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Line 1: {{trope}} {{Video Game Examples Need Sorting}} {{quote\|"Wait, what's this? You only have status-inducing magic spells? Why, those ''suck!''"\|''[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/169933 Final Fantasy VII: All About Random Battles]''}} A staple of [[Role -Playing Game~~\|RPGs~~]]s, your characters can learn attacks or skills such as [[Standard Status Effects\|Instant Death, Poison, Confusion, Paralyze, Silence, and Petrify]], or [[Percent Damage Attack]]s that at first glance seem incredibly useful. However, in reality these spells are usually anything ''but'' useful, for any of the following reasons: # [[Boss Battle\|Bosses]], [[Sub Boss\|sub-bosses]], and other types of enemies that actually pose a threat to the player are always extremely resistant or [[Contractual Boss Immunity\|immune to such attacks.]] If they weren't, the '''Useless Useful Spell''' would [[Game Breaker\|make things far too easy]], and may even be a form of [[Disc One Nuke]]. Line 15 ⟶ 16: Most character classes made up of [[Status Buff\|buff]]/[[Standard Status Effects\|debuff]] effects like this tend to be much [[Spoony Bard\|less popular than others]] for these reasons. However, it's averted with relative frequency; many games do allow for some very effective use of traditionally "Useless" spells. One trick is to pair up the effect with a normal attack, meaning that if the spell misses, the player still deals damage. Other games, especially the more strategic ones, make these spells useful by having genuine [[Elite Mooks]] who are dangerous in battle but without such immunities, or simply by having base [[Mooks]] be more credible opponents. These attacks are also far more useful in [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game\|MMORPG]]s due to generally stronger [[Mooks]] and player controlled enemies that are very vulnerable to such tactics. '''Useless Useful Spells''' are often hated among [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game\|MMORPG]] communities for their ability to handicap player characters (often even better then when used on [[Mooks]] due to [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard\|the computer cheating]]). However, in [[Player Versus Player\|PvP]], ''that'' is a different story! Judging by the way this has been going away in recent years and is less and less accepted, it seems to be on its way to becoming a [[Discredited Trope]]. May however be an [[Acceptable Break From Reality]] regarding some; because it would not make a boss (especially the [[Final Boss]]) very challenging to be able to just hit "Instant Death". Line 22 ⟶ 23: The opposite of this trope is [[Not Completely Useless]]. In fact, if an otherwise '''Useless Useful Spell''' is redeemed by being used against a specific boss, it may become just that. {{examples}} == ~~Card~~Tabletop Games ==▼ === Card Games === * Gryphon Wing and Anti Raigeki in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! (Tabletop Game)\|Yu-Gi-Oh]]''. They're particularly nasty counters to Harpie's Feather Duster and Raigeki, respectivly. Except that unless you ''know'' your opponent has one of those cards 'and' you're not going by Tournament rules (which dictate that Harpie's Feather Duster and Raigeki are banned)...it's just wasting space in your deck. To add insult to injury, Harpie's Feather Duster was a friggin rare card while Gryphon Wing came in a ''Structure Deck''.▼ ** Averted somewhat with White Hole, which prevents your monsters from being destroyed from the opponent's Dark Hole. Dark Hole is fairly used and rarely on the banned list for too long, so it has some utility to it. You're still better off with Dark Bribe, though.▼ * ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has quite a few:▼ [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201268 Sorrow's Path] is too complicated and ''far'' too expensive. Being able to swap your opponent's blocking creatures is merely okay. Having to pay 2 life and suffer 2 damage to every creature you control is like saving money on glasses by [[Eye Scream\|stabbing yourself in both eyes]].▼ [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=2900 Apocalypse Chime] destroys all Homelands cards. If Homelands cards other than Autumn Willow and Baron Sengir were actually useful, this card would be.▼ [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=19665 Common Cause]. Pointless since ''all'' Nonartifact creatures must be the same color, even your opponents. Stupid errata...▼ Spells and abilities that endow creatures and to a lesser extent other permanents with specific abilities (including but not limited to the aura subtype of enchantments) may fall under this. Consider [https://web.archive.org/web/20080630161048/http://ww2.wizards.com/~~gatherer~~Gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=83088 Flight]. From the enchanted creature's perspective, it's potentially a great effect—it gains flying if it didn't have it already, allowing it to bypass most non-flying blockers and/or block flying attackers itself. Get to the point where you actually want to put the card into a deck, though, and you'll soon realize that if having flyers is important to your strategy, you'd best include a number of creatures that have the ability in and of themselves already in case you don't actually ''draw'' that Flight card...yet the more of those you have, the less good the card actually does you in the first place! (This logic does not, of course, apply to abilities that actually have a cumulative effect. However, many of the more commonly granted abilities—like flying, first strike, or trample—do not fall into this category.) Then there's the issue that the empowered creature isn't necessarily any harder to ''kill'', potentially taking the entire investment in extra cards, mana, and/or other resources to the graveyard with it...▼ ''Magic the Gathering'' also has a fair share of "instant win" cards - as in, they actually SAY "You win the game" or "Target player loses the game". However, they're either highly situational, require a certain action that will almost certainly get interrupted, or are just ridiculously expensive.