History UselessUsefulSpell / VideoGames

* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain: SoulReaver'' has glyph spells. They're only attainable by completing increasingly complicated side-levels (some of which would be nigh-impossible without a strategy guide). Since the bosses are all puzzle-fights (figure out their one weakness, which always involves environmental weapons), the glyphs are useless against them. In addition, the "magic points" necessary to use them are limited and hidden. On top of that, only two of the 6 glyphs could consistently kill normal enemies. The only reasons to actually use them are laziness (they restrain/kill enemies in a large area), gratification for completing the ridiculous puzzles necessary to find them, and because they look cool.

* ''Fallout: New Vegas'' has no shortage of these perks. In Shining Armour, according to the description, reduces the damage you take from energy weapons if you're wearing metal armour. In reality, it's glitched and does nothing at all. Nerves of Steel is intended to increase AP regeneration by 20%, but actually gives you 1 AP every 10 seconds, a ridiculously minuscule amount that you'll likely never benefit from. Certified Tech says it gives you an extra 25% critical hit chance against robots, but it's also glitched and instead gives 0.25% chance... which is automatically rounded down to 0% and therefore has no benefit. The list goes on.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout: New Vegas}} has no shortage of these perks. In Shining Armour, according to the description, reduces the damage you take from energy weapons if you're wearing metal armour. In reality, it's glitched and does nothing at all. Nerves of Steel is intended to increase AP regeneration by 20%, but actually gives you 1 AP every 10 seconds, a ridiculously minuscule amount that you'll likely never benefit from. Certified Tech says it gives you an extra 25% critical hit chance against robots, but it's also glitched and instead gives 0.25% chance... which is automatically rounded down to 0% and therefore has no benefit. The list goes on.

** Several [[JobSystem job]] abilities in ''VideoGame/LufiaTheRuinsOfLore'' are of questionable usage. The most glaring is Blunt Hit, the first ability of the Knight job, which is used to ''instantly knock out your own party members and have them revive at 1 HP after battle''.

* In VideoGame/{{Culdcept}}, the spell Haunt is an extremely annoying example. It puts the target under the control of an AI for two rounds, which will almost invariably do something [[ArtificialStupidity infuratingly stupid]] if it is used on you, but if used on an opponent it just puts them under the control of the same AI that was controlling them before.

** The Dominion Rod is the most useless of the dungeon items. It is only used in the Temple of Time and is never used again. However, when it is used, it can pack some serious damage to enemies thanks to the living Armos.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'': Sylphen Wing, a stat buff that grants a 1-point increase to movement range and costs 30 [[{{Mana}} EP]]. Increased movement range is useful, right? Well, not enough so to cast a single-target ability that doesn't last all that long and costs 30 EP, which is enough to cast Earth Wall (which is a [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Useful Useful Spell]]) or Clock Up EX. Or, you know, any number of attack spells. Sylphen Wing isn't the worst thing out there, but there are much better uses for 30 EP, even if you're not using it to deal damage.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky'': Sylphen Wing, a stat buff that grants a 1-point increase to movement range and costs 30 [[{{Mana}} EP]]. Increased movement range is useful, right? Well, not enough so to cast a single-target ability that doesn't last all that long and costs 30 EP, which is enough to cast Earth Wall (which is a [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Useful Useful Spell]]) or Clock Up EX. Or, you know, any number of attack spells. Sylphen Wing isn't the worst thing out there, but there are much better uses for 30 EP, even if you're not using it to deal damage.

