7 Abilities That Ended Up Being Almost Completely Useless

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Final Fantasy has featured countless abilities over the years, but while some have been pretty incredible, others have been almost useless. It's those that're running through in this video!
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Credits
Writers: Darryl, Domenic
Editors: Joe

[@howamidriving27]

Maybe this is a hot tale but status effect black magic in general. Random encounters are easy enough to defeat without using status effects, and bosses you might actually want to debuff are usually immune.

[@makokx7063]

I feel like this is pretty much all RPGs. I've been playing video games for nearly 35 years now with RPGs being by far my favorite genre and so few games make status effects worth it. Like you said, most mobs are taken down quickly with normal violence and most bosses are immune.

[@2smileystudios205]

Exactly this. I never use status magic.

[@kamron_thurmond]

Then you would really love Final Fantasy XIII

[@ventusse]

​@@makokx7063this is why I like Persona. Status debuffs are so important. And in older releases, bosses are not immune to status effects. Look at Margaret or even the reaper being vulnerable to the shock status.

[@kane99560]

Outside of specific bosses with a weakness I never use status magic. To be fair tho I rarely use magic/magic characters in general 🤷🏽‍♂️

[@robertthomas756]

The death spell in ffx. Almost all high level enemies were immune and the enemies that weren't could usually be killed in a single hit anyway.

[@enlongjones2394]

I feel like the ideal way to do the death spell would be to make it something you can optionally use automatically at the start of fights with enemies that are far enough below you that you’d win immediately anyway. A way to speed up encounters that have become a foregone conclusion.

[@DanielRidore]

But use it as an added effect to your attack and it does instant kill a bunch of monsters

[@dansmith16]

Abilities, not spells. We did spell and one of them was that map for FFV.

[@ericstelzman5190]

There's also the fact that you lose out on the Overkill bonus.

[@TheAuron32]

@@ericstelzman5190 good point, extra AP is one thing, but double the items is another, dont want to miss that.

[@GitraSilvermane]

Never knew Thunder Slash was bugged like that. As a kid, I just thought it was one of those things where when a boss does it, it's awesome. But when we get it, it's super nerfed.

[@Jw87563]

Reminds me of moves like Supersonic or Hypnosis in Pokémon, which work way more for the enemy AI than my team.

[@bobafettjr85]

I just found out it was bugged a few weeks ago. I went to fight Quale who is weak to Thunder and had just picked up the Ragnarok which teaches Thunder Slash so I figured I was golden. Nope! After it missed 3 times in a row I searched why it was missing and found out. I didn't even have Vivi in the party so I couldn't even use Thunder Sword instead. At least I had Shock available.

[@AdiG1]

I thought only Quina could fight Quale, like a 1v1 fight as Barret did with Dyne.

[@bobafettjr85]

@AdiG1 Quina has to be in the party but you still get 4 members.

[@gurvmlk]

When I was a kid, I just blindly trusted that if a game had been released, that meant it had to be fully functional. So whenever I'd encounter a bug that made a feature in a game feel like it didn't work correctly, I would always assume that there must be a reason for that. One example was accuracy in Final Fantasy 6, and its effect on the blind status. Playing the game a ton as a kid, blindness never seemed to do anything. But I never imagined it was because it actually did nothing, let alone did nothing due to a bug. I just spent years (until the release of FF6 Advance) assuming that the blind status in FF6 didn't lower your accuracy, but instead had some more obscure effect that I couldn't figure out.

[@DarttheLegend]

“So sketch is basically useless” FF6 speedrunners: “hold my beer” LOL

[@eshelynn]

I feel like Pray was made with planned obselescance in mind. If pray was percentage based or scaled well why would you spec into Cure spells? It was probably intended to help you through early game, and fall off in usefulness.

[@54raynor]

It also provided Yuna (and others) with a quick positive action that ensured she got used in a battle without wasting any MP.

[@BrandenMeyers]

I found Pray really helpful to get Yuna the Healer Overdrive method early in the game. And as has been pointed out, it gave her a free action that was at least more helpful than whacking with her staff for 2 HP of damage.

[@JCRS92]

Also it makes sense with FFX's theme of overcoming religious zealots and the like. Praying becomes obsolete for Wakka, for example, as his faith crumbles, or to Yuna, as she realizes what Yevon really is doing.

[@oldscoolest]

Pray is useful for exactly 1 battle, against Crawler, who can block magic from being used.

[@retromad8222]

Actually pray becomes useful if you mix it with rikku s overdrive megafever 9. You can heal 9999 all your team without mp. Best healing move lol

[@KaminoNeko]

I used Pray right up to the end of FFX, as it was often a better way to skip Yuna's turn than actually skipping it when trying to level someone else up. But this is obviously a really weird edge case.

[@ryanball8944]

I don't think it's a weird edge case at all! I too used Pray for a long time - perhaps not as long as you did, but I still used it until I got Yuna a Spiritual Ring and got out-of-combat MP Regen. At that point, all MP worries were gone. But until then, Yuna spent more turns than most in my active party. Having access to a resource-free heal is fantastic in any game, and it's not like she's doing anything else with that turn. You want to talk about a useless skill that I've almost never used (used once, thought "yep, that's a skill alright", and never used again)? Nab Gil. The game showers you with so much money, getting a few hundred gil per fight when I could be stealing items or swapping in a damage dealer just didn't seem worth it

[@ThundagaT2]

Pray can actually be made extremely useful if combined with Trio of 9999 to make it heal for 9999 HP to everyone for no cost lol.