▼ And finally, we have [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1615 Great Wall], generally considered the worst card in the game. All it does is let you block creatures with plainswalk, of which there are only four that no one uses, only ''one'' of which was around when Great Wall was released.▼ *** What about Mudhole, a card that removes all the lands from a player's graveyard which is flat-out inferior to cheaper options (including Tormod's Crypt, an artifact with a 0 mana cost!) which just remove their entire graveyard? The only practical use would be to get around removing a specific non-land card in your opponent's graveyard to screw over some bizarre combo that doesn't even exist yet.▼ == = Tabletop ~~Games~~RPG === * ''[[Dungeons ~~and~~& Dragons]]'', the original RPG, completely inverts this trope; traditionally Useless Useful Spells tend to be the most useful spells in the game, with direct damage spells falling well below them in power level. This is because most spells are equally likely to succeed in affecting a foe, thus a spell which can kill a foe is far more effective than a spell which can hurt one. Some status affecting spells automatically succeed, and many others are essentially the same as spells which outright kill foes because they completely disable them for long periods of time, allowing players to kill them at their leisure. Relatively few foes are immune to such spells, while many foes are resistant to elemental damage spells, adding insult to injury. A wide variety of spells which don't even directly harm opponents are also extremely powerful, and all in all this leads to wizards and other powerful spellcasters being [[Game Breaker~~\|game breakers~~]]s. This is played straight however in the "mobility" feat, which gives you an AC bonus against Attacks of Opportunity, the problem is that anyone who needs the [[Prestige Class]] or feats it qualifies you for has Tumble, which means you don't provoke [[Ao O]]... But it gets nasty in the ''[[Epic Level Handbook]]''. If you look at the creature section, you'll see 9 times out of 10 that the creature is immune to: Paralyze, Sleep, Polymorph, Level Drain, Instant Death, Necromancy Effects (those last 3 makes Epic Necromancers hinge their teeth in frustration), Stun, Mind Effects, Daze, Criticals (just to make critical specialization useless). Not to mention that in turn these monsters will almost certain have something like Implosion, Weird or Wail of Banshee at will (save or die for the whole group) and one or two nastier epic spell once a day. Not to mention Greater Dispel or Epic Dispel at will to take out any immunity to death spell the group might have. Of course this is sort of offset by the fact that by then the characters gain the ability to resurrect themselves at will with no XP penalties (there's a price, but minor by now). Still, I didn't get at the billion and one ways these creatures have to kill character class without any chance of revival. * The other thing you have to consider here is that the Epic Spellcasting rules effectively turn any character with 21+ CL into a [[Person of Mass Destruction]]. I'm talking insanity here. The fact that they pretty much ignore most of the limits and immunities created by normal spellcasting is just icing on the cake. Using the printed rules you can quite easily synthesize a spell that, when cast once, effectively makes the caster powerful enough to kick the asses of every single character ever printed in any supplement. At once. Without using magic. The levels from 20-21 aren't so much [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards\|quadratic]] in growth as much as dividing by zero. Line 39 ⟶ 53: ''Wish'' often seems like is should be treated as a Useless Useful Spell, as it's traditional for the DM to scrutinize all wishes for [[Jackass Genie\|ways to punish]] the wisher. [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]... * There are, however, "stock" uses for Wish (and its divine cousin Miracle) which are reliable and usually not subject to any [[Jerkass Genie]] tendencies the DM may have. These include permanent stat boosts (expensive as hell, but worth it for high level characters), the creation of magic items (though by now you can probably craft them yourself with less XP cost), and duplicating pretty much any lower level spell. That last one is why high level spellcasters ''love'' to have a Wish or Miracle available. Sure, trading a 9th level spell for an 8th or lower level one sounds like a lousy deal, but the fact that it can grant access to spells you don't have prepared, don't know, or aren't even available to your class makes it a great tool in an emergency. ** Repeating light crossbows requires an exotic weapon proficiency feat to use but can be cocked as a free action at the cost of a full round action every five shots. A normal light crossbow has the same basic status, but costs less, uses normal bolts, is more common and can obtain the same rate of fire with rapid reload, which allows it to be reloaded as a free action. Rapid Reload (Light Crossbow) is a strictly better feat in every single way than Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Repeating Light Crossbow). Rapid Reload in turn is generally worse than Martial Weapon Proficiency (Longbow) since a longbow has the same or better stats and doesn't need an action to reload. * In some ways the blast weapons of ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' is starting to turn this way. Most blast weapons are quite powerful, especially heavy ordinance weapons, but due to the new way of resolving Blast weapons, you'd be pretty lucky if the shot land anywhere near your intended target (it's entirely possible that the shot will make a "return to sender" move, and there's a good chance of it happening too!). While a Space Marine can be very accurate with his aim-based Krak Missile, he is a worse shot than a drunk stormtrooper when it comes to firing the explosive Frag variant. Both missiles are fired from the same weapon.