History UselessUsefulSpell / Warcraft

* The Paladins' Exorcism is very restricted on targets it may affect, only working on Death Knights and their Skeleton minions. It's very uncommon for players to unlock Paladins anyway as Magi are much more important. This isn't helped by the fact that the Magis' Polymorph lets you snipe Death Knights, also works on living targets, and cost for less mana (200 vs 240). Assuming you haven't upgraded Paladins already for healing priority targets, Exorcism research requires a total of 3900 gold and 500 lumber when counting the Paladin upgrade and Church where it's researched, so you need to take out at least five Death Knights (1200 gold each) just to offset the total resources spent. Albeit, if you've already unlocked Paladins for tasks like healing high-value units, then Exorcism can be handy to punish opponents who invest heavily in Death Knights. This was corrected in ''Warcraft III'' with the new Holy Light spell which heals the living and ''also'' harms The Undead, an entire new faction who's biological troops are all granted undeath by the Lich King, making the Paladin GracefulInTheirElement.

* The Pandaren Brewmaster's Drunken Brawler passive is not that great as an early ability as it's a weaker combination of the Demon Hunter's Evasion and the Blademaster's Critical Strike. The thing is, the Brewmaster attacks very slowly, is already a tanky hero as it is, and functions better relying upon his active spells. Taking early points in Drunken Haze and Breath of Fire will pay off better with the former making single targets have a chance to miss attacks and greatly amplifying the power of Breath of Fire on the drenched target. The mana cost of this strategy is also covered by the fact that Night Elf players typically will use the Brewmaster as they can cover his mana deficiency with their Moon Wells.

* The Fireball spell that Magi start with looks like it may be handy when you want to damage a group of enemies in a line. However, most players would rather save the 100 / 255 mana it costs and wait for Blizzard to finish researching. Blizzard has a more efficient mana cost at 25 mana, providing a few seconds of ice shards raining on a randomized set of tiles around the selected spot. You can let the Mage continue casting to add another ice storm to that region, or cast elsewhere based upon changing battlefield conditions, letting Blizzard do what Fireball can do and more. To the spell's credit, while the effect's mana cost is questionable, it does work consistently which may prove useful in niche situations when you want to consistently strike a certain area for assured damage.

* Death Knights' Raise Dead is this once again. The skeletons' attack power is slightly better, but the mana cost is still a bit too much for the net result. Blizzard or Death-and-Decay will make quick work of any swarm of skeletons, while Knights and Ogres and especially their MagicKnight forms make skeletons a joke. Skeletons were improved became a tertiary resource of sorts in ''III'' as the Death Knight and Lich heroes have sacrifice abilities that can be used on skeletons to reap benefits for an efficient cost (healing for the DK, mana restoration for the Lich) and heroes may buy a Wand of Necromancy periodically to raise the dead without the aid of Necromancers. Each corpse also raises two skeletons and they now benefit from Unholy Strength and Unholy Armor upgrades like your humanoid and mechanical units.

* Death Knights' Raise Dead is this once again. The skeletons' attack power is slightly better, but the mana cost is still a bit too much for the net result. Blizzard or Death-and-Decay will make quick work of any swarm of skeletons, while Knights and Ogres and especially their MagicKnight forms make skeletons a joke. Skeletons were improved became a tertiary resource of sorts in ''III'' as the Death Knight and Lich heroes have sacrifice abilities that can be used on skeletons to reap benefits for an efficient cost (healing for the DK, mana restoration for the Lich) and heroes may buy a Wand of Necromancy periodically to raise the dead without the aid of Necromancers. Each corpse also raises two skeletons and they now benefit from Unholy Strength and Unholy Armor upgrades like your regular melee units.

* The Orc Necrolytes' Raise Dead ability summons skeletons so weak that they're like workers with a weak melee attack. Like Minor Summons, skeletons are heavily overshadowed by Major Summons.

* Death Knights' Raise Dead is this once again. The attack damage of the skeletons is at least better, but the mana cost is still a bit too much for the net result. Blizzard and Death-and-Decay will make quick work of any swarm of skeletons that happen to be raised anyway, while cavalry like Knights and Ogres and especially their MagicKnight forms make skeletons a joke. The skeletons don't even benefit from your Blacksmith upgrades, unlike in ''Warcraft III'' where ''two'' skeletons to be raised from a single corpse to offset their frailty. Skeletons were improved became a tertiary resource of sorts in ''III'' as the Death Knight and Lich heroes have sacrifice abilities that can be used on skeletons to reap benefits for an efficient cost (healing for the DK, mana restoration for the Lich) and heroes may buy a Wand of Necromancy periodically to raise the dead without the aid of Necromancers.

