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Useless Useful Spell: Difference between revisions

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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[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.
*** 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 ''[[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.
** 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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== Video Games ==
* [[Might and Magic]] VI is a weird mix of aversion and using this trope. For one, most mind spells are useless against almost all tough enemies, which is where you would want to use them. There is a spell called Finger of Death which instantly kills a foe but has small rate of success ([[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|however your foes have much higher rates than you]]) and it's completely ineffective against tougher foes; plus you don't have access to it early on. On the other hand, there is a percentage damage spell which is extremely effective against powerful enemies (mass distortion) and other feels-like-cheating spells join the chorus as well, such as Fly, Town Portal and Lloyd's Beacon (instant teleport, by placing gates wherever the hell you want). And again, on the other side of table, you have spirit magic, a whole school of magic, which becomes completely redundant when you acquire light and dark magic, save for the life sharing spell, because there are three spells in these schools which cast all of the protective and boosting spirit ones, at a much higher level (they also send a fair amount of the other schools to the trash). There are also spells like fear, petrify, paralyze, etc, which only work on very low-level foes, making them redundant (by the time you acquire them). There's a resurrection spell on spirit magic, but after you become master of water it becomes redundant, since you can town portal to a temple and have them resurrect you.
* Though this is mostly averted in the game, ''[[Persona 4]]'' has light and dark spells, which only work on mooks, because they insta-kill. This is also brought up in ''[[Persona 4 (Anime)|Persona 4: The Animation]]'', during the boss fight with Shadow Naoto.
** Not just Persona 4--Hama and Mudo have this problem in basically every [[Megami Tensei]] game.
* ''[[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 ''[[Final Fantasy X (Video Game)|Final Fantasy X]]'' [[Revive Kills Zombie|practically requires Zombify]] (unless you took a short side trip to the [[Game Breaker|Omega Ruins]]).
** The Gravity/Demi spells in almost any ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' suffer from a similar, if not quite identical, problem. Gravity spells cannot traditionally kill your enemy -- it deals a percentage of their current health as damage, usually in increments of 10% or 25%. Theoretically, this is very useful for bosses and strong enemies -- however, both of these tend to be resistant or immune to gravity. When they're not, though, it's often quite effective. It was also one of the best spells in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' since it could work on several enemies in close quarters and would pull them to the ground and immobilize them; in the sequel, however, it was removed and replaced with the Magnet spell, one with somewhat more obvious uses.
*** The Demi series, surprisingly, works against [[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Emerald]] [[Bonus Boss|WEAPON]]. Since Emerald has, literally, [[Marathon Boss|a million hit points]], you'll do [[Cap|9,999]] damage with it on nearly every turn, and when it starts inflicting less than 9,999 it means you're almost there.
*** Several monsters in [[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]] ''absorb'' gravity—using it on them ''restores'' a percentage of their HP instead! With the right combination of [[Green Rocks|materia]] (Elemental paired with Gravity on your armor) and sufficient [[Level Grinding]] (you need 40,000 AP on an Elemental materia), you could do this to your party as well.
** 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 ''[[Final Fantasy I (Video Game)|Final Fantasy I]]'', who can be killed instantly with BANE or BRAK (though it'll take you a few tries).
** 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).
** ''[[Final Fantasy I (Video Game)|Final Fantasy I]]'' had more useless spells than any other game. AMUT reversed the effect of silence spells, except there is only one enemy in the entire game that uses it and your chances of ever seeing said enemy use it are slim. RUB, ZAP, QUAK and XXXX were all useless instant death spells because by the time you could learn them... all enemies were invulnerable to it, except those that a White Mage could kill in a single punch. Even useful spells like HEAL, LIT2 FIR2 and others could be replicated by specific weapons and armors used as items during battles (Thor's Hammer for instance can cast LIT2).
*** 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.
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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.
* ''[[Baldurs Gate|Baldur's Gate]]'' and its sequel. Bosses were invariably immune, petrification and disintegration would destroy your enemy's loot as well, and silencing was ''particularly'' useless, as every enemy wizard would immediately cast the "Vocalize" counterspell. Of course, ''you'' had to make sure to be protected against all of this; helmets of Charm Protection were indispensable. However, there were exceptions; debuff spells like "Dispel Magic" were indispensable even in your hands, since many of the bosses and mini-bosses of the game were spellcasters with so many protective spells stacked on that they were literally invulnerable without their aid. Furthermore, in the first game many of the bosses can be Charmed and even forced to kill themselves with their own spells.
