List of rarely used abilities for the benefit of SE

[Alenore]

- Keen Flurry = tanking drg? and Elusive Jump on the other hand?

If you play DRG and find Keen Flurry useless, then you should think about throwing off your spear and never pick one again.
Being able to cut enmity is cool when you're getting hate. But sometimes you'd rather have hate than seeing a monster killing the healer, or simply wants to reduce the damags of some unavoidable AOE, like Twintania's Fireball (yes, you can parry it), Leviathan Tail Swipe when you're hitting the spume, etc.

In fact most of your list is stupid. Obviously there's situational skills, you're not going to spam them all at all time >_>

[whoopeeragon]

Cure III is definitely more situational than other heals, but then again, so are the rest of the AoE heals (should only be used for AoE healing).

Ever since the buff to its radius though, it's a lot more useful in a lot of fights. Useful in all extreme primals (stacking after their 2-hours, stacking after Titan's geocrush, if you're the howling wind healer in Ifrit X and can target the stacked DPS and tanks, etc), useful in coils (T2 enrage, T5 fireballs [with surecast], T6 after spit and during stacking, T7 on melee DPS and tanks, T8 during stacking after AoEs, T9 for many mechanics). It's hardly useless, and the almost equivalent of two Medicas in potency, and faster cast time.

[Celaine]

Sorry OP, but I'm going to disagree with you labeling some things rarely used. Scathe? Use it all the frigging time. It's a godsend in Titan EX. Anything that's instacast? Heck yeah I use as needed. Bane? Sorry if you're a summoner and not stacking Bane with Garuda's dot extension? Doin it wrong. Sacred Soil? I could sit here and list all the times and instances this can (and should) be used but I'd like to sleep sometime tonight. Again if rarely used? Bad scholar. Lethargy? Forgetting you have it is a pretty sad reason for "rarely used change it".

[Tranquil]

[...] Also, I have no idea why you would be using Energy Drain unless you simply want the extra damage. Energy Drain provides a whopping 130-150 mp.

Energy Drain restores 266 MP at level 50 (on a SCH), regardless of whether you have Cleric's Stance on or not. Only the HP it drains from the opponent changes.

If you are using Energy Drain for the mp, you're doing it wrong

Also, there is absolutely nothing wrong in using Energy Drain for MP, especially if you manage your stacks well and don't need to Lustrate apart from 'maintenance Lustrating', distributing 1-2 of those semi-evenly throughout the 60s CD (in situations where Sacred Soiling or Bane'ing is not needed) and then having a back-up stack (or two) which you can dump into Energy Drain(s) at the last seconds of the 60s cycle for more DPS and to compensate for Adlo-happy healing for a bit, for example. It's just all about staying in control and Energy Drain is perfectly viable for some extra-DPS and for the utility I just described.

[Celaine]

Yeah, most songs for bard not so much used. I'm sorry but they aren't, not until end-game which still isn't much.
Army's Peon - Used when tanks dies, which I don't see so often.

Anytime a tank does a big pull in any of the dungeons, especially a Brayflox SR? I'll throw up Battle Voice and Paeon before diving in to the aoe attacks. Keeps me and the tank from running out of TP. And if I've got a melee with me? They get that tasty buff too. Being able to keep the hits going more than makes up for the damage cut from having the song up. Sorry your bards haven't treated you right.

[Scorpius]

Needs swiftsong.

Make it so swiftsong doesn't disappear when changing zones. Absolutely no reason that it should.
Would also be preferable in dungeons if the speed bonus was removed during battle but immediately reactivated as soon as battle ends so you don't have to keep using it. Gets annoying between pulls and makes it not worth the hassle.

Making it so swiftsong increases player movement in battle but drains MP would also be neat. Give everybody the speed bonus Monk gets with fist of the wind in exchange for a bard sacrificing his MP.

And how much MP do you think Bards have?
Between healers QQ'n for Ballad, BLM for Requiem and Tanks/DPS for Paeon, i'm sure we could fit that in somewhere.....