[@Snzn18]

I probably use Pray more than most of Kimari's abilities really

[@denisfolcik1373]

I actually used it a lot to as a kid when playing, since I made sure to have every party member do something on every random encounter, so they all gained "exp". Pray was atleast better than just defending til I rotated everyone through.

[@retr0shot]

It's weird seeing pray become so useful in FF7R compared to FFX

[@natecunha2795]

Pray became super useful in FFX-2 as it took much less time than casting a spell and was the easiest way to level up White Mages.

[@chillnagasden6190]

Wait till you get to Hard mode and MP does not naturally restore >.>;.

[@KeDe1606]

I thought Pray was absolute garbage in Rebirth for the longest time. I just put it on Aerith because that’s what I did in Remake (and because „heehoo prayer girl). And then I figured „hmm, what if I put it on someone who doesn’t take 2 entire centuries to fill up their ATB bars“. (And then right after, I figured „hmm, what if I use my magnify materia on anything other than offensive spells“) Lo and behold, didn’t game over once for the rest of my hard mode playthrough. Turns out, having a reliable source of party-wide healing is actually pretty good. Who would’ve thought

[@kane99560]

​@@chillnagasden6190yeah. I use Chakra and Prayer as my main healing options. Rebirth is the first FF7 where I basically didn't use cure🤷🏽‍♂️

[@kieragard]

I wouldn't say useful, there's definitely better options even in hard mode. Even using those two bars on super powerful abilities makes more sense.

[@keeganlafferty1395]

FFVII Rebirth's version of Morph comes to mind, in the original game it was a weaker than usual attack that converted an enemy into a useful item if it was lethal, and it was how you got the extremely valuable "Source" items which were FFVII's stat boosters, however in Rebirth Morph has fallen hard, they made it an "execution" style ability where the enemy has to be so low that they die to your AI party members' attacks before it lands anyways, plus for most enemies their morph drop is also their rare drop, and you're more likely to get the rare drop than a successful Morph, I feel they should've made Morph into more of a short lived status effect that morphs the enemy when it loses enough health, at least then we'd be able to preemptively use it without wasting it because the enemy is still too healthy to be morphed, not to mention adding unique items that can only be obtained via Morph (such as the aforementioned "Source" items)

[@davidseymore2974]

You could use yuffies ultimate weapon to do max damage with more in the og so much easier fatnibg them sources 😆

[@keeganlafferty1395]

@@davidseymore2974 EXACTLY, OG Morph could have its damage be increased! Rebirth Morph is stuck at that pitifully low success threshold, it can't even level up to reduce how low an enemy has to be for it to work

[@DannyPotato]

I think if the hp stayed still when you cast morph so the companions don’t kill the enemy would already make it feel better. Or like you said, apply a brief debuff and if you kill it within the duration, it morphs

[@keeganlafferty1395]

@@DannyPotato my mom actually had another good idea on how to improve Morph: make it a linked Materia which gives the ability/magic materia it's linked to a chance to morph on kill

[@DannyPotato]

@@keeganlafferty1395 oooo. That is interesting. The %chance would have to be very low… But cute. A little occasional surprise.

[@adrianschutz405]

I used Pray in FFX to make Yuna learn the Overdrive Mode "Healer" faster as it was free and healed everybody, as low as the healing was, other than that it was useless.

[@caosisaac]

It was god tiered when paired with rikku. Use her strongest mix overdrive to make everything 9999 and suddenly you have free max party heals every turn.

[@Jw87563]

​@@caosisaacReally? I need to try that.

[@caosisaac]

@@Jw87563 yeah, its the trio of 9999 mix. It makes all skills and abilities locked at 9999. So prayer will always heal the party for max.

[@Jw87563]

@@caosisaac I'm currently playing FFX but I haven't finished it. I don't think I'm far enough to get the items needed, but keep that in mind.

[@caosisaac]

@@Jw87563 prayer is also invaluable if you want to unlock all of tidus' overdrives early. You grind in besaid until tidus gets the slayer overdrive style and yuna gets prayer. Then in the sin fight on the way to kilika don't target sin. With 5 cheers tidus, kimhari, and possibly yuna can 1 shot the infinite sinscales. Then yuna can keep the party healed forever with cheer while tidus builds up and uses his overdrives over and over. After 80 overdrives you have all of his overdrive forms. The party also gets around 23 sphere levels.

[@enlongjones2394]

A note about Sketch’s accuracy. If you equip the beret headgear, Relm’s chance of sketching goes up. It effectively means she can successfully sketch 100% of the time if she’s at least *half* the level of the target.

[@veghesther3204]

About that at least Sketch is useful for the ENTIRE game after Relm first joins Runic POST Tunnel armor boss killed I find to be completely WORTHLESS.

[@Veylon]

@@veghesther3204 Yeah. The best you could do was spam it and hope the enemy used something compatible. Would've been really nice if it always did something useful, but did something EXTRA useful if used at the right time.

[@veghesther3204]

As for that Beret Headgear its worthless sure it UPS Sketch but it also can be bet for 1 of the Genji armor sets which is so much MORE useful.

[@someguy4252]

@@Veylon one thing i think would put it in the right direction is if it always restored a small ammount of mp or even gave a weak mp regen effect with its lighting rod effect being annother use of it.

[@gurvmlk]

@@veghesther3204 Runic is also extremely useful against Kefka during the invasion of Narshe. Just don't use magic with any of your other characters, and Celes can basically disable Kefka from being able to defend himself. Especially if you give her Hermes Sandals, if you found them, to make sure that Kefka won't get a second turn before she can activate it again.

