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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 not as effective as just bashing an enemy with a sword, but other times the inverse can be true.
See also What Kind Of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway. Contrast Game Breaker, Lethal Joke Character, and the occasional Heart Is An Awesome Power.
Not to be confused with a different Spoony.
Examples:
- The Trope Namer is Prince Edward from Final Fantasy IV. 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 Bowdlerised translation that 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. We checked!"). Edward himself is singularly useless, employing a harp as a weapon and possessing the special ability of "singing" at enemies — a skill that's supposed to inflict status ailments but 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...
- 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 Glass Cannon—-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 "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 Spells less useless. While he's not the Glass Cannon 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 Total Party Kill attacks.
- And seeing how Edward is still moping over his beloved Anna 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 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 Final Fantasy Tactics. 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 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 "glacial" in speed. Depending on how much you abuse this, you can master Calculator in one or two battles by having them use a song/dance as their secondary action.
- 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 Game Breaker (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.
- And then there's 5 dancers with the Sunken State reaction ability. An invisible and therefore invincible party slowly, inevitably dancing the enemy to death.
- In Final Fantasy XI 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 Level Grinding 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. Summoners, traditionally the most powerful job in Final Fantasy games, fits this trope on the other side due to being able to do useful things less frequently than any other job.
- In Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Blue Mages use the class' famed "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 Elite Tweak 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 Crippling Overspecialization, as all their skills are well suited for fighting spell-casters (Astra, Rasp, Silence...) but not for much else.
- In FFTA 2, they have Haste. Before you can reliably Hastega every turn, that's worth a secondary slot all by itself.
- Blue Mages are huge 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 Standard Status Effects), 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.
- FFTA 2 has a magic system where all characters start battles with 0 MP... a character leveled as a ninja to become a Fragile Speedster with Matra Magic (exchange current HP value with current MP value) 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 FFTA 2'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 Game Breaker in it's own right (as it allows, for example, spamming of the all-powerful Ultima attack).
- FFTA 2 has an actual bard as a unique character... and he's quite spoony, since unlike Final Fantasy Tactics unique characters, FFTA 2 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 the Head Editor a "spoony seeq".
- Final Fantasy III 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 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, 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!
- 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 Dungeons And Dragons more or less end up seeing little to no use except for roleplaying reasons or Elite Tweak 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 Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards came from after all.
- Interestingly enough, the first edition bard was just The Mario.
- However, in Dungeons and Dragons Online, the MMORPG of Dn D, 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 Neverwinter Nights 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 Baldurs Gate, 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 Icewind Dale.
- Quite the reverse in fact, bards were hideously strong in the first Baldurs Gate. 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)
- Arguably averted and played straight in the tabletop Dungeons and Dragons, depending on edition and campaign.
- First edition bards were an odd class that required several levels in 3 different classes before you could begin taking levels in bard, and even then the abilities were of questionable use at best.
- But they had so many HP! One had no problem with asking this troper to shoot him with fireball for killling the mob beside him: "Just don't worry about my hp."
- Third edition bards have a longstanding reputation for being a useless class since anything they can do another class can usually do better. The 3.5 changes helped, but the reputation remains and is often lampooned.
- The truth is however, it is a serious Your Mileage May Vary type of deal, since the bard is not as effective in combat as other classes, but they are extremely good at social skills and Bardic Knowledge essentially equates to having full ranks in all knowledges. Depending on the DM and the campaign, these skills can be incredibly useful, or completely useless.
- Other classes in Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons are also considered Spoony Bards:
- Sorcerer: Wizards get higher level spells faster, get bonus metamagic feats, and can learn any spell they can scribe into a book, all the while getting more skill points due to Intelligence being their primary stat. Of course, this does not necessarily mean the sorcerer is a Spoony Bard; it could just as easily mean wizards are stupidly overpowered.
- Fighter: The extra feats fighters can get have a tendency to have diminishing returns. Especially before they had splatbooks to get some nice fighter exclusive feats.
- Soul Knife: Has a horrible reputation for being underpowered.
- Monk: The monk class is a curious case. At first glance, it looks crazy powerful, with its laundry list of special abilities, unarmed damage, and so on. However, when you try actually playing one, it turns out that none of those special abilities does anything particularly useful, the dependence on multiple stats is debilitating, and the unarmed attacks are not nearly as effective as they look on paper. With a lot of min-maxing, you can make a monk who is almost as effective as a regular old fighter... and given that regular old fighters are on the Spoony Bard list too, that's saying something.
- Two Words Cancer Mage. Loss of health, terrible spells, and a tumor as a minion.
- Dancers/Bards (whose primary ability is to give units extra turns) in the Fire Emblem 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.
- Unless you paired Sylvia with Holin. ;)
- 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. 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 Mega Man ZX Advent. Slow and can't jump worth anything, it's only good in the case of an Eigen Plot, where he can climb on vines.
- Gildward, the bard from the webcomic Adventurers!, is a parody of the original Spoony Bard from Final Fantasy IV. His name is even a combination of "Edward" and "Gilbert", Edward's Japanese name. In this strip
 , he almost gets called a Spoony Bard after demonstrating the utterly ineffectual powers of his magic harp.
- In Shadow Hearts: 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.
- Any of the Bards of the Romancing Sa Ga trilogy. The first was actually the Crystal Dragon Jesus in disguise as the bard. The second one retold the tales of your empire at the start of the game, and had 5 important instruments needed to acquire a character class, and the last was recruitable and was pretty decent in all stats, only problem was that you could only ditch him after clearing one of the Abyss Lords.
