I never use them, mainly because all my characters tend to be assassins with bows and daggers and what not.It makes me actually wonder if the Dragon Born could actually beat a Dark Brotherhood top asassin.

Unrelenting Force, Dragonrend, Frost Breath, Call Storm, Clear Skies are the most useful to me.

Out of all the shouts there are only a small handful I make use of, Being that I play a warrior my only ranged weapon is a bow and I have not put any points into Archery. This makes Dragon rend my best friend when I get a dragon that won't bloody land so I can attack it, Dragon aspect as well as proven useful against some of the games hard hitting enemies. I use marked for death when I want to just plow crap down faster then normal, Unrelenting force for breaking up enemies and the occasional need for some humor

Some shouts are useless, but others are bloody useful. Elemental Fury ftw.

Yes. When I'm over run, I Fus-Ro-Dah to keep them away or I use the fire-shout when I'm out of magicka.

I find shouts to be a gimmick that the developers sacrificed the depth and feel of magic for.

Kyne's Peace is particularly useful against Spriggans in that it overrides their power over animals in the vicinity.

Except it wasn't and the Thu'um has been in lore for a while.

Dragonrend
bend will
unrelenting force
wirlwind sprint
clear skies
call of valor
call dragon
summon durneviir
dragon aspect
cyclone
slow time
elemental fury
ice form

All three words to disarm can be quite useful when fighting deathlords on legendary marked for death is a good one too. You can meditate on a word to make it more powerful and additionally to that you can increase its power even further with the dragonborn DLC. Some words I don't use much but remember the damage they do is relative to the difficulty level your playing at. When playing expert or higher you cant really complain that damage you deal out is to low as your purposely making it so.

I know it's been in lore. I doesn't change the fact that many shouts are simply spell effects from previous games or possible combinations from prior editions' spellmaking. Hell, it's basically magic for warriors.

I find some Shouts are useless, and there are points when a Shout can cause more harm to the character and Allied NPC's. I used Disarm to knock the Swords out of Fort defenders during the Civil War Questline, but the defenders were more competant when mass firing using Bows and Arrows into My character and the Soldiers trying to take the Fort than they would have been fighting with Melee.

My Mages use Become Ethereal a lot, and the boosts to Shouts provided by Dragonborn DLC make My Hybrid Frost Magic character into a very effective combatant against every opponent in the Game, except for Kaarstag

EDIT Added using Bows and Arrows

Useless not because of their power and utility but because of their cooldowns.

The cooldowns for the shouts are mostly so long that you dont bother watching the cooldown timer.
Leading to forgetting to use them

The damage shouts are useless though. Even with YOL meditation (+25% fire shout damage) and maxed fire damage perks (if they apply) theu do mediocre damage on lvl20+

One sword swing = the damage of a shout. Scrap that... because of the time to do the shout you could have striked twice menaing more damage. All damage shouts are a joke.

Unfortunately I have to agree with the OP. Shouts are too gimmicky and as a mechanic they have no real feeling of power, only some utility like setting of traps with ethereal form and such.

So how is something that should be in the game a gimmick? Seriously, did you think that statement through?

It works on Legendary for me

Short answer - yes.

Long answer - yeeessssssssssss

I think there are definitely some which feel rather weak compared to regular combat/magic, but there's far more that are unique enough, or just flat out good enough, to be worth it

The damage of Shouts like Fire Breath and Frost Breath can be boosted with Poisons that make your opponent more vulnerable to Magic/Fire/Frost. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is use a Weakness to Poison+Weakness to Fire+Weakness to Frost Poison (Abecean Longfin+Bleeding Crown+Icewraith Teeth), and then a Weakness to Magic Poison (Salt Pile+Torchbug Thorax) then do a Fire Breath or Frost Breath right in their face for pretty big damage. Complements my Nord Warrior and Dunmer Nightblade pretty well.

Some of them are great for my combo skirmisher/archer lightly armored character. 3 on 1 melee is not their strong point (especially @ Master) so Unrelenting Force or Ice Form are really handy.

I try to avoid 3 on 1 type situations in the first place, but sometimes you blunder into a group of cultists who want to kill you, or you just can't resist attempting to slaughter that group of Thalmor, but prefer to goad them into attacking you first.

I don't shout much in dungeons because of the noise. But Whirlwind will get you to a few places in dungeons that are inaccessible otherwise.

I agree.

Regardless, buffing and utility shouts are quite useful. Breath shouts are a waste of time. Unrelenting Force Is fun for shouting enemies off mountains

Yes, that is a nice touch. Dawnguard spoiler?

Do you really not understand what I'm saying? Yes, it's in lore, woohoo. It also duplicates many past magic effects and is marketed as being how SUPER SPECIAL your character is.

Maybe it's because I find the super special snowflake deal of the DB boring, and much prefer the CoC and the Nerevarine.

Aura wisper is very useful if you sneak and the shout I use 10 time more than the other combined. Detect life is just for friend/ foe identification at distance, is the guys around the campfire friendly or bandits.

Whirlwind Sprint is nice to get past traps and get to some locations.

Become Eternal for jumping down or traps.

Marked for Death against real tough enemies

Should use unrelenting force to stagger enemies more.

Disarm is funny as hell with Bandit Chiefs and Draugr.

I'll be glad to see the back of shouts to be honest. They are a bane to many things.

Some Shouts are very useful, depending on your playstyle but others I find useless for any playstyle.