With eight different Eikons available, there’s a range of abilities for Clive to use that can equally destroy opponents. But some are simply better than others, and by using our list of the Final Fantasy 16 best abilities, you’ll be defeating any obstacle in your path.
We spent a lot of time experimenting with the different Eikonic skills in Clive’s hands during our Final Fantasy 16 review playthrough. The various Final Fantasy 16 Eikons all have some unique skills to offer in one of the best PS5 RPG games, so here are the best of the best you need to be using.
Final Fantasy 16 best abilities
The Final Fantasy 16 best abilities are split into Clive’s skills, which you can use no matter which Eikon you have equipped, and the Eikon abilities, which are abilities that you can use after acquiring each Eikon. You can see the best abilities to get below:
- Clive – Swift Recovery, Lunge, Downthrust, Burning Blade
- Phoenix – Rising Flame, Ignition (Ifrit)
- Garuda – Gouge, Rook’s Gambit
- Ramuh – Pile Drive, Lightning Rod
- Titan – Upheaval, Earthen Fury
- Bahamut – Flare Breath, Impulse
- Shiva – Ice Age, Mesmerize
- Odin – Rift Slip, Gungnir
With Clive’s skills, which are available at the start of the game, we recommend unlocking them all over time, as they are fairly cheap and are the bread and butter of Clive’s toolkit.
Each Eikon has a few abilities at their disposal, with each ability locked to each Eikon’s loadout unless you master it by spending ability points on upgrading them.
Phoenix
Technically, Phoenix and Ifrit’s abilities are linked together, as you can only use Ifrit’s abilities within Phoenix’s loadout, which is why we’ve put them together here. The best abilities for Phoenix are Rising Flames, which allows you to throw enemies into the air, and Ignition, which will cause you to continuously run at an enemy until Clive does a flame slash at the end.
The reason we pick these abilities is that they match up with Phoenix’s standard ability (Phoenix Shift) extremely well, and they have great damage with a short cooldown.
Garuda
None of Garuda’s abilities are particularly great for normal damage, but they offer an exceptional amount of stagger damage. Gouge will hit enemies with a flurry of swipes that bring down a stagger bar faster than other Eikonic abilities, while Rook’s Gambit has such a short cooldown that you can use it frequently.
These abilities are best used against challenging mini-bosses and normal Final Fantasy 16 bosses.
Ramuh
Ramuh’s Pile Drive and Lightning Rod abilities offer equal damage and stagger damage. Ramuh’s Pile Drive causes a decent-sized and quick lightning burst around Clive, which is perfect for crowd control as well as dealing stagger damage to bosses, while Lightning Rod casts a small relic to appear that will shoot sparks of lightning out when hit (by either you or an enemy).
The best thing about Lightning Rod is, if an enemy moves, you can re-cast it even during cooldown to bring it closer to you. Just make sure that you don’t accidentally focus on hitting that instead of an incoming enemy (as it does tend to lock your attacks onto it).
Titan
Both of Titan’s best abilities here work fairly similarly, offering a great amount of damage but with fairly lengthy cooldown times. The first is Upheaval, which will cause Clive to slam his Titan fist into the ground and bring up the earth beneath an opponent’s feet.
The second, Earthen Fury, does the same but works almost like an ultimate, digging both Titan fists into the ground to deliver a large attack. However, it has a very slow cooldown that makes knowing when to use it or save it difficult.
Bahamut
For the best abilities from Bahamut, we chose Flare Breath and Impulse. The former, Flare Breath, will cause Clive to continuously breathe Bahamut fire, which is great against slow enemies, while Impulse will spawn in balls of light that target any enemies near you.
Bahamut is arguably the least powerful Eikon in our eyes but for those looking at using the Wings of Light, Bahamut’s standard Eikonic ability for casting Megaflare, these are the best abilities to run with it.
Shiva
Shiva’s standard Eikonic ability, Cold Snap, allows for some great dodging and weaving around enemies, so we wanted to find abilities that work well with this. The first is Mesmerize, which will bring any smaller enemies toward Clive, allowing you to disorient them and dash around or defeat them.
As for the second ability, Ice Age, this lets you cast a wall of ice spikes at any enemies, offering a decent amount of damage. After using Mesmerize, this can take out a few opponents in quick succession.
Odin
Finally, the last Eikon on our list, Odin, has some interesting Eikonic abilities to work with, but the best we’ve found is Rift Snap and Gungnir. Rift Snap will allow you to dodge, even while in the middle of using an ability or attacking. When used, Rift Snap will also cause the slowdown effect of a normal precision dodge, giving you some time to land more hits.
Our second ability for Odin is Gungnir, this will cause Clive to spin around Odin’s spear repeatedly while moving toward enemies, dealing a consistent amount of damage while also building up Odin’s standard Eikonic ability, Arm of Darkness, meaning you can use Zantetsuken’s level 3 attack more often.
Those are the Final Fantasy 16 best abilities to use. If you’re quickly reaching the end of the Final Fantasy 16 quests, you may be wondering about all of the details on the Final Fantasy 16 new game plus mode for a second playthrough. Alternatively, you can check out our Final Fantasy 16 walkthrough for any and all guides you’ll need to complete the game.