History UselessUsefulSpell / VideoGames

** Jedi Sentinels, and Canderous Ordo, have passive abilities that grant them immunity from MindRape [[TheForce force attacks]]. The thing is, you can count on one hand the number of enemies that actually use these attacks...
** Jedi in your party have access to two abilities that remove force power buffs (absorbing damage, attacking faster etc) from enemies. Well, most of those buffs are [[WhiteMagic Light Side powers]], while you only ever fight [[TheDarkSide Dark Sided]] [[TheForce force]] users, who rarely use the neutral buff powers either. The only enemy that reliably buffs himself is the final boss, who uses force immunity on himself.

* Completely averted with ''Videogame/EpicBattleFantasy''. Most of bosses are not immune to all status effects, and if they are they are certainly not immune to all stat debuffs. This also includes Bonus Bosses. In fact, most of them require a strategy to use those status effects efficiently -- for example, in the fifth game one TimeLimitBoss cannot be beaten in time on higher difficulties but by stacking Poison/Virus on it, and one constantly regenerating BonusBoss must have its defense weakened by curse to outdamage the healing.

*** The Demi series, surprisingly, works against [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Emerald]] [[BonusBoss WEAPON]]. Since Emerald has, literally, [[MarathonBoss a million hit points]], you'll do [[{{Cap}} 9,999]] damage with it on nearly every turn, and when it starts inflicting less than 9,999 it means you're almost there. Of course, 9,999 is but a scratch to that boss, so better couple it with W-magic and Quadra Magic. Then mimic it.

* The ''Franchise/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 {{limit|Break}}s), often eschewed in the main playthrough or the original versions as it is generally easy enough to off the mooks with regular attacks.

* UselessUsefulSpell/ShinMegamiTensei
* UselessUsefulSpell/{{Warcraft}}

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' has more useless spells than any other game. Vox reverses the effect of silence spells, except there are only four enemies in the entire game that use it and your chances of ever seeing said enemies use it are slim. Death/Reaper, Warp, Quake, and Kill are all useless instant death spells because by the time you can learn them... all enemies are invulnerable to it, except those that a White Mage can kill in a single punch. Even useful spells like Heal, Thundara, Fira, and others can be replicated by specific weapons and armors used as items during battles (Thor's Hammer for instance can cast Thundara).

*** In a similar fashion, Steiner's Thunder Slash skill in ''IX'' is supposed to cause lightning damage to an enemy, but it almost always fails because a programming oversight means it has a base accuracy of 0. When you fight Beatrix ([[spoiler:and later when she joins as a guest member]]), her version of the skill never fails because her skill isn't under the same programming as Steiner's. If Vivi is in the active roster with Steiner, you can get a similar effect to how Thunder Slash is ''supposed'' to work, without the screwed up success rate, by having Steiner use Thunder/Thundara/Thundaga Sword attack.
*** AMUT is a spell that cures silence. Not only do only a handful of monsters use the silence status ailment, but [[TheKeyIsBehindTheLock the spell becomes useless if the only available user gets silenced]].