▼ * In addition to most of the above 3.5 examples, ''[[Pathfinder]]'' has a sword cane item that does 1d6 damage, costs 45 GP and requires good senses to realize it's not a normal cane. Clubs deal 1d6 damage, are free and absolutely indistinguishable from a cane ''because they are'' (this is part of why canes were fashion accessories at one point: They make fantastic clubs or, with the right embellishments, maces). The ability to have a cane that works as a club is even explicit in one of the example characters. ** The Second Edition rules have this by design on any spell or effect that can outright remove an opponent from an encounter (like inducing sleep, mind control, knocking unconscious or sudden death): such abilities have the "incapacitation" trait that indicates the user's check result is one degree of success worse or the target's save result is one degree of success better if the target's level is more than twice the spell's level or more than the user's level for non-spell effects, making high-level encounters impossible to cheese in a single round. * ''[[Fantasy Craft]]'', another successor based on 3.5's OGL content, tries to play it straight by including the Terminal descriptor which gives mini-bosses a +4 bonus on their save and bosses a +8 bonus. ''Tries'' because they missed a lot and actually introduced one big exception in fire damage. In Fantasy Craft taking fire damage forces a target to make a reflex save (based on the damage taken, not standard spell DCs, and easily impossible) then a will save or spend their entire turn trying to extinguish the fire, which is impossible if the caster or their allies keep attacking them with fire. ▲* In some ways the blast weapons of ''[[Warhammer ~~40000~~40,000]]'' is starting to turn this way. Most blast weapons are quite powerful, especially heavy ordinance weapons, but due to the new way of resolving Blast weapons, you'd be pretty lucky if the shot land anywhere near your intended target (it's entirely possible that the shot will make a "return to sender" move, and there's a good chance of it happening too!). While a Space Marine can be very accurate with his aim-based Krak Missile, he is a worse shot than a drunk stormtrooper when it comes to firing the explosive Frag variant. Both missiles are fired from the same weapon. Also, there are very powerful weapons called meltas that basically take any vehicle or [[Elite Mook]] and melt them into slag. However, nearly all meltas in the game have a 12" range (pretty much the shortest range outside of some irregular Tyranid ones) and only obtain their extra armour penetration ability within half that. While Space Marines with insane defenses can quite happily walk up to an enemy Heavy Support unit and annihilate it with one of these, more physically frail units like Eldar will often find themselves floored by [[More Dakka\|the entire enemy's weapons]] before they can fire them. * The tyranids have a variant of this. Warp Lance is a powerful Anti-tank weapon with a Strength value of 10 and AP value of 1 (the best the stats can be) as well as the Lance attribute, meaning the only thing it's short of being the best anti-tank weapon in the game is Melta. It however only has a range of 18 inches, just barely outside of charging range. On top of that the Zoanthrope is a classic example of a [[Squishy Wizard]], having a low number of wounds and a save easily penetrable by rapid-fire weapons, not to mention being gibbed by most tank weapons, the very things it's trying to hunt. There is also a slight chance that the Zoanthrope will suffer a brain tumor if the spell goes awry. Pinning is worse off. Blast and Melta weapons have limitations that can be overcome, as the [[Tank Goodness\|tank-happy]] Imperial Guard are happy to demonstrate. Pinning requires that the enemy is vulnerable to it. Most armies have either a preponderance of Fearless units ([[The Corruption\|Chaos Marines]], [[The Legions of Hell\|Chaos Daemons]], [[Horde of Alien Locusts\|Tyranids]], [[The Usual Adversaries\|Orks]]), very high Leadership ([[Badass Army\|Space Marines]], [[Our Elves Are Different\|Eldar, Dark Eldar]]), or else use many small units of infantry who rely on tanks for their big hitters ([[Redshirt Army\|Imperial Guard]]). Ironically, one of the few armies vulnerable to Pinning, the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens\|Tau]], are its biggest users. For Grey Knight Paladins, Feel No Pain. Paladins are Terminators that have 2 wounds, and with Feel No Pain can virtually double that survivability because statistically half the wounds of small arms fires will be ignored. Looks great on paper, not so much in practice. The Apothecary upgrade needed for that [[Fn P]] costs 75 points, enough for another Paladin to join the squad (note that this upgrade does not give the unit another body, it just makes an existing Paladin an apothecary). On top of that, because of their high armor save and 2 wounds, Paladins are scared shitless of any [[AP 2]] or Strength 8+ weapons already, which are the only things that will now stop their Feel No Pain, turning them from once being possible targets to now Tankshell magnets. Several who argued that Feel No Pain was considered a [[Game Breaker]] later had a serious case of [[Did Not Think This Through]]. * In ''[[Star Wars]] Roleplaying Game Saga Edition'' the Surge and (especially) Disarm powers are largely useless since their main function is done better by Move Object. Surge increases your speed as a free action (this part is still useful) and increases your jump distance and height... by a max of 9 and 2 meters respectively (impressive in the real world, but '''not''' impressive in ''Star Wars'') and requires a fairly high DC to do this. You could instead throw ''yourself'' with Move Object and move ''9'' meters in any direction at half the DC. Disarm lets you disarm ''one'' weapon using your Use the Force as your disarm check. Move Object can do the same but uses the (typically far lower) will defense instead of reflex defense and with a longer range. This is improved slightly in the ''Knights of the Old Republic'' book which states Improved Disarm applies to the Disarm power. == Video Games == * ''[[Might and Magic]] VI'' is a weird mix of aversion and using this trope. For one, most mind spells are useless against almost all tough enemies, which is where you would want to use them. There is a spell called Finger of Death which instantly kills a foe but has small rate of success ([[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard\|however your foes have much higher rates than you]]) and it's completely ineffective against tougher foes; plus you don't have access to it early on. On the other hand, there is a percentage damage spell which is extremely effective against powerful enemies (mass distortion) and other feels-like-cheating spells join the chorus as well, such as Fly, Town Portal and Lloyd's Beacon (instant teleport, by placing gates wherever the hell you want). And again, on the other side of table, you have spirit magic, a whole school of magic, which becomes completely redundant when you acquire light and dark magic, save for the life sharing spell, because there are three spells in these schools which cast all of the protective and boosting spirit ones, at a much higher level (they also send a fair amount of the other schools to the trash). There are also spells like fear, petrify, paralyze, etc, which only work on very low-level foes, making them redundant (by the time you acquire them). There's a resurrection spell on spirit magic, but after you become master of water it becomes redundant, since you can town portal to a temple and have them resurrect you. * Though this is mostly averted in the game, ''[[Persona 4]]'' has light and dark spells, which only work on mooks, because they insta-kill. This is also brought up in ''[[Persona 4: The Animation]]'', during the boss fight with Shadow Naoto. Not just Persona 4--Hama and Mudo have this problem in basically every [[Megami Tensei]] game. Line 107 ⟶ 128: Warlock's Infernal and Doomguard were like this for a long time. Infernal summons a powerful demon, but the spell keeping it in control broke after 5 minutes, causing it to attack the user. It also replaces the Warlock's normal minion (which has to be resummoned with a long cast time) and could only be used outdoors. Doomguard was even more useless: The ritual required to summon it killed one party member at random, it had to be enslaved by the warlock and wasn't really much stronger than the normal minions. In the new expansion, the spells got retooled to make them more useful (both demons had their damage increased and now despawn instead of breaking free. In addition Infernal can now be used indoors and Doomguard no longer kills a party member when summoned). They're still situational at best, but no longer completely useless. * The warlock spells Detect Invisibility and Breathe Underwater also border on useless. The latter was quite useful for lower level underwater quests (which weren't really popular), but the expansions have cut back on those and provided players with consumables for the same effect. The time a player can breathe underwater unaided was also tripled. The former suffers from [[Crippling Overspecialization]], as it only helps against actual invisibility, not stealth. Only a few mobs in the game use invisibility, and on the player side it's only the succubus pet and a mage skill added much later. Shadow Ward, Fire Ward, and Frost Ward are also rather useless useful spells. They absorb shadow, fire and frost damage, right? Well unfortunately; you had to ''know'' when you were gonna take Fire or Frost Damage otherwise you're just wasting mana, potions could do what Fire and Frost ward did and better (And could bypass class barriers; mages could only use it on themselves) and a lot of enemies dealt shadow or nature damage, making them useless anyways. They also absorbed a set amount of damage, too, so they didn't scale. They've been retooled in Cataclysm though: Fire and Frost Ward were merged into [https://web.archive.org/web/20120814103227/http://www.wowhead.com/spell=543 Mage Ward], which absorbs Arcane, Frost and Fire damage.<ref>1. ''It scales!'' 2. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120731043534/http://www.wowhead.com/spell=44395 It empowers Arcane mages when absorbing damage.]</ref> [https://web.archive.org/web/20130513111036/http://www.wowhead.com/spell=6229 Shadow Ward] is still there, but there's a Destruction warlock [https://web.archive.org/web/20140210074342/http://www.wowhead.com/spell=91713 talent] that makes it [https://web.archive.org/web/20130331010456/http://www.wowhead.com/spell=91711 absorb any kind of magic damage]. ''World Of Warcraft'' also had a useless useful weapon skill: Unarmed and fist weapons. It should be rather obvious why people don't even bother to level Unarmed unless they're looking for an achievement or the occasional "naked duels". Fighting without a weapon pretty much gimps your stats anyways, so why bother? Fist weapons on the other hand use the same skill as unarmed, but it's not commonly used for one main reason: Lack of selection. You could actually count on ''one hand'' how many fist weapons were in the classic game, and could see why people didn't even bother leveling it. Things improved a little in ''Burning Crusade'', but even then, the dual-wielders picked daggers, swords, maces, and axes more solely because there were way more. * Additionally, several of the best rogue attacks require daggers to be used, so using fist weapons would leave you short several excellent damage options, making them even less desirable. Line 151 ⟶ 172: The doppelganger in ''Symphony of the Night'' is also susceptible to its effect. Similarly, an early-acquired weapon, the Red Rust, will curse enemies (preventing them from attacking). Of course, it's slower and ''weaker'' than ''punching with fists'', has a random chance of failing to swing on Alucard's part, and ''only affects one? enemy in the game''. And again in Castlevania: SotN, we've got Dark Metamorphosis, which allows our vampeal hero to heal with the blood shed by enemies... of course, most things, exploding into flames on death and dying in one hit, or being animated armor or skeletons or whatever else, don't bleed; the