Insane Difficulty: Underpowered Enemy Skills - Insane Difficulty

Wanted to start a list of abilities that suck and/or waste enemy turns (and your own) if you choose to use them. Also including abilities that are easily overpowered by stuff that comes around the same time.

These skills would be useful if they had their numbers edited or re-worked. Post any that I missed!


Unmotivate - Stops an enemy's next attack (if successful). Learn from:
Durandal (Master)
Goblin (Cedar Woods)

Burn - Level one flame spell vs. one enemy. Learn from:
Mage Goo (Cedar Woods)
Lava Man (Mt. Zublo)
Goo Titan (Meryleep's Woods)

Frost - Level one ice spell vs. one enemy. Learn from:
Mygas (Master)

Snap - Weak damage, lowers defense. Targets one enemy. Learn from:
[Pooch] (outside McNeill Manor)
[Charyb, Scylla] (Mt. Zublo)
[Were-Tiger] (Ogre Road)
Dragonfly (Chrysm Gas Plant)
Plant 42 (Station Myria)
[Sample 4] (Station Myria)

Feign Swing - Take a practice swing. Whee! (AKA does nothing) Learn from:
(Durandal)
[Manmo] (Desert of Death)

Backhand - Weak damage vs. one enemy.
(Durandal)

Intimidate - Chance to stop an enemy from attacking.
(D'Lonzo) (Coffee Shop)
[Dolphin] (Fairie Village)
Hobgoblin (Factory)

Rest - Restores some HP and AP.
Eye Bulb (Dump)

Recall - Cast a random magic spell.
(Yggdrasil)

Counter - Guarantees a counter attack for that turn.
(Fahl)

Berserk - Allows a character to attack at high power for 3 turns. The character
then dies.
(Giotto)
Berserker (Container Yard)

Sudden Death - Kills one random unit on the screen. Includes your characters.
(Giotto)

Purify - Cures poison. Affects one ally.
(Hondara)

Douse - Makes one enemy more vulnerable to flame attacks.
Giant Roach

Mind Flay - Weak attack vs. one enemy. Can decrease INT.
Slasher (Ogre Road)

Mighty Chop - Attack vs. one target, ignores defense.
(Hachio) (Wyndia Kitchen)
Newt (Station Myria)

Demonbane - Attack vs. one target, extra damage to Demons
(Hachio) (Wyndia Kitchen)

I use Frost to deal with the Tar Men at Mt. Myrneg (or however the fuck its spelled)

Also, off the top of my head, I'd say Trump needs to be added to that list.

Blind - Weak attack vs. one enemy. Can cause blindness.
Ripper (Cedar Woods)
Lizard (Momo's Tower)
[Claw] (Tournament of Champions, round 1)
[Bully 3] (Maeksyss Gorge)
Tricker (Angel Tower)
Bolt Archer (Comm. Tower, first visit)

Risky Blow - If it hits, does critical damage. (misses alot )
(Bunyan) (Cedar Woods)
[Gaist] (Cliff)
Armor (Station Myria)
[Sample 9] (Station Myria)

Spirit Blast - Weak attack vs. one enemy, ignores defense. (1/10 of your attack is a bit useless, is better increase the power and increase ap cost)
---
[Golem] (Tournament of Champions, round two)
Hobgoblin (Factory)

Trump - Casts a random spell, can only be used at 0 AP.
---
(Giotto)


Sudden Death - Casts death on a random target.
(Giotto)

Flying Kick - Damage altered based on AGL. (even on rei the damage is lower than a normal attack)

Tricker (Angel Tower)
Codger (Colony)
Magmaite (Desert of Death)


Mighty Chop - Attack vs. one target, ignores defense (same problem as spirt blast)

(Hachio) (Wyndia Kitchen)
Newt (Station Myria)

and almost all magic attacks become useless mid/end game because physical damage is way stronger

I think I stuck Blind on Nina early game and just had her bunt with it since she does shit for damage anyhow and she'd usually get first strike.

The thing about this is I think I might be able to tweak their power but I'm not entirely sure what the formulas are, so I'd have to play around with that a bit. At present I'm just trying to get some more detailed documentation (in some cases right down to the offset).

Advent, on 29 September 2013 - 06:02 PM, said:

Most of them can be fixed with just changing their numerical values (for example if the Blind Status caused higher miss rate, then that skill that inflicts Blind would be better), etc

Some of them could use a power increase or something, too

Archael, on 30 September 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

Sure, I'm just saying I don't have the ability -- right now -- to tweak them to the extent that FFT's skills can be tweaked. I did, however, shoot Second_Advent a PM on the GFAQs boards last night, and he's been on today, so hopefully I'll hear back from him.

Feign Swing. I demand it gets removed. That thing forever pisses me off.

Angel, on 01 October 2013 - 10:55 AM, said:

i demand to feign swing stays on game and be more useless than ever

Emitai, on 01 October 2013 - 01:45 PM, said:

Emitai, on 01 October 2013 - 01:45 PM, said:

No thank you.

Angel, on 01 October 2013 - 02:36 PM, said:

Renaming Feign Swing to Splash.

