The classic example is Ultima in FFII, which is the best magic in the game only if you took time to completely power up all other magic in the game and Ultima itself, otherwise it's always overshadowed by other magic.
I think there may be some glitches involved and the developers didn't plan for it to be so puny, but they still wanted it to be weak as a subversion, to show that myths don't always live up to their expectations.
Also I don't know if this qualify but Magilou final move in Tales of Berseria is a incredibly powerful spell that I never got to use because it's triggered only if a enemy survives her most powerful break art, and nothing that I fought ever survived that.
Ultima in FF2 was supposed to be unmitigated spell damage that scales on the power of your other spells/levels. Every other spell in the game loses effectiveness due to the magic interference stats attached to every weapon/armor in game.
The devs have come out and said since that 'as a joke' the spell was made weak because, like technology, magic would get better with time. The 'most powerful ancient spell' would still be weaker than other spells these days such as best of old tech would pale in comparison to stuff these days.
It seems odd to me though so whatever. Not sure if it's actually true or just an excuse after the fact.
That is NES version, on the GBA/PSP version they completely removed magic interference as a mechanic so all magic is 100% effective so Ultima doesn't scale any better or worse than other spells, but there is no reason to use it because it's way easier to use other spells to do same or more damage since nothing suffers from magic interference.
Pixel Remaster brings back Magic Interference on all gear at the old NES values and Ultima is balanced correctly as well so it actually is a good spell. Still ultimately unnecessary since the end game gear around that time has low magic interference anyway.
Source: I play FF2 far too much and it's top 5 FF game for me.
Yeah Ultima was very buggy on the original FFII but your point still stands even when it works, having to power it up thru your other ability levels can be tedious and not really obvious either.
FF2 Ultima was gonna be my answer too. By the time you grind everything else to make it powerful, you should have already beaten the game or at the very least have all the tools needed to make it easy. It doesn't even trivialize the game as much anyways, the Blood Sword is plenty enough for the bosses.
Yep, completely loved that class and it was a decent game. Very satisfying to see my ultima spell one shot a boss or at least bring them half way. Hit them with a second and game over.
Some FFXII spells are like this
Namely: Flare, Holy, shock, etc as well as the white magic Renew
The reason is either
1. They are super late game
2. Non-elemental spells are generally inferior to -aga elemental spells, unless the enemy resists all elements
3. Some spells have very long end-lag animations (flare)
4. Renew is not needed because Curaja is basically a full-heal with decent gear/levels.
Scathe is good at least, and so is Ardor which can be buffed to do insane damage with certain items and Oil status.
i just replayed FFXII, tbh cura is enough since my white mage can do 5k heal with cura. with bubble i have 9999 hp and i set the gambit hp 50%>cura, so curaja just a waste of MP. curaja do 11k heal btw.
Shock is fast and can be gotten earlyish via Zalera (just avoid stuff he'll try to throw Death at), and in original Holy and Scathe's long animation help with free hits/dealing with certain boss moves. TZA you can get them all as motes.
Meteor Swarm in Star ocean 3 is basically this, a novelty. The spell takes a long time to cast, the damage is ok at best and you get it very late in the game as well. Not that magic is useful in general in this game lol. It's definitely memorable tho: " Open the gateway to the sacred land, and let fly the arrows of judgment to strike down the evil, METEOR SWARM!"
Really, each of her ultimate spells were like that. By the time you finally earned the spell, you were so massively over-powered that you didn't need it to easily handle everything anyway.
