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Whatever you use seems to get you slaughtered in the end, and the only viable way you can think of is either a long battle of attrition or a near-impossible precision strike. As a last resort before you throw the controller out the window, you try something (whether it be an item, spell, weapon, move or another thing) that you pretty much forgot about as it seemed [[Useless Useful Spell|utterly useless]]. Then you proceed to blast through the "difficult" moment without breaking a sweat, as this "useless" thing has just the right properties to get you through this situation... Then it remains utterly useless for 99.9% of the rest of the game.
This isn't [[Eleventh
Note that not all examples are as extreme as the one given at the start; this is any time where something is useless for most of a game but has an advantage over your main tools for some section or other, even if it is not a particularly large one.
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Expect gameplay spoilers in the examples.
{{examples
* The [[Undead Slayer]] in [[Adventure Quest]] Worlds is amazing in Doomwood due to it's unique quality of quickly becoming well over 9000 by a Spirit Power system that only works when fighting undead. Its normal power when out of it's element is pretty Dismal
* The Viy fight in ''[[La
** The Throwing Knives did have one other big
** Throwing Knives also make a small number of puzzles much easier than they would be with other, more obviously applicable weapons.
** The throwing knives are actually significantly stronger than shuriken, and can hit sufficiently large enemies twice (they go through most enemies). it's just that shuriken have a (usually) far superior movement pattern. And you can throw more shuriken at once than you can knives.
* The last boss of ''[[Mystic Defender]]'': it could be trivially defeated by using the weapon that bounces balls off walls and crouching in the lower right hand corner of the screen. The balls would bounce and hit the boss in just the right spot. The weapon was otherwise useless for most of the game.
* In ''[[Wild
* Completing a sidequest involving [[No Sense of Direction|directing an easily-lost scholar home]] in ''[[
* Vulcan Raven in ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'': it is implied you must use your missile weapons for this battle, which he can easily shoot down if you don't use them carefully. Alternatively, you can lay claymore mines around the arena and wait for him to step on them; this is one of the only good uses of claymore mines in the game.
** In a similar manner, the relatively useless chaff grenades can be used to make the fight against the cyborg ninja much easier. They're also essential to taking out the M1 tank and can make the battle against Metal Gear Rex easier as well.
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* ''[[Final Fantasy V]]''; Segments with large amounts of damage floors are pretty much the only areas where Geomancers are useful.
** The same game has numerous other almost-useless classes with useful abilities; mastering those classes will confer those abilities on the Freelancer and Mime classes. For this reason, many players will level-grind with those classes and then never use them again.
** Geomancers themselves are not very useful, but their special skill "Gaia" is incredibly useful for the first half of the game, thanks to it giving you a wide variety of potent attacks, all of which requires 0 MP.
* Richter in ''[[Castlevania]]: [[Portrait of Ruin]]''; His weakness is darkness element. Johnathan's Cream Pie subweapon is Dark element, and actually deals massive damage when mastered, although it's a bit awkward to handle. A lot of players ended up beating Richter with pie to the face, just because it's one of a few most efficient ways to handle the bastard.
** In ''[[Aria of Sorrow]]'', there is one enemy, the Iron Golem. 9999 life and only takes 1 damage from any attack. It's also the same game that has a soul that (allegedly) swaps the target's HP and MP values. Take a guess how much mana the Iron Golem has...
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** [[Circle of the Moon]] features the Zombie Dragons: A [[Dual Boss]] that easily earns [[That One Boss]] status. One of the reasons for this is that they are both above you (and a lack of platforms and good attacks doesn't help). But you may recall the Ax, the subweapon that you stopped using because it goes in an overhead arc...
*** More in line as a subversion. Those axes still do not do enough damage to outclass the cross. To be even more frank, if you do not catch the cross, the rebound can score a free hit or two on the OTHER dragon. It's useful, but you still won't touch it. The knife on the other hand...
* Mondo Mole in ''[[
** Master Belch can either be fought the easy way, with the Jar of Fly Honey, or [[Self
** Shroooom! can be a rather tough boss...unless you use the otherwise nigh-useless PSI Flash Beta against him, which will either paralyze or kill him in one shot.
