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{{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
# [[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
# Common enemies that the attacks ''are'' effective against can easily be disposed of by use of normal attacks, which means there's no sense in wasting time and magic power on fancy maneuvers. Who's going to waste 36MP to cast Instant Death on the local harmless [[Underground Monkey]]? Or wait for Poison to kill your opponent when often other methods do damage much faster? This is perhaps one of the most common examples of this trope - in some games it's quicker to just beat them up in a couple rounds instead of spending a round or two inflicting debuffs or status ailments and ''then'' beating them up. (Sometimes this varies for bosses or an [[Elite Mook]] that requires more strategy)
# They may simply have a very low success rate in the first place. (Or may be hurt a lot by a glitch)
# The effect is something which only becomes significant after surviving a battle. Poison is often far too slow to make a difference during [[Random Encounters]], but you have to cure it or take constant damage even when not fighting.
# They are replaced by spells that effectively do the same thing and more later on in the game, for example, any status healing spell can be replaced by a "heal-all" spell.
# They are incapable of actually killing an enemy. Percentage based attacks for example cannot actually kill in most games, once they get the HP down to 1 they stop doing any damage.
Of course, when any enemy possesses such spells, [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|they will invariably be effective when used on you]], unless you happen to be wearing a type of armor that protects against such attacks or status effects.
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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 [[
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".
[[Super
The opposite of this trope is [[Not Completely Useless]]. In fact, if an otherwise
▲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.▼
** [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
** 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.
** Oddly enough, the trope is followed in ''[[
*** They seem to be attempting to fix this with the recent spell passes, and prestiges for Wizards and Sorcerors. And if you're soloing as a [[Our Liches Are Different|Pale Master]], Wail and Finger are still the best bang for your buck, spell-point-wise.
** In 4th Edition, however, direct-damage and status-effect spells are much more balanced, because although very few enemies are immune to status effect spells, most status effects can be ended with a "saving throw" that the victim has a 55% chance of making every round, so most status effects don't last more than a couple rounds. It is possible, however, to 'permanently' stun an enemy at high levels by using the Orb of Imposition to give an enemy such a high save penalty that he can't succeed.
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** The Orb of Imposition's penalty now only applies to one saving throw. There are other saving throw penalties that you can apply to all saves, but not enough to make the save impossible (and thus permanently lock the enemy down).
** 3.5 ed Cleric spells like Righteous Might and Divine Power tend to fall into this category. A fully buffed Cleric is perhaps the most deadly close combat fighter in the game, but by the time you're finished casting spells, the fight is almost over anyway. Now, if you have time to plan your attack, then it's another matter entirely...
** Of course,there is then the infamous gamebreaking nightstick, divine metamagic and permanency combo. Basically, nightsticks give turning attempts, stack and are cheap. Divine metamagic allows to do things such as make the buffs last 24 hours for turning attempts. So the ultimate warrior is not the fighter or barbarian but the cleric.
** Specific example: ''Detect Undead''. [[Detect Evil]] is of the same level and lasts 10 times as long and picks up every undead creature (even the ones of good alignment). The only saving grace detect undead has is that it appears on the wizards spell list as well.
*** ''Detect Undead'' also detects Deathless, which show up as Good instead of Evil - so it's not ''completely'' useless... Why anyone who worries about Undead would also worry about Deathless is another matter entirely.
** ''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
** 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 ''[[
** Not just Persona 4--Hama and Mudo have this problem in basically every [[Megami Tensei]] game.
* ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'' has the ''Dementation'' discipline "Vision of Death" and the ''Dominate'' disciplines "Suicide" and "Mass Suicide", all of which kill human and lesser Sabbat [[Mooks]] instantaneously. They do not, however, have the same effect on tougher foes, and using such powers against them is pretty much pointless.
** Although one boss-level opponent (Chastity, a [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Slayer]] type, can be one-shotted with Vision of Death, ''if'' you catch her before she's braced for combat (and a Malkavian can). If you're not putting points towards guns, don't have Bedlam yet, and are ''[[Stealth Run|still]]'' feeling violent, there are also ambushes where it's a solid alternative to trying for stealth kills.
* Nearly every ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' game has a few of these. There are some exceptions, of course - [[Universal Poison|the Bio spell]] is occasionally the only way to deal steady damage to an opponent, and the final boss of ''[[
** The Gravity/Demi spells in almost any ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' suffer from a similar, if not quite identical, problem. Gravity spells cannot traditionally kill your
*** The Demi series, surprisingly, works against [[Final Fantasy VII
*** Several monsters in [[
** Instant kill spells are particularly prone to this. When you get the spell, you're too desperate for the MP to use it; but the readier you are to use it, the more likely the enemies are to be highly resistant. And naturally, bosses are immune. Occasionally a boss ''will'' be vulnerable to the insta-kill spells, just for variety. The classic example is Tiamat, Fiend of Air in ''[[
** Reflect in most of the series are usually more trouble than they are worth. Most enemies that cast a spell that are either elemental and can absorb that element so you wind up healing them if the spell is bounced back or the spell they use is immune to being reflected. In some of the games, [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|the computer says fuck it and can use spells on you while ignoring your reflect status completely.]] Using reflect also means more micro managing since beneficial magic like Cure and Esuna can also be reflected, making you use items instead (some games give the party the ability to ignore reflect status when casting).
** ''[[
*** Due to programming mistakes in the game, many spells actually did nothing...unless they were used on you, in which case they were absolutely devastating.
*** In a similar fashion, Steiner's Thunder Slash skill is supposed to cause lightning damage to an enemy, but it would always fail because of a programming glitch that mixed up its success rate with Iai Strike. When you fight Beatrix ( {{spoiler|and later when she joins as a guest member}}), her version of the skill never fails because her skill isn't under the same programming like Steiner's. If Vivi is in the active roster with Steiner, you could get a similar effect by having Steiner use Thunder/Thundara/Thundaga Sword attack.
**** A notable exception was Kary/Maralith, who was actually quite vulnerable to several useless-useful status spells. Possibly the most hilarious way to deal with her was Confusing her into attacking herself for several rounds. So much for the Legendary Fiend of Fire.
