Sandbox / Antidote Effect Wick Check

Antidote Effect is... a mess. It has a misleading name, and people can't seem to agree on what it's supposed to be.

I decided to just take all the wicks because running it through a randomizer would be more of a hassle.

Players keep an item with a very narrow use case because of that use case (3/72)

1. Highly Specific Counterplay: Also compare Antidote Effect, where you keep an item that's only useful in certain specific situations (even though its effect itself does not have to be narrow) because those situations are so annoying.
2. Indexitis: Antidote Effect: Keeping an antidote in a game just because it might be useful in a very specific and annoying situation.
3. VideoGame.Blossom Tales The Sleeping King: The Sleeping King has an abundance of spells, attacks and items you can obtain, but most of them are essentially minor variations of the same projectile attack or Area of Effect attack. While some of these do have specific situations where they're useful (like melting an ice wall with a fire spell), in normal combat they're more or less interchangeable. So you're likely to end up with a lot of stuff in your inventory that you will seldom or never use. Mostly about redundant items, though it does mention player behavior.

An item is too situational or specific to be useful (5/72)

1. Video Game Items and Inventory: Antidote Effect: Inventory items designed to be Not Completely Useless but have such specific uses that they become a waste of space.
2. Characters.Twitch Plays Pokemon X: d's stock of Awakening has become integral to his style of battling. Not only are they nearly always useless - the only times d's Pokemon actually fell asleep, he didn't even think to use any - but a change in how items are used in battle means that the player can attempt to use an ineffectual item and waste a turn (though not consuming the item). This has cost d many victories.
3. Literature.The Forest Of Doom: Most of the items Yaztromo has to sell. While they do have a purpose inside the forest against specific obstacles, the presence of a single path to victory makes the majority of them redundant, since you won't meet the obstacles they were meant for. There's even one (the Rod of Water-Finding) that is never actually used no matter what route you take, and apparently is only there as a red herring. Not only situational, but they cover situations that probably won't even come up.
4. VideoGame.Mordheim City Of The Damned: This game gets hit hard with it, the most amount of items that a unit can carry is 6 (and only very strong units can do so) with much of that space dedicated to carrying treasure and wyrdstone. This makes highly situational items like anti-venom hard to justify, especially in a game where these items are unreliable while poison effects are uncommon and wear off in a short duration.
5. VideoGame.Toukiden: There are a number of skills that allow you to resist status ailments. However, taking one means you're giving up one of your very limited skill slots, and is only useful against one or maybe two large Oni. The status resist skills become even more pointless when it's considered that a Healing ally can cure them.

A situational item that can still be legitimately useful (3/72)

1. DarkSouls.Tropes A To L: If the player character has enough health or healing, one can just wait out a poison effect. Yet there are situations where a poison moss is necessary.
2. Tropes A to C: Played straight with Holy Water. Zombie is very uncommon, but can’t be healed by Esuna and the enemies that employ it are That One Boss.
3. VideoGame.Alpha Man: Many items in the game are useless except in very specific situations, or against specific enemies. Not sure how useful they are in the situations they were made for, so I'm guessing this.

An outclassed/redundant item (12/72)

