Banish (Final Fantasy V)

Thrown into the Rift!

Battle text

Banish, also known as X-Zone, is a Time Magic spell in Final Fantasy V. It has a chance to remove a target from battle, killing them. Though it is functionally similar to Death, it ignores immunity to instant death and works on the undead, but does not work on enemies with the heavy property.

Banish is also an enemy ability. Exdeath uses it in a scripted sequence to punish Gilgamesh after which the latter can be found later in the Interdimensional Rift. Despite this, the spell still works (with the same success message) when the party travels in that dungeon. Banish can be used against the player by Black Warlock, Carbuncle, Chrono Controller, Exdeath's Soul, and Gilgamesh.

Obtained[]

Banish can be purchased at Phantom Village for 10,000 gil.

Banish can also be used by catching and releasing a Page 32, Black Warlock, Zephyrus, Chrono Controller, Gel Fish, or Moss Fungus. When the Gel Fish or Moss Fungus are released, the spell is bugged and will hit nothing. With Catch and Release, the player can get access to the spell much earlier than from the Time Magic skillset.

Mechanics[]

Banish ignores the target's death resistance, but fails on Heavy targets.

${\displaystyle Spell Hit\% = 50 + Attacker's~Level - Target's~ Level}$

${\displaystyle Evade\% = Target's~ Magic~Evade\%}$

If the target has shell, the Spell Hit % is halved. If the target is a toad, its Evade % is reduced to 0.

The game generates two random numbers between 0 and 99.

If N1 >= Hit%, the spell misses

If N2 < Evade%, the spell misses

Banish works on undead targets and can be reflected.

Use[]

Banish is an instant kill ability without the same drawbacks of Death, but lower success rate. As such, it has the same advantages: against non-boss enemies, it can be useful to cast to grant a chance to remove a dangerous enemy from battle, but its unreliability means that the player may be better off simply dealing enough damage to the enemy. Due to its ~50% chance, using Dualcast can help increase its chance to kill an enemy by casting it twice. The player can also use Return if after many tries the spell still has not taken effect, to mitigate MP costs.

Gallery[]

GBA.

2013.

Etymology[]

The original name, デジョン (Dejon?), is possibly a contraction of the German pronunciation of the word "dimension" (ディメンジョン, dimenjon?) abbreviated to fit into the four-character-standard for spells. It could also be a combination of the Japanese verb deru (出(デ)る(ル)?), which means to "to leave", and the word "dungeon" (ダンジョン, danjon?), although in its initial appearance in the original Final Fantasy the spell could not be used to exit dungeons.