History Main / TooAwesomeToUse

** On the other hand, the two ''Bismarck''-class were a good demonstration of the Fleet In Being concept, an aversion of this trope. The idea is a fleet which harms the enemy by its mere existence, as the enemy will have to devote more resources to countering every way the ships ''might'' be used than it costs to [[WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing build the ships and have them do nothing]]. The force that ultimately defeated ''Bismarck'' consisted of an aircraft carrier (''Ark Royal'', with the carrier ''Victorious'' putting in an earlier appearance but failing to damage the battleship or participate in the final action), two battleships (''Rodney'' and ''King George V''), one battlecruiser (''Reknown''), two heavy cruisers (''London'' and ''Norfolk''), a light cruiser (''Sheffield'') and eight destroyers (including one very cheeky Polish destroyer, ORP ''Piorun'', that engaged ''Bismarck'' at point-blank range while using its signal lamp to flash 'I am a Pole'), and that's not counting the force that intercepted her at Denmark Straight, where ''Hood'' was sunk and ''Prince of Wales'' damaged. Meanwhile, ''Tirpitz'' cost the Allies multiple flights of bombers over Norway, and a scare about her showing up forced the arctic convoy PQ-17 to scatter, leaving them easy pickings for the other German forces that were ''actually'' in the area.

* The interwar-designed United States Mark 14 Torpedo had multiple crippling design flaws with the guidance and detonation systems, which were not discovered because these torpedoes were so expensive and being produced so slowly that the higher-ups were unwilling to destroy any by performing realistic tests. The uselessness of the unproven torpedoes was discovered at the worst possible time, in combat with the Imperial Japanese Navy.

** Some Israeli coins have on their reverse side the picture of the person who used to be on the corresponding bill before it was devalued. Many of them are relatively easy to find, but the one Shekel coin with Maimonides has effectively disappeared from circulation years ago.

* Food, bizarrely enough. Rare or prized foods such as expensive cuts of meat, ingredients like truffles, caviar, or saffron, all get saved for special events. The problem with this is most foods have an expiry date, so sitting on them until the perfect occasion can result in a great deal of wasted food. This can also apply on a lesser scale to things like leftovers, where one waits until one needs them to eat them, by which point they've usually gone bad. Rare and aged wines tend to fall into this category as well.

* The Russian T-14 Armata tank and SU-57 stealth fighter were hyped by Russian state media as the ultimate weapons that surpass their Western counterparts. The T-14 boasts a completely remote-controlled turret--allowing the remaining crew to be encased in a separate armored capsule inside the hull--and the tank incorporates the ''Afghanit'' hard-kill active protection system to intercept incoming projectiles. The SU-57 blends futuristic stealth systems with modern avionics and extreme maneuverability. Yet despite their formidable reputation and potential capabilities, both vehicles were completely absent from the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War due to low production rates. As there were too few T-14s and SU-57s to make a meaningful strategic difference, Russian commanders relegated them to operating inside Russian borders out of fear that they could be destroyed or captured in Ukraine.

* Using intercepted and decrypted information can give you a tremendous advantage, but it also blatantly demonstrates to the enemy that you can break their encryption if that's the only way you could have known, in which case they'll change their codes and you'll have to do the whole thing over again. In the case of the famous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram Zimmermann Telegram]], the British had to bribe a Mexican telegraph employee for information they already possessed to create a cover story for how they knew.

** On the other hand, the two ''Bismarck''-class were a good demonstration of the Fleet In Being concept, an aversion of this trope. The idea is a fleet which harms the enemy by its mere existence, as the enemy will have to devote more resources to countering every way the ships ''might'' be used than it costs to [[WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing build the ships and have them do nothing]]. The force that ultimately defeated ''Bismarck'' consisted of an aircraft carrier (''Ark Royal'', with the carrier ''Victorious'' putting in an earlier appearance but failing to damage the battleship or participate in the final action), two battleships (''Rodney'' and ''King George V''), one battlecruiser (''Reknown''), two heavy cruisers (''London'' and ''Norfolk''), a light cruiser (''Sheffield'') and eight destroyers (including one very cheeky Polish destroyer, ORP ''Piorun'', that engaged ''Bismarck'' at point-blank range while using its signal lamp to flash 'I am a Pole'), and that's not counting the force that intercepted her at Denmark Straight, where ''Hood'' was sunk and ''Prince of Wales'' damaged. Meanwhile, ''Tirpitz'' cost the Allies multiple flights of bombers over Norway, and a scare about her showing up forced the arctic convoy PQ-17 to scatter, leaving them easy pickings for the other German forces that were ''actually'' in the area.

* The interwar-designed United States Mark 14 Torpedo had multiple crippling design flaws with the guidance and detonation systems, which were not discovered because these torpedoes were so expensive and being produced so slowly that the higher-ups were unwilling to destroy any by performing realistic tests. The uselessness of the unproven torpedoes was discovered at the worst possible time, in combat with the Imperial Japanese Navy.

** Some Israeli coins have on their reverse side the picture of the person who used to be on the corresponding bill before it was devalued. Many of them are relatively easy to find, but the one Shekel coin with Maimonides has effectively disappeared from circulation years ago.