1. Characters.Fantasy Life: The only status effect that keeps you from using magic is sleep and earth magic can cure stun and poison along with regenerating your health. Any other healing items can be replaced with stacks of stamina potion.
2. Tropes A to C: A messy entry that argues against itself. Seems to be about how healing items are outclassed by a healing spell... except not really because using Esuna seems to have a higher opportunity cost
   • Played straight until you can customize weapons. Yuna starts out with Esuna, a normally endgame spell that cures all status effects from the target, so unless she is silenced or petrified, status effects aren't too much of a problem. Once you can customize equipment, however, you can use the status cure items to put status-inflicting attributes on weapons or make your armor resist them, but you need a lot of them for this.
   • Averted tactically though. Yuna's Esuna will cure almost all status effects on its own, but using items has a higher speed than casting spells. Using items to cure status effects can mean removing a status AND healing the party before the enemy's next turn.
3. VideoGame.Luminous Arc: Averted, as most of the time you are given enough status cures that it's not a problem, and your spellcasters are typically too busy doing other stuff to cure ailments. "Healing items are not obsolete because..."
4. VideoGame.Phantasy Star Online: Mostly about whether items are outclassed, though it mentions that antidotes would be useless regardless.
   • Zig-Zagged. Antidotes are more or less useless, since poison deals little damage, is generally easy to avoid, and all characters either gain access to a tech that heals it at Tech Level 1 almost immediately, or are just flat-out immune to poison. However, Antiparalysis and Sol Atomizers can be a bit more useful, as they can heal Paralysis and, in the case of the latter, Shock - two status effects which can be crippling and which cannot otherwise be self-healed. However, high level characters often get access to Cure/Status armour slots, which render that character immune to certain status effects.
   • This also tends to be true of healing items. Aside from Androids (which cannot cast Techs), all characters quickly gain access to Resta, which can be used far more readily than healing items and costs almost no money to recharge. However, at high levels, Trimates and Star Atomizers remain useful for the fact that they heal instantly and cannot be cancelled by an enemy attack; although the casting time for Resta is very short, it does exist and if the player is surrounded, healing items can prove to be the difference between life and death.
5. VideoGame.Pokemon Red And Blue: In general, because you can only carry 20 types of item^note  You can carry up to 99 of a single item, like Potions or Poké Balls, but there are only 20 inventory slots, it is wise to carry as little as you can get away with. You can store up to 50 additional types of items in the PC, but this can only be accessed while in Pokémon Centers, not out in the world. A few specific examples:
   • Awakenings become useless as soon as you get the Poké Flute. It will wake Pokémon up inside or out of battle, and has no use limit.
   • Once Full Heals become available for purchase, most of the single-effect healing items (Antidotes, Paralyze Heals, Burn Heals, etc.) are no longer worth carrying. While more expensive than any of them individually, carrying a stack of Full Heals only takes up one precious inventory slot and covers any effect you come across.
6. VideoGame.Pokemon Sun And Moon: With Pokémon Refresh, status-restoring items become this as the medicine tool cures all status effects after battle at no cost. Downplayed since this feature cannot be used if the player needs to restore their Pokémon mid-battle.
7. VideoGame.Salt And Sanctuary: Averted. The Mend and Cleanse prayers requre significant investment in the skill tree to even equip, and also require you to Focus, depleting your maximum stamina. Therefore, your healing potions and antidotes never become obsolete. Furthermore, you can trade certain items to a Leader to get more basic healing potions, or an upgraded one that also cures poisoning. Specifically about items not being outclassed
8. VideoGame.Radiant Historia: Lots of it. Though since most end-game enemies can either drain MP or block Item and Skill use, it's always handy to have some extra healing items and a healer on the ready. Appears to be about outclassed healing items that still have niche use cases
9. VideoGame.Rune Factory 3: Healing Potion type items made with alchemy restore set amounts of HP, with the best ones going up to 2000 hit points' worth. However, most food restores via percentage of your maximum HP/RP, and considering your base HP cap is 65,535... Healing items are outclassed
10. VideoGame.Super Mario RPG: Princess Toadstool starts with two healing spells that make the status-curing Able Juice/Freshen Up nearly worthless. Most effects only last a few turns and they disappear out of battle, so they are minor inconveniences if she's not in the party. Weird hybrid that says Toadstool's spell renders two healing items obsolete... and that they weren't great in the first place.
11. VideoGame.The 7 Th Saga: Even if both party members receive purify (or equivalent spell), these spells expend the limited magic that you have. There are also items that prevent status effects from landing if they're in your inventory. Specifies that magic won't render your healing items obsolete
12. VideoGame.Unlight: The pricey Holy Water can become obsolete if you have characters that can remove Status Effects, such as Marseus or C.C..

Other useless items / useless items in general (20/72)

