History Main / UselessUsefulSpell

*** This is still played straight with enemies in the ''TabletopGame/EpicLevelHandbook''. Nine times out of ten, epic enemies are immune to paralysis, sleep, polymorphing, level draining, instant death, and basically anything that could so much as slow them down. In turn, these monsters will almost always have abilities that amount to "save or die" for a whole group, and one or two even nastier epic spells. Plus, Epic Spellcasting effectively turns any character that's at least Level 21 into a PersonOfMassDestruction. The fact that they pretty much ignore most of the limits and immunities created by normal spellcasting means that status effects are never going to get used at all. In addition, end boss characters like dragons and Vampire Lords typically have Legendary Saves that allow them to automatically succeed in a saving throw (on top of huge natural bonuses to saving throws). So, good luck polymorphing that dragon.

** 3.5 edition's Cleric spells like Righteous Might and Divine Power tend to fall into this category. A fully-buffed Cleric is perhaps the deadliest close-range combat fighter in the game, with absurdly high Strength and damage, along with full casting prowess and tons of other significant buffs. But by the time you're finished casting all the spells to buff the Cleric that much, the fight's either almost over or you'll need to focus on bringing people back from the dead. (This is one of the main reasons that the Persistant Spell feat, which could rig the buffs to last a whole day, was considered a GameBreaker.)

** One interesting thing that 5th Edition did was add the Ritual tag to some spells, specifically ones that lacked combat utility. In older editions, spells like Identify or Leomond's Tiny Hut were things you'd typically only bother with by way of magic wands or spell scrolls. Ritual spells can be cast without using a spell slot... it just takes at least ten minutes to do it.

# The spell has a very low success/hit rate, or the casting is so slow that enemies are always able to dodge or block your spell.

