History AwesomeButImpractical / AnimeAndManga

*** In the Granolah The Survivor Saga, Vegeta receives his power-up answer to Ultra Instinct: Ultra Ego. This power gives him the powers of a God of Destruction and has limitless power, and the bonus of the [[CriticalStatusBuff user getting stronger]] as he takes more and more damage. Vegeta brutally beats down Granolah when the latter gave Ultra Instinct Goku problems, but Ultra Ego has a caveat: It makes the users' ego swell up to insane levels, causing them to lose track of the fight, taking hits instead of dodging and resulting in them taking more unnecessary damage. Vegeta is so caught up in his new power and abusing Ultra Ego's buffs more that he doesn't even take notice of the incredible damage his body is taking. He potentially breaks down before he can even use it's power!

*** Following the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga, Goku has attained a degree of control over Ultra Instinct, to the extent that he can activate and deactivate the transformation at will... However, Whis informs him that Ultra Instinct still firmly falls within this territory for Goku. He explains that while the transformation is indeed powerful, the drawbacks are quite severe, mostly that the transformed state causes Goku to bleed stamina like crazy. He further explains that Angels such as himself are ''always'' in the Ultra Instinct state and don't need to transform in order to utilize the power and that Goku will need to learn the same if he wishes to truly avert this trope.

** Part 3 is rather infamous for this. Joseph's Hermit Purple, can take "spirit photographs" using cameras, or can pull a more advanced version with a television; unfortunately, in both cases it destroys the device being used, and in 1989 that kind of tech isn't cheap or easy to come by. Made worse by the fact that [[spoiler:DIO's "[[FanNickname Hermit Purple 2]]"]] can pull exactly the same trick but doesn't destroy the camera (though this may not be a limitation of the Stand so much as Joseph being overdramatic). Joseph gets more practical as time goes on, however, demonstrating the ability to draw things in the dirt to achieve the same effect and just using Hermit Purple as a whip.

** Part 4's Pearl Jam gives the user the ability to make food that can cure ailments, ranging from lack of sleep to cavities to [=IBS=]. While that sounds amazing, the amount of work involved is astronomical. First, the user has to know exactly what issues are present with someone. Second, when making the food, they can't just use anything; they need to use specially prepared ingredients, such as mineral water directly procured from a glacier,. Third, a single dish can only cure a single ailment, potentially requiring a multi-course meal depending on how sick the recipient is. While these issues are mostly circumvented by [[SupremeChef Tonio]] and the food itself is godly, there's also the caveat that Pearl Jam's healing powers are...[[BodyHorror rather visceral.]]
* In ''LightNovel/{{Konosuba}}'', there is the spell Explosion, the most powerful Detonation-Type Magic. So ridiculously powerful that it's basically a OneHitKill on any target it hits. The drawback? Firstly, it can't be used in towns or dungeons specifically because it's too powerful to use in those locations. Secondly, Megumin, the team's BlackMage, insists on only using her Skill Points to further enhance Explosion's power, refusing to even increase how much mana she has. This means that what her mana can't cover is CastFromLifespan, and she collapses and is completely helpless afterwards, and her refusal to learn other skills makes her TheLoad when she can't use Explosion.

** Nanoha's [[WaveMotionGun Starlight Breaker]]. It required a really long charge time so its caster must be protected or the target needs to be immobile, and its strength is only equivalent to the total amount of scattered mana in the area, making this technique only suitable as a last resort. It also practically guarantees victory if it is cast successfully.

** Mt. Lady's gigantification Quirk. She grows to the size of a large building and can do a lot of damage. In an open setting, this quirk would be both awesome ''and'' practical. But being the AttentionWhore that she is, she uses it in a city, where it causes large amounts of damage. This makes her something of a DestructiveSavior whose collateral damage tends to burn out her hero insurance. Additionally, her Quirk averts GiantEqualsInvincible and a sufficiently powerful enemy can take her down with no problem [[spoiler:as All For One does in the Hideout Raid Arc.]] Not helped by the fact that her outfit -- made out of a soft, stretchy material that grows with her -- offers her no protection and her large size makes her an easy target.

