I am looking for a manga or novel series where the superpowers are normal but the stronger characters use them in unique ways. For example you could have a character who controls fire and heat, but rather than using his/her power to create huge swathes of fire (not that they couldn't mind you) they instead use it to do something like create mirages, or heat the air around him/her at different rates in order to manipulate weather. The idea here is that subtlety general beats brute strength for a number of reasons. One is if they misjudge what your power is that creates openings. Another is that in a battle of
two opponents of equal stats the victor will generally be the one who uses their stamina best. For a manga example of that take the Yoh vs Faust battle in Shaman King. Faust's strategy is to make Yoh angry so he uses up huge chunks of his stamina, at the same time Faust uses just enough energy to defend himself so that near the end of the battle Yoh is struggling to stand upright while Faust has plenty of energy to spare.

For the record I read JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and love it, but a lot of the time that takes an unusual power and uses it in unusual way rather than taking normal powers and using them in unusual ways.

Kekkaishi
Law of Ueki

Konjiki no Gash!!
Hoshi no Samidare

Quote from Smillo

Konjiki no Gash!!
Hoshi no Samidare

I've read Gash and I'm not sure it counts. Thanks for the other one though