[[folder:Aversions and Parodies]]
* All Force type character classes in later versions of ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline'' have particular technique specialities, techs that they have a higher level cap for than other classes. The [[MagicKnight FOmar's]] speciality are the buff and debuff techniques, which at max level make an enormous difference to the affected stats and have a massive area of effect. Having Shifta and Deband maintained whenever possible is standard procedure for PSO, and the [=FOmar=] is generally the preferred caster of choice for the task.
* Dervishes in ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' have enchantment (buff) stacking as their gimmick. Typically any given one only has minor effects, but given that many of them synergise well and Dervish primaries gain energy every time an enchantment ends, it tends to be essential to maintain a lot of them.
* Any boss in ''VideoGame/ScienceGirls'' is just as vulnerable to status effects as regular enemies, so you can poison them or drop their stats from the start of the fight. It's balanced by some bosses having moves that can cancel them out after they're afflicted, but it at least makes them waste a turn.
* ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'' has its fair share of examples and aversions. The biggest aversions are where buffs, debuffs, and ailments can make or break a battle entirely. %%Place straight examples into the Video Games section above.
** Notably, the (first) ThatOneBoss in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'', Matador, is specifically designed to act as a brick wall to inform players new to [=MegaTen=] that buffs and debuffs are about as powerful as the strongest attacks. If you go in without the proper buffs and debuffs, Matador ''will kick your ass''.
*** The game's earliest DiskOneNuke is ''Fog Breath'' which greatly decreases your enemies accuracy and evasion. As the Press Turn system penalizes combatants missing their attacks, you will find yourself using it all the way to the end due to how much of an advantage it creates.
** Hilariously, this trips up even veteran RPG players at times, as evidenced in the Website/GiantBomb LetsPlay of the game where the hosts were constantly re-rolling a fusion for Jack Frost because they kept getting Sukunda (A spell that decreases the hit/evasion stat of one enemy and is incredibly helpful throughout the entire game against bosses.)
*** Still, they later learn their lessons on buffs and debuffs, though they mainly use them on bosses. Their playing style tends to lean towards AwesomeButImpractical generally, though it's somewhat forgiven by the fact that they're playing the game blind without consulting a gameplay guide.
** Expel & Curse (aka Light & Dark respectively in some games) elemental spells initially seem to fall into this category, being all insta-kill spells that [[ContractualBossImmunity bosses are immune to]]. Then the game starts sending out enemies whose only weaknesses are Light or Dark, leaving players without Light/Dark coverage with some extremely difficult fights.
*** In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'', the instant-death Mudo spell averts this severely. While it doesn't work on bosses, it costs only 3 mp (out of what's typically a hundred or so, less than almost any other attack spell), attempts to kill two enemies at once in an enemy group, and never fails against big, high-health low-intelligence EliteMook enemies that can otherwise be a huge pain.
*** This gets exaggerated in ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'' where Light and Dark skills inflict instant death which counts as an ailment, on top of their success chance scaling off the user's Agility and Luck. Give Naoto, Ken, or Koromaru a passive that raises the success rate of ailments, and they can easily tear up anything that isn't outright immune to Light or Dark.
*** In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'', Hama and Mudo have been converted to damage spells that can instantly kill while the user is smirking. While the instant-kill effect will not work on bosses, those spells are not completely useless in a boss fight. In fact, several bosses in this game are now vulnerable or even ''weak'' to Light and Dark.
** In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'', Chie's Galactic Punt can instantly kill anything up to a mid-boss. Several players had the following reaction when witnessing it: "[[DisadvantageousDisintegration Do I get EXP for this?]]" You do.
** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' and [[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse its sequel]] tends to be a great example on how to avert this trope with ailments. Conversely, it's the only way to give the player an edge [[RocketTagGameplay on a SMT game which]] ''[[RocketTagGameplay doesn't]]'' [[RocketTagGameplay have a Defense stat]].
*** Case in point, alongside [[StandardStatusEffects ye olde Poison, Sleep and Charm status]], we have Sick[[note]]Damage decreases by 25%, evade rate becomes 0%. At each turn, there is a 5% chance that the sickness will be passed to another member. The effect persists after battle is over.[[/note]], Lost[[note]]Target is BlownAcrossTheRoom, or rather, outside of the battlefield, and cannot reenter it. Victim must then be found on a separate random encounter that'll happen after receiving said effect. [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules Can only be inflicted on the player's demons]]. FridgeHorror sets in when you realize that the BonusBoss and ThatOneBoss having access to these means [[OhCrap you can't bring them back to the battlefield whatsoever, running the risk to fight against them alone and underpowered, all but setting you up for a hopeless Game Over]].[[/note]], and Branded[[note]]DLC BonusBoss exclusive, nerfs any attempt to recover HP or SP on the target to ''a single point''. Thankfully, it wanes after a few turns.[[/note]].
*** Notably there's also the Panic and Bind status. While mechanically equal to other settings' Confuse and Paralysis, respectively, when used by the player, they'll also raise Trade and Fundraise success rates to 100%! It's the closest thing to VideoGameStealing present in a Megaten game!
*** VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse also introduces Mute, which [[PowerNullifier disables all but the target's regular attack]], and Daze, a variant of Panic without the freebie item advantage. What makes them stand out from the others is the fact that rare enemies resist them, ''bosses included''. For example, [[ThatOneBoss Titan, Maitreya, Inanna, Krishna, Vishnu-Flynn]], ''and even all forms of the FinalBoss''!
* In most [=RPGs=], status-altering skills are pointless. In ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'', they're key to breaking the game wide open. For this reason, many ''Etrian Odyssey'' players warn newcomers against using Hexers, as they might ''[[GameBreaker make the game too easy]]''. [[MagikarpPower As long as you're willing to master the skills in question]], putting enemies to sleep, poisoning them, or even trying to kill them in one blow is a wonderfully valid tactic that will save you time and visits to the inn, as well as land you special conditional-drops that will lead towards better equipment and the money to buy it.
** Some enemies can take the usefulness UpToEleven though. One of the {{Bonus Boss}}es in the third game is notably easier if you play with a limited amount of party members and a Beastmaster to summon enough beasts with the exact status-altering skills, thus nulifying most of the boss' attacks, including its OneHitKill. To put it simply, strategy in team building is the most important part of these games.
** In ''VideoGame/EtrianMysteryDungeon'' the Head Seal, Leg Seal and Arm Seal statuses are pretty useless on regular monsters, but become a veritable boon against Bosses and [[BossInMookClothing Does,]] which will find themselves unable to use their worst skills and summon reinforcements with the right debuffs added. Also, Does only take ScratchDamage unless at least one StandardStatusEffect is affecting them, meaning having status-inflicting items and specialists in your party and garrisons at all times is key to taking them down.
* Notably averted in the ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' games. Blinding Flash, Silence, and Sleep are absolutely vital spells up until the late game, and they even work (if unreliably) on bosses. The Alchemist and Psionic classes (and the classes that pick up spells from them) favor status effects, though Priests and Mages get some, too. However, monsters can and will [ab]use the same effects against you, usually earlier and always more reliably than you can.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire''. Not only are the status-affecting "Support Styles" useful all the way up through the game (even on the BigBad) but they cost no chi or focus to use, unlike the Magic and Weapon styles. Demons are immune to them, but of the two demon bosses in the entire game, one is a PuzzleBoss while the other is optional.
** Hell, Storm Dragon is pretty much a GameBreaker!
* Parodied in [[http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/0167.html this]] ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}'' strip.
** Averted in the final battle, where [[BigBad Khrima]] is not immune to [[spoiler:Slow]].
* Also parodied in [[http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20030528.html this]] ''Webcomic/RPGWorld'' strip.
* Both the ''VideoGame/{{SaGa|RPG}}'' series and the ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series avert this trope; random encounters are generally much more difficult than in most [=RPGs=], and some powerful bosses '''aren't''' immune to status effects or instant death, making those powers valid tactics. You have spells that double your attack power, double your defense, halve the enemy's defense, and can give the enemy less than 10% accuracy or prevent them from casting '''any''' spells. These, as a general rule, will work on 99% of all bosses in ''Dragon Quest'' games, including the Final Boss and Bonus Boss. Some bosses cast a spell that removes the buffs on your party or on the enemy party, but if they're wasting a turn removing buffs, they're not attacking.
** Stone is very good in random encounters in ''VideoGame/MakaiToshiSaGa'' (''The Final Fantasy Legend''). Best of all, it works on an entire group of enemies. The same game also has the Saw weapon (a chainsaw, to be specific), which automatically deals a OneHitKill to opponents weaker than you. Or rather it's supposed to work that way, but because of a bug it only works on opponents '''stronger''' than you. Naturally, this includes the Final Boss. ([[spoiler:Who is none other than the world's god.]])
** In ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI'', almost all combat spells eventually become nigh-useless near the end, thanks to the proclivity of magic-immune monsters and the dearth of MP-restoring items. The only spells that stay useful are Sleep and Stopspell, for the few enemies not immune.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestII'' has evil wizard Hargon as the BigBad. When you finally get to fight him, it turns out that he's not immune to Stopspell.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'' did have one example of UselessUsefulSpell, but that was due to your allies playing AIRoulette. Specifically, [[CombatMedic Kiryl]] turned stupid the moment he learned [[OneHitKill Beat / Thwack]], constantly casting that instead of concentrating on fighting or healing. This was so prevalent that it's even [[MythologyGag referenced]] in one of his specials in ''VideoGame/DragonQuest: Monster Battle Road''. Luckily, the re-release let you change tactics (you could do this in the original game, but only to a limited degree -- the tactics were character-specific, and there were some things you just couldn't actually stop your characters from doing, regardless of setting) or take direct control, so even though the strategy for "Show No Mercy" is still just spamming the OneHitKill, it's not the only options.
** ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX'' has an inversion of the common pattern of skills becoming useless at high levels: the first Sword skill learned, Dragon Slash, deals great damage to Dragon-type monsters. But you may learn it long before you encounter any dragons.
* Many relatively early {{RPG}}s, like ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' and ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'', were created before ContractualBossImmunity came into vogue, and all spells are usable against all enemies. By inheritance, games modeled after them, like ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'', also tend to lack it, for the most part.
* The ''[[VideoGame/TheBardsTale Bard's Tale]]'' games pretty much have no immunities or even significant resistances at all. The BigBad of the first game can be killed by a relatively simple death spell, which is only fair considering he and his cohorts are flinging one-hit kills right back at you.
* Averted almost entirely in the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' series. Most status-changing abilities are usually effective. If they aren't, it's either because it's a One-Hit KO move (Fissure), or it's because the status effect is an unexpected bonus (Ice Beam). Not only that but the "bosses" in Pokémon are simply leveled-up versions of those you find in the wild, meaning that Confuse Ray will work just as well on the Gym leader's level 50 Alakazam it did on that level 3 [[ComMons Pidgey]] you found in the grass.
** Unfortunately, the ''[[VideoGame/PokemonStadium Stadium]]'' sidegames do have a rather awful variant of this, where the odds of it working and wearing off have been altered severely, as have the hit accuracies of everything, and the evasion chance, and the critical hit chance. Worse, [[FinaglesLaw they've been altered both in your opponent's favor and against your own at the same time]]. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard Opponents can slaughter your team with moves that are supposed to have 30% hit chance, and any status effect they hit you with will generally last the max duration or kick in far more than it should]] (or both, in the case of confusion. It can last up to eight turns and has an on-paper one in four chance of causing the Pokémon to attack itself rather than the opponent. Naturally, many of the later opponent Pokémon have a move causing this.) Meanwhile, in the unlikely event your status effect move hits, the effect rarely activates or the Pokémon shakes it off within a turn.
** There are still actual Useless Useful Spells, though; one move in particular (Feint) is intended to specifically bypass moves like Protect, the problem being it doesn't really do anything but bypass Protect, etc. Since so few Pokemon use those moves to begin with, you're better off giving up on it. Feint later got buffed to where it still does damage, and has ActionInitiative, even if the target doesn't use Protect, making it much more useful. (In double battles anyway) Then there's Mud Sport and Water Sport, which weaken the power of Electric and Fire moves respectively for 5 turns. The problem lies in the fact that most Pokemon that learn them are Ground (Mud Sport) or Water (Water Sport) type, and so are already immune to Electric and resistent to Fire, respectively.
** There's also a move called "Attract", which sets a status that makes the opponent fail to attack 50% of the time. However, the move only works on Pokémon of the opposite gender, it doesn't work at all on Pokémon with no gender (like Porygon or most legendaries), and is cured by removing the affected Pokémon or the one that used the move from battle. Attract can be useful, but only in combination with with other moves (that also decrease the chance of successfully moving) it stacks with. At least one official match, Venus in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonColosseum Colosseum]]'', uses it to good effect.)
*** Attract becomes [[GameBreaker entirely the opposite]] in the first two ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' games, however, where they just ignored gender completely. As such, [[EveryoneIsBi it works on every single Pokémon]], including legendaries, and it also prevents them from attacking 100% of the time rather than 50%. This was fixed in the later ''Mystery Dungeon'' games, which give Pokémon genders like in the main series.
** Prior to [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Generation 6]], Genesect's Techno Blast was a brilliant subversion. It was a typical gimmicky move that changed its type depending on the "Drive" item it held. Generally speaking, it was one of the worst moves Genesect could learn -- it had a base power of just 85, merely 5 PP, and zero special effects, and none of its types get a STAB. All of its various types seemed to be covered by other attacks it could learn. Chill Drive? Ice Beam has 90 base power, has more PP, can freeze. Shock Drive? Thunderbolt. Burn Drive? Flamethrower. Douse Drive? Well, Genesect can't learn any other water moves. Moreso, it's the only move in its entire moveset that is super effective against the Fire type, and the Fire type is Genesect's only weakness. Generation 6 buffed it to 120 base power, meaning it's now ''stronger'' than the aforementioned moves.
** Players who do most of their battling either in-game or in casual matches (where the simplest -- and often best -- strategy is to simply spam super effective attacks) with friends might be surprised to find out that, in the serious competitive MetaGame, ''tons'' of attacks that get a passing glance in casual matches are practically ways of life. Moves like [[StandardStatusEffects Thunder Wave and Spore]] go from just being used to catch Pokémon to the preferred method of crippling the opposing team, and fellow status moves Will-O-Wisp and Toxic join them to inflict passive damage on hugely defensive Pokémon (or in the former's case, to effectively neuter physical attackers). [[StatusBuff Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, Dragon Dance, and their ilk]] are the standard for lategame sweeping. Moves like Substitute, Knock Off, Leech Seed, U-Turn, and a host of others that [[DifficultButAwesome take some practice to learn to use properly]] can ''wreck entire teams'' if played correctly. Then there's entry hazards, one of which (Stealth Rock) is such a ubiquitous and dangerous move that an otherwise fantastic Pokémon can be reduced to a joke if it has a weakness to Rock types.
*** In the anime, status effects (especially Sleep) become some of the most overpowered moves there are. This is due to the anime being ever so slightly more realistic, which makes it that much harder to justify the difference between 'Sleeping' and 'Fainted' so sleep inducing moves become [=OHKOs=] with insane frequency.
** This also makes Taunt an incredibly practical move in the competitive metagame when compared to in-game battling, as moves such as Recover, Stealth Rock, or Roar (which are normally impractical compared to going all-offensive) have a much greater presence to the point that Taunt becomes incredibly useful when used against Stall teams.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/WanderingHamster''. James' Poison Suds and Soap Shield spells are surpisingly effecient, especially during boss fights.
** Same goes for Bob's spells, though part of the reason why they might be classed as useless is the fact that Bob uses VancianMagic as opposed having his spells be fueled by Mana, which prevents MP restoring items from restoring his magic points.
*** Ditto Skeppio's Unguard spell, which makes it easier to defeat StoneWall enemies.
* In ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'', you'll notice that none of your spells affect status, though there are the requisite StatusBuff spells -- ''very'' useful. Instead, the status-changing effects (from the second game on) are equipped to your attacks, similar to Junction. Delay works surprisingly often against bosses, Petrify and Instant Death help a great deal against DemonicSpiders, and even if they don't trigger, you still get your attack and don't use up MP.
* The Poison status effect in ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' is universally lethal as it does a fixed percentage of your HP in damage each turn, even with a serious level difference between you and your enemies.
** Additionally, it's possible to overcome any status effect resistance by going to the Item World, subduing the proper specialist for that condition, and move to the weapon of choice to increase the ability of it to inflict that effect, as well as how long it can last/how likely the victim is to resist it (it works similarly for elemental resistances, just with different specialists).
*** However Disgsaea otherwise plays this trope straight with most bonus bosses or some endgame bosses, where powerful enemies like Baal have special evilities that straight-up stop cheese strats by making them 100% immune to all status effects and remove your ability to steal gear mid-battle to weaken them.
* In ''VideoGame/The7thSaga'', spells like Vacuum1 and Defense2 are very useful.
** Unless, of course, you try and use them on a boss (which are immune to them ), the three overpowered mooks (Despair, Doom, and Reaper), and any apprentice you're fighting. Yes, that means that every playable character EXCEPT the one(s) in the party is immune to them, and that an ally you recruit will lose said immunity when they join you and regain it when they leave you.
* Averted in ''Videogame/EarthBound''
** While some enemies are immune to certain ailments, they will always be open to at least one kind. Several bosses can be put to sleep or paralyzed with ease, the sixth "Sanctuary" boss can be killed instantly with PSI Flash, and even the final boss is capable of being frozen or feel strange from the Brainshock spell.\\
One interesting note is that the resistance of an enemy being vulnerable to brainshock or hypnosis have an inverse relationship. If an enemy is immune to hypnosis, brainshock will have a 99.6% effectiveness (or vice-versa). If brainshock works on an enemy 10% of the time, hypnosis will work 50% of the time (or vice-versa). These four combinations are the only possible combinations of hypnosis and brainshock resistance in EB. Case in point [[spoiler: the second Sanctuary boss is vulnerable to Paralysis, making that whole cave a rush to beat him, then taking advantage of the cowardly enemies to level grind Paula]].
** The useless ''Pray'' spell that more than often cursed your party with a negative ailment? [[spoiler: You need to use it during the final fight with Giygas.]]
** Straight example: In ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'', the PK Thunder (AKA: Electric Shock Attack, Crashing Boom Bang Attack) moves are not nearly as useful for you as they are for your enemies. The move will target a random enemy each time it goes off (higher levels means stronger shots and more shots). However, if there's few enemies, there's a large chance that each shot will simply miss. It's very unlikely that you'll hit the same enemy more than once with the same move, even especially if you're using Omega (4 shots) and it's the only enemy, meaning it's also not useful against bosses. Meanwhile, you have a party of up to 4, and the enemy is far more likely to, even then, just zap the same party member until they die. It then goes in the other direction for enemies as well seeing as owning the Franklin Badge in your inventory (so it doesn't use an equip slot) will reflect lightning attacks that hit the owner. If the owner is the only member in the party (if everyone else is knocked out or the party is split up) thunder attacks then can only miss or damage the user.
** Another straight example is the Neutralizer (technically, it's not a spell, but it's similar enough). It sounds like an upgraded version of the Shield Killer, which is an extremely useful item, until you realize the Neutralizer neutralizes everyone in battle, including yourself. It's only really useful if the entire enemy team is shielded (rare) or if everyone in your party has been severely debuffed (also rare).
* ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'' maintains this tradition, and every boss is always vulnerable to at least ''one'' status effect. You can frequently put these to great use to defeat them. Plus, Sleep--through either PSI Hypnosis or Duster's amulet--has one of those most useful effects in the game. It reveals an enemy's "heartbeat," which is the special rhythm you need to press the buttons in when attacking to [[ActionCommands rack up massive amounts of damage.]] For some songs, which are made deliberately confusing or difficult, this is a ''massive'' help. Plus, his Wall Staples, which paralyze an enemy for a turn or two, are quite effective.\\
