History Main / LowTierLetdown

* ''VideoGame/FZero GX'' offers a lot of freedom in creating custom machines, and many of them are great. Slash Emperor -V2 (Big Tyrant + Windy Shark + Scorpion -V2), however, is not; while its speed is great, acceleration is awful, deceleration is awful, and its turning radius is ''on par with that of the Earth's orbit''. Even the game's best players will absolutely refuse to give it a try.

* The Spy in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' has been regarded as the weakest of the nine classes for a long time. Design-wise, Spy is a "pick" class: with the ability to turn invisible or disguise himself, building-disabling sappers, and a OneHitKill BackStab, he can get an almost guaranteed kill in the hands of a good player, but due to his low health and weak weaponry, he crumples quickly in a straight firefight, meaning he's meant for hunting down priority targets and opening holes in the enemy defense. However, he isn't the only class to fill his intended niches, and in some cases isn't even the best at it. Scouts can also act to pick off priority targets due to high speed and the power of the Scattergun, Snipers can charge their sniper rifles to also get almost-guaranteed kills with a headshot at any range, and Soldiers and especially Demomen can also proficiently smash through buildings with their powerful explosives. And unlike his teammates, who have varying degrees of usefulness besides their primary gimmick, [[CripplingOverspecialization Spy has very little to offer outside of picking off targets]], being too frail and weak to aid in a push and lacking any real team-support abilities. Spy also suffers from the two-pronged difficulty of being both a SkillGateCharacter ''and'' DifficultButAwesome, but in the worst way. He is regarded as the hardest class in the game to play proficiently, which means that there are many people who pick the class due to being attracted by its cool factor and go on to contribute nothing but failed backstab attempts--not helped by the fact that Spy's aforementioned specialization makes him [[DiminishingReturnsForBalance highly undesirable in large numbers]]. But he is also regarded as the hardest class to play in a skilled environment, because even a modicum of team communication makes his means of stealth far less effective, since simply telling other players where a Spy is will usually lead to their demise. In competitive settings, it's often said that a Spy managing a single kill and then dying immediately afterward is an excellent showing.

*** While the Thief is generally held as the weakest class, the Cavalier, introduced in ''Unearthed Arcana'', is infamously regarded as the most difficult class to play. A Cavalier is a class focused on mounted combat, and though they do genuinely excel in that field, this also means that in any situation where they can't use their mount due to not having room for it (which, in a game with "dungeon" in the title, is quite frequent) or the mount dying, they basically lose half their class abilities. However, what pushes them into this category is a roleplay requirement: the Cavalier, when in combat, has to charge the most dangerous-looking enemy they can see, [[HonorBeforeReason regardless of circumstance]]. This means that a Cavalier [[ArtificialInsolence cannot be controlled in battle situations]] (the rulebook's words, not ours), and in a game as lethal as 1st Edition ''D&D'', SuicidalOverconfidence is not a good thing. Cavaliers were notorious for rarely making it past their first few levels before charging something they shouldn't have and getting beaten into paste.

* ''LowTierLetdown/Tekken''

*** Presea, while hitting hard, [[MightyGlacier attacks very slowly]] and lacks versatility in her artes compared to the rest of the playable cast. Furthermore, her Mystic Arte is by far the hardest to activate in the game, with the insane requirements of needing all the other party members dead and her to be at less than a quarter HP ''and'' needing to trigger overlimit to execute. Very few people choose to play her due to these issues.
*** Like Chat, the AI fails to use Colette's abilities properly, making her a hindrance in the AI's hands rather than an asset.

** Presea, while hitting hard, [[MightyGlacier attacks very slowly]] and lacks versatility in her artes compared to the rest of the playable cast. Furthermore, her Mystic Arte is by far the hardest to activate in the game, with the insane requirements of needing all the other party members dead and her to be at less than a quarter HP ''and'' needing to trigger overlimit to execute. Very few people choose to play her due to these issues.
** Like Chat, the AI fails to use Colette's abilities properly, making her a hindrance in the AI's hands rather than an asset.

** ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny'': Woodrow in the PSX version due to joining your party woefully underleveled[[note]]He starts as a CrutchCharacter early on in the game but never gains levels as you progress the plot after he leaves[[/note]], requiring you waste time to grind him to a proper level if you wanted to ever use him. To make matters worse, he had a unique mechanic where he could equip either swords or bows, but this mechanic meant he was locked out of half of his abilities at any given time due to those abilities being either exclusive to swords or exclusive to bows. He also replaced Mary, a beloved character who'd only return to the party if specific conditions were fulfilled very late on. The remake addressed this by having him level up offscreen to be at a comparable level to the rest of your party and removing his arte exclusivity, as well as making Mary easier to re-recruit to mitigate her feeling replaced.

*** While the Thief is generally held as the weakest class, the Cavalier, introduced in ''Unearthed Arcana'', is infamously regarded as the most difficult class to play. A Cavalier is a class focused on mounted combat, and though they do genuinely excel in that field, this also means that in any situation where they can't use their mount due to not having room for it (which, in a game with "dungeon" in the title, is quite frequent) or the mount dying, they basically lose half their class abilities. However, what pushes them into this category is a roleplay requirement: the Cavalier, when in combat, has to charge the most dangerous-looking enemy they can see, [[HonorBeforeReason regardless of circumstance]]. This means that a Cavalier cannot be controlled in battle situations (the rulebook's words, not ours), and in a game as lethal as 1st Edition ''D&D'', SuicidalOverconfidence is not a good thing. Cavaliers were notorious for rarely making it past their first few levels before charging something they shouldn't have and getting beaten into paste.

*** While the Thief is generally held as the weakest class, the Cavalier, introduced in ''Unearthed Arcana'', is infamously regarded as the most difficult class to play. A Cavalier is a class focused on mounted combat, and though they do genuinely excel in that field, this also means that in any situation where they can't use their mount due to not having room for it (which, in a game with "dungeon" in the title, is quite frequent) or the mount dying, they basically lose half their class abilities. However, what pushes them into this category is a roleplay requirement: the Cavalier, when in combat, has to charge the most dangerous-looking enemy they can see, [[HonorBeforeReason regardless of circumstance]]. This means that a Cavalier cannot be controlled in battle situations (the rulebook's words, not ours), and in a game as lethal as 1st Edition ''D&D'', SuicidalOverconfidence is not a good thing. Cavaliers were infamous for rarely making it past their first few levels before charging something they shouldn't have and getting beaten into paste.

** ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'': Cernd. First of all he has terrible stats, with mediocre strength and constitution, and below than mediocre dexterity, making him basically useless in normal melee fighting. He's only really good in wisdom, but he doesn't benefit from it like clerics. He is a shapeshifter, possibly the weakest kit in the game. Basically it's a druid (a class that already takes a long time before becoming powerful) that is nerfed in many aspects for the ability to turn into a werewolf, the most relevant one being the lack of armor. You must rely on the special ability to have chances of survival. The problem is that the werewolf form is already nerfed compared to npc werewolves, the supposed gains are rendered obsolete by items or magic, and spells (the most important feature of druids) are disabled. Last but not least, he has less banters and his dialogues are less interesting. The Enhanced Editions tried to buff the shapeshifter and solve some related bugs, but [[https://www.resetera.com/threads/rttp-baldurs-gate-2-a-careful-analysis-as-to-why-cernd-sucks.69659/ Cernd continues to score low]].
*** Cernd has actually been partially RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap due to changing gameplay priorities over the years. Because combat is very short in this game (limiting the amount of spells you can cast during fights), and there is nothing stopping a player from resting in-between as much as they want, a spellcaster who can cast two very powerful spells and 18 useless ones is now generally considered stronger than one who can cast 20 generally powerful ones. As a result, Cernd is now considered one of the best crowd-control characters in the game with his powerful Insect Plague (especially against mages). He is still generally considered one of the worst character in the game though, because while this development had him evaluated to be more powerful, it hasn't made him any more versatile: Because druids get essentially no spells that either do damage to enemies or buff the caster into a decent fighter, he can contribute very little in fights against physical enemies with high HP. His werewolf form was meant to be used in such situations, but because, as mentioned above, it is so weak and impractical to use, it fails to do the job.
** The secret character added in the Enhanced Edition, [[spoiler:[[BearyFunny Wilson the Bear]],]] is widely considered to be the worst warrior type companion in the game. While he is decent enough on the offensive side, he is a horrible tank in spite of his high HP due to his total inability to wear armor or any other gear to reduce his armor class or saves, or give him some amount of elemental resistance. As a result, he requires almost as much micromangement during combat and support by the rest of the party as a mage or a gimmick character like Haer'Dalis, despite playing out like a standard fighter. His niche is also the easiest to fill, since the game gives you access to a whopping 9 characters with warrior levels ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg plus Haer'Dalis and Rasaad]]) he has to compete for a party slot with, all of whom are generally considered easier to use.

