History AwesomeButImpractical / RealTimeStrategy

* The Archon Toilet is also both awesome but waaaaay too difficult to pull off, needing a Mothership, a large number of archons, and a decent sized-cluster of enemies. However, it is quite impressive to pull off, as Archons deal splash damage and Vortex tightly packs the enemies.

* Some of the campaign upgrades in ''[[VideoGame/StarCraftIIWingsOfLiberty Wings of Liberty]]'' are almost pointless compared to the alternative despite seeming pretty impressive. The Atlas cannon upgrade for the Command Center has high damage and decent range along with improved armor. But it prevents the Command Center from lifting off and is only useful if your base is already overrun. By comparison, perdition turrets are great defensive buildings that burn right through light units and can be placed anywhere. Likewise another research upgrade lets you train two [=SCVs=] at once, but the alternative is the automated Refinery which saves you on both minerals and supply while gathering Vespene faster than your workers can. The Predator is a fast anti-infantry melee unit, but the campaign gives plenty of anti-infantry as is and the alternative Hercules transport holds four times as many troops as a Medivac and deploys much faster (unless you buy an upgrade for the Medivac). Lastly, the Hive Mind Emulator lets you take control of a single Zerg unit but has a cooldown. Since you can't grab a worker and build a Zerg base and the game is rather defensive in nature (especially on missions against Zerg), it's best to take the Psi Disruptor instead that halves the movement and attack speed of all nearby Zerg.

* Many of the units you can build in ''VideoGame/StarCraft'''s campaign follow this trope. While they may be useful in the mission in which they're introduced, later on you'll have no need for them.

[[folder: Command and Conquer Franchise]]

** In contrast, the Mobile Stealth Generator from ''Tiberian Sun: Firestorm'' is quite useful, because while the range is limited, it still covers quite a bit of land, is cheaper than the stationary building, takes less space and doesn't cost any power. However, it's only somewhat practical against human players (and then, they can simply shoot the ground with force fire and a [=AoE=] (area of effect) attack, which stands a reliable chance of hitting something) as the AI has an auto-radar that reveals all of your units, even if they're cloaked.
** In higher-level play, the stationary Gap Generator eventually {{Subverted}} this due to regenerating FogOfWar being a feature that wasn't standard to the first two installments. As a result, the Allies specialized in the ability to conceal their base in a shroud to keep the other player guessing about what their strategy was. With multiple Gap Generators, the Allies could conceal their army composition under shroud until they were ready to strike.
* Superweapons in general tend to be like this, from ''Red Alert 2'' on. They can leave costly destruction inside a base, or even take out an army, but they have a significant "charge-up" time. Also, every player receives a warning that one has been built, and their location is revealed through the fog-of-war to everybody, provoking every opposing player to besiege you. They are the most expensive thing money can buy at 5000 credits (compare this with a basic battle tank that costs about 600-1100 credits, and is useful immediately after production). It is normally wiser to focus on building a standard army against a human player rather than building one (or two) of these giant "Attack Me!" beacons. There are aversions to this rule such as an insurmountable defense by the other player, multiplayer free-for-alls, or team matches where you can build one more easily since other players may be occupied fighting other players besides you, but a general purpose army is far more flexible in most cases as well as in 1v1 situations.

[[folder: Command and Conquer: Red Alert]]
* Nuke trucks were introduced in ''Command and Conquer: Red Alert'' and reinstated in ''Red Alert 2''. It's ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, a truck with a suicide bombing capability on the in-game nuke proportions. Only problem was it was made out of dry wood; one or two bullets was enough to set it off prematurely.

* The other utility Superweapons like the Chrono-sphere and Iron Curtain, avert this trope. 9 Prism tanks instantaneously transported into the middle of an enemy base ''will wreak havoc''. And an Iron Curtain can ensure that the aforementioned nuke truck actually reaches its target. Alternatively, if you're feeling like a troll, Chrono-shifting a cluster of your opponent's units over water can be hilarious. This is honestly one of the best ways to deal with the EliteMooks guarding the Kremlin in the final Allied mission of [=RA2=].
* Any sort of transport is this in most of the games. Lightly armored, the moment they died so did their cargo, regardless of what it is. This is especially painful for the Soviets in Red Alert 1 as their navy consisted solely of attack subs, meaning absolutely no way of clearing a beachhead for deploying troops. The aforementioned Orca Transport with the Mammoth MK 2 also suffers from this, as a few hits from a SAM or rocket infantry and it'll drop the Mammoth, who will then promptly break it's legs on impact.

