Weapons/Abilities In Games You Never Used

[Saltyk]

Anything slow. Weapons that take a long time to swing, I generally don't use. In games where you upgrade your weapons, you can bet slower weapons will be used far less.

I didn't use the Claws of Hades in God of War 3, either. They didn't seem as powerful as the Blades of Exile seemed all around better.

As someone else said earlier, if a skill or weapon is situational, you can bet I won't be using it unless that situation comes up fairly often.

I also tend to shy away from using weapons or skills that require a lot of energy or use rare ammo. Things that quickly drain your mana/energy/stamina with very little return on the investment are practically ignored. So I never used the level 3 spells in FFVII as they were usually weaker than just hitting an enemy and cost a ton of MP. Another example would be any of the magic Garr had in Breath of Fire 3 as his Intelligence stat was far too low to really do any damage.

I also tend to ignore negative status magic in RPGs. Seriously that stuff always feels like a waste. Random enemies are usually downed faster just beating them to death with blades and spells, and bosses are often immune. Stop giving us poison and making enemies with high HP immune to poison game developers!

 

[legend of duty]

Sniper rifles especially on COD online. I just suck with them and I have no patience to camp.

 

[sovietmisaki]

This would be more along the lines of rarely used, although I never really used regular magic as much in Skyrim nearly as much as I used the shouts, and Bows and Arrows, and I was never really one for using melee weapons anyway.

As for never used, or pretty much ditched for something else entirely later in game? so many options, although one choice I would probably go for, is the MP-40 in Return to Castle Wolfenstein after getting the Fallschirmjägergewehr 42, the ammo is rather plentiful and it hits like a freight train.

I also ditched V.A.T.S. in Fallout: New Vegas due to it being rather useless compared to Fallout 3, and sniping was better fined tuned this time around, even when the maximum viewing range was still kind of limited.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Oh also any attack in any rpg that (primarily) inflicts status effects or reduces the opponents ststs. I never really saw the point of doing that when I can just slam them with a devastating blow instead.

 

[XMark]

For some reason, in every FPS game ever, I have a tendency to forget that I'm carrying grenades. So many situations pass by in which a grenade would really tie the room together, and I don't throw one.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Shotlock from Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, got a tutorial for it an all, but I never found use for it (until the end where a guide reminded me that it still existed) Its useful, I still never used it much once I remembered it.

I'm the opposite. I found shotlocks to be VERY useful. It's not only good for dealing with trash mobs especially in the Mirage Arena, but perfect for quickly taking out at least a bar's worth of health from bosses, and since you're invincible when the attack is going, you can even use it without having to worry about getting wasted in the middle of the attack, unlike most deck commands.

In Kingdom Hearts 2 I never bothered with the drive forms. Just mashing X worked for most of the game.

Oh my god the Drive Forms, such massive potential wasted. Being a 2 keyblade wielding badass sounds like such a good idea, but the way Square used that opportunity was VERY poor. It not only consumes party members to use, who are absent in most boss and mob fights you'd actually want to use the forms in, lacks any sort of defensive ability in a game series where blind attack just doesn't work, and of course the rather useless anti-form further discouraged you from using the Drive Forms at all. If it weren't for the abilities you learn from leveling up the Drive forms there wouldn't be any reason to use them at all.

Others:
Lethal weapons in games where you can do a no-kill stealth run like MGS, Dishonored and Deus Ex: HR. I would always do (or try to do) such a run, never bothering with guns.

It sucks that there tends to only be only about 2 or 3 ways of taking enemies out nonlethally compared to about 2 dozen lethal means in games with no kill stealth available, especially since the lethal ways tend to be more fun to do overall.

Energy weapons in Fallout 3 / New Vegas.

I always like to play the stealthy approach where possible, and energy weapons in those games are anything but stealthy.

It doesn't help that they have WAY less ammo available than plain ol guns, or that they ultimately end up causing less damage than their comparable gun counterparts anyway.

I also go for the stealthy approach, though I usually go for the "blow the guy's head off from a block away" method so I don't really have to worry about how silent my gun is.

And I hardly used V.A.T.S. in New Vegas, I strongly preferred using the iron sights.

I noticed that too. VATS was useful in Fallout 3 because it was hard to manually aim, so it was the only way to ensure that you actually hit anything but once iron sights came along VATS became all but useless.

[/quote] And I never even touched the bionics in Mass Effect 1 and 2.[/quote]
I never really touched the abilities in general, since simply firing at the enemy worked just as well and was more efficient.

 

[AD-Stu]

A few come to mind - shotguns in Alpha Protocol, for example. Just never saw the need.

I don't think I ever used that short sword that Ezio gets in Assassin's Creed either. Again, never saw the need.

 

[Headsprouter]

I'm playing The Witcher at the minute...this one's funny, because I'm actually trying to make myself use the weapons, but they're so useless I really shouldn't bother. And I've heard the same from a couple of friends who've played the game and the sequel, so...

The secondary weapons "usable in tandem with other Witcher combat styles". What a lie. They take 3 seconds to pull out of their sheath and they do finally become ready to use they force you to move slowly and attack awkwardly.

...but I want to use an axe! I'm not a sword type of guy...

 

[Gearran]

For me, I always neglect the status effect spells in games. You know the ones; poison, confuse, any spell that causes the enemy to act funky, I tend to just not use. Not that they aren't useful, quite the opposite. The problem is that - in my opinion, anyway - they're not reliable to make the expenditure of time and mana/spellpoints worth the risk of casting it and having it miss. I'd rather blast the monster with my big damage spells and watch it go down than cast poison and hope and pray that the thing gets the sniffles.