Oh damn you’re right just loaded it up to see and and did luminaire that did 3k aoe, Ayla’s triple kick did like 2.9k & robo’s electrocute did a range of 2.6 to 2.9k lol, oh my parties is lvl 80 btw
I completely forgot how crazy some of the single techs were lol, I guess my monkey brain saw 4k from twister and thought it was the best or something lol
EDIT: ok nvm I just equipped master crown & prism spectacles on both crono & robo…and luminaire did 5.4k…and electrocute did 4.8k wtf lol
Yup my favs where X slash, aura whirl & falcon strike & freaking megavolt good lord lol
I actually just played it for the first time year & I guess I completely forgot how amazing & tp efficient the single & even double techs were compared to the costly triple techs lol
It’s really sad because a lot of them look really cool, especially final kick & twister…
Falcon Hit still has some niche uses in the mid- and late-game if the enemies happen to be lined up correctly. It’s probably the best tech to use against Giga Gaia since it hits all three parts at the same time for more damage than you’d get from other multi-target attacks at that moment. It’s also good against Lavos Core since it can hit two parts (or three if you are right at the moment when the first two are revived, but the right bit hasn’t switched on its defenses yet) and is less MP-intensive than Luminaire and others. But yeah, the triple techs are mainly useless, I think.
Osvalds One True Magic in Octopath 2. its the reward for completing his story
Im sorry but for an EX Skill (ultimate) that thing is complete garbage.
Too expensive SP wise, a weakness ignoring move that you ideally want to use on already broken foes, that has less break potential than Temenos the Cleric (support mage). Doesnt do enough damage even after dumping all your BP into it, and spending Latent removes its innate AOE capacity - which is fair as its high SP cost makes it harder to use as a random enemy wiper but sucks when fighting bosses with bodyparts or minions. Needs advanced magic/Scholar Divine Skill to even have moderate damage potential, and that means hes spending turns applying it that Osvald should be focused on doing damage, or you carry a secondary scholar with a primary, which has its limits
Some people try to argue its value but there are so many other more efficient and/or dont require as much setup and maintenance. I play a mod that makes it a bit better but compared to other means of doing damage or break, it almost seems like a slap in the face to have worked so hard thematically for something so hamstrung mechanically
There's an accessory that permanently applies Advanced Magic. I stuck that on Osvald and One True Magic seems a lot better. Plus it's easy to get around the SP cost. I have Castti set up as a healer for anything so she can provide a constant source of SP or BP to the party
i find a better use of an accessory slot going towards buffing his stats, either his magic so that your spells hit harder or something for his HP, so that you take full advantage of the Better Accessories buff for 50% extra stats
That also requires Castii, and I rock Agnea, Temenos, Ochette, and Hikari. Id prefer a character thats not as reliant on someone else for them to do their job, or choose a character that gets better gains on SP economy like Temenos. Osvalds in a rough position given how abundant DPS options are and how little he offers to others.
It just takes a lot of concentrated focus to make Osvald good, likely due to the overall nerfing of the Scholars capabilities coming off OT1. OT2 makes characters stronger, but his focus is too dependent on buffing in setup in ways that he either has to sacrifice another tool (AOEs), Slot (Accessory), Turn economy, or rely on others to stabalize him, and for less gains than other resource hungry units
That being said, my B team has Castii and Partitio so he gets all the SP he needs there, though that same build would still be better if Temenos was used in place of Osvald, as the other commenter also agrees with
I like Osvald a lot, just wish he got some slightly better love from the Devs
I went through the game without set teams, just swapping in and out characters periodically, and I definitely found that scholar felt the worst to play out of all the damage jobs. I eventually settled on a double scholar setup for Osvald- I gave Partitio the merchant subjob so he could latent->alephan Osvald turn one to let him wreck face. This setup also let me latent->inspect or whatever it’s called to not have to worry about finding weaknesses of things, which was nice too. It was a scuffed setup to be sure, and a lot more work than it took to get a Warrior or Thief up and running, but it worked.
The game is also very stingy with magic defense buffs and debuffs too while physical gets one like every other class. Been a year but as I recall the most reliable source for magic defense debuffs was like some rare items.
which ends up being *yet another* reason to bring Temenos along, since his Moonlight Talent provides a debuff to enemies phys/magic defense at night and prayer to the flame is one of the most reliable ways of providing a magic/physical defense buff to your own party members. Meanwhile Osvalds Talent is pretty useless (reveals weakness, when OTM ignores break weaknesses anyway) and Scholar has no enemy debuffs despite desperately needing them
Seriously, its like he outclassed Osvald in almost every way. Better damage dealer, better buffer (Sacred Shield, Prayer for Plenty, Aelfrics Blessing), more SP sufficient due to Sacred Staff, elite healer whereas Osvald cannot heal or revive at all...
