These Abilities are Useless

I think just about every FF probably has at least one of these. There's a new ability you get and you might try it once and never use it again. Looking back I think some of these could've been worked to have been useful or at least more useful than they were.

Some of you might've used Card in VIII or Thievery in IX, but have you ever relied upon Mad Rush in FFVIII?
The Summons in XII?
Charge! in IX?

I think some people would've used Charge if it had worked differently. In the game it makes all of your near death party members attack at once. It would've been better if it allowed all allies to attack at once if they had full ATB bars. Also with IX I think that might've been when the breaks were first introduced. I never felt compelled to use them in that game. The couple of times that I did use them it missed. Then there's the really useless Thunder Slash that never hits. It does work properly for AI Beatrix though.

Also on my first playthrough of IV I got the summon Goblin. As soon as I used it I wondered why such a weak summon is in the game.

Used card a few times...... it was ok I guess

ad rush was excellent if were amazing


Summons in 12 were ok

and havent used the rest

many of these seemingly useless abilities are very useful in certain game challenges

They are mostly useless because the game normally is easy enough to cruise through with just pressing X

Almost every Enemy Skill in VII and every Summon in XII.

I feel that many players think of status effect spells as being useless in a number of the earlier games in the Final Fantasy series. As I play through a Final Fantasy game, I will occasionally experiment with status effects and the results are sometimes surprising!

Does anyone use Gil Toss? :/

HP <-> MP Switch?

What's HP MP Switch? Which FF had it?

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Originally Posted by Remon

Does anyone use Gil Toss? :/

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Oh yeah I forgot about that. I never used it in IX and I didn't use it in X until the end of the game when I wasn't going to use my money anyway.

In my first play through FFVI I hardly used the Attack command. Just Magic and character special abilities. Why would Edgar ever attack when AutoCrossbow hits all and is free?

HP <-> MP Switch is a Materia in FF7 that switches the value of your HP and your MP. So if you had 9999 HP and 999 MP you now have 999 HP and 9999 MP.

Prior to FF4 DS I found that most of the 'build up your attack power for a turn and attack for double damage next turn' moves to just be stupid. In FF4 DS where a lot of bosses counter attacked it made sense, but in a lot of times where it appears there isn't really a point.

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Originally Posted by Roogle

I feel that many players think of status effect spells as being useless in a number of the earlier games in the Final Fantasy series. As I play through a Final Fantasy game, I will occasionally experiment with status effects and the results are sometimes surprising!

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This, and I agree. I'm often surprised how often status spells work and on what.

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Originally Posted by Remon

Does anyone use Gil Toss? :/

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In V and VI I did, in V it's a pretty brutal ability that seriously messes up Neo-ExDeath. If you seriously don't want to build a powerful party or even use the Omega set-up, then Gil Toss is the best way to take down the final boss.

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

HP <-> MP Switch?

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From what I've read, it's for the ability to quad cast KotR. Why you would ever need to do that, I don't know.

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Originally Posted by Del Murder

In my first play through FFVI I hardly used the Attack command. Just Magic and character special abilities. Why would Edgar ever attack when AutoCrossbow hits all and is free?

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Cause Edgar can be built into a boss killing machine by giving him the Dragoonboots, and Dragon Horn with one of his spears. ;) Course I guess you're not using attack still... Even with the usual weapon/relic combos, the best ones still use variations of the attack command. To be honest, there really is no reason to use attack commands once you get past a certain point of the game unless you purposely don't use the Figaro Bros. Gau, and Cyan.

Break abilites are actually pretty useful in IX, at least in the early parts of the game. I usually liked employing them while Vivi used focus and Zidane was stealing, cause it makes the round you actually attack have a higher chance of being the enemies final round. As for Thunder Slash, I've read that was a glitch. The team accidentally switched the hit chances of Thunder Slash with one of the other sword moves in Steiner's move set. No one caught it apparently, sort of like how the only thing that blind status effects in VI is Strago's ability to learn Lores, it actually doesn't affect your hit%.

Quistis and Kimarhi's Blue Magic. Seriously, after a very early point in the game, they are useless and even the few abilities that might have been useful can actually be recreated in a more user friendly way (attaching the ability to weapons usually) so why would you use them beyond "eh, they happen to activate their limit break"

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

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Originally Posted by VeloZer0

HP <-> MP Switch?

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From what I've read, it's for the ability to quad cast KotR. Why you would ever need to do that, I don't know.

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This is still a lingering rumor about Final Fantasy VII. There is no way to use KOTR with Quadra Magic. You can strap on HP/MP switch and still never be able to cast it 4 times. I've tried.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

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Originally Posted by Roogle

I feel that many players think of status effect spells as being useless in a number of the earlier games in the Final Fantasy series. As I play through a Final Fantasy game, I will occasionally experiment with status effects and the results are sometimes surprising!

