History Main / MasterofNone

*** There's not much point in using a triple-multiclass (Fighter/Mage/Thief or Fighter/Mage/Cleric) either. Sure you get the abilities of all three classes, but you'll fall behind almost immediately since you're splitting your 1/6 party share of XP three ways among your classes. Pair that with an experience cap of 2.95 million and every one of your classes will cap off in the low double digits; that means a very mediocre base [=THAC0=] (10 at BEST), you'll trail behind in thief skills (in a series where traps are devastating) and you'll never get to memory-cast any spells above level six. Even in Throne of Bhaal (which raises the XP cap to 8 million) you'll still be far behind, with only a triple-class Thief ever breaking level 20 while the rest of your team is likely in the mid-late thirties. Much better to find one niche role to be really good in rather than being mediocre at everything. Or if you really want a versatile character who doesn't excel at any one thing, choose a Bard instead - they get some lovely support items and songs, plus a solid selection of weapons and spells and they level up at a respectable rate.

*** There's not much point in using a triple-multiclass (Fighter/Mage/Thief or Fighter/Mage/Cleric) either. Sure you get the abilities of all three classes, but you'll fall behind almost immediately since you're splitting your 1/6 party share of XP three ways among your classes. Pair that with an experience cap of 8 million and every one of your classes will cap off in the low double digits; that means a very mediocre base [=THAC0=] (10 at BEST), you'll trail behind in thief skills (in a series where traps are devastating) and you'll never get to memory-cast any spells above level six. Much better to find one niche role to be really good in rather than being mediocre at everything. Or if you really want a versatile character who doesn't excel at any one thing, choose a Bard instead - they get some lovely support items and songs, plus a solid selection of weapons and spells and they level up at a respectable rate.

*** There's not much point in using a triple-multiclass (Fighter/Mage/Thief or Fighter/Mage/Cleric) either. Sure you get the abilities of all three classes, but you'll fall behind almost immediately since you're splitting your 1/6 party share of XP three ways among your classes. Pair that with an experience cap of 8 million and every one of your classes will cap off in the low teens; that means a very mediocre base [=THAC0=] (10 at BEST), you'll trail behind in thief skills (in a series where traps are devastating) and you'll never get to memory-cast any spells above level six. Much better to find one niche role to be really good in rather than being mediocre at everything. Or if you really want a versatile character who doesn't excel at any one thing, choose a Bard instead - they get some lovely support items and songs, plus a solid selection of weapons and spells and they level up at a respectable rate.

*** There's not much point in using a triple-multiclass (Fighter/Mage/Thief or Fighter/Mage/Cleric) either. Sure you get the abilities of all three classes, but you'll fall behind almost immediately since you're splitting your 1/6 party share of XP three ways among your classes. Pair that with an experience cap of 8 million and every one of your classes will cap off in the low teens; that means a very mediocre base [=THAC0=] (10 at BEST), you'll trail behind in thief skills (in a series whre traps are devastating) and you'll never get to memory-cast any spells above level six. Much better to find one niche role to be really good in rather than being mediocre at everything.

*** There's not much point in using a triple-multiclass (Fighter/Mage/Thief or Fighter/Mage/Cleric) either. Sure you get the abilities of all three classes, but you'll fall behind almost immediately since you're splitting your 1/6 party share of XP three ways among your classes. Pair that with an experience cap of 8 million and every one of your classes will cap off in the low teens; that means a very mediocre base [=THAC0=] (10 at BEST), you'll trail behind in thief skills unless you hyper-focus on one or two and you'll never get to memory-cast any spells above level six. Much better to find one niche role to be really good in rather than being mediocre at everything.

*** Setzer. He's not as strong as Sabin and Edgar, not as magically proficient as Relm and Strago, and worse all around than fellow JackOfAllStats characters Terra and Celes. He shares his ability to attack with full damage from the back row with a lot of Locke's best weapons, but without Locke's speed. Setzer's Slot ability has a wide range of useful (and non-useful) effects, but being luck-based and with poor odds reduces its utility. The accessory that turns Setzer's Slot into GP Rain has the potential to do unblockable damage, but it costs money every time it's used, and you'd need to spend tens of thousands of gil to reach even halfway-decent damage, all in one of the few games in the ''Final Fantasy'' series where money isn't useless past the halfway mark. In all cases, anything Setzer can do is something that someone else could do better, and without his drawbacks.

