Useless Useful Spell: Difference between revisions

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".

 

 

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.

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'', the original RPG, completely inverts this trope; traditionally Useless Useful Spells tend to be the most useful spells in the game, with direct damage spells falling well below them in power level. This is because most spells are equally likely to succeed in affecting a foe, thus a spell which can kill a foe is far more effective than a spell which can hurt one. Some status affecting spells automatically succeed, and many others are essentially the same as spells which outright kill foes because they completely disable them for long periods of time, allowing players to kill them at their leisure. Relatively few foes are immune to such spells, while many foes are resistant to elemental damage spells, adding insult to injury. A wide variety of spells which don't even directly harm opponents are also extremely powerful, and all in all this leads to wizards and other powerful spellcasters being [[Game Breaker|game breakers]]. This is played straight however in the "mobility" feat, which gives you an AC bonus against Attacks of Opportunity, the problem is that anyone who needs the [[Prestige Class]] or feats it qualifies you for has Tumble, which means you don't provoke [[Ao O]]...

** But it gets nasty in the ''[[Epic Level Handbook]]''. If you look at the creature section, you'll see 9 times out of 10 that the creature is immune to: Paralyze, Sleep, Polymorph, Level Drain, Instant Death, Necromancy Effects (those last 3 makes Epic Necromancers hinge their teeth in frustration), Stun, Mind Effects, Daze, Criticals (just to make critical specialization useless). Not to mention that in turn these monsters will almost certain have something like Implosion, Weird or Wail of Banshee at will (save or die for the whole group) and one or two nastier epic spell once a day. Not to mention Greater Dispel or Epic Dispel at will to take out any immunity to death spell the group might have. Of course this is sort of offset by the fact that by then the characters gain the ability to resurrect themselves at will with no XP penalties (there's a price, but minor by now). Still, I didn't get at the billion and one ways these creatures have to kill character class without any chance of revival.

** Oddly enough, the trope is followed in ''[[Dungeons and Dragons Online (Video Game)|Dungeons and Dragons Online]]'', the MMORPG. Although instant kills are still very effective against [[Mooks]], bosses are immune to most if not all mind-affecting and instant death spells. Thankfully, this only applies to the main bosses of dungeons, and, anyway, fights with them are not supposed to be [[Anticlimax Boss|"CHAAARGE - Oh, he died."]]

*** 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.

*** 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.

* 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.

** 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.

** 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.

** 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 attack--once. The game throws you a bone with [[The Cavalry]] showing up if you're losing with a strong attack... except there's no real way of protecting the guy and his health will not last through the battle. The author learned his lesson and in the next game the only boss that has damage soak higher than the stronger normal enemies is an optional fight.

* 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 (Video Game)|Phantom Hourglass]]'' made their use essential, but ''[[The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Oracle Games]]''? You'll never need them. Ever. They're completely pointless. Worse, you can only get them by completing ALL of one game and at least a significant portion of the other. By the time you get them, you don't need them.

* ''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.

** 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, ''[[Final Fantasy V (Video Game)|Final Fantasy V]]'' actually averts most if not ''all'' of this trope, what with how many bosses simply don't have just ''one'' strategy for defeating them - some strategies for beating bosses involve crippling the boss with moves like Mute or Stop, or even deleveling them and then using moves whose effectiveness are dependent on levels. (Namely Level 5 Doom - which inflicts instant death on enemies whose levels are multiples of 5.) For this reason, Blue Mages are often a [[Game Breaker]] - and rightfully so!

*** 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.

*** 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.]]"

** 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.

** Magnet meanwhile in ''[[Kingdom Hearts II (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts II]]'' is ''obviously'' a very good way to grind - some heartless don't just stay still, Magnet remedies that.

*** 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.

[[Category:This Index Is Useless]]

[[Category:Useless Useful Spell]]