most powerful early-game weapons (Jewel Knuckles and spells) won't draw blood from any enemy; and the late game most powerful weapons (Crissaegrim, Alucard Shield, spells) are such complete [[Game Breaker~~\|game breakers~~]]s you'll almost or entirely never will need to heal. You wanna talk [[Game Breaker\|game breakers?]] How about Alucard's [[Your Soul Is Mine\|Soul]] [[Life Drain\|Steal]] spell. Cast it and orbs of health are pulled from every enemy on screen (including bosses!). So long as you have the mana, you can fire it over and over again. Once your stats are high enough you can just walk around using Soul Steal like a vampire with an eating disorder (the "eat a lot" kind, not the "don't eat at all" kind). *** Even better: one section of the inverted castle has these huge rotating gold skulls that can't die. Can you say easy HP refill? Line 207 ⟶ 228: * Any magic spell in ''[[Ys]] IV: Mask of the Sun'' and ''[[Ys]] V''. And you can't use magic at all in the latter's boss battles. * Most status effect skills in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' fall into this trope at higher difficulty levels. This is due to everyone (players and enemies) being immune to them if they have shields/barrier/armor remaining. On higher difficulty levels, every enemy outside the tutorial segment in the beginning has at least one of these. By the time you get through these defenses, killing your target only takes a couple more shots. ** Though, it is worth mentioning that on lower difficulty levels, skills like Dominate and Hacking, which are nearly useless in the higher difficulty levels are basically [[Game ~~Breakers~~Breaker]]s. * Elemental spells and weapons become less useful as your reach higher levels in ''[[Infinity Blade]]'' since most enemies will have some elemental resistances. The God King will become immune to everything after beating him once making Healing the only magic worth using against him. Appropriately enough, this means that the eponymous Infinity Blade, which deals more non-elemental damage than any other weapon in the game, is the best weapon to use against him. * In ''[[Borderlands]]'' the entire shock element is useless as it's only useful for removing shields that only appear on a select number of human enemies and are easily dealt with without shock weapon. Furthermore the Hunter class gets a late game ability to bypass shields all together. Their only real use is against a few enemies that spawn is a very specific location and the hardest boss in the game. Line 220 ⟶ 241: * [[Disgaea]] and healing spells. They are useful for much of the game (the entire story mode, for example), but as soon as you start getting into the post-game, battles tend to be [[One Stat to Rule Them All\|an offense only affair]]. Eventually both you and the enemies will be so powerful that any attack ''will'' kill in one hit (advantage yours, since you go first), and in-combat healing is meaningless. ** For the same reason, defensive buff spells. Shield is useless late-game, since no matter how high you get your DEF you still can't take hits. Magic Wall is likewise unnecessary, since RES acts like DEF for magic spells (and boosts healing magic, which as stated above is useless). Speed Boost gets a pass, since SPD is a damage dealing stat for Fist and Gun users, and enemies who miss you entirely are still a possibility. Offensive buffs in general remain handy. ''[[Pokémon]]'' has many creatures that can either learn moves or have certain abilities that are not particular useful to that specific mon. Such examples include: Electrode can learn Gyro Ball by levelling up or by TM, but the move only increases damage if the user is slower than its opponent. Not exactly helpful considering: A) Electrode's base 150 Speed stat makes it one of the fastest Pokémon in the game, and B), Gyro Ball runs off of Electrode's pitiful base 50 Attack stat. Luckily, it can learn Electro Ball, which not only works the exact opposite of Gyro Ball, not only does it run off Electrode's superior Special Attack, but it also gets STAB from it too. The most ridiculous example of this is Frillish and Jellicent having Damp as their Hidden abilities. Preventing the target from self-destructing would be great... if not for this evolution family ''already'' being immune to those moves thanks to their part Ghost-typing! ▲== Card Games == Salazzle's unique ability Corrosion allows it to poison Steel types and fellow Poison types. However, it can only do so using Toxic, and it does not bypass Steel's natural immunity to Poison type attacks like Sludge Bomb. Needless to say, the effects of this ability are...underwhelming. Being a Glass Cannon and a Fragile Speedster, you really don't want to keep Salazzle hanging around trying to whittle your opponent down since it can't take damage itself. ▲ Gryphon Wing and Anti Raigeki in ''Yu-Gi-Oh''. They're particularly nasty counters to Harpie's Feather Duster and Raigeki, respectivly. Except that unless you ''know'' your opponent has one of those cards 'and' you're not going by Tournament rules (which dictate that Harpie's Feather Duster and Raigeki are banned)...it's just wasting space in your deck. To add insult to injury, Harpie's Feather Duster was a friggin rare card while Gryphon Wing came in a ''Structure Deck''. Cryogonal, Minior, and Dhelmise can all learn Attract. Too bad these three Pokémon are genderless and can't do anything with this move... ▲ Averted somewhat with White Hole, which prevents your monsters from being destroyed from the opponent's Dark Hole. Dark Hole is fairly used and rarely on the banned list for too long, so it has some utility to it. You're still better off with Dark Bribe, though. *Toxapex's signature move, Baneful Bunker protects it for a turn, with the added effect of poisoning the attacker. However, the poisoning effect only kicks in if the attacker uses a contact move, which isn't always guaranteed, leaving your turn to be wasted on trying to set up. You are better off just using Toxic, which has perfect accuracy when used by Poison types. ▲ ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has quite a few: Xurkitree is