[[FinalFantasyIV http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Spoony_Bard.jpg]]
[[caption-width:267:Damn his spooniness!]]

-->''spoony \SPOO-nee\, ''adjective'':\\
1. Foolish; silly; excessively sentimental.\\
2. Foolishly or sentimentally in love.''
-->-'''Dictionary.com'''

A gimmick class, character or unit often added by game designers trying to add variety. Sometimes their abilities are [[UselessUsefulSpell not as effective as]] [[BoringButPractical just bashing an enemy with a sword]], but other times the inverse can be true.

Contrast GameBreaker, LethalJokeCharacter.

Not to be confused with [[{{The Spoony Experiment}} a different Spoony]].

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!!Examples:
* The TropeNamer is Prince Edward from ''FinalFantasyIV''. After the death of an otherwise plot-unimportant daughter, the party's sage Tellah rails against the unfortunate lute player with a stream of insults and threats including "You spoony bard!", a somewhat {{Bowdlerise}}d translation that [[GoodBadTranslation became popular and was retained when the game was re-translated for the GBA version]] (though in the DS game the retranslator NPC found in the dwarven kingdom's Developer's Room states, "The bard ''is'' spoony. [[LampshadeHanging We checked!]]"). Edward himself is [[JokeCharacter singularly useless]], employing a ''[[ImprobableWeaponUser harp]]'' as a weapon and possessing the special ability of [[MusicalAssassin "singing" at enemies]] -- a skill that's supposed to inflict [[StandardStatusEffects status ailments]] but [[UselessUsefulSpell which frequently does nothing at all]]. Edward's other special ability, unsurprisingly, is to run away and hide for a turn. In "hard-type", though, he's ''slightly'' more useful because he can also spread potions amongst the whole party. Slightly.
** The DS version buffed him considerably, and his Bardsong became far more useful. You can pick the song you want, and one Edward learns actually heals your party while he isn't interrupted. And then you can give Bardsong to someone that isn't Edward...
** [[MagikarpPower Late in the GBA version of the game, Edward becomes one of the fastest characters in the game]]. Equip him with the Apollo Harp, and he can easily dish out 2000+ damage ''every few seconds''. And woe unto any dragon-type enemies you run into, as Edward will regularly dole out anywhere from 8000+ to max damage ''per hit''. His only glaring weaknesses are his defense and lack of hit points, making him more of a GlassCannon---but even then, he deals full damage from the back row, so defence is less important for him.
*** Don't forget the accessory that changes his useless sing command to a Mighty Guard Spell.
** Not to mention his other much-upgraded ability, Salve: in previous versions, all it did was to take a potion and split it between the party members for a whopping 25 HP of healing. In the DS remake, it instead allows you to take any item and use it on the entire party at once with full effect, although it does use up as many of the said item as there are party members. Like the previous skill, it can also be later given to another character as well.
** And finally, Edward indirectly contributes towards making Edge a lot more useful than he normally would be: Throw can be used while Hiding, and thus he can throw stuff at enemies while being completely unhittable, although hidden characters have a tendency to return on their own after a set amount of time has passed. Aim is also useable when hiding, but it's not nearly as useful or damaging as Throw.
** All this said, the famous line that named this trope doesn't appear in the original Japanese version. In its place is Tellah screaming [[WhatTheHellHero "You bastard! How dare you!"]]; one way or another, it's not nearly as memorable as the line that took its place.
*** Seems like poor Edward just can't seem to catch a break. While he's shown to be much less wimpier storywise and he still retains his Salve ability in After Years, his Bardsong is again randomized. At very least you can still choose whether you want to target your party or enemies with it, including being able to choose from a single/all party members/enemies and the negative statuses it can cause have potential to at least be useful this time around since the game follows the DS version trend of making {{Useless Useful Spell}}s less useless. While he's not the GlassCannon he was in the GBA version anymore, his damage output isn't that far behind from the other characters, he's still decently fast, the aforementioned Salve can be even more useful than the White Mages' healing spells both because of the buyable X-Potions and Elixirs and an item that doubles the effectiveness of items in battle and his ability to hide can still be useful against enemies who telegraph their TotalPartyKill attacks.