** Most spells in ''[[
*** However, if you did take the time to power up spells, they turned out ''extremely'' useful. A high-powered Teleport spell is relatively easy to get and kills a surprising number of creatures reliably. The Berserk and Haste spells make your physical attackers walking death machines, and proper application of the Toad spell makes much of the game a complete joke. (remakes of the game also significantly cut down on the grind needed to level up) Ultima still sucks, at least in the original release. It's meant to scale in power depending on every other spell and ability you've leveled up, but a glitch means that it, in a word, doesn't.
** Kimahri picks up quite a few of these in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' if you find his Blue Mage-like ability to be interesting. For example, you can have him master the Stone Breath attack of an enemy...except that then we ''guarantee'' that whenever you use that particular Overdrive attack, the target will be immune to petrification. Even if it's a random encounter. That doesn't have petrify effects.
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** However, Phantasy Star IV directly averts this. There are a number of instant death spells, most of which with a high enough success rate to be worth using against many enemies. (Still worthless against bosses, though.)
*** The fact that most of these spells didn't use MP but instead had their own limited use count also meant that you're not losing anything but a battle turn when the spells fail. Weapons with an added instant-death effect also didn't have a significantly lower regular attack power like in most other RPGs. Nice.
* ''[[
** To counteract this, several spells exist solely for making enemies more vulnerable to magic, occasionally making the Useless Useful Spell, well, useful. If you're enough [[Crazy Prepared]] with spells of "Lower Resistance" ([[Self Explanatory]]) and "Greater Malison" (lower save rolls) then you can kill pretty much anything except the [[Big Bad]] and [[The Undead]] with a single "Finger Of Death" spell.
*** Very few bosses are in fact totally immune (as opposed to having ludicrous magic resistance or good saves) to every kind of status effect or instant-death attack. The trick is almost always to use the * right* one. It got even more ludicrous in Throne of Bhaal: One of the bosses' magic resistance can only be breached by a level 8 spell, but he ALSO casts a spell which protects against that particular kind of magic, so you need to use a separate level 7 spell to breach that one...
** Most boss fights in [[Baldurs Gate 2]] and [[Throne of Bhaal]] are almost puzzle-like in nature, in that you need to figure out precisely what protections the boss is using, combined with innate abilities, in order to neutralize them. When you add the fact that many bosses have hidden immunities, that some of them bend or outright ignore the game rules, and that none of this is explained in the manual or anywhere in the game, it all adds up to a massive headache. In the end, it's usually easier to rely on the universal "dispel magic" spell (or even better, Inquisitor ability), summon creatures, and just whack everything with a big sword until it dies, rather than try to figure out the spell-counterspell tangle. Thankfully, in later games the whole system was somewhat simplified.
** The second game also introduced Power Words which induce a status effect (sleep, silence, stun, or death, depending on the spell) in a single target. However, they're ineffective against targets with too many hit points, and in this case "too many" generally means "enough to be worth using a spell slot on it". The best use of most Power Word spells is in conjunction with Spell Trap and Project Image to refill a wizard's spell slots, although even that can be done faster with Wish.
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** Proving why tropes are not always bad, ''Diablo 2'' went and implemented fractional damage as an area effect lightning spell, which quickly became every sorceress' main attack until the expansion made it unable to lower monster health below 50%, making it useless once again.
*** It's a skill that every Sorceress puts a single point in to, nonetheless. with the thousands of life bosses have, some with ''tens'' or ''hundreds of thousands'', reducing the hitpoints to 50% in four seconds is a ''lot'' of damage
* Most ether effects in the first two ''[[
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]'' the spell/poison effect "Burden", which reduces the carrying capacity, potentially over-encumbering the victim, is only really useful for opponents to cast against the player, not the other way around, since the player is the only creature in the entire world who regularly (OK, always) carries enough stuff to ''almost'' max out their capacity. The player would have to inflict enormous amounts of the "Burden" effect on opponents to slow them down or stop them - and that only works on humanoid opponents who actually carry any equipment, unlike the numerous animals and monsters.
** That said, the game is otherwise almost completely devoid of "it only works on the player" spells. It just makes the really useful effects either nearly inaccessible or extremely costly (not that this prevents players from finding [[Game Breaker
** Until later in the game, the Chameleon spell is entirely worthless, because it lasts a short time for a high cost, and only makes you partially invisible. That is, until you infuse 5 pieces of armor with 20% Chameleon effect, making you 100% invisible, ALL THE TIME. It utterly destroys the enemy AI's response mechanics, allowing the player to hack down everything with impunity because nothing would even attempt to attack you.
** Drain spells for the most part affect enemies in ways that they would never use anyway. Drain personality and drain luck, anybody?
*** Drain health 100pt for 1 sec, on the other hand, is a [[Disc One Nuke]]. The victim gets the health back after a second, except if he died. Drain strength/agility/speed are also useful.
**** Certain Status Effects are the key to ultimate power. In particular, Weakness to Magic and Weakness to Fire/Frost/Shock. Combined, you can kill anything that vulnerable to it.
** In ''[[Skyrim]]'', the thu'um Elemental Fury ("SU GRAH DUN") increases the speed of your weapon swings temporarily (i.e. you can attack more times in the same period). And it has no effect on enchanted weapons, which is the only kind most players will use.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' boss mobs are notorious for their immunity to crowd control spells like polymorph, shackle, and fear.
** And often using more powerful variations of those spells. One particular boss parodies mages by turning the whole raid into sheep at low mana, and then sitting down to drink (which restores mana). The effect cannot be broken like the regular spell either, and even works on most druid forms, even though they are immune to polymorph. Another boss uses an area fear with such a wide range that only casters and hunters with the right talent to increase their range can avoid getting caught in it.
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** 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>
** ''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.
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** Prior to ''Cataclysm'' Hunters could equip thrown weapons, but even though they didn't use ammunition in contrast to ranged weapons, you still needed a ranged weapon to use any of your Shots or Stings, rendering them useless for most hunters (especially ones specializing in the Marksmanship talent tree).
*** To be honest, thrown weapons are this in general. Rogues are the only class that will get any use out of them at all, and with the only other two classes that can use them, Hunters and Warriors, Hunters will, as mentioned, pretty much exclusively be using a type of bow or a gun, and Warriors really only need ranged weapons at all for a stat boost. The only other reason a Warrior might need a ranged weapon is when a mob runs away and they just don't feel like chasing after it. And even in the case of Rogues, there's a problem. Rogues are a close-combat class. Even if the mob runs away, you're probably better off just chasing it.
