Sometimes it's what you need to do. If you know _IGHT, guessing the solution is not the best strategy since you get so little information each turn. You're much better off with FILMS or BLOWN, even if you know they can't be the solution.
Hard mode in Wordle precludes that option; after weeks in that mode in Wordle it would never occur to me to put an entirely bogus set of numbers into this.
I haven't played hard mode, but i imagine part of an optimal strategy is trying not to paint yourself into a corner like that.
Just the other day, i had SHA_E and knew there were more possible solutions than i had turns left. I guessed MILKY to try 3 possibilities at once.
I use that same strategy in Wordle. Most often my first word is SOARE and the second is MINTY… unless I got like three matches in the first word, it’s better to get extra data quickly.
It's all fun until you get something like FIGHT where the last four letters are right and have to just guess from LIGHT, MIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT, TIGHT, WIGHT, anything I might have missed, and there's no way to use any strategy and you just have to randomly guess and hope you guess right.
I can see that happening, although for some reason it hardly ever does with my usual guess strategies. I've only had one word result in a few candidates. The fact that it happened immediately and almost unavoidably in the nerdle made me think this really wasn't for me.
This situation is technically possible, but I'd be surprised to already have 4/5 letters, and not have already tested R, S, L, or N (N from NIGHT). There are all one point scrabble letters after all. I could see myself needing to roll the dice on MIGHT, TIGHT, WIGHT.
You can guess WARMS, which will either give you the answer (to input on the next try) or eliminate 4 of the possibilities, leaving only 2 to guess.
That's a best case of 2 additional guesses and worst case of 3 (expectation of 2 1/3) which is better than your strategy, which has a best case of 1, worst case 6, expectation 3 1/2.