*** And seeing how Edward is still moping over his beloved Anna ''[[FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears 17 years]]'' after her death, such that his kingdom is without an heir, he apparently still fits the literal definition as well. That said, he's ''much'' [[TookALevelInBadass more confident and assertive]] now, and is one of the only heroes to get the better of the villains, if temporarily, so far.
* The Dancer and Bard classes in ''FinalFantasyTactics''. Dancers can use their weakest dance to enormously powerful effect in a properly tweaked party (3 Dancers and two Mimes with strength boosted as high as possible). This is generally the second most powerful party possible in the game. Without this strategy, however, the Dancer class was mostly useless (which theoretically makes it a [[MagikarpPower Magikarp]]).
** ''Tactics'' also has two characters, a brother and sister named Rafa and Malak. Their unique ability hits 2-5 random squares in a 5 square, cross shaped area, making their attacks frequently do nothing at all. And while Rafa's spells does a fixed damage depending on her stats (as opposed to the usual Faith-based magic system of the game), Malak's functions better if he has a very low Faith; Rafa is almost useful if you train her as a white mage due to her high Faith, or as a move-find-item holder due to her low Brave, Malak can do excellent magic damage while being almost immune to magic himself, making him an excellent faith-based magic counter if used right.
***The FFT remake for the PSP has been more forgiving for the siblings, as it made their spells more reliable, upping the number of times it can theoretically hit to nine, and raising the chance it can hit the center tile target, so that one can center the spell on an enemy and expect it to hit at least once.
***Ironically, the way the abilities of the Bard and the Dancer are coded (map-effect songs with "only ally/only enemy" targeting, which use charge times) seem tailor-made for Rafa/Rapha and Malak/Marach. Add the Reaction abilities of both classes (Faith Boost for Bard, Bravery Boost for Dancer), the fact that the entire suite of abilities makes them suitable for the Short Charge/Swiftness Support Ability (which ''reduces'' Charge Time) and the fact that both classes are extreme opposites (to the point the classes are ''gender-exclusive''), and you'd think Bard and Dancer were meant to fix these characters. Or give them some use. Or to make these characters less useful than they are in-game.
** Bard and Dancer have one side effect that makes them extremely valuable - every time their song/dance activates, they earn experience and job points. The reason this is a big deal is because a song or dance can activate two or three times between each of their actions, making it ideal for level grinding - particularly if you're currently using a class that can be charitably described as "[[MightyGlacier glacial]]" in speed. Depending on how much you abuse this, you can master [[GameBreaker Calculator]] in one or two battles by having them use a song/dance as their secondary action.
**This troper got rather good mileage out of a dancer. In one round of dancing, her effect was minimal (a minor status effect on 2 or 3 enemies). After about five rounds of dancing, the enemy party was made of blind poisoned paralyzed silent frogs.
** Why the hate for Dancers? Slow Dance can absolutely destroy an enemy team if it has enough time to cause havoc. There isn't a whole lot the enemy can do to you when you drop their speed down to 3 or 4.
*** Not to mention Bards, which can increase not only the speed of your own units with the same frequency as Dancers slow enemies, but also increase the physical attack of your units, including Dancers which do more damage with higher attack. 1 Bard, 1 Dancer and 1 Mime demolishes enemies easily.
*** The dancer's Nameless Dance which casts random status effects on the entire enemy team is basically a GameBreaker (at least by the standards of any game without a Thunder God). One round and half the opponents are frogged, sleeped, paralyzed, confused or otherwise changed from "problem" to "target".
*** 5 Dancers takes them from a weapon of attrition, to a Gamebreaker. Only the fastest of enemies can reach them, which is easily solved by switching a couple of dancers to Slow Dance.