* In the 3rd game, transforming and amphibious units are this to an extent. Sure they are flexible in their role, unfortunately the trade-off is that, barring a few exceptions like the Giga Fortress (whose trade-off is a high price tag), they're significantly weaker and less durable than units that have a single role. In addition, transforming units have a sizable cool-down for transforming and amphibious units are slow on land.
* The Apocalypse Tank is essentially the Soviets' successor to the Mammoth and it possess obscenely powerful cannons this time around in addition to their signature missile packs. They also have extremely durable armor and can also self-repair throughout time. In Heroic status, a single Apocalypse Tank can go up against multiple units and still emerge victorious. With all their boasted power, however, they're still very slow and they cannot attack on the move. It also has a slow build time so a savvy player will be able to prepare in advance to have counters ready.

** Red Alert 3 gives the tanks the ability to drag enemy vehicles/buildings into their front-mounted grinders from a distance (on buildings and heavy vehicles, the tank is dragged to the target), meaning even nearby ships can be dragged ashore, instantly killing them. However, this neutralizes the tank's guns, makes them unable to target infantry. The tank's AntiInfantry / AntiAir missiles from previous games are gone, leaving them vulnerable to a ZergRush.
* The Mirage Tank's secondary function in ''Red Alert 3'' [[ZigZagged straddles this line.]] On its own it's a decent late-game unit that's cheaper, faster, but more fragile than its counterparts and can fight infantry and vehicles with good efficiency using their spectrum cannon. Its secondary function is basically a Gap Generator, but simply hides units in range instead of making a blatant blob of shroud for enemy players. This is far more subtle than its previous incarnations, but the Mirage Tank is still fragile and a telltale sign of suspicion onscreen (but at least not on radar). However, the Mirage Tank is usually considered the best tier-3 tank in the game, offering better value for the money than Soviet Apocalypse Tanks or Imperial King Onis.

[[folder: Command and Conquer: Tiberium]]
* Certain super units can border this sometimes. The [[Franchise/StarWars Mammoth MK2, "All Terrain, Armored Transport" expy]] has a weapon that insta-gibs anything that's not a building (and gibs those in about 3 shots) and has anti-aircraft capabilities. The drawback is that it's horrendously expensive, pathetically slow, and you could only build one of it. A rush of cheap expendable troops is usually enough to destroy it, as it has quite a lengthy recharge time for its guns and it can only target one unit at a time. Granted, it can kill multiple units lined up together, but that means it can kill yours too. In the same vein the Cyborg Commando is on the other spectrum. Technically infantry (so anti-tank doesn't work) but has tank armor (making infantry guns useless), can regen in tiberium, and blows everything up with the same efficiency as the Mammoth MK 2, as well as being pretty fast on both recharging shots AND running. The Drawback? He has no AA weapons. A few orca bomb runs and it's scrapped. Oh, and you can only have one at a time.
** Keeping an Orca transport nearby however, can turn the Mammoth into a rapid response super unit that becomes hard to rush. Just as long as that transport doesn't die.
* The Steel Talons faction is a variation of GDI. They don't use advanced infantry and use a non-standard WalkingTank. They can also unlock a damage-mitigating armor as well as unlock ExplosiveOverclocking for their [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter Railguns]]. However, they lack a tech building that unlocks EMP grenades for Grenadiers which are very good vs Epics. This leaves them with a only a KillSat delivery for their EMP which is both costly and must recharge. Their lack of advanced infantry also gimps the power of their Epic unit. Their main battle tank, the [[WalkingTank Titan mecha]] is also $1300 and replaces the $1100 Predator tank, which many players prefer over the clunky mecha. They are also unable to build the powerful [[WaveMotionGun sonic emitters]] to hold down the fort while their army is out in the field, a major defensive drawback, and they're the only faction in the game that has this limitation. This balance trouble, along with programming-bugs in the ZOCOM faction causes most players to play as [[SimpleYetAwesome Vanilla GDI]] who are far more well-rounded.
* ''C&C 3'' showcases the vulnerabilities of walkers, which, in-universe, forces the GDI to go back to more traditional types of vehicles (in ''Tiberian Sun'', they were nearly all-mech). In-game, your commandos can cripple mechs by slapping C4 on a leg joint, at which point it's fair game for any infantry to occupy. This is especially true for the only remaining GDI mech, which only has artillery guns taken off a battleship. At least the Nod mech can have a flamethrower, and the Scrin one has lasers.