** 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...
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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 ''[[Xenosaga (Video Game)|Xenosaga]]'' games were virtually useless, with the notable exception of spells to change a character's attack element that were available in Episode 2. Episode 3 largely remedied this issue.
* 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|Game Breakers]]).
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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.
* ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]]'' on any number of counts. That [[Infinity+1 Sword]] you picked up? You'll only be using it on [[Mooks]] you could easily kill anyway. Likewise, Bosses are functionally immune to most status effects, so the one case in which it would be worth your time to try for some strategy, it simply won't work. And in GS2, by the time you pick up the best Summon Magic in the game, there is exactly one creature left worth using it on, and the cost of doing so is very high; depending on your class setup, it can cost you your best healing for several rounds.
** 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!
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* 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.
* ''[[Etrian Odyssey (Video Game)|Etrian Odyssey]]'' manages to mostly avoid this trope (see Aversions below), but the Beast class suffers from a severe case of this trope with their Loyalty skill, which makes a Beast take a blow for any other available party member. The problem? Loyalty makes Beasts take damage depending on the Defense-stat of the character they're defending, as opposed to their own Defense <ref> So if your Beast is defending, say, an [[Squishy Wizard|Alchemist]], they'll take more damamge than if they were blocking a [[Stone Wall|Protector]] from the same attack</ref>. This ends up damaging the Beast-class as a whole, as some of the Beast skills require mastery of Loyalty to some degree.
** 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 and Conquer]]: Red Alert'', a few missions from the end the allies acquire the ability to use the Chronosphere, a teleportation device. However, in game (more powerful in [[Cutscene Power to Thethe Max]]), you can only teleport a single tank at once, and cannot teleport air units or APCs with people, with the given reason that the people in the APCs will die, which really doesn't make sense because the tanks have to have people in them (and a known cheat can disable it). This is largely corrected in Red Alert 2, where the Chronosphere has the power to teleport up to 9 small tanks, including vehicles with people in them, as well as some air units. In fact, you're able to teleport land units into the sea and sea units onto the land, making it somewhat of an offensive weapon too. Unshielded infantry still die in Chronoshifting.
** 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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** 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 ''[[Fate Stay Night|Fate/stay night]]'' in the form of the "Projection" magecraft, which allows users to create objects out of their own [[Mana]]. However, since it relies on the user's own image of the object, the result is always degraded from the original and disappears eventually. Basically, "if you know everything about the object and its material composition, why not just ''get'' the resources and physically make it?" However, it is also from this "useless" spell that the protagonist [[Field of Blades|gains his powers]].
** 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.
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** 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"-- a sword with a chance to inflict the [[Brainwashed and Crazy|Berserk Status]] upon foes. Seems useful, right? Well, it's only got a range of 1. Which means: Either the enemy is still going to attack you on their turn or, have already used it. So it's kinda pointless. However, the Staff has a 100% chance to hit if the enemy's MDEF is lower than the caster's MAG stat... which is an aversion. [[Hilarity Ensues]] when that hits the right target, like say, [[That One Boss]], when she's next to the [[Final Boss]].
* ''[[Mega Man X Command Mission (Video Game)|Mega Man X Command Mission]]'' suffers from this greatly, although spells are relegated to items. None of them will ever work...EVER unless they are attack or healing items.
* ''[[Skies of Arcadia (Video Game)|Skies of Arcadia]]'' plays this straight with the silver-magic "Instant Death" spells. Bosses use these (with [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|such high levels of success]]) so often that you must use Aika's magic-nullifying Delta Shield every single turn... which renders all your ''other'' spells useless! You're better off just using items, since they can replicate magic effects, cost no SP to use, bypass the Delta Shield and are [[Money for Nothing|piss-easy to acquire]].
