needing to feel guilty about it afterwards.

Live Action TV

Roleplay

Destroy the Godmodder: This is the only way to kill the Godmodder, because his insanely high defense means that successful attacks will only deal 2 damage at most, and simply making a successful attack is hard enough. At one point in the first game, At one point, a trio of entities were summoned who, instead of having commas in their health bars, had decimals note i.e. 40.000 instead of 40,000 . This lead to the Godmodder poking them all and having them promptly die due to their obscenely low HP. This may have been a misunderstanding on the GM's part, because in Europe decimals are used instead of commas to denote powers of 1000.



Web Comics

Web Original

The premise of The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon is based around this, which Jack Cucchiaio being bludgeoned to death by an implacable demonic being known as the Ginosaji... with an ordinary tablespoon. Until he dies.

Western Animation

From South Park: Kyle : Cartman, what are you doing? Cartman : I'm killing you. Unfortunately I could only afford a so it's gonna take a while. : I'm killing you. Unfortunately I could only afford a wiffle bat

The pilot of Superman: The Animated Series has Superman pulling this: after a rather tough scrap with a giant military robot, he's torn off its arms and one of its legs, and the robot is teetering and unstable on the edge of a roof. Rather than deliver a mighty finishing move, he simply blows in its face, and it topples over. (He does have Super Breath in most continuities, but he was pretty clearly going for this.)

The Steven Universe episode, "That Will be All," has the Crystal Gems tying up Holly Blue Agate with her own whip. Garnet then walks up to her, pulls out her gauntlet, and goes "I've been waiting to do this all day!" She then lightly taps Holly in the stomach with her free hand and knocks her over.

Real Life