** In the NES version of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'', the Thief has durability and damage output a slight step above the White and Black Mages, but without the casting prowess that makes those jobs viable. They also lack stealing, the main Thief utility in later games, which gives them even less to offer. In theory, they can escape from battles more effectively, but running is infamously buggy in the NES version, so while this can be used, it isn't reliable. On paper, their class change to Ninja should boost them up by giving them better weapon and armor selection and black magic, but the low-level offensive black magic the Ninja can learn is useless at that point, while the buffs are ''also'' bugged and don't work. By contrast, the Knight gains white magic, including healing spells and a buff spell that actually works in RUSE, the Master's damage output has ascended to absurdity, the Red Wizard already fills the role of a tanky black magic user that can ''also'' use white magic, and the Black Wizard can throw around more magic than the Ninja can ever dream of. What it does have going for it is that, at least by [[MagikarpPower the Ninja class upgrade]], is its [[LightningBruiser high agility stat]], allowing it to score multiple hits, and being able to use any weapon in the game. The remakes also helped the Ninja out a lot by fixing its skills to actually function, as well as the Temper and Saber spells, which as a bonus, became available as castables from late-game weapons, allowing them to buff their damage to extremely high if not game-breaking levels.

** Yangus in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' looks like he should be a MightyGlacier, with a build that suggests StoutStrength and an axe-wielder. He's certainly slow enough, but his damage output is average at best, and pales next to [[GlassCannon Jessica's]] [[SquishyWizard spells]] and whips, Angelo's [[ArcherArchetype bows and arrows]], and the Hero's [[HeroesPreferSwords swords]] or spears. He can get a few healing spells if you put points into Humanity, but his healing potential is limited by a small MP pool, and unlike [[MagicKnight the Hero]] and [[TheMedic Angelo]] he never gets any way to regain magic points or mitigate casting costs. He can wear some of the best armor in the game and has a massive HP pool, which qualifies him as a StoneWall, but since there's no way for him to DrawAggro he can't really [[AnAdventurerIsYou tank]] for [[GlassCannon squishier]] party members. His Axe skills will eventually give him an attack which is a guaranteed critical if it hits, and since criticals in this game ignore defense, it's particularly useful against late-game bosses, but it misses more often than it hits, so it's too unreliable to use in most cases. Early in the game he's useful in boss fights as a debuffer, although Jessica can do that as well or better. In the late game, he's mostly useful to hold on to a Sage's Stone, Rune Staff, Timbrel of Tension and Resurrection Staff and act as a secondary buffer and [[TheMedic healer]], not so much because he's particularly good at it, but because he's the only party member with nothing better to do.

* The UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 helicopter game ''Chopper Attack'' had this befall the "AGAM', a combined air-to-air and air-to-ground missile. It simplifies things significantly by having one missile type that can take on any sort of target rather than having to constantly switch between dedicated AA or AG weapons, but this comes at the downside of a single AGAM costing almost as much as one AAM and one AGM ''combined'' -- for the cost, one of each of the dedicated missiles is more effective than a single multi-purpose one, since it's only 200 more bucks at that point to be able to effectively kill two targets instead of just one. The same befalls the homing cluster bomb, which adds homing capability to a weapon that least ''needs'' homing capability, thus also giving it a weakness to flares that everyone from the third mission on can throw out when needed, with no upgrades to damage dealt or how fast it goes over the regular cluster bomb, yet it costs ''five times'' as much.

