7 Spells That Ended Up Being Almost Completely Useless

[@davidmccourt6139]

Death in FFX. Deathstrike is a great auto-ability early game like with Fatal Cait Sith, but the actual spell is useless by the time you likely get it. Everything's immune to it.

[@enoyna1001]

I kinda agree

[@someguy1ification]

there were a few hp sponge enemies that I used it on around the the time I got it. The Zus on Bikanel Island take forever to kill with damage, but Death takes the right out

[@spearsage]

Wasn't one of the bosses in the old arena susceptible to instant death?

[@bayumahendra1797]

Its good against behemoth, gorilla like mob and malboro

[@idminister]

yeah death is worthless by late game yuna and lulu with weapons that have 1mp cost, only ability needed on weapon teach doublecast, and ultima tidus doublecast hastega so in base version of game that is what 40k-80k dmg before enemy first turn, in most cases whilst only expending tiny amount of mp

[@carbon6111]

FF2 Ultima is the embodiment of "It's not a bug, it's a feature".

[@heardofrvb]

I always hear that in Vinesauce Joel's voice.

[@MikadoYuma]

I actually love the explanation and prefer it to be canon. It reminds me of how in Dragon Quest, Avan was considered a legendary hero, but by the end of the anime when he finally returned (was thought to be dead) his power level was far lower than almost all of the villains and even the main character he trained. Such a rare trope, and awesome if used right.

[@leslieandrews9208]

@@MikadoYuma That because he forgot to train during that time. That said, if you give me a spell that underperforms, only for when the enemy uses said spell, it does even better then you though it would in the first place, that excuse isn't going to fly.

[@MidnightWonko]

I thought I heard that FF2's Ultima spell was, indeed, a bug, and that it was meant to become stronger by leveling up all other magics, but it didn't.

[@Kaimax61]

@@MikadoYuma BRUH. Avan appeared at the start of the story, and that's mostly because he doesn't train anymore. ULTIMA was "lored" as the ultimate magic, we get it AFTER Min Wu's sacrifice...There's two different expectations working here. Even worse, when an enemy uses Ultima, it does more damage. so no, that bullshite lore doesn't work as an excuse.

[@Fokai1326]

I used immobilize to kill that contract Turtle at a low level… that sword it gave crushed everything for hours lol

[@MaZeW1]

I remember the FF2 Ultima on the PSP. It had a weird calculation where instead of using your magic stat to calculate damage it used the collected levels of all spells in a character's spellbook. With my normal party it was pretty useless, however this version of FF2 has an after-game mode called Rebirth Of Souls where you play several characters who died during this adventure and have to fix trouble in Heaven. Minwu is part of this group and can learn Ultima here and he comes with a sizable number of high-level spells. For him it was probably the most powerful spell there was.

[@djdexcat]

Fun fact: In the remakes featuring Rebirth of Souls, Ultima's damage calculation is actually _different_ if Minwu is the character casting it. Even in remake-exclusive content, FF2 remains weird and cursed. The TL:DR version is that with most characters, Ultima scales with the total proficiency levels of the character's spells AND weapons. If Minwu is casting it, it essentially scales like a powerful White Magic spell. Details below. According to the wiki article I found, Ultima's base damage for most characters is calculated like this: *Levels = SUM ( All Weapon Skill Levels + All Magic Spell Levels )* (Empty spellslots are treated as a "level zero" spell. Ultima's level is included as well.) *Tier = FLOOR ( Levels ÷ 24 )* *Base Damage = Ultima Level × [ Tier + FLOOR ( Tier ÷ 2 ) ]2 + 100* If Minwu is the character casting it, the base damage is calculated similarly to normal White Magic: *Base Damage = 3 × Ultima Level × ( Minwu's Spirit + 100 )* Both formulas are then followed up by: *If multi-target, Base Damage is divided by 4* *Random Bonus = RANDOM ( 0 ... Base Damage % 256 )* *If 5% Critical Hit occurs, Base Damage is multiplied by 2* *Final Damage = Base Damage + Random Bonus*

[@MaZeW1]

@@djdexcat Interesting, weird but interesting

[@reinatycoon3644]

Ultima was crud in the original NES version indeed. However, in Origins Ultima can become powerful. It uses the average of all weapon and magic levels to formulate damage. Once all weapons and spells are at a level of 11+ it will deal 2200-4400 single target damage and 500-1000 mt damage. A level 16 Ultima with level 16 weapons and spells will deal 4500-9000 single target damage and 2200 or so mt damage!!

[@TwinGeminiDragon]

I remember playing as that party and they were all so low level i had to grind 😂 still satisfying to defeat the emperor a 2nd time. Sad i got the pixel remaster and I hear it doesn't have rebirth of souls.

[@baronagony4767]

Esuna in ff9. Way too many of the statuses needed specific items and couldn't be cured with esuna

[@isenokami7810]

“Couldn’t be cured with Esuna.” The f$&@? Esuna’s meant to be a cure all, that’s the entire damn point of the spell. FF9, what the hell are you doing!?

[@km_1911]

This. FFIX is my goat game, and this was one annoying as hell feature. It should’ve been like FFX’s Esuna.

[@xvxvcaspervxvx]

The point of Esuna in FF9 was so free up ability slots granting status immunities for other passive abilities. Only Eiko would need them and could thus use Esuna on everyone else afflicted with most negative status effects. Heat/Freeze can only be cured by Esuna. Its actually really important for speedruns/low level runs where ability stones are very limited.

[@veghesther3204]

FF9 has BOTH Esuna and I think Dispel and both are worthless.

[@ThundagaT2]

@@isenokami7810 In some games Esuna is not meant for that, Remedies are.

[@georgehouliaras7239]

You know who made them useless? Chaos, that's who. He ruins everything.

[@hellfrozenphoenix13]

"Chaos! I'm gonna kill Chaos" ~Jack Frost, I believe.

[@drakkar33]

CHAOS!

[@Krelen107]

All hail Lord Chaos!

[@TetsuRiken]

CHAOS!

[@Lonewolfprime.]

CHAOS!

[@shiningdahlia]

Just as a side note: in the original release of FFXII, in order for Exodus to use Meteor, you had to be inflicted with the Immobilize status. I kinda liked and disliked those conditions, they add certain flavor to the Espers, but made them really confusing sometimes.

[@zuriel4783]

For FF6 Merton/Meltdown is the most busted and OP spell in the game. Equip everyone with fire shields and not only does it damage the enemy pretty heavily, but it fully heals your entire party every time it's casted as well. You can basically just cast it over and over again and you're near unkillable while simultaneously doing some pretty nice damage

[@Jurarigo]

Came to say this. Meltdown is a high risk/reward spell which can easily turn the risk into another reward. Very far from useless. Only problem would be the enemy also absorbing fire elemental damage.

[@ryo-kai8587]

@@Jurarigo Also came to say this while clarifying it used to be called Merton. One turn to damage all enemies and heal all party members, just requiring some equipment setup ahead of time. The caster can even have MP usage-reducing relics equipped to make it even more sustainable.

[@MissildineOnline]

He like, LITERALLY said this in this video lol

[@ryo-kai8587]

@@MissildineOnline in case you missed it, the video title implies it's almost completely useless

[@MissildineOnline]

@@ryo-kai8587 in case you missed it, the spell was discussed in the video

[@acrab6527]

Correction, in FFIX you could trade 10 ore and another item to make all the OTHER gemstones to power up all the other summons. So you needed 10's of thousands of ore if you wanted to max out the rest of them. Or just max out one of them if you're not crazy

[@Ramsey276one]

XD

[@dodixaber8968]

Still the correction mean nothing when ore is already common enemy drop / steal. Not to mention in late game, using summon is not the best idea when all encounter is single target powerful enemy so Summon AOE advantages diminish.

[@darrellmurray4928]

Jewel could be fixed by giving some monsters other gemstones as drops for the spell. Maybe have it give 2-5 of each stone when used.