** 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.
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* The ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' [[Updated Rerelease|Final Mixes]] seemed to be bent on making the respective games' [[Useless Useful Spell|useless useful spells, abilities, and forms]] into actually useful skills: Stop is necessary to defeat most of the added monsters in the original Final Mix, and the same for Aero (which was not so much useless as too costly for its benefits). In Final Mix+, a whole slew of [[Bonus Boss]] fights and [[That One Sidequest|sidequests]] became either significantly easier or even possible in the first place by cunning use of Wisdom Form, the by-far least useful of Sora's forms in the main game, or various kinds of magic (including [[Limit Break|limits]]), often eschewed in the main playthrough or the original versions as it is generally easy enough to off the mooks with regular attacks.
** 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 Onon the Tin|reflects damage back to the enemies.]] It was also essential if you want to win a tough fight quickly or didn't want to be hit by [[That One Boss|Xaldin's]] hurricane sweep in Beast's Castle.
* In the ''[[Mega Man (Videovideo Gamegame)|Mega Man]]'' games, the player may obtain a shield weapon which supposedly offers protection. But there were problems with many of them until Jewel Satellite in ''9''. Basically they would either disappear after anything hit it or were limiting in some way (such as if Mega Man moved, the shield would be "shot" in that direction). Rolling Shield in Mega Man X was a slight aversion, but the only enemies that didn't cause the shield to disappear were ''[[Goddamned Bats]]''.
** 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 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 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 Gamesof (VideoSeasons and Oracle of Game)Ages|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.
** The Bombchus in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess]]'' are equally useless...What they work best for (hitting far away or otherwise hard to reach targets) could be handled much more easily and quickly by just combining regular bombs with arrows for exploding arrows.
** There's also the Bombchus in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'', which you'll have no use for long before you get them. Their only uses are in the bowling alley, which is an optional sidequest, and one puzzle in the Spirit Temple.
* ''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.
* ''[[Devil Survivor (Video Game)|Devil Survivor]]'', despite being a ''[[Mega Ten]]'' game. Normal enemies die too quickly for status effects to be useful, and bosses are invariably immune to them. Buffs and instant kill abilities just don't exist.
** 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? ''[[Super Mario RPG (Video Game)|Super Mario RPG]]'' is a particularly big offender because you get a healer early on, your healing spells are very cost effective, and everybody ''shares [[Call a Hit Point Aa Smeerp|FP]]''; but any other RPG can be just as bad about it because the spells may run into immunities or even be ''absorbed''. Luckily for these spells, though, bestiaries have been put in use as of late, so the [[For Massive Damage|elemental weaknesses]] aren't as much of a potential [[Guide Dang It]] as before, although if you have to have already defeated the monster to know its weaknesses, it's no help against bosses.
* 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 ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'', The Sandman was subject to a lot of complaints and balance changes. Eventually, Valve made a drastic change by removing the full stun (except at the maximum range) and replacing it with a "scared" animation that disabled weaponry and reduced movement speed. Due to a bug, however, the 'stunned' players could still fire their weapon. Once that was fixed, however, it became a pretty balanced sidegrade.
* 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 [[Eve Online]]. One race's ships are heavily reliant on missiles, and another race's make moderate use of them, so anti-missile missiles would seemingly be quite advantageous. However, many missile types can take two or three hits before being shot down, Defenders must be manually fired, and- critically- defenders cannot be intercept missiles fired at friendly vessels. In all but a few niche circumstances, it's just easier to load offensive missiles and shoot the bastard.
* 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 ''[[Ys (Video Game)|Ys]] IV: Mask of the Sun'' and ''[[Ys (Video Game)|Ys]] V''. And you can't use magic at all in the latter's boss battles.
* Most status effect skills in ''[[Mass Effect 2 (Video Game)|Mass Effect 2]]'' fall into this trope at higher difficulty levels. This is due to everyone (players and enemies) being immune to them if they have shields/barrier/armor remaining. On higher difficulty levels, every enemy outside the tutorial segment in the beginning has at least one of these. By the time you get through these defenses, killing your target only takes a couple more shots.
** Though, it is worth mentioning that on lower difficulty levels, skills like Dominate and Hacking, which are nearly useless in the higher difficulty levels are basically [[Game Breakers]].