** The Yattermen mecha have artificial intelligence, allowing them to fight autonomously. Problem is, Yatter-Pelican is such a braggard that it got itself almost destroyed more than once, and Yatter-Yokozuna [[LeeroyJenkins just can't help but charge at the enemy no matter what]]. They also need to eat a mecha-tonic battery to be at full power, battery the enemy can try to intercept and destroy (and in the movie they actually succeed in the first battle-before losing for a completely unrelated screw-up), but once they do, they're almost invincible and unleash a swarm of small demolition robots, and there's only two occasion they got defeated after eating the tonic (Yatter-Pelican was reduced to its skeleton when his robots were overpowered by the ones unleashed by the Doronjo mecha and, due its personality, didn't fly out of the way, and Yatter-Wan was caught in the explosion of an enemy mecha).

* One-shot UrbanFantasy manga "The Dragon's School is on Top of the Mountain" focuses on the only college in Japan to teach dragon-handling classes, which naturally attract a lot of students. However, it's quickly made clear why it's the only one; most jobs a dragon could be used for are cheaper and more efficient with modern technology, and even for the ones that aren't dragons are so cost-inefficient they're not worth it. For example, the main character starts out thinking a dragon would help with his family's delivery business, but quickly realises the costs of taking care of one would heavily outweigh any benefits it would bring.

** Part 3 is rather infamous for this. Joseph's Hermit Purple, can take "spirit photographs" using cameras, or can pull a more advanced version with a television; unfortunately, in both cases it destroys the device being used, and in 1989 that kind of tech isn't cheap. Made worse by the fact that [[spoiler:DIO's "[[FanNickname Hermit Purple 2]]"]] can pull exactly the same trick but doesn't destroy the camera (though this may not be a limitation of the Stand so much as Joseph being overdramatic). Joseph gets more practical as time goes on, however, demonstrating the ability to draw things in the dirt to achieve the same effect and just using Hermit Purple as a whip.

** Part 4's BigBad, Yoshikage Kira, has the ability Bites the Dust, which protects his identity by killing anybody who finds out his name, [[GroundhogDayLoop rewinding time back an hour]], and trapping whoever found out in a loop that ensures they'll die all over again. It's one of the most overpowered abilities in the series, but the limitations on it make it also extremely impractical in the long term. For starters, Kira essentially gives up Killer Queen to start the process by attaching it to someone and making them a "bomb" of sorts, meaning if he is attacked by another Stand, he has to recall it, ending the loop and stopping its effects. It also does not allow Kira to maintain his memories of each loop, but it does allow the person who has been picked as his "bomb" to keep their memories of each loop, meaning they can exploit this to change the events of what's happened, even if only slightly. Lastly, Kira is not able to benefit from the effects of Bites the Dust, meaning if someone asks ''him'' about his identity, it will do nothing to protect him. The reason the ability is so dangerous is that because [[KidHero Hayato]] is the "bomb" chosen, the heroes have no way of finding out the truth until Kira gets overly cocky. In fact, once Hayato figures out what's going on, he almost succeeds in killing the Stand-less Kira himself by using [[BlowYouAway Stray]] [[{{Planimal}} Cat]] for an ambush with Kira only surviving through dumb luck, [[spoiler:even discounting how it was a BatmanGambit to get Kira to reveal himself with Josuke nearby.]]
** In Part 5, there's Pannacotta Fugo's Stand, Purple Haze. Purple Haze's ability is producing flesh-eating bacteria that kills people in 30 seconds. The problem is the viruses can't tell friend from foe and Purple Haze himself is ''extremely'' [[HairTriggerTemper short-tempered]] and difficult for even Fugo to control, and ultimately his stand is a StoryBreakerPower. In ''LightNovel/PurpleHazeFeedback'', Purple Haze gets a NecessaryDrawback to prevent him from being overpowered.