[@acrab6527]

@@dodixaber8968 1) yeah but instead of getting 1 ore at the end of the fight, zidane can steal one, eiko can jewel one, and you can get one at the end of the fight, cutting the grind to 1/3. Not like Eiko doing 12 damage meleeing something will help kill anything. Also plot reasons. she is a summoner, this is a necessary ability you would need to be a summoner. 2)What else is Eiko or Dagger going to do to damage the enemy? And Ark kicked the final boss's ass since he took extra darkness damage.

[@blackmagekongs2588]

@@dodixaber8968 Some of those jewels are not dropped by some enemies on disc 4. Example like amethyst does not drop after disc 3. Which is to power up atomos, which is probably the games most broken summon. Whether an attack aoe or not does not matter its all about how the damage is calculated. Only magic spells that can either target single or multiple targets are affected.

[@ectothermia1]

AMUT in FF1 is a deceptively useless spell. It cures silence, but only 4 enemies in the entire game cast MUTE, MUTE targets the entire party so the white mage is probably silenced too, and silence wears off after the fight is over anyway.

[@Cloud971]

11:32 Fun fact Meltdown is actually one of the most if not THE most broken magic in FFVIII. I mean reduce the defense of all ennemies (bosses and superbosses included) to 0. It makes every fiends in this game really pathetics, i'm not even talking about it's junctionning stat....

[@frankbrodie5168]

Yeah it's one that probably goes over the head of anyone who isn't a FFVI obsessive also. Even in FFVI it was far from useless. Just that the time taken to equip your party with Flame Shields outweighed any usefulness it had in battle regarding time consumed for the setup. But in FFVIII it's definitely an awesome spell. And completely useable without actually using the spell. Albeit a ways into the game when you obtain Doomtrain. Which come to think of it, even the drawn Meltdown is a ways into FFVIII.

[@ThundagaT2]

@@frankbrodie5168 You can get Meltdown spells as early as disc 1 after you obtain Diablos, by refining Gayla cards which can be won from most npcs around Balamb. Thats generally how i get them. Drawing magic is overrated, refining magic from items is the way to go lol

[@SuperGreatmonkey]

FF7 - the 1997 version, Haste and barrier because you could get the enemy skill "big guard" way before you got the 2 materia and it only takes up 1 slot vs the 2 and gave haste, Mbarrier and Pbarrier

[@vine01]

true on one side, but big guard is bugged in og 7, it hastens the bars and they deplete at hasted speed.. which is sadge

[@navdragoni]

That is true today when we play with guides. I never saw big guard when I first played the game because it's rather hidden, there was no way to know that enemy which you only found on the beach had such and op enemy skill.

[@jamesputterlik225]

Lots of manipulation attempts to get those enemy skills.

[@gurvmlk]

But that's assuming you find Big Guard. Without a guide though, it's very easy to miss enemy skills (and likewise blue magic) in any Final Fantasy game. So in that sense, while certain blue spells can make certain white/black/time spells useless, that's only assuming you actually found them. Whereas the weaker, conventional options would be made much more accessible to any player.

[@isenokami7810]

@@navdragoniThat’s just a weird thing in general: all three PS1 games had unique encounters only on beaches, where an average player would not think to look for encounters. Even if that makes them perfect for hiding away good stuff like Big Guard, it just seems like an incredibly specific thing to add.

[@Sunprism]

I've never once cast Frog against an enemy that Frog would actually work on

[@burtblando8806]

In FF5, Twintania, a late game boss, can be affected by toad.

[@Edward-bm7vw]

@@burtblando8806 Oh man - I remember Twintania being a hell of a rough battle if you didn't know exactly what to do and when.

[@MidnightWonko]

Frog was a pretty dumb spell, but in FF4, Bog Witches were vulnerable to it. Ironic, as they had an entourage of Bog Toads, whom they commanded to torment your party by constantly casting Frog on your party. Afflicting them with this was hilarious, as they would still command their Bog Toads to torment you, but they would no longer understand her command if she, herself, was afflicted with Frog.

[@JordonPatrickMears11211988]

​@@Edward-bm7vw twintania became the bane of my existence in 14. Haha. I actually pretty much broke up with my ex over my obsession with killing it.

[@jimmybean6387]

The lore the programmer gave behind why he didn't fix the Ultima bug is kinda cool but also like what the heck.

[@dodixaber8968]

It was ultimately fixed on re release. Thing is ff2 itself were full of other exploit. The teleport speal / toad spell was insanely powerful early on to dispatch any random encounter.

[@kirbyizlife]

It doesn't make sense when you think about it though. If it's true that ancient magic is so much weaker than modern magic that it's basically useless, then how is it that the ancient seal is still so powerful that the strongest wizard in the world had to sacrifice his life in order to open it?

[@Dom_Maretti]

@@kirbyizlife I suggest you look up the story of Al Capone's Vault for a reasonably real-world analogue of this idea.

[@peterlemieux7614]

For me, Doom is the most useless spell in FF. Often the battle is over before the target dies. In XII, it had nearly no effect since a healer will cast Raise or Arise immediately when the Doomed player dies.

[@Felnal]

On one hand, that explanation for FF2 Utima being underwhelming does make sense, and honestly it's something that more stories involving some sealed ancient powerful technique should at least consider. On the other, c'mon dude, the damage calculation was obviously not working as intended and it was your job to fix it, assuming the story is true.

[@zachriel137]

Vivi was may favorite character on FF9 and imagine my surprise after using his final magic doomsday for the first time... it wiped-out not just the enemy but also my team 😅 hated it after that

[@gryphose1849]

Much better used with Steiner's Magic Sword ability: only hits enemies with that version.

[@godsplayingfield]

equip darkness absorbing gear on everyone (very easy to do) and boom, Vivi is secondary healer that also nukes the enemies. made fighting Ozma a lot easier too.

[@veghesther3204]

Ozma is still 100% luck based since Meteor Curse or BOTH at once can still kill a 9999 HP lv 99 part easily.

[@zachriel137]

@@godsplayingfield as I said it's first time using... got traumatized on it and never thought of something like that 🤣 thanks for this will remember when I played it again

[@zachriel137]

@@gryphose1849 thanks didn't try this before

[@eddyp1238]

I disagree with Daze being a useless spell. It was great for interrupting enemy attacks, stalling the enemy so you could heal up and cast defensive spells, and great for using against large groups so you'd only have 1 attacking you at a time. It's tricky at first but not hard to get the hang of using it.

[@monsieurlefortune5092]

Yeah I agree with you. also,even though it had the extra dmg to dazed enemies it was meant more as a crowd control spell, It seems the AI was programed to treat it as such hence not attacking dazed enemies til last because their threat was neutralized by the spells effects

[@gurvmlk]

It was weird enough just seeing FF13 on this list. For all the crap the game gets, I definitely didn't find any of the spells to be useless. Even spells like poison, that are normally useless in almost any other Final Fantasy game, were extremely useful against the right enemies.

[@Ryanpb86]

For FF9, the Thunder Stab or something of Steiner's is wrongly programmed as a gravity-like spell, and thus ignore the weapon's accuracy and, even if it hits, it deals 19% damage (instead of a lightning attack of 19 base power). I'm surprised this was never fixed in the re-releases.

[@adrianschutz405]

Yeah but that was not a spell, it was sword art.

[@Ramsey276one]

Excuse meWUT

[@reed3863]

Ahh Thunder Slash. Never got that thing to land before. I ignore it entirely together with Jewel.

[@resonancecatscade7844]

I think Meteo/Meteor from FF4 is a worthy mention. When you finally learn a spell that was a big part of the game's story, it takes a long time to cast, while summons and spells like Nuke/Flare could be cast much quicker while doing similar damage. Not to mention, it actually kills one of the players while still failing to defeat the boss. It was one of my most desired spells only to find no use for it.

[@blackmagekongs2588]

I found using jewel in ff9 to be sort of like a side-grind similar to how you farm steals on zidane to increase his thievery damage. Ores can be used to synthesize specific jewels to increase your eidolons damage and used to trade for aquamarines in daguerro to increase leviathans damage. I always found it useful to grind out ores so i can have 99 stacks of amethyst to basically allow atomos to do max damage everytime.

