History AwesomeButImpractical / WesternRPG

* ''Last Stand at Union City'': the chainsaw, just like in real life.
* ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' lets you get your hands on the Real Knife and the Locket in the Genocide Route, which give a +99 to Attack and Defense, respectively (for comparison, the next best boost is the Temmie Armor, which gives +20, and most other items are less than half that). However, to get them requires being in the endgame, and being in a Genocide Route requires you to kill enemies in every zone until the random encounters stop. Because of this, once you obtain these two items, there are no enemies remaining to use them on except the FinalBoss, a OneHitPointWonder who uses attacks based on ScratchDamage, meaning that the two items are completely useless for any purpose aside from bragging rights.

** In [=ME2=], you learn that a species that was wiped out by the Reapers 37 million years ago had some kind of weapon that ''[[OneHitKill one-shotted]] a Reaper Capital ship'' and ripped a deep trench in a planet. Unfortunately, that species only got off that one shot and there were more lots more Reapers.

*** The Fat Man in the base game is even worse, where it's high weight is coupled with an extreme lack of ammo, a pitiful 14 (or 12, with the "Wild Wasteland" trait) compared to 70 free ones in Fallout 3 along with the DLCs having their own mini nukes. It also does 1000 less points of damage than it Fallout 3 counterpart, and if you try and strengthen it with the Demolition Expert and Splash Damage perks, [[HoistByHisOwnPetard it will only make you more likely to have it blow up in your face.]]

** Mercy, the unique grenade machinegun, uses 40mm grenades instead of the usual 25mm, which means it packs more punch, but its ammo is significantly heavier in Hardcore mode, as well as being rarer and more expensive. Better traded for the 25mm Grenade APW from Gun Runner's Arsenal.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4''

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout4}}'' For the most part downplayed, at least as far as weapons go. Many weapons are simply to heavy or use uncommon ammo to carry around and use all the time, but that hardly means you'll never use them. However unlike in previous titles the lack of item health or skills mean you don't ''have'' to build a character around the idea of using awesome guns. With this in mind, There are plenty of points in the game when you'll know a tough fight is ahead and head back to base to dust off the minigun and fatman.

* ''Last Stand at Union City'': the chainsaw, just like in real life.

** The Gatling laser is sadly this now. It uses fusion cores for ammo, the same as power armor. Without the right perks or weapon upgrades, it will eat fusion cores at a rate unacceptable for its damage. Even though that can be corrected another problem becomes apparent. Because the weapon always uses the highest charged core in the players inventory when it is reloaded or equipped, using it with any regularity will cause an inventory full of partially charged cores. If the player doesn't do anything to keep this in check there will be no fully charged cores for the Gatling laser and you'll have to settle for increasingly lower magazine sizes as you burn through your remaining supply. There is also a real incentive to use cores until they nearly depleted and switch them out manually because you can sell them for full price on any charge. this is uncomplicated to do with power armor but a nightmare with the gatling laser.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' For the most part downplayed, at least as far as weapons go. Many weapons are simply to heavy or use uncommon ammo to carry around and use all the time, but that hardly means you'll never use them. There are plenty of points in the game when you'll know a tough fight is ahead and head back to base to dust off the minigun and fatman.

** Just like Fallout 3, the Alien Blaster is the most powerful weapon in the game, and if you have the Jury Rigging perk, can be repaired with Energy pistols. The big downside, it only has 222 of its ammo, and once it runs out, it becomes completely worthless. Worse, it replaces the YCS/186, which is a unique Gauss Rifle, and the YCS uses MFCs as ammo(something that is somewhat easy to get). In order to get the Blaster, you need to turn on Wild Wasteland, but in the long run, you're better off with the more practical YCS/186 instead of the awesome Alien Blaster.

** Two-handed weapons in tend to suffer from this, battleaxes and warhammers moreso than greatswords. Since they're so heavy they're remarkably slow and pull you forward with every swing, leaving you susceptible to attack (this is also when the AI uses them), and since they occupy both of your hands you're better off using a faster one-handed weapon in one hand and a spell or shield in the other.
** High level shouts often fall in this category. [[http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Storm_Call Storm call]] summons a lighting storm for massive damage but doesn't differentiate between friends and foes and takes ''ten minutes'' to recharge, preventing you using other shouts for the duration.