rather limited with Beast Boost compared to other Ultra Beasts. Xurkitree has a monstrously high Special Attack of 173, easily priming it for Beast Boosting. However, in a case of extreme [[Crippling Overspecialization]], all of Xurkitree's other stats are so low compared to its Sp.Atk, that it is physically impossible for Beast Boost to boost any of its other stats other than Sp.Atk, no matter how you EV it. To make matters worse, its Sp.Atk can be maxed out in two turns anyway with Tail Glow, making Beast Boost incredibly redundant. ▲ [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201268 Sorrow's Path] is too complicated and ''far'' too expensive. Being able to swap your opponent's blocking creatures is merely okay. Having to pay 2 life and suffer 2 damage to every creature you control is like saving money on glasses by [[Eye Scream\|stabbing yourself in both eyes]]. Toucannon gets the popular Sheer Force ability, which boosts the damage of moves with secondary effects by 30%, while also removing said effects. The same thing applies to Life Orb, stacking with the item's damage buff, and negating the 10% damage. Unfortunately for Toucannon, it can only learn four moves that take advantage of this great ability, none of which are very strong; Rock Smash and Flame Charge have low base power, Steel Wing isn't all that accurate, and Flash Cannon runs off its subpar Sp.Atk. You are better off running Toucannon with a more reliable Skill Link set. ▲ [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=2900 Apocalypse Chime] destroys all Homelands cards. If Homelands cards other than Autumn Willow and Baron Sengir were actually useful, this card would be. While it can be remedied with Assault Vest and Sandstorm, Rhyperior having Solid Rock isn't as useful as it seems when you realise that 1) it has 4x weaknesses to the mostly special Water and Grass type moves, and 2) its Special Defense absolutely sucks at only base 55! ▲ [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=19665 Common Cause]. Pointless since ''all'' Nonartifact creatures must be the same color, even your opponents. Stupid errata... Lightning Rod makes the Pokémon immune to Electric type attacks, and boosts their Sp.Atk stat. However, most of the mons with this ability either resist/are immune to Electric moves anyway, making them less likely to be targeted by them in the first place, and even the ones that don't have low Sp.Atk stats. ▲ Spells and abilities that endow creatures and to a lesser extent other permanents with specific abilities (including but not limited to the aura subtype of enchantments) may fall under this. Consider [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=83088 Flight]. From the enchanted creature's perspective, it's potentially a great effect—it gains flying if it didn't have it already, allowing it to bypass most non-flying blockers and/or block flying attackers itself. Get to the point where you actually want to put the card into a deck, though, and you'll soon realize that if having flyers is important to your strategy, you'd best include a number of creatures that have the ability in and of themselves already in case you don't actually ''draw'' that Flight card...yet the more of those you have, the less good the card actually does you in the first place! (This logic does not, of course, apply to abilities that actually have a cumulative effect. However, many of the more commonly granted abilities—like flying, first strike, or trample—do not fall into this category.) Then there's the issue that the empowered creature isn't necessarily any harder to ''kill'', potentially taking the entire investment in extra cards, mana, and/or other resources to the graveyard with it... Hitmonchan can learn the elemental punches, which have become staples of many physical attackers in recent generations. Prior to Gen IV however, the elemental punches were Special moves, meaning Hitmonchan could not make any use of them because his Sp.Atk is a pathetic base 35! ▲ ''Magic the Gathering'' also has a fair share of "instant win" cards - as in, they actually SAY "You win the game" or "Target player loses the game". However, they're either highly situational, require a certain action that will almost certainly get interrupted, or are just ridiculously expensive. Gengar has an excellent Sp.Atk stat of 130, boosted to 170 in its Mega Evolved form. Combined with a solid 110 base Speed, Gengar has the hallmarks of a special sweeper. Prior to Gen IV however, Gengar never made full use of its Special prowess due to its Ghost/Poison moves running off the physical attack back then, which is a miserable 65, screwing it over as it could do so little with STAB. ▲ And finally, we have [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1615 Great Wall], generally considered the worst card in the game. All it does is let you block creatures with plainswalk, of which there are only four that no one uses, only ''one'' of which was around when Great Wall was released. Having the ability to resist paralysis entirely sounds great, right? Well for Stunfisk, it would be if Gen VI didn't make Electric-types immune to the status condition, which ultimately makes its Limber ability redundant. The same thing applies to Fan Rotom having Levitate, despite sporting a second typing that makes it immune to Ground-types attacks anyway. ▲* What about Mudhole, a card that removes all the lands from a player's graveyard which is flat-out inferior to cheaper options (including Tormod's Crypt, an artifact with a 0 mana cost!) which just remove their entire graveyard? The only practical use would be to get around removing a specific non-land card in your opponent's graveyard to screw over some bizarre combo that doesn't even exist yet. Skitty and Delcatty's signature ability is Normalize, which all of their attacks into Normal-type moves. While it means they get STAB off of everything, Delcatty in particular (as the evolved from and more likely to be used competitively) can never hit anything for super-effective damage with this ability, plus it is walled by Ghost-types, and resisted by Rock- and Steel-types. This one