* In ''VideoGame/PaperMario'':
** Rescuing the [[LivingMacguffin Star Spirit]] Kalmar grants Mario the power Up and Away, which transforms every non-boss enemy on the screen into a tiny star that flies, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin up and away.]] Unfortunately, this means that the party doesn't gain any experience points. Furthermore, Kalmar is the ''last'' Star Spirit you save; by that point in the game, you'll either be facing enemies that you'll want to battle for their EXP or foes so weak that a single hit will take them out--and the Bump Attack Badge can outright eliminate those enemies with a single blow ''without entering a battle at all'', granting the same effect without wasting two bars of Star Power. As such, Kalmar's probably the least-used Star Spirit in the game.
** Parakarry's Air Lift move is widely considered one of the worst in the game. Like Up and Away, it can defeat an enemy instantly but won't gain you any experience points--and given how valuable each EXP is in Paper Mario, it's undesirable for that alone. But it also can only target a ''single'' enemy (Up and Away and Lakilester's Hurricane at least target the whole field), and it's a contact move, so enemies with spikes on top or covered in flames are totally immune. So a huge number of enemies are immune to it (in fact, they'll hurt and disable Parakarry if he tries to use the move on them), when it wasn't even that good to begin with.
** Lakilester's Hurricane functions very similarly to Up and Away--it can blow away all enemies in exchange for not receiving Star Points--and while it isn't as poor as Air Lift, the lack of EXP means, again, that it's rare for a player to want to use it.
** The reputation of these three moves is so bad that it affected the perception of a move in the sequel: In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor,'' Flurrie's Gale Force move has the potential to blow all enemies out of battle. Many players assumed that, like the moves in the previous games, it didn't grant Star Points on use--not helped by Gale Force sharing its Japanese name with Lakilester's Hurricane move, adding to the confusion--and thus considered it useless. However, it ''does'' grant Star Points on use, and aerial enemies are especially weak to it--up to, and including, some of the strongest foes in the BonusDungeon. [[CharacterPerceptionEvolution It's only in the late 2010's/early 2020's that this has become much more commonly known and helped the move become more strategically popular]], as older guides and posts from around the game's release [[CommonKnowledge still lump the skill in with the useless ones.]]

* Grotius' frost shield in [[VideoGame/TelepathRPG Telepath RPG Chapter 2]] gives cold resistance (makes cold attacks do half damage) to any allies he use it on, the problem is: the only enemies in the game who deal cold damage are frost spriggats and you only fight them in one mission (you do fight a trio of frost spiggats earlier in the game, but Grotius isn't in your party at this time). To make it worst, the frost shield doesn't even work on characters who already have a passive elemental resistance so if your shadowlings have shadow resistance they won't benefit of the frost shield and because they are flying characters they are very usefull on this mission since most battles takes place on a boat surrounded by water so your non-flying units' movements are very limited.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem''

** In ''Radiant Dawn'', the Sleep Staff is a definite aversion: You're given one in an Info Conversation on [[ThatOneLevel Chapter 3-13]]... given the [[RogueProtagonist boss of that chapter]] [[GameBreaker is the strongest unit in the game]], [[HopelessBossFight and he gets much stronger back up on turn 10]], you pretty much have to take him out, before he kills you horribly, but has a very low RES stat, meaning he can be hit by the staff... it's pretty much your only hope.
** FE 4's "Berserk Sword" -- a sword with a chance to inflict the [[BrainwashedAndCrazy Berserk Status]] upon foes. Seems useful, right? Well, it's only got a range of 1. Which means: Either the enemy is still going to attack you on their turn or, have already used it. So it's kinda pointless. However, the Staff has a 100% chance to hit if the enemy's MDEF is lower than the caster's MAG stat... which is an aversion. HilarityEnsues when that hits the right target, like say, ThatOneBoss, when she's next to the FinalBoss or in the final chapter, an EliteMook with an HpToOne weapon while he's next to the FinalBoss.
** ''Thracia 776'' has the Beo Sword, which has in-built Vantage and Wrath skills. In any other game, this would be an absolutely insane combo, as Wrath simply works by guaranteeing or at least greatly increasing the chances of getting a critical hit when the unit who has it is at low HP, which pairs well with Vantage's ability to allow a unit to attack first even on the enemy phase. However, in this game, Wrath instead guarantees a critical hit to a unit ''that is counterattacking'', which means it'll only ever proc when attacking an enemy with Vantage.