Furthermore, using spells and abilities that raise your stats and lower the boss' stats are quite effective on most bosses and practically required for some of them. Even if they can negate the changes, that's a turn spent not blasting you with powerful multi-targeting PSI attacks. Almost every boss in the game can be frozen or lit on fire, but it's somewhat rare to do so.
* Also averted in ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'': status-effect weaponry will eventually cause the relevant effect on your foe, provided you hit them enough times (the game keeps track rather than using a random chance), and the enemies are tough enough that status effects are actually helpful. Of course, there are cases (not that common, but not unknown either) where the enemy dies before you hit them enough for the effect to happen.
* The ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' series has both, and sometimes the spell's usefulness is directly related to the hero using it. Most of these classics are best in the hands of Might oriented heroes to buff their troops, while a Magic hero is better advised to use his turns to sling damage spells or spells like Puppet Master. Most spells also work regardless of the enemy faced, though the undead are immune to a number of debuffs and some other creatures are highly resistant to magic in general.
** Creatures with spells are a special case as the spell effect doesn't scale well with the size of the stack. A couple of mages have relatively strong spells, but when you get into the hundreds it's generally better to just have them attack instead.
* The Dominus arm Glyphs in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia''. The two attack ones are quite powerful... but also damage you heavily every time you use them. You can put all three together for a combination attack that deals obscene damage -- enough to one-hit kill anything short of a boss, and even some bosses... [[spoiler: But if you use it any time before you're supposed to, it kills Shanoa instantly, rendering it useless.]]
** Averted, however, for Dominus Agony, the back glyph. This glyph consumes your HP to give you a passive damage buff while active, and is better than most (if not all) other back glyphs for raw damage output; unlike the arm glyphs, which [[CastFromHitPoints consume 1/6 of your maximum HP]] per use, the back glyph costs a measly 66 HP per second to boost your stats by 66. You won't really want constant HP drain during exploration, but it's ''very'' useful in [[NotCompletelyUseless boss fights]]. Since it doesn't count as taking damage, it doesn't prevent you from [[NoDamageRun getting each boss' boss medal]], and [[GameBreaker it can be combined with the]] [[OneHitKill Death Ring]].
* Most status-inducing spells in the ''VideoGame/{{Avernum}}'' series by Creator/SpiderwebSoftware, particularly ones that impair combat ability (Slow, Sleep and Charm), are ineffective against opponents, while the player is very inconvenienced by them. This is more due to tactics than game mechanics, however: The player tends to be outnumbered by a horde of inferior opponents (except for rare boss battles), and naturally incapacitating one of a dozen mooks is useless compared to slowing or incapacitating one of four high-level killing machines.
** Averted on higher difficulties: on Torment, where mooks often have stats as high as or higher than [=PCs=] (though far less versatility), suddenly daze and charm spells seem a lot more useful.
* ''[[GaidenGame Sailor Moon: Another Story]]'' has the spell "Time Stop" which can freeze enemy actions for three turns. You'd think this spell would have severe limitations, but no, casting it freezes all enemies at once including the final boss with 100 percent accuracy. With judicious item use it is possible to keep Time Stop in effect throughout the entire final boss fight ...
* ''[[VideoGame/WildArms1 Wild ARMs: Alter Code F]]'', the remake of the original ''[=Wild ARMs=]'', makes all of these very useful. There are no instant-death equivalents (that you are allowed to cast), but all of the status effects land 100% on everything. Even the final boss. These are timed debuffs, so you only get a few turns before you have to cast them again.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/LuminousArc''. Even the instant death spell works on the majority of bosses (giant bosses seem to be immune), providing their level is below that of the character who knows the spell. Cecilia in the first game starts as a healer, but is capable of learning such a spell later in the game, and since you get a good chunk of EXP every time you heal someone, overlevelling her isn't hard.
** In [[VideoGame/LuminousArc2 the sequel]] we have Freeze, which the bosses Fatima and Josie use to devastating effect on your team when it connects. Anyone under its effects remain immobile for a few turns, but if before that the target is attacked by any kind of physical attack, it shatters dead, 100% of the time. [[spoiler:It remains just as useful when both characters join your side, and they have access to the exclusve Frost Orb accessory, which grants all their skills the same effect, plus a small accuracy boost.]]
* Averted in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''. Many of the status effect spells actually have a reasonable chance of working even on tougher enemies, some have effects which apply even if they are resisted, and many of the difficult fights involve a group of enemies instead of a single untouchable one. There are also several spells which deal good damage in addition to a status effect -- the fireball spell, for example, has a chance to knock people over when it explodes.
** Except for Crushing Prison, which will nearly never hold down very tough bosses (orange names), but Force Field will.
*** It stil does have its uses against tough bosses because it inflicts damage over time. It certainly isn't a waste; considering the other [=DoT=] doesn't work on bosses.
** There is one shining example in the form of 'Curse of Mortality', which inflicts minor [=DoT=] and prevents healing. Extremely dangerous in enemy hands but useless to the Player since few enemies can heal anyway and it only affects a single target.
*** Though in an interesting twist this spell is absolutely critical to defeating Gaxx'kang the unstoppable bonus boss. Otherwise it is a brutal dawn out brawl in which he heals and you feel pain.
* In the ''[[VideoGame/DotHackGUGames .hack//G.U.]]'' trilogy, status effects (charm, paralysis, curse, etc) can be equipped to weapons or learned as magic. They're quite effective at shutting down regular enemies, even bosses like Doppelganger.
** In the older IMOQ quadrilogy, debuffing pesky enemies with paralyze or sleep becomes pretty much ''the'' most efficient ways to dispatch regular enemies. Particularly the lethal Lich series of mobs which is fast, casts very deadly spells, and can be summarily executed by putting it to Sleep first and then hacking it to bits (due to its low physical def stat).
* The "Warlock" subset of spells (i.e. attack magic) in ''VideoGame/VagrantStory''. They look great, and most of the elementals (Radial Surge, Explosion, Avalanche, etc.) can be upgraded by finding copies of the spell books that teach them. Problem is that these spells require ungodly amounts of MP to cast, in a game where Magic Point boosts are hard to come by. Enchanter spells (changing Ashley's elemental attack or defense) are also of very marginal use, as you can only have one in effect at a time. However, Sorcerer spells (buffs and debuffs) start out useful, are always useful, have reasonable MP costs, and remain that way for the entire game.
* While ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' is mostly in the "more efficient to just beat the enemies up than debuff them ''then'' beat them up" camp, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' actually averts most if not ''all'' of this trope, what with how many bosses simply don't have just ''one'' strategy for defeating them -- some strategies for beating bosses involve crippling the boss with moves like Mute or Stop, or even deleveling them and then using moves whose effectiveness are dependent on levels. (Namely Level 5 Doom -- which inflicts instant death on enemies whose levels are multiples of 5.) For this reason, Blue Mages are often a GameBreaker -- and rightfully so!
** The BonusBoss Odin. He's got lethal hit-all attacks, and will insta-kill you in 60 seconds. He is not, however, immune to the "Break" petrification-effect. Trying to hit him with the actual "Break" spell won't be very effective, however, due to its inherent low hit-rate. The solution is to use the "MagicKnight" job, which can enhance a sword with a magical spell, activate "Break Blade", and finish Odin with a [[SingleStrokeBattle single attack]].
*** The Bio spell at first glance appears to be a typical poison spell. However, even if an enemy cannot be poisoned, Bio is the most powerful spell available for the majority of the game and does about 40% more damage than the second-level elemental spells.
*** Hilariously, L5 Death works on bosses (provided their level is divisible by 5). [=DarkShock=] (halves the target's level and does some rounding if necessary) also works as does L2 Old (gives the target a debuff that gradually lowers their level). So with proper timing, almost any boss can be taken out by L5 Death.
*** One of the bosses in the Final Dungeon is a Blue Mage. If you attack him with Exploder, he will use it on his next turn, effectively committing suicide.
*** You can't talk about FFV without mentioning the insanely-overpowered "Mix" ability. Now, there are a few examples that stand out. One combination of items, "Kiss of Blessing," gives you berserk, image, and haste. Not *quite* useless when used as intended, though by the time you get the Chemist class you are probably using special skills that do more damage than a buffed physical attack. Here's the kicker: setting these statuses this way bypasses any immunity checks, meaning you can berserk enemies that normally wouldn't be affected by it. Berserk also completely obliterates an enemy's AI script, causing them to do nothing but attack. Many actions in battle are actually just pieces of script. [[spoiler: This of course includes Exdeath's ''OneWingedAngel'' transformation...]]
*** Nor can you talk about FFV without mentioning Death Claw, a Blue Spell learnable as early as Karnak Castle from the Iron Claw boss. It is a cruel combination of Hold and Weak that pierces reflect status, paralyzes an enemy, ''and'' reduces their HP to single digits. It works on many bosses and ''any'' enemy that doesn't have "heavy" status, making it very much a GameBreaker for much of the game.
*** One reason disabling spells are considered useless is the MP cost to use them. In FFV, the Bard job is able to learn Charm Song and Love Song which cast confuse and stop respectively on all enemies with very high success rate for absolutely no cost. While some enemies are still immune, a bard can easily keep the party from being attacked a lot of the time. Add in the fact that one of the game's [[BonusBoss super bosses]] Omega Weapon is vulnerable to stop and you have a GameBreaker.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'', most status spells are not very useful against normal enemies (Sleep is useful as a crowd control tool early, but that's about it), but the bosses almost always have at least one status type they don't resist (Astos can be silenced to prevent his [[ThatOneAttack Death]] spell from going off, Marilith is weak to several statuses, most importantly Paralysis, Tiamat can be [[OneHitKill oneshotted]] by [[DeadlyGas Scourge]] or [[TakenForGranite Break]]), and literally ''any'' enemy can be slowed or put to sleep with Slowra and Sleepra since those are non-elemental and as such cannot be resisted (though they can still miss due to enemy magic defense). As for buffs, well, a Black Wizard will get much more damage out of using a lowly Temper (level two spell) on the party's physical fighter, than he will out of using Flare (the ultimate offensive spell in the game), while Blink (a level ''one'' spell mind you) will pretty much eliminate all threat of physical attacks after two or three casts.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' [[MagikarpPower takes some levelling]] to make spells useful, but several spells become extremely powerful with frequent usage. Blink can make characters nigh-unhittable, while Shell and Barrier can provide invaluable resistance against StandardStatusEffects. Berserk and Haste drastically increase the amount of damage your fighters can dish out. The Matter-elemental spells that function as instant death on enemies[[labelnote:*]]Toad, Mini, Break, Teleport, and Warp[[/labelnote]] are rarely resisted by even bosses, capable of wiping out multiple enemies in a single cast once levelled sufficiently.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' will rarely let you land a status effect on bosses, but features several random encounters that showcase your immobilizing status effects. Most standard enemies that counter your attacks are vulnerable to Stop, Hold, or Edge's Shadowbind -- and many (such as the instant-death-happy Coeurl) will demolish you if you don't. Additionally, Slow seems to hit almost anything, ''including the final boss''. [=FF4=] was the first game in the series to use ATB, even though it lacked the time gauges showing as much, and the Slow debuff is a lot more useful than it sounds ''especially'' when paired with Haste to speed up your own party.
*** Additionally, Reflect will usually land on bosses -- usually because it's ''their'' strategy, but you can apply it to them yourself. This seems counterintuitive, but it bounces heals and buffs as well as offensive spells. This is in fact the key strategy to defeating Asura, who spams high-level heals on herself and counters hard enough that you ''really'' want them landing on you instead.
*** Silence is similarly handy, even if it rarely lands on bosses. A lot of later-game enemies like to spam dangerous spells, such as the Ghost Knights of the Tower of Babil who counter with ''Bio'' for every physical attack, which can quickly take their toll on your stock of curative items and spells. Silence is practically guaranteed to take effect (90% accuracy), can target the entire enemy party, doesn't cure on its own and can't be cured by enemy tactics, and can be cast almost instantly for a paltry 6 MP.
*** The DS re-release of Final Fantasy IV, however, changes it so most bosses actually are weak to most, if not all status effects. To balance it out, though, most bosses are made significantly more difficult... unless you hit them with status effects.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' has Wrexsoul, a PuzzleBoss whose gimmick is that he disappears mid-fight and "possesses" one of your party members, and in order to damage him you have to kill your party member, thus forcing him to reappear. The two {{Mooks}} he leaves behind when he disappears, the Soulsavers, are scripted to revive themselves upon death. They are, however, vulnerable to the instant-death spell X-Zone -- so if you cast it and kill both of them at once after Wrexsoul is gone the game views it as a victory. This is because Banish/X-Zone delays the affected enemy's AI actions, including "Final Attack" style counters, by one turn. The X-Zoned Soulsavers aren't able to revive themselves via script, and because Wrexsoul's Zinger programmatically removes him from the battlefield, it is considered a "defeated all enemies" victory.
*** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' also has both magic and random encounters and magic that are more powerful than usual, and one counters the other. Single status effects aren't practical, but [=AoE=] spells like slowga, banish or graviga, and the flash tool can be quite useful. In addition, many bosses are vunerable to slow, including the mighty Ultima/Atma Weapon.
*** Several appendages of the final boss are vulnerable to the Death spell, a fact used in at least one [[SelfImposedChallenge low-level run's]] strategy.
*** The Vanish status would prevent physical attacks, but make magic ''always'' hit. The check for Instant Death immunity (but not other status ailments) would be skipped if the target was Vanished. Result? [[GameBreaker Almost every monster in the game could be killed by casting Vanish and Doom (or X-Zone) on it.]] The Playstation rerelease made a select few bosses that could break the game immune to '''''Vanish''''' of all things, before the Game Boy Advance version came along and quietly fixed the bug, making all three spells Useless Useful Spells again.
*** Gau tends to get use out of such spells, as he's able to cast them for free at the cost of not having control over him. Since he can just keep using it over and over again (and more often than not it will work on the first cast), having him mimic a Commander which will frequently cast Break (chance of a OneHitKO) is actually a viable tactic during random battles, especially with {{Damage Sponge}}s or enemies with a high evasion rate.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', the Poison status tends to be useful in boss fights (many of which are not immune), and is the key to [[SequenceBreaking defeating the Midgar Zolom when you first meet it]] and learning the DiscOneNuke that is [[BlueMagic Beta]].
*** BonusBoss Emerald Weapon has ''1 million'' HP and a 20 minute time limit in which to beat him (unless you acquired the special Underwater Materia to remove the timer). As it turns out, he is NOT immune to the gravity-based Demi spells, which do damage based on percentage of the target's current HP. While the DamageCap is only 9,999 per attack, pairing it with W-Magic and Quadra Magic lets you cast it ''8 times'' in a row, doing nearly 80,000 damage in a single turn for a pittance of MP.
** Likewise, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' generally makes abnormal statuses useful most of the time, particularly when 100 of them are junctioned as Status Attack. For instance, the Propagators are susceptible to Death, so equipping 100 Deaths in Status Attack ensures a very high chance of a OneHitKO strike. 100 Pain spells (silence/poison/blind) will allow you to disable them completely with a touch. Even major bosses are not immune from being blinded and having their defenses go down to 0. Tonberries, which are generally immune from all status effects, can be easily dealt with by spamming Demi or summoning Diablos, which are gravity-based (and therefore percentage-type) attacks.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' in general is an aversion, since only a couple enemies in the game are immune to all status ailments. It's probably safe to say that if an enemy's [[EnemyScan Libra data]] says it's "susceptible to (status effect)", it translates to "If you don't use that status, [[ThatOneBoss You. Will. Die.]]" [[spoiler:Both forms of final boss Orphan are shining examples. The first form, which otherwise treads into ThatOneBoss[=/=]LuckBasedMission territory with its ability to instantly KO your leader, can be utterly destroyed with Poison. Plus, if you can get the final form to stagger, and have Vanille use her Death ability on it, '''it actually works'''.]]
** The easiest way to defeat ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'''s BonusBoss [[spoiler: Caius]] in the postgame? [[spoiler: Use the series' newest spell Wound for 12 minutes to [[CherryTapping cherry tap]] him down to about 25% of his Max HP, and then just beat him to death.]]
** Continuing the trend, ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' makes debuffing Schema all that more useful. In particular, poison is effective on many, many enemies (even those that actually spews poison themselves, like Goblots), up to and including Ereshkigal, one of the superbosses in the game. Stacking spells such as Deprotect, Deshell, Imperil, with buffs such as Bravery and elemental potions is par for the course. Even the lowly Curse, which "only" makes it easier for you to interrupt enemies, mesh extremely well with "Hard Hitter" weapons that possess extra interrupt capability, making it entirely possible to stunlock enemies (including the dreaded late game Arcangeli and [[spoiler:Caius]]).
** Believe it or not, [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX Quina's]] [=LV5=] Death spell is actually much more useful than most people give it credit for. It won't work on bosses, of course, but there are a surprising number of enemies that can be mass-killed with the spell...including ''every single type of enemy in the Desert Palace except those electric cat things.'' [=LV3=] Defenseless also comes in handy against a couple of bosses, including the Meltigemini and the Earth Guardian.
*** A huge number of bosses in the game has a weakness to ''some'' status. [[ThatOneBoss Gizamaluke]] can be blinded and silenced, Valia Pira is literally unloseable if you have someone with [[AttackReflector Auto-Reflect]], Meltigemini is famously vulnerable to Mini, making a tough battle a complete cakewalk, Taharka can be ''oneshotted'' with Heat status from Mustard Bomb (as one guide writer eloquently put, ''there are certain status weaknesses you just can't have if you want a good chance at victory''), the list goes on. Hell, even the FinalBoss has a status weakness, though not a crippling one.
*** Similarly, what is normally ThatOneBoss in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', the [[spoiler:Earth Guardian]], is a pantywaist if you hit him with Quina's Bad Breath spell. He subverts this trope heavily, being vulnerable to most of Bad Breath's effects, making it much easier to kill him. As the icing on the proverbial cake, said boss can also be eaten.
** The various modes of [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyX Seymour]]]] tend to be just as immune to status effects as any of the other bosses. However, most of [[spoiler:his forms]] (first, second, and third fights) are trivialized by using Yuna's Nul-spells carefully (since Scan tells you what order he spams elemental spells), abusing Reflect (which [[spoiler:he]] doesn't dispel in a fight until the third fight, and then only every fourth turn), and Lulu's Bio spell--poison is incredibly effective in this game, taking out a fourth of the target's maximum HP (unless the 1/4th of the target's HP is ''still'' more than [[{{Cap}} 9999]]) if they can be affected by poison at all. Other than that, just keep whacking away like you would with any normal enemy.
*** Also, poisoning the "pet" in fight 3 is an easy way to get the boss to kill itself.
** The FinalBoss of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' is famously vulnerable to Zombie. It's accompanied by two rocks that heal it for 9999 every turn. Casting Zombie on it [[ContractualBossImmunity not only works]], but [[ReviveKillsZombie causes it to take 9999 every time it's healed]].
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'', the Songstress's dances afflict a status ailment on every single enemy or major buffs on all allies. They will always work, barring total immunity to the status, have a set duration (which makes timing easier), and better yet, you can also Stop them in their tracks, guarantee crits for you, put them all to sleep. It's less effective as the game goes on, since bosses start gaining immunity to the ailments Songstress provides, but surprising few regular enemies are immune to ailments that absolutely cripple them.
** Likewise, very few of XII's Marks are immune to all status effects. Usually, you can find one that cripples an otherwise massively powerful mark (exampe: use Berserk on the Mindflayer).
** ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'''s [[StandardStatusEffect standard status effect]] spells (Poison, Sleep, Silence, Fear, Stop, Doom, and Death) [[ZigzaggedTrope zig-zag the trope]]. Most of the time, they're about as useless as you'd expect. Normal enemy battles tend not to last long enough for most of them to have much of an effect (and Fear also has an effect that accomplishes precisely nothing against the majority of normal enemies), while bosses naturally have high resistance to status effects, even with the Status Ailment Amp passive skill (though one particular [[LimitBreak Special Move]] can lower that). However...the game also features [[ItemCaddy one]] [[JobSystem job]] with an ability that can temporarily cause an enemy to be weak to a certain element (causing it to take 1.5x damage from that element), and several jobs have stat-debuffing abilities. Enemies do ''not'' have immunity against either of those, not even the FinalBoss. Moreover, you can also use status effects [[NotTheIntendedUse in a rather unorthodox way]]: There is a passive ability called BP Recovery that causes anyone who has it to gain 2 BP (more or less extra turns) when hit with a status effect, and there is another passive that causes single-target magic to affect an entire party. So, if you want, you can hit the entire player party with three status effects in a row, then cure them all, and [[GameBreaker everyone's BP will most likely be maxed out]].
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''. Granted, Status hasn't really been used in most ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' games outside of maybe Stop or Magnet, 358/2 days uses them. Despite that several moves don't really apply to enemies (Such as InterfaceScrew or control-jacking), Burning, freezing, and air-knocking are perhaps ''the'' most effective ways to kill [[ThatOneBoss That One Enemy]]...the Emerald Serenade.