* In ''FinalFantasyXI'' the Bard is an example of the Gamebreaker side, it is so popular (due to its completely free buffs) that most people say that you can get offers for LevelGrinding parties without raising your invite flag (to signify that you are looking for a party); this gets to the point to which some people have to go into anonymous mode (which hides what job and level your character is) to avoid getting invites. Though this has happened with other jobs, bards are pretty much the only one that has always been like this. [[SummonMagic Summoners]], traditionally the most powerful job in FinalFantasy games, fits this trope on the other side due to being able to do useful things less frequently than any other job.
* In ''FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' Blue Mages use the class' famed "[[MegaManning get hit by enemy ability to learn it]]". Gadgeteers randomly inflict positive or negative effects on either side of battle. Illusionists hit every enemy unit on the map, most often for low damage. Templars have good defense and equipment, but their abilities are a random set of buffs and offenive skills.
** Gadgeteers have an EliteTweak that can just about save them - the famous "equip the entire team with Fortune Rings and spam Black Ingot" - if it hits you, nothing happens because the rings render immunity; if it hits them, they're dead in three turns. Still pretty cack, though.
**Unless you spam Chroma Gem (The rings give Sleep immunity too...) or Azoth first.
** Templars may also be a case of CripplingOverspecialization, as all their skills are well suited for fighting [[SquishyWizard spell-casters]] (Astra, Rasp, Silence...) but not for much else.
*** In FFTA2, they have Haste. Before you can reliably Hastega every turn, that's worth a secondary slot all by itself.
** Blue Mages are huge [[MagikarpPower Magikarp]] characters -- with a spell set of powerful, diverse, and unique magics that work with almost any Hume class. Night, White Wind (heals HP equal to the caster's current HP level), Angel Whisper, Matra Magic, Bad Breath (inflicts enemy with a bunch of StandardStatusEffects), and Twister are all fantastic spells. Plus, the Damage > MP ability requires your opponent to attack the Blue Mage with multiple characters or else do no damage at all.
*** This troper even turned the main character into a Blue Mage and his favorite moment is when he inflict Rasp/Soul Sphere on Warrior-type (Low MP) enemies (If you're strong enough some of spellcaster would suffer this too.) and Matra Magic them!(exchange current HP value with current MP value) while they're having 0 MP ....Quite Entertaining KO!
**** FFTA2 has a magic system where all characters start battles with 0 MP... a character leveled as a ninja to become a FragileSpeedster with Matra Magic can one-hit-kill enemy units before they get their first turn, provided they can get in range fast enough. Alternately, a fast moogle with Smile will help do the trick.
** Illusionists are of dubious value on their own (they can hit all enemies at once with minor magical damage), but coupled with FFTA2's Seer class (which can deal an additional melee attack to all spell targets) and the Dual Wield ability (adds an additional melee attack), they... well, yeah. Though the Seer is really a GameBreaker in it's own right (as it allows, for example, spamming of the all-powerful Ultima attack).
** FFTA2 has an actual bard as a unique character... and he's quite spoony, since unlike [[GameBreaker Final Fantasy Tactics unique characters]], FFTA2 has absolutely terrible stat growth in unique classes. His bard songs aren't of much help, since only his MP boosting power offers something another class can't already do with a better range of alternate actions, and dedicating a unit to boosting MP would only be of use if you had multiple mages trading out Halve MP or Blood Price for Geomancy or Magic UP while staying in formation. Fortunately, he can learn from other classes, like Juggler or Time Mage, but depending on what level you were when you recruited him, his low stats will ensure he never can quite compete with a generic specifically leveled for certain stats.
*** While the stat growth for Hurdy's Bard class was bad, some of his abilities were downright valuable. Nameless Song gave multiple units random buffs, Requiem dealt major damage to the undead and permanently killed one that had 0 HP, and Magick Ballad restored 10 MP to multiple units. All of his abilities requires no MP to cast.
** The game also uses the Spoony Bard thing as an insult; in one of the Bonga Bugle missions, one of the enemy units calls [[LeeroyJenkins the Head Editor]] a "spoony seeq".
