Turns the target invisible.
Description
Vanish is an Effect spell in Final Fantasy VI. It grants the invisible effect to a target, halving all physical damage received. The spell is learned naturally by Celes, and taught by magicite.
Vanish is also an enemy ability used by Gobbledygook and Level 40 Magic.
Obtained[]
Celes learns Invisible at level 48. Party members can learn the spell through magicite. It is learned from Phantom (rate of x1) and Cactuar (rate of x10).
Mechanics[]
Invisible is not affected by reflect, but is affected by Runic.
The invisible status is notably glitchy. The Vanish-Doom bug, present in the original SNES release, allows Vanish to be used to make targets vulnerable to magic they are not supposed to be, such as Death, meaning any enemy or boss can be killed with this combo. This was fixed in the Advance release onward. However, elements of the glitch still make it possible to cast Raise or Arise on living characters to restore HP.
Use[]
Vanish is an extremely potent buff that makes a party member practically immune to physical damage for the duration of the battle. Against enemies that rely on physical damage, Vanish comes with practically no drawbacks. The spell is therefore very beneficial to cast on characters with low Defense (namely those who cannot equip heavy armor). Because the spell can only be used on one target at a time and costs a turn to use, it should be reserved for long battles.
The spell Protect also halves physical damage taken, but is mostly a downgrade compared to Vanish, and should only be used to conserve MP. Conversely, the spells Shell and Reflect are used to protect against magic damage.
Because the Vanish spell is not improved or weakened by the caster's stats, it can be taught to and used by any party member. In fact, it may be better for non-spellcaster party members to use Vanish on their allies, allowing spellcasters to preserve their MP for offensive or healing spells where their MP is more important. For example, Edgar can afford to grant Vanish to Relm, who will have a much lower Defense.
Though Vanish can be used to make it possible to fully heal a party member with Arise even if they are not KO'd, this is inefficient in use of turns and MP.
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