** Vexen can even inflict freezing with his melee combos.
** Stop is one way to kill Black Mushrooms in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI''. A very effective way at that.
** At higher levels in ''Kingdom Hearts'', Gravity becomes a very useful attack, especially against EliteMooks like the Behemoth. Continually cating Gravity on his horn will deplete his health far faster then keyblade combos will, at least when he still has high HP. Also, during the NoGearLevel sequence, Gravity is the only damage-dealing spell that still does useful damage, since it's percentage based, and not based on Sora's Magic stat.
** Magnet meanwhile in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' is ''obviously'' a very good way to grind -- some heartless don't just stay still, Magnet remedies that.
*** By the time you've got Magnega, there isn't a single basic enemy that will honestly last more than 5 seconds against you if you use it right. It actually affects [[spoiler:Sephiroth]] ''and'' [[spoiler:Xemnas]]. Magnega = Broken.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' makes status effects so useful it inverts the usual pattern. Status effects on any of your three heroes make for a rare, mildly annoying experience. Meanwhile, the myriad status spells available to the player from very, very early on in all three modes will utterly devastate the vast majority of {{Mook}}s, turning, say, a quartet of the toughest the game has to offer into helpless punching bags. While lots of the bosses have some form of ContractualBossImmunity, few of them are immune to ''everything''. [[spoiler:Vanitas]] getting you down? Magnet or Zero Gravity. Braig being a JerkAss? Burn him up, poison him, or just put him to sleep. Zack making you frown? Freeze him solid. Hook causing problems? Give him a whole host of them, he's only immune to ''three''. In short: Having trouble with ''Birth By Sleep''? There's a status for that.
** Yes, if you are playing Proud Mode or higher, ''You. Will. Need. All. Of. Them.'' Seriously, it's almost a requirement to deal with tougher Unversed and bosses.
* Most bosses in ''VideoGame/TouhouLabyrinth'' are pretty vulnerable to debuffs and status effects (though some are immune and some are more vulnerable than others). A good thing, as you really ''need'' those debuffs and statuses to stand a chance at winning most of the time... Also, random encounters on later floors can be difficult enough that it's imperative to have a fast character paralyze them before they can act so slower attackers can dismantle them without worrying about getting hit.
* ''VideoGame/SandsOfDestruction'', although it tends to go in and out of this trope. Buffs are ''highly'' useful. One of the best abilities in the game, though? Naja's Cleansing Cry...because when the enemies buff ''themselves'', they can get to be ''VERY'' annoying and wipe out an unbuffed party while dodging ''everything'' that gets thrown at them. Debuffs? Meh...you can just wipe 'em out.
* ''[[VideoGame/ChocobosDungeon Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon]]'':
** Most opponents are vulnerable to status effects -- only the "guardian" bosses seem capable of making those spells miss. Naturally, those are the ones you really wish you could find a guaranteed weakness for.
** Magic Pots appear to be resistant/invulnerable to status effects (as well as resistant to magic in general).
* The Stasis skill in ''VideoGame/{{Mass Effect|1}}'' may at first seem like a useless useful skill: it freezes the intended target, but also makes them invulnerable. However, this can be useful in situations where there is one very strong enemy--perhaps a boss or just an EliteMook--and several regular {{Mooks}}, where (especially on the [[NintendoHard higher difficulties]]) the stronger enemies can kill [[PlayerCharacter Shepard]] in one hit. Additionally, the Bastion PrestigeClass gains the ability to damage enemies in stasis, which (especially combined with upgrades which drastically reduce the cooldown time on abilities) makes the skill an utter GameBreaker. (Your squad becomes fairly useless when you can render the final boss immobile and kill it by yourself with just a dinky pistol.)
** The VideoGame/MassEffect2 version of Stasis also gets pegged into this trope, despite actually being one of the most devastating status effects if used correctly. There are three reasons for why Stasis is good. The first is it is one of the few non-damage oriented abilities in the game that actually works without removing enemy defenses first. The second reason is that enemies hit with Stasis take significantly more damage between the time Stasis wears off and when they get back on their feet.[[note]]This is an intended effect, when Stasis wears off the enemy ragdolls and falls to the floor, both of which cause damage x2 while in effect for a total of x4[[/note]] You can legitimately one shot many enemies in this time period. The third is a bug which for a brief moment causes the difficulty level to not be taken into account when dealing damage meaning that enemies take damage as though the game were at Easy difficulty regardless of the actual difficulty, so while it is supposed to allow you to deal massive damage to enemies as part of the design it ends up being GoodBadBug overkill and one hit killing them. The major point is that none of this is listed in the game so most players look at the immediate effect of the ability, which isn't that useful most of the time, without ever realizing about the damage boost when it wears off.
** ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' turned Stasis into a full blown GameBreaker against the Cerberus faction. A fully evolved Stasis Bubble in a chokepoint is able to stop an entire army of enemy units, as it only does not work on enemies with armor. As the only armored Cerberus unit is the slow Atlas, this led to a player with Stasis Bubble and a sniper rifle to utterly trivialize Cerberus. In Multiplayer, the tactic was made less effective by adding Cerberus Dragoons, who possess armor while moving relatively quickly.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Gothic}} 2'', there is a spell that does truely massive damage cheaply, but only to undead. The BigBad is undead. Three casts of this spell kill him in seconds. I'd be disappointed if it wasn't for the fact that it's an undead dragon that fights exactly the same as the 5 dragons you already beat before this point, just with a bit more hitpoints.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/NetHack''; once you've learned "Finger of Death", that's all the offensive magic you'll ever need.
** Provided, of course, you have reflection. If you don't, and happen to run across something that DOES, it's YetAnotherStupidDeath.
** It doesn't work on [[HorsemenOfTheApocalypse Death]], but if you're trying that [[TooDumbToLive you've got bigger problems.]]
* In the ''[[VideoGame/HarryPotter Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone]]'' UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor game, best way to beat the final boss? Locomotor Wibbly to inflict stun... then Mucus Ad Nauseum to poison him; especially if you don't have Flipendo Tria.
* In its early stages, status-inflicting moves and items in ''VideoGame/{{Opoona}}'' are not very helpful. This is especially so since battles are [[TimedMission timed]], and there's not a lot of time to waste fiddling around with menus. Then, [[DifficultySpike the game decides to stop messing around]], and throws at you parties of 8+ enemies, many of whom can [[ShootTheMedicFirst heal]], some of whom deal devestating damage, and many of whom live in battlefields strewn with bombs. Suddenly, the ability to prevent enemies from casting spells looks pretty useful. Poleena also has several abilities which can stun all enemies at once, which is ''extremely'' useful.
* ''VideoGame/TheLastRemnant'' easily averts this trope by simply having all status spells and items deal damage as well. There are few magic spells that don't cause some type of status ailment, in addition to causing damage. The staus ailments themselves are quite useful: poison does a decent amount of damage, while sealing an enemy's mystic and combat arts greatly reduces their offensive capabilities.
* ''VideoGame/VampiresDawn'': In both games, using the Suck Blood ability (which has no costs and also refills part of your blood pool for further magics) causes a Bleed status effect that damages enemy health every turn in a percental value...and it lasts the entire fight. It also affects nearly every enemy, except for those that logically do not have blood, golems and such. Of which there are not many anyway. Needless to say, using Suck Blood on a tougher boss in the first turn is a VERY useful way to kill them quickly.
* In ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsTheThirdAge'', nearly every boss is vulnerable to ''something'', and Elegost's EnemyScan skill displays their entire resistance list in very convenient spreadsheet format.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic 4'', where clever use of these spell allow a lone hero to defeat entire legions of enemies.
** In fact, buffs and debuffs are key in the Heroes of Might and Magic series. If you have 500 Conscripts attacking at once, which hardly put a dent in your wallet, Blessing them to do 2 damage instead of 1-or-2 can earn you up to 500 extra points of damage, and that's using one of the most pathetic units in the games as an example.
* Completely averted in ''VideoGame/StarStealingPrince'', where inflicting status ailments and debuffs is a huge part of the gameplay. Nobody, not even the FinalBoss, is immune to any status ailments, and many attacks deal damage and inflict status ailments at the same time. On the flip side, status ailments don't last very long, and nearly every enemy has at least one attack that deals status ailments, so they're just as capable of burying your party under a mountain of ailments and debuffs as you are.
** That said, though, Paralyze is the least effective status ailment, as other than the really powerful attacks, it only shows up in one other attack, which doesn't deal very much damage and isn't really worth using when the character also has a full-party attack that causes Silence and Confusion.
* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls1''. Weapons and spells that induce poison, toxin, or bleed are incredibly useful against most enemies. It knocks off 30% of the target's total health, likely killing them (since they just took all those bleed causing hits also). There are a couple player weapons that cause bleed damage to be more than 30%. Poison or Toxin, however, can fall into this trope on enemies (or players) with high Vitality, as they drain a flat amount of HP. Still, a handful of poisoned throwing knives can be a game-changer if a fight drags on long enough, and it's definitely not unheard of for players to die to damage-over-time effects they'd forgotten they had.
* Averted prominently in ''VideoGame/TheDenpaMen''. Status-upping skills (like Speed or Defense increases) can help prevent your party from taking excess damage in random encounters, and when HP is at a premium (as in this game), every little bit of damage dodge helps. Similarly, stat-downing skills help take the edge off the game's brutal random encounters. Some skills are borderline necessary to survive in certain dungeons--such as status-curing skills when certain enemies love to spam you with status effects. Finally, Denpa Men with status-effecting skills tend to be [[SquishyWizard less squishy]] than Denpa Men with attack skills.
* ''VideoGame/{{Xenoblade}}'' flat-out ''Inverts'' this! Status effects are immensely useful when used by you, in fact they're part of what makes [[SmallAnnoyingCreature Riki]] the LethalJokeCharacter he really is. Not only do they work on just about everything, even bosses, but there are at least ''four'' separate damage-over-time effects (Bleed, Poison, Blaze and Chill), and they all stack with each other--yes, somehow being frozen stacks with being on fire, but let's not think too hard about that. Riki is capable to taking major advantage of this, stacking all four on enemies quickly and re-applying them when they wear off ad-infinitum, to the point where he's considered one of the best boss killers in the game. The other main status effects, Break/Topple/Daze, render enemies not immune (and only flying monsters generally are, even the ''final boss'' can be toppled) completely immobile and vulnerable to damage, and at higher levels the party can spam these to make sure they never have a chance to get up! On the other hand, the same status effects are usually only mild annoyances when used by enemies: damage-over-time effects are easily out-healed, and active party members can snap each other out of Sleep, Topple or Daze. That said, there are enemies who can apply Topple or Daze to all your party, or apply flat-out ''ridiculous'' damage-over-time effects (we are talking thousands per tick in a game where the HP cap is 9999), so it kinda depends on the enemy. Moreover [[TheMedic Sharla]]'s status-curing ability actually has the additional effect of making the target ''immune'' to further debuffing for a short while, (and she can hit your whole party with it later) making them all the more useless!
** Speaking of Sharla, she has an instant kill move that also doesn't suck. Head Shot. It has a 15% chance to kill an enemy it hits provided it's suffering from Daze (and yes Sharla has a way to inflict Daze), and does good damage if it fails. More importantly, it's the only art she has with a red icon, which is relevant to get good (read: hundreds of thousands) damage off of [[LimitBreak Chain Attacks]].
** ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' continues the trend of the ever valuable Topple combo (now in the form of Break-Topple-Launch-Smash), enabling the party to either stall the enemy for a considerable amount of time or do tremendous damage while getting valuable items in the mix. There's also knockback and blowdown-inflicting arts, which can be invaluable when it comes to interrupting a particularly devastating enemy attack.
* The BonusDungeon in ''VideoGame/ManaKhemiaAlchemistsOfAlRevis'' contains some truly hellish [[BossInMookClothing Bosses in Mook Clothing]] that won't take more than ScratchDamage from anything less than a critical when attacked directly. Fortunately, they have no status immunities other than seal, which means they can be delayed, insta-killed, put to sleep, and poisoned for full damage while the party plays defense.
* ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'' often subverts this. Many tough enemies are made easily manageable with some syphons and dispels, which would otherwise be laid aside. If you don't get the point? In comes a WakeUpCallBoss that will beat your ass repeatedly if you don't play it smart and use these when necessary. A lesson learnt the hard way, but you won't forget that anytime soon.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'', where any attack, item, gear effect or badge effect is effective on anything up to and including the final boss and bonus boss. With the slight exception of the Shock Bomb, which still works on anything other than a boss with a 100% success rate. This kind of threw balance out the window as a result, making about half the badges and gear ridiculously overpowered.
* Strongly averted in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'' and similar MOBA games. Stuns, slows, silences and similar abilities are crucial to victory, and many team compositions will have one or more characters entirely dedicated to applying them to the enemy team.
** In ''League of Legends'' it is possible to gain some degree of crowd-control resistance or immunity. This is usually a small reduction to the duration of the effects granted by certain items or character-specific abilities. Some characters, such as Olaf, Gangplank and Alistar are capable of removing crowd control effects from themselves, making this trope apply... but usually only once at a time, with a significant cooldown between each use.
*** Knockback effects in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' '''cannot''' be reduced by items or masteries, completely averting this trope.
*** [[VideoGame/{{Dota 2}} Dota 2]] has many crowd-control skills which are strong-to-devastating at the beginning of the game, but are highly useless late in the game. This is because of the Black King Bar, an item that grants a brief period of magic immunity upon use, and is almost a must-have item on most heroes expected to have a lot of money. There are some crowd-control abilities that bypass the Black King Bar, though.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia''. EVERY ENEMY in the game is susceptible to every status effect. This is the true use of Rowen, who may otherwise be seen as too much of a SquishyWizard. Even the final boss is susceptible to every status effect, they also stack and most of the fights have multiple enemies, which makes confusion very helpful. There have been humorous anecdotes of either of the combatants in the final battle, as it is a DualBoss, activating their LimitBreak on each other, making short work of half of the fight.
* ''VideoGame/RadiantHistoria'' doesn't have that many status effects, but there are at least a couple that you can inflict on enemies (in particular, Poison and Sleep). Their effects are generally nothing huge, but they will usually work even on bosses and can be a nice way to make them take extra damage...[[GameBreaker or sit there asleep while you set up a massive combo of turns to use after the effect wears off]].
* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'' has Chaos Brand, which causes confusion. Well, confusion isn't normally one of the more powerful status effects in an RPG and this game is no exception, but the spell has a 100% success rate against any enemy that isn't outright immune to it, and it's one of the cheapest spells to cast—at 10 EP—to boot. In fact, status effects aren't too shabby in general in ''Trails in the Sky''; while they're not as exploitable as the aforementioned sleep spells in Radiant Historia, there are a number of abilities that have a chance of causing things like petrify, freeze, mute, or even instant death in addition to doing damage, and with proper [[PowersAsPrograms quartz]] setup, you can make ''any'' attack have a 10% chance of causing a given status effect. Again, the chance of the status hitting is entirely dependent on the method of activation; the only possible enemy resistance levels are "none" or "complete". What's more, several bosses avert ContractualBossImmunity when it comes to Chaos Brand. Suddenly, ThatOneBoss Lorence is a joke when you can get his split clones to attack himself. The rematch with him however, is still firmly ThatOneBoss, along with the three-phase FinalBoss in ''FC'', the only bosses in that game to play the trope straight. Even some Crafts offer great debuffs, particularly Kloe's Kempha which cuts an enemy's defense and strength so hard it's a GameBreaker that was immediately nerfed in ''SC'', and Tita's Smoke Cannon which has a high SplashDamage radius that instantly blinds most enemies, making them sitting ducks in battles with large groups. Combine that with the aforementioned Kempha and Chaos Brand, and late-game battles are almost easy.
* In ''VideoGame/EnergyBreaker'', attack debuffs are extremely powerful, due to the turn limit. If you don't prioritize those enemies whose ability is debuffing your attack, you will be stuck dealing nearly no damage to anything and then the turn limit runs out and you're screwed.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}}''. Debuff spells like Charm, Daze, and Terror can reliably affect end-game enemies and even bosses if your Mental Magic and Spellcraft skills are high enough and are ''vital'' to a SoloCharacterRun as an Agent or Infiltrator. The effect is even more pronounced on higher difficulties, since enemy damage and health scale up harder than resistances.
* ''VideoGame/RakenzarnTales'' both averts it and plays it straight. Many bosses can be afflicted with at least one status condition and the EnemyScan can show you which ones have the best chance of working. It's played straight for main character Kyuu, who is immune to all negative status conditions, something that is actually made note of in the game.
* Averted in ''VideoGame/MocoMocoFriends,'' especially against bosses or in the [[BrutalBonusLevel bonus dungeons.]] Because bosses are made of [[MookPromotion parties of ordinary Plushkins, just stronger than average,]] they're exactly as vulnerable to status effects as any other enemy. Using sleep, paralysis, or confusion spells is an excellent way of disabling [[ShootTheMedicFirst healers]] and other annoyances. In the bonus dungeons, using accuracy-upping status skills is practically a requirement for dealing with the high number of enemies with high dodge rates.
* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' has Show Stopper, a late game Special that costs only 2 stars, targets all enemies, and potentially instantly kills them. It's ''insanely'' effective, as it relies on tapping the right buttons with each correct sequence increasing the odds of it taking effect, and even getting only a couple of sequences right is likely to take out the enemies. The move is balanced by the fact that star power is only replenished by fighting battles, appealing to the audience, or staying at inns, meaning you ''will'' be forced to fight battles properly to recharge the power you need to use Show Stopper, but by farming and stacking Super Appeal badges you can fully recharge Mario's star meter with only a single appeal...
* ''VideoGame/RakenzarnFrontierStory'' is another game where debuffs and status conditions will win you the day. Inflicting Stun on foes is very handy early on when you're still weak and even bosses aren't immune to having their stats lowered. Indeed, they're quite willing to buff themselves early on, so debuffing them is needed to level the playing field.
* In ''VideoGame/ShiningResonance,'' status effects are very easy to apply and most enemies up to and including bosses are vulnerable to them. Many moves have a chance of applying a status effect in addition to damage, and the few moves that only afflict status effects are 100% accurate. Plus, by using the [[RelationshipValues Bond Diagram,]] some of the basic Bonds cause your allies to randomly drop status effects on your opponents. In addition, because the game's enemies scale in levels as the game goes on, battles are usually fairly lengthy anyway.
* Like ''Wizardry'' above, ''VideoGame/TheDarkSpire'' has ''incredibly'' valuable ailment spells, to the point where you're gimping yourself by using damaging spells over them until you get Extincto. Even then, non-damaging spells will still be invaluable for encounters. Plus, the instant death spells are among the last you get in the game for a reason - they ''work''.
* ''VideoGame/FearAndHunger'' both averts this and does it in an uncommon manner. For the aversion, there's poison. It can deal up to 1k damage per turn, requires you only find the plentiful consumable to use it, and nothing is resistant to it, even when you expect it to be. Dealing that much damage per turn requires an active effort or an enemy with a lot of limbs. Speaking of which...
** Limb targeting. As compared to targeting the head or torso, you only deal minor damage to your foe's max HP, but you will often either cripple or cut off the limb completely, preventing attacks from being used with it. Removing a single limb can easily be the difference between surviving to an encounter or dying.
* The poison status in ''VideoGame/JadeCocoon'' is absolutely '''''devastating''''' when used by yourself against minions. Only poisonous minions are immune to it and any creature that isn't immune is 100% susceptible to it without fail, which means you can effortlessly poison most enemies and all but one ''of the bosses'' with it. If that wasn't good enough the affects of poison are very severe, and not only reduce the affected character's stats but also inflict damage equal to an eighth of that character's max health per turn meaning that almost every boss can be cheesed by poisoning them and then surviving until they die. If ''that'' wasn't good only a small handful of enemies can cure it and they happen to be the [[MookMedic least threatening enemies in the game]]. If ''THAT'' wasn't good enough, not only can you buy disposable items that inflict poison for free and find a poison-inflicting sword as early as the Moth Forest (not even halfway through the game), but you can capture a Nushab who can use Poison Fang ''in the first forest''.
[[/folder]]