** Parts 1 and 2 have Hamon/Ripple abilities. Hamon users can control energy using special breathing techniques, allowing the user to [[GoodThingYouCanHeal rapidly heal wounds,]] [[ArmorPiercingAttack send impacts through solid objects,]] and, most notably, kill Vampires by simulating sunlight. This all sounds amazing, but once one gets past the grueling training (which is supposed to take ''years'') they find out that Hamon techniques require uninterrupted breathing, full range of movement, and proper blood flow in order to use. So if the user is underwater, is having their blood sucked, is frightened, has frostbite, has their limbs tied, is being choked, is in a cramped space, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking or is just tired,]] then Hamon is unusable. These all sound like extraneous circumstances, but the Hero is fighting Vampires, the leader of which can [[AnIcePerson freeze anything he touches]]. All of these weaknesses are highlighted in every Hamon fight in part 1.
** Often enough, the biggest weakness a Stand has is its own user. Because of the {{Synchronization}} Stands share with their users, killing the user or at least knocking them out will usually end the stand's threat, and very few Stands have abilities that directly protect and/or heal their masters. For example, The Sun, The Fool, and Horus are near invincible on their own, since the first will fry anyone who gets too close and the second two can reform from sand and ice, respectively. However, their ''users'' are respectively an out-of-shape man (who's pinned to his car to prevent The Sun from affecting him too), a Boston terrier, and a bird. Their fights tend to end quick when their enemies get in one good shot.
*** Part 4's The Hand is generally considered to be one of the most powerful stands in the series. Not only is it strong and fast enough to keep up with Crazy Diamond, but it also has the ability to erase ''anything it wants'' with its right hand. Range isn't a problem either, because it can erase the space between the user and their target. In other words, The Hand is a OneHitKill machine capable of defeating almost anything with just 2 arm swings. Thing is, its user Okuyasu Nijimura is too nice to actually kill people with it, and not bright enough to think up creative uses for it beyond "remove the space between himself and enemy before swinging again" like most people who possess problematic powers.
** The Stand Arrow from Part 5 has the same ability as all Arrows: it jumpstarts the spiritual power of those who are by it, leading to them either developing a Stand or dying. It is also attracted by those with enough spiritual power to successfully survive the ordeal, so you can know in advance who can survive it and who cannot. However, the Arrow can also be used to pierce a ''Stand''; doing so can result in either a massively powerful (but unpredictable) Stand, or instant death. And unlike the previous case, there's no attraction effect; you just have to stab your Stand and pray that it works.
** Part 6's Highway To Hell forces a target to receive any damage taken by the user. While this sounds potentially quite dangerous, it doesn't protect or heal the user in anyway, effectively forcing them to kill themselves to kiill their target. Of course, in the hands of a suicidal sociopath like Thunder [=McQueen=], this isn't too much of a problem.

** Also in Part 7, Magent Magent's 20th Century Boy can make him completely impervious to all harm, be it bullets, steel balls, other Stand attacks, explosions and even the effects of drowning...but not only does it lack any offensive capabilities whatsoever, it also renders him completely immobile, usually in a kneeling position with both hands on the ground. When he ends up wrapped in wire at the bottom of the Delaware River, all he can do is use his Stand to keep himself alive until help arrives...[[AndIMustScream which it never does.]]

** Automatic Stands in general tend to be quite powerful and NighInvulnerable, with their disconnect from their user removing the {{Synchronization}} effect that causes Stand Users to take their Stand's wounds and vice versa. The downside is that they are quite unwieldy. Stands that pursue based on a trigger (like Sheer Heart Attack, Notorious B.I.G., Born This Way, and Doobie Wah!) can be circumvented by avoiding said trigger (i.e. Sheer Heart Attack is heat-seeking, so if you have a lure hotter than your body temperature, it'll go after that) while attacking the user, since the user's death will still kill the Stand (Notorious B.I.G being the one exception, but it's still impractical since in this case [[DeathActivatedSuperpower Carne has to die for it to activate in the first place]]). Stands that are objects that need to be interacted with, like Boingo's Thoth and Melone's Babyface, require a lot of work before the fights even begin, and in Boingo's case the predictions are often subject to ProphecyTwist and lack context.

** Greenback Jane is described as one of the best counterfeit artists in the whole world, and her attempts to create completely undetectable false money are good enough to persuade for a mafia family to hire her. Alas, Jane's ThePerfectionist and none of her bills feels good enough for ''her'', and the resulting amount of time and money she puts into getting her project "just right" eventually makes the mafia family decry her "undetectable" bills as this and so they decide to kill her for the inconvenience.