is debatable, but Palossand has a unique ability in the form of Water Compaction, which provides a +2 boost to its Defense when hit by a certain type of move. What type's that you ask? Water: a common type that Palossand is weak to, and is likely to fall to in one or two hits thanks to its less-than-stellar Special Defense stat. Umbreon having access to Synchronoise is pretty mind boggling when you consider the move only works on opposing Pokemon the same types as the user. In this case, this Pokemon can only use Synchronoise against other Dark types, which also happen to be ''immune'' to Psychic-type attacks! ~~----~~ More examples are listed at [[Pokémon/Useless Useful Spell\|this subpage]]. == Aversions and parodies == * All Force type character classes in later versions of ''[[Phantasy Star Online]]'' have particular technique specialities, techs that they have a higher level cap for than other classes. The [[Magic Knight\|FOmar]]'s speciality are the buff and debuff techniques, which at max level make an enormous difference to the affected stats and have a massive area of effect. Having Shifta and Deband maintained whenever possible is standard procedure for PSO, and the ~~[[F Omar]]~~FOmar is generally the preferred caster of choice for the task. * Dervishes in ''[[Guild Wars]]'' have enchantment (buff) stacking as their gimmick. Typically any given one only has minor effects, but given that many of them synergise well and Dervish primaries gain energy every time an enchantment ends, it tends to be essential to maintain a lot of them. * Any boss in ''[[Science Girls]]'' is just as vulnerable to status effects as regular enemies, so you can poison them or drop their stats from the start of the fight. It's balanced by some bosses having moves that can cancel them out after they're afflicted, but it at least makes them waste a turn. * ''[[Persona 4]]'' (and from all reports, all [[Mega Ten]] games) seems to avert this trope with some degree of gusto. Not only does stat-up/down work on most bosses (and are necessary at points to avoid death) but instant kill techniques such as Chie's Galactic Punt Follow Though technique will instantly remove everything up to and including mid-bosses from battle. In regard to Galactic Punt, several players had the following reaction when witnessing it: "[[Disadvantageous Disintegration\|Do I get EXP for this?]]" [[Awesome Yet Practical\|You do]]. Hilariously, this trips up even veteran RPG players at times, as evidenced in the [[Giant Bomb]] [[Let's Play]] of the game where the hosts were constantly re-rolling a fusion for Jack Frost because they kept getting Sukunda (A spell that decreases the hit/evasion stat of one enemy and is incredibly helpful throughout the entire game against bosses.) Line 257 ⟶ 279: * Devastatingly averted in [[Jade Empire]]. Not only are the status-affecting "Support Styles" useful all the way up through the game (even on the [[Big Bad]]) but they cost no chi or focus to use, unlike the Magic and Weapon styles. Demons are immune to them, but of the two demon bosses in the entire game, one is a [[Puzzle Boss]] while the other is optional. ** Hell, Storm Dragon is pretty much a [[Game Breaker]]! * Parodied in [https://web.archive.org/web/20100601125238/http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0167.html this] ''[[Adventurers!]]'' strip. ** Averted in the final battle, where [[Big Bad\|Khrima]] is not immune to {{spoiler\|Slow}}. * Also parodied in [http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20030528.html this] [[RPG World]] strip. Line 285 ⟶ 307: * In ''[[The 7th Saga]]'', spells like Vacuum1 and Defense2 are very useful. ** Unless, of course, you try and use them on a boss (which are immune to them ), the three overpowered mooks (Despair, Doom, and Reaper), and any apprentice you're fighting. Yes, that means that every playable character EXCEPT the one(s) in the party is immune to them, and that an ally you recruit will lose said immunity when they join you and regain it when they leave you. * Averted in ''[[~~Earthbound~~EarthBound]]''. While some enemies are immune to certain ailments, they will always be open to at least one kind. Several bosses can be put to sleep or paralyzed with ease, the sixth "Sanctuary" boss can be killed instantly with PSI Flash, and even the final boss is capable of being frozen or feel strange from the Brainshock spell. One interesting note is that the resistance of an enemy being vulnerable to brainshock or hypnosis have an inverse relationship. If an enemy is immune to hypnosis, brainshock will have a 99.6% effectiveness (or vice-versa). If brainshock works on an enemy 10% of the time, hypnosis will work 50% of the time (or vice-versa). These four combinations are the only possible combinations of hypnosis and brainshock resistance in EB. Case in point {{spoiler\|the second Sanctuary boss is vulnerable to Paralysis, making that whole cave a rush to beat him, then taking advantage of the cowardly enemies to level grind Paula}}. Line 292 ⟶ 314: * Furthermore, using spells and abilities that raise your stats and lower the boss' stats are quite effective on most bosses and practically required for some of them. Even if they can negate the changes, that's a turn spent not blasting you with powerful multi-targeting PSI attacks. * Almost every boss in the game can be frozen or lit on fire, but it's somewhat rare to do so. Straight example: In ''[[~~Earthbound~~EarthBound]]'', the PK Thunder (AKA: Electric Shock Attack, Crashing Boom Bang Attack) moves are not nearly as useful for you as they are for your enemies. The move will target a random enemy each time it goes off (higher levels means stronger shots and more shots). However, if there's few enemies, there's a large chance that each shot will simply miss. It's very unlikely that you'll hit the same enemy more than once with the same move, even especially if you're using Omega (4 shots) and it's the only enemy, meaning it's also not useful against bosses. Meanwhile, you have a party of up to 4, and the enemy is far more likely to, even then, just zap the same party member until they die. * PK Thunder is