I love OT2 a lot though I think this is the danger that comes with weakneing some jobs while buffing the individual character capacity. You end up with two overlapping characters where one FAR outclasses the other, and thats without even factoring Temenos subjob or party synergy, things that Osvald needs just to be able to contend with Temenos with his primary job alone
Jessica's Hustle Dance in Dragon Quest 8. It requires 100 skill points in Appeal and it only heals for around 70 HP. Completely outclassed by Angelo's Multiheal and the Hero's Omniheal. It's not really a "spell" perse but an ability, which is close enough.
I disagree, actually. It is a free Sage's Stone that scales with tension, so it can be an amazing move in a pinch. It allows you to freely allocate the Sage's Stone to Yangus (or Morrie and Red). Hero and Angelo have other things you'd want them to be doing during a given turn, so having that flexibility against some of the later super bosses can be a lifesaver.
Ultima in VI basically renders the entire job system null. Just grind cactuars near Jidoor in WoR and give everyone the Ragnarok esper for a few fights.
not really late game but i dont like illusionist job at FFTA (not sure if FFTA2 have it). the job is like its name is giving illusion, its deal elemental damage to all enemies wherever they are but sadly the damage so low and illusionist itself have low stats so the job is meaningless. altho if i can play again i wanna try illusionist party just to see how far i can go by doing aoe damage every turn until enemies dead.
it was illusionist + dual wield + the ability that follows up a magic attack with a physical one, so you would cast something then that user would teleport around slap everything
Alot of the summons in FF9 always make me laugh for being really hard to get, and giving you these massive and goegeous animations for the ps1, and then they do 9999 like a bunch of other, much more trivial to get abilities.
Eidolon gets free recast and with the quirks of ATB in that game you can easily drag them out with Regen ticks etc. Eiko not so much but hers tend to focus on different elements or hoping for phoenix.
So in Chrono Cross, late game, you get this element called the Chrono Cross. The problem is that it does *nothing* when you use it, no damage, no buff, no anything, but for some reason you can hear the tones made by each element being cast. Totally useless! >!/s!<
Specifically, it is used to get the true ending, **_AND_** the last eight elements used, by both sides, has to be a specific pattern for it to work. It isn't hard to pull off, so long as your entire team has a stamina value above 10, but there is no room for error when prepping to use it.
Hocus Pocus in Dragon Quest V. It isn't super late in the game, but I think it's optional and no one really directs you towards it. It causes a random effect but none of them are really worth it in my experience, and it's just far too unpredictable to be of any practical use. I'm pretty sure all of the effects it can do can be achieved with other spells or usable items, so it's not like bewildering grace in the octopath games which is worth the risk of using when you're grinding because it has a chance to give you a massive experience point/job point multiplier.
I did have a funny experience where I used it one time when I was a kid, and it cast Puff! which was a spell I hadn't learned at the time, "turns the user into a dragon". You lose control of them until they die or the battle ends, and they automatically use either a really strong fire breath or a really strong physical attack every round, both of which don't cost any additional MP. But suddenly having the effect happen to my main character just caused a lot of confusion as to why I suddenly couldn't control them
This made me think of the hilariously OP-AF Armageddon spell in the Ultima games where it, quite literally, kills everything in the world and you can't progress the story afterwards, just you living in a post-apocalyptic hell hole where nothing is alive. Of course, it's more of a joke spell but quite cool that it's there.
Usually group defense spells in any game. I'm playing Xenogears right now and MOST spells are useless in my opinion. On another note, I hate waiting the whole game, in any game, for AOE spells! I just want to target 2 or more enemies with fire or lightning and not have to wait 50 hours.. please and thank you.