As game design has evolved, more recent games have been averting this with spells which would traditionally fall under this trope through several means. One method is including including EliteMooks that are vulnerable to the effects of the more powerful abilities; enemies significantly tougher than the typical mook, tough enough that they'll give you a hard time in a conventional fight, yet weaker than the harder bosses. Being able to chain stun a ClimaxBoss might cheapen the fight to the point of meaninglessness; using the resources to chain stun an EliteMook, however, still leaves the player having to deal with all of the mechanics of the more powerful bosses. Another method is having these abilities have lesser, but still useful, effects on bosses they would otherwise hard counter; poison immunity against a boss which relies on inflicting a highly potent poison, for example, may wear off at an accelerated rate, or may cause the poison to do less damage, while still offering more protection than no immunity at all. Yet another method is by limiting how often these abilities can be applied to the boss; a boss may, for example, build up resistance (temporarily or permanently) to a status effect as it is repeatedly applied, leaving one to either try to finish the fight as quickly as possible, or apply the status effect at the best possible opportunity (such as stunning before a HerdHittingAttack [[TotalPartyKill wipes your team out.]]

As game design has evolved, more recent games have been averting this with spells which would traditionally fall under this trope through several means. One method is including including EliteMooks that are vulnerable to the effects of the more powerful abilities; enemies significantly tougher than the typical mook, tough enough that they'll give you a hard time in a conventional fight, yet weaker than the harder bosses. Being able to chain stun a ClimaxBoss might cheapen the fight to the point of meaninglessness; using the resources to chain stun an EliteMook, however, still leaves the player having to deal with all of the mechanics of the more powerful bosses. Another method is having these abilities have lesser, but still useful, effects on bosses they would otherwise hard counter; poison immunity against a boss which relies on inflicting a highly potent poison, for example, may wear off at an accelerated rate, or may cause the poison to do less damage, while still offering more protection than no immunity at all. Yet another method is by limiting how often these abilities can be applied to the boss; a boss may, for example, build up resistance (temporarily or permanently) to a status effect as it is repeatedly applied, leaving one to either try to finish the fight as quickly as possible, or apply the status effect at the best possible opportunity (such as stunning before a HerdHittingAttack [[wipes your team out.]]