[@DarkFrozenDepths]

Lastly, daze in FF13 had it's use on those giant turtles and a few other enemies. It gave you time to reapply buffs and heal... but more importantly... It DOUBLED the damage of the next hit that landed. Many more attacks could deal insane amounts of damage through daze.

[@groudonvert7286]

Yeah, Daze is too much useful in FF13, even most Bosses are immune to it. Stopga would be better on this list, but it's really difficult to explain how this spell works and how it can be useful on some occasions (to my knowledge only 2 fights in the entire game) and never in almost every fights in the game.

[@Ferrindel]

Adamantortoise farming was cut by a third when I started including Snow for his Daze during stagger.

[@alexhooper6625]

Adamantois farming strats post game pretty much exclusively rely on ensuring you can have full debuffs / buffs going at once on triple ravager into triple commando. So Daze is probably the best spell in the game for that reason lmao.

[@groudonvert7286]

@@alexhooper6625 Triple Commando is useless for Adamantoise, you do more damage with a Daze spam.

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

That sounds nice, but if you're able to set up an ultra damaging attack you can obviously do it again due to the lack of proper resources. You've already won without Daze.

[@coreymay918]

Petrify in FF X-2. After chapter three, nearly all fiends are immune to status effects

[@keiichimorisato98]

Status effects in general are useless. The only fames ive found them to actually work is SMT/Persona games and DQ games.

[@groudonvert7286]

@@keiichimorisato98 They're great in 13's trilogy too.

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

@@keiichimorisato98there are several times where status effects are useful. Buffs are generally useful in every final fantasy but even the debuffs have their good moments. Wakka’s debuff attacks are quite useful throughout the game. Darkness is useful for the larger birds and sand worms and most elementals and flans aren’t immune to silence for example and sleep has its moments. Oil in 12 makes fire spells do more damage then the element a monster is weak to and even some hunts are vulnerable to it and immobilize can be very useful for adventurers to the necrol since all the standard enemies ( but not the rare game) are vulnerable to it so you can actually straight up fight through the necrol as early as before taking a trip to the garif abusing that with ranged attacks like spells bows bombs ect to either get the zodiac sphere in the og or to get the spells there and some decently high tier weapons and armor in zodiac addition. There’s also the accessory that makes your enemies get every status effect ever if you use a remedy which can be handy for quickly applying every status a enemy is vulnerable to. 13 saboteurs are just good

[@gryphose1849]

@@ultimaterecoil1136 A reminder that the accessory in 12 inverts the effects of all items used by the equipped character, so make sure not to use potions or ethers with that character unless you're yeeting em at enemies.

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

@@gryphose1849 yeah but you are usually just yeeting one remedy then switching to a different accessory. You never need several anti remedies just one to give a particularly tough enemy every status they are vulnerable to.

[@user-battlescar1313]

Nice list. I used Immobilize to stop party members from stepping on traps or when I wanted them to avoid fighting.

[@Vayne_Solidor]

For traps, theres Levitas, for not fighting theres gambits like "attack the target of the party leader". But you can use that spell too, I guess haha

[@specimen057]

​@@Vayne_Solidorthe fuck is levitas you mean float?

[@ThundagaT2]

You could have just taken them out of the active party or give them the Steel Poleyns accessory so that they cant set off traps. Or use Float in the case of guests.

[@Kroepoek82]

Float in FF8. It had only 1 very specific use. It junctioned averagely for the part of the game where you acquired them (not counting min - max runs). After that Float was more of a toy spell than anything else.

[@Bootaykicker]

Use on Minotaur Brothers. After? No point.

[@Bynk333]

You can use them against Brothers and all quake attacks. :D

[@mushublaze]

I would argue that Daze is actually pretty useful if used correctly. Yeah, the AI may be a little clumsy with it, as spamming any debuffs deals damage to accidentally remove it. But there are certain strats using Snow, who has a limited spell list other than Daze, so he's actually really helpful against some of the turtles with Daze spam. If you have a dedicated COM and SAB paradigm, you can Daze lock certain turtles, and it's safer than the traditional stagger strategy, since turtles like Shaolong Gui can just throw out Ultima whenever. Edit: I also just remembered Daze is really useful in the 3 Tonberry mission. If you don't crowd control them, they go crazy with knife attacks, and eventually grudge you to death. If I remember correctly, there's not a lot of enemies that resist Daze, so you can actually use it in a lot of battles. Immobilize, while useless in melee range, actually has a couple of applications, also coincidentally on turtles of that game. I specifically would use it against the Rocktoise in Lhusu, since it doesn't have any ranged attacks, and I would just kite it with guns and bows. For roaming, and especially higher level, debuff resistant enemies, yeah it kind of falls in practicality. But as someone else said, Vanish is probably even more useless. Vanish isn't guaranteed against all enemies, and the high level areas where it might be most useful, it isn't. A lot of enemies can still detect and attack you. I have never used Vanish in any practical playthrough.

[@7792pnaurfr]

Limited and niche uses does not equal useful

[@rodrigoaraujoyoh]

why do you hate turtles?

[@mushublaze]

@@rodrigoaraujoyoh 😂

[@alexhaupt2134]

I would say Daze is mainly useful against the Oretoises, especially early on (never had an issue with Tonberries but I can see that application too!), but it has limited usage outside of that. If I need crowd control, I'd much rather just use a Sentinel instead of trying to hit a single-target spell on every enemy and maybe getting accidentally removed by aoe or the AI attacking at the same time I'm trying to apply the spell. It was the only reason I was able to beat the Oretoise you fight during the start of chapter 12, which kept rocking me otherwise.

[@groudonvert7286]

To be clear, I'm not that much aware of the 13's AI limitations, but Daze is much more useful than it looks. Every turtles in the game except Long Gui are weak to Daze. Since they are single enemies, a Saboteur will spam Daze once everything else is already put on the enemy, while the other Characters will attack it. Since turtles are farmed for either CP, money or Trapozehodrons, Daze is much more useful than it actually looks. Especially since Shaolong Gui is the best CP farming spot in the game. Dazega has also some usage, in a paradygm of Com/Rav (or Sab)/Sab with Sazh/Vanille/Fang, Fang will spam Dazega on many enemies weak to it, while Sazh and Vanille will deal massiv damage on enemies unable to counter attack.

[@groudonvert7286]

Instead of Daze, I would have talked about Stopga. An ability very niche whose utility was discovered again in 2022 by some speedrunners.

[@TheAuron32]

please go on, im interested in speedruns and love when a niche spell/item etc is discovered@@groudonvert7286

[@groudonvert7286]

@@TheAuron32 Stopga is fairly easy to explain : every characters and enemies on the field will have their ATB gauje emptied and cancel all incoming actions from both sides (in theory). It sounds great but... Well Stopga is a Technique that costs 1 Technical Point (out of a maximum of 5), so it can't be spammed all the time, since it's quite difficult to gain TP back during a fight, if we except Elixirs. Most enemies in the game doesn't have a huge ATB to recharge before attacking (and those in question, like Psicom Bombardier, are in a part of the game where you don't have access to Stopga yet). Empty your ATB is not a problem for your party, so it's not a problem. So with all that said, Stopga was once used in the plat% speedrun against the mission 62 (2 Raktavijas) for so obscure reasons that it was deleted when the route was updated, to never be used again, since Stopga's utility wasn't that great. But in 2022, an explanation was given by a runner that has some knowledges about the game mechanics, so Stopga found a usage on 2 fights : Barthandelus 3 and Vercingetorix. - Barthandelus 3 is fairly easy to explain : it takes around 40 seconds for Barthandelus to cast Ultima. If you use Stopga every ~35 seconds (before he starts using Ultima ! If he starts his animation, Ultima won't be canceled), Barthandelus will never use his strongest attacks, so the fight that is kinda scary in Allmissions (also I'm currently the only runner to use it in Plat% btw) because of how low Sazh's HP are, becomes a big joke. This can't be used in Any% sadly, because of how far in Sazh's Synergist Stopga is (it's a Stage 9 Ability). - Vercingetorix is very tricky to explain. In Allmissions, Vercingetorix is killed with a technique called "Poison Gesthalt Stall", where you Poison Vercingetorix with Vanille then wait he kills himself by being in Gesthalt mode nearly the entire fight. Verci going in defense mode 3 times, you have to do this thing 4 times in total (it's used in Plat% too, for the first phase only). The problem with this, it's Vercingetorix will attack more fiercely (without any break between his attacks) after each time a Gesthalt ends. Why ? It was discovered that Gesthalt doesn't stop enemies's ATB to fill up, even if they can't do anything. Vercingetorix's AI makes him attack as soon as his ATB has 1 full segment (all of his move costs 1 ATB segment), so because of this Vercingetorix attacks constantly without any breaks (it makes the fight really scary near the end). When this was discovered, speedrunners decided to add Stopga to both Allmissions and Plat% route. Thanks to Stopga, Verci's ATB will be reduce to zero after each Gesthalt, so Verci has to wait for his ATB to gain 1 Segment again before attacking again, slowing him down, making the fight a bit let tricky (in Allmissions at least, in Plat% it's still one of the hardest fight in the run). - What about mission 62 ? Still no idea why it was used back then XD