* ''[[
** However, this is often averted in at least the first game, as bosses can be afflicted with various useful status effects (Like Sleep which, as you might guess, makes the target completely inactive for several rounds) reasonably often, sometimes even multiple times per fight. Sadly the same cannot be said for the summons of the second game, as mentioned above.
*** The first game's Tempest Lizard, especially. An optional boss that could be fought repeatedly, gives out loads of EXP, always dropped a potion when it was beaten, and could easily be effected by the Curse Psyenergy, which would make it go down after attacking a certain number of times? And it attacks twice per turn, speeding it up that much? Sign me up!
** Heck, nearly all of the Pysnergy you learn in all three of the games quickly get outclassed by the more exotic weapons with fancy unleash abilities. Aside from using the fancy and strong weapons to deal damage faster, it is usually faster to attack one enemy at a time instead of trying to hit all enemies at once every time and waste PP with Pysnergy doing so. Most of the time, the only Pysnergy you will use are healing/revive types, Pysnergy that boosts your stats, or Pysnergy that factors in your weapon strength, such as Ragnarok and Plume Edge.
** And in a less combat-oriented sense, Insight Psynergy in ''Dark Dawn''. In theory, it's supposed to be an at-will hint-dropper for the game's myriad puzzles. In practice, all it does is [[Stop Helping Me!|make you want to yell at Amiti]], with relatively minor exceptions (Djinn in hard-to-reach places sometimes have to be knocked down with Fireball or Slap, and [[That One Puzzle|the goat puzzle]] can be solved by using Insight to map out a path for each goat).
* Seen distressingly often in ''[[Lost Odyssey]]''. Not only are your enemies spectacularly resistant to status effects but the ones they can inflict on you tend to be of a type that the PCs themselves cannot cast yet if ever. To be fair there are items and skills in the world that render you immune to a particular status effect (and even all of them later in the game); if you see something new like that on sale in a shop, buy plenty. You'll need it by the boss if not the first battle in the next dungeon.
** Also amusingly inverted in that by the end of the game, your entire party can ''also'' be immune to all status effects (except Instant Death, only enemies can be immune to that), but of course the [[Artificial Stupidity]] never catches on and will cast them at you constantly.
* In the RPG ''Sailor Moon: Another Story'', using a Holy Grail to transform Moon or Chibimoon to their Super states gave them increased attack powers. It also took away their healing powers and kept them from using Team attacks with the other Senshi (besides one team attack with each other). Not to mention the attack boost didn't put them that much above Saturn or Uranus (The game's designated tanks)
* In [[Odin Sphere]], one potion leaves behind a toxic cloud that kills anything after a short delay, regardless of how much HP it has left. Unfortunately, this has a tendency not to work on boss enemies, but always on you. Sure, it kills slimes, but you've always got Napalm for doing that cheaper.
* ''[[
** The [[Whip It Good|Dark Hunters]] can learn a skill named Ecstasy: when maxed out, it has a 100% chance of automatically killing any enemy that is affected by all three kinds of Bind effects (Head, Arms, and Legs). This ''would'' be an aversion, as surprisingly few enemies are resistant to OHKO-moves, except that all four of those skills need to be maxed out to be reliable, and by the time they are, you can just outright kill a monster using the individual skills as opposed to depending on Ecstasy. Fortunately, there's Climax...
* In an odd RTS example, in ''[[Command
** Also in ''Red Alert'', the Soviet Iron Curtain is somewhat useless, as it can only make a single tank or building invincible for a short period of time. Also corrected in Red Alert 2, the Iron Curtain then has the ability to protect up to 9 tanks, flak tracks, or terror drones.
*** The Iron Curtain can protect a valuable building that is in imminent danger of being destroyed, such as a Construction Yard, which can buy you time to kill off the invading force or repair it. Another (more fun) strategy is to send a M.A.D. tank towards an enemy base or attack force, and just as it reaches firing range, use the Iron Curtain to keep it from being prematurely destroyed since it's too slow to reach a target on its own armor. Place it in the prime center of devastation and deploy it - if it's still under the Curtain, it won't actually explode and damage everything until right after the effect fades, giving the enemy no chance to actually counter it.
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** This leads to a very rewarding experience if you play the Dominator class. Dominators rely on status ailments to disable foes while dealing decent damage and even get a [[Super Mode]] to make their status effects harder to resist. When properly built, Dominators are the only class that can overcome an Archvillain's status protection by themselves (Controllers can also achieve this feat, but it usually takes 2 or 3 of them).
** ''[[City of Heroes]]'' support effects are very powerful indeed, however, their power is mitigated by the sheer number of opponents you face. It's ludicrously easy to debuff a [[Mook]] into oblivion, then again, your average solo mission pits you against groups of 3 to 10 bad guys at the same time (depending on the faction you're fighting). Numbers are exponentially larger for group endeavors and boss battles. Note also that direct damage is equally over the top - any class (properly built) can pretty much turn a roomfull of Minions into chunky goop in a flash. The real challenge of any mission is always the boss fight, not the slosh through the hordes of faceless goons. Par for the course in a superhero game, innit ?
** Technically, Hero/Archvillain/Giant Monster types aren't completely immune to status effects, they just have really high protection against them and cause them to wear off faster.
*** It's much easier to actually mezz a boss in a raid situation, which are only possible in the field. Since all Mezz effects stack, enough Controllers or Dominators (Or Warshades, or Fortunatas, Or...) could hold the Hamidon, if not for very long. (Indeed, prior to it's revamp, this was a ''requirement'' in order to keep the raid from wiping).
* The Death Spell in ''Seiken Densetsu 3'' deals 999 damage (the damage cap) and can be used on bosses, but it only works on enemies that are at a lower level than the caster. The only character class that learns the spell can already OHKO most regular enemies with cheaper elemental spells, and if you're ever at a higher level than a boss, you've probably level grinded enough to not even need the Death Spell.
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* ''[[Shining Force]] 2'' gives you the "death" spell, at a late point in the game where most of the enemies you'll be fighting are undead or demons, both immune to that. Of course, it does work perfectly well on the player party.
** Desoul (the aforementioned instant death spell) shows up in the original ''[[Shining Force]]'' as well, and is a fair bit more effective on enemies. Instead, the spell Muddle literally does ''nothing'' in the original game, but in the second is a style of confusion spell that can be at times quite amusing. Not that it's any more accurate than it was before.
