Broken and We Love It: The Most Disgustingly Overpowered Abilities in 2024's Action Games

Balance patches exist for a reason. That reason is usually one specific ability that some developer thought was "fine in testing" before the community got their hands on it and proceeded to absolutely dismantle every game mode, ranked lobby, and casual match within a 50-mile radius.

2024 has been a spectacular year for busted mechanics. Whether it's action RPGs, hero shooters, or live-service brawlers, this year delivered some truly unhinged power fantasies that had developers scrambling and players screaming — sometimes in rage, sometimes in pure joy, depending on which side of the ability you were standing on.

This is our power tier list. These are the abilities that defined the meta, broke communities in half, and made us feel like absolute gods when we ran them correctly. We're ranking them, explaining why they're so dominant, and telling you how to use them before the inevitable nerf hammer arrives.

Note: This list reflects game states as of late 2024. Patch notes move fast — check current updates before you build your strategy around any of these.

S-Tier: Straight-Up Broken

Strand Threadling Spam — Destiny 2 (The Final Shape era)

Bungie has been walking a tightrope with Strand since its introduction, and in 2024 they fell off it spectacularly — in the best possible way for Warlock mains. The combination of specific exotic armor pieces with the Threadling generation loop created a scenario where a single well-positioned player could blanket an entire arena in homing projectiles that regenerated faster than enemies could destroy them.

In endgame content like Grandmaster Nightfalls, coordinated fireteams running optimized Strand builds were completing encounters so efficiently that Bungie had to quietly adjust spawn rates in certain activities. In PvP, the tracking on fully-buffed Threadlings made it feel less like a game and more like a guided missile exhibition.

How to run it: Stack Threadling generation through your grenade, melee, and class ability interactions. Pair with exotics that extend duration and add additional Threadlings on kill. Positioning is everything — you want your swarm in chokepoints where enemies have nowhere to retreat.

Why it dominates: The self-sustaining loop means your ability uptime is essentially continuous in the right build. You're not spending resources — you're printing them.

Kiriko's Suzu — Overwatch 2

Okay, technically Suzu has been a problem since Kiriko launched, but 2024's meta configurations made it reach a genuinely absurd level of impact. The ability to cleanse almost any negative status effect — including some of the game's most powerful ultimates — while simultaneously healing and providing a brief invulnerability window is a design decision that still raises eyebrows.

At high levels of play, a well-timed Suzu doesn't just save a teammate. It completely invalidates ultimates that took ten or fifteen seconds of charge to build. Watching a Suzu eat a Graviton Surge or cancel a Blizzard mid-cast is the kind of thing that makes you question whether certain abilities should even exist in the same game.

How to run it: Suzu timing is everything. Don't panic-use it — hold it for the moment an enemy ultimate lands or a high-value CC ability connects. The cleanse window is generous enough that you have a beat to react. Practice the timing in quick play until it's instinct.

Why it dominates: One button press can reverse a teamfight that looked completely lost. In a game built around ultimate economy, having a pocket Kiriko is essentially a free extra life for your carry.

A-Tier: Extremely Strong, Occasionally Unfair

Demon Slayer Arts — Black Myth: Wukong

Black Myth: Wukong was one of the biggest releases of 2024, and the ability systems in that game reward mastery with genuinely staggering power output. Certain transformation abilities — particularly those tied to late-game boss absorptions — allow players to output damage numbers that make the already-spectacular combat feel almost satirically powerful.

The best of these transformations effectively give you a second health bar, access to a completely different moveset, and damage multipliers that shred even the game's most punishing encounters. In a game where the difficulty is supposed to be the point, finding the right ability combination feels like discovering a cheat code that was left in on purpose.

How to run it: Invest in transformation duration upgrades early. The longer you can maintain these states, the more value you extract. Learn the optimal rotation — enter the transformation when you've depleted your standard combo resources, not as an opener.

Why it dominates: The damage ceiling is absurd, but more importantly, the survivability bonus it provides makes difficult encounters significantly more forgiving without trivializing the skill requirement entirely.

Absolute Zero — Various battle royale titles featuring seasonal abilities

Several live-service titles introduced freeze or slow-field mechanics in 2024 seasonal content, and across the board, the area-denial versions of these abilities proved wildly difficult to balance. When an ability can simultaneously slow movement, reduce weapon accuracy, and drain stamina in a large radius, it creates a situation where caught players feel completely helpless — which is entertaining for exactly one of the two people involved.

How to run it: Zone control is the name of the game. Use these abilities to force enemies into predictable movement patterns, then position your team to capitalize on the funnel.

Why it dominates: Removing player agency is inherently powerful in competitive environments. The psychological effect of feeling stuck is almost as damaging as the actual stat reduction.

B-Tier: Very Strong, Actually Counterable (If You're Good)

We'll keep this section honest — abilities like certain parry mechanics in soulslike titles, specific ultimate combinations in hero shooters, and mobility tools in action RPGs that border on teleportation all earned spots here. They're powerful enough to build entire strategies around, but skilled opponents can adapt. That's the sweet spot of competitive design, even if it doesn't always feel that way when you're on the receiving end.

The Takeaway: Broken Is Beautiful (Until It Isn't)

Overpowered abilities are a feature of gaming culture, not a bug. They create moments, they spark debates, and they give players a taste of what it feels like to be genuinely unstoppable. That's the whole UltraPower energy — finding the thing that makes you feel dominant and running it into the ground before the patch notes take it away.

Just don't get too attached. The nerf is always coming.

Drop your hottest takes in the comments — what did we miss? What ability had you feeling untouchable this year?