[@RagnarokiaNG]

Sketch can be used to glitch the game for speedruns or general game destroying mayhem, so it has that going for it at least.

[@Forever_Zero]

For me is Edward's ability Hide, it's supposed to prevent him from dying but becomes more of a liability than an advantage

[@SNAFUq]

How was this not on the list? I just remember my dumb kid butt using it in his mandatory solo fights like “Am I winning?” XD

[@AdiG1]

Kid Snafu wasn't a dumb child. You're given a skill that was supposed to help, but it failed you. If anything, you were let down by bad game mechanics

[@wiseguy240Winston]

Edward as a whole person is useless 😂

[@daviddalrymple2284]

Hey, Hide is really useful for the FF4 remakes that allow other party members to use Hide (DS) or that let you bring Edward to the Zeromus fight (GBA/PSP).

[@gurvmlk]

I feel like all they would've needed to do to fix Hide was make it so that Edward gradually recovers HP while hidden. Especially since he automatically hides when his HP is low, which just winds up being a detriment since it costs you a party member because you can never get him healed during the sort periods when he pops back out. The thing is, Hide could've actually been a strong ability, but you have Edward in your party way too early for it to matter. Imagine being able to activate it against bosses like Bahamut, who have tells leading into extremely powerful attacks. You could have him hide to avoid the damage, then come back out to resume the fight without a scratch. Or maybe have him capable of hiding to stop a Doom counter, or some other similar effect so long as he's hidden. But at the time when you have Edward, all you're really facing are generic enemies that punch you, and that's pretty much it.

[@jnhensley09]

For Yuna's Pray ability, I usually only used it to make sure that she participated in battle so she can get exp and ap.

[@mattsully2238]

Just block with triangle.

[@denisfolcik1373]

I would get everyone it when I could, since I would swap everyone in for every fight to make sure everyone got exp every fight.

[@Nevil565]

Pray ability in FFX is super op. If you make trio of 9999 with Rikku’s mix you can heal the party for 9999 HP, the max you can have of you’re not using break hp limit. And the items are not impossible to be obtained also.

[@illyahrthebard3303]

Your point is that Pray is OP when you apply a super OP ability to it?

[@illburnmydread]

@@illyahrthebard3303 Trio of 9999 is not really a "super OP" ability though, when you reach the point of dealing more than 9999 per hit with Break Damage Limit, it loses the use of using it, but pairing it with Pray however is different story. It becomes even better than Curaga which can only heal a single target, Pray heals 3.

[@illyahrthebard3303]

@@illburnmydread If you have a challenge where you don't increase your power, like the No Sphere Grid challenge, and there is an ability that everyone agrees is necessary for it, then the ability is super powerful. That's just how the balance math works

[@BahamutBreaker]

Wait a minute… you’re telling me that Square has released several ports and remasters for FF9, and they DIDN’T fix the Thunder Slash bug? Why not??

[@mattsully2238]

It's easier to port then to open the code and fix

[@deanmottershead9208]

@@mattsully2238it’s hardly a important bug the attack isn’t that special also a remaster should in my opinion be as close to the retail version people remember as possible

[@mattsully2238]

@@deanmottershead9208 traditionalist. I respect that. I would wish for an improvement but to each their own. Cheers

[@ThisIsntAYoutuber]

@@deanmottershead9208 All abilities and spells should not be rendered useless because of a bug, no matter how irrelevant the skill is. Fixing it would not take away from the original, and there are aspects of the original that have no place being reintroduced in a remaster. FFV’s bows and daggers were also bugged because they failed to take speed into account, and that bug was also never fixed, and now they are useless except for the chicken knife. I was still upset that it wasn’t fixed in the remaster, and that bug had no place in that game.

[@AnchorJG]

Square is a small indy company that-

[@ponyboy9765]

I played FF9 way back when it was first released and have probably played it close to 100 times since then and I never understood why Thunder slash always missed. I always just assumed I was using it wrong and never bothered looking it up. Thank you for solving the 25 year mystery.

[@illyahrthebard3303]

Thunder Slash was incorrectly tagged as Gravity magic instead of Lightning magic. Since the only Gravity magics auto-hit as part of their effect, there wasn't a need to give it an accuracy stat.

[@talesbyscreenlight]

A lot of these amounted to "It was useful in early game but got overtaken by other abilities ." Or "A future update changed the mechanics." By those parameters you could have said, "Cure becomes unnecessary once you get Cura."

[@lechuck3337]

First Aid is actually useful when trying to auto-level at the Henne Mines with the Jellies. That way you don't need to worry about losing MP or inventory if you hit critical. Save the MP for revive in case of emergencies, and you'll pretty much never die, since the Jellies can't hit you too hard.

[@leolightfellow]

I found Pray useful in the early main game, with Yuna, before you have a lot of MP for her.

[@SamsarasArt]

And it heals your whole party too.

[@caosisaac]

If used after rikku uses her 9999 mix then it becomes the best healing ability in the game. I also use it to get blitz ace before i get to kilika island. I teach tidus the slayer overdrive mode and yuna prayer, do the sin fight on the boat with infinite sin spawn, cheer 5x so tidus, kimhari, and sometimes yuna can ohko the sinspawn, then have yuna pray as needed to heal as tidus fills his overdrive over and over and i use it 80ish times to get all his overdrives unlocked. I think by the time that happens and everyone gets a shot in when the battle ends everyone gets about 23 levels?

[@t-dollas5442]

​@caosisaac this right here is a great way to prep for end game bosses.