* JustForFun/KamenRiderChronicle: if you've got the required immunity and a Buggle Driver Zwei, you can use your KRC gashat to become Kamen Rider Cronus. As Cronus, you can stop time. Cronus is necessary in order to face Gamedeus, the FinalBoss. You might expect that Pause would work on Gamedeus, but ''nope!'' It doesn't work in the slightest. Plus you need ten years to build up that immunity. Oh yeah, and the current Cronus is a megalomaniac CEO with a massive [[AGodAmI god complex]] who is working to extend the game forever. You are screwed.
* The ''Franchise/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 {{limit|Break}}s), often eschewed in the main playthrough or the original versions as it is generally easy enough to off the mooks with regular attacks.
** Vexen can be ''incredibly'' trivialized in Final Mix 2+. You can attack while moving so you can avoid the trap that collects data and summons a Shadow Sora while you destroy his shield...then what do you do after that? FIRAGA SPAM!!! Lexaeus also likewise requires you to pretty much spam reflect unless you don't wanna get crushed by tons of boulders.
** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' has a few, such as Esuna, which heals status ailments, which are rare, short-lived, and generally don't do anything that can't be healed with a Cure spell, making it a complete waste of a deck slot; Bind, which is fun to use but is possibly the worst status spell simply because of how many enemies are immune to it and how many more can still attack you during its effect; and Blackout, which isn't so much ''bad'' as much as outclassed by Confuse, which is ''one of the commands required to make it.''

* Bowser's magic spells in ''Videogame/SuperMarioRPG'' are mostly worthless due to Bowser's magic power being the lowest out of everyone in the party.
** Princess Toadstool's final spell, "Psych Bomb" is also a waste. The Princess' greatest skill is healing -- there are very few situations where it's worth wasting her FP on an offensive spell.

** The watch in ''Videogame/CastlevaniaCircleOfTheMoon'' ordinarily only stops regular enemies, slows down larger ones, and doesn't do a thing at all to bosses. There is an item crash spell available later in the game that enhances the watch to make it stop all enemies and even slow down bosses (including Dracula himself), but at this point you have much better spells that actually do damage.

* ''VideoGame/EldenRing'': Fia's Mist is an AOE spell that inflicts Deathblight. Problem is, Deathblight ''only'' works on players (not even player-model [=NPCs=] like invaders and Gideon's boss fight), and it's kinda hard to convince a real person to step in to the relatively small and completely unmoving danger zone.

*** The warlock spells Detect Invisibility and Unending Breath also border on useless. The latter was quite useful for lower level underwater quests (which weren't really popular), but the expansions have cut back on those and provided players with consumables for the same effect. The time a player can breathe underwater unaided was also tripled. The former suffers from CripplingOverspecialization, as it only helps against actual invisibility, not stealth. Only a few mobs in the game use invisibility, and on the player side it's only the succubus pet and a mage skill added much later. Unending Breath was later made tweakable to grant walking on water or faster swimming.

** ''World of Warcraft'' also had a useless useful weapon skill: Unarmed and fist weapons. It should be rather obvious why people don't even bother to level Unarmed unless they're looking for an achievement or the occasional "naked duels". Fist weapons, on the other hand, use the same skill as unarmed but was often neglected for another reason: Lack of selection. You could actually count on ''one hand'' the fist weapons in the classic game, and even in later expansions, they were usually the least common weapon type. The same could be said of polearms, the next least common. Weapon skill was removed anyway because it was not only easy to do, but incredibly tedious.
** Many talents (a character's specialization options) were hardly ever taken in the classic game because they were outclassed by others, and changing talents was expensive (with an escalating, uncapped cost). Lacerate, supposed to be the culmination of the hunter's Survival tree, was reckoned to be the worst talent in the game (a damage-over-time that required a ranged class to be in melee and did negligible damage). Successive iterations pruned out the most useless ones, but the problem persisted at least until ''Mists of Pandaria'' when the talent system was changed to have fewer, more meaningful options.

*** First Aid as a whole was widely considered this for years, which led to its removal in ''Battle for Azeroth'' and its recipes being baked into Tailoring.

** Thrown weapons were only usable by three classes: warriors, hunters, and rogues. Warriors and rogues (melee classes) only ever used them for the stats on them or to occasionally pull a mob they didn't want to approach, while for hunters, they were useless since they didn't work with most of their spells. Blizzard eventually acknowledged this, as the itemization system in ''Mists of Pandaria'' removed the third weapon slot entirely and all thrown weapons became BetterOffSold.
*** The removal of the third slot and hunters now carrying their ranged weapon in their main hand also made their ability to carry a melee weapon at all unnecessary, until ''Legion'' reinvented Survival as a melee specialization.

