History AwesomeButImpractical / NewMedia

** Percy's shock gauntlet, [[ICallItVera Diplomacy]]. Despite being a totally awesome design concept with the capacity to do a fair amount of damage and potentially stun its target, he's only used it in combat a [[IncrediblyLamePun handful]] of times, due to three major drawbacks: First, Percy is primarily a ranged fighter; his most powerful gun has a range of ''1200 feet'', which is ''insane''[[labelnote:*]] that's considerably higher than the top range of a longbow, which has the longest range of any weapon in the Player's Handbook, and since Percy has the sharpshooter feat he can shoot from that distance at no penalty [[/labelnote]]. If anyone gets close enough to hit Percy in melee, he has a habit of shooting them point-blank anyway. Second, the gauntlet needs to be charged with a lightning spell beforehand, which means Percy either needs to take lightning damage at just the right time, or ask Keyleth or Scanlan to charge it up for him and burn through one of their spell slots. Thirdly, Diplomacy can only hold a single charge, meaning Percy is better served using dex-based melee weapons, such as rapiers, so he can attack three times. All of this - plus the non-zero chance Diplomacy could explode if used incorrectly - makes it a ''very'' situational weapon.

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has the joke item SCP-1543-J, "The Sun Launcher." Two weapons (one a seemingly-magical catapult, the other an orbiting spacecraft with a WaveMotionGun) constructed for the purpose of destroying anomalous objects, they do [[HurlItIntoTheSun just what you'd think.]] While this has the capacity to wipe out most things, they're both incredibly expensive and require regular maintenance. On top of that, they seem to have a weird habit of using it on things that you really wouldn't want to shoot into the sun - harmless, fragile, or easily contained entities, entities that [[FeedItWithFire feed off heat or energy]], entities capable of StarKilling (and outright bragging about it), two different {{Reality Changing Miniature}}s, or the NighInvulnerable 682, who [[NoSell "came back on fire."]] The whole thing is a fairly obvious joke on how many commentators immediately try to think of a way to destroy [=SCPs=] after reading about them, and usually [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill resort to incredibly overkill methods]] - it's noted that the team in charge of the Sun Launcher has a rivalry with "[[NukeEm Team 10 Gazillion Nuclear Detonations All Used At Once]]," which led to the "compromise" of storing nuclear weapons on the Sun Launcher with very easy activation conditions.

* When doing their ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' [[Machinima/YogscastMinecraftSeries series]], the LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}} generally tend to have a record of building things that look cool, but don't really work well:

* Wiki/ThisVeryWiki has a search toolbar for Firefox. While initially it seems like it would [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife ruin your life even further]] and be great to edit articles, it's much faster to just use the search bar at the top of the page or just Google "[[Topic]] Tvtropes'' rather than use the dropdown menu and enter it.

* ''Roleplay/MSFHighForum'': Lily loves this. Her weapon of choice is a pair of daggers made from two of her own bones! Simply drawing them (out of her wrists, no less) hurts her.
** Awesome yet Practical: Lily has tired of this, and worked in a minor healing spell to negate the hit point loss.

* Wiki/ThisVeryWiki has a search toolbar for Firefox. While initially it seems like it would [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife ruin your life even further]] and be great to edit articles, it's much faster to just use the search bar at the top of the page or just Google "[[Topic]] Tvtropes'' rather than use the dropdown menu and enter it.

** Percy's shock gauntlet, [[ICallItVera Diplomacy]]. Despite being a totally awesome design concept with the capacity to do a fair amount of damage and potentially stun its target, he's only used it in combat a [[IncrediblyLamePun handful]] of times, due to three major drawbacks: First, Percy is primarily a ranged fighter; his most powerful gun has a range of ''1200 feet'', which is ''insane''[[labelnote:*]] that's considerably higher than the top range of a longbow, which has the longest range of any weapon in the Player's Handbook, and since Percy has the sharpshooter feet he can shoot from that distance at no penalty [[/labelnote]]. If anyone gets close enough to hit Percy in melee, he has a habit of shooting them point-blank anyway. Second, the gauntlet needs to be charged with a lightning spell beforehand, which means Percy either needs to take lightning damage at just the right time, or ask Keyleth or Scanlan to charge it up for him and burn through one of their spell slots. Thirdly, Diplomacy can only hold a single charge, meaning Percy is better served using dex-based melee weapons, such as rapiers, so he can attack three times. All of this - plus the non-zero chance Diplomacy could explode if used incorrectly - makes it a ''very'' situational weapon.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': While most of the series runs shamelessly on RuleOfCool (and ignores all the things that ''Chibi'' mentions, below), the [[HumongousMecha colossus]] is the exception. It's a building-sized humanoid robot piloted by a single person, and Cordo sends it against one small ship filled with ten people. While it's great for its intended purpose of fighting {{Kaiju}}, [[CripplingOverspecialization it's absolutely terrible at anything else]]. Cordo was so obsessed with proving "the might of Atlas" that she threw it into a situation that she was perfectly aware it wasn't designed for, rather than using her more traditional troops and ships that are supposed to support the colossus.

