Your most hated RPG status effect

[toolateforsundown]

I hate confusion and berserk so fucking much it isn't even funny. Though if we count enemy buffs as well--and if we think net effect I think it counts--paling from FFXII is the most horrible thing in any game ever. I can't think of off the top of my head a more disgusting excuse of lengthening already overly drawn-out boss battles. But once I started thinking ahead enough to over-level, I just let my characters running on gambits continue hacking pointlessly while the character I was controlling from spammed buffs and healing spells. It's still just annoying, especially when the boss is easy enough it's just drawing out the inevitable. Such fuckery tries pacing and patience.

I miss Enix. And I mean Enix Enix, not Square-Enix... -.-

 

[Fappy]

Oh, I just remembered a good one. "Brown Rot" is a super common disease in Morrowind that always pissed me the fuck off. I liked to run around with as much stuff as I could carry and every time I ran into a Bonewalker I would kill it as fast as possible, lest I get diseased and become over-encumbered

 

[BigOrteil]

There is a monster in the game Dark Alliance on Xbox who could completely destroy one of your equipment if he touched you... Hated those mobs.

The curse(not sure) in NWN that remove a lvl from your character.

For overall RPGs I would say sleep and poison.

 

[Gorog2]

Stunned... Well.......... Crap!!!
That's all you can, Sit/ Stan there like a lump on a log, and take damage.
RAGE.............

 

[hedges1001]

ff10's poison 1/4 my health a turn!! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUU! especially when mixed with confuse

 

[danirax]

Doomed - I dont remember from what game but this was just awful, after being doomed you must kill the caster or else you just die, there is no cure, you cant run away, you cant surrender, cant be revived, and the most horrible thing there is a timer on it so watching the turns running out its basically a torture especially cuz the casters of that spell got ridicules amounts of avoid and they cast it when the got low health so youre praying that the next hit will be successful and the you miss and the you miss once more and again while the timer slowly counting down....

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Confusion, and not just in Pokemon. It's potentially even more devastating than ailments that simply prevent you from acting, and unlike Petrification and Death most games have enemies that dole it out like candy.

Usually with Petrification and Death you'll get some kind of countdown before it activates, or it will only affect one party member at a time. Not Confusion. The first encounter I remember with it was the first Lufia game, wherein the attack called 'Figural' confused my entire party at once, who then proceeded to destroy each other since your damage scale is much higher than an enemies', and your HP generally lower. This was in a regular encounter, and the enemy literally did not have to lift a finger to win after that first attack. Hells yeah I hate Confusion.

Honourable mention goes out to a particularly devastating combination in Final Fantasy V; White Hole, which inflicts Death AND Petrification to one target. X-Death likes using it twice in a row, devastating without a Ribbon.

 

[newdarkcloud]

Instant Death.

Seriously. Fuck instant death, especially when it's game over if the protangonist/party leader dies.

 

[Coldflame727]

"Infatuation."
Seriously now. I'm on a quest to (save/fuck over) the world and I'm stopping because some monster decided they wanted to get in my pants? And you can't cure it, you just sit there while they kick the shit out of you, and pray to whatever god/gods you believe in that it will end soon.

 

[remmus]

any effect that robs you of your controls, one of the reasons I quitted playing WoW, PvP felt less like a challenge between skilled players and more about finding ways to make the game jerk the keyboard from my hands like a bully going "haha cant control ya guy now eh?"

 

[Dexiro]

The Cursed effect on Dark Souls.

First it kills you instantly, and when you respawn you permanently have your health halved, or atleast until you fish out 3000 souls for the item to cure the effect, the less informed may end up paying 6000 souls.

Early in the game 3000 souls can be a ton, and it's even harder to earn when you have your health halved. Not to mention that you'll have lost all of your souls because you got killed instantly, to get them back you'd have to run back to where you died and hope you don't die on the way (which is likely), and also hope you don't get cursed a second time.

The effect stacks too, if you get cursed a second time your health is brought down to 1/4, and a 3rd time brings it to 1/8.

 

[Skoosh]

Confusion/charm is terrible. I'm my own worst enemy, hate hitting myself. Kills me more than anything else.

Second one though is sort of a buff: reflect. It annoys me, I don't like dealing with it. What I really hate is a big, late-game boss that casts reflect on you at the end so your instant-heals bounce off to him. The 50 million HP monstrosity in FF12 (Yaizmat, I think) did that and I still hate him for it. Made for a 4 hour battle or something ridiculous like that. I just dislike reflect in general though. Yeah, I can use it to my advantage, but it's a pain.

 

[Maleb]

Oblivion: being unworthy to wear the knights of the nine armor -status

the gods are really just a bunch of jerks when they make me walk 7th time around cyrodiil praying my ass off/ cleaning off my innocence at some hard-to-find shrine. Damn karma.

 

[Zenn3k]

Frog:

Because you can't do anything but use items.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Paralysis and other things that prevent you from acting and don't wear off on their own can go straight to hell.

Sleep would fall into this category, but being hit usually cancels it. Those that don't can also jump in front of a bus.

 

[Biafra Republic]

For me, it's a tie between Frog from FFVII (pansy 1 attack against an enemy), and Curse from Castlevania: SotN (can't hit, but can be hit back, and can be cursed 25 times before you get the heck away...)

 

[Sealpower]

Fear - It's highly frustrating to just sit there and watch your character run helplessly away from one weak mage and into that mage's mightier friends.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Death Effects.

They never work on the enemy and they always work on you.

Unless you're playing Star Ocean: The Second Story. In that game, death effects have a chance on working on any enemy, including unkillable opponents protected by plot armor.

 

[Mauso88]

Level 5 Death in Final Fantasy 8. The spell kills any of your party if his/her level is a multiple of 5 and the highest level is 100, not 99 as it was with FF7. The most galling part is that an enemy in the last castle, which by the way I always found a pain, uses level 5 death. So, if you don't have 100 death magics junctioned to your status defence on every character, the spell can insta-wipe your party. A friend of mine found out about this the hard way, when he was literally 5 minutes away from the last boss encounters.