** Even his ultimate attack in the Soul Society arc functioned that way. Tearing off the glove briefly gave him immense spiritual power, after which his powers were drained to nothing. Awesome.
** The Final Getsuga Tenshou, which Ichigo used to curb stomp [[spoiler: Aizen]]. Funny thing is, he didn't even NEED to fully release it; [[spoiler: Aizen]] had been turned into a pinball even after going OneWingedAngel (in fact, he had to go OneWingedAngel just to start landing hits on Ichigo that actually hurt). But what makes it really impractical? Ichigo loses his Shinigami powers.

** Komamura's Bankai summons a massive armored giant that mimics his movements and possesses incredible strength and durability, which is the "awesome". The "impractical" part comes from how any damage the giant takes [[{{Synchronization}} is transfered to Komamura]], and while any enemy strong enough to damage the giant could likely hurt him anyways, that means he just summoned a second, massive target to aim for. In addition, because the giant mimics his movements, a skilled or fast enough opponent can read and dodge it easily, forcing Komamura to rely on using it for a OneHitKO usually via a quick surprise attack. He does have an advantage in that his Bankai is one of the few that heals naturally on its own without weakening thanks to this, however, [[spoiler:and late in the series he undergoes a DeadlyUpgrade that removes the "impractical" part of his Bankai completely since it can no longer be physically damaged and he himself is NighInvulnerable as long as his [[BeatStillMyHeart heart]] is safe, but it's an HourOfPower that when it's over leaves him a powerless wolf, making it a whole new level of impractical.]]

** Urahara's Bankai is never seen in the series until near the very end because it's yet another one that's too dangerous to use with allies around. Specifically, it has the ability to "[[RealityWarper restructure]]" anything within its range, including Urahara himself. While defensively this allows him to fix his injuries and strengthen his own body such that he can recover from any attack that doesn't down him the first go around, offensively it's basically a "kill-only" weapon (it can flat-out ''dissassemble'' its victims), which is why he refused to use it to train Chad since he could legitimately kill him ''by accident'' with it.

** Goku's massively powerful Spirit Bomb attack, an attack which draws energy from all nearby life-forms; it's so ponderous it takes ''several episodes'' to fully charge (though this is partially the fault of episode padding) and leaves him wide open to attack, with the added risk of wasting all that energy if he loses concentration. And after all that, it only finishes off a single (canon) opponent in the entire series run.

** Krillin's Kienzan/Destructo Disc is one of the deadliest techniques ever created in all of Dragon Ball as it was confirmed by WordOfGod that [[AbsurdlySharpBlade it can cut through anything]]. ''Anything''. It's essentially a OneHitKill, but it has one fatal and significant flaw... [[BlessedWithSuck Krillin can't control it once he throws it]].[[note]]It also has another flaw due to CallingYourAttacks, but that one is Krillin's fault, not inherent to the attack itself. And yes, calling it ''does'' allow his target to dodge the perfect assassination skill.[[/note]] Also, Toriyama negated his own WordOfGod when a canonically ambiguous ''mook'' was able to catch it and throw it back, and again much later when a much more powerful Krillin tried it on Cell, who could ignore it entirely. The Destructo Disc's flaw is highlighted when compared to Frieza's Death Saucer attack, which not only creates two discs, but also allows the user to mentally control them to home after their target. This attack ''does'' wind up backfiring on Frieza far, far worse than Krillin's inferior version ever did, but only due to his own lack of attention.

** The iconic Scouters are small digital computers that can locate things from far away and calculate power levels, but they are easily broken, can be flat-out blown up by a strong enough aura, can be easily fooled by those able to hide their true strength, and can't take an opponent's skills, speed, or experience into consideration.

** Super Saiyan 3 itself also counts. It's the most powerful Saiyan transformation seen in DBZ, but consumes an enormous amount of energy, which has a number of drawbacks attached to it. For example, Gotenks using [=SS3=] shortens his normal FusionDance time limit from 30 minutes to 5, while Goku using the form as a delaying tactic against Fat Buu reduces the amount of time he has left during his once-in-an-afterlife visit to the mortal world. Later on, after Goku is brought back to life, he finds out that Super Saiyan 3 puts an incredible strain on the body that causes him to tire out quickly during the fight with Kid Buu. Goku later on manages to minimize these drawbacks, but by the time he does, Super Saiyan 3 has become SoLastSeason.