- Turn-based strategy example: the Piperunner in 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 Game Breaker 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 World Of Warcraft 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.
- Moonkins are still very valuable in raids, not due to the damage they do, but due to the buffs they give. A single Moonkin gives all casters 5% extra critical strike rating, increases chanse to hit by 3% (meaning people don't need to gear for as much hit), and increase spell damage their target takes by 13% (same buff is also provided by Warlocks, but they have to replace a damaging curse to use it, and unholy Deathknights, but most Deathknights aren't specced on that tree these days).
- Mages early on pretty much had to chose Frost, due to a large number of fire immune bosses and Arcane being rather dysfunctional.
- Arcane is currently the top dps tree, altho it does have some scaling issues.
- 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 Pv P tree and emphasis on pets in Pv E 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 Pv P however, as with the more recent Pv P 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 Pv E damage.
- Much like Moonkins, Demo Lock's most useful feature is not the damage they do (they do reasonable damage now, but still less than the other 2 trees), but the fact they give a very nice buff: Demonic Pact, a buff that increases the raid's spellpowe by 10% of the Warlock's spellpower. Given how a Demo Lock in tier 9 gear can easily get over 4000 sp, and the next best sp buff is a static 275 damage, Demo Locks are becoming very wanted in raids.
- 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. 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 Bards are now irrelevant.
- While none of the classes in Mass Effect 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 tech and 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 Designated Hero 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.
- It seems Bioware clued in as to the limitations of the Sentinel. For Mass Effect 2, the Sentinel has become what can best be described as a tech/biotics juggernaut who is extremely good at whacking enemy shields, and has access to "tech armor" that makes them the toughest class in the game.
- While virtually every profession in Guild Wars, 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 Pv E play, due to the tendency of monsters, especially boss monsters, to be resistant or immune to those abilities that make them feared in Pv P, combined with the belief that an overwhelming offense coupled with sufficient defenses makes mezzing redundant.
- Part of the problem is that in normal pve play, standard mooks wont last long enough vs a party of eight for the hex to be cost effective, and that the simplistic AI makes it so half the hexes dont hinder the enemy much, and when there are 15 enemies, hexing a single one has a negligible effect on the combat situation.
- In the Bioware-developed RPG 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 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 New Game Plus, 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 Commands or use a Chao that makes them always successful.
- Salsa from Mother 3, granted like Edward from Final Fantasy IV, he is a Guest Star Party Member... 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 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 Jeigan Character, 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 the poor monkey and further explain why he doesn't try to fight back and save his girlfriend himself.
- Word of God says this is indeed the case. Furthermore, Salsa relies on Fassad to win battles, although Fassad is also the source of his misery. It's intended to elicit an emotional reaction.
- Wobbuffet from Pokemon had a moveset solely designed to Counter Attack 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 banned from competitive play.
- 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.
- Final Fantasy X 2 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 Cat Nip.
- Ironically, Bards in Final Fantasy V are a subversion, as they are Not Completely Useless. However, 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.
- Many free to play games have at least one class that ends up like this.
- The Bard Class in Ever Quest is stated as a "Jack of All Trades, Master To None" in that it's sort of like multiple classes combined together. Unlike normal buff spells, the bard had to constantly keep "singing" almost non-stop and keep refreshing the songs over and over again every few SECONDS. Most players can successfully juggle 4 song buffs up at once. They can also wear Plate armor, and dual wield weapons (but not Double Attack.) Among the song types they have, they can increase run speed to being the fastest in the game (faster than the most powerful mounts), charm enemies, stun them, deal damage over time, and heal over time.
- Despite the limitations the bard class has, it's actually one of the more effective soloing classes once you get the hang of "Kiting" a monster around (Making them chase after you while you run around and whittle down it's health.) It's a slow tactic, but surprisingly effective... and really annoying to anyone else who's trying to just kill monsters by more normal standards.
- The Bard classes in Ever Quest 2 are broken down into "Orderly" and "Chaotic" versions. The Troubadour and Dirge, respectively. Each class has different types of buffs. The Troubador focuses more on defensive buffs such as raising defense and health, while the Dirge class is more offensive, who's buffs enhance attack speed and double attack damage, among others. Due to the game's Archetype system, both bards are classified as Scout classes, who are restricted to wearing Chain armor (unlike plate in the first game), but are designed to deal significant damage when facing behind an opponent. Literally backstabbing them. Also unlike the first game, however, they don't need to constantly "sing" their buffs for the group. Once you activate them, they stay that way until canceled.
- Among the 6 scout classes (Ranger, Assassin, Swashbuckler, Brigand, Troubadour, Dirge), the two bard classes are supposedly the "weakest" of the 6 in terms of sheer damage output, but when comparing the bards to classes outside the Scout archetype, that's not saying much. They still do more damage than most fighter, priest, and a couple of mage classes.
- Averted in the remake of Tales Of Destiny. Players will probably tell you not to simply disregard Johnny as a Spoony Bard, because not only is he able to blast enemies with soundwaves, juggle them with musical notes, heal, and just attack enemies with his voice.
- The Bard/Clown/Minstral (for males) and Dancer/Gypsy/Wanderer (for Females) Classes from Ragnarok Online. While they come from the Archer Class tree and can use bows and all their Archer Skills, they're more often equipped with a Musical Instrument or Whip (depending on the character's gender) in order to allow them to preform songs or dances to buff allies or debuff enemies. They also work best when paired with the opposite gender equivalent as this allows them to preform Duets with improved abilities. Their songs/dances are near useless without a party to protect them as well.
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