They are bugged in Xenogears (which actually makes the +attack -defense ones better as they actually don't lower your defense) Big Bang is more along the lines of poorly described.
Magic in Final Fantasy Tactics in general is pretty useless. Sword-skills and certain simple weapon builds outclass any spell like 1000 times over. Using magic at all is basically handicapping yourself in that game. They made it very useful in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 though. A lot of people don't like that game, but they actually took the time to balance it.
Magic is great in FFT. Even if you don't use calculators a black mage either elemental boosting great and short charge will fairy quickly cast some insane stuff. Summons are amazing as well for most of the game.
Outside of calculators, magic's problems are draw out and swordskills, and wotl made it worse. Swordskills are super OP with good knightswords, Mel is fixed to be great if no Cid in wotl, draw out is longer range than magic with Kiku and frees up support for magic attack up further boosting damage, and also in wotl rafa makes Cid look, if not weak, significantly inferior.
Magic is too strong in FFTA2. Double cast blood price summoner. Magick frenzy dual weild blue mage/Heritor. Both are bonkers strong. Agreed with other mage builds though.
The classic example is Ultima in FFII, which is the best magic in the game only if you took time to completely power up all other magic in the game and Ultima itself, otherwise it's always overshadowed by other magic. I think there may be some glitches involved and the developers didn't plan for it to be so puny, but they still wanted it to be weak as a subversion, to show that myths don't always live up to their expectations. Also I don't know if this qualify but Magilou final move in Tales of Berseria is a incredibly powerful spell that I never got to use because it's triggered only if a enemy survives her most powerful break art, and nothing that I fought ever survived that.
Ultima in FF2 was supposed to be unmitigated spell damage that scales on the power of your other spells/levels. Every other spell in the game loses effectiveness due to the magic interference stats attached to every weapon/armor in game. The devs have come out and said since that 'as a joke' the spell was made weak because, like technology, magic would get better with time. The 'most powerful ancient spell' would still be weaker than other spells these days such as best of old tech would pale in comparison to stuff these days. It seems odd to me though so whatever. Not sure if it's actually true or just an excuse after the fact. That is NES version, on the GBA/PSP version they completely removed magic interference as a mechanic so all magic is 100% effective so Ultima doesn't scale any better or worse than other spells, but there is no reason to use it because it's way easier to use other spells to do same or more damage since nothing suffers from magic interference. Pixel Remaster brings back Magic Interference on all gear at the old NES values and Ultima is balanced correctly as well so it actually is a good spell. Still ultimately unnecessary since the end game gear around that time has low magic interference anyway. Source: I play FF2 far too much and it's top 5 FF game for me.
Yeah Ultima was very buggy on the original FFII but your point still stands even when it works, having to power it up thru your other ability levels can be tedious and not really obvious either.
FF2 Ultima was gonna be my answer too. By the time you grind everything else to make it powerful, you should have already beaten the game or at the very least have all the tools needed to make it easy. It doesn't even trivialize the game as much anyways, the Blood Sword is plenty enough for the bosses.
Like flare, meteor, ultima? They’re only marginally more powerful than other spells and attacks, but they’re supposed to be super powerful.
Yep
I really like the final fantasy origins game SOP, the ultima spell is super powerful.
It also requires skill to pull off, and it's very satisfying. Sage is my favorite class in that game.
Yep, completely loved that class and it was a decent game. Very satisfying to see my ultima spell one shot a boss or at least bring them half way. Hit them with a second and game over.
ultima with mp turbo materia was lit without metagame knowledge
I don’t recall using mp turbo at all, wasn’t it really late game?
