Editing Game:Vanitas

In terms of offensive tactics, [[Mine Square]] and [[Tornado]] are highly recommended for use, as they will deal great damage to the boss, as well as interrupt his attacks. Other good weaknesses to exploit are the boss's vulnerabilities to [[Magnet]], [[Aero]], and [[Gravity]] [[magic]]. Each of these spells temporarily hoist him into the air, leaving him open to major damage, although timing is key to successfully use these attacks on him. This rule applies to all of his battles. Whatever physical attacks Ventus attempts should be the most powerful in his arsenal. Continuation to use powerful physical and magic attacks is the key to ending the first part of the two-part battle with ease and minimal damage.

Vanitas will begin the battle by jumping onto a vortex of flying Keyblades. As he travels around the battlefield, he will cast dark Blizzard spells in Ventus's direction. These Blizzard spells have strong homing capabilities, but they can be dodged with relative ease. [[Fire Glide]], Shotlocks, and other magic attacks can be used to make Vanitas fall from the flying Keyblades. If Ventus doesn't knock him off the Keyblade vortex, when returning to the ground, he will imbue the [[Void Gear]] with darkness, strengthening his attack power. Vanitas also may sink into the ground once he dismounts the Keyblade storm, visible only as a mobile pool of darkness. Vanitas will travel to Ventus's location, so Dodge Roll to prevent being hit by several fireballs. He may perform this attack up to three times in a row.

Vanitas's other attacks are the same as those he used in the first encounter with him, save for his two-hit combo, which now adds a blue crescent-shaped wave of energy. Also, when he teleports behind Ventus, his downward strike now causes a large pillar of ice to erupt out of the ground. But they can be dodged the same way. As with the last battle, careful timing of Dodge Roll and a balanced use of physical and magic attacks are the key to winning this battle. However, this battle can be won purely with Reprisals ([[Reversal Slash]], [[Counter Rush]], etc.) as almost all of his attacks can be countered this way.

Vanitas will first charge his weapon, surrounding it and himself in a damaging aura. The attack is indicated by the lines "Forge the χ-blade!", "What's yours is mine!", or "Show me anguish!" He will then proceed to lunge at Ventus with the massive weapon, slam the ground and create an X-shaped shockwave, perform another lunging slash, and even shoot a homing blast of energy in the shape of an "X" at Ventus. Dodge Roll can be used to avoid this attack. If Vanitas is attacked while charging the χ-blade, the attack is cancelled, so [[Reversal Slash]] can be used to avoid damage altogether and cancel out the attack. The boss also still favors the dark lightning attack, and he still has the ability to vanish and appear behind Ventus. However, rather than performing a single, downward strike, Vanitas will perform [[Dark Splicer]], a similar attack to [[Time Splicer]], wherein he will slash Ventus multiple times while teleporting around him to attack from all sides. Dodge Roll until he stops or, a more preferable option, block his attack. This leaves the boss open to damage from Counter Rush.

{{atk-m|{{nihongo|'''X Discharge'''|Xディスチャージ|<br>X Disuchāji}}|Shock wave|Neutral|—|1.0 per hit|X|After releasing a shock wave from his body, he performs a spinning slash, followed by a jumping slash that releases shock waves in 4 directions, followed by another spinning slash, followed by an X-shaped slash which fires an X-shaped blade.|Only used during normal combat. Can be interrupted by hitting Vanitas when he releases the shockwave.|Spin Slash|Neutral|—|1.5|X|Jump Slash|Neutral|—|1.0|X|X-shape Slash|Neutral|—|2.0|X|X-shape Blade|Neutral|—|1.0|X}}

{{atk-c|note=When at 1 HP, Vanitas becomes invincible while he breaks the Station of Awakening, giving Ventus access to [[Vanitas#D-Link|his D-Link]] afterwards.<br>During that time, Vanitas can only use Dark Splicer, Dark Spiral or Dark Cannon. The D-Link's command gauge must be filled by winning clashes to get access to [[Last Word]], which is required in order to drop Vanitas's HP to 0.}}

Vanitas's data serves as a boss in the Limitcut Episode, where his moveset has been heavily upgraded. Several of Vanitas' attacks can Freeze Sora, so it is recommended to equip Freeze Protection through equipment such as the [[Snowman Rosette]] armor or the [[Crystal Snow]] Keyblade. Due to some of Vanitas's openings that involve teleporting can only be obtained through the use of a well-timed pre-launch Aero, it is essential to have it assigned on the shortcut men. Aerora and Aeroga are preferrable here due to their larger range. Using accessories like [[Rune Ring]] and [[Flanniversary Badge]] to ensure that you have enough magic to exploit this opening, especially when fighting Vanitas with all pro codes on. Having [[Block Replenisher]] support ability equipped can help greatly in this matter since you can block a lot during this fight and avoid going into MP recharge. As far as reprisal goes, [[Counter Slash]] or [[Counter Kick]] are preferrable as they had longer forward reach compared to [[Counter Impact]].