1. Console RPG Clichés 73 to 96: Supply and Demand Axiom: Killing a powerful enemy will usually yield an item or weapon that would've been extremely useful if you had gotten it before killing that enemy.
2. Magikarp Power:* NetHack: The Tourist character class. They start with a handful of darts for a weapon, a Hawaiian shirt for armor, and a jumble of seemingly-useless tools. Only an experienced player would know that in the endgame, an enchanted cotton shirt is one the rarest and most desirable things there is. They can acquire the Platinum Yendorian Express Card, one of the more powerful artifacts in the game. They also have the greatest selection of weapon skills of any class, and can become proficient in every weapon but clubs (which aren't a good choice for a weapon anyway).
3. Useless Item: See also Antidote Effect, where it's strategic concerns that make something useless rather than programming ones. What kind of strategic concerns?
4. Flight-Plan: Items are useless in story battles if you're going for an S-Rank clear (or Brave Clear in the Summon Night games) since using items lowers your rank (and completely disqualifies you from a Brave Clear in the Summon Night games). Summon Night 3 had a partial aversion where it allowed you to use the fishing bait items and the "Pirate Bentō" item without being disqualified for a Brave Clear. The lure items weren't exactly great when used as healing items though. With the exception of the Golden Lure (the rare Infinity Plus One Bait) which removed all abnormal status effects, they were laughable as since they healed for no more than 10 HP.
5. GenshinImpact.Tropes A To D: Adepti's Seeker Stove creates a portable cooking stove, allowing you to cook anywhere in the world, even in dungeons and Co-Op mode. Problem is, it requires some relatively valuable materials to create,^* Flaming Essential Oil is better used for combat, and Crystal Core is commonly used to create Condensed Resins lasts for 5 minutes max, and is destroyed upon combat. To add insult to injury, there are plenty of cooking spots in the overworld which can easily be reached using a teleport waypoint. With the release of the Serenitea pot, there is no real reason to create this item anymore as the player is able to place a permanent stove and waypoint in their personal realm.
6. Gush.Square Enix: The sequel Trials of Mana is one of the more unfortunate examples of No Export for You. This game has excellent replay value. There are six heroes to choose from and three possible final dungeons and Big Bads depending on your choice, and each story is well presented. It has twenty-four final classes and makes them all viable by averting the Antidote Effect. The music is also great, with a South Asian flair on several tracks.
7. MonsterHunter.Tropes A To C: Who actually bothers with the Lightning Rod? Same with the Tranq Shot (which, like every Shot, will default to the Ammunition/Coating storage, which ends up saving space for valuable equipments, carves and gathers). This trope is averted with status-healing items, including Antidotes themselves. The real-time battle system means that using such items to keep your health/stamina/mobility up are a prerequisite for not dying.
8. Morrowind.Tropes A To C: Specifically about items that suffer from being outclassed; doesn't mention a use case beyond Shop Fodder
   • Curing disease can be done via spells, potions, scrolls, enchantments, or with a blessing at a temple. After a certain point in the main quest, you'll become immune to disease, rendering all of these items as Shop Fodder.
   • Similarly, the teleportation spells (Almsivi Intervention, Divine Intervention, Mark/Recall) can be used via item enchantments or scrolls. However, in the long run, it is simply cheaper and more convenient to just buy the spells and sell any such items you pick up.
9. PlayingWith.Antidote Effect: An item is rendered redundant, either by an ability/better item or is too specific for common use. Is the trope about outclassed items, overly specific items or both?
10. TheElderScrolls.Tropes 0 To A: Many different curative effects such as Cure Disease and Cure Poison can be found on a wide variety of items throughout the series, including spells, potions, scrolls, item enchantments, and temple blessings. In most cases, these effects wear off quickly enough that they aren't a long term concern (poison) or are mild enough to where you can just pick up the item/blessing needed next time you're in a town (disease). Constantly carrying these items in case they are needed just serves to weigh you down. Seems to be "these items are useless because what they cure isn't a big threat anyway"
11. VideoGame.Arcanum Of Steamworks And Magick Obscura: The Heal Poison potion and its tech equivalent Poison Cure. Poison is not that damaging to begin with, so most of the time it's easier to just wait it out and heal the lost HP. Only one character in the game even uses a poison strong enough to actually kill you. Non-tech characters might not even have to wait, as NPCs with White Necromancy spells, including Virgil once he reaches level five, can negate both the poison and the damage.
12. VideoGame.Barkley Shut Up And Jam Gaiden: Averted; healing items work by percents instead of fixed numbers. You'll still want to buy the all-purpose status effects cure instead of the individual status medicine, though. Amounts to "these items are not useless". Does contain a noteworthy mention of outclassed items though.
13. VideoGame.Dead Frontier: Averted with your healing items, since anything less than a syringe of Nerotonin-2 stops being effective past level 50. "This item is not useless."
14. VideoGame.Elsword: The few antidote items in the game hardly sees any use because the debuffs that they cure rarely have a significant effect on players. And even if they do, using a Healing Potion or eating food is often the more favorable option.
15. VideoGame.Fandomstuck RPG: The Glowstone, which gives your attacks elemental affinity to an element that enemies aren't particularly weak to at the time it's discovered. But does it become useful later?
16. VideoGame.Final Fantasy XII: Subverted. Poison is a pretty hazardous status ailment, and you don't want it to compound (Poison + Sap will make your HP go down the drain quickly). The game mechanics (items are used nearly instantly) help it a lot. Presumably subverts the trope by making antidotes useful
17. VideoGame.Last Scenario: Mostly inverted due to the sparseness and importance of spellcard slots and low cost of status cure items, which make it likely for you to have 99 of each one third into the game.
18. VideoGame.Lil Monster: Even though they're hard to get, Canaries are mostly useless.
19. VideoGame.Project X Zone: Inverted thanks to a hidden mechanic in the first game. If an enemy drops an item that the player already has a full stockpile of, they drop the next tier of the same item instead. So it's a better idea to frivolously use your upper-tier items to heal papercuts, or throw out a group healing item to restore one unit's HP, rather than dip into your buffer of weak healing items and delay the next higher-tier drop in the process. A weird Not the Intended Use?
20. VideoGame.Sore Losers: Averted. If one of the characters is poisoned during the battle, they’ll stay poisoned afterwards, and will continue to take damage in real time, up until they cure poisoning, which keeps the antidotes relevant throughout the game. Why would they otherwise be obsolete? From being outclassed by better healing options, or due to a lack of other poison-using enemies?