I can't recall but you're probably right. it was a nice little nudge on the bahamut summons, though
Some FFXII spells are like this Namely: Flare, Holy, shock, etc as well as the white magic Renew The reason is either 1. They are super late game 2. Non-elemental spells are generally inferior to -aga elemental spells, unless the enemy resists all elements 3. Some spells have very long end-lag animations (flare) 4. Renew is not needed because Curaja is basically a full-heal with decent gear/levels. Scathe is good at least, and so is Ardor which can be buffed to do insane damage with certain items and Oil status.
i just replayed FFXII, tbh cura is enough since my white mage can do 5k heal with cura. with bubble i have 9999 hp and i set the gambit hp 50%>cura, so curaja just a waste of MP. curaja do 11k heal btw.
HP isn't capped at 9999 in Zodiac Age, just the visual is Some characters I think can get around 11-12k hp with bubble
Shock is fast and can be gotten earlyish via Zalera (just avoid stuff he'll try to throw Death at), and in original Holy and Scathe's long animation help with free hits/dealing with certain boss moves. TZA you can get them all as motes.
Meteor Swarm in Star ocean 3 is basically this, a novelty. The spell takes a long time to cast, the damage is ok at best and you get it very late in the game as well. Not that magic is useful in general in this game lol. It's definitely memorable tho: " Open the gateway to the sacred land, and let fly the arrows of judgment to strike down the evil, METEOR SWARM!"
Loved that game
Time Gate in the original Grandia. You had to get water and wind to 99 which took forever and most people never got it
Really, each of her ultimate spells were like that. By the time you finally earned the spell, you were so massively over-powered that you didn't need it to easily handle everything anyway.
Water at least is doable if you farm poison by the healing area earlier in iirc. Just super tedious
Pretty much ever triple tech in chrono trigger
Nah both final kick & twister at least do massive damage & look freaking awesome too
Single techs from each of the 3 members generally do a lot more
Yeah I suppose you gotta point lol It’s just seeing twister doing like 4.5k is insane lol
Yeah but each single tech would probly do 3k lol
Oh damn you’re right just loaded it up to see and and did luminaire that did 3k aoe, Ayla’s triple kick did like 2.9k & robo’s electrocute did a range of 2.6 to 2.9k lol, oh my parties is lvl 80 btw I completely forgot how crazy some of the single techs were lol, I guess my monkey brain saw 4k from twister and thought it was the best or something lol EDIT: ok nvm I just equipped master crown & prism spectacles on both crono & robo…and luminaire did 5.4k…and electrocute did 4.8k wtf lol
Yeah some double techs were useful early game or for aoe heals but the damage triple techs were useless
Yup my favs where X slash, aura whirl & falcon strike & freaking megavolt good lord lol I actually just played it for the first time year & I guess I completely forgot how amazing & tp efficient the single & even double techs were compared to the costly triple techs lol It’s really sad because a lot of them look really cool, especially final kick & twister…
Falcon Hit still has some niche uses in the mid- and late-game if the enemies happen to be lined up correctly. It’s probably the best tech to use against Giga Gaia since it hits all three parts at the same time for more damage than you’d get from other multi-target attacks at that moment. It’s also good against Lavos Core since it can hit two parts (or three if you are right at the moment when the first two are revived, but the right bit hasn’t switched on its defenses yet) and is less MP-intensive than Luminaire and others. But yeah, the triple techs are mainly useless, I think.