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This, and I agree. I'm often surprised how often status spells work and on what.

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I really had incentive to use them until X. When a character specializes in status dealing then I think it's more likely for you to try using them. I don't think there's a status ailment I use on the regular in FF games except for maybe poison and even then it's rare. I recall the first American review of XII stating that the reviewer got tired of casting Silence on the mage type enemies and finally decided to use the gambit system. Even having reading that before I got the game I never thought of using Silence through both my playthroughs.

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Originally Posted by Remon

Does anyone use Gil Toss? :/

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In V and VI I did, in V it's a pretty brutal ability that seriously messes up Neo-ExDeath. If you seriously don't want to build a powerful party or even use the Omega set-up, then Gil Toss is the best way to take down the final boss.

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I forgot there was even a gil toss in VI. Setzer had it?

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Break abilites are actually pretty useful in IX, at least in the early parts of the game. I usually liked employing them while Vivi used focus and Zidane was stealing, cause it makes the round you actually attack have a higher chance of being the enemies final round. As for Thunder Slash, I've read that was a glitch. The team accidentally switched the hit chances of Thunder Slash with one of the other sword moves in Steiner's move set. No one caught it apparently, sort of like how the only thing that blind status effects in VI is Strago's ability to learn Lores, it actually doesn't affect your hit%.

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Wait a minute is doesn't? I don't really remember my playthrough of VI despite it being the last one I played I think.

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Quistis and Kimarhi's Blue Magic. Seriously, after a very early point in the game, they are useless and even the few abilities that might have been useful can actually be recreated in a more user friendly way (attaching the ability to weapons usually) so why would you use them beyond "eh, they happen to activate their limit break"

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I agree with Kimarhi's blue magic not being that useful. Most people from what I heard don't even really use him anyway. For Quistis I often use her degenerator and Micro Missile magics. Her micro missiles often do 9999 damage and degenerator instantly kills enemies. I used that to gain experience faster and to acquire rare items faster.

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Originally Posted by sora_lion_heart

This is still a lingering rumor about Final Fantasy VII. There is no way to use KOTR with Quadra Magic. You can strap on HP/MP switch and still never be able to cast it 4 times. I've tried.

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Is there a specific reason why you cannot cast Knights of the Round consecutively with Quadra Magic despite having more than enough MP to do so? HP and MP Switch may have been more effective if spells had consumed more MP.

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Originally Posted by Roogle

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Originally Posted by sora_lion_heart

This is still a lingering rumor about Final Fantasy VII. There is no way to use KOTR with Quadra Magic. You can strap on HP/MP switch and still never be able to cast it 4 times. I've tried.

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Is there a specific reason why you cannot cast Knights of the Round consecutively with Quadra Magic despite having more than enough MP to do so? HP and MP Switch may have been more effective if spells had consumed more MP.

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From what I heard the developers didn't link KOTR and QM compatible cause of 2 reasons. 1. It costs too much MP, and 2. It is overpowered and would make the game too easy. I did read on some FF-wiki page that the makers simply over looked it. The most you can do is w-summon it and mime from there.

I would have liked to have been there when they decided four castings of KotR was overpowered, but two is fine.

It would be cool to get a list of useless abilities in the series, just to see how many there are how they could be better.

Things like the status spells might be used more if the games were more challenging and placed more emphasis on them. If you get your butt kicked hard enough you might think to start using techniques you never thought of before. In about every FF I played I never had that mind set except for the harder quests of XII.

I'll list the ones that I can think of.

IV
Goblin
Bomb
Mist Dragon

VI
Can't remember any

VII
HP MP Switch

VIII
Devour (Eats a weak enemy to recover HP to the eater. You do not gain experience however and sometimes little HP is gained.)
Mad Rush (Casts Berserk and Haste on all allies) Generally isn't used because it's very risky to have three uncontrollable characters and some characters will most likely be a lot weaker than others
Heal (Removes status ailments from an ally) Useless because it does the exact same thing as Esuna but it costs an ability slot that can be used for something else.

IX (A truckload here)
Thunder Slash (Does nothing)
The breaks (Reduces an enemy's stat) Objectively useless. Most likely not used because high chance of fail and the game is easy enough without them

Charge! (Causes all near-death allies to attack) Useless because it is only limited to near death allies and it would be smarter to heal them rather than have them to attack.

Spare Change (Throws gil to damage an enemy)I'm not sure how this works in IX, but whenever I used it it did terrible damage

What's That? (Makes enemies turn around to expose back which causes greater physical damage) Not really useless, but the game is easy enough without it.