* In the ''Mega Man'' series:
** The last boss in ''[[
** Also, starting with Bubble Lead against the final boss of ''2'', the most unwieldy weapon is often the final boss's weakness, except in {{spoiler|''1'', where Wily is vulnerable to all the weapons, and the [[Good Bad Bugs|Pause Trick]] works just as well as it does elsewhere, and ''5'', in which Beat turns Wily into an [[Anticlimax Boss]]}}.
** ''[[
** In ''7'', you remember those Wild Coils? You will when you fight Wily!
** In ''8'', one of the boss's weaknesses...well, the only thing you could probably use against it save for Astro Crash, is the mostly neglected Mega Ball.
** The Mega Ball also permits you to perform [[Double Jump|multiple midair jumps]] if your timing is good.
** Actually averted more often than not with Sigma in the ''[[
** ''[[
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'': In the early days of raiding, hunters received a new ability, Tranquilizing Shot. It's only use was to remove frenzy effects found on some of the bosses (which would make them much stronger). Ironically, due to issues hunters had, this one trick made hunters much more likely to even get into raids. The second expansion finally gives it a broader range of uses, even against other players. A similar case was the Mage spell Detect Magic (shows active buffs on the target) which was very helpful on some bosses that required the raid to dispel certain effects otherwise hard to see, but in this case, the spell was eventually removed (and buffs made always visible).
** Another classic case of this is the Warlock spell Detect Invisibility. Until Mages got a corresponding skill this was completely useless (Rogues use ''Stealth'', which is a different mechanic) with a few select locations that have invisible enemies. Even there it's not necessary to use the spell, but it avoids nasty surprises (especially in Naxxramas where the first player the monster spots usually gets killed in one hit.
** Yet another rarely used skill is "Mind Soothe/Soothe Beast". What does it do? It reduces the radius of the target in which it attacks players. If the spell fails, it attacks the target. Nowadays almost forgotten, there were a few places where players could avoid some fights with it, and in a specific case it's often used as a means to let the priest get close enough to the target safely to mind control it. Speaking of which...
*** Mind Control, while perfectly viable in [[
** Yet another overlooked spell is "Dampen/Amplify Magic", a buff that either decreases or increases magic effects (both damaging and healing). Since healing is almost always required and magic damage all too common, it's pretty much restricted to a choice few bosses that predominantly hurt with physical damage as a means to make healing a bit easier. The dampening variant is reasonably useful for mages playing on their own though, since they have no healing spells.
* Undead enemies in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]'' rise again a few turns after being killed, unless a skill like Burial is used on their remains. Needless to say, those skills are completely useless anywhere else in the game. In the sequel the same goes for the Bard skill Requiem, which damages undead.
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** Oddly enough, the zombie status itself is rather useful - if you get zombified, you will automatically come back to life in several turns, without having to use Raise/Arise or a phoenix down!
** Possibly the king of this trope from the ''Tactics'' series, however, is the Squire from the original game. Tackle, Counter Tackle, and Rock Throw are all usually rather pathetic abilities as far as damage goes. What bumps them into Not Completely Useless territory, however, is their ability to knock the target back a square. This can enable you to open an exit path for that party member, force an attacker to come back rather than performing a hit-and-run, hit an opponent and shove them out of range for their own counter-attack...and send them plummeting off a sheer cliff to the tune of colossal, and likely ''fatal'' fall damage.
* One of the first weapons you get in ''[[Metal Mutant]]'' is some kind of lightning attack. It looks cool and is pretty strong in raw power, but it [[Awesome but Impractical|has an overly long charge time, its range is limited, and
* Most ''[[Einhander]]'' strategy guides recommend the Endymion Mk. II and dismissed the [[Guns Akimbo]] Astraea fighter as [[Awesome but Impractical]]. But, equipped with the right pair of gunpods (that seem fairly useless on the Endymion) the Astraea chews through mooks and bosses alike with ease.