** ''Warlords of Draenor'' introduced hundreds of treasures hidden throughout Draenor and later implemented treasure maps that can be bought after finishing each zone to show where all the treasures in said zone are. The problem? Everyone already has the Handynotes addon which shows them where every treasure in every zone is. As a result, the treasure maps were instantly demoted to BetterOffSold.

** As for the Arms warrior artifact, it came with a built-in ability to [[TheDreaded scare every troll within a certain range]]. While it sounds interesting on paper, there's not a single application for it in-game. There are no troll enemies in the ''Legion'' content, the weapon itself is a poor choice when compared to even the questing greens from later expansions and any NPC from previous expansions is a slight annoyance at best. It also doesn't affect troll players in [=PvP=], for obvious reasons. If the player wants to complete earlier content, this ability might even become harmful, since one of the achievements in Throne of Thunder requires defeating a WolfpackBoss while all of its members stay within a small area.

** ''VideoGame/Zelda2TheAdventureOfLink'':

*** Cryogonal and Mew are capable of learning Attract, which afflicts opponents of the opposite gender with Infatuation. However, since they are genderless species, it can't affect any targets.

** The move Frustration becomes more powerful the less the Pokémon likes its trainer. The problem is, most Pokémon start off with a fairly neutral friendship rating with the trainer and it's ''much'' easier to raise this stat than to lower it, to the point that even just walking around with a Pokémon will make it like you more, meaning you essentially need to actively abuse your Pokémon for Frustration to be of any real use. The final nail in its coffin is its counterpart Return, which increases in damage with the Pokémon's friendship and is otherwise identical, to the point where any Pokémon that can learn one can also learn the other.

*** The Gothita line can learn Mean Look, a move which prevents the target from escaping. They can also have the Hidden Ability Shadow Tag, which does the same time automatically, making Mean Look redundant.

*** The ability Run Away allows guaranteed escape from wild battles... unless the opponent has an ability preventing escape or used a move that prevents it, the very situations it would be useful for. Even foregoing that, the success rate of fleeing battle is based on speed, and most Pokémon that have the ability are already bound to be faster than the opponent if they're around the same level. In Generation VI onwards and the player finds themselves in a situation where they need guaranteed escape from wild Pokémon constantly, any Ghost-type Pokémon is an alternate option as all Ghost-types are guaranteed to escape from battle the same way Run Away works but having a more versatile ability in its place. Gimmighoul's Roaming Form is the biggest offender of this ability, having both Run Away ''and'' being a Ghost-type, making the ability redundant unless it gets its type or ability changed from an opponent and be victim to a trapping move.
*** Both Salandit and Salazzle are Poison/Fire and can have the "Corrosion" ability, which allows them to poison Poison- and Steel- typed Pokémon with poison-inducing status moves. It is actually less beneficial than it sounds, since the key words here are [[NonDamagingStatusInflictionAttack "status moves"]]; damaging Poison-type attacks still won't work, and since they're both {{Fragile Speedster}}s, a DamageOverTime strategy isn't ideal for them. Plus, Salazzle's Special Attack is high enough that she's better off just using a powerful Fire-type special attack to [[ElementalRockPaperScissors melt most Steel-types]] not named Heatran in her way instead of badly poisoning them with Toxic. It has a situational use but effective in competitive play where Salandit and Salazzle's poison-typing allows Toxic to be a guaranteed hit topped with naturally high speed will make inflicting the badly poisoned status very easy to do. This will whittle down bulky opponents normally immune to poison such as Galarian Slowbro and Slowking, Alolan Muk and Dragalge, the aforementioned examples having high Special Defense which is an issue for the Special Attack-based Salazzle to deal with.