[@TheAuron32]

@@groudonvert7286 holy crap, that is beautiful to read, that arse hole Verci is NOT fun and now i have an idea WHY! thanks for your input and damn, didn’t know i was speaking to a speed runner of one of my favourite games 😁

[@TheAuron32]

@@groudonvert7286 and all forms of Barthendaleus suck, dude doesn’t know when to quit…

[@evolancer211]

I take offense to Lightning being the thumbnail for "almost completely useless spells"

[@saladinboss2507]

When I think of "completely useless", I think of Penelo. Lol

[@robertbeisert3315]

​@saladinboss2507 the fact that Rabtoons's cardboard cutout joke is the only reason I know who you're talking about supports that notion

[@KieranHamilton-y7s]

Well FF13 is one of the worst Ff games that add nothing to the franchise

[@metleon]

I've actually used Immobilize in XII for its intended purpose, since certain bosses are vulnerable to it and don't really have ranged options. Vanish, however, I've only seen a single use for. The judges in Trial Mode 100 seem to be the only high level enemies that don't have an alternate way to find you. So you can cheese that fight with Vanish, but it seems completely useless everywhere else.

[@erikeide5407]

Vanish is better as a field spell to prevent enemy encounters.

[@metleon]

@@erikeide5407 Even then, the couple times I tried it, the enemies still noticed me.

[@erikeide5407]

@@metleon LOL because of course they did. *facepalm*

[@veghesther3204]

About that Vanish is more USEFUL in FF6 then in the other games that have it.

[@SMaster777]

Physick in FF14, specifically Summoner's version of it. A heal spell that does 3-digit heals, maybe a little over 1000 if you get a critical hit on it... at level 90, when everyone has 5 digit life bars, your tanks possibly/probably have 6, and enemies hit accordingly.

[@qster4]

Summoner: I can heal too! Watch! *Casts Physick* The Actual Healers: That's cute, Summoner.

[@Leastmachine]

It's especially sad because RDM gets a very viable healing spell that they can even double cast for more throughput.

[@MoniqueBoulangerMSG]

@@qster4 HAH HAH They might laugh now, but who will rez them (when there isn't a RDM in the party...)

[@Firestar1992]

Adding insult to injury, Scholars get a trait that increases their Physick potency. Why can’t Summoners also get this? >.>

[@Marionette_Doll]

Ironically, even Summoner Physick wasn't too bad during the initial 50 levels, back when the gear had both Int and Mind stats on it. SMN Physick wasn't great, even back then, but it was solid in a pinch and worked well when solo and you had to heal your pet (back when pets were could be targeted). Now that caster gear no longer has MND on it and pets aren't valid targets, though... it's pretty useless.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

Doesn't entirely redeem the Jewel spell, but ores had one more use beyond what you mentioned. It was possible to synthisize them into other jewels, and having a higher stockpile of them would mean the other eidolons would do increased damage, much like ores and Odin. And if one were trying to farm ores for this purpose, unlike the steal command, Jewel could be used repeatedly on the same enemy. To add to the list of useless spells, though, I would have placed Tornado as higher up there from FFVI. There are three big spells in the game that hurt both allies and enemies. Meltdown you mentioned, and could be turned into a really good spell if your party could absorb fire damage. Quake is the another that the party could avoid damage by using the Float effect. Tornado though was a lot riskier and there wasn't a way to break parity with the spell. If it hit, it put both enemy and ally HP levels at critical. It became a huge risk since it was more likely to hit the party than enemies, and enemies could potentially follow up your cast of Tornado with a spell or attack that hit your whole party killing you instantly. If it did work out in your favor, then the payoff was big, but in all my years of playing the game, I always found it was more of a detriment than an aid.

[@veghesther3204]

Most of those ores are "BUYABLE/Made yourself on disc 3 as soon as you get the airship permanently but the Jewel spell is still pure CRAP before that Quake FF6 is earth based so only Cyan/Edgar can't use the Gaia Gear armors to absorb it but the Paladin shield still can.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

@@veghesther3204 I'm unaware of any shop in FFIX that sells the refined gemstones, but I'm also not an expert. And I do mean sells them for gil as it reads like you're saying. The synthesis shop is what I was referring to where you can craft the gemstones, but you need 4 ore to do so. That means if you want to grind them out, you need to farm ore, and that's where jewel can be part of that process. And interesting about the gaia gear... I haven't encountered that one, but also it's comparatively such low level gear compared to where you should be by the time you can learn quake that I think I had sold it. Easier to just float your party if you want to use the spell.

[@ryo-kai8587]

I wanted to mention Tornado as well. Used to be called "W Wind", and it seemed to have no situation where it was actually preferable to use. In contrast, Merton (Meltdown) with preparation could damage all enemies and heal your party, and Quake hurt all grounded enemies and could be avoided by casting Float on the party.

[@johntumahab323]

In an era where there's probably only 20 guys who can actual program video games and all of them are currently employed, they could sure afford to be cheeky with their directors.

[@morrigancollins2092]

I liked Meltdown, because with fire absorb it healed my party while damaging the enemy. Didn't use it often, but it was a sort of fun thing to do and had a cool animation.

[@SaiyanGamer95]

There's also the fact that Apocalypse can only be obtained from the final phase against Ultimecia; so you can only use it against that last part of the boss fight. I also consider Rosa's Pray to be useless. Not in the 3D port, but the Pixel Remaster. It doesn't heal a whole lot and has a 50% chance of failing. It was far more useful in the DS port, since it healed more and restored both HP and MP, with a higher chance of success.

[@saladinboss2507]

Oh? I used it in the PSP version I remember. And I am literally getting ready for the pixel remaster, so thanks for the tip!

[@SaiyanGamer95]

@@saladinboss2507 Yeah, I don't know how it is in the PSP port. I know that's how Pray works in the Pixel Remaster and the original Super Famicom version of FF4 (from what I understand, the SNES version didn't have Pray).

[@Martyste]

​@@SaiyanGamer95More specifically, the US Snes version was missing some abilities like Darkness and Pray in an attempt to simplify the game for western audiences.

[@michaellane5381]

​​@@Martysteummm pretty sure it had both if by darkness you mean the dark Knight ability, and The GBA port and SNES had both, but pray was decent which sounds like the same as the GBA version, which also had the mist dragon ring that created the best Spell in that game, and an item to empower Pray... Didn't make it the best ability, but useful to avoid using potions... And with the God tier mist dragon summoning spell(summons dragon dealing the Summoners HP in damage to all enemies, casts blink; next 4 attacks miss on each party member... And Rydia the summoner was the only person who needed the apples that increase up to max if you farm them... Which makes the 15mp attack max damage) costing a measly 15mp it restored enough in the low 100's of hp and 30-60mp for each character.

[@veghesther3204]

Actually in the Pixel version Pray when first usable restored more HP even when using Cura/(cure 2 on the entire party) its only useless after Rosa rejoins permanently EVERYTHING in the DS version can 1 shot the party making Pray pretty much useless when my LV 55 party in that version won't even survive 99% of the games FINAL dungeon NORMAL battles at all lv and even at lv 99 Big Bang on the 3D versions can still do over 6000 damage killing the entire party if Kain isn't in mid jump when it goes off.