Feign Swing could be kind of cool if you could actually trick enemies into doing useless attacks as opposed to useful ones.

Wasn't there a move called Bad Back or some shit like that didn't do anything, too? I cannot approve skills like this.

Archael, on 29 September 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

You effectively become a controllable Weretiger for 3 turns then die. This can be abused like nobody's business with Manly Clothes (which by the way are being removed) and Soul Gems.

Edit: Also, psionic resistance is going way down so all of those abilities that are damage + a debuff will not be useless.

This post has been edited by Advent: 08 October 2013 - 10:54 PM

Archael, on 29 September 2013 - 05:19 PM, said:

Emitai, on 29 September 2013 - 05:30 PM, said:

Unmotivate - Doesn't stop anybody's action except the caster's, because it does nothing (just wanted to clarify)

Burn - Good for learning gloom early - any of the starting three have a chance to get a bat low enough with burn to get it to cast gloom. Also nice to give to Ryu at the start so he has some use against man traps, and for a very cheap way to kill nuts later. After that though, it's fairly useless (like all magic past a certain point).

Frost - I always have Teepo train under mygas from level 1, which makes learning all of his abilities fairly easy. Frost itself is good to have on Ryu early, especially for tar men, but still hits the usefulness cap not long after.

Snap - It's essentialy weaken with minor damage added on, and it's free. There's nothing bad about that at all, it's just that many enemies resist debuffs and the fact debuffing itself is based on Int of target and attacker (if anything weaken should be here instead of snap).

Mind Flay - Same as Snap, but actually reduces a caster's effectiveness (the only way to do so even, iirc).

Blind - Same damage as Snap/Mind Flay but potentially blinds the target, halving their accuracy. This is also useful against many "eye" based enemies, like the eye goo enemies and even Gazer for boosting experience. Unlike Snap/Mind Flay though, this is a status attack rather than a psionic attack, but even still there are many vulnerable bosses this can be used against (as well as many normal enemies).

Feign Swing - There's nothing wrong with a little practice even if you could be doing something useful, like anything else.

Backhand - Now there's a few uses for this, but they're not for the damage itself, it's for backhand's special effect - it cannot kill the target. This means
it's guaranteed to make the bats survive in order to obtain gloom (explained later), and can also be useful for grinding experience on a big bulb rather than lava men, since its experience boost is based on physical damage AND the enemy regenerates. Still not extremely useful, but it could have tactical use against certain AI setups.

Intimidate - It checks against status attacks, and since most enemies are immune to status effects it also makes this relatively useless... in vanilla. against something that's not immune you could use a quick, high/decent Int character to act before the enemy and potentially cancel its turn. Sometimes skipping one of your characters' turns to cancel an enemy turn is more beneficial than actually attacking, since it makes it similar to an EX turn for the remaining characters (VERY useful if you know the enemy will use its powerful attack that turn).

Rest - It's more useful in BoF4 where IIRC it's based on Int, but here it's 5 HP and 1 AP, which is relatively useless unless you absolutely need that 1 AP.

Recall - 16/32 burn, 2/32 flare, 2/32 frost, 1/32 cyclone, 1/32 jolt, 1/32 simoon, 1/32 fireblast, 1/32 iceblast, 1/32 typhoon, 1/32 lightning, 1/32 heal, 1/32 purify, 1/32 protect, 1/32 speed, 1/32 might. Can be useful if you're low on AP and are hoping for a miracle, but due to how high of a chance burn is, it's usually going to be fairly useless.

Trump - 8/32 burn, 2/32 flare, 2/32 frost, 1/32 cyclone, 1/32 jolt, 1/32 simoon, 1/32 fireblast, 1/32 iceblast, 1/32 typhoon, 1/32 lightning, 1/32 quake, 1/32 death, 1/32 inferno, 1/32 blizzard, 1/32 heal, 1/32 rejuvenate, 1/32 purify, 1/32 protect, 1/32 speed, 1/32 might, 1/32 sleep, 1/32 confuse, 1/32 ebonfire. Trump has a much better chance of doing something productive, but you have to be at 0 AP to even use the ability, but it can come in handy. Magic Shuffle enemies use is identical to Trump, which also means they can potentially use Ebonfire on you allowing you to learn it early.

Counter - Meant to be used by characters faster than the enemy, and for big groups. Effectively makes them counter like Peco in attack formation for the entire turn, which is not a bad thing (just requires tactical usage).

Berserk - Seriously, there is no way that getting Weretiger's power boost on any unit is a bad thing, especially when soul gem/manly clothes are involved. Don't remember for sure if you can control the unit that's berserked, but if you can then it is WAY more useful than weretiger could ever be.

Sudden Death - Unless the enemy group is much larger than your group/you have death resistance, this will be relatively useless. It -is- cheaper than the Death spell though, so it still can have some use when set up properly (but in vanilla it is useless).

Purify - Seriously, who in their right mind wants to remove a BUFF? Poison has the benefit of reducing physical damage (even defense-ignoring damage) to 75% effectiveness, and even if you wanted the pesky slow field speed/damage over time removed, there's very easily obtained items for that without costing 4 AP.