*** Stunfisk suffers a worse fate in Generation VI, when game mechanics changed to have all Electric-type Pokémon are immune to paralysis, making its Limber Ability useless, unless it for some reason changes its own type (which is just fine for [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration explaining]] how a [[ElementalRockPaperScissors Ground-type lives in water]] but usually a waste of time for the player) or an enemy forcibly changes its type (Stunfisk is a slow StoneWall, so it's rare when an opponent would benefit enough from paralyzing it to go through the effort). Downplayed as of Generation IX where the new Terastal phenomenon mechanic will allow Stunfisk to utilize Limber..... If Stunfisk was available in Scarlet and Violet.

*** Toedscruel as of Generation IX is ''the'' fastest user of the move Spore, a status move that puts the opponent to sleep and the only sleep-inducing move with 100% accuracy. This would be extremely useful..... if not for the fact that Toedscruel has Mycelium Might as their ability which makes the user go dead last in its priority bracket if it uses a status move. Slightly downplayed as Mycelium Might also allows the user to use status moves on targets which are immune to said status move via their ability.

** The typical case of {{Status Infliction Attack}}s being useless is averted for the most part, since ContractualBossImmunity is absent and various status effects are all helpful in the competitive battling realm, either for whittling that one opponent that just won't go down (burn, poison, confusion, Leech Seed) or just getting in that extra hit before your opponent does (sleep, freeze, paralysis, confusion, infatuation).

*** ''Mystery Dungeon'' also has rivers and waterways in a lot of dungeons, which only Water and Flying types can cross (Fire types can cross magma, but it comes up much less often). If you're playing as a Water type, great! You have a whole bunch of paths around the dungeon you can use... but your non-Water or Flying allies can't. Given that your partner at the start of the game is guaranteed to be a different type to you, this means leaving at least one teammate behind. Depending on installment, the consequences of splitting the party vary from [[SelfImposedChallenge inconvenient]] to [[ArtificalStupidity catastrophic]].

*** Ferdinand is capable of gaining the Defiant skills[[note]] any unit can as long as they meet the class requirements.[[/note]], as well as Vantage and Desperation, two Intermediate Class skills that he can gain quite easily as they use his proficiencies (Desperation especially given that his natural class progression is the Cavalier route.) However, as those require to be at lower than 50% HP (or 25% for the Defiant Skills), these skills are in direct conflict of his personal skill Confidence, which boosts his Hit and Avoid by ''15'' at full health, far more than what the Defiant Skills could offer. While Vantage allows the unit to attack first on enemy phase and Desperation allows for follow-up attacks, you'd be much better off keeping Ferdinand at full health to dodge tank with Confidence.

** Zig-zagged with "Role actions". These are abilities that are tied to role (not your class) and are primarily utility. While some see regular use (Most notably Rampart, Esuna, Peloton, Swiftcast, and Lucid Dreaming) plenty of players make it all the way to level 90 without even knowing they're there since they are ''extremely'' situational.

*** Head Graze for ranged DPS on paper is a ''very'' useful ability - almost GameBreaker sounding. The problem is? Outside of [=PvP=] it has virtually ''NO'' use whatsoever, as very ''few'' enemy abilities can be interrupted. Even the ones that ''can'' be interrupted often aren't worth doing it. Players can make it all the way until the final battle of their role quest in ''Endwalker'' - level ''90'' - before ever ''actually'' use it. Even for some longtime players, the last time they had to actually interrupt enemy abilities outside of [=PvP=] was at level ''50'' - in content that came out ''years'' ago.
*** Addle, Repose, and Feint reduce the target's damage by 3%. This actually works on everyone - not enough that it's noticeable (outside of a few stress) but clever timing actually ''can'' keep it almost permanently on enemies.

*** Scathe ''sounds'', at first, like it would be useful, as it's an instant-cast spell that does damage and takes relatively little MP...except that unlike a bunch of other 'instant cast free damage' attacks other Jobs have, Scathe is on the GCD and thus it actually takes just as much time as an actual casted spell to use [[note]] The Global Cooldown starts the moment a spell starts casting, not when it actually goes off. So if the GCD is 2.5 seconds and the spell has a 1.5 second cast time, then by the time it's casted you have 1 second left before you can attack again. Meanwhile, if you use Scathe you instantly activate the spell...and then have to wait for 2.5 seconds anyway. [[/note]] . Due to the fact the majority of Black Mage spells synergize with one another (which Scathe does not) and deal significantly more damage in the same amount of time, Scathe has practically no point.

