The worst magic in games.

[emerald2142]

To an extent I agree with Steamtech, in the right game debuffing is very powerful.

For example Oblivion, hit a guy with 100% weakness to poison, load him up via a few poisoned arrows with effects like lowering endurance and max health level, and with one hit of a simple dagger his now measly 2 health wont save him for long :3

OT xD: To me the worst magic is Telekinesis, again, in Oblivion. Sure its useful for a thief to move something across a room to pick it up but what the hell is it good for if throwing something heavy at a bandit won't hurt him l-(

 

[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*

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.

YEAH! You got it, my friend. Rock on, lets to torch some pesky goblins =D. I live their "I'm Alive" version a lot tho, one of my favorite songs ^^. And now that you mention it, having healing magic in backup has always been something I consider while picking my magic. And I KNOW it's the better tactical decision, but I just cannot deviate from my urge of being a purely destructive character, it kind of breaks with the characters personality and skill set =3.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

most useless magic?

"Cloudia" in Uninvited

it does absolutely nothing [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juFZh92MUOY]

OT: Generally debuff spells are ass, I think there may have been a couple of games when they were actually useful. I'm think Penny Arcade here.

 

[NeutralDrow]

snip

You want an RPG where debuffing magic is absolutely, ungodly vital? Try Wizardry 8. Seriously, if you don't lock down your enemies, they will do it to you. It's a lot like a tabletop RPG in that sense.

Sure, you can launch that fireball at that group of piercer modai. Might even take some of them down to 70% health (or 50%, if you want to risk spell backfire).

Or you can paralyze them and watch your melee fighters auto-crit each time (or use sleep or blindness for similar effect). Or poison and armormelt them and watch an otherwise protracted fight end much quicker. Or drive them insane and have them start attacking each other. Or slow them for a measure of added safety. Then start blasting away with the damage magic.

Pretty much any fight that you can't end in just one or two mass-damage spells (which is most of them) can be made much easier with debuffing and control magic. The whole idea is to make sure they don't fight back. And naturally, those magics can screw you over just as easily...

I will admit that this does not count in MMOs where debuffing is vital.

Speaking as a Dark/Dark Defender in City of Heroes, I will allow you to live.

And then drive your attack accuracy into the crapper, just for shits and giggles.

 

[Saltyk]

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

About Random Battles!

I was literally thinking of that when I made this post

 

[Atmos Duality]

In Seiken Densetsu 3 (Secret of Mana 2) Debuff magic is amazing.
So amazing in fact, that it is part of the Broken Trinity series of spell types.

It's quite hilarious watching a boss's scary attack magic harmlessly bounce off of you, or the deadly counter-techs of certain enemies degrade to utter mediocrity with one spell.

Debuff Magic only sucks in games that poorly implement it.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Debuffing is ridiculously awesome when the spells actually work. I loved affliction warlocks in WoW. I could force someone to crawl along on the ground, make them speak in tongues, send them screaming into a group of mobs like a *****, drain health and mana for me, plain fuck their shit up over time while doing it, and then suck out their soul to make uncut gems.

I hated magic in general in Dragon Age. I wanted to make a debuffing mage, but the damn spells were horrible. My first two spells were drain life and drain mana. My plan was to just switch between the two. How wrong I was. That stupid wheel thing didn't help at all. I don't like having to open up some crappy inventory menu just to access the not six spells on wheel.

If I could make my perfect class, it would be a healer/debuffer. I would drain the health of my enemies and give it to my allies.

My least favorite spells are generally single target, damaging spells. Especially ones with short range that require being right in the enemy's face to go off.

 

[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.

YEAH! You got it, my friend. Rock on, lets to torch some pesky goblins =D. I live their "I'm Alive" version a lot tho, one of my favorite songs ^^. And now that you mention it, having healing magic in backup has always been something I consider while picking my magic. And I KNOW it's the better tactical decision, but I just cannot deviate from my urge of being a purely destructive character, it kind of breaks with the characters personality and skill set =3.

Picking just one Disturbed song that I like is impossible. Someone asked me once. I listed like 20 songs just off the top of my head. Lol.

Well, in a party based game, I may only have one character with any amount of healing magics. Everyone else just kills stuff!

 

[Heart of Darkness]

Y'know, if RPG developers actually focused on making turn-based battles, well, strategic, debuffing magic wouldn't suck so much. It's just that when every major enemy is resistant to all state changes and the spells to drop their attack (especially when those spells are sorely needed), they kinda fall by the wayside. They'd be more useful if they actually made a difference.

Take the Pokemon games. Buffing yourself and debuffing yourself honestly can take a backseat once you can deliver super-effective Electric attacks to the Water Pokemon Trainer of the Month. In the metagame, however, Poison, Paralysis, Sleep, Wish, Swords Dance, Calm Mind, and Baton Pass all become very viable, if not necessary, on the movesets of certain Pokemon. In the campaign, these moves are pretty useless, especially when you can throw Revives and Potions at your Pokemon like nobody's business.