Douse - If the enemy doesn't have status immunity, then this can potentially make them very weak to fire based attacks. I don't see how this can be considered "useless" when many of the bosses in vanilla are vulnerable to statuses, and elemental weaknesses can occasionally beat pure physical damage, depending on the enemy/your characters. (list of status/psionic/death vulnerable bosses at the bottom, if i remember to do so)

Gloom - Not listed here, but it needs pointed out since Douse was considered useless: Gloom can be obtained before the second Nue encounter (very early game) from bats, if you take them down to 1 HP (where burn comes in handy with a low Int character). Gloom causes the target to become extremely weak to holy attacks, which includes ability-based healing (not items), as well as making kyrie a GUARANTEED one-shot kill even against Death immune bosses. This means you have a way to potentially one-shot any boss that isn't immune to status attacks, or at the worst a way to massively boost damage by simply using heal magic on the target (TRIPLE damage). On Nue alone, this puts a simple Heal (2 AP) on par with Simoon (which Nue is partially weak to, at 4 AP) for the battle, dealing roughly 60+ damage a hit.

Mighty Chop/Spirit Blast - For reference, critical hits do normal damage plus 1/4 defense ignoring damage (the "critical" part), so against an enemy with defense >= your attack, you will only do 25% defense ignoring damage. Now what do MC/SB do? 25% defense ignoring damage for 0 AP. Against an enemy with high enough defense, these attacks are identical to a critical hit or shadowwalk (though SW always hits). These are tactical abilities, not normal use abilities.

Demonbane - Any enemy with the devil type takes *double* damage. Bonebreak doubles damage as well, but it also reduces defense to 0 so against a 0 defense Devil, Demonbane is equal to bonebreak. Enemies affected: Garr, Cerebus, Phantom, Mikba, Gaist, Reaper, Nitemare, Arwan, Sample 3, Sample 9, Vampire, Revenant.

Risky Blow - 75% chance to fail, 25% chance to get a critical hit. Normally this will do less damage on average than simply physically attacking, but it's an early ability for doing the same thing as MC/SB if you run into a high defense enemy (SB is available at the arena, but if you miss it there it'll be over halfway through the game for the next available point). Not quite as useful as it could be, but still has minor strategic use (or if you're feeling lucky).

Flying Kick (and Charge) - Accuracy = (Agility / 2) + 30, or 140 Agility = 100% accuracy. Attack = base attack (no equips) + agility (or defense for charge). If your Agility (Defense for Charge) is higher than your weapon's attack, this will do more damage than a physical attack will. For an Agility-based Rei (Deis, D'lonzo, or if you want to hurt him Meryleep, and speed-based/light equipment), Rei could outperform his weapons with little effort, and a single casting of speed (or two at max) will very greatly boost both the ability's damage and accuracy. Peco does good damage with Charge (way more than his normal attack), but his accuracy with the ability would be lower than Momo's. Even still Defense is generally easier to stack than it is to gain weapon power (and charge includes armor's defense), so even a Bunyanized Rei (probably his best master) will do more damage with Charge than with Flying Kick, making both potentially better than a normal attack.


Bosses that can be hit without immunity to Status/Psionic/Death:
Status (such as Gloom) - Nue (both), Pooch, Rocky, Torast, Kassen, Galtel, Doksen, Claw, Cawer, Emitai, Bully 1/2/3, Gazer, Scylla, Charyb, Garr (Angel Tower), Goo Titan (not a boss, but good for experience), Gaist, Angler, Ammonites, Sample 10/11/12 (nue/rocky samples too, but they're weak), and most end-game enemies. This is effectively a list of bosses that are potentially able to be one-shot with a gloom/kyrie combo, though you need decent Int for most bosses to have a chance to inflict gloom.

Psionic (such as snap) - Nue (nothing to really use), Pooch, Rocky, Amalgam, Mutant, Claw, Cawer, Patrio, Dodai, Emitai, Golems, Bully 1/2/3, Stallion, Beyd (not really a boss :v), Zig (if you're faster than him and he got a crit the last turn), Gazer, Dolphin, Scylla, Charyb, Gisshan, Garr (angel tower), Dragon Zombie, Goo Titan (again, not a boss), Weretiger, Mikba, Huge Slug, Shroom, Gaist, Angler, Ammonites, Elder, Manmo, Chimera, Goo King (not a boss, but still), all Samples, and most end-game enemies. Snap isn't as useless as you thought it was, huh? :V

Death - Pooch, Rocky (both useless), Claw, Cawer, Bully 1/2/3, Goo Titan (not a boss), and a few enemies at the end. Death resistance is 7 (immune) for every major boss enemy in the game, and most undead enemies are immune as well.



TL;DR - Only a few of these abilities are completely useless, the rest are either tactical, things people don't know how to use, or are only meant for the early parts of the game (burn/frost. mid-tier magic hits the same roadblock after high tier, and high tier is also usually outdone by physical abilities).

All hail lord secondadvent, basically like Advent but better

XtraT, on 09 October 2013 - 06:43 PM, said:

That's not hard .

,/// OHOHOHOHOHO