* In ''VideoGame/PaperMario'', rescuing the [[LivingMacguffin Star Spirit]] Kalmar grants Mario the power Up and Away, which transforms every non-boss enemy on the screen into a tiny star that flies, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin up and away.]] Unfortunately, this means that the party doesn't gain any experience points. Furthermore, Kalmar is the ''last'' Star Spirit you save; by that point in the game, you'll either be facing enemies that you'll want to battle for their EXP or foes so weak that a single hit will take them out--and the Bump Attack Badge can outright eliminate those enemies with a single blow ''without entering a battle at all'', granting the same effect without wasting two bars of Star Power. As such, Kalmar's probably the least-used Star Spirit in the game.

** Averted in ''VideoGame/LunarEternalBlue''remakes as enemies are [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience colored different colors]] to indicate whether the spells work or not.

*** Skitty and Delcatty can have the ability Normalize, which turns all of their moves into Normal-type ones. While this means they get STAB on everything, it also means they can't hit anything for super-effective damage, are completely useless against Ghost Pokémon, and also easily walled by Rock and Steel Pokémon. Its main use is paralyzing Ground-types with Thunder Wave.

*** The ability Run Away allows guaranteed escape from wild battles... unless the opponent has an ability preventing escape or used a move that prevents it, the very situations it would be useful for. Even foregoing that, the success rate of fleeing battle is based on speed, and most Pokémon that have the ability are already bound to be faster than the opponent if they're around the same level. In Generation VI onwards and the player finds themselves in a situation where they need guaranteed escape from wild Pokémon constantly, any Ghost-type Pokémon is an alternate option as all Ghost-types are guaranteed to escape from battle the same way Run Away works but having a more versatile ability in its place.
*** Both Salandit and Salazzle are Poison/Fire and can have the "Corrosion" ability, which allows them to poison Poison- and Steel- typed Pokémon with poison-inducing status moves. It is actually less beneficial than it sounds, since the key words here are [[NonDamagingStatusInflictionAttack "status moves"]]; damaging Poison-type attacks still won't work, and since they're both {{Fragile Speedster}}s, a DamageOverTime strategy isn't ideal for them. Plus, Salazzle's Special Attack is high enough that she's better off just using a powerful Fire-type special attack to [[ElementalRockPaperScissors melt most Steel-types]] not named Heatran in her way instead of badly poisoning them with Toxic. It has a very situational use in competitive play where Salandit and Salazzle's poison-typing allows Toxic to be a guaranteed hit and whittle down bulky opponents normally immune to poison such as Galarian Slowbro and Slowking, Alolan Muk and Dragalge, the aforementioned examples having high Special Defense which is an issue for Salazzle to deal with.

*** Both Salandit and Salazzle are Poison/Fire and can have the "Corrosion" ability, which allows them to poison Poison- and Steel- typed Pokémon with poison-inducing status moves. You'd think this would be amazing, since those types are immune to poison-type moves, but it is actually less beneficial than it sounds, since the key words here are [[NonDamagingStatusInflictionAttack "status moves"]]; damaging Poison-type attacks still won't work, and since they're both {{Fragile Speedster}}s, a DamageOverTime strategy isn't ideal for them. Plus, Salazzle's Special Attack is high enough that she's better off just using a powerful Fire-type special attack to [[ElementalRockPaperScissors melt most Steel-types]] not named Heatran in her way instead of badly poisoning them with Toxic. Slightly averted in competitive play where Salandit and Salazzle's poison-typing allows Toxic (a move that inflicts badly poisoned status) to be a guaranteed hit and whittle down bulky opponents normally immune to poison such as Galarian Slowbro and Slowking, Alolan Muk and Dragalge, the aforementioned examples having high Special Defense which is an issue for Salazzle to deal with.

** ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' introduced the physical/special split, wherein individual moves could now be physical or special attacks. Before this, the ''typing of the move'' determined if it was either physical or special, regardless of the attack's own description. This lead to several Pokémon being having their STAB moves being among the weakest in their moveset (Dark-types got this the worst, as most had better attack than special attack, but all Dark-type moves were special; Ghost-types also suffered, because Ghost-type moves were physical despite most Ghost-types having better special attack) or unable to take advantage of their movesets in general (Hitmonchan can learn the FireIceLightning punches to give it perfect neutral coverage, but its pathetic special attack stat rendered them completely worthless).

*** The ability Run Away allows guaranteed escape from wild battles... unless the opponent has an ability preventing escape or used a move that prevents it, the very situations it would be useful for. Even foregoing that, the success rate of fleeing battle is based on speed, and most Pokémon that have the ability are already bound to be faster than the opponent if they're around the same level.
*** Both Salandit and Salazzle are Poison/Fire and can have the "Corrosion" ability, which allows them to poison Poison- and Steel- typed Pokémon with poison-inducing status moves. You'd think this would be amazing, since those types are immune to poison-type moves, but it is actually less beneficial than it sounds, since the key words here are [[NonDamagingStatusInflictionAttack "status moves"]]; damaging Poison-type attacks still won't work, and since they're both {{Fragile Speedster}}s, a DamageOverTime strategy isn't ideal for them. Plus, Salazzle's Special Attack is high enough that she's better off just using a powerful Fire-type special attack to [[ElementalRockPaperScissors melt most Steel-types]] not named Heatran in her way instead of badly poisoning them with Toxic.

*** The [[WhipItGood Dark Hunters]] can learn a skill named Climax, which can instantly kill any enemy on low health. If an enemy is at low health, you can just kill it the conventional way, and bosses with mountains of health are immune to instant kills. [=FOEs=], though, have both the health counts to warrant its use and aren't outright immune to instant kills. On the other hand, this last point is what turns Climax into a GameBreaker in the second game, as it always instantly kills an enemy and, as a result, dramatically shortens an FOE fight.

*** The worst offenders of this trope, however, might have been Frillish and Jellicent's Hidden Ability: Damp. This ability prevents the use of moves Self-Destruct and Explosion in battle, which would be okay if it wasn't for the fact that Frillish and Jellicent are already immune to those moves thanks to their Ghost-type! Still, Damp can save someone's allies in a double or triple battle. While the attack itself is quite rare, Frillish and Jellicent can finally use Damp as of Generation VIII in single battles where they can defend themselves from the Fairy-type equivalent, Misty Explosion. This is slightly subverted as Misty Explosion is only base power 100 (150 when under Misty Terrain) and considered ''very'' weak compared to Self-Destruct and Explosion which has a base power of 200 and 250 respectively.

*** The worst offenders of this trope, however, might have been Frillish and Jellicent's Hidden Ability: Damp. This ability prevents the use of moves Self-Destruct and Explosion in battle, which would be okay if it wasn't for the fact that Frillish and Jellicent are already immune to those moves thanks to their Ghost-type! Still, Damp can save someone's allies in a double or triple battle. Stunfisk suffers a worse fate in Generation VI, when game mechanics changed to have all Electric-type Pokémon are immune to paralysis, making its Limber Ability useless, unless it for some reason changes its own type (which is just fine for [[GameplayAndStoryIntegration explaining]] how a [[ElementalRockPaperScissors Ground-type lives in water]] but usually a waste of time for the player) or an enemy forcibly changes its type (Stunfisk is a slow StoneWall, so it's rare when an opponent would benefit enough from paralyzing it to go through the effort).

** [[Averted]] in ''VideoGame/LunarEternalBlue''remakes as enemies are [[ColorCodedforyourConvenience colored different colors]] to indicate whether the spells work or not.