*** A large part of why healing and damage spells are so much weaker in 3rd edition is that while they heal or deal approximately the same amount of damage as their AD&D equivalents, characters and monsters have far more health, especially at high levels. For example, the powerful demons called Balors only have ~58HP in 2nd edition. In 3.5, they have 290! Fireball caps out at 10d6 damage (avg 35) in both editions, but that barely scratches 3.5 monsters who would be half-dead in AD&Dl

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'' has Chaos Brand, which causes confusion. Well, confusion isn't normally one of the more powerful status effects in an RPG and this game is no exception, but the spell has a 100% success rate against any enemy that isn't outright immune to it, and it's one of the cheapest spells to cast—at 10 EP—to boot. In fact, status effects aren't too shabby in general in ''Trails in the Sky''; while they're not as exploitable as the aforementioned sleep spells in Radiant Historia, there are a number of abilities that have a chance of causing things like petrify, freeze, mute, or even instant death in addition to doing damage, and with proper [[PowersAsPrograms quartz]] setup, you can make ''any'' attack have a 10% chance of causing a given status effect. Again, the chance of the status hitting is entirely dependent on the method of activation; the only possible enemy resistance levels are "none" or "complete". What's more, several bosses avert ContractualBossImmunity when it comes to Chaos Brand. Suddenly, GoddamnBoss Lorence is a joke when you can get his split clones to attack himself. The rematch with him however, is still firmly ThatOneBoss, along with the three-phase FinalBoss in ''FC'', the only bosses in that game to play the trope straight. Even some Crafts offer great debuffs, particularly Kloe's Kempha which cuts an enemy's defense and strength so hard it's a GameBreaker that was immediately nerfed in ''SC'', and Tita's Smoke Cannon which has a high SplashDamage radius that instantly blinds most enemies, making them sitting ducks in battles with large groups. Combine that with the aforementioned Kempha and Chaos Brand, and late-game battles are almost easy.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' will rarely let you land a status effect on bosses, but features several random encounters that showcase your immobilizing status effects. Most standard enemies that counter your attacks are vulnerable to Stop, Hold, or Edge's Shadowbind -- and many (such as the instant-death-happy Coeurl) will demolish you if you don't. Additionally, Slow seems to hit almost anything, ''including the final boss''. FF4 was the first game in the series to use ATB, even though it lacked the time gauges showing as much, and the Slow debuff is a lot more useful than it sounds ''especially'' when paired with Haste to speed up your own party.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'' in general is an aversion, since only a couple enemies in the game are immune to all status ailments. It's probably safe to say that if an enemy's [[EnemyScan Libra data]] says it's "susceptible to (status effect)", it translates to "if you don't use that status, [[ThatOneBoss YOU. WILL. DIE.]]" [[spoiler:Both forms of final boss Orphan are shining examples. The first form, which otherwise treads into ThatOneBoss[=/=]LuckBasedMission territory with its ability to instantly KO your leader, can be utterly destroyed with Poison. Plus, if you can get the final form to stagger, and have Vanille use her Death ability on it, '''it actually works'''.]]

** There are still actual Useless Useful Spells, though; one move in particular (Feint) is intended to specifically bypass moves like Protect, the problem being it doesn't really do anything but bypass Protect, etc. Since so few Pokemon use those moves to begin with, you're better off giving up on it. Feint later got buffed to where it still does damage, and has ActionInitiative, even if the target doesn't use Protect, making it much more useful. (In double battles anyway)
** Then there's Mud Sport and Water Sport, which weaken the power of Electric and Fire moves respectively for 5 turns. The problem lies in the fact that most Pokemon that learn them are Ground (Mud Sport) or Water (Water Sport) type, and so are already immune to Electric and resistent to Fire, respectively.

** This also makes Taunt an incredibly practical move in the competitive metagame when compared to in-game battling, as status moves such as Recover, Stealth Rock, or Roar (which are normally impractical compared to going all-offensive) have a much greater presence to the point that Taunt becomes incredibly useful when used against Stall teams.

*** And in the anime status effects, especially Sleep become some of the most overpowered things ever made. This is due to the anime being ever so slightly more realistic, which makes it that much harder to justify the difference between 'Sleeping' and 'Fainted' so sleep inducing moves become [=OHKOs=] with insane frequency.
*** This also makes Taunt an incredibly practical in competitive metagame when compared towards the in-game battling as status moves such as Recover, Stealth Rock, Roar which are normally impractical compared going all-offensive has a much greater presence to the point that Taunt becomes incredibly useful when against Stall teams.

** Healing spells in Third Edition and its spin-offs. Most of the spells available heal too little HP and come with too many built-in downsides to be worth using in combat; it's more efficient for all but the most dedicated healers to focus on just killing the enemies before they kill you. And outside combat, the wide availability of magic items, hit dice, and ways to recover health by resting means that it's usually more practical to just wait until combat's over before recovering health.
** Oddly enough, the trope is followed in ''VideoGame/DungeonsAndDragonsOnline'', the MMORPG. Although instant kills are still very effective against {{Mooks}}, bosses are immune to most if not all mind-affecting and instant death spells. Thankfully, this only applies to the main bosses of dungeons, and, anyway, fights with them are not supposed to be [[AnticlimaxBoss "CHAAARGE -- Oh, he died."]] They seem to be attempting to fix this with the recent spell passes, and prestiges for Wizards and Sorcerors. And if you're soloing as a [[OurLichesAreDifferent Pale Master]], Wail and Finger are still the best bang for your buck, spell-point-wise.
** In 4th Edition, direct-damage and status-effect spells are much more balanced. Although very few enemies are immune to status effect spells, most of those spells can be ended with a "saving throw" that the victim has at least a coin flip's chance of making every round. And most status effects don't last more than a few rounds anyway. It is possible to 'permanently' stun an enemy at high levels by giving an enemy such a high save penalty that he can't succeed, but by that time, you can probably take out such an enemy with direct attacks very quickly. The guys you ''really'' want to lock down for a round or two are usually the same guys that have bonuses on all of their saving throws, giving them a greater chance of breaking out. Thus, a condition like "until the end of your next turn" is much more useful than "until they make the saving throw".

* ''[[TabletopGame/StarWarsD20 Star Wars Saga Edition]]'' had a few feats that at best had a bit of use at lower levels but were garbage at higher ones. Toughness increased your hit points by your level, but could only be taken by Soldiers who tended to have massive amounts of health anyway[[note]]A level 20 Soldier could have as much as 320 health without prestige classes[[/note]]. Force Boon gave you three extra Force Points each level, but meditation could restore Force Points anyway and higher levels gave plenty as is. And any Armor Proficencies a character didn't start with were pointless due to the fact ArmorIsUseless without certain class-specific talents. Linguist gave additional languages based on your intellect modifier but characters already knew additional languages based on their intellect modifier and most could get by with Basic, Huttese, and Bocce which were by far the most common.

* Both the ''VideoGame/{{SaGa|RPG}}'' series and the ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series avert this trope; random encounters are generally much more difficult than in most [=RPGs=], and some powerful bosses '''aren't''' immune to status effects or instant death, making those powers valid tactics. You have spells that double your attack power, double your defense, halve the enemy's defense, and can give the enemy less than 10% accuracy or prevent them from casting '''any''' spells. And these, as a general rule, will work on 99% of all bosses in ''Dragon Quest'' games, including the Final Boss and Bonus Boss. Some bosses cast a spell that removes the buffs on your party or on the enemy party, but if they're wasting a turn removing buffs, they're not attacking.

** Then there's Mud Sport and Water Sport, which weaken the power of Electric and Fire moves respectively for 5 turns. The problem lies in the fact that most Pokemon that learn them are Ground (Mud Sport) or Water (Water Sport) type, and so are already immune to Electric and resistent to Fire, repectively.

** Prior to [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Generation 6]], Genesect's Techno Blast was a brilliant subversion. It was a typical gimmicky move that changed its type depending on the "Drive" item it held. Generally speaking, it was one of the worst moves Genesect could learn -- it had a base power of just 85, merely 5 PP, and zero special effects, and none of its types get a STAB. All of its various types seemed to be covered by other attacks it could learn. Chill Drive? Ice Beam has 90 base power, has more PP, can freeze. Shock Drive? Thunderbolt. Burn Drive? Flamethrower. Douse Drive? Well, Genesect can't learn any other water moves. Moreso, it's the only move in its entire moveset that is super effective against the Fire type. And the Fire type is Genesect's only weakness. Generation 6 buffed it to 120 base power, meaning it's now ''stronger'' than the aforementioned moves.
** Players who do most of their battling either in-game or in casual matches (where the simplest -- and often best -- strategy is to simply spam super effective attacks) with friends might be surprised to find out that, in the serious competitive MetaGame, ''tons'' of attacks that get a passing glance in casual matches are practically ways of life. Moves like [[StandardStatusEffects Thunder Wave and Spore]] go from just being used to catch Pokémon to the preferred method of crippling the opposing team, and fellow status moves Will-O-Wisp and Toxic join them to inflict passive damage on hugely defensive Pokémon (or in the former's case, to effectively neuter physical attackers). [[StatusBuff Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, Dragon Dance, and their ilk]] are the standard for lategame sweeping. Moves like Substitute, Knock Off, Leech Seed, U-Turn, and a host of others that [[DifficultButAwesome take some practice to learn to use properly]] can ''wreck entire teams'' if played correctly. And then there's entry hazards, one of which (Stealth Rock) is such a ubiquitous and dangerous move that an otherwise fantastic Pokémon can be reduced to a joke if it has a weakness to Rock types.

** Straight example: In ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'', the PK Thunder (AKA: Electric Shock Attack, Crashing Boom Bang Attack) moves are not nearly as useful for you as they are for your enemies. The move will target a random enemy each time it goes off (higher levels means stronger shots and more shots). However, if there's few enemies, there's a large chance that each shot will simply miss. It's very unlikely that you'll hit the same enemy more than once with the same move, even especially if you're using Omega (4 shots) and it's the only enemy, meaning it's also not useful against bosses. Meanwhile, you have a party of up to 4, and the enemy is far more likely to, even then, just zap the same party member until they die. And it then goes in the other direction for enemies as well seeing as owning the Franklin Badge in your inventory (so it doesn't use an equip slot) will reflect lightning attacks that hit the owner. And if the owner is the only member in the party (if everyone else is knocked out or the party is split up) thunder attacks then can only miss or damage the user.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' [[MagikarpPower takes some levelling]] to make spells useful, but several spells become extremely powerful with frequent usage. Blink can make characters nigh-unhittable, while Shell and Barrier can provide invaluable resistance against StandardStatusEffects. Berserk and Haste drastically increase the amount of damage your fighters can dish out. And the Matter-elemental spells that function as instant death on enemies[[labelnote:*]]Toad, Mini, Break, Teleport, and Warp[[/labelnote]] are rarely resisted by even bosses, capable of wiping out multiple enemies in a single cast once levelled sufficiently.

** ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'''s [[StandardStatusEffect standard status effect]] spells (Poison, Sleep, Silence, Fear, Stop, Doom, and Death) [[ZigzaggedTrope zig-zag the trope]]. Most of the time, they're about as useless as you'd expect. Normal enemy battles tend not to last long enough for most of them to have much of an effect (and Fear also has an effect that accomplishes precisely nothing against the majority of normal enemies), while bosses naturally have high resistance to status effects, even with the Status Ailment Amp passive skill (though one particular [[LimitBreak Special Move]] can lower that). However...the game also features [[ItemCaddy one]] [[JobSystem job]] with an ability that can temporarily cause an enemy to be weak to a certain element (causing it to take 1.5x damage from that element), and several jobs have stat-debuffing abilities. And enemies do ''not'' have immunity against either of those, not even the FinalBoss. Moreover, you can also use status effects [[NotTheIntendedUse in a rather unorthodox way]]: There is a passive ability called BP Recovery that causes anyone who has it to gain 2 BP (more or less extra turns) when hit with a status effect, and there is another passive that causes single-target magic to affect an entire party. So, if you want, you can hit the entire player party with three status effects in a row, then cure them all, and [[GameBreaker everyone's BP will most likely be maxed out]].

