History ScrappyWeapon / Minecraft

* Clocks are supposed to have the niche of being able to tell you the time when you're underground, so you can get out at daytime when there are fewer hostile mobs, but that's a niche so immeasurably small that no sane player has ever carried a clock with them unless they had bought it or found it in a chest. It's also pretty easy to calculate the time through watching the sun or moon, meaning that clocks usually tend to get relegated to wall decoration.

* Chainmail armour has been the black sheep of the armor family for ages. Despite stone armour existing since at least Ancient China, Notch decided it made more sense to add chainmail armour to the game to occupy the second stage of armour progression. Thing is, while leather armour is crafted with leather, iron armour with iron, golden armour with gold and diamond armour with diamond, chainmail was crafted with...fire? For some reason only known to Notch, he decided that chainmail armour would be uncraftable without cheats, making it impossible to obtain unless you got lucky and either found it in a chest or looted it off a zombie or skeleton, both options being incredibly unlikely. Even then, your chainmail gear would come already damaged, and to repair it, you'd either have to enchant it with Mending (which requires an anvil, which means you already have enough iron to render chainmail obsolete) or try and find another zombie or skeleton wearing it. Unlike gold or leather, which at least found their niches with Piglins or [[MemeticMutation snowier snow]], the only bone chainmail armour has received is being able to be sold at full durability by Villagers, although iron is still easier to find and those emeralds could be put to better use too.

* Most tipped arrows just aren't worth it. To craft them, you'll need to travel to the End and collect dragon breath, a brewing ingredient to make lingering potions, and then use those potions to craft the arrows. Aside from weakness, [[DamageOverTime poison]], slowness, and harming[[note]]at risk of being useless against the undead[[/note]], all the other arrows will only give your enemies a bonus effect that can either be used against you (congratulations, that [[BossInMookClothing Ravager]] now has eight minutes of {{Invisibility}}) or just won't do anything (why would you give Night Vision to a zombie, when [[TheAllSeeingAI they don't need light to see you?]]). At least [[ReviveKillsZombie health arrows]] can be a tad more useful than regular arrows against [[UndeadAbomination the Wither]].

* Tridents are AwesomeButImpractical, with a major emphasis on the impractical side. For starters, they're unimaginably rare to get: Drowned might spawn with one and have a measly chance to drop it after death, and it'll surely be very damaged and need to be repaired with either a Mending book or another trident. They can't be enchanted with the really useful enchantments like Sharpness or Looting, instead having their own mediocre pool of enchantments. While it is cool that they can be both wielded melee ''and'' at distance, it's better to just carry a sword and bow with their own enchantments if you want options for both close-quarters and ranged combat, instead of using one weapon that's [[MasterOfNone mediocre at both]]. The only real niche they have is Ocean Monument raiding, since their capacity for being thrown underwater and access to Impaling means they can get through Guardians and Elder Guardians with ease.

** Riptide makes your trident unable to be used as a ranged weapon, already removing the main thing a trident has going for it. In exchange, contact with water will let you launch yourself through the air like a projectile. This, as you can imagine, is incredibly dangerous. While you will damage your enemies by ramming them, you may just miss and get near them and expose yourself to them, or be thrown off a cliff. If you try to use it as a means of transportation, keep in mind that you have no protection from fall damage, and since the trident needs a bit to charge up, you'll need the precision of a surgeon to connect it properly and not fall to your death. It gets more practical once you have access to [[VideoGameFlight Elytra]], though, since you can launch yourself in the air without using fireworks.

** Impaling will do more damage to aquatic mobs. This means that unless you're [[KickTheDog a psycho who gets your kicks out of killing dolphins/axolotls]] or you somehow don't have access to a stone axe to OneHitKill a salmon, it's only good to kill Guardians and Elder Guardians, who are only found on ocean monuments so you aren't going to battle them constantly. It also doesn't work on Drowned, which are classified as undead and not aquatic. Fortunately, Bedrock Edition gave Impaling a useful BalanceBuff: there, it deals extra damage to any mob in the water, not just aquatic ones, so a trident with Impaling can be a powerful weapon if you lure your foes into the water or carry a water bucket.

* {{Invisibility}} is the most AwesomeButImpractical effect of them all. Don't get it backwards, being the ComicBook/MartianManhunter is cool, but to properly use the potion you'll have to [[InvisibleStreaker remove your armour]], leaving you more exposed to damage, and if you get close enough to a mob they'll still be able to sense you. And don't try using it in multiplayer either: you'll be emanating more particles than a nuclear reactor, which will [[SarcasmMode surely do wonders for your stealth.]]

** Impaling will do more damage to aquatic mobs. This means that unless you're [[KickTheDog a psycho who gets your kicks out of killing dolphins]] or you somehow don't have access to a stone axe to OneHitKill a salmon, it's only good to kill Guardians and Elder Guardians, who are only found on ocean monuments so you aren't going to battle them constantly. It also doesn't work on Drowned, which are classified as undead and not aquatic. Fortunately, Bedrock Edition gave Impaling a useful BalanceBuff: there, it deals extra damage to any mob in the water, not just aquatic ones, so a trident with Impaling can be a powerful weapon if you lure your foes into the water or carry a water bucket.

* {{Invisibility}} is the most AwesomeButImpractical effect of them all. Don't get it backwards, being the ComicBook/MartianManhunter is cool, but to properly use the potion you'll have to [[InvisibleStreaker remove your armour]], leaving you more exposed to damage, and if you get close enough to a mob they'll still be able to sense you. And don't try using it in multiplayer either: you might have become invisible, but your nametag hasn't, and you'll be emanating more particles than a nuclear reactor, which will [[SarcasmMode surely do wonders for your stealth.]]

** The hoe has a similar effect but at least has a bit of an advantage. Aside of being able to obtain more sweet berries, another near-useless food source, it at least has the decency to also collect more Nether wart, a key ingredient in brewing. Even so, though, Nether wart is easy to grow in massive quantities once you have one and a block of soul sand, so a Fortune hoe has very little advantage over a regular one.

** Impaling will do more damage to aquatic mobs. This means that unless you're [[KickTheDog a psycho who gets your kicks out of killing dolphins]] or you somehow don't have access to a stone axe to OneHitKill a salmon, it's only good to kill Guardians and Elder Guardians, who are only found on ocean monuments so you aren't going to battle them constantly. It also doesn't work on Drowned, which are classified as undead and not aquatic.

* Chainmail armour has been the black sheep of the armor family for ages. Despite stone armour existing since at least Ancient China, Notch decided it made more sense to add chainmail armour to the game to occupy the second stage of armour progression. Thing is, while leather armour is crafted with [[CaptainObvious leather]], iron armour with iron, [[RuleOfThree golden armour with gold]] and diamond armour with diamond, chainmail was crafted with... [[OddLastItemIndex fire?]] For some reason only known to Notch, he decided that chainmail armour would be uncraftable without cheats, making it impossible to obtain unless you got lucky and either found it in a chest or looted it off a zombie or skeleton, both options being incredibly unlikely. Even then, your chainmail gear would come already damaged, and to repair it, you'd either have to enchant it with Mending (which requires an anvil, which means you already have enough iron to render chainmail obsolete) or try and find another zombie or skeleton wearing it. Unlike gold or leather, which at least found their niches with Piglins or [[MemeticMutation snowier snow]], the only bone chainmail armour has received is being able to be sold at full durability by Villagers, although iron is still easier to find and those emeralds could be put to better use too.