* ''FinalFantasyIII'' had a nice variety of classes, but there were several that were either only useful once in the game or were so useless that they could be totally overlooked. Its version of the Bard class is ''even worse'' than FFIV's Edward, with little attack power or defense and only one command ("Cheer") that has any use whatsoever. The Scholar, similarly, has little attack or defensive power, but has the "Scan" command which is vital in ''exactly one'' battle in the game, against [[spoiler:Hyne]]. The DS remake, however, did make the Bard at least marginally useful. Marginally useful? If you get Bard's Job levels high enough and equipped them with correct harp, they could restore at least 1000 HP to everyone instantly.
** The DS remake also gave Scholars the nifty buff of doubling the effect of any item they use. This includes the attack items that cast Fire2, Bolt2, and Ice2 on the enemy, making them very powerful, [[spoiler:at least until you realize that there is a finite number of such attack items in the game, making their usefulness very short lived. Oh well!]]
*** [[spoiler:Not if you've still got the Fire and Ice staves that I'm sure you had your white mage equip...]]
* Approximately one-third to a half of all the classes, and their class abilities, in the video game versions of ''DungeonsAndDragons'' more or less end up seeing little to no use except for roleplaying reasons or EliteTweak builds, one of the primary offenders up through the ages being (you guessed it) the bard class.
** Not just the video game versions. The entire system is like that. There are a lot of 'trap' classes in ALL editions. This is where ''LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards'' came from after all.
** Interestingly enough, the first edition bard was just TheMario.
** However, in Dungeons and Dragons Online, the MMORPG of DnD, Bards are much appreciated. They aren't used often, but if a bard says "gather for buff", the rest of the party will stop what they are doing because ''everyone'' enjoys being buffed.
*** Parts of my brain shut down at that sentence, but I don't know why.
** In many ''NeverwinterNights'' PVP Arena servers, Bards are highly powerful due to their epic buffing skills and ability to take the powerhouse Red Dragon Disciple prestige class. It's very common to see the strongest melee tank characters be Bard/RDD/Some third class.
** In the first BaldursGate, the bard class was pretty much tragically underpowered compared to the others - there was no good reason to choose a bard over a rogue. Things got better with the sequel and with IcewindDale.
*** Quite the reverse in fact, bards were hideously strong in the first ''BaldursGate''. Why? They used the rogue XP-table but used that level to determine their casting level. So a spell cast by a bard with a certain XP would be likely to be much more effective than a similar spell cast by a wizard. (Since you didn't reach any caster level caps until the very end of the game) This became much less significant later on (where mages caught up, and higher level spells became more important)
* Dancers/Bards (whose primary ability is to give units extra turns) in the ''FireEmblem'' series vary widely in usefulness.
** The Dancer class was introduced in the third game with the ability to give an extra turn to one adjacent character. The character with this class was also a passable fighter with the ability to use a Rapier (a weapon generally restricted to the main characters).
** Dancers in the 4th ''Fire Emblem'' received a considerable jump in utility as they now gave an extra turn to all adjacent units. None of them were especially worthwhile as combat units, however.
** The Dancer in the 5th entry returned to only being able to give an extra turn to one adjacent unit, and was even worse at fighting. Furthermore to get the dancer required promoting her out of thief via a somewhat secret conversation. Whether she is better as a dancer or a thief depends on if you are attempting to speedrun the game or not.
** Come the 6th game, Dancers could no longer attack. Bards were also cut down from being a low-class Light Mage to being a male version of a Dancer.
** In the 7th game, Dancers got access to rings which they could use to provide temporary stat bonuses to adjacent people instead of giving off extra turns.
** In the 8th game, Dancers returned to the same formula used in the 6th game.
** In the 9th they were replaced by Herons (or rather, a single Heron) who are basically flying bards, except they can grant extra turns to up to four units at a time when transformed, restore status and HP to up to four adjacent units at a time when transformed, and have magic resistance and evasion through the roof so they can effectively be used as a mage bait.
** In the 10th game Herons have all the abilities from 9, plus various buffs (all with infinite uses) and the inherent ability to move after using them as all but one are flying units (this counters the primary weakness of the class in previous games, as they no longer need to stay in the front to use their skills) as well as the ability to attack using "cards", but these don't allow counters and are generally more for show and easy levels then anything else.