* Two-handed weapons in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'' tend to suffer from this, battleaxes and warhammers moreso than greatswords. Since they're so heavy they're remarkably slow and pull you forward with every swing, leaving you susceptible to attack (this is also when the AI uses them), and since they occupy both of your hands you're better off using a faster one-handed weapon in one hand and cast spells with your other.
** High level shouts and spells often fall in this category. [[http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Storm_Call Storm call]] summons a lighting storm for massive damage but doesn't differentiate between friends and foes and takes ''ten minutes'' to recharge, preventing you using other shouts for the duration. 'Master' level spells are powerful but often require huge amounts of power, take some time to charge and can be interrupted.

** Melee weapons in general are almost always useless for anything but sneak attacks. Why? Because most enemies will be shooting at you from a distance, and the ones that don't (like Deathclaws) will have melee attacks that will kill you in one or two hits and therefore should be dealt with at range anyway.
*** Take the Shish-Kebab, a craftable FlamingSword made out of a lawnmower blade, pilot light and a motorcycle handbrake and gas tank. Flashy, awesome, and devastating... except against 95% of your targets who will be shooting at you from a safe distance. Its best use is for sneaking up on people or blundering around a corner into them in a deep dark badly lit basement or service tunnel. And if you walk through a gas leak in one of those tunnels, prepare to be [[HoistByHisOwnPetard hoisted by your own petard]]. However, it's fairly easy to tweak your stats in such a way to make melee (and the Shish-Kebab in particular) ungodly powerful.

** In speaking of perks, ''any'' low level perk that directly increases your skills count as this: Daddy's Boy/Girl, Gun Nut, Thief, Little Leaguer, Scoundrel, etc.. Sure, taking them influences your skills automatically, but they have a few problems. Mainly, they can only increase each skill by 5 per rank (3 ranks total). Not bad, but you can easily find clothing that can do the same or more as long as you wear them... or read the skill-increasing books that are scattered around the Capital Wasteland (that are surprisingly common), which are improved by the Comprehension perk, which you only have to take once... or take drugs that improve your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, thereby improve your skills (granted temporarily, but useful in a bind)... or bother to find the (weightless) Bobbleheads that directly (and permanently) increase your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats by one or your skills by ''10'' just for picking up... or taking the Intense Training perk one in a while to change your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats and thereby your skills, etc., etc.. It seems that these perks are only there to trick new players into getting rather useless perks rather than the surprisingly versatile perks.

*** The Alien Blaster will vaporize any standard enemy with one shot, due to its 100% critical hit chance and high base damage. But it breaks down very quickly (and can only be repaired by certain npcs for cash) and has such a limited ammo supply that it's almost not worth using. Its best value is for headshots at EliteMooks in VATS where more conventional weaponry won't take them down fast enough.

*** There are certainly no shortage of mounts that are very hard to get for absolutely no real benefit over your normal griffin or wyvern... then there are the Traveling Tundra Mammoth and the Grand Expedition Yak. Both come with two vendor NPCs that you can access anytime you can mount... but their costs are astronomical for convienience. The Mammoth can quite easily be replaced with a Repair Bot or Jeeves (a infinite use repair bot that himself qualified for this when he was introduced), and the Yak only adds reforging services, which you won't be using very often.

* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'', Battle Meditation is the skill that made Bastila so important in the first game, and you can learn it - and it does give useful bonuses, especially at higher tiers. Unfortunately, its brief duration and inability to be part of the Force Enlightenment omni-buff mean that ultimately you will not be using it that often.

* The highest damage output spells in VideoGame/AvencastRiseOfTheMage also have very impressive animations. Unfortunately spells are cast by button combinations that also move your character slightly and enemies can continue to move during the attack animation, so they're quite unlikely to actually hit.

** In later expansions Engineering in general became more useful, though as far as usefulness goes compared to the mostly passive benefits from other professions, their devices still qualify.

