Final Fantasy 16: Best Skills [Early & Endgame]

This guide compiles the list of best skills in Final Fantasy 16. You can get these skills early in the gameplay as you progress and the best options for you. Some will enhance the damage, and others will overpower your mobility. We will discuss all of them sequentially.

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Key Takeaways

• There will be specific skills and abilities that will have overpowered damages.
• Most of the time, players look for power and stagger in skills.
• There are seven skill circles in total in the game.
• The best Ifrits abilities include Flames of Rebirth and Scarlett Cyclone.
• The best Geruda’s abilities include Areal Blaster Leone.
• Geruda’s abilities do not carry a large amount of damage.
• As you progress in the game, you will need abilities that incur more significant damage.

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Skill Circles

The first one in the middle is the immediate circle. It will mainly focus on melee attacks and then utility skills.

Then as you progress in the main story, you will start to unlock other skills in the icons with Ifrit Dan Garuda, and so on. All of these abilities will have their unique mechanisms and usage as well.

Level/Build	Best Skill
Best Basic Ability	Swift Recovery, Lunge Attack
Ifrit’s Ability	Flames of Rebirth, Scarlett Cyclone
Garuda’s Power	Aerial Blaster Leon
Ramuh’s Powers	Thunderstorm, Judgmental Bolt
Titan Skills	Titanic block, Upheaval
Highest Damage late game	Giga Flayer
Odins Power	Diamond Dust

Basic Abilities

Moving on, first, we will cover the most basic but must-have abilities.

Swift Recovery

During a fight in the game, as you get knocked out, this skill will immediately help you recover and get back in the contest. You directly press your dodge button, and it will bring Clive back to life again.

Lunge Attack

Furthermore, the next on the list is the Lunge Attack. Its usage is best recognized when you need to close gaps from whatever you have in front of you on the icon.

As you remember, that phoenix shifter Leon used to pull enemies closer is one step above it in the game. You can use this skill with other icons, even those which do not have gap closes.

Ifrit Ability

Now in terms of the actual icon powers, we have a few of them, which are also solid skills in terms of damage.

Flames of Rebirth

For ifrit power, the Flames of Rebirth are the most suited ones. They could perform better in the single boss damage but also add stagger, making this a decent one.

Adding to it, the range of this ability is very decent. When there are a lot of enemies close together, you can pop up these skills to damage the enemies.

Mainly it can be used to build up the limit break gauge, which this skill will help develop instantly, and then you can use this along with the burn phase to knock out the bosses now.

Scarlett Cyclone

Moreover, the Scarlett Cyclone is another good skill to add to your bucket. One advantage to add over it is that you get it super early. Its fighting mechanism is to grasp enemies into you and sucks them in.

Moreover, it also has an inbuilt stagger that stuns the enemies. It will be beneficial when rocking the bosses and can be used alongside power skills.

Garuda’s Powers

Garuda’s powers are not up to the mark, especially when you reach the game’s middle. Some of its best abilities are:

Aerial Blaster Leon

This power set creates a tornado-like storm and sucks a group of enemies into that tornado. It proves very effective against a group of enemies when in combat. Additionally, it adds a large amount of stagger to the bosses during battle.

It has unique class mechanics that you can use this skill set while in the air and create a pool of attacks, but note that these attacks do not carry much damage.

Ramuh’s Powers

When you reach level 20 or above during the gameplay, you can unlock Ramuh’s powers.

Ramuh’s Power of Lightning

Ramuh’s lighting skill carries some cons like it has a short range and takes longer to be cast onto enemies during combat.

Thunderstorm

This skill set provides a more significant amount of damage and usually staggers the enemies during a fight. Also, I’d like to point out that when you unlock this skill, the enemies you will face will have a weakness towards the lightning effects, so it would be a plus point there.

Judgmental Bolt

This might be your best and primary option using this build. A big con of this ability is that it will cost a lot of ability points, which might be used elsewhere later.

Impartial Justice

This skill helps you shoot lightning balls at enemies. What these lightning balls do is that they attach to targets, and once they are gripped to the target enemies, they cast a chain of lightning that grips the enemies within.

Titan Skills

Once you are in the middle or somewhat post-early stages of the game, you will unlock the titan block, which has some pretty sound skills within them.

Titanic Block

The main mechanic block for this build will be the Titanic Block. This works in such a way that it is a defense block by nature and helps you stop any incoming damage, no matter how large it is.

It can also block the mega attacks the bosses hit on us without incurring any damage. Adding to it, if you use this along with the attack icons, you can stagger enemies very well.

You can first block all the enemy attacks, strongly counter them quickly, and stagger them much faster.

Upheaval

 You can use upheaval in your attacks too. You first slam the enemies to the ground, dealing them with more significant damage, and then you can press the hold button to increase the range. This ability is a perfect pick for stunning the bosses.

Highest Damage Endgame Skills

Once you reach the higher stages of the game, you will face more brutal bosses and need skills that deal greater damage to bosses.

Bahamut’s Powers

You will unlock Bahamut’s Power in the game’s later stages. This extremely powerful skill deals a lot of damage to enemies.

Giga Flayer

In terms of damage, the one with the greatest damage will be the Giga Flayer which will deal the most significant damage to the enemies. Although this skill will cost a lot of ability points, it will be worth it. Hence, you would want to sacrifice your previous skills to get this one.

You will use this once you stagger the enemy and break down its will bar. Once you do this, you will use this power, unleashing massive attacks and providing large damages. Note that the damage is further increased if the bosses are stunned phase.

Wings Of Light

The class mechanic here is the Wings of Light. It operates in a levitation state where it lets you levitate, and then you can try avoiding some ground attacks by your enemies. Moreover, if you stay in levitation long enough, you will unleash attacks on the enemies.

Best End Game Stuns

Probably the best ability in the game comes from Shiva’s powers.

Diamond Dust

Diamond dust in Shiva’s Powers has the best staggering ability on the enemies in the game. It can also be seen from the start of the ability. The cherry on top is that there will be very few enemies that you will face in the game, which will have cold resistance.

Thus, it implies that every time the attack throws these skills at the enemies, this will always work as long as they are in AOE. Unleashing this once onto the enemy will finish and break their staggering bars.

The Upheaval, Scarlett Cycle, and Diamond Dust all will be used to stagger enemies before attacking them and dealing damage in thousands.

Odin’s Power

Later, you will be unlocking Odin’s powers and dish out unique mechanics of its own.

Dancing Steel

This will be your go-to ability in the end game. What this does is that it will help you build very fast, and then this Arm of Darkness icon will appear.

You can also build it by regularly attacking enemies in rapid rounds, but the former is easier. What is interesting is that this arm of darkness allows you to switch between different swords when you press (O).

It also starts filling the gauge once you start attacking the enemies. Once that bar is complete, you can unleash its maximum power by holding the square button and executing the arm of darkness.

If you have upgraded this skill to level 5, it will unleash maximum damage, which will help you win against the ending bosses in the game. Additionally, this arm of darkness will be most helpful when you use it against staggered bosses.

In this guide, we carried you along to the best skills of each build you will come across through different levels in the game. Different skills have pros and cons; you can follow this guide to get the best skills earliest. 

Now that you are here, why not read:

• Final Fantasy 16 Best Gear.
• Final Fantasy 16 Cid.
• Final Fantasy 16 Benedicta.