Just examples of Anti-Debuff / Antidotes exist (13/72)

1. Squishy Wizard: In The Denpa Men, Denpa Men with antennas (essentially, magical powers) have far weaker physical stats and tend to be slower than Denpa Men without skills. The more offensively-oriented the skill, the weaker their stats tend to be, too — so a Denpa Man who can blast all enemies with light will have weaker stats than one who can merely blast one enemy with light, who will have weaker stats than the speed-upper, who will have weaker stats than the 'man who merely cures Poison for a living. Might be more to it than just "they cure poison", but if so the example doesn't make it clear at all.
2. Characters.Epic Seven Ritania: Antidote Effect: Has a passive where whenever his turn pops out, there's a high chance a debuff from an ally is removed. This passive can be upgraded to 100% occurrence. It helps that he is a speedy character. Pair him with the Wonderous Potion Vial artifact and soon he can clear two debuffs at once! That's Anti-Debuff
3. Characters.Nioh Guardian Spirits: Antidote Effect: This heifer has the bonus of granting some resistance to poison, as well as reducing its damage should you be poisoned anyway.
4. Characters.Pokemon The Series Sun And Moon Cast: Knows Aromatherapy, which it uses to cure the student's Pokémon whenever they fall victim to poison attacks.
5. Fanfic.Sburb Glitch FAQ: Health gels, although they become less useful in the mid-game due to being specified by number instead of percentage.
6. Minecraft.Tropes A To F: Drinking a bucket of milk will remove any status effects positive or negative, including poison. Bottles of honey harvested from Beehives will cure poison when drunk, and they can stack in your inventory - perfect for abandoned mineshaft investigations. This has been commented out, but it still showed up in the wick list when I checked it.
7. PlayingWith.Disney Death: Walter survived the gun shot, but just barely, except it was poison tipped. However, Lilly administers the antidote just in time, allowing Walter to survive the poison... only for both to realize Walter has lost too much blood, as he dies in her arms.
8. Recap.Pokemon S 22 E 25 Drawn With The Wind: Shaymin reveals it knows the move Aromatherapy to cure Sandy from poisoning inflicted by Team Rocket's Mareanie.
9. Roleplay.Digimon World Infamy: Several herbs in the digital world are able to act in this way, curing poison which was inflicted by other digimon.
10. TabletopGame.Bunnies And Burrows: Alternate use for herbs. This has been commented out, but it still showed up in the wick list when I checked it.
11. WebOriginal.The Backrooms: Almond Water and its variants are considered very valuable as they restore sanity and health and are vital to carry as supplies. This is especially true for levels that drain sanity slowly enough for the Almond Water to out-pace the drain. Oddly, this example emphasizes how useful the item is for a trope supposedly about useless or extremely specific items!
12. VideoGame.Crystal Story: The first game has cure potions for each status ailment, and rarer potions to cure status ailments and (de)buffs. The sequel averts this, as the antidote (and the area-of-effect version, Panacea) cure any negative effects.
13. VideoGame.Eye Of The Beholder: In the first game, you can find potions of counterpoison in the Giant Spiders level. Quite necessary, since at that time your cleric isn't high level enough to cast neutralize poison, only the weaker delay poison spell, which just gains you some time.