* Microconsoles have historically struggled with this. In theory, they're a low-cost alternative to home videogame consoles that mostly run smartphone games. In practice, they end up combining the home console's lack of portability and inconvenience with the smartphone's weak hardware and shallow games, and the low cost doesn't really enter into it because chances are, you can already play any relevant games on something else you own. It's not for no reason that the majority of microconsoles have either flopped (the PS TV and UsefulNotes/{{Ouya}}) or are closer to being streaming boxes that simply happen to also be capable of running games (the Amazon Fire TV).
** The [[UsefulNotes/{{Steam}} Steam Machine]] microconsole came out on November 10, 2015 with the Steam Controller, which was designed to work for games both with keyboard & mouse controls and gamepad controls to allow the machine to play a wider range of games. To do this, the D-pad and right analog stick found on other gamepads were replaced with two trackpads. The problem was that, on the keyboard and mouse end, the trackpads never matched the precision of a mouse nor could the controller match the number of buttons on a keyboard, while for gamepad controls the two trackpads were an awkward substitute for what they replaced due to their large size, flatness, and lack of tactile feedback, compared to the smaller and more tactile D-pad and analog stick; even some of its innovations (e.g. programmable buttons, including ones on the back of the controller that can be hit by fingers you otherwise never use on a gamepad and the ability to set different functions to half- and full pulls of the triggers) came at the cost of other features players would have liked (no legacy support for [=DirectInput=], so the controller needs a lot of setup to emulate keyboard and mouse controls for any game from before circa December 2005, and flat-out doesn't work if the game in question requires a gamepad). As a result, the gamepad did not catch on as well as its developer Creator/{{Valve}} had hoped, with Steam Controllers only contributing to 2.5%[[note]]around 1.5 million of the 60 million controllers[[/note]] of the gamepads linked to Steam. Due to both the Steam Machine's failure (much like the majority of microconsoles) and the Steam Controller's lack of popularity amongst PC gamers, the gamepad was discontinued on November 26, 2019, around four years after its release date.
* The UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita failed because it was a handheld console whose graphical capabilities were closer to home consoles. Although the Vita's specs were miles stronger than its competitor, the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS, and had an off-the-shelf ARM Cortex-A9 processor and [=PowerVR=] GPU more or less akin to a typical smartphone at the time of its release, this came at the price of higher development costs for a handheld which gave the Vita an identity crisis. In general, while handheld games have smaller audiences and lower prices offset by cheaper development costs, console games are more expensive to develop and purchase but offset this with greater mass appeal. Given that the Vita had the small audience and exorbitant budget for its games, it was too pricey for handheld and too niche for consoles.

* The UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita failed because it was a handheld console with the graphical power of home consoles. Although the Vita's specs were nearly on par with the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 and miles stronger than its competitor, the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS, this came at the price of higher development costs for a handheld which gave the Vita an identity crisis. In general, while handheld games have smaller audiences and lower prices offset by cheaper development costs, console games are more expensive to develop and purchase but offset this with greater mass appeal. Given that the Vita had the small audience and exorbitant budget for its games, it was too pricey for handheld and too niche for consoles.

[[folder:Sports]]
* UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball: DoubleSubverted by Tim Tebow. Tebow was a well-rounded player who could throw pretty well, but also had a good 40-yard dash and was larger and stronger than the average GlassCannon quarterback. In high school and college, his coaches leaned on his JackOfAllStats qualities by having him run the ball himself rather than throw it, an unorthodox strategy which caught opposing teams by surprise and made him one of the most successful NCAA players of his time. However, in the NFL he quickly found that he couldn't throw as well as the pros, not having trained in it during college, and also his reputation for running the ball was well-established by now so pro teams had come up with strategies to counter it. He couldn't play like a regular quarterback, but he also couldn't use his own peculiar style. He ended up bouncing around teams, usually as a second stringer, before getting dumped; and many commentators believe his outspoken Christianity was the only thing keeping him from being cut earlier, as the NFL feared upsetting the large and important bloc of socially conservative football fans. Ironically, he could have been a good utility player, and many teams were interested in bringing him in, just not as a quarterback, but Tebow's refusal to play any other position as a point of pride meant nobody had a place for him.
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* UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball: DoubleSubverted by Tim Tebow. Tebow was a well-rounded player who could throw pretty well, but also had a good 40-yard dash and was larger and stronger than the average GlassCannon quarterback. In high school and college, his coaches leaned on his JackPfAllStats qualities by having him run the ball himself rather than throw it, an unorthodox strategy which caught opposing teams by surprise and made him one of the most successful NCAA players of his time. However, in the NFL he quickly found that he couldn't throw as well as the pros, not having trained in it during college, and also his reputation for running the ball was well-established by now so pro teams had come up with strategies to counter it. He couldn't play like a regular quarterback, but he also couldn't use his own peculiar style. He ended up bouncing around teams, usually as a second stringer, before getting dumped; and many commentators believe his outspoken Christianity was the only thing keeping him from being cut earlier, as the NFL feared upsetting the large and important bloc of socially conservative football fans. Ironically, he could have been a good utility player, and many teams were interested in bringing him in, just not as a quarterback, but Tebow's refusal to play any other position as a point of pride meant nobody had a place for him.

** Vehicroids. They have cards based on offense (Truckroid, Steamroid, Drillroid), defense (Decoyroid, Gyroid, Jetroid), and recovery (Expressroid, Ambulanceroid, Rescueroid), but the group of them have no real synergy between each other aside from a few combos that border on coincidental, and no real way to change up their strategy. It has several Fusions and a special Fusion card, but it only works on three of those fusions and only one is any good, and only one other card in the archetype supports a Fusion playstyle. None of them are anything above mediocre, and there's almost no relation between their effects, making even sussing out a playstyle for them difficult, as [[WebVideo/Rank10YGO one frustrated Youtuber]] noted.

