
Originally Posted by
But don't trust me, trust Djibriel
- What exactly is Vanish/Doom? All the cool kids are using it, but isn't it
dangerous?
[VANISHDOOM-LINK]
There's a bug in this game. To be honest with you, there are over 160 documented
bugs in this game, but among the few major ones, one would definitely be the
one usually called Vanish/Doom, although it has many vile incarnations.
Here's the deal. When the game determines if an attack will hit the target,
it goes through a lot of things. M.Block, Golem, Reflect status, you name it.
One of these checks is to see if the target has Clear status; if the attack is
magical, the attack always hits. Another check is made on Death-based attacks;
if the target has immunity to it, death-based attacks will always miss.
Sadly, the game does it in this order:
(If attack is magical)
If target is under Clear status, the attack ALWAYS hits.
If attack is Death-based, and the target has Death immunity, the attack ALWAYS
misses.
You see the problem here?
So, when you apply the Clear status to a target immune to Death-based attacks,
such as all bosses and a few tougher enemies, you can still kill them in one
hit. Vanish/Doom is the common combo, but Vanish/Snare, Vanish/X-Zone, and
Vanish/Demi are not unheard of. Another more interesting combination is
Vanish/Dischord; this can halve the level of pretty much any creature over and
over again, making them less and less of a threat and more susceptible to, for
instance, Steal attempts.
It's difficult to say if this is a bug. Not because of its woefully erroneous
nature, but because Square has, since they discovered its existence, gone out
of their way to say it's NOT a bug. They have only partly fixed it in
Anthology, etcetera. I still say it IS a bug if only for the fact that several
battles that should have been concluded in a certain manner (Ultros #3 with
Relm showing up, Ultros #4 with Chupon Sneezing you off the Blackjack,
Phunbaba #1 against Terra) can be cut short with Vanish/Doom. So, Relm will
boast about her presence where she never appeared, you'll just kind of 'fall'
off the Blackjack because Chupon never sneezed you off of it, and other crazy
antics like that.
Also, Vanish was never meant to make magical attacks connect PERIOD,
disregarding all other properties. Ragnarok's Metamorph may still miss on
targets under Clear, Float still allows you to circumvent damage from ground-
based attacks, L.# Lores still miss if the level is inappropriate, etcetera.
Another, lesser known, result of the bug is the fact it allows spells only
normally successfully used on character with the Wound status (Life 2,
ChokeSmoke, such attacks) to work on living targets.