[@zacheray]

Still petitioning for a video on underdog spells/ abilities that were extremely useful but never got the praise they deserved such as Tractor from FFXI

[@Jw87563]

Does Tractor work like a Tractor beam to draw in enemies for more efficient grinding, or does it actually summon a Tractor? Either option sounds pretty good.

[@Malacite]

​@@Jw87563 It brings a dead player closer to you in case it's too dangerous to revive them where they died.

[@luxtigris]

It seems impossible to bring back the spirit of FFXI at the time. Entering an online gaming world for the first time & your first experience of that world Windurst is quite the experience. Even more so as a taru RDM/BLM. I always wonder what my linkshell friends are up to now.

[@FirstLast-mn4re]

The main thing I remember about Sketch is that on my first playthrough of the FF 6, I tried using it on Ultros and it caused my game to crash and I ended up losing like 2 hours of progress because I hadn't saved it a while. I then never used Sketch again for the rest of my playthrough.

[@hekonaleeinos5510]

I remember almost going mad trying to make thunder slash work and was to the point of wondering if there was not some specific conditions i had to meet to make it actually useful. In the end, my mind stayed sound, even if the game wasn't.

[@illyahrthebard3303]

Yeah, it was incorrectly tagged as Gravity magic instead of Lightning. Since any other Gravity effect auto-hits, it didn't have an accuracy.

[@Dispariabooks]

Useless abilities you say? *Cyan has entered the chat*

[@Fluffyudders]

I feel like half of these are actually just early-game abilities that quickly become redundant rather than being useless.

[@ineptznonz]

it'd be cool to see a version that talked about abilities that were way too overpowered

[@LukeTennisMofo]

Good luck limiting that to 7 lol

[@mattsully2238]

FFX quick hit. It's not flashy but it is broken

[@GreatestPanther]

​@@mattsully2238Yeah in the Japanese and US version you could kill Nemesis in 5minutes. In the International/European version its downtime was much higher

[@deathbleu5741]

Probably some Squall and Tidus limit breaks lol

[@JamesTheCelestial]

If limit breaks count, FFX's Mix I don't know if I'd count limit breaks, but non-magical creature abilities from X-2 are something i would absolutely count, and there are some that are very busted.

[@ebbepettersson98]

Pray does have minimal scaling in ffX i used it alot when i needed everyone too gain health some back durring long fights when i was out of albhed potions or hade verry few left and needed too save them for mixes

[@Gamer3427]

Pray is useful during the early game, particularly since it doesn't use MP, so I wouldn't call it almost completely useless. That moniker would have to go to quite a few of Kimahri's overdrives he can get via lancet. He has a few good ones, but the majority of them are incredibly situational to the point that you'd likely never see them. My particular vote though goes to Self Destruct, as not only does it instantly kill him for what is generally not going to be a ton of damage, but it kills him in a way that keeps him from reviving or being replaced until the battle is over, meaning you're now down to only two party members.

[@TheGphillip17]

Even though the Enc-Half/None abilities are effectively nullified because of the powerups in the Remastered version, you still need them for the PuPu/UFO encounters because the powerup nullifies all encounters, whereas the Enc abilities turn them all off except for those. Just had to do that on my switch.

[@infernas]

FF8's Enc-None was a must back in the day. It was essential to keeping your party's level low until you got to Bahamut.

[@ThundagaT2]

Not really, you can spam Quetzacoatl's Card ability to turn enemies into cards without gaining exp. In fact thats the better method since you still get AP for your GFs

[@infernas]

@@ThundagaT2 that takes ages thoigh since you'd still have to whittle down the enemies' health so you could Card them. 😩 I mean, sure, get the APs, but once all skills have been maxed for a GF, Enc-None would speed things up significantly.

[@ThundagaT2]

@@infernas Oh well by that point yeah lol. I agree whittling them down is a pain at times. Although you could somewhat guarantee Card hitting if you cast demi, or summon Diablos against enemies. But either way works lol

[@illburnmydread]

First Aid in XII is useful for several strategies that involve characters to be staying in critical HP. Instead of using "HP Critical = First Aid", it's better to use "HP

[@Prinygod]

For FFT i think Vampire or blood suck is worst than aim 20, i mean while aim 20 will probably miss you only just wasted a turn, Vampire requires you to have a human character with monster skill support equipped, and an vampire cat next to it, so that's 2 turns. It also has 1 range and 0 vertical tolerance so the cat needs to also be adjacent to an enemy that is on the same level as the vampire cat, so if the cat is on vert 10 and the enemy is on vert 10 1/2 you could not use it. But lets say you do use it, you get a drain attack no stronger than the drain spell, plus a 25% of Vampire status effect. Even though the main reason to use the ability at all is the vampire effect, your probably better off with it not landing, as the affected unit will attack any unit in range with a version of Blood suck that always causes the status effect if not immune, and now 2 of your units are right next to it. Thankfully as a monster vampire cat is immune, Oh did i forget to mention that, In addition to all practically unique being immune to blood suck, all monsters are as well. If all that was not enough Vampire cat can use blaster with out Monster skill at which has a decent chance of stop or petrify at a range of 3

[@TheTruestZero]

Can I say that when FF14 was mentioned, I KNEW that Undraw would be mentioned.

[@venomdealer22none48]

Death in zodiac age was a wasted ability cause almost everything I would want to use it on it was immune same with a good amount of marks I needed to hunt like damn why did I unlock this.

[@mgarcar1255]

Before watching the video, if deodorize from ffxi isn't mentioned, it will be a missed opportunity

[@ThundagaT2]

the unholy trinity that is Horology, Numerology, and Traveler technicks in FF12. Also throw 1000 needles into that as well as typically by the point you get it, your characters should be well beyond being able to hit for over 1000 damage with normal attacks. The only fringe use for it is against Chaos where the normal attack command is sealed.