* Food, bizarrely enough. Rare or prized foods such as expensive cuts of meat, ingredients like truffles, caviar, or saffron, all get saved for special events. The problem with this is most foods have an expiry date, so sitting on them until the perfect occasion can result in a great deal of wasted food. This can also apply on a lesser scale to things like leftovers, where one waits until one needs them to eat them, by which point they've usually gone bad. Rare and aged wines tend to fall into this category as well.

* The Russian T-14 Armata tank and SU-57 stealth fighter were hyped by Russian state media as the ultimate weapons that surpass their Western counterparts. The T-14 boasts a completely remote-controlled turret--allowing the remaining crew to be encased in a separate armored capsule inside the hull--and the tank incorporates the ''Afghanit'' hard-kill active protection system to intercept incoming projectiles. The SU-57 blends futuristic stealth systems with modern avionics and extreme maneuverability. Yet despite their formidable reputation and potential capabilities, both vehicles were completely absent from the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War due to low production rates. As there were too few T-14s and SU-57s to make a meaningful strategic difference, Russian commanders relegated them to operating inside Russian borders out of fear that they could be destroyed or captured in Ukraine.

* Using intercepted and decrypted information can give you a tremendous advantage, but it also blatantly demonstrates to the enemy that you can break their encryption if that's the only way you could have known, in which case they'll change their codes and you'll have to do the whole thing over again. In the case of the famous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram Zimmermann Telegram]], the British had to bribe a Mexican telegraph employee for information they already possessed to create a cover story for how they knew.

*** Certain abilities were like this simply because their long cooldown times made it only suitable in "oh crap" moments. An example is the White Mage's Benediction which fully heals someone instantly. It had such a long cool down that it wasn't practical to drop it on a whim. But the cool down was reduced to 3 minutes, allowing it to come up more than once in a given dungeon battle.
*** Zigzagged with the ability Swiftcast depending on the job. Healers will save Swiftcast because in combination with Raise/Ressurection/Ascend, it allows one to skip the 8 second cast time. Black Mages will drop this every chance they get, because it means one less spell they have to wait to cast. Summoners and possibly Red Mages may save this to instant cast Ressurection/Verraise, but otherwise half the time they have instant-casting anyway.

*** The Palace of the Dead has the Pomander of Rage, an item that transforms the user into a manticore and lets them become a OneHitKill machine to everything except bosses. Because RNG is fickle, you may barely get any, which causes people to either save them in a dire emergency or use them in conjunction with the Pomander of Fortune, which boosts the drop rate of coffers left behind by defeated enemies. However since a lot people do Palace of the Dead simply to grind floors 41-50 for experience and that the Pomander of Rage is useless on bosses, if the party still has some in their inventory towards the end of the run, they'll pop it anyway since they'll lose it once they're done.

** Thanks to there being almost no hint of when it might be safe to use them, and is generally placed in arbitrary positions, the rarer-than-gold dust [[SaveGameLimits save crystals]] in the UsefulNotes/PlayStation version of the [[VideoGame/TombRaiderIII third game]] ended up suffering from this for a lot of people. Previous games encouraged/forced players to manage their inventory by striking a balance between using medi-kits and using ammunition for the better weapons when confronting dangerous enemies. The crystals created a third thing to manage, and the more obsessive-compulsive players could find this pretty stressful.

** In older titles, many of the early equipment parts that players would receive were consumable parts which could fully repair or resupply a unit, or even restore the pilot's SP. Despite being relatively common or even purchasable, players abhorred using them and would often end up with dozens of them by the end of the game. ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsZ'' reworked consumable items into being usable once per stage, in exchange for being much rarer than they used to be.
** ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsV'' features an in-universe example with the presence of ''Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato2199'': true to its source material, the Yamato's WaveMotionGun is exclusively limited to cutscenes for the vast majority of the game, as it causes far too much collateral damage to use in battle. It takes facing down the final boss for the ship's captain to approve using the Gun in combat[[note]]or on the alternate route, facing down the full might of the Invaders horde[[/note]], at which point it proves to have an attack power miles above everything else and a gargantuan area of effect.

* In ''VideoGame/SlashEm'', a ''[=NetHack=]'' variant, may come across the Houchou, an artifact-level spoon. Throwing this spoon at a monster results in an instant kill, after which the artifact is destroyed.

** The ammo for some weapons does not drop in crates at all. This is especially bad in [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankGoingCommando the second game's]] Synthenoid, which you can fire at most ''thrice'' before running out of ammo. Shield Charger's ammo also has to be bought, though in its case its clip and duration are bigger and upgrade, it was nerfed [[VideoGame/RatchetAndClankUpYourArsenal in third game]], making it closer to this trope. [[VideoGame/RatchetDeadlocked Deadlocked's]] Harbinger also has normally only three shots and the ammo is costly, though that won't be much issue if you are able to buy the gun.
** Second game has Zodiac, the ultimate weapon. Its ammo is found in a crate, but you better hope you find it there because normally one-shot costs 10000 bolts. It does cause a large explosion all around Ratchet, but the long firing animation (which locks you in place and stops if Ratchet takes damage) and the fact that it was ineffective against bosses meant that it was firmly an AwesomeButImpractical gun, to begin with, especially compared to the significantly cheaper [[MacrossMissileMassacre RYNO II]].