** The remake averts this - well, partially. Status infliction spells are still worthless; but as for status ''buffs'', especially Narsha's? These easily veer into [[Game Breaker]]-level of usefulness. Heck; one of the best ones is one that ''buffs your movement''. In a strategy game where you're limited by how much you can move at once? That's ''really'' useful!
* Used in ''[[
** Technically, he's cheating {{spoiler|because he's not even using "Projection" magecraft in the first place, as he's actually using an application of a Reality Marble.}}
* Nondamaging spells in ''[[Breath of Fire]] II'' are especially guilty of this, for all three of the listed reasons, but especially the third one. The one that was supposed to lower agility doesn't work on anything.
* The pocket watch in the ''[[Castlevania]]'' games is largely a Useless Useful Item. Paying 5 hearts to stop time for 5 seconds sounds like a good
** It is, however, very useful in the game's many platform sequences where you have to make precise jumps and enemies fly around you trying to knock you into the [[Bottomless Pit]].
** ''Haunted Castle'' makes the watch cost only ''two'' hearts, making it actually efficient.
** 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?
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** Although they do give nice experience even when they miss.
** In Radiant Dawn, the Sleep Staff is a definite aversion: You're given one in an Info Conversation on [[That One Level|Chapter 3-13]]... given the [[Rogue Protagonist|boss of that chapter]] [[Game Breaker|is the strongest unit in the game]], [[Hopeless Boss Fight|and he gets much stronger back up on turn 10]], you pretty much have to take him out, before he kills you horribly, but has a very low RES stat, meaning he can be hit by the staff... it's pretty much your only hope.
** FE 4's "Berserk Sword"
* ''[[
* ''[[
** The reason that the instant death spells have such high levels of success is because they were built that way. Eternum has a 100% chance of instant killing anything not totally immune to instant death, and does a pretty decent amount of damage to anything that is. While this may sound like an aversion, it also costs a fairly large amount of SP.
* The online RPG ''[http://www.rinkworks.com/vault Murkon's Refuge]'' has many high-level spells that attempt to paralyze, silence, or even instantly kill entire monster groups. Naturally, the highest dungeon levels are rife with monsters immune to these spells, especially the undead and the ones capable of paralyzing your front-row characters in a single hit. In a semi-subversion, you can actually retrain your characters into Assassins who can deliver similar instant-paralysis hits (without having to use MP!) and even instant-death critical hits (at least on the non-immune monsters). Plus, you can make your own characters immune to paralysis if you boost their armor class enough.
* Mesmers in ''[[Guild Wars]]'' are dangerous in [[
** Interrupts are essential Mesmer fare in [[
** Hexes still work, though. Actually, they work better in [[Player Versus Environment|PVE]] because the AI is too stupid to stop attacking/casting through them.
** Conditions still work on bosses as well (though some bosses are only affected for half the stated duration). Daze is extremely helpful in Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North, since bosses get a 2x damage bonus.
** Inverted, even, with certain hexes that have an effect if they end without being removed, since they end faster. In particular, Wastrel's Worry (Which deals damage after a certain amount of time if the target hasn't used a skill) becomes spamable and does quite a bit of pain.
* Nearly every offensive spell in the first ''[[Harvest Moon|Rune Factory]]'', as the player character only has 100 [[Mana|RP]] per day to work with (for the most part) and the spells have a fixed RP cost. Fixed in the sequel, where magic costs decrease with practice just like every other ability.
* The ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' [[Updated Rerelease|Final Mixes]] seemed to be bent on making the respective games'
** Vexen can be ''incredibly'' trivialized in Final Mix 2+. You can attack while moving so you can avoid the trap that collects data and summons a Shadow Sora while you destroy his shield...then what do you do after that? FIRAGA SPAM!!! Lexaeus also likewise requires you to pretty much spam reflect unless you don't wanna get crushed by tons of boulders.
*** However, Reflect is an ''extremely'' useful skill even in the original Kingdom Hearts II. It not only prevented enemies from damaging you, but it could be cast three times in succession and [[Exactly What It Says
* In the ''[[Mega Man (
** The two exceptions are the Leaf Shield and Junk Shield. The former takes hits quite well and can destroy an unlimited number of annoying Pipi birds and weaker enemies, but you automatically throw it when you press the D-pad. The latter lets you move freely and is very durable; enemies gradually wear it down by breaking off small pieces of it upon contact.
*** The Water Shield from ''Mega Man 10'' is similar to the Junk Shield, and while not as strong defensively as the Jewel Satellite, it is often the go-to weapon against large enemies due to the number of times it can hit.
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** The Mirror Buster, which you get from Enker in the DLC, is ''awesome''. Sure it only creates a shield in front of you, but it costs nothing unless something actually hits it, in which case it sends back a powerful energy burst. Besides being great against Joes and Mets (and Punk and Enker himself), it works against things you wouldn't expect, like the Pointan's blocks and the big [[Frickin' Laser Beams]] fired by Sola 0.
*** For the record, the weapon showed up in the original [[Game Boy]] game as well, but there, it was compensated for by only showing up in the final level, and having to reserve it for the Wily Machine, which was weak to it.
* It could be argued that all Magirock spells in ''[[Terranigma]]'' falls under this category - most of the standard enemies are relatively easy to dispatch through conventional means, and Magirock is not usable in nearly all boss battles.
** The key word there is ''"nearly".'' You are notably allowed to use magic against at least one boss- [[That One Boss|THAT one boss.]] Bloody Mary.
* In ''Legend of Legaia'', one of the Seru whose powers you can absorb is Nighto, and when used by one of your characters, has the power to either confuse or kill a single enemy. Sounds pretty good, right? Well...the chances of confusion actually working are fairly low (compounded by the fact that confusion, although doing exactly what one would expect in that it causes monsters to attack fellow monsters, tends to last only one turn on stronger beasts, much like other status changes in this game), and the chances of actually killing an opponent are almost nil. But, there's one glorious exception, and that's the ''very'' difficult mid-game boss Berserker, where Nighto's chances of instantly killing Berserker are actually quite good.
** Legaia's fairly bad about this, actually - the majority of your Seru (essentially your magic spells and main means of dealing out huge damage to bosses) will reduce enemy stats or have other such effects at higher levels... but typically kill normal enemies in one hit, and ''of course'' bosses are immune to these effects. And even if someone does bother to fight normal enemies, magic doesn't regenerate and boss fights are generally wars of attrition that involve healing spells ''every turn''... hope you stored a lot of mana poti- I mean mana leaves.
