Do you think sleep status magic is worthless in FF games?

Scarlet

Scarlet

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I found an article talking about the worst power-ups. Sleep magic was on the list. Would you agree with this? I'll post my opinion later.

No matter the RPG, there's usually a type of magic that someone, somewhere still insists is useful. Whether it's called "grey magic," "status magic," or "that bunch of spells you can safely ignore," this special brand of monster-weakening arcana has been completely worthless throughout most of RPG history. Some games, like Final Fantasy XII, have bucked this trend by making status magic extremely useful, if not mandatory -- but Square's franchise-redefining RPG is really the exception to the rule. In nearly everything else, though, the option to weaken creatures instead of blowing them up only prolongs the inevitable -- and nothing does this better than the all-purpose sleep spell.

The main problem with sleep magic and its ilk is that if a game provided situations where such spells were actually useful, it would be more boring than public television. Think about it: If you play RPGs -- especially those of the traditional, random-encounter variety -- do you honestly want whatever you're fighting to still be standing after more than two attacks? That's the problem with sleep magic: Anything you fight is inevitably going to die, so why does it need a nap before going off to that great monster closet in the sky? The only battles that could benefit from sleep magic, and status magic in general, are boss battles, but there's a certain cost that comes with making bosses susceptible to ailments: It robs the reward from of any victory -- and we've all experienced that shameful, empty feeling that comes with the instant demise of some undead horror after casting "life" or throwing a Phoenix Down at them. Until sleep magic lets us knock out greedy shopkeepers who would dare charge the saviors of the world for potions, using it will be as futile and unfulfilling as trying to dissect the plot of the Xenosaga series.
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http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3167284
 
Not completely, but it can sometimes make things too easy. Stop, sleep, all spells which disable the enemy make things easy, and might rob some people of the feeling of accomplishment, especially when fighting a boss. It can be a matter of self control and restraint, too.
 
It robs the reward from of any victory -- and we've all experienced that shameful, empty feeling that comes with the instant demise of some undead horror after casting "life" or throwing a Phoenix Down at them.
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Shameful and empty? Lolwtf? I love casting Life or tossing a Phoenix Down at an undead boss. I like cheapass shortcuts like that :neomon:

As for sleep....the only game where I've found it to be useful is FF12. It's very nice for alot of the hunts. Much easier to put a boss to sleep and have everyone Scathe it to death than keep it awake and have it pummel the shit out of you with high combo rates and instant KO attacks *looks at Earth Tyrant*
 
I never used it because I knew Id just end up waking them up straight away once I bopped them on the head...I guess it can be if you have more than one arse of an enemy and leave on aseep....or just bash them with magic...but I rarely bothered with it
 
I've never really had any use for Sleep either, except for FFVIII when I wanted to draw magics from enemies and of course, use it as a junction (especially when fighting both Fujin and Rajin.)

I just meet the monster head-on and don't bother with sleep as I don't see its purpose when I just want the battle to end as quickly as possible. Casting sleep on a monster, then dealing physical damage...would only awaken the monster. But then again, if there are two hard monsters/bosses you have to fight at the same time, then casting sleep on the other would be ideal while you beat the crap out of the other one.
 
In the more recent games, sleep is pretty pointless. Mostly because it hardly ever works. I do find that in the earlier games, specifically 4 and 5 that it could be useful if you are attacked by about six random enemies and you are underleveled at the time. Then you can at least only have a few attacking you.
 
I'm not a big fan of status-change magics. In fact, I never...repeat, never use them. And what's even more useless than sleep is "frog/toad" from FFVII. XD I think it's called "morph" if I remember correctly.

And I really like the battle/magic system in FFXII. I actually enjoyed using status magic for a change. ^.^
 
using frog was useful to get the lucky 7's status, :P Not that I used it though, XD

Oh, and yeah... sleep serves to keep some enemies from attacking you while you take out the others. I think that's its main and (only?) purpose
 
Booger said:
And what's even more useless than sleep is "frog/toad" from FFVII. XD I think it's called "morph" if I remember correctly.
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Nope. If you deal Morph as the final blow to an enemy, it'll turn into an item.

And I really like the battle/magic system in FFXII. I actually enjoyed using status magic for a change. ^.^
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Status magic all around is fairly useful in XII. It was an interesting change from automatically discarding anything status-inducing.
 
I never used status magic. In fact, all the enemies that I killed were normal, unless a weapon I had cast some magic on them.
 
not useless at all.. most bosses were seceptible (gimmie a break on that one) to sleep status and weak to magic so you'd just magic the sleeping thing to death.. i remember doing that on many occasions
 
Susceptible* - Don't you have auto-spell-checker?

Anyways...Sleep is useful for Steal Item farming...for the games where you can steal items, of course. In case you don't want to have to bother with healing from w/e monsters you're stealing from. Or, god forbid, if the monsters themselves use lame status attacks against you like Zombie, Stone, etc...
 
I don't mind status magic... The only exception being any "Frog/Toad" related ones...
But Sleep was good, especially in FFXII where, unless you put some bosses to sleep, you got totally, and utterly destroyed *shares Storm Shadows Glare at Earth Tyrant*
 
Booger said:
I'm not a big fan of status-change magics. In fact, I never...repeat, never use them. And what's even more useless than sleep is "frog/toad" from FFVII. XD I think it's called "morph" if I remember correctly.

And I really like the battle/magic system in FFXII. I actually enjoyed using status magic for a change. ^.^
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No its not 'Morph', I think the one your looking for is 'Transform' dear ;)

I've never really used status magic often, but when I do it is useful. Like Rydia said, Sleep is useful for reducing the number of attackers when in battle against like 6 beasties, especially in III (original) and IV. It still has uses in later games as well, like making early encounters with strong monsters more bearable ie T-Rexsaur from VIII. Plus in certain situations you may want to have particular enemies sleeping as to hinder their threat whilst you concentrate on another for whatever reason (gaining Enemy Skills, stealing rare items, Drawing magic, powering up something or other...).

I've always seen Sleep as being one of the most useful. Others like Berserk, Toad, Mini, Confuse, Vanish and whatnot I have little use for in just one game nevermind the rest of the series.

Another point that should be made is that a casual gamer wouldn't really see the need for most of the status magics as the games tend to be easy enough if you level up normally. But for gamers going back through the games, attempting low level playthrough's for example, will need these seemingly pointless status magics to help them get an edge on the battles.
 
I've found Berserk to be useful at times, but most of the time I ever use it, I'm casting it on one of my own bruiser party members to make them even more powerful...Who needs control when you've got the power of unstoppable RAGE with you? :P It's like Umaro or...uh...the Berserker Class. >_>
 
omfg i can finally say what ive wanted to say about the sleep magic! :)

it is worthless!! you cant use it on a boss... , and if your using it on creatures... im sorry go train some
 
I never used status magic on enemies, it's completely useless, you can't use it on bosses most of the time and the only time i've ever had to use it was on FFXII on the Cluckatrice (sp?) during the hunt to keep it's little kids off of me. So overall: Status magic = Complete waste of time
 
I never used status magic in most ff.

Though when enemies use it in XII, it pwned my characters. On one occasion my party was struck my sleepga from the big elementals, and the next thing I knew, it was GAME OVER.

You should of scene the trauma on my face. Not only that, I hadn't saved when I just finished the first ascent and into the second ascent at the Ridorana cataract.>_<
 
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