[@lozangekitten-gamer7626]

13's daze also had its niche time to shine against the Gigantuar as it was the only status ailment one can deal against it, giving players time to make commando's attacks treated as fire dmg. As for 2's Ultima, being intended to be this bad is absolutely BS, no amount of reasoning will un-BS that decision

[@flibbleking]

Daze was OP in FFXIII was amazing for building up stagger against single bosses. I think you got this one wrong tbh.

[@earn789]

If I remember correctly, the blind spell in FF VII was completely broken and did nothing at all

[@D2RCR]

It was actually the whole Blind status effect, it had no effect if used on enemies.

[@jarg_64]

So similar to how blindness did nothing in the original FF6 as dodging was based on magic evasion?

[@D2RCR]

@@jarg_64 Basically, except in FFVII the Blind status still works on the party, just not enemies because it affects only commands that party members have.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

Not sure if 7 had the problem too.... but definitely 6 in the SNES version the status was completely broken and didn't do anything if you were effected.

[@Konarcoffee]

In 6 it was basically a "Cool Sunglasses" status

[@6foot7natiboy]

I would not have put daze on this list. If you use it correctly, you can keep certain enemies paralyzed for the duration of the fight. It's also really handy for healing

[@Leoo117]

I was thinking the same. We were encouraged not to just hit autobattle for the entire game and actually put together our own strategy with the manual option.

[@saltyk9869]

"Wait. What's this? You only have status inducing magic spells. Why, those suck!"

[@lazygamer4746]

I hate how FF has all those status effect spells that everything is immune to.

[@chriscasey7113]

Well everything but you are immune to them. LOL

[@thoraxtheimpalor1345]

Bad breath ftw if they have a weakness it will find it for you

[@trentblades6668]

Wow, I never knew that 9's summons got more powerful the more copies of the gem you had!

[@MidnightWonko]

IIRC, any time you summoned an eidolon in that game, the first time, it would play the full summon animation with extra damage, but every time after that, there would only be a chance of that, with a truncated animation appearing instead. The chance of the full animation playing was X/255, with X being the total number of gems you possessed for that eidolon. So the highest chance would be 99/255, or just a little under 39%. I could be misremembering, though. I do recall, though, that those numbers were correct with Phoenix Pinions, allowing Phoenix to summon itself if your party got wiped out, thus replacing a Game Over with a Rebirth Flame.

[@Alfderydd]

I completely disagree with placing daze on this list. As it is has been instrumental in all of my playthroughs of xiii especially useful for grinding adamanchelids before getting highwind

[@jamesbrice3267]

His argument is based on the auto-battle system, something you can easily override.

[@Firestar1992]

FFXIV, Sleep/Repose. It used to be a Thaumaturge and Conjurer spell respectively, but in the last couple of years was made into a role action for magic classes. It’s only possibly useful within the first 30 levels, and only if you’re alone against 3 or more enemies. There’s one THM quest that recommends you use it (makes the instance go by faster) but it’s wholly unnecessary to beat it.

[@MidnightWonko]

There is literally only one fight in FFXIV that requires Repose, and that is the level 80 healer role quest, due to how your NPC ally is scripted to behave when you cast Repose on the enemy. Other than that, it's a waste of a skillbar slot.

[@cswrye]

There were a lot of useless spells in the NES version of Final Fantasy I, mainly because the game had so many bugs in it. One of my favorites was AMUT, which would remove the mute status from a character. That sounds good except that there were no enemies in the game that could mute you! Even better was LOK2. It was supposed to lower the evasion of all enemies, making them easier to hit. Instead, it was bugged so that it raised their evasion, making the spell work against you!

[@s69-5]

I was puzzled at FFVI Meltdown, as I couldn't remember it, until I realized it was "Merton".

[@BigGamingBossMan]

Love the thumbnail. Lightning is such a badass

[@Volumixen]

I would probably give an honorable mention to Doomsday, the Black Magic spell taught by one weapon (That you get in the final dungeon of the game, and with how Final Fantasy IX works, it has to be learned if you want to switch to a different weapon. I do believe you would probably want to keep the Mace of Zeus on, I believe it is the strongest). However, the drawback to the spell is that, unless you have Shadow Element Null or Absorb equipment on, it will hurt your characters along with the foe. There are two bosses that use this spell, too, but they are super bosses and optional. So, taking the fact you don't get the spell until almost end game, and that you have to tailor your party if you plan to use it, and with the damage capped at 9999, the only way I think it is useful is Doomsday Sword (Magic Sword by having both Vivi and Steiner in the party, and selecting Doomsday as the magic used), but I don't actually know, because I would imagine it would cost a large amount of MP, and Steiner's not Vivi's iirc. Not that it couldn't be useful, just seems like it was very much a wasted opportunity

[@MillillioN]

Hey, FF Union. Can you make a video on world maps, I miss the old style! FFVIII even had train tracks and you had to fuel the car. Unlocking new vehicles increased exploration. I used to love the variety and finding hidden areas/events. Great video.

[@ZeroDurability]

If I remember wasn't Fear in the NES version of FF really broken? Like you could get *bosses* to flee from battle. If thats the case them nerfing the heck out of it makes sense if they didn't want to disable morale which they later decided to just do. Edit: No I mistaked it with Fear from FF2. That game you could level it up and at max it was ridiculous.

[@MidnightWonko]

There is a TAS of FF1 that uses four white mages. They defeat Chaos by casting Fear on him repeatedly until he gets scared and runs away, thus winning the game.

[@Griever_Plats2021]

It was nice to mix all the spells (ff15) with hi potions so every time you cast it it hurts enemies and heals your party

[@Ramsey276one]

Nice!

[@cbmatty9262]

Honestly, all non attack, status spells for me. When I’m facing normal enemies I’m gonna just try and kill them with powerful magic, and bosses that they would be actually useful for NEVER actually hit so what’s the point? It’s sad because they’re are so many non attack spells but I almost never use them.

[@Danahell]

In general individual status ailment spells tend to be useless in regular play throughs of most FF games, status ailments only really shine when you can inflict several at a time, like with Bad Breath, Hades or Doomtrain summons, or when you have them attached to your regular attacks, or if you're doing a challenge run.

[@Kruggov]

Status spells depend on the game, really. Somewhere like FE1 or FE6? Sure. FE4? You will save TONS of MP by using Hold or Stop on something that doesn't die easily while being able to kick your ass, like Malboros. Even in the final dungeon there are plenty of enemies that can be paralyzed or stopped. FE13? Yeah, good luck without status spells. To me, the worst are buffs in FE9. Whoever programmed them to last barely longer than their animation really screwed them up. Even status spells are better there, and they are not particularly good either.

[@ndremas1660]

I love your content. There is only one thing I disagree with here: Jewel has more of a purpose than initially supposed. In FFIX, Summons strength is determined by more than just the wielder’s Magic stat. Their power is also augmented by the amount of stones used to acquire them in the party’s inventory, i.e. Opal for Shiva, Peridot for Ramuh, Garnet for Bahamut, etc. Having 99 of each stone can seem like a monumental task, but with Jewel it can be made a little easier. The Synthesis feature can turn Ore into the stones needed for this in the later game. It’s my firm belief that is what the devs intended for Jewel to assist with the process and why Ore was such a common drop.

[@evolancer211]

It's only an auto battle when you choose to. I never understood why people were up in arms about auto battle. You don't need to use it

[@ittokaos]

Pretty much everything in FF8. At a certain point, even something like Ultima only mattered because you could use it to pump your stats.

[@JebAlert]

Magic is actually pretty damn good in 8, people are just afraid to use it because of mega elixir syndrome and misunderstanding how to maximize the draw system. Any spells that aren't junction to hp/atk/mag are basically fair game and it was usually pretty easy to restock used spells with the card refine and/or keeping a spare 300 on the 3 characters you weren't using. Rinoa especially can do some pretty wild damage with Angel Wing if you build her around it.