* MMO Youtuber Josh Strife Hayes discusses this trope in regards to overly ambitious [=MMOs=] that try to mix too many genres and features together to their detriment. He draws an analogy to a pharmacy -- a customer will want medicines that stop their current ailment quickly, but not those that work on numerous kinds of problems less efficiently. Likewise, a potential player picking up a game knows what kind of experience they want, and will commit to a game that delivers a focused, higher-quality experience, rather than one that's spread all its sources too thinly across many fronts.

** The Imperium's Mars-class battlecruisers have a decent gun loadout, including a Nova Cannon, and carry a good number of attack craft, but excel in neither the direct fire nor carrier field. They are widely considered undergunned and production has stopped for them.

* ''Manga/KenganAshura'' has Takayuki Chiba, who has [[DittoFighter the ability to perfectly copy any martial arts technique]] after a period of practicing with footage of it. (He likes to claim [[InstantExpert he can copy any technique after seeing it used once]], but [[UnreliableExpositor this is just for intimidation]].) On paper, this makes him one of the scariest people in the series, since he could theoretically use any move, but in practice, being able to use any move is not the same as being able to use it as well as the person he's copying--Chiba lacks real fighting experience, isn't especially strong or fast by Kengan standards, has little to no combat instinct, and tends to make bad decisions (in his first outing, he tried using an aikido move on one of the greatest aikidoka on the planet). Consequently, he's lost to every named character he's fought onscreen, usually with relative ease.

* ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}:'' Orihara is by far the worst assistant Mutou Ashirogi has got during their entire career, since he lacks the experience of the veteran assistants, he isn't as fast as the other assistants and he doesn't draw as well as the other assistants. The only positive traits he has going for is his loyalty and his positive and energetic personality. That being said, he doesn't draw so bad that he would ever become TheLoad and is still valuable manpower for Ashirogi's team, especially when Ashirogi has to handle multiple manga at once.

** ''VideoGame/DarkSouls3'' changes how Pyromancy works, making it require both Intelligence ''and'' Faith. In the early game especially, the Pyromancer will need to balance several stats, more than any other class.

** You can easily create your character like this if you try do distribute equally your stats among the various attributes. The game itself instead suggests to focus on determinate ones depending on your class, for example, fighters with strength and constitution, wizards with intelligence. There is no point with having strength 15 and wisdom 15 for a fighter rather than strength 18 and wisdom 12. There are few checks for those attributes in dialogues and encounters, and you can use another character for them anyway, or temporarily boost your stats with a potion or a magical item. Furthermore, due to EmptyLevels, certain stats don't have differences beyond a certain threshold, for example there is no difference between a Constitution of 7 or 14 in terms of bonus health points, so you must necessarily go beyond that to get some (you do get a bit more progressive resistance to intoxication when drinking in taverns, which is a case of UselessUsefullNonCombatAbilities, and dwarves/gnomes get earlier some saving throw bonuses). This leads to MinMaxing with more than a DumpStat as the preferred strategic choice during character creation, even if it is not much believable roleplay-wise and can lead to cases of GameplayAndStorySegregation.

* The vanilla versions of many classes in the second ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' game are pretty generally inferior to most of the specialist kits available to each class. Most of these specialist classes come with some kind of penalty relative to the generic versions in a particular area, but because you can only realistically use a limited subset of the weapons or abilities potentially available anyway, it's generally better to chose a class/kit that gains bonuses in whatever skills or weapons you plan to actually use. This is an issue inherited from ''AD&D'', where the designers tended to balance out kits that gave bonuses to one thing by providing penalties to another, ignoring that players might simply not bother with the penalized skill.
** The generic Thief class is an inferior fighter to the Swashbuckler (and his thieving skills are no better), has worse traps than the Bounty Hunter, and isn't as good a backstabber as the Assassin.
** The generic Fighter is less powerful than the Kensai or Berserker with anything except missile weapons, but if you want missile weapons you'd use an Archer (a Ranger kit).
** The Cleric kits all get extra spells and powers not available to a generic Cleric and their only limitation is being restricted to a particular alignment.
** Each of the non-human races gets some bonuses relative to Humans, so there's no real reason to take a Human unless you want to Dual-Class (as only humans can do this) or you want to be a class that is restricted to humans (like the Paladin).