* Elemental spells and weapons become less useful as your reach higher levels in ''[[Infinity Blade]]'' since most enemies will have some elemental resistances. The God King will become immune to everything after beating him once making Healing the only magic worth using against him. Appropriately enough, this means that the eponymous Infinity Blade, which deals more non-elemental damage than any other weapon in the game, is the best weapon to use against him.
* In ''[[Borderlands (Video Game)|Borderlands]]'' the entire shock element is useless as it's only useful for removing shields that only appear on a select number of human enemies and are easily dealt with without shock weapon. Furthermore the Hunter class gets a late game ability to bypass shields all together. Their only real use is against a few enemies that spawn is a very specific location and the hardest boss in the game.
** 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.
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* 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 ''[[Plants vs. Zombies (Video Game)|Plants vs. Zombies]]'', while not a spell, does fit the overall gist of this trope. Aside from diverting zombies into better defended lanes, it's not at all useful. What really makes it ultimately not worth planting is that generally speaking, you shouldn't need to resort to lane diversion if you can focus on planting your primary attack plants quickly.
* ''[[Chrono Cross (Video Game)|Chrono Cross]]'' features 'sealing' elements, which shut off elements of a specific color. This will seem ridiculously useful, until you realize that these are only worth using against bosses, which are usually completely immune to sealing. Even more so for SealAll, which shuts off ''all'' elements on the battlefield; however, using it in a boss fight tends to result in it missing the boss [[Hoist Byby His Own Petard|but leaving your party sealed]].
* 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.
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* 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''.
** Averted somewhat with White Hole, which prevents your monsters from being destroyed from the opponent's Dark Hole. Dark Hole is fairly used and rarely on the banned list for too long, so it has some utility to it. You're still better off with Dark Bribe, though.
* ''[[Magic: theThe 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.
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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 ''[[Etrian Odyssey (Video Game)|Etrian Odyssey]]'', they're key to breaking the game wide open. For this reason, many ''Etrian Odyssey'' players warn newcomers against using Hexers, as they might ''[[Game Breaker|make the game too easy]]''. [[Magikarp Power|As long as you're willing to master the skills in question]], putting enemies to sleep, poisoning them, or even trying to kill them in one blow is a wonderfully valid tactic that will save you time and visits to the inn, as well as land you special conditional-drops that will lead towards better equipment and the money to buy it.
** 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 ''[[Wizardry (Video Game)|Wizardry]]'' games. Blinding Flash, Silence, and Sleep are absolutely vital spells up until the late game, and they even work (if unreliably) on bosses. The Alchemist and Psionic classes (and the classes that pick up spells from them) favor status effects, though Priests and Mages get some, too. However, monsters can and will [ab]use the same effects against you, usually earlier and more reliably than you can.
* 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 [http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0167.html this] ''[[Adventurers (Webcomic)|Adventurers]]'' strip.
** Averted in the final battle, where [[Big Bad|Khrima]] is not immune to {{spoiler|Slow}}.
* Also parodied in [http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20030528.html this] [[RPG World]] strip.
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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 ''[[Dragon Quest I (Video Game)|Dragon Quest I]]'', almost all combat spells eventually become nigh-useless near the end, thanks to the proclivity of magic-immune monsters and the dearth of MP-restoring items. The only spells that stay useful are Sleep and Stopspell, for the few enemies not immune.
** ''[[Dragon Quest IV (Video Game)|Dragon Quest IV]]'' did have one example of [[Useless Useful Spell]], but that was due to your allies playing [[AI Roulette]]. Specifically, [[Combat Medic|Kiryl]] turned stupid the moment he learned [[One-Hit Kill|Beat / Thwack]], constantly casting that instead of concentrating on fighting or healing. This was so prevalent that it's even [[Mythology Gag|referenced]] in one of his specials in ''[[Dragon Quest]]: Monster Battle Road''. Luckily, the re-release let you change tactics (you could do this in the original game, but only to a limited degree -- the tactics were character-specific, and there were some things you just couldn't actually stop your characters from doing, regardless of setting) or take direct control, so even though the strategy for "Show Now Mercy" is still just spamming the [[One-Hit Kill]], it's not the only options.