[@ZanMindtrip]

I really only use magic late game with Angel Wing Rinoa, other than that, yeah I just power through with Limit Breaks. Oh, Aura, Aura is the most useful spell in FF8

[@esthe9588]

i had an idea for the junction system that drawing a spell with a character would give it to them permanently. only one draw needed. it boosts the same as having 100. casting it for free, no loss of the spell or stat. simplifies it and makes junctioning simple.

[@codyWilkerson-w2s]

8 is my favorite gil is pretty much useless though magic is essential with the juncioning system.

[@Yashahiro_]

That thing with Ultima being once considered strong, but is now weak in modern times that everyone has learned stronger magics is actually a super interesting idea. It reminds me of Frieren, and how the strongest spells from 100 years ago and now just basic spells that people casually have access to learn

[@Leigh_Bailey]

Always perfect timing on these uploads, I was just in the mood for some good FF content!

[@someguy1ification]

What I remember about playing ff12 on the ps2 was that casting the big, flashy spells like Holy or Scathe would prevent my party from taking any more actions until its animation completed (not just the caster, the whole team!). And... it's been a long time, but I definitely remember that ATB gauges would still refill... and I'm pretty sure that ENEMIES would still take their turns. So casting Scathe would make my team stand there doing nothing while they got murdered.

[@Barthandelus-ep4tp]

the fact you could clog the queue line with flashy spells against a magic casting foe was sometimes an advantage, because one guy could just attack the enemy while the rest of the party and the enemy take their turns to cast flashy spells, i believe i used that against the zodiark in the original. in TZA this is no longer the case though and i was happy because it made the spells like scathe and ardour more relevant.

[@TheWorstPartyMember]

Aw man I forgot all about effect capacity!

[@necroarcanistxiii]

@@TheWorstPartyMember I get it was due to hardware limitations at the time but yeah, it made the Zodiark fight suck for me.

[@matthewlandoll7812]

Yep, ATB manipulation in XII was quite helpful. Also, going into the menu to unequip and then reequip something to cancel out a character's action to remove cooldown time was a great way to get the instantaneous benefit of an Item without the penalty of just standing around for ages after.

[@benc3462]

If you ask me in the original FF12 the high level spells like flare holy ect basically any flashy spells were essentially useless. When you used them not only could the character not do anything else but the OTHER characters are unable to use magic IE healing spells for the animation. this is they made a limit to effects like every spell had a number based on how flashy it was and if a certain number was reached no more can be activated. This was due to hardware and the problem is enemies can just wail on you and you can't even heal until the animation stops. I heard the remaster fixed this but I grew up with the OG.

[@xvxvcaspervxvx]

Demi/Gravity Bosses are immune to % based damage in almost all FF games. Enemies with low HP could have been killed faster by other means; while enemies with massive HP pools would be damage capped at around 9999HP without gear to break damage limits.

[@olafweidner8227]

only useful vs diabolos in ff8 since he counters it with vigra and you can never die until hes in single digit hp

[@necroarcanistxiii]

I think in FF7 it was a reliable way to get cheap damage off on Emerald Weapon coz it was vulnerable to Demi. With W-Magic and Quadra Magic, you could slice off 79,992 damage per cast. It would take 12 turns doing just that (or 4 turns per party member) to bring EW down to 40,000 hp, but better than nothing.

[@bluestrife28]

TMPR, SABR, I mean yeah they fixed it later on, but my fave version of FFI is the nes one. And Merton\Meltdown was one of my fave combos when used with the flame shields. There’s ways to handle the Coliseum to really reap some rewards. The Ultima Hack of FF2/4 has an Ultima Spell that isn’t too bad, and doesn’t waste time like Meteo.

[@BlakeAustin2011]

LAMP!

[@ryo-kai8587]

Ahh... the Coliseum. I remember if you equipped the Sniper Scope and a weapon that scaled damage with remaining HP like Atma Weapon or Valiantknife, a Cactrot would die in one hit, guaranteed, if your character chose to do a regular attack. Normally, despite only having 3HP, Cactrots always evaded and even when hit only took 1 damage. Those weapons' damage calculations would override enemy resistances so you dealt thousands instead of 1, and the Sniper Scope gave a 100% hit rate, making your attacks connect instead of always missing.

[@hanzo2001]

Meltdown? In my original FF3 cartridge it was called Merton... This makes a lot of sense now

[@CaptainThief]

Deodorize from FFXI. Deodorize was the first of a trifecta of spells that WHMs and RDMs could learn starting at level 15/20/25 which comprise of Deodorize/Sneak/Invisible. But whereas Sneak and Invisible were immensely useful for avoiding agro from hearing and sight-based enemies, deodorize had no such enemies that agro'd by scent. Instead, it was part of a whole... let's be honest kinda cool but unused scent mechanic in the game where some enemies once they agro'd you would chase you for longer if they could still smell you. If you ran through a river/stream or if it started raining you'd have no scent and thus they'd give up sooner (this was restricted to certain monster families like crawlers and orcs). This could also be a mechanic preventing a thief from successfully using hide (useful when combined with Sneak Attack) during a fight, but it's been a while since I've tried. The problem is Deodorize is... a spell. You have to stand still and cast it and if you attack or are attacked while it's on, the effect will come off immediately. There was no time to deodorize yourself when you needed it and no use doing so before you needed it. And it's been tested, but it doesn't prevent undead from "smelling your blood" at low HP, or it'd at least be useful there. It honestly should have done that and also been an effect that doesn't come off during combat, IMO.

[@the_exegete]

This is the correct answer. Though I'd say the tier II enspells are even more useless since there's basically no situation anymore that a RDM would want to use them over the tier I, but I doubt anyone wants it explained why that is. FFXI math isn't the most entertaining video topic I suppose.

[@Nyclia_Mycandra]

As a longtime FFXI Online player, meow would have mentioned Deodorize also. Just... couldn't have explained it that well. *good job meow*

[@CaptainThief]

@@the_exegete you’d be surprised! Lol

[@CaptainThief]

@@Nyclia_Mycandra thanks :)

[@AtariSwitch]

Came looking for this. Maybe it saved some long-ago solo BLM who could Sleep, Deodorize, then if they needed to, but these days movement+ and Warp Rings got the mobs demoralized; they give up the chase pretty easily.

[@Eughwwww]

Immobilize is quite useful in lower levels of the game, I remember using it a lot until I could set up gambits for stop/disable. Also useful for keeping short range enemies off your long range allies. FF12s gambit system combined with a lot of its unique magics is really fun to play around with

[@Jikkuryuu]

It's kind of tough to come up with spells that are only _almost_ completely useless. 90% of FF1's instant death spells (and there are a lot) are completely irrelevant due to enemy resistances. ZAP! is actually usable but it's a level 8 spell and still has a good chance to miss.

[@ZeroKitsunei]

I know we're talking FF, but the one that immediately came to mind any master Magik from Skyrim. Takes like 12 years to cast it and did around the same amount of damage as just casting lower spells in the same span of time.

[@DeltaFiend]

Some of them have notable uses. Lightning storm has an insane DPS if you can reduce its cost to zero, blizzard can be cast to gain Destruction experience easily after making the skill legendary since you're a valid target for it, for Restoration the same applies with guardian circle IF you're a vampire. Harmony has the extra effect of letting you pickpocket an NPC again if if they'd caught you already that day, so you can just continually pickpocket the same bandit for experience in one of the most annoying to level skill in the game.

[@Nelleil_86]

Magic in late game Skyrim is pointless due to enemies scaling. If you’re level 50 only high level spells deal damage and feels like you’re using a simple fire spell.

[@kaspertovik2310]

Immobilise > Holy in XII. Holy's animation lasted forever for not enough damage and there's like no instances it wouldn't be better to use something else.