** Most spells in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII'' were useless aside from Cure, Life, element Magic, Flare, and Osmose. The reason for this is that any spell you picked up needed to be [[LevelGrinding ground from scratch]], which was painstaking even if you used the [[GoodBadBugs glitch]] that allowed you to speed it up by several orders of magnitude. You needed to cast buffs ''several hundred times'' before they'd reliably land on ''one person'', much less the whole party. Debuffs needed even more ludicrous grind, since foes already have a propensity for resisting or being immune. The [[SwordOfPlotAdvancement plot-central]] Ultima not only [[CantCatchUp started at level 1 and came into play near the end]], but nearly scaled worse than the spells you bought at the beginning of the game -- and certainly worse than normal attacks.
*** However, if you did take the time to power up spells, they turned out ''extremely'' useful. A high-powered Teleport spell is relatively easy to get and kills a surprising number of creatures reliably. The Berserk and Haste spells make your physical attackers walking death machines, and proper application of the Toad spell makes much of the game a complete joke. (remakes of the game also significantly cut down on the grind needed to level up) Ultima still sucks, at least in the original release. It's meant to scale in power depending on every other spell and ability you've leveled up, but a glitch means that it, in a word, doesn't.

*** Weavile's hidden ability Pickpocket steals held items from opponents who use moves that make direct contact. However, Weavile's Defense is low, so it would probably faint from that physical move before getting a chance to make any real use of that ability. Also, its regular ability, Pressure, forces the opponent to use two PP for every move instead of one, but Weavile's main role is to take out opponents as fast as possible with its incredibly high Attack and Speed, while its Defense is fairly low, so it doesn't usually have much use for that ability either.

** ''CityOfHeroes'' support effects are very powerful indeed, however, their power is mitigated by the sheer number of opponents you face. It's ludicrously easy to debuff a {{Mook}} into oblivion, then again, your average solo mission pits you against groups of 3 to 10 bad guys at the same time (depending on the faction you're fighting). Numbers are exponentially larger for group endeavors and boss battles. Note also that direct damage is equally over the top -- any class (properly built) can pretty much turn a roomfull of Minions into chunky goop in a flash. The real challenge of any mission is always the boss fight, not the slosh through the hordes of faceless goons. Par for the course in a superhero game, innit ?

*** However, Reflect is an ''extremely'' useful skill even in the original Kingdom Hearts II. It not only prevented enemies from damaging you, but it could be cast three times in succession and [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin reflects damage back to the enemies.]] It was also essential if you want to win a tough fight quickly or didn't want to be hit by [[ThatOneBoss Xaldin's]] hurricane sweep in Beast's Castle.

* Following the above, ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}'' plays this trope straight for about twenty levels, then suddenly averts it. ''Persona 3'' introduces "Mudo" (darkness, chance of instant death) at level 10 -- it's a skill included with a persona available in the card shuffle. Unfortunately, Hama and Mudo skills won't become valuable for another 20 or so levels, when personae with much higher hit rates are available. "Mudo" is generally a UselessUsefulSpell, particularly on a low-level persona, but ''Mudoon'' doubles your chance of success from 25 to 50 percent. Since "luck" is always boosted by at least one point when increasing "agility," your chances of inflicting instant death can easily overcome 1:1. The first spell in ''any'' sequence is usually "good idea, no chance of executing it" until you're able to acquire skills like Charm Boost, Auto-[Defence/Attack Boost], etc. This goes for your enemies as well -- outside of a boss fight[[note]]bosses are immune to Instant Kill attacks[[/note]] (or a BossInMookClothing "purple Shadow" fight), they are equally incompetent with Hama, Mudo, Marin Karin, etc. Their best hope of success comes when (1) they are using ''at least'' the second evolution of the spell; (2) the party is significantly under-leveled; and (3) they target someone unable to resist. Junpei is defenseless against Hama and Mudo skills, but with a high evasion rate (or by decreasing the hit rate of the enemy), it's a moot point. If the enemy has the first turn, however, and a 1:1 chance of success, they may take out half your party with a group "instant kill" spell.

* The first ''PhantasyStar'' game had another almost certainly unintentional exception. There was a ROPE spell that would paralyze a monster, and a medusa boss that required a mirrored shield to defeat. If you successfully used the ROPE spell on the boss, the paralyzed medusa would not be able to turn anyone to stone and could be killed without the item.

