The worst magic in games.

[Saltyk]

You know how it goes. You are playing your new RPG and are considering what spells to equip, learn, or whatever system the game uses to determine magic. You see healing magic, something only a fool would bypass. Elemental attack magic, vital to mages, and especially useful if you take advantage of enemy weaknesses. Support magic, that can give you the edge in battle, especially against bosses.

And Debuffing magic. You skip this crap every time.

That's right. Debuffing magic sucks. I'd rather just bash the enemy with my sword, then take a chance of maybe putting them to sleep. Often it would only take one or two blows to kill him anyway. Poison spells tend to be worthless against most enemies as they don't have the large amount of health to make it worthwhile. And silence never seems to work on magic using enemies. And Instant Death spells may work 10% of the time (forget it on bosses). Usually, you're better off just beating and nuking them to death.

I will admit that this does not count in MMOs where debuffing is vital. And more recent games have made it somewhat more viable. But I still think of debuffing as less useful then just nuking or bashing enemies. It's what you resort to when the enemy is too strong, but most enemies are not deserving of that treatment. And often they are immune to the spells or the spells have a low success rate.

What do you think, escapists?

 

[L3m0n_L1m3]

I once created a spell in Oblivion that paralyzed me, gave me a 100% weakness to fire, and lit me on fire for 20 seconds.

Does that count?

 

[Jester00]

totally right. boring and useless crap. i love beeing the healer guy, everybody loves you then. but who cares about the debuffing guy?
"who's that?" - "let him die, it's just the hypnotism guy. nobody needs him and he has no friends."

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

I once created a spell in Oblivion that paralyzed me, gave me a 100% weakness to fire, and lit me on fire for 20 seconds.

Does that count?

LOLOL what if you accidentally equiped it and used it during a boss fight. I really should gt back to that game...

 

[L3m0n_L1m3]

I once created a spell in Oblivion that paralyzed me, gave me a 100% weakness to fire, and lit me on fire for 20 seconds.

Does that count?

LOLOL what if you accidentally equiped it and used it during a boss fight. I really should gt back to that game...

Yah, I found out what it did during my fight with the Grey Prince. Well, more specifically, the target of the spell.

That didn't go so well.

 

[Soulgaunt]

I once created a spell in Oblivion that paralyzed me, gave me a 100% weakness to fire, and lit me on fire for 20 seconds.

Does that count?

...Why?

OT: Yeah, debuffing is pretty easy to ignore when you can light everything within an 8 mile radius on fire.

 

[FalloutJack]

The first thing that comes to mind is spells that enable your retreat. The second one is spells to make/remove enemies without actually killing them. And the third? It's from the original Persona game, called Moontrap. It's in reaction to like...one spell of enhancement (Wolf), and I don't even know if it works. Oh, and if your Persona has it? Pffft... Your enemies never use the spell it's meant to counter.

 

[L3m0n_L1m3]

I once created a spell in Oblivion that paralyzed me, gave me a 100% weakness to fire, and lit me on fire for 20 seconds.

Does that count?

...Why?

OT: Yeah, debuffing is pretty easy to ignore when you can light everything within an 8 mile radius on fire.

Well, it was intended to be used on my enemies.... But I didn't realize what I had the target of the spell set as.

 

[Soulgaunt]

I once created a spell in Oblivion that paralyzed me, gave me a 100% weakness to fire, and lit me on fire for 20 seconds.

Does that count?

...Why?

OT: Yeah, debuffing is pretty easy to ignore when you can light everything within an 8 mile radius on fire.

Well, it was intended to be used on my enemies.... But I didn't realize what I had the target of the spell set as.

That must've been a bad night when you tried it out...

 

[Vampire cat]

My philosophy is "screw healing, I want to blow my enemies up with fire and lightning bolts!"

I've never been very subtle in any games. I like when stuff blows up, catches fire or gets toasted. If I can blow up an entire building (doesn't matter if I'm inside or not), I will.

Destructive magic is the shit. Make peoples skin catch fire, freeze them solid from the inside or toast their limbs with crackling thunder, hell yeah! *turns on some Disturbed records and goes to play Oblivion*

EDIT: Realized I forgot something while getting caught up in writing =3. My point with this post was, all other magic than destructive magic is sucky magic. I don't want any part in healing magic, buffing magic, or "reduce skill by x%" magic.

 

[Souplex]

Debuffing magic is effective in strategy RPGs. It's the ones where you stand in a line that it's useless.

 

[Snarky Username]

I hate debuffing spells so much. They almost never work consistently, and even then the effect is never very high.

 

[WOPR]

most useless magic?

"Cloudia" in Uninvited

it does absolutely nothing

 

[Steamtech]

I'm going to have to disagree overall. Debuffing is one of my number one go-to in almost every game. And before you bash it entirely, think of the concept as a whole.

Wargame FPS(Modern warfare, Battlefield, etc.)= Shot while blinded via flash bang? Debuff

Fighting Games(Soul Caliber, Street Fighter, etc.) Too slow to dodge because of that one weak move with huge hit stun? Debuff

RPG(Neverwinter Nights, Fallout, etc.) Brutally murdered because the enemy decided to call the shot and take out your sword arm? Debuff

The Debuff concept is solid, its just that far too many games only give it a token glance when in reality, a good debuffer will take out a nuker, tank, or sneak on their terms much more than half the time.

 

[ClassicJokester]

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

 

[Tanis]

Gotta agree.

Spells like 'silence' and 'sleep' and 'poison' and 'Instant Death' are totally worthless in most single player games.


Same goes for any real defensive stuff outside of 'heal'.
Though I recall in FF8 'Triple' and 'Aura' being REALLY good to have.

 

[oplinger]

I love debuff magic. It's like my favorite type of spell.

and by that I mean I don't even care about it, at all. In fact in any RPG I play I ignore it. Until i'm bored. ..Then i'll spam it until it works. Throw a silent party in the back of my mind......and then go back to what I was doing <_<

Although I disagree on poison. Poison spells have saved me on many many occasions and have seriously been a major help.

 

[Ryuo]

As stated before, in games where the chances of your debuffs actually sticking to the target are about 1%, I don't like it and want to know why its even there.

I can accept not sticking every time, but if debuffs are present, they need to be actually usable.
FF games are hit or miss on this.
FF5 almost all of the debuffs stuck, and you could 'Slow' about 90% of the bosses.
I use the hell outta that.

In general though, I like destruction/black magic. Nothing quite like lighting a town on fire to roast a marshmallow.

 

[badgersprite]

The only times debuffing magic is actually useful is in something where you're in combat against other players, or possibly really intelligent/overpowered AI, if a boss is actually only defeatable through casting bad status ailments on it.

I've only ever seen debuffing magic be really useful in something like Iron Realms style MUDs where the proper buffs and debuffs can be the difference between life or death, and status effects actually do something.

In single player sword and sorcery games, they only exist to annoy you when other characters cast bad status on you. Using it on them does nothing to the AI.

 

[Saltyk]

My philosophy is "screw healing, I want to blow my enemies up with fire and lightning bolts!"

I've never been very subtle in any games. I like when stuff blows up, catches fire or gets toasted. If I can blow up an entire building (doesn't matter if I'm inside or not), I will.

Destructive magic is the shit. Make peoples skin catch fire, freeze them solid from the inside or toast their limbs with crackling thunder, hell yeah! *turns on some Disturbed records and goes to play Oblivion*

I agree with you! It's way more effective to just kill your enemies. Though I like to have healing magic as a backup plan. And a sword.