** Other "gimmick" units include.
*** Manaketes, (dragons with their true form sealed into stones they use to transform into dragons and attack), are generally powerful, but have limited weapon supplies and, for the most part, join really late.
*** Ballisticians from the first and 11th games: the only two characters in the class are not that great and have limited weaponry, as only one shop in the game sells ballista weapons.
*** Laguz; units that, after several turns, can transform into beasts. [[YourMileageMayVary Their usefulness varies.]] The herons are, as noted, extremely useful. Combat laguz usually start unusually strong in beast form, at the cost of their transformation mechanic, but are frequently outpaced by conventional units.
* And now for a platforming example: Rospark from ''MegaManZX Advent''. Slow and can't jump worth anything, it's only good in the case of an EigenPlot, where he can climb on vines.
* Gildward, the bard from the webcomic ''{{Adventurers}}!'', is a parody of the original SpoonyBard from ''FinalFantasyIV''. His name is even a combination of "Edward" and "Gilbert", Edward's Japanese name. In [[http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0034.html this strip]], he [[DefiedTrope almost]] gets called a SpoonyBard after demonstrating the utterly ineffectual powers of his magic harp.
* In ''ShadowHearts: Covenant'' and ''From the New World''. Lucia, the closest to a bard in the game has a skill that would allow her to add temporary buffs to the party (But she is not affected), as well as have a tarot draw that can both extremely buff or hurt you. But in addition to that, she also has a pretty good magic stat so she can be a feasible spellcaster. Ricardo in From the New World also functions in a same way, being a good mage, buffer with his songs, and can even ''shoot rockets out of his guitar''.
* Turn-based strategy example: the Piperunner in ''[[NintendoWars Advance Wars]]''. While it has 2-5 Range with high power against most units, it can only move on pipes, and can't even move on ''roads''. If you accidentally built one in a base not next to pipes, it couldn't move at all, and the only way to be able to use the base to build new units was the Delete option.
** This unit is based off of the Train Gun in ''Super Famicom Wars''. Though that unit could at least transport other units. And it was built on a property specifically for it.
** Indeed, ''Dual Strike'' unit additions varied between these and GameBreaker units like the Stealth Fighter (who could attack pretty much anything and only be attacked by other Stealths and Fighters while stealthed). Another Spoony was the Mega Tank, a monster of a tank that had low movement and ammo. While it could take on anything on any direct ground unit with ease, it was more vulnerable to artillery than other tanks due to its low movement and high cost. And lets not get started on the campaign-only oozium, a giant slime that could instantly destroy any unit just by moving on it... with a movement range of one square.
*** ''Days of Ruin'' has the Seaplane, an overcomplicated version of the Attacker from ''Super Famicom Wars'' and ''Game Boy Wars 3'', fitting right in with that description. It outclasses all other air units except the Fighter in 1-on-1 combat and can wreck land units almost as efficiently as the Bomber. However, it has to be built from the Aircraft Carrier, which itself is expensive, has to use its turn and some money to build the Seaplane, and otherwise isn't particularly useful, especially when a Submarine can kill it in one blow.
** ''Game Boy wars 3'' has the APC S, which is basically an IFV with worse traits. The Tanker is also debatably this because its purpose is to resupply ships....which unfortunately don't need it much.
* While the base classes in ''WorldOfWarcraft'' are all useful, some their respective talent trees just werent up to snuff initially, and some still struggle.
** Druids initially had one really functional tree, Restoration (healing). Balance (nuking) still struggles, being similiar to mages without great area-target spells and mezzing (unless they are facing animals).
*** Some of the Druids' problems also came from a heavy gear dependency, and lack of available gear that was made specifically for non Restoration builds contributed to it. Even throughout Burning Crusade, Balance specced druids did not have enough leather to use Moonkin to its full potential.
** Mages early on pretty much had to chose Frost, due to a large number of fire immune bosses and Arcane being rather dysfunctional.