*** By the time you've got Magnega, there isn't a single basic enemy that will honestly last more than 5 seconds against you if you use it right. And it actually affects [[spoiler:Sephiroth]] ''and'' [[spoiler:Xemnas]]. Magnega = Broken.
* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' makes status effects so useful it inverts the usual pattern. Status effects on any of your three heroes make for a rare, mildly annoying experience. Meanwhile, the myriad status spells available to the player from very, very early on in all three modes will utterly devastate the vast majority of {{Mook}}s, turning, say, a quartet of the toughest the game has to offer into helpless punching bags. And while lots of the bosses have some form of ContractualBossImmunity, few of them are immune to ''everything''. [[spoiler:Vanitas]] getting you down? Magnet or Zero Gravity. Braig being a JerkAss? Burn him up, poison him, or just put him to sleep. Zack making you frown? Freeze him solid. Hook causing problems? Give him a whole host of them, he's only immune to ''three''. In short: Having trouble with ''Birth By Sleep''? There's a status for that.
** And yes, if you are playing Proud Mode or higher, YOU. WILL. NEED. ALL OF THEM. Seriously, it's almost a requirement to deal with tougher Unversed and bosses.
* Most bosses in ''VideoGame/TouhouLabyrinth'' are pretty vulnerable to debuffs and status effects (though some are immune and some are more vulnerable than others). A good thing, as you really NEED those debuffs and statuses to stand a chance at winning most of the time... Also, random encounters on later floors can be difficult enough that it's imperative to have a fast character paralyze them before they can act so slower attackers can dismantle them without worrying about getting hit.

* Averted prominently in ''VideoGame/TheDenpaMen''. Status-upping skills (like Speed or Defense increases) can help prevent your party from taking excess damage in random encounters, and when HP is at a premium (as in this game), every little bit of damage dodge helps. Similarly, stat-downing skills help take the edge off the game's brutal random encounters. Some skills are borderline necessary to survive in certain dungeons--such as status-curing skills when certain enemies love to spam you with status effects. And finally, Denpa Men with status-effecting skills tend to be [[SquishyWizard less squishy]] than Denpa Men with attack skills.

* ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'' often subverts this. Many tough enemies are made easily manageable with some syphons and dispels, which would otherwise be laid aside. And if you don't get the point? In comes a WakeUpCallBoss that will beat your ass repeatedly if you don't play it smart and use these when necessary. A lesson learnt the hard way, but you won't forget that anytime soon.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'' has Chaos Brand, which causes confusion. Well, confusion isn't normally one of the more powerful status effects in an RPG and this game is no exception, but the spell has a 100% success rate against any enemy that isn't outright immune to it, and it's one of the cheapest spells to cast—at 10 EP—to boot. In fact, status effects aren't too shabby in general in ''Trails in the Sky''; while they're not as exploitable as the aforementioned sleep spells in Radiant Historia, there are a number of abilities that have a chance of causing things like petrify, freeze, mute, or even instant death in addition to doing damage, and with proper [[PowersAsPrograms quartz]] setup, you can make ''any'' attack have a 10% chance of causing a given status effect. And again, the chance of the status hitting is entirely dependent on the method of activation; the only possible enemy resistance levels are "none" or "complete". What's more, several bosses avert ContractualBossImmunity when it comes to Chaos Brand. Suddenly, GoddamnBoss Lorence is a joke when you can get his split clones to attack himself. The rematch with him however, is still firmly ThatOneBoss, along with the three-phase FinalBoss in ''FC'', the only bosses in that game to play the trope straight. Even some Crafts offer great debuffs, particularly Kloe's Kempha which cuts an enemy's defense and strength so hard it's a GameBreaker that was immediately nerfed in ''SC'', and Tita's Smoke Cannon which has a high SplashDamage radius that instantly blinds most enemies, making them sitting ducks in battles with large groups. Combine that with the aforementioned Kempha and Chaos Brand, and late-game battles are almost easy.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/MocoMocoFriends,'' especially against bosses or in the [[BrutalBonusLevel bonus dungeons.]] Because bosses are made of [[MookPromotion parties of ordinary Plushkins, just stronger than average,]] they're exactly as vulnerable to status effects as any other enemy. Using sleep, paralysis, or confusion spells is an excellent way of disabling [[ShootTheMedicFirst healers]] and other annoyances. And in the bonus dungeons, using accuracy-upping status skills is practically a requirement for dealing with the high number of enemies with high dodge rates.

** 3.5 edition's Cleric spells like Righteous Might and Divine Power tend to fall into this category. A fully-buffed Cleric is perhaps the deadliest close-range combat fighter in the game, with absurdly high Strength and damage, along with full casting prowess and tons of other significant buffs. But by the time you're finished casting all the spells to buff the Cleric that much, the fight's either almost over or you'll need to focus on bringing people back from the dead. (This is one of the main reasons that the Persist spell, which could rig the buffs to last a whole day, was considered a GameBreaker.)

** One interesting thing that 5th Edition did was add the Ritual tag to some spells, specifically ones that lacked combat utility. In older editions, spells like Identify or Leomond's Tiny Hut were things you'd typically only bother with by way of magic wands or spell scrolls. Ritual spells can be cast without using a spell slot... it just takes at least ten minutes to do it. Some of them take even longer than that. So it has some utility outside of combat, but it's worthless within combat. Each turn in combat is said to represent six seconds of real time; good luck standing in one place uninterrupted for a hundred turns in a row.

** ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' turned Stasis into a full blown GameBreaker against the Cerberus faction. A fully evolved Stasis Bubble in a chokepoint is able to stop an entire army of enemy units, as it only does not work on enemies with armor. As the only armored Cerberus unit is the slow Atlas, this led to a player with Stasis Bubble and a sniper rifle to utterly trivialize Cerberus. In Multiplayer, the tactic was made less effective by giving Cerberus Dragoons, who possess armor while moving relatively quickly.

** Detect Undead isn't that useful compared to DetectEvil, since that can do everything Detect Undead could do, but better. Detect Evil is of the same level, lasts ten times as long, and picks up every undead creature. The only saving grace Detect Undead has is that it appears on the wizard's spell list and might potentially find Good-aligned undead, but Detect Undead is so situational compared to Detect Evil that it's usually not worth wasting a spell slot. 5th Edition made Detect Undead even more useless by changing Detect Evil to Detect Evil ''and Good'', meaning even Detect Undead's one saving grace is now gone.

** 3.5 edition's Cleric spells like Righteous Might and Divine Power tend to fall into this category. A fully-buffed Cleric is perhaps the most deadly close-combat fighter in the game, with potentially absurd Strength and damage, along with full casting prowess and tons of significant other buffs But by the time you're finished casting the spells to buff the Cleric that high, the fight's either almost over or you'll need to focus on bringing people back from the dead. (This is one of the main reasons that Persist Spell, which could rig them to last the whole day, was considered a GameBreaker.)

** 3.5 edition's Cleric spells like Righteous Might and Divine Power tend to fall into this category. A fully-buffed Cleric is perhaps the most deadly close-combat fighter in the game, thanks to using [[LightEmUp Radiant damage]], which few enemies resist, even fewer are immune to, and many are weak against. But by the time you're finished casting the spells to buff the Cleric that high, the fight's either almost over or you'll need to focus on bringing people back from the dead.

** One interesting thing that 5th Edition did was add the Ritual tag to some spells, specifically ones that lacked combat utility. In older editions, spells like Identify or Leomond's Tiny Hut were things you'd typically only bother with by way of magic wands or spell scrolls. Ritual spells can be cast without using a spell slot... it just takes at least ten minutes to do it. Some of them take even longer than that. So it has some utility outside of combat, but it's worthless within combat. Each "turn" in combat is said to represent six seconds of real time, and good luck standing in one place uninterrupted for sixty turns in a row.

** This gets nasty in the ''TabletopGame/EpicLevelHandbook''. Nine times out of ten, epic enemies are immune to paralysis, sleep, polymorphing, level draining, death spells, etc, etc. In turn, these monsters will almost certainly have abilities that amount to "save or die" for the whole group, and one or two even nastier epic spells. Plus, Epic Spellcasting rules effectively turn any character that's at least Level 21 into a PersonOfMassDestruction. The fact that they pretty much ignore most of the limits and immunities created by normal spellcasting is just icing on the cake. In addition, end boss characters like Dragons and Vampire Lords typically have Legendary Saves (on top of decent save bonuses) that allow them to automatically make a saving throw a certain number of times. So, good luck Polymorphing that dragon. However, that still leaves many powerful creatures that the caster can simply remove from combat with one bad roll from the DM.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' inverts this. The game made traditionally Useless Useful Spells into the most powerful in its 3rd edition, with direct damage spells falling well below them in power level. This is because most spells are equally likely to succeed in affecting a foe, thus a spell which can kill a foe instantly is far more effective than a spell which can just hurt one. Some status-affecting spells [[NoSavingThrow automatically succeed]], and many others essentially cripple enemies by disabling them for long periods of time, allowing players to kill them without fear of retaliation. Relatively few foes are immune to such spells, while many foes are resistant to elemental damage spells. A wide variety of spells which don't even directly harm opponents are also extremely powerful, and all in all this leads to wizards and other powerful spellcasters being {{game breaker}}s.
** This gets nasty in the ''TabletopGame/EpicLevelHandbook''. Nine times out of ten, epic enemies are immune to paralysis, sleep, polymorphing, level draining, death spells, etc, etc. In turn, these monsters will almost certainly have abilities that amount to "save or die" for the whole group, and one or two even nastier epic spells. Plus, Epic Spellcasting rules effectively turn any character that's at least Level 21 into a PersonOfMassDestruction. The fact that they pretty much ignore most of the limits and immunities created by normal spellcasting is just icing on the cake.

** Detect Undead isn't that useful compared to DetectEvil, since that can do everything Detect Undead could do, but better. Detect Evil is of the same level, lasts ten times as long, and picks up every undead creature (even the ones of a Good alignment). The only saving grace Detect Undead has is that it appears on the wizard's spell list as well, but Detect Undead is so situational compared to Detect Evil that it's usually not worth wasting a spell slot.
** ''Wish'' often seems like is should be treated as a Useless Useful Spell, as it's traditional for the DM to scrutinize all wishes for [[JackassGenie ways to punish]] the wisher. BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor... There are, however, "stock" uses for Wish (and its divine cousin Miracle) which are reliable and usually not subject to any JerkassGenie tendencies the DM may have. These include permanent stat boosts (expensive as hell, but worth it for high-level characters), the creation of magic items (though by now you can probably craft them yourself with less XP cost), and duplicating pretty much any lower level spell. That last one is why high-level spellcasters ''love'' to have a Wish or Miracle available. Sure, trading a 9th level spell for an 8th or lower level one sounds like a lousy deal, but the fact that it can grant access to spells you don't have prepared, don't know, or aren't even available to your class makes it a great tool in an emergency.
** Handled in a lot more balanced way in 5th Edition, to where casters are typically advised to prepare a mix of damage spells and Status-Inflicting Buff/Debuff spells for the following reasons:
*** Damage spells are similar to 3.5, but the scaling is adjusted to be more potent when first received but no longer automatically scales with level. So, a Fireball in 3.X that started with 5d6 and automatically scaled up to 10d6 in 3.X starts and stops with 8d6 in 5th Edition.
*** That being said, there aren't a whole lot of good single-target damage spells that will allow a caster to compete with a melee class, and rightfully so. When trying to do damage to a single creature like a Giant or Dragon, a Wizard is going to fall far behind a Fighter, Barbarian, etc., which prevents non-magical classes from becoming obsolete.
*** Status-Inflicting spells can be terribly potent and can start reliably removing even powerful creatures from combat with as low as Level 3 spells, and really start shining starting with Level 4 spells like Polymorph, Banish, etc. It really is a return to "Save or Die". The downside is that due to the Concentration rule, the caster can typically only keep one of these spells in effect at a time.
*** In addition, end boss characters like Dragons and Vampire Lords typically have Legendary Saves (on top of decent Save bonuses) that allow them to automatically make saves a certain number of times if they otherwise fail their roll. So, good luck Polymorphing that dragon. However, that still leaves many powerful creatures that the caster can simply remove from combat with one bad roll from the DM.
*** Many Status-Inflicting spells, especially lower-level ones, allow the target to continue to make saves each round to shake off the effect. Still, that allows at least a limited amount of time to really clean up the rest of the opposition.
*** True Strike in 5th edition gives you a far higher chance of hitting an attack, allowing you to roll two dice and take the highest result. However, it takes an action to cast, meaning that you have to cast it, then wait a round before attacking, and it specifically states that it only works on your first attack of the next round. So even if you can make an attack as a bonus action, like a Monk or [[MageKnight Eldritch Knight]], it's far better to simply use both turns to attack. You also need to specify an enemy when you cast the spell, if that enemy dies, moves out of range, or otherwise ceases to be a valid target in the round before you can attack you just wasted a round.
** The old grognards who played editions of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' from its first editions on can say this trope has been inverted since the game was created. There are very few truly useless spells.
** Spin-off ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' was created when the base was broken yet again over 4th Edition. It is a rebalanced 3rd Edition variant, but most of the comments about 3.5 are valid as well. "Save or suck" spells are favorites of smart players and can basically turn a powerful enemy into a push-over in one action.
** ''Fireball'' can be this compared to the similar ''Melf's Minute Meteors'', depending on how you play. Fireball deals massive damage all at once and is an AreaOfEffect spell, so you can take out all your enemies at once, but your party is likely to get in the way. Melf's Minute Meteors requires you to commit, since it takes 3 rounds to get its full effect (and combat in 5e usually only lasts 3 rounds), but it can deal more damage than fireball (12d6 over 3 to six rounds, compared to Fireball's 8d6 over a single round), and is far more precise, letting you chose several smaller areas to hit, rather than one large.
** One interesting thing that 5th Edition did was add the Ritual tag to some spells, specifically ones that lacked combat utility. In older editions, spells like Identify or Leomond's Tiny Hut (which conjures an opaque dome that functions as a climate-controlled tent that protects the party from the elements and hostile creatures while they rest) were things you'd typically only bother with by way of magic wands or spell scrolls. Ritual spells can be cast without using a spell slot, it just takes 10 minutes or longer to do so, and Wizards can do it without even preparing the spell as long as it's in their spellbook (Clerics and Druids still have to prepare it).