* ''BaldursGate'' and its sequel. Bosses were invariably immune, petrification and disintegration would destroy your enemy's loot as well, and silencing was ''particularly'' useless, as every enemy wizard would immediately cast the "Vocalize" counterspell. Of course, ''you'' had to make sure to be protected against all of this; helmets of Charm Protection were indispensable. However, there were exceptions; debuff spells like "Dispel Magic" were indispensable even in your hands, since many of the bosses and mini-bosses of the game were spellcasters with so many protective spells stacked on that they were literally invulnerable without their aid. Furthermore, in the first game many of the bosses can be Charmed and even forced to kill themselves with their own spells.

** Most boss fights in BaldursGate2 and ThroneOfBhaal are almost puzzle-like in nature, in that you need to figure out precisely what protections the boss is using, combined with innate abilities, in order to neutralize them. When you add the fact that many bosses have hidden immunities, that some of them bend or outright ignore the game rules, and that none of this is explained in the manual or anywhere in the game, it all adds up to a massive headache. In the end, it's usually easier to rely on the universal "dispel magic" spell (or even better, Inquisitor ability), summon creatures, and just whack everything with a big sword until it dies, rather than try to figure out the spell-counterspell tangle. Thankfully, in later games the whole system was somewhat simplified.

* ''WorldOfWarcraft'' boss mobs are notorious for their immunity to crowd control spells like polymorph, shackle, and fear.

* Both played straight and averted ''LostOdyssey''. Enemies tend to inflict lots of nasty status effects on the [=PCs=] that they themselves cannot cast as effectively at that point, but any status effects enemies aren't outright immune to tend to be equally easy to inflict upon them, and in fact it's a necessary part of several boss battles. The fact that the programmers decided to signify status immunity with a "miss" instead of "immune" like in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' for example for some weird reason and not showing anything when the enemy isn't immune to the status the spell inflicts but it doesn't manage to connect doesn't help the said spells' reputation much though.

** Also in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert Red Alert]]'', the Soviet Iron Curtain is somewhat useless, as it can only make a single tank or building invincible for a short period of time. Also corrected in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'', the Iron Curtain then has the ability to protect up to 9 tanks, flak tracks, or terror drones.

** However in ''[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'': Yuri's Revenge, the Genetic Mutator (Yuri's secondary superweapon) sounds good on paper, turning all infantry on a large area into brutes at your command, but since it's rare your enemy will ever have a large collection of infantry in one spot, the only use it can ever be is to turn your own or other players' slaves into usable soldiers, since slaves are free.

* Likewise, ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' shows why designers tend to put these limitations in place. Archvillains and Heroes (not [=PCs=]) sport the standard immunity (most of the time) and are always highly credible threats. Anything below that level of resistance will be sleeping, frozen, confused, blinded, suspended from the ceiling and have its accuracy, resistance, defense, damage, regeneration and anything else floored to minimum values before it can say, "these are support effects any other MMO would kill for!" As a result, PlayerVersusEnvironment gameplay tends to end up being rather easy.

* The ''KingdomHearts'' [[UpdatedRerelease Final Mixes]] seemed to be bent on making the respective games' [[UselessUsefulSpell useless useful spells, abilities, and forms]] into actually useful skills: Stop is necessary to defeat most of the added monsters in the original Final Mix, and the same for Aero (which was not so much useless as too costly for its benefits). In Final Mix+, a whole slew of BonusBoss fights and [[ThatOneSidequest sidequests]] became either significantly easier or even possible in the first place by cunning use of Wisdom Form, the by-far least useful of Sora's forms in the main game, or various kinds of magic (including [[LimitBreak limits]]), often eschewed in the main playthrough or the original versions as it is generally easy enough to off the mooks with regular attacks.