* Many relatively early [[RPG|RPGs]], like ''Wizardry'' and ''Might & Magic'', were created before this trope came into vogue, and are noticeably lacking it. By inheritance, games modeled after them, like ''[[Etrian Odyssey (Video Game)|Etrian Odyssey]]'', also tend to lack it, for the most part.
** 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.
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** 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.}}
** ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'' maintains this tradition, and every boss is always vulnerable to at least ''one'' status effect. You can frequently put these to great use to defeat them. Plus, Sleep--through either PSI Hypnosis or Duster's amulet--has one of those most useful effects in the game. It reveals an enemy's "heartbeat," which is the special rhythm you need to press the buttons in when attacking to [[Action Commands|rack up massive amounts of damage.]] For some songs, which are made deliberately confusing or difficult, this is a ''massive'' help. Plus, his Wall Staples, which paralyze an enemy for a turn or two, are quite effective.
*** Furthermore, using spells and abilities that raise your stats and lower the boss' stats are quite effective on most bosses and practically required for some of them. Even if they can negate the changes, that's a turn spent not blasting you with powerful multi-targeting PSI attacks.
*** Almost every boss in the game can be frozen or lit on fire, but it's somewhat rare to do so.
** Straight example: In ''[[Earthbound (Video Game)|Earthbound]]'', the PK Thunder (AKA: Electric Shock Attack, Crashing Boom Bang Attack) moves are not nearly as useful for you as they are for your enemies. The move will target a random enemy each time it goes off (higher levels means stronger shots and more shots). However, if there's few enemies, there's a large chance that each shot will simply miss. It's very unlikely that you'll hit the same enemy more than once with the same move, even especially if you're using Omega (4 shots) and it's the only enemy, meaning it's also not useful against bosses. Meanwhile, you have a party of up to 4, and the enemy is far more likely to, even then, just zap the same party member until they die.
*** PK Thunder is greatly improved in ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]''; it's a lot more accurate, and is therefore much better for use against bosses, especially when they have a shield, because it hits through shields.
** Another straight example is the Neutralizer (technically, it's not a spell, but it's similar enough). It sounds like an upgraded version of the Shield Killer, which is an extremely useful item, until you realize the Neutralizer neutralizes everyone in battle, including yourself. It's only really useful if the entire enemy team is shielded (rare) or if everyone in your party has been severely debuffed (also rare).
* Also averted in ''[[Monster Hunter (Video Game)|Monster Hunter]]'': status-effect weaponry will eventually cause the relevant effect on your foe, provided you hit them enough times (the game keeps track rather than using a random chance), and the enemies are tough enough that status effects are actually helpful. Of course, there are cases (not that common, but not unknown either) where the enemy dies before you hit them enough for the effect to happen.
* 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.
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* 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, ''[[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 [[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-Stroke Battle|single attack]].
*** 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.
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*** 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.}}
** ''[[Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IV]]'' will rarely let you land a status effect on bosses, but features several random encounters that showcase your immobilizing status effects. Most standard enemies that counter your attacks are vulnerable to Stop, Hold, or Edge's Pin -- and many (such as the instant-death-happy Coeurl) will demolish you if you don't.
*** Additionally, Reflect will usually land on bosses -- usually because it's ''their'' strategy, but you can apply it to them yourself. This seems counterintuitive, but it bounces heals and buffs as well as offensive spells. This is in fact the key strategy to defeating Asura, who spams high-level heals on herself and counters hard enough that you ''really'' want them landing on you instead.
** ''[[Final Fantasy VI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VI]]'' has Wreksoul, a [[Puzzle Boss]] whose gimmick is that he disappears mid-fight and "possesses" one of your party members, and in order to damage him you have to kill your party member thus forcing him to reappear. The two [[Mooks]] he leaves behind when he disappears are unkillable by normal means but are, however, vulnerable to the instant-death spell X-Zone - so if you cast it and kill both of them at once, the game glitches and views it as a victory.
*** [[Final Fantasy VI (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VI]] also has both magic and random encounters and magic that are more powerful than usual, and one counters the other. Single status effects aren't practical, but AoE spells like slowga, banish or graviga, and the flash tool can be quite useful. In addition, many bosses are vunerable to slow, including the mighty Ultima/Atma Weapon.