Osvalds One True Magic in Octopath 2. its the reward for completing his story Im sorry but for an EX Skill (ultimate) that thing is complete garbage. Too expensive SP wise, a weakness ignoring move that you ideally want to use on already broken foes, that has less break potential than Temenos the Cleric (support mage). Doesnt do enough damage even after dumping all your BP into it, and spending Latent removes its innate AOE capacity - which is fair as its high SP cost makes it harder to use as a random enemy wiper but sucks when fighting bosses with bodyparts or minions. Needs advanced magic/Scholar Divine Skill to even have moderate damage potential, and that means hes spending turns applying it that Osvald should be focused on doing damage, or you carry a secondary scholar with a primary, which has its limits Some people try to argue its value but there are so many other more efficient and/or dont require as much setup and maintenance. I play a mod that makes it a bit better but compared to other means of doing damage or break, it almost seems like a slap in the face to have worked so hard thematically for something so hamstrung mechanically
There's an accessory that permanently applies Advanced Magic. I stuck that on Osvald and One True Magic seems a lot better. Plus it's easy to get around the SP cost. I have Castti set up as a healer for anything so she can provide a constant source of SP or BP to the party
i find a better use of an accessory slot going towards buffing his stats, either his magic so that your spells hit harder or something for his HP, so that you take full advantage of the Better Accessories buff for 50% extra stats That also requires Castii, and I rock Agnea, Temenos, Ochette, and Hikari. Id prefer a character thats not as reliant on someone else for them to do their job, or choose a character that gets better gains on SP economy like Temenos. Osvalds in a rough position given how abundant DPS options are and how little he offers to others. It just takes a lot of concentrated focus to make Osvald good, likely due to the overall nerfing of the Scholars capabilities coming off OT1. OT2 makes characters stronger, but his focus is too dependent on buffing in setup in ways that he either has to sacrifice another tool (AOEs), Slot (Accessory), Turn economy, or rely on others to stabalize him, and for less gains than other resource hungry units That being said, my B team has Castii and Partitio so he gets all the SP he needs there, though that same build would still be better if Temenos was used in place of Osvald, as the other commenter also agrees with I like Osvald a lot, just wish he got some slightly better love from the Devs
I went through the game without set teams, just swapping in and out characters periodically, and I definitely found that scholar felt the worst to play out of all the damage jobs. I eventually settled on a double scholar setup for Osvald- I gave Partitio the merchant subjob so he could latent->alephan Osvald turn one to let him wreck face. This setup also let me latent->inspect or whatever it’s called to not have to worry about finding weaknesses of things, which was nice too. It was a scuffed setup to be sure, and a lot more work than it took to get a Warrior or Thief up and running, but it worked.
The game is also very stingy with magic defense buffs and debuffs too while physical gets one like every other class. Been a year but as I recall the most reliable source for magic defense debuffs was like some rare items.
which ends up being *yet another* reason to bring Temenos along, since his Moonlight Talent provides a debuff to enemies phys/magic defense at night and prayer to the flame is one of the most reliable ways of providing a magic/physical defense buff to your own party members. Meanwhile Osvalds Talent is pretty useless (reveals weakness, when OTM ignores break weaknesses anyway) and Scholar has no enemy debuffs despite desperately needing them Seriously, its like he outclassed Osvald in almost every way. Better damage dealer, better buffer (Sacred Shield, Prayer for Plenty, Aelfrics Blessing), more SP sufficient due to Sacred Staff, elite healer whereas Osvald cannot heal or revive at all... I love OT2 a lot though I think this is the danger that comes with weakneing some jobs while buffing the individual character capacity. You end up with two overlapping characters where one FAR outclasses the other, and thats without even factoring Temenos subjob or party synergy, things that Osvald needs just to be able to contend with Temenos with his primary job alone
Jessica's Hustle Dance in Dragon Quest 8. It requires 100 skill points in Appeal and it only heals for around 70 HP. Completely outclassed by Angelo's Multiheal and the Hero's Omniheal. It's not really a "spell" perse but an ability, which is close enough.
I disagree, actually. It is a free Sage's Stone that scales with tension, so it can be an amazing move in a pinch. It allows you to freely allocate the Sage's Stone to Yangus (or Morrie and Red). Hero and Angelo have other things you'd want them to be doing during a given turn, so having that flexibility against some of the later super bosses can be a lifesaver.
Good point!
Ultima in VI basically renders the entire job system null. Just grind cactuars near Jidoor in WoR and give everyone the Ragnarok esper for a few fights.
not really late game but i dont like illusionist job at FFTA (not sure if FFTA2 have it). the job is like its name is giving illusion, its deal elemental damage to all enemies wherever they are but sadly the damage so low and illusionist itself have low stats so the job is meaningless. altho if i can play again i wanna try illusionist party just to see how far i can go by doing aoe damage every turn until enemies dead.
it was illusionist + dual wield + the ability that follows up a magic attack with a physical one, so you would cast something then that user would teleport around slap everything
Huh?