* ''ValkyrieProfile 2'' often had useful status effects against bosses 0- paralysis, Frailty (which stopped enemies from healing themselves) and some are even susceptible to ''Stone''.
** The same happens in other ''ValkyrieProfile'' games. In the first, Might Reinforce and Sap Guard are two of the best spells in the game. There are very few spells that afflict just status, but they are capable of damaging so they are not entirely worthless. And in ''CovenantOfThePlume'', moves such as Suspend Motion are very useful (just not on bosses), and it's possible to Sap Guard or Sap Power the bosses.
* ''The Spirit Engine'' has a really vicious one. At first, the Life Drain spell seems really great -- it deals the highest damage in the game, doesn't take too long to cast and completly bypasses any protection an enemy may have. And it really IS great for the majority of the game. [[spoiler:And then you come to the final two bosses. Not only are they two the [[ThatOneBoss worst difficulty spikes]] I've EVER seen, they're also completly immune to this spell. Since you likely sunk all your skill points into this spell, what with it looking like a gamebreaker, you'll be left with at least one useless character.]] Since combats are luck-indepentent in The Spirit Engine, you may have rendered your game unwinnable.

* Bombchu in the Gameboy Color ''Zelda'' games. In the N64 games they could ''sometimes'' be useful to hit far-off bomb sites that a normal bomb can't reach, and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass Phantom Hourglass]]'' made their use essential, but ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames''? You'll never need them. Ever. They're completely pointless. Worse, you can only get them by completing ALL of one game and at least a significant portion of the other. By the time you get them, you don't need them.

* ''LegacyOfKain: SoulReaver'' has glyph spells. They're only attainable by completing increasingly complicated side-levels (some of which would be nigh-impossible without a strategy guide). Since the bosses are all puzzle-fights (figure out their one weakness, which always involves environmental weapons), the glyphs are useless against them. In addition, the "magic points" necessary to use them are limited and hidden. On top of that, only two of the 6 glyphs could consistently kill normal enemies. The only reasons to actually use them are laziness (they restrain/kill enemies in a large area), gratification for completing the ridiculous puzzles necessary to find them, and because they look cool.

* ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', despite being a ''MegaTen'' game. Normal enemies die too quickly for status effects to be useful, and bosses are invariably immune to them. Buffs and instant kill abilities just don't exist.

* Attack spells, especially single target ones, in quite a few [=RPG=]s, especially if healing spells are available for the MP to be used on. Who is going to spend even 2 MP on spells that the most powerful of which rarely deal much more damage than your physical attacks? For that matter, why not use that MP on healing if plausible so that your characters live to deal ''more'' damage? ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' is a particularly big offender because you get a healer early on, your healing spells are very cost effective, and everybody ''shares [[CallAHitPointASmeerp FP]]''; but any other RPG can be just as bad about it because the spells may run into immunities or even be ''absorbed''. Luckily for these spells, though, bestiaries have been put in use as of late, so the [[ForMassiveDamage elemental weaknesses]] aren't as much of a potential GuideDangIt as before, although if you have to have already defeated the monster to know its weaknesses, it's no help against bosses.
* The learnable technique Influence in ''BreathOfFireIII'' is generally useless. It's meant to order anyone influencable in the battle to attack a specified target every turn until they die. Of course, ''very'' few monsters listen to this, other than a handful of goblins. [[GameBreaker Use it when you send a specific one of your own characters into an increasingly berserk Weretiger form, however...]]

* Defender missiles in EveOnline. One race's ships are heavily reliant on missiles, and another race's make moderate use of them, so anti-missile missiles would seemingly be quite advantageous. However, many missile types can take two or three hits before being shot down, Defenders must be manually fired, and- critically- defenders cannot be intercept missiles fired at friendly vessels. In all but a few niche circumstances, it's just easier to load offensive missiles and shoot the bastard.
* The Cure and Detoxify spells in ''RagnarokOnline''. The former cures [[StandardStatusEffects Blind, Confusion, and Silence,]] while the latter cures Poison. Both spells are covered under a single, dirt-cheap, Green Potion purchasable at Tool Dealers in almost every town.

** Though, it is worth mentioning that on lower difficulty levels, skills like Dominate and Hacking, which are nearly useless in the higher difficulty levels are basically GameBreakers.

* In ''BatenKaitos Origins'', you can get a variety of artifact magnus that do things such as ward damage off, display enemy health, or slow the opposing party down. However, most of those are too limited to be of any real use, and given how the battle system in this game works, it's much smarter to just pack weapons and armor.