* ''[[Valkyrie Profile]] 2'' often had useful status effects against bosses - paralysis, Frailty (which stopped enemies from healing themselves) and some are even susceptible to ''Stone''.
** The same happens in other ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' games. In the first, Might Reinforce and Sap Guard are two of the best spells in the game. There are very few spells that afflict just status, but they are capable of damaging so they are not entirely worthless. And in ''[[Covenant Of The Plume]]'', moves such as Suspend Motion are very useful (just not on bosses), and it's possible to Sap Guard or Sap Power the bosses.
* ''The Spirit Engine'' has a really vicious one. At first, the Life Drain spell seems really great - it deals the highest damage in the game, doesn't take too long to cast and completly bypasses any protection an enemy may have. And it really IS great for the majority of the game. {{spoiler|And then you come to the final two bosses. Not only are they two the [[That One Boss|worst difficulty spikes]] I've EVER seen, they're also completly immune to this spell. Since you likely sunk all your skill points into this spell, what with it looking like a gamebreaker, you'll be left with at least one useless character.}} Since combats are luck-indepentent in The Spirit Engine, you may have rendered your game unwinnable.
** Fortunately the skill system is set up so that unleveled skills are still ok if used in an appropriate situation, and you can't put more than half your points in one skill (unless you count putting the rest in HP/MP). The shield spells are still useful for the semifinal boss and the final boss's first and third forms. The problem is if you were so foolish as to rely on the spell that completely ignores armor as your main method of beating armor, because the final boss's ''second'' form has obscenely high damage resistance that half the game's attacks can barely dent, and shields are only useful as a backup plan if you fail to stop secondary
* Bombchu in the Gameboy Color ''Zelda'' games. In the N64 games they could ''sometimes'' be useful to hit far-off bomb sites that a normal bomb can't reach, and ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
** The Bombchus in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
** There's also the Bombchus in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
* ''Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships'' contains a particularly egregious example. In one of the most involved and lengthy quests you can eventually gain a special item that allows you to resurrect any of your companions who get killed in combat (and who, given the game's relatively realistic setting, would otherwise be [[Final Death|gone for good]]). Sounds great, except for the fact that raising them makes all items in their inventory disappear, which means that, assuming you can even ''carry'' all that additional weight, you have to loot the corpse first before you resurrect your companion, and afterwards give all the stuff back to the crewman in question, and all that in one of the worst inventory systems ever conceived in a computer game. In short, rather than actually ''use'' the ability it's easier to choose the lesser of two annoyances and simply load a saved game, hoping the bugger won't die this time.
* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]: [[Soul Reaver]]'' has glyph spells. They're only attainable by completing increasingly complicated side-levels (some of which would be nigh-impossible without a strategy guide). Since the bosses are all puzzle-fights (figure out their one weakness, which always involves environmental weapons), the glyphs are useless against them. In addition, the "magic points" necessary to use them are limited and hidden. On top of that, only two of the 6 glyphs could consistently kill normal enemies. The only reasons to actually use them are laziness (they restrain/kill enemies in a large area), gratification for completing the ridiculous puzzles necessary to find them, and because they look cool.
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* Averted in ''Heroes of Might and Magic 4'', where clever use of these spell allow a lone hero to defeat entire legions of enemies.
** In fact, buffs and debuffs are key in the Heroes of Might and Magic series. If you have 500 Conscripts attacking at once, which hardly put a dent in your wallet, Blessing them to do 2 damage instead of 1-or-2 can earn you up to 500 extra points of damage, and that's using one of the most pathetic units in the games as an example.
* ''[[
** Then you fight a boss that is NOT immune to being [[Taken for Granite]], making him being killed in two or three hits.
* Attack spells, especially single target ones, in quite a few RPGs, especially if healing spells are available for the MP to be used on. Who is going to spend even 2 MP on spells that the most powerful of which rarely deal much more damage than your physical attacks? For that matter, why not use that MP on healing if plausible so that your characters live to deal ''more'' damage? ''[[
* The learnable technique Influence in ''[[Breath of Fire]] 3'' is generally useless. It's meant to order anyone influencable in the battle to attack a specified target every turn until they die. Of course, ''very'' few monsters listen to this, other than a handful of goblins. [[Game Breaker|Use it when you send a specific one of your own characters into an increasingly berserk Weretiger form, however...]]
** Another example is the Resist spell, whichmakes the caster immune to damage at the expense of his or her own turn. Useless in its own right, but it finds a purpose with the chain formation when your fastest (and defensively weakest) character is leading the team and taking most of the damage.
* In ''[[
* The Scrambler perk in ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2''. In theory, it lets you jam enemy radars, so that they won't know where you and your teammates are. In practice, it tells them exactly how close you are, and they can still read their radar perfectly fine until you're very close. There's also a killstreak reward called the Counter-UAV, which does it much better and with no drawbacks.
* Defender missiles in [[
* The Cure and Detoxify spells in ''[[Ragnarok Online]]''. The former cures [[Standard Status Effects|Blind, Confusion, and Silence,]] while the latter cures Poison. Both spells are covered under a single, dirt-cheap, Green Potion purchasable at Tool Dealers in almost every town.
* Thrown rocks in ''[[Ancient Domains of Mystery]]'' are an inversion of this: even to low-level player characters, they are usually just a nuisance, while they remain a very useful weapon for player characters of every level. The latter is because missile damage in ADOM is primarily dependent on the fixed damage bonus that grows with experience, with negligible hit dice (1d4 for rocks) from the missile itself.
* Any magic spell in ''[[
* Most status effect skills in ''[[
** 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 ''[[
** It's worth noting, however, that the very few enemies against which the shock element is genuinely useful are the ONLY type of enemy present in the penultimate stage of the game...which happens to be the best grinding area there is. The worth of grinding in Borderlands is debatable, but if you plan to attempt it holding onto a good shock weapon pays dividends.
** In addition, shock weapons have the second highest critical hit damage bonuses, to balance for them having such a small variety of enemy's weak against their element. This makes shock SMGS and sniper rifles very good weapons to have with shock, given that both classes have very high critical hit rates.
* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei]]: [[Strange Journey]]'' has a series of spells that hit all enemies for "heavy" damage and have a chance to inflict status
* In ''[[Baten Kaitos]] Origins'', you can get a variety of artifact magnus that do things such as ward damage off, display enemy health, or slow the opposing party down. However, most of those are too limited to be of any real use, and given how the battle system in this game works, it's much smarter to just pack weapons and armor.