** Yuga Aoyama's Navel Laser Quirk. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin It lets him shoot a laser out of his navel]] which is very powerful and flashy, but overusing it can hurt Aoyama and due to a birth defect, the laser energy can uncontrollably "leak" out, requiring him to wear a special belt at all times. Plus, it sometimes causes him to embarrassingly lose control over his bowels.

** Adrian Gecko plays a few cards in his Cloudian deck that kill him if he doesn't win that turn. Wonder Cloud makes him banish all cards in his hand and field to draw one card for each card the opponent controls, then he banishes the rest of the cards in his deck. Big Summon Cloud lets his pay half his life points to Special Summon a Cloudian from his hand, but then he has to discard his entire hand during his Standby Phase, meaning it is useless after the turn it is played. He wins anyway.

* In-Universe, this is [[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar Kenshiro's]] general opinion on KiManipulation.
* In-Universe, the [[Anime/GaoGaiGar Gutsy Geoid/Galaxy Guard]] quickly learn that battles in populated areas are not good things. Seeing as they are dedicated to protecting human life, they end up developing the Dividing Driver so they can create a battlefield that won't get wrecked.

* ''Lightnovel/FullMetalPanic'': The ''Tuatha De Danaan'' (TDD-1) submarine has a revolutionary stealth engine that allows it to go undetected by conventional sonars. The drawback is that the ''TDD-1'' has to stay regularly on dry dock for several days for maintenance.

** Adrian Gecko plays a few cards in his Cloudian deck that kill him if he doesn't win that turn. Big Summon Cloud sends all the cards in his Deck to the Graveyard just to Special Summon a Cloudian from his hand. He wins anyway.

*** The other problem is its unique Beam Magnum rifle. The Beam Magnum is a powerful weapon as each shot is comparable to 4 regular beam rifle shots. However, do achieve this effect, an entire e-pac magazine is consumed. To that effect, the Beam Magnum's actual magazine is five e-pacs hooked together, meaning it only has five shots. Even worse, as the weapons were designed to be used for the Unicorn series, other units using them will cause damage to their systems.

** One-off character Ikkaku Tachibana/Lucien Grimley uses the card Slash Draw, which is definitely treated like this in the narrative. It has a phenomenally powerful effect if it goes off (destroy all cards on the field, then do 1000 damage for each card that got destroyed, meaning just four cards on the field turns into an OTK), but to use it requires a phenomenal amount of luck: he has to send cards from the top of his deck, equal to the number of cards on the field, and then draw a card and have that card be another copy of Slash Draw. Assuming he has two copies in the deck, plays it on his first turn when the opponent has four cards on the field, and doesn't send any copies through the "sending cards" part, that's about a one in fifteen chance of it working. Even with a deck full of cards that stack the deck, pulling this effect off is still extremely unlikely. It's noted that the guy is only able to use the card as he does because of a DealWithTheDevil [[ParanormalGamblingAdvantage essentially giving him perfect luck]], though towards the end of the episode, he decides to recant the deal and trust his deck instead, at which he manages to activate the card "legit" for the first time. Even though he ultimately loses, he's proud of himself for merely pulling off the combo. (Of course, this then became averted when a tweaked version of the card became available in the actual game, and players discovered that they ''could'' stack their decks enough to reliably pull its effect off.)

** Luffy's Gear Third, as soon it has been used, will reduce Luffy's size, turning him into a midget or toddler. His power is also limited, and he loses the ability to use his Devil Fruit powers. This requires Luffy to run and hide until the effects wear off. This lasts for the same amount of time that was needed to use Gear Third. However, after [[spoiler:the TimeSkip]], he seems to be now able to use it without shrinking at all, and can use [[spoiler:the Color of Armarments Haki]] to make it even stronger.

** Part 7's Blackmore, whose Stand, Catch the Rainbow, allows him to manipulate both raindrops, and his own body around raindrops, with a wide, near-invincible repertoire of techniques: He can make them [[AbsurdlySharpBlade dangerously sharp and able to shred anything they touch]], force them to linger in the air in one spot, and teleport parts of himself through them for both movement and reach, and even patching up mortal wounds with rain so that he cannot die... the problem is, he cannot actually make it rain in the first place, and must rely on natural weather patterns. So he's practically invincible in the rain, but as soon as it stops he's powerless, and once he gets lethally shot during a fight he knows he's LivingOnBorrowedTime until the clouds clear.

