Editing Piercing attack

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'''Piercing attacks''' are damage-based attacks in the ''Super Mario'' role-playing games that ignore all or almost all defensive capabilities of the opponent. These attacks are very useful when dealing with a highly damage-resistant enemy, but can be detrimental when used by enemies against a defense-heavy Mario. These types of attacks are seen in most of the RPG-type games.
==''Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars''==
There are no damage-based attacks or magic attacks in this game that ignore Defense or Mg. Defense, but there are a few items which do a fixed amount of damage to any enemy regardless of defense:
*Fire Bomb
*Ice Bomb
*Rock Candy
*Star Egg
The [[Geno Whirl]] also does a fixed 9999 damage to all non-boss enemies and [[Exor]] upon a successful timed hit.

==''Paper Mario''==
In this game (and the following one), attacks subtract directly from defense, which means that highly-defended enemies can be taken down easily with these kinds of attacks. All damage-based items (such as Fire Flower and Thunder Rage) pierce defense by default, and the special attack [[Star Storm]] does as well. Other than those, these attacks pierce enemy defense as well:
*[[D-Down Jump]]
*[[D-Down Pound]]
*[[Quake Hammer]]
*[[Power Quake]]
*[[Mega Quake]]
*[[Watt]]'s [[Electro Dash]]
When Watt pierces the defense of [[General Guy]]'s tank, he calls it unfair because it counts as "breaking the rules of war".

There are no known enemy attacks in this game that can pierce Mario's Guard abilities or badges.

==''Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door''==
There are many abilities in this game, both friendly and enemy, that can pierce defenses. This is a summary:
===Mario and Partners===
As in the previous game, all damage-based item attacks bypass enemy defense, as well as the damaging special attacks [[Earth Tremor]], [[Art Attack]], and [[Supernova]]. There are also a few normal attacks. The full list of non-item attacks:
*[[Piercing Blow]] Badge
*[[Fire Drive]] Badge
*[[Hammer Throw (badge)|Hammer Throw]] Badge ([[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch)|Nintendo Switch version]] only)
*[[Quake Hammer]] Badge
*[[Super Hammer]] FP attack
*[[Ultra Hammer]] FP attack
*[[Koops]]'s [[Shell Slam]]
*[[Flurrie]]'s [[Lip Lock]]
*[[Yoshi Kid|Yoshi]]'s [[Gulp]]
*[[Vivian]]'s [[Fiery Jinx]]
*[[Ms. Mowz]]'s [[Love Slap]]
*[[Earth Tremor]] Special Attack
*[[Art Attack]] Special Attack
*[[Supernova]] Special Attack
[[Iron Cleft]]s are the only enemies immune to all piercing attacks, with the exception of Yoshi Kid's Gulp—a plot point in [[Glitz Pit|their part]] of the story. In the [[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Nintendo Switch)|Nintendo Switch remake]], [[Prince Mush]] is also immune to piercing attacks when he's in his fired up stance.

===Enemies===
Unlike ''Paper Mario'', some enemies in this game do have defense-piercing abilities. Those that do will ignore all Defend Plus and Damage Dodge badges that Mario or his partner have equipped, in addition to the defensive boosts granted by [[Power Lift]], items such as the [[Courage Shell]], [[Merlee]]'s charm, Koops's shell, or even the Defend tactical command. D-Up, P-Down and D-Down, P-Up badges, however, are not affected, allowing even defense-piercing enemies to do more or less damage than otherwise expected. Also, since enemies can use items in this game, their defense-piercing properties still hold when used against Mario.

Even piercing attacks are not unblockable (except the [[Three Shadows]]), however; Mario's Guard will still reduce the damage by 1, and the Superguard will prevent all damage, as it always does. Koops's [[Shell Shield]] will still absorb damage from these attacks.

These enemies include:
*[[Audience]] members' harmful items (cans, rocks, etc.)
*All [[Fuzzy|Fuzzies]] (excluding [[Gold Fuzzy]])
*[[Dark Puff]], [[Ruff Puff]], [[Ice Puff]], and [[Poison Puff]] (their respective second attacks)
*[[Yux]], [[Z-Yux]], and [[X-Yux]] (immobilization effect from X-Yux even pierces Guards)
*All [[Magikoopa]]s (including [[Kammy Koopa]])
*The [[Iron Cleft]]s
*[[Crazee Dayzee]] and [[Amazy Dayzee]]
*[[Putrid Piranha]] (Poison Breath attack)
*[[Ember]], [[Lava Bubble]], and [[Phantom Ember]] (Traveling Flame and Fireball attacks)
*[[Swoopula]] and [[Swampire]]
*[[Dark Wizzerd]], [[Wizzerd]], and [[Elite Wizzerd]] (Beam attack)
*All of the dragons (i.e. [[Hooktail]], [[Gloomtail]], [[Bonetail]]) (Breath attacks and Gloomtail's Earthquake attack)
*[[Big Boo|Atomic Boo]] (Summon and Spook attacks)
*[[Magnus von Grapple]] (Earthquake attack)
*[[Doopliss]] (when disguised as [[Ms. Mowz]])
*[[Bowser]] (Fire Breath attack)
*[[Cortez]]'s Rapier
*[[Grodus]] (Thunderbolt, Flamethrower and Ice Beam attacks)
*[[Shadow Queen]] (all attacks except her Slap attack)
*[[Three Shadows]] (their respective magic attacks)
*Stage props falling on characters (remake only)

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[[Category:Paper Mario special moves|*]]
[[Category:Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door moves|*]]
[[Category:Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars|*]]