[Leowilde]

Ability name: Scathe

Reason for disuse: I actually use this ability somewhat frequently, but it is such low potency that it almost feels useless, and I usually only have time to cast it like once or twice before the movement is done (That being said, I haven't done any difficult content on my BLM even the first Coil, I just hit 50 a few days ago so I'm sure my opinion of some of these abilities isn't quite valid in more difficult content).

I actually don't agree that Scathe is useless. Weak, sure, but not so weak it's dubbed useless. Not to me, anyway. I see all the time, when fighting groups of mobs, that some are left with a tiny % of HP and then ignored as people move on to new targets. Scathe is instant, so it's a quick way to finish them off in one shot.

It has also saved my life several times during solo play (mostly during lower levels, but still relevant), when I got too cocky and drew too many mobs on me, or only paid half attention to the fight. I'd end up low on hp, but thanks to Scathe being instant I'd manage to snipe them just in time, instead of being on casting time with swiftcast unavailable.

Edit:
Oh yeah, and I actually found it somewhat handy in PvP too, running around Scathing the opponent lol. It actually worked.

[Akirakogami]

you got side tracked really fast. started out with actual useless skills then went into core skills that are used constantly. bad op bad.

[Leoheart]

I agree with the Freeze and Apocatastasis arguments.

In all honesty Freeze should be reverted back to its 1.0 version, a high potency ice attack with reduced enmity attached to it, rather than having its original 3 minute cooldown from 1.0, make it so the reduced enmity becomes an additional effect with maybe a 20% chance to occur.

My problem with Apocatastasis isn't the effect but the fact its only niche is currently Hellfire and soon Judgment bolt from Ramuh, nearly every other fire, ice or thunder attack is either easily evaded or doesn't do any severe enough damage to justify its usage, the only other case which I could see it having any utility is maybe Halicarnassus (Void thunder 4 and Void Fire 4) in Haukke Manor (Hard) Or Mumuepo the beholden (Thal's Fury) in Halatali (Hard) and even then, easily avoided.
One way I would improve it is to decrease the magic damage taken by all party members in range by maybe 10 or 20%.

[Themis]

Was thinking about something similar lately.
- Circle of Scorn, while not rarely used it just has no purpose, no enmity+, nor is it spamable.

It's an OGCD AoE attack that deals some damage (which is enmity, and is affected by Shield Oath). I'm also pretty sure that the DoT effect also generates enmity per tick (like it does for any other DoT), so it's almost like a free passive enmity generating action. And it's free. Makes it better than Fracture, which you can also use if you wanted to.

Was thinking about something similar lately.
- Keen Flurry = tanking drg? and Elusive Jump on the other hand?

Dragoon exists primarily to deal lots of burst damage. Elusive Jump lets them reduce the amount of enmity they are generating, letting them continue to deal their damage without much concern. Granted, tanks are quite capable enough at holding enmity without EJ being used, but it does have uses. Keen Flurry, which is a base class ability (meaning that if Lancer gets a tankish second job later, it has a function there), is useful when soloing or for those cases where you may need to tank/offtank a little. It could also be great to use to reduce damage from parry-able AoEs.

Was thinking about something similar lately.
Though the clear winner for most useless skill (in pve) goes to surecast and especially the trait.

I use Surecast for a couple of reasons: I know an interruptible attack is incoming, or where I unexpectedly took enmity from some really big flare crits, and I want to get my second Flare off or perhaps a Sleep. It's a tool that has uses. It may not be used in every single fight, but then, not every ability must be usable in every fight. But I don't want it to become a 2nd Swiftcast (i.e. let it cast whilst moving). Instead, it should ignore line of sight issues. That would make it a lot more useful.

Oh yeah, and I actually found it somewhat handy in PvP too, running around Scathing the opponent lol. It actually worked.

This is also made better when it crits and the trait bonus procs too. Seeing a Scathe hits for 800+ is amusing, considering its cost. But it is also useful in PvE where mobs are very low on HP and you know you aren't going to get a full cast of Fire on it, like you said. I'd rather use my Firestarter procs, high MP cost Fire spells on targets where the damage actually matters.