[@Shadohime]

In terms of nigh-useless spells, any of the level 4/-ja magics from Final Fantasy Tactics, in my opinion. Sure, they look amazing, but they take forever to charge, meaning the enemies are likely to move before the spell goes off. And you can bet that if you targeted a unit rather than a panel, that unit will dive into the middle of your formation so you get nuked. There were ways to make them useful (hitting them with Don't Move or Stop first comes to mind), but they're still problematic. On the note of FFT, the Ultima spell is nigh-useless for the hoops you have to jump through to acquire it. Its damage multiplier is one of the worst in the game compared to other high-end spells like Flare or Holy. I'd argue it's worse than the FFII iteration, since that one could at least be empowered in versions after the NES original. And, while not quite 'magic', all of Cloud's Limit skills in FFT are likewise fairly useless. The fact that you need the Materia Blade just to use them is one thing, but that they have charge times really hurts them. The early, quick Limit skills don't have enough power to justify using them, while the later ones take so long to charge that, like the level 4 spells, you'd never actually get them to hit without abusing statuses. And even then, their power isn't enough to justify the lengthy charge time or the requirement of a single weapon.

[@Bowshewicz]

I've got to disagree with your reasoning on FFXIII's Daze. Learning and taking advantage of the quirks of the AI is one of the keys to mastering XIII's combat system. Rather than making the strategy unreliable as many players say, I personally found it to be extremely gratifying once everything clicked. In the case of Daze, those "weird" AI behaviors described in the video gave the player the means to maximize daze's effectiveness through direct use of the paradigm system instead of having to rely on precise timing tricks.

[@TheNaturalGamer1]

Um can you say that in English

[@Bowshewicz]

@@TheNaturalGamer1 lol sorry about that. I mean that the AI seems bad at first, but it's actually designed to let you game and follow your lead. A lot of players don't realize that, so they never find out how much cool stuff you can make your party do. And one of those cool things is using Daze to deal tons of damage

[@1BadAssArchAngelvs14]

@@Bowshewicz By maxing the amount of Debuffs in FF13 on any enemy type then the AI in FF13 will spam Daze.The AI will only use Daze in FF13 when the enemy has the max amount of Debuffs on it. Daze in FF13 is the last Debuff the AI will use when all the other Debuffs are on the enemy.

[@1BadAssArchAngelvs14]

@@TheNaturalGamer1 By maxing the amount of Debuffs in FF13 on any enemy type then the AI in FF13 will spam Daze.The AI will only use Daze in FF13 when the enemy has the max amount of Debuffs on it. Daze in FF13 is the last Debuff the AI will use when all the other Debuffs are on the enemy.

[@SanguineUltima]

"Meltdown" or Merton as it was called in the original SNES port was super useful. It would deal massive damage and double as a complete heal for your whole party. Keep in mind you could easily buy flame shields in the world of balance well before you will ever have access to this. And there are plenty of other pieces that give you absorb fire or fire immunity too!

[@TheGreyParse]

I saw the title of this video and immediately thought of Shield from FF7. The spell is literally bugged and does NOTHING.

[@DarkFrozenDepths]

FF12's Immobilize? I found water to be more useless than that cause they never let the player get the -ra -ga and -ja version of that. Plus, if an enemy is immobilized, you can attack outside of it's range. IIRC, some bosses weren't immune to it.

[@scribble71891]

Immobilize could also be used to isolate a party member, leave them, and switch back, causing enemies to despawn. This was used for Zodiac Spear hunting in the Henne Mines. It could also be used on one of the Judges in the trial fight. I did that myself.

[@vargsvansify]

@@scribble71891Did you watch the video? He mentions this.

[@aspieatheist6040]

There were lots of bugged spells in FF I like Lock, Lock II, Temper, Saber, and Dark.

[@MasterZebulin]

Everytime I hear FF1 I remember about all those bugs that were/are STILL not fixed and get really pissed off. I hate FF1.

[@1BadAssArchAngelvs14]

@@MasterZebulin play FF1 PSP remake the spells 100% work in the PSP remake.

[@MasterZebulin]

@@1BadAssArchAngelvs14 Yeah? What about the infamous Critical Hit Bug?

[@franciscodeabreu4004]

Immobilize is obviously outclassed by other spells, like stop, but it is much more common for an enemy to be vulnerable to immobilize than to stop, and against enemies with no ranged attacks (or weaker ranged attacks) it's quite useful

[@Smalltownguy123]

Thanx for this fun video, I really enjoy your work sir. Keep up the good work.

[@Morgil27]

As soon as I saw the video title, I _immediately_ thought of a certain spell in the original version of FFII.

[@manadorkjohn]

Everytime I watch one of these vids I have to rewind it because I get lost in the absolute banging music and miss what's been said 😂😂

[@Forever_Zero]

Personally in most Final Fantasy games I never use spells like Drain or Osmose, they're just not realible enough to be used as either healing or attacks

[@MidnightWonko]

Mostly agree, though Osmose in FF6 was crazy useful.

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

Immobilize is great even without the glitch. Yeah in theory disable and stop are better but immobilize is gotten earlier and enemies can be immune to those and not to immobilize. And a enemy doesn’t have to be “melee only” for them to be cheesed with immobilize. They just need to have a melee at all ( you know vast majority of enemies) and be vulnerable to it because they won’t switch attacks unless you take an absurd amount of time to kill them so they’ll keep trying to cast their standard attack that all your units are staying out of range of. It’s particularly useful for early trips to the necrol before going to the garif and the loot you get from there will make you very strong for the immediate future in the story. It also just is very strong early game in general as very little enemies have any immunities yet and it’s the single earliest spell that hits multiple enemies. So rather then using fira or something to clear large crowds early on you render them incapable of harming you with immobilize and handle them one by one. Even early rare game often aren’t immune to it though they are often resistant but still you can usually have it hit at least once relatively easily and get some significant value off it

[@ThundagaT2]

I tend to use it against the enemies in Necrohol of Nabudis because i go there as early as possible lol

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

@@ThundagaT2 nothing unites rpg gamers like them doing everything but the story first

[@Kira121086]

Daze was a godsend for the 3x Tonberry trial in FFXIII. Useless spells - Poisuna, Sleepel, Blindna, etc.

[@ericb3157]

FF6 also had a spell called "quake" that would hurt all enemies and allies, but could be exploited with the right equipment, like "Gaea Gear", or avoided with Float. as you might guess, it did "earth" type damage.

[@Zaurthur]

This is one of those lists that could almost all just come from FF1 due to buggy as hell programming

[@Prich319]

I think FFXI had a surprising number of useless spells. Part of it having to do with some jobs having more spells than they could realistically use, and the fact your weapon and casting skills had individual levels. (i.e. a RDM got more utility out of dia than a WHM due to a higher enfeebling skill.) The most surprising one though had to be Odin, you could only summon him while under Astral Flow, which had a 2-hour cooldown, and most enemies were resistant if not immune to instant death.

[@BlakeAustin2011]

Odin I can understand to a degree, but so many spells were useful in certain fights in the older days of the game. Even deodorize was needed back then with some mobs. Maybe some songs were silly (bind resistance?), and some of the ninjutsu didn’t pan out, but mostly they had niche uses typically.

[@necroarcanistxiii]

Daze in FF13 was slightly useful against the Adamantoises if you were going for the Vanille-Death strategy. They were vulnerable to Daze when Staggered, and every debuff on them gave Death an additional chance to instantly KO the overgrown 'torts. Also the notorious Gigantaur hunt was technically vulnerable to Daze, but good luck having 3 seconds to cast it before he used 10,000 needles on your Saboteurs.

[@groudonvert7286]

You don't need Death for the Adamantoise, Daze makes you able to kill any toises once you get the Hyades Magnum.

[@HarleyHerbert]

Daze is also useful for killing them the normal way too. Stick on daze before hitting them with Snow or Fang's full ATB attack and it massively boosts the damage you deal. If doing so at 999.99% stagger with genji gloves and you'll tear huge chunks out their hp bar

[@Xenodyne]

I never really use debuffs in FF games. I feel like things the bosses are (generally) immune to are usually a waste of a turn/MP so why even bother 99% of the time instead of nuking the enemy?

[@paulman34340]

I get you since I started my rpg journey with FF, I had designated any type of status ailment As pointless Till I started playing the Megaten & Etrian Odyssey games where ailments are worth your while! Can't believe how many FF before Square (and Enix with DQ) finally made the spells worth fucking using! 😡

[@phoenicia1313]

​@@paulman34340lol 😂 same. Megatens difficulty is no joke and worse if you try to approach it like the typical DQ or FF. Made me appreciate status effect spells.