Soul Blade (If a weapon has a status effect it inflicts it onto the enemy) It always fails with daggers. The game is easy enough without it.

Annoy (Inflicts Trouble) Easy enough without it

Sacrifice (Zidane sacrifices himself to restore HP and MP to all other allies equal to his current HP and MP divided by the number of allies. ) It doesn't heal much depending on his HP and the number of allies he's splitting it two. If a party member is KO'd then it is probably better to revive him/her rather than creating two KO'd members. Garnet and Eiko's healing spells heal more and don't have a high cost.
Lucky Seven (Deals 7 increments of damage based on HP and MP) It is not worth the trouble with the requirements involved.

Goblin Punch (Tiny damage) Tiny damage

Roulette (Randomly kills anyone on the field) Too risky when she has Lvl 5 Death and Vivi has Death which doesn't have a chance of being casted on an ally.

Night (Casts sleep on everyone) Casts sleep on everyone

Luna (Inflicts Berserk on all allies and enemies, unless immune.) Too risky and very small actual use for it.

Six Dragons smurf this move! It reduced my HP to 1 one time!

I'm tired someone else can do the others.

A lot of the abilities in FFVIII were useless unless hitting up the super boss(es)

WHAT'S THAT?!...one of the many useless abilities that Zidane had. Why would you need an ability that may or may not turn and enemy around.

I thought the summons in FFXII were alright, the only reason I didn't use them was because Quickenings do so much more damage for about the same amount of energy. But if there was a lot of enemies around then they were good for clearing the way.

I always figured HP <-> MP Switch was for people who wanted their limit break to build really fast. Or people who were spell crazy and just wanted tons of MP.

Speaking of limit breaks, a lot of them were useless too.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

VIII
Devour (Eats a weak enemy to recover HP to the eater. You do not gain experience however and sometimes little HP is gained.)

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Devour will occasionally increase statistics permanently without having to use a source type item. I believe that was its intended purpose.

I used Card once in a while. Not often.

Gil Toss I've used in a lot of FF's, particularly against tougher enemies. It's extremely powerful and I never lost much money by using it (when you consider how easy it is to gain gil in FF games, anyway). I wonder how much it does use?

I use status effects a lot in some games, rarely in others. On enemies, that is. I often use status effects on my own characters. Junctioning them in VIII was amusing. Death? Ahahaha. But my favourite status attack will always be Doomtrain. That really screwed the enemy right up.

Devour had it's uses for extreme players but I never played it that long so didn't bother.

I figure that HP<->MP switch would be useful for someone who is leveling a lot and likes to have one character heal everyone whenever they are injured. I always figured that was the real reason for using that materia. Particularly if they use the PHS on a map, they could effectively never need to rest because they could simply draft in the character, heal everyone and keep going. The character wouldn't exactly run out of MP anytime soon. Still, that's a real stretch and I still think it's useless. :p

Summons were useful in some games, not so much in others. I barely touched them in XII or XIII. For the latter, it only became useful when I decided to go completionist and get all trophies. Knocking down legs and all. But yeah, I used summons much more when they were just a fancy attack rather than an actual summoning.

I don't think you could possibly build a viable build around HP<->MP Switch. Your HP would just be so low you would be constantly getting insta-gibbed in battle.

Sure you could do it if you wanted the challenge, but I can't possibly see it being an asset in any way.

(New FF7 challenge: Get HP<->MP Switch as soon as possible, master 2 and equip the entire party for the rest of the game)

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Originally Posted by Roogle

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

VIII
Devour (Eats a weak enemy to recover HP to the eater. You do not gain experience however and sometimes little HP is gained.)

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Devour will occasionally increase statistics permanently without having to use a source type item. I believe that was its intended purpose.

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That's interesting. I never knew it did that.

I can't remember which FF I played recently where I got stuck at a boss and threw all my 100,000 gil and it barely did any damage. May have been FFX, but I know I hit the reset button and tried a different tactic after that.

I tend to use Gil Toss on Yunalesca if I neglected to grind beforehand. It just always ends up that way! Mad Rush and Assault are good for random encounters where you're just gonna X it the whole way through. Status effects were very useful in FFVIII, and somewhat in FFX. Summons were done best in FFX, though maybe a bit overpowered. I also used them in FFXIII in emergency situations.

Was Bribe in any FF besides FFX? It was actually useful but incredibly counter-productive.

:bou::bou::bou::bou: I forgot all about Bribe. Was it just a move that let you pay enemies to leave the battle?

If you want to know where Gil Toss is most useful, I'd say - based on the games I've played so far - FFV. Four characters using gil toss will decimate any boss.

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Originally Posted by Depression Moon

:bou::bou::bou::bou: I forgot all about Bribe. Was it just a move that let you pay enemies to leave the battle?

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Yes.