* The Scrin Mothership of Command and Conquer 3 can destroy and entire base in a single shot, but it take 5,000 credits to deploy, has low armor and moves ''very'' slowly.\\
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A common work-around tactic is to send the Scrin commando unit (The Mastermind) into an enemy base, find a building that gives you the space to drop the building that calls the Mothership, and then force-fire the Motherships main gun on the building, sure, you lose a structure, but just watch the fireworks as your enemy's base becomes rubble in seconds. All of this is purely luck based, and requires the best timing, so the trope is still PlayedStraight.
* The Scrin's Planetary Assault Carrier has this rap in the C&C3 community. Very Expensive ($3000), slow, requires Tier 4 to build (That's a $3000 structure you must build, on top of the $4000 tech-lab for tier 3.), and their fighters can be neutralized by a decent anti-air effort. The tier 3 Devastator Warship ($2400) is often a better choice overall, due to its superior bombardment range, though it lacks anti-air offense.

* Superweapons were already impractical in previous [=CnC=] games, but VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars gave every single superweapon a 7-minute countdown rendering them even more risky to invest $5,000 in than before.
* In Kane's Wrath, the expension pack of ''Videogame/CommandAndConquer3TiberiumWars'', the epic units (GDI's MARV, Nod's Redeemer, and Scrins Eradicator Hexapod) are subversions. They are slow, expensive (the price of a superweapon), and available very late in the game (and need a special building to be deployed). But they are also armed to the teeth, very tough, can be upgraded with infantry and have a moderate-to-useful special ability (the MARV can generate ressources for the player just by moving on tiberium, the Reedemer can turn the enemy's forces against each other for a short amount of time, and the Hexapod can generate ressources if enemy units are killed within it's radius).

[[folder: Command and Conquer: Generals]]
* VideoGame/CommandAndConquerGenerals had the GLA SCUD Launcher, which was awesome in that its high explosive missile really dealt some serious damage and its Anthrax warheads were overkill for infantry. In Zero Hour they could be improved with enemy scrap parts for up to two power boosts. The drawbacks are that the missiles need time to deploy to fire and are inaccurate to the max, its pathetically slow (here the Tunnel Networks come in handy) and has paper armor. It also costs a Generals Point. All in all, buying Rocket Buggies is much more feasible as they are much faster and do not cost a Gen Point better spend on an offensive special power.

[[folder: [=StarCraft=] Franchise]]
* The nuclear missile in ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' is for novelty purposes only. Impressive and satisfying to watch, but costly (200/200) and difficult to use. First of all, without "ocular implants", the ghost will die if you become distracted from micromanaging the ghost. It takes a long time to fire, the enemy is warned when you fire it, and you need two nukes to destroy most buildings (which probably are less expensive than the two nuclear missiles launched). If your ghost is killed before the missile hits, the missile is lost. This makes it OK against the AI who doesn't scramble stealth-detectors once the warning sounds off, and not much else.

* The Terran Battlecruiser sees almost no competitive use whatsoever in ''Starcraft II'' prior to 2015. Its speed relative to other flyers (Slow), damage per second (Much, much, much worse than 3 Hydralisks, which you can get for cheaper), being the only Tier 4 unit in the game (Requires one extra building than Protoss Mothership), and extreme expense (400/300) cause it to see little use anywhere. However, they find more usage since the ''Legacy of the Void'' expansion, which gave them the Tactical Jump ability to mitigate their sluggish speed. Subsequently, the unit found a new niche as a late-game base harassment unit... and, occasionally, an ''early-game'' harassment unit against Zerg specifically, since Zerg doesn't have enough early anti-air to fend off a Battlecruiser rush before it can do damage.

* The Thor is a {{Subverted}} example. Slow, expensive, and it takes a long time to build. Its heavy armor and anti-air missiles that do splash damage just barely seem to make it worthwhile. However, provide the Thors with proper army support such as companion Siege Tanks and Hellions/Hellbats, and you have an army commonly called the "Terran Death Ball".

* Many of the units you can build in ''Starcraft 2'''s campaign follow this trope. While they may be useful in the mission in which they're introduced, later on you'll have no need for them.