** Also, Both came from complicated quests, used up reagents and used to turn on you regularly.

** Also, Both come from complicated quests, use up reagents and used to turn on you regularly.
*** The Doomguard has actually been made... useful. It now lasts 15 minutes with a 30 minute cooldown, the damage the ritual causes can be easily healed, and it doesn't turn on you when the spell expires. They're extraordinarily durable, hit extremely hard for a pet, and have some useful [[StandardStatusEffects debuffs]]. Then they changed it again, now it's on a 10 minute cooldown and lasts for about a minute however it acts as a guardian, attacking whatever you attack and is uncontrollable.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'' gives you the Imprisonment spell, which traps the victim in suspended animation in a hollow sphere deep underground ''permanently -- without a saving throw!'' Downside: A level 9 spell won't be used on everyday foes, and the player will want the big foes' loot which they take with them to their new plane of existence if imprisoned. It was made useful in the ExpansionPack ''Throne Of Bhaal'', as by this point any enemy that drops worthwhile loot is immune to the spell anyway and a spell that reverses the effect becomes more readily available.

** Wild Mages have a spell that allows them to cast literally ''any'' spell they know, instantaneously, [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules without having to have it memorized or even being at the level required to cast it]]; this allows them to be some of the most versatile spellcasters in the game, and potentially the most powerful. The downside is, the spell required to do so is pretty volatile and has only a ''one-in-a-hundred'' chance of casting the spell correctly, with a variety of effects if you don't; some are harmless, some are beneficial, but if you [[LuckBasedMission get particularly unlucky]] with the die roll you can end up summoning a pit fiend or turning yourself to stone.
*** Moreso if you use a mod to play them in the first game; higher-level Wild Mages have methods improve their chances of successfully casting an unmemorized spell or making it more powerful. Low-level ones don't. So while you ''could'' try to [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill cast Cloudkill at level one]], it would most likely backfire and kill ''you''.

** The Fat Man launcher fires miniature nuclear warheads. Its [[AceCustom unique variant]], the Experimental MIRV, is a weapon that can fire ''eight'' mini-nukes at once. Problems: There's a limited number of mini-nukes (seventy-two in the entire game), and the largest bosses in the game take maybe two hits to kill with a regular Fat Man. And firing this weapon will very likely blow up the wielder along with the target. Overkill much? Fire it once for the "cool value," then sell it or stick it in a locker and never use it again.

*** In speaking of perks, ''any'' low level perk that directly increases your skills count as this: Daddy's Boy/Girl, Gun Nut, Thief, Little Leaguer, Scoundrel, etc.. Sure, taking them influences your skills automatically, but they have a few problems. Mainly, they can only increase each skill by 5 per rank (3 ranks total). Not bad, but you can easily find clothing that can do the same or more as long as you wear them... or read the skill-increasing books that are scattered around the Capital Wasteland (that are surprisingly common), which are improved by the Comprehension perk, which you only have to take once... or take drugs that improve your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats, thereby improve your skills (granted temporarily, but useful in a bind)... or bother to find the (weightless) Bobbleheads that directly (and permanently) increase your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats by one or your skills by ''10'' just for picking up... or taking the Intense Training perk one in a while to change your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats and thereby your skills, etc., etc.. It seems that these perks are only there to trick new players into getting rather useless perks rather than the surprisingly versatile perks.