Ironically, spells that directly cut an enemy's life by a set percentage (like demi in the Final Fantasy series) I love and take the opportunity to cast whenever I can. Weird.

 

[Grottnikk]

Back when the original Street Fighter arcade game came out, then version that was in my local arcade didn't have the instructions on the joystick dashboard area describing how to do the special moves. I was able to get all the way up to Adon without using a single special move. I always wondered why the game was so hard until I saw a video decades later of someone using the fireball and dragon punch in the game. Oh well .

 

[Altorin]

playing through Dead Space I got the "use the first gun you beat the game" achievement my first time through without even knowing it existed. I just really liked that little gun. When I first saw it in the reviews I thought "wow, that guns neat, I hope you get it early." I got it, loved it, never looked back

apparently there was a flamethrower, who knows, PEW PEW PEW I CUT YOU HAHAHAHAHA

 

[Souplex]

In The Zone is probably the better bet for Snipers in XCOM.
There are tons of enemies who don't use cover. Berserkers, robots, Chrysalids, etc.
In the Zone allows a sniper to take out entire groups of these enemies in one turn.

As for abilities I never use, I never take the stealth option in my first playthrough.
Stealth is the act of avoiding fun. I play games to have fun. Why would I ever stealth?
This is why Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a terrible game.

 

[FrozenLaughs]

Though I picked Vanguard as my class in Mass Effect I never used any of the biotic abilities I had.

Oooooooooooo yes this one I forgot about. With 3 characters (1 each core class) continued through the series, I never used my teammates biotics, or mine, with exception of my adept. I honestly only ever created her to earn the biotic achievements.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I loved the game to death, but I'll admit that I probably didn't use half of Alex Mercer's moves in the first "Prototype". After a while, you sort of figured out that a lot of them were kind of just for show, and once the game ramped up the difficulty towards the end, you found yourself basically just using the same 5-6 moves to deal with all the threats.

The same can be said for "Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction" (the games were made by the same developer). Sure it was cool that you could smash a bus and ride it like a skateboard, but it wasn't really that useful in combat.

 

[cojo965]

I've never used the healing miracles in dark souls. Are they any replacement for the estus flask? Probably not.

Well summoned phantoms can use them in the cases the summoner can't heal them and serve in place of the flasks if you run out.

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

Half the abilities in Prototype 1 are made redundant when you acquire the Blade. It does more damage to flesh than the claws and more damage to vehicles than the hammerfists. The only reason I didn't use it that much is because I didn't like how the game got even more ridiculously easy with it.

Pyrovores from tabletop 40k get a mention. The single worst unit in the entire game, without exception. In fact it may just be the worst thing....ever.....of all time.

 

[OneCatch]

I'm sure everyone has had one of these at least once. I personally have trouble taking abilities that I find are too situational to be useful. In the Zone from Xcom EU/EW is one example. See, if you take it, you are counting on the enemy not being in cover when you open fire in order to capitalize on the benefits. However, they are likely going to run to cover by the time you see them, thereby negating the usefulness on the ability. So what about you guys?

Might already have been mentioned, but In the Zone is great for a runner/stealthy sniper with snap shot who you use for flanking - which is useful if you tend to have a stupidly strung-out squad like I do when looking for Meld.
Or defensively as a crowd controller when combined with another squad member with Plasma weapons/explosives. You can use rockets, plasma, or grenades to expose entrenched enemies, use the sniper to kill everything exposed starting at the weakest and working up, allowing the rest of your squad (which are probably riflemen and assault units) to focus on whatever's left.


Err, for me, the Mark and Execute ability in the newer Splinter Cells, and the similar mechanic in Hitman Absolution. I tend to go Silent Assassin (and whatever the equivalent is in SC), so it was completely redundant.
You can turn it and the stupidly overpowered sonar goggles off in Blacklist, which is better.

 

[sovietmisaki]

The poison blade in Assassin's Creed 2, I rarely ever actually used it due to finding it being kind of impractical in a lot of assassination missions, although that was before they improved upon the idea by making poison darts and such with AC: Brotherhood, onwards.

Back when I was still playing EVE online a few years ago, I went Gallente, although I preferred using railguns over blasters since I found the firing range of them to be severely lacking, so I usually went with a mixture of drones and railguns for regular combat operations.

 

[Kyrian007]

If there's an ability I'm ignoring, I'll usually pick that as an ability to focus on in a second play (if the game is good enough for me to want to play 2x.) And weirdly... I almost always have more fun doing things that way. For the first 2 plays of Skyrim I pretty much ignored magic (blacksmith/fighter, and archer/thief.) So for my 3rd I went full on Mage. And no destruction even, rolled straight illusionist/summoner. As overpowered as smith/fighter and archer/thief is... illusionist/summoner is easily as op. Maybe even more as all I do is loot while creatures and enemies all kill themselves and my minions. I had fun in Fallout 3 on a play like that my 2nd time thru. Totally ignored heavy weapons first time around. So in play 2... ONLY heavy, and unarmed. I was worried about ammo... until I found out that the rock-it launcher is considered "big." Nothing like fragging a supermutant with a wad of pre-war money and shouting "Make it rain! WooHoo, I'm Pacman Jones."

 

[duwenbasden]

Anything involving nukes / launched explosives, usually because of the atrocious cost vs payout ratio.

- Nuke Strike in Starcraft.
- Fat Man/ExMIRV/Rockets in Fallout.
- Rocket Launcher in SR / GTA.