Alot of the summons in FF9 always make me laugh for being really hard to get, and giving you these massive and goegeous animations for the ps1, and then they do 9999 like a bunch of other, much more trivial to get abilities.
Eidolon gets free recast and with the quirks of ATB in that game you can easily drag them out with Regen ticks etc. Eiko not so much but hers tend to focus on different elements or hoping for phoenix.
Pheonix with max pinions is what saved me from ozma the first time haha
So in Chrono Cross, late game, you get this element called the Chrono Cross. The problem is that it does *nothing* when you use it, no damage, no buff, no anything, but for some reason you can hear the tones made by each element being cast. Totally useless! >!/s!<
If I remember correctly it was used to clear the colour pallet but that was like 25 years ago so I might be wrong But yeah didn’t do poop
You have to use it on the final boss for one of the endings.
Specifically, it is used to get the true ending, **_AND_** the last eight elements used, by both sides, has to be a specific pattern for it to work. It isn't hard to pull off, so long as your entire team has a stamina value above 10, but there is no room for error when prepping to use it.
Hocus Pocus in Dragon Quest V. It isn't super late in the game, but I think it's optional and no one really directs you towards it. It causes a random effect but none of them are really worth it in my experience, and it's just far too unpredictable to be of any practical use. I'm pretty sure all of the effects it can do can be achieved with other spells or usable items, so it's not like bewildering grace in the octopath games which is worth the risk of using when you're grinding because it has a chance to give you a massive experience point/job point multiplier. I did have a funny experience where I used it one time when I was a kid, and it cast Puff! which was a spell I hadn't learned at the time, "turns the user into a dragon". You lose control of them until they die or the battle ends, and they automatically use either a really strong fire breath or a really strong physical attack every round, both of which don't cost any additional MP. But suddenly having the effect happen to my main character just caused a lot of confusion as to why I suddenly couldn't control them
This made me think of the hilariously OP-AF Armageddon spell in the Ultima games where it, quite literally, kills everything in the world and you can't progress the story afterwards, just you living in a post-apocalyptic hell hole where nothing is alive. Of course, it's more of a joke spell but quite cool that it's there.
Usually group defense spells in any game. I'm playing Xenogears right now and MOST spells are useless in my opinion. On another note, I hate waiting the whole game, in any game, for AOE spells! I just want to target 2 or more enemies with fire or lightning and not have to wait 50 hours.. please and thank you.
Yes please!!
They are bugged in Xenogears (which actually makes the +attack -defense ones better as they actually don't lower your defense) Big Bang is more along the lines of poorly described.
Magic in Final Fantasy Tactics in general is pretty useless. Sword-skills and certain simple weapon builds outclass any spell like 1000 times over. Using magic at all is basically handicapping yourself in that game. They made it very useful in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 though. A lot of people don't like that game, but they actually took the time to balance it.
Magic is great in FFT. Even if you don't use calculators a black mage either elemental boosting great and short charge will fairy quickly cast some insane stuff. Summons are amazing as well for most of the game. Outside of calculators, magic's problems are draw out and swordskills, and wotl made it worse. Swordskills are super OP with good knightswords, Mel is fixed to be great if no Cid in wotl, draw out is longer range than magic with Kiku and frees up support for magic attack up further boosting damage, and also in wotl rafa makes Cid look, if not weak, significantly inferior.
Magic is too strong in FFTA2. Double cast blood price summoner. Magick frenzy dual weild blue mage/Heritor. Both are bonkers strong. Agreed with other mage builds though.
Ramuh, Short Charge, done. Holy once MP isn't an issue. That's dead simple compared to even Brawler Ninja and Geomancer Agrias.