** There's also the Tesla Cannon, and its unique variant, the Tesla-Beaton Prototype. They hit every bit as hard as they did in Broken Steel. However, they consume ammo at a phenomenal rate, are very difficult to find, degrade quickly, are expensive to repair, have obscene level requirements for maximum usage and weigh a ton.
*** Though, like the anti material riffle below, all these drawbacks can be neutralized by a specialized player. The Weapons Handling and Pack Rat perks will cut the weight of the weapon and its ammo in half, while the vigilant recycler perk will allow you to better use your empty cells. You can get the Electron Charge packs it needs by completing the quest "Still in the Dark," and "Eyesight for the Blind" for the Brotherhood of Steel, who will also give you a Tesla Cannon. If thats not enough, you can make Electron Charge packs from energy cells and micro fusion cells at any crafting bench. Players with a high enough repair skill can easily keep the weapon repaired with weapon repair kits. Lastly, the [=DLCs=] give you huge sources of weapons repair kits, Lonesome road even lets ED-E repair your weapon for free once a day.
** The Anti-Materiel Rifle. Pros: It's got incredible range, great accuracy and can punch through armor like a knife through a wet napkin. Cons: it weighs 20 pounds (making it the heaviest shoulder-fired weapon in-game); it degrades quickly; it requires 100 skill points in Guns to use effectively; its ammo is rare, expensive, and heavy if you're playing on Hardcore Mode; it's very loud and will alert any nearby enemies you're not shooting at; and it has so much recoil that it ''physically throws the player character backwards'' if shot from the hip (only a little bit at a time though--you'd have to empty a few magazines to really notice the distance traveled).
*** On the other hand, [[DifficultButAwesome if you put some work into it]] the Anti-Materiel Rifle is ''fantastic''. By the end of the game you're rolling in money anyways, the Heavyweight perk [[note]]cuts the weight of weapons over 10 pounds by 50%[[/note]] makes it less cumbersome, and it makes [[DemonicSpiders Deathclaws]] incredibly easy to kill. With the Gun Runner's Arsenal add-on now available, you can correct most of its flaws with the mods: a suppressor for the noise, carbon fiber parts for weight, and a custom action for firing speed. With Steady[[note]]deceases gun wavering and increases accuracy in V.A.T.S. to 95% at ''any distance''[[/note]], ActionGirl[[note]]or Action Boy - either one increases Action Points by 15 (two ranks)[[/note]] , Grim Reapers' Sprint [[note]]adds 20 [=APs=] after every kill in V.A.T.S[[/note]], Math Wrath [[note]]decreases [[=APs==]] use by 10%[[/note]], and Weapon Handling [[note]]decreaes the Strength requirement of any weapon by 2[[/note]] you can obliterate anything that dumb enough to come near you.
** Both it and the sniper rifle never get entirely rid of the aiming bob either (even at 100 guns with enough STR), which always introduces *some* element of uncertainty to your sniping. The scoped Varmint Rifle, meanwhile, loses its drift fairly early, making Ratslayer a safer bet for sneak-critting low-armour foes in the head for most of the game.

*** The ordinary grenade machinegun is already a prime candidate for the trope, it is incredibly heavy, difficult to repair, eats expensive 25mm grenades like it's candy, can easily hurt or even kill the user if not aimed carefully and will generally be total overkill for the vast a majority of foes. Consider then that Mercy uses an even heavier and more expensive ammo type in exchange for even grosser overkill.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect''

** High explosive rounds. They become available late-game, and utterly annihilate everything they're fired at, but the overheat goes through the roof with them. Even with the best heat-decreasing mods, you'll only be able to get off one shot at a time.
*** On the other hand, accepting this and taking advantage of it can be incredibly useful. Infiltrators can get by using shotguns and pistols normally, and pour damage-boosting mods and high explosive rounds into the highest-damage sniper rifle available, basically turning it into a miniature artillery piece. Sure, you'll only get one shot with it, but you're only going to '''need''' one shot.
** The M-920 Cain aka "Nuke Gun" from ''VideoGame/MassEffect2''. The final heavy weapon to research, it is for all intents and purposes a nuke cannon, and it works as advertised - anything within a very wide area of the target dies in a very pretty mushroom cloud. However, it eats most of your heavy weapon ammo with one shot, requires four seconds of charging before it fires (not a good idea when under fire in one of the situations you would ''want'' to use something this powerful), and has such a large blast radius that there are very few opportunities in the game where you can fire the Cain and not hit your own party. Most of the time, the Avalanche cannon or Collector Particle Beam are much more practical.
*** The Cain is useful, no doubt about it. What makes it ''impractical'' is that it can be used for, at most, a half-dozen fights throughout a twenty five hour game. Using it on anything weaker than a Praetorian is pointless overkill, and if you miss, [[ItOnlyWorksOnce you won't get another shot]]. Except on the final boss. In the FinalBattle, the Cain suddenly becomes simply awesome, as Harbinger drops heavy weapons ammo when killed, presumably so as to compensate for the Cain's impracticality in this case. You'll have to waste him a couple of times to get enough ammo to fire the damn thing again, but in case you brought the Cain instead of one of the less insane weapons, you'll still be able to complete the fight.

