Vanille joins the game in the first chapter as a friend accompanying Hope on the trains to the Purge. While it seems like her and Hope have a similar story arc, you learn throughout the game as you proceed through each of the chapters that Vanille is much more integrally connected to the story than it first appears.

She ends up partnered with Hope in the early stages of the game, but actually spends a lot more time partnered with Sazh in the later chapters of the game.

Strengths and Roles

Vanille excels in magic-based roles, as would be expected for any character wielding a rod for a weapon, but she differs a fair bit from Hope who also excels in magic-based roles. Her strongest role is actually that of a Saboteur, primarily because she has weapons that help boost the effectiveness of debuffs placed on an enemy.

A Saboteur is only needed for a brief time, so from there it is typical to Paradigm shift Vanille into either a Ravagers or a Medic as required, and she does fairly well in both of these roles as well. She is not a great Commando or Sentinel, and not a great Synergist but she can pass for one in a pinch.

Vanille and Hope tend to fill the same role in a party, and because you would generally only take one of them, the recommended approach would be to lean towards Hope. However, there are a few instances where Vanille is better. Check out the “Best Party” section below for more information.

Character Stats

The table below outlines the maximum level for Vanille’s stats for each chapter of the game. A comparison of these stats to the other characters in the game can be found in the “Best Party” section using the link above.

	HP	Strength	Magic
Chapter 1	-	-	-
Chapter 2 (Pulse Vestige)	300	41	47
Chapter 4 (Vile Peaks)	376	52	75
Chapter 6 (Sunleth Waterscape)	480	73	108
Chapter 7 (Palumpolum)	623	97	141
Chapter 9 (Palamecia)	809	127	184
Chapter 10 (Fifth Ark)	1,031	168	241
Chapter 11 (Archylte Steppe)	1,316	224	316
Chapter 12 (Eden)	3,736	705	942
Chapter 13 (Orphan)	4,937	940	1,241
Maxed	7,227	1,338	1,745

Weapons

Vanille uses a rod to attack but she will be casting spells for the most part. Use the link below for a full list of her weapons or use the link below that for more information about his best weapons.

Unique Abilities

Each character’s “unique ability” is also sometimes referred to as their “Full ATB” ability because it requires all six ATB Gauge segments to be filled in order to use it in battle.

Each character will gain access to different abilities and spells as they progress through their crystariums, but each character has one “ultimate ability” which serves as their unique ability. Only one character, Vanille, can learn their ultimate ability in their Saboteur and that ability is called Death.

While other unique abilities either boost a Chain Gauge or extend a Stagger, Death is different in that it provides a small chance to instantly kill an enemy, even high-level and powerful enemies (but not bosses!). You’ll find this mentioned in certain section of the Walkthrough as the Death Spam Strategy, namely:

• Chapter 12 - Eden (Part 2) during the Adamantoise battle
• Mission 45 - Emergent Evolution (Neochu) for the Early Growth Egg strategy

The strategy involves equipping weapons that improve the effectiveness of debuffs (like the Belladonna Wand), maximizing attacks using the ATB Refresh strategy and getting in as many Death attacks as possible.