Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
213,897
edits
Useless Useful Spell: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
No edit summary |
|||
| (13 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
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
# [[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 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/
** ''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.▼
==
* ''[[Dungeons & 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
** 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 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 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.
Line 51 ⟶ 67:
== 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 156 ⟶ 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
** 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 212 ⟶ 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
* 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 225 ⟶ 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
* 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 262 ⟶ 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 356 ⟶ 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
* 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 365 ⟶ 382:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Videogame Effects and Spells]]
[[Category:This Index Is Useless]]
[[Category:
| |||