Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit is a secret boss in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep that can only be unlocked after clearing the Final Episode.
- Where To Find Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit
- Recommended Abilities
- Strategies For Beating Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit
Where To Find Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit
You’ll only be able to fight Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit once you unlock the Final Episode and clear it, no matter the difficulty level.
Once the Final Episode has been cleared, you will find Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit by selecting the Badlands area as your destination in The Keyblade Graveyard.
Right after you arrive at the Badlands’ save point, you’ll be able to see a purple crest from right where you’re standing, as shown here:
To proceed, run up to the purple crest and interact with it. You’ll then be shown a prompt that will ask you whether you want to fight Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit or not:
Selecting the “That’s a danger I’m willing to face.” option will start the boss fight right away, so make sure your deck and abilities are already prepared!
Recommended Abilities
There are three abilities that you must get before fighting Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit, and they are:
- Second Chance: Prevents you from taking lethal damage once, unless you’re already at 1 HP before the lethal damage hits.
- Once More: Prevents you from taking lethal damage from an enemy combo once, unless you’re already at 1 HP before the combo starts.
- Leaf Bracer: Prevents you from taking damage or being interrupted while using Cure-type commands.
Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit’s attacks deal tons of damage and can even one-shot you without these abilities, depending on your level.
Strategies For Beating Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit
Listed below are the two best strategies you can use to beat Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit easily, along with the recommended deck compositions you need for each strategy.
Strategy #1: Rock & Strike Raid Cheese
Strategy #1 revolves around you dodging all attacks before using Strike Raid behind a rock. It is by far the safest strategy you can use, as you don’t have to dodge further attacks once you manage to hide behind a rock successfully.
Here’s our recommended Command Deck composition for Strategy #1:
Feel free to change a few things, however, as there are only three commands you absolutely need for this strategy to work:
| Recommended Commands (Strategy #1) | Description |
| Strike Raid (3 copies minimum) | This command allows you to throw your Keyblade toward a single enemy from afar—even through obstacles given you lock on to your enemy first. |
| Potion Hi-Potion Mega-Potion | Using either of these Cure-type item commands will allow you to heal without Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit copying you and healing himself as well, as he can mimic you if you use Cure, Cura, or Curaga instead. |
| Dodge Roll (Ventus) Cartwheel (Aqua) Slide (Terra) | Spamming these dodge-type action commands will give you i-frames and allow you to evade most—if not all of Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit’s moves. Do not use elemental dodge-type action commands such as Firewheel and Thunder Roll, as they do not give you any i-frames! |
There are several rock formations on the battlefield, but we recommend hiding behind the one shown in the image below, as it is the biggest and by far the easiest to hide behind.
You’ll see this rock formation behind Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit as soon as the boss fight starts:
Keep in mind that the boss will follow you around, so make sure you get rid of him first by creating some distance with your dodges before hiding behind a rock formation.
Once you get far enough from him and hide behind a rock formation, he will still try to follow you, but he will not be able to get around the rock because of the AI’s poor object collision detection.
As soon as this happens, remember to lock on to him first, then use your Strike Raid while you’re safely hiding behind your rock, like so:
Once you’re hidden, just spam Strike Raid until you defeat this boss. Bring as many copies of Strike Raid as you can (4 or 5 would be ideal depending on your Reload Time).
Strike Raid doesn’t deal much damage so it might take you a while to beat the boss using this strategy. It is, however, the safest and most effective way to deal with this Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit.
Also, do take note that this boss may sometimes be able to find a way around the rock formation you’re hiding behind. If this happens, immediately spam-dodge away or either circle back to the rock you came from or find another rock to hide behind.
Strategy #2: Spam Dodge & Plant Mines
Strategy #2 requires you to go face-to-face with Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit and dodge his attacks while placing mines around the battlefield. It’s not as safe as Strategy #1, but this strategy will allow you to beat this boss faster.
Here’s the recommended Command Deck composition for Strategy #2:
Once again, you don’t really need to copy the commands listed as is, but there are three commands that are must-haves if you want to use Strategy #2:
| Recommended Commands (Strategy #2) | Description |
| Mine Square (3 copies minimum) | This command allows you to place mines on the ground that explode whenever an enemy steps on them—dealing heavy damage and stunning them momentarily. |
| Potion Hi-Potion Mega-Potion | Using either of these Cure-type item commands will allow you to heal without Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit copying you and healing himself as well, as he can mimic you if you use Cure, Cura, or Curaga instead. |
| Dodge Roll (Ventus) Cartwheel (Aqua) Slide (Terra) | Spamming these dodge-type action commands will give you i-frames and allow you to evade most—if not all of Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit’s moves. Do not use elemental dodge-type action commands such as Firewheel or Thunder Roll, as they don’t have any i-frames! |
Remember to only use Mine Square either whenever the boss is far away or whenever he’s using a skill and can’t move.
Another thing to take note of is to always dodge toward your mines so that Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit will follow you and take damage once he steps on them.
If you’re using Aqua, you can substitute Mine Square with Seeker Mine instead, as all of Seeker Mine’s mines will follow Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit as soon as they are set and allow you to defeat him quicker.
If you’re using Ventus, you can potentially beat Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit much faster if you substitute at least one copy of Mine Square with Tornado.
Keep in mind that this variation of Strategy #2 is quite risky, as you’ll need to time your Tornado perfectly for it to work.
Ideally, you should only use Tornado when there’s an opening, like right before Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit is about to cast a skill, or when he’s chasing you without attacking:
As you can see from the image below, Tornado deals a lot of damage. You can beat Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit if you manage to use it 2 or 3 times, depending on your character’s level.
In a nutshell, using Tornado with Ventus is a high-risk, high-reward variation of Strategy #2. It’s one of the fastest ways to beat Vanitas’s Lingering Spirit.
To unleash Tornado’s damage potential, you may need to level up Ventus first—ideally around Level 45 to Level 60 depending on the difficulty you’re playing in.