** Enhancement Shamans, Fury Warriors and Retribution Paladins used to share the same problem: they had damage outputs comparable to (or surpassing) rogues but lacked their utility moves. This is no longer really the case due to the wider distribution of group buffs and other utility moves, as well as the diminishing importance of crowd control.
** The Warlock class used to be a Spoony Bard in raids due to its dependance on debuffs. Why was that a problem? Because the game only allowed 8 debuffs on a single target. 3 of which are taken by the tank, others were taken by effects like the slowing debuff caused by frost spells, and other debuffs necessary depending on the encounter. Worse yet, there was no priority system so any random debuff could push out something like Sunder Armor (which is utterly vital for a warrior tank to keep the targets attention) off the table. Meanwhile, their pets (and those of hunters) were mostly useless, dying easily to area-effects. The only way out was focusing on imitating mages. The debuff problem was solved. The pet problem... not so much.
*** Demons now gain the previously Felguard (a special pet) exclusive ability Avoidance, which lowers incoming [=AoE=] damage by roughly 75%. Demonology has also been shifted to something of a PvP tree and emphasis on pets in PvE has been rather lowered. The Felhunter revamp (Shadow Bite being a mana restore, party int/spirit buff) may change that, however.
***Demonology remains fairly useless in PvP however, as with the more recent PvP scene being filled by Burst Damage the Destruction tree is simply superior, plus it has two fairly amazing defensive talents in the form of Molten Skin (-6% to ALL damage taken) and Nether Protection (Chance on being hit by a spell to gain a 30% damage reduction from all spells of that school, so say hit by a fireball, 30% reduced fire damage). Also given that many of the defensive talents are near the bottom of the tree the Affliction tree's self-healing debuffs make it more than possible to make a more defensive Affliction built. That said, Demonology can now put out viable PvE damage.
** Like druids, hunters initially had only one viable talent tree: Marksmanship. In addition, their pets were as worthless as the warlocks', so the class degenerated to standing still and letting your character automatically shoot at the target. Thus the derogatory term ''Huntard''. The initial attempt to fix the class consisted of adding one additional ability acquired from a certain boss.. and usable '''only''' on the next boss.
*** All three trees have gone through Spoony Bardness at one time, and usually then overcorrected into being the only viable tree while the others were nerfed to extinction. Right now, Survival is the prime DPS Hunter build, when not so long ago its only use was as a punchline.
** In the ''Wrath of the Lich King'' expansion, the developers have made a very deliberate effort to reverse the trend of having useless classes and/or talent trees. [[YourMileageMayVary Some players say]] they went ''too'' far, to the point where they are starting to blend together. However, the vast majority of the above arguments in favor of a particular class or spec being {{Spoony Bard}}s are now irrelevant.
* While none of the classes in ''MassEffect'' are totally worthless or unplayable, choosing to be a Sentinel without first having unlocked weapon skills as bonuses for other playthroughs can be exceptionally difficult. Sentinels are a combination of [[GadgeteerGenius tech]] and [[SquishyWizard biotic]] skills. The skills they get are reasonably good, but the trade-off for this is that they get ''no weapon or armor skills''. Now, Sentinels DO have, as part of their "class" package (each class has a skill line carrying the name of the class that gives special benefits), a bonus to pistol accuracy and damage...so not ALL is lost. For the most part though, it's a lot better to take one of the combat-paired hybrid classes, or even going full Engineer or Adept.
** Or you could have your other two squad members be combat specialists. Somehow having the DesignatedHero of the game act as a backup guy just seems ''wrong'', though.
** The Sentinel is a very bad choice for players looking to mix it up with Krogan and the like, but it is uniquely capable of disabling every kind of enemy and dealing heavy damage through its myraid powers. If you need weapon or armor skills as a Sentinel, you have screwed up royally.
*** Conversely, the NPC Sentinel Kaiden Alenko has an AI that seems to enjoy screwing up royally and earns the title of Spoony with ten different kinds of emphasis.
