Debuffed: The 6 Worst RPG Status Ailments
I’m sure that in the hands of the most cunning gamers, role-playing status spells can serve a useful purpose. Besides just breaking up the “attack, attack, attack” monotony, casting Silence or Sleep at an opportune moment can undoubtedly give players the strategic edge. However, I think we can all agree that a seemingly useless spell like Silence or Poison somehow becomes deadly when we’re on the receiving end. Anyone who has encountered Final Fantasy’s Marlboro can attest to this. Presented here are 6 of the most obnoxious ailments in the genre.
6. Homesickness: Charming on paper, but annoying in practice. Luckily isolated to cult-classic Earthbound, Ness’s longing for a home-cooked meal can spell certain doom for an unprepared party. The reason why Homesickness makes the list: there is really no way to see it coming. There is no warning of this in the status screen, but if you stay out of touch with Ness’s mom for too long, he will throw down his bat and refuse to fight. The good news is that the remedy is simple: just phone home!
5. Poison: A genre staple that’s been tormenting gamers since the early days of Dungeons & Dragons.The effects are often minimal, and antidotes are easy to find, but Poison’s sheer ubiquity is impressive.
4. Paralysis: Even a small army can be brought to a standstill by Paralysis. Do whatever you can to protect your white mage from this spell – it’s incredibly frustrating watching a boss make short work of your team while your only healer flails around helplessly.
3. Doom/Curse: No cure for this one. Just sit back and watch your beloved characters kick the bucket. It should be noted, however, that this spell was actually effective a few times in Final Fantasy X. Some of the later bosses had absurd amounts of HP, but they could be easily felled in a few rounds by lion-like Kimahri’s Doom Overdrive.
2. Over-Encumbrance: Oblivion and Fallout 3 are all about exploration and collecting loot. It’s unfortunate, then, that unlike in most RPGs, your pockets cannot hold unlimited amounts of weapons and armor. If you try to carry one too many Nuka-Colas, your running speed will be reduced to a crawl. If you’re in a dungeon, this usually means leaving behind your awesome hazmat duds in order to survive.
1. Confusion: Just completely baffling on a conceptual level. Let’s look at Pokémon as an example. I could understand it if my Squirtle temporarily lost his bearings. I could certainly understand it if he attacked his trainer (I probably have it coming, seeing as I keep him imprisoned in a tiny ball most of the day). But I will never be able to fathom why my pokémon would turn to crippling self-flagellation in the midst of a heated battle. There’s confusion, and then there’s temporary insanity.
*Honorable Mention* Reflect: This pick may apply only to me, but I swear that nothing good can come of this spell. “But Justin,” you may ask, “since when is Reflect harmful?” Honestly, I can see how it would work in theory, but anyone who uses Reflect is just asking for trouble. Oh sure, the dragon’s fire is harmless, but what happens when he starts whipping you with his tail? You go to heal, but what’s this?! Cure is reflected off of your wounded soldiers and given to the dragon instead. Throw Confusion into the mix, and you’re looking at a really unpleasant situation.
GotGame community, am I alone on this?
Tags: Fallout 3, Final Fantasy, RPG, status effects
Yeah, I never use reflect. It’s useful only when you’re facing off against a foe that uses mostly magic. Besides, items don’t heal as well as Cure, Cura or Curaga; and if they do, then there’s not many to use.
That’s why you cast reflect on THE OPPONENT too! When you need to hit the boss with a spell, reflect it off of one of your own party members. Reflects do not bounce twice. And to heal that party member? Reflect it off the boss. Use mass heals. It’s an old time FF strategy that people have been using for decades.
I think with that last situation, you turned my view of all of those not-very-useful-spells, into a new way of killing off DnD characters…
Nice using Reflect on your enemy, if they’re the sort that uses Cure spells on themselves. There’s one boss in FFX (can’t remember which one) that likes to Curaga itself every other turn; Reflect turns the tables quite nicely.
Reflect can be helpful….REALLY helpful….Allow me to explain.
If you’re willing to take the time cast reflect on your party members as well as the boss in question.