** Part 6's Highway To Hell forces a target to receive any damage taken by the user. While this sounds potentially quite dangerous, it doesn't protect or heal the user in anyway, effectively forcing them to kill themselves to kiill their target. Of course, in the hands of a suicidal sociopath like Thunder McQueen, this isn't too much of a problem.

** Part 6's Highway To Hell forces a target to receive any damage taken by the user. While this sounds quite dangerous, it doesn't protect or heal the user in anyway, effectively forcing them to injure themselves to do harm their target. Of course, in the hands of a suicidal sociopath like Thunder McQueen, this isn't too much of a problem and it quickly becomes a LethalHarmlessPower.

* The very first episode of ''Anime/YuGiOh'' (Duel Monsters anyway) has Yami Yugi winning the match by summoning a monster named Exodia, whose power is defined as... well, ''[[InstantWinCondition winning the match]]''. Obviously it's as powerful as you can logically get, but the caveat is that you need to gather all five parts of Exodia in your hand, which is roughly equivalent to drawing a royal flush of a specific suit, one card at a time, while your opponent tries to kill you, after managing to collect five extremely expensive and rare cards, and then adding them to your deck despite the fact that they're rather underwhelming on their own. When confronted with it, his opponent is suitably shocked and claims that nobody had ''ever'' managed to win this way before, which is pretty believable. Later in the series, we're introduced to a character whose entire deck is built around Exodia and cards to stall the game or draw cards, as well as a character who uses Exodia Necross, which is basically Plan B for an Exodia deck.

* ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' has several Duel Disks that certainly qualify. There's one that spins like a buzzsaw, one that appears to be made of three razor blades, and one that fires cards like bullets out of a gun. A type similar to the latter shows up in ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'', which also features some very impractical motorcycles.

* ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' has Sleeping Giant Thud, a monster that can't be beaten in battle, or spells and traps, and can destroy any monster it battles. Only problem? You can summon it only if you have a LV 1 Monster on the field for '''20 TURNS'''. In an anime where duels rarely get past 7 turns , this is nearly impossible. It's never been summoned past Team Taiyou.

* In ''LightNovel/Konosuba'', there is the spell Explosion, the most powerful Detonation-Type Magic. So ridiculously powerful that it's basically a OneHitKill on any target it hits. The drawback? Firstly, it can't be used in towns or dungeons. Secondly, Megumin, the team's BlackMage, insists on only using her Skill Points to further enhance Explosion's power, refusing to even increase how much mana she has. This means that what her mana can't cover is CastFromLifespan, and she collapses and is completely helpless afterwards.

* One-shot UrbanFantasy manga "The Dragon's School is on Top of the Mountain" focuses on the only college in Japan to teach dragon-handling classes, [[InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons which naturally attract a lot of students]]. However, it's quickly made clear why it's the only one; most jobs a dragon could be used for are cheaper and more efficient with modern technology, and even for the ones that aren't dragons are so cost-inefficient they're not worth it. For example, the main character starts out thinking a dragon would help with his family's delivery business, but quickly realises the costs of taking care of one would heavily outweigh any benefits it would bring.

** Early in the series we got [[MakingASplash Water]] [[InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons Dragon Jutsu]] which shapes a large amount of water into a dragon which then attacks the opponent. However it takes ''forty-four'' HandSeals in order to perform it. For comparison, most Jutsu only require three or four. Its purpose was more to demonstrate the ability of Kakashi's sharingan to track and copy movements of his opponent. Notably, later on other uses of it have a slightly less ludicrous use of hand seals to perform it.