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', the original RPG, made traditionally Useless Useful Spells into the most powerful in its 3rd edition, with direct damage spells falling well below them in power level. This is because most spells are equally likely to succeed in affecting a foe, thus a spell which can kill a foe is far more effective than a spell which can hurt one. Some status-affecting spells automatically succeed, and many others are essentially the same as spells which outright kill foes because they completely disable them for long periods of time, allowing players to kill them at their leisure. Relatively few foes are immune to such spells, while many foes are resistant to elemental damage spells, adding insult to injury. A wide variety of spells which don't even directly harm opponents are also extremely powerful, and all in all this leads to wizards and other powerful spellcasters being {{game breaker}}s.
** But it gets nasty in the ''TabletopGame/EpicLevelHandbook''. If you look at the creature section, you'll see 9 times out of 10 that the creature is immune to paralysis, sleep, polymorphing, level draining, death spells, necromancy in general (those last 3 makes Epic Necromancers grind their teeth in frustration), stunning, dazing, mind-affecting magic, critical hits (just to make critical specialization useless), and so on. Not to mention that in turn these monsters will almost certainly have abilities that amount to "save or die" for the whole group and one or two nastier epic spells. All this is sort of offset by the fact that epic player characters almost always have the ability to resurrect each other at will with no XP penalties (there's a price, but minor by now).\\\
The other thing you have to consider here is that the Epic Spellcasting rules effectively turn any character with 21+ CL into a PersonOfMassDestruction. The fact that they pretty much ignore most of the limits and immunities created by normal spellcasting is just icing on the cake. Using the printed rules you can quite easily synthesize a spell that, when cast once, effectively makes the caster powerful enough to kick the asses of every single character ever printed in any supplement. At once. Without using magic. The levels from 20-21 aren't so much [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards quadratic]] in growth as much as dividing by zero.
** Conversely, healing of all things is a Useless Useful Spell in Third Edition and its spin-offs. Most of the spells available heal too little and come with too many built-in downsides to be worth using in combat, where it's generally considered more efficient for all but the most dedicated healers to focus on just killing the enemies faster. And outside combat, the wide availability of magic items (or, failing that, the option to craft your own) means healing can be done using wands for a negligible gold cost.

** In 4th Edition, however, direct-damage and status-effect spells are much more balanced, because although very few enemies are immune to status effect spells, most status effects can be ended with a "saving throw" that the victim has a 55% chance of making every round, so most status effects don't last more than a couple rounds. It is possible, however, to 'permanently' stun an enemy at high levels by using the Orb of Imposition to give an enemy such a high save penalty that he can't succeed. To add insult to injury, the guys you ''really'' want to lock down for a round or two (nasty Solos) are usually the exact same guys that have a +5 bonus to their saving throws, meaning that they will make the save in 80% of all cases. Thus a condition like "... until the end of your next turn" is usually much more useful than "... save ends", because the Solo will most probably make his save anyway, ending the effect on his turn instead at the end of the round.
** The Orb of Imposition's penalty now only applies to one saving throw. There are other saving throw penalties that you can apply to all saves, but not enough to make the save impossible (and thus permanently lock the enemy down).
** 3.5 ed Cleric spells like Righteous Might and Divine Power tend to fall into this category. A fully buffed Cleric is perhaps the most deadly close-combat fighter in the game, but by the time you're finished casting spells, the fight is almost over anyway. Now, if you have time to plan your attack, then it's another matter entirely...
** Of course, there is then the infamous gamebreaking nightstick, divine metamagic, and Persist Spell combo. Basically, nightsticks give turning attempts, stack and are cheap. Divine metamagic allows you to do things such as make the buffs last 24 hours for turning attempts. So the ultimate warrior is not the fighter or barbarian but the cleric.
** Specific example: ''Detect Undead''. DetectEvil is of the same level and lasts 10 times as long and picks up every undead creature (even the ones of good alignment). The only saving grace detect undead has is that it appears on the wizards spell list as well. ''Detect Undead'' also detects Deathless, which show up as Good instead of Evil -- so it's not ''completely'' useless, if your party happens to be OmnicidalNeutral. (hint: most PC parties tend towards Good)

# Any enemy you would want to use these spells onis [[ContractualBossImmunity immune to their effects]]. If they weren't, the Useless Useful Spell would [[GameBreaker make things far too easy]].

# Any enemy you would want to use it on is [[ContractualBossImmunity immune]]. If they weren't, the Useless Useful Spell would [[GameBreaker make things far too easy]].
# Common enemies that the attacks ''are'' effective against can easily be disposed of by use of normal attacks, which means there's no sense in wasting time and magic power on fancy maneuvers. Who's going to waste 36MP to cast Instant Death on the local harmless UndergroundMonkey when you could kill it with a single normal attack?
# The spell simply has a very low success/hit rate, or the casting is so slow that enemies are ''always'' able to dodge or block your attack.

# The spell's effects can be replicated by gear or party members, making it redundant at best. No sense conjuring magical armor when regular armor does the same thing better.

** Some enemies can take the usefulness UpToEleven though. One of the BonusBoss in the third game is notably easier if you play with a limited amount of party member and a Beastmaster to summon enough beast with the exact status altering skills, thus nulifying most of the boss attack, including its OneHitKill. To put it simply, strategy in team building is the most important part of these games.
** In ''VideoGame/EtrianMysteryDungeon'' the Head Seal, Leg Seal and Arm Seal statuses are pretty useless on regular monsters, but become a veritable boon against Bosses and [[BossInMookClothing Does]], which will find themselves unable to use their worst skills and summon reinforcements with the right debuffs added. Also, Does only take ScratchDamage unless at least one StandardStatusEffect is affecting them, meaning having status-inflicting items and specialists in your party and garrisons at all times is key to taking them down.
* Notably averted in the ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}'' games. Blinding Flash, Silence, and Sleep are absolutely vital spells up until the late game, and they even work (if unreliably) on bosses. The Alchemist and Psionic classes (and the classes that pick up spells from them) favor status effects, though Priests and Mages get some, too. However, monsters can and will [ab]use the same effects against you, usually earlier and more reliably than you can.

* There exists a variant of RockPaperScissors where one may cast two other moves in addition to the three standards. The first, "Fire", beats Rock, Paper, and Scissors, but may only be cast once in a person's entire lifetime. (Presumably, players of this variant use the honors system.) The second, "Water", can be used an unlimited number of times, but loses to everything... except Fire, against which it is an automatic victory. The conditions for using Fire however are so ludicrous that nobody would ever have reason to use it, which makes its counter equally useless. Thus, in practice, the game is identical to standard Rock, Paper, Scissors.

*** In addition, end boss characters like Dragons and Vampire Lords typically have Legendary Saves (on top of decent Save bonuses) that allow them to automatically make saves a certain number of times if the otherwise fail their roll. So, good luck Polymorphing that dragon. However, that still leaves many powerful creatures that the caster can simply remove from combat with one bad roll from the DM.

** In recent years thanks to so much generic support for every monster type, card type and the infamous link summoning pretty much every card in the game has ''some'' sort of use that it can be used for; it may not be the best tool for the job but it can do it you try hard enough.
*** Examples include [[JokeCharacter Shapesnatch or Morinphen]]; two notoriously terrible normal monsters in the TCG and OCG respectivly. The former is a Normal Level 5 Machine; one of the best type and level combos in the game. Cyber Dragon Nova and First of the Dragons can easily be made with him. Not to mention the pendulum normals which make such plays more viable.
*** Then there are cards like [[TheScrappy Larvae Moth]]; there's no beating around the bush or secret strategy here; he's just useless in every way.
** As the metagame changes and different decks with differing weaknesses gain popularity, formerly useless cards can break out of this trope, becoming an AchillesHeel or a powerful support to whatever's popular. For instance, Summoner's Art, a Spell which only searched the deck for high-level Normal Monsters which very few people would play, became an instant hit once Qliphorts broke into the scene, as that spell could search for their very important Qliphort Scout.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201268 Sorrow's Path]] is too complicated and ''far'' too expensive. Being able to swap your opponent's blocking creatures is merely okay. Having to pay 2 life and suffer 2 damage to every creature you control is like saving money on glasses by [[EyeScream stabbing yourself in both eyes]].

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=19665 Common Cause]]. Pointless since ''all'' Nonartifact creatures must be the same color, even your opponents. Stupid errata... And even if you manage to make it work, it benefits your opponent's creatures, too!
** Spells and abilities that endow creatures and to a lesser extent other permanents with specific abilities (including but not limited to the aura subtype of enchantments) may fall under this. Consider [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=83088 Flight]]. From the enchanted creature's perspective, it's potentially a great effect -- it gains flying if it didn't have it already, allowing it to bypass most non-flying blockers and/or block flying attackers itself. Get to the point where you actually want to put the card into a deck, though, and you'll soon realize that if having flyers is important to your strategy, you'd best include a number of creatures that have the ability in and of themselves already in case you don't actually ''draw'' that Flight card...yet the more of those you have, the less good the card actually does you in the first place! (This logic does not, of course, apply to abilities that actually have a cumulative effect. However, many of the more commonly granted abilities -- like flying, first strike, or trample -- do not fall into this category.) Then there's the issue that the empowered creature isn't necessarily any harder to ''kill'', potentially taking the entire investment in extra cards, mana, and/or other resources to the graveyard with it...

** And we have [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1615 Great Wall]], generally considered the worst card in the game. All it does is let you block creatures with plainswalk, of which there are only four that no one uses, only ''one'' of which was around when Great Wall was released (and it was terrible). Landwalk as a whole has been obsoleted, but even when it wasn't, plainswalk was the rarest type, partly for flavor reasons and partly to avoid confusion with "''planes''walking", a concept which, unlike plainswalk, is actually rather important to ''Magic''.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1544 Shelkin Brownie]] has the ability to remove "bands with other" abilities from creatures. At the time it was printed, there were literally ''zero'' creatures with printed "bands with other" abilities (much later, a JokeCharacter card with the ability was released in the set Unhinged, but these cards aren't usable in any but the most casual formats). There's a creature that can create tokens with a "bands with other" ability, and a cycle of lands that can grant your Legendary creatures "bands with other legends". But the tokens cost a ridiculous amount, and the lands had the drawback of being unable to ''produce mana''. On top of all that, "bands with other" was ''already'' a UselessUsefulSpell, as it was a variant of the weak and confusing "banding" ability that managed to be even weaker and more confusing. So nobody ever actually ''used'' "bands with other" anyway.

** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' most status spels are not very useful against normal enemies (Sleep is useful as a crowd control tool early, but that's about it), the bosses almost always have at least one status type they don't resist (Astos can be silenced to prevent his [[ThatOneAttack Death]] spell from going off, Marilith is weak to several statuses, most importantly Paralysis, Tiamat can be [[OneHitKill oneshotted]] by [[DeadlyGas Scourge]] or [[TakenForGranite Break]]), and literally ''any'' enemy can be slowed or put to sleep with Slowra and Sleepra since those are non-elemental and as such cannot be resisted (though they can still miss due to enemy magic defense). As for buffs, well, a Black Wizard will get much more damage out of using a lowly Temper (level two spell) on the party's physical fighter, than he will out of using Flare (the ultimate offensive spell in the game), while Blink (a level ''one'' spell mind you) will pretty much eliminate all threat of physical attacks after two or three casts.