History AwesomeButImpractical / TurnBasedStrategyGames

*** Unlike most games in the series, Corrin and Kana's Dragon forms via Dragonstones are this. The Dragonstones all give major buffs to most of your stats except Speed and Skill, and early on in the game you'll find yourself able to one-shot a major amount of enemies with how strong your Dragon form is, while also being your main source of magic damage in the game. However, it's also hit by a significant handicap: it cannot double, at all. This means that while Dragonstones peak in the earlygame, the lategame has it much more unreliable for tanking and taking down the opponent with one blow, especially against tankier units, due to the sheer disadvantage being unable to double effectively means. This often leads to most players outright skipping using Dragonstones and instead use the [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement Yato]], which both [[InfinityMinusOneSword gradually]] [[InfinityPlusOneSword upgrades]] over the course of the route you're on, which only further serves to obsolete Dragonstones as the damage you do with your Yato eventually completely outstrips what even the ''more'' AwesomeButImpractical Dragonstone+ can do, while also giving +4 Stat bonuses to two (and in one route, ''four'') stats depenedant on the route, and being unbreakable with no downsides outside of being locked at close-range. The [[BlackKnight Nohr Noble]]'s class ability to equip tomes only serves as the final nail in the coffin, as you can forge yourself a powerful Thunder tome that has 1-2 range and ''none'' of the downsides the Dragonstone has.

*** Unlike most games in the series, Corrin and Kana's Dragon forms via Dragonstones are this. The Dragonstones all give major buffs to most of your stats except Speed and Skill, and early on in the game you'll find yourself able to one-shot a major amount of enemies with how strong your Dragon form is, while also being your main source of magic damage in the game. However, it's also hit by a significant handicap: it cannot double, at all. This means that while Dragonstones peak in the earlygame, the lategame has it much more unreliable for tanking and taking down the opponent with one blow, especially against tankier units, due to the sheer disadvantage being able to double effectively means. This often leads to most players outright skipping using Dragonstones and instead use the [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement Yato]], which both [[InfinityMinusOneSword gradually]] [[InfinityPlusOneSword upgrades]] over the course of the route you're on, which only further serves to obsolete Dragonstones as the damage you do with your Yato eventually completely outstrips what even the ''more'' AwesomeButImpractical Dragonstone+ can do, while also giving +4 Stat bonuses to two (and in one route, ''four'') stats depenedant on the route, and being unbreakable with no downsides outside of being locked at close-range. The [[BlackKnight Nohr Noble]]'s class ability to equip tomes only serves as the final nail in the coffin, as you can forge yourself a powerful Thunder tome that has 1-2 range and ''none'' of the downsides the Dragonstone has.

** The Bifrost Staff in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' revives a fallen character, a major rarity for the series. Unfortunately, it only has one use, you only get it 2 chapters before the end of the game, you need an S rank in staves to use it (which only Maids and Butlers can reach, so if you haven't been training any you're out of luck) and unlike earlier revival staves in the series it's a lot more restricted: it can only bring back someone who died ''in the current battle'' and you don't get to choose if there are multiple, it'll just revive whoever most recently died.
** ''Fates'' also did away with BreakableWeapons, instead giving each weapon above D rank drawbacks to compensate for their otherwise freely abusable power. This had the consequence of making them quite often a worse choice than the D rank weapon. For example, a B rank weapon will usually reduce your relevant offensive stat (Strength or Magic) and your skill (determines chance to hit) by 2 after every combat the weapon was used in, which recovers by 1 at the start of each of your turns. If you use this too liberally you'll be hitting like a wet tissue even with the powerful B rank weapon (if you hit at all), so you're going to need to at least have another weapon handy.

** This is also the case for most of the various "trainee" units across the franchise, which start in a trainee class before promoting into a "real" class at tenth level, offering the advantage of having ten levels to grow over their peers. Too bad their base stats tend to be so miserable that those ten levels are basically just their growths trying to play damage control, so it's much easier to just use a character who ''starts'' good.

*** Except in [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius the Tellius games]], where your Strength stat has the added benefit of offsetting the speed loss from weight. Which practically means weight in those games is a non-issue, as even mediocre physical fighters tend to have enough Strength to avoid being weighed down by anything. [[SquishyWizard Magic users, however, aren't so lucky...]]

* The [[WaveMotionGun Stellar Converter]] in ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion II'' is normally a very powerful, very useful weapon, particularly for planetary defense. However, it's function to obliterate an enemy planet instead of bombing it, conquering it, or (if you're telepathic) mind-controling the population. This normally serves no purpose whatsoever, as the goal of the game is to expand (it's one of the [=Xs=] in 4X). Having no planet means you can't expand, save for a tiny outpost that doesn't help you much.

** The Edelweiss from a story perspective. Is very durable, only requires two operators and can aim 360 degrees. Even though it's quite old by the time it's taken back out of storage for the events of the first game, it's still quite capable of holding its own against newer tanks. It's high cost of production, however, prevented it from being mass produced, leaving it as an AceCustom.

* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars: Dual Strike'':

** The Stealth planes are aerial submarines, able to hide from enemy sight unless adjacent to an enemy unit. Even when discovered, hidden Stealths can only be attacked by Fighters and other Stealths. Furthermore, they're versatile attackers, able to attack any unit in the game (except submerged subs) for good damage. ''However'', they cost more to deploy than almost any other unit and their small fuel capacity is used up in the blink of an eye while Hidden. Stealths need constant resupply (at least once everuy other turn) to get anything done at all. Combined with the cost, they're more trouble than they're worth.
* The Seaplane in ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars: Days of Ruin]]'' is arguably one of the most versatile and powerful unit, being an airplane with high firepower that can attack any other kind of unit. The catches? They cost $15000 to build, require a Carrier ($28000 more for a ship that can only shoot subs and air units and build 4 of them maximum), take two turns to be built and deployed before they can be used to attack, and start with only 40 units of fuel (opposed to every other air unit having 99). The constant consumption of fuel can bring it down crashing in few turns. They only have 3 ammo - even less than a War Tank - and no secondary weapon. The intended use appears to be: build four Seaplanes, keep two in the Carrier at all times to be launched good-as-new next turn. This allows for a very strong offensive, especially since Carriers heal damage to housed air units.
** Seaplanes are a bit more practical if your CO is Admiral Greyfield, since his CO Power replenishes supplies, ammo, ''and materials'' of all units, allowing a single carrier to build as many seaplanes as you like, provided you can inflict enough damage to activate the power! Unfortunately you cannot use Greyfield during the campaign, only in skirmishes and multiplayer...

** In ''Fates'', the Skip to Branch of Fate, meant to be AntiFrustrationFeatures so the player doesn't have to replay Chapters P-5 every time they want to play another route, has a few issues. Firstly, it only carries over levels from your most recent Chapter 5 save, rather than letting you choose. The reason this is an issue is because a file that went on to Birthright won't serve well for a Conquest run, as Rinkah and Sakura don't join there so all EXP they gained is wasted. Even worse, players who want to change their Avatar's gender will be stuck with a Lv. 1 Felicia or Jakob as both of them are considered separate characters. This is especially problematic on Conquest or Revelation, as the Avatar's servant is one of the few units they have for a while and so having one who dies in one or two hits makes the already present EarlyGameHell even worse. And the extra levels on the other servant are useless as by the time they rejoin, they're auto-leveled to around 13 anyway. These factors often make it better just to start a New Game.

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', Petra's unique skill dramatically increases her Critical Hit rate against enemies that are below half health. Since a critical hit deals triple damage, that's quite a boost, even with Petra's lackluster Strength growths, and is usually enough to result in a OneHitKill. Unfortunately, most enemies with below half health are weak enough that you can finish them off without the aid of a critical hit. Monsters are an exception, but there are other ways to inflict severe damage on them, such as Blessed weapons or certain Combat Arts.
** Also from ''Three Houses'', you can zoom the camera all the way in on your units so that you control them like you would in a regular, third person, adventure game. This allows full 360 degree freedom within the character's movement range and lets you see their battalions moving along with them. While a neat and visually appealing feature, it offers almost no tactical benefit whatsoever since it significantly reduces your field of vision with the zoomed in camera. A mini map is displayed to help alleviate this but it is still much less useful than sticking to the traditional, zoomed out camera angle of the grid.
* ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations'' has the Terror Stars, clear {{Expy}}s of the [[StarWars Death Star]], which can be used to obliterate the enemy star system. Drawbacks? Let's see, it takes an extremely-high level of technology, as each stage of construction needs a prerequisite tech. It takes a long time to build and uses many resources (on top of building constructors). When it ''is'' built, it takes ten turns to bring its only weapon system online. Then, once you have it, it can only move one "square" per turn, making it useless unless you build it right on top of the enemy. In the first game, at least, any station could be turned into a Terror Star, meaning they had other purposes, so the Terror Star could also support fleets or spread influence. In the sequel, it's a different type of station. Also, habitable worlds can be quite rare depending on galaxy settings, so it may not be beneficial to destroy the enemy star instead of simply taking the planets. And as if that wasn't enough, it also has no weapons, so it needs to be babysitted a great deal.

*** Even among triangle attacks, though, the Armor Knight triangle attack in ''VideoGame/TheBindingBlade'' stands out for almost never seeing use. This is due to the game as a whole being a low point for the Armor Knight class, thanks to its giant maps, so you don't really want to deploy ''any'' of the three available ones, especially when one is considered the game's worst unit. And even if you are deploying all three Armors, the distinguishing trait of an Armor Knight is its low mobility, which means getting them into position to use it is at best irritating.