** Cernd has actually been partially RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap due to changing gameplay priorities over the years. Because combat is very short in this game (limiting the amount of spells you can cast during fights), and there is nothing stopping a player from resting in-between as much as they want, a spellcaster who can cast two very powerful spells and 18 useless ones is now generally considered stronger than one who can cast 20 generally powerful ones. As a result, Cernd is now considered one of the best crowd-control characters in the game with his powerful Insect Plague (especially against mages). He is still generally considered one of the worst character in the game though, because while this development had him evaluated to be more powerful, it hasn't made him any more versatile: Because druids get essentially no spells that either do damage to enemies or buff the caster into a decent fighter, he can contribute very little in fights against physical enemies with high HP. His werewolf form was meant to be used in such situations, but because, as mentioned above, it is so weak and impractical to use, it fails to do the job.

[[folder:Role-Playing Game]]

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'': Eldoth and particularly Garrick, being bards that have weak stats for everything. Even charisma is not maxed. Downplayed, since this was meant to counterbalance their bard song ability: because bards cannot do anything else while playing the song, then it makes sense not to worry about the stats; but the player can create a bard character who has that AND good stats at least for combat (if possible for spellcasting too), getting more flexibility in general.
** A bard's singing ability also isn't that useful at low levels, unless they are a skald (and neither Garrick nor Eldoth are skalds), as it basically just provides a resist fear effect. Any cleric and most mages as well can achieve the same effect with a low-level party-buffing spell to cast before combat starts ''and'' procede to assist the party in other ways once combat has started. In fact, the most common recommendation is to simply use them as backup mages that can use a longbow on the side, but most of the time you'd lose nothing by replacing them with an actual mage (of which there is no shortage).
** The three thieves that become available once you can actually enter Baldur's Gate, Alora, Skie Silvershield and Tiax, suffer badly from LateCharacterSyndrome. A thief in the party is all but necessary if you aren't going for a SelfImposedChallenge, but having more than one is almost always redundant. As a result, most players pick up their thief near the start of the game and never let go of them, which basically means Imoen for most good-aligned parties, Montaron for evil-aligned ones, and Safana if you somehow dislike either one. This also has the benefit that you can maximize their HP rolls and prevent them from spending their thief abilities in unwanted areas (which basically means maxing out ''Find Traps'' and ''Open Locks'' as quickly as possible, and the rest is nice-to-have). Alora, Skie and Tiax thus can only fill niches that are either probably already occupied by another better party member or not that useful to begin with, and have no real reason to be used, unless your party's thief coincidentally died at the right time.
** Rasaad, introduced in the Enhanced Edition, is generally considered the worst companion in the game. As a [[MagikarpPower monk]] in a Dungeons & Dragons game with an AbsurdlyLowLevelCap he is a horrid fighter with his poor weapon skills, a terrible tank with his poor HP and inability to wear armor, and he can't even be molded into a decent ranged fighter, because he starts with no ranged weapon skills and can't learn to use bows, the game's best ranged weapon. His character-specific sidequest and roleplay reasons are literally the only reason to pick him up.
* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'': Cernd. First of all he has terrible stats, with mediocre strength and constitution, and below than mediocre dexterity, making him basically useless in normal melee fighting. He's only really good in wisdom, but he doesn't benefit from it like clerics. He is a shapeshifter, possibly the weakest kit in the game. Basically it's a druid (a class that already takes a long time before becoming powerful) that is nerfed in many aspects for the ability to turn into a werewolf, the most relevant one being the lack of armor. You must rely on the special ability to have chances of survival. The problem is that the werewolf form is already nerfed compared to npc werewolves, the supposed gains are rendered obsolete by items or magic, and spells (the most important feature of druids) are disabled. Last but not least, he has less banters and his dialogues are less interesting. The Enhanced Editions tried to buff the shapeshifter and solve some related bugs, but [[https://www.resetera.com/threads/rttp-baldurs-gate-2-a-careful-analysis-as-to-why-cernd-sucks.69659/ Cernd continues to score low]].