[@DukeNukem2020]

I just realized that FFXII’s “foe/ally” system looks like it inspired the FFVII Rebirth’s side quest battle where the little robots face off against the Slimes

[@obsidianblack7249]

Might be a bit of a hot take but trance from FF9. You have little to no control over its activation and will usually be wasted in a random encounter and not during a boss fight. Also the "cover girls" skill from the same game.

[@blueguitarthings4722]

The Cover Girls skill actually comes in handy for some speedrun strats. Trance, on the other hand, is almost always a time waste outside of some specific battles, and it’s totally random how much trance bar you build so you can’t plan for it at all.

[@coonurkan]

Trance is so weird to me. Why they didn't just stick with limit breaks is beyond me, the way they worked in 7 was the ideal comeback mechanic and were fun to use. 8 to a lesser extent since they could be abused so easily

[@TallulahSoie]

The only time Trance was useful for me is for Zidane on Ozma.

[@ZackeryGee]

The one gripe I have about FFIX is the Trance system. It suuuuucks. I chose "attack" but then asshole went Trance and WASTED a move. You can see why people didn't give it a chance

[@neodav00001]

Not just in a random encounter, but at the very end of a random encounter, and the meter would be completely drained for nothing. With just one simple change, they could have made it so much better: Once the meter is built up, let the player choose when to actually trigger it. Red XIII's Vengeance Mode in FF7 Rebirth is actually a good example of a system similar to Trance being done right.

[@EastToWestTCG]

I always like your videos before they even start.

[@Tony_409]

I would say Royal Guard in FFXV because you can use items to heal from your inventory anytime so it doesn't matter if it you lose all your hp since you just go into Down status where you can still use items

[@EdgedShadow]

Ultima in FF2. Huge questline that makes it out to be an ultra-powerful and important spell, and it ends up useless. Even at max power, its damage is pathetic compared to weapons.

[@Borgdrohne13]

I was wondering, why you didn't mention certain spells from Final Fantasy I, more exactly the NES version. Due to programming errors, certain spells like Temper didn't work properly or at all.

[@Shadohime]

This list is for abilities, not spells. They've had two different videos on nearly-useless spells at this point.

[@halomaxus]

I only ever used pray in ffx in like 1 battle and that was the super long time I spent grinding the sin fin scales for exp long before I learned how the fight actually worked.

[@liquidaria4454]

I see your point on the no encounter ability being useless with the remastered release of 8 but I feel that's kind of low hanging fruit when you take into account the game on release. Kind of wild though they never fixed Thunder Slash in 9.

[@illyahrthebard3303]

The code for FF9 was described as a "house of cards." They could change it from the incorrect Gravity magic to Lightning magic, but there's no telling what other issues it might cause.

[@sarahheart7856]

an ability in ffX let you always do 9999 (forget if it was an item or a mix) and you could use that in some really niche instances where you wanted to drag out a fight, and use pray infinitely as a full party full heal. I think. Been forever since I've touched 10.

[@mushublaze]

I also thought Pray was a nice free, pass turn move, so I could switch around party members to spread AP around. While it definitely drops off in late game, it's nice for early to mid game heals, to keep the party alive while grinding through the early areas. There's also the very niche case of using Trio of 9999 to make Pray heal the party for free, but I only found use in that during the Penance fight when I had Break HP Limit and was on a tight turn rotation. I wouldn't put this ability on everybody, and there's definitely better uses for the Special Sphere. I just found it fun to use, especially when I put Lulu through the Expert Sphere Grid, and she's healing the party until her eventual path of -Ga spell destruction.

[@thejrguevarra]

It will be interesting for someone to be able to get the most out of these abilities. Hope someone craks the code. I just think that there's so much to these abilities except for the undraw and encounter none/half.

[@jezixhylus3370]

On the topic of FFTactics, I'd have to say that most of Dragoons abilities are useless, as getting Jump 8 and Vertical Jump 8 (Names may be incorrect) makes getting all previous numbers obsolete (I've done this out of curiosity). That being said, you could feasibly get the horizontal and vertical jump 3 or 4 until you saved up enough to get 8 for both and just get the rest later JUST for mastering the class.

[@craigfunk3453]

Before watching: i better see Steiner's thunder slash on this list, that thing can't hit anything (iirc because of a broken coding interaction or something essentially giving it 0 accuracy) Edit: undraw is very niche now since its only use now is to avoid taking on a seal from your cards you Don't want (either because you already have that seal, or accepting that seal ends up removing another seal you wanted to keep) since one of AST's skills is at its best when used with all 3 seals (sun, moon, star) but even with draw/redraw you still have a pretty decent chance of not getting the seal you need

[@pyroprince90]

Using Pray in FFX in conjunction with trio of 9999 is a free way to get a ton of use out of it. Pretty sure there’s some challenge runs that make use of that combo

[@kodytiffany5686]

Maybe some else remembers better... I believe that certain spells in FF3 (SNES) had more or less 0% chance of ever working despite the Players guide "tipping" that if combo'ed with Vanish would insta kill. On that note X Zone+ Vanish worked on many bosses. Some monsters Gau became would also lock him into some bad loops.

[@metleon]

There is exactly one use for FFX's Pray, and that's healing everyone to fill after Rikku's Trio of 9999 has been used. Though even then, I think people just use Auto Potion with X-Potions to heal back to full for free if they really need it.