* ''[[Videogame/StarcraftIILegacyOfTheVoid Legacy of the Void]]'' introduces the Khaydarin Monolith, a new protoss turret that deals five times as much damage per shot as a Photon Cannon and has nearly double the range. However, it's attack speed is less than half that of a Photon Cannon, it's build time is nearly triple (80 seconds vs 29 seconds), it costs twice as many minerals on top of 100 vespene gas, and it's not a detector. Overall, having one or two to deal with long range or "big" enemies can be useful but Photon Cannons will still be the mainstay of protoss defense.

[[folder: Warcraft Franchise]]
* In [[VideoGame/WarCraft Warcraft II]]:

[[folder: Unsorted Examples]]

*** In the campaign, you can have access to one Immolator as a Honor Guard unit, which is an aversion. While still being expensive in terms of requisition points (at least early on as later you will swim in them) and occupying 3 vehicle cap points, it can be really useful as you can field it right at the beginning of a skirmish and rush the enemy with other units to disrupt whatever tier 1 infantry you face. And if you occupy the Space Marine stronghold, you can field TWO Immolators from the beginning, which is a GameBreaker against small opponents.

** The Shaman and Necromancer respectively have Bloodlust and Cripple as their tier 3 spell, with the former being one of the most powerful attack buffs in the game and the latter slowing units and reducing their damage output significantly. However, both of these are easily dealt with by simple dispels, which your opponent will almost certainly have by the time you tech up enough to research those spells. Even worse, Human players can turn them against you using the Spell Breaker's Spell Steal. While the Sorceress' Polymorph and the Druid of the Talon's Cyclone are also dispellable, they at least fully disable the target, making them more devastating if not addressed quickly, and are unaffected by Spell Steal.

** The Banshee's Possession ability allows it to [[DemonicPossession possess an enemy land unit]], [[EnemyExchangeProgram permanently taking control of it]] in exchange for removing the Banshee from play. While it's a very strong spell, it costs a ton of mana. In fact, Possession's mana cost is higher than the Banshee's starting mana, meaning a freshly trained Banshee needs to wait before even being able to use it, preferably waiting by an Obsidian Statue who can automatically act as a mana battery. Basically, you have to stop the Banshee from autocasting Curse to use it. More importantly, the Banshee needs to channel for several seconds to successfully cast the ability and takes increased damage while doing so (although the target can't move during this process), meaning that Possessing an enemy requires your SquishyWizard to ''stand still for several seconds'' while hoping that they don't get obliterated by a stiff breeze.

** The Banshee's Possession ability allows it to [[DemonicPossession possess an enemy land unit]], [[EnemyExchangeProgram permanently taking control of it]] in exchange for removing the Banshee from play. While it's a very strong spell, it costs a ton of mana (in fact, Possession's mana cost is higher than the Banshee's starting mana, meaning a freshly trained Banshee needs to wait for a while before even being able to use it) so you have to stop the Banshee from autocasting Curse to use it, and more importantly, the Banshee needs to channel for several seconds to successfully cast the ability and takes increased damage while doing so (although the target can't move during this process), meaning that Possessing an enemy requires your SquishyWizard to ''stand still for several seconds'' while hoping that they don't get obliterated by a stiff breeze.

** The Human Alliance Knights seem like they'd be pretty good heavy melee units, are very fast, and are available at the Castle stage immediately, from the Barracks. However, their combat effectiveness is relatively poor for tier 3 heavy melee and they tend to suffer from being a MasterOfNone. In direct engagements, they tend to fare poorly compared with the equivalent units of other factions and their fast speed isn't that much of factor unless one can find a way to to use them for hit-and-run attacks on enemy bases. Fortunately, the ''Reforged'' updates gave them "Sundering Blades" to boost their damage by an additional 15% against medium armor found on most ranged attackers (and worker units) on top of their native bonus damage to medium to help make them a high-speed alternative to the slower Footman.

** The Blood-Mage has some "cool" abilities, such as the the ability to summon a pillar of fire for relatively high mana cost (Flamestrike), banish a unit to a different phase (leaving them vulnerable to increased magic damage), leech mana from units, and ultimately summon a giant Phoenix. However, the Blood-Mage is in stiff competition with other human heros, such as a the Arch-Mage who offers much more flexible spells for the start of game. The Arch-Mages' Water Elemental summon as well as Brilliance Aura are too good to pass up, leaving the Blood-Mage on the shelf quite often. The Arch-Mage also has Blizzard available as an alternative to Flamestrike for a more reasonable mana cost.

