Citations:glass cannon

English citations of glass cannon

Noun: "(especially gaming) a character or unit with strong offensive power but weak defensive capabilities"

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• 2009 May 23, Eugene Barrett, “Re: DCSS:: need advice”, in rec.games.roguelike.misc‎^[1] (Usenet):

  Deep elves die easier than most other races - glass cannons to an extreme extent.

• 2009 November 21, Jonathan Ellis, “Re: Dragon Age Tactics”, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.rpg‎^[2] (Usenet):

  (For instance, telling them to all concentrate on the most powerful enemy, in the hope of taking it down quickly so as to reduce the number of hostile attacks per round coming in: or, perhaps, telling them to attack weak-but-hard-hitting "glass cannon"-type enemies, on the grounds that if you take them out quickly then you'll be taking a whole lot less damage while taking on the one remaining big tank-type.)

• 2011, Roderic Waibel, Altus Adventum 2nd Edition Core Rulebook, Lulu.com (2011), →ISBN, page 183:

  We don't want Bryztak to be a glass cannon, so armor would be prudent.

• 2012, Lizzie Stark, Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games, Chicago Review Press (2012), →ISBN, page 238:

  A min-maxer might create a "glass cannon" character—one with lots of awesome offenses but next to no defense.

• 2012 February 4, Jim Davies, “Re: What 5e won't have”, in rec.games.frp.dnd‎^[3] (Usenet):

  But if you make every PC specialist awesome at his chosen schtick, he becomes a one-trick pony or glass cannon, and probably really dull.

• 2014, Aubrey Sherman, Wizards: The Myths, Legends, and Lore, Adams Media (2014), →ISBN, unnumbered page:

  The tradeoff is that wizards are often "glass cannons," able to deal significant damage, but not able to absorb much of it.

• 2018 December 9, Drachinifel, 21:35 from the start, in The Drydock - Episode 019‎^[4], archived from the original on 10 September 2022:

  Now, both sides had built up their fleet quite extensively with very fast, kind of glass cannon-type destroyers and cruisers in the run-up to the war, buuut the French fleet, at the beginning of World War II, was very definitely - below capital ships, was very definitely a fleet of glass cannons, whereas the Italians, although they had their own share of them, had a number of pretty good designs, like the Zara-class heavy cruisers, so, in destroyers and cruisers, I think the Italians definitely have a qualitative advantage, at least for a good portion of their ships […]