* The Pactio cards in ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima'' can be used for {{Telepathy}}. Cool, right? Except that you can only use them to ''send'' thoughts to a single person, who can't communicate back unless they have their Pactio card with them, and telepathy is very easily blocked. Several characters point out that a cell phone is generally superior, as you have two-way communication, and can call multiple people with it. Negi also has a very limited mind-reading ability, which requires him to put his hand on his target's head for a few seconds, and walk away with maybe two words, which are likely useless. To be fair, Pactio telepathy has been around for a thousand years or more. On the other hand, telephones are less than 140 years old, and decent cell phones have only been around for less than two decades. So yeah, Pactio telepathy is far inferior to cell phones, but they've been around and in use for much longer. Modern day technology has simply made it redundant.
** The true completed final ability of Magia Erebea is the ability to [[spoiler:absorb an enemy's blast and turn it into the user's power]]. It's extremely potent, but it requires a large spell circle inscribed on the ground and some very precise positioning. It's only attempted twice in the series due the sheer practical difficulties in getting it off.

*** There have been numerous attempts to make weapon packs that essentially combines the main weapon packs of the initial heroic Gundam. The first was the IWSP, whose heavy usage of solid weaponry was offset by off-balance weight and unwieldy controls, was abandoned by Cagalli in favor of just a basic Aile Striker pack. Then, there was the Destiny Silhouette, which was just a testbed for the Destiny Gundam's systems but proved too energy extensive for the Impulse Gundam to use. Finally, the Perfect Striker pack, who tried to offset the heavy energy usage by shoving a bunch of extra batteries into it.

** Part 4's BigBad, Yoshikage Kira, has the ability Bites the Dust, which protects his identity by killing anybody who finds out his name, [[GroundhogDayLoop rewinding time back an hour]], and trapping whoever found out in a loop that ensures they'll die all over again. It's one of the most overpowered abilities in the series, but the limitations on it make it also extremely impractical in the long term. For starters, Kira essentially gives up Killer Queen to start the process by attaching it to someone and making them a "bomb" of sorts, meaning if he is attacked by another Stand, he has to recall it, ending the loop and stopping its effects. It also does not allow Kira to maintain his memories of each loop, but it does allow the person who has been picked as his "bomb" to keep their memories of each loop, meaning they can exploit this to change the events of whats happened, even if only slightly. Lastly, Kira is not able to benefit from the effects of Bites the Dust, meaning if someone asks ''him'' about his identity, it will do nothing to protect him. The reason the ability is so dangerous is that because [[KidHero Hayato]] is the "bomb" chosen, the heroes have no way of finding out the truth until Kira gets overly cocky.

*** Part 4's The Hand is generally considered to be one of the most powerful stands in the series. Not only is it strong and fast enough to keep up with Crazy Diamond, but it also has the ability to erase ''anything it wants'' with its right hand. Range isn't a problem either, because it can erase the space between the user and their target. In other words, The Hand is a OneHitKill machine capable of defeating almost anything with just 2 arm swings. Thing is, its user Okuyasu Nijimura is too nice to actually kill people with it, and not bright enough to think up creative uses for it like most people who possess problematic powers.

** Automatic Stands in general tend to be quite powerful and NighInvulnerable, with their disconnect from their user removing the {{Synchronization}} effect that causes Stand Users to take their Stand's wounds and vice versa. The downside is that they are quite unwieldy. Stands that pursue based on a trigger (like Sheer Heart Attack, Notorious B.I.G., Born This Way, and Doobie Wah!) can be circumvented by avoiding said trigger (i.e. Sheer Heart Attack is heat-seeking, so if you have a lure hotter than your body temperature, it'll go after that) while attacking the user, since the user's death will still kill the stand (Notorious B.I.G being the one exception, but it's still impractical since in this case [[DeathActivatedSuperpower Carne has to die for it to activate in the first place]]). Stands that are objects that need to be interacted with, like Boingo's Thoth and Melone's Babyface, require a lot of work before the fights even begin, and in Boingo's case the predictions are often subject to ProphecyTwist and lack context.

** Nanoha's [[WaveMotionGun Starlight Breaker]]. It required a really long charge time so its caster must be protected or the target needs to be immobile, and its strength is only equivalent to the total amount of scattered mana in the area, making this technique only suitable as a last resort. It also practically guarantees victory if it is cast successfully. Hayate Yagami also views her abilities in this regard, as her techniques are mostly large scale heavy bombardment spells that require a full unit of BridgeBunnies to help her aim if Rein is not around. Hayate's literally incapable of using weaker, and generally more practical, spells.