[@ericb3157]

oh, when i used Sketch against many enemies in the second half of the game (SNES version), it frequently CRASHED MY GAME! BUT i ONCE got a helpful glitch, that messed up my Inventory in a strange way, that gave me 265 of EVERY item in the game, including unique equipment, like the Ultima sword!

[@ludofranca8884]

FFXIV - Undraw is useful. If you want to make the most of your buff you have to pick 3 different symbols. So if you get a repeated symbol, you try to redraw, then undraw

[@philbateman1989]

Given how open to messing with the file structure PSX games tend to be, you could probably fix the Thunder Slash glitch yourself with pretty minimal poking around. I do it all the time when I run FF7 and have to do the Speed Square mini-game. Just take a savestate while playing it, find the hex value of your score in the RAM dump, and change it to 0x270f and bam, 9999 points :D

[@Shadohime]

AST is getting a rework in Dawntrail, which comes out in early July. Perhaps Undraw will be removed then?

[@jezixhylus3370]

Removed or become actually useful for the new style of play. We'll see.

[@brycearmstrong9370]

When you mentioned Astro instead of Summoner for 14 I asked myself "What could be more useless than Summoner Physick?" Then you started to talking about cards and I said "Oh, yeah that makes sense."

[@razekal4255]

Honestly I still think SMN Physick is still worse since it could have been a damage spell instead. Though I suppose the video is "Almost useless" not "Actively detrimental"

[@illyahrthebard3303]

The reason Thunder Slash had an accuracy of 0 was because it was mistakenly made Gravity magic instead of Lightning. Gravity just does a thing without actually attacking, so they didn't need to put an accuracy rating on it. Since Thunder Slash actually requires an attack, it would almost never hit.

[@Atticus117]

Steal in FF7 Remake is another example. Aside from a single weapon you needed to get from a boss and maybe farming Champion's Belts, there was really no reason to use it. You could occasionally get a rare consumable item, but those aren't all that useful in Remake and can't be used in hard mode. It's a bit more useful in Rebirth, as Yuffie can get certain passive skills that give her buffs when successfully stealing. You can also take advantage of the ATB that's refunded when combined with something like Plasma Discharge, but it's still one of the least useful abilities (next to Morph and Item Economizer in hard mode).

[@Rusty_Katana]

There is a certain kind of material needed to transmute giga potions/mist giga potions, the Saint Luche Leaf. These cannot be bought, and need to be farmed outside in Nibel region, or can be stolen from the little Kyuvildun enemies. This is when Steal really shines. If you want those strong potion variants, you’ll need a lot of leafs. Planet’s Spirit is also needed for this. And you’ll even need the leafs for that lol

[@hm5y]

Im curisous, in which region was this bugged? Was it all regions or just 1 specific region?

[@psyckwhoever4197]

My only use for Pray in FFX was to unlock the Healer Overdrive mode faster. You could just spam it, if the enemies were a little weaker than your party and you want to learn it with everyone (Which I did, because I liked to do 100%).

[@venabre]

Up until the release of Endwalker, Black Mages had a nigh-useless spell in their kit: Blizzard 2 In XIV Black Mages function by alternating between a high damage, high mana consumption fire phase and a low damage, mana regenerating ice phase. Fire 2 and Blizzard 2 were aoe spells, and were meant to be used for pack pulls. However unlike fire 2 which affects the area around the target, blizzard 2 affected the area around the user. In most cases black mages stand away from the enemies, so it was a very inconvenient spell to use. Furthermore not long after getting Blizzard 2 they would get access to Freeze, another ice phase aoe, but one that affected the area around the target and that also had another benefit by giving you stacks of something that powered up your upcoming fire spells (at least I think it did that but I might be wrong about it) That means that for most of the game there is just no reason to use Blizzard 2, and even if you go into one of the dungeons in which it would work many people just didn't bother using it because of having to move into the fray for it to hit the enemies.

[@acrab6527]

What? It worked perfectly. Enemy comes to attack you, instacast blizzard 2 because it's cast time is tiny, and cut in half again if you're in Astral Fire, binding them in place, and run away so they can't hit you. Teleport away with aetherial manipulation so you don't even have to stop casting.

[@venabre]

@@acrab6527 enemy comes to you you just use Manaward and keep blasting it with fire. It will die before the shield breaks. Also in Shadowbringers Blizzard 2 didn't induce any status effects, and before ShB the one that induced bind was Freeze, not Blizzard 2

[@acrab6527]

@@venabre wrong, it always did bind since release

[@venabre]

@@acrab6527 check the patch notes. It didn't have bind in ShB

[@darksuns7384]

An issue with jrpgs in general is you'll have this massive toolkit of abilities that would be useful against some boss encounter but, the boss is always immune to status ailments. The abilities work on random encounters but, it's just faster to deal with trash mobs using pure damage.

[@acrab6527]

FFXI Charm. After a few years, the Dev's simply made everything in the game immune to it, forcing Beastmaster's to use weak Jug pets. This also made several other abilities like Guage (see how easy something is to charm) Leave, (uncharms things) and sic (use random special move of charmed pet) worthless as well.

[@SamsarasArt]

Thunder slash in FF9. It's literally useless since it's bugged. Steiner will always miss if tries to use it.

[@feelyourlines]

do any of the Union crew play XIV actively, or do you guys prefer to keep characters private?

[@daskovu2156]

Think almost every single specialty move Zidane has access to is pretty useless

[@illyahrthebard3303]

Several of them are extremely useful, if you know the calculations and how they work. Soul Blade auto applies the equipped weapon's status effect to the target. Thievery scales based on level and number of successful Steal attempts. What's That?! causes all enemies to turn around, giving you a bonus to damage from attacking their blind side.