* ''[[Civilization]] IV'' has several Civics that are of varying usefulness. Probably the most notorious for this trope, however, was Environmentalism. In its original form, it gave your cities a small Health boost, plus one Happiness for each forest and jungle within your culture's borders. The problem is that you got a production bonus for ''clearing'' jungles and forest, and you can't use Environmentalism until very late in the game, so by the time you can access it, it gives you almost ''nothing''. Fortunately, Firaxis retooled this with the ''Beyond The Sword'' expansion - in it, Environmentalism gave a substantially larger Health bonus, another one for building Public Transportation, and a ''money'' bonus for Windmills (which are useful anyway) and Forest Preserves (which give Happiness on their own). This made Environmentalism a very useable late-game Civic.
* Garlic in ''[[
* ''[[
* Splash potions in ''[[Minecraft]]''. Splash potions are just potion effects that can be thrown and affect anyone caught in range. In general, the only kind of potions you could use on monsters are harming (damage) weakness (less damage), and slowness (slower movement). Not only do monsters rarely cluster together to make these potions effective, but you can wind up hurting yourself if you are too close. Not to mention undead monsters are immune to some effects and get healed by potions of harming. On top of this, Ghasts and Ender Dragons fly out of your sword range so you can never hit them with a splash potion. It's just a lot easier and faster to attack monsters with your sword or your bow and arrow. However, on multiplayer severs, splash potions can become valuable if you are fighting several players at once.
* [[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!
**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.
**Cryogonal, Minior, and Dhelmise can all learn Attract. Too bad these three Pokémon are genderless and can't do anything with this move...
**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.
**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.
**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.
**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!
**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.
**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!
**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.
**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.
**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]].
* 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
▲== Card Games ==
* 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.▼
▲* 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''.
* 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.▼
▲** 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.
* ''[[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.▼
▲* ''[[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 [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...
▲** ''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.
▲== 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]] 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.)
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** And of course, the instantly-killing spells. Unlike other instant-death examples which tend to have low odds of killing ONE opponent, the series has developed horrors such as ''Die For Me!'' and ''Judgment Light'', both of which have the potential to utterly waste every member of any enemy party with an 80% degree of accuracy. Granted, the series' trademark difficulty makes it a point not to make every [[Mook]] vulnerable to one or the other, and mostly you'll have to start from ''Mudo'' and ''Hama''... which do have low chances of killing, but can be abused with the right enemies. And even though they can't kill bosses, most ''normal'' enemies in the game can be killed by them, and quite a few normal enemies can be major [[Demonic Spiders]] made much easier with Hama or Mudo.
** Finally, we have [[Standard Status Effects]]. Not only they have a great hit chance (which can be boosted), they are much powerful than normal. As an example, Poison deals high damage AND can kill. Finally, most status in the games (most of them, at least), drops the Critical Hit resistance ''a lot'', if not ensuring Critical Hits. That, coupled with Press Turn system, means that sometimes it's ''best to inflict an status effect on an enemy than directly kill him''.
* In most RPGs, status-altering skills are pointless. In ''[[
** Some enemy can take the usefulness [[Up to Eleven]] though. One of the [[Bonus Boss]] in the third game is notably easier if you play with a limited amount of party member and a Beastmaster to summon enough beast with the exact status altering skills, thus nulifying most of the boss attack, including its [[One-Hit Kill]]. To put it simply, strategy in team building is the most important part of these games.
* Notably averted in the ''[[
* 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
** 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.
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*** This is actually a bug. The chainsaw was only supposed to work on opponents with a lower strength stat than yours. Instead, it only works on opponents with a ''higher'' strength stat.
** Stone is very good in random encounters in [[Makaitoushi Sa Ga]]. Best of all, it works on an entire group of enemies.
** In ''[[
** ''[[
* Many relatively early [[RPG
** In ''Wizardry'', the easiest way to kill Werdna was a critical hit from a Ninja. His escort of Vampire Lords tended to give you more trouble.
* The ''Bard's Tale'' games pretty much have no immunities or even significant resistances at all. The [[Big Bad]] of the first game can be killed by a relatively simple death spell, which is only fair considering he and his cohorts are flinging one-hit kills right back at you.
* Averted almost entirely in the ''[[Pokémon]]'' series. Most status-changing abilities are usually effective. If they aren't, it's either because it's a One-Hit KO move (Fissure), or it's because the status effect is an unexpected bonus (Ice Beam). Not only that but the "bosses" in
** Unfortunately, the Stadium sidegames do have a rather awful variant of this, where the odds of it working and wearing off have been altered severely, as have the hit accuracies of everything, and the evasion chance, and the critical hit chance. Worse, [[Finagle's Law|they've been altered both in your opponent's favor and against your own at the same time]]. [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|Opponents can slaughter your team with moves that are supposed have 30% hit chance, and any status effect they hit you with will generally last the max duration or kick in far more than it should]] (or both, in the case of confusion. It can last up to eight turns and has an on-paper one in four chance of causing the Pokemon to attack itself rather than the opponent. Naturally, many of the later opponent Pokemon have a move causing this.) Meanwhile, in the unlikely event your status effect move hits, the effect rarely activates or the Pokemon shakes it off within a turn.
** There are still actual Useless Useful Spells, though; one move in particular (Feint) is intended to specifically bypass moves like Protect, the problem being it doesn't really do anything but bypass Protect, etc. Since so few Pokemon use those moves to begin with, you're better off giving up on it.
*** Although Feint is still a high priority move, like Quick Attack and the like, moreso, it deals more damage than Quick Attack.
** Due to [[Game Breaking Bug
*** The reason for this was a typo in the game's code - it was meant to increase the chance of a critical hit by 25%, or in other words multiply it by 1.25. Instead, the code used multiplied the chance of a critical hit by 0.25, quartering it.
** There's also a move called "Attract", which sets a status that makes the opponent fail to attack 50% of the time. However, the move only works on Pokemon of the opposite gender, it doesn't work at all on Pokemon with no gender (like Porygon or most legendaries), and is cured by removing the affected Pokemon or the one that used the move from battle. Attract can be useful, but only in combination with with other moves (that also decrease the chance of successfully moving) it stacks with. At least one official match, Venus in Colosseum, uses it to good effect.)