* The triangle attack in ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' gives you a guaranteed CriticalHit, which is nothing to be scoffed at. However, it requires that you raise three characters of the same class (Strike 1: you want variety) and position them in the same part of the map (Strike 2: If you ''do'' have multiple people that do the same thing, you want them spread out).
** ''Sacred Stones'' eased up a bit on the triangle attack. The core requirement of the triangle attack is still there (you MUST have the "pegasus" sisters formed in a triangle), but all three do not have to be Falcoknights. You can have one be a Draco Knight (Tana and Vanessa can become this) and still have it work. Combined with Draco Knight's Pierce ability (30% chance to negate your opponent's defense stat) plus the getting the critical does make this to be one of the most powerful offensive attacks. However, it is still impractical to try to do the triangle attack unless you are aiming to do quick work of bosses (ESPECIALLY Generals).
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius'' removes a lot of the triangle attack's impracticality for at least one of the trios that can use it. All three are in very different classes and are only required to use the same weapon type (a bow). It's still a bit impractical to change the weapons on two of them and get all three in position, but it's much more usable than in its other appearances.

*** Weight becomes a particular problem with ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'''s [[InfinityPlusOneSword legendary weapons]], which are all absurdly heavy to compensate for their power. [[MightyGlacier Hector]] is strong as a bull, so he has no problem with this, but [[JackOfAllStats Eliwood]] and [[FragileSpeedster Lyn]] will almost never have enough constitution to wield their respective weapons without a massive speed penalty. If it weren't for [[spoiler: their effective damage bonus against the final boss]], you'd be much better off giving them lighter, generic weapons that let them continue to double-attack.

** The ultimate Dark Magic tomes suffer from this. They are usually the most powerful weapon in the game (Apocalypse in [=FE6=], Gespenst and Ereshkigal in [=FE7=], Gleipnir and Naglfar in [=FE8=]). They also have among the highest weights of any weapon in the game. Apocalypse drops the caster's Speed stat by at least ''seven'' points, and Gleipnir and Gespenst result in you losing ''twelve'' Speed. Not good. Apocalypse does have a surprising use, though: its +5 to Magic significantly increases the power of staves, and you pick up Niime, a Druid who needs only a little grinding to wield Apocalypse and has A-rank in staves to start with. Because of this, it's not uncommon to see players give Niime the tome and then have her spam powerful staves like Warp, Berserk, Physic, or Rescue for the rest of the game.

*** Weight becomes a particular problem with ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemElibe Blazing Sword's]]'' [[InfinityPlusOneSword legendary weapons]], which are all absurdly heavy to compensate for their power. [[MightyGlacier Hector]] is strong as a bull, so he has no problem with this, but [[JackOfAllStats Eliwood]] and [[FragileSpeedster Lyn]] will almost never have enough constitution to wield their respective weapons without a massive speed penalty. If it weren't for [[spoiler: their effective damage bonus against the final boss]], you'd be much better off giving them lighter, generic weapons that let them continue to double-attack.

** The ultimate Dark Magic tomes suffer from this. They are usually the most powerful weapon in the game (Apocalypse in [=FE6=], Gespenst and Ereshkigal in [=FE7=], Gleipnir and Naglfar in [=FE8=]). They also have among the highest weights of any weapon in the game. Apocalypse drops the caster's Speed stat by at least ''seven'' points, and Gleipnir and Gespenst result in you losing ''twelve'' Speed. Not good.

* The triangle attack in ''FireEmblem'' gives you a guaranteed CriticalHit, which is nothing to be scoffed at. However, it requires that you raise three characters of the same class (Strike 1: you want variety) and position them in the same part of the map (Strike 2: If you ''do'' have multiple people that do the same thing, you want them spread out).

* The tank in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' can sweep anti-personnel mines, crush a lot of barriers, and damage enemy tanks without needing to hit the radiators. But they can't take bases, and their low movement ability and the fact that they require 2 CP to use at all means that on levels that don't strictly require the use of a tank, it's often easier to not step on the mines, go around the barriers, and circle around the enemy tanks to hit them from behind. Later games in the series reduce this factor by making the tank a 1 CP unit like everything else.

* The Fury interceptor from ''VideoGame/Xenonauts''. Blazingly fast and long ranged, it can obliterate any UFO anywhere on the planet with a 100% chance of succes on autoresolve. The problem? Well, apart from its Singularity Torpedo obliterating the target so utterly there's no wreck left to get resources from, it requires an investment of at least 2 Singularity Cores (one to research, on for each Fury built). Said cores can only be gotten by shooting down a Battleship UFO and raiding the wreck. The Battleship UFO is also the strongest UFO your interceptors need to take on during the game. Essentially, you can only get the Fury once you've proven you no longer need it.

** ''Awakening'' has glass weapons. They do as much damage as the top tier Silver weapons and can be used by anyone who can use the weapon type. They also last [[RealityEnsues roughly as long as you expect weapons made out of glass to last]] (in fact, 5 hits may be giving glass too much credit).