* ''WebAnimation/RWBYChibi'' briefly discusses Professor Port's blunderbuss, which has two ax blades on its stock. Weiss, who is borrowing the weapon for a play, has no idea how to hold it without injuring herself, and the blades also make it hard to aim. Professor Port chimes in "Ha-ha! Personal preference!". In the main show, he seems to have no problem wielding it, but the Chibi show does lampshade what an impractical weapon it really is.

* [[Wiki/TheSCPFoundation The SCP Foundation]] has the joke item SCP-1543-J, "The Sun Launcher." Two weapons (one a seemingly-magical catapult, the other an orbiting spacecraft with a WaveMotionGun) constructed for the purpose of destroying anomalous objects, they do [[HurlItIntoTheSun just what you'd think.]] While this has the capacity to wipe out most things, they're both incredibly expensive and require regular maintenance. On top of that, they seem to have a weird habit of using it on things that you really wouldn't want to shoot into the sun - harmless, fragile, or easily contained entities, entities that [[FeedItWithFire feed off heat or energy]], entities capable of StarKilling (and outright bragging about it), two different {{Reality Changing Miniature}}s, or the NighInvulnerable 682, who [[NoSell "came back on fire."]] The whole thing is a fairly obvious joke on how many commentators immediately try to think of a way to destroy [=SCPs=] after reading about them, and usually [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill resort to incredibly overkill methods]] - it's noted that the team in charge of the Sun Launcher has a rivalry with "[[NukeEm Team 10 Gazillion Nuclear Detonations All Used At Once]]," which led to the "compromise" of storing nuclear weapons on the Sun Launcher with very easy activation conditions.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}''
** The events of the episode "Heroes and Monsters" ultimately prove this towards Yang Xiao Long's weapons, the shot-gauntlets Ember Celica. Yes, they are shotgun-mounted gauntlets and they are awesome as you expect. Unlike Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna's companion weapons (Crescent Rose, Myrtenaster and Gambol Shroud), it loses out on the protective distance a blade and/or handle grants, requiring Yang to get up into someone's face. [[spoiler:Yang learns this the hard way when Adam Taurus effortlessly deflects her attack and [[AnArmAndALeg cuts off her arm at the elbow]].]]
** Yang's Semblance is also this the way she uses it, according to Taiyang. As even seen in the series, she uses her power not as a boost, but as an unnatural temper tantrum. If she is taken out in some way before she can use it, it's useless.
** Volume 5 reveals that, after she was crushed by Ruby's Silver Eye power at the end of Volume 3, Cinder had her arm replaced with that of a Grimm. While this Grimm-arm can stretch, impale people, and even steal Maiden-power, it can be weakened by Ruby's Silver Eyes, hurting Cinder. [[spoiler: And since it's Grimm, it can't be protected by Aura. When Cinder and Raven fight, a piece of shrapnel impales the arm, even though Cinder still had a full Aura.]]
** ''WebAnimation/RWBYChibi'' briefly discusses Professor Port's blunderbuss, which has two ax blades on its stock. Weiss, who is borrowing the weapon for a play, has no idea how to hold it and the blades make it hard to aim. Professor Port chimes in "Ha-ha! Personal preference!"

* ThisVeryWiki has a search toolbar for Firefox. While initially it seems like it would [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife ruin your life even further]] and be great to edit articles, it's much faster to just use the search bar at the top of the page or just Google "[[Topic]] Tvtropes'' rather than use the dropdown menu and enter it.

* In ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'', the events of the episode "Heroes and Monsters" ultimately prove this towards Yang Xiao Long's weapons, the shot-gauntlets Ember Celica. Yes, they are shotgun-mounted gauntlets and they are awesome as you expect. Unlike Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna's companion weapons (Crescent Rose, Myrtenaster and Gambol Shroud), it loses out on the protective distance a blade and/or handle grants, requiring Yang to get up into someone's face. [[spoiler:Yang learns this the hard way when Adam Taurus effortlessly deflects her attack and [[AnArmAndALeg cuts off her arm at the elbow]].]]

* Percy's shock gauntlet, [[ICallItVera Diplomacy]], in ''WebVideo/CriticalRole''. Despite being a totally awesome design concept with the capacity to do a fair amount of damage and potentially stun its target, he's only used it in combat a [[IncrediblyLamePun handful]] of times, due to three major drawbacks: First, Percy is primarily a ranged fighter; his most powerful gun has a range of ''1200 feet'', which is ''insane''[[labelnote:*]] that's considerably higher than the top range of a longbow, which has the longest range of any weapon in the Player's Handbook, and since Percy has the sharpshooter feet he can shoot from that distance at no penalty [[/labelnote]]. If anyone gets close enough to hit Percy in melee, he has a habit of shooting them point-blank anyway. Second, the gauntlet needs to be charged with a lightning spell beforehand, which means Percy either needs to take lightning damage at just the right time, or ask Keyleth or Scanlan to charge it up for him and burn through one of their spell slots. Thirdly, Diplomacy can only hold a single charge, meaning Percy is better served using dex-based melee weapons, such as rapiers, so he can attack three times. All of this - plus the non-zero chance Diplomacy could explode if used incorrectly - makes it a ''very'' situational weapon.

* In ''MallFight 3'', Tox crafted a weapon which was a mix of dozens of weapons, but it was too heavy for anyone to use.