** OneHitKO moves are limited to 5PP, auto-fail against faster ([[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue RBY]]) or higher-leveled enemies, and their accuracy is an absolutely puny 30% plus your level difference from [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver GSC]] onwards... Which means to even have a 50% chance of hitting the opponent with them, you need to be twenty levels above them, at which point regular attack moves are much better. The only way to get any mileage of such moves is by comboing them with ways to automatically hit.

* The early ''QuestForGlory'' games generally do a good job of keeping the various utility spells useful. By the later games, ''particularly'' in ''QuestForGloryV'', the focus shifts increasingly, if not totally, to the combat magic, making the utility spells such as Fetch and Open much less useful. Probably the ''the'' best example of this trope however, is Juggling Lights. It's needed precisely ''once'' in the entire series: during the mage duel with the Leopardman Shaman in ''QuestForGloryIII'', and otherwise serves no real purpose. It can also be used on one screen of ''QuestForGloryIV'', but this usage is entirely optional. Thermonuclear Blast can also be considered this, as when cast it destroys everything within a 10-mile radius, including the Hero. It ''can'' be used in the confrontation with the Dragon of Doom in ''Quest for Glory V'', but results in a NonStandardGameOver.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky]]'': Sylphen Wing, a stat buff that grants a 1-point increase to movement range and costs 30 [[{{Mana}} EP]]. Increased movement range is useful, right? Well, not enough so to cast a single-target ability that doesn't last all that long and costs 30 EP, which is enough to cast Earth Wall (which is a [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Useful Useful Spell]]) or Clock Up EX. Or, you know, any number of attack spells. Sylphen Wing isn't the worst thing out there, but there are much better uses for 30 EP, even if you're not using it to deal damage.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky]]'': Sylphen Wing, a stat buff that grants a 1-point increase to movement range and costs 30 [[{{Mana}} EP]]. Increased movement range is useful, right? Well, not enough so to cast a single-target ability that doesn't last all that long and costs 30 EP, which is enough to cast Earth Wall (which is a [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Useful Useful Spell]]) or to cast Clock Up EX ''three'' times. Or, you know, any number of attack spells. Sylphen Wing isn't the worst thing out there, but there are much better uses for 30 EP, even if you're not using it to deal damage.

* Used in ''[[FateStayNight Fate/stay night]]'' in the form of the "Projection" magecraft, which allows users to create objects out of their own {{Mana}}. However, since it relies on the user's own image of the object, the result is always degraded from the original and disappears eventually. Basically, "if you know everything about the object and its material composition, why not just ''get'' the resources and physically make it?" However, it is also from this "useless" spell that the protagonist [[FieldOfBlades gains his powers]].

*** Farore's Wind [[NotCompletelyUseless can be useful]] in cases where you need to get to a specific room quickly (like the room with the switch controlling the twisted corridor in the Forest Temple), or where you're prone to falling long distances or getting caught by a [[MookBouncer Wallmaster]]. It [[NotTheIntendedUse also can function]] as a puzzle ResetButton if cast twice in succesion. Sure, it's not useful in its most obvious purpose, but there are ways to put it to work.

** In the last couple of expansions, Blizzard has been hard at work removing anything remotely considered useless. Like the druid spell Thorn, which gave a weak damage reflect with no downside. For Hunters Mark, a debuff that only really benefited hunters, they changed it to be applied automatically when using other abilities, and next expansion it will be removed completely (hunters just get the damage boost automatically), despite being such an iconic ability for the class. Other spells which suffered from limited utility simply got their utility expanded, like the previously mentioned elemental Wards.

*** Not really, unless you're one of the players who [[AttackAttackAttack doesn't care about anything but DPS]]. What Blizzard attempted to do was remove the glyphs that were deemed indispensable, making the Glyph system something that each player tailors to their own playstyle rather than a system where everyone just picks the few that StopHavingFunGuys have deemed the most powerful(granted, in many cases, there are still some that are considered more necessary than others, and the specific encounter also tends to come into play). For example, the "Improves X spell but increases its cooldown" example above can apply to players who don't use the spell often, so they can get a greater effect when they ''do'' use it.