** The Javelin sniper rifle: one of the strongest guns in the game in terms of sheer damage, able to pierce cover, and the ability to see enemies through smoke ''and cover'' is built in. However, it's so ridiculously heavy that you take a penalty to power recharge even if it's the only gun you're carrying, and unlike the other available rifles, has a brief but noticeable charge-up period before each shot. While the right mods will make it DifficultButAwesome in single-player, it's hardly ever used in multiplayer.
*** The Javelin sees it's fair use in MP with the Geth Infiltrator. The rifle is ridiculously heavy, has a very low spare ammo count and behaves awkwardly (there is a slight fire delay when pressing the button), but in the hands of a skilled Infiltrator those points become moot. Their main cooldown (the cloak) isn't affected all that much by the weight of the loadout but more by the time you spend in it. The low spare ammo can be counteracted by using consumables, upgrading the gun, adding a spare ammo modification and visiting supply points often. The fire delay takes getting used to but can even be beneficial on fast moving targets. On the plus side - there is no weapon that is better at piercing cover, it packs the biggest punch of any weapon in the game, it has a build-in thermal vision and Geth even get a damage bonus because it counts as a Geth weapon.

* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' has a LOT of spells that are cool but useless. Town Portal can be learned as a spell, but you're very likely to find a scroll anyway. Couple that with the fact you have to learn it multiple times to reduce the mana cost to reasonable levels (especially for the Warrior) and, well... Likewise, Healing is a lot less useful than just slugging back a potion, and the unique ability each class has will see use only on the far side of never. Telekinesis has no redeeming qualities whatsoever (you can just walk up to the items, and being able to push a foe back a square is more than inadequate for the amount of mana it costs).
** Don't underestimate Telekinesis. It is useful if you're playing under multiplayer rules (death = all items drop to the floor) and you have to extract your precious items from under the noses of the monsters that killed you ''with'' those items on and will most likely kill you again without them, over and over until they swarm the only entrance to the level.
* In ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' the druid's Armageddon spell causes a rain of meteors to follow you, but the meteors hit randomly and do very little damage compared to the sorceress ones. The entire martial arts tree of the assassin is spectacular to watch but does next to no damage.
** The higher level martial arts spells look downright awesome (And CAN be devastating with synergy bonuses from SEVERAL other skills), particularly Phoenix Strike. But, Phoenix strike does mostly elemental damage- which most enemies have ludicrous defence against in Hell difficulty!
** ''Diablo II'' suffered this with many, many skills for every class:
*** The Barbaran can pull the BadAss trick of dual-wielding throwing weapons. This has only been successfully utilized by a select few individuals for Player vs Monster or PvP due to how limited one's choices for dealing consistent damage with them are.
*** The Sorceress' awesome-looking Lightning Storm is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin but even maximum-twinked damage from it is relatively pitiful compared to more boring utility lightning skills. The multi-headed Hydra spell is a fireball-shooting stationary turret that does little damage at maximum and most monsters are immune to fire anyway. She can also activate a skill that leaves fire in her wake wherever she walks that when used, even if you ''again'' take max-twinked damage into account, is effectively cosmetic.
*** Then again the majority of skills in the game are not viable for Hell difficulty and each class has only 1-2 usable builds max (out of 30 skills). Class balance just wasn't particularly important in '99.

** The cloud serpent mounts are arguably this, despite being absolutely gorgeous. They're hard to get, requiring both Exalted reputation with the relevant faction and a series of daily quests to obtain. They're stupidly huge, to the point that they can't even pass through lot of openings, the only camera positions that let you see where you're going are either full zoom in (in which case you can't even see it) or full zoom out (in which case you can't see the details that make it so gorgeous). Many players get them, but there are good reasons they're probably the least-seen flying mount in the game after the jade quilen.