[@jayonnaise6105]

Pray was always my go to healing spell in FF VII Remake & Rebirth. Crazy to think there was an earlier game where it was essentially useless. Kinda reminds me of how they buffed Leech Life in more recent Pokemon games to do more base damage, and therefore restore more health.

[@jonmcknight18]

I thought ffx's would of been Lancet since it's only use is teaching Kimari his overdrives

[@JamesTheCelestial]

That is a use, though, and can be a pretty good one. It allows him to get Mighty Guard, for example.

[@ThundagaT2]

I use Lancet to recover MP for my party members, since unlike Osmose its available early in the game especially if using the expert sphere grid

[@Snzn18]

One thing about atb is that it makes me less likely to try out spells out for curiosity.

[@ivenstorm]

Before watching the video: Anything to do with Zidanes Trance. I get where they were going, but he needed better abilities than the ones he was given.

[@kinglionheart50]

You know I am beginning to think the writers have a hate biased for 8. In everyone of the "7 X that was Almost Completely Useless" FF8 had a entry even if it was not fair. I get there are only 16 main games so choosing 7 of them will give us repeats but finding something from 8 each time seem so deliberate. Like in this one, the Remastered edition added cheats that broke the game so certain abilities is no longer useful is just unfair. If in the next "7 X that was Almost Completely Useless" 8 appears again I will be certain.

[@ElTaitronAnim]

In fairness to Pray, it's pretty handy early-game to have a free full-party heal, which even makes the user's next turn come up sooner than using White Magic. The fact that Thunder Slash still hasn't been fixed despite the multiple FF9 re-releases is really baffling.

[@danielrisueno8003]

That reminds me lots of blue magic abilities that are destined to targets with a specific level in various games, such as "Death lv 4" sort of spells. Did anybody actually use those?

[@daviddalrymple2284]

Level 5 death has some very specific uses in Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy IX.

[@kyleandrew1987]

In FFXI online, the Scholar has an ability called Modus Veritas. In its original form, it would enhance helix spells to be absolutely mega powerful. Helix put on a heavy damage over time effect, and Modus could be used to kill bosses with minimal effort. SE nerfed it so hard that it is a dead ability. It has no use whatsoever on anything.

[@LotofNothing]

Any ability that caused blindness in the og release of ff6

[@rickygamerpro]

I love this Channel ❤❤

[@tbrandy1405]

I would add Graviga (especially in FF7 Rebirth because a lot of them are immune to it when it really mattered) and Aerith's Noble Sacrifice because honestly, what kind of sicko are you to do that to Aerith???

[@purplefreedom1631]

I don't think you can add an ability so powerful they added it as a base option to the remastered game to the list.

[@jnichols0388]

AST Undraw ability is for fishing seals on cards, not the cards themselves. That was a bit of an inaccurate/incorrect entry into this list.

[@enlongjones2394]

I feel like using Undraw instead of just going ahead and using a less-than-ideal Astrodyne is worse for you. As I’m pretty sure that means you get fewer uses of Astrodyne overall over the course of a fight. It also means fewer cards get played, and every card represents a boost in the party’s damage. I’m pretty sure it’s always better to Redraw once if it’s a bad seal, and then just play the card regardless.

[@jnichols0388]

Undraws saving grace is that it's off the global cooldown, so there's seldom a reason not to attempt at going for 3 seals or 2, anything is better than just 1 especially in a raid setting. It's pretty important for optimized AST play.

[@enlongjones2394]

@@jnichols0388 I mean, aside from the fact that undraw removes a card, which you spent a charge of Draw on. Each Undraw is a Play you’re not doing, no?

[@jnichols0388]

@@enlongjones2394 you know what, generally speaking, I am conflagrating pre 5.0 AST and Undraw with Redraw - damn I miss Royal Road. That being said, Undraw only serves light party purposes now where your party only has melee dps. Generally speaking if it's a shitty card, you just Minor Arcana it - and even if MA is on (a 60s) cd, if you have a typical party composition, you still have someone worth applying a card too - even if it stunts your 2nd or 3rd seal - unless you REALLY need that 10% cast time reduction or extra 5% healing potency. You're better off sacking a caster card if all you have is a tank and a bunch of melee and your two melee already have cards rolling, instead of waiting for an existing buff to fall off and dragging the Draw timer. Super niche, and not at all practical in level appropriate FULL party content. I have no qualms admitting I was mistaken!

[@enlongjones2394]

@@jnichols0388 yeah, it’s all good. It’s a real shame Undraw doesn’t refund the recast timer on Draw or something. As it stands, you largely just want to fish for seals with Redraw, and play whatever hand you end up with if you get unlucky. I do wonder what we’ll see with the AST changes in Dawntrail.

[@rafaelsalles8308]

I usually use Pray to fill Yuna's overdrive meter

[@GRAHFMETAL]

Relm's Sketch was perfect for allowing Strago to learn most of his Lore in no time at all. Also, Thunder Slash in FFIX isn't a glitch, it's a programming error. They just set the value incorrectly, so it's not a malfunction, but rather, it's an improperly implemented function

[@gryphose1849]

Unfortunately, unlike some of the more beneficial coding errors in various games, SE has never fixed Thunder Slash's accuracy error.

[@davidsmith-th1kh]

In FFX pray is OP if you pair it with Trio of 9999…it becomes a free full HP heal if you decide to not break the HP limit

[@pchad9283]

The undraw ability in 14 has practical uses haha. Yes, using any card still has benefits, but the right combo allows better healing done.