* "Magic Bullet" cards are fairly common in [[Collectible Card Game
** The ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game]]'' had a few blatant examples of this, such as Gryphon Wing, White Hole, and Anti-Raigeki, whose ''only uses'' were to negate specific overpowered cards. Then they discovered banning, and these counter cards quickly became dead weight. A less blatant example is Kuriboh, a mostly-underpowered card that for a while was the only effective way of stopping several one-turn-KO combos.
** The card game ''[[Doomtown]]'' was especially bad at this. In one of the later expansions, the cards in question really ''were'' Magic Bullets--"Bullet" type cards were designed to insta-kill various character types.
** ''[[Magic:
** The [[Pokémon (
* ''[[Diablo 2]]'' features a Paladin ability called "Holy Bolt". Virtually useless unless you're focusing on healing teammates or damaging Undead. Of course, only a 1/4 of all the monsters in the game are Undead so you're helpless against everything else, but Holy Bolt does smash the daylights out of Undead.
** If you spec out a Paladin to maximize Holy Bolt's healing properties, you won't be able to hit any monsters past Act 3 Normal. On the other hand, with the right gear (Faster Cast Rate rings for the win) you can heal 500+ HP a second. Not bad for a game that allegedly doesn't have a healing class.
** Though the Sorceress's Blaze (which makes fire appear where you walk) is mostly useless, it makes an effective [[Hit and Run Tactics|kiting tactic]] against [[That One Boss|Duriel]]. More than most classes, the Sorceress desperately needs to stay out of his [[Instant Death Radius]]; with Blaze, you can get him to [[Artificial Stupidity|chase you around in a circle in your trail of fire]] until he eventually dies.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' you eventually fight Seymour on Mount Gagazet, where he is one of less than a handful of enemies to use the Zombie attack. You can fight this battle the long and hard way with Aeons and Overdrives, or you can just keep a few vials of otherwise useless de-zombify medicine handy.
** Yuna's Nul-spells, a low-cost spell that hits the entire party and will protect them from one attack that matches the nulled element (NulBlaze will protect you from fire, NulTide will protect you from water, et cetera), are considered useless by some players. However, they can be very handy indeed when you know exactly what kind of elements are coming. Flans and Elements, in particular, will attack with specific elements, and if you cast the appropriate Nul- spell in time you won't be hurt at all. They're also very helpful the first time you fight Seymour, since he repeatedly casts each elemental spell in a specific order. If you know what's coming next (and the Sensor ability will explain the sequence to you), you can make what would be [[That One Boss]] much more bearable.
** Petrifying enemies doesn't usually count for much in many Final Fantasy games, but in Final Fantasy X it's another matter entirely:
*** Having Rikku use Petrify Grenades on underwater fiends will instantly kill them, as they [[Literally Shattered Lives|sink to the bottom and shatter]].
*** In the desert on the way to the Al Bhed Home, you'll run into these weird plant fiends that will automatically cast Confusion on you every time you hit them...unless you use Kimahri's Stone Breath on them. Who'd have guessed that it would be so hard to confuse someone when you're petrified and about to shatter?
* ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]'': Null Sleep/Avoid Sleeper (avoid any attack so long as you're affected with Sleep status) is completely useless against nearly every boss in the game. Except one, where it is, in point of fact, absolutely ''required'' to succeed. Oh, and that one specific fight? That would be {{spoiler|Demi-Fiend}}, most definitively on the short-list for hardest boss ever in the history of gaming.
** Cielo has mediocre stats and a weakness to any skill that inflicts status ailments. Virtually every enemy has an attack that inflicts status ailments, so Cielo is often times a bad choice, even against electric enemies who he is supposed to be most useful against. The one time he is legitimately useful is in the same fight where the aforementioned Null Sleep is required. The reason is because his weakness to status ailments means he is almost guaranteed to be hit with the sleep status ailment.