* In the third ''VideoGame/{{Darkstalkers}}'' game ''Vampire Savior'' Anakaris is infamous for being incredibly handicapped and having no winning (and arguably no even) matchups. He intentionally lacks (or is extremely gimped in) many game systems universal to the rest of the cast: he has no normal throw, can't "Tech-Hit" (aka advancing guard / push block), his Guard Cancel is meter-only and infamously is punishable on hit, and he has all that combined with being very big and slow. This all comes together to him being much easier than any other character in the game to bully and pressure non-stop with him legitimately having no way out. Though he has more than enough tools of his own to win against even competent players (his own pressure game is exceptionally strong, and his normal attacks can do a decent job in ensuring the opponent can't get started on him) and is considered playable at a high level, he has possibly the smallest playerbase of the whole cast due to how high-risk and hard to learn he is to learn relative to the reward.

** At one point in the game's life, Haruo was considered something of a niche counterpick; while admittedly held back due to his only stat bonuses being in the game's {{Dump Stat}}s while his other stats all had stat ''penalties'', he had the unique niche of only losing a quarter of his stars when KOed, instead of half. While he had trouble getting a lead, once Haruo had a lead, you could expect him to ''keep'' said lead almost indefinitely. Unfortunately, when a balance patch hit that aimed to drastically buff a bunch of low-tier characters, Robo Ball and Jonathan got Haruo's once-exclusive perk, meaning there was essentially no reason to use him anymore when you could use one of two other characters that not only had better statlines, but also ''drastically'' better hyper cards (Jonathan's hyper in particular is one of the best in the game full-stop.) Ironically, the same patch actually buffed Haruo slightly, but it wasn't anywhere near enough to make up for the loss of exclusivity in his niche, and he hasn't been buffed since.

** The bonus characters (awarded for purchasing other games by the same developer) tend to be looked down on with disappointment, due to them being tiered considerably lower than their non-bonus (that is, only require buying ''one'' game) counterpart. The only exception is QP Dangerous, who is considered only slightly worse than regular QP but still usable. The absolute worst bonus character, though, is Aru Scramble, who desperately relies on her hyper card to be able to do ''anything'' of interest over regular Aru. Like Flying Castle above, her hyper isn't even good, and because of the nature of the game, it's entirely possible she'll simply never get it - in which case, her role is basically a punching bag for the other players. And like Flying Castle, she's unanimously considered bottom tier.

[[folder:Third-Person Shooters]]
* ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' has the Undercover Brella. Introduced in ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'', its the lightweight member of the Brella class, and has the gimmick of not deploying its shield after holding the trigger for a prolonged period of time; meaning the user can continuously shoot while maintaining cover, rather than having to time alternating between an attack and defense mode like the other Brellas. This may seem overpowered at first, but the [[FanNickname Vunder]] has a lot of weaknesses that makes it widely-viewed as the worse weapon in the series by a wide margin. First, as a trade-off for being able to keep up a shield while always firing, said shield is very weak compared to other Brellas, having a mere 200 HP compared to the middleweight Splat Brella's 500 HP and the heavyweight Tenta Brella's 700 HP. Second, it has the worst DPS ''in the entire game'', needing three well-aimed shots to splat any opponent, with the fastest it can accomplish that task being two seconds; an eternity in [[RocketTagGameplay a game as fast-paced as]] ''Splatoon''. Those two things alone mean that a player is unlikely to splat an opponent before their shield is broken, but in addition, it has lackluster ink coverage for a ranged weapon (so tough luck making a quick escape route during an engagement) and poor synergy with its sub weapon, Ink Mine (the Vunder's low DPS means it can't combo the damage from an Ink Mine well). Things don't get much better with its special weapon. In ''Splatoon 2'', it boasts the Splashdown. To be fair, in low-level play, it's a good panic button that will splat anyone nearby. In ''high''-level play though? Splashdown is an utter joke, as anyone ranked S+ and above can react and take out the user during the brief vulnerability period at the special's start-up.
//
In ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'', it has the Reefslider for its Special instead, which has the same issues except one ''might'' avoid being immediately being punished due to it being a horizontal attack rather than a vertical, meaning they can activate it from a safe distance. Now they get punished ''afterward'', as missing the Reefslider explosion means that they're now in ''very'' close proximity with at least one other opponent, which the Undercover Brella can't hope to fend off given all its listed problems.
[[/folder]]

* ''LowTierLetdown/{{Minecraft}}''