greatly improved in ''[[Mother 3]]''; it's a lot more accurate, and is therefore much better for use against bosses, especially when they have a shield, because it hits through shields. ** Another straight example is the Neutralizer (technically, it's not a spell, but it's similar enough). It sounds like an upgraded version of the Shield Killer, which is an extremely useful item, until you realize the Neutralizer neutralizes everyone in battle, including yourself. It's only really useful if the entire enemy team is shielded (rare) or if everyone in your party has been severely debuffed (also rare). Line 301 ⟶ 323: * Most status-inducing spells in the ''Avernum'' series by Spiderweb Software, particularly ones that impair combat ability (Slow, Sleep and Charm), are ineffective against opponents, while the player is very inconvenienced by them. This is more due to tactics than game mechanics, however: The player tends to be outnumbered by a horde of inferior opponents (except for rare boss battles), and naturally incapacitating one of a dozen mooks is useless compared to slowing or incapacitating one of four high-level killing machines. * ''[[Gaiden Game\|Sailor Moon: Another Story]]'' has the spell "Time Stop" which can freeze enemy actions for three turns. You'd think this spell would have severe limitations, but no, casting it freezes all enemies at once including the final boss with 100 percent accuracy. With judicious item use it is possible to keep Time Stop in effect throughout the entire final boss fight ... * [[Wild ~~Arms~~ARMs]]: Alter Code F, the remake of the original Wild Arms, makes all of these very useful. There are no instant-death equivalents (that you are allowed to cast), but all of the status effects land 100% on everything. Even the final boss. These are timed debuffs, so you only get a few turns before you have to cast them again. * Averted in ''[[Luminous Arc]]''. Even the instant death spell works on the majority of bosses (giant bosses seem to be immune), providing their level is below that of the character who knows the spell (she's a healer, and since you get a good chunk of exp every time you heal someone, this isn't hard). * Heavily averted in [[Dragon Age]]: Origins. Many of the status effect spells actually have a reasonable chance of working even on tougher enemies, some have effects which apply even if they are resisted, and many of the difficult fights involve a group of enemies instead of a single untouchable one. There are also several spells which deal good damage in addition to a status effect - the fireball spell, for example, has a chance to knock people over when it explodes. Line 351 ⟶ 373: Provided, of course, you have reflection. If you don't, and happen to run across something that DOES, it's [[Yet Another Stupid Death]]. Using it on the Death is also case of Too Dumb to Live * In the ''[[Harry Potter and ~~The~~the ~~Sorcerer~~Philosopher's Stone (novel)\|Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone]]'' Game Boy Color game, best way to beat the final boss? Locomotor Wibbly to inflict stun...then Mucus Ad Nauseum to poison him; especially if you don't have Flipendo Tria. * In its early stages, status-inflicting moves and items in ''[[Opoona]]'' are not very helpful. This is especially so since battles are [[Timed Mission\|timed]], and there's not a lot of time to waste fiddling around with menus. Then, [[Difficulty Spike\|the game decides to stop messing around]], and throws at you parties of 8+ enemies, many of whom can [[Shoot the Medic First\|heal]], some of whom deal devestating damage, and many of whom live in battlefields strewn with bombs. Suddenly, the ability to prevent enemies from casting spells looks pretty useful. Poleena also has several abilities which can stun all enemies at once, which is ''extremely'' useful. * [[The Last Remnant]] easily averts this trope by simply having all status spells and items deal damage as well. There are few magic spells that don't cause some type of status ailment, in addition to causing damage. The staus ailments themselves are quite useful: poison does a decent amount of damage, while sealing an enemy's mystic and combat arts greatly reduces their offensive capabilities. Line 357 ⟶ 379: * Avadon. Nearly all debuffing abilities almost never work on bosses. nearly all debuffing abilities (and there's a heck of a lot of debuffing abilities there) almost never work on bosses. Take stun, for example - sure, you can easily stun a grind mob with it (only why would you want to? it's faster to simply kill it), but when it comes to a boss (e.g. to a situation where you really needed) your chances are abysmal. You stun them occasionally, but it's totally not worth it. And same goes for the acid, poison, slows and other debuffs. Buffs are also not that useful since, once again, you don't need them versus common creeps and when it comes to bosses, tough ones, it is usually more efficient to use buffing scrolls\crystals\potions. Summons also don't do much to bosses, they can't even hope to tank them. * For all its other issues, nearly every boss in ''[[Lord of the Rings: The Third Age]]'' is vulnerable to ''something'', and Elegost's [[Enemy Scan]] skill displays their entire resistance list in very convenient spreadsheet format. * ''[[Monster Girl Quest Paradox]]'' has very few skills that are truly useless. Status ailments are extremely effective, with most normal enemies and even many bosses being vulnerable to them. Attacks that deplete MP are useful for many of the difficult bosses, as many of their techniques can't be used at 0 MP. There are four different varieties of instant death, with most non-boss enemies being vulnerable to at least one of them, making these one of the better options for getting through the [[Bonus Dungeon\|Labyrinth of Chaos]]. Status buffs can often be stacked, making it possible to turn your party into (temporary) gods who can one-shot bosses. {{reflist}} [[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]] [[Category:Videogame Effects and Spells]] [[Category:This Index Is Useless]] [[Category:~~Useless~~Examples ~~Useful~~Need ~~Spell~~Sorting]]