* In ''[[Persona 4]]'' there are items that deal a fixed amount of damage, low even for the early parts of the first dungeon (and you don't find them till you get near the end of said dungeon!) make short work of [[Metal Slime
* ''[[
* ''[[Ancient Domains of Mystery]]'' hangs a lampshade on this with the "potion of uselessness." When drunk, it's...useless. But if thrown in the [[Slippy
** Oh, it gets better. It's not merely useless if you drink it. It's useless if you throw it at a monster. It's useless if you dip an item in it. It's never an alchemical ingredient. And many, if not most, potions are useful for more than one of those reasons.
* In ''[[
** Version 1.6 changed the reflection mechanic so that deflecting an enemy projectile no longer counts as your kill. Unless of course, it's a projectile they reflected back at you, but with the reflector's load time, you probably won't be able to reflect it again anyway.
** The Resonance Reflector is an upgraded version of the Resonance Detonator, which is even more useless since it shares the Reflector's absurdly long reload time but its effect is identical to your kick attack (which is always a keypress away and doesn't require you to switch weapons). Kicking also takes a lot less time than charging the Detonator does. The only advantage provided by the Detonator is that it fires instantly when you press the button, while the kick only deals damage about half a second into the attack animation. Enter Tasen Shredders, vehicles that both Iji and the Tasen can use. Most of them spawn with a Tasen rider, but you can kick them off without destroying the Shredder - if you manage to hit a fast-moving vehicle with your foot in the split second before it knocks you down. Resonance Detonators make this feasible.
* The Tractor Beam spell in ''[[
** In ''[[
* In ''Dink Smallwood: Mystery Island'', you learn a spell called Duck Magic through a subplot involving a human-to-duck transforming magic fountain. This spell does nothing at all except summon ducks. {{spoiler|The final boss is the only thing they work on, because it "forgot to put on feet armor".}}
* In ''[[
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' has the Rasp spell, which eliminates enemy magic points. While stronger at this task than the Osmose spell (the latter also gives you the magic points, saving on Ethers), most players overlook it for spells that do hit point damage - killing things the old-fashioned way. However, there are several enemies (including both iterations of the Atma/Ultima Weapon and literally every enemy in the Fanatics' Tower) that die if all their magic is depleted. On top of that, they usually have [[Taking You
** Then there's Relm's Sketch command, which most people ignore, given that, well, it sucks. However, it's a [[One
** X-zone is a spell that removes enemies from combat. Like most instant death spells it rarely works on anyone you'd care to kill instantly. It works a lot better if you cast vanish on an enemy first (this may be unintentional), but it also works on the boss known as Wrexsoul, ensuring a quick end to an otherwise annoying boss fight (though you miss out on a reward).
** Not to mention the Imp status from the same game. Normally it makes you very weak and you don't want to keep it on you, but [[Oh Crap|if you equip the Imp-specific items while Imped...]]
** A character that fits this trope is Umaro. He's generally not considered very useful because he's [[The Berserker]] and you can never control him. However, that lack of control can actually be a blessing in disguise:
*** Any character you send into the Coliseum to fight ends up being controlled by the computer. This leaves you at the mercy of the [[AI Roulette]], which can be hair-pullingly frustrating as your idiot characters heal themselves while at full HP or cast low-level spells that barely scratch the monster they're fighting. Since all Umaro does is attack, if you send him into the Coliseum he'll actually do very well if you equip him with the right Relics.
*** The Fanatics' Tower messes with your character's command windows so you can only use magic spells or items in combat. Since Umaro doesn't have a command window, he completely ignores this restriction and will simply attack anyway. This can be a lifesaver-when fighting the [[Magi Master]] in the Fanatics' Tower, most players will Berserk him to stop him from constantly changing his elemental weakness. Unfortunately, you might end up Berserking him when he's only vulnerable to an element you can't target with your magic. If you don't have a spell like Flare, and you don't have the ability, much less the patience, to use Rasp, the fight can become [[Unwinnable]] unless you can find some other way to damage him. Even if he has to do it all himself, Umaro can still destroy the [[Magi Master]] for you.