EDIT: As another case, look at the SNES version of FFIV (called FFII) and its remake for the DS. In the SNES version, debuffs were useless, as most bosses were easy enough to kill without them. In the remake, however, Slow was practically indispensable, as most bosses had increased attack and speed.

 

[Athol]

I dont usually use any magics. I load up on good weapons and armour, and hit stuff till it breaks! Simple yet satisfying.

 

[Comma-Kazie]

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?

I wouldn't call that bad magic, per se--just overkill.

 

[LittleChone]

the spell in Runescape that turns bones into bananas.
8( ?!?

 

[Jfswift]

It's really situational to be honest. In alot of the Final Fantasy games (especially the older ones) and Dragon Warrior/Quest series, debuffing is critical even on low level monsters. Case in point you get a spell called sap in DW3 that knocks an enemies armor down quite a bit, significant enough to allow the warriors in the group to almost double their damage. In Final Fantasy, sleep and silence are very very useful and will save your life in some situations. Especially if you play the remade version of FF1, where alot of magic users can cast instant death right away.

 

[Valkaris]

Frost Mages (I jest)

The kind that is an istant kill if you fail your save

 

[estoria-etnia]

What I found with these debuffing spells is that you reach a certain point in the game where they either stop making a difference or the bosses and enemies have developed an immunity to it. It's why I don't bother with them. Stat boosting spells I train, along with healing and elemental magic ? I prefer playing as a ranged character, usually a mage. So yeah...

 

[Lord Devius]

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.

In most RPGs, I'd agree that saboteur/indirect magic is rather useless.

In a couple, however, including FF7, which I'm playing for the first time, sometimes the mechanics of the magics work together to make a combo which is quite fun. Put something to sleep, poisoned, and it will die in its sleep if you just wait. The enemy will only wake up if it is physically attacked, so you could even just put it to sleep and hit it with multiple waves of magic and it is helpless.

In Golden Sun, and its sequel, sleep lasts from a turn to 3 turns, on average. But that can be incredibly helpful. Poison, when used tactically, does a hell of a lot of damage, and even when it doesn't, it's quite fun to watch something tough dying to miniscule amounts of damage while you sit and tank.

It really depends on the game, and the situation in the game. If more poison was like Toxic in Pokemon, where the damage per hit grew as time passed, I'd love it as a normal spell. As it is, it's rather situational, but I like the indirect flavor of magic.

 

[SuperSuperSuperGuy]

And Debuffing magic. You skip this crap every time.

In some games, a debuffer can be quite helpful. However, in most cases, I'd have to agree with you. Enemies are frequently immune to many debuffs, and many of them have a low chance of working.

My main exception would be Pokemon. Direct stat debuffs aren't useful, apart from forcing your opponent to shuffle around his team a little bit to remove the debuff, but statuses like Paralysis and Burn can be devastating when used correctly. My other exception would be Final Fantasy XIII. While it's true that many bosses are immune to statuses, some of them are pretty hard to beat without having a Saboteur soften them up a little bit with Imperil, Deprotect and Deshell. Slow, Debrave and Defaith are also helpful. Many strong enemies are vulnerable to Death, as well as the final boss, so some normally tough fights can be made easy by spamming Death until it works.

 

[klakkat]

I will admit, for most RPGs, you are completely correct. Not 100% of them though.

Daze effects in Borderlands, for example, are extremely useful; there are many ways to get it, and once affected an enemy is completely harmless until it wears off. Likewise, in any Dungeons and Dragons based video game, debuffs can be extremely helpful, particularly debuffs that hit a large area.

As for other games... It's almost never worth it to use a debuff in any JRPG, despite availability and effect; you pretty much only want them on bosses since everything else dies so quickly, but most JRPG bosses are immune anyway, so anything besides damage is a waste of a turn. Though, even in many western RPGs, debuffs aren't worth it; I never used any in Morrowind, and only the paralyze effects were of any use in Dragon Age (the other debuffs I tried, but they seemed to do so little I never bothered again).

 

[Denamic]

You should try playing some Shin Megami Tensei games.
Even normal encounters can rape you halfway back to last week.
Debuffs will save your life.

 

[lleihsad]

We've pretty much established that debuffs vary in (in)effectiveness by game, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents anyway - I've been playing a lot of Dragon Quest IX (Dragon Quest being the JRPG, incidentally), and a couple of applications of the Sap spell is a great way to amp up the hurt you lay on bosses.

Worst magic, though? I'm going to go old-school and nominate D&D's infamous Deck of Many Things. That thing devours campaigns, and most players are totally unable to resist messing with it.