* The Apocalypse Tank is essentially the Soviets' successor to the Mammoth and it possess obscenely powerful cannons this time around in addition to their signature missile packs. They also have extremely durable armor and can also self-repair throughout time. In Heroic status, a single Apocalypse Tank can go up against multiple units and still emerge victorious. With all their boasted power, however, they're still very slow and they cannot attack on the move. It also has a slow build time so a savvy player will be able to prepare in advance to have counters ready. In ''Yuri's Revenge'', this gets even worse as they have suffered from PowerCreep, having much better anti-armor options available to the Allies, while Yuri's overpowered faction can simply MindControl the Apocalypse Tanks.

* The fanmade 1.5 mod for ''VideoGame/EmpireEarthII'' adds the Titanic as a buildable sea unit in the modern age. It has more HP than any building in the game, has a cargo capacity of ''500'' (as opposed to 24 for regular transports), and [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic plays snippets]] of "[[{{Film/Titanic|1997}} My Heart Will Go On]]" when you click it. Unfortunately, it's also ''huge'' (meaning it has difficulty turning around) and can only load units through the prow, can only unload part of its cargo at once due to beach space limitations, and plays snippets of " My Heart Will Go On" when you click it.
* Army drilling in ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis IV'', introduced with the ''Cradle of Civilization'' DLC, let's you drill your standing armies (but not mercenaries) which slowly increases their fighting capabilities until it reaches its maximum value. A fully drilled army can be incredibly destructive against non-drilled enemies, but the process of drilling has several drawbacks: First, you have to pay full maintenance cost for the drilling army when you otherwise could be saving money whenever you're not at war. Second, drilling armies barely have any morale when drilling, so a surprise attack or rebellion can easily beat them up before they have time to regain their morale. Third, drilling is very slow (except for certain special units) so you have to suffer all these drawbacks for quite some time before the drilling starts to have a noticeable effect. Fourth, once you stop drilling the drill value will slowly decrease over time and suffering damage from battles or attrition will lower it even faster as your army has to reinforce with fresh non-drilled recruits, meaning that even once you've achieved a high drill level it likely won't last for more than the opening stages of a war. All these factors combined means that, unless you have more money than you know what to do with and enough armies that not all of them need to be battle-ready at the frontline at all times, the benefits of drilling probably won't outweigh the drawbacks.

** One can actually make good use of the Ornithopter, increasing its chances of survival by building them in pairs at a time (by having two Hi-Tech factories built at once). This can result in the enemy turrets having a hard time aiming because they had to decide which of the two to hit. There's a good reason why in RealLife combat aircraft fly missions at least in pairs.

* The special weapons of ''VideoGame/DuneII'': the Devastator is the most powerful tank, but is very very very '''VERY''' slow, and when it shoots, it takes a long time to shoot again -- its SelfDestructMechanism is impressive, but usually useless (it will explode anyway if heavily damaged). The Sonic Tank is awesome as it can hit many enemies with a single blast, but it will hit ''your'' units if they are between the Sonic Tank and its target. The Ornithopter is awesome as it's the only one flying unit, but ''you cannot control it''! Once deployed, it goes directly against your enemy and attacks a target of ''its'' choice, and in a minute it is shot down by enemy rocket turrets. The Saboteur can run very fast and can destroy a building simply by touching it... but, again, turrets are a problem (and its armor is non-existent). The Death Hand is an incredibly powerful missile: unfortunately (but fortunately for ''you'' when the ''enemy'' uses it) it studied at the ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy (SaveScumming can help).
** One can actually make good use of the Ornithopter, increasing its chances of survival by building them in pairs at a time (by having two Hi-Tech factories built at once). This can result in the enemy turrets having a hard time aiming because they had to decide which of the two to hit. There's a good reason why in RealLife combat aircraft fly missions at least in pairs.

** The Frost Wyrm, Tauren, and Chimera, the super units for the Undead, Orcs, and Night Elves respectively. Very powerful, but they lie at the very top of their respective tech trees, require their own building (the Boneyard for the Frost Wyrm, the Chimera Roost for the Chimera, and the Tauren Totem for the Tauren) to be trained, cost a metric ton of resources, take up a large portion of your ArbitraryHeadcountLimit, are slow to move and attack. They also have glaring weaknesses: the Frost Wyrm's abysmal attack rate makes it vulnerable to masses of cheap AntiAir units, the Tauren can only attack ground units, and the Chimera suffers from ''both''. That being said, their sheer destructive power means that they can still make an impact with sufficient army support.