* The Dread Lord in 1v1 has the issue of being equipped with a QuirkyBard skill set, making him very support-oriented until he can unlock his ultimate Inferno. Carrion Swarm is his main damage spell, but is most efficient against multiple targets and doesn't have any secondary benefit like healing (''very'' important for the Undead), snaring or stunning, as with the Death Knight, Lich and Crypt Lord's nukes respectively. Sleep offers the ability put a target to sleep and potentially interrupt a critical action such as a hero's spell channeling or their retreat from battle, but the target can be awakened by simply keeping units together in an army and by any unit attacking them. Vampiric Aura has the potential to be a powerful healing effect that scales with a unit's melee damage [[note]]Self-healing for up to 50% of a unit's attack damage.[[/note]] but needs to be at maximum level [[MagikarpPower to really shine]] in this regard. All of the above means taking the Dread Lord early can make you weaker early on due to delaying your Death Knight's recruitment until upgrading your Necropolis to at least a Halls of the Dead. However, once Inferno is unlocked, you have a very powerful summon at your disposal that also acts an an AreaOfEffect stun in the region you select to summon them, and Infernals ''really'' benefit from the aforementioned Vampiric Aura, but it will be a [[EarlyGameHell very bumpy ride]] getting to that point.

* The Death Knight's Animate Dead spell is often regarded as one of most underwhelming ultimates in the game. It raises up to six dead (friend or foe) to fight for you under the effect of invulnerability, but it's hard to find the perfect time to use it as the units raised are still just regular units with no extra buffs and no abilities. And they last only 40 seconds before expiring, which isn't a terribly long time given the battles in the game. If you have Death Pact (that's a big ''if''), the spell has more utility as you can cast it on the animated dead for a potentially very efficient self-heal without killing the unit. The reanimated units do also make [[BoringButPractical nice mana batteries]] for a Lich if you happen to have them as one of your heroes, so the spell isn't a total flop. Efforts were made to fix it, ultimately reducing its mana cost to 125 down from its original steep cost of 300, and allowing animated dead to benefit from Disease Cloud (which was also buffed), allowing you to easily spread Disease Clouds without having to invest in Abominations or Meat Wagons and making the spell cheap by ultimate standards.

** The Nightelf equivalent -- the Druid of the Claw's Roar -- manages to remain useful as Roar is cast by AreaOfEffect so it may be reapplied very quickly to at least lure anti-magic specialists into burning out their mana (Chiefly Dryads and Shamans with their single-target dispells). This is unfortunately of lesser value against Spell Breakers, since each buff stolen is still ''stolen'', Priests and Spirit Walkers, whose dispel is ''also'' a low-hassle AreaOfEffect, or Destroyers, who ''gain'' mana by eating spells and use it to power up their attack damage.

* Death Knights' Raise Dead is this once again. The attack damage of the skeletons is at least better, but the mana cost is still a bit too much for the net result. Blizzard and Death-and-Decay will make quick work of any swarm of skeletons that happen to be raised anyway, while cavalry like Knights and Ogres make them a joke. The skeletons don't even benefit from your Blacksmith upgrades, unlike in ''Warcraft III'' which also allowed ''two'' skeletons to be raised from a single corpse. Skeletons became a tertiary resource of sorts in ''III'' as the Death Knight and Lich heroes have sacrifice abilities that can be used on skeletons to reap benefits for an efficient cost (healing for the DK, mana restoration for the Lich) and heroes may buy a Wand of Necromancy periodically to raise the dead without the aid of Necromancers.

* The Ogre-Magis' Runes (explosive traps place on the ground) look useful but in practice are undone by [[AwesomeButImpractical troublesome drawbacks]], the first one being the mines reveal themselves to every player periodically, ruining the element of surprise. They are not entirely useless, as they can be area-denial tool against infiltration, but this requires that the map layout be just right, and they need to be renewed regularly, taking up your attention. Finally, the mines ''can'' hurt your units as well, which your opponent can exploit by luring your units onto them by a long-range spell. Finally they cost a minimum of 200/255 mana, which would be more productively used on the devastating Bloodlust spell[[note]]The [=PvP=] balance of Bloodlust is a whole other can of worms, and it's telling that ''Warcraft III's'' Bloodlust fell into this area.[[/note]].

* The Paladins' Exorcism is very restricted on targets it may affect, only working on Death Knights and their Skeleton minions. It's very uncommon for players to unlock Paladins anyway as Magi are much more important. This isn't helped by the fact that the Magis' Polymorph lets you snipe Death Knights too, also works on living targets and uses less mana (200 vs 240). Assuming you haven't upgraded Paladins already for healing priority targets, Exorcism research requires a total of 3900 gold and 500 lumber when counting the Paladin upgrade and Church where it's researched, so you need to take out at least five Death Knights (1200 gold each) just to offset the total resources spent. Albeit, if you've already unlocked Paladins for tasks like healing high-value units, then Exorcism can be handy to punish opponents who invest heavily in Death Knights. This was corrected in ''Warcraft III'' with the Holy Light spell which heals the living and ''also'' counters the Undead forces, an entire new faction who's biological troops are all granted the state of undeath by the Lich King.