*** Attract becomes [[Game Breaker|entirely the opposite]] in the first two [[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]] games, however, where they just ignored gender completely. As such, [[Everyone Is Bi|it works on every single Pokemon]], including legendaries, and it also prevents them from attacking 100% of the time rather than 50%. This was fixed in the later Mystery Dungeon games, which give Pokemon genders like in the main series.
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** Players who do most of their battling either in-game or in casual matches (where the simplest - and often best - strategy is to simply spam super effective attacks) with friends might be surprised to find out that, in the serious competitive [[Metagame]], ''tons'' of attacks that get a passing glance in casual matches are practically ways of life. Moves like [[Standard Status Effects|Thunder Wave and Spore]] go from just being used to catch Pokemon to the preferred method of crippling the opposing team, and fellow status moves Will-O-Wisp and Toxic join them to inflict passive damage on hugely defensive Pokemon (or in the former's case, to effectively neuter physical attackers). [[Status Buff|Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, Dragon Dance, and their ilk]] are the standard for lategame sweeping. Moves like Substitute, Knock Off, Leech Seed, U-Turn, and a host of others that [[Difficult but Awesome|take some practice to learn to use properly]] can ''wreck entire teams'' if played correctly. And then there's entry hazards, one of which (Stealth Rock) is such a ubiquitous and dangerous move that an otherwise fantastic Pokemon can be reduced to a joke if it has a weakness to Rock types.
* In ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'', you'll notice that none of your spells affect status, though there are the requisite [[Status Buff]] spells - ''very'' useful. Instead, the status-changing effects (from the second game on) are equipped to your attacks, similar to Junction. Delay works surprisingly often against bosses, Petrify and Instant Death help a great deal against [[Demonic Spiders]], and even if they don't trigger, you still get your attack and don't use up MP.
* The Poison status effect in ''[[Disgaea]]'' is universally lethal as it does a fixed percentage of your HP in damage each turn, even with a serious level difference between you and your enemies.
** Additionally, it's possible to overcome any status effect resistance by going to the Item World, subduing the proper specialist for that condition, and move to the weapon of choice to increase the ability of it to inflict that effect, as well as how long it can last/how likely the victim is to resist it (it works similarly for elemental resistances, just with different specialists).
* 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 ''[[
** 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}}.
** The useless ''Pray'' spell that more than often cursed your party with a negative ailment? {{spoiler|You need to use it during the final fight with Giygas.}}
** ''[[
*** 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 ''[[
*** PK Thunder is greatly improved in ''[[
** 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).
* Also averted in ''[[
* The [[Heroes of Might and Magic]] series has both, and sometimes the spell's usefulness is directly related to the hero using it. Most of these classics are best in the hands of Might oriented heroes to buff their troops, while a Magic hero is better advised to use his turns to sling damage spells or spells like Puppet Master. Most spells also work regardless of the enemy faced, though the undead are immune to a number of debuffs and some other creatures are highly resistant to magic in general.
** Creatures with spells are a special case as the spell effect doesn't scale well with the size of the stack. A couple of mages have relatively strong spells, but when you get into the hundreds it's generally better to just have them attack instead.
* The Dominus Glyphs in ''[[Castlevania]]: Order of Ecclesia''. The two attack ones are quite powerful... but also damage you heavily every time you use them. You can put all three together for a combination attack that deals obscene
* 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
* 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.
** Except for Crushing Prison, which will nearly never hold down very tough bosses (orange names), but Force Field will.
*** It stil does have its uses against tough bosses because it inflicts damage over time. It certainly isn't a waste; considering the other DoT doesn't work on bosses.
** There is one shining example in the form of 'Curse of Mortality', which inflicts minor DoT and prevents healing. Extremely dangerous in enemy hands but useless to the Player since few enemies can heal anyway and it only affects a single target.
*** Though in an interesting twist this spell is absolutely critical to defeating Gaxx'kang the unstoppable bonus boss. Otherwise it is a brutal dawn out brawl in which he heals and you feel pain.
* In the .hack//G.U. trilogy, status effects (charm, paralysis, curse, etc) can be equipped to weapons or learned as magic. They're quite effective at shutting down regular enemies, even bosses like Doppelganger.
** In the older IMOQ quadrilogy, debuffing pesky enemies with paralyze or sleep becomes pretty much ''the'' most efficient ways to dispatch regular enemies. Particularly the lethal Lich series of mobs which is fast, casts very deadly spells, and can be summarily executed by putting it to Sleep first and then hacking it to bits (due to its low physical def stat).
* While ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' is mostly in the "more efficient to just beat the enemies up than debuff them ''then'' beat them up" camp, ''[[
** The [[Bonus Boss]] Odin. He's got lethal hit-all attacks, and will insta-kill you in 60 seconds. He is not, however, immune to the "Break" petrification-effect. Trying to hit him with the actual "Break" spell won't be very effective, however, due to its inherent low hit-rate. The solution is to use the "[[Magic Knight]]" job, which can enhance a sword with a magical spell, activate "Break Blade", and finish Odin with a [[Single
*** The Bio spell at first glance appears to be a typical poison spell. However, even if an enemy cannot be poisoned, Bio is the most powerful spell available for the majority of the game and does about 40% more damage than the second-level elemental spells.
*** Hilariously, L5 Death works on bosses (provided their level is divisible by 5). DarkShock (halves the target's level and does some rounding if necessary) also works as does L2 Old (gives the target a debuff that gradually lowers their level). So with proper timing, almost any boss can be taken out by L5 Death.
*** One of the bosses in the Final Dungeon is a Blue Mage. If you attack him with Exploder, he will use it on his next turn, effectively committing suicide.
*** You can't talk about FFV without menthoining the insanly overpowered "mix" ability. Now, there are a few examples that stand out. One combination of items, I forgot what it's called, gives you berserk, image, and haste. not quite useless, but towards end-game you are using special skills that do more damage than a normal-super powered attack. Here are a few pre-cursors to this info. First, berserk over-writes any A.I. scripts. So anything a boss would normally do, he doesn't. transforming, final attacks, yadda-yadda. second, the combination bypasses any immunities a boss might have. {{spoiler|After you think you beat the final boss in the game, he transforms into a stronger form. Unless, of course you use the combo on him. he'll just die. no transforming, no death soliloquies, nothing.}}
** ''[[
*** Additionally, Reflect will usually land on
** ''[[
*** [[
*** Several appendages of the final boss are vulnerable to the Death spell, a fact used in at least one [[Self-Imposed Challenge|low-level run]]'s strategy.