[@paulman34340]

@@phoenicia1313 Yep, take poison for example. Have you rarely seen it every put you near death before? It was usually dangerous if you failed to remember you had it with how easy it was to cure. Then I played Etrian Odyssey back on the DS and I got poisoned and figured it would be no issue....then said character DIED from it come my turn in one shot and at that point was when I realized my ass was going to get raped! I take indications of how expensive status recovery and revive items are as a clear clue that status ailments are no joke in this game. Really in the old FF games, ailments were more something that plagued YOU then they did the enemy, and really the only bad ones usually forced you to have to take time to deal with them then be a threat unless you were dumb enough to try and tank through. Charm especially on your healer! But the atlas RPGs man was it fun finally BENEFITTING off of them like the enemy does when they use them on you. To charm a healer and be healed or get a major buffer move they have better then ehat you currently have used on you. Now we know how they feel when it happens in reverse 🤣

[@RobotGuy405]

I'd argue Esuna in FF7. Most status disappears after battle, including Poison, and not enough bosses can inflict them for it to worth dedicating a materia slot to. Not to mention it requires a ton of AP to unlock in the first place.

[@Danahell]

If anything, I'd say FF7's Dispel was even more useless than 8's, enemies who apply buffs to themselves are pretty rare and way more uncommon than in FF8.

[@PeterParker-df6ce]

FF8 dispel was the #1 spell you could junction to either status defense (giving +33% resistance at all status with 100 stacks) or status attack (enabling you to disable enemy buffs with melee attacks)

[@Edward-bm7vw]

I vaguely remember a spell in FF7 that had a glitch where it wouldn't even affect the enemy anyway - rendering it useless. I think it was "Blind" or something like that. There was also the "Old" spell in FF5. That one kinda sucked too.

[@MidnightWonko]

To be fair, a lot of FF games have glitched accuracy. Since the name of the Silver Glasses in the original translation of FF6 was "Goggles," and since blindness didn't do jack for accuracy, it could almost literally be said, "The Goggles! They do nothing!" (In fact, the only effect Blind had in the original SNES release of FF6 was to prevent Strago from learning spells, since he had to observe them with his own eyes.) Can't really argue with your assessment of the Old spell; it takes too long to be really effective.

[@Shamus-x7k]

Chocobuckle.... Gains power based on number of battles fled from.... *Base dmg. 0.... Also the only single move attack that can break the 9999 dmg. Cap.

[@jesseblade7924]

Daze in ff13 is endgame op. Crucial for melting Shaolong Gui in about 1min for dark matter farming. No idea why it's on this list.

[@KieranHamilton-y7s]

Probably the nobody like FF13.

[@Shamus-x7k]

FYI, immobilize served a purpose in FfXii as a means to leave one party member behind.... Run off with your lead character then after passing enemies you can swap to the immobilized character and back only to have all nearby enemies deleted. This was used in part with RNG manipulation to achieve guaranteed loot from specific coffers like the ones the zodiac spears are obtained from. This was because all dmg. Done to the player affects the RNG counter.

[@Sniperbear13]

that FF2 Ultima bit i found was rather interesting. its one way to look at it. magic has become so much stronger then it was in the past so Ultima might have been one of the most powerful spells, but because it was sealed for so long its power is more imagined. on that note though; i really found most magic in FF2 not worth the effort though in general. its not most spells were worthless, its more the spells you can get early on will probably be just better by the time you get later spells since you will probably have fire or Ice or Thunder at higher levels by the time you get a spell like Flare.

[@TyTang24]

1:33 Jewel (FF9) 3:44 Fear (FF1) 5:24 Immobilize (FF12) 7:15 Ultima (FF2) 9:33 Dispel (FF8) 11:25 Meltdown (FF6) 13:06 Daze (FF13)

[@turokken]

FFXI had Deodorize, which was never useful. Just need Sneak (sound aggro) and Invisible (sight aggro)

[@ian0608]

For me like any status effect/debuff… poison(except bio), silence, blind, sleep etc… I almost never have been able to effectively use those spells.

[@derfderf0]

Not needed for regular monsters, and bosses are nearly all immune.

[@Derekloffin]

@@derfderf0 Yeah. I was always perplexed at the logic of those spells. They aren't worth casting on fodder, only really bosses, but against bosses they are either outright immune or so difficult to land the spell you might as well ignore the debuff and use brute force tactics. Seemed only bosses specifically programmed to be vulnerable to specific debuffs ever found much use for them.

[@CircuitReborn]

I would have said Blind in FF7 is the most useless. Due to a glitch while it may apply to your enemy it actually doesn't DO anything to them. Meanwhile your party is still effected fully by Blind if its afflicted on you.

[@TheAuron32]

They are only really useful in XIII, the half damage/defence and lower resistances are pretty good and not too many things are immune, and the final boss can be poisoned to death, its kinda sad to see honestly. but thats one game... and if i stretch it for all 3 in that line of games... its still not enough to say they are amazing.

[@pumpkin6192]

Bio is actually busted most of the time

[@kdog145]

I love that final fantasy 7's materia system is so flawless that there are no useless spells in the game. That system was IMO, the best!

[@thatboydane]

I feel like throughout the entire franchise 'Berserk' has been a pretty useless and/or isolated spell

[@MidnightWonko]

Berserk is situational. Where it's useful, it's phenomenal. Where it's not, it's garbage. In FF4, if you don't need your physical fighters to focus on strategy at all, Berserk and Haste them. Increased speed and power. In FF6, the Magic Master's script almost completely breaks if you cast Berserk on him, turning an otherwise crazy hard boss fight into an absolute chump. Other than that, yeah, Berserk is kinda poopy.

[@thatboydane]

@@MidnightWonko yes, definitely a very situational spell. And then there's FF7 where it will increase your limit meter faster

[@Zoomy]

I thought VIII's useless spell was Float. Used for all of one dungeon and then never again.

[@callmeshaggy5166]

Float negates earth attacks

[@dodixaber8968]

@@callmeshaggy5166 which only ever relevant in Brother's dungeon. Not to mention by that time you probably already have plenty of quake to negate / absorb Earth Elemental attack yourselves.

[@C24U_]

I thought Scan was more useless as the one thing it’s supposed to do often fails more often then it ever worked

[@Jester_Jean]

@@dodixaber8968 and maybe for cerberus when he triple casts Quake

[@randalthor2859]

​@@C24U_I've only seen scan fail a handful of times. Used it religiously before the internet was more available. It was faster to write stats down after scans than it was to load up a web page that was wrong half the time anyways lol. The fails were usually on bosses, or fastitocolans

[@tsutl84]

Daze had limited but very useful applications. It allowed parties to punch way above their weight in situations against very tough enemies. The problem with daze is its use is pretty much limited to single enemy battles and very large targets. Also the AI had a very nasty habit of undoing daze far to quickly and timing daze with the other 2 party members was tricky. The spell I found to be almost useless was FFX raise. By the time you had an actual use for it against bosses you likely had reraise and autolife. The cost of spells in FFX for a long time were the limiting factor in their usefulness. A constant supply of ethers or trips to the save spheres were mandatory but there are many times that you would simply run out of MP before the next save sphere in the early game. By late game auto abilities were far more useful than trying to revive after the fact.

[@groudonvert7286]

Daze has more utility than Stopga.

[@danielgonzalez6609]

this is where i see just how theory crafting changes a game, dispel in ff8 is not used often but it is not useless, its actually quite useful, the best use for defence against status effect, with the right set up that by the way uses dispel bad breath of malboros sometimes would miss and when it miss it doesnt casta again, its such a riot

[@zacheray]

A bit of the opposite idea would be interesting too like rarely used spells that were extremely useful.. such as Tractor from FFXI

[@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz]

FF9 protect/shell. due to how FF9 handles timed status effects these are basically useless since they'll run out before you get hit more than once, maybe.

[@xvxvcaspervxvx]

Thats why the Spirit stat is soooo important! Its good for speedruns/low level runs. MIghty Guard from Quina is actually really good early on and becomes better when characters start maxing their Spirit since buff abilities are tied to that stat.