** However in ''[[[[VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2 Red Alert 2]]'': Yuri's Revenge, the Genetic Mutator (Yuri's secondary superweapon) sounds good on paper, turning all infantry on a large area into brutes at your command, but since it's rare your enemy will ever have a large collection of infantry in one spot, the only use it can ever be is to turn your own or other players' slaves into usable soldiers, since slaves are free.

* In an odd RTS example, in ''CommandAndConquer: Red Alert'', a few missions from the end the allies acquire the ability to use the Chronosphere, a teleportation device. However, in game (more powerful in CutscenePowerToTheMax), you can only teleport a single tank at once, and cannot teleport air units or [=APCs=] with people, with the given reason that the people in the [=APCs=] will die, which really doesn't make sense because the tanks have to have people in them (and a known cheat can disable it). This is largely corrected in Red Alert 2, where the Chronosphere has the power to teleport up to 9 small tanks, including vehicles with people in them, as well as some air units. In fact, you're able to teleport land units into the sea and sea units onto the land, making it somewhat of an offensive weapon too. Unshielded infantry still die in Chronoshifting.
** Also in ''Red Alert'', the Soviet Iron Curtain is somewhat useless, as it can only make a single tank or building invincible for a short period of time. Also corrected in Red Alert 2, the Iron Curtain then has the ability to protect up to 9 tanks, flak tracks, or terror drones.

** However in ''Red Alert 2'': Yuri's Revenge, the Genetic Mutator (Yuri's secondary superweapon) sounds good on paper, turning all infantry on a large area into brutes at your command, but since it's rare your enemy will ever have a large collection of infantry in one spot, the only use it can ever be is to turn your own or other players' slaves into usable soldiers, since slaves are free.

* Likewise, ''CityOfHeroes'' shows why designers tend to put these limitations in place. Archvillains and Heroes (not [=PCs=]) sport the standard immunity (most of the time) and are always highly credible threats. Anything below that level of resistance will be sleeping, frozen, confused, blinded, suspended from the ceiling and have its accuracy, resistance, defense, damage, regeneration and anything else floored to minimum values before it can say, "these are support effects any other MMO would kill for!" As a result, PlayerVersusEnvironment gameplay tends to end up being rather easy.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' games tend to fall victim to this. They typically include lots of negative status effects and very strong buffs, but most status effects fall victim to "why don't you just kill him" syndrome while buffs tend to last for a very short time and keeping them active slows you down more than being a little more careful in combat ever will. In the end, all you need in combat is paralysis and the biggest boom you can get.
** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'' and its gazillion offensive and defensive magic effects, almost all of which available to create custom spells, most of them useless compared to simply blasting away with damaging spells.

** In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' the spell/poison effect "Burden", which reduces the carrying capacity, potentially over-encumbering the victim, is only really useful for opponents to cast against the player, not the other way around, since the player is the only creature in the entire world who regularly (OK, always) carries enough stuff to ''almost'' max out their capacity. The player would have to inflict enormous amounts of the "Burden" effect on opponents to slow them down or stop them -- and that only works on humanoid opponents who actually carry any equipment, unlike the numerous animals and monsters.
*** That said, the game is otherwise almost completely devoid of "it only works on the player" spells. It just makes the really useful effects either nearly inaccessible or extremely costly (not that this prevents players from finding {{Game Breaker}}s).

*** Drain spells for the most part affect enemies in ways that they would never use anyway. Drain personality and drain luck, anybody?
**** Drain health 100pt for 1 sec, on the other hand, is a DiscOneNuke. The victim gets the health back after a second, except if he died. Drain strength/agility/speed are also useful.
***** Certain Status Effects are the key to ultimate power. In particular, Weakness to Magic and Weakness to Fire/Frost/Shock. Combined, you can kill anything that vulnerable to it.