*** 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.
** ''[[Final Fantasy XIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XIII]]'' in general is an aversion, since only a couple enemies in the game are immune to all status ailments. {{spoiler|Both forms of final boss Orphan are shining examples. The first form, which otherwise treads into [[That One Boss]] / [[Luck-Based Mission]] territory with its ability to instant-KO your leader, can be utterly destroyed with Poison. And in an homage to ''[[Final Fantasy Legend]]''/''[[SaGa]]'', if you can get the final form to stagger, and have Vanille use her full ATB-gauge ability, Death, on it...it ''actually works''.}}
*** 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 -2]]'''s [[Bonus Boss]] {{spoiler|Caius}} in the postgame? {{spoiler|Use the series' newest spell Wound for 12 minutes to [[Cherry Tapping|cherry tap]] him down to about 25% of his Max HP, and then just beat him to death.}}
** Believe it or not, [[Final Fantasy IX (Video Game)|Quina's]] LV5 Death spell is actually much more useful than most people give it credit for. It won't work on bosses, of course, but there are a surprising number of enemies that can be mass-killed with the spell...including ''every single type of enemy in the Desert Palace except those electric cat things.'' LV3 Defenseless also comes in handy against a couple of bosses, including the Meltigemini and the Earth Guardian.
*** Similarly, what is normally [[That One Boss]] in ''[[Final Fantasy IX (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IX]]'', the {{spoiler|Earth Guardian}}, is a pantywaist if you hit him with Quina's Bad Breath spell. He subverts this trope heavily, being vulnerable to most of Bad Breath's effects, making it much easier to kill him. As the icing on the proverbial cake, said boss can also be eaten.
** The various modes of {{spoiler|[[Final Fantasy X (Video Game)|Seymour]]}} tend to be just as immune to status effects as any of the other bosses. However, most of {{spoiler|his forms}} (first, second, and third fights) are trivialized by using Yuna's Nul-spells carefully (since Scan tells you what order he spams elemental spells), abusing Reflect (which {{spoiler|he}} doesn't dispel in a fight until the third fight, and then only every fourth turn), and Lulu's Bio spell--poison is incredibly effective in this game, taking out a fourth of the target's maximum HP (unless the 1/4th of the target's HP is ''still'' more than [[Cap|9999]]) if they can be affected by poison at all. Other than that, just keep whacking away like you would with any normal enemy.
*** Also, poisoning the "pet" in fight 3 is an easy way to get the boss to kill itself.
** In ''[[Final Fantasy X 2 (Video Game)|Final Fantasy X 2]]'', the Songstress's dances afflict a status ailment on every single enemy or major buffs on all allies. They will always work, barring total immunity to the status, have a set duration (which makes timing easier), and better yet, you can also Stop them in their tracks, guarantee crits for you, put them all to sleep. It's less effective as the game goes on, since bosses start gaining immunity to the ailments Songstress provides, but surprising few regular enemies are immune to ailments that absolutely cripple them.
** 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 Days Over 2 Days|358/2 Days]]''. Granted, Status hasn't really been used in most Kingdom Hearts games outside of maybe Stop or Magnet, 358/2 days uses them. Despite that several moves don't really apply to enemies (Such as [[Interface Screw]] or control-jacking), Burning, freezing, and air-knocking are perhaps ''the'' most effective ways to kill [[That One Boss|That One Enemy]]...the Emerald Serenade.
** 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-Gear Level]] sequence, Gravity is the only damage-dealing spell that still does useful damage, since it's percentage based, and not based on Sora's Magic stat.
** 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.
* ''[[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|Mooks]], turning, say, a quartet of the toughest the game has to offer into helpless punching bags. And while lots of the bosses have some form of [[Contractual Boss Immunity]], few of them are immune to ''everything''. {{spoiler|Vanitas}} getting you down? Magnet or Zero Gravity. Braig being a [[Jerkass]]? Burn him up, poison him, or just put him to sleep. Zack making you frown? Freeze him solid. Hook causing problems? Give him a whole host of them, he's only immune to ''three''. In short: Having trouble with ''Birth By Sleep''? There's a status for that.
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