I would have liked to have been there when they decided four castings of KotR was overpowered, but two is fine.
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.
streme Wheelie
Recognized Member
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.
I like Kung-Fu.
Devour will occasionally increase statistics permanently without having to use a source type item. I believe that was its intended purpose.Originally Posted by Depression Moon
I believe in the power of humanity.
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.
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.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
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)
That's interesting. I never knew it did that.Devour will occasionally increase statistics permanently without having to use a source type item. I believe that was its intended purpose.
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.
I like Kung-Fu.
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.
Bow before the mighty Javoo!
Yes.
I like Kung-Fu.
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