* While virtually every profession in ''GuildWars'', with the possible exception of the Monk (healers, not bare fisted brawlers), have those that consider it redundant in one form of play or another, Mesmers - the game's designated Mezzer - are especially susceptible in PvE play, due to the tendency of monsters, especially boss monsters, to be [[UselessUsefulSpell resistant or immune]] to those abilities that make them feared in PvP, combined with the belief that an overwhelming offense coupled with sufficient defenses makes mezzing redundant.
* In the {{Bioware}}-developed RPG ''[[SonicTheHedgehog Sonic Chronicles]]'', Rouge the Bat is the only character that doesn't really bring anything to a team, with average stats and special moves that other characters can do better. Her unique talent is the ability to steal items, but that doesn't really come in very useful.
** Yeah, but nobody plays as Rouge [[MsFanservice for her abilities]] anyway.
*** Her ability to steal items does have its uses: since enemies never drop any rings and their item drops aren't that useful or sell for much and collected rings never respawn, even in NewGamePlus, she's more or less the only real way to get extra rings by stealing healing items that you can sell. This is aided by the fact that the item you get is entirely dependent on the level of her steal skill and that enemies have infinite amounts of items for her to steal. With the 2 turns she gets per combat round (3 with Hyper), it won't take that long to get 99 of both stealable items from any weak enemy and sell them for several times more rings than all the maps in the game have put together, assuming you don't screw up her {{Action Command}}s or use a Chao [[GameBreaker that makes them always successful]].
* Salsa from ''{{Mother 3}}'', granted like Edward from ''FinalFantasyIV'', he is a GuestStarPartyMember... But also like Edward, he is a total deadweight in battles during the time he's with you. Unable to hit for more than 10DMG, has the worst stats of all the characters, even Boney, and has special skills that don't have much use because of their piss-poor [[UselessUsefulSpell success rates]], one would wonder why the developers bothered to even make him a party member rather than a NPC. In fact, he's so useless, you have to rely on the AI controlled JeiganCharacter, Fassad, to beat a ''miniboss'' or even ''normal enemies'' as you progress through his chapter.
** This was likely done on purpose, to make the player feel as helpless as [[TheWoobie the poor monkey]] and further explain why he doesn't try to fight back and save his girlfriend himself.
* Wobbuffet from ''{{Pokemon}}'' had a moveset solely designed to CounterAttack twice the damage it received from a physical or special attack rather than directly dish out any itself. Unfortunately, in Gold/Silver/Crystal, this was easily beaten by constant switching (draining its Power Points) making it almost useless. Of course, once it got an ability that prevented switching and the move Encore in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, forcing the opponent to repeat the same move, it went from useless to [[GameBreaker banned from competitive play.]]
** See also [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Novelty_pokemon "Novelty Pokemon"]].
* The Merchant class from ''{{Ancient Domains of Mystery}}''. They are bad spellcasters and poor fighters. Their main abilities? They have increased carrying capacity at higher levels, and they deal more damage by using coins as a throwing weapon.
* Around half of the class types in Ultima III: Exodus are like this. Some of them, such as the Druid, are genuine attempts at compromise spellcasters that can work, while others like the Ranger and Paladin are fighter/magicians that maintain adequate melee abilities while throwing in utility spells. But then there are the others, like the Illusionist and Alchemist. The Illusionists and Alchemists have all of the melee limitations of the pure spellcasters, while having only *half* the magical power. Some others are close, such as the Barbarian, which is exactly like a Fighter except he can only wear low-level armor until the ultimate armor is found.
* FinalFantasyX2 has the Songstress dressphere (class), which, despite being plot-important, is almost completely useless. There ''are'' some redeeming features to the Songstress, such as the MP Mambo (which causes all spells to have 0 MP cost) and Magical Masque (which causes all magical attacks to your party to be 0). Though, both dances can only be gotten late in the game, and neither one can come even close to touching the [[GameBreaker Cat Nip.]]
* Ironically, Bards in ''FinalFantasyV'' are a subversion, as they are NotCompletelyUseless. However, [[TheBerserker the Berserker]] class plays this straight, what with its lack of control and low speed. The Oracle from the Advance version fits this, except for its very high magic stat.
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