If Vanitas dives into a red circle on the ground, he is doing his Fire fountain combo. He will dive and approach Sora, then rise out of the ground, raining down several Fire spells. He will repeat this two more times - dodge roll towards Vanitas' red circle as it approaches each time. Depending on the height of his first two jumps, Vanitas will then end the combo in one of two ways:

If Vanitas cartwheels to the side and fires white beams at Sora, this is his white beam combo. He will fire three beams, with the third spinning. He will then repeat the three-beam combo, and backflip away. Guard the first beam, then use Counter Kick to close the distance and attack. It is common to get hit by the first couple of hits unexpectedly, but it is very possible to recover and block the remaining hits.  

Vanitas has two type of patterns that he will follow for the 1st phase and he may cycle through the other pattern if he doesn't perform his ultimate attack.

When Vanitas has about six bars of HP left, he will perform a variation of his ultimate attack. He will summon his cloud of Keyblades again, but this time form a large orb around himself. Streams of Keyblades and Vanitas shadows will fly out of the orb - the Vanitas shadows can be blocked, however the Keyblades cannot be blocked since they are glowing pink. The shadows will come from the sides while the keyblades will appear from the centre of the core.

There is a recurring pattern where if 2 shadows attack at once and then comes a third shadow or if the 3 shadows came out fast and hit you one at a time, the next attack will be the keyblades streams. He will perform the following combos in sequence:

This Keyblade cloud move can be cancelled the same way as before, with a Thunder while the dark portal is still visible. Since he will use the move at about six HP bars remaining, watch his HP carefully and prepare a Thunder cast when he is close to the threshold.

After the variant of his ultimate attack (whether it was cancelled or not), Vanitas will be in his second phase and will gain some new attacks. The opening for these attacks can only be exploited through the use of a well timed Aerora/Aeroga while Sora is stationary. If you case Aero while moving Sora will end up going into the spring board or out of the hitbox range to force Vanitas out of the teleport.  

* If Vanitas fires a single slow Fire before disappearing, he will do his fireball-plus-Teleport Slashes combo. He will appear with an upward slash while the fireball is still far away, then the fireball will break into pieces and approach, and Vanitas will follow with a quick slash. Vanitas will then shoot two fast Fires, do an upward slash. If Vanitas retaliate from the previous opening, wait around two seconds after he vanished before casting Aerora/Aeroga in the opposite direction of the camera, then guard when you see the second yellow cursor from afar to guard his teleport slash and he will be knocked out of the teleport. While he can be knocked and punished right there, the fireball attack will split and hit Sora so be sure to guard and reprise that unless you use Counter Kick for the I-frames from the previous guard. You could technically get the opening with Aerora/Aeroga after you block the split fireball attacks but the timing is quite strict so its better to just prepare for its early windows of punish. If Sora unleashed aero anywhere that is considered front angle for this particular move, Vanitas will not get knocked out after the guard whether he move backwards within the wind hitbox.

* If Vanitas flings a stream of Keyblades from his hand, he is doing his Keyblade flurry combo. He will fling two streams, pause, fling a third stream, perform an upward slash, pause, fling another stream, and finally spiral into the air with a fountain of Keyblades. Carefully time a block for each attack, keeping the pauses in mind if you had no MP to use. To get the opening here, dodge roll the first two Keyblade streams, cast Aero as soon as the second keyblade stream fully launched (no more keyblade came out from the tip of Void Gear) then guard the 3rd Keyblade stream and guard his upward slash before reprising and punishing him.  

Like phase 1, he has two type of pattern for phase 2 after his second variation ultimate attack that goes as follows. If you didn't beat Vanitas when both pattern C and D are out, he may do another Keyblade Flurry combo at the end of any two pattern or if you are a few hits away from defeating Vanitas before doing the second variant of his ultimate attack again.

Triple Downward Slash Combo -> Fireball-Plus-Teleport Slashes Combo -> White Beam Combo (2nd variation) -> Fire Combo -> Keyblade Flurry Combo