Other misuse / Unclassifiable / ZCE (16/72)

1. Anti-Debuff: Contrast the Antidote Effect, which sometimes happens to these spells.
2. Magic Is Rare, Health Is Cheap: It might be a way of avoiding the Antidote Effect, to ensure that the player will still utilize healing potions even into the late-game. The interpretation of Antidote Effect seems to be "otherwise healing potions would be too specific" here, but I can't tell if the fail case is "Players keep an item with a very narrow use case because of that use case" or "The item is too specific to be useful".
3. Metal Slime: A normal video game Mook is a monster that shows up regularly in large numbers, exhibits Suicidal Overconfidence, goes down in a sword strike or four, gives a little experience, and drops items that are Shop Fodder, Better Off Sold, or subject to the Antidote Effect.
4. Whoring: A player who whores the right trick/s can become unbeatable to anyone who doesn't do the same thing. This can be particularly vexing to people who know every part of the game's mechanics, since it often makes their efforts worthless (a sort of player-induced Antidote Effect). Huh?,
5. Characters.Heroes Of The Storm Warcraft Support: His Purge Trait both plays this straight and inverts it simultaneously.
6. Characters.Monster Hunter Second Generation Monsters: In Dos, Freedom 2, and Unite, Daora is notorious for worsening the weather of almost any zone it inhabits, barring the Desert and Town (Dundorma) maps. In particular, the Jungle and Swamp get heavy rainfalls while the Snowy Mountains experience strong blizzards, both of which disable the use of Barrel Bombs ^note It does mean you can use Lightning Rods against him in the rain, though not in the snow; this is no longer a problem as of 4, however. This becomes a plot point during the Dundorma crisis in 4 Ultimate, necessitating the acquisition of a water-resistant flammable fuel for the Demolisher anti-dragon cannon to work in adverse weather conditions.
7. Funny.Trash Taste: As they fend off the alligators in the lake, it's down to one and they need a decisive blow to save time. Garnt is reluctant to use any of his MP for his best skills in case he needs it later, despite having performed very poorly in the prior encounters so far. Joey and Connor begin insulting his conservative tactics. Is about hoarding a resource, but seems closer to Too Awesome to Use
8. MagicTheGathering.Gameplay Tropes A To I: Common for card combos which, if you drew them within the same turn or otherwise close together, could be extremely powerful. However, the odds are so low that it's generally better to swap them out for cards which can individually be more impactful.
9. Sandbox.Kappaclystica: Not sure what these are trying to say
   • Inverted in the NES/MSX2/WSC/PSX versions of the game. For the price of learning the PURE/Esuna spell, you can buy 53 PURE potions/antidotes, which is more than you're likely to ever need. Given the mechanics of the NES/MSX2 version of the game, however, the 53 PURE potions take about ten minutes to purchase and the PURE spell takes just a couple of seconds; besides, most level 4 White spells are otherwise useless, anyway. The SOFT/Stona spell and Soft potions/gold needles are the same way, with spell points being better spent on other spells.
   • Played straight in the GBA version onward, due to the shift to the mana pool system and how little MP the Poisona/Stona spells cost. Although buying the items is still useful if you're doing a challenge playthrough without a White or Red Mage/Wizard in the party.
10. VideoGame.Azure Dreams: The hazak herb (which recovers a reduced attack stat) is completely useless on all floors of the tower that do not contain Vipers, the only monster capable of inflicting that effect. However, try to make it through those floors, and you'll probably be kicking yourself if you don't have any. They're also useful for any monster from an Arachne fusion, which doubles their base power but does not apply to stats gained in the current tower trip unless their stats are healed. Seems closer to Not Completely Useless
11. VideoGame.Darkest Dungeon: Because of the Inventory Management Puzzle and the secondary use of basic supply items to "unlock" curios, Darkest Dungeon takes the Antidote Effect to new levels. You'll be tempted to take an character who can cure ailments like a Plague Doctor to remove your need for Bandages and Antivenom, but you'll frequently end up in situations where that character is not available, so there's also a reason to have a good stock of both on you. This factors into a Sadistic Choice: Would you save the ailment-curing items for combat, would you use them on curios, or would you discard them to make room for loot? Seems to be mostly about risks and trade-offs, and just happens to be about curing items
    Ancestor: Packs laden with loot are often short on supplies…
12. VideoGame.Epic Battle Fantasy 2: Averted; antidotes cure all three status ailments (Poison, Stun, and Seal), and if Natz is sealed, it's usually better to toss an Antidote her way instead of wasting her turn casting Purify. What is this even averting?
13. VideoGame.Feda The Emblem Of Justice: The Antidote (natch).
14. VideoGame.Final Fantasy I: Same as the Kappaclystica examples, but also argues with itself.
15. VideoGame.Rebekah The Cursed And Brokenhearted Expansion: Nut Water references The Backrooms, with its use of Almond Water as a sanity check and the flavor text "Don't noclip!" referring to the phenomena of how people end up in the Backrooms.
16. VideoGame.Secret Of Mana: The strict inventory caps (only four of each type of item) lead to a dependence on healing magic. The remake gives you the option of increasing the item cap if you want. This doesn't say healing items are bad, just that they can't sustain you because of the harsh inventory limits