[@aeronbern1769]

You could make a full video just with ff9

[@jayonnaise6105]

I might put Steal from FF VII Rebirth on a potential additional list of useless abilities. Not that it isn't functional, and It is required for one side quest in Rebirth, but there's not all that much worth stealing otherwise when compared to older FF games. In OG VII & IX at least, you could use it to steal rare and varied items from bosses.

[@raimarulightning]

The Death and Gravity spells are almost entirely useless across all of Final Fantasy. At best, extremely niche application for only a few enemies; at worst, an ability that was terrifying in the hands of enemies, and laughably ineffective in those of the players.

[@y1985]

I never knew Thunder Slash is bugged….I never use it, Steiner already deal massive damage. I don’t agree with Encounter none ability, I never use booster/encounter off

[@nighthero7]

Kinda disagree on pray. It was useful for early-midgame until Yuna/Lulu MP pool got big enough to cast healing reliably (or Rikku comes to use al-bed potions). It's right up there with learning Lancet for them as drain tool. I would say bribe is worse. Since it was only useful to get items IF you knew paying absurd amount got you rare items, otherwise it was just expensive Tidus-flee.

[@salamanda550]

Its funny. Thunder Slash having such a low hit rate just brings to mind the Spear abilities in Dragon Quest, that are also low hit chance and lightning themed

[@illyahrthebard3303]

Lightning-themed, but a Gravity ability. That's why it never worked: Gravity doesn't have an accuracy score at all since it usually auto-hits

[@AC-xj7my]

Venom comes to mind (FF4). Also Sleep (except in the NES titles)

[@AdiG1]

I guess Steiner couldn't properly master Thunder Slash because he was a little... _Rusty_

[@Icetongue]

combining pray with quartet of 9 or trio of 9999 made it a free full heal for most of the game, for what it's worth

[@wiseguy240Winston]

FF13 was the 1st game where nothing felt useless now that i think about. Even buffs and debuffs were needed for most battles and almost always worked.

[@swilliams21231]

Seeing Steiner in the thumbnail made me remember that the vast majority of his sword arts were almost completely useless.

[@zacharyanderson9955]

Isn't pretty much every one of his sword arts other than minus slash useless? I think that's literally the only sword art I used outside of magic sword abilities whatsoever it also doesn't help that 99% of players will never get his ultimate weapon given the ridiculous requirements for it of being on the last disc within 12 hours of starting the game literally ignoring everything else about the game whatsoever to get there in time in fact I think pretty much the only redeeming feature Steiner has in the game is the fact that he has access to the magic sword while Vivi is in your party with him other than that he's just a damage sponge...

[@swilliams21231]

@@zacharyanderson9955 pretty much. I don’t know if magic or armor break worked the way they were supposed to. Minus strike was god but required you to stay at low hp so it was risky. And yes his only actually good ones were locked behind Excalibur II which the vast majority of people would never get. So outside of magic sword he was not very good.

[@daviddalrymple2284]

@@swilliams21231 Even if the time limit for Excalibur 2 were 100 hours instead of 12, it would still be pretty redundant. It doesn't have any unique skills (Minus Strike, Climhazzard and Stock are also respectively available from Rubber Helm, Excalibur and Ultima Weapon) and the regular Excalibur using Shock can already hit the 9999 damage cap pretty easily.

[@OracleofWuffing]

The Thief's alleged increased chance to successfully run from battle in the first Final Fantasy. Well, at least they fixed that in the remakes...

[@brunohenriqueazevedoborges5490]

2:31 Are you sure? On Steam, it seems to reach much more consistently.

[@TheNuts1225]

Thunderslash having no accuracy must be a Final Fantasy 1 reference.

[@Trelior]

How?

[@ThorsShadow]

No. It's a bug. We already know it's a bug. FF9 is old. It's not like we still need to figure things out. The game is figured out. Make sense, please.

[@stevenbart2375]

For XII, I think Infuse deserves an honorable mention, at least in the original version. It completely drains the user's mp to restore health to a single target equal to I think it was 5 or 10 times the mp lost. Could've just used an item or spell for that, and saved the mp for a summon or quickening.

[@ThundagaT2]

Infuse actually does have another edge case utility, intentionally draining one's MP with it, letting their MP recharge back to 1 by walking around, then using it again to change the target's HP to 10, intentionally putting yourself into critical allows you to get higher combo rates, as long as you have a decoy set up so that they dont immediately die, or get hit by AoE attacks.

[@stevenbart2375]

@@ThundagaT2 Really? I thought Infuse restored hp, not set it to a specific amount. Maybe I'll try that sometime if I'm feeling reckless...

[@ThundagaT2]

@@stevenbart2375 Yeah it converts the spent MP into 10 times that amount in HP regardless of how much HP they had beforehand. In some cases in the Zodiac versions it can end up serving another healing role if the caster has no other use for MP and they have enough of it.

[@omgwtfbbqkitty]

FF6: "Sketch is useless." FF14: "Hold my pictomancer."

[@reyon2673]

I always had a gripe with Vanish in FFXII. Even when you paired it with Float so you'd be invisible and silent, I never found any enemies that were fooled by it. I was always engaged anyway. 🤷‍♂️

[@Trisaaru]

Vanish is the most unmemorable spell in FF12

[@ThundagaT2]

There's only one enemy im aware of in FF12 that vanish always works on, Omega Mark XII. My bigger gripe with it was not only were enemies rarely fooled by it, the character with it couldnt do any actions either else the status comes off