You might ask why. Well it’s simple. A reflected spell bounces only once. So all the bosses magic bounces off of you and hits him. But when he starts doing physical damage all you have to do is bounce your healing spells off of him. Now I understand that at that point you’d have to resort to physical damage yourself. But against a boss that is largely magical in nature this can be a blessing. Otherwise Shell and Protect seem to work a little better in conjunction.
Or instead of resorting to physical damage you could always bounce your attack spells off of yourself as well. Either way I’ve found the spell to be helpful on a number of occasions
Reflect can actually be quite useful at least in FF games as it causes spells it reflects to become more powerful. So you cast it on one party member and have him heal with potions while you cast your damage spells at him causing them to have a greater effect on what your fighting. This is also a good way to get your status effect spells to hit if the animal isn’t immune, making it easier to make short work of most bosses.
If I am not mistaken, there were abilities you could activate in FFIX (you know, with the shiny diamonds, I forget the name) that would let your casters penetrate reflect. Perfect for your White Mage. Vivi, the black mage, I gave the “increase damage on reflected spells” and auto-reflect. That little puppet kicked some serious ***.
in most final fantasy games theres a spell called Regen which you can cast before reflect which auto heals you. the other solution is to carry more items and not rely on cure spells when you use it.
I’m sorry you’re apparently THIS bad at RPGs you think basic status effects are a hardship. I mean, you could easily prepare your characters before leaving villages and bring lots of curative items with you.
As for Reflect you’re an absolute buffoon to not realize the Reflect penetration trick in all Final Fantasy. Let me lay it down for you, since you seem too dim to grasp a basic strategy in an RPG fight:
1. Cast Reflect on your party and the enemy party as well.
2. Cast all curative magic on the enemy. It bounces back and hits your party nicely, though often healing at random. Boo hoo. Take potions with you, like any responsible buffoon.
3. Cast all offensive magic on your own party, try, of course, to target everyone. Bounces off everyone and hits multiple targets in the enemy party, or if there’s one guy there, reflect every last damn spell onto him. In FF6 that’s potentially devenstating since you can take a whopping four characters into battle with you.
I really can’t imagine why you would think of Reflect as anything but a very useful effect.
Useful if you want to take the time to cast Reflect on everyone, including enemies. In most RPGs that’s what, at least five turns wasted just to prepare for this method of battle? You’d have almost killed off the boss at that point. It’s an awfully time-consuming strategy, unless you’re running around with Reflect rings.
On a side note, did you just learn the word ‘buffoon’ or something? You seem unnaturally fond of it as an (unnecessary) insult.
It takes you FIVE turns to set up that strategy? If you are trying to use it for basic mob battles facing multiple opponents, sure I guess…but why? This strategy is best used for those big bosses like the dragon protecting the party’s entrance to ruined Zanarkand in FFX. Also, please remember Reflectga, which in many FF games, effects multiple targets at once.
Listen Yaro, I agree with Puff.
First off, if you actually thought this post was SERIOUS about “Oh man, status ailments are making these games hard!” Then you, sir, are a complete “buffoon,” as it were.
Second off, if you’re good enough at RPGs –enough to level up your characters, carry items, etc– then you don’t need to waste your time casting Reflect on your own party and the enemy. What a useless strategy! The only time it could be useful is against enemies who primarily rely on magic. Sure, these situations do exist, but they are so rare, you’ll find at most 3 in one game. Three battles out of countless battles, that’s not a very good ratio. Therefore, for all conversational purposes, Reflect is useless.
If you were good enough at RPGs to realize such things, then you wouldn’t have to use your “awesome battle strategies” to fight your battles. You would just kick ass. Thanks for letting us know that you suck.
–Summer Glau
Oh come on, being over encumbered in Fallout 3 does not affect you that much, you have at least 200 wg (I’ve had 280 at one point) capacity and many valuable items such as Nuka Colas, Purified water and food have a wg of 1 and then theres stuff like Mini Nukes (value 250), medicine (20-25 value each and fairly common) and all ammo that all have a wg of 0! Add to that the fact that a companion can add up to 200 wg and you’re flying. Stop blaming the games for you being bad at the games
This is retarded
Zombie in FF XII makes great friends with reflect and heal, often dealing more dmg than any current attack or non effective spell at mid levels
Man, this post made my day.