*** Cyan is frequently seen as a [[Crutch Character]] because you have to charge up his Bushido attacks before he can use them. You can't input any commands for your other party members until Cyan is ready...but since Umaro has no command window, he can and will attack while Cyan is powering up.
* Across the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series in general, there are many enemies that trigger [[Taking You
** Similarly, the status buff, Reflect can get this treatment. Reflect returns most magic spells back at the caster/caster's party. However, some enemies will cast Reflect on the player's party so that their healing or buffing spells are reflected back at the enemy party. Not only that, but most enemies that use elemental magic absorb what they are casting, thus reflecting magic back at them would just heal them. That is the main reason why Reflect is hardly used by the player, but if enemies cast Reflect upon themselves, the player party can cast Reflect on themselves and cast magic on themselves to bounce it back at enemies without a counter reflect (except for [[Final Fantasy VII]] where if the party and enemies have reflect, the spells will keep bouncing back and forth until Reflect fades for someone).
*** Alternately, sometimes you can dispel the enemies' Reflect spells and let them get blasted by their own spells. One particularly funny instance is against the fight against Seymour on Mt. Gagazet in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', where he tries to bounce a Flare spell off his Reflect barrier to hit you. If you dispel his barrier before he gets the chance, he'll hit himself and then the game will snarkily note that the "Combination Failed".
*** In both ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'', you can actually cast ''four'' spells on the enemies for the price of one. If all your characters have reflect status (through Wall Rings, casting Carbuncle, etc.) and you cast something like a Firaga-All or a Cura-All spell on them, every single one of those spells will be bounced back and hit the enemies. If there's only one enemy, he or she will take the full effects of all four spells at once. So much for [[That One Boss]]...
* The emerald swords of ''[[Lands of Lore]]'' cause little to zero damage to all enemies and seem to be of no use until you enter the White Tower, there they're pretty effective against the ghosts, who are impervious to normal weapons.
* In ''[[Casper the Friendly Ghost|Casper]]: A Haunting 3D Challenge'' you collect fool's gold coins throughout the game. Through most of the game they appear useless, until the final boss fight where you have to drop them around to distract Carrigan.
* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has many combat items that are mostly useless (due to the existence of skills and/or other items that make far superior alternatives), until you reach the final quest. There are 24 different [[Puzzle Boss
** There are many other items with similar unexpected usefulness, like the Antique Hand Mirror; using it normally just breaks it and gives you [[Bad Luck Charm|7 turns of "bad luck"]] (which [[Subverted Trope|does nothing]]), but using it while fighting the absurdly powerful {{spoiler|[[The Worm That Walks|Guy Made Of Bees]]}} will kill him instantly. The Chaos Butterfly normally has minor, random effects, or gives a seemingly meaningless message. Yet, not only is the Butterfly one of the special deadly combat items mentioned above, but using it in any combat allows you to [[Guide Dang It|complete a certain unrelated quest in half the usual amount of time, if you choose exactly the right multiple-choice options]].
* In ''[[
** ''Wizardry 8'' uses as keys for the entrances to Retro Dungeon secret maps cheap starting items ({{spoiler|dagger, longsword, short staff}}) quite paltry by the time you get there; {{spoiler|Holy water}} is necessary for one side quest. Many weak potions/powders/etc can be converted into better items via Alchemy skill.
* ''[[Champions of Norrath]]'' and its sequel have several spells that either only work on undead, or are much more effective on undead. For example, the dark elf shadowknight's Convert Undead is absolutely useless ''unless'' you're fighting a horde of undead. The high elf cleric has several [[Holy Hand Grenade]] spells that are only useful against undead.
* There's a Disney game for the Sega Genesis called ''The Great Circus Mystery.'' In it you get several suits that allow Mickey and/or Minnie to solve puzzles, get items and open pathways. You know how you tend to forget about the first one or two weapons you get as the game progresses? Well, nothing will take down Level 5's boss except for the vacuum cleaner-suit from WAY back.
* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' has Ipsen's Castle, a dungeon where nearly everything is reversed; stairs and ceilings swapped places and your current weapons actually inflicts [[Scratch Damage]] in this area. Most of the treasures you find here are the lousy starter weapons for your party that they came with. [[Guide Dang It|While there are no clues on how you can get around the sudden drop in your weapon damage]], the castle has [[Statistically Speaking|crappy weapons]] because they actually do full normal damage like your more current weapons, due to the castle having the properties of reversing stuff. Luckily, your magic spells are not affected and the reverse properties are only for this dungeon. However, if you are planning to learn abilities while in the castle, you'll be stuck with a party that can't do a lot of melee damage...unless you use special abilities like Throw, Jump, Thievery and Darkside, since the castle's power-reversing actually only affects your Fight command.
* For Light Side players, the Drain Health Force Power in ''[[Star Wars]] [[Knights of the Old Republic]]'' is near useless for the brunt of the game, [[Karma Meter|handicapped as it is]]. {{spoiler|In the final bossfight against Darth Malak, however, it is the only way to make use of the comatose Jedis he has strewn around the room. While using the power on one of them does kill them, it also completely replenishes the player's health, and keeps Malak from using them.}}
** The sequel had Mira's unique power: while she was your active character, your party wouldn't trigger mines. Normally mines in the KotOR series are widely-spread and easy enough to simply walk around (or ''through''
** The sequel also emphasized this with skills through the crafting mechanic. Usually you could rely on your party's skills, rather than your
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' in general has many cards that are useless until you find a combo they work in.
** One With Nothing. Goes from useless to [[My Hero Zero]] if you are against an Owling Mine deck (force opponent to draw cards, deal damage for them having too many cards. Was popular enough once that EVERYONE sideboarded One With Nothing) have cards with madness (when you would discard a card with madness, you can play it instead; sometimes for a lesser cost but sometimes for a greater cost); consider also that One With Nothing is an Instant so it can be used even if it isn't your turn.
**
* ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' - The two hour ability (a supposedly extremely valuable job specific ability that can only be used every two hours) for Ninjas is Mijin Gakure. This ability kills the Ninja and deals damage based on their current HP. Due to the amount of health enemies have, this ability is basically useless. It does not inflict enough damage to be worth using in any situation where a two hour is justified. There are two uses for it.
** Avoid the harsh penalty for death, since a secondary effect of Mijin Gakure is to remove all penalties for dying and being raised back to life.
** A poor man's Warp, since you can return to your home point after you die and again there is no death penalty for doing it this way. This has become less useful due to how easy it is to Warp through higher level spells and items.
* Fina in ''[[
* In theory, [[Arrows
* ''[[
* * The 'mutate' perk in the ''[[Fallout]]'' universe. You can re-pick your traits, how grand. Too bad you pick your traits yourself in the beginning of the game and there are few, if any, traits that it would be worth a perk switching to mid-game. Meanwhile, in ''[[Fallout Tactics]]'', your team-mates have pre-picked traits, and getting [[Game Breaker|Gifted]] ''is'' worth the perk slot.
* Some people complain that [[Final Fantasy X|Kimahri Ronso]] is redundant because there's no need for a multitasker, but those people forget several things:
** He can make a useful backup mage or provide additional status effects, which can complement the party member who is supposed to specialize in these things, or even take their place if that party member isn't available;
** His Ronso Rages can be very useful indeed. Stone Breath and Thrust Kick, for instance, can be used to get instantly rid of enemies that are normally [[Demonic Spiders]];
** He's the only character besides Auron whose weapons normally have the Piercing trait. This is especially helpful at the start of the game, before Auron actually joins the party.
** Similarly, Kimahri can be used as a thief as soon as the first level one unlock is found for the Sphere Grid, which is a lot sooner than when Rikku is found.
* [[Standard Status Effects]] are quite handy against the ''[[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn]]'' [[Bonus Boss]] Ancient Devil. Not directly, since like most bosses it's immune, but its major ability, Demon Sign, lets it turn one of your allies against you at any given time, and ''they'' can be crippled with status effects. This is useful to keep them off your back without KO-ing them and letting the Devil use Demon Sign on someone else.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]
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