*** The Vanish status would prevent physical attacks, but make magic ''always'' hit. The check for Instant Death immunity (but not other status ailments) would be skipped if the target was Vanished. Result? [[Game Breaker|Almost every monster in the game could be killed by casting Vanish and Doom (or X-Zone) on it.]] The Playstation rerelease made a select few bosses that could break the game immune to '''''Vanish''''' of all things, before the Game Boy Advance version came along and quietly fixed the bug, making all three spells Useless Useful Spells again.
** ''Final Fantasy VIII'' averts this trope HARD when played right. Though most bosses will not fall to sudden death, they have at least a small chance of becoming poisoned, confused, etc, and as always, Revive Kills Zombie. But you would still have to do the spell quite a few times and use them from your stocks to get the effect, right? No. Junction 100 of a status spell to your ST-ATK-J (Status-Attack-Junction) and, considering all the physical attacking you'll be doing, you're almost guaranteed to get the effect on the boss.
** ''[[
*** To clarify, in the first ''[[SaGa]]'' game, the final boss could be killed with the saw, which was an instant-death item. It was only supposed to be used on weaker enemies than the player, but a [[Good Bad Bug]] made it work on stronger enemies.
*** In fact, it's probably safe to say that if an enemy's [[Enemy Scan|Libra scan]] says it's "susceptible to [Insert Status Name Here]", it roughtly translates as "if you don't use said status, [[That One Boss|YOU. WILL. DIE.]]"
** The easiest way to defeat ''[[Final Fantasy XIII
** Believe it or not, [[Final Fantasy IX
*** Similarly, what is normally [[That One Boss]] in ''[[
** The various modes of {{spoiler|[[Final Fantasy X
*** Also, poisoning the "pet" in fight 3 is an easy way to get the boss to kill itself.
** In ''[[Final Fantasy X
** Likewise, very few of XII's Marks are immune to all status effects. Usually, you can find one that cripples an otherwise massively powerful mark (exampe: use Berserk on the Mindflayer).
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]: [[Kingdom Hearts: 358
** Vexen can even inflict freezing with his melee combos.
** Stop is one way to kill Black Mushrooms in the first ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' game. A very effective way at that.
** At higher levels in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', Gravity becomes a very useful attack, especially against [[Elite Mooks]] like the Behemoth. Continually cating Gravity on his horn will deplete his health far faster then keyblade combos will, at least when he still has high HP. Also, during the [[No
** Magnet meanwhile in ''[[
*** By the time you've got Magnega, there isn't a single basic enemy that will honestly last more than 5 seconds against you if you use it right. And it actually affects {{spoiler|Sephiroth}} ''and'' {{spoiler|Xemnas}}. Magnega = Broken.
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]] Birth By Sleep'' inverts this trope vis-a-vis status effects so hard it may be subverting it. Status effects on any of your three heroes make for a rare, mildly annoying experience. Meanwhile, the myriad status spells available to the player from very, very early on in all three modes will utterly devastate the vast majority of [[Mook
** And yes, if you are playing Proud Mode or higher, YOU. WILL. NEED. ALL OF THEM. Seriously, it's almost a requirement to deal with tougher Unversed and bosses.
* Most bosses in ''[[Touhou Project|Labyrinth of Touhou]]'' are pretty vulnerable to debuffs and status effects (though some are immune and some are more vulnerable than others). A good thing, as you really NEED those debuffs and statuses to stand a chance at winning most of the time... Also, random encounters on later floors can be difficult enough that it's imperative to have a fast character paralyze them before they can act so slower attackers can dismantle them without worrying about getting hit.
* [[Sands of Destruction]], although it tends to go in and out of this trope. Buffs are ''highly'' useful. One of the best abilities in the game, though? Naja's Cleansing Cry...because when the enemies buff ''themselves'', they can get to be ''VERY'' annoying and wipe out an unbuffed party while dodging ''everything'' that gets thrown at them. Debuffs? Meh...you can just wipe 'em out.
* In ''Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon'', most opponents are vulnerable to status
** Addendum: Magic Pots also appear to be resistant/invulnerable to status effects (as well as resistant to magic in general).
* The Stasis skill in ''[[Mass Effect]]'' may at first seem like a useless useful skill: it freezes the intended target, but also makes them invulnerable. However, this can be useful in situations where there is one very strong
** The [[Mass Effect 2]] version of Stasis also gets pegged into this trope, despite actually being one of the most devastating status effects if used correctly. There are three reasons for why Stasis is good. The first is it is one of the few non-damage oriented abilities in the game that actually works without removing enemy defenses first. The second reason is that enemies hit with Stasis take significantly more damage between the time Stasis wears off and when they get back on their feet.<ref>This is an intended effect, when Stasis wears off the enemy ragdolls and falls to the floor, both of which cause damage x2 while in effect for a total of x4</ref> You can legitimately one shot many enemies in this time period. The third is a bug which for a brief moment causes the difficulty level to not be taken into account when dealing damage meaning that enemies take damage as though the game were at Easy difficulty regardless of the actual difficulty, so while it is supposed to allow you to deal massive damage to enemies as part of the design it ends up being [[Beneficial Bug]] overkill and one hit killing them. The major point is that none of this is listed in the game so most players look at the immediate effect of the ability, which isn't that useful most of the time, without ever realizing about the damage boost when it wears off.
* In [[Gothic]] 2, there is a spell that does truely massive damage cheaply, but only to undead. The [[Big Bad]] is undead. Three casts of this spell kill him in seconds. I'd be disappointed if it wasn't for the fact that it's an undead dragon that fights exactly the same as the 5 dragons you already beat before this point, just with a bit more hitpoints.
* Averted in ''[[Nethack]]''; once you've learned "Finger of Death", that's all the offensive magic you'll ever need.
** 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.
* [[Vampires Dawn]]: In both games, using the Suck Blood ability (which has no costs and also refills part of your blood pool for further magics) causes a Bleed status effect that damages enemy health every turn in a percental value...and it lasts the entire fight. It also affects nearly every enemy, except for those that logically do not have blood, golems and such. Of which there are not many anyway. Needless to say, using Suck Blood on a tougher boss in the first turn is a VERY useful way to kill them quickly.
* 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.
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